The Mean Time

By James Matthews

The Mean Time is a work of literary fiction set in Corner Brook about how people allow their pasts to shape and define them – in holding on to dread, regret, and pain.

The death of Will Johnston shakes the community to its foundations, and Frank Doyle’s marriage is frayed by his involvement in the death. Torn by guilt and unable to let go, Frank descends into alcoholism until his wife eventually leaves with their child in the hopes that he will come to terms with the past.

Bobby Johnston spent most of his adulthood running from life and bad decisions. But the death of his father brings him full-circle and pushes him face-and-eyes into his past. He returns to Corner Brook to bury his father and ends up trying to reunite with a woman and a child he’d abandoned years before, and also ends up confronting his unresolved feelings about the death of his brother, Will Johnston. Matthews’ debut novel beautifully depicts how life is lived and lost between regrets.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Breakwater Books Ltd
• Release date: Sep 26, 2012
• ISBN: 9781550813982

Book preview

JAMES MATTHEWS

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A NOVEL

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P.O. Box 2188, St. John’s, NL, Canada, A1C 6E6

WWW.BREAKWATERBOOKS.COM

Copyright © 2012 James Matthews

Design: Rhonda Molloy

eBook development by WildElement.ca

Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication

Matthews, James, 1975-

The mean time / James Matthews.

ISBN 978-1-55081-394-4

I. Title.

PS8626.A865M43 2012------C813’.6------C2012-904960-3

All Rights Reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior written consent of the publisher or a licence from The Canadian Copyright Licensing Agency (Access Copyright). For an Access Copyright licence, visit www.accesscopyright.ca or call toll free to 1-800-893-5777.

We acknowledge the support of the Canada Council for the Arts which last year invested $24.3 million in writing and publishing throughout Canada. We acknowledge the Government of Canada through the Canada Book Fund and the Government of Newfoundland and Labrador through the Department of Tourism, Culture and Recreation for our publishing activities.

PRINTED AND BOUND IN CANADA.

for

my babies:

Emily Grace

Isabella Paige

Robert James

John-Thomas

and my Tam

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

PART ONE

CHAPTER 1

CHAPTER 2

CHAPTER 3

CHAPTER 4

CHAPTER 5

PART TWO

CHAPTER 6

CHAPTER 7

CHAPTER 8

CHAPTER 9

CHAPTER 10

CHAPTER 11

CHAPTER 12

CHAPTER 13

CHAPTER 14

CHAPTER 15

CHAPTER 16

CHAPTER 17

CHAPTER 18

CHAPTER 19

PART THREE

CHAPTER 20

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

part one

CHAPTER 1

Just don’t bury me on a Tuesday.

The setting sun brushed the sky with broad strokes of pink and red against wisps of cloud. Corner Brook spread beneath them from the Heights to Humber Arm’s still water. A breeze moved the backyard tall grass and seemed to whisper past below the patio. Frank Doyle and the younger man, Ray, sat on mismatched cast-off furniture drinking beer and smoking cheap tax-free cigarettes from mainland reservations. Soon they’ll be into the home-rolled cigarettes. Not because Frank couldn’t afford the store-bought smokes. He just didn’t like the thought of paying full price for something that was going to kill him. And Ray, who lived rent-free in Frank’s basement, smoked whatever Frank had at hand because he was broke. Theirs was a friendship like that. Caught in the inertia of wasted days that bled into nights. Days whittled to snippets of conversation on the house’s back patio. A threadbare couch and chairs around an often bottle-strewn makeshift table.

What’s so bad about a Tuesday? Mondays are the worst, Ray said. He gathered his long hair and tied it in a ponytail.

A pair of brown cowboy boots flew from a window of the next-door house. Frank surmised that they likely belonged to a Newfoundlander who’d spent six months in Alberta and now fancied himself a bit of a cowboy. A shirtless man with one leg in his pants followed the boots. The man fell from the window onto the soft grass, clumsily thrust his other leg into his pants. He gathered into a bundled mess his boots and what looked to Frank and Ray like a shirt and jacket. The man glanced hurriedly around and ran.

Mondays? Frank said. He watched the shirtless man struggle to keep his pants up as he ran a few steps, stumbled.

Yeah.

Jesus, Gary, what’re you doing busting into the room like that? a woman shouted inside the house next door. You almost gave me a heart attack. Her name was Helen. She and Gary were new to the Elizabeth Street neighbourhood, having moved next door to Frank and Barb a little more than a year ago.

Mondays’re not the worst, Frank said. With Monday, you know what you’re in for, the start of a week and all, and it’s too early to tell how shitty the week’s going to be. You’ve resigned yourself to starting over.

Gary ran out to his front lawn and turned toward the corner of the escape-window side of the house. He slipped on the grass, caught himself before falling, and trampled flower beds. Helen followed, wearing a cotton nightgown, nothing on her feet.

Jesus, Gary, who is it you thinks you’re going to find coming home early like that? she said.

