The Journey Prize Stories 27

by Various

  That was the last thing anyone said for a long time and I felt the increasingly onerous weight of the silence. But after a while I began wondering if maybe my father and Barbara weren’t uncomfortable at all, if maybe they didn’t mind all this dead air and were simply happy to have each other’s company. Maybe I was the only one who felt that constant chatter was necessary to abate the loneliness. Then suddenly Barbara said, “Well, I don’t know how we’re going to do this, how we’re going to maintain our friendship.”

  Was that what it was? A friendship? Already? If someone I’d gone on a date with spoke of going on cruises and maintaining friendships within the first hour, I would have picked up the pungent scent of a clinging desperation and run the other way. But maybe it was different here. Maybe their age was the necessary excuse to forgo the usual plodding steps of getting to know each other.

  Or maybe not. Maybe she was simply desperate.

  “Any suggestions, luv?” she said, giving me what seemed to be a meaningful look. “You think you could drive me here sometimes? When you come down to visit your father?”

  I didn’t like this burden she was imposing on me, the way she was already worming her way into our lives without even giving my father and me the chance to talk about it, without allowing things to evolve organically.

  I looked across at my father for some kind of sign, but he no longer seemed to be listening; he was engrossed in the drama unfolding onscreen, a smile lighting his face. “I could,” I said weakly, shocked that her incursion was a matter of asking a simple little question. I cleared my throat. “Sure,” I said. “The next time I come down.” On the TV screen the man with the cowboy hat was arguing with the woman in the pink dress, the latter now holding a matching parasol over their heads.

  “Oh, I have an idea,” Barbara said. “Why don’t I get you to drive me home today on your way back to Toronto, and that way you’ll know where I live for next time. Would you mind, darling? Would you do that for me?”

  I knew the idea hadn’t come to her as suddenly as she made it sound, that she had probably been mulling it over for a while.

  “Would you mind?” she asked, smiling plaintively. How could I say no? “Good,” she said. “It’s settled. Then I’ll call up Lisa and tell her she doesn’t need to pick me up. Where’s your phone, Bert?”

  “The phone?” my father said, snapping his attention back to the present. He stood up and indicated the kitchen. “It’s by the stairs where you came in.”

  “Hello, Lisa?” we heard her say a minute later. As if waiting for this signal, my father leaned in and, grimacing, once again rattled me with an uncharacteristic choice of words.

  “Not my style,” he whispered.

  We watched the movie till the end, and when the woman with the parasol at last kissed the man in the cowboy hat—quickly and hesitantly at first, then long and passionately, the two of them grasping each other tightly—Barbara said, “Oh!” Followed by: “Oh, yes!” And, more longingly: “Oh … that’s nice.”

  “Well,” my father said, giving the armrests a good slap. “That’s love!”

  “That’s sex, I’d say,” Barbara replied, and the two of them laughed.

  I felt myself redden. “Well,” I said when the credits started to roll. “Shall we get going?” The little clock on the hi-fi chimed five; it would be just after seven by the time I got home.

  “May I give you a hug, Bert?” I heard Barbara say when I was in the kitchen getting my few things together, and through the half-open living room door I could see her put her arms tightly around my father, while he appeared somewhat cool in his response: not at all like the scene we’d just witnessed. Had she attempted a kiss? I don’t know; I quickly turned away.

  “Thank you for the lovely tea,” I heard her say when I loudly jangled my keys. “It was wonderful to meet you.”

  The play would likely be over by now, I thought as we buckled ourselves into my Civic. There would be the suggestion of dinner—a bit too early, they’d both agree—or maybe they would return to one or the other’s condo, ostensibly for coffee, a quickie before going out to eat being the mutual understanding.

  “You all right, luv?” Barbara said as we pulled away from the house. She waved to my father, who was standing on the porch, waving back. Then, just before turning back inside, he locked eyes with mine and gesticulated “Call me” with extended thumb and pinkie, something I’d never seen him do before.

