Real Life (10 page)

“No wonder!” the woman said angrily. She wore a man’s plaid farm cap, the earflaps pulled down. “It’s that darn Pastor Vernon, he’s got the kids scared to death. I’ll watch her,” she called, bobbing her head to see around the children climbing onto her bus.

Astrid was preparing her supper when, again, the phone rang. She had just noticed that the handle on her frying pan was cracked, that she needed a new one, which reminded her that her toaster had long since stopped working. Eventually she would have to go on a shopping trip. She hadn’t been back to the city since the day after the funeral, when she’d thrown a few things in the car and driven away, leaving behind a cheque and a note for her landlord, asking him to put her furniture in storage. Even now, a year and a half later, the thought of the city roused only a kind of blankness in her, a wall that she
couldn’t penetrate, that she didn’t want to penetrate. She lifted the receiver and heard again the loud humming, and then a crackling that might have been a voice trying to break through the blanket of meaningless sound.

“Lucy?” There was a noise at the other end, paper rustling, or someone changing the receiver from one ear to the other. “I don’t want you to call, Lucy,” she said, patient now. When there was no answer, she went on. “You know I couldn’t stay there without him.” It was all she could do to stifle the sounds that wanted to flow out of her, that she had never yet released from the moment she’d opened the door to the policeman and had known at once that the worst had happened, that her life was over. She had been unable to look at Donald’s remains; in her place Tom had gone to identify him. Lately, it had crept into her mind that perhaps she’d made a mistake not to go herself. “I don’t want to be reminded,” she said now. “Can’t you understand that? I can’t—” She put the receiver down.

Before she got into bed, she scraped frost from her bedroom window and, cupping her hands around her eyes to screen out the interior light, saw that it was still snowing, although less heavily now. Climbing into bed she thought of poor little Erin Molloy, and of the way Jody Akinson’s face had closed, as if she were an adult of forty instead of an eight-year-old. This angered her so greatly that she couldn’t sleep, and she tossed and turned, trying to think what she might do, until it occurred to her that she herself might go to the pastor. She lay still, thinking over this idea. It seemed clear to her that, for various reasons, no one else would try to reason with him.

She resolved to go the next day. What she would say she wasn’t sure: ignore the truth or falsity of his pronouncement in favour of pointing out he had no business frightening young
children? Threaten to report him to the child welfare people? She decided she would begin in a quiet, reasonable way, and wait and see how the meeting went.

But on Tuesday morning it was snowing hard again, and while she was shovelling the night’s accumulation from the walk that passed her house, adding to the high banks on each side so that she could barely see across the street any more, the idea of going herself to the pastor seemed less appropriate. Why would he listen to her? She had no authority, no meaningful position in the community, she didn’t even go to church.

But at ten that morning stern little Jody Akinson, for no apparent reason, began to cry, and when Astrid asked her why she was crying, she merely cried harder, her narrow child’s chest convulsing with each sob. Alarmed, Astrid hurried her into the empty nurse’s office, set her on a chair, smoothing her hair, wiping her tears with tissues from her pocket, and said, “Listen, Jody. The world is not going to end on Saturday.” She was aware of the words popping into her head:
It has already ended,
and the absurdity of this confused her.

“Mom and Dad say it is,” the child said. “The pastor, too.” Astrid wiped Jody’s cheeks with a tissue.

“The pastor has made a mistake,” she said, firm now. “Shall I phone your mother to come for you?” Jody nodded yes, then began to cry again, shaking her head no.

“I don’t want to go to heaven,” she sobbed.

After the school buses had disappeared into the curtain of thickly falling snow, Astrid placed the workbooks to be marked in her canvas bag, pulled on her boots and parka, and left the empty school. There was no wind and as she walked, large soft flakes of snow piled up on her shoulders and woollen hat and the top of her bag. Nor was it too cold, so that she rather enjoyed the trip to the edge of town where the church sat, a
converted farmhouse, the dark mass of coniferous forest that surrounded the village nearly touching its back wall, and the lurid crimson sign out front—“Are you saved?”—muted now by the thick fall of snowflakes drifting silently down.

