No Great Mischief (9 page)

In the winter, when my brothers went to bed, they seldom took off their clothes but often added extra old overcoats to the makeshift coverings of their beds, sometimes adding the robes and blankets which they used for their sleighs and their horses as well. In the morning the heads of the nails in the half-finished bedrooms would be white with frost, and the frost on the windowpanes would have to be scraped away with fingernails or melted by the warmth of breath before the outside world could be seen in its icy stillness. The water supply, which stood in two buckets on the table and which had been drawn from the ice-covered outside well, would be converted back to ice by the morning, and my brothers would smash the surface with hammers to get enough water for their tea. And after the fire had been lit, the buckets would be placed near the stove or even upon it, and after a while the ice on the bottom and around the sides of the bucket would thaw until it was possible to lift the inside circle of ice out of the bucket and place it, standing, in a dishpan. The circle would be of translucent crystal, like the perfect product turned out of the mould, bearing all the indentations
and contours of the bucket which had shaped it, and with small bits of grass and leaves and sometimes tiny berries frozen within its shimmering transparency. Later, as the kitchen warmed, the ice would melt and, still later, the leaves and small berries would float unceremoniously in the tepid water and be lifted out by dippers or spoons or by the blades of knives as my brothers clutched their steaming tea. They seemed to have great difficulty in keeping intact cups within their house, or perhaps they were never really there to begin with. In any case they drank their tea from cups which had no handles or from jam jars or from the tops of thermos bottles.

I think of all this now much as I think I marvelled at it then. Marvelling, somehow, that they could live such different lives than I, while still somehow belonging to me, as I and my sister belonged to them. For at times they seemed almost more like our distant uncles than like our actual brothers. And they never paid attention to the regulations that governed our lives. Never paid attention to Canada’s Food Guide or to brushing their teeth before and after meals or to changing into clean pyjamas before going to bed. And at their house the bathroom was a bucket.

In those early years my sister and I were given advantages which my grandparents had been unable to give their own children. There was space enough for each of us to have individual rooms, which was a luxury my grandparents’ own children had not had. And my grandmother indulged her feminine fantasies in the clothes she purchased for my sister and in the elaborate doilies and afghans and bedspreads she crocheted and knitted and quilted for her bedroom. Grateful for “the chance” which had
freed her from slapping her washing on the rocks and grateful too for the gift of time which she had not had much of when she was raising her own children. “We have a lot to be thankful for,” she often said, “even though we have had our losses.”

Throughout our formative years, my sister and I lived under the ambiguous circumstances of being the “lucky, unlucky” children, and of regarding our grandparents as our parents because they were closest to us in that role, while still yearning for the drowned idealized people who had gone into the sea.

Some weeks ago, my eye fell upon an article in one of those magazines you sometimes see in the waiting rooms of the orthodontist’s office. It was called “Rearing the Modern Child,” and one of the subheadings was entitled “Grandparents.” The modern parent must sometimes be wary of grandparents, the article warned, for grandparents have a tendency to be overindulgent and sometimes to act irresponsibly. “They often act this way,” the article stated, “because they know the child will eventually go to its own home and they will not be responsible for its behaviour in that area.”

The article pointed out that grandparents are generally more indulgent with their grandchildren than they were with their own children, “because modern psychological theory indicates that they do not love them quite so much.”

“You are lucky that you can live here all the time,” said our enraged cousin, the red-haired Alexander MacDonald who lived some fifteen miles away in the country and was visiting us on a particular afternoon. “Just because your parents died.”

We were all very young then, perhaps seven or eight, and my
sister and I had laughed at him for spilling his tea into his saucer to cool it before drinking it from the same saucer. Later, in my room, he had punched me in the nose and I had hit him in return, and then we had fallen upon one another. As we wrestled back and forth across the room, he said, “They’re my grandparents too, you know.” He was stronger than I was and I can still feel the callouses on his small hands as they grappled about my face and neck. “No, they’re not,” I gasped, perhaps because I felt I was losing the physical battle or because of who knew what psychological theory. And then Grandpa was in the room. “Here, here,” he said. “What is going on in here?” and he grasped us both by our upper arms and lifted us off the floor so that our small angry feet kicked vainly in the useless air, even as we felt our arms and shoulders growing numb within his powerful hands.

“He says you’re not my grandfather, only his,” said the sobbing red-haired Alexander MacDonald.

“Of course, I’m yours,” said Grandpa, setting us both down and motioning us towards neutral corners as the referee in a boxing match does. “Of course, I’m yours,” he said, going to stand in the corner of the red-haired Alexander MacDonald, as my sister and I both felt a slight twinge of betrayal. And turning and pointing to me with his huge forefinger, he said, “Don’t you ever say that again. Ever.”

“They’re just lucky,” said Alexander MacDonald, perhaps because he perceived the advantage of having the referee in his corner, “just lucky because their parents are dead.”

“And don’t you,” said Grandpa, suddenly reversing the direction of his finger until it was under the trembling nose of Alexander MacDonald, “ever say that again, either. Never.”

