The outskirts of the city flounce away as the van speeds on through the slant-shining rain-impending late afternoon. Hugh asks Ivy, “What does that Carr guy do?”
“Picks up a patchy living, writing online articles about gaming and surveillance. And his mother sends him cheques.”
“No, I mean the brother.”
“Oh. He’s a comic.”
Hugh laughs.
Ivy laughs too. “I know! It’s the grouchiest profession in the world. He’s a grouser. He does Yuk Yuks, Comedy Club, goes round the circuit, you know, gets no respect, et cetera. I left him because—oh, because it was stupid. We didn’t love each other, never had. The last straw was when he lost his temper at a dinner party and threatened to slug my friend.”
She stops talking. Changes lanes, mouth shut in a cool line.
Doesn’t like slugging. Noted. Nothing more to be said, then. Don’t do that again. Okay, Hugh didn’t intend to anyway. His head doesn’t hurt, he’s at peace. Miles go by, the endless grey of Highway 401, waiting for the diversion, angling north to Peterborough.
It hasn’t been an awkward silence, but she breaks it. “I know this road by heart, but I always have to watch carefully for that exit.”
There it is, Hugh points: Lindsay/Peterborough 2 km—then the exit, the underpass.
Ivy settles herself. “Okay, so how did you and your mother end up in Peterborough?”
“A friend, a girl she knew from boarding school, lent us a farmhouse in the country near Port Hope. Beautiful place, front porch looking out over farmland. We stayed there several times when I was a kid, peaceful weeks without anyone—”
Without anyone hurting me, he almost said.
“Alone, without anyone else. One of those times, she hit the wall. She went into a frenzy, a manic episode, rearranging all the furniture, boiling jam, trying on all the friend’s clothes, tearing everything off. Then she shut down. I couldn’t get her to answer me.” The smooth road unspools. “The old woman at the farmhouse nearby had a garden. I knew there were things to eat there, so I walked down the road. I was four.”
Ivy stays quiet, drives without urgency.
“She found me eating peas.” Pea-pod, you still feel the edged mouth of its little unzipping purse, the pea-pearls hung inside there. “I stayed with her while they took my mother to the hospital. Later they arranged for Ruth to take me. Ruth wasn’t a permanent foster mother, just did favours, babysat. Her husband died young, and she had no children of her own.”
Kaleidoscope of places, the Yorkville apartment, various hotels and houses, the farm—then Ruth’s house in the country town, one piece of calm in the changeable world. Dear Ruth. He ought to be with her, up in Mimi’s room.
“Did it go on and on? Your mother, I mean?”
“In and out. Breakdowns, manic depression. Various treatments.” He stops there. “Out and in. Often out. I lived more with her than with Ruth.”
“Do you ever—did you ever talk to anybody yourself? Or—I don’t know, get help to work through all that?”
“Not then. I don’t think I need help now,” Hugh says. “I seem sad, I know, but I’m fine really, better and better. Once Mimi dies I think I’ll be— Okay, I’ll go into a tailspin, but only for a few weeks. I’m good.” But your dear one is dying.
But we all die.
Looking out at the passing countryside, grey ash, grey ground, he says that: “We all die. All of us, and that’s a very depressing thing.”
Ivy nods. “But also not, at the same time. I mean, since we all die, you know, since that’s the deal, a) let’s have a party first, and b) oh well, we had a very good party.”
“That’s a very grasshoppery way to live.”
“Yes, it is. I am the original grasshopper, fiddling in the summer sun, beginning to creak and worry now that autumn is here. Are you telling me you’re an ant?”
“No. You don’t find many ants around these days.”
“I’ve noticed that. Must be the banking crisis.”
“Gareth is an ant. I admire that about him. He might be the only genuine ant I know—it’s not anal or irritating in him, it’s comforting and trustworthy, stable. It’s good to see those guys. I love them, their long marriage, their finicky ways. We’ll have dinner with them next time—they frequent the best restaurants in the city. Léon is a very fine illustrator, does a lot of work for newspapers; he won some big award last year for a kids’ book.”
“Léon Feldman? I love that book—Loon Moon.”
“That’s the one. They are old friends of mine. I’m glad I met Fern.”
“She’s an old friend of mine. As well as my sister.”
“Della’s my sister, as well as my friend,” Hugh says. “I’m dropping the ball there.” He stares out at the passing scrub, the blur of motion and inevitability.
“What’s the deal with her?” Ivy asks lightly, as if thinking he might not want to answer.
Which he doesn’t. “Oh, her husband’s a mess. Too sensitive for law, probably. He’s been working on a long case involving sexual abuse at a school, a nasty case from thirty years ago. Settlements, multiple claimants. Ken’s acting for the school’s insurance company, deciding how much money for a touch on the breast, how much for a feel, for the thirteen-year-old girl who had an abortion; it’s had him in despair for years. Outside the office, Della takes care of him, manages things so he’s not bugged. He’ll be fifty this winter. Like me.”
For a moment, Hugh can’t remember if Ivy knows how old he is. Will fifty seem too old?
She doesn’t look fazed. “Della has that lovely stability,” she says. “But there’s something tragic going on in her face.”
“Only lately, I think.” Or have they been in trouble for a long time?
“I haven’t met Ken?”
Hugh half laughs, then groans. “He swore me not to tell Della—he took a week off to figure out whether, when, how to quit his job.”
“Oh.”
“I’m having a dinner party for them on Saturday, their thirtieth anniversary. You have to come,” he says.
“Yes, I’ll come,” she says.
She turns her head to beam at him, regardless of traffic, of the long-falling light, the long day, whatever fray may come. Then looks back to the road and drives.
back from Bobcaygeon
sharp hill down from the turn onto 23
eating almonds from a tupperware container starving gobbling
—the tub slips hand catches the steering wheel the car is going—
—veers onto the shoulder into the gravel skewing this way that—
HOW THESE THINGS HAPPEN
brake when the brakes will help—steer stop stop stop stop
hazard lights open the door take off the seatbelt
almonds fallen on the mat
nobody in the other lane
the car didn’t roll down the bank the relief of death
never tell anybody Ken is not here to tell
if Elly had been in the car
Jenny on the gravel pad trim legs
brown hair swinging at the shoulder blade Diet Dr Pepper
white/red revelation
buckle up, drive off
what could I not have done? not driven out there
not spied on Ken on them
Elle would come home not find me not know
go to sleep without knowing
in the morning Ruth would come then the police
to say that I was killed I need Hugh
no van—he must be with Mimi Ruth will be here
Mighton might be my chest cannot break open
while I smile and smile
in the back door Ruth’s cheeriness is not a thing to bear
emptying buckets it is a blessing
do certificates snick the glass back in work eases nerve strain
mat paper backer
bend the shims done 6 to go