by David Bergen
She drove to her house and got out and Mason slid over behind the wheel. Lena leaned back into the car and kissed Mason on the mouth and said, “Bye, Mason,” softly in his ear, and this surprised him and he was about to say something but Lena was already running up the sidewalk, her beach bag swinging from her hand, her shorts, the sleeve of her father’s shirt dragging on the ground. At the door she turned and waved and there was the wink of her belly and her face, then she was gone.
When Mason walked into his mother’s apartment, she was sitting out on the balcony in the late-afternoon sun. Her legs were stretched out in front of her and she was reading a newspaper, and when she heard Mason she turned and said, “Hi,” and motioned with her left hand for him to come over. He went to her and she took his arm and pulled him down and pressed her cheek against his and he saw her bare thighs and her nipples through her thin top.
He got himself a Nestea from the fridge and came back and sat and asked, “Where’s Aldous?”
“Golfing. He wanted me to come but I hate golfing, and he hates it that I hate it. Your dad doesn’t like golf either. That’s to his credit.”
“He can’t afford it,” Mason said.
“Is that why?” Mrs. Crowe said. She placed her palms on her thighs and studied her hands. She said, “We’re going out for dinner. Very simple. And it would be nice if you’d join us. I’d really like it if you stayed the night.”
Mason finished his drink. He said he had no change of clothes.
“You don’t need them,” his mother said. “We’re going out for pasta at that new restaurant on Corydon. You can borrow some sandals from Aldous. You might even fit into his clothes.”
“He doesn’t like me,” Mason said.
“Oh, that’s not true. He thinks you don’t like him. Now, see?”
“I don’t.”
“You can’t dislike someone you don’t know,” she said. “That’s silly. Don’t be small.”
They went inside where the air conditioner had kept everything cool. It was both wonderful and false to be in the apartment with his mother, who was standing in the white kitchen, her back to him, talking about the life she had and how she wanted to share it with him. She turned and said, “But you think I’m awful.”
“Not awful,” Mason said. He looked around the apartment. “Maybe you’re lucky.”
“Mothers aren’t supposed to leave their children and husbands. Our duty is to nurture and if we don’t, we’re lousy human beings.”
“I didn’t say that.”
“No, but your dad did.” She laughed but it wasn’t a cheerful laugh. She was about to say more but Aldous came in and kissed her on the cheek and when he learned that Mason was staying for the night he seemed pleased and he said that after dinner they could get a movie or something. “How about it, Mason?” he said, and Mason shrugged and said, “Okay.”
So they did that and the evening was slow and easy and by the time it had passed Mason realized that he didn’t mind Aldous’s presence. Later, when Aldous had gone to bed, Mason and his mother sat on the balcony and looked out at the river and Mrs. Crowe said, “So, tell me about Lena.”
“I don’t know what to say about Lena.”
“Well, why don’t you start with today. How was it?”
“We sat in the dunes and she talked about me going away with her.” It was dark now and the lights of a plane crossed the sky in the distance and Mason could see the outline of the trees along the river bank. The darkness was a good thing for confessions. He said, “She talks about forgetting things and not understanding and she says that she likes me but then she says she has to push me away. Everything is important to her, even the smallest bug.” Mason paused and lit a cigarette. He thought about Danny and considered telling his mother but decided it wasn’t worth it. Mason believed Lena’s version of the story. He remembered her dancing through the long grass and calling out, “Don’t you love girls, Mason?”
“You know what I think, don’t you?” his mother said.
“Yeah. You told me.”
“But you’re not going to listen, are you?”
“No, I’m not. She wants to drive up to Edmonton to see her aunt. She wants me to go along.”
“With whose car?”
“I don’t know,” Mason said. He looked over at the shadow of his mother. Earlier, eating supper in the restaurant, she had bent over her linguine and some sauce had remained at the corner of her mouth and Aldous had reached across and wiped it away with his finger and then put his finger in his own mouth. Mason had watched this and Mrs. Crowe had seen him watching and later, when Aldous had tried to touch her ear and her hair, she had gently pushed him away.
“You can’t have mine,” his mother said now.
“I know. I told Lena that.”
Mrs. Crowe said, “She needs help, Mason. What would she do in another city?”
“I don’t know. Maybe she’d be freer there. Away from her father.”
“Does she make you happy?” his mother asked.
