Cashmere Comes from Goats

By S. Portico Bowman

Was it the death of her dog, Bloom, or was she just tired of her routine as a dentist? Or perhaps her depression was the result of her (mostly) unrequited love for her former piano teacher, Bruno? As Robin contemplates a sabbatical to see puffins in Newfoundland, a fateful google search puts everything on hold. When she *accidentally* finds Bruno’s grown son–or a younger double–living in France with a woman Bruno knew briefly many many years ago, Robin has a choice: stay in Canada and monitor her distant father’s suspected dementia, or accept Bruno’s demand that she go with him to France, and help him face fatherhood a few decades too late.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Stonehouse Originals
• Release date: May 1, 2022
• ISBN: 9781988754383

S. Portico Bowman

The structured chaos of a kaleidoscope is a soothing beauty and S. Portico Bowman’s favourite word. She writes to puzzle and play. Infinite structures of language craft the images for characters who have unpredictable and transformative lives. For the past twenty years Portico’s home was in a collage of places. She worked in Kansas as an art professor, art writer, and gallery director. Her love life is in California. Her father, family, writing community, and many friends are in Canada. She has completed her work in Kansas and now lives in San Diego full time with Tom and their cat Florence. Portico’s favourite art supply is glitter.

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Stonehouse2022-CashmereComesFromGoats-FrontCover.jpg

CASHMERE COMES FROM GOATS

A novel by

S. Portico Bowman

Stonehouse Publishing

www.stonehousepublishing.ca

Alberta, Canada

Copyright © 2022 by S. Portico Bowman

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be used without prior written consent of the publisher.

Stonehouse Publishing Inc. is an independent publishing house, incorporated in 2014.

Cover design and layout by Anne Brown.

Printed in Canada

Stonehouse Publishing would like to thank and acknowledge the support of the Alberta Government funding for the arts, through the Alberta Media Fund.

National Library of Canada Cataloguing in Publication Data

S. Portico Bowman

Cashmere Comes From Goats

Novel

ISBN: 978-1-988754-37-6

Would you give up arms for wings?

For Spunky and Tom; in the order they transformed me.

And for my parents who continue to do so.

Row, row, row your boat,

Gently down the stream.

Merrily, merrily, merrily, merrily,

Life is but a dream.

–Eliphalet Oram Lyte

Chapter One

Aqueous Humour

Joanna paused. Robin looked up.

You don’t seem depressed, Joanna said. Robin looked down again. Deadheading all of her peonies was not extreme. The article said ‘snap behind the retired flower’. In Robin’s case that meant the entire plant. All were now dead and completely retired.

They were supposed to live one hundred years. That’s what the woman at the greenhouse said. I believed her. I shouldn’t have. I did exactly what she told me to.

Exactly? Joanna asked.

Yes. I even made the special soil. And I followed the directions on the fertilizer bag.

Exactly? Joanna asked again.

Exactly, Robin replied.

Every year?

Robin paused. Mostly.

Mostly? Joanna said.

Well. More or less. At least for the first year.

When was that? Joanna said.

Oh—I don’t know—Eight? Yes. Eight years ago. I bought them the year after Mom died. They were going to be like my grandma’s house and go all along the walkways and around the house.

You don’t have walkways, Joanna said.

Yes I do. Robin said. It’s not a long walk. But it’s long enough. I bought sixty-eight plants. You’re not always right. I do have walkways.

You need to fertilize every year, Joanna said.

I fertilized most years. That’s close enough. Large handfuls. Here and there.

I think there was more here than there, and not enough of either, Joanna said. Robin pressed her lips together.

I’m glad they’re gone. One hundred years is a lot of pressure. Robin’s eye’s tightened. The aqueous humour resisted. She felt old. Not fifty-two years old like she was but more like how she imagined old was going to feel. Wilted. Wasted. Drained.

I think you are, Joanna said.

What? Robin replied.

Depressed.

