The Fire-Dwellers

  Stacey quickly picks up Jen and heads for the dining room.

  Everybody to the table. C’mon.

  Later, Stacey finds the Sunday-school paper where Duncan has crumpled it small and put it into his wastepaper basket upstairs. There is a rainbow-tinted picture of a sweetly innocuous and vacant-faced St. Francis surrounded by feathered companions. Around the edges, where there was a little blank paper, Duncan has put cramped and secretive pencil drawings – the various stages in the launching of a spaceship, its journey past moons and constellations, its arrival on a planet beyond our stars, where twining trees twist octopus-like and the stickmen are met by starfishmen.

  — Not the Stations of the Cross. Not any more. Whose fault? Mine? Or is it maybe better this way? I haven’t done well by them. I’ve failed them by failing to believe, myself. I pretend to it, but they are not deceived. Yet I am the one who wakens them on Sunday mornings and shoves them off churchwards. One more strand in the tapestry of phoniness. I want to tell them. What? That I mourn my disbelief? I don’t tell them, though. I go along with the game. It’s easier that way.

  Ye holy angels bright

  Who wait at God’s right hand

  Or through the realms of light

  Fly at your Lord’s command,

  Assist our song,

  Or else the theme too high doth seem

  For mortal tongue.

  My God, Stacey, what’s happened to you, warbling hymns all of a sudden?

  Nothing. It just came into my head. Used to sing it when I was a kid.

  You should tell Dad that. He’d be pleased to think you even remembered. Hey – what’s up, honey? You’re not crying, are you?

  No. Eyelash in my eye.

  — So why complain about Mac being guarded?

  Morning, and the sky is like the light water-color blue from a paintbox. Warm-cool, the air smells of grass and last night’s rain. On Bluejay Crescent the laburnum branches bend a little with the yellow wind-swaying burden of blossoms, and the leaves of the big chestnuts are green outspread tree-hands. Kids under school age are out already, whizzing up and down the sidewalks with wagons and tricycles. In the distance, the mountains form the city’s walls and boundaries, some of them snow mountains even now, as though this place belonged to two worlds, two simultaneous seasons.

  C’mon, flower. We’re going shopping.

  Jen replies unintelligibly, then begins to sing, not loudly, but recognizably the tune of a song Duncan once brought home from school.

  Hey, that’s marvelous. That’s lovely. What about trying the words?

  — I can see it all now. Jennifer MacAindra, The World’s One and Only Nontalking Opera Star. Very funny, Stacey. In the meantime, have you taken her to Dr. Spender, just to check? You have not. He’s so busy and I hate to pester him unless it’s a real crisis. Mac thinks I’m nuts to worry, and probably I am. The truth is I’m scared to take her.

  Stacey puts Jen in the Chev and they drive to the supermarket.

  — Nobody could help feeling some lift on a day like this. I don’t get out enough. My boundaries are four walls. Whose fault? Okay, mine. By the time the day ends, I’m too beat to seek rich cultural experiences, whatever that may mean. That babe in Varying Views of Urban Life. That’s what she said. What we must seek is rich cultural experiences. I thought she probably meant she didn’t get laid often enough. But I sat there nodding and smiling and agreeing with her. I swear I’ll never take another of those damn evening courses. What’s left of me? Where have I gone? I’ve brought it on myself, without realizing it. How to stop telling lies? How to get out? This madness. I’m not trapped. I’ve got everything I always wanted.

  Hang on, doll, and don’t lean out the window, eh?

  Down on the streets near the beaches where Stacey often takes the children, there are rows of high old shaky timber houses, no proper fire escapes. Dwelt in by whom? Sandaled artists courting immortality and trying to scrape by in this life? Extravagant-voiced poets preaching themselves? Semi-prophets with shoulder-length hair, baubled in strings of colored seeds or glass, pseudo gemmery, maybe not pseudo for their purposes? Languid long-legged girls who speak a new tongue and make love when they feel like it, with whoever, and no regrets or recriminations?

