British Columbia.
The bird in the cuckoo clock in the drawing room wobbles out of its house and begins to chirp just as the Volkswagen van comes to a wheezing halt. Harry, aware that he is being rather outdated, remains amused by the idea that a woman would drive such an unwieldy vehicle.
Once out of the van, Kay stretches tall, her nose to the sky. She closes her eyes, takes a deep breath.
“Winter in the Sound. Oh, Harry, I don’t have to ask how you are! You look wonderful.”
Her cologne, the scent of marigolds, overpowers the salty odor of the dried kelp and other flotsam on the low-tide beach.
“Well, I’ve finally made it to your house! The turnoff from the highway is not easy to find.”
“They keep promising us a light. They’re waiting for an accident, no doubt.”
She hands him a tray with a foil-covered dish and fetches another and a straw basket from the passenger side of her vehicle. Harry asks about traffic. On the stairs of the house, she turns and looks at the garden.
“You can really tell that this here is done by a professional, can’t you?”
Inside, she admires the red milk tins with the plants in them on the enclosed verandah, saying that they are more interesting than clay pots and plastic planters. On the way to the kitchen, she pauses at the entrance to the living room. He did remember this morning to clean out the birdcage and vacuum up the seeds, but more seeds already carpet the area.
Kay’s marigold scent, concentrated in the warmth of the house, blots out the aroma of Harry’s fish dish in the oven. She marches directly to the oven, opens the door, slides aside the sizzling fish, and places her dish next to it. She takes the straw basket from the counter and heads to the refrigerator, opens, and surveys. She makes room on a shelf for her salad and two bottles wrapped in brown paper. She pulls out yet another bottle and hands it to him.
“Now, listen. I know that you’re some kind of activist when it comes to wine drinking,” she teases, “but I took the liberty of bringing Italian. You’ll like it!” She puts up her hands to halt the objection she anticipates. But Harry is amused.
“You know, I figure that whatever ills those Europeans have inflicted—and hey, I am a descendant, I can speak for them—I say do not, and I mean do not permit those … those whatevers to keep from you the spoils they produce: I say, as long as you can afford it, you just put that whole damn continent—and descendants like me—to work for you. I say let them serve your taste buds. And now let me serve yours.”
With that she holds out the bottle. One line of the label, reads Marchesi di Morano, the other Colli Consola. Was one the region and one the estate? He tries to guess which might be which. He has, in an instant of panic, forgotten how to read a label. It doesn’t even seem to indicate a grape variety. He knows that if he utters a word, he could surely make a fool of himself. He nods approvingly.
“Open it, Harry. It’s a pinot grigio.”
Pinot grigio. Ah yes, of course. He takes the bottle and studies the label more carefully.
She has brought long tapered candles dipped in silver sparkles. She sets them on the kitchen counter and looks around for candleholders. “We could easily have eaten at my house tonight, but it’s much nicer to be in a house by the sea.”
A house by the sea. He has indeed accomplished so much in his life. He has come such a long way. He thinks this, pleased, sinks and turns the screw into the cork. He tells her she won’t find candleholders in this house, to use saucers, or better yet, one of the tin cans he has stored under the sink.
“Why don’t men ever have candleholders?” she says, feigning indignation. Harry explains that he—he himself, not able to speak for all men—has never understood the recreational use of candles, that he grew up in a country where, in some places, candles were the only source of electricity. Where there was electricity, candles were used only in the event of an outage. As if presented with a mission, she begins rummaging through the cupboards for something more suitable than a saucer or a tin can. The cork squeaks as he eases it up. It pops out in one piece, a pleasant sound. She comes across a stack of empty wine bottles in the recycling bucket under the sink, and examines some, remarking on those she recognizes. The wine makes its pleasant glug glug glug as it fills the glasses. He holds a glass out to her and prepares to make an early toast to the year ahead.
“No, not yet,” Kay exclaims. She asks for foil and wraps two empty bottles in smoothed-out pieces he has found in a drawer that is crammed so tight with a mess of empty plastic bags, twist ties, a pair of pliers, masking tape, matches, and much more that it is difficult to open and then to close again. She flares the edges of the foil around the mouths of the bottles and shoves a candle in each. A residue of silver dust sparkles on the countertop.
“There you are. Silver candleholders. They’ll do, won’t they? It’s like being young and playing house, having to be inventive again, isn’t it? Now, where is the table?”
The small table is clearly visible against a wall in the kitchen. He had thought they would pull it away from the wall and eat in the center of that room, with the stove and the refrigerator right there.
“Which table?” The question gives him time to adjust to the idea that he will have to clear the one on which months of paperwork, customer files, magazines, and gardening catalogs are stored, albeit neatly.
“The dining table.”
He moves everything, trying to keep the piles intact, to the guest bedroom, the bed already overrun with papers and files.
After wiping the table, Kay sets down the candleholders and returns to the kitchen.
