Close to Hugh (16 page)

Hugh looks down at Ivy, who sees now that she is quite a lot shorter than he is, darn it. Too short? He seems disconcerted.

“You’re staying
here?
With Ann?”

“I am, yes.”

“Ah,” he says.

But now he smiles, very warmly. Heating her whole chest with it.

Hugh says, “Funny thing, it never occurred to me, when she said—Or when you said you were boarding, that it was with someone I know.”

“The world is small.”

They stand on the walk for a while in the early darkness, smell of smoke in the air and of dying leaves on the sharp, burnt edge of winter.

Then they say goodnight, grave, courteous.

(ORION)

Inside the hollow of rhododendrons, roofed with curled leaves, in the oldest place in the world now old in season, the young god Orion lies sleeping and waking, knowing he must move soon or his mother will freak, all Greek drama in her motherliness and panic, will run through the streets shrieking with her hair streaming behind her, her mail-order Hanro nightie flowing like a chiton and blood dripping from the finger-ends of her thin thin arms. He has to get up.

But he could lie here on the bosom of the earth forever, replete, on the soft litter of leaves left year by year to dry and crumble into silt. He stands, one movement, pleased with the motion of limbs, the strength and grace of his long, useful legs.

Lonely—all of a sudden. Left.

We all have someone to go home to.

He’s starving, and there will be nothing in the fridge. He picks up his bike where it lies in leaf-litter, flicks leaf-shards from his sleeves and shoulders. The rest will fly off as he goes. He goes.

13. HUGH MAKE ME FEEL BRAND NEW

Ladder, up. Quiet. Only the river sipping at the grassy bank. This is the best back yard in town.

Don’t slip. Okay. Now up the ladder to Ivy’s window.

“It’s Hugh,” Hugh says, through the narrow opening. “I mean, it’s me.”

She gets out of bed. Almost
1
a.m. He can see her moving through the dusky room, in pyjama pants and a loose top.

Light? No light.

She kneels at the window’s edge, bends to talk to him through the three round air holes in the storm window. “It’s stuck, it’s painted shut. I borrowed a butter knife from the restaurant to jimmy it, but it wouldn’t work. I need a real chisel.”

He holds up a container of the Dairy Bar’s mango ice cream, two spoons. Feeling a bit precarious, perched on the old boathouse ladder. “I wasn’t finished talking yet.”

The pretty gold cardboard is frosted over, slippery.

“Don’t fall, please?”

“Okay. I’ll be careful.”

Juggling spoons and container, Hugh hands the spoons through the peepholes to Ivy, one at a time. He props the ice cream on the top rung of the ladder and pries off the lid, which releases at last with a rude
pop!
that nearly kicks him off the ladder.

“Careful!” Ivy cries, as soft as a pigeon.

He puts out his hand for a spoon, which she slides back through the peephole. He scoops it full of ice cream, says, “Come close—” and threads the spoon through the wooden O again, into her waiting mouth.

Ivy’s eyes are bright, her mouth full of spoon and mango. In the low light he could put his hand through the glass, as if it was water, and touch her face.

Craving to be
(bhava-tanhā)
: this is craving to be something, to unite with an experience. This includes craving to be solid and ongoing, to be a being that has a past and a future, and craving to prevail and dominate over others
.

from the entry on Buddhism
,

WIKIPEDIA

1. HUGH CAN’T

What do you think about as you lie in darkness? How do you keep your mind from eating itself? Hugh examines the corners of the room. The corners of his eyes. Not weeping, good. Yesterday, he didn’t go to Mimi in the evening. Again tonight. First time in—oh, in the whole of life’s great pageant. You could get dressed and go over now, 4 a.m. Hospice hours.

She’ll be asleep, drugged out for the night.

It’s not that. Can’t bear to, that’s all. She is the complicated bane of his entire existence; any day, any moment, she will have the final gall to die. Hugh can’t bear to look at her.

