The Good Father

by Wayne Grady

  Behind her the kettle whistled.

  “You don’t really want tea, do you?” she said, taking the photograph from him and leading him to the daybed.

  * * *

  —

  When Daphne was choosing universities to apply to, Harry imagined her going to the University of Toronto and living in El’s old apartment. He and his daughter would read the same books, go to movies and poetry readings together, discuss issues of mutual interest over long Sunday dinners here at the house with Elinor. Daphne would come and go as though this were her second home, which of course it was. Is. She would look after Millie and water their plants when they were away. They would meet for lunch often.

  He watches the sun dip behind the neighbour’s Internet dish. The evening is still, as though bracing itself for a snowstorm. When it does snow, it will last for days, stopping streetcars, closing schools. He’ll sit in the sunroom and watch it fill his yard. He’ll be in for the long haul. He decides to open another bottle, an Okanagan this time, because, he thinks, it will make him feel closer to Daphne. Before their falling out, he had promised her he would take her on a wine tour of the Okanagan Valley, and he still enjoys planning the wineries they will visit between Osoyoos and Kelowna. Before long, burning acid begins to climb up his esophagus, like mercury in a thermometer. He keeps a roll of Tums in his pocket, and he takes three now. Then he catches a furtive movement in the shadows beside the garage, near the compost pile. He stands, clutching his chest and taking deep breaths until the pain subsides, then walks unsteadily to the sunroom door, where he leans into the gathered darkness.

  “Millie?” he calls softly, opening the door. “Millie, is that you? Come here, Millie.”

  A dark shape emerges from the shadows. Not Millie but a raccoon, a juvenile. It looks up at him, sniffs around the compost for a moment, makes tentative digging motions with its hands, then retreats in a hunched lope into the hedge. Harry closes the door. He hopes Millie is somewhere far away, somewhere warm and safe.

  Daphne

  MARCH 3, 2010

  Daphne takes a fresh scribbler, a pale blue one this time, and writes the date—March 3, 2010—on the cover. Under “Subject,” instead of “Me” she writes “Daphne.” She looks at the name for a long time. It’s quiet in the house, and she wonders if her father and Elinor have gone out somewhere. What day is it? It’s Wednesday, because she had a session with Sandra this morning. She wanted to show Sandra the pink scribbler, but Sandra told her to keep it. “You’re not writing this to me,” she said, “you’re writing it to yourself.” But she doesn’t feel that the woman she is writing to is her. It was her, but she doesn’t think she is still that person. That person no longer exists. She opens the scribbler and starts writing to her anyway.

  * * *

  —

  What you loved was this, wasn’t it: the line disappearing up the straw. It was like those vacuum cleaner ads you used to watch with your dad. The first time you tried it was in Kyle’s father’s car, and you nearly choked. You ended up blowing coke all over the dash. Kyle was like, “Whoa, there, Daph, it’s supposed to go up your nose,” and started scraping it back into lines with his mom’s Costco card, like a kid clearing snow off a hockey rink. You ended up getting more road dust than coke up your nose, but you got the hang of it.

  And that day in the restaurant, you didn’t even know the stuff was in you until you looked in the mirror and saw yourself smiling instead of feeling like a bag of dicks, which you generally did most of the time, and when you came out you were able to talk to the table, you and Paul could exchange looks that said you were smart but not show-offy smart, even though you were, and you were sexy, like let’s-get-out-of-here sexy. And look what happened when you touched Paul under the table, just a little exploratory pressure, a promise for after lunch. You saw his eyes lose their focus and the fierceness in his face change to desire. Of course, you were quite fond of the buzz, too. It was social. You actually wanted to talk to people, to show an interest, and you couldn’t do that when you felt like shit. The world shifted a little when you were high, the top of your head tingled, everything fell into place, the lights in the restaurant ceiling stopped jiggling, the music coming from behind the bar sounded off on purpose, like it was jazz.

