Morag is fascinated. Does fiction prophesy life? Is she looking at Lilac Stonehouse from Spear of Innocence? Fan Brady, though, hasn’t got Lilac’s naïveté. Fan is tough in the spirit, wiry and wary in the soul. She is not really like Lilac at all, of course. She is almost the opposite. And yet, looking at Fan now is almost like looking at some distorted and older but still recognizable mirror-image of Lilac. There is a sense in which Fan has that same terrifying innocence, expressed in different ways.
“That Julie,” Fan says. “I’m really fond of her, and I’ll miss her, but she was soft in the head, if you ask me.”
“How do you mean, Fan?”
“She actually felt bad, leaving Buckle, you know that? Save your tears, sweetheart, I kept on telling her. Don’t waste them on that crumb. But oh no. She can’t stand the guy, but still she feels bad about it. Can you beat it?”
“It doesn’t sound so strange to me,” Morag says.
“Like fun it doesn’t. That guy is a bastard through and through. An asshole. And she feels sorry for him! She should of fed him arsenic years ago.”
“Well, it’s not that simple, I guess.”
“Yer damn right it’s simple,” Fan says. “It’s plain as daylight.”
There is obviously going to be one area which Morag and Fan will not be able to discuss. Something, of course, has made Fan this way. How much is foisted upon a person and how much is self-chosen to mesh gearlike with what is already there? How far back does anything start?
“You want to see Pique?” Morag asks, anxious to avoid argument right now.
“What? Oh, your kid?”
“Yes. She’s asleep upstairs.”
“Yeh, sure, I guess so. I don’t go much on kids, to tell you the truth. I’m not what you’d call the maternal type. I had to look after a whole bunch of young brothers and sisters when I was a kid, and it kind of put me off. How many abortions you think I’ve had, Morag?”
“My God, I don’t know. How many?”
“Five.” Fan says coolly. “Five.”
“That’s–awful. That must have been terrible for you.”
“I never batted an eyelid,” Fan says.
But why had she got pregnant all those times? As a clueless sixteen-year-old, perhaps. But after that, what compulsion? Morag does not bring up this question, nor will she, ever.
Pique, sleeping, is as near perfection as it would be possible to get. Faintly smiling, small pinkbrown hands closed but not tightly, the fingers unfolding one by one, like petals.
“Very nice,” Fan says stiltedly. “I suppose you’re not getting a nickel out of her dad?”
“I never asked him. It was–it wasn’t like that. He knows about her. It’s all right.”
“You should have your head examined, Morag, that’s all I can say. If I was you, I would put the screws on him, but good. It might not get you anywhere. He’d try to weasel out, I’d bet. But at least you could try.”
“Look, Fan–just don’t tell me what to do for my own good, eh? Not ever. Okay?”
Fan looks up, surprised.
“Hey, take it easy, sweetheart. I only meant–”
“I know. But don’t. That’s the one thing I can’t take.”
“Okay, okay. I get the message. C’mon down and have another beer. I wanna ask your advice.”
“My advice?” This is certainly a quick change.
Fan laughs, a high trilling like a nervous song sparrow.
“Sure. Wait till I show you.”
“Show me what?”
“You’ll see.”
Back downstairs, Fan begins shaving her legs while talking.
“Well, I’m changing my act, see? I figger it’s time I got a speciality. I’m not getting any younger. I’ll be thirty-four next month, although I never admit to more than twenty-five.”
Thirty-four. Ye gods. And what of the future? What of the future for a writer, if it comes to that? But at least Morag isn’t dependent upon her shape, which in the course of years can only get worse, in one way or another.
“So what’re you going to do, Fan?”
“I’m gonna become a snake dancer.”
“A what?”
“You heard me. I’m practising right now. I just got it the other day. I met this guy who knew a guy who had an African python for sale, so I bought it.”
“Fan,” Morag says, in a deadly quiet voice, “where is it?”
“In the basement.”
“The basement!” Morag yells. “For christ’s sake, you’re a madwoman! What if it gets loose?”
Pique, strangled not by the coverlets on her cot, but by a python. A python. Slithering coils of slippery and probably slimy steel.
