Come on, this is our last chance.”
Baffled, I followed her to her room on the second floor, my legs like wet rags. She mentioned the marriage again, always with the same desperate rage — the Tees would be there, and other families from Métis Beach, not witnesses, no, but voyeurs, “You know, the same sort of people who look at a man being put to death from behind a pane of glass.” She muttered something about Marilyn Monroe, found dead two weeks before, “I think I’m meant to die young. Even younger than Marilyn.…” And with an air of defiance, she pulled the engagement ring off her finger, a ring mounted with a diamond — I noticed it for the first time just then. So it was serious with Don. I glanced up and saw my guilty reflection in the mirror over the dresser.
“Gail, no.…”
“No what?”
“Let’s go back down. It’s not a good idea.”
“For who? Your vicar? Come on.”
I glanced anxiously around the room — a young girl’s bed, with a pink and white comforter, matching wallpaper, Beatrix Potter authenticated watercolours that Mrs. Egan had so proudly ferreted out at an antique store in London. A room decorated for a child, it wasn’t right for what we were about to do, a sacrilege against childhood.
She shot me a knowing look, mixed with a desire for vengeance. But revenge for what, exactly? Does she love him or not, this Don Drysdale? As if reading my thoughts — and seemingly to humiliate me — she pulled a picture of him from one of the dresser’s drawers and pushed it towards me with a triumphant air. A flash of jealousy filled me as I saw this young man so sure of himself, athletic body and perfect teeth, as unbearable as a blinding light, and then, as if she wanted to be forgiven, she began kissing me passionately, her lips against mine, famished, pulling her shirt off, my God, those firm breasts, far fuller than I thought, their points like prune pits. “Hush!” She put her finger against my mouth. She was shaking, removing the rest of her clothes, her eyes filled with light, with the pleasure of seeing me watching her. I was excited, of course, though in the back of my mind I couldn’t help feeling I wasn’t taking full advantage of the moment. I was too nervous, too clumsy. I couldn’t help thinking of Don, handsome like the actors on the screen at the clubhouse. I was afraid to disappoint Gail. I knew I’d disappoint her.
“Come on!”
“No, Gail. I don’t think.…”
“Please, please! I know you’ve been dreaming it for a long time. Tomorrow it’ll be too late.”
“I … I don’t know.…”
She stumbled towards me, and I submitted to her with fearful docility. She undid my belt, took my clothes off. I felt blood rushing to the bottom of my stomach. A fog in my brain, I didn’t even know where I was anymore. She said, panting, “Help me.” I tripped trying to take off my pants and my underwear, my cock hard, aimed at her, her eyes avoiding it entirely. Timidly, I lay down next to her; the tension slowly cleared as our lips touched, her warm body next to mine, her salty, fresh skin, then her suddenly agitated hands finding their way towards my crotch, an electric shock that ran down to my toes, she guided me clumsily into her, moist heat, sublime, my head emptied, my conscience completely gone, and a groan shuddered through me, without warning.
Her disappointed eyes, and the shame that filled me.
She moved away brusquely, no doubt she was thinking of Don, with whom she’d done it, I was sure now. I wanted to die, to flee. I couldn’t hold a candle to him. What humiliation. How could I have believed that such a girl was actually interested in me? And what time was it? Late now? How much time had we spent in that room? I was seventeen, for God’s sake, and I had just done it for the first time, and that’s all there was? That disappointing?
“Romain, please! You’re going to ruin everything!”
I jumped out of bed in a panic. I wanted to stammer embarrassed apologies, something like, It would have been better if we hadn’t done it, it was better before. But you couldn’t say something like that. I tried to collect my clothes strewn across the floor, looking for my belt, my shoes, my shirt. I wished I could be far away from this place. I needed to think about what had happened, alone. Gail insisted in a plaintive voice that I come back to bed. I didn’t answer. She got up, furious, her hair half-covering her face. “What are you afraid of? It’s like that’s all there is in you, fear!” The remark should have upset me, but I barely heard it. I still needed to find my socks and one of my damn shoes, which Gail picked out from under the bed, and threw at me maliciously, like a bone to a dog. I must have looked ridiculous, down on all fours like an idiot, half dressed and half shod, blind to the miracle before me, Gail naked, her small round breasts, a shining spot between her legs, but it didn’t interest me anymore, my genitals had withered, a hermit crab back in its shell. We heard a noise on the ground floor.
“What’s that?”
“Nothing! Just the wind!”
“No, there’s someone there!”
Then a terrible cry in the night, a terrifying howl.
Panicking, Gail wrapped herself in a sheet and ran out of the room, a cold shower wouldn’t have had sobered her quicker. My heart beating, we ran down the stairs, into the living room, and reached the veranda in which a heavy, strange silence lay. “Locki?” Gail said in a nervous voice. “Locki, is that you?” She saw the blood on the veranda, viscous, steaming. She screamed, desperate shouts that were heard all the way to the Tees mansion. In a panic, I ran until I thought my heart would explode, first to the back garden, then down the cedar staircase that led to the beach, and due east, my ankles turning on the stones. That poor dog, stretched out, its throat slit, not completely dead yet. Light burst from the Riddington place, and then the Hayes’. In front of me, far away, under the nearly full moon, someone was running towards the village, a broad-shouldered silhouette, familiar.
I made my decision. I would denounce him to the police. Louis kept killing animals, the bastard. The next morning, there was a knock on the door. But it wasn’t Louis they were looking for. It was me.
12
The wind blew stronger, clearing up the sky over the sea. That cold November wind! My breath forming clouds of steam, shaking in my buckskin jacket, I forced myself to walk as slowly as possible, letting the names of the houses I passed come to me: Joe Rousseau of the caisse populaire; Roger Quimper of the general store; Jeff Loiseau the mechanic; Lionel Coutu — Françoise, Jean, and Paul’s father … Rue Principale. Its modest wooden homes, all jumbled together on small plots, some still had their asbestos shingles, some of their yards entirely asphalted over. Small houses of one or two stories, scrupulously maintained and freshly painted, just like it had been back in the days. Nothing had changed really, except for doors and windows replaced by newer materials, and the cars in the driveways, more luxurious now.
Loiseau’s garage, the bakery, and Leblond’s shoe shop had disappeared; Quimper’s general store, swallowed by the grocery chain Metro. And Louis’ house, which had always been a shambles, was a video rental place.
Only Mode pour toute la famille, my mother’s store, remained almost unchanged, except that the front had been painted bright yellow, in stark contrast with the dull white of the houses surrounding it and the melancholy grey of the sky and sea. The same sign with its outdated lettering, the same mannequins in the shop window. On the second floor, our apartment seemed inhabited: lace drapes dressed the windows, and a child’s drawing had been taped in one window. My old room.
Troubling,
