Six Metres of Pavement

by Farzana Doctor

  And Shelina seemed to be softening. The phone calls were gradually losing their shrill and accusatory (from both sides) tones and no one was hanging up in tears anymore. Ismail and Celia overheard some of the conversations and hoped Shelina was growing to accept her daughter’s choices, and would influence Hassan to do the same. Celia told Ismail to prepare himself for the day when Fatima might choose to return home to Mississauga, but he shrugged off the idea.

  After a couple of weeks of back and forth, Shelina conceded. Fatima and Ashton rented a van and nervously set off for the suburbs. They returned within two hours, a silver Audi following closely behind. Shelina was in the driver’s seat, a determined look on her face, while Hassan slumped sulkily beside her. Through the spotty windshield, Ismail spied them glaring at one another. He speculated that Hassan usually drove the car, and that Shelina was the one to initiate the trip into the city, with Hassan only getting into the passenger seat at the very last minute. Ismail amused himself imagining the terse argument they must have just concluded before pulling up.

  Shelina broke the impasse, opened her car door, and strode out to meet Ismail. She was cordial, but didn’t look him in the eye for long, the sour words from their last phone interaction still curdling between them. Stiff and businesslike, she turned her attention to helping the kids unlatch the van doors. Her husband remained in the car, perhaps still deliberating about whether or not to join in. When he finally got out, Ismail extended a handshake, but Hassan side-stepped it while Ismail’s white shirt sleeve flapped in the breeze like a peace flag.

  “We thought we’d come and see our daughter’s room. Make sure everything is all right,” Hassan said brusquely, his tone imperious. Ismail held his tongue. Shelina inspected the exterior of the house and pronounced it to be “cute,” which Ismail interpreted to mean “small.” He muttered a barely audible thank-you to Shelina’s unflattering praise and turned to help Ashton empty the jam-packed van. Fatima, sensing the tension, took her parents inside for a tour.

  — * —

  Celia heard the noise on the street and, seeing that the U-Haul had returned, went out to join the men. Ismail tromped around the interior of the truck, the metal carriage reverberating with each bothered footfall. Celia had learned that when Ismail was stressed, he tended toward organization and a measured sort of bossiness. Right then he was instructing Ashton about the order in which they should unload the truck. Ashton stood by, eyebrows raised, but more or less compliant.

  She reached up as he passed down the dozen garbage bags Ismail had identified as the first to go. They were Fatima’s clothes, and as Celia hauled them, she was reminded of her own move to Lochrie Street and the wardrobe she’d bundled haphazardly into plastic. She hadn’t much time to pack her things back then, and had been advised to “liquidate her assets” and pay off the debts as soon as possible. That was only five weeks after José’s passing, and two after her mother’s death, and the creditors were like jackals closing in on the scent of death and rot. Worries were phantoms that kept her up each night.

  —

  Fatima burst out onto the porch, a forced cheeriness raising the pitch of her voice. Her father emerged after her, following just a step behind. Celia saw it immediately: Fatima was her father’s daughter. Her dark eyes, heavy brows, sharp cheekbones — all his. Even their gaits were the same; shoulders and hips revealing a stiffness that was habit for her, but joint pain for him. As they descended the steps together, they were like a pair of marionettes animated by the same hand. Shelina trailed a few paces behind. With her round face, light brown eyes and limber movements, she was their reluctant third wheel.

  There was a brief standoff as the Khans surveyed Celia, sniffing out a stranger in their midst. Fatima nervously introduced Celia as Ismail’s neighbour, her eyes widening and brows waggling for Celia’s benefit. Celia patted Fatima’s arm to let her know she wasn’t bothered; she knew Fatima was all too familiar with the nuances of her parent’s prejudices. Perhaps she didn’t want them to suspect that her protector-landlord had a girlfriend, and a Portuguese one at that. Fatima needed her folks to think Ismail was not so different from them.

  Celia supposed she was doing the same thing by not telling Sylvia Silva too much about Fatima. She and Sonia Gandhi were now an item, and half the neighbourhood had seen them holding hands on the street. She kept her mouth zippered shut when people asked questions, aware that she wanted to protect the occupants at 82 Lochrie from scrutiny, or at least further scrutiny — a few neighbours still remembered Ismail’s past, if only vaguely. Even more, she wanted to avoid being judged by association, and she hated that about herself. She loved Ismail for all his flawed history and adored Fatima, too. She even thought the girls made a good couple.

  So why did she dodge the truth to avoid the critiques of small-minded people? Or maybe she was the one being small-minded by unfairly judging her neighbours. She’d long suspected that Sylvia’s niece had a female companion, and it was rumoured that the riding’s favoured local politician was gay, too. Would Fatima and Sonia Gandhi really arouse that much neighbourhood scorn?

  She was so involved in all her own meandering contemplations that she didn’t notice that the Khans had already lost interest in her. She looked up to see that Hassan was making a big production of trying to carry a chest of drawers up the porch steps all by himself. Luckily, Ashton had followed Hassan up the stairs, anticipating the accident waiting to happen.

