Monstrous Affections (4 page)

Mrs. Sloan smiled in the dimming light — the flashlight,
miraculously enough, was still working, but its light now had to
fight its way through several layers of ooze.

“I was just watching you, dear,” she said softly.

Judith turned her ankle impatiently. The chamber was suddenly
very quiet. “Come on,” said Judith. “We can’t stop until we’re
finished.”

“Of course.” Mrs. Sloan stood straight and swung the axe up
again. It crunched into a wooden root very near the ceiling, and Mrs.
Sloan pried it loose. “I think that we’re very nearly done, though. At
least, that’s the feeling I get.”

Judith didn’t smile — she suddenly felt very cold inside.

“No, we’re not,” she said in a low voice, “we’re not done for a long
time yet. Keep working.”

Mrs. Sloan had been right, though. There were only a half-dozen
intact roots on the cellar ceiling, and it took less than a minute for
the two women to cut them down. When they stopped, the mess was
up to their ankles and neither felt like laughing. Judith shivered, the
juices at once burning and chilling against her skin.

“Let’s get out of this place,” said Mrs. Sloan. “There’s dry clothes
back at the house.”

The flashlight died at the base of the ladder, its beam flickering
out like a dampened candle flame. It didn’t matter, though. The sky
was a square of deepening purple above them, and while they might
finish the walk back in the dark they came out of the root cellar in
time to bask in at least a sliver of the remaining daylight. The weeds
atop the mound were still as the first evening stars emerged and the
line of orange to the west sucked itself back over the treetops.

Mrs. Sloan talked all the way back, her continual chatter almost
but not quite drowning out Judith’s recollections. She mostly talked
about what she would do with her new freedom: first, she’d take
the pickup and drive it back to the city where she would sell it. She
would take the money, get a place to live and start looking for a job.
As they crested the ridge of bedrock, Mrs. Sloan asked Judith if there
was much call for three-fingered manicurists in the finer Toronto
salons, then laughed in such a girlish way that Judith wondered if
she weren’t walking with someone other than Mrs. Sloan.

“What are you going to do, now that you’re free?” asked Mrs.
Sloan.

“I don’t know,” Judith replied honestly.

The black pickup was parked near the end of the driveway. Its
headlights were on, but when they checked, the cab was empty.

“They may be inside,” Mrs. Sloan whispered. “You were right,
Judith. We’re not done yet.”

Mrs. Sloan led Judith to the kitchen door around the side of the
house. It wasn’t locked, and together they stepped into the kitchen.
The only light came from the half-open refrigerator door. Judith
wrinkled her nose. A carton of milk lay on its side, and milk dripped
from the countertop to a huge puddle on the floor. Cutlery was
strewn everywhere.

Coming from somewhere in the house, Judith thought she
recognized Herman’s voice. It was soft, barely a whimper. It sounded
as though it were coming from the living room.

Mrs. Sloan heard it too. She hefted the axe in her good hand
and motioned to Judith to follow as she stepped silently around
the spilled milk. She clutched the doorknob to the living room in a
three-fingered grip, and stepped out of the kitchen.

Herman and his father were on the couch, and they were in bad
shape. Both were bathed in a viscous sweat, and they had bloated so
much that several of the buttons on Herman’s shirt had popped and
Mr. Sloan’s eyes were swollen shut.

And where were their noses?

Judith shuddered. Their noses had apparently receded into their
skulls. Halting breaths passed through chaffed-red slits with a wet
buzzing sound.

Herman looked at Judith. She rested the shovel’s blade against
the carpet. His eyes were moist, as though he’d been crying.

“You bastard,” whispered Mrs. Sloan. “You took away my life.
Nobody can do that, but you did. You took away everything.”

Mr. Sloan quivered, like gelatin dropped from a mould.

“You made me touch you . . .” Mrs. Sloan stepped closer “. . .
worship
you . . . you made me lick up after you, swallow your filthy,
inhuman taste . . . And you made me
like
it!”

She was shaking almost as much as Mr. Sloan, and her voice grew
into a shrill, angry shout. Mr. Sloan’s arms came up to his face, and
a high, keening whistle rose up. Beside him, Herman sobbed. He did
not stop looking at Judith.

