For Sure (56 page)

Shawn took the time to think about it. I could see he wasn't completely hardened.

“In a way, I always knowed it. I always felt it. Only I didn't know wot to do wid it, did I. So, I only pushed it deeper inside meself.”

“An' do you feel you know more what to do with it now?”

He started to answer, but then seemed to come up against something, and tried again:

“Sometimes.”

“Is there no one here that can help with that sort of thing?”

The minute that passed then seemed to go on forever. As in the previous question, something seemed to be blocking him from thinking or speaking. The muscles in his jaw contracted and I thought I saw the whites of his eyes turn red. He pretended to be distracted by something, turned his head, but it didn't help; his inner struggle continued. I was helpless, afraid he'd break. At the other end of the room, the guard was busy studying a spot he was scratching on his forearm. To my relief, Shawn seemed to calm down. He simply said:

“Help don't always come from where you tinks it will.”

In the convenience store adjoining the gas station, Étienne spotted a strawberry keychain he absolutely wanted to buy as a present for his father.

Zed felt it was his duty to warn Terry:

“Well, sooner or later youse are gonna 'ave to tell 'er. . .”

“Don't I know it.”

Terry did not want to think about this eventuality. And yet, the longer he waited, the more he feared Carmen's reaction at having been kept in the dark.

“I tawt I might fix tings a wee bit on de sly like, widout her noticin'. 'Tisn't as doh she's checkin' up on everytin'. I's more de one dat takes care o' de family finances. She does de bar.”

At the same time, Zed didn't want to be too hard on his friend:

“Well, could be a nice surprise. Der's more'n one way to look at it.”

“Dat's wot I was tinkin' too, at de start, dat 'twould be a right nice surprise. Only, like you say, unfortunately, der's more'n one way to look at it.”

. . .

“Anyhow, you keep mum. OK?”

Josse hasn't the least hesitation about breaking an electronic chain letter.

And then, because one confidence deserves another:

“You know, Élizabeth, she's a right fine person. Only I don't tink it'll last, de two of us.”

“Awh, no?”

“No, can't explain why exactly. 'Tis more like a feeling.”

. . .

“Der's nuttin' wrong really. An' I don't tink 'tis on account of 'er bein' older dan me an' all dat. 'Twouldn't be on account of dat, I don't tink.”

“Der's just sometin' missin' . . .”

“Dat's it. Der's sometin' missin'.”

Terry held his tongue, sensing that Zed still had something he wanted to say.

“Anyhow, I tinks she feels it as well. I suppose we ought to be talkin' 'bout it.”

. . .

. . .

“Might be dat wid Chico, now . . .”

Zed had expected the addition of Chico in their lives would perhaps change something for Élizabeth and him, but Terry's way of putting it cast a different light on the matter.”

“Fer sure, dat changes tings . . .”

Deep in thought, Zed did not go further. Terry thought to conclude by lightening things up a bit:

“Could be you wants Chico all fer yerself!”

“Could be!”

The idea made the two friends laugh, but Zed added:

“I's laughin' only 'tis de God's troot' all de same. It's as doh I needs Chico to feel der's somebody — one person — dat's der just fer 'im, an' dat person's meself. Only me, an' all o' me. So, in a way, yes, I wants 'im all fer meself.”

Without realizing it, Terry had hit the mark.

“Might not be like dat fer all time, but has to be like dat fer a while anyhow. Chico an' me, we gotta find ourselves, gotta build a life fer ourselves. We gotta gel.”

. . .

“So, deep down, could be I doesn't want Élizabeth to be der as much as all dat. An' not only dat, I don't tink she is der really. Not dat she shows it. Not a bit. Like I says, 'tis more just a feeling I's got.”

Glancing in the rear-view mirror, Terry could see the two boys were fast asleep. Étienne's hands had relaxed, but they still lay open with both palms turned up.

“Does all dat make any sense at all?”

“Makes sense to me.”

True or false: Louis Aragon met his muse Elsa Friolet in Caraquet in 1928.

Before disappearing through the door he'd come in, Shawn turned to me and said:

“Der's a fellow comes in to see me time to time. Ee tinks ee's helpin' me out. Ee talks an' I listens. You ask me, ee needs more help dan I does.”

That shook me. We weren't alone in the room. Was he allowed to shout like that? The guard didn't seem to mind. Shawn added:

“Write dat.”

The long saga of human languages provides a terrain rich in matters for reflection. In Sudan, for example, approximately 100,000 people* speak 1 or the other of 30 languages belonging to the small Nigero-kordofanian family. Which amounts to an average of 3,300 speakers per language. Do these people have the feeling that their ethnic group will disappear? Are they worried about it?

“
'Ow come
den dat Marianne's never gotta be apologizin'?”

“We don't say
how come
. We say
pourquoi.
”

“
Pourquoi
, den?”

“On account of she's too young, isn't she. She doesn't understand how apologizin' works yet.”

Seeing that Étienne did not look satisfied, Carmen added:

“An' on account of yer older, there's tings that Marianne'll be learnin' from you. That's why 'tis important you set a good example.”

“Only, I doesn't want to give me good example to Marianne.”

“An' why not, pray tell?”

“On account of she takes everytin' apart. Every time I give her sometin' she only takes it apart.”

Carmen felt like laughing, but restrained herself.

“A good example's not something a person can take apart. 'Tis only sometin' you see and hear, an' seein' an' hearin' it often enough, you starts to figure that's the way to behave.”

Étienne knew you weren't supposed to burp after drinking pop.

“Bein' de elder has its advantages as well. You can drink ginger ale, but Marianne's too young. She can only drink juice.”

