Robert McGill - Once We Had a Country

“I know what you’re doing,” she tells him.

“Of course you do,” he says, seeming unperturbed. “You’re a real bright chick.” Putting his arm around Rhea, he heads upstairs. It’s only for the briefest of moments that Maggie could swear she detects a nervousness in his face.

She decides to wait until morning before talking to Fletcher about Gran’s call, but when she wakes up, he’s gone. After searching the house, she pokes her head out the mud room door and hears the sound of an axe falling in the orchard. On a hunch she starts toward it, the dry grass of the back lawn scratchy under her bare feet. Upon entering the trees, she walks by piles of branches gathered at the ends of the lanes, newly cut limbs thrown on top of debris from the hurricane. The strike of the axe grows louder until she sees Fletcher chopping at a tree, the ground beneath him littered with wood chips, twigs, and bark. His axe hitting the trunk has a hollow, unsatisfying ring.

“Look at this,” he says, bending down to the place where the blade has done its work. He rips away a handful of mealy wood. “Rotten right through.”

“Wouldn’t it be quicker with the chainsaw?”

“For some reason, I find this more gratifying.”

“It lets you exorcise your demons,” she suggests.

“What demons? There aren’t any demons.” He takes another swing with the axe. “Richard Nixon, maybe. Spiro fucking Agnew.” He’s wearing khaki shorts with a leather belt and she notices he’s missed a loop, but she doesn’t mention it. “My father phoned this morning,” he says between swings. “He wants to sell the farm.”

The shock keeps her from replying right away.

“But he promised we could buy it, didn’t he?” she finally exclaims.

“He says it’s different now that no one else is being sent to Vietnam. He doesn’t want me up here anymore.” Letting the axe drop to the ground, he begins to push on the cherry tree. It seems to struggle against him, until finally there’s a snap like a bone being broken. He retrieves the axe and starts to work on the branches.

“What if we asked him to visit?” she says. Then she remembers proposing the same thing to Gran and decides she should have her head examined. Neither Gran nor Fletcher’s father would be persuaded of anything if they saw this place. More likely it would only confirm their fears. Fletcher must be thinking the same thing, because he makes a face.

“I’m sick of it all,” he says. “I’m sick of the way he tries to call the shots.” Picking up the end of a branch, he drags it down the lane. Maggie grabs another and pulls it after him. “I’m sick of all these people. I go downtown and the storekeepers chew me out because some idiot’s been shoplifting again. I’m sick of the slobs and the layabouts, and the ones who hate me because of who my father is. They don’t complain about taking a ride on his money, though, do they?” He heaves his branch onto the nearest pile, then bends to snatch up a hubcap from the ground. “Fucking car parts. You know, I bet Frank Dodd throws this stuff over the fence just to piss me off.” He hurls the hubcap toward the wrecking yard, but it falls short of the fence. When Maggie embraces him, he stands stiffly in her arms.

“You should have seen my dad in March,” he says, his voice now little more than a whisper. “When I told him about dropping out of law school, he looked scared. I’d never seen him scared. Did I tell you that?”

“You didn’t,” she says, holding him tighter.

“At first I figured it was about the draft, but then I realized it was worse. I was killing all his plans for me. Partner at a law firm, politics. The old man was panicking. I realized I could ask him for just about anything right then and he’d agree, so long as it involved some kind of future for me.”

“Fletcher, we’re going to make this work,” she tells him. “We got a rough start here. Your father will understand. I’ll talk to him if you like.” She says this even though it’s the last thing she wants to do. “We’re not leaving. You said next year we could grow enough cherries to start making a profit, right?”

He seems unconsoled. His moustache tickles her forehead as he kisses it, while a squirrel rebukes them from a nearby tree.

“Come on,” she says. “Let’s not worry about it right now. Let’s just go inside.” She takes his soft, blistered hand and with slow steps leads him back toward the house.

“What if—” he says in the bedroom. “What if we filmed ourselves doing it?”

He’s been undressing her, but her thoughts haven’t been on sex. Instead, her mind has drifted to her father, picturing him lost and hacking his way through thick jungle.

“Why would we do that?” she says.

“Because it would be exciting.” He runs a hand gently down her side.

“What, and then we’d show it to everyone?”

“Of course not. We’d watch it by ourselves. You know, some other time, as a turn-on.”

Maggie doesn’t think it would be a turn-on. She finds no pleasure in the thought of watching herself. She wants it to be just her and him with nothing added, no distance, only the press of their bodies. The camera is for the rest of the world.

“What about developing the film?” she says. “Someone at the lab—”

“Nobody watches that stuff. It’s done with machines.”

“I don’t know.” But he’s set on it, she can tell.

“Remember in Nantucket, when we did it in front of the mirror? It would be like that.” She hated the mirror. When she doesn’t reply, he sits on the edge of the bed. “Never mind, it was just an idea.”

She tries to think of some compromise. “What if it’s just you?” she suggests. As she says it, the notion seems reasonable enough. But Fletcher gains the same lonely, hangdog look as in the orchard. “All right,” she says. “Fine, let’s do it.”

Feeling nauseous, she takes the equipment from the closet and sets up the tripod she recently acquired at the St. Catharines mall. He stands behind her, kissing her neck while she adjusts the focus.

“The settings are all messed up,” she says. “Have you been using it?” He shakes his head. “Well, somebody has. Honestly, this place. Everyone’s always in your stuff.”

She senses that he wants to disagree but has decided it isn’t the time for an argument. Instead, he goes to the mattress and waits while she continues to make adjustments.

“The light isn’t very good,” she complains. “Maybe we should move the bed.”

“It doesn’t have to be perfect. Just get it going.”

On her hands and knees, her face toward the lens and Fletcher behind her, the room is a jumble of shadows and angles. It would be better if she were underneath him, not having to look at the camera. Her skin tingles in the places where she feels watched: the stretch marks from her growth spurt, the legs she hasn’t shaved in weeks. The camera’s clacking is the only sound in the room other than the soft slap, slap of flesh on flesh. The hands holding her are invisible; she can barely feel them. Where has Fletcher gone? Reduced to a guiding, pounding force. The fear creeps into her that someone will open the door, and every few seconds she turns her head to check.

“Nobody’s going to bother us,” says Fletcher, sounding impatient.

The noise from the camera stops.

“It’s out of film,” she says, pulling away.

“Already? Hold on.” He gets up and crosses the room, removes the cartridge from the camera, then reaches for another and tries unsuccessfully to tear open its foil envelope.

“Let me do it.” She doesn’t want him to touch the equipment. After he hands her the cartridge, he flops back on the bed, posing like a model. He seems free of cares, of self-consciousness.