In Denley novel, a couple copes after the 2008 crisis
A couple copes with financial and other crises
The Situation is the story of an Ottawa couple devastated by the 2008 financial crisis. Tom Atwater and his wife Sarah are so desperate they have to move in with Tom’s 88-year-old father. Despite all that has gone wrong, they fight to keep their self-respect and their marriage intact. It is available at randalldenley.com.
Tom Atwater awoke at first light and felt for a pulse, as was his custom. He was mildly disappointed to detect one. It meant he would almost certainly have to experience another day of what now passed for life.
His wife, Sarah, was still asleep beside him. Perhaps he could allow himself another five minutes of peace before his humiliating daily drudgery began again. Unfortunately, it was too late to return to the world of his dreams, where he was still competent, financially solvent and at least somewhat sexually attractive. In the last while, he had come to realize that consciousness had little to recommend it.
Then he heard a wrenching, tearing noise, impossibly loud, as if something large was being ripped apart with enormous force. It made Tom sit up in bed, striking his head against the reading lamp. The wrenching sound was followed only seconds later by a reverberating thump that made the old house shake on its foundation and the windows rattle in their frames.
Sarah quickly rolled out of bed and grabbed her white terry cloth robe. “My God, Tom! It’s an explosion. It’s gas,” she said, her voice rising in pitch with every word.
Tom shook his head, still sleepy and somewhat dazed from hitting his head. Although Sarah was given to taking the most dramatic interpretation of events, clearly something big was going on. She was grabbing at him now, pulling him from bed. “Come on Tom. We’ve got to get the kids out.”
There was an even louder thump and the guttural, grinding sound of heavy equipment.
“Calm down, Sarah,” Tom said, feeling the top of his head for blood. Since he had taken to shaving off what was left of his hair, he seemed to cut his head every time he blundered into something. It was one of the hazards of being a freakishly tall bald man.
He crossed the creaking hardwood floor to the window and pulled the ugly blue curtains open a crack. What he saw across the street shocked him more than the gas explosion Sarah feared.
Rosewood Park Public, the threestorey red brick school that dominated and defined his little Ottawa neighborhood, was being smashed to the ground by three huge yellow excavators that looked like the Tonka toys their son Ethan used to play with years ago. Two peeled the walls off with big metal grapplers that replaced the usual buckets. They were almost like hands, gripping sections of wall and tearing them free. The other excavator sorted the debris on the ground, using the same kind of metal claw to lift the remains of the school into waiting dump trucks. A haze of ancient dust, pulverized brick and God knew what sort of asbestos and other contaminants hung over the school property, turning the quiet July morning into a scene from a disaster movie.
“It’s not gas, Sarah. It’s the school. They’re taking it down.” The heavy equipment hadn’t been there when he had gone to bed. They must have brought it in during the night, to make sure the destruction was well advanced before anyone could react.
Sarah rushed to the window beside him, her short red hair still tousled from sleep. “I don’t believe it. Those bastards. That’s a heritage building.”
Technically, it didn’t have that status and protection, Tom knew, even though it had been built by his grandfather in 1928 and served generations of Rosewood Park families as a school, community centre and the closest thing they had to a park. He decided not to contradict Sarah. It didn’t seem like the time for splitting hairs.
“Tom, you’ve got to call Barry,” Sarah said.
Barry, Tom thought. That’s all we need. City Coun. Barry Noyes was his cousin, his boss and his nemesis, all rolled into one unattractive package. Crying to Barry at the crack of dawn would just emphasize what an impotent fool he himself was. Anyway, Barry would probably still be too hungover to take the call.
“There’s nothing Barry can do about this,” Tom said. “Besides, I thought you were against asking Barry for anything.”
