by Heather Burt
I don’t know. The motorcycle guy. Adam.
He’s gay.
So what? You were attracted to him, weren’t you?
She hugged her knees to her chest. The feeling was there, she supposed—the muffled twitching, the reaching for something unimaginable. They happened so rarely, these sensations, that when they did, she didn’t know what to do with them. Emma talked about masturbation as if everyone did it, like breathing. But to Clare it seemed wrong. Not morally wrong, but wrong nonetheless. Pathetic, she guessed. It was something she couldn’t explain to Emma. Or, rather, it was a secret she’d managed to keep from Emma: that even to herself, she was a virgin. Emma seemed incapable of imagining such a thing. She spoke of clitoral orgasms and G-spot orgasms, of getting herself off on Jacuzzi jets, as if any woman would understand exactly what she was talking about. As if Clare would understand. But Clare, listening quietly, nodding meaningfully, had pulled one over on her.
Once again she picked up the orange device. She leaned back against her pillows, and held the thing at eye level, between her index fingers. It was no more absurd, really, than an attraction to Adam. No more pathetic.
Tell me this, Emma: can’t a person be happy, or fulfilled, or whatever you want to call it, without sex?
I suppose so, in theory. But I don’t think that’s you. I think you’re afraid of it. Dealing with other people scares the hell out of you, and sex is the ultimate case of dealing with the Other.
Then isn’t this thing just another way of not dealing with real people?
She wanted Emma to be stumped here, but it wouldn’t be right. She pushed on.
The vibrator’s different. It’s not replacing sex with other people; it’s helping you get in touch with yourself. Anyway, in your case, I think it’s a prerequisite.
For what, Emma? There’s a reasonably good chance I’m not ever going to have sex with anyone. Why can’t I just forget it?
Oh, Clare. You’ve been obsessing over Adam Vantwest all day. And it isn’t his charm or his intellect you’re stuck on. Come on. You know what you’ve been thinking.
His eyes ... what he’d be wearing when he came to get his jacket ...
And? Keep going. Those other things. The ones you try to ignore.
Oh God, Emma.
Think of the motorcycle ride. This is no different.
She switched on the vibrator and it trembled, its thrum nearly lost in the cryptic music coming from the stereo. She pictured the narrow, snaking alleyways of an Egyptian market. She’d never been to such a place, of course, but Emma had.
The motorcycle, Clare.
With glacial slowness, she undid her jeans. She placed the thrumming vibrator on her belly and wrapped Adam’s jacket around it. Then she sat very still, staring at the triangle of space marked by the foot of her bed and the two speakers mounted at either end of the facing wall—the space occupied by the strange music. She closed her eyes and sank down, her destination still unimaginable. She was a groping foreigner, ignorant of the language.
It’s too weird, Emma. I can hardly imagine myself as someone who has regular sex. How can I turn this thing into sex with Adam Vantwest?
Imagine it. You imagine other people all the time, Clare, but your idea of yourself is so narrow. Imagine touching him. Imagine him touching you. What do you want him to do? Figure it out.
She eyed the lamp on the bedside table.
Turn it off, said a new voice. It was Adam, even closer than Emma.
She switched off the light.
That’s better. I’m here now.
And he was. His voice, in her head, was perfect; the green-brown eyes that had eluded her the night before came back to her in the darkness of her bedroom, beautiful and arresting. A reassurance ... but not entirely. For she’d hoped he would remain real to her. That he would come to her door for his jacket and challenge her again with his existence, give her another chance. Instead, here he was, part of her secret, pathetic inner world, offering to be whatever she wanted him to be.
You see, Emma. This is wrong. This isn’t Adam.
