Summer Cannibals

by Melanie Hobson

  We might not make it to dinner, she’d countered, laughing too.

  Not this light, she thought as she opened the car door and the overhead bulb came on. The half-light of early evening under the trees is better for us. And it wasn’t the Volvo. Instead, it was a small compact he said his mother never drove because of her bad knees and hips.

  Too low to the ground. I’ve been telling her to sell it, but she won’t.

  It’s her independence, Jax said, tucking her legs up so she could face him as he nosed the car out through the opening in the wall and onto the road.

  What is?

  He was softer than she remembered. His jawline not as hard as it had been, and under his chin, in profile, the skin sagged and bunched. And his stomach, now that he was sitting, was rounder.

  The car, she said. So she doesn’t have to rely on anyone for rides.

  Like you, eh?

  Yeah, she smiled. But I like riding you.

  The instant she’d said it, Jax knew it was off and wanted it back. It wasn’t suited to the mood or the place or the hour, and was freighted with a crudeness she hadn’t intended. She’d meant it as a shared murmur. Something intimate between them, like the old days. Banter.

  Billy focused on the traffic, remarking on the restaurant’s location and how he was sure there was probably a better way of getting there, but—

  Did you say it was Thai? Jax asked, trying to gloss over her mistake. Because I love Thai food.

  Well, yes. Although really—his tone shifting into a register she didn’t recognize—it’s not strictly Thai food. It’s more accurately Thai-infused Chinese-American with a few Vietnamese noodle bowls and a Malaysian curry or two thrown in.

  Are you gay? she laughed. It was the joke they’d always had about men who obsessed over food.

  He reached a hand across and down her shirt and tweaked her nipple. Grinning.

  You can’t accuse me of that, he said, putting both hands back on the wheel.

  And there was the evening: a graph plotted with awkward moments buoyed along on an undercurrent of sexual tension that was the only part of their history that was still as strong, or stronger, than it had always been. They discussed the menu and the view across the lake; they skirted around their real lives and their jobs and their children—for Billy mentioned a son back in China and the woman he’d declined to marry; and by the time the meal was finished and the leftovers boxed up and forgotten on the table, the two of them were marvelling at the new lakefront promenade as they walked, hands on each other, drunk with their predicament. Where to go? They chatted, but neither was listening, each of them searching for a stand of trees or an open shed or even a truck bed. What they found, right at the end of a pier, was a cabin cruiser with enough space at the stern to lie down and be shielded by the two outboard motors and the storage boxes running either side of its deck.

  Billy leapt from the dock.

  Permission to come aboard, Captain, Jax giggled.

  Only—and she could hear the grin in his voice—if you promise you’ll blow my whistle.

  They were teenagers again.

  She bent low, trying to lift the lid of a storage box, and Billy came up behind her.

  I’m looking for life jackets, Jax whispered, but it’s locked.

  We’re not going to sink, Billy murmured, grabbing her hips and pulling himself up against her.

  Jax turned slowly to face him.

  Something soft to lie down on, she whispered.

  And I thought you liked it hard, he said, thrusting into her.

  Easy, tiger, Jax laughed, backing up as she lifted her shirt over her head and dropped it to the deck. It felt good to tease him. To make him wait. She could see how starved he was.

  You want me? she said, coy, backing up against the cabin door as he followed her and snaked his hands around to her back and her bra, their actions so flawless and rehearsed and ages-old, but they were savouring them now. Undressing slowly until they were both, for the first time together, naked.

  Jax, he mumbled as he kissed her, eyes closed, their hands delicate on each other’s bodies.

  This time, the sex was luxurious. And when it was finished and they were next to each other on the deck, their clothes under their heads for pillows, he said, I do remember, Jaxie. Saying that.

  Jax rolled into him. It was her turn to stall now. To make him wait, to leave him hoping for something she had no intention of giving because this—infidelity—was a much bigger prize. She didn’t have to settle for just Billy, or her husband, or any other man. She could have them all.

  27

  Pippa hadn’t given Georgina all the details, but she’d given her enough that when Georgina went downstairs and through the filthy kitchen to the porch and found their mother sitting there, serene and smoking, she wanted to shift the blame and guilt to her. If an older sister could be responsible, then a mother was undoubtedly more responsible.

  Did you know about Philippa and Dr. Sanders?

  Margaret lowered her cigarette, pushed her hair back from her face.

  Malachy? Malachy Sanders?

  They had sex. Starting when Pip was a kid.

  Georgina watched her closely for any tremor of surprise. Or recognition.

  No, they didn’t.

  Georgina took a step closer, her voice a pulse. A hush.

  Pippa just told me they did.

  Pippa’s unwell, Margaret said. And what do you mean by “kid’?

  Eighteen.

  Oh. Well, Margaret said, tapping her ash onto the porch rug, toeing it with her shoe. Malachy Sanders? Are you sure?

  As if the problem was not the sex but that he was short and wore his trousers too tight and that his wife, Margaret’s oldest friend, had told her his breath was so bad she’d stopped kissing him, and insisted he take her only from behind.

  Georgina nodded, sitting down, waiting for her mother to take this burden off her.

