Lily's Story (49 page)

After Brad’s
second birthday, Lily detected a distinct change in his behaviour
and in their relationship. He had begun to talk early – at sixteen
months – but despite the facility of his speech he used it mainly
to establish the urgency of his wants. Lily cradled, hummed and
sang to him often during these stressful periods, and he had
responded in a curious way: he consumed the lullaby syllables
thirstily, drawing them into his discomfort like a tonic, giving
nothing back but the grateful easing of his tense little body in
the singer’s arms. The songs Lily sang to him in those early months
– born out of desperation and sometimes even panic – were those she
remembered, however obliquely, from her own mother’s lips and
imperfectly copied in her sudden need. They did as much to soothe
the nurse as they did the child. Most of the ditties had no words
she understood,
but she felt
that somewhere, way back, she had known their meaning or something
near enough to meaning to be comprehended and prized. She could not
describe even to herself the pleasure she derived from watching the
fretful child respond to the lilt and dance of her own deep music,
not with his eyes (which often twisted in resistance) but with his
skin, his unstiffening body, the green thrumming of his miniature
bones, the easy rhythm of animal sleep.

But just last
month, all that had changed. For one thing Brad was a bit stronger
now, even though he would always be a pale, thin towhead and prone
to infection – all the w
ay
into his adolescence, where he would choose to capitalize on these
‘failings’ in unexpected ways. For the most part his abrupt shift
in behaviour came with his increasing command of speech. He could
not only string sentences together that would have dazzled visitors
(if they had had any), he could take a word or phrase, as Robbie
might a rubber ball, and play with it – tossing, balancing, testing
its resilience against foreign objects – for his own endless
amusement. One of those objects became Lily, who tossed the phrases
right back – daring, taunting, smiling. Slowly, tentatively, they
were returned until the rules of a new and wondrous game were
realized, a game for two players – full of laughter, quick slides,
dizzy trapezes almost-over-air, shivering hugs when they both at
last touched ground and waited together for the spinning to slow.
While Robbie foraged out-of-doors, toy rifle at the ready to stun
the first squirrel, Lily and Brad spent the mornings in perpetual
conversation. Sometimes when Mary Bacon came out to help with the
housework, she brought her little brother, Mitchell, and while the
two older boys rampaged through the wilds out back and Mary hummed
over the kitchen stove, Lily sat in Uncle Chester’s chair and began
to tell Brad all the stories she knew. Brad did not always stay
silent and enthralled; at a signal from Lily he would jump straight
into the narrative and help her make it up, and when it broke down,
as it must, in rambunctious nonsense, they would both laugh till
even Mary would start giggling and Brad would freeze, tug at Lily’s
apron and grow sullen for the rest of the day. At night he would
say: “Put some words to the song, Mama,
please
.” “But
they
are
words,” Lily would say, indignantly, then relent
and improvise some English ones. “That don’t rhyme!” Brad would
shout gaily. “Not supposed to!” “Make it rhyme, Mama,
please
.” So she would, happy that the child was content with her
quarter-rhymes pulled out of the air and away from objects they
shared intensively in their small fabular world. Of course, Lily
had also sung Robbie to sleep with her lullabies, and did still
when he was in need, and she loved also the way Robbie’s eyes, like
acorns tinted blue, rounded drowsily and welcomed sleep. Rarely did
she finish a song or story with Robbie at bedtime; his gratitude
was quick and sonorous. During the day he would merely fidget and
long to be outdoors despite the rain or driving snow. She loved
Robbie passionately with a kind of aching she had never anticipated
as she watched him gambol alone in the garden, stride behind Tom
when they marched towards the wood, when he lay breathing in his
heavy, recuperative sleep each afternoon. When he was sick or
rejected, she got to hold him as tightly as she wanted
to.

