Viaticum

by Natelle Fitzgerald

  When he finally mustered the courage to go to the bank, they escorted him to a back room behind the lines of tellers. The room was divided into sections by frosted glass partitions under which he could see the feet of the other penitents like himself, tapping nervously in the gap. All around him was a low murmur of voices. He felt sick as he sat there waiting. He didn’t know what he was going to say.

  Soon, he saw the top of a head glide along the frosted wall, then a giant man entered the room. The man was tall with broad shoulders, narrow hips and a great handlebar mustache. He had tired, world-weary eyes like someone who could kick your ass but would really prefer not to. Matt stared. He’d met this man before, he was sure of it.

  He racked his brain but couldn’t place him. Was it Kato’s? Did he sell this guy a house? There were so many faces, so many years, his memories slipping and sliding on top of one another, it was impossible to say. Saltery Bay? Jesus, he hoped not. The man’s eyes seemed to twinkle with recognition, yet he said nothing. He stuck out his hand and introduced himself, “I’m Ron. I’ve been assigned to your file.”

  “Matt Campbell.”

  There was a pause, a twinkle of expectation before the man’s face dulled over again by the business at hand.

  Ron laid it out in plain English, just how bad the situation was. Matt had known it was bad, yet somehow, he’d deluded himself. Somehow, he’d convinced himself he still had more time. The blood rose to his face as he heard it spoken out loud. What had he been doing to let it get so bad? Yet he knew that too. He’d been waiting for something to save him. The big sale. The viatical settlement. Something. He stared down at the desk.

  Ron laid out his options and they were also bad. “You could consider bankruptcy,” he said. “There’s less stigma now than there used to be. If you were to file now, you could apply for a loan again in seven years.”

  Matt rubbed his head, his mind scrabbling. His brain hurt. “Okay. Okay. I hear what you’re saying but just say, let’s just say I could make the next two mortgage payments and then make the minimum payment on the line of credit, would that work?”

  The man sat there, unearthly still, regarding him with sad, tired eyes as if Matt were an injured animal. “I mean, the market’s going to turn sometime,” Matt went on. “I mean, things can’t get any worse.” He laughed and it sounded wild, unhinged, even to his own ears. His every whisky tainted word befouled the air. The Jesus-goddamn fresh-breath strips he’d taken from Jen’s drawer did absolutely nothing, he thought. What was the fucking point of fresh breath strips if they didn’t work? Ron watched him, all calm and collected like he was the financial horse whisperer and Matt a crazed rodeo bronc.

  “Because there’s a possibility I can pull something together,” Matt heard himself say, “I might be able to borrow some money from my parents and I’ve got a friend out in the oil patch who said he could get me a job . . . I used to be a bartender and I could go back, working nights, then the real estate during the day . . .”

  Still, the man was quiet. Finally, he spoke. “Mr. Campbell, you’ve been a good customer up until now, so I’m willing to give you another month here to get your affairs sorted.”

  “Thank-you. Thank-you. I’ll get it sorted. I promise.”

  “But this can’t go on indefinitely. You owe a huge amount of money, on your mortgage, on your visa, on this other loan, not to mention your line of credit. It’s going to take a major, major turnaround to pull out of this. Are you sure you’re not just delaying the inevitable?”

  Matt was sweating despite the cool; he could feel sweat prickling up into his face, “I’ll get it fixed. I swear. I’ve got some irons in the fire and I just need a bit of time.”

  The man regarded him. “One more month, but that’s all that I can do. After that, you’re looking at foreclosure.”

  “Awesome. Super-good. One month is all I need.” As he stood to leave, he banged his knee on Ron’s desk and pretended it didn’t hurt but tears came up in his eyes. Ron stood over him, towering behind the desk and watching him with those sad, steady eyes.

  “Mr. Campbell?”

  Matt turned.

