Dollybird (6 page)

CHAPTER 7

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I reached Main Street,
Ibsen, and slowed up. Main Street, it turned out, was the only street and made up the whole of the business district. A few shops, a livery, hardware. Small spurs of homes sprang from this hub. That was it. Back home people lived in town, close to town, on embankments, hills, rocks and valleys. But this flat little place spread across two streets and then just stopped to make way for prairie. In Arichat a person had to make an effort to spy on his neighbour. There'd be no need of spying here. Just look down the street and you'd know everybody's business. The whole place was cracked dry and hard.

At the end of Main Street, a ragtag bunch of men had assembled. Men like me. Most owned nothing but the shirts on their backs and the boots on their feet. Some wore strange hats that must have come from places I'd never even heard of. It was a guilty kind of joy pumped up my chest as I got closer. I was a man again, with no child to make me weak or single me out.

A great beast of a machine was set on a flat wagon, draft horses harnessed and ready. A line of wagons and bunkhouses were hitched to mules, donkeys and oxen. Climbing on the machine and hollering at everyone to “look at this big fogger” was a squat-looking man with a thick neck, and forearms looking like they could crush anything. He glared at me and my stomach somersaulted.

“What are you looking at?” he shouted over the commotion around him. His voice was slurred with a heavy accent I didn't recognize.

My tongue was thick. “I'm just...uh...”

“Listen to the fuckin' mental. Just stay out of my way, you little...”

A large hand gripped my elbow and steered me toward the line of wagons.

“Never mind him then. He's a horse's ass.” The voice was heavy with an Irish brogue. The hand belonged to a huge man with flaming red hair and beard. “Name's Henry. First time with the crew then?”

It was more a statement than a question. I nodded.

“Just stay away from Gabe.” Henry nodded slightly toward the man who was swinging like a monkey from one wagon to the next, hollering at everyone he saw. “He's an idiot, but you gotta feel sorry for him, poor bugger.” He shook his head. “Waiting for his chance two years now, but he hasn't got a hope in hell of getting any land. He's Polish, or Ukrainian, maybe Russian for all I know.”

I must have looked stunned.

“No one's gonna give him the time of day, especially the land office. Government wants to keep folks like him out as long as they can.” Henry looked at me like I understood, so I just nodded. “But he's a stupid bugger too. Doesn't help his chances, acting like he does. Don't know his arse from a knot in a pine board. But he can work. I'll give him that.” Henry pulled himself up so he towered over me. “Now what might you be good for?”

“I don't know, but...” I decided I'd better sound like I knew something from a pine board. “I'd sure like to get on the threshing crew.”

“Ha!” Henry boomed. “Wouldn't you though? You'll start pitching like everybody else. Work hard and learn fast and you'll move on to the machine soon enough, ‘specially since the harvest is so late. Maybe get to drive a wagon.”

“I'll do my best.”

“Yeah. One more thing.” Henry gave me a sidelong look. “Where're you from?”

“Arichat.”

“Good. I got a second cousin from there. Good.” He walked away.

I trailed behind feeling foolish until a wagon rumbled by and I jumped in. I grunted to the men already in the back and pretended to doze with my hat pulled down over my face. From under the brim I recognized some of the men from Halifax. Thank Christ Gabe wasn't with 'em.

The weeks of harvest were a blur. A new farm every few days. Men dropped off and others took their places. The sweet smells of harvest made my eyes itch and my nose drip like a leaky bucket. Even my ears itched. On the inside. Henry told me it was the dust, said a good rain would dampen things down and take care of it. Sometimes I slept in a bunkhouse on a thin mattress, sometimes in a hayloft, the loose straw giving comfort to my aching back. Exhausted and sore, I'd have slept hanging from a tree, grateful finally to sleep without dreams or regret.

