House

               House


   The house sat at the end of a cul de sac hidden from the street by a lush growth of untrimmed lilacs, upper branches heavily laden down with deep purple flowers. The gate, wire mesh nailed onto a wooden frame, one hinge detached from its rotting post, the other holding on by one rusty screw, leaned off to the right of the entrance way. The walk showed some gravel but mostly weeds and the open space between the house and the lilacs was a wild jungle of vegetation. From the head of the walk the house did not look promising. When she walked up close and peered at it more closely it was even less promising. Yet she liked its location. She liked its sense of isolation.

   Struggling through the high weeds, she walked around to the back. The walls were covered in the grayish asbestos shingles which hadn’t been put on houses for forty years. They had never been painted which was just as well for if they had, undoubtedly, the paint would be peeling off in tattered strips. As it was they were reasonably presentable with only the odd crack here and there. Grey caulking would fix that, cheap. On the south side the gutter was hanging from the facia with one end resting on the ground. She examined it closely and decided it was still serviceable. It just had to be reattached. The soffits and facia were OK. Probably spring ice buildup had torn off the gutter. The deck at the back had rot in it but it could be cut out and with a little bracing it would survive a few more years. The back yard was as much a tangled mess as the front. Along the back property line was a board fence, six feet high. The yard was small but big enough for what she wanted. The houses on either side were in much better shape. Did some old person grow decrepit and die here? She wondered. No money for maintenance? No strength to keep up the yard?

   She reached in her pocket for the key the real estate agent gave her and mounted the back steps. Surprisingly the door was a steel, insulated one, although still with only the factory primer on it, and a little off kilter. The lock had been recently oiled and it opened easily. She stepped right into the kitchen. Big by today’s standards, built in a time when people spent more time in the kitchen. The cupboards were plywood but still in good shape. Worn linoleum on the floor. If an old person had died here then they had put their last strength into the cleaning for the kitchen was spotless. She walked the hall to the living room. Oak floors, beat up but not too badly. Pale blue wall recently painted. Picture window. Great for light but cold in the winter. Insulated drapes or even an old sleeping bag could be put over it during the worst of the winter. The stairs to the basement were steep and they creaked. The basement was a cellar not a rec room or a family room. Middle aged furnace. Water and electrical outlets for washing machine and dryer but no machines. The walls were fieldstone. Solid but they could use repointing.

   Two bedrooms up a narrow staircase to the second floor. They were both the same size, clean, recently painted. Through the window of the east room you could see the street, long rows of elms on either side, modest, well kept yards and houses. She opened the window in the second bedroom, removed the screen, and stuck out her head to study the roof. Worn shingles but they would do for three or four years. The brick chimney leaned. Fortunately the lay of the roof meant it wasn’t very high – six feet maybe. Take it down to the roof and rebuild it with the same bricks. Cheap but a little bit of work. Making the staging would be half the job.

   The real estate agent was a thin, weary man. He had a habit of leaning to one side until it seemed he would fall over and then suddenly changing tack and leaning to the other. He wore a rumpled suit and, although his shoes were polished to a high, military shine, the laces were broken and tied together in a series of awkward knots. His tie was smeared with two large splotches of tomato ketchup. When she came into the office after seeing the house he was sitting in his desk chair, eyes closed, and seemed to be drifting off to sleep. When he sensed her presence he jumped to his feet and smiled apologetically.

   “It’s a fixer upper, no doubt about that.”

   “That’s why I was wondering why they are asking so much for it.”

   “Well, you know the old saying.”

   “No, I don’t.”

    The agent looked a bit shocked at this. “You don’t get what you don’t ask for.”

   She had never heard this saying. Perhaps, being unable to remember old sayings, he simply made up his own.

   “Hmmm.” she said and looked at the calendar on the wall. Busty babe advertising Auto Parts. This struck her as funny but she didn’t allow that to show on her face. The busty babe was looking off into the distance with a dissatisfied expression on her face as if she had been expecting a part in a Broadway show and instead ended up on the auto parts calendar. Nevertheless she soldiered on, doing the best she could. The agent was embarrassed when he saw what she was looking at. She dropped her eyes and looked at his long, bony face. He would have been one of those skinny, obnoxious little boys whose main ambition in life was a peephole into the women’s washroom.

