And that’s when he catches sight of Ray, or rather his ghost, where he used to find the man himself at times, sitting on his beam in the calèche garage, legs dangling, feet without boots. Ray doesn’t smile. His gaze, deep as a chasm, beams a hypnotic light that oddly soothes him. After all, Evan has at least one death on his conscience.
* * *
Ray the Hanged Man
One evening — it must have been four years ago, long after the coachmen had gone out for the evening shift — Ray had forced the small cashbox, breeched the trap door with a hoof pick and a scraper so he could plunge his arm in to retrieve envelopes stuffed with money intended for Paul. A one-night junkie, Ray had unsealed them all to prolong his euphoria, stronger than his will. At dawn when there were no envelopes left, he felt that he’d never been so lucid, that he finally understood the smooth running of the world, his own in particular, which was proceeding crookedly, stumbling as it receded. He had a clear sense that there would be no way out, that it would be impossible to pay back the contents of the envelopes. And as he no longer had the strength to resist, to run away or to fight, Ray decided that the time was right to be done with it.
As he did every morning, Billy entered the stable through the calèche garage. He remembered as though it had happened just the day before: the big motionless body hanging at the end of a rope and his cowboy boots fallen to the floor. He’d had his friend’s body taken down, put his boots back on and had wrapped him like a feverish baby in one of those woollen blankets full of bugs the coachmen stow in the trunk of the calèche in anticipation of the cooler late-season evenings. In time, the stable became a minefield of memories: the beam where Ray hanged himself; Mignonne’s old min; a colleague’s hat found in a locker after many years; dog-eared ancient photos in the harness shed; the name of an old horse jotted on a cigarette paper found at the bottom of a chest; the scratches on a calèche painted red that allow one to glimpse that it had once been brown. The memory comes alive again of a summer when it rained a lot…. In Griffintown, ghosts are at large, more of them than angels.
IN A DOWNTOWN SKYSCRAPER built on the fringes of the Far Ouest, the Men from the City meet around a model of Project Griffintown 2.0. On the stable’s site where currently thistles, butter-and-eggs flowers, and clover are tangled together as in an English garden, will stand a conglomeration of luxury urban chalets with a view of the Lachine Canal.
This red-brick complex will be extended by several small units planted where now stands the tin castle on a carpet of loose stones — lair of the three-legged cat and an accumulation of the little bones of the birds he has devoured — near Billy’s trailer. On the graves of Ray and Mignonne, the idea is to build a pharmacy, a gourmet food shop, and a parlour-boutique specializing in tea. In the murky stream where Paul and dozens of kittens have been swallowed up, clear water the colour of mirrors will flow. On the surface of the model, water lilies float and, with a little imagination, one can see them rippling gently under a favourable breeze.
The Men from the City have big plans for the neighbourhood. They see a village to populate, a territory to conquer and occupy. The Metro will have to extend to Griffintown so that new merchants will want to set up there. Coachmen, horses, and putrid fumes aren’t part of the plan or the setting. What they want is for the grimy cowboys to surrender. In any case they belong to a bygone age and will have to withdraw. If not, other measures will be considered.
AT THE CORNER OF Murray and Ottawa streets, in what used to be Leo Leonard’s Horse Palace where, until very recently, there were other draft animals, a little ball of foliage has formed around an uprooted root of clover. Rolling around made it eventually cling to whatever happened to be there, friable and light: clumps of old yellow grass; dried flower buds and forked horsehair; powdered horn; even a little marrow tangled in the grey sand with dandelion rootlets; veins of leaves from autumns past; seeds of sainfoin; bits of string and rough cord; pollen and crumbling iron; sparrow’s fluff. The ball expands, more and more puffy and bulbous, twirls along the asphalt in the direction of rue des Seigneurs like a small soul in danger of panic.
