The Retreat (25 page)

“I didn’t know,” Nelson said.

“’Course you didn’t. How could you? You were gone.”

“You did that?” Nelson’s voice was low and quiet, his face lifted towards Raymond’s.

“I didn’t cry at all. Just stopped eating.”

“Didn’t cry, eh? One tough shit you were.” Nelson reached forward and punched Raymond lightly on the side of his head.

“You could teach me how to fight,” Raymond said. “Show me how to hold my hands.”

Nelson shook his head and said that fighting was a dangerous thing. “Makes you believe you can take on anybody, anywhere. You don’t want that.” Then he said that the Koops had taught him how to hug. Mrs. Koop was always going on about
how he didn’t hug properly, how he always kept his arms at his sides like he was a dead animal, and so she made him wrap his arms around her and squeeze. “Here,” Nelson said, and he reached for Raymond, grasping at his neck. Raymond slipped away. Laughed and said, “Fuck off.”

Nelson went after him, kicked over the chair and lunged at his brother. Caught him around his waist and threw him down on the wood floor. Raymond fell hard and the breath went out of him, but he swung his elbow and hit Nelson in the ribs, just below his heart. Nelson bellowed and pinned Raymond’s shoulders to the floor with his knees. Straddled him with his crotch near Raymond’s throat. They were both breathing heavily. Nelson was grinning. “Suck mine,” he said. Raymond writhed and fought and then stopped moving.

Nelson released his brother, rolled away, and lay on his back looking up at the ceiling. He reached for a cigarette and lit it. There was a long silence, and it seemed that neither one of them wanted, or even knew how, to break it. Then Nelson said, his voice quiet, “Surprise is all. That’s how you beat the shit out of someone. Remember that.”

They shared the cigarette. Then Raymond talked about high school, about Alice, about the island and how he was left for dead by Alice’s policeman uncle. He took a long time to tell his story. He added details he had forgotten, the colour of the sky, the wind at night, the sound of wolves over on the mainland, the hatred in Earl Hart’s eyes. He said that he had not been scared of death, and he had thought, by the ninth day, that he would probably die, and then he’d been rescued. He said that being on the island had helped him understand
the pointlessness of his own existence. Not that he didn’t want to live. No, he did. But he had seen that he was no different from that tree, or that rock, or that bird he’d killed, or that fish leaping out of the water, or those clouds above him.

When Raymond finished talking they sat together in the silence while the candles guttered on the table. Then Nelson said that he had grown up being taught that there was a God who was willing to save anyone who wanted to be saved. “But then I get to wondering what you do with a man like Hart? Can he be saved? Maybe God’s just looking down and laughing at the things we do to each other. Maybe he doesn’t care much.”

“Well, he made the world,” Raymond said. “And I guess he should care about it. You don’t make something and then turn around and say, ‘This is crap, I’m gonna burn it.’ ”

“You might.”

“But you probably wouldn’t.”

“Know what I think? You don’t know shit.”

“Fuck you.”

“Okay, how many days to make the world?”

“For your God, and your story? Seven.”

“Six, asshole. On the seventh day God laid back and got a blow job.”

Raymond laughed.

Nelson called himself blasphemous and Raymond said that he had no idea what that was.

“You heard the story about Joseph?” Nelson asked. “Gets sold by his brothers?”

“Joseph who.”

“Shit. I’ll tell it to you sometime.”

One of the candles flickered and went out. Outside, down by the creek, an animal moved and the night drifted.

W
hen Raymond finally showed up at the Retreat it was a Sunday, a week or so later, and Lizzy walked up to him where he stood in his boots and jeans and a red snap-button shirt that was too small on him. He’d grown a moustache and it was minor, somewhat uneven. She noted it, but said nothing. He wore a bandana and his rifle was on a rack in the rear window of the pickup.

“You wanna go away from here,” he asked. “A ride maybe?”

She wanted to say yes, but she was confused by the mix of desire and anger she felt. She said, “Just like that? You abandon me and then come back and you think everything’s the same? That I’m just gonna hop in your truck and go for a ride?”

He shrugged, and as he did so she wanted to slap him, make him feel something. He said that she could think what she wanted, but he hadn’t
abandoned
her. “We married or something?”

