“You okay back there?”
“Yeah,” she calls.
She cannot stop smiling, her forehead against his billowing shirt, glad he cannot see her. Her hair lifts in the breeze, she leans her cheek against his shoulder blade and smells baby powder, Brylcreem; sees the sinews of his tanned forearm shift with each movement of his wrist, turning the throttle, squeezing the brake.
They speed from the grass onto asphalt and around the swings, while far away it seems the crowd of kids watches and the transistor plays. Is this what it’s like to be in a movie? To feel so private, yet with a huge audience watching?
She leans with him as they round the school, hangs on a little tighter, feels the pearly snaps of his shirt beneath her fingers; there is no time, there is only now, the sound of a motor, the breeze on her arms, the warmth of the soaked-up sun radiating from his back, the ease of his voice singing along. They come out from around the school into the full tilt of the evening sun and the ride is done.
Madeleine climbs off, her legs trembling, a stranger to gravity. She doesn’t think to thank him. She is deaf to the admiration of Auriel and Lisa. She rejoins the crowd and watches with her friends, but she feels like an emptied glass — that crestfallen feeling of walking out from a movie theatre in the middle of the day, out from the intimate matinée darkness and the smell of popcorn, which is the smell of heightened colour and sound and story, into the borderless bright of day. Bereft.
He gives a ride to every kid who wants one. Auriel, beaming and beetred; Lisa, mute with pleasure. He even gives Marjorie Nolan a ride — she has no qualms about screaming and throwing her arms around him on the pretext of being afraid of falling off. And she hangs onto his hand after her ride is done, sticking to him, trying to drag him off his bike.
Through it all, Marsha Woodley watches, exchanging murmurs with her girlfriends, who squeal every time he buzzes the swings. Marsha doesn’t squeal. She smiles and looks off to the side. Tucks a strand of hair behind her ear. Licks the corner of her mouth. Pale pink lipstick.
Finally, Ricky wheels the scooter up to Marsha. He dismounts and holds it steady for her as she gets on, and this time he gets on behind her so she won’t have to straddle the seat in her skirt. He reaches his arms around her to grasp the handlebars, he tweaks the throttle, and they take off. Out of the schoolyard and up Algonquin Drive into the golden light of eight o’clock in summer.
Madeleine feels an ache. In a place she didn’t know was part of her body. Starting around the wishbone in her chest and spreading out. A plunging sadness, to do with the scent of hay and motor oil, his billowing shirt and the sight of Marsha Woodley’s skirt lapping at her knees. The crowd of kids disperses, and the three girls start for home across the green.
“I’m dying for a fag,” says Auriel, and Lisa Ridelle pulls out a pack of Popeye candy cigarettes. The three of them light up and inhale gratefully.
“Sankyou, dahling.”
“You’re velcome, dahling.”
“I’d vok a mile for a Camel.”
They walk, the toes of their runners darkening with dew, sucking their candy tubes to a point. Walking parallel some distance away is Marjorie Nolan, shadowing them. Madeleine wonders why she doesn’t just come over if she wants to walk with them. “Do you guys know that kid?” she asks.
Auriel looks across at Marjorie. “Not really, she just moved in.” Which is surprising, considering that Marjorie was such a know-it-all today.
“Do you know her?” asks Lisa.
“Sorta.”
“She looks weird.”
“What’s her name?” asks Auriel.
“Marjorie,” says Madeleine, and then, “Margarine.”
Auriel and Lisa laugh and Madeleine feels a twinge. She looks across at Marjorie, who is still not looking. Fine, don’t look, I was going to invite you to walk with us.
“Margarine!” laughs Lisa, and Madeleine says, “Shhh.”
“Yeah, Ridelle,” says Auriel, “don’t be so mean,” then whispers, “Margarine,” to fresh gales.
Madeleine laughs along politely. It’s okay, Auriel and Lisa aren’t the type to call Marjorie that to her face. Still, it’s sad to have your name turned into margarine.
Mimi finishes washing the dishes. Jack dries. “That wasn’t so bad,” he says.
She doesn’t look at him but smiles, dries her hands and reaches for a squirt of Jergens.
Mike comes in and opens the fridge. Mimi puts her hands on his head, kisses his crown and says, “T’as faim? Assis-toi, là.” He sits at the table and, as Mimi pulls leftovers from the fridge, takes a tiny green army tank from his pocket and proceeds to repair the treads.
“Mike,” says Jack, and shakes his head. No toys at the table.
“But Dad, it’s not supper or anything.”
“It’s still your mother’s food.”
Mike pockets the tank. Jack returns to his Time magazine. Mimi places a heaping plate in front of her son. “Et voilà, mon p’tit capitaine.”
“Merci, maman.”
She lights a cigarette, leans against the counter and watches her son eat. This will be his last year in children’s sizes. He has his father’s head, his father’s way of eating steadily, neatly, the working of the jaw, the set of the shoulders and something about the eyes — though her son’s are brown — the same long lashes, and that open quality, the focused unawareness that is masculine innocence. She can almost see the face of the man emerging from that of the boy. Her gaze is a thing of substance. Between a mother’s eyes and her son’s face, there is not air. There is something invisible and invincible. Even though — or because — he will go out into the world, she will never lose her passion to protect him. Girls are different. They know more. And they don’t leave you.
From upstairs, Madeleine’s voice, “I’m ready!”
Mimi moves toward the stairs but Jack gets up. “That’s okay, I’ll tuck her in.”
“‘And the children disappeared into the mountain, never to be seen again. All except for one child who was lame and could not keep up.’”
Jack closes the book. Madeleine gazes at the illustration — the yellow and red diamonds on the Piper’s cloak, his pointed hat, his solemn beautiful face. He doesn’t look cruel. He looks sad, as though at the prospect of performing a painful duty.
“What was inside the mountain?” She always asks this when he has finished, and he always considers for a moment, before replying, “Well no one can say for sure. But I think maybe it was like a … whole other world.”
“Was there a sky?”
“I think there might have been, yeah. And lakes and trees.”
“And they never grow up.”
“You’re probably right. They run around and play, happy as clams.”
Meanwhile, in the outside world, their whole family gets old and dies, thinks Madeleine. She doesn’t say this, however, because she does not wish to ruin the story for her father. It’s the first time since Germany that she has asked him to read to her. She is getting a bit old for it, but it makes her new room feel cozier. And no one has to know.
“You almost ready to fall asleep?”
She hugs him around the neck. “Dad?”
“Yeah, old buddy?”
“Was Elizabeth born retarded?”
“She’s not retarded, sweetie.”
It’s been bothering her. How can Ricky have a retarded sister as well as a delinquent one and yet be perfect?