Liar

by Gosse, Joanna

  “I love you sweetie,” said Sam snuggling sleepily into the spoon position.

  “I love you too,” replied China. She fell asleep, deeply relieved that her most effective method of communication with Sam was once again reopened.

  Feb. 10/98

  Where The Heart Is

  Is it something I said

  or is it merely what I am?

  Perhaps it’s who you are

  In those moments

  when you love me

  with forever words

  and I am overcome

  with the fierceness

  of your soul;

  I too, feel those moments

  when I want to melt

  into your bones,

  devour your body,

  call your heart,

  my home.

  ~ ~

  Breakfast With An Eagle

  A week later Sam left for a court case in Prince Rupert. He wanted China to go with him and she had agreed to meet him for a few days at the end of the month. Sitting in a motel all day in a strange city, waiting for Sam to come home, was not a good way to live. None of Sam’s scenarios for life with China felt particularly good to her.

  She roamed her house wondering what she would do to fill in the empty spaces. She could only sculpt for a few hours a day. Sculpting was a physically demanding profession. Then when she was tired, her fingers refusing to move anymore, she would paint or sketch freely, allowing ideas and dreams to run through her mind and onto the paper. She dropped off a few of the Sea Women the Grimshaw women were fond of, at Carrie’s store. Carrie wasn’t there, but the beauteous Lily Deer was tending the store. She accepted the Sea Women with a pretty smile and turned back to her conversation with a young Grimshaw buck.

  China was grateful for the pocket money from the sale of her smaller pieces, but now that she was determined to carve much larger pieces like her Sams 1234, and the Drifting Faces, she needed to establish a new market. The craft stores that sold her smaller pieces on the mainland could not accommodate the sculptures she had discovered on Grimshaw. The weight and sheer bulk of them made contact with a larger market rather problematic.

  She decided that a drive down the coast would sooth her anxious feelings and help her sort out a plan for the future. She packed a sandwich and thermos of coffee and drove the winding road to White Point, the southernmost tip of the island. The sky was a clear blue and the day was calm. The rain and awful winds that accompanied the winter months had settled down for awhile. She turned on the radio and sang along with ABBA between sips of coffee.

  China slowed when she saw a dark shadow sitting in the middle of the road. Then she saw the shadow move and realized it was a black bear. As the bear hurried into the forest he turned and looked at the big gold Cadillac and China grinned and waved. She saw several deer on the side of the road licking up the salt that had been scattered during the winter. The deer managed to ruin several cars a year when unwary motorists slammed into them. So far she had managed to escape killing any and for that she was grateful.

  Her senses stopped enjoying the scenery and she turned inward to the constant battle that was raging in her mind. It would soon be spring and it was time to make some important life decisions. She had avoided moving discussions with Sam as she recuperated from the operation and the Christmas holidays, but now her strength was back and she wanted to get on with things. She was tired of churning in the same mud. It was time to move forward and claim a life that made sense to her instead of waiting for Sam to make sense.

  As China rolled around the last bend in the road she came upon some roadkill deer at the side of the road and a young eagle enjoying the feast. China’s appearance startled him. She was exhilarated by the intimate view of the eagle as he angrily flew up over her windshield and disappeared into the trees. She wouldn’t find anything like that to make her senses leap in the big city. This was one of the reasons China had tried so hard to be happy on Grimshaw Island. The beauty was astounding, wild and thrilling, but the primitive isolation scared her. Her husband scared her with his blatant disregard of anything other than his own incomprehensible life plan.

  She parked the car, grabbed her back pack and walked along the beach to White Point where she sat in a sheltered circle of driftwood and opened her journal.

  Feb. 15/98

  It seems to me that the ideal solution would be to move to Halifax and then, when we can afford it, build a summer home here. That would be the best of both worlds, wouldn’t it? Sam would again become what he once was, before he lived, or rather had an address, on this island. He would once again become an urban Grimshaw. Come to think of it, he’s an urban Grimshaw now, spending more time in the suburbs of Canada than in his home.

  China stared out into the wide expanse of sea and sand, her heart warmed by the sunshine and the hope that Sam would surely listen to her excellent plan. She picked up her pen again, sketched an idea for a carving and wrote another poem.

  Breakfast With An Eagle

  My eyes are filled with road

  the miles, the asphalt

  the copper sun arrowing through trees;

  Suddenly a black bear -

  We strangers stare

  but he belongs and has for years

  I’m the alien here;

  I brake for a doe who promises fawn,

  Startle an eagle feasting

  on roadkill deer,

  He fixes me with sultry stare

  and flaps his angry passage

  across my windshield;

  The caddy keeps rolling

  to my sandy destination

  sipping coffee slowly,

  breakfast with an eagle.

  ~ ~

  The phone rang and China answered eagerly, thinking it was Sam. She had a lot to talk about.

  “Hello?”

  “Hi, China, it’s Larry.”

  “Hi, how are you?”

  “I’m fine. Is Sam still there?”

