Away From Everywhere Read online

  “Listen, I was thinking, if you’re not too busy … maybe you could join me for a game of pool later? Don’t worry, I’m not going to become that annoying neighbour you hate, but it’s been a long week, and I could use a few beers. Besides, it gives me an out from another social obligation. My goddamn neighbours are going to ask me over for a game of cards again, I know it, and if I see another goddamn deck of cards this week I’ll puke my guts out!” He rolled his eyes and raised his eyebrows.

  “So what do you say, boss? Feel like helping an old man out or what? Let me show you where the local pub is, huh? It’s just up the road, and if you show up with me, Patsy’ll trust you enough to set up a tab for you. C’mon, spare me that game of cards with my dimwit neighbours!”

  Even though he liked Clyde, Owen hated the idea of it. But his whole life he’d been unable to say no to social obligations. If someone asked, he obliged, willingly or not. Saying no to someone, especially someone like Clyde, felt so rude. He said yes, hoping a night out of the house for a few hours could distract him from the incessant, gnawing melancholy he’d felt since reading Hannah’s last journal entry. What she said was brutal, devastating, and entirely true. But more importantly it meant he lost his brother for no good reason. He had lost his brother for sex, not love. He was here alone because of sex. It seemed so pathetic, so wrong. He’d burnt her journal, but he felt like maybe he should have kept it, just to re-read the way Hannah talked of him on those first few pages.

  “Yeah, sure, Clyde … but give me a few hours, hey? I’m right in the middle of writing a turning point in my novel. The rest of the book, the direction I take with it, sort of hinges on what I write today. I got a few ideas in my head I don’t want to lose. I kinda need to run with them and see where they go, you know? Give me a few hours?”

  Clyde nodded, even though Owen’s hands were still dripping wet from the dishwater.

  As he watched Clyde walking away,Owen thought maybe he could get some material for his new book out of him, maybe even base a character on him. Maybe even create some kind of exaggerated story about the triangle between him, his father, and Cassie. The notion made it easier to go out for that game of pool. Two weeks ago he deleted a novel he’d started. He was five chapters into it. He started a new one, but had only the opening line: Love can never be wrong, and that can cost you everything.

  It’s hard to pull off using an aphorism as an opening line, but Percy Janes did it, among others. He liked it. It all depended on the second sentence, the story that followed, and if he didn’t know for a fact Alex would hate him for it, he’d write his life’s story with enough fabrication, altered specifics, and exaggeration to call it fiction.

  It was a small, sports pub style bar, but the space was used well. It felt bigger than it was. Owen wasn’t interested in what their stares insinuated they wanted from each other, but he caught himself eyeing a girl, all night long. She sat at the bar, alone, on the same stool, watching a hockey game on mute. He could tell she wasn’t really interested in the game, she was probably just cheering for the team whose jersey appealed to her the most. The bright red and blue one. She was just passing time, or amusing her eyes and brain as she drank herself drunk to forget about something, like Owen was doing. When the Montreal Canadiens scored a goal, and the rest of the bar raised their drinks and hollered, and clapped the palms of their hands off the sticky tables, she sat there indifferently, shoving another handful of peanuts into her cute little mouth.

  He wasn’t attracted to her so much as he was attracted to her indifference, because he identified with it. She was attractive, his kind of woman, but she could have just as easily have been a man or a child, and he’d have been watching her for the same reason: to identify with someone else who was feeling like a ghost before death.

  At one point he lost himself in her, and Clyde had to smack him back into consciousness with the thin end of his pool stick. The blue cue dust from the stick flaked off onto Owen’s shoulder and sat there like dandruff.

  “What are you lookin’ at, boss? You’re up, and I’m kicking your ass somethin’ fierce! You missed my bank shot. You’re no challenge! I’m only playing with you so you’ll compliment me, and here you are missing all my good shots! Pay attention, boss, maybe you’ll learn a few things from me and make an old fellah feel useful. Maybe I’ll make a pool shark out of you, and we’ll hustle the town poor. Whaddaya think?”

