Algoma (5 page)

The pulp mill was the tallest structure in town, its jagged profile visible from the Beaudoins’ front yard. Their one-storey brick home had been cheaper because it stood so close to the mill. Algoma and Gaetan had bought the house thinking they’d move to the south end of town one day. The nice part of town. Until then, along with the mill, they lived on Le Pin’s unofficial northern border. Only several houses and a gas station beyond their house, civilization wound down to two hundred kilometers of forest until the last clutch of villages rose up. Industry’s last gasp. Communities living on the edge of the map.

“We should go up north this summer,” Ferd said. He kicked the back of the driver’s seat.

“Would you stop it,” Gaetan said, palm flat on the top of the steering wheel. “We are up north. How much further you want to go?”

Ferd rattled off the names of several villages north of Le Pin.

Algoma looked over her shoulder. “You forgot Pike Falls.”

Gaetan laughed. “Does that even count as a village? Twenty people live there. Compared to them, we’re big time. Hell, we even have a hospital. This is big city living.”

“Watch the road,” Algoma said. She twisted her gloved hands nervously in her lap, the green leather worn down to the beige lining at her fingertips from her constant fidgeting. It had snowed the night before, the silvery powder kind that left the roads slippery even after they’d been plowed. New snow crunched beneath the tires.

“The snow’s talking,” Ferd said, pressing his ear to the cold window.

Algoma asked him what it was saying. Call and response. The same routine they’d been doing since Ferd had been old enough to talk. Only the answer ever changed.

Ferd paused. “It’s saying it wants a doughnut.”

“Well, tell it that it can have a doughnut if it stays with us at the market,” Algoma said.

Ferd kicked the back of the driver’s seat again. “Fine.”

Gaetan looked at his son in the rear-view mirror, his eyes thin black slits. “Or not.”

Ferd turned away and looked out the window. Row upon row of stacked duplexes that varied little from street to street. It looked like every building in town had been built in the same year, each tired in the same way: sagging porches and rusting metal staircases that led to the upper units. When they passed a mint green duplex with two empty urns on either side of the ground floor unit’s front door, Ferd pounded the window with his mitt. “Can Aunt Soo come, too?”

“Maybe next time,” Algoma said. She glanced at her sister’s house as the car slid by. She could picture Soo’s yarn-strewn couch. Several afghans in progress. It was nearly impossible to extract Soo from her house in the winter, the clicking of her knitting needles counting down the seconds until spring.

“Whoa, whoa, whoa, girl,” Gaetan yelled. He commanded the car to stop as it slid into the middle of the intersection.

“Gae—” Algoma choked, her hands on the dashboard.

“We’re good, no cars. No cars.” Gaetan smiled. Algoma did not. “I’m doing the best I can,” he said, putting a hand on her thigh. She stiffened under his touch.

Ferd yelled, “Look, look!”

Gaetan and Algoma turned their heads to the right. A bride, groom, and seven wedding party members stood on the steps of St. Alphonse church while a photographer in a massive parka snapped photos. Iced taffeta and crinoline. The church was one of a half dozen in town in competition with one another, each steeple reaching higher than the last, like children raising their hands in a classroom where there was only one right answer.

“We should go more often,” Algoma said, but she didn’t mean it. It was a resolution she made every year, but never kept with the exception of midnight mass and maybe Easter if she felt guilty enough.

Gaetan pulled the car into the market’s parking lot and parked in one of the only empty spaces left. He undid his seat belt and took the keys out of the ignition. “Now how about some doughnuts, then?”

The market was only open one day a week: Saturday. Vendors from the area and even a couple hours away ritually converged upon the building to staff the same booths they had for years. Glowing towers of jarred honey. Fat-speckled sausage links hanging from large silver nails. Frosted baked goods carefully arranged under glass. An easy-listening radio station playing over the loud speakers.

“Don’t mind if I do,” Gaetan said, pouring himself a small paper cup of rum punch. A table with two huge punch bowls was set up at the entrance to the market. Every year, early in the New Year, the market offered complimentary rum punch and a second bowl of fruit punch for the kids. From our families to yours. Health and happiness in the New Year.

Algoma crossed her arms. “It’s only eleven in the morning.”

