Mud Girl (17 page)

Outside, the hot wind hits as she walks to the corner, the corner of Trunk and Fifth. She realizes she's not far from Horace's.

After about ten minutes, the corner is too hot, and she crosses the street…just as the bus sweeps down the road and she misses it. Abi doesn't want to go home yet. She crosses again to the shady side and in not much time she's at his corner. Must be the house with the hedge. She has to walk around and around again before she can find the gate. Then she wonders how she missed it. There's a hand-carved sign that reads “Ladner Junction,” and even as she pulls on the latch string she can hear a low toot-toot and the sound of wheels. There are also a lot of birds, she realizes, especially for this time of day and the heat. The number of birds might have to do with the number of feeders in the shade.

She's a giant here, and the birds are huge beasts. It is a land of miniature. The pond, with giant fish, is a lake with a bridge running over it, an old-looking trestle structure, and then she sees the train coming out from a tunnel, a tunnel she hasn't even noticed, built as it is into a mountainside, all mossy.

After she checks to make sure no one is actually around, she bends down to look inside. The tunnel is long and dark. When she looks, she knows exactly how it feels to be a train passenger going through. But the train has gone on and it is out of sight in a grove of trees, both giant and miniature. The
miniature trees – are they what is called “bonsai”? Those Japanese miniature trees? Abi thinks they're pine, and they're gnarled and in perfect proportion. Again, she has to kneel. By then the train has gone on. She follows it to where it pauses at a station, red brick and all the doodads you'd expect at a station. Behind it is a string of houses, all bright colours, and she has to scrooch down to look closely at the tiny front porches and in the front windows. There's a swing with two children sitting on it. She gives it a gentle push and sets them in motion.

She hears a chuckle and turns. “Their names are Fred and Wanda,” Horace says, and it takes Abi a moment to realize he's talking about the children in the swing.

“Will you join me for a cup of tea?”

She nods and rises to her feet and follows him as he steps with care through “Ladner Junction.”

“I've been expecting Mary for the past hour or so,” he says. “It's not like her to be late.”

Is there a question mark in his words? When he turns to look at Abi, can he see in her face that she might have an answer for him?

“No, it's not like her,” she mumbles. “What kind of tree is this?” She points to one of the miniatures.

He pauses as if her question has stumped him. Then: “Why a Japanese black pine, of course.”

It's kind of flattering really, that he'd expect her to know.

He has one of the heritage homes left in town. It's painted a deep red, and there's a lot of wide, cream-coloured trim around the windows, the doors, the gables and porch. Deep window boxes are filled with geraniums. If Abi breathes deeply, she can smell their cinnamon fragrance.

“I grew up in this house,” Horace says. “Come – I'll show you.” He crosses the wide painted planks that make up the porch, and goes in through the front door.

Inside, the walls are all cream, except for the beautiful panels and mouldings – wainscotting, Horace calls it, again speaking as if that would be something she knows. The furniture is all as old as the house, and as loved. Upholstered in brocade – now, there's a word she does know, thinks Abi, and at last she can attach it to something! The rugs on the hard-wood floor are all in many colours and intricate design.

“The back porch is where the sun is this time of day.” Horace leads the way to the kitchen, and Abi stops in the doorway. The room is huge. Counters run around three of the walls. The windows are tall with the high ceiling, and around the table are more chairs than she can count in a quick glance. She has a sudden image in her head, and the question is out before she can stop it. “Do you eat all by yourself at this table?”

Horace gives her a long look. Then he nods. “But I have happy memories and good ghosts. I used to sit at this table
with my brother and sister.” He sets an enormous kettle on the old gas stove. “This was a farmhouse. Still is, except now the farm's gone.” He laughs at his bit of a joke. Then he assembles tea things: a tray, honey pot, creamer, a plate of cookies and crackers, three thick pottery mugs.

“Mary will know we're in the back.” He leads the way out the door, which has been standing open, letting the bright July sunshine pour onto the old floor. Even as one part of Abi recognizes a certain wistfulness in Horace's voice, another part of her suddenly sees the cracks in the ancient linoleum.

“Does Ernestine…I mean, Mary…come here often?” Abi asks.

He sets the tray down. He doesn't answer the question until he sits and looks at Abi. “Sometimes I just don't know what to do with Mary. She makes me feel like a little boy, and I want some other little boy in the class to go over to her and tell her that I like her…” He breaks off, smiling. “Does that still happen in schoolyards, I wonder.” He goes on without an answer. “Then other times she makes me feel that I'm an old, old man.” He stops again. “You can't possibly know what I mean, can you?”

Abi doesn't want to tell him that the only thing she does know is that this morning she saw a look on Ernestine's face like she's never seen on anybody's face before, and she doesn't know why that look was there.

Finally he answers her question. “Yes, she comes over often. She stays and stays. Then all of a sudden, she'll leap up, looking as if a gremlin's whispered in her ear, and within half-seconds, she'll have her sweater on and her bag gathered up and she's gone. Once, she was gone so fast she left the door open behind her. And she runs, she almost runs away.” He's shaking his head at the end of his words. “Now today, she doesn't come at all.”

“Maybe something came up,” Abi says, her voice low.

“Maybe,” he says, swirling the tea in his mug, looking down his nose.

Glum, thinks Abi. Horace looks glum. She resists her own sudden urge to leave. Instead she refills her mug, squirts in too much honey. There's never honey in the food box.

