by Betsy Burke
“The pool hall,” I said. “C’mon, Jacques. Let’s go find him. If you don’t mind, that is.”
“No problem,” said Jacques, but I could see he wished he had Madeline to rush home to.
Then I remembered Connie. “Mom, can I have some leftovers?”
My mother’s expression became instantly cheerful. “Why, of course you can. You know, even before you start planning, you should try to get plenty of folic acid into your diet. It’s especially important right in the first few weeks. I saw it in an article. Now, where was it? Ladies’ Home Journal, I think. Yes, folic acid.” She gave Jacques another adoring look. I followed my mother into the kitchen and watched her make tin foil packets.
Jacques drove fast toward town. He hadn’t made the dent in the gin bottle that I had and was calm, while I twisted Kleenexes and moaned about my family. I directed Jacques to Pete’s Pool Hall, a joint of minor scuzziness, not far from Jeremy’s launderette.
Pete’s Pool Hall was noisy for an Easter Sunday and a lot of drinking and illegal substance abuse was going on.
I found my father right away. He was there in a corner, seated on the floor, his back propped against the wall and his legs in spread-eagle fashion. He was wearing his leather outfit, a bandana, and along with a three-day growth of beard, he had a shiny gold earring piercing his left lobe, which looked sore. One of his canine teeth was chipped (trying to open beer bottles, I found out later) and he was chain-smoking cigarettes, ripping off the filter before he stuck the ciggie in the new gap in his teeth. I heard somebody say “Tequila” and my father answer “Over here.” There were yelps of approval and calls of “Way ta go, Stu.” My father’s name is Stuart.
I don’t know if my father saw me, but if he did, he pretended not to know me. I didn’t try to get any closer. It was too scary.
Snake, who was shooting pool in a quiet corner, put down his cue when he saw me and came right over. He nodded in the direction of my father. “Bit of a mind-bender, eh?”
“He’s gone nuts, Snake,” I said.
“Naw. Stu’s just doing a little catching up. He missed out on all the fun when he became a Holy Roller.”
“Well, if the school board catches up with him, he might be missing out on even more of the fun. The fun of his monthly paycheck.”
“Shit, Luce, I never took you for such a conservative.”
“I’m just trying to put myself in his shoes.”
“Sure you are. It’s understandable. But I wouldn’t have a hissy fit over it, if I were you.”
“But just look at him, Snake.” I pointed toward him and made frantic little motions with my hands.
My father’s tall, like Jeremy was, and I would have said the getup almost suited him, if I didn’t know that it was my father under all that animal skin. How was such an anally retentive neat-freak going to look at himself in the mirror when he finally decided to come to his senses?
Snake picked up where my thoughts left off. “He’s over twenty-one, Luce. He’s entitled to break out. Hell, he should have done it long ago. Cut him some slack. When he’s properly screwed, he can grab some shut-eye on my couch. I’ll see he doesn’t get into any trouble.”
On the way home, I got Jacques to stop outside Connie’s house. I couldn’t face her in person again so I set the leftovers on the old wooden porch chair, rang the bell several times, then ran away.
When Jacques dropped me off outside my apartment, he said, “Hey, Luce, if you’re ever thinking of propagating and need some cross-pollination, keep me in mind. We’ve got your mother’s seal of approval, after all.”
I gave Jacques a nice kiss on the lips and tried to push the image of Madeline out of my head. My unborn children and I didn’t want just the stud material. We wanted the package it was wrapped in, too.
9
I fell into a restless sleep full of dreams. Jacques was in them. We were kissing. In the background were hundreds of plaster gnomes, cement frogs and lawn jockeys. Some of the gnomes looked suspiciously like Madeline and I became convinced that she was spying on us. I kept whirling around to try to catch her at it but saw nothing but gnomes being their little plaster selves. Jacques held me more tightly and told me that I was just paranoid, that Madeline was away and had a heavy schedule. First, she would be in London, then Paris, then Sarajevo. I relaxed. We were just on the verge of cross-pollinating when noises woke me up.
