A Lady Under Siege

35

When ten-year-olds decide they don’t like life, they can be extremely good at keeping to that philosophy, at least in the short term. But soon enough their natural inclination for joy and laughter wins out, and what they long for is some tiny scrap of evidence that life is good and sweet, so that they can officially change their minds about it. For Betsy that little scrap was indeed truly scrap, a gift made up of bits and pieces of abandoned and salvaged old bicycles, disassembled, redesigned, and cobbled back together into an eccentric unicycle.

She discovered it leaning ready-to-ride against the handrail of the stairs of her back deck when she went out to the garden one day after breakfast. She had just started to examine it closely, running her fingers over the scorched grey metal spots where it had been so recently welded, when she heard Derek call out to her.

“You like it?”

“My mom told me this would happen,” she replied curtly. “She said, he’s a man, men never apologize with words, they try to buy their way back into your good books.”

“I didn’t buy it, I built it with my own hands.”

“That’s because you’re cheap.”

“But do you like it? It’s three-quarter sized, I made it petite, just for you. It could be the only one like it in existence.”

Betsy stepped down to the second of the deck steps, and tried to mount the unicycle from there. “Go around the other side of the railing,” Derek advised. “You’ve gotta get yourself right above it, and feel for that point of perfect balance, then you’ll be on it in no time. You’ll be pedalling it around on the trampoline like a crazy little circus freak!”

“I can’t do it,” Betsy complained. With the wheel slipping forward and backward under her, she couldn’t find the courage to let go of the deck rail.

“Maybe I should come over and help you,” Derek suggested. “I did manage to get up on it this morning, but it’s easier over here—my yard is mostly hard-packed dirt, not like your squishy soft lawn. We should really take it out on the pavement.”

Meghan came out onto her deck. She told Derek there was someone at his front door and he should go answer it.

“I’m not expecting anyone, it’s probably Johos or something. Forget it,” he said.

“What’s Johos?” Betsy asked.

“Jehovah’s Witnesses,” Meghan replied. “Derek, it’s not anyone like that, I think it’s important that you go answer your door.”

Catching an odd note of insistence in her voice, Derek gave her a puzzled look. Meghan, first making sure Betsy was preoccupied with her new toy, made a discreet gesture with her eyes that could only mean ‘meet me over there.’

Betsy looked up from the unicycle. “I’ve decided to forgive him,” she said happily.

“Good. You stay here, and for God’s sake put your helmet on before you try to ride that thing.” She headed back into the house. “You hear me? Stay in the back yard.”

DEREK OPENED HIS FRONT door, and Meghan brushed quickly past him, striding to his living room. “I need to talk to Thomas,” she said brusquely.

“I figured as much,” Derek replied. “How’d it go? Did Tom and Sylvanne—”

“Terrible. I shouldn’t have let you put him up to it.”

“What happened? She didn’t kill him, did she?”

“No. He—”

“That’s all right then. No harm no foul, right?”

“There was harm. There was terrible harm. He tried to take her against her will, and he would have done it, except she bit him— and you know what? Good for her, I say. Good for Sylvanne! First time you’ve heard me say that!”

“Calm down, calm down,” Derek urged her. “Where were they, when all this happened?”

“In her bed.”

“And did he drag her there, or did she invite him?”

“She invited him. I know what you’re thinking. She enticed him, yes, that’s right, and then she pulled out the knife, and slashed at him. But did she really try to kill him? I’m not sure. She swung the knife, but it was half-hearted, like she wanted to fail. Like a criminal who wants to get caught. Stop me before I do something evil.”

“I thought you were in her mind. You’re supposed to know exactly what she’s thinking.”

“I am. I was. Sometimes people don’t know what they want. There she was, she had him exactly where she wanted him, like a lamb led to slaughter—and he’d totally dropped his guard, he was just crazed! Obsessed with having her! Worry about a little thing like a knife in the back? Forget it! He was like, I must take you, right now!”

“Then she stabbed him?”

“She grazed him.”

“But drew blood?”

“Yes.”

“Ouch. Must’ve hurt like hell. Probably made him furious. No wonder he tried to force her.”

“The worst of it is he kept saying it was for me, he was trying to please me. But it didn’t please me at all. I felt only her resistance, that she didn’t want it, that she wasn’t ready for it.” She sighed deeply. “Poor thing. She had to listen to him mooning yet again over some bizarre futuristic woman she doesn’t even believe in. That’s what’s preventing her from loving him—he keeps telling her he’s in love with me! She put up such a brave fight—she really ripped a chunk out of his shoulder when she bit him!” Meghan nearly laughed at the thought of it, then turned sombre again. “I feel so sorry for her, so guilty for what I put her through.”

“Don’t make her sound innocent,” Derek countered. “She took the lead. Bringing him to bed was her idea.”

“Yes, but—”

“Up to a point, it all went according to her plan, right?”

Meghan shook her head. “The plan was, they would have sex, and it was going to be consensual—not consensual exactly, but she would allow him. But really that was Mabel’s plan—Sylvanne just couldn’t think of anything better, so she went along, because it did mirror Judith’s story, which her husband had instructed her to follow.”

“Blame the husband, then. I don’t think we should blame Thomas for any of this,” Derek said.

