Old Flames, Burned Hands Read online

  “I don’t want to look at this anymore.” Tilda drained her glass and moved to the door. “Let’s go inside.”

  He was about to follow her out when one last glance at the crate buzzed further questions in his mind the way gunfire scatters birds from a tree. A bottle of lighter fluid stood inside the crate, crammed in alongside the tapes and notebooks and crumbling posters. The warning sign clearly stamped on its label;

  FLAMMABLE

  THE SMELL OF THE LAKE wafted into the open windows as Tilda retraced her path east along Lakeshore but this time she swung onto the Cherry Street ramp instead of bypassing it. The tires droned across the metal grate of the lift bridge as her heart shot into her throat. Passing the concrete silo on her right, the old substation on the left. Headlights twinkled as one car passed her going the other way and then nothing, the road empty.

  Her grip tightened on the wheel with the iron bridge coming up fast. She’d meant to pull over just before it, on that same spot where everything had gone wrong so long ago but her heart was clanging so hard she couldn’t breathe so she kicked the accelerator and sped past it.

  Cherry Street bottomed out just before the lake into an unpaved lot treacherous with potholes. The Pathfinder dipped and bounced along to the far end, parking well away from the only other car in the lot.

  Tilda killed the engine, climbed out and listened to the sound of the waves rolling up the beach. That fishy reek that Lake Ontario exhaled, like something dead had washed up nearby. The impact was immediate as the tension ran out of her shoulders and her pulse slowed. She looked up and down the dark beach but saw no other pilgrims. She had the place to herself.

  Unlatching the back door, she twisted on a flashlight and hauled out her gear.

  THE firewood was scrounged up from the deadfall at the treeline; sticks and branches and stumps. The fire itself she cheated, dousing the tangle of wood with a squirt of lighter fluid to get it blazing quickly. She wasn’t current with the rules about having campfires on this beach but she was pretty sure it was verboten. She’d have to do this quickly before the fire attracted some busybody, official or vagrant.

  She rolled a stump before the flames, settling it next to the two crates she had lugged from the truck. The fire popped and cracked and when a wind blew up out of nowhere the flames sawed this way then that, singeing her knees. The gust died off and everything went still again.

  She dug the bottle out of the box, along with a plastic cup, and poured the last of the wine. No toast this time, just business. This ritual. Hokey and maudlin? Sure, but not out of place. First into the fire was a silk-screened poster from the Spitting Gibbons days. A gig they’d played at Sneaky Dees and a big deal at the time, hence the silkscreening rather than the usual shitty-looking Xeroxed bills. The paper curled as the flames ate it and she reached for another. A handbill for her very first band, the Tralfamadorians, followed by a poster for the Daisy Pukes. A handful of glossy one-sheets for Gorgon, courtesy of the label. This last poster showed a photo of the band, all so young-looking and posing surly for the camera. So long ago now that it seemed like someone else’s history, some other band. Last of all were bills of her solo career. Just her name in a fancy font, framed by a horseshoe or twinkly stars. Her last great hope. Tilda flung it all, one after another, into the flames. This illustrated testimony of her musical history, all of it consumed by the pyre.

  Next were the notebooks. The frayed, smudged pages of song lyrics and poetry, random musings and doodles. She had kept all of them, going back as far as her first band, the garbly-named Tralfamadorians. She had held onto them not as mementoes but for reference, thinking she might go back to the pages and pages of lyrics scribbled down, crossed out and rewritten. She never did. Once filled, each notebook was tossed onto a shelf and she bought a new one. All that wordplay waiting for songs that would never come, like orphans left at the iron gates when no one came to take them home. The covers of the notebooks were plastered with stickers for other bands, each notebook conveying a snapshot of local history.

