Why Men Lie

by Linden MacIntyre

  “Sextus. He worked it out. Years later.”

  “So when was it that your father broke the news to Sandy, finally?”

  “November 1963.”

  “An eventful month, for sure.”

  “Sandy couldn’t handle it, and he killed himself right afterwards. November twenty-second.”

  He grunted. “The day Kennedy was shot.”

  “Makes it even harder to forget,” she said.

  There was a long silence, broken only by the whine of traffic on the nearby highway.

  “Does anybody know what made your father lay that on Sandy, after all those years?”

  “I do,” she said. “I know.”

  “Do you want to tell me?”

  She shook her head. “Yes. No,” she said.

  And suddenly she was running through the gravestones, throat burning from the rising bile, stomach churning as the acid formed a vacuum in her throat. She flung herself against the cemetery fence, choking on the remnants of her breakfast.

  Then he was beside her.

  “I’m not crying!” she shouted. “Just leave me alone.”

  He stepped back but kept one firm hand on her heaving shoulders. The sun was filtered by low-hanging cloud, but the day was warm, the air around them motionless. She thought she heard a robin in a nearby tree.

  three

  Go, go, go, said the bird: human kind

  Cannot bear very much reality.

  T.S. ELIOT, “BURNT NORTON,”

  FOUR QUARTETS

  9

  By early February she’d convinced herself it was because she cared so much that she’d begun to spy on him. She no longer walked to class. She would take her car so that afterwards she could drive past Walden. JC had stopped answering his telephone. She would mention Sorley whenever she left a message on the answering machine: “Hi, stranger. Hope everything is okay. I was just wondering about my cat, if he needs anything. Tell him I miss him. You too.”

  Once, after dark, she parked on Broadview and walked along his street, past the little house. She walked briskly so that it seemed she had a respectable reason for being there. There was a light, but it was dim. She calculated that it was in the kitchen, the swag that hung above his table. It had a dimmer switch. Driving home, she felt a torrent of reproach.

  There was something foreign in JC’s manner since he’d returned from Texas. The anger was replaced by something darker. Or maybe he had found a deeper place within himself, a place where he could go for privacy, unconscious of the distance it would open up between them. She’d abandoned any expectation that he would show up for the party she was organizing for Valentine’s Day, even though he’d promised. There now seemed to be two JC Campbells. The one she would visit briefly or who would show up unannounced at her place, warm and interested, happily reliving happy times: the early days; their chance encounter in a subway station; his farcical attempt at reconciliation on behalf of Sextus; their summer holiday back home last year—an idyll that became more sacred as it faded. Then there was the other, the one in her imagination, the dark and silent shapeless absence, fortified inside the little house on Walden. Her only consolation was that a part of her still lived there with him.

  Maybe it was the time of year. February was always bad. The weather, the irritated weariness in all the faces—friends, faculty and students equally. Or maybe it was time to just move on. Again.

  And she thought, My God, where are you now?

  The book, she thought. He’d mentioned something about writing a book. What was the subject? Impotence, he’d said. She knew exactly what he meant.

  She needed him and, in particular, she needed his advice and the firm decisiveness she had started to rely on. He was direct, sometimes impulsive, but his instincts were reliable. He would know exactly what to do about the phone calls, about the stranger who had begun to insinuate familiarity.

  She knew that in a moment of vulnerable carelessness she had exposed herself. But self-reproach soon turned to irritation and now approached a kind of dread each time the phone rang. And it rang a lot, day and night.

  There would be pleading: “Hello. Please call. You have my number.”

  Then remorse: “Hey, this is Paul. Just to say I can’t imagine what you think … me bugging you. You won’t hear from me again. I promise. Have a nice life.”

  Hours later: “Faye? I really want to talk to you. Call me when you get this.”

  The last one left her shaken: “Hey, I’m not sure what kind of game you’re playing, but I’m getting really, really sick of it. Call me.”

