The Fire-Dwellers

by Margaret Laurence

  Stacey says nothing. She sits down and lights a cigarette for herself, crossing her legs so that her ankles, still slender, show. Or would have done if the room had been lighted and anyone had been looking.

  — The Ever-Open Eye. Western serial. Sing yippee for the days of the mad frontier. Boys were sure men in those days all right and men were sure giants. How could they miss? Not with them dandy six shooters. Tak! Tak! Splat! Instant power. Who needs women?

  The program ends, and then the News. This time the bodies that fall stay fallen. Flicker-flicker-flicker. From one dimension to another. Stacey does not know whether Ian and Duncan, when they look, know the difference.

  — Everything is happening on TV. Everything is equally unreal. Except that it isn’t. Do the kids know? How to tell them? I can’t. Maybe they know more than I do. Or maybe they know nothing. I can’t know.

  It’s depressing.

  Don’t look then, honey. Want a beer, Buckle?

  Don’t mind if I do. They oughta drop an H-bomb on them bastards.

  You’d like that, wouldn’t you?

  What d’you mean, Stacey? It would settle them. It would settle a lot of things.

  Yeh, so would slitting your own throat.

  Stacey, would you kindly go and get a couple of beers for Buckle and me, if it’s not asking too much?

  I was only

  I cannot stand these pointless arguments over nothing.

  Nothing!

  There isn’t any use in talking. It doesn’t change anything.

  — True. And he really can’t stand it when I argue with Buckle. God, Mac’s terrible need for quiet, and my denial of it.

  I’m sorry. I’ll get the beer.

  — Anyway, I probably exaggerate. Do I? Doom everywhere is the message I get. A person ought not to be affected, maybe. I’ve got an accumulation of years, and a fat lot of good it does me. I wish I could chuck it all away.

  The Eye, shining, newly acquired, five or so years back. Interviewer: Now, tell me, Mrs. Frenfield, what effect has this new – uh – shelter in your basement had upon your peace of mind? Mrs. Frenfield (smiling anxiously, never thought she’d ever be on TV): Well, I used to have these very disturbed dreams, see, like I mean nightmares they were, actually. Now we got the shelter, I definitely got more peace of mind, like. I mean, it stands to reason. Interviewer: Yes, I see. Well, now, in an – um – emergency, what would you do if one of your neighbors who didn’t have a shelter tried to – Mrs. Frenfield: Boy, let them try, that’s all I can say, just let them try. My husband’s got an old army rifle, and he – Interviewer: Well, thanks very much, Mrs. Frenfield. It’s been very interesting talking to you, and – uh – sweet dreams, eh?

  — Around that time I used to figure out how we would get away if need be. We would all pile into the old Chev and rocket on up to the great north woods. Ignoring traffic jams, that is. I used to visualize us taking some little-known road which we would cleverly discover on the spur of the moment. Armed with radish seeds, we would conquer that muskeg, the rock and the green-black silences of the timber-lands. We would hack out our village, grub up slugs for the soup pot, spear deer, and teach the kids all we remembered of Shakespeare. Only one or two snags. Neither Mac nor I could have mustered more than about two lines of Shakespeare, and neither of us would last more than twenty-four hours in the great north woods. Also, who would the kids marry? Incest was out. So I gave up on that one. It wasn’t such a hot sedative.

  Here’s your beer.

  Oh, thanks, honey. Listen, Buckle, I’m sorry, but I’m going to have to go up and do some work. Got to finish a report on sales. Seeing Thor tomorrow. You’d hardly believe it, but that guy keeps all the sales figures for each area in his head. Not just city, either – all over the province. See you around, boy, eh?

  Sure. So long.

  Buckle and Stacey remain looking at the screen. Buckle, who normally drinks a bottle of beer in four gulps, now sits holding it without drinking.

  Guess Mac thinks this Thorlakson guy is okay, eh, Stacey?

  Yeh. I guess so.

  Sounds like quite a guy.

  Yeh.

