“I can see that you don’t think much of the place.”
Andy shrugged.
“It’s enough for me. I’m not in it much.” Vincent Flynn looked around and, seeing the centerfold as if for the first time, got up quickly and tore it down.
Andy pretended not to notice. “How come you’re not working today?”
He laughed. “I’m not working because I’ve no job, that’s why. There’s no work to be had, and brutal unemployment all over the province.”
“You were selling cigarettes in that restaurant last night.”
“I was, indeed. These uncertain times force a man to turn his hand to low employment.”
“Why do you sell them so cheap?”
“Because they’re cheap cigs. I buy them from the wholesalers, old stock, stale and out of date. I get them for next to nothing.” He sighed. “It’s a way of surviving.”
Andy remembered what his miserable old aunt had said about Vincent Flynn being a thief. Nasty old cow. His father worked hard selling those stale cigarettes.
“I thought to myself, when I saw you in the restaurant, Andy, that there was something about you, and I’ll swear I felt a thump right here.” His hands went to his thin chest. “I should’ve known it was my own flesh and blood I was looking at, my own dear boy. I’m so astonished to see you, Andy. How on earth did you find me?”
Andy told him about Aunt Mona coming for him and how he had run away.
His father laughed with delight at his daring and urged him to tell more.
“I slept downstairs in the broom closet.”
“You’re the brave one; a young lion, so you are. Take after your father, you do. Mona went to fetch you from Vancouver, is that right?”
“Yes.”
“Well, I never.” He shook his head in disbelief. “She told me nothing. I hadn’t seen the woman in years. Which reminds me. What day is this?”
“Saturday.”
“D’you like hockey?”
“You bet!”
“The Mooseheads are at Metro Centre this afternoon.”
“You mean real live hockey? Not the TV?”
“It’s the only kind.”
Andy was delighted. Clay, much too busy with his business, had never had the time to take him anywhere. Clay didn’t like kids anyway. Andy had overheard him admit as much to one of his friends over the telephone when he thought nobody else was listening. And his mother had no interest in hockey — besides, she’d always been busy with her Robson Street shopping and her friends and her tennis and her aerobics classes, not to mention her personal trainer who took her running most days.
His father rinsed the mugs under the tap, then dropped a piece of soap into his mug and began mixing lather with a shaving brush. Andy watched him pulling faces into a small cracked mirror over the sink as he scraped his chin with a safety razor, rinsing the lather off every few seconds under the tap. “I usually wash here in the kitchen,” his father explained when he’d finished. “Saves walking down the hall.” He handed Andy a towel that looked much used. Andy stared at it. “I need to buy a few things,” his father admitted, embarrassed.
Andy said nothing. There was a piece of soap on the lip of the sink but no toothpaste or extra toothbrush. His father said, “You’re welcome to use my toothbrush. And look, I use baking soda, see?” He handed Andy a package. “Better than toothpaste.”
“No thanks.”
“I’ve got an old one you could have if you like. It’s clean, nothing but baking soda was ever on it.”
“Thanks anyway.”
He cleaned his teeth with his fingers. Then he leaned over the kitchen sink and threw some water on his face and dried it off. The sink was small, cracked, and yellowed. To the side of it there was a dirty hot plate and an old iron frying pan; a small fridge sat on a counter opposite.
They boarded a bus outside the Mayo Rooms. Vincent Flynn wore his old raincoat, its inside pockets bulging with cigarettes. There was a big crowd at the Centre. The music was loud. Andy followed his father as he pushed his way through the bodies to join a mob of screaming kids who were already high-fiving the red-green-white-uniformed players as they came onto the ice. The Mooseheads were playing their provincial rivals, the Cape Breton Screaming Eagles. The noise was frantic. There was a pause in the music while starting lineups were announced.
