Bodily Harm (20 page)

At the beginning, when she still believed she could return to normal, Rennie thought that they would see each other a certain number of times and then they would have an affair; naturally; that’s what people did. But this also failed to happen. Instead, Daniel spent one whole lunch explaining, earnestly and unhappily, why he couldn’t go to bed with her.

It would be unethical, he said. I’d be taking advantage of you. You’re in an emotional state.

What is this, thought Rennie, Rex Morgan, M.D.? People she knew prided themselves on taking emotional risks. She couldn’t decide whether Daniel was being wise, principled or just a coward.

Why is it such a big deal? she said. Once wouldn’t kill you. Behind a bush, it would only take five minutes.

It wouldn’t be once, he said.

Rennie felt suspended; she was waiting all the time, for something to happen. Maybe I’m an event freak, she thought. The people she knew, Jocasta for instance, would have regarded it all as an experience. Experiences were like other collectibles, you kept adding them to your set. Then you traded them with your friends. Show and tell. But Rennie had trouble thinking of Daniel as just an experience; besides, what was there to tell?

What do you get out of this? she said. What do you want?

Does there have to be something? he said. I just want it to go on the way it is.

But what
is
it? she said. It isn’t anything. There’s nothing to it.

He looked hurt and she was ashamed of herself. What he probably wanted was escape, like everyone else; a little but not too much, a window but not a door.

I could ask you the same thing, he said.

I want you to save my life, thought Rennie. You’ve done it once, you can do it again. She wanted him to tell her she was fine, she wanted to believe him.

I don’t know, she said. She didn’t know. Probably she didn’t really want him to go to bed with her or even touch her; probably she loved him because he was safe, there was absolutely nothing he could demand.

Sometimes they held hands, discreetly, across the table in the corners of restaurants; which, in those weeks and then those months, was about as much as she could stand. Afterwards she could feel the shape of his hand for hours.

There’s someone knocking at the door. The room is dark. Whatever sings at night is singing outside her window, and there is the same music.

The knocking goes on. Perhaps it’s the maid, coming far too late, to make up the bed. Rennie pulls off the damp sheet, walks to the door in her bare feet, unlocks it, opens it. Paul is there, one shoulder leaning against the wall, looking not at all like a salesman.

“You shouldn’t unlock your door like that,” he says. “It could be anyone.” He’s smiling though.

Rennie feels at a disadvantage without her shoes on. “I’m lucky this time,” she says. She’s glad to see him: he’s the closest facsimile here to someone she knows. Maybe they can just skip yesterday and start again, as if nothing at all has happened. Which is true enough, since nothing has.

“I thought you might like dinner,” he says, “some place with real food.”

“I’ll put on my shoes,” says Rennie. She turns on the mermaid lamp. Paul comes into the room and closes the door, but he doesn’t sit down. He just stands, gazing around as if it’s an art gallery, while Rennie picks up her sandals and purse and goes into the bathroom to see what she looks like. She brushes her hair and sticks on a little blue eyeliner pencil, not too much. She thinks about changing her dress but decides against it; it might look anxious. When she comes out he’s sitting on the edge of her bed.

“I was having a nap,” says Rennie, feeling she has to explain the unmade bed.

“I see you got Lora’s box for her all right,” he says. “Any problems?”

“No,” says Rennie, “except it was a little bigger than I thought, and now I don’t know what to do with it.” It occurs to her that she may be able to fob the box off on Paul, since he knows Lora. “I don’t know where this woman lives,” she says, as helplessly as she can.

“Elva?” says Paul. “You just take it over to Ste. Agathe, there’s a boat every day at noon. Once you get there anyone can tell you.” He doesn’t offer to take it himself.

Rennie turns off the mermaid lamp and locks the door and they walk out past the front desk and the Englishwoman’s laser-beam gaze, and Rennie feels she’s sneaking out of the dorm.

“The dinner’s part of the plan,” says the Englishwoman behind them.

“Pardon?” says Rennie.

“If you don’t eat it you pay for it anyway. It’s part of the plan.”

“I realize that,” says Rennie.

“We lock up at twelve,” says the Englishwoman.

Rennie’s beginning to understand why she dislikes this woman so much. It’s the disapproval, automatic and self-righteous, it’s the ill-wishing. Rennie knows all about that, it’s part of her background. Whatever happens to Rennie the Englishwoman will say she was asking for it; as long as it’s bad.

They go down the stone steps and through the damp little courtyard and step out into the musical night. Paul takes hold of Rennie’s arm above the elbow, his fingers digging in. “Just keep going,” he says. He’s steering her.

Now she sees what he’s talking about. A little way up the street, in the dim light over by the stationery store, two of the blue-shirted policemen are beating a man up. The man is on his knees in the potholed road and they’re kicking him, in the stomach, on the back. All Rennie can think of is that the two policemen are wearing shoes and the man isn’t. She’s never seen anyone being beaten up like this before, only pictures of it. As soon as you take a picture of something it’s a picture. Picturesque. This isn’t.

Rennie has stopped, though Paul is pushing her, trying to keep her moving. “They don’t like you to stare,” he says. Rennie’s not sure who he means. Does he mean the policemen, or the people they beat up? It would be shaming, to have other people see you so helpless. There are other people on the street, the usual clumps and knots, but they aren’t staring, they’re looking and then looking away. Some of them are walking, nobody is doing anything, although the walking ones deflect themselves, they go carefully around the man, who is now doubled over.