  “No. He just left for Prince Rupert.”

  “China, I’ll get right to the point. Sam has been over billing and not completing the work. I’ve got about ten angry clients on my back. Sam doesn’t return phone calls and then they call me.”

  “Oh God. Why didn’t you tell me sooner?”

  “You had enough on your plate with the operation. Sam promised me he’d clean things up during Christmas.”

  “He told me he had a lot of work to do, but mostly he just lay around the house, or he was out with the boys and doing the local bullshit.”

  “That’s something else. I wouldn’t mind him getting involved with the local politics, if there was some money involved. As it is now, it’s a total waste of good time. And that’s not all.”

  China could hear the end of the world ringing in Larry’s last sentence. She waited for the axe to fall.

  “Sam withdrew money from the business account without telling me. Several of my cheques have bounced. This has gotten personal.”

  “I’m sorry Larry. I tried to keep track of the accounts but Sam has stonewalled me at every step. His solution to my closing our joint account and demanding to see the statement of his business account, was to open another account on a reserve in Ontario. I can only keep track of things when he’s here and I can grill him every day.”

  “It’s not your fault. Nor is it mine. I’m leaving the partnership. I’m sending a fax outlining my position to his office there because I want you to read it too. I’m sorry about this China.”

  “Me too. Don’t worry about me Larry. I’ve wondered how you stood it for so long.”

  “He’s a sick man China. He needs therapy.”

  “We tried it Larry, and I thought there was some progress, but he’s been travelling too much to keep it going on a regular basis. I’ve been to more sessions than he has and my only problem is him.”

  “Well, good luck China. I just wanted to warn you in case Sam puts off telling you. I’ll clean up the mess he left behind but only because
it’s my reputation too.”

  China then thought of the question she had been wanting to ask Larry for a long time, but kept putting it off as not really important.

  “Larry, how long was Sam living with you before I met him?”

  “A couple of months I think. I had asked him to house sit for me. He was between apartments at the time,” answered Larry.

  “Right,” said China. And he told me that he and Larry shared an apartment when in reality he was living there rent free. Not to mention the lie about selling his furniture to Larry. Son of a bitch! One more lie to add to the list. “Thanks Larry. Don’t worry about me. I’ll manage.”

  “Oh, I’m sure you will. The only person I worried about was Sam. He used to be my friend. I’m sending the fax now. Goodbye China.”

  He was never your friend Larry, thought China as she hung up. He used you like he uses everyone who comes near him.

  She drove to Sam’s office wanting to read the fax immediately, to know the worst, believing that if she knew the worst she could construct a plan to alter Sam’s path of destruction. China read the fax from Larry who had listed his reasons for leaving the partnership:

  1) You did not concentrate your efforts on our business. Most of the time I wasn’t sure what you were doing. Many times I had to remind you to communicate with me on a regular basis, which you still refused to do.

  2) You spent a lot of time on local politics where you gave free advice, instead of concentrating on our business.

  3) When you did concentrate on our business, I discovered you were over billing, for work not done.

  4) You withdrew money from our account ostensibly to pay outstanding bills and then you pocketed the money. The bills are still outstanding.

  5) You withdrew a large amount from our account without telling me, and the result has been very embarrassing.

  6) In our last meeting you promised to clean up several accounts over the Christmas holidays. You have not done this. You have not returned any phone calls from clients or from me.

  I believed you were sincere in your wish to change but obviously you were just going through the motions to string me along.

  China had read enough, more than enough. She folded the fax carefully and put it in her purse. It wasn’t a surprise because Sam had done to Larry exactly what he had done to her. What did surprise her was the fact that Sam would jeopardize his livelihood. How had he survived all those years with his old firm? How on earth did he get as far as he had? He must have had an excellent secretary and a very vigilant ex-wife. Now he had no borders. No accountant to hold him accountable. No government to pay income tax to. Chaos was given leave to reign supreme and Sam was hell bent for destruction.

  ~ ~

  Leave To Lie Again

  China settled in for the flight to Prince Rupert to join Sam for a romantic interlude. China didn’t feel very romantic. Normally she loved to feel the plane gathering speed, the pressure of the acceleration in her body, the relief when the plane burst free of the earth’s gravity. She felt no pleasure this time. All she felt was the weight of Sam’s baggage in her bones, slamming her into her seat. She was surprised that the plane achieved liftoff.

  The long absences from Sam caused trouble because she couldn’t keep an eye on him. There was no sex to diffuse her anger and smooth her confusion. They also got used to not being with each other, cut away the ties in order to carry on separate lives. Then when they came together it took a couple of weeks to become accustomed to each other’s stuff again. It was harder for China because she had more stuff. She had her stuff plus Sam’s stuff, the stuff he refused to deal with. Instead of lightening his load, he added to it. Either that, or repetition had made the same load heavier.

