How Loveta Got Her Baby (19 page)

Rosetta and her mother and Cyril rejoiced over his progress and his advancement and they danced around the kitchen. And their dance was not in vain, for when the time came for Cyril to graduate from primary school, three years later, the old District Superintendant was gone, promoted to Cornerbrook. He was replaced by a young woman and the young woman came uninvited down the gravel road in a small car with dust flying out behind her. She had a sheaf of FAILEDs in her hand, to see for herself this hopeless boy who broke all the records for ineptitude.

“Where is he?” she asked Albert May.

“He's in there, but first here's the real reports, the ones he really got, the ones I gave him and his mother.”

Albert May handed over the evidence of his years of deceit.

She read them all, looked at Albert May, and then she walked into the classroom where Cyril sat all by himself. After ten minutes, the new District Superintendent came back out.

“Mr. May, in my opinion, you showed real good judgment when you broke the rules. Move this boy on. You know, he looks good too, once you get used to the eye.”

“We don't even see that eye anymore,” said Mr. May, “it doesn't register upon us.”

She drove back up the road, and must have fixed up the old reports in the District Office because Cyril had no further troubles in school again, even though he never really learned to read letters at all. He did all his learning within his head, and he had just the one teacher all the way along, Albert May.

The night she got pregnant with Cyril, Rosetta had on a little dress that wasn't much more than a shift. It was the hottest time of summer. She went walking with the boy with wavy hair, up the road, and then down the hill to Back Cove. They could swim there if the blackflies weren't too bad. Rosetta didn't even realize what had happened to her till it was over. She didn't have a clue. The only way she could hide was to press in closer to him, to squeeze up to him so he couldn't see her. It was the only place she could go. Thinking back, she didn't think he had a lazy eye, that boy, but she couldn't remember with certainty. What did she know about him? Nothing. She never saw him when he was tired, when the sun shone down enough to make him squint, or when he was sick with a fever of 101 degrees. Maybe, at times like those, maybe his eye wandered off like Cyril's did. Yes, after Back Cove, it was hard for Rosetta, the worst of times. She grew bigger and all the eyes in the world stared straight at her, watching her. Then Cyril came along and she was left alone with that lovely little patched-up baby, by herself, only her own mother and father there to help.

“You little pirate,” she said to him before they gave up the patch for good, “you little pirate, whatever are we going to do with you?”

burin

CYRIL SAVOURY'S FIRST
job, after he left school, was in St. John's, at the Arts and Culture Centre, where his uncle William secured for him a temporary position as a security guard, with a grey uniform that fit him perfectly, a brown leather belt, a walkie-talkie, and a hat with such a military cast that Cyril stopped at his reflection in the lobby glass; it was in this uniform that Cyril presented himself for work on October 14th, for a show on loan from the German National Museum, featuring twenty prints by Albrecht Dürer, and although he had no knowledge of the underlying themes of Dürer's work, Cyril found himself, on the very first morning of his employment, mesmerized, carefully examining the cross-hatching—the fine parallel and intersecting lines of shading—on the thigh of a horse in the engraving
Knight, Death,
and Devil
; after lunch the gallery was full, for the show had been praised in the
Evening Telegram
and in the
Daily News
, and Cyril felt himself being drawn back through the crowds to the same work, where the cross-hatching was so dense, so varied, so thick here and so thin there, so magnificently cross-hatched everywhere that he did not see, developing around him, within the web of his security, the shambles of a public gallery left without any supervision at all: there was a young man standing so close to
Melencolia
that he could breathe upon it, a boy from Bay Roberts touching the frame of
St. Eustache
, and young men smirking in front of
Adam and Eve
—Cyril saw none of this, he saw only that he was tapped on the shoulder by the Chief of Security, that he was terminated for cause that very afternoon, that he lost his uniform, his belt, his walkie-talkie, and the military hat but, somehow, he had not lost his self-esteem, for with the few dollars he was given for his labours, he bought that day on Duckworth Street a set of pencils and a hand-sharpener, and in the evening he drew, hesitatingly at first but then with confidence, a true likeness of his own hand and sleeve, and the next day he woke up early and drew, from memory, the laundry on Hilda Cluett's line, with the northeast wind snapping at the cotton sheets like a lost opportunity, and he drew the rockface Iron Skull and the Burin shore, and he cross-hatched it, as Albrecht Dürer would have done, had he been Cyril Savoury.

rigor
             
mortis

“HE'S DEAD.”

