Stacey thank you my dear but I can’t impose
No. You mustn’t feel like that. That’s – unrealistic. We want to have you. Naturally. Of course. There’s no question.
— Naturally. Of course. Oh brother. Why did I ever once feel that to tell the truth the whole truth and nothing but the truth would be a relief? It would be dynamite, that’s all it would be. It would set the house on fire.
Stacey, I don’t know what to say. I would like to come and live here. I can’t deny that. But – it’s Mac.
How do you mean?
Matthew turns his face away from hers. It is Mac’s gesture and Matthew’s voice could almost be Mac’s voice at the moments of difficult telling.
I didn’t do very well by him when he was a boy.
Dad I don’t think he thinks that
He must. It isn’t easy for a minister’s children. Everyone expects them to be some kind of example. I see now that I expected too much of him. Strange – I could even see the unfairness of it then, from his point of view. But I never told him that. I wanted him to grow up with some strong background of faith. But he didn’t. The reason must be that I had so many doubts myself. I must have passed them on even though I never spoke of them.
I never knew you had any doubts at all. I don’t think Mac ever knew, either. Maybe it would have been better if he had known.
— And Matthew’s despair.
Oh no – that couldn’t have been better for him or his sister or anyone. One should be certain. A minister should be. If he isn’t, he must at least try not to put anyone else’s faith in jeopardy. That always seemed to me to be the least I could do. But with Mac I failed. Perhaps there is something contagious about doubt. He must have known all along about that essential flaw in me.
Dad you’ve got it all wrong
I’m afraid not, my dear.
Mac would have been relieved if he’d known you weren’t always certain. But he didn’t know.
Matthew hears her words but not their meaning. He has to continue in his own groove.
Stacey – I always wanted to talk about it to someone, but I couldn’t. I wish now that I had talked of it. Not to Mac, but perhaps to my wife. But she was – well, I don’t think she ever had any doubts about anything, so how could I? It would have weakened me so much in her eyes.
Maybe she wasn’t all that sure.
Oh yes, she certainly was. I used to admire her for it. She never needed the things that some people need. Her faith was very strong and
— And she didn’t like to be fucked. But not because her faith was very strong. Something else. Poor goddam her. Poor Matthew. Too late now.
Sh. It’s all right, Dad. Everything’s going to be all right. Listen, you rest here for a minute, until dinner’s ready, and I’ll go see Mac. Don’t worry.
She goes outside and calls Mac. When they are in the study, she hands him a gin and tonic.
Mac
Yeh? What’s the matter?
It’s your dad. He fell down on the stairs.
Oh Christ, what next?
He’s got glaucoma. Mac, we’ll have to have him here.
Stacey, we can’t. Where’s the room?
We’ll have to turn the study into a bedroom and build a study for you in the basement.
Great. Wonderful. You got it all figured out, haven’t you?
For God’s sake, then, what’s your suggestion?
Stacey I don’t want him here I can’t
You were the one who always said he had a right to walk in without knocking and that we should send the kids to Sunday school so as not to upset him and all that.
I know I know I know. Lay off, can’t you?
I’m sorry. Mac – what is it?
He looks at her as though they have never before met, as though she is the stranger on shipboard to whom he may possibly be able to relate his edited past.
I never bought what he was preaching about, but still, he was doing something, you have to admit it. He didn’t spend his life doing nothing.
— Like you? Is that what you mean? Mac, you can’t mean that. It isn’t true. What to say that’ll do any good?
Mac – he thinks he didn’t do well by you.
I’ll bet.
He does. He said so.
In the heat of the moment, maybe. Don’t kid yourself. He doesn’t think that. He thinks the other way around.
What do you think, yourself, about the boys, Mac?
What? What’s that got to do with it?
I just wondered. Because they quite often have the notion that they’ll never be as smart as you are. Especially Duncan.
They’ll learn differently.
Yeh? Thanks for reassuring me.
Mac dredges up a kind of laughter and puts an arm around her shoulders. Suddenly Stacey is filled with the knowledge of what it will mean to have Matthew in the house.