  — * —

  Ismail, not caring if Hassan fell on his backside, only watched as he bobbed and swayed under the dresser’s weight. No, he would let him fall. But Ashton stepped forward, steadying Hassan on the fifth step, and he and the dresser made it safely upstairs.

  After, there was some discussion about how to take the rest of the bulky pieces inside and eventually, after some crabbiness from Hassan and eye-rolls from Fatima, everyone agreed to Ismail’s suggestion that they form an assembly line from the van to Fatima’s room, with stops at the curb, front hallway, and stairs. He assigned Shelina and Hassan the middle spots, and Ismail stood at the van, so that he wouldn’t have to be too near them. He drafted the order on the side of a cardboard box:

  Ismail

  Celia

  Shelina

  Hassan

  Ashton

  Fatima

  They worked efficiently, passing bags and boxes and a desk into the house. Ashton and Ismail carried up the mattress, while Shelina and Fatima took in the box spring. Hassan put the frame together. There was even some laughter as they teased Fatima about the quantity of her possessions. Ashton quoted Veblen, something about conspicuous consumption and Fatima not-so-playfully swatted his arm. But in the end, when it was all done, Ismail thought Fatima grinned like a little girl.

  — * —

  With Shelina and Hassan’s departure, Celia felt a collective sigh of relief wafting through the house like a warm summer’s breeze. Ismail put his arm around her, the first PDA, or Public Display of Affection, as Fatima liked to call it, all afternoon. Celia sank into Ismail’s shoulder, her face turning into his armpit, smelling his musky sweat. The four of them needed a break, and Ismail offered everyone some of his non-alcoholic beer. Ashton, curious about what it tasted like (unlike Celia and Fatima, who already knew) accepted one. He headed home after a few grimace-inducing swigs.

  Celia watched as he and Fatima hugged for a long time at the door, Ashton’s muscular arms roping around her. She thought their bodies seemed familiar and intimate in the way that only ex-lovers-turned-friends could be. She’d seen Lydia like this with two ex-boyfriends with whom she still kept in contact, touches easy, bodies remembering. She pondered if José were to come back, would it be like this between them? She knew every scar, each tired muscle, the gurgling sounds his stomach made. How would they greet one another again if they were no longer together? It was an absurd notion — José still alive and as an ex-husb
and — but sometimes her mind jumbled things in this way.

  Half an hour after Ashton left, Sonia arrived, having just finished her shift at the coffee shop. The girls left Ismail and Celia alone in the living room, and giggling and pop music took over the upstairs.

  “So what do you think of the parents?” Ismail whispered, even though it would have been impossible for the girls to overhear them.

  “I think they will come around. I think it is already happening.”

  “Yeah, I can see it in Shelina. She was almost nice, or trying to be. But that Hassan. What a gandu! A real ass!”

  She agreed with him but not as heartily; she knew families could repair themselves the way she and Lydia were trying to do. Hassan and Shelina were sewing seams, where once there was a tear. Messy and crooked stitches for sure, but still …

  “I can tell they’re making an effort,” she insisted. He shrugged.

  They sat on the couch, their tired bodies leaning into one another, their limbs warming. Celia closed her eyes, felt heat between them, the boundary between where her skin and his began almost imperceptible.

  But their minds were busy travelling in two separate directions. Ismail guiltily hoped Fatima wouldn’t reconcile with her parents too soon, for he wanted her to stay. He liked the way she took up space in the house and mistakenly believed that she was responsible for the bad memories visiting less often.

  Celia’s mind was on the house across the street. The rift between she and Lydia was healing, each of them offering needle and thread and fingers to the effort. They had almost been getting along well since her birthday. Now she wondered, would that all change? Would their edges fray again when she told her daughter that she was moving out on her own?

  — 41 —

  That Man

  Ismail was not altogether unsympathetic to Celia’s plans. He knew she had always lived with other people, first her parents, then her late husband, her mother again, and last with her daughter, all the while playing the roles of dutiful daughter, wife, mother. Of course she wanted to be on her own and he tried to be supportive, at least outwardly. Privately, he couldn’t help but maintain the fantasy that after a period of time she’d have her fill of independent living, and get it out of her system. She’d realize that it would be duller than she imagined, and lonelier, too. Then, she would want to come live with him. He envisioned them waking up together each morning, sharing meals, being together like a real couple.

  He had to admit that his version of their future included marriage (just a small civil ceremony, nothing fancy), and growing old together. He couldn’t really explain his matrimonial longings. He’d done it once before, quite badly, and he’d come to accept and even appreciate his unmarried status, which was made less bleak now that he was dating and had a roommate. Still, he wished for Celia to marry him one day. And there would be the added benefit of increased acceptance from their families. They, too, would see them as a real couple and stop criticizing the union.

  Ismail confessed his hopes to Fatima one night over dinner, and with a mouthful of the chicken tetrazinni she’d prepared, she pronounced, “Fat chance.” She told him that widows get smart about marriage after their husbands die and aren’t likely to make the same mistakes twice. “No offence,” she added.

