Toby (14 page)

By the time they emerged from the washroom, the customer had departed. Toby plunged the toilet. When the diaper reappeared, he gagged again, an unfamiliar honking noise escaped from him. He tried to fish the diaper out of the discoloured water with a glove fashioned from toilet paper, but it was one-ply and quickly dissolved. Toby threw the diaper into the garbage with the Lady Killer sweatshirt, wrapped the
shit-stained panda in a spare diaper, washed his arms as best he could, and walked into the shop to discover Hugo on a chair, eating the sauerkraut from the condiment table.

It was nearly four o’clock. Toby removed his Chien Chaud apron and collapsed into one of the chairs. He quietly watched Hugo eat sauerkraut, and then chopped onions and tomatoes. At ten after four he walked to the window and looked out for some sign of Catherine’s white Honda Civic. At four thirty he made a hot dog for the boy, with plenty of sauerkraut, chopped onions, and tomatoes, and began dialling the number she had left. The dinner rush—seven people—began at five o’clock. His replacement, a teenager named Rick, arrived to relieve him at five thirty.

“Is this your kid?”

“No.”

“Huh.”

Toby phoned Catherine again and left another message, then phoned home. Obviously, her emergency was more serious than she had anticipated, so Toby hoped to leave the boy with Edward and Karen while he drove into Montreal. No answer. And again, no answer on Catherine’s phone. He paced. He asked Hugo if he knew where his mother might have gone. The boy stared.

“Um, man,” said Rick. “Is there anything I can help with?”

“It’s polite of you to ask, Rick.”

Rick did not feel comfortable babysitting Hugo while Toby drove into Montreal to meet his real estate agent, despite assurances that Hugo had just shit himself and probably wouldn’t shit again for at least a couple of hours. Toby bundled the boy up and led him outside to the Chevette. He was so small that the shoulder belt would have strangled him
in a head-on collision, so Rick hunted through the shop and found seven bungee cords in the storage room. Together they strapped the boy to the front seat.

Toby drove cautiously down the autoroute until someone in a minivan cut him off. Sweat burst from every one of his pores. He turned off onto Saint-Laurent and pulled into the parking lot of the Sears at Place Vertu. Hugo would not take his hand, and he screamed when Toby tried to pick him up, so to protect Hugo from elderly, vision-challenged drivers in giant Plymouths, Toby leaned over the boy like the sole member of a presidential security detail.

The department store was bedecked with pre-Halloween Christmas trees, lights, and wreaths. Bing Crosby parumpummed over the hi-fi. It appeared as though a pack of coyotes had recently been through the children’s section of the store, as packages had been ripped open and blankets and bottles lay on the brown carpet. The car seat section was small but illuminating. Prices started at $110 and reached $300 for an elite model.

Safety should not be compromised for a couple of hundred dollars in savings, Toby determined. He chose the most expensive seat, the Westchester, even though he worried it would take up most of the space in the back of the Chevette. When Hugo was settled in with the provincial Department of Families and Seniors, Toby would come up with an excuse to bring the Westchester back to Sears for a full refund. But the boy might as well experience luxury before moving into the orphanage.

The Westchester was built for vehicles that were manufactured after 2000, so it took Toby almost half an hour to rig it into the back seat of the Chevette. When he finished, the
seat appeared to be solidly in place. Just to be sure, he used the bungees to secure the sides and back of the unit.

Tania, the real estate agent, met Toby in the foyer of the warehouse, where she had been answering e-mails. They were twenty minutes late. He apologized but didn’t bother explaining. “You wouldn’t believe me anyway.”

In the hall, on the way to his suite, Tania acknowledged Hugo. “Oh my God, is he beautiful? You didn’t tell me you were a father. I did not know this about you.”

They weren’t exactly friends. “I’m just babysitting.”

“Hello.” She bent over. “My name is Tania Miller. And you are?”

“He doesn’t speak English. His name is Hugo.”

“Like the strongman?”

“Yes, actually.”

“A stunningly serious boy.
Enchanté,
Hugo!”

Something about Tania’s manner—her loud voice, her overpowering perfume, her unblinking eyes, the plastic surgery, or the inscrutable nature of her black cape and scarf combination—inspired Hugo to take Toby’s hand and cry all the way to the suite.

