The Winter Wives

by Linden MacIntyre

  She stood.

  –I’m going swimming. You?

  –I don’t think so.

  –You don’t mind if I…

  She gyrated slightly, the motions of undressing.

  –I don’t mind, I said.

  She turned her back, shimmied out of everything, hopped up on the washboard and vanished with a shriek.

  I sat there sipping on the wine, wondering: What is normal? How can I not know?

  I looked around me. The little pile of clothing on the deck. The wicker bag where I knew there would be a towel and who-knows-what-else.

  She trusts me, I thought. Or maybe she just thinks I’m harmless. She could be right on both counts. She trusts me because I’m nothing. The thought was suffocating.

  Why can’t I be normal?

  Normal would be naked in the water with her. Normal would be reckless.

  I imagined I could hear the rumble of the engine, the belching water from the wet exhaust. The silent boat was rocking gently.

  I felt a sudden chill, and when I tried to move, one leg was paralyzed. Then I thought I heard the bump of traps against the hull. I looked to where my mother always stood, but of course there was no one there. It was just the ladder moving with the swell.

  Another bump against the hull. Then Peggy, slowly rising into view.

  –I’ll get the towel.

  –Never mind.

  She leaned back against the cab door, hands on her hips, closing her eyes as she tilted her face toward the sun. I accepted the implied permission to stare at her. I longed to touch her. I longed to taste the salty water that was running from her hair into her eye sockets, into the hollows between her shoulders and her breastbone. Between her breasts. I looked away. I looked around. We were alone. We were not alone. There was silence, but there was the whispering of wind, the hollow thump of water on the hull.

  Alone. Not alone. Invisible but under observation. Scrawny evergreens on shore shimmering in the heat, oozing spicy fragrances.

  My mouth was dry. I sipped my wine, warm as spit.

  –Hand me my towel, she said at last.

  I pulled it from the bag. I felt chilled. I felt hot.

  Then she had the towel but was using it to fluff her hair, head to one side.

  –There’s nothing like the feeling of the hot sun on cold skin, she said.

  I swallowed hard. Nodded. She grinned and ran her fingers through her hair, shook it loose.

  –Maybe almost nothing.

  –Whatever you say, I said.

  –I was just thinking, if we were in a movie, I guess this would be the sex scene.

  –I suppose it is, in a weird way, I said.

  She stopped fluffing, stared hard at me for a moment, then she giggled.

  –Very weird.

  –I didn’t mean…

  –It doesn’t matter what you meant. Why won’t you come swimming with me?

  –I can’t…

  –Swim? Okay, I believe that. How come so many fishermen can’t swim?

  –I don’t know.

  –I’ll teach you, she said.

  –It’s a deal. Boat rides in exchange for swimming lessons.

  –Shake on it, she said, reaching out. Her hand was cold, her face was radiant.

  –You’re on, I said, feeling a bolt of panic.

  I turned away, stared off toward the shore. An onshore breeze was now rising and the waves were dashing lightly against the rocks. The boat would soon be perilously near those rocks. If I was normal, I’d remove my clothes. But then what?

  I needed to start the engine and back out a bit, to deeper water. But that would also be a statement.

  –Where did you go? Peggy asked.

  –Nowhere. I’m right here.

  –I embarrassed you. I’m sorry.

  –No, you didn’t. Not at all. I just…

  –You just nothing, she said.

  –No. Yes. I’m thinking you don’t think I’m normal.

  I turned to face her. She was now wrapped in the towel.

  –Shut up, she said, but she was smiling.

  –You don’t understand, I said.

  –You’re the one who doesn’t understand. Normal isn’t everything it’s cracked up to be. Feeling safe is what’s important. I feel safe with you.

  We fell silent. Feeling safe, she needed nothing more from me.

  * * *

  —

  When I was home, Mom asked, So what have you been up to?

  –Took the boat out, down along the shore. Peggy Winter came along. She’s into boats. She was curious about you and me fishing.

  –Peggy Winter.

  –Yes.

  –The Winter girls. I hear they’re quite…vivacious.

  She was sitting at the kitchen table, the seat of her authority. Teacher, skipper, mom. Inquisitor. I remained quiet, and after a long time, she sighed.

  –I’m sure she’s lovely. Oh, yes, your friend Allan called and wants you to call him back. He told me he’s done with higher education.

  –So he says.

  –You knew this? That he was dropping out?

  –I figured.

  I turned to leave the room, but she stopped me with a gentle hand.

  –Don’t go getting any bright ideas.

  8.

  Allan wanted me to visit. Time to get a look at the Big City, he said. He had a feeling in his gut that I had Big City lurking somewhere in my future.

  –That’s a reach, me in the Big City, I said.

  –So, are you coming up or what?

  –I don’t think so. I really can’t afford it. I’ve been saving up for law school.

  –Never mind that. The trip’ll be on me. I’m earning money now. Rolling in it.

  –Doing what?

  –I’ll tell you when I see you. You can stay with me for as long as you want.

