My Temporary Life (17 page)

Hardly, true to his word, tried to join the British Army the moment he turned 15. He was happy living with my Dad, but wanted to get as far away from Rab, his father, and Kilmarnock, as he could. So, he did. They resisted taking him at first, probably because of his small stature, but he was persistent, and finally, Hardly became a soldier. They sent him everywhere too, Germany, England, Ireland. Always, Ireland.

“
I thought it was okay over there now, Dad. I thought there was a truce or something. He told me that. I’m sure Hardly told me that.”

“
It’s better than it used to be, but it’s not safe. It’s not safe to be a soldier anywhere. This’ll be the end of it, though. This has to be the feckin’ end of it. He won’t be on active duty anymore. He can come home. He’ll be coming home.” There’s anger in his voice as he speaks. I can hear it. Maybe he’s angry at the Army. Or, maybe he’s angry at the boys who shot Hardly. Or, maybe he’s just angry at the decisions that Hardly and I have made. I can’t tell. It’s been too long, and there are too many miles between us.

“
Malcolm, I should be signing off now, Son. I should be disconnecting. You can phone him, though. He’s at the military hospital in Glasgow. He can take calls, you know. ” His practical phone manners return, as he waits for me to speak.

“
I will Dad. Tell him that I’m thinking about him. Tell him that I’ll call him.” I get the phone number from him, and try asking my Dad how he’s doing, but it’s too late. He’s saying ‘Cheerio’, and hanging up the phone, while I’m still talking.

When I tell Heather about Hardly, I tell her all of it. I tell her about Rab, and how he hit Hardly with the iron, and the beatings, and my Dad taking Hardly in. I even tell her about getting pissed on at our tree. When I tell her the part about two boys shooting at him from a window, I can’t talk anymore. I don’t want to think of my friend out there on the street, dressed in his uniform, vulnerable.

“Are you going to go see him? Are you going to go to Scotland?” We’re sitting on the edge of my bed, and the late September sunshine is streaking through the windows of my apartment.

“
No, not right now. I’ll try and go back once he’s out of hospital. I spoke to one of his doctors. He’s going to have lots of rehab, lots of work to do. They’ll fit him with an artificial leg but he will walk. He will walk.” I feel guilty as soon as I say it, and it seems as though she can sense it too.

“
So, what are you going to do? Work? Should we just work all summer to forget about it?” She’s not angry. She says it as though she really wants to hear the answer.

I look out my window, at the sun, wishing that summer was beginning, instead of ending and I know that I need to do something, anything to help me not think about my friend lying in a hospital bed. “Nope, let’s get out of town. Can you get some time off from Terry? Let’s get out of here and do something.” It makes perfect sense. We both want to prolong the summer so, why not? Why not do what people do in every city of the world do when the sun begins to fade and the nights get shorter?

At first she just stares into my eyes, as though she’s questioning my motivation, but after a moment there’s no doubt. Her smile tells me that we’re going. Her smile tells me that summer might last just a little bit longer.

Her idea is to camp in an old army tent, at a lake that she’s heard of, that’s two hundred miles away, in the interior of the province. She wants to sleep under the stars, cook over an open fire, and howl at the moon, while drinking a bottle of Indian whisky, that’s been in her cupboard for years. I’ve never heard of Indian whisky, and even in my wildest days, can’t remember ever howling at the moon.

I want to find a nice bed and breakfast, far away from the city, and gaze up at the stars from the comfort of a room that has a warm fireplace.

The compromise comes when I spot a ‘For Sale’ sign, on an old motorhome sitting by the side of the road. I phone her, and suggest that we can still go to her lake, and still cook outside, and yes, she can bring her bottle of Indian whisky. This way though, with the motorhome, we can be warm and dry, and it will give us some privacy from other campers.

And with the ease of an early relationship compromise, she answers, “Yes, I can’t wait.”

The motorhome is sound, and I fill four lined pages with notes from the operating instructions and tips that the previous owner has given me. It has a heavy feel to it on the road, and although it’s smaller, compared to some of the others that pass us; it’s still the largest vehicle that either of us has ever driven. I check the side mirrors, as I drive, then look over at her, and gaze just a moment too long at her bare legs.

“
You’re going to get us into an accident. Why don’t you just pull over, gawk at my legs for a while? Then you can drive on safely.” Her smile is playful, as she says it.

“
You shouldn’t have worn those shorts if you didn’t want me to look at your legs.” I smile back at her, trying very hard to keep my eyes on the road.

“
I didn’t say that I didn’t want you to look at them. And if you want, I can take my shorts off.” She means it. I can tell, as she bravely keeps her gaze on me.

“
Keep them on. I’ll concentrate on the road.” I laugh, and it feels good, as I watch her, from the corner of my eye, mischievously pulling at her shorts.

The old motorhome bounces and coughs along the scenic roads, with the engine sounding like it wants to rest.

“
It doesn’t feel like it wants to go camping.” She holds onto her seat as she says it, letting the sun beat down on her face.

“
It’s reliable. I had it checked out, old but reliable.”

“
I know you did. I trust it. I trust both of you.”

We pass other campsites on the way to our campground, where other campers are also trying to pretend that it’s still summer. We see boat launches and barbecue pits and signs telling us who the campsite hosts are. They all look like small miniature villages, with people pretending that this is their real home. I keep thinking that I’ll see a fast food restaurant, situated right in the middle of one of them. As we drive on, I start to enjoy the feeling of being away from the city, and silently hope that our campsite will be more private, more remote.

