The Sign on My Father's House

by Tom Moore

  That first class, we were given course outlines and sent off to the bookstore. Ellen and I met in the door.

  “Oh, Felix, hi,” she said.

  “Hi.”

  “You going to the bookstore?” she asked.

  “Yes.”

  “Well, we’ll go together.” She smiled.

  “Fancy meeting you in anthropology,” I tried to joke.

  “Yes, it promises to be a very interesting course.” She still spoke with formality, but the dreamy tones of Tara were gone.

  “I thought you’d have finished introductory anthropology by now,” I said, looking a gift horse in the mouth.

  “No, it’s one of my electives.”

  “You and Joe Gosine still running White’s shop?”

  “It looked that way for a while, but then Joe got deported back to Lebanon. Did you know he was here illegally? Someone reported him.”

  “That’s too bad.”

  “Yes, he was a good worker.”

  But I remembered Joe’s fingers entwined with hers in the folds of her dress and the sounds floating up through the crack in the floor of Dick’s workshop.

  We went down to the tunnels and followed the pipes en route to the bookstore, where we emerged through the appropriate rabbit hole.

  “It will be good to have someone I know in the class. We can help each other with assignments,” she said.

  “Yes,” I said, “that will be . . . eh . . . great.”

  “You won that scholarship from law school, didn’t you?”

  “It was just pre-law, and they awarded five.”

  “How modest you are. I like that. Those scholarships are hotly sought after. They indicate to the big schools who to keep an eye on. Sorts out the winners from the losers. You’re on your way, Felix!”

  “I’m not even sure if I want to go to law school.”

  “Of course you do. Many are called, but few are chosen,” she quoted.

  She wore one of those party dresses of the 1960s, a Peggy Lee frilly thing that exploded out over her hips from a tight waistline. On top of it she wore a tight woollen sweater that almost said, “Find me in a malt shop and make me a movie star.” We found our way to the bookstore and browsed through the books.

  “Wow! Thirty dollars for three paperbacks! These books are expensive,” I said.

  “Know what?” She was holding the Yanomami book in her hand. “If we buy just one set of books, we could share them and split the costs.” She met and held my look.

  “Yes,” I agreed.

  “Where do you live?” I asked her.

  “Burke House.”

  “Really? I’ve never seen you in the dining hall.”

  “I just moved in. Too much rain and snow.”

  “Absolutely.”

  “I notice we use the dining hall as a study hall after eight p.m.,” she said.

  “Good! Let’s get together there.”

  “We’d better exchange phone numbers so we can arrange times.”

  I gave her my phone number and took hers. Soon, I was skipping my way back to Doyle House with a new poem in my heart, glowing with June sunlight in January.

  “What happened to you? Win the Irish Sweepstakes?” Malacat asked.

  At first I wasn’t going to tell him, but I did. “I bumped into a girl. What a girl!” I fell backwards onto the bed, my feet in the air.

  “You already got a girl, buddy, and she just phoned you.”

  Cruel reality! “What did she want?”

  “Wanted her little boy to call her back.”

  “So, how was your first class in anthropology?” Tammy asked when I phoned.

  “It was all right.”

  “What’s the professor like?”

  I couldn’t even remember if it was a male or a female. “He’s pretty good. Seems okay so far.”

  “We on for lunch?” she asked.

  My mind was racing. Would Ellen be there? “Sure,” I said.

  “Give me half an hour to put on my makeup, and I’ll meet you there.”

  “Sure thing.” I hung up.

  “Danger! Danger!” Malacat said. “You’re playing with fire now!”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “Two cats on the one string. Someone’s gonna get clawed.”

  “Ellen and I just . . .”

  “Ellen, is it? Not that blonde who just moved into Burke?”

  “The same.”

  “Jesus, man, don’t worry about a thing. She’ll be snapped up by a jock before you can shake a dick at her. What makes you think she’s interested in a little shit like you?”

  “I’ve known her for years. She’s from Curlew.”

  “Well, I have to admit, that’s a pretty good in, if you already know her.”

  “She’s Aphrodite, and Newfoundland is her Cyprus. She’s like . . .”

  “Yeah, yeah! I heard.”

  After lunch, I went to Monk’s room. I needed advice from the hermit crab himself. He was at his desk when I opened his door.

  “No more trouble from your tormentor?” I asked.

  “Not a bit lately.”

  “You know Ellen Monteau is in Burke House?”

  “No, I did not.”

  “She’s also in my anthropology class.”

  “It gets curiouser and curiouser,” he said.

  “She’s coming on to me, and I’d like to know why.”

  “Hmm! Well, you are no alpha male,” Monk said, putting down his book.

  “I know. So, why is she interested in me?”

  “Not hard to figure, really.”

  “Let’s hear it.”

  “She’s been married, shacked up, dated, fought over, deserted by her father and her lovers. She’s tired of the hassle, and she wants to settle down with a nice guy from back home. Someone her mother will be proud of. A sensible guy with a promising career.”

  “Am I sensible?”

  “You reek of it.”

  “Career?”

