Perhaps the Last Survivor

Alan Tinkler

Chapter 1

Drawn to a cafe overlooking the St. Lawrence River, London sits at a

corner table. On the chair opposite, he places his duffel.

“You’re back,” the waitress says, serving him a simple cup of

espresso. As London stares at her, trying to recall her face, she adds:

“Unless you have a twin.”

“I don’t,” he says, shaking his head.

“I know, darling.”

“You recognize me?”

“Of course I do,” she answers. And, after a pause, she adds:

“Paris.”

London shakes his head, corrects her.

2

“It was our joke. I called you Paris; it made you laugh.”

“What did I call you?”

Beatrice’s face falls as she realizes London is not leading her on.

Sensing her concern, London says: “I’m sorry. I’ve forgotten a lot, it

seems.”

“It’s been years.”

London admits he’s figured out that much.

“No,” Beatrice says. “That’s not what I mean.”

Though his voice lacks conviction, he says: “I’m getting closer.”

“Closer?”

“I met my son last week. He called me Dad.”

“Then why did you come to Montreal?”

“I found a ticket stub,” London says, shrugging his shoulders.

“I’ve got customers,” Beatrice says, nodding toward a couple

who have taken a table.

“Yes,” London says. “I’m sorry.”

After spooning in two packets of brown sugar, he sips the

espresso. Though he usually drinks lattes, the taste of straight

espresso seems familiar, seems right.

3

London pulls a short stack of folded index cards from his back

pocket. He shuffles through them before placing one on the table.

On it, he writes: simple espresso. On it, he writes: darling.

London watches Beatrice weave through the tables, serving

customers with practiced grace. Instinctively, he remains seated,

silently accepting periodic treats. When Beatrice returns to his table,

wearing a sweatshirt, she says: “Let’s go.”

London looks at her.

Beatrice says: “Beatrice—my name is Beatrice. Though others

call me Bea, you call me Beatrice and I like it.”

London is glad to be walking. His fractured memory does not

trouble him as much when he is in motion. London wonders if he

knew she was going to make the turn as Beatrice pivots to the stoop

of a brownstone. Once inside, she pours him a glass of wine before

disappearing upstairs to take a shower.

Drink in hand, London walks around the living room. On top of

a Welsh dresser, framed photographs. London is not too surprised to

find himself in two of the photos. In one, London and Beatrice sit

beside a fire on the beach. In the other, a black and white, he sits at

4

the café working on a crossword puzzle. He stares at the images,

hoping to trigger memories.

“Yes,” Beatrice says when she returns to the living room. “We

had moments.”

“Good ones?”

“Yes—good ones.”

“I’m glad,” London says. He watches Beatrice walk across the

room. Halfway across she grins. Wondering, he asks: “What?”

“No,” Beatrice answers.

“No?”

“I’ve never had training,” Beatrice says, still smiling.

“Of course,” says London. “I’m sorry.”

“It’s how we met,” Beatrice explains. “You came to the café.

Since you looked sad, I asked whether or not you were okay. Instead

of answering, you said you liked how I walked the café. A ‘café

ballet,’ you called it.”

London shakes his head.

“It was sweet.”

5

To compound his self-loathing, London says: “You’re still

graceful.”

“You’re still sweet.”

Beatrice folds her legs under her. She is wearing loose sweats.

They are well worn, and she fits into them comfortably. Her hair,

smelling slightly of verbena, is still damp.

“I’m tired,” London says, carrying his glass to the kitchen.

“I’ve made up the back bedroom.”

London runs his hands through his hair as he walks across the

living room. Halfway up the stairs, he stops, returns. Once back on

the couch, Beatrice flings her feet to his lap and laughs.

“Now what?”

“It was our arrangement,” Beatrice answers. “Rent for rubs.”

London caresses her feet.

“I’ve missed this,” Beatrice admits, settling herself back against

the armrest, closing her eyes. London looks around the room; the

walls, sponge painted. He wonders whether the work was done since

his last visit.

6

�

After waking, London looks around the room. The bedroom is just

large enough for the twin-sized bed and a small bedside table. Beside

the alarm clock, a note: Meet me at work. I’m off at 3:00 PM. Under the

note, a key.

