Lucy Cloud

by Anne Lévesque

  ‘Ellen MacIvor?’

  ‘Ellen Johnny Dan. She was visiting Ruthie when they lived in Windsor and they decided to go see a fortune teller just for something to do. Well, didn’t the woman tell Ellen that she was going to be widowed at the age of fifty-two! Ruthie tried to make a joke of it when they got home but poor Ellen, she really thought it was going to happen. She couldn’t forget about it. It was in the back of her mind for years.’

  ‘And Johnny Dan still alive and kicking …’

  ‘A little too much, if you know what I mean.’

  They both laughed. ‘Maybe that’s what the fortune teller meant …,’ Donalda said. She sighed.‘But there are things we don’t know, Annabel. And there are people who can see ahead. You believe in forerunners.’

  ‘Forerunners are different.’

  ‘Well, I want to find out what that dream’s about. Come with me! I’ll pick you up after work. We’ll go to Vi’s, make a night of it.’

  Donalda arrived late. She was all in a tizzy. It was the new manager again: ‘Tells me it’s not Proper Accounting Procedures! I’ve been doing it this way for twenty-two years and Lauchie-bless-his-soul never had a problem with it. And neither did the auditors. Then he says I’ll have to do it this way anyway when we get the computer so I might as well get used to it.’

  ‘A computer!’

  ‘Yeah! On top of everything else I have to do in that office I’m going to have to learn to use a computer!’

  ‘Tsk, tsk.’

  ‘Okay, mister!’ Donalda said to the grey car ahead of them. ‘Pull over if you’re going to go fifty! Lauchie would have never done that without asking me first.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Buy a computer.’

  ‘Speaking of Lauchie,’ Annabel said, hoping to steer her onto a different subject. ‘Did you hear who moved in with Betty Ann?’

  ‘I did. But I don’t think it’s true …’

  ‘Evelyn says his car’s there all the time now.’

  ‘—’

  ‘She didn’t waste any time.’

  ‘Come on! Are you gonna turn or what?’ Donalda said to the grey car.

  ‘Has he been dead a year?’

  ‘Lauchie? A year last July. The day of the Fishermen’s Picnic, remember how hot it was that day? Poor Lauchie …’

  ‘Evelyn’s – ’

  ‘So. Is Lucy liking school any better?’

  They were halfway to Whycocomagh when Donalda said, ‘There’s Curly’ and Annabel saw his truck coming towards them. She waved but he just lifted his fingers off the steering wheel. As if she were a casual acquaintance. It felt strange, and kind of thrilling, to meet him like this. To see her husband as others saw him all the time. A man driving a truck, going somewhere. She wondered what she would think of Curly if she didn’t know him the way she did. If she hadn’t seen him young and old and in-between, happy and sad and standing in front of her with a hard-on. She looked at the man in the next car. But he went by so fast she didn’t have the time to work up any kind of curiosity about him. He was just a man like many others, going somewhere. Like Curly. Like her and Donalda. That’s all they were to strangers.

  She thought about the boiled dinner she had left on the stove for Curly. She was sorry she hadn’t had a little bowl of it while she was waiting for Donalda. She liked to eat supper at five o’clock sharp and it was now quarter past six. How did Curly do it, eating at all hours? It couldn’t be good for you.

  At the restaurant she didn’t know what to order. Finally, she decided on liver and onions because Curly didn’t like liver so she rarely cooked it. It was good but Donalda’s fish and chips looked better.

  The fortune teller lived in a bungalow just outside of town. She had clackety false teeth and she looked like anyone else you would meet. Not skinny, not fat, not dressed any better or worse or different. Her kitchen smelled of vinegar and pickling spice. A row of canning jars filled with what looked like relish was cooling on a dishcloth on the counter. The rest of the kitchen was clean and tidy, the dishes done and put away. Annabel sat at the table and the two women went to the back of the house. She heard a door close. The table was wooden, of the style called Colonial in the Sears catalogue. There was a white crocheted doily in the centre with a vase of plastic flowers.

