Catching the Light

by Susan Sinnott

  Cathy.

  The ferry home to Port aux Basques was easier this time because she knew the ropes, had less luggage, and was better at packing anyway. She was glad she wasn’t trying to fly to St. John’s like Paul because they were having so much snow—flight cancellations and blocked roads and people stranded. Western Newfoundland was having a far easier winter for once. In fact, snow on the Avalon Peninsula would become Mom’s main topic of conversation on the phone for the whole winter semester: how a hundred or so stranded motorists spent two nights in a church hall because the Trans-Canada was blocked; how there was a blizzard every four or five days, everything closed; how snowbanks in St. John’s were over ten feet high and had to be trucked down to the harbour and dumped; how they had to close one highway when the thaw set in because the snowbanks were unstable and could collapse onto the road and bury traffic.

  But now, on Cathy’s first night home, Mom baked a delicious ham with roast potatoes—pies for dessert of course—and everything was perfect. Cathy was excited. She had brought three of her smallest pictures and explained what they were about, explained the techniques, and Mom was beaming and Dad patting her on the shoulder and they both looked proud. So then she started talking about art school and how wonderful it was.

  “There’s art everywhere and so much space to spread out in and it all gives you ideas and then you want to go and try things and there aren’t enough hours in the day to do everything.”

  “Well, you have room to paint here too, Cathy.” Mom sounded offended somehow. “And you always did spend all day at your art.”

  “I know. I don’t mean…” She couldn’t think how to say what she did mean. “It’s just that everyone is interested in the same things as me, and thinking the same way maybe, and there are people to talk to about things I’ve never been able to talk about before.”

  “Yes.” Mom was twiddling her rings and nobody spoke for a while. “Yes, I suppose.”

  Dad crossed his legs the other way and Mom picked up her knitting and made a big show of counting the stitches.

  “So what else do you do besides painting?” she said eventually.

  So Cathy started telling them about the sculptures they were making in Modelled Forms and how Dad would like one of the guy’s models of a blue jay and a chickadee, and that led to Dad talking about some of the wildlife he’d photographed in Labrador, and the evening turned comfortable again. But at some point Cathy must have mentioned Jeff. She wasn’t sure what she said because she was thinking about art, not him, but her mother pounced.

  “Who’s Jeff? What’s his last name? Where’s he from?”

  “He has a girlfriend, Mom. Don’t get excited. He’s just a guy who lives in the house.”

  But her Mom was off at a gallop and there was no stopping her.

  ***

  The whole clan was having a party for Great Grandmother Dora Hill’s ninetieth birthday and they had rented the community centre because there would be over sixty family members before you counted neighbours and friends. Cathy had thought she’d wear her new shirt, be an Artist in the Making. She was even looking forward to it.

  Late in the afternoon she helped her mom take over cold plates and pies and put up tables and arrange chairs and hang up streamers. Cathy blew up balloons until her ears hurt. Of course some of her aunts were there and her mom couldn’t resist mentioning Jeff. Aunt Joanie stopped what she was doing and gave Cathy a hug as if she’d just announced her engagement—“Oh my, how nice!”

  Then her cousin Annie heard.

  “What’s this? Tell me all about him.”

  Cathy said Mom had it all wrong and he was just a guy in her building, told Annie about the girlfriend.

  “Do you like him?”

  “Yes, but….”

  When the aunts were distracted, Annie asked if Jeff had kissed her and Cathy was so surprised there was a pause before she said no and Annie made a crowing noise and said, “Girlfriend in wherever…what a load!”

  So in half an hour they practically had her married off.

  After that Cathy didn’t want to go to the party at all but even Dad was going. At first she decided she’d go in her usual black stuff and slouch and ignore everybody. Then she decided she’d go in her new shirt, walk tall, and tell the lot of them to take a hike. All her clothes lay piled on her bed while she thumped around in her housecoat, scowling.

  When Mom called out that they were ready to go and hurry up, her mood had swung toward tough-it-out. So a few minutes later Cathy marched out in her artsy outfit and both her parents just stood and stared. First they looked a bit shocked then Dad had the tiniest smile, which got bigger at the hall when the commotion started. Twice Mom opened her mouth to say something and maybe it was the look on Cathy’s face that made her stop, because she never said a word.

  So Cathy wore her new shirt and anemone necklace and the cousins all exclaimed and said how great she looked and Aunt Gert said she didn’t approve of showing off your shape like that. Aunt Dot said, “Oh Gert, leave her alone, she looks gorgeous,” but on the quiet, later, she said to Cathy, “I know you’re not used to buying your own clothes but next time maybe get a size larger?”

  Cathy took no notice of Aunt Gert but she always listened to Aunt Dot, so the next day at home she studied herself in the mirror and Critiqued. The shirt was not too tight; it just fit well. Nothing was stretched or buckled or pulled taut. It fit perfectly. And she was not going to hide inside sacks and tents anymore.

  But at the party, when the fuss about the shirt died down, the cousins weren’t at all interested in what she did at art school and bit by bit the conversation went back to the usual he said/she said stuff and they closed up into their gossipy little circles without her, just like always.

