The Company We Keep

by Frances Itani

  Another day, she backed her car into the closed garage door. Five days later, she left the driver’s door open and backed out again. Two trips to the dealership in one week; her brain had deserted her.

  While at home one evening, she turned on the hot water tap in the kitchen and left the room to get a clean tea towel from the linen closet. The plug was in the drain. Water filled the sink and spilled over the counter and onto the floor. She was oblivious because she’d been sidetracked. She returned to the kitchen ten minutes later and slipped in a layer of water that covered the entire floor. She went down fast, falling sleekly, smoothly. What a surprise, she thought, as her body went into its reflexive curl. The fall was a surprise, the way accidents are—a slippery-eel surprise. She didn’t break a bone, but she might have. She worked for hours sopping up the mess.

  Her capacity to concentrate had been shredded. She was dealing with the after-effects of death. She didn’t want to read, interact with people, do much of anything. There were days when she didn’t want to get up in the morning because what was the point? She attended a political meeting just before the local election and had to clench her fists while she fought off the impulse to stand up and shout, “Don’t you realize that my husband died only a few months ago?!” She didn’t stand up and shout, but she wanted to. She was angry. She was indignant.

  Sal and the grandchildren did not give up on her, even though they were in another city and busy with their lives. The first Thanksgiving after Lew died, she drove to Ottawa. She planned to arrive at Sal’s an hour before Sunday’s dinner was to be held. She planned to stay overnight and return home Monday.

  When she drove onto her daughter’s street and approached the house, she broke down without warning. She began to cry—she was sobbing—and put her foot to the gas. She kept on driving and passed the house, slowing to a crawl only when she was on another street. She circled the block. Mopped at her eyes. She tried again. Drove past, still crying. This was the first year Lew had not been with the family for the Thanksgiving celebration. Hazzley pulled onto a street several blocks away and parked the car and wiped her eyes and blew her nose and sat there for ten minutes, trying to compose herself. The third try was successful, and she parked in Sal’s driveway and rang the back doorbell. No one seemed to have seen her car go by the house twice. No one mentioned her slightly reddened eyes.

  When she was home again, she mustered enough energy to sound normal when Cass called to see how she’d made out at Sal’s. But Cass wasn’t buying normality.

  “There’s more, Hazzley. Something you’re not saying.”

  “No, not at all.” But Hazzley broke down again, and Cass was on her doorstep in thirty minutes. She’d brought a giant pizza and a bottle of wine.

  “Rice will pick me up later,” she said. “We’re going to sit here and eat and have a glass of wine, and you’re going to tell me what’s going on.”

  And Hazzley did tell her. About how she’d fallen apart and then pulled herself together, doing her best so she wouldn’t upset the entire family.

  But every one of them, she’d told Cass, had been aware of the person absent from the Thanksgiving table.

  HAZZLEY FOUND HERSELF watching more TV in the evening. She was thankful for Trevor Noah in his new role as host of The Daily Show. He could make her laugh out loud, and she needed laughter. There were times, she admitted, when it was difficult to decipher the absurd, as if absurdity itself had been coded.

  During the daytime, she made an effort to be at her desk. Her contacts in the magazine industry continued to send work. She stared at herself in the mirror one morning and said, “Hazzley, this is the life you have, and you are going to move it forward. Alter the fine points, if necessary. Allow yourself to embrace your future life. Whatever it’s going to be.” She didn’t totally believe she could, but she knew she was gathering her forces. She carried on.

  Part of another year went by before she posted the notice on Marvin’s bulletin board. Now she was emptying the house. But only three rooms, so far. Maybe she should move after all. Give up this big house and live in an apartment. A small condo, perhaps, with all rooms on one level.

  Not yet. No, she would take her time. Fortunately, Cass had not been to the house since Hazzley had begun to empty the rooms. Usually, they met before or after hours at the café. If Cass did find out, she’d want to help. Define the problem and fix it. Fix Hazzley. But Hazzley was trying to repair herself.

  THE SNOW HAD STOPPED abruptly; the yard was cushioned in a layer of white. Hazzley thought of a poem she’d once read, though she could not remember the name of the poet. She wondered if Tom might know. At the first meeting of the company, he’d said quietly, as if hoping no one would hear, that he wrote a bit of poetry. He’d quoted Keats at the same meeting. Maybe he would recognize these lines:

  Snow drifts to the trees, settles

  And I think of you, my love

  As I look over the

  White and soundless world.

  Whose love could be thought of? Were days and nights of love over for her? She thought of her unplanned tryst with Meiner in Toronto. “Tryst” must be Middle English, she thought. Or maybe French, from triste—but that would mean sad, sorrowful, glum. She kept dictionaries both upstairs and down, and she smiled when she looked up the origin of the word and was surprised to have to consider an appointed place in hunting.

