Flood (3 page)

He'd kept a small library of videotapes in his room, tapes he'd made of important soccer games mostly, but there were circus tapes, too, of trapeze artists and animal trainers with lions and tigers and bears; the tapes were gone with everything else.

He planned to be a professional soccer player when he grew up. He would be famous and play for Manchester United or some other top European team, and he'd play for Canada in the World Cup. His second choice of career was circus and movie animal trainer; his third choice, trapeze artist. He had discussed the subject with his mother, who thought that a career in soccer might be best, as it was possibly a little safer than the other two choices.

He stared out the window at the thick white clouds below the airplane, wondering about heaven. That was where the priest said Andy's mother was. And the nurses. Your mom and dad are in heaven, they said. He didn't bother explaining to the nurses that Clay was only his stepfather and he wasn't too worried whether he was in heaven or not. Aunt Mona had said nothing about his mother being in heaven. Maybe she didn't believe in heaven. Maybe there was no heaven. But if there was no heaven, where could his mother be? He hoped she was all right. He felt like crying. Maybe if he searched in the clouds he might see her signaling that she was all right.
He kept looking out at the clouds, but his mother didn't appear.

He felt tired, sleepy. It was the first time he had ever been in an airplane. Hundreds of people propped up in seats sleeping, talking, watching a movie, reading, using the washroom as they were borne through the thin air with no sense of speed, flying so high in the sky that nobody on the ground knew they were there, a separate hidden place between the earth and the stars.

The flight attendants, the ones Andy could see working in his area, seemed to be having trouble pouring drinks. Passengers were being dumped on accidentally. A couple in the seats ahead, who had been arguing quietly ever since they got on, had tomato juice spilled over them. The P.A. chimed oddly, like bells in the wind, and the captain came on to apologize for troublesome air pockets and the P.A. acting up.

The five-and-a-half-hour flight seemed to take forever. It was evening, Halifax time, when they arrived. Aunt Mona became more and more grim. They were both exhausted and had nothing to say to each other.

A bus took them from the airport to the city. “Follow me!” said Aunt Mona briskly in her no-nonsense voice, clambering down from the bus with her carry-on bag. She staggered and almost fell, but managed to right herself. Her face was very pale. Like death warmed over, Andy thought nastily.

“Wait up,” said Andy, pausing on the bottom step of the bus. He pointed to the candy machine in the bus depot. “Could I get some gum?”

Aunt Mona reached into her bag and with trembling fingers handed him a coin from her purse. “Be quick.” Andy took the money. Aunt Mona dropped her overnight bag on the ground and waited, hands on bony hips, head back, breathing deeply, as though unable to inhale enough of her home air.

Andy looked at the bus driver. He had a pale face and slicked-back hair, and wore a dark jacket with a monogram on the pocket. He was watching Andy with a great deal of curiosity, as if he had guessed what he was about to do.

Andy hurried quickly past the candy machine, and then, without pausing to see if his aunt was watching, fled out the door and into the thick gray brawl of the city.

They tumbled off the bus in surprised disarray. Even the Old One had been caught napping. The Young Ones tittered disrespectfully. They followed the boy, the speed of their going blowing the hats off the heads of the bus drivers and swirling a litter of dirt, newspapers, and gum and candy bar wrappers high in the air in whirlwinds of dusty confusion.

“Hurry!” the Old One called. “Hurry, hurry!”

HE RAN AWAY FROM HIS AUNT as fast as his weak, tired legs would carry him.

The Halifax streets were shrouded in a gray fog almost as thick as the one he'd left behind in Vancouver. Was the whole country covered in an October fog, then? He listened for the moan of a foghorn but heard only the roar of traffic and the monotonous barking of a dog tied to a bicycle stand outside a convenience store.

He was alone.

What if he got lost?

“Lost” was his most unfavorite word. LOST. The thought of it shot sharp arrows through him. Lost was being alone and not knowing the way home. “Alone” was his second most unfavorite word. ALONE. Alone could be dangerous. The word echoed hollowly in his head like a stone booming in a well. He couldn't be lost and he couldn't be alone. He had been only too aware of this when deciding suddenly to run away from his aunt: it had not been easy.

He
had
to find his father! His father was alive. Vincent Flynn was alive in the north end, in Dan Noonan's pub. But what if he wasn't in Dan Noonan's pub? Then surely Mr. Noonan would know where he lived.

His father was no thief, Andy was certain of that. What had she called him? A waster? Aunt Mona was a nasty old woman, vicious and jealous. She hadn't seen Andy's father in years, her own words, so what could she know of him!

Shoulders hunched, hands pushed down into the pockets of his thin jacket, he hurried, heading anywhere as long as it was away from the bus station and his nasty gray aunt. He glanced behind often, searching the faces, afraid his aunt might be following, or had sent the police after him. There was no way he wanted to live with that mean old woman. No way. He would find his father and they would live happily ever after, end of story.

He crossed the busy street in the middle of a block, heading for a group of teenagers clustered together outside a coffee shop. The traffic was crawling. He dodged between the cars and trucks. There were four kids watching him approach.

“Could you tell me how to get to Dan Noonan's pub?” He directed his question at the tallest boy in the group, a skinny, ginger-haired kid, probably about fourteen, in a torn jeans jacket.

