A Population of One Read online

  Copyright © 1977 Constance Beresford-Howe

  First published by Macmillan of Canada 1977

  McClelland & Stewart New Canadian Library edition 1986

  All rights reserved. The use of any part of this publication reproduced, transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, or stored in a retrieval system, without the prior written consent of the publisher – or, in case of photocopying or other reprographic copying, a licence from the Canadian Copyright Licensing Agency – is an infringement of the copyright law.

  National Library of Canada Cataloguing in Publication Data

  Beresford-Howe, Constance, 1922-

  A population of one / Constance Beresford-Howe.

  eISBN: 978-1-55199-703-2

  I. Title.

  PS8503.E76P66 2002 C813’.54 C2002-901937-0

  PR9199.3.B4P66 2002

  We acknowledge the financial support of the Government of Canada through the Book Publishing Industry Development Program for our publishing activities. We further acknowledge the support of the Canada Council for the Arts and the Ontario Arts Council for our publishing program.

  The author is grateful to the Canada Council for their award of a Senior Arts Grant to assist in the writing of this book.

  McClelland & Stewart Ltd.

  The Canadian Publishers

  75 Sherbourne Street

  Toronto, Ontario

  M5A 2P9

  www.mcclelland.com

  v3.1

  FOR RACHE LOVAT DICKSON

  with much affection and respect

  CONTENTS

  Cover

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Dedication

  CHAPTER ONE: The Project

  CHAPTER TWO: Colleagues

  CHAPTER THREE: Neighbours

  CHAPTER FOUR: The Long Vacation

  CHAPTER FIVE: Winter Games

  CHAPTER SIX: Generation Gap

  CHAPTER SEVEN: Theft

  CHAPTER EIGHT: Sounds and Sweet Airs

  CHAPTER NINE: This Island’s Mine

  CHAPTER ONE

  THE PROJECT

  On the green April morning when I leave for Montreal to be interviewed for a teaching job, I have in fact two objectives. One, of course, is to get the job: I’ve always wanted to teach. The other is to marry somebody as promptly as possible — or at the very least to have an affair. This latter plan is new. I have labelled it The Project, a phrase light enough to keep Fate and me both safely defused, or so I hope. On balance, though, I feel cheerful and confident about the whole thing. It can’t be really hard, can it, to find a nice man? — though my mother would call that a contradiction in terms. Of course either or both categories of my project might turn out to be a little more complex than I anticipate. At this thought, several large, restive birds I seem to have swallowed recently flap inside me, disturbing my breakfast and my composure.

  I am the first one aboard the Turbo. This makes it hard to play the sophisticated traveller with chic little case and copy of the New Yorker. The one sleepy club-car attendant to notice my existence remarks disapprovingly, “We’re late today — won’t leave till two, Madame,” and looks at me as if I were a social error.

  After trying one or two different locations, I choose a window seat. (Which end is the Ladies? There doesn’t seem to be one at either end; how odd.) My first impression of which way the train is pointed also has to be corrected. I want to be on the lake side, in order to see as much as possible. These various exertions cause a long run to pop down the back of my pantyhose. I feel hot in my New Season tweed suit, and the birds are restless. But nothing can spoil the joy of waiting for the train to move, the journey to begin.

  How right I was to dodge my sister Lou’s offer to see me off. She’d be nagging away: Have you got your ticket? Is your money in a safe place? … you’d think I was three, not thirty, the way she goes on. (Where the hell is my ticket, anyway? — oh yes; all right.) But without her, waiting to leave is half the fun. Partir c’est vivre un peu. You’d think anyone would know that, but French philosophers are always so depressive.

