The Journey Prize Stories 27 (17 page)

“The cake!” I said suddenly. “I forgot the coffee cake. Would you like some? Cinnamon apple, I think it is.”

“Just a small slice for me, luv,” Barbara said.

I was glad to get out of the room for a few minutes. My smile and false cheeriness had become an enormous strain and, like a diver at last reaching the water’s surface, I felt I could finally let go and breathe.

“Tell me, Bert,” I heard her say as I clattered about in the kitchen, looking for clean plates and forks, “have you ever been on a cruise?” I suspected my absence from the room offered an illusion of privacy necessary to pose this question. “I’m looking for someone to go on a cruise with,” she said.

“A cruise!” my father said. “I haven’t been on a boat since I came to Canada in ’57.”

“Here we are,” I said, smiling again as I returned to the living room. “Three coffee cakes.”

“Thank you, dear, looks lovely,” Barbara said. She turned to my father. “Oh, I
love
cruising. Robert and I used to go all the time. He took me to Barbados and Panama, the Italian coast and—where else did we go?—oh yes, and Alaska.”

“For how long?” my father asked.

“A week,” she said, lifting a forkful of cake to her mouth. She smiled wolfishly. “But two is better.”

“Hey, this cake is good,” my father said. “How much you pay for this?”

“Yes, very moist,” Barbara said. “Excellent choice.”

“It was on sale,” I said. “Zehrs.”

When a quiet moment had passed, Barbara said, “So, what do you think of my proposition?” She added enticingly, “The sun … the sea … lovely company …”

I could see my father turning it over in his head, trying to picture it the way one might catch the first glimpse of sun as it rises above the ocean.

“Y’know,” my father said, reaching for his coffee cup on the end table. He looked at me and smiled. “I always said one day I’d like to travel the world.”

I’d never heard my father say such a thing before, and I wondered if he meant it. Could he see himself in a bathing suit and sunglasses, lying on a deck chair next to this woman in similar attire? Could he see himself having cocktails in the evening, dressed in a dinner jacket and tie, mingling with other passengers? Could he see himself and Barbara dancing hand in hand on the dance floor? What would they have to talk about? What would he have in common with these people, the kind of people who take cruises?

“What more could you want, Bert?” Barbara said. “Nothing to worry about … Everything all-inclusive …”

I couldn’t picture it. The images wouldn’t come to me—or rather, they did, but they seemed comic somehow, like it wasn’t really my father but a stand-in, an actor. What came to me
more easily was the image of my father in his usual flannel shirt and grubby blue jeans, the old well-worn slippers he plodded around in both inside and out, and the slow dawning of disappointment both he and Barbara would feel in each other as the two of them sat on the bed in their cabin, turning away from each other, realizing too late the mistake they had made in going on this trip together. My father had rarely, if ever, spent a night away from the farm, and I knew—even if he didn’t—that the world beyond the property lines frightened and intimidated him; it contained people who were cruel and judgmental, and this world could best be viewed from the safety of his armchair as it played itself out on television. Ordinarily, my father would have laughed off such an outrageous suggestion—
A cruise! You think I’m some kind of big shot?
—but my father had changed, I no longer knew him, and I needed to protect him.

“How much is a cruise?” I said, hoping the answer would quickly deflate any notion of embarking on such a doomed voyage.

“Three thousand,” Barbara said, then sheepishly added, “Maybe closer to four.”

“Four thousand!” My father clanked his dessert plate onto the end table. “Oh, no,” he said. “And who’s going to look after the house?”

Barbara seemed stunned by the question. “Well …” she said. “You have neighbours, don’t you? They could look in on the house once in a while. No?”

“Yeah, well …” my father replied, and the rest of the sentence fell away.

An awkward silence settled over the room as the three of us focused on the cake in our laps. When I at last set my empty
plate back on the coffee table, I turned to gaze out the picture window at the leaves on the trees, shimmering in the sunny outdoors, and again thought of Michael and whomever he was with, the two of them laughing no doubt at the goings-on onstage, perhaps a hand suddenly reaching out for the other in the dark.

“That was lovely, dear,” Barbara said, laying her empty plate on the coffee table. She brought her hand to her mouth, covering a deep but barely audible rumble of a belch. “Very kind of you. Thank you so much.”

