The Second Part of Chapter 26: Blandness and Retreat

After being unemployed for four months, Belinda decided that it was time for the last resort: she would be moving in with her mother. The mortgage payments were becoming increasingly unsupportable on her income, which at present consisted of Employment Insurance cheques, received once a week. Her savings were down to the amount it would cost to move her belongings to Toronto, so she did so on that day; Belinda had never been much of a saver, and while it would not be beyond anybody who was good with their money to squirrel enough away to last a year or two on meagre living, Belinda’s finances were a travesty, due to her habit of dining out, preference for all sorts of knickknacks with which her house was tastelessly decorated, and impulse purchases. It wasn’t for lack of trying that she hadn’t found work; word of her being fired from her previous job had got out of her previous employer and had spread around the city, making it that much harder for her to find new employment; managers would not listen to her, and would think that she would simply be eager to dig up some dirt and spread it around. She had packed the things among her belongings that she wanted to keep, got up at five in the morning, and loaded the car, enduring the drizzle that made everything feel colder than it was. By six, she was on the road, and at noon, she had reached Toronto; Pollux spent the trip on the passenger seat of the car, sleeping. How like the old days when I would move home from university for the summer, she thought. Now, on the other hand, there was not the reassuring knowledge that her stay would be limited to four months; it might last a year, given the way her job search was progressing. Perhaps she could get a job in a low-key position in a different industry, she thought; the tech industry wasn’t that big, and word travels fast enough. An industry like banking or retail, on the other hand, was much larger; perhaps she would have better luck there.

She had called Suzanne the previous evening, informing her that she was moving back with her. While Suzanne was also out of work, she had paid off her mortgage years ago, and thus had the opportunity to simply stay at home until her savings dried up, which, given her considerable age, had grown to be ample enough to afford her the dignity of simply giving up the job search and retiring.

She had asked when Belinda had been laid off, and Belinda replied sullenly, “a few days before Christmas,” which led Suzanne to wonder why Belinda hadn’t told her earlier; it was probably shame, she thought.

Upon hearing Belinda’s news, Suzanne had phoned her other children and asked them that they give Belinda their support for the time being, but Melvin, Juliana and their spouses took this in a different direction, as none of them really liked Belinda. Eunice noticed her absence first, when she dialled Belinda’s number, and all she got was an answering machine; that this was on Thursday evening, when one would expect Belinda to be at home, was a little odd, so Eunice called Belinda’s cell phone instead.

“Hello,” came her voice.

“Hi Belinda.”

“Oh, hello Eunice,”

“What’s going on? I haven’t seen you around,”

Belinda did not really know how to deal with the awkwardness of the question; she would have to bite the bullet.

“I moved to Toronto,” she said.

“What about the house?”

“I sold it.” That was not true; she had simply abandoned it, and did not bother to board up the windows.

“It’s a nice house,” Said Eunice. “Who purchased it?”

“Some speculator,” said Belinda. “I don’t remember their names,”

The story was sounding less and less plausible to Eunice.

“So, now I’m moving in with my mother, who decided to stop looking for work and simply retire.”

“I see; well, good luck on finding a job in Toronto,” and then she bade Belinda good-bye. She could tell there was something missing from the story, and that was the name of the purchaser of the house on the corner of Lyon Street; most people would know the name of whoever would be buying the house, and it was a very nice house: there were neatly pruned junipers in the front, and a pretty garden in the back with grapevines supported on a trellis. She realised what else was missing from the story: she had passed that house on the way to Hartman’s just on Wednesday, and there was never any for sale or sold sign in the front; the only thing that had been missing was the car in the driveway. If she had abandoned it, then it was a very unwise move; she would thus miss out on regaining the equity on her home; thus it did not strike her as something Belinda would do; on the other hand, she was not known for good money management, as her house was full of all sorts of junk, and even though she rarely used the car, a big money-sucker in and of itself, there had been hints that Belinda’s finances were not in good shape, and she had heard third-hand from one of her co-workers that she had never made voluntary contributions to the company pension plan, and would thus be unable to rely on that in her retirement. On the other hand, surely she would know enough to sell her house, and that thought made Eunice believe Belinda when she said it had been sold.

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The First Part of Chapter 26: Blandness and Retreat

In celebration of spring and the arrival of weather that, while not warm, was at least not brutally cold and comfortable enough for one to show more than in winter, Belinda brought out the cherished part of her wardrobe that showed more of her skin. On Friday, Belinda decided to wear a dress she had purchased shortly before Christmas, but had not had the chance to wear, due to the weather.

Her unemployment changed her for the worse; she always liked to drink, but in the company of friends, which was not happening as often due to her circumstances; she still needed to drink, though, and in attempting to find an excuse for the glass of Pinot she had poured, toasted the first day when the temperature exceeded 16 degrees; she did this because she had precious little to celebrate. She chose alcohol as a means of forgetting her troubles, and this was having a sore impact on her money supply; she was down to her last 300 dollars. At six, when most other people would be sitting down to dinner, she decided to take a stroll through the neighbourhood to enjoy the lovely spring air and feel the pleasant breezes. When she turned the corner and went down Gilmour, she met Kevin, who was jogging the other way.