  — It changes too rapidly for me to keep track. What do I know of it? Only what I read in the papers. What do they think about? Impossible for me to know? What do they think about me? “Love-In Held in Park.” Newspaper couple of years ago. “We Aim to Love, Not Hassle, Says Leader.” “Love who?” reporter asked. “Everybody” was the brave if reckless reply. Why did I have the persistent nasty suspicion that that generality and generosity would most likely stop just short of me? I wanted to explain myself. I still do. Wait, you! Let me tell you. I’m not what I may appear to be. Or if I am, it’s happened imperceptibly, like eating what the kids leave on their plates and discovering ten years later the solid roll of lard now oddly living there under your own skin. I didn’t used to be. Once I was different.

  Stacey, traveling light, unfearful in the sun, swimming outward as though the sea were shallow and known, drinking without indignity, making spendthrift love in the days when flesh and love were indestructible.

  Here we are, flower. Let’s hope it’s not too crowded.

  — What’ll it be like, when Jen is at school? I’ll have to be careful, then, or I’ll find myself speaking aloud one day when I’m alone among the Zoomy Puffs and the Choco-Corn Bleeps, and the young mums (damn them – they get younger every year, it seems to me) pushing carts full of groceries and babies will smile in embarrassment and pretend not to notice.

  The long aisles of the temple. Side chapels with the silver-flash of chrome where the dead fish lie among the icy strawberries. The mounds of offerings, yellow planets of grapefruit, jungles of lettuce, tentacles of green onions, Arctic effluvia flavored raspberry and orange, a thousand bear-faced mouse-legended space-crafted plastic-gifted strangely transformed sproutings of oat and wheat fields. Music hymning from invisible choirs.

  I’ll be seeing you

  In all the old familiar places –

  Diamond Lake, fifty miles north of Manawaka. At night the spruce trees held themselves intensely still, dark and immutable as old Indian gods, holding up the star-heavy sky. The path of the moon lighted the black lake. The fishes danced and the night birds dipped and pirouetted in obeisance towards the fallen light, the shreds of heaven. And Stacey Cameron, under the green-purple neon starlight of the Wapakata Dancehall, danced with the airman from Montreal. He held her close, his sex pressed against hers. Then miles along the beach, the sand still day-warm under their bare feet, until they reached the leaf-blanketed hillside. Feeling the tacit agreement of the forest for their unspoken plans. Stacey afraid, but wanting too much to let go. Unexpectedly rising to him, not having known before that it was to be like this, everything focused in the crux where they met and joined. They both cried out, and then they half slept and wakened tender and it was nearly morning there on the curled yellow-green moss of the spruce-screened slope with the lapping of the lake in their heads.

  — Whatever happened to him? How did he get on? Dead over Germany? The local paper only ever printed the lists of provincial casualties. Running a shoe store in Montreal? A bar in Antigonish? A ranch in the Cariboo? The unanswered questions.

  Stacey suddenly realizes what is happening. Last week it was pop music, and the week before that. New manager now, maybe, someone who knows what age the women are who do most of the spending here.

  — Conned again. Conned into memory. Now I’m not even certain that this music hasn’t been going on for weeks or months. How long have I been remembering without knowing it? Al, was it really more than twenty years ago? Al Duschesne, half French, half English, claiming he was doubly outcast. Belonging once for half a night in me. I remember everything about you. The way the hair was gold on your belly and forearms in the almost-morning. Your sex. Everything. I wish I could see you. No, I don’t. I
wouldn’t want you to see me, not now, not in my present shape. Of course, you’ll have changed, too. But not as much. Women may live longer but they age faster. God has a sick sense of humor, if you ask me.

  Jen, sitting at the front of the grocery cart and dangling her short legs, begins to sing, a wordless humming but tuneful. Her narrow fine-boned face seeks Stacey’s, and her eyes are watchful, hesitant with hope. Stacey smiles quickly.

  Hey, you’re improving, flower. That’s great.

  — Stacey, how dare you complain about even one single solitary thing? Listen, God, I didn’t mean it. Just don’t let anything terrible happen to any of them, will you? I’ve had everything I always wanted. I married a guy I loved, and I had my kids. I know everything is all right. I wasn’t meaning to complain. I never will again. I promise.

  Duncan and Ian last summer at the beach, wrestling and wisecracking, brown skinny legs and arms, the shaggy flames of their hair, their skin smelling of sand and saltwater. Sea-children, as though they should have been crowned with fronds of kelp and ridden dolphins.

