Lost Between Houses (11 page)

The weird thing is that even though he made me nervous (I was scared of him, I admit it), sometimes I also felt protective, like I was the only one in the house who understood him. Knew
what he wanted in spite of what he was saying. It was like he was trapped in this old-fashioned sort of British personality—he’d gone to school in England when he was a kid—and sometimes he struck me like an animal stuck in a box, going over and over the same actions to try and get out, even though they didn’t work the first time or the hundredth time. So, sometimes, I bent over backwards not to make him feel bad.

Anyway, we set off down through the yellow fields. We found the old road at the bottom and worked our way along it, the old man looking down, thinking of things to say. I think just the effort made it harder, like when you’re trying so hard to listen you can’t hear a goddamn thing. But he had a nice smile on his face, it was like he was
willing
the whole thing to go well.

We came around the edge of the forest, went up a small hill and turned down through the swamp. The sun disappeared overhead into the tree branches. The air went cool. The mosquitoes came out. We went in single file, him leading, me following. Stepping over tree trunks. It was a spooky place down there; coming home from a dance late at night, it was like something out of a horror movie, the frogs croaking, crickets going creek-creek, creek-creek.

We got to the boathouse, this shitty little red shack on the edge of the lake. Full of mosquitoes and wet bathing suits. Nothing worse than trying to put on a wet bathing suit. Makes your nuts crawl into your stomach. We hauled out the tackle box, a couple of rods, dumped them in the boat and headed out into the middle of the water. It was quite a pretty time of day, late afternoon, the sun setting on the water, everything sort of flickery gold, the old man and me, feeding out our lines, him shading his eyes because it was blinding out there with the sun bouncing off the water. We slowed the engine down to a crawl and then,
bringing his rod with him, he came and sat beside me on the front seat.

“I love trolling,” he said. “I never catch anything but I love it anyway.”

“It’s the ritual,” I said.

For a moment I thought he hadn’t heard me. He was looking way off at the horizon.

“The ritual?” he said with this little frown. A friendly frown though. But like he was puzzled and just a teeny tiny bit irritated to not be sure what I was saying. It made something flutter in me, like
oh-oh, he’s getting mad.
I sort of jumped in with my explanation.

“I mean it doesn’t matter if you catch anything or not. It’s just all the stuff around it. Getting in the boat, being on the water, the company, all that stuff. It doesn’t really have anything to do with fish.”

“You figure?”

“Yeah,” I said. “I used to have that about catching sunfish off the dock. I’d stay down there all day, catching the same fish over and over and over. Eventually I began to recognize his face.”

He pulled back on the rod and the line rose from the water, silver drops falling away.

“What do you suppose’d happen if I actually caught something?” he said.

“You’d probably have a heart attack.”

I wondered if that was a great thing to say to somebody who’d just been in a clinic for three months.

“I think we’re safe,” he said.

Things were quiet for a little while. I could feel him working up to something.

“That was a damn fine report card you got, you know.”

“Wen, I passed. That’s a relief.”

“You did better than that. Your mother tells me you’ve turned into a first-rate drummer.”

“Did she say that?”

“Verbatim.”

“She says I play too loud.”

“That’s not what she told me. I’d like to come down and hear you sometime.”

“I’d be nervous.”

“You should get used to an audience.”

“It takes me awhile to get warmed up,” I said. “You’d have to be patient. And give me lots of warning. And not sneak up on me in case I’m playing a really shitty song.”

He frowned.

“I’m sorry, but you know what I mean.”

“I’ll warn you,” he said. “Plenty of warning. You know I used to play the banjo?”

“You did not.”

“I did. I had to stop though. Couldn’t make the chords any more.”

He looked at his left hand. The fingers were bent into a sort of permanent handshake from where a tank hatch fell on them during the war.

“So I hear you have a girlfriend?”

“Yes. A model.”

“Never had a model girlfriend. Nice girl?”

“If she likes you.”

“Well, does she?”

“Yes.”

I waited a moment. “Is that what you meant?” I said.

“Well if I have to ask, the answer is probably no.”

It took me awhile to get it.

