was true, there wasn’t a whole lot I could do about it.
She slammed the kitchen door. Then she opened it and said, I’m sorry, that was over the top.
Antoine tells me that if he kissed me it would be very different.
From what, I say.
From the way other men have kissed you all your life.
I say, Yes, I know. French-kissing. We have that here, too. No big deal.
He says he isn’t talking about just the tongues. He says speaking French uses a whole different set of muscles in the lips, the tongue, the mouth. A kiss is different.
But you’re speaking English now, I say, you probably have your technique all fucked up.
At night he comes to Maureen with something on a fork, his hand cupped underneath. The yacht is rocking gently and the fog is already settling. He says, Ferme les yeux, ouvre la bouche.
She giggles.
What is it, she says.
You must trust me, he says.
She closes her eyes and opens her mouth. She chews once, twice. And he says, a snail.
Then she screams and spits it into her hand.
Maureen says of the woman with the blonde hair like mashed banana, A life defined solely by pleasure.
I say, Yuck.
Once Maureen held a big light for Antoine when they were trying to dock at night and he said, Get it out of my fucking eyes. It was their only fight in two months of sailing.
But he was proving himself, she says, and I could have blinded him.
She looks far away, her eyes so full of the dock and him reaching for the boat, him in the brilliant blast of light and a dark, uninhabited coastline behind him.
She says, That light. And she shakes her head in amazement. Get it out of my fucking eyes, she says.
It was so heavy. It was all I could do to hold it.
After she left for France I found a diary of hers on a high cupboard shelf where we kept linen. I was alone in the house, standing on a chair gripping the dusty book. I let the diary fall open and read just one paragraph. She described a gold dress.
I snapped it shut. It was as if she were in the room, but I could feel the longing for her too — how much I missed her. The dress was a metallic orange, shiny, formfitting to just above the knee, and she wore it dancing. We went out and got drunk, walked home in a windstorm when the bars closed. There was a sluice of yellow leaves in the centre of Cathedral Street. We walked up the steep hill with our calves aching and the wet leaves clinging to our boots like spurs.
Azalea
T he doorbell rings and Bethany lets herself in. She’s wearing a red blazer and navy skirt. Coming from early morning mass.
Leaves fly in behind her, scrabbling sideways across the linoleum.
Trigger leaps off the kitchen chair and shoots down the hall, hitting the back of Sara’s knees, slopping coffee, yelping, thrashing his tail against the coatrack.
The street behind Bethany is shiny, bluish after the rain. How bright. A boy on a bike, working hard, sun melting the chrome beneath him, obliterating spokes, the wheels flimsy as snowflakes. Flock of pigeons. An armful of flung bread crusts. A man with a stolen shopping cart, jitterbugging bottles and cans.
Bethany gives her red jacket a sharp tug, her eyes adjust to the dark hallway. Water drips on her from the ceiling.
Several drops hit her thick, grey hair imperceptibly until a single icy drop runs down the side of her face, startling her. Thechurch was quiet and dark. Seagulls flew over the skylight. Father Ryan raised the Eucharist, torpid complaint from the organ, seagulls screeching, wings slicing the pillar of sun from the skylight. His bald head.
Now this chilly drip. She touches her cheek. Doesn’t know herself. How dark in here, cool. A deluge, part of her dream last night. Everything comes true.
That bathtub should be fixed, Bethany says. They won’t fix anything. Peanut butter fingerprints on the French doors, dog hair. Dust on the light fixture, cobwebs. If they’d just listen.
Sara catches a glimpse of the trees in the churchyard over Bethany’s shoulder. Big holey
She slammed the kitchen door. Then she opened it and said, I’m sorry, that was over the top.
Antoine tells me that if he kissed me it would be very different.
From what, I say.
From the way other men have kissed you all your life.
I say, Yes, I know. French-kissing. We have that here, too. No big deal.
He says he isn’t talking about just the tongues. He says speaking French uses a whole different set of muscles in the lips, the tongue, the mouth. A kiss is different.
But you’re speaking English now, I say, you probably have your technique all fucked up.
At night he comes to Maureen with something on a fork, his hand cupped underneath. The yacht is rocking gently and the fog is already settling. He says, Ferme les yeux, ouvre la bouche.
She giggles.
What is it, she says.
You must trust me, he says.
She closes her eyes and opens her mouth. She chews once, twice. And he says, a snail.
Then she screams and spits it into her hand.
Maureen says of the woman with the blonde hair like mashed banana, A life defined solely by pleasure.
I say, Yuck.
Once Maureen held a big light for Antoine when they were trying to dock at night and he said, Get it out of my fucking eyes. It was their only fight in two months of sailing.
But he was proving himself, she says, and I could have blinded him.
She looks far away, her eyes so full of the dock and him reaching for the boat, him in the brilliant blast of light and a dark, uninhabited coastline behind him.
She says, That light. And she shakes her head in amazement. Get it out of my fucking eyes, she says.
It was so heavy. It was all I could do to hold it.
After she left for France I found a diary of hers on a high cupboard shelf where we kept linen. I was alone in the house, standing on a chair gripping the dusty book. I let the diary fall open and read just one paragraph. She described a gold dress.
I snapped it shut. It was as if she were in the room, but I could feel the longing for her too — how much I missed her. The dress was a metallic orange, shiny, formfitting to just above the knee, and she wore it dancing. We went out and got drunk, walked home in a windstorm when the bars closed. There was a sluice of yellow leaves in the centre of Cathedral Street. We walked up the steep hill with our calves aching and the wet leaves clinging to our boots like spurs.
Azalea
T he doorbell rings and Bethany lets herself in. She’s wearing a red blazer and navy skirt. Coming from early morning mass.
Leaves fly in behind her, scrabbling sideways across the linoleum.
Trigger leaps off the kitchen chair and shoots down the hall, hitting the back of Sara’s knees, slopping coffee, yelping, thrashing his tail against the coatrack.
The street behind Bethany is shiny, bluish after the rain. How bright. A boy on a bike, working hard, sun melting the chrome beneath him, obliterating spokes, the wheels flimsy as snowflakes. Flock of pigeons. An armful of flung bread crusts. A man with a stolen shopping cart, jitterbugging bottles and cans.
Bethany gives her red jacket a sharp tug, her eyes adjust to the dark hallway. Water drips on her from the ceiling.
Several drops hit her thick, grey hair imperceptibly until a single icy drop runs down the side of her face, startling her. Thechurch was quiet and dark. Seagulls flew over the skylight. Father Ryan raised the Eucharist, torpid complaint from the organ, seagulls screeching, wings slicing the pillar of sun from the skylight. His bald head.
Now this chilly drip. She touches her cheek. Doesn’t know herself. How dark in here, cool. A deluge, part of her dream last night. Everything comes true.
That bathtub should be fixed, Bethany says. They won’t fix anything. Peanut butter fingerprints on the French doors, dog hair. Dust on the light fixture, cobwebs. If they’d just listen.
Sara catches a glimpse of the trees in the churchyard over Bethany’s shoulder. Big holey
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