The Fire-Dwellers (21 page)

Just don’t ever bawl me out again, eh?

For three days Stacey housecleans compulsively, lugging the vacuum cleaner savagely from room to room, washing and ironing curtains, turfing out boxloads of broken toys from the boys’ room, straightening her dresser drawers. In the evenings, she goes to bed even before Katie is in bed, and tries to read. She leaves Mac’s dinner in the oven for him, and when she hears his key in the door, about ten, she switches off the light on the bedside table. Their bedroom is at the front of the house and he drives in the back lane to the garage so he cannot see the bedroom light as he approaches. Her eyes are closed by the time he comes upstairs and she does not open them. She listens each night to Mac’s daytime breathing turning into sleep. She lies stiffly, far to her own side of the bed, not moving in case she wakens him and speech becomes unavoidable. In
the mornings they are protected from each other by the presence of the children.

On the fourth morning, Stacey phones Tess Fogler and asks her over for coffee. The high-pitched girl-voice comes back at her.

Why thanks Stacey I’d just love to

Stacey replaces the receiver and looks at herself in the hall mirror. She is wearing her dark-green slacks and green pullover. The day is too warm for them. It is only now that Stacey realizes she has been wearing them for the past four days as though they were the one contact with what she now does not believe actually took place.

  — How can I get out? Evenings are out of the question. If Mac is home it’s impossible; if he isn’t home it still is impossible. Katie would be okay with the other kids for a few hours in the evening. Sure, but where am I going? Out to see a sick friend? Days. I can’t ask Tess to mind Jen again. I’ve already imposed on her too much. I’m not going to ask her. I simply am not. What you ought to do, Stacey, is ask Tess over more often, no strings. I know, I know. But she never has anything to talk about. Yeh, and you’re such a brilliant conversationalist yourself? Oh shut up. I will ask her over more often. I swear it. And I won’t ever ask her about Jen again. It would be different if it could be reciprocal, but what can I do for her that would be any use? Let her pour out her woes? She never does. Maybe she hasn’t got any, not really to speak of. I look at her, done up like a Christmas present, and I wonder what’s actually inside. Maybe nothing. How can you tell unless people say? He didn’t mind talking, Luke. He took it for granted.
What’s the bad news?
As though it were to be expected, to mention it. Okay, God, say what you like, but I damn well wish I could get away just sometimes by myself. But no. It’s a
criminal offense, nearly. What makes any of them think they’ve got the right to tell me own me have me always there not that they notice when I am only when I’m not.

  — Katie, wait. Let me explain. No, I guess I can’t. And if I did, it might be worse for you than not trying. Katie, I promise – never again. I won’t leave even for an hour. I swear it. How could I go out there again, anyway? He didn’t ask me to come. What do you imagine he’d do, Stacey? Greet you with a vast shout of joy? Like hell he would. He’d stare at you aloofly, and say
Oh, it’s you
. No – he’d smile politely but it would be only that, just politeness, And what would you say, dream girl?
I need to talk to you please please talk touch me even if it’s only your hands on my shoulders
. That would go down wonderfully. Have a little pride, Stacey. Why?

Jen is warbling beside Stacey, running up and down the hall with her short arms extended around a multitude of dolls. She drops them and reaches for Stacey’s arm.

What is it, flower?

Yatter-yatter

You mean your doll carriage? Okay, let’s get it. I’m going to phone Doctor Spender this week and have him have a look
at you. No – I’m just impatient, aren’t I? You’re perfectly okay, aren’t you? Daddy’s right – I just get worked up over nothing. Don’t I?

R-r-ring.

Stacey opens the front door and Tess comes in, fawn-graceful in new dull-orange dress, carrying in her hands a number of swan-necked gilt-headed bottles and portly drum-bellied jars, like a collection of princesses and frogs.

