“I do not want to be controlled by you,” he said.
“I control nothing — in my whole life,” she said, still hanging her head. “I’ve never controlled nothing but my bird feeder.”
He looked at her, started to say something else, and couldn’t. The sailboat drifted off port in the wind, and there was the smell of acrid smoke.
He could feel the first traces of rain, and he smelled her perfume on that air.
“I have to go — Silver and I — you can’t come today”
“I’m sorry,” she whispered, still with a cup in her hand.
“Go away,” he said. “You’ll end up getting in trouble here.”
She looked up at him.
Suddenly, he asked her about Tom. His voice began to shake a little.
“I haven’t seen Tommie in a long time,” she said.
“Well, he’s a better man than me,” he said. “You don’t know, but I do; there are very few men like him. You should go back to him.”
“But I can’t — because I betrayed him,” she said.
“Oh, well, he’ll get over that — sooner or later — you can’t betray someone forever.”
He lit a cigarette and went down into the cutty. He stayed there until he finished his cigarette, and then coming topside he saw her wading across the sandbar towards the cows at the Jessops’ farm, the light cotton dress soaking her back, so her white panties were visible, her hair now falling down her shoulder, He threw the cigarette butt into the water, and watched the black flow erase it completely.
FIVE
Karrie went back home, and realized how the house, the chairs, the faint odour of her blood, now all conspired to show her as a fool.
The room she slept in, the unmade bed with its impression of her body, seemed to mock her, as did her collection of tiny doll chairs and suitcases she had kept on her dresser since she was six.
For three days she brooded. She didn’t eat with the family — she didn’t see them.
“You’re getting thin — what’s the matter?” Dora said suspiciously
“I might be getting married,” Karrie said, so matter-of-factly it startled her.
The curtains blew in the August evening. Across the paved drive at the gas bar, she heard some boys talking in the dark night. She became lightheaded. A great transport truck filled with dried fish pulled in. And this transport truck with its dried fish, stinking of salt, startled her.
Instantly she wanted to say that what she had just said wasn’t true, that she was not really getting married, and instantly her voice failed her. She simply stared wide-eyed, and then touched her finger to her nose because of the unpleasant smell of fish.
“It’s not settled yet, of course — I don’t know if I want to. He’s so damn wild, Mike, with his long black hair. But do you believe in love at first sight?” She smiled at this thought, and placed her hands on her lap. “I believe in love at first sight on certain occasions — if the man and woman is really mature,” she added. “But they have to be really mature — and not sit around all day listening to George Jones.” And she laughed. “They should listen to some Bob Dylan too.”
“Yer so growed up now,” Dora said, staring at her stepdaughter, “Way more sophisticated, I must say.” And she smiled. She always stared at Karrie with a false love that hid meanness and self-interest. Karrie could see this. She understood how powerless she was now, powerless unless her delusion came true. She also felt the first twinges of rage. She thought of the money that her stepmother controlled, and kept in the tin box, and rage at this meanness overcame her. She’d never had a party given for her in her life. And really, except for poor old Vincent, she’d never had a friend in the house. She looked away from Dora, and cleared her throat.
Then Dora talked about Tom. How she secretly disliked him, and how she loathed that retarded boy, Vincent, with his silly dog. And, smiling slightly, Dora whispered about how big his penis was in his loose pants.
“You can see the whole thing stuffed in there — makes me faint, I must say,” Dora smiled.
Karrie tried not to listen, but she knew Vincent was a bother now every day, waiting for her — hoping to see her, knocking on the door, walking about the house or hanging around the gas bar so that Dora had threatened to get the police.
Karrie could not stand to listen to this, so she went back to her room, feeling rage descend down her spine. As she walked from the den, she could see the tin box. She had taken money from that box to give to Michael for gas for The Renegade, and none of them even thanked her. And the way Madonna treated her was horrible. And yet it seemed so important to have Madonna love her.
She sat for many moments in her room thinking, quite clearly, as lucidly as she had ever thought; and something came to her in a revelation.
What if his father knew — ?
She was prepared to go to Michael’s father and tell him what she knew. That Silver and Michael had broken the spinnaker on his boat. She looked over at the round gilt-edged mirror, and saw the start in her eyes. Her eyes were pale blue, large, and her face was white, shaded, just slightly, by freckles.
She thought of having been called “cinnamon girl,” and was now horrified at her naivete. She would tell his father about that! And once Michael was driving a Harley-Davidson on the shore road, and got it stuck, and he asked her to help him push it. So they had to push it back to the house, and she had burned her calf on the exhaust. The pain was excruciating and it left a mark. And all of this she could tell his father. That is, she could tell about how everyone was fooled by Michael, because he tormented her. And he wasn’t in love with life — or had big plans. Didn’t he know that she knew what his plans were? Only to — to have girls!
But the knowledge that one has been self-deceived comes with a terrible suddenness. Now it was so vivid. The blueberry pie she made for him and brought down the path. She had been so happy to make it — and at the moment she gave it to them, she could feel them staring at her as if they all wanted her to go home.
