Gargoyles

by Bill Gaston

  Her crying starts that evening.

  Neil returns from his food mission with a bucket of mussels, a bottle of what he’s been told is good B.C. white wine, and French bread. He even has a plastic baggie of butter pats. After complaining to Andy the desk guy that their brochure fails to mention there being no stores anywhere, Andrew let him buy some wine from the bar at cost after Neil agreed to tell no one, since it was “highly illegal.” Neil didn’t care for his churchy way of doing business, like there’s something wrong with you for wanting wine in the first place. Neil begged some bread too, and at the door he remembered butter. He hated bread without butter, it was one of his little things, as Joanne called them. Throw in some of those butter pats and you have yourself a deal, he joked, the joke being that, with wine in hand and paid for, the deal was already done. Andy didn’t smile, and for this and other reasons Neil was now pretty certain he was the owner, which would make him that waiter’s father. Not that it was “a deal” anyway — fifteen bucks for one skinny bottle of wine. Stepping out into the fog and aiming himself at his cabin, Neil thumbed the bottle neck through the plastic bag to make sure it wasn’t a screw-top.

  He comes in whistling, loaded down with their romantic dinner, and Joanne is curled on the couch bucking with sobs. She hears him and keeps crying as she looks up, cheeks wet and shiny, eyes red but wide open and just looking at him. And the slightest, scariest smile.

  “Where’s Vicky?” is what Neil automatically says.

  But Joanne shakes her head and says Vicky’s fine, Vicky’s been in and out, she gave her money for the evening and made her promise to act responsibly. It’s not Vicky, Joanne says.

  She says she doesn’t know what it is. She adds, “I’m fine,” before coughing into sobs again. Neil grabs her up and hugs her timidly. He asks if something happened. Before shaking her head she hesitates, which scares him. He has no idea how to hug her or for how long. He tries, “I know you miss Sears, hon, but this is ridiculous,” and she can’t even laugh. So he holds her until she settles and he hears another, “I’m fine.” Then she bravely asks him what he’s brought.

  Neil explains his day, and promises to make a proper grocery run tomorrow. He tells her you really do need a car here. Joanne nods at this and for a second he thinks he’s triggered more tears, but she takes an interest and goes to look in the bucket in the sink. He tells her his idea, which is to melt half the butter pats for dipping, but save the rest for the bread. He asks if she likes mussels and she’s unsure.

  “We’ll steam them up in that wine,” says Neil. “They’re good that way.”

  Joanne whimpers, waking him. She scrambles out of bed and Neil goes up on an elbow. Her timing, why now? He is frightened anew, speechless watching her moaning dance. At her most tearful surges she smacks her bare feet on the cabana’s pine floor, trying to make noise. Her new black lingerie rides high on her, rumpled from their sex and dark wet at the belly. It did make her look silly and older and Neil feels nothing but bad to think this about her now, as if these thoughts of his can reach her through the air and add to her horrible burden. Whatever it is. He only half-understands what she told him, and he still wants to try to find a doctor.

  Slapping at the air, she spins around, sees him watching.

  “Neil, oohh, I’m just — I don’t —”

  She seems worse. She stares fiercely at him then punches the heels of her palms into her mouth. Her cheeks puff in and out as she breathes and she gazes off now at nothing, looking truly crazy. He has come to understand while watching her tonight that, when you no longer care what you look like to others, there’s no question you’re in some sort of trouble, and for Joanne, so careful with her looks, this is twice as true.

  “Ohh!” Joanne throws her head back and this leads her in a stumble to the couch where she flops. She closes her mouth tight and forces long hissing breaths through her nostrils.

  Neil has struggled up, got his pyjamas back on, and stoops at her side, not quite touching her with his outstretched hand.

  “Sweetheart? Sweetheart, is there pain? Can you — can you feel something? Physically wrong?”

  Joanne shakes her head.

  “If there is I want to call a doctor.” He adds, almost as a threat, “I’m calling a doctor anyway.” He’s said all this before, several times.

