The Age Read online

  Above the applause of Clem’s TV, the doorbell rings. Megan dries her hands and leaves the kitchen. Gerry leans to look down the hall. At the front door, Megan speaks in low tones to a man Gerry can’t see.

  “The snowman cometh.” Andri smacks the table, wipes his face with his hands, tugs at his hair. Michelle murmurs beside him, rubs his back.

  The front door closes and Gerry returns to her spot by the dishes, lifts another plate. Megan pauses in the living room, her soft voice soothing Clem, then crosses straight to the sink.

  “How long will you keep doing that?” Andri says. Michelle raises herself out of her seat and shuffles to the bathroom.

  “Is it any of your business?” Megan’s fingers slip a tiny paper envelope into the flat front pocket of her jeans.

  “What if he gets arrested for pushing? You don’t think he’ll talk about us?”

  “No one calls it pushing anymore, Andri, and he doesn’t know anything about us.”

  Andri points to the wall. “Not to mention that phone. Why do you keep using it? Go out and use a pay phone, for God’s sake. You take too many risks.” Gerry watches Andri, the way his gaze drills into Megan, as if she is to blame for everything. “Men are like dogs and you’ve trained Ian to fuck and fry his brains out, congratulations. Is it any wonder he’s not here? Maybe, you have to ask yourself, how serious you are about this. Perhaps it doesn’t come naturally to a wom–”

  “Shut up, Andri!” Megan pulls the plug out of the sink. The dirty water gurgles and slurps.

  Gerry holds the dinner plate against her chest, crosses her arms over it to feel its warmth.

  “Shut up, Andri?” Andri laughs and taps his head. “I am the only one thinking straight.”

  Megan stares into the drain. “I’ll take care of it.” She wrings the dishrag over the sink until it’s a thin, hard rope between her fists. “Why don’t we just use Michelle?”

  Andri glares at Megan, both of them rigid and mute. Andri sits back in his chair. “Okay. Ian,” he says. “We wait for Ian.”

  ——

  Michelle shivers in the passenger seat of Andri’s Chevette, the belt of her thin black trenchcoat tied but the sides gaping short of her belly. Andri swears as he thumps the heater. Gerry lies sprawled across the backseat, plays with a gash in the vinyl upholstery, a smooth slit under her thigh that feels as if it might have been cut with a knife. She slips her fingers under the edge, finds a snarl of threads, the crusty sponge of industrial foam. Unlike Ian’s oversized toy, the Chevette is a streamlined capsule, a tin-can cockpit hurtling through the dark. “I think the last time I was in here was–”

  Andri holds up his hand. “No need to rewind for me, thank you.”

  His defensiveness surprises her. No one held it against him. If anything, it had been the weather. The days too dry, disarming for February, a mouldlike silvery frost over everything, cold that made Gerry’s nose bleed. Rain returned the city to normal. Oil rose up from the streets, tainted the air with the smell of engines, like a mechanic’s rag over her face as she rode her bike to Megan’s.

  The old-timers were looking out for Clem. Megan, in one of her wall-climbing moods, insisted they drive across town, through the park, drink beer by the water, and stare at the bridge lights while waves smashed the rocks below.

  They rode silent, Andri’s car radio broken, Gerry squashed in the backseat between Ian and Megan. Her sneakers slipped from the carpeted hump, one, then the other. The roof’s low dip, her peaked knees and the shoulders of the two bucket seats left only a porthole of windshield for her to gaze through.

  At the park gates, the road rumbled through Gerry’s feet as asphalt gave way to cobblestone. The car’s dappled windows obscured the park lights, turned them into low-hanging stars. Gerry could just make out the lagoon, its centre marked by the fountain’s candlelight flicker.

  Through her porthole, the causeway curved a wide, sloped arc the Chevette rattled to follow. As the road turned, the Chevette kept straight on.

  “Shit,” Andri said.

  Gerry could feel it beneath her, the squishy compression of air and springs as he tried to pump the brakes. From her perch, they were gliding perfectly forward, an illusion of holding steady as road and traffic spun in slow motion to the right.

  They crossed into the oncoming lane, and Andri’s hands lifted from the steering wheel. High beams flashed signals through the car. They stopped with a jolt. Gerry’s chin hit her knees and her teeth knocked together.