“It won’t,” Fan says, enjoying this. “I give it a quarter-tranquillizer from time to time. The guy I bought it from says it’s mostly in a comose state.”
“In a what state? Oh, you mean comatose.”
“Pretty handy with the big words, aren’t you?” Fan says irritably, her drama momentarily dimmed.
“Sorry. But hell, Fan, you can’t keep a python in the house. It’s–well, it could be lethal.”
“It’s harmless as a kitten. They don’t have no poison, you know, pythons.”
“No, they just curl around your windpipe and choke you to death. I warn you–if that thing comes near Pique, I’ll kill you with my bare hands. I mean it.”
What to do? Move out instantly? To where?
“Worry not, sweetheart,” Fan says placatingly, observing that Morag really does mean it. “C’mon–I went and had a look at your pet, so now you come and have a look at mine.”
Pet. Child. Oh jesus, deep waters, deep waters. What has Morag got herself into?
The python, looking dead, and less large than Morag has imagined, lies asleep in a cage in the basement. The cage has a handle on top, for easy transportation to the club. It is covered with fine wire mesh, Morag is somewhat reassured to notice. The snake is gaudily patterned in brown and cream, and is really quite beautiful, if you like that sort of thing.
“I call it Tiny,” Fan says.
This lady is nutty as crunchy peanut butter. And yet, against all reason, Morag is beginning to like her. Tiny, yet. Merciful heavens, what a choice of name. All the same, Morag vows to keep the upstairs door bolted and locked at all times.
Over another beer, Fan elaborates.
“I gotta get me another name, see, Morag? Something kind of oriental-sounding, know what I mean? So I thought, seeing as how you’re a writer, you might dream one up for me. Princess something-or-other, I thought.”
“Holy God, Fan, that’s some request. I’m not an advertising copywriter.”
“For you, it’ll be easy,” Fan says confidently.
Morag thinks for a while.
“What about Sapphire?”
“No. I don’t think so. Not enough zing.”
“Hm. Well. Let’s see. Zarathustra?”
“Too fancy. Nobody could say it.”
Morag thinks again. Then inspiration strikes.
“Eureka–I think I’ve got it!”
“That’s it!” Fan cries, swivelling her hips gleefully on the way to the fridge.
“Huh?” Morag says, momentarily uncomprehending.
“What you just said.”
“Eureka? That’s just–it’s an expression. I think it means ‘I’ve found it,’ or something like that. From this ancient Greek philosopher, who–well, never mind. I was going to suggest–”
“Never mind what you were going to suggest. That’s my new name. Princess Eureka. Print it down nice and big so I can see how it’ll look on the billing.”
So Morag prints.
* * *
PRINCESS EUREKA
SNAKE DANCER
ORIENTAL DANSEUSE
Dances With Real Live Python!
Thrilling!
Exotic!
* * *
“Gee, that’s great,” Fan says. “Thanks a million, Morag.”
&nb
sp; “Any time. No charge. I’ll be your advertising consultant.”
“Times are sure looking up,” Fan remarks. “You’re not really scared of Tiny, are you?”
“I wouldn’t touch that creature with a ten-foot pole,” Morag says fervently.
“I’m not ascared of snakes,” Fan says modestly. “I got used to them as a kid. I grew up in the Okanagan. My old man had a little fruit ranch, there. He was a worthless hunk of humanity, if ever there was one. My mum and us kids ran the place. We had a lotta snakes around–great big bull snakes, and garter snakes and all kinds. Only dangerous sort was the rattlers. We used to take our two German shepherd dogs along when we went up to the orchards. They were like devils whenever they seen a rattler. They never got bit, ever. Snakes are okay if you know how to handle them. It’s very simple with rattlers. You just kill ’em.”
“Oh, very simple. Better you than me.”
“But Tiny, there, he’s friendly. I bet you think a snake feels slimy, eh?”
“Yeh.”
“Well, they don’t. They’re smooth and dry, sort of dusty-feeling. You’ll see.”
“That’ll be the day.”
