Downhill Chance (41 page)

“But you don’t go out during the day,” Hannah called out, scurrying after her.

“It’s a nice day to start, don’t you think?” she answered, her tone almost gay. And indeed it was, thought Hannah, liking this new vigour and breaking into a skip besides her aunt. The morning breeze had risen with the sun, adding lustre to the brightness of the day, and perking the steps of the youngsters darting about the road, shrieking to one another, or giving chase to a cat or dog prowling underfoot. Owing to Sunday, there was no one about on the wharf, only the boat Missy had seen from her room window, just putting ashore.

“My, you’re out and at it today,” called out Alma from her stoop as they walked by.

Missy waved, returning some such civility, her hair shining like gold in the noonday sun and giving vent to a dream within Hannah that her own dark locks might grow and ripple down her back and perhaps shine like coal beneath a miner’s lamp someday. The wind gusted harder as they neared the wharf, and upon seeing Clair climbing up the ladder from her uncle Nate’s boat, Missy halted her step, turning to Hannah.

“You’re getting to be a big girl, Hannie,” she said quietly, “and someday, no matter what happens with Clair and me, you can come visit me on your own, no matter what anybody says. You remember that.”

“I’ll come, Aunt Missy—”

“And I want you to run off now, after Clair gets here, because I’d like to have a few words with her—alone. So, mind you does that?”

“I will.”

“And don’t go running back, no matter what you hears, all right? And Hannie,” she said, “do you remember what Gideon said—about a name being strong? Well, it’s whoever’s wearing the name that makes it strong, and if my baby’s a girl, I’m going to call her Hannah, after you, because you’re the strongest little woman I know.” As Hannah clasped her arms around her aunt’s neck, Missy exclaimed, “Ohh, listen now, promise you’ll say nothing of Gideon?”

“I promise.”

“Swear,” she said, pulling Hannah’s arms from around her neck, “for Clair might think bad things about him and not let you come back again.”

“I’ll never tell,” Hannah whispered fiercely.

“And you’re not to let anyone see the medallion.”

“Not even Daddy.”

“Because it’s a friendship token, and it holds a power, friendship tokens do, so mind you never tattles, because tattling is the worst.”

“I won’t ever tattle, I promise.”

“And don’t worry none about me and Clair; everything’s going to be fine—someday. All right? All right,” she whispered as Hannah nodded, and taking hold of her hand, she led her towards Clair climbing onto the wharf.

“You look so well,” Clair called out, slightly breathless as she ran towards them, her own dark curls escaping from her scarf and dancing around her face in the breeze. Perhaps because her mother looked so dear at that moment, smiling as she hurried towards them, a surge of affection broadened Hannah’s heart. And she might’ve skipped to meet her, surprising them both with the abandon of a huge hug, had not the tightening of her aunt’s hand held her back. “Was she good, Missy?” Clair asked, smoothing a lock of hair behind Hannah’s ear.

Missy nodded. “A blessing. Thank you, Clair, for sending her.”

“Can I come back agin, Mommy?”

“Let’s get you home, first. Daddy’s off from the camps for a week and he’s got the canvas worn off the floor with missing you. And besides,” she added, cocking her head towards Missy, “perhaps now Aunt Missy might come visit us. What do you say, Missy, will you come—just for a few days? Luke’s longing to meet his girl’s favourite aunt.”

“Ooh, will you, Aunt Missy?”

“I just might,” said Missy, patting Hannah’s behind, urging her towards the boat, “if some people we know were to keep their promises.” And Hannah skipped ahead with delight, hopping around a grunt as her aunt said laughingly to her mother, “She reminds me of myself, always impatient and hopping.” Then the smile left Missy’s face, and Hannah’s skip faltered as she saw it replaced with the same air of certitude that had accosted the uncle minutes before leaving the house.

“But first, I’m inviting you back to the house with me, Clair—to take tea with me and the uncle.”

Clair hesitated. “You know I won’t,” she then said. “But that’s not to do with you—I want you to come home with me, Missy—just for a few days; meet Luke and—and the baby—”

“His life is mine; scorn him and you scorn me,” said Missy. “Is it such a monster who cared for me all these years?” she asked as Clair stared at her in silence.

Clair’s lip curled contemptuously. “He cared for hisself.”

“No more than you,” whispered Missy. “You never come back. And now you offer your own youngster as a bribe—as Mother done with me. I wasn’t so young that I didn’t know,” she added at Clair’s look of astonishment. “Every youngster knows when its banished by its mother.”

“Oh, no, Missy, she—she wasn’t herself—she was sick.”

