Fish Change Direction in Cold Weather (13 page)

I didn’t have to look at my mum for very long to see that she and I were both thinking the same thing.

‘Did you talk to him today?’

‘No, he didn’t call . . .’

Suddenly I was really frightened. There are worse things than parents splitting up, and one of them is having no parents at all. My mum closed her eyes. I’m sure she was praying. I
don’t believe in God, but I prayed, too.

Knock-knock!

We turned to the door. We heard the knock all right.

‘Police! Open up!’

My mum leaped up and looked at me. My dad had often told us the protocol. When it’s an injury, even a serious one, the police call you on the phone. When they knock on your door,
it’s to tell you the worst.

‘Stay there, honey.’

She ran to the door, took a deep breath, or maybe I should say gathered her courage. She opened the door. Then she took a step back, and cried out.

‘Oh no!’

The sky fell on my head. I saw all the rest in slow motion. My dad walked in, like a soldier returning from the war, both his arms in a cast and a sling.

‘Do you have any idea what a fright you gave us?’

‘It was to make sure you’d open up.’

Police humour is a male thing. My mum didn’t laugh.

‘I hope you don’t think we’ve reached that point.’

My dad was a mess, but I was so relieved. He’d come back. My parents stared at each other for a long time. This was one situation they hadn’t predicted either. Finally Dad turned to
me.

‘Are you going to wait until these casts come off to give me a kiss?’

I didn’t want to wait.

HE WAS ABOUT TO FIND OUT

‘Yoo-hoo! I’m in here!’

‘Alexis, just give me time to take off my coat and hat and mittens.’

Simon smiled: his evacuee still needed to talk. He found Michel in the kitchen and went over to give him a gentle slap on the bum.

‘What’s this lovely meal you’re preparing?’

‘
Escalopes Volpini
with white wine.’

‘The best in town!’

‘No, the best is . . .’ Michel turned to face Simon, who held up his mouth, tenderly, ‘. . . the little evening kiss!’

While Michel was turning the escalopes, Simon stroked his shoulder, and they stayed like that for a moment, close, happy, relieved.

The evening before, when Simon had joined Michel in bed, he had given him the gist of his conversation with Alexis. A psychoanalyst is not supposed to do this, but since his client was unaware
of what was actually going on, Simon was practising in secret and was therefore not bound by the pledge of confidentiality.

‘Did you tell him we’re gay?’

‘You think he didn’t notice?’

‘Then the whole neighbourhood will find out.’

‘So?’

‘And what if the association finds out?’

‘So, let the association find out. This ice storm is giving us a chance to come out of hiding.’

Michel could not help but wipe away a tear. He had always been the more sensitive of the two. He had been waiting for this moment for so long that he’d stopped believing it would ever
come. It is a noble thing to want others to accept you, but first you must accept yourself.

‘Is that why you offered to take them in?’

‘Of course not. I just wanted to help out . . .’

Michel knew his Simon by heart, and in his heart. He knew he was far too intelligent not to have thought the whole thing through when he first offered to help his neighbours. Welcoming Alex and
Alexis to their home would be their way of coming out to the neighbourhood.

What Simon couldn’t have foreseen, however, was how completely dependent Alexis would become on their improvised sessions of psychoanalysis.

‘Yoo-hoo! The bottle is waiting!’

‘I’m coming, Alexis, I’m coming!’

On his way to the couch in the study, Simon caught sight of Alex playing with Pipo.

‘Michel said there’s gonna be tons more freezing rain tonight!’

‘Tons?’

‘We’ve got power back in our house but my dad says it’ll go out again before long.’

‘If your dad says so . . .’

‘Michel says it’s okay if we stay. And he works at Météo Canada. So he knows what he’s talking about.’

‘You’re right. When it comes to the forecast, caution is the best counsellor.’

Even a psychoanalyst can make others believe he is helping them when actually he is helping himself. He’ll hide his true motivations, unremorsefully.

‘I think Pipo would be really sad if you left us.’

In the sitting room, Simon went over to the stereo. After rifling through the huge collection of records, he chose
Carmen
. From among the dozen or so different versions he had of
Bizet’s opera, he chose the performance by Maria Callas from 1964. It was a historic recording of an opera the diva had never sung in public, and here she sang it with a voice that would make
you weep. Then he abruptly changed his mind: perhaps this wasn’t the right time to play such an emotional piece around such a sensitive patient.