Later, upstairs, Morag thinks about Fan Brady. Lilac Stonehouse begins to look like pretty pale stuff in comparison. Could you get a Fan Brady down on paper? Only an approximation. Even the name of the club, for heaven’s sake. “The Figleaf” is much better than “Crowe’s Cave.” And you think Fan Brady’s crazy?
Memorybank Movie: Travelling On
Snapshot: Pique, age one, sits on the front steps of the house on Begonia Road. Her sturdy legs are stretched to their small length in front of her, and her feet are encased in new white shoes, high around her ankles so she will learn to walk steadily. She wears a yellow dress, very short, patterned with butterflies green and mauve and blue. Her straight black hair is still not very long and is brushed carefully for the picture. Her round face is unsmiling but not unhappy. Her large dark eyes look openly and with trust at the person behind the camera, namely her mother.
Pique’s first birthday is over, and she is asleep. Morag and Fan are having a beer on Morag’s balcony. In the garden below, the forsythia is in yellow flower, and the leaves are beginning to come out on the big dogwood tree. The evening air is faintly bright and warm, and there is a smell of salt, the breeze now blowing from the sea. In the distance the white gulls glide, riding the wind.
“You oughta get out more,” Fan says disapprovingly. “You go on devoting the whole of your entire life to that kid, and I’m here to tell you what’ll happen, sweetheart. She’ll grow up and leave without a backward glance.”
“Fine,” Morag says irritably. “I wouldn’t want her to do anything else, when the time comes. And I’m not devoting my entire life to her, Fan. I’m working, and that’s what I want to be doing. Anyway, I get out some.”
“Should I introduce you to some nice guys?” Fan says, single-mindedly. “Actually the number of nice guys I know is precisely none, but they’re good for a few laughs.”
Fan’s continually altering attachments do not appeal much to Morag.
“I’ll think about it,” she promises.
Fan kicks off her grimy green-feathered slippers and puts her bare feet on the balcony rail. Pedicured toenails with tangerine polish, but her feet, like all the rest of her, are shapely and strong. Beside her, Morag feels too heavy-boned, too tall, despite the fact that her legs are better proportioned than Fan’s and she prefers her own long straight black hair to Fan’s wildflower arrangement of auburn whorls and curls. Fan is studying her feet and legs with an apparently absorbed and even narcissistic interest. She frequently appears obsessed with her own flesh, although (or so Morag suspects) not so much at home within it.
“It’s a problem, eh?” Fan says. “I mean, what to do, you know. You like fucking, Morag?”
“Yeh. Sometimes I wish I didn’t.”
“Yeh? Well, sometimes I wish I did. Oh sure, okay, I screw like a bitch in heat, but my heart’s not in it, know what I mean? I should of been a hustler–I would’ve been perfect. In, out, pay at the cash desk, buddy. I mighta made a fortune.”
Morag ponders the theme of irony. Opportunities for sex are minimal. Has she set it up like this for herself? Her kid, her work. And here is Fan, getting more than she wants. But not really. Fan has set it up for herself as well, in some way or other, unacknowledged.
“Why screw so much if you don’t like it?” Morag asks.
Fan shrugs.
“It passes the time. I can’t stand being alone. I’m so goddamn jittery when I quit the club, nights, that I can’t think straight.”
Fan never has breakfast or even lunch with one of her men. She throws them out about 8:00 A.M., when she reckons she may possibly get off to sleep. Morag hears them stumbling solitarily around the kitchen, looking for instant coffee. Morag, her own day having by then begun, walks barefoot and silent around her own kitchen, cursing fate. Unfair, unfair. Oddly, it has not soured her relationship with Fan. Probably it would have, though, if Fan was down there with a man loving every minute of it.
“Didn’t you ever love a guy, Fan? Whatever love means.”
Fan considers.
“Not so’s I can remember,” she says finally. “I suppose yer gonna expect me to say my dad raped me when I was twelve, or like that, eh? Well, he never. He knocked my mum around some, but she could take care of herself. She wasn’t such a big lady, but built like me–wiry. She used to knee him in the groin. It was a laugh. Well, I dunno what it was with me. Sometimes I think about it, but then again, what’s the use?”
