“I suppose you get used to it,” Julia said, not feeling used to it at all, but opaque and otherworldly. She was sitting in the passenger seat of the insurance man’s light-blue sedan – Bruce McCutcheon – who did seem used to it, tramping through burnt-out houses, picking over the ruined remains of flooded rooms, soggy carpets, cracked paintings, smoke-blackened drapes, melted toys, computer carcasses, splintered doors, of collapsed cupboards and blistered furniture and potted plants blasted across the floor by jets of water. Julia had two things in her hand: a water-stained photo album and Matthew’s cloth snake, Willy, damp and slightly singed, though with a still fully functioning rattle.
“At least there were no deaths,” Bruce McCutcheon said, and he wiped his big hand back through his thinning hair. “It’s when they bring the bodies out you can’t get used to it.” His fingers were long and bony and looked terrifically strong. Julia could imagine him in another era tightening the wire on a fence or pulling a horse to the barn in a snowstorm – chin down, face out of the wind, those fingers in the harness strong as sprung steel. Now he was guiding a ballpoint pen along the lines and boxes of a carbon-sheeted form. There were other papers spread out on the top of his briefcase, a pamphlet in blue and white on her lap: When Disaster Strikes! Your Guide to the Insurance Process.
“What’s the worst you’ve seen?” she asked.
“You don’t want to know the worst thing,” Bruce said. He looked up from his form. He wore a wedding ring and his left pinkie was badly scarred, bent a little the wrong way.
“I do,” she said. “I really would like to hear.” And so he told her about his first case, a family he’d sold a policy to just weeks before the fire. “It was a winter night, thirty below, and the house went up in seconds – either a leak from the gas stove or else a burner had been left on and a spark had set it off. The mother was at bingo, it was her first night out in months, and the father was drunk in the living room. The place blew up. The father was thrown back against the wall, the couch rolled on top of him. He was out of it anyway, he’d been drinking very hard. Three little girls upstairs in bed. They tried to get to the window but it was frozen shut.” He had a little voice, odd in such a large man, and when he talked his mouth barely moved, his eyes stayed down at the form. “It was frozen,” he said, “and then they were roasted, and when the mother came home the walls had all but collapsed. She ran in right past the police and the firemen. They had to go in after her and drag her shrieking from the building. I was trying to comfort her and all she wanted to do was die with her family. Besides that, they’d made a mistake in their coverage. The husband had sworn he was a teetotaller – he got a break in the premiums for that – but there were bottles littered all over the living room, and the autopsy showed blood-alcohol of .38 or something.”
“So there was no coverage?” Julia asked.
“Technically it should have been nothing. We had absolute proof. But I got the brass to spring for a reduced pay-out. She never thanked me. She killed herself later on anyway. You asked.”
Julia had asked and now she felt rotten. This wasn’t anything she wanted to think about. It was awful, too raggedly close to what she imagined could be her own life. She looked at her watch.
“Do you want to call him?” Bruce asked, his hand on the car phone.
“No,” Julia said quickly. “I wouldn’t be able to get him in his office. He’s probably on his way back now anyway. He said he’d be just a few minutes. I’m so sorry for this.” Bob had been gone over an hour. He was the one who knew all about the computers and the piano and the value of most of the furniture: old, beautiful pieces which had come from his family. He’d be heartbroken to view them, but she needed him to see the process through. They were going to have to account for every belonging in their possession, to give it a name and description and replacement value. “You didn’t videotape everything?” Bruce had asked with resigned skepticism. “Everybody does it now,” he’d said. Well, if everybody did it why did he look that way, as if everybody ought to do it but nobody whose house actually caught fire had ever done it? There was a box of soggy papers in the back of the car, salvaged from the study, Julia and Bob’s files of receipts reaching back a few years at least. Pure luck they hadn’t gone up in flames. She was going to have to go through them systematically, account in detail for their material lives, and she didn’t want to do it alone.
