An Honest Woman Read online

  I first met Mister Sunshine two weeks ago, when my friends were here. Our month at the cottage this year goes like this: my youngest, Eric, with his little buddies the first week, then my friends the second; Darce and her boyfriend for part of the third week (all they could spare from summer jobs before heading back to university), and now Matt and his gang, Eric tagging along, good as gold, to close off the month. Dad Moe has never wavered on the cabin, ever. “You are still my daughter-in-law; these are my grandchildren. You are entitled to your time at this place.”

  I remember waking up that first Mister Sunshine morning two weeks ago with lines from Hamlet in my head, punk kid pontificating to his mother about her unseemly lust, some nonsense about the heyday in the blood being tame. Then, while Paula and Manjini and I lounged on the deck, talking of ceramic museums in Meissen and Guangzhou, exploring the relationship between John Cage and mixed-ability dance, debating whether maintenance enforcement is worth the trouble when saddled with a deadbeat ex-husband, suddenly this lovely man appeared on the deck. Oh how he smiled, particularly at me, I thought. I couldn’t figure out why, but I liked watching him anyway. That day he worked in the bunkhouse, because, he explained, the installation required a short-term interruption of the water supply, and he didn’t want to inconvenience anyone. My mood was bright. So I smiled back at Mister Sunshine, said, “Feel free to take a swim break whenever you like. It’s gonna be a hot one.”

  Later on, in that restless lull in the middle of a summer’s day, I sat on the deck while my friends napped. Watched Mister Sunshine stretched out on the raft and wondered if he had a towel. Wondered if I should offer him one. It didn’t occur to me then — that would come later — to imagine towelling him off myself. With my own hands. With my tongue. No, that came later. Soon enough, but a bit later. I was still in the sweet stuff then, with my characters Leland and Jay. Things were still under control.

  So, in the manuscript I’m working on, working title Final Draft, I knew somebody had to die to bring Jay over to the UK, to deepen it and make them take the risk. At first I had Leland’s wife bump herself off — like Rochester’s in Jane Eyre, how convenient — but then I thought, why not make it Leland’s daughter? Sure, this is a loss Jay would truly sympathize with, because of her own sister . . . So even though they stay in the suite — they have to because of his other kids — it is still sweet and good but then. But then something happens.

  Wow, Jay’s and Leland’s story is getting weirder, more intense. I revised the up-against-the-door scene, the “there you go” scene — oh how I’ve gone over and over that one in my mind with great pleasure ever since it occurred to me in the car on the way home from the last department meeting of term, rush hour. And now the Kensington Suites scene . . . But I can’t let things end in London like this, can I?

  When I return to the cabin from shopping in town, the yellow van with the sunny smiling logo is nowhere in sight. The boys are finally up, though, draped over the furniture like throws. I ask them to help bring the groceries in. They don’t move. I ask again. Still no response — gang mentality, first guy to blink. Only when I walk over and switch off the TV in the middle of their Simpsons video do they get to their feet and slouch towards the door, though by this time, poor little Eric has made three trips — way more than his share. I remind myself to spend some time with him today. Between the manuscript and these damn teenagers, I’ve neglected the poor little guy. But Matthew must be dealt with first. I decide to hold off until after lunch, and I’ve already popped a cookie sheet full of bacon into the oven when Dad Moe finally returns my call.

  I’ve been worried about him, but he says he’s fine, he has forgotten his favourite pen at the cabin, though, and wants me to bring it back to town with us when we return.

  I get off the phone just in time to discover that the bacon is burnt. But at least the eggs and hash browns are okay, and I set the boys to work making toast and cutting watermelon. I’m chipping blackened bits of pork fat off the surface of the pan, wondering how a multimillionaire could fret about a lost pen, when it occurs to me that it is precisely because of his attention to such details that he’s as rich as he is.

  The doorbell interrupts our sullen greasy meal and there he is, beaming. Mister Sunshine. He stands braced against the doorjamb, which shows his muscular arms to advantage, and I can’t help thinking, Got a licence for those guns? Mister S, clean and shining and smiling warmly, in his trademark khaki and white. He has thick curly reddish-brown hair, a thick curly beard. Burnished is the word that comes to mind. I stand at the door, certain that I have a flax seed stuck prominently in my bridgework.

