by Nadia Bozak
“What about you, Shell?” Mum wants to know why Shell doesn’t buy cassettes to play on her new machine.
“Got some already, Mum,” Shell says. “I’m okay.”
It’s only five o’clock, but the light through the basement windows is charcoal. On the other side of the wall behind Shell’s bed, the furnace whirs to life. Cross-legged, cassette player resting on top of the pillow on her lap, Shell sorts through the tapes in her box. Patti Smith is going first. She slides the tape into the door marked A, clicks it shut, and presses Play. A red light blinks on and there is the hiss of static. The first song has an ugly word in it, which is of course why Clarke bought the tape. But the song is about something else. Shell listens to Patti’s tape once, twice, three times, then four, and soon she’s singing along about feeling like a stranger among people and finding peace and strength in that.
And Shell smiles and Shell swings, back and forth on her bed, and then she sheds her blanket and her socks and starts dancing barefoot, just like Patti Smith sings in the song she’s got now in her head. All on her own, ready for something new now. Her now. Then Bob Dylan singing with Emmylou comes on upstairs and the ceiling starts squeaking. Mum’s in the kitchen dancing and cutting up squash for soup. So Shell turns her cassette player up higher, highest, drowning out Mum, up there, dancing all alone too.
Hole in the Wall
Dad calls on Friday. The evening before Shell is to make her monthly trip to Toronto. Her Greyhound ticket — return, child’s fare — arrived in the mail a week ago and she’s not heard about it since.
“Shell! Listen!” Dad’s on a pay phone. The line crackles and a streetcar — ding, ding — jangles by.
“Dad? Did Jonathan not pay the bill again?”
Dad’s rent at Jonathan’s is discounted because Jonathan’s got a personality disorder. Also, he smokes three packs of Exports a day and told Dad up front that he swallows things — coins, kitchen spoons, rocks from the garden. So when Jonathan gets a certain pinched look in his eyes, Dad calls for an ambulance.
Mum turns down the radio in the kitchen. There’s a tea towel over her shoulder and a wet spot on her abdomen where she’s been leaning against the sink. Mum’s thinking and Shell’s thinking that Dad’s going to cancel tomorrow’s trip, but all he wants is some camping gear from the basement. Can Shell bring it with her?
“Sleeping bag, cutlery sets, tin cups, air mattress, and whatever freeze-dried food is left.”
“You’re not going camping, are you, Dad?” Shell shouts so he’ll hear over the zip of traffic and his own competing voice. Dad goes lots of places on his own now — Ottawa, North Bay, Hamilton — but he would never go to Algonquin Park without Shell.
“What’s that?” Dad cries into the phone. He adds the blue tarp to Shell’s list, and the steel Thermos. The operator cuts in warning his funds are going to expire. And then they do expire.
“Dad?” Shell says to the pulsing busy signal.
“He expects you to carry all that by yourself?” Mum pauses on the basement stairs with a basket of laundry. Shell, cross-legged on the concrete floor, attaches the blue goose-down sleeping bag to the aluminum frame camp pack.
“Who cares? We’ll never use it again.”
With the toe of her clog, Mum prods Shell’s mess of tin plates, maps, bottles of bug spray, tubes of biodegradable soap, tent pegs, and coils of rope. The smell of wood ash and wet feathers is sharp, and with it comes the call of loon, the slap of beaver tail, the taste of potatoes slow roasted in hot ashes for the whole afternoon.
“Well, then,” Mum says, “take as much as you can tomorrow and don’t ever bring it back.”
“Shell, where’s your glasses?”
Shell sticks her thumbs under the straps of Dad’s pack and leans forward, against the weight of the gear inside. Shell and Mum arrived at the bus station early enough that they are near the beginning of the Toronto-bound line. Shell keeps a full step apart from Mum so that anyone looking will think she’s travelling solo.
“Well? You do have them, don’t you?”
Shell looks away.
