Close to Hugh (27 page)

A while since she ate. NBD. Bran muffins at the school caf too disgusting, pale raisins like maggots wriggling in them; here, too expensive. It is not a
deal
, it is just, one is upset, sometimes, therefore, legitimately not hungry. No deal, but always a worry. Look at Nevaeh (but you can’t see her if she stands sideways). It’s okay to not eat on shift but if there is dinner at home, eat then.

If anybody comes home. Earlier L ducked below the till to hide from her mother going past the FairGrounds window, mad maenad streaming from the law office to jump into the Mini and roar off down the street, she’ll get a ticket—oop, no, reverse—off she goes the other way. Where to in such a rush?

Now Orion’s mother trails along, also mad, streaming, thank fuck she did not come in and ask for a decaf quad small non-fat sugar-free cinnamon syrup macchiato three-quarters full, her appalling little drink. The woods are full of them—those boys better watch out, they’re supposed to visit Mimi with her on her break. And there goes Jason’s mom, also mad as hell and not going to take something or other any more. Going into the gallery—yelling at Ruth—banging out again.

How does a person, a woman, grow up to not go crazy?

Question: is my dad also completely off the rails? Will he have to quit work, and then will they lose the house and will I have to work at FairGrounds forever to support them?

In twenty minutes this shift will be over, this shit shift, the shifting shittiness that is work, but this is not nearly as bad as other shit would be. Nevaeh’s not in and neither is Savaya so that makes it boring, and too busy, and here’s another fat ass with slumping blood sugar and yes indeedy the one with all the icing, ha ha, you are cute and witty, sir! Thank you for the thirty-cent tip!

6. I CAN’T TELL HUGH WHY

In the elevator hall Hugh stands with Ivy between two doors.

Ivy offers a third option. “Maybe you should wait in the van.”

One door is red, the other blue. The elevator clunks down and away, called to do another’s bidding.

“I don’t want you to come in,” she says. She pulls at her lip, the first nervous thing he’s seen her do. “I don’t want you to know about my stupid life.”

“I want to see where you live,” Hugh says. He puts out a hand and touches the open plane of creamy skin below the hollow in her neck. Touchstone.

“Right, but I haven’t really been here for a couple of—”

The red door opens.

“Jamie?” Ivy turns, keys still in her hand.

A head appears at doorknob height, a narrow face gleaming pale as lard between a small round chin at the nadir and Brillo-pad reddish hair at the zenith. It disappears.

Three lizard fingers grasp the edge of the door. Bitten nails.

“Jamie?” Ivy says the name again, quietly.

“Ivy?” A soft-squeaking disused tenor. The head appears again, higher, between door and jamb. Eyebrows engage in the long face, arched high over pale eyes, looking Ivy over from boot to hat. Jamie speaks slowly—not irritated but bemused. “What are you
doing
out there?”

Ivy glances at Hugh, checking his expression. He gives her a solid,
I’m
-not-crazy kind of look, and a hand at her back. Not to propel, just to bolster. Also for the relief of contact, okay.

Voice pitched to kindness, she says, “Hi, Jamie, I came to see about the flood.”

The pale fingers still hold the fort of the door, the door of the fort. The pale eyes shift back and forth from Ivy to Hugh to the blue door to the
elevator, evaluating and assessing. Then the door draws back again. “I added a stronger chain,” the soft voice says. “Just give me a minute, I have to find the key.”

Ivy looks through the slit. Her head turns to catch Hugh’s eye. Whole face compressed into a screw of misery, she says, hardly more than a whisper, “It’s actually a nice apartment. You have to take my word for that.”

From somewhere inside, “I found it!” A small-boy announcement, nervous and proud.

Hasty feet, a scraping, then the lock-twist sound. Ivy pulls back to let Jamie shut the door again, to slide the chain. Then the door is open and the vista clear.

A broad space, a bank of long windows on the far side, thin metal pillars: a reclaimed factory. Old plank floor, what you can see of it; grey walls. The windows are half-masked by sheets of various papers and foil taped haphazardly to the glass and to each other, which has darkened the room. Stacks of cardboard boxes and grey equipment cases litter the space like an obstacle course, like a bad moving day. A long leather couch under the windows has been used as a nest: greyish blankets and sheets tangled all over it, bogged at one end. Several unsavoury articles of clothing litter the floor by the couch, and there are piles in other places. Everywhere, wire and cords. Tangles of wire cross the floor, extra cords cross the counter that separates a galley kitchen from the rest of the big room; wires trail in from two other rooms and a half-open door with a light on, a bathroom? The cords converge at a long work station: four monitors, at least five laptops, a couple of high towers, a synthesizer keyboard setup at one end. Everything is grey with grime and dust.

