A Witness to Life (Ashland, 2)

by Terence M. Green

  But we were one less. And I was uncertain why.

  Life surrounded me. Yet in death, there was death still, a further echo.

  I looked about, sifted through the years spent in the area—the rooms slept in, the faces staring from behind store counters, across tabletops. I saw mothers easing prams over curbs, fathers, thumbs hitched in their belts, striding beside them, bowlers tilted rakishly on their heads.

  And then I held my breath. Oh, Maggie.

  I saw Maggie, saw how my life really began.

  SEVEN

  1907-9

  1

  "Ma and Gramma are moving in with Mary and Michael. Into number thirty-eight."

  Jock looks at me with interest. "When?"

  "End of August." It is the seventh of June. "Since their oldest two married, there's only Francis at home with them now. He's thirteen. So they've got some room."

  "And Julia and Oliver right next door?"

  "That's right. And their five kids. Their youngest's got my name. Martin. He's eight."

  "I can't keep your family straight."

  "None of us can. Teresa and Peter Curtis live at thirty- seven Brookfield, Elizabeth and Jim McKenna at number thirty-nine." I laugh. "You know Kate married Jim Bedford last year—who works at Massey-Harris with Peter Curtis. Well, they've moved into number twenty-two." Once again it is Friday, the end of the workweek. We are sipping Bass Ale in the Nipissing Hotel, where Rose used to work, where I used to meet Lillian. They have remodeled the dining room, replaced the tables and chairs. I look around, knowing that I liked it better the way it was. "Ma needs help with Gramma. And my pay doesn't stretch far enough to carry the house and the three of us. Mary and Michael are doing well. Better, I should say."

  "How's Mike—your brother Mike—doing?" He shakes his head. "See what I mean about the names? Can't keep 'em straight."

  "Too many of us."

  "Bloody right." He chuckles.

  "Mike's got seven kids."

  "Jesus. I'd lost track."

  "His youngest, Kervin, six years old, is sickly. Mike's workin' his tail off to pay for medicine, doctors." I pause. "He's a good man. But he can't afford Ma and Gramma. Got no place to put 'em."

  "What kind of name is Kervin? Irish?"

  "Family name. Way back." I'm remembering the story. "My big sister Sarah married a fellow whose mother's maiden name was Kervin."

  Jock's eyebrows rise slightly.

  "Sarah died a long time ago. When I was a kid. It's Mike's tribute to her in a way. Her memory."

  Jock seems sobered by the story. Then: "Mike still on Gladstone?"

  I nod. "Still there."

  Almost a minute passes in silence. Then he asks: "So?"

  I meet his eyes.

  He waits.

  "So I guess it's time. Got to get my own place." I shrug, take another sip of ale. "I can't cook, you know. I'll probably starve."

  I expect Jock to tease me further about my future helplessness, but instead he is quiet, looks thoughtful, then tips his own glass to his lips, places it back on the table before speaking. Finally, he says, "What about getting a place together?"

  "Who?"

  "Us. The two of us."

  It is a new idea to me. I say nothing, digesting the thought.

  "Time I got out too," he says. "Couple of old bachelors like us might have a pretty good time of it. What do you think?"

  "Interesting." The picture of it grows slowly in my mind, a seed planted, roots spreading.

  "We could save money by splitting the cost of a place."

  I have no money saved, never have any money saved, live pay envelope to pay envelope, even after almost a decade at Don Valley Pressed Bricks.

  "Very interesting." I smile.

  We order steak and kidney pies, another ale, consider possibilities. I feel liberated. As much as the unknown frightens, it also excites.

  "The Catholic and the Orangeman." Jock smiles back at me. We are conspirators. We have saved ourselves. Like the remodeled room in which we sit, we too will have a new veneer. The future opens up anew.

  Uplifted by beery collusion, heartened by the balm of a June evening, I amble along the south side of King toward Yonge Street. This is the old city, spared the fire of '04. Across the street, at number 66, I see Brown Bros., Ltd., the stationers and bookbinders where I once interviewed for a job that I did not get. At number 46, the Canada Life Building towers upward. It, too, has a place in my memory. Inside are the offices of Hearn & Lamont, Barristers, Solicitors and Notaries, in room 47, where I also have been turned down for clerical work.