A group of Mennonites gather around the baggage hold of the coach. While the men among them organize their heap of Adidas duffle bags and leather steamer trunks tied up with rope, the women clutch at black bundles of infant or hold the hands of kids dressed up like midget versions of themselves. All are scrubbed and properly tucked in, faces tight against the bus exhaust. They could be standing on a train platform during the Industrial Revolution, like in that picture from the first movie ever made — Shell’s reading about that in grade eight. It would be great to wear one of those long black dresses; then no one has to know how you’re shaped underneath. Shell’s camouflage army coat does that in its own way; in her head that’s the real reason it’s called camouflage. She saved up and bought it from the army surplus store along with a pair of red canvas high-tops that were made in Czechoslovakia. But the lace-up Mennonite boots look even better than her Cold War sneakers, and those old-fashioned Anne of Green Gables glasses one Mennonite mother is wearing are way better than the jumbo plastic pair she’s got jammed in her pocket.
Mum grips Shell’s elbow. “Can you even see that this is the right bus?”
“Says Toronto right there,” Shell says, squinting. “I’m not blind, you know.”
“And you have some money in your pocket, in case?”
“You think he won’t show up, don’t you?” Shell is sure Mum secretly hopes for that.
Mum and now Shell don’t say “Dad” out loud anymore. It’s to stop Mum’s neck from shrinking up like someone’s poked her.
Mum passes Shell a ten-dollar bill even though Shell earns enough for cassette tapes and used clothes from her Monday afternoon Penny Saver route. She also gets a few bucks sweeping out the studio for the watercolour painter who is renting it, and by stealing some bills from Mum’s purse or from the purse of any pottery collector or gallery curator who comes to take away more of Mum and Dad’s artwork.
“You don’t have to spend it,” Mum says.
The line starts to move. Dad’s pack goes under the bus in the luggage hold while her own canvas shoulder bag — stuffed with books, toothbrush, pyjamas, and a bottle of apple juice — will make a good pillow. Mum looks back at the line. Shell’s to sit beside a woman and not to leave the station if for any reason Dad’s not there.
“And you have Bernadette’s number?” That’s Mum and Dad’s old friend — now Mum’s friend — who lives in some suburb that’s really not close to Toronto at all. “She knows you’re coming, Shell, okay?”
Shell gives the driver her ticket. Mum pats her back. Right here on this same butt-ridden Greyhound platform Shell saw Mum and Dad kiss for the one and only time she can remember. Mum and Shell were taking a three-day bus ride to the Prairies; they’d be gone a whole month. Dad knelt down and drew Shell into the tuck of his firm chest. He said he wouldn’t get lonely. He said Kremski would be around almost every day helping rebuild the shed out back. Then he stood and looked at Mum. Mum looked back. Glasses to glasses. They both pinched their lips and banged their faces together like bighorn sheep on The Nature of Things. At Dad’s insistence the driver let Dad settle them on the coach. Shell wondered: if it were not for Shell, would Mum just stay in the Prairies and never come back to Dad ever again?
Dad’s not waiting on the platform. Shell’s stomach drops. There is a crush as the driver pulls baggage out from the hold. The Mennonites lead the way, piling their trunks into a taxi. Oh my God, what if she does have to call Bernadette for help? There’s a pair of pay phones across the street on Bay — outside the Swiss Chalet where she and Dad have once or twice had lunch. She could sit in there for a while and read. Or what if she walked up Yonge Street? Sam the Record Man is only a block away.
Across the platform, a man is laughing at her, his arms crossed over his chest. Shell frowns,
her forehead collapsing. But then he ducks through the crowd, scooping up the camp pack just as the driver flings it out.
Dad’s beard is gone. He has just a moustache now, no ball cap, and he looks small. Instead of his plaid work coat, Dad wears a corduroy suit jacket with a T-shirt underneath. He asks how the irises are. The black one called Licorice Spice was Shell and Dad’s favourite.
“It must be coming out?”
Shell says sure, “It’s a beaut, Dad,” even though the iris, like most of the others, died in the winter. Any remainders were dug up when Mum called around and invited friends to come take what they could.
Then Dad grabs hold of Shell and pulls her in. He squeezes her so hard she can’t breathe and the glasses in her pocket might break. Dad smells of smoke: not just Jonathan’s cigarettes but like he spent the night before poking at a rugged campfire, seeing it through to smouldering dawn. He releases her.
“Hey, new coat, eh?”
