by Tyler Keevil
‘Don’t flip that,’ Maria said, pointing to a switch above the gap. ‘It trips the power, since it’s not connected to anything. It was for the fan over the stove, but Pat sent the stove back. He’s very particular like that. So I can’t cook properly. Just microwave, but it has a convection oven, at least.’
She sounded lighter, breezier, now that we’d arrived. Maybe that had to do with her daughter, or with the booze. She had a fresh beer in hand. She’d set the table – a big round solid oak number – with paper plates and plastic cutlery. Two more cans of Pabst had been put out for us, alongside a bottle of red wine, uncorked. Left to breathe, as they say.
‘Nice and warm in here,’ Jake said.
‘It’s underfloor heating.’ She tapped the slate with her heel.
‘Drug money’s still green, I guess,’ Jake said.
‘It’s not just drugs.’
‘No – it’s blood, too.’
Maria took a long pull of Pabst, eyeing him over the rim as she did so.
Then she said, ‘They’re getting out of all that, with the clubs and bars.’
‘Going legit, eh?’
She shook her head and muttered something about him being impossible, but at that stage it was just banter: the prodding and needling, baiting and taunting. The tiny torments they could inflict on each other so skilfully.
The microwave pinged and from it Maria withdrew three TV dinners of spaghetti Bolognese. She tore off the plastic wrap and dumped the contents onto our three plates.
‘It ain’t gourmet,’ she said.
‘We been eating from pots and pans,’ I said, ‘so it’s a step up from that.’
We sat down at the table. The paper plates and plastic forks and cups made it feel like a play-dinner, and the missing walls gave me the feeling of being inside a big dollhouse. We were the dolls: set up and positioned to act out our old roles.
Maria held up her glass, and we did the same.
‘To being back together.’
‘To family.’
We drank to that. As we ate, we made clumsy smalltalk about living on the ranch, and what lay in its general vicinity. Maria told us that the nearest town was the one we’d passed on the way in: Elma. A few smaller towns lay to the south, but Elma served as the main shopping hub for groceries and amenities and the like.
‘They got a college, too,’ she said. ‘I’m taking night classes.’
Jake said, ‘You weren’t one for studying.’
‘I’m doing astronomy.’
Jake and I shared a look – raising our eyebrows, as if she’d announced her celibacy.
‘What?’ she asked.
‘You don’t mean astrology?’ Jake said.
‘I know the difference, asshole.’
‘I just wanted to make sure we’re talking about the same thing, here.’
‘I’m trying to keep busy, okay?’ She put down her fork. ‘And get clean.’
‘Hey – I’m sorry.’ He held up his hands, nearly knocking over his beer, but catching it just in time. ‘I didn’t think you had an interest in that kind of thing, is all.’
‘I got a lot of interests. You wouldn’t know about that. The only interest you ever had was being depressed and making me miserable and singing songs about your sister.’
Jake stabbed deliberately at his spaghetti, twirled a tangle around the tongs of his fork, and stuck the whole bundle in his mouth – as if he needed to block out what he wanted to say.
Maria said, ‘I’m sorry, Jake.’ Then she added, softer, ‘Do you still play?’
Jake shook his head, swallowed. ‘Not really.’
‘Sure he does,’ I said. ‘He played on the boat.’
‘Why don’t you play us something?’ Maria asked.
‘Guitar’s out of tune.’
I said, ‘Sounded fine to me.’
‘I ain’t playing, okay?’
He said it louder than he had to, louder than was normal. In the silence that followed we all focused on our plates, our plastic utensils rasping away like rats’ claws on dry straw.
After dinner Maria pulled out this bottle of tequila: clear blue glass, real tall and elegant, with a label all written in Spanish. She poured us each a lowball. It tasted better than any tequila I’d ever had. It didn’t even taste like the same drink. She told us Patrick had ordered it from Mexico from a small batch distillery. She said it with a touch of pride and I expected Jake to mock her about that, and I think she did too, but he didn’t. He hadn’t said much, since she’d made that crack about Sandy.
‘What’s through there?’ I said.
