Six Metres of Pavement Read online

  Celia settled into the comfortable seat, approving of the special treatment she was being given as a widow. She looked out the glass walls of the office, sipped her coffee, and watched the tellers’ line-up snaking along velveteen barrier ropes.

  There were hushed voices in the corridor. She strained her neck to see the teller speaking to the manager just outside the door, their faces just a few inches apart. Although their blazered backs faced her, she could make out a few words that sounded like overdraft, unaware, withdrawal. Celia watched the teller return to her counter, and within a few moments the manager appeared, a short balding man with a grim expression. He sat down, cleared his throat, clutched at his desk with tight hands. He showed her all her banking records on the computer, pointing to rows and columns of light blue numbers that made no sense to her.

  The manager looked away from her and back to his screen. She wished that his office hadn’t been made of glass walls, an aquarium that barely contained her tears.

  After the funeral, she hadn’t much time for crying. She sold the house, José’s old truck, most of the furniture, all the things that had marked them as successful people. Most of her possessions, anything of value, were signed away, auctioned off, bargained down. She kept for herself only a little furniture, her clothing, and a few keepsakes. All José left her was a small pension that she’d have to wait to collect on her sixty-fifth birthday. At least the government was more generous than he, delivering her a small survivor’s benefit once a month.

  Her children assured her she’d never want for anything, but she knew Lydia and Filipe were just managing on what they earned. She had food and shelter and family, and she knew she should be grateful. But still, she longed for so much more.

  — * —

  Ismail and Daphne attended the Monday, Wednesday, and Friday 6:30 p.m. Hope for Today meetings at the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health on Queen Street West, becoming regular, if somewhat ambivalent, converts. After meetings, they went for coffee and shared a new, sober intimacy that Ismail found almost as intoxicating as a shot of fine whisky.

  He told her about Zubi’s death and Rehana’s rejection and she didn’t judge him for it. Soon, she started to share her own terrible past: her abusive parents, feuds with four siblings, and her early teenage troubles with cocaine. They developed a closeness that had been impossible while they were drinking buddies. To him, she was like a good therapist, inviting him to talk about Zubi, spurring on angry rants about Rehana, and offering hugs. Ismail’s memories became less ubiquitous and more manageable now that he wasn’t alone with them.

  It was no surprise that the pair soon began sleeping together on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays. Their therapeutic routine was AA at 6:30, coffee and confession at 8:00, and sex at 10:00, always at her place. Ismail never slept over and was home by 11:30. They carried on like this for many weeks, the AA and their deep talks a kind of heady, dry-drunk foreplay. He started to think they might make a go of a relationship until she finally worked up the nerve to tell him that they had to stop sleeping together because she was gay.

  “No, you’re pulling my leg!”

  “It’s true, Ismail. It’s something I’ve known for a long time but never admitted to myself. I guess not drinking all this time has made me finally come to terms with it.”

  Ismail stared at her, dumbfounded.

  She laughed and said, “Isn’t it great? I’m not just a drunk, but I’m a gay drunk, too!” She beamed a self-mocking grin at him, showing off her coffee-stained incisors and the little gap between her two front teeth that Ismail loved.

  “But … it can’t be!” What Ismail really wanted to say was: But what about me? In his mind, she couldn’t be gay because they were dating. She was his first real relationship since Rehana. Visions of a future containing the two of them together, visions Ismail didn’t even know he had, came apart like a poorly fitting puzzle. He realized he’d been fantasizing about Daphne eating dinner at his house, perhaps moving in, and meeting his family. The whole she-bang.

  “I’m sorry if this is coming as a shock to you, Ismail. I’ve been thinking about it for a long time, but I wasn’t ready to be open about it. And, well, now I think it’s better if we went back to being friends. I mean, if I’m really going to come out as a lesbian, I shouldn’t be having sex with men, right?”

