Downhill Chance (14 page)

“God bless you, you never got much of a chance to say anything, the way I was getting on,” said Sare, hugging Clair tightly to her side. “My, Clair, isn’t it grand news? Missy, Missy, come here, my love,” and dropping to her chair, Sare gazed lovingly into her younger girl’s eyes. “You’re an angel, a sweet blessed angel, that’s what you are,” she whispered. “She dreamt about him last night, Alma, didn’t she, Clair? Took word to him, she did, and now he’s found a way to bring word back to us. It’s nothing short of a miracle! A blessed miracle!”

Clair nodded, grinning at Missy. Miracle or no, her father was coming home, and Missy’s dream was their first sign of that fortunate event, and for that, Clair was as eager as her mother to heap upon her the praise worthy of the saints. And indeed, Missy’s returning smile captured for Clair again the sun’s rays within her sheen of curls, evaporating fully the shadow that had been engulfing all of them since the day of her father’s departure.

“Yup, it’s good news, for sure,” said Alma, taking time to check around the kitchen now that the excitement was dying down. “I always runs around with the mail when something important comes. I figures everyone wants good news as quick as possible. You girls not going to school today?”

Sare gasped, coming to her feet, “Of course they’re going to school. Clair, Missy, your cereal. Oh, it must be cold by now.” Ushering them both to the table, she near waltzed Alma out the door, asking after her poor mother.

“Grand, my dear, she’s grand,” replied Alma. “Up with the birds and more chipper than the youngsters.”

“What a good thing for you,” sang Sare. “You take her my regards, won’t you, and come back for tea—the both of you, especially when Job gets back; he always asks after your mother, he do,” and then she was closing the door and turning back into the kitchen with the broadest of smiles. Letting out a whoop, she squeezed her arms around herself, dancing around the kitchen, her head tossed back, eyes closed, singing foolishly, “He’s safe and he’s coming home, he’s safe and he’s coming home, oh thank you, sweet Jesus, thank you, sweet Jesus.”

“Now, you help Missy get off to school, Clair, and I’ll make some rice pudding with raisins for your lunch—you’ll like that, won’t you, my dollies? And I’ll make up some extra for us to take up to the grandmother and Uncle Sim. They’ll be happy to know your father’s coming home.”

“You go,” said Clair to Missy, her smiles giving way to a grimace as she pulled on her coat.

“My, Clair, you knows you’re not going to pout on this day of all days. You go to school now, and hurry straight home after. In the name of the Lord, child, we owes it to the grandmother to tell her ourselves, for she’s the one who gave him birth, and for that alone, she has my prayers.”

Waving goodbye to her mother watching after them through the kitchen window, Clair pushed out through the gate, breathing deeply of the balsam-scented air of late winter, admiring how the sawdust spread golden mats across the last fingers of snow arching across door places and backyards. A drop of water dripped from a passing cloud and splattered against her eye, squiggling her vision. Dancing crazily before were her the greens of the surrounding hillside, the reds and blues of the clapboard painted houses, and the indigo of the far-flung hills cradling the rocking blue sea—the sea, the waterway that would soon be bringing her father home to her. And she ran after Missy towards the schoolhouse, slowing her step as she came abreast Phobie and Joanie, singing out to them that yes, yes, her father was coming home. And wasn’t it grand that summer would soon be here and they could all go swimming again down on the sandbar at the mouth of Wild Bear River and beachcombing down by Copy-Cat Cove? And yes, for sure they’d be going back to Cat Arm come winter, to sliding beneath the stars, and whistling to the northern lights, and bribing old Pearl uphill with a downhill chance. Ohh, it was an impossible thought!

CHAPTER FIVE

T
HE DAY OF JOB’S ARRIVAL
dawned a brilliant clear sky. Up with the chickens as she had been since the day of the letter three months before, Sare rustled through the house like a spring breeze, dusting, polishing, tidying, having days before scrubbed down the floors, walls and ceilings, and painted and touched up chairs and skirting boards and window benches, and a hundred other varied and sundry tasks that the house had been begging for since the day of Job’s departure. The neighbours waved cheerily as she stood in the window, polishing and smiling out at them as they passed by, lugging their buckets of water or heading for the wood trails with their axes and bucksaws. For despite the scorn that had been heaped upon his departure, the outporters had been buzzing for days about Job’s return, and wondering amongst themselves—and to Sare, now that she was getting out a bit more—what stories he might have to tell about the war and other things that come with travelling over the seas.

