The Fire-Dwellers (14 page)

Later, when Duncan has gone upstairs, Stacey follows him, first making sure that Mac is watching the news on TV in the basement playroom.

Duncan?

He is sitting on his bed, holding one of his model cars in one hand, turning it over and over without seeing it.

You okay now, Duncan?

He looks up at her, his eyes tearless, almost passive.

I never do anything right.

He didn’t mean that, Duncan. He only meant

Well, I
don’t
, Mum. I just don’t do anything right

  — What words? I haven’t got any. It isn’t mine he wants anyway. It’s Mac’s and Ian’s, and those he won’t get. I’m far from him, too. Far even from Duncan. How did it happen like this?

After dinner, Katie is doing her homework in her room. Stacey is bathing Jen. Mac has gone with his briefcase into the study. Duncan is looking at TV, and Ian is prowling. Then Katie’s infuriated shrieking voice.

Mother! Tell Ian to get out of here!

  — Heaven. She’s started calling me Mother instead of Mum. How long? I never noticed before.

Ian! What’re you doing?

He barged right into my room without knocking. I can’t
stand
people doing that. Scram, you little creep!

Quit shoving me, you, or I’ll

Ow! That hurt! Boy, I’ll show you

Yeh? Well, how d’you like this then

Crash. Scream. Slam. Stacey flies out of the bathroom, hands soap-slippery, and along the corridor. She pulls Katie and Ian apart and pushes them into their respective bedrooms.

Okay, Ian. Just leave her
alone
, eh?

I was only

All right all right – you know what I told you about knocking before you go into people’s bedrooms. And do not throw the hall chair
any more
, see?

Stacey carefully knocks and enters Katie’s room. Katie is gathering up the littered textbooks, her long hair trailing on the floor as she stoops.

Katie, I know it was wrong of him. But he’s been in a pretty low mood today. Try to be patient with

Patient! What good does that do? He never pays any attention.

Well, try

You
try. That’s your job.

Yeh, well just wait, sweetheart, till you’ve got your own kids

I’m not going to have

Oh? Why not?

Because it’s for the birds, that’s why.

What is?

The whole deal. You saying we get on your nerves all the time. You and Dad yakking away at each other –
Whatsmatter? Nothing’s the matter. No need to talk to me in that tone of voice
. Man, not for me.

Stacey stands in the doorway, unmoving, staring.

Katie – does it really strike you like that?

Katie does not reply. She cannot, because she is crying. Stacey moves towards her, but Katie turns and faces the wall, her voice low and muffled.

Go away, can’t you?

  — It’s her age. They’re all like that, at about this age. Of course I know that. Katie – talk to me.

Mac, talk to me.

Oh Christ, Stacey.

I know I know it’s late – time for sleep – work tomorrow – but please

It is eleven thirty and they are in bed. The light is out. Mac has just butted his last cigarette and replaced the ashtray on the bedside table. He sighs, and Stacey can feel him edging a little further towards his own side of the bed.

  — You’ll fall out of bed in a minute, Mac, if you’re not careful. What do you think it would do – pollute you, if you touched me? And yet if I said that, it would be a terrible thing to say. Unforgivable. Like what I did last night at the party. Nothing is ever looked at and torn up and thrown away like scrap paper. The abrasions just go on accumulating. What a lot of heavy invisible garbage we live with.

Mac, about last night

Look, I told you. Let’s drop it, eh? No use talking about it.

Okay. But you don’t seem to drop it.

What do you
mean
, I don’t seem to drop it? It’s you who

Well, you go around being gloomy and not talking – naturally I don’t expect you to
like
what I did but was it really so terrible? I’d rather you got mad and yelled at me and then it would be all over maybe and we could forget it.

If I did yell at you or beat you up, would you really like that any better?

I only meant saying something, to clear the air. I didn’t mean beating me up, for heaven’s sake. I’d walk out on you if you did that.

  — Would I? With four kids? How could you walk out on him, Stacey, whatever he did or was like? You couldn’t, sweetheart, and don’t you forget it. You haven’t got a nickel of your own. This is what they mean by emancipation. I’m lucky he’s not more externally violent, that’s all. I see it, God, but don’t expect me to like it.

