Vital Signs

by John Metcalf

  an electric appliance which made yogurt (hers)

  a scarlet winter coat and her fur hat

  He smoothed the fur and spoke her name in the silence. “Patricia.” And immediately wondered why he had. He had never called her Patricia, always either Pat or a private name he would not now say.

  Snowflakes drifting from the darkness into the light of the street lamp, glistening, settling, melting on the fur that framed her face. He tried to see her face within that frame but all he could recall was her face as it was in the few photographs he had kept.

  The blankets, too. He touched the topmost blanket; it often must have covered them. He tried to remember her body, tried to remember making love, but she, his wife, Pat, dissolved, faded, assumed the postures of models in Penthouse and Cavalier.

  He wondered why he felt so sad, her real face gone, her real body. The moving men remained more vivid, past drama more acute than present feelings. He wondered if perhaps he was deliberately inducing a sense of desolation. He tried the word “desolation’’ in his mind to see if he felt “desolated,” but all the word conjured was the memory of a photograph of Ypres.

  He felt, he decided, as if he’d suffered amputation. He was no longer whole. And the pain he felt, the sadness, was part real and perhaps part pain in a phantom limb. This formulation struck him as penetrating and clever, and he sat on the couch staring at the carton. The carton was just a cardboard box full of things he once had used and now did not. He sat on the couch feeling sad and holding the wooden train.

  The telephone in the bedroom shrilled. Rushing to answer it, he stumbled over a chair in the kitchen. The voice wanted George. The number was right? Then how come no George? Did George use to live there?

  Peter sat on the edge of his bed and switched on the light that stood on the chest of drawers. The cat woman was on the next door balcony calling kitty—kitty. He could grow herbs in the summer on the balcony in a box—basil and oregano to flavour salads and egg dishes he would cook for friends. He could hang up strings of onions in the kitchen.

  Kitty-kitty called the cat woman. Kitty-kitty.

  He sat on the edge of the bed staring at the chest of drawers. In the chest of drawers, under his shirts, was the list from CompuMate. There remained Anna Stevens. Anna Stevens held for him no interest; the die was cast. But the sheet of paper was a presence. Taking out a daily shirt, he was aware that the list was there, grit and oyster, irritating. To throw the list away was to leave loose ends; to throw the list away was to leave unread, as it were, the final chapter. To throw the list away was, it might be argued, a refusal to test his position. To not phone her could be seen even as a weakness. To phone her was, in a way, part of cleaning up, unpacking, settling in.

  He thought of a piece of Battersea enamel that had been through his hands the previous week, a 1780ish patch-box. The plaque had read:

  Happy the Man who Void of Care and Strife

  In Ease and Friendship lives the Social Life

  Exactly so.

  Who loves you the most in the world? called the cat woman.

  He opened the drawer and took out the paper. It was rather late to phone but on the other hand he didn’t much care what her reaction was. He wished to deal with the matter in a summary way. He felt about it, he decided, as he did when he stayed up late to finish a detective story. The action and the minor characters intrigued him, but towards the end of the book exhaustion dragged him down and all that remained was the tedium of the explanation—a scene always contrived, the villain revealing all before pulling the trigger, the cast assembled in the library. Tedious, often silly, but essential before he could brush his teeth and go to bed.

  He listened to the ringing, twice . . . three times . . . four.

  “Oh . . . Miss Stevens, please.”

  “Speaking.”

  “I hope I’m not disturbing you calling at this hour?”

  In the background Bach or Vivaldi.

  “No.”

  “My name is Thornton. Peter Thornton. I was given your name by CompuMate.”

  “Oh, God!” she said.

  He listened to the breathing silence for a few seconds.

  “Hello?”

  “I’m sorry,” she said. “I didn’t mean . . .”

  “Is there something wrong?” he said.

  “Look!” she said. “This is all a mistake. One of the men I work with filled out a form in my name and he’s caused me a great deal of—”

  “But that’s exactly what happened to me!” said Peter. “A friend thought—”

  “Then you know how distasteful—”

  “But what a strange coincidence!” said Peter.

  “Yes,” she said. “It is.”

  “What do you mean? Don’t you believe me?”

  “Why shouldn’t I?” she said.

  “I’m sorry—just your tone.”

  There was silence.

  “Mr. . . . Thornton, did you say? Let’s agree that it is a strange coincidence and leave it at that. I really don’t want to seem rude but it is late—”

  “I wonder . . .” said Peter.

  “What?”

  “No. I’m sorry. I’m sorry to have troubled you.”

  He replaced the receiver. His hand was sweaty.

  Later, lying in bed, drifting towards sleep, his thoughts wandered around the conversation. It was not the sort of ending he’d imagined. In the morning, first thing, he’d throw the list away. He had said, “I wonder . . .” and she had said, “What?” and then he’d said, “No.” Had said, “No. I’m sorry.” Vivaldi in the background. It was not what he’d imagined; not an ending he’d foreseen.

  He wondered if, somewhere in the city, she too was lying in bed awake, wondering what he might have said when he said, “I wonder. . . ,” curious, less determined than she’d sounded, provoked perhaps by a coincidence so strange.

