Once We Had a Country (32 page)

She brings Brid breakfast in bed, watches it go uneaten. She doesn’t know what else to do except stay close by. They play blackjack. They play Scrabble. In desperation, Maggie suggests that Brid call Pauline. It’s a mistake. Brid rends her nightgown and howls, runs to the bathroom and locks herself inside. Maggie pleads for an hour before Brid comes out. Then Brid apologizes and says they should have her committed. Maggie says they’ll do nothing of the sort, but later she asks George Ray to remove the lock.

They spend two more days in the same fashion. On the second, George Ray comes in for lunch with trouble on his face. More graffiti, he announces, but he won’t tell them what it says, and Maggie feels a deepening dread. As she and Brid cross the property to see it, Brid seems strangely energized, almost cheerful. She asks when they had problems with graffiti before. Maggie says it was a while ago and claims not to remember what was written.

When they draw close to the wrecking yard wall, through the trees she makes out the presence of two newly written words. The trees reveal the second word before the first.

LOVER
.

Maggie can guess the first word without seeing it, but still it’s a shock when it comes into view.

“Christ,” breathes Brid. “You think they have the Klan up here?”

“It’s not the Klan,” says Maggie. Her thoughts of the girl are nearly homicidal.

In the kitchen, with Brid and George Ray looking on from the table, Maggie pulls out the phone book and calls Frank Dodd’s house. Even before the man picks up, she’s shaking with anger.

“It’s Maggie Dunne from next door,” she tells him. “Someone’s been writing graffiti on our side of the wall we share with you. We’re pretty sure it’s your daughter.”

There’s a long silence. She starts to think he’s hung up.

“Couldn’t have been Lydia,” he says. “She lives in Toronto with her mother now.”

“Oh,” says Maggie.

“I sent her there in September. Didn’t want her growing up beside a bunch of porno makers.” The spite in his voice tempts her to tell him a few things about his daughter, but already her thoughts are racing back to the graffiti. If it wasn’t Lydia, then who? Nobody she wishes to imagine.

“I’m sorry,” she mumbles. “I didn’t realize.” She says goodbye and puts down the phone, turns to George Ray and Brid. “I was wrong. The girl moved away.”

“So what now?” says Brid.

Maggie reopens the phone book, looks up the police, and dials the number.

T
he officer who turns up is skinny and freckled, with a dopey, self-satisfied expression. Maggie explains to him about the graffiti but finds herself unwilling to repeat the words, fearing he’ll ask her to speculate about what motivated them. When finally she speaks them aloud, the man seems unsurprised. Maybe everyone in Virgil has been talking about Maggie and George Ray and where they get the money for the farm.

The policeman’s interest in the case doesn’t pick up until Brid comes down in her nightie. Upon seeing him, she promptly heads back upstairs. Then, in the kitchen, as Maggie introduces him to George Ray, a crinkle of suspicion splits the man’s forehead. He asks if George Ray has a visa.

“George Ray has worked in this area for seven years,” Maggie protests.

“Never seen him, is all,” replies the officer. He has a nasally, hollow voice. Looking George Ray up and down, he says, “Kind of late in the fall still to be here.” George Ray stares back wearily and makes no comment.

By the wrecking yard wall, the policeman spends a long time frowning at his notepad.

“You could put in floodlights if you wanted,” he says, tugging at the skin on his neck. “That might scare them off.” After jotting a few words, he flips the notepad shut and starts back toward the house.

“That’s it?” she says. “Shouldn’t you dust for prints or something?”

He makes a face to show how naive she’s being.

“It could be the Klan,” she exclaims.

The policeman shakes his head. “This isn’t the States. Probably it’s just teenagers being stupid. In town we get this sort of thing all the time. But if it happens again, let us know.”

Over lunch, when she recounts this story, George Ray stays silent. Brid is livid. She wants the cop reported. She wants the story in the papers and on TV. She says they should blanket Virgil with pamphlets. All the anger that until now she’s inflicted on herself has a new target, and there’s a glimpse of the agitator she used to be.

“The cop’s probably right, it’s just some kids,” says Maggie. She doesn’t like the idea of publicity while the money remains hidden in the attic. But George Ray sighs, and she worries she’s letting him down. “What do you think we should do?” she asks him. “Stay in a motel for a while?” He looks affronted by the idea. “I want you to feel safe.”

