Crow Lake (20 page)

But not grow apart, as we had done, surely?

That was the real heart of it. I had never loved anyone as I loved Matt, but now, when we saw each other, there was something unbridgeable between us, and we had nothing to say.

chapter
TWENTY-ONE

“It seems crazy to try to farm up here,” Daniel said, scratching his ankle. We’d picked up a cargo of blackflies when I’d stopped for a pee.

I’d been so far away that he startled me, and it took me a minute to work out what he was talking about. The landscape, of course. There was a fair amount of rock about.

I said, “The soil isn’t too bad. The land around Crow Lake’s pretty good. Though it’s a short growing season, of course.”

“But think of the effort. They must have been desperate to come this far north.”

“They didn’t have much choice. They had no money, most of them, and the land up here was free. Crown land. Back then, provided you cleared it you could have it for nothing.”

“I can see why, if you don’t mind my saying so.” He scratched savagely. It looked as if his love affair with Uncharted Wilderness was going to be a short one. Daniel knows about blackflies in theory, of course, but there’s no substitute for firsthand experience when it comes to bugs.

“It’s not so bad near the lake,” I said. “And the farm’s fine, except where the fields border the woods.”

“You grew up right on the lake?” he said.

“That’s right.”

“You never lived on the farm?”

“No.”

I’d started telling him the story—the whole of it— just before we got to New Liskeard. I hadn’t intended to; in the main it is Matt’s story, and I have protected it from public gaze all these years. But as the miles ticked past I realized that Daniel would have to know; two minutes of conversation with Matt would tell him that Matt should not be where he was. Still, I put off the telling of it until shortly after we passed Cobalt, when Daniel remarked—referring to me—that it seemed an unlikely environment to have produced an academic. That irritated me. Surely the most unlikely place to produce an academic is a city, with its noise and confusion and lack of time for thought or contemplation.

I started arguing the case, trying to explain why Crow Lake was actually the perfect breeding ground for academics, given certain other conditions such as encouragement and time to study. And inevitably I used Matt and his passion for the ponds as an example, and of course that led to questions, and the whole thing came out. To my extreme annoyance I had difficulty keeping my voice steady when I told him how it all ended; Daniel noticed, of course, though he didn’t let on. If he was baffled by the fact that I was still so upset about it after all these years, well, he was no more baffled than I was.

Now he said tentatively, “Luke and your sister—Bo. Do they still live there? In the house you grew up in?”

“Yes.”

“What do they do? Bo must be … twenty?”

“Twenty-one. She works in Struan. She’s a cook in a restaurant.”

Still happily slinging saucepans about. She did a cookery course down in Sudbury. She could have done a degree in household economics or whatever it’s called—I offered to help with the cost—but she said she wasn’t interested in the academic side.

“Does she have a boyfriend?”

“From time to time. Nothing permanent, so far. Though she will in due course.”

In a world of few certainties, that is one of them. Matt says some poor guy is wandering around out there still blissfully unaware of what fate has in store for him.

“And is Luke still the janitor at the school?”

“Only on the side. He makes furniture.”

“Furniture? He’s started a business?”

“Sort of. He turned our garage into a workshop. He employs a couple of boys off the farms. He does all right.”

He does quite well, in fact. Rustic furniture is all the rage.

“Is he married?”

“No.”

“That girl—the one you said kept hanging around him.”

“Sally McLean.”

“Yeah. He didn’t ever get it together with her, then?”

“Heaven forbid. No, she managed to get herself pregnant by someone else about a year after Luke turned her down.”

“Someone else in Crow Lake?”

“Yes. Tomek Lucas. I don’t think he was convinced he was the father, but she swore he was so they got married. But then she saw someone better-looking at the cattle market in New Liskeard and she went off with him. Left the baby with Tomek. His mum brought it up. Sally probably has ten more by now. She probably has ten
grandchildren
by now.”

I thought suddenly of Mr. and Mrs. McLean. How they would adore ten grandchildren.

“You make it sound like centuries ago,” Daniel said. “If your parents died when you were seven, it’s barely twenty years.”

“It feels like centuries,” I said.

Sally McLean, of the long red hair. When I was thirteen, just starting high school, a new classmate said, “You’re the one with no parents, aren’t you? And you’ve got a brother who’s queer.”

I didn’t know what queer meant. I can’t describe the shock when I found out. I remembered, then, that little scene I’d stumbled on, Sally leaning against a tree, taking Luke’s hand and guiding it so smoothly, so competently, to her breast. Luke standing, motionless, head bowed. And then the effort, as if against some huge invisible force, as he pushed himself away.

