Free Julian by William Bell Page A

Julian.”
    “No, really. I like it.”
    “Little Roger’s bawling doesn’t get on your nerves and keep you awake?”
    “I can hardly hear him. It’s not a problem.”
    I didn’t add that I liked the muted sounds that came from upstairs: the baby fussing at night, Fiona’s footsteps overhead, her voice as she soothed her baby.
    “Nice girl, Fiona.”
    “Yeah, I think so too.”
    “Ever hear people out there in the downstairs hall? Or the spare rooms?”
    “Not so far, and if I do I’m not supposed to talk about it.”
    “Falls into the Mind Your Own Business category, right?”
    I nodded.
    “What about my music students murdering Appalachian ballads on the mandolin or guitar?” he continued. “The only thing worse than a baby screaming is someone missing the frets.”
    “Doesn’t bother me,” I replied truthfully.
    “You like the mandolin?”
    “I guess so. Well, not really, if I’m honest. It’s a bit plinky-plunky for me.”
    This time Rawlins laughed outright. “ ‘Plinky-plunky!’ I’ll have to remember that. Sure you don’t mean the ukulele?”
    “I don’t think I’ve ever heard one.”
    Rawlins leapt to his feet, fetched the mandolin from its stand, rummaged around in a vest pocket and came up with a pick, and took his seat. He whipped the instrument’s strap over his head.
    “This is sort of like a uke,” he explained, playing a snatch of a tune I didn’t recognize, making the mandolin sound, well, plinky-plunky. “Sound familiar?” he asked.
    “Sort of.”
    “That’s a badly played mandolin. I shouldn’t say ‘badly.’ My students are learning the fundamentals. Here’s what it should sound like.”
    This time the sound was full and rich on the deep notes, clear and ringing on higher notes.
    “Okay,” I said. “Definitely not plinky-plunky.”
    Rawlins chuckled again, returning the instrument to its stand. “Kinda music do you like?” he asked. “Rock? Alternative? Folk?”
    “I don’t know anything about music. I hardly ever listen to it.”
    “I think you may be the first person your age I’ve ever met who didn’t listen to music. You don’t even have a favourite band?”
    I shook my head.
    “Well, you and me are going to have a lot to talk about next time you visit. And if you ever want a lesson …” He let the thought hang.
    “Yeah, er, maybe. I’ll think about it.”
    Smiling, he replied, “Try to harness your enthusiasm.”
    “Okay,” I said, getting up and moving toward the door.
    “See you, Julian,” he said.

TEN
    T HE NEXT DAY I planned to deliver the rent money to the address Chang had given me, thinking I might as well drop it off during my daily run; it would give me a destination to head for. At home in my kitchen after work I spread a city map across the table and used the index to find the street I wanted. It connected to Spadina, near Mr. Bai’s office above the restaurant with the dragons.
    I had learned nothing new about the old man, but Chang had told me he was a property owner. I assumed Mr. Bai owned the restaurant and the house where I lived and the store where Mr. and Mrs. Altan presided over the potato chips and pirated DVDs.
    I gave my attention to the approximate route I would take across the city, making sure to include the park behind the art gallery, which the map told me was called Grange Park. I pored over the grid of streets as if reading a book. Ipreferred paper maps to online versions. My fascination with rivers, and all the projects I had researched, had led me to a love of maps too. I liked the idea that I was looking at a piece of the world in two dimensions. I’d study a map, with its mountain ranges, cities, coastlines, and I’d imagine what it was like to live there.
    The city I was looking at now had a few sizeable streams—the Humber, Don, Rouge and, farther out, the Etobicoke and Credit. What was it like back in time, I wondered, before there was a city here? One thing was for sure—those rivers were