Our Daily Bread (4 page)

Albert took another drag off the cigarette and Bobby did the same, inhaling this time, and managing not to cough. Albert sat up, pitched a small stone into the water, making it skip five times before it sank. Bobby pitched a stone as well but it sank after three skips and he tried another but it merely plonked dully into the water. Albert considered the boy, who was now picking moss off the side of the rock and rolling the bits between his fingers. Big hands, but narrow wrists. Growing into his bones, yet with a ways to go. Could be thirteen, but was probably older. He was a nice-looking kid, even if he was too pale. Nervous, though. There was an air of vulnerability about him. Something about the way he fidgeted, the way he kept changing his hold on the cigarette until at last he held it as Albert did, between his middle and ring finger. It made Albert smile.

“So, Bobby, what do you do when you're not in school?”

“Not much. I don't know.”

“Choir practice? Altar boy?”

Bobby snorted. “No.”

“Not a church-goer, huh? Well, that lets out a bit of the town. Uh, let's see. You're studying to be a brain surgeon.”

“No.” Bobby pouted a bit at that, as though he
could
be a brain surgeon if he wanted to be.

“Stamp collector? Birdhouse builder? Mitten knitter?”

Bobby laughed. “I don't do anything, I guess. What the fuck's there to do in this town anyway?”

“An excellent question, young Bobby. An excellent question.” It was good, sitting here with this kid. It was friendly. “I can see you and I are of like mind.”

“What about you?”

“What about me?”

“You work somewhere?”

“When I have to.”

“Like where?”

Albert twisted around and unwrapped his jacket. He reached in the pocket and brought out a battered tin flask. “Like wherever the fuck I want to.” He unscrewed the cap and raised his arm in a toast. “To Gideon. You want some? Old enough?”

“Okay.”

Albert kept the flask next to his chest. “Hey, you don't have to, Bobby. I mean, you're welcome to a drink, but if you're not supposed to, then maybe you shouldn't. Doesn't make any difference to me, you know.”

“No. I'd like one. Please.” He held out his hand and Albert passed him the flask. He took a big swig. “I drink sometimes.”

“All right then,” said Albert.

“You make this?” said Bobby, taking another quick sip before handing it back to Albert.

“Whatever have you heard about the Erskines?” He glared at Bobby until the boy dropped his eyes. Then he laughed a short
heh-heh-heh.
“Hey, kidding. No, I didn't make this. Good old Wild Turkey, straight from Wilton's. And more where that came from.” Albert looked over at Bobby, waiting to see what his reaction was, waiting to see if he'd heard about the recent break-in at Wilton's. The boy said nothing, which Albert took as a good sign. Discretion was such a useful quality. “Who's your Daddy? Is it Tom Evans? Drives a bread truck, right?”

“Yeah.”

Ah, the benefits of small-town life. Knowing whose son he was told Albert a great deal about Bobby. “Seems like an all right guy,” he said. And Bobby nodded. Albert did not ask about his mother. Patty Evans was well known in town, pretty as she was, and so much younger than her husband. And then there was her reputation, built in the mysterious glimmer of New York City where Tom Evans had found her. Too much for old Tom to handle was the way the talk went. Patty Evans was held at arm's length as not-one-of-us; a reputation not even the oak-solid respectability of Tom Evans could quite shake. Not a North Mountain reputation, of course, but still, young Bobby and Albert had a few things in common, maybe, the difference being only a matter of degree. Albert wondered what it would be like to be raised by a woman like that, with a figure like that. Did she parade around in her bra and panties? What did she smell like when she bent over to kiss Bobby good night? How hard would it be to get a flash of her in the shower? “Any other kids in the family?”

“Ivy, my sister. She's ten.”

“Just the one, huh? I got a bunch up by us. That's why I come out here. To get away from the fucking noise.”

The two spent the next hour passing the flask back and forth and watching the water. Bobby's tongue loosened with the alcohol. Albert learned he did not like school. Did not fit in at school. The other boys were always ragging on him. And he'd been beaten up a time or two. “That's tough,” said Albert. “Who beat you up?”

“Some guys.” Bobby blushed.

“Why?”

“I don't know.”

“Listen, you don't have to tell me anything you don't want to, you know?” Albert slapped Bobby lightly on the leg to show it was all light-hearted and safe.

“They just talk a bunch of shit. Stuff they don't know crap about.”

