You Could Believe in Nothing Read online

  “Okay,” said Allan. “If we can just refocus here.”

  “Now, what’s brilliant about sports is that when they sell it to you, they don’t even have to give you the beer. It’s all tits.”

  “Not real tits, obviously,” said Heneghan.

  “No, not real. Virtual tits. Marketing tits.”

  This prompted approving nods all around and fresh beers for everyone. Barry moved to shoot from the other side.

  “Okay, I’ve only got a couple more questions,” said Allan.

  “You’ll never get the girl,” said Nels Pittman. He sat in the opposite corner, next to Derek, far from the light. “Is that the point, Murph?”

  “Yeah, that’s key. You always want the tits you can’t have. You open your wallet.”

  “Murph? Please?” said Brian, tilting his head towards Allan.

  “Sorry.”

  “Okay.” Allan was back to his notes. “People talk about how games like baseball can open your mind. You can contemplate stuff. Is hockey like that? Do you ever think about other things when you’re playing?”

  “Not really, b’y,” replied Kev. “It’s hard enough just to keep up out there.”

  “You don’t think back to other games, other times in your life?”

  “Well, it’s funny,” said Heneghan. “I was thinking about something tonight.”

  “Yes?”

  “I was thinking about going out to Grandfather’s old place in the spring. Haven’t been there for three years now. Not since Grandfather died.”

  “What made you think of that? Is there something in hockey that brings you back? A conduit?”

  “A what?”

  “Did your granddad play the game?”

  “No. It’s just that with the snow breaking up and the longer days, you start thinking about maybe taking a road trip.”

  “So your grandfather—”

  “My grandfather died in the same house he was born in,” said Heneghan.

  “Sorry, is it Steve?”

  “Hmm?”

  “Steve, it’s better if you look at me than at the camera.”

  “Okay. Sorry.”

  “No, no, that’s okay. So can you just go back to the start? Your grandfather died?”

  “Yeah, he died right there, probably the same room he was born in, and—”

  “No, sorry. Can you start, just start again so we get it all clean. ‘My grandfather died in the same house he was born in.’ Start there.”

  “Okay. My grandfather died in the same house he was born in.”

  “Yeah. I mean, keep going. Not at the camera.”

  “When I was a kid he told me, ‘If I dies, I’m gonna die right here. Not going up to St. John’s. Not going into the hospital. I’ll die here and I’ll be buried up back of the church with my father and his father.’ And he was.”

  “Where’s this, Steve?” asked Brian.

  “Out on New World Island.”

  “Any other family out there?”

  “No. My father got the hell out of it. They all did. There were government jobs on the go, more money than Grandfather ever dreamed of. Nobody stayed, not in my crowd.”

  “Okay,” said Allan. “Maybe we can wrap up with you guys telling—”

  “Hang on,” said Nels Pittman. “You were going to say something else, Steve?”

  Allan looked to Brian, who looked to Nels in his darkened corner.

  “I don’t think he’s finished,” said Nels. “Carry on, Steve.”

  “Well, Grandfather always said, you got to fight to make a go of it around here. But his Newfoundland was already over. Everything changed.”

  Heneghan lifted his hands and rolled them over each other, indicating the unstoppable march of modernity.

  “My father could get a government job, buy a house, get a pension. He didn’t want to live like Grandfather, and I couldn’t live like Grandfather even if I wanted to.”

  He paused. Barry kept the lens trained on him, sipping a beer with a free hand.

  “That’s interesting,” said Allan. “And do you think we’ve lost something by leaving behind those traditional ways?”

  “Let me tell you about traditional ways. Grandfather was a grown man before he found out his sister was his mother.”

  “His sister…How?”

  “The woman he thought was his oldest sister was really his mother. The mom he grew up with was really his grandmother. They didn’t tell him until he was in his twenties or something.”

  There was a pause while all hands unravelled this turn.

  “What about his father?” Brian asked.

  “Never found out who his father was, first nor last. His mother took it to her grave.”

