Close to Hugh

by Marina Endicott

  Hendy asks, “Has the owner requested—is it urgent?”

  Who owns the place? Some company or other, Hugh can’t remember.

  “Sort of.” Largely swoops her shiny eyes. “November first is the new lease year. If you’d like your mother to sign another year, that’s fine!” (squint-smiling to beat the band) “But I thought I could do Hugh a favour. In the circumstances.”

  Hugh can’t think. Mimi’s apartment: main floor of a nice house on the river, near Della’s. Fully reno’d, brick kitchen, expensive. A year’s lease—$30,000. You could save Jasper’s life with that. Give it to Della and unstitch her worried forehead.

  “I can’t get the place cleared out before the first,” he says.

  Largely smiles. “I think I can request an extension from the owner. November 15?”

  If he accepts her offer, he owes her, and somehow she will get the gallery.

  “No,” he says. “I’ll get onto the movers. November 1 is Saturday. Say Monday the third.” Emptying Mimi’s apartment, arranging for storage, sorting, selling—how is that going to fit in with Della and Ken’s anniversary dinner on Saturday night? It will just have to. Ken may not turn up anyway.

  Hendy interrupts. “Did your principal send a registered letter to inform Hugh?”

  Largely has that one: “A registered letter went direct to the leaseholder, of course. Mrs.—Hayden? Or is she Argylle? I’d have to check the file—I presume power of attorney covers Hugh picking up her mail, and reading the letters?”

  Ruth runs by and picks up the mail every morning. She puts it on his desk every day, every fucking day. Hugh feels the weight of unsorted mail, the blue basket on his desk, like an old woman’s body settling over his shoulders. Two old women: Ruth pointing out the basket over and over; asking him, like Della is always asking him, and his mother’s sunken eyes and sunken voice asking him: Is there mail? He’s seen that letter, he just didn’t look at it.

  “Get me a copy of the lease, will you, Hugh?” The first time Hendy has addressed him.

  Hugh is in no shape to do anything but nod. Hendy must think he’s an idiot.

  Newell is beside Hugh, gently pointing at the antique Patek Philippe on his wrist, the best thing to come out of Catastrophe. “Doctor’s appointment?”

  “Right!” Hugh leaps at Largely’s hand, shakes it. Anything to get out of there.

  By Monday. And this is what—Wednesday.

  Out of the office and on the street in a single breath. Down the street to the gallery in six more. Hard-drawn, ragged breaths, because you can’t cry in the street. It’s bad enough at the movies. People here would see, would notice and think Mimi’s dead, would come to console, to condole.

  He opens the door and stops, breathing again.

  Ruth is about to order him to Conrad, but he holds up his hands. Not to stave her off, just giving up. “Largely says I have to have my mother’s stuff out of the apartment by the first. I said okay, by Monday.”

  Ruth jumps up, like she’s going to whip over there right now and start working.

  “No, no,” he says. “Ruth, you’re the best. But wait.”

  He can hear Newell coming in behind him.

  And Della will help, and you could pay the kids to—okay, you’ll need to rent a bigger van. And a storage space, okay.

  He breathes; you can breathe, if you remind yourself.

  “Okay, okay. Ruth, I can deal with it. We knew it was coming, I just have to face it.”

  Ruth starts to weep, silently. Her dear little face in a screw.

  “She’s not going back to that apartment,” he says. “Not ever.”

  “I know, I know,” she says, all water.

  You just don’t want to know, that’s all. Hugh doesn’t want to know either.

  6. CAN HUGH FEEL IT WHEN I DO THIS?

  “Remember the fall? All about it? When did it happen?” Conrad’s always doing that, all the questions thrown on the table at once, like a card player in a tantrum. Game called on account of earthquake!

  Hugh takes a breath, stays calm. “I fell off a ladder.” He hates being medicoed. Especially by a bullet-headed lunatic with a machine-gun voice and a sense of godhead.

  Conrad swivels back to the computer to enter the data. “When?”

  “Monday morning. And then I fell down some stairs, on Monday night.”

  “Two. Ah … And how long were you out?”

  “Well, three or four hours. Dinner, then the party at Pink’s, and then I walked home—”

  “No, out. Unconscious.”