  It was an unspoken rule in the pub that to play any more than two games of pool in a row, if someone else wanted a game, was rude and not tolerated. So four games of pool and a dozen beer later, when two men slapped their loonies into the slots on the coin-operated table,Clyde and Owen yielded their pool cues to the newcomers and sat at a table. It was a round, black table, sticky from spilled booze and the sugar residues of mixes. The chairs could be used as rocking chairs, one or two legs a little bit longer than the others. The wobbling seats accentuated their inebriation.

  “That’s Rodney and Kent,” Clyde explained. “They’re probably the best players around. But a few more weeks of me teaching you my ways, and I’d say we could take them in a game of doubles.”

  Owen laughed. He was drunk enough to be happy and pleasant company now. “I think those were the only games of pool you’ll be getting out of me, Clyde. Pool’s not my thing. First game I’ve played in maybe a decade was tonight.”

  When Owen caught himself laughing, he wondered if it was just the booze. Maybe it was just Clyde. Clyde was a man with so many implausible stories that it was hard to believe that much could happen to one man in sixty-seven years. It was also hard to believe he was sixty-seven. He was too liberal with his eyes towards the women in the bar, too electric and witty, too something to be sixty-seven. His stories were endless and captivating, the type you’d come play pool with him just to hear. Owen laughed out loud at them and jotted some of them down to use in his writing, sure he could fit them into a story or two, and the idea excited Clyde.

  “Oh, if you need some fuel for your writing, I’m your man. I’ll make you a bestseller and won’t even charge ya. You’ll just have to play the odd game of pool with me.”

  He got up then, to fetch another round of Honey Brown. He started another story as he laid the drinks on the table and slid into his chair. He knocked the table with his hip, tipping both beer on their sides, and Owen caught both bottles before too much had spilled. They laughed like giddy drunk nineteen-year-olds.

  “Good catch, boss. Drunk as fuck and still swift as a fox!”He wiped the beer bottle with the sleeve of his thick, grey, cableknit sweater. “Your father ever tell you about the bear incident?When we was hunting bear that time?”

  Owen laughed. Bullshit. He could swallow most of Clyde’s stories about his father, but not this one. Picturing his father out hunting bear was as funny an image as picturing his father doing ballet in a tutu.

  “The bear was well off in the distance, but I took her down in two shots. It was a ten-minute walk down to the bear then, up and over hills, around deep bogs. When we got within ten feet of her, the bear stood up!” He laughed, slapping a knee and leaning forward. He saw all his memories so vividly. “Your father jumped back against a tree so hard he really hurt himself. I mean, he gave himself a good thunk in the head and bloodied his ear. The bear, well, the bear was even more frightened. They’re near blind, black bears, and gets quite a fright when people sneaks up on them. Luckily they’re pretty meek animals, unless they got a cub. Anyway. We was baffled after the big old bear got up and run off! And then we saw the dead one, over in the distance!What’s the chances of a live bear napping not far from the one we’d shot, right?” Eyes widened, head nodding. “Right?”

  A night out with Clyde couldn’t have come at a better time. He was a good drunk. He was wild, but harmless, and totally unpredictable. His arms flailed off in every direction as he spoke. It was dizzying. And his words flew out of him with enough fervour to chip his teeth. It didn’t matter whether he was laughing at him or with hi
m. He was laughing. And Clyde was a good man, a funny man, and so full of life.

  And then there was that girl at the bar. Maybe he wouldn’t have cared about her so much if Clyde hadn’t shared some of that liveliness. He needed her story. If he couldn’t get it, maybe he’d write an imagined account of her, like he had that day at his mother’s grave during Thomas Brooke’s funeral. That fictional, imagined story of a real person was his last windfall. Maybe this girl would be his delayed follow-up.

  She was so stoic, she wore stoic like a flashy accessory. Her mouth looked so out of place on her face, like it had spent a lifetime smiling but then, unexpectedly, had run out of things to smile about. Now it felt out of place on her rendered-sullen face, being so perpetually unmoving. Her mouth was now just a place to shove in peanuts in a dingy bar, or swallow alcohol. It spoke to some sudden and recent tragedy she must have endured.

