Maxine (16 page)

Mr. Fiander, Ray, has put his arm around Maxine's shoulders and pulled her in close to the fireplace, and he asks her how her work is going. He doesn't demand, as Gail would, to know exactly how many words Maxine has produced since he last saw her, here, over turkey and plum duff, and then stare at her impatiently until she's answered—he poses a short, quiet question and allows Maxine to decide how to come at it.

I'm not sure, Maxine says eventually. I'm not sure if I can do it.

Ray Fiander does not insist that she can, or offer cheery encouragement. He nods thoughtfully, acknowledging the gravity of her doubt.

10

march 2003

m
axine borrows the Larsens' car to drop off her urology pamphlet and the materials she borrowed for it. Maxine entrusts the package to one of the urology secretaries but she's seen the poster of the peeing boys and now she needs the bathroom. Down the hall, the secretary has said, on the left. She follows the pale grey corridor and turns.There's water running behind a closed door, so she sits on the chair nearby.Two thingsMaxine's never had any trouble with are peeing or sleeping. She can do either, pretty much on demand. Sleep is something she escapes into, something she adores without ever being able to appreciate it while it's happening. You can relish the knowledge of its imminence. She could quite happily have her PJs on by seven-thirty most nights but that's a road Maxine won't travel unless she's sick. That way lies eating out of cans in front of the TV, talking to yourself all the time, and owning more than two cats. She already talks to herself but pretends to be addressing Bluebird. She can see through an open door into the staff room. A counter, a kitchen table, the smell of toast. A huge jar of pickled eggs, another beside it of pickled wieners.

Voices weaving out: It's the friggin' ENT staff smoking again, someone is saying. That hall stinks. It's all blowing into the allergy clinic for God's sake.

Maxine picks up a few brochures from the table beside her. Natural journeys. Relaxation. Meditation. Barb had ambushed Maxine in the street that morning. (Sometimes, on garbage day, Maxine could swear she's lying in wait—as soon as Maxine starts lugging a bag down the steps, Barb shoots out her front door.) Now there's a woman who could use some Healing Touch. Dave practically lives at the office. Comes home at three in the morning. Refuses to discuss what's happening.

It's like when Kyle was two, Barb said. When he was having a temper tantrum. You realize you can't make him come out of the bathroom.
He's in there, he's bolted the door, and he is the only one who can unbolt it. He's got his three favourite toys, he could be in there all day. They can do whatever they like, ignore you, talk to you, not talk to you. You're supposed to pretend everything's normal. Carry on and make the lunches and vacuum the living room and smile at everybody most of the time. Barb's face looked dry and red, as if she'd been walking in a cold wind:
Pisses
me off, she said.

Maxine is finishing supper and reading the paper when someone rings the bell. She decides it's Barb and she won't answer, and then she decides it's Gail and she will, and the knock keeps coming. Frig, says Maxine, and makes for the door. But it's not Barb or Gail. It's Dave. Dave looks as if he's auditioning for Hamlet, the scene Maxine remembers from first-year English class when he shows up looking all messed around and gives poor old Ophelia the heebie-jeebies.

Can I come in? He's looking over his shoulder.

Sure. Maxine has for a second forgotten about the purse thing and now she remembers and wishes she'd said no but it's too late. Dave closes the door and ducks into the living room, staying out of the way of the window. He doesn't take off his long black raglan or shoes but stands awkwardly.

Nice place, he says, and then looks around as if he might want to take it back.

Thanks.

Maxine. About your bag. I'm sorry. Maxine takes in a breath.

Yeah, you know, Dave, that was not OK.

I know, I know, of course it wasn't—Dave peers out. He's agitated, running a hand through his hair. They went shopping, he says. Let me know if you see the car, OK? They can't know I'm here. Dave sits at the end of the couch. One of his shoelaces has come undone. I don't know what she's told you, Maxine. I know she thinks I did something wrong and I didn't. Dave rubs a finger over his upper lip. I didn't do anything wrong on purpose. I don't know what happened, it might have been somebody else, we're trying to get it straightened out, me and someone at work. But she's going to take some persuading.

