Girls Fall Down

by Maggie Helwig

  The path led them around a corner, to the back of the vast dark walls. In the beam of the flashlight Alex saw a sign with a hazard symbol and the words Asbestos and silica contaminated area. Do not enter. They passed the warning, around the corner of a barbed-wire fence into a clearing. Not far beyond them was the railway overpass, towering on massive concrete pilasters, reaching up far above their heads, far beyond where he could see.

  He stopped, and lowered the flashlight. ‘Susie. Look.’

  Somewhere up the hill was another light, distant, below the railway bridge, a small wavering point.

  ‘Oh,’ whispered Susie. ‘Oh dear. I think it is.’

  ‘We’re going to have to get up the hill.’

  At first it was thick with dried grass and weeds, waist-high for Alex, nearly chest-high for Susie, a crackling barricade. He couldn’t climb up with his arm around her, but he stretched out one hand behind him, and she held it and followed him, stumbling through the vegetation. They reached the first concrete foot of the underpass, and here the slope turned muddy, and much steeper, clogged with fallen trees and stones.

  Alex released her hand and grabbed on to the branches of the dead trees to pull himself along, bent over, fighting gravity. Susie, beside him, was on her hands and knees now, unable to get up the hill any other way. He slid and fell onto his hands himself, dragged himself upwards on another branch.

  He reached the next concrete foot and boosted himself onto it, then stretched down and grabbed Susie’s arms, hauling her awkwardly up.

  Anchoring himself against a tree stump, he turned to look up the last expanse of slope. The light had gone out. Alex aimed the flash-light that way, and it illuminated the outline of a tent. A green tent, just like the man had said.

  ‘He must have heard us coming,’ said Susie.

  The tent was pitched under the last wall of the underpass, where it drew even with the top of the hill. There was a small level area around it, scraped clean, and two milk crates holding something, he couldn’t see what. The slope where they were was steep, precipitous; they struggled further up, mud-covered, scraped, and then, some yards from the tent, Susie put her hand on his arm.

  ‘Stay here,’ she said. ‘You’ll have to stay here.’ She squeezed her eyes tight shut and opened them again. ‘I have to do this.’

  He stayed on the hill, in the wind, leaning against the broken trunk of an old tree. And he watched her, Susie, on her hands and knees in the mud, crawling unsteadily up the hill, over the rocks, towards the doorway of the green tent.

  She stopped outside the front flap, still on her knees. The person in the tent must know she was there.

  ‘Derek?’ he heard her whisper shakily.

  There was no answer from the tent right away.

  ‘Derek?’

  ‘Is that Susie-Paul?’

  ‘Of course it is.’ She sat down in the mud and wrapped her arms around her legs.

  ‘That doesn’t make sense.’

  ‘Oh, for fuck’s sake, Derek. Who else would climb all the way up here just to look for you?’

  The light came on inside the tent, and then a man opened the flap and crept out, holding a lantern in one hand and a book in the other. ‘Well, hello then,’ he said.

  He didn’t look much like the man in the photo. He was horribly thin, emaciated really, and he had mouse-coloured hair down to his shoulders and a straggly beard, a scabbed-over cut on his forehead. He bobbed one leg nervously as he sat, tapping the book against his knee. The glasses were gone, and his eyes, Susie’s deep brown eyes, looked freakishly large in his sunken face.

  ‘You’re not well,’ she said.

  ‘I’m fine,’ said Derek. ‘I’m doing quite well, in fact.’

  ‘You look like you’re starving.’

  ‘I’ve been reducing my caloric needs. But I don’t starve. I’m exploring the possibilities of agriculture.’ He waved his hand around the small level zone. ‘As you can see, I’m engaged in subsistence farming.’

  ‘Jesus.’

  ‘In the interim I still have some needs I can’t meet from the surrounding land, but I hope to achieve complete self-sufficiency by 2005.’

  ‘Oh, yeah. You and North Korea,’ said Susie. And unexpectedly, Derek’s face lit up in a luminous sweet smile. Susie’s smile.

  ‘Oh, Susie-Paul. It is you.’ He put his hand out and stroked her arm, and she raised her face to him. ‘It’s always so good to see you,’ he said.

  ‘Then why have you been hiding from me?’

  Derek tilted his head to one side. ‘But I don’t, baby girl. I never would.’

