Ann-Marie MacDonald - Fall on Your Knees

“What’s the occasion, Mother?”

Jeanne looks politely baffled. But she’s in too good a mood to dissemble. She is feeling girlish tonight. Positively flirtatious. She shoots Rose a cupid’s-bow smile and leans forward in the candle-light.

“Listen to me, my love. You have more talent in your little finger than twenty Kathleen Pipers, and one day you’ll thank your pauvre petite maman.”

“For what?”

Jeanne winks and lights a cigarette, inhaling with a sly eye on Rose, shaking the match well after the flame has gone out. An Anonymous Well-Wisher.

Rose begins a mental list of things to do and starts with item one, “Who was my father?”

A pained smile from Jeanne — an unfortunate remark from her dinner guest. “Rose, dear heart, you always did love to hear the story —”

“I know the story, I want the truth.”

Jeanne taps her cigarette, arches her brows slightly and sighs, really this is a little tiresome.

“Who was he?”

“He was Alfred Lacroix, darling, as you perfectly well know.”

“And what did he do?”

“He was a preacher, a man of the cloth and a credit to his race.”

“And where is he now?”

“He’s in heaven, my treasure.”

The catechism finished, Rose leaves the table. It’s a long list. There is no time to lose.

“Kathleen has gone home, Rose.”

“When’s she coming back?”

“Her father didn’t say.”

“What did she say?”

Giles looks tired. “She didn’t say anything.”

Rose gets up. “I think I left some clothes here.”

“By all means dear, have a look.”

“Did he hurt her?”

Giles looks away. “I don’t know what he did. She wouldn’t speak.”

Rose pauses, momentarily forgetting her errand.

“Rose. Do you need a place to stay?”

“Thank you Giles. I’ll be okay.”

Rose stands in front of the bathroom mirror at home and cuts her hair to the scalp. She changes out of a dress for the last time, wakes up her mother and says, “I’m going now.”

Jeanne takes a while to come out of a bad dream that starts when she opens her eyes. Rose doesn’t wait, just conveys information, “I’ll let you know wherever I’m playing. I’ll send you money every week whether I have it or not. When you die, I’ll come back and live here.”

The road starts at Club Mecca. Sweet Jessie Hogan loves spaghetti and meatballs and beer and sweet young things who tear up the keyboard and don’t know when to stop. A hot blues streak, the twenties.

Until boom goes bust and Rose starts playing her own stuff. Doc Rose. And his trio.

THE SONG OF SONGS

When Frances dies it’s safe for Mercedes to put Anthony’s picture on the piano. Framed in filigreed silver, he stands proudly at attention in the uniform and broad trooper’s hat of the Boy Scouts of the Zion African Methodist Episcopal Church. He is still a Catholic.

Mercedes contemplates the cover of the record album in her lap. Frances amassed quite a collection. Ralph Luvovitz sent her one every Christmas and whenever he visited his mother, always the same request. Frances died early this morning. The kitchen counters are still heaped with her baking.

Mercedes never was a big eater and Frances less so. Through the thirties, people came to the kitchen door and carted it away — big stews, pork and beans by the bucket, molasses cookies, oatmeal cookies, date squares, Nellie’s Muffins, Johnny-cake, rhubarb upside-down cake, jellyrolls, pies, blueberry grunt, yards of shortbread, hundreds of tea biscuits. Nowadays there aren’t as many people going hungry but Frances still cooks for an army — Mercedes has had to organize pick-ups by the hospital, the rectory, the convent. Young single miners have been taking care of the rest, wolfing down huge meals, hardly noticing the old girl at the oven with her three cigarettes on the go and her glass of Irish. Frances looked very old at the last, though she took care to henna her hair from time to time.

For twenty years Frances listened to her records. Cooked. Smoked. Drank. Watched the street. Slept on the attic floor. Walked the shore. She no longer walked the Shore Road because it fell into the sea — they’ve replaced it with a paved one that runs a sensible distance from the water, but it’s just not the same. She read newspapers and saved them all. Scared children without knowing. Led home cats. Tried never to change her clothes. Spoke little. And then yesterday she up and said, “Don’t you ever wonder where Lily is?”

And when Mercedes didn’t reply, Frances got up from the sofa in the front room — “Frances, what do you need, dear, I’ll get it.” But Frances made her way to the piano bench and bent down, which made her cough — “Frances, dear, use your hanky” — opened it and took out her newest long-playing record album. She handed it to Mercedes and lay back down on the sofa, exhausted.

Mercedes pushed a blotched tabby off Frances’s chest and looked daggers at a cross-eyed Siamese who never shut up — “Shut up,” said Mercedes. And glanced down at the album cover: Doc Rose Trio, Live in Paris: Wise Child . A handsome black man, the angles of his face reprised by a fedora wound round with a gleaming emerald band.

“You might want to look her up someday, Mercedes, you never know.”

“Why would I want to do that?”

“So you can die in peace.”

Mercedes hates it when Frances says things like that. She’s usually so good except when she’s drunk and then Mercedes just lets her alone, shutting the door on whatever room it is so she doesn’t have to hear what Frances is saying to herself.

“My conscience is quite clear, Frances.”

“Daddy died in peace.”

Mercedes gets up to leave and close the door —

“I’m not drunk, Mercedes. I quit drinking.”

“Since when?”

“This morning.”

“Oh Frances, here, have one, I’ll join you, perk up the appetite.”

“I’ve quit. I want to die sober.”

Mercedes turns stony. “You’re not going to die.”

In the schoolyard Mercedes is no longer “old leather-lips” — there is not enough affection to inspire a nickname any more. Just fear. Everyone fears Mercedes, except Frances. If Mercedes could have terrified Frances into going to a sanatorium, Frances would be well now. Frances could have gone to the best sanatorium money could buy, in the States, in Switzerland, but Frances refused. And Mercedes has had to watch. And now it is too late — damn you, Frances, how is that any different than suicide?

“Don’t be ridiculous, Frances, you’re not going to die.”

“Daddy died in peace because he made his confession.” Frances reaches a hand to the floor for a white blue-eyed kitten. “He confessed to me. And I forgave him.”

“You are not invested with the power to dispense the Sacrament of Penance —”

“Yes I am.”

“Frances, I don’t know about you but I’m just going to have a wee dram —”

“I want to make sure you know who Lily’s parents were.”

Mercedes covers her ears. Frances uses her last sprint of energy to pry the hands away, and to speak the words.

A hacking agony of basins and blood and mucus — little songs, the two bright spots on Frances’s cheeks, a trip upstairs to get the dolls. A story about two tiny girls with tartan housecoats and cinnamon toast, “I love you Frances.” A flagon of port or would you prefer blancmange? — a kiss on the cheek, ring around the rosy, “Forgive me.”

“Don’t cry, Mercedes.”

“Don’t be afraid.”