― Gertrude Stein
Mikey looked at his grandmother as she sat propped up on pillows in her huge iron bed. He brought the radio to keep her company, but she had called him in to turn it off.
“Sorry, Love, but that incessant noise is enough to drive me to drink.”
He puzzled over the expression and added gravely, “Uncle Henry drinks—a lot. When Dad went up to bed the other night he finished all the beer left on the table.”
Nan grimaced, “I always said that the last drop in the bottle’s poison.”
“Can we look in the cedar chest today, Nan? Please?”
His grandmother began to cough and reached for the Kleenex box beside her. When she caught her breath, she motioned him toward her and reached out and tousled his hair. “Very well. You’ve been patient, haven’t you? Open up the chest and you’ll see a small wooden box—take it out and bring it here.”
Mikey opened the chest and paused inhaling the fragrance of the cedar lining. He spotted the box and fished it out and dutifully brought it to Nan’s bedside.
She grasped the box and sat it on her lap and waited until Mikey climbed up and sat beside her before opening the lid.
Inside were sepia photographs of unfamiliar people, all of whom were frozen in formal poses and all exhibited the same serious expression on their faces as they stared straight ahead into the camera lens.
Their eyes all looked so dark and fierce that Mikey nestled closer to his grandmother’s side.
“Black Irish, we are, to be sure.” She laughed at the ridiculous formality of the dress and the stern faces of relatives, some of whose names even she had forgotten.
“There’s a picture of Henry and Charles. That was taken at the barracks at the Exhibition grounds.” She flipped through the photographs and suddenly Mikey reached out and grasped her hand. “Who’s this Nanny?”
The old woman smiled and shook her head. “He’s handsome, isn’t he? That’s Lou-Lou, your uncle— only sixteen there and too young for the War.”
The photo revealed a handsome young dark-haired soldier with a cigarette jauntily hanging from his lip. Unlike the other photos, this one seemed so spontaneous and real it took Mikey’s breath away.
“But Mom said Lou-Lou died in the War—that he was a sniper and was killed by a German machine gun. If he was too young, why did they let him go?”
“Why indeed, that is the question.” His Nan looked away and daubed at her eyes with the balled-up Kleenex she clutched in her hand.
“Is it true what Mom says, that Lou-Lou’s boots could be heard stomping up the stairs in the house on Atkin Avenue?”
“Without a lie, it’s true. That house was haunted I swear. I remember that hot August in 1918 when I lay sweltering in a fever in the back bedroom. All your aunts and uncles were huddled in that little room with me, afraid of the creaking of the joists. They were only young then—except for your Uncle John who was at work at the General Electric plant on Dufferin Street.
I had the Spanish flu and I was burning up. I had been washing floors all that week for a family on Havelock Street, but that day was so weak I couldn’t get out of bed.
The children were so frightened that they had closed the window and I was just sweltering in my bed. I kept crying out, ‘Won’t someone please open the window?’ but no one moved.
Then, suddenly, the knob of the bedroom door spun around and around madly and the door blew open and buried itself in the wall. It hit with such force that the knob was wedged behind the wooden lathes under the plaster and when your Uncle John came home later, it took him and Jock forever to put their feet on the wall and pull on that door for all they were worth just to free it.”
Mikey swallowed hard. “Could it have been the wind, Nanny?”
“There wasn’t a breath of wind that day and the house locked up tighter than a drum. Your Uncle John, God rest his soul, went all around the house looking for an explanation but found nothing amiss.”
“Do you think perhaps it was Lou-Lou?”
His grandmother looked sharply at him. “Lou-Lou, you say? And what would be making you think that?” She looked off into the distance then softened for a moment and whispered to him, “You’re a good boy Mikey. You have the second regard—I told your Mom that right from the start. You’ve been gifted, my boy.”
“Am I like you, Nanny? Will I be able to read tea leaves too?”
“Well, I don’t know if your Mom would be wanting me to fill your head with such idle notions.”
“Mom says that people would be lined up around the block waiting for a reading. Did they pay you, Nan?”
“I never charged. The odd person would give me a few dollars and I’d go with Mrs. Franklin to play Bingo—I usually won.” She laughed and started to cough again.
Meg appeared in the doorway, a stern look on her face. “Now come along Mikey, your Nan needs her rest.”
Later that day, Mikey crept back into Nanny’s room. He felt sorry for her, bed-ridden and all alone. He sat by her bed listening to her regular breathing. Suddenly, she opened her eyes and stared at him.
“Oh, it’s you, Child. Did you see them?”
“See what Nanny?”
“The pictures on the walls.” She motioned to a large white wall adjacent to her bed.
“Yesterday I saw clouds and grass—trees waving and men upside-down walking and making merry.”
“Why can’t I see the pictures, Nanny?”
“You’ve come too late in the day, Mikey. You need to come just before tea. I swear I’ll see the cat and the fiddle one day here upon my walls.”
Mikey thought it marvelous and told Meg, his mother. She grew very stern. She threw up her hands and in desperation turned to his father.
“I’ve just about had it, Ross. Ma’s filling his head with all sorts of foolish notions. Why just the other day I caught her drawing the picture for him—you know, the one of the snake curled around the rose? No good’ll come of it, and that’s for sure.”
Mikey was sorry he said anything, but wanted to see the pictures. He made up his mind to visit Nanny at teatime the next day.