For a long time I was convinced that it must have been Sally who started that rumour. Now I’m not so sure. I suspect that many people found it hard to accept Luke’s sacrifice for what it was. He was only nineteen, remember, and such generosity at such an early age put other people to shame. So they had to belittle it. There’s nothing noble in giving up something you didn’t want anyway. Nothing noble in resisting sexual relationships with women if you’re gay. Nothing noble in turning down a place at teachers’ college if you didn’t want to go. That was another theory I overheard.

Though maybe there was some truth in that one. I suspect Luke wasn’t all that interested in becoming a teacher. It was what our parents wanted and he didn’t have any alternative suggestions at the time, or didn’t dare to voice them. And it’s probably also true that he didn’t realize, on that day when he announced to Aunt Annie that he was going to look after us, how much he was going to have to give up for our sakes.

As far as I’m concerned, that doesn’t lessen his sacrifice. When he found out what he was going to have to give up, he gave it up. As Sally McLean found out.

I wonder if he knew about those rumours. I wonder if that was another thing he had to contend with.

“So there’s still no woman in his life?” Daniel asked. He sounded dissatisfied. I looked at him with amusement. Daniel would be astonished if you told him he was a romantic. “How old is he now?”

“Thirty-eight. As far as I know there isn’t anyone.”

Though strangely enough, I started to wonder about that the last time I visited. Miss Carrington dropped in, as she always does when I come home, and it seemed to me that there was—how can I describe it?—an
easiness
between her and Luke. I could have imagined it, I guess. She’s at least ten years older than he is. Though she doesn’t seem that much older now.

“Maybe it’s become a habit,” Daniel said.

“What has?”

“Self-denial. Resisting temptation.”

“Maybe,” I said. Thinking of Matt.

I switched on the headlights. It had reached that stage of twilight where the sky is still clear and light but the road and the trees and rocks are merging into a smoky blur. Far ahead, you could make out the winking of a light each time we crested a hill. Struan. Half an hour after Struan, we’d be home.

There’s a lot I have to guess at. I’m guessing, for instance, that Mrs. Pye was in a really serious state that summer, and that worry about her, coming on top of everything else, was more than Marie could bear alone. So she turned for comfort to Matt. If she’d had more friends, or if her mother had had family living near, or if Calvin hadn’t alienated the whole community to such an extent that no one knocked on the door any more— if any of those things, then maybe Marie would not have needed to turn so hard, so urgently, so appealingly, to Matt.

Matt was available, you see. He was there, though mainly out in the fields, every day, six days a week, all that summer. He was scraping together every penny he could, not for himself—he had so many scholarships even the cost of his books was covered—but to salve his conscience for leaving the rest of us.

So he was available. And they’d been friends, of a sort, for a long time. And I think his grief over the loss of our parents had broken down some of the reserve between them the previous summer. He’d let her see that he was grieving. I think that may have formed a bond.

She didn’t tell him everything, even then, but I’d be prepared to bet she wept on his shoulder. I’m guessing that’s how it started.

He’d have put his arms around her. Of course he would; it’s a natural reaction when someone weeps on your shoulder, even for Presbyterians. He would have held her. Probably he would have patted her back, awkwardly, as if she were Bo. They’d have been around the back of the barn or behind the tractor shed—somewhere out of sight of Calvin.

Definitely out of sight of Calvin. I’m sure they never even spoke to each other when Calvin was around.

He’d have put his arms around her, out of pity and compassion, knowing from his own experience what it is to be wretched and unable to speak. I do not believe for a moment that he was in love with her. But he was eighteen, and when he put his arms around her he would have felt how soft she was. She was not pretty, in my opinion. Not at all. Too much flesh on her and not enough definition to her features. But she was undeniably feminine, and when he held her, her breasts would have pressed against him; his chin would have brushed her hair; he would have smelled the warm scent of her. He was eighteen, as I say. She was probably the first person he’d embraced, outside our family.

It would have happened by accident, the first time. They’d have bumped into each other when she was in tears about something. He would have stood awkwardly for a moment and then put down whatever he was carrying, and they would have moved closer, probably not even aware that they were doing so. She would have leaned against him, because finally there was someone to lean against, and he would have put his arms around her. After a few minutes she would have stepped back, and wiped her face, and said, “I’m sorry,” in that pale, timid little voice of hers.