  — Please. Let them be okay, all their lives, all four of them. Let me die before they do. Only not before they grow up, or what would happen to them?

  When Mac comes in that evening, he hands Stacey five small boxes and five rolled-up scrolls. Gingerly, she unfolds one of the scrolls. It tells her that Duncan Cameron MacAindra is seven years old and has been enrolled in the Richa Younglife Program. He is ABBD (Junior), and he promises to record on the following chart the zoom ratings of his energy up-go and his memory snap-up. Stacey opens one of the boxes. Each pill occupies its own nest. There are seven colors – pink, purple, peacock blue, tangerine, canary, green and crimson. Stacey touches them lightly.

  Pretty. They’d make a nice necklace.

  The kids better take them at breakfast, so they won’t forget. A color for every day, see, so it’s quite simple. Only don’t get the boxes mixed up. Each one’s got a different combination, depending on which program the particular person is on.

  Mac?

  What?

  When you worked for Drabble’s, we didn’t go around spraying them with Angel-Breath Mouth Freshener.

  Thor goes through the charts personally every month, for all members of staff and their families.

  He’s got a nerve.

  You can’t mount a real campaign unless you’ve got a hard core of support. If somebody can’t even be bothered to give them to his own family, well

  Okay. Okay okay okay. Give ’em here. Let’s round everybody up.

  You are making things damn difficult, Stacey. I hope you’re enjoying it.

  I don’t mean to. Honestly. Honestly, Mac. Mac?

  What?

  I’m sorry.

  Yeh, so you say. Look, I don’t want you to be sorry. Only quit bugging me, eh? Haven’t you seen the Richalife displays in the drugstore down the street?

  Yes.

  Well, it’s like that all over. Big displays. It’s catching on. I suppose you don’t want the kids to go to university?

  Oh Mac. Of course I do. You know that.

  Well, then. Get off my neck. I’m earning more than I ever have.

  You’re working too hard.

  Stacey, I am not working any harder than I have to. Now, please.

  Okay, honey. Really.

  By seven in the evening, Mac is closeted in his study, as he has been every evening this week. Stacey knocks and enters. Mac is sitting at his desk. In front of him are many colored brochures, a map of the province, sales charts, and several Xeroxed memo pages – Let’s Talk Richness, A Quality of Living and Getting Across the Message Audiovisually. Mac looks up, frowning.

  Whatsamatter?

  Nothing’s the matter. I have to go over to Tess’s tonight. I promised. What does he mean, A Quality of Living?

  Stacey, I’m busy. Can’t you see?

  Okay, I’m just going. What did Thor say about my quiz?

  He said he never heard of anybody feeling guilty because they couldn’t bake bread. I told you you shouldn’t have put that.

  You laughed at the time. Don’t deny it. What did he expect me to do? Put down what I feel guilty about or something?

  Ha bloody ha.

  You never showed me what you put down.

  It wasn’t spectacular. Listen, Stacey, I’m busy.

  Doing what? Yoga?

  Everybody has to present their idea for totally new types of sales campaigns.

  That’s not fair. What’s he trying to do?

  How should I know? I guess he doesn’t want any dead wood.

  Mac – why did you say that?

  A joke.

  Yeh. Ha bloody ha. Mac?

  Mm?

  Are you afraid?

  Me? What of? You must be kidding.

  You’re only forty-three. You’re a damn good salesman. There have never been any complaints about you, that I know of. You’ve been working like a dog since you joined Richalife. You don’t need to be afraid.

  Stacey, for Christ’s sake. I am not afraid. I am busy at the moment trying to work out ideas. Now will you please leave me alone?

  You’re really not – well let’s say nervous – about Thor? He scares me. Something about him. I don’t know.

  Stacey, everything is okay. How many times do I have to say it? Can’t you please for heaven’s sake quit yakking about my work?

  I’m sorry. But you won’t talk. You won’t ever say.

  There is nothing to say.

  Oh well in that case

  Look, what do you want me to say?

  I don’t want you to say anything

  Then why do you keep on

  I’m sorry it’s just that

  Well, everything is all right, see?

  Yeh. Well, okay. I feel very strange sometimes.

