“Like, months?”
Her face is so sad. “I’m sorry, Hugh, I wish you’d stayed in the van. We broke up three years ago. It was civil, mostly, and mutual—I left, I went to the Banff Playwrights Colony for a two-month gig, so he’d have lots of time to get a new place. Then I went to Halifax, three shows at Neptune, I was gone most of that winter, and Jamie came and stayed. So when Alex found a great place but it was a one bedroom, he moved out, and Jamie stayed to house-sit for me …”
Hugh laughs. After a second, Ivy laughs too. “And in the spring, he was going to stay with his mom for a couple of months, so that was fine, but she got sick. Then I did a few episodes of a series that shot in Yellowknife, so—it made sense for Jamie to stay, and then—we get along, you know, better than he and Alex do.”
“Three years?”
“Turns out, yeah.”
“He looks like he needs help.”
“Oh, he’s got help. He sees a shrink three times a week. He’s an outpatient at the Clarke. He’s helped six ways from Sunday. But none of them has a place for him to live, and his mother can’t—she’s in North Bay, she’s seventy-eight, and not well.”
So’s Mimi, Hugh thinks, before he can push the thought away. Hard to live with someone crazy. This room is unmarred, except for the bed. But the bed is bad.
“He’s too sad for you.” Hugh means Jamie. “And the brother—I hated him on sight.”
“Yes.” She smiles at him, accepting his hatred as a love-gift.
“So what’s going to happen?”
“Their brother Ray is a doctor in Winnipeg. He’s got connections, you know, people who would—if we could get Jamie out there he could stay with Ray for a while and get into a facility. But …”
But they’re good at taking advantage, Hugh doesn’t say.
“Ray’s not, not patient with him, so he doesn’t want to go.” Ivy looks at her bed. “I’ve been avoiding this— I can’t help him, I don’t have the skill. His brothers aren’t helping either. I’ve been sleeping on Fern’s couch, or house-sitting, or staying with my parents, or getting jobs elsewhere. I need my place back, but he hasn’t got anywhere to go. I don’t know what to do. Before I left for Peterborough, Alex swore black and blue he’d be out by the end of October, but it doesn’t look like it, does it?”
He wonders if she might cry after all, but she doesn’t. He takes her hands. “Okay, listen, the leak, the water damage, we can get that fixed, we’ll do that first.”
They go back out. Fern and Alex are arguing over the super’s letter.
Hugh goes into the hall. He walks past the elevator, past the blue door to the window, and calls the gallery.
“Hell— Argylle Gallery, can I help you?” he hears.
“Good answering, Ruth,” he says. “Hey listen, did you get hold of Dave about the basement? Okay, can you tell him I need him for a different job first? It’s here, in Toronto, it’s more urgent. I can keep emptying buckets down there for a couple of days. Tell him I’ll pay his travel, and get him out here this afternoon, okay? It’s Ivy’s place, she’s got a dishwasher gone bad here, and nobody’s doing anything sensible.”
Ruth takes the address and promises.
(DELLA)
drive sickening quickening heart does a loon dive
brain shrunken to a walnut pain in the chest
mystery why he stayed so long: inertia?
no we are soulmates
Savaya’s mother years ago long-legged April at playschool in the morning leaning languid-eyed against the wall, I love my husband—he is my soulmate, I think we were actually made for each other, I mean it! languid and lazy too I leaned too laughing at our starstruck luck
but I myself am no April no Jenny no no Jenny
half-assed at everything
paltry talent lazy teacher poor pianist drifty mother weak friend
Hugh suffering with Mimi I’ve done nothing for him or her
can’t bear to think about my mother can’t help Hugh because of that
I am no Jenny
not telling me
whatever it is between them
Ken
MORAL COWARDICE
MINE HIS
it isn’t true
it’s true I know it is it must be true
I know he slept with her I know he did he did it how could he
how could he what is the thing that makes it possible to
betray the other the beloved how could he
he is sleeping with her
say the right word
he loves her
(L, JASON, ORION)
Walking up the alley, Jason tells L, “I miss going to Mimi’s, before she got sick.” L nods. That apartment in the old house, full of nice/weird things, photographs, clothes; it was a sixties museum. The piano her mom has now—nine feet long, belonged to some dude. Last thing her mom would ever have bought herself, or could ever have afforded, it’s worth like fifty grand or something. When they were kids, Mimi would open her closets and get them all tricked out, scarves and wigs and hot pink swathes of psychedelia. Jason loved her too. Loves her. She is not dead yet.