He leans against a counter, eyeing the forbidden wine, content to watch this woman in his kitchen open cupboard after cupboard, drawer after drawer. She pulls out plates and cutlery, two of everything, and sends him to set his table.
“What about the pinot grigio? It’s getting warm, isn’t it?” he blurts confidently.
“No patience, have you? That bottle is so well chilled that it could use a little cuddle.” She has pulled the sleeves of her sweater up to her elbows. Her arms are severely freckled.
From her straw basket she pulls a plastic container with odd-shaped balls of a cheese that is unfamiliar to him. She cubes the cheese, chops basil and tomato, sprinkles salt and black pepper, and tosses the colorful dish with olive oil. Inspired by her busyness, Harry goes out the back door and clips cuttings from the Cotoneaster horizontalis that spreads fanlike, a fiery carpet running up the cliff. As he reenters the house, the aroma of fish with all its seasonings, and the sweetness of corn pie, greet him.
He places the fine-leafed dark sprigs with their brilliant orange berries in a chipped ceramic mug. From the verandah he brings a milk can with a red geranium, places it on the windowsill. There is seasonal color in the room. Kay nods approval.
She picks up both glasses, hands one to him, picks up the appetizer, and suggests they sit in the living room. She nestles into the corner of the couch, he in the other corner, the appetizer between them. They watch the birds hop in unison along a perch, to the left and then to the right and back again.
“So, you’re a bird person,” she says.
“I wouldn’t exactly say that; these were given to me as a present in this last summer. Although, come to think of it, my mother and I kept chickens when I was a child. In fact, I had a—well, I had a cock for a pet.”
Kay slaps her thigh and laughs generously. Should he tell her that the birds were a present from a childhood friend, a special lady friend from his homeland who visited him here in the summer? But before he can say anything, Kay rearranges herself, angling to face him. She crosses her legs and says, “Well, cheers to that, then!”
“To that, yes! And to the year that was!”
They lift their glasses to these, and to the light, the latter a formality, as in the yellow tungsten lighting in the living room, it is impossible to see this wine’s true color. She brings the glass to her nose and sniffs. “Fruit,” she says somberly.
“Ah, yes,” he says, spotting an opportunity, “two distinctly different fruit.”
She swirls it again and gravely announces, “Fleshy fruit.” He tilts the glass. “Guava,” he says. “Guava on a horizontal plane, and hovering just above, almost vertically, a note of seed of cashew. Rather, this has the smell of the taste of a cashew seed. If you know what I mean.”
“I don’t know the smell of guava, but if this smells of guava, then I must find myself a bottle of guava-scented cologne. And cashew seed? I don’t even know what a cashew seed looks like. Would that be one or a handful?”
“More than one but not quite a handful.”
He gathers from her acceptance of this New Year’s Eve invitation that there is no man in her life. Swishing the liquid over and around and about his tongue, he swallows after his mouth has warmed it. Coconut. This is indeed what he tastes. Coconut in an Italian? He chews his mouthful, remaining quiet. A smudge of burnt-orange lip color rims Kay’s glass. He does not mention the coconut.
He puts a forkful of her cheese-basil-tomato appetizer in his mouth. He sips the wine again—ocean wind, seaweed, oysters, crab, and at the back of his throat, more an odor than a taste, a low-tide mangrove swamp.
A tide of longing washes over him. Longing for Raleigh, a place he has not been to in years. For the faces of people he never really knew except as strangers he passed along the route from Raleigh to Marion. Of those congregated along the narrow and bustling streets of that town. Not wanting to talk about where he was born, about Raleigh or Guanagaspar, he does not describe the experience of this other world in his mouth.
Kay has closed her eyes, her head to the ceiling, a hand laid palm flat on her chest. She keeps her eyes closed, and in a low voice, almost a whisper, she says, “This is why I drink wine.” After a pause, she looks directly at the birds in their cage and says, “You know, you have never really told me. You were married once, that much I know, but when? Was that here in Canada?”
He thinks of last summer and the two weeks Rose spent in his house. They behaved then as if they were married. Shall he simply tell her yes, but not to the woman he was in love with? The wine is going to his head. He looks at his watch and stands. She, too, gets up, and they make their way back to the kitchen.
Harry lowers the heat of the oven and tells her it is not much of a story, that it will take longer to tell her about it than it actually lasted.
They prepare to eat at the table. She finds the switch and turns off the dining room light. He goes to the table lamp in the far corner of the living room and turns it on. The room is softly illuminated, and the dining area by the light of her flickering candles only.
“I was about twenty-two or so. Most of my friends from school were either already married or engaged to be married. I hadn’t shown any interest in girls—well, not suitable ones. Actually, there was a girl—”
“I see: an unsuitable one, then?” she mocks.
“Very unsuitable. Rather, I should say I was the one who was unsuitable. Actually, it is she who gave the birds to me.”
Kay regards him quizzically. He says no more, and she, suddenly pensive, does not press.
