Part 22 (1/2)

Maisie: He'll be worried for me.

Why.

Oh, that I'll drink too much and lose control and someone might take advantage of me, I mean it's ridiculous.

You left him. It's all about power.

Maisie: Yet he's glad to be with his prize student. He's delighted about her being pregnant. He just can't get used to me being with other men.

Me: That's common. I have that. It's having to let go. Maisie: Yeah, men are great. But sometimes they try to be controlling and it just doesnt work.

4 I arrive late for badminton and Lydia is there and I have to play on her court. It's hard to watch her have fun. I'm glad to be free of her, but I dont want her happy.

I leave early because I dont want to be ignored any longer in front of others. Lydia took offence because I suggested that when she's pa.s.sing the birdie to us, she lob it with an underhand shot instead of her inaccurate overhand. I know that the overhand tends to smash the birdie and, coupled with its inaccuracy, is jarring. But Lydia found this irritating and chose to ignore it.

Lydia has to run an errand, so I go to the s.h.i.+p. I buy a round. Maisie confesses things have been bad with Oliver. He's not good about their daughter. Essentially, he wants to have the baby, have his student, and get back together with Maisie, and he resents that she's not interested.

In the past, she says, Oliver has often thought of breaking up with me. But then wanted me again. I spelled out his wish list and he very soberly agreed with me. Girlfriend on the side. I had to explain to him that I'm better off without him.

Me: I think we're all better off alone.

Maisie: I think women are better off than men.

I think men are starting to catch up.

Maisie: It's as if everyone has had enough of the one theyre with.

Lydia enters the s.h.i.+p and walks to the bar to use the phone. She is calling someone. She is the kind who guesses at a number. She often gets a wrong number but this is part of her push into the world. I miss it. She doesnt mind saying, Oh, sorry. She is lavish with apologies. I try to limit mine. It's true I'm mean with my apologies.

I have to stop watching Lydia.

5 There's a bonfire in the field below me. A gang of boys feeds branches of the dead pine into a bed of molten rubber tires. Some steel-belted radials are burnt so that a mesh skeleton of tires remains, standing amid the inferno like some macabre effigy. At ten they run out of fuel and begin hauling pickets off the fences. Off my fence. A fire truck wobbles into a lane, and fat hoses are dragged up to the fire. The kids are swearing at the firemen. Cinders are landing on s.h.i.+ngled roofs.

6 Now that it's definitely November you can see through veils of dying shrubs. The world is going bald. Hedges you can see through. You can stare into a house. There are no secrets. With the trees bare you see the whole city sitting on the hill in its underwear. The striptease of the city is complete. Honesty reigns and the honest picture is barren and mean.

The gra.s.s melting through snow. Gra.s.s still green. Sedum still erect and burgundy.

7 Maisie says there are five things she needs in a man: sense of humour, emotionally stable, treats me like a queen, a good listener, intelligent.

I tell Maisie I think she is beautiful and can't understand why there are no men. She says she knows of men, but theyre all taken. St John's has a dearth of good men. Daphne found one.

Me: What about Earl Quigley?

Maisie: He's set in his ways. As you get older your standards get higher.

I said there were things I needed from Lydia that I never got, so I ended it.

Maisie: Dont settle for less than you want. Better to die alone searching than settling.

Max is not so sure.

Maisie: Dont ever compromise for the sake of a man. That's my motto.

8 Max has come into money. His father's will has been settled and there's a ma.s.sive windfall. At first I'm a little stiff. Then Max says, I'm egocentric because I was the only son Mom gave me love I thought Dad should receive. And Dad, it would have been embarra.s.sing for both of us if we'd verbally expressed our love. But I know he loved me.

We are in the s.h.i.+p guzzling our pints, raising one for old Noel Wareham. And what to do with the money.

He says he'd like to give Maisie some and Lydia. And put away a pile for Eli and Daphne.

It has to be anonymous, I say.

Otherwise it'll change how they are to me?

Just dump a bundle in their mailboxes.

Would you be jealous if I gave Lydia some?

I think it would be a beautiful gesture. Let her make a movie on it. Offer a proviso.

Yeah, I'll be executive producer. The interest, he says, on a half million is twenty thousand a year.

Max is drinking pints of Smithwicks. I'm on black and tan. He feels the money is a weight. And having to settle his father's affairs. The house in Arnold's Cove. He had antiques. There was a key to a safety deposit box. There was nothing Max wanted except the boat.

Max: I didnt even want to go to the funeral.

9 Maisie stops in her car and I get in. Just to drive around. I open her glovebox and it's full of fall leaves.

Maisie: I filled that a few weeks ago. I want to have it there this winter. So whenever I get sick of the sleet, I'll just open up the glovebox and stare.

She says Oliver left a message on her machine last night. He was disappointed she wasnt in.

Maisie: It wasnt obvious that he was being polite.

I have an ache of sadness in my ribs, where they cleave. As if an axe has split me partially in two.

10 Walking up Carter's Hill: two girls and a boy singing, London Bridge is falling down, my fair lady-o . . .

And then, Take the keys and lock her up . . .

And I remember I've never had a key to Lydia's place. Even when it's the boy's turn to get caught in the collapsing steeple of the girls' arms, they sing: Lock her up.

A man opens a door for a woman and calls her darling and she calls him dearie. She says the word weathervane and the door closes. Tenderness.

11 I meet Wilf Jardine down on Water Street. He is on his way to the welfare office. The fridge is looking empty. No shame in him at all, it's a joke to Wilf. I know he uses jet fuel in his kerosene heater. His buddy at the airport gets him the fuel. He makes ninety-proof alcohol from a still, the charcoal takes away the impurities. He doesn't buy booze or heat. All he needs is food.

12 Tonight after racquetball, in the sauna, I ask Max if Alex Fleming is seeing anyone.

Isnt she seeing Craig Regular?

That's old, Max.