Street Symphony

by Rachel Wyatt

  “Kate. Good to see you. How are you, sweetie?”

  I would like to tell her that the last person who called me sweetie ended up in landfill, but she doesn’t wait for a response. Goes to get her coffee. One day perhaps I’ll unravel my story for her and allow her to be kind. Meanwhile, she sits down and I listen to her tale of trouble at work. Lousy management. Bad atmosphere. How lucky for me, she is thinking. Lucky for Kate that she is out of the maelstrom. Or whatever she would call it. Stress of daily life. I resist the temptation to jog the table and spill her coffee. Can’t punish her for imagined thoughts. My life, as she sees it, empty. Blank page.

  Line going through my head as she talks, A woman up. A woman down. The see-saw of life. I see. You saw. Remember it for later. From such lines whole pages spring. Then she asks how I’ll be spending Christmas. I shrink. Is she about to suggest a joint activity, a social event, a nightmare of some kind?

  “I’m going to be spending it with my daughter.”

  “In Oregon?”

  “She’s coming to Vancouver. I’ll meet her there.”

  “How lovely for you.”

  “Thank you.”

  Gone and taken her smile with her. No Cheshire cat she.

  I look at the wooden walls of this small building and see fragility. One tornado, but they’re rare here, hardly ever happen, would wipe out the café and all of us too. A great loss? In cosmic terms, a speck of a loss! A nice space for the developer. A small apartment building or maybe a superstore could replace this old strip of stores: Hairdresser, Deli, Pizza Place, Florist, Grocery. Something for everyone.

  Owner entering. Jurgen Hansson. Terry moves to look alert behind the counter. Sets down the muffin he’d nibbled. I can imagine sleeping with Jurgen. Mid-forties. Decent. I can’t imagine that this place makes enough revenue to keep him and two staff plus rent. Other pies for his fingers maybe. But why subsidize this shabby place for these shabby people? Is he a philanthropist? Does he see it as a public service? A tax writeoff? I could, if I wanted, raise funds and buy him out, put down a sizable amount anyway. But I’d only own it in order to blow it up. Empty of customers or full? Not a good question at this time of the morning. But truly, I wish these people no harm. Except for the one.

  When we’re in here, we’re real. We’re expected to be here. If I don’t turn up, Elise who works here Tuesday to Thursday worries that I’ve died. Before long, that will be true. When I get home, I’ll mark a date on the calendar, a date not far off: The first of December. Arthur day. I’ll make him turn round and really look at me, at the scar on my head hidden under my cap. Perhaps I’ll stick a knife in him as I say, “Anderton Towers! Remember me?” More likely, I’ll simply grab his cane and push him over. Whatever. It’ll give me something to look forward to while I sit in the clinic this afternoon with a needle in my arm.

  “Your name is Kate Gillian Brent. Your date of birth is August 4, 1961.” They say that to make sure it’s me before they start dripping terrifying chemicals into my body. We’ll joke, the nurse and I. Can’t you make it a martini, please? And I think to myself that a couple of cocktails might be just as effective, and more fun. But that’s heresy. We must have faith. Faith is belief in the unreal, the unsubstantiated. Like hope, it’s as necessary to us as water. Charity follows on behind at a great distance. You sit in your garden admiring azaleas while aware of the hardships of others.

  “How was your weekend?” Terry asks every other customer, but doesn’t listen to the answers. When they give their orders, he says, “Here or to go?”

  How was my weekend? If you find me dead, please call the following numbers. My name is Kate Gillian Brent, if found dead… I scrawled. That was my weekend! Feeling quite well, I went over to the Mainland. Had a ticket for a concert at the Orpheum. Didn’t make it. I wasn’t sure what to write next on the note. Hardly fair to ask the hotel management to call several different people all of whom might be out: Simon, Mary, Derek, Evan, Alison, Dr. Fairweather. Sit up straight and breathe. Thought processes slowed down. No sharp synaptic leaps, just groping crawls. Hesitations. Fog. Pulse freakish. Put Mary’s name and number on the note. Only brother Simon would panic, just as he had when I fell in the playground and broke my leg. He trotted off home. Didn’t even mention it to Mother. Ran in and got a glass of juice from the fridge. He always shied away from distress and is loved by all for his bonhomous approach to life.