  “Oh.” Hugh thinks. Swings his black leather stool right, left.

  “Were you alone?”

  “Yes. I don’t think—I don’t know if I was out at all. I might have been.” He can’t figure out whether the safe answer is yes or no. “I don’t think I was out at all. Just winded. I thought I was having a stroke.”

  “How far did you fall?”

  Twenty feet. “Maybe ten feet.”

  “Stupid.”

  “I have put up those lights every year for ten years.”

  “Here’s a piece of medical advice, I give you gratis, for free, thrown in on the public dime: don’t climb a ladder without someone there to hold the legs.”

  “Okay.” Hugh does not wish to hate anybody else in this town. Conrad means well.

  “Did you vomit?”

  “No.” Then remembers that he did, didn’t he? He threw up red wine, all over some sink or other. He looks out the window.

  “You’re not taking warfarin, by any strange chance, are you? Double-doctoring?”

  “What for?”

  “Oh, it’s a blood thinner, also a rare treat for the rats. Poisons them dead, I promise you.”

  “No.”

  “No allergies, and you’re not a bleeder.” Conrad gets up from the computer and comes at Hugh, flashlight pointed. “All righty,” he says, jabbing the light in each eye repeatedly. “Sore neck? No? Honestly, I can’t think you need a scan, you’re talking well and it’s been what, three days. Why didn’t dear Ruthie send you in sooner?”

  Hugh remembers the casual formality of his old roaming days, when doctors hardly knew him, when they did not sit on arts boards with him or report to town council on the downtown rejuvenation project. When there was never anything wrong with him.

  Conrad presses his head all over. Gentle fingers, taking his time, like the children’s aid nurse with her freshly picked toothpick going through his head for lice, or Ruth’s fingers, washing his hair in the kitchen sink. His own fingers, rubbing his mother’s head when she was forlorn. When she lay on the bed sobbing quietly or frantically, the only thing that soothed her was a slow, repetitive pulling of fingers, combing and combing through her pretty hair. Hugh passes a hand across his eyes, waiting for Conrad to finish.

  “No bumps. Good job, you. If you notice a bump coming up in the next month or so, come back and see me. That’ll be serious. The thing that worries me”—Conrad spins Hugh round to face him— “is that second fall.”

  Hugh is surprised. “Oh, that was nothing. Five steps, maybe. Conked my head against the wall, but it was a carpeted landing. Soft.”

  Conrad shakes his head. “It’s twice in one day. Two falls, ten times the danger.” His eyes are sharp, so Hugh struggles to perk up. “Some subtle problems don’t show up right off the bat. Memory deficit, changes in cognition, obsessing … personality changes.”

  Hugh nods, looking away.

  “Experiencing violent tendencies lately?”

  “Well obviously Ruth told you about the other night. I can only assure you, doctor, that Burton had it coming.”

  Conrad nods. “I’ve met the man.” His lips pooch out, pooch in. “Look. What I’m worried about with you is PCS, persistent concussion. In some, the symptoms of concussion last. Past six weeks, those patients are almost always treated with antidepressants. In my own view, I’ll tell you what, they were depressed already, their brains already in a depressed condition. The st
andard thing is to put someone on antidepressants and bedrest, absolutely no exercise. No exertion, no excitement; no snakes, no ladders.”

  Hugh thinks of last night at Ivy’s window, the old ladder wobbling as he went up, shaking badly as he went down. His feet cramped as he reached for the ground.

  “If you ask me, Hugh, your brain was—you were already, before the fall, the two falls—already a candidate for antidepressant medication.”

  Hugh swings his black leather stool back to looking out the window.

  “As we discussed, last time you came in.”

  The leaves, fading from the first red down to burnt-out cinders, to yellow ash.

  “But you refused.” Conrad taps his pen on his table. “So what’s the unbearable part of it? Why are you here now?”

  I think about suicide all the time, with longing, he wants to say to Conrad. I can’t let myself yet—but after my mother dies, I can. She can kill me and herself. Like a leaf detaches, slips to the ground. Autumn is what happens. Everything dies.

  But you don’t say those things out loud.

  “Can’t sleep,” Hugh says at last. “Not sleeping. Never more than three, four hours. I’ve gained weight. Ruth nagged me till I agreed to come.”

