The End of Music Page 5

  The phone stops. Carter doesn’t trust the doctors at that place, the way they wrangled him into it. We’ll just give it a try, Mr. Carter. Just five milligrams per day. It slows the progress a bit.

  He releases Isabelle’s legs. Waits until the muscles release.

  “Okay?”

  Her chest jumps with little convulsions that turn into laughter. Not her real laugh. More of a mad, slippery giggle. Finally she opens her mouth and takes a long breath. Wipes her chin with the heel of a hand.

  He crawls up and lays his head next to hers.

  “Good joke?”

  “Very.”

  “Care to share?”

  “You wouldn’t get it.” She gives him a sleepy, not-quite-there look, and turns her back to him.

  It took Carter a long time to understand that this is simply her way, that she dims and flares like a faulty porch light. It’s better than it was with Leah. Making love with her had always been a pursuit, like he was trying to close a gulf between them.

  “Back to school for you on Monday,” she says, still looking away.

  “I hate that phrase,” says Carter. He runs his teeth over his tongue, moving the bitter-salt taste around his mouth.

  Isabelle snorts a laugh.

  In fact, he doesn’t mind being the forty-something student. It was Isabelle who pushed him to finish the undergrad degree. Filled out the application, examined his ancient transcripts from Memorial University, brought home the calendar, and flagged courses with sticky tabs.” Don’t think about money or career,” she said. “Just engage yourself. You’ll die working at that bakery. The drudgery of it.”

  Carter flipped through the catalogue and settled on archaeology. He recalled being interested—or half-interested, anyway—in the archaeology course he had taken at Memorial.

  She turns and takes his arm to pull him near. Carter reaches a hand between his legs to tease himself back to life.

  “Relax, Carter. It’s not a race.” She shifts her legs to either side and takes the full weight of him. A rangy woman with broad shoulders and thick legs. She carries it well. Walks like a ballerina, toes out. Long, lovely nose. Long eyebrows and heavy white lids that seem to descend over her eyes in slow motion.

  It’s taken them a couple of years to get it back. Ordinary sex. The watchful grind of baby making had imposed a peculiar, abrasive kind of intimacy, even hateful at times. Isabelle hunched on the bed, taking her temperature. Reclining with knees splayed to check the quality of her mucus, stretching it like raw egg between her fingers. The practiced fumbling before Carter emptied himself into her. Waiting and not talking about it until the used pads appeared in the bathroom wastebasket, neatly rolled in their pink wrappers. Start again. Then the miscarriages, with their knee-buckling, crimson-faced cramps. Peeling away her soaked pyjama shirt, pressing a cold cloth to her blotchy face and neck and chest. Isabelle squeezing his hand so hard it ached for days after.

  Later, as he dips in and out of sleep, the phone starts again. “Go away,” says Isabelle, with a drowsy wave.

  A nursing home wouldn’t be calling at night. Unless…Carter rises on one elbow to check the phone, but the caller ID is blocked.

  He’s heard stories about old folks homes measuring quality of life as whatever keeps them catatonic, whatever makes it easier on the staff. Joyce is getting the new pill to ward off depression and anxiety, is how it was put to him. But maybe they just want her manageable.

  Isabelle rolls into his back with a sigh, irritated to be awake. “So with your band, isn’t the music out there anyway? It’s probably online somewhere, isn’t it?”

  “Probably. She just wants us…she wants the band to have a final end.”

  “How do you feel about that?”

  “The music’s not great, I know that. But the older you get, you’ve got to own up to the things you did and move on.”

  “Unless you’re Leah.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Her moving on days are over.”

  Carter sees Leah wasting away in time-lapse photography. Hips and elbows and vertebrae poking against wounded skin. Cracks and open sores running with weak blood. But he doesn’t really know what cancer looks like.

  “Does she have anyone? Family, or a partner?”

