Stones

  Morrison’s wife was having an affair. At first, he had not been certain who the recipient of her illicit affections was—though, over time, he narrowed the field to three. Two of these were business associates and the third was his older brother, David. The fact that David might be courting his wife did not surprise him. It merely alarmed him. Lying along the edge of any sexual relationship between consenting in-laws, there was something illicit Morrison had spied—the pale and sickly fingerprint of incest.

  Finally, Morrison concluded David was indeed the culprit but—oh, he thought, what difference does it make? There’s nothing I can do about what is. And trying to interfere will only make them more determined…

  Morrison’s lack of surprise and outrage had its foundation in a long and painful awareness of his brother’s utter lack of ethics. Their parents had divorced so long ago that Morrison could not recall or name the year. He had gone to live with his mother; David had gone to live with their father. And their father’s house was besieged by women. Morrison senior had been a prince of finance and a child of Adonis. The siege of women won the day—and the house, its doors all standing open, fell and was occupied by a long succession of temporary brides, some of whom, as David grew to manhood, strayed in his direction.

  David Morrison had made a point, in all his consequent intrigues, of seeking involvement only with the wives of friends. And now his brother’s wife, Cynthia. Morrison’s theory about this bedding procedure was that Brother David was a lazy man who preferred the easy pickings of his immediate circle to the stress and effort of the open market-place. This was the consequence, surely, of having played in his father’s harem. Out in the open market, the women were unknown quantities whose foibles, habits and weaknesses David would have to explore at the expense of his own time and money, whereas the foibles, habits and peccadilloes of the wives of friends, associates (and fathers) came to him free of charge. They fell into his lap like gifts as he lunched and worked and drank with their husbands. The simple questions: How is Sally? How is Jane? could produce such lucrative answers as: a little bored these days, I’m afraid, and wondering what to do with her time…David would know what to do with her time. Bored wives were best; women on the verge of separation were next to best, but women on the verge of divorce were traps to be avoided at all costs. Next thing a person knew, such women expected you to marry them. This was not what David had in mind at all.

  Now that David had focused on Cynthia, Morrison found himself perversely accommodating. He would announce all his business trips in David’s presence, letting his brother know that he would be away in Montreal for two days next week—Wednesday and Thursday. Also, he would pointedly leave the room whenever Cynthia was on the telephone. Even if she was only talking to her sister—Morrison, believing it was David on the line, would stand up and walk ostentatiously away. Not so he wouldn’t hear, but only so David and Cynthia could enjoy their privacy.

  Perhaps this apparent lack of gumption on Morrison’s part was the legacy of having fallen into his mother’s purview after his parents’ divorce. Whereas David had enjoyed the playing fields of their father’s Forest Hill Playboy Mansion, Morrison had been ensconced as the wailing wall of their mother’s Riverdale Leper Colony. She must have spent an hour a day, at least, with her forehead resting on his shoulder—finishing box after box of Kleenex like a tissueholic. She wept as easily as other people speak their names—and as often as the rest of us say I. She was devoted to her tears, and the reason lay in her equal devotion to all lost causes. Mrs Morrison, senior, laid out her marriage like a corpse and the wake went on until the day she died. Only then was Morrison freed from the domination of defeat—but, clearly, his freedom came too late. Que será, será became his unproclaimed motto and, under its aegis, he was satisfied to stand aside as David made his move on Cynthia.

  The affair had become an open secret—and everywhere that Morrison went, even onto the platform of the Rosedale subway station, he was certain people were watching him—perfect strangers turning to other perfect strangers and saying there’s that fellow Morrison—the one whose wife is sleeping with his brother. The Globe and Mail—held face-high—provided the perfect hiding place. Except for things that fell from the sky.

