Downhill Chance (17 page)

Crow and Johnnie looked uneasily betwixt Sare and Ralph, but it was to her father’s hands that Clair kept watch, and saw almost before he started, his fingers beginning to tap on the table. Sare noticed instantly as well and, without further ado, held out her arm to her husband, addressing the men in a clear even tone. “It’s time for him to get his bandages changed and then have a nap. Talking about the war always wears him out—that’s why I don’t allow it. You men finish your tea now,” she added as Job began easing himself out of his chair and onto her arm, “while I helps him upstairs, and perhaps ye can come back again when he’s feeling stronger.”

There was a chorus of agreements and Clair hid her face as her mother walked past, her father leaning heavily on her shoulder, into the stairwell. Hearing their step on the stairs, she tossed her book to one side and crept after them, peering around the bannister, watching as her father bent over from the waist, his breathing coming in harsh, fast gulps, and his face turning redder than anything.

“Shh, easy, breathe easy, my love,” her mother murmured, and Clair pulled back so’s not to be seen again— as she had that first time, during his second week at home, and she had rushed to her mother’s side, frightened that her father was choking or dying of some horrible fit. A look of absolute forbidding from her mother had frozen her step, but not before her father, in the midst of his anguished breathing, had also seen her. Collapsing onto the step, he had dropped his head between his knees, shuddering as his breathing became more even and he was able to look at her.

“Come here,” he had whispered hoarsely. And her mother had stood clicking her tongue disapprovingly as she crept fearfully up the stairs, bowing before him. “Look at me,” he had whispered, and she had raised her head, forcing her eyes onto his. They were almost the same as before in the soft light of the stairwell, chocolatey brown and warm. But there were those lines, those wretched lines that entrenched the skin below them like bloodless cuts that forever warned of the pain he was suffering within, a pain she knew that was as separate from the shrapnel in his back as was a shoe from the foot that wore it.

He smiled, the cuts deepening, and taking hold of her arms, he pulled her towards him, his breath sour on her face, and his chin scratchy as he rested it on her brow. “It appears them stairs have gotten higher since I left,” he said hoarsely. “Now I knows how poor old Pearl felt down Cat Arm, dragging them loads to the top of the hill. But she never broke for rest, did she?” he added, pushing her away a bit. “Hey— this old wound’s going to get better,” he said deeply, a grin torturing his face as he prodded her shoulder, forcing her to look up at him. “Even old buggers like me gets a downhill chance. And them—spells—are just part of it. It didn’t frighten you none, did it?”

She shook her head.

“That’s good, then,” said he, “that’s good. Great teachers can’t be scared. You’re still going to be a great teacher someday, are you?”

She nodded.

“Tomorrow you’ll read for me?”

“Yes, Daddy.”

He nodded. “Tomorrow, then. Perhaps it’ll remind me I’m home agin,” he mumbled, his voice falling off. She stared at him questioningly, but he was already rising, his breathing becoming more and more normal—as it was becoming now as she stood in the stairwell, peering around the bannister more carefully this time, watching as they began ascending. The men rose, quietly leaving, and creeping back out of the stairwell, Clair gathered up their teacups and cleaned the half-eaten grunt off their plates.

DESPITE HER FATHER’S SICKNESS,
there was joy to their mother’s step during those first few months he had returned. Scurrying around the kitchen, cooking, baking and cleaning, she spoke with a song to her voice as she chattered continuously to Clair and Missy to pour some water for their father, for sure he must be thirsty, to fetch some sugar for his tea, for sure it must be too strong, and pass him a bit of shredded cabbage. My, Father, it tastes some sweet this year, and for the love of the Lord, Missy, go out in the garden and play, because I swear you’re forever beneath my feet these days. And for a while during those long summer days when she’d come back from picking fireweed at Purple Flowers, or beachcombing down by Copy-Cat Cove with Phoebe and Joanie, and seeing her mother squat in the flower bed, wearing her faded pink hat and weeding the sweet williams whilst her father sat puffing his pipe and watching through the open window, it felt to Clair as if things truly were going to be all right again, and it was only a matter of time before the piece of shrapnel in her father’s back healed and they’d be climbing aboard the boat, heading for Cat Arm, making angels in the snow, and whistling up to God, reminding Him of their small corner. Even Missy stopped traipsing behind her mother, and acting skittish around her father. And best of all, since their father’s homecoming, the uncle scarcely came around any more. And when he did, there were few words exchanged, except for those of Sare’s as she covered the brothers’ quiet with chatter about the grandmother’s arthritis and how her and Job keeps meaning to drop by, but that the pain from Job’s wound goes right down his leg, crippling him worse than the grandmother. “The poor dear,” she added during one of those visits, “she’s been cooped up for as long as I can remember. Do you think she minds it much—not getting out?”

