Racket

by Lisa Moore

  Do didn’t say anything. She rubbed her hands and stared at the wall. Cait patted her bony shoulder, as the surgeon had done. Do’s dark eyes were greying like her hair. Cataracts. Cait had never noticed before. She started to lean closer, then put her hand in her pocket and stepped away. If Selva was here, he would know what to say.

  The surgeon seems nice, Cait said. He said there’s nothing to worry about.

  Yes, yes. Nothing to worry.

  Cait zipped up her coat. She took her time putting on her hat, turning up her collar. Her travel card was in her pocket. She took it out and held it in one hand. Do still wasn’t looking at her.

  I’ll see you on Sunday, Cait said. She thought about patting Do’s shoulder again or squeezing her hand but didn’t. She said, I’m sure everything will be fine.

  In the hallway, she walked quickly, eyes on the shiny linoleum, and nearly collided with a nurse stepping off the elevator.

  Do you ever feel like they’re watching you? Nisha’s nose was an inch away from a cross-stitch in a circular frame.A line of pixelated Morris Dancers did high kicks, sticks held over their heads.

  Right? Cait said. I swear those beady eyes follow me everywhere.

  Nisha reached up and took the hoop off the wall. She turned the dancers around so their backs were on display, the crisscrossed mess of stitches and threads.

  Better, Nisha said. So, what’s she like then, your Auntie Do?

  Cait thought for a moment. She’s terrified of black men.

  Gawd! Nisha said. Why are immigrants so racist?

  Cait gave her a tour of the flat. Nisha walked into Do’s room, hands on hips and looked down at the single bed. Who would sleep here?

  Do you think anyone actually did?

  Nisha was deep into the room, picking through the things on the dressing table. Someone must have, she said. Desperate soul. She uncapped a bottle of perfume and sniffed then set it down beside the baby oil.

  Cait hovered in the doorway.

  She’s not looking for someone to take the bed now, is she? Nisha asked.

  A girl came to see the flat ages ago—a student from China—but she never returned.

  Nisha made a duck-face in the mirror. She flopped onto Do’s bed, flat on her back.What’s it like, I wonder? Come on.

  Cait crossed the threshold. She arranged herself on the single, folding her hands across her stomach. Nisha fake snored, imitating her father, making a wet, rumbling sound in her throat.

  What time is it? Cait asked. We should get ready.

  It’s mad! Nisha said. Imagine bunking down with a doddering old stranger.

  She’s not so bad, Cait said. She stared at the ceiling, divining meaning in the cracks.

  Does she talk in her sleep? Nisha asked.

  No, Cait lied. It rarely startled her anymore, when Do yelled in her sleep, in a mangled-up Tamil that Cait couldn’t decipher.

  And what if she sleepwalked! Nisha sat up, eyes closed, arms held out like Frankenstein. Imagine she sleepwalked right into your bed! She jumped in beside Cait and they went tumbling, tickling each other like they used to do as children.

  Seriously, Cait, Nisha said, catching her breath. Do you like it here?

  What do you mean?

  They lay on their sides, mirror imaging each other.

  You’ve been here two months, Nisha said. I thought you’d be getting out more, seeing all of London.

  London’s a big place.

  Cait didn’t say that she had no one to explore it with.

  All you ever talk about is work and school, Nisha said.

  I like work and school. Cait told her about the Guggums.

  The British Library! Nisha said. They’ll revoke your pass if they think you’re having any fun.

  Cait rolled onto her back. He used to repeat her name as he painted, she said. Guggum. Guggum. Guggum. Cait heard how stupid the word sounded. She wished she hadn’t brought it up; she wasn’t doing the story justice. She said, I know it sounds ridiculous but don’t you think it’s sweet?

  But Cait, Nisha said.Wasn’t Rossetti a complete pig?

  He buried a book of his poetry with her, Cait said. His only copy.

  Fine time to grow a conscience. Nisha propped herself up on an elbow. Listen, she said. Colin Firth is in a show at the Old Vic. Promise me you’ll see it.

  I don’t know, things are so busy right now. Cait couldn’t admit the truth: that she didn’t want to go alone. A passing thought: could she take Do with her? No, definitely not.

  Mr. Darcy in spitting distance, Nisha said, holding out a finger. Pinky swear.

  Cait hooked fingers. I wish you lived here.

  Me too, Nisha said. This last year of uni is doing my head in. She rolled off the bed. Enough faffing about. Let’s go dancing. I’m going to show you what you’re missing. She ran out of the room, pumping her fists in the air like an American cheerleader and yelling: London-town!

