Dance For The Devil

by S. Kodejs

  The dog licked her hand furiously, whimpering. Gillian wrinkled her nose, freckles almost invisible in the dim light. “Yuck, Casper, you’re drooling all over me.” This was not normal behaviour for the mutt, on any level. He was Robert’s pet, brought into their relationship as an adult dog, loyal to one master. The Labrador tolerated Gillian with resignation, ignoring her for the most part, allowing half-hearted tail wags when food was involved. Now he was practically doing cartwheels.

  She removed her hand and returned to the kitchen sink, washing it. “Nice reception, old boy. Maybe I should leave more often, hmm? So, where is everyone, Casper? Where’s my welcoming committee?” As she turned away, the dog barked agitatedly, grabbing the edge of Gillian’s sleeve, tugging with his teeth bared. “Hey, cut that out, you fiend, you’re slobbering on my suede coat.” But the dog wouldn’t desist. She noticed the animal’s fur, then – matted and standing on end, as if he’d been chewing at himself. She bent to smooth it, felt the frantic beat of his heart. He began to bark furiously. What the bloody hell was the matter with the dog?

  Casper’s bark changed abruptly to a low growl and Gillian turned, the hair on her neck prickling. Robert was standing in the doorway, watching her. “Holy Christ, Robert, you scared the shit out of me. Your dog is going psycho... Robert?”

  Her husband’s mouth was twitching with disdain. “Why must you use profanities, Gillian?” He crossed through the kitchen and opened the door, and the dog flew out, skittering across the dusk-darkened yard with his tail tucked between hind legs. He cleared the low fence easily and disappeared down the lane. The autumn colors and early Halloween decorations, strung through trees and windows, leered evilly at her.

  Gillian frowned and the feeling of wrongness washed over her anew, extending to Robert. He looked the same as always, tall and dark; his handsomeness marred only by the prominent hawk nose which Gillian found particularly endearing. Same old jeans and ratty t-shirt he’d worn every Sunday since she’d met him. Bare feet because Robert never wore shoes unless he had to. He looked the same but seemed different. Cold... aloof. Rather pissed off. Looking down his long nose with an expression reminiscent of his haughty British ancestors. Gillian narrowed her amber eyes and squared her shoulders. “That’s it?” she questioned, peevishly. “I’ve been gone for three days and you want me to watch my language? No ‘Welcome home, sweetheart?’ No ‘How was the reunion, darling?’ Jesus, Robert, you really can be quite an asshole at times.”

  Robert quirked his head to one side. “Using profanities is vulgar and irrational.”

  “That never seemed to hold you back.”

  His eyes flattened and he looked directly at her. “Where have you been?”

  It was his expression. No sweet smile, no warm glances. Gillian found herself growing defensive. “I know I’m late, but it wasn’t my fault. The Coquihalla was closed due to snow – can you believe it? This early in the season? I guess it’s the elevation, but still – it’s only mid-October. I ended up travelling the old highway, what a nightmare. Took forever – everyone else apparently had the same idea and of course half the idiots didn’t have snow tires. There were more cars in the ditch than a demolition derby.” She shivered, running her hands over her torso to warm herself up. “Why is it so bloody cold in here? Another few minutes and icicles will be hanging from the ceiling.”

  “You’re exaggerating. As always.”

  His tone prickled and her temper flared. No, I will not do this, she told herself, but her mouth was already in gear, the words flying out before she could check them. “Listen, Robert, I’ve been to Hell and back trying to get home, and I’m tired and cranky. I didn’t even want to go to this stupid reunion, remember? You made me go, said the dedication to my brother was an important event and I shouldn’t miss it.” Her voice had risen and Gillian knew she wasn’t rational, knew her exhaustion was clouding reason. She slapped her hand on the kitchen table and the sound reverberated like a shot. It scared the bejesus out of her but Robert didn’t even blink. “Well you’re wrong. I missed you guys so much I had a thoroughly crappy time, so don’t you dare give me your typical holier-than-thou garbage. I want to see my baby, have a hot bath, and then I want to go to sleep.” What she really wanted was for Robert to take her in his arms and tell her he loved her, but if he couldn’t figure that out on his own... “Where is Mikey, anyway? Not down for the night already?”

