Archibald Full Frontal, page 27
“Archibald!”
“Maggie, I know a thing or two about a thing or two, so save me the vitriol. There will be plenty of time for your contempt later, after I am bird food.”
I remain silent, culled into obeisance.
“Listen,” he continues, eyes gleaming, “it is possible to love more than one person at the same time, even at the expense of another person. And idealists are not exempt. They are good at making messes, but they are never good at cleaning them up. Idealists are responsible for more suffering, more heartache, than they will ever know. Give me a cynic any day.”
“I’m no idealist,” I say.
“I wasn’t talking about you.” He looks at me. No, he looks through me. “So go to Asia, but take him with you.”
I surge from my seat and pace to the window, prickling at the burdensomeness of his advice, the tyranny of being forced to listen to him opine because he suddenly feels a degree of responsibility for my welfare, as if dying suddenly converts his opinions to the gospel and me to the congregation. I want to be anywhere but here, in this hospital room, enduring this old man on the margins of his existence, confronting me with bony fingers of truth, with shards of wisdom.
“I will think about it.”
“Don’t cut your hair again. Maria was right. It is your best asset. And don’t wear red, at least not tomato red. Although no one should wear tomato red now that I reflect on it. And never ever red lipstick. Your skin has too much red undertone. It is best left for acts of vandalism — on my door, for example.”
“Archibald!” I suppress a smile.
“But a little gloss now and then wouldn’t hurt.”
“Fine.” I thump my foot impatiently.
“Keep reading. I am going to leave you a reading list. Try to get through it. A good book is … nourishment for the inner marrow. If you get married, elope, preferably in Maui, not Mexico. The ocean is divine and it has a much more … salubrious energy. Do not wear white. Virginal went out with corsets, although, come to think of it, a corset is not a bad thing to have in one’s trousseau. And as far as wedding gowns are concerned: think décolletage, think modern, fun but not fussy, and no floral patterns of any kind.”
I roll my eyes.
“And do not, whatever you do, have children before you turn thirty-two, nor after thirty-eight. Old pregnant women should have their own island.”
“Archibald!”
He ignores me, continuing to mentally tick items off an unwritten list: “Always drink tea out of porcelain. You may have my china, whatever Maria doesn’t pilfer. She always had her eye on my rose china. Loose tea is always better. Buy a house with a view. You cannot underestimate a view for both resale value and aesthetic purposes.”
“That’s more than enough. I haven’t even considered buying—”
“You can have my real estate agent. He’s not bad, overall. He talks far too much, like a nervous straight man in the presence of a big scary queer! But he gets the job done and he’s trustworthy. Oh yes! This bit is useful. Here’s how you know you love someone. When you kiss, you do as follows: close your eyes and then open them. Opening them should always make the kiss better. If it does not, walk away, my girl. Cut your losses and walk away. If only I had followed my own advice. Giving advice is one thing; taking it is like falling out of an airplane without pissing up your sleeve. Often attempted, rarely accomplished.”
“Archibald, no more! You forget, I lived with you for close to two years. I know your opinions on everything. I could win the Archibald Weeks official Trivia Pursuit competition, hands down.”
He gives me a wry smile. “You have grown on me, Magali. Maggie.”
I do not respond, not ready for his sentimentalism. Not ready to profess feelings that I do not understand. I am definitely not ready for what comes next. “The book was a mistake. Revenge killed me, my dear, not cancer.”
“Revenge against who?” I ask.
“Whom,” he corrects before he closes his eyes.
“Archibald.” It is a few days later. He seems to be sleeping, but his eyes flicker, move beneath their lids, before opening.
“You look tense,” he observes. Then he is somewhere else. “I was just thinking about the time we were picnicking on the lawn of the legislature. You made cucumber sandwiches and tiny, perfectly round pink tea cakes I had told you about. You wore a ribbon in your hair and your mother wore the hat with lace around the edges. You were such a beauty, my girl.” Was it my mother he was talking about? A nurse smooths his bedsheets, her face careworn but not unkind.
