Catching the Light

by Susan Sinnott

  Twenty minutes later there was a knock on the door and a girl was standing there: curly dark hair, nice figure, pretty smile.

  “You can sing,” she said. “I didn’t know nerds could sing.”

  “Hey, I’m not a nerd.”

  “Anyone who works over there is a nerd.” She waved her hand vaguely in the direction of Nortel.

  So they stood in the doorway talking about singing and she was going to her gig and would he like to come?

  ***

  That was how he met Fiona and a bunch of guys who really knew their music, and how he had the bars of his musical cage permanently bent out of shape.

  Newfoundland, says the guy, Jay, on the keyboard; New-found-land says Hutch. Like un-der-stand. And Jay grinned like he’d known all the time, then turned the “Ode to Newfoundland” into jazz and blues on his keyboard. And a saxophone joined in and drums, and suddenly there were snatches of styles Hutch vaguely recognized but couldn’t put a name to and Fiona threw in a bit of rap and it was all so expert-sounding you’d have thought they’d rehearsed for hours, not improvised everything just then. Eugene would’ve loved it.

  Turned out they were all music students at the University of Ottawa. Fiona drove Hutch downtown for the gig and afterwards took him on a walking tour along the Ottawa River and past the National Art Gallery; it looked huge and impressive and Cathy would get lost in there and forget to come out. They drove along Sussex Drive and past Parliament Hill, which was crawling with tourists, and over a bridge to the Museum of History and Civilization and circled around a bunch more places until he’d lost all sense of direction. Fiona said that, being an outdoors sort of guy, he’d have liked Gatineau Park but the traffic up there was shocking on Sundays.

  On the way back Hutch said, “So why are you staying way over in Kanata?”

  “Oh, it’s actually my brother’s room. I’m just staying there for two weeks while he’s in New York. This is his car I’m driving too.”

  Fiona had said she needed to “get away” for a bit, never did explain from what. But Hutch thought it might have something to do with the big dark-haired guy who played trumpet and trombone. Hamish. It was the way Hamish looked at Hutch like a bear standing over its catch—just try it. Very big guy. Don’t mind me, b’y—ten days and I’m outta here. Fiona didn’t seem to notice those looks when she waved to Hutch from the stage now and then, winked at him, and linked her arm through his as they walked out.

  Hutch went out for coffee with Fiona most nights over the next week. A couple of times, a guy hailed him from another table. His accent again—it was hard to be anonymous here. This guy was from St. John’s, doing a work term up the road. His mother grew up in Gander and as soon as Hutch said Mariners Cove, the guy mentioned the Sheppard family. He’d seen Gus play the night of the crash and did Hutch know anybody on that bus? Hutch said he knew everybody on that bus. It was a small place. He made sure his leg was out of sight and let the other guy leave first.

  He went to Fiona’s gig the next Sunday too. It felt good just to listen, the way he felt good after a hockey game. Something inside had a workout.

  This was the day her brother was coming back so, before she drove to the airport, Hutch took Fiona for supper at a little place she knew. It was a lot like Faraday’s only the chairs were uncomfortable and the talk was all music: he should join a choir, take up an instrument…. Yes. One day. She dropped him off in the parking lot and they exchanged a little goodbye kiss, ignoring the idiot who took the devil’s own time parking opposite with his lights up on high beam. The little kiss turned into a big one but it was still an everyday kiss. Fiona wasn’t Cathy.

  Cathy would have been home all this time. How often had he thought must tell Cathy—some Newfoundland-related thing or some funny incident. He loved the way she tilted her head when she was listening. He wanted to make her smile—he loved her smile—and she didn’t smile easily; you had to earn it.

  She’d probably think he was up to something if she heard about Fiona but he was a free man, and anyway she would never know. But that guy from the coffee shop turned up at the airport, booked on Hutch’s flight, and he was there again when Hutch’s leg set off metal detectors and asked him about it. Once they landed, he kept up a monologue for thirty minutes at the luggage carousel in St. John’s. He was smirking all over his face when he said, “Pretty girl you were with Sunday, in the parking lot. Fiona. Meet her up there, did you?”

