A Bird in the House (2 page)

With Grandfather safely occupied, one danger for me was temporarily over, for if he could think of nothing else to do, he would sit me down on a footstool beside his chair and make me listen, fidgeting with boredom, while he talked of the past. To me there was nothing at all remarkable in the fact that he had come out west by stern wheeler and had walked the hundred-odd miles from Winnipeg to Manawaka. Unfortunately, he had not met up with any slit-eyed and treacherous Indians or any mad trappers, but only with ordinary fanners who had given him work shoeing their horses, for he was a blacksmith. He had been the first blacksmith in Manawaka, and finally had saved enough money to set himself up in the hardware business. He frequently related the epic of that significant day.

“I mind well the day I sold out the smithy to Bill Saunders. He was my helper in them days. He died of a growth only last year, and no wonder. He was always a great
man for eating fried stuff. I used to tell him it coats the inside of your stomach, but he never paid heed. Well, I’d rented the store space in the old Carmichael block, and I says to Billy, ‘I’m going into hardware and if you want the smithy, she’s yours for five hundred on the anvil!’ He laid down his money, just like that. I picked it up and walked out and I never shoed another horse from that day to this. It was hard going in them days, to make the store pay, but I used to load up the buck-board with kettles and axes and that, and take it all around the countryside, and I done a sight better than I would’ve if I’d sat at home like some fellows I could mention, just waiting for the business to come to me.”

I had been trained in both politeness and prudence, so I always said “Gee” in an impressed voice, but it did not seem very exciting to me. I could not imagine the store looking any other way than it did now, a drab place full of kitchen utensils and saw-blades and garden tools and kegs of nails. It was not even Connor’s Hardware any longer, for Grandfather had sold it a few months ago and had officially retired. He still felt as though he were in the business, however, and would often go down to the store and give good advice to Mr. Barnes, the present owner. Once he took me with him, and I pretended to be studying the paint charts while Grandfather held forth and Mr. Barnes kept saying, “Well, well, that’s a thought all right, yessiree, I’ll have to think about that, Mr. Connor.” Finally Grandfather went stomping home and said to Grandmother, “The man’s a downright fool, and lazy as a pet pig, I’ll tell you that much,” and my grandmother chirped softly to my aunt, “Edna, make your father a nice cup of tea, will you, pet?”

Aunt Edna and my mother were talking in the kitchen now, so I went out. My mother was the eldest in the family of
five, and Aunt Edna was the youngest, and while both had the Connor black hair and blue eyes, they were not alike in appearance. My mother was slight and fine-boned, with long-fingered hands like those on my Chinese princess doll, and feet that Aunt Edna enviously called “aristocratic,” which meant narrow. “It’s a poor family can’t afford one lady,” my mother would reply ironically, for we all knew she worked as hard as anyone. Aunt Edna, on the other hand, was handsome and strong but did not like being so. She said she had feet like scows, and she was constantly asking if we thought she had put on weight. My mother, torn between honesty and affection, would reply, “Not so anyone would really notice.”

I climbed up on the high kitchen stool, as unobtrusively as possible. I was a professional listener. I had long ago discovered it was folly to try to conceal oneself. The best concealment was to sit quietly in plain view.

“He’s always been so active,” my mother was saying. “It’s understandable, Edna.”

“It’s all right for you,” my aunt said. “Ken Barnes doesn’t phone you to complain.”

“I know,” my mother said.

She leaned against the kitchen cabinet, and all at once I saw the intricate lines of tiredness in her face. Perhaps they had been there all along, but I had never before noticed them. The sight frightened me, for I still needed the conviction that no one except myself ever suffered anything. Aunt Edna, too, was scrutinizing her.

“You need a few more smocks, Beth, I thought I’d run up a couple for you on the machine. I’ve got that rose crepe – I never wear it here. The colour would suit you.”

“What? Do sewing, with this house to run? You haven’t the time, Edna. Don’t be silly.”

My mother disliked rose intensely, but Aunt Edna had forgotten. The dress had been my aunt’s best one, which she had bought when she went to Winnipeg a few years before, to take a commercial course.

“I’ve got nothing to do with my evenings,” Aunt Edna said. “I can’t just sit around and twiddle my thumbs, can I? It’s settled then. I’ll get at it next week.”

“Well, thanks,” my mother said. “It’s very good of you. What are we going to do about the other, Edna?”