  The paper burned hot and smoked grey. Tilda reached into the crate and came up with handfuls of Gorgon stickers. In they went. Two t-shirts, one stamped with a Daisy Pukes logo, the other with the Gorgons. These smouldered slowly, kicking up greasy black smoke that smelled of poison. Then a handful of music zines, the photocopied pages folded and stapled by hand. Each one had a band interview or a review and the fire ate them greedily. Next were two cassette tapes holding the only known recordings of the Daisy Pukes and the Spitting Gibbons respectively. Then two CDs, the two records that Gorgon had produced and only copies that she possessed. The plastic jewel case cracked as the interior cover burned with a blue flame.

  The smoke from the fire boiled hot and toxic as it incinerated her history and that, she concluded, was appropriate. The devil had had his due and all that remained was this lingering stink of brimstone.

  There were only a few items left but Tilda sat and watched the fire for a few moments more. Already the chittering teeth of doubt were eating her resolve. Do you really want to burn all of it? Even those broken, lost pieces of your heart?

  Now or forever.

  Reaching into the crate, she retrieved one last cassette tape and a dust-fuzzed tape player. She upended the crate to form a stand and set the player down and hit the eject button. The little gate flipped open, ready for a tape to be inserted into the heads. She looked at the cassette in her hand, tilting it to the light to see the label. No words, just three small hearts scrawled on that narrow strip of sticker paper. The small plastic wheels rattled inside the cassette and she startled at how badly her hand was shaking.

  The song written for him. She had only performed it twice, the second time recording it at his request. He wanted it to listen to when she wasn’t there to sing it for him but the tape was never played and she had never performed the song again. The lyrics were never written down, never documented in one of the old notebooks. This little strip of tape was the only record of its existence.

  She slotted the cassette into the little gate and closed it shut. The play button flickered in the firelight, waiting to be pressed but she stayed her hand. The song hadn’t been heard in seventeen years. Shouldn’t she play it once before destroying all trace of it forever? Hearing it again would resurrect its sting and there would be tears. Was it worth it?

  She downed the last of her wine, tossed the paper cup into the fire and hit the play button. A simple strum from G minor to A major, slow and rambling. Then her 24-year old voice drifting up like a phantom. The ghost of Tilda past. The lyrics were uncluttered and direct, the way all love songs should be, and the treble of the song bounced into her ear and hotwired straight to the pulsing muscle of her heart. She scolded herself not to cry but her throat constricted at the first verse and her eyes spilled by the chorus. That old old wound had scabbed over so long ago, the scar tissue hard as oak by now. Still, it split open so fresh and raw that she feared she might pass out from its sting. She punched the stop button, stabbed the eject and plucked the cassette free. Then she flung the cassette into the pyre.

  It had been almost twenty years. How could it cut so sharp like it was yesterday? No one grieves that long. No heart hides a secret pain for that many seasons.

  Enough

  The crates were emptied but one last item remained. Tilda bent down and took up her old acoustic, the battered and beaten Hummingbird that she’d written so many songs on. Her fingers flourished a basic G chord but the strings were out of tune. She settled it onto the flames and a plume of sparks roiled up in a twinkling blizzard and blew down the beach. She watched the shellac on the wood blister for a moment and then she turned and walked away.

  She startled at the explosion, spinning around to witness a spume of flame geyser straight into the sky. Comets of flaming embers arced through the darkness, one singeing her dress. Something combustible in the guitar or the tapes or an alchemical mix of everything must have set it off. She ran for the truck, heels
digging into the sand until her soles flapped to the hard-packed sand of the lot.

  The headlights popped on as she turned the ignition. The brake pedal felt odd against her bare foot and she realized that she had left her flip-flops at the campfire. Add it to the sacrificial fire, she thought as she backed up and pulled away. She wasn’t going back for them now.

  UNDER an overpass in the west end are a handful of broken headstones so old that the few remaining markers were cemented into a wall to preserve them. A military graveyard near an old fortress, the bones of British and Canadian and American soldiers jumbled together in a forgotten graveyard under the roar of the traffic above. Ghosts are said to walk the footpath here and after sundown, the dark is so disquieting that even the vagrant and the reprobate avoided it.

