by Joan Barfoot
It’s not exactly the sort of place he and Mike had in mind. Instead of riding an elevator home, as he and Mike had imagined, he climbs up dark stairs. Instead of looking out over the whole glittering night-time city, that brightly lit panorama of life being lived, the view is of brick and concrete and grit.
A year ago, everything in his head and his life was different.
Same goes for her, he supposes.
And for sure same goes for her mother, and everybody else in her family. “You ready?” she asks, coming up behind him. “You look good. Just right. Don’t look so grim, you’ll live through it, you know.” She smiles as if she’s made a joke, but come to think of it, it seems possible he might not live through it. Depending on people’s inclinations and moods. He can’t hope to get through unscathed, anyway. It’s a good thing he trusts her. He means, trusts the power of her presence.
And she really does look powerful. Not in some suit-and-briefcase way, but in the firm way her mouth is set, and how her eyes are so clear and untroubled it’s like there’s nothing worrying at all about what they’re setting out on.
Is her family used to this? Do they have ways not to look at her directly so they’re not dazzled? Roddy remains raw to it. After a couple of weeks here, he is still constantly astonished. Every time she comes through the door, or he does, and he sees her again, it’s almost like the first time, being captured. Being lured, although not in some bad way. He doesn’t know what it is. She appeals, he guesses: to his desire to be whatever he can, for her more than for him. “Be careful,” his grandmother said. And his father, “Be good.” Well, he would, if he could tell what careful and good mean in this new world, on this spectacular, unexpected, terrifying occasion.
So far Alix hasn’t really asked much of him; except for today. What she said at the start was “You should explore, take your time,” and that’s what he has done: getting up first in the morning, to be out of the bathroom before she needs it, setting out cereal and juice for them both and then, when she goes to work, he leaves too. He walks her to the bus and then, every day, even in rain, goes exploring. So many different kinds of lives being lived by so many shapes and colours of people! Even different kinds of food, fruits for instance that he isn’t even certain are fruits, and whether they’re supposed to be peeled or chopped up or cooked or just held like an apple and eaten. “It’s wild,” he tells Alix. “I can’t get over it.”
“I thought you’d like it.” She sounds happy for him.
Now she says, “Let’s go,” and he can look at her as pleadingly as he wants but she pays no attention and so, yes, they’re off. She locks the door behind them. He’s been slightly surprised that she is very conscious of security, and insists that he always lock up as well, whether he’s going out or staying in. “Because,” she explains, “I know what I know.” He imagines she means about young criminals, although he can’t imagine young criminals being tempted to climb those dark stairs to a couple of unpromising rooms. He would like an opportunity to protect her, actually to show her what he could do on her behalf. This isn’t likely to happen, though.
The car is old and rattly, but she insists it’s safe enough, because rental companies have to maintain some standards. Since the company she uses is called Rent-A-Clunker, he isn’t sure about that, although he bets she gets the best one they’ve got. They would look at her and know it would be something like sacrilege to put her in danger.
They putter through the city to the expressway, along the expressway, cautiously in the right-hand lane, to the cut-off that’s the road that becomes the main street of the town where he mainly grew up. All the way he is wishing for something to go wrong: something small, not life-endangering, nothing that would send them into oncoming traffic or into an abutment, but just something that would bring them quietly and definitely to a halt.
Naturally this doesn’t happen. It wouldn’t be likely to, with her at the wheel.
She’s a driver who pays total attention to the traffic and road. Even so she tells him who he can expect, although of course not what, that’s beyond even her. “My brother Jamie. I know he sounds scary, but he’s been in trouble himself. I think he’ll be okay once you’re real and not just an idea to him.
“Lyle’s sons. They’re older than me and Jamie, really smart guys, but we never got to know them very well. Like they were grown up by the time Lyle and my mother got married, and Jamie and I were kind of going in our own directions so we’ve never hung out. But they’re nice. One’s a scientist, the other one just got a job with one of those companies that does polling, you know? Politics, different products, I don’t know. Anyway, they’re not hard to talk to. I mean, I’ve never talked to them about anything real, but that’s okay, they’re nice. And then Martin, he’s my mother’s old partner in the ad agency. They sold it and made pots of money so he retired. Cool guy. He’s just back from India, so I can’t wait to hear about that.
