Patterns of Swallows (37 page)

"Well,
I'll tell you what. If you solemnly swear that you will not push
yourself to the point of exhaustion ..."

"I
do! I swear it."

"Yeah,
right!" Bo grumbled. "You know what the Bible has to say
about swearing falsely, don't you? But what can I do? You're hired.
D'you want to start tomorrow?"

"Of
course."

"We
start at eight. If you can come at quarter to, I can get you set up
– show you which section will be yours, get you a picking bag
and your bins, and show you how it's done. It's pretty easy, but
there is a bit of a technique to getting the apples off the tree
without bruising them. You know where the Hofstetters' orchard is,
don't you?"

"I
do. And I'll be there. Where will I meet you?"

"I'll
meet all the pickers just by the Hoffstetters' house. The rest of
the crew are old hands, though, so you'll be the only starter who
needs a little extra instruction."

"Fair
enough. I'll see you there. Quarter to eight, then."

"See
you there. It'll be nice to have you aboard." Bo gave her a
grin and a wave before heading off to his decrepit pickup and the
cabbage rolls that always graced his mother's table for a Sunday
dinner.

Ruth
wiped the sweat out of her eyes. The back of her blouse was soaked
through where the harness of the canvas picking bag allowed no
breathing of her skin and trapped in the moisture. For almost
October, it was a hot day. She regretted the long sleeves on her old
work blouse. On the other hand, if she'd worn short sleeves, her
arms would be scratched to bits from beating her way through the tree
branches.

Bo
had warned her that the work would be hard, and it was. She was used
to hard work; still, she hadn't been prepared for the way her back
would ache almost unbearably from the weight of the apples. And it
wasn't even noon.

But
by far the worst part of the job up to this point had been Francois.
He had started off as an interesting working companion but had soon
turned into an irritation.

Francois
was a veteran fruit-picker from Quebec. He lived from agricultural
season to agricultural season, starting his working year in late
spring, making the rounds of farms in his native Quebec with spring
planting of various crops. He headed west in mid-summer to catch the
bountiful cherry harvest in the hot and dry Okanagan region, usually
a full two weeks ahead of the Kissanka cherries. Then he spent the
rest of the summer and fall going back and forth between the Okanagan
and the Kissankas, picking cherries, peaches, and apples. The end of
apple harvest would find him thumbing his way back to Quebec where
he'd spend the winter and his year's earnings, sitting in cafes in
Montreal, sipping wine and writing poetry. This would be his twelfth
year of this kind of hand-to-mouth existence, Ruth learned. He'd
been well down the road on his way to a degree in French literature,
hoping for a professorship one day in a university in Quebec, but too
much learning came close to driving him mad, and one day he'd thrown
it all in, sick to death of the constraints of the academic life, to
embrace this gypsy lifestyle. He owned nothing except what he could
carry on his back, he told Ruth.

He
also told her that he liked to paint. He mostly painted only in his
winters in Montreal, but he had a sketch pad with him at all times,
always on the lookout for subjects of interest.

"You
'ave d' face wort' drawing," he said to Ruth. "Dat bone
structure, it wants to be drawn. I could make a sketch of you.
Maybe you could pose for me? Maybe when we finish today, eh? Maybe
after dinner? You know where d' pickers' shacks is where I'm
staying? I'll be dere. Just come to d' door and ask for Francois.
Everyone know Francois dere."

But
at that point, Ruth was beginning to smell a rat. She'd learned
wisdom from her encounters with Mars Mitchum, and however pure
Francois' motives may or may not be she wasn't about to discover by
accepting his invitation to sketch her.

"No
thanks," she said lightly. "I have too much work to do
after I get home in the evenings. And I don't think I'd care to be
drawn. Thanks all the same."

"Oh
well, I don't 'ave to draw you. I 'ave a bottle of nice wine in d'
shack. You can come around and 'ave a glass wit' me. Maybe
c'est
soir
?
Dis evening, eh?"

"No
thanks. Too busy," Ruth said shortly, grunting a little as she
stretched and nearly fell off the ladder trying to get that last,
taunting gleam of red on the top branch. She'd hoped to get that
last apple without having to reposition her ladder but no such luck.

How
did Francois manage to keep up a steady stream of conversation (in
his second language, no less) from one row over and also keep the
apples flowing into his bins? Ruth couldn't help but notice that he
had picked almost one full bin (and the bins were huge) more than she
had, even though he talked twice as much.

The
picking took all her concentration. And breath. She barely had any
left over to insert an occasional, "Oh, really?" into the
torrent that was Francois' speech pattern.

At
first she'd been diverted and found him interesting and entertaining.
What would it be like to live like he did, she wondered. But around
the time he offered to draw her and definitely by the time he got
around to the bottle of wine, she began to wish she was working
beside someone less interesting, less loquacious, and less friendly.

When
he started into questionable jokes for her amusement soon after, she
began to feel downright uncomfortable. And the jokes got
progressively worse. He noticed that she wasn't laughing and,
assuming it was from ignorance, took it upon himself to explain each
joke to her.

"You
get it, eh? Funnee, eh? Don't you tink, eh?"

"Not
particularly," she called back, wishing that his pace was so
much faster than hers that he'd soon be out of her earshot.

"Why
not? Don't you get it? You see, d' priest was ..."

