Street Symphony

by Rachel Wyatt

  A rap at the door. The closed sign was on. Another rap. Persistence. An angel, the one he dreamed of, had at last descended to say, My company wants to buy your café for many millions. I can take you away from all this.

  He opened the door.

  “Can I get a coffee?”

  Jurgen wasn’t sure when the request had changed from may I have to can I get but he didn’t like it. Many customers simply said, Coffee, and not even please. Words mattered. Language was a gift to be cherished. He’d spent two happy years learning that before Sam Novak from Trident had come along with his twisted we’ll-make-you-rich lure.

  The intruder was a woman, twenty-something, dressed in the latest style: Planned bedraggle. She put her umbrella by the door.

  “Your artist,” she said, looking at the Christmas design on the window.

  “I know,” he replied, “He lacks a sense of proportion.” He went to stand behind the counter waiting for her to say, I want to take you away from all this, before she drove him to the ferry, to the airport or whatever magic carpet she might use to transport him to another life.

  But she said in a flat voice, “I need a job. I’m desperate.”

  He turned and saw his own face in the mirror behind the bar. Thirty-nine and he looked ten years older. She was desperate!

  “There’s a lot of it about,” he said. Old Arthur, sick Kate, lonely John, early Sara, friendly Fiona, weird Blondie. All of us have those days. He poured the last of the coffee from the machine into a mug and offered it to her. He could use the help but could he afford another minimum wage out of the so-called profits? She was a student. She had references. Two days a week was all he could offer.

  She was grateful and said, “You won’t regret it. I make a good latte.” Then she looked around and added, “It’s a nice place.”

  So she was sucking up to him. She promised to come in tomorrow evening to learn the ropes. As he let her out and locked the door again, he hoped she’d find something better.

  He might go to the bank and say, Can I get a loan? as if he were asking for the day’s special. Your assets, sir? My wife, my son, my mortgaged house. Then he could buy a bigger, shinier machine, smart green-and white-striped awnings, decent outdoor tables, bright cushions for the chairs.

  Jake, owner of the two adjacent stores, prowled by and stopped to stare in between the reindeer’s legs. He seemed to see himself as a magnate. The Cheese King taking over the world or at least this small block. Jurgen waved. The other man nodded and moved on. He might as well have written loser in a balloon over Santa’s head.

  One option was to set fire to the place, try not to get caught and reap the insurance. But what then? Another café? Stay-at-home dad dependent on Zoe, who even now might be attracted to another man, a richer man, an ambitious, go-getting guy like Jake? Or perhaps a quiet few years in jail to finish his degree and begin to write the great novel.

  His cellphone rang. It was Zoe the mindreader. “Darling,” she said, “I’ll be a little late tonight. Mila leaves at 5:30. I hope you’re on your way home. Joey needs his bottle and then…”

  “Fine, sweetheart.” He ended the call and yelled into the silence, “It’s my hockey night!” He kicked the wastebasket. Used cups and napkins skittered over the floor. He took a deep breath and added srry fr mss to Elise’s note and turned out the lights. Yes, the door will be open at 7:00 in the morning. Yes, all of you who run away from your houses, apartments, wives, kids, husbands, loneliness, before it’s even light, you shall have breakfast! They were his family, his dependants. Every morning, six days a week, they expected to see each other, knew each other, asked each other how they were, talked about last night’s game. And the later people, too, had their expectations of pleasant service as they politely asked about Joey or his mother and then settled down to relax and solve the world’s problems with their friends.

  He went out through the back door, shutting in behind him echoes of all today’s voices, stale remarks about the weather and the government, jokes long past their sell-by date, tentative words of love. Were these the fabric of his story? Was he living with his characters? Was he inside his novel? On another day, when he wasn’t tired, he might consider the answers to those questions.

  Pale yellow would be a good colour for the walls. A pretence of sunshine for dark days. He knew he shouldn’t be driving when he could hardly see for the rain running down the windshield, but he turned on the wipers, and he knew the way.

