Issue 152 Is Online!

search index
of all issues

Search This Site Enter word(s) to search for:

A candle flame in a squat yellow jar dances on a shallow pool of melted wax. It casts a circle of light in the middle of a larger circle of scarred wooden tabletop, illuminating Liz's drink, Liz's hands. The room is crowded; everyone's talking. A riff of laughter rises from a table nearby, louder than the voice of the man at the microphone.

He's singing an old Springsteen tune, not a familiar one. Maybe something from Nebraska orThe River, Liz thinks. She watches his long fingers move over the strings. Is there anything more raw, more vulnerable, than a man - or woman - alone on stage with an acoustic guitar? So little protection. Tonight, nobody's really listening. He's done a few covers, a couple of original songs. There are smatterings of polite applause; people continue to talk and drink.

He's played a few gigs in the last couple of months. Sometimes with a band, sometimes alone. He calls it "getting back in the game." Liz shows up now and then. Not every time.

"Hey Liz!" Keith Flynn passes her table on his way into the bar. He turns the empty chair around to sit backwards. Now Liz is one of the people talking loudly, ignoring the singer.

"Did you just come from Larry's book launch?" Liz asks.

Keith rolls his eyes. "You didn't miss much. It wasn't so much a launch as a sort of over-the-top tribute to All Things Larry."

"I'm launched out," Liz says, "Three this week."

"Larry's wouldn't have been so tasteless if the damn book weren't so bad. I'm honestly terrified it's going to get nominated for the Governor General's award."

As Liz searches for a reply that will appease Keith's ego without actually suggesting that Keith himself is deserving of a G-G, the singer finishes the Springsteen and starts another song, Cohen's Hallelujah. Keith jerks his head toward the stage. "Who is this guy? I've never heard of him."

"His name's Dave Mitchell. An old friend. I've known him for years ... grew up with him, really."

"No kidding? Another Newfie, eh?"

Liz stares at Keith, at this apparently intelligent man with the high forehead crowned by wispy fair hair. He is a university lecturer, an award-winning fiction writer; he tosses the word "Newfie" onto the table as casually as a handful of change. Liz exercises remarkable restraint in not shoving his teeth down the back of his throat.

"Yeah, someone from back home. He used to play with a band in Calgary years ago ... can't remember what it was called. He hasn't performed a lot, lately."

Keith glances over his shoulder at Dave. "Not bad ... but he shouldn't quit his day job or anything. No offense."

Another quick flame flares in Liz; she's startled and pleased to notice that Keith's dismissal of Dave annoys her as much as his use of the word "Newfie." She feels like a traitor, describing herself as an old friend. Though that's how Dave would introduce her, no doubt. Her secret identity is cloaked, as if she's a superhero.

She watches him now, his eyes half-closed as he leans into the mike. She remembers watching him sing as a teenager, at a party or in church, caressing the guitar with a tenderness that was almost sexual, closing his eyes just as he's doing now, shaking long dark hair out of his face. His hair is grey now, cropped short. He and Liz are the same age, but with his lined face Dave could be mistaken for fifty. Liz frequently passes for early thirties - well, mid-thirties, anyway. She frowns, trying to remember the last time someone made that mistake.

The songs ends: there's another scatter of applause. Keith spots the people he's meeting and excuses himself. At the mike, Dave clears his throat, a ragged sound.

"Thanks, you've been a great audience," he lies. "Thanks for bearing with me. Um ... if you thought that was the saddest song you ever heard, I'll try to top it before I go. This is one I learned in church as a kid. It's what they used to call a Negro spiritual ... one of those songs that slaves sang about the hope of a better world. I always thought it had a pretty, kind of haunting tune. I know a bit more about slavery now than I did then .... Anyway, here's the song." His voice and eyes both drop away.

The guitar notes are spare. Only the lightest finger picking traces out a tune as the words spill over the crowded room.

I'm but a poor wayfaring stranger
while travelling through this world of woe ...