There was a strange staccato sound at my window. A relentless tapping. The April wind was blowing hard and whined through the tree branches. I finally got out of bed to look. Through the curtain I could see a dark figure in the alley below. I ducked down quickly, thinking it might be Dirk. But the tapping went on. No bricks or notes, just a light shower of something that sounded like pebbles.
I eased my way up and peeked again. When my eyes adjusted, I could see Paul Bleeker standing below my window, showing off the whiteness of his teeth. He had a plastic bag in his hand. He reached in, took a handful of something and hurled it at my window. I stuck my head out just in time to get a faceful of uncooked rice.
Rice!!!
Rice???
Was I supposed to read something more into this?
When he saw me, he starting laughing, or rather, snicker-snackering.
“You’re awake,” he yelled, and curtains flickered in at least three windows of nearby buildings.
“I am now. What time is it?”
“Four o’clock. Come out with me, Lucy. Come out with me right now. We’re going to see some action.”
Oh goody, I thought, he’ll take me to one of those all-night eardrum-battering grunge clubs and we’ll drink under-the-table plonk and maybe dance a little, then go and get some Chinese take-out and go back to his place and have a truly romantic time licking each other’s fingers. What a great way to spend Easter Monday.
“Coming,” I said, and hurried into my swishy black above-the-knee velour dress that clung to my body but hid most of the pudge at the same time. I yanked on skimpy black leather granny boots and my denim jacket and I was ready.
He was there at the front door, waiting. He grabbed my hand and said, “C’mon. Run.”
I started toward his van but he pulled me in the other direction. “Not that way,” he barked.
“Where are we running to then?” A gale force wind was blowing and the temperature was around four degrees Celsius. I looked forward to the shelter of a vehicle and then some hot smoky nightclub.
“We’re going to watch the storm. C’mon. Run.”
Where did he find the energy? I pretended I was someone I wasn’t, and forced myself to think “Athlete,” think “Olympic track star.” I was just barely able to keep up. We ran all the way to the sea wall at Stanley Park. When we got there, it took the last of my strength to pretend that I wasn’t having an asthma attack.
Okay. I am not the kind of girl who works out. If I get on a bicycle, I expect it to take me from A to B, slowly, not to remain stationary in a row along with a whole lot of other sweaty, tortured, straining (but not flabby!) faux cyclists pedalling so fast their feet are a blur. For what? To be able to sit around the health club lounge drinking wheat germ and soya yuckshakes and look toned?
I’m willing to take a brisk walk somewhere as long as there’s a reward at the end of it: a chocolate eclair, a baklava dripping with honey. Otherwise, forget it!
As for jogging, well, I’m against that, too. It’s unhealthy. I tried it once with Sky. We decided to jog barefoot in the sand at the water’s edge along Spanish Banks. It was a beautiful summer’s evening. The apricot sun sat low in the sky, and the wharves were swarming with families setting their crab traps in the sunset and preparing lanterns for the darkness that would follow. The beach thrummed in that last light, as if the sand and logs and waves and mountains were all sighing with satisfaction.
We both felt really good that evening. It was going to be a whole new leaf, a new chapter for the two of us. We were about to become paragons of fitness. I would be the fan
tastically spry, slim, boundlessly energetic Lucy Madison. I would run every day, rain or shine, until I was a taut fast running machine, ready to go professional, perhaps run in the New York Marathon.
We tied our shoes around our necks and set our goal in the distance. Sky sproinged along like a baby gazelle, but I left footprints so deep that children’s mothers were warning them to stay away from them in case they fell in and hurt themselves. Then I went a little too hard into some soft wet sand and fell flat on my face, spraining my ankle in the process. Sky turned to see what had happened to me and had a full-frontal collision with a very chunky, very dangerous-looking woman. At least we think it was a woman. We medicated our injuries with ice-cold margaritas, nachos, guacamole, sour cream and salsa.
Fortunately, Paul wasn’t looking at me as I gasped for air and clutched the place in my side where a stitch had developed. He was standing on top of the sea wall, with his hands outstretched toward the swirling clouds, the jagged dangerous sea, the whitecaps, the frothing waves bashing the rocks.
