The Fourth Part of Chapter 15: Past and Future

By now the snow was lying tramped down on the sidewalk, and lay ankle-deep in the garden; they had already received their first major snowfall, which had amounted to ten centimetres, the previous evening, and the street that morning looked like a scene out of a postcard, as the snow lay delicately on the branches of all the trees, weighed down the pine boughs, and accentuated the colourful Christmas lights.

While Patricia was on her way home from work at the city library, she decided that she needed to call Clarissa, considering that they had not talked in what seemed like a while to her. After two rings, Clarissa picked up.

“Hello,”

“Hi Clarie, it’s Pat,”

“Hi Pat. It’s nice you could call; I just left work,”

“So, I was just wondering how you’re doing; both Ryan and I are thinking of you,”

“That’s really kind of you. One of my co-workers, his name is Yvon, took me to a movie on the twentieth. He said he couldn’t stand my long face and wanted to cheer me up.”

“How did that go?”

“Okay; he said he even didn’t mind soppy love stories if they would cheer me up, but I said that wasn’t necessary, of course,”

“What did you see?”

“It was a buddy comedy, I can’t remember the name,”

“How is Yvon normally?”

“He’s normally the office jerk; I think it’s just the face he shows the world, and he was complaining about his home life, his wife and his kids,”

“Well, it’s nice to hear that people care about you, dear. Have a good evening,”

“Good night, Pat,”

Patricia arrived home, and as it was cold, she lit the fireplace, and the house was slowly filled with the pleasant aroma of burning pine. She then busied herself with dinner. Tonight, she thought, it would be chicken dumpling stew; a straightforward recipe should be good enough, and I would just prefer the taste of tender, thoroughly cooked chicken. With these thoughts, she gathered all ingredients on the counter: the chicken, the sage, the basil, pepper, vegetables, and started cooking. She could never entirely get over the death of her son, even if it had happened a month previously; he will always be her son, even if he’s six feet under. Her eyes were already watering from cutting up the onions, but emotional tears shortly joined these. How she wished Jimmy were still alive and smiling! Now there was simply a headstone in a cemetery somewhere as a public memento to his life. If only he had taken better care of himself. She had been less-than-caring when it came to food; she would often send him to school with money to buy whatever in the cafeteria or at a local fast-food place rather than make him a sandwich. Had she made him a sandwich or a wrap more often, or perhaps some soup, then he would not have developed a taste for alluring foods that were not healthful, such as poutine. She was fretting over her parenting skills in the years gone by when Ryan opened the door, just having come home from his work at the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation.


Ryan, in his job as a host for the local morning program, was thinking of politics, just as seemingly everyone else in the office was doing given the recent election call, and the story of the day was not strictly related to the campaigning, but was a distraction of sorts: the Prime Minister’s wife, Cathaline, had suffered a nervous breakdown, and the newspapers, in an uncharacteristic and unfortunate episode of gossip-mongering, were all agog with this latest piece of news, and the political gossip columns were filled with speculation going both ways with regards to her sanity. Meach was not pleased, as he had channelled Shakespeare in a rare bit of linguistic sophistication, something for which he was not known: “She should have died hereafter; there would have been a time for such a word.” Meach had been referring, of course, to the fact that the newspapers had bothered to devote a few columns of gossip to Cathaline Gutzmann-Meach’s breakdown, and Meach was evidently wishing to stand away from the prying glare of the media. At any rate, it distracted from the election campaign. Ryan walked home in the cold, dark night, wondering why an election was necessary in the winter. Further to the point, why was an election necessary at all? They had just had an election the previous October, and that had essentially maintained the status quo; he saw no reason why the outcome of this election should be any different. After the bus ride, his house looked welcoming, with the twinkling blue Christmas lights without, strung along the eaves, and the cozy warmth within that so many associated with good housekeeping.
As he opened the door, a draught of air came in and disturbed the picture of James and Clarissa smiling together in Newfoundland. They had displayed it on the mantel, in front of a delicate ceramic goose. It fell, and floated into the fireplace. Ryan didn’t notice this, so the photo burned, first blackening James’s face, and then Clarissa’s. Neither of them noticed until after dinner, when Ryan went into the living room and noticed that the picture, which had been his favourite, was not there.

