Superb morning sunlight. Evelyn stood looking toward
the downtown. Sunlight played patterns across the
towers. She was on the roof, where she had slept for
the sake of the stars. Candice had insisted on joining
her, although Evelyn could not see what possible harm
could come to her up there a capella.
Candice seemed drab, moreso than usual. She worried
over the news of Evelyn's leave of absence, and reacted
with complete disbelief when told what had happened on
the yesterday.
Evelyn found it annoying. She was rational by nature
in comparison to Candice's earth motherliness. Candice
had discounted each recount in turn. Evelyn muted.
Now Candice was growing into an annoyance. Honourable
intentions doubtless, but meaningless and distracting
at the moment.
Now she was complaining about a sore back. Evelyn
tuned out. Watching the sunrise was her first choice.
On register to yes for the question about breakfast.
Down. In a few minutes.
It would be a good day for a long walk.
Her favourite spots were all nearby. Just west and a
bit north, a seaside neighbourhood with sprawling
houses. A knoll served as a park. She liked to sit
beneath the tall trees, reading.
Mostly she liked walking up to Transmitter Hill. The
streets were lined with majestic old houses each in
competition with its neighbor to be the most
beautifully preserved and maintained.
Except for one. It looked ancient in comparison to the
other homes. No particular care had been extended by
the owner to beautify it. The walls were of cut stone
blocks. Massive blocks. Plastered, the house might
pass-in-blend with its neighbors. Window frames were
painted black. The very glass seemed odd. Uneven in
spots, perhaps centuries old by the looks of things.
The house also failed to conform in its presentation on
the building lot. It was angled to face directly west
while all of the other houses conformed to the lay of
the street. A studied eye observed that this house was
probably in conformity with itself and the land.
Then there were the gardens. Wild, overflowing. A
collection of beautifully colourful weeds, to her eyes.
Interspersed weeds coloured with objects that looked
found after a fashion. The creator of the garden
placed detail as if in code. Gnomes, little people.
Stone objects immutable.
Shears snipping. A gardener active. He crouched,
trimming the long grass from around the pickets of the
fence. He hummed to himself. She felt like spying.
She hid among the trees at the northİwest corner of the
property.
The gardener went about his tasks. Purposefully. He
came and went. He disappeared around the far side of
the house, and returned pushing a mechanical lawn
mower. He crossed over to her side, not looking up
once. "Just want someone to talk to" he sang.
Closer. The blades threatened to cut her feet. He
looked up. His face.
"Excuse me." He had an arresting smile. Dancing eyes.
"Could you please move? I must finish my work." He
gestured to the other side of the yard. "The grass
over there has all been cut." Evelyn found herself
obeying.
But not standing still. The invitation to stay on the
property fuelled her curiousity about the house. She
had a walkabout. It was a very deep house. Twice its
width. Apart from its rectangular shape, it was
perfectly symmetrical. It had only one, front door.
A variety of smaller stone buildings were displaced
throughout the huge backyard. At the peak of a rise
was a boulder. She sat on it and felt ticklish.
The city hummed on all sides. Vague noises softly
syncopated through distance. Mostly birds, wind,
leaves rustling as foreground.
"Je sait plus ou Je suis. Dit ou Je suis. Qui Je
suis. Il fait bien Ici. Je te pose un question."
Said standing from behind and not in her language.
"Pour quoi fair. Tout fut en l'air. Et moi, Je perde
mon nom, quand tu te dit non. Je te pose un question."
"Repondre, enchante. Un verre d'eau." He handed it to
her. "Water. Amarok." Turning left.
"Who are you?"
"Chacun bien son role." He grinned. "Comme un enfant.
A gardener. I garden."
"You are the gardener for the owners of this house?"
"For the garden. The garden owns the house, Miss. I
garden. Look." He bent down, grabbing a dandelion.
Eating it. "The garden owns the house. The garden
owns the house, not the other way around. Like my
rock?"
He pointed at the boulder. He was completely harmless
and sweet. He could not hurt a fly.
Mumbling, he wandered off.
Evelyn might have stayed for hours, holding on to the
moment that she had discovered. But did not. She
walked. In walking she discovered that there was no
single better thing to do for the moment extended as
her walk progressed.
Urban life. Street life greeted her. She traversed to
the park and walked the distance to water. Few swam.
An abundance of boats, however. Launches of a variety
of types, some in better repair than others.
She tried to skirt the shoreline. It was not possible
to do so without getting her clothing wet. She
breached impossible and did it anyways. What mattered.
Upon completion, she found herself momentarily
astonished and free.
Her local grocer obliged her when she discovered
herself penniless. He refused even the notion that she
might reimburse him at a later date. Evelyn smiled
engagingly in thanks and arrested him in joy. He held
the door for her, thanking her for being a good
customer.
