Relations

The fire had finally taken, his patience rewarded. As he'd expected, as he knew it would. But not always; patience and virtue were supposed to be their own rewards. Still, they seldom were and like anyone else, when Ralph invested his time, however little, he expected a return.

Despite the rain that drenched the grass, the tree-tops canopied above kept them reasonably dry. Nearby, the sound of the rain splotching on the metal of the car pinged constantly. The stones supporting the iron grate under which Ralph's fire was now lustily eating lengths of dry kindling, leaping busily to lick heavy pieces of elm lying on the grate ... the stones yes, hissed their hot contempt at the puny efforts of the rain; those few drops that managed to evade the canopy of the trees.

Ralph rubbed his hands over the fire, his nails scraping dirt clots off his palms; dirt from scrubbing, from his hunkered-over position before the blaze and when he did, his knees buckled slightly. A cramp; in his determination to light the fire despite the damp air, the half-damp logs, he'd been kneeling there for some time, feeding the fire like an anxious mother spooning nutrition to a queasy child.

A cough beside him. Margaret standing there, warming herself. Staring glassy-eyed at the fire. As though hypnotized, why else would she stand there, coughing, yet permitting the smoke caused by the fire coming into contact with damp portions of the wood to swirl about her face, sting her eyes, irritate her nostrils.

"Margaret." Slowly she turned. Smiled. A curiously shy smile, as though acknowledging the presence of a pleasant-appearing stranger; the smile a courtesy, no reflection in her eyes.

"Margaret, move away, over to the other side."
"Why?" the smile turned to a puzzled frown and she remained there where the smoke continued to eddy around her and upward, the updraft taking with it bright embers that luminesced minutely then turned into dust, one or more occasionally embroidering her jeans before it turned to ash. One step, another, and he stood beside her, took her shoulders in his hands and gently shifted her to the side, laid her forehead on his chest, held her.

"Feel okay?"
"Mmmm, yes."
"Disappointed?"
"Why? This is lovely ... the rain, the fire."
"We came for berries, remember?"
"Berries?" she repeated distantly. "OH ... well but this is lovely." And again she began to contemplate the fire, the sap bubbling the end of a chunk of wood, bark ridges turning white and black, flames licking, curving themselves cleverly around the width of the logs.

The steady drone of the rain, the cracks and hisses of the fire resisting the occasional heavy raindrop were foreground sounds, comforting. And from a distance, another sound, insistent and annoying, muddied the air around them; that of a late summer carnival from the town below.

Driving up the mountain road they'd seen the snow fences hastily set up to encapsulate a small carousel and Ferris wheel, various colourful booths and decorated floats. Cars had lined the crossroads and they'd exchanged glances.

It was neither pity nor contempt, but something in between that they felt for those poor back-country blobs for whom a tawdry carnival was a cultural event of significance. It was disco music that competed with those sounds of nature around them, disco blaring on the country air with its meaningless musical neutrality.

He drew her to the place where he'd dragged over the park picnic table, dry and inviting under the tarpaulin strung up between a fortuitous stand of trees. Their checkered tablecloth, and on it the picnic spread; lean sliced ham, the rolls she'd baked, sliced tomatoes, green grapes and red cherries and caviar. Not sturgeon, but caviar anyway, to smooth on toasted rolls. They liked to do themselves well.

Ralph poured the coffee, pushed the cream at her, watched her drop her saccharine in, the hot liquid bubbling back. Everything smelled good, and the sky appeared lighter, the rain began lifting.

There had always been a distance between them which nothing, not the most urgent intimacies seemed to bridge. She was cool, aloof, even while her eyes turned upward to show the whites, perspiration pearling her forehead, her nails raking his back, demanding more. When it was over she turned away from him. He accepted that of her, thought time might change her but now had to face the reality of her distance deepening.

Everyone had to go sometime. And for him, it had been time enough. He should have died long ago. It was only his mean determination to order others' lives in a way that suited him that had kept him alive. Thinking of him forced a sour bile-ish liquid up from some secret place to nauseate Ralph. He drank his coffee and wiped his forehead.

"Feel okay?" He looked at Margaret daintily nibbling a roll, smoothing raspberry jam with her finger back onto the roll, saving it from spilling over to the tablecloth.

