The Wives of Bath

by Susan Swan

  “You see, Bradford? It’s as easy as pie. Either you believe in yourself or you don’t.”

  “Yes,” I said, and laughed out loud, startling myself. “You’re either a man or a mouse.”

  As we turned once again down the path that circled through the ravine, the warm sunshine of Indian summer on our shoulders, Lewis said he had things to say to me. About girls, mainly. About the way you had to treat them if you were a man.

  You have to fool them, Lewis said. Bully them. They like it when you take charge. And you have a task to do for Kong, he reminded me. You have to feel up a girl above the waist. You don’t have to touch her Down There; it’s just important to get at the breasts. That’s what Kong likes. Tell her that if she loved you, she’d let you do it. Guilt usually does the trick. Guilt lets you get anywhere you want to go.

  We were deep into the ravine now, among fallen logs and ferns and the half-baked woods people in the city mistake for a real forest.

  “But maybe girls want their breasts touched?” I said.

  “They do and they don’t—that’s the trouble. You have to initiate everything. They don’t like the responsibility.”

  “What girl am I going to try this on, Paulie?”

  “Lewis,” he said. “It’s Nick and Lewis from here on in. Have you got that, Nick?”

  “Yes, Lewis,” I said.

  “And remember Kong’s words: ‘A man stands alone. A man stands by his friends. A man speaks his mind and is afraid of no one.’ ” Lewis spat an impressive spit ball over the railing, and I busied myself again with my rabbit’s foot and asked no more questions.

  We came to the end of the path, and I told Lewis I had to rest my legs. Below us lay the river, the colour of agate beneath the overhanging branches. Bubbles floated like spit on its surface next to pieces of Styrofoam and dead leaves. We climbed across some old boards that somebody had placed over a swampy patch and stood by the funny small sandy shore. An overturned cement mixer lay in the grass nearby. Lewis said it belonged to Sergeant. His kiln for making firebrick for the furnace was up in the woods.

  Safe from sight, we got out our fags, and I cupped my hand around Paulie’s lighter flame with an ease that amazed me. Then I saw them—a whole pack. Coming toward us along the narrow beach—some pushing bicycles, some walking. A group of Kings College boys. The name of their school was not yet visible on the embossed gold crest on their navy jackets, but I knew it anyway. They were laughing and yelling as they moved toward us, pretending not to notice we were even there.

  I waited anxiously for them to see through me. Sure as anything, they’d be able to tell by my face that I wasn’t used to real sunlight—that I’d crawled out of a cave of old forgotten women into the real world. Lewis whispered, “It’s the first punch that counts.” I shrank away from him—scared to death. Lewis looked disgusted and walked over and planted himself in front of them, his legs set wide apart.

  “This is private property,” Lewis said. “Get the fuck out of here.”

  Lewis looked shorter suddenly, standing in front of the boys. The hunting cap was pulled low over his eyes, and his sleeves were rolled up so the boys would notice his muscles, as round and hard under his skin as a pair of Adam’s apples.

  A fair boy with a brush cut put down his bicycle. He hung over Lewis, twice his size. I recognized him from Tory’s photograph. It was her brother, Rick. “Get out of our way, asshole.” He spat at Lewis—not an impressive ball, like the ones I’d seen Lewis make, but a fuzzy spew of saliva that landed on his shoulder. One of the other boys laughed. Then Lewis yelled, “Nick,” and now the boys turned to look at me. Oh, no, don’t hurt me, I thought. You’ve got it wrong. I’m a girl. Can’t you see? You know what we’re like—we faint and preen and do all that dumb girl stuff. And I have a hunched back, too. I looked down quickly at my torqued shoulder, hoping they’d see Alice and feel sorry for me. And then Rick lunged at Lewis, and Lewis head-butted him, and Rick swore and grabbed Lewis by the neck, and the two of them toppled backwards onto the sand. Immediately, one of the other boys grabbed Lewis’s arms so that Tory’s brother could straddle his stomach. He laughed and spat in Lewis’s face. “Bulls-eye!” Rick shouted.