She thought again of Dora’s meanheartedness. The stinginess of the house, the smallness of the talk. Worse, the terrible shanty she kept, where those poor people stayed, with the little five-year-old boy named Brian. She thought of how Dora always made fun of them after she took their money.
She shivered. She was too angry even to begin to imagine what she might do. She could tell the police about the money or how Dora had the pumps rigged so they made three extra cents on every dollar. Or she might take the money from the tin box and go away to Europe. They would never be able to tell anyone because it was stolen money. She would learn to ski. She would have all kinds of friends, but never see anyone from home again! They would see her picture in the paper, and she would have a fur coat and she would sue them and have to go to court and they would be scared to hear her name mentioned!
She did not want to love Michael any more but he would be sorry. Perhaps she would die. They would all come to the funeral. But they wouldn’t let him. She could see it all. His dark black eyes, his long hair, his walk which always slightly troubled her. There would be the light of candles, some dead leaves — they would be singing something very new, and everyone would try to touch the coffin.
She tucked her knees up under her and rocked herself to sleep.
SIX
The day he sent Karrie away, Michael left the sailboat and went back to the farmhouse. He lay in bed thinking of Nora Battersoil, and remembered the line from an old country and western song: “I give her everything but she flew.”
Later that afternoon Silver came to the house agitated and angry He sat in the living room. Michael told him he would have to hide the boat — if he could just take it up to Millerton, and hide it at an island he knew.
“The boat is my dad’s,” he said. He looked as a person does when they suddenly find themselves in a crisis and are ready to ask for help. And this is how Silver looked upon him now, in compassion for his frailty Silver wore a clean red shirt tha
t Madonna had pressed, and jeans with the cuffs turned up. He looked like a poor and tiny peasant on his way to the county fair. In fact, he was on his way to the church picnic.
“Now” Silver sighed, “Everette thinks we’re all working together against him — and that you set him up — and — “
“But I was at his side day and night,” Michael said.
“It doesn’t matter, it’s one way he can use to — “
“To what?”
“To fuck Madonna — do you understand?”
Michael said he wasn’t sure.
So Silver just shrugged. “Madonna won’t unless he promises to bail us out of this jackpot. That’s what’s been going on with her. She’s been protecting us by keeping her arse covered. Now what you’ve got to do is not see Karrie Smith any more — go back up to town — stay there for your own sake. You must go back home — he won’t bother you up there — he’s too scared to do that. If you think he’ll walk in on you at supper you’re crazy — he’s a coward. And Madonna and I worry about you because — well — because you’ve been good to us! So I’ll take care of the money. But I don’t know about Professor Becker — we should never have gone to see him.”
“Who — why?” Michael said. His face was white. It looked as if he had been just hit with a board.
“Because Becker bragged all over the place that these drug people came to see him.”
“Why — who — told you — ?”
“So Everette sent Daryll to talk to him — the idea is we gave him the drugs to sell. We didn’t, but that don’t matter. Now Becker is all scared — if something happens he’ll be the first one to go to the cops — “
And the concept that it was Silver for these nine months who had been wise, and trying to hang on to the reins of reality suddenly was present in the terrible silence. And Michael looked at him with shame.
“I’ll phone Becker tonight,” Michael said.
There was the smell of cigarette smoke and aftershave where Silver sat. A poverty, a poverty of spirit, that comes in all guises and has no favourite, emanated from him like it never did from his sister. And Michael felt for him, and remembered even more painfully that the only thing Silver had wanted to do that summer was enrol in a course to become an electrician, and he had wanted Michael to help him apply. Michael until now had forgotten all about this.
Michael could say nothing. For now he had entered their world, and this was not what Mr. Jessop had wanted at all.
He phoned Becker, but Becker was neither at his house, a bungalow on a one-way street overlooking the river in the city of Fredericton, nor at his office at the university.
Michael then had four or five drinks and tried to sleep.
Later that afternoon, as he was lying on the bed in the master bedroom, wondering how to escape, to get away, Michael had a phone call. For a few moments he didn’t know who it was. Her voice seemed to come from far away, from a planet other than his own, from a place that still entertained ideas of goodness.
“Hello, Michael — I’m having a party — September 9 — could you come up? Don’t blame your mother — actually it was my mother — I haven’t seen you all summer — so it is me — if you could — come.”
He suddenly realized it was Laura McNair. He felt sad for her, prompted by the loss of her brother and by the anonymous death threats.
“Sure — I’ll try to make it — I really will — I promise I will,” he said.
Later he sat in the old chair in the living room staring at the sailboat chimes Karrie had bought him. Their tinkling in a soft breeze from an open window became excruciating after a while.
He left the house.
The road was muddy. It had rained that afternoon, but now the stars were poking out, and a moon, sliver-thin, hugged the sky behind the trees. He walked through the mud as if he were on high heels and made his way to the gate.
