Into That Darkness by Steven Price Page A

little notebook.
    I used to believe if I lived severely enough I might come to some kind of understanding about all of it. I don’t know what I would have done then. I never did understand it. The heart’s a dark room to me still.

She could feel a wind on her sleeves, her shirt front. It was dark.
    It was dark and the darkness was very blue and then she understood that she was staring into the sky and the sun was down. Something had happened. Something had just happened.
    And then she was remembering her father’s last visit, six months before his death. She had not known that he was dying. Her children adored him, this grandfather they’d hardly known. His great soft hands and the dark pitted skin on his face and the low rasp of his voice when he laughed. He had left Canada for his native Trinidad when she was six. Had returned after her mother’s death only to vanish again into a small coffee shop he’d opened in Fernwood. His nation, his politics, his second life, these had consumed him. She carried always inside her that cold October day in the playground when she had realized he did not—did not — need her.
    He was tilting the neck of the bottle towards her glass at the table and she came in from the patio and set her hand over the rim and shook her head no. The light was already deepening out in the yard and she looked at her father’s face in the grey and thought he was still handsome. It was just the four of them there amid the clatter of dishes and the scent of dish soap and the steady running of the faucet. Her, and her father, and her two children. Her daughter sat on the counter with her coltish legs swinging loose and lifting her glass and holding it out.
    Oui monsieur, she was calling to her grandfather.
    Yeah right, the woman said.
    Eh come on Jean-Paul, the girl said in her terrible accent. Toppa me off.
    Jjjjahn-Pollluh, her son laughed.
    Now look what you’ve started, the woman said. You call him Poppa.
    Her father smiled and shook his head. I think one glass is enough, he said.
    Come on. I drink more than that at recess.
    The woman’s father was looking now at his granddaughter’s hair where she had cut it short and he waved a hand towards it. It looks nice, he said. Different.
    Shut up, she smiled, then blushed.
    Kat, the woman frowned. What’s got into you? You want to go to your room?
    What? I was joking. Kids say it all the time at school.
    Listen to her. A little red wine and she loses her manners completely.
    I got manners.
    Right. Manners of speaking maybe.
    Would you like anything more to eat, Mr Clarke? Could I fetch you a coffee, Mr Clarke?
    The woman’s father laughed. Ah yes. That is very polite.
    Kat what did I tell you about sitting on the counter?
    The girl smiled at her grandfather. See? Mom’s driving us crazy.
    You’re not driving me crazy Mom.
    Thank you Mason.
    Her daughter snorted.
    The woman crossed to the sink and banged open the cupboard and began putting the dishes away. Blue serving bowls emblazoned with asian fish. She squared the glasses of blown green glass. Oh your horrible mother, she said. However do you stand it. Tell your grandfather how I beat you, how I work you like slaves. Oh you poor things.
    You don’t even know. You don’t know how hard it is, it’s not like when you were a kid. It’s a different world. You think you had problems? We got problems.
    The woman’s father folded his chin onto his hands, raised his eyebrows exaggeratedly. I would love to hear, he said. These are the boyfriend problems? The drug problems?
    She had a boyfriend. But Crispin Carter dumped—
    Shut up Mason.
    Hey? Language?
    The girl glanced across at her mother. As if I’d talk about it anyway. She’d probably just ground me or something.
    She has a name , the woman said.
    It’s Mom.
    Thank you Mason. Aren’t you awfully helpful tonight.
    Yes.
    Ah. She would ground you would she?
    Poppa,