Immortal Water

by Norman Brian Van

“Nothing.”

  “Something is.”

  “I just need to know the name so we can get the key.”

  “Hibiscus Way. Fifty nine Hibiscus Way.”

  The cold breath of air-conditioning greets them as they enter, and a mass of beige carpet. A desk squats at one end of the room and behind it an old style monitor and computer. There are two brown faux-leather easy chairs and a glass coffee table with a fern squatting upon it. On the walls are three framed pictures. One is a blond, blue-eyed Christ on dark velvet. The second is a needle point linen saying: “Jesus Loves You,” and the third, behind the desk, a poster with a shining cross and spread across its glowing expanse:

  PREPARE TO MEET THY GOD, BE REBORN IN CHRIST.

  The girl at the desk glances up. She is slovenly. Perhaps twenty-five, her hair is straight and bleached and cut blunt to her shoulders. She is wearing a tank top which partly exposes her breasts. Her makeup is far too thick.

  “How y’all doin’ today?” she says lazily.

  “Fine,” Ross says. “And you?”

  “Bored silly.” Her voice drawls out the words as if just saying them was an effort. “Can I do somethin’ for y’all?”

  “We’re here to pick up the key for fifty nine Hibiscus Way. We’re renting the place for the next few months. The owner’s name is Tremblett; mine is Porter. Ross Porter.”

  “Don’t know ‘bout that. I’ll have to check the computer.”

  “Fine.”

  She turns her back on them to work the keyboard. She types with one finger, slowly. It takes a few minutes to find what she wants. Ross and Emily glance at each other. Emily lifts her eyes into her lids. For the first time since arriving, Ross smiles.

  “Yeah. I got it now. Porter. Fifty nine Hibiscus Way. Y’all Canadians?”

  “Yes, we are.”

  “Well you’re gonna find yourself right at home here. We got a park full of Canadians.”

  She rifles through a desk drawer and withdraws a key.

  “This is it. Now it’s back down this street here, turn left and go half a block, then a right. Place is down at the edge of the park. You got an orange tree in your yard. Right pretty when the blossoms are out.”

  “Thank you, miss ...”

  “My name’s Darlene.”

  “And I’m Ross. This is my wife, Emily.”

  “How do, ma’am.”

  “Quite well, thank you.”

  “And are you the owner, miss ... Darlene?”

  “Lord, no. My daddy’s the manager. Willis Skanes. He’ll be down to meet you; let you know the rules and such. I better tell you now though, bein’ it’s Saturday. There ain’t no swimmin’ in the pool on Sundays. My daddy’s kinda religious. He’s got a committee makin’ the rules.”

  “I thought that,” Ross replies, covering a smile.

  “Stupid, really.” Her voice turns bitter. “He gets it from up home. We’re from Tennessee. Been here a while though.”

  “I see. Thank you, Miss Skanes.”

  “Y’all just call me Darlene.”

  “Thank you, Darlene.”

  “We got a bingo tonight in the hall. Might wanna come up and meet some people.”

  “We’re pretty tired from the drive. I think we’ll just settle in.”

  “Suit yourself. Have a nice day now.”

  Have a nice day.

  Greetings from limbo.

  As they drive to their new home, Ross finds himself enmeshed in a strange reflection. In Falmouth, one vacation, he and Emily had stayed at an inn. The inn had looked out over the sea and so one evening, when they had finished dinner and were walking the beach, they had watched the tide recede. The sea left the beach rocks reluctantly, lapping in among them then suddenly gone, leaving them dry. It seemed to Ross everything had stopped, been suspended. Even the weather stood still. A line of clear sky stood out to sea with another line of clouds over the land. It seemed as if the Earth had stopped its rotation.

  Emily found a nest of rocks. The two sat amidst them, leaning back, his arm draped around her shoulders. He had no idea how long they were there. But he found in that interlude a feeling of peace which settled upon him like dust with the unusual thought that time is elastic. It is measured for us in minutes and seconds, in days and years, in the span of a life. But time lives somehow independent of us. It can stretch and contract and curl back on itself. Who has not felt minutes fly by like seconds or waited impatiently, studying the tick of a clock as it marks time but does not truly measure it? Of course, there was time. But it felt timeless. He wonders now if there is a way to find one of those moments and stay in it; leave time behind.

