Close to Hugh (35 page)

Nevaeh heel-teeters on her stepstool and puts out a hand—Savaya grabs it, not L.

See, L is already pulling herself away, because because, because she wants to work, she needs to stay sane enough to work. Because there is not enough money and it will all be up to her, if her mom goes to pieces. Hugh said he would talk to the gallery guy. She should go home now and finish twenty more things.

Or stay, stay and go crazy with Hallowe’en, which comes but once a year. This school has its faults, every school does, principal among them Pink. But one thing we do well is dress up: costume/disguise, masquerade/reveal.

The Loved One
, nice title for a dress, whose is this?—it’s attached to a white, drapey tunic thing, a new one. Nice, very nice, feels like silk.

L letters it carefully, thinking of Nevaeh. On the reverse, Jason’s sticker says:
“Ah bird, our love is never spent with your clear note. H.D.”
She wonders who H.D. might be. Hannah Dixon in grade eleven? But Jason never hangs out with her, he could not love her. He can’t love anyone or L would know about it.

Done, okay, got to go—her own costume is still in her room at home, time to run back before Studio class.

5. I ONLY WANT TO BE WITH HUGH

Ivy stands at the photocopier in the basement, leafing, pressing, double page after double page. Better than counting sheep to fall asleep. Only the racket of students preparing for the lunchtime costume parade keeps her awake, shriekingly pleased with their finery. Jason is king down here, nice to see. Echoey halls, blue walls, exposed pipes that bang and slosh: this is the underground palace from his watery plague dream.

L trots past, giving Ivy a gleam of grin, quick-flashed and gone. The urgency of every act at school. How restful that this is only for one month. Four thousand, four thousand.

Principal Pink wanders down the hall, gives Ivy the eyeball. “Always read, read, read, eh?” He takes the book and flips through, losing her place. Grunts at Shakespeare and puts it back in her hand, brushing needlessly against her skin. Ivy reminds herself that he is just a natural-born dick, not evil. “Cold hands, warm heart,” he says.

“No, I have a thyroid condition,” she says.

Pink paces past the door of the Home Ec room, and hearing the din, he pauses. Puts that eye to the crack. Over the next few minutes he moves only to change his angle of view.

Ivy keeps the photocopier going, but principally she watches the principal spying on his charges. Are they getting dressed/undressed in there?

A shout, a slam—the door pulled to. Then it opens again and Nevaeh storms out, half-stripped in high-heeled shoes, cloth clutched to her chest. Slit-eyed, she stares, she glares at Pink. Who stares right back, asshole authority giving him gall. He puts out a hand to arrest her movement; she whirls to go back to the classroom, but stalls—she just rushed out of there.

She turns again to throw a stiff fist at Pink’s plaid sportscaster blazer. He moves before the fist connects. Spinning again, Nevaeh runs off down the hall on those dagger-heels, sure-footed and raging. A mad maiden, a young Fury.

Pink smirks at Ivy, woo-woos with his hands, and passes on. The satyr Pan infesting girls with frights and plights.

Hallowe’en is no treat if you are already in the pretending professions.

Over the PA system comes a wild cackling, then the grim tolling of a giant bell—the costume parade, beginning. The scripts are finished. Burton won’t notice if she slips out to the Argylle Gallery for a breather, away from this overheated, multi-costumed sweatshop.

6. HOW IS THE WORLD TREATING HUGH?

The Mighton looms on the north wall, dwarfing the gallery space. Beautiful/dreadful. A thousand dead faces, everything that is lost. Enough to make you weep.

If anyone ought to be gay, it’s you, Hugh thinks, surveying his domain: if these things went by love of colour and line, by having too thin a skin, by complicatedly loving your engulfing, badly behaved mother. Being Oedipusly-whipped, as Burton said the other night. What did you say to provoke that? Asked Burton not to compare some beach pickup to your beloved mother. Who in fact has treated Hugh, over the years, pretty much the same as a beach pickup: sunny charm, ice cream, saltwater tears, high-tide abandonment. Repeat.

