They get in Lydia’s car. I follow in mine. They drive into the Battery. To Craig’s house beyond the yellow rail.
I sit in the car and watch them through Craig’s kitchen window. It is a beautiful window that looks back over St John’s. His view is the reverse of my view.
There are two frozen salmon steaks hauled out to thaw. Their pink skin crystallizing to a hot white. Craig turns on a light and closes the curtains.
14 There is a warm wind blowing, a soft buttery moon. Max baked a brie with glazed crushed walnuts, a date on top. There is fresh-baked sourdough bread. We dip chunks into the melted brie and drink wine.
I ask Daphne what they did today.
Daphne: Max cooked a pheasant.
A pheasant?
Max: Daphne told me you can find pheasant in Sobeys and I imagined them hiding in behind the boxes of Cheerios, wild pheasant nesting in the rafters.
Pheasant is a good dish, Daphne says.
Max: I stuffed it with plums and quince and sewed it up. He pronounces sewed like lewd.
Daphne: Then we sat down and ate it.
I walk home from Max’s, a wind bouncing off the southside hills. It’s on nights like this that things happen. It was a sinister wind. And the moon with fast wisps of cloud over it. Max raised a glass to Eugene Cernan, the last man to walk on the moon. On this very night.
15 Maisie launches her novel at the Ship Inn. She has a beautiful line where a character fires up her zipper. That’s what I like about Maisie: she chooses the right word. There’s more going on in the story, but it’s that word I remember.
Maisie’s nervous at the Ship. She has no need to be nervous. The work is good.
16 I walk past Lydia’s house. I look in through the front window. I see Craig passing two pills to Lydia’s cupped hand. Then a glass of water. Tinker Bumbo stretched out on the couch. Craig holds the water in his right hand and Lydia takes the pills into her left hand. So there is a moment when their arms are crossed, in reception.
I remember Lydia asking, But what do you love about me? When I paused she said, Youre obsessed with my body. Yes, I said.
Youre obsessed with being in love, she said.
I am obsessed with being in love. I admit to this.
Lydia: You are weak alone.
I’ve never liked being alone, it’s true.
17 When you describe an experience, what you are recounting is your memory of the act, not the act itself. Experiencing a moment is an inarticulate act. There are no words. It is in the sensory world. To recall it and to put words to it is to illustrate how one remembers the past, rather than actually experiencing the past. Keep this in mind as you read the words of others as they remember an incident.
18 Catholics rehearse their stories. They tell stories over and over. The same story, torquing it a little, realizing a certain detail is not working, adding stuff. I’ve heard the same two dozen stories out of Lydia about thirty times. And then there are the daily stories. Events that happen that she recounts. She’ll tell me, and then she’ll call Daphne, and then her brother phones and she tells her brother. The thing I find interesting about this story-telling is that if you heard only one of these stories, you’d think she was telling it for the first time. The enthusiasm behind it. That’s definitely a Catholic thing. Protestants tell a story once and it’s over with. They feel self-conscious to tell the story again. They are aware of who has already heard the story. Protestants tell a story best the first time; Catholics, the last time.
This follows through into making up after arguments. Lydia wanted to list every point in the argument, make sure it was fleshed out, whereas I was happy enough to say, Okay, let’s apologize and get on with it. It’s as if there is some pleasure in recounting each moment of the fight, who said what when, and admitting to each wrong turn taken. Usually, of course, I had taken the wrong turns. I’m not sure if this is Catholic or not, but Lydia was convinced she knew my true motives, and I would be a bigger man if I could only admit to them. But by that time the entire fight would have evaporated into a mist with no detail or shape to me any more, and to admit to wrong-doing would be a lie. I admitted to nothing. I can be stubborn in this.
19 I watch ships coasting into harbour with bulk. Or are they empty. So slow. Ships seem arduous. Yet if you take your eye off one, it has instantly docked or left harbour again.
I bought a crate of tangerines. This is the only export I have seen from Morocco.