Off the kitchen was another room, all in dark.
‘The boys’ games room. You want to see?’
‘Sure,’ Jake said. ‘I’m tired of jawing.’
Maria flicked on the light and led us through. They had a full-sized pool table in there, as well as a crokinole board and a gun rack filled with hunting rifles. But like the rest of the house the room was incomplete: plasterboard lined the ceiling, and loose wires ran between the beams. The overhead light was a bare bulb, without a fixture or shade as yet.
Jake racked up the balls and we took turns potting them without playing an actual game. That went on for ten, fifteen, twenty minutes – just the dull clack of balls and the dead time stretching between. I knew Jake was doing it to get at Maria (for her that kind of silence was unbearable) and it worked. Eventually she broke and went up to the bathroom and when she came down she looked animated and vigorous and angry. She grabbed a stereo remote from the sofa and cranked up some bass-heavy R&B and marched on over to the pool table.
‘Whose turn is it anyway?’ she asked. ‘Mine? Give me that goddamn cue, Jake.’
‘It ain’t your turn.’
‘It is now.’
She cackled and grabbed the cue from him. As she lined up the shot I looked at him, accusingly. Maria sank that shot and kept on going, stalking around to the other side of the table. When she missed she swore and shoved the cue off to me and stood gnawing at her lip, tapping her foot. Her whole body taut, wired up. There were different Marias and this was one of them. Without preamble, she started talking about Delaney and how much she hated him and hated being with him. She said he was a goddamn murderer and so were his friends.
‘That’s all the visitors I ever have out here. Rapists and murderers.’
‘Not much company,’ I said.
I didn’t know what the hell to say, to be honest.
‘You’ll see on Thursday. They’re supposed to be coming on Thursday, to finish this deal. You’ll see how he treats me.’
Jake stood up and held the pool cue sideways across his body, like a hockey stick.
He said, ‘Why are you with him, then?’
‘I might not be for much longer.’
‘I’ve heard that before.’
‘This time I mean it.’
‘If it’s not him, it’ll be some prick like him.’
‘Oh, go to hell Jake. Go right to hell and take your brother with you.’
‘What did I do?’ I said.
‘I’m sorry Timmy. You didn’t deserve that.’
I took the cue from Jake, and made a pathetic, aimless shot that wandered around the table like a blind mouse. But Maria was rising to it, now.
‘Anyways,’ she said. ‘Me and you had our chance, Jake. It’s finished, now.’
‘You saw to that.’
‘You were gone for years. Years, Jake.’
‘I was in fucking jail, Maria.’
‘And whose fault was that?’
They went back and forth like that, hacking away at each other, trying to get past the scar tissue to where it hurt. And all the while I stood in the middle trying to calm things down and soothe them, saying stuff like, ‘Come on, now,’ or ‘Let’s just hold on a second here,’ and of course that didn’t make a bit of difference. They got more and more worked up, until finally Maria said something about Jake loving Sandy more than her, which was probably true
but pretty shocking to hear said aloud all the same.
Instead of answering, Jake took the pool cue from me and casually snapped it over his knee. The crack of wood was definitive, and in the aftermath the throb of the bass resounded like a massive heartbeat. Then Maria tilted her head, looking up, and reached for the remote to turn the stereo down, while holding a palm out, as if calling for a truce. Footsteps sounded on the floor above. I don’t know how she’d heard them over the music. A mother’s instincts, I guess. A second later two skinny legs appeared on the landing at the top of the stairs. That was all I could see: these legs in polka-dot pyjama bottoms.
‘Mom,’ a voice said, ‘who’s here?’
Maria hurried over, and started up the stairs. ‘Just my friends, honey – the ones I told you about. They’re good guys. You’ll meet them tomorrow. Did we wake you?’
‘The music is loud.’
‘I’ve turned it down. We’ll go back to the kitchen.’