As they moved through the main floor, Toby pointed out all the improvements he had made in the kitchen and bathroom, the faucets and the black toilet. Tania complimented him on his taste and his cleanliness, and made a few recommendations for staging purposes. She had him sign a contract. “So, where are you looking?”

“Looking?”

“For your next house.”

Hugo no longer had his hand. “I’m living in Dollard at the moment.”

“Oh my God, you’re joking!”

“Hugo?”

Nothing. Not a footstep or a squeak. The sleeping quarters and
cave
were on the lower level. Toby ran to the ornamental railing, hand on his heart. He said a little prayer and looked down into the darkness. “Hugo?”

Tania seemed confused by the intensity of his worry and peeked into a couple of closets. She stopped at an open door. “Where does this lead?”

Toby rushed past her and bounded up the stairs to the roof. Three steps from the top, he recalled speaking at a condo board meeting. Half his neighbours in the candy warehouse had wanted to spring for a tasteful cedar fence and some trees and vines on the roof, an $18,000 investment if they hired a contractor. No one had small children, and few of the tenants spent time on the roof, but it was a relatively small sum when split among ten units. Child friendliness would increase the resale value. Toby, and a couple of like-minded neighbours who did not see children in their near future, felt it was a mad waste of an international airplane ticket—especially when the art in the lobby was so pathetic.

Hugo sat on a corner of the roof, facing the mountain. One of his feet dangled over the sidewalk four storeys below. He turned to look at Toby, who crept forward on a carpet of tarpaper, gravel, leaves, and faded chocolate bar wrappers. The cross on the mountain was alight.

Toby spoke flatly, to calm the boy. If Hugo recoiled and slipped, he was gone—and Toby’s ability to live and thrive on earth along with him. No one would understand how this had come to be. “Hello, my darling friend.”

Three steps away, Hugo appeared to sense the falseness
and the fear in Toby’s expression. He eased away. Away was the sidewalk.

Toby stopped walking. If he went back to ask Tania to call the fire department, the boy could slip. If he called for her, Hugo would be alarmed. Toby crouched low and whispered gently, telling Hugo that ice cream and chocolate cake and a pony ride were forthcoming if he agreed to a hug.

Toby looked at Hugo’s perfect head, the clarity of his skin, his tiny hands and tiny shoes and tiny khakis. His blond hair shone, nearly green in the cheap, distorting light of the street lamps. Neither of them moved for several seconds, like gunslingers before the draw. Preposterously, the taste of good mustard rose in the back of Toby’s throat. Then, with the awkward swiftness of a kitten, Hugo leapt up. Toby screamed. But the boy did not tumble to his death. He ran toward Toby and jumped on his back. A sharp rock dug smartly into Toby’s right knee and, he knew, poked a hole in the shit-stained Paul Smith slacks.

“
Poney. Allez, Poney!
”

To prevent any more trips to the ledge, and to express an explosive feeling of relief, despite the mortal damage to a second suit, Toby bucked Hugo off and hugged him. The rapid movement startled the boy, and he began to kick and bawl. Toby kissed Hugo on the forehead and said “Thank you, thank you, thank you” to Whomsoever. He carried Hugo to the stairs. The smell of his blond hair, the warm living body that was its root, inspired more kisses. By the time they reached the bottom of the stairs, and Tania, Hugo had wriggled away from the kisses; Toby appeared to be choking the boy.

“Have you done this before?” said Tania.

The agent departed and Toby called Catherine again. Her line no longer rang; a recording declared it disconnected. Toby sat on the chesterfield with Hugo, who inspected the reproductions in a Chagall coffee table book, and phoned Dollard. Karen answered and Toby explained about Hugo. Something in her tone, or on her face, inspired Edward to get on the other line.

“So she’s gone?” said Karen. “Gone gone?”

“She certainly doesn’t want to be found. I should call the police, shouldn’t I?”

“You don’t have a choice,” said Karen.

“Who says?” said Edward. “He always has a choice. You always have a choice, Toby.”

Karen had evidently been holding a mouthful of Old Port, so there was a faint air of Cheech and Chong in her next declaration: “Stupid choices are always available.”

“What’s the little blueberry’s name?” said Edward.

“Hugo.”

“If this lady wanted Hugo in police custody, she would have dropped him off. Isn’t it obvious? She investigated you and figured, ‘Hey, here’s a top-shelf guardian for my son.’”

“An unemployed television reporter, living in his parents’ basement.”