“Tell you what,” said Albert. “Next time somebody hassles you, you tell me, all right? You remind me of my little brother, Jack.”

“Okay, I guess. Thanks.”

“Not a problem.” Albert punched Bobby in the shoulder. “You're all right, for a kid, you know that?”

“I'm fifteen.”

“Good for you. Listen, do you play pool?”

“Not really.”

“I think we should head down to the Italian Garden, grab a pizza, play some pinball.”

“Maybe. Sure, why not?”

As they walked through the woods to the truck, Albert rambled on about the art of pool and as he talked he liked the sound of his own voice more and more, liked the way Bobby looked at him—like he was, well, important. And why not? Why shouldn't he be? Maybe this was the key to his own pride. Like one of those Big Brother social workers. This kid probably had trouble at home. This kid could use an older brother type guy to show him the ropes. He could be a guy like that and could prove to the whole fucking world he wasn't like the rest of the Erskines. It would be a clean thing. A good thing. Albert Erskine had just made a friend.

Dorothy was burnishing a silver tea set,
rubbing in the noxious grey cleaner, and then buffing to a high shine, when the bell over the door rang. She turned, polishing rag in her rubber-glove-clad hand and was surprised to see little Ivy Evans step in, bringing with her the scents of mud and rain. The girl's eyes met hers for only a moment. They were red-rimmed, teary. Her nose was also red and, good lord, dripping slightly. As though reading Dorothy's thoughts, she reached into the pocket of her navy wool jacket and pulled out a tissue, swiping angrily at her nose. The girl's coat was open, and revealed a pair of blue jeans and a green sweater, in a shade that was not at all flattering. Her shoes, Dorothy couldn't help but notice, were covered in muck.

“Would you mind wiping your shoes, dear? Just there on the mat.”

“Sorry.”

“Ivy, yes? It is an awful lot of mud, isn't it? Do you need a rag, perhaps? And are those your friends?” Two other girls had stepped up to the window and were looking in, their faces framed between upheld hands. Dorothy did not like the idea of a shop full of schoolgirls. Who were these girls? Cathy Watson and the Oliver girl, what was her name? Oh yes, Gelsey.
Gelsey.
It sounded like a sort of cow. Whereas Gelsey did bear an unfortunate resemblance to a dull-eyed ruminant, Cathy Watson was a startlingly pretty girl, in the puffy-lipped and pert-nosed ideal of contemporary fashion models. Cathy took after her mother, who never allowed you to forget her prettiness for an instant. The girls ignored Dorothy, but tapped on the window, gesturing at Ivy who, kneeling by a blue and white porcelain umbrella stand, kept her eyes firmly on her tan shoes. She spit on the tissue and rubbed at the leather.

“They seem to want you to go back outside,” said Dorothy.

“I know.”

Cathy whispered something in Gelsey's ear and Gelsey laughed. Dorothy thought Cathy's eyes had taken on a sly look, flattened at the corners and suspiciously conniving.

“I take it you do not wish to join them.”

Ivy hesitated for a moment. “No,” she said, in a voice that sounded as though she had just admitted something shameful. “If it's okay.” There was the catch of tears in her throat.

Dorothy did not wish to become involved in any schoolyard feud, for she knew these things were unlikely to be resolved in an afternoon. Children and their war games were far more complex than adults cared to admit, and it never ceased to amaze Dorothy that adults, who had presumably once been children themselves, could so easily forget the brutalities of their youth. Campaigns of terror had been waged for years in locker rooms, assembly halls and home rooms. Memories of her own childhood surfaced, scattered vignettes of being ostracized, teased and betrayed. She was tempted to shush Ivy out, tell her to stand up for herself and be done with it. She looked at Cathy Watson and locked eyes with her, thinking the girl would crumple and back off under the clear disapproval of an adult. However, Cathy Watson merely cocked an eyebrow and—there was no other word for it—she smirked. It was something very close to a dare. If it had been a different era, and Dorothy was quite sorry it was not, she would have paddled her backside with one of the antique canes from the umbrella stand. The impudent little miss.

“Yes, I suppose it's all right if you stay for a few moments. It's not as though I'm up to my ears in customers, is it?” She peeled off her rubber gloves and walked to the window. Ivy stood up, glanced at Cathy and Gelsey, and then back to Dorothy. Dorothy smiled at her and flapped her hands at the girls outside. “Go on, away with you both.” She opened the door. “Ivy has shopping to do; you'll have to go on without her. Bye-bye.” She waved her hands again and closed the door.

