The Western Light (10 page)

16

OUR CAR STARTED TO OVERHEAT JUST SOUTH OF WYOMING, Ontario, where not quite a hundred years before, my great-grandfather had dragged oil barrels to its railway station through the Great Swamp of Enniskillen. Our clothes were gritty with dust, and the breeze blowing through our car window no longer cooled us.

My aunt drove up to one of the houses and went inside to call Uncle Willie. Thirty minutes later, Big Louie's ancient Packard came bumping down the dirt road, throwing up dust. Its purple chassis was the same shade as the eggplants Big Louie grew in her vegetable garden. It had a double row of white-walled tires and fenders painted a shiny black. Uncle Willie sat in the passenger seat next to a stranger wearing Maurice's chauffeur uniform. “Hello, Louisa,” the stranger called out the window. His face was smooth and almost featureless, except for his horn-rimmed spectacles and full, oversized lips. Leaping out of the Packard, he took off his chauffeur's cap and bowed towards my aunt. The blond finger waves surging back from his forehead didn't move. After her hair had been freshly set in a permanent wave, Big Louie's hair showed the same stiff quality.

My aunt shrunk down into her seat, and I took a hard look at the man who was making her nervous. Morley's size made women feel safe, but the stranger's soft blond looks suggested women should take care of him. Bit by bit, my aunt recovered her composure and slid out of the front seat, shielding her chest with her leather purse. Its strap caught on the door handle; its clasp popped open and Old Mac's letters fell out, along with three tubes of Revlon lipstick. In a soft, musical voice, the stranger began to sing, “Beautiful dreamer, awake unto me, Starlight and dewdrops are waiting for thee.” My aunt lowered her eyes, the blush on her cheeks deepening. Before she could bend down, the stranger grabbed the lipsticks and my great-grandfather's letters and one by one he handed them back. “I didn't expect to see you today,” she said. Avoiding my eyes, she crammed everything back into her purse.

“Well, I wanted to see you.” The stranger hugged my aunt a few moments too long before she wiggled out of his arms. “Is this your charge?” he asked, turning to me. My aunt replied, “She's Alice's child, Mary. She had polio six years ago.”

“I see. Does Mary take after her father?”

My aunt said, “yes.” The stranger said, “Mary, I'm not really the chauffeur, you know. I'm Max.”

“You're Max?” I exclaimed.

“Yes, Mary. Max is my friend,” my aunt said quickly. “Has Big Louie let Maurice go?”

“No, he's back at the Great House.” Uncle Willie grinned. “Mother won't cut back on her spending — you know that.” Uncle Willie waved at the Packard. “It cost a bundle to rebuild this baby. But she wanted the works for her celebration of Vidal Oil.”

“Oh, stop boring us with your money problems,” Max said. “Your family can just sell another oil well.”

“Max thinks he's smart because he's head of his union local now,” Uncle Willie said.

My aunt replied, “Well, I guess that helps with the family bills.”

Max looked hurt. Uncle Willie said quickly: “Come on, pal. Let's call the garage.” The two men went inside the farmhouse. When they came back, we climbed into the Packard and Uncle Willie opened its trunk and pulled out a Zoom-8 movie camera, like the ones I saw on television. “It will be like old times, Little Louie. You and Max together! Snuggle up to him now,” my uncle called. My aunt jerked her head away, frowning, and Uncle Willie pointed his camera at Max as he started up the Packard. We drove slowly down the farmhouse lane, Uncle Willie running alongside, filming us. Max stopped and Uncle Willie climbed in the backseat. He swatted Max's head. “Get on with it, Jeeves!” Max put his foot to the floor and drove flat out down the country road. As the Packard sailed over a bump, Uncle Willie and I rose off the seat.

Uncle Willie yelled, “Bull's-eye, Jeeves!”

My aunt said anxiously, “Willie, this is far too fast for an old wreck like the Packard.” A second bump lifted us off our seats again and our heads just missed the ceiling. I screamed and Uncle Willie batted Max's head again.

“Slow down, old boy! You're scaring the horses.”

“Rightie-o, Your Highness!” Max straightened his chauffeur's cap. “Do you wish to film the main drag?”

“By Jove, that's a capital idea!” Uncle Willie exclaimed.

