Once We Had a Country (19 page)

As she carries the grocery bags past a group drinking beer on the front lawn, she sees Fletcher talking to a pair of men who sport aviator sunglasses and Robert Redford haircuts. She has met them before: Karl and Lambchop, friends from Fletcher’s boarding school days. Changing course to meet them, she realizes they’re in the middle of an argument. When Karl spots her, though, he breaks off to greet her as if she’s the surprise visitor and he’s the one long settled on the farm. It turns out he and Lambchop are only up for the weekend.

“Did you get the burgers?” Fletcher asks her. “Rhea’s waiting—”

“Here,” she says, handing him all the grocery bags except the one with the film spools. “Tell her I’ll be there soon. I have to start up the projector.”

Approaching the porch door, she spies a piece of paper on it that at first she takes to be a new version of Fletcher’s principles for the pursuit of happiness. Steeling herself to be embarrassed, she draws closer and sees the words are different.

It could be worse. Looking back, she finds Fletcher still on the lawn, waiting for her reaction, so she gives him a thumbs-up and he smiles with a relief that makes her ashamed of herself. Behind him, the sun has been swallowed by a cloud, the pink edges damming a great reservoir of light that looks on the edge of bursting. It would make a good shot, but for tonight she’s decided to leave the camera in its bag.

Upstairs, the playroom is empty of people though crammed with chairs, the rest of the house denuded of them earlier in the day by Fletcher, who said he wants her to have the biggest audience possible. Moving down the crooked space between the rows, she reaches the corner where the editing machine has been tucked away on its table. With a sloppy taping job she appends the new footage to the end of the final reel, doing it quickly because she’d rather not think about how inferior the unedited footage will seem after the rest. Then she winds it by hand from its old spool onto the new one. As she does, she remembers her interview with Wale. At first she thought she’d include it. She hasn’t finished synchronizing the sound, so tonight the film will run silently, and it struck her as innocuous enough to show a few minutes of Wale’s face at least. When she watched the interview with the volume down, though, it seemed even more exposing: the
way he doesn’t look at the camera, the way his expression grows rigid like it’s all he can do to keep himself in check. No one who sees him in that footage could ever look at him again in quite the same way.

Then there’s the other clip, the one that has been bothering her awhile.

On an impulse, she goes to the closet in her and Fletcher’s bedroom, where she retrieves the curl of film with Pauline and the dead sparrows. Probably Fletcher’s right and Brid won’t find anything wrong with it. Maybe she won’t even see it. Hurriedly, Maggie adds the clip to the reel as well. It’s out of sequence, but as finales go, it should do fine.

Loading the first reel onto the projector, she starts up the machine, watches the camper van travelling along the road, and is tempted to linger. She remembers the day at the start of June when she filmed the shot, standing on the shoulder while Fletcher, indulging her, drove back a quarter mile to be recorded going by. There’s a comfort in viewing a scene watched many times before, one thing following another in an expected way. Next come the shots of the bedroom with its trash-filled drawers and the crack in the ceiling that still hasn’t been fixed. There are so many things to do before the cold weather sets in: insulation for the attic, new mats and coat hooks for the mud room. She ticks through the list in her head before assuring herself that every item is already on paper. Then she forces herself out of the room and downstairs.

In the kitchen, Rhea greets her without disguising her annoyance at Maggie’s lateness. There’s a handful of people
drinking and chatting around the table, but apparently as far as Rhea is concerned their idleness is sacrosanct and only Maggie’s work is necessary. All week Maggie hasn’t spoken with the Centaurs. Dimitri has stopped making an issue of George Ray, so she has decided to leave things be, not wanting to play Dimitri’s chaperone. Lately he and Rhea always seem to be ill-tempered, though, and yesterday at dinner they just smiled coldly when Fletcher called tonight’s party a farewell bash for them. Now, as Maggie works alongside her, Rhea stays silent except to order her around. After fifteen minutes of it Maggie excuses herself to change the reels.

During her absence from the playroom, a number of people have discovered the film, some sitting on chairs, some leaning against the wall. Onscreen, there’s a row of neon signs she shot in Niagara Falls, which means only a few more seconds remain before the reel ends. When it does, she replaces it quickly to keep the audience from losing interest. Nobody speaks or moves, as if they’ve gone blank with the screen and will be reanimated when the projector starts again.