You can stave things off with music. Sometimes.
The Mist Covered Mountains
used to work pretty well on a dark and rainy night. The Knopfler version, starting with a long, winding scree-whine of tide and squeeze-box.
Local Hero
. A movie probably nobody remembers. Ivy might. They could watch it again. He looks the DVD up on Amazon—$154.39! Okay, soundtrack on iTunes, $9.99. His Visa might not let even that go through. He’s not allowing himself to buy anything online anymore. Just the one song, then. The waves pounding the shore.

Could have made a dent in the Visa with the ten thousand you gave Jasper. Should have.

A tear drifts down his cheek, catching the light in his reflection on the dark computer screen. His father’s money doesn’t matter because soon he will have his mother’s. If she’s got any left. The tear slides into his mouth. Behind the tear he can still taste mango ice cream.

The Mist Covered Mountains
is now unbearably drawn out and boring.

Okay, okay.

He stands up, pulls on yesterday’s clothes. One decision not needing to be made.

The streets are black-wet: more water in the basement. Change the bucket when you get back. Check the messages upstairs too, for Della, for
Ken. Hugh blinks light rain out of his eyes and refuses to think about Ken—it’s painful to know when Della doesn’t. Ken’s probably not serious about quitting anyway. He’s just in a slump, in a slough. Like you, Hugh.

One acquainted with the night. With the luminary clock on the Hudson Tower.

The stairs seem steep at the hospice. Too early/late for his legs. Kelly is on the desk, tubular and calm. She walks over to fasten the lock behind him, but doesn’t bother with small talk. Something comforting and kind about the hospice in the middle of the night; even the staff seem meditative, close friends of death that they are. The air is still, the stairs to Mimi’s room uncreaking; the door opens with proper weight, with gravity. Oiled hinges.

“You came!” Her voice as he enters, not a beat wasted.

“Of course I came, sweetheart,” he says.

She is sitting up in bed, awake in the dark. Alert. Hands folded at the sheet’s edge. Her reading glasses flash, bug-eyed, as her head turns. The curtains are open, clouded moonlight coming in; a nightlight somewhere low down gives the floor a pale glow.

She doesn’t have the energy to speak again. He sits on the bed, takes her eggshell hand and talks about nothing. What he did all day, the rainy weather, the grass still green even though the leaves are going, gone … leaf-shadows falling across her eyes.

Go away from that: “I came in early, before all hell breaks loose today. That crazy Lise Largely—she did your lease, remember?—is trying to buy Jasper’s place and mine. We have to turn her down. Did Della come in today? Ken’s in a state, can’t stand his life—he borrowed a cabin out by Bobcaygeon and went away to think for a few days. I don’t know whether to tell Della where he is, or leave it the hell alone.”

She turns the big glasses to him. Has she been listening? Hard to tell. She says, “Joseph said he had to tell me that heaven is real. Isn’t that a strange thing.”

Joseph. A chaplain? Hugh made sure not to tick that box on the visitors-allowed form. Hating anything that smacks of visions, or imaginary friends, or what might come next.

“The little boy said it was real, he died, and it was real, he went, it was real.”

Hugh feels the same sick desperation, revulsion, the longing to go, from childhood. That hatred coming up in his throat like bile. He lowers
the bed for her to sleep, until she puts her hand on his. Papery pale, silky with sickness and age, still her hand.

She looks at him, looks, looks.
Forgive me forgive me forgive me, it’s all your fault
. Eyes monstrous behind the magnifying lenses; pale, frail moonface.

“I’m afraid.”

“I know you are,” he says. “I know.”

“I’m afraid.”

It is never less than terrible to hear. Now she will say it, over and over, for a while. He sits back in the bedside chair and listens.

Walking home, Hugh wonders where he should live when she dies. And why.

(ORION)

Man,
have
to start getting more sleep.
Man
.

Because his mother is pretty honourable, or is afraid after their last big fight, and no longer comes in here unless he asks her to—and he will not ask her to—

Because of all that, his bed is an armed fort, a rat’s nest, barricaded by towers of empty cans and bottles, chip bags, pizza plates, bowls with last curls of macaroni fossilized where they died.

