Real Life (22 page)

At dinner, feigning interest, she asked Audrey, “How are Jade and Ellen doing?” Jade was at university in Regina and Ellen in nursing in Calgary.

“Oh, good, really good,” Audrey replied. “Ellen’s in pediatrics right now and she really likes it. She always was good with kids.” Ellen, picking up on her mother’s disapproval of Bonny, used to tease Pam and Jason until they cried and one of the adults had to intervene.

“Nursing is a good profession,” Bonny murmured noncommittally, accepting the bowl of steaming carrots.

“There’s such a shortage,” Audrey said. “They have to work such long hours and they get treated so badly, on their feet all the time …”

For the first few years of her marriage Bonny had smiled all the time when she was with Ross’s family, and had agreed with everything either her mother-in-law or sister-in-law said, until she saw that whenever she agreed with them, they would promptly switch sides as Audrey had just done. While she poured gravy over his potatoes, making sure Jason didn’t spill anything on Ruth’s tablecloth or she’d never hear the end of it, she was thinking, Why did you tell her to go into nursing then? Why are you so proud that she’s going to be a nurse? There would soon be a dig at her, who could only work as a housekeeper at the nursing home, not having gone to nursing school.

“Yes,” Audrey finished. “If she’s going to work in a hospital, at least she’s a nurse and not down on her hands and knees scrub
bing the hospital floors.” She dug vigorously into her slice of roast beef, sawing away, as if she didn’t hear the sudden silence that had fallen over the table. Bonny wanted to say, It was your brother got me pregnant when I was only eighteen so I couldn’t go to nursing school. But they all believed she’d trapped Ross, instead of the other way around, Ross pursuing her until she’d begun to fall for him. Not that she had a second’s regret about marrying him—except for his family, that is.

The worst of it was that Ross seemed oblivious. When she complained he would say, “Aw, Bonny, she didn’t mean anything,” implying that this was only the silly squabbling of women that men could safely ignore. It was the one incurable in their marriage, which after years of quarrels that had grown steadily worse, by mutual agreement, they now avoided ever mentioning.

But riding home in the freezing darkness, Jason asleep on her lap and Pammy against Ross’s shoulder, she said, “I can’t understand why they’re so mean to me.” Ross let air out through his lips noisily, turned his head away from her and then back again, but didn’t speak. “I mean, you’d think they’d be happy that you found a wife who takes good care of the kids and looks after you and …” Her voice trailed away. “They just don’t seem to know how to stop,” she said, puzzled. “Like their meanness just got away on them.”

Ross still didn’t say anything, and she forced herself not to go on. Instead of speaking, she lifted her hand to scrape away a patch of frost from her window so that she could peer out. It was forty below now, even the newer truck they were riding in creaked and groaned against the cold, the tires squeaking on the road so cold that it wasn’t even slippery any more. There was no moon, the sky was dark as ink and full of stars, even the most distant ones that you never saw otherwise showing up with a faint silver light.

“Did you hear about the Native men they found frozen to death in Saskatoon?” she asked.

“Yeah,” he said. “Drunk, I guess. Or doped up on drugs.”

“Didn’t you hear?” she asked, surprised. “The radio said that two policemen had taken them out to the country and left them to freeze to death—they even took their jackets. At least, that’s what they’re accused of doing.”

“Do you believe that?” he asked, as if he found her naivete amusing.

“Don’t you?” She could feel him shrug. “Jason keeps asking me about it,” she told him. “Tonight when I went to the bathroom he caught up to me in the hall and asked me why the policemen did it. His eyes—” She stopped. “I told him it’s probably not even true.” She’d bent and held Jason tight against her chest.

“I’ll sure be glad when this cold spell ends,” Ross said. “I should have a talk with Art about playing Jason more.” Now it was her turn to turn her head away from him in exasperation. Poor Jason, she thought, and would have tried one more time to persuade Ross that Jason wasn’t very good as a hockey player, but gave it up before she began—it never did the slightest good. Casting about for something to say that would be on neutral ground, she told him about the women and Denise McKenzie at the rink on Friday night.

