“Where does it say anything about getting hit and shat and pissed on for trying to make peace?” Effie said.
“Let me get you something to drink,” JC said, standing.
Later, JC seasoned steaks for the broiler. There were stories about the early days. Effie knew them all.
“So Big Danny MacKay says out of the blue, ‘Why don’t you take your separatism and shove it up your arse,’ ” JC recounted. “And the guy from Quebec says, ‘You got a lot of mout’ on you,’ and Danny says, ‘And I got a lot to back it up with too.’ And the war was on.”
JC was laughing, and it sounded like music to Effie. “I think it was in ’71 or ’72. I remember Danny and me crawling on our hands and knees out a side door as the cops were coming in the front. Laughing our asses off.”
He was leaning back against the counter, face flushed, eyes shining. Liveliest he’d been since Christmas, Effie thought.
“I don’t know if you were ever at the place,” he said to Duncan.
“Maybe on a visit,” Duncan said.
“That joint near where Roncesvalles intersects with Dundas. What was it, Effie?”
“The Rondun,” Effie said.
“Yes, yes. The old Rondun. We used to hang out there, me and Sextus, when we were at the Sun, after the Tely died. It was a great place for picking up the gossip from the big construction sites. We got a tip there once that the ironworkers were going to stop the pour for the CN Tower. You imagine.” He was shaking his head. “Sixteen hundred guys pouring 50,000 cubic yards of concrete. Nonstop, it had to be, and there’s this table full of ironworkers at the Rondun pounding back the beer and planning to abort it. You must remember, Effie. The fight I had with Sextus over that? It was in your living room. He was all for running with the story. I told him they were making us a part of the blackmail against the bosses. I was on the desk. We never ran it. Sextus was savage.”
“Sextus went back, I guess,” said Duncan. “When did he go, Effie?”
“He left last night,” Effie said.
“None too happy about the new son-in-law, I gather,” JC said.
Duncan raised an eyebrow.
“Aha,” JC said. “You haven’t heard about Ray.”
“Let’s leave it for Cassie,” Effie said, more sharply than she intended. “Let her make the introductions.”
“But you’ve met him?” Duncan asked.
“Yes,” she said.
“Sounds like he’s going to fit right in,” JC said. “The demographics are perfect.”
“Enough,” said Effie, as the phone rang.
“Leave it,” JC said.
They could hear the answering machine cut in. “It’s Sandra. I’m not sure where you are. But it’s Tuesday night, and if you get this, please call me back as soon as you can. It’s kind of important.”
“You’d better call her,” Effie said.
“I don’t want to talk to her just now,” JC said.
“Who’s Sandra?” Duncan asked.
“A lawyer,” JC said. “For that guy in Texas.”
Dinner was more reminiscence. Who was in the city when they built the subway, TD Centre, CN Tower. Who worked where. A pointless argument of surprising intensity about what year Big Danny MacKay moved back home; how often he came back again to work. And how was Danny, anyway? In a wheelchair now, with the MS. Sun rises and sets on Danny Ban. They laughed about exploits that were once considered life-deforming but were now understood to have been an essential part of growing up, part of leaving innocence behind, becoming hardened for the hard times coming.
“You’ve got to get in touch,” JC said. “When we saw him last summer, Effie and I, when we were down there, you could tell. Time is running out for old Danny Bad.”
The cat wandered into the kitchen. Duncan picked him up. “This would be the culprit,” he said. “The New Year’s Eve fugitive.”
JC smiled. “Time is running out for a lot of people. Right?”
Duncan shrugged, caught Effie’s eye, then looked away. Stroked the cat.
Over brandy, after the dishes were cleared away, Duncan said, “The guy in Texas—where is death row, exactly?”
“It’s about a twenty-minute drive from Huntsville. A godawful place. In December they had a plastic Santa in the yard, just outside the visiting centre. And plastic fucking reindeer.”
There was a silence that felt long.
“I saw the story you guys did before Christmas,” Duncan said. “You’re pretty convinced that he’s innocent.”
“I don’t know,” said JC. “He says he’s been found guilty by the people of Texas. Whether he did it or not is beside the point. That’s the way the system works.”
“I understand what he’s saying,” Duncan said.
“You do?”
Duncan looked at his watch. “It’s getting late.”
“Here’s my problem,” JC said. “I don’t know what he wants from me. Certainly not sympathy. I’d have a hard time sympathizing, anyway. Society reserves the right to weed out evildoers.”
“Evil?”
“You know what I mean. People who reveal a real capacity for doing evil things.”
Duncan stood and stretched, reached down, mussed the top of JC’s head. “In that case, I can think of a lot of people who should have been put down—real early.”
“Name one.”
“My father.”
He turned to his sister, who was gaping at him. “De do bharail, a’ghraidh? Huh? What do you think, Effie girl?”
“I’ll get your coat,” she said.
At the door she told him, “I’m not sure which of you is harder on the nerves.”
On the phone with her mother, Cassie tried to play her father’s outrage for its hypocrisy. “How old did you say his girlfriend is?”
Effie laughed. “Age is just a number. I don’t have to tell you that.”