“Almost,” I said.

“Really?” he said. “I had to wait till I got in the army.”

“Was that where you met Mother?”

“No, I knew some other gals before your mother.”

“Oh.”

“It was the war, you know. Kind of a special time.”

“It sounds sort of romantic.”

“It was, in an odd way.”

“I know what you mean,” I said.

“Maybe you do.”

Way, way off across the lake I could see a tiny tree standing in the middle of a plain. All by itself, miles and miles away. It seemed like another country over there.

We turned the boat into the sun; you could feel the wind shift.

“Are you cold?” he said. “You’ve got goosebumps.”

“No, I’m fine.”

“Do you want to go in?”

“No, this is good.”

He slowed the boat down even more.

“Listen,” he said, “I don’t want to embarrass you but there’s something I have to say. I’m sorry I’ve been such a heel. I hope I haven’t scared you too much.” He gave my arm a little clumsy rub with his hand.

“No,” I said.

“Are you sure?”

“Positive.”

“Because I haven’t been feeling well. Been behaving like a bit of an S.O.B., as we used to say in the army.”

“That’s O.K.”

And suddenly, out of nowhere, I had the strangest desire to burst into tears, right there, like a kid. You could hear it in my voice, it went all wobbly.

“That wasn’t very good, putting a fright into a boy like you.”

“That’s all right, Dad.”

“Do you want to go in?”

“I’m fine out here,” I said.

And then he turned the boat slowly around into the wind.

We rode on for a little way; then he slowed down the engine almost to an idle.

“We have a bit of a problem on our hands, Simon, and I need you to help me fix it.”

“Sure. What?

“Well, it’s the house. I don’t know if we can keep the whole operation afloat.”

“What operation?”

“Well, you two boys in school. And two houses. I think we’re going to have to drop something.”

“Like what?”

“Well, that’s what I wanted to talk to you about. What do you think about selling the house?”

“What house?”

“The city house.”

“Gee, that doesn’t sound like a very good idea. I like that place.”

“You’d stay on at school, of course. Keep your friends, all that. You’d just go as a boarder.”

“A boarder?”

“Yes. Nothing wrong with that, is there? I boarded, your Uncle Tom boarded. Not everybody gets to live down the street from their place of education.”

Place of education.
I didn’t like the sound of that. There was a hint of irritation in it, in the tone of voice, and I could feel the old nervousness coming back. I had to be really careful now. Once somebody’s scared you when you’re little, you stay scared of them, even after you grow up, even after you’re bigger than they are. And I could feel that old thing clicking in, like in a second or two he was going to holler at me or give me a cuff across the ear. And even though I could have put up a pretty good scrap now, it didn’t matter. I felt like I was still a little kid with this great big black shadow hovering over me.

“I”m a bit old to start into boarding, aren’t I? I’m not sure I could get used to it.”

“Well you may have to,” he said. And something about the way he said it pissed me off, all curt as if I was being a bother, this crap about going into a place that was full of queers, everybody knew it, where they made you go to church every Sunday and they only let you out three Saturday nights a term. I mean it was like a fucking prison compared to being a day boy.

“Is that what you wanted to talk to me about?”

“One of the things.”

“I thought we were going to discuss it.”

“We are.”

“Sounds like you’ve already made up your mind.”

He snorted. “Well, I don’t see that we have any choice.”

“So we’re not really discussing it. I mean it doesn’t matter what I say.”

“Of course it does.”

“But do I have a vote?”

“We don’t have enough money for two houses, Simon.”

“So I don’t have a vote.”

I looked away. We putted on in silence.

“Maybe we should go back in,” he said. “I didn’t realize you were going to be so selfish.”

“Selfish?” I said. Whenever you hear that word,
selfish,
you know somebody’s just about to stick it to you good. I could feel myself moving someplace I’d never been before, not with him anyway. “You come out here for a talk and when I don’t agree to everything you want to go back in.”

He looked at me sort of astonished.

“Well, I’m not going into boarding. If you put me into boarding, I’m going to run away. Just watch.”

For a second I thought about jumping overboard.