Her argument was halfhearted. She opened her eyes and stared across the room at the stereo’s green lights. The song was new, perhaps. A little slower, a breathy arrangement of tones, more than sharps, not quite flats, from which a graspable melody began to emerge. She slid the vibrator past the elastic of her underwear, between her thighs. In almost imperceptible rotations, she moved it. The wetness was mortifying—not just the sudden, slimy abundance of it, but the very word itself. It was one of those innocents, like come, that Emma’s sex talk had destroyed. But her squeamishness gave way to other things. The vibrations were electric. The contact between the smooth plastic and that nub of her flesh she knew only by name radiated sizzles of sensation, like a birthday sparkler or a stick of cartoon dynamite. She was aware of the music, fluty and languorous, directing the motions of her hand, and she was aware of the moment at which her hand accelerated and left the music behind. But beyond these flimsy feats of consciousness, her body was shockingly in control—all screaming nerves and urgency, now reaching desperately for that end it still couldn’t imagine. She set the vibrator on the bed and wrestled her jeans partway down her thighs, anxious that in the pause the sensations should wane. Then she rolled over, on top of the plastic device whose sudden power was both fearsome and ridiculous. She moved frantically, impatiently, pressing down, searching. She hugged the pillow to her chest, tighter and tighter.
When at last it was done, the otherworldly destination reached—and left behind so quickly—she fell onto her back and lay in the darkness, breathing hard.
She kept the light off, refusing for the moment to face the scene she had created. She imagined her dishevelled hair, her screwed-up jeans and limp underwear, the orange vibrator, glistening like some vile sea creature. And surrounding all of this: the beige pattern of her regular life. She sat up, sliding her arms out of Adam’s jacket, and pulled her T-shirt over her head. Still in darkness, she bunched the shirt around the vibrator and stuffed the awkward parcel under her pillow. She’d deal with it later. First she needed a shower, a blast of hot, plain water to douse the confusions of her body. She peeled off the rest of her clothes and crossed the room to the laundry hamper. But as she fastened her bathrobe around her waist, the doorbell rang.
“Adam,” she whispered into the darkness. “Shit.”
She lunged for the overhead light switch and the room flooded with an indifferent glare. She flicked off the stereo. The conversation at the front door was distant and muffled, but she expected to hear her mother’s voice any second, calling her down. There was no time to get dressed, to look the way she would need to look, so she snatched the jacket from the bed and shook it out. She would hand it to Isobel, to give to Adam, and that would be the end of it.
Isobel’s call didn’t come, however. Clare pressed her ear to the bedroom door and strained to hear her mother, or Adam, but the voices downstairs were low, concerned only with each other. It occurred to her then that her mother was chatting with Adam—hearing his version of the outing to the depanneur and wondering aloud why her daughter hadn’t mentioned it. Turning the whole transcendent experience into a worthless piece of neighbourly conversation. Clare hung the jacket on the doorknob and looked around for something to wear. The choice didn’t matter anymore. She pulled on her gypsy skirt and a baggy sweater, combed her fingers through her hair, and opened the door, determined to complete the handing-back as quickly as possible.
From the top of the stairs she saw that the carpet installers were still at work. One man crouched on the landing, taking measurements, while another scribbled on a notepad. They blocked the front doorway. Behind them, Isobel’s voice sounded peculiarly hushed, and Clare wondered what she and Adam could possibly be talking about, what sort of intimacy the two of them could be cultivating. She dug her toes into the pile of her father’s doomed carpeting and clenched the leather jacket in her hands. When the installers retreated to the living room, she start
ed down the stairs.
Halfway there, her grip on the jacket relaxed. The visitor at the door was Emma’s mother—which made infinitely more sense, at this time on a Saturday evening. Sheepish and relieved, Clare headed back up the stairs. Then Mrs. Skinner called to her.
“Oh, Clare, I didn’t notice you there.”
Clare turned to see her neighbour cock her head in a manner that suggested she was assessing the new hair colour.
“Hi, Joanne.”
“Have you heard the awful news?” Mrs. Skinner said brightly. “Your mother hadn’t.”
In her fluorescent yellow ski vest, Joanne Skinner looked like part of an emergency crew, and Clare indulged fleeting thoughts that an actual crisis was underway—a fire or a hostage-taking, perhaps a bomb scare. She tossed Adam’s jacket up the stairs and once again descended. The awful news would be no more earth-shattering than a postal strike or a late snow storm. Still, whatever it was, something was happening, and Clare noted vaguely that the idea of this excited her.
“I haven’t heard anything. What is it?”
Mrs. Skinner glanced over her shoulder, out the open door, and touched her fingertips to her platinum curls. Turning back, she sighed. “The youngest Vantwest boy was in a motorcycle accident. Yesterday. They’re not sure if he’s going to come through.”