Maxine isn't sure what's coming. She waits.

Look, I am really sorry, I know, I should never. I don't know what happened, I don't know why I. Why I opened your purse. I've been under a lot of pressure. I might be losing my mind, I don't know, I know it was a crazy thing to do, it was just there, and. I can't explain. Maxine, I know it was wrong, I just came to apolo—

Dave, they're home!

What?

They just pulled in.

God, she can't know I'm here, about the purse. Dave is on his feet with his eyes really wide, looking as if he might burst into tears.

Come on, Dave, the fire escape. It's OK.

She ushers him quickly through the kitchen and out the back door so he can get down, take the path and approach his home from the top of the street. At the door he pauses and looks as if he wants to touch her arm but isn't sure where. Maxine is holding the door open but he hesitates on the step.

Maxine, I know my family's been nothing but a world of trouble for you— No kidding.

Dave looks surprised. Yes. Well, I'm sorry about all that. He turns and starts to run down the fire escape.

Dave, tie up your shoelace!

There's been a decisive moment but Maxine didn't know about it at the time. It was Kyle's doing. The contest, the whole thriller business. Maxine hadn't known she was writing a thriller. She hadn't known what, if anything, she was writing. She wasn't sure about style, or what was going to happen, or what Jerome might say. Now she knows things. It's a new experience, knowing. It's as if the genre of the contest locked her on course so she could follow it to her destination. She knows with every scene what the next one will be. She can feel what Frédérique, what Jerome will say; she can lay it down quickly and be sure. She's learning. She's getting better, fast.

They watch the end of
The Fellowship of the Ring
sprawled on the couch, some popcorn spilt on the floor. Boromir's flaw was merely his humanity, and he redeemed himself over and over with every arrow that ploughed into his flesh—he fought with excruciating courage and selflessness. Maxine knows the story well but she's moved almost beyond bearing. She wriggles in her attempt not to cry and alarm Kyle. She doesn't dare glance sideways to see how he is reacting. The Fellowship is divided. Boromir's funeral boat slips toward the falls. Maxine stares at his face as if to learn something from it. She pulls in a long wobbly breath, sniffs quickly, and turns to Kyle. His gaze is directed at the bottom of the popcorn bowl. He's licking the salt off his fingers and rummaging happily for unpopped kernels. Maxine is trying to meet the end-of-June deadline. She's falling behind. Maxine is flinging herself up against that deadline and at each point being flung back again, battered in spirit and crooked as sin, but soon it will happen, soon she will hurl herself at it one last time and keep going. She'll find herself barefoot in the grass on the other side. She'll wander dazedly through birdsong to a man in a white gown, with a long white beard, standing at a wicket in the middle of a meadow, a man who will smile and extend his hands, and she will give him the manila envelope containing her manuscript. He will say Well done, Maxine, well done!

It would be nice to carry on contemplating that part, but at the moment none of her novel makes any sense any more. It's all over the place, like a department store on Christmas Eve morning. You stand in front of a scene of devastation, empty shelves, opened boxes, the cardboard torn, plastic packing hanging out, people shoving past. The only reason you're not hurrying is that you don't seem to be able to. It all seems so strange. If people really wanted napkins, wouldn't they already have them by now? Surely they would. What have they been wiping their fingers on all their lives? You survey this scene, not sure what some of the few remaining items on the shelves are for.

This is what it's like with the chapters Maxine is looking at. Did she really write that section about the horse? Why? She knows nothing about horses. She thinks she might be allergic to horses. She can remember riding only once, and she sneezed the whole time. Girls at camp, white sun bouncing off the leaves up ahead, a forest path, what you see is the blue T-shirt of the person in front bouncing up and down, and then you're ducking, leaves smacking your face and arms, sneezing like a trooper, eyes streaming. Maxine had enjoyed the sailing. That came afterwards. She's supposed to be writing and rewriting, and all of a sudden it's sailing at fifteen, on a huge lake, four large tents and one for the staff, learning how to tack, falling in love with the counsellors.

Maxine should set the novel aside for now and make up her Christmas list so as to be ready earlier this time. She won't need to mail a package to her parents because she'll probably go and stay with them this year. Right now would be the perfect time to draw up that list. It is fairly pressing. It could almost be described as urgent.

