IX
Touched
1
It wasn’t difficult to choose their accommodation in Shere Neck; there were only two places available, and one was already full to brimming with buyers and sellers for a farm machinery sale that had just taken place, some of the spillage occupying the rooms at the other establishment: the Sweetgrass Inn. Had it not been for Sheryl’s way with a smile they might have been turned away from there too; but after some debate a twin-bedded room was found that they could share. It was plain, but comfortable.
‘You know what my mother used to tell me?’ said Sheryl, as she unpacked her toiletries in the bathroom.
‘What?’
‘She used to say: there’s a man out there for you, Sheryl; he’s walking around with your name on. Mind you this is from a woman who’s been looking for her particular man for thirty years and never found him. But she was always stuck on this romantic notion. You know, the man of your dreams is just around the next corner. And she stuck me on it too, damn her.’
‘Still?’
‘Oh yeah. I’m still looking. You’d think I’d know better, after what I’ve been through. You want to shower first?’
‘No. You go ahead.’
A party had started up in the next room, the walls too thin to muffle much of the noise. While Sheryl took her shower Lori lay on the bed and turned the events of the day over in her head. The exercise didn’t last long. The next thing she knew she was being stirred from sleep by Sheryl, who’d showered and was ready for a night on the town.
‘You coming?’ she wanted to know.
‘I’m too tired,’ Lori said. ‘You go have a good time.’
‘If there’s a good time to be had –’ said Sheryl ruefully.
‘You’ll find it,’ Lori said. ‘Give ’em something to talk about.’
Sheryl promised she would, and left Lori to rest, but the edge had been taken off her fatigue. She could do no more than doze, and even that was interrupted at intervals by loud bursts of drunken hilarity from the adjacent room.
She got up to go in search of a soda machine and ice, returning with her calorie-free nightcap to a less than peaceful bed. She’d take a leisurely bathe, she decided, until drink or fatigue quieted the neighbours. Immersed to her neck in hot water she felt her muscles unknotting themselves, and by the time she emerged she felt a good deal mellower. The bathroom had no extractor, so both the mirrors had steamed up. She was grateful for their discretion. The catalogue of her frailties was quite long enough without another round of self-scrutiny to swell it. Her neck was too thick, her face too thin, her eyes too large, her nose too small. In essence she was one excess upon another, and any attempt on her part to undo the damage merely exacerbated it. Her hair, which she grew long to cover the sins of her neck, was so luxuriant and so dark her face looked sickly in its frame. Her mouth, which was her mother’s mouth to the last flute, was naturally, even indecently, red, but taming its colour with a pale lipstick merely made her eyes look vaster and more vulnerable than ever.
It wasn’t that the sum of her features was unattractive. She’d had more than her share of men at her feet. No, the trouble was she didn’t look the way she felt. It was a sweet face, and she wasn’t sweet; didn’t want to be sweet, or thought of as sweet. Perhaps the powerful feelings that had touched her in the last few hours – seeing the blood, seeing the tombs – would make their mark in time. She hoped so. The memory of them moved in her still, and she was richer for them, however painful they’d been.
Still naked, she wandered back into the bedroom. As she’d hoped the celebrants next door had quietened down. The music was no longer rock ‘n’ roll, but something smoochy. She sat on the edge of the bed and ran her palms back and forth over her breasts, enjoying their smoothness. Her breath had taken on the slow rhythm of the music through the wall; music for dancing groin to groin, mouth to mouth. She lay back on the bed, her right hand sliding down her body. She could smell several months’ accrual of cigarette smoke in the coverlet she lay on. It made the room seem almost a public place, with its nightly comings and goings. The thought of her nakedness in such a room, and the smell of her skin’s cleanliness on this stale bed, was acutely arousing.
She eased her first and middle fingers into her cunt, raising her hips a little to meet the exploration. This was a joy she offered herself all too seldom; her Catholic upbringing had put guilt between her instinct and her fingertips. But tonight she was a different woman. She found the gasping places quickly, putting her feet on the edge of the bed and spreading her legs wide to give both hands a chance to play.
It wasn’t Boone she pictured as the first waves of gooseflesh came. Dead men were bad lovers. Better she forgot him. His face had been pretty, but she’d never kiss it again. His cock had been pretty too, but she’d never stroke it, or have it in her again. All she had was herself, and pleasure for pleasure’s sake. That was what she pictured now: the very act she was performing. A clean body naked on a stale bed. A woman in a strange room enjoying her own strange self.
The rhythm of the music no longer moved her. She had her own rhythm, rising and falling, rising and falling, each time climbing higher. There was no peak. Just height after height, till she was running with sweat and gorged on sensation. She lay still for several minutes. Then, knowing sleep was quickly overtaking her and that she could scarcely pass the night in her present position, she threw off all the covers but a single sheet, put her head on the pillow, and fell into the space behind her closed eyes.
2
The sweat on her body cooled beneath the thin sheet. In sleep, she was at Midian’s necropolis, the wind coming to meet her down its avenues from all directions at once – north, south, east and west – chilling her as it whipped her hair above her head, and ran up inside her blouse. The wind was not invisible. It had a texture, as though it carried a weight of dust, the motes steadily gumming up her eyes and sealing her nose, finding its way into her underwear and up into her body by those routes too.