Orion’s ill at ease. You don’t often see him like that. Moving lightly, knees soft, as if he’s afraid they’ll all get in trouble—for what? Illicitly visiting the sick? Death scares him.
L too. She feels that barrel-stave/barrel-band feeling, the beginning of an attack, anxiety and claustrophobia leaping and pumping inside her lungs and heart. Go, go, go—she makes the stairway door and leaps the stairs three at a time, noisy as fuck in the stairwell but it’s insulated from the building and nobody ever uses the stairs, only Joseph the porter sometimes to smoke a joint, beside the one wire-gridded windowflap that opens. He is Trinidadian; so smooth and sleep-possessed, careful when he moves the oldsters room to room, down for their bath, back from the therapy room. This place must cost a bomb. How rich is Mimi? So why does Hugh look pinched all the time? The adult world of money makes no sense. Her dad ought to be rich. Her mom shouldn’t have to work. They spend whatever they feel like on the things they feel like; but if she asks for fifty to buy Japanese paper they give her the pinchy look, the Oh hellish GOD how will I afford this look. It’s priorities, they have screwed themselves.
She does not ask for much. Neither does Orion. They know not to. Jason, OTOH, just calls his dad and five hundred appears in his account. Because his dad is wracked with guilt.
Okay now quiet quiet quiet along the halls. She just wants to see Mimi one more time because what if, what if? The boys follow, their footfalls audible to L’s ear. But they are trying. Four doors, five, there’s Mimi’s. Press the door a little. Peek. Okay. No Ruth to talk their ears off, or shoo them out. L slides in and leaves the door ajar, for Jason to catch.
In the bed Mimi lies mouth-gaped, faintly blue.
L turns to motion the others away, but the air or the sound of her sleeves wakes Mimi and her eyes open wide, afraid. L bends quickly to say, “No, no, it’s okay—it’s just me, it’s L—I came to see how you are doing.”
The eyes, clouded, yellowy-grey around the still iris-blue irises, search her face: zip zip zip. How we collect data! Not finished yet, never finished. But the zipping eyes don’t recognize her.
L straightens again, touching the petal hand, old white rose-petals, ready to slipslide, slump to the black piano of death. “I’m sorry,” she says. “I miss you, that’s all.”
The mouth shuts, opens, grey tongue inside, grey spittle on the edge. The mouth works, teeth inside sliding as she swallows. “Oh,” the old one says. “L.”
O L, oh hell, oh well, she tried, LOL.
The hand turns, holds her arm. Not clutching. Velvet skin, a soft surprise. L blinks, and looks—Mimi’s eyes are still inside there. At first this was a puppet made like death, a cage for something, but now it is still Mimi again.
“Fun,” the mouth says, and the mouth is Mimi too: her mouth, her little, far-spaced teeth, not rotted but gone grey. Her m
outh, but paler; in real life she is never un-lipsticked.
After a pause, a hiccup of time, L sits on the edge of the bed. There’s room.
“How you doing?” she asks. Dumb question.
Mimi swallows, with difficulty. “Missing you, Miss L,” she says.
“Well, I could come in sometimes. I was just chicken.”
The old head nods a little; the cheek pits. Her dimple. It is still Mimi darling, still her somehow, in this ravagement. But it is hard to sit here.
“We were thinking about your house, how much we love it,” L says. “I’ve been making a big thing, I thought maybe I could bring you some pieces of it to see.”
Mimi nods.
“It’s so nice to see you,” L says, in a sudden flood. Then there is not anything else to say.
Jason seems to be scared to death but is hiding that under a veil of formality. When Mimi’s eyes fall on him he almost bows. Orion does bow. He comes forward and bows again, closer to the bed. “This is our friend Orion,” L says.