The lyrics, the minor key, the soft threading of guitar notes, slam Liz back into the past. Yes ... a man in church used to sing this. She recalls the voice though not the man's face. The song evokes a world of blond wood and cheap stained glass, hard narrow pews and earnest off-key voices. Yet the lyrics and melody seem more at home here in this darkness lit by swinging swag lamps and guttering candles, this room dominated by the bar with its gleaming array of bottles and a string of halfhearted Christmas lights around the mirror. Dave's voice matches the song: a voice rough and solid as a plank of unfinished wood. Other voices fall to a hush. Conversations stop.

I'm goin' there to see my Savior
I'm goin' there no more to roam ...

The word "savior" jars against Liz's ear, though Dave's pitch is perfect. Such words have fallen away with the trappings of childhood religion. She cut the cords and freed herself, long ago. Dave, too, has travelled far from the hymns and prayers and sermons they both grew up on, but for him some residue has lingered, something deeper than the lyrics of an old song. He clings to some tough core of faith that makes him able to sing these words and mean them. Liz herself has nothing more than an openness, a wonder that leaves ajar the possibility of something bigger in the universe. Certainly nothing solid enough to call belief. Looking at her own life, and at Dave's, she can't say faith has done him much good, or that the lack of it has hurt her badly.

She draws in his music like oxygen, as if she can absorb his strength. What she has to say tonight won't come easy. He has to know soon - some things can't be hidden forever - but now, as the song winds to its eerie close, she decides. Yes. Not only that it's time to tell, but how much to tell. How much of her secret identity to reveal.

The last words: "... I'm only goin' ... over home" linger in the smoky air for a moment before a wave of applause floods the room. Dave nods briefly, puts his guitar in the stand, makes his way to Liz's table and sits down.

"That was - great."

"That song? Yeah, thanks. The rest of it ... nyah." He shrugs. "I didn't feel like anybody was listening."

"Well, you know what it's like, playing in clubs."

"Yeah. I know that. I'm parched, gotta go get a drink. You want anything?"

Liz looks into her empty glass. "Get me a Coke, thanks."

Sitting down again, he lays her Coke across from his own. "You don't have to do this for me, you know," he says, tapping her glass. "If this is some kind of gesture of support. I mean, if I can be here, I can handle sitting with you while you have a beer or something."

"I know." It's as good an opening as she's likely to get. "It's not because of you. There's - I've got another reason." If he's quick on the uptake, maybe that'll be enough. A guy in a movie would put two and two together. Not this guy; not this movie. Dave just frowns and says, "Huh?"

"I haven't been drinking since ... um, I guess the night of Jeff's funeral."

"No shit?" They've spent time together this fall, but this hasn't come up. "Well,that makes two of us. A little easier on you than on me though I guess."

"Yeah, it hasn't been that big a deal. Once in awhile, you know, there are moments I could really use a drink." Like now.

"But why - I mean, it's not because of me, is it?"

"No, no, it's nothing to do with you." If she doesn't cut the crap, she'll end up telling more lies. It certainly is something to do with him, though not in the way he means.

"Think back," she suggests. "I know we haven't talked about it, but ... you do remember the night after the funeral, right?"

He grins, looks down. "Oh yeah. So, getting drunk and sleeping with me put you off drinking for life?"

"Um, no. Sleeping with you and getting pregnant put me off drinking for nine months."

Dave just stares at her. "Pregnant," he echoes after a long time.

"Yes. Remember the whole no-condom conversation?"

"Oh God yes. I thought you were just worried about ... you know. I mean I assumed you were ... you know."

"On the Pill. Yeah. No, haven't been for years."

"So you're ... having a baby."

"Your baby. To be precise."

"This happened in August. And you're just mentioning it now?"

"Yeah. I needed time."

"Time." He looks down into his glass and up at her again, his eyes opaque. "What exactly, what were you waiting for?"

Liz shrugs, glances around the room. "More that I wanted to give you time, I guess. To see how things - went. I didn't know if you were - ready to deal with it."

No warmth in the smile he gives her. "You wanted to see if I was going to stay sober. This time."

"Yeah ... maybe." She wouldn't have put it quite so bluntly.

"And now you think it's OK, I've passed some boundary in your mind, you can share this news with me? Jesus, Liz, I got a ninety-day chip on my keychain, do you need to see it? That's not much though is it? What do you want, an ironclad guarantee? I'm all out of those, I'm afraid."

