{"id":180,"date":"2011-05-19T09:53:46","date_gmt":"2011-05-19T09:53:46","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/mtls.ca\/issue9\/?page_id=180"},"modified":"2011-09-27T02:04:12","modified_gmt":"2011-09-27T02:04:12","slug":"bert-bailey","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/www.mtls.ca\/issue10\/writings\/fiction\/bert-bailey\/","title":{"rendered":"Bert Bailey"},"content":{"rendered":"

Sybill<\/strong><\/h1>\n
Bert Bailey<\/span><\/h6>\n

 <\/p>\n

“All of Toronto seemed to have shown up for that awful production!” Phil complained.<\/p>\n

“It wasn’t so dreadful, was it?” someone asked.<\/p>\n

Sybill’s eyes lit up, and she almost rose out of her seat to add: <\/p>\n

“Yes, and didn’t Millie say she saw Christopher Plummer in the lobby?” Everyone turned to her end of the table. This was the first thing she had said since the three couples had arrived from a nearby theatre.<\/p>\n

“No, dear,” Phil corrected her sharply. “Karine was the one who saw him. Said he was wearing a well-tailored black dinner jacket, and a cranberry-pink shirt.”<\/p>\n

“I didn’t say any such thing,” Karine replied. “I wasn’t even there. Remember? \u2026Fred and I arrived late, and just managed to slip in after the intermission.”<\/p>\n

“It’s entirely possible,” Fred paused while addressing Phil, for everyone’s attention, “\u2026that you’d been drinking at the time. Again.” <\/p>\n<\/p>\n

Phil stared blankly at his brother, who was smiling widely as if it was some sort of standing joke between them. But a waiter approached to top up their glasses and he said nothing. <\/p>\n

“White or red?” Karine was asked. Her glass was still dry but without looking up she put her palm over it, continuing with her defense of the production against Christina’s preference for an off-Broadway staging she once saw.<\/p>\n

Fred replied, gesturing, “That’s right; red thanks,” while Phil craned his neck to see past the waiter.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

Sybill had sat back quietly. Her end of the table contrasted starkly with the hubbub in their circle and around the restaurant. It was one of Sybill’s favourite after-theatre places, and Phil’s, and on this night it was bustling. Amid the clatter of plates and cutlery, and of people entering, leaving, and squeezing between chairs to get somewhere, Christina began relating an anecdote about the lead in her New York production. <\/p>\n<\/p>\n

Several small lampshades on a chandelier behind Sybill bathed the area in an amber warmth. Beyond her, a picture window bordered by Christmas lights framed a street scene where traffic processed slowly, snow fell with an angular sweep, and now and then a cluster of pedestrians would rush past, huddling against the wind.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

“Now just a second, Freddy; there’s no call for that kind of slur.” Phil declared, glowering across the table with a wry expression. His view was blocked again by the waiter, who began removing their dinner plates. <\/p>\n<\/p>\n

Phil waited.<\/p>\n

“It was Millie, I tell you,” Sybill sputtered from her end.<\/p>\n

Everyone turned to where Sybill sat, her head nearly shrunken into her velvet collar, looking over-powdered and frail in her armchair. Her skin in that light had a faint orange hue and seemed dry as parchment. Her chin shook as she brushed something pearly from her cheek.<\/p>\n

Phil was up right away, drawing out a handkerchief as he rushed to her side. <\/p>\n

“I am sorry, dear: I didn’t mean to upset you.” When he approached his wife his hands came to rest on the shoulders of the young man beside her.<\/p>\n

“Can I exchange seats with you after all, Paulo?” The offer was made earlier, but Phil had stayed with Christina to pursue the conversation begun while leaving the theatre.<\/p>\n

Paulo grinned and got up to join Christina, eager for her company and for a change from the gloom where he had landed. Phil took his seat; even right beside her, Sybill looked tiny as she said:<\/p>\n

“\u2026and you didn’t have to talk to me that way\u2026” She said it firmly, but her necklace’s gemstones were winking at him. <\/p>\n<\/p>\n