  When I am found dead, Mary will make her way from Portland, thoughtfully, possibly making lists. Grieving and making lists, making phone calls. Mary making things right for her mother. Mary is sturdy of mind and unsentimental; therefore her love is precious and real, even when it’s couched in stern words. Only last week, she’d offered yet again to make a space in her home for me. But that’s one border I will not cross again.

  Evan might be resentful if he were not contacted. After all, there’d been seven years of sex and brief talk of love. He kept in touch, wanting to help me now “in this difficult time.” But he was an insubstantial man who sang songs about the moon. We parted when he began his stern crusade about the evils of eating animal flesh. There ought to be a law! Then the circumpolar peoples would have died out long ago, sweetheart.

  My life. Off-track. Derailed. Lost the program. Whatever. Caught by colours. Trapped by shiny objects. Semi-educated. Some language, some figures, and an awareness of the coloured pageant called history: A parade of glossy men and women on horseback travelling along a road with ditches either side from which the cries of the anguished rise unheard. Wars, poverty, crime, all ignored. And the cavalcade moves on.

  Why oh why did I make that short journey across the strait? And the attack had to happen on Robson Street. The pain, the uncertainty. The desire to sit down anywhere, even on the sidewalk. Just in time a cab driver responded to my wobbly outstretched arm and took me back to the hotel. Home, here on Vancouver Island, seemed as distant as China.

  In the cool gallery, I stared at sculptures made from everyday objects; a tower of Coke cans, a snake of knife blades, the dictator’s mask made from bullets. Then, suddenly, the quiet was shattered by a woman’s voice crying out, “They called it friendly fire. They killed my lover with friendly fire.” I looked round the gallery for the woman who’d cried out but the voice was part of the installation. It stunned me though. And soon after that, I staggered out onto the street.

  Friendly fire. My wound too was caused by “friendly fire”.

  If I could have slept. Even the great hotels, many of them, are now hosting bedbugs. Something else to take home, dear guest, besides the soap and shampoo but please not the robe. That item, like the umbrella, will be added to your bill. The bugs are free. The abstract on the wall opposite the bed could have been a face, yellow lines, red nose, one green eye. Derek always recited that after a drink or two. The green eye of the little yellow god. But Derek hadn’t been wise or I would never have gone to Africa disguised as a saviour and been treated as an amateur by the serious people in that harsh desert camp. I need not have left home and husband and child on that day. There truly was no reason to head off to another world to find myself, leaving twenty-four packed lunches in the freezer. I wasn’t lost. Courage it took to leave husband, child, dog, home. His mother gave it another name. I’d saved my courage, stacking up units of it in a private account, until the day came when I knew I could step over the threshold and leave those three. Their faces were unbelieving as I repeated “twenty-four packed lunches.” Mandy lying down on the floor by her dish, afraid. Derek trying not to look relieved. Mary unsure.

  I could have said, Goodbye, I love you, but the words that came out, my last words to my husband and daughter on that significant day, were, “Remember to eat fruit.” From the other side of the door, I heard a scream and then laughter. Christmas had come early for Derek. Mary would cry for a little while and then go back to university to tell the story to her friends. Mandy, the dog, would miss me most.

  If I’d known Derek’s number, I would’ve pu
t it on the note just to remind him of my existence, which he was, back then, happy to forget.

  “Call when you get there,” he’d said all those years ago. “Let us know you’re okay.”

  And I lived on guilt for many years. But my child speaks to me although she still wonders why I never sent her even a postcard from Khartoum. I couldn’t tell her that I was never in one place long enough to figure out how to buy a postage stamp. New to the territory, unqualified to deal with misery and disaster because of my “varied experience” I found myself, yes it was where I finally found myself, the lost idiot, Kate, in the agency’s office in Montreal. Good years, those, my Quebec years.

  John is about to show me a picture in the paper and I’ll respond accordingly. He has a need to rant so I look up from the business section and lean across the table.

  “It’s appalling,” he says. “We all pay for this kind of thing.”