“Well, I wish he’d thought of that before he sounded off at me.”
“What did he say?”
“That I was throwing my life away. Can you believe it? Some line from black-and-white TV. I almost laughed in his face.”
“He’ll get over it.”
“Who fucking cares.”
“Clearly you do.”
“I don’t think he’s my father, anyway. We have absolutely nothing in common.”
“Now you’re out of line, girl.”
“Really? You’ve done the DNA?”
“I’m not going to listen to this. Call me when you aren’t hysterical.”
She hung up.
Friday morning Effie decided to go back to her own apartment. She told JC at breakfast. He lowered the newspaper, studied her for a moment.
“Okay,” he said.
“So I’ll head there after class. You’ll be okay?”
“I’ll be fine,” he said. Then smiled awkwardly. “Last night …?”
“Don’t worry about it,” she said.
He shrugged. “An excellent reason to go home.”
“This is exactly the discussion I don’t want to have.”
“Well, if there’s something that should be discussed …”
“There’s nothing to discuss. Unless you want to exorcise some dark masculine hobgoblin about virility, in which case I’m the wrong person to talk to.”
“I recall we’ve talked quite a bit about your hobgoblins when you were going through the change …”
“That was different. That was clinical. This is your imagination playing games.”
“We’ll see.”
He went back to the newspaper.
“By the way,” he said before she left. “I talked to Sandra last night. They’ve set an execution date.”
“What are you supposed to do about it?”
“He wants to see me.”
Texas, she thought. He has Texas on his mind. The night before, she’d finally had to put an end to his hopeless struggle. “Just hold me,” she said at last. “Just put your arms around me and relax.
We need some sleep.”
But he turned angrily away.
She understood the anger. She knew all about the insecurity, the pride. But to tell him that she understood would only have complicated an already stressful moment by bringing strangers into it. Bad idea to remind him at this point that she had seen his personal dilemma manifest before in vulnerable men. A handful, really, but enough to understand the phenomenon when it arose (or, more to the point, didn’t).
She was smiling when she turned to check out a sporty-looking car that pulled alongside her at a red light. The young driver smiled back at her, raised his hand, a casual salute. She turned away, but her smile remained. She checked her makeup in the rear-view mirror.
In any event, it was the call from Sandra and the doomed man in Texas that were on his mind. It all made sense. The lapse was temporary. The tenderness would not be gone for long. It defined him, and it always had, even many years before. When you’re young and strong and permanent, evidence of sensitivity can easily be misunderstood.
She remembered him sitting at a kitchen table somewhere long ago. Suddenly he blurted, “I sure do hope the man in there appreciates what he has going for him.”
Sextus was asleep on a couch in the next room. JC had helped her wash and dry and store the dishes. He was sipping a beer, and there was smoky music from a radio. His hand, she realized, was gently on hers, palm down across her knuckles. She was shocked by the comment. She’d never thought of him as feeling anything. Even when he brawled, there was no sign of malice or even anger.
“You don’t wear a ring,” he said.
“We’re not officially married yet,” she said. “I was once, but …”
And she realized it was all too complicated and he probably didn’t care, and it was none of his business, anyway. She removed her hand and held it up for examination. She imagined she could still see the faint impression her wedding ring had made in the two years she had worn it.
The ring, she remembered, was hidden in a drawer. Why hidden?
He stood, so she did too. The song on the radio was “A Whiter Shade of Pale,” and they danced as the music filled the sudden silence of the kitchen.
“What does JC stand for?”
He stopped. “I think I hear something,” he said.
“The baby,” she whispered, stepping back. “I must …”
“Yes,” he said.
And now, as she drove to her office in a city she had mastered in the last trimester of a life that finally seemed to have a shape and content of her own designing, it seemed so odd that she’d forgotten such a moment, and so many moments like it.
In her effort to impose coherence on the subsequent events, she would recall a Friday evening sometime in mid-January. They’d eaten in a little Chinese place not far from Walden and were returning home. The meal had been subdued, as Friday evenings sometimes were. She’d had a busy week. JC seemed bored.
She recognized the set and sway of the young man’s shoulders as he hobbled toward them along Broadview, baggy pants slung low. The fear she’d felt on Christmas Eve was instantaneous. She didn’t hear what JC said to him, but she heard the response.
“Go fuck yourself,” the young man snarled.
They stopped. JC and the young man eyed each other for a moment.
“Fuck myself?” JC said softly, as if confiding. “When there’s a cunt like you?”
The young man stiffened, hesitated, then turned and walked away. JC followed him for two paces, then stopped and watched him go. Effie felt weak. It wasn’t just the shocking word. It was the tone, the sudden menace she saw in him.
Sandy Gillis stood back, breathing heavily, though she could remember only an instant of his fury. Everything before the fury was fading quickly, a settling darkness filling in a hole where she knew there had been a paralyzing terror. Now she saw the menace prostrate on the barn floor. She wanted to go to her father, to comfort him, to reassure herself, but she knew that Sandy Gillis wouldn’t let her.
“You’re a sick fuckin’ man,” Sandy was saying, breathing in short gasps.
Her father’s choking turned into sobs.
