by Grant Buday
“It’s just that grandma was concerned,” said Steve. “The house is worth a lot and you have to be careful these days. Real estate is very turbulent.”
Cyril envisioned a grim panel of experts listening to Steve and Chuckie describe their uncle’s erratic mental state. “Sure. Of course.”
“And there’s that business with the gun,” said Steve.
“That was self-defence,” said Cyril. “There were three of them. And anyway, it was twenty years ago.”
Steve was nodding. “Absolutely. No doubt. But actually I meant the other business.” Steve consulted some papers. “Darrel Stavrik. There’s no police record, but grandma, well, she told me about it. And hey, believe me, if you fired a few shots at the guy I’m sure he earned it.” Steve put up his hands as if to say far be it from him to question the judgement of his uncle Cyril. “I mean, I don’t know, I wasn’t there, but grandma felt it prudent to fill me in.”
So Darrel had told her what had happened and she’d never in all those years confronted Cyril about it. What self-control. What reserve. The will was her revenge, served up as cold as her very own grave. He congratulated her on such impressive patience. Well played, ma, well played. Cyril experienced an epiphany: she found greater satisfaction in being the martyr than being happy, so collected icons and never again tried to find another man after Darrel.
Steve hurried on to another point, explaining what uncle Cyril-the-house-painter could not be expected to grasp, the fragility of financial markets, worldwide recession, political upheaval, flux and ferment, the mounting frenzy at the approach of the millennium. “And right here at home,” he said, as if the barbarians were at the gate. “There’s fraud to be wary of. Do you have call display? No?” He winced at the pain caused by such a dangerous state of affairs, as if dear uncle Cyril was living in a mine field. “I have call display. Chucko has call display. I think it’s prudent. You should really get on that ASAP. In fact, I’m going to arrange it for you myself.” He made a note on his blotter and underlined it twice. “Telephone fraud perpetrated on senior citizens is up three hundred and twenty percent.”
“Senior citizen? I’m fifty!”
“Sure. Of course. I didn’t mean anything. Only you’re wise to be prepared. They know all the angles, these guys. And it’s not guys, usually it’s women. Believe me, when the day comes, I’ll want Courtenay and Candace there looking out for me. Right now that’s what Chucko and I are doing for you. Just like grandma wished.” He raised his eyebrows in an innocent expression and then exhaled a long breath and stood, jingling his keys like bells in his pockets signalling that it was time for Cyril to go. Eager to escape, Cyril stood as well, noting again the photos of himself on the wall: him smiling in the sun, him with his hands on his hips ready to take on the world. No, he’d never drawn his mother.
THREE
CYRIL LEFT STEVE’S office with a copy of the will, the name of the psychiatrist, and the date of the first of five appointments, a week Friday, eleven days from now. Just as grandma wished . . . The words stood as black as bruises. Still, it was a spring day and he’d escaped his nephews even if more torment awaited. How much happier life had been as a child, the days longer, the sun warmer, the sky brighter, the horizon wide and clear and inviting. At the age of fifty he seemed to have crested a hill, except the view was not a pleasing panorama but a low dark forest of withered trees that he had no choice but to enter and from which, he knew, he’d never depart.
Passing Chuckie’s van he glanced in at a slew of textbooks and papers and magazines and Styrofoam coffee cups, as well as a midden of torn and twisted tickets from the racetrack. Farther along the street was a London Drugs. He entered and found the Aspirin. He really wanted codeine, but the over-the-counter type had caffeine and he did not want to stay awake; he wanted to escape, to sleep, to dive down into the mud and stay there for a year or two. En route to the check-out he saw a rack of Do-It-Yourself booklets. Do-It-Yourself Divorce Guide, Do-It-Yourself Tax Guide, Do-It-Yourself Will Guide. He was tempted to take the one on wills. Otherwise, if he croaked—and given the way he felt that seemed imminent—Chuckie and Steve would get everything, or whatever he had, which, if he didn’t do something soon might not be much. Were they that desperate, that greedy? He decided that the best plan was to deal with this psychiatrist and then sell the house and blow the money. Maybe buy a yacht and sink it, or fund an orphanage in Ukraine. Either way, use it all up and leave Steve and Chuckie zip . . . maybe a note and his mother’s collection of icons. He grabbed the Do-It-Yourself Will Guide and headed for the checkout.