  “Neil!” She flings her hands toward his face to stop him talking. She turns to escape him, sees something worse out the dark window, and plunges her face into the cushions to escape that too. She gathers cushions around her head. Her whimpering is muffled but Neil hears words in it. He bends lower to catch what might give him some clue.

  He hears, “I told you. I told you what it is. I told you, I told you.”

  Sure, she did. He still doesn’t know what to make of it. Over dinner — a half hour of no crying at all — she told him she was walking when it happened, when something happened. She had just climbed up from the beach, the famous wilderness beach, which had all been exactly as described, perfect. The towering old growth cedar and hemlock, the whispering breeze up in their canopy, which speaks to you. She heard a raven — it croaked at her, then clucked. She maybe saw a whale breach, a huge splash off in the distance. A couple she spoke to had yesterday seen an orca. Yes, it was Eden. In fact, as soon as she’d set foot on the beach she had thanked the place. She had said out loud to the ocean, not feeling silly at all, “Thanks for bringing me here. You were right.” Everything was perfect, and wonderful. And then, back on the trail, it happened. She stopped dead in the middle of the gorgeous trail, she looked around her, and panicked. She couldn’t catch her breath and she started shaking. Shaking, crying, holding on to a tree for support.

  When she told Neil the problem, none of it made sense to him. One thing she said was, “I knew it was all over.” No, she didn’t mean she was sad to be retired, and getting old. It wasn’t that at all. Another thing she said was, “I knew that this was it, there was nothing better than this.” To Neil’s question, “So you do like it here then?” she got angry and told him that she loved it here and that was the problem. He tried suggesting that she was overtired, which made her cry harder in frustration. He asked her if, after all the build-up, she was maybe having a little let-down? Yes! she said. A big let-down. But didn’t she just say she liked it here? Yes, and there’s nothing left!

  Though dinner was thick with this kind of talk, and Neil hardly noticed the mussels going into his mouth, Joanne said it was the best dinner she’d ever had. Neil said some garlic would have been nice, and more wine, but — look out there, the fog was gone and the stars were out. Which for some reason set her off crying again.

  Sex was her idea. Because of this and her general spookiness he was nervous, but he rose to it. There was crying in the middle, then an awkward attempt to start it up again, which somehow worked, for both of them, but then there was crying, way more crying, at the end.

  And more now. It’s the middle of the night. He needs to fix this. His hand on her shoulder, which has stopped convulsing for the moment, he decides to try to get her talking again, though it sometimes triggers the crying.

  “So, Joanne, so, Joanne, honey, are you saying that you think there’s nothing left to live for? I think there’s lots left to live for. There’s a ton. There’s way more great places to see.”

  She answers him and he drops to his knees to hear her say through the cushions, “Neil, I know. It’s not that.”

  He has an idea. “Are you thinking you maybe want to move here?”

  “No I don’t think so. I don’t think that would —”

  “Because we could.” He shouldn’t be saying this but he senses new interest under those cushions. “If, if that’s what you want. Another couple years, Vicky’s not so much in the picture and —”

  “Vicky. Go check on Vicky.”

  Neil flicks on the hallway light and silently turns the doorknob to Vicky’s room. He can’t hear her breathing so he leans in further, to see. He closes her door
and returns to the couch to sit beside Joanne, who has knocked away the cushions and is staring at the ceiling.

  “Yeah, she’s fine.”

  “What time is it?”

  “Three. Ten past three.”

  “No, I couldn’t move here,” she says. And, after a moment, “I don’t fit.”

  “Well, then it’s not good enough for you.”

  Neil doesn’t wonder, not for a moment, if that might be true. All he sees is, for the moment she isn’t crying, and she no longer looks on the verge of crying, and maybe whatever happened to her is gone. But her face says differently and there’s no way he’s going to tell her that Vicky’s not in her room. It’s like he couldn’t tell her even if he wanted to. He feels pulled in two directions, by two women he somehow no longer knows.

