A Population of One

by Constance Beresford-Howe

  — “sonofabitching dignity!”

  “You go to hell!”

  And which way to hell, sir? It’s useful, I suppose, if not exactly cheering, to know there are worse things than being alone. It isn’t the fighting, though, that makes me flinch; it’s the silence that follows the last slammed door. Sunday is their usual day for this recurring drama, and today is only Wednesday. It must be Christmas that’s put them off schedule. Of course everything is worse at Christmas.

  It was Christmas when the silence at home began. The tall tree, with its spun-glass globes and dripping silver-paper icicles, was knocked over with a tinkle of shattered ornaments by my father, jovially drunk after an office party. I laughed, but it troubled me when Mother went silently upstairs and in the silence locked her door. “My father fell into our tree, he said it tripped him,” I told my best friend’s mother next door. (I was six, I think.) “And then he was laughing so much he couldn’t get up.” Later, that got back somehow to my mother, who frowned. “Willy, you have no discretion,” she said coldly. “Learn not to tell people anything about what goes on in this house. Do you understand?” I understood nothing except that she was angry with me. I cried until I made myself sick and she had to take me into her special chair and rock me like the baby I would now always be.

  After that year, there was no tree put up at our house. From that date, there was no ceremonial exchange of presents, no plum pudding family dinner, no guests. Gifts for Lou and me appeared at the foot of our beds, but otherwise December 25 was just another day — only worse, because for everybody else it was Christmas. I used to tell my friends at school that we were Jewish.

  And yet, in all those years, I can remember not one single quarrel. Not one. That always seemed to me incredible, until I read about childhood amnesia. All I can remember now is that silence. And the geography of isolation in our house. Mother had her bedroom and sitting-room upstairs. The bathroom door connecting to his bedroom was kept bolted on the inside. Downstairs, the small study was his alone. Here he kept his supplies of whiskey and cigarettes, and sat over the radio, read the newspaper, or slept with his shoes off. To the best of my knowledge Mother never set foot in that room. All other areas of the house were buffer zones, big and empty, except for an ever-changing series of maids dusting the furniture. Silence inhabited the house from the time my father left it in the morning. Mother rocked the hours away behind the closed door of her room. My father once (it might even have been a Christmas day) stood listening in the hall to that even, regular, self-contained rhythm in the still house. “So it’s come to this,” he said, more to himself than to me. On that occasion he was sober.

  He talked to me, though, much more freely and often than Mother did. She knew how much I loved and admired her, but she never really opened herself to me. Too proud, perhaps. Mother had a lot of pride. And not much confidence in me. “You’re so indiscreet, Willy,” she used to say. “You blunder.” With Lou she could chat like another girl, but they would often fall silent when I joined them. It hurt; it made me feel not only inadequate but guilty, like the verdict of the schoolyard queen, a pink English girl called Paula, that I was “a funny little thing.”

  But Dad would stretch out his legs and, with his head cocked to keep cigarette smoke out of his eyes, would tell me stories of his rowdy, renegade youth, much of it spent in running away from his Rosedale origins. He told me about the trenches at Ypres in 1916, how he worked as a pest exterminator in the Depression, how he made the people in his office roar with imitations of his dyspeptic old boss, who had a chronic sniff. He rarely spoke of his marriage. Perhaps he had his own kind of pride. But once he told me, “You know what’s the only real matrimonial sin, Willy? Self-righteousness. Take it from a sinner.”

  In my bold teens I asked him outright, “Why did you and Mother ever marry?”

  He shot me a quick look out of his blue eyes. “Why, girl, you were the reason. Or the excuse, if you like. Then her family couldn’t stop us, you see. I had the background, but they had all that fine distillery money. They were horrified, their treasure courted by a black sheep like me, kicked out of Ridley College, working for the C.N.R. Freight Department. By God, the whole thing literally killed them inside five years. What attracted her to me I’ll never know. I only know that somehow she … took hold of my imagination. When that happens, unfortunately, nothing else counts. Horse sense, decency, anything. It’s a form of insanity, that’s not putting it too high. As you’ve had every chance to observe, you poor little bitch.”