  But mainly he thought about her voice. Ever since his adolescence he’d been oddly excited by women with a certain kind of voice, and she had it. “Husky” did not describe it; that was the property of torchsingers and the like. “Deep” or “low” did not do it justice. For some reason he had come to associate the timbre with coolness, the coolness of moss, of ancient masonry, and over the years had imagined a scene that was somehow the equivalent of the voice.

  At a cocktail party, he was introduced to a beautiful woman. They talked. He was holding her glass while she searched her purse for matches. Before taking the glass back, she placed her forefinger across the inside of his wrist for a second. Her finger was slim and cool. The touch was almost solemn yet shockingly erotic because proprietorial. A cool finger across the heat of his pulse, a sophisticated “yes.”

  And that was the sound of the voice.

  During the next two days, Peter frequently caught himself thinking of the voice, the telephone conversation, that music, the strange coincidence of their situation. The coincidence was so strange that it might even be considered a sign, or portent. While not at all superstitious or neurotic, Peter often made minor decisions, this restaurant or that, to go out, to stay in, by whether ten cars or more had passed while he counted fifty, by whether a bird flew across the portion of sky visible from his bedroom, by whether, in ten dealt cards, he drew an ace. On days when he forgot his nail clippers on the night table he felt oddly uncomfortable. This business of Anna Stevens deserved thought. He kept remembering something that Alan had said when he filled in the form—something about the possibility of there being one, the same sort of reasons, one like him.

  Her existence in no way altered his earlier decision, of course, but he was forced to admit that he was intrigued. Although he entirely agreed with and approved of her attitude on the phone, her cool rejection had irritated him. An admittedly irrational part of him even felt hurt. On the other hand, had she not taken that position, had she acce
pted or welcomed his approach, he would probably have let her talk and, whatever might have been said, would have tended to consider the matter closed, brushed teeth and so to bed. Just like, who was it—Groucho Marx?—whoever said that any club that would accept him as member was not the sort of club to which he wished to belong.

  Silly.

  He acknowledged his perversity.

  She, of course, probably did consider the matter closed.

  That was a problem.

  The coincidence so tantalizing, the effect of her voice, her obvious intelligence and self-possession—she had deprived him of anything he could consider a fitting conclusion to this dismal adventure. This was not the way that stories ended. Before embracing his decision, he wanted to feel that his past—he sought an image—burning of boats, clearing a campsite before shouldering a pack and moving on, yes, that was it precisely. Litter buried, fireplace stones dispersed, the fire kicked out.

  To phone her again was impossible; he was not a man who importuned strange women. The most sensible course of action was to write. This would obviate any embarrassment on either side and allow them both their dignity. He would include in the letter sufficient information about himself for her to make a reasoned response. If she chose not to reply; then he would accept that refusal as a considered refusal—the circumstances being completely different from an unexpected phone call. If she chose not to reply, he could accept that refusal as a fitting conclusion to what had been a silly business from the start.

  If she did reply, if she did reply, then, simply, he would see what happened.

  On his return from work on the third day, he sat down at the desk in his bedroom to construct the letter. He had determined on a light and civilized approach. The letter’s stated intention was to apologize for his gauche intrusion upon her privacy. He presented himself as a victim of Alan’s misplaced sense of humour who—but why had he co-operated, why phoned these dreadful women in the first place? Pitfall. Light-heartedly? Presumably he’d have phoned them in the same spirit he’d phoned her. Pitfall. He used up endless sheets of his office scratch pad.

  He wove all necessary information about himself into the fabric of his chronicle of misadventure. All references to his past, marital status, occupation, income, and interests were oblique and present only to make clear word and action. He did not request a meeting or any further contact—the fact of writing implied enough.

  He wrote and rewrote, shading an emphasis here, burnishing a highlight, lengthening there, excising. Humour with a dash of pathos dealt with Stella Bluth and Nadia Chayefski. Elspeth McLeod he played as comedy degenerating into farce. He himself emerged as a slightly bruised idealist, rueful, the Philip Marlowe of the antique trade, a man unafraid to admit to loneliness, a man, who, in these untender times, was not ashamed to admit to the possibility of love.

  Love, which, strip away our sterile sophistication, our bright brittleness, was perhaps . . . etc.

  Difficult, this part. Such rhetoric clashed with the letter’s general tone. He struggled to bring it under control.

  The letter was five pages long. Looking at his watch, he saw with surprise that he’d been working on it for more than three hours. He realized suddenly that he was hungry and exhausted. He felt lightheaded, oddly disconnected from his bedroom with its familiar furniture, as if he’d been living for those hours in a different world where a part of him still lingered. He poured himself a large Scotch and read the letter through, smiling still at certain turns of phrase. The letter pleased him; it was a fine blend of humour, self-deprecation, and manly emotion. In a quiet way, it was moving.

  He decided that he must eat before writing out a fair copy. He investigated the kitchen. He had bought supplies, tins, meat in the fridge, the Penguin Book of French Provincial Cookery. The haricot beans he had been soaking with the intention of using in a simplified version of cassoulet seemed to have gone funny. There was a grey scum on the water and they smelled. As he had further work to do on the letter and felt tired, he decided to eat, for the sake of convenience, at Chez Jean-Guy.

