The Second Son (35 page)

I thought about those Saturday afternoons when half the kids in town would line up along Main Street for the matinee at the Garry. God help the kid that tried to butt into that line. Had the world changed that much? Or was it all just a lie they told us kids? A big lie about a small town? Or did Andrew and his friends have that special gift of mind it took to equate opportunity with responsibility, that alchemist’s touch that rendered the two interchangeable? Watching that afternoon I wondered if maybe they had miscalculated. A lot of these people were from neighbouring townships and wouldn’t have a vote in Alexandria. Imagine, I thought, all that hand-pumping gone to waste on a dry well.

I finished my smoke and headed for the house, grabbing a beer on the way by the cooler in the porch. I found myself a quiet corner, on a stool by the old kitchen range my Aunt Sissy had hung onto when everyone else was hauling them to the dump. I wondered if they even fired the old beauty up anymore. It sure made you feel at home, dominating the room like an ancient patrician, cast-iron solid, wrapped in lustrous white and gray enamel, with a blue-black stovetop and an elegant warming oven that seemed to float up top.

Uncle Roddy had the same kind of solid beauty. His was the barrel shape of a big eater, a bread-and-butter man, heavy with muscle that would turn to fat if he ever stopped working. He had that Highland Scot colouring, fair skin burnt by the sun, with red cheeks and russet hair, thinning on top, grey on the sides. He had gotten rid of his suit jacket and was keeping out of the way of the women, watching all the action from his rocking chair by the west window, where the smoke from his pipe drifted past Aunt Sissy’s geraniums and out through the screen. The chair was an arrow-backed oak, stained black, with rockers worn almost flat. It was one of a pair of Windsor chairs my mother used to say were rightfully hers as the oldest sister. A wedding present to her mother, they were part of the meagre furnishings that had come here with the MacRae family in 1933. Family heirlooms, the chairs — and the argument that went with them.

Roddy McHugh had always been wise enough to stay out of those sisterly quarrels. I remembered the day he sat in that same chair, smiling with inscrutable equanimity as my mother pointed out the crooked cupboard and all the other mistakes he had made in remodelling the kitchen. I could even remember Aunt Sissy, smoothly changing the subject by bringing up the argument they had about filling in that west window to get more cupboard space. “I put my foot down on that one,” she said. “That’s where I get the afternoon sun for my geraniums, one thing I’m not giving up.” God bless Aunt Sissy, I thought, the softer, rounder version of my mother, inheriting the MacRae tenderness, spared the sharp edges of its ambition.

And God bless those geraniums, there through three generations, cuttings of cuttings of cuttings, probably spread over all Glengarry. Just like the Gervais cousins who were bringing the place alive as more of them arrived. Johnny teamed up with Tom Gervais from Cobourg to relive that summer day they conspired with my father to justify a whole afternoon of drinking with a mock argument over whether they were drinking Tom Collins or John Collins. And there was a special moment when the oldest of the clan, Uncle Gustave, tottered in on the arms of his two oldest daughters. He came to a sudden stop just inside the door and took a long warm look at all the gathered relatives. Then he opened his arms wide and exclaimed, “
Je vous aime beaucoup
, I love youse all.”

The two tears that dripped down his cheeks were enough to take my mind off Andrew and his ambitions and bring me back to the old Glengarry. They weren’t drinking like they used to but they still had enough to take them to the piano in the parlour and coax my mother in to play. I found myself a spot at the bottom of the staircase just outside the parlour door, where I sat and listened for my father’s voice in all the songs he loved. They kept at it for a couple of hours at least, with my mother providing the lyrics for anyone whose memory failed him. Uncle Gustave and Johnny filled in with the old man’s favourite stories, including the one where Andrew and I left him in Dalhousie that afternoon and walked up the tracks to the farm. This is what he would have wanted, I thought, as I blessed his clan for bringing him alive this one last time.

I wanted to stay but the beer was begging to be let out. I made my way out behind the implement shed for a leak. Old habits, I guess. When I came back around the house I saw young Brian camped out on the same corner of the porch where I had eaten the cigarettes. From twenty feet he looked so much like his father that I had to tell myself to cut the kid some slack. Like I said, I always liked his mother, when I was able to separate her in my mind from Andrew. At first I had her figured for a ball-breaker, then over the years I had seen her soften and do a good job of raising her kids. They did her credit, those two, always pleasant, not really interested in the adult world but respectful. I had to laugh out loud when I got close enough to see that Andrew’s fair-haired boy was puffing on a cigarette.