He turned to his left and walked towards the highway, later turning to his right and crossing a huge cow field in the dark. He walked in the direction of Tommie Donnerel’s house for the first time in over a year.
He could smell the horses in the night air, the farm was quiet, the barn rested against the trees as always, while the house sat in an open space with its downstairs light on.
There was a new swing on the new verandah, and Michael remembered how he had told Tom he should buy one when they were building. Everything was quiet, even serene. Suddenly he smelled sawdust and felt nostalgic for that time and place that would never return.
If only he could go back to it. He thought of Vincent, who’d always asked Michael to take him sailing, and then he turned to go. As he did he noticed a hand move the curtain and saw Tom staring out the window at him.
He saw Tom’s eyes, green and blazing dark in a kind of futile anger and sadness. They seemed to stare away at the infinite vagaries of coming darkness, the crux of the wide oak tree gone soft in the night air, and over all into the possibility of one’s own death.
That is what the eyes of Tom Donnerel were saying to him. Yet when they faced him they were bruised and hurt, and reflected a kind of irony.
His immediate impulse was to turn about and leave.
Yet he did not manage to move.
“Come in,” Tom said, as he opened the door and turned away.
Michael walked into the small kitchen, with the smell of the night in his hair, and of night air still evaporating on his skin. He wanted to tell Tommie how much trouble he was in. But pride stopped him short, and he only managed a strange, sheepish smile.
Tom sat back down with his dinner. Michael put his palms under his thighs.
Tom had been thinking of a word for the whole day and he had come up with it. “The real trouble is someday you will have to live the posture,” Tom said. “I don’t know when it will come, but when it does — it will be a hard life from then on.”
He kept his head down cutting his steak, while the little dog sat at his feet staring up at him wagging its tail. That was the word, posture. That was all Tom wanted to say. And he gave a slight, self-incriminating smile for using such a heady word.
Tom stared up at him, sniffed, and again looked down at his steak, as if he were concentrating on cutting into the plate itself. But there were tears in his eyes. Then after a long moment he shrugged. Even the shrug seemed to relay his pain and acute suffering over Karrie.
“I just came up to tell you that I — love Karrie — as a person — but nothing more — so I hope you can forgive us — because you can have her back — it was all a mistake. It’ll take time but she can be yours again — no one meant to hurt you. It is you she loves — not me. Not deep down. She thinks I am someone I am not. But she will see that it is you who are all she ever wanted — and I’ll head away and leave you two be.”
Tom said nothing. Again his eyes were dark and fathomless. And then he looked up in a kind of self-incriminating mirth, and put his head down.
Again he cut deep into his plate. Again his shoulders moved, and again Michael noticed tears in his eyes.
“I’m sorry — for everything,” Michael said. “But everything will work out.”
He went over and held out his hand. Tom looked up from his plate, tried his darndest, but couldn’t bring himself to take it.
Michael walked back down the lane, away from the house, and its added room, the shingles still golden. He walked slowly, his boots making soft slur marks in the pitted dirt, and turned down towards the lane. He walked almost to the shore, thinking that Tom and Karrie could have a happy life together.
He went to a stump and sat down, wondering what he could possibly do to extricate himself from Everette Hutch, who now said he had let him down? And further, how could he help those who had once trusted him?
“This is terrible,” he thought. “I’ll kill him if he comes for Madonna — I’ll not let them suffer any more.”
Yet he felt sick, hopeless, and terrified.
SEVEN
Two days after Micha
el visited Tom, Karrie went to see him. He was reading, sitting against the red cliff, his shoulders thrust into it as if he were hiding. He wasn’t reading the Kama Sutra, however — he was reading Cicero once again, only the subtle significance of this was lost on Karrie.
Karrie missed the sailboat and everything she thought was associated with it — its sanctuary and freedom, her desire to belong, to express the opinions of others, and to constantly think of herself as being harmed. Those things that are always sought by youth.
She walked up to Michael sternly, but then lowered her eyes. Then, like a child, she told him she would tell his father everything, for she was no one’s fool. Even if he did call her “cinnamon girl.” And then she stamped her foot.
When she stamped her foot, it made a strange thud on the desolate beach. Like a heartbeat. The waves were grey and cold and filled with dark seaweed. Michael’s eyes seemed to start, as if his pulse had quickened.
She smiled and then turned away from him, biting her bottom lip.
“What do you know?” Michael asked.
“Oh, I just know, that’s all”
She walked over to where she had tumbled over the bank two months before, but the tide was high and she couldn’t go any farther.
So she stood with her back to him, like a small orphan.
“Come here,” he said..
And she turned slowly, then ran towards him.
Later he had the others apologize to her as if it were their fault a falling-out had happened, and not hers. He looked at Silver sternly when he spoke. And Karrie felt very good, for it was the first time she felt that things were not being blamed on her.
Silver stood before her, his eyes cast towards the ground.
The Bay of Love and Sorrows Page 12