  “Yes,” I reply. “People like that should be put out to sea on a raft. Or sent to a place where there are no stores and no TVs and no phones.”

  “You’re cruel,” he replies, laughing.

  “It sounds okay to me. Well not the raft. I was seasick once.”

  “Gravol,” he replies. “You need Gravol.”

  And that’s our bit of camaraderie for this day. He’s quite right about the Gravol. It does help. He was showing me the photo of a shoplifter whose pockets were full of electronic devices lifted from a stall in the mall. Peering out from her hood, the girl looked bewildered. Not me. Not my idea. My needs are great. Please.

  John’s indignation is that of a reformed thief. I happen to know he isn’t a saint. He’s had his moments. A couple of years in jail for theft over five thousand dollars. It was a cunning, but not cunning enough, bit of fraud really. He’d be appalled to think I knew. But here in the café, all our secrets float around like dust motes, like moths. They are there. They can be grasped. The truth is, I know his ex-mother-in-law. Gravol! I have no intention of going to sea again, or even out on a small sailboat. He disconnects quickly, does John. That’s one of his charms. There’s no follow-through.

  Arthur is leaving early. I could go after him but I won’t. It’s cold out. Besides, he’s driving and I’d be on foot. Don’t be crazy, Kate. Don’t let the mind go off track. They’ll lock you up. Remember Great-Aunt Jane. But Aunt Jane died undiagnosed, considered nuts. Advances have been made since then. Shouting out, “I am sane, damn you,” doesn’t necessarily lead to a straitjacket nowadays. Fiona watches Arthur go. The painter waves to him. John smiles at him. Kumar nods and says, “See you tomorrow.” Sam continues to tap the keys of his laptop. And off the old man goes out of this little world to become – nobody.

  Yesterday, in the hotel in Vancouver, when the maid came to clean the room, she politely told me it was past checkout time. And so it almost was, in more ways than she knew. “Are you all right?” Those words, so softly spoken, made her my instant best friend. “Not really,” I said, in tears. “I go clean other room and come back,” she answered. “You take time.” I took time putting my feet on the ground, finding my coat. I think I paid. At any rate I asked for a taxi to take me to the bus station. I came to my senses on the ferry, sailing past misty islands that looked as unreal as a film set. Home was very sweet. There was a voice mail from my beloved grandson. I called him and we chatted about his new school. I stroked the books on the table, heated some soup and sat down to cry about the neverendingness of things, and I hoped the kind housekeeper had destroyed the note I’d left on the bedside table in room 2007.

  That cry “friendly fire”, that cruel oxymoron, still echoes in my head. It’s what happened to me, and to the kid who died of his injuries. Metal and stone falling in error. No harm intended, eh Arthur? All the same I’ll go on planning a small act of revenge. I scarcely felt well enough to come here this morning, but something draws me to this café and to these people, my weekday family. Maybe I’m already dead and this is the afterlife. If so, I’m to spend eternity with Fiona and Arthur and John and Terry and Kumar, the tree doctor, in a place where the flowers are forever fresh and the coffee machine never runs dry. Heaven or hell? Either way, it’s not a bad place to be.

  3. The Clipper

  Arthur was late. The Google maps spread out on the kitchen table had made him forget time. The Honda was already parked outside the café and a strange woman was at the counter. He took a step back. Only her shape in the black outfit, short jacket and trousers, told him it was indeed the woman he’d christened “Cheryl” because the name seemed to suit her. Her hair was now clipped and dark and straight. Her strange glamour had gone along with her piled-up blond hair, a style that had suggested she cared nothing for the world’s opinion.

  She even smiled at Terry when she handed over her Thermos. What kind of statement was she making now?

  “Excuse me,” he said as she walked past. If she’d become mellow over the weekend maybe she would tell him her real name and what kind of work she did.

  “Fine,” she replied and moved on as if he were part of the furniture.

