Close to Hugh

by Marina Endicott

  Burton giggles. “I know, some say polyamory is poly-agony! But I refuse pigeonholes. We are what we are, the world can go fuck itself.” His yellow-ringed eye wanders, squints. Then zooms in, intense, on Hugh. “I lay no blame. I will permit none to be laid by you.”

  Hugh puts the cup down on the black countertop, where a playscript lies open. Words leap to his eye: I will kiss thy mouth.…

  Burton sees him reading. “Orion is extraordinary, after all. That skin—”

  “Don’t,” Hugh says. It comes out quite softly.

  “Ah, you don’t like to think of it. Even when he is our dearest friend, we can never think of the older man kindly, objectively, in this day and age.”

  How can Burton justify himself with this shameless self-serving bullshit?

  “But I tell you, Hugh, no one comes into their full glory without a teacher, without being initiated into the mysteries. This whole dirty business—well, nobody pretends that it’s a nice way to live.”

  He’s gone mad, Hugh thinks. Tears well up—hold on. You can’t cry here!

  “Show business!” An Ethel Merman explosion. Then Burton sweetens, sentimentalizes. “I do understand, I do. Orion needs the guidance only an older man can give a younger. I think the good example of Newell’s and my continuing—what would you say?—partnership—attests to the value of that.”

  Where’s the lease? Jacket pocket. “I’ll leave this,” Hugh says. “I can’t. Wait.”

  Burton’s puckered neck purples. His age, his sheer old age! He cries after Hugh, “A most intricate, most important relationship—I am his rock, his centre.”

  But Hugh is out the door.

  The light is blinding again. It’s rained so long, Hugh can’t take in this much light.

  Refracted by tears, the world is cellular, universe-huge, distorted. At the brink of the stone stairs he stalls, dizzy, trying to find the van. There, in the shade of the hedge. Okay, railing. Don’t fall, don’t fall, hold on.

  He gets the van door open, and himself inside. Afraid of being sick, of dying of grief—honestly, honestly, stop. You are overreacting. Are you so bound by convention?

  Oh no, no matter what the benefit, or whether Orion is old enough to make his own choices, no matter what—this is—this has to be— What is Burton, fifty years older?

  Sit still.

  The dizziness eases. The sickness. Newell’s whole life—no—it’s none of your business. Newell, Burton—it’s not up to you to dictate or judge other people’s lives. Orion, even.

  Here comes Newell, up the long incline from the river. Loping the last leg of his long-reaching miles. Hugh sits motionless in shadow until Newell has passed, has leapt up the flight of stairs and moved behind the glossy hedgerow.

  Then he starts the van.

  5. I DON’T WANT TO LOSE HUGH NOW

  Ivy dawdles along the riverbank with a coffee, waiting for Hugh, feeling the pressure of time. She’s got to head for Toronto by ten if she wants to get back in time for rehearsal.

  The river is not in a hurry, it walks along beside her at the same pace, unruffled. Her unreliable memory sends up a clarinet note: a poem she did at a cabaret at I of O in the nineties, a fundraiser for the suicide hotline.

  The calm, cool face of the river

  asked me for a kiss.

  That’s it, the whole poem. Langston Hughes, “Suicide’s Note.” Then she had a long scene with—who? With Bruce what-was-his-name, the second of two Bruces in the show. He had to lift her down from a tree where she was going to hang herself, and he made heavy weather out of the lifting, the stupid old jerk with his tiny girlfiend. Never mind, she won’t have to work with Bruce again, because he died of blood poisoning from a sword wound, making a movie in Tunisia. Is it a consolation, being old, that one is safe from some old pain? And some old jerks, because they’ve moved out of this current vale of tears, into the next.

  Thinking of old pains she watches a grey Ford Transit van come along the river side of the road, too close to the curb—hey! It clips a parking meter and the passenger-side mirror flips up into the air, a bright flash, and clangs on the metal arm of a bench facing the river. Ivy runs to pick it up. Pale letters on the unbroken glass: OBJECTS IN MIRROR ARE CLOSER THAN THEY APPEAR. She turns to wave the mirror at the driver: no seven years’ bad luck.

  The van has stopped. Hugh gets out.