  I noticed his picture in the paper few days ago. You see it? In connection with some kinda rally he’s putting on. Pretty well-educated guy, would you say, Stacey?

  — I never before in my life felt sorry for Buckle Fennick and I don’t want to now. It disorients me.

  I don’t know. Yeh, I guess Thor is pretty well educated.

  Funny name – Thor. Sounds made up.

  Icelandic, I guess. Used to be lots of Icelanders in the prairies, around Gimli.

  — I wonder if I ever saw Thor in Winnipeg or somewhere? Imagine Buckle feeling like that. I think I’m badly off with Grade Eleven. I bet he’s got about Grade Five.

  After Buckle has gone, and even Katie is now reluctantly in bed, Mac emerges from the study, which is his retreat, the place where he can shut himself away, amid his business files and racing car magazines and Playboy, away from the yammering of his wife and young.

  Thought you’d gone to bed, Stacey.

  Sorry. I didn’t know you wanted the house to yourself.

  — Oh hell. Again. Grabbed for a rapier even before I found out whether a duel was intended.

  Christ, I can’t say anything right, can I?

  — He does feel like that. Of course. How is it we can both feel that way, simultaneously?

  Mac, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean

  Skip it. I only wanted you to fill in this quiz. I should’ve asked you before, only Buckle was here.

  Stacey reaches for the paper.

  BLOCK CAPITALS PLEASE.

  Name Address

  Year of Birth Month Day

  Weight Height

  Any Illness in Childhood

  Any Illness Since Age Eighteen (Specify Year and Severity)

  Deficiencies I Feel in Myself

  My Best Qualities Are

  Qualities I Would Like to Have

  My Energy Is: (a) consistently high

  (b) variable

  (c) low

  Anxieties:

  (1)

  (2)

  (3)

  Guilt Feelings:

  (1)

  (2)

  (3)

  My Relationships With My Family Are:

  (a) richly rewarding

  (b) satisfactory

  (c) less than satisfactory

  My Goals Are (Specify Briefly):

  (1)

  (2)

  (3)

  — Two more pages in the same vein. I have the feeling I’ve seen this form before. “Is Your Marriage Happy? Answer These Ten Questions.” “How Do You Rate As Mother/Mother-In-Law/Auntie/Fairy Godmother?”

  What’s the trouble, for heaven’s sake?

  I don’t want to fill it in, Mac.

  Look, Stacey, it’s late and I don’t feel like standing around arguing.

  Okay okay okay. Lies are permitted, I take it?

  All right. If you’re going to get all worked up about it, let’s forget the whole thing. It was only a thought. Pardon me for ever suggesting it.

  Do we have to do it?

  We have been asked to do it. I thought I had made that fairly plain.

  I’ll do it, Mac. Please. Honestly.

  Yeh, like you did with that form for Ian, I suppose.

  Ian MacAindra, seven, Grade Two. You got to fill in this form for me, Mum. Civil Defense. Name of Child. Name and Address of parents. Home telephone. Name, address and phone of person who could be contacted in National Emergency if parents not available. To the final question, Stacey had written: Name: God. Address: Heaven. Ian, stark-faced with fury, had stormed to Mac. Look what she’s written! I’m not taking that to school! Why embarrass Ian, Mac said, quite rightly. So she wrote instead: Matthew MacAindra (grandfather), Apartment 21, 704 Ballantyne Road.

  That was three years ago, Mac. Can’t you forget it?

  Well, if you’re all teed up for a wisecrack
, you don’t need to bother.

  I get the message. You can even dictate the answers if you want. Here gimme the bloody thing gimme it

  Stacey

  What?

  If I were like Buckle, on my own, without anyone really around me, do you think I’d give a damn?

  Stacey stares at him.

  — It’s real. His acceptance of the responsibilities he took on long ago when he never suspected what they might mean. He doesn’t intend it to be a gun at my head. Or if he does, in some crevice of his mind, he doesn’t know. Just as my acting up isn’t consciously intended to hurt him. My motives aren’t any better or any clearer. Impasse.

