Liar (15 page)

Jan. 27/98

Dearest Sarah,

I’m miserable and missing my babies and I'm munching on blue corn tortilla chips dipped in Hellman's mayonnaise. I don't give a tinker's damn for bananas dipped in chocolate. I love Hellman's mayonnaise. Even though I'm eating these here genuine all natural blue tortilla chips, I don't exactly trust them as genuine. Have you ever seen blue corn?

So much of arting (if the Grimshaw Lierary Society can call it journaling, I can call it arting) is staring into space, eating mayonnaise on blue corn chips. Maybe farting is what I’ll be doing after this disgusting menu, but I digress. I digest? An artist has to think and do many things to avoid arting. A button must be sewn on, surely a bookcase needs to be dusted, and baking chocolate chip cookies is definitely the recipe for producing an award winning sculpture.

I yearn for

a sand between the toes

walk, on a sun-blinded beach

bare feet in the sea

sand shifting, tide tugging,

balance wobbled by ebb and flow,

Memories I haven't lived

grow frail and sad when

I yearn for

what I don't have.

The weather has been despicable. Horizontal rain for three weeks. The wind is so strong the seagulls are flying backwards. I think I need a grilled cheese sandwich. Journal writing is too much like housework. It's never done, no one sees you do it, and you don't get any money for it. I’ll never be a writer because computers make everything too neat. I’d need ink-stained fingers, wads of crumpled paper strewn all over the floor, and an empty bottle of booze to proclaim a painful patch of prose. Sculpting and painting is fabulously sloppy. Paint all over my hands, on my clothing and on a canvas says something. The sensual smell of sawdust, wood chips strewn on a paint-bespattered floor, the feel of the rough wood talking to my fingers. The smells and the mess holler this is an artist at work! Words on paper - what do they say? I like your words. Send me some soon.

Love, China.

~ ~

“Get off, Sam! I can’t breathe,” gasped China.

Sam rolled onto his back as China took great gulps of air.

“I’m going crazy!” she complained. “I get to the point where I’m about to tip over the edge and then I can’t.”

“Maybe I need an extension,” said Sam gloomily.

“That’s not the solution. Any further and I’d be choking to death. I guess it’s the scar tissue. The muscles in my vagina have gotten lazy or stiff or something. I can feel you but it’s like I just can’t grip you the way I used to.”

“Don’t worry, it’ll happen,” said Sam thrusting his way back to his favourite place.

Sam was about to come when China once again felt the throbbing, a little more strongly this time.

“Sam,” gasped China. “Don’t you dare come yet. I can feel it. I’m going to have an orgasm tonight if it kills both of us.”

Sam dutifully thrust. China wriggled and thrust back and maneuvered her hips, and finally, achieved the release she’d been praying for ever since the operation.

They both lay on their backs gasping and soaked with sweat.

“Praise the lord,” said China.

“You’re welcome,” said Sam irreverently.

“I’m assuming the next time will be easier, now that the muscles have re-learned what to do.”

Sam looked at her with astonishment.

“Don’t worry Sam,” laughed China weakly. “Tomorrow will do. I think we both need a bit of rest.”

“I love you sweetie,” said Sam snuggling sleepily into the spoon position.

“I love you too,” replied China. She fell asleep, deeply relieved that her most effective method of communication with Sam was once again reopened.

Feb. 10/98

Where The Heart Is

Is it something I said

or is it merely what I am?

Perhaps it’s who you are

In those moments

when you love me

with forever words

and I am overcome

with the fierceness

of your soul;

I too, feel those moments

when I want to melt

into your bones,

devour your body,

call your heart,

my home.

~ ~

A week later Sam left for a court case in Prince Rupert. He wanted China to go with him and she had agreed to meet him for a few days at the end of the month. Sitting in a motel all day in a strange city, waiting for Sam to come home, was not a good way to live. None of Sam’s scenarios for life with China felt particularly good to her.

