I'le Dor, page 17
33.
WHEN NICK ARRIVED at Michelle’s home the evening he was taking her out for dinner, he had a lit cigarette in his hand.
“Do you smoke?” she asked.
“Sure,” he said. “What do you expect a DP kid from a mining town to do?”
Michelle laughed. “Well, you’ll have to put it out because there’s no smoking in this house.”
“All right.” He twisted the end off and put the butt in the saucer she handed to him. They stood awkwardly just inside the kitchen until she opened the refrigerator and offered him a beer.
“What about tea instead?” he said.
“I suppose that would go better with meditation,” she said.
“It’s cold in here. Can you turn the heat up?”
“Is that what happens when you move to the big city?” she asked, her tone scornful. “You get so you can’t stand the cold any more. I like it like this.”
He shrugged. “I meditate in the nude.”
He had no idea why he said this. He couldn’t blame her if she asked him to leave.
“Imagine that,” she said. “You really are full of surprises. Let’s just go and eat.”
“Did you take lessons from Marcel Blouin?” he asked curtly.
Why was he so angry? Michelle wasn’t sure anymore if she wanted him there. “Why? Do you think maybe I should?”
“No, I don’t think so,” Nick said, his voice softening and then rising again as he continued. “Listen, maybe I shouldn’t be here. The truth is my wife left me and married some jerk from Texas. Or at least that’s where they live now. A friend of mine, to boot. And I’m a screwed up psychiatrist who doesn’t know what he wants and is still in love with the bitch.” There. At least I’ve told her.
She eyed him thoughtfully. His fists were held tightly at his side and his face was contorted. Was there any way to turn this into a pleasant evening, she wondered. “Let’s have our tea now and then catch up over dinner,” she said.
Smiling to encourage him, she added, “We’re old friends. That’s what we are. We can decide to talk as much or as little as we want. I could tell you about my violent ex, but I’d rather tell you my long-lost daughter Dawn is coming to stay with me for a while. I don’t know for how long. She had to go and look for her father first. She had to travel around on two or three continents. A ray of hope … she’s decided that Dominic is as bad as I said he was and I only said so to protect her, so she wouldn’t get hurt.” She, too, had now blurted out her story.
“The kettle’s boiling,” he said, as they both became aware of the whistle from the kettle. He followed her into the kitchen where she motioned him to take a seat at the small pine table by the window. A crystal vase filled with yellow chrysanthemums stood next to a bowl filled with grapes and apples.
Michelle pulled out the plug and poured the hot water into a teapot decorated with tiny flowers like forget-me-nots that her mother had brought long ago from England. There were also matching cups, but she chose instead two large mugs from the cupboard. She hadn’t anticipated the uncertainty of this man. Of course, she didn’t know him anymore, but she carried a memory of someone with a gentle confidence. Not like he was now at all. She knew he’d thought momentarily the previous night that she’d make a good lay, a convenient one. Whatever had deterred her wasn’t prudery or fear of the consequences. She had steeled herself against feeling anything around a man for a long time. If she chose to, she could as easily carve notches on a belt as any man could. She was surprised that she didn’t even want to. What they shared was something deeper, she thought, a history of living in this place, of knowing each other’s families. And she didn’t want to jeopardize that.
As they carried their mugs back into the living room and sat across from each other, there was a long silence.
“I’m so glad about your daughter,” Nick said quietly. His long frame seemed awkward in the plush Queen Anne armchair that had been her mother’s.
“Thanks.” She’d been frantic about Dawn for such a long time, never sleeping soundly. As a mother listens for her newborn in the dark of night, she’d felt if awake she could almost hear Dawn, wherever she was.
“If you don’t mind me asking, what happened with your husband?”
“It’s not something I want to talk about much,” she sighed. “He was abusive, dangerous, and I had to escape with the children. It’s been a long time and perhaps he’s given up on hurting me, especially since I gather he has a woman he lives with now, but I’m still afraid sometimes that he might find me, hurt me again.” She didn’t say he’d found another victim, although she hoped Dominic might have changed enough so as not to threaten another woman. She wished her no ill.
“I imagine there’s a lot more to tell than that.”
“Yes,” she said. “Of course there is. There always is.”
“I’m not probing,” he said. “I’d just like you to know that if you want to talk, I’ll listen.”
“Thanks,” she said. “But we have lots to talk about without that. Or without me listening to you talk about your separation. Although I’d be willing to.”
“That’s kind of you,” he said. “But I agree with you.” He picked up the photo of Michelle with her two daughters that she’d imagined him commenting on and examined it thoughtfully. He didn’t say anything.
“Do you think the older one looks like Francine?”
“Yes,” Nick said. “She does a bit.”
He put the photograph back on the end table. “Any suggestions for dinner?”
“Why not The Flamingo?” she asked. “It isn’t the best food in town; I don’t suppose it ever was. But it’s full of local colour.”
“That would be fine,” he said. “Although could we save it for another evening when we also want to dance? Or perhaps go for the entertainment?”
“All right then,” she said. “I’d like a quiet dinner, too. A quiet celebration. I know a good place.”