  She remembers trying to breathe, a gurgle in her throat as she looked past Ian’s dazed face to the oncoming headlights. She wanted to close her eyes. The only sound was rain drumming the roof. One by one, cars angled and skid, halted in a squeal of brakes, formed a crooked parking lot beside them.

  The passenger door of a sedan swung open, and a boy, no older than her, held on to it like a barricade, screamed obscenities at them, his words washed out by the rain.

  The windows of the Chevette began to fog. Andri fiddled with the gearshift, turned the key. The engine spluttered, then caught. Hot air blasted from the vents, burned through the haze. He nosed the car in a creeping route through gaps in the stopped traffic as drivers stared bewildered or waved their arms. He drove up onto the sidewalk, then back onto the road, edged his way to the far right lane that led them to the park drive.

  Megan was the first to laugh, a low chuckle Gerry felt through her arm. But soon they were all laughing. Ian said, “Jesus” again and again as he shook his head. Face split in a grin, he wrestled Gerry into his lap and kissed her hair.

  On the seawall, they drank bottles of beer, threw the empties onto the rocks, and watched them explode with the waves. They howled and screamed, and Gerry went around to each of them, announcing, “I need to hug you now,” savouring the folds of their bodies over hers, the clutch of their hands at her back.

  THEY CROSS THE BRIDGE BY EVENING, share a bag of cookies from an abandoned corner store before lying down to sleep on a grassy patch beside the highway, the girl shivering, tucked in front of him.

  A dry trail of crumbs sticks in the boy’s throat. He wonders what he is ingesting, breathing, what small poisons are planting themselves in his blood stream.

  The girl curls, pulls him in behind her for warmth. He holds on to her, one arm under her neck, the other against her chest, the tender weight of her breast on his forearm.

  They rise early the next day, in the dark, work the stiffness from their limbs by keeping a fast pace. He cuts through groups of confused wanderers, does not slow to answer pleas or questions. The girl matches him stride for stride.

  At the Quay, local residents stranded on the north side of the inlet gather, move trancelike, perplexed. He guesses it to be afternoon, but the sky remains unlit, a hazy twilight thick with drifting ash. People carry flashlights. Their beams sharpen bodies, objects, buildings in the fog. His eyes struggle to adjust. Across the harbour, the downtown skyline is invisible except for a low amber glow at the horizon.

  What is that? an older woman in a cardigan asks her husband.

  I think it’s on fire.

  The air is cold. The boy’s clothes are damp from the grass, the sweat of walking. The girl shudders beside him. He takes off his thin jacket and wraps it over her shoulders, tries not to shiver in his T-shirt. The crowd stands hundreds deep. Several men climb onto a construction platform and call out plans through cupped hands. One of the men, slim, ponytailed in jeans, suggests heading north, deeper into the mountains.

  That’s crazy, someone shouts. There’s no electricity. It’s already too cold.

  The walk alone would kill us, another shouts.

  Someone suggests heading south, back through the smouldering city, to the border, where another country’s army might be more prepared. This suggestion starts a flurry of arguments about routes and tactics.

  The boy knows there is nothing left to the south.

  What about east, someone shouts.

  The shelter of the forest
, access to the inlet. The idea appeals to some but not many.

  Why can’t we just stay here, go back to our homes? A woman sobs out the words. What’s the point of going anywhere?

  Somewhere in the crowd a child shrieks.

  Two men divvy the group based on the final two options. A burly man in a workman’s plaid shirt will lead a group east, while another man, in glasses and a shirt and tie, will organize those who choose to stay.

  Those who want to head out, go back to your homes and gather whatever supplies you can. Think survival, not comfort. The burly man’s voice is strong, assured. We’ll leave here in two hours.

  What do you think? the boy asks the girl.

  She looks around at the crowd, then stares down at the toes of her running shoes. I don’t want to stay here.

  People with questions surround the burly man. He tells them calmly, I have no answers. Just get supplies.

  The boy leads the girl forward, offers their names. The man shakes their hands, introduces himself as Dan. The boy explains that they’ve come across the bridge, have no homes from which to gather goods.