While he slept, Beatrice unpacked his duffel. His toiletries are in

the bathroom, and his clothes are in her dresser. Instead of clearing

out an entire drawer for London, Beatrice placed his clothes beside

hers. Underwear, top drawer; shirts, second; pants, third. In the

bottom drawer, Beatrice keeps her workout clothes and the tattered

clothes she wears while cleaning. In it, he finds what he believes to be

one of his old t-shirts.

Before taking a shower, since doing laundry while traveling is

one of his compulsions, London sets a load going in the stack

washer/dryer off the kitchen. When he gets around to putting the

clothes in the dryer, he finds a note in the lint shield; on it, a heart.

He smiles, pulls out his index cards, and copies the heart.

7

�

London walks the streets with a determined pace as if hoping to

catch up to his past. He ends his trek at the café where he reads the

paper while Beatrice pilots her way through customers. London

admires how she intuitively knows to linger at one table, chatting, and

to leave another after serving silently. Beatrice returns to the table

when he starts to knead his thighs.

“You okay?”

“No,” answers London, and to change the subject, he adds:

“You read people well.”

“It’s why I’m good at my job.”

“Yes,” London says. “I don’t read people very well.”

“You do fine.”

“You weren’t waiting, were you?”

“No.”

“But, the photos?”

“Because I enjoy the memory of us doesn’t mean I’ve spent

years pining for you.”

8

“Of course.”

After looking around the café, Beatrice sits opposite, says, “You

tend not to reveal yourself. It can make things difficult.”

“Difficult?”

“A little.”

Not knowing why he tells her this so quickly, London admits: “I

tried to kill myself.” It is one episode he has recently excavated from

his past.

“I know.”

“But, I came to Montreal four years ago, right?”

“Yes,” Beatrice says. “But,” she adds to correct his recollection,

“you came a second time.”

“A second time?”

“You came after you tried to kill yourself and after Nicole died.”

London takes out his cards, finds space, and writes: Montreal,

twice and Nicole /suicide. He crosses twice out, writes: three times. Beside

suicide, he writes: /college. He underlines Nicole. He looks at what he’s

written: Nicole / suicide /college. Using an arrow, he corrects the

timeline—suicide should be last.

9

Chapter 2

Believing she is achy with the flu, Nicole goes to bed early. To

London, she says: “I feel queasy.”

“What do you mean?” London asks. “In your stomach or in

your head?”

“I don’t know,” Nicole answers. “I suppose all over, all over my

body.”

London kisses her forehead, tells her not to worry, tells her

everything is going to be okay.

“Okay,” Nicole agrees as London walks from the bedroom to

the kitchen to serve Jake baked ziti for dinner.

Nicole pulls the comforter to her neck and quietly repeats her

son’s name. If Nicole realizes she is dying, she says nothing. London

has no idea.

10

�

Jake eats his dinner off his Big Bird plate, a plate with Big Bird

standing beside a tree—a bright yellow sun, high in the sky. Jake,

believing himself to be a big boy, uses a three pronged Elmo fork.

As Jake smacks his food, London checks on Nicole. She is

curled around Jake’s favorite stuffed animal, a monkey, and she

tightens her grip when London attempts to trade Monkey for a

pillow.

“Honey,” London says, again pulling. He lets go and shrugs his

shoulders, knowing that without Monkey it is going to be next to

impossible to put Jake to sleep.

London sits on the bed, strokes her hair. On the bedside table, a

photo of Jake in a little pink frame. The frame was given to Nicole by

her mother, Victoria, who thought Nicole glowed as if carrying a girl.

The photo was taken six hours after Jake’s birth once he lost the

soggy look of a newborn. On the bedside table, a book: The Magic

Mountain.

11

London returns to the kitchen to pour Jake a glass of milk. As

Jake gulps from his Bert and Ernie cup, not yet faded from repeated

washings, London shuffles his stack of cards, settling on one, he

writes: tickle me Elmo and gulps.

12

�

To help Jake get ready for bed, after giving him a bath, London pulls

from Jake’s dresser a pajama top imprinted with a photo of Jake

holding a stuffed animal, a frog. The frog was lost during a frenetic

holiday shopping excursion. By the time they noticed and retraced

their steps the stuffed animal was gone. To Jake, Nicole explained the

frog had hopped away to join his friends. Monkey was bought to

replace the lost treasure.

Like the frog which Jake called, Frog, Jake calls the monkey,

Monkey, a naming strategy London admires for its simplicity and its

accuracy.

