He is startled from his reverie by the distant boom of a cannon. Lily is standing beside his chair combing his hair, “It’s okay Daddy —”
“Wha —?”
“It’s eleven o’clock.” But James is still bewildered. “In the morning.” Lily gathers up a lock of his hair and begins to braid it, explaining gently, “It’s Remembrance Day.”
“Oh.”
They observe two minutes’ silence together, then James calls in his voice that has faded to straw, “Frances.”
Frances and Trixie enter slowly. “Yes Daddy?”
“Play something, my dear.”
“What would you like me to play?”
“Any old thing.”
She starts, “‘Swing low, sweet chariot, comin for to carry me home —’”
“That’s lovely.”
“‘Swi-ing low, sweet cha-ario-ot, com-in for to carry me home…. ’”
At four-thirty, Mercedes arrives home from her first day as a schoolteacher to witness the latest phenomenon: Frances playing “The Maple Leaf Rag” while Daddy dozes in his chair, his head sprouting a mass of tiny braids. Frances breaks off from playing and leaves; “I’ll get supper, Mercedes.”
Mercedes has no objection. Frances has recently revealed a natural talent in the kitchen. She cooks and cooks. Roasts and curries, stews and casseroles. It’s mystifying. Frances is like one of those strange persons who awake one morning and play the complete works of Bach with never a lesson.
“Daddy,” says Mercedes. He uncrinkles his eyes and blinks in several directions before focusing on her. She’s standing over him with a brown paper package. “This came for you.” She deposits it in his lap and leaves.
James looks at the postmark. New York City. The address is written in a spidery hand — old-ladyish. He notes with relief that it is not the same hand that formed the infamous letter of years ago. Who could it be, then? It takes him a while to undo the strings.
Inside is a lavender note folded on top of a bundle wrapped in white tissue-paper.
Supper.
Mercedes takes her seat at the head of the table. Lily places a platter of kibbeh nayeh in the centre, followed by a bowl of tabooleh, a brimming casserole of stuffed koosa and a pot of bezella and roz. Mercedes unfolds her napkin and wonders where Frances learned to cook — or not cook, as the case may be — their mother’s food. The kibbeh looks just like Mumma’s except that in the centre there is the impression not of a cross, but of a jack-o’-lantern grin —
“Frances.”
“Yes, Mercedes?”
“Oh, never mind.”
James’s slow foot is heard in the hall together with the syncopated clunk of his cane. He makes his way into the kitchen and over to his chair at the end of the table opposite Mercedes. Mercedes catches Frances’s eye but Frances doesn’t register anything unusual, oh for Pete’s sake — “Daddy,” says Mercedes.
“What’s that?”
“… Nothing.”
Fine. Let him eat with his hair in braids. Whom does it injure? Better than provoking a scene at table. As in the bad old days.
They say grace. James does not express surprise at the Lebanese feast spread out before him. He presses his portion of kibbeh flat with his fork, drizzles it with olive oil, tears off a bite-size piece of flat bread, wraps a bite of kibbeh in it and eats. Modestly, the way he always has, even when he worked in the pit, aware of how intimate an act eating is.
“You’ve outdone yourself, Frances,” he says. “It’s every bit as good as your mother’s.”
Mercedes knows she ought to be glad but this strange new peace between Daddy and Frances unnerves her.
“Thank you, Daddy,” Frances replies, pulling up her chair, “I learnt by watching.”
“Then you’ve got a photographic memory. That’s a sign of genius.”
Mercedes’ eyebrows approach the ceiling — let’s just say it’s been a day full of surprises. She picks up her fork and gingerly tastes the kibbeh. It is more than delicious. It’s as though Mumma were here. Mercedes closes her eyes for a moment in reminiscence of a precious time she knows could not have been: when Mumma was alive and we were all so happy. When was that time, where was that country? Rain begins to drizzle against the kitchen window, Frances lifts the lid from the steaming pot of bezzella and roz and Mercedes remembers: it was during the War. In the kitchen with Mumma and the Old Country. So happy. Mercedes opens her eyes again.
“What’s wrong, Mercedes?”
“Nothing at all, Lily.”
Mercedes permits herself to relax a little. She leans back in her chair and observes with satisfaction the flawless table manners of her family. She basks in their warm but civilized conversation. Everyone, it seems, has had an interesting day. Frances apportions second helpings. Lily reaches with her napkin and removes a spot of food from the left corner of James’s mouth, a small service for which neither thanks nor embarrassment is required. All quiet at the kitchen table.
Frances pours boiling water into the teapot and Mercedes is alarmed to notice James catch sight of himself in the kettle. Bristling with braids. The right side of his mouth breaks into a smile big enough to make up for the left side having lost the knack, and he laughs so hard that he falls dangerously silent between wheezy exhalations. Frances and Lily laugh too, until their throats ache and the tears stream, elbows thunking onto the table rattling the cutlery. Even Mercedes joins in and, once started, is unable to stop even after the others have recovered, then caught it again from her.
Exhausted, they fortify themselves with a pan of succulent Nellie’s Muffins straight from the oven. They sip tea. Listen to the rain. Outside, the whole world is hungry and forlorn. But in here is a little island of contentment.
At last, Mercedes thinks, we are a family. Daddy is senile, Frances is crazy, Lily is lame and I’m unmarried. But we are a family. Soon to be one more. And for the first time it crosses Mercedes’ mind to keep Frances’s child.
Certain Effects
“Frances,” said James after the glorious Lebanese supper, “come here. I have something for you.”
Frances joined him in the front room. She sat on the piano bench and he handed her the white tissue-paper bundle.
“What’s this?” she asked.
“One or two things that belonged to your sister Kathleen.” Then he left the room.
Frances fishes a new candle from a kitchen drawer. She walks up the attic stairs, where the voices are louder than ever. She pauses, wishing they would speak one at a time and stop yelling. “I’m listening,” she says. But the hollow din rages on, so she continues up.
Now she and Trixie sit on the floor of the attic with the lighted candle. Frances looks down at the bundle in her lap. She parts the tissue folds. Lying on top of a soft pile is an old exercise notebook. The cover is imprinted with the Union Jack, the flag of Nova Scotia and the crest of Holy Angels Convent School. In a space marked “Name:” a grandiose signature spells “Kathleen Piper”. And in the space marked “Subject:” in equally florid strokes, “La vie en rose!”
Frances picks up the notebook. Turns to the last page first, and reads:
O Diary. My loyal friend. There is love, there is music, there is no limit, there is work, there is the precious sense that this is the hour of grace when all things gather and distil to create the rest of my life. I don’t believe in God, I believe in everything. And I am amazed at how blessed I am.