  He took the Scotch and the letter into the living room and sat down to read it again. It was moving. He sipped the Scotch. And what was more, he realized, it was true.

  He mailed the letter the next morning and immediately began to brood about the anarchy of the Montreal postal situation. It was not unheard of for letters to take eight days to cross the city. Letters were sorted ten times, redirected, trundled to Ottawa and back, burned even by union goon squads. Burned, dropped down drains, stabbed through and through by separatist postmen.

  His mail was usually delivered at about 10 A.M. and, on the third possible day for a reply, he drove home at lunchtime to check his mailbox. It contained advertising matter from Simpson’s and a Hydro bill.

  The weekend intervened.

  On Monday, however, the whiteness inside the mail slot was an envelope addressed in an unfamiliar hand.

  The letter read:

  Dear Mr. Thornton,

  Thank you for your charming and humorous letter. There was no need to apologize. If apologies are needed, then I should apologize for being so abrupt. How were you to know that I’d been made the object of someone’s spite? Strange as it may seem, passions in libraries do exist—it must be something to do with being so enclosed—I was about to say cloistered! Please don’t feel guilty and excuse my curtness—I’m sure with your experiences, you’ll understand it.

  Yours sincerely,

  Anna Stevens

  Peter studied the letter.

  The most important point, of course, was that she had written it at all. Any kind of reply was a clear indication of interest. That she had gone further and unnecessarily revealed the nature of her occupation . . . He wondered about the words “cloistered” and “passions”—words possibly full of obscure promise.

  He imagined her voice saying those words.

  On the phone she had said, “one of the men I work with,” and the plural was interesting. In most public libraries, the staff was mainly women—one man, perhaps. But “men”? Possible in the main branch of a large city, but Montreal had no large public English-language library. And the private or semi-private libraries—Fraser Hickson, Atwater, Westmount—were definitely female preserves. Could it be that, better and better, she worked in a university? And he wondered about “one of the men”—why he’d done that, filled in the form. A discontented underling? A rejected suitor, perhaps, spurred by bitterness.

  The letter was written in ink, not ballpoint—much in her favour. The paper was a heavy bond, pleasant to handle, the handwriting graceful and firm. The emphasis of “do” and “cloistered,” and “your” and the excessive exclamation mark were possibly a little feminine but the letter was not hideous with green or purple ink and circles instead of dots over the i’s—characteristics with which he had become familiar over the last three years, infallible indicators of mental or emotional unbalance.

  What should be his response? To phone, even now, would be injudicious. Another letter was required, a letter simple and to the point. A letter that explained how he was haunted by how strangely they were yoked by coincidence, which proposed they meet entirely outside the sordid context of CompuMate, perhaps for dinner. Solitary dining uncheering and bad for the digestion. Something along those lines. He would gamble everything on one throw of the dice.

  It was as he was labouring over the composition of this letter that the phone rang. He reached over from his desk.

  “So what’s new?” said Alan.

  “Nothing much. You?”

  “Just been invited to give a paper in England at a Shakespeare orgy. Expenses paid.”

  “Will Nancy let you go?”

  “I’ll have to try being nice to her for a bit,” said Alan.

  “I’ll tell you what did happen,” said Peter. “I’ve just met a most interesting new lady.”


  “What sort of lady?”

  “A librarian lady. Very bright. Very good-looking. It all looks very promising.”

  “Large personalities, has she?” said Alan.

  “Really, North!” said Peter. “Must you sully everything you touch?”

  “Sully my ass,” said Alan. “I’d rather have a pair of first-rate knockers than all those old Chinese pots and pans you moon over.”

  “You have a point, I suppose,” said Peter.

  “So have they,” said Alan. “But listen. Enough of this Pat and Mike stuff. You want to come to dinner? Nancy’s doing something disgusting from a new cookbook and I want you to eat some before I try it. Half an hour or so? Dress informal.”

  “I’ll pick up some wine,” said Peter.

  “If you want,” said Alan, “bring this librarian creature.”

  The next morning, after the alarm had gone off, dozing, Peter dreamed a most vivid dream, which was part dream and part memory. It was the last day of his summer holiday at his uncle’s farm. He was saying goodbye to the girl who lived at the next farm. He was thirteen and loved her achingly. Marjorie was twelve.

  He was standing in the lane looking up at her where she sat on her pony. Their conversation was stilted. Suddenly he blurted out:

  “Can I kiss you goodbye?”

  A deep blush suffused her and she bent to pat the horse’s neck.

  After a silence she said:

  “I’d like to but I can’t.”

  They seemed held there then in the still sunshine, the shade of the hazel trees almost black, the buzz of insects in the roadside flowers. He stared at a place in the rein where the leather was cracked and blackened.

  And then she said:

  “You can have this to keep.”

  And she thrust at him her handkerchief, a large, man’s handkerchief, white with a green-and-brown border. And later in the bedroom with the black oak beams where he always slept, he moved aside the basin and ewer and smoothed and folded the handkerchief on the washstand and put it in the brown plastic wallet his Auntie Anne had given him for a going-away present.