Set the pitter-patter of rain on the roof in sync with the drone of that incorrigible furnace in the basement. On an old sofa, a yawning newborn stares/frowns/bawls/smiles from the open pages of a photo album crumbling with age, while a stack of others, yanked clumsily from the shelf, wait without hope on the floor for their turn.

Never mind that the houses on this street have no fireplace; this one does: behold the deep, brick-lined hearth, its crackling fire girdled by a mantel of ornately carved walnut, with a pair of lions preening from its plaster pilasters. The frieze, despite its icy name, is positively alive with bracts and blossoms.

A bride and groom smile stiffly for posterity from the wall above the mantel (though around them the world has yellowed). And atop the mantel, tea-stained lace doilies endure various plastic trophies from long-gone family trips. A globe whose snow hasn't been set to swirling for, oh, years. A diminutive Statue of Liberty. A much-abused clock adorned with cherubs, a city skyline, a patiently semaphoring Christ whose heart has astoundingly blossomed on the outside of his robe, and, emblazoned across the top, 'Jesus Loves Toronto'.

An old woman, as greying and withered as a cliché, shuffles in and subsides on to the old sofa. She sets a cup of what looks like coffee down on the table and pulls the open album on to her lap. In a corner, a grand-father clock exhaustedly achieves two.

In the old woman's lap now, a young couple in hat and gloves stand arm in arm, smiling. She cocks her head and drags her fingers pensively across the man's face.

In the fireplace a log shifts, unburdening itself of a spray of sadly fleeting sparks.

The man in the picture - call him Alvin - had always considered himself a veri-table encyclopaedia of knowledge, albeit knowledge that was chiefly ornamental. He loved the company of books, pencils, and mathematical instruments, and often practised using large words in a grave and imperious tone (though he spoke mostly of little things). In appearance, he was that character who almost never features in the moist fiction proffered at supermarket checkout counters, being neither remarkably handsome nor noticeably ugly, neither toned nor flabby, neither striking nor entirely forgettable - this, despite an elegantly insouciant manner which could, on occasion, attract a second glance.

To the old woman, though, he was just Alvin.

Alvin was a travelling salesman and sometime philanderer, with a taste for a taste for the finer things in life.

Althea was a modest housewife and mother. She kept their house spotlessly clean, and the garden pleasingly neat.

Alvin thought his expectations o were quite reasonable. They were, after all, much like the expectations of most men of the day. When he was not travelling, he asked only that they entertain often: few things gave him greater pleasure than holding forth on matters of the day, from politics to fashion, from literature and the arts (though of these he knew little) to whichever unfortunate victim was the latest subject of gossip.

Culture, intellect and politeness were in fashion, and in all of these Alvin chivalrously tried his best. O he asked only that she not speak too much of that which she knew, and not at all of that which she did not know, and that she always speak reasonably. And in this, as in most other things obligingly tried to please him.

But enough of such nostalgia; for a younger woman - 'Linda' - has entered the room, through an air that's now thick with reminiscence. Like the old woman, her neck is long, her shoulders slender, though age and loss have not softened the planes of her face, in the way that they have the older woman's. For a moment she stands, hands on hips, looking at the fire. Then: 'Ready to go?' she says. Meaning, wa ready to leave behind this memory-stuffed room/house/life and move in at last with her imperious daughter? Here Linda glances at her mother.

'Yes, dear,tells her. A hand flutters absentmindedly to her head, as if to palm invisible curlers. But even Linda can see tha is not quite ready, and when the old woman pats the empty spot next to her, Linda sinks into the sofa (it yields reluctantly) and peers at the young couple smiling up at her from the album on her mother's lap. She takes up the latter and flips the pages, stopping eventually at a picture of a woman with bouffant hair, a very short skirt and very tall boots, grinning from atop the hood of a quaint but indubitably impressive car. 'I can't believe that was you,' she says.

Now rewind Jesus Loves Toronto: it's six a.m. and 40 years ago. The summer has been fiercely hot and today is no different. A green and white car with only a hint of rust basks in the morning sun while nearby, in valiantly manicured beds, petunias, pansies and roses preen grudgingly (repeat: it's hot). A tricycle - red with a chrome bell (an ageing favourite of suburban housewives) with dangly bits on the handles and a white plastic basket up front - would have been the perfect accessory in this scene, but the child has outgrown it, and the roller skates she now affects are too small to make a difference, even if placed front and centre. But never mind.

A man and a woman emerge from the house and stand expectantly on the stingy portico. He is nattily dressed in white leather Winklepicker shoes, crisp linen pants, a short-sleeved shirt featuring some turgid theme with silly proverbs all over and missing its top button - and tortoise shell designer sunglasses atop his combed-over head. She is more casual, barefooted in a daisied cotton housedress and a confusion of curlers in her blond hair. (It's early).

