by Iman Verjee
‘You can stay as long as you want,’ she had murmured and her words made her body purr. She held tightly to his elbows and pulled him tighter around her. He smiled, feeling her friends watching them; they always were. He knew how they must look to other people; he wasn’t oblivious to how beautiful his wife was, nor to the amount of attention he was careful to pay her. He was always holding her hand or playing with the collar of her shirt, his guilt, still fresh, making him restless. Her friends were jealous, she would always say to him with a proud, little laugh. ‘They never stop telling me how lucky I am.’
‘And what do you think?’ he would ask and she would stare at him, and sometimes her eyes would fill.
‘I think they’re right,’ leaning in to kiss him. ‘I don’t know what I did to deserve you,’ and that never ceased to make him sad.
‘I think I’ll go and play some football,’ he had murmured to her that day at the picnic and she nodded her consent, pouting cutely.
‘If you must,’ and he slid his arms out from under her and stood up, tilting his head slightly forward at the ladies gathered around him.
‘You don’t have to go,’ one of them, a pretty brunette, not much older than Marienne, had said.
‘I’m leaving so you can all gossip about what a wonderful husband I am,’ he had teased right back and they all giggled and he felt a wonderful surge in his chest. Winking one last time at his wife, he made his way over to the men.
‘You sure do have a way with them,’ George Comack said, throwing the ball hard at him. He caught it and it smacked loudly against his palm. ‘My wife is always telling me to steal a page out of your book. I’ve never seen her so smitten.’
James laughed. ‘I’m happy to give you any advice you need,’ he had replied, throwing the ball back. Evening was tiptoeing in, the sun was glinting down through the trees and pretty soon it would be completely dark. ‘Do we have enough time to play?’ he had asked, squinting up at the sky.
‘Five minutes and then we can all go back to my house,’ George had answered. ‘What do you say? This day has been too much fun for it to end so quickly.’
He stood, staring at this man; so ordinary, almost plain looking, but he had never felt so grateful to anyone. ‘Agreed,’ he said and jogged down the grass to take his position.
After that, it stopped feeling like he and Marienne were only children playing grown up, simply going through the motions of a married couple, hoping that eventually it would suit them. Like all things practiced, it soon started to feel like something natural and he couldn’t remember what their lives had been like before it. And as the laughter and friendship continued to fill his house, lining its walls with a thick barrier of contentment, the fear which still stuck to his gut slowly dulled until the face of the tormented teenage boy he saw so often in his dreams was now only the face of a stranger he no longer cared to know.
13
Whitehorse, Yukon. September 1992
The day is difficult for me; I am not used to it being so full. Back home, I had started skipping classes, hiding out in the girls’ bathroom, or if I could, leaving and going down to the cave, using my time how I wanted. There is no freedom here. Everything is planned out for me and I have no time to think about anything except what is taught to me. Algebra and English followed by an afternoon of Home Economics and Music; corridors full of noise that stop as soon as the girls enter the classrooms. Each lesson is taught by a different nun in the same manner; cold and abrupt. There are no lingering giggles, no whispering or note-passing. The girls sit with their legs and arms drawn close to their desks and speak softly and only when called upon. The rooms are kept cold and bare, with one or two posters pinned perfectly straight on the dark pin-up boards and a few other incentives such as ‘Student of the Year’ and a ‘Gold Star Race’ chart. I am given six new notebooks with crisp pages that make loud sounds when I turn them and come with a warning; we do weekly inspections, so keep them neat and tidy.
God is everywhere in this stone building—an overwhelming presence that some of the girls might find reassuring but I find suffocating. Every lesson begins and ends with a quick prayer and I am given a new Bible with a hard cover and soft, black writing. You can read it if you want. We don’t force anyone to do anything they don’t want to do. Yet, I still feel as if He is being quietly enforced on me, just as the team of voices this morning pushed the prayer onto me. I am told to memorize this prayer by tomorrow morning. You don’t want to start the day off on the wrong foot, do you, Frances?