  “Hey,” she says. “It’s you! It didn’t break!” Life zings through her chest again, at the sight of his dear head, dear body—but then she sees that he’s upset. “Are you all right?”

  “I can’t—” He stops walking, puts a hand over his eyes.

  “Is it your headache? Too much exertion last night, climbing the ladder?”

  “I’m all right, I just got dizzy.”

  “Sit down,” she says, and he does, right there on the grass. “I was waiting for you,” she says. “I have to go to Toronto, some stupid stuff—how about I take you to the hospital first?”

  He looks up, shading his eyes. “It’s the light. Not the hospital, but would you take me to the city? I can’t—I have to take some of L’s, a couple of drawings from her installation. I called my gallery friend and said I’d come in today, could you drop me there?”

  “I’ll take you anywhere you like.” He’s worrying her a lot.

  “Okay,” he says. He closes his eyes again, and presses the heels of his hands on his eye sockets to rest them. “Can we go now?” His voice urgent, anxious; his face hidden.

  “My car’s at the gallery.”

  “Can you drive the van? Do you drive stick?”

  “Yes, yes, but do you have pills, or anything?”

  He shakes his head once, stops. “I had a run-in with Burton and I’m—I don’t know how to deal with him, he was trying to tell me things I don’t want to know.”

  Oh, Burton. That explains the wild driving. Burton must have been ranting about Newell and Orion.

  Hugh pulls his hands down from his eyes. “Ivy,” he says, his voice entirely calm again. “You are making me so happy.”

  She touches his head, his cheek, checking for fever.

  (L)

  Every shift she adds a little a little a little. Under the FairGrounds cash register L’s sketchbook hides another fragment of the Republic. Semi-contaminated now by the thought of her crazy father, roaming through there while she’s at work. Empty body feeling.

  A while since she ate. NBD. Bran muffins at the school caf too disgusting, pale raisins like maggots wriggling in them; here, too expensive. It is not a deal, it is just, one is upset, sometimes, therefore, legitimately not hungry. No deal, but always a worry. Look at Nevaeh (but you can’t see her if she stands sideways). It’s okay to not eat on shift but if there is dinner at home, eat then.

  If anybody comes home. Earlier L ducked below the till to hide from her mother going past the FairGrounds window, mad maenad streaming from the law office to jump into the Mini and roar off down the street, she’ll get a ticket—oop, no, reverse—off she goes the other way. Where to in such a rush?

  Now Orion’s mother trails along, also mad, streaming, thank fuck she did not come in and ask for a decaf quad small non-fat sugar-free cinnamon syrup macchiato three-quarters full, her appalling little drink. The woods are full of them—those boys better watch out, they’re supposed to visit Mimi with her on her break. And there goes Jason’s mom, also mad as hell and not going to take something or other any more. Going into the gallery—yelling at Ruth—banging out again.

  How does a person, a woman, grow up to not go crazy?

  Question: is my dad also completely off the rails? Will he have to quit work, and then will they lose the house and will I have to work at FairGrounds forever to support them?

  In twenty minutes this shift will be over, this shit shift, the shifting shittiness that is work, but this is not nearly as bad as other shit would be. Nevaeh’s not in and neither is Savaya so that makes it boring, and too busy, and here’s another fat ass with slumping bloo
d sugar and yes indeedy the one with all the icing, ha ha, you are cute and witty, sir! Thank you for the thirty-cent tip!

  6. I CAN’T TELL HUGH WHY

  In the elevator hall Hugh stands with Ivy between two doors.

  Ivy offers a third option. “Maybe you should wait in the van.”

  One door is red, the other blue. The elevator clunks down and away, called to do another’s bidding.

  “I don’t want you to come in,” she says. She pulls at her lip, the first nervous thing he’s seen her do. “I don’t want you to know about my stupid life.”

  “I want to see where you live,” Hugh says. He puts out a hand and touches the open plane of creamy skin below the hollow in her neck. Touchstone.

  “Right, but I haven’t really been here for a couple of—”

  The red door opens.

  “Jamie?” Ivy turns, keys still in her hand.

  A head appears at doorknob height, a narrow face gleaming pale as lard between a small round chin at the nadir and Brillo-pad reddish hair at the zenith. It disappears.

  Three lizard fingers grasp the edge of the door. Bitten nails.