  That question, and the hitch in her voice. It’s nearly a decade since Isabelle left her brother to die alone. It was the only thing she could do, after all the days and nights spent at his apartment, the groceries delivered and meals cooked, the futile efforts to hide his dope, drain his booze, and push him into rehab, the drives to Emergency as he slumped beside her, barely conscious or doubled in pain. Ronnie was out of his mind, and dangerous. That’s what Isabelle said on the day he died. She called Carter to come get her. He found her at the street corner. They drove away and went to a movie. A ridiculous old French film about a boy and girl falling in and out of love. The actors sang their parts, and it was almost too much for Carter, this relentless singing about hopeless passion. When the love expired and the boy drove away, the lights came up and everyone in the theatre looked around blinking.

  Their combined body heat is too much, and Carter rolls out of the embrace.

  “No boyfriend, I don’t think. Leah’s family is pretty small. Brother still in Kenora. A little sister who died. That was a sad tale.”

  “What happened?”

  “I’m not sure. But she was never quite right. She always thought she was pregnant. Her period would stop and she’d be gaining weight, throwing up in the morning. The whole thing. But there was never any baby.”

  “Pseudocyesis,” says Isabelle. “Hysterical pregnancy, they used to call it.”

  “Have you ever seen it?” Isabelle almost never talks about the kids she sees at the student counselling centre.

  “No. Was she married?”

  “The sister? I don’t know. I never knew her, never really knew any of them. We did a song about her, though.”

  “A song?”

  “About the fake pregnancies.”

  “My God, the poor woman’s privacy!”

  “But the way we did it, no one would ever know. Leah changed names. The woman in the song dies, and within a year or so the sister died too.”

  “That’s awful!”

  “Yeah.”

  In fact, he and Leah had been proud of the coincidence. Here was proof of their artistic intuition, a sign that they had hit a rich vein and songs were now bursting from them as thunderbolts of pure truth.

  Isabelle rises. Her feet pad across the carpet and make sticky sounds in the wooden hallway.

  There was a time when the old French film wedged between them. But they worked through it until Sam appeared and made everything that came before seem insignificant. Ronnie was hopeless, doomed no matter what, and hardly worthy of his sister’s loyalty. One night he even tried to offer Isabelle to one of his drug buddies, in exchange for a hit of whatever they were on.

  “Remember how sweet it was when we were trying?” says Isabelle, returning to the bed, tossing and settling. “Before Sam? Trying, trying, trying.”

  “What made you think of that?”

  “I’m getting my period.”

  “It wasn’t sweet. It was really hard.”

  “I know. But sometimes it was, I don’t know. Nice.”

  “I hated it.”

  “You didn’t. You loved it.”

  //////

  The telephone rings, and Sam responds, singing nonsense words from his perch at the kitchen nook. He’s ignoring his toast, though it’s been cut into shapes, the way he likes it. Another ring.

  “I have to pee,” says Sam. He scrambles to the floor and strips off his pyjamas. Sprints up the stairs using hands and feet. At the top of the stairs he shouts, “Daddy! Answer the phone!”

  It’s Howley Park. What i
f they want to shift Joyce to the place down by the lake? He can’t blame his mother for fearing the prospect of diapers and spoon-fed tapioca and bodies slumped like dead infantry in the TV room.

  The third and final ring. Carter watches through the window as a car hits the dip in the street and creaks like an enormous mattress. He can imagine the stream of invective from the driver. Locals know to slow down when they approach 19 Vickers Street, with its nasty hollow. The subdivision is barely a decade old, but its roads are sinking in spots where they weren’t properly graded.

  Upstairs, he finds Sam in his favourite underwear. Nautical blue, patterned with whitecaps and orange fish.

  “Sam, where did you get those?”

  “Where’s Mom?”

  “She had to go to work early. Tell me where you found those underwear, please.”

  “In my room.”

  “In your laundry basket. What have we told you about taking clothes from your laundry?”

  Sam turtles, face down and rear end raised, the curve of his white back shielding the unsteady heart. The fish on the underpants swim front to back, around the side and across the cheeks.

  “Sammy, you wore those underwear yesterday. They have to be washed.”

  Squirming and sliding, the boy dangles his head over the side of the bed. “My other underwear are fake.”