“What can we do? I’m certainly not tackling him about it, are you?”

“Hardly. My, what a pity he ever sold the place. Maybe it was getting too much for him, but still –”

“I was against it, but you know what he’s like when his mind’s made up. He said a man of his age ought to be able to afford to retire. He thought he’d been in hardware long enough.” Then Aunt Edna laughed. “Hardware – that was certainly the right thing for him to go into, wasn’t it? Can you imagine him in software or – heaven forbid – perishables?”

“Is there such a thing as software?” my mother asked.

“Not in his language, kiddo,” Aunt Edna said.

Then they both giggled, and I, all at once wanting to be included, dropped my camouflage of silence.

“Why does Grandfather always say ‘I seen’ and ‘I done’? Doesn’t he know?”

Aunt Edna laughed again, but my mother did not. “Because he never had your advantages, young lady, that’s why,” she said crossly. “He had to leave school when he was just a child. Don’t you ever mention it to him, either, do you hear? At least he doesn’t say ‘guy,’ like some people I could name.”

“Haw haw,” I said sarcastically, but I said it very quietly so she did not hear.

“Nessa,” Aunt Edna said, “where’s that clothespeg doll you were making?”

I had forgotten it. I got it out now and decided I would be able to finish it today. Everyone else in Manawaka used the metal-spring type of clothespegs, but my grandmother still stuck to the all-wooden ones with a round knob on top and two straight legs. They were perfect for making dolls, and I used a pipe cleaner for the arms and bits of coloured crepe-paper for the clothes. This one was going to be an old-fashioned lady.

“You know, Beth,” Aunt Edna said, “that’s not right about advantages. He had plenty. Anyone could make a go of it in those days, if they were willing to work.”

“Oh, I suppose so,” my mother said. Her voice sounded peculiar, as though she were ashamed that she had brought the subject up. She turned away and bent her dark head over the big woodstove that said “McClary’s Range” in shining script across the warming oven at the top. She poked at the bubbling cauliflower with a fork.

“I’ll bet a nickel Ewen won’t be back in time for dinner. It’s Henry Pearl, and I guess he’s in a pretty bad way, poor old fellow. He wouldn’t come in to the hospital. He said he wants to die on his own place. Ewen won’t get a cent, of course, but let’s hope they pay in chickens this time, not that awful pork again, just loaded with fat.”

“Why don’t you ask me if I’d had any word?” Aunt Edna said coldly. “Since that’s what you’re wondering.”

“Well, have you?”

“No. The ad’s been in the Winnipeg papers for the full two weeks now. Tell Ewen thanks but I’m afraid the money was wasted.”

“If you think it would be any use, maybe we could –”

“No,” my aunt said. “I’m not borrowing any more from Ewen. The two of you have enough to worry about.”

“Well, maybe Winnipeg’s not the right place to try. Maybe you’d have a better chance right here in Manawaka.”

“Oh lord, Beth, don’t you think I’ve gone to every office in town? They’ve all got stenographers already, for pity’s sake, or else they can’t afford to hire one. Won’t this damn Depression ever be over? I can see myself staying on and on here in this house –”

I had put too much mucilage on the crepe-paper, and the pieces of the lady’s skirt were slithering and refused to stick properly, on the doll. Then half the skirt got stuck on my hand, and when I angrily yanked it away, the paper tore.

“Darn it! Darn this darned old thing!”

“What’s the matter?” my mother asked.

“It won’t stick, and now it’s ripped. See? Now I’ll have to cut out another skirt.”

I grabbed the scissors and began hacking at another piece of paper.

“Well, as your grandmother says, there’s no use getting in a fantod about it,” my mother said. “Why don’t you leave it now and go back to it when you’re not so worked up?”

“No. I want to finish it today, and I’m going to.”

It had become, somehow, overwhelmingly important for me to finish it. I did not even play with dolls very much, but this one was the beginning of a collection I had planned. I could visualise them, each dressed elaborately in the costume of some historical period or some distant country, ladies in hoop skirts, gents in black top hats, Highlanders in kilts, hula girls with necklaces of paper flowers. But this one did not look at all as I had imagined she would. Her wooden face, on which I had already pencilled eyes and mouth, grinned stupidly at me,
and I leered viciously back.
You’ll be beautiful whether you like it or not
, I told her.

Aunt Edna hardly appeared to have noticed the interruption, but my mother had her eyes fixed dubiously on me, and I wished I had kept quiet.

