In Valhalla's Shadows

by W. D. Valgardson

  The dance ticket included a supper of pickerel fillets donated by some of the fishermen, potato salad and coleslaw made by the Good Neighbours. The profit was to go to sports equipment for the school.

  Because all the seats were taken, he was eating standing up. Freyja had been circulating, going from group to group, saying a few words, listening, giving some of the women hugs, leaning in and whispering to them. He was nearly finished his meal when she came to stand beside him.

  “Is your leg improved enough to dance?” she asked, and he took that as an invitation.

  “Waltzes,” he said. “I’m not sure I’d try polkas, or a kolomyika.”

  “Waltzes are good,” she answered. “But polkas are fun. How do you know about kolomyika?”

  “A friend’s mom. Anna. She was our apartment manager. She taught her daughter and me how to do different dances. Ukrainian.” He remembered those lessons, dancing with Anna as she showed him the steps, then practising with Tanya. Good memories of good times. He and Tanya had danced together at parties.

  “I don’t understand you. You see those guys hanging around the door? Every woman on her own who comes past them gets a proposition. ‘Hey, babe, I’ve got a case of beer in the back of my truck. Wanna share it?’ You, you’re different. You don’t stop to drink beer with them, shake hands, swap stories. You go straight to the food table.”

  “Pickerel fillets,” he said. “Fresh out of the lake. Besides, I’m older than most of them.”

  “Tom the foodie. No interest in women. I’d believe you except that I’ve caught you watching me a couple of times. Except when you were loading up your plate.”

  “Pickerel fillets, fried potatoes and coleslaw are serious competition.”

  She didn’t laugh, but a smile pulled at her lips. “You’re going to have to run harder. There’s lots of competition.”

  “I’m out of practice,” he said, picking up the last piece of fried pickerel with his fingers and popping it into his mouth.

  “You need to wash your hands before dancing with anyone. You’ll get grease on her dress.”

  He turned and looked for a paper napkin to wipe his fingers. The pickerel was excellent, the potatoes crisp. There were homemade desserts on the table. He wasn’t having to eat his own cooking. He was trying to focus on something other than Freyja.

  “The best pie is Sessilja’s. She picks the blueberries herself every summer. Those must be the last from her freezer.”

  Freyja was standing there, most of her weight on her right foot, her left hip slightly jutted out. She was wearing a skirt the colour of her eyes, a soft fabric that clung to her. Her blouse was covered in a pattern of pale green leaves, open at the throat, showing the top of her breasts.

  He distracted himself by looking away, across the crowd. People were standing in small groups, talking. Others were sitting at the tables along the walls. It was the same crowd, or mostly the same crowd, who had come to Angel’s funeral. He thought the funeral reception, having been in the same hall, might have weighed on people, but there was no evidence of grief. Things happen, he thought. The excited conversation was shot through with laughter.

  He looked back at Freyja and felt for a moment that he understood how a fish felt when it took the hook. She was, he could see from her eyes, enjoying the effect she was having, laughing at him trying to throw the hook free. She was beautiful and she stirred feelings he hadn’t had for a long time. Beautiful, beautiful, her red hair woven into an intricate braid, her slightly pursed mouth, as if she were suppressing a laugh, the laughing, teasing eyes like a lodestone.

  It was time, he told himself, to go to the dessert table, load up on Nanaimo bars, apple pie, an Icelandic pancake or two. Keep his distance, ignore his loneliness, say to himself, Not for me, not for me, not for the gimp, no more Sallys, no more complications—he couldn’t deal with the ones he had. He thought about his previous life, the one where he had a wife and two kids and a house in the suburbs and a job and he knew who he was. And he thought about putting his arms around Freyja and dancing away, feeling her warmth, smelling her perfume, having her attention all to himself.

  The band had been tuning their instruments. In the background there had been squawks and bits of tunes, but now they were ready and started with a waltz.

  “First dance gets the last dance,” she said.