I’m not depressed. I’m— Robin looked at the menu in her hand. She fiddled with the corners and picked the plastic laminate further apart. Robin wondered when Gertee would get new ones. Robin had been picking plastic corners at Gertee’s Café for ten years. She sat in the same orange almost-Eames plastic chairs pulled around the same white tables that dotted the interior of the café like button mushrooms. And yet the sameness was also Gertee’s charm. Lampshades suspended awkwardly blocked the view of any patron over six feet. Accounting—in part—for why almost everyone inside was a woman. Stressful weeks spilled out of conversations, sporadic yoga mats spiking the air like surrender flags. Everyone stored legs and purses under the generous table overhangs. Most of them wore jeans that were too short or too tight. And favourite t-shirts with logos from marathons, half-marathons or nearby farmer’s markets and far-away places. Joanna’s wash of ink-black hair fell across her face. She tried to look at Robin, under the table, and into her purse at the same time while quickly bobbing up. Joanna’s hair snapped back into a thin line. She pushed on her glasses so she could read the menu. She pulled off the rectangular black frames to look at Robin.

You’re depressed.

No. I’m— Robin tucked a tawny golden-red piece of hair behind her ear. It almost reached and then fell out again.

I’m angry, but I’m not depressed. Robin stopped. And if I wasn’t angry then I’d be depressed. Joanna tried to speak. Robin stopped her. Don’t judge me. You don’t know what it’s like. Look. Look here. Robin’s fingers thwacked the back of the menu, It says right here. I’m hard-boiled. Scrambled. Poached. Char-broiled. But I’m not depressed. Justin Bieber is depressed. I’m not depressed.

What? Joanna said. Justin Bieber? How do you know about Justin Bieber?

From his blog.

Justin Bieber is blogging about his depression?

Well, someone is, Robin replied.

What were you doing reading about Justin Bieber? Joanna asked.

I wasn’t. At first. I was reading about the potato blight in Ireland.

What?

It was a link, Robin said.

From where?

I don’t know. Somewhere. I was looking for a movie.

You don’t watch movies, Joanna said.

I do now, Robin said. Joanna looked surprised. People change, Robin offered. She pushed the loose golden-red strands behind her ear. They still didn’t reach. Robin’s hair was a rodeo.

You’re depressed, Joanna concluded. Robin ran her tongue over her teeth and then pushed from behind into the space put there by nature and protected by Robin’s stubbornness. She didn’t want braces. Perfect teeth were bourgeois. Robin learned the word early. She liked it. And, she liked her mouth the way it was.

Maybe, Robin replied. Maybe. But that doesn’t make you right. Just observant.

"What I am or am not isn’t the issue at the moment. You are," Joanna said.

I’m empty, Robin tasted gall. She was betrayed by circumstance. It wasn’t Joanna’s fault she could expose Robin. Four decades of friendship was to blame. Not Joanna. Not Robin. It’s ridiculous, really, Robin said.

What? Joanna said.

Bloom. She was only a dog. And not exactly my first dog. I should be over it by now. It’s been three months.

Saliva gathered in the corners of Robin’s mouth. She was bothered by this display of excess and erased it with fingers long but not elegant. Robin remembered how she’d looked up at the clock on the wall in the vet’s office. The big hand had touched the tip of the golden ear flopped over on the retriever. Robin had thought about how Dr. Davenport was ready to retire like the clock on his wall. But, if the clock still functioned according to the rules of known physics and planetary motion, Robin could see that Bloom was now dead for two minutes. Bloom hadn’t looked dead, but what did death look like? Skulls and crossbones were the child’s play of pirates. Or they were copied monotonously on empty plastic bottles fading in the landfill. Cadavers were more sculptural than anything living or dead, and neither resembled the absence of Bloom’s Samoyed white fur moving, but Dr. Davenport’s trembling yet capable hand setting the now empty needle on the table did.

The efficiency of its jab and how quickly the contents were emptied and the speed of its effect had penetrated not only Bloom but also the skin around Robin’s forehead. It pulled tight and emptied her like the deadly needle. Robin had been dismissed by both time and death to watch the large hand on the clock finger the ear like nothing had happened, like there was nothing different, like Bloom still existed—but he didn’t. And yet the piece of her soul and psyche that was also Bloom couldn’t die. Or yield tangible remains to be gathered, held, and handed off to Dr. Davenport for closure and cremation. This peculiar cocktail of absence and presence was a new torture. Robin had looked down. Stabbed by the glare of the silver gurney table, she’d stared at the door she was expected to walk through, into a life without Bloom. There was nothing to say, nothing to do.

