Hoping that the reaches of these few lines will find you in a perfect state of good health, as they leave me feeling fairly settled in concordance,
Your loving father,
Anthony Barrington St. Omer Edgehill
I’M RUNNING FOR MY LIFE
She was in the bedroom when he touched the door, and did not enter. She had heard him come home earlier, had heard the front door open and close, and had panicked. She had thoughts of running downstairs. But she had changed her mind. He would see her, and catch her, and ask for explanations, even though he knew it was part of her job to clean the bedroom; and she knew she could not satisfy him with her explanations. She knew she would be fired. She feared being fired. She wanted to enrol in a night class at George Brown College, to do something to improve herself; and even though she had not, and could not decide which course she should take, she knew she had to do it, to upgrade her life in this city. And she wanted to buy Canada Savings Bonds, to invest in the future. And she wanted to take a trip to New York City with Gertrude, who liked plays and art galleries; while she, she knew, wanted to visit Harlem and Brooklyn where she had friends. And she wanted to bring her savings up to the figure when she could more easily face the bank manager; and afterwards arrange a loan for a down payment on a small house in the East End, although she hated the East End, but the East End was the only place in this city where a woman like she, living on her own, making next to nothing in wages, could afford to have a roof over her head that she owned, before, as she always said, “God ready to take me to my grave, and the cold earth in this place become my roof everlasting!” She feared being fired before she had made a woman of herself. She wanted time. And he became sad to think that she could be fired just like that: she, who had worked for him so long; too long; too well; in dutiful, efficient, faithful service. She was like a member of the household.
It was her guilt which built these thoughts into the mountain of fear. Her guilt sometimes turned her into salt. Just like Lot. And this is how she described it to herself, in her Christian way of thinking. She knew she was certainly breaking one of the Commandments. But her nervousness did not permit her to name the exact one, in this moment of remorse. Was it the one about covetousness? Theft? Dishonouring?
When she first heard him, she was writing down a telephone message for his wife; and standing beside their night table, she had noticed the book, The Joy of Sex, and had wondered why it was there, and if they needed it, and used it, and why they had to use it; and she looked at the message she had written down for his wife, and at the book whose message troubled her, and could not decide if she should put the note on the cover of The Joy of Sex, and cover up this suggestive book, or stick it in the telephone; and all this time, he is at the door, and she in his bedroom.
She had stood frozen. The second touch of his hand on the door reduced her to tears. Tears of guilt, of shame, of disobedience, of conflicting loyalties, and in the face of God. The message was left by a voice she had heard many times before. And it was only when she heard his steps retreating over the muffling thick carpet, and had already begun to picture him going down, with his hands dangling at his sides, walking like an ape, with his head bending forwards and backwards, as if he was sniffing out a bone that was buried and lost; picturing him with his feet which moved with no energy, desultorily, like a spring that already unwound and lost its liveliness, only then did she crawl from under the bed. Why did she hide when she knew he was going away from her? She was surprised that she did not bang her head against the iron bedstead. Did not get stuck in the space between the floor and the springs which caused the bed to sag, as if and she were lying in it, reading, most likely this book, The Joy of Sex. And she had struggled not to sneeze and disclose herself through the thick dust that rose to her nostrils, already clogged through hay fever, as it always was during December, January and February, and made worse by the coldness in the house whose temperature she always raised, no matter how high the thermostat was already set. She could not bear a cold house. And first thing every morning when she arrived, even before she turned on all the radios and all the lights in the house, she raised the temperature five degrees. She had been praying that the elongated, weightless and shapeless cottons of dust, silken and balled up, would not enter her nostrils.
What time is it? From the darkness under the bed, she can see the computer digits on the radio’s face, telling her in red, that she has spent more than one hour in their bedroom. Before her escape under the bed, she had passed her hands through the deep-layered drawer that contained her silk underwear, panties, camisoles and slips. She had run her fingers over the designer dresses that filled one closet. She had touched, had opened, retouched and had sampled more than three vials of perfumes and scents; and had played with a gold-painted atomizer that contained cologne, as if it was a water pistol. All of these vials were expensive, she knew; for she had seen them in the magazines which she read, in Creeds and Holt Renfrew where she shopped. She tried on the polka-dotted blue silk dress a second time, and was convinced that she looked much better in it than her. And with this she possessed it in her mind, felt that it belonged to her, because she had so many, some of which seemed to be the same dress with the same design, and also because she felt it was wrong for one woman to have so many dresses, while others, many many others, had none.