  She waited. The lid on one of the canning jars popped, indicating that it had sealed. Annabel never used canning jars. She put her pickles and jams in old mustard and mayonnaise jars and melted paraffin on top, it was just as good. A radio was on somewhere, but the motor of the refrigerator was so loud it drowned it out. Another lid popped. Then another. The relish had flecks of red pepper. It looked like the Million-Dollar Relish Annabel made; she and Curly liked it with fish cakes. There was a Chronicle Herald at the end of the counter. She was tempted to pick it up and read it to pass the time but it would look like she had been snooping. The refrigerator gave a great shudder then and was silent. Annabel could hear the radio now. Someone was singing ‘I just called … to say … I love you.’ She thought of something her grandmother used to say: ‘An end will come to the world, but music and love will endure.’ She didn’t know why she thought of it just then. It was funny how things popped into your head sometimes.

  ‘She told me lots of stuff. Looked at my hand for a long time and said I had an unusual line in the middle.’

  ‘Did she say what it means?’

  ‘I can’t remember!’ Donalda laughed. ‘She told me so many things. She knew I had been married before …’

  ‘Really.’

  ‘And that I’m the youngest in the family.’

  ‘Did she say anything about the dream?’

  ‘Hmmm-hmmm. She said the sun represented someone who was very important to me. The star was

  another person, she thought maybe a man.’

  ‘Tall, dark and handsome, I bet.’ Annabel felt bad as soon as she said it. Because Donalda’s ex-husband had been all three.

  It was too bad the fortune teller didn’t say anything about the deer. It jumped out in front of them just past the dump.

  ‘Holy Hannah!’ Donalda said, slamming down the brake pedal. But it was too late. The deer bounced up on the hood and hit the windshield. Donalda couldn’t see over the animal, she had to unbuckle her seatbelt and lift up on her toes to steer the car onto the gravel shoulder.

  ‘Fuck!’ she said. She opened the door and got out. Annabel tried to leave, too, it seemed urgent to do so, but she couldn’t. The seatbelt, she finally figured out, was holding her down. And then her fingers didn’t seem to know how to unbuckle it. She looked up once, frustrated, and saw her cousin standing in front of the headlights, her face white-white-white, her hair a shining silver crown.

  The deer was dead. They were all alone on the dark road with a dead animal on the windshield of the car. ‘Fuck-fuck-fuck-fuck-fuck,’ Donalda said. Annabel thought, ‘That’s enough, now’ but she didn’t say anything. Donalda got her cigarettes from her purse and when she lit one, Annabel saw that her fingers were shaking. Annabel herself felt oddly calm now. As if she was watching all this on TV.

  ‘My insurance is going to go through the roof,’ Donalda said. ‘Unless maybe Bernie …’

  They waited for someone to come by and rescue them but no one did – the road was rarely travelled, even during the day – so after Donalda was finished the second cigarette they pushed the animal off the car themselves.

  ‘Too bad we can’t take it home,’ Annabel said. She loved venison but Curly wasn’t a hunter. ‘It seems kind of a waste.’ Donalda didn’t answer. She was crouched down beside the car, wiping her hands on the grass. Annabel followed suit, finishing the job with Kleenex and spit when they were back in the car. Donalda turned on the wipers and they sat in silence as a wash of blood and washer fluid swished across the windshield – back and forth, back and forth – ferrying little bits of fur
and flesh and strings of pink bubbles.

  A pair of headlights appeared then. But it was too late. Donalda put the car in gear and the little blue Chevette, dented and bloodied, sped from the scene of the crime.

  BLACK MAGIC WOMAN

  The Marxist is having a potluck and Wendy is taking Lucy because there’s going to be another little girl there.

  ‘And a baby, won’t that be fun?’

  She makes her Swedish Meatballs and stops at the liquor store for a bottle of Mateus.

  They met him at Mariposa. (‘Did you know that mariposa means butterfly in Spanish?’ was the first thing he said to her.) She and Wendy had spent the day walking, listening to people singing and playing music, talking with people they didn’t know, eating a hotdog, talking with more people they didn’t know. And then, somehow, one of the people became attached to them. Like a wasp sometimes does in the summer, even after you dive under water. He was a big man with a ponytail and a short beard. He wore socks in his sandals. His name was Mark and he was a Marxist (‘I can’t stand Marxists,’ Wendy said to him, but she was laughing). He was from Toronto but moving to Sudbury – what a coincidence, that’s where they lived. He was going to teach sociology at Laurentian – what a coincidence, Wendy was taking sociology (part-time) at Laurentian. He and Wendy went to the beer tent. Lucy wasn’t allowed in; she had to stand outside with some other children. After that the Marxist bought her a Coke and a slice of pizza (Wendy had forgotten that Coke made her climb the walls).

