The Best Thing for You (32 page)

Anna?

Sleep left her slowly, teasingly stripping its veils away. She had been dreaming that someone was crying, a great rhythmic wailing that made sense of something she had been struggling to understand. The last puzzle piece fell into place as she realized the sound was coming from her own mouth.

Baby, wake up.

She whimpered a little at being woken. The wail persisted. So it was not coming from her after all.

Something’s happening, her husband said, his own face still creased with sleep as he winced at the morning light.

Air-raid sirens, that was the sound. She looked at the clock: four minutes after seven.

It’s the war, she said, realizing. It’s over.

They went downtown, like everyone else, it turned out. They took the streetcar, where the driver waved them on for free. The men were laughing and shaking hands all up and down the car, full of pep, and the girls were all dressed to the nines. Anna found herself next to a little waitress who was skipping her shift to go downtown and see the fun.

Well, I’d like to see him fire me over this, she kept saying, and Anna kept nodding as though she was intimate with the details. He can threaten every little bit he wants.
I’ve
got brothers just the same as anyone.

They’ll be coming home soon? Anna said politely.

The waitress turned to the woman on her other side and said, I’d just like to see him fire me. I’d just like to see him try.

The streetcar made halting progress as cars surged by, honking and trailing strings of tin cans, with passengers leaning out the windows, cheering and waving. People without cars ran alongside the traffic, shaking cowbells, blowing whistles, beating pot lids, any noisemakers they could find. They weaved in and out of traffic, strangers beating out tattoos on the sides of the tram and kissing each other. A tribe of young boys who had clearly skipped school were behaving like Red Indians, with makeshift headdresses and feathers, whooping and stomping in a victory dance. Above it all the air-raid sirens persisted, keening peace.

At Hastings and Granville the streetcar stopped and the driver put everyone off. It was as though they had jumped into an ocean of sound: the car horns, the bells and whistles, a ragged refrain of “Roll Out the Barrel,” and from the harbour the obstinate lowing of ships’ horns. Faces flared and faded back into the crowd: men of business and their secretaries, newsboys determinedly hawking papers left over from the weekend. Looking up, Anna saw men and women leaning out of office windows and emptying their wastepaper baskets onto the revellers below. Then the air was full of paper, white scraps she picked from her hair – bank statements, tickertape, adding-machine paper, bills. More young boys were festooning the lamp standards with toilet tissue, and then the church bells began to ring. They forged upstream to Hastings and Howe, where office workers had formed a conga line and were dancing through the crowd, picking up length by the moment. Anna lost go of her husband’s hand then and felt herself swept towards the whip-end of the dancers. A man behind her seized her hips and tried to manoeuvre her
into the line. He nuzzled into her hair and licked at her ear, pressing her into the dancer in front of her, whose shoulders she had automatically taken to steady herself. Then Buddy was back, laughing and pulling her away.

All right? he said. She could not hear his voice but made out the words from the shape of his lips.

Fine, she said, and could not hear her own voice either.

He pushed her ahead of him after that, keeping a hand on her neck like a collar, so he wouldn’t lose her again. She felt the skin of her throat go taut and slack, taut and slack, as he kneaded the back of her neck in his excitement.

As the morning wore on, the festivities became both more organized and more general. They wandered all over downtown, letting themselves be pushed by the crowd. Cars were draped with flags, now, Red Ensigns and Union Jacks, and the cathedrals had thrown open their doors for impromptu thanksgiving services. Crepe paper streamers replaced toilet paper in Maypole whirls around the lamps and in the trees, and one department store had hung enormous coloured likenesses of Mr. Churchill, Mr. Stalin, and President Roosevelt from their fourth-floor windows. But stores were largely closed, some with their windows nervously boarded over, and by noon many cafés were closed too, having run out of food.

My camera, Buddy said, stricken.

They were standing a ways up Granville Street, by the Birks clock, not far from where a woman had just fainted away from all the excitement. A photographer had appeared even before some men with a stretcher, a man who exchanged nods with her husband before going about his work, asking people to step back and give him a little room around the unconscious woman with the blouse skewed off over one shoulder.

That’s Smith, her husband said, fretting now. You met him
at the Tanners’, don’t you remember? By God, I should be working too.

She thought for a moment, then took a single halting step and stumbled against him as though her legs had gone weak. She held a hand to her forehead and said wonderingly, Buddy?

Just the heat, that’s all, her husband was saying a moment later to the knot of concerned passersby who had gathered round. He had got her to sit on the curb and was squatting next to her, fanning her with his big paddle of a hand. Saying: Just the heat and the excitement.

I should go home, she said.

He looked torn, then, as she had planned.

