Such marks of favour, however, don’t show up on the weigh scales. After several months, Charles was beginning to grow tired of seeing his rent and groceries accounting for three-quarters of his take-home pay. It wasn’t that he wanted to live higher than he’d become accustomed to, but the stringent lifestyle he had adopted while working for Father Raphaël wasn’t stringent enough to let him make ends meet now that he was working as a journalist. He started looking for a third job, one that would pay well enough that he could afford to quit the Siren, which more and more he was beginning to see for what it truly was, that is, not very much. He was in a hurry to advance his career, and felt that opportunities were passing him by. And then there were all those novels he hadn’t even started to write!
“Do you think there’s a chance of the magazine taking me on full-time?” he asked Délicieux one day.
“Don’t even think about that for at least five years, my boy. Getting a full-time job here is about as hard as becoming an archbishop. Besides, what are you complaining about? You like your work, you’re learning a new trade, even if it doesn’t pay a whole lot. Youth is supposed to be a time of champing at the bit. That’s what makes you strong.”
Screwing up all his courage, Charles went into the editor’s office and asked him if the magazine could give him a second job other than his bleeding-hearts column.
“Sure, why not?” said the editor. “How about the editorial page?”
And he burst out laughing.
From time to time Charles would share his financial and professional concerns with Blonblon, but he carefully avoided talking about it with Stéphanie, not wanting to lower himself in her eyes. He went to great lengths to give the impression of being on top of things, sufficient unto himself and engrossed in his career, which would soon propel him into the limelight. He could not see many other ways for someone like himself, who though not uncultivated had only a high school diploma, to keep up a relationship with a university student who would one day be a member of the Association of Psychologists and have legions of patients filing into her elegant office, where she would study the torsions and contortions of their souls in exchange for ten times the money that he, Charles, could ever dream of making.
In any case, his relationship with Stéphanie was hardly satisfying for either of them. It was one of those affairs that, never having really started, could not therefore really come to an end, but simply stretch out into avoid of indecision and a vague sense of disappointment. She slept with him not so much because it gave her pleasure as because that is what one did these days; only turkeys and donkeys reserved their virginity for marriage anymore. All her friends were having sex left and right, some of them at a dizzying pace. She’d decided to be like them but at the same time to conserve her sense of stability and moderation.
Perhaps as a result, a deeper problem was coming between the young couple: Stéphanie had decided to “remake” her partner. She loved him, yes, she believed she loved him very much, but above all she mostly loved the man she thought Charles could become — the man she could turn him into. According to her, Charles had to change certain aspects of his personality, to develop his potential, in order to become the person he truly was, an initiative that was seized by too few people, in her view. She encouraged him at every turn to go back to school so that he could take his true place in the world, lead a calmer life, which would allow him to reflect, to interiorize his experiences, to regularize the contradictions within him that had, for example, separated him for so long from his father (he had made the mistake one day of filling her in on the whole story), so that he would talk less and listen more, get to know other people better, although she admitted that his articulate-ness and his sense of humour were two of his best qualities.
In short, she loved him as much as she possibly could, but she would love him much more if he were someone else.
Charles admitted that her advice and her observations were well-founded, but they still irritated him, and their discussions would sometimes turn into quarrels, which were followed by long periods of sulking, which gradually gave way to reconciliations. His liaison with Stéphanie began to seem to him to be tiresome and filled with insoluble complications.
Months passed. The Bourassa government busied itself with constitutional negotiations aimed at ratifying the Meech Lake Accord; the other provinces raised their sly objections to it; and the so-called reintegration of Quebec “with honour and enthusiasm” into the Canadian fabric began to look like an attempt to close the barn door after the horse had escaped.
On March the 8th, 1990, CBC Television aired scenes that shocked the French-speaking population of Quebec: they consisted of a news broadcast showing members of the Ontario Alliance in Brockville stomping on the Quebec flag as a means of protesting the province’s linguistic policies. Charles was so furious when he saw the footage that he stayed up most of the night writing an editorial blasting the Ontario “Orangists,” and, without showing it to Victor Vanier, ran it in the next issue of the Villeray Siren.
The next morning at seven o’clock, just as he had managed to get to bed after a long night of laying out the pages of the Siren, the phone rang.
“Get down here to the office, right away,” ordered Vanier. He did not sound pleased.
Guessing what was up, and thinking he’d be better able to deal with the situation after a few hours’; sleep than if he were dead on his feet, he asked if the meeting could be put off until the early afternoon — especially since it was his day off — but Vanier was not to be moved. He mentioned firing. Charles grumbled and sighed and dragged himself from his bed and got dressed.
When she saw him come in, Francine gave him an amused smile of reprimand and told him that the boss was waiting for him in his office, adding that Vanier was boiling like a pot of soup that someone had forgotten on the stove.
“Unless you are a real Canadian,” Victor Vanier began after favouring Charles with a few angry scowls, “there is no place for you on my paper. Do you understand?”
“Weren’t you insulted when you saw that gang of thugs trampling on our flag?” Charles replied, as red as a rooster’s wattles.