Judy has already been here for two years and, at sixteen, she takes me under her wing, speaking to me as one would to a younger sister. With her help, I fall into the routine grudgingly but without much trouble. Her quick chatter and constant, bent smile make me feel less alone and she doesn’t mind how quiet I am or ask me any questions. She points out rooms and people and pictures, stating little facts about each that I forget as soon as we move on. She is a big girl with a loud presence and mostly everyone seems to know and like her.
At five o’ clock, the classes end and the girls are allowed to do what they want. Mainly they just go back to their rooms, but Judy takes me outside, around the building, where we have to cross the field once more to get to a small pavilion.
‘It was an old football stadium,’ she tells me, which explains the bleachers that surround it, ‘when this used to be a boys’ school, but none of us are really interested in playing sports.’ She jumps up onto a bench. ‘So now we just use it to hang out. It’s the one place the teachers don’t really come to inspect. It’s too far out for them.’
‘This used to be a boys’ school?’
‘Up until fifteen years ago. Then Sister Margret took over,’ she holds her hands out and laughs, ‘and the rest, you can say, is history.’ As she is talking, a group of girls is coming toward us.
‘Oh look, it’s the girls.’ She cups her palms around her mouth. ‘Hurry up, Frances is dying to meet you!’
‘Hello, Frances,’ the girls climb up all at once and the bleachers shake with the weight of them. We saw you in class. Where you from, anyway? Is that your real hair? So many questions are thrown at me that I simply stare at them in a daze. Six girls all looking at me with interest and I start to think that it felt better to be ignored.
‘Of course it’s her real hair you idiot,’ Judy gives it a hard tug and I cry out. ‘Oh, sorry.’
‘It’s fine,’ I murmur, massaging my head and trying to suppress the annoyance I feel.
‘She’s just jealous of it because she has none,’ a drawling voice comes from behind us and we all turn to see a tall shadow coming in from the back entrance. When the girl steps into our sight, I see that she walks with a slight, natural swing of her hips and even the uniform, shapeless as it is, complements her curvaceous body. Her face is full and round, a stark contrast to her lithe body, but I think it’s charming.
Judy pats her hair and I see her smile disappear for the first time that day.
‘What do you want, Victoria?’
‘You don’t own this space, do you?’ she asks and when Judy is silent, she smirks. ‘No, I didn’t think so.’ She holds out her hand to me and her fingers are full of rings and a multitude of colorful bracelets twist around her wrist. ‘I’m Victoria.’
Before I have a chance to answer, Judy interrupts. ‘On your way to meet Leo, are you?’ she asks.
Victoria turns to her. ‘What would you know about it?’
‘Word gets around,’ Judy retorts. ‘You better be careful; you know what would happen if Sister Margret found out.’
Black wavy hair is tossed over a shoulder, red lips curl into a snarl but then relax into an almost smile. ‘See you around, new girl,’ Victoria calls over her shoulder as she saunters out and disappears, and I feel sorry that she has gone.
‘Stay away from that one,’ Judy says and all the other girls consent with a burst of murmurs and I am too afraid of being thrown out of this new group to admit that there was something about her th
at I liked.
By the end of the day, at dinner, I cannot stop thinking about him. He has been on my mind all day; and I remember him in small pieces. His long, sharp nose. The natural, clean-cut of his eyebrows and how he used to raise them playfully at me across the table when I was younger and everything was perfect. After I have finished eating, I am desperate to talk to him.
Sister Ann is on dinner duty again today and I wait for all the girls to leave before approaching her. She smiles when she sees me coming.
‘Hello, Frances.’
‘Hi.’ I slide in opposite her.
‘How was your day?’ she asks. ‘Are you settling in okay? I know it can be a little hard.’
I nod. ‘I’m okay, thanks.’
‘Can I help you with something?’
‘I was just wondering if I could call my father—it’s just that I haven’t spoken to him since I’ve been here and I just want to let him know that I’m okay.’ I’ve been practicing the words in my head, worried she might sense something strange in my obvious desperation; that she might say no and that would be even worse.