Carmen had been clearing the table as she spoke.

“Mum! You took me plate, only I weren't done eatin'!”

As a matter of fact, Carmen had assumed Étienne would not finish his macaroni and cheese.

“Oops!”

Carmen put back Étienne's plate:

“'Ere ya go, me big boy. I apologize.”

Étienne speared a forkfull of macaronis, ate them in silence, and then concluded:

“Alright den, Mum, I'll set de good example as well.”

Belated discovery: the character of Élizabeth is in fact an interpretation, an unconscious representation of another character: Lydia Towarski in Romain Gary's novel
Clair de femme
(
The Light of a Woman
). To be honest, Élizabeth and Alida, another character in
Real Life
, are both sketches of Lydia Towarski. One might deduce from this that a part of Lydia Towarski lives on in Catherine. Catherine?

no one on the beach
so many folks in me head
wash dem in water

No matter how long and loud Chico shouted, Étienne did not turn around. Finally, Chico went to him at the far end of the yard.

“Yer deef as a cod!”

?

“Are ya pickin' up recyclables today?”

“OK.”

Chico and Étienne never had any trouble finding recyclable drink containers in the neighbourhood, especially on the grounds of the English school next to their building. Zed had found them a small wagon for collecting.

“Wot're ya gonna do wid yer money, den?”

“Don't know. I'm savin' it.”

“I's gonna buy a dustpan fer me granny's birt'day. 'Er's is old an' banged up.”

Étienne liked the fact that Chico took care of his grandmother.

“I can help you pay fer it, if you like.”

“Naw, I can pay fer it on me own.”

. . .

. . .

“Do you buy tings fer Shawn sometimes?”

Chico shrugged.

“Ee only wants a card when his birt'day comes round.”

“Awh.”

“Last year, I slipped a pack o' gum inside de card.”

The next day, to get a bit of perspective, I drove from Shediac along the coast to Pointe-Sapin. I stopped for an ice cream at the Cap-de-Cocagne pier, and then on for a breath of sea air and creosote on the pier at Côte Sainte-Anne, just to make sure the trip took about as long as I'd imagined.

“Wot do you call it when a person's afraid of sometin' dat affects dem directly? Like a girl dat loves skiing crosscountry, only she won't swim in a lake if can't see across. Or de lass dat wins de Stella Artois brewer's competition, an' she's right proud to be off to de national finals, only she's dead afeard of de draft in airplanes. Is der a word fer dat, den?”

One should let a good rumour spread, because it refreshes, lightens, gives reality a bit of a push.

“You don't know 'ow to play squares?!”

Neither Étienne nor Marianne knew what their mother was talking about.

“Well den, me children, I'm gonna show you right 'ere an' now!”

Carmen disappeared for a moment, returning with a pink chalk. She lifted the living room carpet as though it were no heavier than a dishcloth, dropped it along the edge of the wall, and began drawing long lines on the floor. Étienne and Marianne stood watching her.

“Étienne, don't you 'ave some bits o' broken seashells in your things?”

“Yes . . .”

“Well, go an' fetch them, we're gonna need 'em.”

But Étienne did not move. He was unable to tear his gaze from the hopscotch that Carmen was blithely chalking on the living room floor. Did this mean that drawings of any kind would be allowed?

“You don't want to?”

Yes, Étienne wanted to, but . . .

“When I'm done, I'll tell ya wot numbers to write inside de squares.”

Étienne ran to his room to get his bottle of seashell fragments whose edges had been softened by the sea.

When she really had nothing to do, a young poet working at the Babar liked to scan the completed crosswords in search of evocative word phrases along the rows of the puzzle. For example, heads-shreds, shroud-earth, wandering-­ps, torque-clash. She even found revery-use-ere and ere-use-year. Should she conclude that dream-use-year?

“So den, you tink 'tis really wort'while?”

“Well, you gotta know wot yer doin' . . .”

“Is it sometin' you could be showin' me how?”

“Matter o' fact, I was tinkin' just dat. We could go in togedder, if you had a mind to. I was gonna mention it, only I's waitin' to be more sure o' meself first.”

Zed agreed, adding for Terry's benefit:

“An' dat way 'twould be less of a surprise fer Carmen. She's used to me gettin' you into all kinds o' crazy schemes.”

“Exactly!”

On the subject of yellow, it can connote wealth or disease: yellow gold, yellow fever; games of skill or games of chance: yellow jersey, yellow dwarf; the abstract or the concrete: yellow streak, yellow flowers; human groups or groups of humans: yellow race, yellow union; the banal or the sublime: yellow pages, Van Gogh's yellow.

“Mum, can I be havin' some Smarties?”

“No, not this time.”

“I's hungry.”

“We'll be havin' supper in a bit.”

“I want Smarties . . .”

“Look out, now. Let me by so's I can empty the cart.”

. . .

“'Ere now, would you like to give me a hand?”

. . .

“Don't be grabbin' the bag any which way, the peas'll fall out!”

. . .

“Never mind den, it'll go a whole lot faster if I do it meself.”

. . .

“How about an apple?”

“Naw.”

“Der's bananas. Wouldn't you care fer a banana?”

“I want Smarties.”

. . .

. . .

“
Thirty-seven sixty-four. The young feller's tired I believe.
”

“Yes, and his Mum's just about had it as well.
”

“Wot did she say?”

“
He looks so sweet.
”

“
Yes, but he's been so stubborn today I'd gladly give him away!
”

“Wot did she say?”

“
Thanks but no thanks, I've got my own…
”