Blasted (10 page)

Brendan had started giving me advice: “Remember, Ruby. Grief changes one, as a room changes when a stranger walks into it. Try to find a quiet space, try not to let fear and confusion overwhelm you… it is the quiet moment that… listen to the old man go on! Forgive me.”

And now here I was, the plane coasting down the runway, back home. Everyone stood immediately when we landed, and the captain announced rather testily that we should
please
remain
seated
until the
plane
came to a full
stop
. I jiggled my legs a bit desperately, cold and hot at the same time.

I could see them wheeling a metal staircase up to the plane's door. Passengers filed out with agonizing slowness, and as I neared the exit I could hear voices exclaiming as they got outside, happy or shocked I couldn't tell, voices carried away by the wind. When I stepped out, I too stopped dead. The air was bright and sparkling, yet so cold. It
was
June, wasn't it?

I'd forgotten how cold June was in this godforsaken place. I hadn't been home in two years, and I hadn't been home in summer for much longer – if you could call this summer. I clutched my leather jacket around me and made my way carefully down the stairs. No welcoming crowds for me. I doubted anyone would know I was coming, or that anyone would care, except Grandpa. He wasn't going to meet me at the airport.

Despite myself, despite the fumes from the plane and my fear, I sucked in that clear cool air like I'd been drowning. I had forgotten about the air.

I shoved my way through the welcoming committees in the airport who squealed greetings to everyone else getting off the plane. I didn't have any baggage other than the backpack I'd brought on with me – I didn't trust those fuckers who load the planes and I didn't plan on staying long. Blue and Brendan had gotten me a return ticket, taking me back to Toronto three weeks from now. Perfect. Short enough to keep from going crazy, and long enough to see that Grandpa was settled. Whatever that meant.

I went outside and climbed into a cab. “Where to, me ducky?” said the cabby.

Me ducky. I really was home. “Southside Road,” I muttered, almost swooning from the emissions of the air freshener dangling from the mirror. I wound my window open, slid down in the seat and sulked. As we came down past the Holiday Inn, the Hill rose into view; I shoved my sunglasses up on my head and straightened up to look. The cabby glanced at me in the rearview mirror.

“From here?”

“Yup.”

“Visiting home?”

“Yup.”

A silence, then, “My mother's people are from the Southside.”

The Hill crouched like a giant beast, head submerged between its paws in the North Atlantic, a supple spine of rock hulking over the city, mottled purple and faintly green in the frigid air blasting off the water. Rocks shrugged beneath a poor, patchy layer of vegetation, and trees clung darkly, branches pointing the way of the prevailing winds. Then the road dropped down into the city, and the Hill sank from view. The cabby was bobbing his head around on his beefy neck, trying to catch my eye in the mirror. I gritted my teeth and prepared to chat.

“Oh, really?” I said perkily. Might as well play the part.

“Yes, miss. And I picked up an old lady yesterday, Mrs. Breen – ”

“Oh,
my
, Mrs.
Breen
!” Perhaps I was overdoing it. “My, my.”

“ – and she told me that old Mrs. Jones finally passed on.”

Something surged inside me at hearing my grandmother's death disposed of in a single phrase,
passed on
. Grief, shock, fear, I couldn't tell – I only knew that I had to extinguish it, a hand coming down over the flame of a candle. The cabbie's eyes darted at me in the mirror, wreathed in smile-wrinkles, fishing for information.

“She was my grandmother,” I said, safely numb again.

“Ah!” he said with satisfaction. Then, “I'm sorry for your troubles.” By the time we got to Water Street the cabbie had extracted all the pertinent details: how long I'd been away from home, what I'd been doing in Toronto, how Gramma had died. And how long was I staying?

“Three weeks,” I said, and then floored myself utterly by saying, “I don't want to go back.”

“It's hard, me love. But you've got your job there, I'm sure, and there's not much here I'll tell you.” Yeah. My great job. I stared out the window at the seagulls, silhouettes floating white against the dark of the Hill, and the statue outside the old railway station, the one I used to call the Pretty Lady. She looked to me, now, about ready to burst into tears. Beyond her squatted the ugly arterial overpass, and beyond that, something else, monstrous and strange. A giant wound had opened up in the Hill. Pale striated rock lay bared, seeping precious fluid from the creases, a bite, a gash in the massive rock that had been my yard, my place, the backdrop to my whole life. I cracked my skull into the side window in shock. “Ouch! What the hell happened?”

