View From a Kite Read online

  After two blocks I can’t see the Alex anymore. I suck in some real air. Fluff up my hair. Decide Lindy is twenty-two, comes from Toronto, and is new in town. Barb grabs my arm as lights come over the hill and we hustle for the bus.

  “It’s Lyndy,” I say, panting, “with two y’s. You spell it with two y’s.”

  “If you say so.” She shoves me up the steps.

  The bus drives through the night forever. It shakes and lurches, throwing us from side to side and back again. We stop at lightless intersections with dirt roads that trail off into scrub. Everybody on the bus is getting off, stop by stop. No one gets on. Finally Denise hauls me off when we pull into an Esso station and the driver gets out for a coffee.

  “We walk from here,” she says. “It’s not far.”

  It’s colder now, not so misty, and I button my coat. There will be shell ice by morning. We walk a half-mile up a paved road, the music drawing us on. It’s coming from a long, low, rectangular building, with a lot of trucks pulled up in front, and light spilling out of small windows.

  “If you see anyone from the Alex, just shut up and make like you don’t know them.”

  “Who? Who would be here?”

  She pushes open the door. The thumping noise blows back into my face, laughter and fiddles a rich roil on top. A skinny kid with long curly brown hair and a silver stud set with black coral in one ear takes two bucks from each of us and stamps our hands with a smear of ink. He’s wearing a Reardon Community Hall t-shirt with a fresh pizza stain down the front.

  I turn the back of my hand around and squint at it.

  “What does it say?”

  He shrugs and turns back to his Rolling Stone. Beyond him is a haze of cigarette smoke and bar lights. Small tables and folding chairs line the walls. The dance floor, twice as big as the sunroom, is filled with couples. I trip over some guy’s feet, his long legs stretched out past the table edge.

  “Sorry.”

  But he doesn’t seem to notice, he shifts to see around me. His eyes are welded to the shirt front of a short redhead dancing with, presumably, her boyfriend. Breasts like honeydew melons roll and swing under her shirt. They are mesmerizing. I could hit him with a brick and get no response.

  “Great crowd,” I say.

  Denise has squeezed her way up to the bar and is ordering drinks.

  “Grab a table,” she yells over her shoulder. The only empty one is beer-sticky and wobbles on three and a half legs. A rail runs along the wall, at the perfect height to help prop it up.

  “Just don’t kick it,” I say, “and keep hold of your drink.”

  “We need a plan,” she yells into my ear. “If we get separated, meet me by that red-and-white post at the end of the parking lot at three o’clock. The dance starts to break up around then and we need to hook a ride home.”

  “What’s wrong with the bus?”

  She looks at me like I am too simple to live.

  “That was the last bus we took getting here.”

  This is not a good time to have a panic attack. I take a big gulp of my drink. Disgusting. Rye is disgusting.

  “Don’t you leave me,” I yell at her. “If you leave me here alone, I’ll murder you in your sleep. I’ll shave you bald.” I take another drink and feel a little better. Don’t get drunk, I remind myself, you really don’t know where on God’s green earth you are or how far it is to walk back to the hospital. You don’t want to end up dead in a ditch.

  I have another drink and try to relax. We’re here to have fun, I should try to have fun.

  “Mind my drink,” says Denise, and she steps onto the floor with a serial rapist in leather and chains.

  Stop it, Gwen, I think. You can’t judge a book by its black leather cover—he could be a divinity student on holiday. Then someone asks me to dance and I stop thinking at all. Everything gets fun and fast, the lights get dizzy as the room spins to the music. The sweet tang of aftershave is in my nostrils and I’m fixated on rolled-up sleeves on muscled arms—too sexy altogether, they make me sweat. Nuzzles in my hair as we waltz. Free drinks.

  “Where do you live?”

  “Where’s your boyfriend tonight?”

  “Sure you don’t want to come outside for a toke?”

  Honey heat in all the dangerous places. I am twenty-two, I am beautiful. I decide my name is spelled with an “e” at the end: Lyndé, or Lyndè, with an accent on the “e.” I can’t remember which way the accent should go, I’ll have to look it up when I get back to my room. It’s much classier than Lyndy. I tell everybody to spell my name with an “e” at the end.

