We did not have a dining room table, so we sat on the floor and surrounded ourselves with candles, and we would feast and laugh and discuss books and music and movies.
We were happy then.
And then one day, rushing down the stairs, I reached out and leaned on the landing wall and found it to be damp and bubbling outwards.
I had no explanation for this horrible softness. Walls were not supposed to feel like wet papier-mâché under your fingertips. What’s going on here? I had called out to Shayne.
Roof’s leaking I guess, Shayne had said, patting the damp wall and frowning.
I got the roof fixed, but the walls had stayed bubbled and buckled, and there were leftover cracks in the ceiling from the water damage. And Shayne had never gotten around to fixing and repainting the walls.
I added that now to my inventory as I lay in bed, bereft and alone, itemizing the house from a realtor’s bird’s-eye view: the uneven, creaking old floorboards that needed refinishing; the bedroom closet doors that would not close because the entire house seemed to have shifted ever-so-slightly; the blackened old-fashioned bathroom fixtures with the too-small basin that exposed the piping; the kitchen cabinets that were peeling like they had eczema; the fridge door that had no handle; and, the sticky oven that simply would not come clean. Add to that a twin-set geriatric washing machine and tumble dryer that heaved and thumped like an emphysema patient sucking on a last fag.
The eavestroughs were filled with leaves from last season, the back deck was unnavigable since Shayne had crashed through the middle stair, and the anti-pigeon devices that Shayne had constructed looked like rabbit cages hanging from the roof.
And it didn’t help that our hillbilly neighbour had filled his yard with broken old toilets, gap-toothed stepladders, and shattered garden ornaments, alongside boxes of decorative stone leftover from a stone masonry company that had failed.
And somehow, Shayne had never managed to paint the outside of the house either, even though he had meant to. It was a lacklustre greyish white with once-yellow trim.
What a disaster.
And now I had to carry the mortgage alone, which I had figured on doing before I met Shayne, but one got used to being two, and now I wasn’t sure I could manage it by myself. Certainly not with all the repairs that needed doing.
Yes, I had to sell the house.
I forced myself out of bed and typed up an email to the realtor who had sold it to me:
Must sell it now. I don’t care what I lose. Must get rid of it. My partner left me and I can’t afford it.
I felt a sudden surge of optimism that new and better things lay ahead —a new man, a new life, a whole new fresh start. This was followed by the immediacy of terror, like being dumped by a big wave at the seaside, my lungs filled to burning and my gut turned to lead. In the same breath, I knew that I did not want a new man, or a new house, or a new life. I wanted this house with this man. I wanted this life, or rather, the life I had before Shayne left.
I looked at the email that I would not send and put it in the drafts folder. I told myself I could always send it the next day or the day after that.
And then I grabbed my dog-eared copy of The Satanic Verses and went back to bed.
Who am I? Who else is there?
Gibreel Farishta understood.
5. SMOKE OR MIST
IN THE WEEKS AFTER SHAYNE LEFT, while others around me bemoaned the recession and whispered in corners, I did nothing but consider my broken heart. I studied the ways in which it was broken. I examined the pieces, and when it looked like it might stop bleeding for a bit, I cut it open again and watched the pure red blood flow.
How could he leave me? How? I thought about my father again. Where was he? Why had he never written to me? I had a vague memory of him and Mum having a huge row the night he left, and her telling him never to contact us again, but there wasn’t any reason he should have listened to her. I was his daughter.
It’s over, the motherly colleague said, one morning. I’ve been watching the sales figures, and there’s no way we can last another month. I’ve got three kids, what’m I gonna do?
I looked at her in astonishment. What do you mean? I thought we were fine for at least another year.
She laughed. Joss honey, you’ve been in a coma since Shayne left. Don’t look so shocked, of course we all know about it, and we’ve all been too polite to kick your sweet ass, but here’s the bottom line. Revenue’s down big time. We’ve got a month at best.
I felt like I had been punched in the gut. Why didn’t anyone tell me? I asked.
We tried to but you were seriously out to lunch, not that you ever took lunch but you get my meaning. Hello, earth to Joss. It’s nice to have you back, and sorry to be the bearer of bad news, my girl, but you are going to have to wake up and smell the coffee, and I’m not talking any kind of French Roast.
But how will I pay for my house? I was terrified. I’ve been paying Shayne’s share of the mortgage with my credit card. What will happen if I lose my job? I can’t pay for everything I need to on EI. And I had promised myself that what little remained of Gran’s tiny nest egg was untouchable.
Declare bankruptcy and start again, the woman was brusque. Sell anything you have on Craigslist, cash in what you can, find a room in a house. Work at Shopper’s Drugmart, do whatever. I’m going to do whatever I have to, and so are a lot of good people out there.
I looked around my cubicle. The woman had to be wrong. She had to be. Everything seemed fine.
But it wasn’t fine and a few days later we were all let go.
Endings are so unceremonious, really. More like amputations than some operatic grande finale swelling with a Phillip Glass soundtrack in an empathetic A minor.
It was all so straightforward; two men in black suits came in at midday and said the business was bankrupt. Then they said we could get our purses and coats and they escorted us all off the property.
