Foreigners (15 page)

David and Rebecca Marsden had agreed to take the cottage for the entire month of August. A good long vacation. Enough time away to get things sorted out. Rebecca hadn't had to worry about work since leaving her job at the bank. And David, who taught English at a private school, was on summer break anyhow. So it was never a question of opportunity.

At first, when they began to discuss the possibility of the trip, they'd considered previous destinations. Paris, where they'd spent their honeymoon thirteen years earlier, initially came to David's mind. But Rebecca balked at the idea, on account of it being far too expensive. He suspected, though, that her considerations were more than merely financial. In Paris they would be reminded of certain hopes they had once shared, and shared no longer. So too would be the case with Key West and Cancun and Venice and Madrid. And remaining in Canada, going either west to the Rockies or east to the Maritimes, was never contemplated. What they needed was a sense of foreignness.

It was David who proposed Ireland: for its greenery, he'd said. It was Rebecca who found the ad for the cottage in the
classifieds at the back of a glossy magazine:
Quaint, secluded hillside cottage with all the modern amenities. Located in the picturesque seaside town of Bray, Co. Wicklow. Just thirty minutes from Dublin City Centre. Weekly/monthly rentals available.
The arrangements were made over the phone with an agency right in downtown Toronto, and all the particulars were posted to their home two weeks before they were due to leave. To economize, they'd booked themselves on a charter flight that had a two-hour layover at Shannon before heading on to Dublin.

Sitting on the tarmac at Shannon, David noticed Rebecca picking at her fingers. She'd forced the cuticles away from the nails and he could see a small gap between her flesh and the red acrylic polish. She had also torn thin strips from the sides of her fingertips, one leaving an angry weal that stretched down to the first knuckle. He could have stopped her by simply covering her hands with his own. But he knew that she would only start again when he took them away, so he didn't see the point. Instead, he turned and looked out the window and watched as the baggage handlers offloaded cargo containers from the belly of the plane.

It wasn't much of a cottage, David decided after he'd unpacked his suitcase, putting his clothes in the bottom two drawers of the lopsided bureau, leaving the top two for Rebecca. Rather, it was a fairly cheaply constructed bungalow: lath and plaster, covered by a thin coat of yellow stucco. When Rebecca had read the advertisement to him, he'd pictured solid stone walls, thick lintels over doors and windows, a thatched roof, a wide hearth and blackened fireplace. There was a hearth, but it was
narrow, and the fire was a three-bar heater that resembled an electric toaster cut down the middle.

He stayed up late the first night, sitting in the lounge reading the novel he'd begun on the plane. He found it difficult to concentrate; he was rarely able to complete a book begun in transit, but also he had no idea how long the timer on the lights would last. Rebecca had gone to bed as soon as they'd returned from dinner.

They had followed the road back toward town, a walk that took them past quiet terraced houses and along the bank of a deep, slow-moving river. There they stopped a moment. On a narrow island in the middle stood a derelict building. It was three storeys high and ran the length of the island, which looked to David to be as long as a city block. Its grey stones were crumbling and moss covered, and its roof was caved in, leaving only a hollow shell of walls and empty windows.

“What do you suppose it was?” Rebecca asked.

“A workhouse, maybe.”

She looked at him as he spoke, then turned quickly away.

“You mean,” she said, and David caught the slight trace of fear in her voice, “like the kind they used to send children to?”

“No,” he quickly countered. “No, that's not what I meant. I'm just saying it was probably some sort of factory, that's all.”

Rebecca continued to stare at the ruins.

“If you like,” David offered, laying an awkward hand on her shoulder, “I'll ask someone when we get to town.”

“No,” she said, and started walking again.

They ate in the restaurant of the Royal Hotel, at a table near the window so they could look out onto the high street. Leek soup to start, followed by Atlantic salmon baked in airy
pastry and a Sauvignon Blanc suggested by the wine steward. But Rebecca, who'd complained of her hunger on the taxi ride from the airport, ate little. David watched as she used her fork to dissect the pastry layer by layer, flake by flake, until she was left with only the pink meat. This too she anatomized, separating it along the sinew. David said nothing, finishing his own meal. Afterward he declined the waiter's offerings from the dessert trolley and ordered a coffee for himself.