Look at songs hidden in eggs. Sandburg. Look at laments hidden in eggshell skulls. Gunn.
“Know what I wish?” Fan says suddenly, as though this is costing her something to say.
“No. What?”
“I have sometimes,” Fan says carefully, “wished I was lez. Queer. Bent as a forked twig.”
“Maybe you are. Would it bother you?”
“It would make life easier,” Fan says. “But yeh, it would bother me.”
“That’s–too bad. That it would bother you, I mean.”
“I know,” Fan says, and her voice has a sadness in it that Morag has never heard there before. “Yeh, I know.”
Then she gets up and patters downstairs, down to the basement to feed the python.
After midnight, Morag finally sleeps. Wakens at three in the morning, a darkness in the room and in her head. She is drenched with sweat. Dreaming? Nightmaring? She has in sleep been back with Brooke, in the Tower. They have been making love, as it used to be, everything drawn into this centre, their bed, their merging selves. Then, just before their moment, she has realized that she had only fantasized the child, her daughter, who is really in the realm and unreality of the unborn. She cannot bear this knowledge. She draws away, tearingly, from him, leaving him bewildered and angry, and herself alone.
Almost awake, Morag pulls herself out of the swamps of sleep, out of the nightmarshes. Rises, groping for lights.
Pique is asleep in her cot, lying on her stomach, her head turned upwards, the small profile visible against the sheet, her hands upcurled into themselves, like new ferns beside her face.
Memorybank Movie: Harold, Lover of My What
“What you need,” Fan says, “is a little more makeup, and can’t you for heaven’s sake leave off your glasses just for the evening?”
“I’m blind as a bat without them,” Morag says. “I wouldn’t recognize my best friend at three paces.”
“Well, take a quick gander at the crowd, when you get there, then take the specs off and stick ’em in your purse.”
“I’ll try,” Morag says halfheartedly.
“That dress looks great on you,” Fan says encouragingly, sizing up the new green and blue silk (artificial). “Just slap on a little more warpaint, sweetheart, and go in there pitching.”
The party at Hank Masterson’s is for a visiting poet whom Morag has not read.
&
nbsp; She goes back upstairs and applies more lipstick. She dislikes and feels alienated from herself with a lot of makeup on. She has, however, minimal faith in her own judgement. After all, the women who are successful with men always plaster all this gloop on their faces. Fan’s paint job takes her about forty-five minutes. Is it the makeup or Fan’s inner assurance that does the trick? Or just the fact that Fan really doesn’t give a damn about men, and certainly doesn’t need one sexually and is hence in a very good bargaining position? Bargaining position. One of the sexual postures not mentioned in the Kama Sutra. Postures. The ways in which one lies. Oh, shut up.
“I’m not that fond of games,” Morag tells the mirror.
“Well, then, why not stay home with your knitting?” the mirror replies, meanly.
Angrily, Morag slaps on more lipstick. Then, angrily, takes most of it off again.
“Were you speaking to me, Mrs. Gunn?” the teenage babysitter enquires, appearing at the bathroom door.
“No, Carol. Just talking to myself.”
“Oh. I see.”
Carol, you can bet, does not talk to herself. She talks interminably to Morag, when given the chance, about her boyfriends, of whom there are about three hundred, at a rough estimate.
“Your cab’s here,” Fan shouts up the stairway.
The Mastersons’ house is large and elegant. Hank, out of genuine kindness, tries to steer Morag towards men who are single, divorced or separated. Morag resents this obvious ploy, but is grateful for the motive behind it. After the second scotch, she drinks very slowly. A lady on the make. It doesn’t sound too pleasant. On the other hand, why doesn’t it?
Morag never gets to meet the visiting celebrity. He is surrounded by a breathless group, all women, who possibly think it would be nifty to be able to say you’d slept with a well-known poet. Morag has observed this phenomenon at Hank’s parties before. The woods are perceptibly not full of an equal number of breathless men who have designs upon women writers.
But hist! What have we here?
“Hi. My name’s Harold.”
About Morag’s height. Sandy hair. Glasses. Blond hair on wrists. Blue eyes. Jovial, and slightly drunk.
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