* * *
ON THE WALL OF a warehouse, Marie observes the shadow cast by her calèche. Her posture and reflexes, those of a former rider, are still intact: back perfectly straight, focussed on destination; the proper tension in the reins; fully invested in communicating hand-reins-mouth with the animal. But after a minute or two of this system she realizes how ridiculous the system is. Champion knows the road much better that she does. Back stiff, smile feigned, none of that is necessary. In any case, so early in the morning, this sector of the Far Ouest is deserted. It’s not an equestrian contest; there is no judge to please. East of McGill Street, the Far Ouest ends and the heart of downtown begins. In this neighbourhood the sky is no longer a faded blue as it is in Griffintown, but greyish-mauve because of the summer smog.
As soon as the light turns green, Champion resumes his pacing, not concerned in the least about the traffic, onto the busy thoroughfare and as far as Notre-Dame. There, things intensify for both driver and old horse. In one lane, there is a truck and some city employees. In the second, a large metal plate covers the pothole that city workers are getting ready to fill. Marie considers turning around, but they wave her on. Then she directs Champion to the plate. She has no choice: to get to the stand, they have to walk on it.
As soon as he senses the metal of his shoe touch the metal on the ground, Champion takes fright and starts to gallop, heading eastward at full tilt. Along the way, the wing of the calèche scratches several cars parked on the north side of rue Notre-Dame and with the speed, the elastics around the tires of the calèche give way. Marie tries in vain to rein in the horse, but Champion comes to a halt on his own a few metres farther, across from the Basilica and in front of some stunned onlookers. The horse’s heart and Marie’s are beating, two overworked pumps.
Marie jumps out and examines a gasping, breathless Champion, his nostrils dilated. She runs a hesitant hand along the animal’s flank, murmuring gently, along his thigh to the hock. There are no visible injuries on his body, fortunately. Marie fills a cauldron with water and while Champion laps greedily, she calls Billy to give him the bad news, thinking this is her first day as a driver and probably her last. She hasn’t taken on a single customer and she’ll be obliged to hand over the reins to someone else. She remembers hearing John and several other drivers curse the project. Construction and rain: two scourges. Marie doesn’t really understand what has happened. The old nag that’s supposed to be the best friend of all novice drivers, the Belgian said to be so calm and unflappable, bolted the first chance he got.
She’s mad at Champion, the veteran, for shaking off his lethargy without warning, mad at the city employees and the winter that creates such holes in the streets, mad at John and at Billy for not warning her of the danger, mad at Le Rôdeur who’d mocked her by demanding five dollars to keep an eye on her horse while she went to pick up the tire elastic farther along Notre-Dame. Her years of riding, every summer of her teenage years spent on horseback, are of no use at all on a calèche. Marie is mad at herself for having been convinced of the opposite. More than anything, she’s mad at herself for being so naive. She looks at her hand and realizes she is shaking. Suddenly, Marie has doubts.
She realizes she has a grenade in her hand. It’s dangerous work, John told her so again and again and now she understands what he meant. She would have been able to catch the animal if she’d been on his back, been able to control him by the position of her legs and seat, by holding the reins tighter. But when you’re behind, it complicates everything. She recalls the unbelievable story a driver, Joe, told her about the time years before when his horse, hitched to a calèche, jumped over a BMW. Marie didn’t want to know how the story ended. Besides, she knows the drivers’ tendency to exaggerate is strong. Marie thinks about John, who has spent several weeks showing her the ropes. At the end of the line the telephone rings and rings. Finally,
Billy answers. “Billy, get over here, there’s a problem.” Fifteen minutes later, she spots him in the distance, riding Maggie, who comes along at a trot.
Billy makes a face at the sight of the line of damaged cars and realizes, as he leads his mount onto the metal plate, what has happened. Le Rôdeur comes running to join him.
“The Kid treated herself to quite a ride!”
“Hell of a kid, that Kid!” says Billy.
“I know. Fire me. I’ll understand.”
Billy goes to Champion and examines him. In a state of shock but no obvious injuries. The groom rubs his forehead, seems discouraged.
“It’s not your fault,” he declares. “Champion’s got a phobia about those plates. He just has to put one foot on metal and as soon as he feels himself skating a little, soon as it goes skree, skree, the animal goes nuts. I forgot to tell you, you couldn’t know.”
Billy stretches the elastics around the tires and sends Marie to the stable, showing her a route with no metal plates.