We puttered along for a bit, not looking at each other. Finally, taking a deep breath, he said, “I’m sorry if you think I’ve been a bad father.”

“So am I.”

Boom.

I remember once, a couple of years before, him and my brother were having some hassle about the boat, about putting out the bumpers before nightfall. And Harper was holding out, saying, yeah fine, but they’re not always necessary, depends on the weather. And the old man was getting more and more pissed off, not because he was right but because he was getting contradicted, and he took a couple of steps toward Harper like he was going to hit him; only Harper just stood there, eyeball to eyeball with the old man, he was daring him, their chests just about touching, me just about having a stroke from all the excitement, and there was that moment when the old man just stopped, he knew he couldn’t push it any farther, there was nothing left to do now except hit Harper and if he did, there was a pretty good chance Harper was going to kick his ass all over the living room. He made a face, like he had something really bad-tasting
in his mouth. And I remember thinking, Hmm, this is a new ball game.

He started to wind in his line. You could hear the click-click of the big reel, drops of water quivering on the line until the lure came dancing along the surface. He pushed the throttle slowly forward. The hull rose up and then planed and we headed for home. On the opposite shore, I could see the dock at Tally-Ho Inn where I caught a five-pound bass once. The waves went plink-plink against the hull and I found myself thinking about that Physics exam when I lay out on the grass and I imagined a day like this.

Just as we were pulling up to the dock, he said, “Do you really mean that, Simon? That I’m a bad father?”

It was like a splinter I’d stuck in him and I was the only person who could take it out. I didn’t answer. But not because I was a fucking sadist, but because I could feel it slipping away from me, that sense of being absolutely right, and I was starting to feel like a heel. But I didn’t want to let him off the hook.

We got out of the boat and clunked the stuff on the dock and I was thinking to myself, God, I should say something, take it back; but it didn’t seem quite right so I thought, I’ll do it in a minute. And then we were walking through the swamp and I thought, when we get up into the field I’ll say something; but then we got to the field and he was walking a little bit ahead of me so I thought I’d wait till he slowed down. If he slows down, I thought, it means he wants me to say it and I will. But he didn’t and then we were at the foot of the hill, the house above us and we started up, but it’s quite a strenuous climb, not the sort of situation where you want to spit something out, being half out of breath and all, and then we got to the top of the hill and just as I was about to pop it, we saw the old lady sitting in a
deckchair on the back lawn and she waved to us and the minute she waved, it was like the fishing trip was over, we weren’t alone any more, it was like a stranger had just sat down at our table and now we were both trying to be on good behaviour.

We went down a little dip in the field and up onto the lawn.

“So,” my mother said, “how are my favourite boys?”

I walked past her into the house and went into the kitchen. I was pouring myself a glass of orange juice when he came in. He took the ice tray out of the fridge and then came over and stood beside me. I shot a look over at him, he was cracking the ice but he was waiting for me, his face sort of open and expectant, like he was going to say something nice if I just gave him a chance. But I didn’t. I didn’t have the nerve any more. It was gone.

Next morning he went back to the city. I lay upstairs waiting for him to come up and say goodbye to me. I was going to say it then. But he didn’t. He just loaded up the car and took off.

A
WEEK LATER
I ran into Greg’s younger sister, Margot, at Hidden Valley. She was fourteen, skinny and not that good-looking but weirdly sexy. I mean there was something about her that just gave you an instant boner. She came out to my cottage once wearing a little turquoise two-piece bathing suit and I kept looking down her halter top. We ended up playing some stupid water game with a bunch of kids but I got Margot on my shoulders, those bony little knees on each side of my head and I’m telling you, it was all I could do not to give her a good
bite.

Anyway, she was having a cigarette out on the balcony and we started talking and after awhile we went for a walk over to the mini-putt. It turned out she was going off to camp in a few days. She was a junior counsellor at Camp Skugog. You could just imagine her tucking those little kids in at night and then going back and singing songs by the campfire, all the guy counsellors waiting for everybody to go to bed so they could be alone with her. Maybe I have an overactive imagination but you get the picture.