The invention of the wor.., p.39
The Invention of the World, page 39
“It looks to me like the whole thing’d fall on your head if you ever tried to open the door,” Wade said.
But as if to prove him wrong, the two windows suddenly filled with light, a pale light which she mistook for a moment for the reflection of headlights, perhaps, coming from some car behind her. But it was not a reflection, it threw patches of light out onto the ground, and a tree, and drew her attention to a high wheeled contraption that had no business at all being there.
“What’s that?” Maggie said, though she knew already what it was.
Wade, squinting at shadows, took a moment to see. Then he started to laugh. He threw his head back against the seat and laughed until the van rocked. “That’s Madmother Thomas’s manure-spreader,” he said, and laughed again. “That crazy old biddy is living in there!”
Maggie got out of the van, leapt over the fallen gate, pushed her way through the grass that had grown up between the slats of the boardwalk, and hammered on the door. She wouldn’t get mad, she promised herself, she wouldn’t act like a bitch, though she was tempted. She’d find out, that was all, and make arrangements to send the old bag away and see what had to be done to the house.
But it wasn’t Madmother Thomas who opened the door. It was a girl, a young woman of eighteen or nineteen, with a frizzed-out halo of blonde hair.
“Who the hell are you?” Maggie said.
It was the shock.
The girl looked frightened; her hands fluttered at her chin, and fell again to her skirt, where they held on. She wore round wire-rim glasses and a long skirt, the kind of thing Anna Sterner wore, which could have been found in her grandmother’s trunk. Behind her, a hissing coal-oil lamp hung from a hook in the middle of the ceiling.
“This is my house,” Maggie said, trying not to sound rude. The girl was obviously scared, and too small to be much of a threat. “I didn’t expect anyone to be here.”
The girl stepped back. “Come in,” she said. “Please come in.” Behind the glasses her blue eyes were too large, starey, as if she’d practised holding them wide like that, to look pleasant. There were pimples, Maggie saw, on her chin.
And before the door had closed Wade, too, had come in. He looked around the little room and threw himself into a chair. His long legs, splayed out, reached nearly across to the opposite wall. Maggie had forgotten how small this place was, like a playhouse for kids. After what she was used to, she’d bang into walls here every time she turned around.
“We’ve been here for a year now,” the girl said. “We didn’t know, that is, nobody told us there was an owner, or that anyone would care.” Her voice, barely above a whisper, was a thin childlike sound. Too eager, Maggie thought, too desperate to please, to be nice.
“We?” Maybe this was one of those hippie dives, crawling with weirdos.
The girl stood, careful not to bang her head on the lamp, but made it clear that she wanted Maggie to sit in the only other chair in the little room. Two auction-sale chairs, a cheap formica table on a braided rug. They’d even slapped new wallpaper over the old, or Maggie guessed they had, she couldn’t remember white brick and ivy, it wasn’t her taste even then. There was a little wood heater hooked up to the chimney, over in the corner. It wasn’t any heater she remembered; hers had been brown, and sat on an asbestos pad. She didn’t want to think of all the entertaining she’d done in this room.
“Well, you’ve got it comfortable enough anyway. Warm.” Though it smelled; they wouldn’t do much about the sour damp smell of the rotten boards, like pee, and old apples.
Sitting down made her feel at a disadvantage, with that little Miss Innocence standing up there by the light. Maggie stood again, climbed over Wade’s legs, and poked her nose into the kitchen. As bare, nearly, but there were signs that someone was living here. Jars on the counter, and dirty dishes, a coffee pot on the stove. Her old stove, rusted up, they hadn’t even polished the rust off it. There was no one else in the house, though, as far as she could see.
The girl insisted that they have coffee, now that they were here. She was just going to have some herself, she said, it was already made. She brought out old chipped mugs for them all, and leaned back against the wall, sipping like a bird at her own. “Oh,” she said, suddenly remembering something, and apologetically handed a can of cookies around, flustered, rattling it at them like a beggar’s collection tin.