Della went out the back in a hurry just as he came in, what was that about? Maybe she got a text from Ken—maybe he’s made up his mind to talk about his job change, his own abandonment. “No one is alone,” that Sondheim song from
Into the Woods
. Another gay marker: life advice from musicals. Equally wrong. Because you are, you will always be alone.

Not that Hugh is alone at the moment: Mighton stands staring at his piece. A discreet card at one side reads,
THE DARK GATES, price on request
. They decided on ninety. No red dot, because it has not yet been sold.

The bell over the door tings. Hugh jumps—but it’s okay, it’s Ivy. He opens his arms and Ivy walks straight in, asking, “Am I too late? All that framing done?”

Shit, the framing. Hugh checks—there’s time, still, the Ace guy will be there till six.

Mighton turns from the window and says, “I can keep an eye on the store, if you have back-end work to do.”

Grateful that Ivy did not say
certificates
, maintaining the fragile dignity of the gallery, Hugh nods to Mighton and ushers Ivy past the cash desk into the back hall.

“Coffee?” she says, the only word that could make her dearer.

He nods, then stops. Della is still standing out there, on the back porch, leaning her head against the rickety roofpost. He’s got to get that fixed.

“You make it,” he tells Ivy, pointing silently out the window. She sees, nods, disappears. What a lovely thing a discreet companion is. You are not, in fact, alone.

Hugh opens the door and steps out onto the porch, jingling keys in his jacket pocket as if on his way somewhere.

Della looks up. “I can’t go home, I’m afraid Ken will be there.”

“Has he talked to you?”

“He doesn’t talk. He turns up from time to time, glares at me, and leaves.”

Hugh can’t think what to offer. “He might need help, might need you to bring it up?”

Della gives a miserable laugh, eyes hidden under cloudy hair. “Jesus, I’m not
helping
him! I don’t want to talk—I just want it not to be true.” She pulls on the creaking pillar. “Remember when we went to the funeral? I was so happy that day. Because Ken wasn’t dead, and neither was I, and we were happy together, with our daughter, our life.”

“You must change your life.”
Then he wishes he could pull that back into his mouth.

Della looks away, probably hating him. She takes the two steps down from the porch as if she will never darken his door again, and walks to her car.

From the spruce trees between the gallery and FairGrounds, Newell springs up the two steps on a quiet foot, watching as Della zims out in her little car. “Ken’s giving her hell,” he says, not a question.

Which Hugh chooses not to answer. His head hurts all the time. He puts up a hand and presses the spot that hurts.

Newell says, “Hey, Hendy says Lise Largely doesn’t just manage that company, it’s hers. She wants Mimi’s apartment for herself, since she had to move out of Mighton’s.”

Okay. That makes the haste less weird, at least. Hugh stares into the distance at an invisible list of everything that has to be done, movers, storage, cleaning. At the bottom of the list, Mimi lies dead in the white-clad hospice bed, far from her bright extravagant linens and flowers and treasures and dust. He should be over there.

Down at the street end of the porch, poor Gerald Felker waves to them. “Are you—is the gallery—?”

Hugh waves back. “Yes, open, I’ll be right in. Door’s open, go ahead.”

He tells Newell quietly, “I can hardly stand to talk to the guy, but he wants to buy something big. He’ll probably take the new Mighton, have you seen it yet?”

“No, that’s why I came. But listen, I wanted to say—last night—” Then nothing. He stares off into the parking lot.

Hugh is afraid to hear what Newell will tell him about the jade piece and Burton and Orion. Won’t let himself think about the possibilities. “Burton was in fine form this morning,” he says pre-emptively. “He’s a flamboyant personality.”

“He’s a flamboyant fuckhead. I’m on my way to the class now. Going to Pink’s party?”

“Pink’s having another party?”

“Hallowe’en Treat, for the board. Some kind of fundraiser, that’s why we’re invited.”

“I wonder if Ruth’s working it. She can’t keep knocking herself out like this, and then spend all night up in Mimi’s room.”

“She did my place this afternoon, and she’s doing Mighton’s in the morning.”

