The Age Read online

  “It’s a phone number, you sure you can’t just remember it?”

  Mrs. Cross emerges from the salon a newly minted superhero, silver cape aflutter, hair slicked wet. Henry sinks low in his seat. Mrs. Cross feeds the parking meter, a small change purse clutched in her hands. As her chin lifts, her gaze settles on their car. “Get down!” he whispers.

  “She knows it’s us.” Gerry relaxes her face in a welcoming smile, fans a small wave.

  Mrs. Cross stares, then scoops two fingers in the air, a violent, backward V. She marches back into the salon, cape shimmering in her wake.

  “What was that?”

  “She’s British.” Henry grimaces at the steering wheel, picks at the spiral pattern of embossed leather.

  Gerry waits for him to elaborate. When he doesn’t, she turns on the radio, pushes the preset buttons until she finds the all-news station. The U.S. has launched a response to Soviet mobilization, a worldwide military exercise codenamed “Global Shield 84,” bombers and fighter jets scrambled into international airspace, nuclear-capable subs raised for active duty. The newscaster speeds through information Gerry has already processed and filed.

  “Blech.” Henry switches off the radio. “It’s like listening to a cheese grater read the news.”

  “It could be important.”

  He lifts his binoculars. “Newsroom’s full of rumours. Missile test-fires. Something like that.”

  “What test-fires? Where?” Her tongue rubs at a gap in her teeth, the friction both itchy and soothing in her mouth.

  “Who knows. I wasn’t paying attention. She must be getting the colour done, it doesn’t always take this long.”

  Gerry rests against her door. Her head feels cavernous. “What if something actually happens?”

  “Something always happens. If not today, then tomorrow. What can we do? We get on with it. Is my camera in there?” Henry points to the glove box. “I wouldn’t mind getting a photo of her when she’s done.”

  Behind the compartment’s dense nest of papers, she finds a small, black Instamatic, rubs her thumb over the nubbly plastic as she hands it to him. Outside her window, people hurry along the sidewalk. Morning sun winks off watches and eyeglasses. She imagines a flashbulb bursting over them, death shadows burned into the pavement, the overexposed world rendered down to a negative of ghosts. “I wouldn’t want to survive.”

  “You’ll have no choice. It’s how we’re programmed. Biological imperative. The Ruskies won’t get off enough rockets to kill everyone.”

  “Then I’ll kill myself.”

  “Oh, you think that’s a choice? Subconscious natural selection, my friend. You sense a trait in yourself that will weaken the greater gene pool, so you weed yourself out.”

  “That’s not true.”

  “Biology: two; conscious will: zero.” Henry shifts in his seat, the camera tiny against his chest. He purses his lips as he thinks. “Well, okay, maybe you’re just a quitter.” He means it as a joke, but she can’t muster a smile.

  “I’d still want to die.”

  He gives her a wary glance, head tilted back as if to examine her from a distance. “Is this what they mean by a cry for help? Should I be calling one of those special phone numbers?”

  “If the world’s coming to an end, what difference does it make?”

  Henry lowers his chin. The ridge of his brow sinks over his eyes like the fur of an old dog. “You’re serious?”

  She wonders what it would be like to put her arms around him, let the sharp collar of his dress shirt dig into her neck. She decides it would be nice, tries to imagine their faces side by side, curious to know if photos of them together would reveal similarities, her face an embryonic version of Henry’s slack and weathered one. “No.”

  He nods. “Just for future reference, if it’s a cry for help you’re going for, I’d suggest a less roundabout route.”

  She takes the camera from his hand. “Smile,” she says as she lifts it to her eye, holds him for a moment in the foggy cell of the viewfinder.

  He drops her off in front of her house. The sky opens and the first pelts of a downpour hit her as she gets out. Before she’s up the walk, he calls her name, waves her back. The rain drums over his voice, makes him shout. “I may have to explore some less than legal channels these next few days! Best I go it alone! We’ll regroup on Wednesday, post-mortem the judge’s bias!”

  The words are confusing, but the message reaches her before he’s finished: he’ll get along better without her. She turns without saying goodbye, swings her arms, takes long, deliberate strides, as if she already has better things to do.