As nonchalantly as possible London hands Pig to Jake. Jake

looks back and forth between Pig and his father before exhaling a

preternaturally deep breath; Jake then pulls Pig tight against his

tummy. Jake, like his mother, never cuddles stuffed animals close to

his face.

13

Around midnight, London wakes to find Jake asleep within the

concave of Nicole’s body. London rests his arm across them and falls

back to sleep.

London dreams he is riding a train. In a sleeper car, he washes

his face over a miniature aluminum sink before climbing in bed. He

does not feel the train rock through turns, nor does he sense when

the train wrestles against gravity.

14

�

When London wakes, Nicole is dead; in her arms, Monkey. In the

living room, Jake chats to the television; he is probably counting,

London thinks; Jake loves to count.

Instead of picking up the phone to announce her death, London

reaches across Nicole to her bedside table. He opens Mann to her

mark, but, even though he has read the book before, the disjointed

entry proves to be disappointing. To London the text is hieroglyphs.

He puts aside the book and closes his eyes.

15

�

Though blinded momentarily by sleep, London jolts awake when he

sights Jake standing behind a paramedic, a woman who lifts Jake and

carries him to the living room the moment she realizes the woman

beside London is dead.

Jake, London later learns, inexplicably dialed 911. Though Jake

remained silent to the operator’s queries, the paramedics and police

arrived with haste.

When London enters the living room, the paramedic asks: “Is

there anyone we can call?”

London, confused, asks: “Excuse me?”

“For your boy—he doesn’t need to ride to the morgue.”

“For Jake?” he asks, turning toward his son. Jake is again

watching television, now the Teletubbies. To the beat, he rocks with

the dancing figures.

“Yes. It would be best if someone took care of Jake while you

ride with your wife to the morgue. There will be an autopsy,” the

paramedic explains. “It is the course of the matter.”

16

“Yes,” London says, not understanding why an autopsy is

necessary. Only after he learns that Nicole died of a heart attack, the

ruinous consequence of viral myocarditis, does London realize that

had it turned out to be murder, he would have been the natural

suspect.

After accompanying Nicole to the morgue, London walks

through the night. At four in the morning, after hitting an

intersecting series of bars for whiskey and diners for coffee, London

lets himself into the apartment. On the couch, Jake sleeps in Nicole’s

sister’s arms; her eyes are droopy but open. Jake’s right hand cups

Sonya’s left breast; his lips twitch.

In the bedroom, London packs. On his way out, he briefly

caresses Jake’s head then kisses Sonya goodbye. As he walks down

the stairs, he smells his hand; he loves the smell of his son’s hair, oily

or clean. Once through the foyer, he pushes open the door and steps

into the wind.

17

Chapter 3

London wakes, this time in Beatrice’s bed. The note is revised; the

new time, 6:00 PM. London sits in the kitchen and drinks tea while

he does laundry. This time he includes Beatrice’s.

London likes Beatrice’s kitchen; it is a carnival of plants. There is

virtually no open counter space. Beside the toaster oven there is

room for a salad plate, and beside the electric kettle, there is only

space enough for a saucer and cup. The aluminum tea pot, stained

from years of use, rests in the drying rack.

The living room cascades back in time. There are antiques

everywhere. On the walls, various prints. The maps intrigue London,

particularly one of the British Isles. Even though it is old, likely 18th

century, it seems more accurate than precision satellite images. On

Ireland, the cartographer has added a shield with a harp, honoring

Irish bards, musicians, and poets; on Scotland, a lion rampart,

imperially crowned; at the edge, off the whiteness of the northwest, a

monster, with the face of a deranged rat, spouting water from its

mouth.

18

On either side of the fireplace, there are built in oak shelves.

London pulls Abish’s How German is It from the collection. The

inscription: With love, London. After shelving the book, London selects

a few others to find he has added to her library. One, Frame’s Faces in

the Water, even carries a Westside Books price sticker.

London turns his attention to the photos on the Welsh dresser.

Tucked in the frame behind the beach photo, London finds a photo

strip of Beatrice sitting on his lap. Around his neck, bruises, heaviest

below his left ear. Around Beatrice’s, a gold chain with a delicate

pendant. London senses he gave it to her. The pendant is fashioned

after a shell.

London rubs his neck and tries to recall the pressure. Though he

wonders about the physicality, he is more interested in discerning the

honesty of the attempt. He wants to know whether he intentionally

anchored the hook so it would not hold. He also wants to discern the

moment the attempt became inevitable; the moment the fantasy

became reality.