  Morrison and Cynthia had met over music. The fact is, they had met because of music—but Cynthia’s way of saying things was smudged with the vernacular of her youth. We met over music was always said as if she was chewing gum between each word. She was also prone to saying she was into Beethoven—a phrase that bothered Morrison a lot, especially when Cynthia said it at dinner parties. People might accept a certain amount of slang at lunch and cocktail parties, but dinner parties should not be soiled with it. That was Morrison’s view, at any rate.

  And so, they met because of music. Morrison was devoted to the Toronto Symphony Orchestra and for many years he had been in love, from afar, with one of the violinists. This woman—who played her instrument like an angel—always wore a black velvet dress and she had red hair. Morrison had loved her for over twenty years. Then one Thursday night in the lobby of Roy Thomson Hall, the violinist shed two decades and stood before him on the staircase in the person of Cynthia Box.

  Cynthia Box wore a black velvet dress and was with her father. Her hair was a beacon of red—and Morrison’s eye was drawn to it at once. Later, in the intermission, Morrison managed to stand beside this woman who hadn’t any notion, aside from her radiant beauty, why she might have been chosen for his attentions. Morrison brushed her plump white arm with his fingertips and she was his. No one had ever touched her as if she was a violin before—and her nerve ends tingled until she almost broke into song.

  Morrison courted Cynthia Box for the rest of the concert season, plying her with heavy doses of Mahler, Stravinsky and Brahms, and when the season ended with a gala performance of Beethoven’s Choral Symphony, Morrison proposed and Cynthia accepted. The wedding was set for the following September, so that by the time of the orchestra’s opening concert, their honeymoon would be over and they could attend. One of Morrison’s gifts to Cynthia had been a lifetime subscription for two and their Thursday night seats were centre aisle, right next to the rail of the first balcony.

  Here it was spring again—May—and, only ten years later, Cynthia was having an affair with David. Morrison could not imagine how he had failed her. Two delightful red-haired children had graced their marriage and one of them—Seiji—was studying the violin. The other—Alexis—was struggling with the cello—though, at the age of eight, she found it rather overpowered her. She was always losing control of its balance in the living-room at home and already it had smashed two Chinese lamps and cracked a number of ashtrays.

  Alexis always broke into tears whenever the cello fell, and it seemed too harsh for words to yell at her tilt it the other way! or rest it against your thigh—will you never learn, Alexis! Morrison—only once—had made the mistake of shouting give yourself more space, for heaven’s sake! which had brought about the demise of the second Chinese lamp. Nowadays, Alexis practised in the cellar in what her mother referred to as the rec-room—quite unaware that, in leaving her little notes of encouragement for Alexis, wreck-room—was not the proper spelling.

  By the time the subway train had reached the stop at Queen Street that morning, Morrison had completely forgotten the piece of ice that had fallen at his feet. Heading for Bay Street, he had tucked The Globe and Mail under his arm and was thinking about the possibilities of trading in the BMW and going for broke with a Jaguar. Three of the stocks in his portfolio had soared the day before and he thought that for once, instead of consolidating matters—selling short and putting the money in the bank—he might enjoy some of the “excesses” (that was his word) that others around him had indulged in for the last five years. He might even keep the BMW and give it to Cynthia. There, that’s yours, he would say to her, throwing her the keys. Use it for running errands, shopping, assignations. Just don’t leave it parked in front of David’s house—t
hat’s all I ask…

  It was a pretty conceit, this imagined speech, like the afternoon light in which he intended to deliver it. He would take her into the living-room—safe, now, from falling cellos—and he would pour them each a drink before he lit the surviving lamps and they would stand together gazing out the windows at the bright forsythia and all the Japanese cherry trees and magnolia trees in bloom along the street—and he would throw her the keys and point at the BMW parked in the driveway. There, that’s yours, he would say. Et cetera. And then he would gesture beyond the lawn and beyond the sidewalk to where a bronze-blue Jag sat waiting for him. Cynthia would have said but what will you drive, darling? And Morrison—casual as Cool Whip, would just say: that.