  “You take care of yourself now.” One of those giant hands found Matt’s shoulder and rested there, its warm gentle weight pressing down. The fact of it shocked him! People didn’t touch one another anymore and certainly not in banks. Matt looked into the man’s eyes then it dawned on him where he knew him from: Ron had been a bouncer at Kato’s for a couple of seasons and they’d gone to Vancouver Island together on a road trip. Matt could picture it now, this huge man crammed into the backseat of his car. Surely Ron knew who he was. Matt looked down at the ground. Somewhere along the line, he’d become a person you pretend not to know.

  He walked out of the bank, trying not to cry.

  I’m okay, I’m okay, he kept repeating as he walked to the car but he wasn’t okay. He was all torn up inside. It was as if that one sympathetic hand on his shoulder had invited all his troubles to it and now they were pushing forward, scrambling over one another for a bit of recognition, a bit of sympathy. He sat in the car and now the tears came. Everything he did was stupid, everything was wrong and a complete and total fuck-up. He thought about Annika and remembered her kindness, then he cracked his head against the window to make the thoughts go away, then he did it again, then again, until a crack appeared on the glass.

  The rest of the day, he drove around aimlessly, his mind a mess. There was still a month, he reassured himself. A lot could happen in a month. His parents might loan him some money; his mother had squirrelled a bit away and was always keen to help him, although even the thought of asking made his insides squirm. He could call Leo, he thought. Get set up with a job. And the contract: he would contact a lawyer and maybe he could at least get his initial investment back. Ken could go fuck himself that underhanded little fucker.

  When he arrived home the house was quiet. The lights were off and it smelled of fresh paint. The furniture in the living room was covered with plastic sheets, the couches hulking strangely in the dim light.

  “Jen?”

  “I’m here,” came her voice from the shadows.

  She was right there in front of him but he’d missed her. She was sitting on one of the covered sofas, staring out at the darkening street. Her voice was flat and her face was grey in the murky twilight. He felt a chill. “Is everything alright?”

  “No,” she said flatly. “It’s not alright. Nothing is alright, Matt.”

  He felt the blood drain from his face.

  She stared out at the grey street and the grey sky and the rows of houses and the driveways and the cars. “Jacob had another appointment at the dentist today,” she said.

  Matt sat down. The plastic crinkled underneath him. He perched gingerly on the edge, unsure of what to say. There was a resignation, a tiredness in her that he’d never seen before, as if she’d grown old in his absence. He would have preferred her anger then to see her looking so old. “How did it go?” he asked when she didn’t elaborate.

  “Shitty. He has three new cavities. They’re in his baby teeth, but still.”

  “Rotten,” Matt said, and he shifted uncomfortably, unsure if this was the reason for her upset, or if there was something else.

  “I had to suffer through some condescending hygienist lecturing me about fruit juice,” she said.

  Matt put his arm around her. “It’s okay,” he said but she didn’t relax or look at him. The tone of her voice frightened him. There was a deadness to it that wouldn’t let him near, a flatness that didn’t acknowledge him at all. He had a horrible feeling that she’d outgrown him somehow, that she had moved on and he could no longer reach her.

  He stood suddenly.

  “Where are you going?” she asked sharply.

  “I need a beer. Do you want a beer?” he asked as he opened the fridge. He held the cans, the clean, cold,
uncomplicated cans in his hands and it calmed him slightly, then her voice came again from the living room. It was quiet and deadly but he heard every word.

  “A woman came by the house this afternoon. She was looking for you.”

  He opened the tab and the hiss slithered away into the silence but he felt no relief at all.

  “I told her you’d be back soon but she didn’t wait.”

  He gulped at the beer. He closed his eyes and tried to focus on the cold prickling in his throat.

  “She said her name was Annika. She said you’d remember who she was.”

  He stared out the window. It was a long time before he was able to speak.

