Blasted (33 page)

“What the hell kind of trees are those?”

“The Indians out there call them ‘Crazy Lady' because they shed their clothes in winter. Arbutus trees,” he clarified, “and they strip off their red bark in cold weather. But they keep their leaves, they hoard ‘em.” He paused. “As soon as I saw them I thought of you.”

An awkward, heated silence fell between us. I cleared my throat.

“Crazy Lady, huh? Thanks a lot.”

“I think they're beautiful,” Jason rumbled quietly over my head.

“These are very good, Jason,” I said. I put the photos down, and got up, moving away from his looming body, taking my glass into the kitchen like I was going to get more juice. The effect was spoilt because the jug was back on the coffee table where we'd been sitting. The photos
were
bloody good, they'd gotten me all stirred up; and Jason had to go and ruin it and say I was his muse or some damn thing, try coming on to me. Why'd he have to do that?

“I'm going to hit the road in a few weeks. You don't have much going on here. Why don't you come with me?” he was saying.

“
What
?” I forgot to keep my voice down.

“Come with me. It'll be fun.”

“
No.
”

“Shhhh…”

“Jason.” I turned around to meet his eyes. He was grinning uncertainly, looking more like a damn puppy than ever, like he knew I was mad at him but hoped he'd get the biscuit anyway. “Look, it's a really nice thought. But I've got to get a
job
, I have all these
debts
to pay off and then when I get a little saved up I'm going to move back home and look after my Grandpa,” and part of my mind said, You're doing
what
? but my mouth kept going, “He's all on his own now and he needs me, but I need to save up first because it's really hard to get work at home, you should know that, damn it, and…”

“Stop. Ruby, stop,” he cut into my babble. “Okay, you don't want to come with me. Just say it.”

“No, it's not that, why don't you ever
listen
?” Had I totally misjudged him? He'd taken these wonderful photographs, my God, he said he'd seen me in them, these beautiful trees. Me, as beautiful as those trees? My mind shied away from the thought like a frightened horse, and something swept through me like hatred. I walked into my room and slammed the door.

CHAPTER 22

Three in the morning is the loneliest time: too late to be night, too early to be morning. I found myself there in a sweat. I'd twisted the sheet beneath me, lumps and folds pressing a map of frustration into my skin. The city hummed outside. I lay, waiting for the sound of wings, until my breath grew tight in my chest. I put my pillow over my head and trembled. At last I threw it across the room and got up, walking naked into the living room. The spacious loft seemed cramped, walls and ceiling too close, my skin twitching like a cat's.

Hardly knowing what I was doing, I put on some clothes and went outside. I walked until dawn.

That was the first of my long, aimless treks through the streets, alone. I covered miles, pacing out the small hours of the morning, sleep impossible in the electric stillness of the city. At first I found myself going south, to the ugly tangle of bridges, ramps and highways dividing the city from its heart, the beautiful poisoned lake; it felt like I was doing something illegal, a pedestrian on these arteries of whizzing traffic. The sun coming up brought clouds to the water, birds, the horizon a blur. With the first ferries of the day the Islanders came to the city in their strange hats and cloaks, hippy boots and leather pants, hair wild, pulling red wagons to fill with groceries; or some of them indistinguishable from the city dwellers with suits and briefcases, except for the lake reflected in their eyes. They would emerge from dawn fogs, the Islands' low tree lines across the water. How I envied them, to be able to cross water every day! I had never visited the Islands, not in all the time I'd lived in Toronto. I wanted to take the ferry across the water, but whenever I tried a sort of lethargy would come over me, like I was trying to walk through waist-high molasses. I'd move more and more slowly, watching as the gate closed and the ferry began its journey back. I'd watch it go, sitting in the concrete-gated waiting area, a lone woman meeting the ferries every day as if she were waiting for a lover who never got off. I grew to recognize certain morning faces from the boat. When I grew stiff and tired, I'd walk home again.

Sometimes I would head west to the warehouse districts to watch trucks load and unload their arcane burdens, or find some construction team getting an early start. Or north, into dusty green parks with rubbies on benches and dawn baseball games. I grew to love this city, the lightening streets and shadows, the quiet. And to love the people of this twilight time:teenagers and drunks; wild-eyed prophets as high as kites; drone job men and women, quiet faces still puffy from sleep. Overhead the white birds flew in from the lake, bright and pink in sun that hadn't yet touched us on the ground. Or the drizzled dawns, grey softening gradually from black so that shift was hardly noticeable, streetlamps switching off to signal it was day again.

The weather grew hotter, not even cooling at night. Everyone talked of drought, of global warming; the news featured farmers in despair. One hot, dry morning as I climbed the stairs to home, my breath laboured and my head throbbed with every beat of my heart. Blue was up, huddling over a cup of coffee.

“Good morning, dear,” I said, kissing his forehead.

“Tell me the truth.” He paused dramatically, staring at me. “Do you have a mysterious midnight lover?”

“Oh, God.”

“I just don't think it's fair of you to lead this soap-opera-esque existence without telling me. The people have a right to know.”

“I was just out for a walk. I couldn't sleep.”

“Oh, sure. And last night. And the night before. And last week…”

The phone rang. Blue made an impatient noise.

“I'm not home. They can all go to hell.”

I answered the phone with a challenging look at him. “Hello?”

“Oh, hello! You must be Ruby.” The voice was pleasant, pitched high for a man with a cushion of air around it, a sort of stillness. “My name is Gil. Blue's told me so much about you.”

“You do realize what an alarming thing that is to say to a person.”

“All good, I promise. Is his Highness at home?”

