by Lisa Moore
Patterson hung up and settled into bed and switched off the light. In the dark, he spoke a single word out loud to the room. Gotcha.
Montreal
Slaney arrived in Montreal and wanted to be in the noise of a pub, warm and amber-lit, full of glass glint and after-work racket.
He wanted a phone. He wanted to eat something soaked in old, coagulated gravy, something they had added to all week. He’d tried a couple of places already but he was having a hard time finding something with enough substance that you might try to call it soup.
He ducked down a slippery set of concrete steps smelling of drainpipe and pigeon shit into a place with a gold and black sign swinging over the door that said YE OLDE CELTIC PUB.
The waitresses were in denim miniskirts and tie-dyed T-shirts, starbursts of fuchsia and lemon and turquoise. Trays of beer balanced on one hand, level with their chins.
Slaney picked up the padded leather menu. He tapped the corner of the menu on the bar, gave his order, and made his way to the back where there was a pay phone.
Carved in the wooden brace over the phone with a ballpoint pen was the promise of a good time if Slaney, or anyone else, were to call Charmaine. He dropped some coins and dialled the number that had been in his mother’s suitcase. He listened to it ring. A guy named Dick answered.
Hearn’s expecting your call, Dick said. He told Slaney about the sailboat and said it was just a matter of Slaney flying to Mexico to meet up with the captain.
They’re thinking six days to Colombia from Mexico if the winds are good, Dick said.
Hearn told you all this? Slaney said.
I wasn’t talking to Hearn himself, Dick said. There’s a chain.
A grapevine, Slaney said.
Only a few people got Hearn’s number, Dick said.
You got his number? Slaney said.
I’m going to give it to you right now.
You must be pretty high up in the chain.
Pretty high, Dick said. There’s fifteen of us.
Mexico, Slaney said.
The hull’s been refitted for the cargo, Dick said. Faux wood panelling. All Slaney had to do was get his arse to Vancouver.
There’s going to be a party, Dick said. Hearn is dying to see you, man.
Forgive me, Dick, but have we met?
Dirty Dick, he said.
I can’t put a face, Slaney said.
Richard Downey, Dick said. They used to call me Dirt.
The hockey tape, Slaney said.
I had hockey tape on my glasses.
You had tape across the bridge.
Somebody shoved me.
Stepped on your glasses.
Ground them into the dirt.
And the shoes.
So what?
The platform heels.
Your mother wears army boots, man.
Dirty Dick, Slaney said.
I’ve been keeping up with you in the papers, Dick said.
Dirt, I remember you, Slaney said.
I don’t go by that anymore.
How you been? Slaney said.
It’s Richard.
Okay. Richard. How the hell are you? Get your glasses fixed?
The papers got you figured in Montreal, Dick said. Hope you’re not in Montreal, man.
Slaney wrote Hearn’s number on the back of his hand with a pen dangling from a string near the phone and he thanked Dick and hung up.
A waitress with orange hair pushed her bum against the swing door. She had a tub full of dishes. After a moment she came back out and put down a paper placemat and a napkin and fork and knife before a guy in a suit. There was a pencil behind her ear. Slaney put some more money in the phone and he dialled Hearn’s new number and he let it ring. Then Hearn picked up.
How’s it going, man, Hearn said.
It’s cool, Slaney said.
So, we’re cool, Hearn asked. It’s cool to hear from you, man. Hear your voice.
Montreal, man, Slaney said.
Listen, Hearn said. Tell me about it. Slaney was pretty sure Hearn was cooking something. He could hear a frying pan, something spitting.
They’d always had a way of not talking that was, in every respect, exactly like talking. They already knew what the other would say. Talking was after the fact.
What’s the French for soup? Slaney said. I’m trying to get myself a proper drop of soup.
The waitress behind the bar took an ice cream spoon out of a bowl of cloudy water and flicked it clean. She leaned so far into the freezer one foot lifted off the floor and her white polyester slip was visible under her skirt. The lid bumped down on her back. Cold light and steam poured upward from the freezer.
Consommé, Hearn said.
I said consommé, Slaney said. But it was just water. I’m here now in an English place trying to get a drop of soup.
Good to hear your voice, man.
You got someone there? Slaney said.
My old lady.
Your new old lady?
The new one, yes.
Where’s your old old lady?
This is the real thing, Hearn said.
I thought the other thing was real.
She was real, all right. The waitress emerged from the freezer and the lid thumped down behind her. She had pale skin and a sprinkle of freckles on her cheeks. Her eyes were a blue so dark they seemed unfocused. Her hair caught the light and looked electrified.
The new one is different, Hearn said.
Different, that’s deadly.
I’m different when I’m with her.
You’re both different.
Never mind, man. I try to tell you something.
Go ahead.
Never mind.
No, go ahead.
I’m trying to express something.
I’m all ears.
I try, every once in a while, to say something to you.
Get deep, I hear you.
Never mind. Slaney? Never mind.
Philosophize. I’m here for you, man.
