The Age Page 8

  A lit shaft of steam cuts into the hallway. She reaches the door and peeks inside. Clem stands bundled in a navy bathrobe, the plush terry towel foaming up around his small face. The robe pads him, triples his size, his legs like pink twigs poked into the center of plaid slippers. Megan stands up behind him. “Just take him to the bedroom, sit him down. I’ll be in to finish him after I get rid of this.”

  Behind Clem’s legs, a mound of clothes. A thin, rank whiff of shit taints the perfumed cloud of soap and talcum powder. Gerry reaches for Clem’s arm, turns her body to avoid looking at the clothes, leads him to the bedroom.

  Perched on the bed, Clem stares at the curtained window. Gerry chooses a framed black-and-white photograph from his bedside, places it in his hands as she sits down beside him. He gazes at it obediently. A woman, probably Megan’s mother, dressed in a heavy black coat and hat, her flinty, angular features set in judgment. Gerry scans the other photos. A group of young men she recognizes as the old-timers, their cheeks and foreheads stretched smooth. In the last, a boyish Clem in a narrow suit and horn-rimmed glasses holds a little girl with a jewelled crown atop her ringlets, her tiered party dress drapes over his arm.

  Megan shuffles back and forth down the hallway with rubber gloves, a black garbage bag. Beside Gerry, Clem fusses. The photo frame abandoned in his lap, he picks at the tie of his bathrobe.

  “No, no,” Gerry brushes his hands away. “Not yet.” She offers him the photograph again and he takes it up, studies it.

  When Megan asks her to help with getting Clem into bed, Gerry can’t think of a way to say no. She holds his bare arm to keep him steady as Megan eases off the bathrobe. His skin is warm and silky with talc. Gerry keeps her eyes on his face and reminds herself to not look down.

  Megan chats to Clem as she dresses him, hands patting and comforting. She speaks to him like a child. In response, Clem’s eyes blink, his head nods as if he’s listening to an important message.

  “You can tell he loves you.”

  “Can you?” Megan gazes at his face, shakes her head slowly. “I’ve never been sure.” She strokes his hand. “When I was a little girl, I used to daydream about him coming home. I didn’t understand what he did or where he was, but I knew he was some kind of hero.”

  Gerry smiles at Clem, hoping to see him smile back. “I wish he knew about the march.”

  Megan buttons his pyjama top. “He knows.” She combs his damp hair with her fingers, sweeps it to the side. “Don’t you, handsome?” She lifts the framed photograph from the bed, returns it to the dresser.

  Gerry helps Clem stand, while Megan turns down the blankets. “Was he sad when your mom died?”

  “She’s not dead. She lives in Toronto.”

  Her matter-of-fact tone leaves Gerry unsteady, confused by how little she understands. The sharpness of the present blurs quickly toward the past and future. Megan turns off the bedside lamp. They stand in the dark, watch Clem’s eyelids sink shut. His hands clutch at the top edge of the blankets. “He went to prison for something they both believed in, then she abandoned him. How’s that for loyalty?”

  “Maybe she just wanted you to be safe.”

  Megan snorts, a terse, awkward laugh that startles Clem’s eyes open. “She was mad, all the time. She used to fly into these rages, packing things, tearing things up. One time, she put everything that was mine, my clothes, my toys, my colouring books, out on the lawn, like I was supposed to just take it and leave. She said the same thing every time: you’re just like your father.”

  When Megan realizes Ian isn’t going to show, she smashes a mug in the sink. Gerry ducks into Andri’s shoulder as pieces spray up over the counter, scatter across the linoleum.

  “Megan.” Michelle’s voice is quiet.

  “You talk to him.” Megan points at Gerry, the sides of her mouth cut with tense lines.

  “Me?” Gerry looks to Andri, who shrugs as he marks angles on a sheet of paper with a compass and protractor.

  Clem moans, restless in his sleep, the sound alarmingly close.

  “We’re eight days away.” Megan shakes her head. “We need to know what the fuck is going on. Is he in or out?”

  “How am I supposed to know what’s wrong with him?” Gerry shifts in her chair.

  Andri nods. “And if he’s out?”