“Dangerous spot,” I told him.

“Why?” he stared up at me, blinking against the sun behind my shoulder.

“You’re in the same spot where my old man made me swallow a pack of cigarettes.”

“You’re kidding! Grandpa?”

“Bet you thought he was always a kindly old man, eh?”

“Uh, not really. My dad told us he used to be pretty cross, sometimes.”

I could tell he was uncomfortable, old enough to know a funeral had some rules attached to it. “So, does your father know you smoke?”

“I don’t really smoke. I’m just experimenting, actually. I’m not sure I like it.”

“Watch you don’t start any fires.”

He grinned. “Yeah, I heard that story.”

“Of course you did. Not that you’d ever do something like that. Not Andrew’s boy.” The look on his face shamed me and I resolved to shut up.

He must have inherited some of his mother’s grace, because he changed the subject for me. “My mom says you might be moving back to Alexandria?”

I smiled as I watched him take another tentative puff on his cigarette. “Yeah, I’m thinking about it. Think I’ll fit in around here?” He gave me another one of those looks and I tried to make it up. “Much work around here? For mechanics, I mean?”

He managed half a smile. “Um, yeah. I guess. We got a Canadian Tire, anyways. They got a big garage.”

“Yeah, I saw that.” I was thinking this business of talking to teenagers could be hard work.

“My mom says you never got . . . like, married,” he ventured. “How come?”

“You mean am I gay?”

He blushed. “No. I didn’t mean that.”

I smiled at him. “You just want to know if I ever got shacked up, right?”

He pretended he was smoking for a few seconds before he looked up at me and answered, “A lot of people live together now. Nobody thinks anything of it, really.”

“Well, I lived with a few women, over the years. Not at the same time, though.” When I got my laugh I continued, “I guess I’m not that easy to live with. Most women these days get upset if you don’t talk to them once or twice a week. You know, show some interest in what they’re doing.”

There was an uneasy silence. Probably his mind was drawn back to the old question of character. My character. Mike Landry, child-killer. How the hell do you talk for more than five minutes with a child-killer?

We were saved in a fashion by Andrew and his brother-in-law. The kid was quick, I’ll give him that. He spotted his old man coming around the corner and dropped the cigarette to the ground. I slid my foot over it and smiled at him.

“Your mother’s looking for you,” Andrew told him as he approached. “She wants your help with something.”

“Probably the dishes,” I teased as the boy grabbed his chance and took off. Andrew and Danny took his place on the porch, trying to look relaxed but not pulling it off. I lit up a smoke and waited them out.

Finally Danny broke the silence. “So, Mike, I guess you’ve heard your brother is thinking of running for mayor?”

“I thought it was decided.”

“It is,” Andrew enunciated. “I’m going to run and I’m going to win.”

I ignored his challenge. “You know, Danny, it should be me.”

“P-pardon?” he stuttered.

“I’m the one with the name that’s good in French or English. Michel or Mike. Don’t you think I’d make a good candidate?”

“Jesus, you’re . . .” He smiled, then. “You’re pulling my leg, right?”

“Why would you think that, because of my checkered past?”

“Well, yes, to be frank about it.”

“You think people will hold a thing like that against me. So long ago, and so young.”

The smile was gone. “A girl died, Mike. That’s hard to get past.”

“Aw, I know,” I tried to look downcast, then swung my head up with a smile, “but Andrew has a checkered past, too.” I loved the gasp that escaped from Andrew’s pale face.

Danny looked back and forth between us. “I don’t understand what you — ”

“Mike,” Andrew had some blood back in his face and his teeth were clenched.

“Yeah,” I smiled, “did you know that my big brother lied about his age on his driver’s application? Started driving when he was just fifteen.” I grinned at him and added, “Driving all over the place. Isn’t that right, Andrew? All over the place.”

He sneered at me, “What’s your point?”

“Well, does your driver’s licence still say you’re a year older than you really are? That’s a criminal offence, you know. It says so right on the form, every time you sign it.”

“Don’t be stupid,” he snapped.

“Sorry, I forgot my place for a moment.”

