A Witness to Life (Ashland, 2) (4 page)

Gramma watches me, not taking her eyes from mine, a kind of wonder on her face. Fleetingly, I see my mother's face there, see Rose's, Bridget's, Kate's—then my own. The spine beneath my hand is a hollow keel, the breath, close to my face, castor oil. I touch her shoulder, feeling the bone beneath papery skin, beneath flannel. Gramma, I think. Gramma. I have never touched you before.

Suddenly, she is mine.

Da does not come home until past nine o'clock. Exhausted, he eats his dinner in silence.

I look at his shoes, covered with mud and cement, the heels worn down. He does not know it is my birthday, but I am not offended. He has never known any of our birthdays. And I never find out if he knows that I have his father's grandfather's shaving equipment, or if he really wanted me to have it, or if he even cares, because I never summon the courage to ask him.

He takes a Carter's Little Liver Pill, then lights his pipe. The blue smoke, strong with the smell of the life left in his lungs, fills the kitchen. None of us have any way of knowing that he will be dead within two years.

I remember the smell of the soot and fire, see the Grand River flowing wildly beneath us on the bridge, feel my hand tighten once again in the hair at the back of his head, watch him smile at the pleasure of holding me in his arms.

For unlike Gramma, I have touched him. But not for a long time. He has not been mine for a very long time. And soon, of course, it will be too late.

SIX

The night
...
is a time of freedom. You have seen the morning and the night, and the night was better. In the night all things began, and in the night the end of all things has come before me.

—Thomas Merton

The Sign of Jonas

Even here, outside of time, there is the sudden, the un-known, the dangerous. Without warning, plummeting like a stone from the clouds that scudded above us, a hawk—is it the same one I observed before?—fell to the top of the maple in which we were resting and plucked one of us from the uppermost branch.

Like an explosion, the sound of hundreds of wings beating. We lifted off in unison, a fleet of black specks of which I was a part, and swept across the city, heading blindly out over the lake, away from the clouds that could conceal such random fate.

My tiny heart was pumping fear, something I did not know I would feel again. And the questions flowed with it: who did the hawk take? Why? Will I ever know who these creatures about me are—or if they are anyone at all?

And it was real. In fact, it was surreal. I could feel it. There was no chance of a dream here, nothing of delusion.

We soared high, the blue waves far below us, finally arcing west, back toward the city. I saw the shoreline approaching, then Front Street, Dundas. We headed farther west, toward the Junction, exhilarated, and settled once again, a sinking black cloud, into a giant maple, where the sounds of relief, exhaustion, and the shrill chirps and squawks of life surfaced anew from the flock.

But we were one less. And I was uncertain why.

Life surrounded me. Yet in death, there was death still, a further echo.

I looked about, sifted through the years spent in the area—the rooms slept in, the faces staring from behind store counters, across tabletops. I saw mothers easing prams over curbs, fathers, thumbs hitched in their belts, striding beside them, bowlers tilted rakishly on their heads.

And then I held my breath. Oh, Maggie.

I saw Maggie, saw how my life really began.

SEVEN

1907-9

1

"Ma and Gramma are moving in with Mary and Michael. Into number thirty-eight."

Jock looks at me with interest. "When?"

"End of August." It is the seventh of June. "Since their oldest two married, there's only Francis at home with them now. He's thirteen. So they've got some room."

"And Julia and Oliver right next door?"

"That's right. And their five kids. Their youngest's got my name. Martin. He's eight."

"I can't keep your family straight."

"None of us can. Teresa and Peter Curtis live at thirty- seven Brookfield, Elizabeth and Jim McKenna at number thirty-nine." I laugh. "You know Kate married Jim Bedford last year—who works at Massey-Harris with Peter Curtis. Well, they've moved into number twenty-two." Once again it is Friday, the end of the workweek. We are sipping Bass Ale in the Nipissing Hotel, where Rose used to work, where I used to meet Lillian. They have remodeled the dining room, replaced the tables and chairs. I look around, knowing that I liked it better the way it was. "Ma needs help with Gramma. And my pay doesn't stretch far enough to carry the house and the three of us. Mary and Michael are doing well. Better, I should say."

"How's Mike—your brother Mike—doing?" He shakes his head. "See what I mean about the names? Can't keep 'em straight."

"Too many of us."

"Bloody right." He chuckles.

"Mike's got seven kids."

"Jesus. I'd lost track."

"His youngest, Kervin, six years old, is sickly. Mike's workin' his tail off to pay for medicine, doctors." I pause. "He's a good man. But he can't afford Ma and Gramma. Got no place to put 'em."

"What kind of name is Kervin? Irish?"

"Family name. Way back." I'm remembering the story. "My big sister Sarah married a fellow whose mother's maiden name was Kervin."

Jock's eyebrows rise slightly.

"Sarah died a long time ago. When I was a kid. It's Mike's tribute to her in a way. Her memory."

Jock seems sobered by the story. Then: "Mike still on Gladstone?"

I nod. "Still there."

Almost a minute passes in silence. Then he asks: "So?"

I meet his eyes.

He waits.

"So I guess it's time. Got to get my own place." I shrug, take another sip of ale. "I can't cook, you know. I'll probably starve."

I expect Jock to tease me further about my future helplessness, but instead he is quiet, looks thoughtful, then tips his own glass to his lips, places it back on the table before speaking. Finally, he says, "What about getting a place together?"

"Who?"

"Us. The two of us."

It is a new idea to me. I say nothing, digesting the thought.

"Time I got out too," he says. "Couple of old bachelors like us might have a pretty good time of it. What do you think?"