And even now, under the dark bed, with the dust tingling her sinuses, and the silken balls of thread and hair stifling her, one leg of her ashen-grey pantyhose was still on her left leg. It was the only covered leg. The pantyhose was marked from the heel to the bottom of the knee with a run that had walked sideways and length-ways at the same time. The delicate material of the pantyhose wrapped her in a tangle, and tangled her up, so desperate had she been not to be detected; and she felt as if she was handcuffed, just as they had done to poor Mr. Johnson before they shot him and blew his head apart like a watermelon falling into the road; and she was unable to extricate herself; and she could imagine how foolish she looked, tied by this silk, in case somebody, in case he came back into the bedroom, and looked down, and saw her, and discovered her. She had seen somewhere, perhaps in one of her glossy magazines, or it could have been while walking up the ravine one morning in the summer, a worm covered in this same thin silk; yes, it was while she was walking up the ravine to catch the street-car, it was while she was walking, striding jauntily in the ravine, flowers and faces, lawns and dresses swaying in the wind and she herself was kissed by the redeeming freshness of warmth of life, that she had seen the worm, as if the worm was turning itself into silk right in front of her eyes, as if the silk was turning into a worm. The winter had been so long. She had smiled then, and had called it the wonders of the Lord. Now, in this mesh of the pantyhose, she did not smile. She did not think of birth, or of new life, or resurrection. She was thinking only of escape and of extrication.
She did not know how long she would have to remain in this ridiculous imprisonment. How long it would take before the coast was clear; before she could descend into the quiet house, like a tomb with its dead head within it; dead even when he and her were at home; how long before she could complete her domestic tasks of the day, and run down to George Brown to register? Or stop in on her friend, Gertrude, who worked at a book store on Yonge Street?
The roast beef looked ugly while she was washing it with lime juice and salt; and slapping it to season it with herbs he liked to taste in his food; strange for a man born where he was born and raised, that she secretly held the belief he was not white, entirely; and the potatoes which he wanted boiled and then baked until their edges were brown with a golden crispiness; this enticement for food that he had, and which made her mouth water at its appearance; and the green peas from a can, like beads from a string that had collapsed into a mound; and the rice. Plain Uncle Ben’s long grain, which she was instructed to cook without salt, without parsley flakes; “I can’t stand those damn green things!” she said one night when the white-and-green mound of steam
ing substance was placed before her, as she sat like a princess in her blue polka-dotted silk dress, the same one she had tried on in the bedroom a few minutes ago; and was on her way to the opera. How long ago? Months now, maybe. But it could be years. Time was playing such tricks with her memory since she had left; with overnight bag, all her credit cards, the joint chequing account empty; and the shining Mercedes-Benz, which he had just got washed on Davenport and Park Road; and gone.
The house was quiet. It had been quiet all the time. She listened in this silence for music, for the television noise, for movement in his room with all those books, and all she could hear, or all she thought she heard, was her own heart beating.
And then she did a strange thing. She tightened her grip on the house slipper she was wearing, and on the right leg of the panty-hose; and with the other hand on the hosed left leg she raised her head, in the same way she raised her head when she was in church, when she claimed she saw the face of God, daring, ambitious, secure and charged with Christian righteousness and arrogance, and she traipsed down the stairs, as if nothing had happened. And as she moved, she indeed wondered if anything had happened, and if it was not all her fruitful imagination. She made more noise going down than she had ever done. She made more noise than anyone who lived here had ever done. She ignored consequences and detection. She ignored termination. She forgot ambition and educational advancement. And she went down with arrogance, in innocence in her laughable impromptu attire.
When she reached the kitchen, the house was still empty; empty as it had been all day; empty as it is any day in August when they are away at the cottage.
She was safe now, and sinful; and she moved about the kitchen as if she owned the world. She had placed the pantyhose in her large hip pocket. She had passed the African comb through her hair that was like steel and was black. She had run cold water from the rest-room off the dining room, all over her face. She was a new woman.
She served his dinner. There was no noise. Her place had been set. He did not ask for her. He did not look at the knives and forks, soup spoon and dessert spoon and fork, at the other end of the oval mahogany table. He sat about four feet, at his end, from the place setting. She did not hear his chewing. She did not hear his drinking, wine and water. She did not hear the chime, the tingle, the slight pat of glass, cutlery and napkin ring.
But she felt naked. His eyes moved with the rhythm of her body. She touched her bottom once when she returned to the kitchen, to make sure she had clothes under the housedress she wore when she served. She could feel in her tension, in her opposition to him, his hand on her waist. She could feel his fingers on her legs.
There was no noise. He made no noise when he ate. And he said nothing to her when he was in the house. Never. But she felt he was assaulting her, in this silence, with the roar and violence of his eyes.
He got up from the table, and threw one last glance in her direction, as she stood at the sink. He wished he could thank her for her efficiency, for her company, for looking after him now that he was alone. He looked at her, and straightaway his mind was on his work. In the small mirror above the two-basined sink, she saw his eyes, and then his face, as he moved along the carpet which did not reproduce his weight, or the thoughts which she felt were running through his body. He had already dismissed her from his mind.
She turned the lamps in the dining room off. She closed the door. She did not feel safe. She took the served dinner off the mahogany table. She scraped the roast beef, the potatoes, the green marbles of canned peas, everything into the large tin garbage pail. He did not approve of leftovers. She left the plates and knives and forks and crystal glasses of her place setting, on the rectangular mat that showed the buildings of Parliament painted on them in the colours of moss and brick and granite, where they were. And then she left, after locking the door two times, and she broke into tears. She sighed deeply, pulled herself together, and took the steady climb out of the ravine, on her way to the corner of Bloor and Yonge to take the subway going west to Bathurst Street.
