On Monday, near two o’clock in the afternoon, I was sitting in the window on the third floor, looking down on the street when I saw Scarlet making her way toward me. She was wearing a yellow dress. I yelled out her name. She stood looking around.
“Up here,” I said. She came and stood under the window.
“Hi,” I said.
She made a face.
“Nice day eh?”
“So far,” she said.
She disappeared under the windowsill. The doorbell rang. It was one of those old-fashioned ones, made this irritating buzz. I heard my aunt’s voice way downstairs. I always liked the way Scarlet talked to grown-ups. She was so sure of herself, sunny and all. Some kids are good at sports, some kids are good at math; Scarlet was good with parents. She stayed down there awhile shooting the breeze, being charming and knowing it. Basking in my aunt’s approval like a cat in the sunshine.
Finally she made her way up the stairs, holding onto the bannister. I stood at the top, sort of posed. Somewhere in the house there was a radio playing, it was always on, it kept my aunt company and at this particular moment the newscaster was rhyming off the traffic accidents over the weekend. Nine dead and four injured.
“Here’s one more,” Scarlet said deadpan as she went into the bedroom. She looked around. Went over and sat on the edge of the bed. I sat down beside her and put my arm around her and gave her a little pat on the back, like something you’d do to a kid whose cat had just been run over by a car. Not very sexy. Not really a mood setter, if you know what I mean. And then gradually I moved my face around until I found her lips. But it was all a bit mechanical.
“Can I have a cigarette?” she said. I pulled back.
“Don’t be mad. I’ve just got to relax. I’m nervous.”
She fumbled around in her purse and brought out a gold pack. Very chic, the cigarettes long and thin with a black filter. She lit it with a man’s lighter.
“Where’d you get the lighter?” I said.
“My dad. He gives them out to all the film execs.”
“You’d think they could afford their own lighters.”
“Can I have an ashtray?”
I went downstairs and got her one. I ran into my aunt in the kitchen. She was flapping around down there, making something.
“Scarlet is so nice,” she said in a whisper. “Really, you should marry her.”
When I came back, my future wife was sitting on the windowsill, as far from the bed as she could get. I was trying not to let it all piss me off because, truth is, I wasn’t really in the mood either. But I sure wanted to get it over with so that down the road, when anyone ever asked me, had I done it, I could say yes and not feel all fluttery-stomached like you do when you’re telling a whopper. I could just look him right in the eye and say, casual as dropping a penny in your pocket, sure. Besides which I’d spent so many nights daydreaming about just this moment that now that it was here and nothing was happening it seemed like an extra piss-off.
“It’s too light in here, “ I said. Something I should have realized earlier, the sunlight streaming through the window like the Fourth of July, no wonder no one could get in the mood. I needed something to cover the window with. But there were no curtains except for these teeny tiny little white things that looked like something you tuck in your shirt if you’re eating muffins. So I got off the bed and went over to the mysterious cupboard. I opened it up. Jackets, shoes, funny-coloured shirts I’d never wear. But up on the top shelf, there was something red, folded neatly. I pulled it down and it came unravelled on the floor.
“Wow,” I said. “Look at this.”
Scarlet leaned on her elbow. “Just what kind of a cousin is this guy?”
It was a flag, big as a bedspread, blood-red with a big black swastika dead centre.
“Looks like the real thing,” I said.
“Can I have another cigarette?”
“Jesus, Scarlet. Do you want to do this or not?”
“Sure,” she said. “I was just asking, that’s all.”
“Well, you’re not making things very easy.”
I took the flag over to the window and pinned it there with a couple of tacks I’d popped out of a calendar. It worked all right, casting a dark, red shadow over everything. Like something out of Murders in the Rue Morgue.