  In the street, amidst the other single carts, a horse-drawn streetcar—"Toronto Street Railway Company" emblazoned on its side—heads sedately westward, on a line that will eventually take it just south of the lunatic asylum, which, in spite of Ma's direst fears, is still standing. And above the clopping of horse hooves rumbles the sound of an open two-seater "Northern" auto. Other heads turn to stare. Seated high, a man and a woman smile proudly, squinting into the setting sun.

  From my inner jacket pocket I take a Havana Eden Perfecto, one of my treats to myself, and stop outside the elegant new King Edward Hotel while I light it. Perhaps, I think, smiling, Jock and I will be able to afford a celebratory drink here soon, when we acquire our new accommodations.

  Puffing it into life, I watch a young woman stop by the double-sided water trough opposite me by the curb, dip the cup on the chain into the basin facing us, and, tipping her head back, drink. In the weakening sunlight, my eyes are drawn to the sensual line of her throat, the way her fingers splay away from the metal vessel at her lips. And as I listen to her footsteps fade away, fasten my gaze on the slimness of her ankle as she disappears, I know that there is something else that I need and must have, something that I am missing profoundly.

  Rounding the comer onto Yonge I head north, thinking I will walk the four blocks to Queen, then catch the streetcar home. At 97 Yonge, I stop at Chas. Rogers & Sons, Co. (Ltd.), Furniture & Upholstery, and read the sign in the window:

  LOWEST PRICES FOR CASH

  BEDROOM SUITES

  BRASS BEDSTEADS

  PALOR SUITES

  MANTELS & GRATES

  DINNING SUITES

  TILES & FIRE IRONS

  SPRINGS & MATTRESSES

  HALL STANDS

  ETC.

  I will need furniture if I have my own place, I think, suffused with a sudden influx of realism. The thought bothers me, but it cannot fully penetrate the glow of the ale still coursing through my veins. Subdued only slightly, I shrug the thought off, move on.

  Two doors north of Adelaide, at number 113, I halt once more, this time outside the windows of Samuel Corrigan, Merchant Tailor (established twenty-five years). Clothes are a weakness of mine, a small vanity. They are a major reason why I cannot pay "lowest prices for cash" for even a spring and mattress from Chas. Rogers & Sons. Having never needed furniture before, I have never developed a curiosity about it, have no sense of its worth. I have lived for myself, have always been good to myself, always tried to dress and groom like a gentleman.

  The sign is perfectly stenciled:

  DIRECT IMPORTER OF SELECT WOOLENS

  SCOTCH TWEED SUITINGS

  $15, $16, $18, & $20 up

  The temptation for something smart, something with which to celebrate my new independence, grows delicately in my brain, as it has so often before. I have never needed much of an excuse.

  But Samuel Corrigan, Merchant Tailor, is closed.

  Simpson's, I think. Simpson's or Eaton's. Large department stores. They'll be open Friday evening. And Simpson's, for whom Mike still works, delivering goods to all parts of the city, is closer, less than two blocks north.

  Pulling the brim of my hat down, I set off.

  At Richmond Street, I enter Simpson's comer doors, wander onto its wooden floor, feeling small beneath the high ceilings, beneath the weight of the six stories atop me. The escalator, the flat-step moving staircase, r
olls noisily upward in the distance. Once inside, I take my hat off, still unsure what it is that I want, and stand staring down long, brightly lit aisles, hypnotized as always by the baskets holding customers' change and receipts clicking along overhead on trolley wires.

  Business is modest. A lady stands to my left at the counter displaying scarves and shawls, holding one aloft for inspection. To my right are a series of mannequin torsos, brazenly displaying ladies' corsets. Flustered, I drop my eyes to the hat in my hands.

  And it is here, in my own hands, that I get an idea.

  The men's hats and ladies' millinery counters are side by side, and I lean tipsily on the glass, staring at the array of sumptuous headwear. There is a woman bending beneath the counter, stowing a box away, who does not know that I am here.

