Authors: Linden MacIntyre
Dr. Effie, the advisor, fought the urge to yawn.
Suddenly they all seemed so young. She found herself distracted by the taut clarity of their faces, the sheen of their hair, the fussy carelessness of their dress. Expensive clothing cleverly designed to look fashionably cheap.
It wasn’t the simple self-consciousness of age. She’d been through all that, back just before her fiftieth. That was also, maybe not coincidentally, when she’d come to terms with the hormonal changes. The letting go, she called it. At that point she’d felt something almost like hostility in the way she responded to them, along with the textbook biological resentment, the longing and waves of sadness as she remembered her own stumbling transitions, the youthful struggles she’d endured.
This was different. She now felt sorry for the younger women—a deep compassion. She felt the need to warn them, but she would have had no idea where to start. And even if she did, they wouldn’t listen. The more generous would have heard their mothers in her voice, and the more shallow would have spread the word that Dr. Effie had become a bore.
She knew that it was all about JC. The sudden manifestation of his fragility was a challenge to the image she had nurtured. She knew the image was a product of her needs, but she had considered it sustainable. He’d materialized at precisely the right time in her life, when her sense of personal irrelevance had been
exacerbated by betrayal. Stella Fortune wasn’t all that much younger than she was. Maybe a few years. Maybe more attractive. That wasn’t the point. The brief reconciliation with Sextus had represented a recovery. Of what, she wasn’t sure. But for those months of harmony she’d felt on top of things.
When he’d betrayed her again, she had slipped into the limbo that her nagging inner voice called middle age. A euphemism. In reality she was over the hill and halfway down the other side. And then there was JC, as if out of nowhere. Handsome, funny, youthful, seasoned JC Campbell, an undiscovered treasure from the past, unburdened by whatever baggage he’d accumulated in what had apparently been a hectic journey. Now JC, through no fault of his own, was weakened and suffering. She didn’t have a clue what she could do to help.
“According to
The Book of Leinster
, Queen Maeve needed seven men to satisfy her. Only Fergus could do it for her all by himself,” the student said.
They both laughed.
“What’s become of all the Ferguses?” the fresh-faced younger woman wondered.
What
, Effie thought,
becomes of Maeve and women like her?
Duncan had a small crescent bruise on his cheekbone, just below the eye. She noticed it the minute he came through the door. First he lied, said he’d slipped in snow, bumped his head on a parking meter.
“Those parking meters—you gotta keep an eye on them,” JC said.
“That’s what I did,” Duncan said. “That’s why the eye is black. I had my eye on a parking meter.”
JC clucked his tongue. “Good thing the parking meter was wearing mittens.”
“What do you mean?”
Gingerly, he brushed at Duncan’s cheekbone. “A little hash mark here. Looks like it’s from a knitted mitten.”
Duncan blushed, went to a hallway mirror to look at his face. “You’re observant,” he said. “Actually, it was some big guy, just off the reserve. Took a poke at me. He was wearing homemade mitts, and they were wet from crawling around in the snow.”
He touched the eye cautiously. Laughed.
“So what really happened?” Effie asked.
“We had a little rassle. Then the cops came and tried to make a big deal out of it. Wanted to charge the guy. ‘Charge him with what?’ I asked. ‘Unless you want to charge him with pissing on me.’ And it was true. When he was on top of me, he pissed his pants. The cops thought that was a scream and let the poor fellow go. Said I was lucky. Said the last time they tried taking someone out of the shelter, the guy shat himself, then threw up in the back of the cop car. They said I got off easy.”
“Christ,” Effie said. “I can’t imagine you in that place. At the very least, you should wear the collar, let them know—”
“You think they’d respect the collar?” Duncan was smiling. “Half of them blame their shit on people like me, men in collars.”
“Give me a frigging break,” Effie said.
“Actually, I’m considering moving in.”
“Into what?” Effie asked. “The shelter?”
“The board thinks it would be a good idea. I’d be a stabilizing influence.”
“You’re out of your mind,” Effie said. “I mean, if you’re stuck for a place to live …”
Duncan stared at her, but the look was gentle. “Blessed are they that hunger and thirst after justice—”
“Blessed are the peacemakers,” JC interrupted.