Suddenly, like she just remembered she had a bus to catch, Scarlet stood up and came over to the bed and pushed me back and lay on top of me. She tasted like cigarettes and I liked that. It tasted foreign and exotic and grown up. She was kissing me on the mouth and pulling her head back and I was afraid she was going to do that thing again so I rolled on my side and suddenly it got very sexy, just the angle or something, her mouth all warm, my eyes closed, the side of her face all wet and nice smelling.
In a little while Scarlet sat up and lifted her yellow dress up over her head and took off her undies. I had to sort of wrestle around with the rubber, my hands were shaking, I couldn’t get it to roll down right, it was upside down, and then I couldn’t find the right spot. But then suddenly I was inside her. And it felt like my real home, like the only place I should ever be. I moved back and forth and I was thinking to myself, how do I know how to move like this, like how do I know this is the right thing to do? And then I had a sensation like all the nerves in my body were combed backwards, it just washed right over me again and covered me in goosebumps.
She didn’t knock. She just came straight in with a tray of peanut butter sandwiches, pushing open the door with the toe of her shoe. But when my aunt got a gander at that red room with the Nazi flag over the window, she beat it out of there in reverse like someone had jerked her with a rope.
Scarlet didn’t waste any time. She flew out of the bed, walked into her shoes and went downstairs, still fiddling with a hook at the back of her dress. Next thing I hear, standing at the top of the stairs, my eyes out on sticks, is the two of them talking, not about anything, just talking, Scarlet chatting away like nothing at all had happened and my aunt going along with it. I tell you, she was some cool customer, that Scarlet. Like a cucumber.
We ran into my aunt on the way out, everybody bending over backwards to avoid everybody, and we had a little chat about dinner, me just about hysterical with politeness.
“Can I get anything at the store?” I asked, which was pretty unusual for me.
“No,” said my aunt, “I think we’re fine, dear.”
That was as close as we ever got to talking about “it.”
A few days later, I got up late. My aunt was out. I went downstairs and had my toast. I put on the Beatles and I went to the front door and looked up and down the street. I was feeling a little weird, I don’t know why. Maybe sleeping too late; you can gas yourself that way, after awhile the body stops throwing off the carbon monoxide and you start poisoning yourself; havingall sorts of bad dreams. I couldn’t remember any of them but they weren’t good and it was a relief for my eyes to pop open and realize that none of that stuff was true.
I started back up the stairs, the Beatles in the background, and I noticed a little stain on the carpet, near the bottom. It just stuck in my head and I had that feeling again, that, for no particular reason, I was going to remember it forever.
When I got up to my room, I was fooling around in the cupboard, looking for something to wear when I noticed that Scarlet had left her sweater there. I knew she’d be looking for it, I made a mental note to tell her and then I forgot about it like immediately. The cupboard didn’t smell so weird anymore; didn’t seem so alien. But I had a feeling maybe there’d be something else nasty in there, hidden way at the back, skin books or a gun, something like that, but I didn’t have time to look today. I felt strangely rushed, as if I ought to be somewhere, like I’d forgotten something, left a door open or the stove on.
I walked downtown, following Poplar Plains until it hit Davenport and then Davenport over to Avenue Road. It’s a depressing intersection, lonely and grey and everything too far apart, it’s l
ike nothing interesting could ever happen there. It always makes me uncomfortable that corner, like it’s telling me something bad about my future, that I’m going to end up a bum there on a Sunday morning if I don’t do things right. I don’t know what things though. My homework and not bragging, I guess. I headed down Avenue Road and everything got better immediately; the stores were close together, people wandering, a Chinese lady with an armful of flowers, a couple of pretty girls in shorts. One of them smiled at me. Then, in front of the Place Pigalle, I ran into a guy from school. He wasn’t really a friend but I hadn’t seen him for a long time and so I’d forgotten thethings I didn’t like about him. I rather fancied the idea of telling him about Scarlet, if only I could find a way of bringing it up without being too obvious.