All the ladies like Orion. Mimi twinkles. “Handsome … boy,” she says.
Boy having new connotations since Burton, Orion’s colour rises. Bronze-red sweeps up his neck, front and back, up to the crop of his hair—even his lips go red.
It’s funny that he’s so sensitive to being called Boy. But then L thinks, wait, why? What have I missed, exactly? She remembers red lips, she puts two with two and two and two, Orion reading Salome in Savaya’s room that morning and texting—
Now L is herself swept with a wave of red and gets up from the bed so Orion won’t see that she knows he’s got something happening with, not-Burton, something with Newell.
Newell, Newell’s eyes, the tiredness in them that is so deep in his mind that he will never recover. That’s not so good for someone like Orion, whose eyes are still awake and wild.
Everybody knows Orion is gay, he’s been out for like seven years, for ever. Everybody always knew and he made sure we did. And anyway, in our school it’s like cooler than not being gay anyway. So but—so it’s okay, and anyway, he is okay with all that.
And not that there’s anything wrong with it except
L sits on the radiator cover at the window to figure out what she thinks while Orion tells almost-sleeping Mimi about the master class. Jason sits beside her as he always does. Their arms touch all along the length of them, it’s helpful.
“My dad,” she says in a low voice. “He came back, but he’s gone again. He took some pieces of the Republic away.”
Jason takes his arm away, to put it around her. But they have to go. Mimi will wear out. And Jason’s got that date with Pink.
7. HUGH CAN LEAD A HORSE TO WATER …
At the Gareth Pindar Gallery, Ivy swoops into a free spot and parks with elegant despatch, her profile snooty. Like her sister after all, Hugh thinks. “She’s your twin.”
“I know, I look nothing like her, it’s God’s joke.”
“Too bad for her,” Hugh says, meaning it with his whole clutching heart. He leans across the stickshift and pulls her to him and they kiss right there in the van like idiots.
“Maybe this whole romance thing is bogus,” Ivy half asks.
Hugh laughs as he undoes his seat belt, twisting—and sees, outside the window, Gerald Felker, Saab dealer. Sob dealer. Hugh’s hand halts, he puts his left arm out to hold Ivy still.
Gerald is walking away from the Gareth Pindar Gallery.
Hugh’s bemused. “He must be buying something big. From Gareth, instead of me.”
Ivy shakes her fist at Gerald’s departing back.
“No, no, why shouldn’t he? But I just thought we had an—” Hugh stops. “What does it matter? The guy’s wife killed herself and their child. He can buy his art where he likes.”
“Did you know her well?”
“She was a student. Her son was—” He gestures to her, and they get out. He feeds coins into the meter while telling Ivy, “Long story, pretty sad. Their little boy was in Della’s art classes, so I knew them, that limited way. He was a sweetheart. Last week she drove into their garage, gassed herself and him; idled the car till they were dead. Gerald found them. He’s been walking around like a ghost ever since.”
Hugh takes Ivy’s arm and they go up shallow, black marble steps into the hallowed halls of GPG. Black glass and metal; a slim platinum plaque the only indication of treasure within.
After the bright white of noon outside, the interior darkness lifts, drifts, light expanding as they stand. Pools of light from focused beams on paintings spread gradually till the whole space is visible. It’s very, very quiet. Neutral industrial tile muffles sound.
An elegant man comes down the long room, bending as he nears to keep them in his glance. Hugh is not short, but Léon is very tall. “Cher Hugues!” he says, eyes beaming behind small glasses. “How long it ’as been!”
“Too long, Léon, it’s good to see you. This is my—” Hugh looks at Ivy. “What am I to call you?”
“Ball and chain? Buttercup? Reason for living, other half?”
Léon looks from one to the other, conveying helpless capitulation to charm.
“This is my Ivy.” Hugh kisses her cheek. “It’s the birthday of my life, Léon, my love has come to me.”