“What? Oh, that? That's the new sewage treatment plant.”

“What sewage treatment plant?”

“They haven't finished it yet. Spent all last year laying pipe under the harbour; they diverted traffic off of Harbour Drive the whole summer.” He clucked disapprovingly.

“But… they… Oh, for God's sake.” I waved my hands in the air.

“Once again the Southside is a dumping ground for the city's problems.”

“They have to put the plant somewhere, me love.”

“Yebbut… oh, never mind.” The powers that be had never really accepted the fact people actually lived on the Southside Road. It was, for all intents and purposes, industrial, a place for harbour work and railways and arterial roads, and now, shit-sanitizing. “Sooner or later,” I said, “they'll get every last person who lives there to die or move away, and then they can build huge ugly things to their hearts' content.” There was so much bitterness in my voice that even the cabbie fell silent.

We crossed the bridge over to the Southside – the bridge that still looked new to me – “Turn left here,” I said, and he did. I glanced over at the view of the city. From here there was no sign of the new scar.

“What number again, ducky?”

I brought my gaze back to the road. “Here. Just past the overpass.”

Home.

I'd forgotten how dismal it was. They'd built the Arterial Road up on the Hill when I was a kid; just above our house the highway detached itself from the rock and thrust itself toward downtown in an ugly overpass, right over our house. The sun was lowering, and fog was beginning to creep up the road from the harbour. It looked deserted, the buzz of traffic overhead a disembodied thrum. I felt cold, and put my sunglasses back on my face, gave the cabby a twenty and got out.

As I turned away, he called at me through the open window. “Take care, now. And be sure to get in out of the fog before the fairies getcha!”

He did a U-turn and screamed away back up the road.

“Arsehole,” I muttered. I looked up at the house and hesitated. The air smelt familiar, the salt and rot of the harbour and the sweet decay of the springtime Hill. How I missed the tang of tar and metal from the railroad; that had all been ripped up years ago, one of the last narrow-gauge tracks in North America. Man, the road was quiet. I wondered if city developers had succeeded in the plan to have everyone move away or die, and Grandpa just hadn't told me. I stood alone, shivering in the failing light.

Better get in, out of the fog.

I trudged up the rickety wooden stairs and along the gravel path by the side of the house to the back door. A couple of broken beer bottles lay shattered on the path where some kids had thrown them during a night-drunk under the overpass. Nice. I'd kill them if I caught them lobbing things at the house while I was here. I got to the linny, at the back of the house just off the kitchen, went in, and hesitated. Should I knock? No. I'd never knocked. But then, usually Gramma would've been out in the yard already; she'd have been watching for me from the front window. I stumbled over something in the dimness and took off my sunglasses. A rake had fallen across the door, I saw – the place was in disarray, shovels and gardening trowels and the old wheelbarrow just any-which-way. I opened the back door, and stepped into the kitchen.

“I'm home!” I tried to call out, but the words got stuck in my throat and I choked instead. I was doubled over in a coughing fit as Grandpa appeared in the kitchen doorway, tall and thin.

“Still looking after your health, I see.”

I wiped my streaming eyes and swallowed, went over and kissed his dry cheek. “Nice to see you, too, Grandpa,” I croaked. He turned away, disappearing back down the hall. I stood there, not knowing what to do. After a moment I followed him to the living room.

He was sitting on the worn maroon sofa, staring at the TV. “The news is on,” he offered. I stood in the doorway, staring at the back of his head, his neck thin and vulnerable under the silver hair. I'd give him a haircut for the funeral.

“Like I said, nice to see you too.” He twitched, but made no other sign of having heard me. “Guess I'll settle myself in!” I turned and climbed slowly up the stairs to what had been my room, the TV droning behind me.

