The Stubborn Season. Lauren B. Davis
Bobbie Patterson said as they walked down the long loud hall, “you should be more careful, Mr. Mac. These men in there, well, they’re a bad sort. They’re out to undermine everything we stand for in this country.”
“Oh, yes, I can see that,” said Douglas. “I’m just an unlucky bystander in all this. I tried to explain that to the other officers but they wouldn’t listen. Although,” he added, seeing a dark look cross Bobbie’s face, “I can see how they wouldn’t have had the time and all, given the situation. Ha ha. You men are doing a fine job. Yessir. A fine job.”
“You wait here. I’m gonna have a word.” Bobbie laid his finger alongside his nose and winked, then he went to talk to an older officer. The older man glanced in Douglas’s direction. Bobbie put his hand on the man’s shoulder, turned to look back himself, then mimed tipping a bottle to his lips. The other man smirked and nodded. Bobbie clapped him on the back and went behind the desk to a rack of lockers. From inside one he pulled a paper bag containing Douglas’s possessions and walked back to him, grinning.
“Okay, Mr. Mac, you’re free to go. And go straight home, huh?”
“Yes, of course, Bobbie, or should I say Constable Patterson, eh? Yes, straight home with me. It’s been quite a night, quite a night.” Douglas pumped the young man’s hand. He was in a hurry to go. He needed the night air, clean, calm night air, to fill his lungs with the scent of something to wipe out the stench of the cell.
“Just one more thing . . . ” The young man held his hand firmly and wouldn’t let go.
“Yes?”
“Well, let’s be clear here. That man who got took to the hospital. That’s a sad thing, I guess, but sometimes guys come in here all beat up, you understand. Don’t have anything to do with the police department, you understand. Wasn’t for us he’d of bled to death in that cell. You do see that, don’t you, Mr. Mac.”
“Of course,” he said, smiling, looking Bobbie straight in the eye. “Of course. Like I said, you’re all doing a wonderful job.”
“To serve and protect. That’s our motto. You have a good night, sir.” And he let go of Douglas’s hand.
Douglas fled through the doors. He emptied the paper bag and stuffed his pockets with his keys and change and stamps. The little silver flask was gone. He stood on the moon-bright street and breathed deeply. The smell of burning leaves and gasoline and sandalwood perfume from a dark-haired woman walking by filled his chest. He looked at the woman, strained after the scent and sight of her, as though she’d asked a question that was terribly important but spoken too quietly to hear. The woman wore a camellia in her hair, white as bone and pale as death.
“Douglas! You come out of that bathroom now! How dare you lock the door on me!”
The sound of her mother kicking the door made Irene want to crawl under the bed and hide. She hugged her doll, Noreen, to her chest and then the pillow too so that Noreen would be protected. Voices became Other Voices. Similar to but not exactly the voices of the people you knew. It was as though there were violent and dangerous people hiding behind the familiar faces of your mother and father, waiting to emerge at unpredictable times like these.
“Margaret, for God’s sake! Keep your voice down.”
“You dare tell me what to do! After you’ve been out whoring around town? A common drunk?”
“Shut up. You don’t know what you’re talking about. You’ll wake up the neighbours! You’ll wake up Irene!”
“It’d be good for her, to see what kind of a father she really has.”
“Margaret, I’ll not have this, do you hear. Get control of yourself.”
“Keep your hands off me. Don’t you ever touch me again!”
Her mother’s voice was completely gone now, replaced by the Other Mother, the woman who came and went inside her mother’s skin. Sometimes you could tell just by looking at her; sometimes you had to hear the voice. The voice of the Other Mother was full of spit and sour with no laughter and no way to make her see you as you really were. Irene wondered what her father would do. He was as big as the Other Mother, bigger even. If Irene was bigger she would stop the Other Mother. Put her hand over her mouth and make the words stop coming out until the Nice Mother came back. Irene hugged her knees and held Noreen tightly.
Shadows crossed the threshold of her doorway and she closed her eyes, held her breath. Irene heard her parents descend the stairs. There was a cast-iron heating vent in the corner near the door. The words came through as clearly as if her parents had been standing in her room.
“You tell me, Douglas, you tell me right this minute. Who is she? Who’s your little floozy?”
“I don’t know where you get these ideas, Margaret.”
“Oooh, don’t you take that tone with me! I’m not the one who’s out gallivanting all over town.”
“No one is gallivanting. I worked late. I had a drink. I fell asleep over the accounts. There’s no sin in that.”
“You coward. You’re going to add lying to everything else? A real man would stand up and admit what he’s done. He’d take the consequences with his shoulders squared. But not you, oh no. Not the sorry excuse for a man I married. Tell me who she is!” The voice rose to a shriek and Irene covered her ears with her hands. She pushed back in bed until she was in the corner.
There was a momentary silence and Irene held her breath.
“That’s quite enough now,” said her father.
Irene let the air out of her lungs. It would be all right now. Irene was very good at reading voices. She didn’t have to even see her father to know what he was trying to do. His voice was reasoning, calm, a little afraid. She knew what that felt like. You had to be careful here, when the Other Mother was so close to the edge of the dark place.
“You’re making yourself hysterical. I’m telling you there is no other woman. I admit I was thoughtless, I should have called.”
“I called you. You didn’t answer. You think I’m a fool. You’re laughing at me. I can see that now. I hope you’re proud of yourself. I hope you’re very proud. You’ll never be able to make it up to me. Everything is different now. Everything is very different.” Her mother’s feet on the stairs again, each step deliberate and measured.
“Margaret,” her father called softly. “Come back here. Don’t act like a fool.” Her mother kept walking. Her shadow passed as she went into their bedroom and closed the door. Irene heard the sound of a chair being put under the doorknob. Her father would have heard that too.
“Oh, for God’s sake,” he said to no one.
Irene smoothed Noreen’s sea-green dress over the doll’s porcelain legs. “Don’t be afraid,” she said. “I’m right here. I’m right here.” She knew she was too old to be talking to her doll, too old by far. “Don’t be afraid,” she said.
After a while Irene heard her father make up a bed on the couch. She lay quietly, trying to fall asleep, but it wasn’t easy.
“Good night, Noreen,” she whispered.
Douglas pressed the heels of his hands to his eyes, trying to stop the flow of tears. He lay on the chesterfield and tried to understand why he hadn’t told Margaret the truth. He tossed and turned, unable to exorcise the demons that haunted him. The smell of the unwashed prisoners, the metallic smell of his own fear, the reek of blood and urine. The implied threat in Bobbie Patterson’s words and the cold grip of the young constable’s hand. He wanted to talk to someone. He wanted to confess his fears. He wanted to confess his cowardice. He lay staring up at the ceiling, up to the room where his wife lay in their bed, from which he was banished, and deservedly so. Not because of what she thought he had done, but because of the things she didn’t know