  Gerry can sense his gaze, firm and heated, like the sun through her clothes.

  “He’s not out.” Michelle’s insistence makes her sound unsure.

  Megan gathers the shards of ceramic, tries to fit them back together. From the bedroom, sheets rustle and flap, a furious batting that makes Gerry think Clem is fighting someone in his bed.

  Her mom is still up when she gets home. Light from the kitchen casts a glow in the foyer. Gerry slips off her shoes, but the chatter of spokes as her rear wheel catches the threshold telegraphs her entrance.

  “I saved you some dinner.” Her mom’s voice trails up like a question, an invitation to a truce. Newspaper pages crackle, an attempt to appear casual, as if she hasn’t been waiting for hours.

  Gerry hangs up her jacket, skates her socked feet across the floor as she approaches the kitchen. “I already ate.”

  “Your face looks much better.” Her mom’s smile is hesitant, uncertain. Gerry knows not to expect an apology, her mom’s makeup tactic has always been effervescent amnesia. But tonight, her usual post-fight cheerfulness seems wobbly, her face a shaky scaffold.

  “Where’s Randy?”

  Her mom glances to the back door as if he might be in the yard. “He left early. They were working to get the liner fixed. It actually looks like it might be a pool some day.” She pats the seat of the chair beside her.

  Gerry obeys, inches the newspaper toward her, finds an edge and tears it back in strips. Her mom reaches out and touches Gerry’s head, fingers and palm kneading. Gerry wishes she could close her eyes, let her mom hold the weight of her.

  “I guess it’s not so bad. It shows off your eyes.” She strokes at Gerry’s temples, brushes back imaginary hair. “I’m really sorry.” Her hand grazes Gerry’s cheek.

  The words catch Gerry by surprise. She focuses on her paper fringe, careful not to blink or swallow. “It’s fine.” The words seep out on a thin, impatient breath.

  “My mother used to hit me. She slapped me once because I spilt a glass of milk, can you believe that?” Her mom’s chuckle is low and awkward. “I want you to know that I know it’s not okay.”

  “Mm-hmm.” Hearing about her mom’s past makes Gerry uneasy, as if talking about it might bend time, cast her mom back into the small, helpless role of a child.

  “Can I ask you something?”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “Do you not think that Randy’s a good person?”

  Gerry wants to explain that Randy is not a person at all but a giant, irrevocable idea, like communism. Good or bad, she’s unwilling to live under it, have her life defined by it. “I liked Stephen.” She hopes conjuring the skinny lab tech whose crumpled Wallabies reeked of foot odour will derail her mom’s heart to heart.

  “You hated Stephen.”

  “I like him in hindsight.” She plucks a lash of newspaper, rolls it into a ball between her fingers. “But not in hindsmell.”

  “Cheeky.” Her mom reaches out and pinches the side of Gerry’s face.

  “Ow!” She tries to brush her mom’s hand away, rubs at what feel like dents in her skin.

  Her mom’s hand slides over hers, squeezes it. “I just want to know you’re okay.”

  “Why wouldn’t I be okay?” She asks in earnest, daring her mom to label the defects of her only daughter, to declare them out loud.

  Her mom’s response, a doting gaze, milky with sympathy and tortured concern irritates her, hardens her into contempt. She rolls her eyes and raises her arms over her head. Her words stretch out on a yawn. “I’m fine.” She kicks back from the table, chair legs scraping over tile. “Can I go to bed now?”

  Her mom looks wounded, eyelids
flickering with thought. Her hair is different: shorter, choppier layers around her face, new streaks, frosted tips. The lighter colour yellows the lines around her mouth.

  “When did you change your hair?”

  Her mom attempts but fails at another smile. “A couple of weeks ago.”

  Gerry pushes up and out of her chair. “I liked it better the other way.”

  The xylophonic tones and feathery drums of Architecture & Morality seal the edges of her room. Crouched against the far side of the bed, she checks the stash box again, the baggie down to roaches, nothing worth the effort of salvaging. She flicks the lighter on and off. The flame sways, then drops back into its metal hole. She tries not to feel bad for her mom and instead passes the flame under her flattened palm, braves the heat of its tongue. Still, guilt pools like a reflex, magnetic, involuntary.

