Why Men Lie

by Linden MacIntyre

  The voice on her answering machine was untroubled. He was working, that was all. That was the way he was. She felt a glow, and the newsprint disappeared. JC Campbell. After so much disappointment, decades of disillusionment, could she now believe in someone?

  Even Conor, precious though his memory might be, had been a mystery. He told her at the outset that he’d be honest about the need for some dishonesty. And somehow she understood. Dishevelled Conor with the slept-in face; Conor of deceptive softness, in his body, in his voice; Conor of the contradictions. Except in appearance, they were so alike, Conor and JC, and she was, at once, warmed and frightened by the recognition.

  She re-engaged with the broad page of the paper, resumed the Clinton story, the travails of power. The president of the United States had been alone with this young woman, this intern. Frequently. Something had happened. Some exchange of favours. A story old as human nature. It was in the book that Conor gave her once. The Book of Leinster. The Táin Bó Cúalainge—the Cattle Raid of Cooley. The book that sent her back to school, launched her down the road to scholarship. “What caused the pangs of the men of Ulster. It is soon told.” That was how the book began. Sex caused the pangs of Ulster. Sex was the cause of everything.

  “I’m Conor Ferguson. And what would your name be?”

  “You can call me … Faye. Faye Gillis.”

  The story in the newspaper was accompanied by a photograph of Clinton and his wife, Hillary, loyal and defiant. There was an inset of Lewinsky, smiling, big-haired, more than slightly stunned. Effie tried to imagine the scene in the Oval Office: Lewinsky on her knees, Clinton talking business on the telephone, this mountain of hair concealing mischief in his lap, Clinton trying not to gasp while setting the world’s agenda. Kings and queens and mistresses. Power and sex and dreams of immortality. Moral authority blown away, for what?

  She carefully examined the photograph of Hillary for evidence of pain as she studied Bill’s for signs of deceit. It takes a psychopath to hide deceit completely. Bill Clinton was no psycho. You could see it clearly, fear in his eyes, though he seemed serene enough in contrast to the brittle indignation of the faithful wife.

  Maybe he was innocent. Maybe it was exactly what Hillary called it: a right-wing plot. She wouldn’t put it past them. But in the end, she felt for both of them. She’d been there. Been everywhere and every one of them. She’d been Monica. She’d been Bill. She’d been Hillary. She’d boxed the compass of emotional entanglement, circumnavigated every possible betrayal. Now, at middle age, liberated and alone, she could freely calculate the benefits and costs. What role was worse? Betrayer or betrayed? Her brother wasn’t any help, the priest, the comforter of strangers.

  “If you’re having a personal problem, just spit it out,” he’d said impatiently. “I don’t have time for metaphors.”

  That was the end of that. But now, on July 5, 1998, sitting alone in a coffee shop in Fredericton, she could with confidence declare a preference. She’d rather be betrayed than betray.

  But at the end of the day, who really cares? In the long run it’s the dustbin for us all. Conor Ferguson’s philosophy, again.

  Sextus had probably begun his infidelities when she was immensely pregnant—1971. “As early as that? Because of that?”

  JC was guarded, obviously sorry to have obliged her with his insight. “It’s ancient history now,” he said. Why would she insist on revisiting something that could only be a source of pain? She reminded him that she was a historian. She wanted to approach her own past with the objectivity she’d bring to any scholarship. History was only painful for the amateurs. And there were things he deserved to know about her.

  He scoffed. “You can’t investigate yourself objectively. It’s a fundamental rule in journalism. The same applies to history.”

  “Okay,” she said. “You tell me. You were there for most of it. You were a reporter then. Give me the cold hard facts.”

  He knew he was trapped.

  Sextus’s first betrayal was with someone they all knew, someone so unlikely that the knowledge made her laugh.

  “You find it funny?” JC said in disbelief. “I thought it was pathetic at the time.”

  The philandering became so commonplace that it was no longer interesting, even to the gossips in their crowd, as it was only peripherally interesting to her now, a lifetime later. Still, he told her what he knew.