  She straightens, brushes her hands on the front of her skirt, and meets my eyes. The face that greets me is frail, perhaps somewhat older than mine, the eyes large. Her hair, tied at the nape by a white ribbon, is swept up one side and across the top of her head so that it falls in a soft roll across a high forehead. The mouth curves down at the comers in a way that is both sad, and to me at this point in time, particularly alluring.

  "Can I help you?"

  Suddenly, I am the one who feels frail. And foolish. I do not know what I want anymore. My desire to adorn myself, to play the dandy, blends into something else much more mysterious.

  I place my hat on the counter. "I was thinking of a new hat," I hear myself saying.

  I have always thought the fur felt hat, with its Russian calf-leather sweatband, to be a fine piece of manhood. In fact, I purchased it at this very place, almost ten years ago, with my first pay.

  But now I am not so sure. The realization surfaces that being surrounded by females of all kinds is no guarantee of understanding them, and I am taken aback.

  It lies on the counter between us, more than a hat, and remarkably less. Her eyes drop down to study it, then rise once more to meet mine. She is wearing a white, high- collared blouse with a pin at the throat, which falls in ruffles at her bosom. Her hands, I now see, have small veins on their backs. The nails are short, well kept.

  I know her from somewhere, but cannot place where.

  "I see," she says. Then a finger touches the brim. "It is an old hat. Looks like it has been worn well."

  I have never thought of it as an old hat, or worn, well or otherwise. Through her eyes, it transforms.

  "I bought it here," I say.

  "An older style. We have new stock. A great deal. What did you have in mind?"

  "I don't know," I answer honestly. Things have shifted. I realize that in some minute way, I am not the same man who wore the hat into the store. He is gone. I have replaced him. Who is she?

  "Silk hat? Opera hart"

  I lean forward on the counter and study the signs hanging behind her head, but in so doing, unthinkingly, I come too close to her. I do not understand this until I see her face contort slightly, realize from her expression that she has smelled the ale on my breath, and has judiciously backed away.

  "I'm sorry," I say.

  She says nothing.

  I am mortified in a way that is new to me. "I've just come from—"

  I stop.

  "I'm sorry." I pick up my hat, nod. I turn and leave. I feel her eyes on my back as I stride down the aisle toward the door. I am careful not to betray myself further, not to embarrass myself with a stumble, a false step.

  Sitting on the streetcar, traveling home, I am in a daze. I see nothing but the mouth turned down at the corners, the hair rolling across the forehead, the pin at the throat. I see the hat between us on the glass counter.

  The next day, Saturday, I return, stand at a distance from her counter, beside a table that announces: BRACELET, 35¢; BEAD PURSE, 59¢; SHAWL, 50¢. I have no plan. I only know that things were not right, and now, in the clear light of day, I have to fix them. The floor is bustling with energy, with people who need to be in a place like this after managing the routines of their lives for another week, and it occurs to me that I am one of these people.

  But she is not here. Another woman is displaying wares to a customer on the glass counter that stood between us last evening.

  I swivel my gaze throughout the room, fixing on faces, scanning. Then I look back at her counter. The woman here now is younger. In a way that I do not understand, she is less than the woman I saw yesterday.

  Above her head, I read the sign ostrich aigrettes for 75¢, good assortment of colors.

  I approach, stand with fingers touching the dark wooden edge of the glass counter. When she notices me, I try to think of something to say. I ask to see the men's fur cap encased beneath my hands. The woman, younger than me, than her, very pretty, soft features, complies, passes it to me, smiles without showing her teeth. I touch it, turn it over in my hands.

  "This one's astrakhan. We have them in half Persian lamb, nutria, beaver, German otter. . . They're only three dollars and fifty cents. Good value." The voice is pleasant, friendly.

  "It's very nice." And it is. I let my fingers probe its exotic mystery, its suppleness. Its softness. "Thank you," I say. "Thank you for showing me." I hand it back.

  She continues to smile.

  I cannot buy it from her. She does not tell me that my own hat is an old one. Her mouth does not curve down at the corners.