“Patty, what happened to that picture of Jim and Clarie in the restaurant? It’s not here,”

Patricia, who had retired to the living room and picked up a novel (Agatha Christie’s N or M?), looked at the mantel and said, “I don’t know. It was there when last I looked.” The truth was that the last time she had looked had been over a month previously, just after the funeral, and in the clutter that accumulates over time, one tends to lose track of things, and must make a list or otherwise keep a sharp mind to notice something. It was like the way that a tree’s shade is taken for granted by some until it is cut down.

The two puzzled over the missing photograph, and pondered over where it could be, but to no avail: what was once a photograph of James and Clarissa in a restaurant was now ash, destined to be scraped out of the fireplace the next day. They both hoped that it would turn up and it would happen that it had simply floated under a chair or beneath the carpet by some stroke of luck, rather than the fireplace, which was actually the case. It was fortunate that there was more than one copy of the photos, but not for the older Millers; they were ignorant of the copies Margaret and Hyram had, as well as of the copies Clarissa had.


On that same evening, Belinda was on the train, travelling to visit her mother. The plan for the trip would be similar to the one she would make at Christmas: she would arrive at Union Station, and ride the subway to Old Mill Station, where her mother would be waiting for her. It would have been simple, but she had actually intended to make the trip earlier; she had been tired, missed the earlier train, and instead of arriving at Union Station at nine, her actual arrival time would be closer to midnight, and that was thanks to much wrangling by her with the ticket inspector at the station; otherwise, she would have been arriving in Toronto the following morning.

Previous Next

The Third Part of Chapter 15: Past and Future

School had finished an hour and a half previously, and after doing some calculus problems, which presented her no difficulty, Angelina was working at the checkout counter of the local Zellers. It had been a normal, boring day, and it was very cold outside; winter’s first snow had just fallen, and the cold air blowing in from outside whenever the doors were open was just a bit uncomfortable. She looked up, and saw a pretty, pregnant woman, who looked about fifteen years older than herself; Angelina could somehow sense that she was sad.

“How are you today?” This question was a part of the convention of service with a smile, and presented the illusion, however insincere, that the store staff cared about their customers. In this case, however, Angelina had a genuine interest and semi-passive concern.

“Fine,” said she in an unconvincing way. She had taken items that would be suited to babies: a small blue shirt, pyjamas, a knit toque, and baby slippers.

“That’s all then?”

“Yes,” said she, mechanically. She paid for the items, and then left the store, walking into the gathering cold. It was only 4:30, but the sun was already down, and the parking lot was getting dark. She thought this time of year was particularly miserable; it was cold, and the snow too shallow on the ground to permit cross-country skiing or sufficiently cover all of the dead and dormant plants.


On the following Monday, Mario was at work at Food Basics, when he heard news from some piece of gossip as dropped by an employee named Nadia who was working at a cash register.

“I heard on the radio that they just called an election; Meach’s government fell on a confidence motion,” she said. She was talking to the five of them who were working there; she had heard this while listening to the CBC, which she always kept playing at a low volume on her pocket radio.

“Really? What did the confidence motion say?”

“It was a bill to advance a spending program focussed on improving law enforcement and conservation efforts at national parks. It was a routine sort of thing, you know. Anyways, Meach had the temerity to throw in some provision about financing the army that was politically contentious, and the opposition took him up on the opportunity to topple the government, and now we’re in an election campaign,”

“It’s an election campaign about nothing, in other words,” said Mario, who would really prefer to return to work reviewing the job application and accompanying résumé front of him.

“I think the opposition have wanted an excuse to vote the government down for a while; they’re always saying that Meach has spent too long in power,”

“Maybe,” said Mario, attempting to feign disinterest. “Busy day?”