Standing outside, Mrs. Howlett, the mom-colleague, said we would meet for lunch in the future, and I agreed. My boss made sure he got my home email address.
I’ll think of something, he said. I will. This isn’t the end, he said. I shook his hand and walked outside to a different world, to the one I had left behind when I took the elevator to the office earlier that morning.
We were told we could come back in two days to pick up our personal belongings but I didn’t bother. All I had were a couple of knick knacks, a mug, and a calendar. Who cared?
The day we were all canned, I picked up a pizza and went straight home and got into bed with my book, my supper, and a bottle of cheap sherry.
There floated the debris of the soul, broken memories, sloughed-off selves, severed mother tongues, violated privacies, untranslatable jokes, extinguished futures, lost loves, the forgotten meaning of hollow, booming words, land, belonging, home.
There, in no man’s land, floated I.
The next morning it seemed I was unable to get up, unable to look for a job, unable to do anything except move from the bed to the sofa and the sofa back to the bed.
There was some canned food in the cupboard: creamed corn, chipotle beans, cream of mushroom soup. And there were boxes of oatmeal; they would have to do.
I realized, in the silence of my still and voiceless world, how alone I had become. And how fine I was with that.
Mrs. Howlett phoned and left messages but I did not call her back. I had nothing to say. I had cut the umbilical cord of the world. I didn’t need to be part of it anymore. Life had spat me out, but I was fine all by myself. Angry but fine.
I watched TV, the weather channel mainly, and anything I could find about other broken people who had lost the sanctity of their everyday lives. Ordinary catastrophes, that was us.
Eventually there were too many bills to ignore. I had not sold a thing on Craigslist. I had not made a single p
lan and unless I did, in short order, I would soon be without a bed, or a roof over my head.
The realization that action was called for with immediacy made me feel unspeakably drowsy. I was crushed by inertia as effective as a dart gun of ketamine. But I needed to stay awake and think: Where could I go if I left my house? If I could just find a room. I just needed a room of my own, somewhere where I could think for a bit, like the time I had escaped to that farmer’s shed. There I sifted through tiny glittering green glass pebbles and pretended I had found emeralds while I tried to crush the memory of my mother hitting my father with a cast iron frying pan, a thud so awful that I thought no other sound could match it till it was followed by an even worse silence.
I pushed that memory away. I didn’t have time for it now. But in the ticking quiet of my empty house, I was reminded of that shed, and that was how I found the solution to my dilemma.
Then I fell asleep.
6. THE CONSULTATION
THE NEXT DAY I FORCED MYSELF to get up. It was time to make a list. I dragged myself to my computer, logged onto my bank account and saw that the straits were no longer dire but tsunamic.
I called up the draft email that I had never sent, the one to the realtor, and I changed the wording a bit to sound less desperate and needy. I flagged it important:
Please respond ASAP.
I must sell immediately. Please meet me at the house any time tomorrow to discuss. I’ll be here all day.
I knew I should clean the place and get it looking its shiny best, pull on the yellow gloves and start scrubbing, Windex in one hand, paper towel in the other but I flicked on the TV and sat watching something, I had no idea what.
Sell it, I told the nail-polished realtor the next day. The power-suited woman sensed an advantage.
You haven’t received a petition for foreclosure? she asked.
I had no idea what she was talking about.
You’d know if you got one. That’s good. At least, you’ve still got time to sell. I don’t have any clients that would be interested in this, but my partners and I might take it on. She paused, and I waited for the punchline. But of course it does need a lot of work.
She listed the shortcomings she had conveniently missed mentioning when she sold me the house but I could not care less. Sure, I said. Great. What kind of money did you have in mind?
You know you could try renting it out, the woman mused, a perfectly-manicured fingertip to her lips, but there’s a lot here that people could have safety issues with.
I have no aspirations to be a landlord. I want to sell, please just give me a number, I said, and the woman did.
You’ll lose your downpayment, but you won’t end up owing anything and that’s something, she said.
Yeah, that’s something, I echoed. Fine then.
I would get out of this alive. There was no way I could tell Mum I had sold it, it would break her heart. Mum had been so proud, bragging to everybody back home about how well I was doing in Canada, having a steady lad, a good job, and a house to boot.
Well, not anymore. I felt an odd kind of relief when I signed, validated in a strange way by this final betrayal. Even my house had rejected me.
I’ll be back tomorrow with the paperwork, the woman said and left. She returned the following day as promised and pushed a pile of papers at me.
Let me know when you’re ready to buy again, she said. It’s a buyer’s market, honey, and I know you will buy again. You’ll get back on your feet soon. You’re that kind of survivor and believe me, I know what I am talking about.
She looked as if she would have continued, but as soon as I signed, I got up and manoeuvered her to the front door.
All this stuff here, what will you do with it? the woman asked, pointing around. I shrugged.
Dunno yet, I said. I had not thought about it.
Here. The woman dug out a number and scribbled it down for me. Put it in storage. You’ll need it later. These guys are cheap, and they’ll come and collect it for you too.
