The Western Light (13 page)

THE NEXT MORNING AT BREAKFAST, Morley announced that we were going on a picnic to the Western Light with Sib and Sal.

“It's time you took a look at paradise, Louisa,” Morley said. “There's nothing else like it.”

“If you say so,” Little Louie replied anxiously. My father didn't know that my aunt was afraid of water.

As for me, I had a hard time hiding my excitement. While I ate my cereal, I copied information about the lighthouse from
Hansen's Handbook to Georgian Bay
into
M.B's Book of True Facts
. “Our pioneer world was technically advanced,” I told my aunt. “As early as 1857 the Western Light had a state-of-the-art Fresnel lens, shipped from Paris, France.”

She looked up from her newspaper. “Stop pulling my leg, huh? Brebeuf County was never that sophisticated.”

“It was, too.” I gave Little Louie my haughtiest smile and she laughed. I didn't care. If the Ontario Psychiatric Hospital reflected the world of Madoc's Landing back to itself, the Western Light was the town's true north — a sign of constancy in times that kept changing. I felt glad that John was associated with something so mystical and beautiful.

21

THE DUST FLEW UP THE CAR WINDOWS AS WE SPED PAST FRENCH-Canadian farms and their small roadside shrines sheltering tiny Virgin Marys. Their sleepy faces and heavy-lidded eyes reminded me of my aunt, except that Little Louie would be reading a book, not holding Baby Jesus. Soon we left behind the stands of reforested pine and dwarf apple trees growing wild, and the highway dwindled to a sandy ridge of backcountry overgrown with Shasta Daisies. In the distance, the shiny aluminum roofs of French-Canadian barns mirrored back the cloudless sky. The last barn belonged to the Beaudrys, whose red brick farmhouse overlooked the Bay. When he wasn't working at the Bug House, Sib grew corn along with Christmas trees in its sandy soil. In the winter, he drove his scoot across the ice delivering supplies to the reserve on the Île au Géant, and on weekends, Sal cooked for Sib and his father, Old Man Beaudry.

The front door opened and Sal came out carrying a picnic basket. “Well, look who you meet when you don't have your gun.” She climbed into the back seat beside me. Our car careened bumpily down the old logging road to the ferry dock. My father parked near Towanda Lodge, where its caretaker, Old Man Beaudry, lived. Unable to restrain myself, I shouted, “Hooray! We're going to see John Pilkie's old home!”

“Did he really live in such a godforsaken place?” Little Louie asked.

“Yes,” Morley replied. “But it's a beautiful spot, Louisa. Wait 'til you see it.”

“And you helped Mr. Pilkie operate on John's appendix,” I pointed out.

“Who told you that story, Mary?” Morley said.

“I guess I did.” Sal nodded. “I didn't mean any harm, Doc Bradford. Maybe you could tell us how you did it, eh?” Morley scowled as if he was going to chew Sal out, and then he thought better of it. “I'll tell you about it later. Out at the light.”

“You knew the murderer?” Little Louie asked. “Was he always violent?”

“I knew John when he was a little boy. Some of us think he was punch-drunk after he was hit on the head.”

Little Louie looked skeptical while I listened, rapt, wondering if I should pinch myself. Morley had confirmed it — John didn't mean to throw the match that started the fire.

“Looks like some people are waiting to see you,” Sal told my father. On the porch of Towanda Lodge, six pregnant women sat in rocking chairs waiting for Morley, who was known in Brebeuf County for predicting when a baby would arrive. He was like a dowser, Sal said. He knew to the day and sometimes the hour when the baby was going to come. The women stood up as my father approached, their stomachs hidden under layers of clothing even though it was summer and hot.

“I'll just be a few minutes,” Morley called apologetically. He hurried inside, and the women went in after, their faces wearing the expression I often saw on the faces of my father's patients. The adjective “adoring” comes to mind.

ABOVE OUR HEADS, THE LIMESTONE tower rose up between two high, lichen-covered granite humps while around us, in every direction, stretched the calm waters of the Bay. The gears on Sib's inboard began to grind, and there was a gurgling noise as Sib reversed into the harbour. When he turned off the motor, we heard nothing except the sound of waves washing against rocks. Who would guess that John had grown up in such a lonely place? Only to kill his wife and child? Of course, he wasn't a true killer. Morley as much as said so.

