by Wayne Grady
“Anyone going for a beer?” he asks.
* * *
—
The evening, as they walk to the pub, is cold enough to stiffen his damp hair. He thinks about wearing a hat. A fedora would lend him a certain air of gravitas, or perhaps intrigue. Maybe he should hire a private detective. In the Simenon novel, the businessman’s wife hires a detective, and in the Reginald Hill on the nightstand by his side of the bed, come to think of it, Pascoe and Dalziel are investigating a missing-persons case, a woman much like Elinor. He’ll try to finish it tonight. Elinor disapproves of his mystery reading. Apart from psychology journals, she reads only what she calls “serious fiction.” But if he hires a detective and the detective succeeds in tracking her down, what will be clear then that isn’t clear now? Where she is, who she’s with, so what? What difference will that make? That she’s had a secret life he didn’t know about for years, a furnished apartment across town, a second cell phone, a separate identity? Will that make him feel any better? Why she left him will still be a mystery. Perhaps mere mortals aren’t meant to understand mysteries. At least he’d know she isn’t wandering around in a strange city, Cape Town or Johannesburg or Pretoria, her mind a terrified blank, or that her body isn’t lying in some park under a thin covering of sticks and leaves.
Jesus! He hasn’t thought of that. The image hits him so hard it drains the locomotive power from his legs and leaves him standing stock-still in the middle of the sidewalk. He pretends to read a quote from one of Matt Cohen’s novels, The Bookseller, printed on a plastic-coated display beside the sidewalk: “That’s what Judith was mourning,” he reads, “the fact that people could outlive love the way they outlived everything else.” Is that true? Do we outlive everything? Why would anyone mourn that? But he wishes he hadn’t thought of Elinor lying in a shallow grave; it makes the thought of her in bed with another man tolerable by comparison. He can imagine her having an affair. He can even imagine her suffering from a spell of amnesia, something she can recover from. But not that other, final thing. Although now that he’s had the thought he can’t get it out of his head, her white hand emerging from a bed of freshly disturbed earth. He makes a conscious effort to erase the image, succeeds only in bringing it more sharply into focus, her manicured nails, a pale band where her wedding ring used to be. Is he having a psychic experience or does he just read too many goddamned mystery novels? Detectives are supposed to restore order, catch the criminals, punish the evildoers, but now they so seldom do. No one does. Look at chaotic him, with his colonoscopy and gastroscopy, his paunch and clicking knees, a daughter who wants nothing to do with him and a wife who’s vanished into thin air. Who’s going to restore order to all that? He flips through mental channels, away from the shallow-grave scenario, to one in which Elinor is in bed with a Reichian therapist, a man closer to her own age and profession, in the prime of mid-life, a man who never asks her where his keys are or says there’s nothing in the fridge. She is happy. They aren’t making love, they’re just lying in bed, marvelling at their euphoria, their complete absence of disappointment, how it never happens anymore with their respective spouses. Painful as it is to watch, he keeps his mind on this channel until they reach the pub.
In the Cock & Bull, surrounded by the talk of men who, let’s face it, he barely knows, he finds himself thinking about Elinor surrounded mostly by men at the university whose lives beyond academia are a complete assumption. Any one of them could be a threat. Does she check out each seminar room she enters to see if there are other women present, or clear escape routes, possible weapons? Is that why she’s leaving the university, because she doesn’t feel safe there anymore? There was a time when Harry would have said Elinor was able to achieve a level of genderlessness, she could talk person to person rather than woman to man or woman to woman, but maybe he was wrong. Maybe the trouble is that she has to insist on being seen as a woman, and that’s why she wants to go into practice with Sandy Hedley, with another woman. Maybe they’ll take only female clients. Eighty percent of early-onset bipolar sufferers are women in their mid- to late twenties. Is she teaming up with Sandy because she’s tired of the constant struggle to be heard?
