The Rest of His Life

The Rest of His Life

A Novel

by MJ Camilleri

____________________

2017

Toni Tanti had a stroke at six o’clock in the morning on the third Sunday in October.

None of the doctors, with their CT scans, MRIs, and blood tests, could pinpoint the exact time, but Toni knew. He knew because of the glowing digital clock on the wooden gun chest in his entrance hall, the call log on his phone, and his morning alarm. He also accepted, in hindsight, that the chain of events leading to his stroke had probably escalated on the previous Friday evening, just before seven, as he was about to close his shop.

It all started with a bell.

It was an old brass bell, no longer shiny, which Toni felt added some charm to the shop, but almost every time it rang, he was already looking up at the door. Over the years, he had grown accustomed to the faint noises that announced a new customer: the slowing of footsteps on the outside pavement, the gathering of one’s things as they freed a hand to reach for the door handle, the gentle grating as the wooden frame released the glass-paned door inwards. Normally, by the time the upper corner hit the dangling disc and rang the bell, Toni’s warm smile was ready to welcome the visitor from behind the long cluttered counter.

But not this evening, not now.

His whole body tightened as he glared at the new arrival.

‘Good evening, Mrs Vella,’ he said, trying to keep his voice flat.

‘Good evening, Toni,’ she replied, fumbling with what seemed like twenty shopping bags.

Toni looked up at the clock as the door closed. He did not need to look at the clock - he knew exactly what time it was. The action was a reflex, but also done in the hope that Mrs Vella would see this brief movement, this darting of the eyes, and have enough awareness to realise that she had entered at the very last minute of a long day and he needed to close.

She did not.

Bello did, however. He was standing in his usual spot at the end of the counter, near the photocopier. Toni’s unofficial assistant spent most of his afternoons there, eager to help, ready to respond to customers if they addressed him, and always willing to chat with Toni. He seemed to love being part of the bustle, but he stayed in his designated spot so as not to get in the way.

Now, sensing the tension in the room, he made his exit.

‘Ciao, Mr Toni. See you tomorrow. Good luck on your date.’

‘Ciao, thanks,’ Toni said, not taking his eyes off Mrs Vella, who had deposited all her bags on the floor and was waddling towards the greeting cards. She had not made eye contact with Toni, and she completely ignored Bello as he slipped past her. Toni thought of asking him to flip the ‘Open’ sign to ‘Closed’ on the way out, but he knew that wouldn’t make any difference as long as the lights were on and his bald head was still visible through the glass shopfront.

The bell sounded again as the door closed behind Bello.

‘Looking for anything in particular?’ Toni asked Mrs Vella, hoping to speed things up.

‘No, no, thanks. I just need a card. Let me see what you’ve got.’

Toni knew better than to try to help her choose. He found her maddening, but he suspected she didn’t do it on purpose. People like her sailed through life at a leisurely pace, oblivious to the rush around them and the irritation they were causing. He envied her, in a way. She would probably live to a ripe old age thanks to the very calm that helped send all those around her to an early grave. She had spent countless hours in his shop, as if a tiny stationer were some supermarket or department store. He usually let her be, but her presence irked him. Especially at 6:59 on a Friday evening.

He stood still, but he was not at rest.

Toni had never felt truly comfortable in this world. Never slack, never fully relaxed. Even in moments that society told him should be moments of perfect relaxation - lying on a beach reading, sitting on a cliff watching sunset with a girlfriend, getting a massage - he was always aware of several parts of his body being taut, tense, alert. He had to make a conscious effort to relax them, which then distracted him from the moment and defeated the purpose. When seated around a campfire on a beach in his teens, with the popular guys in his group kumbayaing on their guitars, he would be the first to get up, needing to stretch his legs, his back killing him.

Before that bell threatened to ruin his evening, he had been mentally going through his wardrobe, trying to decide which shirt to wear tonight. Hopes were high. This was a third date, one per week, with a teacher named Luna. Interesting name aside, she was a bit plain, with a face that Toni had studied during the first two dates yet still struggled to describe afterwards. But she was excellent company, and they had lost track of the time on their second date, which Toni had noted. She seemed to find him hilarious, and every time she laughed, he got an urge to reach out across their small dinner table and kiss her. So there was to be a third date, and based on the comments that she had passed last week - and on the intensity of the goodnight kiss at the end - he strongly suspected that tonight would end with pillow talk.

Statistically, Toni guessed that around seventy-five percent of his dating life led to sex on the third date. He imagined the woman’s checklist: first date - is he a psycho? Does he smell good and have a decent voice? Is he interesting? Second date - is the good first impression confirmed? Do we have good chemistry? Is he a good kisser, but not pushy? Third date - okay, let’s see what he’s like in bed. Or something along those lines. Or maybe they had already decided after the first five minutes, but they risked being labelled as ‘easy’ if they went too fast.