Dad’s anti-Reagan, so Shell made sure the jacket was not American issue. It’s East German. Dad looks through the bottom of his glasses at the patch she’s sewn on the breast pocket: a white circle with two black and red hammers crossed like an X. When she bought the patch at Mister Sound, the guy said, “Cool. Floyd.” Shell just handed him over five dollars from her Penny Saver money and pretended to know what he meant.
The camp pack goes in a locker, as well as Shell’s pyjamas and hardcover books, which Dad says look heavy to cart around.
Shell says, “What about Jonathan’s?”
There’s a Portuguese bakery between the subway and Jonathan’s that makes savoury cod tarts Jonathan loves. He swallows them whole, a cigarette in each hand. Shell and Dad will usually get him a bag of those or some cheese croissants. Then Jonathan gives Shell some money to spend — as much as ten tightly rolled five-dollar bills once. In the horsehair button box under Shell’s bed there’s a very soft two-dollar bill upon which — back and front — Jonathan drew a tiny ancient Greek village with blue ballpoint pen.
Dad shuts the locker door, releases the key, and tucks it into his wallet.
“Oh,” he says. “Didn’t I tell you? Jonathan’s house burned down two weeks ago.”
Dad could really use a coffee. How about Shell? A Beanery just opened in an underground mall near the station. Dad orders Costa Rican in a mug, Shell a steamed milk, and they split a cheese Danish which Dad gets for the protein content even though Shell would rather have raspberry.
Dad tells Shell about his mfa. Some of the instructors he calls egomaniacs, but he likes his colleagues. Pavel comes up a lot.
“See that?” Dad holds open his jacket so Shell can read his T-shirt. S.U.N.S. is written inside a cartoon yellow sun: “Students United for Nuclear Sanity.” A quote from George Orwell runs across the bottom: “History is a race between education and catastrophe.”
“Oh, yeah.” Shell knows all about George Orwell. She’s read Animal Farm, 1984, and Down and Out in Paris and London. She also read A Clockwork Orange and got an A on the book report she wrote for it. The teacher liked it so much he asked her to read it to the class.
“Now I’m on to Camus, though,” she says. She shows Dad a library copy of The Outsider. “In French it is L’Étranger. The Cure has a song about it called ‘Killing an Arab,’ which is what happens in the book, so it’s about racism but existentialism too because you don’t know why the guy, Meursault, shoots the Arab. Maybe he just had the sun in his eyes. And, oh, to quit smoking in jail, he, Meursault, chews on a splinter of wood he breaks off his bed. Well, anyway, I’m not done it yet.”
Irina gave Shell the Camus. Irina is living in Shell’s old room while she’s acting in a play at the Somerset Playhouse. Mum’s been to see it and says it’s very weird.
“Technically, Irina is a billeter,” Shell explains. She’s from Yugoslavia and spent a whole afternoon making Mum and Shell spinach böreks with sour cream. “You would have loved it.”
Dad fans through the book. Camus is on the cover in black-and-white. His hair is rock-and-roll like Elvis and his coat collar is turned up; a cigarette dangles from his mouth because, unlike Meursault, Camus did not have the will to quit. Dad puts down the book. Shell stares at the photograph the way she used to stare at the pictures of hockey players she’d clipped from sports pages and tucked under her pillow. Mike Bossy from the Islanders was her favourite.
“This mfa, though, it’s worth the sacrifice. It’ll really set my CV apart.” Maybe he can get a teaching job with it. He bites into his half of the Danish. Hopefully he can stay in Toronto. “It feels like home now,” says Dad. He chews, chews, and talks; his naked jawline, cheekbones, and snub of chin are those of a stranger. He still clicks his denture plate and pushes his glasses up his nose, but he is quicker and more wiry. Shell is sure she is bigger than Dad now, in width and in height. Because of that, she’s not going to take her coat off until she’s back home with Mum.
Dad points at the CN Tower. “What’s the direction?”
“South?”
Then he points behind them.
“North.”
Shell passes the test for east and west too.
They go west down Dundas, past the big art gallery and into Chinatown. Dad’s fast, darting between Chinese people pulling wheelie carts or walking slow with hands clasped behind their backs. Shell, one or two steps behind, closes her throat against the smell of dried mushrooms and fermenting fruit. Dad’s woven shoulder bag goes diagonally across his chest, just like Shell’s. His bag is new too — a gift from a friend who went to Greece. It’s the same kind fishermen there use.