  That odd head quirk again. Robert was studying her and Gillian felt the fun-house flip again, like someone was playing snow globe with her kitchen. Shake things up, make them surreal: Mattel’s new carnival game, fun for the whole family. Man, she must be more tired than she thought. She put her hand to her forehead. “Look, I’m sorry, I think my hormones are going crazy. Robert? Honey? Is something wrong?” You seem... kind of... funny.”

  His head snapped back, he blinked, and then everything was normal. Almost. “Of course nothing is wrong. We missed you, Gillian.” His voice was flat.

  The bad feeling returned in spades and suddenly she felt he was hiding something, covering something up. “Where is my baby, Robert? Where is Michael?”

  “In his crib. Where else would he be?” He came over and took her in his arms, and for a moment Gillian thought to resist, although that was silly. Wasn’t this what she wanted? This was Robert, her husband. She loved him immensely. Sure they’d had their problems lately, but who didn’t? That was part of marriage – the good, the bad and the ugly. “You smell different,” Robert said, blandly, his nose only centimetres away. She could feel his shallow, cold breath.

  She turned away, panic clawing at her throat until her words came out in shallow gulps. “Hotel shampoo.”

  “You feel different.”

  “Bigger boobs. And they are gonna burst if I don’t feed Michael. Expressing milk is a killer, even with that new pump.” Now that’s romantic, Gillian. Away for three days and you’re talking about leaky boobs and breast pumps. Very sexy. No wonder your relationship is in the crapper lately.

  “You taste different, too.”

  His tongue was licking patterns on her neck, but the shivers she felt were entirely the wrong kind. Creepy. Reptilian. Gillian squirmed in his embrace. Man, I really am smoked. Can barely think straight. “Later, babe, okay? I really want to see Mikey.”

  Robert held her tighter.

  “Honey, please?”

  The squeezing increased until she had to fight for breath. “For Christ’s sake, Robert, you’re choking the life out of me. Let go!”

  He released her abruptly and she felt his eyes boring into her back as she ran from the room. So much for a great homecoming.

  **

  Michael was sitting in the center of his crib, piling plastic blocks. Eleven months old, as adorable as they get, fat-cherub cheeks and wispy hair. She picked him up and breathed in the delicious scent of him, closing her eyes to block out the nasty sensations that washed over her.

  Michael looked at her calmly and pushed her away.

  “Mikey, baby? It’s Mommy. I’m home.”

  The baby pushed at her harder, with a ferocity that surprised her. She looked up and saw Robert watching from the door.

  “He’s angry”, said Gillian. “Or maybe scared. He must have heard us arguing, you know how that upsets him. I’ll try nursing him.”

  But Michael wouldn’t nurse. Every time Gillian directed her breast towards the baby’s mouth, he clamped shut. Robert continued to watch like a sentinel. Until every one of Gillian’s senses screamed.

  “He’s not hungry,” Robert stated.

  Gillian nodded, feeling the tears slip from her eyes. This homecoming was all wrong. Nothing felt right. The baby should have nursed from instinct, for comfort. And Robert shouldn’t have made her so mad. No, that wasn’t fair. She shouldn’t have flown off the handle. Too emotional, as usual. Her high-strung artistic temperament, which Robert so frequently commented upon.

  And later, after she soaked in the tub, her limbs heavy with fatigue,
she realized more. Michael seemed different, too. Not just his dejection of her, but his entire being. His expression, his scent. Sitting there, playing with blocks. Building them high into a tower, color blocked, so precisely balanced that they didn’t tip on the soft crib mattress. Eleven-month-old babies can’t do that, can they? They don’t have the dexterity. He certainly wasn’t doing it three days ago. It was though he was Michael, without being Michael. Just like Robert was off.

  Now that is incredibly ridiculous, she told herself, slowly washing her limbs. She stretched one leg high, feeling the tension ease from her cramped muscles. Too many hours spent behind the wheel, she told herself, pretending that was the cause, convincing herself that her husband pacing beyond the locked bathroom door had nothing to do with it. If I could just stay here forever... soaking.... in this oversized old tub with the funny claw feet. A tub built for giants, in an era where bathing was an event, not something to be hurried through like a shower. A place to retreat when the world became too much.