  Cynthia, he knew, would secretly be fighting her natural inclination to shout—all her inner voices screaming the son of a bitch thinks I’m gonna thank him for a goddamned, lousy BMW while he drives around in a Jaguar!

  Then she would thank him and pretend bronze-blue was not her favourite colour. Which, of course, it was.

  Morrison worked in the Canada Permanent Building right on the corner of Adelaide and Bay. He was looking at it now—enjoying the richness of its big brass doors and all the brass trim around its arches. He was also enjoying the prospect of reaching his desk and of phoning his broker and asking him to sell the shares that had done so well—and he was waiting right at the curb for the light to change when, all at once, a pigeon fell at his feet.

  Morrison looked down and saw that the bird was dead and then, embarrassed, he looked around to see if anyone else had noticed.

  Apparently, no one had. Or at least, nobody mentioned it. Morrison appeared to be quite alone with the bird and he considered what he should do.

  By now, the light had changed, but Morrison didn’t move. The pedestrian traffic flowed around him just as if he was a tree they were used to dealing with every morning. Some went one way—some went the other. It really didn’t seem to matter which side they passed on. There he was—and they coped.

  Morrison had never encountered a situation like this before. Not in all his years of working in downtown Toronto had he ever seen a dead pigeon. In fact, he had never seen a dead pigeon anywhere. Didn’t they fly away to die? Or collapse on rooftops where no one could see them? Weren’t they eaten by predators long before they were old? Well—no. Apparently.

  Here it was: a grey and white pigeon—perfectly healthy, by all appearances, not a mark anywhere—dead at his feet.

  He wondered whether to step over it or around it. Around it, surely, would be more fitting. Respectful. But—should he really leave it there? What if someone failed to see it and stepped right on it, squishing its ribs and forcing its stomach out through its beak all over their shoes…

  If only the pigeon would melt, the way the sky bolt had.

  Morrison had reached his desk and was sitting there waiting to phone his broker before it occurred to him what his mind had said. He was hoping Ms Almeda would hurry up with the coffee and the Danish, when it broke through into speech. “Sky bolt,” he said. Out loud.

  “The same to you,” said Ms Almeda, just then coming through the door with his Boynton mug and his Danish-in-a-napkin. Her suit had liquid sugar stains on it.

  “I won’t be needing you for half an hour, Ms Almeda,” Morrison said. “And when you leave, please close the door.”

  Ms Almeda smiled her knowing smile and waggled her fingers. “Not you, too, Mister Morrison. Shame on you.”

  “I beg your pardon?”

  “Not you, too,” she repeated. “Mister Grainger—you know—he makes these phone calls first thing every morning?”

  “No,” said Morrison. “I don’t know what you mean.”

  Ms Almeda coloured. Orange beneath her Cover Girl. She stammered. “Oh,” she said, “I was really only joking. I shouldn’t have mentioned it.”

  “Mention it,” said Morrison—narrowing his eyes. Did she mean, by any chance, that Teddy Grainger was placing phone calls to Cynthia?

  Ms Almeda had closed herself in a trap—and all she had meant to do was lighten Mister Morrison’s day.

  “Look, Mister Morrison,” she said, “there’s a sugar stain from that damned machine all down my front—and I have to dab it in cold water…”

  “Tell me about Mister Grainger’s calls, Ms Almeda,” said Morrison. Then he said: “please.”

  Ms Almeda held the doorknob very tight in her fist and took a breath and forced her gaze away from Morrison.

  “He phones those fantasy numbers,” she said. “He closes his door and looks out the window and calls these…numbers.”

  “Fantasy numbers? You mean he makes them up, Ms Almeda?”

  “No, sir. He finds them in the papers. You know…”

  “No. I do not know.”

  “He phones up these numbers and someone talks to him…” She paused—and then she looked him in the eye and said: “sex talk.”

  Morrison’s mouth fell open. All he could think was Cynthia. Hadn’t Teddy Grainger been in love with Cynthia just around Christmastime. Now, they were talking on the telephone. Sex talk.