Gelsey stuck her tongue against the glass, pulled a dreadful face, and then both girls shrieked with laughter and ran down the street.

“I can see why you might wish to avoid them,” said Dorothy. “How revolting.”

“Thanks, Mrs. Carlisle.”

Dorothy looked out the door. The girls, as suspected, waited at the corner. “How are you at polishing silver?” she said.

“I can do that.” The girl looked so keen to please it was slightly embarrassing. It was easy to see how a bully would turn that eagerness to her advantage.

“How old are you?”

“Ten.”

“Is that, in your house, old enough to drink tea?”

“I've never had tea.”

“Well then, it's about time you did. Follow me.”

Dorothy set the kettle to boil. It all felt rather silly, as though she was some eccentric aunt in a Dickens novel. Ivy stood at the doorway to the kitchen, looking about her, taking in everything.

“Where does all this stuff come from?” she said.

“All over. People bring me things. And I go scrounging around in attics and basements and barns.”

“Is everything old?”

“Yes. Some more than others. That plate over there,” she pointed to a delicate blue and white platter with a pattern of flowers on it, “that's over two hundred years old.”

“Wow.”

“Indeed,” said Dorothy. She handed Ivy two cups and saucers, fairly good ones, painted with green vines and gold rims. “Take those over to the table.” She put several ginger cookies on a plate and carried the tray.

“Milk?” she said when she had poured the tea.

Ivy hesitated.

“I always take milk in my tea, but some people don't, and others prefer it with lemon,” said Dorothy. “You strike me as a milk person.”

“Okay,” said Ivy.

Dorothy sipped her tea, holding the saucer in her left hand and lifting the teacup to her lips with her right. Carefully, Ivy did the same. Dorothy couldn't think of what to say, and she scanned the room for ideas. “I have a book over there you might find interesting. It's a first edition of
The Wizard of Oz.
On that round table. Why not bring it here. No, not that one, the other, with the red leather binding.”

One of the girl's socks was completely muddy, as though she had stepped in a deep hole. Ivy brought the book back and began looking through it. She handled the book carefully, Dorothy was pleased to note, turning the pages with gentle respect. “The illustrations are by W.W. Denslow. Look closely and you will see he signed his name with a seahorse for the ‘S.' Isn't that clever?”

“Shouldn't this be in a museum?”

“Well, it would mean a lot to a collector, I'm sure. And it's worth a significant amount of money, I suppose. But I don't really need the money and I like beautiful things. Don't you think it's beautiful?”

“It's fantastic,” the child's face lit up in a most pleasing way. It almost removed the puffy evidence of her earlier tears.

They finished their tea and Dorothy showed her how to polish silver. She was an attentive student and worked hard. Half an hour later the tea set sparkled. They stood back, admiring their work.

“Do you think we should call your mother and let her know you're here?”

“My mother works at Wilton's until six.” It was four-ten.

“Well, your father then. Tom's finished work early afternoon, isn't he?”

“Can't I just stay here for a little while? Then I'll go home.”

“I'm sure those girls have long since lost interest or have found a small animal to torture.”

Ivy's eyes went wide.

“I'm joking, dear. I'm sure they wouldn't really hurt an animal.”

“Oh,” said Ivy, who did not look quite so sure.

“Do you want to tell me what happened?” Oh why, thought Dorothy, have I asked that? “Of course, you don't have to tell me if you don't want to.”

Ivy said nothing for a moment, folding the polishing cloth carefully, unfolding it and then folding it again. “I don't know what to do,” she said.

“Perhaps you'd better tell me. Sit down.”

“It was stupid. I knew I shouldn't have gone. But Cathy can be so nice sometimes.”

Cathy Watson, it seemed, had persuaded Ivy to walk home from school with her and Gelsey through the woods that ran in a wide swath between Elm and Woodbridge. Many of the children who lived on the far side of the forest chose to take the shortcut rather than to walk the long way round. A rutted path ran to the Stony Creek, leading to a bridge of large rocks on which they could cross.

