Transgression (29 page)

“Come on, Alex,” she said.

They walked for a short distance until Alex stopped in front of two little wooden houses. They looked nearly identical and equally shabby. A mass of shrubs had grown up wild around the front of one of them, the other one was more open to the air. Adele could see that this house, the one on their left, had a cracked front window.

“Which one is ours?”

“The one on the left,” Alex said.

He unlocked the back door and they walked up two steps into a small kitchen. The cupboards were painted a dark yellow and it looked like someone had scratched them with a nail. Alex turned on a light switch. Nothing happened. They walked through the rest of the house-two bedrooms, a hall closet, a dusty loft under the eaves and a front room. The front room had
worn hardwood on the floor. The bedrooms and hall had only rough planks. The kitchen floor was covered with a sheet of wavy green linoleum.

“Where is the toilet?” Adele asked.

“Out back.”

Adele looked out the kitchen window. She could see a little hut sitting in the middle of some bushes at the end of a path. Such arrangements weren’t unheard of in Rouen but she’d never used one.

“What do we do at night?”

Alex grinned. “That’s up to you.”

Adele turned on the tap in the kitchen sink. After a suspenseful moment, water came out. She felt grateful.

“I’ll get the town to turn the power on,” Alex said. “We won’t have hot water in the house until they do. And we’ll need some other things, right?”

Adele nodded. The house was empty-they’d need everything. “Stove, icebox, bed, chairs, table.”

Alex headed toward the back door.

“And a broom and a mop and a pail,” Adele yelled after him.

Alex waved and went out the door.

Adele walked through the house again. It wasn’t all that bad. On second inspection she was beginning to feel it could be made quite cozy once it was scrubbed and freshly painted and some colourful rugs laid down on the planks, pictures hung on the walls, curtains on the windows. The only thing she really hated was the huge space heater in the front room. It was shiny and painted brown and took up at least a third of the available space. She thought she’d paint it the same colour she’d paint the walls, so at least everything would blend in. Right now the walls were covered by a faded wallpaper of blue and violet flowers.

She went back into the kitchen and looked out the window. She could just make out the back corner of the house next door. A woman was hanging up washing. She looked to be in her thirties and more than amply endowed, from Adele’s perspective, her honey-coloured hair long and a little wild around her soft face. A cigarette smouldered in the very centre of her mouth. She was talking to someone-Adele could tell this because her cigarette kept bobbing up and down. A boy came into view, brown-haired
and so slender he looked like a little wood sprite. He held some wet clothes in his arms.

Adele eased the window up just an inch or two, she didn’t want to draw attention. She could feel the warm May air move by her, caress her, fill the kitchen with the faint scent of lilacs. She could hear the woman’s voice.

“Careful, George,” the woman said, “don’t drop anything.”

Mrs. Wells arrived before noon. Her woman friend had driven her over. The back seat of the car was full of Alex and Adele’s clothes and bed sheets and pillows and towels. The trunk was full of food. Adele helped Mrs. Wells and her friend carry everything into the house. “We don’t have an icebox yet.”

“I know, dear, Alex dropped by and told me. For now, I’ve just brought you non-perishables.”

Mrs. Wells pulled a rag out of her pocket and began to wipe down the kitchen cupboards with cold water. She didn’t stay long. When she left she hugged Adele. “Please ask for help if you need any.”

Adele knew what she meant.

She carried the clothes into the larger bedroom, the one with a closet, and hung them up. She washed down the tiny closet in the hall as best she could. When it dried, she put everything else in there. She thought about going next door to ask her neighbour if she could borrow a broom but decided against it. It didn’t seem the proper way to meet.

It was almost dark by the time Alex came home. Adele was sitting on the floor in the front room. He was carrying a new broom, a mop, a pail, and a box of soap. And that was all. He sat down beside her. He looked tired in the faint light that was seeping in through the cracked window. He smelled of alcohol.

“I’ve got things organized,” he said, sitting down beside her. “We’re going to use Ray’s dad’s truck. Everything’s coming tomorrow.”

“When are the lights going to come on?”

“I had to put down a deposit. The town will reconnect the power the first of the week.”