  All of a sudden, my stupid old Mouse heart started to thud, and I felt my neck swell, like the Celtic warrior women in the history book who puff up with rage and gnash their teeth and yell like men. The old Bradford genes must have been coming into play. And somebody I didn’t know shrieked at him to leave Lewis alone, and I lurched over and jumped on Rick’s back. Who did he think he was! Going to Kings College didn’t mean he could treat Lewis like shit! I wanted to smash his snobby mouth—split those thin, snobby Kings College lips until I saw them bleed.

  And the big idiot bucked backwards then, slamming his elbows into my face. My nose throbbed, stung. I dropped my hands and rolled off him, my arms up to protect my face. Pant legs surrounded me. I rolled to my knees just as a black high-top sneaker made a windy rush to my ear. I ducked, and then I heard a shout, and the foot went calmly to the ground. Sneakered feet and pant legs moved closer.

  “Will you look at this! It’s not a boy we’re fighting. It’s a frigging girl!” My cap had fallen off, and my hair straggled down my shoulders.

  “She’s got boobs under there!” he shouted, and yanked at my shirt, under Willy’s jacket, ripping off my button. Lewis was still pinned under Rick. I was on my knees and afraid to look down in case I’d see the two dumb little pimples growing where I didn’t want them to grow. I didn’t know how Lewis had managed to keep his cap on. The chin strap, I guess.

  “Leave her alone!” Lewis screamed. “Leave her alone or you’ll be sorry!” The boys ignored Lewis. One of them pinned my arms behind my back. I couldn’t see who it was. Then the boy with black sneakers stuck his face right into mine and started to inspect my neck and ears with his hot fingers. He acted like he was looking for cooties, inspecting me the way Miss Mullen inspected all the kids back in grade school in the Landing. I began to shake in the worst way when I felt his fingers creep under my shirt and walk plink-plink-plink in little fakey spider steps up to the nipple of my left breast. “Hey guys,” he said and pressed my nipple down hard, as if he were using one of Morley’s push-button windows. “Let’s get us some nooky!” I could feel the tears swarming under my lids. But the other boys standing near us were no longer watching, they were whispering and pointing at the ravine hill. Hurrying down the path with his strange, rolling gait rushed Sergeant with his corgi, Spruce. He was waving his short arms.

  “Lewis! Lewis! Are you in a pinch? Hey, there! Get away from my worker, you ruffians!”

  The boy behind me dropped my arms, and one of them called out something about being attacked by a girl. Sergeant only waved his arms even more excitedly.

  “That’s no girl, you fool! That’s my grounds boy, Lewis. A bunch of hooligans, that’s all you are! Picking on boys smaller than yourselves!”

  The Kings College boys stared at one another; then, one by one, they picked up their bicycles and began to walk off down the ravine.

  “And we’re glad to see the back of you, that’s for certain,” Sergeant called out as I jumped to my feet and started to do up my shirt. Then I remembered my cap. I grabbed it up and tucked my hair out of sight and finally went back to my buttons, my fingers all shaky. I wondered what Morley would think of me if he could see me now.

  “Who’s your friend, Lewis?” Sergeant asked. I stared at the river. The water smelled of old shoes and algae, not fresh like the bay at home. It wasn’t even a river, really—just a gush of sewer water that came out of giant culverts.

  “Nick is a Greek. He only knows a few words of English.”

  “A Greek, is he? Don’t know much about them. It’s the Frenchies I hate.”

  “Uh—right.” Lewis nudged me. “Hey, Nick, we’ve got to be on our way. We’re late, and we’ve got friends to meet at the mill.”

  “Don’t want to keep the girls waiting, do you?” Sergea
nt giggled. “I reckon they’d have a few words to say about that, wouldn’t they? Ah, well. Never mind, lads. That’s what it is to be a man—putting up with the shit women hand you.”

  Sergeant tethered Spruce to a tree. Then he unzippered himself and stood with his legs apart, peeing into the river. The spray of his pee fell through the air golden and fine, like liquid coins.

  “Come on, lads, no long faces now. Will you not play swordsies with old Sergeant?” He aimed higher, and I watched the spray that shot without dribbling from the overgrown pink mushroom that drooped from his fingers.

  “I guess the Virgin wouldn’t know what to do with that,” Lewis said and whistled—a low, thrilling whistle as Sergeant shook himself so that the last drops fell to the ground. I looked off, embarrassed for him.

  “Don’t talk like that about your superiors, lad,” Sergeant said.