Later to Christy's to placate Candice for a morning's
distance. Her second time to the club and Christy
Superstar was tending. Just like the first time.
Christy joined them for chitchat altough she and Evelyn
were really only acquaintances. She adored Christy
from a distance but not tonight.
Tonight she had Christy, and they took each other in
hand engaging in coy girlİtalk over the noise of the
bar. The message was obvious and Evelyn felt charmed:
'You are one of us and can join us at any time.'
Superstar model club scene.
Her day after day after days floated through a
sucession of ideal states. She listened to her
favorite music, reread her favorite book, watched over
over and, The Cement Garden, looked out of the window
at the street scenes. She thought of her childhood
friend Stephanie, whom she had befriended while her
family lived in the Land of the Scot. She had watched
and had later joined in the uncomplicated love play of
Stephanie and her sweetheart Al. She later held
Stephanie's heart close, when Al had to leave to attend
other destinations.
Oh, poor Steph, Evelyn thought. How she had missed Al.
She would cry herself to sleep at night and come to
school despondent the next day. Steph told of how he
would be there in the dark, just inches away, calling
to her in the expression of his eyes, whispering love
you, love you.
For a fleeting moment, Evelyn had caught a vision, at
the time. She recalled it in perfect detail. Al's
face. Not the face of the Man who had slipped into her
consciousness. No, it was the face of a seven year old
boy determined by any means to communicate the love
that he felt for his soul mate, five hundred miles to
the north.
Then, Evelyn too had left Stephanie in search of a new
home. Her family moved often during the course of her
childhood, as her father engaged in his work. She was
eight, and suffered greatly the loss of her closest,
best friend.
But friends parted drifted memories through time and
Evelyn found the moment as if yesterday. Her treasure
once more in recollection. Private moments. Going up
to Banff in the summertime to Steph's cottage.
Sleeping in the old bed in the attic, giggling and
caressing each other in moments of tender girlhood.
Finding a place, a crag with a den where bears lived.
A secret place. They would hide in the den at least
until tea, waiting for the bears. Running home to tell
the latest adventures to Aunty Gynne, who never failed
to get shocked.
One day, playing with cave dirt. They were discovered
by a vagabond. Dirty, dissheveled, he lay down outside
the cave entrance. His face.
Flooded memories. Recollections. The summer of a
seven year old child in a place where the sun hardly
sets at solstice. She knew then, in recollection,
where she had seen the face of the Man, the gardener.
But knowledge brought with it a strange sensation and
tension. She felt relieved about having made the
relationship but found herself perplexed. Those eyes.
Mystery solved by uncovering the more mysterious
underneath.
Perplexity dawned momentary rationality. She regrouped
and made assessments. Her picture was only partially
complete and she decided that her conclusions would
suffer. Of one thing she felt certain. It was the
same man.
Perhaps he had been younger then. Twenty odd years. A
gardener might age more slowly than the rest, being
only a minor participant in world events.
'The garden owns the house...' Perhaps a mad gardener
would age more slowly still. Those eyes. That face..
Pexplexity bred the desire for musical consolation.
She fed herself Declan who sang 'Mighty Like a Rose'
with such dignity. She turned the bass way down for
the last track. The tom drum was a distraction from
the words he sang which she never quite caught, and
substituted her own. 'If God is gone, cause everything
is known, I've got his name.' Silent tears. She could
never laugh at that sentimental story.
She went out indeterminate days later to seek his face.
A long walk up the northern peak proved fruitless. He
was not at the house. Dismayed, she turned to descend.
She did not even notice him when she saw him. He
squatted in front of a flower bed in the park.
Occasionally, he would walk carefully, retrieving a
sliver of plastic, or a can. He wore a straw hat
against the sun.
She sat and watched. He spent a good hour on the bed,
retrieving slivers of synthetics. A passerby Works
employee asked him what he thought he was doing. The
man feigned ignorance, shaking his head. Turning away.
One time she had seen a couple cleaning detruitus off
of a church lawn in a transition neighbourhood. They
were taunted by sundry passersby who gave them extra
trash to clear. The couple never glanced away from
their dedication.
A small group of Works employees were now gathered,
including someone of seniority. The question posited
drew the same vague derision from the man. The senior
official paused, and then asked the employees to
disband and return to other duties. He then apologised
to the man for having disturbed him.
Evelyn experienced a curious feeling. A sensation of
childlike excitement. She watched as the man reset,
one by one the flowers that had become embedded by the
pressure of water from municipal hoses. His task
completed, he contemplated the bed, picked up the bag
of trash, and moved on.
As she did herself, eventually. Dreaming.
Underwater.