  Her nose was tiny, cute. It probably had to overexert itself to pick up a scent from anything. Her eyes were arrows: he felt their pierce every time she looked over, even if his back was turned. They were a hazel brown that glowed, even under the dim lights of the bar. They were eyes that had seen something too tragic to be able to take in anything beautiful anymore. A sunset was no longer stunning for her; it was just a too-bright orange sky she wished would just turn back to blue, so she could stop squinting. Any strain was too much strain for her now, including squinting at a sunset. A man staring at her from across a bar was just a man who wanted something from her she wasn’t ever going to give him. Owen was drawn to her for that reason.

  Every time he stared at her, Clyde waved a hand in front of his eyes. “Earth to Owen, you listening to me? Here’s a quick little story about your father. You’ll wanna jot this one down for that book of yours.”

  At some point that night, well after midnight, he tuned into one of Clyde’s stories, and when he looked up the girl was gone. The bartender rang her last-call bell, and Owen tried to help a far-too-drunk Clyde into his jacket. Patsy, the bartender, offered Clyde a ride home and relieved Owen of the responsibility of dealing with him. She seemed used to Clyde getting so drunk she had to drive him home. She slung his arms into his jacket in a way that seemed rehearsed, and then she scooped him up by grabbing the armpits of his jacket. It was like watching a mother dressing a baby. She didn’t seem to mind doing so, as if it was only a slight setback to having such a big spender in the bar all the time. Clyde winked at Owen when she wasn’t looking, like, Yeah, we have a “special” arrangement, me and this girl. Not bad, hey?

  “You mind if I run to the washroom before you lock up?”

  “Sure, go ahead. We’ll take off, just make sure you turns the lock on your way out and pulls the door to. I knows where to find ya if you steals anything.”She laughed. She could tell her trust surprised Owen. “Only in Newfoundland, right?” Owen smiled in agreement.“I knew Roger enough to know he couldn’t spawn no thief! Have a good night,Owen.”

  She turned back around to face Owen, holding Clyde up like a wounded soldier. “It was nice of you to give this old fellah some company tonight,Owen.”

  He leaned against the wall of the stall for support as he relieved himself. Clear urine shot out of him like an orgasm, and he moaned, just as relieved. Being on his feet for a few minutes stirred up the dizzying consequence of all those drinks. The bathroom felt slanted, and wherever he shifted his weight, the world seemed to tilt in that direction. On the way out of the bar, he flipped the lock and pulled the door shut behind him. He pulled on the door exactly three times to make sure it was locked. And then he heard the flicking of a lighter. It was the girl. She was sitting on a tree stump behind the bar. He looked in her direction. In the dark of the night, the smoke from her cigarette looked blue.

  “Geez …you step out for a smoke around here and they lock you out!”

  “Well, if I had the key, I’d let you back in. Thing is, it’s not my bar.”

  Owen had spent years concealing alcoholism, so he was able to not slur his speech or slip on the ice underneath his feet, but his social etiquette had drowned in the beer, and he approached her as if he knew her. He was stumbling towards her, and she was sort of giggling about it.“I’m Emily…Emily Grace.” She extended a pack of cigarettes. “Care for a smoke, stranger.”

  “I’m Owen, and I’ll pass on the cigarette, thanks.”

  “Yeah, I’m a dying breed. Funny thing is, I only picked up smoking last year.”

  He realized he’d just walked over to greet an absolute stranger. She hadn’t called him over, not directly anyway, and within a minute they’d run out of conversation. He fidgeted with a hangnail, made a dimwitted comment about the shape of a tree to fill a silence, and she pretended she never heard him.

  “Don’t suppose there’s another bar around?”

  “Not that I know of.”

  And more silence poured itself in between them. There was only the sound of waves coursing over pebbles, massaging them into sand, about twenty feet from where they sat. The stars shone so brightly, being so far from city lights, that Owen almost expected to hear them sparkle up there, in that deep purple night sky. They were both staring up at the stars, as if to seem preoccupied and fill the silence with action, not words.

  “So,Owen, you live here in this quaint little town?”

