Sweet Jesus (6 page)

Hannah looked at Norm. He was leaning close to Florence’s face with an expression of rapt interest. Hannah couldn’t feel jealous. It didn’t mean anything. That was his way. It’s what people loved about him – the intense quality of his attention. And she loved it too. How could you not? In fact, Hannah was enjoying this new, unaccustomed feeling of possessiveness. She’d been married, but she’d had an allergic reaction to the semantics of it, the smug confidence of the vows. She’d never known how much she prized a mystery, but now she appreciated a little uncertainty with her love, maybe even the painful thrill of being ignored.

Norm rose off his chair to lean forward and stab the last potato in the bowl. He looked across at Hannah, but his gaze didn’t linger. His face didn’t soften, nor did he give her a conspiratorial wink with the private knowledge of what they’d got up to earlier that evening in the shower. It made her feel lonely. When they first met, Hannah had been frightened by the intensity with which her heart clamped onto him. After a month, she told him she couldn’t do it anymore – couldn’t keep making love if it wasn’t exclusive. That was her ultimatum and Norm was enjoying his freedom. He was attractive and popular. Women all over Toronto wanted to sleep with him. Some men bloom later in life after going quietly unnoticed through their youth. He had said, I don’t think I’ve ever misled
you into thinking this was something exclusive. Besides, Norm had told her he wasn’t sure if he could trust her. She’d told him about the naked parties in London, and that was a wildness he was suspicious of. She had an adventurous sexuality and a past unlike his own – messy and decadent. And so they had said goodbye. And yet, four days later, he showed up at her apartment. I missed you, he said. I didn’t know how much I would.

So what are you saying?

I’m saying let’s be an item, he said, and Hannah fell into a swoon that lasted for months. Even her sister began to hear a change in her. A contentment that was uncharacteristic. I finally understand the whole point of compatibility, she’d told Connie over the phone. When you’re unhappy, your life is an open book. But for the first time I’m actually starting to value my privacy. And her sister had made some noise of relief.

Hannah was staring down at her empty plate and now Mona Terrence’s soft white arm was slowly reaching across her lap. Hannah almost caressed it before she realized Mona was after her plate. Let me help you with that, Hannah said, pushing back on her chair.

You have to believe the fact that you’re loveable, Norm had said earlier. They’d been walking to the dinner party, and Hannah had her finger hooked through one of his belt loops.

But it’s the hardest thing for me to do.

Why? he said. People like you, I can tell.

I have a history of failed relationships.

How come, Norm said, when a bad thing happens, it cancels out all the other times when good things happen?

As soon as they had arrived at Florence’s, Mona Terrence said, Did Norm’s sister make that?

What, this? Hannah asked, touching a brooch made of small black feathers she’d pinned to her blazer.

Looks like something his sister would make.

Norm doesn’t like it, Hannah said.

Well,
I
think it’s gorgeous, Mona said, apparently enjoying the flagrant trumping of Norm’s opinion. Mona Terrence was Norman Peach’s closest friend and they were like bear cubs, cuffing each other constantly about the ears. Already tonight she’d asked Norm twice in front of Hannah when he was moving back home, as if his life with Hannah in Toronto wasn’t even a consideration.

Hannah followed Mona into Florence’s bright yellow kitchen. Mona’s running shoes were making a kissing noise on the linoleum. So, how are things these days? Hannah sounded falsely optimistic.

Mona swung around to face her. Well, I’m putting a lot of work into Kinshasa, she practically shouted.

Who?

The Congo.

Oh, Hannah said.

It’s a humanitarian crisis! Mona raised her eyebrows at the obviousness of what should not have been missed. Thousands of children are being accused of witchcraft?

I didn’t know that, Hannah said.

They’re being thrown out of their homes and tortured, Mona said. This one girl, her mother got sick, then the generator broke down, and they blamed her for it. They tried to drown her in a sack, and when she escaped, they took her to a priest who performed an exorcism that included branding her with an iron and forcing her to eat a bar of soap.

That’s
terrible
, Hannah said.

She’s only nine years old. There’s going to be a nationwide charity drive next week. I’m organizing the whole event. It’s the biggest thing I’ve ever done in my life.

Big as in size? Hannah said. Or big as in important?

