Reparations

by Stephen Kimber

  “One more victory round at the Victory for the victorious Tribune Trojans,” Keefe had suggested during the drive back to the city. They’d found a corner table near the exit. And ordered a round. After the waiter had returned with their order, Saunders had hauled out a blank union card and handed it to Patrick.

  Keefe and Matthews told Patrick they’d already signed.

  “We’ve almost got the numbers to go for certification,” Saunders told him. “And that’s the best protection you can have.”

  Saunders was practically pushing the pen in his face now.

  Patrick recoiled. And then saw his escape. “Mr. Minister, Mr. Minister, over here.” Ward Justice was walking unsteadily toward the lounge’s exit. Patrick caught his attention. Justice hesitated a second, then walked carefully, deliberately in their direction.

  “Join us?”

  “I’d love to, thanks, really,” Ward replied. “But, you know, it’s way past my bedtime.” He exaggerated a yawn.

  “So, Mr. Minister, when are you going to announce for leader?” It was Saunders. Saunders fancied himself a political reporter. He wanted Patrick’s job.

  Ward froze him with a look. Waited two beats. Then smiled and began to sing: “Seamus is my leader / I shall not be moved / Seamus is my leader / I shall not be moved . . .” He was still singing as he pushed open the door and stumbled on to the sidewalk.

  Ward Justice awoke with an eyes-wide-open start, as if he’d suddenly remembered he was supposed to be paying attention. He looked around. There was no one to pay attention to. He wiped cold spittle from the corner of his mouth. Perhaps he’d woken himself up snoring. He was doing that more often these days. The alcohol? Or perhaps it was one of those myotonic jerks, the shocky, spastic sensation of falling out of bed he occasionally experienced in his last moments between wakefulness and sleep. Victoria had them all the time. Did she still have them? By the time Ward got home from “work,” Victoria was inevitably deep into sleep, or some pretence of sleep. More often than not, he chose to bed down on the sofa in the den so as not to disturb her. In fact, he was sleeping on a sofa tonight, but not the same sofa. This was also not his den.

  This was Rosa’s everything-but-the-bedrooms room. There was a hot plate, a kettle and a toaster on the floor in one corner, which served as Rosa’s kitchen (the bathroom down the hall, which she shared with two other families, provided what passed for a kitchen sink). In another corner, a card table, featuring an illustration of an English fox hunt on the top, and two mismatched folding lawn chairs worked as her dining-room set. The wall nearest the door was dominated by an oversized but stained red velour sofa that might have been popular in certain middle-class homes in the fifties but had outlived its style and its stuffing and been tossed out with someone else’s trash. It was now Rosa’s living-room suite. (Occasionally, when little Larry was sleeping and they were too eager to walk the few feet to Rosa’s bedroom, the sofa did double duty as a narrow, lumpy bed for their lovemaking.)

  To describe the place where Rosa slept as a bedroom overstated the reality. The entire apartment had started as one large, dark, open space on the third floor of an abandoned warehouse near the harbour. Rosa had created two bedrooms, one for her and one for her son, by hanging sheets from the low rafters and plunking mattresses on the floor behind them. She and Larry each had a battered suitcase instead of a dresser to hold their clothes.

  Ward, awake now, looked around. Rosa and Larry must have gone to bed. How long had he been asleep on the sofa? He looked down at his watch. Quarter to four. Longer than he thought. Ward examined himself. He was still dressed in the dark-blue suit he’d worn to this morning’s meeting with Jack and Junior; his paisley tie was still tight around the collar of his powder-blue dress shirt. So he and Rosa had not made love tonight. He wasn’t surprised. They made love less and less these days, their once torrid, passionate affair now rutted into routine torpor. Like a marriage. Full of silences, or bickering, or both.

  “You should have called,” she’d said even before he’d sat down.

  “I was in meetings.”

  “You smell like you were in meetings . . .”

  “I’m here now.”

  “Why? Because you want to get laid?”

  “No. Because I want to see you.”

  “Because you’re too drunk to screw?”