  Cinq à Sept

  “You’re going to say it was a success! Please don’t tell me that people enjoyed themselves and no one vomited or called anyone an asshole or stabbed you with a fork. Who were those weird people you invited? Standing around staring. They put people off. It’ll be all over Facebook by tonight.”

  James stood among the empty glasses and plates and crumpled linen napkins without listening, without understanding. Teresa’s words poured over him like water from a kettle, a cool kettle. As she moved towards him he sidestepped. She twisted round and fell back onto the couch, landing on a couple of discarded canapés.

  “And I’ll tell you another thing. You were about as much use as a block of wood.”

  ~ • ~

  They were king and queen of the island, uncrowned but aware of their power. They couldn’t prevent invaders arriving from other parts of the city and planning to stay in their paradise, as these strangers were clearly trying to do, but they could exclude undesirables by not accepting them at court, their court: 4051 Bilton Street. Newcomers were welcome as long as they quietly attended organized charity events and paid their dues in humble admiration. A few sneered and left before the trial period ended. One or two, it had to be said, sneered and stayed. The widow on Seaview Road kept to herself and bothered no one, but there was a suspicion that she was making notes and writing a novel.

  The island was not an island: it was a triangular part of the city cut off by the strait on one side and the old railroad tracks on the other. The long side or, as Harrison Driver had it, the hypotenuse, was marred by a strip mall and redeemed by a small park. The area had been known as the Island long before the hotels and condos were built. The only dwellings in those days were a few shacks that housed construction workers. Now, there were treed avenues, fine homes, three discreet low-rise condominium blocks and, give or take new babies and dying old folk, about three thousand inhabitants. Of course, the Smith-Hunters couldn’t know them all. They were selective but not, they assured themselves, in a snobbish way. Nor did they only cultivate people who could be useful to the Island or to themselves. Theirs was a benevolent rule. The truly elite were bidden to dinner twice a year. A larger group was honoured by being invited to one of the two seasonal cocktail parties. There was warmth in these gatherings, a family feeling. Affection was spread over the guests like a blanket. The uninvited were rejected out of kindness. It was agreed that people like the Rasmussens, the Alberts, the Virles, wouldn’t fit in. They would be uncomfortable at these gatherings of the faithful, the chosen.

  On a sunny March morning two weeks ago, Teresa had written out invitations to thirty-three guests including the Greens, although Maria would talk on and on about Afghanistan. While everyone knew the situation was dire, it was a total downer at a party. As for her partner Rick, right now he was obsessed with a French writer, Hooler-something, as if there were no good writers in this country. But they were an important couple, he being a diplomat of sorts and she running the School Board. It had been decided not to hold their condo in Florida against them.

  This king and queen had no chance of swelling the treasury by imposing taxes on their subjects, but they did expect them to bring a very decent sort of wine. With the new drinking and driving restrictions they were always left with several unopened bottles. It was a pity Teresa couldn’t write “no ratpiss” on the cards or even suggest a price range. But she did write, as James thought, pretentiously, “Do come to our little cinq à sept on the nineteenth.” He wasn’t going to tell her that f
or some French people, the phrase meant not cocktails but a different kind of refreshment.

  The long table was set out with delicacies and Millie who came twice a week to clean was to whisk empty platters away to the kitchen and refill them. The sound system was set to play soft rock. The music would fade to background and then disappear behind the buzz of animated chatter. Organisation was Teresa’s forte. She knew they called her a micromanager behind her back at work and was proud of it: Thanks to her, the export department at Mercury Mines ran on oiled wheels. The glasses were gleaming, the napkins folded neatly. Nothing had been left to chance except, dammit, her long, green skirt. When she took it from the closet, she noticed that the hem was hanging down at the back. Tape. Scotch tape. Brilliant invention. Her hair was not at its best. Slight grey streaks were appearing among the brown. “I’m too young for this,” her mirror image said. “But,” it went on, “I’m still slim and have a good complexion.” Thank you, Mother.