  “Jamie?” Ivy says the name again, quietly.

  “Ivy?” A soft-squeaking disused tenor. The head appears again, higher, between door and jamb. Eyebrows engage in the long face, arched high over pale eyes, looking Ivy over from boot to hat. Jamie speaks slowly—not irritated but bemused. “What are you doing out there?”

  Ivy glances at Hugh, checking his expression. He gives her a solid, I’m-not-crazy kind of look, and a hand at her back. Not to propel, just to bolster. Also for the relief of contact, okay.

  Voice pitched to kindness, she says, “Hi, Jamie, I came to see about the flood.”

  The pale fingers still hold the fort of the door, the door of the fort. The pale eyes shift back and forth from Ivy to Hugh to the blue door to the elevator, evaluating and assessing. Then the door draws back again. “I added a stronger chain,” the soft voice says. “Just give me a minute, I have to find the key.”

  Ivy looks through the slit. Her head turns to catch Hugh’s eye. Whole face compressed into a screw of misery, she says, hardly more than a whisper, “It’s actually a nice apartment. You have to take my word for that.”

  From somewhere inside, “I found it!” A small-boy announcement, nervous and proud.

  Hasty feet, a scraping, then the lock-twist sound. Ivy pulls back to let Jamie shut the door again, to slide the chain. Then the door is open and the vista clear.

  A broad space, a bank of long windows on the far side, thin metal pillars: a reclaimed factory. Old plank floor, what you can see of it; grey walls. The windows are half-masked by sheets of various papers and foil taped haphazardly to the glass and to each other, which has darkened the room. Stacks of cardboard boxes and grey equipment cases litter the space like an obstacle course, like a bad moving day. A long leather couch under the windows has been used as a nest: greyish blankets and sheets tangled all over it, bogged at one end. Several unsavoury articles of clothing litter the floor by the couch, and there are piles in other places. Everywhere, wire and cords. Tangles of wire cross the floor, extra cords cross the counter that separates a galley kitchen from the rest of the big room; wires trail in from two other rooms and a half-open door with a light on, a bathroom? The cords converge at a long work station: four monitors, at least five laptops, a couple of high towers, a synthesizer keyboard setup at one end. Everything is grey with grime and dust.

  “Oh, Jamie,” Ivy says. “When did Yolanda stop coming to clean?”

  “I couldn’t let her in, she was moving things.” The childish voice is odd, the form odder: he’s of medium height, too thin, with wide swimmer’s shoulders and a slight paunch. One hand goes up to scratch at his bristly hair, patched with white shocks in the red.

  Ivy turns to Hugh. “This is my friend Hugh, Jamie. Hugh, Jamie Carr, my … I guess my sort of brother-in-law. My ex-brother.”

  Jamie gives a conspiring little snicker, heh-heh! Then looks ashamed, or diffident, or just miserable. This guy’s a mess.

  “Did Alex come over?”

  “Well he came over last night but I couldn’t find the key, so he couldn’t come in,“ Jamie says, heh-heh-ing again. He drifts away to the computer set-up by the wall. Under the desk, another cocoon. “He’s angry at me, Ivy, he always is, and I didn’t think he would be a good guest.”

  “No, no,” Ivy says, slowing her natural speech to match his rhythm. “Not angry, only worried.”

  “No need! I am just fine. In fact, I’m better than fine! I’m working, I’m writing articles all the time, I get paid and it’s not a problem.”

  “Well the problem—the problem is the flood, right?” Ivy moves from the entryway now, clapping her hands on her arms to brace herself, around the corner created by the coat closet.

  Hugh follows. There’s the problem.

  The kitchen floor is covered with towels and sheets, all soaking wet, reeking. Dark liquid stains the floorboards outwards in long runnels from the kitchen, ending in a tidemark of paper and towels. Two red pails, assorted cake tins, cups, all full of grey water.

  Ivy says, more sad than surprised. “Did you have to use my linen sheets?”

  The sweet high voice floats over from the computer desk, almost emotionless. “Well the water wouldn’t stop coming out, and I knew you wouldn’t mind. You’re so kind, Ivy. You’re kinder to me than my own family ever is. You never mind.”

  “Actually, I mind this time.” But her voice is neutral. “What happened?”