  Barry held the shot, smiling. Everyone drank. Heneghan looked at Allan, as if expecting a response.

  “Wow,” said Allan finally. “I mean…So, the whole idea of traditional Newfoundland—”

  “I don’t believe in traditional Newfoundland.”

  “You could believe in nothing,” said Murph. “You could believe in nothing, and this could be your game.”

  Derek stayed until the beer was gone. Heneghan offered to drive him home, but Derek said he was only going around the corner. Heneghan had no business getting behind the wheel, and Derek watched as his Toyota pickup hit a patch of black ice and clipped the gate at the end of the parking lot. Under a flash of street light Derek saw the damage, a long silvery gash along the fender. But Heneghan didn’t stop. He backed up, shifted gears with a lurch, then pulled into the street and away.

  At home, the telephone blinked with a message, a beacon in the dark kitchen. It was Lou. Louis Butt. Hey-Hey Lou Langdon.

  “A long talk tonight, me and your mother. Thought you’d want to know. We’ll be talking to you, I’m sure.”

  Quarter to midnight. Derek called back.

  “It’s all out there now?”

  “All out there, yes,” said his father.

  “What about Cynthia?”

  “Hmm? Yes. Yes, we called her. It’s all done now.”

  Derek coughed. A filament twitched, playing his testicle like a fish on a line.

  “Where were you all night?”

  “At the rink.”

  “Bloody fool,” said Lou, with an abrupt laugh. “A bit old for that now, aren’t we?”

  “Is Mom still up?”

  “Sure. I’ll get her.”

  There was a murmur of voices, his father’s hoarse and his mother speaking in long, low tones. Derek couldn’t make out what was said.

  “Everyone’s tired now, Derek,” she said when she picked up the phone. “We can talk about this soon.”

  “Okay.”

  “Your brother called tonight, on top of everything else. He’s coming home for a bit.”

  “Is he bringing his new wife?”

  “I don’t believe so. Maybe with the pregnancy she’s staying close to home.”

  They said goodbye and hung up. Cynthia had turned up on call-waiting while they talked. Derek called.

  “Can we get together tomorrow?” She was wide awake. “I’m seeing Mom for breakfast. Can you come over after, around nine?”

  “I will.”

  “You’re a guy. Maybe you can offer some, I don’t know…knowledge, I guess.”

  Knowledge. Allan had come to the rink like the pilgrim to India or the tourist seeking authentic Newfoundland. Marvelling at colours and smells, the monastic purpose, he expected transformation, a cleansing. Like Cynthia, he believed there was knowledge.

  “Well, I think I did the right thing,” she said. “To look into his past.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I think I was right to look at those old letters. It’s what people carry with them, the past. They carry it
all their life.”

  Derek poured a vodka and orange juice in a beer glass, and drained it while standing next to the refrigerator. Then he climbed the stairs and undressed. He did all this in the dark. The only light came from the fridge, when he opened it to get the orange juice.

  He got in bed, fell asleep immediately, and dreamt he was alone in a strange dressing room at a strange rink. The walls and floor were brilliant white, and the reflected light made him shield his eyes. Hearing running water behind him, he turned to find a set of open shower stalls. One was occupied. Nicole was showering, the water flattening her dark hair and pasting it to her face. Without acknowledging Derek, she stepped out of the shower and through a door. He followed her into a smaller room, dark and unfurnished, except for a couch. Naked and dripping wet, Nicole sat down and reclined, turning her face to the wall. Derek dropped to his knees and laid his head in her lap. “Close your eyes,” she said, and he did.

  SEVEN

  For all the good it did, Derek made excuses at work and turned up at Connor Place on Monday morning. Lou wasn’t home. He was on the radio.

  Good-looking week ahead! High getting up to thirteen today. Double digits, gotta love it! Mr. Cliff Richard is gonna chase away those cloudy days, taking us back to 1959!