Vincent Flynn seemed to know everyone, laughing and joking as he sold his stale cigarettes. As soon as the game started he said to Andy, “Stay right here. I’ll be back in a jiff.” He disappeared into the crowd of spectators. He was away longer than a jiff, whatever that was, but Andy didn’t mind; he was with kids his own age, and the game was as riveting as soccer, especially with the addition of noise — music, yelling and cheering, the clatter of hockey sticks, collisions against the boards — as well as the smells of clothing and food, all absent from TV games. There were exciting moments when the puck disappeared and they had to bring on a new one. It happened several times after a knot of players converged on the puck, slicing away at it, banging their sticks together, shoving and shouldering, then disentangling themselves and gaping at the ice in astonishment when there was no sign of the puck.
Later, on the bus home, Andy noticed that the bulges in his father’s raincoat had disappeared. The bus was full. He sat close to his father, feeling the warmth of him. The passengers were hockey fans in Moosehead caps and thick parkas; many wore gloves, and scarves in the Moosehead colors. Again, his father seemed to know everyone.
“This is my kid from Vancouver,” he said, putting an arm around him. “My son, Andy.”
“Didn’t know you had a kid, Vinny,” someone said.
“Well, now you know. Aren’t I the lucky man?”
“Welcome to Halifax, Andy,” another man said.
His father told a joke to the two men in the seat ahead. The men laughed. The men in the seats behind and to the side were leaning over, listening to his father begin a joke about Sherlock Holmes and Watson on a camping trip. When he’d finished, the laughter drowned out the noise of the whining transmission as the bus labored up a hill amid the roar of traffic.
His father was fun. Andy couldn’t for a minute imagine him complaining about Andy’s clothes, as his mother sometimes did, or about his junk food habit or muddy shoes or the way he bit his lip when he was worried. But now he was with his father, laughing Vinny Flynn, who wore an old raincoat with pockets the size of shopping bags, and shabby brown shoes, who seemed happy living in a run-down rooming house with no proper furniture and no comforts, who was in business for himself selling stale cigarettes, and who spent his money betting on cockroaches. Andy’s mother and Clay had had everything: clothes, fine house, expensive furniture, cars, but were they as happy as his father? Andy wondered now. When was the last time he’d heard his mother laugh, really laugh? No: Vincent Flynn had to be the most exciting, interesting person in the whole world. And he was Andy’s father.
All the seats were taken, so the Old One settled himself on the luggage rack and closed his eyes. The hockey game had worn him out.
“It was so exciting!” The Young Ones were thrilled. They swung on the overhead handrail, laughing and chattering like monkeys.
“Show us the pucks you stole.”
“I didn’t steal them. Borrowed, that’s all.”
“We could start a league in the meadow!”
“We could carve hockey sticks from fir or hemlock.”
“Pine’s better.”
“Not at all. Willow’s best.”
“Hickory or ash. Hardwoods. Everyone knows that.”
They squabbled for a while, then appealed to the Old One, but he was fast asleep.
7
BACK AT THE MAYO ROOMS, Andy’s father hung his raincoat on the back of the door, then stood stiffly to attention in the center of the room, facing the window, with his feet together, arms straight to his sides, eyes fixed on the ceiling. “Shoulders back, feet together, arms at the sides, and begin on t
he right foot,” he intoned seriously. He advanced his right leg stiffly forward, toes pointed like a ballet dancer’s, and then, as though stung by a bee, started hopping and leaping like a man made of rubber to the music of his own voice, his hands never leaving his sides, his feet flashing out and his knees jerking up and down like a puppet’s. “With a da-did-de-da-da-diddle-diddle-dum-dum,” he sang.
Andy laughed at the sight of his father dancing. He signaled for Andy to join in, but Andy shook his head, suddenly shy.
His father finished the dance with a loud hoot, collapsing breathlessly onto the floor.
“Are you all right — Dad?” asked Andy, testing the new name, but was so unused to the word that it felt like sand on his tongue. He had never called his stepfather Dad or Father or Pop or any of those kinds of names, just Clay or nothing at all. Calling this crazy man Dad was going to take a bit of getting used to.