   “Will they come down?” she asked.

   “Oh yes.”

   “How much?’

   “You could make an offer.”

   “I know that but I’m trying to get an idea if it’s worth my while. How much do you think they’ll come down?”

   “Quite a bit I would say. It’s been on the market for a while.”

   “A percentage, perhaps?”

   “Twenty-five let’s say.”

   “How about fifty?”

   “You could offer it but they’ll probably counter offer.”

   “That would be OK.”

   That’s what they did. An old lady had owned the house and she died in the hospital three months ago. The vendor was a niece in another city. After a few offers and counter offers they settled on sixty percent of the asking price. While the papers were being processed the real estate agent was good enough to give her the key and she moved in right away. Hotels were expensive. Remembering the calendar she half expected him to come sniffing around presuming on the favour and was relieved when he didn’t. When they met at the lawyer’s office for the signing she promised that if she ever had need of a real estate agent she would phone him. Despite his appearance when she first met him he had been efficient, business like and friendly without any leering come ons. He gave her a neat, simple business card and smiled his apologetic smile. He had replaced the shoelaces and had on a new tie. He was wearing a wedding ring and when they walked together into the parking lot he told her he had five children. No wonder he looked so tired. His oldest boy was fifteen.

   “Does he do yard work?” she asked.

  “That boy will do anything you pay him for.”

   “Send him over, then.”


   She repointed the basement walls first. You couldn’t do that in the winter because the masonary cement wouldn’t stick. Into the cement she mixed a bonding agent. An old friend told her once that it helped. Luckily there was a casement door in the basement wall at the back so she didn’t have to carry the bags down the narrow basement stairs. She took her time and did a good job. She found it satisfying work. Simple and undemanding but satisfying. Next she repaired the gutters and downspout on the south side and did a few minor repairs to some of the others. For this she bought a ladder and a few simple tools. The next door neighbour told her where to go and the store delivered the ladder free.

   It was early summer. In the late afternoons she took a break and sat on the back deck drinking tea. One day she had just sat down when a gangly boy came around the corner of the house. He marched through the weeds purposefully as if he were Moses parting the Red Sea. He seemed to know she was there for he moved towards her with a certain surety but how he knew puzzled her for he never looked at her directly. Perhaps like a bat he navigated by sonar. When he reached the bottom step, still without looking at her, he said,

   “Dad said you wanted the weeds done.”

   This was not enunciated clearly. Rather it sounded like the mouth which sent it forth was full of peanuts and located in the bottom of a barrel. The boy was almost as tall as his father. He had long, unkempt, but not dirty hair. He was better looking than his father. The bones of his face were even and elegantly placed. Perhaps he took after his mother. After saying the above he, exactly like his father, leaned to one side. Then he leaned to the other. Maybe they came from a long line of seafarers. Maybe there was a gene for such a thing.

   “Yes, I do. Would you like some tea?”

   This question seemed to throw him. He leaned from one side to the other in quick succession. He drew the fingers of his right hand through his hair. His throat emitted a few inchoate sounds not reaching the level of speech. Is there anything more painful than the self-consciousness of an adolescent boy? It’s a wonder so many manage to get through it. She, who was sometimes censorious of the older variety of male, could feel for him only a sympathetic compassion. She remembered her own skinny adolescence. Legs and embarrassments and terrible insecurities. But then it would be impossible for him to do work for her if he wouldn’t talk to her.

    “Come up and sit in the other chair and I’ll put on another pot,” she said. When she turned to go into the kitchen she could hear him climbing the stairs. At least he didn’t freeze like a statue down there among the weeds. When she came back with the tea he seemed to have recovered somewhat. When she put his cup on the table he looked at her from the corner of one eye and said thank you.

   She decided that the brisk, business like manner would be the best.

   “How long would it take to cut them all down and bundle them up for the garbage?”

   “A day and a half.”

   This surprised her. Not the day and a half for that was her rough calculation but that he had said it so quickly and clearly.

   “You’ve done this before, then?”

   “Oh yes. Otherwise we would starve to death.”