  The next morning, getting dressed for brunch in the restaurant, Neil pokes his head in Vicky’s room and pretends to be surprised, telling Joanne, “Hey — she’s already up and out.” And now in the restaurant — the velvet rope is down so they just wander in and take a table — Neil and Joanne see their daughter approach wearing an apron with an EdenTides logo. She has menus, a pad and pencil, and a deadpan joke going.

  “Good morning, I’m Victoria and I’ll be your waitress this morning?” Not breaking a smile she places the menus and jots on her pad. She chirps, a bit deliriously, “And you’re table one?” Neil doesn’t know what to say and Joanne has an eyebrow way up. “Alex,” Vicky tells them in a stage whisper, notepad over her mouth, “had a rough night. I’m doing his shift.”

  Neil can see her nervousness through all this, her waiting for the explosion, like the one a month ago. Across the table Joanne looks troubled again, staring but not seeing, like someone doing hopeless math in her head.

  Neil asks his daughter, “Do you know how?”

  Vicky cocks a hip and readies herself to write in her pad. “Would you like extra butter with that bread, sir?”

  “Hey, you do. You’re good.”

  “Do you mind doing this?” Joanne asks, sincere as Neil has ever seen her. Damned if she isn’t going to cry again.

  “Alex told me ten an hour plus tips.”

  Neil asks, “How about Andrew?”

  “Who’s Andrew?”

  “I think he owns this place.”

  “Alex’s dad?”

  “Thin guy, glasses, yeah.”

  “His dad’s not . . . saying much. When Alex shows up I’ll remind him he said ten plus tips.”

  “Okay.” Neil cracks open his menu and peers in. “What’s the special?”

  “Sockeye in an omelette with chipotle. It’s very fresh.”

  “I don’t know what that is,” Neil says, “but you’re good.”

  “I’m really good,” Vicky says as she curls away.

  Neil mumbles “butter” to Joanne and rises to chase his daughter. Around the corner at the double door to the kitchen he catches her by the arm. She spins, won’t look him in the eye.

  “Your mother doesn’t know.” He squeezes harder. “Don’t tell her.”

  Vicky looks up. Though no one’s in hearing range she mouthes an over-large thank you. Neil sees her bloodshot eyes, her fatigue. He releases her and she turns quickly and shoulders through the door into the kitchen.

  “Butter,” Neil tells Joanne again when he returns.

  “She has your sense of humor,” Joanne says, not looking up from the menu.

  Scanning his for sausages, spotting none, Neil weighs this. He did find her waitress routine funny. “Well, I guess maybe she does.”

  After a time Joanne says, “I hope Alex learned a lesson.” She seems to have figured the math out in her head.

  “She looks good in that getup,” Neil says. It’s true. She’s showered — she’s had herself a shower somewhere — and looks fresh. Her shirt is buttoned all the way up, and not a wrinkle in that apron. Sometimes his daughter can look slutty, and though it’s how they all look these days he doesn’t like it. Despite the night, this morning she looks good, a good employee.

  “Anyway, Neil” — Joanne puts her hand over his — “I’m feeling better. You helped.” She pauses, pulls her hand away. “I know what happened now. I healed. I had to heal, and I did.”

  He really hopes it’s true that she’s better. He thinks he’s tearing up now himself. He’s so tired. This vacation has been . . . like some sort of trial. He directs his gaze out the window. The fog is thinner. There’s wind in there swirling it around. He doesn’t like this place.

  “Hey,” he says, “you haven’t had a good cry like that in a while.”

  “No, I guess I haven’t.”

  “So you’re feeling better.”

  “Let’s play cards tonight. Let’s get a deck of cards. And two bottles of wine.”

  “Two. Holy cow.”

  “I’m on vacation.”

  “Yes you are.”

  “I’m retired.”

  “Welcome to the big vacation, then.”

  “Thank you.”

  Joanne lifts her water glass and so does Neil. They clink them. He finds her eye, and there she is, it’s her. There’s that confidence she has when she gets the high bowling score, or sometimes when she comes home from church.

  “So, was that some of that super menopause I was warned about?” He chuckles, and she blinks rapidly and looks out the window. “Sorry, sorry — that was some of my famous sense of humour.”

  “It’s okay.”