“They wouldn’t put it out if they didn’t want us to enjoy it,” he said, and poured a second cup. “C’mon and have some with me.” He handed her the cup.

Algoma softened and accepted the punch. She brought the cup to her mouth and sipped, almost choking from the sting of cheap rum against her throat.

“Can I have one, too?” Ferd placed his hands in front of his chest like a begging dog. “The good one?”

“I don’t think so.” Algoma drained her cup and tossed it into the garbage can beside the table.

“Three points,” Gaetan cheered. “The lady is a champ.”

“Stop it,” she said, but she was smiling again.

Gaetan saw the opportunity and slipped his arm around her waist and kissed her. It had been so long since they’d kissed that her lips felt foreign to him, but good. Encouraged, he pulled her closer.

Self-conscious, Algoma laughed and pushed him away and slapped his chest. “Enough!”

Ferd tugged on his mother’s jacket. “Doughnuts?”

Gaetan poured himself another cup of punch and raised it in the air. “One for the road!”

Arms laden down with bags of bread, cheese, meat, and winter squash, Ferd, Gaetan, and Algoma stood in front of their favourite bakery stand, the highlight of every visit. Under the home-made Plexiglass cover were an assortment of cakes, pies, and pastries. The doughnuts were kept on a painted wood shelf behind Mrs. Walschots. She was a Dutch immigrant who’d married a local man and moved to town thirty years ago. People in town still referred to her as “new.”

“Three dozen doughnuts,” Ferd said, as politely as he could muster. “Please.”

“He means we’ll take a dozen,” Algoma corrected, and handed over a five-dollar bill.

Mrs. Walschots took the money and tucked it into her apron. “What kind, Leo? Sugar or maple?”

“Ferd. It’s Ferd,” Algoma said, too quickly.

Gaetan looked at the floor.

“Oh, yes, yes,” Mrs. Walschots said, her face reddening. “I’m so sorry. Here, let me add an extra maple one. For Ferd.”

By the time Gaetan pulled the car into the driveway, the plastic bag the doughnuts had come in was empty. Ferd’s hand prints were fossilized onto the back window, ice-hard syrupy prints that Gaetan would promise to wash off for weeks.

Algoma threaded the grocery bags onto her arms and walked toward the house, the bags scraping against the bricks. She thought about the market. It was the most time the three of them had spent together in months. Gaetan ran up from behind her and opened the door. “Madam,” he said, and gave her a dramatic bow.

Algoma nodded and walked inside, not stopping to take off her boots before putting the groceries in the kitchen. Ferd ran inside after her, and, to Algoma’s surprise, he started to put the groceries away, a job he normally shirked. He avoided housework whenever he could, so when he put the squash in the fridge, she did not correct him.

After a dinner of roasted chicken, potatoes, and salad, Gaetan sat down on the couch and wrote in his weather journal, the television on in the background. Algoma cleared the rest of the plates and wiped down the table. Instead of doing the dishes, she sat down beside her husband and put her head on his shoulder. Gaetan switched the channel to her favourite show.

“Going downstairs,” Ferd said, stomping down the stairs to his black-and-white twelve-inch television. A find from The Shop, the second-hand store where Algoma worked. “Goodnight.”

Algoma and Gaetan said goodnight back.

Gaetan muted the television.

Algoma stretched her legs out on the coffee table, her hand now resting on his thigh.

Gaetan switched off the television, looked at Algoma, got up, and went into his bedroom.

Algoma followed.

______________

6:58 p.m. -17°C. Wind NW, strong.
Frost spreading like road maps across the window.

The cement floor in the back room of The Shop where Algoma sat was cold and uncomfortable. She was surrounded by a circle of plastic laundry baskets that were bowed with age and use, clothes spilling out where the faux weave was broken in places. The five baskets behind her were full of unsorted newly donated clothing; the five baskets in front of her empty and neatly labelled: women’s pants, men’s pants, women’s tops, men’s tops, and children’s clothes. Her lap held a treasure trove of assorted accessories. A long, braided, gold metallic belt with an oversized black patent leather buckle, a silver cross pendant with a large rhinestone in the middle of it, a neon blue umbrella with bright yellow plastic handle in the shape of a duck’s head, and a white balaclava with a small cigarette burn below the left eye. A crisp black hole with a dirty yellow halo.