Look, Stacey, my new facial stuff. It’s fabulous. Just simply amazing. I’ve only been using it a few days but I can really notice the difference already. You can’t buy it in the drugstores – it’s only sold door-to-door. This awfully nice woman came around and I asked her in more out of politeness than anything you know and then we got talking and well I mean I don’t usually buy cosmetics door-to-door but this sounded so interesting. They’re all natural products.

Tess deposits the bottles and jars on the kitchen table and Stacey picks up a squat translucent jar filled with a green perfumed ointment. The label reads
HATSHEPSUT
– Avocado Wrinkle Cream.

Natural products?

Yes, I mean, like, they don’t contain any animal substances.

Is that good?

Tess nods.

It’s much better for your skin. All natural vegetable substances.

What’s so unnatural about animals?

Tess laughs trillingly.

Oh Stacey, you’re just like Jake. Well, there’s nothing I guess what you would exactly call unnatural about animals except they are animals aren’t they and creams and that made
out of animal fat well there’s something sort of
unfresh
about it, isn’t there? It never struck me until Mrs. Clovelly – that’s her name – pointed it out and then I could see it right away. You take natural vegetable oils, now, and there’s something sort of, well,
nicer
about it, you know? Also, it’s much more compassionate. I mean, you don’t have to have all those animals killed for their fat.

Yeh. Well, you could be right. What all kinds you got, Tess?

Tess displays them one by one, cuddling them between her long smooth fingers.

Well, this one’s
Geranium Leaf Skin Astringent
, for toning up the skin. This is
Pineapple Shampoo
, for restoring the natural oils of the hair. And
Rose and Rhubarb Night Cream –
this pale-pink one – rhubarb may sound a little funny, but it’s so refreshing, really, and just smell it – the roses are for the perfume, and the rhubarb juices are for the skin-cell restoring process. And
Violet-Rosemary Hand-Cream –
smell – isn’t it lovely? And
Strawberry Under-Eye Lotion
, and you’ve seen the
Avocado Wrinkle Cream
.

  — My God, does she apply them or eat them? Sh, doll, don’t offend her. Sale on at Eaton’s – remember? No. Don’t. You’re not to ask.

Gosh, they make quite an imposing array, Tess. What does it mean –
HATSHEP
– whatever it says?

HATSHEPSUT
. Pronounced Hat-shep-
soot
. Mrs. Clovelly said. That’s the name of the whole line. They’re called after an ancient Egyptian queen. Queen Hatshepsut. She was very famous. She ruled as pharaoh in her own right.

Gee. Well. How interesting.

Jake had to look her up, of course, in a book. He came downstairs laughing like crazy and saying she was famous for
her cruelty and she dressed as a man and married her stepson or some such relative and he hated her so much he had her name chiseled off all the monuments after she died. But I bet that’s not true. Jake gets a big bang out of jokes, I mean. But anyway, I like the name, don’t you? I think it’s sort of cute to name them after an ancient Egyptian queen.

Yeh it’s very

No sugar or cream for me, thanks Stacey. I just have it black.

Oh sorry. Absent-minded. I don’t see why
you
diet.

I just feel I mustn’t ever let myself go, that’s all. How’s your diet coming along, Stacey?

Lousy. I haven’t got the perseverance of a grasshopper.

Well, you
do
so much. You must burn up a lot of energy.

Yeh, I guess. Things get on top of me every so often. I been doing spring cleaning these past couple of days. Haven’t had a minute. I meant to get downtown while the sale’s on at Eaton’s. If I don’t get those kids some new pajamas soon, they’ll be going to bed bare.

Why don’t you go this afternoon, then? I’ll take Jen.

Oh, I couldn’t, Tess. You’ve been so good

It’s nothing. I like having her. We get on famously, don’t we, sweetie?

Jen, arranging her young in the doll carriage, looks up and nods agreeably.

Well, it’s terrifically nice of you, Tess

I don’t mind. She may not talk but she talks to me, at least I feel she’s talking. You go ahead, Stacey.

Thanks a million. I really am grateful. Listen, if there’s ever anything I can do for you, Tess – anything – please let me, eh?

