Mercy (31 page)

Maybe she should chuck a block of something in the microwave now, defrost it and broil or brown it up, mask that lovely nut-and-chocolate smell with something a little more serious. Why not? Break out the fancy linen and a nice Cabernet.
What’s the occasion?
he’ll ask. Assuming he ever shows.

No occasion. Not unless it’s some occasion of his he hasn’t mentioned. A wedding anniversary, maybe. Or maybe his wife’s birthday. What would Jenny be now—twenty-five? twenty-six? God knows it’s not Lavinia’s birthday. It would be, only she stopped having them years ago, when she realized not celebrating meant not having to count.

Normally a source of comfort, the frozen parcels seem suddenly obscene. There are too many for a whole family, never mind for a woman on her own. What if there’s a blackout, not just a little one, one that lasts? What will she do then—haul it all out by the box load and bury it in her treeless yard? Daddy would spin in his grave.

Never waste meat, Lovey
.

They were all three in their usual chairs, Lavinia’s with a fat book on the seat. “Come on, now.” Daddy pointed
his knife at the abandoned bacon on her plate. “Somebody died to give you that.”

“Nonsense,” said Mama. “That’s what animals are for.” She covered Lavinia’s small hand with her own. “You don’t have to finish if you’re full, honey. Are you full?”

Lavinia nodded.

“They’re not
for
that,” said Daddy.

“What’s that, dear?”

“Animals. Just because we eat them doesn’t mean that’s what they’re
for.”

Mama flinched and took back her hand. “I wish you wouldn’t talk that way, Renny.”

He glared at the pepper and salt. “What way?”

“You know
what way.”
She stood abruptly and began clearing away dishes. “Lavinia, you may be excused.”

They were waiting, Preacher—the women sullen and faithful, fantasizing your return, their men shifty beside them, suddenly unsure in their belief. You’d chosen your stand-in well. He was mottled like a sausage, entirely uninspired. You’d be welcomed back to the fold like a saint.

The replacement’s sermons were watery, lapping monotonously at the Sunday school door. The teacher never so much as peeked at him. She let me draw, let the others do whatever they pleased. Freed from Bible lessons, they ran amok, high on cookies, spilling juice down their giggling chests.

At home, the teacher gave me milk, the white cascade hitting bottom and bubbling up the glass. “Want milk?” She phrased the question simply, the way the books advised. “Clare?” Her fingers were cold with it, soft on my chin bone, guiding me to meet her gaze. “Want milk?”

T
his time the cat sits with his back to the bookshelf, casually tonguing a paw. “Yoo-hoo,” the time-bird calls, “yoo-hoo,
yoo-hoo.”
But the cat ignores him, save for the instinctive swivel of an ear. Watching him, the teacher lets her scissors dangle. Her thumb hovers over the corner image on a page.

The teacher’s pet wore his insides out, nerves diverging from his spine in a barred black map. White marked where he was vulnerable—the belly, the narrow throat. Grey told where he felt most keenly—whisker puffs, tail tip, feet.

He found me in the garden, wound an elaborate knot around my legs. I knelt down to face him, sliding a finger along his foreleg, nudging the tip into the pink secrets of his paw. A white curl of claw slipped its sheath.

I buried my nose in his fur. His back smelled sleekly of rain, his belly of dust. Smoke and blood under the claws, the ears bitter inside but sweet in the fine fuzz at their backs. Both ends gave off darkness—dusk in the mouth and a musky behind, violence and traces of waste.

His needs were simple, clear. I reached out carefully to stroke his length—bridge of nose to slope of skull, sway-back valley to tail’s incline. Time and again my hand travelled his form, feeling him resist and receive.

Mary comes close again, stroking a second coat of sap along the damaged lids of Carl’s eyes. Her proximity calls up his blood.

“Is that your finger? It’s so soft.”

“I could wish for fingers like this.” She touches a hard finger pad briefly to his cheek. “That’s my finger.
This,”
she says, stroking again, “is a feather.”

“Oh.” He contemplates reaching for her.

“That ought to do it.” She stands, withdrawing her body’s warmth. “Does it sting?”

“A little.”

“Good.”

“Mary?”

“Hmm?”

“Come back. Sit close to me again.”

She says nothing.

“Mary?”

