Hunting Houses Page 9

  “But Heathcliff, you’ve got to admit…”

  “I do, but guess what beats an imaginary torrid affair with a dark gloomy orphan from Yorkshire? A real-life torrid affair with an engineer from the U of Ottawa.”

  “Even if he wears a T-shirt sporting a sombrero-capped maggot?”

  “I thought it was a tripod and level — you know, the thing surveyors set up by roadways…”

  “Wearing a sombrero?”

  “You’ve got me there. But when you’re in his bed, he won’t be wearing his shirt.”

  “So you approve?”

  “I approve. But get a move on. We’ve got to be back in Montreal by seven — your dad needs his car.”

  From that moment on, we were crazy in love, at least that’s what I thought; I spent every waking minute making room for Francis’s face in my eyes and for his voice in my ears so he’d follow me everywhere. When university started, as I shook hands and filed away my classmates’ names, Gina, Josée, Marc-Antoine, Louis-Philippe, Maria, hello, a pleasure, hi, Francis was there with me. He was treated to an enhanced version of myself, cheerful and kind, interested and attractive in an umbrella-print skirt. His presence gave me the strength I needed no matter where I was. Often I thought, This is love. Both in his absence and his presence, I found much-needed strength. What did I care if he only came to see me every ten days and if he alone could call me — not that it was a stated rule, but he never asked me to call him, and since he’d just landed a promising and demanding position in a big Montreal office, I soon decided it was better to let him contact me. That way there’d be no possible doubt about his desire to speak to me. I never met his friends, except a few vague acquaintances I crossed paths with at the worksite. His family lived in a remote location (Sept-Îles, a place I knew nothing about, but immediately started reading up on) and I didn’t expect him to introduce me to them this soon. I wasn’t that kind of girl. Not clingy. In fact, he hadn’t met my parents either. I didn’t even mention him to them. Except to Étienne, a bit.

  “He’s old.”

  “You falling for some sugar daddy? Who’s rocking his mid-life crisis?”

  “Stop it! He’s only thirty.”

  “He’s not old. Just not as young.”

  “Exactly.”

  “Is he good to you? Does he love you?”

  “He’s super good to me.”

  “Does he love you?”

  “It’s not like I’m going to ask. And make him want to hightail it out.”

  “You’re right. It’s not the kind of thing you ask someone. But usually you can tell.”

  “Really?”

  “So, does he love you?”

  “I don’t know, Étienne. I don’t even know if I love him.”

  “I know.”

  “Stop it.”

  “No, seriously. Don’t go thinking no one can tell your feet have trouble staying on the ground and that there’s a Motown tune playing in your head non-stop. You’re not hiding anything, sweets.”

  As my father’s car made its way through Ottawa to hook up with Highway 105, it was true, I was almost floating. Étienne would have noticed, but he hadn’t come with us that time. Ever since we were kids, we always spent each Labour Day long weekend at the cottage, all the cousins piled into the living room on makeshift mattresses because the bedrooms had already been claimed by our uncles and aunts, not to mention my dad, his girlfriend of the moment, and my grandparents, then just my grandfather when my grandmother never woke up one morning after eighty-four years of faithful service.

  Étienne had a new girlfriend, a former high-school friend called Fabiola who smelled of cinnamon and tobacco. As for me, Francis had dropped by to see me a few days earlier (five to be exact; that Sunday evening he knocked at my door carrying a dozen bagels and a John Huston DVD, undressed me on the living room couch and didn’t stay over, I’ve got a big week ahead of me). Based on past experience, he probably wouldn’t call before Monday or Tuesday. Even if he called earlier, I loved the thought that I wouldn’t be in, that he’d miss me and would suffer and wait. I knew I’d call my answering machine several times a day, telling the others I was expecting news of a job to help pay for my studies. The rare times I heard his voice on the answering machine, I imploded with joy. Right, hello, hi, it’s Francis, just calling to see what you’re up to, how you’re doing, call back if it’s convenient, talk to you soon, ciao. He had a funny tendency to speak in officialese. If it’s convenient. As though I were his union rep or an insurance broker. I blamed it on his job, his education or his shyness. But I didn’t let anyone else hear his messages, not even Sophie. She wouldn’t have made a big deal of it because that’s her nature, but I’d detect her puzzled amusement all the same. And no one was to make fun of Francis in my presence.