  Mac I know or I don’t know. If we could talk about

  It’s late.

  You’re right. It sure as hell is.

  What now? Sardonic implications again?

  Let’s go to bed, Mac. Let’s just go to bed.

  Yeh. Okay.

  THREE

  Stacey, my dear. How are you this lovely morning?

  Matthew never knocks. He always walks straight in. This has irked Stacey for many years, although she is not convinced that she has a right to be irked by it.

  — After all, he’s Mac’s dad and we’re all the family he’s got. It’s mean of me, but I can’t help it. I mentioned it to Mac once, and he said He’s got a right to walk in. So that settled that.

  Oh – hello. I’m just fine. How’re you? Yes, what a lovely day.

  — Burble-burble. I always talk to Matthew this way. I dread an uneasy lull or anything fringing on what I’m thinking about. I’m always afraid he’ll guess. And yet I long to tell him I don’t see life his way – gentle Jesus meek and mild and God’s in his heaven all’s right with the world. But I can’t. Mac would be furious. Anyway, why do it? So I should be relieved of habitual fib-telling? It wouldn’t be worth the commotion. Or is this just my excuse for being a goddam coward? God knows why I chat to you, God – it’s not that I believe in you. Or I do and I don’t, like echoes in my head. It’s somebody to talk to. Is that all? I don’t know. How would I like to be only an echo in somebody’s head? Sorry, God. But then you’re not dependent upon me, or let’s hope not.

  Where’s Clifford?

  Stacey turns her glance away so that Mac’s father will not see her icicle eyes. Matthew is the only person who ever calls Mac by the name of Clifford, never apparently having realized that Mac discarded it deliberately.

  Out washing the car.

  Oh yes. His Sunday ritual. I forgot. For a moment I thought he might have gone to church.

  — What in hell do you mean? You know perfectly well that Mac never goes to church. He was made to go, as a kid, to listen to you. Let up on him, can’t you? He placates you in every possible way except that one.

  Well no. He’s washing the car, like I said. Ian and Duncan are at Sunday school.

  Not Katherine?

  Katie had a headache.

  — This reason has been used too often lately. I’ll have to find another.

  Stacey moves into the kitchen and Matthew follows her. This is his custom. The instant she moves into the dining room, even momentarily, he will follow her there. Irritation flares in her like a struck match, but goes out as quickly. She looks at him, not knowing what could be done about him at no personal inconvenience to herself. Matthew does not have enough people to talk to these days, and practically nothing ever happens to him. He still attends the church where he once used to preach, but the people he knew there are getting fewer. The young minister is painstakingly cordial, but cannot think of anything Matthew could usefully do, and Matthew himself is afraid of getting in the way.

  Matthew is a tall man, almost as tall as Mac, and he is careful to carry himself straight, a fact which only emphasizes his gauntness and assailability. His hair must once have been the MacAindra auburn, but now it is yellowish-white. The skin of his face stretches tightly over his big bones so that it appears exaggeratedly pale, almost transparent, lightly purple-etched with veins. He keeps himself scrupulously clean and neat, and his dark suits are never in need of dry cleaning. But he still wears shirts with detachable collars, and today he has put on a light-green collar with a blue shirt.

  — If only none of the kids point it out. I’ll clobber them if they do.

  We had a guest preacher this morning.

  That’s nice. Was he good?

  I think he promises extremely well. His theme was Christian humility, and although he might have chosen some of his texts more tellingly, he spoke quite well. He’s young David Brownlee – I knew his father years ago. Dead now.

  How’ve you been, yourself, this week?

  Stacey can never address Matthew by any name. In sixteen years she has been unable to discover what to call her father-in-law. She cannot bring herself to call him Dad, for this still to her means Niall Cameron, long dead. Mr. MacAindra is out of the question, and only in her mind can she refer to him as Matthew. If the children are present, she calls him Granddad. If not, she cannot call him anything.