“My grandma, she’s great, and her friend Bert, he’s a pet. They’ve been together forever, although they never got married. Of course they’re incredibly old now. My grandma doesn’t have as much energy as she used to, but she’s still tough as nails. We’ve always been able to count on her, and Bert just kind of comes along and does nice things for everybody.”
Even the old people are “tough as nails.” Doesn’t she see, these people could hurt him?
They live way out in the country. They could kill him and bury him and who’d know?
Well, that’s stupid and creepy. Even so he looks nervously at Alix, who concentrates on the road. She wouldn’t take him into a trap.
Tough as nails. Jesus.
In town they drive past Goldie’s. He keeps staring forward, and so does Alix. He wonders if she notices Goldie’s in particular.
Then off to the left there’s the street that leads to his own grandmother’s street. “We’ll go see your grandma and dad again soon, shall we?” Alix asks. So she remembers, she does notice these things.
Also she is assuming a future.
Then they’re past the strip malls and the service stations and doughnut shops and back in the country, familiar territory to him. He sees himself as a little boy pedalling his bike along here, not so long ago, wading in ditches, climbing fences, lying in the grain, under the sun, watching rabbits and anthills. Back in that other life. Alix is pressing the brake, switching on the right-hand turn signal, turning into a hidden laneway that’s sort of familiar. Like, he’s been up here partway on his bike, not the whole way, though. He never wanted to get caught by anybody who owned land he was prowling.
He’s caught now, he guesses.
The car rattles and rumbles on the rough, pitted surface. It’s too late for something important to fall off. If anything went wrong now, they’d be stuck here. Now he’s hoping the car holds up, holds on, so they can get out of here when the time comes, or if they suddenly need to.
There’s a curve at the top of the lane, and then, “See?” Alix says. “Isn’t it perfect?”
Yes. It is. It’s like a perfect picture, a photograph; except for the people.
“I guess we’re late,” she says. “Looks like everyone’s here.”
A couple of guys are playing horseshoes at the side of the house, and an old woman and an old man are standing over at a garden, looking at flowers. There’s a young guy and an older one sitting on the porch railing facing each other, their legs dangling down. There’s another older guy on a big wicker chair. Everybody’s holding some kind of drink. There’s a woman on the porch, beside the guy in the wicker chair. She’s in a wheelchair. Not one of these people is moving now. Their heads are all turned in the direction of Alix’s car. Just staring. Nobody’s talking, either.
Alix touches his arm. “Come on, pal, let’s go. It’s showtime.” She gets out her side and yells, “Hi, everybody, we made it.” Slowly, Roddy opens his own do
or. Sets his feet on this foreign ground. They’re all watching. He can’t read a single face. Alix is at the front of the car, waiting, her hand stretching towards him. He’s never held her hand, and would like to.
She pulls him forward. “Let me introduce everybody,” she calls out. She sounds strange, too high-pitched. Her tone must also strike them as false and discordant. He sees a flinch here, a thinning of lips there, and picks up, as if he were a bat, a gasp or two, and a sigh. Alix stops. “Sorry, I guess I’m nervous.” She’s nervous! “I didn’t mean to start off that way. I know this is hard, but here we are, and everyone, this is Rod. So let’s all try to be kind, okay?”
Necessary Sensation
It’s a slim figure that steps from the passenger side of Alix’s car. No one large at all. Over the clattering sounds of horseshoes, of careful, self-conscious conversations, of Bach preludes and fugues, chosen for calm and civility, drifting through the open windows from indoors, they have all heard the car coming up the lane, another of Alix’s rented rattletraps, and each one of them has paused, and then cautiously, tentatively resumed their various activities; so as not, Isla supposes, to make too big a deal of this; so as not to frighten or upset her further than each must suppose she is already frightened and upset.