  It was good to see Prof Curtis and Alyssa again, and that they remembered you. You didn’t go back to classes after Christmas break last year, and here it was almost Christmas again and they smiled at you and you smiled back, which you gathered was what adults did when they saw one another after a lengthy absence. You were less clear about how the four of you came to be here in this restaurant at the same time. But you had become used to being less clear about things. You called it being more accepting. You looked at Paul, but he wasn’t smiling. He seemed tense. He always seemed tense.

  You remembered when you and Paul were on Browne’s Beach, in Barbados, Paul relaxed for once, how beautiful his tanned skin was, the gold chain against his brown neck, the grains of white sand that stuck to his thigh when he stood up and he didn’t brush them off, so you did. You bought ice cream cones and handed them to the children, their mothers watching impassively from their tourist stalls. You liked the heat, the sun pressing you down into that white, white sand. Your breath coming in wavelets as you watched Paul move up the beach. He walked close to the water, where the sand was wet and hard. It was mostly weed in Barbados, but Paul got some coke somewhere and you did it off the inside of his arm in the hotel room, hoovered him like the greedy insect you were, and when you licked his golden skin he tasted like the ocean. Even now, remembering the insistent sound of the tide on the dark beach made you want to dive in, and when you heard Paul’s distant voice saying it had all been arranged you did a double-take.

  “What is?”

  “What is what?”

  “All arranged.”

  “Dinner,” he said, giving you the look that said you’d been drifting off again. You smiled around the table. Professor Curtis and Alyssa were also looking at you. You recognized the professor’s light-brown corduroy jacket with the dark brown elbow patches. English Department issue. Winston Curtis. You used to call him Professor Courteous. Alyssa called him Wince.

  “How’s everyone’s wine?” you asked.

  “We’re all fine,” said Paul.

  “Still half a bottle over here,” said Professor Courteous. “May I top you up?”

  “I was just thinking about Barbados,” you said, holding out your glass, smiling at Paul and squeezing his leg, but definitely losing cabin pressure, altitude decreasing, landing gear stuck. “Why,” you asked the table, “when a plane lands, does it make a sound like someone’s sawing off the wings?” You eyed the wine going into your glass, willing it not to stop. “And why do they give you a ten-ounce glass if you’re only supposed to have four?”

  “Why is generally not a fruitful question,” said Professor Courteous.

  You took a sip, and it was good. It took away the Tylenol taste from the coke. And it made you think of your father. You used to watch baseball on TV with him and drink Sprite. That was in White Falls. But you were over that now. You’d moved on. You thought you should write and tell him that. Or maybe you already had. Time had become a bit slippery. These were not fond memories.

  “The Caribbean,” the professor said, as if he were about to deliver a lecture. “Wouldn’t Barbados be nice about now? We go to Mexico, Melaque, on the west coast.” He turned to look through the glass doors to the patio. “To get away from all this white stuff.” You looked at him in alarm: what white stuff? But he only meant it was snowing. In Vancouver, of all places. Piling up on the metal chairs and tables on the patio, looking like candy floss under the coloured lights strung from the branches of an arbutus, glowing even though it was early afternoon. “It’s blowing a tempest out there.”

  “Blow, blow, thou winter wind,” you said, and the professor laughed. An English
Department game, at which you once excelled. “Something something man’s ingratitude.”

  “Thou dost not bite so nigh,” the prof said, “as benefits forgot.”

  “Never had a job with benefits.” This was met with polite laughter.

  “Never had a job,” said Paul, not unkindly, but it stung.

  “I have to go to the ladies’,” you said, removing your hand from Paul’s thigh. The professor and Alyssa studied their menus. It was the third time in half an hour. Fourth. Paul’s face took on his chiselled look.

  “So soon?” he said. He thought you had more coke in your bag, but you didn’t. Well, you thought you might, a light dusting maybe, you needed to check.

  “It’s the wine,” you said, although you hadn’t had that much.

  Professor Courteous got up as well. “Diuretics, in my case,” he said.