“Let’s see if we can get served,” he said. We went into the Pigalle, down a set of stairs and into a dark room. Real stinky and stale, like they hadn’t opened a window down there since the nineteenth century. It was a college bar, quite famous actually, but since school was still almost a month away, there weren’t many people there. We sat near the back in the darkest part of the bar, these frosted fish-eyed lights on the wall. A guy in a vest and a white shirt came over.
“A couple of draft,” my friend said. He said it so coolly, it sounded so professional the guy just went and got them. He didn’t ask for ID, nothing. So we sat there shooting the shit and ordering more beers and I found myself liking this guy more and more until we were telling each other the most personal stuff, who we liked at school, what we’d thought of each other at first, I even told him why I didn’t invite him to my party. Something told me not to but it just came out and he seemed sort of interested. This big smile on his face, his lips pressed together, sort of a concerned look on his face like you were saying something important.
I was having a good time, everything sort of dense and colourful and always moving, it was a good feeling and I wanted to keep it going so I had another beer. I’m not a great drinker, I mean I like getting drunk but I don’t really fancy the taste so I plugged my nose with my fingers and drained the draught right down my throat, the bubbles making my eyes water and, sometimes, I let go of my nose too fast and I got a whiff of the beer coming back up after it landed and it sent a kind of shiver of disgust through me. But that turned to gold too. I could feel it on my skin, like goosebumps, everything interesting and always moving toward something even more interesting. And suddenly I was alone, my friend had gone and I was sitting next to a big table of kids, they were university students and I hoped they would talk to me and finally some kid did and I got into a long conversation with him, his friends on each side listening at first and then going back to their conversation. We got to talking about everything under the sun, politics, Vietnam, stuff I don’t normally get into, not really knowing anything about it. But I got quite animated, even argumentative about something, I can’t remember what and then the guy turned back to his table and I was alone again. I put my feet on the chair in front of me, this big jar of beer sitting on the table and I started squinting my left eye, I don’t know why, I was trying to see if I could do just one eye at a time but the guy in the vest came over and told me it was time to move along. I could see the people at the other table were sort of listening but none of them came to my rescue, not even the guy I’d had the long talk about Vietnam with, so, feeling kind of like I was in a movie, that an audience was watching me, I got to my feet and ambled very slowly toward the door.
By the time I got outside, it was getting dark, a single star sitting in the sky, the sky a sad blue getting darker toward the horizon. I took a deep breath, still thinking I was in a movie, and shuffled off down the street. I got down to Bloor, saw a man who looked like my father coming out of the Park Plaza. Had the same kind of walk, his arms slightly stiff. I put my hands in my pocket and looked around, waiting for someone to talk to me. I wandered over to Bathurst, the street a bright blur, overhearing bits of conversation. Planning the things to tell Scarlet about my day, things I’d thought about the world on the way down there. I caught the streetcar. I slumped in a seat and down we went; the bell clanging, people walking along the sidewalklooking at us lit up inside like a goldfish bowl. Like a travelling goldfish bowl, that’s what we were like. Then I was walking under the Princes Gates, they were lit up like crazy, the sky dark now, stars out, the Wild Mouse whizzing around high up; I watched the roller-coaster creep like a big bug up the side of the rampart. It hung there for a second, right at the very top; and then this kid in a white T-shirt raised his arm like a battle charge and then whoosh, down it came, rattling like mad, girls screaming.
A man dressed in a lima-green panda suit waddled through the crowd.
“Who’s that there inside that suit?” I said, grabbing him by the arm but he pulled away and kept going.
I was just bouncing up the stairs into the Food Building when I saw Scarlet at the top of the stairs. I let out a holler and went up and threw my arms around her. She was with one of her friends, a skinny girl in a red sweater. I’d met her before.
“Hi, Rachel,” I said, “Still talking about yourself?”
Scarlet made a face and looked over at her friend.
“Nice guy,” she said. It was true though. Last time I’d seen Rachel, she couldn’t stop talking about herself, no matter what the subject was. But I figured she’d have at least have a sense of humour about it, like I had about being drunk, but apparently not. She kind of looked at Scarlet.