“You’re barefoot,” Maggie said. She wished immediately that she hadn’t, but the sudden sight of those toes, peeking out from the skirt, alarmed her. Bare feet on this floor, on this old cracked worn-thin linoleum. She could remember her father laying it out, it must be twenty-five years old, and cheap. No one ever walked barefoot on it, not with the drafts you could get from under the house. She’d never put any of her kids down to crawl, the wind from under the door was enough by itself to give them pneumonia.
“Yes,” the girl said, almost a giggle, and looked down. The toes disappeared. “My name is Carrie?” she said, a question, as if she’d be willing to take it back, change it, if Maggie objected.
Wade pulled in his legs, sat up. “Well what do you do here, what kind of place is this to live? Where are your parents?” He sounded like a stern uncle.
“This is my house,” Maggie said. Why did she feel so old? And big. This girl was as young as Forbes, another generation. And she looked scared again; she was hiding here, or expecting to be hauled away.
When the back door squealed open the girl went into the kitchen and, after a moment or two of whispering, came back into the front room with a boy by her side. He was in bib overalls and boots and had frizzled hair much like the girl’s, and looked tremendously pleased — like an old man — to find company waiting for him. He shook Maggie’s hand, his head nodding, grinning; then he shook Wade’s hand and moved back to put his arm around the girl.
“This is Craig,” the girl said.
Craig was more talkative than the girl. Whatever she’d whispered to him in the kitchen hadn’t bothered him a bit, he was eager to play host. He’d been out in the garden behind, he said, digging carrots and spuds for tomorrow. It was great soil, he said, and he’d grown a marvellous garden, he would give them some vegetables to take home with them. Organically grown, there was no chemical fertilizer on these. The two of them had moved up here from Victoria, he told them, he had brothers and sisters spread all over the place, with jobs, and one who’d become an engineer and was building bridges in Ceylon or somewhere and a sister who was a nurse on the mainland. He and Carrie didn’t plan on a family that big, he said, though they wanted children, some day, if they could afford it, they both loved children. And gardening; he intended to have that whole backyard in garden next year if he could, he’d never run into such wonderful soil before, there was no end to the things he could grow. Some day he would have a truck, and haul produce into town to sell, or to a farmer’s market somewhere, maybe they could make a living that way. We don’t want a lot, he said, only enough to get by.
Before Maggie or Wade could say anything to stop him he’d brought carrots in from the kitchen, to show them how large, and potatoes as big as his fist, and bigger. Then he’d dragged a box of them in, and set it by the door. They could take it, he said, when they left. Just wait and see how good they were, they’d be surprised you could grow things that tasty in here, where you didn’t expect decent soil.
But they’re only children, Maggie thought. They’re hardly more than kids. And so sure, so goddam sure. There was not a flicker of doubt, or hesitation, on that boy’s face. He was young enough to believe you could drive like a bulldozer straight for your goal and there wasn’t anything could stop you, or knock you off the shortest route.
“I came here,” Maggie said, “because …” She couldn’t say the rest, it would sound so foolish. “But you don’t seem to understand that the house belongs to me. It was my father’s. I lived here for years.”
Though she couldn’t be sure, now, that it was really the same place at all. Or even the same world she’d lived in then.
Whatever the girl had whispered in the kitchen had apparently not got through to the boy. His face fell, flushed. Obviously he felt like a fool. He looked at the girl, and at Wade, who was no help, who said, “It’s the truth, I’m afraid. This lady not only owns the place, I believe she intends to throw you out on your ear. Or move in with you.” The prospect of either one apparently struck him as funny and he aimed a good laugh at the ceiling. “She’s strong as an ox,” he said, “and would be a good help with a hoe.”
“Mother of God,” the boy said, softly, and went back into the kitchen. When he came out, he was drinking a glass of water. “Is this a joke?” he said. He looked at the girl, who turned away and went to the window. “I mean, Christ, is this some kind of rotten joke? What is it? Do you mean it?” There were beads of water across his upper lip. His eyes were wet. “Are you shitting me or what?”