  “Like Anne of Greengages,” says someone.

  “No, not like Annie Greengages.” I am indignant. “Like Lyndè, from Toronto, for God’s sake. Toronto’s not in Greengages, everybody knows that.”

  Everyone in the bathroom agrees that Toronto is not in Greengages. I pee in the bright white of a stall in the ladies’, borrow lipstick from Denise, share a smoke, fuss with my hair. We link arms and go back out into the hall.

  The hall’s being a little silly, the music booms and retreats. The world goes around like a musical top, all flash and dazzle and fun for everyone. Denise is funny, I’m funny, the whole world is a funny, funny place. Whoops, somebody’s spilled my drink, but hey, here comes another. The table falls off the ledge for the third time and I laugh so hard I have to sit on the floor to catch my breath.

  CHAPTER 52

  I have to puke.

  “Not here. Not under the light. In the bushes, you fool.”

  Rye is so disgusting. Twice disgusting. Worse disgusting the second time around. My head is beginning to hurt. Denise is here, Denise has got me.

  “You idiot. It’s a good thing I’m here to babysit you.”

  “I want to go home. Can we go home?”

  “Ten minutes ago I had to arm-wrestle you out the door. You said you wanted to live here. Stay put, for God’s sake, don’t move an inch. I’ve got to go find our ride before he forgets and leaves without us. He’s none too sober, either.”

  Don’t care. Want to lie down and sleep. Something’s wrong. Ocean soaked up under the ground, rolling and heaving. Here we go again, half-chewed peanuts and rye. I choke and gag on peanut bits that stick to the back of my throat. I’m amazed at the stuff coming out of me. No wonder I feel sick, my stomach’s full of puke.

  “For God’s sake don’t step in it.” Denise shoves me at a tree. “No one’ll give us a ride home if you’ve got puke all over your goddamn shoes.” She wraps my arms around the tree trunk. “Hang on to this and don’t move. I’ll be back in five minutes.”

  I want to explain to Denise about puking as a cure for tuberculosis. About how they decided that it was the sea-sickness—not the sea air—on those voyages that was so beneficial. How they built revolving chairs for people who couldn’t afford to go on a sea cruise, chairs especially designed to make you throw up. How they swung TB patients round and round and round and round until they heaved their guts out. She’s not interested. All my research, and she couldn’t care less. I hang on to the tree. It’s a white birch, smooth silvery bark. No rough prickles, no needles, no pokey little branches. I put my lips to the trunk and kiss it, lean my forehead against its cool, smooth brow, and lock my knees as best I am able. Dear tree, I whisper, dear little sister, please help me get home to bed before I die. I promise to be good from now on.

  It’s the screwdriver that wakes me. One minute I’m jouncing along, drifting in and out of the world, then suddenly there’s a flathead screwdriver as long as your arm, with a sharp steel edge as big as a chisel, rimmed in red from the dash lights. Denise has chosen wrong and Bing, the guy whose mother ate Bing cherries every day for nine months straight from the can through the whole pregnancy, is a nasty drunk—one who wants to be sure he gets a reward for driving us home. Denise is trying to cajole him, trying to jolly him along, but I can hear terror in her voice. The van is not moving, we are stopped and he is telling her to get out and get in t
he back with him or he’ll slit her throat for her. He calls her a bitch and a cocktease and says she owes him. All at once I am very sober. The air is black and full of evil. Denise is so frightened I can feel her shaking against my arm. Bing is very big and he stinks like a drunken goat; he’s whining as he threatens. The screwdriver is monstrous and is pressed hard against Denise’s throat.

  “C’mon Denise,” I mumble, then giggle. I elbow her in the ribs so she’ll know I’m faking. “Fair’s fair. ‘F you don’ wan’ him, I do.”

  Bing perks up and grins. It’s a loathsome sight. Denise is being such a spoilsport, he decides he likes me better. I open the door, fall/stagger to the ground, and lurch to the back of the van.

  “C’mon Bingbingbingy,” I warble, pounding on the back. He slams a button on the dash and pops the rear doors open for me. The inside is entirely carpeted in blue shag, visible in the purple of the sex lights he’s got duct-taped along one side. Beer can holders are duct-taped to the other side.