  The day the moving truck loaded with the last of her father’s work files and clothes pulled out of their driveway, her mom took her to a pet store. In the murky hum of the store’s aquatic section, Gerry stared at the ragged tails of sluggish fish, chilled by their furless, metallic bodies, frustrated at how her mom’s plans paired her with things she didn’t want. The greasy man in the FIFA T-shirt netted two fat goldfish against the side of the tank, and Gerry made an effort to smile, aware that her mom’s happiness was now her responsibility.

  At home, without pebbles or plants to fill the terrarium her mom salvaged from the basement, the fish appeared shocked and embarrassed in their watery prison. Gerry blamed her mom, argued to fitful tears that she should know, since she was the parent, how to take care of things. Her mom promised they’d go back the next day, get everything the fish needed. That night, their constant motion kept Gerry awake. She sensed their fretful bodies darting in the bowl, felt herself drowning in her sheets, the weight of their twin needs like stones on her chest.

  The next morning, gummy-eyed and exhausted, she shuffled downstairs, found her mom at the kitchen table staring at the orange bodies afloat on their sides. Gerry traced the curved glass of the bowl, tried not to look into their open eyes. Her mom searched for matchboxes. They held the burial in the back garden, the two of them silent as her mom stabbed at weeds and clay soil with a hand trowel, pink housecoat dragging in the dirt. When her mom was done, she stood, pulled Gerry close. Gerry could tell from her grip she was going to cry. Disgust coiled in her stomach. She wanted to shout at her mom to cut it out. She stared at the two humps of earth, wondered whether the fish had died of loneliness or killed each other in the night.

  THE GROUP ARRIVES AT A SHELTERED INLET, proceeds past the village, and continues along Indian Arm until the road narrows and the woods thicken. They settle off the thoroughfare, down by the beach. The area, Deep Cove, they rename as their own, Peace Cove.

  They take houses easily. Most residents are absent, lost in the city. Some have loaded boats and fled. A young family lies inert in their cellar, five children and their mother blazed through the forehead, the father shot through the chin.

  The remaining residents are cautious but welcoming. Dan organizes the group into a roster of essential duties: sterilize water, gather and prepare food, ration firewood collected from homes, chop green wood to cure for later. The boy survives the first few days clinging to the structure of duty and routine, grateful to focus his mind on immediate tasks.

  Food dwindles quickly. At first, fresh, familiar items scavenged from fridges and pantries, then a strange, but comforting assortment of mushy casseroles and pies rescued from dripping freezers, then soon, rice or oats in a watery stew, slivers of meat seared black to mask the putrid taste.

  Within the group, there are two doctors. Dr. Woo, an elderly Chinese man who confesses his profession with a bow of his head and whispered apology: denturist; and Dr. Patak, a young Indian woman, an intern from a cardiac ward. Despite their unease with the magnitude of their responsibilities, they perform their ministrations with efficiency and calm. A small group of people volunteer to help them: a retired nurse’s aid, a veterinarian’s assistant, a woman who once canvassed donations for the Heart and Stroke Foundation. Others make sacrifices for the doctors, leave extra wood, food, blankets at the door of the house they use as a clinic.

  Without electricity, houses are used like cabins, all cooking done communally, on the beach. Though some gas appliances still work, Dan forbids their use.

  There’s only a finite amount in the line. We’ll save it for sterilizing, in case someone needs surgery.

  Both doctors blanch at this pronouncement.

  The boy and the girl stay together in a small beach hut on the property of a larger house. A single room with a wood-burning stove, an antique writing desk, a wire cot, and a small sofabed. They find out from the two families sharing the main house that the property belonged to a writer. Inside his desk, the boy finds glossy images of naked men curled around each other, oiled skin and muscle, sticky, handwritten notes of longing and frustration, the author, a writer of erotic science fiction serials no one in camp admits to reading.

  Each night, after their meal, the boy and girl play cards or read. The girl, a hobby seamstress, takes to mending clothes for the group. They come with their fallen hems, missing buttons, torn sleeves. The boy watches as she squints in the candlelight, handles dirty, fraying fabrics as if they are silks. Once the candle has burned its allotted hour, she murmurs and swears in the shadows as her fingers feel for the needle. When she is ready to sleep, she unfolds the sofa bed. The boy lies down on the cot.

