Today I Learned It Was You

by Edward Riche

  Patty placed her hand on his chest above his heart and pressed down. She moved on to him and put her leg over his.

  They didn’t make love as much as they used to. Matt couldn’t recall the last time she’d initiated it.

  She slid her hand down over his belly and found his cock. Matt was only then aware of how hard he was. Patty gave him an especially violent squeeze and then cradled it as if to judge its weight.

  “There,” she whispered.

  She kissed him now, pecking and grazing his lips with her teeth. Then her tongue was against his. She climbed on him, saddling his big thighs and grinding in, reliable and familiar.

  He put his hands on her waist and lifted her, still as slight as she was in high school, so that she moved effortlessly over him, almost floating there, gliding in the air above. It was a thing they’d learned to do together.

  But now Patty was pushing herself off and sitting up in the bed.

  “What is it?” asked Matt.

  “I want to pray.”

  “Sorry . . . you want to what?”

  “I would like to pray.”

  “Pray?”

  “To give thanks, to ask for blessing. It’s beautiful, sex. It’s a sacrament.”

  “Okay.”

  “I think it is. I think I love sex.”

  “I’m glad.”

  “No, I mean, I like it more this way.”

  In the dark Matt could see she’d clasped her hands. He supposed her lips were moving, saying a grace of sorts.

  Nine

  Birches were encroaching on and compromising the one-time railway bed. Creases in their papery bark looked to have been drawn in charcoal crayon, the branches and their coin-sized leaves raised a jade scrim.

  The tree-lined route followed the river closely enough that the water was always within sight and earshot.

  One of the men observed that it was how he imagined Russia — birchy and burbling. The other man offered that he had once been, but was obliged to remain within the city limits of what was then called Leningrad and had not seen the countryside. They were walking against the river’s flow, up from the harbour toward Bowring Park.

  Their dogs turned on the sound in the same instant. The men heard nothing but knew to trust the animals and looked down the line the two crackies pointed into the brush.

  You would expect a man to crash and thrash through growth of such density, but this fellow’s passage was swift and easy. Clothes in tatters, he’d bound across the path before it occurred to the dogs to set upon him. He was over the stream as lightly as a skipping stone and with a pace that put the soft townie hounds off the chase before they’d even reached the watercourse.

  Ten

  It was unlike Mayor Olford to be late, so Alessandra assumed he had other business and couldn’t make the Parks and Public Spaces Committee meeting. The free chair at the conference table was next to hers. Terry Durnford, director of planning, was in Matt’s usual seat. Durnford went to get up when Matt entered but Matt gestured that Durnford should stay put.

  “We started,” said Alessandra.

  “Of course, my mistake, lost track of time. Continue.”

  “The matter of the new park off Kavanagh Court,” Alessandra told him.

  While taking the seat on her left Matt heavily shouldered Alessandra. “Excuse me,” he said.

  His humility hid considerable physical presence, she thought. This man was once a professional athlete. It was the first thing people in the city knew about him. Alessandra arrived in Canada after his career had ended. Even if she bothered to watch sports she would never have seen him playing his game. Why hadn’t she moved her chair to make space for him? How could she not have taken better measure of Matt? Today, he seemed a mountain.

  “Yes. Kavanagh Court. Where are we?” he asked.

  “My view is that it’s better to first establish the” — Alessandra searched for the word — “footprint of what we are going to identify as a ‘park’ and let it be used, see how people use it, before we ‘make’ it.”

  With heavy exhalation of breath, Planning Durnford let everyone know he was unimpressed. Durnford was one of those senior civil servants for whom the trappings of democracy were a nuisance, a needless accounting to the rabble. He was a prickly princess who, when questioned, was given to bureaucratic tantrums. His passive aggression was manifested in incessant, by-the-book consultation with his masters. If you troubled Planning Durnford, he would never stop sending you reports for approval. Durnford owned a shrug of exasperation, a lifting and pinching of the shoulders that said, “I am constrained by idiots.” Once cultivated, the gesture became a tic permanently recorded in the fabric of the shoulders of his jackets, crenulated folds now always framed his head. Alessandra would be happy to let Matt deal with him.

  “I’m not sure . . . my fault, I came late,” said Matt.

  “You are always making the point, Councillor Cappello,” Durnford spoke, “that we have to be mindful that Bowring Park was designed by Frederick Todd, to respect his work, and here you are now saying that in the case of Kavanagh Court you are against . . . what? Mapping out some paths?”

  “But this isn’t a proposal for a park designed by a landscape architect, is it? It’s an arbitrary pattern of trails, a generic playground, a few benches.”

  “It’s Kavanagh Court, Councillor Cappello, and the green space is an afterthought.”

  “The park was not part of the original development?” asked Matt.

  “No, and there’s no budget allocation. But there has been a lot of youth crime so . . .” Alessandra did not finish.

  “And this will help?” asked Matt.

  Nobody seemed to know the answer. Alessandra sensed that it would. Had she read it somewhere? She felt foolish not having something to cite, specific evidence to back up the proposition. Perhaps a park would only give the troublemakers shelter, make the situation in the grim development worse? Perhaps the problem was the socio-economics of this new trouble spot, the impoverished suburb. Maybe, once the poorly built houses, each indistinguishable from the next, were so carelessly thrown up, Kavanagh Court’s fate was sealed.