More humility wasted, as my big brother scowled at me. “Let’s get to the point. You’re not really serious about moving back here?”

“More serious by the minute. These family gatherings, all the old memories, who can resist the lure of life in a small town?” I grinned. “With my own brother as mayor.”

He scowled some more. “It’s not like this all the time. This is Dad’s funeral. People are trying to be nice.”

I put on a long face. “Oh, you mean they’re just being friendly for your sake?”

“I don’t think you’d be happy here. It’s changed a lot since you — ”

“Yeah, I know. Most people I’ve met so far don’t know me from Adam.” I grinned some more at his discomfort. “Or that son of his, what’s-his-face?” McEwan was mystified. All I got from Andrew was a hot stare. “You know,” I pressed, “the brothers.”

He finally shook his head in disgust. “You won’t be back here a week when the rumour mill will start up and I won’t be able to — ”

“Then I’ll be Abel,” I laughed, “and you can be Cain. How’s that for casting?”

McEwan kept staring and Andrew started puffing himself up. “Stop this sophomoric clowning,” he preached. “Running for mayor is a serious matter. I won’t have you disrupting the whole process on a whim.”

It was that officiousness in his voice that always got to me. “Aw, cut the crap. I’ll move back anytime I please. And neither you nor your fat-ass campaign manager are going to tell me otherwise.”

“You don’t have to get personal. It’s not — ”

“Fuck off, asshole. You just told me you don’t want me living here. Does it get any more personal than that?”

Young McEwan tried once more to sound like a campaign manager. “Now, Mike, surely you don’t want to dredge all that stuff up? It won’t be good for anybody. Think of your mother.”

“My mother?” I spit out. “I’ve been thinking about my dear mother for a hell of lot longer than you could ever imagine, Danny boy.”

Danny boy straightened up and issued a loud warning, “Let’s be clear. If you move back here, Andrew can forget any political ambitions he might — ”

By now Andrew had read the signs and was trying to intervene. “Danny, that’s enough. There’s no — ”

Oblivious, Danny put a hand up to ward him off. “No, Andrew, he has to know what the stakes are. Mike, do you really want to do that to your brother? Why should he pay for your past?”

I smiled at the panic in Andrew’s eyes. “That, Mr. McEwan, is the answer, not the question. However,” I added, “it is also none of your fucking business. It’s between me and Andrew. No one else. Except maybe Gail MacDonald.” I moved in front of Andrew and shoved my face up in his. “And you, brother dear, let’s hear you say otherwise.” He swallowed a couple of times, that was all. “I didn’t fucking think so,” I snarled, then left to go and find another beer, or two.

I tried to sneak off an hour or so later, before I got too hammered to drive. My mother caught me by the back door. “Michel,” she said in her best I’m-your-mother-and-I’m-entitled-to-your-respect-voice, “I need to talk to you.” I’d seen her interrupting her hostess duties to huddle in the kitchen with Andrew and Danny, so I knew damn well what she wanted.

“Here I am,” I answered.

“We need to talk.”

“Then talk.”

“Don’t be ignorant. You know we can’t talk here. Come over for breakfast tomorrow morning and we’ll talk things through. We have to do what your father would have wanted. You know that.”

I stared at her for a few seconds before I answered, “I’ll come over, all right. But I have one piece of advice for you.”

“Is that so?” she uttered through pursed lips.

“Yeah,” I kept staring. “You keep this between us, and maybe Jean, if she really wants to be there. But you leave my father, and those kids, and that asshole, Danny McEwan, out of it. Do you understand me?”

Her eyes were trying to burn a hole in me.

“Do you understand me?” I repeated. “Say it. I want to hear you say it.”

“All right, I understand you.” More pursed lips.

“This would be the first time.” I left her with that thought. Thoroughly pissed off, I hoped.

MY MOTHER
’
S EYES WERE STILL
smouldering when I arrived the next morning. I squelched a smile as I took in the bedraggled bunch around the old kitchen table — just about the only thing that hadn’t changed since ’58. I got this picture in my head of Andrew sitting there with his milk and cookies, that afternoon he assured me he had taken care of everything. I shook that off as images of change started fast-forwarding through my brain like a bad beer commercial. New doors, new paint, new floors, new appliances, and a new Andrew, all changed and changed again in the intervening years. But it was still the same damn room with the same damn people and the same damn memories.