Hey, listen.
Before she was a war bride, before she was your mother’s mother, before she was Jo, she was Johan, daughter of Willy Bona of Loch Ness. If the past can have a point of origin, you were certain that yours lay in her Inverness. So, you walked among distant relatives in the Dores cemetery north of her loch-side school, and you stood at the door of her father’s lighthouse, now empty and decrepit. It was a search interrupted by the news that she slipped into her final sleep. In the liminal drone of the rescheduled flight home, you felt a memory form inside you, malevolent and ambiguous. The short sharp breaths of the passenger beside you wove into your dream, coming through as a witch’s cackle. You awake. Changing cabin pressure brought an assaulted wail from an infant three rows back, abrasive and helpless. You awake. Long legs in tight seats cramp. You awake.
Just before landing, the flight attendant poked you with a breakfast tray. “You awake?”
The streets of Inverness were compressed and twisting, the streets of Vancouver expansive and wastefully wide. Your body registered the difference as discomfort.
“There is too much space here,” you said.
The taxi driver quickly turned down the radio. “Eh?”
Even the side streets were the width of several cars. The houses like fortresses retreated from sidewalks, sought out the shield of impenetrable hedges. Did it strike your grandmother too, when she arrived here after the war, that the Canadian thirst for space bordered on misanthropy? Or did she perhaps think that if Europeans had more living space, they’d war less frequently?
…
The house was empty when you arrived. In every place and to the very end, the reflection of a dutiful housewife’s domestic devotion. Every item is polished proudly and set in its rightful place. You took your shoes off at the door and followed the carpeted hall into the kitchen. She was not a cook. She had no signature dishes. Yet the kitchen is hers, uncontested: scotch mints in long-opened powdery bags, sharp cheddar in red
plastic tubs, oatcakes that crumble at the least pressure, and little stashes of liberated McDonald’s sugars, salts, and ketchup crowd in among the cutlery. You slid the drawer closed again. In the wooden hutch across from the cupboards, there will be shortbread; she never seemed to notice when one went missing.
“And she won’t notice now,” you told the kitchen furniture.
To be at Grandma Jo’s house was always to be transported into the diluted Presbyterianism of diaspora Scots: restrained, peaceful, and grateful, with few surprises and little drama. And in every room embroidered doilies showing the Moray Firth.
Childhood trips to this safe haven were sometimes planned but were usually announced to Jo by your mother sharply and urgently. You and your sister, temporary refugees, packed bags in haste and excitement, while your mother paced, eager for breath, hungry to see you both off. Or at least you.
After you’d left, the collect call would be made announcing your visit, and Grandma Jo would meet you at the station, glowing as if she had awaited your arrival for weeks. She’d stroke your sister’s cheek, and tell you how smart you looked, how much you’d both grown. You knew you could let your guard down in her warm gaze.
…
Jo slept in the sewing room. Amidst the old machines, spools of coloured thread, tattered paper patterns, pieces of cloth, and several half-finished articles of clothing sat a cheap, narrow cot that was too soft for her back. In the mornings, she would sit on its edge, backlit by the window, preparing slowly to stand up. Perhaps at first, the bed was there for nights when Grandpa was snoring but eventually, that bed was joined by a dresser, her shoes, school photos of you and your sister, and the bandages and special scissors she needed for her corns – the hallmarks of permanent residence.
Despite the discomfort of cheap and characterless shoes, she was a fast walker and you sometimes had to trot to keep up. Kerrisdale never seemed so far. And then quite suddenly, you were the one slowing down to wait for her. A gentleman always walks street side of a lady, she taught you, in case passing cars or buses splash mud. She chafed at the aging and the slowing.
…
One time when you and your sister arrived at the Greyhound station, Grandma Jo was not there to meet you. You looked around attentively as if you imagined she was playing at hiding; you examined each person as if you imagined you could have forgotten what she looked like. Tired and wanting to be ready when she arrived, you both sat on a bench outside the front doors. The city smelled like summer, with a retching warmth given shape by hulking dumpsters lurking in dark alleys. A woman battled a baby stroller with a wandering wheel, stacked tall with clothing on metal hangers, jangling pop cans, and various household items. She was speaking loudly and caught you watching. She stopped and squinted at you both, multiplying the signs of wear on her face. In the middle of an almost caring question about what a pair of kids was doing there alone, her head snapped back and she veered suddenly into shouting about God; it made your little sister jump. She leaned in on you; she thought you were the brave one, equipped to protect her, but you were a scared ten-year-old boy with a bladder that was quick to send out its distress signals. Her need made you angry. The woman moved on, laughing loudly, and you led your sister back inside the station.
A man in a faded grey boilersuit emerged from a room wiping crumbs from his beard. He pretended to sweep the floor, but he was just moving the mess around from one place to another with a large shaggy broom. With the conviction of a conscientious objector, he sang a Rolling Stones song while Pink Floyd leaked from the tinny station speakers. He used his broom handle as a microphone and glanced over to catch your attention. Your sister giggled, but not you. Every once in a while, a bus would hiss and spit into the bays and you would panic, worried that Grandma Jo would not be able to find you in the chaos of the new arrivals.
When she finally arrived, your sister had fallen asleep with her head on your lap and your hand on her back. You were determined not to cry with relief, but Grandma Jo did not hide her watery eyes when she hugged you close. She marvelled at what a wonderful surprise your arrival was. She stammered to excuse her lateness because she would never have told you that your mother – so exultant at being relieved of duty – had forgotten to call after your departure. As you fell asleep that night, you heard her on the
phone at the foot of the stairs, her Scottish accent softening the rebuke in her voice. It was the only time you ever heard her shout, and she was never late to the station again.
For the last day of that visit, you and your sister needled each other, each engagement an escalation. At the station, you stepped on her bag, grinding your heel into it, finding a satisfying snap inside. Hours later, as you approached some small town, your sister, red-eyed and thirsty, reached into her bag for change you had been given to buy juice on the trip. The acrid smell hit your nose before she pulled her hand out of the bag; the yellow highway lamps through dirty windows barely illuminated fingers covered in nail polish. The lid of one of the bottles had broken, and in your best big-brother voice you chastised her carelessness. You refused to help as she cried quietly and tried in futility to wipe each coin clean with tissues that disintegrated with every touch. Those around you looked for the source of the smell, and you looked away. Before she could finish, the bus gave a low moan and continued to shuttle you homeward, sick with tension.
You sometimes think of that memory as your own incurable sore on an innocent tongue, but you are no Wilfred Owen, sweet and proper.
…
The funeral procession was soon to arrive at the house. Grandpa, his friends, cousins, your mother and her sister. Your sister.
You took the last piece of shortbread from the hutch, stale but sweet provision. Your broad shoulders, survivors of your Scottish ancestry, slouched over it protectively as you sank deep into Jo’s empty bed. You were no longer small. You were a soldier now. There among Jo’s things in the sewing room to which she’d been exiled, you chafed at the waiting
Zeba is a professor at Carleton university. In 2015, Zeba was the co-winner of the Carleton University Creative Writing Competition for my creative non-fiction piece entitled “Down a Thumb.” That story was subsequently published in the Canadian literary journal Blank Spaces (Sept 2018).