Maxine doesn't remember writing about the horse. She rereads the whole section and halfway through, it starts sounding familiar and by the end she can remember why she wrote it. This is reassuring but does not advance her along the road to completion. And in the middle of staring at the mess of words, she is aware the phone is ringing, and it's Barb, Barb wants to take Maxine out for lunch, today, soon, now, and Maxine has to slide her brain away from the screen and concentrate on declining. Her brain is a big gob of chocolate pudding and she has to roll it sideways with a spoon until it has left the computer table altogether and positioned itself near the telephone. Barb is unusually insistent, even for her, and Maxine feels consumed by brain-pudding lethargy, she would be concerned about a tropical disease or one of those creepy little parasites that lodge behind your eyeball and have a field day chewing away in your head until you expire, except that she's been nowhere more tropical than the Aquarena where Kyle was having his swimming lesson the other day. It is so hard not to be worn down to submission by Barb but somehow she finds herself saying No! No, Barb, I can't, I'm working, no. She ends up having to say it a few more times and then Barb says, A glass of white wine tomorrow at five, come on, you can't work all the time, when are you going to relax (which is code for “I want to talk to you about something”), and Maxine, with so little grace she can't imagine why Barb is still asking her, says O-kay!! You can hear the pleased smile in Barb's voice—she has won, she knows it—as she says Good, see you at five tomorrow then, and Maxine hangs up and sighs. And the phone immediately rings again and Maxine thinks Barb has realized she can't, not tomorrow, not at five, so she snatches it up but it's Gail, Gail saying We have that hot tub, it's out on the back deck, ready by five, come over and we'll have a glass of wine, come on, and Maxine says Oh yes my god yes.

Frédérique walked along the beach. It was a grey day, the wind bitter, and no one else was in sight. Something was beeping. Frédérique stopped dead in her tracks. She looked down at her pocket, her eyes wide, and then she reached into it and took out the cellphone.

“Yes.”

“Hey Frédérique, Chuck Blackmore here. Look, I know this is short notice but I'm having a few people over for drinks this evening and I'd love it if you could come, around five—”

“Charles, it's you, how kind of you to invite me, but I must know what the occasion is. Are we celebrating something?”

Frédérique struggled to keep her voice level and cheerful.

“No, not really, just, well, it's my birthday, and I felt like— Frédérique, where are you anyway, I could send someone to pick you up, four-thirty say, how does that sound?”

“Oh no, I won't be home at four-thirty, I'm afraid, it's not possible.”

“I really need to see you though, Frédérique. To be honest, there's something I'd like to talk to you about, something that's kind of important. Let me come and pick you up, I won't keep you long, I promise, just tell me where you are—”

“Sorry, Chuck, could you say that again, you're breaking up, hello?” Frédérique lifted the phone and hurled it with all her strength into the Pacific. A brand new phone. Only one person had been given that number and it was not Charles Blackmore, whose birthday had been in the winter, which she remembered because of a colleague ribbing him about his age. Frédérique started to run back to her car, fumbling for her keys as she stumbled on the shale. As she reached the parking lot a large figure in a black hoodie burst out from behind two cars and she screamed.

Kyle often comes home with all the ends of his sentences ratcheted up like questions. Today he's wearing his black choir sweatshirt with the hood up. She can hardly see his face. He looks like a very short monk.

This morning? At school?We had to pick names for our teams for gym? So we had to like write them down, on pieces of paper? And Mr. Sheppard put them all in the bag and pulled them out one at a time and we all got to like raise our hands and vote? And guess what someone wanted our team to be called? Barf!! Kyle nearly chokes with glee at the badness of it.

Gail and Maxine step out onto the back deck. Maxine wears a black one-piece designed for coverage and Gail a fancy yellow bikini Cindy had given her. Gail makes an aaah of surprise when her bare toes touch the snow. She shoves the cover up off one side of the tub and the two of them slide in, find the seat-shelves and position their bums on them, sink down until just their heads stay above the water, strings of bubbles climbing up around them.