  “You know the way it was back then, in the seventies?”

  “I hear a lot about it now,” she said. “The zipless encounters and free love horseshit. As if anything is free.”

  “But back then, it was pretty meaningless. Casual entanglements, often triggered by booze or dope and kind of sanctioned by a lot of junk sociology—the age of Aquarius and all that garbage. I’d have thought you knew about it.”

  “I was a homebody. Remember? I was becoming a mom. My so-called husband worked all hours. He travelled. I took fidelity for granted. I was naive.”

  “So when did you twig?”

  “When he joined the gym.”

  JC laughed. “Ah yes. The gym.”

  “You all knew?”

  He nodded.

  And maybe she’d known too, long before she first admitted it. The thing about knowledge is that you can have it without knowing what it is. Wilful ignorance, they call it.

  “So what was the final clue?” JC asked.

  “There was no final clue. I just felt something. I don’t know how long I felt it before I put a name to it.”

  Except for the gym, nothing about him had changed. He was attentive and consistent in his moods. Loved their child and doted on her. Shared his work frustrations, which were mostly minor. She told herself it was loneliness that made her look for him one evening. Not an actual surveillance, really, but more a yearning to be close. She went to the gym wearing her happiest face. She told the girl at the front desk that she was supposed to meet her husband there. He was a member.

  The girl checked. “Ah yes. Mr. Gillis.” But he wasn’t there that evening.

  There was a little office that she hadn’t noticed, and a man standing in the doorway. He seemed to sense distress. He was the owner-manager, he said. How could he help?

  Oh, not at all. She’d hoped to meet her husband there, but there had clearly been a mix-up.

  “His name?”

  “Sextus Gillis.”

  He picked up a small box of file cards from the desk, walked his fingers through them. “Sextus. Gillis. Now there’s an interesting name. It doesn’t ring a bell, but … ah, there it is. And what would your name be? I’m Conor Ferguson.”

  She hesitated. And then said, “You can call me Faye. Faye Gillis.”

  “Ah, Faye,” he said. “Lovely.”

  He held out a hand. It was a soft hand, like the rest of him, like the accent with the slight uptick at the end of sentences, like the smile. He was slightly shorter than she was, and he had a paunch that was exaggerated by a turtleneck sweater that was half a size too small. His hair was unruly and thinning at the front, curling around his ears and collar. But his eyes were the feature she remembered later. They were blue and businesslike, almost cold in contrast to the warmth that seemed to radiate from the rest of him. The eyes were managerial. The rest of him, the body and the manner, spoke of service.

  “Here’s my card,” he said. “If you ever consider gettin’ into shape yourself. Maybe a little cardio for the long haul.”

  “Cardio” with the stone-hard r and the soft, soft uptick o.

  She smiled. “The heart’s in pretty solid shape already.”

  “Ah, of that I’m sure,” he said. “But then again, the heart is full of little secrets.”

  “You’re Irish.”

  He hesitated. “In a manner of speakin’. Yes.”

  A week later she called and asked if he would meet her at a coffee shop across the street from the gym. She wanted to talk about fitness, the possibility of a personalized training plan.

  She got there
early, found a discreet table near a window.

  After some brief discussion, he asked her what was really on her mind.

  “I want to know whether or not my husband ever goes to your gym, Mr. Ferguson. Frankly, I think he’s using it as a front for something else.”

  He pursed his lips, raised the coffee cup, looked intently at her across the rim. “I really wouldn’t know anythin’ about that,” he said. “Actually, I have three gyms in the city.”

  “He said he goes to this one.”

  “You don’t say.” He sipped. Sighed. “You think he’s cheatin’?”

  She wasn’t really ready for the question. She was silent.

  “All I can say truthfully, and respectin’ people’s privacy, is that I know all my regulars. I’m sorry to say I don’t know yer man.”

  “Thank you,” she said.

