Year of Lesser (12 page)

On Thursday, they lie in the darkness of their room and Charlene, the wetness dribbling between her legs, asks about Loraine.

“Have you seen her?” she says.

“Not for a while.” It seems Johnny is both embarrassed and proud.

“How many months is she now?” Charlene asks.

“I dunno. Four?” Johnny is tired. He falls asleep quickly, his bare shoulders breaching the blanket. Outside the moon is full, the night cold. The room seems brightly washed, as if daylight were catching Johnny and Charlene still in bed.

Charlene senses tonight that her plan has failed. She has miscalculated. Her stomach is slightly bloated as if preparing for evacuation. She folds her hands and closes her eyes and when she finally sleeps she dreams. And in the dream Johnny and Loraine are practicing their breathing. Loraine is on her back and Johnny kneels beside her, chanting in her ear. Loraine is beautifully huge. Then Johnny stoops to Loraine’s crotch and when he reappears he holds the tiny head of a baby between his teeth.

Charlene wakes up and pushes herself into a sitting position. She is breathing hard. She moans, shoves at Johnny and says, “I had a nightmare.”

Johnny grunts and turns away.

“It was awful,” Charlene says. “Frightening.”

Johnny’s sleeping again and Charlene’s still afraid. She goes to the bathroom and sits for a long time. When she wipes herself she feels sticky. She checks the toilet paper and finds traces of blood mixed with semen. Failure tugs at her somewhere; she is not sure, perhaps at her stomach, between her shoulders, and down her spine. In the hard light of the bathroom she lays a liner across her panties, washes herself, and slides in a tampon. In the next room, Johnny sleeps and sleeps.

And then on Friday afternoon, around five, Loraine Wallace drops by. Charlene is making herself a small meal, Johnny is at the centre, and she hears a knock but thinks it is an icicle dropping off the eaves or the wind blowing. But the sound comes again and when Charlene opens the door there is Loraine, her face hooded by her parka, her feet moving on the squeaky snow of the step.

“Hi, Charlene,” she says.

Charlene doesn’t respond, just stands there and lets the wind whip at her hair and she thinks how cold her neck feels.

“May I come in?”

Charlene nods and Loraine enters and then the coat is off and Charlene’s offering supper, but Loraine says no, she’s eaten. So Charlene serves tea and stands with her bum against the kitchen counter and watches Loraine handle the sugar and milk.

They are not friends. They rarely talk. Charlene lights a cigarette and moves her hand to her throat. Her teeth ache.

Loraine says, “This is really abrupt and maybe uncalled for, but …”

“You’re going to have a baby,” Charlene says. It’s amazing, Loraine is showing. As she sat, Charlene saw the curve of her belly beneath her blouse. Loraine is small, compact, her stomach a slightly inflated balloon. Charlene finds that the roof of her mouth is gritty, she’s short of breath.

“Yes,” Loraine says. “I guess that’s why I came. Sort of.” Physically Loraine appears so healthy; face rounding out, cheeks pink. Her whole body screaming
Yes.

“To taunt me,” Charlene says. She can’t help it. She is both angry and brimming with admiration. She wants to fall on her knees before this woman.

“No. No.” Loraine stands quickly, hands fumbling for her coat. “I’m sorry, I’ll go.”

“Don’t.” Charlene stands, pulls at Loraine’s arm. Her fingers clutch and pinch. She lets go; Loraine’s skin is cool and smooth. Johnny must love that, he has an eye for details.

Loraine sits down again and says, “I was hoping we could talk. Last
night I was sitting by myself thinking about this baby and I wondered if you were sitting by yourself too.”

“Johnny and I are doing really well these days.”

“Oh, well. I assumed so. I haven’t seen him,” Loraine says. “Where is he tonight?”

“At the centre.” Charlene knows that Loraine knows this, otherwise she wouldn’t have come. She watches Loraine’s lips approach the teacup. Charlene says, “I was thinking, when the baby’s born, we should cut it in half. Part for you, part for me. You’ve read that story, haven’t you?”

“Johnny never told me you had a sense of humour. You want to touch?”

Charlene surprises herself. She swallows and, “Yes,” she whispers. Loraine comes around the table and lifts up her blouse. Charlene puts both hands on Loraine’s stomach, one above the belly button, one below.

“You can’t feel anything right now. When I lie down and keep still, it moves. At first it was like a gas bubble, but now it’s like a small animal in a gunny sack.”