'You'll call me when you get there, won't you?'

Alvin had been spending more time on the road than at home lately. In the last three months he had practically been around the world: conventions, meetings, clients. That's what Alvin had tol anyway. And whenever he was leaving for yet another road trip he swore to her his travelling days would soon be over.

'Of course I will, honey. You know that.'

Alvin flung his sprightly black valise and a weary old briefcase on to the back seat then turned and bounded up the steps to wher waited to be ultimately kissed. In one hand she held his flask of freshly brewed coffee; in the other, a lovingly wrapped tuna sandwich with teeny tiny bits of chopped onion and mayonnaise - his favourite - fit neatly into a perfectly folded brown paper bag with an asymmetrical heart gratuitously drawn in red felt pen on the front. He kissed her peremptorily on the forehead, then stopped and held her head in both hands. He looked squarely into her eyes and said solemnly, 'I'm getting that promotion soon, you know that, right?'

Here, a boy with crew-cut blond hair pedalled furiously along the sidewalk in front of the house, donating a breathless 'Morning Missus J!' as he passed gave him a mechanical wave. She nodded slightly at Alvin, never taking her eyes off him.

'I'll call you when I get there, honey.' He bent and kissed her on the cheek. 'Kiss Linda for me when she wakes up.' He took the flask and the brown paper bag, leapt down the steps of the little white house and got into the quaint (but indubitably impressive) green and white car and drove off.

An - belove wife of Alvin, mother of Linda - waved and smiled, as she always did, as the car thundered terribly away down that sleepy, tree-lined street.

Then, however, her hand dropped, her smile faded, and finally (for it was a very long street), she sat, elbows on knees and chin in hands, on the lovingly polished but nonetheless somehow desolate top step of their little front porch.

'That was fun,' Linda said, her tone betraying only a hint of derision. She clapped the album shut and rose. The fire that had so brazenly sent flying its impetuous sparks just moments ago had waned to a sad glow. Linda crossed the room, propped an elbow on the walnut mantel and gave the somnolent snows of Kilimanjaro a galvanic shake. Turning, she surveyed the room,finally stopping at her mother. 'Is there anything else you want to bring?'

The ancestral clock lumbered stolidly towards three.

There was indeed something else tha would have liked to bring. But how does one fit a lifetime into two small suitcases? The blazing orange carry-on with extendable handle, super-tough wheels and lifetime warranty was barely roomy enough to accommodat flannel nightgowns.

And the smiled. Yes, she smiled.

The dubious little globe lady, frozen in her arduous Arabesque, was still obscured by residual snow flurries when Linda deposited her back on the mantel. 'All right. Let's get going then.'

And soon the car was slipping like a ghost along the boulevard, filled to overflowing with utter noiselessness. In her mind stumbled through all the things she had wanted to say to this imperious child of hers. And when, after what seemed an eternity (though it was really only five minutes), Linda said, 'Are you all right?' the conversation could have gone any number of different ways.

I had said something like, 'No, Linda, I'm not feeling so great; in fact I'm quite sad and a little irritated,' it is quite probable that a heated discussion would have ensued concerning the despotic manner in whic had been removed from her home.

I had said simply, 'Yes', that would have had the inestimable merit of being brief, but it would not have been concise. Fo was not all right. Oh, on the surface she looked as well and as happy as anyone would expect of a woman of her age. But she wasn't well. And quite possibly the worst part o illness was that she herself had no idea how sick she was, for it wasn't her body that was letting her down - her body had always been in fine fettle, so Alvin used to say - but her mind. Her mind - no, her brain - was failing her. More specifically, chromosomes one, 14 and 21 had fallen short and were causing dea to forget. But all she knew was that she was feeling frustrated and powerless.

S said nothing, just looked over at Linda and smiled. It was a flaccid smile, butit was enough for Linda.

After that, she stared unseeing as mile and after mile of nondescript strip malls, behemoth book barns and super-sized supermarkets hurtled past her. 'My, how things have changed,' she finally said.

And not long after that, they arrived at Linda and Bob's new and instantly forgettable house. It was situated on a wide avenue which, like the others around it, had been curtly denuded of trees by an impatient developer: a two-storey, blue-vinyl-clad house with a double carport whose considerable proportions practically consumed the front yard. It was stuffed between two other houses with similarly huge and featureless facades and had one bedroom for each of its occupants (except for the one shared by Bob and Linda); they included a charming 'granny suite' fo Althea, alas, was not charmed. But enough of this. You are old, madam; you take what you get in this life.

Linda fumbled with the garage door opener, and when at length the panelled wood-look door grudgingly opened said wha chose to hear as, 'Spit.' Linda quickly amended herself and said, quite clearly this time, 'Shoot.'