  Robert knocked on the door abruptly and Gillian slipped under the water, pretending not to hear. Now who was being stupid? I’m the one who’s off, she decided. Overtired, hormonal, emotional. Nothing a good night’s sleep wouldn’t cure.

  When she finally emerged, Robert was nowhere to be seen. She paused at Michael’s door, listening, but the room was silent. She hesitated at the landing, wondering if she should seek Robert, wondering if she was up for further battle. That’s all they seemed to do lately, anyway. This trip hadn’t changed anything. It’d only worsened their problems. Fatigued washed over like a heavy blanket. “Oh, the hell with it,” she muttered. “Like Scarlet said, ‘Tomorrow is another day.’”

  Yet, as Gillian drifted off to sleep, her brain twisted and jumped to insane imaginings. Two things in particular came to mind. Lingering memories of a time, long ago, when her grasp on reality really had begun to fade, when her world went crazy and she did too. In her last cognisant thought, Gillian realized that Casper hadn’t come back. Whatever was happening, he sensed it too.

  **

  James D’Anderville III, sole heir to the D’Anderville furniture fortune, direct descendant of Louis Riel, and twice voted as one of Chatelaine magazine’s ten most eligible bachelors, staggered from his dark room and though the front door, and lit a joint. The cool night air washed over him like a baptismal promise.

  “Goddamnit,” he muttered, squinting through blurry eyes at the midnight sky. He’d lost the day. Again.

  James took a leak off the front patio, then – not bothering to zip his fly – sauntered into the kitchen searching for something to eat. He had a serious case of the munchies, the kind you get from smoking a half-dozen prime Columbian reefers. The pickings were slim; must’ve forgotten to call in the shopping again. Nothing but a six pack, expired milk, jar of olives and some really old donuts. He made a mental note to Email an immediate grocery order while cautiously sniffing the milk. A little off – but nothing his stomach couldn’t handle.

  Taking the largest mixing bowl he could find, he dumped in a carton of Kellogg’s Corn Flakes, sloshed on the milk, the settled in front of the tube. The comforting image of CBC’s Peter Mansbridge filled the room.

  “Aw, fuck,” James muttered after a few minutes. He’d been conked out for three days. Shit, he hated when that happened. He was gonna have to cut down on the drugs or his entire life would be spent on the darkroom floor.

  He caught his reflection in the television glass but he didn’t look too hard. He looked bad and he knew it. His dirty-blonde hair, scraggly at the best of times, looked particularly hideous. James had a personal vendetta happening with it: ever since his hair began making its traitorous and frantic retreat at the tender age of eighteen, James had ignored it. He refused to follow his father’s pathetic and ridiculous footsteps to halt the male pattern baldness which beleaguered the D’Anderville males. What you can’t change you might as well forget, and if meant going chrome-domed, then so be it. It had been a while since he’d washed it, and even longer since cutting, so the straggle ran down the back of his neck and lay limply against his shoulders. Plenty long enough for a pony tail, had it been his aim, which it wasn’t. He made a mental note to get it buzzed off next time he was in the city. Or maybe he’d take the razor to it himself. Certainly wouldn’t be the first time, and strangely, the chicks seemed to like it.

  His skin was dull and pale. Not enough sunshine, not enough exercise. His features, although patricianly handsome, were lackluster. Vivid blue eyes, which could scrutinize with unnerving intensity when something piqued him, stared disinterestedly back at him. “Yeah, I know,” he muttered, munching the cereal, “pathetic.” He could almost hear his mother’s voice layered over the announcer’s: “My son: brilliant, talented, classic underachiever... loser.” At least James was honest about it, not like the evil biddies she used to hang with in Palm Springs. Thank Christ the old bat was dead. Had she not beaten him to the final finish line, another stuffy sanctimonious visit with that dried up lot of raisins would have put him, with certainty, six feet under.

