Maggie watches until the screen is white. Afterward, she goes about putting away reels in their canisters, moving the projector to the corner, and folding up chairs. The air stinks of smoke, though the window is open as far as it will go. The carpet is wet with beer and wine. She heads to the bathroom for paper towels and finds the door open but the room occupied.
It’s the priest and his sister. He sits on the radiator by the toilet in a turtleneck and corduroys, looking not much older than Maggie. Next to him, Lenka kneels over the toilet. Her mascara has run down her cheeks. He’s holding her hair gently in one hand, while with the other he rubs the small of her back.
“Sorry,” he says to Maggie when he notices her. “Something she ate, maybe.” The words are spoken without conviction or any need to be believed. Maggie nods and closes the door to grant them some privacy.
The porch and front lawn are deserted. Most of the cars are gone, including the camper van. Where could he have driven? Bottles, potato chips, and paper cups lie scattered across the hallway floor. In the living room, candles and incense still burn, while the coffee table has been tipped on end, its glass top smashed. Carefully, she begins to gather the shards. It feels urgent to clean everything up without delay. Then, as she snuffs candles, a long, anguished cry from the kitchen prickles her neck. She moves toward it without wanting to know its source.
At the table, Brid is slumped holding Pauline, who clings to her mother’s neck and stares into the distance. Neither of them acknowledges Maggie when she sits beside them.
“He’s gone,” Brid mumbles. “He’s gone again.” A short handwritten note lies before her on the table.
Maggie remembers the rucksack and doesn’t know what to say. She wants to offer comfort but can’t quite do it. Something is telling her that if she speaks, Brid will blame her for Wale’s leaving.
“Did he say where he’s headed?” Maggie finally asks. A horrible thought has occurred to her, one that somehow she’s sure is the truth. Wale has gone to Laos, and it’s because her father truly is in trouble. “Did he give any hint?”
Brid shakes her head and holds Pauline more tightly. “Your father is a bastard,” she whispers to the girl. “He’s such a big, big bastard.”
As Maggie sits there, another idea comes out of nowhere. No, it’s been brewing in her awhile. She hasn’t wanted to think about it, but there’s a lingering question about the shot of Fletcher on the bed. A technical question, simple and disastrous. All of a sudden, knowing the answer to it seems like the most pressing thing there is.
“Brid,” she says, “were you upstairs?” Brid shakes her head. “But you heard what happened? Brid, I don’t know how to say it—”
“Spit it out,” Brid growls, and somehow this animosity allows Maggie to speak what’s on her mind.
“Someone had to be running the camera.”
Brid looks at her with bemusement. “What—you think it was me filming him? Is that what you think?” She laughs in a way that sounds like a cough and holds Pauline even more tightly. “Go find your boyfriend and ask him.”
For hours, Maggie cleans and tidies, the lights burning in every room. Occasionally a person crosses her path, hurrying on at the sight of her or hesitating so that she has to ward off conversation. Through the kitchen window she sees human shapes passed out on lawn chairs. At some point the Centaurs trundle in from the barracks, each with a sleeping boy over a shoulder, and make their way upstairs. When she checks a few minutes later, their door is closed and the light off.
At two o’clock, sitting at the kitchen table with an empty mug, she hears a vehicle pull into the drive, then the front door opening and closing. Eventually there’s a clang above her. It happens again as she climbs the stairs. When she reaches the top, Dimitri emerges from his bedroom in pyjamas, bleary-eyed and dishevelled.
“Go back to bed,” she tells him. “I’ll take care of it.” The playroom terrifies her now, but there’s a muttering from within that she recognizes as Fletcher’s voice.
He sits in the middle of the carpet with a film strip lying all around him. It’s off its reel, hundreds of feet long, twisted, knotted, and tangled about chair legs. The white projection wall is gouged where he has flung the reel against it. He isn’t wearing his glasses. What happened to them? He shouldn’t have been driving without his glasses.
“Where is everyone?” he says.
“Gone,” she answers, “or hiding in the barracks.”
Without a moment’s pause, he says to her, “You humiliated me.”
Her sympathy drops away. He can’t accuse her of such a thing. Has he been thinking it all this time? “I didn’t see it till the rest of them did,” she says. “How was I to know what was on the reel?”
He looks unbelieving. “But you always watch them first. Always.”
“I was busy, there wasn’t time. I just stuck it on.” She’s talking fast, searching for lines of defence, and recalls the start of the evening. “You! You were hurrying me along, remember? So I could help Rhea.” She waits for him to relent, then lapses into even darker thoughts. “You must think I’m an idiot,” she says, not hiding her bitterness. He seems surprised by this statement, but not as surprised as she would like.
“What are you talking about?”
“On the film, you were speaking to someone. Who was running the camera?”
He remains quiet. She thinks she can hear movement in the hall. Anybody could be listening. Well, let them.
“It was only me,” he replies. “I was talking to you.” He shakes his head. “You thought I was with somebody else? Jesus.” The little smile he gives her makes him seem even more distant. “I meant it as a surprise for you, when you were putting together the reel.” The smile gives way to a look of despair.
“But then—” She doesn’t know how to finish. What kind of a surprise could he have intended? “Was it supposed to be a joke?”
“I—I thought it would turn you on.”
“You thought it would …”
The time in bed with the camera returns. Doesn’t he remember it? Wasn’t he there?
“Anyhow, it was your idea,” he continues. “You’re the one who said it should just be me.”
“My God,” she breathes. He’s never seemed so far away. Even his attention has drifted to another place. When it returns, his eyes are hardened with some frightening certitude.
“I can’t stay here anymore,” he says.
Can’t stay. It’s a marvel how the words stab her.
“Don’t say that,” she tells him. “Because of the film? Fletcher, what happened is awful, but you can’t—”
“I need to go away,” he insists, then sits there in some unfathomable contemplation.
“For how long?”
“I don’t know. A while.”
“I see.” There’s a long silence. “And what about me?”
He blinks a few times, as if until now he hasn’t considered this detail. “You can come too.” He says it with no enthusiasm, only tosses it out like a coin.
“That’s very kind.”
“I didn’t mean it like that—”
“Where will you go?” It’s not her voice that asks the question; it’s some other person’s.
“I don’t know. Back to Boston, I guess.” He doesn’t protest that she has referred only to him, not both of them.
“After all the work we’ve done? There are so many people here now.”