Tom
was quick to notice the change in
Brad. Lily was aware of his glance saying to her ‘Well at last
there seems to be a little human being under all that crying and
carrying on’. Lily in turn was quick to include Tom in the
conversations as they developed. As first she had little success;
Brad would simply clam up and sulk if Tom hung about too long on
the fringes of their dialogue. “You’re too big,” Lily said to Tom,
trying to make light of it. “Why don’t you get down on your hands
an’ knees an’ just peek over the table, like you done with Robbie
way back.” Tom was puzzled but went along. It worked. Gradually Tom
was let into the word-play, where he did quite well, and
occasionally Brad would say something he thought amusing and then
look only at Tom and smile. Whereupon Tom would fall backwards and
laugh and kick like a tipsy mule. This latter manoeuvre usually
brought more laughter from Robbie than any of the other
spectators.

But
Tom just wasn’t around enough, Lily
concluded. It didn’t seem fair. So for the time being, at any rate,
Brad was unwilling to transfer his antics solely to Tom, even
though Lily increasingly found opportunities to leave them alone
together. “C’mon, Robbie,” she’d say, “You an’ me’ll go down to the
creek an’ see if those trout are still there.” Robbie would glance
anxiously at Tom – torn between loyalty and desire – and then give
in to the latter. The only way she could keep him happy was to let
him lead
her
to the secret pool and point out
to
her
all its cumulative mysteries. Often they returned
to a silent house.

Tom
himself seemed a lot happier in
general. No longer would he have to switch over to the
freight-sheds every April. He was made a permanent (and veteran)
member of the car-shop. His specialty became the repair of crippled
stock cars; he would tear out the splintered sections and improvise
replacement schemes at minimal cost to the Grand Trunk. “I’ll never
be a cabinet-maker,” he’d say, “but at least these hands are good
for something.” The only sad news was that Gimpy and Clara had
settled permanently in Sarnia. Though they still saw them on
special occasions, some of the old intimacy was lost. Tom had a
number of acquaintances – pals – at work, some of whom he hunted
and fished with, but with Bags’ departure (no news) and Gimpy’s
defection, Tom had so far not found friends to replace them. Though
he never said it aloud, with Gimpy gone to the Great Western, Tom
had a better chance at becoming assistant foreman.

Soon, Lily thought, we’ll start
talking again about that cottage in the village.

I
t was late April.
Brad was asleep inside; his glands were swollen. Lily was digging
in the garden. Robbie was ‘helping’ with his toy shovel. After a
week’s lay-off Tom was back at work. Lily’s mind was full of plans
for the coming season. She hummed a waltz tune, one she remembered
dancing to long ago. Suddenly Robbie peeked up and said, “Ma,
what’s a Fee-neen?”

“
Where’d you
hear that word?”

“
When me an’
Da was fishin’.”

“
Mr. Bacon use
that word?”

“
Uh, uh. Da
did. What is it? Da won’t tell me.”

“
They’re bad
men, but they live a long way over the River. They can’t hurt you
none. So don’t you go worryin’ about them, eh?”

He paused, then brought his
shovel to his shoulder and aimed it. “I ain’t scared,” he laughed
and pulled the trigger; the weapon went off with an explosion of
spittle. Lily said nothing. After a while the instrument resumed
its more humble duties.

When Tom came in from
work, Lily was bent over the rabbit stew. She listened in vain for
the rattle of his bucket and ‘thunk’ of his cap on its peg. She
turned to look, the hair on the nape of her neck rising.

He was all in green,
tunic and breeches, with black unbent boots. A bit of gold piping
winked here and there. The rifle in his fist gleamed more
brightly.

“
I joined up,”
he said.

2

T
he Fenian scare had
reached its zenith. Enemy troop movements were being reported daily
all the way from New Brunswick to the Niagara frontier. For several
months the spanking new Canadian militia, side by side with British
regulars, had been patrolling the borders of Canada East and Canada
West. Point Edward was a critical spot, the nexus of two great
transportation facilities. The Grand Trunk round-house and yards
harboured at any given moment more than fifty locomotives. The
economy of the united provinces could be crippled with a single
surprise strike across the St. Clair River. Near the railyards
stood an elevator crammed with last fall’s wheat reserves. Beyond,
the Lambton countryside was dotted with Irish Catholic farms
reported to be longing for emancipation and two-hundred-years’
vengeance. Three militia groups with local commanders were formed
as part of the 27
^th
Battalion:
the Sarnia Infantry and Artillery Brigade, and two units from Point
Edward known as the Grand Trunk Companies. Eventually they took on
the name they had already chosen unofficially for themselves: the
St. Clair Borderers.