They moved away from the landing and the voices faded. Jake was still standing there with the pieces of pool cue in hand. He held the half with the tip out to me and said, ‘It’s your shot.’ We actually kept playing like that, sharing half of a broken cue, until Maria came back. When she did she seemed calmer. She looked as if she’d been crying. She wiped at her eyes and without saying anything she walked up to Jake and pulled him into a hug. She told him that she didn’t want to fight. She said it was a trying time for all of us and that we each had our demons. I didn’t know if she meant then, or now. But she tousled my hair and took us both by the hand and led us back into the kitchen, where we sat down again and had a few more splashes of that tequila.
By then I was feeling pretty gooned, and flagging, and they’d taken to holding hands, which didn’t seem at all forced or unnatural. It was what had to happen, I guess. When the chance arose I asked about where we’d be sleeping and Maria looked at me, startled.
‘It’s only eleven,’ she said.
‘I’m about done in.’
‘I got something to help with that.’
‘Not for me, Maria. Not tonight.’
She mimed a sadly clownish face, but didn’t push it. She told me we could sleep in the bunkhouse, where Delaney’s guests always slept.
‘How do I find the bunkhouse?’
‘Down past the stable.’
When I got up, Maria touched Jake’s arm and said, ‘What about you, Jake? You’re not going yet, are you?’
‘I could stay for a bit.’
‘Let’s catch up properly. I haven’t seen you for so long.’
She placed her head on his shoulder, and he looked at me, helpless. I just waved it off. It was the final bit of déjà vu from that night. I couldn’t count how many nights had ended like that: with the two of them cuddled up and me wandering off on my own. We all have our roles to play in certain situations, and that had always been another one of mine.
I gathered up my bag and got the key from her and stepped out through the new door onto the half-finished porch, now glazed with frost and treacherously slippery. I lingered to light one of Maria’s Marlboros and then started down the drive. After a few steps I glanced back, out of instinct. In one of the upstairs windows I could see a figure: slight and small, just the shadow of a girl. The shadow raised a hand to me, and I waved back.
Chapter Thirty-Two
I dreamed of water and the taste of salt and when I awoke, in the cold and the dark, I was staring at the underside of a bunk and thought for a moment I was back on the boat, with Albert and Evelyn. I took comfort in that, clinging to it like a blanket, but it slid away from me as I awoke more fully, and sat up.
I was of course no longer on the boat but on land, and in the Delaneys’ bunkhouse: a wooden A-frame cabin with two floors. The ground floor – where I had slept – contained a lounge, a single hallway, a shower room, and two dormitory-style rooms with half a dozen bunkbeds in each. The whole set-up looked reasonably new, but had already begun sliding towards disrepair: soiled carpets, holes in the walls, stained bedding. It reminded me of the Woodland – Jake’s flophouse back in Vancouver.
I’d stretched out on a bunk in one of the dorms. I hadn’t heard Jake come in, but he now lay sprawled on his back in the bunk opposite me, which I hadn’t necessarily expected. He’d pulled his bandana down over his eyes to shield them from the morning light, which glowed diffusely through the window (the venetian blinds were bent and broken). His mouth hung half-open and his breathing sounded even and peaceful. His exhales showed in the morning cold and I found it unnerving to glimpse this fragile, intangible evidence of my brother’s life, of his being alive.
I rooted through my bag and got out a dirty towel and a bar of soap and went down the hall to the shower room. I hadn’t showered since we’d left Vancouver and I had high hopes. But like the rest of the bunkhouse the bathroom had been subjected to mistreatment. The shower door hung loose on its hinges and a starburst crack radiated from the centre of the mirror. When I turned on the water it only ran cold, and due to the temperature it felt like glacial run-off. I braced myself and stood under it anyway, shuddering as water slid over my scalp and neck and the small of my back in a numbing glaze. I only lasted thirty seconds.
I walked back to our room, shivering and shaking, with the towel around my waist. Jake had gotten up, and was fiddling with the gas heater beneath the window.
I said, ‘I tried that last night.’
He looked up. A lit cigarette hung from his lips and he squinted at me through the smoke. ‘Why the hell can’t this rich prick warm his house?’
‘Wait’ll you try the shower.’
‘Busted, too?’
