He took one last look at Miss Bridie. “Enjoy your walk,” he said. He heard Morgan giggle from just above him. Turning towards the steps, he caught a glimpse of those legs and the trailing, white hand with its beckoning index finger. As he fled up the stairs and followed close behind her, she dashed into the bedroom. Shutting the door, Morgan twisted her body and fell onto the bed, clinging to Finton’s shoulders. As the front door slammed shut, she pulled him on top of her and kissed him, snaking her tongue nearly to his tonsils. It felt as if she were pulling his soul forward and into her own.
This time was different from before. With their clothes off, rolling around on the bed, they fought for positioning, torsos taut, legs outspread, arms outstretched, grasping for something unattainable. He pulled the towel from her head and dropped it to the floor, causing her wet, blonde hair to caress his chest. Clinging to her hips, he licked her skin, nibbled her neck, and tasted her essence, memorizing the nuance of every part of her, gripping her like a faith object he was afraid would disappear. She played the starving animal, as before, but he was discontent with being prey. Each time she pushed, he pushed right back; whenever she tugged, he twisted, escaped, and landed on top. At one point he sat on her stomach and pinned her by the wrists, splaying her arms apart. He stared at her breasts, thinking how beautiful and full they were while he enjoyed a moment of unsatiated lust. He faced a choice—to maintain control of her or to let go of her wrists and touch her perfect, brown nipples. Having momentarily tamed Morgan, he feared to unleash her, certain that she would turn on him and make him her pet. He let go of her arms and reached for her breasts. But, in a matter of seconds, she flipped him onto his back and sat astride him, writhing, moaning, and satisfying herself at no one’s whim but her own.
Not that he minded. It always had to be Morgan’s way. Always had to be carried out in the manner conducive to her liking. Fortunately, he was thirteen and easily satisfied—satisfaction, however, was a temporary phase.
After he’d come twice, once as she straddled him and once as she lay beneath him, he was still descending from his great emotional height, on the brink of exhaustion, when he found himself gazing at her sated face, closed lids, and lips squeezed shut—and he suddenly became curious about what she needed, what made her lose her mind in the best of ways. He said, “How do you like it best?”
At first, she looked startled. It was a look she’d never given before. “You’re not ready,” she said. “You might never be.”
It occurred to him then that she must have another lover, one who was ready. “I think I love you,” he said. Despite the feeling that he had somehow betrayed Mary with those words, he was confident in his intentions.
She laughed, touched his face, and pushed him away. “You’ve lost your mind, b’y. It’s only sex.”
It was nearly an hour before he emerged from her bedroom, needing tea and a couple of Jam-jams. At some point, Miss Bridie had come in and had fallen asleep on the couch with a ratty blanket pulled over her. He sat at the kitchen table and watched the setting spring sun spill orange over the distant mountains, where the sea blazed the colour of hellfire and the sky reflected the blackness of his heart. If this was what it felt like to be a man, he wished he could have remained a boy. There would be a cost for falling in love with Morgan, or even just for loving her. But he didn’t care. He only wanted the truth she offered. She had even told him, when he asked if she was on the pill, “You needn’t worry about protection. I’m covered.” It was a little too late for such concerns, he realized, but he was nonetheless relieved.
In the days and weeks that followed, he found himself obsessed with Morgan—or what she offered. Some days, he got lucky and found her home and willing, but most of the time Miss Bridie was there. He managed to kill time until late in the afternoons—school on weekdays, library on Saturdays, and mass on Sundays, or walking in the woods. But she was forever on his mind. Mid-afternoons, he would knock on Miss Bridie’s door and she would usher him inside for a cup of tea. She never seemed suspicious that he was coming around so much, didn’t seem to draw the connection between him and Morgan. On rare occasions, he would find Morgan at home by herself, and they would spend a few minutes or an hour, naked and having sex. If Miss Bridie happened to come in, he would go downstairs afterward for a yarn and some tea. But it didn’t happen often enough to arouse her suspicions—or so he hoped. Perhaps she was simply good at keeping her misgivings to herself in the absence of proof.