Robin.

She couldn’t do it. She wouldn’t do it. Be good or civilized or appropriate and answer Dr. Davenport.

What? she’d managed.

Do you want me to stay? he asked.

That would be best, Robin had managed to think. But still Robin wouldn’t commit to words. Words would tie her to the future. They’d force her to decide other things. They’d make her walk out the door. They’d put her in the empty car and drive her home to an empty house.

No. No. I’ll go.

Dr. Davenport had looked at Robin and held her with his seventy-year-old eyes while he ran his hand over the dead dog. Robin didn’t think she could do that. She wanted to because, if nothing else, it would be the last time she could. But she’d just spent a week doing last time things. The last time she and Bloom would wake up together was two hours ago. The last time she’d chase the renegade dog kibble that missed the bowl as it dropped the wrong way out of the bag was the night before.

Robin had not been sure if she could move, even if she had just told Dr. Davenport she would go. Her arms felt laced to her sides and to each other, holding her together. Her heart was the only signal that it might be possible to move. Flesh threw itself against her left breast like an abandoned child in a crib. Touching Bloom was Robin’s comfort.

Instincts belonging to grief had finally released Robin’s arms, her hands cresting the white wave of Bloom’s body, coming to rest at her side. Something in her had been satisfied. Perhaps it was Bloom. Robin’s head swivelled back to look at Dr. Davenport. He’d unknit his brow from the deed he’d told her had never gotten easier. He managed a smile that assured Robin her suffering did not in any way compare to Bloom’s. The dog’s dying time had come. Short of letting nature take its course they had not robbed him of his life. All they had taken away was his option to be alone.

I’m fine, Robin said to Joanna. Definitively. Really. It’s Bieber I’m worried about.

It’s you I’m worried about, Joanna said.

Robin sighed. She set down her pretence like it was the vacuum cleaner. Heavy. Unnecessary. She didn’t want to pull it any further.

Worrying about me won’t fix anything. Trust me. I’ve tried everything. Being good. Being mad. Being sad. Cleaning all my light fixtures. Nothing changes.

Maybe you need a change? Joanna said.

Like what? A cruise? Bobbing around like a cork for ten days with bacteria on the salad. No, thanks. I have that lettuce at home.

No. Not a cruise. Something longer. Bigger. I don’t know. Take a sabbatical. Go away for six months.

Dentists don’t get sabbaticals. We go to work every day and take three weeks of holidays like the rest of the world. The rest of the world works, Joanna. You get way too much time off.

No, I don’t.

Yes, you do, Robin said.

OK. I do. But I earn it, Joanna replied.

No, you don’t. Teaching isn’t that hard, Robin said.

Yes it is.

They’re college kids, not middle school, Robin said.

They’re middle-school minds in college-kid bodies. Plus, economics is hard. They think the class will be about money. Theirs. They don’t want to find out that money is about injustice.

Don’t say that.

It’s true. If teaching is so easy, why don’t you do it?

I could never teach, Robin replied.

Well, you could take six months off, Joanna said.

How?

I don’t know. But you could, Joanna replied.

That’s not helpful. In fact, it’s mean. Don’t tell me about six months off and not tell me how to do it. What kind of friend are you?

The only one you have.

That’s not true. I have lots of friends, Robin said.

You know lots of people. That doesn’t mean you have a lot of friends.

Robin couldn’t erase the truth in Joanna’s words by pretending she didn’t hear them. Or pull her hair. Or push. Or shove. Or bite. No biting. Robin missed biting Joanna.

Well, it’s a ridiculous idea. I don’t think friends or enemies can tell me how to close my practice, my house, leave my elderly father and fly off to the moon.

Not the moon, Joanna said. But somewhere. And don’t close your practice. Get a substitute. Sublet your house, and I’ll check on your father.

