The Loop

by Nicholas Evans

  Only when they had feasted, did he get ready to shoot. The two uncollared wolves were side by side, their heads deep in the deer. Lovelace leveled the laser dot on the nearer one who was showing more chest. The wolf lifted its head to swallow. Lovelace could see a green gleam of blood on its muzzle.

  He pulled the trigger.

  The impact of the bullet lifted the wolf backward, clean off the rock and into the water. He’d only reckoned on getting one. The others, he thought, would spook and run. But they didn’t. They simply stopped feeding and stood staring down at the one he’d shot, who was now out of sight behind the rock. The old wolfer quickly levered another bullet into the chamber.

  He shot the second clean through the head and it dropped stone dead beside the deer. This time, though, the other two wolves leapt like singed cats. In a flash they were splashing through the water, scrambling the icy bank and crashing off through the trees.

  It took him almost an hour to wade down the creek and drag the dead wolves back through the water by their hind feet. They were only pups, but they still weighed sixty or seventy pounds apiece and after loading them on the back of the snowmobile and driving up to the mine, he could barely summon the strength to climb off.

  He dumped them beside the overgrown airshaft he’d found the previous day and carefully levered aside the rotting pine logs that had once been laid to cover it.

  One at a time, he hoisted the wolves over the edge of the shaft and lowered them gently in by their tails. He listened as they tumbled down in a clatter of rocks and landed with a distant splash in the belly of the mine below.

  He stood there a moment, listening to the silence.

  ‘Do you think, Joseph, their life is the same as ours? I mean, what it’s made of, that little flicker or spirit or whatever it is, inside them. Do you think it’s the same as what we have inside us?’

  ‘No, dear, of course it’s not. How could it be?’

  The wind had dropped. It was starting to snow again. By dawn his tracks would be gone.

  It was still hard to believe she was going away.

  Her flight was due to leave at six o’clock the following morning. Despite her protest, Luke had insisted he was going to drive her to the airport. Her bag lay already packed on her bunk.

  Her father had sent her a brochure which showed the hotel they were all going to be staying in. It was called the Sandpiper Inn and it looked like heaven. There were palm trees and lawns going right down to the beach and this amazing, pale blue ocean, even better than the one in his dream, which he’d never told her about. The dining room was open at the sides and surrounded by exotic plants. He’d been trying not to fantasize too much about being there with her.

  With such an early start in the morning, he should have gone home long ago, but he couldn’t bear to and was pretending to be doing something important on the computer. Helen was sitting across from him on the other side of the table, biting her lip and concentrating hard on her sewing, so it was easy to look at her. Sometimes she looked up and caught him, but it didn’t seem to bother her. The new haircut she’d gotten in Great Falls after buying the dress made her look younger.

  She’d already taken the dress in at the sides and was nearly done shortening the hem. Earlier, after supper, she’d tried it on with the new shoes she’d bought and stood on a chair in the middle of the cabin while he pinned it up for her. It took forever, partly because he’d never done anything like that before but mostly because neither of them could stop laughing. It seemed kind of a funny thing to be doing in a mountain cabin in the dead of winter. To make things worse, Helen deliberately kept leaning one way, then the other, and would then complain that he hadn’t pinned it straight.

  She would be gone ten whole days.

  They’d worked it all out. While she was away, Luke was to stay up at the cabin to look after Buzz and keep the tracking going. Helen said if he was good, she would allow him a couple of hours off on Christmas Day. His parents were okay about it and Helen had cleared things with Dan Prior who said it was fine, provided it was all ‘unofficial’, which Helen said really meant, provided it didn’t cost him anything. Dan had offered to take him flying one day next week and do some aerial tracking.

  She was finished now and broke the thread with her teeth. She held the dress up to inspect it.

  ‘I can’t get over how clever you were, finding this. The only summer dress in the whole of Montana.’

  ‘I guess I was born to shop.’

  She laughed. Buzz suddenly started barking loudly. He’d probably sniffed some passing animal outside the cabin. It often happened. Helen told him to hush. She got up and took the dress over to the bed, folding it for packing.

