Really Cute People
Markus Harwood-Jones
For Andrew, Hannah and River.
Contents
Prologue
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
Chapter Twenty-Four
Epilogue
Author’s Note
Acknowledgements
Prologue
Theviewfromupheresucksanyway. That’s what I tell myself, while glaring at the brick wall that encapsulates my second-story-window view. Even on sky blue days, I rely on a sunrise lamp to get the minimum human requirement of vitamin D. Ishouldpackthelamp next,I make a mental note. Thenewplacehasgoodlightbutwho knowshowlongthat’lllast.
Crouched amidst piles of well-worn boots, vintage T-shirts, handme-down flannels, I’ve got a system going. And by system, I mean I’ve got four extra-large trash bags, their dark maws hanging open, ready to gobble up all that remains from the last four years of my life. I’ve only got a couple hours before Mako gets here with their mom’s minivan. Then we’ll load it up and drive away from the only place that’s ever really felt like my home.
One bag is marked with a strip of white tape: Charlie’sCrap—TO KEEP. It’s the only one I plan to take to the new apartment. The rest, I’ll donate. And by donate, I mean that they’ll sit in the back of my car for the next few weeks. Every once in a while, I’ll open up the trunk and remember Ireallyshoulddealwithallthatbefore slamming the lid and letting them vanish from existence again. One day, on a whim, I’ll get fed up and drag the bags inside my new apartment, dump them on the floor, sort through them all again and post a few of the nicer pieces onto social media in hopes of orchestrating a clothing-swap. If that doesn’t work, I’ll try to pawn them off as gifts to my friends.
Whatfriends?asks a voice in the back of my mind. I make a point to ignore it and turn up the volume on my portable speaker. Sure, the music cracks when the bassline kicks in, but it’s better than listening to my own intrusive thoughts. Now, where was I? Right, sorting out my clothes and, by extension, the sad remnants of my old life. I probably shouldn’t have left this to the last minute. That seems to be a theme for me right now. Running on fumes, playing chicken with
myself. It’s easy to pretend that a dumpster fire will just run itself out. That is, until the sparks start flying. Then it’s too late to do anything but stop, drop and roll away.
From beneath a wad of leggings and jeans, I find a pair of toosmall pleather pants. Mei let me borrow them last fall, for a dance party at the local queer bar/café/plant store. I remember that night: there was a special on Slippery Nipples and I got so hammered in the first half hour, I had to come home and sleep on the bathroom floor. I guess after all that, I never got around to giving her pants back. I set them aside, next to the scratchy wool sweater that Mars stole for me, pilfered from the closet of a mutual ex. He knew I always coveted its giant pockets and extra-long sleeves. After a little more digging, I add a pair of lumpy slippers to the growing pile. Johanna knitted all of us matching sets during our first winter solstice together, when the power went out and our toes were close to freezing. Stopping to admire all these little pieces of nostalgia, I realize I’ve almost got a complete outfit on my hands. Gaudy and bizarre, yet functional. Sounds about right for Hillside House. A collective of Craigslistroommates-turned-found-family, all our mismatched parts are what make us work so well.
Made.The voice reminds me. Whatmade uswork.Sure, we had a good thing going for a while, but that’s all over now.
Scooping up the random assortment of bottoms and tops, I shove them all into the closest trash bag and tie it up tight. Down the street, there’s a charity bin, nestled between the worst convenience store in the block and the best five-dollar pizza place in town. I’ll get Mako to make a pit stop there, on our way out of the neighbourhood. It’ll be easier that way, letting it all go at once. There’s no point in lugging around bits and pieces of a broken dream.
The eviction notice had sat on our fridge for weeks. Like the garlic scapes going bad in our broken crisper, I think we were all waiting for someone else to take responsibility for the issue. Maybe we should have put on the chore wheel: cleantoilet,takeouttrash,dealwith landlordbullshit. On my end, I guess I had started to treat it like the mold between the bathroom tiles or that one bad step on the stairs.
It was a problem, sure, but just one among many. We could learn to walk around it. Until we couldn’t anymore.
Threeweeks,fourdays,and—I check the time on my phone—five hours.That’s how long it’s been since our last house meeting. Our final house meeting, it turned out. I’ve still got the meeting minutes on my phone. Normally I’d give them a once-over and email the rest of the group, highlighting any extra chores or special events coming up. I’m not sure who I’m saving these ones for, though. Certainly not myself.
Mako was the one to bring it up. That’s a talent they’ve got, saying what everyone else is thinking. After our standard go-around—name, pronoun, if-your-mood-was-weather-what-weather-would-it-be— conversation turned to house chores, projects, upcoming events. All fell silent when Mako placed the letter, face-up, on our tea-stained coffee table.
“Do you really think we can beat this?”
It was the kind of question that contains its own, unspoken answer. We could debate all we liked, weigh out the pros and cons, call the Landlord Tenant Board again, maybe even set up a sit-in in our living room. At the end of the month, though, all would remain the same. Our landlord claimed he was moving in, so we’d have to be moving out. A single guy with no kids, taking over a four-bedroom apartment? It was so blatant, we could almost laugh about it. Almost. It was obvious what he really was up to; by claiming an Owner Occupancy Eviction (thank you, Mars, for looking up the proper term), he could legally kick us to the curb. Then in a few months, he’d relist the unit for double (let’s be real, triple) the old price. We’d all seen friends go through the same thing. Those that chose to stay and fight? Well, they’d had limited success.
I swear I used to have more books. Stacking paperbacks on top of hardcovers, my whole collection hardly fills a single cardboard box. We all merged our personal libraries onto one massive bookshelf in the common room. Mei had built it herself out of cast-off planks salvaged from behind the hardware store and bits of scrap metal found in the bike co-op’s basement. It was just easier that way, sharing everything—plates and cutlery, crafting supplies, passwords
for streaming TV services. Even the food in the fridge was bought using collective funds, cooked up into big house meals that we shared almost every night. Whether craving a sweet queer rom-com or double-decker pancakes, I was never hungry for long. Until now. In retrospect, I should have written my name inside the front cover of my favourite titles. I just never thought we’d have to untangle ourselves so quickly.
“Let’s just focus on finding a new place instead.”
That time, it was me who dared to state the obvious. I’m still not sure why the others couldn’t see it like I could. How they couldn’t understand, even if we beat him this time, the landlord would just find another way to turn up the pressure. Not to mention, Hillside itself had seen better days. No amount of homemade cleaning solution could clear the black mold from the kitchen ceiling. The bathroom sink had been dripping for the better part of a year. A pack of frat boys had just moved in across the street and within a few days of their arrival, we’d found our porch-side rainbow flag torn from its post. I didn’t think it was so radical to suggest we pool our money, and our spoons, to focus on finding someplace a little less deadly.
“How can you even say that?”
“Is that why you haven’t been sharing the GoFundMe to your socials?”
“I bet your dad and sister would give money if they knew.”
“Why do you always have to see the worst in things?”
“It’s not like he can call the cops on us, at least not right away.”
They were on me like street cats on an open can of tuna. Mako was the only one to keep quiet. I nodded and mmm-hmmed my way through it, letting them all make their points, turning myself into a human pincushion.
It came down to a vote. We agreed, there had to be unanimous consensus. A fight like this needed total solidarity. Anything less and we’d all agree to drop it, give in, move on. After a couple false starts and a round of herbal tea, we stuffed bits of scrap paper into a mason jar. It was the yellow-stained one Mars had used during his
bone-broth phase. As Mako spilled our crumpled votes onto their lap, I caught the faintest whiff of chicken stock.
There’s a hum from under a nearby jacket. I dig out my phone and find a text from Mako. They’ve picked up the keys (a statement they’ve punctuated with several emojis including three hearts, a house, a cat that I guess is supposed to be Cashew, and a little slice of cake). I try to type a reply but my words are failing me. I give a thumbs-up react instead. As the screen goes dark, I experience a brief shift in reality. It’s like one of those dreams where I’ve slipped out of my body and get stuck just watching things happening. I’m out of place, out of time, caught in a loop. The same few questions circle my mind like vultures, descending on half-dead prey. Howis thishappening?Isitreallyallmyfault?WhatamIsupposedtodo now?
After the votes were tallied, Mei had left without a word. She shrugged on her tool belt and went out the back door to go fiddle with her bike. Johanna left next, muttering about getting the kettle on again. Mars followed, rinsing a handful of fresh veggies for a stirfry. Even my cat, Cashew, poked his head out from the under the sofa and padded out of sight. Only Mako stayed, shuffling from their window perch to sit beside me. Fingers knit together, we held hands in silence. There was nothing more to be said. Hillside House—the queer collective home of my wildest baby-gay fantasies—had officially ended.