I was one of two pitchers, forking the heavy stooks onto a wagon that took them to the threshing machine. After three weeks of the endless rhythm of stab, lift, heave, pitch, Henry finally told me I'd be getting a better job. But I didn't want one. Sure I suffered with itching and snot and aching joints, but I liked the predictability of the work, the smells, the feeling I was doing something that mattered. And the urgency of it; the whole crew checked the sky as though it might fall down around us, racing billowing black clouds that grew and threatened for miles, running to get the field done because the next storm might be bringing winter with it. The work kept Taffy locked away somewhere.

We ate four times a day: breakfast, lunch, another meal in late afternoon and yet another at the end of the day. And the Scotsmen brought
crowdy
to the field, a mix of oatmeal and water they claimed would give me energy. A
refreshment
they called it. It tasted like wet sawdust. Otherwise, the women of the farms cooked for the entire crew as well as their own large families.

It was a cool evening and we were camped in a circle in a field not far from the farmyard. The farmer looked exhausted, his wife worn out. Still, she beckoned us to join her family and enjoy harvest ice cream. She poured salt over packed ice surrounding the bucket of cream, then turned the crank until the little ones crowded around her hollering, “It's thick, Momma. Momma, it's ready.” Momma insisted on a few more minutes of cranking before declaring the ice cream fit to eat. It was cold, creamy perfection. I held it on my tongue to save the taste there as long as I could before it dissolved, and I swallowed it along with the dusty rawness in my throat. I smiled at the woman whose name I couldn't remember. Mary or Kate or Frieda. There'd been so many farm wives.

Gabe sat a little apart from the rest of us. He'd been staring across the fire toward the house. All through the harvest, I'd said nothing to him, staying away from him as Henry advised. I only watched as he convinced a big French guy to join a poker game and then cheated him out of a day's earnings with an ace up his sleeve. And I minded my own business when I saw him pocket a gold watch at the general store in Benson. I watched my back and slept with my moneybelt under my head. I'd no plans to get involved.

From beside the fire I could see the farmer's daughter, a silhouette standing in the open doorway of the house. I'd seen her earlier, guessed her to be thirteen or so, dark hair pulled into two long braids. She'd stared right back at me, innocent, like she didn't know her skin was clear and her breasts made a small rise under her shirt – temptation to a lesser man. She was fresh and beautiful. Like Taffy...before... Gabe was looking at her with hard eyes. There was a sudden chill on my skin.

Behind me someone tuned a guitar, and the farmer started singing cowboy songs about love and losing love and horses and dogs. We all sat quiet, listening, embarrassed by it, the western tunes strange to our eastern ears.

And then Henry gave us a Celtic dance on his harp, and two or three from home stood up, stepping kind of awkward-like, until everyone was clapping and hollering “faster, faster.” The moonshine appeared, and soon the strangeness was gone, and we were all flushed and homesick and happy, the evening mild, a light wind keeping the mosquitoes away, the dust of the harvest hanging in the air and the taste of ice cream faint on our lips.

Without really looking, I saw that Gabe was gone. The door of the house was empty, too, and I searched round the fire for the girl's face. I worked hard to keep down the bad feeling rising in my throat. Standing and slowly stretching, I started toward the yard. It was stupid, giving in to the bad feeling, but my legs just took me. I needed some time alone anyway. The moonshine made my head fuzzy and the dark of the night made it worse, like I was walking sideways and uphill.

“Hey there.” I patted one of the horses in a pen near the barn and crooned to her like she was a woman. “Nice night. Aren't you a beauty then?” Fear was growing to dread, my breath coming quick and shallow. There was no one in the barn. Where were they? I stopped and looked around at the black night, and shook my head. This was crazy. Gabe probably went back to camp, the girl to bed. Maybe they were both back at the fire. And I was a fool.

And then I saw them at the back door of the house. He pushed her and she stumbled into the porch, the door closing behind them. I crept closer until I was just outside, my whole body rigid with listening, fists clenched, head pounding like my heart had leapt up there into my brain.

“Where's the key?” Gabe's voice was loud through the door.