“Yeah, he's right here,” and I handed the receiver to a glaring Blue.

“Blue here,” he said shortly, then, “Gil! How are you, honey?” He got up from the breakfast table and flung himself full-length on the couch. “I didn't think you'd be back in town yet. Of
course
I'm ecstatic…”

I shut myself into the bathroom and took an irrelevant piss. After what seemed like an age I let myself back out; Blue was still talking, animated, happy. I went into my room, climbed up onto the bed and pretended to read a book. At last I heard Blue's voice rise in goodbyes, then he called.

“Ruby? Where'd you disappear to?”

“Just reading.” I emerged back into the main space.

“That was Gil! You remember Gil.”

“I've never clapped eyes on him in me life.”

“Yes, you have, he was at my party… the one where you met the bicycle courier, what was his name?”

“Beelzebub, Prince of Darkness,” I said.

Blue happily threw himself back down on the couch. “I'm glad he's back!”

“Are you dating him?”

“On and off for almost nine months. Not very seriously until a little while ago.”

“Ah.” For no good reason I felt hurt.

“He's looking for an apartment.” Blue sat up straight; I could practically see the light bulb going on over his head. “Hey – what would you think if he crashed
here
, while he's looking? Give us a chance to see how deep this thing goes…” He drifted off, frowning.

I started back to my room. “I'll be out of here in a jiffy,” I said, numb with misery.

“
What
?”

“Well, you won't want me kicking around while…”

“Ruby, it would only be for a couple of weeks. And of course you don't have to leave.”

“I'm sure you'll be very happy together.”

“Ruby, it's not… well it
could
be… but at this stage we're hardly…”

“Don't bother. I'm not interested in being part of Blue's collection of broken souls in need of shelter. I don't need a halfway house, thank you very much.”

Blue's eyes opened wide, and his jaw clamped shut. “Oh, for – You make me just furious sometimes, you know that?”

I turned back and faced him with what I hoped was wounded dignity. “You said, ‘Give us a chance to see how deep this thing goes.' That sounds pretty serious to me. Far be it for
me
to get in the way of anyone's happiness. And besides…” Blue tried to interrupt but I raised my voice and spluttered, “…what about the
bath
? Huh? You hadn't thought of
that
, had you?
What about the bath
?”

Blue looked at me for a moment, then burst out laughing.

“Well, I'm just saying… and that's all I have to say,” I muttered. He laughed even harder. I glared at him. “
What
?” Blue rolled off the couch and onto the floor, holding his stomach and howling. I tried to dig a hole in the rug with my toe until at last he subsided.

“Get over here, Ruby Jones,” he gasped, grinning. I wandered to the sofa, Blue still gathering his breath at my feet. He reached up and pulled me into his arms. I went rigid with surprise. But Blue gave me a bear hug and rubbed my back with a large hand. “You are such an adorable idiot,” he said.

We lay there, curved on the floor together.

“I'm sorry,” I said at last. “It's just that… Oh, it's ridiculous.”

“Go on,” he commanded.

“The thought of some guy of yours moving in here… it makes me feel like a third wheel.” I paused, but I could feel Blue grappling with what to say next, so I hurried on. “Except, I
always
feel like a third wheel. Even when there's only two of me.”

“You've lost me.”

“I mean, it's not about you and this Gil guy… even when
I'm
seeing somebody I feel like a third… God, that guy Clyde, he was so typical. A total never-going-to-work kind of thing. On purpose. And then
Jason
goes and says I should travel with him, as if we could – what, I don't – but it's so
impossible
. You know?”

“I'm afraid I don't.”

“Blue,” I said, then stopped. “I just can't see it. I can't see myself in any kind of… you know, a stable… Even thinking about it I get all panicky, like I can't breathe.”

He made a noise down in his throat. “Fear of change.”

“Oh, yeah, how
common
,” I snapped.

“But it is, dearest.”

“How do you know? You ever been married?”

He laughed. “Darling, I practically left a man standing at the altar.”

“Who?”

“You don't know him; this was years ago. Poor Dan. We were going to move in together, and on the day I was supposed to bring my stuff over to his place I just… left town.”

“You
left town
?”

“On the dawn Greyhound. Didn't even say goodbye.”

“That's terrible.”

“I was young.”

“That's no excuse.”

“No.”

“My Dad took off on my parents' wedding day,” I said. “My grandfather had to go find him. He was way far up on the Hill in his rented tux, sitting on the Fairy Rock and smoking.”

“Sitting on the
what
?”

“I don't think my mother ever forgave him.”

“I can imagine,” Blue murmured. “I mean, if just before our nuptials
my
husband-to-be sat on a fairy rock…”

“Oh, shut up. It was just this rock. A magical place, that sort of rock.” I sat up and hugged my knees, looking out the window at the city. “It was round, or rather, the part above ground was round, and grey. Always cold, like it went deep down into the earth. And the roses grew around it in a circle. I used to go there as a kid, I'd play there by myself a lot. It was my favourite place.”

“Sounds beautiful.”

“It was. And I saw her there once…” my words tumbled out before I knew what I was saying.

“Your mother?”

“No.”

“Well, who?”

“My… imaginary friend, I guess you could call her. Shanawdithit, the last of the Beothuk.”

“Ah,” Blue said.

“I saw her there. Once, when I was very little.”

“What did she look like?”

“She was… well, actually she was shorter than I'd thought she'd be. And she was with all these other women. They had red… kerchiefs, maybe, on their heads and they were dancing in a circle around the rock. And she looked at me and gestured to me to come there and dance with them. But I was afraid. And they all disappeared.” Even now I felt sad. “I never saw her again.”