  The feeling wasn’t unfamiliar, the emotional void that suddenly surrounded her. But she surprised herself. She felt no pain. And though she was in a strange city, among strangers, she was unafraid. She felt a mild humiliation, but it was offset by the sense of power that comes from secret knowledge, the measure of control it gives. And there was Conor. He was easy to be with. He was a private place where she could go to hide, to fantasize. They didn’t talk about the reason they got to know each other in the first place. He never tried to take advantage of what he might correctly have assumed to be a period of vulnerability. Hard to believe, after knowing Sextus, who saw vulnerability as opportunity. Conor was gentle in his manners, but there was a directness in his speech, even in the way he looked at her. The conversations over coffee grew longer and more frequent. He had a deep knowledge of his country’s folklore and seemed fascinated that she could speak a language in which so much of his mythology was rooted. He’d grown up in a place she’d never heard of. Armagh.

  Their growing friendship was enriched by irony. He should have been Sextus’s friend, another part of the diverse band of strangers Sextus frequently brought home, usually unannounced. Conor and Sextus would have got on famously, for a while, at least. Sextus knew about the world, about its afflictions. He knew the history of the troubles in the north of Ireland, the Catholics and Protestants and all their animosities. They both loved alcohol, and both seemed to have a remarkable capacity for controlling its effects.

  The closest thing to intimacy in those early days was in one brief, impulsive moment when she touched Conor’s hand and declared, “I’m glad you’re here to listen … it’s a comfort.”

  He blushed and turned away. “Ah well,” he said. Then, “Thanks for sayin’ that.”

  When they were parting that day, he hugged her briefly, his face close to hers. On her temple she felt the whisper of a kiss. But still she told herself their bond was virtuous, and it gave her moral confidence.

  She’d pretend to be asleep.

  Sextus would ask softly, “You awake?”

  She’d feign a murmur. “No.” Then, “Your hair is wet.”

  “I showered at the gym … didn’t want to wake you.”

  “Good night.”

  “Good night.”

  And she’d lie there in the void, composing the rough draft of what she knew would be her future.

  The causeway was in shadow when she crossed, the sun already tucking in behind the mainland. But the light still caught the Creignish hills and flickered on the bay, dancing on the northern reaches of the Strait of Canso. It was July 5, but there was a chill. She noted with dismay that Cape Porcupine, once a looming barricade against the world, now seemed to have become a gravel pit. Had it really been so totally diminished, torn apart and humbled for the sake of a few demeaning local jobs and fat profits for the owners of some foreign corporation? Or was it ever quite the eminence she remembered from long, dull days of staring at it through a schoolhouse window?

  Cape Porcupine resembled an environmental crime scene. A noble mountain, turned into a quarry, hacked and torn apart and, as far as she could tell, unlamented by any local individual or group. She made a mental note: JC should bring a crew down, frighten local politicians and their corporate accomplices with the spectre of exposure on national television. Wake people up.

  She carried on to town, bought provisions. Bread, milk, tea, cereal. A box of fried chicken would simplify the arrival at the old house on the Long Stretch. She realized that she was stalling. Her anticipation was underscored by dread with hints of sadness. JC would have been a brand-new factor in the going-home equation.

  She stopped at the gate, unlocked it, swung it wide, propped it open with a stick. The grass was tall and thick with hardy weeds. Farther along the road, through the grove of poplars that obscured the Gillis place, she could see a glow of light. She wondered briefly what it looked like now.

  Over the years, she and Duncan had, quite independently, transformed their old place. There was vinyl siding, a hefty propane tank, new windows all around. New doors. New wiring with a 200-amp service panel. There was even a dishwasher, of which Duncan disapproved. She had hired a contractor to bulldoze what was left of the old barn. Duncan hadn’t commented.

  She hesitated only briefly.

  “Daddy?”

  “What are you doing, hiding in there? Let me see you.”

  The kitchen was now ablaze with light, her suitcase near the door, bags of groceries on the kitchen counter. The stereo blared in what had been her bedroom and was now her office. Chiquitita, tell me what’s wrong …

  She once dared JC to confess his greatest flaw. He hesitated for a moment. “I love ABBA,” he said finally.

  “Oh … my … God,” she replied.

  “What’s wrong with ABBA?”