  When Nisha was in the bathroom, Cait straightened out both beds, still thinking about the Guggums. Lizzie drank laudanum by the spoonful and Rossetti boasted about his other models. She left a note when she died and he drew sketch after sketch. A drawer full of Guggums.

  The phone rang and she picked up the extension on Do’s bedside table.

  It was the stranger again. Are you her niece? he asked. The question made Cait feel like an interloper, as if she had no business being there.

  Sod off, she said and hung up. If the phone rang again, she wasn’t going to answer.

  Guggum. Guggum. Guggum. She repeated the word in a whisper until it began to sound right again.

  In Bloomsbury there were spiked iron fences around the parks and Georgian townhouse blocks, their windows stacked up in neat lines, a fan of glass above each glossy blue door. We are respectable and bourgeois, the houses said. We only drink single malt.

  Cait had spent the evening at the British Library, skimming old correspondence and journals. She’d stumbled on a diary entry by Rossetti’s sister who’d gone to visit his studio and found it papered with sketches of Lizzie. Rossetti is everyday with his sweetheart of whom he is more foolishly fond.

  The moon drifted in and out of sight, hidden behind the clouds. Foolishly fond. Cait repeated the line to herself as she walked, full of satisfaction, a solid day of research come to a close.

  Cutting diagonals through the laneways, she felt like a local. The weekend before, she’d taken Nisha’s advice and bought a matinee ticket. She’d sat by herself in a row full of strangers and been thrilled by Colin Firth’s proximity, the unadulterated crispness of his voice. Afterward, she’d gone to the Southbank Christmas market, eaten curry wurst out of a paper doily in dainty bites and waved to the children on the carousel while Big Ben chimed six. She’d drunk a bit too much mulled wine and felt quietly exuberant on the Tube ride home.

  This is what Cait was learning: In London it was possible to be alone and not lonely. She had taken to navigating without a map and felt intrepid and brave even though she knew she wasn’t.

  Bloomsbury Square to Great Russell Street. The British Museum. Too far north. She heard the footsteps of the person behind her as she doubled back, sneakers lethargic against pavement, and an ambulance in the distance. There were wreaths hung on doors. Through the windows, she caught glimpses of stockings on mantles and twinkling Christmas trees. Fog blurred the lamplight. Jack Ripper’s London.

  The thought of Do, anxious at the front window, made Cait feel defiant. A Mini parallel parked between two Peugeots. The bumpers kissed and the driver jumped out, engine still running, to scrutinize the damage. At the street light, a man in a suit, trouser leg tucked into a sock, balanced on a cycle. Two women jogged past, Lycra and reflective tape, and then for a long stretch, she was alone.

  Cait veered onto a street that was walled in on both sides. She’d taken a wrong turn somewhere. Everything was still except the footfalls behind her, the same lazy rhythm as before. The street name at the corner was one she didn’t recognize. Cai
t reached into her pocket and held onto her keys, forming her hand into a fist with the biggest key sticking out between two fingers. She told herself: don’t panic.

  High Holborn was nearby. North or south? She listened for traffic or pedestrian voices, but all she heard were two sets of footsteps. She walked a little faster. With purpose, as Cosmo had taught her. She swung her arms. The back of her neck burned. She took stock. She was wearing a pea coat. A belt. Jeans with buttons not a zipper. Okay. She mustn’t freak out. She mustn’t look back. Did the footsteps have a gender? Possibly it was a granny with a head scarf.

  She heard a whistle and a rabble of voices up ahead.Yes, the High Street must be just around this corner. The blood in her ears was the sound of her own panic. If she could just get to a crowded place…. She turned left into a deserted alleyway and then it was too late.

  Don’t be stupid, she told herself instead of running. London is safe. The alley was long and narrow, pedestrian-only, between two brick buildings. There was a skip, big enough to dump a body, and a tiny verge on one side. Cigarette butts littered the ground. A sleeping bag was bundled inside a cardboard box.

  Cait picked up her pace and told herself not to make a spectacle.A handful of fur blurred across her path and she gasped. The fur squeezed through a sewer grate and was gone. She pulled up short, hand on her chest, catching her breath. The voices she had heard came from a window up above. The slosh and clink of pint glasses, jeering footie fans.