“She was dead—at least to me,” said Missy, her face paling as she stood facing down this older sister, their privacy assumed by a grunt that Hannah had inched behind, sickened now, as a blast of wind swiped the hair back off her mother’s face, and that of her aunt’s, baring the starkness of old pain. “And you too, Clair,” Missy said evenly, “you were both dead to me—long before Mommy lay down on a flower bed.”

“What’re you saying?” cried Clair.

“I’m saying I don’t blame you for how things were,” said Missy, her voice rising. “You were a girl like me, but don’t think me bad for not paying your notion of homage to a dead woman. I hated him. I hated her. And I welcomed the door she kept shoving me out through—anything to escape those screams—”

“Missy!”

“Ooh, don’t worry, Clair,” said Missy with a shrill little laugh. “I counts them as a blessing, for all that. He was only screaming what we all felt. Ohh, Lord, I don’t know what I hated the most, his screaming, or her shushing,” she exclaimed, raising her hands to her ears, shaking her head. “Even now, the slightest sound I hears, I tries to shush it— even when it’s the wind blowing—”

“Missy, stop it!”

“I won’t. I won’t stop it. I’ve things to say, Clair. I’m having a baby. And I swear to God, when it’s born I hope it screams with the lungs of a hawk. I hope it shatters the font when the christening waters hits its head. I’ll never shush it. And I’ll not walk in shame with it no more, either. No one talked to me as a woman. I was banished with the old and the sick, and I learned from ignorance.”

“And so was I!” said Clair. “So was I banished. Ask him— go ask him that sits at our mother’s table. He stole from us, he did. And he sleeps in our mother’s bed. I’ll never enter that house as long as he sleeps in our mother’s bed.”

“And me,” asked Missy, “am I less of a daughter because I do?”

“No. You were young—you didn’t know—”

“I did know!” she shouted. “I felt everything you felt.” Her words fell quiet. “He don’t sit in torment, Clair. He’s just an old man, sputtering about. Anything he had, he give to me, and Lord knows, I needed it. I don’t hate her now— or Daddy. And I’ve learned not to hate my life. And that’s why I’m asking you to come sit with me. I’ll come with you, then—and meet you and yours. But, first, I’m asking you— come with me, Clair; come sit with me at our mother’s table—at my table.”

But Clair was slowly backing away. “He brought our father shame,” she whispered. “I can never bide by him that brought our daddy shame. I’ve never told you,” she cried, “I’ve never told you the things he done—”

“It’s not what he done that torments you, Clair; it’s what Daddy done. I seen it. The day you left, I seen it. I carries it with me all the time. Only all this time I thought it was hurt, and it’s not; you just said it—it’s shame, or pity.” Her mouth soured. “For in the end I think that’s what killed him—her pity. And yours. Shun the old uncle if you wants, but at least he took me away from all that. And I don’t look back pitying Daddy, either, sitting on that pew-chair and not able to get off it. You’re still back there, Clair,” she called out, tears running down her cheeks as her sister moved away from her, “still sitting with a dead man. And Luke’s right; you’re too scared to go ask what killed him.”

“Luke—what do you know of what Luke thinks?” asked Clair in surprise. Her eyes fell onto Hannah who, at her aunt’s words, had already risen from behind the grunt, a look of guilt on her face.

With one last passionate look at Missy, she marched towards Hannah and, taking her hand, walked with her none too gently towards the boat and Nate, who was by now standing on top of the wharf, eyes fixed on the two sisters.

Settled down in the stern, Hannah chanced a glance at her mother and sorrowed at the sight of the single tear as translucent as a drop of rain sitting on her cheek. Her aunt stood on the wharf, watching after them, sobbing freely.

Had she been older, she would’ve known that a life lived only once is a life unlived. And far more tormenting is its reliving as felt by her mother setting forth from the wharf, leaving behind again her younger sister watching after her, eyes like two squashed blueberries, and their house rising behind like a far-reaching tombstone, resurrecting the parting she’d made all these years ago, and forcing her to reach back and touch the woman-child who had set out so bravely, seeking her father’s words over the wind. And had she not hidden her fears the bestest, this mother who had been touched by death when she was but a girl, and her sister, Missy, still running through the grass? But how best to hide fears now when it’s the road already travelled, a pair of eyes reaches back to see.

As they neared the shores of Rocky Head and her father stood waving at them, it was onto the old war vet that Clair’s eyes focused. Dodging up from Lower Head, he came towards the older boys, who were crouched down besides the stagehead, picking apart an old motor. Young Roddy and Marty were his only audience—as most of the elders had tired of his stories and plies for shine and were more in keeping with Prude as she prowled behind her woodpile, hollering at him to get home because there was drinking enough on their shores that they didn’t need him and his devil’s greed.

