Crossings (32 page)

It won't happen. I won't let it happen. I'll go to Timbuctoo. Or Toronto. But I'm so tired. God, Edna, go home, I'm so tired and in a minute I'll tell you. Edna go home.

And she does, saying, ‘For god's sake, never
tell
anyone.' And, ‘Do you think I should burn the mattress?' And ‘Damn Sam anyway. I'll never forgive him.'

And one night the telephone rings and it's the hospital. The nurse says coolly, ‘Mr O'Brien asked us to call you.'

‘But what is it?'

She won't say. Her voice drips disapproval.

I walk down from the house. I'm furious. It's just like men, cowardly and weak. Go on a drunk and get yourself so sick you have to go into hospital. And then have the nurse phone. Oh yes, you're not too sick to make a dying request. And now I'm supposed to feel all guilty, eh? Oh you great weak cowardly clot. And your sister has a green Chinese girl on her wall too. I mean, that's in
poor
taste, Mik, that really is.

‘You're the fiancée?' the nurse says. And I have to say it. Oh the bastard, he makes me say it or I can't get in to see him.

She takes me to a cubicle in the emergency ward. Curtains around the bed. People puking left and right. Calling ‘Jesus.' Drunks and dope addicts.

He lies there, looking really vile. I have to admit it, he looks ghastly. But am I sympathetic?

‘What idiocy have you committed now?'

He pretends to be unconscious, too far gone, his last gasp rattling in his poor throat.

‘Don't pull that crud on me.'

He moans, fighting his way up through the blackness. I know it's a lie. He had to give the nurse my name and phone number, didn't he?

‘So? What have you done now?' Just like Mom.

‘Took some pills,' he says.

‘Oh god! You tried to
kill
yourself? Oh god.' I am so disgusted you could scrape me off the floor. ‘Congratulations. You have now been fully initiated into the Loyal Order of Victorian Victims. You and Ben should enjoy group therapy together. Well well. You do look charming. I just can't understand why you boys can't do a proper job of these things. Inefficient, I call it.'

‘Threw up,' he says. ‘Ulcer.'

It's true, he has a bleeding ulcer. There's a kidney pan on the bed table, looking rather messy.

‘And
you'd
been destroyed by experts. Hunh!'

He starts to get mad. I can feel it stirring in him, his muscles bunching beneath the white coverlet.

‘Get to hell out,' he manages.

‘And you told the nurse I was your fiancée,' I say. ‘You felt well enough to tell her to call me. You great phony. What a big phony. Oh no, you don't want me to feel sorry for you. Oh no. That's the
last
thing you wanted, wasn't it, me trotting down here all sorry for you. Oh no. Oh you great disgusting phony. “Don't worry about me. I've been destroyed by experts.” Oh brother. You're just like Ben.'

‘Go to hell,' he says, a little more firmly.

‘You get up out of that bed, you clot, and come home.'

‘Never want to see you,' he says, a fine thin shine of steel in his voice. That's my Mik.

‘You rotten creep, what a bandstand play. You and Ben can do the libretto, with Paul on the piccolo. “How We Died for Queen and Country.”' This catches my fancy and I elaborate, singing to the tune of ‘America the Beautiful':

 

Our little band of red coats

So loyal and so true,

We lived and died

Without our pride

And she can screw you too!

Victoria! Victoria!

She rules our native land,

A sceptre in her navel

And our balls in either hand.

He grunts. He is trying not to laugh. It's marvellous, I just keep making it up out of the blue.

The thin red line of valor,

We march on, side by side,

And drop and fall,

In honour all, The Noble Suicide.

The lyrics are getting weak, so I do the chorus again.

Victoria! Victoria!

Our belle dame sans merci.

It's hard to crawl without your ball,

But wait until you pee!

Mik guffaws. I am inspired. Doing it right off the top. I would like to go back and rewrite the second stanza.

Oh trample us to ashes,

Oh trample us to dust,

We'd live for just a peek at

Her splendid royal bust.

Victoria! Victoria!

Eunuchs rise and stand!

A sceptre in her navel,

And our balls in either hand!

I've lost it, but it doesn't matter. He lies there, his eyes closed, chuckling.

He says the name I can't remember. Then he snorts. Then he says, ‘Fuck off. I'm getting dressed.'

We walk home. I have refused to get him a taxi. Suffer, you bastard. You lousy crud. He can hardly stand upright, let alone shuffle.

Back at the house I get him into bed and make masses of black coffee. He tells me the rest of the story.

‘So Taffy and me, we got this gun, and I take a turn and he takes a turn.'

‘So what happened?'

‘I don't know. It never went off.'

‘You probably forgot to put a bullet in.'

‘I put one in. Maybe Taffy took it out. We're in back of the Helen's, and he's helping me. That Taffy.'