“It’s hard on her, for sure,” mumbled Sim.

Clair, settled comfortably on the divan, looked up from her book in surprise as her father replied rather brusquely, “Ahh, Mother! She was always for the house, crippled or not.”

“Might be,” said Sim. “Still don’t make it easy, none— always needing someone at hand.”

“You knows it must be hard,” murmured Sare sympathetically, pouring more tea into his cup, “always having to be on hand. It can’t give you much of a life.”

The uncle’s head sagged. “I won’t leave her. It don’t matter much now anyhows—I feels older than she.”

Sare tutted, but held her tongue as Job leaned forward, pointing his pipe stem at Sim. “There’s always been ways if you wanted to,” he said in a no-nonsense tone. “Father never trapped furs all them years for nothing. There’s money tucked away, enough to pay for a serving girl if ever you wanted to go off.”

“The grandmother has money?” questioned Sare in some surprise.

Sim shifted uncomfortably. “Be some serving girl now, to please Mother.”

“You were never one for not pleasing yourself,” said Job.

“My, Job … ,” started Sare, but Job was turning back to his window, the smoke puffing faster out of his pipe, and his turned back signalling he had already left the room. Clair’s book had fallen to one side and she half rose—her eyes narrowing as she turned them onto the uncle’s sagging head and drooping shoulders. He had money? Yet he’d stolen from them? Her loathing from the day she’d stood before Willamena and the others near choked her, and she might’ve spoken then if not for her mother catching the explosion about to take place within her daughter and stepping forward with a raised hand of warning. And still she suffered to speak, and might have, if not for Missy thumping across the hall and swooshing down the bannister, calling out, “Uncle Sim, Uncle Sim, are we going raking today?” And flying across the kitchen, she landed in his lap, her arms whipping around his neck.

“Here, child! My, she’s the ticket,” exclaimed Sare, turning from Clair and hauling Missy off her uncle’s lap. “Go—outside—and wait,” she ordered, pointing her finger towards the door.

“No, I’ll wait for Uncle Sim,” said Missy, hopping impatiently.

“There now, and he hasn’t even finished his tea,” said Sare as Sim rose, readying to leave.

“The sun’ll be down soon,” he mumbled.

“I allows that’s a job for me and Clair before long,” said Sare, “raking up the yard. Mind she’s no trouble, Sim.”

“I’m going to stay for supper—all right, Mommy?” Missy sang out, running out the door.

“Mind you watches yourself,” Sare called back. “Sim, send her home if she doesn’t watch herself. My, she’s one for her grandmother, she is, Father,” she said, closing the door behind Sim and trailing back to the kitchen. “If we could only get that one to go visit every once in a while,” she added, frowning Clair’s way, a touch of warning still riding her brow, “but I don’t bother trying any more. I allows if I never made her go with me sometimes, she wouldn’t know she had a grandmother.”

“Cut from the same cloth,” said Job, and the tightness in Clair’s throat lessened a little as his lips curled into a smile around the stem of his pipe, despite the disapproving tut of her mother’s tongue. “Perhaps she can read to me,” he then said, making her heart leap a little, for it was rare that he asked her to read since he came home, and she always had a story ready, chance he should ask. Today it was Missy’s story of the banshee stealing the little girl and putting a changeling in her place and taking the little girl into the woods to become a fairy. She had taken to writing down Missy’s stories since her father had returned, giving her another excuse to dawdle across the table from him and not be driven out the door or up over the stairs by her mother. Running to her room to fetch her scribbler, she smiled, listening to her mother’s chatter ringing through the house with the charm of a songbird as she talked with her father, her melody drowning out the ticking of the clock, and drawing them forward into winter. And yes, Clair agreed, upon running back down over the stairs, it was time to start raking the garden before winter come and they still hadn’t parted with last year’s leaves. And my, won’t it be grand when they were able to pack up the boat and motor down to Cat Arm again, when Father’s wound got better, and throw on a pan of fresh liver and go sliding down the hill again at night, and whistling for the heavens to dance? Yes, for sure it would be, for sure it would be.