“I can’t figure out why they pick on her,” she said. “She seems nice to me—at least as nice as they are—and she keeps the kids clean and nobody ever said she’s a bad housekeeper—”

“Women gossip,” he said, as if this was something she ought to know without him having to tell her. She wanted to protest that the men were just as bad—what about coffee row—but once more held her tongue. They rode the next couple of miles before Ross broke the silence. “We’ve got this guy at work, Winston. Not too smart. The boss gets half his wages
paid by the government. He sweeps the shop floor, takes out the garbage, washes parts—that kind of thing.”

“Oh? Can he do the work?”

“Sure,” Ross said. “It’s all stuff you don’t have to be smart to do. Hell, he’s so eager it’s pathetic.” A kind of growl had entered his tone.

“Oh,” she said, understanding, “and the men tease him.”

“One especially,” Ross said. “Won’t leave him alone. Made him cry yesterday.” She waited, knowing he was holding something back. “That’s the real reason I came home last night. I told the boss if he didn’t do something about the way Chuck is always after Winston, I’d do something myself. Then I walked out, came home. I’ll be lucky if I’m not fired.”

“You did the right thing,” she assured him.

“It won’t be so right if I don’t have a job.”

For a second a chill of sheer terror entered Bonny’s heart: they’d lose the farm, they’d have nothing to eat; there was still the envelope from the bank to be opened.

“I don’t care,” she said, through clenched teeth. “It was still right.” Jason stirred and she cupped her hand over his cold cheek. She wondered suddenly if Pammy were really asleep or just pretending.

Bonny woke, thinking, Sunday morning, too cold to go to church, and was glad that today they’d all be together at home. Tomorrow morning Ross would be gone by six in order to be at work by eight. She put her hand out to touch him and encountered only a wrinkled sheet, then remembered that Sunday morning was when he looked at the week’s mail, and she threw back the covers, got up quickly, sliding her feet into her slippers and pulling on her robe.

In the kitchen, Ross had started the coffee and the radio on the counter was playing softly. He was seated in his usual place
at the end of the table, his back slumped, his elbows resting on the table, his head in his hands. The opened mail sat in a pile in front of him. She went straight to him, put her hands gently on his shoulders, and bent to rest her cheek for a moment on the top of his head. He didn’t respond, she could feel an odd current running through him as if all his muscles were tightened, ready to spring, and straightening, she saw that he was staring down at the letter from the bank. He moved his hand as if to tell her to read it.

“What does it say?”

“They’re taking another quarter.” Bonny gasped. “I was going to plant chickpeas on that quarter,” he said, turning to look up at her, his voice plaintive as a child’s.

She pulled out a chair to sit beside him as, at the same moment, he rose abruptly, his chair scraping backward with a harsh squeal.

“Jesus Christ!” He picked the chair up by its back and threw it across the kitchen where it came to rest, upright, against the far wall. “Goddamn—” He grabbed the chair that sat by the door leading into the hall and threw it, too. It struck the wall by the back door, bounced off, and skittered on its side across the well-polished vinyl floor back toward his feet. Bonny jumped up.

“Ross! The kids!” She hurried to the door into the hall and closed it quietly. Ross gripped the waist-high counter with both hands, facing the cupboards, his shoulders raised awkwardly. She reached out to touch his rigid back, but he released his hold on the counter and pushed her hand away roughly. She stood quietly for a moment, waiting for him to break down, to begin to cry, but instead he spun away from her and kicked the chair that lay on its side on the floor. Bonny backed away, went back to the table, and sat down where she’d been before, her back to him. She could hear him beginning to pace, taking long
strides, kicking the chair away again and again, cursing under his breath.

She would wait until he’d calmed down and then she’d start making suggestions: Talk to the banker; tell him we’ll plant chickpeas so we can pay some of our debt. See if the Pool will give us more credit. She tried frantically to think of other possibilities. Behind her, Ross was still pacing, although he’d stopped kicking the chair every time he passed it.

“Can’t they
see
how much they need us?” he asked. His voice had gone high; it vibrated with tension. “Why are they
doing
this to us? Why doesn’t the government
do
something?” She didn’t try to answer him—nobody knew the answer to those questions, except that it seemed that the wealthy and powerful, whoever they were, wherever they were, cared only for their own wealth and power, and spared no thought for the people whose lives they destroyed.