The following weeks have felt like a ride inside Cinderella’s carriage. Smooth at first, even a little exciting, but ominously temporary. I’ve been watching the walls slowly tear down around me. All the things that made this place a home, ourhome, are transforming into pumpkin mush. The zine library has dwindled, now just rows of clothing pins and empty twine. The crafting cupboard has been reduced to a pair of broken scissors and couple of cheap glue sticks. When I went to make breakfast one morning, the household coffee maker and cast-iron skillet had both gone missing. The backyard garden has grown dense with weeds, the dirt deathly dry.
I’m just about done here. All the boxes and bags are piled up by the door, ready to be hauled downstairs. Among the dredges of my closet, I rediscovered my favourite denim vest. Stuffing my hands into the pockets, I find a small note: tempeh,veganmayo,snappeas (inseason). An old grocery list, probably one I brought to the store and promptly forgot about. It’s nothing remarkable. Even so, I neatly fold the paper in half and return it to my pocket.
The landlord will be here soon. With his many jangling keys and menthol-cigarette smile, he’ll wait politely for me to load out the last of my things. Then he’ll change the locks. I have no doubt the whole place will soon be covered in off-white paint, coating everything from the light switches to the electrical outlets.
When I first moved in, the windowpane was sealed shut by several layers of globby paint. Even so, I picked the room for its view. Back before the neighbours built their double-decker laneway house, I used to look out at the top branches of an apricot tree. Full, green leaves that danced in summer sunlight, red and gold come autumn. In winter, its empty fingers rattled against the double-pane glass, sketching bits of abstract art among the frost. It was a benchmark, a reminder of each season and its inevitable passing. When working from home, I kept my desk pushed up against the windowsill. Occasionally I’d look up to find a red squirrel bouncing past or a cardinal warbling its springtime serenade.
After a full four seasons in my new-to-me bedroom, Mako helped me chip away the double layers of paint and pry the window open. A breeze ran through the whole house that day, fresh and sweeter than anything we’d ever managed to squeeze out from the failing AC unit. From then on, I always left my window open. Even in the coldest months. When that breeze would come, any tensions among the five of us would instantly lighten. Soon, we’d be cooking, talking, playing music like we always loved to do.
On the best of those nights, we’d all stay up late. Lying around the common room, we’d light candles and pull cards, making one-day plans; we could organize an annual, anti-capitalist pride picnic, or set up a network of community gardens laced through the downtown core. We’d daydream about future pets and babies, all the ways we
could grow together. Those were the times when the house itself felt alive, breathing and sighing and laughing along with us.
Back in the present, I press my forehead against the window. It’s cold on my skin but the rest of me is burning up. My stomach churns like an active volcano. I am absolutely fuming. This was supposed to be our home. These people were supposed to be my family. I knew our landlord could take possession of the former, but I never thought the latter would go with it.
There’s a thump from the room next door. Heavy footfalls tell a story of strained movements down narrow stairs. Johanna and Mars are bickering about how to fit their bedframe down the hall. Mei left earlier today without so much as a goodbye and I guess those two are following suit. After a few minutes, there’s one last round of bangs punctuated by a heavy slam. The whole house shudders on its foundations, and the quiet that follows is even worse. Regret slips down my throat, cooling molten rage into rock and steam. I’ve got no right to be so upset. I was the only no vote. If not for me, Hillside might still be standing. What a way to find out I was the weakest link in our chain.
Snow drifts down the narrow passage between my window and the opposing brick. I hold still and watch the tiny flakes, trying to remember what it was like to see the apricot leaves bloom. After a few moments, I turn away. I shove the last of my stuff into a couple tote bags and carry them downstairs. I’d crack open my window, but there’s no need for a cool breeze in winter. Besides, I’m not sure the wind would blow like it used to anymore.
Chapter One
OneYearLater
Wind at my collar, I shrug my jacket tight. This time of year, my daily walk to the office turns into an uphill battle against a winter wind tunnel. Heavy grey skies promise freezing rain before the day is through. City grit mixes with day-old snow to form a perfect, grey slush, nipping my toes as it seeps through the cracks in my secondhand leather shoes. On the plus side, the soft wool lining of my new overcoat has managed to keep the cold from soaking through to my major organs. My hands are warmed by a fresh coffee I picked up at the local weed-store-slash-overpriced-café. Sharpie marker on one side proclaims this cup is for Charlese. The barista always gets my name wrong. To be fair, I also never correct her. Today of all days, I was quite happy to just take the cup, and treat myself to a croissant while I’m at it.
Bay Street hums with Thursday morning traffic. Plumes of exhaust intertwining, sprawling into hazy mist; I walk through a particularly foggy patch, oddly comforted by its warmth. The sidewalk is traced with familiar stains and I navigate, with ease, a maze of littered cups and twisted plastic bags. A city bus rolls through a nearby puddle and I sidestep the resulting splash without so much as a flinch. A year of walking the same route every day has made such reactions second nature.
Busy people in tight suits stand clustered around the doors to skyscraper office towers. They suck on cigarettes and vape pens, scrolling on their shiny phones. A woman in a navy suit looks up and her steely gaze meets mine. Neither of us makes any acknowledgement. A moment later, she blinks away and I do the same. Exactly how I like it.
I shove my emptied cup into an overflowing garbage bin around the nearest corner. Squinting into a face-full of wind, I’m faced with a familiar concrete cube. Smack in the middle of downtown, its faded
signage lists the offices of several chiropractors, a resident dentistslash-psychic and something the directory simply calls CMM. Basement level, no elevator access. I take the stairs down to Call Me Maybe headquarters.
“Charlie!” Hassan leans back from his desk and flashes a pearlywhite smile, just like every morning. “Looks like I beat you to the office, again.”
“Yep.” I stomp the slush off my shoes. “Looks like it.”
Beneath the fluorescent lights of a drop ceiling, CMM’s skeleton crew rubs their tired eyes. Shuffling around narrow cubicles, they sip on mugs of instant coffee brewed in the office kitchen-slash-breakroom. Mornings around here used to be a bit more lively, back when we had free doughnuts and snacks set out a couple times a week. But that little morale booster got cut along with just about everything else last quarter. The budget was slim since before I got here, but lately it’s gone absolutely skeletal. Not that I care. I never partook in the doughnut days—a single maple-glazed is simply not enough compensation to suffer through coworker small talk. If I want a treat, I’ll stop at Tim Hortons on the way home and get a dozen crullers for myself, thanks very much.
I can hear Hassan’s oxford heels clicking after me. Eyes forward, I take to my desk. My cubicle is nearly identical to all the others, save for a small plaque that reads AssistantManager. Not that I’m really assisting anyone these days; another consequence of the new budget, the Actual Manager was laid off four months ago. And for around three months, three weeks and five days, I’ve quietly been waiting for a new brass plate to appear on my desk. Presumably, one with the title of InterimManager. But I guess plating services are beyond our financial capacities right now, too.
“Got a minute?” Hassan appears at my side before I’ve even slipped off my coat. “We should touch base about the new user questionnaire—”
“I thought we finalized that last week.” My laptop screen hums awake as I nudge it open.
“We sure did!” Leaning over my shoulder, Hassan prods at my computer’s trackpad. “But last night, I realized some of the options
we’ve got are pretty binary.”
“Isn’t that the point?” I cross my arms and lean back, my chair softly whining. “We’re trying to generate stats here, not host a philosophy class.”
“Sure, but shouldn’t we have a write-in option?” he asks. “Or a comment section!”
“Hmm.” I shouldn’t be surprised that he’s going the extra, extra mile. Hassan’s desk has the same plaque as mine. Once upon a time, he and I almost shared a sense of camaraderie. That was back when there were plenty of us Assistant Managers around, monitoring multiple departments. Now that we’re in CMM’s no-doughnut era, our friendly rapport has simmered into a quiet yet potent sense of competition. After all, there’s only ever been oneManager.
Fingers drumming on the back of my chair, Hassan impatiently clicks my trackpad again. The program isn’t loading. His perfect smile twitches, ever so slightly. “Looks like the Wi-Fi’s getting a late start, too.”
“Yeah, maybe.” Rolling backwards in my seat, I wave in the direction of our server room. “Say, Augustine, what do you think things running smooth in there?”
From her desk inside the IT office—which, let’s be real, is a glorified closet—our one-and-only tech gives a brief thumbs-up. Augustine and I got hired around the same time, yet I can count on one hand the number of idle chats we’ve exchanged in the last year. Honestly, I couldn’t ask for a better coworker.
“Guess that’s that.” I stand and make a line for the break room. “How about you just Slack me the edits and I’ll get them back to you after the weekend?”