  She gathered the heap of bed linens into her arms and headed down to the laundry room. She had put a load of towels in the dryer earlier, and she pulled these out now and folded them, wrapping a bath sheet around her shoulders so the warmth of it wouldn’t be wasted. While at Marvin’s on Saturday, she had purchased two blueberry scones for her birthday, and she planned to heat one and lace it with melting butter. She would add a chunk of Dubliner cheddar. She’d work on her crossword and the daily sudoku and eat breakfast while she stood at the kitchen counter. She would relax over strong continental coffee. There was nothing else to compete for her attention on this day. No obligations, no appointments. Sal would call later; the grandchildren had sent cards. Hazzley’s plan was to have a quiet day at home. She might drag a rocking chair into one of the empty rooms and stare out at the snow before it melted away.

  She and Cass should sign up for dance classes again. They’d enjoyed the swing lessons and had talked about taking line dancing next. One new thing Hazzley had learned was that in Wilna Creek, there were plenty of people who wanted to dance.

  Tomorrow, the company would meet again. She refused to think of it as her company. Knowing that any topic might erupt, she wondered what would come up for discussion. And wasn’t that the attraction? No one, beforehand, had any idea of the direction of conversational flow. What was helpful was having others around. Others who had been through similar experiences and understood implicitly why each of them was present. Comfortably so.

  A Small Party

  Tuesday evening, Hazzley arrived early to check the table and chairs in the backroom. Not necessary because Cass, with her usual efficiency, had seen to everything. Cass was good at organizing, directing. She had also fancied up and was wearing a double strand of pearls over a sparkly top. Her late father was a jeweller in town after the war, and he’d designed the necklace himself, a gift to Cass’s mother, Georgie. The pearls were Cass’s now; they’d been modelled after pearls owned by Queen Elizabeth and were known fondly, in the family, as “Lilibet’s pearls.” Cass’s mother and Queen Elizabeth were born the same day, April 21, 1926. Georgie had been invited to Buckingham Palace for the Queen’s eightieth birthday luncheon twelve years ago, but that venture had not turned out as expected.

  Cass returned to the front of the café, and Hazzley followed. A circular cake with creamy icing, candied lemon wedges artfully arranged across the top, had pride of place on a shelf behind the counter. The cake was on a pedestal plate under a clear dome. Unusual at this time of evening, because cakes and pastries in the café generally sold out by mid-afternoon. Cass reached over,
lifted the cake and carried it to a side table in the backroom, where she’d already placed dessert plates, forks and wineglasses.

  “Fabulous! What’s the occasion?”

  “You’re joking, right? The cake is for you! It’s your birthday.”

  “That was yesterday.”

  “I know that. But I didn’t see you yesterday. I thought your birthday would be a good excuse to serve dessert to the group tonight. Tom will be pleased.”

  “I think he’s been suppressing his longing for cake. He’ll love this one, for sure. What kind? Lemon?”

  “Hold your curiosity, madam. Leave room for one surprise.”

  “All right, all right. But you’re the one who always says: ‘Be not ignorant of any thing in matters great or small.’ I love Lilibet’s pearls, by the way. Always have. They’re great for a celebration.”

  “Thank you, my friend. Thank you.”

  “You know,” Hazzley said, “these little celebrations make us pause and reflect, don’t they? Whether we want to or not. Yesterday, I got to thinking about my childhood. After the war, in 1945, a Victory Party was held on our street. I wasn’t quite five, but I can still haul details out of the past. The entire neighbourhood was involved in this huge street party. Wooden tabletops were set up on supporting trestles. All of us—children of every age—sat facing one another. And our mums, bless them, laid white tablecloths over those joined tables that stretched right down the middle of the road in the shape of a long, narrow V. Maybe the women had been saving their precious linens to unfurl at the end of the war. I know they had hopes of normalizing our lives and theirs. Everyone longed for ordinary, and ordinary we got! Fish-paste sandwiches. But for dessert, vanilla ice cream scooped out of a deep tub. What a treat! The best part was the cake. That’s what we wanted most, even on rations, even if it had to be cake with no eggs. I’ll never forget the cake. As I gobbled it up, I looked over at the mums, who were standing together in a subdued group once the children were settled. Every one of them holding a precious cup of tea—tea was rationed, you know, right through to 1952. And there was my mum, crying silently in the midst of this scene, tears rolling down her cheeks. For the sheer relief, I suppose, of the war being over.

  “A few months after the Victory Party, my dad returned home. After that, we celebrated my first Guy Fawkes Day, also my fifth birthday, on November 5, 1945. Bonfire day! I’ve told you about that already.”

  “You have. It’s wonderful that you remember the celebrations. But you remember the bombing, too. You’ve told me about that.”

  “When I returned to London with Lew ten years ago, we visited the Churchill War Rooms, the underground complex that was once the command centre. Every detail was interesting to us: a combination of Cabinet War Rooms and the Churchill Museum. We were acting the part of tourists and took our time because we wanted to read every word of explanation that accompanied the displays. But at one point, while listening to sound effects of the period, a chill went through my body. I feel it even now. What I was hearing was the sound of a doodlebug, the V-1, the buzz bomb. I was completely unnerved and thought I’d have to run out of the museum. The recapturing of sound from the past was just too much. It was as if an airplane was flying close at that very moment. Abruptly, all noise ceased before the bang was heard. We knew, during the war, that if you were lucky enough to hear the bang, you were safe. In that command centre, my body remembered the reflexes it had learned, even though I was very young when doodlebugs fell on the city. At that time, the V-2 rockets were still to come. It’s difficult to bring this back, even now.”