  And he was—. Georgina hesitated, unsure how to distill what Pippa had told her. He was kind of weird, what he liked to do.

  Pippa is prone to exaggeration, Margaret said. You know that.

  I believe her.

  Margaret tightened her mouth around the cigarette, drawing on it so fiercely the whole length was incinerated.

  That was a long time ago, she said, gazing somewhere in the middle distance.

  Maybe, but it’s why she went away. To New Zealand. Your own daughter, Georgina said, her words spiked with blame. There, she’d said it. Placed it squarely on their mother. But even now, Georgina saw as she watched her, she won’t take it.

  What are you going to do? Georgina asked.

  Do? Margaret stood up and threw her spent cigarette over the railing and into the drift of mint. I’m going to clean the kitchen, she announced. One problem at a time. That’s what I’m going to do.

  But you must see, Georgina said, putting a leg out to keep her mother there, that this is the reason for everything. What happened to Pippa—

  Was not the end of the world, Georgina. I remember Philippa at eighteen. Do you? She wasn’t an innocent.

  But it was the end of her world, Georgina sputtered, trying to keep up with this new savage direction the conversation had taken.

  Philippa’s fine. She’ll be fine. I’m making sure of that.

  Margaret stepped over her daughter’s outstretched leg and went inside, pulling the screen door open in a single fluid motion that said—better than her words—that she wasn’t troubled by this. That it was only the present moment that mattered, not something so far in the past. And Georgina could hear her tidying the plates away, and there was nothing angry or disordered about the way she was clattering them. Georgina heard the water running, and the fridge door opening and closing, and the squeak of the dishwasher’s racks … methodical, just clearing the mess away like she’d said she was going to. As if that was what mattered.

  Georgina went in after her.

  Mum, you can’t just pretend everything’s a
ll right.

  I am not pretending, Margaret said, turning to face her daughter.

  It was basically rape.

  And the look that passed across her mother’s face took Georgina by such surprise that she found herself unmoored, and trying to understand why her mother had flickered with derision, as if what Georgina had said was so outrageous it was laughable.

  I’m going to tell Dad, Georgina said, backing up. And it was only then that her mother snapped to.

  No, she said.

  Why not?

  But Margaret turned back to the dishes as though the matter were settled and there’d be no discussing it, and Georgina knew this was her final word. That to disobey would be to unleash such unpleasantness—

  But it was too late for that. Georgina moved through each of the downstairs rooms looking for her father, not sure what she’d say to him, but carried forward by the current of what Pippa had put on her, which had only intensified when their mother had refused to take any of it for herself. Dr. Sanders. They’d grown up with that family—Georgina’s mind turning to her own son and all the other houses he’d spent nights in. But he was a boy and that was different somehow. Less likely, she thought shakily, even though she’d read things in the paper and knew it happened, but it was always so sensational and athletic—a swim coach or a camp counsellor—but not dumpy old Dr. Sanders, who was always talking about his last vacation or his new car, or the improvements he’d made to his house and cottage. Droning on about the radiant heat he’d put in his floors. Georgina could remember him making her entire family take their shoes and socks off and feel it with their bare feet, encouraging them to lie down and shouting they should press their cheeks to it, lift their shirts and feel how it could warm their backs and soothe tired muscles like a massage. How he liked to lie on it after a bath.

  Where was her father? Georgina had come to the living room at the end of the house but there was still no sign of him. She looked out to the white garden, thinking he might be there, and her gaze went to the hedge opening and the city beyond and she felt, suddenly, so unmotivated. Tired. Unsure where to go or what to do, just stuck there staring at the blurry section of her city that showed through the yews—and a fork of blue lake like a serpent’s tongue.

  Why, she thought, didn’t Dr. Sanders go for me? As if that were another failure to add to her list.

  Margaret let the water run over her hands and then pressed them into the newly cleared sink, her thumbs hooked into the garburator opening she’d insisted on even though their plumber had staked his reputation on them causing more trouble than they were worth. She pressed the slick black rubber gaskets down and took in the smell of rotting food, trying to clear her head. To focus herself right there, in that moment. It’s different, she was repeating softly to herself. Different, different, different, different … She couldn’t go back because she knew there’d be nothing there—no suspicions, no memories, no inkling at all of what had been going on right in front of her. Because she’d only ever drifted through those days, her collages the only thing anchoring her.

  Upstairs in their bedroom, David spread his arms and legs out like a starfish, pointing his toes and flexing his wrists and feeling that beautiful ache in his groin and the small of his back, and he was thinking only of how he would do it next. And after that, and after that, and after that … I will just lie here until I’m ready to do her again.

  Georgina served them at the table, forking the pasta onto the plates and covering it with the bottled red sauce she’d shaken herbs into to try to make it edible. Despite her shopping trip, the house was low on food again. There was a heap of grated cheddar in the middle of the table, some of it hard and dry. It was the kind of meal they’d had every week as kids but tonight, instead of Jax being there, it was the other girl who was crouched at the far end of the table. Pippa was there too, her first meal at the table since arriving from New Zealand, and Georgina could tell she was trying. She’d changed her clothes and tied her hair back, and was eating her food in small bites.