His father filled his lungs with air, puffing and blowing and laughing. “I’m not as young as I used to be,” he gasped.
“Is that Irish dancing?”
“It is. Ah! You should have seen me when I was alive.”
Andy laughed. “You’re still alive. But you shouldn’t smoke.”
“I shouldn’t; you’re right. But I’m too old to give it up. Set in my ways I am, Andy darlin’. Here, help me up. Set in my ways.”
Andy gripped his father’s hand in both his own and helped him up and watched him while he sat on the sofa, out of breath, exaggerating his condition by blowing out his cheeks and rolling his eyes as though about to expire on the spot.
“Ah! It was at the ceilidh dancing I met your mother, God save her. Those were the days, when we’d dance the whole night long. Judith was the great little dancer, so she was. She’d lepp all night if she was let.”
“Aunt Mona said you met Mother in the brewery. She worked in the office.”
“Mona was only half right. I looked for her in the office every morning as I clocked in. The men were not allowed to speak to the office staff unless they were spoken to first, but I’d give her a sly wink and she’d smile or blush. Then one night she was at the ceilidh, and that was the first time I ever spoke to her.”
“What did you say?”
“I asked her for a dance, of course. Then I told her I was bursting to speak to her, waiting for over a month with the words itching and fidgeting inside me, but now that I had her in front of me, eye to eye, I didn’t know what to say except she was the prettiest girl I’d ever seen and the finest dancer in all of Halifax.”
Andy smiled. “What did she say?”
“She thanked me for the compliment, but I could see she wasn’t won over right away by my charm and good looks. I was only a little feller, y’see — not the powerful giant you see today.” He chuckled. “And there were lots of big strapping lads after her. It took a while for her to go out with me. Persistence pays off. Faint heart never won fair lady, my daddy used to say as he led with his strongest trump — he was a great cardplayer, my daddy.”
Andy cut through his father’s confusing babble. “Why did you leave us?”
“I’ll make us a drop of tea.”
It was as if he hadn’t heard the question. Andy followed his father into the kitchen, and while his father was filling the kettle and rinsing the teapot, Andy opened the fridge: empty except for a small carton of milk, a bowl of sugar, half a bag of potato chips, and a package of raisins. He took out the milk and sugar for the tea and the chips and put them on the table. Next he opened the top drawer near the kitchen sink: the inside was dirty; it held only a few knives, spoons, forks, can opener, bottle opener. Mrs. Morton, his mother’s cleaning lady, would have a hemorrhage if she saw this place.
They sat drinking their tea and sharing the potato chips.
“You must have the bedroom tonight,” said his father. “I will sleep in here on the sofa.”
“No,” said Andy. “The sofa’s fine for me.”
“Just for tonight, then. Tomorrow I’ll find you a proper bed.” He frowned.
Andy felt a niggling doubt. “You do want me, don’t you, Dad — living here with you, I mean?”
“Of course I want you!” Raised eyebrows, eyes widening. “Aren’t you my own darlin’ son. When I lost you I cried so hard it rained in Nova Scotia for a whole year without a stop.”
“Did you really miss me? All those years without me, I mean?”
“It was like I’d lost an arm and the use of my legs. I missed you something dreadful. Many’s the time I’d sit at this very table nursing a mug of tea in these poor hands. And I’d think of you far away in that awful rainy place and I’d wonder what you and your mother were doing, and I’d feel dreadful lonely, and I’d say a little prayer that someday I’d bring you over here, back to Halifax, the place where you were born.” He shook his head. “Miserable I was. I even thought of going back to Ireland, but I didn’t, for then you’d be lost to me forever. It’s terrible about your mother, but it’s brilliant that you’re here. Have another drop of tea.”
Andy held out his cup and his father poured. The place was cold. There was no heater of any kind in the room. But the tea was hot. He folded his hands around the mug. His poor father didn’t have much idea of how to make himself comfortable. Andy would have to help him make his life better.
His father sat smoking. “Help yourself to milk and sugar.”