Bruce looked at his own watch, but patiently, with no sense of irritation or hurry, then wrote a few more things on the form on his lap. It was warm in the car in the sunshine. Besides the salvaged box of receipts there was a baby seat in the back and a single child’s hockey glove; the side pockets of the passenger door were stuffed with disposable diapers, and the floor under Julia’s feet was littered with cassettes – a smattering of Spanish-language tapes mixed with blues, folk, reggae, and Cajun music.
“I guess we can wait a little longer,” Bruce said.
Julia heard a vehicle approach and turned to see a familiar, beat-up red truck. Donny Clatch was driving. He didn’t seem to see Julia in the car at first but peered at the house, the yellow hazard tape, the empty-soul appearance of the broken windows. He parked the truck at the side of the road opposite Bruce’s car and Julia excused herself, got out to talk to him.
He stood at the edge of the tape and stared wide-eyed, his mouth hanging open a little. “Is everyone all right?” he asked, and Julia told him the whole story. Throughout he shook his head, turned away in amazement, said over and over, “Is that right?”
“We were lucky,” she said for what seemed like the millionth time. “We all got out. Nobody was hurt.”
“So where are you staying?” he asked, and she told him the insurance would pay for a hotel, not the Chateau Laurier where they’d stayed last night, but something more downscale.
“They have a list. We have to choose. And we have to get started on renovations,” she said. He asked her when and she said as soon as possible, asked him if he would be available.
“You’ll want a whole team working on this project,” he said. “I’d have to get some guys together.”
“The insurance company wants us to get three bids,” she said. “But I’d love it if you could do it. I just, I want someone I can trust.” And then for the first time she really noticed how he looked at her – like he was ice cream dripping down the side of a cone and one more moment in this heat he was going to fall over, go splat on the sidewalk at her feet. “We need the three bids,” she repeated, a bit flustered, he seemed so moved and embarrassed, almost unable to speak. “Anyway, as soon as you can I need you to board up the remaining broken windows. The fire department did the main ones last night, but I noticed damaged panes in some that they didn’t do. The raccoons are going to move in soon with the cold weather and I’m afraid of looting and kids getting hurt playing inside.”
“Sure. Absolutely,” he said, and took out his notebook. “I have to feed my Mom some lunch, then I’m installing a dishwasher, but I could get to this after.”
“Thank you. Thank you so much,” she said and stepped in quickly and kissed his cheek. She couldn’t think why she did it except to see him nearly burst with pleasure, to feel what a wonderful thing that is, even in the midst of disaster.
“God. I’m glad you’re okay,” he said.
Julia used Bruce’s phone after all. She got machines at Bob’s office, at the departmental office, and even in the faculty lounge, left curt messages for him in all three places. Donny had to leave then and Bruce and Julia shared Bruce’s meat-loaf sandwich on brown with mayonnaise and tomato. Then Bruce asked her if she wanted him to drive her to the university to try to find Bob, but she said no. “I’ve got to check on Matthew anyway.” She thanked him as politely as she could, given how bitter she felt inside to have been abandoned like this. Bob really wasn’t a brave man, she knew it in her core. He was squeamish and fussy and he hated unpleasant things. That’s why he was so bad about helping with Matthew. And why he drank so much. She could picture him now in some dark corner, in the middle of an intense academic conversation, hiding from his family responsibilities, dulling himself with Scotch.
Something else nagged at her – another possibility she really didn’t want to think about. What if Bob had early-onset Alzheimer’s? It was rare, yet it happened, and Bob was fifty-four, certainly old enough. She knew that the early stages could be very difficult to detect but involved subtle changes in behaviour, memory lapses, problems with words and simple tasks, confusion. Stress could bring it on, and she had a secret fear that he was stumbling around right now, lost, the way that her mother had before anyone realized anything was wrong – driving aimlessly in the van, perhaps, or trying to remember what had happened to his car. That part was especially bothersome. She didn’t for a minute believe his story about lending his Porsche to Clarence Boyd to help him move. He seemed to have simply made it up in order to fill a void, either caused by a drunken blackout or something else.
Or something else.
So many things could go wrong. It was shattering to think how fragile anyone might be. She hoped it was just the drinking – just the drinking – but she struggled with the thought that the problem might be much worse.
