Punishment (13 page)

She stared from me to Neil.

“Long, long story,” he said, waving a dismissive hand.

He gave me a quick tour of the house, stuffed with a surprising number of antiques, large beds with too many pillows, mass-produced landscape prints on a backdrop of busy floral wall-paper, and the overwhelming artificial scent of potpourri. “If worse comes to worse and you stay the night,” he said, “this’ll be your room.”

“I’d love that,” I said. “But there’s the dog, home alone in a strange house.”

“Right,” he said. “Caddy’s dog. You should have brought him.”

The tour ended in the kitchen where Hannah was monitoring the progress of a large turkey in a vast gas-fired oven. The kitchen was impressive, with granite countertops and stainless
steel appliances. The contrast to my own sparse, musty quarters, Birch brooding on his coat, was stark.

Neil went to a cupboard and opened a door revealing an array of bottles.

“What’ll it be?” he asked. He moved some of them around before extracting one. “How about a nice single malt. This sucker is twenty-one years old, old enough to drink himself.” He laughed and grabbed two glasses. Hannah was already sipping on a glass of wine. In the harsh light of the kitchen she looked considerably older than her husband.

“You’ve done well,” I said.

“Not bad for a cop,” he said. “Being married to a Jew helped. Right, Hannah? Hannah has the brains in this place.”

She met my eyes, brows raised, over the top of her large wine glass. “Was he always such a motormouth?” she asked.

The whisky was mellow and I complimented him on his selection. When Hannah basted the turkey the aroma caused a wave of hunger. I hadn’t eaten breakfast, had only coffee in my stomach. I felt the whisky fumes caress my brain.

“So I wonder what they’re feeding Strickland today. I bet he’ll be eating as good as we are,” Neil said. “But he won’t have this.” He raised his glass and clinked it against mine.

Hannah stood up and closed the oven door, waved the turkey-baster in our direction. “Two subjects that will not be tolerated here today,” she said. “Dwayne Strickland and Saddam Hussein.”

We ate mostly in silence, bathed in Christmas ballads. I realized that it had been months since I’d eaten like this. Sitting down to a heaping plate, loaded with what Anna used to call “food groups.” Everything hot, delicious. I felt myself filling
prematurely so I slowed down, listened to the old songs. Earlier it was Jim Reeves. Now Anne Murray.

“Lovely sound,” I said. “You must have a great system.”

“Top of the line,” Neil said. “Professionally installed. We love our music, me and Hannah. I said if we’re going to be living here where there isn’t much to do we’re gonna have technology to enjoy whatever is available. My four-wheeler. A Ski-doo. Satellite TV and the best goddamn audio system money can buy.”

“No point scrimping on technology if you like music. It’s all in the technology nowadays.” I was listening to myself, commenting privately:
You’re so full of it. You know SFA about technology
.

“First thing a burglar would head for,” Neil said, waving his fork for emphasis. “So’m’a bitch would make a pretty day’s pay in here, just that stereo and Hannah’s computer.” He turned to his dinner, face low over the plate. “When I think of some of the places I worked back in the States. This place would be cleaned out while we’re sitting here eating.”

“Too bad you couldn’t get a good security system,” I said. “Something wired for quick response. I was noticing your antiques.”

“Hah. I got all the security system I need upstairs in the bedside table drawer,” he said. He took a mouthful of wine. “All the security I need, right there.” Suddenly he sounded angry.

I laughed. “I don’t have to tell you that the gun laws are a bit different up here, especially for hand guns.”

“Don’t get me going on that bullshit,” Neil said. “Canada’s gun laws. The true north strong and free to do whatever the government tells you.”

I looked at Hannah. She held her wine glass to her mouth, but met my eyes and winked. She lowered her glass. “There, there now,” she said.

“Anyway,” Neil said, “it’s unlikely to get used around here, but if I ever need it, the last thing I’ll be worrying about is the gun laws.”

“Why don’t we talk about something nice,” said Hannah. “You guys reminisce. I love the old stories.” She poured herself more wine, then refilled our glasses.

And so we did. Specific boundaries of time and place soon fell away, releasing us to wander.

“The last time I remember seeing you,” Neil said, staring at the ceiling, “was I think Christmas, around ’65. It was just before I went to Vietnam. I seem to remember talking after midnight Mass.”

“I remember you in uniform,” I said. “But I’m not sure what year it was.”