“How can we miss her if she won’t go away?”

“You’d die without her,” Newell says. “You’d go into a decline.”

“And you? You keep coming back here.”

“Look, this place is Burton’s retirement plan.”

Hugh laughs.

“He won’t let me give him money.” Hugh snorts again, and Newell adds, laughing himself, “Not straight out—there always has to be a reason, a gimmick. It’s exhausting, thinking stuff up.”

Newell slides down the creaking post and sits, stretching his legs along the steps. He sleeps about as little as Hugh does, but it looks better on him. “I leave before Christmas, back to LA, for
Catastrophe
. Burton can stay here safe, and I won’t have to worry about him.”

“But I will,” Hugh says. His head really hurts.

“Well, that’s why you’re my friend. Why you’re my brother.”

(DELLA)

drive away, drive

Gerald going into the gallery   death’s head lolling at the edges

that’s what can happen           people can die on you

Gerald’s wife                           unfixable because she didn’t tell anyone

maybe Toby

what could he do, little boy,     but love her and listen

like Hugh with Mimi in the old days

Elle on the back porch              skipping school? no, it’s trouble

glass of milk, slow mouth         thin shoulders rapid-voice
 

    Nevaeh flipped out at Pink, or maybe at Savaya, nobody knows—

    remember you’re driving us to the party tonight, right?

[Nevaeh : heaveN]

          Yes it’s in my phone. Hallowe’en is no fun now I don’t

          get to take you round the streets.
 

Dad’s here.
 

can’t meet my eyes as she turns to go

go in                                        go in           not in the kitchen

dining room   black cloud black gaze

I can’t hold any more       anger

but he is suffering            so I will

people can die on you

his eyes pull up from the table

stare at me in silence
 

      Like the boats? I was thinking of my mother’s endless boats, what

      she put in them …

he is not thinking of boats

he is thinking                           blame blame blame

Mighton photos strewn on the table

right

serves him right                      he is suffering                    he is in pain

as I’ve been               as I am in pain

but in the mind’s eye:              Mighton biting               tooth on skin

then a new slide:                  Jenny bringing Ken supplies brown hair

thin brown tennis-playing arm   lunch

Dr Pepper dangling    cools my head
 

Do you have a problem with Mighton being here? He

has an opening at Hugh’s and he’s selling his house.
 

long-stretched silence                                       this again

eyes lasers of black light                            after thirty years

refusing to look at me                            his old contemptible

a thin glaze of ice snaps

I can do without him    we’ll be fine

I’ll sell the house    Elly and I can—

but  Elly and I  does not exist anymore

small homely sound                 chick of the back door knob   her step

Elly                                    blue cascading over   her neck and arm

I could paint that                      her stance      flexible slashing blue
 

      Forgot my coxcomb, I had to come back.

      I wasn’t—I didn’t—hear anything.

dear liar     worse than anything

   she has to pity me  smile for her at least

      Right, see you later, sweetheart, pick you up at FairGrounds

      it’s in my phone.
 

she runs

Elly at 2 sleepwalking            what damage did we do fighting so long?

at our bedroom door
 

he’s walking out                            say it before he leaves
 

      I tried to—it’s the end of the month, I have to pay the Visas

      and the bill for the new windshield—can you transfer

      something into the chequing account?
 

his arm waves backwards         dumping everything       back on me

to the ruin   of everything, everything

it is all my fault   always    always

NO

no more

where is he going                                   fuck you

where has he been all week                    your suffering your despair

I hate you with all my heart
 

whatever is going on

whatever you’re angry about

it’s not this repeating spread                    Mighton’s arrogant face

not Mighton                                            teeth on thigh
 

hopeless
 

all the goddamn photos  I haven’t made the flyer with  which fatuous identical face pick one  this one  exacto tape to the cutting board grab the ruler hands shaking cut  one wrecked it does not matter  Glenlivet on the sideboard alcohol is good for shock push the ruler hard slide slide fine motor control regained  glue to dull unsatisfactory text  add head photocopy   leave flyers at FairGrounds  at Jasper’s