Lost Between Houses

by David Gilmour

  I crossed over Dunvegan Road. I looked way up the hill. The trees were dying up there; somebody told me that. They had some disease and come springtime they were going to have to cut them all down.

  Don’t you dare!

  Wow.

  I got suspended that afternoon. Psycho called for a complete expulsion, I would have lost my year, the whole works, but the principal had a cooler head. I mean that’s why he was the principal and Psycho wasn’t. So I was out for three days.

  I took the bus that afternoon. It was the milk run and we stopped in every little shitburg between here and Huntsville.

  It was late, after eleven-thirty when I got there. Father was asleep in his chair in the living room. I stood there, looking at him for awhile. There was only a desk lamp on; the fire was out, the whole house very dark. Outside you could hear the melting snow dripping from the eavestroughs. And suddenly I remembered him driving me to the hospital once when I was little. Itwas the middle of the night and I fell asleep leaning against him. He rested his hand on my shoulder and I remember his shirt smelled of pipe tobacco and I found the smell comforting, like I was safe and being looked after.

  “Dad?” I said. “Dad?”

  His eyes opened and he got up, a strand of hair sticking straight up. He looked worn out.

  “You’re here.”

  “Yes,” I said, “I’m here.”

  “Did you take a taxi?”

  “Yes.”

  “I’m surprised he came down the driveway.”

  “I asked him to let me off up top.”

  “Very sensible.”

  I could see he was a little blurry-eyed and it occurred to me he was nervous; he’d been drinking because he was all freaked out about me coming. There’d be just the two of us in this big empty house in the dead of winter.

  “The school called,” he said. “Damn stupid business.”

  “I know.”

  “For Christ’s sake, if you’re going to do that kind of thing, don’t get caught.”

  “I didn’t. I got snitched on.”

  “Then don’t do it with somebody who’s going to snitch on you.”

  I followed him into the kitchen.

  “Are you hungry?”

  “A little. Yes. Always after a trip.”

  He made me a sandwich, badly cut and badly buttered, he was careless in the kitchen, rushed and impatient, but I was hungry so I gobbled it down.

  “Have you seen your brother?”

  “No,” I said. “He’s pretty busy these days, I hardly get to see him at all. Have you heard from Mother?”

  He shook his head.

  “Me neither,” I said, which was also a lie.

  “I hope you brought a good book,” he said. “There’s not much else here in the winter. Do you want a glass of milk with that?”

  “It’s all right. I’ll get it.”

  “I made up the bed for you in your mother’s room. We don’t have to heat the upstairs.”

  “Yes. Good idea.”

  “Okay then. Goodnight, Simon.”

  “Goodnight, Dad.”

  He gave me a crisp little wave.

  Some time in the night I woke up. I heard something moving around. A light went on at the end of the hall. I heard the fridge door open, then close. Footsteps going into the living room. I was going to lie there a few minutes longer and go see what was up. But I fell back asleep again.

  It was a cheerful morning, sun on the snow so bright you had to squint. Icicles hanging on the house like glass. The water was really pouring out of the eaves now. It almost sounded like it was raining. There were even some bare patches of earth and the air smelt like warm ground. I put on my boots and went outside. You could hear our little stream running past in the ravine below. I used to go down there in the spring, when the ground was still wet, and stare into that stream and wonder What’s wrong? Why am I unhappy, is this unhappiness me?

  At the far end of the property I could hear a crow cawing. He cawed and cawed and then in slow motion he sailed up intothe air, flapping his wings really slowly, and disappeared over the mountain.

  I’ve never been a big one for country life, if you know what I mean, too much space, not enough happening, all those rolling hills going nowhere. It gave me a whiff of something out there, something I didn’t like, and I came back inside and lit the fire. Just the smell of the wood, the crackling, made me feel better, less bleak. I don’t know how anybody could live in that fucking house all by themselves. I would have gone bonkers. I made a note to myself to call Harper when I got back to town, tell him to get his face out of that chick’s pussy long enough to go up and spend some time with the old man. Jesus, those fucking crows. Caw, caw, caw. It went right through your soul, just the emptiness of it.

  That afternoon we drove over to Hidden Valley, sat in the chalet drinking coffee, watching the skiers. My father was normally a very snappy dresser, but today he wore a kind of crazy hat with flaps hanging down that made him look like a basset hound. A hat he wouldn’t be caught dead in normally. But we had a nice time, shooting the breeze. Occasionally he couldn’t remember stuff. I’d mention something, like something from last summer, and he’d sort of shake his head.