  “Feeding teenagers,” he says, peering over my shoulder. “I was just out on the coast visiting my kids. Man, I couldn’t believe how much these kids eat, eh?”

  I concur, “Keeping food in the fridge is practically a full-time job. Had to make another grocery run this morning. I hope you didn’t arrive earlier?”

  “Oh no, just finished up another job down the road.”

  “Well. The basement door’s open, so please just go ahead. I’ll be around if there’s anything you need. A bit chillier today, so you probably won’t even want a swim.”

  “Probably not,” he says, “but you never know. Weather can change pretty fast around here.”

  “It sure can,” I say. I’m wondering why he’s still standing there. Once he goes away, perhaps I can try to figure out what he means. Perhaps there are those who can figure out what people — particularly men — mean while actually in conversation with them. But I am not one of those.

  Kids. Visiting kids on the coast. So they don’t live with him.

  He says he’ll have to turn the water off for a while; in fact he has explained this several times. I say, “Oh no, really, just go ahead. Give us a little notice and we’ll fill the sinks and a couple of buckets for the toilets.”

  He is being excessively solicitous about avoiding inconvenience, I think. Could it possibly be that he just wants to keep me talking?

  No. That couldn’t be it.

  Mister S grabs his toolbox and heads down to the basement. The boys shovel food into their mouths, without pleasure, conversation, or thanks. I ask Trev and Craig to do the dishes and say to Matt, “I need to talk to you. Let’s go for a walk.”

  I wouldn’t have noticed the yawning, if my sister hadn’t mentioned it after Matt’s visit out east last summer. “A nervous tic, you’ve probably never noticed it,” she said. “He yawns when he’s anxious in social situations, or stressed.”

  “He does?”

  “Yeah, it’s bizarre. A friend of mine commented on it, and then I started to notice it too. If he’s feeling awkward, he just yawns and yawns. Obviously, he’s never anxious around you, but — ”

  So there we are, Matt and me, walking up the road from the cabin, the dog prancing happily before us, toward the gate. And Matt yawns constantly for the entire twenty minutes we’re together.

  I start out, “When I went into the bunkhouse this morning, I — oh hello, how are you today?”

  A neighbour. An intense crazy neighbour, senior citizen, whose face lights up at the prospect of someone to greet, and Matt and I stand politely, hearing tales of his brilliant son and talented grandchildren, all the while trying to inch around, circle dance him back towards his cabin and get ourselves pointed back up the road. It takes a few minutes, but we manage it. The trick with the elderly is to let them talk as long as they keep bragging, but to make a fast break when they start complaining about the government or young people on drugs.

  We walk on and I count ten steps, but he can’t take the suspense. “So, what’s up?”

  “Matt, I found drug paraphernalia in the bunkhouse this morning.”

  He yawns and yawns. “This is awkward,” he says.

  “I’m worried because it was a smell I didn’t recognize. I mean, look, I know it’s normal for kids your age to . . . mess around with cannabis, but — ”

  “Did you? Wh
en you were in high school?”

  “Well, yeah. But if it’s something else, then that’s a real concern for me. The smell was really — ”

  “It’s Colts, these cigarillo things. Trev brought them. Craig didn’t even do it, it was just me and Trev.”

  “Matt, now I know for sure that you’re lying. Because the first night you guys got here, and you went out for a canoe ride, I heard Craig say, ‘Wow, everything’s so much cooler when you’re high.’”

  “How did you hear that?”

  “I was out on the deck. You know how sound carries on the lake. I heard every word you guys said.”

  Yawn. Yawn. Yawn. “This is really awkward.”

  “Sure is. And I was so mad this morning! I was going to just send the guys home — ”

  “But Mom — ”

  “Matt, how could you do that? You have asthma. You must never smoke anything, ever. And why in God’s name would you smoke that stuff in a little closed room in a house where you know nobody ever smokes, ever? What were you thinking?”