Both, Mona said and turned to Florence, who was staring into her fridge. Flo, do you need help with dessert?

I had a salmon-coloured fridge once, Florence said dreamily, that lit up from the bottom. It made everything glow like a Gilbert and Sullivan production. And Flo crossed her hands like fans under her chin and batted her eyelashes.

There was whisky in the living room after dessert. Hannah felt unlaced and drunk. What time was it? She was sitting on the floor facing the sofa, talking to Mona’s husband. His face reflected a certain curiosity. He was taking an interest and it was encouraging her.

I was in Venice a few weeks ago, she said, half-reclined on her elbow. For my friend Ursula Bishop’s wedding? We took a boat to the reception, just stepped off this boat, right into this medieval palazzo, and all the Italian men with their shaved heads, wearing sunglasses and beautiful suits. The groom gave a speech and halfway through, this guy he’s known since he was like, six years old, started heckling him and said, go fuck your mother, in Italian.

Mona’s husband said, What’s go fuck your mother in Italian?

Mona turned and said, What is this, a joke?

It was a wedding, Hannah said.
Via tua madre
.

What did you say?

She said, go fuck your mother.

That’s what the guy said. And they came down hard on him, so he got his coat, as they say, and left.

That’s so great, Mona said and looked away.

It was a little freaky, Hannah said. I was running back to my hotel room at three in the morning with absolutely no one around. From the reception to my hotel, it was like I was the
only person in Venice. Just the clack of my high heels. And corner after corner of old rock and cement and brick. Nothing alive, not a blade of grass, and the little tickle of water, the little lap of water, and all the shutters shut fast, and a thin strip of sky with stars overhead. I was laughing because I was wearing this silver fox-fur stole and to a half-British wedding. I mean, I wasn’t even
trying
to be provocative.

Hannah heard Norm laugh in another part of the house. Florence ran into the living room as if running across the deck of a listing ship and collapsed onto Mona’s lap. She crossed her legs and cupped a hand to Mona’s ear and started whispering.

Excuse me, Hannah said and swayed out of the room. She started up the stairs. It felt like climbing an escalator that was slowly coming down. When she came out of the bathroom she couldn’t remember if she had flushed. God, she was drunk. Norm was there. Where have you been?

In the kitchen, he said, with Bernice.

Hannah looked at her feet. Can we
please
leave now?

I never get to see these people, Norm said. They’re my friends. I just want to enjoy myself.

So maybe you’d prefer it if
I
left.

If you have to leave, that’s fine by me.

She wasn’t expecting this. Norm reached into his pocket and pulled out the key to the house they were staying in. He handed it to her and went downstairs. He said something in the living room, which was greeted with laughter and cheering. Hannah walked into the master bedroom. She sat down on the queen-sized bed for a few minutes. Somebody outside rumbled past the house on a skateboard. An image of the boy her parents had adopted, laughing and falling backwards off a flipped-up skateboard, arms windmilling over his head, flared
in her mind, then faded. Zeus was eight years old when he came to live with her parents. Hannah was living at home as well. She hadn’t for years, but she’d just finished her
BA
and gone home for a few months to save some money. It was weird to see her parents looking after an eight-year-old. He was almost too unbearably cute, although what happened in the end was all wrong. Hannah always felt bad that, at the time, she’d never tried to do anything about it. He left when he was fifteen, without saying goodbye, and no one really knew where he was for a while. They thought he might have gone back to New Mexico, to look for his family, but then he called one day from Chicago. And that’s where he was living now, with his boyfriend, some older guy apparently, and working as a clown with kids in a hospital there, which she thought was pretty remarkable. Suddenly, she wanted to talk to Norm. She went back downstairs to the living room.

Mona’s husband was saying, It’s what Gertrude Stein told Hemingway
not
to be. Like Modigliani’s nudes. They were
inaccrochables
.

Modigliani was born in Venice, Hannah said, standing in the doorway. Where had she recently learned this?

We were
all
born in Venice, Roger said.

No, no, listen. His family was Jewish and they went bankrupt, she said. But there was this law, if the mother was about to give birth, the family was allowed to keep whatever they could pile onto the birthing bed. So Modigliani was born on a four-poster bed piled high with candelabras and clocks and silver spoons.

