The Other Side of the Bridge (8 page)

Laura was ladling stew into the girl’s bowl and the girl was complaining about it.

“Well just leave them,” Laura was saying. “Just pick them out and put them on one side.”

She smiled at Ian. “You’re there, Ian.” She pointed with her elbow, both hands being occupied with the stew pot. “Arthur’s at the head of the table and you’re between him and Carter. Oh, I haven’t introduced you: Carter, Julie, March”—she indicated the children in descending order of age—“and this is my father—you may remember him, he was minister at the church for years. No, maybe you’re too young. Grampa”—she leaned toward the old man and spoke loudly—“this is Dr. Christopherson’s son, Ian. He’s come to help Arthur.”

“Hello,” Ian said uncertainly. Laura hadn’t told him her father’s name, but maybe it didn’t matter because the old man gave no sign that he’d heard a word she’d said.

“But, Mummy,” the little girl said, her voice reduced to a whisper by Ian’s presence. “They’re all mixed up.”

“You can pick them out,” Laura said. “Look. Like this…”

Ian followed Arthur down to the end of the table, trying to quell his disappointment. He sat down beside the boy, Carter, who was tapping the table with his knife, a complex rhythm of dots and dashes like Morse code, and didn’t acknowledge Ian’s presence by so much as a glance. He looked like Arthur, Ian thought, but not as nice.

“Ian,” Laura said. Suddenly she was standing so close to him that the sleeve of her dress nearly touched his arm. “You’ll be hungry, would be my guess. How did it go this morning?” She began ladling stew onto his plate, not waiting for an answer. “Say when.”

“When,” Ian said politely. “Thanks, Mrs. Dunn. It looks wonderful.” It was worth all the agony of the morning to be this close to her.

She gave him her lovely smile. “Laura. You don’t need to call us Mr. and Mrs., does he, Arthur?” She had an apron on over her dress, which was pale blue with tiny white flowers on it. It had a V-neck, which was always a good thing because of where the V led to, but he couldn’t see how low it went because it disappeared under the apron.

She moved on swiftly, doling out everybody’s stew. Finally she went to her own place at the other end of the table. Miles away from Ian.

The baby was waving its arms about and making threatening noises. “Shush,” she said to it. “Are you going to eat nicely with us? Would you like a piece of carrot?” She fished a bit of carrot out of the stew pot with her fingers and put it on the baby’s tray. The baby threw it on the floor.

“I still haven’t heard how it went this morning, Ian,” Laura said, retrieving the carrot and putting it back on the baby’s tray. The baby picked it up and threw it on the floor again and Laura sighed and left it there. She smoothed down the skirt of her dress as if in preparation for sitting down; Ian saw the swell of her hips and looked away. “How was it? Did you find the work terribly hard? It won’t be the sort of thing you’re used to. Oh, Grampa, hang on—that’s a big piece. I’ll just cut that up for you.” She was off again, moving quickly around to her father’s place to cut up his food. The old man watched her hands, mumbling to himself.

“Um,” Ian said. “No, it was fine. Very interesting.”

“Oh good.” She went back to her place and finally sat down. A strand of hair had escaped from the ribbon at the nape of her neck and she pushed it off her face with the back of her hand. If only she would stay seated now. He wanted to savor her presence, but it was difficult to savor something that was continually flying about.

“Will you get as far as plowing them in this afternoon, Arthur?” she said. “Because what Ian’s really interested in is the horses.”

Carter said, “Isn’t there any milk?”

He was at least eleven years old; you’d have thought he could walk to the refrigerator and get himself some milk, but Laura said, “Oh dear, of course there is.”

Up again, over to the refrigerator, back with the milk, moving around the table, pouring it for everyone instead of letting them do it themselves.

“Really, I’m interested in everything,” Ian said. “Not just the horses. You know, whatever needs doing is fine by me.”

“You forgot the bread, too,” Carter said.

Ian was sitting beside him, quite close. Close enough that he could easily reach over and thump him without even fully extending his arm. Or just slide a foot around the leg of the chair and flip it out from under him. But Arthur was the one who should be sorting him out. If Laura was too kind and too softhearted to discipline her kids—and in Ian’s view that was the problem—it was up to their father. But Arthur was busy eating. He ate like he did everything else; slowly, methodically, head down. When he did look up, Ian noticed, it was his wife his eyes rested on, not his children.

Laura said, “What’s the matter with me today?” Up again. Down again with the bread.

The baby screwed up its face, waved its arms about, and yelled. The little girl said, “But Mummy, I can still
taste
it.”

Carter belched, and grinned sideways up at Ian.

None of them deserved her.

There was someone in with his father when he got home, and Becky Standish was in the waiting room. In theory his father dealt only with emergencies on the weekends, but the people of Struan had never paid too much attention to that, and there were always a couple of them who “took advantage,” as his mother called it.

“Hi,” Ian said to Becky. They were in the same class at school and she was nice enough, though a bit dim.

“Hi,” she said, but she blushed and looked away, which meant she had a gynecological problem and was afraid he might ask her what was wrong. So he said, “See you later,” and went down the hall to the kitchen. He’d left his mud-caked shoes outside on the porch but his socks were leaving impressive footprints on their own—his mother was going to have a fit when she saw them. He’d say, “Well, I’ve been working, Mum. Dirt goes with the job.”

She was peeling carrots when he came in. Mrs. Tuttle didn’t come on the weekends.

“I’m back,” Ian said cheerfully. He hurt everywhere and he hadn’t had a single moment with Laura to himself, but he felt unaccountably good.

“Fine,” his mother said. She didn’t turn around. “We’ll eat as soon as your father’s finished. Is there anyone in the waiting room?”