  “I don’t know, Mom. I’m sorry. It won’t happen again.”

  “Well, you guys have lost the use of the bunkhouse for the duration. You need to be in the house, where I can keep an eye on you.”

  “I know, I know. Okay.”

  “So. I guess we’re good, then. And you guys are going to behave?” I’m such a goddamn coward, can’t face the thought of Matt sulking around the house staring daggers at me for three days.

  “Yes. Boy, this is awkward. It was just . . . a little weed, that’s all. The smell was from the Colts.”

  The sun has come out, and when Matt and I return to the cabin, the other two boys have taken Eric out to the raft. Matt changes into his swim shorts and paddles out to join them. I wander down to the beach, begin picking weeds and gathering water toys. Their voices carry clearly, despite the breeze, and I hear the questions even before Matt pulls himself onto the raft.

  “What did she say?”

  “She knows.”

  “Everything?”

  “Pretty much.”

  “Oh man.”

  “What did she say, though?”

  “I, uh. I can’t say much more. Because of — ” Eric, of course. Bless him, I think. Matt’s a good kid still.

  They lower their voices, now. But after a few moments, Trev dives off the raft and swims purposefully to shore. Emerges from the water and stands on the dock. He has something to say. “Um,” he begins. I always tell the friends of my children to call me either Mrs. Mair or Janet, but most of them simply choose to call me nothing at all. Or “Hey” or “Um.” Trev continues, “Hey, I’m sorry about what happened. It was my fault. Matt’s not like that.”

  I am eager to believe this statement, without examination, and despite knowing that Trev is a smooth liar. I realize how smooth when I remember coming in to the bunkhouse last night to call the boys to dinner — and watching them emerge from the sauna, Matt and Craig red-faced and clumsy, but Trev sliding out last, his bedroom eyes heavy-lidded, saying, “You’re right, guys, we need to heat up those stones a little longer. It’s nowhere near hot enough.” I’d caught them in the act then and there, without knowing it.

  And okay, perhaps the fact of a bare-chested young man dripping lake water —

  Yes, yes, it comes on, this arousal, this awakening . . . all I know is I just really want this conversation to end, so I say, through an armload of weeds, “Well. That’s good to hear. But we’ve got some pretty basic ground rules around here, and you guys broke a whole bunch of them.”

  “I know. I’m sorry. It won’t happen again.”

  “Well. Make sure it doesn’t, and I won’t tell your parents.”

  “Oh, they know already.”

  “They do?”

  “Yup. Um, would you mind if I go back in the bunkhouse for a minute? I just need to grab a shirt I left in there.”

  “Go ahead, Trev. But make it fast, okay?”

  I toss the weeds onto the pile and begin to gather up the broken bits of Styrofoam noodles that litter the beach; the boys used them yesterday as lightsabers in a Star Wars battle. Oh how they hang suspended between boy and man. And I am here, a witness. I remember to feel thankful for that.

  Just to get away from Trev, I trudge up the embankment and into the basement. I’d forgotten about Mister Sunshine, but there he is, crouched over his pipes and panels, wrench in hand. His smile is warm, like sunshine. His name, of course, is Ray.

  “Damn kids,” I mutter, dumping the broken noodles in a corner.

  “I know what you mean,” he replies. “My son’s twenty and still living with his mom, not doing much of anything. But my daughter’s fifteen going on thirty, she’s so sensible.”

  I am trying to do several things at once — trying not to worry about drug overdoses and fire damage, trying not to be a dirty old lady, and trying to do some quick math. Twenty? Even if he’d fathered this child at eighteen, that means he’s gotta be at least —

  And the words, the tone of “his mom” comes through loud and clear. A man who is still living with the mother of his child does not say “his mom” like that. Mister Sunshine turns to his work and I observe the backs of his tanned legs. He can’t be a runner. Runners’ legs look like somebody stuffed a squared-off two by four in the flesh behind the shinbone, but his are rounded, one could even say voluptuous. Then he sets down his wrench and turns back to speak to me again. Something about his daughter, bored at school, how he wants her to come out here to live with him.