  ‘Aren’t you going to try it on?’

  ‘You want me to?’

  Luke nodded. She shrugged

  ‘Okay.’

  He turned away and pretended to study the computer screen, as he’d done before when she changed, as he always did. He’d never found it easy, listening to her taking off her clothes, picturing it and feeling aroused and ashamed at the same time. Now, since the kiss, it was a kind of exquisite torture, almost more than he could take. It was all so confusing. How was he supposed to know what she felt about him?

  He had next to no experience in these matters, but he wasn’t dumb. He could tell from the way she’d kissed him that they were already more than just good friends. But what now? What was he supposed to do?

  Maybe when they’d been lying with each other afterward, he should have taken the lead and done something. Maybe she’d expected him to. But he’d never done it before and wasn’t sure how it all got to happen. The result was nothing had happened, then or since, and Luke had a dismal, almost desperate feeling that, now she was going away, it never would.

  He heard the clunk of her new shoes now, coming up behind him.

  ‘Will you do me up?’

  She turned her back to him as he stood up. When she’d tried the dress on earlier she had kept her bra on, but he could see that now she’d taken it off, like she’d done in the store. He fastened the zipper and fought the urge to kiss her bare shoulders above it. She walked away to where Buzz was lying by the stove and turned and struck a little self-mocking pose, waiting for the verdict.

  ‘Well?’

  ‘You’re so b-beautiful.’

  She laughed. ‘No, Luke, I think not.’

  ‘It’s true.’

  He took from his pocket the present he’d bought her. The woman in the store had put it in a little box for him and wrapped it prettily in shiny gold paper. He stepped closer and held it out to her.

  ‘What’s this?’

  ‘It’s nothing. Just . . . Here.’

  She took it and he watched while she unwrapped it. Inside the box, carefully folded in white tissue, was a little silver wolf on a silver chain. She laid it on the palm of her hand, staring down at it.

  ‘Oh, Luke.’

  ‘It’s just a little thing—’

  She was still staring at it, with a strange look on her face. Maybe she didn’t like it, he thought.

  ‘They’ll ch-change it. I mean, if you d-don’t—’

  ‘No, no, I love it.’

  ‘Anyway.’ He smiled and nodded. ‘M-merry Christmas.’

  ‘I didn’t get you anything.’

  ‘That doesn’t matter.’

  ‘Oh, Luke.’

  She put her arms around his neck and clung to him and he held her, feeling her bare back under his hands. He bent and gently kissed her shoulder.

  ‘I wish you weren’t going.’

  ‘I don’t want to go. I’ll miss you.’

  ‘I love you, Helen.’

  ‘Oh, Luke. Don’t say that.’

  ‘But I do.’

  He held her away from him now so he could look into her eyes.

  She frowned. ‘I’m too old for you. It isn’t right. The other night, I should never have—’

  ‘W-why isn’t it right? You’re not much older th
an me. W-what does it matter anyhow?’

  ‘I don’t know, but—’

  ‘You still love J-Joel?’

  ‘No.’>

  ‘He hurt you. I could never hurt you.’

  ‘But I . . .’ She stopped.

  ‘What?’

  ‘I might hurt you.’

  They looked at each other for a long time. Her mouth was slightly open. His whole body sang for her. He drew her toward him and felt the touch of her breasts against him and he kissed her. For an instant, he thought she was going to pull away, but she didn’t. He felt her mouth soften and open. She took a little gasp of air and he felt her fingers tighten on his arms.

  ‘I don’t care,’ he breathed.

  An hour later, when they said their goodbyes and Luke left for home, it was snowing heavily. Had he looked, he might still have been able to decipher the half-filled footprints outside the cabin window. But his head was soaring elsewhere with his heart.

  28

  Courtney Dasilva was as good at being a bride as she was at everything else. She was the kind of bride that makes grown men swoon and less charitable souls - among whom Helen, with only a modicum of shame, counted herself - feel like throwing up in envy.