“Um, sure, I could do that but—” Hassan outpaces me with a few long strides and stands right in my path. “Except, didn’t Angie say she wanted the update ready by Monday?”
“Yeah, well, these things take time,” I mutter, and move to pass him. But Hassan just steps in the way again.
“Mmm-hmm. Makes sense.” He shoots a quick look over his shoulder, tilting on his heels. “And hey, if you want to extend the deadline, I’m sure the big boss will understand.”
I pinch the bridge of my nose. He’s got me there. If there’s one thing our Executive Director can’t stand, it’s a missed deadline. “Fine,” I tell him. “I’ll get on it, after I get some more caffeine.” Somehow in the year since I started here, I’ve gone from a green-tea drinker to someone who can’t start their day until their second (sometimes, third) cup of coffee.
“On it!” Hassan pivots. “Two milk, no sugar, right?”
“Uh, right.” Before I even finish my answer, he’s skipped away towards the break room. I stare after him for a few seconds— Hassan’s always been the chipper type but making coffee for me? Way too extra, even for him.
There’snowayhecouldknowwhattodayis...I dismiss the thought before I can even finish it. No, that can’t be it. I’ve been so careful. He’sprobablyjustbutteringmeupforsomething,I decide. I bet he wants more credit for the questionnaire update.
Settling back into my desk, I soon hear the telltale sputter of our coffee machine. I guess he really is making a fresh pot. The sound is soon drowned out by the second stage of Hassan’s daily routine— belting renditions of Broadway show tunes, in all-too-perfect pitch (of course). My eyes flit to Augustine and we share a momentary, knowing look. She pulls out a pair of noise-cancelling headphones and sets them snugly in place. I’vegottagetmyselfapairofthose.
In the bygone era of phone books and dial-up internet, the CMM hotline was listed as a 24/7Mental-HealthSupportService. Shortly after I got hired, the actual phone lines were all unplugged as CMM doubled down on texting instead. Then even our texting line was shut off, replaced with an online chat that operates five days a week. Faced with government funding cuts and the rising costs of renting office space, every bit of CMM has been chipped and shrunk and streamlined. Last fall, more than half the in-house staff got laid off— including all of our trained therapists and counsellors. They were replaced by a quippy AI chatbot. These days, when our clients get sick of talk therapy with a glorified version of Clippy, they’re forwarded to a Referral Database. It’s basically a list of resources that could do a better job than we can; community centres, psychologists, that sort of thing.
Enter, Charlie. The database started as my pet project, a bit of busywork that I took on as an intern. Now, it’s become our main offering. Despite all the changes, the name CMM still holds a serious amount of sway in certain circles. Being on our list gives local services a mark of legitimacy, and an eager client base. On my end, it’s how I’ve managed to keep my job. I’m the only one who truly understands how the program works.
It also helps that I’m pretty good at flying under the radar. I show up, do my work, keep my opinions to myself. Sure, I’ve thought about mentioning that our name is officially a misnomer. You can’t call us, and even if you could, there is no real “me” to talk to. I guess the “Maybe Hotline” doesn’t have the same ring to it, though. And it’s that kind of self-restraint that’ll get me promoted to full-on Manager. I just have to be patient.
“Hot bean juice, coming through!” Hassan sidesteps a couple passing coworkers, cradling a steaming mug with both hands. He sets it down on my desk with a triumphant smile. “You know, my fiancé got me into adding a splash of maple syrup to my morning cuppa. You ever tried that?”
“Can’t say I have.” I take a sip without looking up from my laptop. Damn if he didn’t get the milk-to-coffee ratio just right. “Thanks.”
“Ah, you got things up and running!” He grabs a nearby chair and wheels it over. “Hope my edits aren’t too much for you.”
“I’m sure it’s fine,” I say, scrolling along a few pages of backend code. Hassan and I have been tasked with making a pop-up questionnaire, something to gather user data. This stuff isn’t usually my department, but since the layoffs, everything has sort of become everyone’s job. Not to mention, after seeing a bunch of coworkers replaced with a computer program, now seems like a good time to broaden my skill set.
This side project was all polished up and ready to hand in, until today. Now it’s covered in Hassan’s fingerprints on everything. Some awkward wording, a couple spelling errors. “No big deal.” I click through the next page. “This is nothing that can’t be—”
My words run out mid-sentence as I stifle a gasp. The questionnaire’s second page is in total chaos. Overlapping text,
broken links, strings of exposed code. Nothing is where it’s supposed to be. “What even happened here?”
“Yes, right, that.” Hassan clicks his tongue. “The thing is, I was sort of halfway through the edits last night when I realized, my fiancé and I were totally supposed to have a date night! Guess in my rush, I left things a little messy.”
“You...guess?” My face is getting hot. When I look at Hassan, all I see is rows upon rows of broken code—and the hours it’ll take to fix.
“Let’s focus on the positive, partner.” He gives what I’m sure is supposed to be a charming shrug. “Now you and me can work together to make it even better!”
He starts reaching for my laptop again, but I snap it up and spin aside. “No!” I shout, catching looks from nearby coworkers. Dropping my voice, I mutter, “It’s fine. I can handle this myself.” Mentally, I’m already running through my options. If I can find an old draft of this file, maybe I can salvage this. Whydidn’tIsetupanauto-backup?
“You sure?” Hassan’s brows fold together, like hands forming a tiny prayer. “If you’ve got other things to get done, I could try to fix it myself.”
“No, that’s all right,” I tell him. “I’ll get it done.” It’lljusttakeallof today,probablymostoftomorrowandmaybesomeweekend overtime.
“Well, don’t work yourself too hard!” Hassan snaps his fingers and steps backwards to his desk. Just before he turns, he adds, “Oh, one more thing—think you can swing by the break room in say, fifteen minutes? I need some help setting up the L-A-L today, please-andthanks!” Before I can answer, he raises his voice so the whole office can hear, “Everybody catch that? L-A-L kicking off in a hot twenty! I sprang for twoveggie trays this time!”
Curious heads peek up over various cubicle walls, glancing between Hassan and myself. I cup my face and I keep my eyes down. Augustine passes my desk, frayed Ethernet cable in hand. Without looking towards me, she asks, “Do you think he knows spelling out that acronym takes the same number of syllables as simply saying ‘Lunch-And-Learn’?”
I snicker under my breath. “It’s also not even close to lunch yet. At best, it’s brunch.”
The hint of a smile traces Augustine’s lips as she digs into a nearby storage cupboard. “I suppose B-A-L doesn’t drip off the tongue quite the same way.”
With some coaxing from Hassan, my coworkers begin to zombieshuffle towards the office break room. Though I’m trying to focus on my actual work, I overhear Sophia from Finance ask, “You know who the guest is this week?”
“Not a clue,” answers Aditya, the last bastion of our HR department. “But hey, have you signed that card yet?”
“Shh!” Sophia hisses back, not so subtly nodding in my direction. Aditya clamps her lips and hurries past without another word.
I look to Augustine but she’s busy patching up a cable with a layer of gaff tape. As usual, she’s got the right idea. No need to get sucked into office chitchat or workplace drama. I’ve got more important things going on.
When my buddy Mako hooked me up with this job, it was supposed to be a part-time thing. Running coffee orders, taking down meeting minutes, that sort of thing. The folks at Hillside House were always doing that for each other, sharing tips on fast money and easy work. Mei would sometimes have me in at the biker’s co-op, working the front desk. Other days, Johanna might share her food-delivery routes and let me keep the tips. Whenever Mars was working a festival, he’d add my name to the list of volunteers willing to get paid in free pizza.
In a blink, I’m there again. In a sweaty T-shirt, the logo for some local music fest on the back. My arms are heavy, carrying a load of half-eaten pizza in boxes stacked taller than my head. One roommate holds the front door open while another helps Tetris this haul of leftovers into our communal fridge. We eat like royalty for the rest of the week, so much food we hardly know what to do with it all. We try pan-fried-pizza, panini-pressed-pizza, pizza-for-breakfast-with-maplesyrup. All is warm and cheesy and good.
A sharp pang in my chest rocks me back to the present. Just as quickly as it came, the memory fades. In a blink, I’m back where I’m
supposed to be. In the CMM basement, listening to the sputtering of the office fax machine and the buzz of the fluorescent lights. I clear my throat and sit up straight. I hadn’t planned on getting emotional today.
