A Population of One

by Constance Beresford-Howe

  But I remember the total, the overwhelming desolation of being left among kind strangers in that white, strange-smelling place. I remember having no real belief at all that I would ever see my familiar world again. And my mother’s departure was absolute. As final as death. My grief when she died last year was easy, the tears flowed — but not then; I couldn’t cry then. At four years old I had to bear a sorrow too numb and huge for any comfort whatever. How could Lou possibly — how can anyone — forget what it’s like?

  “Won’t they let you sleep in with him?” I ask, my voice coming out in a stiff croak.

  “Oh, of course not, Willy.”

  “Well, do they at least have rocking chairs beside the cots?”

  “Rocking chairs? Good Lord, I don’t know. Anyhow, at this point I’ve got no bloody lap to rock him on. It’s barely February and I’m like a Mack truck already.… It would be just like God to sentence me to twins. What did you say?”

  “I said tell Dougie I’m sending him a little surprise. Lucky thing I called. I’ll get it off today. It should reach you before he goes in. Mind you keep it wrapped, Lou, and don’t give it to him until the minute you have to leave. You will remember, won’t you? That way it might help him over those first few minutes.”

  “Yes, sure. Thanks, Willy. Now I’ve got to rush off. Nice to hear from you.”

  I sit down immediately and begin the construction of a picture story on squares of cardboard from the laundry. With quantities of coloured ink I portray our favourite invention, a thumb-sized fat lady called Mrs. Carstep Jamwaddle. She sits up in bed with one curly hair springing from the crown of an otherwise bald head. On top of the icepack round her throat is her friend and part-time furpiece, a yellow caterpillar called Wallace. She tucks into a large mound of purple ice cream. Then her mother comes in, arms outstretched. And then they all go home, Wallace undulating behind, with his suitcase on the end of his tail.

  By the time I have sewn this epic together with a length of red ribbon, wrapped it all up, and rushed out to get it into Special Delivery, it is late in the afternoon, and I recall distractedly that I haven’t yet dyed my shoes. In haste I spread out newspaper and apply the blue, pleased to see that the colour spreads on smoothly and looks well. To speed the drying process, I set the oven to low and put the shoes inside.

  It is not until I’m stepping into my bath that I notice the blue blotches on my hands. Soap, the nailbrush, soaking, all prove futile. Desperate, I scrub with cleanser from the tin. All that accomplishes is to turn the skin red, where it is not already blue. Oh, it just isn’t fair. Do these crazy things happen to other people, or just to me? And why to me? Why do I always seem to be the butt of some cosmic but not very good joke? I mean, if the Great Author wants to make us tragic victims, that’s one thing — it even has a certain dignity — but playing straight man to a low comedian is something else. What do you do then? Laugh, I suppose — if you can. But a couple of angry tears are plopping into the bathwater and all I can manage is a disconsolate sort of snuffle. Eventually, though, I remember a pair of long white kid gloves at the back of my drawer, and as it turns out they heighten the elegance of the new gown to an almost imperial level.

  Bill’s face when he first sees me is a study in lightning adjustment from utter dismay to extravagant and gallant admiration. Too late (of course) I realize that his own outfit of cashmere pullover and tweedy trousers indicates he probably had a movie and barbecued chicken in mind.

  “Bill, I could pretend I only put it on to show you. It will only take me a second to change —”

  But he catches up my gloved hand and raises it to his lips with a superb Rupert-of-Hentzau bow.

  “You’ll do no such thing. That dress shall not be kept from a waiting world. No kidding, Willy, it’s gorgeous. Turn around and let me see the back. Mm. Lovely. Wait — here’s a little hook open.” Deftly he fastens it, while I wish there were more of them. “Yes, it’s really super. The blue makes those blue eyes of yours jump right out of your head. Now lead me to the phone and let’s see if we can get a reservation somewhere nice. I wonder whether the Porc-épic … or the — no, I’ve got it. You know the Boule-de-Suif near the CBC — we’ll have to line up, they don’t take reservations. But with all those producers there dressed up as anarchists, nobody will notice I’m not in your class.”

  “Oh great. Hold on a minute while I take my shoes out of the oven.”