It is past noon. Any chill of morning has burned away. Shell’s sweating under her jacket and her feet are on fire. Ahead, Dad passes a bandana over his glistening face and shaven neck. He squints back at her; a toss of his head tells her to hurry.
They cross Spadina, dodging more Chinese people and U-turning cars, clanging red streetcars that Shell has yet to ride because Jonathan’s place is on the subway line. When the smell of fish hits, they’re in Kensington Market. She waits outside World Cheese because the reek inside is worse than on the street. There’s Rasta guys on rickety bikes, bloody butchers out for a smoke, hippies with guitars on their backs, and Jewish men with black coats and beards sort of like the Mennonites. Best, though, is a pack of big meaty men and stick-thin women wearing leather boots and the same studded collars as their mottled dogs. Barb Nutt’s son Soren is a punk too. He bleaches his mohawk and his girlfriend paints her face to look like old silent movies, and both go to the high school Shell will attend next year. But these Kensington Market punks are dirty and old and have no colour to them — their clothes and hair and faces are just grey. A few carry buckets of black water with squeegees for cleaning windows, like chimney sweeps in Oliver Twist.
The parkette is full of dog poo and beer cans and loitering punks, but Dad manages to find a clean, quiet bench. While Shell was watching the punks and gazing at the fronts of stores selling studded belts and old-fashioned ball gowns, Dad had shopped for lunch: Italian buns, sharp cheddar, almonds, halvah, and for a centrepiece these yellow patties from Jamaica filled with beef. Dad got the most mild ones. The patties are flaky and warm, the meat minced to a pulp — almost as good as a börek. Dad slices the cheese with a Swiss Army knife and gives them each a Beanery napkin. They eat with their fingers because Dad doesn’t like to take the plastic forks the beef patties usually come with. The punks organize some kind of dog-wrestling contest.
Dad says not to look at them. “It’s exactly what they want. That’s why they dress like that.”
“Like what?” Shell’s army coat looks just like the ones that some of the skinny girls in ripped nylons and buckle boots have tossed down on the grass.
“Oh, come on, Shell.”
They eat. Dad’s finishing up his mango nectar — droplets hanging from his moustache.
“So Jonathan’s always lighting a cigarette, putting it down. Go away, light another. Sometimes there would be five or six going. It was bound to happen.”
“Is he okay?”
Yes, but he is in intensive care from smoke inhalation.
“Poor Jonathan.” Shell says she’ll send a card to the hospital but doesn’t write down the name.
Dad was coming up from the subway station and saw the flashing lights across the park. He knew right away. Dad’s books and clothes got burned or smoke-damaged.
“But nothing too valuable. Like, these jeans were okay.” Pavel and some people at school gave him these new Toronto clothes.
Dad crosses his legs and folds his napkin. “Could be worse.” He nods at a thin woman too old and wrinkled to be in a bikini top. Her belly button is tattooed with a bleeding yin-yang she might have done herself and the fringes on her shoulder bag nearly touch the ground. She is on tiptoes, salvaging pop bottles from a trash can. Her withered breasts fall forward, zigzagged with pale stretch marks.
“Be thankful you have a place to lay your head,” Dad says.
It’s too hot for this early in spring. Shell’s pants are sticky at the waist, damp at the crotch, and the wetness of her armpits has soaked through to the thick material of her jacket. She follows Dad way down Queen Street past a park where more punks and dogs sit up on picnic tables. There’s a diner Dad likes called Elvis, plus antique shops whose owners all know him by name, and second-hand bookstores they can stop in on the way back.
The gallery where Dad works organizing slides is called Data Darling. The only pictures up are two large paintings of soldiers with naked bums. An old, thin woman in a sleeveless black dress is sitting at a desk with a glass top, surrounded by oversized art books that Mum would probably love. She looks too old for her clothes, like the one in the bikini top at the park. Dad and Shell clomp across the glossy pine floor. The old woman takes off her tiny square spectacles. Her frizzy hair is bright Florida orange and about two dozen gold bangles extend from elbow to wrists. The style could be African — Maasai — like in Mum’s anthropology textbooks.