“I don’t think so, Reverend.”

“Why not?”

She takes a moment to respond. “Maybe you think you’ve got something to teach me.”

He smiles. “Maybe I do.”

“Maybe I’ve got something to teach you, Reverend, ever think of that?”

“Okay.” He reaches out in the direction of her voice. “Come here and teach me.”

She lets his hands float expectantly, then fall. “Ever heard the expression ‘mad as a March hare’?”

“Sure.”

“Know where it comes from?”

“No.” He pats the bed. “Come and tell me.”

“It comes from mating. A male snowshoe hare hops up to a female, jumps in the air, takes a piss on her, and takes off. Then another one comes along. Same thing—jump, piss, run. Sometimes they just fly past her, pissing the whole way. Sometimes she leads a whole train of them around, all of them leaping and pissing and drumming the ground. All that song and dance goes on forever, but it only takes a few seconds once they finally get down to brass tacks. A couple of squeals and that’s it. The male follows the female around for a while, but only to fight off any others that might swamp his seed.”

Carl can feel his lust evaporating, a low-level queasiness rising in its place. “Is this really all you want to do?” he says impatiently. “Talk?”

“Short-tailed shrew gets himself stuck in there. She drags him around by it after, ten minutes or more.”

“Okay.” He laces his hands behind his head. “I know what this is about.”

“You do?”

“Look, if I
had
been with a lot of women, and I’m not saying I have—”

“You don’t have to, it’s obvious.”

“As I was saying,
if
I had, I’d have to suppose those women got something they wanted from the experience.”

“Uh-huh. Like what?”

“Why are you so curious, Mary?” He smiles unpleasantly. “Hmm? What is it about this particular subject?”

“You going to answer my question?”

“Which question is that?”

“What did they get, the women?”

“Well, they would’ve gotten a little excitement in their lives. A little release.”

“Love?”

“I beg your pardon?”

“Love. Did any of them get a little of that?”

“I don’t—” He feels a wave of true nausea. “This is all hypothetical anyway.”

“Bullshit. You’ve got to change the way you think about women, you know that? Your daughter’ll be one someday.”

“Leave her out of this.” He pushes himself up into a sitting position, the movement making his stomach churn.

“Why? That’s what little girls grow up to be, you know.”

One hand on his belly, he shifts to the edge of the bed.

“You want somebody like you to bed her?”

“Shut up.” His voice cracks. “I told you to leave her out of this—”

“It hurts, huh, Reverend, to think about her that way?”

He shakes his head violently. “You don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“If I don’t know, tell me. Why shouldn’t your daughter grow up to be a notch on some hypocrite’s Cross?”

“Shut up!” he cries, heaving to his feet. “Goddamnit, woman, shut your filthy mouth!” He lists dangerously.
“She’s not growing up to be anything, okay?! I don’t even know if she’s growing up!”

“What do you mean? Hey—” Mary’s powerful hands catch hold of him by the shoulders, and he strikes out with a balled-up fist, feeling it glance sharply off skin and bone. She staggers back a step, keeping her grip, not letting out a sound.

He begins to shake, his arms like rags now, pinned to his sides. “Let me go,” he says brokenly, but she won’t.

“What’s wrong with her?”

He stands speechless, gulping the air.

“Is she sick?”

“She’s—yes,” he blurts, “she’s sick.”

Her grip softens. “I’m sorry.”

“I’m sure.” His mouth twists bitterly. “You probably think I deserve it. Reap what ye sow, an eye for an eye.” His voice rises to a hysterical pitch. “Divine retribution, that’s what you think!”

“No,” she says quietly. “That’s your God, Reverend, not mine.”

He pulls away from her. “Jesus, I hit you. I’ve never hit a woman.”

“It’s okay.”

“I’m so sorry
—nnnngh.”
He doubles over.

“What is it?”

He grits his teeth. “Nothing.”

“Is it your gut?”

“Ulcer,” he says tightly. “It’s nothing. I just don’t have my medication with me.”

She moves swiftly to her shelves and back. “Open your mouth.”

“It’s okay now
—nnngaaaah
—it’s passing.” He straightens a little.

“Jesus, Reverend, trust me.”

“It’s not that I don’t—”

She sprinkles something in his open mouth. Powdery, earthy, it coats the length of his tongue. “Swallow,” she says firmly.