A lot can change in a year. Hillside House seemed like it would last forever, until it didn’t. My many roommates and I were scattered to the wind like dandelion fluff. Meanwhile, this supposed-to-be-temp gig has turned into something stable. My latest quarterly review was full of words like impressiveworkethicand clearattentiontodetail. I stuck it up on the fridge in my bachelor apartment. That is, until Cashew knocked it down twice and bit off a corner of the glossy paper. Guess next time I’ll try to put it somewhere more cat-proof.
This Lunch-And-Learn thing is new, too. Hassan’s big idea, a series of lunchtime workshops intended to help with “team bonding” and “boosting morale.” So clearly a ploy to get on our boss’s good side, I’m not sure how anyone can stand it.
Hassan never fails to find the drabbest “guestperts” to teach us about things like “self-care” or “employment equity.” It’s not that I think the topics are totally unimportant. I’d just rather spend my precious break time hunched over my desk, eating microwave ramen, scrolling through my phone and avoiding any eye contact while I pretend that I work completely alone. You know, like a normal person.
“Charlie!” Hassan calls my name in a singsong voice and a shiver runs down my back. It’s like something from a horror movie. Reluctantly, I push away from my desk and look towards the break room. Why does he have the lights off in there?
I eye over my shoulder, hoping to share another look with Augustine. Except, she’s not there. The storage cupboard hangs ajar. A quick glance around the office reveals all the cubicles are empty too. This is starting to get freaky. I swear, I can hear the strings building.
“Charlie?” Hassan beckons me again. “We’re just about ready. I saved you a seat!”
The lights above me flicker as I take uneasy steps. There are whispers in the kitchen. Childlike giggling. People must be in there,
but why are they hanging around in the dark?
Unless.I freeze. Standing at the threshold of the break room, I peer into the shadows. It looks completely empty. Theycouldn’t have,I tell myself. Theywouldn’thave.Unless.
“Surprise!” The lights clap on and my coworkers leap out from their hiding spots. Cheering and hollering, they toss fistfuls of shredded paper like makeshift confetti. Magnetic letters on the office fridge have been arranged to spell out a message. My stomach sinks as the whole room speaks it aloud: “Happy birthday, Charlie!”
“Oh.” The floor tilts. “Oh wow.” I’m suddenly dizzy. Maybe, seasick? Can you get seasick standing still inside a basement? “You...shouldn’t have.”
“Don’t be silly!” Hassan stands at the front. “As if our work-fam would forget your special day!” In his hands is a massive sheet cake, drizzled with blue icing and topped off with a shoddy printed photo. My own face stares blankly back at me.
“Is that...” My brain is making a sound like the fax machine when it’s got a paper jam. I drag the edges of my mouth into what is hopefully a passable smile. “Where did you get that photo of me?”
“It’s your LinkedIn profile!” Aditya helpfully chimes in.
“So smart, right?” Sophia nods. “It was Augustine’s idea!”
Ettu,Augustine?I’m struck speechless once more. Augustine quietly shuffles at the kitchen counter, setting out paper plates and plastic forks. “I like photo cakes,” she states plainly. “They have a good crunch.”
“Aren’t you going to blow out the candles?” Hassan shimmies his shoulders. “Oh, oh! Should we sing ‘Happy Birthday’?”
My heart starts racing. Pleasefortheloveofallthatis—
“Charlie?” There’s a brief, yet firm double-tap on my shoulder. “Might I have a word?” Short brown bangs, chunky earrings and a many-layered scarf draped around her shoulders; Angie Bane, Executive Director of CMM, stands at my back. Lowering her cat’s-eye glasses, she eyes the rest of the break room. “I hope I’m not interrupting.”
“Angie, great timing!” Hassan hoists the cake like he’s about to offer her the whole thing as a single piece. “Are you joining in the L-
A-L today, too? Our guest speaker should be here any minute!”
“Wait, wait.” I shake my head, slowly returning from my stunned stupor. “There’s still really a workshop happening?”
“Well, yeah!” Hassan’s eyes sparkle. “So, Ang, what do you say?”
“Wish that I could. Unfortunately, I’m far too deep in conference prep.” Angie nudges her glasses back up her button nose. “This weekend is the third annual Paradigm Shift Symposium. I’m speaking on a panel about Metamorphic Breakthrough Leadership.”
“Ah.” Hassan’s perfect smile doesn’t move an inch. “Well, that sounds very important. Another time, then.”
“Indeed.” Angie gives a curt nod and turns on her heel. “Charlie, are you coming?”
I’ve never been so happy to be called in for a one-on-one with the big boss. With a shrug to Hassan and the rest of the crew, I hurry after Angie.
Or I’m about to, until I see her.
Shoulders squared, she walks with all the grace of a trained dancer. The collar of her layered blouse is slightly unbuttoned. There’s the hint at an elaborate tattoo across her collarbones, black ink on brown skin. A pair of bright yellow glasses accentuate the contours of her cheeks, the tender bend of her jawline. They match her earrings, too. When she turns, the springy tips of her hair tease along her shoulders. Her lips are the colour of an early sunrise; her eyes, sparkling like light breaking over the horizon.
I stand in the break room doorway, awestruck. The rest of my coworkers mill about, snacking on veggie trays and murmuring about when the workshop might get started. Have none of them noticed the goddess who just walked into our dingy office basement?
“’Scuse me, bud.” Hassan ducks around me. He hurries over to take her coat.
My mouth is dry from hanging open. “Is that theElizabeth Hawkshaw?”
“Yep.” Augustine shuffles beside me and offers a slice of cake. It’s the bit that’s got my own eye on it. I shake my head, no thanks. “Apparently, Hassan knows her through a friend-of-a-friend. Neat, eh?”
“That’s one word for it.” I was thinking more impossible, or fantastical, or maybe just amazing. This has to be the most incredible happening to ever grace CMM’s dismal doorstep. From the corner of my eye, I catch Augustine watching me watching her. I admit with a shaking laugh, “I’m a bit of a fan.”
“No kidding.” Augustine stabs her fork into the centre of my iris. “Yeah, her stuff is pretty good. I liked that TED Talk she did.”
“Queer Body Art as Feminist Revolution?” My voice cracks, coming out louder than I meant it to. “Um, yeah. I know that one.” I used to watch it at least once a week, and not just for the part where she strips down and coats herself in multicolour oil paints.
“So good to see you, Elizabeth!” Hassan leads her towards the break room. “Or, sorry, do you prefer Dr. Hawkshaw?” Even from across the office, I can tell he’s got the jitters. Not that I blame him.
“It’s actually Hawthornenow,” she tells him, fidgeting with the collar of her blouse.
Shechangedherlastname?How did I not know that?
“And the doctorate was only honorary,” she adds. “You can just call me Buffy.”
“Buffy,” I whisper to myself.
“I didn’t even know she was in Canada,” says Augustine, polishing off the last of my icing-based eyeball. “She hardly posts online anymore.”
“Socialmediaisamodern-daypanopticon,” I murmur. “That’s um, something she posted a few years back.” Five years, four days, three months ago. Approximately speaking. “She’s been pretty much offline since then, though I had heard she moved north in hopes of getting some extra privacy.” ThoughIneverimaginedI’dactuallyruninto herlikethis.I pat down my bangs and check the length of my undercut. I should have got a haircut last week, like I meant to. Why didn’tIgetahaircut?!
“Mm. Makes sense.” Augustine elbows me, nodding to a stocky ginger guy clambering in after Buffy. He’s got two tote bags, one on each shoulder, and his arms are full of art supplies. “Who do you suppose that is?”
“Assistant, maybe?” My eyes narrow for a second before I dart them back to Buffy. If I look away too long, she might vanish entirely.
“Must be,” says Augustine. “Kinda cute, though.”
“Yeah, kinda.” I give the assistant a brief, second glance. Augustine has a point. In just a grey hoodie and jeans, he follows after her like a shadow. Tousled hair and scruffy beard, he looks like he just rolled out of bed, but in a good way. His cheeks are pink, still nipped from the cold outside. He says something to Buffy that’s just out of earshot. She cracks a smile.
Hassan laughs along with them and suddenly, I’m burning with envy. How did he end up the one over there, making jokes with Elizabeth-freaking-Hawkshaw and her arm-candy assistant? Meanwhile I’m stuck, frozen in place.
“You know,” Augustine whispers, “Hassan might introduce you, if you wanted.”
“What? No. No way.” I vehemently shake my head. “I’m sure they don’t want to be interrupted by some random fan.”
Even if I wanted to go over, Angie is staring at me from her glasswalled office. She taps her heel, expectantly. I can’t keep her waiting much longer. Dragging my feet, I force myself to cross the office floor. It’s never felt so impossibly far, until now.
“Right this way, please—we’re so excited to have you!” Hassan waves for Sophia. “Would you show Buffythrough the office? I’m going to prep the projector.”