“Where does it say anything about getting hit and shat and pissed on for trying to make peace?” Effie said.
“Let me get you something to drink,” JC said, standing.
Later, JC seasoned steaks for the broiler. There were stories about the early days. Effie knew them all.
“So Big Danny MacKay says out of the blue, ‘Why don’t you take your separatism and shove it up your arse,’ ” JC recounted. “And the guy from Quebec says, ‘You got a lot of mout’ on you,’ and Danny says, ‘And I got a lot to back it up with too.’ And the war was on.”
JC was laughing, and it sounded like music to Effie. “I think it was in ’71 or ’72. I remember Danny and me crawling on our hands and knees out a side door as the cops were coming in the front. Laughing our asses off.”
He was leaning back against the counter, face flushed, eyes shining. Liveliest he’d been since Christmas, Effie thought.
“I don’t know if you were ever at the place,” he said to Duncan.
“Maybe on a visit,” Duncan said.
“That joint near where Roncesvalles intersects with Dundas. What was it, Effie?”
“The Rondun,” Effie said.
“Yes, yes. The old Rondun. We used to hang out there, me and Sextus, when we were at the
Sun
, after the
Tely
died. It was a great place for picking up the gossip from the big construction sites. We got a tip there once that the ironworkers were going to stop the pour for the CN Tower. You imagine.” He was shaking his head. “Sixteen hundred guys pouring 50,000 cubic yards of concrete.
Nonstop, it had to be, and there’s this table full of ironworkers at the Rondun pounding back the beer and planning to abort it. You must remember, Effie. The fight I had with Sextus over that? It was in your living room. He was all for running with the story. I told him they were making us a part of the blackmail against the bosses. I was on the desk. We never ran it. Sextus was savage.”
“Sextus went back, I guess,” said Duncan. “When did he go, Effie?”
“He left last night,” Effie said.
“None too happy about the new son-in-law, I gather,” JC said.
Duncan raised an eyebrow.
“Aha,” JC said. “You haven’t heard about Ray.”
“Let’s leave it for Cassie,” Effie said, more sharply than she intended. “Let her make the introductions.”
“But you’ve met him?” Duncan asked.
“Yes,” she said.
“Sounds like he’s going to fit right in,” JC said. “The demographics are perfect.”
“Enough,” said Effie, as the phone rang.
“Leave it,” JC said.
They could hear the answering machine cut in. “It’s Sandra. I’m not sure where you are. But it’s Tuesday night, and if you get this, please call me back as soon as you can. It’s kind of important.”
“You’d better call her,” Effie said.
“I don’t want to talk to her just now,” JC said.
“Who’s Sandra?” Duncan asked.
“A lawyer,” JC said. “For that guy in Texas.”
Dinner was more reminiscence. Who was in the city when they built the subway, TD Centre, CN Tower. Who worked where. A
pointless argument of surprising intensity about what year Big Danny MacKay moved back home; how often he came back again to work. And how was Danny, anyway? In a wheelchair now, with the MS. Sun rises and sets on Danny Ban. They laughed about exploits that were once considered life-deforming but were now understood to have been an essential part of growing up, part of leaving innocence behind, becoming hardened for the hard times coming.
“You’ve got to get in touch,” JC said. “When we saw him last summer, Effie and I, when we were down there, you could tell. Time is running out for old Danny Bad.”
The cat wandered into the kitchen. Duncan picked him up. “This would be the culprit,” he said. “The New Year’s Eve fugitive.”
JC smiled. “Time is running out for a lot of people. Right?”
Duncan shrugged, caught Effie’s eye, then looked away. Stroked the cat.
Over brandy, after the dishes were cleared away, Duncan said, “The guy in Texas—where is death row, exactly?”
“It’s about a twenty-minute drive from Huntsville. A godawful place. In December they had a plastic Santa in the yard, just outside the visiting centre. And plastic fucking reindeer.”
There was a silence that felt long.
“I saw the story you guys did before Christmas,” Duncan said. “You’re pretty convinced that he’s innocent.”
“I don’t know,” said JC. “He says he’s been found guilty by the people of Texas. Whether he did it or not is beside the point. That’s the way the system works.”
“I understand what he’s saying,” Duncan said.