Time was out of joint. She could feel the presence again the house. She could feel it heavy and plain and hiding somewhere inside the mansion. Perhaps, it was ghosts; or spirits. But she did not believe in ghosts. Not she, a Christian-minded woman as she was. But she was going to find it: find the cause, or the presence, and its hiding place; and if the cause was in the form of a living person, or a dead body, she was going to seek it out and then try to master it.
She went upstairs on the second floor, and looked into each room off the flight of the bannister that swung to her right in a wide, polished swath, walking slowly and with deliberate bravery, running her palm over the bannister, as if she was wiping and polishing with her yellow chamois cloth. On the third floor, inside the master bedroom, she looked around, trying to determine if anyone had entered it since she had left the evening before; trying to seek some clue to meet the heavy and oppressing presence she could not see, but which was following her even as she perused the house.
Everything was in order. Each item and article, clothes and lotions in vials, and books, including the Joy of Sex, had remained as she had left them, yesterday.
So, she retraced her steps, all the time finding company in the rhythm and blues on the three radios on the first floor. After turning on all the lights in the house, and raising the thermostat the moment she entered, she changed the stations on the three radios from classical music to her favourite Buffalo station. The rhythm and blues made her so happy and relaxed, and appeased her spirit and helped her face the long day of work, with peace and patience. Now, this music was adding to her anxiety and discomfiture. She turned each radio off.
The house was like death without music. She endured this silence. But she left all the lights on. She was safe and comfortable with all the lights on. The late winter sunlight which had no heat to it, was still bright; and the lights hardly added to the illumination in the rooms.
She went into the library to see if the Indian blanket she had thrown over his body, dead in sleep immediately after he had eaten the roast beef, was still there. Perhaps, it is this. This Indian blanket was taking on, and inhabiting all the spirits and the ghosts of those tribes. Those tribes, those men whom she saw standing at the corner of Bloor and Spadina, old men, some old before they are young; defeated warriors, with faces the same as she had looked at in her school books back in Barbados, identical in the fierceness which her history book in Standard Seven had shown her, but without their spears and tomahawks.
The Indian blanket was on the floor of the library. In a bundle. In a way that said it had been thrown off the body, during the night. In a way a child would toss its covering off its body, no longer cold. She took it up, and held it against her body, and folded it while holding it against her body; perhaps bear, or fox, or caribou, or seal. She didn’t know much about these things. Her friend Gertrude would know. Gertrude worked in a bookstore. Gertrude read most of the books in the bookstore. The Indian blanket felt odd, as if the animal from which it was made was still alive.
She took up the crystal scotch glass, and the empty soda bottle. The decanter was empty. On her way to take these into the kitchen, she noticed the door to the basement ajar. And lights on. Terror gripped her. Someone was in the house. A man. An intruder. A brute-beast. One of those varmints roaming Toronto interfering with women. A thief, perhaps.
She tiptoes the rest of the crawling way to the kitchen, her blood hot with fear and with the violence she knows she could be facing. And she drops the blanket on the clean countertop, and was about to rest the crystal glass in the sink when it dropped. The shattering glass is like sirens. The sound is like a cry of rape. A cry against rape. She cannot move. Her mind is in a hurry, confused, filled with decisions, not one of which she can take. She listens for the crash of the crystal to end, as if she is about to count the number of pieces which the Stuart crystal will dissolve itself into; but the glass is not broken. And she thinks this is an omen. It is her ima
gination which told her it was broken. Still, the danger lurks. Still the presence, now transformed into a person, a rapist, a thief, remains.
She reached for the large iron saucepan on the peg-board above the stove. But this proves too heavy and unwieldy. She chooses the large frying pan. Also of iron. And she crosses herself two times. Gertrude had told her how to make the sign of the cross, as Catholics do. She thinks of calling Gertrude to alert her, but she does not. And she never, in spite of promise, got around to taking down the rape crisis telephone number. But why couldn’t it be that it was she who had left the basement door open? And she creeps along the floor, making more noise than normal, suppressing what noise there is through her caution, no noise coming from the radio to distract her attention and her deadly intent and the deadly blow she is going to deliver, and not breathing, just in case. She should have called Gertrude. Is it 911? Or 767?
When she reached the open door to the basement, she moves her hand instinctively to the brass panel for the light switch. The switch answers her touch. And below her, through the agaped door, the entire basement is bathed in the pure whiteness of light. She stops at the head of the stairs. She inhales. She hefts the iron frying pan. She can deliver a deadly blow with it. And then she goes down. Step by step. For the first time, realizing how noisy these steps are. Somebody had forgotten, after all these years, to line them with broadloom. Soft creak after soft creak. And still no sound from below in the bright light which seems to blare and scream out her terror.
She reached the bottom step. She closed her eyes quickly; opened them again, quickly, to get accustomed to the fluorescence. Still, no sound.
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