And no doubt it would’ve happened, Sare was to lament in time to come, had it not been for the trek Job made with that young fellow Luke from Rocky Head that horrid night.

It was a late evening and well over a year since his return when he appeared more pained than usual by his wound. Sare was leading him up over the stairs to bed, and Clair trailed behind, sickened by the low moans escaping him.

“The lamp, Clair,” her mother spoke over her shoulder. “Put out the lamp.” And Clair had darted back to the table, about to blow out the lamp when a sound from outside caught her attention, followed by a quiet tap on the door. She cupped her hand to the window, staring outside. The houses were blackened all around, and the sky dark with cloud. The tap sounded again, softer than before, as if it feared awakening the souls sleeping within, and then her eyes drew in the tall figure hunched besides the door.

The uncle, she thought, darting across the kitchen. Something’s wrong with the grandmother. Pulling open the door, she started back in fright at the unknown face before her, darkened as much from a beaver cap pulled low over his brow, its flaps hanging loosely around his ears, as from the dark. “My name’s Luke—Luke Osmond. I’d like to speak with Job Gale,” he said with a quiet that belied the sense of urgency directing his hands as he pulled off his cap and held it as a shield before him. Luke. The one who had sat in the boat, his back to those around him. Till her father had called his name. He shifted, the red of his mouth feverish against the paleness of the lamplight, and the blue of his eyes pleading his words.

She shook her head, shrinking back. “He’s real sick tonight,” she said apologetically.

“I won’t take long,” he said as she prepared to close to the door. A movement upon the road caught her attention and she noted Frankie standing there, fumbling with his cap the same as Luke was now doing.

“He can hardly walk,” she said more loudly, her eyes addressing them both. And despite her curiosity, firmly closed the door. She stood for a moment, listening to Luke’s footsteps as he walked out of the garden, back upon the road. A murmur of voices, then silence, aside from the rapid beating of her heart and her anxious questioning of whether or not she’d done right. Her father’s step sounded heavy on the ceiling and she turned the lock. Trailing back to the divan, she slouched upon the pillows, reliving again the image of Luke on her stoop. Already it began to feel as though she’d imagined the whole thing.

Minutes passed, not many it seemed, for her father’s step was still dragging around upstairs, when another sound came from outside. This time a shuffling, and leaping to her feet, she ran lightly across the kitchen, knowing it was the uncle.

“He’s sick,” she half whispered, unlocking the door and opening it, but the uncle brushed inside like a squall of wind, treading across the kitchen towards the stairwell. He called out, “Job! Job, they wants to talk to you, b’ye—the ones from Rocky Head.”

“He’s in bed,” Clair cried out, running after him, mindful of Frankie standing out by the gate, his hands dug in his pocket, and Luke nowhere in sight. “You hear me,” she cried out, grabbing hold of the uncle’s arm as he called out her father’s name again.

“He can speak his own mind,” snapped the uncle, flinging off her hand and turning on her as if he might strike her.

“My Lord,” exclaimed Sare, coming out on the landing and gliding partways down the stairs. “What is it, Sim? What do they want?”

“The fellow, Luke, from Rocky Head—he’s down at the wharf, waiting to speak with Job.”

“On the wharf,” said Sare. “Job can hardly walk this evening—”

“He was at the door but she wouldn’t let him in,” cut in the uncle, a sour glance at Clair. “Now he’s gone back down on the wharf.”

“Then let him come tomorrow,” said Sare, “when Job’s feeling better.”

“He’s got a queer mind; he won’t go around people.”

“And neither will Job, not with his back the way it is.” She broke off as Job came out of the room, pulling on a heavy work shirt. “You’re not going out the door this evening, Job Gale. You listen to me,” she warned, as he began limping down over the stairs, scarcely able to conceal his pain. “That young fellow can come up here more easily than you can go down there. No, no, you listen,” she cried out, ignoring his pleas that he was fine as she clung to his arm, following him into the kitchen. “It’s worse you’re getting, not better. It’s not right that they come for you this late, anyway. Did you tell them he was sick?” she demanded, turning onto Sim as if he were the cause of the commotion.