Downhill Chance (25 page)

“Ohh, I gets so mad at Frankie,” said Nora. “He’s the one out amongst them. He’s the one who knows the best way.”

“Frankie knows the best way for himself, and he makes no bones about that,” said Beth. “But I allows he paid dear for some things,” she added, her voice dropping to a whisper as Willamena dodged onto the bank, peering curiously at their bowed heads.

“Ain’t that what I been telling ye,” said Aunt Char, sitting back, peering at Beth, “that your fartune’s what you already got at home, not what you goes out and drags in.”

“Shush, now,” cautioned Nora. “Some morning,” she called up to Willamena.

“A busy one by the looks of ye,” said Willamena.

“Bring yourself over and busy yourself, if you’ve a mind,” said Aunt Char.

“Watch out now,” said Willamena, taking hold of her nose with an exaggerated pinch. “I told Frankie I couldn’t bide here if there was squidding all year round.”

“It’s not bothering the young teacher none,” said Aunt Char, patting Clair’s knee with a squid-inked hand.

Nora groaned, brushing at the stain left on Clair’s skirt. “Oh, Lord,” she groaned louder as Clair punctured the pip she was ripping out of a squid, spurting more of the black, shiny liquid over her lap.

“Ugh.” Clair grimaced, then looked up as Beth let out a whoop and leaping off the log, tore off down the beach, singing out, “Luukkeee! Luukee!” Clair stared after her, running and dodging youngsters and gulls, down the beach towards the fair-haired young man strolling out besides the stagehead, fishing rod and pack bag slung over one shoulder, his dog yapping at his heels.

“Going off agin, is he?” commented Willamena, “My, you must do some worrying with him,” she added, glancing at Nora, “always going off by himself like that.”

“I worries more for we,” said Nora, watching as he laid his rod and bag inside a punt pulled up on shore, “that he’d rather his own company to ours.” Suddenly she hollered, “Roddy! Here, Roddy!”

Her eldest, upon sight of his uncle, was leaping off the stagehead, the water nearing the top of his boots as he lunged towards his uncle, calling out, “Uncle Luke, Uncle Luke, can I come, can I come?”

“Well, sir, I’ll kill him if he got his feet wet,” cried Nora. “Here, you young bugger,” she yelled, but her cry was lost amidst a chorus of hails as Frankie strolled out from behind the same woodshed as Luke, and then Nate alongside of him. But it was onto Luke Clair’s eyes were fastened as Beth grabbed him by the ear, bringing him to his knees with a painful yelp. Always there was Luke, or glimpses of him, vanishing up into the woods each morning with his bucksaw tossed upon his shoulder, or strolling up alongshore Sunday mornings with his dog trotting at his heels, or shoving off his boat, on his way to Chouse.

“Mother, leave him alone, for God’s sake,” Nora was yelling as Prude tried to haul Roddy away from the boat by the back of his shirt. “Sir, she don’t let up on the youngsters for a minute; I allows she’d drive them mental if they paid heed at all. Luukeee! Luukkeee! You going to take him?”

“What’s all the bawling out about?” said Nate, striding towards them. “I say you’re going to have sore wrists in the morning, young miss, you don’t get them cleaned up,” he added as Clair punctured another pip and a wash of ink spread over her hands, running up her sleeves.

“Squid hands—that’s what she’s going to have then, squid hands, if she’s not more careful,” said Aunt Char.

“It’s—it’s nothing,” mumbled Clair, wiping her wrists on her skirt.

“Be something when you got to start pissing on them to stop the smarting,” said Aunt Char, “because that’s the only thing to stop squid hands from smarting, piss—and most times not your own, either.”

“Better go wash them,” said Nora, nodding sympathetically as Clair turned an alarmed face her way. “That’s why poor old mother’s not pipping besides us—squid hands. Nate, go get young Roddy out of Luke’s boat, because he’s going up the Basin with us whether he wants to or not. Clair, you coming, too?”

Squatting by the water’s edge, her sleeves rolled up, Clair quieted, feeling the water numbing her skin. “Clair?” said Nora, approaching her from behind. “You haven’t gone home for a visit since you come.”

“I—perhaps I will,” she replied with a tight smile to Nora. “Yes, I think I will.” Rising, she walked back to her rock, flicking the water off her hands, and reached into the bucket for another squid.

A great fear fanned itself in her belly as Clair stood on the wharf, looking up at the great white house on the top of the hill, and her foot grew leaden. Trembling, she reached out to a grunt to steady herself, thinking at first she might be ill.