She put her hand against his chest and pushed him so that he stumbled backwards. “Or something,” she said. She saw them both as teetering on the edge of a cliff and she understood that the wrong words might send one of them tumbling. She didn’t want that. She walked around to the passenger
door and climbed into the pickup. Raymond got in, shaking his head and smiling.

“I’m not interested in fighting with you,” she said, and she slouched in her seat and told him to drive.

They went through town and then west on the 71 towards the Manitoba border. After a while Raymond slowed and took a side road down towards a small lake and he parked at the entrance to a boat ramp, which appeared to be no longer used. He lit a cigarette and threw the match out the window. They hadn’t talked much during the drive, but Lizzy had been aware of Raymond’s sense of purpose, even in the silence, and how he appeared older. Her anger gradually subsided and what remained was resignation. She sat and looked straight ahead and told Raymond that she felt like a person who had been lost in a desert and then suddenly, before her, he had appeared holding water in his cupped hands. Only the water was quickly disappearing and she wasn’t even sure if the water was meant for her. She looked at him. “I missed you,” she said.

He said that she told a great story, did she know that? “The desert, the water. Where do you come up with that stuff?” He reached out and touched the back of her head. “I missed you too.”

“Really? You’re not just saying that because you’re supposed to?”

“Am I? Supposed to?” He slid his hand down her neck. “Trust me,” he said.

“You’re not in trouble, are you?” she asked. “When I was up there, at the park, the police made you out to be criminals.
I don’t want you getting hurt.” She said that those men, Lionel and Gary, maybe they were like the Doctor at the Retreat, who just kept talking until his vision sounded perfect. Maybe the leaders of the occupation were the same. She said that adults could be pretty fucked up. “I was worried about you.”

He closed his eyes and said that he felt something bad was going to happen. “You know?” He patted his stomach. “Right there. Hard to breathe.” He said that the feeling had been there for about a week.

Lizzy put her hand on his stomach. “Maybe it’s excitement,” she said. “All that power.” She punched him lightly and laughed, but he didn’t laugh with her. She slid towards him and took his face in her hands and kissed him and he let her do this. She pulled away and studied his face, the darkness she could not gain entry into. She kissed him again, resolute now, desperate even, and then she fell back and said that he’d changed.

He lifted a hand and let it fall onto his thigh and he said that he was no longer sure about anything. He said he’d dreamed recently that he was a small animal on a string. She laughed. “You silly boy,” she said. “It doesn’t matter.” She put her head against his chest. “Everything’s fine.”

Driving back up into Kenora she leaned against the passenger door. His smell was all over her, in her nose, on her fingers, her breasts, inside her. She felt a sleepiness brought on by a feeling of well-being, and her eyes closed briefly, and she may have slept. Raymond, turning once in a while to look at her,
saw that she did sleep because her fingers jumped lightly, and this allowed him the freedom to observe her. She had taken off her sandals and had tucked her legs up beneath her and her feet lay very close to his thigh. He saw the bones of her feet, their smallness, her naked ankles, and though he had just seen her completely naked, he had not felt then her vulnerability and her hopefulness. Her hair fell dark across her left cheek and obscured her jaw. Her shoulders were thin and her breasts were small and he knew that her spine resembled a column of pebbles laid out in perfect symmetry. Lying back on the grass, he had kissed her shoulders and the small of her back just half an hour earlier.

After making love they had stood in the sunshine and Lizzy had asked about the tarp covering the back of the pickup, what was underneath it. He’d shown her the groceries. He said that the job he’d been given by the leaders of the occupation was to get food and deliver it to the park. He was going to go out there later. He said that the police had closed the park entrance and there was no way of bringing in food and there were children going hungry. He paused, as if uncertain about the words he was using, and then he said that he delivered the food by boat.

She hadn’t registered any particular surprise. She’d lifted the tarp and said, “Diapers,” and she’d wondered if the sex had made her soft.