I heard some people saying the streetcars are running again, she said. We could split up, if you like. I’ll just head home if you want to get your camera from the office.

I can’t let you go alone, he said uncertainly, glancing at the man Smith, who had abandoned the unconscious woman and was now posing some pretty office girls with tambourines against a wall and snapping away while they stuck out their chests and giggled.

I’m fine now. I’ll just go home, that’s all. She took his hand and looked into his eyes and said seriously, I’m fine.

Go to Mother’s house, he suggested. It’s closer.

By the time she got to her mother-in-law’s house it was midafternoon. The excitement in the streets grew sparser as she left downtown, though here and there she encountered a clutch of housewives listening to the radio on each other’s front lawns and teenagers stuffing toilet tissue through the open windows of parked cars. When she saw the house at a distance her need for solitude broke like a fever. If she had to smile one more time or wave one more time, if she had to dance or sing, if she had to perform for one more person –

Finally, said a voice, as she fumbled her key in the front-door lock.

Baby and Buddy, Stephen said. My God.

Stop it.

He prodded her with a finger, the butcher’s boy, like she was a cut of chicken. He tried to be sardonic but he had dog eyes. He had skipped school and come straight to the house this morning, he had said, as soon as he realized what day it was. He had been hurt, she could tell, that she had not automatically done the same. Hours he had waited, hiding in the shadow of the shed, with all that nonsense in his mind and his heart and his pants. Now it was early evening.

We can’t meet here any more, she said. Outside another car sounded its horn.

I wish you had a car, she added, going up on her elbows.

He didn’t look at her but his eyebrows went up. So do I, he told the ceiling, and she knew he was gazing on a world of private desires that did not touch her at all. But there was not supposed to be any such world.

We can’t meet here any more, she said again, and then, Don’t you know any nice girls at school?

Nice girls, he said. Sure, nice girls.

Outside a shrill white whistle sliced the air, followed by a bang and the sound of footsteps sprinting to silence. Kids, she said, and he: Fireworks.

Downstairs the front door slammed.

Anna? he breathed.

She mouthed, Get dressed.

Another explosion, so close that the room was briefly flooded with milk.

Anna! her husband called.

They dressed in furious silence. His shirt was grimy at the nape, and staleness wafted from the folds of her dress when she picked it off the floor. Theirs was a small story, a loveless cliché, with only a little bitter lust at the pith.

Anna! her husband called, his voice closer, bottom of the stairs.

Coming! she called.

I came to see how you are, he called. You didn’t answer the phone.

You’re going to help me with something, she whispered to the boy.

He nodded dumbly.

Don’t come up! she called down to her husband. I’m coming! Put the kettle on, would you? Isn’t it wonderful?

In the swarming silver point half-darkness she took a pair of white cotton gloves from the dresser and whispered, Put these on.

They glowed serenely on his hands, like mitts.

Take this, she said, handing him the china goose-girl.

Perplexed, he half smiled.

I’m going to go down there, she whispered. I’m going to turn him around so his back is to the stairs. You’re not going to make a sound. You’re going to wait by the turn in the stairs until you hear me say, That’s fine. Then you’re going to come all the way down.

My bike’s still in the shed, he whispered doubtfully. I’ve got deliveries tomorrow, I can’t leave it. You want me to use the front door?

I want you to hit him on the head as hard as you can.

He started shaking, and her whole body began to sparkle.

Here you are, he said.

They embraced. From outside came the sound of more fireworks, tripping a clatter of falling garbage cans and a dog’s snatching bark, and farther away radios and car horns and, she heard now, cheers. His skin smelled of soap and smoke and was warm.

I’ve come to get you, he said. The paper wants me to stay out all night, but I wanted you to come. I want us to remember this together. Will you come?

Of course, she whispered.

Are you cold? He rubbed her back and bare arms. You’re barefoot, he said, noticing. The kettle started to moan. Beneath the moaning she heard the stairs creak once.

I washed my stockings, she said. They’re probably dry by now.

Over his shoulder she saw the boy’s white face. He came down the last step and when she turned as though towards the kettle he raised the figurine and brought it down on her husband’s head. It didn’t break. Her husband half turned and caught a second blow on the temple. He stood still.

That’s fine, she said.

What’s wrong with it? the boy asked, meaning the figurine. The three of them looked at each other. A second later a goose fell from the figurine’s foot and hit the floor. Her husband sank to his knees.

Hit him again, she said, but he tipped over then and lay still.

She had expected to feel different. She had expected some blood rush or clarity but it was simply the world in yet another possible arrangement. The kettle whistled until she stepped over and took it off the burner. The sound died sulkily.

Why didn’t it break? she asked.

It did, the boy said, and a moment later a rain of china chips and shards poured from his hands. His grip had held it together.