  “Eh?”

  When I explain, he throws back his curly head to laugh and says, “I do like you, Willy!”

  All this gets us off into the snow with a dash. In the cab I confess the reason for the long gloves, and he laughs again, which makes the sad face of mid-Europe at the wheel split open in a sympathetic grin. I am so warm with happiness, even while we wait in a chilly queue outside the restaurant, that instead of running forlornly through my mind Dougie sits in a quiet corner of it, patient and resigned.

  “Look, there’s Archie — see? Up ahead.”

  “Good heavens. Fancy him being here. His back must be better, then. Who’s that with him?”

  “Some old trout or other, I can’t see too well.”

  But just then a group between us drops away, abandoning the lineup, and Archie notices us.

  “Join us later for coffee,” Bill mouths. After a truculent stare at me over his long cigar, Archie nods.

  Dinner is a lively affair because of the vivacious, French-speaking crowd, most of it from the nearby CBC studios. They have come not to eat the food but to devour each other in long, simultaneous conversations, in hostile stares, in kisses, in high shrieks of laughter, in head-together murmurs. As Bill promised, they are in every possible bizarre kind of dress, and some of them keep their dark glasses on, though the room is dim with candlelight. “Otherwise, you see,” Bill explains, “the tourists might not know they are producers.”

  After dessert, an obliging waiter takes orders for espresso coffee, and conjures extra chairs to our table for Archie and his lady. While the introductions are in progress, I have time to hope no mention will be made of my recent cooking lesson, during which I dropped an egg on the floor and was denounced: “Slut!”

  “… my sister from Jamaica, Jessie Tort,” says Archie. He seats himself with caution, but he looks much better; there is, in fact, a high colour in his cheeks.

  “It’s great fun to find you here,” says Bill pleasantly. “I’m always surprised, even after years here, to find what a small town Montreal actually is. You hardly ever spend an evening out without seeing someone you know.”

  I think proudly how clever Bill is with easy small talk, and how agreeably he stood up to greet Archie’s old sister, a lean and formidably erect old lady of about eighty, whom he’s given one of his best smiles. And I wonder why Archie’s bush of eyebrow is knotted in that scowl. It surely can’t be his back.

  “You and Molly used to frequent this place, didn’t you?” he asks, gazing at Bill and pointing the cigar at him like a challenge. To my surprise, Bill flushes a little.

  “No, not really.” The cordiality has faded slightly from his voice, but he adds, “Who’s having a brandy with coffee — Willy? Mrs. Tort? Archie?”

  Once all that is settled, Bill turns to Archie’s sister with his engaging smile once more on duty.

  “Is this your first visit to Montreal, Mrs. Tort?”

  Only then do we discover that either the lady’s teeth are a poor fit, or she considers herself too old to bother with the finicking details of enunciation, for she chops up words with the abandon of a manic butcher whirling his cleaver.

  “Oh no, thissame fourteen visit, be exact, to Monorail. First time was in ’19 when the Prince of Whale was here. Though half a mo, wasn’t I here in time for the flu picnic? — or was that later, Archie? Yes, that was the time Windy my Peke bit the Trades Missioner, such a sensible doggie, he was an awful bore. I don’t know why gobber ficials must always be bores, never matter what country, all dread creatures capable writing dull books like
Hiller’s Unkempt. Must be that round ficial fairs they have to tend, dulls their nits or something. Good brandy.” And uttering a baritone laugh, she pats Bill’s arm.

  He avoids my eye with some care. I stir the black pool of my demitasse industriously. When I do glance up, I catch Archie in the unmistakable act of looking down the front of my dress. I am the only one to blush.

  “Nice that your sister is here,” I say, trying to make it sound true. But no one ever believes me when I speak platitudes. Archie transfers a gloomy gaze to the end of his cigar.

  “Jessie is trying to persuade me to go and live with her in Jamaica when I retire.”

  “Oh, really. Well, I hope that won’t be for ages yet.” But to this blandishment he returns only a cross grunt.

  “Yes, pearly ridiculous spend old age in a city same climate as Linengrad. Come and get some topical sun, never have another tinge of all his wizaries then. I always tell people the first Bishop Erect lost his romantics for ever first year he came to Kingston, no place like it, look at me I say.”

