For Sure (81 page)

“Probably ee's still too young. That stuff doesn't interest him.”

Terry had more or less come to the same conclusion.

“No, I knows it. Only I tawt I'd just let 'im know matter o' fact, dat it exists.”

Carmen began applying her second night cream:

“Speakin' of dat, I think Marianne's missin' Élizabeth.”

“Wot, you tink 'er big crush 'as got 'er pinin' away?”

Carmen laughed, and shot back:

“Well, in a way, yes.”

“Not dat I wants to be discouragin' you, only I don't tink Marianne's got any o' dat in 'er 'ead. You ask me, de girl's as bad or worse dan Étienne.”

Carmen screwed the top back onto her jar of cream. Terry added, laughing:

“Der's times I asks meself if you mightn't be de one wid dat in yer head.”

Carmen took it with a laugh.

“Wot, that I've got a crush on Élizabeth?”

“Well, maybe not on Élizabeth in particular, but on udder women . . .”

Carmen rinsed her fingers and put away her jars:

“You really think that?”

But Terry didn't want to reveal the extent to which he might or might not be serious.

Timeout, unless unconsciouses are speaking to one another.

Étienne did not want to contradict Carmen, but he had his own opinion all the same:

“But, Mum, Chico knows frogs better dan you do:”

A reply that left his mother speechless, and that Josse later found highly amusing when Carmen recounted the incident.

Following along the lines of
e black i red
. . .
a yellow e black
and
a yellow i red
would do just as well.

“If I'm not mistaken, it's like dodgems.”

“Like wot?”

“
Bumper cars
.”

“Awh.”

“Or like a game of flippers.”

“
Pinball
, you mean?”

“Dat's it.”

. . .

“Well, to each 'is English, I suppose.”

“Englishes, you mean.”

“We gotta keep de lingo, boy.”

pizza

wife arrives

beer or a glass of wine

a long hard day but it ends well

slog on

“But Dad! You promised!”

“I know I promised, only Ludmilla's ill. I just can't go.”

“You promised yesterday, an' you promised de day before dat!”

“I'm sorry, Étienne, it's just not possible. We'll go tomorrow.”

Étienne would have liked to sulk, but Terry had apologized, which raised a doubt in his mind.

“You know I keep me promises usually.”

That was true, Étienne could not deny it.

“Der's times tings happen, an' you has to change yer plans. Eh?”

Terry was right, Étienne knew it. But did that mean he had to give in so easily?

“Only, I was wantin' to go . . .”

“We'll go tomorrow. It'll be just as much fun tomorrow.”

That evening, as he was going to sleep, before Terry left the room, Étienne asked:

“Dad, are apologies stronger dan promises?”

Phew
. Tough question. Terry suddenly had the feeling he was walking on eggshells but, still, he did not retreat.

“Sometimes one is, sometimes de udder. Depends.”

Would this reply satisfy his son?”

. . .

“G'night, son.”

“G'night, Dad.”

(
Phew
!)

Examination question for Evolution and Industrialization course (SOCI 2736): contextualize the appearance of the crowbar in relation to monkeys' nails, and explain how its uses ended up qualifying it as an instrument rather than as a tool.

“Wot does you mean, you have to read de numerals as well?”

“Seems der's twelve o' dem dat are radars, an' der's like a secret code in dose twelve sections.”

“Wot's a radar, I'd like to know?”

“A number dat's de same, no matter wot way you reads it. Like 113.131.1. De word
radar
is de same ting:
r
-
a
-
d
-
a
-
r
or
r
-
a
-
d
-
a
-
r
, 'tis de same ting bot' ways.”

“Awh! A palindrome!”

“A wot?”

The French word
carotte
also refers to a tubular core sample a mining exploration extracts from the earth, a game played with a knife, and in tennis, a ball with spin on it that foils the opponent.

“Terry?”

“Julien!”

Even though they hardly knew each other, Terry and Julien always greeted each other warmly, since they were both in the book business.

“You're on vacation?”

“Dat's right, we tawt we'd spend a few days in Caraquet. I don't remember if you's met me wife, Carmen?”

Julien and Carmen greeted each other with a nod.

“Yes, at the Babar, once . . .”

“An' dis one 'ere's Marianne, an' dis is Étienne . . .”

“You ought to call yourselves the Mustachio family . . .”

Looking to his mother for some explanation of the man's comment, then glancing at Terry, and Marianne of course, Étienne realized that yes, all four of them were sporting whipped cream mustaches.

“Are you going to stay for the Tintamarre?”

“That's de idea. An' you, de new bookstore's doing well?”

“Yes, we're happy.”

“We can't complain neidder. Come to tink of it, I's got sometin' I's wantin' to show you, seein' as you know more about old books dan I does. 'Ave you got a minute to spare, I'll fetch it from de car?”

“Sure!”

Hecho en China.

“No! I don't want to be all decorated.”

“An' why not? Everyone dresses up, dat's wot we do for de Tintamarre.”

. . .

“Come 'ere, Marianne, Dad's gonna tie yer flag so you doesn't get yer feet all tangled up in it.”

“Ag?”

“Dat's right, a flag. Do you want de bell or de whistle?”

Marianne wanted both.

“No, one or de udder. If you take de bell, Dad's gonna have de whistle.”

Terry gave her time to make up her mind.

“De whistle? Alright den. Dad's gonna take de bell.”

Terry clanged the bell a few times, and Marianne changed her mind.