  Ismail was only half-listening, considering instead the Wednesday night they’d shared just two days earlier. Her fine hair had grazed his shoulder as she’d laid in his arms. He’d trailed his thumb up the length of her spine, tracing each bony bump. She’d stroked his chest, running her index finger over a small scar just above his sternum. The skin there had never healed properly, thickening and turning pink. She seemed to like that spot, returning to it often, rubbing it into smoothness. She asked him once how he’d gotten it, and he avoided telling her the truth, although he could have, in her dark bedroom.

  “Really. I am sorry,” she said, filling the silence, interrupting his reverie.

  “But … what about … all the times we’ve been … together?” Ismail sputtered. He knew he should have been scanning his brain for something appropriate to say, perhaps trying to remember the city-sponsored mandatory diversity trainings he’d attended, but all he could think of was how terrible he felt that she was breaking up with him.

  “How can you be gay if you can have sex with men?” Ismail asked, his voice cracking. Thoughts of personal responsibility tripped through his confused head. Did I drive her to this? Is this further evidence of my personal defects?

  “It’s not rocket science, Ismail,” Daphne sighed, sounding impatient. “I’ve been pretty much in denial my whole life about almost everything. Quitting drinking has helped me realize that. And, you know, it’s not hard for women to have sex with men even if they are not that into it.” Ismail fidgeted in his seat and thought back to their mediocre lovemaking. What had all that panting and moaning been about then? His ego bruised, he slumped back in his chair, crossed his arms over his chest. His armpits dampened through his poly-cotton shirt.

  “Oh come on, Ismail. Don’t feel bad. We had some fun together. And we’ve become good friends these past couple of months, haven’t we? We’ll still be friends, right?” she cajoled.

  Ismail sighed. It wasn’t the sex he was afraid of losing, but the evening chats, the pillow talk, the warmth of human skin. The possibility of something more. He closed his eyes, took in a couple of deep breaths, and tried to hide his hurt feelings.

  “Yes, well, I suppose this is good news for you, Daphne. We are on the path to a more authentic life, aren’t we?” He strained to remember an AA slogan that would fit the situation, but found none. They clinked coffee mugs, exchanged platonic hugs and parted for the evening.

  Ismail resolved to be a friend and to support her new homosexual life. On the following Monday evening, at the café across from the mental hospital, he pulled from his briefcase a library book entitled, When Someone You Love Comes Out of the Closet, which he’d read cover to cover over the weekend. She picked it up, thumbed through its chapters, a blush reddening her pale complexion. She must have been very pleased with Ismail, because she invited him over that night. So relieved was he to be asked back to her apartment, that Ismail didn’t raise the obvious contradiction of her being turned on by gay-positive self-help books. He worked extra hard to please her and perhaps he was successful, but he couldn’t be sure. He wished her good night at eleven-fifteen and prayed that things were back to normal.

  When Daphne didn’t invite him to her bed after coffee later on that week, or the week after, Ismail borrowed Lesbian Lives, Lesbian Loves from the Parkdale Library, avoiding eye contact with the librarian as he checked out. He sheepishly displayed it on the laminate table while he and Daphne chatted over coffee, hoping it would serve as a paperback aphrodisiac. Finally, after two hot chocolates and a lengthy debriefing on Wednesday night’s
Hope for Today membership, she acknowledged the book. She dispassionately read its back cover and then thanked Ismail for being a good friend.

  On his way home, he tossed it into the library’s overnight drop-box, even though he’d only scanned its first chapter. He turned away from the library and glumly stared at a globelike metal sculpture that had been installed just outside the library’s doors. A fountain spurted up water from its centre, splashing its rusted beams and leaking rivulets onto the sidewalk. He fished in his pocket and threw a linty nickel into the pool, not bothering to make a wish.

  Ismail could tell that Daphne was growing less interested in his company. She had already substituted some of their meetings for ones downtown where she was meeting other gay women in recovery. He imagined her attending gatherings with Birkenstock-shod women flirtatiously carrying on twelve-step banter.

