Good Hope Road: A Novel (20 page)

They sent the Major’s article. ‘Nothing will come of it,’ the Major said to himself. ‘Damn fool’s errand.’ But nonetheless, his spirits were buoyed. He watched hopefully for the mail, sifting through the catalogues for word from Washington as the flowers began to fall from the apple trees, carpeting the orchard in drifts of white petals that hopped and swirled in the afternoon breeze and caught in the manes of the horses.

The month progressed, and with it came black flies, nicking and biting. The Major, much to Madeleine’s amusement, stuck a tall fern into the band of his hat as he worked among his plants. ‘It draws away the flies,’ he solemnly maintained. Jim began to whistle the opening bars of Yankee Doodle, poker-faced. The Major’s eyes twinkled and he began to sing along, in a deep, rich baritone.

‘
Yankee Doodle went to town, riding on his pony, stuck a feather in his cap and called it macaroni
.’

He drew his arms akimbo and performed a lopsided little jig, the fern on his hat bobbing in time to the tune. Madeleine laughed so hard that Ellie came out to see what was the matter and stood watching from the doorway, hands on her hips, smiling broadly at this bit of noonday nonsense.

Madeleine’s mother called at the Garland place and in an unusual display of firmness, insisted that her daughter stop testing the bounds of propriety and return to Boston. Jim and she spent as much time together as they could in the days leading up to her departure, neither willing to be the first to address exactly where her leaving left them, both filled nonetheless with a silent, unaccustomed ache at the prospect. It manifested itself in other, wordless ways – in her reaching repeatedly to caress his arm as he drove, in the amplified intensity between them as they kissed. Jim had been taken aback and touched by her confession that despite that worldly, sophisticated air that drove him so wild, Madeleine hadn’t gone much further than some heavy petting with any of her previous boyfriends. He was the one to pull back, time and again, gently staying her hands as they strayed hungrily down his body, his breathing heavy as he stared into her eyes.

He took her hiking as he’d promised, to the tall ridge that overlooked the sinkhole, an emerald pool that lay to one side of the river. ‘Local legend has it there’s treasure buried down there,’ he told her. ‘And that if a man jumps in there at a woman’s behest, it’s a sign of true love.’

She stared at the deep green water so far below. ‘So have you? Jumped in there before?’

‘Sure,’ he said laconically. ‘As kids, some of us would come up here after school, dare each other to dive in.’

She smiled. ‘And if I asked you to?’

They stood there, facing one another. ‘No.’ He waited a beat before continuing: ‘Although, I might go in unasked.’

He began to unbutton his shirt, taking it off and now his corduroys, holding her gaze all the while. Stripping to his boxers, he took a step backwards.

‘No!’ she exclaimed, reaching for him at the last moment. He stepped away, silhouetted for an instant against the lip of gentian sky and sun-warmed rock. Then he was gone, and she ran to the edge, watching, his body a thing of beauty and grace as it fell. The muted sound as he sliced through the water. He was lost from sight for an instant and then there he was, pushing the hair back from his forehead, grinning as he shouted for her to come in too.

She stood laughing at the edge of the ridge, and began to undo the buttons on her dress. He watched, treading water, as her clothes came off, one by one – the slip, the stockings, the garter belt. A brief hesitation and then her hands moving behind her back as she unfastened the last wisps of silk and lace beneath.

Venus Anadyomene
.

Madeleine lifted her arms above her head, raising her face briefly to the sun, then launched herself with a dancer’s pliancy from the edge of the rock. He watched, his heart suddenly in his mouth as she arrowed through the air, the wild, auburn tumble of her hair about her naked shoulders like the outstretched wings of a bird.

Not long after she left, the Major received a response to his letter. A short reply, typeset. It thanked him for the missive, assuring him that his sentiments would be taken into consideration as appropriate. If he were ever in Washington, it offered, the Senator would be pleased to try and schedule a quarter-hour to discuss his ideas in detail.

The Major slowly reread the letter, the rancid taste of disappointment in his throat. ‘I thought as much. Damn fool’s errand,’ he said tightly.

‘It’s a response at least,’ Jim pointed out. ‘Maybe you should press further.’

The Major crumpled the letter into a ball. ‘Fool’s errand,’ he repeated, the left eye beginning its telltale switch. ‘None of them gives a—’

‘So that’s it?’ Still on edge after Madeleine’s leaving, Jim impatiently cut his father off mid-sentence, surprising the Major into silence. ‘So you just give up, maybe write yet another article that the damn
Gazette
has no intention of ever publishing? For God’s sake.’ Jim jabbed a finger at the newspaper lying on the side table, pointing at the collage of Bonus marchers saluting and grinning into the cameras. ‘This obviously matters to you, so call those congressmen’s bluff. Go to Washington. Meet with this damn senator. There’s more you can do than just sit here writing those letters. Major, you—’

Jim paused, trying to find the right words, frustration built over years coming all at once to a boil. Years of trying to come to terms with the aloof distance that the Major maintained with those around him, surrounded by invisible boundaries that nobody was permitted to breach. Years of trying to understand just why the Bonus Bill, an issue that held no consequence for them at all whether it was passed or not – a cause that concerned men the Major did not even know – seemed to hold so much more importance to him than his only son. And why, if it mattered so much, he didn’t do more.

Their eyes met and held in the mirror, the Major’s left eyelid drooping. Jim turned away. ‘It matters to you,’ he repeated flatly as he left the room. ‘So do something about it, do more.’

The Major sat there, staring at the newspaper, Jim’s uncharacteristic outburst still echoing in his ears. ‘A steady trickle growing rapidly in volume, more joining each day until all roads it seems, lead to Capitol Hill,’ the caption beneath the collage read.