His voice, hoarse from singing, barely contains his anger. This is going badly, worse than she'd imagined. "I just wanted -"

His words cut across hers. "So all this fall, the time we've spent together, going out for coffee and dinner and hanging out, you playing the supportive friend - what the hell was that about? All this time you were, what, evaluating me? Checking me out?" His voice rises just a little, not quite enough to turn heads. "What was this, Liz, a fucking test drive?"

"No. No." She shakes her head. He's right, of course. "This was a bad place, a bad time to tell you. I'm going." She stands up, plucks her jacket from the back of the chair.

"You think I'm going to come running out into the rain after you? Is this some romantic scene we're supposed to play out here?" Liz pulls on her jacket. She sees Keith and a companion, over at their table, turn and glance at her.

She's barely outside before she hears him on the steps behind her. Out in the street the rain pisses straight down. Mainland rain, no wind driving it like at home. Rain you can use an umbrella against. Liz snaps hers up, effectively blocking Dave who stands nearly a foot taller than she does. He moves close enough to tilt the edge so he can look into her face.

"So why tonight? Have I cleared some hurdle? First time singing in a bar, maybe?" Rain streaks down his face but doesn't wash away the hurt carved there.

"Don't be stupid. I'm nearly four months. I can't keep it a secret forever. You'd have to know."

"Yeah, once you decided I was a safe bet. I've got news for you, sweetheart, there are no safe bets." Now he is shouting a little, they both are, to be heard above the rain and the swish of car tires in the street. "Why the sudden caution, Liz? Given some of the prize assholes you've been with - well, test-drives are hardly your style, are they?"

He's right. She's never been one to let her head lead her heart. Damn the torpedoes, full speed to bed. "This time it's different," she says.

"You're damn right it's different." He stands in the rain, drenched, hands shoved deep in the pockets of his jeans.

"Come home with me," she says. "Let's talk. I'm sorry this started so badly."

Dave shakes his head. "My guitar's still up there. Anyway, I don't want to talk. Now. You had - what, three, four months to take this in? Now I need a little time. I'll call you - tomorrow, or in a couple of days."

She nods, hopes he can see that under the umbrella. He turns to go. "Dave - look -"

But when he turns back, she finds herself without words. She's a writer; words are her tools and her toys, but she has no language for what she wants to say. A romance writer would be able to script this scene, but the postmodern poet stands dry-mouthed. She thinks of a line from his song. I know dark clouds will gather round me, I know my way is rough and steep.

"I want - I mean, this isn't just about the baby."

He nods, almost meeting her eyes. But still turns to walk up the steps, away from her.

***

Now, walking down the street towards her building, he remembers climbing those steps, remembers sitting alone at the table staring into the useless glass of Coke, a fist of anger clenched in his gut. Fucking test drive. Remembers walking home in the rain that night, the fist unclenching one finger at a time. Anger is harder to hold than it used to be. And it's not like she was wrong about him.

It's four-thirty on the afternoon on the twenty-third, the eve of Christmas Eve, as he presses her apartment buzzer. When he gets to her door she's waiting, dressed in a black sweater and skirt, a sprig of plastic holly pinned in her hair. "You look festive," he says. He wonders, as he's done for the past three weeks, how he could have failed to notice this woman was pregnant. She looks round and ripe, prettier and less pissed-off than Tammy, his ex, looked on either of her pregnancies. It's as if Liz's baby, kept under wraps for so long, has now popped out in the most assertive way possible.

Dave holds up plastic bags as he follows Liz into the apartment. "I brought eggnog," he says. "The supermarket kind. The most festive thing I could come up with." He pulls the carton from the bag and hands it to her. "And Christmas lights."

"Oh good! You can put them up around the window. I guess." She stands looking at her small living room, a striking showpiece of modern art buried under a thin but tenacious veneer of clutter. "I don't usually decorate."

"Me either," Dave says, freeing the coloured minilights from their package. There are no other seasonal touches in the room except a few cards on the end table, including a rather lurid Jesus in the manger, an unlikely choice for anyone to send Liz, Dave thinks. "Not these last few years anyway. But they say Christmas changes when you have kids."

"You wouldn't think that would apply to an eighteen-week-old fetus," Liz says, flopping down on the futon.

"Yet apparently it does."

