“Well, tonight won’t be possible, I’m afraid. Charles and Donna Pettigrew are coming over this evening. Had you forgotten?”
“Yes. But so what?”
“It may not matter to you, but it matters to me. He seems to have gone through a fair proportion of my scotch.”
“Your scotch!”
“Yes. My scotch. Anyway, I thought it was supposed to be illegal to give liquor to Indians.”
Morag stares at him. Then turns and walks out.
Jules is standing in the front hall, his hand on the door-knob. He has, plainly, heard. He grins at her.
“So long, Morag.”
The door closes behind him. Morag hesitates in the hallway. Then she grabs her coat and handbag and follows him.
“Merde! Morag, what d’you think you’re doing? You better go back.”
They are walking rapidly down Avenue Road. She has, by running, caught up with him.
“I’m not going back. Skinner, just let me talk to you for a while.”
“Hey, listen, never mind what he did, eh? It goes in one ear and out the other, by me. Anyhow, it’s my problem, not yours. He’s your problem. Go on back.”
“I have got to talk to somebody, and you’ve known me forever, and I am not about to go to the Salvation Army or somewhere and–”
He stops walking and puts his hands on her shoulders, drawing her to a halt. She is, she discovers with chagrin, crying. And cannot stop, probably will never stop. Jules puts one arm around her, as though assisting along the street someone who is maimed or crippled.
“Okay, okay,” he says. “Come to my place and simmer down. Do you think you’re a bit drunk?”
“Three scotches,” Morag says, “would not normally have that effect. It’s okay. I can walk.”
Jules laughs.
“Shit, I know you can walk, outside. Can you walk, inside?”
“No. Not right now. Don’t take your arm away, then. Please.”
“You hate to ask anyone to prop you up sometimes, eh?”
“Yes. Yes, I do. And yet that’s what I suppose I was asking of him, at the start.”
Jules’ room has a sink in one corner, one exposed ceiling bulb, a single and unmade bed, a wooden chair, and a floor covered with brown linoleum on which there are, incongruously, patterns of red oriental poppies. There is also a hotplate. He brews very strong tea and serves it to her with three spoonfuls of brown sugar.
“It’ll taste like molasses,” he says, “but it’s good for what ails you. Drink up.”
She drinks the nauseating liquid, and indeed begins to feel somewhat better.
“Jules–I’m sorry. This isn’t your trouble. You’ve got your own. I should’ve stayed. I’ve known for a long time something had to give, somewhere, but I was too scared to do anything about it. I still am. But I’ve got to.”
She is sitting on the bed, the tea mug in her hands. Jules is tilting back on the precarious wooden chair.
“Lucky I had no work on tonight,” he says. “You want to talk, or what?”
“I guess I understand as much as I ever will,” Morag says, “what has happened. It’s no one’s fault. We needed to play each other’s game, and it wasn’t all a game–a lot of it was good. But I can’t play that game any more, because I’m not the same as I was. He taught me a lot, Jules–that was real enough. But we were living each other’s fantasy, somehow, and if that sounds smartass–”
“It sounds crazy,” Jules says, “but go on.”
“Ever hear that hymn, ‘Jerusalem the Golden’?”
“I’m not much of a man for hymns.”
“It was Prin’s favourite. It was singing it at her funeral that–well, I guess you sometimes see things suddenly, and then you know you’ve known them a long time.”
She rises and reaches for her coat.
“You going?” Jules says. “You only just got here.”
“I should be getting–”
“Should, for God’s sake. Forget it. You don’t want to go. You want to go to bed with me.”
“Yes. That’s true. That once–”
“No need to remind me,” Jules says. “But I’m not that speedy now, you’ll be glad to know.”