Clare gripped the railing. “Adam?”
Mrs. Skinner nodded. “He skidded and ran into a van, just up here on the Boulevard. I was just telling your mother it’s a miracle he’s alive at all. But as I was saying, the prognosis isn’t very good at the moment.” She delivered her script at a measured pace, with theatrical gravity.
Clare’s skin flushed hot. She pushed aside the monstrous fact that she had refused Adam’s offer to continue their ride together and glanced at her mother, who’d started to say something.
“And it was only just the other day you and I were talking about him. Don’t you remember, pet? It was the evening you came home.” Isobel sounded confused, as if her recent acknowledgment of Adam should somehow have prevented what happened.
“He’s at the General,” Mrs. Skinner said. She had stepped inside the vestibule, and her hand now rested on the back of the clothing bench. But the front door remained open, and the hall was cold. In the living room, the carpet men were packing up. They’d caught the gist of the conversation, it seemed, for they moved with an exaggerated silence, their faces expressionless. Clare turned back to her neighbour.
“How did you find out?”
Mrs. Skinner eyed her meaningfully, as if, having discovered an unexpected source of curiosity, she was now relishing the power of her knowledge. “I saw the daughter this morning, on her way out to the hospital. She’s back home for Easter. She was taking her little girl to stay with friends of the family, and I hadn’t seen the little one in so long, I thought I should pop over and find out how she was doing. She doesn’t speak very well, but she chatters away in sign language.” Mrs. Skinner’s voice was briefly cheerful, then she turned solemnly to Isobel. “That poor family has certainly had its share of tragedy. The mother, the little girl ... now this. I offered to help out any way I could, but it sounds like they have people in their own community they’d rather go to.”
Clare frowned. “What do you mean ‘their own community’?”
“Oh, I mean other East Indians,” Mrs. Skinner said, with a hint of authority. “I think they’re quite close-knit.”
Clare looked down at her left hand, clutching the railing. “They’re not from India,” she said. “They’re Sri Lankan.”
There followed an uncertain silence, during which her contradiction hung uselessly in the air.
“Well, it’s a very similar part of the world,” Isobel finally said. “Joanne only meant that they have friends who share their culture.”
Mrs. Skinner nodded gravely. Clare gripped the railing tighter. It was outrageous that this news should come to her in this way. Almost as outrageous as the news itself.
“A motorcycle accident has nothing to do with culture, Ma,” she said.
She wasn’t sure what she meant, and she wished immediately that she’d kept her mouth shut. For it seemed to her just then, unaccountably, that through this outrageous conversation her mother and Mrs. Skinner would gain access to her private world. That eventually, but inevitably, they would be led not only to the motorcycle ride she and Adam had shared but also, if she wasn’t careful, to the bright orange device hidden under her pillow.
“I don’t understand what you mean, pet,” Isobel said.
“Nothing. It doesn’t matter.”
At that moment, the carpet installers, who’d been hovering at the living room entrance, excused themselves and ducked between Clare and her mother. “We’ll see you next week, then,” one of them said in a low voice, and Isobel, in response, smiled a warm, ordinary smile.
While her mother confirmed dates and times with the man who’d spoken, Clare turned and fled back upstairs.
“Your hair looks very nice,” Mrs. Skinner called after her.
She pretended not to hear. At the top of the stairs she picked up Adam’s jacket then returned to her bedroom, locking the door behind her. She turned off the light and stood with the jacket draped over her arms, repeating to herself the bald facts: Adam had invited her to go for a ride on his motorcycle, and on that same ride he’d possibly killed himself. She knew the sorts of things she was supposed to feel. But her response was confused and inappropriate—lacking proper sympathy for Adam and his family, proper terror and relief at her own fate. She leaned back against the door, and as she adjusted to the dark she saw the state of her bed. She closed her eyes, but the images in her head were just as chaotic. Adam’s motorcycle, crumpled at the edge of the Boulevard; Joanne Skinner’s fluorescent vest; hissing respirators; thrumming vibrators. She crossed the room and raised the blind.
