Downhill Chance (12 page)

Clair sank back nearer the window, cowed by the coldness of her mother’s words, and Sare, as if hollowed by the expulsion of so much, sat back down onto her chair, the trembling creeping back into her hands. And not knowing if what her mother had said was good, or if what she, Clair, had said to trigger the circumstance was bad, Clair never took time to figure. Turning towards the stairwell, she fled up over the stairs and into her room.

Missy was half beneath the bed with only her legs sticking out, talking some sort of nonsense talk. Moping to the window, Clair stared out through, yet saw nothing, absorbed as she was in her own gloom. A loud shriek caught her attention, and she looked down to see a couple of youngsters fighting over a rubber ball, and a parent running to separate them. Her glance strayed towards the houses grading down the hill to the wharf, their windows yellowing as the evening lamps were being lit, and adults and youngsters alike darting over their doorsteps and that of their neighbours, and dogs yapping besides them, and clotheslines screeching, and Phoebe running up over the bank to Joanie’s house. How busy everything and everyone looked with their singing out and running about. For certain she was no longer a part of it now—she no longer felt a part of anything. A soul hanging in the expectancy between the inhale and exhale of her mother’s breath, between the tick and the tock of the clock that reigned absolute from the kitchen wall.

“Come tell me a story, Clair,” said Missy, peering out from beneath the bed.

“What’re you doing under there?” mumbled Clair, still gazing out the window.

“Looking for fairies.”

Clair sighed.

“I have a new story—a better one. But I’m only allowed to tell it in the dark,” said Missy, her voice dropping to a whisper. “Come on, Clair, come down with me,” she coaxed, lifting up the bedspread, her eyes an enormous blue, her hair a mussed-up cloud of yellow, and her little pink mouth curled into a silencing shhh as she bade Clair to enter. Wordlessly, Clair dropped to her knees. Crawling beneath the bed with Missy, she wondered how on earth such a tiny little thing could maintain such vibrance of colour in a house forever darkening with despair.

CHAPTER FOUR

T
HE SCHOOL DOOR SWUNG OPEN,
letting out the blue-white light of a half-dozen lanterns and the shrieks and laughter of youngsters and adults alike as they sang, danced and cheered to the foot-stomping jig of an accordion.

“My God, haven’t he come along and paid ye’s yet? Sure, the soup’s half-gone,” Alma called out, poking her head outside the door and peering through the blowing sleet at the bunch of men huddling and kicking their feet to keep warm. Clair edged around their backs, trying to get nearer the door.

“I seen his head through the window when I was walking by,” said Johnnie Regular, his breath oozing the sour smell of shine as he passed the jug to Ralph. “I allows he’s still counting it out.”

“Heh, he’s paying us in coppers then,” said Crowman, “or else he’s forgotten how to add and subtract.”

“I say that’s what’s after happening, brother, and he’s scared of giving a copper too many,” said the fellow Pinkson from over the hill. “What you say, Ralph?”

“Not much I knows about that,” wheezed Ralph, the shine burning his throat. “I’m foremen over his logs, not his frigging books.”

“Go ask him if he wants a dose of salts,” said Alma, “perhaps it’s making his stomach bad having to part with his money.”

“Perhaps it’s we needing the dose of salts,” drawled Crowman, nearly trampling over Clair as she tried to worm her way around him, “standing out here, freezing our arses off, waiting to get inside and pay for a bowl of soup made with our own grub.”

“Hah! When ye spends all day peeling spuds and chopping up beef with a dozen youngsters hauling on your skirts, ye can come inside, too, and warm yourself with the women in the kitchen,” said Alma over the rising titters.

“And who’s going to bring home the meat for ye to put in the frigging pot,” sputtered Ralph, “if we spends all day standing in the kitchen, yakking? Frig, the women sees the world through a needle-hole, they do.”

“I’d rather be looking through one than trying to squeeze me fat arse through one—like them that stuffs their guts on the backs of the working man,” goaded Alma. “And looks like we got another one to put up with now; Willamena just got engaged to the young fellow Frankie from Rocky Head. Imagine that now,” she said over another rising of titters, “the merchant’s daughter marrying someone from Rocky Head.” Craning her neck to see over the heads of the men, she asked, “Show, is that young Clair standing amongst ye?”

“I’m—I’m looking for Missy,” said Clair, as the men stood apart, letting her pass.

“She’s inside,” said Alma. “Go on in and get yourself out of the cold, and tell Rose I said to give you a bowl of soup. No need for ye youngsters to stay home from the time just because your mother’s not coming. How’s her head?”