As the afternoon sun fades to dusk, the other campgrounds we pass become fewer and fewer, until it seems that we’re the only other people on the road, driving along in our clunky old motorhome. Just as we begin to think that perhaps our lake doesn’t really exist, we see it. There’s no sign, and although it has an official name, it’s been called, ‘the Lake at the End of the World’ for as long as anyone can remember. It backs onto a mountain and is too cold to swim in for a long period of time, so families with children don’t come here. When we pull up, we aren’t surprised that there are only two other campers spaced out around the small beach.

“
Let’s park at the end, away from them.”

“
My thoughts exactly,” I answer, steering towards the narrow road, and parking right on the gravelly beach, giving us a perfect view of the lake.

We sit for a moment, and look out the front windshield, enjoying the vibrant greenness of the lakes’ colour, as the sun drops down behind the mountains.

The excitement of the trip, along with our Olympic flirting session since leaving the city, has tired us. Having memorized my notes the night before, it doesn’t take long for me to set up the site, with the awning out and chairs underneath it, while Heather starts making a fire.

“
We must be sharing the head today. We’re working well together,” I say, realizing that we automatically set about preparing the campsite, each doing different chores.

“
Remind me again, what possessed me to let a man I hardly know take me out into the middle of nowhere? And for someone who does all his camping in hotels, you have a very sharp hatchet.” She’s chopping up some kindling, as she says it.

“
You trust your instincts, and they told you that I was safe. It doesn’t have to be complicated, does it?” I think of Natasha and how complicated our relationship seemed at times. Then I smile, and look over at Heather, standing so simply, and beautifully, wearing her shorts and tee-shirt, readying our campfire.

“
I believe you, but I’ll hold on to this tonight anyway, okay?” She’s holding the hatchet across her chest, as though defending herself, smiling back at me.

The darkness falls quickly, and after a hurried dinner over the outside grill, we settle into a couple of chairs by the fire.

“
Are there always this many stars out at night?” I look up, as I ask, amazed at all the different lights in the sky.

“
Only if you look up, if not there aren’t any. You gotta always look up.”

The bottle of whisky appears, and Heather performs the ceremonial throwing away of the cork, explaining that it’s traditional when you’re camping, to drink the whole bottle. I smile back; knowing that even with our best efforts, there’s no possibility that we’ll empty the bottle.

She sets a candle on a rock, and we watch the glow from the light dance on the water’s reflection. I take a blanket from the motorhome and lay it over her, and she smiles a thank you back at me.

“
You looked cold.”

“
The whisky will warm me up,” she coughs at the strength of her drink.

I cradle the glass in my hand, sipping the drink slowly. “I like you.”

“
I know you do,” she says thoughtfully, “but you still haven’t looked up yet. Look up and I’ll tell you a story.” There’s too much darkness between us for me to be sure, but I’m fairly certain that the dark flicker, the hesitation, is back in her eyes.

I lay my head back in the chair and stare at the brilliance of the stars, waiting for her to speak.

“
I have a daughter, a little girl.” She pauses, “no, no, don’t look at me. Keep looking up. This is the only way I can do this.”

I want to look at her eyes. I want to see what her face is doing, but I don’t move, in case she stops talking. The courage in her voice makes the words sound harsh and unfeeling, but I can tell that she’s straining, straining to get them out.

“
I wanted to tell you. I almost told you lots of times, but then something would happen; something would take it out of my mind for a little while. Then when you told me about your friend, when you told me about Hardly, I had to. I have to.” She pauses between sentences as though she’s weighing the impact of the words, listening to see what will happen once she says them. “It’s like a door that I closed ten years ago, and haven’t opened since. I think about her, but then I move onto something else, quickly, and then she’s not in my mind, not in my thoughts. The nights were bad for a long, long time. I’d meet men and they’d amuse me. They’d save me from the alone nights, or I’d drink, like I am now,” she half laughs, wearily.

“
Where is she now, your little girl?”

She laughs again, but nervously this time. “Her name is Emily. That’s what I was going to call her anyways, and I think she’s in Ontario, back in my old hometown, but I don’t know. I can’t know that for sure.”

The darkness and the silence envelope us. I feel as though I’m a long, long way away from my safe apartment that overlooks the water. It’s almost like I’ve stopped breathing, as I sit there, waiting for more.

“
Yes, I know. You deserve more of an explanation. What kind of mother leaves her daughter? It was complicated. I was eighteen. Michael was married, and older, much older.”

I stare at the candle, watching it’s reflection on the water.

“
This man, Michael, does he have your baby?”

I glance over at her and her face is hard but her eyes are wet. She’s staring ahead, not looking at me, trying to get through her story. “Yes, she probably doesn’t even know that I exist. They kept me in a facility, told me they would look after me. I didn’t know where I was exactly. They said that they would help me raise the baby. I believed them, him and that old nurse. The whole time I was isolated. It was some kind of mental health place. I never really saw anyone else while I was there. They kept me alone. I’d spend days and nights dreaming about my baby, and figuring out how our lives would all work. I knew by this point that Michael wouldn’t leave his wife, but I still thought there would be a way to keep everybody happy. Everybody was being so nice to me, anything I needed, anything, it was given to me.”

“
Then, she was born. She was so soft and warm. I remember holding her, I remember that. Then I just remember darkness and when I woke there was no baby, and I was in a different room, a different place, but with the same old nurse who had been looking after me.”