  We all do, with some awe. I have been in minor but sharp agony, however, for quite a few minutes now, and Bill, perceiving this, begins at once to bundle us off. He creates a bustle paying the bill and making our farewells, and then almost runs us out of the place. Once safely outside we burst out laughing like a pair of escaped lunatics. People turn in the street to stare at the two of us holding each other up and guffawing explosively.

  “Come on,” he gasps, “they’ll come out and find us here — let’s grab a getaway cab.” And we collapse into a taxi, still laughing.

  “Oh God, she can’t have any roof to her mouth —”

  “The Bishop — the Bishop —”

  “The Peke was from Peter Pan and Windy, I suppose —”

  “That bore Unkempt —”

  By some happy accident I find myself folded inside his arm, which he now settles more comfortably around me.

  “Poor old Archie,” he says. “Fancy spending your twilight years with a companion like that. Well, you have to feel sorry for him. Did you catch that crack about me and Molly? It’s not that there ever was a real thing with us, you know. It’s just that he has this patriarch complex or something. He’d like all the women in our department to be nuns. A queer old boy, and that’s the truth.”

  “Would he?” I think of him looking down my front, but say nothing, because that aspect of the evening no longer seems of the faintest interest. Bill’s arm and shoulder are comfortingly warm in the cold taxi. He feels relaxed. I rest my head against him. Eventually, as we draw near my apartment building, he leans over me and my arm slides up around his neck. Our mouths bump together shyly, part, and meet again. Table manners now, Willy. Must not seem too hungry. But his lips are soft and fresh and feel lovely.

  The meter ticks. The cab has stopped.

  “Well, well. We’re here,” says Bill. “Hold on, driver; just wait here a minute, I’ll be going on. I’ll see you in, Willy — mind that ice. Thanks, love, for a grand evening. Call you soon.”

  Oh Dougie, my poor baby, are you there? But I am so happy. Forgive me, I can’t help it.… I haven’t forgotten you. It’s just that right now I believe as simply as you do in happy endings.

  CHAPTER SIX

  GENERATION GAP

  “I don’t want to know that,” protests Mike.

  “Now look. It’s part of my job to ask Socratic questions. You may call ’em questions I don’t know how to answer either; maybe nobody does. But I have to ask them.”

  Moodily Mike takes a swig from his container of coffee. “Yours is getting cold,” he points out.

  “All right. Now I’m asking whether Theobald Pontifex is a bully because he’s a clergyman, or because that’s simply his temperament, and he’d be the same kind of father if he were a ballet dancer or a botanist.”

  “Yeah, but my whole thesis is that it’s got to be because he’s Establishment.”

  “You remember that scene where the children choose a hymn — ‘Come, come, come; come to the sunset tree’ —?”

  He frowns.

  “Oh, you must. When Ernest got a beating for not being able to pronounce ‘come.’ ”

  “Oh. Well. Yeah.”

  “Doesn’t that scene suggest to you the old man is a natural sadist? The hymn and the Sunday background and the dog-collar make it much nastier; but are those the basic elements, or is it just old Theobald’s glee at the spanking?”

  Mike blows out air patiently through his nostrils.

  “The Church bit is basic. That’s my thesis, man.”

  “But is it Butler’s, Mike?”

  “Hell, how do I know. I’m just a crazy, mixed-up senior, trying to screw a degree out of this place.”

  My mouth twitches dangerously. I take a large gulp of tepid coffee to keep it out of mischief. The Way of All Flesh lies on my desk in a puddle of late afternoon sunlight. In the little silence that drops between us, I can hear the ticking of my watch.

  “Well, all I’m asking is that you consider these situations not just from a sociological point of view, but as illustrations of human behaviour. Butler’s portraying people — complicated people, not just Victorian stereotypes.”

  “Yes, ma’am. I’ll remember that.”

  “You say you’re not going to do anything with Dickens? Seems rather a pity to waste Gradgrind and Dombey.”

  “No, too much been done. It would just be rehashing Johnson and Taine and all that.”