Some days Morgan herself was out—likely babysitting, but he didn’t know for sure. One day, Miss Bridie told him she was upstairs with another boy who’d arrived before him. “That’s no odds, sure,” she said. “I’ll put the kettle on.”
“No, thanks,” he said, backing out the door, his gaze traveling up the stairwell. “I’ll come back later. I needed to talk to Morgan.” As much as he wanted to run upstairs, he didn’t want to know the identity of her other lover. The age difference between him and Morgan meant she would have others; he’d already figured that out. He would have been deluded to think she cared only for him.
Deluded, even, to think she could really care about him. It hurt to think of such things, but there was nothing he could do. Just as Morgan knew he would, he kept coming back. He was addicted to her and didn’t want a cure. She made him feel good, but she made him crazy.
She gave him confidence, but filled him with self-doubt. He came alive in her bed, although she usually left him numb. Leaving her was like a resurrection—rising like Lazarus, more undead than alive.
On the morning of his fourteenth birthday, he got up early, determined to shake off the heaviness of recent events and do something great with the day. Nearly the whole family was gathered at the table having breakfast. No one mentioned his birthday. There were no presents, no confidential whispers. He gobbled down some oatmeal as fast as he could, burning his mouth when he forgot to blow on it.
“Homer said he saw you go into the Battenhatch place yesterday,” his mother said. “I don’t like gossip, you know.”
“I saw you.” Homer had his mouth stuffed with toast, while Clancy worked on a crossword puzzle and chewed his food.
Elsie was buttering her own toast, paying it close attention. “I don’t want you going there, Finton. There’s nothing good there for you.”
“Happy birthday!” Nanny Moon said as she entered the kitchen. She’d been sleeping later in recent weeks and rarely had breakfast with the rest of them anymore. She crossed the floor and hugged him, gifting him with a peck on the cheek. “My, you’re getting to be a big man now, aren’t you?”
“Birthday?” Elsie’s eyes grew wide. “Why didn’t you say it was your birthday? You’re always so secretive about things.”
“Happy birthday, stinko!” Clancy didn’t look up from his crossword puzzle, on which he often worked while eating.
“Yeah,” Homer chimed in through a mouthful of toast. “Better watch out—you’re gonna get the bumps today.”
He regarded them all for a moment and took a mental snapshot. Leaving a half bowl of porridge, he dashed to the porch and out the front door. He leaped down the steps, taking all three at once, and nearly stumbled over a young woman who’d been sitting on the middle one.
“Sorry, Ruth. Didn’t see you there.” He recognized the young, shorthaired brunette as an older friend of Clancy’s. She was one of the Crowleys, although distinct from Bernard and the rest of her family. Her clothes were hand-me-downs, but they were clean and well matched. In her early twenties, Ruth Crowley was more mature than Finton’s oldest brother, with whom she occasionally consorted. “Clancy’s having breakfast. Go on in.”
“I came to see you,” she said, standing up to her full height.
“Me? Why?”
“I’ve heard what you can do.”
“But I haven’t done it in a long time.”
Her expression struck him as serene and sad, like one who’d endured much suffering. There was something else about her he couldn
’t quite touch.
“I’m going blind.” She lowered her head, but lifted it again as if remembering her pride. “They told me all I had to do was touch your sleeve.”
“There’s more to it than that.” He came forward and regarded her more closely. Her eyes were normal except for a thin, pale film that appeared on the upper half of both eyeballs. Without warning her, he covered them with his palms. But the pain in his hands was excruciating, and he jerked them away. Blood trickled down her cheeks. He instinctively held his hands in front of his face and, when he saw that his palms were smeared red, he emitted a sharp cry.
“What is it?” she asked. “What’s wrong?”
“I can’t help you—I just—” He blinked and opened his eyes. Ruth was fine, not a trace of blood on her. He’d just been imagining. “I’m so sorry,” he said.