Helmut has come for Christmas. He says, We should put candles on the tree.
Five months of sailing has made him thinner and ropey. He is like a coil of rope. He has tremendous strength in his grip.
He makes candle holders out of copper wire. He places twenty-six candles on the tree. We turn off the lamps as he touches the candles with a match. The candles offer light from below The tinsel lifts in the updraft. It’s a soft, uplifting light.
I watch Helmut in the kitchen, sharpening a knife on the back of a plate.
He gives me a stainless-steel spatula made in Sweden. It’s wrapped and looks exactly like a spatula.
20 Wilf says his father used to sniff out fat fires. There was a man at bingo when his house burned down. They couldnt find any evidence of arson. It was a new house, properly inspected. So they gave him the insurance.
A couple of months later the police got a letter from the man with a cheque for the full amount, plus interest, and a confession to arson. The man had just found out he had terminal cancer.
People were visiting him and saying what an honest man he’d been all his life. He couldnt live with the guilt. Or better, die with it. Even his wife didnt know.
This is what he did: He crumpled newspapers and shoved them under the couch cushions and chairs. He doused a couch with a forty-ouncer of gin. He lit the paper and went to bingo. If you want to commit arson, use alcohol. It leaves no residue.
The man had burned down his house so he could build a new one down by his daughter’s place. He wanted to be close to his daughter and he knew he wouldnt be able to sell his house for what it was worth.
Because of the cancer, they didnt charge him.
One final note, Wilf says. If it was a fat fire, Dad had no compassion. He’d let photographers take pictures of the bodies.
21 I am drunk and sentimental. Can’t believe what I’ve said to Lydia. I called and said let’s get married for a year. It would help me, I could let you go more, knowing you were mine for a full year, and then we could renegotiate the terms.
And Lydia thought about it, then spoke about Oliver’s voucher. You dont like it when I talk about the voucher, do you? I think it would be disastrous, I say.
One bacchanalian night a year. You go home with someone and there are no questions or repercussions. It was meant as a fleeting proposition, but Lydia has latched onto it. There is a corner of her, a small pocket with a line of lint in it, and the lint agrees with this voucher idea.
But really the voucher is a ruse. She’s attaching herself to Craig Regular. She has been hurt by me and is drifting to that smooth smart goofy guy. Who wouldnt.
22 I tell Max, There’s nothing better than holding tight to the one person whose smell, whose taste, youve craved all day long.
Love is a savage thing, he says. Love is all to do with head, heart, and animal.
Daphne: You do the silliest things to make that one person laugh.
Max and Daphne are over for lunch. Max: I’ve been busier than a mink on a rabbit trail.
I ask Daphne what she did today and she says, and she’s got this raspy voice, these sharp features, and a deep larynx like she’s been shouting all night she says she got up at noon and read Maisie’s new book and then took Eli out Christmas shopping.
Max: I’m tired of buying things.
Me: So what do you think of the book?
Daphne: It’s not my kind o
f thing.
Me: I dont persist in things that dont grab.
She laughs: I like that bit of you.
On several occasions she says, Oh no, Max, Gabriel wouldnt do that, because he no longer bothers with things he’s not interested in.
23 I hear Max say: So are you and Craig seeing each other?
Lydia says nothing. Then she says, So how are things with Daphne? Is sex good?
Coming and going, Max says.
Lydia: Is it more coming or going?
24 I’m with Max, Maisie, Una, Daphne, and Wilf singing We Three Kings in front of the dark fire station. Three garage doors ascend and yellow headlights wink under the edge of the doors, then beam out. There are five silhouettes with arms crossed standing in front of the trucks, legs splayed, theyre wearing gaiters. We sing and the fire-engine lights flick on silently and strobe red. The men walk towards us in their gaiters. We see their faces. They are grinning. The kids stretch up tiptoe and break from the carollers. They see that the firemen have candy. We follow. That was wonderful, one fireman says. We were just collecting for one of the men who’s in hospital.