She hands him the salad bowl. The sweater she wears tonight is tight. Perhaps it is the light of the candles that accentuates the shape of her breasts. He serves her before serving himself. Surprised, Kay sits back and places her hands on her lap. A woman from back home would have served him, he thinks.
It occurs to him that she is exactly the type of woman men from Guanagaspar—in general, of course—love to be with and at the same time fear. The type you don’t have to worry over, as you know they are quite capable of taking care of themselves, and of you if it ever came to that. But the kind you don’t dare fool with. Guanagasparian women tend to admire such women for what they would call brazenness, but in the next breath they would think these kinds mannish, harsh, too independent, too own-way.
As if attempting to move from too personal a conversation Kay asks about the house. “Such a lovely place you’ve got here, Harry. How did you ever find this house?”
The little piece of land with this house, part of a tight community nestled in a cranny at the foot of a mountain by the sea, is his. His piece of Canada. None of this would he have had in Guanagaspar.
How far back does one go? Finding this house began long before he came to this country, so shall he tell her about the little shack he lived in by the seaside in the islands with his mother? Shall he tell her how he dreamed as a child, as a youth, as a young man, of having a house and home that would have brought him and his mother a little recognition from the business community of Guanagaspar? Perhaps he ought to boycott the nature and lament of his longings and begin with when he first arrived in this country. Daytime, he studied landscape design at the technical institute, and nighttime, to pay for his studies, he drove a taxi. Long days, long nights, grabbing a little shut-eye at Anil and his wife’s house amid the screams and the full range of noises their young active children made.
Feigning levity, he tells her that in Guanagaspar, a gardener was a man who came to work barefoot on his bicycle that was held together by string and a prayer, who, before pulling out weeds and shoring up beds, washed his employer’s car and after scrubbed the bathroom floor and tiles.
Kay is indulgent, arching her eyebrows, looking directly into his eyes. She interrupts, points to her empty glass. Before he can respond, still in the palm of his own reminiscence, she is up and away while telling him to continue, that she is listening. He hears the oven door opened, the foil pulled back, the door pushed shut again. The refrigerator door. A squeal of a cork from a bottle being pried up. He takes the opportunity to finish his salad. With this salad, wine goes back to being the taste of grasses and garden bugs. He must recommend to the membership of the Once a Taxi Driver Wine Tasting and General Tomfoolery Club that they revise their politics. She is right. They must give the Europeans a second chance.
“This is indeed one heck of a salad,” Harry shouts toward the kitchen. His words and voice are unfamiliar to him. With the last drop of wine in his glass thrown back, the flavor of garlic from the salad dressing stands erect, sweet, at the back of his tongue. She is here, bottle in hand, a smile of gratitude for the compliment. She is about to pour herself a glass but quickly recovers and sets the cold bottle, a different white, on a cork coaster. He obliges. Even in such light, one can easily discern that this one is brighter, yellower, than the last. He is eager to taste it. Seeing his empty plate, she clears the table of the half-full salad bowl and the salad plates. He could get up and bring in the fish and the corn pie, set out dinner plates. But his legs are heavy, and besides, he enjoys the sound of her, not Kay exactly, but a woman, the sound of a woman rummaging about his kitchen. He thinks of her in the Volkswagen van, and she is not a woman who has had lovers in the past, a woman looking for another lover, but a peaceful woman taking a long drive, a little holiday, by herself, and he wants to be in that van with her, she who would make his supper, put sugar in his tea and stir it, hang his pants, careful of the creases, and put slippers by the bed for him, so that in the morning when he awakens, he can be spared the rudeness of a cold floor.
Yet when she returns, places the fish and the corn pie on trivets, and sits in front of him, a sadness washes across him—if only it were Rose sitting across from him on this night. And as it comes, so it passes.
Kay sees the far-off look in his eyes. She puts the glass to her lips and swallows. Taps her tongue against the roof of her mouth.
“Honey.”
Harry feels a rush of wine, blood, and confusion.
“Taste it. Honey.”
That old trick. He is surprised by his relief and by his disappointment.
“Where is this from?” He attempts a recovery from his confusion.
“Italy also. Different, though, eh? You were saying?” She speaks so innocently, but surely she meant to provoke him.
This time she scoops a serving of corn pie onto his plate, then onto hers. She serves him fish, then herself. She learns fast.
Taking a mouthful of fish, she clutches her chest with one hand and wrings the other. Harry pushes his chair back, ready to spring to some as yet undetermined action.
“Oh, Harry, Harry, Harry. This is heaven. It’s so tender,” she says, her mouth full of food. He relaxes and grins with pride. She prods with the tines of the fork at the fish, drawing out little shrimp and poking at cubes of cassava. “What is this? Potato?”
“Cassava,” he says. She has never had cassava before. She marvels, and he is aware of the lightness of her voice, so different from the sturdiness of her actions. She asks what the strong taste is. “Cilantro, or it could be ginger,” he tells her, not sure which she might be referring to. He takes a fork full of her corn pie. It is creamy and sweet. Like pudding. He tells her it is the kind of texture and soft taste one could reach for several times a day, just for its soothing. There is red bell pepper in it, not an ingredient he is used to.