  “She sees you as a future lawyer. A meal ticket. A permit to shop forever. She gets you in the sack once, and then she tells you she’s pregnant. It won’t be hard to do. Look at you. You’re a quivering, palpitating, seething mass of unclaimed testosterone.”

  “But I’m claimed. There’s Tammy.”

  “Ah, yes. Fagan. I’m afraid she will be the first casualty of this affair.”

  “The first?”

  “Oh, yes, there will be others. You will be one of them.”

  “How do you know all this?”

  “It’s in Ellen’s family history and in her character. She’s a deceiver and a user. She’s got the looks to get what she wants, and it’s not a romp with a star jock. She wants the real deal, and she thinks you’re it.”

  His phone rang. “Hello. Yes, we started last Wednesday night at seven thirty. . . . The Arts Building, room A-204. Right. See you next Wednesday.” He hung up. “I’ve started a chess club, and we have twenty-eight people already.”

  “What am I going to do?”

  “Whatever you want to. The ball’s in your court. You seem pretty happy right now with your studies and with Tammy.”

  “Yes, I sort of am happy, but . . .”

  “But what?”

  “Tammy and I are going nowhere. The relationship is all her. I’m just taking the path of least resistance.”

  “That’s you, Felix. That’s a definition of your life: a path of least resistance.”

  “I want to see if Ellen’s serious about this.”

  “I’d say she is. You said she went looking for you at Billy Crotty’s house?”

  “That’s right.”

  �
��She transferred into your anthropology class, and now she turns up in residence. She’s deadly serious, my friend.”

  Back at 407 Doyle House, I wanted to talk more about all this with Malacat, but decided against it. I could trust Monk. But Malacat? Maybe not.

  The phone rang. It was Ellen. “Are we going to study hall tonight?”

  “I guess so,” I said.

  “Let’s go read about those Yanomami folks and their cute little outfits.”

  “What outfits?”

  She laughed. “Exactly! See you there at eight?”

  “See you then,” I said.

  Thus began my relationship with the woman of my dreams. Designing she may have been, but she sure was the most breath-taking thing I had seen on this planet. Did I know she was a schemer? Did I care? Her beauty encased me like sheer winter ice on a telephone pole.

  Another question in my mind was whether Ellen knew that Clara planned to leave me the business and the house. But did I care what her motives were? No!

  I brushed my hair and splashed on some Old Spice. I found my nicest shirt and brushed the wrinkles out of my jeans with my hand. As I was lacing up my sneakers, the phone rang. Tammy.

  “Felix, can I come over tonight?”

  “No. I’m going . . . I’m playing chess with Monk.”

  “I didn’t know you played chess.”

  “He’s teaching me.”

  “Okay, see you tomorrow.”

  “Bye.”

  I was sweating and shaking. This was going to be a rough ride. I phoned Monk right away. “If Tammy phones, tell her I’m there playing chess. Say I’ve gone to the bathroom or something.”

  “Tut, tut, tut!” was all he said.

  Study hall was almost vacant, except for Ellen and me. She had the books and seemed very interested in those foreign fellows and their little penis sheaths. We looked through the three books and chatted about the course. It was an excellent way to pass an evening. I was gradually getting used to her and was not so tongue-tied.

  Sudden images of her kept popping into my head: Ellen dancing in that white outfit at her wedding, Ellen in black at Dick White’s funeral, Ellen sitting blonde in the sun in grade eleven. Looking at her was like studying a rare orchid, or reading a poem:

  A book of verse beneath the bough

  A jug of wine, a loaf of bread—and thou . . .

  This will all work out, I told myself.

  Soon, it was ten thirty. “I have to get back now,” she said, and slid back her chair. I handed her the books. “You keep them till our next class. I’ve had them already. We’ll change at each class.”

  “Great idea! Walk me to the residence?” she asked.

  “Sure,” I agreed. This was beginning to feel like a real date.

  So, my life went on like this for a time—a deception in which I tried to juggle two girls, while not knowing how to juggle even one. I used chess with Monk, outings with Malacat, and all sorts of other lame excuses to be with Ellen. It had to end badly, and it did.

  Ellen and I were beginning to talk about more than the Yanomami. We were walking back from study hall one night when she asked, “Do you miss Curlew? Your family and friends there?”

  “Yes, I often do. But I’m pretty happy here, and I have to complete my degree.”

  “Yes,” she said, “me, too.”

  “How’s your mom?” I asked.

  A dark look crossed her face. “She’s fine. She was sick for a while, but now she’s fine.”

  “What kind of sick? Was it serious?”

  “I’d rather not talk about it,” she said.

  “What made you leave Curlew?” I asked.

  “Clara and I had a falling out,” was all she’d say.

  The phone rang. “Hello, Felix.”

  “Hi, Tammy. How are you?”

  “You got anything on for this Saturday?”

  Mind racing: “Er . . . no.”

  “Good. I want to visit Billy Crotty.”

  “But you hardly know him.”

  “Victoria and Gib are always talking about him, and I want us to visit him.”

  “Well, yes, we can do that.”

  “It’ll give us a chance to do something together for a change. We’ve been drifting apart this last month or so.”

  “Yes, we have,” I agreed.