After the interruptions and the shuffled seating, Christina began retelling her story to her husband Paulo, until she was back to where she had left off before he arrived. Her eyes darted around the table, but Phil and Sybill continued talking privately. <\/p>\n<\/p>\n

When Christina reached the end of her anecdote about the death of one of Paulo’s relations, a respectful quiet descended on the party. Sybill also paused briefly.<\/p>\n

Into the silence, a voice from another table rang out, dark and clear as if its owner was sitting among them, sharing his confidence:<\/p>\n

“We’re only fifteen days into it, but I can tell 2011 is not going to be my year.”<\/p>\n

“Oh, come on. There’s no such thing as bad luck,” came a reply. <\/p>\n

Some shouting broke in when a kitchen door flew open, but it was stifled when it swung closed again. <\/p>\n<\/p>\n

Phil asked Sybill: “‘Still thinking about our little episode yesterday, aren’t you?” He looked her over closely, and added in a near-whisper, “What’s wrong with a little flirting? How could you think it meant anything? In fact\u2026” <\/p>\n

Sybill looked away, withdrawn, remote. Christina was trying to draw some link between the play and the death she had just related that Freddy, Karine and even Paulo could not grasp. While Phil was talking (“\u2026just a cheerful check-out girl, and young enough\u2026”), Sybill noted that the restaurant’s carpets had been removed. She felt she understood better why it seemed so crowded and hollow and noisy, and why her head was throbbing so.<\/p>\n

“Oh, I’m finding all of this unbearable,” she interrupted vaguely, waving a hand around the room as if in explanation. “Can we go home?”<\/p>\n

2<\/span><\/h1>\n

“That was Millie on the phone,” Sybill said, slapping her cell-phone shut as she padded into the kitchen in furry slippers. <\/p>\n

“Hmm. And what did she want?” Phil asked, only half interested. His index finger was fixed on theLentils with Baconrecipe beside the stove. He had just sliced some cooked bacon and had added it to the onions sizzling noisily in a big pot, letting off clouds of steam. A pair of violins from a radio braided an intricate pattern, and the kitchen was filled with the smell of bacon fat and spices frying.<\/p>\n

“Nothing. I called her,” she replied. “To ask about Christopher Plummer.” <\/p>\n

That got Phil’s attention. He turned down the radio as the Janacek quartet came to a passage he felt was much too ponderous for that time of morning, and certainly for Sybill.<\/p>\n

As he did, he glanced out the window and squinted at the bright snow on the porch and on the thicket at the garden’s edge. It had accumulated overnight, and although it was smooth as icing the snow weighed unevenly along the hedge’s length, undulating where it strained on the branches. The black wires above hung slack and bare and still.<\/p>\n

“Was it her, then?” he asked, glancing back at the recipe. “(Mustard.)”<\/p>\n

“Apparently.” <\/p>\n

“Well, what can I say but sorry again,” he insisted, looking directly at her. “I felt sure it was Karine, or someone else.”<\/p>\n

“So you did.” She stood at the threshold between the dining room and the kitchen, toying with a tear on her phone’s latex cover.<\/p>\n

“Oh, come on, Syb,” he said, reaching for a teaspoon. “Let’s move on. I did apologize, didn’t I?”<\/p>\n

“Yes, you did.” Her tone sounded conciliatory but he felt that more was required. <\/p>\n

“And I meant it,” he said as he put down the powdered mustard and the spoon, dragging the steaming pot clear off the burner.<\/p>\n

“Look, Sybill,” he said, turning. “I regret talking to you like that. I guess I was feeling a bit feisty and maybe not in the best of moods \u2013 what with that play I sort of dragged everyone to, and\u2026 Well, what more can I say but that I really didn’t mean to embarrass you\u2026?”<\/p>\n

Still fiddling with her phone, she said nothing. He took hold of it so she would pay attention; her hand dangled briefly, then rested on her other wrist.<\/p>\n

3<\/h1>\n

They both heard Christina shuffling down the stairs.<\/p>\n

“Oh, am I interrupting?” she asked as she looked up, absently fastening her robe. Her hair was disheveled, and one side of her face was lined with a pink crease. <\/p>\n