“You do?”
Duncan looked at his watch. “It’s getting late.”
“Here’s my problem,” JC said. “I don’t know what he wants from me. Certainly not sympathy. I’d have a hard time sympathizing, anyway. Society reserves the right to weed out evildoers.”
“Evil?”
“You know what I mean. People who reveal a real capacity for doing evil things.”
Duncan stood and stretched, reached down, mussed the top of JC’s head. “In that case, I can think of a lot of people who should have been put down—real early.”
“Name one.”
“My father.”
He turned to his sister, who was gaping at him. “
De do bharail, a’ghraidh?
Huh? What do
you
think, Effie girl?”
“I’ll get your coat,” she said.
At the door she told him, “I’m not sure which of you is harder on the nerves.”
On the phone with her mother, Cassie tried to play her father’s outrage for its hypocrisy. “How old did you say his girlfriend is?”
Effie laughed. “Age is just a number. I don’t have to tell you that.”
“Well, I wish he’d thought of that before he sounded off at me.”
“What did he say?”
“That I was throwing my life away. Can you believe it? Some line from black-and-white TV. I almost laughed in his face.”
“He’ll get over it.”
“Who fucking cares.”
“Clearly you do.”
“I don’t think he’s my father, anyway. We have absolutely nothing in common.”
“Now you’re out of line, girl.”
“Really? You’ve done the DNA?”
“I’m not going to listen to this. Call me when you aren’t hysterical.”
She hung up.
Friday morning Effie decided to go back to her own apartment. She told JC at breakfast. He lowered the newspaper, studied her for a moment.
“Okay,” he said.
“So I’ll head there after class. You’ll be okay?”
“I’ll be fine,” he said. Then smiled awkwardly. “Last night …?”
“Don’t worry about it,” she said.
He shrugged. “An excellent reason to go home.”
“This is exactly the discussion I don’t want to have.”
“Well, if there’s something that should be discussed …”
“There’s nothing to discuss. Unless you want to exorcise some dark masculine hobgoblin about virility, in which case I’m the wrong person to talk to.”
“I recall we’ve talked quite a bit about your hobgoblins when you were going through the change …”
“That was different. That was clinical. This is your imagination playing games.”
“We’ll see.”
He went back to the newspaper.
“By the way,” he said before she left. “I talked to Sandra last night. They’ve set an execution date.”
“What are you supposed to do about it?”
“He wants to see me.”
Texas
, she thought.
He has Texas on his mind
. The night before, she’d finally had to put an end to his hopeless struggle. “Just hold me,” she said at last. “Just put your arms around me and relax. We need some sleep.”
But he turned angrily away.
She understood the anger. She knew all about the insecurity, the pride. But to tell him that she understood would only have complicated an already stressful moment by bringing strangers into it. Bad idea to remind him at this point that she had seen his personal dilemma manifest before in vulnerable men. A handful, really, but enough to understand the phenomenon when it arose (or, more to the point, didn’t).
She was smiling when she turned to check out a sporty-looking car that pulled alongside her at a red light. The young driver smiled back at her, raised his hand, a casual salute. She turned away, but her smile remained. She checked her makeup in the rear-view mirror.
In any event, it was the call from Sandra and the doomed man in Texas that were on his mind. It all made sense. The lapse was temporary. The tenderness would not be gone for long. It defined him, and it always had, even many years before. When you’re young and strong and permanent, evidence of sensitivity can easily be misunderstood.
She remembered him sitting at a kitchen table somewhere long ago. Suddenly he blurted, “I sure do hope the man in there appreciates what he has going for him.”
Sextus was asleep on a couch in the next room. JC had helped her wash and dry and store the dishes. He was sipping a beer, and there was smoky music from a radio. His hand, she realized, was gently on hers, palm down across her knuckles. She was
shocked by the comment. She’d never thought of him as feeling anything. Even when he brawled, there was no sign of malice or even anger.
“You don’t wear a ring,” he said.
“We’re not officially married yet,” she said. “I was once, but …”
And she realized it was all too complicated and he probably didn’t care, and it was none of his business, anyway. She removed her hand and held it up for examination. She imagined she could still see the faint impression her wedding ring had made in the two years she had worn it.