Oh, Herman,
Judith thought, her stomach turning. Herman was
sick, sicker than Judith had imagined. Had he always been this
bad? Judith couldn’t believe that. Air whistled like a plea through
Herman’s reddened nostrils.

“
Well, no more!
” Mrs. Sloan raised the axe over her head so that it
jangled against the lighting fixture in the ceiling.
“No more!”

Judith lifted up the shovel then, and swung with all her strength.
The flat of the blade smashed against the back of Mrs. Sloan’s
skull.

Herman’s sobbing stretched into a wail, and Judith swung
the shovel once more. Mrs. Sloan dropped the axe beside her and
crumpled to the carpeted floor.

The telephone in Judith’s parents’ home rang three times before the
answering machine Judith had bought them for Christmas switched
on. Judith’s mother began to speak, in a timed, halting monotone:
“Allan . . . and . . . I are . . . not . . .”

Judith smoothed her hair behind her ears, fingers tapping
impatiently at her elbow until the message finished. She nearly
hung up when the tone sounded, but she shut her eyes and forced
herself to go through with it.

“Hi, Mom. Hi, Dad.” Her voice was small, and it trembled. “It’s
me. I know you’re pretty mad at me, and I just wanted to call and
say I was sorry. I know that what we did — what Herman and I did,
mostly me — I know it was wrong. I know it was sick, okay? Dad, you
were right about that. But I’m not going to do that stuff anymore.
I’ve got control of my life, and . . . of my body. God, that sounds like
some kind of feminist garbage, doesn’t it?
Control of my body
. But
it’s true.” With her foot, Judith swung the kitchen door shut. The
gurgling from upstairs grew quieter.

“Oh, by the way, I’m up at Herman’s parents’ place now. It’s about
three hours north of you guys, outside a town called Fenlan. You
should see it up here, it’s beautiful. I’m going to stay here for awhile,
but don’t worry, Herman and I will have separate bedrooms.” She
smiled. “We’re going to save ourselves.”

Judith turned around so that the telephone cord wrapped her
body, and she leaned against the stove.

“Mom,” she continued, “do you remember what you told me about
love? I do. You told me there were two stages. There was the in-love
feeling, the one that you get when you meet a guy, he’s really cute
and everything, and you just don’t want to be away from him. And
then that goes away, and remember what you said? ‘You’d better
still love him after that,’ you told me. ‘Even though he’s not so cute,
even though maybe he’s getting a little pot belly, even though he
stops sending you flowers, you’d better still love him like there’s no
tomorrow.’ Well Mom, guess what?”

The answering machine beeped again and the line disconnected.

“I do,” finished Judith.

The eaves of Mr. Swayze’s island lodge rattled like soup bones loose
in a bin. There was a wind up — a wind roaring across the bay that
shook the eaves — a wind that’d knock you down where you stood,
if you hadn’t a grip on something solid. It’d knock you down like
Janie’d been knocked down herself not long past; except Janie’d
have been able to get up right away if it were just the wind, and not
her husband Ernie who’d done it to her.

Ernie had hit her bad, worse than usual. And Janie didn’t know
why, which also wasn’t usual.

She was looking at the stem of a birch tree, cut short for the leg
of Mr. Swayze’s coffee table, and past it to the big front window —
which ought to be boarded up, the way the sky was rolling and
darkening beyond it. She was on the floor, and her chest hurt and
when she tried to swallow her neck felt like a needle was in it, and
her head was in some stickiness that Janie figured was some of her
own blood.

Why’d Ernie hit her like that?

It wasn’t like she’d been up to anything, after all. She was just
looking through one of Mr. Swayze’s little story magazines, the
ones that he sometimes wrote for. Her reading was getting better,
improving each year, and the magazine had pictures at the front of
each story, which gave her a good clue what ones she’d enjoy. Janie’d
found one with a pretty girl and what looked like a horse but it had
a long, corkscrew horn coming out of its head, which reminded her
of something —

— and then her husband Ernie’d showed up.

He was supposed to be out fishing. That’s what he spent the days
at, for the entire week they were at Mr. Swayze’s lodge on Georgian
Bay.

Sky had been clear when Ernie stepped inside. Janie hadn’t heard
the boat, but she was getting going in her story so she maybe wasn’t
too attentive. The door rattled closed, and Ernie cleared his throat.