  He watched “Cheryl” climb into her Honda and drive off to whatever her day held. Every weekday morning he saw this woman, way, way more than he saw his brother in Cape Breton or his son or Jazzy or his ex-wife or any of his other relatives, and yet he had no idea who she was. Most of the regulars were friendly, but she clearly didn’t want to make contact. Despised them all probably, sitting there at 7:15 a.m., reading the free newspapers and, for all she knew, staying there all day because they had no other lives. Finished, old, past it. That would be how she saw these men and women, not caring to consider that they might have been, and might still be, financiers, doctors, military heroes or, like him, engineers.

  The half-dozen regulars sitting at the tables in the café all looked as though they’d woken up too soon. The usual comforting smell, freshly baked muffins, coffee, yesterday’s people, enveloped him. Ellie was sitting at a table by the window and not alone. He could only see the back of the man sitting opposite her. She already had a mug of coffee and, more than that, a muffin. She looked up and said “Hi,” but didn’t ask Arthur to join them. He felt hurt, rejected. Surely a daily encounter entitled him to inclusion even if this was her son, Lincoln, returned from Australia. Even if, incredibly, given his apparent youth, this man was a lover, she still might have introduced him.

  He bought his own coffee and sat by himself staring at a photo in the paper, a brilliant scene. He could almost feel the heat and hear the beat of the drums. The leaders of other countries might envy Jacob Zuma, but his wives were no doubt jealous of one another and there could be strife. When a man has a country to run, he surely needs calm in the home and shouldn’t be out looking for equal gifts for his ladies, I need four diamond bracelets exactly the same, or deciding who to have sex with that night. Being president though, he probably didn’t wait for night. Clary, in the first years, had never wanted to wait for night. He turned to the sports section and glanced at the hockey scores, then folded the sections neatly and put the paper on the shelf for others to read. Certain courtesies were expected here. He asked after Kate’s arm. Getting better apparently. John said the game last night was pathetic. Always a mistake to pull the goalie.

  The artist’s reindeer was beginning to look like a dog with horns. He nodded to Sara, the early bird, who was on her way out. It was his moment for feeling depressed. He usually gave himself over to sadness till Lola arrived. He’d named her that the first time they met because she had the slight, truly slight, look of Marlene Dietrich. He’d hummed, “They call me naughty Lola” to her and she’d laughed and told him her name was plain Jean. He’d heard Jane and said it didn’t suit her.

  The two women who only came in on Mondays, Mary Jo and Susan, walked by him and politely said, “Hello.” He nodded in response. They looked to be around forty, carried gym bags. Kids in school, husbands at work. Or maybe this was their day off from nursing, or more likely teaching as they had loud, c
lear voices.

  Susan said, “All right, Mary Jo, I know it’s an old story and I know I should get over it,” not caring who heard. He leaned a little closer. Susan went on loudly, “I would kill him but then I’d have no one to hate. Do you understand? I need him there. I want to see him wither.”

  Arthur shuddered.

  She began to cry, that one.

  “My friend’s distressed,” Mary Jo said to him sharply, but then smiled in a kindly way. Maybe she saw him as a Père Goriot whose daughters turned him out in the morning and didn’t allow him back to the house till dinnertime. She put a large tip in the jar as if there were a tax on sorrow, and led her friend to the booth in the corner.

  Arthur had to stop himself from going across to Susan and saying, “You’ve got youth and health and nice clothes, and you work out and possibly have a job and a family, so for heaven’s sake, get on with it.” Then he thought of Ellie and of death and of an absconding partner or a dead parent: mitigating circumstances. Cry, girl, cry!

  Lola, curvy but thin, looked as though she didn’t eat enough, bought a chocolate croissant and came over and said, “How’s it going, Arthur?”

  “Okay,” he said. “It’s a busy time for me at work. But when I see signs of Christmas here and there, I can’t help remembering all the good family holidays. Ten of us round the table.”

  “Sure. You’ve got to go with it. One day at time. Right?”

  “All we can do. One day at a time! You look as though Christmas came early for you, Lola.”

  “Promotion! As of December first, I get to manage the kitchenware department.”

  “That’s great!” He’d been inside that place once and was appalled by its hugeness, its octopus embrace of so much stuff. He didn’t understand why a person would want to work in such a gruesome store, let alone shop there. “Great,” he repeated. “And you’ll be a manager.”