By the time she arrives downstairs, people are lining the hall, smoking and talking with one another. Usually by this time in the day the place smells of sweat and dirt, but tonight the air’s scented with perfume, beards have been trimmed and faces scrubbed. The living room shades are drawn, leaving the space patched with a darkness that would be hell to film. In the corner, the television sits unplugged, looking sad that no one’s watching it. Somebody has turned on the record player, and she can
hear Joni Mitchell above the layers of conversation, singing about pieces of paper from the city hall. It seems just what Fletcher has envisioned, yet as Maggie pours herself a glass of lemonade from a pitcher on the coffee table, the fragments of speech she overhears make it doubtful the night will produce new residents as he hopes. They all seem to be talking about the election, going over the day’s Olympics results, or speculating about an amnesty for draft dodgers. From the dining room comes a high-pitched voice appealing for a ride across the border.

Passing through the kitchen to the mud room and onto the lawn, she finds the sun vanished. September has brought cooler weather, and most of the people outside are dressed in sweaters or jackets, seeming more adult, less profligate than before. Fletcher, overseeing the barbecue pit with Karl and Lambchop next to him, is the only one with bare arms. He grimaces in response to something Lambchop says, and when serving a hot dog to a little boy, he doesn’t even smile. It’s a shame for him to be unhappy, especially when the party was his idea. It must be Karl and Lambchop’s fault, whatever they’re laying on him. When Karl sees her heading their way, she could swear he elbows Lambchop and whispers something. Promptly the two of them sidle into darkness.

“Shouldn’t you be filming?” Fletcher asks as she draws near. The question grates on her. Why should he assume shooting movies is always what she wants to do? She doesn’t like his wilful innocence either, as if there isn’t a history between them with the camera now.

“What were you talking about with those two?” she asks.

“Nothing much.” The way he says it makes her worry, and she waits for more. “They just wanted to know how long we’re staying here.” He seems embarrassed by her puzzlement. “They’ve been talking to my father,” he adds with some reluctance. It takes a moment before it clicks.

“He sent them to talk you into coming home, didn’t he?”

Fletcher says of course not, but she’s having none of it. Then she remembers the film and checks her watch. Already another twenty minutes have elapsed. Telling Fletcher they’ll talk more about it, she hurries back inside. Upstairs, people are filing from the playroom.

“Wait, there’s more!” she exclaims, rushing to the projector and fumbling with the reels. Most of the chairs are still occupied, the audience content to chat during the intermission. A few more people whom she caught at the door return to positions along the wall.

The next reel begins with footage from her time-lapse experiments. The audience seems enthralled, and Maggie can’t help but be glad. She’d love to film their faces now, their preoccupation with the screen. She should go back to Fletcher, but she stays to watch a little longer, worried he’ll only impart bad news: that they’ve run out of money for good, or that his father has made a final decision to sell the farm. If he told her that, she’s not sure what she’d do. All she knows is she couldn’t leave now. It isn’t because of the people or the work they’ve done on the house. It isn’t because of some political principle. Foolishly and simply, she realizes, it’s because of the film. After all the energy and time she’s put into capturing the place, framing and editing it into shape, she can’t imagine bidding it farewell.

The room continues to fill, people entering loudly but growing quiet as they’re arrested by the images on the wall. They doff hats, stifle coughs, settle into seats. Rhea’s there in the front row with her boys, waiting for the ritual glimpse of their lost cat. George Ray is there too, his orange toque for once left behind, and she’s pleased that finally he’s watching something she has filmed.

Then Maggie sees the girl from next door, Lydia, standing by herself at the back. She seems bony and prepubescent in her slip of a dress. Dimitri can’t have invited her; he wouldn’t be so stupid. Is she here to cause trouble? Their eyes lock briefly, and Lydia’s expression reveals nothing. Maggie wonders if the girl knows that Dimitri’s wife and children are sitting a few feet from her. She seems less sure of herself than the other times Maggie has encountered her, slouching and straightening against the wall by turns, tugging her dress down over her knees.