  He turned around to put his plate down, picked up a napkin to wipe his fingers—when Barnabas stepped between them, put his arms around Freyja and danced away with her. Tom saw Sarah O’Hara watching. She was eating chocolate cake. She shook her head and rolled her eyes.

  It was just as well, he thought. He hadn’t danced in a long time; he wasn’t sure that he remembered how—he and Sally had stopped dancing when the kids came, only occasionally going onto the dance floor at banquets. When they were courting, they had danced every weekend, rocking away the nights, dancing until they were exhausted and laughing at their own exuberance. When they got to his apartment, they would throw themselves on the bed and make love with the same energy with which they’d danced, then fall asleep until the morning, when, half awake, they’d make love again, but this time slowly, with little motion, as they held each other close.

  He threw his paper plate into the garbage can at the end of the table, picked up a dessert plate and helped himself to a slice of the blueberry pie that Freyja had recommended. Barnabas seemed an unlikely dancer. His long beard dripped from his chin and his electric blue suit flashed like a neon light as he turned about the floor. The ends of his shoes were flat and went long past his toes—either that or he had toes he could wrap around branches and hang upside down. Tom hoped he didn’t step on Freyja’s feet. She had on open-toed shoes with high heels. She’d be crippled for weeks.

  “He who hesitates is lost,” Sarah said from behind. “No quarter given in this competition. Every man for himself.”

  “I was eyeing the dessert.”

  “You were gawking at her as if she was a Nanaimo bar. I kept waiting for you to bite her.”

  “You warned me she was trouble. I was taking your advice seriously.”

  Sarah snorted in disbelief. “Do you want a drop in your coffee for consolation?” she asked, and when he nodded, she pulled a flask out of her dress, opened it and poured an ounce. “This is the best moose milk around. Made from the finest potatoes and raisins in the district.”

  The band began to play a polka just as Ben, Wanda and Derk came through the front door. Heads turned, and for a second, the music paused, but then the musicians played the polka harder, faster, louder, interspersing it with hollering. The crowd danced faster, joined in the hollering, their yelling and spinning around the floor an affirmation of life, or a refusal to acknowledge death.

  As Ben passed through the crowd, people put their hand on his shoulder, said a word or two, patted his arm. A couple of women hugged him and a dozen men shook his hand. His daughter and grandson were barely recognized with brief nods before people turned away. Many just stared at them for a moment. A couple of men went to Wanda and said a word or two, gave her a brief hug. Old boyfriends maybe, Tom thought. Maybe guys she’d gone to school with.

  The band played a set, then the violinist leaned into the mike and said, “Tonight, folks, we have a special treat. Our own Cindy Lou.” The crowd clapped and whistled, the band struck up a tune and Karla White appeared from the left side of the stage, waved to the crowd and without any further introduction, began singing, “Hey, Good Lookin’.” She was wearing a full Western outfit: white cowboy boots, a fringed skirt, an embroidered shirt and a Stetson.

  Her voice was good, smoky, but her range wasn’t great. Still, she was better than many he’d heard. As she belted out Western songs from the past, people shuffled onto the floor to dance. Karla couldn’t resist wiggling her hips as she sang. She strutted about the stage, looking coyly over her shoulder at the dancers. He thought
even ten years before she must have had the guys howling with desire. She would have been a knockout. Now, she was an attractive woman in a slightly too-tight outfit with a good voice that had lost a bit of its range with age, reliving her years when she still hoped to make it big in C&W and go to Nashville to perform at the Grand Ole Opry. Her and thousands more. Them and their guitars.

  Like Angel, he thought, and his festive mood turned sour. That was what Angel wanted—the dream, having an audience, being discovered, being one of the best—her and the thousands of others, naive, innocent, not understanding that it would mean being deflowered on a couch in a bar owner’s office, or agent’s office, groped by the bar owners, giving a BJ for the chance of being on a good stage. He’d seen them, after their careers disappeared, those who had gotten hooked on drugs working the streets to pay the bills, working as waitresses where they had once held centre stage, living in shabby rooms. A few lucky ones, the ones that had married a customer with a decent job, became moms and gave music lessons in suburbia.