She roamed her house wondering what she would do to fill in the empty spaces. She could only sculpt for a few hours a day. Sculpting was a physically demanding profession. Then when she was tired, her fingers refusing to move anymore, she would paint or sketch freely, allowing ideas and dreams to run through her mind and onto the paper. She dropped off a few of the Sea Women the Grimshaw women were fond of, at Carrie’s store. Carrie wasn’t there, but the beauteous Lily Deer was tending the store. She accepted the Sea Women with a pretty smile and turned back to her conversation with a young Grimshaw buck.

China was grateful for the pocket money from the sale of her smaller pieces, but now that she was determined to carve much larger pieces like her Sams 1234, and the Drifting Faces, she needed to establish a new market. The craft stores that sold her smaller pieces on the mainland could not accommodate the sculptures she had discovered on Grimshaw. The weight and sheer bulk of them made contact with a larger market rather problematic.

She decided that a drive down the coast would sooth her anxious feelings and help her sort out a plan for the future. She packed a sandwich and thermos of coffee and drove the winding road to White Point, the southernmost tip of the island. The sky was a clear blue and the day was calm. The rain and awful winds that accompanied the winter months had settled down for awhile. She turned on the radio and sang along with ABBA between sips of coffee.

China slowed when she saw a dark shadow sitting in the middle of the road. Then she saw the shadow move and realized it was a black bear. As the bear hurried into the forest he turned and looked at the big gold Cadillac and China grinned and waved. She saw several deer on the side of the road licking up the salt that had been scattered during the winter. The deer managed to ruin several cars a year when unwary motorists slammed into them. So far she had managed to escape killing any and for that she was grateful.

Her senses stopped enjoying the scenery and she turned inward to the constant battle that was raging in her mind. It would soon be spring and it was time to make some important life decisions. She had avoided moving discussions with Sam as she recuperated from the operation and the Christmas holidays, but now her strength was back and she wanted to get on with things. She was tired of churning in the same mud. It was time to move forward and claim a life that made sense to her instead of waiting for Sam to make sense.

As China rolled around the last bend in the road she came upon some roadkill deer at the side of the road and a young eagle enjoying the feast. China’s appearance startled him. She was exhilarated by the intimate view of the eagle as he angrily flew up over her windshield and disappeared into the trees. She wouldn’t find anything like that to make her senses leap in the big city. This was one of the reasons China had tried so hard to be happy on Grimshaw Island. The beauty was astounding, wild and thrilling, but the primitive isolation scared her. Her husband scared her with his blatant disregard of anything other than his own incomprehensible life plan.

She parked the car, grabbed her back pack and walked along the beach to White Point where she sat in a sheltered circle of driftwood and opened her journal.

Feb. 15/98

It seems to me that the ideal solution would be to move to Halifax and then, when we can afford it, build a summer home here. That would be the best of both worlds, wouldn’t it? Sam would again become what he once was, before he lived, or rather had an address, on this island. He would once again become an urban Grimshaw. Come to think of it, he’s an urban Grimshaw now, spending more time in the suburbs of Canada than in his home.

China stared out into the wide expanse of sea and sand, her heart warmed by the sunshine and the hope that Sam would surely listen to her excellent plan. She picked up her pen again, sketched an idea for a carving and wrote another poem.

Breakfast With An Eagle

My eyes are filled with road

the miles, the asphalt

the copper sun arrowing through trees;

Suddenly a black bear -

We strangers stare

but he belongs and has for years

I’m the alien here;

I brake for a doe who promises fawn,

Startle an eagle feasting

on roadkill deer,

He fixes me with sultry stare

and flaps his angry passage

across my windshield;

The caddy keeps rolling

to my sandy destination

sipping coffee slowly,

breakfast with an eagle.

~ ~

The phone rang and China answered eagerly, thinking it was Sam. She had a lot to talk about.

“Hello?”

“Hi, China, it’s Larry.”

“Hi, how are you?”