  “The water stopped, I don’t know how. I think the lady downstairs called the super when it started coming through her ceiling. But now the toilet doesn’t flush, I ought to say …”

  Ivy looks at Hugh. “I can’t even think about this,” she says.

  “Insurance?”

  “I don’t know. Alex didn’t know how much damage there was to the other apartments.”

  “The super came up this morning, he put a letter under the door,” Jamie says, hunching farther over the desk, almost fetal. One white finger points over his shoulder, to the hall shelf. Miraculously unpiled, in all this mess. Just one envelope there. Ivy looks at it.

  Jamie’s disembodied voice continues in a pallid singsong ramble, punctuated by an occasional small ha. “I opened it because I thought you’d want me to but it was—incomprehensible, really it was.” His voice goes higher. “And I’m an English major! Ha. The man is unlettered, Ivy. It’s like he doesn’t even, ha, know the language.”

  Ivy seems to gather herself. Short body tense, her hands clench into fists. Not toward Jamie, just the letter. Three steps to pick it up: she opens it with one quick rip, and reads.

  Hugh is sorry, not just for the water, the kitchen damage, but for this hopeless, hapless boy-man suffering at the desk. For Ivy’s being tangled up with him at all. Where’s the brother—this Alex Carr?

  Footsteps in the hall. There, probably.

  Nope—it’s a woman. She pauses in the doorway. Hugh takes her in; he likes her looks, her manner, her thin face. Plain clothes, mysterious chic.

  “Oh, Fern,” Ivy says, sighs, sobs. She turns to embrace the woman. “Get this,” she says, urgent to appeal to this new mind in the room—then, her hand goes out to him, “Hugh! This is my sister, Fern. Hugh came with me, I wanted you to meet him but this is not—”

  Fern laughs, same laugh as Ivy. “Stop,” she says.

  The hunched figure by the window gives a wistful cry: “Hey, Fern.”

  “Hey, Jamie,” Fern says, not sparing him a glance. A harder mind, Hugh thinks. Her eyes are like Ivy’s but cooler, acute. “So, Hugh. You drove Ivy in?”

  “She drove me,” he says. “I have a concussion, she was kind—”

  “Ivy’s always kind,” Jamie says from the desk. He’s put his head down on a pile of papers, face turned away from them. But still present, unable not to be present.

  Ivy sets the letter down. “They’ll have to su
e me, I guess,” she says.

  “Alex is on his way, I saw him on the street.” Fern takes the letter.

  The elevator grinds up again and halts, clanking.

  In the silence the doors open, close.

  A man in the doorway. Jamie’s brother: same lily-white skin, but a lot of snap in the mouth, a lot of bad temper. Avoid this one, Hugh’s hackles tell him. Taller than Jamie, same shoulders, the new guy has a bullish bearing that seems unhelpful in the current situation.

  He’s talking right away, pushing over Ivy’s faint Hi with, “Don’t give me any bullshit about Jamie being responsible, because he’s not—that dishwasher was a piece of shit the day you bought it, and if you’d gone for a better brand you wouldn’t be in this situation now.”

  “Hey, Alex,” comes from the desk in a whispery wail. Jamie’s head burrows farther down, his shoulders cramped flat, as if they could meld right into the table.

  The brother doesn’t bother responding. He eyes Fern and Hugh as possible combatants, and dismisses them both. Possibly a mistake there, Hugh thinks, watching Fern.

  Ivy has turned away, making her way through piles of detritus to a closed door. “Hugh?” she says, half over her shoulder. “Can you …?” He goes; Fern distracts Alex with the super’s letter. Ivy opens the door and pulls Hugh in to—her bedroom, it must be. Clear walls except for one big piece on the wall above the bed. A lithograph, a long landscape, shadowed by long clouds.

  “He’s been sleeping in here too,” she says. Hugh checks her face, her eyes: no tears yet. The bed is mounded with blankets and sheets worked into a rat’s nest, a dog-basket mess.

  “Why are you letting him—” Hugh stops even asking.

  The rest of the room is still pristine. Just the bed, greyish and disturbing. “It’s gotten way worse,” she says sadly. “This is the worst I’ve ever seen him.”

  “How long has he been here alone?”

  “He—well, most of the time, since Alex and I split up.”