“Oh, Jamie,” Ivy says. “When did Yolanda stop coming to clean?”

“I couldn’t let her in, she was moving things.” The childish voice is odd, the form odder: he’s of medium height, too thin, with wide swimmer’s shoulders and a slight paunch. One hand goes up to scratch at his bristly hair, patched with white shocks in the red.

Ivy turns to Hugh. “This is my friend Hugh, Jamie. Hugh, Jamie Carr, my … I guess my sort of brother-in-law. My ex-brother.”

Jamie gives a conspiring little snicker, heh-heh! Then looks ashamed, or diffident, or just miserable. This guy’s a mess.

“Did Alex come over?”

“Well he came
over
last night but I couldn’t find the key, so he couldn’t come
in
,“ Jamie says, heh-heh-ing again. He drifts away to the computer set-up by the wall. Under the desk, another cocoon. “He’s angry at me, Ivy, he always is, and I didn’t think he would be a good guest.”

“No, no,” Ivy says, slowing her natural speech to match his rhythm. “Not angry, only worried.”

“No need! I
am just fine
. In fact, I’m better than fine! I’m working, I’m writing articles all the time, I get paid and it’s not a problem.”

“Well the
problem
—the problem is the flood, right?” Ivy moves from the entryway now, clapping her hands on her arms to brace herself, around the corner created by the coat closet.

Hugh follows. There’s the problem.

The kitchen floor is covered with towels and sheets, all soaking wet, reeking. Dark liquid stains the floorboards outwards in long runnels from the kitchen, ending in a tidemark of paper and towels. Two red pails, assorted cake tins, cups, all full of grey water.

Ivy says, more sad than surprised. “Did you have to use my
linen
sheets?”

The sweet high voice floats over from the computer desk, almost emotionless. “Well the water wouldn’t stop coming out, and I knew you wouldn’t mind. You’re so kind, Ivy. You’re kinder to me than my own family ever is. You never mind.”

“Actually, I mind this time.” But her voice is neutral. “What happened?”

“The water stopped, I don’t know how. I think the lady downstairs called the super when it started coming through her ceiling. But now the toilet doesn’t flush, I ought to say …”

Ivy looks at Hugh. “I can’t even think about this,” she says.

“Insurance?”

“I don’t know. Alex didn’t know how much damage there was to the other apartments.”

“The super came up this morning, he put a letter under the door,” Jamie says, hunching farther over the desk, almost fetal. One white finger points over his shoulder, to the hall shelf. Miraculously unpiled, in all this mess. Just one envelope there. Ivy looks at it.

Jamie’s disembodied voice continues in a pallid singsong ramble, punctuated by an occasional small
ha
. “I opened it because I thought you’d want me to but it was—incomprehensible, really it was.” His voice
goes higher. “And I’m an English major! Ha. The man is
unlettered
, Ivy. It’s like he doesn’t even, ha, know the language.”

Ivy seems to gather herself. Short body tense, her hands clench into fists. Not toward Jamie, just the letter. Three steps to pick it up: she opens it with one quick rip, and reads.

Hugh is sorry, not just for the water, the kitchen damage, but for this hopeless, hapless boy-man suffering at the desk. For Ivy’s being tangled up with him at all. Where’s the brother—this Alex Carr?

Footsteps in the hall. There, probably.

Nope—it’s a woman. She pauses in the doorway. Hugh takes her in; he likes her looks, her manner, her thin face. Plain clothes, mysterious chic.

“Oh, Fern,” Ivy says, sighs, sobs. She turns to embrace the woman. “Get this,” she says, urgent to appeal to this new mind in the room—then, her hand goes out to him, “Hugh! This is my sister, Fern. Hugh came with me, I wanted you to meet him but this is
not
—”

Fern laughs, same laugh as Ivy. “Stop,” she says.

The hunched figure by the window gives a wistful cry: “Hey, Fern.”

“Hey, Jamie,” Fern says, not sparing him a glance. A harder mind, Hugh thinks. Her eyes are like Ivy’s but cooler, acute. “So, Hugh. You drove Ivy in?”