“That’s it for today. But you’ll come back tomorrow as planned.”
Billy slips business cards under the windshield wipers of cars with scraped sides, notes the licence numbers, and returns to Griffintown. There’s no one to guard the tin castle and that worries him. On the way home he notices that the rain and the sun, the wind and the passing of time have nearly erased his missing person notices still stapled to the posts.
Knowing he’ll get there long before Marie, he allows himself a little detour near the construction site behind the Horse Palace. In the midst of the scaffolding, Leo Leonard’s stable is resisting as best it can, like something being tossed about by a storm, though it is encircled by hills of loose stones and brick. The old Irishman put it up for sale some years ago after he got rid of his last horses, but he’s asking so much it’s still on the market, being courted only by a heritage support group.
A few strides away, Billy notices they’ve started putting up condos. To get there, he takes a shortcut across an abandoned parking lot. And that’s when he sees Paul’s truck — what’s left of it. Black, burnt, covered with graffiti. The windows are shattered. Billy slides his finger along the car body. Soot, dry and chalky. In the back of the truck the last of the Irish recognizes the crate of broken bits Paul took with him when he left. He gives the door a powerful kick. He lets out a howl like a coyote abandoned by its pack. His horse takes three steps to the side.
* * *
LATE THAT AFTERNOON, WHEN John steps into the stable, he counts the calèches at the wall and spots Marie’s among them. He searches his pockets for a light, in vain, then finds his lighter under the driver’s bench and takes a seat in the back of his calèche.
Quietly, with the arrival of the night shift of coachmen, activity resumes. Lloyd hitches up Charogne, muttering, Chris uses the curry comb on a monster eighteen hands high, Alice slogs away at an old crackling radio, the three-legged tomcat goes by with a pigeon in its jaws …. Routine, minus one detail: Billy.
Back from Old Montreal after his day’s work, Georges Prince spots a narrow space between John’s yellow buggy and a heavy white “horse killer.” He parks without getting out of the calèche, with grace and skill; a delicate undertaking, an undeniable sign of many years’ experience. John admires his technique and the precision of every move he makes.
“So tell me, Georges, how’s business in the old city?”
“Two brown bills. Starts off real quiet…. With the Kid it’s always top speed. You know about it, I guess?”
“About what?”
“Well, about this nice mess: the calèche drives up against every car parked on the left. The Kid scrapes them all, one after another, all the way to the corner of the street. Ask Le Rôdeur, he was there and he would ask for nothing better than to spread the news. He said he’d never seen Champion race like that.”
John realizes there’s a good chance Marie’s bum will never sit on a calèche seat. Most inexperienced drivers are released prematurely into the landscape. Getting the permit doesn’t mean much and the tenderfeet who choose to stay in Griffintown are often just more stubborn and carefree than the others and not necessarily more talented. He has never forgotten his own first day. Back then he had to hitch up by himself and live with the consequences of his ignorance. Nervous like every driver about to launch himself for the first time onto the Bonsecours hill, John had done a good job of calculating his manoeuvre, waiting for the light to turn green so he wouldn’t be stuck in the very middle of the slope, then quickly went into a trot. There was no one on the hill to impede his ascent, he was making good progress until the horse broke into a run and John couldn’t understand why. Then the driver could feel that, under him, the calèche was backing up: horror, his horse was unhitched! He had jogged along to the stand by himself and John — still on board the calèche along with a family of Mexicans, who thought it was all a lot of fun — had crashed into a delivery truck.
Most of the coachmen have similar stories to keep in their closet. After an accident there are two options: give up on the thought of becoming a driver or overcome the fear, like the young rider who gets back in the saddle, trembling after a fall, and is told he has to fall seven times before he can say that he knows how to ride a horse. Honour and ego are severely scratched, but it’s a necessary step.