You’d visit my father? Robin said. Her father always liked Joanna. She was organized. Efficient. And frustrating. Like he was.

Yes. I could. Not every day. But if he needed things, I’d stop by. Does he need things? He probably doesn’t. I doubt if he needs very much.

Robin imagined Joanna making the new category in the Reminder’s folder on her phone. Otto. Take him things.

Liability, Robin said.

For your father? Don’t you trust me? Joanna said.

No. Not my father. My practice.

Mark will write a contract for you, Joanna said.

He’s too busy, Robin countered, thinking of Joanna’s husband.

He has time.

No, he doesn’t. Besides, clients, Robin said, they won’t stand for it.

I’m an economist. People are lazy. Why look for a new dentist when the one you are used to is coming back? It sounds like a good reason to skip a cleaning.

And who is going to pay for this? Robin said.

You have plenty of money. You’ve got lots in the bank, Joanna said.

Not that much, Robin said.

Oh, c’mon. You’ll never spend it all.

But I might need it, Robin said.

You aren’t going to need it if you’re dead, Joanna replied.

I’m not that depressed.

You’re not clinically depressed but you’re not happy.

Not being happy doesn’t qualify me for six months off work. This isn’t the movies. Who’s happy? Robin said.

I’m happy. Joanna said. Robin believed her. Forgave her. Still loved her. All I know is you need to do something. Reading blogs about Justin Bieber is not a solution.

Yes it is, Robin said.

No, it isn’t. Joanna’s bangs were like a ruler. Straight and dependable.

OK. I’ll think about it, Robin said.

Robin tasted Joanna’s victory over her resistance. Bitterness dissolved into sweet. She took her tongue and touched the end of her nose.

Joanna laughed. That’s so gross. Why do you still do that?

Because you still think it’s funny.

Chapter Two

Gertee’s Café

The youthful woman employed by Gertee’s, if not in fact hired by Gertee herself, arrived. Quietly. She had a miniature notebook clasped between two hands held near her heart like a mudra. She was prepared to accept their desires and ferry them to the cook. He would lift his eyes once to the silver sphere that turned like a prayer wheel. He would find out what Robin and Joanna wanted. The clipped paper would stop flapping and settle like an angel roosting. Joanna’s eggs would crack and cinnamon would snow down upon Robin’s toast. Robin would have what she wanted.

Can I have coffee please, Robin asked.

Not tea? Blonde wings of hair dropped alongside the smooth skin of the merciful being. Twenty-something and counting.

No. Coffee. I want something different.

Really?

Yes. Robin would not feel ancient and confused.

Joanna was taking a long time in the restroom, but Robin understood. It took a long time to keep bangs in a straight line. She turned again to look for her friend. Strangers were all that materialized.

And Bruno.

Robin!

She was the worm cut in half. Robin had always wondered which end died first. Answering Bruno was the opportunity to find out. One side squirmed. It was the portion with a heart.

Bruno.

Robin. Bruno said her name again. He was pleased, like a hound dog with a rabbit in its mouth. Where have you been? Why did you quit your piano lessons?

The first time Bruno had stood in front of Robin he’d reminded her of an asparagus bundle. Tall and full of himself, with black tips. Nothing had changed. She hadn’t quit piano, she’d quit Bruno cold turkey in one day. Bruno smiled, teeth incubated in the darkness of his body had emerged like pearls. But cultured; not quite natural and yet they appeared perfect. Like Bruno. He looked good, but he always did. Robin ran the numbers. He was seventy-two now. Trim for his age, the black hair still curly.

I thought you would call, Bruno said.

I didn’t. Robin lathered herself in the luxury of not saying what Bruno expected to hear. She hoped he would notice.

It’s been what? Two years, Bruno said.

Five.

Oh, really? Bruno said. Surprising.

What. That it’s been that long? Robin said.

No. That I’d run into you today. Are you alone? Bruno said. He looked at the other table setting. Robin wanted Moses, or Buddha or Nick Nolte to drop from the ceiling and land at the table. Bruno would leave. If beautiful Joanna came back from the restroom, Bruno would stay.