"I
got it, Francois. I just can't take time for jokes right now. I'm
trying to get this bin finished."

"You
don't like jokes?"

"Good
ones," she said.

"Well,
dis is a good one, you'll like dis one ..."

"Francois!"
a deep bass barked out. "Are you bothering the lady?"

"Nah,
I'm just telling 'er d' little jokes."

"I'm
not sure she likes your style of 'little jokes.' And your picking's
slowing down with all your joke-telling," Bo said. The deep
bass voice belonged to him.

"Dat's
fine. Den I keep even wit' d' lady, and we can keep 'aving d'
conversation."

"Yeah,
except you're probably slowing her down, too. Maybe she doesn't want
to keep having, 'd' conversation' with you. Maybe she wants to get
her apples picked. At any rate, I just came to tell the two of you,
everyone else is breaking for lunch. There's cold lemonade over by
the pickers' shack if you want."

"Thank
you," Ruth said gratefully – for more than just the
lemonade.

After
lunch, Ruth couldn't help but notice that Francois had been
relocated. Where, she wasn't sure, but she imagined he had found
someone else to listen to his jokes and life's experiences. The new
man picking in the row beside her didn't say a word to her, and her
apple-picking speed nearly doubled.

She
felt welling up within her a flood of gratitude toward Bo and his
thoughtfulness.

*
* *

After
two or three days went by, Ruth's picking speed increased. Strong,
nimble, and determined, it didn't take her long to become a
proficient apple-picker. And even by the second day, the apples grew
lighter. After a week, she barely noticed the weight of a full bag,
and her back no longer complained. She marvelled at the ability of
the human body to adjust itself comfortably to conditions it once
found intolerable.

As
she came to accept Lily's presence in the house as semi-permanent
(the Turnbulls had given no indication they were willing to reconcile
with their daughter, and Lily had given no indication it concerned
her greatly now that she had a roof for her head and food for her
stomach), Ruth marvelled at the ability of the human mind to accept
as normal a condition that it had once deemed unbearable.

The
impulse of a moment had resulted in her offer to Lily, and once that
impulse had passed, leaving her to live with the results of her hasty
offer, she wondered how she would be able to face the ordeal of even
a few days' duration.

And
now it had been a matter of more than two weeks, and while Lily had
not undergone any noticeable improvement, Ruth found herself not only
able to endure the situation but soar above it. It was indeed a
miraculous thing. Ruth knew it could only have been an act of grace.
The strength she drew on in those days was a strength she knew she
did not possess in and of herself.

It
was sorely tried upon occasion.

There
was the evening Lily suffered with false labour pains. Never one to
soldier through any kind of pain, the contractions brought her to
tears.

Ruth
was concerned by their severity.

"D'you
think it could be labour?" she asked her mother-in-law when out
of Lily's hearing. It was far too early. But maybe the baby was
coming too early to survive. It happened sometimes.

"No
chance," Mom answered her shortly, having determined from the
type and position of the contractions that they were only a warm-up
exercise for the real event. "It's just that she's not used to
any amount of pain, that one," she decided with a slight sneer.

Mrs.
MacKellum reserved the right to remain just barely, distantly polite
toward Lily. She spoke to her only when necessary. And the favour
was returned.

Mrs.
MacKellum cringed with the shame of the thought that she had once
desired to have Lily as her daughter-in-law. Worse, that her
delusions about Lily had caused her to hold Ruth in low regard at one
time. It was something to keep her humble, it was, to see how poorly
she'd performed as a judge of character back in those long ago days.

Ruth
went back to Lily to see if there was anything she could do to help
her pain, and Mrs. MacKellum trailed her protectively. If there was
a sight she could hardly stomach these days, it was the sight of Ruth
working long days of back-breaking labour and then coming home to
serve Lily's whims. Where she could, she attempted to do what she
could for Lily to protect Ruth from her own generous nature.

"What
can I do, Lily?" Ruth asked, genuinely distraught by the sight
of Lily's white, tear-stained, grimacing face.

"My
lower back aches so much these days," Lily whimpered. "Maybe
if you rubbed it a little, just right down there, right on the
spine."

Ruth
complied, and her mother-in-law found herself unable to suffer in
silence. With a sound of unmistakable disgust, she left the room.

"That's
better," Lily said, closing her eyes, the pain smoothing out of
her face.

She
lay on her side with her knees curled up as high as they would go,
her face turned away from Ruth while Ruth massaged.

"I
did love him, y'know," she said suddenly, in a muted voice, a
defensive note creeping in. "It wasn't just to get back at
you."

Ruth
said nothing. If this was Lily's way of attempting an apology or an
expression of gratitude, it fell vastly short.

The
subject of Graham had been strictly avoided by all three of the women
since Lily had come to stay in the old farmhouse. It was the first
time he'd been mentioned between Lily and Ruth.

"It
turned bad really quick," she went on in a rush as though she
was carrying something that needed to get itself said. "It was
no picnic. He drank all the time. He couldn't find a job for a long
time. Then he couldn't hold down a job. He sure wasn't any prize in
the end," she said, bitterness creeping through her tone.

Ruth
kept rubbing Lily's back helplessly, willing her to stop talking,
fearing this new test of the grace she'd been afforded so far.

But
Lily wasn't finished what she had to say.