Circus

by Claire Battershill

  “We’re having a treat this week, Liza,” George said, making conversation as Willie surveyed the pies.

  “Apple?”

  “ ’Course. Unless there’s a better offer?”

  “Well, I’ve got blueberry too, and strawberry-rhubarb, but you don’t like that one as much, as I remember it.”

  “Apple it is, sweetheart, apple it is,” said George, smiling at her left shoulder.

  As Eliza boxed up the pie for the brothers, Abigail helped another customer.

  “Will these freeze well?” The school principal made a grand gesture to indicate the pies.

  “Oh gosh. I don’t know, sir. I got eight brothers so I’ve never seen one last more than an afternoon.”

  George and Eliza giggled in spite of themselves at Abigail’s polite bewilderment, while Willie, wanting to know what was going on, nudged George in the ribs.

  “Well, do they?” the principal asks again. “Would they be the sort of thing a man could freeze?”

  Willie watched as Abigail ran her hands over her long blue skirt as though she was smoothing away her irritation.

  “They sure would be,” George jumped in, “and you won’t regret this purchase here, sir. Best pies in town.” He turned to where he thought the principal was standing, but instead faced the centre of the parking lot. Willie took George by the shoulders and, not knowing quite where to point his brother, angled him back towards Abigail. Eliza passed Willie the pie as tenderly as if she were handing over a nest full of new eggs, and he felt their hands touch as he received it.

  The principal handed Abigail a bill and pivoted to face George as he waited for his blueberry pie. “Well, how are you there, George? How are those new neighbours of yours working out?”

  “We don’t know much yet. They just came in yesterday. Willie saw ’em getting out of their van. We wanted to give them time to settle in before we barged on up there.”

  “Right, well, I hear they have two kids? A boy and a girl?” The principal keeps trying. George repeats the question slowly for Willie, who says simply, “Yes.” It was hard for Willie to know if he could be understood by anyone other than George, since he couldn’t hear the sound of his own voice, so he frequently kept his answers brief.

  “You let us know now if they give you any trouble, won’t you, boys?” The principal spoke to everyone in town as though they were eleven years old.

  “There’s no trouble we ain’t seen before, sir. I hope with these new folks we’ll just keep keepin’ on the way things are.” George tugged Willie’s ear again to signal that it was time to go. “You take care now, all of you.”

  The brothers ambled onward for the rest of their groceries, Willie holding on tight to the bakery box. For George, the trip to the market was all that was needed to lift the ominous mood that had descended on the property since the new tenants arrived. He fancied himself a bit of a conversationalist, and although they hadn’t had much to say about the neighbours this week, they would surely be able to introduce everyone next Saturday.

  In contrast, Willie felt a deepening uneasiness verging on panic throughout their morning at the market and as they rode back home in the truck. His body was reacting to the worry by sweating in places he didn’t even know produced sweat, like the backs of his knees and the crooks of his elbows. Either by virtue of being a good listener, or because he knew his brother well enough to smell distress, George reached across the bench of the pickup and held Willie’s hand all the way home.

  The idea comes to Karen while she is washing the dishes. There must be some form of assisted living for retired people that would suit the shepherds. Surely there must be. Perhaps if she could arrange and even financially support their transition to a nursing home, they would be able to leave the property without too much hassle, and they would be cared for in the right ways. The more she thinks it through, the more it seems totally appropriate, the kind of thing a social worker would recommend if confronted with two frail old men attempting to make a go of it on their own in the wilderness and bothering their neighbours in the process. Standing at the sink by the window, Karen can see them now through the small gap in the curtain, hand in hand, carrying what appear to be bags of groceries back to their shack. She pulls the curtains fully shut to hide the shepherds from the kids. Fortunately, she has managed to convince Sally and Jackson to move on from their one-box police station to making a miniature Alcatraz out of the other cardboard moving boxes. As far as Karen can tell, they are as excited about the cartons as they seem to be about anything else in their new surroundings. Karen picks up the phone to share her plan with James.

  “We can just get them taken care of.”

  “Sweetie, I think it might be a little extreme to hire a hit man.” The sound of traffic obscures James’s answer slightly.

  “A nursing home!”

  “Oh, right. Right.” James seems to be eating something.

  “Are you listening? I’ve really been thinking about this.”

  “Right, yeah. No, a nursing home seems good.”

  The audible crunching is making Karen’s skin crawl, so she tells James goodbye and sits down cross-legged on a flattened box. She stares for a while at her cellphone, which still has a Toronto number and is probably costing her a fortune. Deciding to take matters into her own hands, rather than wait for James, who might have second thoughts, she tells the children to stay where they are and goes outside to investigate the whereabouts of the shepherds. Once she sees that the coast is clear, she calls for the children, bundles them into the van, and drives to town to see if she can find someone to talk to.

  When they arrive in town, she pulls up to the gas station. Karen asks the attendant, a slouchy seventeen-year-old boy, where the nursing home is as he fills the tank. The attendant’s Circle K nameplate says “Jessica,” presumably an example of teenage humour. He points her down the road: “Your first right, then the next left, then a right at the lights. It’s at the end of that road opposite the playground.”

