That Forgetful Shore (44 page)

His bushy white brows draw together and his eyes narrow. “Are you raking up old scandals, Mrs. Porter? You're as bad as your friend Trif Russell, holding a man's youthful mistakes against him. Have you no sense of proportion? Would you hold a grudge all these years – when the mistake was so small in the light of all I did for you, for all you girls?”

“Really? What about girls who gave up on schooling when they could have had more, because they didn't want to sit with you in the classroom after hours and have you pawing all over them? Or girls like me, who didn't even know it was wrong, didn't know what was wrong with them at all till they were grown up?”

The picture of Katie Grace's face, round and sincere, rises before her, and her stomach churns. She's never dared to ask Trif what happened in later years, whether Katie was safe from Joe Bishop. “Do you know what's ironic, Mr. Bishop? I came here today because you wanted to see me – because I thought you wanted to apologize, to make your peace. I didn't begrudge you that. I would have forgiven you, if you'd asked it. But to come here and find that you expect to be thanked, that you were waiting for me to go down on my knees and say what a blessing you were to me – that's unthinkable.”

“Is it? Is it? There are plenty of women not as proud as you or your friend Mrs. Russell, plenty who aren't vengeful, who have fond memories – they've told me, they've thanked me. They are better women than you are, Mrs. Porter – you were too proud as a girl in the schoolroom and you're still too proud today!”

He lifts his stick, shakes it in her direction as if warding off a dog. Kit takes it as a cue to go. “I'll take my leave of you, Mr. Bishop. If there are so many students who are ready to forget what you did and thank you for your kindness, you'll have to be content with their gratitude. You won't need mine.”

She walks out of the parlour, past the kitchen where the housekeeper is trying to pretend she's not eavesdropping, and out the front door. Anger fuels her steps as she walks down the Neck Road and takes the turn down to the south side of the Point.

She imagines she'll tell Trif about the visit right away, but she arrives back at the Russell house to find supper on the table, and she's caught up in the whirl of family activity till the dishes are done, Jacob John and the boys go to Fred Mercer's shed to mend nets and visit, and Katie Grace is at Lydia Snow's house for the evening. Trif brings her chair and her bag of mending out onto the front bridge, since it's a warm night, and Kit comes with her, sitting beside her as they watch the sunset paint the waters of the bay a hundred different colours.

“Our Bill was talking about college again today – I think he's really giving it some thought,” Triffie says. “I'd be some glad if he never had to go down in a mine again.”

“I hope he comes to Memorial,” Kit says. “There's something in him that's too bright to be kept below ground – I think he could do well if he got a bit more education, and I mean it about him coming to board with me.”

“You're some good to offer, and you might think I'd be too proud to accept so much help.” Trif finishes the torn shirt she's mended and picks up a pair of young David's pants with the backside split out of them. “My eyes aren't good enough to be doing this kind of work in the dim light anymore,” she says, but does it anyway. “I never thought I'd take handouts from anyone, even from you – least of all from you – but it's different when it's for your children. I'd do anything to see them better themselves. I don't know what David is likely to want yet, but he'll be staying in school till he gets his Grade Eleven, s'posing we have to go on the dole to keep him there.”

“You won't have to do that,” Kit says. “I know – I understand why it's hard for you to take handouts, Trif. But look at me! I'm not rich, but I'm comfortable – I've worked for years for decent wages and never had a soul to spend money on but myself. And I haven't even got anyone to leave it to! You're the closest I've got to family, and if I can't use what bit of money I've got saved to help Katie and Bill and David, what's the good of money at all?”

Trif nods. “Like I said, I'm not too proud to accept help if it's for the children.”

“What about for yourself? I know you won't take money, but – what if you came in to visit me in town the odd time, once or twice in a year, times when you weren't too busy at home? I'd pay for you to come in – it'd be a treat for me to have the company. Maybe someday we could even take a little trip together.” She thinks of all the things she could do for Triffie with her modest savings, things like a trip to Boston or Montreal, that would be small for Kit but life-changing for Triffie.

