Me: What did you say to him?
Max: Nothing. It’s a musk I give off.
Me: If Oliver wasn’t drinking he could level you.
Yeah, but he’s always drinking. I was sticking up for Maisie and he went aboard me.
Were you obnoxious?
Max: I said to him, Oliver, you can’t say you didnt try.
I order a pint. What you have to realize about Oliver, I say, is that he’s sensitive. If you challenge him on what he knows he gets defensive.
Sensitive people, Max says, are the most insensitive of people. They are sensitive only to what hurts them.
3 The phone rings, and I get out of bed to answer. It’s Alex Fleming.
Gabe? I thought I was calling Max. But you’ll do. What do you know of Craig Regular?
He’s thirty-eight, I say. He went to school with Earl Quigley. He’s a software analyst. He owns a house in the Battery
I mean, what do you think of him?
I think of a mean thing. Lydia says he’s not that funny.
Alex: Yeah, he lacks a sense of humour. But he wants to see me.
I really can’t advise you, Alex.
Would you miss me if I started seeing him?
That would just make it all more interesting.
Craig has invited Alex to take a ferry along the south coast. White beaches and cliffs. And he thinks they should go as a team on the Exploits canoe trip.
Good for you, Alex.
In bed, Lydia sleepily: You were on that phone too long. But later she curls into me, wanting me close. She will have no recollection of saying this.
4 Why the interest in Craig Regular? Lydia: He’s new. In this town, everybody knows everyone else even if you havent met them. That explains Craig Regular.
It’s true. I’ve never said more than five words to Craig, but I know all about him. He drinks Guinness. He doesnt smoke. Max said he has donated sperm to a lesbian friend who wanted a child, and Lydia says Earl told her there was some rumour Craig may have had a terminal illness and that’s why he went West and has been gone for six years and came back and dropped ten pounds and bought a place in the Battery.
Lydia: People suspect he’s inherited some money. He likes to go on bird counts and is a vegetarian as well as Buddhist and I saw him once at a string quartet concert and I’ve also seen him at a film festival in Toronto and once, at Christmas, we passed on Gower Street late at night and we stopped and kissed without saying a word. That was after I broke up with Earl. Craig has a little cabin on the Salmonier Line and he used to design the student newspaper and Earl says in school he was a good goalie.
Fact: I know everyone in this town even if I havent met them and they know everything about me, which is frustrating. So when someone new comes to town, or someone returns, like Craig Regular, everyone lurches towards him, especially the women, because it’s such a relief to meet someone you dont already know.
5 How does a fight begin? It begins because of our contrary natures. It begins when Lydia arrives and says how things could be improved at the house I share with Iris. That the kitchen is poorly laid out, that we should move the shoes and jackets, that the red carpet collects dust, rip it up, that I should do something with the basement stairs.
All these things are valid, but I’d prefer her to say, Look at the forsythia. Or, I saw something interesting today. Instead, she says, Talk to me. She demands to be told something. And so I’m mechanical. The phone rings and it’s for her, so I go upstairs. Then she starts in. That I left a communal atmosphere, that it’s up to me to return rather than for her to go upstairs. She leaves and does not tell me she’s leaving, so I hit the sack.