  Where’s Jax? Pippa said, looking around.

  Out for dinner, Georgina replied. Thinking this was a good sign too; that Pippa was noticing things. Trying to take part.

  Who with?

  Georgina shrugged, looking to her parents, but of course they wouldn’t know. And thinking how familiar this felt, for Jax to have taken off again.

  She always has a Plan B, their father said, his fork paused above his plate and his eyes downcast. A contingency, he said. For everything.

  Oh yes? his wife said.

  You should always have a contingency, he replied.

  He was looking at his daughters now, from one to the other, careful not to look at Goldi because he didn’t trust himself yet. He suspected his wife had called her to the table as a test. To see if he had the resolve to make this work—to integrate her into their lives without giving anything away.

  Right, Georgina said, clearing her throat. Because life’s a … military campaign?

  Exactly, he answered, missing the sarcasm in her voice.

  David swallowed his food, straightening his back against his chair, looking at each member of his family like a general assessing their readiness. Their willingness to fight for him. And then his eyes stopped on Goldi and she looked up and smiled. Just a tight, thin-lipped smile, but after that all he could see was her straddling him.

  She’d been waiting for him upstairs—ready, already naked—and she’d done everything he wanted her to do, and without all the noise he found so distracting when he did it to his wife.

  It’s as if, he’d thought to himself afterwards, she’s come to me already trained.

  Every king, he’d whispered in her ear, needs his courtesan.

  Andeverycourtesan, she’d whispered back with a finger at his neck, herfuckingking.

  She’s like a wife, he thought now, looking at her there. A more perfect and obedient wife. And he’d not give her up for anything.

  What would you do, Georgina continued mildly, dropping more cheese onto her spaghetti and addressing her father, if you were under attack?

  Attack?

  But it was just an echo, and Georgina could see that his thoughts were somewhere else.

  Georgina, Margaret said, asking for the plate of cheese, but Georgina knew she was really warning her to stop.

  Goldi, Georgina said instead, following her father’s look. Like Golda Meir? Are you the elected leader of your own little country?

  The girl kept eating, unaware she was being spoken to, not conditioned yet to respond to the name she’d been given.

  So, Georgina tried again, seeing that it was beginning to agitate her parents. You’re a friend of Pip?

  Huh? Pippa looked at her sister, shook her head.

  But I thought you said—

  Georgina, their mother said sharply.

  You told me she was a friend of Pippa, Georgina said, staring hard at her mother.

  A little young, don’t you think?

  It was David, back in charge again, his voice drowning out all the others and suddenly no one cared about the girl and what she was doing there, because this was far more interesting: their father siding with their mother.

  Well, Georgina smiled. There’s my answer. You circle your wagons.

  Goldilocks had found a wrap in the wife’s closet. A length of pale blue cashmere she could wind right around herself, which is what she did now that she was alone after dinner, looking at herself in the enormous gilt mirror she’d dragged up to her room in the attic and leaned against the wall. Totalrockstar, she thought, turning. Tickled by what she saw. She’d filled the room with a sumptuous wool rug, an upholstered fan-back chair, the large jardinière with a real live trailing plant spilling out, and enough vases and precious bric-a-brac to cover the bedside table, the dresser and the small escritoire against the wall. She’d found sheets and a brocade duvet for the bed, brought up cushions to give the feeling of a harem, and she’d even hung paintings on
all the walls so the room looked just like ones she’d seen in luxury magazines. There were enough movable items in that house that she’d be able to redo the space each day, for months, and never run out of objects. Right now the colour blue was the common theme, but next time she might use an animal, or a pattern, or even go around and pick things out by weight. The heaviest, the lightest … a thousand combinations she could use. The old man hadn’t even noticed. Didn’t care. She could do whatever she wanted as long as she kept giving him something in return—and what she gave him was what she gave away anyway. Didn’t matter if it was here or there, except that here—she spun and giggled—was like a palace. Which made her almost like a queen.

  Goldi stepped out of her room, into the hall, and went to the broken window. Now that it was dark and the city was lit up like a club—not that ugly toy-town it was during the day with its tiny anonymous citizens—it looked familiar. As if it was applauding her. Amillionlighters, she giggled, waving to her audience, posing for her reflection in the remaining glass, opening the wrap and wriggling like a larva. Like the striptease act she’d put herself on holiday from; bump and grind.

  This was more like it. This promised more fun. Even the name they’d given her—Goldilocks—sealed it as a fairy tale she could lose herself in forever and ever.

  Georgina was climbing the stairs. She paused at the landing outside Pippa’s room, knowing she should check on her before going upstairs to bed, but she didn’t think she could listen to those allegations of abuse again. Not tonight, after everything else. Even Toronto’s lights, sparkling in the distance like a false dawn, were too much, and so she turned away from the huge window at the top of the stairs … and maybe it was the silent fact of the girl on the landing above her that brought the image back. Some little sound the girl made that Georgina registered, and so recalled that strange image in the storage room that she’d glimpsed without fully realizing what she was seeing. A knee cap, protruding just barely into her view. Someone squatting? Velvet boots.