  “No.”

  He said it a bit mechanically, as if he’d already said it quite a few times.

  “Oh well,” I said, “it’ll probably come back to you.”

  “Let’s hope not.”

  I looked over at him and realized he was making a joke.

  “What was the name of your girlfriend in the army?”

  “We called her the Mighty Atom. She was tiny with bright red hair.”

  “Did you love her?”

  “No. Not really. She was married to a very decent chap. Flew airplanes. Crashed near the end of the war. They only found his boots. Damn shame.”

  “Were his feet still in them?”

  “I don’t know, Simon. I never asked.”

  Then he looked like he’d gone off somewhere. I was wondering if he was thinking about why my mother hadn’t written.

  Outside the window, an icicle broke free and crashed to the ground.

  “I have to go to Toronto next week,” he said. “I wish I didn’t have to.”

  There was something odd about the way he said it, like it was a private thought.

  “What for?”

  “I have to have a skin treatment,” he said. “It’s not serious. I just wish I didn’t have to go.” Like the trip itself, the hassle of it, was bugging him more than actually seeing the doctor.

  “Take the train,” I said. “The train is much better. Classier. It’s more of an adventure.”

  “Yeah,” he said, still a little distracted. “Maybe that’s what I’ll do.”

  So we sat there for awhile longer, him wearing his silly hat, the skiers shooshing down the hill, some of them showing off, zigzagging here and there, all the way down to the bottom and then looking around real casual to see if anybody was watching. And nervous snowplowers going back and forth, their legs shaking with the strain.

  Normally I like chalets. They’re kind of sexy, girls in fabulous sweaters and black ski pants, their cheeks all rosy. I imagine they get up to some pretty sexy stuff with their boyfriends, you know,like later in front of the fireplace. There’s something about those girls though, a kind of life I’ll never have. I don’t know what it is but I know it’ll never belong to me.

  Back at the house, the old man and I sat around in the living room, me reading some history of Australia I found in the basement.

  “Can I put a record on?”

  I expected him to say no, but I didn’t worry that he’d snap at me.

  “Yes,” he said.

  So I put something on, not real loud, but still in the old days he’d have sat there for thirty seconds and then told me to take it the fuck off. But he didn’t. We sat there, him reading a biography of Rommel. At one point though, I looked around, I thought, God, this is weird, I wish Harper could see
this. I mean here I am, on suspension, supposedly in like very big shit indeed and what am I doing? I’m sitting around in the living room of my cottage listening to “She’s Gotta Move Up” with my fucking father. Very cool indeed. I should have got suspended earlier.

  I don’t know. It was like that weekend my father just seemed to give up on me. Like he finally came to the conclusion I wasn’t going to turn out at all the way he wanted me to. But then again, maybe it had nothing to do with me, this kind of eerie peacefulness over everything.

  He drove me to the train station the next day. It was a sunny day, cold, and he got out of the car and walked me along the platform. Carrying my little suitcase.

  “I think I’ll come back up next weekend,” I said, thinking I might, but suspecting that by the time next weekend rolled around there’d be something else I’d want to do. Still I’m glad I said it.

  “That’d be nice,” he said. We gave each other an awkward little hug, I could feel the bristles against my cheek, like spiky sandpaper.

  Then I got on the train.

  He must have done it right after he got back from dropping me off at the station. My mom called him that night from Florida. There was no answer. She tried again the next day, all day, and the next morning she phoned the caretaker, a farmer who lived up the road, and told him to go in and have a look, break in if he had to. They don’t know how he found the guns, but he used my brother’s rifle, a .22 Cooey. It looks like a fucking toy. It really does. I suppose the length was right.

  And they found a letter from my mother on the mantelpiece. Nothing in it, just chatty stuff, but I can’t figure out why he told me he hadn’t heard from her.

  She flew home for the funeral. It was at Grace Church on the Hill, lots of people there. Then this long parade of cars took my daddy out to the graveyard; they said a few words over the coffin, and then it whirred down slowly into the ground. We went back to my Aunt Kay’s after. She’s just the most awful cunt in the world, bossy and a drunk. I caught her lapping up the booze in the kitchen; like she was supposed to be getting more hors d’oeuvres for the party but there she was standing by the sink, swigging it right out of the bottle. She was already in my bad books anyway. Back at the church, I was having a cigarette in the foyer with all the other men and when it was time to go in, when everybody was moving slowly toward the door, she rushed over and snapped at me, “Put that cigarette out!” like she was talking to a kid or something. I just gave her a look, like a real bad one and stood there, taking another puff, like I was daring her to do something about it. She fucked off plenty fast.