  Much later they sat with many people on the grass in front of the biggest stage. You weren’t supposed to drink beer but Wendy had some in a thermos. It got dark. And then it got cold. When Lucy woke up the next morning she was alone in the van. She looked outside. There was a white car painted with pale blue stripes and gold stars beside the van. A man was sleeping on the back seat. But it wasn’t the Marxist. Another man was walking among the cars with a garbage bag and a stick. He had short frizzy hair like her grandmother and he was wearing brown overalls with no shirt underneath. When he grinned at Lucy in the window she began to cry.

  * * *

  The little girl Deirdre is only four but she and Lucy have lots of fun. They run-run-run from the kitchen where the adults are standing with their drinks talking talking talking – ‘The guy’s a sociopath, not even a functioning sociopath, and no one says anything because he’s the dean’ – through the dining room where the table is laid with a royal blue cloth, past the stereo in the living room – ‘Looking for danger, looking –’ (the needle on the record player jumps) ‘– wild, wild life –’ and back to the kitchen.

  ‘She’s a good match for him.’

  ‘Who, Mrs. T?’

  Laughter.

  ‘Are you talking about Teresita? Is that what you call her?’

  ‘And a battleaxe.’

  Laughter.

  ‘That really bugs me – Bruce, would you take Sophie? When a man is strong or decisive it’s always seen as positive. But if a woman displays the same traits she’s a battleaxe. She wears the pants.’

  ‘And your point?’

  More laughter. Then crying: Deirdre has fallen flat on her face on the floor. Her mother scoops her up into her arms. Singsongs, as she leaves the kitchen, ‘I think someone wants attention …’ Lucy follows them into the living room and watches as Deirdre begins to suck on one of her mother’s titties! Deirdre’s father arrives with the baby on his shoulder. Something that looks like yogurt is coming out of her mouth.

  On the stereo, a man is singing ‘Sex ’n’ sin, sax ’n’ violins …’

  ‘Like the baby?’ he says to Lucy.

  Lucy shrugs.

  ‘She just puked on your shirt,’ Deirdre’s mother says. ‘Could you take her? I have to have a piss.’

  ‘I’m a little busy here.’

  The Marxist spent all afternoon cooking something called Eggplant Parmajohn. Lucy pokes at the blob on her plate.

  ‘Try a little,’ Wendy says. ‘It’s like lasagna.’ But it tastes as gross as it looks.

  ‘What do you think?’ Mark says to her. ‘Do you like it?’

  Lucy shrugs.

  ‘Now that’s interesting. What don’t you like about it? Is it the eggplant?’

  Deirdre’s mother laughs: ‘I guess you’ve never had kids.’

  ‘You sure like those meatballs, though,’ Mark says. ‘Look at her, she’s inhaling them.’

  ‘That’s enough, Lucy. You’ll get sick,’ Wendy says. ‘She loves meat.’

  ‘Deirdre, you didn’t have any of these yummy meatballs. Better have one before Lucy eats them all.’

  ‘A girl after my own heart,’ the man sitting across the table says.

  He has long blond hair.

  ‘Deirdre won’t eat meat unless it looks like a hotdog. And forget about eggplant. We’ve had to change our whole diet.’

  ‘Do eggplants come from chickens?’ Lucy says at the same time as Wendy says, proudly, ‘She actually likes her steak rare.’

  ‘Cara didn’t eat meat when I met her but that didn’t last long,’ Longhair says.

  ‘He got sick,’ the woman beside him says. ‘We had to start eating meat.’

  ‘That’s a common argument. But bogus.’ Mark says.

  ‘What do you mean, argument?’

  Lucy begins a slow slide down the front of her chair. Across the table Deirdre’s round blue eyes, watching her.