Later, much subdued in the kitchen, Alexander MacDonald sat beside his father, who patted him on the knee but also smiled across at me. His father continued to talk to Grandpa in a mixture of English and Gaelic as Grandpa slid the bottles of beer across the table in his direction. It seemed strange that such a big man could be the father of Alexander MacDonald, while, at the same time, being the son or “boy” of Grandpa. But there was no doubt that he was, especially when you saw the way that Grandpa patted him on the shoulder when he rose to leave. “Take care,” said Grandpa. “Everything will be all right.”

“Yes,” said Grandma,
“Beannachd leibh
, good luck.”

“I will return it as soon as I can,” he said, standing framed in the doorway before going out into the suddenly descended night.

“It is all right,” said Grandma. “No hurry.”

“Yes,” agreed Grandpa. “No rush, and take care of yourself,” and then he patted him on the shoulder once again.

I think now, years later, that he had probably been borrowing money from them so that he might get over some seasonal crisis or other. Or perhaps it was something else. But at that time I thought, in the security of my childish selfishness, it was unfair that Alexander MacDonald should have such a big, strong father
and
a grandfather as well. And it was also unfair that this same big man should have
his
father to pat him on the shoulder and tell him to “take care” and “everything will be all right,” while I and my sister, in our smallness, did not have one at all.

“I will not have any more of that performance,” said Grandma with icy efficiency after the door had closed. Both my sister and I then realized that she had been talking to Grandpa.

“Saying that you are our only grandchildren. There are enough problems in the world without fighting with your own blood.”

“Oh, they won’t do it any more,” said Grandpa. “We all lose our tempers from time to time. I believe I’ll have another beer. We’re not here for a long time but for a good time.”

N
ow, in the sky, on the high-rise horizon, seagulls appear caught in the glint of the September sun, and beneath them, but invisible to me, is the white activity of Toronto harbour. Farther south, in the country from which I have come, and to which I will return, the fruit and vegetable pickers bend and stretch wearily. The sweat trickles down the crevices of the weekend pickers and blotches their clothes. The children become grumpy and stage brief sit-down strikes, oblivious to the speeches of their parents who tell them of the money they are saving or of how good the produce will taste in winter. Sometimes the parents criticize them harshly, telling them they are lazy, or uttering speeches, beginning, “When I was a child …” The children look at their hands and are fascinated by the earth beneath their fingernails and mildly fearful of the beginning hangnails and the unfamiliar scratches. “I think I’ve got a thorn in my finger,” they say. “What time is it now?” “Haven’t we got enough?” “If I promise not to eat any of this
stuff in the winter can I stop picking now?” “My thumb is bleeding. I can see my own blood.” “I wish I had something to drink.”

In other fields the imported pickers move with quiet speed. Sometimes they look towards the sun to gauge the time, and sometimes they stand straight and place their hands to the smalls of their backs but never for long. Their eyes scan the rows and the branches and the full and the empty baskets. They are counting all the time and doing primitive arithmetic within their heads. They do not sweat, and their children do not complain. When the sun goes down, this Saturday evening, the field owner may sell them cases of beer purchased from the local beer store or some of the men may find their way to certain taverns. The strictly religious and the most fearful will not go. Those who do go sit by themselves and talk in their own languages and some add up present and future totals on cigarette packages. Many of them are imagining themselves back home, as they sit nervously tearing the beer labels off their bottles or drumming their blunt brown fingers on the uneven surfaces of the crowded tables, slopped with beer.

I do not know what to buy for my brother or for myself. What to buy for the men who have everything or nothing.

“It doesn’t make much difference,” he said. “It doesn’t make much difference.” Pick your own.

By
the time my sister and I were entering our teenaged years, a lot had happened to our older brothers. A lot, I suppose, had happened to us all. A lot of it quietly, coming like the growth of hair in new places for some, while the hair of others was receding or thinning or changing colour. Change without sound, yet change nonetheless, and change that was important, although sometimes invisible as well as silent. As quiet as the cancer cells which multiply within the body or the teeth within the imperfect jaw which “drift” towards the spaces vacated by their fellows. As quiet as the ice which wears and rots beneath its white deceptive surface or the sperm which journeys towards the womb and reaches its destination without a single sound – after the screams of orgasm are no more.

When my sister and I were smaller, we visited our brothers with all of the excitement of children going to visit grandparents who happened to live in the country. We did not go there for Thanksgiving or for Christmas, it is true, but we went when we were offered rides or when we could convince Grandma that we would be careful and not get in our brothers’ way. We explored what seemed to be the surfaces of their lives, although we did not think of it that way. We were fascinated by all of the differences. By the animals which crowded around their house and even
came inside if they got the chance. Lambs and calves and hens which would walk into the kitchen if the door was left open. Horses which would press their noses to the window, as if to see what was going on inside. Flies and sometimes wasps and hornets which buzzed in through cracks or tattered screens or opened doors. Cats with kittens in the upstairs bedrooms. And the ubiquitous
Calum Ruadh
dogs, lying like rugs beneath the table or following behind whatever humans seemed to catch their fancy.