Sophia?Really?I clench my jaw, willing my snarky tone to stay as an inside thought. Ibetshe’sneverevenheardthenameHawkshaw beforetoday.
“Oh, uh. Sure.” Sophia shovels down her last bite of cake and hops into action. “It’s really nice to meet you.” She ushers Buffy and her assistant towards the break room, pointing out a few notable features of the office. “I’m excited for your talk on collective arts and mental wellness.”
“Is that the topic for today?” Buffy looks back over her shoulder. “Damn. I thought this was ‘zine-making as a tool for wage-labour resistance.’ I could go back to my car and get some different supplies?”
“No, we can do zines!” Hassan shouts from behind the projector. “I love zines!”
“Yeah.” Sophia nods along. “Those are like, little cookies or something right?”
“Um, not quite.” Buffy’s assistant laughs under his breath. Both the bags he’s toting are covered in colourful pins, iron-on patches and several iterations of the rainbow flag.
Hassan calls out again but I don’t catch the specifics. All the chatter and background noise, even the sputtering photocopier and the hum of the vents—everything slips away. Because, just for a moment, Buffy looks at me.
We’re moving past each other. An arm’s reach apart, if that. We lock eyes for what could be a second, or a lifetime. It’s impossible to say. My legs feel like jelly and cement all at once. Her lips twitch. I could swear she’s smiling at me. Reallysmiling.
In a blink, the spell is broken. She turns back to Hassan to ask another question. Her assistant must have caught me staring; he smirks like we’re sharing a secret. There’s a warmth that radiates from him. It washes over me like ocean waves and I remember how to breathe again.
I stare after them, even as I grip the cool handle of Angie’s office door. In the break room, Hassan is holding up a hand, motioning for everyone to take their seats. Buffy’s back is to me. She digs through the bags her assistant carried over. I’ve never so desperately wished I could stay for a freaking Lunch-And-Learn.
Chapter Two
The walls of Angie’s office read like an archive. Banners, buttons, flyers and posters cover nearly every inch of the walls, up to the ceiling. Framed photographs and newspaper clippings show a moreor-less consistent group; a half-dozen young women and a couple token gay guys, all sporting matching T-shirts. Their ’80s-style geometric design spells out the words CentralMentalMonitor. The largest image shows the team sitting at a circular table covered in chunky, corded phones. Everyone is busy, save for one face that looks to the camera. Thick-rimmed glasses can’t hide the twinkle in her eyes. Decades later, Angie looks largely the same. Her round cheeks have grown creased and heavy, her wispy brown hair now flecked with grey. She still wears the same glasses. There’s a spark to her that has not been doused with age.
There is a gap in the memorabilia. One side ends with a corkboard of mid-’90s flyers and button-pins. The story picks up again with a tacked-up T-shirt that pronounces the line’s official reopening in the early 2010s. Hassan has told me before about this break in CMM’s history. It’s not exactly surprising. A bunch of twenty-somethings, without any training or proper funding, trying to run a free therapy hotline for the entire country? It would be much more shocking if there wasn’tmajor drama, trauma and burnout.
Angie sits at the midpoint of these two eras, quite literally. The broad-backed arch of her executive chair is perfectly framed by either side. She was the last member of the old team to stick things out to the bitter end. So, when a new crop of prospective board members decided to relaunch the line, she was an easy pick for Executive Director. In the decades between CMM’s two iterations, she had also picked up a few skills around finance and government granting. In her first year, Angie managed to get the hotline back together, fully funded, and secure our (somewhat dungeonesque) office space. She hired a proper team to run the program, including licensed therapists
(all of which she then had to lay off this past year). I’ve heard a rumour she even picked the line’s new name—Carly Rae Jepsen released “Call Me Maybe” the same year as CMM’s big relaunch and, well, the rest is history.
Personally, I think it was a bit dicey going for a song-based title. Especially one that impacts our ability to have pretty much any branded merchandise. But what do I know? Angie’s the expert here, and she knows it. She has clawed CMM back from the depths of dysfunction and disendowment more than once. Anyone who wants to keep their job will do right not to forget it. And as for our merch, turns out we can technicallyput the words “call,” “me” and “maybe” on a shirt, so long as we space them out right.
The thick glass walls of her private office have an insulating effect. Tinted on the outside, she can watch all of us worker bees running around without herself ever being on display. It’s quiet in here, too. Her chair gently sighs as she settles in behind her desk. Adjusting her glasses, she peers at two massive computer monitors. Her chapped fingers take to the grooves of her ergonomic keyboard and instantly set to work. For a woman in her late sixties, she types like a Zoomer.
“Charlie, Charlie, Charlie Dee.” Angie repeats my name in a singsong voice. She always does that, makes a little tune of it. She told me once, it’s a strategy she learned from an old advisor to help remember people’s names. I’m also pretty sure she likes showing off how she’s notmisgendering me. “Tell me, how areyou?”
“I’m okay.” I balance precariously on a small, round stool that sits opposite her desk. “Actually, I’m pretty swamped with a couple projects right now and—”
“Great. That’s great.” Her chunky earrings clack together as she tilts her head towards me. There is no pause in her rapid typing. “You’re welcome, by the way, for the rescue. Hassan’s little lunchtime lessons are always so exhausting. I’m sure you were just itching for an out.”
“Today’s didn’t seem sobad.” The back of my head is burning, begging me to turn around. Maybe I can catch another glimpse of Buffy, or her cute assistant setting up the workshop.
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CHAPTER XIV
LETIZIA THE FIRST
“Mrs. Fuller has been so excited ever since the letter came to say that you would pay a visit to Lebanon House,” the nurse stopped to tell Nancy at the head of the stairs, before showing the way along the landing to the old lady’s room.
“Are we going to see more aunts, muvver?” Letizia anxiously inquired.
“No, darling, you’re going to see dear father’s grannie whom he loved very much; and he would like you to love her very much too.”
“Well, I will love her,” Letizia promised.
“You must remember that your name is Letizia and that her name is Letizia. You were christened Letizia because father loved his grannie. And remember she is very old and that’s why you’ll find her in bed.”
“Will she be like Red Riding Hood’s grannie?” Letizia asked.
“Perhaps she will be a little.”
“But a naughty wolf won’t come and eat her?” Letizia pressed on a note of faint apprehension.
“Oh, no,” her mother assured her. “There are no wolves in this house.”
Was it a trick of the gathering dusk, or did the bright-eyed young woman raise her eyebrows and smile to herself at this confident reply?
Nancy had never been so much surprised in her life as she was by the aspect of old Mrs. Fuller’s room. The old lady, wrapped in a bedjacket of orange and yellow brocade and supported by quantities of bright vermilion cushions, was sitting up in a gilded four-post bed,
the curtains and valance of damasked maroon silk and the canopy sustained by four rouged Venetian amorini with golden wings. Over the mantelpiece was a copy of Giorgione’s “Pastorale.” Mirrors in frames of blown glass decorated with wreaths of pink glass rosebuds and blue glass forget-me-nots hung here and there on the white walls, the lighted candles in which gave the windowpanes such a bloom in the March dusk as is breathed upon ripe damsons. Bookcases on either side of the fireplace were filled with the sulphur backs of numerous French novels. On a mahogany table at the foot of the bed stood a green cornucopia of brilliantly tinted wax fruits that was being regarded with slant-eyed indifference by two antelopes of gilded wood, seated on either side.
Of course, Nancy had known that old Mrs. Fuller was different from the rest of the family; but this flaunting rococo bedroom made a sharper impression of that immense difference than could all the letters to her grandson. It was strange, too, that Bram should never have commented on this amazing room, set as it was in the heart of the house against which his boyhood had so bitterly revolted. In her astonishment at her surroundings she did not for the moment take in the aspect of the old lady herself; and then suddenly she saw the dark eyes of Bram staring at her from the middle of those vermilion cushions, the bright eyes of Bram flashing from a death’s head wrapped in parchment. She put her hand to her heart, and stopped short on her way across the room to salute the old lady.
“What’s the matter?” snapped a high incisive voice.
“Oh, you’re so like Bram,” cried Nancy, tears gushing like an uncontrollable spring from her inmost being, like blood from a wound, and yet without any awareness of grief, so that her voice was calm, her kiss of salutation not tremulous.
“Might I lift my little girl on Mrs. Fuller’s bed, nurse?” she asked.
“Don’t call her nurse,” the old lady rapped out. “This ain’t a hospital. It’s only that sanctimonious ghoul Caleb who calls her nurse. She’s my companion, Miss Emily Young. And why should the wretched child be lifted up to see an old bogey like myself?”