“It’s fine,” mumbled Clair, squeezing past the postmistress’s portly figure. Immediately she was into a wide, open room. Ducking towards a table piled high with coats, she screened herself, watching a group of square dancers kicking up a storm in their Sunday best. The light of the lanterns hanging along the walls bounced sharply off the faces of the women (and those men who had been able to beg or pay their way in), illuminating their good-natured smiles as they ended off the jig. Others bustled to and fro, bringing soup from a small pantry to long tables lined with white cloths. Phoebe and the other girls Clair’s age were standing around the heat-reddened, cast-iron stove, their faces flushed from the coal heat and laughing excitedly as they taunted a group of boys, sitting at the table, eating soup.

Clair grinned, struck with a sudden urge to be standing with them, wearing her own pretty blue Sunday dress, when Georgie Blanchard strutted from a back room and made to grab after Phoebe. Clair drew back, not wanting to be seen, then turned her attention onto a crowd of youngsters running pell-mell before her, the boys with their white shirts rolled up to their elbows, and the girls with their new ribbons hanging down their backs amidst ringlets and braids and ponytails, and amongst them, Missy, dressed in her old brown corduroys, a woolly red sweater, and her hair, more tangled than an abandoned crow’s nest found in a chip pile.

Ohh, Mommy will kill her, thought Clair, and was about to rush over and grab her, when Willamena and Frankie suddenly appeared out of the pantry, their arms crooked into each other’s, and sipping on glasses of blueberry wine and everyone crowding around them, laughing and talking and examining what must’ve been an engagement ring on Willamena’s finger. Clair peered curiously at the couple. Willamena, wearing a new red dress, looked almost pretty with her hair piled high on her head and a rhinestone necklace sparkling around her throat. And the fellow Frankie, grinning and nodding at those extending good wishes around him, looked just as grand in his black suit, his face scrubbed shiny clean and his hair slicked back smoother than a wet otter.

She felt like a shabbily dressed mummer in the glow of Willamena’s rhinestone necklace. A flush worked its way up Clair’s neck and she shrank farther behind the coats so’s not to be seen. “Here, Missy, come here,” she whispered as the youngsters suddenly darted nearer her, jumping up and down and swinging each other around in their best imitation of a square dance as young Jim Bushey, his face beefy-red beneath a crop of carrot hair, sat on a footstool, scrooping on his father’s accordion.

“No! Let me go,” yelled Missy as Clair’s hand popped out from the shadows, snatching hold of her arm.

“Shh, come quietly,” begged Clair, her cheeks tinting, and closing her ears against her growing protests, she dug her fingers into her younger sister’s arm, dragging her mercilessly out into the porch where the fellow Pinkson was heard exclaiming angrily, “A bloody quarter! Sir I could go after he now, and turn him upside down like a dirty pair of pants and shake him till his pockets empties out.”

“That’s right, b’ye, you’d think he’d be inside toasting his girl’s wedding; not out here robbing ye,” Alma agreed loudly, and catching sight of Clair and Missy behind her, she ushered them outside, then pushing the fellow Pinkson to one side as he backstepped, near tripping over Clair.

“The bloody thief is what he is!” Pinkson sang out, shaking his fist after the merchant who was hunching deeper into his coat as he disappeared into the sleet and dark. “The bloody thief!”

Missy whimpered, turning to Clair in fright as Ralph turned snarling onto the fellow Pinkson. “What about your store bill—old man, you got that settled up, didn’t you? I suppose you eats more than a quarter’s worth of grub every month. He gives you plenty, there.”

“Gives!” scorned the fellow Pinkson as the men’s anger grew louder. “I likes that—
gives
. He don’t
give
we nothing. He gives we what we bloody works for, and after six months’ work, you’d think we’d have more than a bloody quarter to jingle in our pockets. Sure the women makes more than that picking caplin off the beach.”

“The women!” snorted Ralph, starting towards the door. “What the frig they got to complain about? They gets all they needs when they needs it.”

“It’s the sound of a jingle, Ralph, b’ye, that a man likes to hear coming from his own pockets every once in a while,” said Crowman, clapping him on the shoulder, “even if he do take it out and give it to the youngsters to give right back to the merchant. At least he feels like it’s himself that’s doing the giving. Show, look, you’re near trampling the young ones,” he added, catching sight of Clair and Missy, huddling near the school, staring up at them. “Get along home,” he said kindly, “not fit to be outside.” Casting him a grateful look, Clair led Missy around him, darting past Ralph as he teetered over them, bellowing, “Be the frig now, if the youngsters cares whether they’re taking it from the merchant or not. As long as it’s sweet enough to rot their teeth now, that’s all they thinks about.”

