The Fire-Dwellers

  Hi. You’re late, Mac.

  My God. Is that my fault? I had to finish up before I started home.

  I didn’t mean it that way.

  Well, that’s how it sounded to me.

  I’m sorry. I only meant you’re late and isn’t that too bad. For you, for heaven’s sake, I meant.

  Okay, okay, it doesn’t matter.

  Doesn’t matter! That you misunderstand every single word I utter.

  Oh Stacey, for God’s sake. I’m tired. Quit exaggerating.

  Okay, so I’m exaggerating. It would just be nice if you knew what I meant.

  — Why am I doing it like this? If I knew what you meant, as well. Oh Mac. Talk. Please.

  I’m sorry. I’m obtuse – okay? But I’m bloody tired and I don’t feel like starting one of these

  I’m sorry. I didn’t mean that

  All right, all right. Let’s forget it, eh? Let’s just forget it. I’ve had about enough for one day.

  — And he has. He has. Let’s forget it, then. When we’re both dead, we’ll forget it.

  Mac undresses and climbs into bed beside her.

  Christ, am I ever beat.

  You better get to sleep right away, then.

  I’ve got to.

  It’s okay, I know.

  Well, I’m sorry

  You don’t have to be sorry

  Yeh, but you’ve been alone all week

  It’s okay – I’m used to it

  Look, are you sure you don’t mind?

  I don’t mind. It’s not that. Look, it’s okay. Everything is all right – okay?

  Yeh, I guess so. God, the traffic was terrible tonight, coming back in. Kids okay?

  Yes, everything’s fine here. How was it this time?

  Oh – could’ve been worse.

  Tell me about it.

  Nothing to tell. Same as usual.

  What’s usual?

  Oh, I don’t know. Same old crap. Look, are you sure you’re okay?

  Yes, I’m okay

  Good night, then.

  Good night.

  Stacey Cameron, twelve, visiting for a week with a remote cousin who lived on a farm fifty miles from Manawaka, hating every minute of it, knotted with strangeness and loneliness, scared of cows and coyote-like dogs, sickened by unfamiliar food, potatoes and apple pie at breakfast, thinking of home where she didn’t want to be, either, the tomb silences between Niall Cameron and his wife. Stacey, writing her letter home. How are you? I am fine.

  Beside her, Mac moans a little in his sleep, turns over and is quiet. Stacey is not able to sleep.

  — Damn him, snoring away so unconcernedly. I feel like giving him a sharp kick, so he’ll wake up and at least we’ll both be suffering. All right, God, don’t tell me, let me guess. I’m a mean old bitch. I know it. But I ask you, Sir, is it fair that Mac should be systematically restoring his physical and mental energy through sleep while I lie here like a bloody board? What’s that you say? You are suggesting that if I am expecting justice I am a bird-brain? You have a point there, Lord. I will have to mull that one over.

  One of them cries. The games vanish. Stacey sits up in bed. Mac half wakens.

  — Which one? Duncan.

  What in hell is the matter now, Stacey?

  Duncan. I think he’s having a bad dream.

  Leave him. You’re going to ruin that kid, Stacey. Boy of his age shouldn’t have his mother tearing in to see what’s the matter every time he wakes up.

  The crying increases, thin, attenuated, frightened.

  I can’t just leave him, Mac.

  Go ahead, then. What a man he’s going to grow up to be.

  Stacey stumbles out of bed and down the long hall, through the darkness, no light needed, every hillock of carpet known to her bare feet. It has been this way always with the boys. Ian used to have nightmares, and now Duncan does.

  — It’s the one thought Mac can’t bear, the insufficient masculinity of one of his sons. He wonders what will happen when they leave home, what unnatural flowering. He tortures himself (or so I think) with the idea, and then he turns on them and does his sergeant-major act, the toughening process, or so he believes. Sometimes I see it his way, and I think How can I ever make up for what I’ve done to them? How can I ever answer or atone for it? And yet I keep going to them when they waken and cry out. It’s as though I’m compelled. What I cannot bear is the thought that one of them is trapped in his nightmare, alone in there. Then I think that lots worse things could happen to them than to be queer, and that when they’re away and on their own, in some ways it wouldn’t matter to me at all who they held as long as there was someone and they could bring themselves to cry out. If Katie grew up bent, would I feel the same? The question could never arise with Katie. Oh? There you are, doll – confusion again.

