Crossings (31 page)

The buddies came over. Yes. And got drunk in the front room. I am upstairs marking papers. Yes. And Mik comes upstairs and says to come down. And I do, and one of the buddies, a fisherman who'd made it across the bridge, took hold of me and pulled me down beside him. ‘Have a drink,' he says.

‘Don't touch me!' I say, and pull away.

The buddy is surprised. He says, ‘I wasn't going to hurt you.'

No one says anything about it. I have a beer and listen to them talk about the war. Mik is shooting me flashes of lightning. But I don't care. I'm tired. I am tired of the noise and the mess, the fake Sarukhan rugs are littered with beer bottle caps and ashes. Someone has spilled an ashtray.

‘Well, I've got work to do,' I say and go back upstairs. The professor for whom I was marking had said, ‘Just form not content,' as if you could mark one without the other. ‘Fallacy of the Undistributed Middle,' I print in large red letters. ‘Circular Argument.' ‘Non Seq.'

Someone comes up and goes to the bathroom. I am just so immensely weary. It comes over me now, as I try to write it. That heavy, bored, moving-through-molasses feeling.

And I think, My god, I'm pregnant!

My god. When was my period? My god. I've missed it already. Dear God, I'm pregnant. Oh god, please God, if you let me off this time, I'll be good.

Caught. Up the stump. A bun in the oven. In the Family Way. Expecting. Knocked up. Stagnant.

Oh my god, I'll die. I'll kill myself. It's not true. It's just late. Is that a spot? I won't think about it. It'll come if I don't think about it. I've been upset, that's all. God, look? I know I don't believe in you, but if you just …

My breasts ache. They are sore to touch, heavy and swollen. And I am so tired. Do I feel sick to my stomach? Oh god, yes I do. I'm caught. Oh the bastard. My life is ruined.

So much for my intensely maternal drive.

Mik calls up the stairs. It's the telephone. The professor's voice, thin and embarrassed, comes distantly over the wires: ‘Vicky? I was upset. I know that's not true. What I said. I don't know what came over. Yes, I do know. I was furious. You and that … thug. I still think you're wrong. I still think you're heading right for disaster, but I'm sorry for what I said.'

And I want to cry out, sitting there, with the buddies only feet away, ‘You were right. I am pregnant! It's horrible. Help me.'

But I say, ‘It's all right. It's all right.'

 

SIX MONTHS later, picking up some papers, I stop at his office and he says, ‘Oh yes, it's Mrs uh … it's Mrs Ferris, isn't it?' And is polite and distant. He forgot my name. In six months. I didn't understand it then, I don't understand it now. It happened.

 

WHEN THE buddies leave, I come down and start—my lips compressed like my mother's—to pick up the debris.

Mik says, ‘You bitch.'

‘They broke one of my glasses!' I say, discovering the shards.

‘I'll break your fucking glasses!' Mik says and hurls another across the room where it shatters against the wall.

‘So what am I supposed to have done now?'

‘“Don't touch me!”'

‘Well?'

‘Don't you ever talk to a buddy of mine like that again. Never.' He thrusts his fist under my chin.

‘Look. I don't like being grabbed by strange men.'

‘“Strange men.”' He is really very angry. ‘“Strange men!”' And, ‘That's my buddy!'

‘Oh you and your buddies. What do you want me to do, lie down for a gang bang? That's what you do, isn't it? Share and share alike? God, any decent man would've told him to get his hands off me.'

And Mik takes me by the hair and swings me around the room.

My feet ricochet against the mantel, knocking off a vase and the candles.

He just grabbed my hair below the nape and swung. Zoom! Centripetal force, baby.

It hurt like hell. But I have to laugh now, thinking of it. Zoom. Ah Mik, you were lovely, yes you were. Are you dead?

And whee, he lets me fly. Thud.

Well, there goes the bath water, I say to myself.

But it isn't over yet. He grabs my hair again and drags me like a sack across the floor and thumpety-thumpety-thump up we go. Ho hum. Up the stairs. And screws me.

So what was new. God, I was tired.

What am I trying to prove anyway. Ah how I have suffered. Nice little Anglican girl. What a terrible thing! Imagine.

But I get him. Boy do I get him.

I am sitting up in the middle of the bed, smoking furiously. I say, ‘Incidentally, it appears I am pregnant.'

That stops Mik cold. Ho ho. Thought I was dumb, thought I couldn't take care of myself, hey? Frigging clot.

And, of course, love blooms eternal in the wasteland of the brutish heart. He stops punching me out and kiss, kiss.

‘Ah,' he says and … why can't I remember the name!

‘It'll be a boy,' he says, going all mystical with the thrill of it. A man at last. Proof positive. God, I hate men.

He has him all dressed in a football uniform and taking little girls into the bushes. He has him swiping penny candy at the corner store. He has a real boy there, a real boy. ‘Don't you give him poetry,' he says. ‘Don't you turn him into a namby-pamby.'

‘I don't actually see how it concerns you,' says I, puffing away madly.

‘Har har de har har,' Mik says.

‘No. I'm being perfectly serious,' and I am, sitting up stark starers, smoking like billy-oh.

‘Put that out,' Mik says. All concern for the kid.

‘Because, if you're interested, I have no intention of marrying you. Fart face,' I add.

That came out of the blue. Fart face. Yes, by god, I said it, like a jewel. I remembered that one. The perfect moment. Fart face. Oh you good little book, you bugger, you're going to do me in, aren't you?

‘You'll marry me,' Mik says, smiling in a superior way.

‘I'd like to see you make me,' says I.

‘I'll drag you to the marriage bureau, if I have to,' he says.