  “Leave’m alone, Denisiebaby, I saw’m first. I call dibs.”

  Bingbingbingy stumbles around the corner of the van, all his fantasies about to come true. He’s still got the screwdriver though, and he’s thought to take the keys with him in his other hand. I take a deep breath, pray very hard, and move in close to unbuckle his belt and unzip his pants. It’s the most disgusting, revolting, filthy thing I’ve ever done in my life, but I refuse to be raped and murdered and left to die like a dog in a ditch. He’s trying to kiss me, but I manage to swerve my mouth out of the way. Fortunately he’s not only a mean drunk, he’s a really stupid one, and he drops both screwdriver and keys to grab for the parts of my anatomy that interest him the most. I knee the parts of his I’m least interested in and then scoop up the truck keys when he doubles over, screaming. I almost take a header—I’m not completely one hundred per cent sober after all—but I stagger, recover my balance and run like a madwoman for the front of the van. I leap in, throw the keys at Denise, and screech at her to drive, drive, drive! The back doors are still open and Bing has got to his knees and is looking for his screwdriver. He’s calling me much worse things than he called Denise and he really means to kill us both and rape us later. Denise throws the van into gear and steps on the gas just as Bing pulls himself and his screwdriver up and grabs for the back doors. The van’s a standard with a sloppy clutch and she’s hit reverse and she knocks him flat. There’s an awful thump of a sound, like a steer dropping on concrete. I’m seeing whole galaxies because I’ve been thrown onto the front windshield headfirst.

  “Shit, shit, shit,” she screams. “I’ve killed the fucking son of a bitch.” The van lurches forward and stops and we both just sit there, too terrified to look back at his mangled body.

  “They’ll have to believe it was self-defense,” I whimper, rubbing my aching forehead. “His pants are half down, and he’s got a screw…a weapon.”

  Denise crawls to the back of the van and, lying on the blue shag, peers out and then under. Bing moans, then starts crawling towards her with the weapon in his hand.

  “He’s alive,” she screams. “He’s got the screwdriver!”

  She scrambles back to the driver’s seat, kicking me in the head as she goes by, and this time finds the right gear. We peel out onto the highway, back doors swinging and banging, me trying to see out past them, through the second whirligig of stars, to make sure Bing isn’t hanging on somewhere. He’s crawling around on the verge, looking for his screwdriver, which he has dropped again.

  “We’re safe,” I yell at her, “just so long as you don’t drive us into the river or kick me in the head again. Slow down and quit swerving all over the road, he’ll never catch us now. Where’d you learn to drive, at a fucking circus?”

  Then we both crack up. We shriek and pound on the dash of the truck, and Denise leans on the horn awhile.

  “See,” she yells, “I told you I’d get us a ride home.”

  There is the problem of what to do with the van. We don’t want to keep it too long in case Bing gets picked up by the police and reports it stolen and they come looking for it—and us. We want to get close to home, but we don’t want to leave it anywhere near the Alex in case they put two and two together and Denise and I end up in a lineup at the police station in the morning.

  The best thing, we decide, is to leave it downtown with the keys in it. We can walk home from there. It’s ten after four in the morning when we park it on a side street beside the Blue Pig Tavern and sneak away. It’s a ten-minute hike up the hill to the hospital and there is not a person, not a dog, not an alley cat, not even a mouse stirring in the whole town. We retrieve the bag from behind the dumpster, swap shoes for slippers and put our robes on over our clothes. I boost Denise up the fire escape, then she hauls me up after her. When we reach the ward and peek in the door Morissette is asleep on her chair. She looks happy, she must have won at poker. Denise and I hug hard and then I sneak into my room, strip off my clothes and put on my PJs. Evvie doesn’t stir. In the lamplight coming in through the window she looks like a porcelain doll with candy floss hair. It seems impossible she could be anybody’s mother. I tuck her blankets around her and crawl into bed. Starting tomorrow I’m going to be really, really good. I’ve had just about as much fun as I can take.