The bedroom door was closed. I put my hand on the cool brown porcelain knob, turned it, and walked inside. A faint smell of mildew swept over me. How small it all looked; the single bed sagged between its wrought-iron head and foot, a worn quilt set crookedly upon it and a small table with a lamp next to it. The last light seeped in through the window, old panes of glass wrinkled in the frame, dead flies Braille on the sill. The Hill jumped in at me through that window, just above the linny roof where the back of the house dug straight into bedrock. After I'd moved in with Gramma and Grandpa, I'd often climbed out the window onto that roof to watch the stars; sometimes I'd stepped right off onto the Hill and gone out walking, walking up and over, on my own. Or snuck out that way to go to parties, creeping in at dawn dazed and drunk. A little wooden chair stood in one corner, a small bureau in another. There was a closet, haunted, of course, by a witch… No, wrong closet. The witch had been in the closet in my parents' house, next door, the mirror image of this one.

I threw my jacket and backpack on the chair and ripped open the window, letting fresh damp air into the stuffy room. Leaning out I could see the leaves new and green on the birches and laburnums that clung to the scree, and to my right, the level circle dug out of the rock at the side of the house that formed the yard. Gramma's garden was in disarray; hadn't she been able to keep it up? Two years since I'd been home. She'd been fine then, full of energy; she hadn't complained of feeling badly the last time I'd called… how long ago now?... a couple of months. I closed my eyes.

Two months since I'd spoken to her, and all I could think of now was…
mildew.

Sniffing, I traced it back to the bed. Probably hadn't been changed since my disastrous shit-faced visit for cousin Doreen's wedding. I pulled back the quilt and blankets and hauled the damp sheets off the bed, throwing them on the floor. Then down the hall to the linen closet, to be confronted by neat rows of folded sheets and pillowcases. Her hands had folded these. I hesitated, then pulled sheets out, brought them back to my room and shook them out almost viciously. I re-made the bed, plumping the feather pillows, a lump in my throat, my face aching to lie down on their smooth coolness. Instead I scooped up the mildewed sheets and took them to the hamper in the hall.

I started to go back downstairs, but hesitated, peering through the half-open door into Gramma and Grandpa's room. The bed was unmade. I tiptoed inside; the sheets were grey, hadn't been changed in ages. I began to strip the bed, all frills and pillow shams, then stopped. There was a trickle of old blood on the sheets on Gramma's side, up near the top. Had she fallen, maybe, and cut herself, her head or a hand? I sat down on the creaky old bed. Her bedside table was dusty, marked with rings from glasses and mugs. Medications with her name on them –
Madeline Jones
– stood in a row; a dirty glass held an inch of cloudy water, and an ashtray had three old butts in it. I sat for a while, then got more clean sheets, and made up the bed afresh.

Supper was a joke. I rooted through the fridge and pantry, and came up with some soft, wrinkled potatoes and a can of corned beef. I spent more time throwing out rotting stuff than cooking. I made sure to make lots of noise, banging and slamming everything in sight. Grandpa spent the first part of my kitchen raid in front of the TV, but finally curiosity got the better of him and he appeared in the doorway. A silent war of wills ensued. I lost.

“What have you been
eating
around here?”

“This and that.”

“At least the fridge is stocked with beer,” I sniped. Grandpa went over and took out two bottles. He opened them, then got a glass down from the cupboard. “Thanks, I don't need a glass.”

Ignoring me he poured a beer into the glass and handed it to me. We eyed each other warily. Then he raised his bottle, and after a sulky moment I raised my glass. He cleared his throat.

“To… to your grandmother.” His voice rasped.

“To Gramma.” I downed the beer in one go to keep the lump out of my throat. Without a word Grandpa took my glass, got another beer and decanted that one for me too. I sipped it, then turned back to my potato peelings.

“Things have been bad here for more than two weeks, if decaying pantry matter is anything to go by.”

Grandpa grunted.

“You look thin,” I continued.

“I've been doing all right.”

“Tea and toast don't cover the four food groups, Grandpa.”

“Lots of nutrients in beer.”

I put the potatoes on to boil. The burner gave off a noxious reek until whatever had been spilled on it burned off. Why, I fumed, hadn't he fucking
called
me?