  He looked for Freyja, but she was caught up in conversations. She was a popular dance partner. He’d watched her whirling around the dance floor first with one guy, then another. She danced a butterfly with two guys who deliberately swung her off her feet as they made their figure eights.

  “Hi,” Karla said. She looked good, like a woman ready for action, for dancing, for wrestling, for making love. Her dancing and singing had made her vibrant.

  “You were great,” he said, and he meant it. Onstage she was a star; she dominated it, dominated her audience, was absolutely confident. She was happy with her performance, and she smiled broadly and reached out to briefly touch people who complimented her as they went by. “Grand Ole Opry was never better.”

  She put her arms around him to thank him and kissed him on the cheek. She was going to say something, but a guy with a beard and his cap on backwards grabbed her and hauled her onto the dance floor. Tom looked around. Horst was sitting at one of the tables with his oxygen tank. His eyes followed Karla around the room.

  Tom was going to go to the washroom when one of the locals came up and put out his hand. Tom shook it. The man standing across from him was an inch shorter than Tom, with blond hair nearly to his shoulders, wearing a T-shirt that showed off his muscles. Handsome in a rugged way. Strong cheekbones and jaw. He’d had his nose broken at some point and it hadn’t been set properly, so it veered slightly to the right.

  “I’m Siggi Eyolfson. You’re new here. You the guy who bought Jessie’s place?” Tom admitted it. “Lot of work fixing it up, but you know that. It’s good to see that it’s going to be fixed. Welcome to Valhalla. You just going to use it for a cottage?"

  “Permanent,” Tom replied. “I’m a handyman, jack of all trades. I’ve got a poster on the board outside. Carpentry, plumbing, plaster work, drywall—that sort of thing.”

  “Just what we need,” Siggi said. “Good luck with the business.” Then he stepped sideways, shook the hand of the guy standing beside Tom and talked intensely to him, though he didn’t say anything that required intensity. Tom had met people like that before. When they spoke to you, no one else existed. When they left, you didn’t exist. People with that ability had usually taken courses on how to be successful. They belonged to clubs where they could hand out business cards and make deals. It was totally insincere, but people loved it, loved that moment of being the complete centre of someone’s attention.

  To get to the washroom he had to open a door below the right side of the stage, go down a narrow stairwell and make a tight turn. There were two urinals, both empty. He was unzipping his pants when Derk came in. He staggered slightly, caught his balance.

  Derk went to the other urinal. “You think I’m shit, don’t you,” he said angrily. It wasn’t a question, rather a statement, and the left top corner of his lip lifted a bit in the beginning of a sneer. “You think you’re so shit hot, Mr. Retired Mountie, got a pension.”

  His body was lean, nearly anorexic, catlike, and in a black shirt and pants he reminded Tom of a black feral cat that had started coming to their patio door, its eyes wary, its body ready to leap away or to attack. They’d put food out for it, scraps that it gobbled down quickly before disappearing into the bushes. They had fed it for six months, but it had never let them get close enough to pet it, backing away as Tom approached, even when he had a bit of bacon in his hand or a piece of hamburger. He’d been transferred and the morning they left, they put out a heaping dish of leftovers from the fridge.

  “Watch where you’re pissing,” Tom said.

  Derk looked down. He had turned toward Tom and he was missing the urinal.

  Derk gave a short, sharp laugh. “Mr. Mountie, Mr. Mountie,” he said as if the words might be the beginning of a song. Tom finished and went to the sink. From Derk’s tone of voice, high, like a child’s, Tom realized, to his surprise, that Derk was on the verge of tears. Tears of rage. If they came, they’d come with smashing furniture, getting into a fight. That, or he’d attack himself, smash himself into things.