  “We won’t discuss it further. Tonight we are celebrating your day-old birthday. The others will be here soon, and we’ll have a toast. Is everyone coming?”

  “As far as I know.”

  “How about Addie? Is she okay?”

  “I’m not surprised you’ve noticed a change,” said Hazzley. “I’ve been wondering myself. She’s been tired out. Last two meetings, I was certain she’d fall asleep at the table. Still, she keeps showing up. She wants to be here. I’m just careful about intruding, you know? Don’t want to push hard. Don’t want to push at all.”

  “Grief can be unrelenting,” said Cass. “We never know when it will take us by surprise. I’ve been through this and so have you. Maybe the loss of her friend is eating her up.”

  “All the more reason to have people around her. People who care. And have you considered this? When we lose someone close, we begin to think of our other losses. When Lew died, I mourned my parents all over again. My mum, my dad.”

  Chiyo arrived just then. “Something special going on?”

  “Hazzley’s birthday,” Cass said. “I’ll join in for a bit of cake, if no one minds. Rice told me he’d help out in the café. If things aren’t too busy, he’ll bring his guitar back here and play some jazz for us later.”

  “Sounds great,” said Chiyo. “I’ve heard him play and he’s wonderful. Happy birthday, Hazzley. We’re due a celebration.”

  She took her coat to the side of the room and hung it on a hook while thinking of friends and relatives whose birthdays she and her mom had celebrated during her childhood. They’d be invited for lunch, maybe dinner. Everyone ate a hearty meal: beef teriyaki over rice, maybe stir-fry with noodles. Sometimes salmon tempura was on the menu, if fresh salmon could be found and, more crucially, afforded. After everyone had eaten, the table was cleared. The men and boys went outside or into the living room, while the women and girls washed the dishes and stacked them in the cupboards. As soon as the place was cleaned up, the Japanese teapot was pulled out. Green tea, ocha, was poured. Instead of plain green tea, genmaicha—popcorn tea—was sometimes served. That was Chiyo’s favourite because roasted brown rice was added to give it a nutty flavour. But that wasn’t all. Colourful bowls were filled to the brim with various kinds of Japanese crackers, arare. Sometimes a tray of leftover sushi was unwrapped. Dishes were set out—smaller dishes than those used for the main meal—and everyone drifted back to the table. All of that before the birthday cake was served.

  Where were those other girls now? For sure, they wouldn’t have lived with their mothers until they were forty.

  The rest of the company had arrived, Addie looking weary, downcast. She cheered up when she saw that they’d be celebrating Hazzley.

  Cassie brought matches to light the candles, one for each decade of Hazzley’s life. “She’ll have eight the year she turns eighty,” she said. “This year and next, she gets seven.”

  “Do not rush to push me forward,” said Hazzley. She recited:

  Because the birthday of my life

  Is come, my love is come to me.

  She blew out the candles with one breath, and the company applauded. Thick slices of cake were served. Wine was poured, a toast given, and then Cass returned to the front of the café to help Rice.

  “Was that Rossetti you were quoting?” Tom wanted to know. He’d finished his slice and come back to Hazzley for seconds.

  “Christina, yes. I don’t know why those lines came to mind. Strange, really, the remnants of other times, other periods in our lives, the way they’re linked in our brains after half a century.”

  Allam had picked up his wineglass and was moving toward the round table where they usually sat. The others remained standing, and he seemed surprised by this. He balanced his wine in one hand, cake plate and fork in the other, and returned to the group.

  “Does everyone eat standing up?” he said to Gwen.

  “People who live alone, maybe. I do, some of the time,” she added. This came out awkwardly because she wasn’t used to being part of the main conversation. She wouldn’t have dared explain the complex emotions that smouldered when she sat down to eat in her kitchen and stared at the empty chair across from her. She had never wanted to look Brigg in the eye.

  She could look this man in the eye, though. This man who had set down his drink and now stood beside her, eating Hazzley’s birthday cake. She could look h
im in the eye because he seemed to receive whatever was in the room. This was difficult to explain, or even to understand. He didn’t send out from himself; he took in. When the company met, he sat next to her at the round table. Everyone took the same place on Tuesdays, because of habit or routine, or for comfort, or whatever the human explanation.

  “In Syria,” Allam told her, “we sit for a long time at small tables in our favourite coffee house. Drink tea or coffee, smoke from the water pipe—argeelah. Sometimes we play cards or chess or backgammon. Sometimes we discuss books or history, whatever is going on in the world. For all this, we do not stand—we sit. I miss that. The coffee house was a place where I met my friends. Also, there are famous cafés, especially one in the old city of Damascus, where a hakawati in traditional dress sits on a platform and reads through a microphone the stories of ancient times. The way the story is read and told is a special art, a way of telling that makes people want to listen to tales of sultans and warriors, of the Baibars, of the Mongol invasions. Now”—Allam shrugged—“with war, it is not easy to say if storytelling carries on in public places.”