“Is there tennis on TV?” Barbara said, when the silence had stretched into minutes.

“You like tennis?” My father reached for the remote and began flicking through the channels.

“Oh, I adore it, dear. We used to play it all the time in the summers, Patrick and I.”

Patrick? Was that her husband’s name? I was certain she had called him Robert. Maybe Patrick was her son. But something about the sound of my voice and its present falseness prevented me from breaking up the silence that had once again enveloped the room. Anyway, what did I care? This woman meant nothing to me and I couldn’t wait for her to go home.

“And you, Bert?” she said. “You like tennis?”

“Ach!” My father waved away the idea. “I don’t care much for sports. I like gardening. And TV. I like the old shows.
The Waltons. Little House on the Prairie
. Those were the best.”

“Doesn’t look like there’s any tennis on, does it, darling?” she said to me.

“Oh, I like this,” my father said, pausing the clicker on an old western from the eighties.

“And what do you like to do on a Sunday afternoon?” Barbara asked, turning to me suddenly.

“Oh, he’s always got his nose in a book,” my father said, upping the volume on the TV.

Barbara, still gazing at me, smiled. “Patrick was the president of the literary society in town,” she said, seeming to recall a distant memory. “He was a big reader too.”

By this point my father had taken on the trancelike blankness of one absorbed in a movie. I looked up at the clock and tried to think of something to say, and when nothing came to mind I also turned to the TV, as if this were a final and irrevocable act, one I wouldn’t be able to undo once committed. On the screen were two men—one in a bowler, another in a cowboy hat—and a woman in a frilly pink dress typical of the period, the three of them riding in a stagecoach that was under attack by Indians on horseback. With a shower of poison-tipped arrows, the Indians killed the stagecoach driver, leaving the horses to run wild and the stagecoach to go out of control.

“That’s not Roger Moore, is it, darling?” Barbara said. Without turning around I said it wasn’t, though I couldn’t remember the actor’s real name. “I adore Roger Moore,” she said. “Such a handsome man.”

That was the last thing anyone said for a long time and I felt the increasingly onerous weight of the silence. But after a while I began wondering if maybe my father and Barbara
weren’t
uncomfortable at all, if maybe they didn’t mind all this dead air and were simply happy to have each other’s company. Maybe
I
was the only one who felt that constant chatter was
necessary to abate the loneliness. Then suddenly Barbara said, “Well, I don’t know how we’re going to do this, how we’re going to maintain our friendship.”

Was that what it was? A friendship? Already? If someone I’d gone on a date with spoke of going on cruises and maintaining friendships within the first hour, I would have picked up the pungent scent of a clinging desperation and run the other way. But maybe it was different here. Maybe their age was the necessary excuse to forgo the usual plodding steps of getting to know each other.

Or maybe not. Maybe she was simply desperate.

“Any suggestions, luv?” she said, giving me what seemed to be a meaningful look. “You think you could drive me here sometimes? When you come down to visit your father?”

I didn’t like this burden she was imposing on me, the way she was already worming her way into our lives without even giving my father and me the chance to talk about it, without allowing things to evolve
organically
.

I looked across at my father for some kind of sign, but he no longer seemed to be listening; he was engrossed in the drama unfolding onscreen, a smile lighting his face. “I could,” I said weakly, shocked that her incursion was a matter of asking a simple little question. I cleared my throat. “Sure,” I said. “The next time I come down.” On the TV screen the man with the cowboy hat was arguing with the woman in the pink dress, the latter now holding a matching parasol over their heads.

“Oh, I have an idea,” Barbara said. “Why don’t I get you to drive me home today on your way back to Toronto, and that way you’ll know where I live for next time. Would you mind, darling? Would you do that for me?”

I knew the idea hadn’t come to her as suddenly as she made it sound, that she had probably been mulling it over for a while.

“Would you mind?” she asked, smiling plaintively. How could I say no? “Good,” she said. “It’s settled. Then I’ll call up Lisa and tell her she doesn’t need to pick me up. Where’s your phone, Bert?”

“The phone?” my father said, snapping his attention back to the present. He stood up and indicated the kitchen. “It’s by the stairs where you came in.”