No. I’m with Joanna.

Joanna?

Yes. Remember? Her wedding. Robin stopped. How much did she want to remember? She’d made a point of smiling at him that first meeting. She assumed he would see her crooked teeth and go away. The odour of his leather, over-sized sheepskin coat had made her nauseous because he smelled like a new car. Then lunch was late. Joanna and Mark were delayed with the photographer. Robin and Bruno stood and talked. Robin was tall. Very few people made her feel short. Bruno was taller. Robin liked that. Soon she had decided the jacket was really rather stylish. Bruno began to gleam, and Robin became the raven attracted to shiny things. Today she was the worm. Robin looked away and stuffed her gaze in the people she didn’t know. Joanna would return any minute, she thought, and Bruno would no longer notice Robin. She was quite sure some things didn’t change.

You were making such progress, Bruno said.

"Coming ’Round the Mountain was not progress. I should have tried something easier. Like a flute."

A flute is small; it’s not easy. And it takes your breath. A piano wants your heart.

Robin suckled the irony of his words. Misery was like flypaper.

I couldn’t reach. My hands are not that big, Robin said.

She thought of her piano. Objects had piled higher every year so Robin couldn’t even open the lid on the keys. It was a very expensive shelf. Joanna had told Robin to sell it, but she couldn’t. Where was Joanna?

Baloney! Your hands are not that small. Bruno’s black eyes squinted into familiar guillotine slits. Next he would blink. Slice. A head would roll.

Look, I didn’t quit. I’m just taking a break. Besides, it was going to take too long, Robin said.

Too long for what?

To get good, Robin said. Her bottom lip stiffened along with her spine. Five years had not diminished Bruno’s ability to make her lie.

So you didn’t even get bad? Bruno’s head shook. Robin watched the oversized curls. They bounced and knocked against his skull. The curls were megaphones. Microphones. They became forms of communication lesser humans could not access.

Bruno went through acquaintances like underclothes. If he needed to feign humility while telling any one of them about when he had played in the Place des Arts—not the inaugural concert—but a concert nonetheless, the curls would be dropped forward. Next he’d tell them his debut hadn’t been that many years later. Only four. Bruno would brush the curls back. He’d reveal his large eyebrows. Power was reclaimed. Seized. The curls would flop forward. He’d then share the precious news that he was only twenty-one. Not many musicians played the Place des Arts so young. He’d rake the long fingers of his piano hands front to back and tell how it was the next year he left for l’École Normale de Musique de Paris. He would add, with his hands at his sides like he was under oath, that he was accepted because of his musical gift, not because his father had the money.

Bruno was talented. He was also many other things. Robin had heard his Place des Arts premiere story at Joanna’s wedding. Others came later. Bruno would tell about his years as a Québecois separatist when he had staged political campaigns amidst his European tours. Robin had seen the posters. Black curls against vintage ’70s font made him hippy even if that wasn’t his intent. None of this helped his career, but he’d enjoyed his years as a dissident. It made his untenured years as a lecturer at McGill seem somehow honourable. By the time Robin met him, Bruno had the occasional piano student. Robin would become one of them. In any Hollywood script, Bruno would be typecast as the would-have-been, could-have-been, tragic hero.

And Robin still loved him.

Now you’ll die not knowing how to play the piano. Bruno’s hand reached for the black mass falling across his forehead. You’ll never forget what you wanted.

Robin could see small specks of silver-gray in Bruno’s black crown. Sagittarius was in the night sky. It was true. She’d never forgotten what she wanted, and now he was in front of her. Unbidden. Unfair.

Fear has made a voodoo doll of your desire. This quitting must have eaten your arms.

Bruno! My arms are not eaten. Robin shook her hands in the air. My arms are fine! See! Robin picked up the fork. She poked the tines into the table. My arms are just fine.

Bruno! Joanna said.

Finally! Joanna had arrived. Robin put down her fork. The threat had passed. She would not stab Bruno.

Madame. Bruno stood.

