Red Girl Rat Boy Read online

  The men on staff, different. Before, they were students. Can’t put a handle on a pencil sharpener, let alone finesse the old Gestetner. Once the present Organizer took twenty minutes by the clock fussing over whether to phone Toronto Centre long-distance. (No.) The O swivels his chair about, reads, wouldn’t notice a mass uprising at the front door.

  Last week the old one reamed him out when a still-meaty chicken carcass vanished from the fridge.

  “There’s petty cash in this hall, too,” shouting. “Typewriters, easy to pawn. Open your eyes and ears, asshole!”

  Back up back up back up.

  Girl-hunters, strong women—these are types. Learned to identify, over two decades of cleaning here. Others too.

  The too-enthusiastic contact who toils at the hall night and day for months, then ceases. No word. “Here on a visit,” the coms state.

  The misfits, so-called, those with a serious lack, a family it may be, looks, social ease, fluency in English, even a job. They want compensation.

  So do those mourning a religion or a love. Mourning a baby, once, but after two years dying of grief she revived and left.

  As for the nutcases, no one anywhere knows what to do about them. If forcibly removed in ambulances, such coms may return to throw furniture and rant.

  Back up!

  Roy too lives in the old low-rise near English Bay. The Sandringham. Good construction, not like now. Solid wood doors, brass carpet-rods on the stairs (tricky to clean), small delivery cupboards next to each apartment door. For milk, long ago. Horse-drawn cart no doubt. Roy’s on the top floor. Says Hello. Chats at the mailboxes, or in the laundry near the little basement suite. In exchange for interior maintenance, reduced rent. A deal. Ideal. Once Roy wisecracked about old mole Revolution, underground. Nothing to say occurred. The place in fact is bright.

  Most tenants are elderly, female, alone. Some dodder.

  Not Mrs. Wolfe. That Saturday she came to me. She’d been away a day or two on Bowen, lovely weather, and now feared for Miss Nugent above her, who did not answer door or phone.

  “But I heard a tap on my ceiling.”

  To the second floor. In Mrs. W’s bare spare kitchen, listening upwards to silence.

  Then to the manager’s apartment. What a jeezly mess. Russell’s always sozzled since his wife died, couldn’t locate a key. Mrs. W’s eyebrows up to the hairline.

  The stairs again, third floor, seeking Roy’s skill and strength. Rap rap.

  Mrs. W pointing, “That milk cupboard. Could someone get through?”

  Broad male shoulders the problem, not only Roy’s.

  He said, “I’ll phone Marion. Jennifer might.”

  Not long after, the two arrived. The girl slender as celery.

  Roy broke open Miss N’s milk-door.

  Mrs. Wolfe’s trill. “Emily! Emily?”

  Nothing.

  The girl’s arms, head, shoulders into the aperture, Marion lifting legs to help. Jennifer’s bum, compressed, wiggling through. Roy’s gaze. Savouring. A tumble, a scramble. The latch clicking open.

  What was expected. Not dead but cold, one hip wrongly angled. Ugly breathing. The kitchen floor puddled. Been there two days anyway, the ambulance guessed.

  Miss N taken, feet first as the saying goes, return unlikely. Siren fading. Mrs. W weepy, Roy and Jennifer slipping out, useless Russell barging in.

  Marion. “A cup of tea, Mrs. Wolfe? Your place? Best to take your friend’s keys.” Poking through the shabby purse, more tears.

  Left alone to clean up, also as expected. Floor soon clear, but Roy to be all rethought. Marion too. The girl didn’t arrive alone. Not allowed? Those separate apartments. How did they live in Calgary?

  N

  Each Monday, the quality of the previous evening’s branch meeting is palpable in the hall.

  Attacking the bathrooms, even a humble contact—a man who’s never joined, never paid dues, invented a party-name, raised a hand, spoken his word, taken to the streets, held a banner, waved a leaflet, a man who only cleans for statutory hours as he cleans all the rental spaces in this building, offices, storage rooms, cubbies for solo notaries accountants psychics—even that man can sense last night’s doings. Fear sometimes. Anger, agitation. The tang of power.

  To sense.