“Had to be Christmas ’65,” he said. “I went over in early ’66. February it was, in the middle of Operation Masher. That was my baptism.” He shook his head, looking grim. “We won’t go into it tonight, but I know I got home on leave for a few days, I think in late January. You wouldn’t have been around then. In college I think you were.”

Hannah returned from another room with a photograph. “This was Neil back then,” she said.

He was tall and very lean, his expression stern, hair shorn. I had a quick flashback to that expression, how he’d gripped my hand on that Christmas Eve so many years ago, then lightly tugged my shaggy shoulder-length hair. “Barbers gone on
strike?” he’d asked. And then he was gone to war. It was the talk of the place at Easter when I was home. Easter alone, Caddy gone away to Ontario. Easter was near the middle of April that year but it had felt like dead of winter.

“Sure,” I said, when Hannah offered to refill my wine glass.

“I was surprised when I heard that you went back for a second tour, to Vietnam,” I said. “I’d have thought once would have been enough for anybody.”

“I actually considered making a career of the military,” he said. “Figured a couple of tours would get me promoted faster. But I soon realized that without an education it wouldn’t be much of a life.”

“We corrected that though, didn’t we, dear,” Hannah said.

“After I met Hannah here, she insisted that I finish off my high school, at night school. It was that and the military record that got me on the police. So it was all good in the end. I became an American citizen, the whole shebang. Married Hannah and lived happily ever after. Strange how quick it all goes by.”

“Very strange,” I said.

“I was surprised when I heard you were after moving back.”

“Ah well,” I said. “When my marriage broke up I wanted to get some distance from where I was.” I instantly regretted the disclosure.

Neil and Hannah were both studying me, waiting for more.

“That would have been tough,” Neil said. “That and retirement. That’s a lot to cope with all at once. But you’re still a young man, Tony. You need something to do.”

“Same age as yourself, Neil.”

“I have this place, and Hannah here. Hey, did you hear old
Alex MacFarlane got one of those mail-order brides? You could always look into that.”

“For God’s sake, Neil,” Hannah said, and stood. She moved some pots noisily around on the stovetop.

“Ah well,” said Neil. “We’re all screwed when we lose our sense of humour.”

“I couldn’t imagine being here with nothing to do,” Hannah said, as she started gathering the dinner plates. “The winters, my God. Maybe it’s different when you have roots in the place.”

Neil was studying my face.

“What makes you think I have roots here?” I asked. Neil looked away.

“I assumed …” she said.

“No roots anywhere,” I said. “I was adopted. Age five.”

Neil stood then, helping Hannah to distribute smaller plates and coffee mugs. “It’s quite the story, Hannah. How Tony came here. I don’t know if I have it straight. Tell Hannah, Tony.”

“You go ahead.”

“You’ll correct me if I’m wrong. Tony’s dad, Duncan MacMillan, had a cousin working in the Little Flower orphanage over in Sydney. And he was visiting her one day and there was this little gaffer hanging around and Duncan spots him and asks about him. I’m not sure of the details. But isn’t it correct that on a later visit he got permission to take you home with him for Christmas? And he just never took you back. Wasn’t it something like that?”

“Something like that,” I said.

“Things were pretty informal back in those days. It worked out great.”

“It did,” I said.

“And did you ever find out about your birth parents?” Hannah asked.

“Yes,” I said. “Eventually I found out about them. Not much to tell.” I shrugged. “A couple of youngsters. I heard that my birth dad was killed in a coal mine accident later.”

“So that was when you changed your name back,” Neil said.

“At some point I realized I never really was a MacMillan, right? Never having been legally adopted.”

“That’s so strange,” Hannah said.

“I remember being around here years later and people talking about this Tony Breau and I didn’t have a clue,” said Neil, placing the whisky bottle on the table. “We’ll have a small one to help settle the turkey. It was a great dinner, Hannah.”

“It was a wonderful dinner,” I echoed. “Thank you.”

“You guys take it easy, we aren’t finished yet.”

Neil was pouring. “I’ve never got used to that Breau business. You’ll always be Tony MacMillan as far as I’m concerned. As much a part of the place as I am.”

“Thanks, Neil. But the truth is I always felt like a bit of an outsider.”

“Tell me about it,” Hannah said. “They’re practically tribal here.”

“Ah, get away with the both of youse,” said Neil. “We’re in God’s country.”