  Yes, indeed. And yet the earliest years must have been happy enough for them, surely. My own first memory is of happiness. I sit at a long, polished table (in the dining-room, probably, before it became No Man’s Land) playing with two small figures of lambs. They have black wooden legs and faces, but their bodies are soft, white, and curly. There is a record playing somewhere in the house — a thin woman’s voice singing “Georgia.” Was it by any chance Christmastime? Anyhow, I am intensely, deeply happy. After Lou was born, I was allowed to hold her for the photographer to take our picture, and again that feeling of perfect joy and tenderness filled me. In fact, I was so blissful when they put the warm, shawled lump in my arms that I got a violent attack of hiccups, and Lou had to be photographed propped on a cushion after all. I must have been just five then. The whole episode was a neat little forecast of my whole life, in a way.

  And speaking of Lou, I wonder how she ever happened? A last attempt to reconcile themselves to each other? I’ll never know, except that they always both adored her and approved of her without reservation, as if somehow she were the success and I the failure, though surely they can’t really have felt that way. Certainly she didn’t reconcile them. By the time she could sit up, the silence had fallen, a permanent verdict. Perhaps that made it simpler for Lou. She went her own way from the start. She was never involved, like me.

  At eleven, Lou was pretty and already wore her clothes with an air; suddenly boys she pretended to ignore began to hang about the porch, punching each other lightly and having long, pointless arguments. To her delight, Mother packed her off to boarding-school, ignoring my blubbered tears.

  “You can go too, Willy, if that’s it. Again and again I’ve offered to send you to Harlow. It would do you all the good in the world. There is a kind of polish …”

  But at that I only blubbered more. “No! No! I want to be with you!”

  “This is not a good life for you, Willy,” she said to me then, and at intervals all the rest of her days. She would press her delicate lips together, adding, “I hardly need to tell you why.” Just the same, she let me stay home.

  Because I couldn’t leave her. Not possibly. She needed me. Or someone. In that house, every time my father came into it, there was the possibility of violence. I knew that, and so did she. One night when I was about thirteen, I saw how murder can be committed. She had left her room in the evening, for some reason, something she never did if he was home. Probably she hadn’t heard him come in. I saw them meet by accident at the top of the stairs. She drew back in her fastidious way, probably from no more than his smell of tobacco and whiskey. His face darkened with an ugly rage, and his arm lifted to strike her. She flinched back in fear against the wall, calling my name, and I ran to her.

  Without a word he went on down the stairs and into his study. Through the closed door I heard the clink of bottle and glass. Taking her cold hand, I led her to her room. She said nothing. After a while, she began to rock in her chair. It was my father, downstairs, behind his door, who could be heard after a while, sobbing.

  No, I couldn’t leave my mother, then or ever. And except for some bitter intervals in my teens, I never resented that. They owed me no explanations or apologies, after all, did they? There were no wrongs or rights, or none that I could judge. I stayed to the end, without protest. They both loved me, and in a not too friendly world, that mattered a lot. Above all, she needed me. At the end, in her frailty, her hands shrunk little, she was my ch
ild. That mattered most of all.

  Christmas Day. At ten in the morning, the phone rings. I run to answer it. Is it Lou? — or Greg? Is she all right?

  “Allo; c’est toi, Yvette?”

  “No, I’m sorry —” (though why I should apologize I really don’t know).

  Clack. Season’s greetings from Madame Guillotine.

  At noon, another ring. I hurry to the phone. Bill, maybe? “I miss Montreal and you.” Yes, he might just think of calling from Halifax. What a present it would be to hear his voice.…

  “Hello?”

  No sound at the other end.

  “Hello? Who’s there?”

  Breathing. It becomes louder.

  “Who is that?” Nothing but the breathing. It scares me, for no definable reason. I hang up.