"You keep asking!"
"Sorry", he mumbled, turned aside to watch the fire. A steady but slight drip began to wet the middle of the tablecloth; a build-up of rain atop the tarp, and water always finds a way ....

It wasn't that funerals depressed him. They did everyone. He'd attended family funerals, had to, felt it his duty to; they'd caused him no great anguish, even his own father's. Just not his, not for any reason he could explain to her, but he'd been quite simply unable to. Mind blank, limbs unfeeling, he'd been unable to function.

Thought he'd find a way to discourage him, drive him away, keep her himself, the jealous old bastard. All those years of intimidation, stepping on eggshells, breathing shallow.

"You look pale..." he said, turning back to her, watching her blond hair dip forward, the tips of both sides almost touch as she leaned toward the roll, sharp white teeth tearing. Then Margaret leaning back, slowly absently, masticating the bread fibres, the bright red of the jam flecking her lips. Feeling his eyes on her, lifting her own and looking at him, hers blue and clear to his brown, anxious.

"You okay?"
"Me ...? Why do you ask?"
"You keep asking me, but you look so ... worried. What's the matter?'

He couldn't talk about it. They'd talk about anything else, reasonably dissect any subject, rationally argue opinion, respect each other's but not that topic. Ah Love, forgive me, I wasn't capable of rising to that occasion, I couldn't eulogize the cretinous sot who, by his own admission; no taunt - sodomized you.

"Love, about your father ... I'm sorry. I just couldn't bear to go, to take part in the whole barbaric ritual ... you know how I feel about it....

"No", she said coolly, her eyes like blue ice now, fixing him. "Tell me, tell me about how you feel, how you felt ...."

But how could he? Tell her of his dreams, her father naked and blue on a marble slab and he with a slender obsidian blade, wielding it like a surgeon, like an Aztec priest, dedicating the portions to the gods of anger, futility, disgust, and revenge? Tell her of the palpitating heart, the purple-sick brain, the ravaged entrails?

He turned away again, to the fire. If he was a believer, he knew that he might find comfort of sorts in imagining the other, tending another fire; he'd been an expert, for years tenderly whispering the embers of enmity to a final enduring hatred.

"Looks like it's stopped." She stood in a clearing, lifting her hands experimentally to no rain, delightedly forgetting the tension, no longer brooding, forgetful like the child she often seemed to be. "First more raspberries", she declared, rummaging in the car trunk for the plastic pails. "Then we'll climb the trail to the blueberries, okay?"

But their shoes soon squelched wetly through to their socks and their pants became drenched; the bright raspberry heads invited from canes amidst thick underbrush that nettled, and so did the tall thistles growing companionably beside the canes.

He watched her bright head bobbing in the brush and worked feverishly to fill his own container before the clouds scuttling above let loose again. Yet soon enough heard the birds begin to celebrate the rain. His back, the top of his head were quickly wet, and almost simultaneously, the mosquitoes began attacking. He walked the thin trail between the canes over to her, bending busily over a burdened cane, saw she was as wet as he was, and said "let's go, Margaret, we've enough for now."

"Soon" she replied, fingers nimbler than his, gently plucking treasure from the canes, leaving him standing there, waiting, no longer eager to pick. He felt anger rising in him, thought of the picnic table, dry and inviting, the fire warm and waiting, and hoped it hadn't gone out.

"Let's go!" he insisted. "Aren't the mosquitoes bothering you? They're eating me alive!"
"I'm rancid" she said, and continued picking.

He turned and slowly made his way back up the narrow pathway, back up to the car, the table, the fire, still burning. Stood there, watching, the vapour rising off his sodden clothing, roasting his front, then his back, waiting for her to come and join him.

But she wouldn't would she - join him, in a hurry. Stubborn, just because he was miserable, wanting to please her yet hating the discomfort. Stubborn, she had that from him, ingrained by now, nothing would change her. Did he want her to be different, more attuned to his wants as he tried to be to hers?

Ah god, no, let her be like she is, indifferent to his needs, willing to let him anticipate hers. Still, his stomach knotted in a hard ball of anger. He felt abused, ill-done by, wanting to strike out at someone, something.

That music! That bloody music snarling its harsh notes in the branches of the trees, flinging its discordance at him. Country boobs, didn't they know any better than to stick it out, their lousy carnival, in the rain?

Where was she?