  The evening began well enough. Harrison Driver was saying, “Yes, that happened on the little crescent where my parents live. They’re fine. A bit of excitement.” Glen said he’d been to the opening at the Gallery, special invitation, one or two good things, but most of the stuff was a load of garbage. “You didn’t like the Gouviers?” “French garbage.” For effect he pronounced it, garbarge. Beatrice Miekle was complaining that her students opted for Romanticism when she was trying to show them the opposite. Olly Brent was whispering a joke to Rory Rashkov. Bruno Herman was doing what he did best, striking a pose beside the fireplace and waiting for someone to enquire about his latest TV show.

  Teresa smiled and welcomed and enquired and praised accordingly. And then at the rather late time of 5:30, the Montagnes and Gerliffes arrived followed by, for heaven’s sake, two unknowns. There was no way she could close the door on them. Jessie Montagne had hold of her hand and was saying, “So good of you, Teresa. We really look forward to your little dos.” And her husband with his booming voice said, “A highlight.”

  Still smarting from that “little” and the possible, but surely not, sarcasm of “highlight”, she saw the newcomers, who had simply introduced themselves as Meg and Gerry, glancing round the room like detectives searching for clues. She was wearing a filmy blue-green gown that looked as though it had been cobbled together from half a dozen veils. His sleek grey suit gave him the look, Teresa thought as she laughed grimly to herself, of a fish out of water. Both of them were slim and pale as though they never went out in daylight. Ghosts? On the other hand, they were helping themselves to food and drink as if they hadn’t eaten in weeks. Maria Green whispered that Meg and Gerry, as they called themselves, were probably part of a customer survey group working for the hated consortium from the Mainland: the giant retailer that wanted to tear down the cozy strip mall and cover the area with shelves and a parking lot. She thought she’d seen them at meetings, in cafés, watching, smiling and, worst of all, listening. Tiffany Smythe had actually talked to Gerry and said his replies to her questions about how he enjoyed living on the Island and where he and Meg had lived previously were obscure and that his voice was soft and musical, almost enticing. Harrison Driver dismissed them as “climbers” who would never manage to attach themselves to this particular trellis. They had, all the loyal subjects, fought hard against the new development, though Teresa knew that there were turncoats amongst them, those who sensed that there was money to be made.

  That all thirty-three of the other guests were ignoring the newcomers struck James as rude, but he was too busy opening bottles and listening to Harrison’s latest rant to be able to help them. As it was, they helped themselves from the bar set up in the breakfast nook, reached out for the delicacies passed round on trays by Millie and stood in front of the Riopelle (copy) hanging over the sideboard as if to take in every detail. Chatting to each other, they seemed to be having a good time unaware of, or ignoring, the bemused glances from the invited.

  Teresa looked at the quails’ eggs set on their pretty bed of chopped parsley and knew that everything was going wrong. This evening’s event was supposed to do several things: Cheer up Dot and Ken Travers after their loss on the stock market; give the others a chance to see that she, Teresa, was a worthy candidate for Island and Riverside mayor; discover the meaning of Mallory Vine’s sudden departure from the IEM meeting; give the guests, her friends, a good time and send them off to their various dinners in a pleasant frame of mind. In other words, simply to confirm the continuing benign rule of herself and James. But the grey couple, standing around in that detached way, had sucked the life out of a gathering that was meant to stroke people, to assure them that they couldn’t, anywhere else in this vast land, be happier or in better company.

  Then, in one concerted movement, the two interlopers set down their glasses and moved to the door.

  “Thank you,” he said to Maria Green, “You have a lovely house.”

  And before Maria could set them straight, she added, “Kind of you to invite us.”

