Crossings (34 page)

‘Is it some American plane?' I say. ‘Have they attacked?'

She sneers and starts to get ready to go.

I think, Oh, she mustn't leave him. The red-headed baby. But I want to keep him. Oh Jocelyn, I say, but not aloud, you're his mother. I hope she leaves him anyway.

But no, she hoists him into the carrier and she is gone with one last look of disgust in my direction, a long-legged brown girl with a baby on her back.

And Francie comes and she too has a baby.

‘But didn't you have the abortion?' I say.

‘Yes. I never knew about this,' she says.

‘But weren't you worried?'

‘Why should I worry?'

She too is impatient. I hold the baby. It too has red hair. But of course that can't be. Jocelyn took the other one. This one is hard and solid and he laughs at me.

Francie slams about. We are in some sort of farmhouse kitchen. Crowded with broken furniture. She too is disgusted with me. I hope she will leave her baby, but I doubt it.

She looks so thin and tired, Francie. I want to feed her and make her have a nap before she leaves, but I know I mustn't say anything.

I hold the baby against me and she comes for it. She too has a carrier on her back but before she can leave I am in some large stone place. Arches. And two men are saying hello. And then I have to be introduced. There are suddenly many people. Men and women and children. Children in Orlon fur coats. I try to remember all the names but I can't.

‘Yes!' cries one of the men and he is holding the book.

‘But what place is this?' I say.

And it is quiet and only one man remains. The other has taken the book.

‘But you contacted us,' the man is saying.

‘Yes, I
did,
' admitting it. ‘But what is this place?'

And then I know. It is a monastery. For men. And women. And children.

And I cry, ‘Give it back. They won't understand. They'll burn it. They'll take out the God.'

But he smiles and says, ‘It is a very religious book.'

And the children rush by in their Orlon fur coats, and now they have leather webbing across their chests. They carry rifles. They run by and I think, Yes, it would be practical, Orlon. They smile at me and call out. It is war then, the Americans have attacked and we are all guerrillas.

I sleep with the children, so many children. They are very gay and they tell me where the bathroom is. But I cannot sleep. I keep going out to the large flagstone hall and I wake all the children up. I don't mean to. But they are all up now and it's all my fault.

 

AT CHRISTMAS, Francie says, ‘You have a very selective memory, Vicky.' I take things out of context, she says. I twist them to fit my meaning.

And Jocelyn says, ‘You can't even stand it about Daddy.'

‘What do you know about Daddy? You were six.'

‘He was weak.'

‘He was not weak.'

‘See?'

 

I AM TEN and Jane Broughton says to me, ‘They caught Errol Flynn doing it.' We are standing in front of Miss Darling's. Looking in the window at the home-made teapot covers crocheted in bright wool. The baby sets. Doilies. Useless pot holders, not for heat, for decoration.

‘Caught him doing what?'

‘Making a baby.'

‘What was he doing?'

‘He was sitting on this lady's stomach. That's how they make babies. They're going to put him in jail.'

I walk over to Mom's. Where was I living then?

‘Is this true?' I say, stern as Jehovah.

She gets all scared in the face. ‘But I've only done it twice, for you and Joss.'

I am very disgusted with both of them. Her and Daddy. I think of my father sleeping in his long soiled underwear.

‘You can forgive a person for making a mistake. It was only twice. It's all right if you do it for a baby anyway.'

He has come in but we haven't heard him. In his shiny leather jacket and his cap. When I leave to go back to wherever I'm staying, he catches me up on the sidewalk and walks me home.

‘About what you were sayink,' he says. He stumbles over the theta too, so that he says, ‘It's nuffink.'

‘About your mother and me,' he says. ‘We've done it lots of times.'

I am too disgusted to speak, and burning with shame for both of them.

‘It's actually pretty wonderful,' he is saying. We are passing St. Jerome's and he says, ‘It's like, when you're in church, see? And the choir's singink and you look up and the light's comink through the stained glass window. You know that feelink?'

‘Um.'

‘Well, it's a bit like that. Only physical. It's the closest we get with our bodies. It's really beautiful.' He stops, ready to turn back, not wanting to see my grandfather. ‘You'll understand when you're older. It's not dirty, you know. Don't you ever think it's dirty. Okay?'

‘Okay.'

As he turns away, I say, ‘When can I come home?'

‘It's your mother,' he says. ‘I want you home.'

But Momma says it's him.

 

I SAY TO Jocelyn, ‘You didn't really know him.'

 

BUT THERE'S another story. Yes. One day I go up on the hill and a man comes to the horse. Yes. I am standing there because of a horse. And the man asks me if I know a Mrs Hoar. I do, she's one of the teachers at school. But I don't have her. The man says the Mrs Hoar he's thinking of has a lot of girls living with her.

He shows me what looks like a milk bottle cap. He asks me if I know what it is. I say, Is it a milk bottle cap?

The dog is with me and when the man reaches, the dog growls and I say, very politely, I must go now. And run like hell, not knowing why.

And I tell Grandma and she tells Aunt Carrington and they laugh a lot in a funny way and say I'll have to tell Daddy. So I go over and tell Daddy, feeling rather important about it now.

My father becomes furious. I've never seen him so mad. He will do this and that, he will kill the man if he ever gets his hands on him.

I come out on the porch to go home and there the man is. Walking by the house. He sees me and I see him. I go back inside and say, He's out there. Going down the street.

My father rushes out. But when he comes back he says, Are you sure?

The man he's seen is Mr Chesterman. Mr Chesterman owns a big electrical firm. He got a VC in a war. He's in the PTA.

And my father doesn't do anything.

Years later, I see the man again, walking with Mom on Sunnyside. ‘There's Mr Chesterman,' I say.

‘Where?' Mom says. ‘Where?'

‘Right there,' I whisper. I am cold all over.

And when he has passed us, Mom says, ‘But
that
isn't Mr Chesterman.'

‘But that's the man,' I say.

‘Oh Vicky,' Mom says. ‘Daddy must have seen Mr Chesterman. That day. Oh, and all these years every time I've seen Mr Chesterman I've thought such things about him.' She thinks about it. ‘What if we'd brought a charge!'

‘But I could have said it wasn't Mr Chesterman.'

 

JOCELYN SAYS, ‘He was weak, Vicky. Why won't you admit it?'

 

I FINISH THE story about Wilma and Ivan. It's late October. I say, ‘Want to read it?'

He whips through it very fast.

‘Yah,' he says, putting it down. ‘I like more blood and thunder myself.'

‘More blood and thunder? But there's a lot of violence there.'

‘Yah. But I like, you know, I like it more
real.
'

‘Real?'

‘You know. They all just sit around and talk. Why doesn't he punch her out?'

‘What he does is worse.'

‘It's all words,' Mik says scathingly.

My lovely funny vicious play.

‘Like, I like it when it's real, you know. I mean, I guess you got to do it this way for the CBC. I can see it's right for them if you want to sell it.'