‘Did you know I made a record, Simon?’

‘No, I didn’t know that.’

‘Nobody knows . . .’

‘Tell me about it, Alexis.’

Alexis slumped deeper into the couch and stretched out his legs.

‘May I?’

‘Sure, go ahead.’

Alexis placed his feet gently on the coffee table, careful not to disturb anything. He closed his eyes, the better to think back to his
yéyé
years of French pop in the
1960s.

Rrrring!

‘Shit!’

‘Don’t worry, Alexis, Michel will get the door. Just relax . . .’

Annoyed, Alexis could not keep from tapping his fingers on the armrest. Simon took the precious bottle of Chivas Royal Salute 21 Year Old from its box. With a grimace he filled Alexis’s
glass. After a few minutes, Michel came in.

‘It was the young lady from next door, asking me for my forecast for the night.’

‘I bet you told her there’s going to be tons of freezing rain.’

‘You lose. I only said kilos. But I got the impression it made her happy she’d be able to hang on to her Russian tenant.’

‘I hope he didn’t have time to go and buy any booze, otherwise we won’t get any sleep.’

‘Speaking of booze . . .’

Simon handed Michel the empty whisky bottle. Alexis chose that moment to empty his glass in one go. At a hundred and fifty-nine dollars a bottle, Michel was right to grimace. But you can’t
put a price on a coming-out party, even just a neighbourhood one.

‘It’s there to be drunk!’

Simon waited for Michel to return to his
escalopes Volpini,
and in lieu of an aperitif he turned back to his patient on the couch.

‘So you were saying you made a record?’

Alexis decided to answer by singing.

‘
Ils disent qu’on était jeunes et qu’on ne savait pas . . . Ne nous découvrons pas jusqu’à ce qu’on grandisse—
’

Sobs momentarily interrupted the performance. Simon hastily applauded.

‘That’s really great!’

‘That’s not all! There’s a chorus, it’s coming.’

‘Oh?’

‘
Bébé! . . . Je t’ai, toi, bébé . . . Je t’ai, toi, bébé . . .
’

Alex jumped. That was his song. About his mother and him!

‘
Je t’ai, toi, pour me prendre la main . . .

Je t’ai, toi, pour comprendre . . .

Je t’ai, toi, pour marcher avec moi . . .

Je t’ai, toi, pour me serrer fort . . .
’

The second time the chorus came round was harder going: Alexis’s sobs made his words incomprehensible. Maybe it was just as well.

‘
Bé . . . Je . . . bé . . . t’ai . . . bé . . . toi . . . bé . . .
’

Alex blocked his ears. He didn’t want to hear any more. He wasn’t the only one.

‘Alexis, I think we can stop there. It’s making Pipo cry.’

When silence fell, the sound of giggling came clearly from the kitchen; those must have been the funniest
escalopes Volpini
ever made. But Simon wanted to avoid hurting Alexis’s
feelings at all costs. Providential patients like this one must be nurtured.

‘It’s a beautiful song. Did you write it?’

‘You didn’t recognise it?’

‘No . . . Should I have?’

‘It’s the French version of “I Got You Babe” by Sonny and Cher.’

‘That’s odd, I don’t remember it sounding like that.’

‘Because this is the disco version!’

From the study, where Pipo had sprawled out on his lap, Alex heard his dad telling his life story in a way he’d never told it before. And so he found out that his mother and father had
made a record together.

‘How did it do?’

‘Complete fiasco, we didn’t even sell a hundred copies. My basement is full of them.’

‘And how did you deal with the lack of success, Alexis?’

‘I didn’t deal, it was an
or
deal, more like.’

‘You have to learn from failure. It can be an opportunity to help you build your future.’

‘Well, in my case it destroyed it.’

‘Tell me about it, Alexis.’

There was no more laughter coming from the kitchen. Michel had decided that for once he would not serve the
escalopes Volpini
medium rare. A true confession is like Greek tragedy:
it’s a rare, intense moment that lasts only a certain length of time. And if you miss it, you won’t ever capture it again.