"What's in the other bag?"

"Supper. I got take-out."

"Indian Oven? Holy shit, you are amazing." She hops up off the futon again to take the bag into the kitchen, and stops to kiss him briefly. In the three weeks since she told him about the baby, there have been kisses. And touches. A kind of chaste shyness, as if they are churchgoing teenagers again. There's still one river to cross, this last Jordan.

On the stereo, the first notes of the Pogues' Fairytale of New York start. "I love this song. It's the best Christmas song ever," Dave says, following Liz into the kitchen. "Keep your chestnuts, keep your open fire. It was Christmas Eve, babe, in the drunk tank ..." he sings along with Shane MacGowan.

Liz tears open cartons, arranges food on two handpainted blue plates, joins in on Kirsty MacColl's lines. "You scumbag you maggot, you cheap lousy faggot, happy Christmas your arse, I pray God it's our last," she trills happily, and sits down.

Scooping basmati rice onto his plate, Dave can't take his eyes off her. She's so beautiful, dark brown eyes gleaming under long eyelashes and heavy dark brows. He has a toothbrush and a couple of changes of clothing in his backpack. Their spoken agreement - he'll stay over Christmas - is shadowed by the unspoken corollary: they'll have sex.

Dave can almost count on two hands the number of times in his life he's slept with a woman when he was sober. All a long time ago, all with Tammy, no good memories. To be candid, he's terrified. And he doesn't trust his own body. He's not in the habit of thinking of himself and his body as one harmonious whole, or even as partners: for so long they've been at war. These days he's more comfortable inside this particular cage. He wakes in the morning without vomiting old blood; he can put a good curry into a stomach that's not a constant raw burn. He's grateful for these small gifts. But he can't imagine the confidence of living in a body that consistently does what he asks of it. Can't imagine undressing for someone with casual delight. Unlike Liz, more at home in her skin than any woman he's known.

She strips in her bedroom for him with the grace of a professional. She's short and stocky, with thick powerful legs and full breasts that hang down a little. Her skin is smooth over her rounded belly. She looks young and strong and sexy. She lies on the bed next to him and they continue the same kissing they were doing moments before with their clothes on.

Her hands move over his body, over the slack and wrinkled skin. He was hard when he watched her undress but he's losing it now, fear rising instead. He tries to think not of himself but of her, Liz's breasts against his chest, Liz's tongue searching inside his mouth, Liz and her baby both of whom he wants more than he's ever wanted anything. His heart races wildly but down where it counts he might as well be anesthetized for all he feels. He's soft, dead, left with no response to this most important of questions.

They try for awhile longer, even after Liz realizes there's a problem, tries to tease him erect, which is the worst humiliation of all. He turns on his side, finally, away from her. Stares at the window which shows only dark and cloudy sky. Liz, behind him, lies silent. He can hear each breath.

He sits up, pulls on underwear, goes out into the kitchen and gets a bottle of water from the fridge. Standing in the fridgelight, he balances the small plastic bottle and remembers the familiar weight and shape of a forty-ouncer in his hand. Lays that thought aside. Goes out in the living room and sits on the rug, his back against the couch, drinking. The only light in the room comes from the string of lights framing the window.

He's eye level with the Baby Jesus card. "So, you came all this way to get a human body, eh?" Dave says to the child in the manger. "But who the hell'd want one?" Slipping into an accent almost lost, he adds, "You wants your head examined, you do." He raises his water bottle to the divine infant, who stares back unblinking, accepting the homage of this unlikely wise man.

After fifteen or twenty minutes, Liz comes out, still naked, and puts a CD on. She too has a bottle of water; she sits in front of Dave on the rug with her back to him. He adjusts so she can lean against his chest.

"Sorry 'bout that," he says.

"You don't have to be sorry." When he doesn't answer she looks up at him. "I mean it, Dave. This - this isn't a test drive."

"No?" He forces a laugh. "Just don't take it personally. This isn't - unusual for me. Not unusual for ... guys like me. Drunks," he adds, in case she needs clarification: he avoids the word alcoholic, its metallic clinical ring. "And now, you know, I read up on this stuff. And I find out, what do you know? Being, um, impotent - it's also a common side effect of being in recovery."

"Geez, that doesn't seem fair."

