Adam's Peak

by Heather Burt

  This is what I wanted Ernie to understand, but didn’t I find the bugger cavorting with a pair of village louts, the lot of them giggling and prattling away in Sinhalese like a mob of women at the market. I had a mind to swat some dignity into the boy but couldn’t bear to draw any more attention to his behaviour. Can only be thankful the peak was overrun with ignorant villagers. Took a photo of Ernie and Jayasuriya under the bell, then made haste back down. In retrospect, Alec might have been the better companion after all.

  Rudy’s impulse to laugh at the silliness of the passage was tempered only by the fact that this old conflict was still simmering between his own father and brother. He liked to think Dad was a little less obnoxious than Grandpa, a little more tolerant—the Christmas of Zoë’s accident had, after all, been the worst of it—but then Dad was from a slightly more tolerant generation. Rudy reread the passage. Unwittingly, his grandfather had given him the most interesting account of Uncle Ernie he’d ever had. He left the Adam’s Peak entry to flip through the rest of the book, scanning its pages for other references to his uncle. He found nothing, however—scarcely a mention of Ernie’s name. With the exception of brief, uninspired descriptions of holiday lunches, visitors from Colombo, occasional excursions to Kandy, the rest of the book was devoted to the daily business of the tea factory. It was a diary as removed from desires and opinions as Rudy’s was steeped in them.

  The next book, dated later than the first, contained more of the same. Rudy skimmed then stopped reading altogether. His shade was gone, and he was sweating. As a final gesture of interest, he flipped open the covers of the other diaries to check the dates. Tucked inside the front of one of these was a small envelope bearing Aunty Mary’s name and address. Rudy glanced around the garden then lifted the envelope’s flap and removed the sheet of notepaper inside.

  Dear Mary,

  Thank you for the opportunity to look at these. I’m sending them back with Simon and Louise. They’re good chaps. You’ll give them lunch, or tea, won’t you?

  Kind regards, Ernie.

  Rudy slapped a mosquito that had been gorging itself, unnoticed, on his forearm.

  The letter wasn’t dated. But even if Uncle Ernie had borrowed the diaries right after Grandpa’s death, it would mean the note was no more than ten years old. It would mean that Aunty Mary had been in contact with her brother long after he was said to have abandoned the family. And she’d kept it a secret—from Rudy anyway. He smiled at this secrecy. It gave him a thrill much like the one he’d gotten as a kid from the dual identities of Clark Kent and Peter Parker. And then there was Uncle Ernie—a real person. Someone with the quirk of calling a woman a “chap,” with the cockiness to give his sister orders.

  Rudy sat on the bench, contemplating how to ask his aunt about Uncle Ernie—wondering whether or not, and if so, how, to confess that he’d read the note—when it occurred to him, quite plainly, that Aunty had left Ernie’s note in the diary on purpose. Recalling their conversation at the laundry line, he was sure of it. The note had been the source of her hesitation. She’d considered taking it out, he guessed, but by the time she promised to find the diaries, she’d decided to reveal all. Before he could convince himself otherwise, he went to the kitchen and leaned across the counter, where his aunt was chopping.

  “Aunty, what ever happened to your brother Ernie?”

  He braced himself for a repetition of the timeworn answer—Uncle Ernie left home as a young man, and we hardly heard from him again—but the moment his aunt looked up, he could tell she’d prepared something different. She set down her knife, pressed her lips together, and patted her hair.

  “He is living near Kandy,” she said.

  Less than a day’s drive away. He straightened up.

  “Are you in contact with him?”

  “We speak occasionally. He was in England for many years, but he retired and came home. He’s an old man now.” She spoke matter-of-factly, like a witness giving testimony.

  “What was he doing in England?”

  “He lived near London. He was a teacher.”

  Rudy frowned. “Uncle Ernie was a teacher? Why didn’t you ever tell me?”

  This, he knew, was an unfair question. Aunty hadn’t told him anything at all about her brother; she’d obviously had her reasons. But the secrecy surrounding this now-real uncle was beginning to lose its appeal. Aunty said nothing, so he carried on.