Clair skipped lightly down over the stairs, not wanting to miss a second of this promising day, and came to a standstill as her eyes lit onto her mother standing before the bin. It wasn’t so much that Sare was whipping up a pudding this morning before the sun had yet to rise, but that she was doing so dressed in her red satin skirt that she only wore on Christmas Day or Easter Sunday, with an edging of white petticoat slipping a little below the hemline, and her white, high-collared blouse with the pearly buttons. And gracing her neck and earlobes were the rhinestone necklace and matching earrings that Job had given her for her birthday that first year they had married.

“You’re the early bird this morning,” said Sare gaily, wiping up a floption of flour and water she had spilled onto the bin. “For goodness’ sake, Clair, are you sleepwalking?” she asked as Clair continued to stand, wide-eyed.

“You’re wearing your Christmas clothes,” said Clair.

“Is that what I’m wearing?” said Sare, cracking an egg and stirring it into the mixing bowl. “And I thought it was a skirt and blouse.”

“But it looks silly—everybody will stare.”

“What’s wrong with that? Your father’s coming home today, child. Why wouldn’t you want to be dressed grandly on the day your father’s coming home?” She swung proudly past her daughter, her skirt rustling around her stockinged legs as she pulled a cake pan out of the bottom drawer of the stove. “Now, you get yourself some breakfast,” she said, waltzing back to the sink, “then, go wake Missy. I wants you to wash her hair so’s it’ll be nice and fresh. You knows how your father likes to smell her hair after it’s all washed and fresh. And then you can make your bed, and put on your nice dress and the new stockings that I bought you for church last month.”

“But it’s Saturday,” said Clair. “I’m not walking down on the wharf dressed like Christmas on a Saturday. Everybody will be staring.”

“Goodness mercy, Clair, are you going to stand there arguing about what day of the week it is? Your father’s coming home. Now go get washed and get your breakfast

like I asked you.”

“But I’m not wearing no Sunday clothes on a Saturday—”

“Well, sir,” sighed Sare, standing arms akimbo, “Saturday or no, you’ll go get dressed like I asked you. If the good Lord can see fit to bring your father home from across the world, then I see fit that we be dressed respectably to greet him when he gets here, because for sure, it’s a day of all days, isn’t it, with your father coming home? And isn’t that when we wears our best clothes—on the day of all days?”

Clair moped to the washstand, staring morosely at her mother in the mirror, knowing better than to argue with her when she was on about the higher moral of things. But as grand as it was that her father was coming home, she wasn’t going to be wearing her Sunday clothes on a Saturday for Phoebe and everybody else to be pointing and staring at. A shuffling outside signalled the uncle, and coupled with her mother looking like a Christmas wreath, a sourness tempered some of the joy of the morning. The door opened and she saw before the uncle entered, the thoughtful look bringing life to his otherwise dulled eyes, for wasn’t it one’s make-up to sniff out that which was new? To juggle a closing door against the bounty of another? And now with his brother coming home to warm his own hearth, what right had he now to the fresh loaves of bread and sweet puddings, and Missy’s labours to cleanse his bin? And for sure, thought Clair, drowning her face in a handful of water, he’d have to find some other poor mortals to steal his grub from now that her father had come home.

“I’m going to tell Daddy,” she silently promised herself as her mother, brushing bread crumbs off her hands, greeted the uncle with smiles.

“You’re up and about early,” she declared, closing the door behind him. “Come in, come in, and have a cup of tea.”

“No. No tea,” said Sim, his eyes sinking onto the sliver of lace edging below her skirt.

Sare, quick to follow his look, stepped prudently behind a chair. “I was just arguing with Clair about how silly it must seem to be dressing up on a Saturday,” she said. “But it’s Job’s homecoming, after all.”

“Are you coming with us to see Daddy, Uncle Sim?” asked Missy, running down the stairs and over to her uncle.

“The wind’s off the water,” said Sim, patting the back of Missy’s curls. “The grandmother asked if she can wait up with her,” he said to Sare, scuffing his feet on the piece of cardboard she had laid as a mat before the door.

“My goodness, no,” exclaimed Sare. “Job would want to see her on the wharf, waiting for him. Tell grandmother she’s a dear, and Job will be proud to know how well his mother’s been keeping company with his little girl, but, blessed heart, he’ll miss her if she’s not waiting on the wharf for him, won’t he, Clair?”