  The dress, an off-the-shoulder creation in ivory satin, was sculpted to afford a tasteful yet tantalizing glimpse both of bridal knee and cleavage. It had been made, at mind-searing expense, by an Italian designer on Madison Avenue whose name had everyone oohing and aahing but to Helen meant nothing whatsoever. The overall effect suggested someone had put dear Courtney in a blender, then poured her into the dress like a banana daiquiri. She was the cream and even a vacationing Martian would have recognized Helen’s father, with his permanent dreamy grin, as the cat who was at it.

  They were married on Christmas morning, to give the couple, and those special guests who’d flown in early, a few days to get their tans in order. The ceremony, conducted with a deft mix of mirth and solemnity by the Reverend Winston Glover, took place in a flower-clad gazebo overlooking the bay. Over the rims of their champagne glasses afterward, they watched a Barbadian Santa Claus come skidding over the turquoise water on a jetski. He parked on the beach and strode with dripping, bare legs among them, wishing everyone a merry Christmas and handing out gifts. They were wrapped in paper from Saks Fifth Avenue where they had been carefully selected for each guest by Courtney herself. Helen’s was a case of cosmetics. In fake lizardskin.

  There were twenty guests and, apart from her sister Celia, Bryan and their children, the only ones Helen knew were her father’s younger brother, Garry, and his serial-bore of a wife, Dawn. Helen and Celia had spent most of the past three days avoiding them, a custom at which they were skilled.

  Garry had never been able quite to grasp the role of uncle. Since their early teens, he had always flirted with them, kissing them on the lips instead of the cheek when he greeted them and making suggestive remarks, which Dawn, for some elusive reason, seemed to find hugely amusing. Privately, the sisters always referred to them as Ego (Eyes Glaze Over) and Grope.

  It was good to see Celia again, and to have time alone with her, for Bryan spent most of the day being the dutiful dad to Kyle and Carey. He was always off swimming or sailing or waterskiing with them, while the sisters lazed on their recliners, reading and talking. Apart from the occasional stroll to the sea to cool off, the most strenuous thing either had done was wave to Carl, the handsome young beach waiter, for another rum punch.

  It hadn’t occurred to Helen, of course, to bring a swimsuit, so she had bought one in the hotel gift store, a rash, black bikini. Celia had taken one look at her in it and announced a personal mission to fatten Helen up. For the first couple of days, she was forever ordering cookies and sandwiches and ice creams and forcing Helen to eat them. At dinner she would veto anything under a million calories and kick her slyly under the table if she didn’t clean her plate. Thanks more to Helen’s tan than the few extra pounds she’d gained, the campaign seemed now to have eased a little.

  The yellow dress was much admired, though the only remark that stuck was from Courtney, who observed how ‘comfortable’ it looked.

  At the end of a hard day’s reclining, the sisters would take a leisurely swim to a small pontoon anchored two hundred yards from the shore and sit there, dangling their legs in the balmy water to watch another extravagant sunset. It became their evening ritual and the only concession they made on Christmas Day, with the wedding party still going strong on shore, was to swim out clutching glasses and a bottle of champagne.

  ‘You don’t like her, do you?’ Celia said, pouring it.

  ‘Courtney? She’s okay. I don’t know her.’

  ‘I like her.’

  ‘Good.’

  ‘And, you know? I think she really loves him.’

  ‘Whatever the hell that means.’

  Helen always played the cynic with Celia and such a remark would normally elicit some gentle reproof. But Helen had told her two nights ago about Joel’s letter and perhaps that was why she now made no reply. The silence soon had Helen feeling a little ashamed. She looked at her sister and smiled.

  ‘Sorry. Sour grapes, I guess.’ She sipped her champagne.

  ‘It’ll happen,’ Celia said simply.

  Helen laughed. ‘What me? “My prince will come,” you mean?’

  ‘I know it.’

  ‘You know it.’

  ‘I do.’

  ‘Well, that makes two of you. Our new stepmother told me last night she was sure I was going to go back to Montana and get swept off my feet by Marlboro Man.’

  ‘What did you say?’

  ‘I told her he’d died of cancer.’

  ‘Helen, you’re terrible.’