  He recalls then when Robert told him about taking the drug Ecstasy. He’d told him long after he’d done it. Ross couldn’t be angry. He’d asked him about it. Robert had said the strangest thing about the experience was not so much hallucinations but, more startling to him, he had lost all sense of time; at one point he felt he’d never come down from his high. It had frightened him. He’d never taken the drug again. But for a while he’d lost time. Ross wondered if there might be some other potion which might do that. Extend time? Then he quickly discarded the thought as desperate; driven by this weird introduction to Happy Hills.

  Yet there is timelessness. I’ve felt it.

  Why can’t I be like the sea?

  The place is sufficient. It has two bedrooms, a kitchen and living room and a glassed in Florida room with yellow tubular furniture. There is a bar at one end of that room. Ross searches inside and finds a half bottle of bourbon. Strong drink. He takes it anyway straight from the bottle. The room is hot without the air conditioning. He can feel sweat on his back. Through the windows he sees an old man in the carport next door. He is rail thin. He wears a pair of Bermuda shorts and a straw hat. His glasses have slipped down his nose. He lights a cigarette. A beer can lifts slowly to his lips. He just sits there, staring.

  Emily calls from the kitchen. Her voice is terse. The place must be made liveable; there are things to be done: fuse box, water, unpack the car. Ross takes one last glance at the smoking man, solitude in a carport, another generation so different from his, and goes to work. The air conditioner will not function. It hums but does not kick in. He is studying the unit when a voice startles him.

  “How you doin’ today!”

  He turns and sees the man from the carport. He has added a loose Hawaiian shirt to the shorts and straw hat. He is smoking another cigarette. His voice has that rasp of too many cigarettes. His fingers are nicotine stained.

  “Pretty well,” Ross responds, “except for this air conditioner. I can’t seem to get it started.”

  “Figured that. Not pushin’ air, eh?”

  “That’s right. How’d you know?”

  “Tommy Tremblett’s been my neighbour here the past few years. Too bad about him.”

  “Oh? Why’s that?”

  “Died this past spring. Didn’t you know?”

  “I’m a friend of his son. We’ve just rented the place.”

  “Name’s Jim White. Just call me Jimmy.”

  “Ross Porter. My wife Emily’s inside.”

  “Think I can fix this for you. I’ll just get a couple of tools.”

  “It’s alright. We can get a repairman Monday.”

  “Round here you’d be lucky to get one at all. Not like up home. Too busy here.”

  “You’re Canadian?”

  “Down from Peterborough. The wife and me stay the winter here; got a cottage for summers in the Kawarthas, north of Peterborough.”

  “Sounds nice.”

  “Not bad. The wife ain’t too well. We get on though. I’ll just go get them tools and be back in a jiffy.”

  “You’re sure it’s not too much trouble?”

  “What’re neighbours for?”

  “Maybe you and your wife could come for supper. Only hamburgers but ...”

  “That’s nice. Sure. I better warn you ‘bout the old gal though. She forgets things.”
/>   “I’m sure it’ll be fine.”

  Jimmy fixes the air conditioner. He was a mechanic, he says, for trains. He is seventy-four, has four children and seven grandchildren, worked for the CPR all this life, hates politicians, and is worried that if he gets ill his wife, Maggie, will have to go into a home. All this Ross discovers in the time it takes Jimmy to complete the repair and have two bourbons on ice. Jimmy likes to talk. He says it’s all he does well any more. Not like the old days. His glasses slip down his nose as he speaks. He keeps pushing them back. He is formal when he meets Emily. He calls her Mrs. Porter despite her protestations. While he returns home to wash and bring Maggie over, Ross starts the barbecue. Emily makes a salad, fussing a little at the suddenness of company but grateful for the air conditioning.

