by William Bell
Other books by William Bell
Crabbe
Absolutely Invincible
Five Days of the Ghost
Forbidden City
Speak to the Earth
Copyright © 1992 William Bell
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Seal Books/published by arrangement with Doubleday Canada
Doubleday Canada edition published 1992
Seal Books edition published 1995
eISBN: 978-0-385-67411-9
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v3.1
This book is for my mother, Irene Bell
Contents
Cover
Other Books by This Author
Title Page
Copyright
Dedication
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
Chapter Twenty-Four
Chapter Twenty-Five
Chapter Twenty-Six
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Chapter Thirty
Chapter Thirty-One
Chapter Thirty-Two
Chapter Thirty-Three
Chapter Thirty-Four
Chapter Thirty-Five
Chapter Thirty-Six
Afterword
Acknowledgements
ONE
I REMEMBER EVERYTHING.
My memory is like a dark cellar with long dim corridors that lead to damp gloomy rooms and in all the rooms hundreds of dust-layered file cabinets hold thousands of drawers packed thick with postcards; hundreds of scarred oak tables are stacked high with thousands of cob-webbed shoeboxes stuffed with postcards, each one holding a memory layered in a hologram of sound-sight-smell-touch-emotion.
And when I least expect it—maybe I hear a tune I liked a long time ago, I see a photograph of a far-away city skyline, maybe I just look out the window on a spring day and see a cloud going by on the wind—down in the cellar’s murk a laser snaps on sending a reed of light searing through the darkness, reads a card, and feeds a signal into a coaxial cable that snakes through a maze of corridors, up the steep narrow staircase—and bang! the Replay surges into my mind, sometimes so powerful that it jolts everything else out of the way. And there I am, my skull invaded and captured by images and emotions I maybe don’t want, but they’re there and I have to look at them, feel them, even if only for a second, before I can turn off the volts and file the postcard away again in the gloom…
… like the time I was six, riding my new BMX bike, steering off the safe sidewalk into the forbidden territory of the road. I’d been trying since my dad had bought me the bike to pull off a walking wheelie, and that day I got up some speed, threw my weight back, not too far, and yanked back on the bars. And I found myself balanced perfectly, pedalling, front wheel in the air, and I thought, Wow! I’m doing it! So I looked around for an audience, someone to verify that I had finally mastered the walking wheelie, and that’s when the rear wheel hit a stone in the road and the next thing I knew I was picking myself up off the road with a sore head and two bleeding elbows and I was suddenly glad there was no one around to see me fall…
… or the time a nightmare jolted into my sleeping mind and I wet my bed, waking up full of shame to the cold damp sheets and my mother said it’s all right we’ll just get a dry sheet, but I knew it wasn’t all right. I knew good boys, normal boys, didn’t wet their own bed. I knew if the other kids found out they’d laugh at me forever and I felt so bad, so scared the next night I did it again…
… or the day Hawk and I took a six-pack down to The Place, where the willows hung low over the creek where it met the lake in the big park between 13th Street and 20th Street and sat there talking about life while we watched the sails way out on the waves. After we finished the six-pack we walked giggling like grade nine girls to Tony Tattaglia’s dad’s barber shop up on the Lakeshore and I got my head shaved close, closer than what they used to call a brush-cut, and still under the sway of the beer we went to Hawk’s house, and up in his room he numbed my ear lobe with an ice cube and prepared to jab a pin through it while he held a paperback novel behind it. Wait, I said to him, slurring my words, you sure you got the right ear? No, not your right, you dummy, your left, he laughed. Left is right and right is wrong. Now hold still, don’t be a Jill. Be a big man, stick to your plan, he chanted, jabbing the needle into my flesh as I jeered at his lame rhymes. And after he finished, as I stood before his mirror, pleased at how tough I looked with my hair almost all gone and my left ear pierced, I said, Hey, Hawk, all I got is a bloody hole in my ear. He held up a small gold ring. Mom will never miss this, he said and I asked again, You absolutely sure you got the right—I mean the left—ear? I don’t want anybody to think I’m gay…
… or the day I came home from high school and as I passed the front door on my way to my room I saw a card lying among some envelopes on the hall floor under the mail slot. But it was like the envelopes weren’t there, all I saw was the card, a postcard lying face down with the address stamped on in black ink with one of those stamps you can get made up and the word DAD stamped on it too in the same colour of ink, nothing else on the card, no message, no signature, just the address and that word.
