Sweeter Life

by Tim Wynveen

  Not that it had always been clear sailing. The first years of their marriage had had a few rocky spots, arguments over nothing, stupid jealousies and tantrums. There were times when Ruby was sure she was losing him. But she never did. And as the years went on it seemed less likely that she ever could have. Clarence once said they were like an apple tree that hadn’t been pruned properly, where two branches had rubbed together over the years until they not only lost their original shape but moulded themselves into a single living piece of wood. If so, that now meant that a large part of her would no longer burst into green, no longer bear fruit. For as long as she lived she would feel, deep inside, a part of her that was no longer alive.

  At the end of her first month of living alone, she invited Isabel and Hank to dinner. She made chicken and potato salad—enough for an army—and they ate at the picnic table in the yard. After dessert, they set off down the lane that led to the back of the orchard. With Ruby on one side of Hank’s chair, and Izzy on the other, they passed between Spartan and Pippin, McIntosh and Empire, the trees heavy with fruit. Ruby told them she’d been thinking about the farm and the rest of her life, and feeling confused.

  “The girls think I should move to town,” she said, as though she were confessing a sin. “And I never was a country girl at heart, but to lose Clarence, and then lose my house and all of this …” She smoothed Hank’s hair. “It might be too much in one go.”

  They stopped at the top of the ridge. From there they could look down the long slope to the marsh. Isabel said, “Maybe your friends are right. It’s hard to see how you’ll manage out here on your own. What are you doing about this year’s crop?”

  Ruby looked around and sighed. “Wade Dobbins from D&B Orchard offered to help with the harvest.”

  “Well,” Izzy said, “you only have to say the word. I’d be more than happy to find you a place in town. Whatever you want to do.”

  “Well that’s pretty much the problem right there. I’m not used to wanting things. I mean, married to Clarence, I never wanted for anything. Certainly not for myself. Wouldn’t really know how.”

  Isabel didn’t believe Ruby could be all that selfless. If it was true, it marked a clear difference between them. Izzy had always gone right after the things she wanted, maybe because she’d learned at an early age how easily it could all be taken away.

  “Speaking of wanting things,” Isabel said, pointing down the hill toward their old place, the link fence, the storage tanks, the wells that were no longer pumping. (It turned out there had been only a fraction of the oil down there that everyone had figured on.) “I made an offer this afternoon.”

  “An offer,” Hank said with disbelief. “On what?”

  “I’m buying the land back from Benny Driscoll. I wasn’t going to tell anyone yet. I wanted to surprise you.”

  Hank leaned over the side of his chair and spit onto the gravel. “You surprised us all right. What do you want with a hellhole like that?”

  “I don’t know,” she said. And she laughed then, her shoulders hunched up and her eyes sparkling with a little girl’s mischief.

  WILBURY WAS ABUZZ WITH OWEN NEWS. The story of Cyrus’s misfortune, especially his heroic attempt to save his manager, got front-page coverage in the Gazette. Almost as exciting was the word around town that Isabel was buying back the family farm. Considering her reputation for shrewd real estate transactions, a few local businessmen were trying desperately to figure out what on earth she was up to. The mayor, Milt Iverson, wondered if he’d somehow missed a subtle change in zoning.

  For the first time in her life, Izzy thought she might have taken on more than she could handle. She had to keep her business on track, her employees humming, Hank out of trouble and more or less happy, her students at St. Clair College motivated, her business connections well-oiled. Add to that the emotional upheaval of buying back their land, and she was spread pretty thin. Even so she spent the better part of two days trying to track down Cyrus. She got through to the hospital just after he was discharged. She zeroed in on the Gore but only after he had checked out. She had the name Nigel Cranston, at a place called Hidey-Hole, but so far she’d had no luck. She would let the Canadian embassy do the rest.

  She had also made it her business to look out for Ruby’s welfare. She set up an appointment with Clarence’s accountant, Wilfrid Thiessen, to go over Ruby’s financial affairs. Ruby heard once again how wisely Clarence had invested, and how he had provided an ample income for her.

