Barrington Street Blues (24 page)

The first girl, who had been at the bar, offered to stand me a drink for my generosity in sharing my table, so I started on yet another beer that I did not need. It was all a blur after that.

†

I woke up the next morning with an agonizing headache and a feeling of squeamishness in my stomach. The smell of stale smoke and stale beer was overpowering. Must be from my clothes. Had I been in a bar? Where the hell was I? The horrible evening came back to me, Maura's pregnancy and the excruciating humiliation of her announcement in front of everyone. Or had she announced it? Wasn't it my daughter who blurted it out? And the witchy old grandmother. And Burke sitting there. And then I had bolted and driven home. But I wasn't home. I went to a bar and passed out. The image of a glass of whiskey rising to my mouth — I rocketed out of the bed and into the bathroom just in time to eject the foul contents of my stomach into the toilet. A couple more sessions of that and I stood and looked at myself in the mirror. Jesus! I had to get out of here. Where was I? I couldn't bring myself to shave; my hand was too shaky for that. I peed for what
seemed like five whole minutes, brushed my teeth for an equally long time, and took a leisurely hot shower. My stomach was better, but the headache was still paralyzing. I walked into the bedroom.

“Sorry I fell asleep before you finished.” I nearly jumped out of my skin, which was all I had on. I turned my bleary eyes to the bed and saw a young woman sitting with the bedspread up to her neck. She had a plump, pretty face and short brown hair sticking up all over her head. Who the hell was she?

“What did you say?”

“I just said I fell asleep before you were done because you seemed to be taking a while and I was really tired.”

Before I was done? What happened? Was I having sex with someone who wasn't even conscious? Was there something in the
Criminal Code
about that? Did loss of consciousness nullify consent? Would this constitute . . . I tried to clear my head.

“Sorry,” I said finally, “that's what too much alcohol does to me. Things take a little longer to, uh, come to a conclusion. So, anyway . . .” What was her name?

“Should I get dressed, or . . .”

“Whatever you like, sure.”

“Or did you want . . .”

I'm some guy — an older guy — she doesn't know, I was such a lousy lay last night that she fell asleep, and she wants to know what I want to do? I fervently hoped my daughter would not grow up to be such a pleaser. But how could she, with MacNeil at the helm? Strong mother, strong daughter, I'd always been happy to think. The thought of MacNeil, who didn't care about pleasing anyone but herself, whose body was now —

I forced my mind to the here and now. What I was about to do with a person I didn't even know was out of character, or so I liked to think. But if all around me were losing their heads, why not me too?

“Let me in there between the sheets with you, sweetheart. Let's see if I can keep you awake this time.”

“Jake?”

Jake!
“Uh, yeah?”

“Maybe I should, like, brush my teeth. I have my cosmetic bag with me, and it will only take a minute.”

“Go ahead, take your time.”

She stayed awake and became positively chatty afterwards. I still didn't know her name. All I wanted was to get out of there and back to Halifax. As soon as the girl was gone, I'd be on my way; I'd grab a burger at a drive-through and boot it for home. She got dressed and headed to the bathroom, then emerged shortly afterwards with her makeup on and her hair somewhat tamed. She gave me a shy smile and busied herself with her handbag. My urge to get moving was visceral.

But I heard myself ask her: “Are you hungry?”

“Yeah, kinda.”

“Let's go have breakfast.”

“Okay!”

We sat in the restaurant, and she resumed what must have been our conversation the night before. “So, like I was saying, I told him: ‘No, I'm not going to let the fries just sit there swimming in grease, and then serve them to somebody an hour later. I'm going to put new fries in, and if the customer has to wait an extra two minutes, fine, he'll be grateful for fresh-tasting food.' Now, you can imagine how that went over. So I came up with a compromise, because I'm not a troublemaker. Well, you understand what I'm saying, Jake, in your own job — you don't grind up a big hunk of meat and let it sit there for two days on the counter, getting all brown and old, right?”