And down in the dark cellar the file drawers flew open, the tops burst from shoeboxes and cards spilled upwards into the air like upside-down waterfalls and the laser beam snapped on and went crazy trying to read all the cards at once as they floated to the floor, the laser jumping from card to card, sending millions of bits of messages buzzing along the coaxial cable, up the murky staircase into my mind. And I stood there in the hall that led to my room, rigid, as though the electricity in the cable was zapping me so hard it welded me to the spot…
… and what surged into my mind was the picture of a little kid that was me, almost eight years old, taking the worn lid off a Nike running shoebox and dumping all the postcards onto the floor of my room, all of them with my address and that one word stamped on them in cold black letters, me crying so hard I could hardly see, tears streaming over hot cheeks as I ripped each card to shreds so small they could have come from anywhere—all the while trying to think up the worst thing I could to say about my father. Jerk! Bastard! And still not satisfied because the words that came didn’t begin to match the powerful mix of hurt and anger, hate and guilt, until in my rage I spit it out.
“I hate you!” I cried. “I hate you! I hate you!” …
… but then I managed to push that picture down again. I wasn’t eight any more. I picked up the
postcard, my hands trembling, my mind still fighting to stem the surge of memory Replays. Canadian stamp, postmarked Quebec City. I turned it over. Picture of a city skyline. I turned the card over again. In small print on the top left edge was the return address. I checked the stamp again. Postmarked five days ago.
Maybe he’s still there, I thought, in Quebec City.
And if he is, I’ll find him. And when I do, he’d better start talking.
TWO
IF I WAS GOING TO GO through with that crazy notion of trying to find my old man after ten years of silence, there were some minor details to work out, like how was I going to get away with skipping school for a couple of days? How was I going to get to Quebec City? Where was I going to get enough money? And the biggest question of them all: how was I going to get my mother to let me go?
After I’d made some tea and sat at the kitchen table for a while, looking out across our tiny yard to the row of ancient battered garbage pails that lined the fence to the right of our condo, answers started to come pretty fast.
I’d skip school and worry about the reactions from my mother and the vice principal later. After all, once you skip school you can’t unskip it no matter what they do to you. I’d take the bus to Quebec City if I had to, but first I’d try to find the spare key to my mother’s little BMW and get it copied.
The money problem required a bit more staring at the garbage pails, then I came up with something. My mother put money into a joint account for my education—she wanted me to go to university and be Somebody Important—but I couldn’t put my hands on it. She’s an accountant and she thinks that money was invented to be saved or invested. You didn’t, according to her, actually use the stuff. But, I told myself, it was my money.
It only took a couple of minutes to find the passbook and chequebook for my account and a few more to find something with my mother’s signature on it. I made out a cheque for cash for three hundred dollars, signed it, and then traced her signature onto it underneath mine. It wasn’t really stealing, I kept telling myself.
I knew I’d have to sneak away without her knowing. She never talked about the old man and refused to answer questions about him when I asked her—which I hadn’t done for years, once I got the message. If I told her I wanted to find him she’d throw one of her cosmic fits and refuse. She’d throw a super-cosmic fit when I got back, but by then it would be too late.
So I had it all worked out. All it took was a criminal mind and three cups of tea. I still wasn’t sure why I wanted to find my old man, and I didn’t feel like analyzing the matter, to tell the truth. Sometimes you’ve got to just go with your instincts.
I put my cup in the sink, threw on my coat and headed off for the health club to throw some weights around.
THREE
TWO DAYS LATER I had the three hundred bucks and my own key to the BMW. After my mother had left for the office—she usually takes the streetcar to the GO station—I wrote her a “don’t worry and don’t look for me” note and took off.
There was a light April rain falling and the traffic on the Gardiner and the Don Valley Expressway was thick, slow and stupid. I felt like I was surrounded by drugged-up escapees from mental institutions. But the BMW was easy to drive, comfortable, quick, with a sound system that would blow the sunroof out. Once I got out of the city it was kind of nice to crank up the tunes and drift down the road through the rain.
I reached Montreal at about three o’clock. If the drivers in Toronto were like mental deficients, the drivers in Montreal were totally schizoid, barrelling along, cutting in and out as if they were all trying to kill themselves before somebody else did. It took me almost an hour to make my way along the expressways and through the tunnel to the highway to Quebec City. By then a sky the colour of slate was trying to snow but managed only a few flurries.
It was near dark when I drove across the Pierre Laporte Bridge and the snow was coming thick and fast. My stomach started to churn nervously as I got closer to where the old man was. I pulled off the road once I was across the St. Lawrence, gassed up and went into the little variety store next to the gas station to buy a city map.
I made my way carefully through the driving snow into the narrow streets of the Old City, crept down rue St. Louis, found rue Haldiman and turned right, holding on to the Bimmer as it fish-tailed its way up the grade. I turned off into an underground municipal parking lot, shut off the engine and immediately wished I hadn’t come.
What the hell was I going to say to him? Hi, thanks for the postcard even though I waited ten years for it, now let’s talk about how you ruined my life?