“No, not really.”<\/p>\n

“Well,” Phil said, Sybill’s phone still in his hand: “If you could just give us a moment\u2026”<\/p>\n

“No, there’s no need,” Sybill said, holding out her arms. “Come here, my darling.” They embraced and Phil turned away. He put the phone on the counter and pulled the pot back onto the glowing burner.<\/p>\n

“If you’re expecting Paulo down anytime soon, I’ve saved you both some bacon,” he called out over his shoulder. Blinking in the steam, he lifted a large sieve-full of lentils out of the sink and poured it into the steel pot.<\/p>\n

The women remained in a still embrace. Sybill’s eyes were closed; they were almost the same height, but her head was tucked into the crook of Christina’s neck.<\/p>\n

“He should be coming down soon, I expect,” Christina said. “But I wanted to get some things at the drug store before that. Do you need anything while I’m out?”<\/p>\n

“But you’re not even dressed,” Phil replied.<\/p>\n

“Um, Mom,” she added, trying to back away from their hug. “Please. I can’t breathe.”<\/p>\n

“Oh, sorry.” Sybill opened her eyes and let go.<\/p>\n

“Nothing for me, thanks,” Phil said, pouring a tin of tomatoes into the mix. “Unless you’re going by the liquor store,” he chuckled, draining his wineglass of orange juice.<\/p>\n

“Oh, Dad!” said the drowsy-looking Christina. As her mother withdrew, her bathrobe fell open, showing the swell of her belly.<\/p>\n

“Just when are you due?” he asked.<\/p>\n

“In March. You know that.”<\/p>\n

“He can’t wait,” Sybill said as she backed into a barstool at the breakfast counter that gave on to the dining room.<\/p>\n

“He never could,” she added with a glow, sitting down. She was facing them with her elbows resting on the counter behind her, flanked by a bowl overspilling with fruit and an array of Christmas cards pegged to a wire tree.<\/p>\n

“Well, it’s not just a UPS delivery, is it?” He placed the wineglass beside the sink. “I’d meant: when in March?”<\/p>\n

“On the 28th<\/sup>,” Christina replied.<\/p>\n

“Oh.”<\/p>\n

“What is it, Sybill?” Phil asked.<\/p>\n

“That’s the day my father died,” she replied.<\/p>\n

“Oh, for God’s sake!” Phil exclaimed. Christina stood in the middle of the kitchen, mid-way between them, pressing her lips tight while she stared out the window. <\/p>\n

“Sorry.”<\/p>\n

Phil turned to Christina, saying: “Did you want me to go to the drug store for you?”<\/p>\n

“Have I done it again?” Sybill added.<\/p>\n

“It’s okay.” Christina replied, addressing Phil.<\/p>\n

“No. I’ll go,” he said to Christina. He stirred the pot’s contents with difficulty, and added: “This will take care of itself if we just let it simmer. Why don’t you make Paulo and yourself some breakfast while I go out.”<\/p>\n

“Write down what you need while I get ready.” He put his arm around Sybill and kissed her as he left the kitchen.<\/p>\n

“And get your mother a cup of tea,” he called out as he reached the stairs.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Sybill Bert Bailey   “All of Toronto seemed to have shown up for that awful production!” Phil complained. “It wasn’t so dreadful, was it?” someone asked. Sybill’s eyes lit up, and she almost rose out of her seat to add: “Yes, and didn’t Millie say she saw Christopher Plummer in the lobby?” Everyone turned to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"parent":96,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","template":"authorpage.php","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-180","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mtls.ca\/issue10\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/180","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mtls.ca\/issue10\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mtls.ca\/issue10\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mtls.ca\/issue10\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mtls.ca\/issue10\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=180"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.mtls.ca\/issue10\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/180\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":683,"href":"https:\/\/www.mtls.ca\/issue10\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/180\/revisions\/683"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mtls.ca\/issue10\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/96"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mtls.ca\/issue10\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=180"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}