   So incongruous was this statement that she almost laughed aloud. Fortunately he was looking at his shoes and didn’t notice her smile. She didn’t want him to think she was making fun of him. She thought for a moment and decided to ignore such a spectacular revelation would be a basic breach in the flow of conversation.

   “You would starve to death?”

   “Well, I suppose not really but we do need the money.”

  “We?”

   “Dad and I and the others.”

   “Your siblings?”

   “Yes.”

   “And mother?”

   “Mom’s dead. But you don’t have to say you are sorry because she died two years ago.”

   “But I wouldn’t say I’m sorry because I didn’t even know her.”

   “Most people say they are sorry when they hear.”

   “Well, it’s the conventional thing to say, I suppose.”

   “That’s what Dad says.”

    She said nothing for a few moments which seemed to be OK with him. In fact, if left to his own devices he would perhaps sit there for several hours without saying anything. After enough time had passed to warrant a change of topic, she said,

   “A day and a half then. So twelve hours. How much an hour?”

   “You could make me an offer.”

   She did.

   “That’s more than I usually get.”

   “That’s OK. I don’t like to underpay. Then I feel guilty.”

   He smiled at this. A quirky, twisted smile which flashed quickly and then was gone.

   “When?” she asked.

   “Tuesday?”

   “Fine.”

   He rose and descended the stair so quickly it was as if as he had been pulled by some kind of gigantic magnet. At the bottom he paused and turned.

   “Sometimes I bring Rosie. Is that OK?”

   “Rosie?”

   “My sister.”

    “Fine with me.”
 
   “You could perhaps pay her half of what you pay me.”

   “She does only half as much as you do?”

   “Three quarters really.”

   “Then we’ll pay her three quarters then.”

   He smiled his twisted smile once again and was gone.

 
    When they arrived Tuesday morning at eight o’clock she was attaching the front gate to the new post she had just installed. The rest of the fence would do for a while with a brace here and there and repainting. She saw them first as they turned onto the street a block away. They were pulling a large wagon, full, she supposed, with tools. When they came up he said hello while looking at the house next door but Rosie looked at her directly and smiled.

   “This is Rosie,” he said in the same tone you might use to introduce a cat or a ferret.

   “Hello Rosie.”

   “Pleased to meet you,” said Rosie who was obviously on her best behavior. She was almost as tall as her brother and looked into Claire’s face with a bright, curious cheerfulness. Whoever had chosen the name Rosie had no prescience whatever. Rosie had such pale skin that if she were to play Dracula’s wife in a show she would have no need for makeup. Like her brother she was lanky and like him, in the female version, she had a beautiful face. Her hair was jet black, setting off the pale skin of her face strikingly.

   “Perhaps you would like to have tea before you start.”

  “No thanks,” said Michael. Rosie seemed disappointed but she accepted that he was the boss, at least for the present moment. They unloaded the wagon. Claire was impressed by the tools. A heavy duty weed wacker. Oiled shears. Rakes. “We’ll start in the back.” Said Michael and they carried their things to the rear of the house. The weed wacker started up.

   Claire finished the gate by nine thirty and went in to the house to make tea. She put the pot on a tray with a plate of cookies and carried them out to the back deck. She had to shout to be heard over the weed wacker. Micheal turned it off and came up the stairs. Rosie followed behind. She had been raking and bundling and carrying the bundles to the garbage in the back lane. They sat at the table and Claire poured them tea.

  “How far did you come with the wagon?”

   “From home,” said Michael.

   “Which is?”

   “Only three blocks from here,” said Rosie.

   Michael was throwing sideways glances at the cookies. Maybe he was starving to death. “Go ahead,” said Claire. He reached out and took two, downing them in a matter of seconds. Rosie took one and gently nibbled. Perhaps this is a play of stereotypes thought Claire but she suspected Rosie was doing a learned rather than natural thing. The learning didn’t last long. With the second cookie she was as quick and business like as Michael. When there were two left on the plate Claire insisted they have one each. “I made them to be eaten,” she said. She didn’t have to say this twice. When they finished their tea they went back to work.