  ***

  Hutch had to hang around St. John’s for orthotics appointments for seven whole days while they made changes to his leg, staying at Uncle Em’s sister’s in Mount Pearl. That gave him less than three weeks in Mariners Cove and he made it into the last week before he came face to face with Cathy.

  There was no—whatever that was on the dance floor—in her face. She looked troubled and her eyes felt like searchlights scouring the back corners of his head.

  “What’s wrong, Hutch?”

  He wanted to say he thought kissing her that time was like a promise he didn’t mean to make, but he couldn’t.

  “You met a girl in Ottawa.”

  Holy shit. It was a statement, not a question.

  “Not really. Just had coffee with this girl a couple of times. Didn’t mean anything. I’ll never see her again.”

  “Didn’t mean anything.” She said each word slowly. “You never mean anything, do you Hutch?” She shrugged and turned away.

  ***

  Back in Halifax Hutch didn’t see a hair of Cathy. Didn’t want to. Jesus. He could hear the frigging chains clanking. You never mean anything.

  Paul had been in Montreal with his cousins all summer: jazz festivals and art shows, practicing French, cottage by the lake. But making decisions too.

  “Applying to do a master’s in art history in Montreal next year. At Concordia.” They were on their second beer at Sailors when Paul asked about Cathy.

  “What do you mean, me and Cathy?”

  “Well, b’y, you looked pretty taken with her at that dance.”

  “Yeah, well…that was then. This is now.”

  Change of Direction

  Once school started Hutch could feel the pressure ratcheted up from second year. All the profs started the laying on of homework and questions about student goals for the semester and he was so buried in projects by the end of the first week that he could put Cathy right out of his mind.

  He thought of her the next Monday but he wasn’t sticking his neck out so he invited some girl from Sean’s to Faraday’s instead, and was bored. She kept up this chatter about nothing the whole time. He had liked that at Sean’s with a few drinks in—now it was annoying. Why couldn’t she just talk when she had something to say? He noticed she was wearing blue, like most of the girls in there.

  “Lot of blue around tonight.”

  “Yes. This season’s hot colour. Gotta be up with the fashion.”

  And hadn’t there been a lot of blue around at home last visit? Well, he liked blue but what a bunch of sheep. Cathy didn’t follow the flock. In anything.

  Hutch avoided the studio until Paul happened to say Cathy only used it for half a day on Mondays now. So then he took to working in there on Saturdays when Paul was gone because there was more light and air and he could stroll around while he was thinking.

  He was there late in October when Cathy brought up a pile of pictures. He was taking a break, standing by the window flicking through an old copy of Popular Mechanics. She paused when she saw him, nodded, and leaned her pictures against the wall in groups. She left and returned with another pile, without either of them saying a word. The second time she left she didn’t come back.

  Just as he’d managed to focus on his screen again, she walked in and stood in front of him until he looked up—which was not immediately because he was buggered if he was going to keep being interrupted by her flapping in and out. She l
ooked all stiff with the drapes closed and was grabbing at her elbows.

  “Would you sit for that portrait I mentioned last semester?”

  Hutch waited for more detail but that was it. And as usual, half of him said go and half said stop.

  “What would I have to do?”

  “Just sit here for however long you can manage at a time…maybe five or six hours altogether.”

  She was looking at him now with her eyes up on high beam, a CAT scan, a CAThy Scan. He kept staring at her, daring her to read his mind, wishing he could kiss her enough to make her eyeballs spin. So why didn’t he? Because she’d slap him upside of the head and say don’t try your tricks on me. But that never stopped him before, just added a bit of spice. Any other girl.

  “Can I be on my laptop while you paint?”

  Cathy hesitated. “Some of the time maybe, but some of the time I’d need you just sitting looking straight ahead—a bit sideways to me.”