  Half an hour later the breather tries again, and I drop the receiver as if it stung. After this the phone is dumb, but I am left restless, prickling with nervous energy. The sky is a grey canvas bag heavy with snow, or I would drive somewhere — anywhere — in the car. As it is, I must get out. I heave on my fun fur (ha ha ha) and boots, and stride out onto pavements crackling with ice like broken glass. It is very cold and I walk fast up the mountain slope with only the puff of my own white breath for company. The streets are deserted. Everyone is indoors overeating, confronting relatives, pouring drinks, or recovering from turkey. Though it’s only four in the afternoon, houses are bright with light in the arctic darkness, and smoke rises from the chimneys like an answer to the dark sky.

  I walk and walk, uphill and down, past the swaying coloured lights of outdoor pines, the bright houses and the dark ones whose owners are in Florida. The trees rattle their bare bones in a rising wind. Snow begins to whip across the zones of light cut by street lamps. An occasional khaki city bus growls past. Cars draw up and groups of people scurry into the warmth of open doorways. A dog limps past me on three legs. A solitary, bundled child wailing “Mu-um-my” drags home a new sled.

  As I hurry along without direction through the freezing air I begin to feel frightened. I understand for the first time what the word alienated means. I know what it is to be without a place or purpose. My identity is a vacuum; it bounces off no other human presence. What am I doing here on this nameless street in a foreign city? Why am I on this island, and is there no escape from it? Where am I going? What will become of me? And to my keen distress, I find myself crying. Tears pour down my cold face and burn there in the bitter wind. I keep swabbing them away with an inadequate paper handkerchief, but they are as hard to stop as arterial blood.

  I must think of somewhere to go. Luckily there’s no one about to see me, stumbling along on feet clumsy with cold, and blowing my nose repeatedly. I must go home. No, I can’t go there. There’s no courage left to face that apartment. The very word makes me flinch.

  Eventually I grope my way downhill toward clusters of brighter light — shops, theatres, restaurants. Mercifully, the tears stop at last. I look into all-day-open cigar stores, movie lobbies, the windows of dress shops, a chain restaurant. Maybe a slice of turkey? It’s six o’clock and there’s nothing to eat at home.

  But when I peer through the steamy window, past loops of tinsel, I see the place is crowded to the doors, with a long line waiting to be served, and waitresses plunging in and out between the tables with an air of desperation. No, it isn’t worth going in there and waiting in line just to say to the hostess, “One.” There are a few eggs in the fridge after all. I won’t starve. Plenty to read, a comfortable bed. The tears are dry now. What a relief to feel light and numb and quite empty of any thought or sensation whatever. It’s only a question of acceptance. I turn toward home.

  Snow on snow. It lashes down with quiet, malignant persistence until the city is half-buried. Bill’s postcard is tucked into my dresser mirror, to be read and reread. I nurse an ugly cough, there being nothing else to do at home. The storm blows and the white hours trail slowly past. Then after two days God seems bored with the whole drama and the clouds roll away, the sky turns a brilliant blue, and all that heaped-up snow twinkles, innocent and passive as a daisy looking up at the sun.

  I muffle up and climb into the car. It is the first day of the new year. My resolutions are to stop coughing, keep moving, and if possible do no more crying. In the clean new light I feel peaceful and convalescent, like the city itself, sleepily turning and tossing off its white covering. Huge, prehistoric-looking machines are grinding through the streets, spewing great clots of snow into trucks, and noisy little tanks clatter along, organizing the pavements into smooth white corridors. I am pleased with myself for having a fortnight ago had chains put on my back wheels, for the side roads are deeply rutted with ice and snow. The noon light is so blazing bright that I soon have to dig my dark glasses out of the glove compartment. Impossible not to feel a little lift of the heart under a sky as burning blue as this. I swing the Porsche briskly up the Autoroute ramp. There is very little traffic. My chains thrash out an energetic, steady beat. The frost crystals on the windows gradually melt. I find an optimistic Beethoven symphony on the car radio and knock time to it on the rim of the steering wheel.

  My plan is to find some nice little country hotel up in the Laurentians and stay there for a night or two — more, if I like it. Might even rent some skis and get out on the slopes. Haven’t skied for years. Might be fun. Might even meet … well. My job, as I see it now, is to steer a course between that damp bog of depression, where I’ve wallowed so long, and the silly heights of optimism, where there are even more risks. In a few days the new term will open at Cartier. Till then, I just have to wait, and walk with care.