This is considered a very poor idea by everyone except, obviously, Alix. The response was unanimous, although expressed differently from one to another. “Oh, that wretched child,” Madeleine said. “How could she think of such a thing?”
“Fucking idiot,” said Jamie, who’d refused to drive them here himself. “She should have stayed in the Serenity Corps if this is the sort of stunt she’s going to pull when she’s out.”
Lyle said, “It is too bad. But it was up to Isla to say yes or no.” Any concern Isla ever had that he would over-protect her from outside circumstances, or even from herself, was misplaced. What he seems to have decided is that he has done what he can, and will do what he must, but she gets no further particular breaks for being half-paralyzed in a wheelchair. By and large this is a good outlook, but she wouldn’t have minded too much if he’d said definitely, fiercely, “No way. I won’t have it.” Instead he looked furious but said only, “Oh, Isla. Why did you do that?” and then, “This wasn’t just Alix’s deal, you know. Everybody’s involved in today, and it was supposed to be a celebration. For you, but for everybody else, too. I’m not clear why Alix gets to change rules that affect everyone.”
Isla isn’t clear either, but it seems Alix does. Because Alix has larger and more compelling desires than anyone else? That having made her way from Master Ambrose, that large and liberating leap, she demands and deserves every encouragement and reward?
To be truthful, though? Curiosity. The fact is, there is no better time. As Alix put it: on Isla’s own ground, with her own people.
Also a yearning for judgement; also a desire, within Isla’s own desperate stillness, for havoc.
Now here he is, a slim figure, no one large at all.
Alix has reached for his hand and is drawing him towards the porch. At the same time, Lyle’s boys are moving from the rough horseshoe pitch beside the house, Madeleine and Bert leave the garden, Jamie and Martin get up from the porch railing where they’ve been sitting. They’re like sentries, all of them gathering closer. Or maybe a mob.
Only Lyle doesn’t move. He keeps his seat beside Isla, resting a beer on one knee as if this is so casual an occasion and acquaintance he doesn’t need to stand for new guests.
And of course she doesn’t move, either.
Closer, the boy is, well, a boy. Alix, having called out a too-boisterous greeting, looks abashed, even timid, even afraid. Finally understanding she may have made an awful mistake?
So she should.
Closer, Isla recognizes the shape. Last seen with a gun in its hand, and turning, rising up on the balls of its feet, settling back down flat on them. Look, there’s the finger. She stares at that finger, the one that altered everything, caused grief and pain that that slim shape has no notion of. There it is.
His left hand clutches Alix’s like a scared little boy’s.
Isla is avoiding his face, doesn’t want to look into his eyes. The last time she did, they were locked together, so briefly, his gaze and hers, in awful inevitability. Here it comes again.
“And,” Alix is saying, “this is my mother. Isla. Mother, this is Rod.” Then even Alix is lost for words. The silence is long. Isla can’t even hear anyone breathing, except for the sound of her own shallow breaths.
She looks at his right hand and puts out her own. She wants to feel that hand, that finger of his. “I believe,” she says drily, “we’ve met.” She would have expected that to come out more cold than dry, but evidently not. She feels his hand tremble and weaken in hers. She looks up finally, and sees that his eyes are desperate. His greatest desire must be to tear free and run. She tightens her grip, her newly strong hands put to good use. Not that he would run. He’s far too frightened, a poor thing in a trap.
Why did he come, then?
Well, Alix, of course. Alix has some hold on him, far beyond the hold she has on his other hand. Her daughter is beautiful, but Isla doesn’t think beauty can account for so much.
The boy is not beautiful. His hair has grown longer than she remembers it from that day in Goldie’s. His eyes, without the horror and panic of that crisis, contain a softer horror and panic for this one. He has narrow lips, a small chin. He is not ugly. He is no less than ordinary, and no more, either.
