Runaway

Vancouver?” (Juliet nods.) “In a city. It is not the same. For Eric to be so good to look after his wife he must need help, do you see? I am one to help him.”
    Quite unwisely Juliet says, “But do you not get paid?”
    “Certain I am paid. But it is more than a job. Also the other kind of help from a woman, he needs that. Do you understand what I am saying? Not a woman with a hussband, I do not believe in that, it is not nice, that is a way to have fights. First Eric had Sandra, then she has moved away and he has Christa. There was a little while both Christa and Sandra, but they were good friends, it was all right. But Sandra has her kids, she wants to move away to bigger schools. Christa is an artist. She makes things out of wood that you find on the beach. What is it you call that wood?”
    “Driftwood,” says Juliet unwillingly. She is paralyzed by disappointment, by shame.
    “That is it. She takes them to places and they sell them for her. Big things. Animals and birds but not realist. Not realist?”
    “Not realistic?”
    “Yes. Yes. She has never had any children. I don’t think she will want to be moving away. Eric has told you this? Would you like more coffee? There is still some in the pot.”
    “No. No thanks. No he hasn’t.”
    “So. Now I have told you. If you have finish I will take the cup to wash.”
    She detours to nudge with her shoe the yellow dog lying on the other side of the refrigerator.
    “You got to get up. Lazy girl. Soon we are going home.
    “There is a bus goes back to Vancouver, it goes through at ten after eight,” she says, busy at the sink with her back to the room. “You can come home with me and when it is time my hussband will drive you. You can eat with us. I ride my bike, I ride slow so you can keep up. It is not far.”
    The immediate future seems set in place so firmly that Juliet gets up without a thought, looks around for her bag. Then she sits down again, but in another chair. This new view of the kitchen seems to give her resolve.
    “I think I’ll stay here,” she says.
    “Here?”
    “I don’t have anything much to carry. I’ll walk to the bus.”
    “How will you know your way? It is a mile.”
    “That’s not far.” Juliet wonders about knowing the way, but thinks that, after all, you just have to head downhill.
    “He is not coming back, you know,” says Ailo. “Not tonight.”
    “That doesn’t matter.”
    Ailo gives a massive, perhaps disdainful, shrug.
    “Get up, Pet. Up.” Over her shoulder she says, “Corky stays here. Do you want her in or out?”
    “I guess out.”
    “I will tie her up, then, so she cannot follow. She may not want to stay with a stranger.”
    Juliet says nothing.
    “The door locks when we go out. You see? So if you go out and want to come back in, you have to press this. But when you leave you don’t press. It will be locked. Do you understand?”
    “Yes.”
    “We did not use to bother locking here, but now there are too many strangers.”
    After they had been looking at the stars, the train had stopped for a while in Winnipeg. They got out and walked in a wind so cold that it was painful for them to breathe, let alone speak. When they boarded the train again they sat in the lounge and he ordered brandy.
    “Warm us up and put you to sleep,” he said.
    He was not going to sleep. He would sit up until he got off at Regina, some time towards morning.
    Most of the berths were already made up, the dark-green curtains narrowing the aisles, when he walked her back to her car. All the cars had names, and the name of hers was Miramichi.
    “This is it,” she whispered, in the space between the cars, his hand already pushing the door for her.
    “Say good-bye here, then.” He withdrew his hand, and they balanced themselves against the jolting so that he could kiss her thoroughly. When that was finished he did not let go, but held her and stroked her back, and then began to kiss her all over her face.
    But she pulled away, she said urgently, “I’m a virgin.”
    “Yes, yes.” He laughed, and kissed her neck, then released her and pushed the door open in front of her. They walked down the aisle till she located her own berth. She flattened herself against the curtain, turning, and rather expecting him to kiss her again or touch her, but he slid by almost as if they had met by accident.
    How stupid, how disastrous. Afraid, of course, that his stroking hand would go farther down and reach the knot she had made