“My friend, you will learn that we do not answer insults with more insults. A good citizen knows how to retain his dignity at all times. And a good journalist doesn’t do an end run around his editor. You knew I wouldn’t have okayed that article. You took advantage of my trust in you to sneak something into my paper behind my back. That’s called hypocrisy, sir. It’s also called cowardice. You have forced me to publish an apology in my next editorial. I want you to write that apology.”
Charles gave him a sarcastic smile. “Then I quit.”
There was a moment’s silence. Vanier had not been expecting that response.
“Do you have many readers in Ontario?” Charles asked, mockingly.
“The Siren is read in a great many places, young man! Last year my Aunt Édouardine saw a cardinal in Rome sitting on a park bench reading a copy of it! Ha! What do you say to that, eh?”
The discussion went on for several minutes in the same vein, until a telephone call from an important client forced Victor Vanier to switch over to his syrupy, smiling self; with an imperial gesture he signalled to Charles to get out of his office.
After a scene like that, there could be no question of going back to sleep. Charles decided to pay a visit to Blonblon in his antique store on rue Amherst; his friend was going to quit his job in a month’s time to open his own shop on avenue Mont-Royal. He’d already rented a storefront for an unbelievable rent; Charles got the key from him so he could go there to do some cleaning up and painting. Sometimes insomnia could be a positive thing! But first, he decided, he would go to his own apartment and take a shower.
As soon as he stepped into his apartment, he noticed an enormous pair of galoshes beside the door that had not been there when he’d left.
“Hello?” he called a little nervously.
The sound of a familiar thr
oat being cleared came from the kitchen.
“Fernand?” he called in amazement. He felt a surge of joy mixed with trepidation spread through his chest.
The hardware-store owner was waiting for him, his coat folded over the back of a chair. He had aged. The skin under his chin had begun to slacken; he had deep, dark rings forming half-moons under his eyes; and on his head the white hairs were winning the battle against the black and the grey. But he still made an imposing figure, his body firm and upright, his face still expressing the same energetic and tenacious strength of will. Charles felt it had been mean of him to have gone so long without seeing or even calling him.
“What are you doing here?”
“I came to see you.”
There was a hint of sarcasm, but of the kind that tried to mask timidity.
Charles smiled at him incredulously. “How did you get in?”
“I had the concierge let me in. It took some convincing, but you know how pig-headed I can be … He gave in eventually, but he wasn’t too happy about it.”
“No problem. But if I hadn’t decided to come home and have a shower, you’d have been waiting here for a long time.”
“Well, I probably would’ve left after an hour or two. I would’ve left a note telling you why I came, even if I don’t write as well as you do …”
Charles took off his coat, went back to the door to take off his boots, then sat down at the kitchen table across from Fernand. With a rare gesture, he placed his hand over the hardware-store owner’s.
“Would you like a coffee?”
“Thanks, but I’ve already had three cups to get me pumped up. But go ahead and make one for yourself, if you want,” he added, smiling. “After all, it’s your place.”
Charles stood. “I think I will. I need it. I was up working half the night, if you can believe it… just so my boss could tell me I deserve to be fired.”
“He’s an asshole, that one!”
Fernand stopped talking, not knowing what else to say, and waited for Charles to weigh in. But Charles had turned his back and was rinsing his coffee pot in the sink.
“Fernand, I… I want to apologize to you, to you and Lucie, for not having come to see you since the breakup… between Céline and me. I can’t tell you how much that business has affected me. But I still love you both. I hope you know that.”
Overcome by emotion, the hardware-store owner took a few minutes to respond.
“That’s the kind of thing it’s a pleasure to hear,” he finally managed, his voice sounding curiously like notes from a tuba. He cleared his throat and continued. “Too bad you can’t say the same to Céline … She really went off the rails, you know … We went through a winter from hell, I can tell you! There were a few times when I wanted to go over to your place and kick your ass three ways from Sunday and no two ways about it. But after a while I calmed down.”
Still facing the sink, Charles continued rinsing out the coffee pot, which was already as thoroughly rinsed as it could be.
“I acted like a complete shit,” he finally said. “I’ve never been such a shit before in my entire life.”
“Yes, well, that’s too bad for you. She’s made herself a new life by now.”
Charles gave a start and shot a look at Fernand, then went towards the refrigerator, his cheeks burning red.
“Manner of speaking, of course,” the hardware-store owner thought it best to add. “It’s not like I’m here to announce her wedding or anything like that.”
“She’s free to marry whomever she wants,” Charles said.
Silence fell again in the room. Fernand judged it time to change the subject if he wanted to prolong his visit.
“Truth be told,” he said, trying to make his voice sound cheerful, “I didn’t know how you’d take it, seeing me here. Your friend Michel Leblond told me that you never work on Thursdays. And since I hadn’t seen you for months and months, and because I still think of you as my son, despite everything, I said to myself, ‘Go see him, you big lummox, go pay him a little visit. The worst that can happen is he’ll tell you to get lost.’”
“Fernand, you know I’d never speak to you like that,” said Charles, smiling.
“Hmm, well, you never know with children. I remember when I was a kid-”
“So anyway,” Charles interrupted him, “you’ve been seeing Blonblon? He never said a word about it.”