‘“Do you take this man to be your lawful wedded husband?” And I scream “No!” And then you hit me. I don't see the ceremony coming off somehow.'

He considers this. It hasn't really occurred to him before that he cannot make me marry him. Now it occurs. I can see the light bulb going on inside his head. Eureka.

‘And if I'm unconscious or dead, they'll never sign the register,' I say.

After a while he says, ‘I'll sue you.'

I double up and almost roll off the bed, I'm laughing so hard. I've never heard anything so funny, so beautiful, so fantastic.

‘For what?' I shriek, when I get my breath. ‘Maternity? You'll go down in history. The first man ever to bring a maternity charge!' It's hilarious. Oh lord, it's gorgeous. Ah sisters, we never thought of that one, did we? All the time we had it right in our crotch, the real solution. Back to Mycenae. Oh Zeus, watch out. Sisters, let us re-inaugurate the holy spring festival. Ride them in the ditches. Ah Pentheus, you bad boy, we told you not to peek. Rip snort chew him up. Here comes Mama with his prick in her mouth.

‘That is beautiful,' I am saying. ‘Oh lovely. Oh Mik! Good luck, you big stupid lug. Take me to court,' and I'm off again into peals of laughter. It's heaven. I've never enjoyed myself so much. I almost forgive it, this parasite, this worm, this leech, this real boy, sucking my innards.

‘You can't get away with this!' says Mik, clenching his fists.

‘Oh that's weak. Oh you can do better than that, a big strong male like you. You can surely do better than that, can't you? “You can't get away with this.” Oh paltry!'

He says, ‘I'll take you to court and prove you're an unfit mother.'

‘So? So they take the kid away. They won't give him to you anyway.'

‘There's blood tests,' Mik says. ‘I can prove I'm the father.'

I'm becoming hysterical. ‘Oh god, Mik, you're so funny!'

And, ‘Unh uh uh.' Because he is making punch-out motions. ‘Don't hurt the baby.'

I don't remember what happens next. I suppose we calm down.

Then there's the party for the actress. In West Van. An engagement party, and we're invited. Sherry and a swim before supper.

I go like Lady Godiva, daring anyone to make the slightest comment.

Mik behaves himself.

The blue blazer boys glance uneasily at him.

Splash, off the private dock.

The actress says, ‘Vicky. You look smashing.' In my vulgar suit.

Mik's tattoos loud and clear in the evening air. He jumps in and stays up to his chin.

I go far out and wish I could drown, but I swim too well.

I say to him later, ‘But I don't belong either. The welfare brat. I don't belong to the upper crust.'

But he doesn't believe me.

He stuck out like the proverbial. And everyone was terribly polite to him.

What a treatise on the Canadian social scene one could do, with paradigms of frigid courtesy. ‘How interesting!' And, ‘Logging must be fascinating work.' And, ‘The outdoor life is so healthy, isn't it?'

I've heard it applied in various forms, this Canadian courtesy: ‘Really? A PhD from where? Kalamazoo? Where is that exactly? Oh, a southern state? How interesting.'

Back in her bedroom, the actress says to me, ‘It's folly, Vicky. Sheer folly.' We are getting dressed. ‘But you'll probably get away with it. You can be put down as eccentric. Still, it can't go on too long, you know. Right now, it's a bit like parading a tame ape through Buckingham Palace. It's all right for you. You're Victoria Ferris, but isn't it rather hard on the chimp?'

And, ‘Of course, he's really terribly attractive, in a way. I can see the appeal.'

And Mik goes on a bash. This time I do not look for him. I am fed up. I am tired. I haven't really written for weeks, months. I can't remember. I mark papers and I sleep. It is doom. I've had it. I'm caught. I wake up in the mornings and I think, ‘I'm wet!' but it is only optimism.

I trot to the bathroom, casually, pretending not to care. Then I drop to the floor, sliding off the toilet seat, my pajama pants around my ankles, saying, ‘God! God?'

We have had interminable talks, of course. Without laughter. I have said, ‘Of course, you'll be fine
biologically.
' Pretending this really concerns me. ‘But what sort of father will you make? How would he feel, seeing you swing me around the chandelier by my hair? Such gay moments can be terribly traumatic.'

Mik has been grinding his teeth a lot.

While Mik is out on the bash, I clean the house. It's a solitary four days. I wouldn't even mind seeing Paul. Or even Ben. But they are banished.

Edna comes over. With news of her own.

‘My god,' Edna says. ‘A medical student!' She has crabs. She has had to ask the druggist for blue gentian. ‘He gave me such a look!'

Later she is to find out the medical student has given her more than crabs.

I don't tell her my glad news. It isn't true anyway. Was that a cramp? Hmm. Yes. Ignore it. I won't go and look. Let it be a surprise.

I tell Edna to iron her sheets. ‘I heard it on
CBC Matinee
.'

‘They said iron the sheets for
crabs?
' Edna says.

‘No. For infections of any kind.'

‘It's not an infection, Vicky. It's animals. Like creepy crawlies. It's horrible. I'll never live it down. Crabs!'

‘You mean they look like
real
crabs?'

‘Yes! Horrible. Ugh.'

And we giggle and shudder, two nicely brought-up girls, and all the time I'm thinking: It's not possible! He'll give it a switchblade before it's even latched onto the nipple. He'll throw it up and down to teach it to be tough. And all the wrong locutions.
Irregardless.
Yes, he says
irregardless!
It'll say,
I feel badly.
Tea with Grandma on Sunday afternoons, sitting on the red chesterfield with the silver threads. And Mik coming home drunk and me in a housedress with rips under the arms. Mik saying, ‘You trapped me.'