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  Annika lay on the floor of the cottage with her hands on her belly, trying to do the breathing the way Sasha had shown her. In and out. In and out. Her stomach went up and down; yet there was something halting and labored about the motion that she couldn’t quite pinpoint, as if her lungs had dried out inside, like a leather bellows cracked and stiffened with age. She stared at the ceiling. She was afraid.

  She’d gone and done something. She didn’t quite know how to feel about it. It was not an altogether bad thing, it was just . . . it was just that she couldn’t remember deciding to do it. Lately, all her thoughts seemed to snowball and run into each other so they were hard to pick apart, hard to understand. Most of them were bad thoughts, made up conversations, fantasy encounters, what she’d say, what she’d do if she ever saw him again. Whole hours, whole days were lost to it. She understood how this could happen; she’d been through a similar thing when Hamish had left her, yet somehow this was ­different. Back then, even on her worst days, she’d felt she could control the bad thoughts if she needed to; now, it felt as if the stops were pulled; what used to work didn’t work anymore. It scared her.

  She didn’t even remember the ferry ride.

  She didn’t remember driving. She’d just ended up there, in this warren of streets and cookie-cutter houses that were all empty in the afternoon. She’d found the address he’d listed on his contact page, then driven around the cul-de-sac. There was a house with a foreclosed sign near his house so she’d parked in the driveway, slouched down in the driver’s seat, and watched Matt Campbell’s house. She didn’t remember deciding to do any of this; she was suddenly just there, watching.

  She’d sat for hours in her cold, damp car. Her body had ached and she’d been hungry but she’d sat there watching and there’d been something terrible and satisfying about the discomfort, the way calamity, when it finally comes, can be satisfying, for there is a neatness, a rightness when outer circumstances come to match the ugly things inside. Like pressing on a bruise. Like there. There.

  When Hamish had left her, he’d told her she needed to get over it. He’d said it was unhealthy the way she kept calling and showing up. He’d said she needed to move on and that moving on was like ripping a band aid; that the pain would be short-lived, she just had to do it and get it over with. He’d told her this and then he’d gone back to be with his family and friends for Christmas but she hadn’t had anywhere to go so she’d sat in her car outside his family’s house, watching. She’d seen the lights come on; she’d seen the warm orange lights spill onto the sidewalk and the Christmas tree wink in the window and she’d seen all his friends and relatives go in and out; she’d seen the family she used to be part of in the window of his parent’s house and then he’d closed the curtain and still she’d sat in the car until the police had come and said, “Ma’am? Ma’am, you can’t be here anymore.” And it had felt like there. There.

  And so she’d driven to Matt Campbell’s neighbourhood and sat in her car and had watched his house, Michael’s house, for she still thought of him that way, and she’d had a sense that history was repeating itself, like sitting in cars, this outside looking in, was who she’d always been.

  She’d watched the house until a woman and a little boy came home and seeing them, her bad thoughts had started up again: that he should go about his respectable life being a respectable man after coming down there, after waltzing in and lying and being charming and funny, making love like it meant something . . . She’d wanted to tell this woman that her husband was a cheating prick; she’d wanted to ruin his life and make a giant mess and her anger had propelled her to the door but when the woman answered, Annika hadn’t been able to say it. The woman was so young and wore her jealousy on the surface; it was so refreshing to see, the way she’d tossed her head like an angry colt, her young eyes flashing with warning. She’d been so proud and jealous and mean and flashing that Annika had liked her right away and couldn’t do it. She hadn’t been able to hurt the only living thing in that deadened neighbourhood. So she’d simply left a message and went back to her car.

  She’d watched the house until he came home. He’d been wearing the same coat, had the same walk, there was no question in her mind anymore, and she’d wanted to get out and scream at him, but then the energy seemed to leave her and she’d felt sick and tired and saddened by all of it. Forgive me. She’d thought then that maybe she would just go home and forget it all but couldn’t find the strength, so she’d sat in the car and watched some more. Towards evening, there’d been yelling from the house; it was the woman’s voice mostly. She’d been unable to hear the words but it went on for some time, then it had stopped and the lights went out and she’d curled up in the front seat and slept.