  Moving Right Along

  After the bus incident at the end of October, Hutch couldn’t wear his leg for three weeks because of the rubbed skin and the pain: back pain, stump pain, phantom-limb pain, remembered pain, nerve pain…whatever. He didn’t know what he’d done to make the stump so red and sore—maybe twisted the socket out of kilter getting off the bus then walking home. And he always had the phantom stuff when the stump hurt. He would have stayed home except he didn’t want to be alone with those voices. So he filled his days, squeezed out the spaces, stayed in the lab working until they locked the doors. Twice he crashed at Sean’s place after one of his parties.

  People looked shocked when they saw his pinned-up pant leg, but most were just shocked on his behalf; said they had no idea because he managed so well. Then they were back to normal.

  Hutch walked to school, taking forty minutes now—he could really cover ground with the crutches. He listened to the weather forecast first thing in the morning, and only started trying the bus again when the sidewalks were wet or icy. He always watched how it was being driven as it approached, sat on an outside seat, stuffed in his headphones, and turned up the music.

  Sean’s parties were different. Most people just looked surprised at first then carried on. Some even made a conversation opener:

  “Can I borrow one of those? It’s been a rough week.”

  “Can you tap buddy on the shoulder with that, please? The one with his back to us in grey?”

  And Hutch would oblige and buddy in grey would ask what kind of ammunition the crutch took or if it had a retractable sword.

  Paul took him to his aunt’s for a Sunday lunch in November. The roast was so tender you could cut it with a fork, there were little puffy Yorkshire puddings full of great gravy, more vegetables than he’d ever seen at one meal (not that he was big on vegetables), and wine so fantastic he decided maybe he wasn’t just a beer man after all. The Mercedes that took Hutch and Paul home probably ran on red wine too, the way it purred. Hutch could handle a bit of pampering now and then.

  He counted down the days until he’d be home for Christmas.

&
nbsp; ***

  Hutch was back in his peg leg later that month but he carried the fold-up cane in the bottom of his backpack. He was only reminded of the crash with something specific, like metal scraping on metal, or hearing the Beatles—not just “Love Me Do,” but any Beatles—although that didn’t happen much these days. He learned to put it out of his head by concentrating on something else: going over a complicated math formula or listing all the countries in Africa and their capitals. He’d been shamed into learning those after a bad trivia night at Sailors.

  So Hutch was ready for a bit of fun by the time the Christmas parties rolled round. He met this girl, Samantha, at an art party of Paul’s and then she turned up at another party of Sean’s and was coming onto him all night. She said if Hutch took her home she had nachos and dip. And he thought, why not? Some guy was leaving and gave them a ride. It was all so easy.

  It never crossed his mind that she didn’t know about his leg.

  And it started off so well: they were laughing at a horror movie that was so bad it was funny, sprawled on this saggy green couch with a two-tone squeak. Hutch would rock from side to side to make it squeak and then try to think up lines of songs with those notes in them. Things were going fine until she asked what that lumpy thing was she could feel through his shirt and did he wear a holster? She was giggling then, but after Hutch said it was a scar from the accident it was as if she’d pressed Pause. Everything stopped. And when she pressed Play again she was looking—polite, and her voice went all phoney-polite-interested….

  “Oh. Were you in an accident? How awful.”

  “Yes. I was in a bus crash a couple of years ago. You might have heard about it on the news. Two of my buddies were killed.” He tried to keep his voice casual but it came out louder than he meant, and stiff.

  “Oh, god.” She frowned slightly and said maybe she did remember it and she sounded more normal for a minute. “Didn’t they die when the back of the bus went through the ice on a pond?”

  And the way she said it in that casual, it-might-rain-today way made Hutch’s stomach clench. Jesus. They died. They both started to sit up and her foot hit his peg leg and she stared at him with her mouth open, frozen. That only lasted a second too then she was back to her social-worker look.

  “Yep,” Hutch said. “That’s my fake leg.” He took in a breath then decided he wasn’t saying anything else. He saw Phyllis Barnes’s face with that big sneer all over it. Told you.

  Samantha said she’d make some coffee but Hutch said not to bother and started hunting for his jacket and stuff and all the while she was saying don’t leave and how much fun he was and how she had enjoyed the party and they were planning a party here soon and he must come….

  She was probably still at the social chit-chat as he was walking up the road. It was a long way home.

  ***

  Christmas was all family and food and catching up. Hutch’s relatives were full of questions and enthusiasm: Did he have photos to show them? Had he met any Newfoundlanders in Halifax? How was Paul? But there was a divide now in the conversation between his buddies who had been away and those who had stayed around, and neither side seemed all that interested in what the other had to say.

  So Hutch stuck to family and his closest buddies. He caught sight of Cathy Russell on the ferry on the way back, but she stayed downstairs and he was out on deck as much as the cold would let him. He was out to the bus stop and into the last seat on the first bus before she even came off the ferry.

  When he got back to Halifax, the winter semester flowed along without any complications: every new class interesting, every new girl fun, but he kept things casual—just a few dates and then move on.

