Fanny Britt - Hunting houses

Hunting Houses

Fanny Britt

Translated by Susan Ouriou and Christelle Morelli

Copyright 2015 Le Cheval daot

English translation copyright 2017 Christelle Morelli and Susan Ouriou

First published as Les maisons in 2015 by Le Cheval daot

First published in English in 2017 by House of Anansi Press Inc.

www.houseofanansi.com

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Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication

Britt, Fanny, 1977

[Maisons. English]

Hunting houses / Fanny Britt ; Susan Ouriou and Christelle Morelli, translators.

Translation of: Les maisons.

Issued in print and electronic formats.

ISBN 978-1-4870-0238-1 (softcover).--ISBN 978-1-4870-0239-8 (epub).

ISBN 978-1-4870-0240-4 (Kindle)

I. Ouriou, Susan, translator II. Morelli, Christelle, translator

III. Title. IV. Title: Maisons. English.

PS8603.R5877M3513 2017 C843.6 C2016-906687-8

C2016-907021-2

Book design: Alysia Shewchuk

We acknowledge for their financial support of our publishing program

the Canada Council for the Arts, the Ontario Arts Council, and the Government of Canada

through the Canada Book Fund. We acknowledge the financial support of the Government of Canada, through the National Translation Program for Book Publishing, an initiative of the Roadmap for Canadas Official Languages 20132018: Education, Immigration, Communities,
for our translation activities.

For Sam

Houses are cluttered with wishes, the invisible furniture on which we keep bruising our shins.
Rebecca Solnit, The Encyclopedia of Trouble and Spaciousness

His House

I dont yet know that Im at his house. I should probably have guessed. Were they clues, the plate in the sink, the knife on the plate, the butter and jam smeared on the knife? Was it Franciss hair tangled in the comb in the bathroom? Did he still use a straight razor to shave, were his jeans still ripped at the knees?

velyne keeps the sewing kit in the laundry room cupboard. That I do see. I open the doors to the cupboards.

Its just a formality, I hope thats okay, I explain to velyne, who is still nothing more to me than a woman my age, a bit younger or a bit older at some point people become an indistinct mass, we feel the same age as women ten years younger or five years older and say, Who cares anyway , all the while thinking, Now thats a lie if ever there was one.

velyne gives a little laugh, sad and lingering. Go ahead, open up all the cupboards, I have nothing to hide.

Its true. Her laundry room is spotless. Her sewing kit fascinates me, an elephant-grey crushed wool case embroidered in red cross-stitch, a gorgeous little Scandinavian novelty, and I think, velyne is Danish. Shes a head taller than I am and her blond hair, straight and windswept as wheat, cascades down her black sweater.

I ask her.

She takes it as a compliment, of course, and says shes from Shawinigan.

I congratulate her on her house, which theyll have no trouble selling. She covers her eyes with her hand, and I know whats coming I do this week in, week out. Guessing each clients household drama has become second nature to me, and on our most cynical of days, we place bets back at the office.

31 Des Groseilliers is a divorce. He cheated on her. She prefers the suburbs.

7678 Drolet always saw herself spending her golden retirement years in Sutton with the money shed make from the sale, but her son pushed her to remortgage three times. She hadnt taken that eventuality into account.

10821 Turnbull was told that Ahuntsic is nowhere near as hot a market as Saint-Lambert.

velyne, at 794 Gouin East, woke up one morning to the man lying next to her blubbering. He told her he was suffocating, that he had to leave, he didnt know why, it wasnt her, but of course it was her, and anyway the children were older, old enough, eight is old enough, theyll be all right and anyhow there was nothing for it, he was suffocating he was dying he had to leave.

Usually, my colleagues and I laugh. Yet when velynes eyes misted over, I held out a tissue and had no desire to tell the others afterwards.

The place Im moving to is smaller. An apartment. Its nice though. I dont think I could stand too much space.

No, smallers easier. Not as much housework.

Dimwit. Shes not talking about housework and you know it.

Do you think it will sell?

velyne is crying in earnest now. I take her hand. I say yes, her house is fabulous. I myself would buy it if I could. It will make some other family happy, just as it did hers for so many years.

My client nods; I can tell she finds the idea comforting all my clients do. Theres some solace in thinking your house will live on outside you, like an extension of yourself, a promise renewed no matter the trials or failures, bestowing sudden meaning on sorrow. Personally, I have a hard time swallowing the whole idea because I have no desire to see others blossom where I wilted but then Im not that nice a person.

velyne shows me the rest of the house, starting with two childrens bedrooms. In the first, a quilt in a delicate buttercup and peony pattern, cream-coloured, pink, pale green. A number of lively drawings on the walls, all signed SOLNE. In the other bedroom, blue and green stripes, dinosaur figurines, red-painted wood letters on the door: MATTO. velyne was astute enough to keep the walls white. It will be easier for visitors to project their own lives onto them nothing worse than a pink bedroom covered in princess decals for undermining the morale of a mother with two sons who longs for the daughter she never had and hopes her new abode will offer the secret formula that will finally guarantee her the perfect family shes aspired to since childhood. To that client, Ill respond with all the solicitude I can muster, Who knows, this house could be a lucky charm, but when the client, in the throes of guilt at having diminished the worth of the children she does have, grabs hold of my arm, My boys are wonderful, I love them so much, anyhow, what counts is that theyre healthy, no? Do you have children? and I reply, Yes, three boys, for the space of a second, shell be caught between wanting to be me and relief that shes not. Her coral lips stretch into the saddest smile ever smiled and shell murmur: Three boys. Quite something, isnt it.

I point out the lilac bush to velyne, the one we can see from the office window, say again that springs a good time to sell, that Mays colours will be phenomenal here. She laps up my realtor-speak obediently and with a slight lag time, as when youve had a bit too much to drink the night before. Or when youve been on a crying jag. By the window, her skin with its few near-black beauty spots takes on an almost milky tint. I find her painfully beautiful and think, Her husband must have been suffocating something fierce. Who walks out on a woman like her? I refrain from saying as much to velyne I dont want to see her tears flow again. I promised the boys lasagna tonight, and theres no flour left for the bchamel.