  “Fake how?”

  “Fake on my bum.”

  “Come on, Sammy. You know better.”

  “I don’t!”

  They’re calling it his defiant phase. Though Isabelle suggests it might not be a phase at all. Maybe it’s the real Sam. “It’s gone on so long now,” she said. “It could be part of his personality coming to life. A contrarian streak.” How might they explain this in the child development books? When your boy acts like an asshole, the parent might assume it’s a passing phase. But we should consider the possibility that maybe he’s just an asshole.

  “Time to go see Miss Kristen.”

  “I have to pee!”

  “You just went.”

  Any mention of Kristen sends him dashing to the toilet. He has loved her unconditionally since his first day in the three-year-old room. It was never this way with Miss Tricia, though he adored her as well. When he switched rooms, the shift in his affection was quick and absolute, and went straight to his bladder.

  Carter leaves him to the bathroom and returns to the kitchen.

  A message on the phone.

  “Herbert? Could I speak to Herbert please?” His mother’s voice begins loud, then softens. The swish and rustle of a hand against the mouthpiece. “This is Joyce Carter and Herbert Carter is my son. He was raised on Alcock Street. My husband, Arthur, is passed away. There are no other children.”

  Someone interrupts her. A man nearby. “What?” says Joyce, her voice drifting. “Talk right into the phone, my love,” says the man.

  A delay. Then she speaks slowly, measuring her words. “Can I speak to Herbert, please.”

  “Daddy!” shouts Sam. “Daddy!”

  Muffled voices. A tumbling hang-up, his mother struggling to match receiver to cradle.

  Carter saves the message. Sam crashes into him, face to crotch. Tugs at the zipper of his jacket. “I can’t. I can’t.”

  Carter fixes the snag. The zipper runs smooth, prompting Sam’s first smile of the day.

  “Who you talking to, Dad?”

  “Nobody.”

  “Was it Mommy?”

  “No. Where’s your knapsack? You still need pants, Sam.”

  When Carter leans in to buckle the car seat, Sam exudes a mild stale-water scent. Not only has he escaped the house in his orange-fish underpants, he’s pulled his entire wardrobe from the laundry basket.

  “You’re dirty,” says Carter.

  “You’re dirty,” says Sam. “We didn’t brush teeth.”

  //////

  His mother won’t remember calling. Or she’ll get indignant about the booze again. “It’s not right that they keep it from me.” He lifts the phone and finds the call display. Howley Pk 3 Fl.

  “Third floor nursing station.”

  “Hi. My name is Herbert Carter. My mother is a resident there.”

  “Mrs. Carter? Yes?”

  “She called a little while ago. From this number.”

  “I’m sorry? You’re calling for her? Did you go through our switchboard?”

  “No. She called me. Just an hour ago. Or…”

  “Resident calls don’t normally go through here, sir. I could transfer you to the switchboard.”

  “But she called from this number. This is the number that showed up. She left a message.”

  “One moment, sir. Nora? Nora? NORA! Who covered off when I went downstairs?”

  The voice breaks into shards of syllables. A second voice answers. Distant agitation. Carter sits at the front window. Counts eight black ants belly up on the sill. A live one flexing its legs in the corner.

  “…and tell them they better. That crowd. They got to figure it out. That bloody crowd.” A moment of throat-clearing as the voice returns to the phone. “Is this about the fee increase, sir?”

  “No. I’m returning her call.”

  A flapping of pages. “Only we had a few calls about the fee increase. But it’s no good calling us. Oh, here we go. Someone had a complaint about Mrs. Carter.”

  “A complaint?” The word feels like a terrible defeat.

  “From another resident. I wouldn’t worry about it, sir. Some people complains about anything. Mr. Foley complained the other day because a fellow at his table had two pieces of pie. A formal complaint, mind you.”

  “But she was the one calling me. I don’t know what it was about.”

  “A couple of them were riled up about the fee increase.”

  “But that’s got nothing to do with her. Anyway, can I talk to her?”