“Archibald? It’s Maggie.”
“Magali. You took your time as usual.” His breathing is laborious. It is like a wet gale-force wind whistles inside him each time he speaks. He winces with each effort.
“Listen,” I begin. “I have something to tell you—”
“Maria was here. She made me a divine-smelling peach upside-down cake.” I notice an entire cake sitting on a tray nearby. “I am giving it to the nurses, not that they need the extra calories, unless you want some.”
“I’m good.”
“What? You? Turn down cake? I’m the one who’s sick,” he mocks.
“Very funny,” I say half-heartedly, pressing forward, breathless. “Archibald—”
“She cried like a baby, old cow. You would think I was her paramour and not her employer. She’s gone soft.”
I am about to explode: “Archibald, listen, Mom is here. She flew up from Oregon. She’s outside. She—”
“No. Absolutely not.” It is like an elastic band has snapped him back to reality.
“She wants to say goodbye,” I urge, silently wishing his conversion to compassion.
His eyes are open and sharpened. “Under no circumstances is she to set foot in this room. Not until my body is cold, do you understand? And she will not have the painting, do you hear?” The painting again. He had it moved here for safekeeping. It sits propped on a nearby chair, like it is a visitor all its own.
I nod to the nurse, Dawn, who I know will inform my mother that she is officially uninvited. No father and daughter reunions allowed. I feel a heaviness in my chest. I know it will be hard for her. That he chose to be unforgiving at the end.
He sleeps fitfully for the next hour. I watch the ebb and flow of his struggle. “I want the Deliahs to have Mi Tie. You always depressed her,” he rasps without opening his eyes.
“No problem,” I say.
“What is that smell? Are you wearing a new perfume?” he asks with a wrinkled brow.
“No,” I say, looking around. “Just hand cream.”
“It smells like dead flowers.”
I smell my hands but notice nothing offensive.
“We’ve increased his morphine dose,” Dawn whispers to me. “To help with the pain.”
“It’ll take a little more than morphine to knock him out,” I answer. “Maybe a heroin cocktail?”
The word “cocktail” stirs him. “Is there any place to get a decent drink around here?” he asks an imaginary friend or ghost. “Where’s Marcell these days? Ah yes, he hates the miasma of death.”
Marcell has been MIA as far as I know. I pick up my knapsack. I am tired. I have to see my mother, then Sam is meeting us for dinner. Who knows? He might have a change of heart and see her tomorrow.
“Maggie? Your mother?” He blindly reaches out for me. I lean towards him and he grabs me with a sudden strength, fingers pressing into my forearm, making me wince. “Tell her. There is never tomorrow.”
“What?” I ask.
“Tell her. There is never tomorrow. Just tell her,” he repeats.
He closes his eyes.
“Archibald?”
I wait for more, but I give up when he doesn’t open his eyes. In the hospital lobby, I am surprised to find my mother still waiting. She looks years younger, like she has been reverse-engineered to be a child again. Feet together, shoulders downcast, demure, a girl who wants to see her father, to know his approval one last time. But she never will. She looks up at me. I sit beside her, chest aching. I take her hand. I try to think of something comforting to say but come up empty. We remain like that for what seems like a long while.
“Did he … did he say anything?” she finally asks. I hesitate. Should I tell her what he said when it could have meant anything? When it could drive the nail in her heart even deeper?
“Yes,” I say finally. “He said to tell you, ‘There is never tomorrow.’”
“What?”
“There is never tomorrow. I don’t think he was making sense.”
“There is never tomorrow,” she repeats slowly. And then she smiles. “It was his way of saying he forgave me when I was a little girl. He would say, forgive today because there is never tomorrow.”
And then she cries.
He dies later that night. I am asleep in my own bed when it happens. I awake unknowing. The streets are wet with a recent rain. The smell of dead flowers fills my nose, and I inhale. But in that breath, I sense the world has changed. Archibald is gone, as is the force that bound all of us who knew him, and now we are released to make our own way in a less colourful world.