  That night, Saturday night, I meet Jock downtown and we make the rounds. We drink ale, eat sausages and eggs and pigs' feet in beverage rooms with sawdust on the floors, spend an hour with two women named Diane and Caroline, whom we meet at the Nipissing, neither of whom I can picture clearly in my mind the next day.

  But it is not the same for me as it has been in the past. It is not the same. My mind is elsewhere.

  Her face. I know her.

  When I stumble in the door past midnight, I know that something is amiss. All the lights are on. I hear voices from an upper bedroom.

  I pause at the foot of the stairs, clear my head, listen.

  The priest is standing at the foot of the bed. He has just conferred the last rites on Gramma. She lies there, tiny, covered with a checkered quilt to her waist. Her feet are small hillocks beneath its weight. Someone has wrapped rosary beads about her hands. A clean blue nightgown is tied tightly at her neck.

  There is blood in her stool, Ma tells me. Ma does not know what this means. They have called the priest instead of a doctor, which, somehow, does not surprise me.

  On the bedside table is the bottle of Lourdes water, more than twenty years old, that I have been told Father Owen gave to Ma when Sarah died. The only other time I have seen it is when I was six years old, when Rose was sick, that winter, when Ma, her eyes fierce with fear, rubbed it on her chest, praying for her cough to disappear.

  Extreme Unction. Father Owen. Miss Lecour.

  The memory of St. Mary's School—of catechism lessons—back in Elora floods back, like the Grand River, wide and powerful. I stand in its midst, an obstacle to be eroded, the Tooth of Time.

  Gramma's eye sockets, lips, ears, hands glisten with the holy oil, with forgiveness of sins she has never committed, could never commit.

  Her eyes roll toward me, watery, fasten tightly. Her mouth opens in a small o.

  No sound.

  But she is alive. She is alive. Still.

  Da did not receive the last rites. I saw him myself, that day, before he was washed.

  He died at work, after eating the tomato sandwich that Ma always made for his lunch, beside a road excavation bed that he had just carefully lined with crushed gravel. They say that he caught his foot on the pedal of the steamroller, fell and struck his head on the metal side, hung twisted from one leg. They could not find Ma, but the men told me they knew my name and where I worked from listening to Da brag about me, so a man in a faded checkered shirt and suspenders, sad eyes, and a floppy moustache curving over a thin mouth, his broad-brimmed hat gripped in soiled hands, came to my work and told me and took me there to s
ee him. He was lying on a grass boulevard beside the sidewalk, covered with a tarpaulin. Work had come to a halt, and the twenty-one men on his crew stood about silently, leaning on shovels, rakes, brooms. One sat astride the giant steamroller, his face a blank. I said nothing as I looked down at him. The death certificate would list the cause of death as a fractured skull, and make up his age, because he had always shaved years off to keep jobs. I remember the mud and cement caked on his shoes, the gray dust of his labor on his hands.

  And watching Gramma, I know, suddenly, that like Da, when my own time comes, I will not receive the last rites either. And because Da did not receive them, I know, too, that I do not want them.

  I wonder if this is one of the things it means to be a man. I wonder about the possibility of redemption.

  Gramma does not die that night. Before dawn comes, the priest has left, but we are still with her, exhausted, not knowing what we want.

  When I fall asleep, finally, in the early morning, I dream the dreams of the drunk, of the dazed, of the ones who have seen, however briefly, their own abyss. I dream of Sarah, my sister, buried when I was a child, see her dying, her white dress bloodied, her eyes frantic.

  I dream of a lone hawk, soaring high above me, high above us all.

  "Gramma," I say.

  She looks at me, says nothing. We are alone.

  It is the next day. Sunday. Ma has gone to late mass with Mary, Michael, and Francis.

  "I'm glad you're feeling better."

  I remember the night I touched her, lifted her. Now, I put my hand over hers, cover it, hold it, feel the thinness of its liver-spotted surface.

  She looks down at our hands in wonder. Then she looks up at me, makes the o with her mouth, studies my face intently, tilts her head, and I feel her fingers tighten on mine.