They eat in silence. He sips the wine. Cilantro and red bell pepper, long since swallowed, seem to reemerge, to burst open fully, like blossoms.
They glance at each other, smiling.
“I was thinking. This beats being with my daughter’s family and my grandchildren—much as I adore them all.”
“Apples and oranges.”
“Guavas and cashews. Handfuls of them.”
This woman is good company, Harry admits to himself. She gives as easily as she takes. So ready to play, so eager to be played with. He glances at his watch. Quarter past nine. Quarter past midnight in Guanagaspar. He had not wanted to miss the moment of Guanagaspar’s New Year celebration. But it has already passed. He has no clue as to what Rose and Shem might be doing. He wonders what the maid would have told Rose about his telephone call. He wishes again that he had not made that call. He imagines them passing the evening quietly, wind in the coconut trees and waves from the Caribbean Sea crashing on their beachfront property. Perhaps they went to their seaside neighbors for a celebration, or had friends up from town for the holiday, or their son and daughter-in-law and the grandchildren are passing the night in the beach house with them. No doubt they would sing “Auld Lang Syne.” Even if they were by themselves, over the sound of waves and wind, they surely would have listened on the radio for the New Year countdown, or watched the TV with its snowy ocean-side reception, and perhaps hummed along with the anthem. First the slow, nostalgic version, and then the same song, fast-paced, played by a pop and steel-pan band. Surely she must have hugged and kissed her husband, wished him a happy New Year. And he her. Would they have held each other in a long embrace? How many hopes for the future passed between them? He tells Kay that he feels a draft and excuses himself as if to check that the front door is shut tight. Kay prepares to rise.
“Don’t get up,” he says, pressing her shoulders as he passes. He goes to the darkened verandah and spends a handful of seconds watching the silver sea and night sky colored a brilliant orange by the lights of the distant city that is awaiting its midnight craziness. He sends wishes to Rose. He imagines he hears hers to him.
He returns to the dining table.
Kay asks if he is alright. He assures her he is, and quickly brushing her caring away as if it were one of those wool hairs come undone from her sweater, he begins to relate how he found his house.
“So, it was fall, late October. I was in Vancouver, nearing the end of a shift. There used to be a local radio show—Bringin’ Home the West Indies—I was inside my idle cab on Eighth and Granville, listening to a prerecorded cricket test match. England and the West Indies.”
He was never interested in the game of cricket, he tells her as he tries to shake the longing. Not even as an adult in Guanagaspar. When the cricket season began, the entire country caught cricket fever—the entire country, it seemed, but him.
“I find it to be a game that demands a great deal of patience, even from a spectator. Ali used to play.” Seeing his look of confusion, she adds, “My husband.”
“No, no. I know he was your husband. I am only surprised. I didn’t know Iranians played cricket.”
“Immigrants play cricket. He played with men from India, and from the islands—your islands. I went to matches with him, but no matter how many times he or anyone tried to explain the game to me, I remained baffled. It was such a slow game. I didn’t mind the get-togethers and the parties after, though.”
“There! We have something in common. I myself never received the calling to stand around in sweltering heat waiting for a ball to come my way. But the thing is, up here I was always yearning for anything from back home. So I used to listen to the commentary on the radio, and on that particular afternoon I was in my cab, waiting for a fare and listening.”
He is relating an evening etched in his memory, an evening she wants to hear about, and he is aware of the thinness of her lambs’-wool sweater. He congratulates himself on having had the wisdom to not reveal that in his life, there is indeed a woman. However peripheral she has been lately. Thousands of little wisps of wool hairs rise out of the fabric, over the entire sweater. He imagines them against the palm of his hand. What would Anil say if he knew she—this white woman, the liquor-store lady that they tease him about—was having New Year’s Eve dinner with him? Anil would be happy for him. That’s the kind of friend Anil has been. Her sweater clings, showing the indentation of her brassiere where it cuts into her flesh. Glancing discreetly at the place where her bra straps would be, he imagines her flesh—solid, not flabby.
He attempts to draw a picture for her with his hands, spreading them on the table and in the air: the buildings of downtown, fewer then than now, the red sun gradually bathing the city in a fiery gold light. He is speaking, but he is distracted by the solidity of her body. He wants to tell her his story more than ever. He describes every detail, and she listens, her eyes fixed on his face, nodding, as she puts her fork, tipped with his fish, into her mouth, her eyes never leaving his. He talks and at the same time watches her breasts, her face, her hands, the knife in one, the fork in the other, cutting squares of corn pie. Such tenderness in her small gestures.
The red sun, he tells her, lit the panes of glass on the buildings, rendering each a little framed fire. On the far side of the water, the West Vancouver hills flared as if a spotlight had been thrown on them. The whites and pastels of buildings on that far shore jumped out against deep green trees.