It is my first funeral. It is lavish and sombre, ostentatious and overwhelming. It is a funeral fit for a king, or in this case, a man who stretched the limits of decency to satisfy his own ego. It is held in a church that Archibald always admired for its vaulted ceilings and massive stained-glass windows. It is conducted by a member of his meditation circle, a balding man with a nasal voice and big, bushy eyebrows. The church is packed, filled with row after row of people who knew my grandfather or knew of him. They make an unusual menagerie, flamboyantly and flawlessly dressed young and old men, middle-aged women, all of his friends and acquaintances, even those unflatteringly depicted in his last book. Michael, not surprisingly, is nowhere to be seen.
Sam, my mom, and I sit together in a pew near the front. I get the odd glance, but mostly, I feel a sense of acceptance. My mom sits stoically, the odd tear escaping the corner of her eye, which she wipes with an air of irritation. I sit, not crying, not crying for Archibald. There are poems and anecdotes, stories about his outrageous performances and literary contributions. They go on and on. It is as he would have wanted it: filled with frenzied effusiveness, theatrical lamentations, and tearful recitations. The truth has taken a back seat to the cult of Archibald. But wherever he is, even if he has had to claw his way from the ground up, he has the best seat in the house: centre stage. And, I am certain, he is loving every second of it.
After the reading of the will, we sort through Archibald’s apartment. My mother is with me. She deserves to be here. We find the apartment dim and unusually orderly. I open the curtains. Maria has had her final wish granted and has scoured it from top to bottom. Mom looks around as if the whole place is filled with horror, and I remember that awful day when I found out who I was. She must be remembering, too.
We look though his office, and there, as mentioned in the will, is a letter for me on the desk. There is also an unfamiliar trunk in the room. My grandmother’s painting rests against it. My mother moves the painting gently, lovingly, and then turns to the case.
“Oh my God,” she says. “He kept this. All this time. It was mine.” It is a white wooden trunk, paint chipped, with an etched elephant on the outside. The key is in the lock. She turns it and begins to rifle through papers and pictures. She hands me a photo. I recognize her as a young woman, a beautiful Rita Hayworth in a forties-style bathing suit.
“Wow,” I say.
“From my modelling days,” she says.
“Your what?”
She hands me another picture of a young woman and a man in ’50s wedding clothes. The young man, smiling devilishly, is dapper in a suit and carries a cane I recognize. And the woman is in a white dress with a tiny veil and a crinoline skirt, her lips pursed together, upturned.
“It’s their wedding photo, Archibald and your grandmother’s. Oh and look…” She sorts through a stack of notebooks and pulls out a red one. “I thought this was destroyed in the fire.” She opens it up. It is a notebook, faded and yellow. “He must have rescued this stuff. I never knew. Jesus.” She puts the book down as if it is suddenly too heavy for her hands to manage. Are they shaking or is the dimness of the room playing tricks on me? “What will you do with her painting?” she asks finally.
“Give it to you, of course. What else?” I am still peering at the wedding photo wondering what it would have been like to be a fly on the wall of that wedding. Crazy town.
“Before you decide that, you should know the truth.” She hands me the battered notebook as though its touch scorches her skin. “You should know about the fire.”
June 26, 1970
It’s all so exciting! I’m beginning a new phase of my life and so I’m beginning a new journal. I found it in the ferry gift shop — it’s red, Archibald’s favourite. The colour of love, he says. I had my first modelling job today! It was just for the Hudson’s Bay catalogue, but I got paid pretty well, and the photographer said that I have great bone structure and a “classic” look, whatever that is. He said he might have me back next week for the swimsuit section. But I think he really just wanted my phone number, which is fine by me. I know next to no one in Vancouver.
When I arrived at Archibald’s house, he was in the middle of a get-together. Some things never change. He took my hand in his and announced, “Everyone, this is my darling, soon to be famous daughter. Susie, this is everyone.”
