Reading by Lightning (48 page)

Betty comes. She steps into the kitchen, holding Billy and a plate of matrimonial cake for Mother. I offer to take Billy to see the cats to forestall her going out to the barn. Russell must have seen us cross the yard, because he climbs down the ladder and perches on it, watching us. Billy is fighting to get out of my arms. As soon as I put him down he sets off in a wide-legged run after the cats, who melt away before him. Blue nuzzles at Russell's knees, his tail wagging.

The kid's not a talker? Russell asks, reaching out to pet Blue.

Maybe under torture, I say. But normally all he says is
No! No! No!
And he barks. I crouch in front of Billy. What do doggies say, Billy? What do
doggies
say?

The last cat disappears up into the rafters and Billy starts to wail. I pick him up. He may not be barking this afternoon, I say, but the boy can bark. I'm standing close to the ladder and Russell runs his fingers over the fine skin behind my knee, stroking my bare calf. Is your sister-in-law likely to stay long? he asks.

A couple of hours, I guess.

Let's take off, he says. Think of an excuse.

On my way back to the house I set Billy down in the yard and go back to the well and draw up the honey pail of lemonade we keep there. And also two bottles of Russell's beer, which I carry over to the Ford and slide under the seat. The lemonade I take into the house.

Just two, I say to Betty, when she reaches down glasses. I won't have any. If you're going to be here for a while, I thought I might go to town.

Oh? she says, surprised, a little hurt. I had a nice long letter from Phil this morning. I was going to tell you all his news. She's cut her hair to the middle of her back and it's softer and wavier.

I won't be long, I say. I go back out into the sunlight, trying to shake off her disappointment, thinking, I should have told her how nice she looks.

I drive the truck west up to the Lookout, and stop about where Russell slid off the road that afternoon eight years ago. Remember this spot? I ask.

Too well, he says. This time he doesn't bother with coy little games to get his arm around me — he's behaving like a man too hungry to taste his food. He hasn't shaved in a couple of days because it's such a nuisance to heat water, and his beard is rough against my face.

Russell, I murmur. Let's get out. I open the door and almost tumble out the side of the truck. I walk around to the front and lean back against the hood.

This is what we call a major geological feature on the prairies, I say.

Pretty impressive, he says, following me without once looking at the view. He's wearing his plaid shirt, he's looking at me with frank intention, and in this light I can see the glints of gold in his hazel irises.

You know, that day when I was swimming in the river, I say. I thought you came especially to look for me.

Well, I would have if I'd known what I'd be finding, he says gallantly. I used to spend a lot of time just driving around,
whenever Dad would let me have the car. I was always trying to get away from Loretta.

Loretta?

Charlotte's mom. My stepmother, I guess I should call her. So that day I guess I ended up at the river. And lo and behold, there was the beauteous Miss Lily Piper, her long legs sticking out of a fetching antique bathing costume.

My
legs,
eh? I say, grasping his hands that have gone straight for them. That's what you remember?
That's
why you were writing letters to me three years later!

Largely, he says humorously.

Men are so strange, I say.

What do you remember from when we met?

Outside the store?

Yes.

You weren't wearing a hat and you didn't have a tan line on your forehead.

My freaking tan line. Well, I find that stranger. He presses me back against the hood of the Ford, his hands grasping my backside, up under my skirt, his mouth on my breast, leaving wet marks on my blouse. This is to be a different version of what we've had before. Caw, caw, caw, caw, a crow cries from somewhere above us. And another four quick calls: caw, caw, caw, caw.

Hey, I say, pushing him away. Don't be crazy.

We get back into the truck and turn up the Parrots' lane, to where the abandoned brick house sinks into the yard, almost invisible behind overgrown lilacs and caraganas and willows. Russell's driving. He stops the truck behind the house where no one can see it from the road. The last time I was actually in this yard was for their sale, the Parrots' sale, and Russell was there then too.

The grass is almost to our knees and we leave a trail wading
from the Ford to the house. The back door stands a few inches open. He pushes it farther and we step in. No one's lived here since the Parrots. An inch of dirt from the dust storms lies over the floor like a rug, patterned with curls of bird droppings and the wavy tracks of snakes. Thistles poke up along the edge where a floorboard is missing. There's still a stove there, with swallows' nests plastered all around the chimney. Pretty spooky, he says. He presses me against the crooked door frame and kisses me, if this urgent business of tongue and teeth can be called a kiss.

When we finally settle, it's in the grass between the house and the shed, we sink into the lush grass under a tree, breaking the grass under us, him pressing on me, silent, relentless. Beyond his shoulder green branches sway. From the tree above I see my legs against the grass, my panties around one ankle, my body displayed to the startled sky, skin white in the sunlight. He's pursued by something that hardly has to do with me — I can only retreat from it. It doesn't matter, the fact of it is the same. In a moment it's done, my body is marked inside and out. He rolls over and turns his face against the grass to look at me. He lies in his pleasure and I lie in mine, the pleasure of hearing his final cry. When we get up and pull our clothes on and wade back through the grass to the truck, we leave a nest behind us like deer do along the river.