  At the word playground, mayhem erupts in the previously quiet back seat.

  “Can we go can we go can we go?” Jackson is first to ask.

  “Have you been good?”

  “The best,” Sally pipes in with assurance.

  “Well, then, you can go. I have something to sort out first, but if you’re very well behaved we can go to the playground afterwards. Deal?”

  “Done deal,” says Jackson.

  The van has disappeared from the driveway by the time the brothers put away their groceries and sit down to eat their lunch of fresh sheep’s cheese on hearth-baked bread. Just as they are tucking in to their second sandwiches, there is a knock at the door that gives George a fright. Both men rise to answer the door together. Waiting outside is a broad, handsome, clean-shaven man in a Ralph Lauren T-shirt.

  “Hello. James Schmidt. Your new neighbour,” the man says, extending a hand to George, which Willie reaches over his brother to shake.

  “Pleasure to meet you, Jim,” George replies. “Can we offer you some tea? Or sheep’s cheese?”

  “I’m fine, thanks.”

  “Well, I know you’re fine, sir, but that doesn’t really answer my question about the tea!”

  Willie, noticing the awkward expression on James’s face, tries to explain. “He’s just bein’ smart,” he says, slightly too loudly.

  Willie puts a pot of water on the stove to boil and serves the tea while James and George sit at the small table and begin to get to know each other. In the confusing and lengthy conversation that follows, George answers James’s seemingly endless questions about the brothers and their lives.

  It is hard for Willie not to feel left out as he watches the two men talk, since James keeps turning his back to him in a way that makes it impossible for Willie to see what he is saying. Every so often Willie attempts to add something, only to discover that he has missed a crucial part of the conversation. Eventually he stops trying and sits on his own bed, sipping sullenly at his
tea as if it tastes vile.

  By the end of the half-hour conversation, which covers the brothers’ life in Texas, their work with the sheep, their family, their ages, marital statuses (as if these were really in question), and their health, George is half-slumped over with fatigue, resting his chin on his palm, and Willie is so anxious he can hardly sit still.

  “We like to stay thinking about the present moment, sir, not worry too much about what’s done already. But I can tell you Samson was very good to us, and then his son was after him, and we did well by that family and we’d be very happy to do right by you and your wife and the little ones.” George’s voice is soft, almost meditative, but he is worrying his fingers in and out of his belt loops as he speaks. “We take or leave people as they come, Jim, that’s how we do it.”

  When James finally leaves, it is with a courteous “pleasure to meet you” for George, and a handshake and nod for Willie. Once the door closes behind him, the brothers sit on their respective beds. Their bodies are curved towards each other. For a few minutes they are motionless, taking it all in. Finally, Willie reaches across to place a hand on his brother’s knee instead of asking the question directly.

  “All we can do,” says George, resting his hand on top of his brother’s, “is hold our breath for what’s to come.”

  When Karen and the kids arrive home just as the sky is beginning to soften into evening, James greets her at the door, and they kiss for a long time. Karen can hardly bring herself to stop until Sally begins to make disgusted sounds and pretends to throw up.

  “I didn’t know you were getting an earlier connection.”

  “I went down to meet the gentlemen while you were out.”

  “We went to investigate the nursing home. They’ve been trying for a while, apparently, to get the brothers to move there but they won’t leave. The nurse said that if I could manage to persuade them, the home would definitely be willing to take them in.”

  “We played on the swings!” Jackson interjects.

  “Good, buddy!” James picks Jackson up, tosses him nonchalantly over his shoulder and then cranes his neck so he can see his wife. “Aren’t you at all curious to know what they’re like? They mentioned that you hadn’t introduced yourself.”

  “Who are we talking about, exactly?” Sally starts looking around, as if there are aged strangers hiding in the mudroom. “I’m still confused about why I had to play piano for all those old people. I don’t think I’ll like it here if I have to do that when we do chores.”

  “It’s like I told you,” says Karen, “we’re getting to know people in the new town.” She can hear that her own voice sounds less certain now that she’s been cracked open by James’s arrival, but she keeps trying. “Don’t worry about it, Sally. Daddy and I will talk about this later.” She leans in towards her husband and runs her hand along his free arm.

  “I guess. I think it might be healthier to have friends my own age, though. That’s what you said about Mort, and he was way more awesome than the old ladies today who just sat there and dribbled.”

  “Can we play outside now?” asks Jackson, jumping down from his perch.

  Karen says no and James says yes at exactly the same time. The kids stand still for a moment and then start to go, assuming that this will satisfy both parties. As they rush out the door, Karen opens her mouth to tell them to stop, but then thinks better of it. Instead, she walks into the kitchen and pulls back the curtains for the first time since they arrived. She sees Sally and Jackson careen towards the sheep, who seem to be yodelling with confusion and are beginning to back away from the fence and from her hooligan children. She turns back to James.

  “I guess it has to happen sometime,” she says, “but if this is a disaster it’s your fault.”

  “They’re all right.” He pulls her close.