  Just not this night. Two figures broke from the tree cover into the open meadow, inky silhouettes under the light of a crescent moon. The first lurched and stumbled, falling to his knees and begging to be left alone. The second followed six paces behind, tall and lean like a coil of rope, advancing on the bedraggled first. He made no move to help the lurching figure, watching it flail and crawl away through the grass.

  In two strides the tall one advanced and flattened the other to the earth with his heel. He knelt down over the other and whispered something to him but the prone figure flailed and pleaded, repeating the word ‘no’ over and over.

  Sobs sounded as the figure curled up and wept, accepting the inevitable but the dreaded sting never came. The tall figure stopped and turned as if startled by some interloper but there was no one there. He tilted his head at a faraway sound rolling downhill into the forgotten graveyard. He shook his head like a dog trying to dislodge the sound but it was still there. Rising up, he stepped away with his ear cocked to catch the faint noise. Trying to pinpoint its direction. East by southeast. A glance at the splayed body at his feet and then he strode away quickly, his footsteps vanishing along with him into the darkness under the overpass.

  THE night was warm but Tilda came home chilled and damp from the beach. She stripped out of the dress that now reeked of woodsmoke, its hem ruined from burning embers, and tossed it into the corner. Inching in close under the blankets to catch his warmth, she spooned up tight into Shane’s back. Her guts would not stop churning from what she had done and her brain refused to gear down. She pressed closer to Shane, flattening the length of her body against his. Her hand roamed and she put her lips to the hollow between his shoulder blades. He stirred, became hard without waking and rolled onto his back. She slid out from under him and climbed on top, grinding hard against him until she was wet. Her hand reached down and took hold, guided him in. He blinked his eyes in confusion. By the time his sleepy brain twigged what was happening, Tilda was picking up steam and grinding fast in the one position she knew would make her come. Her mouth froze into an oval shape and her muscles seized up tight in a spasm and then she collapsed onto him. He rolled his wife onto her back and hammered away until he too collapsed. He could smell the smoke in her hair but was too groggy to make any sense of it.

  In the morning, he asked Tilda if it had really happened or had he dreamed the whole thing.

  ONE ASPECT OF THIS new phase of her life Tilda hadn’t anticipated was the chaos thrown into their morning routine with all three of them rushing to get out the door. Until today, the routine saw Tilda in the kitchen while Shane banged on the bathroom door, hollering at Molly to hurry the hell up. Now all three scrambled for the shower until Shane capitulated, deciding to forgo it altogether.

  Breakfast was a shambles, the lunches thrown together with nary a thought to nutrition nor taste. Tilda scowled at the mess of dishes left in the sink but there was no time for it now. Few things were as loathsome as coming home to dishes left to petrify all day. The new morning routine would have to be tweaked. Maybe Shane could pack lunches while she made breakfast, instead of sipping his coffee and staring out the window. Maybe Molly could help out too for that matter.

  The clinic was only a twenty-minute walk if she cut through Bellwoods park. The sun was bright but the humidity had yet to take hold. The park busy with dog-walkers and joggers and the old man who asked her for a cigarette every time she passed the John Gibson House. The same question every time and always the same polite reply. You’d think the geezer would remember by now but no. And yet, every time she saw him, Tilda wondered if he would survive another winter. So, she supposed, she was no better.

  Padding along the footpath, she watched the young people on the grass. Tossing their Frisbee or sitting around in chatty circles, the whole day to themselves. A few already tipping back tall boys. Didn’t they work? How does one live like that? She caught the resentment in her blood and hated how old she sounded. Grousing about the youth of today. She was no different at that age, frittering away the day simply because she had the option to. No responsibilities, zero obligations. Nothing to kill but time.

  Sarah was on the phone when she walked into the clinic, eyes lighting on the tall tray of coffee in Tilda’s hand. Sarah ended the call and shot to her feet. “Look at you,” she squeed. “Bright and early, with coffee. I told you this was gonna work out great.”

  Tilda draped her new bag onto the back of a chair. “Is everything okay?”

  “Just Olga again. Intent on throwing my day out of whack.”