‘I’m sorry, Frances, but phone hours aren’t until next week.’
‘Phone hours?’
‘Yes. Phone hours are every Monday, between the last class of the day and dinnertime. You can call your parents then.’
‘No one told me about phone hours.’ She can see how upset I am and starts to apologize but I interrupt her. ‘I just want to let them know that I’m okay.’
‘They already know,’ she says. ‘I spoke to your father last night.’
My face clenches. Everything stops moving in me; even my blood seems to pause. ‘Why didn’t you tell me?’ I lean forward and my voice rises. ‘You could have called me down—I wanted to speak to him.’
‘I’m sorry. I thought you were tired from your journey and I wanted to let you sleep.’
‘So I can’t call him today?’
‘No, I’m afraid not.’
‘Tomorrow, then?’
‘Not until next week, Frances.’ She starts to get up. ‘It’s almost six forty-five—you have to start your homework.’
I stand up and push the chair back so hard that it almost falls over. ‘What if I told you it was an emergency?’
‘The phone is in Sister Margret’s office and it’s locked now.’ She has turned firm and her easy features take on a stern edge. ‘Like I said, you can talk to your parents next week.’
I don’t wait for her to finish, I turn around to rush into the empty hallway. At the door, I almost bump into a girl bending over the bucket and she straightens up, throwing her long hair back over her shoulder.
‘Whoa.’ It’s Victoria. She is grinning down at me as she twists the bracelets around her hand. ‘Phone hours,’ she pats me sympathetically on the shoulder, ‘what a pain in the ass, huh?’ and then she throws her plate down and goes slowly up the stairs, leaving me to my loneliness.
After homework is done, the group of girls I met earlier in the pavilion allow themselves into my room. They don’t knock; they simply place themselves anywhere there is space. Someone comes to sit by me on my bed, patting my knee and smiling. Another girl sprawls, stomach down, on the carpet and one even pushes my books to the side and perches herself on my desk, swinging her legs back and forth.
‘That algebra was a nightmare,’ she says. ‘I had to copy most of it from Amanda.’
The black-haired girl on the floor twists her bubblegum around her finger and then pulls it in between her teeth. ‘We’re totally going to get caught, you know that right?’
‘Who cares, it’s just Sister Bea anyway.’ She turns to me, unaware that the edge of my book is being folded underneath her. ‘You’re not going to tell, right?’ she asks.
‘Come on, Dee, of course she won’t.’ Judy smiles at me from across the room. ‘She’s our friend now, right Fran?’
I don’t like the way she shortens my name without asking; it’s what he calls me and it sounds almost like a threat from her.
‘Frances,’ I correct her.
‘Of course.’ Her voice stays level but her eyebrows rise in quick surprise.
‘And no,’ I say, softening my tone and trying to smile. I should be happy to be surrounded by these girls, after what happened at my old school. But there is something suffocating about being with them, and my chest feels heavy and homesick. ‘I’m not going to tell on you.’
‘I might.’ We turn to see Victoria leaning against the doorframe, legs crossed at the ankles. She is examining her fingernails and she glances up quickly at me and winks. ‘What a naughty girl, cheating on her homework.’ Her laugh is loud and condescending and the girls prickle around me.
‘What do you want, Victoria?’ Judy asks. ‘I don’t remember anyone inviting you.’
‘Actually, I came to speak to the new girl,’ she replies. She looks at me and tilts her head toward the corridor, slowly swiveling her body around. ‘Want to come out here for a moment?’
‘She doesn’t want to speak to you.’ Judy looks annoyed.
‘It’s fine,’ I say quickly. I try not to smile as I step over Amanda and close the door behind me. When it’s fully shut, I lean against it and blow out an exasperated breath.
‘Exhausting, isn’t it?’ Victoria says and her face looks softer than before, pretty.
‘What?’
‘Being around Little Miss Priss.’
‘Kind of.’ There is something about her that inspires trust and we giggle together.
‘I should know. When I first got here, we were best friends—did everything together. But two years around her has driven me crazy.’ She clears her throat. ‘Anyway, you got a boyfriend or what?’