The cashier was a young woman with pale skin, black hair, a ring in her lower lip, another in her eyebrow, and too many to count in her ears. She yawned and looked through him. What with his receding hair and advancing years he’d begun to sense that he was dissolving, that he was becoming transparent, no more substantial than smoke—the smoke not of a blaze but of a dying fire—and that by the time he was sixty he’d be a ghost. As he went out the door he wondered if that meant he’d be able to walk through walls.
After an evening attempting to read and comprehend the will, Cyril understood that he needed a lawyer, someone on his side. Opening the Yellow Pages he discovered that there were twenty pages devoted to lawyers. Personal Injury. Accident Recovery Settlement. Injured—We’re on your side! Don’t Settle for Less. Breathalyzers Can Be Wrong! Whiplash. Slips & Falls. Conspiracies. Civil Litigation. Wills & Estates. Everyone, it seemed, was on his side. The ads showed the sincere and earnest faces of the men and women eager to leap to his defence. He found Steve’s ad: Steven Andrachuk: Integrity. His face in three-quarter view, head high, gaze long. No ad mentioned fees.
He was wading through this crowd of power-suited knight errants when Gilbert arrived bearing photos. He opened an envelope fat with shots of his eight-year-old granddaughter Savannah. There she was at her first dive meet, slim and earnest as a soldier in her blue and white striped Dolphins swimsuit, poised at the end of the springboard. Then she was in the air, arms high. Then she was entering the water. Perfect. An arrow piercing her own reflection.
“That’s great,” said Cyril, envious. He’d never thought much about having kids and now it seemed a terrible lapse. How had he gotten so old and so alone?
“It is,” said Gilbert, a fierce and adoring expression on his face as he arranged the photos.
Cyril saw that more compliments were due. “She’s pretty.”
“She is.”
She’d done well in school. “And bright.”
“Sky’s the limit with this one.” Gilbert had five older granddaughters who, caught in the throes of adolescence, had forgotten he even existed. “Girls,” he said wearily, as though the Sisyphean burden of their upbringing was his alone.
Cyril couldn’t recall which of Gilbert’s four daughters by three wives was mother to Savannah. “Girls,” he agreed, though could only imagine.
Eventually Gilbert slid the snaps back into their envelope and noticed the Yellow Pages and asked the obvious question. When Cyril admitted that he was thinking of challenging the will Gilbert was intrigued. The hint of drama brought a glow to his complexion. “Why? She cut you out?”
Cyril explained.
“Let’s have a look.”
Though reluctant he was also desperate. And the fact was that in Gilbert’s decades of driving taxi he’d devoted his time to reading The Wall Street Journal, Barrons, Fortune 500, The Economist, and tomes on finance, self-empowerment, and law, most especially the rules governing estates. As he skimmed the will he frowned and he nodded and ran his hand through his hair. Gilbert’s hair was still as thick as ever, and still as dark as a slab of tar because he’d been dousing it with dye for decades.
“Did you discuss the will with her?”
His mother had talked mostly about Kiev, which was sometimes in Poland and sometimes in Ukraine, which was sometimes in Russia and sometimes independent. “We talked about everything but the will.” Brac
ing himself for the worst, he asked how bad it was.
“Well, what with your notorious record, they kind of have you against a wall and over a barrel.”
That wasn’t what Cyril wanted to hear.
“It says psychiatric evaluation,” observed Gilbert, “but it doesn’t name any one particular psychiatrist. Meaning you can choose.”
“You think?”
“I’d want to take as much control as possible. Do some research,” he suggested, and shoved the Yellow Pages forward.
“I don’t know,” said Cyril, exhausted by the very prospect of lawyers and psychiatrists. “Maybe I should just walk away. It’s only a house.”
“It’s only a half a million dollars.”