“You know it,” said Nadia.

“Lunch is nearly over; perhaps you should get back to the cash register,”

He called the applicant out of courtesy: “Thank you for your application, it looks very good, but we don’t have any position for you. I hope you find a job soon.” These were well-practiced lines for Mario, having been recited and iterated countless times, though he could never really get comfortable saying it.


Given that it was a minority government, the election period promised to be exciting, with many speeches and promises by politicians, as well as the unintentional gaffes, missteps, misquotes and mistakes that would be picked apart with relish and without mercy by opposing politicians and comedians. Mario thought that this would provide for some very entertaining news, besides allowing the general public, in the great exercise of their collective opinions, their say in how the country was run, all the while being confronted with a variety of challenging issues, including the environment, taxes, social services, and accountability. He then tried to recall a meme he had read on the Internet; it was something saucy about the Prime Minister, but it just escaped him; perhaps it was irrelevant, and it sounded outlandish anyway.

Previous Next

The Second Part of Chapter 15: Past and Future

The eleventh of November was a mild and altogether pleasant fall day, as befitted a public ceremony at the war memorial; nobody would be uncomfortable, no matter what they were wearing, and Margaret, who had taken the day off work, was walking with her daughter, Ryan and Patricia to the Remembrance Day service there. As they turned up Elgin Street approaching the memorial, more and more people, all evidently going to the same place, joined them. It was very crowded at the square, and they were only just able to see the memorial, with its allegorical statue of victory and soldiers from their vantage point behind several rows of people. All of them were decently clothed, and Margaret was dressed as though for a funeral, as were numerous other people nearby. This being a clear day, they could make out the high hills in the distance, but they could not see the river flowing in its valley, hemmed in by bluffs on the south side.

Margaret was talking about her mother: “The only connection I have with any sort of war is with my mother. She died ten years ago, and she was eighty-seven, which is getting up there. She used to be a grease monkey, and was working away from the front, doing maintenance on tanks and jeeps and that sort of thing. She had leukemia when she died, but it wasn’t from the disease, thank goodness; she was just stepping out of her townhouse in Yorkville when she slipped on a puddle, fell and cracked her skull open. There was blood everywhere, and when she got to the hospital, they couldn’t revive her due to the massive blood loss. I guess it’s a better way to go than slowly succumbing to cancer, because it was all over in twenty minutes, whereas cancer takes years to kill.”

“Alzheimer’s claimed my dad; it seemed like such a horrible way to go, and at the end, he was constantly confused and muddled, and he was so lonely. It was thirteen years from when we first noticed the symptoms to when he actually died, which was in 1996. It’s a terrible way to go. Now there’s a simple gravestone in a cemetery in Sudbury: Thomas James Miller, 1906-1996.”

“Oh, I’m sorry.”

“Don’t worry about it; it was a long time ago.”

“If only James were still alive; then I would be able to talk about him in glowing terms about his exploits; but, such is life.” Upon hearing this, Patricia started crying, as her son’s death still troubled and saddened her. She then thought with remorse over all the things she should of done: had James been taught properly to love his vegetables rather than beef, then he might still be alive; had she instilled in him the notion that a fit body was attractive, then he and Clarissa might still be gazing into each other’s eyes, oblivious to the goings on about them. If only, she thought.

After a little pause, Margaret asked, “Where’s Kate?”

“She’s home sick with the flu. She’s strong though, she’ll surely recover,”

Half an hour later, they could hear the bells strike eleven, marking the start of the ceremony. It was a decidedly conventional one as far as Remembrance Days go, but due to their position, they could only hear the occasional word. It seemed to be the mayor who was giving a long-winded speech about the value of the contributions of the armed forces to Canadian security and international goodwill, which had a substantial portion of exaggeration in it, and had numerous platitudes, such as “as Canadians, we value and honour the sacrifices made by our soldiers every day”, or “The contributions made by our troops to society are invaluable”, which although true, sounded trite from overuse.