‘Colder’n death.’
He stood and kicked the heater without much enthusiasm. It rocked on its stand but didn’t tip over. ‘Fuck that. Maria must have warm water. I’ll shower in the main house.’
‘Surprised you didn’t sleep there.’
He just looked at me and ashed out on the carpet.
I asked, ‘You two have a good time last night?’
‘Lay off.’
‘Hope it was worth the trip.’
‘Don’t be jealous, Poncho.’
‘Maybe you can have a threesome with Delaney.’
Jake just shook his head and exhaled smoke, in a show of exasperation. I went over to sit on my bunk. I was still wet and half-naked and shuddering from the cold. A bead of water ran down my nose and hung there like an icicle. I wiped it away.
‘We’ve done what we had to,’ I said. ‘I think we should just go. Before the Delaneys and their crew get here on Thursday.’
‘How will I get my money?’
‘Our money. They can send it to us.’
‘You don’t just mail a hundred grand, you dinglehopper.’
‘We’ll pick it up, then. Later.’
‘If we don’t get it now, we won’t get it.’
‘I don’t care. I didn’t do it for the money, anyway.’
‘What the hell did we do it for?’
‘I did it for you, bozo. I don’t know why you did it. To get laid, apparently.’
‘That’s a shitty thing to say.’
I stood up. I wanted to say something big and dramatic that would convince him, but I’d forgotten about the towel and it fell off, leaving me standing naked, with my gearstick all shrivelled up from the cold. It was difficult to sound dramatic or convincing in that state.
‘Look, man,’ I said, ‘we leave now and we leave alive, at least.’
‘Those jokers owe us a hundred grand.’
‘Those jokers also threatened to kill us.’
‘That was just a pissing match.’
‘You willing to bet your life on it? And mine?’
He stubbed his cigarette out on the windowsill, mashing it far longer than he had to, until the butt was just a mess of soot and tobacco. He stood looking out the window for a time, even though you couldn’t see a thing through the glaze of frost.
Then
he said, ‘I’m gonna go check on the horse.’
‘Do that,’ I said. ‘I’ll start packing.’
I said that even though there was nothing really to pack. We hadn’t even unpacked.
‘Just hold your horses,’ he said. ‘What about Maria?’
‘You two had your dance last night.’
‘She might still need us.’
‘Or she might be stringing you along.’
He pulled on his jacket and put his hands in his pockets.
He said, ‘She might be.’
And he walked out.
I got dressed and put my clothes and towel in my duffel bag and zipped that up. I put it by the door and did the same with Jake’s bag. I pulled on my boots and jacket. Ready to go, I sat in a chair beneath the broken TV until Jake came back, about ten minutes later. I expected him to start up with the argument again (I’d already prepared my counter-argument) but the way he looked changed all that. He stood in the doorway and gazed at me for a time, his expression absolutely dumbfounded. He looked as if he’d had a lobotomy. It was so out of character I didn’t even ask him what had happened. I just stood up, waiting for the news. He patted at various pockets for his pack of smokes and found them eventually and got one out, only he couldn’t light it. His hands were shaking too much, and not from the cold.
He said, ‘You better go on down to the stables.’
‘What the hell happened?’
‘It’s better if you just go on down there.’
I actually thought Shenzao had died. It seemed that severe. The journey and travel and our terrible treatment of her had been too much, in the end. And if the stable was half as cold as our bunkhouse she’d probably caught pneumonia in the night. I walked down there with the slow-footed trudge of a mourner at a funeral. I couldn’t think of any other explanation.
Overnight a mountain mist had moved in, and the air felt cold and heavy as gauze. Through the haze the morning sun glowed silver, eerie and peculiar, creating what you might call an otherworldly atmosphere. Against that backdrop, or possibly due to what I expected to find, the stable looked hallowed as a church. Jake had left the doors ajar, and from inside pale yellow light beamed out. I approached with trepidation. I had this image in my head of our beautiful horse – she was ours by then, really – lying on her side in the straw, glassy-eyed, the whole scene noble and biblical and tragic.