About halfway back to Kenora, Lizzy woke and sat up. Her cheek was creased from sleeping against the side of the door. Raymond reached over and touched her face. Perhaps because of the distraction of Lizzy, or perhaps because of his own
sense of happiness, Raymond didn’t see the vehicle or the flashing lights behind him. Only when the short burp of a siren sounded did he look in his rear-view mirror. He did not understand at first that the police cruiser was asking him to stop. When he finally caught on, he slowed and he muttered, “Shit,” and then he said it again as he stopped on the shoulder.

“Who?” Lizzy said, and she turned to look back.

A local constable. And Raymond’s hands began to shake as the policeman climbed out of the cruiser. It was Earl Hart.

“Fuck,” he said.

Hart approached the driver’s side. Raymond sat straight, both hands on the wheel. And then Hart was standing there, leaning in slightly, and he said, “Mr. Seymour.” He surveyed the cab, took in the floor, the gun rack, then Lizzy. Rested his gaze on Lizzy for a long while and then he said, “Well, well.”

Raymond took out his cigarettes and lit one. His hands were shaking.

“Thought it might be you,” Hart said. “Saw the gun in the back window and figured that that was mighty brazen. And I wondered, does this boy have a permit for such a weapon and such, and so I thought I’d make enquiries. Same someone new. Some people have all the luck, eh?” Raymond just looked straight ahead.

“What’s your name again?” He was speaking to Lizzy, but he was watching Raymond.

She said her name, first and last.

“Right. Right.” He asked if she had ID.

She said she didn’t.

“Not on you.” He nodded, as if this were to be pondered.

Raymond spoke into the windshield. “I’m not in the wrong.”

Hart chuckled. “You’ve been in the wrong most of your life. I hear you’re having a good time up at the park. Pretty big event. Playing warrior. Scaring little children. Must feel like a real man. What’s in back?” He straightened up and turned, leaning towards the box and lifting the edge of the tarp. He let the tarp drop. “Setting up a trading post are we? Step out of the vehicle. Both of you.”

Lizzy reached for the door handle and Raymond said, “Don’t.” She turned to look at Raymond who reached for his own door handle and said, “Stay in the truck.”

Hart moved back to allow Raymond room, and as he did so, Raymond turned and swung his feet up and kicked out against his door. The door bucked outwards in a wild arc and caught Hart on the chest and waist and crotch. His face showed surprise as the air went out of him, and then he fell.

Lizzy screamed.

Raymond climbed from the pickup and bent over Hart. He tugged Hart’s pistol from the holster and heaved the gun into the ditch. Then he walked over to the cruiser and reached inside and switched off the engine and pulled the keys from the ignition and threw them across the road into the ditch on the other side. When he came back to the pickup, Hart was attempting to rise. Raymond stepped around him and climbed in. He leaned out his window and said, “Watch your feet.” He pushed the stick shift up into first and drove off.

Lizzy turned to look out the rear window and then back to Raymond and said, “Why? Why? He asked you to get out of the truck, that’s all.”

“That’s right.”

“He wasn’t going to do anything. Jesus, Raymond.” She began to whimper. “Now what?”

“Listen.” He looked at her. “Calm down. I’ll drop you off at the Retreat later. Okay? He doesn’t care about you. He wants to get me. Even more now. You’re over there somewhere, so don’t worry. You’ve got to leave me deal with this.”

“I’m a witness,” Lizzy said. “You didn’t do anything wrong.” She began to hiccup and this brought on more sounds similar to laughter. Raymond took her hand.

She said that there would be more than just one policeman coming to look for him. Didn’t he know that? “You can’t assault a cop and just get away with it.” Then she said that she wouldn’t leave him. That they should go to the police station and turn themselves in and she would be a witness for him. At this, Raymond turned on her and said, “I don’t need a witness. No witness. Never had one before, don’t need one now.”

She sat upright and stared straight ahead as if she was gauging the light that fell across her arm and onto the dashboard where it revealed the dust that lay there. She felt the warmth of the sun on her right arm and imagined that she was sitting with the ease of a young girl out for a ride in the country. The light on the hairs on her arm made them appear more golden than they actually were. Her feet were resting on the dash and her legs were bent and they were at the level of her eyes and the light that fell across her arm and partially
across her chest also fell onto her legs. And so she was warmed by the light that came from the sun.