Ivy puts out her hand as Léon laughs, his voice crystal under the high ceiling. She says, “It’s all right, we’re just punch-drunk, we’ve been dealing with floods. I’m afraid it’s left Hugh light-headed. He’s got a concussion too. I think he wants to see Gareth?”
“Léon is Gareth’s other half,” Hugh says. “Take us to the Master, will you, Léon?”
The inner sanctum (no other word possible for it) is draped. Red silk ceiling, red lacquer walls that Hugh happens to know cost thirty thousand dollars. Black lacquer Chinese cabinets flagrant with birds and lilies fill one wall; the great black desk fills another. Huge and mild, also bespectacled, Gareth Pindar sits in the centre of the spectacle of his room. He rises to embrace Hugh, and on introduction, Ivy also. Léon folds himself down onto a wide leather chaise longue and offers the place beside him to Ivy. Hugh is happy to be here, showing Ivy off to his good old friends; to be with people who make him easy and proud rather than itchy and afraid.
“What’s Gerald Felker buying?” Speaking of afraid.
“He came looking for the original of a giclée. Simberg’s Wounded Angel, in the Ateneum of course. I sensed a tragedy, so did not ask, merely said it was not for sale. As to Aganetha Dyck, he wonders if she would wax up, his words, a child’s nightlight.”
Hugh experiences a bad pain in the left side of his head. He flinches, and Ivy touches his arm. “His wife and young son died recently,” Hugh says. “He was at my place the other day looking at a photo based on the Simberg, but didn’t want that, or a print—he wanted to pay more than that. To pay, I guess. To forfeit.”
“Yes. He is considering a commission.” Gareth dismisses Gerald, now that sense has been made of him. “And you, what is it you want?”
“To be one with everything.” Hugh gathers himself, shakes Gerald’s sadness off, and says, “Okay. I don’t do this, bring you artists. But I’ve seen an installation that you ought to have a look at.” He pulls out the small portfolio, the portraits of Newell and Nevaeh, and the map.
“A student?”
“She was, but this is new, nothing to do with me. She’s been working on it alone for—I don’t know how long. It’s extensive, it would have taken months. Years.”
“Obsessive?”
“Not in any damaged sense, but certainly.”
Gareth accepts the pieces, turns to lay them out on the black length of wood, reaching out a hand absent-mindedly for the white suede backboard Léon proffers, to better reveal the onion-skin drawi
ngs. The parchment map glows on the black wood, each alley, each tiny fountain marked. Routes one cannot help but want to walk, through convolute streets. The wind’s cheeks (Della’s long gaunt cheeks, barely convex) whoo-ing from the west.
Hugh stands beside him as he stares.
“You say installed, how?”
“Basement. Not much light, no sound yet, but she plans … It’s cumulative, hung all over, in a—well, a slaughterhouse kind of track that forces you around, makes you confront, from time to time, or comforts you at odd corners—” Stop talking, stop.
Quiet falls again.
Gareth looks up, looks back to the map. “Her background?”
This is the tricky part. “She’s young. Student, finishing high school this year, she’ll be going on but I’m not sure where. There’s not a lot of money—likely OCAD, maybe even commuting and living at home.” Do not say more. Do not say she’s good.
Another silence.
Then Léon sits up straight. “You will need an espresso,” he says.
(L)
Jason slips into FairGrounds like a spectre, and hovers at the side counter.
“Coffee,” L orders. She pours one, puts it in front of him; then opens the till, flips a bill-holder for the nanny-cam as if he’d paid, and slams it shut.
He is shivering, though the fire in the fireplace has the whole place overhot.
There’s a long wait. She says it for him. “The porn appointment, with Pink?”
He nods.
“You went?”
He shakes his head.
It was for noon. Two now. “He will have called your mom when you didn’t show.”
He nods again.
“Sugar is good for shock.”
Obedient, he takes his cup to the cream table. He puts sugar in it, then pours half the coffee out and pours in coffee cream. She watches his long back, the vulnerable tilt of spine and hip. Why isn’t there more of him in the Republic? Funny thing. Too close to her, maybe. No need to look at what is right beside you all the time.
Close to Hugh Page 21