And then Sandy turned to Effie. “You go in the house … I’ll get someone to come over. Go now.”
“Don’t hurt Daddy,” she was saying.
“You just go.”
And as she left, he said, “You don’t mention this to anybody. Remember. Not a word.”
Much later on that Friday evening, after the second nightcap and just before he returned to his sullen silence, he advised her, coldly, as she would remember it, “Just so you know, they’re like animals—they can smell fear. So, like, from now on …”
“What the hell are you talking about?”
“I could feel your tension, and he could too. I saw the way you looked at him.”
“You’re saying that I caused—”
“Maybe it’s time you thought about doing something to get rid of some of the baggage you’re carrying around. You’ve got more hang-ups than a cloakroom.”
He was so far over the foul line that she knew he had to be aware of his absurdity. And she knew how dangerous that made him.
“If you wanted a fight tonight, you should have had it on the street. Don’t pick on me.”
“Bullshit.”
She stood and put her glass down. “I’ll call you in the morning,” she said.
He looked away.
She didn’t call him in the morning or on the Sunday morning either. And then it was Monday again. There was more snow in the forecast. Another major blizzard moving in from somewhere, deepening the endless winter. The numbness she felt wasn’t even close to the misery she had known from past misunderstandings. She could reflect objectively on other winters in a life that was defined by isolation. A word she feared.
She wrote it down, drew a box around it. “Isolation.” Under it she wrote: “The difference between solitude and isolation is …”
She remembered from her childhood the constant wondering about her father. When will he leave? When will he return? Two simple questions, always burdened with unbearable anxiety. That was isolation. And it was isolation when she lived with John, imprisoned in his yearning and her own. And, in a way, Toronto had been her greatest isolation, because it was impossible to understand. How could she have been so isolated while living with a million people, the whole world passing through, surrounded by her friends, her life enriched by a baby who was of her substance, dependent on her, and a man who loved and needed her? And yet she was, in those early days, more isolated than she’d ever been at home.
It came to her as she sat there in her office, in the largest city in the country, the head of a department in the country’s largest university. The difference between solitude and isolation is autonomy. And she wrote that word down and drew two boxes around it so she’d be able to remember its uncompromising challenge.
She was sitting at her kitchen table with a book. It was a school book, and it was called Beckoning Trails. It had a blue cover, and on it there was a man skiing. She stared through the kitchen window, imagining that the road outside was beckoning.
Mrs. Gillis was suddenly across from her, in her father’s place. She had her coat on. She placed a hand on Effie’s hand. Effie stared at it, surprised by its warmth and softness.
“Where do you keep the tea, dear?” Mrs. Gillis asked.
Effie pointed to a cupboard.
Mrs. Gillis poked inside the wood stove, moved the kettle to the front. The kettle rumbled.
“Please stand up. I want to check your clothes,” she said.
Effie stood.
Mrs. Gillis knelt before her, passed a hand over the front of Effie’s skirt, lifted the skirt quickly, looked under and let it fall.
“Okay,” she said. “You can sit now.”
“Where’s Daddy?” Effie asked.
“They went to town.” Then, when the teacups were filled, Mrs. Gillis said, “Will you read something for me?”
Mrs. Gillis took the book. Read slowly. ‘ “The day is done, and the darkness / Falls from the wings of Night, / As a feather is wafted downward / From an eagle in his flight.’ ”
“That’s nice,” she said. “John loves that one.”
“Where’s John?”
“He isn’t home yet.”
“Read more.”
“ ‘I see the lights of the village / Gleam through the rain and the mist, / And a feeling of sadness comes o’er me / That my soul cannot resist: / A feeling of sadness and longing, / That is not akin to pain, / And resembles sorrow only / As the mist resembles the rain.’ ”
The wetness on Effie’s cheeks caught her by surprise.
“That’s enough reading,” Mrs. Gillis said. “You come with me now. I have the supper on.”
“I have to wait for Duncan.”
“We’ll leave a note for Duncan.”
The second major snowstorm of 1999 moved in on Wednesday night. By noon on Thursday, media reports of chaos in the streets had generated hysteria at city hall. The mayor of Toronto asked the federal government for help. The federal government, with tongue in cheek, Effie was convinced, sent in the army: four hundred soldiers armed with brooms and shovels, backed up by a mechanized brigade of snowploughs. Effie found it all hysterically funny, but she was also grateful that she was able to stay home, marking exams, while the less fortunate were forced to flounder to their dreary offices.
JC called her on the Friday night. His voice was subdued. He wasn’t feeling well, he said. A bit of flu. He was lying low, but he wanted her to know that he planned to go away on Monday for a while. Heading south.
It was a great idea, she thought, and she told him so. Cuba or Barbados would be lovely. Even just the Keys. She envied him. He corrected her: he didn’t plan to go quite that far south. He’d asked the office for a leave of absence, and they’d consented to four months. He was going to go to Texas for a week. Hang out in Huntsville, spend some time with Sam. He was going to try to get his head around what was really happening there.
“At the very least, it might be healthy to get a little perspective, spend some time with someone worse off than I am.”
Why Men Lie Page 8
