The Box Garden Page 6

  Eugene, I’m a little relieved to see, seems to be enjoying the train trip after all. Soon we’ll be getting into the prairies, Saskatchewan, the real prairies where he grew up, and he’s looking exceptionally thoughtful. It may be that he’s thinking about his father again.

  By habit he sees almost everything he does through the double lens of his dead father’s limitations, and these reflections are necessarily rimmed with regret, for his father, a hard-working farmer on a piece of worthless land, lived a life of unrelieved narrowness. “My father never slept in a Pullman,” Eugene may be thinking. “He never made love behind a hairy green curtain going seventy miles an hour through the mountains.” “My father never slept in a tent,” he had thought when he went camping for the first time at the age of twenty-five. “My father never rode in a Citroen, never had a glass of wine with his dinner, never went to a concert, never rode in a subway, never ate a black olive, never skied down a hill, never read Hemingway. My father never had a hundred dollar bill in his pocket. He never wore a ring on his finger in all his life. He never sat in a sauna and watched the steam rising off his chest. He never tipped a bellhop or smoked a cigar. Or watched a tennis match or slept in a waterbed in a fifty-dollar a day room with colour television. For that matter, he died while people were still wondering if there would ever be such a thing as colour television.”

  I am right; Eugene is thinking about his father. After a minute he begins to tell me how his father introduced him to the mystery of sex. Of course, Eugene explains, it was already too late. He was a boy of thirteen at the time, and on a farm there are no such mysteries. “But someone must have told my father that he owed me something more. It might even have been my mother. No, on second thought, I don’t think so. I think he just made up his mind that he should explain everything about sex to his only son.”

  “So he had a long chat with you out in the barn?” I suggest.

  “Oh, no. Better than that. Or worse than that, it depends on how you look at it. I mean, he was a man who didn’t really know how to have a long talk. They didn’t talk much at home, neither of them, and I was the only kid and fairly quiet too. But he must have figured out in his head that the time had come for sex. It was when we were at the fair. The same fair we had every year in town. More of a carnival really, pretty junky, but there were some farm animals and home preserving and all that too. We always went, it was the big deal, the three of us. There wasn’t all that much else to do.”

  “Go on about the sex.”

  “Well, this particular day when we were standing in the fairgrounds, he turned to my mother and said that he was going off with me for a while and we would meet her later by the cattle judging yard. So off we went.”

  “Where?”

  “To a girlie show.”

  “No! Really?”

  “Really. It was in one of the tents way, way at the end of the grounds. There was a big sign—‘See The Prairie Lovelies—Only Twenty-five Cents.’ ”

  “The Prairie Lovelies?”

  “And under that was another sign. ‘Twenty-five cents extra for the Whole Show’. Only there was a circle around the W. The Hole Show.”

  “And did you know what that meant?”

  “Christ, yes, I was thirteen. But I didn’t want to go in, at least not with my old man. And I don’t think he really wanted to either. He just wasn’t that kind of guy. I think he figured he owed it to me or something. God only knows.”

  “And how were the Prairie Lovelies?”

  “Well, we went in and stood around this platform and out came these three girls in kind of Arabian Nights costumes. And they started dancing around. Over at one side some guy was playing the accordian.”

  “Were they any good?”

  “Terrible. Not that I’d ever seen any dancing girls before, but even I could tell they were no good. The audience, of course, was all men, farmers mostly, standing around in their overalls. One of the girls was so fat we could hear her huffing and puffing the whole time she was dancing.”

  “Wasn’t it erotic at all?”

  “I suppose, in a way, it was. First the veils came off. Then whatever they were wearing on top. Only this was a few years back and they had flower petals on their nipples. And G-strings under their skirts.”

  “What about the Hole Show?”

  “That came after. That was when the accordian player stopped and announced that we’d have to pay an extra quarter for the Hole Show. The Hole Show. I can remember how he smacked his lips when he said it. He passed a plate around, and I guess pretty well everyone stayed for that.”

  “And . . .?”

  “Then two of the girls kind of faded away, and the other one, the fat one, started in with the bumps and grinds and the accordion going faster and faster all the time while she untied the sides of her G-string. It seemed like forever before she got it off. It was so hot in there you wouldn’t believe it, and my father and I standing right in the front. Finally, there she was, peeled right down and sort of squatting and turning so everyone could have a chance to see. There sure wasn’t much to see, just a blur really. Then she started dancing again, grinding away, and suddenly she leaned over and grabbed my father’s hat off his head.”

  “His hat?”

  “A work hat. A blue cloth hat he had with a peak in front. He never went anywhere without that hat, not that I can remember anyway. You just didn’t see farmers bareheaded in those days.”

  “And what did she do with it?”

  “First she sort of bent over and started rubbing it up and down her thighs, wiggling away all the while. Everyone was clapping and yelling like mad by then and banging my father on the back. And then she got wilder and wilder and starting rubbing the hat up against her crotch.”

  “No!”

  “Then everyone went crazy and so did she, just rubbing it and rubbing it.”

  “What did your father do?”