  So I said nothing about Francis to my dad either; instead we tuned into the oldies radio stations to hear the songs we liked: Lesley Gore, Fats Domino, The Chordettes, The Shirelles, Bobby Lewis. I couldn’t sleep at all last night, just a-thinkin’ of you, baby, things weren’t right, well I was tossin’ and turnin’, turnin’ and tossin’, tossin’ and turnin’ all night. The first person to name the singer won. We stopped in at our usual poutinerie just outside Wakefield. My father broke our silence once or twice to tell me stories of his childhood, stories I’d heard many times before but no matter. The repetition of words, songs, landscapes, this highway that I knew by heart, were what I wished for Francis and me.

  A year later, we’d take to the road again, Étienne’s ashes in a small plain oak urn on the back seat next to me, my father at the steering wheel, my mother in the passenger seat. Together we formed a family that had never existed. It was so grim I felt the urge to laugh. For us to go on a family drive together, one of us had to die! Ba-dum-chssh. Francis would laugh, wouldn’t he? But Francis was gone too. Did he even know what had happened? If I called him from the same booth I’d used to call Sophie in a tizzy, would he know just from the sound of my voice that I was drowning at sea and needed him to come to my rescue?

  But there was no longer anyone at the other end of the line. Francis left as he came. Before he left, we spent a summer of anticipation and rendezvous, and I don’t know which of the two I loved more.

  That summer, Francis was about to make the big move from Ottawa to Montreal and we’d see each other after he’d just visited an apartment, or just before he was off to see another one. I can come along if you want. I know my city, I’ll help. Francis turned me down gently, indicating I must have other things to do. I didn’t insist. I never asked to see the one-bedroom in Rosemont he eventually chose. I’d been told that men were turned off by women who insist.

  The fact that books, songs, movies, scenery, and people encountered became the fodder I used in our conversations did nothing to alter the coming disaster. In his eyes he was just seeing a girl from Montreal; in mine I was living a great love affair, exquisite and electric. I was hooked almost from the start, never complaining about his absences or the long stretches between visits. Oh, in my head, it was a whole other story. We’d feather our nest in my little apartment. I’d switch the red polka-dot shower curtain to one sporting a world map (less feminine) so we could point out countries to visit one day as we showered together. If we had friends over for dinner, I’d let him prepare something complicated and only slightly ruined, push back the furniture to add an extra leaf to the table or borrow chairs from the neighbour; sometimes he’d cup my breast with his hand as I chilled the wine, whipped the cream for the shortcake. Our sheets would be blue and smell like lime blossoms.

  He broke up with me on a Tuesday in November, five months after we met, in a conversation that lasted barely ten minutes. I thought, We never showered together.

  “I bought myself a beer-making kit.”

  “Really?”

  “Clichéd, isn’t it, an engineer who loves beer so much he want
s to make it himself?”

  “Real beer, with hops and all the rest?”

  “With hops and all the rest.”

  “Even malt?”

  “Yes, malt and hops, I’ll have you know.”

  “Where do you find the malt and hops?”

  “They come with the kit.”

  “Great!”

  “You can add bark to make it more select.”

  “So that’s what you did this week.”

  “That’s what I did this week. Oh, and Audrey came back.”

  “Who?”

  “Audrey, back from her year-long placement in Vancouver. Audrey, my girlfriend. I told you about her.”

  “I don’t think so.”

  “I’m almost sure I told you about her.”

  “I’m totally sure you didn’t.”

  “Are you upset?”

  “I. Am. Surprised.”

  “Oh. I thought you were a free agent.”

  Remind yourself of all his lame sayings, remind yourself you want nothing to do with a man who uses a term like “free agent” to describe us and cover up his own cowardice.

  “Uh-huh, not entirely false.”

  “Okay. At any rate, it was a real pleasure hanging out with you, Tessa.”

  Hanging out with you, hanging out with you, remember the hollow sound of those words as you roll around on the floor leaving a trail of tears in your wake.