Suddenly a man grabbed hold of the door of his cab and, without waiting for any indication from him, yanked the door open and pushed a woman in. The man slid in beside her and said, “Across the bridge. Elderberry Bay. It’s up the Sound.” That was a long drive. They would have racked up an enormous fare. The man wore a strong cologne, sandalwood and tobacco overpowering the stubborn scent of the thick plastic sheeting that covered the backseat. Traffic was heavy heading toward the bridge. If Harry could have turned them down, if it weren’t illegal to refuse a fare, he would have; it was unlikely that he would pick up a return fare on that side of the bridge.
Kay has already helped herself a second time. She says that the meal is delicious, such a lovely evening and it isn’t even midnight yet. Harry sniffs his wine: a Guanagasparian December’s lash of seaside wind, the smell of oily sea salt.
“And?” Kay encourages, propping her chin on the back of one hand.
He decides to take a liberty. With a wink, as if imparting a confidence, he tells her that it used to be, in his taxi-driving days, a joke among cabbies that people from this side of the Lion’s Gate Bridge weren’t given to engaging in conversation with their drivers or being as familiar with them as passengers from the city’s core. Those types would usually look out the windows absently or be hidden behind the daily paper for the entire trip.
“Now, not to interrupt your story, but don’t you go thinking I am one of them,” Kay says. “I live here because I work here. If I know anything about the high life, wine and that sort of thing, it’s because I had to learn so I could serve this side’s crowd.” She feigns defensiveness. “Before I began working at the store, I knew nothing. When I was growing up, people didn’t drink wine with meals. Wine was associated with wantonness. And by the way, Mr. Saint George, look at you, you’ve become one of those types yourself!” The teasing accusation flatters him, and a revelation unsteadies him: although this woman is from up here and, well, white-skinned is the best way he could put it, she is perhaps more like he is than he is like his Indo-Guanagasparian Rose.
He resumes his story, remembering precisely where he left off. The cricket-match commentary was still playing on the radio, quite low. The West Indies was batting and doing quite poorly. The man began whispering the instant the car pulled away from the curb. He soon dropped his guard against Harry’s hearing, perhaps consoled by an idea that the game on the radio occupied Harry completely. But Harry couldn’t have helped overhearing. They were in the midst of some unforeseen crisis. One could have told, in any case, that something was amiss from the instant the man opened the car door. You learn to spot these things when you drive for a living, if only as a matter of survival.
The woman was tall and thin. Although she hugged herself rather tightly, her face offered no story. The man wore a cream-colored suit. One could imagine that at calmer times, they might have made a handsome couple, except his face was unshaven and his suit crumpled, and the knot of his tie pulled down to his chest. His face was drawn, circles around his eyes.
The man was trying to reassure the woman that although they were on the verge of declaring bankruptcy, she should not worry; they could start life all over elsewhere. The woman was sullen.
Harry stopped listening to the radio and tuned his ears solely to the passengers. He heard the man whimper: “I’m sorry, I’m so sorry.” He stole quick glances in the rearview mirror and saw that the man was shaking his head as though he couldn’t believe what was happening.
In the mirror Harry saw that the woman’s lips were pursed tight. She was staring out the window toward the distant sun-speckled mountains to the west, but Harry could tell she wasn’t really paying them any attention.
Gritting his teeth, the man urged her to stop ignoring him. He was quiet for a minute as the car crawled down the decline of the bridge. Then he began repeating “I’m sorry” as though it were a mantra. He spoke loudly about their problems, admitting to a litany of sins. From the way he carried on, Harry imagined he might have thought Harry’s English too poor for him to comprehend. Their house, the one he was driving them to, was about to be repossessed. Unless they made a quick sale, they would lose everything and have to declare bankruptcy. The man assured the woman that when he got home, he would get on the blower, he called it, call a few people and see if he could find someone with cash. Only then for the first time did the woman speak. “Who are you going to call? Who will take a call from you now?”
The man started breathing so hard that Harry surreptitiously glanced in the rearview mirror, afraid that at any moment the man might strike out at the woman. But the man was silent. Neither spoke again, except when the man mumbled to Harry to turn left off the highway.
Kay holds up her hands in the shape of a capital T. Harry stops.
“I’ll make coffee,” she states.
Harry jumps up, goes to a kitchen cupboard, and takes down a jar of instant coffee.
“Oh, instant. Is this all you have?”
He tells her, “Yes, don’t worry, it’s fresh, only been open for a couple of days.” He reaches for the kettle, but Kay takes it from him. He leans against the counter as she searches and finds two mugs.
“Tell me the rest,” she urges.
When they left the highway, they were winding their way on a dirt and rock road, lurching at times over small boulders. That year it had rained almost nonstop, and there were potholes so large that one could have fallen in and gotten lost.
The kettle reaches a boil. Kay lifts it off the stove and pours the water into two glass mugs.
“Honey.”