  Olga was one of Sarah’s oldest clients, and as such expected Sarah to cater to her most arbitrary whims. A princess, despite the fact that she was old enough to be either of their mothers. “What did her highness want today?”

  “Same as usual,” Sarah shrugged. “Wants to switch her morning appointment to the afternoon.”

  “When’s she scheduled?”

  Sarah looked at the clock. “In thirty minutes. But I gotta be at the hospital this afternoon and get the banking done and this just screws my entire day.”

  The deposit book was sitting on the desk. Tilda gathered it up, pressed it into Sarah’s hand and shooed her towards the door. “Go to the bank now. I’ll take care of her highness . Go.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “Yes.” Tilda waved her away. “That’s what I’m here for now. Are there any other fires that need putting out?”

  Sarah bit her lip. “Do you want to take a crack at the schedule? Ann-Marie called in sick again and Chloe wants to trade days with Sandy and so on and so on.”

  “I’m on it. Take your coffee and shoo.”

  Alone in the studio, Tilda got on the phone to sort the problem with Olga. Music filtered from the speakers and it burred in her ear. She toggled the dial over to CBC Radio. A discussion about teacher unions and government clawbacks. Safe and dull with no chance of hearing anyone sing. She took a ten-thirty appointment and spent the rest of the morning wrestling the schedule to the mat. It took a number of calls to the other therapists in Sarah’s roster but by noon, she had finalized next week’s schedule in blue ink. Sarah returned to the clinic an hour later with take-out from Terroni.

  “YOU burnt everything?” Sarah’s eyes widened as Tilda unpacked the events of her excursion to the beach.

  “All of it. Up in smoke.”

  “The Hummingbird too?” Sarah leaned forward, as if she had missed a detail. “Burned?”

  “It wasn’t really worth anything in its condition. But that didn’t matter, it had to go. Part of the ritual.”

  Tilda fished two more slices from the box and handed one to Sarah. They ate in silence for a moment.

  “The bonfire at the beach, I can see,” Sarah declared. “But quitting music altogether? What does that even mean? You’re never gonna pick up a guitar or sing a song?”

  “Exactly. Haven’t you ever felt that way?”

  “No. But I didn’t pursue it the way you did. The Smash-Cans were sort of a lark. We thrashed and had fun but it wasn’t the be-all-and-end-all for me. You know? But I still play once in a while. Goofy reunion shows or even campfire nights. You can’t just lock that stuff in a box and pretend it never wa
s.”

  “I beg to differ.” Tilda tossed the crust back into the box. “I gave it all I had and now there’s nothing left to give. There’s more to life than music.”

  Sarah wiped the grease from her fingers. “Why Cherry beach?”

  “It’s close to where the accident was. I wanted to do it there, right at that spot but…” She waved the thought away. “I couldn’t even pull over. So I drove on to the lake.”

  Sarah mimicked a head slap. “Oh my God. I totally forgot about that. I’m sorry, honey.”

  “It’s okay. It was only like a million years ago.”

  The two of them went back that far. Part of the same scene, gigging together. After one of the many band break-ups, they had even talked of forming their own group but nothing ever came of it. Sarah had visited her in the hospital, a stalwart during the dark period that followed. She had watched Tilda sink into a black hole of grief so deep that there were whole days when Tilda hadn’t spoken. Not a word. Shambling about like a zombie, drunk a lot of the time. Friends drifted away like dandelion spores, unable to endure the sick house any longer. Sarah had toughed it out, waiting for Tilda to come back to the world. Helped her find her legs and walk again. For that, Tilda remained fiercely loyal.

  “I can see why you chose that spot,” Sarah said after a moment. “Do you still think about it a lot? The accident or the depression?”

  “I try not to but it’s always kinda there, you know?”

  “Sure.” Sarah touched her hand. “A campfire at the beach sounds nice.”

  “A funeral pyre.”

  “You should have made S’mores.” Sarah cocked her ear, listening to the drone of the radio host. “Ugh, how can you listen to this blather? The Ceeb puts me to sleep.” Reaching across the desk, she tuned the radio back to an internet station. A twangy surf tune sprang up.