  Duncan is partly awake, rubbing his eyes and trying to come back to the world.

  Mum?

  It’s okay, honey. I think you just had a bad dream.

  There was all these spikes coming up through my bed.

  It’s okay – you’re awake now.

  It was a dream, wasn’t it, Mum?

  Yeh. Just a dream. Can you go back to sleep now?

  Guess so

  Duncan rolls over and is asleep once more.

  — Has the trap released him? It was of my making, wasn’t it? What I did this afternoon to stop the noise.

  Stacey kissed his forehead, touching his sweat-damp hair. Then she turns to go. There is a stirring from the other bed, across the room.

  Mum?

  Ian? You awake? Did Duncan waken you? That’s too bad.

  It doesn’t matter. Good night.

  Ian reaches out a hand. For him, this is extraordinary. Stacey holds his hand briefly, trying to interpret, then folds his blankets in around him.

  Good night, honey. Sleep well.

  Good night, Mum.

  — Has he forgiven me? Or does he only need my reassurance, at any price?

  When she gets back to the bedroom, Mac is sitting up, smoking.

  If you want a pansy for a son, Stacey, you’re going the right way about it.

  I don’t think so.

  I know so.

  Didn’t your mother ever get up in the night when you had a bad dream?

  I didn’t have any bad dreams that I can think of.

  I don’t believe it. You’ve forgotten.

  I’m not in the habit of forgetting. Duncan would damn soon get over having bad dreams if he once realized you weren’t going to trot in to him every time.

  He doesn’t do it on purpose. He was scared.

  I’ll bet. He quieted down soon enough once you traipsed in there.

  Mac – don’t be angry

  I’m not angry

  You are

  Stacey, I am not angry. I am merely trying to point out that you are babying that boy and it isn’t doing him any good. Can’t you understand even that?

  — Even that. Among all the other incomprehensions? No, I can’t understand even that. But if he’s right, where does that leave me? Kid-ruiner. Also, his unadmitted fury. But the kids find mine the same. Mum, don’t be mad. I’m not mad, I tell them. Spoken with deathly intent.

  I don’t mean to baby him. I’ll try not to. Honestly, Mac, I will.

  Well, really you should, honey. For his own good.

  I will. Honestly.

  — I will. I will anything. I will turn myself inside out. I will dance on the head of a pin. I will yodel from the top of the nearest dogwood tree. I will promise anything, for peace. Then I’ll curse myself for it, and I’ll curse you, too. Oh Mac.

  Honestly, Stacey, it’s only because I

  Yes, I know.

  She gets back into bed. Then Mac is not too tired, just when she is. He draws her between his legs, and she touches him sirenly so he will not know. When he is inside her, he puts his hands on her neck, as he sometimes does unpredictably. He presses down deeply on her collarbone.

  Mac please
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  That can’t hurt you not that much that’s not much Say it doesn’t hurt.

  It hurts.

  It can’t. Not even this much. Say it doesn’t hurt.

  It doesn’t hurt.

  He comes, then, and goes to sleep. The edges of the day are blurring in Stacey’s head now.

  — God, Sir, do I know why? Okay, I’ve aged this man. I’ve foisted my kids upon him. I yak away at him and he gets fed up, and he finds his exit where I can’t follow and don’t understand. There are too many people involved in this situation, Lord, you know that? You don’t know. Well, Stacey, for heaven’s sake get some sleep. Tomorrow everything will look better. Or at least different. Optimist.

