The Fire-Dwellers (17 page)

Stacey sits sifting her memory. Then it comes back.

  — Well, I’m buggered. Does he just press his navel and the record switches on? No. Worse. It’s the Martians. Must be.

We will begin with one creature, Zuq tells the assembled Council of Spirit Sires. He must of course look as nearly human as possible. He must have a blood-like substance (red, mind, not the proper polka-dotted purple to which we are accustomed), a substance which will flow if he is accidentally cut. The control shaft, in order to escape possible detection in case of severe and unpredictable wounding, must be buried deeply in what would be his left lung if he were an earthman. The first transmitted messages from his – as it were – mouth will be of a simple nature. We will then – I am speaking out of my many years of research and accumulated knowledge – we will then put into effect what I term the lemming syndrome
.

Stacey squirms on her chair. The hall is growing sultry. She discovers to her surprise that Thor has stopped talking and is being loudly applauded. The white velvet curtains are sneaking apart, and the girls, with their arms lightly but not pervertedly around each other’s shoulders, begin a soft humming which grows into a croon.

Beside Stacey, an old man with a red neck like a retired prairie farmer looks hopefully and steadfastly ahead. His expression changes from concealed to open yearning, the yearning for rain in drought. Stacey glances quickly to the stage and sees the reason. The choir has vanished again, and now there is only one girl, a different one, on the stage with Thor. Her white dress is street-length but it bears the same Greek key design along the straight neckline. Her skin is extremely pale, and her features are delicate, severe, withdrawn, a girl from a medieval tomb carving. It is the girl Mac was talking to, or who was talking so earnestly to Mac, the night of the party. Thor takes her by the hand and leads her over to the microphone.

Now, ladies and gentlemen, it gives me real pleasure to introduce this charming young lady to you. Miss Delores Appleton.

He leaves her. The girl stands there, staring out at the upturned faces. Her hand goes up and she touches her visible collarbone. Then quickly she pulls the hand away and it returns limply to her side. A moment of silence. The audience is frightened, frightened for her that she may not be able to speak a word. She looks towards Thor, and he nods. Her face slowly unfreezes. She grasps the mike and begins to talk in a high bell-voice, rapid, tinkling.

Well, really, all I want to tell you is just about my own personal experience. I mean, that’s all we can say for sure, isn’t it, our own personal experience. I grew up in a small town, like, and when I came to the city I was sort of nervous. I mean I had never lived in the city before and I didn’t know what might. I mean you never know who you might and what they might. And then it got so I couldn’t sleep very well nights and at the office they started saying why did I look so tired out but it was only because I wasn’t sleeping that well and so on. Well things sort of went from bad to worse, like, and then I heard about Mr. Thorlakson and Richalife and I thought why not so I tried it and it worked. I mean, my anxieties and this nervousness I had, well they just were so much alleviated and I went to tell Mr. Thorlakson about it and now I am working in his office and well that’s about all I guess

Her voice ends in a small chime of laughter. The audience claps mightily. The girl walks offstage swiftly.

  — Supposing that had been Katie? It doesn’t bear thinking about. Who is she? What could
her
parents have been like? She can’t be more then eighteen or twenty. Somebody ought to do something, but then again, she claims she’s fine. Everything is all right for her now.

Stacey looks to see where the girl has gone. For a moment she cannot see, and then she finds the pallid hair and the Greek keys. The girl is sitting beside Mac, and he has one arm around her, not casually but tightly, like a wall against the world.

Dear Mother – Well here it is June and less than a month till summer holidays – horrors! Although I guess Rachel will be glad. Her free season starts when mine finishes. But I have to admit the kids are pretty good generally these days – the boys already making plans for putting up tent in back yard and
sleeping there – mighty woodsmen and all that – perfectly safe, Mother, so don’t panic –

Stacey puts down her pen and gazes at what she has written.

