The Roaring Girl by Greg Hollingshead

Author:Greg Hollingshead [Greg Hollingshead]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781554689682
Publisher: HarperCollins Canada

At the north end of the street beyond the pavement, where the washboard started to climb a little, just before the yellow checkerboard sign at the edge of a sixty-foot bluff down to the Falloon River, if you took the crushed-stone driveway on your right you wound through birch and poplars and after a short time you came to a white frame house with gables facing north over the river, and this was the Harrises’.

It was a big white house filled with light. It had three picture windows, in the living room, the sunroom, and the rec room. It was not a particularly magnificent house, just realer than real. In the sunroom overlooking the valley Mrs. Harris, an invalid, sat at a white grand and played Chopin or Liszt. Other times she plucked a nearby harp and sang. On my way to Harris’s room I would strain over the banister for a glimpse of her in her powder-grey negligée. Once in an upstairs hallway I surprised her by accident in a state of partial undress, and so astonishing was her beauty that I was unable to turn back or shield my eyes. I just froze and drank it in. Most of my time at the Harrises’ I spent in the rec room in the basement, where you could hear her playing through the ceiling, piano or harp. The Harris rec room was not, like ours, rank with dog hairs and flooding but oak-panelled, with over-sized checkerboard floor tiles and a picture window that faced out over the valley at the level of that flagstone patio and the fountain.

Harris’s father was a six-foot-four specialist in childhood leukemia. Home from the hospital in the evening, he would pass unspeaking through the family and climb the main staircase to his room. Forty-five minutes later he would come down dressed in baggy rolled-cuff jeans and a plaid shirt, and for the rest of the evening he would talk baby talk. Dr. Harris was the first man I knew personally who dyed his hair.

After church the Harrises would eat their Sunday meal while I hung around on their patio and watched the goldfish and waited for Harris to come out and play. He would promise to be out by two-thirty at the latest and he never was. It was always something. The roast had gone into the oven late, or Dr. Harris had kept everybody with a story, or it was Harris’s turn to dry. Sometimes he didn’t come out until almost four, and not once did he express frustration or resentment about this. On the other hand, how could he have a problem when the problem was mine?

But when Harris was twelve his mother died, of her illness, and five years later his father’s heart burst. The whole life of that family went bang, like a book slammed shut. Harris and his sisters were scattered to relatives. The house was sold. A gate went up. I never saw Harris again, until yesterday.

As a kid Harris was scrawny and handsome.

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