“The mysteries of the human heart,” said Edward.

“Jesus, Ed. Where does this stuff come from?”

“Truth. You know, beauty.”

“I can’t be his guardian, Dad.” Toby stood up, walked into the kitchen, and opened the refrigerator. “He doesn’t like me, for one. He’s creepy. He’s crappy. And I really don’t have a clue what I’m doing. How do you even talk to kids?”

“I hope he can’t hear you,” said Karen.

“He doesn’t speak English.”

“Bring him here,” said Edward.

“No,” said Karen, “do not bring him here. Under no circumstances. Take him to children’s services, where he belongs. With professionals. French professionals.”

“No,” said Edward. “No, no, no. My heart tells me no.”

Toby hung up and made scrambled eggs with shallots and Gruyère. He liked salsa on the side, and Hugo would not answer yes or no, salsa-wise, so Toby prepared identical plates. He played Mozart—“
Eine Kleine Nachtmusik”
—because he had heard, repeatedly, that it exercises a child’s brain.

The boy tried a spoonful of the eggs and made a face.

“What, Hugo?”

He dropped his spoon.

“You don’t like it? What do you want?”

This inspired a series of comings and goings from the fridge to the table, until Hugo showed a soupçon of interest in an Anjou pear. The boy mangled the fruit, dripping juice all over his shirt. Toby cleaned the floor as the adrenalin departed his bloodstream, replaced by a powerful desire to cry and then sleep. His shoulders ached. He was beginning to understand how Catherine had been moved to surrender.

They drove to Pie-IX and walked up the stairs of the fragrant building, knocked on the door. Footsteps crackled in the suite, and the door opened to
joual
one-liners and the high-volume ululations of a studio audience. A shirtless man in a Canadiens baseball cap and soccer shorts stood before them, a small pot in his hand.

“
Bonsoir, Monsieur.
Is Catherine home, by chance?”

“No Catherine here.”

Hugo broke free from Toby and ran into the apartment. “
Maman?
”

“I’m eating dinner,” said the man.

“May I?”

“Go.”

Toby caught up with Hugo in Catherine’s bedroom and carried him back to the door. The boy had scant fight left in him. He flopped in Toby’s arms and moaned quietly. “
Maman.
”

“You’re subletting the apartment?”

“Yes.”

“Did you speak to the woman who was living here?”

“This is her stuff, I guess.” The man gestured toward the furniture with his pot. “I’m renting it furnished, through a management company. You need their number?”

Toby took the number and carried the boy down the stairs and into the Westchester. Before they reached Sherbrooke, Hugo was asleep. Toby drove to an address on de Maisonneuve, just east of downtown, parked in front of the six-storey building and turned off the engine. The windows of the Department of Families and Seniors had been streaked by autumn rain. Dark-haired bureaucrats and public service posters, too-bright lights and grey cubicles were visible from the curb. Toby went through every reason why Hugo could not remain with him for another minute—reasons legal and medical, financial and psychological—and tenderly unfastened the straps of the Westchester. He lifted the boy out of the seat, careful not to bump his head on the front seat or the top of the door jamb. Ahead of him, a few people walked through the emergency door. Toby paced up and down the sidewalk for ten minutes, the sleeping
boy heavy and helpless in his arms, before finally entering the building.

The waiting room was filled with what appeared to be recent immigrants, two and three generations’ worth of fatigue and frustration. Hugo shivered under the fluorescent lights, buried his eyes in Toby’s neck. His breath was warm and smelled of pear. For twenty minutes, Toby sat waiting among the men and women speaking languages that were neither English nor French, wasted by worry, their bright clothes wrinkled and stained. A clerk in a fleece jacket, installed behind a thick pane of bulletproof glass, called him up at last and tilted her head in greeting. She opened her mouth to ask, through the tinny intercom system, if she could help him.

Hugo would soon awaken in the company of strangers.

“
Monsieur,
” said a social worker, who had walked around from behind the glass, “is this your son?”

Edward and Karen whispered and sneaked about the house, finishing up a frantic, two-hour nesting ritual. The sheets on Toby’s childhood bed had been washed and dried. Stuffed animals, smelling faintly of rain, had been drawn from cardboard boxes in the basement. A collection of children’s books were stacked on the floor, next to a humidifier and an ancient tub of Vaseline. Edward had rushed out for a giant box of diapers.