  “Sorry,” I said, “I was just thinking something.”

  “I don’t know that your father entirely enjoyed my visit,” Barbara said when we hit the on-ramp for the highway.

  “Oh?” I said. “What makes you say that? I’m sure he did.”

  All afternoon I hated the sound of my voice, its straining timbre and undeniable ring of falseness, my inability to lie convincingly. It was true: I knew that my father hadn’t enjoyed her company and, frankly, I was relieved.

  “Well, he seems like a very sweet man, your father.”

  I did not attempt to respond to this. He was many things, my father, but that was not a word I would have chosen. “He’s recently been diagnosed with dementia,” was what I said instead, something I’d wanted to tell her all afternoon, the underlying message being: lay off.

  She looked at me quickly. “Well, you certainly have your hands full, then, don’t you? Patrick had dementia when he died.”

  “Who is this Patrick?” I said, surprising myself with the sudden gruffness of my own voice. “Is he your husband or is Robert? I thought he was your son.”

  “My son?” she said, and gave a short, sharp laugh, like a bark. “Whatever gave you that idea? No, no, my dear. Robert was my wonderful, sweet husband. And Patrick … Well, let’s just say he was a very”—she hesitated—“let’s just say he was a very special friend of mine.” She paused a moment, allowing that to soak in, then sighed dramatically. “Yes, dear, I know what you’re thinking, and it’s true. There were three of us in that marriage.”

  I turned to look at her and I could tell she liked the sound of that, that it set her apart from (if not above) most people.

  “Robert was the love of my life,” Barbara continued. “That will never change, and Patrick was someone I met twenty-seven years ago when I was in the park one day reading a book. Now I don’t want to go into details, darling, but let’s just say we became very, very good friends. All three of us.”

  I did a shoulder check and glided over to the passing lane. I didn’t know what to say to that. I honestly had no idea.

  “You’re not shocked, dear, are you? You don’t think I’m some kind of wicked woman, do you, luv?”

  Now it was my turn to laugh, a real, true laugh, not one of those polite, forced exhalations through the nose. “No,” I said, looking at her. “No, I don’t.” And I didn’t. In fact, in another context I probably would have liked Barbara very much. But she was aching for passion, for love and kisses, the kind of thing she had shared with Robert and Patrick but would not find with my father, nor would I want her to. And for a moment, I saw my mother rouse from her eternal slumber, briefly survey the situation and, pleased with today’s outcome, roll over and promptly fall back asleep again.

  “You’re lucky,” I said, thinking of Michael and whatever his name was, and cast a glance in her direction. “That sort of situation doesn’t always work out for people.”

  She looked as though she was about to ask me something, but then quickly faced the highway again. “Yes, darling,” she said. “I think I was lucky that way. I was loved by two very dear men in my life. And it’s a good thing to be loved. A very, very good thing indeed.”

  I expected her to ask me if I was married or had someone special in my life, but when she didn’t, I knew that my father, in one of their long pre-meeting phone calls, had told her I’m gay. And I was glad she didn’t; I didn’t want to get into it. What she said instead was this: “You ever go to the theatre, darling?”

  I glanced over at her. “I was suppose
d to see a play today, actually.”

  “It’s been ages since I’ve seen a play,” she said. “Patrick always used to take me after Robert died, the two of us spending the night in Toronto. Wonderful productions we saw. I so miss that now.

  “Here we are,” she said after we exited the highway and turned onto her street. “The house on the left, dear. Isn’t it lovely? Yes, Robert knew how to take care of me.”

  I pulled into the driveway of a suburban white brick split-level, a house that had once been the gleaming happy home of a young family but that had slowly taken on the slightly shabby look of neglect: the lawn was crowded with dandelions, rust trailed the bottom of the eavestroughs, and the driveway was sun-cracked and warped. A widow lives here, the house seemed to be saying.

  I helped Barbara out of the car and, slowly and carefully, up the three steps to the front door. “Would you like to come in, dear?” she said when she’d dug her key out of her purse. “Have a cup of tea?”