  “Let me get some literature” — Alessandra saw Durnford roll his eyes for the back rows as she said this — “about this, about public spaces finding their own design, and I’ll bring some case studies to the next meeting.”

  “Case studies?” said Durnford.

  “That’s a good idea,” said Matt. “Moving on.”

  “Nasal are wondering if there might be sections of the city’s public spaces set aside for the pollen sensitive community . . .”

  “Nasal?” Matt didn’t seem to know what Durnford was talking about.

  “The Newfoundland and Labrador Sinus Alliance. NALSL. They were wondering if there could be parts of the city’s parks and other public spaces set aside that were not planted with flowers or trees whose pollen is particularly bothersome.”

  “Bothersome?” Matt still seemed confused.

  “As bothersome as other plants.” Durnford looked at a sheet of paper. “They don’t like alders or ash trees. Don’t like daisies or sunflowers. In terms of grasses . . . fescue is bad. Their members are allergic . . .”

  “Hay fever . . . bad hay fever, serious symptoms.” This was said by a staffer, Julia Fahey. Alessandra could not remember her title. She looked and sounded like a girl not a woman, dressed to accentuate it. Alessandra wished she would do otherwise.

  “They argue that since we provide scent-free change rooms at municipal recreation facilities we should accommodate people who are sensitive to pollen in our public spaces,” said Durnford.

  Alessandra watched Matt turn his head toward the window. He was either considering the issue or whether he could speak his mind.

  “Cannot argue that point, I suppose,” he said. “Is this viable?�
�

  Julia had an answer ready. “Crocuses, daffs, periwinkle are better. Grasses, we are still looking into.”

  “Very well,” said Matt. “Next?”

  “The man living in Bowring Park,” said Durnford.

  “So, it’s not a band of gypsies?” said Matt.

  “No,” said Julia, “it is a single male individual. I don’t think you can call people gypsies anymore, Your Worship.”

  “He is like . . . a homeless person?” asked Matt.

  “Obviously, sort of, but he’s not homeless. We know his name.” Julia read from a document. “Harry Davenant, fifty-seven years old. He maintains a residence on Cochrane Street. Rental. Landlord has postdated cheques to next April.”

  “I know that name,” said Alessandra. “He was the artistic director of the LSPU Hall Theatre. He’s living in Bowring Park?”

  “That is the case,” said Durnford.

  “I’m missing something,” Matt said.

  “We don’t know why he’s living in the park,” said Julia. “He’s not communicative.”

  “This is a mental health issue?” Alessandra asked.

  “He was working for Sentry Security,” said Durnford. “He was making his rounds one night and decided to stay. Sentry has fired him, so now, any time after the park closes at 10 p.m., he’s trespassing.”

  “Call the police,” said Matt.

  “It’s a mental health issue,” said Alessandra.

  “They’ll take care of that,” Matt said. “I’m sure more than half of the calls the police take turn out to be mental health issues. If this man is unwell they will get him help.”

  “That is the plan,” said Durnford.

  “There are two people who know Mr. Davenant who wanted to meet with you concerning his situation,” said Julia.

  “Meet?” said Matt.

  “Meet councillors on the committee. So you and Councillor Cappello, I guess. Councillor Neary if he’d attended but . . .”

  Matt looked at Alessandra again.

  “Sure,” Alessandra said. “When?”

  “They’re here. They’re in the building. They wanted to see you right after the committee meeting,” said Julia.

  “Could they not have made an appointment?” Matt asked.

  “They could, I suppose,” said Julia. “They’re here now.”

  “Okay, have them meet us in my office when we are done,” said Matt. “I didn’t see the agenda. What else do we have?”

  Matt bid the three go ahead of him. The mayor’s office was furnished with a small couch and two chairs, fitted into a corner, for such meetings. The woman introduced herself as Natalie Sommerville. She was a towering figure, with several inches on the bald man, Lloyd Purcell, with whom she’d come, and Purcell was probably six feet tall. Alessandra took Ms. Sommerville to be in her thirties, Purcell closing on fifty.

  Sommerville took one chair and Purcell the other, so that Matt was again sitting next to Alessandra on the couch. Alessandra thought they must look like a couple at home hosting visitors.

  “We are two of Mr. Davenant’s many, many friends. Dear friends,” said Natalie Sommerville. Alessandra thought Sommerville strangely attired. She had on high-top sneakers with a long ladder of laces, such as a boxer might wear, and her khaki skirt had odd Velcro-hatched pockets. Her tight, fitted coat was of a shiny, even shimmering, ruby-hued synthetic. Her long brown hair needed brushing. “We presume to represent his interests where he has decided to no longer speak for himself.”

  “You ‘presume’?” Alessandra asked.

  “We heard,” Matt said, “that he was uncommunicative.”

  “We believe that silence is his choice and his right,” Sommerville said.

  “What’s wrong with him? Do they know?” Matt asked.