Adele knew he’d gone around to see Johnny Watson. It wasn’t in Alex’s nature to stay away-he’d want to make sure he hadn’t killed him.

Adele wondered what Alex had said. Did he say, “You touched my wife.” Did he say, “That’s the end of our friendship.” Did he say, “Johnny, I’m sorry.”
She wondered what Johnny Watson had said.

“Your mother brought us some left-over chicken. She brought you your medicine.”

Alex sighed. He rested his head against the wall. He picked up her hand and held it in his lap.

“One thing, Adele.” He turned his face toward her. It looked uncertain and smudged in the dark. “I promise you. This is as far down as we go.”

They slept beside each other on the floor. It took a long time for Adele to fall asleep. She stared out the window at the street lamp across the road. The light caught in the crack in the window and made swirls on the glass. It looked as if some people had gathered on the front lawn and were holding up candles. She wondered if they were looking for her.

Alex got a job in a factory, just like he’d said he would, and as the days went by the house in the Junction began to look more like a home, as Adele had thought it would.

Mrs. Wells dropped off numerous pots and pans and an old kettle and everyday dinnerware. Alex purchased a new bed, a used stove and an old icebox. His friends dropped off furniture. Adele cut and sewed and hung curtains, and hunted through the shops for colourful scatter rugs.

Mr. Wells did not make an appearance. His absence didn’t seem to bother Alex. He came straight home from work every day, dusty and tired, his hands increasingly calloused, but looking pleased with himself. He drank very little. He took his pills. He didn’t shake.

A few days after they’d moved in, the woman next door had arrived at the back door carrying a bouquet of flowers in a pretty glass vase. Adele knew she must have purchased the flowers-they couldn’t have come from her garden, she didn’t have one.

“Hi, I’m Dorothy. I thought you might like these.”

“I will find something,” Adele said, lifting the flowers out of the water.

“No. It’s for you. The whole thing, it’s a house-warming gift.”

“Oh.” Adele felt inordinately grateful. “I am pleased,” she had said.

One morning, just after Alex left for work, Dorothy arrived at Adele’s back door with a steaming pot of coffee and her cigarettes. After that they made it a morning ritual, either Dorothy coming over to Adele’s or Adele
travelling over to Dorothy’s place. She worked for one of the factories downtown. Her front room was her sewing workshop. A truck dropped off cartons of unseamed socks each morning and picked up the finished ones Wednesdays and Fridays.

“It’s called piecework.”

“I know,” Adele said, “I have done the same.”

“Oh? Where?”

“In Paris.”

Dorothy laughed. A silly coincidence. Adele liked her very much.

“I’m sure that Paris is a lot more interesting than this Paris,” she said, puffing on her cigarette. She seemed to always have a cigarette stuck to her lips, even when she was rolling more of them in her machine. “How far is Paris from Dieppe?”

“I’m not sure.”

“My husband died at Dieppe. He was a soldier.”

“I am very sorry. So many bad things happened.”

Dorothy had large brown eyes to go with her honey hair. They looked enormously sad. “Yes,” she said.

One day Dorothy suggested that Adele buy a used sewing machine. They could work together in her front room. The factory was running two shifts, so there was more than enough work to go around. And it would be fun.

Adele thought that was a wonderful idea, in fact she’d been thinking about the same thing. Alex seemed to think it was okay. He liked Dorothy, he liked teasing her. Whenever Alex talked to her, she just smiled and said, “Is that right?” She seemed more at ease with Adele. When they were alone, she talked all the time.

Adele bought a used machine and they worked side by side with the radio blaring and Dorothy smoking up a storm. At ten-thirty they’d break for coffee and Dorothy would roll more cigarettes. At noon George would come home from school and the three of them would eat lunch together because Alex took his lunch to work. Sometimes Dorothy would provide the food, sometimes Adele would bring food over from her house, most of it surplus from Mrs. Wells, who kept building up their supplies. George went
back to school at one. At two-thirty, Dorothy and Adele would break for a glass of rye.

Adele adored George. He was like an older and quieter version of her younger brothers. The first week in her new home he’d helped her construct a clothes line from her back wall to a nearby tree and afterwards he’d found a sturdy wooden box for her to step up on. He was always asking to run errands for her. He even offered to paint her house.

