Shadows & Tall Trees

by Michael Kelly (ed) (retail) (epub)

  On an impulse, he opened the refrigerator door, the interior light automatically coming on. A package of twin steaks, probably being saved for Friday night, one of the cheaper cuts. Some beers. A tall bottle of inexpensive white wine. Three different kinds of lettuce. Fresh grapes. He realized he was crying.

  Reached inside. Plucked from the cluster a single cold, green grape. Put it between his lips. Bit down, feeling within his mouth the mild burst, the sudden release of juice, sweetness. It had been a long, long time since he had eaten a grape. Maybe it just felt that way.

  Don slammed the fridge shut when he realized he’d helped himself to several more of them. Opened it again, broke away the telltale stems that pointed at what was missing. Pocketed them.

  One of the photos had been knocked askew on the fridge door. He straightened it, kept his fingers on its edges a moment wondering why he was so struck by the image of husband and wife cutting wedding cake.

  In other rooms, more evidence of their happiness. A full vase of flowers, tall and fresh and colourful. One of the caricature portraits tourists buy, her all smiles and cheekbones, him squeezing her fit-to-pop with arms more muscular than any workout could produce. Don looked at the books they’d read, crammed on shelves, books they were reading, left on bedside tables. He went to the bathroom, checked the medicine cabinet. Sprayed her perfume because he loved the clean floral smell of her brand and knew he couldn’t afford it for Carolyn anymore.

  Don walked a floor plan that was the same as his, only reversed. Opened cupboards. Looked in drawers. The delicious thrill of trespass faded, replaced by a sense of familiarity that went beyond the layout; he’d had this, once. Not the rooms, the walls, the floors—those he had now—but everything contained within the space between had once been his and Carolyn’s.

  He peed in their toilet, flushed, washed his hands... and realized how long he’d lingered. A whole bladderful of time had passed. He said to his reflection, “What are you doing?” and had no answer.

  He went to the dwarf door and climbed back home. Shrinking, diminishing, crawling away.

  Carolyn came in smelling the air. “Mmm.” Saw the wine on the table, said it again; “Mmm.”

  Don handed her a glass then checked under the broiler releasing more of the delicious aroma that had already filled the apartment.

  “Steaks?” Carolyn peeked at the meat, sizzling and spitting its juices.

  “I was inspired.”

  Carolyn beamed a smile at him, bounced a little on the spot. “You got a job!” Saw his smile slip. “Oh, I just thought—”

  “I sent out more résumés. Made more enquiries. Couple of places look okay.”

  “That’s good.” She sat at the table, picked at the small bunch of grapes Don had set beside the wine bottle. Her eyes were on something far away.

  Don prepared a light salad—three different lettuces—and saw that already the leaves were browning, beginning to wilt.

  After dinner, after Carolyn’s shower (“I miss our bathtub”), they decided to make love.

  “What’s the matter?” Carolyn asked him eventually.

  “Everything,” he wanted to say. “Nothing. I don’t know.”

  “Is it me?”

  It wasn’t. It really wasn’t. Carolyn was beautiful. Don still thought so, was still as aroused by her body as he was comforted by its familiarity. He gathered her into his arms so he didn’t have to say any of this, and she believed him.

  “It’s okay,” she said. “Really. It’s just stress.”

  He stroked her hair, neither agreeing nor disagreeing, and wondered what everybody else was doing in their own homes.

  “You’ll find a place again.”

  Her words followed him into dreams of corridors that turned on him and doors that only closed.

  By lunch he’d sent his résumé and portfolio to a dozen other places. Altered copy-and-paste cover letters, “. . . be grateful if you would consider me for . . . appreciate the opportunity to work at . . . happy to negotiate . . .” Positions he’d held two promotions ago, at companies undergraduates applied to as backups.

  “What am I doing?” he asked the screen after the final “send”. He didn’t know. He never knew anymore. What else could he do? He had no answer for that either.

  The monitor was suddenly filled with the twists and turns of the never-ending pipes of his screensaver.

  Don went to the kitchen. He didn’t bother with lunch, ignored the “eat me drink me” temptation of the refrigerator, and went straight to the tiny door in the wall.

  Climbing around inside the walls reminded him of when he used to commute to work. All by himself, steering, crawling. Then there he’d be, with people again. A part.

  A floor somewhere below them housed an elderly couple who seemed to never go out. Peepholes in all their rooms, although out of respect for their privacy he never leaned his eye against the one for their bathroom.

  All day long they’d sit in the living room, watching TV. He always knew when his shuffling hands and knees were approaching their apartment by the booming noise of weather reports and commercials, soap operas and old comedies in the dimly-lit wall space. He’d sit behind these walls for hours, watching TV with them. Despite the volume, it was peaceful. Reassuring. They had succeeded. Whatever challenges they had gone through in life, they had survived. Over the long decades; first friends, then lovers, then friends again. Who now needed no conversation, just each other’s presence. In the stillness of their rooms she would rise to fix them lunch, a sandwich they would share, one triangular half for each; he would trudge over to get a blanket for her knees as she sat, tilt into his palm her day’s regimen of pills. Going to the pantry to get the other an extra paper napkin for a particularly messy meal substituted for hours of late night drunken conversations; a veined hand on a shoulder took the place of a sunny afternoon’s rolling around on a bed sheet. They had reached the clearing. They had found the peaceful pond at the end of life.