“You know what he said yesterday?” Aunt Edna went on. “He told me I was almost as good as Jenny – she was their last hired girl, remember? Not as good, mark you. Almost.”

“You mustn’t be so touchy,” my mother said. “He meant it as a compliment.”

“I know,” Aunt Edna said in a strained voice. “That’s the hilarious part. Oh, Beth –”

“Nessa, honey,” my mother said hastily, “run in and see if Grandmother wants to wait dinner for Daddy or not, will you?”

Humiliated and furious, I climbed down from the stool. She reached out to ruffle my hair in an apologetic gesture, but I brushed away her hand and walked into the living room, wrapped in my cloak of sullen haughtiness.

Grandfather was walking up and down in front of the bay window, first looking out and then consulting his pocket watch. He stared at me, and I hesitated. His eyes were the same Irish blue we all had, but the song “When Irish Eyes Are Smiling” had certainly not been referring to him.

“Where’s your father got to, Vanessa?” he said. “He better get a move on.”

Exhilarated with an accumulation of anger, I looked for something offensive to say.

“It’s not his fault,” I replied hotly. “It’s Mr. Pearl. He’s dying with pneumonia. I’ll bet you he’s spitting up blood this very second.”

Did people spit blood with pneumonia? All at once, I could not swallow, feeling as though that gushing crimson
were constricting my own throat. Something like that would go well in the story I was currently making up.
Sick to death in the freezing log cabin, with only the beautiful halfbreed lady
(no,
woman
)
to look after him, Old Jebb suddenly clutched his throat
– and so on.

“You mind how you talk,” Grandfather was saying severely. “Do you want to upset your grandmother?”

This was a telling blow. I did not want to upset my grandmother. It was tacitly understood among all members of the family that Grandmother was not to be upset. Only Grandfather was allowed to upset her. The rest of us coddled her gladly, assuming that she needed protection. I looked guiltily at her now, but she appeared unaware that anything nasty had been spoken. If it had been a week-day, she would have been knitting an afghan; but as it was Sunday she was reading the Bible with the aid of a magnifying glass. She did not believe in eyeglasses, which were, she thought, unnatural. She did not believe in smoking or drinking or the playing of cards, either, but she never pushed her beliefs at other people nor made any claims for her own goodness. If a visitor lit up a cigarette, she did not say a word, not even after he had gone. This was not a question of piety to her, but of manners. She kept one ashtray in the house, for the use of smoking guests. It was a thick glass one, and it said in gilt letters “Queen Victoria Hotel, Manawaka.” Uncle Terence, the second oldest of her children, had swiped it once, out of the hotel beer parlour, but Grandmother never knew that, and she was always under the impression that the management had given it to him for some reason or other, possibly because he must have been such a polite and considerate dining room guest, which was the only part of the hotel she thought he had ever been into.

My grandmother was a Mitigated Baptist. I knew this because I had heard my father say, “At least she’s not an unmitigated Baptist,” and when I enquired, he told me that if you were Unmitigated you believed in Total Immersion, which meant that when you were baptised you had to be dunked in the Wachakwa River with all your clothes on. Unlike the United Church, where I went with my parents and where the baptisms were usually of newborn babies and the event happened only once for each person, in my grandmother’s church the ritual was often performed with adults and could occur seasonally, if the call came. Grandmother had never plunged into the muddy Wachakwa.

“With her tendency to pleurisy,” my father had said, “we can count it a singular blessing that your grandmother believes in font baptism.”

Grandfather had started out a Methodist, but when the Methodists joined with the Presbyterians to form the United Church, he had refused to go because he did not like all the Scots who were now in the congregation. He had therefore turned Baptist and now went to Grandmother’s church.

“It’s a wonder he didn’t join the Salvation Army,” I had once heard Aunt Edna remark, “rather than follow her lead.”

“Now, Edna,” my mother had said, glancing sideways at me. So I heard nothing more of any interest that day but I did not really care, for I was planning in my head a story in which an infant was baptised by Total Immersion and swept away by the river which happened to be flooding. (Why would it be flooding? Well, probably the spring ice was just melting. Would they do baptisms at that time of year? The water would be awfully cold. Obviously, some details needed to be worked out here.) The child was dressed in a christening robe of white lace, and the last the mother saw of her was
a scrap of white being swirled away towards the Deep Hole near the Wachakwa bend, where there were bloodsuckers.