“Are you all right?” asked Nora, appearing besides her. Raising her eyes, Clair nodded weakly, unable to speak. Sensing her distress, Nora sent Nate after Missy and, giving Clair a quick hug, left her alone and went into the store. Clair sat on the grunt, her chest constricting, and clutched her hand to her heart as it started pounding wildly, stifling her breath as if she were breathing through the thick of a pillow. A quick breeze brushed her cheeks and she scarcely felt its coolness, thinking of her father and understanding a little of how he must’ve felt those times sitting on the stairs, or hiding in his room, choking for breath. A hawk screeched overhead and she startled towards it, watching as it swooped in an arc over her head, then glided towards her house. The hawk screeched again, then dropped from sight, leaving her with her father’s screams as he had fought his way through the nights. She was still sitting on the grunt when Nate returned and, assured that she was fine, just a little seasick, he went into the store, leaving her be. He was back and forth to his boat several times, storing boxes of supplies into the cuddy before Missy finally appeared, walking slowly down over the hill, her hair its usual mass of curly abandon, and her figure slight. Mommy’s right, she never grows an inch, thought Clair. The tall, reedy shape of the uncle appeared besides Missy, reaching for her hand as might a father to his child at the brink of danger. As quiet as a shadow was Missy as she kept stride besides him, and Clair saw that she had grown after all, surely an inch; but her mouth was as petulant as ever, and her final steps towards Clair were slow, guarded, as were the uncle’s as he neared, staring intently through eyes barely discernible beneath the peak of his cap. With a sinking heart Clair saw too that Missy’s eyes were guarded, and that she, Clair, was being beheld as a threat by this younger sister, for she had fettered herself to the uncle the way in which an abandoned barnyard kitten suckles the first teat left open to it.

“Let’s go for a walk, Missy,” she said, reaching for her sister’s hand, but was deterred by the uncle as he straightened to his full height, taking Clair back to that last day in her father’s house when, once the neighbours had gone, he had lorded it over her. And as then, her distaste grew.

“You’ll speak with me here,” he said.

“You’ve no more say over me,” she replied.

“And you’ve no say over her.”

“I’ve a right to talk to her alone. She’s my sister.”

“You’ll not tell her your lies—I’ll see to that.”

“Lies! You talk to me about lies?” snapped Clair.

“I’ll not stand here and argue,” he cut in, making to leave, tugging Missy’s hand to follow.

“Wait! Wait,” said Clair as Missy wrenched her eyes onto her. “I—I just want to tell you something,” she pleaded to Missy. “Here, we’ll just sit here,” and taking a step backwards, she perched on the grunt, as if her sitting might show the uncle she wasn’t about to nip his precious pet by the neck and drag her to another roost. The uncle hesitated, then reluctantly allowed Missy to pull her hand from his, and stood watching with both ears perked as she came to stand besides Clair.

“Are you? Are you coming home?” asked Missy.

“Missy, you’d like it where I am,” Clair whispered, leaning into the familiarity of her sister’s candied scent, mingled with the garden smells of her mother and the spicy smell of her father’s pipe. “You must come,” she whispered feverishly. “There’s a real nice girl—her name’s Frannie— and she wants to meet you—”

“No, you must come home,” cried Missy, pulling away. “You said you would and then you never.”

“That’s because I’m teaching—and I’m trying to figure things,” said Clair. “Missy, wait—” but Missy was already pulling away.

“Leave her be,” the uncle ordered.

“Leave us alone,” shouted Clair, coming off the grunt and storming the uncle, but Missy was snatching hold of his hand, half hiding behind him.

“You said you was coming home, Clair!” she cried. “You said!”

“But I’m teaching—”

“There’s loonies there!”

“Loonies?” said Clair.

Her mouth dropped as Missy cried out, “Yes there is, Clair, and they lives in the woods and comes out nighttime making up strange songs.”

“Who told you such a thing?” she asked incredulously, and immediately cast her eyes upon the uncle.

“There’s more than one to think that,” he returned. “And you’ll not take her amongst the low-minded—she had her fill of that with her father.”

“You!” Clair gasped. “You’d say that—when it was you who brought on his screaming—you and your stealing?”

“You was always the liar,” replied the uncle, finger pointing, “but there’s no one to listen to them now—and you’ll not put foot inside my door with your lies.”