  –What about your folks?

  –No need to bother them. I’ve got my own place now.

  * * *

  —

  Allan was tanned and lean, taller than almost everybody at Arrivals. And he looked glamorous in his sunglasses and sandals, a white linen shirt hanging out over jeans, like someone out of the movies.

  I can imagine I appeared lost and overwhelmed. He shook my hand, grabbed my little suitcase. The handshake was surprising, grown-up, businesslike.

  –Follow me, he said.

  His car was a 1959 Impala, he informed me. I vaguely recognized the grinning snout, the bat wings.

  –Whoa, I said.

  The spiral ramp down from where he’d parked seemed to go round and round forever. And then we were outside in brilliant sunshine and cars were rushing all around at shocking speeds, and the vast highways were merging and dividing and running off on ramps in all directions.

  I rolled down the car window and the wind rushed in, tearing at me, filling the car with the gassy city air. I wanted to ask him to slow down but knew, of course, that survival required keeping up with everyone around us in the hurtling trucks and cars and buses.

  –What’s our plan? I asked.

  –No plan. Play everything by ear. Maybe Ontario Place for a concert. I hear Kenny Rogers is in town.

  And then we were heading through a maze of busy side streets into a neighbourhood with signs in Chinese.

  –Kensington Market, he said.

  –There used to be a television show.

  –This is the place. I own a house here.

  –You. Own. A house.

  –Everyone should own a house. And what are you talking about? You own a fucking farm. And a giant boat. Any fixed asset is an investment.

  –An investment.

  –All right. A place to hide your money.

  –So you have mon
ey to hide.

  –I’m working on it.

  We turned into a quiet street and he pulled over, then pointed at a long row of identical houses, all painted different colours.

  –That’s it. What do you think?

  –Which one?

  –Number twelve. The red one.

  The front door was green. The concrete doorstep was cracked and tilting. Dried-out weeds grew up along the front.

  –It’s old, he said, dangling a bunch of keys. I’m not sure how old. But you can tell by the quality of the work. The little details. They don’t make them like this anymore.

  He led me inside. From the musty smell of it, the stained carpeting was damp. There were odours from past lives, stale cigarette smoke, cooking oil, a vague whiff of cat piss. The basement was full of cobwebs and junk left behind by former occupants. I counted three old stoves, two dead refrigerators. A laundry tub, black scab scaling off its enamel. I swatted cobwebs off my face.

  –A fixer-upper, Allan said.

  –Excellent. You did okay.

  He showed me to a small room upstairs, pointed to an unmade bed, left briefly. He came back with a sleeping bag and tossed it in.

  –Your quarters, he said with a sweeping gesture.

  I retrieved the sleeping bag from the floor, brushed the dust off, placed it on the bed.

  –You tired?

  –Not a bit.

  –Then let’s go out.

  * * *

  —

  The weather was astonishing. Blue skies filled the gaps between tall buildings. The clot of traffic and the frequent, startling screams of police cars, fire trucks, ambulances. The racket of perpetual excitement.

  I was thinking: I could get used to this. There was hustle, but there were also hordes of people just ambling along, chattering and smiling. People on perpetual vacation by the look of them. Guys wearing muscle shirts and shorts and flip-flops. Girls leaving nothing to the imagination.

  Allan was walking slowly, for my benefit.

  –What do you think of the Big City so far? he asked.

  –It could grow on me.

  The sidewalks in the market were jammed with produce. Great bins full of fruit and vegetables. Hanging carcasses in shop windows. Golden chickens shimmering on turning spits. No way could anybody buy and consume all this.

  –I can’t imagine all this stuff getting used, I said.

  He laughed, and said something about the land of plenty. I thought of waste. I thought of Mom and her refusal to throw anything away, reminding me of all the starving people in the world. If she could see this, man, she’d have a fit.

  Allan only laughed again.

  I also noticed cooking odours everywhere. Perpetual dinnertime, by the smell of it. Everywhere you turned, a restaurant or bar or tavern. Just walking through the streets made me hungry, tired and thirsty all at once.

  –You’re probably starved, Allan said after we’d been walking for at least an hour.

  Allan obviously didn’t eat at home. A minimal amount of cookware in his kitchen. Milk and beer, cheese and pepperoni in the fridge. Wilted lettuce. A plastic bag full of what looked like marijuana buds. Cupboards conspicuously bare, except for breakfast cereal. I thought of home: pantry like a grocery store; cupboards crammed with dishes; deep drawers stuffed with pots; pans dangling from hooks.

  –You must eat out a lot, I said.

  –My treat, he said.

  * * *

  —

  We were in a little bistro, drinking beer and eating pizza.

  –It doesn’t look like you plan to come back any time soon, I ventured.

  –Back where?

  –School.

  He snorted.

  –Get real.

  –So, when exactly did you decide?

  –Decide what?

  –To drop out.

  –Actually, I didn’t drop out of anything. I see it as dropping in. Dropping into reality.