  Would he and Carolyn ever reach that green pond? Ever hold old hands, watching the dragonflies buzz their four wings above the tossed stone’s ripples?

  He crawled back to his own apartment. Stood outside the dwarf door. Shut it with his foot. Dusted his shoulders, the knees of his pants.

  An email was waiting for him.

  He used his palms to wipe sweaty hair from his forehead, then reached down to the mouse and double-clicked.

  Scanned the reply, ready for disappointment.

  Sat up.

  Have a need for someone with your background. Impressed by your résumé. A mutually convenient time for you to come in for an interview, to meet with the key members of our team. We want to move quickly on this. A fast-growing company that could use someone with your expertise. We are willing to meet your salary requirements, and offer a generous benefits package.

  He sat in front of his computer, stunned.

  After all this time.

  A projection into the near future. Acting nonchalant when Carolyn came home, then holding out the printed email. Watching her read it, then her blue eyes looking up over the top edge of the white page, at him. With admiration.

  Flexed his fingers. Cracked his knuckles.

  Fingertips on the keyboard.

  Paused.

  Typed.

  Thank you for your quick response. I do believe I’d be a perfect fit with your company. And in fact I managed the installation of the Fizzsys software you’ve just purchased, and know how to implement it across systems.

  However, something’s come up in my personal life. I won’t be available for an interview for at least a month. I need to stay here, in my home, to explore my current project, until then. I hope you understand.

  Reply to his email, twenty minutes later. Ping. Opened it, heart loud in the walls of his chest.

  They didn’t understand. The Chief of Operations was polite. Every
word was meant to be soothing. They were going to explore other options.

  He went back into the walls. Where else did he have to go?

  He was so happy in these narrow corridors! A wall away from the world and all of its demands. A space where he could just watch, passively, as life went on. Trying to forget that he had just lost a job opportunity, that money was getting tight. The big blue numbers in their checkbook getting smaller and smaller.

  Climbing up and down the storeys, crawling right and left along the passages, he wound up at a peephole he didn’t recognize. Stood up in a stoop, bringing his eye to the hole.

  Hard white wall tiles, like all the bathrooms he had seen. The mirrored door to the small medicine cabinet ajar. He realized with a start he was looking at a reflection of the wall he was behind.

  A noise stopped. He hadn’t been conscious of the noise until it stopped. Thought it was just something wrong with his ears, which happened sometimes, crawling around in all this dust. A rushing sound.

  A new sound, from the right side of the bathroom, beyond his peephole. A shower curtain sliding on its rings.

  Blinked.

  A naked body passed across the mirror’s reflection.

  A woman’s body.

  Did not blink.

  A woman’s body, from the undersides of her breasts to the curls of her dark pubic hair.

  The soft hourglass abdomen of a woman.

  Not the stylized nudity of a model in a magazine, but the real beauty of a woman’s body in natural rest, the way a trusted lover would see it. All the more erotic because she didn’t know she was seen. No attempt to suck in her stomach, flat though it was. She had a tiny tattoo on one hip. A blue butterfly.

  Through the humid air of the peephole he could smell, only an arm’s length away, the cleanness of her skin, fresh from the shower. That soapy perfume mixed with the lemon scent of wet hair.

  Her reflection turned, reached down. The breathtaking narrowness of her back sliding across the mirror, her abdomen reappearing, hand holding a white towel.

  Don’s right hand lifted from the side of the peephole. On their own, all five fingers lowered. He was outvoted. Six to one. Below the buttons on his shirt. Below his belt. He remembered the woman he’d seen in the window all those years ago, that glimpse of a future merging with this one as if there’d never been time between them.

  He stood away from the hole.

  Can’t. Not here. Not where she’d hear, maybe call an exterminator.

  Crawled quietly away, swollen, aching. Down, up, right, left, getting frustrated. Where was his release? Carolyn would be home soon. Where was his door?

  And finally. Following the trail of his knees in the dust. The dwarf door.

  Pushed it open, crawled out. Stood and toed the door closed, breathing heavily.

  Reached down. Slapped at the dirt on his pants.

  “Don?”

  He jerked around.

  Carolyn, by the refrigerator, staring at him.

  “I thought I heard something. Behind the walls. I was investigating.”

  He showed her his dusty palms, a gesture to keep her gaze up, away from the tallness in his pants.

  “Filthy,” she agreed.

  “Why are you home so early?” Don set the kettle on the stove.

  “Early?” She checked her watch, a beautiful bracelet model he’d bought her for the first birthday she’d had with him. How long before they’d have to sell it? Say goodbye to their happy past, one piece at a time. “Don, it’s almost seven. Same time I always come home.”

  Yes, because she worked late now, didn’t she. Had to. Just so they could afford even this place.