  Long long ago, a so-called friend of the mum whispered she hadn’t wanted this baby. Tried to have it out, failed. Illegal then, still. This heard at thirteen, approx. Why that whisper? Mean. A child’s word, and correct. Rancid with meanness. Much thought given to that. Life alone with the mum, scanty hard rough, tempers lost voices raised but never an unwanted feel, not even with the school troubles, abc and xyz and all between. She wasn’t a big person, either. Plenty of air. Though large when gone.

  Years later, recognition: that tale-teller’s envy of the mum who had her failure by her side. Warmth ran all the way back through the shared time.

  N

  Back up back up.

  The hall, one morning. Like sniffing leftovers, when the nose dictates On the turn. Irrevocable. Trouble.

  At big tables the coms fold, staple, lick stamps, smoke, say little. No printing sounds from the back room, the monster’s on the fritz. This week’s forum leaflet, a purplish ditto. Nobody’s pleased. Papers all over the O’s office, wastebasket slopping. His plaid shirt stiff with sweat. What a reek. The worker daily handling dirt grime scum cum dust rot grit mould ooze shit pee grease slime puke scuzz—fresh overalls contain his clean body.

  On such a day, routine sustains. Ammonia. Baking soda. Wet-mop snaking over lino. The power of bleach. New rubber gloves. The chrome, where not pitted, shines.

  Tired.

  The old one, not talking, sternly brings Jake’s coffee.

  Not enough sugar. After twenty years she should know.

  All else done at last, check the stuck Gestetner. Ink can’t get through. Roller? Drum? Something inside, invisible, and no time now to take it apart.

  Tired. A nap on the fold-out cot? Better to exit this bad atmosphere. The Cavalier’s dirt, a relief.

  N

  Late afternoon, same day. going home.

  Mrs. Wolfe outside the Chinese grocery, holding a turnip. “Jake, that Jennifer is in the building.”

  Clarification. Mrs. W has gone up to air out Miss N’s place, launder the lonely teatowel and undies in the wicker hamper. Saw the girl.

  “I’ve never liked that man’s looks. Trouble coming.”

  In she goes, to pay for her vegetable.

  She too sees types.

  If she met the old one?

  Scorn, first, for both. Prim proper, tough coarse. But they’d find links. Hard work, care for others, disapproval. Mrs. W used to be a crack typist.

  Looking up at Roy’s windows. That girl in his bed, bum and all. The mother alone.

  Telling should have happened then, right then. A word to the old one. To the women’s fraction leader, not that Ms. Loose Tits ever notices a cleaner’s work. To the O, even. Should, should. Telling is cleaning, but. But she was under The Sandringham’s roof, night after night. Close by.

  Wake, sense her. Once, up the carpeted stairs. Silence. Moon backlighting stained glass. The corridor still, by Roy’s. No vibrations.

  Some days later, he’s in the laundry room. Cross. Shoving sheets into the dryer.

  “Nothing but meddling old women here.”

  The couple find somewhere else. At night, the building’s different.

  N

  On Wednesday, tension coats the off-smell at the hall, tension like before a demo, or a bitter forum where everyone knows the TU coms will haul some yelling sectarian out. What though? There’s been no announcement.

  Kitchen today.

  After the big Friday suppers it’s late when the coms clean up, all are tired, the fluorescents cast distor
ting shadows. Mondays, bathrooms. Wednesdays: degrease. Sharp liquids force soft fats to huddle into little orbs, while hard ones slide off like scabs from counters, sinks, oven racks, shelving, baking pans, soup-kettles.

  The new spray foams go where a soapy rag can’t. Skin itches. Eyes sting. The old one reads aloud the cans’ contents, but she’s no chemist. Old cleansers are harsh too, for that matter. Over time, steel wool blurs fingerprints.

  Today the sink won’t drain. A wire hook fishes out carbonized macaroni stiff with tapioca cement. Still, water doesn’t rush down.

  Cut-off valve. Bucket. Hands and knees, j-pipe, wrench, open, scrape, but the foul blockage lacks any spoon, bottle-opener, pencil. No obvious blame.

  Back painful, twisted. The Gestetner can wait.

