Liberty Street (2 page)

“I'm going to see if I can get an early ticket home. You can come if you want. If not, I'll take the car and you can catch the train.”

I pulled my hand away.

“You're going home?” I said. “That's crazy.”

“Are you coming with me or not?” he asked.

I tried to think. He wasn't serious; he was just lashing out with a childish threat, although that was not like him.

“No,” I said. “Of course I'm not.”

He rolled away from me and dragged a pillow over his head.

I took a last look at him lying there, completely covered by the duvet and the pillow, and then I left and went hill walking, quite certain he would still be at the inn when I returned.

A
HIRED DRIVER
with a van took us to the trailhead, and the climber in charge—Philip, a man about my own age—recorded the route of our walk in a notebook and then tore the page out and handed it to the driver. “In case we don't show up when you come to collect us,” he said, and I wondered how often that happened. I noted the ropes and carabiners that were being secured to belts and backpacks—equipment I hadn't thought would be needed for hill walking. When Philip saw me looking, he said that the equipment was precautionary, and that he was an experienced climbing instructor and had taken countless beginners on treks a lot more challenging than this one. We were standing beside the van in a gravel lot and I looked down at his feet. His boots were solid, and at the same time they were worn. He had no doubt owned them for years.

“Your boots look like veterans,” I said. “That's reassuring.”

He laughed. “Don't worry, you'll have a good day. “

I did. The hill walk was exhilarating, and one of those things that just happens unexpectedly and was, therefore, a gift. Although most of the men were younger than me—a few of them young enough to be my sons—I didn't give the age difference more than a thought. Nor did I think about
the fact that I was the only woman in the group. There were times when we climbed single file and there wasn't much talking, all of us keeping our eyes on the footing. At other times, when we crossed a more level, open area, there was friendly chatter, and I discovered that what the Englishmen had in common, besides a love of hill walking, was Christianity. Normally, faith was a concept not remotely interesting to me—I required proof to believe in something—but these men charmed me with their easy ways, and I wondered whether I'd be joining a cult by the end of the day.

We stopped for a quick lunch—quick, Philip told me, so we would retain our body heat, even though it was a warm day and I didn't feel as though I was losing any. As we ate our bologna sandwiches and orange slices, I noticed that two of the men appeared to be together, a couple, and then I began to wonder whether, in addition to being Christians, all the men were gay, and I believed they might be. I had never been with a group of exclusively gay men before. I found myself wondering what religion they belonged to that was so accepting of their sexuality, and why they had accepted me so willingly into their fold, if only for a day.

Not long after lunch, we reached the height of the hill walk—a peak with a spectacular view of the sea far below—and prepared for the trip back. I had assumed we would return the way we'd come, but no, we were to begin the descent by traversing the backside of the sea cliff, a steep face of loose black shale. I felt close to panic when I looked down and saw what was expected of me, disbelieving that we could possibly descend this way. But when Philip told me it was my turn to go, I went, running back and forth, following the directions he shouted at me, not stopping once I
was moving because to stop would be to slip and send myself and a cascade of loose rocks straight down to the bottom. I did what I was told, my heart pounding, two of the younger men already at the bottom and cheering me on, and I saw myself the way they saw me—a middle-aged woman doing something she'd never imagined herself doing—and I didn't care, and my worry was forgotten. For a moment, I was fearless, the way my mother and I had once been, or thought we were, until we found out—first one and then the other—that we were not.

The rest of the day was spent walking, often single file, on a narrow, winding trail. Fog settled and there wasn't much to see other than the few sheep that appeared out of the mist from time to time with splashes of red or blue on their coats to identify their owners. Somewhere along the trail I joined up with Philip and we chatted, exchanging pleasantries about where we lived and what we did. He said he was a secondary school teacher, which didn't surprise me. I told him I was a microbiologist in the water department of a mid-sized city in western Canada. He thought that was impressive, but I assured him it really wasn't, since my job was now mostly administrative and I barely understood modern water treatment systems. I said I'd come to realize I was slouching my way to retirement. I told him also that my parents had emigrated from England, and he asked me if I'd ever been there, and I said no, there were no family ties. I wasn't even sure where in England they'd come from. The north, I thought, although they'd worked in London during the war. Philip thought it was unusual that I expressed no interest in knowing more. I agreed. “But they're both gone now,” I said. “I wouldn't know where to begin.”

My hamstrings turned to jelly from hours of walking
downhill, and I was never so glad as when I saw the van waiting for us at the pickup point. The men congratulated me on my stamina—they actually applauded as I climbed into the van—and they confessed that there
had
been an easier way down, which they would have taken had they not believed I could handle the shale slope. I was flattered and, now that I was safely in the van, elated. I was ceremoniously given the slip of paper with our route on it as a souvenir, and I folded it and put it in my pocket. I almost fell asleep on the winding drive to Mr. Burke's inn. I didn't wonder whether Ian would be there when we got back. In fact, I'd completely forgotten about Dublin and an early flight home.

When we arrived, the driver dropped us in the parking lot and two of the younger men transferred their gear from the van to the trunks of their cars. I found myself walking with Philip across the lot to the inn, and it wasn't until then that I noticed our rental car—mine and Ian's—was not where it should have been. I stopped walking. Philip stopped beside me. I stood staring, as though a crack had opened in the parking lot and swallowed our car.

“What is it?” Philip asked.

“I've made a mistake,” I said.

“Sorry?”

I felt myself somewhere between tears and anger, but I managed to hold both at bay.

“I think Ian is gone,” I said. “It's my fault. I haven't been honest with him. I'm not a good partner. In fact, I'm not even a very good person.”

Philip looked at me as though he was thinking, and then he said, “I don't know you well enough. I'm sorry.”

