Red Girl Rat Boy Read Online Free PDF Page B

on the first floor of The Sandringham, the second, third.
    Dust the sills of the stained-glass windows, nearly colourless by day. Dust banisters.
    Behind Miss N’s door, silence.
    Behind Roy’s too.
    Neither he nor Marion appears at the hall, their absence a sore licked by sixty tongues a day. Other coms take on their assignments. The O studies documents. For no reason the old one’s arthritis lets up, and at 110 wpm the Remington’s carriage-bell rings madly for the movement’s newspaper, minutes, letters, drafts of pamphlets.
     
    N
     
    The cavalier’s lino is so scarred and broken that cleaning the floor is ritual only, but the front windows still do respond.
    What? The old one’s limping down the street towards the pub. Well-known of course, Red Annie, local character.
    Out of the boozy dim, vinegar rag in hand.
    “Jake, it’s Jennifer. Get Marion.”
    In the struggle towards reading, some words are fireworks. War, for example, even if it comes up as raw, once learned isn’t forgotten. Same with hearing. The girl’s name explodes.
    Run.
    “Good comrade!” cries the old one.
    Seven blocks downtown, hot bright streets, breathless.
    At the post office, the mother’s on a break. Where? Run upstairs, the cafeteria, panting, not there, down, corridors, where? Doors, counters, asking.
    At last Marion’s surprise, terror.
    “Quick,” she gasps, exiting the PO, and vinegar rag waves for a taxi.
    Arrival. Marion headlong into the hall.
    The cab waits.
    From the Gestetner room, the O’s swivel chair emerges. Slumped in it, pale Jennifer, eyes half-closed. The old one pushes the chair forward, kicks at Roy, elbows him away.
    “Mummy?”
    “Darling!” They embrace.
    Marion grabs the chair-back, heads for the door. Roy trails.
    With the old one, a shared stare at the print-room. No lovers. The Gestetner, still to be eviscerated. Ditto machine. Folded-out cot. Silkscreen. Splats on the lino.
    “Later!” She pulls an arm. “They’ve used it for weeks. He’d got a hall key somehow.” Passing the O’s office. “Damn fool never noticed.”
    Out to the sidewalk.
    “Bastard!” The mother spits.
    Roy’s chin drips. “It wasn’t a quack I took her to! I’d never do that, Marion, you know me! I love her.”
    “In we get, darling.”
    Taxi’s off to Emergency.
    The not-father-to-be runs after. “Come back!” Slows. Slinks off.
    Double-quick to the Cavalier, for a mickey. A grateful swig.
    Back. Into the kitchen, to the old one.
    She swallows. Again.
    Calmer now.
    “If the cops don’t come down on us for aiding and abetting, we’ll be lucky. Procuring, even. Bloody irresponsible.” She doesn’t know the half of that. “So he quote loves her. Typical.” Sighing, she swallows once more and sets the flask down, smooths her hair. Back at the Remington, she won’t notice the bucket’s clank. Cleaning solution this side, pink water that.
     
    N
     
    At the po, Marion puts in for a transfer and returns to Calgary.
    Strong Jennifer moves to Toronto. Bum never seen again.
    At the next branch meeting, Roy shoves in to argue his case, shout it, till the TU coms throw him out. In this the old one doesn’t exactly take pleasure, but she doesn’t not either.
    Russell locates the Apt For Rent sign, pens 2 clumsily before Apt.
    A day later, a summons from Mrs. W.
    “Jake, look what that man did before he left.”
    The Sandringham’s garbage cans, tossed. Newsprint all over the alley, cat litter, tins, jars, peels and grounds, bacon fat, tea bags. Slimy leavings coat the cans’ insides. After tomorrow’s pickup, scrub. Russell won’t do it. Somebody has to.
    “He even threw these out.” Wet white papers stick to asphalt, drift under parked cars. She holds a handful. “From when Jennifer was a little girl.”
    Artworks, must be back through elementary. One picture has a strip of green along the bottom, red flower-dots above, a white sky thick with paint. Along the top are plump blue clouds with scalloped