  James yawned. Same old crap on the news. Bombings in Syria, famine in Niger, Vancouver Canucks lost at hockey. He caught the tail end of the Dow Jones, mildly pleased to see several of his stocks were up but didn’t bother to do the mental calculations. James D’Anderville III would never need to worry about his net worth – there was just too damn much of it to lose, no matter how hard he tried. The news blipped off on a positive note, and James flicked off the huge sixty inch screen, bored to the inner core of his being.

  That was the problem with living on Cedar Island. Nothing ever happened.

  **

  The problem with Cedar Island, Raina Covingtree decided, was that it’s too small to make a decent living. Population 238, separated from the surrounding countryside by a wide band of river which parted grudgingly to encompass the tear drop shaped island, Cedar Island was the kind of town touted in country magazines as the idyllic lifestyle, as long as one didn’t have to drive twenty-odd kilometres to the nearest town every time you needed jug of milk, and seventy-five into a decent sized city if you needed anything else.

  She had to admit, though, that it was lovely here, even in the darkness. Crossing the big orange metal bridge which connected Cedar Island to the rest of the province, she strained futilely to see the muddy waters of the raging Fraser River. The river, she mused, could be construed as a metaphor: washing away the outside sins and leaving the purity and pristine beauty of Cedar Island intact. It was so untouched here, a safe haven where residents never locked their doors and children played outside without fear.

  I’ve lived here my entire life, Raina thought. Seeing the same houses, the same people, taking the same route through the tidy streets to her own driveway. One day, I’ll die here, without ever living anywhere else. Instead of rankling, the thought was oddly comforting. At one time, for a brief while, it had become suffocating. Straight out of school, she’d yearned for something more, came to despise the very elements she now adored. But fate stepped in, with Mama getting ill, cutting off all avenues of escape. No longer harboring any visions of moving to the city, the tree-lined roads of Cedar Island welcomed her like a safety net.

  Raina pulled the Cadillac into the driveway, surprised to see Mama’s window lit up. She shouldn’t be awake at this hour. What on earth was Claudia thinking? Raina wearily grabbed her Mary Kay cosmetic kit from the passenger seat and trudged up the front walk, preparing to do battle. Taking care of Mama was a full-time job.

  Claudia was nowhere to be found. Raina smoothed her carefully coiffed hair and pursed her lips with resignation. Not the first time that happened – good help was getting harder and harder to find. Especially as Mama grew more difficult. But still... to leave Mama unattended in the middle of the night was absolutely criminal. It was tantamount to leaving a child.

  Mama was sitting by the window in her rocking chair, afghan folded neatly on her lap, hands knitted together
, staring. “Poor dear,” Raina whispered, kissing the old woman’s head. “How long have you been sitting here?”

  Mama swung her steely gaze over to Raina and narrowed her eyes, but Raina, intent on figuring the best way to get her into bed, missed the fleeting expression. When Raina glanced at her mother’s face she saw exactly what’d she seen for the past eighteen years: nothing.

  “It was a good trip,” Raina was saying, “certainly worthwhile. Didn’t sell too much, but made plenty of contacts. Booked three parties, one of them to a lady in Prince George who has six sisters and four brothers. Imagine that, Mama! All those siblings to contend with. And they all have children, well, all except one, who’s still a bachelor, but when they get together at Christmas, they have to rent a hall. Said there was fifty-seven altogether, counting all the kids and grandkids. Said they had to do three turkeys! Can you imagine that, Mama? Three turkeys.” Raina smiled wistfully. “Bit different from our festivities, eh, Mama? With only you and me and the nurse, why, we just need an itty-bitty bird. Okay, I’ve got your bed settled. Are you ready to make the move? I’m gonna count to three, Mama, and you’ll need to help me because I’m lifting you by myself. The nurse has gone off somewhere, don’t know where but she’ll be back soon, I’m sure. Okay – one, two, three... thatta girl, good job. Let me just take a peek at your diaper... oh, good, nice and clean. Anyway, the nurse will have to come back, because I got that big convention to go to next week. Remember that, Mama? I told you all about it. The regional vice president will be there, giving out awards.”

  Raina pulled the covers up to her mother’s chin and gently stroked her face. “And tomorrow, I’ll try some of the new colors on you. Just wait till you see the new spring line, Mama, you’re gonna just die!”