But what about this conference or whatever it is? How can she talk to a man without being aware of the dynamics of the situation, wondering if her third button is done or undone, her husband a continent away, the empty hotel room upstairs, the bed ritually purified every morning by the invisible chambermaid? Even if she rejects the idea, really does want to be free of all that, isn’t it there all the same, planted like a seed dropped by some passing bird of paradise? He can be sure the man is thinking along those lines. Will she check to see if he’s wearing a wedding ring, imagine his beard scratching her cheek, wonder if he’d take his watch off? Would he stay the night or get up afterwards and sneak back to his own room, hoping no one would see him in the elevator? A pathetic figure, making her feel pathetic as well. She’d get up after he left, put her clothes away, not wanting to see them lying on the floor in the morning like an accusation. Then she’d have a bath, turn on the television to watch a movie, try to forget the whole thing happened. Try to imagine herself safe again. Try not to think of Harry.
All things considered, apart from the shallow-grave option, he’d rather she were wandering around in a trance somewhere, or even that she’s simply dumped him, realized he was just another rusted part of the patriarchal machine, and vanished without a trace. He doesn’t want to think she is having an affair. He’d rather be the outmoded cog than the cuckold any day. No one feels sorry for a cuckold. Everyone assumes he deserves it. Including the cuckold.
The talk around the table dies out, and Harry realizes he hasn’t been part of it. The last pitcher is distributed into nine glasses, everyone raises a toast to Bernie’s health and quick return, and Simon calls for the bill. They each throw a twenty into the middle of the table.
“Gotta go to the can,” says Harry, getting up. “See you guys next week.”
In the bathroom, after using the urinal, he checks his phone for an email. An invoice from a wine wholesaler, another from Wine Spectator telling him his subscription is past due. Maybe he’ll let it lapse. Nothing from Elinor, nothing from Daphne. He wonders if Bernie will be all right. Sure he will, he’ll be there next week. They’ll have lunch before the game and drink two glasses of wine. Elinor will be home by then and he’ll leave early, not come out for beers. The guys will shake their heads knowingly, Simon will say you dog you, and he’ll laugh. Bernie will walk with him to the Spadina subway station. He washes his hands, looks at himself in the mirror. He looks angry. There are some great wine-growing regions in Mexico and Argentina. And the Okanagan. He doesn’t have to go to the States. He’ll take Daphne on that wine tour.
When he leaves the men’s room, all his buddies have gone. His coat is waiting for him, draped over the back of his chair. He sits down and orders another beer. Unlike Bernie, he does not have to hurry home. When the beer arrives, he takes out his cell phone and touches Daphne on his Favourites list. The phone rings and rings, then her voice invites him to leave a message.
“Hi, Daph,” he says, “it’s me. Call me when you get this.”
Daphne
MARCH 4, 2010
You waited five minutes, checked the front window to make sure Paul and his clients were gone, then retreated to the bedroom to clean yourself up and pack your things. First you went to his dresser, where he kept his stash, and did two much-needed lines before going into the ensuite to run your hand under cold water. You were bleeding quite satisfactorily. Paul should have been more empathetic. You could have bled out on the living room floor, for all he cared. You looked up at yourself in the mirror. Who could not feel sorry for that face?
You remembered the day last November when Paul took you to Salt Spring Island to see the new cottage. It was a mild winter, compared to this one. Taking the ferry from Tsawwassen was like floating through chill
ed fluid in some science-fiction world. Large black birds dove for fish below the sea’s misted surface, a sense of stillness rose from the water. A little creepy. For those rich enough to live on them, people like Paul, the Gulf Islands represent uncorrupted innocence. Not their own, but one they could buy into. Was this Paul demonstrating his ownership of the natural world you now know he was being paid to destroy? Nothing personal, you understand. Justice is blind. Besides, it’ll all grow back.
You barely spoke once the ferry entered the shelter of the islands. You felt as though you were travelling into another, older time. Even Paul seemed to revert to a state of impatient adolescence as the boat drew nearer to his island. He paced about on the passenger deck, pointing out the rocky outcroppings and cliffs that were part of his property as though they were living characters, guardians of his magical kingdom. You thought of a line from Jane Austen: “What are men to rocks and mountains?”