  “I really should get going,” I said, anxious to be on my way.

  She held her purse in both hands and looked at me fixedly. “I’m not going to call your father,” she said. “I’m going to leave the ball in his court, as they say. But it would be nice to get to know him. Y’know, go out to see movies with him, maybe go to Toronto and see something onstage, spend the night.”

  You still don’t get it, I thought, do you? My father could not give her what she was looking for: she was too educated for him, too worldly, and what she was looking for, like my father’s own futile search, was some unattainable ideal, illusory and out of reach and still deeply rooted in the past. He was looking for a hausfrau; she was looking for Roger Moore.

  “I’m sure he’ll call,” I said, knowing that he wouldn’t, and I smiled, an honest smile that came without any effort or strain because I knew it was over, that neither my father nor I would ever see her again. And I’m guessing she knew it too.

  “I think I’ll sit outside for a bit,” she said, suddenly reaching for the plastic patio chair behind her. “Lovely evening. Nice weather.”

  I got in the car and backed out onto the street, but when I waved, she was no longer looking in my direction but at the ill-tended rosebushes. She was already elsewhere, perhaps along the Italian coastline, decades away, alone with her memories.

  As I expected, my father never ended up calling her. Or if he did, he never told me about it. But I doubt it. What I didn’t expect was the departure of the good spirits he’d been in during the week leading up to that one and only date. He became his old cantankerous self again, snapping often at the PSWs, accusing them of trying to poison him or filching money out of his wallet. Once, he even got it in his head that Lisa had called him a “stupid old man” behind his back. There were tears, apparently—Lisa’s, not my father’s—and the next time I went home the doctor decided it was time to add risperidone to the cocktail of meds he was already on.

  Since the afternoon he’d stood on the porch and waved goodbye to Barbara, I assumed my father had forgotten all about her, that he was glad to be rid of her, and that as soon as she walked out the door she would have slipped into that chasm of non-memory known as dementia. But that October, while we were having Thanksgiving dinner and my father was on his second glass of wine (“C’mon, just another glass. If I can’t live it up now, when can I live it up?”), a commercial for an online travel company came on TV. Cupping his wine glass, my father turned to me and in a slightly drunken, downcast voice said, “The sun … the sea … lovely company …” And that’s when I knew she returned to his thoughts from time to time and that he regretted the outcome of that afternoon. “What more could I want?” he said.

  It was just the two of us in the house at the time. A year earlier Michael had sat at this table too, the presence of a guest adding, however illusory, to the festive spirit of the day. But something momentous must have happened to Michael the afternoon he saw the play because I’ve not heard from him since, except for the card I received in the mail inviting me to his wedding, a tastefully chosen card I quickly tore up and threw out. Of course, neither my father nor I mentioned his absence. In fact, his not being there reflected an even greater emptiness in my father’s life, magnifying it to grotesque proportions: no loving wife, no daughter-in-law, no multitude of grandchildren, not at all how my father imagined his last few years would turn out. We were just two aging men alone together, eating turkey and watching TV.

  And yet I think about it occasionally, the mistaken sense of satisfaction I felt that warm June evening when I got back to Toronto and called up my father, thinking this intruder in our lives had left for good and we could happily carry on as before.

  “What’s she going to do for me?” my father grumbled into the phone. “You think she’s going to cook and clean? Oh no, she’s not going to do that. And what’s she thinking? That I’m made of money? Going on cruises and whatnot … Silly woman. No,” he said. “No, she’s not for me. She’s the one who needs help. She’s the one who needs someone. Not me.”

  He carried on in this way, and I believed every word of it.