  This man seems to want to engage me in conversation, tell me things about himself, introduce himself. This confuses me, and I end up obeying the strongest of my several impulses: I decide that I have something else terribly important to do, if only I could figure out what that is. Oh yes —

  “Well. Guess I’d better make sure that those maniacs haven’t drowned my youngest yet — ”

  But there Eric is, down at the beach at the end of the bay. He has left the big boys muttering together on the raft and paddled over to the shore on his boogie board. I walk along the water’s edge to him, call, “What’s up, bud?”

  “Just making a new staff,” he says, testing the stick in his hands.

  “That looks like a good one,” I say. “It’s nice and smooth because the beavers have stripped all the bark off. Look, you can see the marks from their teeth.”

  “Cool. Stand back, Mom.” And Eric sets his face and solemnly swings the stick through the air with all the warrior grace he can conjure. He supplies the sound effects expertly: unh, ah, hmph.

  “Looks great,” I say.

  “Yeah,” he says. “It’s always good to imagine it out before you do it.”

  “Yes, honey. I like to do that too.”

  And I’m standing there looking at my son, and the backdrop of forest behind him, and wham, I’m imagining it out myself:

  News item: Quill and Quire

  A new Canadian novel has created an international stir, by presenting a romance between a supposedly fictional British novelist (male) and an up-and-coming Canadian woman writer. Though the main character is called Leland Mackenzie, most readers quickly recognize a certain renowned author and recent recipient of the Booker Prize. The novel, published under a pseudonym, has been attributed to many established Canadian women, but none have come forward to claim authorship thus far. However —

  Eric’s voice snaps me back to the beach. “So can we, Mom? Can we go to the cliffs?” Ah yes, though the sun has gone under, the big boys are now clamouring for a cliff-jumping excursion, and I agree, as long as they let me drive the boat. I’d much rather sit on the deck up at the cabin with my book, but I can’t trust them, today, not to do something stupid.

  As indeed they do, or rather continue to do. They decide, for reasons which remain obscure, to jump off the cliffs together, like Charlie’s Angels, dressed not in their usual half-mast cutoffs and boxers, but in these retro jumpsuits that someone left in the back bedroom closet
decades ago — this ludicrously faux athletic wear in zippy colours, the embodiment of everything foolish and trivial of the late 70s: bands and stripes of colour, bright yellows, hot pinks, swooshes, drawstrings. When Darce arrived last week with her boyfriend Leo, the first activity my daughter suggested — before a swim or a wakeboard or even just a drink on the deck — was, “Hey, let’s try on those old clothes!” My childhood dressups were all about the serious business of being beautiful, of rehearsing womanhood. With these kids, it’s all a big friggin’ joke — their costume wearing has a nastiness, a hard irony.

  Darce is a handful at the best of times — the mother/ daughter thing of course — but her prickly nature pumps up the volume on that as it does on just about everything. We get along better now that she’s away at university most of the year, but I often think that the two who remain to me are the beneficiaries of all the mistakes I made with Darce — the manipulations, the guilt. I’ve learned to disengage a little better, now. But not without the expense of sleepless nights and raging days and a current relationship with my firstborn that dances into what modern psychology would probably call projection, or maybe enmeshment.

  And oh how my dreamy dreams got derailed, last week, by the factual presence of young lust. Of course, I’d warned Darce and Leo in advance that they were not permitted to sleep together at the cottage. Thus Leo was pointedly assigned the top bunk in a room shared with the boys, while Darce herself was to sleep in the back bedroom at the end of the corridor. The young couple scrupulously observed this injunction — by making out hungrily in every room of the house except the one where their ardour would not be on display, namely Darce’s. They’d loll about on Leo’s bunk as well — the younger boys lingering embarrassed at the door in dripping wet swimsuits, too shy to interrupt. Perhaps Darce and Leo saw themselves as refusing to be sneaky, but it looked like exhibitionism from where I stood, and it pissed me off on several levels, not least because it made my own preoccupations look empty, foolish, shameful. I was so glad when Darce and Leo finally left, and I could return to my dreamy dreams.