Very slowly. Everything is happening with no sense of haste. When they are in bed together, Morag is surprised at his gentleness, his pacing of himself according to her. Unlike his urgent younger self. His body, too, is different from the taut boy’s body she remembers. He is broader and more thickset now, and yet the hard stomach muscles are still there under the beginnings of the belly fat which he hates on himself. In her present state of mind, she doesn’t expect to be aroused, and does not even care if she isn’t, as though this joining is being done for other reasons, some debt or answer to the past, some severing of inner chains which have kept her bound and separated from part of herself. She is, however, aroused quickly, surprised at the intensity of her need to have him enter her. She links her legs around his, and it is as though it is again that first time. Then they both reach the place they have been travelling towards, and she lies beside him, spent and renewed.
Jules grins at her, and smooths her hair, combing it with his fingers.
“You’re okay,” he says.
“You too.”
They are quiet for a while.
“Jules,” she says finally, “where all have you been, these years?”
“All over the place. All over the country. I’ve done harvesting, and I’ve done nothing. Once I punched a time-clock in a factory till I felt punch-drunk and then I saw it was that goddamn clock that was punching me. I’ve worked in logging camps and like that. Picked a lotta songs on the way.”
“You could make a song out of what you’ve just said.”
“Yeh. Tried to, coupla times, but it never came out right. Some guys can make songs like that, out of what’s with them, but I can’t. Don’t know why. I made some for Billy Joe, and even for some women, but not for me. Maybe somebody will do it for me someday.”
He laughs, mocking himself, but she senses that he half means what he says.
“Did you ever marry yet, Jules?”
“Sure. Three times.”
“That’s a lot of divorces.”
“Who needs divorces? I never meant marry by some crazy kind of law. I meant the women I shacked up with for some time–you know, not a one-night stand.”
“You got kids?”
“Not as far as I know. I wouldn’t say for sure.”
Skinner Tonnerre, moving through the world like a dandelion seed carried by the wind. Not such a bad way to be, when you considered the alternatives.
“I can’t stay in one place forever,” he says. “I stay for a while, then I want to move on. Women like to stay put. But I can’t. I just can’t. Lazarus, he was like that, and yet different. He would take off sometimes. But some crazy thing kept bringing him back to that valley. All of us brought him back, I guess, when we were young. After that, I dunno.”
“What I’m going to do,” Morag says, “is, I’m taking off.”
“Yeh? Think you can?”
“I have to. It’s complicated, but I have to.”
“So you had to do this first, eh?” He puts a hand between her legs and his fingers explore the triangle of hair there.
“How so?”
“Easy,” Jules says. “Magic. You were doing magic, to get away. He was the only man in you before, eh?”
“Yes.”
Jules rises and goes to a cupboard.
“Shit. Only one bottle of beer left. I knew it. That goddamn Billy. Want some?”
“You have it. I’m not much on beer.”
Jules pries the cap off the bottle on the edge of the table, and drinks. Sitting naked on the tottery wooden chair, looking at her.
“I’m the shaman, eh?” he says.
“I don’t know,” Morag says. “I never thought of it like that. But I know that whatever I’m going to do next, or wherever I go, it’ll have to be on my own.
”
“You’re right, there. Morag–there’s something you gotta tell me about. You never told me, away back then.”
“No. I can’t. Jules, I can’t.”
He walks very quietly over to her and takes her hair in his hands. Morag’s now-straight-black hair is not yet long enough to be wrapped around her neck, but this is the gesture.
“You will, though. You wouldn’t, then. You will say, if you have to stay here a month to do it. You know what Lazarus told me?”
“Yes. Nothing.”
“That’s it. Nothing.”
He turns away from her.
“I have got to have a drink,” he says tiredly. “I’ll be right back.”
He dresses and goes out. In his absence she puts on her own clothes. It never occurs to her to leave while he is gone. He must have known it wouldn’t. He returns in half an hour with two bottles of cheap wine. Pours some into two glasses.
“All right. Tell me now, Morag.”
“I don’t want to. I can’t.” But she knows she will have to.
“Just tell me. Tell me how my sister died. I have to know.”
Morag gets up from the bed abruptly. Goes to the sink and vomits. Jules, unmoving, waits.