Andy tried again. “I was only five years old, just a little kid, when you left.”
His father sighed. “Not much more than a baby.”
“Why did you leave?”
“What did your mother tell you?”
“She said you died in the war.”
“What war was that, I wonder? But reports of my death have been greatly exaggerated.” He chuckled as he helped himself to more tea and stirred in milk and sugar.
“Well?” Andy intended to keep after him until he had some answers.
When his father saw how serious he was, he fixed his pale eyes on him. “I didn’t run away and leave you, Andy. I’d never do such a thing, may God strike me down this very minute if I’m telling a lie. The fact is, your mother, the saints preserve her, wanted shut of me, and that’s the truth. With no proper job and no prospects, I was no good to either of you. A terrible husband and a poor father. Your mother craved a comfortable life. And she deserved it. She made a mistake marrying a nobody like me, should’ve married a man with plenty of money.”
“She did. She married Clay.”
“I am happy she found the right man.”
“But why didn’t you write to me? Or send a birthday card? You could’ve done that at least.”
Vincent Flynn shook his head. “I was never much good at the writing and the reading.” He laughed. “I was the only kid in Dublin ever to fail kindergarten.”
“But you can read, can’t you? And write?”
“Aye, but very poorly, I’m ashamed to admit.”
“There’s no need for you to feel ashamed, Dad. Lots of people don’t read so good. It’s nothing.” Andy touched his father’s hand sympathetically.
Andy settled for the night on the sofa.
His father said, “I’m away out for a couple of hours. Will you be all right if I leave you?” His raincoat pockets bulged.
“I’ll be fine.”
“I must see a man. He’s expecting me. Are you sure you’ll be all right?”
“No problem.”
“I’ll lock the door as I go. Keep it fastened. Let no one in.” He switched the light off at the door as he left.
Andy wondered whether he should get up and turn the light on again. It was scary being alone in the dark in a strange place. But he wasn’t a little kid anymore — he was eleven; he needed no light. He’d had a little orange night-light in his room in Vancouver, with another outside on the landing so he could see his way to the bathroom, though he hadn’t really needed them. Had her No, not really. He closed his eyes and huddled down under the blanket, a lonely ache pulling at
his heart as he thought of his mother, who wasn’t in the room next to him where he could call to her. She wasn’t in the next room; she wasn’t even in Halifax, she was… How could that be? How could you be living your life, every day pretty much the same as the day before and everything normal and going to school and weekends and playing soccer and suddenly it was all changed and the mom you saw every day — who bugged you about chores and about the mess in your room and the way you slouched instead of walking straight and the way your nails were bitten down to nothing, and when will you stop biting your lip like that every time I look at you, and I’m not your slave at your beck and call every minute, and I’ve stitched the button back on and folded all your things and put them in your drawers, and you look quite nice in that sweater, brown looks good on you, goes with your eyes, and sometimes I’d like for just you and me, Andy, to take a cruise somewhere, Alaska maybe, would you like that, just the two of us? Not this summer, though, too many things to do, but we’ll do it before you’re much older, I promise, just the two of us — when the mom you saw every day was gone, too late, Mother, you gone and only me by myself in this cold room and everything changed.
He was cold. He wondered if there was an extra blanket in the bedroom, but didn’t get up to search.
He was almost asleep when a knock came to the door.
“Who is it?” Heart jumping.
“Vinny?” A man’s voice, harsh and impatient.
Andy got up. “He’s out,” he called through the door.
The man clumped away down the stairs.
Andy groped for the light switch. His fingers found it. The naked bulb hanging from the center of the ceiling lit the room poorly, but it was enough for him to see the swarm of insects — cockroaches. There must have been hundreds of them, all sizes from tiny brown to huge black, fleeing from the light back to their nests behind the baseboards. In the few seconds he stood frozen with horror at the door, and before he could move, they had all disappeared into cracks in the walls. His chest thumped as though he’d rushed up twenty flights of stairs.
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