“I’m not blaming him, but I do need to talk to him.”

“Fine. But keep in mind that he’s a man of his time—and a man of his time would find it ludicrous to think he needs a woman’s consent to have sex with her.”

“Can you just let me speak?”

Derek made an exaggerated gesture of zipping his mouth shut. Meghan gathered her thoughts.

“Thomas,” she began. “I beg you to leave Sylvanne alone. Promise me you won’t force yourself on her, ever again. Can you do that, please?”

Derek couldn’t help himself. “Maybe he liked it that she bit him. Maybe he thought, ‘What a hellcat! A tigress!’”

“Stop it. A hellcat is a caged animal, frightened and cornered. That’s why she fought—because there was no escape, nowhere to hide.”

“Ask him if I’m right. Thomas, am I right?”

“It’s impossible to talk to you,” she sighed.

“No, just the opposite. It’s easier than ever. Haven’t you noticed? I’ve gotten on board. I’m taking it seriously. I’m treating Thomas as real. You’re driving, I’m riding shotgun. There’s no map. So the best I can do is throw some ideas out there. For example let me say this: Way to go Thomas, thanks for f*cking up and falling off your pedestal, from saint to sinner in fair Meghan’s eyes. I like you better this way, a bit rough around the edges.”

“You’re making fun of me.”

“No I’m not,” Derek insisted. “I’m teasing him, not you—the guy obviously has massive feelings for you, and was trying to show it, the only way he knew how.”

“Massive feelings—your words.” Her mind was a jumble of high emotions, none of which she wanted to share with Derek. “May I say one last thing to Thomas?”

“Of course.”

Meghan composed herself, then began to speak, slowly and forcefully. “Thank you for trying to reach me. Remember, when I’m inside Sylvanne, I’m privy to her thoughts, and a prisoner of her feelings. She was alone with her thoughts all night after you left. She’s a very proud woman. There were moments when she hated herself for failing, for falling short in her duty. She could have finished you off with a single stroke of the blade, fast and deep. Why didn’t she? Without that duty fulfilled, what is she? Oftentimes I feel there’s so much guilt bottled up in her—guilt that she failed in her primary duty to her husband, to give him children, and failed even to truly love him as a wife should. Now that he’s dead it’s like she still wants to make it up to him, and wants to finally fulfill her duty to him—it’s come down to one mighty act of revenge, and yet she still can’t do it, she doesn’t want to do it, she wishes someone would talk her out of it. She’s lost. She wants to be rescued.”

“Is that how she feels, or is that you?” Derek asked.

“I’m speaking for her. I’m trying to make sense of feelings she can’t articulate.”

Derek thought a moment before he spoke. “You know what’s funny about this?”

“Nothing.”

“Hear me out. Thomas is in my head, right? That means I can talk to him anytime I like, just by thinking. Whereas if you have anything to say to him you have to come over and visit me. So in a way I’m in the driver’s seat, not you. He talks to you, but he listens to me.”

Meghan looked at him coldly. “I’m still not sure if you’re just fooling with me, or what you’re up to.”

“Well you’re going to have to trust me to do the right thing,” Derek said. “While you’re here, I’m going to share my advice for our man Thomas. So Thomas, listen up, bud. There’s a clear path you need to follow here: you need to woo this Lady Sylvanne! You owe it to her. You killed her husband. Sorry, but you did. And now she’s all alone in the world, thanks to you. And yet she has some feelings for you. Give the woman a lifeline! Take care of her! You need to win her heart, like a chivalrous knight of old. And luckily for you, you just happen to be one, right?” To Meghan he said, “You’d like it if he did that, wouldn’t you?”

“Of course I would.”

“And if they get together, you’ll still get your wish, of getting with Thomas.”

“Now you’re making it sound too devious,” Meghan objected. “I’m asking him to be kind to her, simply because she deserves it. I don’t want any ulterior motive attached to it. It’s for her, not me.”

“Then how about this? Thomas! No more talking to Meghan, or even about Meghan, when you’re with Sylvanne. You hear me, pal? Looking into her eyes and telling her you see someone else in there—that’s a total non-starter. That’s pretty much guaranteed to turn her off, my man. If you want to win the poor girl’s heart, do not even say the word Meghan. You hear me?”

“I think that would be good, actually,” Meghan said. “Yes. She’s just so weary of him constantly talking at her, rather than to her. So I agree—give her a break, Thomas. No talking to me. Talk to her.”

“See? Once in a while I have a good idea,” Derek said.

“Once, anyway.”

“Here’s another one. Thinking only of you and Thomas, of course—there’s another way to get you two unrequited lovebirds together.”

“Don’t.”

“No really. Come on. If you and I were to hook up, even for a casual thing, it wouldn’t be casual for Thomas, or for you. The two of you tried to get together through Sylvanne, and it didn’t work out, because Sylvanne wasn’t part of the coalition of the willing. Well I am! Hell, I’m volunteering right now. Sign me up!”

“It wouldn’t feel the same,” Meghan objected.

“Don’t reject it outright. Why don’t we ask Thomas what he thinks about it? You sleep on it, then let me know what he has to say. Let him have the last word.”