“Hi,” said Janie. She placed her magazine down on her page. Ernie
stepped out of the doorway, and scratched at his neck. Sunlight
made the hair there glow like copper.

“You hold still now, Janie,” he said.

Janie did like she was told — but it puzzled her. Ernie would only
say that, in the way he just said it, when she got to one of her spells
and was set to do herself some harm.

“I’m just readin’,” said Janie. She stood and held up her magazine,
cover-out, to prove it.

“Hold still.” Ernie was born with sad eyes. They drooped at
the corners like he was going to cry. And his mouth wasn’t happy
either, not as a rule. Janie would smile and frown and cry and yell
depending on how she felt, but Ernie only ever looked sad. Janie
thought sometimes that Ernie’s face muscles just didn’t work.

“You upset, Ernie?” Janie couldn’t read it from his face, but he
was moving funny. His shoulders were bent, and his hands hung
from them like hooks on the end of a couple of chains. He was
looking right at her.

“Don’t move,” he said.

Then it came to her. Janie put her hand up to her mouth, made a
fist and gasped. “You — you see a wasp, don’t you?”

Ernie didn’t answer — just kept coming.

Janie stood still. Jeez Louise, a wasp! Janie’d been stung last
summer, out behind Ernie’s shed, and oh! How it’d set her howling!
There’d been a whole nest of them, and when she touched it wrong
they’d stung her seven times, then spit poison into the sting-holes
that made them hurt like the Devil, then stung her some more when
she got mad and started whacking at the nest with her shovel. She’d
learned her lesson about wasps that day — Ernie’d explained it to
her: “Stand still when there’s a wasp around. Stand still, an’ if it gets
near you, let it get a sniff and go on its way. It’s more ascared of you
than you are of it.”

Janie didn’t think that was possible. But she sure could stand
still, scared as she was. She shut her eyes tight and clutched her
story magazine to her chest. “Oh, Ernie, get it, get it, get it.”

“I’m sorry, Janie,” he said. “I shouldn’t have eaten it. I was just so
hungry, Janie, so hungry. Mr. Swayze said it’d be a good thing, but
now it’s in me.”

What’s all that got to do with wasps? she wondered for just a
second, before she realized what was what.

He hit her in the stomach first, and she took that hit hard.
Usually when Ernie hit her, she’d done something to deserve it, so
she’d know it was coming and could prepare herself. But what’d she
done? Read a story magazine? She hadn’t broken nothing, hadn’t
swore or soiled herself or embarrassed Ernie in the grocery.

Janie bent forward, and as she did her hands came up. The story
magazine ripped apart and the pages scattered around the porch-room. It felt like her innards had tore loose inside and she couldn’t
even breathe it hurt so bad. She fell on her knees and bit down on
her lip.

Ernie cuffed her in the ear. She fell sideways, and her elbow hit
the floor first, and that sent a juicy kind of pain up through her
shoulder so strong she thought her heart would blow up from it.
She put out her hand and managed to hold herself upright, but only
barely and not for long.

Because next Ernie kicked that arm out from under her. He was
wearing his big work boots, and they added weight enough to the
kick that she fell completely.

She rolled onto her back. She was wearing boots too — not as
big as Ernie’s, but high and black and plenty hard in the heel — and
though she knew better, she used them to kick up at her husband.
She caught him in the knee, and it wasn’t the right angle to knock
him down, but it sure must’ve hurt. Because he yelled something
fierce then — louder even than when he’d chopped near-through his
pinkie finger with the wood-axe that time, mad enough to put a bit
of fear in her.

He jumped back on one foot, and clutched at the other one with
both hands and hopped around some. Janie finally sucked in some
air, which was good because her eyes were starting to go all speckly
for lack of it, and she started to get up.

She was up on one knee when Ernie let go of his knee and stopped
hollering. His foot dropped to the floor with a thump, and his hands
fell back to his sides again. Janie put her other foot beneath her and
stood up. Hers and Ernie’s eyes met, and Janie thought again about
the wasp rule.

Should have done like I was told, she thought, fear still working
at her middle like a little gnawing mouse. Should have kept still.

Let him get his sniff.