“Please don't,” she whispered, and then sucked in her breath, crying out a little like she was hurt. “Pa won't be able to pay the crew. Please.”

Son of a bitch. He was stealing our wages?

“Another fucking word and I'll hurt you worse. Where is it?” Gabe was breathing hard.

“Ow, don't.” The girl yelped. “On a hook under the coats, right there by the door.”

There was shuffling near the door.

“You tell anyone,” Gabe said, the words slow and hard, “an' I'll come back and burn your house down with your ma and those other brats inside.”

“Leave her alone.” The words growled up from my throat. I hadn't known they were there. I'd been so afraid, I'd forgotten to plan. “Leave her alone,” I said again, louder, and kicked open the door. Gabe had the girl's arm pushed up behind her back. Her face was filled with pain and fear and tears. He was rooting in a strongbox on the floor with his free hand. He flashed surprised and ugly eyes at me, let go the girl and lunged, but I was already running out into the dark.

He tackled me at the edge of the wheat field, landing on top of me, his arm across my throat. He fought like an animal, scratching my face, hammering my stomach, my kidneys, my head. I landed only a weak punch or two. I hadn't fought much, didn't know how to protect myself, how to hurt him back. He was standing over me, kicking at my groin and back. The pain exploded in my chest and I heard a cracking sound, my ribs under his boots. There was shouting in the distance and suddenly it was over, Gabe running away, Henry's huge arms lifting me and carrying me all the way back to the farmhouse, the girl mute beside her mother and sisters, who suddenly switched their attention to me. I saw her through one swollen eye as she turned away, flushed and suffering.

She helped her mother nurse me, coming only at night when the lights were low, never looking me in the eye. She kept her head down, her face frowning while she changed the dressing on my eye and rewrapped the bandage round my ribs. I was useless to help her, the pain too great. Useless in other ways too. Gabe hadn't got all the farmer's money. We were all paid. But the family would do without 'cause of Gabe's thieving. And I didn't tell anyone who done it, told them it was too dark to see. Didn't tell them how Gabe threatened the daughter so she kept quiet too. Both of us had seen what was in Gabe's eyes. Both of us were too afraid to speak.

Finally, one night, I tried. “He's an evil man.”

Her frown deepened, pulling the corners of her eyes with it. I started to tell her it wasn't her fault. She shouldn't be afraid to walk in the daylight. But I couldn't find the words. Who was I to counsel anyone? I left her home as soon as I could walk a few paces without pain. My harvest was over.

CHAPTER 8

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MOIRA

“You're an embarrassment.
You lied to me and now I can't trust you.” Mr. Penny's voice was loud, rumbling about the small room he fancied as a business office, the volume of his accusations threatening to make them true. “You will no longer work in this house.”

I'd known this moment would come. I was almost five months on and had just endured a Christmas as lonely and bleak as the winter landscape. And all the while I'd worried only about how I'd respond, rehearsed language measured and eloquent, proof of how very respectable I was so he might, on sober second thought, ask me to stay on. But the words fled.

“Please, sir, I'll be destitute. I've nowhere to go.”

“Well, that's not my problem now, is it?” He looked contemptuously at my belly bursting its camouflage. “Maybe you should have thought about that before you got yourself in trouble.”

Myself.

“I'll stay out of the way when you have guests.” The words tripped over each other. “I mean, I can set out the tea. And then stay in my room. You could do the shopping. No one would know.”

“People are already talking about your bastard.” He slunk out from behind his desk to stand beside my chair, the fingers of his hand closing over the back of it close to my neck. It seemed the hairs on his knuckles must be gently reaching for my skin. I shuddered. He snorted, his eyes heavy on my head. And I wanted to smash his smug face, pictured with satisfaction his soft, fleshy nose disappearing behind the force of my fist.

“You have until the end of the month,” he said with a self-satisfied nod.

“Oh no.” I quickly calculated the days and how much money I might save before then.

“You stay any longer and the gossips are gonna wonder if I'm keeping you on 'cause its mine.”