“How come you’re arguing agin we, anyway?” asked Al Rice. “He’s stealing from you, too—unless you’re planning on doing the same thing someday.” Clair ran with Missy as Ralph swerved around, grabbing hold of Al’s collar.

“I ain’t no frigging thief!” he roared, “I works for my dollar like every man here, and I ain’t going to frigging stand here apologizing if I becomes a frigging boss!”

“No need, Ralph, b’ye, no need,” said Crowman, taking hold of Ralph’s arm. “The merchants been robbing us blind since our fathers were shitting yellow. Nothing we can do to change it this night.” And then Johnnie was holding back Al.

“Good say, Crow, b’ye, good say,” said Johnnie, patting Al’s back coaxingly. “What say we all goes inside, else we’ll be spitting blood if the women gets ahold of us—fighting this early in the evening.”

“I won’t be talked about,” blustered Ralph as the men led him towards the school door. “I earns my living like every man here—be frigged if I’ll have it said any other way.”

“Sure you do, b’ye, sure you do,” joined in another, “We’re all just joking, that’s all, just joking.”

“Who’s hogging the shine? Let’s all have another drop; sure we don’t look pretty enough yet to go dancing; it’s red the women likes in our eyes, not spit.”

“I won’t be talked over,” argued Ralph, louder than the others.

“No, but be Jesus, you’ll be walked over if you soon don’t get outta the way,” said another, jostling through the men to get inside. “I been standing out here long enough.”

Holding tight to Missy’s hand, Clair hurried through the sleet towards home, glancing over her shoulder as the men stomped the snow off their feet, crowding their way in through the doorway, handing over their quarters to Alma. Missy kept twisting around as well, slipping and sliding as she partially hid behind Clair’s back to escape the wind. Her step slowed as the last of the men disappeared inside.

“I wants to go back,” she yelled as Clair, head bowed to the blowing sleet, dragged her onwards, oblivious of her cries. Fighting to keep her balance on the ice building up on the road, Clair managed to get her, kicking and fighting through the gate, then latched it, barring her escape.

“Now listen, Mommy’s really sick tonight,” she cautioned.

But Missy was already bursting in through the door, yelling: “Mommy, Mommeee!” and skidding across the kitchen, she came to a halt where her mother was lying back on the divan, a damp cloth folded around a bread poultice resting across her forehead.

“Shh,” Clair hushed, running after her, but her mother was already rising.

The bread poultice had slipped to one side, and she was whispering, “Don’t yell, ohh, don’t yell.”

“But I wants to stay at the time,” said Missy.

“You can,” said Clair, closing the door and slipping off her coat. “But first we cleans you up, all right?” she said soothingly, carrying a pan of water from the washstand to the table.

“Mommeee!”

“I said shh,” said Sare, opening her eyes and squinting like one jarred from a deep sleep by an unexpected light. They widened as she fixed them onto Missy’s dirtied clothes and hair. “Mercy, were you at the time looking like that?”

“I’m going back.”

“First, let Clair wash your hair, my dolly.”

“Noo,” cried Missy and swinging away from her mother, darted towards the door.

“No you don’t,” said Clair, catching her by the sweater and dragging her to the table. “It won’t take long—come now, we’ll make you real pretty and then you can go.”

As Missy yelled, Sare, her face pinched with pain, came to her feet, pleading, “Ooh, angel, don’t yell, for I swear, I’ll be throwing up agin tonight.”

“See, it makes Mommy sick when you yell; be a good girl, now; come on—”

“Let me go!” said Missy, shoving against Clair. “Lemme go, lemme go!”

“Stop it!” ordered Sare. And surprised by the sharpness of her mother’s cry, Clair let go of Missy, and Missy, losing her balance, stumbled sideways, knocking against the table and sending the pan of water spilling to the floor.

“Now look what you’ve done!” said Sare, and Missy’s face whitened as she looked from the spilled water to her mother’s face. With a cry, she ran for the stairs, but slipping on the water, she again lost her balance, teetering awkwardly. Snatching hold of her shoulder, Sare held her upright, but, whether to catch her from falling, or to catch her from escaping, Missy never paused to consider. Opening her mouth, she let go with a scream that sent a grimace across her mother’s face. Releasing Missy, Sare clasped her hands to ears.