There was a dreamy silence. It’s true, she said, then Mona’s husband laughed briefly at something totally unrelated. It sounded like a cough. Mona swung around to scold him and spilled red wine on the carpet and ran to the kitchen to get a
cloth. Hannah sat down on the floor again and felt the wild horses of her own drunkenness move in dizzying circles.

How long was it before they were struggling to push their arms into the sleeves of their coats. Norm and Hannah stood in the foyer. It was foggy outside, and the rain had stopped. The trees were still dripping and the road was shiny and black as a canal.

Be careful, Florence hollered at their backs as Norm and Hannah took off down the hill. They walked as if carrying heavy suitcases. They crossed a spongy field to get to a street of tight rowhouses. At a spot on the sidewalk, Hannah stopped. I’m just gonna lie down here for a minute.

Norman stood above her and held his arms out. He bent forward and almost fell. He was swaying. Aw, come on, babe!

The cold was seeping into her, but Hannah felt so tired. She understood the only way she’d get home was if she ran. She leapt to her feet and took off.

Hey! Norm shouted after her. Wait for me!

When he got to the house, she was curled up on the front stoop like a cat. He dug in her pockets for the key. Up you get, he said.

Hey baby, she said.

Hey.

I’m so wasted.

I know you are.

I love you, baby.

I love you too.

I wanna spend the rest of my life.

I know you do, baby. I do too. Now give me a hand. The screen door hit Hannah’s forehead with an aluminum twang. Sorry, Norm said.

Didn’t feel a thing, she said.

That’s good.

Can we get a puppy, Norm?

Okay, he said.

And a little baby? Just a teeny one?

Norm didn’t say anything to that but folded her carefully over his shoulder and took her upstairs, all the burden he wanted in the world for the moment.

H
arlan Douglas Foster locked up and left Home Protection Plus at twelve-fifteen in the morning with the last two of a six-pack of beer he’d bought earlier that evening. They were swinging by the neck from their soft plastic nooses. Something about those plastic rings made him think of lingerie, a drawer full of Connie’s bras. He bleeped the car alarm and slung his briefcase and the two cans onto the passenger seat and got inside his Cherokee Jeep.

For a moment he contemplated suicide.

Harlan had deceived his wife. He knew that much. What he didn’t know was how he’d allowed things to unravel to such an extent in the first place. He was a ruined man. And he still hadn’t told Connie.

How does a thing like this happen? All he wanted to do was please her. Show her how lucky he was, how lucky she was to have him, get that high and hold on to it, that cosy high like a cocoon or a womb where nothing can touch you – not failure or futility, or the fear of death, or the devil himself. That’s
how a thing like this happens. The devil has crept in, but you don’t know it. You start with a simple equation. A stock that’s breaking through its fifty-day average, verging on parabolic. A ten-bagger. The next Voisey Bay. But then it plummets. They call it a falling knife.

He couldn’t get away from the thought that it had all begun so promisingly. He was having a slow season in the security business, time on his hands, and started checking his stocks online. He tried his hand at making a trade, enjoyed it, then made another one. He got lucky that year and made fifty thousand dollars off a quarter of a million dollars’ worth of trading. It was a rush, but he should never have fired his accountant and taken over his own investments. Why had he been so stupid? He started playing futures and shorting stocks. He adjusted his account so he could trade on margin.

Three years ago, he’d tried to take advantage of the depressed American economy. He waited for the equity market to correct itself, but it took another downturn. His investments bottomed out and he found himself in a desperate situation. He started borrowing to pay his mortgage and expenses, and that’s when the calls began. He changed his cell number three times to escape the debt collectors, each time inventing a new explanation to give Connie. He couldn’t bring himself to file for bankruptcy, and then, a few days ago, a collection agency finally sent their repo men to clear out his business effects. Now his lender had a court order to seize all his assets, the house and its contents, both vehicles, a speedboat he had docked in the Mill Bay Marina, all of which he’d agreed to put a lien on at the time of borrowing, as collateral for what was supposed to be his final consolidating loan. He was, he realized now, sitting in an
SUV
that technically he no longer owned, while Connie, at this very moment, was sleeping in a bed that wasn’t hers, under a
roof that no longer protected her, dreaming of a future for her children she would no longer be able to afford.