  Nobody aboard yet but those two nuns; isn’t it queer? Can this be the wrong train? Deep down, both Lou and I know I am just the kind of person to be whirled nonstop to North Bay or Yellowknife. But no, the Information man said Track One, and so did that squinty-eyed porter.… My skirt is twisted. I stand up and, with a furtive glance at the nuns, hitch it straight. Sitting down again, I try to smooth the heather-coloured wool over my knees. “It’s gauche to cover your knees this season,” the Boutique girl told me. How marvellous to be so sure what’s gauche. The birds give a leap as I notice a smudge of something — oil? — on the new-smelling edge of my jacket. Damn. Must have got it clambering up those ridiculous high steps into here, cumbered by case, umbrella, handbag, and magazine, not to mention those plans. Is it the forces of chaos in the year 1969 that keep me so dishevelled, I wonder, or some discord inside me, conflicting with the year? Whatever it is, it tends to keep me looking as if I’d just been shot out of a cannon.

  Wait — here’s somebody else. A man. Pushing sideways down the aisle, butting a briefcase ahead of him with his knee. Quite a good-looking man. Youngish, nice grey pinstripe. He plops into the window seat across the aisle and pulls down the shade. A barbershop smell comes from him as he rubs both hands over his face and head.

  Now more people. Two pink-haired old ladies looking gift-wrapped in plastic raincoats. A long string of men with folded Globe and attaché case, like joined paper dolls. Mother with three children and bag of oranges. Two more nuns, their skirts to mid-calf. Gauche. A portly middle-aged couple in trousers; the man is presumably the one with the cigar. Now the sleepy attendant is all over the place with reaching arm, big smile, and Take your coat, sir. He seems to know many of them. It’s almost like a club, to which I don’t belong. The seats are filling up. The birds flutter. Soon we’ll move off.

  A bearded young man pauses at the empty seat beside me, then moves past, even as I look up at him and smile. Well, perhaps he wants a window seat himself. A very old couple stand at my elbow, dogging the aisle helplessly. They lean over me murmuring “Would you mind very much? — so we can be together? — it would be so kind —” And (down, birds) I realize they are asking for my seat, damn them. How to refuse? They look about ninety. So I struggle up, dragging my case after me, and cross the aisle to sit beside the barber-smelling man, who is now asleep, or pretending to be.

  It’s twenty after two, but the train hasn’t yet given a twitch. The frail old couple in my seat are ordering Scotch-and-water. All the places are filled. The warm air smells of oranges and people. I try to read my magazine, but the print seems to jiggle. I feel terribly thirsty. Then, suddenly, from the corner of my eye, I catch a station pillar gliding backwards. My birds give a great heave. We’re on our way.

  An electronic voice then makes it official, announcing the next stop and advising us all, bilingually, to remain in our seats. Unfortunate for anyone who (like me) feels a sudden, urgent call of nature. As we slide out of the station, rain traces horizontal streaks on the window, a tangle of track and overhead wire flashes by, and soon the train begins to make generous, swooping lurches. The man beside me opens his eyes and gives a mini-groan, and I wonder if he shares my qualmish memory of being five and carsick.

  “A bit rough, isn’t it?” I say brightly.

  “Mah.”

  “They travel fast, these trains, don’t they? Is it ninety miles an hour?”

  “Yoh.”

  “Do you often make this trip?”

  “Uck, uck, uck.” He clears his throat of an apparently massive obstruction.


  “This is my first. Time on the Turbo, I mean. I hope they’ve ironed out all the bugs by now.”

  “Good service. I come up to Toronto every month,” he says huskily. “Christ, it’s hot in here. Where’s that damned waiter? Eh, Pascal — a Canadian Club here, lots of ice.… Uh, maybe you’d like a drink?”

  “Oh. Well … perhaps — yes, I’ll have a little sherry, then. Thank you very much.” Nice of him. My stomach gives a loud growl; I wish I had something to eat.

  “I suppose you come to and fro on business.”

  “That’s right.” His slightly watery blue eyes are unfocussed, without interest; but after the drinks have come and he has gulped half his, he seems to feel much brighter. His cheeks pinken, he leans forward to offer a cigarette, and gives me a quite charming smile.

  “God, that’s better. Fact is, I had a pretty late night.”

  “Did you really? Business deal, I suppose.”

  His lips twitch. “Yeah. Right. Big deal. Toronto’s quite a town these days. You just visiting Montreal?”

  “Well, not exactly. I’ve got a job interview. Actually I’ve never been there before, so I’m quite —”

  “Never been to Montreal? Lady, where you been? — in jail?”