‘What a buddy,' I say. ‘What a friend, helping you commit suicide. What's
he
want to die for?'

‘Keep me company.' Mik's still not speaking very clearly. His eyelids are so puffed together he doesn't seem able to see. But he must be seeing because he says, ‘Jeez, shut that light off.' And, in the dark, holding the coffee mug with both hands, ‘So I took some Bennies and a twenty-six, and then I start to puke blood so they called the ambulance.'

‘That's twenty-five dollars right there!'

‘You got under my skin.'

‘I thought you could take it.'

‘I'd punch you out,' he says, ‘but it'd hurt too much. Me.' And he laughs. I laugh too. It is all right.

He can't stay awake anymore. He lies there, a great baby, his mouth open, snoring gently. ‘Oh I love you, you rotten crud,' I say, and I cry now, great crocodile tears, smiling and hugging myself. I sit and smoke, and watch him.

He wakes just once and says, ‘You had to say. When you came in. You had to.'

‘What?' but he's off again. I know anyway. I had to say I was his fiancée.

And I say to myself, Well? That's what you wanted, wasn't it? You imagined it just that way. ‘I'm gonna give you a baby.' Wham bango, the whole bit. So what's all this tum terror in aid of? You got what you wanted, Vicky.

In three days he has a job and is off up North. Very businesslike with his duffel bag and his boots. It feels like he has won after all …

Someone honks for him outside and he gives me a uxorious peck on the cheek and says, ‘I'll call you.' And he's gone, away away into the world of men.

 

‘WELL, YOU didn't have to go to the hospital,' the Nut Lady says. ‘You didn't have to bring him home, even if you did go.'

‘You don't understand,' I say.

‘You'd better have a urine test,' she says.

‘All right.'

‘You remember? I'm going in a week.'

‘That's all right. I'll be okay. I've got an idea for something.'

This is true. The Ivan-Wilma play is cluttering up my head. Odd bits and pieces of dialogue dropping like pennies. I'm getting that depressed feeling, I'm sitting around watching TV all day. It's a sure sign. I see the opening shot clear and bright: test-tubes in a refluxer going burble burble.

‘I think maybe it's going to be funny,' I say. I feel shy.

‘That'll be a change,' says the Nut Lady.

 

ONE MORNING I wake up and there's blood everywhere. Blood. Oh blood! Oh blood blood glorious blood. If I'd known you were coming, I'd have given up mud.

I am bleeding. I am not preggers, caught, up the stump, expecting. I am not.

Free.

In the meantime, like the Bobbsey Twins, Edna has discovered that the medical student gave her more than crabs. She phones and says, ‘It's for tomorrow. Look. Can you come and stay overnight?'

So I go and we drink vodka and orange juice and mutter darkly about men. I tell her about Mik's suicide, and my close call with destiny.

‘God. How bloody ironic,' Edna says.

‘That's the operative word.'

‘How did you feel?'

‘I was scared to death.'

‘Yes.' She is sitting there, looking terribly wan, her hair limp. ‘Yes.'

‘So much for my protestations of motherhood.'

‘You wanted the other one,' Edna says.

‘Yeah. Okay. Yes I did.'

‘I don't want
his,
' Edna says, her eyes filling. ‘He's just so damn
dumb.
'

I feel a bit scared when she says this. It's true. I didn't want Mik's. But not because he's
dumb.
Because … oh god, I don't know. But I didn't want his.

Edna tells me she's had a brief affair with Paul. And that Ben chased her around the apartment.

‘You're kidding! Ben?'

‘I couldn't,' says Edna. ‘It'd be like incest.'

Ben? Chasing a woman! For sex!

‘He must have changed,' I say.

‘He was all leery,' Edna says, half grinning, but eyeing me all the same. ‘Does it bother you?'

‘No. Sure. Nah. Yes. I don't know. Sure it does.'

‘He's gotten all aggressive,' Edna says.

‘He must have. So, how's Paul in the sack?'

‘Surprising.'

‘Yeah?'

‘Really.'

‘No kidding. Paul?'

‘It's marvellous, until after. When he opens his mouth.'

‘Don't tell me. He picks up your dangling modifiers!'

Edna giggles.

After a while, she starts to cry a bit, thinking of the baby so soft and safe, feeling comfy in there. Never dreaming what Mummy's up to.

‘I know you don't approve,' she says.

‘I know it's not the same. I mean, this time I really didn't …'

‘But you'd have gone through with it,' Edna says. ‘Wouldn't you? I feel such a coward.'

I don't know what to say.

‘I know. You think it's murder.'

I don't answer, and so she says, ‘But for me it isn't, you know. It's not really alive yet. I mean, for me, it isn't,' but she is crying.

And then she wipes her nose and says, ‘What really gets me is, he borrowed ninety bucks from me. I'll never see that again. And now $250 for this. He should pay half.'

‘Damn right.'