  “‘Wrong’ with him?” Sommerville said.

  “He’s not ill?” asked Alessandra.

  “And who is ‘they’?” Sommerville said.

  “Can we please start again,” Matt said. Alessandra thought, yes, that’s the thing to do, start again. “Mr. Davenant is in the middle of some sort of episode and . . .”

  “No,” said Sommerville, “he is transitioning.”

  “I don’t know the . . . the psychiatric terminology,” Matt said.

  “You see, even saying ‘psychiatric,’ that’s pathologizing him.” It was the first thing Purcell had said. “That’s like saying he’s species dysphoric. That’s not what’s going on here.”

  Alessandra wasn’t quick to read people, but something about Matt’s expression, almost squinting as if he was trying to focus, told her he didn’t trust this Lloyd Purcell character. Purcell kept looking about the office, either to avoid Matt’s eye or to take some kind of inventory. Now the woman was saying something. Alessandra wasn’t following.

  “Transitioning to . . . ?” she asked.

  “To a deer,” Sommerville said.

  Alessandra saw that Natalie Sommerville and Lloyd Purcell expected, even relished, the silence that greeted this proposition.

  Purcell’s jacket was tailored, a broad check of powdery blue ghosting the navy wool. Good wool too, she saw. And his shirt was colourfully and asymmetrically striped. Façonnable, Alessandra guessed, if not something made. Yes, it was a custom-made shirt. Yet his clothes were a full size too large for him. He was bulky, but not so long ago he’d been even bigger. He was affecting gravity, but Matt did not look convinced. Purcell was a bad actor.

  “A deer, like the animal, a deer?” Matt asked.

  “Yes,” said Purcell. “Deer, like the ruminant mammal.”

  “Cervo,” Alessandra said to herself.

  “We don’t have deer in Newfoundland,” said Matt.

  “Caribou are of the deer family,” Purcell said.

  “And moose are the largest member of the deer family,” Sommerville said. “And they are plentiful.”

  “Moose aren’t native,” Matt said.

  “Ms. Sommerville isn’t either. She’s from Ontario,” Purcell said.

  “What’s that got to do with it?” Matt asked.

  “She wouldn’t have known,” said Purcell, “that moose were introduced to the island.”

  “I confess I did not know that,” said Sommerville.

  “Momento,” said Alessandra. “Sorry, I’m confused. He, Mr. Davenant, thinks he’s a deer?”

  “He is becoming,” said Sommerville, “the deer that was always in him. It’s impossible to say if he’s a red-tailed or a caribou, and those labels have no meaning. He is foraging. If you saw his locomotion, you’d see.”

  “To be honest,” said Purcell, “I was skeptical until I saw him on the move.”

  “Is he . . . like . . . on all fours?” Matt asked.

  “No,” said Sommerville, “he’s bipedal. But locomotion is only one aspect of who or what one is.”

  “Like DNA,” said Alessandra.

  “Is DNA destiny, a dictate?” Purcell seemed to ask himself, as though he was taking note of something he would later research.

  “Has a doctor looked at him?” Matt asked.

  “This is what we need to talk about,” said Sommerville. “Why does a doctor have to come into this?”

  “Excuse me, but,” Matt said, “if he thinks he is a deer, then he’s crazy.”

  “Why?” asked Sommerville.

  “Because he isn’t a deer.”

  “So, if you judge he’s ‘crazy,’ your word . . .” said Purcell. Alessandra saw Matt wince; he knew you couldn’t say ‘crazy’ anymore. “So what?”

  “He needs help of some sort, surely.” Alessandra felt she should come to Matt’s aid.

  “He needs help to be who he wants to be. Who he always was,” said Sommerville.

  “Or might have been,” said Purcell, “if allowed. He has sov
ereignty over his body. ”

  Alessandra wanted to laugh and bit down against the urge. She must watch herself. The Sommerville woman seemed genuinely concerned about her friend.

  “Of course,” Alessandra said, “that’s his right, I suppose. But whatever is going on, it is going on in a public space. I don’t think anyone would quarrel with his choices to do whatever he likes in private, to be a deer in his own home . . . or in his own backyard, I guess. The issue for the city is the park, not Mr. Davenant.”

  “That’s where it gets sticky,” Purcell said. “His choice is to range. That’s critical to the life he is now living.”

  “Free range,” Sommerville said.

  Alessandra now sensed this wasn’t going to be a small problem.

  “Let’s make an important distinction,” Purcell continued, “between ‘living as’ and ‘lifestyle.’”

  Matt put his two hands in front of him, palms out as if he were pushing something away. Not for the first time Alessandra noticed how wrecked they were. The fingers did not run straight and the knuckle of the index finger of his right hand seemed displaced.

  “Okay, stop this now,” he said. “I’m not going to argue about the nature of Mr. Davenant’s problem or —”

  Sommerville tried to interject but Matt anticipated her and kept going.

  “— or whether you even consider that he has ‘a problem.’ Seems semantics to me. Whatever the case, he is remaining in the park after it is closed to the public and that’s trespassing, even if he thinks he’s a deer. The normal course of action would be to call the police. Would you rather we called a doctor?”