"Yeah, they get you coming and going." He puts an arm around her, under her breasts, pulls her a little closer. His chin fits on top of her head.

"I read up on stuff too," she says. "Know what the technical term for it is when you have a baby at forty?"

"No, what?"

"Elderly pregnancy. I swear to God, that's what they call it. Although to give the midwife credit, she didn't say that to my face. I found it on the net."

"No shit? Elderly pregnancy," he repeats.

"You don't have to sound like you enjoy saying it so much."

Christmas music pours from the speakers. Less edgy than the Pogues: this must be a CD from home. Great Big Sea offers a sprightly Seven Joys of Mary; another singer attacks We Three Kings with a vigour that suggests the Magi have stopped into the Bethlehem Lounge on their way to the stable. "Nice CD," he says.

"Yeah, Katie sent it." Katie, Liz's high-school best friend. Dave's friend too, though he hadn't seen her for years until this summer when they all reconnected at Jeff's funeral.

He buries his mouth in Liz's violet-tinted black hair. "Did you tell Katie about - about the baby?" He wants to say, about us.

"Just the other day. I didn't tell anyone before I told you. Except the midwife, obviously."

"What'd Katie say?"

"Oh, congratulations and all that. She was shocked, of course. And I think maybe a little jealous."

"Jealous? What for? Katie's one of the happiest married people I know. Maybe the only happy married person I know."

"Oh yeah." Liz takes one of his hands and starts biting his fingertips, very lightly. "But you know, Katie was in love with you for years. All through high school and university. You knew that, didn't you?"

"Katie? You're making this up."

Liz's small teeth press harder for a moment, around his index finger. "Nope. Men are so obtuse."

"Apparently. Shit, me and Katie? That would've been a fucking train wreck. She's so - sensible."

"I know. You would have made her life a living hell and I'm sure she knew that. But she always had this thing about guys who were - I don't know, wounded. Damaged goods. She's always wanted to save people."

With his free hand, the one Liz isn't biting, Dave lays down the water bottle and cups her right breast. It's a nice handful; its heft pleases him. "What about you? Do you accept damaged goods?"

Liz is quiet for a long time; only the sound of fiddle, violin and bodhran fills the room. "I don't mind damaged goods," she says at last. "But I've never wanted to save anyone. Or be saved."

"What do you want then?"

"I don't know - screw and be screwed, I guess." She tilts her face up to look at his, laughing, and he gives her an upside-down kiss, Spiderman and Mary Jane. It doesn't stop him from pushing a little farther. "Is that all? You don't want anything else?"

Liz looks away. He's reminded, oddly, of sandwiches Nan used to make for his school lunches. She'd wrap them first in wax paper, then in Saran Wrap, then in tinfoil, and finally encase them in limp brown paper bags. He spent the first ten minutes of every lunchtime unwrapping his sandwiches. Liz, who strips her body easily and with pleasure, clings to her layers of protection.

"For a long time," she says, "I think maybe I wanted to - to worship and be worshipped, maybe. With Neil, and a couple of other people - yeah, I think that's what it was about. Looking for someone to admire, to adore. Who would also adore me." She's let go of his hand now and is biting her own, tearing at a hangnail with her teeth. "I'm over that now, I think."

"What about - love and be loved?"

"I don't know. I haven't had - much experience with that."

"Me either." Both his hands are full of her breasts now, coaxing the nipples to life beneath his fingers. "Might be worth a try, though."

He can feel himself getting hard. He's almost carefree, now that the worst has happened. Liz has seen his worst, over the years - much worse than tonight - and he realizes that this is one area where he actually has the advantage. Being naked, unwrapped: it's his natural state these days.

He bends down to say it in her ear. "I love you, Liz."

After a moment, she twists to face him, kneeling in front of him, her arms around his neck. She brings her mouth to his and then pulls back, looks in his eyes as if searching for words, better words. In the end, though, she just repeats, "I love you." She says it like a singer performing a song in a foreign language, someone who's learned the sounds by rote and has to trust the listener to supply meaning. He kisses her again.

This time they're both ready, and it's good. Not perfect: good. The three-dollar Christmas lights reflect red green and gold on bare skin. They are crossing Jordan, going over home.