by Anne Simpson
Well, you’ll have to forgive me – I think I did something to the cake. I didn’t know it was on the counter.
The cake was a sad-looking affair with its drunken roses, and one side had caved in completely. Roger must have put his hand in it.
I’m sorry I spoiled it.
That’s okay, she said.
The cake made her want to cry.
I just got back, but no one’s here, as far as I can tell, said Roger. Bernie took me home after the first set at the pub, because Ingrid told me to be here. But I don’t know where she’s gone. I don’t know where Damian is either. He must have gone out with Elvis.
I didn’t come to see Damian, she said briskly. I came to take a piece of cake home.
Why don’t you sit down and have a bite of it?
No, she said.
What’s wrong?
I don’t know.
How about cutting me a piece of that cake – what’s left of it.
Jasmine cut a piece of cake and put it on a china plate with sprigs of pale blue flowers, but it was only then that she realized it didn’t matter what she put it on. He couldn’t see it. She put a fork on the plate and took it to the table. He had a glass of Scotch and she could smell its smoky flavour.
The cake’s right there, with a fork, she told him.
She watched him find the fork.
I think I’ll just eat it with my hands, he said, breaking off a piece and stuffing it into his mouth.
I’m not a pretty sight, he confessed. I get crumbs all over.
She laughed.
Happy birthday, he said.
Thank you. As of today, I’m nineteen.
Nineteen, he mused. That’s a surprising age.
Surprising?
Yes, you can see everything, all the shining things that are to come.
Shining things, she said.
Don’t you believe in the shining things?
I don’t know. You always talk like this, don’t you?
Not always.
Do you think that people – well, like you – do you think people like you –
Blind people?
Yes, she said, reddening. I was going to ask you something, but it’s going to sound stupid.
Ask away.
Are you able to sense things in a way that’s, well, clearer?
Clearer than other people?
Yes.
No, he said. I’m as bewildered by the world as the next guy.
When you meet people, what’s it like? You can’t see them.
Voices just come out of the air, he said. They come out of nowhere. Sometimes people talk as if I weren’t there, because they don’t know how to talk to me. They’re usually afraid of me, and I think, why are they so afraid? I’m a human being, doing ordinary things, making the usual blunders. Getting slightly pissed right now on this Scotch. Would you like some of this very good, single malt Scotch?
No, thanks. I should go.
Keep me company.
Well, just while you eat the cake.
It’s good cake, he said. But it doesn’t go with Scotch. A person should either eat cake or drink Scotch, but not both. He ran a finger around the rim of the plate, feeling its edges.
This is one of the dessert plates, he said. My mother used to put these out for guests. It’s Limoges.
It’s pretty, she remarked. There’s a gold border around the rim. We never had plates like that. We had unbreakable plates in our house. You could throw them on the floor and they wouldn’t break, but these are as thin as robin eggs.
Robin eggs, he mused. You know – you have a musical voice. It’s a singing voice.
Thank you.
It’s sweet and full. And your laugh, it’s sort of husky and deep. It’s not what you’d expect.
I never really think about my voice, she said, sitting down in the chair next to him.
I like it, he said. Do you look anything like your voice? I mean –
She laughed, reaching out for his hand. She guided it to her face. His fingers moved rapidly across her mouth, her cheeks, back to her nose, her eyes, first one eyelid and then the other, and up to her forehead. He found her lips again, and traced the upper lip, the lower one.
She stiffened.
Ahh, he said, dropping his hand. You’re so young. So sweet.
Damian had said she was beautiful, so beautiful. It stung her to think of it.
Oh, now, you’re crying, he said. You shouldn’t be crying.
I don’t want to – it’s just –
Did I do that? Did I make you cry?
No.
She wiped her face.
Damian doesn’t give a shit about me. She put her head between her hands.
Of course he does. No. He’s fucked up.
He blames himself for what happened to his sister. I told you that.
What did happen to his sister?
She took his ATV and went down to the beach. I don’t think she’d ridden it before. It rolled over into a stream and she was caught underneath it.
Oh, that’s awful.
Damian was asleep somewhere else on the beach. He did everything he could when he found her, but she was already gone.
That’s what happened?
Yes.
Does he think if he hadn’t been asleep –
He must go over and over it, asking himself what might have been.
That must be awful for him. She pictured Damian on the beach. But even so, it’s no excuse. It’s no excuse for being a prick.
Was he a prick?
Yes. He was.
Can you forgive him?
Why should I have to? Why does it have to be me, forgiving him?
Because, he said slowly, if you don’t forgive him – okay, maybe not now – but if you don’t, then whatever he did could get right inside you, and that wide-open heart of yours could become small and shrivelled, like a leathery, old apple. Mine did.
No, it didn’t.
Oh, you believe I’m better than I am. But I’m not. It’s not as if I’ve ever learned the wisdom of the sages. I’ve failed Ingrid – I didn’t go to Lisa’s funeral, for instance, and I’m all the family she’s got. As for Damian, he could have used someone like me in his life. A man, laughed Roger softly. As if I could help him be a man.