He heard the front door open and tore away down the lane like a youth possessed, away from that house, wondering if he was really hearing someone screaming behind him. Hands clamped on his ears, he ran for the woods and stopped only when he reached the landwash, where the stench of rotting seaweed made his eyes weep. He ran to the water’s edge and knelt in the sand. He dipped his hands in the sea and scrubbed them clean, then splashed his face and rubbed his eyes. A wave rolled over his legs and backside, soaking his pants. As the imaginary blood dissipated, he peered to the sky where the seagulls laughed. Panting hard, he fell backwards onto the rocks and sand. The next wave rolled in and shot cold through his body like an injection of a powerful drug.
Without thinking, he said out loud, “Don’t believe anymore,” and he liked the sound of his voice, though the salt water gagged him. He said it again, his voice strengthening with each repetition until he was shouting and crying at once. “Don’t believe anymore!”
The seagulls screeched while the ocean rolled over him.
Minutes passed. The sun soared overhead. Two gulls and a crow hopped about on the beach rocks, foraging for shellfish. The crow got brazen and pecked on his sneaker, even plucked his lace.
In time, Finton picked himself up and trudged, wet clothes and all, to the Battenhatch house. He knocked on the front door, but didn’t wait for a response as they were getting pretty used to his visits.
Stepping into the porch, he was relieved that Miss Bridie wasn’t sitting at the table. “Hello?” he called out. “Anyone home?”
“Just me,” came Morgan’s voice from upstairs. “Come on up, Romeo!”
He rushed up the steps to where she lay on the bed with the curtains drawn, listening to strange music. For a moment, he stood in the open doorway, until, perceiving his hard state, she rushed towards him, clasped his head on both sides and demanded to know what in Christ’s name had happened to him. As she led him to the bed, he could only murmur, “I think I’m dead.”
She stripped off his clothes and wrapped him in a musty towel. He shivered as she pulled him into the bed and under the covers. She slid beside him, hugged him tight, and rubbed him all over. “It’ll be okay,” she kept saying, over and over. He figured she was wrong, but he let her believe it. “Mudder won’t be back for a while,” she added, although, for once, he didn’t care where she was. He was tired of secrecy and small town games, wanted out of his own head and out of this place, never to return.
When he was warm enough, they made love—urgently, gently, and wordlessly.
As they lay together afterwards, she said, “Happy birthday.”
All he could think of, gazing up at the ceiling, was the hallucination he’d had of the bleeding, blinded woman.
“When did it all go wrong?” he asked.
“What?”
“I used to be able to heal with my hands.”
Morgan hesitated as the shadows of late morning fed the room’s darkness. The only sound was his beating heart. “I’ve never seen you do that,” she said. “What do you do?”
“I made people feel better. I put my hands on them, and it made them better.”
“How did it make you feel?”
“I don’t know.”
“Don’t say that. You do know.”
“It made me feel worse.”
“In what way?”
“Like I gave them something they couldn’t handle. That I couldn’t even handle myself. I got headaches. Nosebleeds, sometimes. But it wasn’t just that. It was something inside me. Not good or bad, just different. And maybe I shouldn’t be doing it. Ya know?”
“Yeah,” she said. “I know what you mean.”
“Where did it come from?”
“I don’t know.”
“Maybe it’s better that way.”
He rolled over, kissed her on the lips, and awaited her reaction. He studied her face, so small and perfect, despite the lines he’d never noticed before at the corners of her eyes and mouth. “Why did you pick me?” he asked. His breath lodged in his chest.
“The same reason we all did,” she said.
“I don’t know what you mean.”
“You’ll figure it out.”
“Why can’t you help me figure it out?”
“That’s not my job,” she said with a sigh.
“What is?”
“Oh, I think we both know,” she said as she traced a line down his chest and towards his pubic hair. He closed his eyes and focused on drawing his next breath. “You need me. I need you. We use each other. We both get what we want.”
“What do you need me for?”
“Will you stop asking so many questions? What’s wrong with you today?”
He didn’t answer. “What do you need me for, Morgan?”