  “Headaches too?” Conrad puts the pen under his nose, a black moustache. He twirls it.

  “Okay, no, I don’t have headaches. I just can’t sleep.” That sinking feeling, quite literal, as he falls asleep—sinking into the pillow, the pit full of all the things he doesn’t let himself think about all day. So many!

  “I can give you sleeping pills.”

  “I don’t want pills.”

  “Fine, I’ll give you ten of them.”

  Hugh takes the scrip, pockets it. He is very, very tired.

  “So no exercise, no stimulants. No alcohol. Nothing. No ladder climbing.”

  He’s going out the door.

  Conrad adds, now jovial: “You’re old, Hugh. You don’t want to let this get out of hand.” As the nurse comes in, Conrad shouts, so that the whole waiting room must hear. “There’s nothing shameful about being depressed. If you’d broken a leg, you’d fix it.”

  “Not depressed,” Hugh says. To the room.

  7. HUGH AND I BOTH KNOW

  On the sidewalk outside the Argylle Gallery Ivy feels absurdly shy. Maybe he won’t like her today. This has been known to happen, in the firmament of first dates. But the taste of mango comes back to her, gold melting on her tongue. The spoon through the ventilation hole, Hugh standing on the silver stepladder. She laughs and opens the gallery door.

  No Hugh. Humph.

  “May I help you?” It’s a little older lady, trim and pert-faced, coming out from the back. The one who was the server the other night. Her name.…

  “I’m here to see Hugh?”

  “Well, here I am,” the woman says. Ruby? Trudy? She lifts her eyes and hands upwards, tsking. “No, no—you mean Hugh! I’m always doing that.” Rueful.

  “You must be Ruth,” Ivy says. “I’m Ivy. Is he—?”

  “Oh! Off to the doctor. That bump on the head, you know.”

  “Good thing you made him go.”

  “I watched it happen.”

  “You did? You were here?”

  That seems to give Ruth pause. “I saw him fall down the basement stairs over at Mr. Pink’s. You were right there.”

  Oh, he hasn’t told her about the ladder, putting up the lights. “Right! It didn’t seem too bad. He got up right away. But he wasn’t quite … lucid.” Neither is Ivy; she makes a face.

  “You’re the one with the trouble over learning your lines, I hear?”

  Everybody knows. Everybody. “I am.”

  “I wouldn’t be surprised if that passed off. Once you’re through the Change.”

  Ivy looks at Ruth. Unable not to hope, it’s the saddest thing.

  “I had an awful time myself, but I’m back now, sharp as a tack!” Ruth gives Ivy a self-delighted pat, then turns and heads back into the nether parts of the store.

  The door sounds, and Ivy turns.

  Hugh, back. “Hey,” he says. She is so happy to see his face!

  He looks miserable. Afraid her smile is too big, she tries to tone it down, fails, smiles more widely. He gives her his hand, or takes hers. Both.

  “Hugh came back, did you?” Ruth calls, coming in, face bright as a new penny, copper jacket snug around her, red hat clapped on. “Then I’m off like a dirty shirt. Conrad give you the all-clear?”

  Hugh rolls his eyes. “I’m fine, I’m fine. He says I’m not concussed and Burton had it coming—thanks for that.”

  “He had to know,” Ruth says, defending herself. She gives Ivy a conspiratorial wave.

  The bell tinkles her out.

  “Thought she’d never leave,” Hugh says, still holding her hand.

  They stand there for a moment. Even with his face so drawn, it’s quite exciting to be beside him—what will happen?

  Hugh releases her hand to take her elbow (as if he still wants to be touching her, as if they cannot come unglued) and steers her through the arch into the other gallery showroom, saying, “Come, come see the place.”

  Perfect. It’s a gallery, sure enough. Tables with ceramics, moveable screens holding smaller pictures, a few stone carvings; one big fabric mishmosh that Ivy can’t figure out at all. The discreet price tag says $13,000. She gasps. The artist’s name: Della Belville.

  “Yeah,” Hugh says. “She’s not a fabric artist, turns out—an experiment years ago, she went back to painting. It covers a big crack in the wall. I put the price high on purpose.”