I wished the woman would leave, but I took the piece of paper just to be polite, and herded her out, closing the door and locking it.
Hang on one sec.… The woman tapped on the glass and peered back through the window. I opened it.
Are you okay, honey? The woman seemed genuinely concerned, despite her having pegged me as a winner in any survivor game show.
I flashed the biggest smile I could manage and said I was great, really, thanks for asking, and I closed the window.
I decided I needed a drink, and dug around inside the freezer and found a half a bottle of pear vodka, all nicely covered in an icy wrapping of frost, which melted obligingly under my fingertips. I took a slug and sighed as the burn hit the back of my throat. That felt better. I let the freezer door swing shut, and I wandered back up the stairs to change out of my track pants into my nighttime uniform. I noticed, with marginal surprise, that my thick, white, terry-cloth towelling robe wasn’t in good shape; the front bore an accumulation of stains.
Oh God, I had turned into a slob, and never noticed. I was a jobless, could-care-less slob.
I looked at my reflection in the bathroom mirror and told myself I was being too harsh. I had lost the love of my life: Bang bang, my baby shot me down. Then out the window went my job, and pop goes the weasel, next I had lost my house. A less-than-clean dressing gown was the least of my worries.
I took another drink and toasted my reflection, startled to see my eyes fill with tears and even more surprised to feel the hot wetness that splashed onto my cheeks and flowed down my face.
I sank down onto the tiled floor and cried until my head ached, and my eyes were all but swollen shut.
I didn’t want any of this, I said out loud. I just want my stupid boring job, I want my Shayne. He was not exactly the family doctor he was supposed to be, but he was my guy. And now they’ve turned him into a nanny in a basement in exchange for meals and a roof over his head, and I bet he’s loving every minute.
I knew there was a part of Shayne that would be relieved to be rid of me, relieved that he no longer had to shovel snow in winter, cut the lawn in summer, take out the garbage on Tuesdays, get the eaves cleaned, and do all that other manly stuff. I also knew that he had been slightly resentful at having to do all of that, that he had been able to be much lazier in his apartment, where he dreamed about having a balcony one day but no more than that.
Yeah, Shayne would be just fine. He would even enjoy being ever so slightly heartbroken, bereft by his losses but stoically not complaining, just waiting for his luck to turn. He just needed to wait it out till his luck came knocking again like it always had.
Meanwhile I sat on my bathroom floor and cried until my eyes were scalded by stinging salt and dried out from having no tears left. I sat there in my dirty white dressing gown with its brave pink satin embroidered heart and the swirly “J,” a farewell gift from Mum because you know luv, Canada’s so cold.
Oh, Mum, I said, and my voice was swollen and raspy, I am so sorry.
I sighed, got up and ran a bath filled to the brim. I climbed into the too-hot water and gritted my teeth, and I scrubbed myself from head to toe, swigging vodka at intervals, dizzy from the combination of raw alcohol and sauna-like heat.
After my bath, I navigated my way down to the basement. I grabbed the stain remover and doused the gown repeatedly. Then I dumped it into the ancient washing machine, turned it on, and peered into the swish and swirl.
Time to get things under control. Clean things up, get a grip.
I went back up to bed and waited for the washing machine to finish, hating the clicks and creaks and groans that voiced themselves in Shayne’s absence.
Later, I loaded the dressing gown into the tumble drier and I threw in a dozen scented sheets.
We’re going on a adventure, I said to the spinning bathrobe. You may as
well start off nice and clean.
7. TIME; OR MAN
WHEN I WOKE THE NEXT MORNING, I wondered why my stomach felt eroded by battery acid and my tongue was stuck to the palate of my mouth. My right eyeball was pounding something fierce, and it was the kind of pain that intended to have some fun and do some damage.
I sat up slowly. That’s right. I had sold my house.
I was still half-asleep, and I tried to shake off the dream in which I was falling off a building so high it stood way above the clouds and, as I fell, the world turned different colours: red, purple, green. Then I was wading through thick grass that grabbed at my ankles and twisted its gnarled fingers deep into my flesh and bone.
I was bathed in acrid rough sweat; I was sticky and disorientated. I tried to gather my thoughts.
Ten days. That was all I had left to be in the house. Then I had to be gone.
I wished I could phone Mum, but it was all too complicated, and I couldn’t bear to talk about it.
He’s a weak man that Shayne, Mum would say. I always worried he would let you down, and I was right. Not that I wanted to be right, mind you, she would add, and the sympathy and pain in her voice would be too much for me to bear. I could not stand to hear that reflected pain: me and Mum like Russian dolls in a looking glass.
I decided not to say anything until the worst of the pain was gone. I also wanted to avoid giving Mum yet another opportunity to tell me how I really should make more friends — more women friends in particular.
You’ll end up alone and lonely, Mum had said practically my whole life. Make the effort, dear. Everybody is interesting if you make the effort to know them.
To which I would insist, No, not everybody is interesting. In reply, Mum might not be able to resist asking me, Well, where’s your interesting young man now? That was not what I needed to hear.
Between the Cracks She Fell Page 3