Now Ross began telling her his plans—already he’d begun to make the plans that would surely save them—but she knew what he would say before he said it, having thought of all these things herself.

“Listen, Ross,” she said. Her voice reminded her of the school principal both she and Ross had once had, and hated, but she didn’t try to modulate it.
“Listen to me!”
He stopped pacing and she turned to face him. He was gazing at her out of eyes that, dark as they were, blazed, but in a way that struck her with fear, although not for herself. She almost faltered, but caught herself in time and went ahead anyway, even as she knew what she had to say would be futile, that in his outrage and his refusal to face that they were done, finished, he might even strike her.

“We should put the farm up for sale right now,” she told him. “Just keep the home quarter while we make our plans to leave.
We’ll go to the city—you’re a good mechanic, you can get a good job.” Ross took a step backward, not taking his eyes off her face, but she could see the colour leaching out of his cheeks and forehead. “Listen, Ross,” she said again, urgently. “Listen to me. I’ll go back to school, get a nurse’s aide certificate so I can get a proper job. We can wait till fall to move so the kids can start the year in their new school.” Ross had backed away as she spoke; he was at the back door, pushing his feet into his boots now, reaching for his parka. She raised her voice, calling to him to listen to her, “Summer holidays we can come back here to the house—”

Ross had to shove hard to get the back door opened, ice crackling away from it and falling to shatter on the packed snow on the cement steps. He slammed the door shut, leaving her standing alone in the kitchen. Once again she listened to him scurrying across the yard. She could hear the truck door creak open, then slam shut, in the icy morning silence she could even hear the ignition grinding as he tried to get the truck started. Finally, the motor came to life and he began to back the truck out of the yard, stalling it, he hadn’t let the motor warm up long enough, and starting it again. Then she heard him drive away.

Despite his hard slam, the door hadn’t closed. Feeling the draft of cold air seep in, she tried to shut it properly She bent to shove away the broken stalactites of ice that burned when her fingers touched them, and the rigid ice frame that had been dislodged when he forced the door open now fell partly into the kitchen, preventing the door from closing. The tips of her fingers ached with the cold and began to turn blue. Out of habit she glanced at the outdoor thermometer that was fixed to the wall and saw that during the night it had grown even colder; this morning it was fifty below. At last she was able to shut the door tightly. She backed away from the rush of billowing white condensation that hung around the closed door.

She picked up the chairs that Ross had thrown and set them back in their places at the table. Then she sat down on one of them and stared out the window into the darkness. It wouldn’t be daylight for at least another hour and when the sun rose, gleaming, palely-tinted mirages of fields of snow and distant, ephemeral villages would hover above the horizon all the way into town.

How cold it was, nothing moved out there, even the deer would freeze, and the cruelty of this for a moment made her mind go blank. She thought of the aboriginal men who had frozen to death on that country road in view of the lights of the city. In her mind she saw one of them as he began to walk. He would know he couldn’t make it back to town before the cold killed him, and that on a night like this, no one would be driving down this isolated road and rescue him.

His teeth would begin to chatter, maybe he would run anyway, trying to keep his blood flowing, but then his lungs would burn from the frigid, ice-crystal-laden air and the pain would force him to stop. He would fling his arms around himself, hug himself tightly trying to keep his chest and vital organs warm, maybe jump up and down as his toes began to burn, then to ache, and then grow numb. That he had no coat—did he have a shirt on at least?—she could not quite imagine. All she knew for sure was that at forty below his nose and cheeks and fingers would be frozen in two or three minutes. And his shoulders. His back.

For a while he would cling to the hope that this was just a terrifying practical joke, a stunt designed to frighten him, that those who had abandoned him there would return for him, and he would be saved. But as the moments passed and the pain began to die away as his body slowly froze, he would know he was about to die.

Would he scream then to the animals hibernating in the
ground under the bush along the road? To the stars so cold and far away? To his Creator to help him? Soon, though, his frozen legs would no longer hold him upright and he would fall. Or maybe he would lie down quietly, curl into a ball, and wait for death to come to him.