  Dan points down the road. Check the stores.

  A middle-aged man in a white jacket and golf shirt cuts in. This is irresponsible, he says. There’s an infrastructure here. You can’t just take people out of the city. Food, supplies, medical expertise, it’s already here. You’re putting them at risk.

  Dan nods to the sprawl of houses blanketing the North Shore, an outbreak of rooftops carrying up the mountain. Those people are waiting in their houses. And all of them are going to come down eventually, hungry, angry. And very soon, they’ll be sick. There is no way to control that.

  The man stares up at the mountain, nods his head. I haven’t been able to find my wife. He wipes his eyes.

  Dan pats the man’s shoulder.

  The boy and the girl turn away, gaze at the downtown shore. The effect is of a brilliant sunset glowing behind a thick bank of fog.

  The girl slips her hand inside the boy’s, guides him toward the stores.

  THIS IS HOW IT BEGINS: strategic manoeuvre of firepower, positioning veiled as a training exercise. Uniformed officers gaze at computerized maps, rub itchy chins as radars bleep a rash of targets. A routine Soviet dispatch balloons into a full-blown naval occupation of the north Atlantic, one hundred and forty warships and submarines hulking in the waters between Greenland, Norway, and Scotland’s Shetland Islands. Gerry scratches at her hands as she watches the news. The itching spreads up her arms, down her back, across the tops of her thighs. Missiles awake in their underwater chambers. On sea-soaked decks of aircraft carriers, jet engines whine, bellies full of nuclear payload. Wars are two-sided, she tells herself, nothing definitive has happened yet.

  A gopher pushes a miniature lawnmower across the screen. Gerry flicks off the TV, leaves a plate of soggy toast on the coffee table, thinks only of coasting her bike, the wind scraping her skin. She opens the front door while pushing her feet into her sneakers.

  A dark figure hunches on the step. Gerry trips back, clings to the door to hold herself steady.

  Ian glances over his shoulder, face ruddy and unshaven, eyes pouchy and red.

  “Jesus, you scared the shit out of me.”

  He bows his head, drags fists through his greasy hair.

  “Where were you last night?”

  “Megan’s.” His voice is clogged and wet, as if he has a cold.

  “Were not. And she’s pissed about it too.”

  “Later.” He sniffles, wipes his nose with his hand. “I was there later.”

  Hand on the doorframe, she swings forward to get a better look at him, his jeans and jacket splotched with dark patches. Across the road, two different neighbours stand at their living-room windows, watching. The pewter sky spits rain. “Are you sick or something?”

  He sniffs again, then stretches his face as if struggling to breathe. She wonders if he’s too high to go home. “You want to come inside?”

  “Your mom at work?”

  “Yeah. But sometimes she comes home early.”

  “Lark and I broke up.”

  “Oh.” Gerry suckles her bottom lip. “Well, what about Megan?”

  “Fuck Megan.” His head shakes. “She gets me wasted, then she totally rags on me about her precious project, starts calling me names and shit. She’s fucking my head. All night I couldn’t close my eyes. I mean, even now, I can’t close my eyes.” He squeezes his eyes shut over and over.

  The twitching makes her nervous. “Maybe you should have stayed at her place.”

  “Just shut up about Megan.” He rests his forehead on his knees.

  Gerry picks at the crumbled weather stripping, flicks pieces of it onto the ground.

  “I loved her, do you get that?”

  She knows he means Lark and fights not to roll her eyes. “I guess that happens.”

  “Do you? Do you guess it happens?” His head lifts. He pushes himself up. His legs wobble enough that Gerry offers a steadying hand. He squints, his eyes bloodshot and weepy.

  It hurts to look at him. “Maybe you just need some sleep.”

  “You aren’t going to tell me, are you?”

  She nudges her sneaker into a nest of spiderwebs and old leaves under the door.

  “What’s the matter? You can’t say it to my face?” He bends to look at her.

  The sour heat of his breath makes her flinch. She turns away.

  “You made this happen. So now what? Huh? What’s the big plan? You and me? Is that the plan?” His hand pins her shoulder to the doorframe. He leans his body, presses his hips against hers.

  She knows he doesn’t mean it, still she retreats as far as she can.