Maggie considers confronting her, but then she notices the woman near the projector. Her features are so pale as to be ghostly; only a dark mole on her chin anchors her to the world. Something about her is familiar, and Maggie stares at her until she realizes who it is: the woman from the church. The priest’s sister, Lenka. Her beehive has been let down so that her hair flows over her shoulders, but it’s her.

The priest could be here too, then, maybe in this room. Wale must have invited him at the grocery store. When the reel comes to an end, Maggie sets to work changing it, conscious of her proximity to the woman. The beam from the projector cuts through the smoky air like a solid thing Maggie could reach out and touch.

“Margaret Dunne,” says a voice, the accent unmistakable. A jolt goes through her. How does Lenka know her name?

“Actually, it’s Maggie,” she replies without looking up.

“Maggie.” Lenka pronounces the name awkwardly but with a hint of enjoyment at its intimacy.

“Did your brother come too?” Maggie asks, and Lenka nods. “I didn’t think this would be his kind of scene.”

“Josef is here because he wants me to come,” says Lenka. “We are still new to country, and is quiet in rectory all day. Priest’s sister, she meet people easy, but is hard to make friends. You go to house for dinner and people are—what is expression?” Maggie shrugs, but Lenka finds it. “On best behaviour!” She lifts the wineglass in her hand, whether to toast her own vocabulary or the hospitality of local parishioners, it isn’t clear. With stern, drunken eyes she looks at Maggie. “Josef says you do not like talking of father. Fine, relax, I do not talk of him.” Maggie flicks the switch on the projector while Lenka takes a mouthful from her glass, then tips down the dregs. “Come to Mass, do not come. It doesn’t matter to me. But church is trustworthy, Maggie, in way you cannot trust people.” She pauses, frowning. “I do not speak properly for making friends. Pardon me, please. I drink too much tonight.”

Maggie says it’s all right and excuses herself, not knowing where she’s headed. The house has grown hot with bodies and makes her dizzy; for a moment, going down the stairs, she worries she’ll be sick. On the ground floor a current of cool air steals along the hall, carrying Fletcher’s voice from the porch as he holds forth about Sargent Shriver. Tonight she has no stomach for Sargent Shriver.

In the kitchen, she glimpses Wale just about to slip through the back door. When she calls out to him, people at the table look up, hearing the edge in her voice. He turns and she sees his beard is gone. She has always thought that men who shave their beards regain a measure of their youth, but Wale seems older than before.

“You invited the priest, didn’t you?” she says as she crosses the room, speaking loudly enough that conversation around the table halts. Wale doesn’t become defensive, though. Instead, he gazes at her with something like fondness.

“Maggie, where’s your camera?” He’s wild-eyed, but she doesn’t think he’s drunk; maybe some other drug. “My kingdom for a camera! United States of a Camera. Ha!” He begins to sing out of tune. “
O Camera, we stand on guard for thee …”
Abruptly he breaks off and speaks in a stage whisper. “You should see the way you look now. The light on your face. Really lovely.” Without warning, he leans in as if to kiss her, and she ducks away. There’s a titter from someone at the table. “You know, I didn’t come up here for Brid,” he tells her.

“Don’t say that.”

“I wanted to spend time with you. You must have figured out that much.”

“You’re stoned.”

“You don’t even realize, you make me—” He hesitates, and she scrambles to say something so he’ll stop, but he gets there first. “You make me want to be better.”

“I don’t believe you.” She’s sure that all the eyes in the room are on them now.

“I swear, whatever kind of guy I am, I never meant for anything to happen, okay?”

The words create a feeling of vertigo in her. “What are you talking about? Have you heard something about my dad?”

“Just remember what I’m telling you. I promise you, I’m going to look after things.” Before she can respond, he steps out the door to the mud room, and she sees there’s a rucksack in his hand.

A few seconds later, a shriek comes from upstairs, followed by peals of laughter. Her first thought is that word is already spreading about his attempted kiss. Then someone calls down, “You’ve got to see this.” The people at the table start out of the room and Maggie finds herself abandoned, her mind still on Wale’s rucksack.