  “How about Miss Phillips, then?” Lewis asked. It was common knowledge that the matron hated Sergeant because he liked to play tricks on the boarding school.

  “Ach, there’s nothing the matter with that woman that a good pair of brains wouldn’t cure.” Sergeant stopped and pointed at me. “Lewis! Your friend here—the poor lad—his mouth is bloody.”

  I put my hand up to my face, and it came back sticky. I had a nosebleed—something I hated more than Morley’s needles. Then I was doubled over, throwing up into the green spears of the burdock (thanks to Mrs. Peddie, I knew the name of the weeds I was defiling). I watched myself from a distance, as if the skinny boy puking in the bushes had nothing to do with me. When I looked up, Lewis was staring my way as if he’d never seen me before. Looking at me as if he was Kong. And sure enough, he held up eight fingers. Eight out of ten. Not bad for a Mouse. I’d passed Kong’s second category of tests: Mastery over Other Men. With flying colors.

  Lewis’s Song to Kong

  Death to the boys of Kings College! Kromp! Kromp! Kreehgar scraashh!

  The mighty Lewis head-butted one in Kong’s name and then and then and then—

  Kunnnkk! Slam! The newcomer Nick valiantly jumped on his back—

  Jagg—gkagk! And then—what! And then—shatterrk! The scum unfairly tried to disrobe Nick the Newcomer. They called him the lowest form of animal life there is—a girl!

  Nick the Newcomer and the mighty Lewis were not cowed, but their enemies outnumbered them ten-to-one! And then—shwunkety-wunk! The dwarf delivered them from the jaws of trouble. Skharroomm! Arrak!

  The dwarf was Victorious.

  Surrounded by a sea of enemies, he conquered!

  Yaeeeh! A man is somebody who is Kong in his heart. Kong. Kong. Kong.

  Nick the Newcomer and the mighty Lewis saw the dwarf’s sword making rainbows against the sky—holding in his hand the lost weapon of Kodo!

  One foot in diameter, as wide as a redwood, as long as the sea serpents of Japan. Kong lives. Long live Kong.

  26

  My next test still lay ahead: Mastery over Women.

  Lewis and I said good-bye to Sergeant and walked across the highway to the Old Mill. I’d never been inside a tavern before, but I’d seen the railroad hotel in Dollartown, outside the Landing. Morley sometimes stopped there to buy pipe tobacco, leaving Sal and me behind in Blinky to stare at the grubby men in dark plaid hunting shirts and peaked caps who staggered in and out of its Ladies and Escorts room. I wasn’t impressed. The Dollartown tavern didn’t even have swing doors like the saloons you see in old westerns.

  The Old Mill didn’t look like much, either—just an old brick house beside a muddy creek. It stood all alone in the north end of the ravine, which twisted off between a ridge of wooded hills toward Toronto. Once a real gristmill had stood beside the tavern, but that was over a hundred years ago. I could have been in the middle of nowhere. I wasn’t in Madoc’s Landing, with its string of narrow shops running down to the government wharf. Or downtown Toronto, with its streetcars and windy streets like concrete valleys, stuffed to the brim with dour-looking people. At least these sad-looking city people knew they belonged somewhere. They had an identity. Although I have to admit, I don’t really understand what an identity is. For one thing, it’s what makes you different from the rest of the world (which is what Alice does for me). And it’s also what you have in common with others—i.e., the way I have something in common with girls.

  So I squeezed my rabbit’s foot hard for luck and tried not to think about what the Virgin would do to us if we were caught, or what lie I could make up if somebody nabbed us for being under the legal drinking age. And then Lewis gave me a little push and I half fell into a hall as dark as a church. Did I say dark? I mean pitch-black except for a pair of stained-glass windows on the far wall. Instead of a picture of Jesus, the windows displayed a sheaf of wheat next to a beer mug. This was the Ladies and Escorts room, where boarders were not supposed to go. I could hear people playing pool somewhere to the left of us and to the right, male laughter and the clink of glasses. To my relief, we walked into the little takeout restaurant beside the beer hall. Two St. Mary’s girls in blue tunics sat smoking at one of the tables. “Behold the prey,” Lewis hissed in my ear. Our dates wore pinky-white lipstick, like beatniks, and their hair was teased into thickly hair-sprayed beehives. Convent girls were wild, Lewis said, because their schools were so strict. At St. Mary’s the nuns rang little bells if the girls danced too close to a boy. Sitting at the table with the two girls was one of the Kings College boys we’d fought by the river. When he saw us he stood up and whispered something to the girls, and all three of them stared at me, as if he’d told them about what had happened.