They show us the thick chrome pole. And three men slide down, bending knees to absorb the landing, and peel away. The kids scream at this. Theyre allowed to jump onto running boards and look in at dashes and tremendous gear shifts.
25 Lydia calls me early on Christmas morning. To say Tinker Bumbo is dead.
Lydia: He started to cough up blood and I took him to the vet and the vet gave him an injection.
She’s crying on the phone.
Are you alone?
Mom and Dad are here.
Do you want me to come down?
I walk down. The harbour is covered in new snow, and the morning light is pink on the snow. The water is bright. The shipyard is quiet.
Tinker Bumbo is lying on his cushion. He looks asleep. Except he’s not noisy enough.
Lydia’s father says, We should bury him.
Lydia: Out in the woods.
She calls Max and Daphne and they come by with Eli, and Maisie comes too and we drive out together to the barrens on the highway. Lydia’s father has put Tinker Bumbo in a canvas sack and laid him on a plastic sled. We tow him, single file, into a group of spruce trees beside the mouth of a pond.
Under a big spruce we push away the moss. And Lydia and I pry out a big rock with a crowbar. The rock separates from the frost.
I lay his blue blanket in the hole. Then lay him gently on it. He’s cuddled into his position. Lydia covers him in moss, and I trim a few boughs and lay them over him.
We cover Tinker with the crystallized soil. The sun is soft on the water. There’ll be grouse here soon enough.
Lydia’s father says Lydia and I should come back in the summer and paint the rock for Tinker.
26 Last night I walked to three different parties. At three in the morning I’m at Maisie’s. I am on the couch with Alex Fleming. I have Alex’s hand cupped in mine. We are drinking beer Maisie found in a cupboard. Tonight Alex is taking care of me. We are all wounded in ways that require temporary solace.
I say to her, I’m blowing this popsicle stand. This entire city. I’m leaving it. I’m gonna drive my trusty Jethro to Heart’s Desire and never come back.
Alex asks if I need company. I wouldnt be good company. You’d be a useless article. Precisely.
27 The snow comes when you arent looking. Snow as fresh as a new sinister avocado leaf.
I’m in my bedroom with the space heater on blast. The Star of the Sea looks large. Alex, at midday, comes over for a cup of tea. She’s wearing funky inner-city sneakers that look as fortified as skates. I’m still in my pajamas.
Alex: I can’t stand people asking me what I’m up to.
Me: I’ve noticed people dont ask me that any more, because times are so hard. I have no job and I broke up with Lydia. I’ve given up on the novel. I’m drinking too much. They ask me where I’m at, that’s all. They dont want to feel embarrassed.
When she leaves I go back to bed. I look at the city through binoculars. The Christmas lights make me forlorn. I look in the window where Oliver lives, but he’s not in. But later, when I call about the Heart’s Desire house, he says he was there. On his back on the floor, keyboard on his stomach. He says I can go out there any time I want.
I am focused on the last saltbox house in St John’s. Then down to Craig’s house in the Battery. Every spring the neighbours paint the rocks in his backyard white.
28 I wake up with a clenched, sore jaw. I drive out to Heart’s Desire because Christmas in town is driving me to fury. It’s so cold. And I think of Bartlett’s candle. So cold at the pole the flame could not melt the outside of the candle. Merely the wick and a narrow pool down the centre. I make a smoked-salmon pasta when the jannies come in. A barrel-chested fellow with a dress on, a crutch, and a large beige bra on over the dress. He’s wearing a rubber Halloween mask and rubber boots and trigger mitts. A woman dressed as a man wiggles her behind, where a silver bauble dangles. A third fanny quietly sits himself down and lights up a smoke. He has a green towel over his face, and he parts the folds to smoke.
Me:You’ll be wanting a drink of rum.
And the one with the crutch says, We’ll settle for that.
I put out the rum and some glasses and mix one with Pepsi and another straight.
Me: Now how am I going to guess you?
The crutch says, with an ingressive voice, Oh, you’ll never guess us.