“'Ow about you den, Étienne, do you want de whistle?”

“No, I want the bell.”

“Marianne's got de bell. Der's de whistle an' de trumpet left.”

“The trumpet.”

“Maybe Marianne will let you borrow de bell later. Eh, Marianne?”

“I wanted the drum.”

Josse was still smiling over the frog story when she went to serve a customer who had to rummage through all his pockets to find enough money to pay for his beer. She was about to offer him the beer on the house when the man handed her a 20 dollar bill. Something in the stranger's gesture had a tiny but strange effect on her.

“I sure am happy you likes baloney, too.”

Zed was preparing the snack they would take with them to Kouchibougouac Park the next day. As a parent, he always lent a hand during extra-curricular school activities or when they needed someone to accompany the children on class trips.

“Which Vachon cake do you want? De caramel or de strawberry?”

“Caramel.”

Chico was rinsing the apples under the tap.

“De teacher says we might be goin' canoein' if der's enough
life jackets
.”

Chico corrected himself, laughing:

“Well, really she said “
brassière de sauvetage
.”

“A rescue
brassière
!”

Zed, too, was laughing.

(Marianne's mustache could have gone without saying.)

“Granny! Talk Chiac!”

In the end, I will not have managed to avoid a kind of entropy of the text, that is a condensation of meaning, an organizational structuring of the story that I experience as an irritant.

“You tell me, was it really necessary to invent all des 'ere different kinds o' screws, den? Ask me, der was no need to make it so shockin' complicated . . .”

Zed, however, recognized a number of basic principles:

“Der's a whole lot o' tings dat need considerin', like de tread, de torque, de lengt', de colour. An wedder yer dealin' wid wood, cement, or gyproc . . .”

“Wot about de heads, den? How come der's all dese different drive types? Dese days, takes tree
screwdrivers
just to take apart de smallest thingamabob! Is it all just one big money racket, or wot?!”

Zed was surprised that Terry had used the English word
screwdriver
when even he, Zed, would have said “
tournevis
.”

“Do you tink all de countries'll ever come togedder an' agree on one system, de way dey done wid degrees in temperature an' for metres an' feet? If dey only boiled 'er down to just two systems, dat'd already be a whole lot better dan de way 'tis now.”

Zed doubted very much that the universalization of screw heads would happen in his lifetime. Then Terry changed the subject.

Yupik is a language?!

“Wot were you up to in de bedroom?”

“I'd written de title of a book on a piece of paper dat I can't find. I's searchin' in me udder jeans to see if I'd left it in one o' de pockets.”

Carmen didn't believe him for a minute. She was certain Terry had been rummaging around for something — more than likely her birthday present. She'd heard the sound of plastic bags.

“Wot, your jeans were in a bag?”

With a sardonic smile on her lips, Carmen was pressing on purpose, just to see how Terry would manage to extricate himself. Terry played innocent:

“Wot do you mean?”

“I could hear plastic bags . . .”

“Awh. Dat's de big bag full o' clothes we doesn't wear no more. We ought to get rid of it, takes up space fer nuttin'.”

As a matter of fact, Carmen had forgotten about the bag. And yet. . .

“So, you're gettin' rid of yer jeans, den?”

“No, I's just lookin' all around de bag, in case de paper'd fallen der. An' wot's all dese questions about, all of a sudden?”

“Nothing. Only I didn't understand wot you were doin' out der, that's all.”

Terry could see that Carmen suspected something. That was not necessarily a bad thing.

“Étienne told me you wanted a camera fer yer birt'day, by de way.”

“Awh, so ee did tell you, did ee?”

“Just so you doesn't go getting' ideas, dat's not wot yer gonna be gettin'.”

“Awh no?”

I write because I don't trust words/others. One way or another, a Freudian slip?

“'Bout time you got 'ere! Were ya lost!?”

Terry, who had been forewarned about the fellow's gruff manner, was still busy unstrapping Marianne from her car seat.

“Had to drop off some books wid a fellow in Lakeburn. 'Twasn't meant to take long, only you know 'ow some folks won't let you go.”

The man decided Terry — who was stuck dragging a child along, to boot! — had to be the sort of fellow people pushed around.

“Generally, I'm not late. Sorry.”

The man looked at his watch.

“Well anyhow, I hasn't got all day. Come on den, she's over dis way.”

Terry lifted Marianne onto his shoulders and followed the man, who was making great strides toward the field of long grass.

“Starts o'er where de fence is, den it goes up into de trees.”

“It ends over by de trees?”

Terry was unfamiliar with large rural surfaces.

“No! She goes way back in der. Ya see on de udder side, de wee green sign? Dat's de udder line. So you've got de whole field, plus, I'd say, a quarter mile into de woods.”

“So de stream's in de woods?”

“Halfway in, I'd say.”

Terry gave up going that far that day, with Marianne and the hill to climb.

“About how wide is it?”

“Well, a stream's a stream isn't it, 'tisn't a river. I dunno, maybe seven, eight feet.”

Terry looked at the size of the field, tried to imagine the depth of the forest.

“Are der big trees in der?”

“Der's some. You can go take a look fer yerself, if you like, I doesn't 'ave de time.”

“No, I won't go today. Would it be alright if I came by some udder time wid anudder fellow?”

“Be my guest! If you wants to go all de way 'round, follow de trees marked wid red paint. Dat way you'll see all de way back. An' de stream.”