It was early for a fight, but Sarah had hit a sore point. When he’d finally been desperate enough to ask Barry Noyes for a job, Sarah had berated him. “Grovelling loser” was the phrase that still stuck in his mind. It was true that being a gofer for Barry Noyes was a daily humiliation, but his alternative had been stocking shelves at the Independent over on Bank. Jumping into the Rideau Canal would have been preferable. At least with the city hall job, not everyone had to witness his embarrassment. Hard to believe that less than a year ago, he’d been managing partner at Atwater Wealth Management with a home on Clemow, one of the best streets in Ottawa. That was before the market fell into the abyss, of course, and before Tom had lost all of his own money and a good portion of that of his family, friends, former colleagues and just about every lawyer in town.
“You would only be asking him to do his job,” Sarah said. “Why didn’t the community know about this? Those bastards must have been on the site before dawn.”
“I think so,” Tom said. “Stealth attack.”
Rosewood Park Public had been closed the month before, after a long, bitter struggle with the school board. Sarah had led the effort to keep it open. Barry had assured them that there would be no development without the community’s involvement, but Tom knew the councillor made a habit of telling people what they wanted to hear without bothering to check the facts.
In the end, Tom knew he would take the blame for the demolition of the school. Sarah just hadn’t worked out how yet.
Across the street, the excavator’s big claw took out the third-floor classroom where he had attended Grade 6 under the tutelage of Mrs. McMaster, a three-time divorcee with a penchant for black leather outfits. He had always given her a certain amount of credit for the early onset of puberty.
The side of the school was partly peeled off now, making it look like a dollhouse, the empty classrooms exposed. A small crowd of neighbours had begun to gather in the street, pointing at the action behind the temporary steel fence that kept the public from entering the school grounds. They shielded their eyes from the strong morning sun that was already slanting through the maples that lined their street.
The men looked like they did on the early Thursday morning garbage run, unshaven, wearing T-shirts they had probably slept in. Tom eyed the group to see if there were any unfamiliar women, maybe girlfriends sleeping over. All he saw were some single women in jogging clothes and a cluster of middle-aged wives, clutching robes around them.
Tom heard feet pound down the stairs from the attic bedroom and turned to see his father, Judge Harry Atwater, rush into their bedroom wearing a take-charge look and white boxer shorts. The judge was nearly as tall as Tom, with spindly, crane-like legs and a collapsed chest covered with white hair. He seemed unaware of his relative lack of clothing.
Yet another act in the circus his life had become, Tom thought.
As the house rumbled again, the judge said, “Jap attack! Everyone to the basement.”
At 88, Harry Atwater’s mind flickered in and out of focus like a television with bad reception. He’d spent the Second World War as a prisoner of the Japanese after the fall of Hong Kong and his mind increasingly retreated to that time.
“No, Dad. They’re tearing down the school,” Tom said.
“Damn Japs. What are they tearing it down for?”
“It’s not the Japanese, Dad. The war’s over. We won. The school property must have been sold. They’ll put something new there.”
Harry Atwater cautiously approached the window and peeked out. Not wanting to make himself an easy target for the Japs, Tom thought.
“My father built that,” the judge said. “It’s perfectly good. What the hell are they tearing it down for?”
“Good question,” Sarah said. “Tom doesn’t want to find out.”
Harry snorted and waved his hand dismissively in Tom’s direction. “The boy’s damn useless. Call Stephen. He’ll get an injunction.”
It was his father’s solution to every problem. Call Stephen. His brother, three years younger, was a senior partner in the old family firm, Bowman, Atwater, Richards and Fields. BARF, they had called it when they were kids.
“It’s too late for that, Dad. The school will be nothing but rubble by the end of the day.”
“You knew, didn’t you?” Sarah said, pointing her finger at Tom. “You and Barry have known this was coming all along.”
Tom raised his hands in protest. “Not me. I don’t handle planning files. All Barry tells me is what he wants in his coffee. I had no idea this was going to happen.”
“Well, you should have,” she said, changing tack. “For God’s sake, Tom, Rosewood Park is only eight streets. Can’t you even keep track of the few things that matter to us?”
The side of the school was partly peeled off now, making it look like a dollhouse, the empty classrooms exposed. A small crowd of neighbours had begun to gather in the street …