Crossings (35 page)

YEARS LATER, when it's finally done, a critic says, ‘Nobody talks that way.'

 

‘BUT DON'T you see, Mik? He does it all without ever losing his temper or being rude or anything. He does it without even knowing he's doing it. It's terribly violent, underneath.'

 

THE CRITIC says, ‘How can you have any sympathy for such disgusting people?'

 

‘YAH,' MIK says. ‘I guess it's high brow all right. I guess that's what they want. I mean, if you want to sell it.'

‘It'll never work,' I say. ‘You and me.' And as I say it, I feel it. The cold enters my marrow. It's true and I have said it. It's out there like a dead baby.

And Mik goes away next day to the place where they get supplies. In a motor boat. With a buddy. They are gone a very long time. I hear the boat coming back about six-thirty at night. When he comes in, his face is hard and shiny. He is dripping wet.

‘What happened to you?'

‘Fell off the dock.' He is swaying slightly.

‘Oh you're drunk.'

‘That's right. Bitch.' And he beats me up.

I believe it this time. I believe him when he says he'll kill me. I think, I'll pretend I'm mad. The Arabs don't kill idiots or lunatics.

And I pretend I'm mad, like Ophelia.

‘Is he dead?' I hear myself say. ‘He's not dead. They'll find him. I won't believe it. Is he dead? Don't bring him in the house.'

And, ‘He said he'd take me too. He said. He promised.' It comes out like a wail.

Mik stands there, soaking wet, and his hand stops coming at me. But it is too late. I am really back there now.

I am in the hallway. Grandma's hallway. The floor is polished.

I am saying, ‘Both of them? Not both of them. Don't bring him in the house.'

I am in the back porch. Mrs MacDonald is coming down the stairs. She is saying, ‘Poor child.'

‘Are they coming? Will they bring them in here? All wet?'

Aunt Carrington is out in the back lane. ‘Don't touch me,' she says. ‘I can hear it coming. Here they are.' She stands there for a long time. Nobody can get her in. She keeps hearing the bug coming. The bug. A cut-down Model-T, painted white. A black eagle on the door.

‘Where are they?' This to Aunt Foster. I am in Aunt Carrington's patio. And Aunt Foster says, ‘Don't. Someone's got to stay sane. Someone's got to hold on.'

‘But where are they?'

‘Heaven,' she shrieks as if she wants to kill me.

‘No, I mean, where. In the water? Are they still in the water?'

But she doesn't answer. The sky is blue. The clouds are high and fluffy. A perfect day. For sailing.

Grandpop is getting out the brandy. He doesn't cry. Not now and not for a long time. One day I hear something. I can't find it. I look everywhere. But Grandma is sleeping and Aunt Carrington is unconscious from the dope. I find it at last. Grandpop. In the shop. Grunting with it. ‘Go away.'

‘I have to be the strong one,' says Aunt Foster, her eyes mad.

My mother is at the doorway to my room. She cannot speak. She looks at me from the doorway and then goes away.

‘Don't touch me,' says Aunt Carrington, very reasonable. ‘I can hear them coming now.' No one can get her in from the back lane. She pushes them away and stands there, waiting.

I am burying the dead chickens. The maggots are crawling everywhere.

‘Both of them?'

Someone is saying, ‘Lie down.'

‘No. Both of them? Don't bring him in here.'

I see the clothes lying on the floor. Wet clothes. I hear a scream. It is myself screaming. Someone says, ‘I hit you too hard. Lie down.'

It is Mik. It is Mik. He is alive.

‘Where …'

‘Lie down. I hit you too hard.' He holds me in his arms, but I know they are coming. He lights a cigarette for me.

‘What?'

And a long time later, I say, ‘Nineteen days, for Jason. Seventeen for Daddy.'

‘I missed the dock,' Mik is saying. ‘I fell in. That's all.'

‘I made it up, you know. To stop you. I only made it up.' But I am the girl who cried wolf. My made-up wolf came and ate me.

‘Yah. I forget you're such a little guy. I hit you too hard.'

I trace the letters.
cream coffee
. ‘What does it mean?'

‘Go to sleep.'

‘What does it mean? I don't understand.'

‘Go to sleep.'

 

I SAY I must go back and pay the rent, the bills. I have an appointment with the Nut Lady. I leave the cats as hostages. Mik knows I wouldn't leave them if I weren't coming back to the island. He knows I know he'll kill them. I do it on purpose. I leave them there and I know I'm never coming back.

A boat takes us to Powell River. We stay overnight. The hotel.

‘Come on down,' Mik says. I can hear them below. The men. In the beer parlor.

I am lying in bed in my underwear. I have a headache.

Mik stomps out. A few minutes later he comes back with a buddy.

The door opens and Mik comes in. The buddy comes in after him. Grinning. Mik grabs the top of the chenille bedspread. Beige. Pulls it down. I lie there in my underwear. The buddy turns to leave but Mik grabs him.

‘Look at her!' he says.

‘Ah Mik, she doesn't want to.' Doesn't want to what? What is happening? I do have a headache.

‘What's happening?'

The buddy goes away and I get up and get dressed. I think he's mad because I won't go to the beer parlor. So I get dressed and say, ‘All right. I'll come.'

But when we get downstairs, it's closing time.

‘Why did you get me up if you knew it was closing time? I don't understand.'

 

I DON'T EITHER. It doesn't occur to me what might have been happening until just this moment. But surely not. But what did the buddy mean?

 

WE GO BACK upstairs to bed. Mik is very quiet.

‘I'm sorry. I really do have a headache.'

‘Yah.' He is smoking in bed, staring up at the ceiling.

‘Mik?'

‘Go to sleep.'

Mik is coming back to town with me. On Monday he goes back, I'm to come up by plane on Thursday. I say so. I promise. I lie.

 

THE NUT LADY says, ‘Well? Are you satisfied?'

‘What?'

‘Have you been punished enough?'

‘What?' I don't seem to be able to understand anything anyone says.

‘I said you'd do something. To punish me. Yourself.'

‘What?'

I phone him on the radio telephone. ‘I have to stay in, for tests. At the clinic. They say I've got to stay in for tests.' All code of course. I don't want them to know Mik has a mad wife. In the cookhouse.

‘Yah. Okay then.' He sounds uninterested. Because of the cookhouse.

He says goodbye and I say goodbye and we hang up. I wonder if he'll kill them now. Peter. Sally. Lolly.

The house smells of decay.

I look for an apartment. Edna comes with me.

Three rooms, with an entrance onto the garbage cans. I share the bathroom with an old lady, Mrs Leigh. She locks the door on my side when she goes to the toilet; I lock it on hers, when I go.