Under the hot August sun, the five of us climbed out of the launch. My father clamped his hand on my neck, gripping me hard. I was aware of him breathing slow and deep, as if he was more exhausted than he was letting on. Chances are the heat was getting to him, since we no longer had the breeze from the motorboat to cool us. Or maybe my father's mind was still back with the pregnant women at Towanda Lodge. I had no way of knowing what was going on in his head. We followed Sal and my aunt across the scorching rocks. Underfoot, the granite felt dense as iron, and the rocks were slippery with lichen the colour of light green spearmint gum. Sal kept sneaking glances at my aunt, who had on a sundress and high wedge heels. Little Louie was having a hard time keeping her balance.

“What did you wear heels for?” Sal asked. “Only cijits walk on the rocks on those things.”

“What's a cijit?” my aunt asked.

“City idiot,” Sal said. My father chuckled. Sal threw him a mollified glance and my aunt flushed. At that moment, Sib appeared on the rocks below, holding a pair of sunglasses and calling my aunt's name. Surprised, Little Louie whirled around and the strap of her sundress fell off her shoulder, exposing half her breast. Sib put his fingers between his teeth and whistled, and my aunt quickly pushed the strap back up, her cheeks darkening in a self-conscious blush, as if it was she, and not him, who had done something wrong. I was struck by how unsure of herself she seemed. She quickly took the dark glasses from Sib and hurried after Sal while Morley and I followed along behind. Suddenly, nothing felt the same.

It occurs to me now that the atmosphere was charged with sexual tension. Everything had changed because my aunt's strap had fallen down in the bright, fierce light of the August sun. In that instant the grown-ups felt free of the mainland, where life unfolded in respectable rituals, and I wondered if my aunt and Sal realized that walking ahead gave my father and Sib the chance to admire their backsides. You couldn't see much of my aunt's bottom in her pretty sundress, but Sal's heartshaped rump was evident in her worn jeans. The sight of the two women, so different from each other, made me thoughtful. My fair-haired aunt, with her powerful, loping strides was more beautiful; but there was something appealing about Sal, who was shorter and thicker, and the saucy way she looked about her, tossing her thick, dark hair. I admired their feminine curves, and my own body, with its straight angles, felt like a crude approximation of theirs. To be honest, I looked like a stick drawing of a girl. Paste on a narrow face with a lopsided smile and that would be me, Mouse Bradford. I suspected Morley saw me as a disappointment, too. If I were his age, he would never choose somebody like me as his wife.

THE PILKIES MUST HAVE PLANTED a garden, because on either side of the pathway wild irises and day lilies grew inside circles of whitewashed rocks. By the door of the old lighthouse stood two wizened apple trees, their stunted boughs hanging with baby green fruit. Sal and my aunt waited by the wooden ramp that led up to the house. “See that old thing?” Sal called, waving at a flagpole that lay flat on the ground. “John's father tied him up to it during a thunderstorm. I guess you could say he left John high and dry. Well, not so dry.” Sal smiled knowingly and we all nodded. Sal had us in the grip of her storytelling powers now, and she was enjoying herself. “The waves were so big they sucked the water back, and John could see clear down to the bottom of the lake.”

“Was John's father mean?” I asked.

“He was a no-good drunk, Mary,” my father said, the bitter sound of his voice surprising me.

“That's right, eh? Roy Pilkie was soused when he drowned out here,” Sal added. “His heavy boots pulled him down before anyone could save him. Say, Doc Bradford. Isn't that the coast guard?”

We turned and looked at a launch approaching the Western Light. When my father saw it, his mouth tightened and he looked worried.

“Guess we'd better see what they want, Sib,” my father said. Sib nodded, and the two men started back down the rocks.

“Doc Bradford won't be long, Mouse,” Sal said. To distract me, she pointed at a bright turquoise paddle that had been fashioned into a railing for the stairs up to the lighthouse. “Isn't that folksy? Jim Pilkie carved that paddle. Jim was good with his hands, I'll say that for him. He taught John to be good with his hands, too. That's why John knows how to rig up his escapes. Remember how he made a key out of a jam jar?”

“The jam jar key sounds like a yarn to me,” my aunt replied without glancing at the railing. Sal's jaws worked angrily; but, instead of arguing, she pushed open the old door of the lighthouse, and we peered inside. Its windows were shuttered, except for a small pane of glass above the front door; the baking sun that filtered through its portal exposed a mudroom stacked with rubber wading boots and oil slickers. Stepping carefully around broken beer bottles, we entered the cool dark living room. Halfway across the creaking plank floor, Sal made us peek behind a canvas curtain at a pair of army cots. Old socks and shirts lay on the floor where they'd been tossed and the sheets on the cots had been chewed as if rats had been at them.