  “May I go?” said Ms Almeda.

  Morrison nodded, dazed.

  “Shall I close the door?”

  “No,” said Morrison. “No. Leave it open, for heaven’s sake.”

  Ms Almeda was stepping away from him.

  “Allison?”

  “Yes, sir?”

  “Look down the hall and tell me…Mister Grainger’s door—is it open or closed?”

  “Closed, Mister Morrison.”

  “Thank you.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Ms Almeda departed for the washroom, where she would remove—or attempt to remove—her sugar stain.

  So, he thought—as he flashed the paper open to the want ads—all thoughts of brokers and sky bolts, Jaguars and dead pigeons swept away by his certainty that he had discovered the source of Cynthia’s larded income. That’s what she does. She gives out our number in the papers. That’s how she gets her lovers. Over the telephone! Maybe Teddy Grainger doesn’t even know it’s her!

  But when he looked, the number wasn’t there.

  Although, he thought, something in the way Ms Almeda had said that Teddy Grainger found his fantasy numbers in the papers indicated she might not mean The Globe and Mail.

  Seriously, though, he thought as he was walking out to lunch, I should buy the other papers, just in case, and look.

  Morrison always ate alone, unless he had to wine and dine a client. His usual restaurant was a sandwich place in the local subterranean mall. But today, with all its promise of spring and all its windswept pedestrians, was just too glorious to waste by going underground. Look at all the legs, he said to himself as he strode along in the warm May breeze. Look at all the legs and all the thighs…

  This was precisely when the second sky bolt fell at his feet.

  That night, Morrison and Cynthia were meant to attend the all-Beethoven concert at Roy Thomson Hall.

  The whole afternoon, Morrison had pored through that morning’s Sun and the afternoon Star. Fantasy, fantasy, fantasy calls—he had licked his finger and run it down the columns. All to no avail. His number—Cynthia’s number—wasn’t there.

  Still, he had the sky to think about—to worry about—and he lost all memory of its being Thursday and, therefore, concert time.

  Standing in the living-room, revelling briefly in the twilight—his favourite time of day—Morrison idly fixed himself a drink and then a drink for Cynthia.

  Cynthia came down the stairs and called out into the kitchen: “don’t let Alexis forget to practise, Oriana. And be sure that Seiji eats all his carrots. The spots on his chin are getting worse.” And then “good evening, darling,” to her husband as she swept around the corner wearing a black velvet dress and a tasteful loop of diamonds.

  “Yes,” said Morrison—startled. This was not the figure he had expected. “Good evening, dear.” He had expected her to
be dressed in an open negligee—peach-coloured lace from Frederick’s of Hollywood—and her lipstick smeared and a telephone in her hand and her hair undone.

  They stood and talked about where they might have dinner. “Why not Ed’s Warehouse?” Cynthia suggested. “It’s right across the road…Did you have a good day?”

  “Yes, I did,” said Morrison, absently. His mind was trying very hard to catch up with this scene in which he felt he had forgotten his lines and was in danger of gross embarrassment.

  He looked out the windows.

  There was the forsythia—there were the Japanese cherry trees—there were the magnolias.

  What—what was it he had forgotten to say? Or do?

  Then his gaze slid sideways towards the driveway. There was the BMW.

  Oh.

  And he felt in his pockets till he’d found the keys and he threw them at his wife.

  “There,” he said. “That’s yours.”

  Cynthia was overcome with gratitude.

  She spilled her drink and threw her arms around his neck and kissed him right where the mouthpiece of a telephone might have rested against his chin and she clasped her hands, stepped back and said to him: “oh, my darling—you’re an angel. What a perfectly lovely gift!” And then, with suitable humility: “but what will you be driving…?”

  Morrison dabbed at her lipstick on his chin with his handkerchief and he looked out through the window. Now for his moment of triumph.