34.
EVERY DAY FOR three years, Michelle had hoped for the return of her younger daughter. The weekend finally over, she could hardly believe she would at long last see her again. On Tuesday evening, when she finally heard a rapid knock on the door, Michelle caught her breath slightly. She opened it to find a young woman standing on the porch, her long, tawny hair in dreadnoughts halfway down her back. She wore black tights under a denim skirt and a dark jacket with a rip in the front pocket and a large patch on one elbow.
“Ma,” Dawn said, suddenly in tears. Her patterned backpack also had a tear in it that didn’t go through, but made it look as if it were about to rip open.
“I’m so glad to see you, chérie.” Michelle said, wrapping her arms around her daughter as the relief of seeing her shot through her body, and then backing inside to leave room for Dawn to walk in and peer around.
“It looks so wonderful,” Dawn said. “It was my home, too, for such a long time.”
“It still is.”
“Thanks, Ma. Although not in the same way ever again. Something about growing up and leaving,” she said. “And I don’t suppose Ile d’Or is a place with much opportunity for employment anyway.”
Michelle plugged in the kettle. “You can put your pack in the back room,” she said. “There are towels on the bed. Relax. Have a shower. There’ll be time to talk.”
What had once been the girls’ bedroom was now a den with a sewing machine on a small table. In one corner, Michelle designed clothes for herself at a draughting table and beside it was a female mannequin with her measurements. There was also a futon where Dawn could stretch out and sleep.
“Merci, Ma.”
Michelle was relieved to feel no animosity from Dawn, recalling how she had bristled the last time they’d seen each other. She would wait until her daughter chose to talk. It had been a shock when Dawn decided she wanted to find her father again. As far as Michelle was concerned, he was a dead beat who had almost killed her and then continued to haunt her after she’d escaped from him. But if that search had brought her daughter home with new understanding, she was glad.
“I saw Elise,” Dawn said. “She’s doing fine. Big as an elephant.” She laughed. “It’s exciting,” she added. “And Aunt Moi wants to be around more. I might even look for work in Montreal.”
Turning then, she went toward the bedroom and the next thing Michelle heard was water running in the shower. As she looked in the refrigerator for the steaks she’d bought on the weekend, she hummed. Something she hadn’t done for a long time.
“Oh what a beautiful day!”
Any mother would want to celebrate, she thought, surprised that she hadn’t heard from Elise who usually telephoned at least once a week and would, she hoped, be exultant about seeing her sister. Michelle had seen the hurt on her older daughter’s face when Dawn had sent a letter back unopened. It was a letter Elise said she’d struggled over and thought would elicit an answer. It had happened to Michelle, too, but she had persevered. Perhaps mothers couldn’t give up. She could remember each daughter lying across her stomach right after the blood was wiped off, eyes closed, and head only slightly misshapen after descending through her vagina. Nursing at her engorged breasts, sucking and gurgling.
She set the table with the best cutlery, silver her mother had brought from the old country along with the china set acquired when she married Maurice Dufresne. Immersed in French Canadian custom and artifacts, Elaine Dufresne had managed at the same time not to have her English side submerged by her French Canadian husband.
“Ah,” Maurice would say. “She’s happier here than she ever was in England.”
“Yes, of course,” Elaine would say. “How can I help but be delighted with unpaved roads, dark outhouses, and pink flamingos?”
“We got rid of the outhouse,” Maurice said. “I made sure we got the best toilet in town.”
But the flamingos were never replaced, Michelle thought. One silly bird still graced the downtown club inviting passersby to enter. Moving back and forth in the kitchen, she didn’t hear her daughter come back into the room.
“What are you designing, Ma?” Dawn asked. “Interesting hemline on that outfit on the mannequin.”
Dawn sat down on a chair at the table, across from the counter in the kitchen, and put her bare feet up on another chair. She had changed into a light robe. It felt to Michelle like nothing had happened since the last time they’d been in this room together, Elise already working in Montreal, the two of them mulling over the day’s events. Or perhaps playing cards. Even having an argument about something trivial. They’d had more of those after Elise left and only then had Michelle realized the extent to which her elder daughter had acted as a buffer.
“Would you like a drink?” Michelle asked. “Wine perhaps.”
“Is there any beer?”
“Help yourself.”
Dawn went to the refrigerator and took out a bottle, opened it and sat back down again.
“Tastes good,” she said, sipping.
Michelle smiled, content to see Dawn again. Why now? she wondered. Did it matter?
“I really am sorry, Ma,” Dawn said. “I wanted so badly to have a Dad, so I went looking for one. And when I found him, it was a disaster. He had no interest in me at all. He couldn’t be a Dad to a cockroach even though that lousy imitation of a man is a cockroach himself. It must have been hell for you. I should have let you know then, but I couldn’t. I had to keep moving. So I travelled and travelled. It didn’t dawn on me how much time was passing and then one day it was suddenly three years since I’d seen you. And what I wanted most was just that. To see you. I wanted to come home.”