  So she was extra careful with me at the wake, even though there was a part of me hoped she’d try to tangle with me. Funny. You’d think my mind’d be on other stuff but it wasn’t. I really wanted to kick the shit of her.

  Don’t get me wrong though; there were a lot of nice people there, people asking me questions and making a big fuss over me. Harper stayed upstairs watching a game on TV. I went up to see him for awhile. He was wearing a brown corduroy jacket. He looked very cool.

  “Who’s playing?” I said.

  “Somebody.”

  “Everything cool?” I said.

  “Yeah. Cool. I’ll be down in a minute. Listen,” he said, “was the old man pissed off that I didn’t go up there? Did he say anything?”

  “Not a word.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “Absolutely. Not a word.”

  “Because I keep thinking about it. I should have gone up there.”

  For once, I didn’t have anything to say. We just both watched the TV for awhile and then I went back downstairs.

  My mom was surrounded by people, and I had the funniest feeling she was sort of enjoying herself. I mean I’m not knocking her but all the attention, everything, a noggin in her hand, I just think she was having an all-right time. Being sad but in a sort of happy way. I don’t know.

  But I couldn’t seem to settle anywhere, it was a bit like my party, I felt like I was looking for something, going in this room, going in that room, just sort of wandering around.

  So I went out the front door for a cigarette, and I just kept going. I walked all the way down to the bus station and I bought a ticket north. I had to wait twenty minutes but that was all right. I sat in the back of the bus, puffing away. I was quite the smoker. Finally we took off, the tires making that swishing sound on the wet pavement. The bus was nearly empty; we stopped in Gravenhurst for awhile, but I didn’t get down. I sat in the bus watching a fat lady eat potato chips inside the station. She ate the whole bag. And then we took off again.

  It was a little after five when I got to the house, night coming down like chimney soot. I went in the side door. I went through the kitchen. I turned on the light. There was a shiny patch on the floor, right beside the table. That must have been where they cleaned up. He must have been lying right there. He must have been alive for awhile, the house getting dark, the phone ringing, the hall clock going tick, tick, tick.

  I went into his bedroom. His suitcase was packed and beside the bed. He must have been getting ready to come down to the city after all. I flipped the suitcase onto the bed and opened it. The smell of him came right up at me. It filled the room. I picked up his hairbrush. I smelled it too. Then I slipped the suitcase down off the bed and pulled back the covers. I kicked off my shoes, and I got in. I arranged the pillow so I could lie just where his head was, where I could smell him the clearest. I closed my eyes. You could hear the whole house, the little creatures running around behind the walls, the furnace going on in the basement, like we were being looked after.

  Did he hear that? Did he think about me? That I’d be sad and miss him? Did he think about us out there on the lake, the sun going down, letting out our fishing lines?

  Did he realize we’d never see each other again?

  Maybe he didn’t think about me at all. Or maybe he thought I was just a little sparkle, right at the edge of things.

  I’m just going to lie here a little while longer, I thought, I’m just going to lie here till I feel like getting up. And then I’ll go back to the main road and put out my thumb and catch a ride. It’s Tuesday. Somebody’s bound to come along.

  VINTAGE CANADA EDITION

  Copyright © 1999 by David Gilmour

  All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the publisher, except by a reviewer, who may quote brief passages in a review.

  Published in Canada by Vintage Canada, a division of Random House of Canada Limited, in 2000. First published in hardcover in Canada by Random House Canada, Toronto, in 1999. Distributed by Random House of Canada Limited, Toronto.

  Vintage Canada and colophon are registered trademarks of Random House of Canada Limited.

  Lyrics on p. 29 from “Baby It’s You,” written by B. Bacharach, B. Williams, M. David

  Canadian Cataloguing in Publication Data

  Gilmour, David, 1949-

  Lost between houses : a novel

  eISBN: 978-0-307-36926-0

  I. Title.

  PS8563.156L67 2000 c813’.54 C99-932499-3

  PR9199.3.G55L67 2000

  v3.0