Robin pushed back her chair so Bruno would have easier access. It would be a messy commotion if Bruno tripped and fell in his excitement to grasp Joanna.

What a surprise! Joanna said. She looked at Robin. Robin avoided eye contact. Joanna knew too much. Bruno let go of Joanna. Finally.

I’ve been asking Robin why she quit her piano lessons. It’s a tragedy, Bruno said.

It’s a coffee coaster, Joanna said

Bruno looked confused.

Her piano, Joanna said.

A coffee coaster. Of course. How funny. And Bruno laughed. Loudly. Like it was. But it wasn’t. Not really. Not to Robin.

Are you joining us? Joanna said.

Robin glared at her. Joanna shrugged. Bruno beamed. He pulled his chair close to Joanna’s. When her eggs arrived he ate some and then ordered his own. Bruno talked about himself. Joanna talked about Robin.

She told Bruno about Bloom’s death.

Oh yes. The big fluffy white dog, Bruno said, extending his sympathy.

Joanna went on to declare her opinion that Robin should take some time off from her dental practice.

Time off? Ridiculous. Get another dog. Bruno’s empathy could extend no further.

Robin focused on a fly visiting the nearby table and counted the elderly people in the café. One. She had a bite of her toast which had arrived soft without any of the crunch she’d anticipated.

Go to Newfoundland, Bruno said.

Newfoundland? Robin replied.

Yes. You won’t need to learn a new language and you won’t have to boil the water. Or get a passport.

Bruno was completely satisfied with his idea. He took his glasses out of his pocket. They became a trophy to polish. Robin imagined herself a maritime fisherwoman. She was hanging off the winds, face first in the ocean spray. The idea had merit. She even liked it, but she didn’t like that it was Bruno’s idea. She scowled at him.

Newfoundland? Robin said.

Yes. They have puffins, Bruno replied.

Puffins? Robin said.

The bird, Bruno said.

I know what they are. But why would I go to Newfoundland to spend six months with a puffin?

Because not many people do, Bruno said. Not for six months.

He had Robin’s attention for two reasons. One, she was surprised he understood her well enough to know the novelty would appeal. And two, that it worked. Suddenly the word puffin meant something. Puffin became another word for Robin.

Robin bit into her toast. Loudly. There was a slight squish. The sound would herald the return of her determination. Her choice was perfect. Toast sounded like fish. Puffins ate fish. Probably at every meal. Probably often. Probably that’s all they ate. Now that Robin had clamped some portion of her destiny onto their unguarded black bodies, she’d find out. She was excited. Robin excused herself for the restroom; she wanted to see if she looked different.

When Robin returned, Bruno was gone. His empty chair made her want to cry. Some things didn’t change.

Bruno’s gone? Robin said.

Yes, Joanna replied. The one syllable sounded like a figure skater coming to a full stop at the end of their performance. She looked at Robin.

It’s okay, Robin said. It’s okay.

Joanna handed Robin a white serviette. She took it and brushed away the salt and the tears.

Chapter Three

Bubble Wrap

Robin no longer woke every morning to push her leg onto the side of the bed where Bloom should have been. Alarms to wake her no longer signalled the catastrophe of another day. Two weeks ago, Gertee had fed her breakfast and she’d had the shock of seeing Bruno. And she’d survived. Robin was encouraged. She was mending. Slowly.

Becoming a Newfie took one night. Wikipedia and the Newfoundland and Labrador tourism website made planning easy. Robin selected St. John’s. Gander was too north even if they’d fed 6,700 unexpected guests while airspace was closed September 11. And there were plenty of Airbnb listings. Robin noted ruefully that her to-do list did not include finding someone to look after Bloom. That arrangement typically took three emails. Now there were none. Damn. Check. A non-task completed.

Deciding what to do about her dental practice took the longest. In the end a long-time associate recommended the recent dental graduate, Darvaki Patel. She could maintain Robin’s current clientele. Darvaki would perform all the duties of checking, drilling, filling, extracting and crowning. She would, however, not accept new patients. Instead, it was agreed in the seven-page contract Robin prepared, that Darvaki could collect all the names of potential patients into her own referral