“Still . . .” While his history with weapons might suggest otherwise, he tended to cringe from conflict.
“Let me check my Rolodex.” Gilbert’s Rolodex was the cumulative result of thirty years of driving, in other words, thirty years of cross-examining people. Did they get a flu shot? No, why not? You think they’re a scam? Soy products? Oil futures? Venture capital? Biofuels? Electric cars? The tar sands? Wind energy? Solar panels? Bullion? The Yen? The Deutschmark? How about these waste-to-energy burners the city is pushing, thumbs up or down? Is that right, and you’re a chemical engineer. Interesting. You have a card?
“So we can call around?”
Gilbert looked at him with something between exasperation and amazement. Cyril knew Gilbert thought he was a simpleton when it came to business. That Gilbert was staggering under the load of three alimonies and now lived in a one-room apartment while Cyril was modestly secure did not alter his opinion. For years Gilbert had been offering financial advice on how Cyril should run his painting business, so felt entitled to take some credit for its success, such as it was. “Of course you can call around. You don’t think psychiatrists need your business? I believe this is where you can be what the pundits are pleased to term proactive and take some control.”
“I think Steve’s scamming me.”
There was that look again. Was there ever such a naif as Cyril? “Of course he’s scamming you. He’s a lawyer. It’s part of their code of ethics.”
“The thing is, I don’t want to fight. I don’t need the money. Not really. I mean I can use it but I can get by.”
Gilbert was slack-jawed. “What are you, a monk? People can get by on Welfare, people can get by picking bottles from the trash. You think they’re happy? You think they’re fulfilled? Everyone needs money. That’s a fact of life. That’s the difference between thriving and subsisting. You don’t want the dough fine, give it to beggars, donate it to an orphanage, hand it to the SPCA, whatever, but you can use it, and maybe most important of all you’d be keeping it out of Steve’s sticky little mitt. And what about the principle? You grew up in this place, you have more right to it than Steve or that Commie reject brother of his.” He gestured around as though the house was not a two-bedroom box overdue for a new roof and new wiring, but an architect-designed heritage estate gilded with history.
“Hey. I’m not totally naive,” said Cyril. “Even if Steve sold it tomorrow I know damn well I’m entitled to half no matter what some shrink says.”
“True enough,” admitted Gilbert. “And lawyers are expensive. Even if you fought and won, legal fees could eat up every cent you gained. I should’ve gone into law. I’m a natural. So what’re you gonna do?”
Cyril didn’t know what he was going to do, and he was saved from obsessing about it when the phone rang that afternoon with someone seeking a painter. He hadn’t worked in three months. Desperate for diversion—though careful not to sound hungry—he said he could maybe find half an hour to come over and give an estimate. The address was nearby, so close in fact that he could walk. It was a hot, hazy day and when he headed out the door he felt as though he hadn’t walked in years. The sidewalk felt foreign under his heels, and he remembered how as a kid he used to pay so much attention to sidewalks with their various textures, some smooth, some mottled, the grass and weeds jutting through the cracks, the date stamped at the kerb. Hands in his pockets and shoulders slack he took his time, his head mercifully empty. Yet as soon as he reached thirty-fifth he perked up because he knew whose house it was—whose house it somehow had to be—and checked the addresses, counting down as he approached. Yes. There. Connie’s place. It had aged of course, looking small amid the tree-sized shrubs. He halted, sick, excited. Could it be her, there, now, waiting? But it had been a male voice on the phone. Her father? Cyril had never met her father, and anyway the voice had been too young, unless it was her husband . . . Of course it was her husband. Maybe her folks had died and she’d inherited the house and was up here trying to sell it. Likely she wanted to give it a face-lift then flip it. Standard procedure. Cyril had done dozens. In dread and anticipation he went up the walk and up the steps—wide, deep, in need of repair—to the porch, also wide, deep and in need of repair. Before he could knock the door swung inward. The screen door was so blackened with age it obscured the face on the other side. He waited, pulse thumping thick in his throat.
