Mud Girl (15 page)

“And oh, yes! There's the note. I save Mr. Stewart's notes.” She reads aloud.

Dear Ms. Blake, I must ask you again – DO NOT THROW AWAY the flowers here on the table. I'm trying to come up with a dried flower arrangement to have on a permanent basis, and every time my flowers reach a perfect point,
VOILA
! you throw them away, and I must begin again!

Amanda sniffs and pulls the sheet of paper carefully from the notepad, folds it, puts it in her pocket, and begins to write on the next piece.

Dear Mr. Stewart,

Recipe for Dried Flowers:

Cut 'em in the thick of all their Bloomin'

And Hang 'em by their Toes

Leave 'em 'til they're Crunchy Dry

And we'll have No More of these Woes.

Abi peers around her to read the words. “How'd you come up with
that
?”

“Oh, I don't know,” Amanda says airily. “Mr. S seems to bring it out of me.” She reaches into Abi's bucket and pulls out the robot arm.

“Now you're going to show me what that's for,” Abi says.

“Come this way,” says Amanda, starting down the hall. “We're going to find his socks. There are always a few in the bathroom corners, gathering up the spiders' webs for me.”

Abi follows, armed with the toilet brush, and they make a parade, like two kids, Amanda with a swagger. Abi can't imagine doing that with anyone else in her life, and when Amanda reaches the bathroom and opens the door with a flourish and motions Abi in, Abi can't help but give her a grin, which Amanda returns. “Make sure you never tell anybody how much fun we have doing this!” she says.

Amanda sets a big jug of vinegar on the toilet lid. “Mr. S actually likes that we don't use all those poisonous cleaners.”

“Okay,” is all Abi can say. So maybe she does know how to shine a kitchen, but she does have much to learn.

“I have to argue about it with some of the customers…” She breaks off. “See? Look at this!” She reaches with the robot arm behind the door, and comes up with at least five socks, dust all over them. And long hairs.

“Oh yuck!” says Amanda, but there's almost a happy tone, as if she really does enjoy her work.

“What's with the long hair?” Abi asks. “I thought you said he lives alone.”

“He does,” says Amanda. “He has a ponytail. There's long hair all over the house. Must be balding. He sheds like a dog.” She releases the lever on the “arm” and the motley socks drop into the hamper in the hallway – overflowing with clothes – then begins to work on the bathtub.

Abi finishes the toilet and sink; Amanda does the floor.

She begins to hum a tune as she works. Together they move into the bedroom. Feels a little weird, cleaning some guy's bedroom. But Amanda's all business. Picks up the book he's reading from where it was dropped to the floor, its covers splayed. She finds a bookmark, marks Mr. S's page, and sets it on the bedside table.

“Must read himself to sleep,” she comments, and hands Abi a bottle marked “glass cleaner” for the mirrors. Smells a lot like lemon.

Dad used to read in bed, before he started to fall asleep with the
TV
. When did the reading stop? She can't remember, and scrubs extra hard at the mirror.

Amanda's humming is drowned out by the vacuum cleaner, but Abi can see her lips moving, so she's singing now.

Abi dusts, and they move down the hallway, the vacuum in Amanda's wake.

The next house, the Ralphs', is spotless.

“Why are we here?”

Amanda shrugs. “Dusting, vacuuming, you know.”

“Does anyone actually live here?”

“Mr. and Mrs. and two kids, a boy and a girl. If you look at their picture over there on the mantel, they look like a laundry detergent ad. You'd never know they
live
here.” Amanda's voice has the same tone as at the beach when she asked what was Abi doing hanging out with Jude. Must be the tone she reserves for people she doesn't think much of. Abi would like to ask her about Jude – why does she call him
that Jude
for instance? – but something stops her.

In this house, there are no reasons for Amanda's toy-store robot arm.

It's surprising to Abi how much there is to do, really. Different things. Vacuum the furnace area. Pick up the ornaments to dust. Lots of framed photographs. Sort the Tupperware. Mrs. Ralph has left a list with items checked off. The list is a computer printout. Amanda checks the list frequently and crosses off each item as they do it. She doesn't hum at this house.

At Grinsteads', she begins to again. Mr. Grinstead cooks for the family, and he's left a note that tells them to finish off
the Chinese takeout in the fridge, and to try the English trifle he's made. Abi's never tasted trifle – a mix of cake and whipped cream and fruit and custard. She'd like to make something that makes somebody feel this good.

Amanda stretches out for five minutes after they eat. Then she's up, the food like fuel, and they fly through the house with a rhythm, as if they are the left arm and the right arm of the same body.

“We're a regular team,” Amanda says, as they climb into the van when the day's come to an end. She reaches under the seat to where she's stowed her bag, and she finds a cheque book, writes in it, makes a notation.

She hands Abi a cheque for sixty-five dollars. “You have an account to put that in?”

“No, but I'll get one.” Abi stares at the paper in her hand before she folds it and tucks it in her pocket. She looks over at Amanda, and sees that she's grinning again. Abi grins back and suddenly it hits her that every muscle in her body is screaming bloody murder. It even hurts to relax her mouth as the grin collapses.

But Amanda's just gets bigger. “Hard work, isn't it?”

“Yep,” Abi manages, and that's it until they near the house on the river.

As they park, Abi sees a figure rise from the field and come through the blackberries toward them.
Jude
.

“Better go!” Amanda's tone is tight. Doesn't seem as if it comes from a person who hums.

“What was that tune you were humming?”

She looks surprised, and has to think for a minute. “You know – I think it's a Christmas song,” she says sheepishly. “
Il est né le divin enfant.
”

“Which means?”