Stacey, I don’t care to discuss it. Is that clear?

Yessir.

Cut it out, will you?

Cut what out?

That act.

Oh Mac, please

She has turned to him, and put her hands on his shoulders. For a moment he lies still, while she undoes his pajamas and begins slowly touching him where she knows it will have effect. Her hands move across the hair on his chest and down to his sex. He stirs then, and suddenly, abruptly, almost roughly, begins making love to her.

  — Strange that the hair under his arms and on his chest is auburn but between his legs dark. Can’t see the color but I know it. The mole on his right shoulder. The scar on his thigh – right here – where he got gashed playing hockey when he was a kid. I know every inch of his skin. Mac? You want me?

Yes, now he does.

I do too, Mac.

You do what?

Want you

Yeh, I know I know. Now, Stacey?

Yes. Now.

Stacey rises to him, her legs linked around his, and cries out as she always does without knowing it. He comes in pain-pleasure silence as almost always, telling her only through veins and muscles and skin that he is with her. When it is over, they separate because his weight on her ribs always makes her cough after a few moments, and anyway he always has to get up and go to the bathroom.

  — Did I take that christly pill this morning? I was feeling so grim – can’t remember. Yes, I did take it. Along with the
blue Richalife and four aspirins, with second cup of coffee. All these considerations.

You okay, Stacey?

Oh yes.

Good night, then

Good night

Within minutes she can hear Mac breathing deeply in sleep. Sometimes he moans in his sleep and she always asks him the next day if he had a dream but he can never remember. Tonight he is quiet. Stacey turns over on her right side, and pulls her legs up so she is lying Z-shaped.

  — Tonight I’ll sleep. Let us be thankful for mercies, whatever.

The rain forest is thick, matted, overgrown with thorned berry bushes, the fallen needles from the pine and tamarack bronzing the earth. Smell of moss, wet branches, mellowly rotten leaves. It is very difficult to walk through. The wild brambles stretch out their fish hooks to tear at exposed skin. The ground is spongy underfoot, for the moss tops centuries of leaf mold. She has to continue, bringing what she is carrying with her. The thing is bleeding from the neck stump, but that cannot be helped. The severed head spills only blood, nothing else. She has tunneled at last through the undergrowth. Now she has the right to look. She holds it up in front of her. How is it that she can see it? What is she seeing it with? That is the question. The head she has been carrying is of course none but hers
.

E
VER-OPEN EYE BOUGAINVILLAEA BURGEONING, EDGING STREETS WHERE BEGGARS SQUAT IN DUST. MAN BURNING. HIS FACE CANNOT BE SEEN. HE LIES STILL, PERHAPS ALREADY DEAD. FLAMES LEAP AND QUIVER FROM HIS BLACKENED ROBE LIKE EXCITED CHILDREN OF HELL. VOICE: TODAY ANOTHER BUDDHIST MONK SET FIRE TO HIMSELF IN PROTEST AGAINST THE WAR IN

Bloody fools. What do they think it’ll accomplish?

I know. But they believe

Any coffee left, Stacey?

Yeh. I’ll heat it up.

Stacey comes back from the kitchen and hands Mac his cup. He is sitting in the old chintz-covered armchair which was their second piece of furniture, the first having been their bed, and which has now been dismissed to the basement TV room. Mac’s legs are stretched out full length, and the frown lines between his eyes are still there even after an entire evening of no work.

EVER-OPEN EYE A HILLSIDE AND SMALL TREES SEEN FROM HIGH AND FARAWAY. THE SMOKE RISING IN ROLLING CLOUDS. VOICE: ACCELERATED BOMBING IN THE AREA OF

Mac?

Yeh?

Oh – nothing. I just thought it was kind of flickering for a minute, there.