  “Does he ever come to Colombo? Why don’t we see him?”

  His aunt’s expression left no doubt that the answers to such questions were difficult. Finally, she replied: “Ernie keeps to himself. He prefers it that way.”

  A new image, of Uncle Ernie as a bitter old man, wilfully estranged from his family, began to take shape. And, with it, Rudy’s interest grew. “What would he think of me calling him up?” he said. His question surprised even himself. He’d never entertained more than a shred of interest in Uncle Ernie. Now, suddenly, he was thinking of calling the man, maybe even visiting him. The possibility that the visit might be resisted made the idea strangely more compelling.

  Aunty wiped her hands on her apron. “I don’t know what he would think, son. He believes that after so much time it’s better to keep things the way they are. I don’t agree with him, but those are his wishes.”

  Rudy raised one eyebrow in a manner he knew to be challenging. “Why are you telling me about him then?”

  “Ah, well. I’m not young anymore. Someone needs to know about Ernie. Where he is living, who his neighbours are. I’ve written some of this information in the address book. Just in case.” She resumed her chopping. “I’ve asked him many times to visit since you’ve been here, but Ernie is very shy. He likes to hear about the family from me.” She shrugged. “What to do?”

  Rudy recalled his grandfather’s words. Cavorting with village louts, giggling, prattling ... If Uncle Ernie had become shy in his old age, he certainly hadn’t been that way as a young man. More likely, Aunty Mary was guilty of couching the prickly truth about her brother in comfortable language. Risking awkwardness, he pressed on.

  “Why exactly did Ernie leave home, Aunty?”

  This, clearly, was the most difficult question yet.

  “Ah, son, it was a long time ago. I don’t remember—”

  “Sure you do.” He made his voice patient, coaxing.

  “Ernie was just ... a different chap,” she finally said. “He didn’t suit the planting life the way our father wanted him to. He was very artistic, but Dada had different plans for him. He wanted Ernie to be like him. Like all fathers, no?”

  Once again, the story began to sound familiar. Rudy gave up. He didn’t really need his aunt’s version of the details—and Aunty, for her part, was clearly unwilling to give them.

  “That painting of Adam’s Peak was done by Ernie,” she said after a pause. “He is very talented.”

  Up the lane a dog barked. Rudy wove plans in his head. Monday, he’d start looking for a place of his own—an apartment, closer to the city, or maybe a small house. Now that the decision was made, he was impatient to get started, to make up for lost time. He’d spend his evenings and weekends furnishing the place and settling in. Then, he would buy Adam’s plane ticket. Adam wouldn’t waffle; he was too impulsive. They would make their pilgrimage to the peak just before the season ended. And after the climb, they would go to Kandy.

  “You’ll come to Easter Mass tomorrow?” Aunty said.

  Rudy locked his fingers and stretched his arms out in front of him. He imagined the crowds and the suffocating heat and sighed quietly. “Sure.”

  March 28, later. I don’t really buy my aunt’s line about all fathers wanting their sons to be like them. I mean, in a sense it’s true, but I think it’s the wrong angle. I think what parents care about is not exactly that their kids be like them, but simply that their kids like them, as people. But they’re afraid to ask outright, so they go looking for clues. If the son or daughter seems to go for the same sorts of things as they d
o, it means they have common interests. It means that if the parent and the kid weren’t tied by blood, and they happened to cross paths somehow anyway, they’d still have a relationship of some kind. My dad knows Adam loves him. I’m sure of that. But it’s not enough for him. Instead of appreciating the fact that Adam (unlike yours truly) would do anything for him, drop anything and come running, just because he’s family ... instead of being goddamn thankful for that, he appreciates me. He sees my sensible career, my conservative clothes, my girlfriends, even my decision to come back here, and he thinks, “I don’t need to feel guilty about him. He’s the sort of fellow I could be friends with. He could be part of my life even if he weren’t my son.” And you know what? I understand him.