  The hillside is burning. Who dropped a lighted cigarette? Did she? Evergreen catches fire with terrible ease. In case of forest fire, all the men around have to go and fight it. That is the law of the land. Everyone has to obey the law of the land. But only the men are forced to go. The children have no business to be there. Only one way to get to them. A black fallen tree across the pit. A suspension bridge across the jagged rock canyon. Tree bridge. The ravine is so deep no one has ever dared look down. She will be all right, if only she does not look down. Come on, Stacey, only a little way. The hands. She is holding the hands of one. Which? She will not be allowed to return. Only this one can she take with her, away from the crackling smoke, back to the green world. She must not look to see which one. She must never look, never again, to see which one. She must never know who was left behind. She has to know. No. Not to be borne. Not to be born would be not to have to die. But that would be useless. Philosophy, my dear, is useless under certain circumstances. Their voices? Oh yes – no mistaking them. She would know their voices anywhere. She has to count the voices. But she must not. They know she can hear their voices. They do not know why she cannot come to them. Can she explain, while there is still a moment of time? No time

  BR R R RING

  — Where’s the damn alarm clock? Oh here. Shut up, you. That’s better. Bloody morning once again.

  TWO

  The MacAindra residence on Bluejay Crescent is not classy, but it is not rundown either. Mac and Stacey have lived for twelve years within this large square structure with its high-gabled grey shingled roof, its evergreen-painted cedar-shake-covered walls and its only slightly sagging screened veranda. Stacey is attached to it, partly because she fears new houses and partly because her own veins and skin cells seem connected with this one.

  — Mac hates it more every year because it’s so dowdy and reflects on him, or so he thinks. Or so I think he thinks. One of these days he’ll manage a switch, and we’ll move to a pricey new split-level on the west side, furnished with that kind of sleek teak which will make me feel inferior to my own coffee table.

  Jen is scrabbling around on the veranda floor. The afternoon has the feverish damp warmth of early summer and Stacey is swinging in the brown-and-white-striped hammock, with tasseled edges, which Mac refers to as The Anachronism. She is studying the front door, which is a lilac color.

  — What a fool I was. “Want To Be a Little Off-Beat?” Here’s ten ways, the article said. A lilac door was one. So off I tripped to the nearest hardware store to assert my unique individuality with the same tin of paint as two million other dimwits. Conned into idiocy. My mind is full of trivialities. At lunch Ian said Duncan’s piece of cake is miles bigger than mine – it’s not fair, and I roared that they should quit bothering me with trivialities. So when they’re at school, do I settle down with the plays of Sophocles? I do not. I think about the color of my front door. That’s being unfair to myself. I took that course, Ancient Greek Drama, last winter. Yeh, I took it all right.

  Young academic generously giving up his Thursday evenings in the cause of adult education. Mrs. MacAindra, I don’t think you’ve got quite the right slant on Clytemnestra. Why not? The king sacrificed their youngest daughter for success in war – what’s the queen supposed to do, shout for joy? That’s not quite the point we’re discussing, is it? She murdered her husband, Mrs. MacAindra, (Oh God, don’t you think I know that? The poor bitch.) Yeh well I guess you must know, Dr. Thorne. Sorry. Oh, that’s fine – I always try to encourage people to express themselves.

  — Young twerp. Let somebody try killing one of his daughters. But still, he had his Ph.D. What do I have? Grade Eleven. My own fault. I couldn’t wait to be on my own and out of Manawaka. Those damn freight trains – I can still hear them, the way they used to wail away far off at night on the prairies, through all the suffocating nights of summer when the air smelled hotly of lilacs, and in winter when the silence was so cold-brittle you thought any sound would crack it like a sheet of thin ice, and all the trains ever said was Get on your way, somewhere, just so something will happen, get up and get out of this town. So I did. Business course in Winnipeg, then saving every nickel to come out here. And look at me. Self-educated, but zanily. No wonder I bore Mac. Do I bore him? How do I know? The slightest effort at speech seems too much for him lately, too debilitating. What’s he want? I’m not a complete dope. He wouldn’t be any better off with someone like Tess Fogler, gorgeous though she may be. Would he? She had a sign made for their house – Three Five Seven in scrolled numerals and a bluejay perched on a crescent moon. Get it, Stacey? Bluejay Crescent. Cute, eh? And I said, Gee that’s really cute, Tess. These lies will be the death of me sooner than later, if they haven’t already been. What goes on inside isn’t ever the same as what goes on outside. It’s a disease I’ve picked up somewhere.