  Weeks later, Daphne admitted that she’d been dating someone from one of those meetings. Ismail warned her about starting a relationship with someone new in recovery, reminding her of the Program doctrine not to date during the first year. She didn’t listen to his counsel, and soon Ismail was twelve-stepping without her. He rarely saw her at their Hope for Today meetings.

  In total, Ismail stayed in AA for 197 sobering days. After Daphne stopped being his comrade in abstinence, he got down to business and earnestly worked through steps one to eight, hoping to find the Cure for Bad Memories. He got hopelessly stuck at Step Nine, Making Amends. He couldn’t fathom what sorts of amends were possible in a situation like his; what could he offer his ex-wife, his baby child, or God, to make up for his sins?

  If Ismail was truly honest with himself, he might have admitted that by Step Four, when he compiled his moral inventory, he was missing Daphne, The Merry Pint, and growing cynical with the self-help doctrine. He never fully believed he qualified as a true alcoholic, anyway. At meetings, while others rolled their eyes, he used words like “coping tactic” or “survival strategy” instead of “addiction” or “disease.” He supposed he was not a good follower.

  He retreated to the bar, dejectedly dropping in for soda water and conversation, hoping that Daphne would show up. The old regulars welcomed him like a prodigal son returned, forgiving him his absence. Ismail was grateful to still belong. At first, he managed to pass his evenings there with soft drinks, but later, he’d have the odd beer. Once in a while a woman with smoke in her hair kept him company. But going to the Merry Pint never felt quite the same without Daphne.

  How he longed for her! After Daphne abandoned him, the old memories rushed forward again. A new set of dreams plagued Ismail, always with him looking through the rearview mirror at Zubi in the back of the car. She’d sleep peacefully, her small body nestled in the baby seat. He’d look away for a moment, and when his eyes roved the mirror again, her seat would be empty.

  He didn’t know how to cope without his old friend. He considered becoming a drunk again, regrouting his bathtub, having more meaningless sex. But he knew none of that would work. And so he gave in, gave up. They lived on, the memories and Ismail, cohabitating sometimes fitfully, sometimes peacefully, at his little house on Lochrie Street. The irony was that his mistake, the biggest of his life, was one of forgetting.

  — 6 —

  Fall 2009

  On a Saturday in November, Ismail was in his front garden doing a late season clean-up. He energetically pulled up limp marigolds and browned geraniums. He almost enjoyed wrestling with a particularly persistent morning glory vine that had colonized a good part of the yard, nearly strangling an adjacent rosebush. Ismail needed the work; he hadn’t been back to AA for many months and was distracting himself from drinking too early in the day.

  After all his exertion, he stood up, un-kinked his back, and rested a moment, gazing across the street. A curtain in the neighbours’ front window fluttered, and Ismail realized that he was being watched. He continued with his work, bagging up dead plants, raking leaves, discarding garbage, but vigilance rippled through him, his mind troubling over the identity of his neighbour-spy; he guessed it could be the little boy playing at the front window, or his mother being nosy. Then he recalled a lady he’d seen going in and out of the house from time to time, a widow he mistakenly assumed to be Lydia’s visiting grandmother.

  — * —

  Over a year had passed since the day that Celia heard the migrating geese, forced her mother to eat, and rode in the screaming ambulance with her husband to Toronto Western Hospital. And in that year, the woman who had flowers in her eyes could only see sadness before her.

  She had chores, and she babysat her grandson, but when she wasn’t needed, she spent a good deal of time in her daughter’s den, which had been converted into a bedroom for her. Her bed was inserted where the couch used to be, and an armoire replaced a bookshelf. A TV tray was her bedside table. The imprint of her son-in-law’s computer desk still cut a rectangle in the carpet despite her efforts to smooth it down with the vacuum cleaner.

  She pulled aside the drapes to stare out into the cloudy November day. It’s going to rain, look how dark it is out there. She gazed up at the tall trees on Lochrie Street, their limbs almost naked now after shaking off their desiccated leaves. She sensed their devastation, felt their loss.