“You’re too young.”

“No, I’m not.”

“All right. But only after you paint your own,” Adele had said. “Your mother might not like it, otherwise.”

June turned into July. The small house broiled in the sun. Alex bought a fan for the front room and a smaller one for their bedroom. He told Adele that there were all sorts of new gadgets coming on the market. Electric orange juice makers and coffee makers and mixing machines, a whole slew of home appliances. He was thinking of a selling job again. He’d been talking to another traveller-he might make an application.

One morning just before Adele was ready to cross over to Dorothy’s place to start work, Dorothy came through the back door wearing a faded bathrobe and dilapidated pink slippers. “I’m not working today,” she said.

“Are you ill?”

“No.” She leaned against the counter and played with her hair. “Well, the truth is I have some company.” She blushed and fished around in the pocket of her bathrobe for a cigarette. She pulled one out and lit it up.

“Company?”

“A man. You know,” Dorothy replied, and then in a rush, “Do you want to take the day off, too? Or we could carry your machine over here for the day. We could easily do it. Whatever you like.”

Adele smiled. “A man?”

“God knows it’s been a while.” Dorothy smiled. “I want to make the most of it.”

Adele decided to wash her floors. At noon she heard Dorothy’s screen door slam shut and George laughing. She looked out her kitchen window. George was climbing high up in his favourite tree. Adele could see a man
climbing up after him, pretending to grab at his feet, playing with him. George let out a squeal and climbed higher.

Adele recognized the man right away. It was Johnny Watson.

She closed the window. She locked the doors. She raged around inside her house. When Alex arrived home from work, she asked him if he knew.

“No.” Alex looked surprised and a little defensive. “Not until now. I just saw his car parked out front.” He put his lunch bucket down on the table and sat down.

“He can’t be next door,” Adele said.

Alex began pulling off his work boots. “Johnny and Dorothy,” he said, as if his brain was just beginning to register the idea. He smiled a little.

“Make him leave!” Adele said.

“How would I manage that?”

“I don’t know how!” Adele went into the bedroom and slammed the door.

Alex followed her in. Though it was past six o’clock, the temperature was still close to ninety. Adele had the fan set on high. She was sitting in front of it, her hair blowing around.

Alex sat a safe distance away on the bed. He didn’t say anything, he just sat there.

“I was so sick I didn’t make supper.”

Alex nodded. “That’s all right. I’ll make it.”

“Alex, what are we going to do? I can’t live here.”

“Well, wait for a few minutes, anyway. You don’t even know if he’s going to move in.”

“He’ll move in. Oh God, what’s wrong with him? Why is he like this?”

“It’s too bad he picked Dorothy.”

“Too bad he picked Dorothy?” Adele felt hopeless. “He picked her on purpose!”

“Maybe it won’t work out,” Alex suggested. After a while he got up and went out into the kitchen and began to make supper.

Normally, after they’d had their meal and it started to get dark, they’d take their kitchen chairs out into the backyard and sit out there to cool off. Sometimes Dorothy and George would come over to join them.

Adele wouldn’t go outside.

Alex shrugged and stayed in, too. They sat in the front room. Alex’s face began to shine with sweat, and drops of sweat were running down his bare chest. “We’ll just have to see what happens,” he said.

Adele refused to pack Alex’s lunch the next morning. Johnny’s car was still pulled up on Dorothy’s lawn. Alex started off for work and Adele watched him disappear down the street. A half-hour later Johnny got in his car and drove away. Adele waited for George to go off to play and then she crossed over to Dorothy’s house.

Dorothy was still in her bathrobe. “Are you early or am I late?” she said. She was sitting at the kitchen table drinking a coffee. Her face looked even softer than usual. She held her coffee mug in a languid sort of way.

“Where is your friend?”

“He went to work.” Dorothy smiled to herself, as if her mind was somewhere else.

“When does he come back?”

Dorothy looked up. “You know him, Adele. He says he’s Alex’s best friend. Johnny Watson?”

“Yes. Is he coming back?”

“What a question. Of course he’s coming back.”

“I can’t work here any more.” Adele felt wretched-she felt like she wanted to cry.