Your car was the first off the ferry; he drove it like a jockey bursting out of the starting gate. The muddy road leading to the cottage had been newly bulldozed into the forest. The cottage, as Paul called it, was monstrous, an ugly piece of male architecture, how could you not have seen that? All peeled logs and glass, sharp angles, peaked roofs jutting up everywhere there was a view. The interior was only half finished, with fresh drywall, plywood floors, none of the trimwork done. It was noon and the workers had either gone home or into Ganges for lunch. You felt a point had been reached in your relationship from which there was no going back: you were no longer sharing just his present. He wouldn’t, would he, show you the cottage and then say you weren’t going to be staying in it. It was like introducing you to his mother, which, incidentally, he still hadn’t done. You’d met his father at the office, but you’d only spoken to him through an open door. You didn’t want to interrupt him, surely he was busy finding ways to make clear-cutting illegal. You believed Paul’s colleagues, those likeable rogue lawyers, came over in the evenings after spending their days nailing down evidence of mismanagement of the cod stocks. You welcomed them like heroes.
Paul said he wanted your opinions, but you felt it was more like a test. What about a fireplace in the bedroom? Definitely. Real or electric? Real, of course. What colour did you think for the curtains? Did you like the view from the master bedroom?
“Every prospect pleases,” you said, then bit your tongue in case he knew the rest of the quote—“and only man is vile.” But of course he didn’t.
You were afraid to seem too confident. You pushed aside the thought that he was showing you your future home, that he was subtly—in a way he could deny if you refused—asking you to move in with him. Look around you, all this could be yours. You trembled to assume. You’d only known each other for a couple of months. What if you acted like you knew what he was doing, but then he didn’t do it? What if, seeing you in his dream house, he realized you didn’t match the decor? A jumped-up English major from the boonies. But if it was a test, you must have passed. He must have mistaken you for someone who didn’t need a career. You like pot lights? Then pot lights thou shalt have. Beaten copper instead of ceramic? Nice touch. Look at these paint chips: Malibu Beach? Beautiful. He didn’t want the cottage to be too masculine, he said, even though the whole place was a four-thousand-square-foot man cave. He could have hired a decorator, he said, but he wanted his woman’s softening touch.
“Or maybe your woman’s hardening touch,” you said, reaching for him. He actually chortled. You’d never heard anyone chortle before.
“Can you see yourself living here?” he asked when he was showing you the ensuite. “In the summers?” The bedroom and bathroom together were bigger than your apartment in town. There was an open tiled shower with a rainforest shower head, and a Jacuzzi bathtub on a dais surrounded by floor-to-ceiling windows with a panoramic view of Captain Passage. The mirror above the double sinks had a television screen set into it so he wouldn’t have to miss the stock reports while he was flossing.
“I know you think there’s someone else,” he said. “But there isn’t. There’s just you.”
“Just little old me?” you said, moving in to him and undoing his pants. “That’s a lot to handle.”
“Think you can manage it?”
“It’s a lot to take in all at once.”
He chortled again. By the time you finished christening the bathroom and were heading back to the car to catch the ferry, the workers had returned. There were three of them, doing something in the basement that required a lot of drilling and swearing. One of the vehicles parked beside Paul’s Subaru must have been Wendell’s van, but you didn’t know it at the time.
* * *
—
But here, in the Point Grey house, you were holding your hand under the faucet, letting the water wash the blood off your palm and thinking you’d finally come to your senses. It was a deep cut, it kept coming back red, but it was curiously painless. A couple of oxys had smoothed out the rough edges of your day. It was crazy, being in this house. You’ll go back to school, finish your BA, go on to get an MA, get yourself back on the shining-star track Professor Curtis talked about. Call him and tell him that you want to finish second year, go into third year and do an undergrad thesis on the poems of Sir Walter Raleigh, what did he think? It was never too late. You saw yourself walking to the professor’s house, your head full of Elizabethan poetry. Come live with me and be my love, and we will all the pleasures prove. You had great ideas. It would be a cool fall day. The touch of wood smoke in the air would remind you of White Falls, only in a good way. You’d be off coke so you could smell things again, good things: the ocean, leaf litter, cedar boughs, fresh mountain air. You thought you could be happy again. Fall was your favourite time of year. You were subtler, more tuned in to yourself. Starting now, that very night, you would take control. You’d already ended it with Paul. And your dad. You’d emailed him and told him you didn’t want him coming out here anymore, there would be no magical mystery wine tour, no more third degrees, no more feeling like a delinquent child. No more giving the wrong answers on a test you didn’t know you were taking. Okay, you had, in your past, in your recent past, acted not unlike a delinquent child. But that, too, was over.