She reached over from where she was sitting and put her arms around Roger.
You are a man, she said.
He held her, running his hand up her back and through her hair. She leaned back, away from him, but his hand kept moving through her hair. She could smell the Scotch on his breath.
Roger, she said very quietly.
There was a sound at the door that might have been a moth hitting the screen.
She took his face in her hands. She kissed him tenderly on the cheek.
You’re a good man, she murmured. A kind and generous man.
They heard an angry voice, Damian’s voice, yelling at Elvis in the backyard.
Elvis, said Roger, starting for the door, his cane clattering to the floor. What’s going on? He bent down to find his cane, hands fumbling this way and that before he found it.
Here, she said, tucking her arm into his. They went to the door and she opened it, awkwardly, since she was leading him.
Damian was standing in front of Elvis, feet apart, as if he were about to hit him. Where did you take it, Elvis? he yelled. Where is it?
Damian, said Roger.
No, no, no, no, cried Elvis.
Wait, Roger said, going forward down the step, so that Jasmine had to keep up with him. Damian, calm down. You’re scaring him.
Damian was shaking.
Calm down? He’s taken Lisa’s ashes and I’ve been looking for him for hours.
Elvis, said Roger quietly.
But Elvis walked around in a circle, his hands over his ears.
Elvis, said Roger. Listen to me.
Elvis took his hands from his ears but wouldn’t stop moving.
Did you take t
he box from Damian?
He didn’t answer. He put up one hand, his fingers clenched.
Where is it? said Roger.
He took it, said Damian. He had no right.
Lincoln’s secretary was named Kennedy and Kennedy’s secretary was named Lincoln, said Elvis rapidly. Kennedy drove a Lincoln, made by the Ford company. Hhhhh, Lincoln was elected to Congress in 1846 and that was one hundred years before Kennedy was elected to Congress in 1946 and Lincoln was elected president in 1860 exactly one hundred years before Kennedy was elected president in –
Elvis, yelled Damian, stepping forward and gripping Elvis’s shoulders, yanking him forward. Tell me.
Elvis made a roaring sound.
Stop it, yelled Roger. Stop –
Don’t touch him, Damian, cried Jasmine.
When Damian released him, Elvis backed away and his roaring diminished. Damian looked at Jasmine as if seeing her for the first time.
This has nothing to do with you, he said.
Yes, it does, she told him firmly. He may have taken something from you, but you can’t treat him like shit. You can’t treat anyone like shit.
You like to get in the middle of things, don’t you?
I don’t –
Look at you. Don’t you think my uncle is a little old for you? You’re –
Damian, said Roger.
Fuck you, Damian, she said in a low voice. I didn’t want to get in the middle of things. It was your mother who invited me here.
She could feel her eyes filling with tears, but she wasn’t going to cry. Her voice was steady when she spoke. At least your uncle is kind to me. That’s a lot more than I can say for you.
She turned to Elvis. Did you take the box?
Hhnnn, said Elvis.
You did? Where is it now?
There, he mumbled.
Where?
He pointed.
Elvis, said Jasmine. Where did you leave it?
On the sidewalk over there, he said, pointing. I opened the box and the jar fell and it went all over. He spread out his hands. But I didn’t mean to make it fall.
Damian took off, sprinting, and Jasmine watched him.
Elvis, said Roger quietly. It’s not right to take something that doesn’t belong to you. You know that.
Elvis rocked from one foot to the other.
Come inside, said Roger.
But Elvis didn’t move. He stayed where he was, rocking.