"Interesting." The picture of it grows slowly in my mind, a seed planted, roots spreading.

"We could save money by splitting the cost of a place."

I have no money saved, never have any money saved, live pay envelope to pay envelope, even after almost a decade at Don Valley Pressed Bricks.

"Very interesting." I smile.

We order steak and kidney pies, another ale, consider possibilities. I feel liberated. As much as the unknown frightens, it also excites.

"The Catholic and the Orangeman." Jock smiles back at me. We are conspirators. We have saved ourselves. Like the remodeled room in which we sit, we too will have a new veneer. The future opens up anew.

Uplifted by beery collusion, heartened by the balm of a June evening, I amble along the south side of King toward Yonge Street. This is the old city, spared the fire of '04. Across the street, at number 66, I see Brown Bros., Ltd., the stationers and bookbinders where I once interviewed for a job that I did not get. At number 46, the Canada Life Building towers upward. It, too, has a place in my memory. Inside are the offices of Hearn & Lamont, Barristers, Solicitors and Notaries, in room 47, where I also have been turned down for clerical work.

In the street, amidst the other single carts, a horse-drawn streetcar—"Toronto Street Railway Company" emblazoned on its side—heads sedately westward, on a line that will eventually take it just south of the lunatic asylum, which, in spite of Ma's direst fears, is still standing. And above the clopping of horse hooves rumbles the sound of an open two-seater "Northern" auto. Other heads turn to stare. Seated high, a man and a woman smile proudly, squinting into the setting sun.

From my inner jacket pocket I take a Havana Eden Perfecto, one of my treats to myself, and stop outside the elegant new King Edward Hotel while I light it. Perhaps, I think, smiling, Jock and I will be able to afford a celebratory drink here soon, when we acquire our new accommodations.

Puffing it into life, I watch a young woman stop by the double-sided water trough opposite me by the curb, dip the cup on the chain into the basin facing us, and, tipping her head back, drink. In the weakening sunlight, my eyes are drawn to the sensual line of her throat, the way her fingers splay away from the metal vessel at her lips. And as I listen to her footsteps fade away, fasten my gaze on the slimness of her ankle as she disappears, I know that there is something else that I need and must have, something that I am missing profoundly.

Rounding the comer onto Yonge I head north, thinking I will walk the four blocks to Queen, then catch the streetcar home. At 97 Yonge, I stop at Chas. Rogers & Sons, Co. (Ltd.), Furniture & Upholstery, and read the sign in the window:

LOWEST PRICES FOR CASH

BEDROOM SUITES

BRASS BEDSTEADS

PALOR SUITES

MANTELS & GRATES

DINNING SUITES

TILES & FIRE IRONS

SPRINGS & MATTRESSES

HALL STANDS

ETC.

I will need furniture if I have my own place, I think, suffused with a sudden influx of realism. The thought bothers me, but it cannot fully penetrate the glow of the ale still coursing through my veins. Subdued only slightly, I shrug the thought off, move on.

Two doors north of Adelaide, at number 113, I halt once more, this time outside the windows of Samuel Corrigan, Merchant Tailor (established twenty-five years). Clothes are a weakness of mine, a small vanity. They are a major reason why I cannot pay "lowest prices for cash" for even a spring and mattress from Chas. Rogers & Sons. Having never needed furniture before, I have never developed a curiosity about it, have no sense of its worth. I have lived for myself, have always been good to myself, always tried to dress and groom like a gentleman.

The sign is perfectly stenciled:

DIRECT IMPORTER OF SELECT WOOLENS

SCOTCH TWEED SUITINGS

$15, $16, $18, & $20 up

The temptation for something smart, something with which to celebrate my new independence, grows delicately in my brain, as it has so often before. I have never needed much of an excuse.

But Samuel Corrigan, Merchant Tailor, is closed.

Simpson's, I think. Simpson's or Eaton's. Large department stores. They'll be open Friday evening. And Simpson's, for whom Mike still works, delivering goods to all parts of the city, is closer, less than two blocks north.

Pulling the brim of my hat down, I set off.

At Richmond Street, I enter Simpson's comer doors, wander onto its wooden floor, feeling small beneath the high ceilings, beneath the weight of the six stories atop me. The escalator, the flat-step moving staircase, rolls noisily upward in the distance. Once inside, I take my hat off, still unsure what it is that I want, and stand staring down long, brightly lit aisles, hypnotized as always by the baskets holding customers' change and receipts clicking along overhead on trolley wires.

Business is modest. A lady stands to my left at the counter displaying scarves and shawls, holding one aloft for inspection. To my right are a series of mannequin torsos, brazenly displaying ladies' corsets. Flustered, I drop my eyes to the hat in my hands.

And it is here, in my own hands, that I get an idea.

The men's hats and ladies' millinery counters are side by side, and I lean tipsily on the glass, staring at the array of sumptuous headwear. There is a woman bending beneath the counter, stowing a box away, who does not know that I am here.

She straightens, brushes her hands on the front of her skirt, and meets my eyes. The face that greets me is frail, perhaps somewhat older than mine, the eyes large. Her hair, tied at the nape by a white ribbon, is swept up one side and across the top of her head so that it falls in a soft roll across a high forehead. The mouth curves down at the comers in a way that is both sad, and to me at this point in time, particularly alluring.

"Can I help you?"

Suddenly, I am the one who feels frail. And foolish. I do not know what I want anymore. My desire to adorn myself, to play the dandy, blends into something else much more mysterious.

I place my hat on the counter. "I was thinking of a new hat," I hear myself saying.