The faces of the veterans in the grainy black-and-white photographs were tired and lined, marked by the disappointments endured by the moneyless each day. Nonetheless, there was something infinitely touching about their expressions, the eager hope that burned so brightly in their eyes. The Major took in those photographs, playing Jim’s words in his mind, and something began to unfurl deep inside him, a memory of his former self perhaps.

He smoothed out the letter from Washington, filled again with anger as he reread the brief, dismissive paragraph. He glanced at the black mirror, unconsciously squaring his shoulders and holding himself straighter in the armchair as he arrived at a decision.

‘Jim!’ he called after his son. He cleared his throat. ‘James William!’ he called again, louder, the firm tone of his voice ringing unexpectedly about the room.

Word spread around Raydon like it always did, without anyone quite knowing who it was that had first announced it, but everyone somehow knowing all there was to know about Jim and the Major’s upcoming visit to Washington. A mountain of goods began to be dropped off at the general store, with a muttered ‘for when the Stonebridge boy comes by’. Barrels of apples, a massive smoked ham, cuts of salted pork, farmhouse eggs, canned beans, bottles of all shapes and sizes filled with cider – both kinds, hard as well as sweet – maple syrup, apple butter, a myriad assortment of homemade jams and fruit preserves: all these were left without much fuss or nattering by folk who’d heard about the Bonus Army and wanted to do their bit for ‘them hard-luck doughboys’.

When Black Pete emerged from deep in the woods on his seasonal trip into town ‘for victuals and stuff’, he too heard about the upcoming trip. He rubbed his beard, dislodging a gentle shower of the soot from his ancient stove that stuck to every part of his clothes and skin, thus earning him his moniker. ‘Bonus Army? These the same boys who fought in 1917?’ he enquired at the general store.

Yes, he was told, the same, except they were no longer boys, most pushing forty by now.

‘Wasn’t you in the army too, Black Pete?’ old Asaph asked, crinkling his eyes as he tried to remember. ‘He was too,’ Jeremiah concurred. ‘Spanish American War, back in 1898, ain’t that right?’

Black Pete rubbed his beard again, sending another sprinkling of soot down to the floor. ‘Ayuh, that be right,’ he confirmed. He said no more as he handed over his load of trapped skins and fur, but later that afternoon, he was spotted on the road that led to the Stonebridge place, bent nearly double under the weight of the sack he carried on his shoulder, his old husky walking stiffly by his side.

‘I’d have left it in town,’ he explained to Jim, ‘except they telled me that you’d already been and I’d not been certain when exactly you and your pa were off to see them Bonus soldiers.’

‘Tuesday,’ Jim said, scratching the dog behind her ears. ‘The Major will be glad you came.’

He was, shaking Pete’s hand and dislodging yet another smattering of soot. ‘It’s good to see you, Pete. It’s a hot day, come on in and have something for your thirst.’

Ellie spread newspapers on a chair in the kitchen, their guest not taking offence in the least, even gallantly lending her a hand before he sat himself down.

The old dog was hesitant to enter, and stood at the door gently wagging her tail. Jim stroked her greying head and she licked his hand. He brought her a piece of chicken from the pantry and she grabbed it in her mouth, settling down on the stairs with a sigh. Black Pete jerked a thumb in her direction and chuckled, revealing the gaping holes between his teeth. ‘She and I, we’re of a kind,’ he grinned. ‘Don’t take to being indoors none too much.’

‘Well you stink ripe enough,’ Ellie observed matter-of-factly. ‘Isn’t it time for one of your baths?’

‘Ayuh, that it is,’ he agreed. ‘Got held up a bit this year, I have. Still, twice a year’s enough for a man, I reckon, once in the spring after ice out, once in the fall before ice up.’

He stayed a while, discussing traps and other matters with the men. He’d seen the bobcat earlier in the spring, but it was a canny one and had got away before he could slug it; he’d seen young Jim too, with his girl, riding down one of the old paths not so long ago. He drank deeply of the Major’s whisky, refusing, however, to accept the remainder of the bottle as a gift. Ellie pressed a pie into his hands as he was leaving and would brook no argument. Again, that slow, gap-toothed grin. ‘Now this here’s a real treat, Miss Eleanor.’ Clicking his heels together, he saluted the Major. ‘You do right by those fellas, James,’ he said. ‘Tell them too, that if any of them soldiers fancies living in these here woods, Pete’s prepared to be a right good neighbour.’

He turned at the corner of the drive to wave at them. Hawking his throat, he spat generously into the bushes. ‘Damn politicians!’ he called.

‘Goddamned politicians!’ the Major shouted back in robust agreement. Jim looked at his father, amused.

Black Pete waved a final time, shuffling off around the bend with his dog. When they opened his sack, they found it stuffed to the brim with tobacco for the veterans in Washington. Ellie was so touched by his beneficence that she didn’t grumble, not one word, as she stripped the sooty sheets of newspaper from the chair and threw them in the grate.

THE AISNE

France • Winter 1914

FROM THE JOURNAL OF

We’re shadows upon a quiet road. We march single file: weapons at hand, eyes on the man in front of us.

We lost three more this afternoon. A beat earlier, there were four. Then a shell, falling precisely through the entrance of the dugout. Three gone, exploded into nothing. Leaving just the fourth untouched and shaking like a leaf.

I try to grasp the odds of it, the stark elegance of the maths that must precede the specific arc of a shell, angling it over parapet and just short of parados, into the slender entrance of a dugout where once four stood, safe.