  ‘People always get defensive around vegetarians.’

  Lucy’s toes touch the floor.

  ‘I’m not being defensive. I need protein.’

  She’s landed in a dark forest, treed with legs. A bird swoops in; the scrchh-schrch-scrchh of fingernails on pantyhose. The music of Wendy’s bangles as her hand, flashing silver and turquoise, alights on her thigh. (Years later, hearing the tinkling of bangles on a Mogadishu street, Lucy will think, for a brief, thrilling moment, that her mother is behind her.)

  Next to Wendy’s black velour pants are the motorcycle man’s jeans. He came in late, wearing a rust leather jacket and a kerchief around his neck. Her mother got a chair from the living room and made a place for him beside her. He has chin-length black hair and soft blue eyes. But no motorcycle because it’s winter.

  ‘It’s easy to get protein. You combine beans and rice. Bread and peanut butter. Cheese and – ’

  ‘Oh please. We’re hard-wired to eat meat. We would never have developed our brains if we were still chewing on roots.’

  A meatball falls from the sky, then another: Deirdre. Lucy crawls over and stuffs them into her mouth.

  ‘Except that in the meantime we’ve discovered fire.’

  ‘Still, the – ’

  ‘No but I’ve thought about this. Eating meat is about power and domination. It’s about violence, which is central to capitalist social order –’

  ‘Oh for – ’

  ‘Not eating meat is a rejection of that ethos. That’s what scares people.’

  Deirdre’s legs dangle down, then the rest of her. The game: crawl along the floor batting the fringe of the royal blue tablecloth without touching any of the trees. The baby cries. Deirdre’s mother’s trees leave. On the stereo, ‘Black Magic Woman’ is playing. The Wendy trees and the motorcycle man trees are touching now.

  ‘I’m going out for a puff before dessert. If anyone wants to join me.’ (The Marxist.)

  ‘Is the dessert vegetarian?’ (Longhair.)

  Laughter.

  Everyone is gone from the table except Wendy and the motorcycle man. When Lucy crawls out she sees that their heads are close together.

  The Marxist was history.

  COMMUNION

  On Sundays they all went to church. Lucy sat between Curly and Annabel on a smooth polished pew, and then she stood and knelt and sat down and stood and knelt and sat down again. The priest talke
d for a long time and there was organ music and singing. The only part she liked was when the men came around to collect money. Annabel always gave her a loonie and she hung on to it until one of the solemn men stuck a long-handled basket in front of her nose. She wished they weren’t so quick about it, would have liked to look inside a little longer, see all that was in there. After that people left the pews for something called communion. This wasn’t bad either; it meant it would be over soon and there was something to watch, the people silent and serious and looking self-conscious, some of them, as they lined up in the aisle. Not everyone went to communion. They stayed sitting in the abandoned pews. A man here, a woman there. Lucy.

  Back in Sudbury, Lucy asked Wendy about it. They were sitting at the table after supper and Wendy was lighting a cigarette. She put down her lighter.

  ‘I never thought of that,’ she said.

  Her first Sunday in Cape Breton. Lucy knew it was Sunday because Curly made coffee with the percolator and as usual he forgot about it and it bubbled up over the stove and made a mess. And he changed out of his work clothes after going to the barn. But Annabel didn’t say anything about her having to get ready after breakfast. And when she came down the stairs in a blue skirt and white blouse she had a look on her face. Like she was embarrassed and mad and sad all at the same time.

  ‘I called Jenny and she says you can go play with Santana while we’re gone,’ she said. ‘But don’t stay for lunch. I don’t want you to stay there for lunch.’

  PARLAY VOO

  ‘Not even a hotdog?’ Hilda says.

  ‘No. She won’t eat any meat at all,’ Annabel says, putting a plate of squares on the table. Hilda Kennedy is her second cousin on her father’s side, in town for a doctor’s appointment.

  ‘Kids who don’t like meat will usually eat a hotdog,’ Hilda says. ‘Janet’s Kyle was like that.’

  ‘It’s not that she doesn’t like meat. She was always a big meat eater. Sometimes she’d eat as much as Curly. She says it’s because she loves animals.’

  ‘Funny she got that idea.’