  “About the farm …” Wilfrid said.

  But before he could get any further, Ruby held up her hand. “I’ve already made up my mind about that. I want the kids to have it,” she said. “Clarence and I talked about it many times. It’s what he wanted, too.”

  Izzy shook her head sadly. “We couldn’t afford that, Ruby. Soon as you change ownership, you trigger a capital gain. We’d have to sell the farm just to pay the taxes.”

  Wilfrid held up his hand. “Ordinarily, yes. But, as I was about to say, Clarence was a very prudent farmer. Aside from Ruby, you three were his only family; so every year, even before your folks died, he deeded each of you a small portion of the farm, all perfectly legal. Though he took a slight tax hit every April, it was easier to pay it in increments, he figured, than in one great whack. So, Ruby here couldn’t sell Orchard Knoll even if she wanted. It doesn’t belong to her. It belongs to you and Cyrus and Hank in equal shares. Right up there on the barn, isn’t it? The Mitchell family.”

  Isabel was not a sentimental woman, but that last statement made her catch her breath. She could not even look at Ruby.

  That night after dinner, she got a call from Cyrus that was maddeningly short on particulars. In response to her legitimate questions about what had happened and how he was doing, he said, “I’m okay, I guess. I called to ask if you could lend me some money.”

  “Come home and we’ll talk about it.”

  “Look,” he said, “you know what I’ve been through. My friend’s in a coma. I need a few operations myself. I thought you could help me out.”

  “Come home, Cy. The people there can look after your friend. Your project can wait. Come home and get better. That’s what home is for.” And before he could say anything else, she launched into a brief description of all that had happened, shading everything in golden tones to make it seem more appealing. She saved until last the story of the Mitchells’ generosity, and how he was now part-owner of Orchard Knoll.

  When she finished talking, he said, “About that money …”

  “Think about what I said, Cyrus. Then we’ll talk.”

  He did think about it and called an hour later with what he figured was an ideal solution. “Sell my part of the farm for me, Iz. Better yet, you’re a wheeler-dealer, buy my share. I’ll give you a discount.”

  “I couldn’t.”

  “What’s it to you? I’ll never be a farmer. Buy my share. That way it stays in the family and I get some of the cash I need. It’s the only thing that makes sense.”

  “Sense.” She spit the word out like it was covered in mould. “You have never in your life made sense. What do you know about it? No, I will not sell your piece of the property. No, I will not buy it from you. Please don’t ask me again or I’ll hang up. I’ll send you money, but only enough for a plane ticket home. After you have your operations, and after we talk, if you still need some money, and if it makes even the tiniest bit of sense to me, I’ll see what I can do. Though I’m warning you, I’m a bit strapped for cash myself. You’re not the only one with things on the go.”

  After a long pause, he cleared his throat and said, “Don’t talk to me that way. I’m not some stupid kid you can boss around. Better still, Iz, don’t talk to me again, period. I’m tired of your fucking sermons. Got it? Forget this call happened. I don’t want your money.” Then he hung up.

  SOON AFTER THE SPECIAL PREVIEW of Cyrus’s album, the first published reports began to surface. A few were kind, even mildly encouraging, but for
the most part, those who had come to Hidey-Hole had nothing good to say. Buzz gave the worst review, suggesting that Ronnie’s misfortune was not without a bright side. “At least,” the article stated, “when Conger went down for the count, he had the grace to take this pretentious pickmeister with him. With any luck, we’ll hear no more jingles from Jangle.”

  Nigel was very considerate, offering the comforts of Hidey-Hole as long as needed; and for the next few days, Cyrus stayed in his room in a kind of blank nausea. Sophie finally dragged him out for a walk and made him eat. They stopped at the Two Poofs and shared a ploughman’s lunch. Sitting outside on the patio, beneath a sun umbrella, she touched his fingertips where they jutted from the plaster cast. “This is you right here,” she said. “Your friend Ronnie—that’s you, too.”