Of course he was right. What had I expected him to
say? Did I think he would be comforting because he was a Christian, or a man who liked a good confidence because he was gay? We walked on then, as though I had not spoken, and I tried to cover my embarrassment by babbling about how tired I was, and who would have thought walking downhill would be as tiring as walking up? We parted in the foyer of the inn and I returned to our room, where I found that Ian had indeed left.

I could have thought, Why would he do that? But instead I sat by the open window wrapped in a blanket, shivering, thinking about how I deserved to be left behind. I was the same person I'd always been, the silly girl who ignored every bit of advice and every warning she'd been given by people who cared about her. I'd revealed my true history to Ian when it was too late for him to make his own choice about things as important as marriage and children. He'd been duped by a charlatan in a black dress on the night we'd met, when he was still a handsome twenty-six-year-old, recently jilted and far too good for my cold heart—or at least that's the way I saw it at that moment.

I went to bed without eating, my body tired and aching. I didn't know whether it was self-pity that kept me awake or euphoria from the hill-walking adventure. The two vied for my attention, and I managed to snatch only a few minutes of sleep here and there.

M
Y ENCOUNTER WITH
the Englishmen was not quite over. At breakfast the next morning they greeted me as though I were an old friend and told me they were all going to church, an Irish Sunday mass. I hadn't been to church since the last wedding I'd attended, but I agreed to go—not because I wanted to go to
mass, but because I wanted to be with them. I noticed Philip looking at the spot in the parking lot where our car should have been, but he didn't mention Ian. We walked to the church in a group and sat in a long pew and the locals stared at us, especially the children. Some of the climbers knelt and genuflected during the mass, and they all prayed and sang joyously. One of the younger men had a beautiful voice, and I wondered if he might even be a professional singer.

We exchanged fellowship greetings at the end of the service with the large family in the pew in front of us. Afterward, we went back to the bed and breakfast and collected our bags, but still we didn't go our separate ways, because when I told them I would be taking the train to Dublin to arrange an early flight home, they said they were going there too. They'd travelled in two rental cars, and they made room for me in one. They even drove me to the airport. No one asked about Ian or why I was travelling alone now, so I assumed Philip had told them what I'd said to him. My eyes filled with tears as we said our goodbyes. They hugged me one by one, and I didn't hold back but fell into them, each one, like a person desperate for comfort. Philip told me I was special and I didn't know what to say, but I felt, briefly, as though it might be true.

Afterward, when they were gone and I was inside the Dublin airport, I remembered that the business of believing anyone could be special was what had made me, like my mother before me, suspicious of Christians, or at least the ones who insisted on telling you they were Christians. As though anything at all—goodness, intelligence, least of all faith—made you special. I was glad to have that straight again, even though I appreciated the kindness of the men and believed it had been genuine.

Because the flight to Toronto was full, I had to wait to find out if there would be a seat for me, but eventually I heard my name on the intercom—
Frances Moon, please report to the Air Canada counter
—and I was told that, yes, I could change my ticket, and I was given a boarding pass. I wondered if Ian would be on the same flight, but I didn't see him anywhere and assumed he had flown home the previous day.

As I got in the boarding lineup, I noticed an enormously obese man in front of me. I followed him onto the plane, and he made his way through business class and past the plus-size seats, which were all taken, to an ordinary aisle seat in row 23, where he sat after lifting the armrest between it and the next seat.

Row 23. I glanced at my own boarding pass, and sure enough, row 23, right next to the man. I slipped out of the line of passengers, ducking my head beneath the overhead bins, and tried to decide what to do. I could see that there was only half a seat remaining next to him. I wasn't a big person, but I would be in for an uncomfortable flight home if that was the only spot available to me. Could I ask a flight attendant to find me another? Could I do so without making a scene or humiliating the man? It seemed like some kind of ethical dilemma.

I felt a hand on my shoulder.

“Ms. Moon?” a voice said. I turned around to a flight attendant, who asked to see my boarding pass. Then she quietly told me they were upgrading me to business class because there were no other free seats in economy. She was speaking almost in a whisper. No mention was made of the reason for the move. I followed her back through the line of people and their carry-on luggage, dodging the traffic by
popping in and out of the rows until we arrived at the front of the plane, where I was directed to my own little pod. I wondered briefly whether I should have offered the upgrade to the obese man, who was bound to be uncomfortable even in two economy seats, but instead I accepted my own good fortune and settled in to take full advantage of it. I ordered a Scotch.

“Or make that a double,” I said. “Save you a trip.”

I could see the flight attendant wondering if she'd made a mistake in rescuing me, but she brought me my drinks.

Once we were in the air, I began to consider the rental property I owned in the small town of Elliot, left to me by my mother. It made sense for me to think of the house now, since it was the full repository of what remained of my family's history. In other words, my former life was in its basement.

The house had been built by my uncle Vince, although he never lived in it. When he died, it went to my parents. My mother claimed it as her backup plan, and she had in fact lived in it for a time after she sold our dairy farm. She probably should have moved instead to a place that appealed to her, although at that point in her life, I don't know where that place would have been. After she died in the care home in Yellowhead, I moved her possessions to the basement of the house and stored them there, alongside the furniture and old clothing and boxes of knick-knacks and dishes from the farm—all the remnants of my childhood. I found long-term renters for the house, a responsible retired couple who didn't mind doing caretaking duty for the remains of the Moon household, and they lived there for fifteen years, never missing a rent payment. They did all the necessary home repairs,
except for a new roof, which I happily paid for. I'd not had to worry about a thing until one of them—I couldn't remember which—developed a need for dialysis twice a week and they moved to Yellowhead. I would have sold the house then, but a real estate agent named Mavis had appeared on the scene with a young couple looking for a place to rent. Mavis had offered to manage the rental herself, and once again the arrangements became easy and had remained so for several years.