For him, it was pretty much: first date - is she hot? Okay, we’re good to go. But he didn’t want to seem arrogant, and he was fine with letting her set the pace. Sex was fun, yes, but then Toni found chaste dates to be fun, too. So why rush?

‘I can’t seem to find the engagement cards,’ Mrs Vella said, without looking up.

How on earth, Toni raged silently, has she not even found the correct section yet?

With one hand planted firmly on the counter, he vaulted over in one swift motion. He was tall and thin, so it was easy to clear the height, but he knocked over a pen display with his foot on the way over. He landed on the tiles, now littered with blue ballpoints, and barged into the aisle between the two card displays. He grabbed Mrs Vella by the neck, his hands encircling it entirely, both thumbs pressed on her windpipe. Lifting her off the ground, he carried her to the end of the aisle and pinned her head and shoulders against the shelves behind her, toppling board games to the floor. She waved her arms about but was helpless, her reddening face a mask of terror and surprise. She’s probably never used this look before, he thought. Nobody ever stood up to her. ‘It’s past seven,’ he hissed through clenched teeth. ‘You know it’s past seven. You know I’m open all morning and all afternoon. You always do this. Always coming in at the last minute. I’m sure you go early to the bank and post office. They wouldn’t put up with this shit, would they? Well, from now on, neither will I. Get. Out. I’m closing.’

‘Ah, okay, found them!’ she shouted, snapping Toni out of it. ‘They’re here next to the wedding ones.’

Yes, of course they are, Toni thought. Isn’t that the obvious place? A familiar tightness started up behind his right ear, so he organised the battery display behind the counter to try to distract himself. The urge to go over and help her pick a card was tangible, like a cramp that needed stretching. She was standing there, in what looked like her Sunday best, her head only a few centimetres higher than the two large Toblerone-shaped display units she stood between.

Engagements, weddings, anniversaries. Those made up an entire section, and thankfully she had found them. Then, behind her, across the aisle, he kept the ‘It’s a Boy!’ and ‘It’s a Girl!’ cards, plus all the Mother’s Day, Father’s Day and variations thereof. Those were his bestsellers. He assumed they were often given instead of an actual present. Back-to-back with these were all the birthday cards, which were on the decline. Bloody Facebook, as Toni often said. And behind the wedding section, facing the distant corner of the shop where not many people went, he gathered all the miscellaneous cards: condolences, new jobs, new homes, and weirdly specific ones like ‘Happy Easter, Uncle!’ That section didn’t sell well at all, but he felt obliged to stock them.

Although running a busy stationer in a town centre was what made him meet so many people and hear all the village gossip, it was mostly because of the cards that he knew all about the life events of his customers. The cards, plus the printing of funeral mementos, and the taking of passport photos. Few people in this part of Sliema renewed their driver’s licence, travelled, acquired Maltese citizenship, married, or eventually died without them or their relatives passing through Toni’s Stationery.

‘You don’t have many wedding ones, do you?’ she asked, still bent over between the displays.

Disguising impatience was not something that Toni would have listed on his CV as a skill, so he decided to ignore her. Wasn’t it an engagement card she needed? Anyway, he knew the wedding selection was ample enough. He made a mental note to start ordering the Christmas ones soon. The back-to-school rush had just ended, so he was giving himself a break before the next big event. In two weeks, it would be November, which was usually quiet.

He cast his mind back to the options in his big old wardrobe back at the flat, settling on his slightly fitted black shirt as a safe choice for tonight. Did he need a cardigan? Probably not. It was still warm - still swimming weather. Plus, he hoped that most of the evening would be spent indoors at the restaurant and, hopefully, his or her flat.

Finally, at twelve past seven, Mrs Vella approached the counter with two cards in her hand. She placed them in front of Toni with a flourish, making eye contact for the first time with an expectant look, as if seeking his approval. Toni gave her no such satisfaction, scanning the barcodes quickly, eager to usher her out before anyone else came in.

‘I love engagement parties,’ she said, searching in her bag for her purse.

Toni couldn’t resist. ‘I find they’re a slight waste of time, to be honest,’ he said. ‘Engagements and baby showers. Useless foreplay, in my opinion. Just get to the main event.’

Mrs Vella paused, one hand still in her bag. She had a strained expression, as if having her first think of the day. ‘But then you wouldn’t sell as many cards, now, would you?’ she said, with an attempt at a cheeky smile.

Toni didn’t reply. He had interacted enough.