“Daddy’s door, you
bastard!
” she hissed as he turned, starting back up the hill with Missy stumbling over his ankles. And she would’ve been onto his back like the cat if not for Nate who’d been standing quietly to one side, listening, suddenly darting forward and grabbing hold of her.

“Bastard!” she gasped, throat raw with spite, eyes clawing after the uncle’s back and unseeing of Nora, who’d stepped outside the store upon hearing their voices. “Bastard!”

Nora ran to her, whispering, “Oh, my dear, oh, my dear.”

“ANYWAYS,” SAID RODDY,
several mornings later, “Henry was pretty surprised to see the gun lying underneath the young fellow. He asked, ‘What’s your name?’

“‘Sammy,’ said the fellow.

“‘How come you got a gun?’ asked Henry.

“‘Me father was going to shoot me, so I took his gun and runned,’ said Sammy.

“Well, sir, Henry looked right mad at that. What kind of father would want to shoot his boy?

“But Conner, now, he was seeing his chance. Perhaps if he got Sammy walking along with them, he might help change Henry’s mind about going back to live in his mother’s house. So he says, ‘I suppose, Henry, he can come with us, can’t he—although he looks awful weak for walking.’

“First Henry didn’t like the idea, because he didn’t fussy the chance of running into Sammy’s father and perhaps getting shot along with Sammy; but then he felt right bad, seeing how tired Sammy looked. And he was such a sight, with his eyes all drooping like he was half asleep, and he had awfullest hair—striped yellow and brown and frizzed off his head like a haystack. Then Conner seen this scar—like a scab—on Sammy’s gut, and put his fingers on it and then screws up his mouth like he was going to throw up.

“‘Yuck, squishy. Like a dog’s tits after she haves pups,’ he says, and then tries to get Henry to feel it; but Henry was seeing how shamefaced Sammy was looking at his scar, so he wouldn’t touch it, and he never screwed up his mouth, either, like Sammy. And he was going to walk away, but Conner kept on after him to let Sammy come, till he finally said yes. Then all three of them was walking up the shore, and Sammy stuck his hand in his pocket and hauled out a ten-cent piece, and handed it to Henry. Well, sir, Henry and Conner stared at that for a minute—a ten-cent piece—and Henry said, ‘Where’d you get it?’

“Sammy said, ‘Stole it from me father.’

“‘Ooh,’ said Conner, ‘that’s stealing. I bet his father’s looking for him right now to shoot him. And we too, seeing how we’s with him. We should take him to your mother’s house, Henry.’

“Henry gives a big snort. ‘Take you to me mother’s house,’ he says. ‘Going up the shore is where we’re going, and buying a bottle of orange drinks with that ten cents. What do you say, Sammy?’

“Sammy nods, right proud.

“‘Put it back in your pocket, then,’ says Henry, ‘till we finds a house to live in. Then we’ll buy a bottle of orange drinks.’

“And Sammy give a big smile because he liked Henry, he did, because Henry never screwed up his face at his scar. And he was happy as a pup walking up the beach, jumping over brooks and climbing big rocks, only stopping to skip a piece of shale out over the water every now and then. Finally, they come to a big cliff that jutted into the water, cutting off the beach and Conner was right proud.

“‘Guess we can’t go no farther,’ he says.

“‘Oh, yes, we can,’ says Henry. And he points to a path leading up through the woods. ‘We’re going up there and see if it takes us down the other side,’ he says. And never minding Conner’s grumbling, he walks over to a flat-top rock—like a big table—and hauls hisself on top and looks back down the beach to see how far he’d come. And by geez, he was a long ways off from his mother’s house by now. He couldn’t even see any smoke at all now, coming over the treetops. He never said nothing, mind you, but he got a little twinge of something in his guts when he couldn’t see his mother’s smoke no more. So, he sits down on the rock and says to Conner, ‘But first we’ll take a little spell.’ And then he moves over and makes room for Conner and Sammy to climb up alongside of him. And that’s all I got made up for today, miss.”

Clair stirred. “Well done, Roddy. Have you always told such good stories?” asked Clair as he pranced back to his seat, his red-freckled face looking as proud as could be—like Missy, she thought, whenever she had put together yet another story about fairies and such.

“Yup, he does, miss,” answered Marty with a touch of scorn. “They calls him Old Man O’Mara around here for making up stuff, and he was the biggest liar that ever walked.”

“Hope now,” said Roddy.

“Who’s Old Man O’Mara?” asked Clair absently, nodding for the little girl Susie to take her place before the desk.

“A hangashore, miss. Drinked all day and made up lies till they drove him off.”