10
Then Damian ran across the road without looking for cars and found the shattered urn on the sidewalk with some ashes in a heap and some more scattered in a line like a comet’s tail he held the box open and scooped handfuls of ashes into it along with the shards of the urn but he couldn’t pick up all the ashes even when he swept them with his hands and they left a smear on the sidewalk when he stood up and went back across the road over the front lawn to the house taking the porch steps two at a time leaving the door swinging he was still shaking as he went inside and up to his room stuffing his things into the knapsack and rolling up the crumpled drawings of Jasmine and taking the car keys from his mother’s purse in her bedroom maybe he should leave a note but what would he say and instead he went downstairs and out the front door he could hardly breathe as he opened the car door and got in clutching the box setting it on the seat beside him and tossing his knapsack and the drawings on the floor then he backed the car onto the street under the spreading branches of the chestnut tree he didn’t care if they saw him leave he drove quickly up one street and down another thinking of how they’d been in the kitchen together Jasmine with her arms around Roger and Roger running his hand through her hair but seeing her like that was the same as a cleaver chopping a slab of meat on a board and he wondered what they were doing now he circled back to Roger’s and parked the car on the street where he could look through the pendant-shaped chestnut leaves no way of knowing what they’d been doing whether it had been a long time or a short time but then the screened door banged and Jasmine called out good night
9
as if nothing had happened she came out to the sidewalk with her bicycle in the dark then into a pool of street light and he could see the shape of her legs under her skirt and her hair swinging as she walked it made him want to run to her put his arms around her and she’d hold him close and kiss him but she made him angry he didn’t want her to hold him close and kiss him and he sat in the driver’s seat crying looking at her through his tears she brushed something from her face a mosquito and glanced behind her down the street there was still time and he opened the door but she’d already begun to ride away with a reflector shining one weird red eye just above the rear wheel of her bicycle and at the convenience store at the end of the street she turned the corner and sped away with her light flashing in front and he couldn’t change anything and maybe it was the last time
8
he’d see her the tears came down his face and he couldn’t stop them he couldn’t get back to what went before because it had all changed when his mother said his father wouldn’t be coming back he was sitting on the bed in his room picking at the chenille spread and he saw he could stretch the loop as long as a noodle but what will he do Damian asked he won’t have a house to live in oh he’ll find an apartment his mother told him Damian could see a large framed picture of himself on top of the bureau he was in a rocking chair with his feet sticking out in front and behind him a window that wasn’t a real window and a tree in the window that wasn’t real either and he was holding a stuffed bunny with soft fur but they’d only given it to him to keep him quiet while they took the photograph
7
and then they’d taken it away he thought of his father leaving in the orange taxi as the snow fluttered down his father who hadn’t finished the story about the dragon he’s gone back to Vancouver his mother said his mother and sister are there she reached over and put her hand on Damian’s because he was pulling at another strand in the bedspread you know sometimes people get confused so they do rash things but he didn’t finish the story Damian said twisting the loop of chenille he went away she said as if she hadn’t heard him because he had to go but you know we’ll be fine the three of us together we’ll be fine
6
Damian started the car again and slowly drove along the street turning at the convenience store there was his mother walking with her head down because it had begun to rain and she didn’t look up as he passed he almost stopped but he had to do one thing then another if he could do each thing carefully it would be all right he wouldn’t say goodbye to anyone he was shivering but it was hot hotter than before his hands clenched the steering wheel he was perspiring strange to be hot and cold at the same time he drove to the Hydro Control Dam above the Falls he knew he was done with it and all he wanted was to walk out of his life into the first pattering of rain he heard no thunder and there was no lightning but it rained hard streaming down the windshield as he sat in the parked car
5
imagining the huge crouching shape of the Control Dam by the river he recalled how happy he’d been when his father lifted him up to put him on his shoulders and the pieces of a puzzle had been far below on the floor how easily things vanished how swiftly his sister had gone too as if she had not lived it would happen to him he thought of Lisa putting his hair in pigtails all over his head and his mother laughing he heard the tumbling sound of his mother’s laughter as though she were next to him he curled up in the driver’s seat and when he woke the rain had stopped and there was a breeze several times he fell asleep his dreams vivid and fleeting night passed he didn’t want it to end
4
yes he did and now he could see the grey struts of the Control Gates with hundreds of herring and ring-billed and great black-backed gulls wheeling up and over and down he fumbled among his things and got a card out of his wallet glancing at it before dropping it on the passenger seat he got out of the car unfastened the kayak from the rack and took it down he hefted up the boat and went along the
path everything was clear to him a car passed and splashed up water as it went he felt the light spray but he didn’t want to be seen carrying a boat at this time of night or was it morning he could feel the river going past as he walked to the place where the trees grew sparsely and the rocks were jumbled on the bank there was no fence he’d been here before and he knew all along he’d do it like this but he wanted to see the first of the light in the sky even if he had to wait for it
3
he worked his way down the bank testing each rock because they were slippery after the rain and at the bottom he wedged the kayak between the rocks where it was half hidden by a screen of sumac he could make out the turbulent water then he went back for the box fitting its flaps together so it would keep all the broken things inside he was tired when he reached the yellow boat it was too noticeable it was colourful as a toy in a sandbox he shifted it out of its hiding place and stowed the rattling box with its fragments as far as he could under the sturdy cross-ribs at the bow it would be hurled out into the river but wasn’t that the point he found a sheltered place out of the rush of water and this was where he pushed the nose of the boat into the river he could feel the pull but not as much as he thought and he knew he’d be able to shove off without difficulty there were several ducks with four brown ducklings protected from the river swirling past just a few feet away he pulled up the boat’s rudder because it didn’t matter how the current took it
2
he was prolonging it perhaps he should say something some kind of prayer he hunched over the boat his fingers grasping the coaming it had begun to rain again drenching him and he shivered as it came down fiercely when it stopped a robin sang out maybe an omen the trunks of the sumacs dark and graceful against the moving water and a few drops fell from the slender leaves in a flash of amber the light increased imperceptibly so it was impossible to tell if it was fading or growing but then the dimness turned to gold the first sunlight broke through a ragged part of the cloud he looked up to the east and then at the Control Dam before passing the boat hand over hand onto the river and time wasn’t outside he could feel it through his body his head his hands his bones his skin
