No one applauds at first, then an amazing thing happens: each member of Guitar Choir rises and claps.
Toby feels his whole body vibrate, the residue of performance clinging to his skin.
Jasper and Toby live at the end of a lane downtown in the lee of a factory that once produced soap and is now waiting for a loft conversion. Half a dozen Victorian-era houses press cheek to jowl opposite a squat cinder-block building that contains a walk-in clinic. This clinic is an eyesore but buffers traffic noise and makes the lane invisible to passersby on King Street West.
Toby digs out his key, but it isn’t necessary; Jasper has left the door open. A thoughtful touch, but faintly irksome: are Toby’s habits so predictable? It didn’t used to be like this. Once upon a time he was about as dependable as a puppy. He kicks off his sneakers and moves through the front room of the flat with its off-white walls and Ikea furniture, past the jumbo-sized chair that until recently belonged to Klaus. Klaus is Toby’s father, now a resident for unknown reasons at Lakeview Terrace. It’s not as if he wasn’t fending well at home. Toby sniffs the air: leek and potato soup, one of Jasper’s specialties.
“You look different,” Jasper says, glancing up as Toby enters the kitchen area. He carefully places the spoon across the rim of the pot.
Toby slides his guitar case into the corner and drops his jacket on a chair. “I feel different.”
The two men approach each other, for this is their ritual, to pause before the welcoming kiss, no silly bear hug, just lips and tongue, bodies held a whisper apart. Jasper, being shorter, has to tilt his head.
When they pull back, Jasper says, “Cough up. Tell Jazz what’s new.”
Toby peels off his shirt, which doesn’t smell exactly floral, and shoots it in the general direction of the laundry hamper. Jasper frowns as he watches the garment flop to the floor.
“I had a sort of attack at Guitar Choir,” Toby says.
“Attack?” Jasper jumps on the word. “How so?”
“Like what used to happen. Only less severe.”
“Did you pass out?”
“No, nothing like that.”
Jasper visibly relaxes, pressing his lower back into the counter, then reaches to turn down the burner under the soup. A fresh baguette sits on a cutting board, the heel torn off and demolished.
Toby goes over to the sink and pours a glass of water, aware, as always, of Jasper’s gaze. He moves his hips a bit more than needed and peers out the window onto the concrete patch where buses idle before heading north toward the subway station. Since they live on the ground floor of the townhouse, views aren’t exactly optimal.
“I don’t like the sound of it,” Jasper says. Neatly dressed in chinos and trim cotton shirt, he has a small head, his features tidy and undramatic. He hates the swell of his stomach, a recent development.
“I ate a crap lunch,” Toby says. “It was probably a blood-sugar dive.”
“Maybe.”
“I recovered quickly.” Toby rinses out his glass and dumps it in the sink. He’s bored with the topic, even though he brought it up. He knows it’s mean to seek concern, then slough it off. Leaking a cautious smile, he says, “Big competition coming up in Montreal.”
“What kind of competition?”
“One of those guitar things.”
Jasper isn’t fooled by his breezy tone. “And?”
“I may toss my hat in the ring.”
“Really?” Jasper knows better than to make a fuss.
Toby prowls the flat, past Klaus’s hulking chair, past the Matisse numbered print — Jasper’s pride and joy — and the shelf of Toby’s house league hockey trophies. He’s never been the sort of musician to baby his hands.
“Chances are I wouldn’t make it to the semifinal,” Toby says, returning to the kitchen. “Hell, I may not make it past the first cull.”
“When did this idea occur to you?” Jasper asks, his voice a little sharp.
“Not long ago. I forget.”
Jasper nods, pretending to believe this. “I would never hold you back from attempting —”
“You can’t,” Toby points out.
“Quite so. But let me remind you that all did not turn out well last time.”
“Eleven years ago.”
“The consequences were fairly dire.”
“Eleven years ago.”
Jasper clears his throat, a picture of calm, as if dealing with one of his clients at work. “Do you really want to subject yourself to that kind of pressure?”
A reasonable question. Toby looks at his partner, feeling his cockiness bleed away.
Two
The last client of the day has left, and Jasper is busy tidying his desk at the institute, hiding files from his nosy colleagues and renaming computer documents in the event a certain party decides to sneak in after hours and meddle. In other words — Luke, chairman of the board of the institute and currently at war with Jasper. For this reason Jasper likes to be the last one in the office, the person who turns off lights and printers and copy machines, then lowers the blinds in anticipation of morning sun. It’s the most peaceful time of day, agenda swept clear and the smell of burned coffee hanging heavy in the air. There was a time when he loved his job, and that time was not so long ago. Luke was elected chair at the last AGM, and it seemed like a grand thing. Jasper dared to believe the two men shared a vision.
Toby will be getting peckish back home, he decides. Sometimes he feels Toby’s hunger before the boy feels it himself; they’ve been together that long. His lover — a term Jasper favours over the sexually neutral “partner” — makes forays to the fridge, tears off lettuce leaves for a salad, and stirs a bay leaf into the stew pot.
Or doesn’t.
Since Toby got this daft idea of entering the Montreal International Classical Guitar Competition, he doesn’t always get around to cooking dinner on weekdays. Jasper can’t help feeling peeved by this; after all, he’s the one with a complex full-time job while all Toby needs to do is teach Guitar Choir once a week. Just for a moment he wonders what it would be like if Toby didn’t exist, how much simpler his life would become — and how empty.
There are days when Jasper craves such emptiness.
The screensaver floats into view: beads of dew gleaming off iguana hide, so unlike this dry, frightened city in summer where the virus has chased citizens into their homes. The institute’s walls are painted sea-green, a hue chosen by a former chairman after she read that green invoked tranquility, a mood much prized in these parts. That bare patch next to the window used to contain a Frida Kahlo print, a creepy self-portrait with mini-Diego peering out of her forehead. Jasper tore it down, for his clients crave the ordinary, not an artist’s mad leap of imagination.
The elevator slides down to bustling University Avenue, crisp dusk of early autumn. As always, Jasper pauses before exiting the building to wave to the security guard, nice kid, inching his way through college a credit at a time.
Mail is trapped in the slot, though it must have arrived hours ago. Jasper pushes open the door to the flat and frowns. He can hear the stomping of feet inside. They always remove their shoes before entering — why track city filth inside? Clues rain down. Yet he’s not exactly worried. It is a too-quiet room with no response that he dreads. Feeling the old