  N

  Work socks, cheapest at Army & Navy. Parcel in hand, out to sunshine, and on the corner a group of women. Not young, not libbers. The light’s hard on used skin, bare arms. A chocolate bar, shared. Laughter in the sun. The old one’s daughter waves her cigarette wildly in the air. More giggles, affection all round. Watching, a fellow on crutches. Once a logger? Skid row’s full of broken men. Coal dust ground down into every old miner’s cheeks, forehead, ears, into the eyelids’ red linings.

  N

  “Jennifer is eighteen.” the old one speaks through tight teeth. “A woman grown. Won’t listen, naturally. Little fool. As for him.” She goes on scalping potatoes.

  The big machine releases the coils of its hose.

  To run the vacuum is to be doubly invisible. From room to room the roaring goes, without a glance from coms rolling out paper table-covers, slinging cutlery, setting up chairs, lectern, lit table. Fridays aren’t as important as Sundays, but they do matter. Suppers and forums draw contacts.

  Pull the cord from one outlet, plug into another. The beast snorts up dirt.

  In the noise-gaps comrades go on talking loudly as they pin up the regular decorations, posters of screaming naked child, screaming kneeling woman, man shot dead in the ear, a president’s snarl, women holding sky.

  Talk talk. Someone surprised those two in Stanley Park. Movement in bushes.

  Not just someone. Marion. At the branch exec she made a scene.

  Jennifer wouldn’t listen to the old one, laughed at her mother. No, Marion slapped her daughter. True, both.

  Jennifer and Roy moved the girl’s stuff to his place. Every single thing.

  Roy’s quitting the movement. No, refused to quit. Cited women’s liberation, the girl’s right to control her own body, choose lovers freely.

  At this the mother shouted, “Bullshit! God damn you to hell.” Lots of atheists still curse by God.

  The women’s fraction mostly on side with the mother, two women leaders against. The O undecided. Expel Roy? Don’t?

  As the vacuum noses towards its cave, the old one leaves the kitchen, wades into the hissing gossip. “Shut up, the lot of you! Can’t you see it’s a tragedy?” Throws off her apron, blunders out weeping into summer rain.

  About this handyman’s work. After the vacuum’s quiet, no one says, “Wow, look at the floors!”

  Stocky, not young, not authoritative, not admired. Who’ll observe a toilet’s blanching? An unspotted mirror, shelves cleared of particles? Young coms assume things clean themselves. Telling is cleaning. Without, the slide from malfunction to breakdown, mess to filth.

  Rare, to eat supper at the hall. The tables packed, loud. Who peeled the spuds after the old one left? No matter. Plain food, plentiful.

  All await, none saying so, the arrival of—Roy? He’d have the nerve. Jennifer? Raging Marion?

  None.

  Staying to hear the speaker is beyond rare, but to leave feels incomplete. Plus disloyal to the old one still AWOL.

  The draft dodger at the lectern is black Irish, his family raw from Dublin to New York somewhere in the 19th century. Witty yet dead serious. A vocabulary to stun. Vietnam his theme. His topic, divisions in the anti-war movement over slogans. With vigour he parses Victory to the Vietcong, Bring the Troops Home, Stop Canadian Complicity, US Out Now, arrives at the right conclusion—and leaps off to a prosecutor’s summing up of capitalism’s bellicose crimes. Then a paean to the Vietnamese. To the sacrifice and glory of the workers’ movements around the world. Their history. Future.

  When with a startled look the speaker ceases, applause. All rise spontaneously to sing the Internationale. He blushes, and here’s the old one up the aisle, tiara damp with rain, to clap him on the back, the first of many.

  Not including her daughter. When did she sneak in? The bleak face scornful of hall, speaker, song, applause. Oh why tonight, her mum happy? How to get rid? The handyman’s hand to pocket too slow, the forum over, everyone in motion, and those pairs of eyes find each other.

  A kind of finish?

  Not yet.

  To the Cavalier as a customer, alone, to think of that young man’s exultation, the old one’s sorrow. Days of blaming till she’ll be anything like herself. If hand quicker, would all have altered? That daughter’s determined to wound. So. No, this error isn’t like not telling about the girl, which might have changed things.