He must be a burglar, now, is he? Gary said, and pointed to the man who had fallen from the window moments ago. The half-dressed man stopped three backyards away. He put on his shirt and shoved his feet into his boots.

Why’re you not at work? the woman said. Gary simply retreated into the house. Helen looked up at Frank and Ray on the patio, saw they were watching. She flipped them a middle finger. She pulled her nightdress farther down and tighter around her thighs with her other hand. Then she followed Gary back into the house. And Frank wagered old Gary would give his Helen another chance. Because that’s what people did for somebody they loved. Frank’s wife, Barb, did that for him. But anybody can do only so much.

Frank said: Wednesday, well, you’re halfway to Friday. On Thursday, you can smell the weekend right around the bend a little. And Friday, well, doesn’t matter how shitty you think a Friday is. It’s Friday, and Saturday is right on its heels. Sunday’s dreadful too. The weekend’s end, and you’re already starting to miss it. But on Monday, you’ve already accepted the weekend’s passing—

So what d’you have to say about Tuesday?

Let me finish, Frank said.

Well, you skipped right over it in your little estimation of the week there.

You didn’t let me finish. Frank looked at the sky over the bay. He pinched some of his beard with his fingers and grimaced. His beard was flecked with orange, auburn, and silver. It contrasted with the black curls on his head. Like the backyard’s high lawn, his beard was something Frank had been meaning to cut. There just didn’t seem to be a reason to get on top of a whole lot of things lately.

I’m listening, Ray said and rolled his eyes. He had to draw things out of Frank at times, particularly when the drinking had been going deep into the evenings, which was often. Frank had a tendency to become sullen and to brood when he was drunk.

Tuesday. Well, that’s the worst—

Why already—

I was going to say the uncertainty of a Tuesday makes it the worst day of the whole fuckin’ week, Frank said.

The uncertainty?

That’s right, said Frank. He nodded his head once and sat back into the ragged armchair. He pushed the back of his head into the chair-back’s worn fabric and scratched at his beard. He watched the younger man sitting across the patio, saw the perplexed look.

What’re you talkin’ about? Ray asked.

Frank leaned in a little, as if he was about to impart a confidence. He said: If you have a bad day Monday, you can always be better Tuesday. If Tuesday’s shitty, and it’s not even the middle of the week, it’ll feel like Friday and Saturday is pushed farther away. Drag the whole miserable day, a shitty Tuesday, into a miserable week. People spend their time planning for the weekend. What they should be doing is planning for a good Tuesday. Trying to have something in the works that some good comes of the Tuesday.

You’re so full of shit, Ray said, and took a long haul of his beer.

Just don’t bury me on a Tuesday. I wouldn’t want a shitty Tuesday setting the tone for my afterlife or my next life, whatever’s going to come about. Too much of a risk.

You spend too much time thinking this stuff up.

That might be, but the point still stands, said Frank. He sat deep in the chair that smelled damp after many months outside.

Not to bury you on a Tuesday.

Not to bury anybody on a Tuesday, Frank said. I wouldn’t put my greatest enemy in the ground on a Tuesday. Jesus.

You’re serious?

What’re we talking about? My death. Of course I’m serious about this. But all this could be a moot point or whatever if that Y2K thing happens in a few months with the rollover of the millennium. People stocking up on water and batteries.

You’re a little too serious, I think. It’s not the subject I’d choose, sitting here and watching the light thin, Ray said.

Nice sunset, though, wasn’t it? Frank said.

Oh, yeah. To die for, Ray said and smiled. He sighed loudly to give it emphasis. He nodded toward the house next door and said, Can’t hear any fighting.

Somewhere in the neighbourhood on the hill, a mother called Jeffrey into the house, shouted that it was time to have a bath. The sun was falling deeper behind the Blow-Me-Down Mountains and made shadows of much of the valley that cradled Corner Brook. A loud hissing that was not quite a whistle issued from the aged pulp and paper mill on the waterfront, near the mouth of the winding Humber River.

Frank drew hard on his cigarette. Those cigarettes were always packed so tight. The smoke roughed up his throat and his chest, loosened phlegm and left a hairy feeling on the back of his tongue. They were the kind of cigarettes that made the idea of quitting more attractive. If he cared enough to quit. Frank didn’t. A mouth full of bad teeth, sore knees, and inching closer to forty—he didn’t care about much since Willie Johnston died and his own wife left. Frank Doyle was a man fallen apart.

It was late in the evening, and Ray said: How about instead of waiting for the beer from The Lun tomorrow, how about you get yourself together and head into work instead? See how the place is, Frank. Leave the house at least.

The Cuffers’ Lun was the West Street pub Frank and his wife, Barb, owned. The pub itself was in a small basement with exposed pipes and duct work at the ceiling. There was an office above the pub, rented to a company that sold insurance. The third storey of the building was an apartment, a tiny one-bedroom whose ceilings angled with the roof. The apartment suited the Lun’s bartender just fine. Frank and Barb owned the building, so the bartender, Clarence, lived there rent-free. A couple of times a week, the truck driver from the beer distributor would drop off a few cases of beer at Frank’s house after the delivery to the pub.