“Oh, Hi Kevin, do you like my new dress?” Kevin showed little interest as he stopped and took a sip from his water bottle.

“I got it just before Christmas, and it’s so nice to be able to wear it at last.”

Kevin was feeling awkward, being confronted by a woman he disliked, especially considering his shirt was stuck in the waistband of his shorts rather than on his back; he preferred to jog in peace, and only grunted in response before moving on.

Maybe some other time, thought Belinda. She continued to walk down Gilmour street and turned left onto Percy, and then right onto Gladstone; she met very few people along the way as they were enjoying their Good Friday dinners; tonight, Belinda would be having a chicken breast or something; her tradition of Good Friday dinners had stopped with the divorce, and she instead treated herself to either turkey or duck on Easter, but even that was not an option, as her money was running out, and Employment Insurance could only go so far.


Easter that year was a cheerless one at the elder Millers’; the source of discontent was the friction between Patricia and Katherine. While Ryan, like Patricia, also desired a grandchild, he saw no reason to push Katherine for any reason. Patricia had decided what to make on Easter only that morning and there was not so much choice; Ryan might have liked to have guinea fowl, Katherine said she had not had goose in a while, while Patricia preferred duck. No consensus was reached, and Patricia opted for a chicken stew, which though good, lacked the fanciness that characterised their previous Easters.

Katherine was not looking forward to seeing her parents, as there was nothing to look forward to; she had always been fond of her brother, but now he was dead, there was one less thing to brighten the visit. Patricia and Clarissa were recently estranged because Clarissa, in Patricia’s view, no longer had any connection to the family in light of the miscarriage, meaning that Clarissa would not be bearing any of Patricia’s descendents. Patricia had become much less warm to her daughter due to Clarissa’s miscarriage, and all these factors combined led to Easter dinner that Sunday being stiff and formal, rather than laid-back and chatty as it had always been.

“Could you pass the sauce, dad?”

“Certainly, Kate.”

“Harry was just saying how few young women there were at the library; he’s getting lonely,” said Patricia meaningfully; Patricia had attempted to get Harry and Katherine together, but to no avail; Katherine found him boring and snobbish, and he reminded her too much of Mike in physical appearance.

“Have you been speaking with Clarissa?”

“Not that much,” said Patricia. “She’s been giving me the cold shoulder lately,”

“Are you sure that’s not the other way around? I have always remembered her being quite genial,” said Katherine, although she had not seen her sister-in-law––she still considered Clarissa a relation––since February.

“It’s definitely her,” said Patricia, her voice wavering; she wanted to cover up the fact that she had been cold to Clarissa during her last visit, and now no longer acknowledged her when she saw Clarissa at Hartman’s or on the way to work.

Katherine wanted the conversation to change from its current track of dwelling on her and tending to have long periods of awkward silence into something that at least made good table talk. “Did you interview any interesting people?”

“Well, there was this one person from Toronto who was talking about their construction projects––you know the light rail lines they’re building?”

“Yes, I’ve heard,”

“Well, there have been some objections in a similar vein to the ones heard about the reconstruction of the Saint Clair line; that it would cost too much money, that they would be unsafe, that they would be an impediment,”

“The complaints sound spurious,”

“I agree; the same could be said for all sorts of other construction projects,”

“That’s what Helena Perari said; she was also in the studio, and really lit into the complainant afterwards.”

“That woman seems merciless; she’s always moralising about this, that and the other thing; it seems sort of sanctimonious at times.”

“The thing is, she’s always right, though; she’s one of the best journalists and commentators at the CBC,”

“I like Derma Head better,” said Patricia; Derma Head had an uncanny knack for making accurate predictions; it was her who first voiced the opinion, back in November, that the election would go to Duff, and she had sounded an alarm bell on the credit markets in 2003, fully five years before many other people did. The conversation didn’t continue in this vein for a while; Patricia had other ideas.

“What about a boyfriend, Katie?”

“I don’t think I want one at the moment,” said Katherine, who was by now feeling hen-pecked; she wondered if Ryan ever felt the same way.

Ryan thought the Patricia’s cajoling of Katherine was quite unnecessary; she was attractive enough to find men who were into her, and he was not at all concerned about her finding a husband; if she were to reach 40 before finding someone, though, there would be a chance he would start getting concerned. It was true that like Patricia, he wanted Katherine to find someone, but he wanted this so that Katherine would feel happy, for he had the distinctive feeling that Katherine was not happy, but frustrated. He tried to change the subject.

“I hear that more people are looking for work, now that the recession is over,” he said.

“That’s a very good thing; the library was being used very heavily until last Christmas; there were always people passing the time, reading, on the computer, and generally trying to escape,”

Other than that, dinner was eaten in a stony silence for the rest of the evening, and Katherine departed at eight, drove west on MacLaren Street to her home near Lincoln Fields, and prepared for her next day of classes; as usual, there were science assignments to mark, some of which were done well, and some of which were not. The weather seemed to reflect her gloom as it grew colder and threatened rain, which started to fall the next morning.

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