She expects refusal, but Trif just shrugs. “I don't know, Kit. It's hard, with times like they are, to see further ahead than the next bill to be paid. But I wouldn't say no to a change of scenery now and then, that's the truth.”

The sunset colours have faded and the sky is twilit now, dark enough that Trif has to put aside the mending and pick up her knitting, which she does so automatically that she never looks down at her fingers. The click of her needles makes a counterpoint to the rush of the waves on the beach, that same sound that provided the background to a hundred late-night talks they had shared in their youth.

“So how was it – going to see old Joe Bishop?” Trif finally asks, and Kit tells her, as simply as she can.

“He said something about you – twice,” Kit remembers as she finishes her account of the afternoon's brief visit. “Said I was as bad as you, holding a man's old mistakes against him. So – you must have said something to him, after all.”

“Indeed and I did, once Katie got to an age where I was worried about her.” Trif pauses, though the knitting needles continue their rhythmic clicking. “You were right to tell me, Kit, for all it made me mad. Something had to be done, and I did it. It's a long story, but – well, sure, I wrote it all down, it's best if I show you –”

They are interrupted, just then, by Katie Grace coming home. She perches on the railing for a few minutes to talk and then goes inside, and just behind her comes Jacob John.

“That's himself now, back from mending nets and jawing with the men,” Triffie says, laying down her work. “I wonder the boys aren't with him – off with them Mercer boys, no doubt.” She goes into the house; she doesn't need to say that she's going to put the kettle on. Kit knows the pattern by now, after nearly two weeks in their house. Whenever Jacob John comes in, whatever time it is, Triffie puts the kettle on and makes him a cup of tea.

He moves slowly up the lane, so that Trif is back out and sat down in her chair, waiting for the kettle to boil, by the time Jacob John climbs the steps.

He nods to Kit; he's been warmly polite to her ever since she arrived, like you would be to any old acquaintance. But his eyes move at once to Triffie as he says, “Bill and David are down on the Long Beach with Fred's boys and a few other young ones – they got a fire built down there. I told Bill to keep an eye on David and make sure they was both home by ten.”

Sure enough, when they stop talking to listen Kit can hear the boyish laughter and shouts drifting up from the beach, and see the flicker of their fire.

“They shouldn't be at that foolishness – they both got to be up early in the morning. And I don't trust Fred's young fellows, nor Char's neither – young Bob drinks, and I wouldn't be surprised if he got the younger ones into it too now.”

“Stop worrying, missus. Young fellas got to have a bit of badness in them, and Bob's like all the Mercers – full of foolishness, but he won't do nothing too stunned.” Trif rolls her eyes and Jacob John, who's standing behind her and can't have seen her face, must be able to read her expression without seeing it, for he says, “Sure you're not worried about our boys getting into no trouble down there. If there's any foolishness going on our Bill won't stand for that. He's as likely to have 'em all down on their knees havin' a prayer meeting as anything.”

“Proper thing,” Trif says. “Be glad I raised him right.”

“Anyway, if they're not back up here by ten thirty I'll go down to the beach and haul 'em up myself,” Jacob John promises.

“Yes now, I 'lows you'll still be awake at half-past ten. You'll be snoring fit to raise the rafters by ten. Come inside now, that kettle must be boiled, and it's getting chilly out here.”

Trif laughs as she gets up to go into the kitchen, and sort of bumps Jacob John as she walks past him, a movement both careless and intimate. He laughs too, follows her into the kitchen. Kit goes in after them, and there's something in that shared gesture and that unromantic touch that tightens Kit's throat.

She pauses for a moment on the bridge, hearing their voices fade into the lighted warmth of the house. The rise and fall of voices blurs past the point where she can pick out the words; she hears only the tones of people who have talked to each other for so long they sound like people in church, singing hymn tunes they have known all their lives.