Slaney?
Go ahead.
Everything is not a big ha-ha, Hearn said. The waitress held the ice cream scoop above a piece of pie and pulled the trigger with her thumb. A ball of vanilla ice cream dropped onto the top of the pie and slid sideways.
Lay it on me, Slaney said.
Never mind.
What does she look like? This was the question Hearn had been wanting him to ask.
Built? My son, Hearn said.
Built is she, Slaney said.
Believe it.
Stacked?
Personality too.
You respect her mind, Slaney said.
But, you know.
Built, Slaney said.
Personality too.
Tits? Slaney asked.
Come on, man.
Just wondering.
Yes, tits, Hearn said. These tits. Do you remember Maeve Brown? Like Maeve’s. Only somehow better than Maeve’s. Her nipples are like Maeve’s.
I never saw Maeve’s nipples.
Yes you did. Maeve Brown’s nipples. You must have.
When would I have seen Maeve Brown’s nipples?
Everybody’s seen them. Weren’t you at that party?
I’ve been incarcerated.
I know that.
Maybe that party happened while I was in jail.
I know you were incarcerated, Slaney. I know that.
Better than Maeve’s?
I’m sorry, Slane. I’m sorry, man. I’m sorry.
Better than Maeve’s?
She’s nice. That’s all I’m saying.
And your other old lady?
She’s gone.
I liked her.
She was okay.
There was something about her.
You go out with her, then.
What was her name? Michelle?
Maureen.
There was something about Maureen.
Can you be serious here? The waitress put the pie down in front of the man and she gave the plate a little twist so the best angle of the pie faced the customer.
This one is from down home.
From the bay, Slaney said.
You should hear the accent on her, Hearn said.
The bowels of the bay.
I can’t understand her half the time.
I’m sorry about your father, Slaney said. There was a roar in Hearn’s kitchen from the deep fryer. Hearn had a basket of chips. Slaney could hear Hearn shaking them out of the wire basket.
He was a good man, Slaney said. Nobody knew that would happen. A stroke. How could anybody know?
Made himself from nothing, Hearn said. And what did I do?
You couldn’t see a stroke coming, Slaney said.
I never got a chance to say goodbye.
I know.
I would have liked to see him.
I know.
Say something. Explain my actions.
I hear he communicates, Slaney said.
Squeezes your hand yes or no. That’s all.
You hear from Jennifer? Slaney asked.
I have to tell you, Slane, Hearn said. She’s married. She got married.
My God, Slaney said. The force of it. Slaney felt faint is what he felt. He slammed a shoulder against the wall and waited for the darkness in the periphery of his vision to clear. He looked for a chair but there was no chair. He needed to go home, to reverse everything. His equilibrium was askew. A surge of pain in the wrong places, limbs he didn’t have, his organs, his tendons. He didn’t know what he was feeling, queasy and unequal. He was unequal to this news, unable to believe it.
She got married a month ago, Hearn said.
Slaney pressed his hand down over his eyes and tried to get the sway out of the bar. It was all swaying and he tried to make it be still. Jennifer hadn’t answered his letters but he couldn’t believe that she was in love with someone else. If she had married somebody it was a kind of lie. A deceit that would cost her everything she was. She hadn’t believed he’d come get her.
Dirty Dick heard she married a guy Decker from home, Hearn said. Went to Gonzaga, few years older than us.
Slaney was thinking Jennifer must have been coerced or brainwashed or bewitched. He needed to tell her to stop her foolishness. She was stubborn and spoiled rotten but they could have worked around all that. She had suffered a lapse of faith; they could have fixed it. But a marriage? She had married somebody. A marriage would be hard to undo.
He couldn’t summon what he needed to roar against it. He wanted to throw back his head and howl as loud as he could. Put his fist through the wall of the bar, out to the parking lot, and beyond, into someone’s face. Whoever the guy was, the husband, he wanted to grab him by the throat. He wanted to put his nose right up against the other guy’s nose and just say a few things.
Or sit him down and gently explain. Tell the guy: Listen here. If he could illustrate for the guy the intensity of what he felt, what he and Jennifer had been through, how deep that love was — the guy would step aside. The guy would say: She’s all yours, buddy.
What bullshit it was that a marriage had taken place. This guy had no idea. But Slaney couldn’t draw up what was required to reverse everything.
Somebody, perhaps the girl Hearn had there, had turned on a radio. Slaney could hear the weather. The weather was going to be the same.
Where is she? Slaney said.
She’s in Ottawa. The guy got something out there, a steady job.
I see, Slaney said.
Maybe she wants a safe place for her kid. She probably doesn’t want to be caught up with all of this.
Who is he?
He’s just a guy, some guy.
What’s his name?
I don’t know his name, Frank Decker, or Fred. He’s a civil servant. Ticks boxes all day. He’d been asking for years, according to Dick, and she finally said to him yes. Dick got all this from his sister. His sister knew Jennifer growing up, kept in touch.