  She is not sure whether he means the shepherds or the kids, but she sinks into her husband, and closes her eyes briefly. Then she lifts her head and looks to him, seeking an answer.

  “So, what did they say? Will they go?”

  “WHAT? WHAT DO YOU WANT FROM ME?” Jay stands in front of the 24-hour supermarket, loosening his tie and picking a fight with the moon. It’s almost midnight and the super-moon is in full glow. He knows that’s not its scientific name, but it’s the term he’s heard everyone using. It looms so close to the city these days you can see every shadow on its pocked surface. Jay is having an unexpected reaction to this augmented lunar presence, which seems to have careened out of its orbit and started invading his personal space. It makes him uncomfortable, like the moon is a sweaty dude pressed up into him on the subway.

  Jay is shaking his fist at the heavens when a screeching noise alerts him to the fact that he’s standing close enough to the supermarket’s entrance to set off the automatic door, making it open and close, open and close. Now the alarm is sounding. He steps forward and lets the door do its thing and shut behind him. Inside, the 24-hour MegaFresh is fluoride-bright and ultra happy, and Jay needs a minute to adjust to this raw light after the clammy glow of the moon. He rests his briefcase beside the stack of baskets by the door and closes his eyes, then opens them to the sharp white-blue. Everywhere in the supermarket are little yellow signs exclaiming the most ordinary things. Apples! $0.63 each! JUMBO Bran Flakes! $5.76 a box! And what he was on his way to pick up when the celestial body got all up in his business: Coffee!

  His girlfriend can’t get out of bed without her caffeine hit. Every morning he places a cup on her bedside table before he heads to the office, leaving the coffee to go cold as she dozes. He’s never asked Lisa if she drinks it like that or if she warms it up, but he knows she loves it when he brings her coffee in bed. Or at least she used to. When he and Lisa were first going out, almost eight years ago now, she introduced him to her dance company not as her boyfriend but as her “coffee provider.” He wasn’t sure, even then, whether to be offended or pleased, but he loved having his arm around her small waist the way he did in that moment, so he just held tight. “This one’s a keeper,” her choreographer enthused. “He is,” Lisa confirmed, secretly pinching his ass. “He totally is.” So it doesn’t matter if she drinks the coffee or not. What matters is that he keeps up his end of the deal.

  The best thing about being someone’s main squeeze and living in Toronto, in Jay’s opinion, is that it’s a city where there’s always a supermarket open, even if it seems too late. Tonight, Jay almost has MegaFresh to himself. The night manager and the punk cashier are playing cards in the 10-items-or-less aisle. There’s a new mum, her belly still soft with the trace of what she’s carried, strolling her fussy baby up and down the frozen meat section. Jay wishes he could empty out the store completely so that he could joy ride on the carts the way he used to as a teenager in Superstore parking lots. While his parents were busy at the checkout, he’d step up onto the back of a cart, push off with one foot, lean forward on the handlebar, and ride down the concrete ramp like it had no end. It was best when no one was watching. But he never gets the chance to ride free like that now. Even this late at night, he’s never managed to be totally alone.

  Lisa and Jay once loved each other. Jay doesn’t think about it in these terms very often, but it has been five and a half months since they had sex (a brief, middle-of-the-night, half-pajamaed fumble that Jay almost mistook for a dream), and three months and seven days since their last kiss (a peck on the cheek at a friend’s engagement party). These days, he avoids thinking about sex at all unless he is alone in the shower with the fan on and the door closed. Jay tries not to dwell on this. Instead, he follows the mum, who has a small glob of something that looks like toothpaste stuck to the strands of her ponytail, as she moves on to Tea! Coffee! Condiments! Jay picks up two packages of espresso and compares the medium roast to the dark, testing their weight in his hands, which in each case is exactly 500 grams, according to the labels.

  Jay has been spending a lot of time at the gym. He can now Olympic lift more than he even knew it was
possible for a person to hold on his own, and he has come to love the treadmill, and the long, slow warmth in his quads and hamstrings as he works up a hill, the heart-rate monitor he wears strapped to his chest that tells him how hard and how long and how far he should go. Even his face has stronger edges now. It is as though his old features have melted away, and underneath he found the cheekbones and jawline of the kind of man his advertising firm would cast in a campaign for an expensive, smoky Scotch. If only he had learned to depend on the sensation of pushing and burning and pleasantly hurting as a teenager, he sometimes thinks, rather than only in his forties, perhaps he would now be an altogether different man.

  Despite his year-long transformation, Lisa hasn’t said anything about the change. The other day, on her way out the door, she put a hand on his stomach and patted it in a familiar almost platonic way, as though the six-pack had always been there. She has said nothing about his new wardrobe, and when he spent over two thousand dollars on clothes on the shared credit card last month, she just paid the bill without comment.

  A noisy prattle of cans hitting the floor startles Jay out of his daze. He turns in the direction of the noise and finds the MegaFresh manager rebuilding the coconut milk display he just knocked over. The mother and her baby have moved on. He is still clutching a pack of coffee in each hand, and when he looks at his watch he realizes he’s been standing there for almost fifteen minutes. He picks the dark roast, as usual.