   Claire made them lunch. Michael protested but Rosie did not join in. Instead she set into the sandwiches as voraciously as if she were a longshoreman. Michael joined her, keeping, or at least it seemed to Claire, a rough calculation of Rosie’s lead. Rosie was aware. When they were finished they each had exactly four sandwiches. They also polished off another plate of cookies, two pots of tea and went back to work.

   When they were finished for the day Claire offered them supper but Rosie said they had to go home and cook supper for the younger ones. “Dad doesn’t get home until six,” she said. Claire directed them to the casement door and they put the wagon and tools in the basement.

   They finished the next morning just before noon. Rosie and Michael loaded the tools on to the wagon. They did a very good job and Claire was delighted. She literally couldn’t have done it better herself and she was a perfectionist. She counted out the money on the back deck table. She included a generous tip. Michael started to protest but Rosie reached out a slim hand to grab the money and put it in her pocket. She did this very gracefully and very quickly as if she had lots of practice. Claire looked at her questioningly and Rosie said,

   “He’s the boss but I handle the money.”

   Michael laughed. “It’s true you know. Dad’s income is intermittent and it’s Rosie who manages to pay the bills. She’s afraid I’ll spend it on beer. Aren’t you, Rosie?”

    “On too much beer,” Rosie corrected.

   They wouldn’t stay for lunch but Claire brought out a tray of tea and cookies. Rosie watched her set the tray on the table and then asked, “So what do you do for a living?”

   “I paint. Pictures.”

   “You manage to sell enough around here to make a living?”

   “I exhibit in studios in the big cities. I don’t imagine you could sell much of what I paint around here. It’s mostly realism here. Landscapes and animals. I’m an expressionist. Do you know what that means?”

   “Like Klee.”

   “Yes, exactly. He’s one of my favourites.”

   “Dad writes poetry,” said Michael. “That’s why we are broke he says but he can’t help himself.”

   “Better to have a poor happy dad than a rich unhappy one,” said Rosie.

   “Dad’s always reading,” said Michael. “The whole house is loaded with books. Rosie and I have to holler at him to go out and sell houses. Left to himself he would stay home and read books and hide from bill collectors. He’s a bit crazy.”

   “Oh?” said Rosie. “I’d be willing to bet most of the other fathers around are crazier than Dad.”

   “I was exaggerating, Rosie, for God’s sakes.” He looked at Claire. “She’s Dad’s main defender. Not that he really needs one. He’s pretty slippery. When things are really bad he can still sit at the kitchen table and write as if nothing was happening. Dad’s tougher than you think. Rosie thinks he’s sensitive and suffering but really he’s tougher than an old boot.”

    Claire didn’t know what to say to these revelations so she asked. “Do you own your own house?’

   “Yes.” Said Michael. “Mom bought it back in the old days with money she got from her family. It’s rickety and the back taxes are adding up but it’s ours.”

   “It’s not as bad as he says it is,” said Rosie. “He likes to dramatize things.”

   “No, I don’t.”

   Rosie ignored this. “Him and Dad are pretty well the same you know. Emotionally extravagant. That’s why he says terrible things about Dad. He’s really talking about himself.”

   Michael looked up at the clear sky and sighed. Then he brought his eyes down to Claire’s face and asked, “Married, are you?”

   “No.”

   “Never bothered then?”

   “Well, I’ve had boyfriends but I never married.”

   “You’ll have to come over for supper then.”

   That this formerly shy young man would look at her so boldly and talk so directly so amazed Claire that she didn’t say anything.

   “Saturday would be best,” said Rosie. “That’s the night I cook so you won’t die of food poisoning or choke on hard things when you are supposed to be eating soft. The little one’s cook on Mondays and you would want to avoid that at all costs.”

   “Well I guess. Sure. Why not?”

   When they got up and started down the stairs Claire called after them. “Did you ask your Dad about this?”

   “Oh no,” said Rosie. “If we told him too much before hand he would just get all nervous.”