“Well, if you must know…” She cleared her throat. “I just wanted to see if I could corrupt you.”
“I guess it was pretty easy.”
“Sort of,” she said in a mysterious way, her eyes taking on a troubled look. “But, in some ways, not so easy.”
“What do you mean?”
“More questions?” She sighed dramatically and swept her hair from her face. The creaking of the bedsprings was intimate, comforting. When she realized he wasn’t going to relent, she continued. “You’re changed since we first did it. But you’re still you. You know what I mean?”
He shook his head.
“You’re still good,” she said. “You still care about people. That’s what I like about you.” She propped herself up on one elbow. “Anyway, enough serious talk. Did your parents give you anything for your birthday?”
He lay back on the pillow, gazed up at the ceiling and marveled at the cobwebs that looked like a bride’s veil, hanging from the ceiling. “They never do.”
“You mean you’ve never had a birthday gift?”
“We can’t afford it.”
“You mean they. They can’t afford it. You can do whatever you want if you make your own money.”
He didn’t speak for a few seconds. The thoughts and questions tossed in his head until, finally, he blurted one out. “Do you love your mother?”
“What kind of question is that?”
“I want to know. You seem to get along most of the time.”
“Now we do. But we still fight. Let’s just say we called a truce.” She rolled over and leaned her head on one hand, her elbow propped against the pillow. With a finger, she traced the faint scar above his cheek—the one she’d given him when he was a baby on her Confirmation day—and then allowed her hand to wander, absently caressing the promise of chest hair that showed signs of becoming a bumper crop.
“Why did you hate her?”
“Oh,” Morgan laughed bitterly, “where do I begin?”
“Wherever you want.”
“Well, I don’t owe you an explanation—or anyone else. But… she was mean to me. In the worst way. She’d call me names. Bitch. Slut. Cunt. Whore. Every time she saw me with a boy.” Morgan’s eyes glistened with a faraway look. “She can be pretty spiteful, my dear ol’ mother.”
“Enough to make you burn the house down?”
“Oh
, that.” Through Morgan’s attempted smile, he saw a hint of nervousness. “I was messed up. Partying for days—came home for some peace and all I got was attitude. Same old names. Same old hatred. I brought up something I shouldn’t have, and she threw a junk of wood at me. ‘Do it again,’ I said. ‘I dare ya!’” Morgan laughed for real this time. “What a pair we were. I tell ya. She threw another one at me head. And another one struck me in the chest. I told her to stop or I’d fuckin’ burn her out.”
Finton could barely breathe. Never in his life could he have made up such a thing, and he was reasonably sure Morgan hadn’t done so either. On the other hand, he could barely fathom that every word was true. “What made you stab her?” he asked, though he wasn’t sure where the courage came from to ask such a question.
The coldness of her smile belied the merriment in her eyes. “That was a fuckup,” she said. “She was bitchin’ at me, as usual, for staying out drinking, accusing me of doin’ drugs, screwin’ around. Here I was, trying to get my act together. And there she was, half soused. She wouldn’t let up.” Morgan shrugged casually. “The knife was just lyin’ there on the table. You wouldn’t believe how much I was tempted—how hard I tried not to listen to the voice in me head telling me, ‘Go ahead and stick it in her. Gut her like a trout.’” A flicker of regret appeared in her eyes. “Been best kind ever since. But if I hadn’t fought back, I don’t think we’d be even talkin’ to each other these days, let alone livin’ under one roof.” She smiled languidly, seeming to realize Finton hadn’t spoken in a while. “What are you thinkin’ about?”
“You.” He ran a hand through the shock of blonde hair that hung across her forehead, thinking how beautiful she looked when she wasn’t wearing makeup or putting on an act. He found himself wondering if he loved her. Enough. That was the word that came to mind. Suddenly, he realized that, yes, he loved her in a certain way. But did he love her enough? “I always thought I had it hard, being so different,” he said. “But I’ve had it easy compared to you.”
Finton Moon Page 23