  “You know one day someone is going to buy it.”

  “And then the crack will show. But the world may end before that. Lunch?”

  There are things that Ivy wants to look at longer, but she nods and he leads her to the back, and through into a back hall. A big darkened room ahead, through another arch: Hugh says, “Framing in there. Where the actual money comes from.”

  Stairs go up on one side, turning the corner. He ushers her up, so she arrives at the top before him, and can take a quick glance around. Wood floors, wooden kitchen shelves. Books along the walls. The oak all gleaming clean. Does he live like this, or did he clean for her?

  She moves forward to give him room at the top of the stairs. Past the long counter of the kitchen, into the living room. A fireplace, glass doors to a roof deck. Old brown leather couch, amber striped linen curtains. It’s surprisingly nice. Surprisingly. Is this the inside of Hugh’s head, like Jung says about houses in dreams? She likes it a lot.

  Hugh lets Ivy roam and goes to the kitchen. You should have thought about what was in the fridge before offering lunch. You just wanted her to come upstairs.

  His eyes hurt. He rubs them, stares past his fingers into the fridge. “Omelette?”

  “Yum,” Ivy says, looking at books. Okay.

  He cracks, chops, whisks, dots butter into the hot pan, toast into the toaster, calls her to the counter—sets in front of her a perfect omelette. She is properly impressed; she eats with attention and pleasure.

  “I seem to know you,” he says, looking at her face, her little teeth.

  “I know,” she says. Grey eyes lift and light up. Green or grey? They must be her main asset in the theatre. In life, too.

  “You have beautiful eyes,” he says. He is surprised to hear it coming out of his mouth, and it hangs there in the air between them for a moment.

  Then she sighs, crosses her eyes wildly and takes another forkful, and he breaks more eggs to make his own. He is happy. And still miserable. Which lies deeper?

  “You all alone up here?”

  “What?” He turns from the stove, then back—eggs require attention. “Yes! Alone. I redid it when I bought the place. I’ll show you in a minute. It’s small. Two bedrooms, but they’re small. A mess.”

  Only they aren’t, Ruth did a quick tidy while she was up here. It’s safe to give Ivy a tour, to open doors and show her
his white bedroom, the shipshape bathroom. She talks nicely about the space, the light. In the empty guest room they look through the windows onto the street: FairGrounds, the Saab dealership, the Ace, the river. Seeing the little neighbourhood at its best, from above the fray.

  Back in the main room Hugh opens the sliding doors to show off the deck. In semi-warm sunlight, under die-cut shadows of bared branches, they sit on the chaise longue because it’s all there is: Ivy curled up in the seat, Hugh on the leg-half.

  “Like the Friendly Giant,” she says. “One for two more to curl up in.”

  “Della and I watched that every day at Ruth’s,” he says. “However old we got.”

  “Is she—is Della your, what, cousin? I’m sorry, you probably told me, but I forget.”

  “No relation. Ruth babysat us, and Newell, whenever our families collapsed. Della’s mother was sick for long periods; my mother—” There he halts. Then he goes on. “Went off the rails from time to time. Nervous breakdowns, they called it. She’d have a few months in the hospital, and then she’d come out, pick me up from Ruth’s, and we’d start off again.”

  Ivy nods, not interrupting.

  “My father—I told you about him. So just me and Mimi, driving off in her little yellow Karmann Ghia. I was always relieved when she came back. Always relieved, next time, to go back to Ruth’s.”

  Ivy takes one hand off her ankle and puts it on his arm.

  He smiles at her. “Nothing to feel sorry about. Newell stayed with Ruth a lot too—his parents were well off, they travelled. He and Della and I rode our bikes around town, out to Bobcaygeon, wherever we wanted. We had a club, we had siblings for a while. Good for all three of us. And Ruth got paid, and that was good.”

  Except that it was awful. Pain that never can be told. For a second Hugh wonders what Ruth did with that hundred, whether she gave it to the Mennonite Clothes Closet—that’d be fine, he tells himself. They do such good work. Better them than the Conservatives.

  “I like you so much,” Ivy says.

  Saying it right out like that—easy, or brave? He has chocolate ice cream—he could— The phone starts ringing inside.