Charlene thinks she should pull her hands away. Suddenly she is self-conscious, touching the same body Johnny touches. If she slid her hands a little lower, she could scrape the edges of Loraine’s pubic hair. His hands here and here. Here. Little Johnny inside there.

Charlene looks up. Loraine is looking down at her. She takes one of Charlene’s hands and holds it. “Sometimes,” Loraine says, “I imagine taking revenge. As you must do? Do you?”

Charlene nods. She feels inadequate. Inferior. It’s not just the baby. It’s Loraine’s confidence; coming over here, showing off her stomach. Charlene thinks Loraine’s laughing at her. Even now, she’s talking, saying she doesn’t want to hurt anyone, especially not her son Chris, Charlene neither, and Charlene thinks how Johnny must gloat, shuttling back and forth between his lover and wife. This is all about greed, but it’s not Johnny’s greed, it’s the women’s. Charlene knows how when she lays her weight down on Johnny she could crush him, her need is so great.

She says now, “Forget the baby. Let’s cut up Johnny. I’ll take the head,
you can have the body. I like to pull at his eyebrows with my teeth, roll my tongue on his eyes. His mouth is best, I like to sit on that sneer.”

Loraine is giggling, holding herself as if she may pee. “Oh, that’s bad.” Then, she says, “He’s got body odour, you ever notice?”

“Of course,” Charlene says. She feels as if she’s been drinking. She’s talking like a fool.

Still, Loraine’s playing along, her belly protruding, her hands splayed near her crotch now, mouth smiling. Charlene feels sudden revulsion for everything as Loraine says, “And always worried about his size. He says it’s because of his father, a death-sex thing.”

“He said that?” Charlene is hurt. Her eyes burn.

Loraine understands her slip, and says, “He’s not smart.”

“No, he’s not,” Charlene agrees. “Phil Barkman’s smaller, that’s what Johnny said.”

“Really?”

“Yeah, he saw him at the baptism. Funny, coming home from your baptism and talking about the size of the preacher’s prick.”

“Huh.”

“I got my period last night,” Charlene says. Loraine takes this in, her mouth moving; the house is talking as the wind blows. Charlene watches Loraine’s mouth and thinks how things go round in circles. Johnny on Loraine’s mouth, then on Charlene’s, back to Loraine’s, mouths on bodies, the transmission of germs and saliva and body fluids. Charlene’s never really thought about it till now but she assumes Loraine is healthy. It’s Johnny they have to worry about. “I don’t know why I said that,” Charlene says.

“It’s okay,” Loraine says. She lifts her small shoulders as if shifting an uncomfortable load. She pulls her coat up over her back. It is chilly in the house; there is nothing left to say.

Charlene offers more tea but Loraine declines. Their parting is pleasant, they even hug carefully, as if they were hesitant lovers. Charlene tells Loraine to come again and Loraine says she will. After Loraine is outside, Charlene stands and watches for her car but it’s blowing snow so she
sees only a flash of a red light and then nothing. It feels like a blizzard. She stays by the kitchen sink for a long time, facing the window, looking past the lace curtains she sewed; looking out into the darkness.

At one point she realizes she is crying but doesn’t know why, she is not sad, not angry. The clock shows 8:00 p.m., still early. In the fridge she discovers some wine, and drinks that; holds a glass by the stem and takes large gulps. The chill of the wine hurts her teeth. Her throat aches. Later, she scours the house for more liquor but the bottles are all empty. She sits at the table and smokes, then remembers the little bottle of cognac, Hennessy, that she took from the hotel room in Kenora. She drinks that quickly, not bothering to pour it into her glass. She sits for what seems a long time and enjoys the warmth inside her, wishing for more.

She remembers Johnny pointing out a place in Île des Chênes that sells liquor. An old man and his daughter who make a living at this. She pulls on her coat, goes outside and starts the half-ton. The snow is hard and thick and swirls around the truck. At the gravel road Charlene turns right towards the 312. She shouldn’t be out in this mess. She wonders if Johnny will make it home tonight. The store is closing as Charlene pulls up at the centre of Île des Chênes. She scrambles up the step and bangs at the door. An old man in a camouflage jacket lets her in. Charlene knocks snow from her jacket and says, “Thank you.” She asks for two bottles.

“That’s fine,” the old man says. “That’s fine.” He wants to talk but Charlene ignores him. She pays and wades her way back to the truck. She drives slowly, hugging the shoulder. At one point, a semi blows by and Charlene moans, lost for a moment. Back on the 312 she feels safer, and actually takes a second to wonder why she is so desperate, as if there were a cliff edge somewhere up ahead and she were running pell-mell for it.