Max turned down the main street of Petrolia and Uncle Willie leapt out, aiming his camera at an old farmer on the sidewalk. “Look sharp!” Uncle Willie shouted. “That's right! The Vidals are coming!” The farmer shook his head and walked away. Uncle Willie told my aunt and me to smile for posterity, so we grinned and waved while the Packard glided past stores with canvas awnings and brick walls decorated with ads for Sweet Cap cigarettes. Next to Madoc's Landing, Petrolia felt like the centre of the civilized world, although rowdies motored to its bars on Saturday night, shouting and fighting, breaking windows, and the air was always heavy with a sulfur smell from the oil wells. That day, with the heat, the smell was worse. I was relieved when Uncle Willie got back in and the car sped up so the breeze came through our windows again. “See that house, Mary?” Uncle Willie said, aiming his Kodak movie camera. “It belonged to your great-grandfather's friend, Van Tuys. And that big mansion was owned by the late Charles Pilkie. 'Course, the Pilkies have moved away. Not one of them left here now.”

I sat up when I heard the Pilkie name.

“Is the family any relation to the hockey player who killed his wife?” Max asked.

“He's a cousin,” Uncle Willie replied. “The Pilkies were ashamed of him. How would you like a cold-blooded murderer for a relative?”

“I know Gentleman Jack Pilkie,” I said. “I think he's nice.”

“Mary has struck up a friendship with the hockey killer,” my aunt said.

“Have you, Mary?” Uncle Willie turned his eyes to me, his voice taking on a serious tone. “You're not going to get in trouble with the law now, are you, Mary?”

“I hope not,” I said, and Uncle Willie laughed. “All right, Jeeves,” he cried. “On to the ancestral seat!” Max flapped his hand out the car window and the Packard laboured through a pair of iron gates and up a small gulley past a meadow where sheep were grazing. The pump jacks bobbed up and down like giant birds pecking the earth. Next to the pump jacks stood one of the wooden oil derricks my great-grandfather had used and an old field house. The car motored slowly through a stand of oaks and passed under a cloth banner that said: VIDAL OIL — THE LONGEST OIL SERVING COMPANY IN THE WORLD! A moment later, the Packard's engine hiccupped twice and we came to a rolling stop in front of the Great House, which Old Mac had built in 1890 for my great-grandmother, who died after giving birth late in life to my grandmother, Big Louie. The sheep grazing on the grassy slope down to Bear Creek stopped to look at us; and, for a moment, I sat there staring, trying to take it all in. Not far from Big Louie's home, my great-grandfather had sailed upstream on his lumber scow, looking for the gushers that lay at the headwaters of the local creeks. What would he think if he could travel through time and meet us? Would he be shocked that Big Louie said he found gold in the muck he came from?

Big Louie and her housekeeper, Willa, sat fanning themselves on the front porch, while Maurice, the real chauffeur, weeded the lawn.

“Out of gas, kids?” Big Louie laughed.

Clutching my notebook with the first and only page of my composition, I wriggled off the seat, and walked over to my grandmother, hoping Max wouldn't see me limping.

“Is this what I think it is, favourite grandchild?” Big Louie asked when I held up the notebook.

“Yes, but it's not done yet.” “Why not, Dearie?”

“The Bug House boys threw it away. I saved the first page, though.”

My grandmother's face fell. But she was no longer looking at me. She was watching Max approach with Uncle Willie. My aunt was coming our way too, walking behind the two men, her head down.

“Hello, Max,” Big Louie said in an unfriendly tone. Max bowed, sweeping his arm in front of him the way he had for my aunt.

“You don't mind, do you Mother?” Uncle Willie said. “Max had some business in town today.”

“And that's why he wore Maurice's uniform, I suppose,” my grandmother said sarcastically. “Really, Max, you have the nerve of a canal horse.”

“It was just for a laugh,” Max replied nervously while Uncle Willie's camera whirred in our ears.

“That's right, Mother. Nobody likes a laugh more than you. Now curtsy, why don't you? You too, Mary,” Uncle Willie shouted. “And pick us a few flowers.”

Big Louie stiffened disdainfully and tapped my shoulder. We curtsied together, and sauntered through the pergola, admiring the climbing roses threaded through the trellis. Then we strolled on to her cutting garden. Big Louie handed me a pair of scissors. “Mouse, you know how I do my flowers, don't you?”