  It is only in the dark that they recall their former lives. Not a conversation but a relay of monologues. Night after night, they talk each other to sleep. The boy dreams of the girl’s job as a receptionist in car dealership, her voice crackling over the company loudspeaker, her fiancé, an accounts manager at the bank next door. He dreams of her wedding dress, layers of tulle and ecru taffeta she sewed herself, wrapped in clear plastic and hung in the back of her closet. He smells the ink of the full-colour honeymoon brochures she keeps in her desk, tastes the spongy sweetness of the cakes she sampled and argued over with her sisters. When he wakes to hear the girl crying in her sleep, a soft, plaintive mewling, he wonders if it is his mother she is dreaming of.

  The sickness starts suddenly around the camp. First, vomiting and diarrhea. Careless food preparation, someone says, unclean water. People stagger to the woods, soil their clothes. The doctors scuttle about with worried eyes. A rigored bird washes up on the beach and everyone takes it as a bad omen.

  I have a sister in California, a woman says as she stares at the bird.

  A man shakes his head. Doubt there is a California.

  Within days, there are lesions, sores. People complain of fever, burning throats and chests, douse themselves in the frigid waters of the inlet.

  On the beach, in front of everyone, Dr. Patak starts a vicious argument with Dan. We need basic supplies, she shouts. At least IV fluids and antibiotics. These people are all going to die.

  Dr. Woo stands behind her, wipes his forehead with a handkerchief.

  That night, the boy and girl watch through the window of their hut as Dan gathers a group of eight men around the fire, a large equipment bag at his feet. He talks for a while, then appears to pose a question. When all the men nod, Dan stoops down and opens the bag. He hands a rifle and a box of shells to each of them. The girl draws a sharp breath. After loading their guns, the men trudge up the hill, toward the houses. The boy cranes his neck but loses them in the shadows. The girl buries her face in his shoulder. They brace for the shots.

  They hear only the scuff of boots on gravel, the sound fading gradually as the men climb past the houses, to the main road.

  Two days later, the men return carrying gym bags, knapsacks loaded with drugs and medical supplies. They are exhausted. Several of them look as if they’ve been beaten, faces bruised and bloody. Everyone gathers at the beach, pushes food at them. Most of the men decline, stagger back to their homes.

  A woman and her husb
and approach one of the men as he rests on a tree stump by the fire, an untouched bowl of soup in his hand.

  What’s it like over there? the woman asks.

  The man shakes his head.

  We want to know, the husband says.

  The girl shivers beside the boy. He wants to cover her ears so she won’t hear.

  They’re killing people, the man says.

  Who? the husband asks. Who is killing who?

  The man’s bowl shakes, soup spilling onto his hand. Everyone. Everyone is killing everyone.

  GERRY SLOUCHES IN HER SEAT, marks her disappointment with a scowl. Henry aims his binoculars at the beauty salon across the road, his back a defiant sharkskin wall. She refuses to look in the same direction, focuses instead on the sidewalk’s crowd of bodies.

  “Don’t pout, it’s not ladylike.”

  “I don’t want to be ladylike.”

  “You don’t say.”

  “She’s just across the street, is your eyesight that bad?”

  “I like to see her face. It tells me what she’s thinking.” He lowers his binoculars. “After Tuesday, I’ll bring it. I promise.”

  “Why Tuesday?”

  He settles the binoculars in his lap. “Okay, now you’re getting on my nerves.”

  She shrugs to show how little she cares.

  “Tuesday? Judge Wilson Fennimore? The courthouse?”

  She notices he’s wearing the same suit he wore earlier in the week, a soup splash visible on the lapel. “You better wear something nice.”

  “Why should I?” He cocks his chin as he says it, his voice bellowy and gruff.

  “Because it’s like, court?”

  He shakes his head. “I will not kowtow to the conventions of the establishment.” The binoculars rise to his face. “Given the vulturous nature of ex-wives, a man should show up in rags, or better yet, with his entrails hanging out.”