Outside, Rebecca complained of a headache and sent him back into the hotel lobby to order a taxi so they wouldn't have to walk. On the drive back to the cottage, she leaned her head against the window and closed her eyes. She kept them closed until she was certain they'd passed the ruined factory, though it had grown so dark that David could not make it out in the night.

The Marsdens had come to an understanding about children early on, in the year before they were married. It wasn't that they had an aversion, rather it was a question of priorities. David was set on graduate school: a master's degree in literature, with a doctorate to follow. From there a professorship, hopefully on the West Coast, so they wouldn't have to suffer through any more Ontario winters. Rebecca wanted to work, a career, and if she still felt like it, graduate school for herself somewhere down the line. There was travel, too. Europe, South America, maybe even Asia: India and the Far East. None of which could be done with children in tow.

For a while, they had a dog. A mutt named Buster. He filled the hole, as David put it. Many a Saturday in the summer,
they would spend the day with him in High Park. He was a big friendly hound. Children would come up to him and scratch behind his ears while he licked the ice-cream cones and ate the hot dogs they held in their hands; and if their hands were empty, he would make do with their faces, passing his big lazy tongue over their noses and mouths. When they travelled, Buster was boarded at a veterinary clinic on Bloor Street, and was as happy to go as he was to return. They'd had him just over two years on the cold November night that he ran out the front door and was killed by the neighbour's car. Although he never said as much to Rebecca, David greeted the dog's death with a measure of release.

David Marsden slept on the narrow rattan sofa the first night. The second he spent in the front bedroom, in the single bed that he'd yet to move, waking late on their third morning in Ireland to the smell of burnt toast. He found Rebecca sitting in one of the matching rattan armchairs with the floral-patterned cushions. Her knees were pulled up to her chest. She was crying.

“What's the matter?”

“Oh, it's that goddamn toaster,” she said, wiping away tears with the back of her hand. “That's the third time it's burned.”

“Maybe you should watch it, then,” David said. He walked across to the kitchenette and removed the two blackened pieces of bread from the toaster and dropped them into the bin with the other four. Then he looked at his wife through the bamboo lattice and smiled: “At least we don't have to pay by the slice.”

Rebecca did not return his smile. She stared straight ahead and began to rock back and forth. David came out from the kitchenette and knelt in front of the chair. He gently took hold of her ankles.

“Listen, honey,” he said, trying to soften his hoarse morning voice. “It's only toast. There's no need to get upset. We'll just go out for breakfast.”

“It's not the bloody toast, David.”

“Well, then what is it?” he said, letting go of her ankles.

Rebecca looked him in the face and David had to fight the urge to wipe away the thin trickle of snot that leaked from her nose.

“What are we doing here?” she asked, her voice as timid as a child's. “That's what it is: I want to know what we are doing here.”

David stood up and started toward the door. Halfway there he stopped and turned back round.

“We're on holiday,” he said. “That's what we're doing here.”

Getting his master's degree had proved more difficult than David Marsden had expected. His Ph.D. proved too much. Unable to complete his dissertation, he withdrew from the program and began to look for work, a search that finally ended at Thornecliffe College, an exclusive school west of the city. And while it wasn't true academia, it at least had the patina of academia: old, red-brick buildings with ivy-covered walls and a wide, green, well-manicured quadrangle where the students lounged about or played pickup games of soccer and rugby. If he glanced up quickly while he was crossing from the
administration building to the upper-school block, he could imagine he was strolling the Hart House Green toward Philosopher's Walk. But the facade was soon broken when he entered his classroom and looked into the blank faces of the fifteen- and sixteen-year-old boys in his charge. Not even their expensive navy blazers could hide the fact that they were no more than bored teenagers.

The money wasn't much either, so Rebecca had to put thoughts of her own education on hold and stay on at the bank. She did well, being promoted regularly. She rose from teller to assistant loan officer and finally to mortgage manager. Before she left, there was talk of her getting her own branch.

Although their plans had gone somewhat astray, they found themselves comfortable. And for a time, even content.