Horace notices her fondness for honey. “It's good on these chunky crackers too,” he says, handing her a thick Norwegian-style cracker. That quick his glumness disappears.

When the crackers are gone, and the cookies, and the tea that is still in the pot is cold, Horace disappears around a corner for a moment and then returns. “Watch this,” and from the far side of the house Abi hears a
whoo-whoo
whistle, an echo of the real thing, and along comes the train, smoke pouring from its funnel.

Abi can't help it: a little rush passes through her, something magical. She feels a bit silly about it, but when she looks
at Horace – and he is staring intently at the little engine, a smile on his face – she doesn't feel silly at all. Obviously, he feels the same way, and he's probably seen this hundreds of times. He is definitely less obsolete than some adults she knows.

“You're smiling!” says Horace.

“Something Er…Mary said to me once.”

“Yes.” He nods. “She has a way of warming your soul. Not just with those knitted beasts she's forever working on, either!”

“Beasts?”

“Beasts, yes. Those scarves and sweaters, they take on a life of their own, as far as I'm concerned. Frankly, I think she's a bit obsessed.”

Abi motions to the train running around his yard. “And you're not?”

“Me?” He feigns shock. “Not me!”

The train – engine, passenger cars, and caboose – chugs by and heads off into another tunnel. Abi realizes she's been sitting on the porch and hasn't even seen the valley with its bakery, library, and string of houses. She stands, moves closer, and up over the small rise of land she can see that one house actually has a clothesline with tiny garments and a string of cloth diapers on it. “Reminds me of my mum's,” says Horace.

“Does the train go all the way around your house?”

“All the way.” Horace is proud of his train, Abi can tell. They wander around the yard, and Horace points out other houses, and a barn set in the midst of an “orchard.”

“See?” Abi says. “The farm
is
still here.”

Horace laughs, and Abi hopes that, at least for now, just this moment, he doesn't miss Ernestine quite as much as he did earlier. She watches for his train to come around again. She's heard it go round, the sound growing fainter, fainter, then growing clear, clearer. She gets down on her knees, and wonders:
How many people have waited at a train station for someone, not sure if they're ever going to show up?
What would it be like to count on someone? To
know
you can count on them?

She looks over at Horace, watching for his train to appear from under the hedge, and the lump that's in her throat is so big it hurts, makes her eyes water.

The sun has that waning summer afternoon feel, when the heat is gathered and still. “I should go,” she says to him.

“I'll drive you home,” Horace says.

For a minute, she thinks to say “no,” then she remembers that he does know where she lives. So she says “thanks” instead.

He drops her off close to the front door, even though she can hear his Honda being scraped by the blackberries. “I'm glad you came to see my garden train,” he says. “Come again soon.”

“I will.”

He waits until she goes inside, and she waves from the window as he pulls away.

D
ad's exactly where she left him, asleep. Abi makes herself a sandwich, and a second, which she leaves on the table beside him. She places the bishop from the chess game beside the sandwich.
Tell me something about Ernestine. Give me one more piece of the Mum-puzzle. You're up, Dad. Make a move.

Forgiven

T
hursday is a prison.

No Jude in the field.

No Mary. Or even Ernestine.

No Amanda.

Abi works on the sweater. She'd like to have a little chat with Ernestine right about now. Knitting might keep your hands busy, but it doesn't do anything to free Abi's mind. With one row, she feels anger. With the next row, confusion… Maybe if she knits to the point at which she needs help, Ernestine will show up. That's something Ernestine would do, Abi thinks. So she knits the back and front of the sweater, all the way to the armpits, to where the pattern says to cast off two stitches, then two more with each row. As she knits, she
tells herself stories. Or at least, words come and go in her mind. Like the tide, she thinks.

What do I know about Ernestine? She needs to do something with her hair. And there's something in her, something that hurts, something she hangs on to, won't let go of, something that scares me. But not as much – no way as much! – as it scares Ernestine herself!

And what, what do I know about Dad? What did I used to know about him before he sat in his chair?

She knits through an entire row before a picture comes to her. A picture of Dad in his boat.
His boat? What happened to his boat?

She stops the rhythm of her needles. She'd forgotten about his boat. He must have sold it when he lost his job. How is it she knows nothing about the sale? Dad loved that boat. He used to spend Saturday fixing it. It was kept down at the marina, in a berth.
I'll check next time I'm in town.
But she knows it won't be there, and the thought of that empty berth makes her begin to knit again.

Then there's Mum.

Abi's mind suddenly blanks, and in the silence, she can hear the water under the house. The tide is high. Dad hasn't turned on the
TV
 – funny it's even off – but there's the water, moving away, away. Always rushing away. Always never changing. She always thought Mum hated it. Now Abi wonders if Mum was afraid of it. How it always changed and how
it always stayed the same. Why did Mum marry Dad if what she really wanted was for him to change? Doesn't seem right, really – wanting that about somebody.

She wonders if Ernestine has called Horace. Why would she run away from Abi's house, and then not show up at Horace's? What could be so wrong?

Abi casts off two stitches, hoping she's doing it properly, knits through, casts off two more, knits to the end, and throws the whole thing down.

What is it that goes wrong between people? Why did she feel so angry with Amanda and Jude?

Jude.
How is it that one minute she's feeling all roiled over him, and the next minute she wants him gone. Only she doesn't really. She just wanted Amanda and he not to fight, not to push and pull at her like that. She couldn't stand that sense of being in the middle and at the same time so just not
there
 – others looking out for her – but not really.