“This place needs a good going-over,” Sal said. “I'm sure glad I don't have to clean it. See the clever way the shutters work, eh?” Sal pushed at some boards covering a window and the boards opened out, exposing sleeping bats that came to life and started climbing the glass with their tiny claws.

“Mary, over here!” my aunt called. “Look at these old photos.” As my eyes adjusted to the dim light, I saw framed pictures of women in long summer dresses carrying parasols and men in rolled-up trousers holding up strings of fish. I thought of the photographs in the Great House, the oilmen at their rigs or outside their field houses, their faces dark with grease. Here was proof that the Western Light possessed a past, too.

I made my way over to a rotting sofa piled with faded orange life jackets and discarded fishing tackle. On a shelf above it were a Snakes-and-Ladders game and two old guidebooks that I'd never seen in Madoc's Landing stores:
All You Need to Know about Sports Fishing and How to Survive in the North
. I pulled down one of the guides and flipped through its foxed pages. It said that pioneers sometimes suffocated after bugs flew up their noses; but, more often, they died from cold. Its account of hypothermia caught my eye:

If you fall into water sixty degrees or below, all efforts should be put into getting out as fast as possible or death will result. Symptoms include shivering, slurred speech, apathy, unsteadiness, skin blue-grey to the touch. Treatment: cover the victim's torso with hot cloths or place victim in hot bath, leaving out legs and arms to avoid After Drop, which occurs when the cold blood from the limbs is forced back into the torso, fatally lowering the body's temperature.

“Will you look at Lady Jane?” Sal laughed. “We're out at the Light and she sticks her nose in a book!”

I quickly put the book back and joined Sal and my aunt in the kitchen. “See that square?” Sal pointed at a faded outline on the oilcloth covering a shelf. “That's where the ship-to-shore used to sit.”

“How do you know?” Little Louie asked.

“Mrs. Pilkie told me, that's how. Here's where Jim talked to Doc Bradford when John got his attack of appendix. And just look out there, eh? When the waves are high they hit the house.” We looked down at the water lapping at the rocks. “And that's the table that John lay on. You can bet he was twitching.” Sal laughed as our eyebrows flew up our foreheads. I closed my eyes, picturing a boy about to be cut open on the kitchen table and from an immense distance my father's voice booming instructions over the ship-to-shore radio ...

Sal shook my arm. “Got your head in the clouds again, Mouse? Better come along. There's more to see.”

I followed Sal up the stairs, leaving my aunt to stare out the kitchen window. The Pilkies had lived in the old lighthouse as simply as some of the poorest families in Madoc's Landing, except that they were self-sufficient and proud of it. And besides, as Morley said, the Bay was paradise in the summer.

Upstairs, it was hotter and there were no hallways. One bedroom led to another as if the builder wanted to conserve space. There were no shutters on the windows; the August sun streamed through the ragged blinds. The room with the double bed was strewn with more dirty-looking clothes and newspapers. Sal said the room belonged to John's parents. There wasn't much furniture — just a chair and a few kerosene lamps with dusty glass mantles. As we walked into the second bedroom, Sal pointed at marks gouged in the wooden floor. “Their dog must have left these behind. Oh, oh.” Sal glanced out the window, blowing out her cheeks. “I guess the coast guard needed Doc Bradford.”

Down by the boathouse, Sib stood on the dock waving. My father waved back from the bow of the coast guard boat as it reversed slowly out the harbour. Sal put her hand on my shoulder and together we went back downstairs. “I guess we won't hear the story of John Pilkie's appendix today,” I said sadly.

“Not this time, Lady Jane,” Sal replied.

Yet Another Warning from Hindrance

 

Hindrance: Morley doesn't have time for a pipsqueak like you, Mouse.

Me: All fathers have time for their daughters, Hindrance. Hindrance: Tell me another one. Now you think a concussion made John Pilkie crazy?

Me: Morley thinks it's possible and so do I.

Hindrance: Don't be a fool. A leopard doesn't change his spots. Mouse: Well, I'm a fool then because I believe my father. He thinks there's a chance that John's concussion affected his judgment. Maybe it did.

Hindrance: Okay. I beg your pardon, I grant your grace. I hope the cat will scratch your face. Don't say I didn't warn you when the hockey killer carves you up like the Christmas turkey.