You have to bring this up now? Frank said.

Might as well.

Might as well, huh? Frank said, and took another haul from his cigarette while looking at Ray. You might as well. The guy starts going to the college and meets a missus, something to do other than hang out here every evening with old Frank, and now he figures I need to find something else to while away the days, huh? Lonely old thirsty Frank Doyle.

Just thought I’d ask.

For the millionth time, said Frank.

There’s nobody else here to remind you, Frank. Other than the beer truck driver, you’ve been pretty good at alienating everybody who used to stop by. Unless they’ve been dropping by during the day when I’m in class. Of course, that would raise the question of why any of those people aren’t at work during the day as they’re supposed to be. As everybody usually is, Frank. But work is something you don’t have anything to do with anymore.

And what about those classes, Ray? What about them? Any of your professors figure out yet that you’re not actually registered? Frank said. Any of them catch on to your little scheme? All this work, and you’re not even going to be able to get that piece of paper at the end of it all because you’re not even on their books.

I don’t need that diploma. I’m doing the work for my own benefit, Ray said. He said the word diploma with disgust. What about The Lun, Frank? How’s that going to end up? Might be easier for you if you sold the place.

Nope. That building and this house are the only things I have.

You’re content to just let the bartender run the place and take his word for it that all’s well there? said Ray.

Clarence is a good man. He can run the place better than anybody.

What’re you thinking is going to happen to the pub? Ray said.

What do you mean, what’s going to happen to the pub? Frank said. Didn’t I just say?

You’ll keep it?

Georgie will have it one day, Frank said and winked at Ray. Georgie was his son. Seven years old.

They both took swallows of their beer and sat in silence. Then something caught Frank’s eye and he craned his neck to see through the patio’s pickets and down over the hill that separated his property from another. Ray followed Frank’s gaze. The sun had dropped completely below the horizon and its last light had faded like a dream. It was now dark, but people in the backyard down there were illuminated by outdoor lights on both sides of a door. People stood around a barbecue there. Frank saw hamburger patties and sausages on the grill.

At Frank’s house, the metal storm door slammed as Ray went inside. A moment later, the outside light beside the door to the patio went on. The door slammed as Ray returned to the patio with bottles of beer held between his fingers. He passed a warm bottle to Frank, who looked down the hill into the neighbour’s backyard. Rennie Johnston’s children and friends shared hugs, lamented being called home for the old man’s death watch.

Family home for the funeral. What if the skipper hangs on for a while yet? said Ray.

The hospital bed old Rennie Johnston’s in now, he won’t be getting up from and walking out the doors, Frank said and scratched at his beard. He looked down at his feet and the marked patio boards. The patio hadn’t been painted in years. It gained character as more flakes of paint scuffed away. Frank refused to paint it for that reason. He thought of the things said over the years on that patio. The conversations, the honest feelings laid bare. It was fitting the patio boards were scarred and raw.

So what was he like? Ray said.

Rennie? He was quiet, Frank said. Devoted to his missus. That’s the word, too. Devoted. Kept to her side as her health was going, even as his own worsened.

Frank raised a hand to an old woman, Rennie’s wife, who sat

in a lawn chair amid the crowd at the barbecue. Ray looked at the family gathered in the backyard. The old woman who waved back at Frank looked frail and weary.

Rennie. I used to do some work around the house for him, Frank said. His missus used to have these dreams, nightmares. I guess that’s what they were, by the way she’d wake from them on the daybed in the kitchen and Ren and me would be in the living room. She used to call out for Bobby. Me and the old man would be in the living room having a cup of tea after I’d moved some furniture for him or changed the oil in his car. Whatever he needed done and couldn’t do for himself when the cancer medicine would knock him on his ass.

Bobby?

One of the sons. He left on bad terms. Rennie never said anything about a fight. He used to wonder whatever happened to the baby. Told me that he had a grandchild. Bobby’s baby with a girl he used to run around with. But Rennie never met her or anything. He’d wonder if maybe he ever sat next to the youngster at a doctor’s office or walked by the baby at the grocery store or something.

Ray played with his Zippo, opened and closed the hinged cover. Click, snap…click, snap. He’d open it with one hand and flick the fingers on his other hand beside the lighter to ignite it. Then he’d close it and do it again. Click, scratch, snap…click, scratch, snap. Beneath that, Frank could hear a woman’s wet sobbing through an open window at the house next door. Helen.

The missus’ heart ached for her Bobby, Frank said. Rennie did, too, of course. He never said so much, even when he’d haul out a couple bottles of his home brew. Made the best brew, Rennie did. But I know he missed his son. Rennie and his missus used to get news of him, so I’d imagine one of the other children kept in touch with Bobby.

"Will he come home,