  Maggie is a big, robust woman who laughs easily and, though nervous initially, is quite friendly. At first glance there seems nothing wrong with her but soon it becomes apparent she is struggling. She repeats everything Jimmy says. He is her safe haven. If she follows his lead she will not be embarrassed. This much she knows. Her character still remains but self-assurance has left her. She knows what is happening to her. She struggles against it. But it is inexorable. At dinner Jimmy fills her plate for her. Once she takes Emily’s drink by mistake. Everyone ignores it. The table talk turns to economics.

  “Down here everything’s cheaper,” Jimmy says, “dependin’ on the exchange rate, of course.”

  “Cheaper ...” Maggie echoes.

  “But you gotta look in the newspaper ads to see when things are on sale.”

  “On sale ...”

  “Me and another fella get up early Wednesday mornings. Go over the ads then drive down the strip so’s we can have our pick. If you don’t go early everything’s gone. Why just last week, where was it, dear, one of the groceries ...”

  “Groceries ... I don’t know.”

  “Just let me think now.”

  “Yes,” Maggie says softly.

  “Damn, what was the name of that place?” It is important to Jimmy that he remember.

  “The place ... yes ...”

  “Wynn Dixie! Sure.”

  “Wynn Dixie,” Maggie echoes triumphantly.

  “Why they had corned beef on there so cheap you’d think you were stealin’ it! Me and this fella got there late. His car wouldn’t start.”

  “Wouldn’t start,” Maggie says, sadly.

  “Well by the time we fixed it and got there the corned beef was gone; every last ounce of it, by God. And it was only nine thirty in the morning!”

  “Isn’t that awful,” Maggie ventures. She looks over at Jimmy to be sure she is right.

  “I’d say so,” Jimmy says, patting her hand. He is proud of her.

  Jimmy gets a bit drunk after that and tells stories from the old days. He tells them well, anecdotes of a life, but they go on a little long. Maggie listens blissfully. These are memories she vaguely recalls. It is as if her old life is new again.

  This is timelessness too.

  When he married her, Ross married Emily’s family as well and the bond which Emily continued with her father. When her mother died, Emily was with her, by her bedside, feeling her leave; Ross in a corner of the hospital room watching her father hold one hand, Emily the other until her mother had passed. And when she was gone Emily had folded her mother’s arms and closed her eyes and then went to her father and held him. She’d accepted that death and lived with the loss.

  That same year her father had died of a brain aneurysm. The man had had a good life and in the end he went quickly, without suffering; healthy until the moment of collapse. Yet Ross had never seen Emily so traumatized, so different from her response to her mother’s death. After the funeral she would not be comforted. There were silent tears in the night as she would turn away from him in their bed, or long silences when there should have been talk. It went on for months. Ross worried she’d never recover. He tried suggesting counselling. She looked at him as if he were from another planet. He had tried in his way to comfort her but found, to his consternation, he was jealous of a dead man, knowing he’d never replace him. He was angry at Emily for her intemperate grief.

  He’d just wanted her to get past it.

  Yet he comprehends it now as he faces the inevitable. She’d lost a man she loved dearly, a soul mate who happened to have been her father. It took time and patience and love but he’d seen her through it and in turn had become, not her father’s replacement, but more intimate than ever before in their marriage. He’d felt the full depth of her passion and partnership. And now, facing the inevitable, Ross understands what his mother had meant all those years ago when his own father had passed; her fear of living alone. As with Emily and her father, with Ross’ own mother and father, so with Emily and him; there is a bond, but always an end.

  I fear for my soul, so knowing the one departing.

  Emily goes to bed. Jimmy takes Maggie home. Ross has followed them outside. The night is humid. The sound of cicadas fills the stillness. Jimmy asks Ross over and gives him a drink while he puts Maggie to bed. Ross sits in the carport on the lawn chair Jimmy was using that afternoon. He looks across at his new home. The lights are on. They comfort him. They are warm amber in the dark.

  Their bedroom window, however, is dark. Emily will be sleeping now. She had looked so pale when she went to bed.

  Jimmy joins him. He has a drink and lights another cigarette. A night breeze comes rustling through palm leaves.

  “Your wife’s feelin’ poor tonight, eh?” Jimmy says quietly.