  — I wonder what would happen if just for once I put down what was really happening? Dear Mother – There must be some way of talking to kids but I don’t seem usually to find it. Yeh, sometimes, and then I say
There there
, and they’re partially restored, whatever was wrong. But Duncan said
I don’t do anything right, Mum
, meaning it, and Mac was helping Ian with his arithmetic a day or so ago and bawled him out for carelessness but Ian is the opposite of careless maybe he didn’t understand what he was supposed to be doing but then Ian all inclenched came out to the kitchen and said
Dad never makes mistakes
, believing it. I don’t know what to do. I worry. I get afraid. I drink too much. I get unreasonably angry. The valleys under my eyes look like permanent blue-black ink even though I get enough sleep, and my hips are nobody’s business. I think Mac has fallen for that girl and who could blame him I guess and I really think I wouldn’t be so blamed mad about it if I could go and do the same thing myself with some guy but how and anyway I think this is a despicable reaction. After that evening at the rally I phoned the hairdresser and made an appointment to have my hair dyed. Bleached and then dyed fair, not ash blond, just fair. And when I got there, she said
You sure you really want to, Mrs. MacAindra?
And I looked in the damn mirror and said
Uh – well, I guess maybe not
. Not even the strength of my neuroses, if you would believe it. Please write immediately and let me know what was actually in your mind all those years because I haven’t a clue and it’s only now that this bothers me, now that I’m not seen either. Love, Stacey. P.S. Did you ever dance? No, that wouldn’t be feasible, that
kind of letter. She’d say to Rachel,
I can’t think what Stacey can possibly mean
. She’d be upset for days.

Stacey picks up her pen again.

Oh, nearly forgot. Jen sings now. At least a step towards speech. Mac loves his new job and is doing awfully well. He’s given me the old Chev. Everything is fine. Hope you are okay. Love, Stacey.

She puts the page in an envelope, addresses and stamps it, and goes out to the letterbox at the corner. Julian and Bertha Garvey have driven out for the day to visit Julian’s sister and have taken Jen along, ostensibly for the ride but actually because conversation is difficult there and Jen provides some possibility of amused distraction. Stacey is alone and it feels peculiar to her. She is wearing black slacks, a yellow sweater and sandals, and as she reaches the end of Bluejay Crescent, she looks back at it and feels disconnected, younger, separate. —Hey, it’s a nice feeling. Yet I feel I oughtn’t to feel glad. When Jen goes to school, though, I could take a job. I used to be quite good. I guess my shorthand is rusty, but I could brush it up.

The chief architect’s office is large but not at all flashy. No plastic plants or phony veneer for him. Andrew Delver, of Delver & Plumb, has designed every piece of furniture here, and it is all both functional and beautiful, sleek cool lines. She answers the bell’s summons. God, Stacey, what a mess we’re in with these contracts. Think you can make sense of my notes and get me four copies by lunchtime? Of course, Mr. Delver. Andrew, Andrew, for God’s sake woman – it’s about time you called me that – you’re a love – I don’t know what I’d do without you to cope

The truck hoots and draws up to the curb beside Stacey. She looks up and sees the grinning black-haired driver leaning out of the window. Buckle Fennick.

Hi Stacey

Hi

Where you going?

Just to the letterbox.

Hop in. I’ll give you a lift.

It’s not that far.

Where’s Jen?

Bertha’s got her this afternoon.

Hey, got a holiday? Climb in. I gotta take a few things out to Coquitlam. Coming right back. C’mon along, why doncha?

Stacey looks back at Bluejay Crescent, seeing it recede. Then, without thinking or knowing she is going to do it, she climbs into the truck beside Buckle.

Within seconds, it seems to her, they are in a mainstream of traffic and Buckle is manipulating the big truck in and out, weaving in a fast and inexorable pattern of sound and movement, intimidating the vulnerable cars, flying and swinging along the highway.

Haven’t seen you for awhile, Buckle.

Naw. Want to know why?

Why?

Buckle increases speed. The highway shivers past, honking, obstacle-laden. Buckle crouches over the wheel, like a jockey.

Well, I thought Mac was kinda busy

He’s always glad to see you. You know that.

Yeh?

What’s the matter, Buckle?

Mac and me have known each other a long time.

I know.

Since the war.

Yes.

We went all through Italy together.

My God, Buckle, I know that.