“They’re just words,” he says gruffly. “People up here have said worse things to my face.” In horror, she imagines what those things could have been.

Then Brid announces she has a plan. Since the pigs won’t do their job, she’ll do it for them. Tonight she’ll stay up and patrol the orchard.

Maggie suggests it might not be the best idea. What would Brid do if the culprits showed up? There could be a whole gang. What Maggie doesn’t say is that she’ll have to join her out there, and that means there’ll be even less time with George Ray.

In the moment she has this thought, George Ray tells Brid he’ll patrol with her. Maggie emits a noise of protest before lapsing into silence.

The rest of the day, Brid spends no time in bed. Instead, she stalks the orchard. Near midnight, alone at the bedroom window, Maggie watches the beams from two flashlights bounce and sway down the lanes, sometimes in tandem, sometimes apart, dancing their pas de deux in the darkness. It’s one-thirty before George Ray comes to bed, his fingers and toes like ice.

“I do not approve of this climate,” he says. She makes a long game of warming him up. Then, as she’s drifting off, he remarks, “You know, she thinks it’s Wale hiding out there and writing those things.”

“She said that?”

Surely Brid can’t be so deluded as to believe such a thing. But before Maggie falls asleep, she entertains her own fantasy that it’s Fletcher, driving here in the night from Boston to harass her. She knows it couldn’t really be
him. There’s only a small, persistent part of her looking for evidence that he still has feelings for her: if not ordinary love, then at least something wounded and a bit insane.

The diner in Virgil is sandwiched between the post office and a jewellery store, with a neon sign that’s never lit and a plate glass window looking in on a deep, narrow space. There are half a dozen stools at the lunch counter, seemingly always occupied by the same handful of men, and a few booths that have sat empty during each of Maggie’s meetings with Lenka over the course of the fall. This time Lenka is already ensconced in the one nearest the back when Maggie arrives.

“How was the time with grandmother?” Lenka asks as Maggie settles across from her. “She was horrible to you?” Before Maggie left for Syracuse, she told Lenka a lot about Gran.

“It could have been worse,” Maggie replies. “She was too distracted by the funeral to bother much with me.”

“You tell her of buying farm?” At their last meeting Lenka decided this was something Maggie needed to communicate.

Maggie confirms that she did, but her mind is elsewhere. She wants to tell Lenka about the money. On the drive over, her thoughts kept flitting between it and the graffiti until her head ached. She’s tired of keeping the secret. If she told George Ray, he’d wonder why she didn’t share the news with him sooner, and obviously she can’t tell Brid. But the last six weeks Lenka has been kind and solicitous, respectful of Maggie’s grief, sensitive enough to avoid
subjects like miracles and faith. Maggie needs someone who’ll tell her the right thing to do.

She glances around the diner. The men perched on their stools present a row of hunched shoulders like vultures on a wire. The waitress approaches to pour their coffee, then retreats. No, it isn’t safe. But Lenka seems to sense Maggie’s thoughts slipping away and pursues them like a terrier down a foxhole.

“What is it? Tell me.”

“I was just thinking,” says Maggie. “About money.”

“Josef and I, we wonder if you have enough.”

Maggie doesn’t like the idea of them discussing her. “You encouraged me to buy the farm,” she reminds her.

“It is just that we worry about you—”

“You don’t need to,” declares Maggie. “I have a lot of money. My father sent it just before he died.” Lenka’s eyes grow wide. “Can you keep a secret? Even from Josef?”

Lenka hesitates, then nods.

Speaking in a low voice, Maggie explains about the clay saint and her father’s hinting letter. She tells of Wale’s return to Laos and her bewilderment regarding what to do. When she has finished, Lenka asks how much money there is. Reluctantly, as if this is the most private detail of all, Maggie divulges the number.

Lenka gives a low whistle. “What will you do with this sum?” she asks.

Maggie admits it’s still sitting where she found it, waiting for her to decide. An expression of understanding crosses Lenka’s face. “Ah, I see problem. You think it looks bad for father.”

Maggie feels herself bristle. “I don’t care about how the Church sees him, if that’s what you mean.”