“The water's high this time of year. It was really slippery,” said Ivy. “We had to be careful and go from stone to stone. Cathy went first and she never slipped. She told me to be careful.” Ivy frowned and picked at the knee of her jeans. “Gelsey laughed. I didn't know what was funny. And then Cathy looked at me and her face was all weird, like.”

“Like what, dear? I don't know what ‘weird' means in this context. Be specific.”

Ivy looked at Dorothy and it was clear she was trying to find the right words. Dorothy felt a flicker of respect. She liked young people you could treat as adults.

“Well,” said Ivy after a minute, “Cathy's smile was there one minute, the pretty one, but then it was gone. She looked mean. She looked . . . sneaky. I hate that look.”

“You've seen it before then.”

Ivy nodded. “We were a long way in the woods. Cathy stopped. She was on this big rock in the centre of a swampy part. ‘Well,' she said. ‘Well, well.'” Ivy's voice was sing-song, taunting, imitating the other girl. “‘Look at this. You can't pass, can you?' I looked behind me, to go back, you know, but Gelsey was there. ‘Come on, Cathy. Move,' I said. She just danced around on the rock and laughed at me. She said, I wasn't her friend, not really. I said I was and she said I had to prove it. She said I had to cover my shoes in mud. And I said I didn't want to, but Gelsey said I had to. ‘Of course you don't
want
to,' Cathy said. ‘If it was something you
wanted
to do, it wouldn't prove anything, would it?' I said why did I have to prove anything and Cathy said, ‘Because if you don't, something bad might happen.'” Ivy hung her head. “It scared me. The look in Cathy's eyes like that. Snakey-like.”

“Reptilian,” said Dorothy.

“Reptilian,” repeated Ivy, nodding. She paused for a moment, as if to hold on to the word. “Then she said, ‘If you want to be my friend you will do this.'” Ivy hesitated. “Cathy has a lot of friends. She kept saying do it, do it, do it.”

“And so you did it,” said Dorothy, gently.

“I used a stick. I smeared it with mud and put some on the side of my shoes, but that wasn't enough. And then she picked up a stick of her own, a big one, and so did Gelsey and she said I better do it.” Ivy's eyes flashed with tears. “I didn't want to do it.”

“And then what happened?” Dorothy handed Ivy a tissue.

“She pushed me with the stick. Hard. I almost fell back, but I didn't. I had to step down though, one foot into the mud. It came up over my left foot right to the ankle. Then Gelsey jumped onto her rock and pushed me the rest of the way so I had to either fall down or put the other foot down. I was way deep in the mud. I tried to pull my foot out, but my shoe came off and then I had to pull
that
out. They laughed at me and said, ‘come on, come on,' like I was going to fight them or something.” She was crying hard again. “So I came back to town and was going to go around the long way, but then they followed me back here and I didn't know what they were going to do . . .” her voice trailed off, hiccupping.

“Don't cry, dear. It doesn't help, you know.” Dorothy handed her another tissue. “I'll have a talk with your mother.”

“No! Please. She'll get mad and she'll yell at them or their moms and then they'll get even madder and—”

“All right, Ivy. Really. You mustn't get hysterical.”

Ivy looked at her, and blinked. “I'm not hysterical, Mrs. Carlisle. I would
never
get hysterical.”

“I'm glad to hear it.” Dorothy made a show of blowing her nose in order to hide her amusement. Oh, she had insulted the little girl. And Dorothy, seeing the frown, the pursed lips and the flush of indignation, liked her better for it. Pride in excess was a bad thing, but a little, judiciously applied, could steel up a backbone quite nicely.

“It's just I'm, I don't know, mad, I guess,” said Ivy.

“Well, with some good reason.”

“What time is it, please?”

“Just after four-thirty.”

“I better go. Thanks for letting me stay here, and for the tea and all.”

“Thank you for polishing the silver. It was most helpful.”

Ivy gathered up her schoolbooks and her coat. As she was opening the door she turned back. “Do you think, sometime, I don't know . . .”

“What is it, Ivy? Speak up.”

“Could I come back, and maybe help you again?”

“I don't need much help, dear, but thank you.”

The girl blushed deeply and she dropped her eyes.

“Well, sometimes, I could use a hand dusting, I suppose. Once in a while. Occasionally.”

“I can do that. I'm an excellent duster.”

And with that the girl was gone, looking quickly up and down the street and then dashing off, leaving Dorothy to scowl at the door and wonder what on earth she was letting herself in for.