There is a scratching at the door then, and a little dog wags in. It’s Josh’s dog.
Oh, now there’s a clue.
The dog barks then wags at the crutch man. Oh, he’s a nice dog.
I guess them but it’s not Josh and his parents. It’s Toby and his mother and father. They are sweltering under their garb. They say, Come out with us now.
How come you have Josh’s dog?
Oh, the Harnums moved to Alberta.
I wrap a quilt around my waist. Toby’s mother takes down a
sheer curtain and I place the curtain over my head. I shove on a beanie and they say,Youre perfect. Grab your guitar and let’s go down to the road.
We’ll leave the dog in here.
We walk past Josh’s house. The windows are boarded over. A For Sale sign below the mailbox. And then I notice a lot of the houses in Heart’s are boarded over.
The guitar loses its tune in the cold. Toby raps on the screen door.
Any jannies in tonight?
And in we walk, banging our boots in the porch.
They take down a bottle of rum and some glasses and get the girls down to look at us, but the girls arent interested. They frown at us. And the missus holds under her arm a little cocker spaniel that barks. She doesnt tell the dog to stop, and she doesnt take it away. Just points it at us, barking.
I play I Can’t Help It If I’m Still in Love with You, in falsetto. And they all sing along. The guitar has warmed up again.
But they can’t guess us, and they look interrupted, so we leave, and Toby wants me to continue down the shore.
I say, I’m heading home. No one knows me.
Sure, look at the length of you. Who else could you be? Well, they never twigged.
When I get back I remember Josh’s dog. He spends the night, at the bottom of my bed. The only thing left of the Harnums.
29 I realize living in Heart’s Desire is agony. When youre on your own, you can focus on your agony all day long. I decide to drive back to town and confront it. I shovel Lydia’s front steps, salt her path. I make Egyptian lentil soup.
I’ve decided to attend Lydia’s party.
She is making quiche and pear melba pies. There are casseroles of turkey soup. I’ve learned, from Lydia, to make pastry without touching it. Craig is arranging a bowl of marzipan apples. I notice he’s put
on weight and let his hair grow an inch. He has a softer look. His glasses are made of titanium, the hinge is one single wire bent and the temple pushed down through the coil.
Max, out of allegiance to me, says, Hey, Craig, nice glasses. They come in men’s?
Craig: No. But I hear you do.
Craig has zippers on his front pockets. A quiet man.
Wilf is in a corner chanting to himself: Got to get through. January. Got to get through. February.
Pause.
Got to get through. January. Got to get through.
Craig corners me to confess a feeling for Lydia. So I pretend Lydia means nothing to me. That I highly recommend her.
He says, The human being can’t live too long with uncertainty. It prefers failure to uncertainty.
Lydia says then, There are so many fucking mediocre artists in this country.
Then, to me: I suppose youre writing that down.
Max says to me, I can’t believe how polite youre being. What, should I start throwing furniture?
Cause a scene, man. This is your moment to shine. Wilf comes over to me and says, So Tinker’s gone, hey? Yes.
Max: He was a dog especially loved for doggy acts.
Wilf: He was a dog’s dog.
Wilf has strong forearms. And a willingness to try on a woman’s pillbox hat.
Boyd Coady’s television is still in the living room.
30 I wake up alone and open the blinds to the city. The harbour is frozen shut. Iris and Helmut have flown to Miami to study a sailboat. I’m the kind of man who craves to be alone, but once alone, I crave company. It’s as though I’d prefer to live in a tough situation than to live in a vacuum. I’m thinking that I have to learn to live alone, but what I really need to learn is how to live with someone else. Happiness seems impossible.
I sing the saddest songs I know, Hank Williams songs. I cook some eggs and brew a pot of tea. Tea is far better for a hangover. I can feel the corners of my mouth drooping in sadness, and I laugh at my sadness. I can examine and appreciate my own emotional torment. Luckily, I’m not a man prone to moroseness. If it were not for my buoyant constitution I would slit my wrists in the bathtub. I would.
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