This Is All a Lie Page 7

  “So, just to be clear – you do love me?”

  “A thousand times, yes.”

  * * *

  Later that night, in the bathtub, Tulah tries to read her book but she can’t focus. She’s reading a biography about the life of Claude Garamond, called Garamondus Maximus. The author’s name is Fran Fritz, which Tulah thinks must be a pseudonym because no parent would be that cruel. She’s charmed by the book because so little is known about Garamond that it’s practically a book of fiction, except it’s also a clever and thorough dissection of the world of letterforms and fonts. She puts the book down, which is a relief because it’s 954 pages. Intriguing as it is, she can’t give it proper attention. She sinks into the water. She purposely lets her memory drift toward Scotland, but this time, for herself.

  She wrote in her journal, a lot. It snowed a lot. She was dizzy for the first few days. The rental car had a hefty dent in its front end and the windshield was cracked. She wasn’t wearing her seatbelt and this was perplexing because she always wore her seatbelt. Something was on the road – an animal but she didn’t know what it was. The patrons of the pub all had theories – from dogs, to sheep, to hares and even ghosts. Bruce MacDonald said it was a rabbit. He said there were rabbits on that stretch of the road all the time. He’d killed one the year before. Tulah had offered to buy him a whisky and he told her he didn’t drink.

  “I gave it up the night my son was born,” he said. “I wanted to pay better attention, and couldn’t do that while I was drinking.”

  “How old is your son?”

  “He’s three. Morogh – his name is Morogh. I have a daughter also. She’s six months.”

  “What’s her name?”

  “We call her Fen. She was named after Keavy’s grandmother – Fenella.”

  “Fen is a beautiful name.” Tulah paused and looked at the glass of whisky on her table. It was her second and she was leaning toward a third, before noon.

  Bruce smiled – his teeth were not perfectly straight. “I wasn’t an alcoholic. It’s not like that. I just made a choice to be present in my own life. I’ve nothing against those who drink a little. I’m glad of it, seeing as I make a living from it.”

  “Well, thank God for that.”

  “Trust me, I’ve watched you for a week now. You only drink a little. You will always only drink a little.”

  “Is he bugging you?” Keavy stomped her feet in the entranceway. “Leave her to her writing.”

  “I am not bugging anybody, wife.” He moved back behind the bar and picked up a glass, and a cloth – held the glass up to the light and frowned.

  “He’s not bugging me,” Tulah said.

  “What?” The man propped against a pillar near the bar, who was sound asleep, jolted awake. He was wearing a wool cap and his beard was grey. “What happened?”

  Keavy hung her coat on a hook at the front entrance. “Nothing happened, Barclay, except you woke up.”

  “I woke up?” He combed his hand through his hair and touched the side of his face, pulled at his beard.

  “Does that surprise you?” Bruce said.

  He considered this question. “At my age? Yes.”

  “You’re not that old, ya bugger.”

  “I was dreaming about the giraffes…” Barclay seemed to drift back into the memory of this dream. He turned toward the window.

  It was snowing. The hills and mountains were covered in white. The snow was drifting softly past the window. Tulah felt isolated and safe in the pub. It was warm and quiet while the world raged without her.

  Keavy turned her attention to Tulah. “And how is that head of yours?”

  “My head? I’m fine, I think.”

  “Good. You remember the doctor said to go easy for a week. A fine cock-a-leekie stew for lunch,” Keavy said. “Chicken and leeks, carrots and rice. I think you’ll like it.”

  “I’ve only been walking. Small walks.”

  “Another drink, then?”

  “Please.”

  Tulah had been living on beer and Guinness stew for a week – this was her first whisky morning. She was afraid to weigh herself. There was no opportunity to check her weight in the room above the pub, but had there been a scale, she would have avoided it. The chicken and leek stew sounded like a nice change. She leaned toward Barclay. “What is the giraffe dream? Is it a good dream?”

  Barclay looked at her and after an uncomfortable amount of time, he nodded. “My wife loved giraffes. I don’t know why. Whenever the giraffes are in my dreams, I feel a bit closer to her. It’s always a good dream.”

  Tulah assumed his wife had passed away, and she was wrong. Keavy told her later that night Barclay’s wife – fifteen years younger than him – was living in the south of France. She was French and the Scottish climate was too much for her, not to mention the food of Scotland. “She was a bit delicate that way,” Keavy said. “And he can’t let go.”

  The next day she could not stop thinking about Barclay. She had borrowed a sweater and one of Bruce MacDonald’s rain slickers, and Keavy offered a pair of sturdy rubber boots – only a half size too big. This is what Tulah wore for her walks. She tucked a bottle of whisky into the pocket of the slicker – even though she was not entirely on board with liking whisky – and walked through the snow, and in the snow, and with snow falling all around. On that day, she thought only about Barclay and his estranged French wife and the giraffes in his dream that made him feel a bit closer to her. It broke her heart to have witnessed this sort of unmoored grief.