She goes inside, joins them for their cup of tea. Jacob John says goodnight and goes up to bed. “I'll be up in a few minutes,” Trif says, as she has said every night since Kit has been here. The two women sit together at the table, finishing their tea.

“What did you mean – you wrote it all down?” Kit says. “About Joe Bishop?”

“I got something to give you. I've been thinking ever since you came about whether I should give it to you or not, but they were meant for you – at first they were, anyway – and I want you to have them.”

Trif crosses the room and goes upstairs. She comes back with a biscuit tin, a lovely red one with a hinged lid and a picture of Buckingham Palace on the cover. She lays it down in front of Kit, who opens it to find letters – three or four dozen, at least. Every one in an envelope with
Mrs. Katherine Porter
written on it, but never an address or stamp.

“I went on writing to you, ”Trif says, sitting back down, folding her hands in front of her. “Not right away – but a few years after. When I had – things to say, that I couldn't imagine telling anyone else. The whole story is in there about Mr. Bishop, and a lot of other things besides. I s'pose I was really writing to myself, but I couldn't do that – like a diary or anything. It only made sense if I put your name on it.”

Kit opens and unfolds the first one. The date is October 1925, and it begins:

My dear Peony – I will never forget what I did today – I say that now, and yet I know how time passes, and one does forget things. So I write this to you, with no hope that you will read it – why should you care for such things now?

Kit looks up. “Can I take these back with me?”

“They're yours,” Trif says. “They served their purpose for me – writing them kept me sane, I 'low.”

“I wrote, too,” Kit says. “I did write in a journal – but I was thinking of you, all the time. Can I send it to you, when I go back to town?”

“If you like,” Trif says, “I'll be glad to read it. Or maybe you can save it for if I comes in to visit, like you said. Later on in the fall when the fishing's done. If our Bill goes to college I'd like to come in for awhile, if you'll still have me. We'll have plenty of time, then. Plenty of time for everything.”

Epilogue
MISSING POINT, 1955

When the young minister leaves, Trif Russell, a legend in her own time, sees him out the front door and stands looking out over the Long Beach. This morning the house was full of neighbours, but she hooshed them all out when the minister arrived, told them to leave her alone till suppertime.

Katie came out last night when Trif called her, and stayed the night. This morning she drove back to St. John's to pick up her brothers at the airport. Bill arrives from Toronto and Dave from Boston at noon. Before they come, Trif needs just a little time alone with Jacob John.

She shuts the front door and turns to go into the parlour. There's a funeral home on the Point now but every time Trif has been to a wake there it's felt wrong, as if she were visiting the dead in a museum like that big one Kit took her to in New York. Home is the place for birth and death. Trif sits down on the chesterfield, looking at the pine box where Jacob John, rarely still in his life, now lies motionless.

It's not like she needs to say goodbye, really. They were never great ones for saying sentimental things. Last night Jacob John dumped an armload of wood in the box by the stove and said, “That's it, girl – I'm going to turn in for the night.”

“Good enough, I'll be up in a few minutes,” said Trif, who was reading and finishing her tea.

She heard his tread on the first two steps, then on the third step she heard a noise like the wood falling into the woodbox, only louder. A tumble, a thump and a short sharp cry. No “I love you darling,” no farewell. He was dead before she got out in the hall, and though she dropped to her knees in shock and cried, “No! No!” over and over, a quiet part of her brain thought he would be glad to go this way. If he could come back for a moment, surely he would lay a hand on her shoulder and say, “Better this way, missus. Who wants to be wastin' away in a bed for months and months?”

She heard his voice in her head saying that, so clearly that she's mostly convinced herself he actually did say it. Despite what she believes about death being a sleep and the dead knowing not anything, she also believes that Jacob John somehow lingered just a moment, just long enough to tell her he didn't mind going this way. Not to say goodbye or thank you or to say he loved her, no, nothing like that, but to set her mind at rest. So she wouldn't be brooding on it. “Your only problem is, you broods too much.” She hears that too, but that's something he actually did say, over and over again.