  Something moved in her peripheral vision. Welcoming the diversion, she turned to watch a neighbour in his front yard. The man clawed at a dead vine with a fervour that suggested hatred. He wielded his rake as though it were a weapon, coming down hard against the defenceless grass. He formed leaf piles that were almost too tidy.

  She shifted her gaze to the lawn just below her window, considering its carpet of leaves. Antonio kept saying, “Yeah, yeah! I’ll get to the leaves soon!” and Lydia would retort, “When? You keep saying you’ll do it! But when?” Round and round they went in their carousel of nagging and ignoring one another. Celia thought she might rake them herself, just to break the tension. After all, she’d taken care of her own house, and garden and children for years.

  She sighed and let go of the curtain. Darkness returned to her room.

  Melancholy was something Celia couldn’t see, but it touched her nonetheless. Years ago, she used to walk out into her garden first thing in the morning, perhaps to pluck a ripe tomato or to admire a newly opened trumpet blossom. Along her garden’s path, she’d stumble into a freshly spun web, its silky strands coating her face, bare shoulders, elbows. She’d try to get the web off her, grasp it between her fingers, but the strands were elusive. All day, she’d feel its sly presence upon her. That’s what melancholy felt like to her. She’d been ensnared by its invisible net for over a year now.

  It disoriented her, snatching at her sureness of place, befuddling her while she rode home on the Dundas streetcar. Time after time, she’d gather up her plastic grocery bags in each hand, ring the bell, and get off at the wrong stop, seven blocks east of her new home. By the time she realized that her mind had turned trickster on her, fooling her into thinking she still lived in her old house, she would be on the sidewalk, watching the streetcar jerk forward, its dirty back windows moving out of sight. She’d mutter to herself, and have to wait for the next streetcar to take her the rest of the way home.

  Sometimes, the confusion would offer her daydreams far more enticing than reality. While being carried westbound by the streetcar, she’d listen to her parents’ voices swimming in her head. A young girl again, she’d hear their wistful conversations about São Miguel, the place her parents never stopped calling home, one she hardly remembered because she was still too young for nostalgia when they left.

  Eventually she’d notice her streetcar approaching Roncesvalles, long past her stop. With a sense of resignation, she’d get off, cross the road and wait for a car going in the other direction. Sometimes, not wanting to use up another token, she’d trudge back along Dundas, over the bridge and railroad tracks, past auto-body garages and the burger place that was also
a print shop. She’d arrive home worn down by the long walk and her confusion.

  She did have her good days, times when she managed to ring the bell at Lansdowne and walk the one block to the semi-detached house on Lochrie Street without incident. She would retire to her bedroom-den, telling herself that she didn’t mind her accommodations too much. She would reconcile the fact that Lydia and Antonio didn’t want her in the upstairs guestroom, a proper bedroom, the one right next to their own.

  On good days, she’d try not to long for the sounds of her old house, just a few city blocks away. She’d force herself to not listen for the drone of her mother’s snoring, to stop waiting for José’s heavy steps on creaky floorboards. On good days, she willed herself to avoid mourning a home of her own, a mother, a husband, her place in the world.

  She made every effort to fit into her new home with Lydia’s family, to accept her circumstances. She appreciated that at least Antonio was Italian, and understood she was family.

  Although everyone knew José played cards — lots of men did — no one suspected it had become such a problem. Now, it left everyone feeling culpable as they combed their memories for signs and symptoms they should have seen, mentioned, confronted. Celia especially fretted with: Why didn’t I know? Had his luck just run out towards the end?

  Lydia and Antonio assured her that she could stay as long as she wanted, and over the year, she realized they could afford to keep her; Lydia had just been promoted at the insurance company, and Antonio’s hardware store, the one he ran with his father, was doing fairly well. Still, she knew that taking in her dependent mother wasn’t something her young daughter had envisioned for herself.