  “Well, not exactly,” I repeat, feeling silly. “I’ve always lived in Toronto. With my mother. Only now she’s gone —”

  “Pascal — excuse me — a refill here; and you’ll have another? Sure? Just the rye, then.… You’ll like Montreal. Still has something, I don’t know, zing, personality. Take Westmount, it’s mostly Wasp there, you know; but it’s still no way like Toronto. Only thing is these damn peasoups, all this crap (excuse my French) about a separate Quebec; and some of them are crazy enough to try and shoot the place up, you’d better believe it.”

  “Really?”

  “Bet your life. I’m in real estate, been with the same company for nineteen years, and you’d never believe what’s happening to property values in Quebec now. Incredible.”

  “Well, all kinds of values are getting a shake-up now, aren’t they? I mean moral values and all that. You hear a lot about young people —”

  He flashes me a dramatic look.

  “Christ, don’t talk to me about young people. I got two teenagers, and I tell you — I mean they simply haven’t got a clue what life’s all about. My dad walked out on us when I was sixteen; you can guess where that left me, oldest kid of three. No college. No travel. No nothing. Get a job and work my ass off. Absolutely no choices. Then comes my son, everything on a platter, and he flunks out of Cartier his first year.”

  “Oh, Cartier College? That’s where I’m —”

  “Excuse me — hey Pascal — you’ll have another one, eh? No? Just one for me, then.”

  “Cartier has a good reputation, hasn’t it? I mean it’s not McGill, but —”

  “Aw, I don’t know. All these places’re full of separatists, pot-smokers, left-wingers.… I went to see my son’s Math professor, turns out to be a guy in a headband with a swastika round his neck, for God’s sake. Anyhow, I said to Jamie, look, boy, it’s work or out. You cut classes, you fail; okay, OUT. So he’s living right now in some kind of crazy commune in a tenement full of bugs on Jeanne Mance. And there you are. You a teacher, then?”

  “Well, I have a Ph.D.… the nineteenth century’s my field. But this will be my first real teaching job. If I get it, that is. Wish me luck, will you? Teaching is — well, specially the humanities — something of value — you’re giving civilization a sort of friendly leg-up, in a way …”

  “Lady,” he says with a bloodshot glance, “you may be in for a shock. These kids today don’t give a sh — I mean a damn — for anything, never mind civilization. My daughter’s on welfare, how about that? I put her out of the house. Caught her and the boyfriend in bed, drunk as frogs. I mean, they just deliberately cock a snook at everything. They seem to hate us.”

  He looks out of the window briefly, his eyes so sad I almost reach over to give him a comforting pat. Permutations and combinations of wet field, red barn, and clumped trees, whirl past in endless succession. He clutches his empty glass on his knee like a weapon.

  “I suppose your wife —”

  “Yeah, well, we’re sort of — like separated. Pascal! No, look, take away that damn plastic food; keep it; just give me another rye here, lots of ice. You really going to eat that? — all right, I’ll buy you a brandy later on, you’ll need it. No, I wouldn’t want to be a teacher, I tell you that. Uh — where you staying in Montreal? Got friends there?”

  “No.” I almost add the name of my hotel; but that might be unwise. Mother’s training. Of course she was terribly old-fashioned, God love her. “Never take out your house keys in a public place,” she used to tell us. “It looks like an invitation. You know what men are.”

  “My name’s George. George MacKay.” He is running his eyes over me now with so much interest (could Mum be right?) that I’m too shy to go on munching my crusty roll, and feel myself starting to blush.

  “Well, I’m called Willy — short for Wilhelmina — my grandmother used to admire that old Dutch queen.”

  “No kidding. You not married?”

  “No.” I add nothing, of course, about those intentions of mine. But they are firm. Partner unknown as yet. Details likewise. But I am fed up with being a virgin. A pity there is no refined way I can convey this sentiment to George MacKay.

  “Yuh, smart girls stay single,” he mutters. “Smart guys, too.”

  (You may be right. But partir c’est vivre —)

  “I’ll be forty-five next month. By God, it sometimes feels like a hundred.”