  James watched and felt it his duty as host to see them out. He knew that inside there would be sniggers and comments, and that the party would possibly take off now. He followed them and thanked them for coming. They walked lightly away and disappeared into the evening. She wasn’t beautiful, the woman, more delicate, fragile. Gerry had a similar look. They were exotic figurines, too delicate for real life. And yet they had the nerve to crash a party, eat, drink and appear to be at ease while surrounded by Island chill. Perhaps they came from some prairie place where all doors were open and everything was shared as in the Great Depression. He knew he hadn’t invited them. And she hadn’t. Could he, though, have issued a general invitation in the pub on Friday: My wife’s giving a party, do please come? It wasn’t likely.

  So there he was, a forty-five-year-old man, standing outside the house that was all theirs except for the sixty-five per cent owned by the bank, to be paid off monthly as long as it took or we both shall live or whatever the bank manager had said a costly fifteen years ago. He wasn’t the first, he knew, to see his home as a snail shell, a burden. And the people gathered in his mortgage-trap that evening, doctors, educators, engineers, one accountant, one woman on maternity leave, had added nothing to it but dirty dishes. Not a single one of them had come up to him and asked, So what’s good in the market these days? No one was taking risks. Managed funds. GICs. Money was being kept in safe places. Economists got little respect in these times. “It will change,” the guys in the department said, but change was beyond his current horizon.

  While he was still standing there, drops of rain dripping onto his head, others were drifting past him, patting him on the shoulder or murmuring a tepid, “Thanks, James.” Or, “Great time as always.” He looked at his watch. 6:40 p.m. The guests were leaving early!

  ~ • ~

  Meg said to Gerry, “smoked salmon again. These people are so unoriginal. And the quails’ eggs looked off to me. I hope you didn’t have one. What did you think about her?”

  “When I shook her hand, it felt sticky with sweat or food and she had a kind of surprised look. She drew back as if I was about to assault her.”

  “I meant Teresa. It was bad of you to pretend that Green woman was the hostess.”

  “Teresa? Desperate, I’d say. They were a desperate crew. Sometimes you could clearly hear the music. Always a bad sign at a party. Did you notice how the husband stood there watching us leave?”

  “Who are we anyway, Gerry?”

  “We are company spies,” he said, and put his head down on the wheel.

  “Watch out!” she said. “Please!”

  “This ‘Island’, as they call it, is a mere triangle, a tiny segment of Vancouver Island. And it’s a small, provincial place. Depressing. We need more scope. It’s important to do what we do but is it fair?”

  “They have a daughter. She’s volunteering somewhere in Africa.”

  “I’d have expected one overprotected, sickly teenage boy sitting upstairs enmeshed
in porn.”

  “Darling,” she said, “before we send in the report, do you think we should delve a little more? He seemed to be evolving as he stood there. And I don’t think she’s entirely unredeemable. She means well.”

  “What a condemnation. ‘Means well’! She does nothing but protect her status. They live inside their own little plastic globe. The wider world is nothing to them. I’d like a little tsunami to wash over them and smarten them up. Or maybe a small earthquake could give them a shake.”

  ~ • ~

  Like a block of wood. A block. Of wood. As much use as. James knew that many of his students right now would probably agree with Teresa. He only got his message through to the truly receptive, and they were thin on the ground. Out on the street, saying goodbye to the early leaving guests, he’d been struck by something he thought was called anomie , Latin or Greek for being numb or having as much feeling as a block – of wood. Post-party depression. He surveyed his life and couldn’t put his finger on one single grand or even notable thing he’d done with his time on earth to date. Life had closed round him like a fist; the giant was holding Gulliver, undecided whether to squeeze the breath out of him or let him go.

  He wanted a moment of leaping joy, one that was all his own. He would cherish it as a male penguin cherishes his egg. His own cherished chick had fled to a dark country infested by death and cruelty. “Your Emma will be perfectly safe,” the Director of Hands-On Charity had assured James and Teresa. “We take good care of our volunteers.” But was she and did they?