  CHARLIE FISET

  MAGGIE’S FARM

  The girl and the boy speed farther and farther away from Piacenza, where they should have detrained. The girl’s perched on the edge of her seat, rocking back and forth slightly as she looks out the window at the blurred landscape painted with the burnt umber sunrise. The boy is completely silent, clutching his stomach as if his chronic, anxiety-induced cramps are gnawing away at him. He’s never worked on a farm before. On top of that, they both dread being late to meet Margaret. She hired them on faith, without even meeting them. They’ve also put a lot of faith in her by buying the ticket to Alessandro with the last of their money. But Margaret doesn’t know it counts for anything because she doesn’t know how desperate they are.

  “Do you think there’ll be another train?” the girl asks.

  “Yes, of course,” says the boy.

  “What if it doesn’t leave until tonight? Or tomorrow?”

  “I don’t know,” the boy says. He’s looking at the floor, as if the view through the window is making him nauseous. “Maybe there’s a bus.”

  “How are we going to contact Margaret? She won’t know where we are—she’ll think we decided not to show up at all.”

  “We’ll find a phone at the next station,” the boy says. “We’ll call her.”

  “But she’ll already be waiting for us.”

  “Don’t worry.”

  “I am worried,” says the girl. “How are you not worried?”

  The boy licks his lips, but makes no reply.

  “We need this job,” the girl says. “You know how much we need it.”

  As it turns out, Margaret isn’t waiting for them at the Piacenza station. When the boy telephones her at the next stop, he discovers that she hasn’t yet left her farm.

  “Well, what did she say?” the girl asks, as the boy hangs up. They’re standing across the street from an old church, their backpacks slumped against the clear plastic wall of the telephone booth. Pigeons strut along the cobbles, pecking at empty shells that lie at the feet of an old man selling hazelnuts roasted on a portable barbeque.

  “She said we should take the bus back to Piacenza,” the boy says. “There’s one every half hour.”

  “Did she seem upset?” the girl asks. “Irritated?”

  “No. She said she’s running late, too.”

  They wait at the station for Margaret. The girl, sitting on her pack, her elbows on her thighs, is just beginning to reach an unbearable level of anxiety when a tiny Ape pickup truck pulls up in front of the station. The horn honks.

  A tall, thin woman in her early forties climbs out of the driver’s seat. “I’m looking for a couple of Canadians who need a lift,” she calls, with an English accent.

  “You’re Margaret?” the boy asks, as they shake hands. She has a strong grip; firm and dry as firewood. But her eyes are watery.

&nb
sp; “No, no. My name’s Diane. Don’t mind me, I didn’t have enough time to change.”

  She’s wearing blue overalls and tall rubber boots patterned with skulls and crossbones. Mud stains on her knees and hay in her greying blonde hair. When she picks up the girl’s bag and hauls it into the back of the Ape, it’s as if she’s slinging a bale. She hops behind the wheel.

  “Are we all going to fit in there?” the boy asks.

  The Ape is comically small. Usually they’re portable produce or flower shops—the girl wonders if maybe that’s why they’re called “bees.” There’s only one long, narrow seat in the cab.

  “We’ll have to squeeze in, unless one of you wants to ride with the luggage,” says Diane.

  All three of them pile into the tiny truck, the girl sitting in the middle with her knees pulled up and her arms crossed in front of her and resting on her lap.

  “Are you Margaret’s barn manager?” the girl asks.

  “Me? Oh no. I just arrived in Italy a few weeks ago. I got a flight from Heathrow to Malpensa Airport for one pound. You have to book far ahead to get a deal like that. Those flights are going to be the collapse of the airline industry.”

  On the ride out into the countryside Diane tells them that she’s just finished working at a trail-riding business in the forests of Romania. The Romanian language came very easily to her, and now she’s hoping to pick up Italian.

  “That’s one of the reasons Margaret hired me,” Diane says. “She needed someone to talk to the Romanian boys she keeps hiring. They don’t speak any English at all, and very little Italian.”

  “How did Margaret hire them?” asks the girl.

  “Oh, the same way she found you. She casts her nets very wide.” Diane gives them a sideways glance. “Is this your first job in Europe? You look so young.”

  “We’re nineteen,” says the boy. “We were backpacking, but we thought we would stop for a while and try something different.”