After dinner Neil excused himself, announced that he was in need of a catnap. “Twenty minutes, max,” he said. “I’ll be fresh as a daisy. You two can talk.”

I actually welcomed the prospect of a break from conversation. There was music in the background again. I recognized a sad violin and another wave of longing leaked out of memory: 1966, young and so unaccustomed to such sorrow that you think it’s permanent.

“I understand you went to university,” said Hannah.

“Yes,” I said. “Not far from here.”

“I wanted Neil to keep going with the night courses, work on a degree. But he wasn’t much for the books.”

“He did well without them,” I said. “He must have been quite the policeman.”

“He loved his work,” she said. “It was a terrible adjustment when he had to give it up.”

“It must have been a big adjustment for you, too, moving here,” I said.

She sighed. “I miss home. I get back now and then, but it isn’t the same.”

“I’m surprised Neil didn’t consider retiring in the Boston area, where you’re from.”

“Outside Lowell is where I’m from.” She stood, suddenly nervous. “I’m afraid we didn’t have much choice in the matter.”

“Oh,” I said.

“You make a lot of enemies doing your job as a policeman. The danger never ends. You’d know that, working in the prisons. I think Neil told me you were a corrections officer.”

“Yes,” I said. “I heard that he had a close call, on duty … before he retired.”

She folded her arms across her chest and studied the floor. “He spent his entire service in Roxbury. It was hard, especially
in the seventies and eighties. I’m sure he’ll tell you all about it himself. If you’ll excuse me I’m going to do some cleaning up. You’ll be okay by yourself? I could get you something. Another drink, more coffee?”

“I’m fine,” I said. “I’m getting good at being by myself.”

Her sad, thin smile made me instantly sorry I’d said it.

While she was gone I drifted off to a distant Christmas near the shore, waves gently rippling through gravel, moon beaming through the swirling feather flurries and faces softening, disintegrating, dark sea endless, rolling out of darkness, shushing, Caddy Gillis telling me that Tony Breau was “neat.”

“Ma, do I look like a nigger?”

Forks dropped, Ma’s eyes wide, jaw hanging, no sound from her gaping mouth.

Duncan was standing, furious. “Who said that? Answer me!” But I couldn’t get the words out and now I can’t remember who said it or if anybody said it or if I just conflated my own isolation with a word describing otherness.

“I’m not going to ask again. Who?”

Tears sliding, tears of fear.

“Don’t tell me then because I fuckin well know.”

He wheeled away then, grabbing his coat from a peg. Ma blocked his path to the door, and was roughly shoved aside.

“Get out of the way. You can’t let something like that go—somebody like that has to be dealt with.”

And it seems in memory that he was gone for days, long enough that when he returned his bruises had begun to fade,
but not the words. The words have never faded: Something like that has to be dealt with.

“You’re snoring!” The hand was rough on my shoulder. “Look at the expression on him, Hannah. I’m trying to imagine what he was dreaming about. Come on, Tony. I’ll drive you home. You got a dog to think about.”

He was still laughing when he returned with the coats.

On the shore road he pulled over and stopped the car, turned the motor and the lights off announcing, “I’ve got to take a slash.” He got out.

The night was still, silent. Then he was back but he didn’t start the car, just sat there staring into the darkness. He plucked a cigarette package from his shirt pocket, a soft, fat little American pack of smokes. He shook one out, held it toward me. “You smoke?” he asked.

“Not in thirty years,” I said.

“Wise.”

Now the Zippo lighter, cap snapped and wheel turned on flint, Neil bent over the flame, face pink and puffy, lined in shadow, eyes squinting. “We picked on you something wicked growing up,” he said. He exhaled loudly. “No, it wasn’t fit, the way we’d pick on you.”

“I don’t remember much,” I said. There was a chill fingering the darkness.

“Mentioning the orphanage, the Little Flower, back at the
house, reminded me.” He was staring straight into the night.

He towered over me, leaning. I was sitting in my desk, staring down. Shrieks and cackles, laughter all around. It was like he was leading a singsong: “Duncan gave Christy a little flower for Christmas and it smells like a stinky lily.” Then the teacher’s sudden voice, ancient Mrs. MacIsaac, large and grey, grasping an ear, dragging Neil away: “That’s quite enough. One more word out of you Neil Archie MacDonald and it’ll be staying after school for you
.”