Or, more recklessly, she pulls off the road, down a dirt forestry lane, past seized-up logging equipment and stacked lumber. He parks behind her, gets out of the car, walks up slowly. Wrong turn? Got a flat? The darkness is not deep with the wattage of so many stars. She opens the truck door, steps out, leaves it standing open. In the cab light copper moths flicker; there are fireflies pulsing in the grass between pale trunks. Pretty night. She says nothing. She can’t really see his face. He keeps talking, makes another joke. Then he figures it out. He steps in, kisses her, one of evolution’s stranger necessities. It does not take much to accelerate him, the angle of her body, her tongue. He backs her against the truck, trying to judge the levels of permission: is this an interlude or the main event — his thoughts almost audible. He runs a hand over her shirt, over her breasts. She puts hers to his groin, the bulking jeans. Now he believes. Then it is like gentle fighting, both with each other and the impediment of clothing. They climb into the flatbed of the truck, and her shirt is taken off. She has a scar on her back, kidney to fifth thoracic, the line is buckled, stitched by a regional surgeon. A good story, but she doesn’t often tell it. She is swollen with blood; he slips his fingers in. The flash of a wagon’s headlights on the other side of the trees; a low rumble on the asphalt. Transporters, for whom the night is ephedrine and bluegrass.
The metal truck bed is damp, smells of oil and blood from the occasional deer carcass. She reaches into her pocket for her wallet, but he already has his open, is tearing the foil, fitting it over. She turns on all fours, not for his benefit, but the presentation is not lost on him. He murmurs agreement: hell, yeah. Another night he might go down on her, on any woman, make her swim, but this is different, sudden, abandoned. He kneels in place, pushes against her. He needs help to get inside, or he doesn’t; the moment is invariably erotic.
She braces against the cab wall and he holds her hips. There is just movement and noise, flesh slapping. Outside the truck: pine resin, tar, moths. A dry storm above Kamiah, lightning flashes like late-night television. The country underneath seems raw and heavy as lead, as if never intended to be unearthed. She rears back. He puts an arm around her stomach, pulls her for more depth. He reaches round to stroke her, courteously. Then it is automatic, impossible to stop. A man’s identity is revealed in the habit of climax; it is the real introduction. Fuck. Jesus Christ. He slumps against her. But the true psychology is in the withdrawal. Quick, perfunctory, or inched delicately out. Whatever was seen in the bar, in his face, his body, predicted correctly. Can I freshen that drink for you? Thanks, but I was just leaving. Sometimes she walks away.
She arrives back at Willowbrook a little after 1 a.m. She enters the apartment quietly, opens the windows, lets the dense, airless heat flood out into the night. There’s a note on the coffee table in her mother’s appalling handwriting. Lawrence here for dinner. Where were you? Gone back to Leeds — he’s your brother! She sighs, crumples up the note. Typical of Binny to have planned this without telling her. And typical of Rachel not to have been there.
*
Binny will die soon; of this everyone seems certain. Willowbrook’s manager speaks to Rachel softly when they meet, with excessive pronunciation and compassion, as if in fact death had already happened. The young visiting doctor, who Rachel has a quiet discussion with in the corridor outside Binny’s apartment on his rounds, says they just need to keep her comfortable. And Milka, who attends to Binny’s intimate needs most days, informs Rachel quite straightforwardly that her mother is ready. It’s in the eyes. Nie jasne — no light. Even Lawrence’s intermittent emails have talked of there not being much time, if you want to reconnect. But upon questioning, the various care-givers have no definite information, there seems to be no fatal disease. Binny will no doubt set her own schedule. She will go on for as long as she cares to. Though she is clearly fed up with the incapacitation, if the days still prove interesting enough her heart will jab on, her systems will sluice away. Now, in the sitting room of the apartment, while Rachel pours tea into standard-issue china cups and rattles biscuits from their plastic sleeve — something of an afternoon ritual, Binny holds forth.
It’s all about choice, you see. Everything is, except birth — no one chooses to be born. Get off the bus when you know it’s your stop I say. I cannot abide this poor-me attitude. Didn’t get me out of Wandsworth. Didn’t help me after your father left.
She strains to speak, is lazy over her vowels. Her head nods intermittently. She still has her faculties but there are fissures in her memory, and in her stories.
I thought you were the one who turfed him out, Rachel says.
Binny grunts, but lets the comment pass. The skin on her forearms looks so frail, the veins so knotted, she might bruise simply from the press of a finger. Rachel slides a cup of tea towards her mother.
Women always have a choice, Binny says. I taught you that, I hope, if nothing else.
You did. You were Socratic.
With surprising force, her mother bangs a hand on the top of the coffee table.
Don’t get smart with me, my girl! Can’t we just have a conversation? You are such a clever beggar sometimes.
Am I? Right.
Rachel sits, and holds her temper. One more day before she flies back to America. The tension has been mounting all week. She is annoyed with Binny for, among other things, simply growing old. They have worked in their own ruthless, autonomous way for decades, orbiting each other only if it suited them, not required to show love or compassion. She will be obedient for the next few hours, she will be civil. Tomorrow she will bid her mother goodbye, for who knows how long. Meanwhile, she will try to behave as a good daughter. She will sit through another interminable meal and shuffle around the flower garden listening to Binny stammer, being polite to the other residents. She will help her mother fit pink orthopaedic bandages around her arched, horned toes and fasten her thick-soled shoes, as if readying a toddler for the outdoors. They will attempt to discuss Lawrence’s marital situation again, as any close female relations might: meaning Binny will complain and Rachel will listen and try to reason.
I can’t bear that woman. He should never have proposed to her, she wasn’t even pregnant!
He likes doing things properly, Mum — he’s conservative.
Well, he didn’t get it from me!
She will try to make a success of the visit, somehow. Each morning during her stay she has walked up the small hill next to Willowbrook and looked over the hills to the strip of silverish estuary beyond. She is not sorry she came, but she feels no closer to reunion of any kind, at least, not with her mother. Binny, too, is clearly not satisfied. Her daughter is beyond her understanding. Idaho seems to her a nest of right-wing extremists, which she cannot parse.