  Lou didn’t pick his own songs. Derek understood that. Precision software had quashed the myth of personal taste. A song was deconstructed, its hierarchy of sub-qualities established, analyzed, assigned a numerical personality, and cross-referenced demographically to determine its sentimental value to the optimal listener. That’s how Cliff Richard had been selected as a reliable narcotic for a Classix 490 morning commuter. To Derek it sounded like the music of a man in full retreat.

  My skies are looking bright and blue

  Sunshine is breaking through

  Oh baby since you came my way

  Chase away the cloudy days

  The sky was full of light as Derek pulled into his parents’ driveway. Sun streamed into the kitchen, shadows of window frames making crosses on the floor. Derek, Cynthia, and their mother sat there, speaking in a kind of dumb shock.

  “Well, then…” they said, folding their arms, composing themselves.

  “Clearly it seems…”

  “Let’s focus on…”

  “I always figured…”

  “But I never thought…”

  Nobody said, “This isn’t possible.” Nobody said, “There must be some mistake.”

  Cynthia had a way of resting her forehead in one hand, fingers working into her hair like talons. Derek thought it a bit dramatic.

  “People will talk. Let them talk,” said his mother, sucking tightly on a cigarette. “This hanging about only gets worse. If he’s out of a job, we need to know.”

  Cindy pressed. “He’s ashamed of something.”

  “Your father never judged me. Never. His family did, but I expected that and tried not to give a damn.” She smoked. “He never judged me.”

  Watching his sister drift away, staring out at the blue sky, Derek knew she was imagining a future of whispered voices and awkward silences, all the things she might lose. Similar thoughts pressed a weight into his chest. He imagined it bursting, vile fluids pouring out of him.

  The meeting was inconclusive, and followed by five long days of silence. So that’s how it is when crisis descends, thought Derek. A period of dead calm. Paralysis.

  He was sitting in Auntie Crae’s, finishing coffee and watching Water Street through the plate glass window, when Mrs. Ferguson poked her head from the car. She was smaller than he remembered. The liver spots at her wrists and hairline looked like brown thumbprints. She rose from the car with bone-white fingers wrapped over the door frame and her face set in a grin or grimace. She was halfway up when her arms gave a shudder and her back sagged. But she found her legs, lifted her head, and slammed the door with authority.

  She froze then, as if the street had taken her by surprise. Rushing from the driver’s side, Kelly reached for her bicep. The older woman gave a start, mouth falling open, while a rude gust of wind tumbled their hair. Mrs. Ferguson shut her eyes against it. Kelly put a hand to her mother’s back, and they pressed forward.

  Derek gathered his coat and made for the exit. He wasn’t up for the small talk, and he couldn’t shake the notion that people could see into him, that he was on display. He had skipped the last two hockey nights. A guy was always on display there.

  They were upon him before he could slip out. Mrs. Ferguson almost walked into him at the door, which swung hard in the gust. She didn’t look up, only paused and waited for a gap in the congested space behind the cash registers. Derek stepped back, and Kelly released her arm, like a parent having guided a child to safety.

  “You look good,” she said.

  She might have just come from cleaning the yard, her fleece jacket grimy at the cuffs and stained white down the front, damp red hair wilting at her shoulders. One clump of curls had flipped in the wind, and stood unsteadily over her brow.

  “Nice hair,” said Derek.

  She smiled and shook her head, as if exasperated with herself, pulled an elastic from her pocket, and bundled the red tangle through it.

  “How’s your mom, Kel?”

  They both watched the old woman push through the Sunday afternoon bustle, the bearded men hoarding baguettes and moms with toddlers queuing for cappuccino. The women looked fresh and eager. Spring had opened them to the pleasures of the world. The men retained winter’s gloom, their pinched, dark faces looming over the deli counter. They nibbled brioche samples without pleasure and asked pointed questions about the cheese. Nothing new this week? Wasn’t the smoked gouda supposed to arrive Thursday? And these plain little shop girls, not even worth flirting with.