  “I wouldn’t worry about it, sir. I’ll have the office get back to you, all the same. Anyway, we got to get everything sorted out here now.”

  Carter takes the hint and says goodbye.

  A letter about the fee increase arrived last week. An extra $176 per month is far from insignificant. But Joyce is financially independent, thanks to a frugal life and a surviving-spouse pension from the feds. Art Carter did well for himself. Got out of Bonavista Bay at a young age and hooked into a good government job, just in time for all those big post-war salary leaps. One child. Nice split-level with a two-car driveway, a maple in the yard and a wood stove in the den because it’s nice to have a wood stove. Trips to Montreal and Nova Scotia—Florida one year, though none of them could take the heat. An annual reminder of their good fortune was the summer trip to see Dad’s crowd in Bonavista Bay. The chilly, damp little cove and its weed-choked pond. The grubby cousin with the scar on his lip. The local boys and their nasty street hockey games. The creaking gloom of the general store, like something from a horror movie.

  Carter suspects that he was never meant to enjoy Bonavista Bay. The trip was meant to be instructive, an illustration of his father’s progress in the world. A reminder to the boy that he had narrowly escaped a grim and backwards existence.

  Prosperity nagged at Art Carter like a nervous condition. Bonavista Bay nipped at his heels, prompting repeated wisecracks about boiled cabbage, horrible outhouses, frozen well water, and nothing but an orange for Christmas. He voted for Joey Smallwood, attended Sunday mass out of obligation more than devotion, and scoffed at those who waxed on about simpler times and the good old days. “Poverty,” he would say with a snort. “Misery.” He was careful of his dignity, keeping his tie snug and jacket buttoned. Didn’t dare haggle with tradesmen or bankers, for fear of appearing cheap. Leaned too close and agreed too readily when addressed by a hotel clerk or car salesman, eager to show that he was equal to the exchange. An evening at Sinbad’s St
eakhouse made him giddy, though he always placed his order with gravity, hands folded across his belly. The bill left him anxiously fingering his patent leather wallet. Ten percent? Twenty? Inevitably he over-tipped. Overcompensated. An apology for his inexplicable good fortune.

  4

  Joyce unzipped and pushed the dress down to her ankles. The pale blue taffeta billowed up around her legs and she punched at it with her feet to get clear of it. A shiver went through her, back to front. The radiator ticking and banging behind her, hopeless. She danced on the balls of her feet until she was into her robe. Pulled the blanket from Rachel’s bed to wrap around the robe. Wool socks and into bed with the covers to her neck. She wanted a cigarette but didn’t want her hands out in the open.

  What a night. If it was going to be like this all the time, Joyce wanted no part of it.

  Rickety old cabin down by Deadman’s Pond. Wouldn’t last five minutes if you put a match to it. Those men with their pocket flasks out. Sitting right up front, shouting and carrying on, and their women laughing. Not laughing so much as screaming. You’d have thought they were being murdered.

  Den had warned her that afternoon, as she was leaving work. Better watch your step, he said, when she told him she was off to do a show with the band. Especially down at that cabin, he said. The savages will be out. Den was no innocent. Joyce took him to be around her father’s age, but he carried himself with the vitality of a much younger man. She’d seen how he leaned across the lunch counter, chattering like a magpie, coaxing a smile from that little one who was always rinsing the dishes. If Dennis tells a girl to watch her step, it might be advice worth heeding.

  The night had started well enough. A few nice dance numbers before Joyce stepped up to sing “Carolina Moon.”

  Then the crowd arrived from steak night at the Base, drinking from their pocket flasks. “Steak night’s a bugger if you’re trying to keep up with the Scando boys,” said Reg Pritchett, who had been with the band longer than anyone.

  “Who?” asked Joyce.

  “The boys from Scandinavian Airlines. Try to match drinks with them and you’re asking for trouble.”

  The microphone still gave her a fright, the way it sent her voice booming off the walls. She kept backing away from it, and the more she backed away the louder she sang. Then she’d catch herself and lean in for a low note, and the microphone would set it howling like wind in the eaves.