She told Bruce she would work on the forms at Brenda’s house, gave him her number there, said that she wanted to walk, needed time to think and breathe. He understood. They made a tentative time to meet again later to do more damage assessment.
“I’ll call first,” she said.
“The longer we leave it the longer you’ll have to wait for your settlement.”
“Yes. Yes, I know.”
She didn’t want to leave the place unlocked, but Bob had her keys, so she went around to the back, found the spare house key they kept in a film canister behind a stone in the garden, locked the doors and pocketed the key. Then she left, walked off, worried. The more she thought about it the more likely it seemed to her that Bob was unravelling somehow, that the drinking was a symptom but not the root cause. Ever since her mother had started to come apart, she’d been more aware of how vulnerable anyone’s mind might be to depression, to chemical changes signalling the onset of some horrible disease. Was that it? Were these the early stages? She was carrying Matthew’s Willy, the rescued photo album, and the wet box of old receipts, and with each step weariness invaded her limbs. She felt abandoned, suddenly and single-handedly responsible for a wilful young child, a failing mother, and a fading husband. It seemed as if the heavens were against her, had burned out her house, plagued her life. And why? Because she’d stolen him, that’s why. He was already married, she had no right responding to his overtures the way that she did; she should have kept her distance rather than wrecking their home.
“You must be devastated!” Brenda said at the door, looking at her face, then hugging her ferociously. “I can’t imagine!” she whispered.
Julia was confused for a moment – Brenda knew all about the fire already. “It’s not so bad,” she said, when they’d separated. “The house is still standing. I like the insurance guy, he’s going to be all right to deal with.” Brenda was looking at her with blazing intensity. “What?”
“You don’t know,” Brenda said, and Julia had a sudden, sickening premonition, a vision of a car wreck, of Bob’s body crushed inside ruined metal. She felt faint, had to lean against the railing by the door.
“Tell me,” she said. Matthew was playing in the hallway with plastic men – safe, thank God.
“It’s the weirdest thing,” Brenda said, “I don’t know what to make of it. But everyone with a university e-mail address got this message. I just read it an hour ago.”
“What message?”
“About Bob and … and one of his students.”
“What about Bob and one of his students?”
“Come in – oh, I’m sorry!” Brenda suddenly said and held the door open.
“Brenda, just tell me!”
“Julia, it’s so strange. It’s either a prank or … or your husband has been having this … bizarre affair. It’s hard to describe. Maybe … you need to see it. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry for this,” she said. “Come in! Don’t stand out here.”
Julia felt her feet carry her into the living room.
“Let me get you something,” Brenda said. “I have coffee, I have alcohol -”
“Willy! Willy!” Matthew said, and Julia numbly let the snake drop into his hands.
“What do you mean he’s having a bizarre affair?”
“Well, given his history, do you think it might be -?”
“Brenda, I don’t know what you are talking about!” Julia was shouting now. “He’s been impossible lately, but -” She didn’t know how to continue. She felt smacked in the face, as if she’d walked straight into a pane of glass.
“I’m sorry. But you need to see this,” Brenda said.
Julia followed her into a small room with a single bed, a dresser, a desk and computer. There was only one chair. Brenda sat in it and Julia sat on the edge of the bed. She could see the screen clearly, waited with a sense of mounting doom while the machine warmed up and Brenda clicked the appropriate icons. “I didn’t bookmark the site. I’m sorry, I was just so astonished,” Brenda said.
Julia could hear Matthew playing happily. She had a strange sense that everything was whirling apart despite her sitting so still and composed. That she had control over nothing except taking one breath and letting it out.
“Come on. Come on!” Brenda said. The modem was dialling, but kept encountering a busy signal. “This is one of the worst times,” she said. “The traffic just builds and builds all through the afternoon.”
Brenda tried a different number and it was busy, tried the first again and it was busy. Then she tried a third, a slower line, and got through. In a few minutes she had the letter on-screen.
THE SEXUAL PROCLIVITIES OF ENGLISH PROFESSORS: PRELIMINARY RESEARCH
An inquiry into the sexual fantasies and practices of male professors of English literature by poetical and sexual anthropologist Sienna Chu. Preliminary findings are now available. Comments, discussion, corroboration, and debate are all welcome.