I didn't know if I'd heard correctly until I looked up to see his suggestive grin.

“Yours,” I snorted. “Wouldn't that be a sweet revenge?”

“What?”

“I could drop them hints, keep them guessing.”

“You wouldn't dare.”

“Why not?” Reckless abandon filled the pit where fear had boiled for weeks. “I've got nothing to lose.” I thought it was true. A laugh rolled up and out of my throat and the tension slipped from my shoulders.

Mr. Penny's small, confused eyes narrowed to slits.

“Don't worry though.” I stood to face him. “I could never let anyone believe I'd have anything to do with a fat, sweaty...”

His puffy skin turned red.

“Stinking...”

His body trembled with rage.

“Swine,” I shouted.

His stubby fingers clenched into fists. “Get out.” His voice was murderously soft. “Now.”

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The money in the jar would pay for two weeks at the rooming house. My
suite
was tiny, a cot and bedside table almost filling the space. Narrow wooden shelves hung on the wall above the bed. Cracked white paint flaked away from the walls and windowsill, while outside the grimy second-floor window was the most impressive array of grey backyard outhouses.

“And the bath?”

The scrawny, grey-haired landlord pointed down the hall. “You share with all the women on this floor.” He was surprisingly sympathetic. “It's all I've got for what you can pay.”

“It'll be fine.” Mr. Penny's hate-filled eyes still loomed large. “Just fine.”

The shelves were small, so I sacrificed more practical items in order to display the blue china pieces. They gleamed in the drab room. My clothes hung on hooks on the wall, the family picture taking up most of the space on the bedside table. I wanted them near me, to see them, especially my father, on waking every morning. The cot sagged under my weight, the mattress hardly thick enough to hold down the warped plywood it rested on. My few possessions cluttered the small space, incongruent yet heartening.

A tenuous sense of well-being was invaded by sounds from the house – shuffling feet, squeaking bedsprings, chairs pushed away from tables. A moment later a knock startled me and I froze. I'd wanted to sit in the relative quiet and disappear, perhaps until the baby arrived. Who could be bothering me already? A weight of impatience and dread rested between my shoulder blades.

The knock came again, a little louder. Heaving myself up, I lifted the hook out of its eye and slowly opened the door enough to peek out.

A young woman stood in the hall, eyeing me through the opening.

“Hello. My name is Annie.” She glanced past me as though expecting someone else. “I live in the room down the hall. Third one on the right. I guess we're neighbours of a sort.”

She was a tall blonde with sky-blue eyes, tiny nose and full round cheeks that tapered into a small dimpled chin. When she smiled her mouth opened wide, sending pleasing wrinkles to the corners of her eyes. I swung the door a little wider just as a bell rang downstairs.

“That'd be supper,” said Annie.

Oh Lord. I wasn't ready to meet the people who belonged to the sounds. Panic rose in my throat.

“We can go together.” She made to leave. “You should wear your coat. It's even colder in the dining hall than up here.”

“Oh, thank you.” Breathing deep, I straightened my coat, trying to smooth the bodice over my belly.

Annie watched patiently. “Ready then?”

“Yes.” The door swung shut, banging against the frame. There was no way to lock it against thieves.

“We have to trust each other in this place. We're all in the same boat.”

Her ability to read my mind was most impressive. I followed behind like a child glad to have a friend. “My name is Moira.”

“I know.”

The dining room was a larger version of the tenant rooms, the walls bare, a mottled green faded to grey. Two small windows let in shafts of the dying sun's light. A few women sat on benches pulled up to a long plank supported by sawhorses. Plates of food were set out along the table, and Annie found two spots beside a lanky girl, her long bones covered by wan, loose skin waiting to be filled with flesh. She rubbed red hands together.

“This is Lynn,” said Annie. “Lynn, Moira.”

We nodded at one another. As we sat down, the bench wobbled a little and Lynn laughed. “That always happens.”