  “Okay. Great. I have to. I have to hang up now. I’ve got friends waiting.”

  “Take care, Tessa.”

  I didn’t cry. I let myself slide down the wall to the floor, the phone between my knees. I tallied our nights and meals together. The dinner I’d prepared for him, spaghetti alla puttanesca. The time we picked up fries just fifteen minutes before midnight. The time he first walked into my bedroom, our awkward, exalted coupling. “You’re built like a super chick.” His civil servant speak by day, his B-movie speak by night. Looking back, it was a wonder I’d been hit as hard as I was. And yet.

  Once the tears started to flow, they didn’t stop for two whole days. A weekend of swollen eyes and headaches. During a moment’s respite on the Saturday afternoon, I made a chocolate cake from a cake mix, with store-bought frosting. I made it round with two layers and rainbow sprinkles. It was magnificent. I stared at the cake on its pretty flowered platter — a brand new find from a flea market. As I paid, I’d promised myself that I’d use it when Francis came over. I could already see our used napkins on the table, abandoned before the meal was done, the two of us in such a hurry to get naked. The thought had been with me for weeks. Now, faced with my cake of solitude, all thought had deserted me.

  The decision was made that the family plot in the Amos cemetery would be the best last resting place for my brother, even though Étienne hadn’t set foot in Abitibi since the age of eight and, if he could have had his say, he would probably rather have had his ashes scattered over the Grand Canyon or in the Pacific Ocean near San Francisco. A huge three-day rave at Rowardennan where his ashes could have been added to a blazing bonfire burning night and day would have suited him even better. But we weren’t Étienne. We were the grief-stricken, and the euphoria created by the outpouring of love for him subsided and was followed by the undertow and total exhaustion.

  Surrounded by chain-link fences and stripped of all trees (room had to be made for the tombs), the Amos cemetery evoked neither contemplation nor the dearly departed. The sun beat down mercilessly, matching our mood. But Paule liked to be home again, to see the lakes of her childhood and immerse herself in the stories of her region. In grief, my mother had left punkdom behind.

  Jim scored the job with the orchestra the day Philémon lifted his head for the first time. I had laid him down on the change table and, as usual, I tickled his pink little belly, sang the made-up song about fish and stars and kissed the tip of his nose. Then it happened. Philémon stretched his neck out and up for the space of four, maybe five seconds. His brow furrowed, his fists clenched; this was an important milestone. I showered him with kisses, surprised at how excited I was. Babies just didn’t do this at five weeks old, not unless they were extra strong! I ran to find Jim in the kitchen, “Something extraordinary’s just happened.” But Jim was on the phone — had it rung? since Philémon’s arrival, I never heard it anymore — and he raised a finger, gently as only he knows how, to shush me. Philémon sucked patiently on my shoulder. Jim nodded. “Really happy.” “Thank you, thank you so much, thank you.” When he hung up, he turned to me with a smile so filled with hope that I felt sick in spite of myself.

  “I got it. I got the orchestra job.”

  “Really?”

  “The full deal, permanent second trombone and all the benefits.”

  “Jim!”

  “We won’t be millionaires, babe, but we’ll be okay. You can take all the time off you want.”

  “You don’t know me well if you think that. I’m not going to live off you.”

  “I know. What I mean is you can take all the time you want with Philémon or for other projects, you can go back to school, finish your bachelor’s.”

  “It doesn’t work that way, you know.”

  “Maybe not.”

  “Well then, why suggest it?”

  “I just wanted you to know. That you can do whatever you like.”

  “I’m not going back to singing.”

  “Fine.”

  “Does that bug you? I’m just saying, if that’s what you’re expecting, you’re going to be disappointed. I’ll never go back to singing.”

  “I’m not expecting anything.”

  Jim placed a hand on Philémon and drew me to him. If someone had seen us through the kitchen window, they couldn’t have known how stiff my body was and how silent my tears.

  “I’m really proud. I want you to know that. I’m so, so proud.”

  “I know. Me too.”

  “Pfft.”

  “Pfft yourself.”

  I let my head nestle on Jim’s shoulder and I closed my eyes. He smelled like corn and fresh-cut grass, and his neck curved just like Philémon’s.