This is the second time. She is doing it on purpose. She is flirting.
Harry opens a drawer and retrieves a packet of honey lifted from a restaurant.
“And you? Milk and honey?”
“Milk and sugar. Three teaspoons of sugar.”
“Harry. Three teaspoons.” She gasps.
“Well, just two. Two and a half, then.”
“No, no, if three is what you usually take, I will put in three for you, but wow!”
Taking his mug from the counter, he ever so briefly places an open hand on her waist. She does not budge but keeps her back to him. He feels a residue, the ghost of her waist on the palm of his hand, the soft smoothness of the black wool sweater. The high protrusion of her hip. Having touched her once, he wants to do it again. She did not protest, but she did not react, either. She stays leaning against the counter, blows the surface of her coffee.
“We were approaching the house from above,” Harry carries on, his voice thick.
Kay frowns, knowing that she entered his house from the back.
“The entrance used to be up there, on the road above. You couldn’t tell there was a house below. It was only a dirt road up there that ended abruptly at the precipice. Let me show you.”
She leans over the counter and peers through the window into darkness. He puts his hand on her back and points upward. That indentation, her brassiere strap. The wool soft against her firm flesh. The heat from her body tingles in the palm of his hand. Neither Kay nor Harry remarks on the fact that it is too dark to see what he is describing. But Kay nods as if she sees and understands. They lean their backs against the counter. He smells her cologne. He could put his arm around her and finish the story like that, or not finish it at all.
“There was a bit of red railing visible from up there, on the other side of the precipice,” he says, cupping the steaming drink in both hands. “All one could see beyond was a hint of a roof, then the ocean a little farther beyond.”
There is still time before the start of a New Year. He wonders if she will want to leave right after midnight. He walks to the far counter and puts the milk carton back in the refrigerator, then leans against that counter. There he remains. Kay looks from him to her coffee, no judgment, no clue to her desires, and she raises the mug to her lips.
“I heard water lapping at rocks, small waves breaking on the shore, felt the breeze through the trees. The words ‘seaside house,’ ‘waterfront property,’ formed in my mouth. I used to dream about living in a house by the sea. A real house in a nice neighborhood. I used to live by the sea with my mother when I was a child. But that house—with the two of us in it—could have fit in this kitchen. In that house, bedroom, kitchen, dining room, and living room were one and the same. And the bathroom and toilet were separate stalls outside in the yard. When I was a little older, we went to live in the town—my mother had married a petty businessman, and it was he who filled up my head with ideas and dreams about houses like this one. So it was as if my blood started racing when I saw this house.
“Well, the woman got out of the cab and disappeared down by the red railing, leaving the man rummaging through his pockets for the fare. Before I could think, I turned to face him in the backseat. ‘How much do you want for it?’ I asked.”
Kay releases herself from the counter and covers her mouth with one hand. “Oh shit! You did not!”
Harry ignores her shock to good effect and continues.
“‘What? Sorry, what did you say?’ he asked. ‘How much you want for your house?’ I said again. The man collapsed in the seat and stared ahead. And then, words were tumbling out of my mouth. ‘I couldn’t help but hear. It is a small car. I am in the market. How much are you asking for it?’
“‘You know, I was having a private conversation with my wife. I find this offensive. Do you make a practice of minding your customers’ business?’ ‘Well, I am sorry, sir,’ I replied, ‘but it is a small car, you know.’ The man began talking very softly, with a calculated hiss, you know, like this …” and Harry did an imitation: “‘Why don’t you just mind your own friggin’ business and get the hell out of here?’ And I said back to him, in a really steady voice, ‘I, sir, am not being idle. If your house is a good price, I will buy it from you this minute.’
“The man was slumped in the backseat, quiet for a long time. His wife reappeared to see what had kept him. He held up his hand to indicate that he would be along shortly. She waited a few seconds and dropped out of view again. ‘For yourself?’ the pathetic fellow whispered, becoming pensive. He muttered, ‘But …’ and trailed off.
“I said, ‘You’re wondering what? I am making you a serious offer. You have a house to sell. I am in the market.’”
Suddenly the telephone rings on the kitchen counter behind Kay. Harry leaps forward but then halts, startled. Could it be Rose? He is surprised to find that he hopes it will not be Rose.
“Aren’t you going to answer it?” Kay asks. He reluctantly picks up the receiver and hears not the expected voice but his good friend Anil shouting above a joyful noise—Indian music, chatter, reckless laughter, and the excited squeals of children. Anil is calling to wish him a Happy New Year. Kay turns to leave the room. Harry puts his hand over the receiver to conceal his voice from Anil and tells Kay there is no need, he will be only a minute. Anil realizes he has company and says he won’t keep him long, but Partap is going to Fiji in a week for three months. He wants to get together before leaving. Partap comes on the phone. He is intoxicated and jovial. “Happy New Year. Happy New Year, man. Season’s greetings.” Why doesn’t Harry come down to Anil’s house right now. He hears Anil telling him that Harry has guests. Partap says, “Bring all the guests—leave now.” Partap lets up only after Harry stops responding except for laughter. “All right, all right,” but he insists on seeing Harry before leaving Canada. Wine tasting and general tomfoolery, how about it?
