Snow Apples (12 page)

Tom, Mike and Jim went back with Dad to spend the holidays at Williams Lake. The house seemed empty without them.

On New Year's Eve Nels took me to the dance at Roberts Creek, and he didn't get me home until after one in the morning.

Mom got out of bed when I came in. With one hand she clutched the open edges of her blue flannel kimono.

“Sheila, this is no good. This is far too late for you to be out.”

“But it's New Year's Eve! The dance didn't end until after midnight!”

“It's not that. You and Nels. You can't go on like this... or you're going to have to get married.”

“What are you talking about?” I stared at her. “I don't want to get married!”

My mother drew the neck of her kimono tighter and shivered. The fire had been out for hours, and it was cold and damp in the house.

“You can't see this much of each other without getting into trouble. It's bound to happen.”

I pretended I didn't know what she was talking about and went to my room. Undressing quickly, I was in bed with the covers pulled up high over my ears when she came to the bedroom door.

“From now on, you're to be home half an hour after the dance ends,” she said. “No more of this wandering in late, your clothes all rumpled and your eyes bright. No more, I say. You think I don't know what's going on?”

“Yes, okay, Mom.”

My mother meant business, but I didn't think Nels was going to like it.

He didn't, and he said so loudly and often. Then, two weeks later, without a word to tell me why, suddenly it was all right with him to bring me home early. And it seemed to me that he drove off quite happily.

It was Arnie Olsen who told me why. I had eaten my lunch with the other girls in the classroom and was on my
way over to basketball practice when Arnie caught up with me. Both his hands were rammed down in his pockets, and his walk was cocky.

“You don't mind,” his voice was casual, “Nels' trips to Gower Point?”

“You think I should?” I asked, not knowing what he was talking about.

“Well, gee, Sheila, any other girl would. I mean, even though Betty Lou doesn't charge Nels, it's still...you know what I mean.”

I didn't know what he meant, and one look at my face must have told him that.

“She's that woman's moved into Smyth's old place. A chippy. Practically all the guys in town have been over there at least once. Doesn't charge much, and she's built like a brick—”

“Arnie, you can go to hell.” I tried to keep my face blank, but my voice trembled with anger.

“Sorr-ree!” Arnie said and swaggered off.

When Nels took me home from the movie the next night, I asked him about Betty Lou. Pulling out his wallet, he took out a picture and handed it to me. He turned on the overhead light of the truck, and I held the color photo under it.

Betty Lou looked to be in her early twenties and was posed leaning against a car. She wore a short white dress and was laughing at something. And, in Arnie's words, she really was built.

I held the snap by one corner, as if it were dirty.

“Good looker, isn't she?” said Nels.

Dropping the snapshot in disgust on the seat between us, I said, “You really burn me up!”

“Ah, Sheila's jealous!” Nels taunted.

I raised my hand as if to slap him, but he caught my forearm and bent it backwards.

“Temper, temper, little Sheila.”

I glared at him, but he just laughed. I moved to open the truck door. He pulled me back.

“What do you expect me to do?” he asked, suddenly serious. “You don't want to get married. You let me go so far and no further, and then when some dame gives it away, you want me to say no. You can't have it all your own way.”

And that was the impasse. Nels took me home on time, and both he and my mother were satisfied.

I wasn't. Nels and I never talked about Betty Lou again, but I cheered when Arnie Olsen said she was moving to Alert Bay at the end of the month.

*  *  *

My brothers came back from Williams Lake. Only two weeks, and yet I could see that they'd grown even in that short time.

Tom was different, too. Something must have happened at Williams Lake, but when I questioned him about it, he changed the subject.

He was changing in other ways, too. He had the male
lead in the school play, and he was supposed to kiss the heroine twice.

“It's disgraceful, that's what it is,” my mother told him. “Think of the example you're setting for the younger boys. Jim and Mike look up to you. Do you think the play would fall apart if your teacher changed those scenes? I've a good mind to talk to the principal about it.”

Tom was stubborn and quiet.

“I'm going to do it,” he said.

I saw how his hands trembled, though he hid them behind his back. My mother didn't, and she gave in.

Paul wrote that he was getting married. She wasn't Catholic, and her people were English. That was two strikes against her right there, as far as my mother was concerned.

Married. Free to do what they wanted. Nels and I were beginning to act as if we were—almost. What contortions we went through to avoid “it.” Because, of course, “it” could cause pregnancy, and that must never happen. I got to the point where, if Nels had said, “Let's get married now,” I would have. School seemed pale beside the urgency I felt.

Sometimes I thought it must be easier for Nels. He did have some physical relief. But I walked the trails in the woods, restless. I thought if I could walk enough, I might get rid of some of the ache. It didn't happen, and I was left wanting what I hadn't had. I didn't know what—only that I was missing it.

*  *  *

Dr. Howard talked to me about going into nursing.

“I'll write you a letter of recommendation that will get you into any nursing school you want. You should be taking Latin, maybe a correspondence course.”

I dreaded the thought of all the extra homework that would mean.

On the other hand, I noticed that Mom didn't seem to mind the homework for her poetry course. I'd always known she was smart, but when I saw her papers come back from Victoria marked “A” in red ink, I just had to look them over.

There were scribbled comments in the margin in the same red ink: “Good work, Agnes. Keep it up,” and “Shows originality,” and “You could enlarge on this— most interesting.”