“Something about the divine infant.”

“It's July!”

Still sheepish, she says, “Christmas is an all-year thing, no?”

They laugh, and when Abi turns back to the house, the suddenness of Jude's face in the window startles her. He seems bigger somehow. Abi wants her laughter to move away this silly thought, but he smiles, and that does it. Back to size. She suddenly realizes she's been holding her breath, and breathes again.

He opens the door. “Here you are,” he says, “the Housekeeper from Hell!”

Abi wonders which of them he's speaking of.

Amanda's voice is clear. “How long did it take you to come up with that?” she snaps. “All afternoon?”

“Pretty much,” he says smoothly. “Since
lunchtime
,” he emphasizes.

So he was upset Abi missed lunch.

Amanda speaks. “I thought your girlfriend was looking for a job.”

Abi can hear the anger burbling under her words.

The two of them face each other as if Abi's not even there between them, and suddenly she's angry with both of them. She pushes past Jude and stumbles into the screen door.

“Abi!” She hears behind her.

“Bugger off!” she hollers. “Both of you!”

Jude says something to Amanda, but Abi doesn't even care to know what. She finds the way to her room, and closes the door. Her aching muscles won't even let her lie down in a normal way. She's a tent, and someone's yanked a peg out of the ground. She collapses onto the bed.

No one follows her, though she hears a mumble of voices for a while before all is still.

Halcyon days are over.

Cow's Belly

I.

T
he letter I is next. The first entry in the I section is, of course, I.

Me. Back to where I started, is what that feels like. See? It is dumb, this idea that having a vocabulary will take you somewhere. It's still me – I – in this bed, with the river mud churgling away beneath me. If I disappeared, even then there'd still be the river mud. Churgling: the pamphlet didn't say anything about where made-up words will take me.

Last night, Abi fell asleep with her clothes on, and her teeth feel horrible. Now before she goes to brush them, she reaches into her pocket for the slip of paper. Seems like a dream, though her muscles tell her it really happened. The
sixty-five dollars on the cheque is real, and so is the scrawl that says “Amanda Blake.”

Abi's never had a bank account. Today that'll change. She puts the paper into the old purse, and then goes to brush and scrub the grime. She's finished the bath and wrapped herself in Mum's ugly old terry housecoat when she hears the voices, the screen door slam.

“Will!” It's Colm. Must be food bank day.

“Where do you want this box, Gramps?”

Oh no. That'll be Fiona. Abi can picture her out there, standing in the kitchen, in the middle of the room, as far as she can be from the possibility of anything actually touching her. Abi has noticed that in her home Fiona does everything with long arms. She sets a box down, leaning over. She doesn't want so much as her skirt to brush the cupboard, the door with the paint all chipping off. Doesn't matter how clean it is. There are patches of paint completely missing and it looks horrible. Then there's the counter that Abi scrubs. There'd be no explaining to Fiona that every mark on it will not come off – Abi has tried. Whatever those stains are, they've been there since the time of Uncle Bernard, Abi is sure, and they'll be there until the whole thing floats away. Same goes for the ancient table. But there's no telling Fiona that, no way. Abi wonders what Colm gives her to convince her to do this? It's got to be something; there's no other way she'd do it.

“I got a little something for you,” says Colm, “something a little more mind-bending than checkers.” Abi hears his sandals on the walkway outside, with Fiona's following.

Abi peeks out the bathroom door to see if all's clear, and scoots to her room.

“We're not staying, are we?” Fiona's voice, peeved. Abi can hear her from outside and she feels a flush of embarrassment. Then anger. She pulls on some clothes and opens the door a crack. What
does
Fiona do this for? Does she
like
making people feel ashamed?

Colm answers her, but Abi can't hear his words in the screech of the front screen door.

“Doesn't anybody oil this thing?” Fiona holds the door for herself and looks at the offending spring hinges. She slowly closes the door and it obeys her with not so much as a sigh.

Again she takes up her position, standing behind her grandfather as he pulls out a chair and reaches into the bag he's brought. Dad gets up slowly – God, he moves like an old man – makes Abi's throat go all tight, makes her want to kick him – and he sits down opposite Colm at the table. He looks a bit nervous, Dad does, but he almost smiles. Or something like a smile.

It's chess. Abi can see the set between them, a child's set, with bright green and pink plastic playing pieces. Colm
shows Dad where he mended a piece, and Dad looks closely. “Hardly shows. Like new. Got it at the Hospital Thrift Shop. I've been watching for one of these. Waiting. They don't come up often.”

Fiona snorts when he says “thrift shop,” and as he begins to explain the various moves of the pieces, she goes back outside, not caring at all about the door. The slam seems even louder than usual to Abi. Abi moves out into the room, and through the front window she can see Fiona, looking back at the house, hands on her hips. Then she turns away, slinks to her grandpa's car and leans on the fender, checking her nails.

Colm is talking about the knight's move. “Two spaces in one direction, then one in another. They're the only piece that can pass over others.”

Dad's nodding, nodding. He seems to be getting something out of all this. He's found his glasses and put them on. Those glasses always age him in a comfortable way – a way Abi is used to. Her earlier anger fades.

Colm goes on. “The bishop moves diagonally. The rook –” he holds it up – “in straight lines.”

She'll wait until they're gone to sort through the groceries and put them away, but he sees her.

“There's milk there, Aba – it'll be wanting the fridge for sure.” There's a formality to Colm; he always calls her Aba. Maybe someday she'll ask him to call her Abi, but in the
meantime, she likes how he says “Aba.” She appreciates how he can bring food to their home, food she thinks of as a “handout,” but she has the feeling that's not how Colm sees it.