‘She was nineteen, full of life, so beautiful. She’d worked really hard to come here from Mexico to study. She was a painter. She hadn’t even been here a month. I was singing
in a bar. She walked in, she was so pure, I didn’t want to sing for anyone but her . . .’

Alex left the study, Pipo following behind. He went into the sitting room and sat down next to his father, not saying a thing. Simon held his breath, observing Alexis’s reaction. Michel
poked his head around the door from the kitchen. Even Pipo realised the significance of the moment when a person’s hidden side becomes illuminated, and he stretched out on the floor. Simon
lowered his voice to a whisper.

‘Go on, Alexis . . .’

Alex’s heart began to pound. He was about to find out.

CAN YOU FIX IT FOR ME?

‘Do you know why cats always land on their paws?’

‘No, Dad.’

‘Because they know how!’

Two days in the cold weather had transformed my dad. I didn’t recognise him. He was even managing to poke fun at himself. That must be one of the virtues of being deep-frozen. Once you
thaw out, there’s nothing left but joy. He couldn’t stop waving his wrists around in their casts. He looked like a puppet, but he was real and there were no strings attached any
more.

‘Want to play Monopoly?’

When was the last time I played Monopoly with my dad?

‘Come on, come and play with us!’

When was the last time I’d played Monopoly with both of them? Probably never. In my mother’s opinion it wasn’t educational enough.

‘It’s just capitalism dressed up as a game! Wouldn’t Trivial Pursuit be better?’

‘With my hands in casts Trivial Pursuit isn’t very practical.’

I could tell my mum was wondering if it was really my dad sitting across from her.

‘Yes, Dad’s right, I’d rather play Monopoly. All three of us.’

I put on my whiny little voice, the one from back when I used to try and charm my mum in order to get my way. Dad gestured towards me with his casts as if I were the bearer of some universal
truth. My mum sat down. She’d surrendered. But she still had to have the last word.

‘All right, but not for long!’

I sped to my bedroom for the box, brought it back, opened it and set out the banknotes on the coffee table in the sitting room. My dad took the top hat as his token and left me the car. He
handed my mum the thimble.

‘Off to a good start . . .’

‘Who’ll put the dice on my cast?’

‘I have to sort my money, Dad!’

He held his palms in their casts out to my mum.

‘Which one do you want to play with?’

‘The white one!’

She looked up at the sky – the ceiling, rather – then put both dice on my dad’s right cast. I saw the way my mum looked at him when he tossed the dice. Then suddenly we heard
an animal-roar.

‘Double six!’

My dad landed on Chance. I took the card from the pile and, not looking at it, set it down in front of him.

‘You take top prize in a beauty contest, collect one thousand dollars from each player!’

I took a thousand from my pile of money and placed it on my dad’s pile. My mum picked up the dice. My dad gave her a gentle shove with his cast.

‘You owe a thousand dollars to the best-looking guy in the gang.’

‘Here! Take your thousand bucks. Bad debts make bad friends. We need to talk about that, actually . . .’

I couldn’t help but look at the sofa. Still pleased with her answer, my mum cupped her hands around the dice. My dad acted as if he hadn’t heard.

‘It’s still my turn, I threw double. The dice!’

My mum handed him the dice without a word. I know what she was thinking: Monopoly is a barbaric game that fosters nothing but greed and stupidity.

‘Double six!’

‘Could you try not to burst my eardrums every time you throw the dice?’

‘Sorry, darling!’

My father was the only one who didn’t hear what he’d just said. My mum watched the white plaster pushing the top hat onto Community Chest
.
I didn’t wait for Dad to
ask, and I put the card from the top of the pile in front of him. My mum looked at me, she knew I’d heard, but above all she’d noticed that I could tell it had annoyed her.

‘This is your lucky day, receive a thousand dollars from every player!’

Maybe my dad got a little too big for his breeches after that.

‘Luck smiles on those who know how to make the most of it! Roll the dice!’

He shut up when he had to go straight to jail without passing Go. Three doubles in Monopoly is fatal. He looked a bit sheepish, to my mum’s great satisfaction.

‘You’ll see, you’ll like it there.’

He started whistling, to make light of it all.