“I think she’d like to kiss you, if she may,” said Nancy
“Yes, I would like to kiss you,” said Letizia.
The old woman’s eyes melted to an enchanting tenderness, and, oh, how often Nancy had seen Bram’s eyes melt so for her.
“Lift her up, Emily, lift her up,” said Mrs. Fuller.
Miss Young put Letizia beside her and the old woman encircled the child with her left arm. The other hung motionless beside her.
“I’m not going to maul you about. I expect your aunts have slobbered over you enough downstairs. Just give me one kiss, if you want to. But if you don’t want to, now that you’re so close to my skinny old face, why, say so, and I shan’t mind.”
But Letizia put both arms round her great-grandmother’s neck and kissed her fervidly.
“And now sit down and tell me how you like Lebanon House,” she commanded.
“Is this Lebbon House?”
The old woman nodded.
“I like it here, but I don’t like it where those aunts are. Have you seen those aunts, grannie?”
“I made them.”
“Why did you make them, grannie? I don’t fink they was very nicely made, do you? I don’t fink their dresses was sewed on very nicely, do you?”
“You’re an observant young woman, that’s what you are.”
“What is azervant?”
“Why, you have eyes in your head and see with them.”
“I see those gold stags,” said Letizia, pointing to the antelopes.
“Ah-ha, you see them, do you?”
“Did Santy Claus give them to you? He gived me a lamb and a monkey and lots and lots of fings, so I aspeck he did.”
“I expect he did too. But they’re antelopes, not stags.”
“Auntylopes?” Letizia repeated dubiously. “Will Santy Claus put gold aunts in your stocking at Christmas?”
“Mon dieu, I hope not,” the old lady exclaimed. “So you like antelopes better than aunts?”
“Yes, I do. And I like puss-cats better. And I like all fings better than I like aunts.”
“Well, then I’ll tell you something. When Santa Claus brought me those antelopes, he said I was to give them to you.”
Letizia clapped her hands.
“Fancy! I fought he did, grannie.”
“So, if you’ll take them into the next room with Miss Young, she’ll wrap them up for you while I’m talking to your mother.”
“How kind of you to give them to her,” said Nancy, from whose eyes the silent tears had at last ceased to flow.
“Letizia darling, say ‘thank you’ to your kind grannie.”
“Senza complimenti, senza complimenti,” the old woman muttered, “The pleasure in her eyes was all the thanks I wanted.”
“I aspeck they won’t feel very hungry wivout the apples and the pears,” Letizia suggested anxiously.
“Of course they won’t, darling,” her mother interrupted quickly.
“You’d better wrap up some of the fruit as well, Emily,” said the old lady with a chuckle.
“No, please ...” Nancy began.
“Hoity-toity, I suppose I can do what I like with my own fruit?” said the old lady sharply. “Draw the curtains before you go, Emily.”
When Letizia had retired with Miss Young, and the gilded antelopes and a generous handful of the wax fruit, the old lady bade
Nancy draw up one of the great Venetian chairs. When her grandson’s wife was seated beside the bed, she asked her why she had come to Brigham.
Nancy gave her an account of her struggles for an engagement and told her about Bram’s death and that unuttered wish.
“He may have worried about your future,” said the old lady. “But it was never his wish that Letizia should be brought up here. Never! I know what that wish was.”
“You do?”
“He was wishing that he had become a Catholic. He used to write to me about it, and I’m afraid I was discouraging. It didn’t seem to me that there was any point in interrupting his career as a clown by turning religious somersaults as well. I’m sorry that it worried his peace at the last, but by now he is either at rest in an eternal dreamless enviable sleep or he has discovered that there really is a God and that He is neither a homicidal lunatic, nor a justice of the peace, nor even a disagreeable and moody old gentleman. I used to long to believe in Hell for the pleasure of one day seeing my late husband on the next gridiron to my own; but now I merely hope that, if there is another world, it will be large enough for me to avoid meeting him, and that, if he has wings, an all-merciful God will clip them and put him to play his harp where I shan’t ever hear the tune. But mostly I pray that I shall sleep, sleep, sleep for evermore. And so young Caleb objected to bring up my namesake? By the way, I’m glad you’ve not shrouded her in black.”
“I knew Bram wouldn’t like it,” Nancy explained.
“I loved that boy,” said the old lady gently. “You made him happy. And I can do nothing more useful than present his daughter with a pair of gilded antelopes.” Her sharp voice died away to a sigh of profound and tragic regret.
Nancy sat silent waiting for the old lady to continue.
“Of course, I could have written and warned you not to ask young Caleb for anything,” she suddenly began again in her high incisive voice. “But I wanted to see you. I wanted to see Letizia the second. I
must die soon. So I didn’t attempt to stop your coming. And, as a matter of fact, you’ve arrived before I could have written to you. No, don’t hand your child over to young Caleb, girl. Just on sixty-six years ago my mother handed me over to old Caleb. I suppose she thought that she was doing the best thing for me. Or it may have been a kind of jealousy of my young life, who knows? Anyway she has been dead too long to bother about the reason for what she did. And at least I owe her French and Italian, so that with books I have been able to lead a life of my own. Letizia would hear no French or Italian in this house except from me. And even if I could count on a few more years of existence, what could I teach that child? Nothing, but my own cynicism, and that would be worse than nothing. No, you mustn’t hand her over to young Caleb. That would be in a way as wrong as what my mother did. Your duty is to educate her. Yes, you must educate her, girl, you must be sure that she is taught well. She seems to have personality. Educate her. She must not be stifled by young Caleb and those two poor crones I brought into this world. It would be a tragedy. I had another daughter, and I was not strong enough in those days to secure her happiness. Perhaps I was still hoping for my own. Perhaps in trying to shake myself free from my husband I did not fight hard enough for her. She ran away. She went utterly to the bad. She died of drink in a Paris asylum. Caterina Fuller! You may read of her in raffish memoirs of the Second Empire as one of the famous cocottes of the period. If my mother had not married me to Caleb, I daresay I should have gone to the bad myself. Or what the world calls bad. But how much worse my own respectable degradation! It was only after Caterina’s death that I ceased to lament my prison. It was as if the sentient, active part of me died with her. Thence onward I lived within myself. I amused myself by collecting bit by bit over many years the gewgaws by which you see me surrounded. They represent years of sharp practice in housekeeping. The only thing for which I may thank God sincerely is that I wasn’t married to young Caleb. I should never have succeeded in cheating him out of a penny on the household bills. I should never have managed to buy a solitary novel, had he been my accountant. I should have remained for ever what I was when I married, raw, noisy, impudent, scatterbrained, until I died as a bird
dies, beating its wings against the cage. Educate Letizia, educate her. I wish I had a little money. I have no means of getting any now. I had some, but I spent it on myself, every penny of it. Don’t despair because you’ve not had an engagement since Christmas. It’s only early March. Mon dieu, I haven’t even a ring that you could pawn. But I don’t worry about you. I’m convinced you will be all right. Easy to say, yes. But I say it with belief, and that isn’t so easy. I shall live on for a few weeks yet, and I know that I shall have good news from you before I die.”
All the while the old lady had been talking, her face had been losing its expression of cynicism, and by the time she had finished it was glowing with the enthusiasm of a girl. It was as if she had beheld reincarnate in little Letizia her own youth and as if now with the wisdom of eighty-three years she were redirecting her own future from the beginning. Presently, after a short silence, she told Nancy to search in the bottom drawer of a painted cabinet for a parcel wrapped up in brown paper, and bring it to her. With this she fumbled for a while with her left hand and at last held up a tunic made apparently of thick sackcloth and some fragments of stuff that looked like a handful of cobwebs.
“The silk has faded and perished,” she murmured. “This was once a pair of blue silk tights. I wore them when I made my descent down that long rope from the firework platform. It was a very successful descent, but my life has perished like this costume—all that part of it which was not fireproof like this asbestos tunic: Take this miserable heap of material and never let your daughter make such a descent, however brightly you might plan the fireworks should burn, however loudly you might hope that the mob would applaud the daring of her performance, however rich and splendid you might think the costume chosen for her. Yes, this wretched bundle of what seemed once such finery represents my life. Wrap it up again and take it out of my sight for ever, but do you, girl, gaze at it sometimes and remember what the old woman who once wore it told you a few weeks before she died.”
There was a tap at the door, and the elderly parlourmaid came in to say that the fly for which Mr. Fuller had telephoned was waiting at
the door
“Do you mean to say that Mr. Fuller hasn’t ordered the brougham to take Mrs. Fuller to the station?” the old lady demanded angrily
“I think that the horse was tired, ma’am,” said the elderly maid, retreating as quickly as she could.