  Everything drifts. Everything is slowly swirling, philosophies tangled with the grocery lists, unreal-real anxieties like rose thorns waiting to tear the uncertain flesh, nonentities of thoughts floating like plankton, green and orange particles, seaweed – lots of that, dark purple and waving, sharks with fins like cutlasses, herself held underwater by her hair, snared around auburn-rusted anchor chains

  Hey! You asleep?

  Mac’s voice. Stacey leaps out of the hammock, dishevelled in pink Bermuda shorts, and looks around for Jen. What negligence. Asleep on duty. Jen is playing quietly with her blue plastic tea set on the floor. Relief.

  What on earth are you doing home at this time of day, Mac?

  Mac does not reply at once. He stands there, looking pleased, the lines around his eyes easing a little. Then he points to a new teal-blue Buick parked in front of the house.

  I’ve got a new job.

  — A new job. He’s got a new job. And suddenly I’ve got a weird feeling. As though I’d been forgiven after all.

  Oh honey that’s wonderful. That’s terrific. What doing?

  No more door-to-door. Getting orders from drugstores, mainly.

  What is it?

  Richalife. I guess you’ve heard of them.

  — I’ve heard all right. Full-page ads in newspapers. Richalife – Not Just Vitamins – A New Concept – A New Way of Life. With testimonials. Both Spirit and Flesh Altered. Richness Is a Quality of Living. Singing ads on local stations, blond angelic trilling. Rallies. Gimmicks falling like the golden shower of stars from fireworks. Oh Jesus lover of my soul

  Gosh, Mac, that’s – why, that’s wonderful.

  Whatsamatter? You don’t like it?

  Sure I like it. Of course. I said so, didn’t I? It’s marvelous.

  Well, I certainly hope you think so. Considering it’s the best opportunity I’ve had in

  I like it. I think it’s great. I’m really delighted, Mac. Tell me.

  It’s go-ahead, that’s all. None of this business of refusing to spend a dime to make a quarter of a million. National firm – headquarters in the east, but they really give the branches their head and let them decide how to handle the local campaign. Thor Thorlakson – he’s the provincial manager – well, he’s a young guy, but exceptional. Really exceptional. If you get a young guy who’s good, he’s in touch – you know. Thor’s got everything going for him. He’s quite a guy. You’ll have to meet him soon.

  I’d
love to.

  — Yeh, I can hardly wait. Dr. Spender, here I come for forty billion tranquilizers.

  He wants to meet all the wives. He likes to find out what a guy’s home atmosphere is like.

  — Oh he does, does he? I’ll turn up in long black tights, a green wig, and a feather boa, mouthing obscenities.

  Why is that any of his business, Mac? I mean

  All those things affect the way a man does his job. Surely you can see that.

  Oh sure. I guess so. The Buick’s lovely, Mac.

  Yeh, and when I think Drabble’s didn’t even supply a car. I’m not going to sell the old Chev, Stacey. You need a car.

  Me? Oh Mac – honestly?

  Sure. You pleased?

  Am I!

  Stacey kisses him and he holds her unexpectedly closely for an instant. She feels his tremor – not sex, something else.

  — Mac, what is it? Are you nervous about taking on a new job? You’re only forty-three, for heaven’s sake. Or what is it? Why don’t you say?

  Mac – you’re happy about it, aren’t you?

  I’m bloody delighted. Why ask? Can’t you see?

  Yeh, sure. The – product – it’s okay, you think?

  What do you mean? Of course it’s okay. Listen, I’ll bring the Chev home tonight, eh?

  Gosh, Mac, thanks a million. It’ll be a lifesaver it’ll be absolutely terrific shopping taking the kids to the beach all the hundreds of

  That’s okay. I’m glad you’re pleased.

  Then Stacey realizes why he looks different and why she has been puzzling about it at the edges of her mind. He has a crew cut. His dark auburn hair is like a soft brush. Crew cut, fashion of his college days. He sees her looking and he reaches up a hand and touches his head.