  “What happened to ‘making love’?”

  “Good question,” she fired back. “It used to feel like making love. Now it feels like screwing.”

  “Maybe I should just go . . .” He let the sentence trail off.

  “No. Stay,” she said finally. “I’m sorry. I’m lonely, that’s all.” This was not a new complaint, and not entirely—though still partly—his fault. Rosa had been cut off (or cut herself off, Ward wasn’t sure which) from her family. When he tried to ask her about her father or brothers, she changed the subject. Her family—in fact, just about every aspect of her life before that night in the back seat of his car in the parking lot off Gottingen Street—was off limits. Except for Africville. Or at least a narrow, nostalgic, vague band of memories of Africville—“out home,” as Rosa called it—that did not include her father, her mother, her family or Ray. Ray especially. Except . . . except she would get this look—wistful? wishful?—whenever Ward mentioned his name. “I don’t want to talk about him,” she would say, while her eyes conveyed some other message. It wasn’t that Ward wanted to talk about Ray either—he still felt vaguely guilty they’d drifted apart—but Ray was their only shared history. What else did they have to talk about? That was part of the problem. They had no life together outside this apartment. And Rosa had no life any more beyond the incomplete one she shared with Ward. She had no family, no friends. She’d stopped hanging out with her school friends when she dropped out of school to have Larry. She was no longer working the streets, so she didn’t see her hooker friends any more. Given the clandestine nature of her relationship with Ward, of course, it was hard enough for them to be together, let alone socialize with other people.

  She kissed him on the forehead and then stretched out on the sofa, her head resting in his lap. “It’s just I’m so tired. And Larry won’t sleep.”

  Larry had been awake and ready to play when Ward arrived at . . . that must have been one-thirty. After last call. “War’! War’!” he’d squealed with delight when Ward opened the door.

  “P’ay t’uck?” Larry demanded now. “War’ p’ay t’uck?” He wrapped his arms around Ward’s leg.

  “No, no truck tonight,” Ward said as Larry raced to his room to get the Tonka truck Ward had given him for his birthday. “War’ too tired to play. And you, young man,” he added, “should be in bed. What are you doing still up?”

  “Larry not tired,” the boy replied, a grin on his face. “Larry wanna play.”

  “Maybe later, Larry, maybe later. Right now, I need to talk to your mama.”

  Ward did need to talk to Rosa, but he didn’t want to. He didn’t want to tell her about his meeting with Jack and Junior. (He didn’t want to tell Victoria even more, of course, which may have been why he had ended up at Rosa’s instead of at home confessing to his wife that Junior had called the mortgage on their house and Jack might or might not stop giving him envelopes of cash, so he almost certainly would not be able to keep her and the girls in the style to which they’d grown too accustomed.)

  And Rosa and Larry? What would this mean for them? At first, Rosa had refused all Ward’s offers to help her financially. But after he’d talked her into getting off the streets—she hadn’t needed much persuasion—she’d reluctantly agreed to let him buy groceries “just until I find a job.” But there were no jobs, so Ward began to give her cash to buy clothes for herself and Larry, then for taxis so she could take Larry to the doctor for his checkups and to the shopping centre for clothes and the supermarket for food. Most recently, he’d bought her a 1963 VW Beetle s
o she wouldn’t have to spend all that money on taxis. The Bug was cheap enough—four hundred dollars—but then she needed money for insurance, and gas, and a new clutch, and who knew what next. The longer their relationship went on, the more Rosa depended on Ward’s money, and the more Ward felt responsible for her financial well-being. And the more resentful he became because he felt responsible. Especially now. How could he support Victoria and Rosa, and the girls, and little Larry if he suddenly had to pay interest for a mortgage on a house he couldn’t afford?

  Ward wondered if he could call Junior, apologize, agree to write whatever letters, make whatever statements Junior wanted, perhaps even convince the Cabinet to approve his loan request. It was probably too late. They had crossed a line that morning as soon as Junior walked out of the office. Maybe Jack would intercede. Jack had seemed more disappointed than angry. Maybe Jack . . . ?