  “ ’Cos that I could understand. That would make sense.”

  Her shoulder aches as if her arm’s about to wrench from its socket.

  “You couldn’t leave it alone.” He slams his free hand into the door and she jolts. “You couldn’t let me be happy.” His voice sinks into a rasp of breath. “Say something.”

  The lockplate bruises against her back. She tries to speak but nothing comes out, just the metallic grind of a faraway saw, the neat thud of a car door on the street.

  She reaches to touch his hand, not to pry away his grip but to feel the realness of him.

  “Hey!” He makes the sound without opening his mouth, his voice catching in the distance. He rears back suddenly. Gerry slumps, touches her shoulder, catches the flash of a red shirt. Randy holds his forearm across Ian’s throat, the sleeve and collar of Ian’s jacket in his fists as he hoists him against the wall. “You gonna cool it?”

  “Let him go!” She beats at Randy’s arm. “He wasn’t doing anything.” She needs to see Ian’s eyes, but he keeps his face turned away.

  Randy releases him with a shove. “Take a hike.”

  Ian trips on the step, stumbles forward down the walk.

  “Keep moving.”

  “Wait.” When she calls his name, Ian doesn’t look back. She pushes past Randy to get into the house. “You’re a fucking Neanderthal.” She pivots in the foyer when she senses him following her. “Get out.”

  He leans toward her. “You’re welcome.”

  “I didn’t need your help.” She tries to lose him by heading for the kitchen.

  “Could’ve fooled me.”

  “A beernut could fool you.”

  In the kitchen, she waits, then picks up the phone, dials Ian’s number, lets it ring.

  Randy hovers.

  She slams the receiver into its cradle. “You know, it’s totally creepy and possibly illegal that you’re here when I’m home alone. Maybe I should call the cops.”

  He looks at his watch. “Go ahead. Your mom’ll be home in half an hour. I got some buddies coming over to work on the pool.”

  “Oh, now she’s paying the freeloader. Nice.”

  “No one’s getting paid.”

  “It’s not going to win her back.”

  “Well, it�
�s a good thing we never broke up.”

  “You won’t even see it coming.” She grabs an apple from the fruit bowl, bites into it, glares at him to make her point.

  “Your mom’s pretty worried about you.”

  “I don’t want you in here when I’m here.”

  He shrugs. “It’s a big house. Go to your room.”

  “Go to your truck.”

  He doesn’t move. She opens her mouth wide and grips the apple in her teeth, lowers her hands to the top of her T-shirt and begins to pull it off.

  Randy’s work boots clomp in the foyer. She throws the apple after him. It hits the front door with a hard, wet smack.

  That evening the quiet of Megan’s kitchen makes Gerry antsy. Andri studies a stack of papers, spiral-bound manuals arranged around him in a semicircle. Beside him, Michelle reads a tattered paperback, a bridge and fiery sun on the cover. Gerry opens the fridge but finds no beer, only bowls and plates covered in wrinkly cling wrap. She crosses to the sink, fills a glass with water, drinks it in hard gulps, waits for one of them to acknowledge her presence. “What are you working on?” she says, finally.

  “Cameras.”

  “Where’s Megan?”

  Michelle looks up from her book, nose crinkled in a grimace. “Clem had an accident. She’s cleaning him up.” Gerry notices it then, above the gurgling fridge motor, a hiss of running water, the shower’s patter. She wonders how Megan manages, whether she gets into the shower with Clem. Gerry stares at the stove, the swirl of the burners, crusts of spilled food, to keep an image from rooting in her head.

  Andri exhales, a coarse half-growl. She takes a seat across from him, turns one of the manuals to get a closer look at an intricate diagram.

  “Please.” Andri stretches out his hand. “I’m trying to concentrate.”

  Michelle smiles an apology.

  The shower stops. Pipes judder in the wall. Gerry wonders when they will ask about Ian. The bathroom door clicks open. “Can someone give me a hand?” Megan calls out.

  Andri raises his chin. “She’s calling you.”

  Gerry takes her time getting up from the table, afraid of what she might have to witness, Clem’s sagging skin, knobby bone protrusions, thatches of white hair, whether she’ll have to touch his washed body, hot and clammy.