  ‘Actually, I already met him.’

  Celia didn’t say anything. Helen stirred the darkening water with her legs. You could still see the anchor chain curving down to the sandy bottom. A shoal of small, silvery fish was swirling around it. She turned and saw Celia staring at her, wide-eyed and waiting.

  ‘I hate it when you look at me like that.’

  ‘Well, you can’t just leave it at that.’

  ‘Okay, he’s tall. And dark. And slim. And he has the most beautiful green eyes you ever saw. He’s the son of a big rancher and he’s sweet and kind and caring. And he’s completely besotted with me.’

  ‘Helen, that’s—’

  ‘And he’s eighteen years old.’

  ‘Oh. Well—’

  ‘“Well,”’ Helen mimicked. Celia had her prim schoolmarm face on, always guaranteed to bring out the worst in Helen.

  ‘I mean, is it . . .’ Celia went on, still searching for something appropriate to say. ‘Did you—’

  ‘Did I fuck him?’

  ‘Helen! You know perfectly well I didn’t mean that.’

  ‘Well, the answer’s no, I didn’t.’ She paused. ‘Yet.’

  ‘Why the heck do you always assume I’m going to be shocked by things like that? Am I really such a tight-assed, straight-laced bitch? Is that how you see me?’

  ‘No, of course I don’t.’ She reached out and put a conciliatory arm around her sister’s shoulders. ‘I’m sorry.’

  They sat in silence a moment watching the horizon. The rind of the sun was giving a final fiery blaze as it dipped behind the indigo edge of the ocean.

  ‘I mean, why are we here?’ Celia said at last.

  ‘Hey, sis, that’s the big question.’

  Celia exploded, shoving Helen’s arm away. ‘Fuck it, Helen, will you ever stop mocking me!’

  The champagne bottle toppled and spilled. Helen had never seen her sister so angry. She’d certainly never heard her use that word before.

  ‘Hey, I’m sorry.’

  ‘I mean, I know you think Bryan and I are just boring, narrow-minded little yuppies and that you’re the one who really lives, who’s always out there on the edge, where it really matters, doing all these dangerous things—’

  ‘I don’t think that. Rea
lly, I don’t—’

  ‘Yes you do. And it’s always, like, you’re the only one who has real feelings, the only one who knows about passion and pain, the only one who suffered when Mom and Dad broke up and I’m just Little Miss Goody Two-Shoes, always smiling, with my nice little family and home and my nice little life. But it’s not like that, Helen. Sometimes, the rest of us feel and get hurt too, you know?’

  ‘I know, I know.’

  ‘Do you? Two years ago, I had breast cancer.’

  ‘You what?’

  ‘Don’t worry, it’s fine. I caught it early, I’m all clear.’

  ‘My God, Celia. You never said—’

  ‘Why should I? You don’t have to wallow in it. You get on with your life. That’s the difference between us. I only told you now to make you see that you don’t have some sort of monopoly on pain. So, please. Don’t expect us all to feel so darned sorry for you the whole time.’

  ‘I don’t.’

  ‘You do. You really do. It’s like you think you’ve got this tragic destiny or something. But it’s bullshit. Things didn’t work out with Joel and that’s very sad. But maybe it wasn’t supposed to work out. In fact, maybe you’re darned lucky to have found it out now. Mom and Dad lost nineteen years of their lives finding out.’

  Helen nodded. She was right. About everything.

  ‘You’re only twenty-nine years old, Helen. What the hell’s the problem?’

  Helen shrugged and shook her head. She was close to tears, not of self-pity, but of shame. About Celia having had cancer, about every other item of truth she’d spoken. Celia seemed to sense she’d touched a nerve. She softened and smiled and it was her turn now to put an arm around Helen. Helen laid her head on her sister’s shoulder.

  ‘I can’t believe you never told me.’

  ‘Why go worrying everybody? I’m okay.’

  ‘They cut it out?’

  ‘Yeah. Look.’

  She pulled down the top of her swimsuit. There was a small pink scar below her left nipple.

  ‘Neat, huh? Bryan says it’s sexy.’