Michelle reached out to hug her daughter. She didn’t ask how Dawn had been able to afford to keep on moving, knew her daughter had always been resourceful and could live on very little. Perhaps she didn’t want to know even though at times she’d feared that Dawn might be living on the streets somewhere, that she might be hungry. Elise had always said that was one thing she didn’t think they had to worry about, that Dawn would always find ways to earn enough at least for food and shelter. Michelle was relieved to see that Dawn was not at all gaunt. If anything, she was slightly heavier.
“I’m not here for long, but before I start looking for a job I wanted to come and see you.”
“Thank you, chérie,” Michelle said, not saying anything about how hard these years had been. “I am just so happy to see you.”
Scratching noises outside the door attracted their attention. There was the sound of footsteps and then a knock, but because the blind over the door was pulled shut neither of them could see who was there. Dawn jumped up and opened it.
“Who are you?” she asked.
Michelle looked around Dawn to see Marcel Blouin standing just out of range of the light. She flicked a switch and the porch was suddenly illuminated.
“What is it, Marcel?” she asked.
“Who’s she?” he asked, gesturing at Dawn.
“Marcel, this is Dawn. She’s my daughter.”
He turned away, snorting like an annoyed horse. This was more than she wanted to deal with, to have to salve the boy’s threatened ego. Maybe Nick was right, Marcel was becoming a nuisance.
“And who is he?” Dawn asked, but her question seemed more amused than annoyed. “This boy who seems to think he belongs here.”
“From the town,” Michelle said. “Marcel helps me out, don’t you, Marcel?”
He shuffled his feet and wouldn’t look at the women.
“At the store,” Michelle said. “Sometimes here. You know, cuts the grass, shovels snow. Runs errands. He’s good at that.” She could see Marcel bite his lip to keep from smiling, but slowly he turned to face them.
“I need money,” he said.
“Do I owe you some?” Michelle asked.
For a moment, he looked tempted to say she did. Then he shook his head.
“Is it food you need?” she asked. “Is that it, Marcel?”
“I need to get some pills for my mother.”
“I see.” She thought Lucien would be as likely as she was to pay for any prescription his mother needed if it wasn’t already covered. “Is she ill?”
Marcel turned away, a shadow crossing his face. It was the first time she’d ever seen him look frightened.
“Do you have a prescription from the doctor?”
He shook his head, but handed her a piece of paper and she read the names of two drugs on it. A painkiller. And something else she didn’t recognize. If she called Lucien, they might be able to figure out something.
“Can I help, Ma?” Dawn asked. “I have a little money.”
“It’s okay, Dawn. Thanks, chérie. I think I’ll phone the pharmacist. You remember Lucien Dion, don’t you?”
When Dawn nodded, she went to the kitchen and picked up the receiver. The pharmacy number was on a list on the refrigerator and she thought about dialing it, but then put the receiver back again to turn to look at the tableau at the door. Dawn was eyeing Marcel suspiciously, while Marcel stared at the floor. Everything felt fragile to Michelle, as if she could do or say the wrong thing and her daughter would vanish. Like a ghost. Or a genie. After three years, she had convinced herself that she must have done something terrible, something she wasn’t aware of that made Dawn leave, and although Dawn’s assertions about Dominic reassured her, she thought it would take a while to sink in.
“I thought you were going to phone about the pills,” Dawn said.
“That’s right, I was.” She was annoyed at Marcel for interrupting her first hour with Dawn, as well as the increasing frequency of the boy’s visits. Still, she wouldn’t send him away without something so she reached for a pad of paper and wrote a note to Lucien.
“Here, Marcel,” she said. “If you give this to Monsieur Dion, he’ll figure out what to do about the pills.”
When he was gone, she turned on the broiler.
“Let’s make something to eat,” she said.
“I am hungry,” Dawn conceded. “And to have something you cook!” After such a long time was left implied.
“A toast to your safe return, chérie.”
35.
“LUCIEN,” A RASPY voice said from across the counter. “I need something for my throat.”
He turned to see Al Desjardins. “Been to see the doctor?” Lucien asked.
“I don’t have time for that.” Al leaned his elbow on the ledge between them. “You met the Muir woman, non?” he said in a low voice. “I knew her father. Used to bring him home in the cab. When I first met Jutras, he told me that dog was always running away. Monsieur Muir told me he spent more money on cab fare for that dog than for anyone else in the family.”
Lucien laughed, but he was embarrassed. How much did Al know about his evening with Libby? Did anyone know? He hoped not. It was none of their business. But you could not keep anything from Al for long. He probably did not even have a sore throat; he was probably fishing. All the same, in spite of all the stories he told, he never seemed to gossip maliciously.
Lucien took some lozenges from a shelf. “Tried these?” he asked.
“Won’t hurt, I guess,” Al said.
“I knew all of the family, tu sais,” Lucien said. “We lived just a few doors away from them on rue Champlain.”
After Al left, he found it impossible to concentrate.
“I’m going out for a while,” he said.
Charmaine nodded, continuing to arrange lipstick tubes in a display case. The eye shadow was all neatly lined up, the testers in the front row. A mirror a woman could use to see her face as she tried out the colours hung just above the display.