   When she arrived at the address they had given her three younger children were sitting on the front step. They had the characteristic jet black hair and pale face and as she came up the walk they watched her in the intense, unselfconscious way that young children have. When she came to the steps the oldest, a girl who looked like she was stamped from the same imprint as Rosie, stood and held out her hand. Claire held out hers and they shook. “I’m Consuela,” she said, “and this is Peter and Gilly.” Peter also held out his hand to shake but Gilly, who was perhaps three, buried her face in her hands and began to wail. “Gilly!” said Consuela, “what in heaven’s name is the matter with you?”  This admonishment had no effect whatever on Gilly, who continued to wail. Consuela smiled sheepishly at Claire. “She’s not much more than a baby.” Then she reached down and swept the little girl up in her arms and carried her into the house. Peter and Claire followed along behind.

   They passed through a short hallway with a closet off to the left and entered a large double room. At the back of this was the entrance to the kitchen. The room nearest the kitchen contained a long table, covered with a white tablecloth and already set for dinner. Toward the front of the house were three beat up sofas covered with threadbare blankets. A coffee table holding appetizers was in the center of the sofas. Michael came out from the kitchen and guided her to a seat. He reached out and pulled the coffee table close to her.

   “If I’m not here don’t let Gilly get at these. She loves chips and peanuts and then won’t eat her supper. Plus sometimes she eats so much she gets sick. Dad would be here right now but he had to show a house. He should be here in five minutes or so. He says to apologize for him.”

   “O that’s OK. I don’t mind.”

   Michael went back into the kitchen. Peter had seated himself opposite her on another sofa and told her he had recently scored three soccer goals in a single match. Claire acted suitably impressed and told him she played soccer when she was young.

   “Did you score goals?” Peter asked.

   “I played defense but every once in a while I came up the middle and scored.” Peter thought about this for a minute and then looked at her somewhat pityingly. He found it hard to understand why someone would want to play defense.

   Consuela came in, still carrying Gilly, who had stopped crying and managed to look at Claire out of the corner of one eye.

   “Gilly, come and have a chip,” said Claire. The bowl was sitting directly in front of her on the coffee table. Gilly wiggled down out of Consuela’s arms and came over to the other side of the table. From there, with her head bowed, she looked at Claire suspiciously from the tops of her eyes. Claire concentrated on the chips. She took a handful and began munching them. Without taking her eyes off Claire, Gilly reached out and took a handful herself. She retreated to the far sofa and stuffed them slowly and methodically into her mouth. When she was finished she came back for more. Claire ignored Michael’s advice and let her have another handful. The other children didn’t say anything.

    Ten minutes later Sandy Milford came in the door. By then Gilly was sitting on the same sofa as Claire but at the far end.

   “I’m terribly sorry,” he said to Claire. “My partner was supposed to do this one but then he got drunk.”

   “Don’t worry about it. It was only a few moments and I got to talk to the children.”

   Michael came out from the kitchen and asked people to sit at the table. When they had done so Rosie made her first appearance carrying a gigantic pot of beef stew. Michael came behind with salad in one hand, homemade bread in the other. “Did everyone meet Claire?” Sandy asked and they all said yes or nodded their head excepting Gilly who had taken the chair beside Claire and was handing her the butter. Then, with a ten second pause led by Sandy, but no grace, or at least no aloud and wordy grace, they set to. The stew was delicious. The homemade bread, all three loaves, was delectable. For desert they had chocolate pudding served in long stemmed dishes. Michael ate three plates of stew. Gilly ate three spoonfuls until Rosie saying she could have no pudding if she didn’t eat more, led her to eating three more. Sandy sat with his back straight and ate two plates of stew with great concentration and relish. Claire usually limited herself to one helping but the stew was so good she had one and a half. She ate all of her chocolate pudding although normally she wouldn’t eat any. When they were finished she offered to help clean up but Rosie and Michael would have none of it. Saturday the little kids clean up. Michael and Rosie cleared the table and the little kids, corralled by Consuela, headed into the kitchen to do the dishes.

   Claire and Sandy sat on opposite sofas in the living room. Michael and Rosie said goodbye on their way out somewhere. Dishes were rattling in the kitchen. Gilly was complaining about something or other in a high whiny voice.

   “You’ll have to forgive them, “ Sandy said. “They seem to think I am terribly unhappy and lonely and every once in a while they do their matchmaking act. I hope it doesn’t bother you too much. I know what they are like. You would think they are shy little lambs and suddenly they pounce on you and you don’t have a chance. Let me assure you I didn’t put them up to this. They are incorrigible and ignore everything I say on the matter.”