  Sam was so good at hiding himself. China rarely saw him depressed. She wondered what he did for weeks on the road by himself. Did he lock himself in the motel room with the TV and his horrible thoughts, or did he not think at all? He didn’t read, other than newspapers and Fortune Magazine. Did he spend all day fiddling with the computer? Maybe he had drunken orgies. How was she to know? He said he was faithful, that he just turned desire off, as she did. Did he lie where his desire was concerned too? Did he lie about everything, or just most things? When he went to the office to work, did he actually work? His partner didn’t seem to think so. He did finish some things. Won a few cases. Lost a few. Had Larry constantly taken up the slack and finished what Sam was good at starting?

  If only she knew what was an actual, bold-faced lie, and what was merely an evasion, or partial truth. Sam usually left a morsel of truth in each lie so that it was hard to get the picture, blurred as it was around the edges. He managed to confuse her quite often, especially when she had no way of checking, short of hiring a detective to follow him on his trips and into the courtroom. Did he laugh at her, secretly pleased that he kept her running in circles? Or did he actually stumble around in the dark, fooling himself as much as he fooled others? Did he also sometimes not fool himself and sit there in the dark, depressed and immobilized by the unknown, the not wanting to know?

  China thought she would go mad trying to figure him out, make excuses, keep loving him. Constant forgiving erodes the heart. She was in a perpetual state of anguish keeping her discoveries in the journal a secret, and living with Sam publically. Was this why she could never fit in, feel comfortable? Did everyone know what she did to live with Sam? Did they all do the same, but differently, to live with each other? Is that what alcohol was all about? Keeping the truth from themselves and each other, numbing the brain, confusion becoming a welcome way of living? Much better than facing the demons and tearing apart the home, the pictures on the wall, exploding the family. Was denial the only weapon they understood? Did they not have journals to confide in?

  Here was a weapon they could purchase for a few dollars. Much cheaper than a bottle of booze. China wondered what she was doing with her daily chronicle. Amassing the evidence? Keeping track of the descent into madness, or the descent into divorce, or both, so that when it happened, or something happened, she’d know the reason why? And when she knew the reason why, she’d never do it again. Right? China sighed with relief. At least now she knew she wasn’t descending into madness.

  China wanted to believe that love would bring her to safe harbours but too often the light in the distance was a robber-pirate luring her into danger, onto rocks and reefs, to plunder, take everything she owned until nothing was left but driftwood and trust betrayed.

  Sometimes the awfulness of her thoughts was frightening. The whole of Sam looked great, especially when dressed in a business suit. But the pieces, the irreconcilable pieces of him were nasty little trolls ready to bite her flesh from her bones. China questioned her image of Sam. Did his inability, or unwillingness, to tell the truth colour all her feelings about him? It didn’t in the beginning, but layer after layer of disappointments changed the colour of the first disappointment. A mere shadow had now become a huge, dark, threatening shape and her critical eye and tongue constantly reminded him that he wasn’t who he said he was. Did she terrify him with her insights, just as he terrified her with his inability to have one introspective moment? If he did have such a moment, did he bury it immediately?

  Sam made no connections. He didn’t thread past, present and future thoughts or actions together. He didn’t seem to understand that the consequences of one action led to another. He wandered through life on his myopic path, never seeing the forks, the branches that fed into his road, altering his path. Sam forgot as China recorded. He feared her journals as she feared his lies, his non-connectedness. Fear had become a major presence in their marriage. He feared that he would lose her; she feared that he would do nothing to stop her. She also feared that if they fell apart forever, Sam wouldn’t know why and their life together would have been a waste.

  China arrived at the airport in Prince Rupert at 9pm and Sam was waiting for her with a big smile on his face. They went through the usual chitchat about the flig
ht, the weather, all the drivel usually said to avoid what couldn’t be voiced in public. China felt so strange she didn’t know who she was. The body was hers but the person inside it felt like a stranger. Her husband was a stranger. He looked like Sam but he wasn’t the Sam she had fallen in love with.

  He dumped China’s luggage on the spare bed.

  “Are you hungry?” asked Sam. “I didn’t eat yet. We could go downstairs to the diningroom and have some soup or a salad or something.”

  “Sure,” said China. “The food on the plane was awful. I couldn’t eat it.”

  China ordered a chicken salad and picked at it. Sam ordered a club sandwich with french fries and wolfed it down. She struggled to choose the right words.

  “Sam, have you heard from Larry lately?”

  “Yeah,” said Sam casually. “Why?”

  “Is there anything you’d like to tell me?”

  “I want to tell you that you’re beautiful and I love you and I’ve missed you very much,” said Sam as he picked up her hand and kissed her fingers one by one. China withdrew her hand and continued questioning Sam.

  “We were talking about Larry, not me.”

  “All right, China, what do you want to hear? Larry has quit. So what? I suppose he called to whine to you, did he?”

  “He sent a fax to your office. I assume he also sent you a copy?”

  “Yup. Look, China, Larry doesn’t have a life. Just because he wants to spend every waking moment in front of the computer doesn’t mean that I have to.”