In an hour, the ceremony, which had been well attended by the citizenry, old veterans, some soldiers and dignitaries, including, Ryan noticed, Catherine Ness, the former Minister of Finance, was finished, and the multitudes dispersed. It was very much like other Remembrance Day ceremonies he had attended, with sombre pomp and ceremony, in atmosphere similar to a funeral. The four of them walked south on Elgin Street until they reached Gladstone where they turned right, all the way conversing about the election that everyone thought was imminent.

“I saw a speech yesterday by the Prime Minister praising the army. He repeated the phrase ‘we love our troops’ numerous times, and at the end I was unbelievably bored. I think it was mostly theatrics; you could see several rows of soldiers standing at attention behind him on the television screen,”

Clarissa added, “Well, that’s to be expected; Catherine Ness dropped hints of an election call very shortly, did you hear her? She said, ‘we hope you keep in mind the sacrifices of our soldiers, and of all those in the public service, in government, who work tirelessly to promote the well-being of Canadians every day’; it’s a bit rich coming from her, considering how it was revealed she hardly does any work in her plum post.”

“There was also that speech by Mopps Sousa three days ago; it wasn’t that good, though.”

“It was actually mildly embarrassing; one would think that you shouldn’t refer to the Boer War with a black soldier standing at your side,”

“He looked uncomfortable,” said Patricia, referring to the soldier, who she thought was being used by Sousa as a prop; she thought the Defence Minister was unnecessarily pompous, and this opinion was reinforced every time he got his speeches mixed up, which happened often.

Banter continued to revolve around speculations of an election, and Margaret was discussing Xavier Nolen; “the former Natural Resources Minister was doing well enough in his post­––nothing flashy, but a decent worker. The problem is definitely what Meach thinks is a retirement scheme; I’m sure there wouldn’t be any fuss had he actually put them on a pension; it would have been perfectly acceptable, but he had to appoint Nolen to the post at Environment Canada, because, I don’t know, of some putative ability; now we all know the real reason to be cronyism. Surely, Meach and his posse must have known they'd be caught; I think it was hubris, and that we would think it was okay. Well, I don’t think it’s okay; just because you have a guaranteed cash flow doesn’t mean you should treat it like a personal piggy bank.”

My, Margaret certainly is bombastic, thought Ryan. I wonder why Clarissa is so much kinder; well, she is in mourning right now, like us, but even before Jim’s death, she was nice and polite, and not even remotely overbearing as her mother is.

Patricia’s mind turned to her son; she wondered where the rumour about him being a pill popper had started; it was to nobody’s benefit, and it was patently false. He had never popped pills in his adolescence, while he was at university, or in his career, even while many of his friends were seeking relief from headaches, as he was simply lucky that way; she had simply never known him to take any Tylenol, Acetaminophen or Ibuprofen.

After Remembrance Day, the weather turned colder; on the eleventh, the temperature had reached fourteen degrees; Saturday was overcast and cold enough for the creeks to freeze over, and small ice floes were accumulating in the three rivers, forming the basis of the ice which started forming on the banks and progressed to the middle of the rivers by the start of December.

Previous Next

The First Part of Chapter 15: Past and Future

Yvon was at work, modelling revenue projections for EI Premiums; it was in response to a question that the Minister anticipated in the House of Commons; the answer that came out was $20 billion next year, and slowly growing in subsequent years. The result may have been obvious, but Yvon was careful; the figure of $20 billion was the result of much iteration of several methodologies, including moving averages and an ARIMA model, among others. On top of that, there was the explanation of the methodology that he had to write; he worked on it from after his break until lunch. He had been too tired to make a lunch the previous evening, as parenting three teenagers was hard work; this meant that he was stuck with fare offered in the food court, which was rarely appetizing. The best bet for a lunch would be the pita place across the street. On the way down the elevator, he met Clarissa, who was still wearing dark clothing, which today consisted of black trousers and a black cashmere sweater.

“Cream colours suit you better,”

“Oh, hi Yvon,” she said. She had still failed to give him any snarky retorts, which were normally about his waistline or his greying hair.