  But did Ward really want to back down now? Saying no had felt good, clean, pure. Better than he’d felt in years. There had to be another way.

  “Why so quiet?” Rosa asked. Little Larry was on the floor in the corner by the card table now, quietly stuffing his toy delivery van with plastic soldiers.

  “Nothing. Just thinking.”

  “What about?”

  “Nothing.” Nothing, except the fact that Junior was threatening to expose their relationship, and put an end to his marriage and his political career.

  She was silent then too. As if she were listening to him think out loud. “Do you think we should, you know . . . stop seeing each other?”

  “No,” he said, gently stroking her curls. “Is that what you want?”

  “No,” she said, turning to look up at him. “I want us to be together. “

  “Me too,” he said. Then they were silent. Was that when he fell asleep?

  He should go home now. Before Victoria and the kids got up. That way he could say he’d got home late from meeting Jack and Junior. Victoria slept heavily; she’d never know. Did she care?

  He struggled to get up from the sofa, the springs of which had long since quit. Oh God. His head still oozed woozy. He felt like he might be sick. He reached for a wall to steady himself. He was still drunk. Christ, how many had he had? The fact that he couldn’t remember was not a good sign.

  Should he go in and kiss Rosa goodbye? No. She might wake up. And they might make love. Or screw. And then he might never go home. Larry? Just a kiss on the forehead? No, not that either. If the boy woke up, he’d want to play.

  Ward carefully picked his way through the dark apartment. Luckily, the door was ajar so he could navigate by the hall light. He almost tripped going down the stairs. The rest of the way, he gripped the railing like an old man.

  Outside, the night air was heavy with mist. It took Ward a minute to fish his keys out of his pocket, another to choose the right key and slip it into the door handle. But then he lucked out, finding the car’s ignition on the first try. Perhaps he wasn’t so drunk after all.

  He turned the key and the ignition caught, but he held it too long and he heard a grinding sound. He let go. His foot was too heavy on the gas. The engine revved loudly. Finally, he slipped the car into gear and the car lurched . . . backward. Reverse! Shit. Bang, crash. He’d hit the garbage can. And smashed it into the wall of the building behind him. Christ. He was going to wake the neighbours. His wheels were still spinning on the damp pavement. Foot off the gas, take your foot of the gas. He hoped he hadn’t woken anyone. Damn, he had to get out of here. He stared intently at the indicators on the automatic transmission. Find drive. Put it in drive. Go. His tires squealed as he pulled out of the lot. Christ, he was tired. Christ, he was drunk. He needed to get home. Which way now?

  “Okay, okay, I’m sorry, but could you spell that last name again?” Patrick Donovan’s stomach was still churning from his night before and his head was still aching from this morning’s way-too-early wake-up call. The last thing he needed was a cop with attitude.

  “I already did. Twice.” The sergeant seemed determined to make this as difficult as possible. All for a three-paragraph brief with no byline.

  The cop sighed. “Johnstone. J-O-H-N-S-T-O-N-E. Got it now?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Okay, well let me give you the whole thing one more time just to be sure.” The cop was mocking him, Patrick knew. He wanted to offer some witty riposte but he was afraid he really might have it all wrong. Damn this hangover.

  “Kid’s name: Lawrence Johnstone. Two years old, two-and-a-half if you want to be precise. Residence: 4 White Street . . . Black neighbourhood. Go figure. Next of kin, mother, Rosa Johnstone. Only kin listed. Hit-and-run case. Under investigation. And that’s all she wrote. Anything else I can do for you?”

  “No, nothing, thanks.” Patrick Donovan wanted to go home to bed. Instead, he rolled another sheet of six-part carbon book into his typewriter and began to bang out the story.

  He had to get out of here. Now. Before he threw up all over Barbie and Ken. But Ward was stuck, flat on his belly in the grass, his head and shoulders inside the flaps of My First House, a plastic pup tent shaped like a doll’s house Victoria had bought for the girls. The smell of Sarah’s wet diaper filled his nostrils. The heat from the sun, which had burned off the fog in the air but not in his head, magnified and intensified inside the airless, orange tent. He could feel the sweat trickling down his cheeks, taste the salt on his lips.