The war shudders on. Headlines are printed, men in uniforms sprawl on the decks of ships, Russell and I lie in the loft with our legs entwined. We're hidden away so it doesn't matter. In a certain way you could say it's not really happening — but
it is,
I'm finding: here in the afterlife it's the hidden things that are real, the whispered secrets, my skin's surprise at his touch, the trail his lips leave on my breast, like the phosphorescent wake of a darting fish. Deep in piles of hay we nestle while my eight-year-old self watches from the rafters. Church in the loft! Russell finds it so funny. Where did the priest stand? he asks.

I gesture to the spot. Not a priest, though. Wrong religion. The pastor.

Well, I knew it wasn't a rabbi. He gets up and stands where Mr. Dalrymple's crude wooden pulpit stood and recites a long phrase in syllables I've never heard before, sounds made high in the roof of his mouth. I'm lying on a quilt sewn from patches of our old coats, sweat gathered like dew between my breasts. You know
Latin?
I ask.

Latin? Wrong religion, my dear. It's Hebrew.
Blessed be the Lord, the Lord is One.
He walks across the loft to me. His
naked body is a white surplice, his tanned hands like brown gloves. He drops down in the hay beside me and rests his cheek against my knees. That's it, he says. That's all the Hebrew I remember. My mother wanted me to be bar mitz-vahed, but it didn't happen.

Hebrew, Latin, Greek.
I work my fingers through his damp hair. I wish I knew other, more cryptic words for all this, I wish I spoke in tongues.

Early summer swells into fullness and the hollyhocks tip forward with their flowers hanging like crumpled handkerchiefs. You feel the heat when you step out of the house first thing in the morning. On a hot afternoon our prying apart of limbs is a damp and sticky business. Before I go back to the house, to my life, my other life. To Mother knitting, or cleaning out the cutlery drawer, or just sitting on the chesterfield with her eyes bright with anxiety. After a time I have to face the fact that there's a new atmosphere in the house, Mother answering me in monosyllables and picking at her dinner, her face hard. Of course she's caught on, although I don't quite see how. All day she sits in the living room knitting her squares. The fighter planes haven't been training since last fall and I can't even get her out to the veranda. Sitting on the veranda you can be seen from the road. She doesn't want to remind people she's still here, so changed.

I'm fine, she says when I ask. She doesn't raise her eyes. My guilt makes me try harder. After supper I put two chairs in the front yard and try to get her to sit outside with me.

No thanks, she says. She's sitting on the chesterfield reading the Bible, a sure sign of trouble to be reading the Bible at that hour. At a glance I'd say she's somewhere in the Epistles of Paul. I try to recall what the Apostle Paul had to say about
deception, cunning, betrayal. About
fornication.
I bring two cups of tea and sit beside her.

Are you in pain? I ask.

No, it's nothing physical, she says. Her mouth is a straight, lipless line.

Well, what is it then?

Tears drip down her cheeks. Oh, I feel so bad, she bursts out.

Oh, Mother. Maybe you should try to see a doctor in Winnipeg.

She shakes her head.

I think you should. Maybe there's something they can do. Some treatment Dr. Ross doesn't know about.

It's not that, she says. We sit while the clock ticks off a long minute. Finally she lifts her eyes defiantly. I miss your dad. He wouldn't always try to avoid me.

What do you mean?

You'd rather sit outside in the rain than be in the same house as your mother.

I feel heat rise in my face. I'm restless, that's all, I say. I've always been restless. I've always lived outside in the summer.

You can't look at me, you can't bring yourself to speak to me. Every chance you get you take off outside, or to the barn.

Oh, Mother, I say. It's not that. It's not
you.
I'm not avoiding you. We
are
in a new place, I think, that she'd complain about this. I put my arm around her shoulders. She doesn't flinch away but sits very still like a frightened child and begins to cry in earnest.

That night I don't go to the barn, I go to bed when she does. I'll take her somewhere, I think, curling up on my side and hugging a pillow to me. After Russell goes. I'll take her with me when I go to see Joe. We'll drive up and stay by the
big lake for a day or two. There must be cabins there. Suddenly I think of the girl in the green travelling costume on my father's ship. Was there ever any mention of a girl on the ship? I think now that there was not, that no one ever mentioned a girl at all. It was a nice bit of fancy, giving my father a different love, a love who looked, well, a little like me.

The fugitive in the loft tells stories about his father. Mr. Bates was one of those enterprising men who thought there was enough of him for any two women. He lived with Russell's mom until Russell was about eight and Stephen was ten, and he kept Charlotte's mother on the side. Loretta, who had been (of course) his secretary before she got pregnant with Charlotte.
Banker's hours?
Russell's mom would yell when he tried to slip in at midnight.
You call these banker's hours?
Russell gives his mother a Polish accent in these bits. They were living in Toronto then, and Mr. Bates was working at a bank on Spadina. Then he was offered the management of a branch in London, Ontario, and he had to choose which family he was going to take with him. And he picked them, Loretta and Charlotte.