I couldn't look up, pretending instead to concentrate on the plate in front of me, while trying to catch a peek at the other women. I ate mechancially until Annie nudged me.

“Pretty bad, eh?”

The plate came into focus. The food was base and minimal: a small mound of mashed potatoes, no gravy, and a tiny sliver of salted pork. Loaves of bread and bowls of lard were spaced the length of the table. Other girls were breaking chunks off the hardening loaves and slathering them with the greasy mess. I didn't dare reach further down and across the table for the bread sitting in front of two women whose eyes hadn't left my face.

“Bad? Ha! Might as well be in jail.” Lynn's nasal voice was pitched at the level of a small rodent. At the sound of it, the other women smirked and turned their attention to each other.

“My mother would probably be happy to hear that.” The words popped out of my mouth, an offering to these strangers. Lynn and Annie leaned in, their eager faces yearning for a good story. I was unbound by their openness. “Well, this pregnancy seems to have assumed criminal proportions to her. She's Catholic and stiff.” I opened my eyes wide and clasped my hands in mock prayer. “And pious. She'd probably like the idea of my being in a correctional facility.”

We laughed together, the sudden release of tension making me giddy.

“She's only ever cared about what the neighbours think.” One hand on my hip, I flung my head back and used my best operatic tone. “Simply scandalous, Moira. Mrs. Fenwick will be most appalled.”

Giggling erupted from the two girls, and others at the table looked up. I lowered my voice. “She wouldn't care that my body seems to be sucking the life right out of me. And I'm swelling everywhere, belly, breasts, not to mention other parts.” The others howled at the face I made. “I have to run to the outhouse every five minutes. And you should see my belly
button.” The girls' eyebrows arched. “It's stretched so flat, it's all
but disappeared. Gone!”

Their laughter filled the room. The other women scowled and threw agitated glances our way. Shushing Lynn, my voice sank to a whisper, exhausted by what I'd revealed and the release of tension held too long.

“And I laugh and I cry, all in the same breath, because it feels like I'm going to be forever fat and tired and hungry and poor...”

Afraid I might burst into tears, I stood quickly to go. Annie
jumped up in alarm, pushing Lynn out of the way. Grabbing my elbow, she steered me back down the hall and up the stairs to the pitiful room that was now home. She pulled a handkerchief from her sleeve and brought a drink of water in a filmy glass. I blew my nose, holding the wrinkled square of cotton there longer than necessary, embarrassed that my new neighbour might think me completely insane. I gulped the air, rushing to fill lungs starved by weeks of fear. Annie sat on the bed beside me, still holding the glass.

“Thank you.”

“They have a hold on you, don't they? Mothers, I mean.” Annie was thoughtful. “It never goes away.”

“I know. But she's never allowed even the least mistake. Let alone this.” The rise in my dress was like a beacon.

“Well that...,” Annie's laugh was short and bitter, “is more than a mistake.”

We sat in silence for a short time.

“What's it like?” she asked.

“Well, if I let myself think about what's happening in there, it's actually quite amazing.” And it was. Every day my hands ran unbidden over the growing mound that was the baby. “To think this little thing is just making itself at home in there, kicking and elbowing its way around with no thought to my comfort.”

“Were you sick?”

“Yes, the first three months were terrible. I was sick and exhausted all the time. But lately I've been feeling better.” I tried to smile.

“I lost one.” Annie's voice was impassive, her face expressionless.

“Oh Annie, I'm so sorry.”

“It was for the better. I was already living here. This is no place for a child.”

“No, I suppose not.”

“Although it would have been nice to get that glow.” She paused. “Like you have now.”

Her smile was encouraging. We sat quietly, not touching but close, her warmth helping me to settle into my glow. After a time Annie stood up, put the glass on the night table and walked to the door.

“You'll be all right.” She looked back as she left. “You're smart. Just keep out of the way and don't ask too many questions. We'll get you a job or something soon enough. Good night.”

I lay back on the bed and smiled with relief.