  By the end of the school year, Hutch had decided to try for a summer job in Halifax and dropped his resumé all over the city. He just had two responses, both student-only jobs. He saw the interviewer noticing his leg. Hutch wasn’t sure if the plastic showed when he sat down or if it was the way he sat, but she gave him a sympathetic look—maybe it worked in his favour. He wanted to say he didn’t need the pity thank you, but if it got him the job…. They offered him four weeks of data-entry work in the Media Arts Department at NSCAD, starting the week after exams finished. Not a manly job, but it would pay the rent.

  The girl who did his orientation was a real eye-catcher. Her hair was a mass of red, orange, and purple streaks. Petra.

  “Love your hair. Need sunglasses.”

  She had heavy mascara and a thick line at the edge of her eyelids. He thought they must get tired holding everything up. Her earrings were painted corks from wine bottles. She ought to have looked weird, but instead she looked—inviting. Of course the low neckline helped. There was another cork bouncing around just above that fantastic cleavage.

  Petra told him she worked part-time to put herself through art school. She wanted to specialize in film. She asked him how he got his limp. Hutch had not realized he had a limp. He must be getting sloppy. So he slowed down and concentrated more on equal step lengths, equal time on each foot.

  Petra asked him about his limp again when she saw him a few days later with his cane, so finally he told her about the crash. Then she wanted to know about his injuries. When he mentioned surgeries, she wanted to see the scars. So after his second Friday, he went back to her apartment and showed her. And, oh boy, Phyllis Barnes had nothing on Petra.

  He took Petra out three more times before he left for home, even tried to look her up in September but she was gone. Part of him laughed, knowing she only went out with him because he was a freak, but it helped to balance the scales.

  Change of Place

  The house on Vernon Street had been sold. The new owners were planning renovations over the summer then moving in themselves. In Cathy’s first week home that summer, Sarah called.

  “Your mother told May Parsons you would need a new place to live next semester—”

  Frig. You couldn’t sneeze in Mariners Cove without somebody at the other end of town passing you a tissue.

  “—so I mentioned it to Lena Wilson—you know, Paul’s mother—and she said you could have a basement apartment in that building they bought a couple of years ago if you wanted. But of course you don’t have to take it. I only asked her because I know what it’s like looking for a place to live when you’re far away.”

  Paul’s building.

  Paul.

  Sarah mentioned alternatives in some high-rise with a load of student apartments, but only if Cathy was willing to share.

  “You have plenty of time to think about it; you don’t have to decide right away.”

  Paul.

  Cathy said yes immediately. Yes, yes, yes. Thought about it all summer.

  Dad wasn’t happy about the higher rent but said he supposed they’d manage. Mom was pleased about the move because it was more connected to home. She was more upbeat about everything this summer. Cathy made a point of asking her about cooking for one because she’d be able to cook a bit in this new place. She’d lived on sandwiches all last year. What recipes did Mom know for one person with a hot plate? Mom kept recipes in her head so Cathy had to stand over her and measure stuff as it went in the bowl.

  “Yes, but how much is ‘not too much?’” she had to ask. “How big is ‘just a tad?’”

  ***

  The new apartment was dark because the windows were up near the ceiling and wore layers of sheer curtains to hide the feet on the sidewalk. Cathy stood sizing up the picture she could make: it would be the same shape as the window frame, railings across, sidewalk shining in the rain, greys with blurred colours in the puddles and so many feet, each with a different story. She would need a good lamp.

  She turned and paced through the rest of the apartment. The walls were cream again but not sour this time; when she checked them against Sarah’s colour encyclopaedia, the best match was Antique White. The floating floor ti
les were a mix of browns on cream but looked fresh and clean, and there were touches of Fog Green around the windows and doors. It was soft on the eyes and the name made her smile.

  The apartment had two rooms with no door between—and one room was full of bed—but there was more space overall than her last place. There was a tiny ensuite bathroom—how elegant was that—a camp-sized fridge, a stovetop with two rings, a miniature microwave, and a cupboard with a mix of saucepans with dented lids and a buckled-looking frying pan. There was way more storage space here, which meant more floor space for her easel if she kept things tidy. A big step up.

  And at the top of the building was a studio filled with light, shining over the city, full of Paul. He invited Cathy up for a look on her first evening. He said she could paint up there sometimes—they’d do up a schedule later. And just as she was about to leave, the door opened and in walked Parsons. Parsons! Her voice rose to a squawk.

  “What are you doing here?”

  “And a happy Thursday to you too.”

  Paul had picked up an envelope and was passing it to him. “The tickets,” Paul said.

  “Letter from St. Paul to the Philistines,” said Parsons, waving the envelope at her with that stupid grin.

  “What?”

  “Forget it.” The grin disappeared and he shut the door a bit hard as he left.

  Second Year

  “You really gotta share your studio with that lump of misery?”

  Hutch was sitting at Paul’s kitchen table, swirling his coffee round and round, seeing how far up the sides of the mug he could force it without it sloshing over the top.

  “I’ll try and schedule her for when I’m out. But she’s not that bad.”