  He’d been sitting on the deck, recovering, pretending to watch Meghan and Sarah while they played house with their dolls when Meghan came running over. “Daddy, can you come and play with us, please, please? We’re going to have a tea party. Ken and Barbie will be there.”

  This then was his penance. For last night. For lying about where he was and when he got home. For everything. His lie hadn’t worked.

  “What time did you get in last night?” Victoria had asked when he’d walked into the kitchen this morning shortly after eleven. She’d asked sweetly. He should have known.

  “Around two,” he’d said. No need to be too precise. “My meeting lasted much longer than I expected.” Mention the meeting with Junior and Jack. Maybe later, tell her about the mortgage. Or maybe he’d wait until Monday, see if he could make other arrangements with a bank first.

  “That’s interesting,” she said, her voice congealing. “I thought I heard you come in around quarter to five.”

  “No,” he said, shovelling dirt over the hole he’d dug for himself. “That must have been some teenagers making noise. It woke me, too.”

  “Strange,” she said then. “I woke up around four-thirty and your car wasn’t in the driveway. You weren’t in bed. And when I went downstairs to look, you weren’t in the den, either.”

  He couldn’t think of an answer to that. He didn’t have to. She turned on her heel and stormed out of the kitchen.

  Ward made the girls a lunch of Honey Nut Cheerios and milk. “’O’s are for breakfast, not for lunch. Silly daddy,” Meghan said. “Isn’t he a silly daddy, Sarah?”

  “Mmmph,” Sarah offered in agreement, her grin exposing a mouthful of half-eaten cereal.

  “Why don’t you girls go play in the backyard,” he told them as he put their dishes in the sink. “You can take your dollies out and play in the house Mummy got you.” Ward could already smell Sarah’s poopy diaper. He should change her. He couldn’t face it. Later.

  By the time later came, his head was trapped inside the tent.

  “Sugar, missus?” Meghan asked her sister politely, and then dumped two imaginary spoonfuls of sugar into her tiny plastic cup. Sarah looked at her father and giggled. Ward tried to smile back. “And for you, Daddy—mister? Sugar?”

  “Yes, please . . .” he said. Penance.

  His head inside the tent, he didn’t see or hear Victoria approaching from the house. “There’s a call for you,” she announced without preamble, without the saving grace
of humanity.

  “I’ll be back in a few minutes,” he told the girls, partly relieved at the possibility of escape and partly terrified of facing Victoria again. “Daddy just has to take a phone call.” Ward felt Victoria looming over him as he manoeuvred his body backwards out of the tent. He got to his knees, then stood up.

  “It’s a woman,” she said to his back as he walked toward the house. “It sounds like she’s crying.” She was following him, curious. He tried not to think.

  “Hello?” he said as he pressed the receiver to his ear. Cautious, as if the phone would wrap itself around his neck and strangle him.

  It was Rosa. He could tell by the sound of her sobbing. She continued to cry but she didn’t say anything, at least nothing he could understand. He looked at Victoria, who was staring at him.

  “Uh, okay, okay,” he said then, in response to nothing. “I’ll, ah, be right there.” He hung up without waiting for a reply. He looked away from Victoria, tried to figure out what to say and do now.

  “Is that your whore?” Victoria demanded. “Is it?”

  Ward said nothing.

  “Is she pregnant?” Pregnant! Ward hadn’t even considered that. She could be. He’d thought about buying condoms but he was afraid someone might recognize him. What a stupid excuse. And now . . . Pregnant! Christ.

  “I have to go,” he said. “To see somebody. About work,” he added, as if she hadn’t been standing beside him during this conversation, as if she didn’t know better.

  “You lousy fucker,” she shouted at him. She was crying now. “You lousy motherfucker.”

  “Mummy said a bad word,” Meghan told her sister. They’d followed their parents into the house. “Bad mummy,” she said, as if talking to one of her dolls.