“Come on,” says Paul, and this time Rennie moves. The man is struggling onto his knees; the policemen are standing back, watching him with what seems like mild curiosity, two children watching a beetle they’ve crippled. Perhaps now they will drop stones on him, thinks Rennie, remembering the schoolyard. To see which way
he will crawl. Her own fascination appals her. He lifts his face and there’s blood streaming down it, they must have cut his head, he looks directly at Rennie. Rennie can remember drunks on Yonge Street, men so drunk they can’t stand up, looking up at her like that. Is it an appeal, a plea for help, is it hatred? She’s been seen, she’s being seen with utter thoroughness, she won’t be forgotten.

It’s the old man. He can’t be totally mute because there’s a sound of some kind coming out of him, a moaning, a stifled reaching out for speech which is worse than plain silence.

They reach the jeep and this time Paul opens the door and helps her in, he wants her in there as fast as possible. He closes the door carefully, tests it to make sure it’s really shut.

“Why were they doing that?” Rennie says. She’s pressing her hands together, she refuses to shake.

“Doing what?” says Paul. He’s a little sharp, a little annoyed. She stalled on him.

“Come on,” says Rennie.

Paul shrugs. “He was drunk,” he says. “Or maybe they caught him thieving. He was hanging around the hotel when I came in, they don’t like people bothering the tourists. It’s bad for business.”

“That was horrible,” says Rennie.

“Up north they lock them up, down here they just beat them up a little. I know which I’d choose,” says Paul.

“That wasn’t a little,” says Rennie.

Paul looks over at her and smiles. “Depends what you think a lot is,” he says.

Rennie shuts up. She’s led a sheltered life, he’s telling her. Now she’s annoyed with herself for acting so shocked. Squealing at mice, standing on a chair with your skirts hitched up, that’s the category.
Girl
.

Paul drives through the darkness with elaborate slowness, for her benefit. “You can go faster,” she says. “I’m not about to throw up.” He smiles, but he doesn’t.

The Driftwood at night is much the same as the Driftwood by day, except that it’s floodlit. There’s a half-hearted steel band and two couples are dancing to it. The women are wearing shirts made from fake flour sacks; the blonde is taking pictures with a flashcube camera, the brunette is wearing a captain’s cap, backwards. One of the men has a green shirt with parrots on it. The other one is shorter, fatter, with the fronts of his legs so badly burned that the skin is peeling off in rags. He’s wearing a red T-shirt that says
BIONIC
COCK
. It’s the usual bunch, from Wisconsin Rennie decides, dentists and their wives fresh off the plane, their flesh like uncooked Dover sole, flying down to run themselves briefly under the grill. The dentists come here, the dental assistants go to Barbados, that’s the difference.

Rennie and Paul sit at a metal table and Rennie orders a ginger ale. She’s not going to get sick in the jeep again, once was enough. She’s thinking about the man on his knees in the dark road, but what is there to think? Except that she’s not hungry. She watches the awkward stiff-legged dancers, the steel-band men, who are supple, double-jointed almost, glancing at them with a contempt that is almost but not quite indifference.

“Dentists from Wisconsin?” she says to Paul.

“Actually they’re Swedes,” he says. “There’s been a rash of Swedes lately. Swedes tell other Swedes, back in Sweden. Then all of a sudden the place is swarming with them.”

“How can you tell?” says Rennie, impressed.

Paul smiles at her. “I found out,” he says. “It’s not hard. Everyone finds out about everyone else around here, they’re curious. It’s a small place, anything new or out of the ordinary gets noticed pretty fast. A lot of people are curious about you, for instance.”

“I’m not out of the ordinary,” says Rennie.

“Here you are,” he says. “You’re at the wrong hotel, for one thing. It’s mostly package tours and little old ladies who stay there. You should be at the Driftwood.” He pauses, and Rennie feels she has to supply an answer.

“Pure economics,” she says. “It’s a cheap magazine.”

Paul nods, as if this is acceptable. “They wonder why you aren’t with a man,” he says. “If you’d come on a boat they’d know why, they’d figure you’re just boat-hopping. Girls do that quite a bit here, it’s like hitchhiking, in more ways than one. But you don’t seem the type. Anyway, they know you came in on the plane.” A smile, another pause. It occurs to Rennie that it may not be
they
who want to know these things about her, it may only be Paul. A small prickle goes down her spine.

“If they know so much, they must know what I’m doing here,” she says, keeping her voice even. “It’s business. I’m doing a travel piece. I hardly need a chaperone for that.”

Paul smiles. “White women have a bad reputation down here,” he says. “For one thing, they’re too rich; for another they lower the moral tone.”

“Come on,” says Rennie.

“I’m just telling you what they think,” says Paul. “The women here think they spoil the local men. They don’t like the way white women dress, either. You’d never see a local woman wearing shorts or even pants, they think it’s degenerate. If they started behaving like that their men would beat the shit out of them. If you tried any
of that Women’s Lib stuff down here they’d only laugh. They say that’s for the white women. Everyone knows white women are naturally lazy and they don’t want to do a woman’s proper work, and that’s why they hire black women to do their work for them.” He looks at her with something between a challenge and a smirk, which Rennie finds irritating.

“Is that why you like it here?” she says. “You get your grapes peeled for you?”

“Don’t blame it on me,” Paul says, with a little shrug. “I didn’t invent it.”

He’s watching her react, so she tries not to. After a minute he goes on. “They also think you aren’t only a journalist. They don’t believe you’re really just writing for a magazine.”