Clair scratched a smile across her face as she looked to the uncle, but it was onto Missy that his eyes were fastened, and it satisfied the jealousy breeding in her heart to see the look of disappointment settling over his wrinkling old face, for she had been a good bone, had Missy, always there to be played with, to do the dirty dishes, and to buffer the heat between him and the grandmother. And for sure, thought Clair—her happiness this morning extending a rare moment of charity towards the uncle—in a house as darkened with pettiness as her own had been in despair, Missy’s would be a precious light to lose.

“I’ll come tomorrow, Uncle Sim, won’t I, Mommy?”

“Of course you will. And tell Grandmother, Job will be up, too—and me and Clair. It’s the least we can do, now that the good Lord has brought us all together again—to show ourselves as a family. What do you say, Clair? My, Sim, are you sure you won’t stay for tea?”

“No, no, I’ll be going.”

“Bless you for thinking of us. And now that Job’s coming home, you won’t have to bother with us any more. God knows you’ve seen us through these past horrible years. I swear, I don’t know what we would’ve done without you.”

The uncle bowed in the face of Sare’s praise. “I’ll go with ye when the boat comes,” he said gravely.

“That’s all right; we can walk ourselves,” said Clair impulsively.

“He’s family, and Job will want him there, too,” said Sare, eyeing her daughter sharply. “Bless you, and give Grandmother our love,” she called out as the uncle, with scarcely a glance at Clair, let himself out the door. The second the latch clicked, Sare spun onto her eldest girl.

“You’ll mind your ungratefulness! I allows your poor father’s heart’s going to be broke if he hears how bad you behaves towards his brother after all he’s done for us this past two years.”

“He does for his self,” muttered Clair.

“He’d have to walk on water before he’d get a kind thought from you, and even then, I swear you’d be checking the soles of his feet for stilts. Now, go get dressed, and don’t argue no more about the clothes I got laid out, because you’re wearing them, supposing I got to dress you myself. Missy! Missy, come here, child, I washes your face and combs your hair. Go on, Clair, up over them stairs!” she ordered, pulling Missy to the washstand. “Landsakes, the tangles,” she complained, trying to draw a brush through Missy’s hair, “it’s a wonder you got any hair left on your head. Where’s your ribbons? Have you got any ribbons? Clair, have a look around her room and find me some ribbons. I swear I’ve used a yard of material making ribbons this past year and I still can’t find one when I needs it.” Backing up to the stairwell, leading Missy by a ringlet, she called out, “Clair, Clair, are you looking for ribbons, or you just going to spend the day moping? I swear your father’s going to have his hands full with the two of you once he gets back.”

“I listens,” said Missy, as Sare bustled her back to the washstand, wetting the brush into the wash pan. “Clair’s ignorant.”

“For the love of it, Missy, where’re you learning words like that—and saying them against your sister?”

“Uncle Sim tells them to her,” shouted Clair, tossing two yellow ribbons down from the landing.

“No, he don’t,” shouted Missy.

“Yes, he do,” Clair shouted back. “He’s a bloody blackguard.”

“Clair!” Sare ran back to the stairs, wielding the hairbrush like a tomahawk, but her eldest was already disappearing inside her room, slamming the door behind her. “The sting of my hand is what you’re going to feel, young lady, if I hears one more word,” Sare yelled up over the stairs. “I swear I don’t know where the two of you is getting your bad manners, because it was never a thing allowed around here. My, is that the pudding? Well, sir, I forgot all about the pudding, and it’s black currant, your father’s favourite. Ohh, I allows it black as the cinders. Clair? Clair—get dressed and get down over them stairs and help me this morning.”

Clair trudged down over the stairs, her face darker than a rain cloud as she pressed down the skirt of her plaid Sunday dress, watching her mother bustling to and fro in a rustle of silks and petticoat. When finally the pudding was scraped, and Missy’s hair was brushed and tied up with ribbons, and they had all eaten breakfast and with the dishes washed and floors swept and waxed and buffed, the booming of the steamer sounded up over the hill.

“He’s here,” cried Sare, running for her coat. Sim, his hair wet back off his forehead, and wearing his Sunday jacket, tapped on the door, poking his head inside. “I allows you’re going to have to hold me down,” cried Sare running to meet him, “because I swear my feet just wants to up and fly. Missy, Clair, come on, let’s go. And watch out for the ruts in the road so’s you don’t get mud on your new stockings— Missy? Clair?”