I sat there with my hand on the ignition, trying to decide what to do, knowing deep down I had to go through with this. Finally I got out of the car, grabbed my backpack and trudged up Haldiman, head down into the snowy wind. The ancient stone building stood silent at the corner of two narrow streets. The windows were dark but there was a dim light on over the door. I crossed the street and knocked, so nervous my throat went dry, rehearsing in my mind what I’d say when the old man opened it.
REPLAY
Back then, mornings were the best times.
I’d get up early, before Mom or Dad, and make my way downstairs, one hand on the wide banister, the other knuckling the sleep from my eyes. In the kitchen I’d stand on tip-toe, stretching across the counter-top to turn on the coffee machine. Dad set it up for me each night. Switching it on each morning was my special job, and I never forgot. Then I’d pad into the family room and click on our little fourteen-inch TV, turning the volume down to zero. While the cartoons flickered silently across the screen I’d build with my Lego set. I had tons of the stuff. I could make boats, rocket ships, weird-looking monster trucks with strange machines mounted on them that could do anything my imagination came up with.
There I’d be, fitting bits of coloured plastic together while the coffee-maker spluttered and gurgled out in the kitchen, filling the air with the heavy aroma of strong coffee. Every morning I’d think, I can’t wait till I’m old enough to drink coffee. I’ll drink it strong and black from a thick white mug, just like my dad.
After a while I’d hear him banging around in the kitchen. I’d smell toast and hear cereal rustling in the box and hissing into the bowl. I’d go into the kitchen and show him what I was making, pointing out on-board computers, guns, or magic machines that could turn rock into gold or make bad guys disappear and transport them to horrible hot planets with no gravity or clean air. He always listened carefully to my explanations.
“You’re gonna be an engineer,” he’d say, “or a designer. Yep. You’re creative, an artist.” Then he’d laugh. “Just like your old man.”
We’d eat our cereal, then have toast with Robertson’s marmalade. I loved the sharp sour-sweet taste and dark orange colour of the jam, the shreds of bitter orange rind and chunks of ginger. Dad would listen to the news, talking back to the radio, making comments I didn’t understand.
After breakfast he’d pour the rest of the coffee into his thermos, put on a fresh pot for Mom and stack our dishes in the sink while I got his lunch-box out of the fridge for him. Then he’d take a last sip of coffee from the white mug, slosh it around in his mouth and swallow with a huge gulp!, crossing his eyes at the same time. I’d laugh and he’d kneel down and hug me in his strong thin arms and kiss me goodbye. His face would smell of shaving soap.
He’d drive off to work at the tire factory and I’d pad back into the family room to watch more cartoons.
One morning I was sitting in a warm square of sunlight on the rug, building a boat that could convert to an inter-galactic space-fighter. The coffee machine had long since stopped gurgling and the kitchen was silent. I waited and waited for my father’s footsteps.
Eventually, Mom got breakfast for me. She looked pale and angry and when I asked where Dad was she snapped at me.
“Just eat your breakfast and get to school,” she said, throwing down a dish towel and rushing from the kitchen.
&nb
sp; At supper that night I asked her again, “Where’s Dad?”
“He’s gone away,” she said. I started to cry. “Don’t ever talk about him again.”
That night I lay awake for hours. Then I climbed out of bed, took up my Space Invader flashlight and stole through the silent house. In the bathroom I dried my eyes, noticing his sharp scent on the towel. I crept downstairs, somehow knowing that the farther down I went, away from the safety of my bedroom, the less control I had over what was happening to me. I entered the living room and sat in my father’s chair beside the little fireplace and turned off the flashlight, staring into the silent empty dark. There was a hole inside me like the dark, I thought, and it hurt.
I climbed from the chair and slowly descended the steep narrow stairs to the cellar, afraid. The air down there was damp and smelled of cedar wood. I had always liked that smell, but now it threatened from the darkness. I stood on the stair, holding tight to the railing. My flashlight beam seared like a laser through the dark cellar and picked out the curled cedar shavings on the cement floor around the legs of his stool and on the surface of the work bench where we did his sculptures and carvings. I played the light beam back and forth across the bench, looking for his carving tools and files and sandpaper.
They were gone.
FOUR
NOBODY CAME TO THE DOOR of the stone building. I knocked some more, then stepped off the narrow sidewalk and squinted against the snow, trying to see if any lights came on. None did. I peered through the slit between the drapes in the large window that gave out onto the street, but the room was too dark to see.
That’s when I noticed the sign, Appartement à louer, in the corner of the window, and swore at myself. Then I thought, it wasn’t necessarily his apartment that was for rent.
I adjusted my backpack, wondering what to do. I couldn’t stand in the street all night hoping he’d come back—I’d freeze to death. The thing to do was rent a room somewhere and come back early.