This All Happened(9)

            Cyril: There used to be no grouse out here. Now the woods is thick with em. Theyre easier to pick than turre. With turre you got to dip em in boiling water first.

            There is a big hook in the ceiling that I ask about. Doreen laughs. Cyril has a sore back, she says, from working in the woods. It’s all right in the summer, it’s in the winter it acts up. So he put a screw in the ceiling beam with a rope through tied to his waist. He hoists himself off the floor with the rope. He won’t go see a doctor.

            Doreen hands me a fresh loaf as I leave. The snow just wisping over the ground. The loaf is warm in my hand.

            21 I tie on my snowshoes and venture into the woods. Tinker wades in a few feet, then sits down. I do love solitude. I am a simple man when it comes to being satisfied by the natural world. The sun poking through in patches, lighting up a knoll here, a dip there. Tinker begins to bawl when he’s had enough. I can still see the roof of the house.

            A man at the store says, I’ll give you twenty dollars for that dog.

            You want my dog?

            Sure, he looks like he got one more winter in him. He’s full of bird dog.

            Tinker wags and smells the man’s hand.

            He’s not my dog, I say. I dont want to explain the absence of Lydia, so I leave it at that.

            I’ve got the woodstove vent opened wide, but still I’m cold. Didnt write at all today. I forced myself to read fifty pages of Proust. Maisie and Oliver have great books. But there’s no hot water. My hair is greasy. I sweep the floor and visit the Heart’s Content grocery. Lydia comes tomorrow. I will hear her catalytic converter.

            22 When I opened the door we were shy. We were relieved that Tinker Bumbo was a diversion, but we were awkward together. Twelve days apart and all that we’ve formed together has burned off, grease on a stove element. We are two individuals again. We do not act in concert. We are not convinced by the prospect of living as a couple. We were brought together by Maisie, and we still feel unnatural. It wasnt our idea to be together but someone else’s, and both of us resent that intrusion into domestic affairs. Lydia circles me like an animal, inspecting. And I feel judged.

            But I’ve been told that I have a critical eye. Some people mistake my gaze for judgement. When all I’m doing is looking into your eye. I have an open eye, I admit. This can unnerve some people. Make them uneasy. But it’s their insecurity that is exposed. However, I admire the skill Max has for making a person feel comfortable. Max lives in his skin, completely, whereas I float within my body. Not quite filling my frame.

            And right now, with Lydia in the kitchen, adding to the fridge with some city groceries, I’m dreading having to make conversation. We’ve been together eighteen months, and still I have this black, boggy fear creeping into my joints.

            Nice fridge, she says.

            She has a blemished finery about her. Her good looks only heightened by the small scars incurred from reckless behaviour, when she has hit the corner of a kitchen cabinet or smacked into a cement wall.

            23 Josh and Toby are impressed with Lydia. That she’s been on television and she owns Tinker. She makes them cookies. I explain our system to Lydia. I unfold the laptop and they begin. There’s Rosy Langer with four youngsters and they havent got the same father, and Fail Burden they got a song made up about him about a cigarette or a power saw, and France Clarke lives in a small house, not bad but not very big. About the same size as this one.

            They look around.

            Same size. France he’s after losing a nice bit of weight. He has a car brought up solid on a rock and he got out and the car rised up about three foot. Next is Leonard, he wears pork chop grease to keep his hair down and puts his cap on squish. Then there’s Pat Whelan, who got a glass eye.