  Every day for a week Nigel and Cyrus drove into London to visit their friend. Eventually Doreen took them aside and said, “The family’s been told, but you two have acted more like family than anyone, so I thought you should know. It would be a mistake to think he’ll ever get better.” The two men digested that bit of information and nodded soberly. They had already accepted that as the likely outcome. It didn’t mean they couldn’t do what was right and visit from time to time.

  Doreen bowed her head, almost shamefully, and added, “There is nothing more we can do for him here. Beds are scarce. He’ll soon be transferred to long-term care.” When they didn’t react, she added, “His family is unwilling to fund the extra cost of private care. Without some other direction, he will most likely end up at Scrivens Park.” The last two words were delivered with an inflection of disapproval. They told her they understood, and set off to inspect the nursing home where their friend would most likely live out the remainder of his days.

  What they found was not a proper park at all but the old parade ground of the Scrivens Army Barracks, weedy, pitted asphalt and coarse unkempt grass where local drug dealers plied their trade. The main barrack, looking very much as though it had been through a war, had been transformed into a nursing home. One glimpse was enough to convince both Nigel and Cyrus that it was no place for a man as fine as Ronnie Conger; and as they made their way inside, they were shocked that anyone would have to live his final days with so little dignity.

  They approached a tiny, round-faced woman who was carrying a clipboard and looking officious. She was at the end of a long shift, her little nurse’s hat no longer sitting straight on her tight grey curls. Her name tag identified her as Erna. Nigel swept his arm about to indicate the general state of things and, unable to hide his revulsion, said, “What is all this?”

  Erna followed his gesture with her tired eyes, and in a slight Jamaican accent not entirely drained of its music, she said, “This is Scrivens, sir. Are you here to see someone?” She scanned her clipboard as though searching through a list of sanctioned visitors.

  Cyrus jumped in. “A friend of ours is coming here. We wanted to check it out. You know, to see if he’d like it.”

  “Honey,” she said, a chuckle in her voice, “people who come here haven’t got much talent left for liking. Look around. Not one of them is ever going to notice this isn’t Buckingham Palace.”

  “It should be condemned,” Nigel blurted out. “It’s a disgrace.”

  Erna held her clipboard across her bosom and sighed. “You’ll get no argument from me. But what are you going to do? These people have nowhere else to go. And the government has nowhere else to put them. So we do the best we can with what we have.”

  Nigel and Cyrus spent the rest of the day investigating a few of the more affordable private nursing homes on the list Doreen had provided, but there wasn’t a single one that seemed the right place for Ronnie, and they returned to Hidey-Hole in the dark, feeling tired and fed up. All day, The Who’s most chilling lyric had rattled around in Cyrus’s head. And though he usually felt that being alive was the greatest of all good fortune, he had now begun to appreciate that a person might want to die before he got old.

  Nigel invited Cyrus to join him for a nightcap. Standing together at the bar, the moonlight their only illumination, he poured them each a large glass of brandy and downed his drink in one gulp. When he had finished with the facial contortions, he slapped his glass on the bar with enough force that it might well have shattered.

  “I could do this myself,” Nigel said, his words hissing like steam, “very quietly. Just pick up the tab because we’re mates. I can afford it. But fuck that. And fuck them. It’s time to make a ruckus.”

  He had decided to organize a benefit concert. He wanted to shine a critical light on Ronnie’s family and their false pieties, but even more on the shameful state into which social services had fallen. As Nigel laid out the details of his plan, he peered into the darkness outside the window, as though he could divine the future out there. He could get Noel Plaice to promote and organize the concert, he said. Noel owed Nigel favours. They could use the grounds at Knebworth possibly. If not, there was always Wimbledon. He listed all the big-name bands he could count on. There would be stories in the papers about Ronnie’s brilliant career and subsequent misery, abandoned by his family and his country.