  — Why talk? Mac doesn’t like to, and he’s right. What good does it do? Can we do one goddam thing? No. And what are my reasons, anyway? I said to Jake one evening two three years ago that I had this feeling like the fall of Rome and he said
you’re not afraid it’ll happen; you’re afraid it won’t
. Since then I always wonder. Anything for a little excitement? Goddam you, Jake Fogler. It’s a lie. There are still a few things I do know. At least, I think there are. But even those are mixed now. Like laughing amid the desire to puke re: that newspaper interview with that woman somewhere in the States.
He came home on leave and it’s like all his reflexes have been changed, sort of. His little sister jumped out at him from behind the door, just for fun, like, and he only just stopped himself in time from karate chopping her
. Little sisters of the world, watch it, eh? Never mind the broken-hearts bit. Broken necks are the concern these days. But I laughed as well. Conditioned into monsterdom, like the soldier. The look on Ian’s face that time I pitched them both to the floor. And my eyes, covered with blood that wasn’t there, so I couldn’t for a moment see anything but rage.
Stop the noise, just stop the noise
. That’s what I thought. How can I ever make up for it? What if it happens again? That precise thing won’t, but something else may. In God’s name, what is
Mac
like, in there, wherever he lives?

EVER-OPEN EYE THE SON OF ROBIN HOOD IS CANTERING ALONG THROUGH SHERWOOD. LUCKILY THERE HAPPENS TO BE A SIGN ON A ZIGZAG PIECE OF BOARD AS IN NORTH AMERICAN NATIONAL PARKS. NOTTINGHAM 3½ MILES
.

Boy, this one’s as old as the hills. You ever seen it before, Mac?

Yes, I think so. May as well watch it anyway.

Yeh, may as well.

Ian nineteen, in love with the uniform he is wearing. Jen, eleven, talking by this time, suddenly startling him and yelling as she jumps out from behind a something. Ian’s lifted hand caught by himself in mid-strike. His face not his own, and yet his own, belonging totally to the embryonic cougar which has always been there
.

  — No. No, Stacey. Do that one over again.

Ian nineteen in plain well-cut business suit, having just graduated (early, admittedly, but he is bright) from university, now entering his first job. There is a great future in the sale of nasal contraceptives, tapes of apes and rapes, instant-color chameleon embalming fluid and deep freeze for cancer patients who will be melted and resuscitated when a cure is found. This year a Volkswagen; next year a Jaguar. Like a mighty army moves the unbesodden; brothers we are treading where saints have been introdden
.

  — Very funny, doll. Try again.

Ian nineteen quitting university. I am a dropout. I opt out. Let the maggots crawl. I believe in peace, love, expanded consciousness and nonviolent violence. Ian, poet, artist, musician, going his own way
.

  — Nuts. Never Ian. Duncan, maybe. Anyway, what’s the
use in opting out? Maybe there is, but it’s beyond me. I can’t reach it. I’m in forevermore, like it or not.

Mac?

Mm?

What shall I put on those charts for Richalife? Where it says energy snap-up and that.

You mean you haven’t put anything?

Well, no

Oh for Christ’s sake, Stacey. Well, give them all to me, then. I’ll do them.

For all of us?

Somebody’s got to.

Yeh, well I guess that would be the best thing. Mac, I would’ve thought you wouldn’t have to work quite so hard now you’ve got a city area.

It’s the exact opposite.

I thought maybe I’d ask Tess and Jake in on Thursday. Will you be home?

No. I have to go to a rally.

A what?

Rally. R-A-double L-Y.

Oh for heaven’s sake. Well, can I come, too?

You wouldn’t find it interesting.

How do you know?

Now look, Stacey

Okay okay. You don’t want me to see Thor. You’re afraid I’ll disgrace you. Well, I wouldn’t.

I did not say that. Did I say that?

Not in so many words. But that resigned tone of yours

Good God, Stacey. I can’t say anything right, can I? If I have to check on my tone every time I open my mouth

Oh, I know. That’s how it sounded. But I didn’t mean

What precisely did you mean, then?

I don’t know. I’ve lost it.

This is the first evening I’ve taken off in weeks, and now you

I’m sorry. Honestly, Mac. I know. I don’t know what’s the matter with me.

Look, Stacey, are you feeling okay?

I don’t know. I’ve been getting these headaches

  — Is that true? Or did I just make it up? I say I am not much in love with the lies, but they don’t get less – they get more. How can this be? God forgive me a poor spinner.