Casualty

 

She looked around expectantly, coming down the stairs. That's what he'd said wasn't it, that someone was there, should he ask her in? You're always so curious about what these itinerants are hawking, here's your chance. But the foyer was empty. She walked to the front door, saw a slight figure standing to one side in the gloom, opened the glass door and there stood a shivering girl of no more, she guessed, than seventeen. Tatty jeans, not even a sweater worn against the night chill.

"I'm sorry" she said, "I thought my husband asked you in."

"It's all right, he did tell me to come in, I thought I'd better wait out here."

"Well, come on in then and you can show me what you've got." And what exactly did she expect to see? There was very little room left on the walls to hang anything. Their taste ran to old prints and oils. Highly unlikely they'd consider a contemporary piece of art ... why was she bothering? Vaguely uncomfortable with herself.

In the living room the girl looked cautiously about, as though appraising the interior, deciding for herself that what she had would strike a discordant note. Sat tentatively on the edge of the sofa, placed the portfolio she'd held under her arm beside her.

"I see you've got lots of pictures already; a dull observation.

"I've got a thing about paintings. I really love them ... old landscapes."

"I don't know if you'd like any of mine, they're not like those at all", leaning earnestly toward her.

"Now you see why my husband told you we wouldn't be interested." He hadn't, he said, been able to turn her away. She insisted, said she wanted to see the lady of the house. So I thought, why not? he'd said, watching her rinse her hair, then wrap her head with a towel before going back to the garage.

The girl slowly unwound the string holding her case closed. Absorbed, her long hair swept filaments of burnished brown across her lean face. She withdrew a few small oil paintings on canvas, a few watercolours, an assortment of pen-and-ink drawings. Carefully she lifted them by the edges, silently exhibiting them for Marcy who punctuated the offerings with wan little acknowledgements. Evident to both the display was unimpressive. Finally, lifting the last one, the girl carefully shuffled the pile together and placed them back into the folder.

"I guess you don't really like them", tonelessly, readying herself to leave.

"To be honest I wouldn't want to own any of them, but that doesn't mean they don't have artistic value - it's just my taste." She glanced around at her room, visualizing the incongruity of that schlock hanging over her commodes, her armoires. "Are any of them your own work?"

"No-no, like, I don't paint. some of my friends do, but we get this stuff from a group of artists. Art students, I think. We go out like this sometimes to make some bread."

"Well", Marcy searched for some way to extricate herself. "Can I offer you anything, something to drink?"

"Oh, no ... that's okay, I wouldn't want to put you to any trouble."

"It's no trouble."

"Well, a glass of milk? If you don't mind, please."

She asked if the girl had eaten dinner. They hadn't had time to get anything before leaving. "Shit, that's not true, we didn't have any food, how 'bout that, nothing to eat, stupid, eh?"

Marcy winced. "You don't live at home?"

"With my parents? No. I've got my own pad. I mean, I crash with friends."

"Don't you miss your parents? What about school? What do you do with yourself?" The girl sat there, without weight, lacking energy to move, not minding the questions, willing enough to respond, content to be sitting there.

"Yeah, I miss my mom sometimes, not my dad. You don't know what it was like. Nothing but hassles. And I couldn't care less about school."

"That's too bad. It must be tough, you're so young. I couldn't imagine any of my kids living away from home. I'd be terrified for them."

"Yeah, well. Maybe you treat your kids different. I had to do everything my old man said. He never listened to me. He never liked my friends. Used to slap me around. I could tell you things... One day I just took off. Only thing", voice strained, Marcy leaned toward her: "I hated to leave my little sister. Now I'm gone things are rough for her. I'll help her leave when she gets a little older."

Silence enveloped them; not uncomfortable, but quiet, slightly brooding. "Do you work?" Unable to still her curiosity. "I mean aside from this?"

"No. I don't want to work straight. I mean like, I wouldn't want to work nine-to-five, be someone's Joeboy. this way I can do what I feel like, whenever I want to. Wish I could collect unemployment insurance. Or Welfare. They ask too many questions. I'm under-age, they'd get the Children's Aid after me, or something."