  “Really? It’s that late? Sorry, I’ve been caught up with things.” He went to the fridge, started removing items for their dinner.

  “Don? Don. Stop that a minute, will you? Don!”

  The kettle was whistling. Neither of them went to it, the shrill boiling point prolonged in being ignored.

  “It’s good you’ve been busy,” Carolyn said. “Did you—”

  “I’ve got to make dinner.”

  Don went to the fridge again but he didn’t open it. Only looked at the blank face of it, his back to his wife.

  He heard her sigh. The kettle went quiet.

  “Fine,” she said. “I’m going to take a shower.”

  Don thought of the woman somewhere below him, towelling herself dry, and said, “Fine.”

  Don watched her silhouette through the shower curtain, admired the way it turned, showed him this curve and that. Her hands went to her hair. Her hands played over her own body.

  He undressed, wondering at what he was doing even as he did it and deciding that he liked it. This was good. Steam was filling the room and from within it came the gentle sigh of a woman enjoying her shower. Don dropped his clothes at the sound of another and went to the curtain, pulled it aside, and startled the woman he found there.

  “Don!”

  “I’ve got your back,” he said.

  She seemed embarrassed as she hooked the shower nozzle back up.

  “I mean, I’ll wash it for you,” he said, stepping into the tub.

  “Don...”

  He lathered his hands with soap—”don’t we have something lemon?”—and ran the suds down her body. He kissed her. “You remember that time by the pier?” he said, slipping wet hands over her breasts, under them, kissing her neck. “Remember?” he said. Quietly.

  She closed her eyes. He turned her around so her back was pressed to his chest and she leaned against him. He reminded her of their walk, their time in the arcade, all the while soaping her and kissing her, and sometimes she would reach behind for him. The shower was hot and good.

  “Remember you talked about getting a tattoo?”

  Carolyn chuckled softly and turned to him, still pressed close to his body. “I remember. Something lame, like your name in a heart or ‘I love Don’ or something.”

  “You should. Get one, I mean.”

  She smiled at him. Said, “Silly.”

  He caressed her hip with his thumb.

  “A butterfly,” he said. He tried to kneel, to kiss where he imagined it, but this tub was cramped and he slipped. Grabbed the goldfish curtain to stay balanced.

  “I’m too old now,” she said, taking him in her hands.

  The water was losing its heat. Not yet cold, but no longer running as hot as it had been.

  “Too old?”

  Carolyn tried to raise him back up. He shook her off, did it himself. “All right,” she said, “maybe when we can afford it then.”

  The water beat down on them with its chill.

  “Don? What’s wrong?”

  He said nothing. Stared at her hip.

  “Are you crying, Don?”

  “Soap,” he said. “I’ve got soap in my eyes.” He tried to step out of the tub but the fucking curtain clung to his skin. He tore at the fish, slipped again getting out from under the spray.

  “Don?”

  “I need a towel.”

  “What about my back?”

  But he was already gone, wiping his face dry. Wet footprints marked his dripping exit.

  They ate dinner in silence.

  The crawlspace was always warm. There was something reassuring about the closeness of the walls. A swaddling of wood frame and plasterboard, hard edges softened by dust. He traversed them easily now, turned his body sideways, crawled, pulled himself up using crossbeam supports or lowered himself through narrow spaces that embraced him all the way down. One couple down here had a young baby and it was worth the effort sometimes to share bedtimes. Don listened as the father he never was read stories to a child he and Carolyn talked about having. Once upon a time.

  He sidestepped his way through passages that pressed him front and back like armour plating. He hooked his way down, across,
up, with elbow and foot, puffed the air from his mouth to clear the dust as he breathed. Walls were shields as he watched those who worked from home. In one of the ground floor apartments, a man negotiated a business deal on his phone. Don muttered encouragement and advice through the walls and when the deal was done he felt like he’d closed it himself.

  Some apartments were difficult to get to, but not impossible. Nothing was beyond his reach within the walls. He was learning where to duck his head, which wooden boards carried risks of splinters, and he knew now how to avoid them to see where couples enjoyed dinners and discussions and television. He watched a film with the young couple on the second floor, though he’d seen it with Carolyn some years ago. He’d never liked the way it ended—no happily ever after here—but tonight the couple offered their own epilogue as the credits rolled. As he watched he wondered if he and Carolyn had done that too, but couldn’t remember.

  He moved against wall and floor with the intimacy of familiarity. Penetrated deeper into the building and the lives of others it contained. He held pipes that were warm in his hands and snaked his grip along cables that guided him around and between. In the apartment directly below his own he watched a couple make love.

  “Did you hear that?”

  The woman, sitting on top of the man, thighs straddling his hips, was no longer moving. Listened, head half turned so that Don could almost see her profile.

  Don stayed silent. Didn’t even breathe.

  The woman began to move again. Rose, lowered, in his lap.

  She leaned back, the man’s arm around her waist.

  “You have such great tits,” the man said. Tried to cover them with his hands.

  Don agreed. He’s seen them before.

  He made his own noise as she did. Hers was a response to the man’s compliment, crude as it was. Don knew the sound because he remembered it. Knew what it built to.