A History of Forgetting by Caroline Adderson Page A

the kitchen, she asked her mother, ‘Who is that kid anyway?’
    â€˜Kevin? He’s in Jeffy’s class at school.’
    â€˜He’s a little creep.’
    â€˜Where are they? It’s time to eat.’
    â€˜You go,’ Alison said.
    Their mother came back with Jeffy in tow and enjoin­ed them all to sit, sit anywhere. Jeffy, looking sullen and withdrawn, made for his usual place, but when Kevin started for the facing seat, Jeffy balked. Instead, Alison and Billy took those chairs, their father his at the head of the table and their mother the one closest to the kitchen. The two remaining seats were across from each other anyway, so Alison stood.
    â€˜Where are you going?’ asked her father. ‘I’m about to say grace.’
    She sat back down.
    Her father clasped his big hands together. ‘Thank God supper’s ready!’
    Then it seemed too awkward to offer to change. Already the mashed potatoes were going around and her father had started carving the roast chicken. ‘Who’s a Catholic? Who wants the Pope’s nose?’ He swashed with the carving knife, like it was a regular Sunday dinner.
    â€˜You boys are awfully quiet,’ her mother observed during the meal, apparently not sensing any tension.
    â€˜They’re competing for a food source,’ Billy said. ‘It takes all their concentration.’
    Kevin opened his mouth and showed his masticated food. Neither Jeffy nor Alison laughed.
    Profound was Alison’s surprise when, after dinner, Jeffy asked to be excused and the boys walked off together as if nothing had happened. Alison must have missed something, some secret sign exchanged over the meal. Or Kevin mouthing threats.
    She went to Jeffy’s room again to make sure he was all right. They were just turning on the computer. ‘Jeffy,’ Alison said,‘we’re going in a minute.’
    He swung around. ‘Fatso!’
    Kevin lunged for the door and as it slammed, she suddenly realized who he was. It was written all over his sneering, bully face: Kevin Milligan, Future Ruler of the World.
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    The first thing she learned working at Vitae was about history: that the present rests upon layers of the past, but is a stratum so unstable, so shot with fault lines, that now and then the then rears up and knocks down the now. Platform shoes, for example, disco, the shag. They were all back. Vitae, antiquity itself, was built on the ruins of Faye’s of Kerrisdale, its sole archaeological trace the still-unrenovated back room.
    Six stylists were employed besides Thi and Alison—Donna, Roxanne, Jamie, Christian, Robert and Malcolm. On average, five stylists worked on any given day; the back room held four. At any time six or more of them might be back there rubbing each other the wrong way.
    Malcolm was always there between appointments, squeezing further into the corner when the claustrophobia-inducing space filled. He would be reading—reading a book. No one else ever brought a book in.
    â€˜Why does she only have one name?’ Alison asked one day, glancing at the author’s name on the cover.
    â€˜Who?’
    She pointed to the book. ‘Colette.’
    He dropped it in his lap and threw his head back. It wasn’t the first time she’d heard him laugh. He often chuckled to himself as he read and seemed mysteriously to keep his clients in stitches, but it was the first time that he’d laughed with a co-worker.
    â€˜Why does Twiggy have one name?’ he asked. ‘Or Miou-Miou?’
    â€˜Who are they?’ asked Alison which, inexplicably, started him laughing again.
    â€˜You were reading something different yesterday,’ she said, picking the book off his knee. ‘All the books you bring in are old.’
    â€˜More precisely, all the authors are dead.’
    â€˜Oh! It’s in French!’
    â€˜Do you read French?’ he asked.
    She looked at him