  “She has cancer.”

  “Sorry to hear it. Mighty nice lady.”

  Perhaps it is his manner mixed with the strain of arrival and the amber window twilight where his cigarette glows red and reassuring, or perhaps it was seeing him with his own wife, helping her through the evening, knowing they are companions in this, that lets Ross open up to Jimmy White. As the two men speak, there is a pause between each sentence, as though every word must be considered before it is uttered.

  “I’m going to lose her, Jimmy.”

  “You certain?”

  “Yes.”

  “Well then, enjoy her while you can. Make it good for her.”

  “I don’t know if I’m strong enough.”

  “You are. Might not seem so right now, but you will be. You got no other choice.”

  “Sometimes I think I’m more afraid of her leaving me than her dying.”

  “Nobody wants to be alone.”

  “Why did it have to be now?”

  “Now or later. Same thing.”

  “You really think that? She’s still young ...”

  “Later gets to be now soon enough. I know. The older I get the faster it goes.”

  “I don’t feel old, Jimmy.”

  “No one does. What’s inside me ain’t old. Inside I’m still that kid from the farm, from the railway, a little mellower maybe ...”

  “What about Maggie?” Ross mutters.

  “Let me tell you ‘bout her.” Jimmy takes it calmly.

  “Look, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to ...”

  “Hell with that. We both gotta face things. I like an honest man. When I married Maggie” — Jimmy pauses to light up again — “she was a beauty. I mean a real beauty. I couldn’t believe I could be that lucky. A few years went by and I come to know I was luckier than I thought. Her looks went. We had a hard life sometimes: me gone a lot and her tryin’ to hold things together. But inside she was a hell of a woman: strong, funny, always liked a good joke and a little beer, and she loved me. Don’t know why. I give her plenty of cause not to. But she did. That’s still there, y’see. It’s got more trouble gettin’ out now but I can tell it’s there. She ain’t really changed. She just forgets things. But she hasn’t forgot she loves me. And I haven’t forgot either. Inside we’re the same as always.”

  “But it won’t be like that for me. When Emily goes part of me will go with her.”

  “That’s what
you’re really afraid of, ain’t it?”

  “Everything will change.”

  “Lord, man, you told me yourself you’re not sixty yet. You got a whole part of your life in front of you. Take it from me, that’s something.”

  “I know, Jimmy. But it’s the last part.”

  “Don’t mean it’s got to be empty.”

  “Everything will be different,” Ross reiterates softly.

  “Every day’s different,” Jimmy says.

  Simple.

  Returning home Ross stops to think for a moment in the dark just outside his carport door. In her nursing home thirty years before he’d visited his Aunt Louise on her ninety-ninth birthday. Surrounded by cooing relatives, she’d sat in her wheelchair and stared back defiantly every time someone had patronized her. The local MPP had given her a plaque. She’d taken it with a snarl and buried it under the rest of her gifts. She’d had spirit.

  Here was a woman who had lived her life in the most dynamic of centuries. She had seen the invention of the motor car, air travel, film and television; she had lived through boom and depression, two world wars, man reaching the moon, the internet. She had lived the history he’d only read of. He thought she was remarkable.

  He’d stayed till the end of the affair. He’d waited until the attendants were cleaning up and then wheeled Aunt Louise back to her room. It was cluttered with knick-knacks and old photographs. She had a story for each of them. The two talked half an hour about her life: about cooking on wood stoves and losing a son, about illness and family scandals, all personal things. Not enough for Ross, not at all what he had expected. She’d told him he was a serious young man; always had been from what she recalled. She’d smiled when she’d said it. He had asked her finally what was on his mind, his burning question: what had it been which had had the most impact upon her. She’d taken her time to reply, her old eyes sparkling. Ross was breathless for wisdom.

  “Seems to me young girls don’t wear white gloves anymore.”

  White gloves on girls.

  A whole life and that was what mattered?

  Someone could be that small? Think that little? Nearly a century, and that was her answer? He left her in her room with a quiet goodbye. Softly he disparaged her, muttering alone in his car on the way home. It was unbelievable. She died eight months later.