“Poetical and sexual anthropologist?” Julia said.
“You don’t want to see this. Believe me,” Brenda said, but she’d already clicked on the icon. The Web page was coming.
There was the title again in bold black lettering. The explanation followed.
Poetical and sexual anthropologist Sienna Chu presents preliminary findings in a study examining the sexual fantasies, histories, practices, and inclinations of a sub-group of male English literature professors. Featured today: Dr. Robert Sterling, Associate Professor of English literature specializing in 19th century American letters. This extraordinary, candid, and deeply original portrayal eschews more traditional, western, linear textual modes of exposition while revealing fascinating glimpses and subtexts regarding highly individualized sexuality, as arranged and imagized by Ms. Chu, a pioneer in the nascent field of poetics and sexual anthropology.
“Everyone at the university was notified of this?” Julia asked.
“Everyone on-line,” Brenda said. “It seems to have been a bulk mailing. There are supposed to be spam guards, but this chick knew what she was doing.”
There was more text, but by then a picture had arrived on-screen. It was a grotesque, partially blurry image of a fattish, aging man wearing a hideous black wig and garish make-up, and stuffed into the most awful-looking hooker-style scarlet mini-dress. He was leaning against a desk in some professor’s office – in Bob’s office; Julia recognized the pen and pencil set her mother had given him years ago, and the window behind, the chair and the books …
It was Bob’s office, and the sorry-looking Hallowe’en figure with the gash of red lipstick, the gaudy face, the stockings, for Christ’s sake, his legs apart as if he wanted people to look up his dress … it was Bob. Unmistakable, but she couldn’t believe it. She fought down a rising sense of nausea.
The expression on his face, almost drugged, and yet … so ordinary, too. A shy little smile. Bob a bit embarrassed. Bob as if gazing up from a funny article in the Saturday Globe and Mail, a particularly nicely phrased review lacerating some overrated author.
Brenda said, “That’s enough, I think.”
Julia said no. “It says there are more pictures. I want to see all of them.” So she sat through them all. Twelve grainy photos, the colours leaking over the edges of things, like in impressionistic paintings or tabloid exposés. Bob standing, his arms – hairless, big meaty jokes coming out of the ludicrous dress – crossed in front of his chunky bosom. Bob’s back and rear, his skin bulging out of the lacing of the dress, clues of underwear poking out – a black bra strap, the edge of some sort of slip or something. Then there he was just in a black bra and panties. Bob trying to cross his legs, Bob standing as if in a police line-up, staring blankly. Bob with his hands on his hips. Bob sitting on the corner of the desk, his tongue resting on the edge of his painted lips.
“There’s text, too,” Brenda said. “It doesn’t make any sense.”
“I want to read it,” Julia said. She felt deeply focused, angry but cold. Weak, but holding on somehow. She promised herself she would only look this once. She wanted to see everything once.
The text read:
Julia could barely move. She felt suddenly pumped full of some heavy, hot, debilitating liquid, as if she were in an old-fashioned diving suit that had filled up suddenly and now was holding her sickeningly on the bottom.
“It must be a joke,” Brenda said. “It’s so awful. I can’t believe …”
“Her name is familiar,” Julia said. She tried to think. Sienna. Sienna? Oh, Sienna. Oceana. Oh my God.
Brenda was hitting the BACK button now, flipping once again through the horrible, horrible pictures. Julia said, “She must be his student.” Undoubtedly she was his student. Who else could she be?
Matthew came in then dragging a yellow plastic bulldozer and making flapping noises with his lips. He turned his little head to look at what Brenda and his mother were so intent on, and Julia shrieked, she threw herself at him, banged her shoulder on Brenda’s chair as she went down. “Ow! Ow!” he said, holding his knee, his face full of outrage and surprise.
“Oh, baby. Oh, baby, I’m so sorry!” she said, and cuddled him, smothered him against her, held his struggling head away from the monitor. “Turn it off!” she howled. “Please, Brenda, get rid of it!” and she ran with Matthew out of the room, the plastic bulldozer bumping behind as the boy held on, craning his head to see what was so interesting.