  A hand circled her bicep. Not a man. Not Jack the Ripper. A boy. A yob. Thin and gangly, still growing into his limbs. His jeans hung low. He urged her backward and she felt her hair catch on the brick wall. His movements were slow and deliberate, without violence.

  The boy’s face was erupting, angry red acne spilling down his neck. He held her arms at her sides. His grip was firm. Cait’s key was still in her fist, pointed down and futile. He wore a baseball cap and a hooded sweatshirt, no jacket. Wasn’t he cold? Cait could hear the double-deckers on High Holborn. One of his legs was between both of hers. Fog gathered ghostly around their feet. He smelled of Axe body spray. He wasn’t a hobo or a vagrant or a gypsy. His mother bought his underpants at Marks and Sparks. He was pressed up so close she could feel his erection, the spikey whiteheads as his cheek grazed hers. She turned away and his tongue lapped her ear in a single wet stroke. Arsenal scored and the crowd upstairs bellowed their approval.

  Cait started to shake. She cried silently, tears streaming down her cheeks. No, no. Please, no. There was pandemonium in her stomach, adrenaline and cortisol rushing in, running back and forth with their hands on their heads. Aiyo! Aiyo!

  Something else she recalled from Cosmo: shit your pants to scare off a rapist. She couldn’t even squeeze out a bit of pee. The boy nuzzled her neck, inching toward her mouth. His breath was warm. He had been sucking a Life Saver. Cherry.

  Scream! She had to scream. She struggled to expel a shout. Her voice came out in a yelp: I’m on my period!

  A couple stumbled into the far end of the alleyway. They turned to gawk and crash landed into the skip.

  George! the girl squealed.You’re such a muppet!

  The yob released Cait’s arms and stepped away in the same fluid movement. He flicked his hood over his cap, and head down, hands in his pockets, sauntered away. Cait went limp against the wall. The back of her fist jammed hard in her mouth. She couldn’t stop shaking. The drunk couple, still mauling each other, fell out of the alley, and Cait was alone with the sound of her voice, ugly and embarrassing, echoing in her ears.

  Rossetti went mad. He sank into a haze of chloral and whisky, spending his last days as a recluse. He claimed Lizzie’s soul was not at peace, that her ghost came to him at night.

  An unscrupulous agent convinced Rossetti to publish the buried poems. They went to the cemetery at midnight, firelight glinting off the blades of their shovels.

  Cait sat on the floor with her computer on the coffee table. There were three unanswered emails from Nisha in her inbox. Turning down evening shifts and glancing over her shoulder on major thoroughfares, Cait felt the boundaries of her life closing in. Do had been right all along. Cait understood now that fear was a gift.

  She transcribed her research notes and thought of Selva. In Do’s wardrobe, under her bed, somewhere in this flat, there must be a shoebox. Love letters, round spectacles, an obituary. Maybe even a news report. Selva was the victim of a hit and run on Tottenham Court Road. Or a fatal mugging in Brixton. Cait had a bubbling-up feeling, the same one she’d had when she recognized Lizzie’s brushwork at the charity shop. Selva was taken from me. Cait summoned Google.

  The man in the picture was corpulent and balding. He’d received a teaching award. Cait heard the metal scrape of a key in the lock. The article included a family photo. A freckled child with frizzy hair held her grandfather’s hand. The tongue of the lock retracted with a click. I’d like to thank my wife—my rock for the past forty-three years. The front door swung forward.

  Aiyo! Do said. Very cold, very cold. How cold is it in Canada? Like this?

  Colder, Cait said, glancing over the top of the computer. Minus twenty or twenty-five, in some parts.

  In the picture, Selva’s wife had the look of a woman who laughed with her whole body. Her skin had been ruined by the sun. She’d probably never threaded a needle in her life, this badly preserved ginger, an unlikely Selvarajah.

  Do stamped her feet on the mat even though it hadn’t snowed. She wore the toque Cait had given her for Christmas two months earlier. Half her face was hidden in a scarf. Her eyes peered out, small and ferrety.

  Ah-nay! How to live like this? The scarf unravelled and fell to the ground. She bent to retrieve it and put a hand on her lower back as she levered herself up.

  Cait bookmarked the page. Explorer demanded a name. She called it “Selva” then added a question mark.

  Cait shut her laptop. Simon Fraser University. Something about this was familiar.

  Do sank into the arm chair. Her bottle of baby oil was within reach.

  Cait stood. Let me. Their fingers brushed when the bottle changed hands. I do this all the time for my mom, she said. It was only a white lie.