  “Honestly, Derek, she comes and goes,” said Kelly. “I picked her up this morning and she was all worried about me and Sebastian, how will we ever manage. Then five minutes later, she’s asking where’s Billy, is he coming for lunch.”

  Mrs. Ferguson lifted a box of biscuits to her nose and studied it, head tossing an involuntary jiggle.

  “I’m sorry,” said Kelly, reading Derek’s silence. “You wouldn’t know. I’ve left Billy. Or we’ve left each other. Sebastian and I are in a little house on Colonial Street. Jesus, what a few months.”

  “Oh, shit.” He didn’t know what to do with his hands. “I mean, you okay?”

  “Mother, you remember Derek.”

  The small woman wore a quilted turquoise coat, buttoned to the neck. She looked up at Derek with waterless eyes. Full and black, they did not hold the light.

  “Are you having coffee?” she asked, though she had already looked away, her gaze racing ahead of her tongue.

  “No, thank you. I’m just on my way.”

  “She’s not deaf,” said Kelly, linking an arm through her mother’s. “Let’s get a table, and you wait there and I’ll get your tea.”

  From a woman who had twice beaten back cancer, Derek expected a more life-affirming presence. She must have taken a bad turn in September, when her husband collapsed at a friend’s anniversary party. Derek could imagine old Bob Ferguson brought to his hands and knees, sucking for breath, fingers clawing at the plush red carpet. He was dead by the time the ambulance arrived, or so they said. From long-ago family dinners, Derek knew him as a thin, stony man who didn’t eat much. His eyes lit upon everything with exacting judgment, and the tendons in his neck were rigid. He would have been enraged by the humiliation of a public collapse. Derek pictured a heart literally exploding with muted fury.

  That was the last time Derek had seen Kelly, when her father was laid out at Carnell’s, the room packed and stifling and giddy. “She’s devastated,” whispered Nicole. “And who knows what’s going on with buddy.” Buddy was Billy, the new patriarch, presiding over the deceased with a quick stride and hardy smile, talking too lou
d, laying a pastoral hand on a shoulder.

  Mrs. Ferguson was on the move, pulling her daughter into the sitting area at the front window. Derek had to let the conversation drop or walk with them. Kelly pushed at her mass of red curls again. Her hair was all over the place, thicker and longer than it had been when she and Derek were together. Under the jacket, she was braless in a fraying denim shirt. Wooden bangles clattered up and down one arm. Most of the women he knew compacted themselves as they grew older, opting for efficiency. Kelly seemed to be going in the opposite direction.

  “The table’s over here,” she said. “We’ll sit at the window. Honestly, Derek. I don’t mind Bill having problems. I just never thought he would make me the enemy.”

  He tried to measure this statement against Billy’s bold performance at the funeral home.

  “You remember Neyle-Soper Hardware, Mom? It used to be right here. They closed up some years ago. We’ll just sit over here at the window.”

  We comfort the old with dead acquaintances and expired landmarks, reminding them that the world was not always so utterly nameless as it appears. Neyle-Soper was ideal for such elegies. Wooden drawers rattling with drywall anchors and oily hinges. A sour man in an apron, wrapping a scoop of nails in brown paper with string. Receipts written out by hand. Word of the shop’s demise had inspired a fit of nostalgia among the downtown fetishists. They converged on the place in its final days, sniffing the vitiated air and sawdust floor, pining for the folksy ways of the olde towne. Always susceptible to momentary enthusiasms, Derek paid fifty cents for a tarnished door knocker. “It’s from Neyle-Soper,” he imagined himself telling visitors. “Ahhh,” they would reply, drinking in its authenticity. But he had never put it up, and the old thing had long since been misplaced.

  “I’m sorry. How are you? I should have asked. I’m sorry.”

  “No, that’s okay. I’m good. You know.”

  “You want coffee, Mom? A pot of tea?”

  “Nicole is moved to Ottawa, so I’m a bit at loose ends myself.”

  “I’m seeing Larry Maraniss,” said Kelly. “He runs the bakery on Forest Road, you know? This way. Easy. There we go.”