Robert McGill - Once We Had a Country

In the next second, something pokes through the waterfall at chest level. It’s the barrel of a rifle, and tied to it is Gordon’s bandana. After a time the barrel withdraws, and in its absence comes a face. It’s the face of a man, the skin pale, eyes closed, teeth bared. It’s the face of a corpse.

The eyes pop open. They roll in their sockets until they fix upon Gordon. He can’t help himself. He screams and screams.

“Peekaboo,” says the face. “I found you.” It licks its lips and grins.

Maggie has just stepped out from the mud room to smoke a final cigarette before bed and watch the galaxy unfurl above her when faintly she hears a voice from the barracks. It sounds like the red-haired girl from next door. Maggie strains to listen and the voice promptly falls away. There are only the crickets chirring, the radio towers blinking on the horizon. She imagines the two girls out in the barracks with George Ray. He must be more than twice their age. He’s probably married. Maggie sets off across the lawn.

Halfway there, she hesitates. No one has declared the barracks off limits since he moved in, but she’ll be invading his privacy. Even if the girls are there, it isn’t Maggie’s business. Then she pictures them at the barracks window, making snide comments as she stands in the middle of the grass. Continuing on, she knocks at the door. George Ray answers in his undershirt and jeans.

“No cameras allowed in here,” he says, deadpan. She gives a nervous laugh and holds out her empty hands, palms up. Laughing along with her, he invites her in.

Nobody’s sitting at the long dining table in the middle of the room. It holds only a single plate with a few chicken bones on it. Against the near wall are bunk beds, recently installed. There’s nobody in them either, and only one has been made up. Above it George Ray has tacked a Polaroid, while nearby a clothesline sags under the weight of underwear and socks. When he notices her looking in their direction, he rushes over to remove them.

“Didn’t know there was inspection today,” he says.

“Please, don’t go to any trouble,” she replies. It’s horrible of her to have been so suspicious. “I just came out to see how you’re managing.” She points at the Polaroid above his bunk. “Your family?” He says yes, and she crosses the room to see.

The photo shows him standing in a suit against a backdrop of palm trees and washed-out sky. Beside him, a round-cheeked woman holds a baby and looks harried. A small boy is pulling at George Ray’s hand with all his might, as if trying to drag him out of the picture.

“My daughter’s twelve now,” says George Ray. The information makes Maggie’s peering at the photo seem too intimate somehow, and she turns away to gaze at the back of the room. Against the wall are stacks of insulation. Near Fletcher’s weightlifting bench, a wide mirror rises from floor to ceiling. She takes herself in, notices the scar of thread on her top’s strap, her pale calves below her skirt, her thin-lobed ears peeking out from hair she hasn’t cut in months. George Ray looks at her in the mirror. He has a barrel chest along with thick limbs, and deep lines run in parentheses around his mouth. When his reflection waves to hers, she laughs.

“Did Fletcher put the mirror there?” she says, and he nods. “It doesn’t bother you?”

“Keeps me company,” he says.

She murmurs her understanding, but the mention of company reminds her of why she’s here and makes her feel guilty again.

“I came out because I thought I heard a girl’s voice,” she admits. Somehow it’s easier confessing this to his reflection than directly to his face, but still it’s embarrassing.

He frowns, then gestures toward the counter by the sink. There’s a portable radio sitting on it. “I was listening to that a minute ago. Perhaps—”

Of course. Ridiculous. She’s an idiot to have made such a mistake.

“I’m sorry,” she tells him. “It’s just because there are a couple of teenage girls next door. A while back they gave me a hard time. I thought they might be …” But she doesn’t know how to finish the sentence.

“Bothering me?” he suggests, and she nods.

“Paranoid, I know. I guess they rattled me more than I thought.”

“No girls here. I’m a married man.”

She remembers Brid’s interest in him the first time he visited the farm. “Is that why you wanted to be out here by yourself? Because you’re married?”

“Perhaps,” he says. She can tell from his voice that she’s right. It seems a shame for him to keep them at a distance for such a reason.

“Would you join us for dinner sometime?” she says. “Or to watch TV? Fletcher said he invited you to one of our home-movie nights—”

“Thank you,” says George Ray. His tone is polite, unpromising.

“You don’t get lonely out here?” When he doesn’t answer, she worries it’s too personal a question. “Sorry. I should go.” She retreats to the door. “You’re welcome any time.”

Once she’s a few yards across the lawn, he calls to her from the doorway.

“Maybe it was the fulfillment of a wish,” he says. She has to ask him what he means. “I mean, you thought you heard those teenagers because you worried about my loneliness. You imagined company for me.”

The idea only makes her feel worse.

“You mustn’t worry,” he says. “It’s nice out here. I’m learning.”

“What are you learning?”

“I’m learning how to be alone.”

She goes back to the house feeling ashamed. From now on she’ll leave him to himself. But he didn’t seem upset by her presence. Why does she feel so guilty? Ahead of her in the house, a bedroom light turns on, and she sees Fletcher’s silhouette sail across the blinds.

Maggie has almost reached the patch of grass illuminated by the mud room floodlight when something moves toward her from the darkness. It says her name and she gives a yelp, but it’s a voice she recognizes.

“Wale,” she says. “You scared me to death.”

“Who’s that guy you were visiting?” His voice is a low drawl. Though he stands only a few feet away, she can make out no more than his outline.

“Long story,” she replies. Then she wonders how he knew there was a man out there at all. “Were you spying on us?”

“Give me a break. I saw him through the window, that’s all.”

“Have you been in the house yet?” she asks, and he shakes his head. “Where have you been the last three weeks?”

“I had some trouble from the army.”

“They caught you?” He starts to reply, but she interrupts him. “Wait, let’s get you inside. I know some people who are keen to see you.”

As they walk toward the door, he grows more visible to her: his spark-plug frame, the nose that looks like it was broken long ago. On one wrist he wears a silver watch that he holds to his ear, shakes vigorously, then holds up once more. It takes her a moment to realize his T-shirt and jeans are soaked through.

“How’d you get so wet?”

“I swam over from the States.”

“Across the river?” She can’t believe it, but he nods.

Holding open the mud room door for him, she tells him to go ahead. As he passes through the kitchen and down the hallway, she lingers, listening for what’s about to happen. A moment later she hears Brid’s shout of surprise from the living room, then Fletcher’s elated greeting from upstairs. On the other side of the mud room window, moths patter out their lives against the floodlight. Maggie switches it off just as the house is filled with the wailing of a bewildered, suddenly awoken little girl.

The kitchen in morning light. Brid wears an apron over her bikini as she cooks bacon and pancakes, while Pauline sulks in her booster seat. She says she wants cereal like always, but Brid laughs and ignores her as if it’s a joke. Fletcher hunches over the table swallowing mouthfuls of food drenched in maple syrup, and Wale sits across from him with raccoon eyes of fatigue, wearing a tank top that reveals a scimitar tattooed on one arm and a coiled snake on the other. He seems less interested in his meal than in Maggie, who hovers around the table with the Super 8 camera clicking and humming in her hands.