Mac – what’ll we do? It’ll be impossible. I just can’t
Well, as you say, there’s nothing else we can do. Hush, honey. It’ll be all right. We’ll manage. But I’ll have to use the TV room as a study until we can get another room built down there. The kids will squawk like hell, I suppose.
Let them squawk. Mac –
They hold on to one another for an unpredicted moment. Then Stacey goes out to the hall and bellows at Ian and Duncan.
C’mon you guys! Is Katie home?
Katie’s voice floats down.
I’m here. And I’m not deaf – yet.
Stacey picks up Jen and plonks her onto the cushion-heightened chair in the dining room.
— A few more years of this life, God, and if I’m not dead or demented, I’ll have a hide like a rhinoceros. Odd – Mac has to pretend he’s absolutely strong, and now I see he doesn’t believe a word of it and never has. Yet he’s a whole lot stronger than he thinks he is. Maybe they all are. Maybe even Duncan is. Maybe even I am.
TEN
Stacey still cannot decide whether to tell Mac about Thor or not. Mac has said nothing about the job since the evening of Thor’s party. Stacey vacillates inwardly for several days, being careful to keep outwardly busy. She takes the three younger children to the beach, does baking, writes letters, has Bertha in for coffee. She watches Mac covertly but cannot discover anything from his manner. He works just the same, grindingly. But one afternoon he comes home early. Jen and Stacey are in the back yard, Stacey dutifully spread out on the lawn, wearing her bathing suit, trying to gain more tan.
— I must be out of my mind. I don’t give the smallest damn whether I’ve got a tan or not. But every summer I do this, because it’s taken for granted that everybody wants a tan.
She looks up and sees Mac standing in the back doorway. His brush-cut has completely grown out now and his russet hair looks like himself once more.
Mac – what’re you doing home?
— Has he quit or been fired? Lord, please let it be that he’s quit, not the other.
Hi. I came to tell you something. C’mon inside, eh?
Stacey snatches up Jen and carries her, wriggling and protesting, into the house. Jen begins screeching, a piercing enraged voice which proclaims her intention of going on and on until Stacey takes her back to the garden. Stacey shakes her.
— Shut up shut up shut up you goddam little nuisance.
She has not said a word aloud, but she can feel her own anger mounting in direct proportion to her tension, assaulted eardrums and sense of apprehension about Mac. She pats Jen’s shoulders.
Hush, flower. It’s okay. Please, honey, please. Jen. Listen, if you don’t shut up, I’ll smack you, see?
— Oh God. Now she’ll roar forever. Why why is Mac home?
In the kitchen, Jen suddenly stops screaming, as unreasonably as she began. Mac is in the process of pouring two gin and tonics. Stacey looks at him in surprise.
Hey – what’s this in aid of?
He hands a glass to her and raises his own.
Guess what’s happened, Stacey.
/> What?
Thor’s been offered a head office job in Montreal and he’s decided to take it. They want me to be manager here.
Mac! You don’t mean it.
— Thor is leaving? Thor is leaving? But he was the god here, and he won’t be that in head office. Was he really invited to go, or did he ask for a transfer himself, for his own reasons? Val, did you get stoned one night and go to see him? You didn’t have any cause to do me a favor, that’s for sure. I couldn’t even bring myself to ask you around – I didn’t want you swearing in front of my kids. Did you say something to Thor? Was it settling an old score, for you? I’ll never know. And I’ll never find out from you, either, because I’ll never find you. No fixed address. Val – I’m sorry. I’m sorry. Too late. Was it you?
Mac is smiling.
Yeh, it’s true all right. I was pretty taken aback myself. Anyway, I’m going to accept. It’s a funny thing – I had just about decided to quit. In fact, I was going to hand in my notice this week.
You didn’t say anything.
Yeh, well I was going to tell you
— Thanks.
I can’t take it in all at once, Mac. When – when did you hear about Thor?
Just today. And the offer came to me at the same time.