  It seemed that every time she walked through the door of her apartment, she’d see, again, that winking light. And when there was no one there, just living silence, it was always worse.

  “Sorley sends his love,” JC said merrily as he kissed her cheek.

  He was the last one to arrive, and now that he was here, he seemed to fill the room. Cassie almost ran to him, eyes glistening. “I’m so glad you came,” she said.

  “I wouldn’t have missed it,” he said. He hugged her and turned to Ray, pulled a bottle of Balvenie from a bag. “Something for the birthday boy,” he said. “And a bouquet of roses for my Valentine.” He handed them to Effie.

  He shook hands with Duncan. “Father,” he said, nodding with mock gravity.

  “It’s been a while,” said Duncan.

  “Indeed it has. So, what’s on?”

  Effie made brief introductions. It was a small gathering. A young woman whose name was well known from her byline in a daily newspaper; three men of diverse ages who seemed to be doctors. There was music, a nostalgia disc from the seventies; there was much light chatter. Effie noted that he had two longer conversations, one with Ray and one with Duncan, and seemed subdued in both. But over dinner he was dominant. He laughed the loudest, was first to launch the sharp responses, teasing and laconic.

  He gave a long and rambling account of a letter he and Sam were writing to the governor of Texas. “Sam figures they’re executing all the wrong people,” he declared. “He figures since it’s a form of human sacrifice to appease the pagan gods, they should be doing as the pagans did. Execute the pure, the innocent. Babies, virgins. That’s the way to win divine approval. Not by sacrificing human garbage.”

  The table fell silent for a while. She noted he wasn’t really eating, just pushing bits of food around his plate.

  “Interesting theory,” Duncan finally said.

  “He’s serious. He’s really going to send it.”

  “Is that wise?” Cassie said. “That Bush guy is his only hope.”

  JC laughed. “Well, in that case, there’s nothing left to lose.”

  Gathering the dishes, Effie whispered to him, “Can we talk later?”

  “Sure,” he said. “What’s up?”

  “I might have a little problem.”

  “Oh?” He seemed engaged. “What kind of problem?”

  “I’m being harassed,” she said. “Some man keeps calling.”

  “Some man?” He was smiling. “How did he get your number?”

  For just a heartbeat, she was unable to respond.

  “Okay, later,” he said, and squeezed her arm. “When we get a moment to ourselves.”

  After the cake, Effie called for their attention. And there was applause when Cassie told them of their plan. She and Ray were getting married just after Easter. She glowed as she spoke. Ray listened, sombre, Effie thought, his bearing more that of a proud father than a groom to be. JC was smiling, staring at his hands.

  The young woman, whose name was Moira, spoke briefly. She and Cassie had been friends since journalism school. Cassie blushed as Moira hinted at possibly indelicate disclosures about her appetites, Ray’s masculinity. When everybody laughed, JC laughed loudest. Effie’s brief discomfort passed.

  When the general conversations revived, Effie overheard her brother comment, as he handed a drink to JC, “I didn’t realize that you were a friend of Tammy’s.”

&n
bsp; “Who?” JC frowned, flushing.

  “Tammy.”

  “Who’s Tammy?”

  “Tammy’s a little street girl, hangs out around Jarvis and Gerrard. I thought I saw you talking to her. But I guess I was mistaken.”

  “I have no idea who you’re talking about,” JC said. Effie wondered if anybody else was conscious of the aggression in his tone.

  “I think it’s pathetic,” Cassie said. “I don’t know who’s worse. Those poor girls or the creeps who take advantage of them.” There was a murmur of agreement. Then, “By the way, Father, how do you happen to know her? Huh?”

  Duncan laughed. “On the really cold nights, she comes to the shelter to get warm. Helps out sometimes, so I got to know her a bit. She’s from some small place back east, but she gets vague when I ask too many questions. I kind of keep an eye on her.”