The store-owner turned his head away. “I run into him from time to time, nothing planned. If I see him on the street, we stop and talk for a bit.”
“Tell me, was it him who suggested you come see me?”
Fernand hesitated a moment, then nodded.
“Bloody Blonblon! He hasn’t changed a bit … Still the professional mediator!”
“Getting along is always better than getting ahead,” Fernand put in, proud of his turn of phrase.
“If he ever becomes the prime minister, the cannons will roll, that’s for sure! How’s Lucie?”
“Lucie is well, but she misses you. She’s busy these days with a family from Peru who’s moved into the neighbourhood. They’ve got seven kids. It’s taken her mind off things. She’s got us subscriptions to the Villeray Siren and Artist’s Life, if you can picture that. She collects all your articles … You’d make her a very happy woman if you came by for a piece of cake one of these days. Naturally, we’d make sure Céline was somewhere else at the time … unless, of course …”
“I’d rather she were somewhere else,” Charles said dryly. Then he smiled. “Thanks for the invitation. I’d love to come and see the two of you. I’ve been wanting to for some time. I’ll give you a call… let’s say in a couple of days. Give Lucie enough time to bake a good cake … Would that be all right?”
“Tickety-boo, my boy! She’ll make you the best cake you ever saw in your life!”
The hardware-store owner looked thoughtfully around the kitchen and gave a small cough. Charles was expecting him to reach for his coat, now that his mission had been accomplished, and not wanting to wear out his welcome, but instead he continued the conversation, talking about this and that in a vaguely embarrassed fashion, as though there were something specific he wanted to say but didn’t know how to bring up. Eventually he asked for a cup of coffee and tossed it off in two gulps, like a soldier knocking back a glass of schnapps before a bayonet charge. After finishing the coffee, he wiped his mouth with the back of his hand.
“Anyway,” he said, “I hear you’re in a bit of a financial fix these days. Is that true?”
“Is that what Blonblon told you?”
“Yes, it was him,” Fernand admitted, two red splotches appearing on his cheeks.
“He talks a lot, Blonblon does,” Charles said lightly. He stood up and began pacing the kitchen floor. “He may even talk too much at times. I’ll have to have a word with him about it. Anyway, what about it?”
“Nothing, nothing at all… What I mean is… Well, things have been going pretty good at the hardware store for a few months now … I’ve got to say, Henri has been giving me a lot of help. He’s full of bright ideas, too. So anyway, I just thought…”
“No, Fernand. Thanks, but no,” Charles said firmly, crossing his arms over his chest.
“Let me finish, at least! I’m not offering you a handout, for crying out loud! I know you can manage on your own, as a responsible citizen, as the saying goes. I’m just talking about a loan, that’s all, a thousand dollars, or two thousand, more even, which you can pay back when your ship comes in.”
“No thanks,” Charles said again, but more firmly. “You’ve already helped me out that way, Fernand. You should be thinking about your old age.”
The hardware-store owner gave Charles a look that was so helpless, so miserable, that Charles’s pride cracked within him. A wave of tenderness flowed over him so forcefully that he almost broke into tears, and he had to blink several times to keep his eyes from overflowing. He put his hands on Fernand’s shoulders and spoke in a hoarse voice.
>
“Fernand, Fernand…You’ve already bought me for five thousand dollars from my father, you raised me, you fed and clothed me for eight years. Don’t you think that’s enough? I’m a bit short right now, it’s true, but I’ll be all right, don’t worry … Anyway, I know you’re there, and I promise you that if I’m ever really in trouble I’ll let you know…. Is that good enough?”
“It’s all I ever wanted,” Fernand replied, struggling to hide his disappointment. “Knowing that will let me and Lucie stop worrying about you.”
It wasn’t until he was in his car and driving back to the hardware store that Fernand realized that, all things considered, his mission had been a complete success. He suddenly found himself singing “Gens du pays” at the top of his voice, something he’d never done before in his life. His feeling of satisfaction was so intense that he almost rammed into the rear end of a car that was stopped at a red light. “I must remember to ask Lucie what kind of cake he likes,” he told himself, making a sign of apology to the furious driver of the car ahead of him.
Charles’s political escapade had so upset Victor Vanier that the next morning when he arrived at the office and his secretary remarked that he looked a bit out of sorts, he nearly threw his coat at her. Later, when he tried to go over his accounts, a burning sensation between his toes kept him from concentrating. At eleven o’clock he nearly chucked out a client who had come in to complain about an error in his invoice. But gradually he calmed down, and his common sense returned.
Never since the beginning of the Siren had he had anyone as good as Charles working for him. The boy had picked up journalism like a cold at a daycare centre. Victor Vanier could take whole days off without the smooth functioning of the paper being disturbed one iota. Thanks to Charles, he might even be able to play golf next summer in the middle of the week. It would be incredibly unwise to punish him at this point, and even crazier to fire him. He decided he would not force Charles to write the retraction. He would write it himself, and couch it in the most diplomatic of terms, to make sure that no one got their nose out of joint, including Charles.
A Very Bold Leap Page 33