They decide on a date within the coming week.
Off the phone, Harry tells Kay the wine club is meeting soon. It sounds far more serious, the way he tells her, than it really is.
“‘It’s worth a hundred and sixty thousand,’ the man said.”
Kay interjects, “Whoa. In the early seventies, that was a lot of money for a house. As lovely as this is, that was a fair bit of money, Harry. What did you do?”
“A hundred and sixty thousand, a lot of money, in truth! Not the kind of money I stash under my mattress. I wanted to ask the man if he was quoting Canadian or Guanagasparian currency. I didn’t have that kind of money. But I couldn’t bear to look foolish in front of this fellow, even though I knew that I would probably never see him again. You know, being dark-skinned and all of that, I thought the joker would just think that every black person is a bluffer and an upstart, and I felt this responsibility to play my hand.”
“And that would be the activist in you, I suppose?” says Kay slyly.
“You’re right. Anyway, I had to tell myself it’s a game, just a game. Take it easy and play the game. ‘Well, I’m not sure it’s worth a hundred and sixty,’ I countered. ‘Besides, do you think you’d get that today? I mean, you need a sale today, don’t you?’ to which he replied in a subdued way, ‘You really were minding my business, weren’t you.’ I ignored him and continued, ‘If you can get that much for it right away, all the best to you, man. All the best. I am in the market, but I am looking for a deal. One hundred and sixty thousand dollars ain’t no deal.’ And I turned to face the front of the car again. Now, where that kind of courage came from, I couldn’t tell you. I never played any such game before, but I suppose that was the activist in me, eh! Anyway, I touched the meter, tapped it nervously. He still hadn’t given me any money for the fare. ‘I’ll take seventy-five,’ he said in a hushed voice.”
“Seventy-five,” squeals Kay. “Is that what you paid for this house?”
“Wait. Not so fast. How often would the likes of me hit upon such an opportunity, eh?”
Harry remembers the defining image that had flown into his head in the moment. He had imagined Rose descending the precipice, looking directly at him. He hadn’t really believed then that she would ever have the chance to see that he, Harry St. George, was living in a fine seaside house in a respectable part of the world. He was ready to commit himself and all of his savings, which were well below seventy-five thousand dollars.
“‘Cash?’ I asked the man. ‘Cash,’ he said bluntly. ‘When do you need it by?’ I asked him. He said, ‘The bank is supposed to call in everything in a day or two,’ and was silent again. I waited and he breathed a low long sentence. ‘In a day or two the effing bank will effing repossess my effing house—is that what you want to hear me say?’ I didn’t answer. He took out a pen and pad from the inside pocket of his jacket and scribbled. ‘How soon can you come through with cash?’ he asked. Realizing I had power in the situation, I became what even I would call perverse, so I said, ‘Sixty-five, eh?’”
“Harry,” Kay exclaims in mocking disapproval.
“I could feel his eyes pierce the back of my head. I wondered what he saw. I looked at him in the rearview mirror. ‘I am not going below seventy-five. I would rather declare bankruptcy.’ He was running his tongue around the inside of his mouth, distending his cheek and upper lips. He flung a twenty-dollar bill on the front seat and stormed out of the cab. ‘Don’t effing play with me. If you don’t have that kind of money, what are you trying to—’
“‘Cash,’ I said firmly. ‘Sixty-five thousand. Cash.’
“The man slammed a fist on the roof of the car. ‘Take the damn thing for sixty-five, then. Sixty-five frigging thousand dollars.’ I remember his words like it was yesterday. ‘Sixty-five frigging thousand dollars.’”
“So, of course I asked if there was anything I should know about it. ‘Is there a lien on it or anything? A body buried in the yard?’ He said there was no lien on it. In fact, he said, ‘There’s not a damn thing wrong with this house or its title. And there is no body buried anywhere. I am no criminal, you jackass. I am just a man who takes risks, and usually they pay off, but I just took one too many—not for me but for my wife, who, if she is not careful, may not bear that distinction for much longer. I am going through a rough period. Is that a crime? Come. I suppose we have some things to figure out. I suppose you want to see it?’”
Harry remembers that he was thinking about all the people back home, how they would all be so impressed that Harry St. George was living in a seaside house that he himself owned—and in such a “good” neighborhood in Canada. He does not mention this, but he does tell Kay that his mother, long dead, would have loved this seaside home, and that he imagines his stepfather, if he were alive, taking walks down the roadway Harry and his workers would eventually construct, watching the neighbors’ houses, and gloating.
“Harry, you were heartless.” Kay grins mischievously. They watch each other, smiling. He marvels at how easy it is to speak with this woman. He remembers Rose asking him about the house in the summer, but he avoided imparting to her the circumstances under which he bought it.