  ——

  The backyard is a mess of muddy, rain-splattered men in acid-wash jeans and rock concert T-shirts. Ponytails sprout from baseball caps, muscled forearms coil with tattoos. Gerry watches through the window beside the back door as they lean on shovels around the perimeter of the pool, stare into the centre, waiting for their heavy-metal mothership to levitate from its depths.

  “You’re home.”

  She jumps at the possibility of one of them behind her.

  Randy stands with rubber waders clutched in his hand, a pair of severed legs. He points over his shoulder. “I was in the john.”

  Gerry pokes her finger into her mouth and makes a gagging sound.

  “Good to see you too.” He sits down on a kitchen chair and pushes his socked feet into his boots.

  Outside, the men stand frozen in place. “Where did you find these guys? Prison?”

  Randy shrugs. “What if I did? You got something against second chances?”

  “I’ve got something against being gangbanged and dismembered by your deadbeat friends.”

  “Nice.” He stands, pulls a pair of work gloves from his back pocket. “Do you talk to everyone like that or just me?”

  “I hate all psychos equally, so don’t get all hot and bothered about it.”

  “Your mom asked me about that new bike of yours. I told her it wasn’t expensive.”

  “Shows what you know.”

  “I know what that bike costs. I also know you don’t give a person, a girl, a gift like that without expecting something in return.”

  “Wow, is sex the only thing you think about? Child molester much?”

  “Can we just cut the jokes for a sec and have a proper conversation.”

  “I don’t speak Neanderthal.”

  “Fine.”

  She waits for him to walk out.

  He pats the gloves together, peels them apart. “Gerry.” He grimaces and scratches the back of his neck. “If anyone’s hurting you, I mean, messing with you. A guy or whatever. I mean, if you couldn’t talk to your mom about it. Obviously, because that would be the best thing. But if you couldn’t. You could tell me. I would take care of it for you.”

  She can tell by the set of his face, his tense shoulders, he means it. The sincerity of his offer hooks inside her. She bows her head. A feeble consolation, the right words from the wrong person. She nods to recover herself, lets her voice sinks low and quiet. “Well, there is something.”

  “Uh-huh?” He shifts his weight from foot to foot.

  “But, you have to promise, I mean, swear to God, you won’t tell anyone.”

  He nods. “Okay.”

  “Say it.” She holds up her hand. “I swear to God.”

  “Are you kidding me?”

  “Say it.”

  He raises his palm. “I swear to God.”

  She makes him wait, palm open in the air, the depth of him tested and proven. She pushes off from the window ledge, slows as she passes him. “Did you get that bullshit from an afterschool special?”

  She puts it off as long as she can, sits in her window watching rain flood the street, burble over clogged drain grates, wash downhill in a lapping tide. But finally the threat of facing Megan forces her to Ian’s.

  Under the green-and-white awning, she shivers, clothes soggy. She taps the knocker, listens for shuffling inside the ho
use, watches through the condensation of the living-room window for shadows. The doorknob chills her palm. A twist and nudge and the door sways open. The house greets her with cloying warmth, oiled incense and cloves, a smell that reminds her of burnt maple syrup. She stamps her feet on the mat.

  “Hello?” A man’s voice echoes around her, detached, otherworldly. Above her, floorboards creak. She peers up. Ian’s dad leans over the upstairs banister.

  She wipes the rain from her forehead. “It’s Gerry.”

  Marty blinks, his eyes set deep in a galaxy of cascading hair. He wears a patterned caftan that swings around his ankles, knitted slippers with pompoms. In his hand, a yellow telephone receiver shaped like a question mark. He points to it. “Long distance.” Then ushers her along with his chin. “They’re buying groceries. Make yourself at home.”

  The living room is an overstocked garage sale, shelves crammed with record sleeves and paperbacks, clusters of wood-handled tools, gutted electronic gadgets, laundry baskets heaped with clothes. Over every piece of furniture blankets and fabrics. Their spaniel, Lopey, stretches on the carpet, raises a furry eyebrow, grumbles at her presence. Gerry tries to sit, but the room’s disorder pushes her out to the kitchen.

  Rain bathes the kitchen windows. On the large farmhouse table, hunkered amidst a litter of stuffed baggies, a cake-sized Tupperware container overflows with loose weed, a sage froth of curling fronds and buds. The aroma hangs in the room, dank and herbal. Gerry draws a full, deep breath, stations herself in the seat farthest from Alice’s stash. Beside the container, Alice’s antique post office scale, labels, a pile of felt pens. The filled baggies appear haphazardly strewn, random pillows of plump mossy green, nothing like Ian’s feeble skiffs of faded pot.