  — Does that mean Mac’s got to live with you on his door step for the rest of his life? No, that’s mean. Mac wouldn’t say that. How many friends has Buckle got? One, maybe. How do I know?

Yeh, well I’m coming from Ace this day, see, on my way out and up north, and I happen to pass near where Mac’s office is, see, and he’s walking along the street with this Thor guy, so naturally I give him the old sign on the horn – beep beep beep
BLAT
, V for Victory. He looks up all right. That’s all. No
Hi
or wave, nothing like that. He doesn’t know me.

Buckle, he didn’t mean

Shit, Stacey

Maybe he didn’t see

He saw.

Well, I’m sorry. What can I say? Don’t take it so hard. His mind was likely on the job. It’s never on anything else now. He works all the time, like something was after him.

Stacey hears the vehemence in someone’s voice that is coming from her mouth.

  — Traitor. How can you speak about Mac to anyone else? It’s no one else’s business. Not even Buckle’s. Especially not Buckle’s. Shut up shut up shut up. If you don’t, it’ll all come out and then

The house is burning. Everything and everyone in it. Nothing can put out the flames. The house wasn’t fire-resistant. One match was all it took
.

Buckle has momentarily taken his eyes off the road and Stacey sees him sizing her up.

Buckle, for God’s sake the road

He laughs and looks again at the wheeling metallic ballet ahead.

Don’t worry. I know what I’m doing.

So you say. I’ve never driven with you before, Buckle, you know that?

You should come on a long haul sometime just for the hell of it.

Yeh, I can see it all now.

The northern highway, uncrowded. Spruce and fir spearing upwards, and the high arched blue silences of the sky. When the truck stops, there are only small earth-close sounds – a few lethargic flies, the grass voices. Sun saturates and warms the moss and fallen bronze pine needles. He is poised above her – hard, ready, taut – and she can hardly wait for him to

  — I must be berserk. I don’t even like him.

Don’t worry, Stacey. I wouldn’t play chicken if you were along.

Play chicken? What? Oh yeh. You still do that?

It passes the time.

It’ll pass it permanently one of these days.

I’ve never yet met a guy who didn’t give way.

You never give way?

I don’t have to. I know the other guy is going to.

That’s crazy. You can’t know.

Sure I know. I’m prepared to gamble that fraction of a second longer than he is.

You know all the truckers on the road, then? You know them all well enough to be able to tell?

I don’t have to know them all. It’s something I learned a long time ago.

You can have it.

It’s better on the night hauls because then you’ve only got the other guy’s lights to go by. Take a couple of weeks ago. I’m in the Cariboo, few miles past Hundred-Mile House, and it’s about three in the morning and I’m getting kinda bored when I see these lights coming. From the spread of the lights it looks like a diesel job, about the same weight as mine and she’ll do about the same speed. So I step on the gas just a little and pull out slightly. He does the same. He wants to play. I think it’s probably Charlie Norton, Excello Cartage guy, does this run back on a Tuesday and never drives day time. So I think, okay Charlie boy, we’ll see. He’s told guys in all the truckers’ cafés from here to Fort St. John that he’s going to take it away from me, see? Because they all know no one’s ever beat me. So we’re roaring along and he doesn’t swerve and I’m starting to sweat a little but then I think Charlie Norton’s the kind of guy who’ll say he’s going to do a thing before he’s done it and that is a dead giveaway. So I keep on, see? Well, when we’re practically close enough for both of us to see the sweat on each other’s foreheads, suddenly he gives a sharp right to the wheel and misses me by no more than a cunt-span if you don’t mind the expression. He sort of swivels to a stop, and I pull up too. He gets out and whaddyaknow? It’s not Charlie Norton at all. It’s some young guy I’ve never seen before, and he’s nearly drowning in his own sweat. We have a cigarette together, and he’s leaning against the front tires all the time, holding his own elbow so I won’t see his cigarette hand trembling away there.

You of course were perfectly calm.

I wouldn’t say that but at least I wasn’t shaking like a raped virgin. You can see what I mean about not having to know the guys. I’m okay while my luck’s in and it’s in because of what I know, see?