She could not heal all of Spanner’s hurt, she could not even offer the kind of love she thought Spanner might want, but she could offer the beginnings of trust. She hoped Spanner would know what to do with it. She thought about bulbs unfolding in the cold and dark, reaching up through the soil in blind faith.
Winter had come slowly and gently Lore’s first year in the city, but the soft grays of December changed suddenly to an iron frost in January. The sun no longer reached high enough to coat the sandstone of the Polar Bear with gold. In the morning, the light was lemony-gray, like a falsely tinted black and white photograph. People walking stiffly in the cold on their way to the slide poles squinted against the long, slanting sunshine, the occasional glitter of frost on the pavement. A squirrel, its thick winter coat-making it comical, like a furry dumpling, looked up at the ice-slicked cable that ran past the second-floor window, and stayed on the ground. It scrabbled halfheartedly at the frozen dirt around the roots of the tree outside. Lore wondered why it wasn’t hibernating.
Outside, the temperature plummeted. Spanner went out less frequently to do business—“People don’t go out as much in this weather.” And Lore, who had now cleared most of the debris from the back garden and planted her spring bulbs more than a month ago, only went out to leave plates of leftovers for the cat she had seen that once.
They were watching the news and drinking loc—a hot, chocolate liqueur—when they heard about a fire in the warehouse district.
“Get your coat on.”
By the time they got there, the firefighters were gone and all that was left was the stink of charred three-hundred-year-old timbers and bricks cracked open by the heat. The warehouse was still dripping, but icicles were forming, and the lake of hose water was turning to sheet ice. There was no one about; it was too cold for sightseeing. In the orangy street light, Lore’s breath cloud looked like a bizarre special effect.
“Keep your eyes open.”
“What-” But Spanner was already bending down, levering up what looked like a section of pavement but which turned out to be a two-foot-square panel of plastone.
“What are you doing?”
“This is the master switch”—she pointed at a red panel—“but we don’t want them all.” She flipped up the lid of the nearest of a row of squat gray boxes and touched something. Four streetlights went dark. She opened a second box. More lights went out.
“Come on.” She pulled a hand light from her pocket. Its blue-white beam licked at the rubble. She scrambled up over a pile of bricks and pipe. The flashlight whipped around as she turned. “What’s the matter?”
Lore shaded her eyes with her hand, spoke to a silhouette. “It won’t be safe. Why don’t we just wait for the fire-fighters to come back when it’s light and flatten everything. Then we could take our time.”
“Five minutes after the building is safe, there won’t be anything left. And there are some good timbers here.”
There were. There were so many that once Spanner had a pile of what she wanted—which had cost Lore a burned finger and several scares as rafters sagged, suddenly, and floor timbers shifted—she called Billy and Ann, who brought a van. Obviously stolen for the occasion.
“But what do we want wood for?” Lore asked.
“A new front door.”
“What’s wrong with the one we have?”
“Does it matter? Maybe I just want a new one.”
Lore eyed the beams warily. Risking their lives, just because Spanner wanted something to do.
Lore and Spanner spent nine days building a new door from the thick, old timbers they had scavenged. They took down the old door and hung the new one the afternoon the rain turned to a thin gray snow.
Lore stretched her back and kicked the old door, “I don’t relish hauling it about in this weather.”
“We could break it up for firewood.”
“We don’t need a fire. It’s already hot in here.” The flat was stifling. Spanner ran illegal spurs from the power lines and was as profligate with heat as with everything else: food, sex, promises.
But Spanner had disappeared into the hallway and come back with a sledgehammer. She hefted it a couple of times. Lore stepped out of the way and Spanner swung. The old door splintered with a satisfying crack!
“I said, we don’t need a fire. It’s-”
“If you’re hot, open the windows. Fresh air’s good for you.” She swung again.
Lore did not understand Spanner when she got in these moods. She had no point of reference for the frenzy, the constant urge to do, to use, to experience that often lasted for several days at a time. So she tried to remember what she knew about open fires, and peered as best she could up the chimney to see if the flue was clear. There was no ash in the grate. “Have you had a fire here before?”
“I’m sure I must have.” Rip. Splinter.
Lore moved the plants. We’ll need some paper, and kindling. I think.” She rummaged around. “We don’t have any paper.”
Spanner paused, breathing heavily. “Look under the bed.”
Lore trooped into the bedroom. Looked. “There’s only your box.”
“Then we’ll use some of that stuff.”
“No. We can-”
“Bring it,” Spanner yelled. Lore sighed, and did.
“Open it.” Crunch, splinter.
It was full of old photographs and documents. What looked like a birth certificate from the middle of the last century. “I don’t think you’ll want to use this.” She started to put the lid back on, uncomfortable with the idea that she had been wrist-deep in Spanner’s private family history.
Spanner dropped the sledgehammer and squatted down by Lore. She took a random handful of papers from the box, screwed them up, and tossed them on the grate.
“But don’t you want-”
Spanner ignored her and kept taking handfuls from the box, occasionally tearing a large piece into shreds. “Should burn well enough.”
Lore grabbed her hands. “Stop. Stop just a minute. We can go buy some paper if you like. You don’t have to use these.” Spanner shrugged her off hands already moving again. “Or we could use something flammable. Alcohol, maybe.”
“It’s just paper.”
They were Spanner’s memories. “Why are you doing this?” Why now, after all these years of hoarding them, keeping them safe Spanner said nothing, but Lore thought she knew: because now that Spanner had started to talk about them—the memories, the pictures—they were a point of vulnerability for her. Get rid of the pictures, get rid of the memories. No more vulnerability. No more weak points. The armor would be smooth again. “I won’t help you burn them.”
Lore walked into the kitchen and filled the kettle. Instead of putting it on the burner, she stared outside. Once she could see past her own reflection, she saw there was a squirrel in the garden, digging. Digging up her bulbs, eating them one by one. All that work, gone in an afternoon. She felt bitter. There did not seem to be any point in trying.
Back in the living room Spanner laid the paper in the grate, followed by some of the smaller splinters from the door, then some larger boards. Lore watched as Spanner plugged in her soldering iron and used that to set alight the paper. Watched as a wisp of smoke turned into a river flowing upward, and the paper seemed to disappear.
“It’s not working.” Spanner poked at the burning mess with the sledgehammer handle. The bits of broken door were blackening, but not catching. “Why isn’t it working?” She screwed up more paper, threw it on. A ball of burning paper roared up the chimney, borne on hot air.
Lore plucked a large splinter from the rug, examined it. “It’s not wood,” she said. “I mean, it is, but it’s that pressed stuff. It’s not going to burn.”
“Fuck it!” Spanner threw the sledgehammer into the fire. Burning scraps of paper went everywhere. “Let’s go get a drink.”
They went out and drank too much and came back to hard, sweaty sex and fitful sleep. At least Lore slept. When she woke up, Spanner was pacing around the bed, talking about the projects she wanted to start on: relaying the floor, decorating, maybe rewiring the place. She had obviously been up all night, working herself up to this pitch. Lore let the talk flow over her as she got dressed.