“He's what?”

“He's dead. He's out there lying by the fire.”

“Dead? Ralph?”

“Get up. Come see, double-check. Bring the mirror.”

“The mirror?”

“Bring the shaving kit, it's got the mirror.”

They both crawled out of the tent. The sun was just up. The air was fresh and there was Ralph, lying on his side, stretched out by the ashes of the fire, still in the clothes he had on when he went to bed last night. He had brought his own little pup tent to sleep in, separate from theirs.

“Oh look at him, I think you're right.”

“Give me the mirror.”

“Here.”

“We'll check.”

“Check what?”

“For the spark of life. Hold it over the lips, real close like this.”

“He's alive! There's a smudge on the glass!”

“That's your fingerprint.”

“You think?”

“Look at the whorls! Give me that hankie.”

They rubbed the mirror carefully with one corner of the handkerchief until the mirror was perfect. The red of the rising sun reflected off it, and the light flickered over Ralph's face too, and then along the ground until it disappeared into the bushes. Ralph's eyes were stuck open.

“Eyes look dry.”

“That's the stare of death.”

“Ralph!”

“Ralph!”

“Push him a bit, on the shoulder. See what happens.”

“Like this?”

“Like that but a little bit more. Harder.”

“There. Oh Christ lookout!”

Ralph toppled right over onto the flat of his back. They were camped, the three of them, by the side of the Skeena River which flowed by, smooth and silent for a river of that size. There were mountains in the distance and, close-up, there were trees, lots of evergreen trees that grew up by the campsite. You could see the ashes of a fire.

“Hey, go blow on those embers.”

“The embers?”

“It's coffee time.”

“Coffee now?”

“Regardless.”

“Okay. Back off, I'll blow on the embers.”

“Harder than that. Briskly.”

“I'm dizzy. Oh, there we go.”

“Good.”

“There, how's that?”

“Now fire, that's the real spark of life. Without fire, there's no civilization.”

“Here's the mirror, try again.”

“Okay.”

“Hold it closer, maybe he's breathing wispy.”

“Wispy?”

“Real low. I saw it on TV.”

“There.”

“You touched the lips.”

“I did? I did not.”

“Maybe. Anyway, there's nothing there. Nothing.”

“He's gone. Gone for good.”

“You're right. The mirror doesn't lie.”

Birds flew about the campsite every morning. They were mostly grey jays and they flew real close, trying to pick up little crumbs with their beaks. There was some kind of sparrow too, jumping around in the low bushes. You could tell it was going to be a fine day, but it was still cool. They were glad they had on their checked red-and-black wool jackets.

“You know, this is now some pickle we're in.”

“Just the two of us.”

“That's right. Just us. It's just kind of hitting me.”

“Long way to go?”

“I'll say. Three hundred miles, from the map.”

“Portages?”

“Three.”

“Big ones, little ones?”

“Two are big.”

“Uphill?”

“Uphill.”

“Jeez.”

Then there was one of those silences you sometimes get in nature. The river spun against the rocks on the shoreline but for some reason it didn't make a sound.

“Better check him out for animal bites.”

“Animal bites? What do you mean?”

“Well, maybe he didn't just die on his own, maybe he got killed.”

“Killed? How could that happen?”

“A cougar, one of those grizzly bears.”

“The ones we saw upriver? They were eating fish.”