Mac that’s great it’s really wonderful
I thought you’d be pleased. Apparently they decided to offer me the job on account of the fact that I’ve actually sold more than any of the other guys here. I’m going to change a few things. A lot of the jazz in the campaign was Thor’s, not head office’s. The charts and quiz and that. We can cut out that crap. It’ll be a pretty good job. It’s a going firm.
Sure. I know it is. Gee, that’s just fine, Mac. It’s marvelous.
— Life’s games. He knocks himself out because he thinks Thor’s got it in for him, and he winds up manager in an outfit he really thinks is a load of phony baloney. Dear Lord and Father of mankind, forgive our foolish ways, as some goon once said. Reclothe us in our rightful mind. And so on. But what if this is our rightful mind, or at least the only one we’re likely to have? Anyway, it is a good job. It’s somewhere. It’s better than nowhere.
Luke. I think I’ll just hitch and see what happens. I’d like to go north. That’s a great country, Stacey. Up the Skeena River – Kispiox, Kitwanga, crazy names like that. Northern jungle, rain forest –
— Okay, Stacey, simmer down. The fun is over. It’s been over for some time, only you didn’t see it before. No – you saw it all right but you couldn’t take it. You’re nearly forty. You got four kids and a mortgage, and in just over three years Katie will be ready for university if she works hard enough, which is dubious. I guess the fun’s been over for Mac for quite awhile. It would be nice if we were different people but we are not different people. We are ourselves and we are sure as hell not going to undergo some total transformation at this point. That’s right, doll. Mrs. C. MacAindra, by an overwhelming majority voted The Most Sensible Woman of the Year. We can save our money. When we’ve got all four kids through university or launched somewhere, and Mac retires and is so thin you have to look twice to seem him and I’m so portly I can hardly waddle, we can go to Acapulco and do the Mexican hat dance. I can’t stand it. I cannot. I can’t take it. Yeh, I can, though. By God, I can, if I set my mind to it. And I’m not going to tell him about Thor. It’s not actually like lying. It’s just refraining from saying. The silences aren’t all bad. How do I know how many times Mac has protected me by not saying? He probably noticed the burn on my hand that time.
Mac, I don’t know what to say. I think it’s just terrific.
Yeh. It’s good. We’re getting somewhere.
Only one thing
What?
Let’s not move, eh? I mean, we’ll be able sometime to afford another house – you know, bigger or like that – but I don’t want to.
For Christ’s sake, Stacey, why not?
I just don’t
You can’t mean it. Listen, honey, it’ll be me who has to have the staff parties and all that. Can you see us having them here? There isn’t room to swing a cat, and the kids’ stuff is littered all over the place. We need at least a decent-sized living room, and for the boys to have their own bedrooms, and now that Dad is here it would be pretty convenient to have a house that had a downstairs john as well as an upstairs one.
You’ve got it all figured out, eh? That was quick work.
Now, listen Stacey
I don’t want to move. I like this old dump. I’m used to it. It’s not you who has to be around the house all day long.
I know. I know. I’m only saying I just don’t see how we can manage here indefinitely. That’s all I’m saying. I’m not suggesting we should move tomorrow. I’m only saying that at some point it’s going to become
Okay. So we’ll move, if you want to so much. But don’t be stunned if I bitch about it, eh?
Oh for God’s sake what’s the matter now?
Nothing nothing’s the matter
The sand of the beach is fine and pale brown, lightly strewn with fringed yellow-green fronds of seafern and bulbous kelp cast up and drying in the late August sun. Stacey and Jen walk barefoot, picking up grey-white coarse clam shells, small purple shells paired and open like moth wings, greenly iridescent shells shaped like miniature coolie hats.
Hey, that’s a nice one, angel bud. Shall I put it in my bag?
Jen nods and Stacey gravely takes the cracked shell and stows it away. The tide is low. Some distance out, Ian and Duncan have gone to the retreating sea. Stacey glances up and sees the two auburn heads. Then she looks back to Jen.
C’mon, flower. What’ve you got? That’s a crab claw – you don’t really want that, do you? Oh, all right.
Ian’s voice, thin and far.