  Somehow the afternoon had slipped away. He imagined Clare Fraser watching him as he wrote to her, repulsed perhaps by his laziness—his podge of belly and his unwashed hair, his Led Zeppelin T-shirt and ratty old Adidas shorts. Apart from wallowing in the past and writing letters to strangers, he’d done nothing. He was planted on his bed in the breeze of the fan, staring at the blue walls and sinking deeper and deeper into the underworld of his own thoughts. On the other hand, he’d made a decision. He’d uprooted himself from his aunt’s house, and he was an afternoon closer to establishing himself the way he had intended. Perhaps Clare would understand the significance of this. Perhaps she’d allow him a day of laziness.

  He slumped lower, letting his diary slide to the mattress. He imagined the moment he would spot Adam through the security gate at the airport—the strange awkwardness of sensing that the only thing connecting them at that moment would be blood. Not nearly as thick as it was rumoured to be, he feared.

  He wasn’t sure how long he’d been holding that moment, frozen, in his mind, when the telephone rang. Startled, he swung his legs off the bed then stopped as he heard Aunty Mary cross the living room. Her “Hello” was followed by a longish silence, and he knew somehow that the call was long-distance. Waiting for his aunt to speak again, he convinced himself it was Adam, fatefully in tune with his plan.

  5

  OVER THE PHONE, long-distance, Emma never seemed quite herself. Or maybe, Clare thought, it was that she seemed more completely herself—separated from Morgan Hill Road and its patterns, living her busy, independent Vancouver life. On the topic of Clare’s motorcycle ride with Adam Vantwest, she said all the right things, but there was something in her tone, a hint of distraction, that suggested it was no big deal.

  “He’s gay, right?”she said.

  “I think so. Yeah.”

  “Too bad.”

  “It doesn’t matter, Emma. He’s way too young. And besides, he’s ...”

  “What?”

  “I don’t know. Kind of ... impulsive, or something. But anyway, it’s irrelevant.”

  “Impulsive is exactly what you need.”

  “Emma.”

  “Okay, okay. So did you find the present I got you? I hid it in your suitcase.”

  Clare, slouched on the loveseat in the studio, shut her eyes and rubbed her forehead. “I did. Sorry, I forgot to thank you. But you shouldn’t have spent so much.”

  “Oh pshaw. Have you tried it yet?”

  “Not yet.” She straightened up and eyed the clock on the piano. It was late afternoon. More than a day had passed, but Adam hadn’t yet come by for his jacket. “Listen—I’d better get going,” she said. “Markus and I are going to a movie.”

  This was a lie. She rarely socialized with her boss anymore. His feelings had gotten in the way. Increasingly, over the year they’d been working together, she understood the ambiguities in his behaviour—the pauses, the hesitations, the incomplete gestures—to be signs of an unspeakable desire, for her, and the idea sat like a lump inside her, embarrassing and irritating. Reason told her that Markus was the kind of partner she was fated to be with—respectful, conservative, neither attractive nor ugly. A decent human being. But if Markus was fate’s choice for her, she was determined to put up some resistance.

  “Tell him you’re quitting,” Emma said. “Do it, Clare! I’ve already got a couple of possibilities lined up for you.”

  “Maybe. I’ll see what kind of a mood he’s in.”

  “What difference—Oh, shoot, I’ve got another call. Okay. Let me know. I’ll talk to you later.”

  Emma didn’t believe she’d leave her job; Clare could tell. She wasn’t convinced herself. But as she hung up the phone, she forced herself to make a plan. Monday was the next time she would see Markus, the earliest opportunity. She would arrive a few minutes before her shift. Markus would be hanging around, maybe talking to Peter, the new part-timer who played in a band and had a pierced tongue. She would take him aside—not to his office, if she could help it—and she’d inform him, quietly and matter-of-factly, that she would be leaving. This has been a really great job, she would say, but I’m moving to Vancouver. Straightforward. And if she committed herself that far ...