  –I thought science was about reality.

  –Not my kind of reality.

  –So why didn’t you just switch to arts or commerce?

  –Actually, I switched to the Arts of Making It.

  –Making what?

  –A life, okay?

  He was staring at me hard.

  –It’s the eighties, man. The seventies were for fun. The eighties are for business.

  He looked away, resumed chewing. A late afternoon crowd had gathered in the pub, their babble blending with the music. A song came on that I remembered from the seventies. I can still hear it. Teach your parents well…their children’s hell will slowly…

  Allan had drifted off, and I wanted to haul him back.

  –So, the eighties are for business. What’s beyond the eighties?

  –The harvest, he said.

  –The harvest?

  –In the year 2000, I turn forty. I plan to be on cruise control by then.

  After about two silent minutes, he laughed.

  –Look at them, he said.

  I looked around, but I saw nothing but people who seemed happy in the moment.

  –The herd, Allan said. He pushed his plate away, lit a cigarette. Frowned briefly in the smoke then looked at me.

  –Let’s get out of here. I have a little job to do. You can come with me if you want to. Or you can find your way back to the house and crash for a while.

  –I’ll tag along, I said.

  * * *

  —

  Soon we were back in the car, humming along on the expressway. Allan still seemed lost in thought and I was starting to regret coming with him.

  Off to our left I saw the glittering lake, a white forest of sails billowing, bicycles skimming along a narrow trail beside the shore that could have been an ocean.

  –That place there, he said, pointing.

  It looked like a hotel.

  –Mafia, he said.

  I laughed.

  –Mafia?

  –Of course. They’re everywhere.

  –You know people in the Mafia?

  –Ohho-noooo. Not personally. Not me, man.

  –So, what do they do there, in a hotel?

  –They don’t go near the place. They just own it and pay people to run it. That’s the thing about having money. You have to keep it somewhere safe.

  –What about banks?

  –For some folks, banks are anything but safe. Unless you own the bank. Property. That’s the ticket.

  Then we were on another ramp and on another street that ran parallel to the freeway.

  –Speaking of Mafia, you’re about to see part of my dad’s empire, Allan announced.

  –Am I going to meet him?

  –Probably not. I work for him, but we don’t have a lot of contact.

  –His empire is what? Remind me.

  –Trucking. Long haul.

  He wheeled into the back entrance to a large complex of warehouses, tractor-trailers backed up to yawning doorways, forklifts flitting.

  –Where are we?

  –Ontario Food Terminal, he said.

  –So what’s the Mafia got to do with this place?

  –You do not want to know.

  He stopped, backed into a loading dock near a large semi-trailer.

  –Wait here.

  Then he was out of the car, trotting up a stairway onto a platform, where he disappeared through a wide-open doorway. I felt weary. Overstimulation, I was thinking. All the new impressions.

  Maybe I dozed briefly.

  When Allan opened the car door, he was carrying a green garbage bag, which he threw over the seat, into the back.

  –What’s in the bag? I asked.

  –Laundry, he said, and laughed.

  –Laundry, I said.

&nbs
p; –Drivers drop it here. I pick it up.

  –You do laundry?

  –Laundry? Not me. I deliver. One of my many little services.

  He turned onto the street that would take us back to the freeway. And then there was another ramp to yet another freeway, this one heading north. Allan kept checking his rear-view mirror. Soon I could see airplanes drifting down to earth through pink smog. The airport was somewhere near. He lit a cigarette and shoved a cassette into the car stereo. Music blared.

  –What do you think?

  –Great, I said.

  –The Clash, he said.

  –Ah, the Clash.

  –You never heard of them?

  –Of course I’ve heard of them, I lied.

  He was pounding out the beat on the steering wheel.

  –Cost me as much as the car, having that sound system installed.

  He cranked it up.

  I lost track of all the ramps and sudden changes in direction. I knew we were still driving north because I could see the sun sinking on the left, a great red fireball on the horizon. And then we were on more side streets, darkened by tall buildings. He parked and we sat for a minute or two in shadows that were lengthening around us. He smoked another cigarette. Like he was killing time. He checked his watch. He gestured with the cigarette package.

  –You’ve never been tempted?

  –No, I said.

  –I started when I was fourteen. Everybody smoked. There was none of this talk about your health. Anyway, I don’t plan to be around long enough for it to matter.

  I laughed.

  –Really. By the time we’re forty, there’s nothing left anyway.

  –After the harvest, I said.

  –Ah. The harvest. That makes all the difference.

  He seemed distracted, watching something in the rear-view mirror. I turned my head, looked behind. There was nothing there.

  –Are we waiting for someone?

  He didn’t answer, just leaned forward and looked upwards. There were maybe half a dozen high-rise buildings clustered around us. There were balconies. Plastic chairs and kids’ toys. I could see what looked like a car seat. Blankets and sleeping bags and clothing draped over railings. No people.

  –What’s this place? I asked.

  –Apartments. Imagine living in a dump like this.