  By late afternoon I reach the exit for St. Philomène, a little village in a valley that I discovered last autumn. Today it looks like a page from a child’s picture-book, with peak-roofed habitant houses in candy colours sitting deep in snow as dimpled and smooth as cream. All round the small hotel, ancient, glacial folds of mountain shine white in the crystal air.

  They have a room, smelling of woodsmoke and wax, with a rag rug on the floor and a crucifix over the bed. I put away my case, wash up and tidy my hair, and take a look out at the blue evening as it pours over the hills from the east. Then I go downstairs again. A few pairs of skis are stacked in the lobby, but no one is around. Even stout Madame behind the desk has disappeared. There seems to be nowhere I can get a cup of coffee or tea. Through an open door I can see into a quiet bar where a huge log fire is blazing. I hesitate a moment, and then go in. Why not? There is hardly anyone there. No one to care a damn whether I go or stay. Without warning I feel an ache in my throat and my eyes fill. In a kind of desperation I go straight up to the bar.

  “Oui, madame?” the bartender asks.

  “Ummm — I’ll have a — a — (quick, the name of a cocktail) pink lady. Can you make one of those?”

  “Si, madame.”

  A pink lady sounds harmless enough. I try a sip and am reassured to find it tastes harmless, too. On the other hand, I really wouldn’t mind getting drunk, just for the experience. In fact, it might be a great idea. Already the urge to cry has ebbed away. I take my drink and sit with it at a corner table where I can see the fire. The bartender draws on a cigarette as he polishes glasses. I sip more of my sweet, bland drink. It is actually quite pleasant and warming. Maybe my father’s life-style has more to recommend it than I used to think.

  There is a man at the next table hunched over a half-empty glass. Perhaps it’s the glass that helps, but I recognize him at once, without surprise. It’s George MacKay, the real-estate salesman. (Yes, Charlotte, of course he had to turn up some time.) At once, before I can think about it, I get up and go over to him.

  “Hello, Mr. MacKay. I don’t suppose you remember me, but we met on the Turbo to Montreal a few months ago. My name is Willy Doyle.”

  His dull eyes lift indifferently and for a second his face is perfectly blank. It’s obvious he doesn’t recognize me at all, but mechanically he half-rises and calls out with th
e greatest heartiness, “Yeah — sure I remember you — sit down, sit down — great to see you again. What you drinking; let me fill that up for you!” He has put on some weight since I last saw him; the hand pumping mine feels padded. However, he appears to be quite sober. I sit down beside him.

  “I’ll just finish this one, thanks. How have you been?”

  “Great, just great. Maurice — sure you won’t? — just another Scotch, then, sport. Yeah, that’s it. Well, it sure is good to see you. I been up here for a lunch affair — head of our firm is retiring — you know how these things get you down, so I thought I’d have a quickie before hitting the road. You up here for the skiing?”

  “Yes, I … well, it’s lovely up here. Tell me, how’s your family? Your son — did he ever go back to Cartier? I got that job there, but I haven’t run into him. Jamie, wasn’t it?”

  “What a memory!” he says more quietly. His rather bloodshot blue eyes look at me with close attention now and he wags my empty glass at the bartender, one thick, warm hand around my wrist to arrest my objections.

  “Nah, Jamie just gets by with temporary jobs from Manpower — could be shovelling snow right now, for all I know. But my girl finally got her head together, she’s gone into nurses’ training.”

  “Oh, that’s good.”

  “So you came up for some skiing, eh? You … with friends?”

  “No, I came up on my own.”

  “Say, that’s not much good, honey. All alone up north? Hell, it’s no good at all. I ought to know. May be my good luck, though.” He lifts his glass to me with a knowing wink. His knee touches mine, perhaps by accident. I shift away slightly.

  “How you like it at Cartier?”

  “Oh, it’s fine, thanks.”

  There is a silence. For something to do, I swallow a little of my drink. Too late to stop, I hear myself say brightly, “And how’s your wife?”

  He looks away, but not before I see the baffled pain in his blue eyes, looking out like a prisoner.