Mum!
Stacey looks up and sees Ian’s hair caught by the sun. Not Duncan’s. She places her hands briefly on Jen’s shoulders.
Stay here, Jen. Don’t move. Don’t follow me. Understand? I’ll be right back.
Then she runs. Through the dry sand and after that the wet heavy sand and the shallow water, until the water is halfway up her thighs. Ian’s face is unrecognizable and he is straining, tugging at one of Duncan’s arms. By the time she reaches Ian, he has pulled Duncan out of the water, but only part of the way.
Mum – I think his foot is caught under the rock
What happened? Ian – what happened?
She is not aware of having spoken. She kneels and manages to dislodge Duncan’s foot, hauling him up and out of the now-brown muddied water. Ian’s voice comes to her, treble with fright.
He tripped – I don’t know how – I guess the seaweed. I looked and he’d gone down and I thought he’d get up right away. It’s not even deep, Mum. But the tide’s low. So we came out as far as the rocks. Look – he hit his head when he fell. Maybe it sort of stunned him, but it didn’t knock him out or anything, because I saw him thrashing around and I thought he was okay. But he must’ve got his foot hooked under the rock. By the time I got to him, he wasn’t thrashing around any more. He was just lying there.
Duncan Duncan
His head is bleeding and the sea pours from his nostrils. His mouth is open, and his eyes. But he is not seeing anything and he does not seem to be breathing. His seven-year-old body is heavy in Stacey’s arms, a dead weight. She flounders through the water and weed-netted mud, back to the damp exposed sand. She puts Duncan down. She cannot think what to do. She cannot seem to think at all.
Ian – get my bag and take the change purse and go phone Dad. You know where the call box is?
Yes. Sure.
Ian runs, sprints, and she does not even know that he is no longer beside her. She places Duncan on his front and presses down on the place where she thinks his lungs are. Seawater trickles yellowly from his mouth. But he remains inert.
— I don’t know what to do. I never learned artificial respiration. How could he fall like that? So quickly? I wasn’t watc
hing. I should’ve been watching. Why wasn’t I? I thought they were all right. The tide was out. It was shallow, the water. The rocks covered with barnacles. But he knew they were there. He’s been there dozens of times. How could it happen like that, so quickly? It couldn’t. But it did. Duncan! You’ve got to be all right.
Duncan! You’ve got to be all right.
The words have been screamed, and although she does not hear her own voice, she is suddenly aware of the words’ total lie. They are rune words, trinket charms to ward off the evil eye, and that is all. There is nothing she can do.
Now several people on the beach are running towards her, two women and a man, but when they get there, they stand talking at her because they do not know what to do, either.
What happened?
What’s the matter?
How did it happen?
I saw those two kids out there and they were perfectly okay and then
Stacey does not hear their voices.
— God, let him be all right, and I’ll never want to get away again, I promise. If it was anything I did, take it out on me, not on him – that’s too much punishment for me.
She wants to hold Duncan in her arms, but some vestigial knowledge tells her this might be harmful. She is still pressing down on Duncan’s ribs, on his warm limp back, her hands filled with the fear of their own ignorance. Then she feels herself pushed aside by a pair of unknown hands and a man is kneeling over Duncan, kneading his body until the brackish water gushes again from his mouth. The man is no more than twenty, tanned, wearing a red swimsuit. One of the lifeguards.
Your other boy fetched me. Just keep a little aside, eh?
He turns Duncan over onto his back, and puts his mouth to Duncan’s, breathing from one pair of lungs into the other. Stacey, crouched on the sand, is momentarily blinded, her sight extinguished by saltwater not from the sea. Her mind is empty of everything except Duncan’s name which repeats itself over and over. When her sight clears, Duncan is half propped up by the man’s arm and is vomiting and also struggling to breathe, his breath creaking and uncertain. Then he begins to cry, the attenuated wail of a very young child, an infant voice, not his own voice at all. Stacey puts her arms around him. Once again she cannot see him because of her sight-destroying tears, but she can feel him moving even through her own trembling.