  “We’ll throw you a party. We’ll call our friends, drink champagne.”

  I thought of all our friends trooping in and catching us up on everyone’s doings before taking a seat in the living room and talking loudly. Eventually, they’d agree to go out on the balcony to smoke, and the party would migrate outside. Why not stay outside? August wasn’t over yet after all. They’d pass Philémon from one to the other, marvelling at the strange miracle of his presence but relieved when their turn was up. They’d start making a meal without being asked — pasta, nothing complicated, just a pot of carbonara to soak up the Spanish wine. They’d keep a running commentary going on each other’s accomplishments: one girl had won a competition, another was off to Toronto, yet another was thinking of starting a quartet. From behind the bedroom door where I’d be feeding Philémon, I’d listen to them trot out anecdotes from our school days. From there I could listen without having to nod and smile, my only interest being in the silence punctuated by the sound of Philémon nursing. Nothing they could offer me — wine, jokes, energy — could make me stay with them. I was taken, promised, wonderfully walled off. I could dodge their suspicion in the face of my absent gaze, their concern, their alarmed murmuring: Is Tessa really going to spend her life working in a bookstore and having babies? Has she actually dropped everything else for good? You won’t let her do that, will you? I thought of the friends I’d sung with, shared meals with, drunk and smoked with, demonstrated with, danced with — Alexandra, Dominic, Julie, Anne, Sunny. Their good spirits and form-hugging clothes were foreign to me now.

  When I took back my offer, I didn’t straighten up. Jim’s shoulder felt too good.

  “Actually, no friends. Just us.”

  Jim nodded, I wavered for
a moment, then let it go. All was well.

  And yet, there was a time when I did belong to that world. Like my friends, I too had anxiously paced the halls of the music department waiting for each evaluation.

  I was finishing the first semester of my third year, without brio, getting by in my classes to the best of my ability. It took a considerable amount of energy for me to behave like a normal human being in public. Wear appropriate clothing, wash my hair, make my way from point A to point B, eat soup, read a book. I sang, I took lessons, I practised. I tried to conform to what was expected of me. Back at the apartment at night, I dropped my shoes and collapsed onto the bed at last. There I was free.

  A crack snaked across my bedroom wall, from the ceiling to the window trim, a broken diagonal line. I liked to think of it as an escape route for ants and spiders, imagining a passageway between the upper floor and the great outdoors, a miniature freedom walk. My eyes followed it slowly, carefully, all the way outside where the maple leaves nearly touched my window. I traced their steps, from the leaves to the branches to the trunk to the roots. The ritual soothed me. Then, unconsciously, my eyes turned back to the place where the crack began in the ceiling. I could spend hours there, interrupted only by hunger or the phone. I answered just often enough for people not to worry. I talked to my mother about my studies, the program’s requirements, the rest my voice required. She was thrilled to see me studying music. “It’s so wonderful that you’re following your dream, Tessa. More precious than you’ll ever know.” I congratulated myself on being credible enough for her to believe me. Sometimes she suggested a stroll through Jeanne-Mance Park or ice cream, and my self-serving lie was clouded with guilt. Paule wanted to see me, to be a mother for more than a few minutes over the phone. She just wanted to feel relevant enough for Étienne’s absence to stop its screaming.

  Sometimes I’d half-heartedly agree to meet up with her or promise a movie outing, after the next evaluation or concert. At those times, her voice would swell with hope and my guilt would return; I’d pretend to have a frog in my throat or a blocked sinus and then hang up quickly, freed and ashamed. With Sophie, I didn’t know how to lie; I’d steer the conversation onto other topics, to the juicy faculty gossip that she so enjoyed. Nothing of the like happened in journalism, she’d say, and the ongoing melodrama of classical music training delighted her. I could be funny and chatty then, and Sophie’s laughter nourished me. She was as adept at keeping up my deceit as I was at creating it. Sometimes she’d say, “For your information, you’re not fooling me.” Then she’d beg me to go somewhere with her, a bar or a reception hosted by some old reporter who was her prof and who she planned to sleep with before the semester was out. Sometimes I had to say yes — there were limits to how isolated you could be or, at any rate, limits not to be breached if I didn’t want to become an object of pity.