“Just one.” He was trying to assess her mood from the sound of her voice. It sounded different, somehow. Neither angry nor absent, but something else that he couldn’t identify.

“Fine,” she said again.

“Do I have time for a bath?”

“If you’re quick.”

He waited for her to ask him how his first day at work had gone, but she just kept scraping carrots. After a minute he said pointedly, “How was your day?”

“Fine.” For a moment she paused, her hands in the sink, and he thought she was going to turn around. But she didn’t, so he left and went upstairs.

He had a bath, let all the water run out, and had another one, which dealt with the worst of the grime. Given all the aches and pains, it was hard to say quite why he felt so elated. It wasn’t as if he had found his true calling as a farmhand. In fact he’d been embarrassed when, as he was leaving, Arthur had said, “Oh…uh…just a minute,” then dug around in the pockets of his overalls and pulled out a handful of coins. Ian didn’t think he’d earned them and had wondered if he should say so, but then Arthur said, “See ya next Saturday?” with his vague, uncertain smile, and Ian had felt a rush of pride and gratitude. Arthur couldn’t consider him too useless or he wouldn’t have asked him to come back. He’d done his first day’s work—his first
real
work ever—and the quarters lying in the pocket of his mud-encrusted jeans were the proof of it. And he would do better next Saturday. He’d be a good worker. He imagined Laura saying to Arthur, “How did he do, Arthur?” And Arthur would think about it and then say, “All right. He’s a good worker.” You could take pride in that, no matter what the job.

He wrapped a towel around his waist and went back to his room. It was tidy, everything in its place, the bed neatly made. His mother had always insisted on order. He’d tried rebelling once or twice, but it wasn’t worth it. He wondered what Laura’s kids would have been like if his mother had been their mother. Well, not their mother, because then they wouldn’t be the same kids, but if by some fluke she’d been responsible for their upbringing. They’d be unrecognizable. Even the baby would be sitting up straight and eating with a knife and fork, a crisp clean napkin tucked under its chins.

He heard the clack of his mother’s shoes as she walked down the hall to the waiting room. The sound disappeared for a moment and then she came back and called him from the foot of the stairs.

“Supper, Ian.”

“Okay.”

He went downstairs stiffly, his muscles protesting. His father was in the dining room already, standing by his chair.

“Hi,” Ian said. He put the quarters Arthur had given him on the table beside his father’s place. “My first wages,” he said proudly.

His father looked at him. It seemed for a moment as if he didn’t recognize him. Then he smiled faintly and said, “Very good.”

Ian was disconcerted. He studied his father more closely. He looked strange.

“Are you okay?” Ian said.

“Yes,” his father said. “Of course.”

His mother came in and set a covered serving dish on the table. The vegetable dishes were already there. “We should sit down,” she said. She seemed strange as well. Her eyes were red and he noticed that her hands were trembling.

They sat down. Ian looked from one to the other. His mother began serving the meal. The scrape of the spoon on the side of the dish seemed to echo back from the walls.

“Is something wrong?” Ian said.

“Is this enough meat?” his mother said.

“Mum? Is something wrong?”

She put down his plate. She studied it for a moment and then looked down the table at his father. “I have something to tell you,” she said finally. “Your father and I have something to tell you.”

Afterward, Ian excused himself from the table, leaving his meal untouched—none of them had eaten anything—and went outside. At first he just stood on the porch, not knowing what to do or where to go. It was getting dark. Bats were flicking back and forth above the houses across the street. One of the Beckett kids from next door raced past on his bike, his crouched-over body a gray blur in the dusk. Ian stepped off the porch and started walking. He gave no thought to the direction. He wanted to walk, and not to think. He walked fast, head down.

His mother had done most of the talking. She’d started off by saying that she was leaving. He hadn’t understood at first—leaving what?—and when he’d finally understood, he hadn’t believed her. He’d thought she must be upset about something he or his father had done and was saying it to punish them. He’d looked to his father for help, and it was his father’s face that told him she was serious.

She said that she and his father no longer loved each other, hadn’t loved each other for years. His father tried to protest at this but she stopped him. Actions speak louder than words, she said. She had loved him once, and the proof of it was that she had given up eighteen years of her life for him. She’d given up everything to come with him to this—she searched for the right words—this godforsaken place. This wasteland. She had done all the giving.

After the first couple of sentences Ian had gone temporarily deaf; his mother carried on speaking and he’d been able to hear the sound of her voice, but the words meant nothing. Then his father broke in. It seemed to Ian that his father had aged twenty years since they’d sat down. His face seemed to have caved in. He said, “Beth, for the love of God.” To Ian he said, “I’m sorry. We’re both very sorry. Your mother is upset; she needs a little time away, that’s all.”

His mother said—now he could hear her again—“Your father is still trying to pretend.”

By now two clear lines of tears were running down her cheeks. Ian was so stiff with shock he could scarcely draw a breath.

His father said, “Beth, please. Please.” He looked at Ian and said, “Don’t be too upset. We hope very much that this will sort itself out.”

“It has sorted itself out,” Ian’s mother said, the shaking of her voice breaking the words into ragged syllables. “This is how it has sorted itself out.”

Ian couldn’t look at either of them; his eyes were focused on the fine weave of the tablecloth in front of him. He hadn’t even known they were unhappy. Or at least, with hindsight he could see that his mother was unhappy, but he’d thought that was just how she was, her natural state. He had taken it for granted that they loved each other; he’d assumed it the same way that he’d assumed they loved him. Now, suddenly, it came to him that that must be in doubt as well. Surely his mother wouldn’t do this if she loved him.