“That was Madmother Thomas’s rig outside,” Maggie said. “Where is she?”
The boy looked at the girl, suddenly relieved. “Then it was a joke,” he said. “You’re a relative, or something?”
Maggie hooted. “Of hers? Hell no, though I might as well be I suppose, by the looks of things. That old crow isn’t related to anyone. Where’s she gone? She’s never very far from her wagon.”
“She’s sick,” the girl said.
The boy ducked his head, his gaze somewhere down around the toes of his boots. He explained.
“We brought her in here, oh, it must’ve been a month ago. Weak, and wheezing. I found her out in the woods, and brought her in. She’s been in here ever since. A bit stronger, but too weak to get out. We had the doctor out once and he said there was nothing serious, but she needed rest and warmth.”
“She’s back there now?”
“She is.”
“Well let me see her.”
But the boy stood in the doorway, blocking it. “I’m sorry,” he said. “But I’m not going to let you go back there.”
He nodded to the girl, who slipped under his arm and disappeared through the door off the kitchen. When she came back she was smiling modestly, almost as if she were pleased with herself. “Yes,” she said. “She’s awake. She said Maggie Kyle’s hoot is enough to wake the dead. And she told me, she said tell that woman to haul ass in here before I get up off this bed and get her myself.”
The boy took the lantern in to hang on the doorjamb so they could see in the back bedroom. The old woman’s wild white hair had disappeared against the pillow, there was only the little round face, with those eyes, and that tongue that flickered pink on her lips.
“You old crow!” Maggie said. “Hiding out here, of all places!” In this dump, she nearly added. In this dark, damp, rotten old box of a room.
“I knowed you would come,” she said, grinning. “Eventually. But you sure took your sweet time about it.”
“We came the long way,” Maggie said, and swung Wade a look. “They got me side-tracked a bit, by a few thousand miles. But you — what are you doing here? What’s the matter with you?”
The little tongue flickered. “The matter with me?” The two tiny hands gathered blankets to her throat and held on, as if they’d threatened to drag her out of that bed. “There’s never been anything the matter with me, except in this screwy old head.” The blankets, pulled up from the foot of the bed, revealed her little black rubbers with the fur trim, which peeked out, their sharp pointy toes side by side aimed at the ceiling. “Gawd, ain’t it awful!” she said.
“What? What’s awful?” The smell was awful, that was one thing, the strong stink of pee, and old-lady smells. Feet, those rubbers. Was she determined to die with her boots on? Or only prepared to escape?
The old woman slid a look at the eavesdroppers, motioned Maggie closer. “What’s awful is this: I’d be out there still, on the road, living the only kind of life that I’m used to, if I hadn’t listened to nature.”
“What?” What had nature to do with this place? With this cold narrow room, with these V-jointed walls?
“Headed into the bush, heeding the call — in a hurry too, I was running — and fell off a windfall down into a big root-hole and couldn’t get out. This young man found me, two days later, and brought me in. Craig.” She looked at the boy and winked. “But it’ll take more than a hole to finish me off, I’ll be out of here in no time at all.”
She looked so pleased with herself, as if she was glad this had happened so that she could prove there was nothing could hold her down for long.
“My old lady taught me something when I was a kid, before they dragged us back to that colony. Whenever they kick you in the teeth, she said, just tell them pog mahone, it’ll make you feel better, especially if you know they don’t understand it. And you know, in all my life of being kicked around I’ve never yet said it to anyone? It’s a comfort just knowing I’ve got it.” Her eyes checked again, to warn of the eavesdroppers, her voice dropped to a whisper. “Come here.” She put her hands on either side of Maggie’s face and pulled her close. “Pog mahone,” she said, and rolled her eyes. “Means kiss my arse.” She pursed her lips at the joke, shook with the laughter that rumbled through her, and spread her hands in a gesture of total innocence, or helplessness.
“But indoors?” Maggie said. “It must drive you crazy surrounded by walls.”