‘Excuse me?’
‘Earlier,’ she waves her hand impatiently in the air. ‘I saw how desperate you were to use the phone.’
‘Right.’ I shake my head. ‘No, actually, I wanted to talk to my father.’
‘Your father?’ her forehead wrinkles and I realize my mistake too late.
‘I’m just kidding.’ I force out a laugh, trying to cover up, but something uncomfortable sticks in my throat and makes my cheeks burn. ‘A boyfriend,’ I speak in a rush, almost a babble.
‘What’s his name?’
‘Tom.’ It comes to me almost immediately and I’m a little taken aback at how easy it is to lie.
‘Cute?’
‘Gorgeous.’ I think of that angular face, perfect in its proportions, the way two of my hands fit into one of his.
‘There’s a way, you know,’ she lowers her voice.
‘A way to what?’
‘We’re not far from the main street. You could easily sneak out and go use a payphone or something.’
My palms start sweating with excitement. ‘Don’t they lock all the doors?’
‘There’s a window, in the library,’ she explains, ‘that leads out onto the veranda. Just climb out from there.’
‘Have you done it before?’ I ask.
She laughs and straightens up, her voice loud again. ‘I don’t know you all that well yet, new girl.’ She squints. ‘What’s your name, anyway?’
‘Frances.’
‘Well, Frances, I’m just saying, if you want,’ she shrugs, raises an eyebrow and starts down the hallway, ‘there’s a way. Just be careful not to get caught.’ And she gives a small wave before going back into her room.
The encounter with Victoria leaves me lightheaded and grinning, though I’m not entirely sure whether it’s because of the facts she has just given me or if there was something about her smile, so inviting and friendly, that makes me almost giddy. When I get back to the room, everyone is quiet and staring at me.
‘What did she say?’ Judy asks and her voice takes over the room, demanding.
‘Nothing,’ I answer, sliding back onto my bed. It’s none of your business, I want to add but don’t. Instead, I lean back against my bed frame and ignore all the curious looks until they turn away from me and go o
nto a different subject. They stay in the room for over an hour but I don’t pay attention to them, not even when Judy pointedly tries to add me into the conversation by asking what it was like to go to a co-ed school.
‘I wouldn’t get anything done,’ Amanda had giggled and I stared blankly at them.
‘It wasn’t that exciting,’ I said, and turned back to my racing mind. The thought of being able to speak to him makes me fidgety. I almost tear my blankets to shreds.
‘You really should make more of an effort, you know,’ Judy says to me once the girls are gone. ‘I was trying hard to include you.’
‘I’m sorry,’ I say. ‘It’s just taking a while to get used to everyone, that’s all.’
‘Just remember, you’re going to be here for quite a while.’ She climbs into bed and places the Bible in her lap. ‘So be careful who you mix with.’
14
St Albert. January 1976
The restlessness crept into their lives, swollen and rude. It occupied all of the space in their kitchen, forcing Marienne to pace the corners of the linoleum floor as she waited for the steamy whistle of the kettle or the snap of oil from a burning pan. It fitted itself comfortably into their private life, pushing her from the bed in the middle of the night. James would slide out with her and wait as she straightened out the sheets, pulling the duvet over and tucking it roughly into the corners of their mattress. He would look at her; she would stare at him until he fell back into bed with turned shoulders, pretending not to feel the butterfly touch of her fingers and tongue. He knew what she wanted; had known it ever since fat and shiny Lynette Waters invited herself into their home. James had stood, tense and wary against a neglected enemy, hardly daring to watch as Lynn lowered herself hugely onto their divan. ‘Oh!’ the sofa sinking softly beneath her, ‘my poor ankles!’ smiling up at him, happily massaging her bloated calves. James grunted a reply into his beer can and avoided Marienne’s warning glances. He watched from a safe distance as his wife tucked her feet under her knees, leaning down to press her ear against her friend’s belly, smiling to hear the gentle, teasing murmur of life.