“Bloody marvelous,” he yelled. “Look at those tones. Those grays. That lead. That steel. That dove. That silver. That char-coal. Those blacks. That obsidian. That raven. That jet.”
I could barely see a thing. My night vision is poor and with the wind whipping my hair into my face and the first lashings of rain coming at me, it was all I could do to stay standing.
Yes, Paul was just being an Englishman entranced by our West Coast weather. Inner London doesn’t have big sea storms. He went on and on about the grays, the subtle tones of darkness, the chiaroscuro of the hours before dawn. And then he turned around, leapt from the wall, and pressed me up against some barnacle-covered rocks. He kissed me hard for a few seconds then pulled me to the ground.
The rain was coming harder now and the beach was wet and slimy. There was nothing between me and the beach with its pebbly sand and rocks but my poor little velour dress. A few gritty shiftings, clutchings and miscellaneous movements and he had my tights around my knees. Part of me wanted to protest. Another part of me was hovering above my body and saying, “Aren’t I wild and reckless, and such a daring woman having sex on the beach during a storm with the famous artist Paul Bleeker. I’ll have something to tell my grandchildren…if I ever have children, that is.”
Our romantic encounter was all over in a few short minutes. My entire backside was drenched and my hair full of sand, seaweed and tiny desiccated crab carcasses. Paul managed to light his ritual Sobranie despite the wind and rain. As we walked back toward my apartment, he smoked and talked about how these predawn hours were the real hours, the time for creation, for gathering energy from other sleepers’ dreams. He was completely oblivious to the rain that was trickling in rivulets off his hair and beard, and down his leather jacket.
When we reached my door, Paul gave me a long gentle kiss, smiled, said, “Go on then,” and ushered me through the front door. I expected to see him behind me. He would come inside to the warmth and make up for the chilly encounter. But when I got to my door and turned around he was gone. I ran back to the main entrance and scanned the rainy street, but he had vanished.
Wet, cold and disappointed, I went inside, stripped off my soggy clothes and stood under the hot shower. It took a lot of water to get all the sticky sand off my skin and out of my hair. When I crawled into bed, the touch of the icy sheets sent me into fits of shivering. I refluffed my duvet, slid farther under the covers and lay there trembling until the first light of day edged through my window and a feverish sleep engulfed me.
I dreamt I was paddling around the ocean in a beautifully painted boat. It was like a gondola but had been painted with Aztec designs in bright colors. I noticed the water around the gondola was murky and dark and seemed to be rising. My boat was badly caulked and had started to leak. I was slowly sinking. The harder I bailed, the faster the water rose. On nearby rocks, a chorus of slender slimy mermaids taunted me. They alternated between being glistening and ethereal, and grotesque and fishy. Their voices grew louder until they were invading everything, blasting, ringing. It was a strangely familiar sound…like a telephone. I forced myself awake and stumbled out of bed to pick up the receiver.
“Hello?” I rasped.
“Hello? I’d like to speak to Lucy Madison, please.”
“This is Lucy,” I growled.
“It is? Gosh, you sound completely different. It’s Sam. Sam Trelawny.”
I perked up. “Hi, Sam. How’re things? You’re working on Easter Monday?”
“My clients don’t take holidays unfortunately, which is why I’m calling. There’s been a breakthrough with Dirk.”
“Really?” I rasped.
“Are you okay? Your voice sounds strange,” said Sam.
“I think I’m getting a cold or flu or something.”
“Try some mulled wine. You put some oranges, cloves, cinnamon and honey on to boil in a little water, and when it’s hot, add the wine.”
I was tempted to ask him if he’d come over and make it for me. And maybe sit on the edge of my bed and feed it to me with a teaspoon. “I’d do it but I’m out of wine. My roommate’s a Viking. She and one of her oarsmen drank it all. They were thirsty after a night of pillage and plunder.”
“Plunder. Ha ha. I’ve never heard it called that. Hot lemon and honey’s good, too,” said Sam.