‘You had one, didn’t you?’ she went on. ‘An engagement party, I mean. I wasn’t invited, but I heard that your mum threw quite a feast.’

Toni ignored her question, but she wasn’t finished.

‘Anyway, that’s ancient history now. But I do hope you’ll settle down again - it’s never too late to do that. Who knows? Maybe this girl you’re meeting this evening will get you back on the right track. If you let her.’

Toni tried to keep his face neutral. ‘She’s not a girl; she’s a woman,’ he said, avoiding all the other points. He was amazed that she had even noticed Bello’s quick date comment. Body of a sloth, senses of a bat.

‘So, who are these cards for?’ he asked as he slid them into a paper bag.

‘Oh, for my son,’ she said. ‘You know him, don’t you?’

‘Yes, of course I know him,’ said Toni. ‘But which card’s for him? Is he getting engaged… or married?’

Mrs Vella had dropped the cards into one of her many carrier bags and was picking everything up. Eventually, she looked up at Toni, partly because she needed him to come pull the door open.

‘Oh, he’s not getting engaged just yet,’ she said. ‘But he met a lovely girl a few weeks ago, and I have a good feeling about her.’

__________

Date

The booking was for eight o’clock, and Toni hated being late, but he needed to go home first. He thought of messaging Luna, but then decided to just hurry. Most of the closing time tasks had been done before Mrs Vella arrived, so within three minutes of getting rid of her, he was locking up.

The fish shop next door was already closed. Of course they are. Fish shops don’t have to deal with evening browsers.

He crossed High Street without looking, his feet so used to the walk home, mostly through quiet streets, that he could do it blindfolded. The sun had set about an hour earlier and the street lights were now on, casting the old facades in an orange glow. Over the past two decades, Sliema had transformed from a quiet residential area into a densely populated town and tourist mecca, so the homes were interspersed with shops, just like his. Up the road to his left, a few people stood chatting outside the church, where mass usually ended just as Toni was closing up. He marched down Amery Street, heading towards the sea, a wedge of which was visible up ahead. It was twenty past seven.

Behind him, Hole in the Wall bar was less than fifty metres from his shop, and for a brief moment he wished he had agreed to meet there, avoiding all this rush. But he had learnt to avoid Sliema for his dates. Less chance of being seen, less chance of gossip. Once, after drinks with a lovely Italian woman whom he had met online, he had received - just as he was about to turn off his reading light and sleep - a photo on WhatsApp. It was him and her, seated in a corner at Hole in the Wall, laughing over their drinks.

‘Is this you?’ the message read. It was from a friend of his.

‘Erm, yes. Who took that?’

‘A colleague of mine. Haha, you can’t go anywhere in Malta!’

Toni didn’t think it was haha, he thought it was creepy. He felt violated. He had glanced around the bar when they sat down, as he always did, and hadn’t seen any familiar faces. Not that he was doing anything wrong. He was a single man, out on a date. He just liked some privacy.

That was his last ever date in the Sliema area.

He walked past the local pharmacy building, which also housed a GP clinic. It was still open. They often dragged on until past eight - Dr Debbie was always busy. At least that’s one life decision that went well, he thought. As he passed by, two regular customers of his emerged. He gave them a brief nod but didn’t stop. Walking away, he could feel them pointing at his back with their eyes. Even though it was mid-October, he was sweaty. Parts of his t-shirt stuck to him, like cling film touching the food it is covering.

He crossed the road, passing the small art gallery. Large grey recycling bags lined the pavement, reminding Toni that he still had to take his out. The garbage truck was late this evening. Thanks to Mrs Vella, so was he.

His strides were long and fast, taking a left and then a third right, towards his flat. Toni lived at the bottom of a narrow, straight street leading to the sea, a street cast into shadow for most of the day because bland towering flats had replaced old townhouses. But at least his tiny slice of the area preserved some of Sliema’s past grandeur. No matter how many times he crossed Windsor Street to reach his corner block, he always looked up. Newer, uglier storeys had been added in recent decades, but the first three floors - the original floors - were ornate and spectacular, with their older limestone turned a rich peach colour by decades of sun. Toni lived on the second floor.

The main door of the block was always open. He let himself in through the glass antiporta, beneath the unsmiling face carved into the keystone, watching over the vestibule. The lift rarely worked, and was rickety and oppressive when it did, so Toni took the stairs. When he reached the second floor landing, he caught a whiff of fennel. Speranza, his dangly-earringed neighbour, was making her usual majjal il-forn. Toni wasn’t a fan of pork chops, but he liked how the block smelt when Speranza had hers in the oven.

Once through his turquoise wooden door, he paused with his back against it, catching his breath in the entrance hall. Why am I out of breath? Is it the humidity?

(Chapter continues…)