  When you were both in the narrow passage leading to the bathrooms, he said, “Your father called me last week,” and you were staggered. Literally, your shoulder slid down the wall.

  “What?”

  “Your father. He asked me if I’d seen you. He wanted to know if you were still coming to classes, if you were all right.”

  “What did you tell him?”

  “I’m afraid I was a bit Jesuitical. I said you were fine as far as I knew. I said I’d try to get in touch with you, and so here I am. Are you all right, Daphne?”

  “I’m fine, Professor Curtis. Why would my father call you?”

  “He said he’d been trying to call you. Left several messages.”

  “Oh, I never check my messages. Well, tell him I’m fine.”

  “Can’t you tell him yourself?”

  “No. I’m taking a break from my father at the moment. I am not communicating with him.”

  “Oh. Have you told him that?”

  “I wrote to him, yes. What day is this?”

  “Thursday.”

  “I think I wrote Tuesday.”

  “You wrote to him to tell him you weren’t communicating with him?”

  “Yes, exactly. I told him I needed to take a break from him.”

  “What does that mean, to take a break from your father?”

  “From our relationship,” you said. “I’m taking a break from our relationship.”

  “May I ask why? He may want to know.”

  “Five fathoms deep my father lies, and of his bones are coral made.”

  The professor smiled. “You were our shining star,” he said.

  “But that was in another country,” you said. “And besides, the wench is dead.”

  He pushed on the men’s door. “Perhaps only a borrowed likeness of shrunk death?”

  Whoa, what was that, Romeo and Juliet? Was that a good sign? “Are you holding a place for me, Professor?”

  “In my course and in my heart, dear girl. I’ll tell your father I saw you.”

  “Tell him I’ll call him when I’m ready. And I might, you never know.”

  But you did know, or thought you did. Stars crash and burn, and no one notices until it’s too late. By the time anyone sees a star go out it’s been dead longer than they’ve been alive. You marvelled briefly that your father called Professor Curtis, as you wondered which stall to go into, and at how Professor Curtis could be so unlike your father and yet remind you so forcefully of him. Grey hair, you supposed. Two legs, ear on either side of the head. Younger wife. Abandonment issues. No mystery at all, really. Of course they were in touch, they were practically the same person, both on the same surveillance team. You went into the second stall. But you didn’t need to pee. You locked the stall door and sat on the toilet lid wondering how long would be convincing. The Ziploc bag scrunched up in your purse was empty but still cloudy. You turned it inside out and rubbed the plastic against your gums. A star turn. But you were definitely in a tailspin now. The wine wasn’t cutting it. You leaned back and looked up at the white ceiling, imagining it was sand, seeing your footprints spread out before you like a magic carpet. A smoke detector blinked above your head, like a passing jet, and you heard the wind screaming through the struts. When you put your elbows on your knees and held your head, your scalp felt like yesterday’s roasted chicken.

  You looked up when the washroom door opened.

  “It’s me, Daphne. Alyssa. Are you all right?”

  “I’m fine, thanks.”

  “Winston asked me to come in and check on you.”

  Ah, yes. Courteous Wince. “That’s nice of him. Please tell him I’m okay.”

  “It’s just that you’ve been in here a long time.”

  “I have?” You felt for your watch. You could do this. Flush the toilet for show. Straighten your skirt. Stand still for half a second to get your balance. Your right foot wobbled, the goddamn heel must have been coming off. Be careful on the tiles. Unlatch the cubicle door. Smile. Check yourself in the mirror. Not too bad. Not beautiful, not too smart, but not bad. Alyssa was looking at you critically. You were taking her course at UBC when you quit—twentieth-century women novelists, Barnes to Messud—even though you were Elizabethan by temperament. You were only smoking weed then, maybe a tab or two of acid on weekends. You told her you found her course empowering. What was she staring at? She looked sad. You ran your tongue over your front teeth. It was like licking an emery board. Coke doesn’t make you paranoid. Life makes you paranoid.