  She has never told anyone about Barclay and his sorrow. She hasn’t told another soul about the dream of the giraffes. She thinks maybe it’s because she wants to keep it for herself, or that someday she will have her own dream about giraffes – though she has no idea what her giraffes would do in a dream, or what they would mean.

  * * *

  All through the next day, Tulah senses something is wrong. The girls are doing homework at the kitchen table and she is standing at the sink, looking out into the back yard. Everything is as it should be but she has a queasy feeling that something is off. This morning she burnt her toast – she hadn’t noticed the setting was on high. Yesterday, she broke a heel on her favourite black pumps and two days ago, there was a sparrow in the house. She’d used the broom to shoo it toward the open door and back into the sky. The bird was fine but now she had a general feeling of anxiety, as if something were about to happen.

  Last night there was the kinkiness in the bathroom at the restaurant, and that was fun, but it wasn’t making love. It’s not as if she didn’t think about having sex with him more often. It’s just, they got busy and it was difficult to make the time. Her mother would say, Tulah, you make time for the things you want to do. You make time for the things that are important. Tulah hopes this is not true. She hopes even if a thing is important, sometimes you truly can’t find the time to do it.

  If only the sparrow had not been in the house. That goddamned bird. It was a bad sign. A bird in the house meant there was death coming. Death of something. That was the saying, wasn’t it? As rational as Tulah was, there was a strand of fear attached to the superstition of the bird in the house, and she wished it had not happened.

  21½

  Beautiful in a subdued and quiet way

  You’re probably wondering about the numbering of this chapter. Twenty-one and a half? It’s as if the writer had a set number of chapters in mind, and then things started to unravel. His plans went completely off the rails, and twenty-four chapters were not enough. The author’s solution? These mildly inelegant half-chapters. Welcome to the first bastardized Greek Chorus, a half-chapter section of text that is neither a real chapter, nor a trivial indulgence. It is certainly not a genuine Greek Chorus. No one is singing here. No one is dancing. This is not a group of people who will comment – collectively – on the dramatic action. It’s a renegade in a l
and of broken walls. It’s an ill-fitting suit. The wrong coloured shoes. The bad haircut.

  The chorus in the ancient Greek dramas sometimes offered contextual information that would help the audience follow the performance. They commented on the themes, they expressed what the main characters could not say, such as their hidden fears or secrets, or pockets of anxiety. The Greek Chorus was a touchstone for the story. Perhaps that is the goal of these Greek Choruses.

  You might – because you can, on occasion, be a horny idiot – think about Greek sex when you see the term ‘Greek Chorus.’ It is not a massive leap to get from Greek chorus to Greek sex, and in Chapter 24, Ray’s wife will make him an offer of ‘Greek sex’ in a restaurant. She won’t call it this, but Greek sex is on Tulah’s menu. One of a great many online dictionaries defines Greek sex as – “anal sex, the act of anal intercourse between a man and woman.” Again, you probably know this already. There are speculations about origin of this term, the ancient Greeks and their sexual predilections, but that’s not important right now.

  While this may not be a genuine Greek Chorus, it is utterly and completely true. Everything you read here is true. It is all one-hundred-and-twenty percent true.

  * * *

  godforsaken

  remote, desolate

  neglected and miserable in appearance or circumstances

  * * *

  The villa near Allemond is rustic and secluded. It has a fine workshop and there is excellent wine nearby, but it is also a great deal of work. The difference between a city life with a few servants and this country life in which they do everything themselves, is astounding.

  Marie Isabelle does not like it in the country. Even though their status has risen in the eyes of her friends and acquaintances because only the rich and nobility could afford a summer place, this rustic life was not for her. She could not tell her friends where she was going – only that she would be living in the country for a while. But she is a city girl, through-and-through. She wants Paris again. She misses the bustle of the markets, the cabarets and taverns, the art, and the people. She used to go to parties, banquets, and balls. Here, there are trees, a river and a tiny village. Her friends are all in Paris. She understands the need to be away from the city but she also blames Garamond for her exile. She does not dwell on it, but she could have been married to any number of men who did not have to leave Paris because they feared their associations with a degenerate publisher put their own lives in danger. Still, one morning when she is at the well drawing water, Marie Isabelle realizes there are far more positives than negatives in her life. The villa in which they are staying is dry and warm. They have chickens and they go to the market in Allemond twice a week, and they have wine. Garamond works on his typefaces but when he is with her, he is truly with her. She loves this about him. She has never felt he is looking over her shoulder at something or someone more interesting. Marie Isabelle places her unhappiness aside.

  Garamond enters the room holding a piece of paper with his letter ‘g’ smudged into it.

  “This one is balanced and elegant, and it is not in the least bit sleepy,” he says. “It has the right energy.” He believes his letterforms should have energy – a sort of vibrancy that invigorates the language. And beauty. Above all, the letters that make words, that make sentences, that make paragraphs, that ultimately shape language and poetry, and stories – ought to be beautiful, but beautiful in a subdued and quiet way. The form of the letters should not get in the way of what is written. He hands her the sheet of paper and she looks at the letter.