Mason looked out over the railing of the balcony at the lights of the city, and he said that he didn’t think so but then he wasn’t sure if any girl had ever made him happy.
“Not even me, I guess,” his mother said, and she rose and came and stood behind him and held his head close to her chest and rocked slightly and said, “Oh, Mason,” and he felt her breasts against his right ear and he heard her voice deep in her ribcage and he let her hold him until she had had enough.
He slept on the couch in the den. There was the TV and the computer and the walls full of books and there was a photograph on the desk of Aldous standing beside his new airplane and there was a Tiffany lamp that pooled light onto his own head where it lay on the pillow his mother had given him. She’d come in and handed him the blankets and then later, when he was lying on the couch, staring at the ceiling, she came back and asked if he was okay and he said he was. At night he woke and walked past the kitchen and down the hall to the bathroom. His mother’s bedroom door was open and as he passed he saw her and Aldous lying beside each other and on the way back he left the bathroom light on and this allowed him to see into his mother’s bedroom more clearly and there she was, sleeping beside Aldous, one arm under her head, a bare leg lying across Aldous’s legs. She was naked. He went back to the couch and lay there for a long time not thinking about anything specific and finally he took off his boxers and masturbated into them and while he did this he chased Lena from his head and thought about Sarah Benoit, the big-chested girl with the dreadlocks in his Physics class.
17 Mr. Ferry loves the young, especially young girls, and, though he loves them as a blind voyeur and his love is unrequited and futile, it still pleases him. Mason, sitting quietly, wonders if Mr. Ferry masturbates to the smell of the book stolen and returned by the six-foot university student. He is also thinking of the books he stole, and he will, in the next month, begin to return them.
Two days after the trip to the beach with Mason, Lena went to visit Mr. Ferry. It was a Saturday morning and Wellington Crescent was full of joggers and mothers with babies in strollers. She walked up the boulevard and then crossed over to Mr. Ferry’s front yard and she went around the back and saw the garage and the two swinging doors and she paused and looked around. Along the back lane everything was quiet. She went back around to the front door and she rang the doorbell and as she waited she saw herself in the glass of the door. She stuck out her tongue. Mr. Ferry opened the door and before he could speak Lena introduced herself and Mr. Ferry smiled and said that he had fond memories of Lena Schellendal. He groped for her arm and, finding it, lead her into the library and told her to sit on the couch. He sat beside her and asked if she wanted a job reading to him.
She said she didn’t, that madness ran in her family and she was on a steady diet of lithium, and work wasn’t something the doctor was recommending. Reading made her more depressed, she said. She spoke quickly while Mr. Ferry nodded his head and listened to her and then said
that “mad” was a bit harsh, wasn’t it? She said it could be and then she asked if she could have a drink and he said that he would get it but she said, “Sit, sit,” and went into the kitchen and poured beer into glasses and looked for the keys. They were there, on the little hooks under the sign, KEYS, and she took the car key and slipped it into her jeans pocket and returned with the two glasses and pressed one into Mr. Ferry’s hand and said, “Cheers.”
“How are you, Lena?” Mr. Ferry asked.
She said she was fine. “I was with Mason the day before yesterday. We went out to the beach and he said that you’d asked about me. So, I thought I’d just come by and say hello.” She was looking at Mr. Ferry’s thin legs and his long feet. She wondered how Mason managed to keep coming back to this man month after month. She began to lose courage. She drank quickly and put her empty glass on the table.
“That’s good. Very good,” Mr. Ferry said. “Another?”
“No, I have to go.”
“I’ve frightened you.”
“No, no. Why would you say that?”
“I do that. Cory McPhail, the girl who reads to me on Saturday afternoons – in fact, she will be coming in several hours – was frightened the other day as well when I asked her to describe herself. As if I am too forceful. Or, as if I were fond of young girls.”
“You’re not. It’s just I have to meet someone.”
“Ah, yes. Good. I remember your other visit. You wandered upstairs while Mason read. We drank beer like we’re doing now. You see?”
“Yes. Thank you, Mr. Ferry.”
“You don’t like me very much. Do you see me as a fool?”
“No, I don’t.” The keys pressed against Lena’s thigh and if Mr. Ferry had not been blind, he could have seen the outline of them through her jeans. “I don’t think that.”