“I’m fine. Is Sam still there?”

“No. He just left for Prince Rupert.”

“China, I’ll get right to the point. Sam has been over billing and not completing the work. I’ve got about ten angry clients on my back. Sam doesn’t return phone calls and then they call me.”

“Oh God. Why didn’t you tell me sooner?”

“You had enough on your plate with the operation. Sam promised me he’d clean things up during Christmas.”

“He told me he had a lot of work to do, but mostly he just lay around the house, or he was out with the boys and doing the local bullshit.”

“That’s something else. I wouldn’t mind him getting involved with the local politics, if there was some money involved. As it is now, it’s a total waste of good time. And that’s not all.”

China could hear the end of the world ringing in Larry’s last sentence. She waited for the axe to fall.

“Sam withdrew money from the business account without telling me. Several of my cheques have bounced. This has gotten personal.”

“I’m sorry Larry. I tried to keep track of the accounts but Sam has stonewalled me at every step. His solution to my closing our joint account and demanding to see the statement of his business account, was to open another account on a reserve in Ontario. I can only keep track of things when he’s here and I can grill him every day.”

“It’s not your fault. Nor is it mine. I’m leaving the partnership. I’m sending a fax outlining my position to his office there because I want you to read it too. I’m sorry about this China.”

“Me too. Don’t worry about me Larry. I’ve wondered how you stood it for so long.”

“He’s a sick man China. He needs therapy.”

“We tried it Larry, and I thought there was some progress, but he’s been travelling too much to keep it going on a regular basis. I’ve been to more sessions than he has and my only problem is him.”

“Well, good luck China. I just wanted to warn you in case Sam puts off telling you. I’ll clean up the mess he left behind but only because it’s my reputation too.”

China then thought of the question she had been wanting to ask Larry for a long time, but kept putting it off as not really important.

“Larry, how long was Sam living with you before I met him?”

“A couple of months I think. I had asked him to house sit for me. He was between apartments at the time,” answered Larry.

“Right,” said China.
And he told me that he and Larry shared an apartment when in reality he was living there rent free. Not to mention the lie about selling his furniture to Larry.
Son of a bitch! One more lie to add to the list.
“Thanks Larry. Don’t worry about me. I’ll manage.”

“Oh, I’m sure you will. The only person I worried about was Sam. He used to be my friend. I’m sending the fax now. Goodbye China.”

He was never your friend Larry,
thought China as she hung up
. He used you like he uses everyone who comes near him.

She drove to Sam’s office wanting to read the fax immediately, to know the worst, believing that if she knew the worst she could construct a plan to alter Sam’s path of destruction. China read the fax from Larry who had listed his reasons for leaving the partnership:

1) You did not concentrate your efforts on our business. Most of the time I wasn’t sure what you were doing. Many times I had to remind you to communicate with me on a regular basis, which you still refused to do.

2) You spent a lot of time on local politics where you gave free advice, instead of concentrating on our business.

3) When you did concentrate on our business, I discovered you were over billing, for work not done.

4) You withdrew money from our account ostensibly to pay outstanding bills and then you pocketed the money. The bills are still outstanding.

5) You withdrew a large amount from our account without telling me, and the result has been very embarrassing.

6) In our last meeting you promised to clean up several accounts over the Christmas holidays. You have not done this. You have not returned any phone calls from clients or from me.

I believed you were sincere in your wish to change but obviously you were just going through the motions to string me along.

China had read enough, more than enough. She folded the fax carefully and put it in her purse. It wasn’t a surprise because Sam had done to Larry exactly what he had done to her. What did surprise her was the fact that Sam would jeopardize his livelihood. How had he survived all those years with his old firm? How on earth did he get as far as he had? He must have had an excellent secretary and a very vigilant ex-wife. Now he had no borders. No accountant to hold him accountable. No government to pay income tax to. Chaos was given leave to reign supreme and Sam was hell bent for destruction.

~ ~