  Above her, the ceiling creaks. Marty paces as he talks, his footsteps a persuasive distance from the landing. She reaches out and squeezes a bag orphaned from the rest, stranded past the centreline of the table. The plastic is smooth and taut, the buds fairy light but packed and springy under her hand. It wouldn’t just be for her. Back at her house, she could divide it, some for Andri, some for Megan and Clem. She listens again, waits for Marty’s faraway laugh, then closes her fingers, draws the baggie to her jacket pocket, and stuffs it deep. Her chair scrapes as she stands to move to the back door.

  Voices carry in from the front of the house. She tries the door, but it’s locked, an empty keyhole, a double chain. Her wet jeans make her legs feel leaden, conspicuous. She turns a confused circle, then sits down.

  Ian enters first, jacket dripping, arms loaded with wet paper bags. If he’s surprised to see her, he doesn’t show it, his face slack and sullen. Alice follows, shakes a gypsy scarf from her mane of copper curls. An embroidered purse swings from her wrist, chequebook, pen, and grocery receipt in her hand. “Ha!” She smiles at Gerry. “They only charged me for one carton of eggs. Isn’t that nice?”

  Ian unpacks the groceries, opens cupboard doors, shuffles boxes and cans.

  Gerry stands.

  “You should have told me she was coming, I would have hurried.” Alice sidles to the back window, scrunches her hands through her hair. Tiny bells on the hem of her peasant skirt tinkle as she moves. “Back to the grindstone.” Alice hovers behind her chair, stares at the container, then at the table. “You know, some days I am sure I’m losing my mind. Gerry, honey, how many do you see there? Just the full ones.”

  Gerry’s mind blazes with a number. She trails her eyes over the bags, feigns counting. “Thirty-two.”

  “That’s what I thought.” Alice looks right at Gerry, her eyes searchlights. “Don’t ever get old, Gerry, your brain turns to mush.” She shakes her head and calls to the hallway. “Marty, getting old is the pits!”

  Marty’s footsteps creak along the landing. “Dying is the alternative!”

  Ian knocks Gerry between the shoulder blades. “Go.”

  The car reeks of wet leather, damp and inky. Cold air blows through an invisible vent at Gerry’s feet. Ian’s keys dangle unturned in the ignition. She rubs her hands in her lap, clenches her teeth against her jaw’s quivering. “Are we going somewhere?”

  He stares out the window. His lips pinch and twitch.

  “Earth to Major Tom.” The Bowie reference gets her nothing. “Can you at least turn the heat on, so I don’t, like, die of hypothermia?”

  “Empty your pockets.”

  A forced giggle masks her panic. “Excuse me?”

  “I mean it.”

  “What are you, a narc?” Her hand feels for the door handle, grips it tight.

  “Do it.”

  Before she can move, he is on top of her, hands on her breasts, her waist, her hips. His legs vise around hers. She squirms under him, grabs at his face. His head rears back beyond her reach, belt buckle a shock against her naked stomach. The car closes in, seat and dash squeezing her sides. His weight suffocates her. She arches, struggles for breath as tears burn up behind her eyes. She screams. Her legs kick free, and with hard, bucking shove, she pushes him off.

  He falls back into his seat, glances down at the baggie in his hand, then hurls it at her face. The plastic smacks her mouth, bounces from dash to floor. “What the fuck is wrong with you?” His voice spins in the car.

  She covers her ears.

  “You steal from my mom?” He pounds the steering wheel. “If you were a guy, I’d beat the living shit out of you!”

  It seems the best solution, let him pummel her into a bloody mess on the sidewalk, a black sheet of unconsciousness creeping over her. She tugs at the sleeve of her wet jacket, uses it to wipe her eyes. “Go ahead.”

  “Go ahead? Jesus, I can’t even talk to you.” He chews at his thumbnail, spits into the air. “What horrible thing did I ever do to you?” He stares, waiting for an answer.

  The question only confuses her. Petty grudges and injuries rise, then evaporate like the fine details of a dream. Even the idea of being angry leaves her.

  “Just say it.”

  “I don’t know.” She mutters it into the window, rubs a smear into the fog of her breath, doesn’t know how to explain how lonely he makes her feel.