  It was a foot in the door. Did he want a foot in the door? It would give him time to make up his mind….

  Which was how he ended up sitting for his portrait in Paul’s studio, wearing the fisherman-knit sweater his Aunt Liz had made him, every grizzled Saturday morning from October into December.

  Hutch brought down his CD player that first session and put on Navy Blues. Sloan was a Nova Scotia band but he’d had this back in Mariners Cove. He didn’t want to be sitting in silence, listening to the paint drying. Cathy didn’t comment. In fact she was so engrossed in positioning her easel and himself and all that painting junk on the table that she probably didn’t even notice, which was fine by him.

  ***

  Cathy’s Santa bag was often hanging on a hook on the back of the door with a sketch pad sticking out of it. He didn’t risk asking at first but shit, she was the one with something to lose. So the next time he said, “You haven’t shown me the sketches you drew of me before. The ones Tristan mentioned.”

  She looked straight at him for ages, studying him, and he didn’t move a muscle. He just stared right back. Then she said okay, next time she’d bring them up with her. He wondered if she’d accidentally forget but she didn’t. She passed one of those sketch pads to him with two hands, flat, like something on a tray that might spill. And he took hold of it just as carefully.

  He went through it page by page, taking his time, asking questions now and then. And after a bit he forgot about being on probation and became absorbed in the sketches: street scenes, the waterfront, faces, groups. There were pages full of the tree just down from their building in different light and different seasons, leaves turned inside out in a gale or weighed down in the rain.

  “Fantastic,” he murmured.

  There was one sketch of Paul and five or six of Hutch, and he didn’t say a word about those. He looked okay. His face had more angles than photos of him, harsher maybe, especially one that was all straight lines, but it was certainly him.

  “Lots of talent,” he said when he reached the last page. “As far as I can see, anyway. And you know I have no clue about art.” He passed it back. “Thanks for letting me look.”

  She just nodded, no expression on her face. And whatever she’d felt after he’d taken that other book, maybe this made her feel better.

  ***

  Cathy said the portrait was almost finished, but she never let him look. Well, he’d seen it once because he’d refused to sit again until she showed him. He’d liked it. It was waist up with a background of rocks and ocean, him just sitting there like a regular guy. He liked the way some of the colours in the rocks were in his sweater, some of the shades in his face were in the rocks. Simple. Once he knew he wasn’t going to be embarrassed, he hadn’t pushed it again.

  He’d felt like an idiot at first, sitting there, didn’t know where to put his eyes. But Cathy had that intent look she always had when she was drawing, or looking at something with her Art Eye, seeing the fisherman she wanted to paint and forgetting all about Hutch Parsons. So he could relax and study her and after a few sessions he tried out a joke or two and she smiled in a half-listening sort of way. So one morning, just for something to talk about, he started telling her what all the gang was up to these days.

  “…and Jack sounds serious about this girl from Burin. Had to go all the way to Alberta to meet a girl from Newfoundland.”

  “All the way to Burin to meet someone you hadn’t been out with first.”

  “Bullshit. I didn’t go out with that many girls. You can count them on one hand—three fingers.”

  “But you chased every girl on the east coast. Except me of course.” She paused. “Well, you never really saw me….”

  She didn’t see him coming. She jumped when he started to take the brush out of her hand.

  “I see you now,” he said.

  He had an arm round her but she wouldn’t let go of the brush and they both reached back, fumbling for a surface to put it on. Then they were wrapped up together, all arms and mouths.

  Feet in the corridor, a cellphone ringing outside the door, Paul saying hello, the door handle rattling. Hutch took his arms away and stepped back, breathless, and Cathy staggered a little so he put his hand out to steady her and that was how they were when Paul came in sideways with about five bags of groceries in one hand and his phone in the other, which gave them a bit of time. But Paul was taking everything in and there was this little grin on his face when he looked at Hutch.

  “Hope I’m not interrupting.”