  Saturday, we met for lunch and then took a cab to Aldershot Street to visit Billy Crotty. I went to the front door and rang the bell.

  “Shouldn’t we go the back way?” she asked.

  “No,” I said, and rang the front doorbell again.

  The door opened, and Billy Crotty appeared, a dazed look on his face.

  “Felix, good to see you. Come in, come on in. And a real cutie you’ve got with you.” He winked at the well-made-up Tammy. She had a skirt up to her ass and a tight sweater open down to her breastbone.

  “This is my friend Tammy.”

  “Nice to meet you,” he said.

  Billy was not alone, however. The Reverend John Stone sat at the kitchen table. I had not seen him since he had miraculously walked through our front door in Curlew. With him sat a female member of his congregation. She was about sixty, and they were both dressed as if they had just come from church. She even wore white gloves, and her white hair was frozen in a large wave at the front of her head. A bit like icing on a wedding cake.

  “Greetings, fellow pilgrims,” Reverend Stone said, not remembering me.

  “This is Felix and his friend Tammy. He used to board here.”

  “Hi,” we both said.

  “This is Reverend Stone and Mrs. Malacat from Grand Falls. She runs our church there.”

  “Did you say Felix? Are you Felix Ryan?” she asked.

  “Yes, I am.”

  “Then you must know my son John.”

  “John Malacat!” I heard Tammy gasp.

  “Yes, ma’am, he’s my roommate.”

  “How nice,” said Reverend Stone. “It is indeed a small, if merely a temporal, world.”

  “Amen,” said Billy Crotty. “Tea, anyone?” He put on the kettle as if we were all boarders.

  The reverend had been eyeing Tammy. “Come sit down, Tammy and Felix. We can continue our prayer later.”

  “Thank you.” We sat, now a foursome, at Billy’s old kitchen table. Enough for a rubber of bridge.

  “I like to chat with young people,” Reverend Stone explained to Mrs. Malacat. “To exchange ideas of the world, of life, and of the Spirit.”

  We said nothing.

  “So many of today’s youth are caught up in the evils of our time, the transitory pleasures of the flesh, alcohol, drugs.” He was looking at Tammy, who was doing a good impersonation of the Whore of Babylon. She had crossed one long leg over the other and stuck it out from under the table. If she’d had a cigarette, she would have tried to smoke it.

  “Not that youth is bad or evil. No, merely tempted by these illusions, the makeup, the fleshy . . . I mean the flashy clothes and bawdy behaviour.”

  “Billy, how’s that tea coming?” Tammy shouted.

  Billy bounded in with the open newspaper fluttering in his hands. “Kettle’s just about boiling.”

  “Give me the sports, will you?”

  “Sure thing, little girl.” Billy laid the pages on the table before her. “Year of the Leafs?” he half teased.

  “I doubt it,” she said, and buried her attention in the paper. The exchange of ideas with youth had apparently ended.

  Mrs. Malacat had been looking at me with an unspoken urgency. But when the reverend went upstairs to the bathroom, she said, “How’s John doing at university?”

  “He’s doing fine. He’s passing all his courses and on the way to g
rad school.” It was true.

  “He lives with his father when he’s home, and I rarely see him. Give him this.” She pushed a fifty-dollar bill into my hand.

  “I will, but he’s got lots of money, from what I see.”

  “Yes. His father does well in the tavern business.”

  I said nothing.

  It was an interesting visit. Billy was staying out of the harbour and was still alive, if a bit dopey.

  In the cab on the way home, Tammy wanted to talk about us. The driver was bobbing his head to music on the radio.

  “What’s going on, Felix?” She looked me straight in the eye. “I want to hear it from your mouth, not from other people.” Her black hair was parted in the middle, and the saucy flip was gone. One side of the part fell down across a big mascaraed eye.

  “Going on?” I stalled.

  “Yes, between you and me.”

  I blurted it out: “I don’t think things are going to work out between you and me.” These were the first honest words I had said to her in a month. The cab headed down over Aldershot Hill.

  “Not going to work out?” she repeated.

  I waited.

  “What do you mean, exactly?” Her eyes were filling up, but she did not cry.

  “I want to see other people.”

  She winced and shook her head, then calmed right down. “People like Ellen Monteau?” she asked without rancour.

  “How did you know about her?”

  “She came over to me in the dining hall and told me.”

  “Ellen told you? What did she say?”

  “She said you two were dating, and that the days of Felix and Tammy are over.”

  I said nothing.

  She looked up at me. “Felix, don’t you remember that night at the Thompson Centre dance? Lukey’s Boat was playing. We held each other for the first time. Does that mean nothing now?”

  My silence spoke volumes. It was a long cab ride to her residence. She got out, one long leg at a time. “Goodbye, Felix.” She still didn’t cry as she walked away.

  “I guess she stuck you with the fare, buddy,” the cab driver said.

  “Doyle House, please,” I said.

  “You can never trust the hot-looking ones,” he said.

  10

  Love

  My boyhood dream was coming true. I felt like a portly Venetian merchant whose ships had come in. Walking to lunch with Ellen was like walking without the need of floors. Other guys stared or glanced enviously, but soon I didn’t even see them.