He paraded me around the house, introducing me to artists, writers, actors, even a movie director! I was still wearing the purple mini-dress with silver sandals and a matching headscarf from the photo shoot. He didn’t ask how long I’m staying, which is fine by me. I haven’t yet told him I am planning to take the next year off school to travel and work and just live it up.
He called over a man with chiselled features who was maybe only a few years older than me, no more than 25, and introduces me. “James, I want you to meet my fabulous daughter, Susan. Susan, this is my assistant, James.”
“Susan, I have heard so much about you.” His smile was sexier than any I have ever seen, and yet, there was something about him that niggled me. His eyes were calculating, like he was sizing me up, immediately measuring my value to him.
I have heard nothing about you, I wanted to say.
“James, show Susie to her room.” James gave me another charming smile and picked up my bag. I followed him up a winding staircase to my room.
My room overlooks a fantastic L-shaped pool. Dad must be doing well. I managed to get a good look at James as he placed my suitcase on the bed. He’s the most handsome boy I have ever seen. Gregory Peck meets Cary Grant. He makes me uncomfortable. I don’t seem to have the same effect on him, though.
“That is quite a purple number,” he said. I catch sight of myself in the mirror, long reddish hair, blue eyes like Dad’s. I thought I looked quite nice. “I know they say pretty in pink, but you are pretty in purple.”
“Thank you,” I say. He sat on the bed, testing it out.
“This house is beautiful,” I said, resisting the urge to chew my nails.
He lit up a cigarette and exhaled. “Archibald likes everything just so.” Then before I could respond, he stood up and left the room without another word.
I wonder if Dad bought the house with Mom’s money or from the earnings from his latest book. Probably a combination. They don’t see much of each other anymore. Mom says they love each other but aren’t able to live together. Archibald says they have a “modern marriage.” I have never been too sure what that means, except that perhaps he is happier apart.
People were scattered all over the place, laughing, dancing, drinking champagne, whisky, beer, you name it. Before that night, I had only been really drunk once. James appears, hands me a glass, and I taste it. It is pink and foamy, like cotton candy and ginger ale. Good but strong. After a few more of those, the room shimmered and glowed.
“There you are, Susie,” Archibald called. “Come and sit by your old man.” He patted a seat on the sofa beside him.
He was stylish in shorts and a checked shirt. His strawberry blond hair is just starting to thin. I always used to picture him as Errol Flynn swinging from the rafters.
“How’s Mom?” he asked. He hasn’t been home in a couple of months.
“Fine, painting mostly,” I said.
“And how did your exams go?”
“Great,” I said. “I got top honours.”
“That’s my girl. Well, you feel free to stay as long as you like. We’ll talk about your future later. Beauty is one thing, but a talented girl like you must explore her options.”
I nodded, trying not to see three of him at the same time.
“Sure.” It felt wonderful to be in his interest again. He always makes me feel invincible, like I could climb Mount Everest.
July 4
James picked me up from my modelling job in Archibald’s Sunbeam. At the agency, they said I have great commercial potential if I lose ten pounds. Archibald says celery juice helps with water retention. So now I’m pretty much sick of celery and hungry all the time. We cruised along the streets with the roof off, not talking.
“Archie is helping me with my first novel,” he said eventually, looking over at my legs in the car.
“That’s great,” I said, although I wasn’t sure that it was. I have never heard anyone that young call my father “Archie,” and I don’t think I like it.
When we were back at the house, he said to me, “Archie is napping. Help yourself to dinner. By the way, we’ll be out tonight, another party. I could probably get you invited.”
“No, thanks,” I said, for some reason, not wanting to be in his debt. “I’m really tired.”
“Get your beauty sleep,” he said.
July 14
It’s been so hot! I caught a bus down to the beach today and swam and lay around there feeling the salty breeze. When I got home, no one was there, so I took a nap up in my room. I made a sandwich, feeling dull and listless. Later that night as it cooled down, I decided to take a swim. I dove under the water and when I surfaced, he was there, watching me. I am never sure what he’s thinking. He’s my dad’s special pet. I can hardly get any time alone with Archibald these days, but he’s given James his own room in the guest house.