To assist them in defending the
vital installations of the region, the Government sent several
companies from elsewhere in the Province, and these were billeted
in what remained of the original Ordnance Grounds – a flat, grassy
plain between Mushroom Alley and the lakeshore. The spring breezes
billowed the white tents and the sun shimmered on bayonet and
buckle. Flocks of truant boys crouched breathless in the bushes
nearby, then dashed off to the dunes to replicate the dress-parades
and menacing battle tactics they had been permitted to witness.
Many a hummock and foolish milkweed felt the slash of a sabre and
quick, voiceless death.

The Borderers joined the
outsiders for combined exercises, but they also rehearsed
independently on the Sarnia parade-ground or among the dunes
themselves, firing their rifles into the air, hurling imprecations
into the wind blowing impudently from Fort Gratiot, showing curious
lads who longed to be a year older how to fix a bayonet without
severing a finger. One rumour, widely believed, suggested that a
Gatling Gun had been smuggled in from the States and cached
somewhere near Mushroom Alley. Ordinary folk bolted their doors and
kept the curtains drawn

W
ith a logic known
only to the Irish, the assault did not come against the vital,
vulnerable Western region but across the Niagara River against
loyalist strongholds rooted in that countryside since the
expulsions of the seventeen-eighties. Despite the advantages of a
familiar terrain and a spy system which informed them of every
twitch made by the enemy, the Canadian militia, in their maiden
engagement, set a standard for ineptitude that only the fiascos of
the Great War would surpass. Heroism there was aplenty, even a
victory of sorts. But the soldiers weren’t cheering.

Because
John
A. Macdonald’s agents
knew that the Fenians under O’Neil’s able leadership were about to
cross the Niagara in force, a masterful battle-plan could be
hatched with time to spare. The regular army units from Toronto
under Colonel Peacock were to sail across Lake Ontario and effect a
lightning-swift landing and an inland thrust below the Falls. The
militia units – eight-hundred strong – were taken overnight on the
Great Western to Port Colborne where, as the sun rose, they were to
move slowly, by rail, to a point well below the marching line of
the Fenians, who were now disembarked and heading straight for the
Welland Canal. The militia commander, Colonel Booker, either forgot
to set his watch or was simply overeager, because he started his
northern drive two hours sooner than scheduled. Hence the
pulverizing pincer-movement – Peacock’s regulars from the north,
Booker’s militia from the south – was somewhat miscoordinated,
particularly when the militiamen bumped into the Fenians near
Ridgeway, to the astonishment of both parties. The Queen’s Own
Rifles from Toronto charged into the invading hordes and sent them
in full retreat – right through a festering swamp known locally as
Smuggler’s Hole. Both armies were up to their thighs in muck and
pond-water. The battered Fenians, backing up, discovered soon that
they were all standing on a dry hill staring down on the sloshing,
foot-weary Canadians. It occurred to them to start shooting back.
They did, and several soldiers toppled into the sludge, blotting it
with their blood. Reinspired by this, the main body of the Fenians
charged down the hillside, while some of their units fanned right
and left in an attempt to outflank the Canadians and trap them in
the quagmire they had accidentally arranged for themselves. Colonel
Booker succeeded in effecting an orderly retreat, hauling the
wounded with him, until one of his officers, hearing perhaps the
triphammer of his own heart, cried out “The Cavalry are coming!”,
whereupon with no further evidence to sustain him the Colonel
called for the formation of the famous British ‘square’. When duly
formed, it was discovered that there was only one horse within a
mile and it was pulling a plough. Meanwhile, the Fenians’ flanking
manoeuvre was able to be completed with ease; the rear units of the
Canadian militia broke and scattered; and the Queen’s Own continued
bravely and stupidly to retreat in order – until their backs were
cut to pieces and fifty-three of them had fallen, seven not to rise
again.