  “Just stood there. Paralyzed. Stunned. Remember he was over fifty then. He just stood there with his mouth open. And his hands reaching out for his hat. Finally she took it and kind of swept it under his nose—that was the worst part—and then she banged it on top of his head.”

  “Oh, Eugene.”

  “He grabbed hold of it and ripped it off his head. And threw it on the ground and stomped on it. Then he took hold of my arm, hard, and pushed me on out through the whole damned bunch of them. Right out the doorway. Past the next bunch of suckers lining up outside for the next show. God.”

  “And what did he say? Afterwards?”

  “Nothing. Not one damn thing. I didn’t either. We just walked fast all the way to the other end of the fairground where my mother was waiting. He walked so fast I had to run to keep up. I wanted to say something, to tell him it was okay, that I didn’t mind all that much about the hat thing, but we never said anything, either of us. Not then or ever.”

  “Ah, Eugene. And that was your sex education.”

  “I’m almost sure that’s what he intended it to be. Because he sure as hell would never have blown two bits just for the fun of it. He never wasted money. There was never any to waste. I think it was all for me. And she blew it for him, the poor old guy, by grabbing his hat. And so did I by not saying anything.”

  Eugene shakes his head and, looking out the window, remarks flatly, “It seems a long time ago.”

  We sit quietly. When Eugene talks about his life, it is always with a sorrowing regretful futility as though the thin distances of his childhood could produce nothing better. But for me there is something compelling about his family, a sort of decency which surfaces unconsciously. I see them in prairie gothic terms, stern but devoted, humble but softened by an unquestioned tradition of love. Nevertheless, at the same time, I find myself listening for something more robust and redeeming, a note of valour perhaps; in Eugene’s stories he seems deliberately to choose for himself a lesser role. I yearn for him to demonstrate an aptitude for heroism, and I don’t know why. I must ask Brother Adam about that—
why do I require bravery from Eugene when I don’t possess it myself?

  I rest my hand in his lap. We are racing past tiny towns raised to significance by brightly painted grain elevators. Beyond them, fields, a sullen sky, a pulsing lip of brightness behind the clouds. Our train, shooting through air, is the slenderest of arrows, a hairline, a jet trail; it cares nothing for the space it splits apart and nothing for us; all we are required to do is sit still and watch it happen.

  From Winnipeg I phone Seth. There is only twenty minutes, but luckily the call goes right through. And it’s a good connection.

  “Hello. Is that you, Doug?”

  “Yes. Charleen! Where are you?”

  “Winnipeg. We’ve just got a few minutes, but I thought I’d phone and see how everything was.”

  “Everything’s fine here. We’re all getting along fine.”

  “Is Seth there?” I ask, and suddenly realize that it is two hours earlier on the coast; Seth might be asleep.

  But surprisingly Doug says, “Sure he’s here. Hang on a minute, Char, and I’ll get him.”

  I hang on for more than a minute, two minutes, unbelievable! Here I am calling long distance. Long distance—I remember how my mother used to say those two words, her voice stricken, worried and worshipful at the same time.

  “Hello.”

  “Seth,” I say, “where were you just now?”

  “I was just here,” he says maddeningly.

  “Well, how are you getting along?”

  “Fine.”

  “How come you’re up so early on a Saturday?”

  “I just woke up now.”

  “And you’re getting along fine?” I ask again.

  “Yeah, just fine.”

  “You sound all out of breath.”

  “Oh? I guess I’m just surprised to hear from you.”

  “I had a few minutes in Winnipeg and I thought I’d just make sure everything was okay.”

  “How are you?”

  “Oh, fine. We get in tomorrow night. Aunt Judith will already be there. She’ll probably meet us. At least I think so.”

  Silence from Vancouver.

  “Hello, Seth. Can you hear me? Are you there?”

  “I’m still here. I can hear fine.”

  “Good. Well, I’d better go. Just phone me if you need anything, okay?”

  “Okay.”

  “You’ve got the number?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Well, I guess I’d better say good-bye.”

  “Good-bye.”

  Two years ago when Seth started the orthodonture treatment he was advised to give up his tuba temporarily; for the year and a half while the bands were on his teeth he played the double bass. He was good at it; everyone remarked about how quickly he picked it up.

  We bought the double bass third-hand through the want ads; we got it cheap because there was no case. It’s a big, waxy, humming buzzard of an instrument, and because its bulk so nearly approximates that of a human being, I soon began to think of it as a sort of half-person, a rather chuckly, middle-aged woman, rather like me in fact.

  One day Seth forgot to take it to school and he phoned me between classes asking if I could drop it off. I took it on the bus, feeling enormously proud of her polished, nut-brown hippiness, her deep-throated good nature, the way the sun struck off gleaming streaks on her lovely sides. Seth waited for me on the steps outside the school, frowning and a little anxious that I might be late. When he saw me getting off the bus he jumped up and ran to meet me, taking the instrument out of my arms, whirling about with it and kissing the air about its bridge. I can never get that picture out of my mind, how extraordinarily and purely happy he looked at that instant.