And he would have said, “It’s all right, Marie. It’s all right.”

chapter
TWENTY-TWO

Matt and I didn’t have much time together that summer. He left for the farm before I got up in the morning, and by the time he got home in the evening he was too tired to do anything but flop on his bed and read. I spent the days reluctantly doing chores for Luke or Mrs. Stanovich, or playing half-heartedly with the children of kindly neighbours who invited Bo and me over to help Luke out. I lived for Sundays, when Matt would be free. And at first he was, and took me back to the ponds as before, and told me how he was going to study about the creatures in them at university, and how there would be powerful microscopes so you could see just how things worked. He said that he would write to me, at least two letters a week, and tell me about what he was learning so that when it was my turn I would have a head start. He made me see that although we would be apart we would be carrying on pond watching, both of us, and telling each other about it. And there would be the summers. He promised that. No matter what the money situation was, he would come home for the summers.

That was how it was the first few weeks after his exams were over—our usual routine, but full of plans and promises as well. But then things changed. Matt took to disappearing straight after lunch on Sundays. Sometimes he didn’t get back until almost suppertime, and the whole afternoon had been lost.

I was deeply resentful, needless to say. I interrogated him about where he went, and he said for walks. I said couldn’t I come with him, and he said, vaguely but kindly, that sometimes he needed to be alone. I said why, and he said that he had things on his mind.

I complained about him to Luke.

“Matt’s never here any more.”

“Yeah. He’s working.”

“No, I mean when he
isn’t
working. On Sundays.”

“Yeah?” said Luke. “Pass me that hammer, will you?” He was repairing the steps to the beach, which got mangled by the ice every winter. Bo was marching up and down at the water’s edge, bellowing hymns. “Jesus loves me
dis
I know, For la la la
dells
me so.” We didn’t know whether to blame Mrs. Stanovich or whether she’d picked them up at Sunday school.

“But where’s he
go?”

“I dunno, Kate. I need that plank. No, the shorter one. Pass it here, okay?”

“But he must go
somewhere.
And I want to go to the ponds!”

Luke looked at me, the hammer balanced in his hand. “He’s taken you to those damned ponds ten million times. Leave him alone, okay? No kidding, you’d think you owned him.”

He started hammering, loudly. If he minded Matt’s absence himself, wishing that he would stick around and help out on the one day of the week when both of them were free, he didn’t say so. He couldn’t, I suppose, granted how he’d gone on about being able to manage on his own. But also, he might have thought that Matt was worrying about leaving us all and was trying to sort things out in his mind, and needed time alone. Which was true, of course, but beside the point.

I made no such allowances. All that was in my mind was the thought of how few hours I had left with Matt. And when I look back on it now I could weep, because in my resentment, I managed to spoil those few. He did take me back to the ponds now and then, and I was incapable of enjoying it. It seemed to me that he was distracted, not concentrating as he should. I accused him. I said, “Don’t you like the ponds any more?”

And he said tiredly, “What are you talking about, Kate? Look, if
you
aren’t enjoying it, let’s go home.”

I was forbidden to go back to the ponds alone. They were deep, and a child had been drowned there once. Perhaps that was why I went—as an act of rebellion.

It was an extremely hot day, heavy and still. I walked tightrope along the rails, the heat of the steel burning through the soles of my shoes, and then slid down the path to “our” pond. It felt very strange to be there on my own. For a while I lay on my stomach and stared into the water, but everything that could move was in hiding from the sun. Even if you poked about, you only got a brief flurry of activity and then stillness again. I stood up, dizzy from the heat. If Matt had been there, he would have sought the shade on the other side of the bank between our pond and the next. At the foot of the bank I hesitated, thinking I heard voices, though I knew I couldn’t have. No one ever came here but us. I scrambled up the side of the bank, using the tufts of grass as handholds, and hauled myself onto the flat grassy top. There were voices. Definitely there were. I stood up and peered over the side.

They were lying in the shade of the overhanging bank, about twenty feet below and to the left of where I stood. Matt had taken off his shirt and spread it on the ground, and they were both on that. Marie was lying down and Matt was kneeling beside her.

Marie was curled on her side, her knees drawn up. She was crying. From where I stood I could not see her face, but I could hear her. Matt was saying something to her, the same thing over and over again. I remember how urgent his voice was, almost frightened, utterly unlike him. He kept saying, “Oh God, I’m sorry. Oh God, Marie, I’m sorry. I’m sorry.”

I couldn’t figure out what he’d done. Maybe he’d hit her—hit her ferociously and knocked her down. Though I could hardly believe it; it took such a lot to make Matt angry enough to hit anyone that Luke was the only one who ever managed it. Then I noticed his shirt again and realized that he would not have spread it out in order to knock her down on it, so it couldn’t be that.

After a bit he helped her up and tried to put his arms around her. She turned away. She was wearing a thin cotton print dress. It was creased and rumpled and had come completely undone down the front. She began doing it up, sniffling and fumbling. Matt watched her, his hands clenched at his sides.

