The Memory Artists - Jeffrey Moore [73]
After removing a pair of winter boots and two umbrellas, he closed the case and snapped it shut. “Who said money was tight, Mom? That’s the first I’ve heard of it.”
“Him. That man.”
“JJ?”
His mother shrugged.
“If he did, he’s mistaken. We’re rolling. Here, shall I put these … in a better spot? Ready for the morning?”
His mother stared straight ahead, worry creasing her forehead, as Noel pulled each piece of luggage off the bed and placed them by the door. The sheets, he noticed, were coiled and mangled, as though she had been wrestling with some powerful force. Her husband? The feel of the empty half of the bed, he knew, still tortured her. Alzheimer’s hadn’t changed that.
“How about a bedtime story, Mom? Or a game of cards?”
His mother’s expression softened. She raised the twisted sheets, slipped under them, tennis shoes and all. “A story.”
Near the end of Wilde’s “The Nightingale and the Rose” his mother’s eyes began to flutter and close. She would always awaken if he paused at this critical point, so he carried on to the end. He then watched her slide deeper and deeper into sleep, that dry-run for death, feeling in turn worried, spent, scared.
Noel was asleep himself, slouched in his mother’s armchair, when he thought he heard someone knocking—softly, unsurely—at the front door. JJ? No, JJ was asleep upstairs. He could hear his donkey-snore through the floor boards. What time is it? One thirty? In the mists of sleep he rose from the chair and crossed the room, to the dotted Swiss curtains of the front window. He drew them back and saw a night coloured yellow by street lamps and mounds of snow built by snowploughs. On the driveway, parked at an odd angle, was JJ’s humpbacked car, which a midnight blizzard had painted white. At the end of the street he glimpsed the beacon of a taxi as it fishtailed around a corner. He craned his neck to see the caller at the door, but saw only a knapsack and the arm of a coat, a soldierly charcoal-and-black coat of the kind worn by … Norval. He returned to his mother’s side, pulled a woollen blanket up to her chin, glanced in her oval mirror. I look horrible, he thought, a geriatric version of myself. He edged towards the door, gently closed it behind him. He took off his shoes and began to creep down the stairs.
What in God’s name is Norval doing here? At one-thirty in the morning. Should I let him in? Mom, JJ and Norval—not a good mix. Noel punched in letters, unbolted the front door, peered outside.
It was Norval’s coat all right, but Norval wasn’t inside it. It cloaked a smaller figure, a woman’s figure. She was sitting on the front step, on a large courier bag, with a canvas knapsack beside her.
“Salaam.”
It was only one word but he recognised the colours immediately. He gave a gasp and his heart began to rev—at one hundred, one fifty …
“Sorry, Noel. I know it’s late. I was passing by, I saw a light … JJ said you worked late …”
… two hundred beats a minute.
“Can I come in?”
Noel nodded, mechanically, like a bobble-head doll.
“Sorry for the intrusion, Noel, it’s not like me. I’ve got a few … problems, temporary problems …”
Noel inhaled deeply, willing himself to calm down. Had he learned nothing from Norval? He took in another lungful of frozen air before closing the door behind them. “Can I … take your coat?”
Samira hesitated before slowly unbuttoning it. “JJ told me everything. About your mom, I mean. I’ll help you guys out if you think I can. Sorry I took so long to tell you that, I’ve been … busy.”
In gentlemanly fashion, he helped her off with Norval’s coat, while discreetly observing what this revealed: a cropped fawn-coloured jacket, short jean-skirt, dark brown tights. He opened the closet door, clanged around nervously for a hanger. “I … I’m sure you can help, and I’ll pay you of course. I mean if you have the time.”
“I’ll make the time. But that’s not … exactly why I’m here. Although I did want to tell you that—I will help out if I can, I swear.” She looked directly into Noel’s eyes after he had closed the closet door.