  I say nothing. Thirty is surely not too old for everything. The Project should be perfectly simple to accomplish, if I just organize properly.

  “Like to show you round Montreal some time. Nice town, specially this time of year. All right, Pascal, take this junk away, right, and bring the lady a brandy. No? Aw, come on. Sure? Well, the same again for me.”

  I haven’t kept count, but he says quickly, “Don’t worry. I got no problem whatsoever with drink. None whatsoever. The thing is know your capacity, that’s all. Greatest tranquillizer there is, you ask me. All this crap about brain damage, liver damage, it’s all a load of horse manure. Doctors always got to croak about something. Wife’s a nurse; same thing, on and on. Where’d you say you were staying?”

  “Tell me — in your business you’d know all about it — where could I find a nice modern apartment … maybe in Westmount?”

  “Thousands of ’em,” he says vaguely. His head slips forward a little and he swallows a belch. But when the waiter brings along his new drink, he sits up like a man prepared to do a man’s work.

  “Cheers. Yes, I’d sure like to show you around. You’re an attractive gal, right? You know what that curly hair means, and those little gaps between your teeth … if not, I’ll explain some time. We’ll get together. Montreal can be a very lonely place.”

  “So you know that,” I think. The train rocks us gently together. I smooth my skirt over those gauche knees. “Yes, cities are lonely. Do you ever feel as if you might as well be on a desert island, because there’s absolutely nobody you can really talk to? I mean you can have family, friends — I’ve got my kid sister Lou — well she’s twenty-five, married to a nice swinging lawyer — and yet we can’t talk to each other. We love each other, I suppose; but that’s not enough. That’s why I sometimes think marriage, if you just liked your mate, would be the answer. To loneliness, I mean.”

  I feel the blush again, hot on the forehead. My mother would have had a fit to hear me talking like this to a strange man. But as it happens, there’s no need to worry, because he has at some point or other dropped into a deep sleep. His head is tilted against the corner of the seat, and his mouth is a little open, letting out a faint snore.

  All through the carriage now there’s a drowsy, post-lunch lull. The silence oppresses and depresses me vaguely. Yet I should be us
ed to silence. God knows. Didn’t I live in a silent house for more than twenty years? A time and space where my parents never spoke to each other except through me.

  “Be good enough to tell your mother, Willy, that this month’s laundry bill is preposterous, and I have no intention of paying it.” “Kindly remind your father that the property taxes have been owing for two months now.” “It’s her house, as your lady mother is never tired of reminding me. Let her pay the taxes.”

  On Lou’s wedding day he did say stiffly to her, “I understand, Mary, that we’re expected to sit together in the church.” She nodded. And sit together they did, formally dressed, side by side in the front pew, never once glancing at each other or exchanging another word. The extraordinary thing was that no one but me seemed to hear their silence. The years and years of it, when I lived with them in that Rosedale house, filled with the silence of glass under tension. The creak of her rocking-chair all day behind the locked door of her room. The fumble of his key in the lock late at night. His muttering progress up the stairs; his stumble in the upstairs hall. As he passed her door, he sometimes gave it a violent bang with the flat of his hand.

  And that is why vivre un peu is so important to me; why The Project is more than just a joke, and why George MacKay, even with his head joggling and mouth open, has a certain allure, though not of the romantic kind.

  Just the same, if this were a novel, I think, and right now Chapter One, it would surely be a love story. You could always trust them in the nineteenth century, for instance. After all, even Lucy Snowe met four men on her first night in Villette. Yes, strangers meeting. Two lonely people. Enough problems and obstacles to make a satisfactory plot. Then the happy ending … lovers united. No more loneliness. Trollope, Brontë, Dickens; they all agreed. So it must be possible. As a matter of fact, I feel quite drawn to George MacKay, in spite of his personal prose style. Those rather bewildered blue eyes appeal. You can see in there sometimes, just for the flick of a second, the child he was. Often can’t see that at all in people. One reason I’m so different. The child in me is still there whole for anyone to see, swinging upside-down in the tree-house of adult Willy Doyle, grinning hopefully at the world with gaps in her milk teeth.