“Uh-huh,” I croaked.
“Let me tell you about Dirk.” Sam’s tone was serious.
“Okay. If you must.”
“It seems he was working the area around Broadway and 22nd, pestering women, mostly university students waiting for the bus. Apparently, he was telling everybody that he was looking for a six-foot-tall woman with brains to cast in his film…this is just what the storekeepers in the area have reported to the police. Anyway, the upshot of it all is that he broke a store window in the area. He’s been arrested. Now, they’ve taken him out to the Forensic unit at Riverview.”
“The Forensic?”
“I know, I know. Unfortunately, because of his size, they’re a little intimidated by him. He was quite verbal when they were taking him away, although to be fair, he didn’t put up any physical resistance. He kept shouting, ‘A horse, a horse, my kingdom for a horse…’ and ‘what fools these mortals be…’ The police officers weren’t too sure what to think, but I guess he’s a little frightening, with his height and physique. Dirk’s a tall guy, I gather.”
“He’s six foot four.” There was no doubt about it. Dirk was a member of a rare brotherhood. Emphasis on hood.
“Tall enough. He crossed the line by damaging private property, so officially, he’s been booked as a criminal. He’ll probably be in the Forensic until they have time to assess the situation. I’m going to try and get out there to see him in the next couple of days.”
“That would be good.” I felt weary. All that wasted manic energy.
“And you should go and see him, too, Lucy.”
“Do I have to?”
I could almost hear Sam smiling. “Support from family is really helpful, Lucy, even though it might not seem like it to you. The Forensic isn’t a very nice place. It’s full of rapists and murderers.”
“Are you trying to put a guilt trip on me, Sam?”
“Maybe just a tiny one. Strangely enough, the family members that the mentally ill individual often picks on the most are the ones whose forgiveness they really want.”
“Tell me about it.”
Sam went on, “I’ll try to get out there on Wednesday. Maybe we can meet up. The visiting hours are just around dinnertime.”
Now this was an incentive to go.
“Okay, I’ll try to go, too.”
“Good girl. Oh, by the way. Here’s something you might be interested in. It’s a support group for family and friends of manic depressives.”
“Uh-huh.” I could just imagine what a bundle of fun that would be.
“You’re probably thinking, oh terrific, a bunch of unhappy people sitting around bitch
ing about their depressed and crazy relatives.”
“Yeah, more or less.”
“Well, it’s not quite like that. FOBIA has made great strides.”
“Phobia?”
“Yeah, that’s the name of the group. Friends of Bi-polar Individuals Alliance. Check it out. Here’s the phone number. They’re having their next meeting Friday night at this address in Kerrisdale.”
I took down the phone number and Kerrisdale address. Humor him, I told myself, he has a nice voice.
I spent the rest of the day shifting in and out of sleep. My whole body ached and my head pounded. I got up to take some aspirin and passed Anna in the hallway. She was semi-naked, on her way into the living room for another bout of the contortionist movements she called yoga. She radiated good health. I was too sick even to envy her. I crawled back into bed and hoped for death to come quickly.
On Tuesday morning, I called Nadine at home. “Dadine, it’s be, Lucy. I can’t cub id today. I have a terrible cold. You’ll have to do without be.”
“Absolutely not, Lucy. You get yourself down here and fast. Paul called me last night. We’ll be discussing the preparations for his show. If you stand me up, you’ll be queueing along with all the other deadbeats at the Canada Employment Centre faster than you can say Lucy Madison, former gallery assistant.”
“Thanks, Dadine, you’re a real Bensch.”
“You’re welcome, I’m sure. Now get your disproportionate ass down to the gallery and open up. I’ll be along at ten.”
I didn’t let it get to me.
I took the bus to work. I’d taken an extra packet of superstrength cold formula and everyone drifting past me looked very beautiful and gracious and slightly hazy. I floated into the gallery, sat down at my desk and woke up when Nadine banged on it an hour later.
“Sorry, Dadine, I bust have dropped off. I’b sure dobody cabe id. They would have woken be.”