She found the pastor inside taking fat, creamy-yellow candles from cardboard boxes and placing them in holders through the church. The holders were of various sizes and materials, so that Astrid thought they must have come from his parishioners’ homes.

“Mr. Vernon?” She was suddenly not sure if this was his first name or his last. He started and turned to her, a candle in each hand. “I’m Mrs. Park, the grade three teacher. I’d like to speak with you.”

He set down the candles and came toward her, brushing his hands against his trouser legs, then rolling down the sleeves of his clean white shirt and buttoning the cuffs. He was not much taller than she was, but well built and athletic-looking, and for one who seemed to wield so much power, surprisingly young, perhaps in his mid-thirties. As he came closer, she saw that he was very handsome, that his features were nearly perfect. He fastened his clear, light brown eyes on hers in a too-intense way which seemed to her calculated, annoying her, so that she stared back coldly until he spoke.

“Good to meet you. I’ve just sent my lady-helpers home to cook supper for their families,” he explained, as if it embarrassed him to be found doing the work himself. “Let’s go into my office.” She followed him and seated herself in the armless wooden chair across from the kitchen table that served as his desk. She was surprised by the ordinariness of his manner, and it occurred to her that given this, he couldn’t possibly believe that the world was going to end in only a couple of days. And he looked tired, but the tiredness seemed to be held in abeyance by a kind of jumpy tension. She thought, If you
really believed, and if you felt yourself one of the chosen, wouldn’t you be serene? Taken aback by this intuition, for a second she didn’t know what to say, then decided to be direct.

“I’m told you have convinced your parishioners the world will end on Saturday night.” When he didn’t respond, staring at her in that same disconcerting, theatrical way, she went on. “I don’t for a second believe this or I wouldn’t be here. Or, if I believed this, I suppose I’d be helping you prepare for when the lights go out.” She wished she hadn’t said this latter sentence, and was annoyed that his stare was rattling her, as it was meant to do.

“As they will,” he said, “you may be sure of that,” and he smiled. “I would say by nightfall on Saturday.” Casting about for something to say that wouldn’t be merely argumentative, she had been staring at the bookcase on her right, empty except for a few threadbare hymnals. Now she turned her eyes to him to find his expression tinged with dislike—no, disdain—reminding her of Dwayne Johansen’s gaze.

“Three of my pupils belong to your church. They are children, and you have frightened them terribly.” He tilted his chin upward and she wondered if perhaps he’d flushed, but it was hard to tell. “Not to mention the spillover effect on the others, whom you’ve no right to frighten either.”

“Those of you who do not believe, who do not repent, will be cast into hell for all eternity,” he said mildly, even gently, lowering his head to fasten his gaze on her again. “Those who do will soon be joy itself. A little fear now, compared to eternal joy—” He smiled, lifting his hands and letting them fall open on his desk.

She drew in her breath and said carefully, “And when the world does not end on Saturday night, how will you deal with the damage you have caused?” He watched her, not answering, his expression settling back into that same faint contempt.

She stood, shoving back her chair noisily. “If you persist in
this, it will be necessary to inform the authorities.” She knew her threat sounded faintly silly, nor did he bother to ask her what authorities she had in mind. She waited an instant, but when he still didn’t reply, she turned her back on him, intending to leave his office.

“Mrs. Park.” His voice was loud, unexpectedly commanding, halting her in mid-step. “I see you are troubled,” he said to her. She swung back to him, he was standing now, and he seemed somehow larger physically than she’d thought he was. Even as she opened her mouth to tell him this ploy was transparent and predictable, she became aware of the effort it had taken him to summon this sudden, surprising vitality, of how he had paused for the briefest instant, seeming to reach inside himself, and then, there it was. In spite of herself, she was impressed and also a little unnerved. “You feel yourself lost in a wilderness,” he told her, his tone conversational. “And you are right. It is a wilderness.” He paused. “Dangerous wild animals all around, the Native people of the forest, living so close to nature. And the snow. How it never stops.” His tone had become lyrical, and he lifted a hand, palm open, as if it were snowing here in his office and he would catch and hold a glittering snowflake. She watched this performance, waiting for what would come next. “This is not the life you should be living,” he said softly, and put out his hand to her, as if he would lead her to where she needed to go.

