Muriel Gray - The Trickster

The shaft of light from the open door to Jess’s bedroom illuminated one tiny hand on top of the comforter holding the arm of a fun-fur monkey.

Sam waited until his eyes adjusted to the contrast of light and dark, and was rewarded by a glimpse of the small dark head of his daughter lying peacefully on its pillow.

As he watched her chest rise and fall beneath the cover, he heard a whimpering from next door. He backed out of the room and stepped quickly to Billy’s door. Pushing it open, he saw Billy writhing on the bed, his comforter lying on the floor in a heap where it had been thrown off. Sam put the wine on the floor, picked up the bedcover and laid it gently over his dreaming son.

Billy was obviously in some distress. With the door fully open his face was clearly lit. It was light enough to see he was suffering some imagined agony. Sam toyed with waking him up, hugging him and telling him his Dad was here, but his decision was made for him as Billy sat up suddenly with a yell.

‘Hey, hey, hey. It’s okay. Everything’s okay, Billy boy.’

Sam had him in his arms before the yell died on the boy’s lips. He held the small panting body close to his chest, rubbing his back with a large hand.

Billy’s tears came. ‘Dad. Make them stop. They have to stop.’

‘It’s just a dream Billy. Nothing’s happening.’

‘It is happening Dad. You have to warn them.’

Sam hugged him closer. ‘Okay. Okay. You tell me, and I’ll make them stop.’

Billy was sobbing, his whole body heaving under its Calgary Flames T-shirt. ‘They’re gonna let it go, Dad. You can’t let them.’

‘Who is, Billy? What are they going to let go?’

The boy started to cry again. ‘I don’t know. I don’t know. The wolf told me. I just know it’s going to be bad. I saw them. Two of them.’

Sam rocked him back and forward, his hand now stroking Billy’s hair. He sat that way for a minute or more. ‘Sshhh now. I’ll stop them. It’s just a dream. Go back to sleep.’

But he was already asleep. In fact, Sam wondered if he’d been awake at all. Billy’s body was a dead weight in his arms, breathing steadily, arms hanging at his side.

Gently Sam let Billy back down onto the pillow and pulled the comforter up to his chin. He stood by the bed for a while, waiting to see if Billy would go back to the dark place he’d been in, but the crisis was over for now. From downstairs, a roar of indignation reminded him of his other duties, and he walked slowly out of the room, retrieving the wine as he went.

Looked like he hadn’t missed much. Ann was hard at it.

‘Well you can say that, but the kids I teach, and the kids Gerry teaches, haven’t a fucking clue what the whole movement was about.’

Katie was in a corner, holding the lions back with a chair. ‘Then it’s your duty to remind them. Unless you want all those little guys to grow up thinking they rule the world.’

Claire laughed sarcastically. ‘They do Katie. And they will.’

Sam picked up the corkscrew, opened the bottle and started filling glasses. ‘Yep, we do. Take it in turns as it happens. When it’s my turn I’m going to make it illegal to have waiters tell you their names before they bring the menu.’

Marty and Katie laughed. Claire was annoyed not to be taken seriously. ‘Yeah. Cute.’ She paused, taking stock. ‘Now I don’t know you Sam. In fact, this is the first time I’ve met you. But I’d say you’re an old-style kind of guy. Am I right, Katie?’

Claire picked up the wine glass that Sam had filled, and half-emptied it again.

Katie looked up at Sam with love. ‘No. You’re wrong. He’s cool.’

Claire was undeterred. ‘Gerry, Ann, help me out here. You’ve been friends with Sam and Katie how long?’

Gerry smiled and made a space between his palms that stretched, the way a fisherman lies about his catch.

‘So is this guy for or against women?’

Sam took his seat again, and looked cheerfully round the company with a smile of comic innocence. He beamed across at Katie. ‘Oh go on, honey. Tell them how I leave you the key to the chastity belt when I travel.’

Katie smiled again. ‘Yeah, but leaving it in the men’s washroom at the Bus Depot doesn’t count.’

Claire didn’t laugh. She folded her face into a mask of censure. ‘You know, in my job women have eighty-five per cent less chance of promotion than men. Eighty-five per cent. That’s no joke.’

Sam took a swig of soda. ‘Don’t that put you right off being a lumberjack then?’

Everyone laughed this time, and the fact that Marty sniggered into his wine let Claire out of the cage. She ran a finger round the top of her glass. ‘I would have thought that given your background, Sam, you’d be slightly more sympathetic to a statistic like that.’

Katie shot Sam a glance. Sam held Claire’s gaze.

‘Sorry. Not with you.’

‘No. I’m sorry. Sorry if I’m the one to remind you that Native Canadians don’t do too hot in the promotion stakes. That is if they can get a job at all.’

Sam looked steadily at her. ‘I got a job.’

Marty put a hand on Claire’s. ‘Claire.’

She pulled her hand away. ‘No, come on folks. Let’s face up to it here. What kind of a job have you got exactly, Sam? A good job?’

‘Yeah.’

‘Oh well pardon me once again. Gerry led me to believe you were a manual groomer. Not exactly executive status, unless Silver Ski Company’s started recruiting from Harvard.’

Sam said nothing.

Claire softened her voice, and if the intention by doing so was to paper over the cracks, it was wasted.

‘Look, all I’m saying is that I know how you people must feel. I’m a woman. I get shit on too.’

Sam looked into his soda like there was something dead in there. ‘I can believe that. The last part anyway.’

Marty wiped his mouth with his napkin. ‘Okay, time we were hitting the road. Listen, it was real nice meeting you. We’re staying with Gerry and Ann another week. Maybe we can all ski together.’

Katie was still looking at Sam. She slipped a hand beneath the table and wound her fingers between his. ‘Yeah. That’d be neat. I don’t know if we can take time off, but if we can, sure.’

Sam looked across at Claire. ‘If we can’t, I sure look forward to sweeping the snow off your car.’

Marty stood up, and the others followed his example, scraping their chairs on the wooden floor, and fussing over their possessions. Marty moved round the table, kissed Katie and put a hand on Sam’s shoulder. ‘No hard feelings, Sam. Lighten up. Everyone’s a little gassed.’

Sam nodded solemnly.

There were polite noises made and Katie herded everyone out without the assistance of her husband who remained seated, staring into the middle of the abandoned table. He heard the door close and their footsteps crunching in the drive, and was aware of Katie standing behind him, leaning against the doorframe.

‘She was a jerk. Wasn’t it enough to just let her be one and leave it at that?’

‘Should have been.’

Katie pulled up a chair beside him and put her head on his shoulder. He slipped his arm round her.

‘I didn’t even get to serve the after-dinner mints.’

‘I should do it for a living, huh? Dinner parties cleared in minutes. Call Freephone 0800 Sam Hunt.’

‘Tell me what’s wrong.’

Sam sighed. ‘I don’t know. I’ve been kind of cranky all day.’

Katie undid the top three buttons of Sam’s silk shirt, ran her hand over the bone amulet he wore round his neck on a leather thong, and let her hand rest on his warm belly.

‘In fact cancel cranky. Replace with asshole.’

‘Can I help?’

He smiled down at the blue eyes in her pale oval face; the face of a Victorian china doll.