  Cyrus nodded encouragement but didn’t share the same enthusiasm for the project. As he went to bed that night, two sore points kept him from getting much rest. If anyone had earned the right to appear onstage for Ronnie’s benefit, it was Jangle. Yet that was impossible. Cyrus had several operations ahead of him and months of therapy before he could even begin to hold a guitar again. That fed directly into his second disappointment. He was a young musician struck down in his prime and with few, if any, prospects of ever playing again; yet no one had spoken of a benefit in his honour, if only to rescue his album from the limbo of the courts.

  Cyrus knew he could voice none of these complaints without appearing selfish. Ronnie needed his help. Everything else had to wait.

  WHEN HER DEAL CLOSED, Isabel drove to the old place and set her plans in motion. A team of workmen tore down the chain-link fence. Though the pumps and storage tanks had already been carted away, there were large sections of sheet metal, splintered wooden palettes, hoses and tubing and wire to be collected from the property and carted off to the dump. The ground was stained black with oil, which Benny Driscoll had foolishly tried to burn off. The place still had the scorched taste of disaster.

  Once the land was cleared of debris, she had Joe Filmon remove the contaminated soil. He made a hole five feet deep and fifty yards square. When people drove by and saw the backhoe and dump trucks, they wondered if Izzy was planning to put up a skyscraper. In the back of her mind she was thinking greenhouses like the ones Gerry had built.

  The first time Hank came out with her to see it, he just shook his head critically. He had no sentimental attachment to the land, and he didn’t suppose she had either. He figured she’d lost her mind, pouring good money into a place like that. But once the property had been freed of all debris, and especially after Joe began to dig, Hank began to think more positively, began to think that maybe one of his own dreams, however truncated, might come true.

  “Tell Joe to go deeper,” he told her. When she explained they had already removed the contamination, he said, “Doesn’t matter. Go ten. Go twenty if you can. Can’t be too safe.” When she complained about the expense, he said he would chip in. When she reminded him he didn’t have any money, he told her he would ask Ruby. When she asked him why he was so interested, he said he had an idea.

  For two more days she had Joe pull out soil and cart it away. At ten feet they struck water. By the next morning the hole was a five-acre pond, which Hank dubbed Lake Isabel. She wasn’t amused.

  The next night after dinner they drove out and parked at the side of the road, the sun still low in the sky. A humid breeze blew in off the lake. They didn’t bother to get out of the car.

  “Now we plant trees,” he said. “Poplars at first. They grow like weeds. A few willow. We plant grass, too, and get Joe to lay a gravel path all the w
ay around the pond.” When Isabel still didn’t get it, he said, “A campground, Iz. Two years from now we could have people in trailers out here. With lots thirty feet wide, you could have twenty around this pond alone. We stock it with fish, build a little rec room somewhere …”

  She turned in her seat and gave him her most scornful look. “Who in their right mind is going to want to stay out here?”

  “Me, for one. I could be the manager, you know. I get myself a little mobile home, maybe a little shed where I can fix things. A little sit-down mower to keep the place tidy. I could hire some local kid to help me in the summer. I got it all figured out, Iz. I need something to do. I need to get out of your hair. I can do this. I know I can.”

  When she didn’t respond, he cleared his throat and told her about his dream from his prison days, the park ranger, the jeep, the wide-brimmed hat. “It’s not the Grand Canyon,” he said, “but it’ll do. Whataya say?”

  She stared out the window of the car for the longest while. There was already a pair of seagulls floating around the pond. And she said, “You have to promise to wear the hat.”

  TWELVE

  After two days of planning, Nigel and Cyrus returned to London to visit Ronnie. His condition was the same. His expression was the same. His hair, the angle of his chin, the position of his hands folded across his stomach—they were all the same. Lying there, seemingly dead to the myriad stimuli of the world, a great tangle of tubes and wires and patches connecting him to the technical marvel of modern medicine, Ronnie looked to Cyrus like the kind of arcane gizmo you might find in the recording studio, as if he had found a way to transform himself into music’s perfect receptor.