“You look so sad lately; you kind of remind me of my aunt from Joliette, and that’s not a good thing,”

“You mean the bipolar one who slit her wrists?”

“It created a terrible mess. I hope you’re not headed that way,”

“I’m not,”

“That’s not very believable, you know; if you were a bit perkier, you would be rolling your eyes or something. I admit, one less unfriendly face would be welcome, but come on,”

Clarissa reacted little, but the other person in the elevator, someone who worked in an office upstairs, rolled her eyes. The elevator emptied into the lobby, and Yvon and Clarissa continued the conversation while riding down the escalator.

“I’m going to the pita place across the street. Want to come?”

“Sure,”

“Do you want some company after what happened?”

“That’s all right; I have enough company,”

“But your mom lives in Toronto, that’s not company; come on, Clarie, I’m the one you see most often; we hang around each other for eight hours of the day, and never have you warmed up to me,”

“Yes, well, things sometimes don’t work out.”

At this point they were at the pita place, called Alors, Pita!; it was a fast food restaurant, and Yvon ordered chicken and lettuce in his pita. Clarissa did the same. Over lunch, they continued the conversation.

“Do you want to go out sometime?”

“I don’t remember you being this nice to anyone,”

“Well, I went through something similar in my teenage years. We call it the family crazies. Not that you’re crazy, of course; in my family, there’s always some maladjusted kid. That was me.”

“You just seemed to be prickly,”

“About going out: yes or no?”

“What would your wife say?”

“She kind of expects it of me. Every Friday, I drink with a neighbour, and return at midnight. I usually have a couple beers, maybe a shot of rum, you know, stuff like that.”

“That would explain your mood on Fridays,”

“Oh yeah, Friday’s the best day of the week for me,”

“Well, what day did you have in mind?”

“Some Saturday, maybe the twentieth. We could go to a nice restaurant, or a movie.”

“What would your wife think?”

“What does it matter? There’s nothing dirty going on, and anyway, there’s not much chance of that happening, don’t flatter yourself. Normally I would invite you drinking, but considering your pregnancy, I didn’t think that would be such a good idea,”

This was the longest conversation Yvon had had with Clarissa in a long time, possibly the longest ever; normally, they would exchange one-liners, and on occasion, when they were in meetings together, they would have short dialogues, but due to the cold relationship between them, those would be perfunctory, short, and have a veneer of professionalism beneath which lay mutual antagonism. That was when she was single. When she was dating, she was even colder to him, and brushed him off freely, and without a care to what the directors thought; the directors actually treated it as a joke, as they knew his personality, and appreciated him for his detailed knowledge of the field of econometrics. The director-general, a sprightly man, simply poked fun at him. Now, however, her voice was dull, and instead of saying something like “Go away” in an ironically buoyant voice, she sounded dull and worn; if a frayed and bald carpet could speak, this is what it would sound like, thought Yvon. Additionally, she always used to flash her teeth whenever she spoke, as a way of showing them off with a bright smile; today, however, there was none of that; her mouth was unsmiling, and so were her eyes. Overall, this was a very interesting perspective into her mind, or would be, if she were talking to somebody who cared, in an academic fashion, about psychology; Yvon’s interest was primarily with her as a person, however, because she reminded him of the aunt who had slit her wrists a few months before she did so, or his sister, who had been depressed just out of university. Given his personal and familial experience with the disease, it actually distressed him to see somebody else, not just sad, but completely unhappy; he knew depression as an absence of happiness, and the feeling that happiness would not return, and to him it was an unbearable feeling, one that left him in the foetal position in his bed when he was seventeen, crying. Nobody deserved to feel that emotion, that sense of hopelessness. They ate the rest of their lunch without discussing emotional problems, and discussed economics, which was a good thing to discuss, considering that talks about economics generally involved very little emotion, and people who talked about economics, at least those who knew economics, tended to agree; thus, the remainder of their dialogue was a non-conversation.

Previous Next