“I’m sorry,” he said again. “I didn’t mean it to happen, Marie. I just couldn’t … But it’ll be okay. Don’t worry. It’ll be okay.”

She shook her head, not looking at him. I remember that in spite of my confusion, I hated her for that. You could see how upset he was, but she wouldn’t accept it. She finished doing herself up, then straightened and smoothed back her hair.

It was then that she saw me. She gave a cry of absolute terror, and Matt jerked back and then saw me himself. For a minute all three of us were frozen. Then Marie started crying hysterically. Her fear was so great that it communicated itself to me and I turned and ran, slithered down the other side of the bank, around the edge of our pond, running as I had never run in all my life, my heart pounding with fear. I was halfway up the path to the railroad tracks when Matt caught me.

“Kate! Kate, stop!” He caught me around the waist and held me. I was kicking and struggling, trying to kick his legs. “Kate,
stop!
What are you afraid of? There’s nothing to be afraid of! Kate,
stop!”

“I want to go home!”

“We will. In just a minute. We’ll go home together. But we have to go back to Marie first.”

“I’m not going back to her! She’s horrible! Screaming like that—she’s
disgusting!
”

“She’s just upset. You startled her. Come on now.”

She was standing where he had left her, arms wrapped around herself, shivering in the blazing heat. Matt brought me up to her, but he didn’t know what to say. It was Marie who spoke.

“She’ll tell.” She was white as chalk. White as a fish’s belly, trembling, weeping, snivelling.

“No, she won’t. You won’t tell, will you Kate?”

I had recovered from my fright and was starting to feel outraged. Was this where he had been? Could this possibly be where he had been? On our precious Sundays?

I said, “Tell what?”

“Oh, Matt! She will! She’ll tell!” More weeping.

Matt turned first to her, then to me. “Kate, you have to promise. Promise me that you won’t tell that you saw us here.”

I wouldn’t look at him. I watched Marie. Marie Pye, whom Matt preferred to me, though she had no interest in the ponds whatever—you knew that just by looking at her.

“Kate? Promise me.”

“I promise I won’t tell on you,” I said at last, turning to him. But he was too smart for that.

“Or on Marie. You must promise not to tell that you saw her with anyone. Word of honour.”

The silence grew.

Matt said quietly, “Word of honour, Kate. Promise me on all the times I’ve brought you to these ponds. Promise on the life of every creature in these ponds.”

I had no choice then. Sullenly, mumbling, I gave my word. Marie looked a little less fearful. Matt put an arm around her and led her a few yards away. I watched them, jealousy making my lower lip quiver. He talked to her very quietly, for a long time. Finally she nodded, and walked off across the sand toward the path that led up to her father’s farm.

Matt and I walked home together. I remember I kept looking up at him, hoping that he would smile and everything would be as it had always been, but he seemed unaware of my presence. In the coolness of the woods I drew up the courage to ask if he was mad at me.

“No. No, I’m not mad at you,” he said. He gave me a smile of such misery that I was shamed out of my own self-pity.

“Are you all right?” I said, loving him, almost forgiving him. “Is everything going to be all right?”

He was different after that. He continued working on the farm, but in the evenings and on Sundays he shut himself in his room. I did not know what was wrong with him. In fact I hardly thought in those terms. I was too bewildered by that closed door to think of anyone but myself. But I can imagine now what he must have gone through, as one week followed another, waiting and hoping, and no doubt praying too, for we had been brought up to believe in a merciful God.

I can imagine how in his mind he kept trying to turn the clock back to that one final moment when he could have stopped, but did not. In later years, when I thought about the similarity between what happened to him and what might have happened to Luke and Sally McLean, it seemed to me that you could define my brothers’ lives by one moment, and it was the same moment for both of them. With Luke, it was the moment he pushed himself away. With Matt, it was the moment he did not.

God was not merciful. One night in September, a few weeks before he was due to leave for Toronto, Marie Pye came to the door, hair wild, eyes wild, asking for him.

He was in his bedroom but he must have heard her, or sensed her presence, because he was at the door before Luke or I had time to fetch him, and he pushed past us and took her outside, and we heard him say, “Wait, wait. Let’s go down to the beach.” But she couldn’t wait, her terror was too great to hold, she was doubled over with it, almost crouching on the ground. She said—and we heard her plainly because fear forced the words out far too loudly and we hadn’t even had time to close the door—“Matt, he’ll kill me! He’ll kill me! Matt, he’ll kill me! You don’t believe me but he will! He killed Laurie, and he’ll kill me too!”