The Bay of Love and Sorrows (16 page)

Michael went to see Everette the next day. He was asked by Gail to wait in the dooryard while Everette ate. So he walked up and down the drive like a servant.

A cool autumn-like wind cut the blueberry field across the road, and there was the lingering scent of a dead animal Everette’s sky-blue bike rested on its kickstand in the yard. Although scraped and battered it was still rideable. Michael had taken Karrie out on it once.

When Everette came out he hobbled over to the old picnic table, picking up a birch stick before he sat down. Michael stood behind him.

“Everette —” he began.

“It’s your trouble — once that is over you can come about again. But as it stands now, it’s your trouble — with daily interest — “

Everette sniffed and spat. The wind blew again. He made no movement in either direction.

“Well, no matter what you think of me I want to ask you a favour. It’s the only favour I will ask. I heard Laura McNair was getting death threats. Don’t threaten her — I mean, she’s just doing her job.”

At this, Everette turned and thrust the birch stick into Michael’s chest, smiling. “You’re the one who sabotaged my bike” Then, standing, he walked towards the house in insolent anger at Michael’s presumption.

“I was waiting for two years for that deal, all the time I was in jail on ‘count of that proper quiff Laura McNair and your old man,” he said at the door. “And you ruined it — if you don’t have the money back to me I’ll confiscate your boat”

A single white trail of smoke came from the dump, and Michael was left to ponder all of this with a sorrowful grin on his face.

Though he had decided not to see Karrie again, and tried to pretend it had never happened, and though he hoped she and Tom would be married, and felt he had done a miserable thing, he went to her house, when he was drunk that night, and had her come outside.

She was having her period and made a feeble attempt to stop him, but he slapped her hands aside and she lay passively in the field as he lifted her nightgown.

He remembered there had been quite a bit of blood on her after he removed her Kotex. She had tried to stop him and then had just given in, so he hauled her Kotex strap down and threw it aside. This had pleased him, and had aroused her.

Yet now he disliked that aspect of things because he thought of Tom.

The next afternoon she came to the sailboat, with a book of poems by Robert Frost.

Her hair was done up, and two strands fell about her ears. She wore small earrings, and a dress, and looked forlorn in the drifting smoke. As soon as she got on the sailboat she began picking up the dishes — some of them had not been done for days.

“You’ve got to take care of this here boat — my parents want to see it.” And she turned to him with a self-conscious little grin.

“What’s this?” he said, quickly, flipping through the pages of the poetry book.

“Oh, I got that for ya,” she said.

She kept her head down as he began to lecture her quite calmly about poetry and Allen Ginsberg and Professor Becker, who had once met Henry Miller at a party. And Henry Miller always did outrageous things, he said. His voice was emotionless, and she became scared. He was thinking that Karrie was in danger hanging about with him. And Tom would be outraged if he knew she was in danger. Only he could not tell her this. He wanted her to go away for her own good. Forever.

“But what’s the use?” he said, cruelly, “You haven’t read a book.”

“I did.” She looked up proudly, and then lowered her head. “I read
The Moon is Down
by John Steinbeck,” she said, giving a forlorn little smile. The breeze came up, and the loose sail fluttered. Her blouse was clasped with a silver brooch in the shape of a sailboat, with her name engraved upon it, that she had bought to please him. She had bought chimes made of sailboats which she’d placed in the farm’s living room. All of this he disliked.

“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.

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.