Free Following the Summer by Lise Bissonnette Page A

makeup the colour of no flesh that ever existed. My hips will be broad, he’ll pat me on the rear.
    She knew that she would arrange to grow old far away from him. She packed their bags at dawn while he slept, she still had years to leave him. Only the Corrines of this world were authentic, they are the only women who endure to the end of every summer, whose wrinkled hands make young men throw back their shoulders. On the eve of her wedding she had sworn never to see her again, the park would shut down when the cold came, there was no reason, she had lost her way. But the sirens screamed at daybreak. She would find her again, to learn.

Twelve
    E RVANT HAD CALCULATED A THREE-YEAR WAIT before they purchased a house. They would live on one salary and stockpile the other. And postpone having children until they possessed a back yard. Their three-room apartment in one of the first blocks to go up behind the hospital would be furnished sparsely while they waited. To the west the windows looked out on the first slope of a hill, on bare trees. They hadn’t had time to eat on the balcony even once before the first sudden showers. Everything shut properly, the closet doors as well as the one to the landing. They could hear nothing and Ervant could turn up the stereo and the TV set, which he liked to have on at all times.
    He no longer worked nights. He’d moved up to the surface, to conveyor-belt maintenance. When Marie went home in the middle of the day she missed him. The white sun in the warm bedroom was made for Ervant, so playful when he made love. He laughed in what he said was the language of cats, clawing faintly, and he could come just like that while looking into her eyes. Evenings, they had to talk a little more, find ways to understand each other. With a key now, and a mailbox in his name, he was able to shake off his memories. Already conversations sprang from something else, from school, the mine, the newspaper, often from TV series. Early dark, the swift passage of time.
    She had little time to look for Corrine, but she knew she must. In class a dark-haired twelve-year-old girl stared at her with the same eyes, slightly protruding and obstinate, in a face made red by cold houses. For once Marie took an interest in a pupil, even though she was without talent. Who talked fast, gave orders, wrote dirty words in English on the board, and pushed around the younger, timid pupils. Marie had seized an illustrated pornographic book that lay open on her desk, a European publication brought here through some chain of forlorn nomads. The child had faltered. Her splendid arrogance was gone now, and from quivering lips came a faded voice. “It’s my father’s ...” Her fear passed like a sudden chill. Marie had pictured a violent father, a pleasure-seeker from whom the daughter had stolen a secret. She had taken pity and heard herself simply ask the girl to leave the book at home. She had said thanks, and in her mouth the word sounded like one in a foreign language. Her name was Diane, though, like other local girls.
    One late November evening a violent rainstorm froze the snow that had fallen the day before. People walked on the road, where the ruts iced over more slowly. There, not far from the school, she saw Diane walking — alone, bareheaded, already soaking wet. She followed her for a while, a small form with hunched shoulders whom a car could have swept away like a wisp of straw. A little slip of a thing. Marie’s umbrella was red, more easily visible. She took the girl’s hand and went two or three blocks with her. Her palm was as cold as her fingers, what was the terror that filled this child? She wanted to walk her home, but Diane stopped to take her leave at the corner by the Protestant school. A streedamp lit the deserted schoolyard. Marie saw a face puffy with tears, heard the beginning of a hiccup. A second later, perhaps two, and Diane had gone. She saw her fall on Pinder hill, get