* * *
BILLY'S TROUBLES AREN'T OVER. Since his discovery the day before, he hasn’t slept a wink. In the stable to feed the horses, he notices that Champion’s forefeet are rigid and his hocks are sore. Walking is painful and the sight of him making his way cautiously … it’s as if he has an egg lodged under every shoe. Weary and with nearly two decades of calèche driving in his bones, the old gelding no longer has Poney’s stubborn vigour, Lou’s pride, or Pearl’s vaporous ease. When he started pulling a calèche, in Mignonne’s day, when Paul came on the scene, there was already praise for his stoic temperament and his fine and friendly Belgian head. There are horses that greet one another among themselves: Champion has always been engaging. But after Mignonne died he stopped greeting his fellow creatures. The following summer, when he returned, his pace slowed and he adopted his legendary expressionless gait, the stiff and clumsy stride that exasperates the experienced drivers. This morning, the veteran’s expression is even glummer. Billy stays at his side. In the spring, he was unsure for some time about whether he was or was not going to inflict one final season on him. For the new drivers, an old slow horse who knows the job is a reassuring companion. Billy knows from experience that once wear and tear have settled in, it’s best not to prolong indefinitely a calèche horse’s career the way another owner, Gilbert, does; he buys up at auction horses intended for meat and imposes one more summer on those tired creatures with an absent look who can’t take any more. Without being unduly attached to the horses, Billy always knows when the time has come to hang up their shoes. The groom leads Champion delicately to the transport vehicle, respecting his slowness. Irritated by the pain in his feet, Champion sweeps the contaminated air of the stable with his tail one last time before plunging into the light of this early June morning. An entire chapter of calèche culture and the history of Griffintown will be extinguished with him in the grave, and a diaphanous silence will descend, a requiem for an old horse who is going to rejoin Mignonne. When he gets there he’ll salute her.
* * *
JOHN GOES INTO THE stable early that morning, hoping he’ll run into his protégé. He notices there is no trailer truck on the site. Spotting Champion’s empty stall he realizes he was wise to come. On the board where Billy leaves notes for the drivers, he reads that Marie has inherited Poney and that he himself will take back the reins of the Haflinger, the febrile and unpredictable horse he’d started to train. This more or less suits him but under the circumstances, he’ll adapt.
Georges Prince arrives early, as usual, with Marie following close behind. John sees her fling her bike into a stretch of couch grass in a grove. Calling the three-legged cat, she tr
ies in vain to approach it. As far back as he can remember there has always been a three-legged cat in the stable, a hostile environment of the finest example where the animals often injure themselves. John saw the veterinarian amputate the wounded paw of the latest cat. He disappeared for a few days then came back, starving and wilder than ever, still a skilful hunter of fledglings, field mice, and bats, whose wings it leaves intact. Too tough. Three Legs is like a pirate with a wooden leg, similar to Evan: bitter, furious. Like him, it’s bad moods that keep him alive.
John goes first with this anecdote to Marie, because she likes his stories about drivers and horses, then he announces that Champion has hung up his shoes. “Plenty other horses will leave you and break your heart, Marie. You’ll come back in the spring and the one you’re anticipating won’t be there. Or he’ll be waiting for you and you won’t be back. You have to toughen up or you won’t make it through the summer.” Marie’s little-girl pout, her long arms, like chiffon, her aching shoulders and the sadness that swept over her, remind him of the only time he’s seen a driver cry, at the death of Mignonne, over her big, white, shattered body covered with a blanket that left her four shod feet sticking out. He remembers too the day Ray hanged himself. John had stepped into the stable at dawn, as usual going through the calèche garage. And he had spotted the long rope hanging from ceiling to ground, still tied around the neck of Ray, hidden under a worn wool blanket, the toes of his cowboy boots sticking out. Billy, mute and motionless, sitting on a cube of hay. And, since then, there’s been a crack in the ceiling near the beam.
John pushes aside the couch grass with the toe of his boot and points out to Marie the two small crosses: Ray’s, on which can be read, “Died with his boots on,” and Mignonne’s, two planks nailed together on which a female hand has drawn in pink the horse’s name. No dates, because no one knows when either one came into the world. The couch grass that grows abundantly on their graves covers the crosses almost completely. That’s the way it is in Griffintown, where generally drivers and horses sentenced to death don’t last long, other lives coming to keep them out of the limelight. “There will be other horses, Marie,” says John.
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