  The oil was slippery in Cait’s palm. She rubbed her hands together and a drop trickled down to her wrist, over the horizontal line she always thought of as the seam.

  Do’s hair, once a fat rope of braid, was thin, petering out at the end. Cait spread her fingers over Do’s crown. The action reminded her of a school-bus game, hands mimicking a cracking egg, imaginary yolk dripping down past the ears.

  It was said that after death, Lizzie’s hair had kept growing, that the coffin overflowed with thick, penny-coloured locks.

  Do relaxed against the upholstery. Her eyes closed. Cait felt the thinness of her shoulders, saw the brown fragile scalp.

  Cait’s mother liked to say, A woman’s hair is her crowning glory. Every six weeks a bald gay man named Raimund made her greys disappear. Her father called it witness relocation. He always laughed at his own jokes.

  Cait massaged Do’s scalp, fingers tracing each bump and hollow. She could smell Do’s perfume and the baby-soft scent of the oil. The phone rang as she was beginning a French braid.

  Cait weaved and twined, pulling with gentle pressure, as her mother had taught her. Let it go, she said. He’ll call back.

  Acknowledgements

  SHARON BALA: “A Drawer Full of Guggums” Copyright © 2015 Sharon Bala. Printed by permission of the author.

  MELISSA BARBEAU: “Holes” Copyright © 2015 Melissa Barbeau. Printed by permission of the author.

  JAMIE FITZPATRICK: “Like Jewels” Copyright © 2015 Jamie Fitzpatrick. Printed by permission of the author.

  CARRIE IVARDI: “Rescue” Copyright © 2015 Carrie Ivardi. Printed by permission of the author.

  MATTHEW LEWIS: “The Jawbone Box” Copyright © 2015 Matthew Lewis. Printed by permission of the author.

  JENINA MACGILLIVRAY: “Gorillas” Copyright © 2
015 Jenina MacGillivray. Printed by permission of the author.

  IAIN MCCURDY: “Crossbeams” Copyright © 2015 Iain McCurdy. Printed by permission of the author.

  MORGAN MURRAY: “KC Accidental” Copyright © 2015 Morgan Murray. Printed by permission of the author.

  GARY NEWHOOK: “23 Things I Hate in No Particular Order” Copyright © 2015 Gary Newhook. Printed by permission of the author.

  MELANIE OATES: “A Holy Show” Copyright © 2015 Melanie Oates. Printed by permission of the author.

  SUSAN SINNOT: “Benched” Copyright © 2015 Susan Sinnott. Printed by permission of the author.

  The cover and back-cover design of Racket are an homage to PURITY FACTORIES LTD. (www.facebook.com/purityfactories) and the packaging of their traditional Newfoundland Hard Bread. Design elements used courtesy of Purity Factories Ltd.

  Contributors

  SHARON BALA’s short fiction has received three Newfoundland and Labrador Arts & Letters Awards. In 2015 her manuscript The Boat People won the Percy Janes First Novel Award. She has stories forthcoming in The New Quarterly, Riddle Fence, Grain, and Room.

  MELISSA BARBEAU is a writer and an instrumental music teacher. She has published in Paragon I and III, in The Cuffer Anthology, and in the online literary journal Salty Ink. She has won Newfoundland and Labrador Arts and Letters Awards for fiction and nonfiction and the Cox and Palmer SPARKS Creative Writing Award. She is currently completing an MA in English at Memorial University. Barbeau lives with her husband and their children in Torbay, but her heart lives in Freshwater, Conception Bay.

  JAMIE FITZPATRICK’s debut novel, You Could Believe in Nothing, is about estranged siblings, departed lovers, St. John’s, hockey, drink, and the trouble that ensues when an aging disc jockey gets lonely in his motel room out around the bay. His short memoir, “These Memories Can’t Wait: Lies My Music Told Me,” is anthologized in Becoming Fierce. His writing has also appeared in The New Quarterly, The Cuffer Anthology, and The Newfoundland Quarterly.

  CARRIE IVARDI grew up in Mississauga, Ontario. She graduated in Honours English from Bishop’s University in Quebec, having spent several semesters in England and France. Her travels have included tree planting in remote regions across Canada, editing an arts and entertainment magazine in British Columbia, writing for CBC radio in Sudbury, marketing for a major Toronto-based firm, and attending a writers’ conference in Iceland. She recently relocated from Thompson, Manitoba, with her husband and three children and is currently working on her Master’s in English Literature at Memorial University.