Later at the café, he asks Beatrice about the black and white

photo of him sitting at the café.

19

“I was taking a photography class,” she explains. “Our

assignment was to shoot people.”

“I must have been a wreck.”

“Not really,” Beatrice says, less to comfort London than to

remain truthful. “You just seemed sad.”

“Sad?”

“And—a little exhausted,” Beatrice says, “like a kid who’s just

been crying about a lost treasure or a missing pet.”

To shift the conversation, London tells Beatrice he also came to

Montreal after he graduated from college.

“I’m glad you’re pulling things together.”

“It’s difficult to settle the past.”

“I suspect there are no shortcuts,” Beatrice says.

“You make it look easy.”

“My life has been less complicated,” Beatrice explains. “After all,

I’ve never debated killing myself.”

“I’m not certain there was much of a debate,” London says.

“But, you’ve come to terms with it.”

“How can you tell?” London asks.

20

“Your heart is no longer in it.”

“I still think about it.”

“You probably always will, but you’re past it now.”

“How can you be so certain?”

“I’m good at reading people, remember.”

21

�

London settles into a routine. When Beatrice goes to work, he walks

up Mount Royal. As he sits on the stone wall overlooking the city, he

eats cheese sandwiches and drinks a half liter bottle of wine. From

Mount Royal, he walks down Saint Catherine often stopping for a

beer. After, London walks the city, ending his trek in Old Town.

As London approaches the café, Beatrice smiles; London seems

changed, he looks Canadian. To London she explains how to

distinguish Americans from Canadians. “Americans have little staying

power. Their conversations are stilted and frenetic, always about what

is next on the agenda. With Canadians, there is no rush.”

“Canada sounds perfect,” London says.

“Not perfect,” Beatrice admits, “but not too bad.”

22

�

Once back at Beatrice’s place, London asks: “Is there usually a

scene?”

“A scene?” Beatrice asks.

“When I leave, do I make a scene?”

Beatrice leans up against London. With Beatrice, contact is

crucial. Glad she has not answered his question, London adds: “You

are comfortable.”

“I’ve been told.”

Even as he asks her who has told her she’s comfortable, London

regrets the question.

“You fool,” answers Beatrice. “You told me.”

“Sorry.”

Beatrice laughs, says: “Twice.”

“At least I’m consistent.”

“Everyone needs a break now and then.”

“Mine, I guess, are in Montreal.”

“They seem to be.”

23

“How about dinner out?”

“Sure,” Beatrice says. Before asking what he’s in the mood for,

she laughs.

“What?”

“Nothing,” Beatrice answers. “Where do you want to go?”

“Peel Pub?”

She tells London she’ll be ready in ten minutes. When she

returns to the living room, London says: “We’ve gone to Peel Pub

before?”

“Every time you’re in town.”

“Sorry.”

“Don’t be. It’s always fun to see you dig into a pile of pasta as if

for the first time.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Really—it’s fine.”

Once settled at the red and white checkered table, London

shuffles through his cards before asking Beatrice whether she knows

his brother, Tim, killed himself.

She nods her head.

24

“Another episode recently found,” London admits. Afraid to

ask, London hopes Beatrice will help unearth memories. As more

gaps are mended, London expects recollections to overtake him like a

flash flood. London feels hopeful he will be able to scamper up the

bank, just ahead of the rising water.

“You told me about your mother, his last call to you, and the

fact you paid for the funeral. But, you remember all of that.”

“Yes.”

“After your own suicide attempt, you gave me an index card, on

it you quoted from a postcard you said was in transit from Tim when

he killed himself: I think I’ll be able to survive.”

“I don’t remember.”

“But, Tim never wrote it,” Beatrice says. “You did. Three or

four days after you arrived, you sent me a postcard during one of

your walks. On it, you wrote: I think, perhaps, I’ll be the last survivor.”

25

�

The next morning, Beatrice finds London in the kitchen. “Couldn’t

sleep?” she asks.

London nods. On the table, London has shuffled out his index

cards. He has been feverously scribbling notes.

“It’s a little overwhelming,” London admits.

Beatrice picks up a stack of cards. She smiles; it’s a stack newly

dedicated to Hadley. “Hadley’s back?”

“I’ve told you about her?”

“And the mannequins, and the barber’s chair.”