“Lachlan sent me down there,” she says finally. “He didn’t know what it would be like.”
“Go on.”
“Well, I went down to the valley, and there weren’t many there. Niall Cameron was there. The Mounties had gone. Your two young brothers were standing at the side, sort of huddled together. Piquette had been home alone with her kids when it happened. It was the stove–it must’ve been a wreck of a stove.”
“It was. Lazarus knew. But he was always careful with it, even when he got drunk. Was Piquette–”
“It was said so, afterwards, that she’d been on the home-brew.”
Jules laughs bitterly.
“It would be said. Well, I guess it was likely true. She had a lot to want to forget about. Her man, so-called, picked her up when it suited him and threw her away when that suited him. She meant no more to him, that’s for sure, than a dog you chloroform if it gets to be a nuisance. What was the shack like?”
“Burned to the ground. Still smoking, parts of it steaming. The fire wagon had been there but it was too late. Lazarus was–”
“Say it.”
“He was standing there, by himself, beside the–beside what was left of the shack. I guess I’ve never seen any person look that much alone. Then he said–he said he was going in alone. He said They’re mine, there, them.”
Jules puts his head down on his outstretched arms, on the table. He is extremely still.
“He didn’t go in by himself, though, Jules. As you know, Niall went in with him. One man couldn’t carry out the–even if two of them were children.”
Jules raises his head.
“When they came out–did you see–”
She is shaking and cannot stop. It is not her right, but she cannot help it.
“No. They–Niall and your dad–they took a stretcher in, and it was covered when they came out–a blanket or something, covered the–”
“Okay,” Jules says steadily. “What else?”
“It was the coldest part of the winter,” Morag says, and now her own voice sounds oddly cold and meticulous, as though the memory of that chill had numbed her. “The air smelled of–of burnt wood. I remember thinking–crazy–but I thought Bois-Brûlés.”
“Shut up!” Jules cries out in some kind of pain which cannot be touched by her.
Silence.
“Go on,” he says finally.
Why does he have to inflict this upon himself? Why can’t he let it go? Perhaps he has to know before he can let it go at all.
“I guess I vomited, as they brought the stretcher out. I realized then that the air didn’t only smell of smoke and burnt wood. It smelled of–well, like roasted meat, and for a minute I wondered what it was, and then–”
Jules lies across the table once more. Then slowly he raises his head and looks at her.
“By Jesus, I hate you,” he says in a low voice like distant thunder. “I hate all of you. Every goddamn one.”
Morag gets up and puts on her coat. There is nothing more can be said. He watches her walk towards the door. Then speaks, the cry wrenched up out of him.
“No. Wait awhile, eh?”
They hold to one another again, and make love or whatever it is, throughout the deep and terrifying night.
In the morning, Morag wakens and at first does not know where she is. Then she realizes but can scarcely believe it. How could she stay away all night? Will Brooke have phoned the police? Will he imagine her as dead? How could she have done that to him?
“I should’ve phoned him, Jules. I should’ve–”
Jules rolls over in bed and stretches.
“Well, you didn’t. So what now?”
“I have to go back and–”
“Stay?”
“No. But–”
“Tidy things up neat, eh?”
“Of course,” she says angrily, and he laughs.
“It won’t work, Morag. If you’re going, go. Don’t talk. It won’t do a thing.”
“Maybe not. But it’s–”
“Your way.”
“Yes. My way.”
“Where’ll you go then? Christie’s?”
Morag begins trembling again. Dressed now, and standing beside the table, trembling as though with chill.
“Skinner–I can’t.”
“Where, then?”
“Further west. To the Coast.”
“Chrissake, why?”
She doesn’t know. Maybe it only ever occurs to prairie people, when they light out, to go yet further west. This is idiotic.
“I can’t say. I don’t know.”
“You got any money?”
“Some. From the novel. Not much, but enough to get there and get started on something. Any kind of job.”