  In the morning, she’d been so stiff and aching that she’d been barely able to move. She’d seen the woman and the little boy come out of the house, the woman carrying a suitcase with her chin held high, her green eyes flashing and they’d left in a shiny green car.

  After that, Annika had felt like maybe that was the end of it, that maybe this was enough punishment, and she’d turned on the heat with the intention of leaving, but she’d been unable to warm up. She’d barely had enough strength to turn the key in the ignition. When she looked in the rearview mirror there’d been a line, a small red line of blood coming from her nose. And now she was scared.

  She lay on the floor and tried to do the breathing. It’s not that, she told herself. It’s not that, don’t think about that. But there was another voice that seemed to say, there. There. This is what you get.

  She decided to go to Marion’s. She was almost desperate to go and see them all again. She hadn’t been for a while. Healing was about intention, Sasha had told her. You had to want to get better. And she wanted to; she wanted to see her friends, wanted to be there, surrounded by people she knew, away from her own thoughts if only for an hour. She jumped up from the floor and ran out the door without taking a coat, then she sprinted through the streets under a sullen grey sky, sprinting so fast that the shocks came up into her shins. When she arrived on Marion’s doorstep, she was gasping and wild.

  “Welcome,” Marion said in that long, dramatic way she had. She was wearing a white robe with golden earrings the shapes of leaves. Her skin glowed as if it had been anointed with oil.

  “Hello,” Annika breathed, aware, suddenly, of her own tangled hair and sour clothes. She hadn’t changed, she realized. She’d forgotten to change her clothes after sleeping in the car.

  Small, vertical lines appeared between Marion’s manicured brows. “How are you? Annika?”

  Over Marion’s shoulder, Annika could see the rest of them already gathered in the great room. She could hear them chatting and laughing as they drank their tea. Marion placed a hand on her arm. “Annika? Are you alright?”

  “I’m fine,” she said and smiled, yet she knew it wasn’t true. Her sweat was already beginning to cool and she felt hot and cold at the same time. She was unwell.

  She went into the room. They were standing in the murky confluence where the slate grey day met the rosy glow of the lamps, chatting to one another as they fixed their tea. Annika! they greeted her. Annika! We’re so glad you came! We didn’t know if you wer
e coming anymore! Annika! She poured herself tea. Her hands were shaking badly. Barry came up and slapped her on the back. “Hey girl! Where’d you go last night? I stopped by to see if you wanted to go for a walk. Susan and I are on a new walking kick.”

  “I was . . .” she began. “I had to . . .” Her heart began to pound and she was almost overwhelmed with the desire to throw herself in his arms. To tell! To tell! To say help me Barry, I don’t know what is happening anymore; she wanted to melt into him as if they were dancing. “I had to do something,” she replied vaguely, then trailed off.

  Now it was Barry’s turn to frown, but then Marion rang the bell and they took their seats around the table. The usual suspects were there: Velma, Doug, Barry, Kat, Susan and Marion. Annika could feel their eyes on her and she knew she must look awful. She knew she must smell bad. She sipped her tea and despair rose up inside her. How could she ever explain it to them? That she’d gone to Seattle to spy on a man whom she’d invited into her bed, the same man who happened to have a bond on her life? It was crazy. She felt crazy. What could they know about sleeping in cars and skin on skin and the sower and the sown and all the rest of it, all of it, yet she wanted to tell them: that was how it always was, how it had always been, a life torn apart by hiding and wanting to be seen. They looked at her with baffled, wide-eyed ­concern.

  Then Helmut walked into the room.

  “Hello. I will be joining you.”

  All eyes darted to Marion who appeared tight-lipped but not surprised. “I’ve finally convinced Helmut to give Healing Journeys a try,” she said, her voice curiously neutral.