“I just get that impression. Most people, especially girls, they like me. They find me pleasant and approachable. You, on the other hand, seem to think I am a mountebank. Have I deceived Mason in some way?”
“No. He thinks you’re amazing and smart and full of knowledge. You can do no wrong.”
“Ah, so that’s it. I’m perfect,” Mr. Ferry said. “And you might be jealous.” Then he said, “Why did you come here all by yourself? What do you want? Something for Mason? Or something for yourself? Something real, something you can touch?” He held out his hand, palm up. “Here,” he said.
Lena looked at his hand and shifted on the couch. She said, “That’s your hand.”
“Take it,” he said. “Please?”
Albert padded into the room, jumped onto Lena’s lap, and pushed his nose against her chin. Lena reached out and took Mr. Ferry’s hand. She laid her own palm down on Mr. Ferry’s and they held hands loosely. His hand was smooth, as if he had never done anything physical, or as if he were a child. He looked straight ahead and Lena closed her eyes and nuzzled Albert, who was purring. When Mr. Ferry said, “There,” and pulled his hand away, Lena placed both of her hands on Albert, who looked up sleepily.
Mr. Ferry said, “Would you take me to a movie? I’d love that. I have my car out there and you could drive, you have your licence, don’t you, and we could slip over to Silver City and watch a movie. Any movie.”
Lena giggled as if she had suddenly discovered something both foolish and absurd. “Like a date?” She was breathing raggedly.
Mr. Ferry’s mouth went up at one corner. “Lena,” he said. Then he moved his head as if searching for something and he said, “How about a kiss?” His hands were shaking.
Lena looked about. She slid over against the far edge of the couch. “No,” she said.
“Just a small one. I won’t hurt you.”
“No,” Lena said. She pulled Albert closer and stood and stepped away from Mr. Ferry and said, “I’m going to go now.”
“Huh.” He swung his cane in a wide arc. It passed over the spot Lena had just vacated. She stepped back. Mr. Ferry stood and stabbed his cane in her direction. He didn’t speak, just took a step and stabbed and took another step. He called out, “Albert. Here, boy. Come to Daddy.”
Lena reached the back door and opened it and still holding Albert she stepped outside and quietly shut the door. Down the stairs and across the large lawn towards the garage. She entered through the small side door and stood in the cool darkness. She was breathing quickly and this surprised her because she didn’t imagine that there was any danger. Mr. Ferry’s car was there, a large black beast whose top caught the faint light coming through a small window just above the double doors of the garage. Albert meowed. Mr. Ferry was out on the back porch now, calling for his cat. Lena listened and did not move. After Mr. Ferry had stopped calling and the back door had closed, she still waited. Then she stepped back outside and put Albert on the lawn and said, “Go. Shoo,” and he made a dash for the house. Lena re-entered the garage. The double doors opened onto the back lane. She walked around to the rear of the car and reached up and undid the latch at the top of the doors and swung them open. Standing in the lane now, she could see the top of Mr. Ferry’s house beyond the fence. She was hidden. The neighbourhood was silent. She went back into the garage and climbed into the car, which smelled of dust and plastic, and she turned the ignition and pressed the gas. It started. She backed the car out of the garage rubbing the front bumper against the door. The door stuttered and banged against the fence. Lena turned the wheel, put the car into drive, and followed the lane out towards the side street. Further along, she passed Mason’s house and saw his backyard and the shape of someone on a lawn chair. Danny, maybe. A giddiness, a floating, a rising above the mundane, the stupidity of the world. She called out and the womb of the car received her voice.
She drove back into her own neighbourhood and parked the car several blocks from her house and walked home. Her father was outside, mowing the lawn. He waved at her and she waved back and went into the house and up to her room and packed a bag. She stood at the window and observed her father, who had stooped to dig out a cluster of dandelions. Emily came into her room and saw the bag and said, “Where are you going?”
Lena turned and looked at her sister and said, “Away, but you can’t say anything.”
Emily was frightened. Lena went over to her and said, “Don’t worry, I’ll come back.” She hugged her and then picked up the bag and went downstairs and out the back door and walked up the lane and circled up towards Mr. Ferry’s car and climbed in. The interior was brown and clean and the mats on the floor said Impala. The radio had only AM and Lena played with the dial until she’d found some suitable music. She turned it up loud and drove west down Portage, towards the Perimeter, the window slightly open and the hot air pushing against her head. Beyond the windshield things were happening. Two boys talking to a girl, a group of children, a dog peeing against a lamppost, the traffic flowing by.