Breaking the loaded silence that has ensued, Kay asks where the bathroom is. He leans back against the counter and points in its direction. For the first time, Harry notices that Kay is beautiful. He has the urge to follow her. Eleven thirty-five. He goes instead to the refrigerator, takes one of the champagne bottles from its paper bag, unties the wire net covering the cork. As he works the cork, he recalls that the man and he walked down the wet stairs to the side of the house. It was low tide. The man pointed to the bag in Harry’s hand. Harry held the bag up. The man reached in and pulled out a ring of apple, popped it in his mouth.
“So, what was that you were listening to—or rather, not listening to—on the radio?” Harry remembers him changing the subject.
“Cricket.”
“God. Are the commentators always so lethargic?”
Harry had the sense that the man had already moved out of the house and into some future he alone could see. He was probably accustomed to living on the edge of his pocket, to taking risks, losing some, gaining on others.
Harry had yet to look directly at the house. “It’s a slow game,” he told the man, feeling oddly defensive.
“Do you know hockey?”
He remembers rounding the side of the house on slabs of concrete embedded in the lawn grass. He got his first view of the garden: low retaining wall and tall unkempt grasses merging with a pebbly beach. Some boulders at the edges, an uprooted tree with cauterized roots facing the sky, rows of washed-ashore logs, then the sea. The man’s wife stood on the lawn, facing the water, surrounded by beds of tall lime-green ferns. Hugging herself. She heard them and turned. Harry saw Rose again, imagined it was she standing there, and even without seeing the interior of the house, he knew that he definitely wanted it.
But this woman here with him tonight, listening to his every word and so ready to grin and laugh—he had the impression that she wouldn’t care if he lived in a studio apartment. She didn’t even seem to notice that he was rather incompetent in the recreational outdoor world that she so loved.
Freshly sprayed marigold scent announces her return. Her hair is neatened, fluffed up, her lipstick reapplied thickly. Harry hands her a glass of champagne. The bubbles rise swiftly to the top, jumping out of the glass, diving through the air like minute meteors. She sniffs the contents and, with the tips of her fingers, brushes her upper lip and her nose where bubbles have spat. Her preening flatters him.
She suggests going into the garden. Harry blows out the candles in the dining room and checks that the oven is turned off. They wrap themselves in coats, muffle their necks in scarves. He takes the open bottle swathed in a towel, closes the door behind them, and they carry their glasses of champagne across the front lawn to the water’s edge.
From somewhere in the distance, over the water, comes music, and here and there the excitement of a high-pitched stray voice is dispersed by the whims of the night’s brisk breezes. The air is dry. Clean and crisp, as if in readiness for a New Year that is just minutes away.
The tide is as far out as it ever gets. Harry extends his hand and helps Kay down the steps that lead from his property to the sliver of pebbled shore. The pebbles glimmer in the light of the bright sky. They step over a row of dead logs and amble, side by side. A black shape, a silhouette against the silver-black water, moves on a rock. It turns toward them. Closer, they see that it is a bald eagle. It remains firmly on the rock, not unduly perturbed by their presence. Kay raises her glass. He raises his, tips it toward hers.
She says in a quiet voice, “If there is one thing you could do all over again, what would that be, Harry? Do you have any regrets?”
He ponders having left Guanagaspar. He doesn’t regret that. But it has been made clear tonight, by the light of this woman with whom he is spending this New Year’s Eve, that he has spent a lifetime haunted by the desire to be a part of a particular Guanagasparian world in which he would, more than likely, never have achieved the status of insider, and this is the fuel under any fire that might have burned in him. He says only, “My mother. I might wish that I had left Guanagaspar sooner than I did, while my mother was alive. I would have brought her here with me. She would have come. She wasn’t afraid of change. Yes, she would have liked living in this house. She and me, by the sea, just as we once had.” Harry’s halfhearted chuckle does little to belie the emotion washing over him. “But she died before it even crossed my mind to leave the island. She had a way of saying exactly what was on her mind, but she was never unkind.” He feels certain that his mother would have been comfortable in Kay’s presence.
A whizzing sound arches across the sky, though they see nothing. Ahead, far in the distance, coming from the direction of the city, flares shoot into the sky and quietly explode. Faint sounds of whistles, rattles, shouts of “Happy New Year” float across the water. Kay slips her hand under his arm and takes his elbow. He unhooks his arm, pulls her to him, and whispers in her hair, “Happy New Year.” She returns the wish solemnly: “Happy New Year, Harry.” She closes her eyes and lifts her face to kiss his lips. In the fleeting half second it takes for him to catch his breath, she has touched his lips with hers and already stepped back from him. She looks overhead at the sky as a wanton firecracker explodes.
“Everything and anything always seems so possible in these first few hours of a New Year. Don’t you think so, Harry?”
He pulls her to him and kisses her again. A squeal of laughter and an isolated, drunken shriek sail across the water.