She can’t see anything on the gravel road. The world beyond the windshield is a dark blanket. The headlights are useless, they pick up driving snow. The half-ton crawls. A few times Charlene stops, gets out and walks out onto the road to feel with her feet where the ditch begins. She’s wearing little cotton gloves and her hands are numb. Finally, like
a lighthouse warning boats from rocks, she spies the timid and cloudy yard-light of her farm. At least, she thinks it’s her yard.

The truck slides into the ditch as Charlene attempts to find the driveway. As if it had been invited, it settles carefully into the snow at a slight angle. The engine sputters and dies. Charlene gathers her bottles and purse and strikes out for the house. People die doing this, she thinks; they just crawl up to the door and die. She finds the house and shoulders her way into the front room. Though the wind still howls at the windows and knocks at the roof, the silence of the house is shocking.

It’s cold. Charlene brushes off her clothes, turns up the heat and stokes the wood stove. When her hands have warmed, she takes a glass and pours herself a drink. She swallows, her throat burns, her stomach jumps, and she wonders what inspired her to risk a trip like that. Then she remembers Loraine standing in the kitchen. Like a young girl she was really, flagrantly peeling up her blouse, or did Charlene do that? But, still, Charlene’s not angry, just disappointed, and that’s why she’s bowing before this golden liquid.

Charlene thinks about her own life. She refuses to be beaten down. Even now, with this turmoil in her life, she’s risen above the people of Lesser. Still, they see her as a joke; she’s the fool. Everyone looks at her when they do their banking. The men smirk as if she’s easy now, a fine target. They think that if Johnny’s doing it, she should want to even things out. Just last week Mr. Hamm asked her if she believed in equal rights. Charlene smiled and pretended not to hear. “Will that be all, Mr. Hamm?” she asked. He looked at her breasts then and Charlene reddened, her neck hot. She didn’t mind Mr. Hamm, she talked to him sometimes, but he had no right to stare at her breasts.

Charlene hates her breasts. Thinks they’re too large. She lifts a hand now and cups one through her sweater. Too heavy and full. By fifty she’ll be sagging to her navel like her mother. She finishes her glass and pours some more; a little spills onto her lap. Half the bottle’s gone. It’s eleven o’clock.

That’s the thing about Loraine. She’s so small. All over. But her
breasts especially. Perky little things. Nipples not too big. Johnny must love them in his mouth. Nausea hits her. Charlene folds herself at her stomach. She swallows. The phone rings, a sharp clanging that circles around the room and lands on Charlene’s head. She tries to remember where the phone is. She stands, wobbles, and laughs. The kitchen. The damn thing is so loud. She’s wanted to get a pulse phone, but Johnny likes the noise; his hearing’s going on him.

“Twelve, thirteen, fourteen.” Charlene isn’t sure if she’s counting her steps or the number of rings. My, that bottle had some strong stuff. She’ll have to be careful. She winces, draws a breath and lifts the receiver.

“Charlene, it’s Johnny.”

“Hi, Johnny.” She’s concentrating, inching out her words, working at the syllables.

“Where were you? I’ve been trying to phone. You had me worried.” He doesn’t wait for an answer, just ploughs ahead. “I’m staying at the centre tonight. We’re locked in because of the blizzard. A few kids are here too. We’re going to wait it out.”

Charlene pulls back from the phone and looks around the room.

“Charlene?”

The phone goes back. “Yeah?”

“You all right?”

“Fine, just fine.” She has this sense of always talking on the phone with Johnny and him asking if she’s okay. “Are
you
okay?” she says.

“Yes. You drinking, Charlene?”

“No. Loraine came by tonight.”

“She did? Why?”

“Oh, didn’t you know? We’re friends.” Charlene waits, listening to Johnny breathe. “I don’t know,” she says finally. “I don’t know.” Then quickly, she adds, “Johnny, do you like my breasts?”

“Of course.”

“I wish you were here, Johnny, you could do me right now.”

“Charlene, you are drunk.”

“So?”

“Listen, Charlene,” and here Johnny lowers his voice, “I’d love to be with you right now, I really would, but you have to put the bottle away. Okay?”

“Sure.”

“And don’t go outside. Turn up the heat. Crawl into bed and I’ll be there in the morning.”

“I got my period, Johnny. Last night.”

Johnny’s lost. Charlene can almost hear his mind grappling with this comment. “Is it bad?” he asks. “Different?”