Jules rises and gets dressed.
“You can come back for a while, till you get yourself together. If you want to.”
“Yes. I will, then. And–thanks. Jules, I won’t–”
Hesitates.
“Won’t what?” he says. “Wash my underpants? Iron my jazzy satin shirts?”
“No. I mean, yes–I’ll do that if you want–it’s all the same to me. I meant–I won’t stay long.”
To let him know she understands the terms on which his offer is being made.
“Yeh, that’s okay,” he says. “I know.”
Once out into the street and on the bus, the day strikes like lightning into Morag’s brain, and she no longer understands what has been happening. At the door of the apartment, she stops and steadies herself, leaning against her corridor wall. She does not recall ever feeling this frightened before. She takes out her key and opens the door.
Brooke has not gone to work. He is sitting in his study. His glasses are beside him on the desk, and both hands are upon his eyes. He swings around at her entry, and she sees that he has been crying.
Anything else. Rage. Fury. Contempt. Condemnation. Reproach. She was prepared for any or all. But not for this.
He stiffens, straightens, puts on his glasses.
“So you’ve come back,” Brooke says.
It is an attempt to regain the old manner, but it does not quite come off, because his voice is shaking. Appalled, Morag stands in the doorway.
“Brooke–I’m sorry.”
That’s a bloody awful christly useless word. Proverbs of C. Logan.
“I should’ve phoned,” she goes on. “I should’ve–”
“Oh, don’t worry,” Brooke says, and now he is gaining back the control he needs. “I didn’t imagine you had thrown yourself under a bus. I knew where you were. Perhaps not exactly, but at least who you were with.”
Morag finds herself unable to explain or say anything. Everything was clear, earlier this morning. Now it is not.
“I suppose you we
nt to bed with him,” Brooke says.
“Yes.”
Brooke looks at her for what seems hours and is in fact about three seconds. And she is, once again, totally unprepared for the cry which comes from his throat, an anguish she has never heard from him except in his crying of that one name in his sleep.
“Why, Morag? Are you so determined to destroy me?”
This is all the more terrible because she knows the pain is real and yet there is something melodramatic, to her ears, in what he is saying.
“Brooke–listen. I don’t want to damage you. I honestly don’t think I do, but I can’t be sure. I don’t suppose you want to damage me, either.”
“Have I ever?” he says. “Have I ever wanted to damage you? Never. Never. Never.”
Add two more nevers and it might be Lear at the death of Cordelia. Bitch, to think this way, now. Yes. But.
“Brooke. I can’t explain. I get mixed up when I try, and then I feel I must be entirely in the wrong. But all I know is–I have to go. I can’t stay.”
“I could understand it better if you could just give me one reason for what you’ve done.”
“What do you mean, exactly, what I’ve done?”
“How do you think I feel, Morag, knowing you’ve been with another man?”
She is shocked and awed by his pain. At the same time, she sees for the first time that he has believed he owns her.
“Brooke, I’m sorry. Not for what happened last night. I’m sorry that neither of us were different. But Brooke–you’ve put yourself inside women other than me.”
“Not since we married,” Brooke says, “unless you want to drag up that one time when we were in Nova Scotia, that girl on old Kenton’s trawler, his niece or something. But once she’d hauled me into her bunk, I couldn’t.”
Morag stares at him. Then laughs. He looks at her as though she has suddenly become demented.
“I never knew,” Morag says. “I didn’t go along on that jaunt, as you recall. You mean to say it doesn’t count cause you didn’t come?”
He takes a step towards her, and for an instant she is afraid again. Then he stops himself.
“You are a bitch, aren’t you?” he says.
She feels exhaustion as never before. Words have lost meaning.
“Brooke. I’m withdrawing the money I earned from the novel, then you can have the account changed from a joint one to yours. I’m going to Vancouver. I’ll do anything you want to do about a divorce, whatever it is that people have to do. And I’m sorry. But I just have to take off by myself.”