  “I think I know the one you’re talking about,” Cassie said. “You can see them from the window of the Thai restaurant on the corner. Remember the one I pointed out that night, Ray? It must have been twenty-five below, and she’s out there in this cheap little leather jacket and a skirt up to here.”

  “Sounds like her,” said Duncan.

  JC was listening, his expression now dark. “People do desperate things to survive,” he said, finally.

  “She’s far from stupid,” Duncan said. “I keep trying to talk her into going back to school. There’s hope for her.”

  “Don’t count on it,” said JC.

  Duncan shook his head sadly. “Last time I saw her, she’d been beaten up. By her pimp, I gather, though she calls him her boyfriend.”

  There was another long, thoughtful silence.

  “Well, I sure wouldn’t mind getting my hands on the cock-sucker,” JC said. “Just for five minutes.”

  Everyone stared at him, startled.

  “I think it’s time for beddie-bye,” he said, standing suddenly. “I have a doctor’s appointment in the morning.”

  Effie was speechless.

  “I’ll call you tomorrow,” he said. “After the doctor.”

  “Please do,” she said. Should she walk to the door with him? He’d promised her they’d talk.

  He held Cassie’s hand for a moment. “Honey, I wish you all the best things in the world. I hope I’ll be there for the wedding, but I might not be able to make it.”

  “Awww,” she said. “What could be so important that you’d miss my wedding?”

  He kissed her cheek lightly.

  “Duncan,” he said. “Can I talk to you for a second?”

  After about ten minutes by the front door with JC, Duncan returned to a silent room, seven staring faces. “He’s okay,” he said.

  Effie began to gather plates.

  “There’s a lot going on in his life just now,” Duncan whispered to her. “He just needs space.”

  “Space we’ll give him,” Effie said, working to contain the fury she now felt.

  Cassie and Ray lingered until after Duncan and the other guests were gone, Cassie busy with dishes. Finally she asked, “You okay, Mom?”

  “Just dandy,” Effie said. “It’s ironic. He has this theory: women change, but men don’t.” She laughed. “He should look in the mirror.” Then she asked Ray, “How long did you say the after-effects of a head injury last?”

  “I wouldn’t be too concerned about the head injury,” Ray said. “But has anybody talked to him about the incident that caused the injury?”

  “What about it?”

  “A certain kind of man can suffer psychological trauma that’s far worse than the physical damage from an assault like that.”

  “I don’t know what you mean.”

  “I put myself through med school working underground in Sudbury. I knew younger versions of JC. Serious men, hard as rock. The problem is that, when subjected to a superior force, rock shatters.”

  “Come on.”

  “It’s true. You say he’s changed. I didn’t know him before the incident on New Year’s Day. What’s different? Maybe his theory is right. Maybe he hasn’t changed, isn’t capable of change. Maybe his problem is the inability to cope with change. What do you think?”

  She didn’t know how to answer.

  She stood with them as they donned their coats to leave. Cassie stooped. “What’s this?” she asked. Then, “Somebody lost a floppy disk. There’s no name on it, just—”

  Effie took it from her, looked at it briefly. “I’ll hang on to it,” she said.

  “What was that word?” Cassie asked, smiling oddly. “Impo—?”

  “It belongs to JC,” Effie said. “Some notes about stuff he considers to be important. I think he’s writing something.”

  “Let’s hope so,” Cassie said. “It often helps to write things down.”

  Standing at the closed door, Effie examined the disk she’d last seen just after New Year’s. Above where he had written “Huntsville, TX, ‘98,” he’d printed in bold capitals the word “impotence.”

  The light on the answering machine was blinking, and she snatched the phone receiver from the cradle. There was no sound, just breathing. She slammed the phone down, ran to the kitchen, rifled through a drawer until she found the stained business card. She punched in his number.

  “Listen, you fucking bastard,” she hissed when he picked up. “You call here again and I promise … you’ll be sorry. Do you hear me?”

  She almost screamed the last part.

  “No problem,” he said softly, almost sadly.