“I wish I had my legs. I wish I had both arms,” the old lady exclaimed, snatching at the small handbell that stood on the table at the left of the bed, and ringing it impatiently.
Miss Young brought Letizia back.
“Emily, will you drive down with my visitors to the station? I shan’t need anything for the next hour.”
It was useless for Nancy to protest that she did not want to give all this trouble. The old lady insisted. And really Nancy was very grateful for Miss Young’s company, because it would have been dreary on this cold March night to fade out of Brigham with such a humiliating lack of importance.
“Good-bye, little Letizia,” said her great-grandmother.
“Good-bye, grannie. I’ve told my auntylopes about my lamb and about my dog and about all my fings, and they wagged their tails and would like to meet them very much they saided.”
On the way to the station Miss Young talked about nothing else except Mrs. Fuller’s wonderful charm and personality.
“Really, I can hardly express what she’s done for me. I first came to her when she was no longer able to read to herself. I happened to know a little French, and since I’ve been with her I’ve learnt Italian. She has been so kind and patient, teaching me. I used to come in every afternoon at first, but for the last two years I’ve stayed with her all the time. I’m afraid Mr. Fuller resents my presence. He always tries to make out that I’m her nurse, which annoys the old lady dreadfully. She’s been so kind to my little brother too. He comes in two or three times a week, and sometimes he brings a friend. She declares she likes the company of schoolboys better than any. She has talked to me a lot about your husband, Mrs. Fuller. I thought that
she would die herself when she heard he had been killed like that. And the terrible thing was that she heard the news from Mr. Fuller, whom, you know, she doesn’t really like at all. He very seldom comes up to her room, but I happened to be out getting her something she wanted in Brigham, and I came in just as he had told her and she was sitting up in bed, shaking her left fist at him, and cursing him for being alive himself to tell her the news. She was calling him a miser and a hypocrite and a liar, and I really don’t know what she didn’t call him. She is a most extraordinary woman. There doesn’t seem to be anything she does not know And yet she has often told me that she taught herself everything. It’s wonderful, isn’t it? And her room! Of course, it’s very unusual, but, do you know, I like it tremendously now. It seems to me to be a live room. Every other room I go into now seems to me quite dead.”
And that was what Nancy was thinking when the dismal train steamed out of Brigham to take Letizia and herself back to London, that melancholy March night.
CHAPTER XV
THE TUNNEL
The only other occupant of the railway-carriage was a nun who sat in the farther corner reading her breviary or some pious book. Letizia soon fell fast asleep, her head pillowed on her mother’s lap, while Nancy, watching the flaring chimneys in the darkness without, was thinking of that old lady who had flared like them in the murk of Lebanon House. After two hours of monotonous progress Letizia woke up.
“Muvver,” she said, “I fink I’ve got a funny feeling in my tummy.”
“I expect you’re hungry, pet. You didn’t eat a very good tea.”
“It was such a crumby cake; and when I blowed some of the crumbs out of my mouf, one of those aunts made a noise like you make to a gee-gee, and I said, ‘Yes, but I’m not a gee-gee,’ and then the plate what I was eating went out of the room on a tray.”
“Well, I’ve got a sponge cake for you here.”
Letizia worked her way laboriously through half the cake, and then gave it up with a sigh.
“Oh, dear, everyfing seems to be all crumbs to-day.”
“Try some of the lemonade. Be careful, darling, not to choke, because it’s very bubbly.”
Letizia made a wry face over the lemonade.
“It tastes like pins, muvver.”
The nun who overheard this criticism put down her book and said, with a pleasant smile, that she had a flask of milk which would be much better for a little girl than lemonade. She had, too, a small collapsible tumbler, from which it would be easier to drink than from a bottle.
“Is that a glass, muvver?” Letizia exclaimed. “I was finking it was a neckalace.”
“Thank Sister very nicely.”
“Is that a sister?” Letizia asked incredulously.
The various relationships to which she had been introduced this day were too much for Letizia, and this new one seemed to her even more extraordinary than the collapsible metal tumbler Nancy explained to the nun that they had been making a family visit to hitherto unknown relations in Brigham, to which the nun responded by saying that she, too, had been making a kind of family visit inasmuch as she had been staying in Lancashire at the mother house of the Sisters of the Holy Infancy.
“Right out on the moors. Such a lovely position, though of course it’s just a little bleak at this time of year.”
She had laid aside her pious book and was evidently glad to talk for a while to combat the depression that nocturnal journeys inevitably cast upon travellers in those days before corridors were at all usual in trains. In those days a railway compartment seemed such an inadequate shelter from the night that roared past in torrents of darkness on either side of it. The footwarmers, glad though one was of them, only made the chilly frost that suffused the upper portion of the carriage more blighting to the spirit. The dim gaslit stations through which the train passed, the clangour of the tunnels, the vertical handle of the door which at any moment, it seemed, might become horizontal and let it swing open for the night to rush through and sweep one away into the black annihilation from which the train was panting to escape, the saga of prohibitions inscribed above the windows and beneath the rack which gradually assumed a portentous and quasi-Mosaic significance—all these menacing, ineluctable impressions were abolished by the introduction of the corridor with its assurance of life’s continuity.
Nancy told the nun that she was a Catholic, and they talked for a time on conventional lines about the difficulty of keeping up with one’s religious duties on tour.
“But I do hope that you will go on trying, my dear,” said the nun.
The young actress felt a little hypocritical in allowing her companion to presume that until this date she had never relinquished the struggle. Yet she was not anxious to extend the conversation into any intimacy of discussion, nor did she want the nun to feel bound by her profession to remonstrate with her for past neglect. So instead of saying anything either about the past or the future, she smiled an assent.
“You mustn’t let me be too inquisitive a travelling companion,” said the nun, “but I notice that you’re in deep mourning. Have you lost some one who was very dear to you?”
“My husband.”
The nun leaned over and with an exquisite tenderness laid her white and delicate hand on Nancy’s knee.
“And you have only this little bright thing left?” she murmured.
Letizia had been regarding the nun’s action with wide-eyed solemnity. Presently she stood up on the seat and putting her arms round her mother’s neck, whispered in her ear:
“I fink the lady tied up with a handkie is nice.”
“You have conquered Letizia’s heart,” said Nancy, smiling through the tears in her eyes.
“I’m very proud to hear it. I should guess that she wasn’t always an easy conquest.”
“Indeed, no!”
“Letizia?” the nun repeated. “What a nice name to own! Gladness!”
“You know Italian? My husband’s grandmother was Italian. I often wish that I could speak Italian and teach my small daughter.”
“What is Italian, muvver?” Letizia asked.
“Italian, Letizia,” said the nun, “is the way all the people talk in the dearest and most beautiful country in the world. Such blue seas, my dear, such skies of velvet, such oranges and lemons growing on the
trees, such flowers everywhere, such radiant dancing airs, such warmth and sweetness and light. I lived in Italy long ago, when I was young.”
Nancy looked up in amazement as the nun stopped speaking, for her voice sounded fresh and crystalline as a girl’s, her cheeks were flushed with youth, her eyes were deep and warm and lucent as if the Southern moon swam face to face with her in the cold March night roaring past the smoky windows of the carriage. Yet when Nancy looked again she saw the fine lines in the porcelain-frail face, and the puckered eyelids, and middle-age in those grave blue eyes. In Italy, then, was written the history of her youth, and in Italy the history of her love, for only remembered love could thus have transformed her for a fleeting instant to what she once was. At that moment the train entered a tunnel and went clanging on through such a din of titanic anvils that it was impossible to talk, for which Nancy was grateful because she did not want Letizia to shatter the nun’s rapture by asking questions that would show she had not understood a great deal about Italy or Italian. Presently the noise of the anvils ceased, and the train began to slow down until at last it came to a stop in a profound silence which pulsed upon the inner ear as insistently as a second or two back had clanged those anvils. The talk of people in the next compartment began to trickle through the partition, and one knew that such talk was trickling all the length of the train, and that, though one could not hear the words through all the length of the train, people were saying to one another that the signals must be against them. One felt, too, a genuine gratitude to those active and vigilant signals which were warning the train not to rush on through that din of anvils to its doom.
And then abruptly the lights went out in every single compartment. The blackness was absolute. People put up windows and looked out into the viewless tunnel, until the vapours drove them back within. Now down the line were heard hoarse shouts and echoes, and the bobbing light of the guard’s lamp illuminated the sweating roof of the tunnel as he passed along to interview the engine driver. In a few minutes he came back, calling out, “Don’t be frightened, ladies and gentlemen, there’s no danger.” Heads peered out once more into the
mephitic blackness, and the word went along that there had been a breakdown on the line ahead and that their lighting had by an unfortunate coincidence broken down as well. Everybody hoped that the signals behind were as vigilant as those in front and that the red lamps were burning bright to show that there was danger on the line.