"Sounds really great", mentally comparing her own children's sheltered lives, shivering. But they were so much younger. And what, she asked herself, what could I do about it if they ever conceived a hostility toward us as this girl has done her parents?

"Oh yeah, it's not so bad, just sounds crappy. Sometimes we run out of food is all, then we go out and make some bread. The guy I live with - it's not like you think; there's three of us, me'n another girl and this guy. Well, this guy works sometimes pretty steady. Oh, he works mostly, just happened this time we ran out."

"Are you really happier living with your friends?" Why she was pursuing this, questioning her, what compelled her to?

"Sure, sure I am. No one breathing down my neck all the time. I feel a little bad for my mom maybe, but I wouldn't go back, not for anything. Look, I gotta go. I'm taking up your time, you want to curl your hair before it dries."

"No, I don't." A few moments earlier she'd wanted the girl to leave, now for some reason she couldn't fathom she felt she had to make some kind of intimate contact, persuade her ... of what...? "I mean it's naturally curly. I try to uncurl it, not the other way around". She laughed nervously, wondering what was wrong with her.

"Hey, you're lucky. Wish I had curly hair", flicking hers off her back, arm crooked, falling back to her side as her hair cascaded back around her shoulders.

"It's in style to have long straight hair", babbling inanely, knowing how she sounded to herself, wondering how she appeared to this lost child. "Just like you've got ... why would you want it to be different", as though admiringly, as though her intent was to prop up the girl's self-esteem.

"Oh, I don't know; it would be nice for a change, you know."

"Isn't that strange, people with straight hair want it curly, people with curly hair would rather have straight. There's just no pleasing anyone". Lame, flushing, an old chestnut repeated, embarrassing her with its vacuity.

Still the girl made no move to go. Exhausted looking, lavender shadows deepening the craters of her green-flecked eyes; a spectral impression. How could a teen-age girl look so, what was the right word - burnt-out? Languidly turning her head, the girl looked about the room. "This is a nice room, feels comfortable. I like it", she said dreamily.

"Thank you", responded the perfect hostess. "My husband collects the pine furniture, I'm the one likes the paintings", as though she hadn't already made that abundantly clear, as though it would have any meaning to the girl. "Some of them", she expounded, "are Flemish and Scottish. The paintings, I mean. That one over there, a fragment of a larger Spanish painting. They don't really cost much more than contemporary art. Good art, I mean", she said artlessly. "You have to look around, get to know some dealers. It's more expensive to buy things in the city, so we go to small dealers in towns on the periphery of Toronto. It's really lots of fun, looking around, collecting. But we didn't get this stuff overnight. We've been married for ten years."

"Yeah? You sure don't look it. Ten years! How can you stand it?"

"It's been beautiful!" Defensive, taken aback. "It sounds banal, but it's true!"

"There was nothing happy about my parents. They're always screaming, mad, blaming one another, nasty, miserable. And us, always picking on us, easy targets. And I don't know anyone who's married and likes it. All you hear is about people fighting, hating each other. Love is a load of crap, a bad trip."

"It isn't! You've had bad experiences. Almost everyone has, one time or another. I know what you mean, it was like that when I was a kid too, my parents didn't get along either. I couldn't wait to leave the house."

"Then how'd it come out different for you?"

"I don't honestly know, it just did."

"I wouldn't like it", the girl said with finality.

"Just because of your family?"

"Not just. You gotta do everything the guy wants. Whatever he says, that's it."

"Not if you have a relationship based on mutual respect", trying to impress the girl with her own triumph; imbue her with hope, but reality for her, was hopeless, futile ... glad, so glad you didn't have those experiences, aren't you, Marcy? "Anyway, I thought things were supposed to be different for your generation."

"Yeah, well, maybe. If you don't mind, could I have more milk?"

"What kind of food do you eat...at your pad?" Watching her gulp the milk.