A rush of some powerful emotion had begun to move through her and she felt her face redden with it, a high, humming noise started in her ears. She didn’t know what the emotion was, where it had come from, only that for an instant she had remembered Donald, remembered his very flesh, his voice, his scent. This was what she had not—no, never—allowed herself.

“Relief is so close,” the pastor crooned. “Join us.” She turned
blindly from him and left his office and his church, pushing past Mrs. Vernon, who was in the narrow vestibule sweeping snow off her shabby boots.

She slipped and nearly fell hurrying down the bumpy, narrow path on her way out of the churchyard. The wind had risen and she lowered her head and pulled her wool scarf up around her cheeks and over her nose. She was angry with herself for letting the pastor upset her. This is how he keeps a congregation, she told herself. He finds the most desperate, he pretends to know things he can’t possibly know, he deals in false mystery, he is a liar and a charlatan. But she had hurried past her own house and was at the end of the block before she realized it.

On Wednesday morning, with snow still pelting down, small dry pellets now that stung when the wind threw them against her face as she hurried to school, she went to the principal again.

“I think we should call an emergency meeting of parents to deal with this crisis.” He’d been standing in the entrance watching the children tumble off the buses. He glanced at her quickly, frowning, then smoothed his face, moving closer to her.

“It’s a tempest in a teapot,” he said, his voice absurdly gentle, as if he were calming a child. “Monday morning it will all be over. Really, Astrid, trust me on this. It’s best to just let it go.” She realized with a shock that all his concern was for her.

She went back to her empty classroom—Wednesdays her children went first to Phys. Ed.—and sat at her desk, her head turned to where snow swept past the window in continuously dancing patterns of white on white. Watching it, bewildered, she asked herself, What have I been going through? What is the matter with me? As if Donald’s death were no longer clear and simple, but had become some other, confusing thing. She sat,
twisting her pen in her hands, watching the snow swirl and billow past the window, her mind circling around and around until she was roused by the return of her class.

She was wakened at midnight by the ringing of the phone and was up and hurrying to it, putting the receiver to her ear before she realized what she was doing. Again there was the loud hum, so that although she could hear the high-pitched murmur of a voice, the words were lost in the staticky drone. “Home?” was all she could make out, and then something that sounded like, “Donald.” A shiver ran down her spine and she hunched her shoulders, grasping the phone in both hands.

“Leave me alone,” she said. “Please, just leave me alone.” The voice on the other end of the line was speaking again, sounding interrogatory now. “He is dead,” she told it. “Donald is dead.” Fumbling, she managed to hang up the phone. She wiped her face on her nightgown, although she hadn’t been aware she’d begun to cry, had felt nothing, only this strange wetness on her cheeks, then returned to her bed where almost immediately she fell into a deep sleep.

She dreamt that Donald was driving their car, she saw the accident that would kill him coming, but he seemed not to hear her warning and wouldn’t stop. He fell against the steering wheel, dead, but she was somehow out of the car and falling through an endlessly deep bank of frigid, blindingly white snow.

Thursday morning the radio warned of a record snowfall with no end in sight. The bus drivers had begun to complain about road conditions; the snowploughs couldn’t keep up, a bus had gotten stuck and had to be pulled out by a tractor while the children sat shivering in it and then were late for school. The schoolyard was so snow-filled, no ploughs being available to clean it, that the younger children had to have recess in the
auditorium, while the older children stayed in their classrooms, drinking Cokes and listening to rock music, or playing sports in the gym. At noon there was a rolling-around-on-the-floor fight between two grade six boys. The entire school was affected, Astrid thought, by the pastor’s decree, and perhaps also the weather, and a palpable tension ran through the halls and classrooms.

When the last bell rang and the children were rushing out to get on their buses, Astrid went to the exit to make sure that all her pupils’ jackets were securely fastened, their mitts on, their scarves snugly in place around their pensive and trusting little faces. The director of education was there in conversation with the bus drivers and the principal, and she listened unashamedly while she tended to her children.