  But the minute he had the bands off his teeth he went back to playing the tuba. I can’t understand it. A tuba is such an awkward machine with its valves and convolutions; it’s such an ugly brassy armload, and I don’t understand what Seth likes in the choking, grunting noise that comes out of it.

  There seems something rather perverse about his preference. He explains that he likes the tuba better because it’s his voice that makes the sounds; the double bass has a voice of its own—it’s just a question of letting it out, something anyone can do. I don’t think he’s touched the bass since. It stands, serene as ever, in a corner of his bedroom. He keeps a beach towel draped over it to keep off the dust, but no one loves it anymore.

  Sometimes I think there’s something symbolic about it, but symbolism is such an impertinence, the sort of thing the “pome people” might contrive. (God knows how easily it’s manufactured by those who turn themselves into continuously operating sensitivity machines.) Of course, symbols have their uses. But something—my cramped Scarborough girlhood no doubt—ties me to the heaviness of facts. Tubas and double basses are not symbols but facts, facts which can be—which must be—assimilated like any of the other mysterious facts of existence.

  As the train moves closer to Toronto I decide I must warn Eugene a little about my mother. “She’s always been a difficult person,” I say.

  “How do you mean, difficult?”

  “Well, to begin with—you’ll notice this right away—she’s never been what you’d call demonstrative.”

  “But she must have loved you. You and your sister?”

  “It’s hard to explain,” I say. Hard because she had loved us but with an angry, depriving love which, even after all these years, I don’t understand. The lye-bite of her private rancour, her bitter shrivelling scoldings. When she scrubbed our faces it was with a single, hurting swipe. When we fell down and scraped our knees and elbows she said, “that will teach you to watch where you’re going.” Her love, if that’s what you call it, was primitive, scalding, shorn of kindness. I can’t explain it to Eugene; instead, I give him an example.

  “When she brushed our hair in the morning, Judith’s and mine, when she brushed our hair ...”

  “Yes?”

  “She yanked it. Hard. It really hurt. She’d catch us in our bedroom, just before we left for school. She’d be holding the brush in her hand. When I think about it I can still feel her yanking my head back.”

  Eugene listens without comment.

  I shrug, afraid I’ve betrayed a streak of self-pity. “That’s just the way she is, and don’t ask me why. I don’t understand it. So how could you.”

  I had forgotten about the thousand miles of bush between Winnipeg and Toronto. But here it is. Eugene and I are sitting high up in the Vistadome with nothing but curved glass separating us from turquoise lakes, whorled trees, the torn, reddened sky and, here and there, clumps of Indian cabins. We’re sitting close to the front and so high up that we can overlook our whole train from end to end. We seem to vibrate to a different rhythm up here; the side-to-side swaying is gone; from this position we glide on cables of pure ozone. And music pours sweetly out of the chromium walls: Some Enchanted Evening. The hills are alive with the Sound of Music. Dancing in the Dark. Temptation—a tango—You came, I was alone, I should have known you were temptation. Eugene reaches over and takes my hand.

  We met two years ago through mutual friends, the Freehorns, at a small dinner party in late May. It had been an utterly respectable occasion, in every way the reverse of my meeting with Watson which had occurred in a run-down neighbourhood drugstore, a meeting which was described in those days as a pick-up. Watson was someone who picked up people. I was someone who had allowed myself to be picked up; was that what doomed us?

  But the meeting between Eugene and me was impeccably prearranged, although Bea Freehorn assured me before the party that even though she was inviting a single man, I was not to suspect her of matchmaking. “There’s nothing that burns me up more than being accused of fixing someone up,” she told me over the phone. “But Eugene’s a pet, you’ll like him. Merv thinks he’s terrific.”

  Merv and Bea are old friends, so old that they date from the days when I was still married to Watson; the four of us, in times which now seem impossibl
y idyllic, used to take Sunday picnics up to the mountain; I would bring potato salad and a cake and Bea always brought salami and corned beef and sometimes cold chicken. Now they give dinner parties; I’ve tried to fix the year when they stopped inviting me to dinner and started inviting me to dinner parties. Sometime when Merv was between assistant and associate in the Law School. Or maybe after they moved into the new house, yes, I think that was it. They have a patio overlooking the ocean where Bea likes to serve dinner on tiny lantern-lit tables. She is an accomplished cook, and I would never turn down one of her dinner invitations with or without a suspicion of matchmaking.

  “Actually,” Bea had confided, “you and Eugene have something in common.”

  “What?” I asked cautiously.

  “You were both married for exactly eight years.”

  It’s hard sometimes to tell when Bea is being serious. I waited for the rough curl of her laughter but heard only earnest confidence. “He’s really had a rough time of it. His wife got screwed up with Women’s Lib and just took the two kids one day and moved out. He has the boys on weekends, nice kids, but she won’t take a penny from him, so in a way he’s lucky. Anyway, he’s a nice guy.”

  Nice. Yes, I could see that right away when I met him. Nice, meaning polite, presentable, moderate, inquiring and almost sloshily good-natured. He arrived a little late with his right hand freshly bandaged and was apologetically unable to shake hands with the Freehorns, the Stevens, the Folkstones, or with me.