One of these days the metabolism will give up and he’ll get fat, look at Burton. And it will all be his mother’s fault.

Orion stands in front of his closet mirror, comparing himself to naked photos of Prince Harry on Twitter. Heavy, swinging, a nice silky giant of a thing. Mouth on mouth, mouth on cock, everything rising. Everything that rises will converge.

The virgin convergences. He is sick of AP English and Honours with Distinction and scholarship apps, the constant yearly tide of this and that, then the paper to prove it. Why not just leave this place, leave school, go straight to GO and do not pass Jail?

He turns, he sways. Arms up in the mirror.

Handsome man looks good in anything.

He falls to his knees, falls flat on the futon, sets the alarm for 8:30, and slides instantly into sleep.

2. HUGH CAN’T DO EVERYTHING

The rain lets up as Hugh reaches the gallery porch. Five a.m. No sun yet, but a lessening of the dark. Hugh goes downstairs to repack Mighton’s boxes.

Six damp boxes; six new plastic totes Ruth got at Home Hardware yesterday. She is an angel, she’s the only reason the gallery still functions at all. She needs a raise. But Hugh is not thinking about money today, at least not till after Lise Largely. Not thinking about her yet either. He slits open the first box, the least wet one: looks okay. Pieces wrapped in plastic, in cloth, in clean newsprint, with cardboard between them. No need to unwrap those that are dry. He takes his time, feeling for damage and damp.

Mighton, bloody Mighton. Della and Ken, thirty years this Saturday—before that, Della and Mighton were together for a while. Hugh slits, checks, rewraps, transfers.

What happened to Mighton’s painting of Newell and Della and Ann wound together in a knot? Not in these boxes, it was big. He should paint it again, now, unknotted: Ann on the bare wood floor, black Sharpie in hand; Della checking her phone for a text from Ken; Newell looking off to the left, at Burton curled on the stairs like a bad conscience. Ann still the same, uncracked porcelain, like an expensive sink. Newell tired. Della suddenly old. It would be interesting to see how Mighton sees her now. Thank God she didn’t stay with him, because although he’s a genius he’s also a slimeball. Lise Largely deserved him—how did she hornswoggle her way into Mighton’s house? By being a champion hornswoggler.

Third box, fourth: water damage only to the cardboard box itself. Five, and here comes trouble. This box stinks. Hugh’s heart sinks. It’s getting lower and lower every day.

Upstairs, a noise: Ruth opening the front door. What the hell is she doing here so early?

He shouts up the stairs, “Go home! Go back to bed! It’s not nine yet!”

“Oh, I was up,” she calls down, all chipper. “Too old to sleep these days.”

She’s almost as old as his mother, hard to remember that. Who had the harder life?

Coffee will help. He climbs the stairs with depressing effort and goes back to the framing room, where Ruth is at work on a new set of certificates, this time for Home Hardware’s regional awards night. Except for healthy corporate staff relations, the gallery would close in a week.

And except for Ruth. He pushes the button on the espresso machine, and walks over to give Ruth a quick hug.

“What’s that for?” she wants to know.

“Star loyalty certificate, for coming to work early whether you need to or not.”

“You’re going to Conrad today, don’t forget. Did you check your messages? Della was in asking.”

Hugh reaches for his phone. Upstairs is far too far away.

Her bird eyes assess him. “You repacking Mighton’s things?”

“I am so.”

“Don’t let it get to you. Dave’s coming this afternoon, he promised me on his mother’s life. He’ll fix the crack, fifteen hundred, and he said he’d give a twenty-year guarantee.”

“I may only need six months,” Hugh says glumly.

“You have that meeting with Mrs. Largely today?”

“Yes, yes I do.”

“Well, don’t do anything drastic there either. There’s many a slip twixt the cup and the lip, and she’s too big for her boots
or
her britches, pride cometh before a fall.”