“Still, until now you do not go to police.” Before Maggie can explain, Lenka says, “Of course, you do not hand it away. It is last thing father sends you. He wants you to have it.”

“Maybe he’d rather I donated it to the mission. I did write people in Laos. I tried to find out what happened.” More than she’d like, she feels a need for Lenka to absolve her.

Lenka sits there looking ruminative. Finally she says, “I wonder, why you tell this thing to me?” Without waiting for Maggie’s reply, she says, “I think if I ask psychologist, he tell me you really want Josef to know. However, you wish not to ruin father’s reputation before man of God, so you confess to sister instead. This is right?”

“No, it’s not,” says Maggie indignantly.

“Maggie, in spiritual matters I must not serve as substitute.”

“For God’s sake,” she mutters. “I just wanted to hear what you thought.”

To change the subject, she asks what’s new for Josef in the parish. Lenka knows very well that Maggie has little interest in the matter, but obligingly she starts into a story about the church’s leaky roof. As she does, the fact of Maggie’s sitting there seems ever more preposterous. She doesn’t care about the church roof; she doesn’t care about anything in this place. It has been foolish of her to imagine taking over the farm for good. Was it only so she could plan George Ray’s return in the spring? If his presence is so necessary, she shouldn’t be here wasting time with Lenka.

Maggie glances at her watch, and Lenka asks if she’s keeping her from something.

“I need to get home,” she replies, reaching for her purse. Without much enthusiasm on either side, they exchange a promise to see each other soon.

As she drives back to the farm, it strikes her that there is less consolation to be found in other people than she keeps hoping there will be. Perhaps once George Ray’s gone and Brid has returned to Boston, solitude won’t be as terrible as Maggie has feared. It could be the making of her. She turns onto the gravel road almost wanting it already.

Upstairs, the door to Brid’s room is closed and the silence is unnerving. Steeling herself, Maggie knocks. When there’s no reply, she pushes open the door. The air inside is sour with bed smells and burnt toast. A pair of slippers lies askew on the floor, and there’s an arm sticking out from behind the bed. No, it’s a towel, twisted and flesh toned. Brid sits near the window looking at the orchard, still in her nightie though it’s after three, her legs hidden in a plaid sleeping bag she has taken to dragging around the house with her like some larval creature not yet fully free of its cocoon.

“If we cut down some trees, I could see right to the wrecker’s wall,” Brid says. “Then I could keep a lookout from here.”

“Don’t you want to come downstairs?” Maggie asks. “Have you had lunch?” Brid gestures to a plate on the windowsill littered with bread crumbs, but Maggie knows it’s been there since last night.

“I like it better up here,” says Brid. “It’s safer.”

Ten days ago Maggie would have asked what was so unsafe about downstairs. Since Brid’s arrival she sees things like the gas oven and bottles of bleach in a different light.

“You wouldn’t have to worry,” she says. “I’d stay with you.”

“Babysitting, huh?”

“Don’t be silly.” The truth is she’ll end up watching over Brid wherever she is, and there’s no pleasure in the idea of lurking by the bedroom door. “Hey, why don’t we watch the Super 8 film? I haven’t seen it since—well, since the party.”

Brid gives her a disdainful look. She’s right, it’s idiotic to suggest such a thing. Why would Brid want to revisit that time, with all those shots of Wale and Pauline? But then Brid changes her mind and says a screening would be a good idea. She starts out of the room trailing her sleeping bag while Maggie tries to guess what has fired her enthusiasm. Some spurt of masochism, perhaps. Following her into the playroom, Maggie finds her already sprawled across the floor and staring at the wall. Maggie sets up the projector, settles on a chair beside it, and starts it running.

The first image to greet them is one imprinted on her mind from dozens of viewings: the camper van passing down the highway. Then there’s a shot of Fletcher talking behind the wheel with the sunlight flashing in his glasses. After the encounter at the funeral, it’s a surprise to see him with his moustache and long hair restored, looking like a dime-store disguise. Maybe the clean-shaven version of him at the funeral was the real one all along. She imagines
him flirting with a secretary in his office at Morgan Sugar, offering to take her for a spin in his Bentley. He always claimed to love the camper van, yet when he finally admitted he wasn’t coming back, he relinquished it to Maggie with a surprising indifference, as if she and the vehicle were to be discarded together.