   “I can imagine. I don’t mind. Michael and Rosie are fascinating young people and that they would do something like this is part of their fascination. It doesn’t bother me. I still plan to ask them to do my lawn. Do they have a lawnmower?”

   “Two.”

   “Good. I won’t have to buy one.” Claire had noticed there was nothing on the walls of the living room dining room. “Want some pictures for your walls?”

   “I’m afraid I can’t afford to buy paintings. Rosie said you make a living from selling in the big centers.”

   “Yes, but I give them away free sometimes too. I believe you should do that at least once in a while or you get greedy.”

   “Sure then. I don’t paint myself but sometimes I spend a day at the library looking at the big books of paintings. And I go to the galleries on occasion. Sometimes I envy painters. I know I’m speaking from the outside but painting seems to me more concrete than poetry. But that may be a case of the grass is greener.”

   “I don’t know because I don’t write poetry. But maybe you are right. In painting you can occupy yourself with journeyman things until something strikes. But then again I suppose you can in poetry as well.”

   “Yes you can. So maybe it’s just a case of the love hate relationship anybody has with something they put a lot of time and energy into.”

   Consuela came in from the kitchen carrying a tray containing tea and cookies. Gilly and Peter watched from the kitchen door. When she put the tray on the coffee table, Consuela went back into the kitchen, the others following in her wake.

   “When we finish this we can take a walk if you like.”

    “OK.”

   And so they did, walking around the neighbourhood streets, talking painting and poetry and looking at houses. He walked her to her house and politely refused when she asked him in for tea.


   Rosie and Michael began to do her lawn. Every Friday they showed up with the lawnmower and the weedwacker for the edges. They always came before lunch and Claire fed them. Three weeks after the meal at the Milfords, when she finally had her kitchen set to rights, Claire invited them over for a Saturday supper. The children left afterwards but Sandy stayed on, first to talk on the back deck and then later to have sex with her in the big bed on the second floor. Rosie and Micheal, on the walk home were bringing up the rear. “Didn’t I tell  you?” she said. “Good ole sex will do it every time.” Micheal was disgusted with this. That his Father might soon be doing the act he found revolting. But he didn’t say anything for Rosie had a sharp tongue and he was tired and didn’t want her launching her missiles at him.

   In the post coital Claire said. “I couldn’t live in a house full of kids.”

   “Neither can I.” She laughed. “Maybe you could just take a few of them once in a while.” She laughed again. A strange, quirky man.

   “I don’t want to get married.”

   “Neither do I.”

   “I mean it would be nice to have sex once in a while and dinners.”

   “Yes.”

   “I don’t have much money and I can be very moody.”

   “I can be very moody and don’t have much money either.”

   “The kids could come for supper Tuesdays and Thursdays. I could manage that.”

   “You don’t have to do that.”

    “I know I don’t have to but I would like to.”

   “ I’ll ask them.”

    “Will they?”

   “The asking would be a formality. Of course they will. A delicious meal in someone else’s house. Heaven. They’ll have to clean up though. Otherwise they’ll grow slack. And there is the cost. They eat like horses as you no doubt have noticed.”

   “That won’t be a problem.”

   “No?”

   “No.”

   “I don’t want to have children either.”

   “ I already have plenty.”

   There was a pause in which they examined the flickering shadows cast on the ceiling by the candle. He turned on his side and examined her profile in the half light.

   “I have a beat up old cabin in the country an hour away. You could spend some time painting there if you like. The kids and I spend August there. Just the younger ones now. Rosie and Michael have yard care but they come up on the bus on the weekends. “

   “I could drive them.”

   “They would love that. But what about your work?”

   “Five days a week is enough. Too much is as bad as too little.”

   They made love twice more before they went to sleep.

   Michael put the little kids to bed. Peter and Consuela went on their own but Gilly he rocked in the rocking chair for half an hour before she went to sleep. After he put her in bed he came into the kitchen where Rosie was talking on the phone to one of her friends. “Dad’s a sex maniac, big time,” she was saying. “After all where do you think all we kids came from?”
PAGE


PAGE  14