  “Yes and no. As in, I just moved here for an indefinite amount of time. Long story.”

  “Aren’t they all?The good ones anyway.”

  She looked right into him as she said that, as if she knew, as if she knew exactly why he was there, drunk, in Port Blandford that night. He didn’t want to share that story, not yet anyway.

  “What about you, Hannah, what brings you to Port Blandford?”

  “Emily.”

  “What?”

  “Emily…my name is Emily. You called me Hannah. Who is Hannah, and what makes you think I don’t live here?”

  “Jesus. I am drunk. Sorry. Hannah is an old…girl…friend of mine, and I have no idea why I assumed you don’t live here.”

  “Well, I don’t live here. I’m just spending a week or so here. I had to run away from my life for a while.” She sized him up and down with squinted eyes and a playful grin.“You seem like a man who could understand that need for isolation and time alone. I’d say if we had a few more drinks in us, we could lay some pretty heavy stories into each other’s laps. Because, no offense,Owen, but you look like a man with the weight of the world clung onto his shoulders.”

  She sucked in and blew out a few more clouds of blue smoke. “But I won’t pry. I hate when people pry. It’s why I came out here for a week, to avoid people prying, sympathizing, baking me dry cakes and tasteless casseroles, as if it were food I needed.”She turned and tuned into a noise in the trees behind her. She startled easily.

  “I live in Corner Brook. I’m staying in the B&B down the road there.” She pointed to it as if it were visible. “But I got myself in a jam here. The lady says she locks the doors at midnight and doesn’t want people traipsing in after twelve and waking everyone up.”

  “So, what are you going to–”

  “So, I remind you of an ex, hey? Of Hannah?”

  “No…well…yes and no. Why? You kind of look like and act like …her.”

  She was still smoking the same never-ending cigarette. Either he’d lost his sense of time, or there was something wrong with that cigarette.

  “So, what are you going to do?”

  “About what?”

  “About being locked out of your B&B?”

  “Good question. What would you do if you were me? Sleep down on the beach there, or go knocking on her door and feel like a wild bitch for the rest of your stay in this little town?”

  He was drunk, and everyone and everything about this town seemed harmless, especially her. So he spoke without thinking of how it sounded.“Well, I’m living in that red house there.” He flung an arm in its general direction. He was so drunk that the sudden shifting of his weight almost topp
led him over.“I’m going to pass out in my bed, instantly, and I guess it would be harmless if you took the couch.”

  Her jaw dropped, and right away he felt like she’d misinterpreted his invitation. He waited for the harsh decline.

  “And here I was thinking you’d never ask! Only in Newfoundland, right?”

  “And with the right dose of alcohol.”

  “Yeah.”She laughed and held out her hand for him to help her up off the stump. “The only way this works is if we get rid of the awkward right here and now. I have no intentions of sleeping with you…or…otherwise being with you in any way. Okay? Now you say the same thing. That’s how this works, Owen Collins.”

  He hadn’t told her his last name yet.

  “And I want you to know, as a matter of personal intergrity, that this is an act of circumstance. Me going back to your house. This is not something I’d normally do. But I am having the kind of month where I just don’t give a fuck. You understand this, right? And you still haven’t reassured me you aren’t going to try and pull anything with me.”

  He wanted to joke and say, Is that why you were making eyes at me all night? You needed somewhere to sleep?

  It all seemed so surreal, drunk and lulled by a 3 a.m.fatigue. Living in Port Blandford. Heading “home”with this Emily girl. And he was so inexplicably desperate to connect with her. He liked not having to worry that she’d judge him for the state of his house. They were both in that town for reasons similar enough that she wouldn’t care about the unwashed dishes and unswept floors. The grey lines of dirt running along the baseboards.

  When he got back to the house, he couldn’t find an extra blanket and pillow to offer her, so he just tore the pillows and comforter off of his own bed and brought them out for her. He’d just ball up his sweater and use it as a pillow. He’d slept on worse in similar drunken states in the past.

  When he walked back out to the living room, she was sitting on the couch and staring into the fireplace.