On the last page of each paper was a section for the student's comments or questions. My mother wrote, “Thanks for pointing out poem by Gerard Manley Hopkins and for all your help and kind comments.”

The next paper had this reply: “Agnes, only too glad to help someone who obviously loves and appreciates poetry as much as I do. William A. Mann.”

It was strange to think of her being known as Agnes by a teacher in Victoria who thought she was an excellent student. We were all proud of my mother's marks and told her so.

“I always did well at school in Ireland,” she said. “That's why it broke my heart when I wasn't allowed to go past the fourth grade. But they needed my help on the farm, and that's all there was to it.”

Shouldn't she know, then, how I felt about school? Or did she feel because she hadn't had it, neither should I?

*  *  *

Dad hadn't written or sent any money home since Christmas, and here it was well into March. My mother was beside herself with worry. The house wasn't finished inside yet, and there were still the monthly payments to be made on the land.

Tom finally told me what had happened at Williams Lake when the boys visited Dad for the Christmas holidays.

“You should see the woman who's living with Dad. I don't know how he can stand her.”

“A woman?” We were cleaning out last fall's leaves from the wooden crib that kept the milk cold and fresh in the creek. I straightened up and tucked my cold hands under my arms to warm them. “What woman?”

“He says she's his housekeeper.”

“Housekeeper! I'll just bet she's his housekeeper!” I was beginning to sound like my mother.

Tom lowered the milk can back into the cleared crib. “Yeah, well, don't say anything to Mom about it. It would only hurt her.”

So we had to listen to my mother worrying about Dad
not sending her any money, and all the time we knew why.

Each day she looked for a letter from him, and there was none. She began to talk again about my quitting school.

“Either that or get married to Nels,” she declared.

“I've just got a few months left, Mom!”

“May God forgive us all!” She made it sound less like a plea and more like an indictment. “To think that I should have to be back in this state, worrying about how to put food in our mouths.”

Then my mother turned the bread dough onto the table surface to knead it. She sprinkled the table with flour, folding the flour sack inside out, so as not to waste one precious bit.

M
ONEY FROM
my father arrived sporadically. It was the uncertainty more than anything that was the hardest part for my mother.

“If I had my way,” she told me, “I'd see that every woman raising a family would receive a certain sum of money every month, regardless. That way we could plan, we could save. This way we're at the mercy of the men.”

My mother lost the buoyancy of the past year. Pinched lines appeared around her mouth. She pushed through each day as if it required an act of will.

Some weeks ten dollars arrived in the mail along with snapshots my father had taken of the placer gold mine and its great pipes, the raw countryside and the huge equipment used in the background. I was allowed to keep the
pictures. One of the snaps was of my father sitting on a “cat.” He looked completely in his element, and his open face seemed strong, ageless.

In his large handwriting he wrote about living and working in Williams Lake. I always skipped the descriptions of gold mining, looking only for personal comments. There were just a few. Usually in the last line he wrote, “My love to you and the kiddies,” or “Hope Sheila is back at school and doing well, as usual,” or “Tell the boys I enjoyed their visit, and I'm glad they're turning out so well,” or to my mother, “Hope you are in good health and managing without too much trouble.”

What my mother wrote back, I had no idea. I knew she wrote regularly and that she asked us to write, too.

*  *  *

“Sheila,” my mother said to me one clear April Sunday when we were tidying up the kitchen after breakfast, “I'm going to put half of the land up for sale.” And hanging up the dish towel, she explained as much to herself as to me, “I need to talk to Helga Ness. About the payments on the land. I don't know what else to do, I'm sure...” Her voice trailed off, then in a minute came back stronger. “Helga has a soft spot for you, Sheila. It won't hurt to have you come along.”

I emptied out the dish pan, wiped it dry and hung it up on its nail above the counter. All the time I was wondering why I felt reluctant to go.

Together we walked across the bridge to Helga's place. The creek was running high with the run-off from the melted mountain snows, and I leaned over the rail to watch it swirl just inches below. I thought how sad it was that my mother had to be concerned about money again, but I felt uncomfortable that I was to be used as...almost a bargaining tool.

We found Helga outside splitting cedar kindling. When she saw us she stuck the ax in the chopping block.

“It's about the money for the land,” my mother blurted out as she stood there, the crystal April sun warming our hair. And she began to tell Helga about my father working up north.

Helga listened in silence. My mother became agitated, as if the telling rekindled her anger.

“I really don't know what to do,” she concluded, her voice unsteady. “Frank wrote he'd try to be home at Easter, but I don't know. I've not even enough money to feed us the rest of the month.”

All this time Helga was following my mother's words closely, once in awhile giving a little nod of understanding.

My mother went on.

“And there's no sense writing his boss. I did that once years ago, and when they called him into the office about it, Frank just up and quit his job.” She paused for a minute. “I could sell part of the land, I suppose...apply for welfare. I hate to do it, but I guess it's come to that. But about this month's payment for the land—”

“Is okay,” Helga answered. “Pay when you can.”

My mother sighed deeply, and her face relaxed. “Well, I do feel better for having talked to you.” And she put out her hand to touch Helga's in appreciation.

I looked at Helga. She was smiling that special smile of hers, the one that looked like sunlight breaking on crests of waves.

*  *  *

Then, one day, when I came home from school, there was a young woman sitting in our living room. On the chesterfield on either side of her were scattered blue pages, pink forms and yellow cards.