  She took her hand off the phone and ran it through her hair, realizing she’d ended the call without telling Emma she’d become a brunette. It was a compromise: she’d chickened out of riding up Mount Royal with Adam, but she’d coloured her hair—an operation carried out secretly in the bathroom, with flimsy plastic gloves and a foul-smelling concoction she’d picked up at the drugstore. The colour was called “chestnut,” and the results were surprising. Each time she passed a mirror, the strangeness of her reflection gave her a jolt of pleasure. In appearance at least, she’d tweaked the pattern, even if it was just a disguise. She imagined Adam showing up for his jacket and assuming she was the kind of person who did this sort of thing regularly.

  But he hadn’t shown up yet. Outside, it was already dark. Clare went to the window, as she had countless times already that day, to look for him. She didn’t want to be caught off guard—the leather jacket was draped over the back of the loveseat, ready to be grabbed. More importantly, she didn’t want her mother to answer the door, though at that particular moment it would have been impossible to get there before her. Isobel was in the living room, supervising the taking of measurements for the new carpeting. If anyone came to the door, she’d be right there. But as far as Clare could see, there was no one home at the Vantwests’.

  She sat down at the piano and thunked a few chords. They sounded like the ash-blond Clare, so she tried again. Her right hand wandered about in B flat—darkly, chestnutly. Black, cologne-scented leather music. Her left was slow and sparse. She imagined the Jazz Studies Director sitting on her loveseat, his eyes half closed, bobbing his chin and saying there was an unusual something ... a certain, oh, tensile introspection to her delivery ... an implicitness in the voicings. It was the sort of thing a jazz person such as he would say. And secretly she’d find the comment silly and pretentious.

  She stopped playing, pushed the stool back, and spun around lazily. When she’d passed Adam’s jacket four or five times, she braked and changed direction. This time, she went faster. She leaned her head back and turned the studio upside down. As she whirled, the geography of the room—the window, the wall of books, the loveseat, the piano—became an unfamiliar jumble. She closed her eyes until the stool reached its lowest point and stopped. When she looked again, she was facing the window.

  What if it doesn’t work, Emma?

  What if what doesn’t work?

  Going to Vancouver. I’ll still be the same person, won’t I?

  That’s up to you. If you’re expecting the change of scenery to do it all for you, then no, it won’t work.

  But I can’t stay here.

  No. For God’s sake, no. You’re stuck in a perpetual adolescence there. It’s pathetic.

  She stood up and approached Adam’s jacket, cautiously, as if it were Adam himself. He wouldn’t be coming for it that evening. It was Saturday; he’d be out. She picked it up and slid her bare arms into the satiny sleeves. The fit was a little loose, but more intimate than before. She put her hands in the pockets. Then she crossed the studio t
o her bedroom, to the full-length mirror inside the closet door. The reflection she saw was astonishing. She’d known, the first time she wore Adam’s jacket, that she looked different. But the person in the mirror was a stranger. She pulled off her headband and shook out her dark brown hair.

  My God, Clare. Look at yourself. You’re gorgeous.

  She stared hard at her reflection.

  But is it me, Emma? Could this ever be me?

  She stood forever in front of the mirror, experimenting with infinite minute adjustments to her posture and clothes, shutting out the ivory walls, the almond duvet, the tidy beigeness of the whole room. Eventually, her gaze drifted from the mirror to the top shelf of the closet, the pile of sweaters that concealed Emma’s gift. It needed to be thrown out, before her mother found it. She slid her hand under the bottom sweater and took down the over-wrapped parcel. Thief-like, she hid it inside Adam’s jacket, then she locked the bedroom door. She pulled down the blind and turned on the stereo. Co-op Radio was playing something foreign—twangy, percussive, unpredictable. Sitting cross-legged on the bed, she unrolled the T-shirt then the tissue paper. The orange vibrator plopped onto the duvet, lolled there unabashedly, demanding her attention with its suggestive shape and unnatural colour. She picked it up and weighed the dense rubber in her palm, then she put it down again.

  How do you expect me to have sex with a piece of plastic, Emma?

  You’re not having it with the vibrator. It’s like I told you in the shop.

  Tell me again.

  You’re having it with yourself. Or whomever. Use your imagination.

  Like who? And don’t say Markus.