“At that time they were eating fish.”

“I guess, that size, they eat a lot.”

“They eat fish, they eat berries, they eat meat. They are carnivores. In fact, they are the world's largest carnivore, after the polar bear.”

“There's no polar bears here. Right?”

“No. At least I hope not. They are merciless killers, polar bears, relentless in their pursuit of meat. They will track a human being a hundred miles.”

“They like seals better. That's what I heard.”

“Ralph. You think he looks like a seal?”

Ralph's pack, the grey one, was right there by the closed flap of his pup tent. Everything looked in perfect order. The stones around the fire formed a circle.

“Not really like a seal, no. But then I've never seen a seal. They got soft pads on their feet, grizzly bears, polar bears.”

“I heard nothing all night. Did you?”

“No, nothing. Not a peep.”

“They can walk on twigs, soundless as a ghost.”

“A Wendigo.”

“Oh, don't say that, that gives me the chills.”

“Big cats now, they bite you in the back of the neck, right?”

“Definitely. They are sneaky. Bears on the other hand, they come right at you, they have fetid breath, they knock you down with their paws. Then they chew your head.”

A red canoe was pulled up on the rocks by the river and there were three paddles leaning on a tree. There was no sign of a violent struggle. The forest floor was smooth with pine needles.

“Let's look for blood.”

“You mean inside the clothes?”

“First close his eyes. I don't like that stare, that unseeing stare. It gives me the willies.”

“Ralph's eyes?”

“Yes, Ralph's eyes.”

“Touch them?”

“The eyelids, that's all. Use your fingertips.”

“I blew on the fire. I rolled him over. You close the eyes.”

“Okay, I guess that's fair. You got that hankie?”

“Hankie's no good. Just use your fingertips, like you said.”

“Fingertips.”

“There. That's it. Push down, be firm. Hold them there for a bit. Good. Now let go.”

“They're half-open again.”

“Let's push him over. Then we don't have to look. Push him away from the fire.”

“Altogether now1-2-3…”

“Go!”

“Heavy.”

“Heavier dead than alive. That's why they say dead weight.”

When they pushed him over, there was no sign of damage to the back of Ralph's head. All he had there was a few red welts from mosquito bites, and deer flies. They all had lots of those.

“No blood, no bites.”

“Well, that's a relief.”

“I'll say.”

“Killer bear, that's the last thing we need on this trip.”

“I think we got freaked out over nothing. Heart attack, that's my guess.”

“This trip, I thought we planned it real well.”

Seven months before the trip had started, they each had a list to go over. They checked off all the clothes they needed, the pills they might need. They were careful in every way, right down to the salt and pepper. They even went to the doctor and had checkups.

“Hey, what about CPR?”

“CPR?”

“You know, mouth-to-mouth resuscitation?”

“For Ralph? Here?”

“Of course for Ralph, look at him, he's the one that needs it.”

“We rolled him over the wrong way for that.”

“I'm not skilled in that, CPR. I couldn't do it.”

“You hold their nose, you breathe into their mouth.”

“You know how, you try it. We should do it.”

“We?”

“You. You know how. Here, I'll flip him back. There. Give it a go.”

“He's got a cold sore.”

“Where?”

“There on the upper lip.”

“This? It's all crusted.”

“That's it though.”

“They're catching aren't they, cold sores? They're viruses?”

“Damn right they are.”

“Then there's no CPR for Ralph. Besides, he's not fresh enough.”

“What do you mean?”

“Dead too long. It's hopeless. Look, whatever killed Ralph, it happened in the night. His fingers are stiff.”

“That's normal, stiffening, right?”

“Right, but not if you're freshly dead. Then, fresh, your fingers are still loose, supple like ours.”

“CPR is hopeless then for Ralph, now.”

“Right.”

“No CPR then. Forget it. I don't like the look of that cold sore.”

“Then what are we going to say to Phyllis? He died and we did nothing for him?”