It was only as the dust blinded her completely that she realized what it was – the remains of the dead, the ancient dead, blown on contrary winds from pyramids and mausoleums, from vaults and dolmen, charnel houses and crematoria. Coffin-dust, and human ash, and bone pounded to bits, all blown to Midian, and catching her at the crossroads.
She felt the dead inside her. Behind her lids; in her throat; carried up towards her womb. And despite the chill, and the fury of the four storms, she had no fear of them, nor desire to expel them. They sought her warmth and her womanliness. She would not reject them.
‘Where’s Boone?’ she asked in her dream, assuming the dead would know. He was one of their number after all.
She knew he was not far from her, but the wind was getting stronger, buffeting her from all directions, howling around her head.
‘Boone?’ she said again. ‘I want Boone. Bring him to me.’
The wind heard her. Its howling grew louder.
But somebody else was nearby, distracting her from hearing its reply.
‘He’s dead, Lori,’ the voice said.
She tried to ignore the idiot voice, and concentrate on interpreting the wind. But she’d lost her place in the conversation, and had to begin again.
‘It’s Boone I want,’ she said. ‘Bring me –’
‘No!’
Again, that damn voice.
She tried a third time, but the violence of the wind had become another violence; she was being shaken.
‘Lori! Wake up!’
She clung to sleep; to the dream of wind. It might yet tell her what she needed to know if she could resist the assault of consciousness a moment longer.
‘Boone!’ she called again, but the winds were receding from her, and taking the dead with them. She felt the itch of their exit from her veins and senses. What knowledge they had to impart was going with them. She was powerless to hold them.
‘Lori.’
Gone now; all of them gone. Carried
away on the storm.
She had no choice but to open her eyes knowing they would find Sheryl, mere flesh and blood, sitting at the end of the bed and smiling at her.
‘Nightmare?’ she said.
‘No. Not really.’
‘You were calling his name.’
‘I know.’
‘You should have come out with me,’ Sheryl said. ‘Get him out of your system.’
‘Maybe.’
Sheryl was beaming; she clearly had news to tell.
‘You met somebody?’ Lori guessed.
Sheryl’s smile became a grin.
‘Who’d have thought it?’ she said. ‘Mother may have been right after all.’
‘That good?’
‘That good.’
‘Tell all.’
‘There’s not much to tell. I just went out to find a bar, and I met this great guy. Who’d have thought it?’ she said again. ‘In the middle of the damn prairies? Love comes looking for me.’
Her excitement was a joy to behold; she could barely contain her enthusiasm, as she gave Lori a complete account of the night’s romance. The man’s name was Curtis; a banker, born in Vancouver, divorced and recently moved to Edmonton. They were perfect complimentaries she said; star signs, tastes in food and drink, family background. And better still, though they’d talked for hours he’d not once tried to persuade her out of her underwear. He was a gentleman: articulate, intelligent and yearning for the sophisticated life of the West Coast, to which he’d intimated he’d return if he could find the right companion. Maybe she was it.
‘I’m going to see him again tomorrow night,’ Sheryl said. ‘Maybe even stay over a few weeks if things go well.’
‘They will,’ Lori replied. ‘You deserve some good times.’
‘Are you going back to Calgary tomorrow?’ Sheryl asked.
‘Yes’ was the reply her mind was readying. But the dream was there before her, answering quite differently.
‘I think I’ll go back to Midian first,’ it said. ‘I want to see the place one more time.’
Sheryl pulled a face.
‘Please don’t ask me to go.’ she said. ‘I’m not up for another visit.’
‘No problem,’ Lori replied. ‘I’m happy to go alone.’
X
Sun and Shade
The sky was cloudless over Midian, the air effervescent. All the fretfulness she’d felt during her first visit here had disappeared. Though this was still the town where Boone had died, she could not hate it for that. Rather the reverse: she and it were allies, both marked by the man’s passing.
It was not the town itself she’d come to visit however, it was the graveyard, and it did not disappoint her. The sun gleamed on the mausoleums, the sharp shadows flattering their elaboration. Even the grass that sprouted between the tombs was a more brilliant green today. There was no wind, from any quarter; no breath of the dream-storms, bringing the dead. Within the high walls there was an extraordinary stillness, as if the outside world no longer existed. Here was a place sacred to the dead, who were not the living ceased, but almost another species, requiring rites and prayers that belonged uniquely to them. She was surrounded on every side by such signs: epitaphs in English, French, Polish and Russian; images of veiled women and shattered urns, saints whose martyrdom she could only guess at, stone dogs sleeping upon their masters’ tombs – all the symbolism that accompanied this other people. And the more she explored, the more she found herself asking the question she’d posed the day before: why was the cemetery so big? And why, as became apparent the more tombs she studied, were there so many nationalities laid here? She thought of her dream; of the wind that had come from all quarters of the earth. It was as if there’d been something prophetic in it. The thought didn’t worry her. If that was the way the world worked – by omens and prophecies – then it was at least a system, and she had lived too long without one. Love had failed her; perhaps this would not.