  My Mouse heart quaked. The last thing we needed was another rumble.

  “Get lost, creep,” Lewis said, and jabbed the Kings College boy with his knee. He looked around to see if anybody was watching and then dragged himself off into the gloomy beer hall, and I realized that Lewis had succeeded in doing the unthinkable—i.e., kneeing him in the groin. Then we sat down, and the two girls put their heads together and giggled as if we didn’t exist. Lewis didn’t seem to notice. So that’s how you act, I thought—as if what other people do is of no importance. I couldn’t help wondering, just the same, if the boy had told the girls about me, and, if so, if the girls believed him. I watched Lewis for a sign that he was concerned, too, but Lewis only lit up a fag, never once taking his heavy-lidded eyes off the girls’ breasts swelling under their blue tunics. They were more developed than either Tory or me, and the breasts of the girl sitting next to me looked as big as Ismay’s—a 38 C, or my name wasn’t Mouse Bradford.

  That was because she was fat. The sleeves of her beige blouse were strained tight across her forearms, and when she raised her hand to smoke, I spotted a B.O. stain.

  “Lewis, who’s your friend?” the slighter girl asked. Nervously, I looked away over their bouffant hairdos, pretending I was more interested in Dave Keon’s Maple Leaf hockey sweater in a glass case on the wall, framed like one of Sal’s china plates.

  “Lewis, why doesn’t your friend talk?” she asked when I didn’t say anything.

  “He’s from Athens, Beth.”

  “Well, they speak English there, don’t they?”

  “Not him. And he doesn’t like people to draw attention to it, either.”

  “Oh, pardon me for breathing.” The slight girl looked at the fat one, and they both started laughing again.

  “His name is Nick,” Lewis answered for me.

  “That’s a nice name,” the fat girl said. “My name is Josie. It’s short for Josephine.” She put her hand on one of my skinny biceps. “Oh, what big muscles Nick has!” she said, and both girls snickered and hooted.

  “Mine are bigger,” Lewis said, and rolled up his sleeves to show them.

  “Can’t Nick talk, Lewis?” Josie said when they had finished ogling.

  “Endaxy,” I said.

  “Oh, he wants to get a taxi,” Josie said.

  “No he doesn’t,” Lewis said. “He means he’s agreeing with you—he
can’t talk much. See?”

  Then Lewis ordered four coffees, and the girls smoked and whispered to each other without touching their cups. I didn’t drink mine, either—my hands were shaking too much. So I just sat there like a dope, watching Lewis through my dark glasses, waiting for a sign from him that would tell me what to do.

  When the signal came, I couldn’t believe it. Lewis put his empty mug back on the tray and announced, rude as you please, that he and Beth were going for a walk. Beth looked a little surprised. Then they left, Lewis swaggering ahead, while the men at the counter turned to stare at the girl’s nice round calves in her black winter stockings.

  “Would you like to do something with me, Nick?” Josie said pointedly, and I waited for her to start up her giggling again. But she put on a show of looking serious, taking my arm and helping me to my feet as if I were a child who needed instructions.

  Outside the Old Mill, the sun was turning the agate-coloured stream almost summer-blue. The air felt warm on my cheeks, and I heard bees droning in the bushes down near the storm sewers. We walked a little way in silence, and then, for no good reason, Josie stumbled against me and clutched at my hand with her fat fingers. Did she think I wanted to hold hands? How perverted! I thought. Then I remembered who I was.

  “Is anything wrong?” Josie asked. For a second I almost told her. “I know I’m a little overweight,” she whispered, as if she were trying to keep somebody from overhearing. “But I’m going on a Metrecal diet this weekend.” I must have looked taken aback, because she giggled and said, “I can see you don’t have to go on a diet.” I shook my head and noisily started to chew gum, because I didn’t know what else to do. Her forward manner terrified me. She smiled, as if she wanted to reassure me, all the while chattering on about how much she hated Latin at St. Mary’s. I didn’t say anything, and after a while she stopped talking, and we walked in an uncomfortable silence toward the wooded end of the ravine.