Where was Wendell? Hadn’t you texted him? Where was your phone? You didn’t like being this far from it.
Just as you turned off the faucet you heard the front door open and thought it was Paul coming back for something he forgot, like to apologize. You wrapped a towel around your hand, went through to the bedroom and locked the door. You didn’t want to see Paul. You wanted to put on your makeup, do your hair, get changed, pack a few things, call Wendell, get out. Wendell will take you out for dinner and then to your apartment, and that would be that. End of chapter. You smiled into your makeup mirror. Good thing it was your left hand that was cut. Your right hand was steady, you were in control. You would fight this thing.
“Señora Daphne?”
Oh, God, it was Mariela.
“Señora Daphne, are you all right?” She was in the hall outside the bedroom. You could picture her standing there, wringing her hands, looking at the closed door, the blood on the handle. “Señor Paul asked me to see if you are all right.”
“Don’t come in, Mariela,” you called through the door. “I’m getting dressed.”
“Are you okay?”
“Yes, I’m fine. Can you drive me downtown?”
You didn’t have much to take. Wendell could meet you somewhere else.
“Of course, Señora Daphne, if you think.”
“Thank you. I’ll be out in five minutes.”
“Take your time, Señora Daphne.”
But you hurried. Salvation was at hand. You didn’t stop to change or even brush your hair. Your clothes looked all right. Maybe change your tights. You went into the bathroom and emptied the contents of the cabinet into a spare handbag; prescription, mostly, but who k
new what you might need? Toothbrush, eyeliner, nail polish remover. Back in the bedroom you changed your tights and threw the basics into the bag: Paul’s extra credit card, the charge cord for your phone. Where was your phone? You had it in the kitchen. Or was it the living room? You went into the kitchen to get your wallet, but it wasn’t there. You needed your wallet, it had your credit card and the keys to your apartment in it. It was on the kitchen counter earlier, but it wasn’t there now. Where was your phone? Wendell should have texted back by now. Mariela was mopping the kitchen floor. Where did she find the mop?
“Mariela, have you seen my phone?”
“No, señora.”
“Or my wallet?”
“Tampoco, señora.”
“It’s red leather. It was right here on the counter.”
“No sé, señora.”
You looked in the living room, on the sofa, on the dining table. Lots of red, but none of it was your wallet. No phone, no wallet.
“Never mind cleaning up now, we have to go. Get your coat. Quick.”
You were fleeing with nothing more than you could carry, like a refugee. You were not fleeing persecution, you were running away from your own stupidity. Where could she drop you? You couldn’t go to the apartment without your keys. The Hotel Vancouver. Your dad stayed there once and you liked it, you thought it was sophisticated and mature, exactly what you needed to be. You’d be seeking asylum at a Fairmont hotel.
“So much blood,” said Mariela.
It really was everywhere, big spidery blotches of it. Jesus, was it all yours? Who’d have thought you had so much in you?
“It’ll come out,” you said. “Don’t use hot water, it’ll set. Come on, you can do it later.”
You no longer wanted to be there when Paul got back. Let it be a clean break. Mariela’s Ford Focus was cold. It was dark out, and still snowing. It seemed worse in the headlights. The car jounced along the street so violently it made your hand throb under the gauze bandage Mariela had wrapped around it. You should have gone to a hospital for stitches. “Go to a doctor,” Mariela said. “He’ll sew you up.” He, she, whatever.