  “Who does then?”

  His sarcasm goads her into choosing the obvious. “You can’t just do shitty things, act like a shitty person, and expect your friends to be like, rah-rah-rah, oh, hooray for you.”

  “Are you fucking kidding me with this?”

  “If I was doing it with two guys, you’d be on my case like every five seconds.”

  “You with a guy? Don’t make me laugh.”

  “Go to hell.”

  “Look, get it into your head. Megan and me, we’re not together, we’re not a couple, we’re never going to be goddamn king and queen of the prom, okay?”

  “Just because I don’t dress like a slut doesn’t mean guys aren’t interested.”

  “Yeah, okay, who cares? I’m so sick of talking to you right now.”

  “Plenty of guys like me.”

  Ian tips his head back and groans.

  She can’t stand looking at him, holds her eyes closed until the insides of her eyelids flash red. Thought after thought rises, sputters a momentary presence, then slips back under. Her body melds to the car door. Outside, the rain has broken. Up the block three girls run down the front steps of a house and onto the sidewalk. Two of them stretch out a skipping rope, turn it in a high arc while the third begins to jump.

  Ian’s leather jacket stutters as he shifts. She counts the seconds until he speaks. “Listen. This shit you’re pulling, it’s fucked up. Maybe you should talk to someone, you know? One of those kid shrinks.”

  She covers her face with her hands, her skin hot with humiliation. “Fuck. You.”

  “Gerry Mouse.” The pity in his voice is unbearable. Lark had told the truth.

  “Megan wanted me to tell you. If you don’t come tonight.” She holds her breath against a sob, hopes it will hurt, how dispensable he is. “You’re out.”

  He watches her, as if h
e expects her to say something else, then gazes out at the street. “Fine. Tell her I’m out.”

  She pushes open the door. Ionized air spills over her like a wash. The stuffiness of the car falls away. With each step, the damp sidewalk reveals itself, a panel at time. Sunlight dazzles in every corner, forces her to squint or go blind.

  THE BOY AND THE GIRL ESCAPE the worst of the sickness, suffer mild, sweaty fevers, dull aches and fatigue, cough up spatters of blood. Each morning they conduct timid examinations, check each other for purple spots. The boy knows from helping at the clinic that after the spots, hair and teeth loosen, fever climbs, and the bleeding begins. With kitchen tongs, the boy has changed wads of soiled rags tucked beneath the heads of listless patients, an endless trickle from the stubborn faucets of their noses and mouths. The near-dead vomit until their black intestines come up in their throats. They whisper between convulsions about fire inside.

  Still, the boy carries out his daily duties without complaint. He helps bury those who succumb, reverential digging without ceremony, grateful for the end of torture, the freshly earthed forest floor that stretches under the cover of trees.

  Dan sends out a group of men each week. At first, he spares the ones with children, but as illness spreads, he calls on fathers. They leave silent and sombre, return the next day with medicine, survival gear, water filters, packaged food, more guns. When a group returns with fewer men than expected, the girl huddles by the stove, covers her ears against the shrieks of wives. The boy watches the beach, tenses when Dan glances toward the hut, wonders if he will always seem too young.

  Groups of people from the city follow the men back. Dan interviews them for usable skills. Some are invited to stay, the rest quarrel, rant, plead, are escorted to the road. A clean gunshot signals their departure.

  The third doctor arrives this way. Dr. Joan, a middle-aged oncologist. Drs. Woo and Patak are frantic with happiness, offer half their meals to the new doctor as incentive. She asks to see patients right away and the two doctors swoon, squeeze her hands before guiding her up the long staircase to the clinic house.

  Proximity to death makes the boy sentimental. He finds himself daydreaming of the girl while he digs graves or sterilizes water. His hand grazes fire as he turns flayed rabbits on the spit. She looks different now, face unwashed, hair tied in a rag, body whittled to bones. When he thinks back to the two of them at the bus stop, he is sure she stood taller than him, a woman and a boy. Now, she is smaller, matched to his size. Other men admire her too. Married ones raise an eyebrow or throw a wink, single ones resort to crude gestures, mouthed words. The boy watches them and suffers a slippery rage, one he cannot hold in a fist. He stands close, keeps a hand on her elbow, tries to ignore them, to deny he shares their appetite.