  “Sorry. Can we do this again?” He raises his water glass, but she doesn’t. Instead she asks him to remind her to phone Raquel, who had her scan yesterday.

  Vicky comes for their orders and both want the sockeye special. Neil asks Vicky if she wouldn’t mind checking what the house dressing is and Vicky says yes and thanks him, saying it’s something she should know. Neil is just beginning to feel okay about things, about his wife not crying any more and his daughter doing a good job, when the desk guy — Andrew, the owner — appears at their table, breathing heavily. He almost shoulders Vicky out of the way. His face is so slack it takes a second for Neil to realize the man is angry.

  “Was it you,” Andrew begins, catching his breath. “Was it you, who took those mussels, down in front?”

  “Yesterday? Down here?” Neil points at the window.

  “From the resort beach — was that you?”

  Trying a little half-smile, Neil looks up to face him. He is aware of a table of ladies, and his daughter and his wife, paying close attention.

  “Hey, we wanted some, you know, some solstice-mussels. There a problem?”

  “Can you read?”

  “Can you run?”

  Joanne’s hard hand pins his to the table, and the guy asks if that was some kind of threat. Neil can feel his leather vest tight over his grey T-shirt, which is tight as well. His heart is going pretty good. He hasn’t been in a fight in too many years.

  Andrew jabs his finger and hisses, way too loud, that the brochure explains clearly, as does the laminated card on the back of the bathroom door, that no harvesting of shellfish is allowed on the property, just as guests are not to pick wildflowers or — and here the guy’s hiss becomes a shout — “chop down the bloody trees for firewood.” He asks if Neil even noticed what he “brutalized,” that there’s now an ugly square of bare rock, “ruining a pristine beach that is no different than a garden.”

  Neil speaks softly. “This is my wife, Joanne.” He shakes a finger at her. “It’s her retirement vacation.” He glances at her, expecting to see her in tears again, expecting at least an expression that will help his point and make this guy Andrew feel bad. He is surprised to see her clear-eyed, looking almost bored, like what’s happening here at their table is nothing much.

  “And — and this is my daughter, Vicky, doing your son’s job. Maybe when he gets out of bed you can get him to, you know, glue a bunch of mussels from someone else’s beach back onto yours.” Using only his nostrils to breathe, Andrew widens his eyes at this but he does
n’t move. Neil sees that his glasses are dotted with salt spray and that the knees of his pants are wet. This guy has been down on the beach, really upset about his rock.

  “Okay, no, seriously,” Neil continues, trying actually to be helpful now, because the guy is still just staring, and hasn’t been thinking straight, what with his kid out all night too. “If you took all the rest of the mussels off that, you know, rock outcrop, it would look better. Really, it would look okay. It would be, you know,‘uniform’.” Andrew is still staring. “I could give you a hand. Hey, you could add them to the menu. A mussel special. You know, they’re pretty good if you steam them in a little wine.”

  He turns to the window. Above are drifting cuts of blue, and he can see down through moving gaps to distant black water, not unlike the view from a landing plane. The remaining fog seems to be churning in fear of the sun. He has just been given public shit and is embarrassed at having been friendly in return. He hopes the guy knows he has been let off easy.

  But Andrew, who only now identifies himself as the owner of EdenTides Resort, quietly tells the three of them that he won’t instigate criminal charges, or enforce the specified $500 vandalism fine, or charge them for the two nights, or for this brunch. He does insist that he and his family vacate the premises as soon as they finish their meal.

  “You get paid?”

  Hair dripping from the shower, Vicky is getting her suitcase-on-wheels together.

  “I sure did.”

  “Atta girl.” Neil is glad she doesn’t mention the twenty tip he left her. “It’s good you finished your shift. Mom says you even went in back and helped with clean-up.”

  Vicky says it was the most passive-aggressive thing she could think of and Neil has only a fleeting sense of what his daughter might mean. Nor does he know what to make of what he overheard her telling her mother, when Joanne asked if she’d seen Alex today and Vicky told her with a sassy little smile, “I left him crying beside the walk-in fridge.”