Althea entered the room that had been designated hers, leaned slightly on the cane Linda had brutally insisted upon, and looked around her. The room was bright, spacious, fully furnished and exhibited the sad vacuity of a bedroom that has never been slept in - though since Alvin's death, Linda had often wooed her to come and look at it and hopefully be tempted.

On one side there reposed a queen-sized bed, primly dressed in matching paisley skirt, spread and shams. On the other side, French doors beckoned her to the charming granny en suite bathroom (though whethe was at all enticed by the cutout metal girl sitting on a pot, her skirt hiked up to her waist, who had been tautologically screwed to the door seems unlikely). And before her, flanked by a pair of corpulent magnolia-clad wing chairs (His, Hers), stood the fireplace: a horrible modern substitute for the on had been stoking for the past 50 years.The fireplace had a cold granite face, folding glass doors, an unchanging, unexcitable gas-fed flame, and no mantel.

Althea wondered whether families still collected the collectibles that always ended up on fireplace mantels. Perhaps things really had changed, she thought.

Here Linda entered, dragging two blazing orange carry-ons into the room.

'Well?'

A feeling of inexorable doom washed over the old woman stared vacantly at her daughter.

'Well?' ejaculated Linda, echoing herself with a marked crescendo. 'What do you think?'

'It's fine, dear, obliged finally. 'Just fine.'

Satisfied, Linda left the room.

The last rays of the evening's light struggled through the slits in the horizontal blinds, striating the floor, bed, wall, and old woman.

Finally alone opened the two suitcases that Linda had thoughtfully deposited on the bed. The first (clothes, photos) didn't unpack itself, but neither did it require a terrible effort.

The second (the detritus o life) took a little longer. She peered into the top of it and felt the mocking glare of Jesus Loves Toronto. It had been more than 50 years since she and Alvin had

taken that trip. He might just have loved her then.

As this consideration forced itself upon her, the careworn old woman shifted on the edge of the bed and reached for a conch shell peeking out from under a fold of embroidered hankies. She pulled it onto her lap and fingered the shellÕs ribbed exterior, and then its long, stiff protrusions. And then she turned it over in her lap, stroking the smooth pink canal, and briefly sliding her fingers as far into it as her arthritic knuckles would let her.

It had been a warm day, with an exquisite languor about it and the young man found themselves in the enviable position of being the lone occupants of a concealed beach on a small island under blamelessly bright blue skies. It was June, yes, but these northern islands possessed a savage and surreal beauty, with weather as changeable as a womanÕs moods, and they both knew it andwere happy at their good fortune.

It was, ostensibly, a fishing trip had made tuna sandwiches and cookies and filled a flask with Tang. Alvin, somewhat disposed to oleaginous flattery, brought roses, chocolates and honey-coated words. They did, in fact, do some fishing, and Alvin almost caught one too, though in his excitement and inexperience it became in the end the prototype of many big-one-that-got-away stories.

But Alvin was angling for more than halibut that day. He had been courting Althea for the whole last year of high school and had patiently gone through the required stages of romance with her: double-dating, going steady and, finally, giving Althea his class ring, to claim her as his. He believed, therefore, that it was now high time that they should go on to the next level of intimacy.

ItÕs hard to say whether it was the chocolate, the flowers or the flattery, bu resisted AlvinÕs advances only briefly. (Admittedly, it did occur to her, as she watched him fumble with his zipper and then felt him fumbling with her bra clasps, that if she did become pregnant, she wouldnÕt have to go away to college in a few months, after all, as her cruel and heartless parents had planned.) And it was only her inexperience and the thoroughly romantic setting that allowed her to be construe as enchanting AlvinÕs mediocre performance. After it was over (a very short while later), they lay on their backs at the waterÕs edge and the warmth of the sun, and the soft lisp of water tickling the shore, lulled them asleep.

The sun was beginning its descent whe was nudged by an incipient awareness of the ocean. Its silvery wavelets swished in to shore, tumbling and tugging at the burnished pebbles within their reach. Then, without warning, they stretched and nipped at the humansÕ toes, prying Althea and her torpid Adam awake. They made it home before dark and, the following spring - just about the time whe would have been finishing her first year of college - got married, mere days befor punctual delivery of a beautiful baby girl.

But look now at this old woman, lost in a past that both was and wasnÕt. She cannot purge her closet, much less her mind, of all the dross; so letÕs do it for her.

Discard the faded photos and Jesus Loves Toronto.

Throw away the dancing lady, forever frozen in her blizzard-y domain.

Forget the frieze and the miserable old grandfather clock; the mantel was nothing but a display of false bravura, anyway.

Pretty soon will have forgotten everything.

And then our guilt - LindaÕs guilt; but also mine, and also yours, dear reader - our guilt will be assuaged.

END

- Corinne Smith