“She drove me,” he says. “I have a concussion, she was kind—”

“Ivy’s always
kind,”
Jamie says from the desk. He’s put his head down on a pile of papers, face turned away from them. But still present, unable not to be present.

Ivy sets the letter down. “They’ll have to sue me, I guess,” she says.

“Alex is on his way, I saw him on the street.” Fern takes the letter.

The elevator grinds up again and halts, clanking.

In the silence the doors open, close.

A man in the doorway. Jamie’s brother: same lily-white skin, but a lot of snap in the mouth, a lot of bad temper. Avoid this one, Hugh’s hackles tell him. Taller than Jamie, same shoulders, the new guy has a bullish bearing that seems unhelpful in the current situation.

He’s talking right away, pushing over Ivy’s faint
Hi
with, “Don’t give me any bullshit about Jamie being responsible, because he’s not—that dishwasher was a piece of shit the day you bought it, and if you’d gone for a better brand you wouldn’t be in this situation now.”

“Hey, Alex,” comes from the desk in a whispery wail. Jamie’s head burrows farther down, his shoulders cramped flat, as if they could meld right into the table.

The brother doesn’t bother responding. He eyes Fern and Hugh as possible combatants, and dismisses them both. Possibly a mistake there, Hugh thinks, watching Fern.

Ivy has turned away, making her way through piles of detritus to a closed door. “Hugh?” she says, half over her shoulder. “Can you …?” He goes; Fern distracts Alex with the super’s letter. Ivy opens the door and pulls Hugh in to—her bedroom, it must be. Clear walls except for one big piece on the wall above the bed. A lithograph, a long landscape, shadowed by long clouds.

“He’s been sleeping in here too,” she says. Hugh checks her face, her eyes: no tears yet. The bed is mounded with blankets and sheets worked into a rat’s nest, a dog-basket mess.

“Why are you letting him—” Hugh stops even asking.

The rest of the room is still pristine. Just the bed, greyish and disturbing. “It’s gotten way worse,” she says sadly. “This is the worst I’ve ever seen him.”

“How long has he been here alone?”

“He—well, most of the time, since Alex and I split up.”

“Like, months?”

Her face is so sad. “I’m sorry, Hugh, I wish you’d stayed in the van. We broke up three years ago. It was civil, mostly, and mutual—I left, I went to the Banff Playwrights Colony for a two-month gig, so he’d have lots of time to get a new place. Then I went to Halifax, three shows at Neptune, I was gone most of that winter, and Jamie came and stayed. So when Alex found a great place but it was a one bedroom, he moved out, and Jamie stayed to house-sit for me …”

Hugh laughs. After a second, Ivy laughs too. “And in the spring, he was going to stay with his mom for a couple of months, so that was fine, but she got sick. Then I did a few episodes of a series that shot in Yellowknife, so—it made sense for Jamie to stay, and then—we get along, you know, better than he and Alex do.”

“Three years?”

“Turns out, yeah.”

“He looks like he needs help.”

“Oh, he’s
got
help. He sees a shrink three times a week. He’s an outpatient at the Clarke. He’s
helped
six ways from Sunday. But none of them has a place for him to live, and his mother can’t—she’s in North Bay, she’s seventy-eight, and not well.”

So’s Mimi, Hugh thinks, before he can push the thought away. Hard to live with someone crazy. This room is unmarred, except for the bed. But the bed is bad.

“He’s too sad for you.” Hugh means Jamie. “And the brother—I hated him on sight.”

“Yes.” She smiles at him, accepting his hatred as a love-gift.

“So what’s going to happen?”

“Their brother Ray is a doctor in Winnipeg. He’s got connections, you know, people who would—if we could get Jamie out there he could stay with Ray for a while and get into a facility. But …”

But they’re good at taking advantage, Hugh doesn’t say.

“Ray’s not, not patient with him, so he doesn’t want to go.” Ivy looks at her bed. “I’ve been avoiding this— I can’t help him, I don’t have the skill. His brothers aren’t helping either. I’ve been sleeping on Fern’s couch, or house-sitting, or staying with my parents, or getting jobs elsewhere. I need my place back, but he hasn’t got anywhere to go. I don’t know what to do. Before I left for Peterborough, Alex swore black and blue he’d be out by the end of October, but it doesn’t look like it, does it?”

He wonders if she might cry after all, but she doesn’t. He takes her hands. “Okay, listen, the leak, the water damage, we can get that fixed, we’ll do that first.”

They go back out. Fern and Alex are arguing over the super’s letter.