  Ismail only half-listened to her while she prattled on about patriarchy and its yoke-hold on women. She was missing the point; it wasn’t that he wanted Celia to be his wife. He longed to be her husband, the good husband, the one who wouldn’t keep secrets from her, die prematurely, and leave her homeless. He wanted to be loyal to keep her safe. Yes, he wanted to be that man.

  — * —

  A small apartment was all Celia felt she needed. A galley kitchen that accommodated just one cook. A bathroom no one else would mess. A tiny, unshareable bedroom. A living room not well disposed to entertaining. A place of her own.

  The desire had been developing within her, over the winter when she couldn’t articulate it, and through the springtime when she wasn’t sure she should. Perhaps it began just before the move from her bedroom-den to the basement. It wasn’t that the basement turned out to be so terrible, for her subterranean room did provide her more peace and quiet than the room on the main floor. And having her own bathroom was convenient. No, it wasn’t the space that was the problem. The issue was that that she could be so easily moved, that it was someone else’s decision where she slept at night. For years, she’d falsely believed she was in charge of this — after all, she considered the house on Shannon to be hers. But then it got taken away and she was moved, and then moved once more. She wouldn’t allow this to happen to her ever again.

  Ismail raised the topic of her living with him again in July, two months after her birthday. He was much more direct and confident about the proposal his second try, providing her with cogent arguments about its benefits. He’d even listed them on a neatly typed piece of City of Toronto letterhead (which he assured her was scrap and not an improper use of tax dollars): more time together; less sneaking around; reduced costs for them both; co-habitating couples live longer (she scoffed at this one and corrected it to say “co-habilitating men live longer”).

  She turned the paper over to see if there was a list of drawbacks, but the other side was blank. She thought this funny; Ismail tended to be painstakingly thorough.

  She did like spending time at his house, enjoyed completing the family that he and Fatima were forming. But something told her it was not quite right for her, a tingly buzzing in her head that said No, not yet. Not now. There was something else she needed to do even if she had no idea what it was. All she knew for sure was that she required a home of her own.

  And so, she got a herself a job. Her volunteer work at St. Christopher House morphed into a part-time position in their adult day program when Linda, the animator, went on maternity leave. For seventeen dollars an hour, five hours each day, four days a week, she dreamt up recreational activities to occupy the Portuguese seniors. Celia never knew she had so many crafts and games and theme parties stored up in her mind from her years of parenting and babysitting. She took the seniors on mall walks, ran contests to improve their English, and cooked arroz doce with them.

  One lady, an eighty-year-old with dementia and a spine like a comma, became her favourite client. Maria’s husband dropped her off, settling her down in a well-worn corner chair, the same one each day. In the mornings he had the countenance of someone resigned and irritable, but when he returned at two-thirty, he was a different man altogether — more patient with his wife, even jovial, the lines around his eyes less deeply set. Celia was curious about what he did during his respite hours, but never asked. Meanwhile, Maria participated in every activity she could do from her seat and became the de facto knitting instructor. She produced half a dozen knitted scarves a week, even with her failing mental faculties and arthritic hands.

  When Celia received her first paycheck, its dot-matrixed print peeking through the plastic window of the envelope, her eyes grew wet. It was her money, money she’d earned and didn’t have to share with anyone. She delighted in the notion that she could be frugal or a spendthrift. She unsealed the envelope, ran her finger down the columns of deductions and pension contributions, and tore along the neat perforation. Then, she made her calculations. With the small survivor’s pension from the government and this new income, she realized she had enough.

  Sylvia Silva knew an elderly lady three streets over whose son had duplexed the house when he left for the suburbs. In exchange for checking in on her once a day, she got reduced rent. They called it a junior one-bedroom, a euphemism for tiny. Just what she wanted. She showed it to Ismail first.

  “Well it shows promise. A little paint would help.” She could tell he was containing his urge to dissuade her from moving out on her own. He looked down at his shoes, sighing, exhausted by the effort. Then, he rallied again, “And it’s stil
l in the neighbourhood, close enough to your job and Lydia and me … so that’s nice.”

  “Don’t worry, I’ll still spend time with you,” she said, squeezing his hand, and he held it tight. They looped through the apartment again, and this time he gave his full attention to the tour. He opened and closed cupboards, checked that faucets worked, peered into the hall closet.

  “I’ll install some shelving for you, to make the most of your storage space. And I’ll paint it for you, anything you need.” They crowded into the bathroom’s small space. She leaned into him with a long kiss, his tailbone pressed up against the vanity.

  All of her things fit into the same-size van that Fatima used for her move, a detail she dwelled on when, finally alone, she wandered the four hundred square feet of her apartment. She realized then that she missed her things from Shannon Street, all the bric-a-brac she’d gathered and collected over the years to make a home, most of which had been sold or sent to Goodwill. Only her bare necessities, her bedroom furniture and clothing, went with her to Lochrie Street.

  Lydia, Ismail, Antonio, and Fatima arrived to help her, and that move-in day was the first time they’d all congregated in one space. Perhaps it was the discomfort of the encounter, but they discussed her need for more furniture as though she wasn’t there.