“Ggg—kkk—kk—”

“Swallow, Reverend. Have a little faith.”

He salivates and, as if by reflex, swallows the mouthful of mud. Almost immediately the attack begins to ebb.

“Good stuff, eh?”

He uncurls himself. “What—?” he asks in wonder.

“Peat. You know,
horticultural grade.”
Her jar lid tightens down. “Come on, now, back in bed.”

The teacher had hung a swing. Her palms singed the small of my back, such pendulum joy to leave her and risk a return. She pushed higher, higher, spurred on by the squeals I couldn’t help but let out.

The world blurred. Letting go the ropes, I leapt into it, open-mouthed. I gave no thought to landing, hit gracelessly, like a sack of grain. The teacher cried out for me. She was at my side in an instant, breathing hard.

Later she made a wheel of her body, long, spoked limbs turning circles on the glimmering green. “Cartwheels, Clare.” She smoothed her blouse. “Catherine wheels,
actually. Maybe that’s why I’m so good at them, hmm?” She turned two more.

I surprised her. Stuck my hands up and tipped sideways, felt their heels sink into the grass, felt a split-second thrill of inversion before I collapsed.

“Clare!” The teacher gaped. “Good try, Clare! What a clever, clever—” She halted mid-breath. I was dead to her approval, a spiritless heap. Her face was my full-length mirror. I stole a look, just long enough to watch it crack.

The duvet drawn up tight around her neck, Lavinia concentrates on keeping her stomach perfectly still.

It all happened so fast. Passing through the kitchen on her way back from the carport, she caught sight of the second batch. She only meant to put them away. She even brought down the Tupperware, even peeled back its cloudy lid, but by then the first cookie had found its way past her teeth. After that it was a single frantic act, never about the one in her mouth—never tasting, not even feeling it there—always the next one, the next one, the next.

There was no such thing when Mama made them. The cookies were Daddy’s special favourite, and Lavinia was never allowed more than one. Well, not
never
. The trick was to stick close while Daddy stood at the counter with the lid off the jar, wolfing seven or eight in a row. Then if she was lucky and Mama happened to turn her back, he’d slip her the crumby seconds she craved.

There’s no way she’ll sleep now, sick to her stomach,
jumpy with sugar and caffeine. She blinks rapidly in an effort to wear out her eyes.

He’s fucked her
.

The thought flashes like a cheap sign. It’s simple. That’s why Carl hasn’t come back, why he hasn’t even bothered to phone. He’s fucked the crazy hag. Hell, he’s probably fucking her right now. Isn’t that what they’re all after in the end—a roll in the hay with some dirty, uninhibited bitch?

Lavinia yanks the duvet up over her head, trapping herself in a cloud of his cologne.

“Fuck!” She flings back the covers, yelping aloud when her heel hits the floor. “Fucking, fucking, FUCK!” Hopping on one foot, she wrestles the duvet out of its flowery bag.

“Bastard,” she mutters, digging for the undersheet’s elastic edge. “Bible-thumping
prick.”
She’s not buying it any more, not a word. What kind of God would dangle a man in front of her like that, then go and drop him in that bog?

Dumping her pillow from its case, she knocks a small orange bottle off the bedside table. It bounces on the broadloom, rolls up and rests against her toes. She stoops for it.
Zantac, 300 mg
. So he’s out there without it. Good. Maybe his gut feels even sicker and sorrier than her own. She rattles his prescription, watching the tablets jump and collide.

Two to help her sleep, and one whenever she gets upset
.

Doctor Albright was close to retirement when Daddy died. His hands were ice-cold when they folded the little bottle up in hers. “No more than eight a day.” He drew his white eyebrows into one. “You’ve got to be strong now, Lavinia. Your mother’s taking it bad.”

“Yes, sir.”

He lowered his voice, as though he were letting her in on something good. “Sometimes the hard ones are the easiest to fold.”

She squared her thin shoulders. “Yes, sir.”

As soon as he was gone, she set to work scouring the house. By the time the neighbours came calling with their casseroles and advice, she had everything under control.

The charge had built to where it was splitting the sky. I was balled up at the head of the bed, certain it would find me, fork back into the ground where it had grown.