  You’re enchained by your own sorrow / In your eyes there’s no hope for tomorrow. She walked to the door of the office, pointed the remote toward the stereo, turned it off. Poured a drink and sat at the kitchen table.

  Conor had warned her to be ready. The movies lead us to anticipate a dramatic buildup, background music to prepare us for the shock. But there never is background music, just the normal sounds. In retrospect, they always seem banal. And the end is always bitter.

  When the moment came, the soundtrack was from the television, the hollow chatter of a quiz show about stories in the news. They always watched it. An old man was struggling in the middle of a long question. Cassie was in bed. The dishes were washed and in the cupboard. His late nights had become ludicrously later. Last night it had been near three a.m. But now he was home, looking pale, struggling to stay awake. She’d had enough.

  She heard the words, much as he did, as if someone else was speaking them.

  “One of us is going to have to do something,” she said without looking at him.

  “Do what?” he said wearily. Then he stood, walked to the television set and turned up the sound. When he turned back, he smiled at her, then came and sat beside her. Squeezed her knee.

  “I want you to move out for a while,” she said.

  “What?”

  “You heard me.”

  “Where’s this coming from?”

  She sighed. “I don’t want to have to spell it out. I just want you to go away for a while so I can think.”

  “Go away where?”

  “That’s up to you. I suspect …” For a moment her voice was gone, and she could feel the pressure of tears. She took a deep breath. “I’m talking about a trial separation,” she said.

  “Separation …”

  “Like the Trudeaus.”

  “The Trudeaus! Give me a friggin’ break.”

  “I need time. You can decide when—”

  “When!” he shouted. “When? How about right fucking now.”

  The door slammed. She knew that the child’s eyes had briefly opened, the bony little body stirred, hand found face, thumb found mouth. Effie held her breath. Silence broken only by a spatter of applause and people talking in a television box, oblivious behind a television window.

  The next day, at the coffee shop across from C
onor’s Gym, she told him, “He left last night.”

  “Ahhh, Jeesus now,” Conor said, his large, soft hand gently covering hers. “Are ye all right, then?”

  She stayed up too late and drank too much, and in the morning she tried to tell herself the creeping sadness was just a symptom of a hangover, something to remember if she was to spend the summer here alone. Keep the liquor down to a dull roar. She realized that she was slamming things—cupboard drawers, the coffee urn, the coffee can, the refrigerator door—muttering vile obscenities at inanimate objects. She paused for a moment, then sat at the corner of the kitchen table, took a deep breath. There was an ashtray with a single crumpled butt. Where did that come from? She examined it, trying to summon specific details from the evening before. She remembered a senseless impulse to call Sextus. She was sure she hadn’t. It was at that point, she was now certain, that she’d staggered off to bed.

  Pouring coffee, she noticed her cellphone where she’d left it. The message light was blinking. The battery was almost dead, but the message was brief: “Hey, I’m at the airport. I get to Halifax at—oops, they’re about to close the gate. Gotta run. I’ll call you when I get there.”

  She was laughing as she fumbled for the charger in her purse, briefly flirting with the notion of a splash of whisky in her coffee.

  She spent the morning cleaning. There was epidermal grime throughout the house, coating unexpected surfaces. She vacuumed dead fly clusters from the corners of the windows. There was a mouldy teabag fixed as if by glue to the inside of the teapot. She changed the bedding. After noon she napped. She woke up refreshed, showered and, shortly after three, began to watch the road. She wished she’d bought flowers when she was at the superstore in town.

  By four o’clock she’d redressed. She’d been wearing shorts but imagined cellulite and selected a flimsy cotton skirt and sandals, a navy V-neck sweater. The sweater was flattering in a modest way. She considered a quick trip to town to buy some flowers and, while she was there, to replenish the liquor supply, but she dismissed the impulse. There’d be lots of time for flowers. Maybe he’d bring flowers. There was a half a bottle of Balvenie. That would do. She alternated between dismay and pride as she surveyed the house, so burdened with her history and yet emerging gradually to become a statement of her taste, her future.