It was with the restlessness of a caged cat that her mother paced the floors that evening, covering and recovering the baby in his crib, and circling the table, and fixing things straight on the stove, the washstand, the bin. Her father knew. He’d already enticed her out to the woodpile, wheedling out of her snippets of the conversation that had taken place on the wharf between the two sisters. And she’d told him enough—leaving out the part about her own tattling. And now piecing together what his own senses told him, he sat at the table, sharpening the teeth to his bucksaw, and looking as troubled as her mother as he kept darting glances at her pacing. Her steps quieted as Hannah traipsed across the kitchen towards the door, buttoning her sweater.

“Where you going this hour?” she asked.

“Playing spotlight,” said Hannah, touching the flashlight under her arm.

“Bit late for that, isn’t it?”

“I can stay in if you wants me to,” said Hannah, her hand hesitating on the doorknob.

Her mother looked at her confusedly for a second, then shook her head, brushing her away. “No, no, it’s all right. Just don’t be too late, that’s all.”

“I won’t, Mommy.” Glancing at her father’s bowed head as he continued to apply the file to the teeth of his saw, she went out into the cool of the darkening evening. A shriek from the bank told her Lynn and the others had already started the game, and clicking on her flashlight, she walked across the patch towards her father’s woodpile, past the sandstone and out onto the bank. Somebody moved over in the dark and she flicked off her light, yet made no attempt to run and hide. The weight of the medallion swinging around her neck, her aunt’s sobs and her mother’s tear were proving too much to heave off in a single evening and run pell-mell, wielding a flashlight at shadows in the dark. Young Roddy and Marty appeared a little farther down the bank, tossing armloads of dried slabs and birch rind onto the beach, building a fire. The old vet staggered behind them, singing drunkenly, “She had her apron wrapped around her, and I shot her for a swan.”

“Lynn’s it! Lynn’s it!” a chorus of shrieks sounded from no more than ten feet away from her, and Hannah started, about to duck and tear into hiding, if not for the sight of her father strolling out of the house with a jug of brew swinging from his hand. Much to the astonishment of Roddy and Marty, he headed down onto the beach, sitting amongst them, the firelight glowing on his face as Roddy struck a match to the birch rind. Thoughts of Lynn vanished with the rest of the evening light, and crouching almost into the overhang of the bank, Hannah crept forward till she was a scant couple of feet from the fire, listening as her father exchanged greetings with the old vet and commended Roddy on the purity of his spirits as he took a swig from the jug Marty passed him.

“She’s a fine batch,” agreed Roddy. “I cooked it myself with Dad watching on, although he’s not too proud of it.” Taking a swig himself, he passed the jug back to Marty, coughing and spitting, “although I’ve done better, buddy, I’ve done better.”

“Never mind the shine; here’s what ye ought to be drinking,” said the old vet, taking a sip of Luke’s brew, “a mother’s milk is what, a mother’s milk.”

“Yup, and I suppose that’s why you sucks it like the tit,” jeered Marty.

“No doubt,” said Roddy, “and he’ll be sleeping like the baby any minute now.” He grinned, holding out a hand to steady the old vet as he swayed too far to the wayside. “I allows he got Les Ouncill from Lower Head sucked dry since this morning, and buddy, he had vats of it hidden away.”

“Aye, I’ll be leaving ye in the morning, me boys,” sang the old vet. “I’ll be leaving ye in the morning.”

“I allows if you don’t, Gram’ll soon have your scalp nailed to her door,” chuckled Marty.

“Gram!” groaned Roddy, turning to Luke. “Cripes, I heard ye’s this morning—no more than five o’clock, was it?—and Gram out on her stoop, a bit of rain coming down, and she bawling out, ‘Luukeee, Luukee, we’re going to have a flood, we’re going to have a flood, we’ll be drowned, we’ll be drowned,’” Roddy mimicked amidst much chortling, Luke’s included. “And then I hears Luke scroop open his window, roaring out, ‘What’s going to flood, old woman, the water’s not even up’ and she’s hollering back, ‘The laakes, the laakes, Luuke, in over the hills, they’re going to flood, mark my words, they’re going to flood,’ and then Luke’s roaring back, ‘Then go moor off in the punt, old woman, for gawd’s sake, go moor off in the punt,’” and Roddy convulsed with the others in a proxy of laughter as Luke shook his head, grinning.