  Oh, all right. My digestion’s never very reliable, but it’s no worse than usual. I eat very simply, as you know, but I fear I shall never get the hang of cooking. The apartment is very close these warm days.

  Mac’s mother died eighteen years ago and remains a mystery to Stacey, who knows about her only through Matthew’s remarks, which tend to semi-canonize her, and the occasional remark from Mac – She always went by what he said; she wanted me to learn to play the piano, but I wasn’t very good at it. Since her death, Matthew has lived alone. As long as he was preaching, he had a housekeeper. When he retired and moved into the small apartment, he began making his own meals. Mac’s sister is married and now lives half a continent away.

  — I know we ought to have him here. Don’t tell me, God. I know. But when I think of it, I think – mental hospital, here I come. Following me around from room to room, desperate to make talking sounds, someone else who’d have to be told everything is all right.

  I’ll be taking the kids to the beach on Saturdays now that the weather’s getting warmer. Why don’t you come along?

  — Madwoman.

  Thanks, but I don’t think I would be much of an addition, Stacey. The children think I fuss.

  No, they don’t. You must come.

  We’ll see.

  His voice is quite gentle, and Stacey feels deservedly rebuked. Then Mac comes in from the back yard.

  Hello, Dad.

  Hello, Clifford. How are you liking the new job?

  Fine. Just fine.

  Well, that’s wonderful. I always did feel that Drabble’s wasn’t really worthy of your abilities.

  Yeh well

  It’s too bad you couldn’t get something on the administration side with the new firm, though, Clifford. I’ve always thought that would be a better type of work for you, and it must be hard on Stacey to be on her own so much here when you’re away. Perhaps in time you’ll

  Well, administration’s not actually so much my line, Dad. I’m a salesman from way back.

  It’s too bad you never finished university, Clifford.

  Yeh, well – that’s water under the bridge. Lunch nearly ready, Stacey?

  Just about. Only waiting for the boys to get home.

  Mac lights a cigarette, draws on it and immediately begins coughing, at first politely – hem hem hem – then in deep chest-wracking spasms.

  You shouldn’t smoke so much, Clifford.

  Yeh – hack! hack! – well, I’ve cut down.

  You ought to give it up entirely. It’s what I’ve always said. Even before these discoveries about how dangerous it is, I was always certain it was harmful. I always said so, if you remember.

  Yeh. I recall your having mentioned it.

  — That’s the closest Mac ever allows himself to get to irony, with Matthew.

  Katie sweeps in. Pastel-orange lipstick. Green-pearl nail polish. Eyeshadow like all the greenish-blue sea fern that ever flourished full fathom five.
Burnt-orange earrings. Ocean-green dress. Long clean straight auburn hair.

  — Katie, baby, how can you be so gorgeous? I love you for it, but it makes me feel about a thousand.

  When’s lunch? I’m starving. Hi, Granddad. How’s tricks?

  Mac frowns and Matthew tries not to look offended.

  — Matthew thinks it’s flippancy. But she’s only trying to please, using slang which isn’t hers and which belongs to some vague past. She’s easy on him, but he doesn’t see that. Everybody should stop from time to time and explain what they mean. But none of us in this house do.

  Ian steams in, followed some dawdling moments later by Duncan. Ian has learned how to evade Matthew’s Sabbath quiz. He begins talking about cars to Mac. Duncan, slower on the uptake, squirms at what he appears to feel inevitable. Matthew turns attention on him.

  Well, Duncan, nice to see you. What did you learn at Sunday school?

  Duncan, trapped, looks into the middle distance.

  God loves birds.

  Pardon?

  Birds. Like sparrows and that.

  You mean – “God sees the little sparrow fall”? Did you sing that hymn?

  Yeh.

  That’s a fine hymn, especially when you really think about its meaning. It used to be your dad’s favorite hymn, when he was your age. Did you know that?

  Gee.

  What else did you learn?

  I got my paper. It’s right here somewhere.

  Duncan reaches into his pocket, then withdraws his hand hastily, as though he has remembered something just in time.

  Guess I lost it, Granddad.