  Paul and Professor Courteous were talking and eating and carrying on as though no one in Syria was dying, Afghanistan hadn’t happened, not a single Israeli fruit stall or Palestinian kindergarten had been blown to smithereens. Paul looked up at you like you’d just run over his pit bull and you pouted at him and shook your head.

  “What are you two talking about?” you asked.

  “Nothing,” said Paul, so you looked at Professor Courteous.

  “Paul was saying his firm has been involved in this pipeline business,” the professor said. You sensed an element of tension in the air. There’d been a lot in the news lately about a proposal to build a huge oil pipeline from Alberta to the coast of British Columbia so that oil tankers could load up in Kitimat and take the stuff to China. Since the pipeline would run through natural habitat on First Nations traditional land, there’d been a ton of opposition to it, from First Nations groups, non-government agencies, and even BC politicians. Harper’s government was trying to find legal ways to shut them all down. You’d signed petitions, attended rallies. Was the professor in favour of the pipeline? Was he that far out of touch?

  “Pipelines,” you said. “You didn’t tell me you were working on them, Paul.”

  “We’re not, exactly,” Paul said. “The firm is being consulted on some of the legal aspects, that’s all. Nothing to get upset about.”

  “Upset?” you said. “Why would I be upset? I think it’s great.”

  Just then the waiter slapped a plate in front of you, and you told him you wanted another glass of wine. Yours was half empty. The plate was heaped with Asian food. It looked like pad Thai.

  “Who ordered this?” you asked, keeping your voice light, a slight vocative uplift at the end to make it sound like, Did the waiter give me the wrong plate? Or, Is this someone’s idea of a joke?

  “I did,” said Paul. “One of the times you were in the bathroom.”

  “It’s Thai,” you said, leaning towards him as if to touch shoulders.

  “Yes, Daphne,” he said. “This is a Thai restaurant.”

  “But, gluten, Paul. You know I don’t eat gluten.”

  “Sorry, I thought that was last week. There isn’t that much.”

  “And are these almonds?”

  “You are not allergic to nuts.”

  “I know, but I don’t eat almonds. They aren’t sustainable.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “Water, Paul. Every almond
produced in California takes a gallon of water.”

  “So what?”

  So what!?

  Something wrong here. You sat back, perplexed. How could he say “So what?” He cared about these issues as much as you did. You looked at your pad Thai; no, they were peanuts. Peanuts were okay. Now Paul and Professor Curtis were talking about pipelines again. They seemed to be arguing.

  “Why not?” Paul said. “First Nations people need jobs, not little blue fish that no one but them has ever seen.”

  “But there are laws in place to protect those little blue fish,” Professor Courteous said. Alyssa was looking down at her plate. Some kind of salad. Good for her.

  “Laws can be changed,” Paul said.

  What? Wait a minute. Did Paul just say laws protecting endangered species could be changed?

  Professor Curtis sighed. “It doesn’t matter, though, does it? There’s no way the National Energy Board will approve Enbridge’s pipeline proposal. We need talk no more on it.”

  Paul had that look that lawyers get when they want you to think they know more than they’re at liberty to say. “When the legislation we’re working on becomes law,” he said, “the National Energy Board will be completely declawed. Harper’s cabinet will have the authority to override any NEB decision.”

  “But wait,” Alyssa said, aghast, “that’s what happens in a dictatorship.”

  You stared dumbly at Alyssa, the fog slowly lifting. Then at Paul. You could see he was angry, defensive. His face was red, and he avoided looking directly at anyone. You thought of a little boy caught in a lie. You might even have found that cute, if it hadn’t been such a big lie. A lie that you’d been living for an entire year. You wanted him to say something to defuse the moment. To say he was joking. That he was as much against Harper as most of the people you knew and all the people you liked. But he wasn’t against Harper. He was working for Harper.

  “Stephen Harper,” he said, “is the duly elected leader of the ruling party of Canada. He’s the prime minister, not a dictator. This is still a democracy, for Christ’s sake.”