“Hello, Lisa?” we heard her say a minute later. As if waiting for this signal, my father leaned in and, grimacing, once again rattled me with an uncharacteristic choice of words.

“Not my style,” he whispered.

We watched the movie till the end, and when the woman with the parasol at last kissed the man in the cowboy hat—quickly and hesitantly at first, then long and passionately, the two of them grasping each other tightly—Barbara said, “Oh!” Followed by: “Oh, yes!” And, more longingly: “Oh … that’s nice.”

“Well,” my father said, giving the armrests a good slap. “That’s love!”

“That’s
sex
, I’d say,” Barbara replied, and the two of them laughed.

I felt myself redden. “Well,” I said when the credits started to roll. “Shall we get going?” The little clock on the hi-fi chimed five; it would be just after seven by the time I got home.

“May I give you a hug, Bert?” I heard Barbara say when I was in the kitchen getting my few things together, and through the half-open living room door I could see her put
her arms tightly around my father, while he appeared somewhat cool in his response: not at all like the scene we’d just witnessed. Had she attempted a kiss? I don’t know; I quickly turned away.

“Thank you for the lovely tea,” I heard her say when I loudly jangled my keys. “It was wonderful to meet you.”

The play would likely be over by now, I thought as we buckled ourselves into my Civic. There would be the suggestion of dinner—a bit too early, they’d both agree—or maybe they would return to one or the other’s condo, ostensibly for coffee, a quickie before going out to eat being the mutual understanding.

“You all right, luv?” Barbara said as we pulled away from the house. She waved to my father, who was standing on the porch, waving back. Then, just before turning back inside, he locked eyes with mine and gesticulated “Call me” with extended thumb and pinkie, something I’d never seen him do before.

“Sorry,” I said, “I was just thinking something.”

“I don’t know that your father entirely enjoyed my visit,” Barbara said when we hit the on-ramp for the highway.

“Oh?” I said. “What makes you say that? I’m sure he did.”

All afternoon I hated the sound of my voice, its straining timbre and undeniable ring of falseness, my inability to lie convincingly. It was true: I knew that my father hadn’t enjoyed her company and, frankly, I was relieved.

“Well, he seems like a very sweet man, your father.”

I did not attempt to respond to this. He was many things, my father, but that was not a word I would have chosen. “He’s
recently been diagnosed with dementia,” was what I said instead, something I’d wanted to tell her all afternoon, the underlying message being:
lay off
.

She looked at me quickly. “Well, you certainly have your hands full, then, don’t you? Patrick had dementia when he died.”

“Who is this
Patrick
?” I said, surprising myself with the sudden gruffness of my own voice. “Is he your husband or is Robert? I thought he was your son.”

“My son?” she said, and gave a short, sharp laugh, like a bark. “Whatever gave you that idea? No, no, my dear. Robert was my wonderful, sweet husband. And Patrick … Well, let’s just say he was a very”—she hesitated—“let’s just say he was a very
special
friend of mine.” She paused a moment, allowing that to soak in, then sighed dramatically. “Yes, dear, I know what you’re thinking, and it’s true. There were three of us in that marriage.”

I turned to look at her and I could tell she liked the sound of that, that it set her apart from (if not above) most people.

“Robert was the love of my life,” Barbara continued. “That will never change, and Patrick was someone I met twenty-seven years ago when I was in the park one day reading a book. Now I don’t want to go into details, darling, but let’s just say we became very, very good friends. All three of us.”

I did a shoulder check and glided over to the passing lane. I didn’t know what to say to that. I honestly had no idea.

“You’re not shocked, dear, are you? You don’t think I’m some kind of wicked woman, do you, luv?”

Now it was my turn to laugh, a real, true laugh, not one of those polite, forced exhalations through the nose. “No,” I said, looking at her. “No, I don’t.” And I didn’t. In fact, in another
context I probably would have liked Barbara very much. But she was aching for passion, for love and kisses, the kind of thing she had shared with Robert and Patrick but would not find with my father, nor would I want her to. And for a moment, I saw my mother rouse from her eternal slumber, briefly survey the situation and, pleased with today’s outcome, roll over and promptly fall back asleep again.