“I don’t get it,” she said.
“I’m just joking,” I said. “How are you?”
“You’ve been drinking,” Scarlet said.
“All day,” I said.
“See you, Scarlet,” her friend said. “Bye, Simon.”
“Bye-bye, Rachel,” I said. “I was just kidding about you talking about yourself all the time.”
“That’s okay,” she said, meaning it wasn’t okay at all, that shewas just tolerating me because she was a good sport. Last thing I remember is seeing that red sweater disappear into the crowd, her face turned around and a sort of TV commercial smile on her face, her hand raised.
“What an asshole,” I said.
“Simon!”
“Well, she is. Stuck-up little twat.”
That was when I saw Mitch moving across the midway; he was wearing white jeans, his hair just so, as always, and I called out to him.
“Simon!” Scarlet whispered frantic-like, but it was too late. He broke away from the crowd and came over to us.
“Hey guys,” he said.
We shook hands.
“Scarlet.”
“Mitch.”
“So what’s up?” he said.
“I’ve been drinking beer all day.”
“Looks good on you,” he said. “What about you, Scarlet?”
She told him she worked over there in that building and that loosened things up a bit. We started across the midway, the three of us, me in between. While they were talking, I slowed down a minute. Let them get closer together. I figured I was doing everyone a favour. Nothing perverted about it. I just wanted her to get over him and the sooner she stopped jumping out the window when she saw him, spent like five minutes seeing he was just a normal guy, the sooner she’d get there. In fact at one point I went over and played a dart game, leaving them to talk without feeling like I was breathing down their necks. By the time I got back to them, they were easier with each other. Scarlet was at least looking at him now.
“So what do we want to do now?” I said. You could sort of tell Mitch wanted to hang around a bit so I said, let’s go over to the rides, see what was up. I liked it that everyone was friendly.
“So where’s Chip?” Scarlet asked him, referring to some guy they both knew, and Mitch started to answer, saying he hadn’t seen much of him this summer, not since that business at the party. What business at the party, she asked, and he started into a story about this party somebody named Strawbridge had, it was quite a long story and Scarle
t thought it was pretty interesting, laughing here and there along with him, the two of them sort of on the same wavelength. After awhile I started to feel not so good, at first I didn’t know what it was, the beer wearing off, that good feeling gone and a sort of hollow feeling came on and I could feel myself drifting away from them, like they were caught up in one world and I was definitely in another. And when I tried to interject, to get involved in the conversation, I had a feeling like I was butting in. So I fell silent, deliberately not talking, thinking that any second now Scarlet’d pay me some attention, ask me a question, something. I even stopped for a bit, pretending to look down at a ring-around-the-coke-bottle game, pretending to get some change from my pocket, but really to see if she’d even notice. They walked on a bit, Scarlet listening hard to this story, nodding her head, like it was important, like she was on his side, making all those agreeing noises. Then the two of them came slowly to a halt, not even looking back, like they sensed there was a reason to stop but they didn’t want to break up the story. I came up quickly behind her and gave her a hug and she sort of stiffened and put her hand on my hands but she kept on listening to that fucking story.
“Come on,” I said, “let’s get on a ride.” And I walked on ahead like I was taking charge of the situation but when I got to the ferris wheel, I turned around and they were gone. For a second I wondered if they’d given me the slip. But then they came through the crowd, talking away, quite close to each other, physically I mean, Scarlet not at all afraid of him any more. And Mitch showing no signs of having anything else to do or any intention of going anywhere.
“Come on, Scarlet,” I said, “Let’s go.”
“I can’t,” she said, “I’m afraid of heights.”
“Come on Mitch then,” I said and as I said it I had the distinct feeling that I sounded like a loser, like I was asking for a favour, like I knew he’d say no before I even asked, the way a loser does.
Lost Between Houses Page 12