  ‘I haven’t seen you for three months. I didn’t know if you were dead.’

  He ran his hand down her arm again, leaning towards her. ‘You’re my baby sister soul. You can’t be far away from me, can you? You’re with me here every day. We’re together eternally. You remember.’

  They looked so much alike now, their eyes on each other. ‘No,’ said Susie softly. ‘This is what you’re imagining, Derek. I’ve never been here before.’

  ‘I’m sorry, baby. I’m sorry you can’t remember. I want to look after you. I wish you’d let me.’

  He came close to her, a small submissive movement of his head. She took his hands and held them in her lap. ‘Oh God,’ she whispered. ‘I’ve been so worried.’

  ‘It’s all right, baby. It’s really all right. You know I’ll look after you.’

  She reached out and stroked his wild hair. ‘Derek, Derek, it’s going to be winter soon, you can’t go on living here.’

  ‘This is a good place,’ said Derek. ‘This is a safe place. They can’t get the brainwashing chemicals at us here.’

  ‘Oh no. Not the brainwashing chemicals again.’ Alex saw a dark trail of mascara run down her face and knew she was crying.

  ‘Susie-Paul, of all the people in the world, you are the one I need to save. I need to help you. Don’t you understand that?’

  ‘I love you, Derek, but you’re out of your mind,’ said Susie, her voice full of tears. ‘You have a mental illness. Your theories about sodium pentothal and computer rays, they are not real. I do not talk to you when I am not here, and I have never been here before.’

  ‘But of course you have,’ he said. He touched her face, running a finger gently over her smeared mascara. ‘We’re the same person, baby. We were born together. We’re the same body forever, and I can’t be safe without you.’

  ‘No, Derek. We’re not. We’re really, really not.’

  ‘We could be. If we were together.’

  ‘No. Not ever, Derek. That’s not who I am.’

  Derek moved his hand down her neck, his shoulders bending. Then he lowered himself to the wet ground and lay his head in her lap, and she curled over him, still stroking his hair.

  ‘I know it’s not easy for you,’ she said. ‘I know it was really, it was confusing for you when Mom died. But this is not a solution.’

  Derek lifted his head and looked up at her, his legs twitching, his tongue flicking nervously over his lips. ‘Don’t lie to me, Susie-Paul.’

  ‘I’m not lying. What do you mean, I’m lying?’

  ‘Susie-Paul.’ There was a dangerous edge to his voice. ‘You know they’re not dead. You know this is just a trick. You need to stop telling lies.’

  ‘For Christ’s sake.’ Susie sat up sharply. ‘Stop it, Derek. Of course they’re dead. Mom had cancer. Dad had a heart attack. They died.’

  ‘Stupid,’ said Derek, the word a brittle snap. ‘You know it’s not true. You’re letting them trick you.’

  Susie choked down a hiccupy whimper and pushed back, moving away from him. ‘Cut it out. I buried them, Derek, I saw the coffins going into the dirt. People die. They’re dead.’

  Derek shook his head again, quickly. ‘They’re still watching you, baby. They’re still after you. I know because you tell me. You tell me all the time.’

  ‘Derek! Stop!’ She clenched her fists in front of her mouth and began to
sob.

  Derek was squatting by the tent, staring at her seriously, and he was twitching a bit but there was no question that Susie, muddy and drunk and weeping, looked far more crazy than he did. ‘Just shut up,’ she said, her face glistening in the light of the lantern, streaked and wet. ‘I fucking buried them, Derek. They’re under the fucking ground.’

  ‘I didn’t mean to make you feel bad,’ he said softly.

  Alex could hardly tell what the noise was that Susie made, but he thought it was meant to be a laugh. ‘Well, that’s great. That’s just lovely. Everything’s fine, then.’

  He moved towards her again, suppliant, almost crawling, and put his hands on her knees. ‘Susie-Paul. Baby sister. You know I never mean to hurt you. I’m sorry. I’m a bad person. I’m sorry.’

  ‘You’re not bad, Derek.’ She wiped her smeared eyes and lowered her head again to his. ‘You don’t have to apologize.’

  ‘I love you, baby.’

  ‘I know. I know.’

  Alex didn’t think that he’d moved; he hardly thought that he’d breathed. But he must have done something, because Derek’s head lifted suddenly and he glanced down the hill.

  ‘You brought a person with you.’

  ‘He’s my friend.’

