Read Online The Last Woman by John Bemrose - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: John Bemrose
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Why do we do anything? You go into a city, you get a job or you don’t get a job, but somehow, you live. The sun shines the same as here. It didn’t seem to matter where I was.”
“Sounds like depression,” she says. Another of those words, the opposite of happiness, a place with neatly defined borders, to be escaped at all costs. “I’ve come to know something about that.”
“Didn’t realize you’d missed me that much,” he says.
“Things go flat,” she says, ignoring his joke. “Nothing means anything. There were times when the only reasonable thing – well.”
He looks up, alerted.
“But then it goes,” she says with a faint smile, sweeping past the shadows she has evoked. “It’s gone now. I don’t ask why – I just – go back to painting.”
They fall silent again. Out in the Harbour, boats sit motionless in the sun-blackened noon. Stirring her cup, Ann starts to talk again about Richard. She’s worried about him, she says. He’s got thick with the upper crust in Black Falls, he’s involved in local politics. In fact, he’s thinkingabout running for the legislature. But he has no real friends in that world, she says. “Nothing like the two of you. He’s alone, really. All he does is work.”
He watches her intently as she talks: the way she touches one finger, thoughtfully, to the handle of her cup; the way she brushes a hair from her cheek. He doesn’t want just an hour with her. “Could you take off those glasses?”
For a long moment she stares at him and then, with both hands, removes them. Her glance is pained, elusive.
Taking her free hand, he draws it toward him.
“Billy –” she warns, but he is beyond warnings now: he no longer cares. Her hand is cool, surprisingly cool, and remains open to the stroking of his fingers.
He finds the little white scar. It is fainter than he recalls: a fading scimitar. “I see a lot of confusion here.”
“Oh, tell me something I don’t know.”
“There’s a man who’s very close to you. This man loves you –”
“Billy,” she scolds softly, pulling her hand away.
They walk along the quay without speaking. At her boat, he unties her lines for her.
“When can I see you?”
She is standing behind the wheel looking up at him: the sunglasses again. He feels he is oppressing her.
“You make everything impossible, Billy.” Below her dark mask, her lips tighten in an expression he can’t read.
Later that week, he drives to Mad Jack’s, an uninhabited island a mile from Inverness. The approach to the island is more difficult than it used to be – heaps of boulders denying him passage. Finally, he leaves his boat and wades ashore, clambering up a hill of pink rock. Standing with his back to the sun, he finds the little hollow shaded by the low, spreading branch of a pine. Twenty years of dropped needles have made the depression shallower, but all around, the island looks remarkably the same: the same long swells of rock, rolling away under a blazing sky; the same mobs of white pine, their dark, ragged branches streaming toward the southeast. Mad Jack’s burns still under the summer sun, as sharply defined and fresh as ever. Yet what happened here has left no trace: it is a kind of mockery.
She knelt a little to one side, so that the red canoe heeled over slightly while her blade cut the water with slow, lingering strokes. He had never seen anyone paddle with such effortless economy: the hull progressing as if drawn by a magnet down the brimming channel. She was wearing a white sunhat with its brim rolled up, and sunglasses, so that at first he did not recognize her, though he was primed to, had been primed all morning, ever since he and Matt had pulled into the familiar island to work on the dock.
And now: the knock of her paddle on the gunnel, the sudden pivoting of the hull. He was standing in the water where the dock met the boathouse, hammer in hand. He had turned nineteen that summer.
She paused to talk with Matt before paddling along
“Sounds like depression,” she says. Another of those words, the opposite of happiness, a place with neatly defined borders, to be escaped at all costs. “I’ve come to know something about that.”
“Didn’t realize you’d missed me that much,” he says.
“Things go flat,” she says, ignoring his joke. “Nothing means anything. There were times when the only reasonable thing – well.”
He looks up, alerted.
“But then it goes,” she says with a faint smile, sweeping past the shadows she has evoked. “It’s gone now. I don’t ask why – I just – go back to painting.”
They fall silent again. Out in the Harbour, boats sit motionless in the sun-blackened noon. Stirring her cup, Ann starts to talk again about Richard. She’s worried about him, she says. He’s got thick with the upper crust in Black Falls, he’s involved in local politics. In fact, he’s thinkingabout running for the legislature. But he has no real friends in that world, she says. “Nothing like the two of you. He’s alone, really. All he does is work.”
He watches her intently as she talks: the way she touches one finger, thoughtfully, to the handle of her cup; the way she brushes a hair from her cheek. He doesn’t want just an hour with her. “Could you take off those glasses?”
For a long moment she stares at him and then, with both hands, removes them. Her glance is pained, elusive.
Taking her free hand, he draws it toward him.
“Billy –” she warns, but he is beyond warnings now: he no longer cares. Her hand is cool, surprisingly cool, and remains open to the stroking of his fingers.
He finds the little white scar. It is fainter than he recalls: a fading scimitar. “I see a lot of confusion here.”
“Oh, tell me something I don’t know.”
“There’s a man who’s very close to you. This man loves you –”
“Billy,” she scolds softly, pulling her hand away.
They walk along the quay without speaking. At her boat, he unties her lines for her.
“When can I see you?”
She is standing behind the wheel looking up at him: the sunglasses again. He feels he is oppressing her.
“You make everything impossible, Billy.” Below her dark mask, her lips tighten in an expression he can’t read.
Later that week, he drives to Mad Jack’s, an uninhabited island a mile from Inverness. The approach to the island is more difficult than it used to be – heaps of boulders denying him passage. Finally, he leaves his boat and wades ashore, clambering up a hill of pink rock. Standing with his back to the sun, he finds the little hollow shaded by the low, spreading branch of a pine. Twenty years of dropped needles have made the depression shallower, but all around, the island looks remarkably the same: the same long swells of rock, rolling away under a blazing sky; the same mobs of white pine, their dark, ragged branches streaming toward the southeast. Mad Jack’s burns still under the summer sun, as sharply defined and fresh as ever. Yet what happened here has left no trace: it is a kind of mockery.
She knelt a little to one side, so that the red canoe heeled over slightly while her blade cut the water with slow, lingering strokes. He had never seen anyone paddle with such effortless economy: the hull progressing as if drawn by a magnet down the brimming channel. She was wearing a white sunhat with its brim rolled up, and sunglasses, so that at first he did not recognize her, though he was primed to, had been primed all morning, ever since he and Matt had pulled into the familiar island to work on the dock.
And now: the knock of her paddle on the gunnel, the sudden pivoting of the hull. He was standing in the water where the dock met the boathouse, hammer in hand. He had turned nineteen that summer.
She paused to talk with Matt before paddling along
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