There isn’t, honey, but thanks.

I’ll tell Katie to pick Jen up after school if I’m not home yet.

Sure. Okay.

After Tess has gone, Stacey begins making the kids’ sandwiches for lunch. Then she realizes it is only ten minutes past eleven, and they will not be home for another hour. She leaves Jen playing in the veranda and goes upstairs. She shuffles rapidly through the coat hangers in the clothes cupboard and finally pulls out a cotton dress, slightly shabby, not belonging to any identifiable age group, printed in blue and dark green, like seawater and fir trees.

When Katie and the boys have gone back to school after lunch, Stacey takes Jen over to the Foglers’ house. She then gets in the Chev and drives downtown to Eaton’s, where she purchases the first pajamas she sees which are the right sizes. Back to the car, and out of the city along the winding road that leads up the Sound.

  — He won’t be home. Or he’ll be home and he won’t even recognize me. Or there’ll be a girl there – long fair hair, about twenty. Why did I come? I’m off my rocker. It isn’t me, it’s somebody wearing my appearance, my face, takeover by aliens from out there. My real mind is in the deep freeze in their spaceship. Why would he want to see me again? He wouldn’t. Otherwise, he would’ve asked me to come out. Just for half an hour – that won’t take up much of his time. It shouldn’t have been so easy, with Tess. All right, don’t rub it in. Stacey, you’re a monster. Am I? Am I? I don’t care if I am. All I know is I have to get out.
I have to get out
.

The A-frame in the daytime looks more obvious than it did at night. Unpainted, the timber a cool light brown, it juts up among the green-needled trees and the welter of bushes like a small strange cathedral with a rubble of trodden timothy
grass, paint tins and splinters of kindling wood at its feet. Uncertainly Stacey walks up to the steps and looks at the door, which is open. Luke appears in the doorway. He is still dressed in the thick wool Indian sweater and brown corduroys. He flicks his coarse slightly too-long hair away from his forehead, wipes a hand over his mouth as though he has only just finished eating, and stands looking down at her. He has not shaved, and his jaw is now beard-brown as though he intended it that way. Then, mercifully, he grins.

Hey, how about that? It’s the merwoman. I had a hunch you’d come back. It was in the horoscope, more or less.

Stacey walks up the wooden plank steps.

Your horoscope? You don’t believe in

Well, it’s as certain as anything else, isn’t it? I’m Cancer. Cheerful sign to be, eh? The forecasts are always telling me my artistic temperament is due for a surprise, and it never fails to happen. Come on in.

I – thanks. I mustn’t stay long

Sure.

I used to work for a guy who did horoscopes. Before I was married, that was. I mean, it was sort of a sideline with him. He was really in the import business. Stuff from Hong Kong, like fried bees and chocolate-covered ants. Tinned, naturally. But maybe the horoscopes were his real business. He used to get me to mimeograph them. He had a big mailing list. I always wondered if it was legal. His name was Janus Uranus, not his real name of course, the one he put on the mimeographed horoscopes. His real name was Curtis W. Forrester. Probably that wasn’t his real name, either.

  — Was it really me, wondering then if it was legal? Or was it Mac? The first time I met Mac, he definitely stated
It doesn’t sound legal to me, Stacey
. What if I’d stayed on with the old guy
for a while longer? My whole life would’ve been different. I might have married – who? (Whom?) A fortune teller, an artist, a master mariner, a prophet. Yeh?

Luke is laughing and bringing the coffeepot and two pottery mugs into the main room. Stacey sits down on the Arabic-patterned rug and tucks her feet underneath her. He hands her one of the cups.

Janus Uranus? That’s a terrific name, Stacey. Why did you ever leave?

He scared me. And embarrassed me. Eccentrics always do. I don’t want them to, but they do. It has something to do with the way I was brought up, I guess. Actually, I left to get married, so it wasn’t only Janus. I was relieved to get out, though. I don’t know how much that had to do with how I felt about Mac. Maybe it did. I never thought of it until now.