  Coward. Worse. A second beer.

  The daughter’s contempt targets her mother, but it’s common everywhere these days, on the call-in radio shows, TV, the talk on buses. Fear of the left, loathing even.

  What if no young rebelled? Just grew old?

  Before departure, a visit to the men’s room. Disgusting, though scrubbed savagely this morning. There’s the answer to What if.

  The dark hike down to English Bay. Will Roy’s bedroom light be on? No, dirty coward. They’re elsewhere.

  N

  A sunset.

  Here on the beach at English Bay, a sharp curve in the seawall makes good shelter to watch the sky turn gold and orange. People come round that point squinting westward, don’t see anyone at their feet on the sand.

  Can that be Roy, hungry, hang-dog?

  Be certain!

  Up from beach to path, scurry ahead of the pair. Dip down by shrubs.

  She’s in view first. Cat got the cream, look at me! Not a glance at that figure by her side, desperate, starved.

  Watching a handsome man thus: hot tasty spite. Meanness. Typical. The colours in the sky go on for hours.

  N

  Weekly, the bissell beats as it sweeps as it cleans the carpet-runners on the first floor of The Sandringham, the second, third.

  Dust the sills of the stained-glass windows, nearly colourless by day. Dust banisters.

  Behind Miss N’s door, silence.

  Behind Roy’s too.

  Neither he nor Marion appears at the hall, their absence a sore licked by sixty tongues a day. Other coms take on their assignments. The O studies documents. For no reason the old one’s arthritis lets up, and at 110 wpm the Remington’s carriage-bell rings madly for the movement’s newspaper, minutes, letters, drafts of pamphlets.

  N

  The cavalier’s lino is so scarred and broken that cleaning the floor is ritual only, but the front windows still do respond.

  What? The old one’s limping down the street towards the pub. Well-known of course, Red Annie, local character.

  Out of the boozy dim, vinegar rag in hand.

  “Jake, it’s Jennifer. Get Marion.”

  In the struggle towards reading, some words are fireworks. War, for example, even if it comes up as raw, once learned isn’t forgotten. Same with hearing. The girl’s name explodes.

  Run.

  “Good comrade!” cries the old one.

  Seven blocks downtown, hot bright streets, breathless.

  At the post office, the mother’s on a break. Where? Run upstairs, the cafeteria, panting, not there, down, corridors, where? Doors, counters, asking.

  At last Marion’
s surprise, terror.

  “Quick,” she gasps, exiting the PO, and vinegar rag waves for a taxi.

  Arrival. Marion headlong into the hall.

  The cab waits.

  From the Gestetner room, the O’s swivel chair emerges. Slumped in it, pale Jennifer, eyes half-closed. The old one pushes the chair forward, kicks at Roy, elbows him away.

  “Mummy?”

  “Darling!” They embrace.

  Marion grabs the chair-back, heads for the door. Roy trails.

  With the old one, a shared stare at the print-room. No lovers. The Gestetner, still to be eviscerated. Ditto machine. Folded-out cot. Silkscreen. Splats on the lino.

  “Later!” She pulls an arm. “They’ve used it for weeks. He’d got a hall key somehow.” Passing the O’s office. “Damn fool never noticed.”

  Out to the sidewalk.

  “Bastard!” The mother spits.

  Roy’s chin drips. “It wasn’t a quack I took her to! I’d never do that, Marion, you know me! I love her.”

  “In we get, darling.”

  Taxi’s off to Emergency.

  The not-father-to-be runs after. “Come back!” Slows. Slinks off.

  Double-quick to the Cavalier, for a mickey. A grateful swig.

  Back. Into the kitchen, to the old one.

  She swallows. Again.

  Calmer now.

  “If the cops don’t come down on us for aiding and abetting, we’ll be lucky. Procuring, even. Bloody irresponsible.” She doesn’t know the half of that. “So he quote loves her. Typical.” Sighing, she swallows once more and sets the flask down, smooths her hair. Back at the Remington, she won’t notice the bucket’s clank. Cleaning solution this side, pink water that.

  N

  At the po, Marion puts in for a transfer and returns to Calgary.