  Bing is chasing me up and down the stairwell. I can’t see properly, everything is grey and on the left side at the bottom of my vision is the black hole. Bing has a screwdriver, and sometimes a gun, and no matter how I run I can’t lose him. Then he trips and falls except someone has shot him and he isn’t Bing anymore, he’s Mama and he’s lying under the van in the upstairs hall. I have been tiptoeing in the dark, but now I have to flip on the hall light switch to see what I’ve bumped into and the red dash lights have bled all over the floor and there is a fan of red on the wallpaper behind her and she won’t answer me and then I’m running and running for help, down the stairs again and I can’t reach the bottom because there’s the black hole, lit now with the light from the hall, and then I am pounding on doors, pounding and pounding until both my hands break off.

  Evvie is shaking me and shaking me. It’s just before dawn, and I’ve scared her, moaning in my sleep.

  “Wake up, Gwennie,” she whispers, “You’re havin’ a nightmare. Just wake up, please, honey.”

  “I’m all right,” I mumble at her. “Go back to bed, Evvie.”

  “Are you sure, now?”

  “Yes. Go to bed.”

  “Okay,” she says and crawls back in and is asleep in seconds.

  George and Elizabeth came and got me and took me out of the cop car where I was sitting and took me to wait with them at the hospital. The ambulance had already taken Mama away. George wouldn’t let the cops ask me any more questions. When the doctor told us she’d come out of surgery fine and we should go home to rest and the hospital would call us if anything happened, they took me home, to Edith’s house. A doctor gave me a shot, and there were pills to take when I woke up. It wasn’t until the morning, when I tried to lift a cup of coffee to my mouth and spilled it all over the tablecloth, that we realized something was wrong with my hand. I couldn’t feel much through all those pills, but it was swollen and wouldn’t grip right. They x-rayed it and put it in a splint, but they couldn’t put a cast on it until the swelling went down some. I’d cracked a bone in my wrist pounding on the neighbours’ door for help. Sometimes it aches. It aches when I dream stupid dreams with stairwells and black holes and wake up with my hand clenched into a fist and my fingernails cutting half moons into the skin of my palms.

  The black hole is the living room where he was sitting on his tan leather lazyboy, the smell of fireworks in the room and the gun fallen at his feet and the mess that had been his head and the back of the lazyboy all over the wall behind. I know what was there because I know I saw it, but I can’t remember what it looked like at all. I only remember running and running and running down the stairs.

  CHAPTER 53

  There�
�s much too much screaming going on in this ward. At the moment it’s Belinda, our student-nurse-of-the-month. Normally she’s a pretty phlegmatic sort of a girl, but this morning she’s hanging on to the end of my bed and screeching bloody blue murder. I try to tell her she’s being very unprofessional, but when I open my mouth to speak, the top of my head tries to lift off. The clanging, I discover as Belinda bolts from the room, is the bed pan she’s dropped, saucering and spinning around the floor one more time as she kicks it on her way out. It seems to have been empty, which is a small blessing. Evvie’s not here, gone to the bathroom maybe, so I can’t ask her what’s gotten into Belinda. Belinda is wailing down the hall for MacConnell.

  The screech of my bedside table drawer separates my brain layers, but I grind my teeth tight and open it enough to pull out my hand mirror. The sight almost makes me faint. There’s a huge big lump on my forehead, with a trail of dried blood running down my face, and I have two giant raccoon eyes. Big black circles that used to be mascara. Waterproof mascara. Yeah, like heck.

  I can hear MacConnell’s merciless stride parting the waves as she bears down the hall towards my room, and the frantic skittering of Belinda in her wake. I grab a tube of hand cream, smear it around my eyes, wipe off the whole thing with my pillow and then flip the pillow over so it’s clean side up. I lean back and try to look innocent. Some cream has got into my eyes and they are burning up in my head. The veins are bleeding into my sockets. I can’t help but feel I deserve it.

  MacConnell pushes her way past imaginary crowds of riff-raff and begins to examine me. She takes my pulse as if she isn’t going to give it back, her icy steel fingers digging deep into my wrist. She blinds me with her flashlight as she makes me look straight ahead while she checks my pupils to make sure they’re of equal size and are lined up properly. Then she makes me make them do acrobatic tricks, up, down, left, right, up, down again, to see if they can still perform together as a pair, or if one of them is going to wander off and gaze at the ceiling.