It took her an hour, wandering down the hushed avenues to reach the back wall of the cemetery against which she found a row of animals’ graves – cats interred beside birds, dogs beside cats; at peace with each other as common clay. It was an odd sight. Though she knew of other animal cemeteries she’d never heard of pets being laid in the same consecrated ground as their owners. But then should she be surprised at anything here? The place was a law unto itself, built far from any who would care or condemn.
Turning from the back wall, she could see no sign of the front gate, nor could she remember which of the avenues led back there. It didn’t matter. She felt secure in the emptiness of the place, and there was a good deal she wanted to see: sepulchres whose architecture, towering over its fellows, invited admiration. Choosing a route that would take in half a dozen of the most promising, she began an idling return journey. The sun was warmer by the minute now, as it climbed towards noon. Though her pace was slow she broke out into a sweat, and her throat became steadily drier. It would be no short drive to find somewhere to quench her thirst. But parched throat or no, she didn’t hurry. She knew she’d never come here again. She intended to leave with her memories well stocked.
Along the way were several tombs which had been virtually overtaken by saplings planted in front of them. Evergreens mostly, reminders of the life eternal, the trees flourished in the seclusion of the walls, fed well on rich soil. In some cases their spreading roots had cracked the very memorials they’d been planted to offer shade and protection. These scenes of verdancy and ruin she found particularly poignant. She was lingering at one when the perfect silence was broken.
Hidden in the foliage somebody, or something, was panting. She automatically stepped back, out of the tree’s shadow and into the hot sun. Shock made her heart beat furiously, its thump deafening her to the sound that had excited it. She had to wait a few moments, and listen hard, to be sure she’d not imagined the sound. There was no error. Something was in hiding beneath the branches of the tree, which were so weighed by their burden of leaves they almost touched the ground. The sound, now that she listened more carefully, was not human; nor was it healthy. Its roughness and raggedness suggested a dying animal.
She stood in the heat of the sun for a minute or more, just staring into the mass of foliage and shadow, trying to catch some sight of the creature. Occasionally there was a movement: a body vainly trying to right itself, a desperate pawing at the ground as the creature tried to rise. Its helplessness touched her. If she failed to do what she could for it the animal would certainly perish, knowing – this was the thought that moved her to action – that someone had heard its agony and passed it by.
She stepped back into the shadow. For a space the panting stopped completely. Perhaps the creature was fearful of her, and – reading her approach as aggression – was preparing some final act of defence. Readying herself to retreat before claws and teeth, she parted the outer twigs and peered through the mesh of branches. Her first impression was not one of sight or sound but of smell: a bitter-sweet scent that was not unpleasant, its source the pale flanked creature she now made out in the murk, gazing at her wide-eyed. It was a young animal, she guessed, but of no species she could name. A wild cat of some kind, perhaps, but that the skin resembled deer hide rather than fur. It watched her warily, its neck barely able to support the weight of its delicately marked head. Even as she returned its gaze it seemed to give up on life. Its eyes closed and its head sank to the ground.
The resilience of the branches defied any further approach. Rather than attempting to bend them aside she began to break them in order to get to the failing creature. They were living wood, and fought back. Halfway through the thicket a particularly truculent branch snapped back in her face with such stinging force it brought a shout of pain from her. She put her hand to her cheek. The skin to the right of her mouth was broken. Dabbing the blood away she attacked the branch with fresh vigour, at last coming within reach of the animal. It was almost beyond responding to her touch, its eyes momentarily fl
uttering open as she stroked its flank, then closing again. There was no sign that she could see of a wound, but the body beneath her hand was feverish and full of tremors.
As she struggled to pick the animal up it began to urinate, wetting her hands and blouse, but she drew it to her nevertheless, a dead weight in her arms. Beyond the spasms that ran through its nervous system there was no power left in its muscles. Its limbs hung limply, its head the same. Only the smell she’d first encountered had any strength, intensifying as the creature’s final moments approached.
Something like a sob reached her ears. She froze.
Again, the sound. Off to her left, some way, and barely suppressed. She stepped back, out of the shadow of the evergreen, bringing the dying animal with her. As the sunlight fell on the creature it responded with a violence utterly belied by its apparent frailty, its limbs jerking madly. She stepped back into the shade, instinct rather than analysis telling her the brightness was responsible. Only then did she look again in the direction from which the sob had come.
The door of one of the mausoleums further down the avenue – a massive structure of cracked marble – stood ajar, and in the column of darkness beyond she could vaguely make out a human figure. Vaguely, because it was dressed in black, and seemed to be veiled.
She could make no sense of this scenario. The dying animal, tormented by light; the sobbing woman – surely a woman – in the doorway, dressed for mourning. What was the association?
‘Who are you?’ she called out.
The mourner seemed to shrink back into the shadows as she was addressed, then regretted the move and approached the open door again, but so very tentatively the connection between animal and woman became clear.
She’s afraid of the sun too, Lori thought. They belonged together, animal and mourner, the woman sobbing for the creature Lori had in her arms.