The balaclava was the kind the snowmobile drivers around Le Pin used to wear as soon as there was enough snow to ride; however, since most drivers had switched to Neoprene masks, The Shop’s collection of acrylic balaclavas grew unchecked like mice. The store’s owner, Josie, was sure this was going to be a banner year for snow and The Shop would “clean up” in the balaclava department. “Everyone needs a spare. Neoprene rips.”

“Hoarder,” Algoma said.

“Hoarder who owns the store you work for,” Josie replied.

Algoma had worked at The Shop, a second-hand store in the middle of town, for almost a decade. It was time enough to see some of the same items make second and third rounds on the floor. She sorted the incoming clothes during the week and sometimes tended the till on weekends when Josie took some needed time off. The pay was modest, but it was enough to furnish Algoma’s refrigerator with food and her family with clothes.

While The Shop was the most popular of all the second-hand stores in town, there were a dozen others like it. Each store owner was a curator, how they saw the town and the people in it evident in what they offered for sale and for how much. The store was a time capsule that was opened every time someone walked through the front door, nothing stayed buried for long. Looking for what treasures countless others had missed, shoppers rooted elbow-deep through the sale racks and bins. An Italian silk scarf in a sea of rayon eels.

New clothing and furniture could be had at the town’s only mall—a one-level affair with bad lighting and even worse food. However, while the second-hand stores thrived, the shops in the mall opened and closed in the same season. If someone really needed something that wasn’t available in town—the latest video game or a new wedding dress—she could take a trip south to Quebec City or Montreal. Each city was roughly a three-hour drive away in good weather, four or five when the weather turned bad. For the most part, the town was a closed community, a throwback with its customs and rituals clearly defined. Few people left, and even fewer moved in.

While Le Pin was not a rich town, the people were proud. Each lawn was perfectly manicured, every sagging porch coated in fresh paint, and most people were content to live out their lives dressed in someone else’s clothes—as long as those clothes were clean, pressed, and sold for a good price. Even Josie, a Manitoba transplant, had adopted the local custom and dressed in clothes she took from work. When she was done with a particular item, it went back into The Shop’s rotation.

Josie lived by barter. She traded in the things people left at the curb in the morning for whatever she needed to flesh out her own comforts.

“Just doing my part,” she told people.

A tall, sinewy woman in her late thirties with cropped brown hair and regrettable blue butterfly tattoos on each of her toned calves, Josie was perfectly built to harvest the outdated tables and bags of clothing others pitched. She also had the gift of being able to sweet talk people into giving her what she needed without making it seem like she was asking for anything at all. On a good day, her truck bed looked like a fully furnished living room.

Josie knew the intimate needs of everyone within her complex barter network: the butcher who always needed baby furniture for his constantly procreating daughters, the hairdresser who adored anything amber or suede, the unmarried plumber who collected end tables the way most people collected knick-knacks or spoons. Even her morning cup of coffee was an exchange. In return for allowing Café Drummond to extend its small patio (used for exactly three months every year) in front of her storefront window, she received bottomless cups of strong black coffee.

Josie kept a neatly printed list of everyone’s needs tucked into her black leather wallet, which she kept in the back pocket of her jeans. She consulted it every time she ran into a potential barterer and updated it regularly with new items and information. The pen that sat behind her ear had replaced the cigarette that used to sit there. She’d traded one habit for another.

“Did Anna have her baby yet?” Josie had asked, the last time she was at the butcher’s.

Theo nodded. “Another boy! And this one named after me.” He thumped his wheelbarrow chest with his fist. “But now Susan is pregnant again.” He sighed the heavy sigh of a man who was proud of his family, but also a man who wasn’t looking forward to being a babysitter into his sixties. He shook his head and turned to finish butchering the meat he’d been working on. Josie tried to offer her congratulations over the sound of saw on bone. She underlined her previous entry for Theo: Crib.

Even Josie’s rusty pickup truck had been a barter. One summer, she worked for a friend who owned several blueberry fields. She’d risen at 4:30 every morning to pick blueberries in the semi-dark before she had to work at The Shop. At the end of the season, her fingers were stained a deep blue, and she’d been given the keys to the truck.