“Well, I’ll tell you Maggie.” Her hand dismissed the others, motioned them away. “The thought just came to me all of a sudden one day What does it matter? What does it matter if I look for the place or not? and once I’d thought of it I couldn’t shake it. I mean, think, suppose those old Wise Men that followed that star, remember? Suppose one day it was this star and the next day that star? How long do you figure they’d stick at it? As long as I have?”
Maggie looked at the eyes. They were screwed up, pleased with their cleverness. Ready to dance.
“I don’t know,” she said. “I wouldn’t be surprised if they’d kept it up all their lives. Some people, once they get an idea stuck in their thick heads …”
“Ha!” The old woman’s hands clapped together, then grabbed Maggie again and pulled her close. “That’s what I thought to myself. And as soon as I can get out of this coffin I’ll be on my way. Not that I’m complaining,” she said, and held out a hand to hold off hurt from the couple in the doorway. “These two’ve been real good. In fact everywhere I go people are good to me. And like a fool the most I ever take from them is some water for the donkey and a place to park my rig. I been thinking it wouldn’t hurt me, now and then, to move inside for a while with some of them, and be comfortable, take advantage of their hospitality. There’s no law says crazy people aren’t allowed to be pampered a little, now and then.”
“You get sneakier every year, old woman,” Maggie said. “Why don’t you spit it out? Say what you really mean.”
The tongue flickered. The eyes made a tour of the room. “Do I need to?”
“She’s been waiting for you,” the boy said from the doorway. “She told us there was someone who would come, eventually.”
“I heard her tell me that,” Maggie snapped. Don’t push me. Don’t push me. They would run your life for you, all of them.
Even Wade, who was close, had wrapped his arms around her from behind to breathe on her neck. “Remember the pilgrims to the valley of Jehoshaphat,” he said, and laughed. “And good old Hugh of Lincoln with his mouth full.”
She elbowed him away.
And said what had to be said.
In the car, later, she let him drive, and rested against him. It was a black night. The headlights cut a road out of it for them, a bright moving corridor of light laid out on the gravel ahead. There were no lights in Manson Hed’s tower, or in the old Arts and Crafts Commune, or in any of the first farms they came to.
“I can’t believe you didn’t expect to find her there,” Wade said.
Believe what you want, Maggie thought. The Bug Wagon smelled of fresh earth, the potatoes and carrots and beans and onions that boy had forced on her, and smelled of Wade, too, his slept-in clothes. She was tired, good lord she was tired, she couldn’t remember feeling like this before.
She did not sleep, however, she thought of the young couple in her house, saying good-bye at the door, leaning into each other. Play-acting their own grandparents, it couldn’t be cornier, but it was real, they were real, and what was it they’d said as she left? Peace? Bless you? Turned her away from her own house and saddled her with one more responsibility at the same time.
Well, she could handle it, she couldn’t heal them all by herself or cancel that monster’s damage alone, but she would do what she could. She closed her eyes and felt Wade’s hand resting lightly in her hair, and travelled south in her mind, ahead of the van, down past the bays and the oyster leases and the log booms, down through the little settlements and the farms and the resort villages, down under timber and dark sky and occasional lights, to the House of Revelations where it hunched in her second-growth forest with a single light burning, where Becker would be waiting, by the fireplace, for their return.
Second Growth
Becker tells you this:
Believe what you want, trust me or not, this story exists independent of both of us. Donal Keneally is dead. His story has returned to the air where I found it, it will never belong to me, for all my gathering and hoarding. It is more than a year since Maggie Kyle left his ashes at the stones above Kealkill, and wept there for her own life. It is a year since Madmother Thomas abandoned her wagon to the rain and the weeds at the side of the road and set herself up in the House of Revelations; it is nearly a year since Julius Champney found the Harvest Years Home too indifferent to his constant complaining and moved back into his little cabin in our circle; it is half a year since Wade Powers tore down his Fort and set out on a cross-country hitchhiking tour that would last for three or four months while he looked for himself under bridges and behind museums and in parks; it took nearly all of that year for Maggie Kyle and Wade Powers to recognize what anyone with any sense looking on must have known from the very beginning.
