London Calling by Edward Bloor Read Free Book Online Page B

ether. It was a thrilling feeling, and not at all frightening.
    I remember a strong smell of flowers, and a steady stream of elderly people walking past us and shaking hands. We stood in a row to greet them: Aunt Elizabeth, Mom, Dad, Margaret, and me. However, and this bothered me, the people who supposedly came to honor Nana’s death weren’t even talking about her. They were talking about Grandfather Mehan—how important he was to the church, and to the country, and so on. They actually said stuff like “There’s a great woman behind every great man, and she was it.”
    I kept nodding, shaking hands, and saying thank you for two hours, until the elderly people all started to look alike. Then, near the end, one woman entered who looked different. She was tall and muscular, with rosy brown skin. She was dressed in a work uniform—white pants and a maroon top with the words “Home HealthCare” stitched over the pocket. She came through our line, like everybody else. Then she walked over near the wall, took out a set of rosary beads, and started to pray silently.
    When the line finally died out, I approached the woman and stood in front of her until she looked up. Then I grimaced apologetically. “Excuse me. Did you take care of my grandmother?”
    The woman smiled a dazzling white smile. She answered “Yes, sir” in an accent I had never heard before. “You must be Jimmy. Your grandmother talked about you all the time.”
    I recoiled slowly. “Me? No. I’m Martin.”
    “Yes. I am sorry about your grandmother. She was a real nice lady.”
    “But you just called me Jimmy.”
    “Yes, she called you Jimmy.”
    “She did?”
    “I thought so. Maybe not. Maybe I have it wrong.”
    I leaned closer. “But if she wasn’t talking about me all the time, who was she talking about?”
    “I don’t know, sir.”
    “I’m her only grandson.”
    “Yes, sir.”
    “Was there a boy around named Jimmy? A boy in the neighborhood? Or in church?”
    The woman started to get flustered. She looked around until she spotted Aunt Elizabeth a safe distance away. “Miss Elizabeth said she must be talking to her grandson. So I thought that was you, and I thought that your name was Jimmy. That is all. I am sorry.”
    The woman backed away slowly, but I followed. “So, did she talk to this Jimmy boy a lot? Did she talk to him like he was
really
there? Or was it more . . . delirious-like?”
    The woman turned and walked toward the door. “I am not supposed to talk about my clients, sir. I am sorry. Miss Elizabeth would not like that.”
    When we reached the doorway, I dared to put a hand on her muscular arm. “Please, ma’am. I just want to know what my nana was doing at the end of her life. It’s just private information between you and me. It’s for nobody else. Certainly not for my aunt Elizabeth.”
    The woman smiled kindly, but she continued on her way. I walked behind her, out onto the street and through a clump of smokers. When we were past them, she finally stopped and replied, “It was only near the end, sir. The last week of her life. That’s when she started talking to Jimmy. It was like he was
really
there. Not like delirium. She never did nothing like that before. Goodbye, now.”
    I stopped still and watched her as she walked away.
    I remained out on that sidewalk for a long time afterward, puzzling over the woman’s words. I stared down the dark, unfamiliar street as if looking for a sign. I listened to the noises of the city. And I breathed in the cigarette smell, like the smoke from a distant fire.

THE PHILCO 20 DELUXE
    After the funeral, I returned to Princeton Junction and to my life as a basement dweller. For about two months, I emerged only to trudge to the Acme and back and to attend Sunday-morning mass. I insisted that we go to the Resurrection parish church in Princeton instead of to the All Souls Chapel. I was afraid of running into Hank Lowery again.
    I continued to sleep a lot, too. I kept expecting