Down in the street, the carpet installers’ van had just pulled away, and moments later Mrs. Skinner slipped through a gap in the hedge to her own yard. Across Morgan Hill Road, the Vantwests’ house was dark. There was a strange car in the driveway, probably belonging to Adam’s sister, whose name Clare couldn’t remember. Just as she hadn’t remembered the sister’s daughter, or the fact that the little girl was deaf. Clutching Adam’s jacket to her chest, she pressed her forehead against the windowpane and stared at his house—an ordinary Morgan Hill house, so flawlessly embedded in the pattern of its surroundings that the quirks of its inhabitants could be ignored, forgotten about. But maybe not forever, she allowed.
She rubbed the window where it had fogged over and looked down at the pine tree in her own front yard. With sudden clarity, she remembered the ashes that she and her mother had scattered—their astonishing quantity, blustering through the boughs. She remembered her mother’s cryptic “Thank you” as the final wisps of white dust disappeared into the snow ... her own suffocating sense that those ashes were now inside of her. And she saw Isobel at the edge of the road, cradling the urn like a bag of groceries and chatting with Rudy Vantwest, as if they were regular neighbours.
“What could you possibly have been talking about?” she whispered.
Downstairs, her mother’s heels tapped furiously across the kitchen floor.
MAY 1964
Isobel turned on her side and felt a fresh surge down below. She reached under the covers and adjusted the thick padding then curled her legs up, securing the hot water bottle against her stomach. She called it her stomach, though she knew that that particular organ wasn’t to blame. Stomachs were bland, pink, docile creatures that went about their business unnoticed, provided one fed them properly. The real culprit, whose very name repelled her, she imagined as an angry, nettled mass of plummy red, writhing inside of her, tearing at her flesh. For a few weeks each month it would lie still, mustering its energy and its wrath like the God of the Old Testament. Then, sometimes early, sometimes late, never truant, it would spend itself in a four-day fury, and she would bleed a sea that crested
vermilion with thick purple clots and receded a rusty brown. In moments of sublime pain, she often imagined excising the villain inside with her mother’s carving knife—enduring a single apocalyptic ordeal in order to free herself from this cyclical torture. This time, however, she closed her eyes and concentrated on retracting her entire being into a tiny space at the very top of her head. She imagined the conscious, insubstantial essence of herself peeling back from tissue and blood and bone and gathering in that minuscule space close to the surface, from which it could then escape her body altogether, until the perverse punishment had passed.
She took herself to New York. She’d never been there physically, but with intense concentration she managed to transport her conscious essence to the block of Fifth Avenue featured on her cousin Archie’s latest postcard. And there, amid the noise and towering buildings, with Central Park just in sight, she detached herself from her pain. It was still there, of course, still horrible and vindictive, but it wasn’t part of her. They were separate. She stood a while outside the elegant windows of Saks Fifth Avenue, admiring the handbags and hats, then took herself, place by place, to the sights featured on the rest of Archie’s postcards: Greenwich Village, Times Square, the Metropolitan Opera House. Archie had immigrated to America, and the short, scribbled cards he occasionally sent to the McGuigan family evoked a world so exciting and so new that Isobel had taken to fantasizing about it even when she felt fine. Over the past several months, in fact, New York, though an ocean away, had begun to cast increasingly dark shadows over the narrow, familiar streets of her town. Even on cloudless spring Sundays, when the Stanwick churchyards and high street were at their peak of colour and cheer, she saw shadows and wondered how folk managed to live entire lives in such a place. Her quiet despair was something no one else understood, not even Margaret, her closest friend. Though she suspected Patrick would, if she tried to explain it to him.
The thought of Patrick Locke brought with it a violent cramp, and Isobel, wrenched from New York, wondered if she were being particularly punished for her recent encounters with her father’s apprentice. Just a few days before, she and Patrick had gone to the pond with a bottle of whisky, and she’d allowed him to thrust his hand up her blouse and inside her brassiere. He’d gone at it from underneath, stretching the band uncomfortably. Worse, though, was his tongue—thick and hot and invasive—plundering her mouth. Confused, awkwardly aroused, annoyed by both responses, she’d pulled away, and Patrick had laughed. He’d pointed out that she was eighteen years old and asked her if she’d been living in a convent, in reply to which Isobel lit a cigarette and informed him that she’d be nineteen in a month.