The customer at the corner of the bar hooked his finger in the knot of his tie and wrenched it left and right, stretching his chin up. For a second he bared his teeth. The man picked up his fork and stared down at the pie. Then he put the fork down. He made a fist with one hand and wrapped his other hand around the fist and he put his forehead to his hands. He was saying grace.
Slaney gave himself a shake.
I’m looking around, he said.
Where are you? Hearn asked.
Tried to find a place spoke English, Slaney said. Get a drop of soup.
This time it’s going to be different.
Better be.
I’ve got everything covered, Slaney.
I have to tell you, Hearn, Slaney said.
Christ, Hearn said.
It’s bad in there.
Christ almighty.
It was very bad.
We’re doing it right this time. I have the name of a man for you. A guy you have to see, pick up some backing and get the hell over here. We’re going to have a party for you, Slaney. A coming-out party.
I think I see my lunch, Slaney said. There’s a bowl of soup there, going begging.
My father made himself.
Yes he did, Slaney said. He made himself. When you think of where he came from.
I ruined him, Hearn said. Slaney didn’t say anything.
I ruined him. I ruined him.
I’m sorry, Slaney said.
You’re sorry, Hearn said. Slaney could hear him opening cupboards. He was looking for the salt. Slaney heard the clunk of a glass bottle on a counter. It was the ketchup or Hearn had opened a beer.
I’m sorry, man, Hearn said. I’m sorry for the way it went down. I’m sorry you went to jail.
There was a paper placemat, already set, at the bar beside the man with the pie. The waitress had turned to the bright window behind the bar that opened onto the kitchen and there was the steaming bowl sitting on the shelf. Slaney’s soup.
The girl lifted the bowl down from the shelf, holding it with both hands, careful not to slop. She looked over the whole bar until she saw Slaney at the back on the pay phone. Her blue, too close-together eyes. She tilted up her chin a bit toward him and he nodded to her.
I got a room for you to stay in Montreal, Hearn said. And he gave Slaney the address. There’s a key for you with the janitor. You got your own bathroom and a phone.
You’re going to pay a visit to this guy named Lefevre. Lay low, Slane. In a couple of days, I’ll call you with the details. You go see Lefevre and he gives you the backing. Then you get the hell out of there. They haven’t forgot about us in Montreal.
I heard, Slaney said.
People are still hurting up there from the last trip. You get the cash from Lefevre and you take a train. We’ll be waiting here for you, Slane.
Listen, man, Slaney said. I’ll be there. I’m on my way. Slaney hung up and leaned against the wall and pressed his fists into his eye sockets and twisted the knuckles into the corners of his eyes.
The sound of Hearn’s voice. The Newfoundland accent. Jennifer was married. She was in Ottawa and she was married. He was full-on crying now. She’d married somebody.
He put the rest of his change in the phone and dialled and waited for maybe twenty rings. He lost track of how many rings and finally a man answered. The man’s voice was sloughing phlegm, and he yelled hello. He was alarmed, woken from a long sleep, yelling hello, hello in a quavering voice.
Is Charmaine there, please?
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Where are you calling from? the man said.
I’m on a pay phone.
Don’t make me get out of this bed, the man said.
You’re not Charmaine, I guess, Slaney said. It says here, For a good time.
Because if I come down there.
Call somebody named Charmaine and it gives the number, Slaney said. For a good time call Charmaine.
I’m going to tear that pay phone off the wall and you’re going to swallow it. You’ll be talking through your ass.
Doll
The salesclerk in the toy department wore a white blouse with the sleeves rolled up and navy work pants. She was down on her knees with a pricing gun that spat out fluorescent orange tags when she pulled the trigger. She glanced up at Slaney and swung the gun around on her finger and pointed it at him from her hip like they were in a cowboy movie.
You tell me what you want and I’ll help you find it, she said. We have everything here. She knew he was Anglo by the look of him and addressed him in English. She flattened everything she said like she was running it through a ringer washer. All the th’s were d’s and she was dropping h’s and she was emphatic. Her vowels had carbuncles and she resented having to spit them out and it was as sexy as anything Slaney had ever heard.
Yeah, bonjour, Slaney said. He said he was looking for a doll.
What kind of doll did you have in mind? the girl said. We got all kinds of dolls.
I want the biggest doll you got, Slaney said.
Plenty are big, she said. She had straight black hair parted in the middle that shone blue and hung around her white face. She wore giant silver hoops in her ears and bangles on both her arms. She was skinny, the bones of her hips two hard knobs and the hollows of her clavicles were deep and she had high cheekbones.
Have you got one of those dolls that can walk and talk? he said. And if it can do other things besides, I’d like that too.
It’s hard to get one can do it all.
Slaney saw she was about his age and everything she said was accompanied by a gentle sneer. He wasn’t accustomed to irony coming from female salesclerks and he found it hard to get his footing. All he wanted was a doll.
We got one you can give a real bottle to and she pees. That one is supposed to nurture maternal feelings. I don’t know if you want to encourage that kind of thing.