“Mr. Andrachuk I presume.” The screen door opened revealing a guy his own age in a dark blue suit, red spiked hair, straight nose, brilliant blue eyes, and a severely trimmed goatee. “John Boston.” Cyril shook John Boston’s hand, noting the gold watch and the gold wedding band. “Entre and come on in.” He stepped back and held the door wide enough for Cyril to pass, which was when he noticed that the man had a club foot, that one shoe had a three-inch sole and a snub toe. Cyril noticed this all in an instant, even as he was doing his best to not notice it, making a performance of gazing innocently around the foyer and living room.
The place was empty. He recognized the carved pineapple newel post at the foot of the stairs and looked up as if half expecting and half dreading Connie to appear—surprise, surprise, gotcha—but she did not appear, and he was relieved. “I’d offer you a chair but there ain’t one,” said Boston in a mock drawl.
“That’s okay.”
Discoloured rectangles—the ghosts of pictures past—darkened the walls above the wainscotting.
“You alright there, buddy? Lookin’ a little pale.”
“Are you the realtor or owner?” asked Cyril.
“My wife inherited it.”
So. Cyril imagined Connie’s life with this guy. What was he, producer, agent, entertainment lawyer? His teeth looked bleached, his haircut expensive, and a waft of cologne hovered—the aura of success. On the belt of his pleated pants hung a beeper. Cyril avoided looking at his shoe. Scenarios flew fast-forward through his mind regarding his foot. Birth defect? Injury? Had Connie married him out of pity? Or was he a jackal, a hunter, doubly ambitious due to his defect, and Connie the trophy proving he was not merely equal but superior. Cyril grew bold. “She grew up here?”
“Here? Naw. Calgary. Her parents picked it up a couple of years back. You know, enough already with the forty below winters. Time to retire to Lotus Land. Then they went and died before it could happen.”
“I’m sorry,” said Cyril.
“Hey. It is what it is.”
Cyril nodded. A man with a club foot knew more than enough about disappointment. “I had a friend when I was a kid. She lived here.”
“No shit.” Boston gazed around re-evaluating the house.
“Long time ago.”
“Cool.” He clapped his hands once meaning that while nothing would tickle him more than a long meander down memory lane it was time to get down to business. “We want to move in. Want the whole place done. Top to bottom. Inside and out. You got a crew? How’s your schedule? We want to get rocking.”
“Schedule’s good.”
“Right on. Just to let you know I am talking to other contractors.”
“Of course.”
Boston produced a card, holding it slotted between his middle and index fingers, a rich and glossy red with raised black lettering. B.E.I. Boston Energy Inc. “Listen, I gotta jum
p. Take a look around and get back to me tonight. Cost. Time. Or is that too hop-hop?”
“No. No problem at all.”
“The best paint. None of that Chinese shit.”
Cyril wasn’t familiar with Chinese paint.
Boston clapped him on the shoulder, shook his hand again, held out a key, then headed for the door with a surprisingly smooth stride. Had he practiced back and forth in front of a mirror? Worked with a personal trainer? “Lock up then put it through the slot.” And with that, John Boston of Boston Energy Inc. was going down the steps, no clump and bump but quiet as anything, and Cyril was alone in Connie’s old house.
Late afternoon sun slanted through two small stained glass windows with tulip designs in green and yellow. He stood so still that he could watch the coloured shapes crawl as slowly as sea creatures across the floor. Shutting his eyes he listened, trying to hear the echo of Connie’s voice, feel the echo of her presence. He wandered into the kitchen, onto the back porch, observed the remnants of an extensive garden, peeked into the bathroom, then, at the foot of the stairs, recalled standing on this same spot all those years ago and wondered at the time that had passed and what he had done with his life, a question that seemed to be recurring a lot lately. He climbed the steps. At the top the air smelled trapped, not simply hot and stale but troubled, as though haunted by unresolved desire, and he imagined unhappy ghosts—were there any other kind—drifting along the corridor, dragging their chains like Jacob Marley. He faced the door. Thirty-three years had passed since the last time he’d stood here. He held his breath and listened, imagining her on the other side of the door biting her lip trying not to laugh, waiting with one of her swords.