"Mostly health food, when we've got the bread. Sometimes we get fruit and vegetables behind chain stores, like when they throw stuff out."

"Ugh, sounds pretty crummy to me. But then I'm not used to that kind of spontaneous lifestyle. I guess it'd be all right if it's really what you want."

"It's not bad. I'm trying to move out anyway, get my own place. Like I mean, I like them but ... I mean, what do you do when this guy wants to ball and you don't feel like it? He's nice and all that but he doesn't really turn me on."

"You mean he forces himself on you?"

"It's not that bad", soothingly, the girl feeling badly for the sensibilities of the adult, the mother of children, the married woman. Trying to spare her feelings, her sheltered idea of protecting the young. "He's a good guy, he doesn't force me. He's really my friend's boyfriend, but sometimes he feels like fooling around and if I say no, he kinda kids and says I'm frigid or hung-up or something like that."

"What kind of hassle-free living is that? You've gone from one rotten environment to another. What've you gained? Call that freedom?" A bad dream Marcy, good thing it's someone else's dream.

"Well look, it's not that bad. It just sounds bad to you. It gets me down sometimes, sure, but it's okay."

"Any way you cut it", shrilly now, can't you discipline yourself a little better than that? "you're being forced to do something you don't want to. He's manipulating you. That's independence?"

"Yeah, yeah, you're right. Well, like I said, I'll be moving out soon." Guess it kind of bothers you to hear me talk - about things?"

"Of course not. Liar, liar. I'm asking, aren't I? People should talk to each other." Hypocrite. "I'm glad you feel enough at ease to talk like this." Are you now, Marcy? "Are you sure you wouldn't rather go back to your mother?"

"I might, but never with my father there. Like I said, it was a real bad scene."

"Look, I'm really sorry about the paintings. There's just no way I would have any of them. They're not my kind of expression." Marcy, the art critic, Marcy the elitist, Marcy the privileged middle-class wife and mother of such well-adjusted children...

"Oh, that's okay, don't feel bad. I don't expect you to like them." Looking away from one another. Aware that they are strangers, despite a momentary intimacy. Marcy wanting somehow to make a difference, to make it up somehow to this child that life had abandoned. Hapless, Marcy, nothing you can do for her, she'll find her own way.

"Guess I better go. My friend would be mad if he knew I was sitting here. I'm supposed to be out flogging this stuff. He'll be going down the street soon. I'm supposed to meet them at the corner."

"I feel bad about this, I wish I could do something for you, give you something. Would you accept some food?"

"Yeah, sure, why not? Oh hell, look you don't have to feel bad. Never mind about the food."

"No", she insisted. "I want to give you something. I want to. We've always got plenty of canned food around."

The girl following her docilely into the kitchen. Gleaming tortoise-shell counters, pale green appliances, banks of cupboard space; a housewife's delight. Marcy pulled out two large paper bags, stuffing one into the other, bent and opened cupboard doors where she began inspecting labels, placing tins in the bag. Arose, lifted the bag for weight. "It's heavy. Will you be able to carry it?"

"Sure I will. When I get to the corner my friend will help me. That's really nice of you."

"That's all right. It's to make me feel better, really. I wish I could do something for you. Look, why don't you re-think this, get in touch with your mother? I'm sure she loves you."

"It's okay. Maybe I will. Don't let it bother you."

Shoving the portfolio helpfully under the girl's elbow. "Sure all that isn't too heavy?"

"No, no, it's fine. Christ! Gotta go! I'll get shit if everyone's waiting for me. Look, thanks. Thanks a lot. It's been nice, really."

For a moment she stood watching until the darkness swallowed the slight figure, swaying to one side, balancing the weight of the bag of groceries. Then she was aware of the sound of voices raised in nighttime games, from the back of the house. Excited voices, children playing, happy in their childhood. Thought of the heaviness of the girl's voice, childhood muffled in a resented past, living in a soiled world she hoped never to know more about.

Finally, the screen door clattered to a close and she shut the house door behind her. She walked through the house to the back door. To call her children in for their bed-time ritual.