  She slammed the phone down and stood there shaking, a feeling like elation coursing through her veins.

  10

  After JC had gone back to the city, that blissful summer of 1998, he’d called her every night while she was in Cape Breton. The ringing telephone, usually at ten o’clock, became the highlight of each solitary day. He was working hard, couldn’t remember a more productive time in his life. She was a distraction, but a good one. He was inspired by her, even found himself writing small snatches of poetry, he said.

  “I can hardly wait to see some.”

  “You’ll be waiting,” he said with a laugh.

  “That isn’t fair,” she replied sulkily. Then realized she sounded like a girl. She accused herself of trying to be cute, resolved to be more conscious of her age, of her maturity. But then she’d tell herself, There’s nothing wrong with feeling young. There’s nothing wrong with feeling happy.

  She remembered how she cursed her father as they stumbled past his grave on that last day of his visit. “You’ve done it again,” she whispered.

  But it was different this time. She could feel it in the arm around her shoulder, but also in the quality of the silence following her unexpected breakdown. It was not, she realized, the fearful silence that follows some unexpected revelation of vulnerability or the resentful silence that gathers over interrupted pleasure. This was the silence of trust, the silence of unquestioning accommodation, the silence of the strong. And she knew that, one day, she’d tell him everything, in spite of all her reservations.

  She rarely left the Long Stretch, driving to town only when she needed to replenish groceries or to buy wine, though she rarely felt an inclination to drink alcohol. She was, she admitted to herself, worried about the places it would take her. On one trip she visited the bookstore in search of reading material. She needed more escapism. Or maybe it was reality she sought, remembering who worked there.

  She bought a novel by a famous local author who, hitherto, had written only short stories. The publication had been widely discussed by people in the English department who’d assumed that she knew the writer personally, being from the same small place.

  “I spent years away from there,” she said. “I’m almost a stranger there myself.”

  She was surprised by the lack of resemblance between JC and his daughter. Sylvia was slightly overweight, had soft features and none of the taut planes and angles that defined her father’s face. Her voice was also soft, but Effie noticed that her
smile was easy and authentic and, with mild alarm, that her eyes had the colour and directness that revealed so much of JC’s character. She offered a compliment about the bookstore, and Sylvia seemed pleased.

  “You aren’t from here, then,” she said.

  “Well, I grew up here,” Effie said. “But that was a long time ago.”

  Sylvia smiled. “It couldn’t have been all that long ago.” They both laughed.

  She wanted to say, “I know your father.” But she didn’t, because she had no idea what that simple message would convey. She knew from personal experience the potential turmoil in those enigmatic words, coming from a stranger. “I know your father.”

  “Is this your shop?” she asked.

  “No,” Sylvia replied. “I just work here.”

  “Well, it’s a great store. I’m impressed.”

  “Thank you.”

  Walking away from the store, the words came back to her, “I’m almost a stranger here,” and it felt true. She tried to imagine a future conversation, and whether she’d feel awkward for having failed to be forthright at their first encounter. Would Sylvia even remember her?

  She spotted Stella in the parking lot. She thought she could avoid her, but Stella called out cheerfully, “Hey, stranger!”

  When she got close, Stella said, “I’ve been meaning to come out for a visit. But …” She shrugged. “I think you probably know how I feel. Guilty, sad, helpless in a way. Have you talked to Sextus?”

  Effie shook her head. “There really isn’t much to talk about.”

  She was torn. She wanted to say, “Yes, I know exactly how you feel.” But she also wanted to say no, emphatically, to extract some possibly original disclosure from this woman who projected so much strength but who was, at the same time, so obviously needful. And was there really such a contradiction there? Couldn’t the strong be driven sometimes by their needs?

  “Duncan says hello,” she lied.

  The smile was spontaneous. “Say hello back for me,” Stella said. “He hasn’t been home since, has he?”

  “He’s pretty tied up with his street people.”