He should have been marked by what happened. He should be scarred, or broken, or openly bleeding. Even his clothes are tidy and clean, his blue shirt neatly tucked in. He’s even wearing a tie. He could be a valedictorian, or a boy putting grocery bags in the trunk of her car. If she hadn’t seen for herself his monstrosity, it would be hard to believe.
These young people, he and Alix, too, have mysterious hearts.
She lets go of his hand, which holds no useful clues. This time, he is at her mercy. What should she do with power like this? If she wants to see scars, she will have to carve them herself. If she wants blood, it’s her job to draw it.
She glances at Lyle. She sees he is staring at the boy with perfect, dry-ice hatred: a man in a rage, and in despair, at the demolition of his own life. She looks at Lyle’s two sons, the handsome, thriving, useful William and Robert. They are watching their father, too. How unfair they must think it that through no fault of his own, he’s been captured by all this, by her. Through no fault of hers, either, but that wouldn’t matter to them.
And her own son? Jamie is gazing into the distance, a muscle in his jaw clenching and working, only his profile turned to her — what does he see? Various sorrows, she supposes. Or maybe various vengeances. She looks from him back to this boy here, this Rod. There should be more to him, more substance, there really should.
He has made Madeleine cry. She is standing at the bottom of the porch steps, Bert’s arm around her shoulders, his hand making comforting pat-patting motions, with silent tears running down her face. Just for that, for causing an old woman, a mother, to cry, this boy should suffer.
He is suffering. He’s surrounded and, except for Alix, he is surrounded by contempt, rage, and grief. He has gone from severe discomfort to anguish. He looks as if he could weep.
Well, good.
Could this possibly be what Alix intended? Has she, alone among all of them, set herself to revenge, is she the clever one who has figured out, and put into action, a plan to torture this boy so exquisitely, so subtly and carefully, it can appear, even to him, like an act of love, or even redemption?
Alix looks stern, and sturdy, and maybe also serene. She stands beside him, but is leaving him to whatever fate he can manage.
Normally with a new guest this would be the time to offer a drink, an hors d’oeuvre, a place to sit, some kind, welcomi
ng words. Certainly they can’t remain in these frozen postures, with the boy in the centre like a highly debatable lawn jockey. “Perhaps, Lyle, you could get the young man a soft drink?” she asks. And when Lyle, that deeply civilized man, shakes himself out of whatever state he’s been in, and stands, she says to the boy, “Sit down,” and nods to Lyle’s chair. Turning her attention to William and Robert, she says, “How were those horseshoes coming? Who was winning?” which they take, as she intends, as an invitation to return to their game. “Mother, when you’re out in the garden, would you and Bert mind collecting some flowers for the dining room? A couple of small bouquets for the table, maybe, and a nice big glorious one for the mantle? Maybe Alix could help.”
She’s rather good at this. It’s with some pride that she watches the general dispersal. Those leadership qualities that used to come in handy running a household, and organizing advertising campaigns, have not deserted her.
Lyle comes out with a cold pop and a glass, and looks surprised to find the boy in his chair and almost everyone else wandering off. The clink of horseshoes resumes. Alix and Madeleine are in lively conversation — angry conversation? — with Bert standing by. “Thanks, Lyle,” she says. “Maybe Martin and Jamie could give you some advice on that problem you’re having with the back lawn.” She is unaware of any problem with the back lawn, and Lyle raises his eyebrows, but it’s not a difficult point she is making, not a hard one to twig to.
“Okay,” he says slowly. “All right. Guys?” Jamie’s the most reluctant. He stares hard at the boy, while speaking to Isla.
“We won’t be far,” he says.
Does he think this boy would hurt her? Could hurt her further? The danger here is to him, not to her. “Pull your chair around,” she tells him, “so I can see you better,” and awkwardly, setting down his pop first, he does, hoisting with difficulty the unwieldy wicker beneath him. An obedient boy. Perhaps it’s partly her fault, for not calling out “Stop!” at that critical moment in Goldie’s.