She drove just beyond Portage la Prairie and then turned northwest. Three hours later, in Russell, she stopped at a gas station and filled the tank and, using her debit card, paid for the gas and bought herself a Fruitopia and a day-old muffin. It was suppertime when she arrived in Yorkton. She pulled into a motel parking lot. The Flamingo. She said the name to herself and then she got out of the car. She registered at the motel and was surprised at her efficiency, at her ability to pretend that she was a traveller passing through who needed a room for one night, a room to rest in. The man behind the counter was dwarfish with a flat forehead and he wanted cash up front. Lena reached into her wallet and took out the money and handed it to him. He gave her the key.
The room was airless. There was a double bed, a small wooden chair, a bureau with a mirror, a bathroom door, and, inside the bathroom, a shower with a dark-blue curtain and a small sink, and above the sink, another mirror. Everywhere she looked she found herself.
She was standing in the middle of the room. She sat down on the bed. Lay back and opened her mouth. Closed it. Opened it again, a fish pressed up against the glass of a tiny aquarium.
&n
bsp; She stood and looked at herself in the mirror and touched her hair and her nose. “A pimple,” she said, and squeezed it, and leaned into herself. She washed her face and dried herself and walked outside and saw a man and two women sitting on lawn chairs on the tarmac. They were mostly naked except for bathing suits and one of the women was quite fat. She was wearing a bikini. She looked up at Lena and said, “Hi,” and Lena nodded.
“Shy,” the fat woman said and the man laughed and mumbled something.
“Jesus Christ, Tray.” This was the third woman. She was skinny and wearing dark glasses and Lena couldn’t tell where she was looking. After Lena had passed by, this same woman laughed in a high-sustained pitch and then she said, “I didn’t,” and the man said, “Blanche, of course you did. With me, even.”
Lena went into the lobby of the motel, which wasn’t really a lobby, and she slipped a dollar into the vending machine and pressed the letter K and the silver coil holding the Aero bar spiralled obediently and was pushed out over the precipice and fell, clunk, and Lena bent to retrieve it, her hand and wrist lost briefly in the maw of the machine. She stood and unwrapped a corner of the candy bar and took a bite. She turned to her left and stopped and shivered. The dwarfish man was studying her. He lifted his chin slightly and said, “If the three of them in Number 9 give you trouble, let me know.”
Lena looked around and finally understood that the man was talking to her.
The man said, “They can be rowdy. A ménage à trois,” he said, strangling the last word.
Lena shrugged and left. She passed the threesome again. The skinny woman raised an arm and waved, calling out to Lena, “You’re back.”
Lena halted, then walked around the three bodies.
The man said, “Wanna join us? Beer? Whisky? Gin? Coke? Tang?” He looked Lena up and down.
“Shut up, Tray,” the fat one said. “Don’t listen to him,” she called, but Lena had passed by and gone into her room. She shut the door and placed her head against the frame and could hear, quite clearly, the man talking about her. She lay down and looked at the ceiling and thought about her mother and father and she imagined the smell of dinner cooking and her empty place at the dining-room table and her father’s self-control as he pretended that her absence was both normal and forgivable. Sitting up, she opened her suitcase and removed her bottle of pills, soft silver-white, the lightest alkali metal, poured them into her hand, sniffed at them, and forced them down her throat. She gagged and swallowed. Gagged again. She ran to the bathroom and bent over the tap and drank and came up for air. After she had steadied herself, she sat on the toilet and peed. Wiped herself and pulled up her panties and left her shorts in a puddle on the floor. She put on lipstick. Checked her eye shadow and liner and found a blurred vision of herself. A crack of thunder startled her and she heard someone arguing in a nearby room. She made her way back to bed and climbed in and covered herself with the blanket. She thought she might have slept because she dreamed that she was surrounded by water and when she woke she could hear the rain. She tried to stand, to go over to the window and look outside, but her body would not move. She saw the flashing of the Flamingo sign, or it might have been lightning that had arrived with the rain. A lovely furious rain that beat away the noises in her head and flooded the streets and crept up over the sidewalk and under the crack of her motel room door and leaked into the hard-to-reach places and finally eased her loose and carried her away.