  “You think I’m shit? You ever have to Dumpster dive because there’s no food? You have to shoplift because there’s no food, nothing to wear to school? You ever slept in a Dumpster because your mother’s got two drunken friends banging her in the bedroom and they don’t want a kid around? You ever had a mother who needs booze so bad she’ll fuck for a six-pack?” He stopped and his chest heaved. He started shaking. “All my sister wanted was a good guitar. You hear me, Mr. Copper?”

  “Yes,” Tom said just above a whisper. “I hear you.” Tom realized that when Karla had kissed him on the cheek, her stage makeup had left a smudge of lipstick.

  “What are you going to do about it, Mr. Mountie? What’re you going to do?”

  Tom wet a paper towel and scrubbed at his face. He threw the towel into the garbage can and turned around. “I’m not a Mountie anymore. I’m done. I came here to fish, to mind my own business. I used to be a cop. Past tense.”

  “You’ll fit right in,” Derk accused him. “All the losers in this place. But you’re all we’ve got. People like us, we don’t count for nothing. Nobody gives a shit about people like us.”

  Tom wanted to be reassuring, but he’d quit lying, quit making excuses for the system. He knew it was true. He’d seen it all his career. The kowtowing to the rich and powerful, the beating up of the poor and weak. “Yes sir, no sir, I’ll kiss your ass, sir,”—when the houses were expensive enough, when the people were connected enough. And then, when it was somebody from one of those neighbourhoods where there was trash in the yard, where the houses weren’t kept up because they were rentals and the developers were letting them go to ruin so they could get the city or town to agree to have them torn down, it was “You stupid son of a bitch. Take that.” And a boot to the face or a flashlight to the head.

  “It’s okay,” Derk said bitterly. “I’ll take care of it. That’s always the way, isn’t it? People like us, we’ve got to take care of business ourselves, because that’s not what the law is for, is it? It’s for keeping shit like us away from people like them.” His voice was bitter as black bile.

  “You don’t know the half of it,” Tom said.

  Derk wasn’t used to anyone agreeing with him, telling him he was right. He put his left hand against the wall to steady himself and stared at Tom. He let out his breath in a whistle, then said, “I’m not using. I just had a few drinks.”

  “What are you selling?”

  “What do you want? I’ll find it for you.”

  “I’ll stick to whisky.”

  Derk laughed, and his laugh was sharp, bitter, high pitched, as if what Tom had said was hurtful but funny, so there was pain and laughter mixed. He rushed out. The music from above pounded, and the dancer’s feet sounded like thunder. Tom followed Derk upstairs into the swirling colour and the noise. There was, to Tom, a sense of desperation, of denial, as
if the motion and sound could shut out the sorrow and disappointment of daily life. There was a side door that was open to let in some air. He slipped out past a group of smokers and walked home.

  He couldn’t sleep, so he sat at the dining room table, shuffled Jessie’s worn deck of cards and dealt himself a new hand. He kept thinking about Ben saying he didn’t get to deliver the good stuff anymore, and Frenchie being so paranoid, and the water dripping from the corner of Frenchie’s truck.

  Who knew what was going on? Small-town secrets. Small-town conflicts. Small-town jealousies. He’d seen these at work many times. They were usually small insignificant things, but the resentments tore at the people involved, wouldn’t leave them alone. Crazy things. A single man shooting a neighbour’s wife and child while her husband was away. The shooter admitted what he’d done and justified it by saying that the neighbour’s wife wore shorts, so she was a Jezebel leading the shooter into sinful thoughts. He placed all the blame on her. Tom learned to look not for the logical but for the illogical, to ferret out craziness and how it worked.

  Ben and Frenchie. Frenchie and Ben. Loose threads. He’d learned to look for loose threads no matter how unlikely. Local secrets. Water where it shouldn’t have been. He slipped his pry bar into his pocket and went out. “Roll out the Barrel” was playing at the dance.