“I aspeck the poor train wanted a rest, muvver,” said Letizia. “I aspeck it was sleepy because it was out so late.”
“I know somebody else who’s sleepy.”
“P’r’aps a little bit,” Letizia admitted.
“Dear me, she must be tired,” her mother said across the darkness to the nun. “Well, then, put your head on my lap, old lady, and go right off to sleep as soon as ever you can.”
For some time the two grown-ups in the compartment sat in silence while the little girl went to sleep. It was the nun who spoke first.
“I wonder whether it will disturb her if we talk quietly? But this utter blackness and silence is really rather dispiriting.”
“Oh, no, Sister, we shan’t disturb her. She’s sound asleep by now.”
“Does she always travel with you when you’re on tour?” the nun asked.
“Until now she has. You see, my husband only died at Christmas and we were always together with her. I am a little worried about the future, because I can’t afford to travel with a nurse and landladies vary and of course she has to be left in charge of somebody.”
“Yes, I can understand that it must be a great anxiety to you.”
Nancy thought how beautiful the nun’s voice sounded in this darkness. While the train was moving, she had not realised its quality, but in the stillness now it stole upon her ears as magically as running water or as wind in pine-tree tops or as any tranquil and pervasive sound of nature. In her mind’s eye she was picturing the nun’s face as it had appeared when she was speaking of Italy, and she was filled with a desire to confide in her.
“That is really the reason I’ve been to Brigham,” Nancy said. “I thought that I ought to give my husband’s relations the opportunity of looking after Letizia. Not because I want to shirk the responsibility,” she added quickly. “Indeed I would hate to lose her, but I did feel that she ought to have the chance of being brought up quietly. My own mother died when I was very young, and my father who is on the stage allowed me to act a great deal as a child, so that really I didn’t go to school till I was over twelve, and it wasn’t a very good school, because I was living in Dublin with an aunt who hadn’t much money. Indeed I never really learnt anything, and when I was sixteen I went back to the stage for good. I’m only twenty-four now. I look much older, I think.”
“I shouldn’t have said that you were more than that,” the nun replied. “But how terribly sad for you, my dear, to have lost your husband so young. Many years ago before I became a nun I was engaged to be married to a young Italian, and he died. That was in Italy, and that is why I still always think of Italy as the loveliest country and of Italian as the most beautiful language. But you were telling me about your relations in Brigham.”
Nancy gave an account of her visit, and particularly of the interview with Letizia’s great-grandmother.
“I think the old lady was quite right. I cannot imagine that bright little sleeping creature was intended to be brought up in such surroundings. Besides, I don’t think it is right to expose a Catholic child to Protestant influences. Far better that you should keep her with you.”
“Yes, but suppose I cannot get an engagement? As a matter of fact, I have only a pound or two left, and the prospect is terrifying me. I feel that I ought to have gone on acting at Greenwich. But to act on the very stage on which my husband had died in my arms! I couldn’t. I simply couldn’t have done it.”
“My dear, nobody would ever dream of thinking that you could. It’s cruel enough that you should have to act on any stage at such a time. However, I feel sure that you will soon get an engagement. Almighty God tries us in so many ways—ways that we often cannot
understand, so that sometimes we are tempted to question His love. Be sure that He has some mysterious purpose in thus trying you even more hardly. Nobody is worth anything who cannot rise above suffering to greatness of heart and mind and soul. Do not think to yourself that a foolish old nun is just trying to soothe you with the commonplaces of religious consolation. To be sure, they are commonplaces that she is uttering, but subtleties avail nothing until the truth of the great commonplaces has been revealed to the human soul. Our holy religion is built up on the great commonplaces. That is why it is so infinitely superior to the subtleties of proud and eccentric individuals as encouraged by Protestantism. What a long time we are waiting in this darkness! Yet we know that however long we have to wait we shall sometime or other get out of this tunnel.”
“Yes, but if we wait much longer,” said Nancy, “I will have another problem to face when we get to London, for I will never dare arrive back at my present landlady’s too late.”
“I can solve that problem for you, at any rate,” said the nun. “I shall be met at Euston by a vehicle, and I know that our guest-room is free to-night. So don’t let your night’s lodging worry you.”
After this they sat silent in the darkness for a long time. The presence of the nun filled Nancy with a sense of warm security and peace of mind. Gradually it seemed to her that this wait in the tunnel was a perfect expression of the dark pause in her life, which, beginning with the death of Bram, had ended in her visit to Brigham. A conviction was born in her brain, a conviction which with every minute of this immersion in absolute blackness became stronger, that somehow the presence of the nun was a comforting fact, the importance of which was not to be measured by her importance within the little space of the railway-carriage, but that the existence of this nun was going to influence the whole of her life, which must soon begin again when the train emerged from the tunnel. The curtain would rise once more upon the pantomime, and, whatever the vicissitudes that she as the heroine of it might have to endure, there would always be a Fairy Queen waiting in the wings to enter and shake her silver wand against the powers of Evil. It was very childish and sentimental to be sitting here in the dark dreaming like
this, Nancy kept telling herself; but then once more the mystery of the tunnel would enfold her as one is enfolded by those strange halfsleepy clarities of the imagination that flash through the midway of the night when one lies in bed and hopes that the sense of illumination that is granted between a sleep and a sleep will return with daylight to illuminate the active life of the morning. Her thoughts about the nun reassumed their first portentousness; the comparison of her own life to a pantomime appeared once more with the superlative reality of a symbol that might enshrine the whole meaning of life. Then suddenly the lights went up, and after a few more minutes the train was on its way again.
Nancy was glad indeed on arriving at Euston toward two o’clock of a frore and foggy night to drive away with Sister Catherine in the queer conventual vehicle like a covered-in wagonette with four small grilled windows. To have argued with Miss Fewkes about her right to enter the tall thin house in Blackboy Passage at whatever hour she chose would have been the climax to the Brigham experience.
The Sisters of the Holy Infancy were a small community which was founded by one of several co-heiresses to a thirteenth-century barony by writ, dormant for many centuries. Instead of spending her money on establishing her right to an ancient title Miss Tiphaine de Cauntelo Edwardson preferred to endow this small community and be known as Mother Mary Ethelreda. The headquarters of the community were at Beaumanoir where Sister Catherine, the righthand of the now aged foundress, had been visiting her. This was a Lancashire property which had formerly been held by Miss Edwardson’s ancestors and repurchased by her when she decided to enter the religious life. In London the house of the community was situated in St. John’s Wood where the Sisters were occupied in the management of an extremely good school. There was a third house in Eastbourne which was used chiefly as a home for impoverished maiden ladies.
Sister Catherine was head-mistress of St. Joseph’s School, and it was there that she took Nancy and Letizia from Euston. The porteress was overjoyed to see her, having been working herself up for the last two hours into a panic over the thought of a railway
accident. The white guest-room was very welcome to Nancy after the fatigue of this long day, so long a day that she could not believe that it had only been fifteen hours ago that she set out from Euston to Brigham. She seemed to have lived many lives in the course of it —Bram’s life as a boy with his brother, old Mrs. Fuller’s eighty years of existence, Sister Catherine’s bright youth in Italy, and most wearingly of all, Letizia’s future even to ultimate old age and death. And when she did fall asleep she was travelling, travelling all the time through endless unremembered dreams.
In the morning Letizia greatly diverted some of the nuns by her observations on the image of the Holy Child over the altar, which was a copy of the famous image of Prague.
“Muvver, who is that little black boy with a crown on His head?”
“That is the baby Jesus, darling.”
“Why is He dressed like that? Is He going out to have tea with one of His little friends?”
Nancy really did not know how to explain why He was dressed like that, but hazarded that it was because He was the King of Heaven.
“What has He got in His hand, muvver? What toy has He got?”
“That’s a sceptre, and a thing that kings hold in their hands.”
“Are you quite sure that He is the baby Jesus, muvver?” Letizia pressed.
“Quite sure, darling.”
“Well, I don’t fink he is. I fink he’s just a little friend of the baby Jesus, who He likes very much and lets him come into His house and play with His toys, but I don’t fink that little black boy is the baby Jesus. No, no, no, no, no!” she decided, with vigorous and repeated shakes of the head.
Nancy was sorry when they had to leave St. Joseph’s School and return to Blackboy Passage.
“I fink here’s where the little friend lives,” Letizia announced.
“Oh, darling, you really mustn’t be so terribly ingenious. You quite frighten me. And what am I going to do about you next week when the dear Kinos will be gone?”