  “Well, maybe.”

  “No, Trollope and Hardy next.”

  “This thing is going to run to the scale of a full-length thesis, then.”

  “Looks like it.” His ingenuous smile is full of pleasure.

  “Anyhow, it sounds pretty good so far. I’m really interested in it.”

  “Then why won’t you come with me to the Carnival Ball?”

  “Now Mike, we’ve been over all this before.”

  “You haven’t explained, only made excuses and run like a rabbit. You’re hiding behind a whole lot of clichés, admit it. You act like being human could be fatal. We’re just two people, Miz.”

  “Mike, I —” Certainly the quarts of coffee I drink every day at Cartier must account for the recent tendency of my heart to race, my hands to perspire. Yet my reactions are thick and slow. I am not quick enough now to prevent Mike from rising, coming around the desk, bending his tall head swiftly down, and dropping a kiss on the side of my neck.

  “Well!” is all I can find to say, and highly ridiculous it sounds, to both of us. But I seem to have no breath for any more effective comment. That delicate little kiss has shot like a bullet right to its target, and my face is burning like other areas, and well he knows it, too, the mischievous young warlock. Once more bone-lessly draped in his chair, he eyes me with a sparkling kind of glee, and all that saves my dignity is that his own cheeks are bright pink.

  “Now see here, Mike. The answer is no. You have a girl. I’ve seen her around with you — that big dark girl. She’s the one to take to your dance, not a prehistoric monster like me.”

  “Val isn’t my girl. She just hangs around.”

  “We’re not arguing about it, Michael.”

  “Huff, huff, Miz. Have it your own way, then. Only it would’ve been fun. Shake ’em up a bit. Your peers and mine. A good thing all round.”

  “Not good. Or wise.”

  “Don’t you ever want to try something unwise? Dangerous, even?”

  I pause, thinking of the undoubted folly of The Project, so far, in all likelihood, from being a wise or good plan, even if it — even if Bill —

  “You see? You can’t fool me, you know. Because you’re real, not a non-person, like so many faculty types in this place.” He pauses, stretching out still farther his long legs in their skinny, tie-dyed jeans. The room is growing dusky now. I switch on my desk lamp.

  “You ever feel you have to do something crazy just to prove you’re really alive?” he asks me.

  �
�Sometimes,” I admit with reluctance.

  “Me too. I took some kind of stuff last month on a sugar-cube — the guy sold it to me didn’t even know for sure what it was. Anyhow, my father’s spelled it all out for me, Christ, you can imagine in what detail — all the kinds of genetic and other damage you can get from the hard stuff — so I knew exactly what could happen. That’s why I took it, really. Just what the hell, why not.”

  My stomach knots. “What did happen?”

  “Nothing much. It was probably cut. Sometimes what they sell is nothing but detergent or whatever. Anyhow I just felt a bit dizzy and my eyes went sort of funny for a couple of days.”

  “God. I hope it’s the last time you do that.”

  “Probably won’t be. The thing is, while I was waiting for something to happen with it, I was alive all over, every damn cell. Alive. You see what I mean?”

  “But aren’t there other —”

  “What other ways? You tell me one, Miz. The lever’s stuck — what turns you on? Even bed’s a big bore half the time, admit it — booze ditto — and there aren’t many books as good as Dracula. You know what I do sometimes, just for kicks? I steal stuff from the department stores, or bookstores, or whatever. Sometimes Val helps. How does that grab you, Socrates?”

  “I’m shocked,” I say helplessly.

  “Why?”

  “You could be arrested —”

  “Sure. That’s the whole point.”

  “But —” I look at him, baffled. “You have all the money you want, surely? Your parents —”

  “Ah. Ah! My father! Here we are again, eh? Now we’re at the point! Mystery solved!”

  His repressed but intense excitement disturbs me so much that I have to get up and pretend to look for cigarettes in my coat hanging behind the door.

  “And sometimes,” he goes on more quietly, “I unlock the drawer in the library where my father keeps this Mauser he got in the war. I open it and look at the two bullets inside. I think about it. I can sit there and think about it for two hours sometimes. Just looking at it.” He watches me intently, but I am under control now.