  Cathy was putting caps on her paint tubes and clearing up with her head down, blushing, and Hutch said no, no, they were just finishing, in his best casual voice.

  And that was it for the rest of the day.

  All week Hutch kept trying to get back to Cathy, but he went with Paul to his aunt’s on Sunday, denying everything when Paul started to tease. There was an extra lab and some tutorials and once he saw Cathy leaving the building just as he was heading her way. Every time he thought now, something happened. He could have gone late at night but that was a bit…. At least he knew what he wanted. He wanted Cathy Russell. A future with Cathy Russell. Starting now.

  Friday, Paul was off somewhere for the weekend and Hutch told everyone who might come looking for him that he’d be gone too. He spent ages getting ready. He was so careful shaving he cut himself. The deodorant fell out of its case and rolled all over the floor gathering a month’s worth of moss, then he had trouble cleaning it off and got the waterproofing all over his fingers.

  He tried to prepare himself for anything; instinct said she felt the same way as him but caution said she didn’t trust him—and anyway, you just never knew with Cathy. Just before eight he knocked on her door. And when he saw her smile—those beautiful eyes and those fantastic sulky-sultry lips smiling at him—he knew it would be all right.

  And it was.

  ***

  They had one week to themselves in a dazzle, making meals together, squeezing round each other as they cleared away. I’ll wash, you dry. Kissing over the dishpan. Laughing when they messed up each other’s breakfast—Cathy leaving the dial on the toaster up on Burn and Hutch leaving it down on Hardly Warm because he was always too hungry to wait. Cathy’s easel was moved closer to the window and Hutch’s laptop stayed on the fold-out table, cane wedged in place. Nights were full of whispered confidences and fumbling, awkward—and, on one occasion, fantastic—sex. But even the fumbling was great.

  Paul saw him coming up the basement stairs on that Wednesday morning and laughed his head off, called him a dark horse. He said he’d knocked at Hutch’s room a few times and wondered where he was. Paul went out through the front door mimicking Hutch.

  “Just ‘someone from home,’ he says. ‘Nothing like that,’ he says. ‘It’s only Cathy Russell.’”

  “Keep it under your hat, b’y. Please? Don’t want Mariners Cove to know. Not just yet.”

&
nbsp; It was lucky Paul was a guy Hutch could trust to keep quiet. Now and then Hutch wondered why he didn’t want people back home to know. He’d never cared before. Was he afraid it would spoil something? Was it because this was too important? Or was he embarrassed because it was Cathy? Was it because of his leg—that every Jed Batton and Phyllis Barnes in the world would say he couldn’t do any better, now he was a cripple? No way. He wouldn’t let guys like that influence him. But all those thoughts had gone through his head, so he had thought them. He made himself look them in the face but he still didn’t know why.

  ***

  Then it was Christmas, with so many family events there was no opportunity to be together anyway. They’d discussed it and agreed they didn’t want the gossip so they let things slide for the holidays. Then in January, Hutch went back to Ottawa for his third-year work term.

  They emailed, short and basic: work and weather. But always there was a line at the end about missing each other.

  Hutch went for a scattered hot dog with the other work term guys—one in particular from St. John’s. The two of them tossed about ideas for work after graduation. Both wanted this same placement again for the last work term, in September. They planned to keep in touch.

  He checked out a couple of choirs—he’d meant what he said about that—but they had their auditions in September. All he could find was an advertisement for voice lessons tacked onto a notice board in a grocery store. So he ended up heading downtown on the bus every Saturday, singing scales and learning breath control on the third floor of a skinny brick house in Little Italy, squeezed in between two pasta places—a free supply of garlic and coffee fumes with spices he didn’t recognize. He was always starving when he left. The teacher was a tiny woman with a soft speaking voice but when she let rip with a line of song to demonstrate a crescendo, Hutch couldn’t believe the huge sound that came out of her little rib cage, without any effort that he could see. Her voice would have been handy on a trawler in a storm. She had him sing a simple folk song each class and started teaching him sight-reading.