  “It’s beautiful,” she says, even though she can’t see the difference between the letter ‘g’ of two weeks ago and this one. She thought the first ‘g’ he showed her was playful and bold, the same as this one. “You have improved the elegance of the letter,” she says.

  She looks at his face and she can see the child he was. His smile is childlike and innocent. Marie Isabelle recognizes the fact he trusts her enough to be childlike in front of her. He trusts her with his innocence and she does not take this trust lightly.

  * * *

  red herring

  noun

  a smoked herring.

  something intended to divert attention from the real problem or matter at hand; a misleading clue.

  Also called red-herring prospectus. Finance. a tentative prospectus circulated by the underwriters of a new issue of stocks or bonds that is pending approval by the US Securities and Exchange Commission: so called because the front cover of such a prospectus must carry a special notice printed in red.

  any similar tentative financial prospectus, as one concerning a pending or proposed sale of co-operative or condominium apartments.

  Chapter 21

  the sound of wings

  “In the dark, all cats are grey”

  – Zhanna Petya

  And Nancy has always heard the sound of wings. This thin, wheezing sound has always been there in her life. She assumed everyone heard the sound of birds flying low and overhead, like she did. She remembers hearing the birds’ wings a week before her father went to fight in the war with Afghanistan. He was teaching her to skip stones on the flat of the river. He heard it too, and stopped, and looked up. It sounded like a big bird.

  “What was that, papa?” she said.

  “A raven,” he said. “Or a crow.” But neither of them could see a raven or a crow anywhere in the sky.

  But perhaps this was not a memory, but rather, a remembered story. Her father told her mother, who, years beyond, told Nancy the story.

  Her mother would have blamed the sound on one of her angels. “The sound of wings is the sound of a visitation,” she would say. “It is the sound of an angel watching over you.” Nancy, after so many years, only thinks she remembers skipping stones with her papa. It could have been her memory of the story told to her by her mother. She remembers the air was humid and hot, and smelled of lavender. There was definitely lavender in the air. She is certain of this. There was an open field of purple rising up from the riverbank.

  “Come and see this one,” he said. “This is a good stone. See how flat and round? You try it.” He gave her the nearly perfect stone and stood behind her, guiding her arm, showing her the motion. When she finally made her throw, it skipped three times and then was swallowed by the current, and she was thrilled.

  Years beyond her father’s death, Nancy’s mother started to tell the story of the sound of the wings as if it was the Angel of Death that visited them on the banks of the Seym. “Death was telling your father to get ready,” Nancy’s mother said. “The sound of those wings was the sound of angels’ wings. This is what you heard.”

  “Mother,” Nancy said, exasperated.

  “No. I am certain of this.”

  “Mom. This is ridiculous.”

  “And what did your father do when the Angel of Death appeared to him on the shore of the river? He taught his daughter to skip stones.”

  Nancy is not sure if her mother is pointing to a loving father, or a foolish one.

  “You know dad didn’t believe in angels.”

  “He ignored the Angel of Death and death took him a few weeks later.”

  “Oh my God, mother, stop it. Papa died in a stupid war, trying to save some children. There are no angels in a war. War is much too awful for angels.”

  “There are angels everywhere,” her mother said.

  Nancy could hear hurt in her mother’s voice, and she let it go. “Okay, mom,” she said. “Okay.”

  * * *

  If she really thinks about it, Nancy does not remember hearing the wings before the time she heard the sound on the banks of the Seym with her father. She does not want this memory to be the first time she heard the wings. She wants to think she remembers the wings before this. Maybe at a sixth birthday party, she was in the bathroom and the window was open and she heard that sou
nd. Or when she was playing in the park two years before her father died – she had looked up because she’d heard the sound of wings, and there was nothing but blue. But these are not memories; they are just hopes. They’re not real.

  She was no longer surprised by this sound. It had become part of her life. It was so common for her that she almost rolled her eyes when she heard it just now.

  * * *

  Ray is looking through the windshield at the street and the people on the sidewalk, the businesses and the trees. But he doesn’t actually see anything. What the hell was he thinking? Perhaps he really was a duplicitous bastard. A woman once said that to him. After he’d broken it off with her she kept an Irish wool sweater of his and even though he loved that sweater he considered it a bargain to have traded it for a mostly smooth ending with a minimal amount of acrimony. At the time, Ray barely heard her accusation, but it stuck. Duplicitous was probably a good word for him, though he was not duplicitous with her. She was dull and dour, and he was simply tired of her.

  Lately, he has been truly duplicitous. Because he has been split in two. He’s been moving between hearts. He’s been going to sleep with Tulah, thinking about Nancy. Making love with Nancy and thinking only about Tulah.

  He is never split in two when he is with his daughters. He is whole when he is with them. His daughters are always his daughters. They are constant and delightful, even when they are grumpy. And there is no dichotomy of trees. Trees are simple and undemanding. There are simple rules with trees.

  But with Tulah and Nancy, Ray has not been able to stay still. His heart has been flitting back and forth, always moving, and his heart is exhausted. It needs to land. Once he calms Nancy down, his heart will land where it’s supposed to be. He will focus on his wife. He will never do this again, not to her, and not to himself.