“Huh?” The boy looked cold. He frowned and sought help from his friends. “D'y'know that pub?”

The boys shook their heads.

“It's somewhere in the north end,” said Andy.

“North end?” said a boy with a shaved head. He wore a ring through his lower lip. He pointed to a high clock tower. “Fifteen-minute walk. Up the hill and past the Citadel.”

“Thanks,” said Andy.

Shaved Head asked, “What happened to your face?”

Andy hurried away without answering.

He walked and walked. He was tired; his whole body ached. Just when he thought he would have to give up, he found it in a narrow dirty street; a streetlight shone on
NOONAN'S PUBLIC HOUSE
in peeling red capitals over the pub's green exterior. His heart lifted.

He pushed through double doors into the bar. The place was crowded and he had to burrow his way in like a rabbit, through clothing that smelled of sweat, beer, and cigarette smoke. He looked at the men. Any one of them could be his father. A small piece fell out of his heart at the thought of it. There were two men working behind the bar. To make himself heard above the sounds of TV and drinkers, he raised his voice so that he was almost shouting.

“Who?” asked one of the bartenders, craning his neck at him and pulling a pint of beer at the same time. The beer was black like used car oil, with a creamy foam at the top.

“Vincent Flynn,” Andy repeated.

The bartender put the beer up on the counter and looked around the room. “I don't see him.” Andy watched the creamy foam spilling over the rim of the glass. “It's early yet,” said the bartender. “Come back later, I'll tell him you were askin'. What's your name, kid?”

“I'll come back.” The bartender knew Andy's father. He wasn't dead, killed in the war; his aunt was right; his father was alive and close by. Andy felt his belly churn with excited anticipation.

Outside, a chill wind had come up, clearing the thin fog. Andy could see the glow of light from the distant clock tower. He fingered his aunt's dollar in his pocket. His jacket was too thin to keep out the cold. He shivered. Two weeks in the hospital had weakened him. His legs felt wobbly. But they knew his father, they knew Vincent Flynn. This was the place. Soon he would meet him!

There were very few people in the street. He rested, massaging an aching shoulder, leaning his back against the wall, figuring what to do next. Find someplace warm. He pushed himself off the wall and headed toward a lighted restaurant, passing people who seemed to drift along with wavering liquid steps, as though walking on the bottom of the sea, eyes staring, arms, shoulders, and thighs pushing against the weight of deep water.

The restaurant was shabby but warm. People, men mainly, sat about on cracked yellow plastic chairs, smoking cigarettes and sipping coffee under harsh fluorescent lights, elbows leaning on chipped Formica tables. Most stared vacantly with fish eyes at their coffee mugs or at the wall. A woman wearing high heels and bright red lipstick moved about in a friendly way talking to the men. One man was eating a hamburger and another was writing in a notebook. The smell of bacon and fried onions reminded Andy that he was hungry. He had eaten the meals on the
airplane, the chicken and vegetables and the bits of fruit in their tiny plastic cups and the thin crackers and bread-sticks freed from cellophane wrappers, but now he was hungry again. And cold.

He clutched the money in his pocket and entered the restaurant. He ignored the food and asked for a cup of tea; it would warm him up.

“Help yerself,” said the woman behind the counter, nodding toward a box of tea bags and a stack of shiny metal teapots.

He helped himself to tea and lots of milk and sugar and held out his dollar. The woman took it, returning no change.

He found a seat at the end of a table, empty except for the old man writing in a notebook. The man looked up, squinted at Andy through his cigarette smoke, and slid closer. He tapped his notebook with nicotine-stained claws. “I'm writing the history of the great hunger of '47,” he croaked. “A thousand pages it'll be altogether when it's finished.”

Andy looked at the man's book. The handwriting was neat, tiny capitals, every inch of the page filled with it. The old man's lips — he had no teeth — collapsed and sucked around the cigarette stub. He spoke out of the side of his mouth. “What's your name?”

“Andy.”

A small, thin man in a giant's raincoat came over and said to the old man, “How're your cigs, Barney?” As he spoke, he looked over the old man's head at Andy and smiled.

“Gimme wan,” croaked Barney, reaching into the pocket of his torn coat, extracting a handful of change, and handing over two dollars.

The man reached into a large, specially made pocket inside his raincoat and handed Barney a package of cigarettes, laughing and joking at the same time. Andy could not follow what he was saying, but when he'd finished, Barney was laughing loudly and hoarsely, and started a coughing fit that caused the cigarette seller to thump him helpfully on the back until the old man had recovered his breath.

“You'll be the death of me, so you will!” spluttered the old man, a wide gummy grin on his face. The cigarette seller moved on to the next table.

Andy finished his tea and left.

Noonan's was a fog of thick smoke. Andy pushed his way up to the same bartender. “Did he come in?”

The bartender's forehead was slicked with sweat; he shook his head. “I was looking out for him, but he hasn't set a foot inside the door.”

“Do you know where he lives?”

The bartender shouted across to a man wearing a cloth cap, “Eamon? Where does Vinny Flynn live?”

Eamon shouted something.

“Mayo Rooms,” said the bartender. “It's up beyond the cemetery. Turn right out the door and keep going. You can't miss it — the old building on the corner.”

When he got outside, it was starting to rain. He pulled up the collar of his jacket and set off on weary legs to meet his father.