  What do you mean, strange?

  Like as though everything is receding

  Receding?

  As though I’m out of touch with everything. Everybody, I mean. And vice-versa. If you see what I mean.

  Maybe you need to see the doctor. Do you feel sick?

  At heart

  What?

  Nothing. I don’t know what I’m talking about. I’m sorry. It was – I don’t know. Do you want some more coffee before I go?

  No thanks. Are you okay, Stacey?

  Sure. I’m fine. You’re sure you are?

  Yes, yes. Quite sure. Have fun at Tess’s.

  Thanks. I won’t be late.

  I may turn in early.

  Okay. Well good-bye.

  Good-bye.

  Stacey goes upstairs to dress. No use in trying to compete with Tess, who would look splendid even if she were wearing an old potato sack tied with bindertwine. Stacey puts on her blue-silk suit. This is the first time she has worn it this spring, and the zipper on the skirt will hardly do up.

  — Hell. I can’t have put on that much. Oh heavens – look at me. Feast your eyes on those hips. Tomorrow – I swear it – the banana diet. I will buy half a ton of bananas and eat nothing else. I’ll stick to it. So help me, I will. What did Mac mean, nothing to talk about? He probably isn’t worried in the slightest. I’m making him nervous. “Are You Increasing Your Husband’s Tensions?” More than likely. Why should I think he’s worried? It’s only me that’s worried – only I who am worried. Compared with mothers of fifteen kids who are swallowing only air in India or somewhere, have I got troubles? No. God, to tell you the truth, it’s getting so I feel guilty about worrying. I know I have no right to it, but it keeps creeping up on me. I’m surrounded by voices all the time but none of them seem to be saying anything, including mine. This gives me the feeling that we may all be one-dimensional.

  Very far away, in a galaxy countless light-years from this planet, a scorpion-tailed flower faced film buff sits watching a nothing-shaped undulating screen. He decides he’s seen enough. He switches off the pictures which humans always believed were themselves, and the imaginary planet known as Earth vanishes.
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  — You’re losing your mind, Stacey girl. Well, I may be, but I’m sure as hell not losing these hips.

  Stacey is the first to arrive at the Foglers’. Tess is wearing an oatmeal-colored dress, straight and unadorned, with an Italian leather belt, costly in appearance, draped around almost nonexistent hips.

  — How’s she got such good taste in clothes and such awful taste in furnishings? Those drapes – demented turquoise trees and crimson-jacketed hunting gents on puffing black horses, and the entire scene shot through with simulated gold threads at regular intervals. Cut it out, Stacey. I’m getting worse. I used to be nicer. If I live to be ninety, I’ll be positively venomous. My grandchildren will flee from me in terror.

  Am I early, Tess? Gosh, I love your dress.

  Not a bit. It’s only Bertha and you coming. Glad you like it – I just got it this week. I think it’s kind of fun, myself. Listen, I must show you what I got at Twiller’s sale today.

  — Don’t tell me. Let me guess. Ten cuckoo clocks, forty-seven TV tables with puce-and-orange ballerinas prinking on them, two hundred packets of bath salts done up to look like dinosaurs and labeled Hers and His, five thousand hankies embroidered with pink tuberous-rooted begonias, and a partridge in a plastic pear tree.

  Yeh, I’d love to see.

  Tess brings out two salt and pepper sets shaped like harlequins and colored lavishly. The salt or pepper comes out of the hats.

  Oh, they’re sweet, Tess.

  I thought they were kind of cute, myself. We don’t really need them, I guess, but I can put them away for Christmas or shower gifts. Jake isn’t crazy about them, but then, he’s kind of hard to suit, I guess, in a way.

  Jake Fogler is a radio actor who is fond of talking about the breakdown of verbal communications and the problems of semantics in mass media. Stacey cannot imagine either of them needing any salt or pepper shakers whatsoever. Tess lives on pineapple and cottage cheese salads, and Jake, if Tess is to be believed, exists mainly on brandy and raw eggs. He has a talented voice, but he does not stand a look-in with TV. Sometimes he retires to the spare bedroom and broods, and then Tess goes over to Stacey’s and says in her high light voice, Jake’s ulcer is acting up.