The Memory Artists (24 page)

Those with small heads are fourteen times more likely to develop AD, Noel recalled as he gazed at JJ’s huge head … He pushed pause, rewound an inner audio tape. Why so many toothbrushes? For Noel and synaesthetes like him, the answer was obvious. Because each day’s a different colour. Monday, for example, is dirty yellow, like smoker’s fingers; Tuesday a shade of orangey red, like paprika; Wednesday the rich blue of a Phillips’ Milk of Magnesia bottle; Thursday …

“Earth to Noel, come in please, Earth to Noel …”

Noel watched his friend’s lips move for two or three seconds. “Sorry, I … I guess I just like variety—it’s one of the things that stops me from going mad. Or madder.”

“I hear you. Variety’s the condiment of existence, eh?”

Noel eyed JJ’s bathrobe again; the sash was slowly loosening its grip round his waist. “Listen, I should let you go …”

“Yeah, I have to shake a tower.”

“You have to … take a shower.”

“And then I have to fake a moan call.”

“You have to … make a phone call.”

JJ exploded into laughter. “I’ve got tons of them. Do you want to hear more?”

“Another time?”

“Time? Time wounds all heels.”

“Right.”

“Your mom loves these. They slay her. Laughter’s good therapy, eh? Especially in Montreal. It massages the vital organs, it’s a form of internal jogging. Neurobics. He who laughs, lasts.”

Noel’s forehead puckered. “Especially in Montreal? Because of … what? The Just For Laughs Festival?”

“No. What’s the city’s most famous street?”

“Saint Lawrence Boulevard?”

“What river’s the city on?”

“The Saint Lawrence.”

“And who was Saint Lawrence?”

“Uh … a martyr of some sort?”

“The saint of laughter. He died laughing. In the third century. While he was being roasted to death on a gridiron, he asked to be turned over, saying that he was underdone on the other side. Now
that
’s a sense of humour, that’s laughter therapy at its finest.”

Here JJ’s cell went off. He paused to read a text message.

“Great. It’s in. An extract from red-wine fermentation called ANOX. It’s from Switzerland. It’s for your mom. A source of red-wine polyphenols, which have a much bigger effect than either red wine or red wine powder on the inhibition of platelet aggregation
in vitro
.”

Noel nodded as he rolled these words over in his head. “JJ, you’re a quick learner. Very quick. Thanks. We’ll certainly try it. How much do I owe you?”

“Nada. A guy owed me a favour. No hay problema.”

“But I’ll pay—”

“Oh, before I forget. I’ve been doing some experimenting—on myself. So far so good. You want a clear, razor-sharp brain for your research? Don’t pleasure yourself in the morning or afternoon or evening. If you have to do it—and I’m not saying you do, I’m just advising you based on my research—do it only late at night, just before going to sleep. Otherwise, it saps your strength, fogs your brain. It’s the curse of Onan.”

“Good night, JJ.”

Chapter 12

Noel & Samira (I)

W
hen Noel checked on his mother that night he found her in her nightgown and tennis shoes, packing her bags. There were two grey Samsonite suitcases on the bed, and she was now sitting on a third, trying to get it to close. She turned to look at her son, her face scarlet from exertion. “I know money’s tight,” she said. “I know I’m a burden.”

A red horeshoe began to pulsate inside Noel’s brain: the PET scan image of his mother’s shrinking hippocampus. “Let me help you with that bag. They can be a real bugger sometimes.” One step forward, two steps back. Why is
nothing
bloody working?

“They don’t work … like they used to.”

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.

“I believe you,” he said. The light in her eyes remained fine as pearl, but she was clearly distressed, underslept.

“Did I get you out of bed, Noel? I’m really sorry …”

“I wasn’t in bed.”

“I feel
so
stupid, this is
so
embarrassing. The thing is, to make a long story short … I’ve had a really heavy load of courses and lots of expenses and I … well, couldn’t pay my rent. So I was kicked out, evicted. So I went to stay with this guy, this friend, but then his girlfriend, well she sort of … kicked me out. Tonight. In a jealous fit. At like, midnight. But I’ve got money coming in, a student loan, and Vorta owes me a bit and … JJ said you had a big house and … I mean, I could go to my mom’s now but … well, I was wondering if, just temporarily …”

“I’ll show you your room.”

In a room down the hall from his mother’s, Noel was carrying in fresh bedsheets when Samira emerged from the bathroom, an Arctic white towel wrapped around her, as in a Doris Day movie. “I took a whore’s bath, hope you don’t mind. I’ll go back tomorrow for the rest of my stuff. Like all my clothes. Do you have something I could wear to bed? It’s silly, I know, but I don’t feel comfortable … sleeping naked.”

Noel glanced at Samira’s square neckline for a discreet microsecond, then at the skirt and tights she clutched in her hand. “Yes … of course, I don’t sleep naked either. Though I probably should, I’m so incredibly hot. I mean the house is … incredibly. The temperature … I’ll get you something.” He remained rooted to the spot, staring at the floor, visualising the patterns—plaid, pinstripes, fleur-de-lis—on his three pairs of pyjamas. Which ones would be most suitable? He darted out of the room as fast as Mercury, as if delay could be fatal.

Samira, when he returned, was stroking away creases from the bottom sheet, leaning over the bed, still covered by the towel but only just. Noel looked at the ground and other unresponsive objects. Samira hadn’t heard him enter. When she saw him she straightened her torso and towel, eyed the tartan pyjamas. No, I meant a T-shirt, she was about to say. “Thanks, Noel. That’s perfect. Listen, this is just for one night, OK? I really don’t want to cause any problems for you … and your mom.” She took the pyjamas, opened Noel’s closet door and stepped behind it. As she was putting on Noel’s top she began to think about what she had seen in the bathroom. Not only the signs on the wall, but its general condition. It was a shambles, it hadn’t been cleaned in weeks. Like the rest of the house.

Noel stood awkwardly by the door, wondering whether he should still be there.

“Is your mother … here?” Samira asked, peering round the closet door.

Noel nodded. “She’s sleeping down the hall.”

“She won’t mind if I stay? Just until I find a place …” Samira stepped out from behind the closet door, holding the towel and pyjama bottoms. “Your mom’s getting worse, isn’t she. In the bathroom I noticed …”

Noel could not believe what was happening, that Heliodora Locke was standing before him, dressed only in his pyjama top. Was it a mirage, a product of stress or sleep deprivation? A creation of some
jinnı¯
, formed in an instant and destined as quickly to dissolve?
³⁰
Had he been slipped one of his mother’s neuro-drugs or Norval’s hallucinogens? He closed his eyes and saw the opening scene from Zappavigna’s
The Bride and Three Bridegrooms
. A cor anglais playing merrily in the background …

“Noel?”

Water racing up sand, her beautiful voice, an orchestra of hues …

“Noel, are you all right? Noel?”

He opened his eyes, one at a time, and seemed startled by what he saw. “Sorry, I was just … spacewalking, a bad habit of mine, I really have to cut down. We were talking about …”

“I asked if your mother was getting worse. The bathroom …”

“Right.” He shook the film footage out of his head, replaced it with the signs in the bathroom, the handiwork of the Bath Lady. “I’m not the one who put those signs up. They’re really not needed. Or all the other crap either. My mom’s getting better all the time, she really is. JJ and I are … working on things.”

“I’m just going to get under the covers. Why don’t you sit down?”

Noel looked around for a chair. When he realised there wasn’t one, he sat down at the foot of the bed, tentatively, placing a very tiny portion of his rear end on the edge of the frame.