Of course I knew. I was to give her the flowers one by one and she'd arrange them in her hand exactly as she wanted them to look in her vase. All year round, the artistry of Big Louie's bouquets dominated the Great House: sprays of moose berries in October; in November, pots of cyclamen; December, paper whites in iron bowls filled with plum pudding stones from Lake Huron; forced forsythia branches in February; and on it went until the daffodils. In every season, my grandmother placed only small
boule
vases on the dining table so the guests could see each other's faces. Big Louie pointed at a Jerusalem lily. “See the huge bee crawling inside? Women are like these lilies and men are the bees who want to get their honey.” I was aware my grandmother was acting in a forced and exaggerated manner.

“Mom, what are you telling Mary?” my aunt asked. “I hate it when you talk about me behind my back.”

“You've got the wrong idea, Dearie. I was telling Mary that you're in your prime like these lilies and plenty of bees want your honey. If you give them half a chance.”

Little Louie eyed her feet, frowning.

“Stop blathering, Mother,” Uncle Willie called from the other side of the pergola. “Put your arms around Mary and Little Louie. Pretend I'm not here. Act natural. That shouldn't be hard for you.”

Big Louie snorted. “Isn't Willie clever, Mary? He's going to be a great director one day, aren't you, Willie?”

“Yes, of course, old girl,” Uncle Willie said. “If you'll pay my way to film school in California. Now back to the house for some shots with Willa.”

The three of us walked slowly across the lawn, trying to look relaxed for the camera. The whirring noise stopped. “Oh, dang it,” Uncle Willie called. “I've run out of film.”

“You must be hungry, Mary. Willa has your dinner ready.” My grandmother planted my hand inside Willa's papery fist. Holding my breath in anticipation, I followed Willa into the Great House. When the tall wooden door swung open, I took off my Lone Ranger hat and stared down the hall; the dark wainscoting had been made from the oaks on Old Mac's property. To the left was the music room where Big Louie practised on the grand piano and Uncle Willie used to take boxing lessons from a retired American champion and, before that, his singing classes with one of Big Louie's friends. Uncle Willie started hobbies the way Willa planted seeds for my grandmother's vegetables; when he grew tired of his latest craze, his hobbies sickened and died like Willa's beans if she forgot to water them.

In front of me rose the grand staircase with its hand-carved banisters and family portraits. Five people could walk abreast up the staircase to the ballroom where orchestras from New York played on New Year's Eve. If the guests didn't feel like walking, they could take Big Louie's elevator to the third floor. She installed it after Old Mac died, because she knew he would never have tolerated such extravagance. Smiling to myself, I walked over to look at the painting of Old Mac in his quilted dressing gown. He never wore anything but that dressing gown after he was banished to the third floor where Willa looked after him. My grandmother claimed he used to shout at them to turn down the gramophone and they didn't consider a party any good unless Old Mac threatened to call the police.

On the walls by the staircase were more interesting pictures. Framed photographs of bearded men tromping down on the log treadles of old oil wells, which was how they pumped oil then, and more photographs of the same men, clean-shaven and wearing pith helmets, drilling for oil in Borneo as well as photographs of Petrolia when its office buildings were made of wood. There were also black-and-white photographs of burned-down buildings after the big fire in Petrolia in 1867, along with pictures of the Imperial Oil Company Refinery when it was just a shack on the main street. There were photographs of Big Louie with her husband, Reginald Barrett, the notorious rumrunner and father of her children. Reginald Barrett kept bathtub gin in the Vidals' unused oil wells, where the police couldn't find it. Nobody could prove he was breaking the law, although he was shot dead in a speakeasy on the St. Clair River. My grandmother suspected a temperance reformer had done it. In their wedding portrait, he and Big Louie stood on the lawn of the Great House in the middle of a long line of smiling men in dark suits and women dressed in flapper skirts. My grandmother, the woman with the thin arched eyebrows and laughing mouth, was pointing at a sign hanging from a striped awning on the verandah: THE NEW MR. AND MRS. OF OILY MANOR.

There were photographs of my mother, Alice, and Little Louie as girls, but I didn't look at any of those. I turned instead to my fave, the large oil painting of my great-grandfather's lumber scow sailing out of the oil slick on Lake St. Clair. The name of the painting was
Black Ship
and the boat's hull was coloured a dark, oily black. Unfortunately, the stubby-looking boat was not a real lumber schooner, but a canal boat like the kind my great-grandfather sailed when he was a young man. It had a fat round stern and small bowsprit because the artist had painted a cannaller by mistake. Big Louie said the mistake didn't matter. The painting was allegorical. My great-grandfather wanted to depict himself heading into sunnier climes.