Meat? What was she talking about?

“Hey, Monty! What are you doing out here in the boonies?”

Christ! I turned to the sound of the voice, and saw a lawyer I knew sitting a few tables away. “Hi, Don. How's it going?”

“Great. Probably run into you in Halifax next week.”

My companion was looking at me over her omelette, her face the very portrait of pained accusation. “Monty? You mean your name isn't Jake?”

“No, it's Monty.”

“And I suppose you're not really in town to receive the top-selling meat manager award either? I'll bet Sobeys doesn't even give out that kind of award! You just made it up to impress me!”

“I'm sorry. I was loaded. Not that that's a good excuse, but —”

“You probably don't have a job at all. At Sobeys or anyplace else. You're probably on pogie! And you were just looking for someone to
go to bed with, and then you got lucky. Because not only did you get that, but you figured with my job you'd also get a free cheeseburger and fries! Didn't you? Well, I'm not like that! The day you'll get a free French fry offa me is the day the moon turns blue!”

“I understand. I won't try anything like that with you.”

“Good. And I suppose you're married too. Using a fake name because you don't want your wife to find out. If I'da known that —”

“One thing I can tell you in all honesty: I couldn't care less if my wife finds out.”

“That's sick!”

“No, it's just that she doesn't care. Our marriage is over.”

“That's what they all say, I bet.”

“It probably is. But in my case it's the painful truth.”

“Looks like somebody's got you on the stand for a change, counsellor, and you're not holding up too well. Maybe they should rescind your Q.C.!” Don was beside our table, making my life just a little more miserable than it already was.

“I'm taking a shelling, no question,” I agreed.

“Good luck!” He leaned in and whispered in my ear. “Checkout time's not till noon.” He continued on his way.

“What did he say?” my companion asked me.

“Nothing.”

“I asked you what he said!”

The witness will answer the question. “He said checkout time's at noon.”

“Why would he say that?”

“I guess he's hoping you and I can patch things up.”

“Patch what up? You're a total stranger and —”

“I was a total stranger last night.”

“I didn't think so. You gave me a whole life story. Your name was Jake, you had worked your way up to meat manager at the Cole Harbour Sobeys, you're like me being too shy to sing karaoke unless you have six beers first, and you share my love of snowmobiling. Now that I think of it, there's not a lot of snow in Halifax. You've probably never been on a snowmobile in your life, have you?”

“Once.”

“Or an all-terrain vehicle, like you said.”

“Doom buggies, never.”

She crossed her arms over her chest and glared at me. I felt like a heel. I was a heel.

“I've been a real prick, haven't I?”

“Yes, you have.”

“I'm sorry. Honestly. Let's go.”

“Let's go where?”

“I'll drive you home. Unless you have a car here.”

“No, I don't. But I'm going to call a friend to come get me.”

I didn't know what to do, besides give her a quick kiss goodbye.

“You're never going to be stopping by here again, are you?”

“No. I'm sorry.”

“Well, at least you're finally telling the truth!”

†

Was that someone knocking at my door? Well, they could bloody well keep knocking. I was home in Halifax, it was Sunday night, and I was putting back the whiskey and fretting about my fate. Knocking again. Get lost! Obviously whoever was at the door had never heard the song about the guy who would rather be by himself when he's drinking alone! The last thing I wanted was company, or the obligation to sound neighbourly at the door. Good — the knocking ceased. I poured myself another drink and tried to get my thoughts in order. I did not want to see the face of Maura MacNeil ever again. How was I going to arrange that? I wanted to see my kids as often as I always did, but without her in the background. Especially her getting more and more visibly pregnant with someone else's baby. Whose ever it was. Whoever's? I was losing my grasp of the English language. And when the baby was born, well, that didn't even bear thinking about. I'd have to get the divorce proceedings over before then. That Giacomo had better not cross my path. If he was still in town. Or maybe her old flame Pierre was back. Or if it wasn't either of them —

“Monty! Are you in here?”