  ‘I don’t like that.’

  ‘Well, tough luck,’ said Susie.

  Derek sat up and frowned towards Alex. ‘I don’t know why you have to involve other people.’

  ‘Because other people matter to me. You just have to live with that.’

  ‘It’s really not safe,’ said Derek, shaking his head in disapproval. ‘I’ve told you that before. These are not safe people.’

  Alex tried to catch Susie’s eye, not knowing if he should go back down the hill.

  ‘Anyway,’ said Susie. ‘None of this is why I’m here. We need to find you a proper place to live.’

  ‘This is better than where I was before.’

  Susie looked around the underpass. ‘You know, honest to God, it’s probably not much worse. But the rooming house did at least have some heating.’

  ‘People tried to hurt me there.’

  ‘What I want, what I hope is that we can find you a better place. There’s some money from Mom’s will, it’s not a lot but… ’

  The change was like an electric shock, so fast Alex was dumb-founded. Derek leapt up, his fingers reaching and convulsing like snakes, his voice a high screech.

  ‘You bitch! You fucking bitch!’ He grabbed at her sleeve, shaking her arm hard, but Susie didn’t seem frightened; she dropped her head in resignation and wept but didn’t move away. ‘You think you can trick me that way?’ he shouted, still shaking her arm, his other hand moving clawlike near her face. ‘You think I’m an idiot? You fucking bitch!’

  ‘Shut up, Derek,’ said Susie quietly.

  ‘Get out of here! Get out!’ He pulled away from her and hurled himself back into the tent, zipping the flap closed. ‘Go away now, bitch!’ Susie buried her head in her knees, sobbing, Derek screaming from the tent, ‘Go away! Go away!’

  And Alex moved, scrambling up the slope towards her and taking her wrist. ‘Susie. Come.’ She shook her head, waving him away with her other hand. ‘Come on, come on, honey,’ whispered Alex.

  ‘Go away, go away, go away!’ screamed Derek.

  ‘He isn’t going to hurt me.’

  ‘I’m not afraid of him hurting you. Honey, come with me.’ Alex pulled her up and away from the tent, out from beneath the underpass, crawling with her, up the last steep slope to a level field, Derek howling, ‘Go away, go away!’ below them. They came out at the edge of the railway track, and she staggered and fell against him on the narrow outcrop before the rail. They stood in the snow, staring at each other, out of breath, Susie hanging on to his arms, Derek still shouting below them.

  ‘I have to go back,’ she said.

  ‘What the hell do you think you’re going to do? Drag him out?’

  ‘Not like this. I can’t leave like this.’ She had barely taken half a step onto the plunging slope before she slipped, skidding down on her side and grabbing at a thorny branch, landing on her knees, Alex thought. But he couldn’t really tell, she was in darkness now, hardly visible.

  ‘Derek,’ she called, and Derek screamed, wordless, a long keening wail. ‘I’m going now,’ Susie yelled above the noise. ‘Derek, I will come back. We will work this out.’ Alex was standing uncertainly on the tiny strip of snow between the track and the downslope, listening for trains. ‘Goodbye, Derek,’ shouted Susie, and he tried to make out the shape of her as she fought her way up the hill one more time. As soon as he could see her clearly, he grabbed her arm and hurried her across the tracks into the field beyond, then stopped, uncertain what to do next.

  ‘Where are we?’ she panted.

  ‘Oh God, I don’t know.’ Car lights were moving below them, an arc of highway surrounding the dark wedge of the hill, a few bright windows in the apartment towers across the valley. ‘Bayview. That must be Bayview.’ He moved towards the lights, reaching the verge of another steep hill where brush and thistles as tall as Susie’s head rose out of the snow, and he held her tight to his chest and slid downwards, a controlled fall through dry branches towards the gravel shoulder. The world mostly visible again, he stared at the passing cars, trying to orient himself, to understand where he was.

  ‘Okay,’ he said at last. ‘I think I know how to get out of here.’

  There was a traffic light about twenty feet up the shoulder, and it took them across Bayview onto Pottery Road. And on the bend of Pottery Road, at three in the morning, there was a man selling roses from plastic buckets, a thick luminescent green necklace wound around his forehead, glowing pink and yellow bracelets lining his arms, his piles of roses interspersed with flashing red artificial flowers. He looked at Alex and Susie hopefully as they came in his direction. ROSES $5 written on the buckets in black marker.

  The thin sidewalk was intermittent; they had to walk on the shoulder most of the way, past the glowing man and up the road, across the Don River and beneath another underpass, to the foot of a hill. On their left side Alex saw a dreamlike array of wooden ponies, floodlit beneath a yellow billboard declaring the place to be Fantasy Farm. Smaller signs admonished Fantasy Farm Is Private Property, and Please Do Not Climb On The Antique Carriage. The ponies reared and pranced between pools of darkness.

  On the right side was a proper sidewalk, protected from the road by a concrete divider, on which someone had sprayed the word FEAR in black paint. He stepped onto the pavement, weak with relief. ‘We can follow this street up to Broadview,’ he said. ‘When we get to Broadview we’ll be back in the real world.’

  ‘I’m so tired, Alex,’ said Susie, who hadn’t spoken since the traffic light.

  ‘I know.’ He put his arm around her again. ‘It isn’t far. You’ll be okay.’ But it was up another hill, and he was tired as well, too tired. He couldn’t stop and get out his glucometer here, but climbing hills in the middle of the night would be driving his sugar down badly; he needed carbohydrates before a hypo set in.

  They made it to the top of the hill, and it was Broadview and Mortimer. There were perfectly normal small houses, and a dental clinic, and rows of little strip malls on either side of the street, the stores locked for the night. There had to be someplace that was open, he thought, seriously worried now about his blood sugar. Anyplace. And yes, there was a lit building about a block away.

  ‘Let’s go that way,’ he said, and got close enough to see that it was something called the Donut Wheel Diner – perfect, he would be all right.

  It was a small place, doughnuts in racks behind the counter, plastic-wrapped sandwiches, and a big handwritten sign over the cash that said WE NOW SELL BEER!! It was long after last call, but the one other patron had clearly taken full advantage of this opportunity before going to sleep at his table.

  He asked for an orange juice and a cream-cheese bagel, which would very possibly send his sugar t
oo high. But he was beyond calculation, had been unprepared for any of this, had let Susie lead him to the brink of disaster yet again.

  Susie rubbed her head, squinting against the light. ‘Oh God,’ she muttered. ‘I think I’m starting to sober up. Oh God.’

  ‘I’m pretty sure I could get you a beer,’ said Alex. ‘I think it’s like a doughnut speakeasy.’

  ‘When I want you to be funny I’ll tell you,’ said Susie.

  ‘Black coffee?’

  ‘Please.’

  They sat down at a little round table, and Susie sipped her coffee and rubbed her head again. She was covered with mud, and her stockings were torn, a rip down one sleeve of her jacket, a thin scratch on her cheek. There was mascara all over her face and she was not nearly sober yet. Alex reached across the table and took her hand; the palm was scraped and bloody.

  ‘Are you all right?’ he asked.

  ‘That’s a strange question.’

  ‘I’m sorry. I didn’t know.’

  She lifted her free hand and began to chew on a dirty thumbnail, and this seemed to Alex like a gesture from a distant past. ‘He’s my brother, Alex. In our own sick way, we’ve always looked after each other. I can’t just leave him there and let him freeze to death.’

  ‘He seems pretty determined.’

  ‘Well, he’s insane, isn’t he? That helps.’

  He ate his bagel with one hand. ‘Let me take you home,’ he said again. ‘I can get you a taxi.’

  Susie shook her head. ‘We’re near my house. It’s a ten-minute walk.’

  ‘I’ll come with you, then.’

  ‘I think I can get home safely.’

  ‘I know. But I’ll come with you.’

  And it was a plain, human place again as they walked. Small brick houses with snowy lawns and strings of red Christmas lights over the eaves, the windows dark, residential streets as quiet as sleep. She stopped at a house on Carlaw, just north of the Danforth.

  ‘I rent the second floor here,’ she said.

  They sat down on the top step of the porch. ‘I just need to catch my breath a minute,’ said Alex, looking at her dark hair lying against the pale line of her cheek.

  ‘Sure.’ She rested her chin on her knees. ‘He never got to have an adult life, you know,’ she said quietly. ‘Not really. He was… he was just so young. When he… There were so many things he never got to have.’ She ran her thumbnail back and forth across her lips. ‘Sometimes I think I’ll forget how it was. It’d be easier if I did.’