Burke! The last person in the world I wanted to see. Or the second last. Though maybe they were on the same level. Why was I
thinking that? The way they danced together in Cape Breton? And the look on his face at the table . . .

“What are you doing here?”

“You really shouldn't leave that key out. If I know where it is, everybody else must —”

“Get out of here, Burke.”

“You're legless! How much have you had to drink?”

“Fuck off.”

“I just got back, and I brought you your things.”

“You just got back from Cape Breton? Now? You stayed for a leisurely visit with her family, did you?”

“Well, she was in no hurry to come back here. And we only had the one car.”

“All right. You've delivered my stuff. Now get lost.”

“She feels terrible about all this.”

“She's never felt terrible about anything in her life. Certainly not about anything she ever did to me.”

“This isn't something she's done to you.”

“Oh no? Then why was I the odd man out last night? She didn't have the decency to tell me before I got there, so I was set up, like an idiot. In front of my son. In front of my little girl. In front of her family. And you sitting there. If you could have seen the look on your face —”

“Hold on there. Give me a drink.”

“Get your own fucking drink.”

He did, and stood facing me in the kitchen. “She obviously didn't intend to get pregnant, so really —”

“Really what?”

“She hasn't done anything more than you've done, when you think about it.”

“What are you talking about?”

“Well, do you take precautions every time you're enjoying a bit of the how's-your-father?”

“Huh?”

“Who knows, there may be some woman out there carrying a little Monty around in her belly, and you don't know it. So I'm saying that what MacNeil did is no worse than —”

“She should have fucking told me! Instead of climbing into the sack with me and leading me to believe we had a chance together.”

“She told me she didn't know about the pregnancy till she went to a doctor in Geneva. I thought women would know these things but . . .”

But she never had a regular cycle in her life, so she wouldn't necessarily suspect anything. She just thought she was gaining some weight. “So she sat down and told
you
all this? Why would she do that?”

“Because she was beside herself about what happened at the dinner table. She had no intention of letting the secret out until she had time to speak with you in private. But Normie, with her intuition —”

“MacNeil could have fucking called me from Geneva, instead of keeping me in blissful ignorance till she got back and then letting me make my pathetic appearance in Cape Breton.”

“You're not the only one who was sitting there gobsmacked!”

“And just why would you be gobsmacked at the news?”

“Because it was painful for everyone. For you, for your son, for . . .”

And for Burke too. Despite all his efforts to lobby on her behalf, it was clear: he thought it was a disaster. Either out of sympathy for me. Or out of what I suspected before, his own jealousy of the little weasel Giacomo, helping himself to what Burke could never have. Or could he?

“Get the fuck out of my house, Burke.”

“Ease up on the booze, Monty. I'm not the problem here.”

“How do I know you're not?”

“What's that supposed to mean?”

“I mean I know you haven't exactly lived the life of a monk since you entered the priesthood.”

“Damn near!”

“Yeah, right. I know your sexual history.”

He laughed. “No, you don't.”

It was the laugh that did it. Before I knew what I intended to do, I had launched myself at him. I drove my fist into his left eye and knocked him backwards. The kitchen table broke his fall, and I landed on the table on top of him. I grabbed him by the collar of his sweater and smashed his head down on the tabletop. It was only then that I came to my senses. I stood back. He lay there looking up at me. It was only then too that I realized he hadn't made any effort to
fight back. If he had, I don't know what would have happened. He was taller than I was, and heavier. And from what I knew of his earlier life, he had a lot more experience with his fists than I did. But then, I had rage on my side. I had never struck another human being in my life, except in self-defence. Now this. I was too weary and disgusted with myself to pursue my usual course of drunken reasoning: that is, what did it mean that he didn't fight back? I just couldn't think about the whole catastrophe anymore.