Mary would have jumped and run away, but Karla had her hand on her shoulder, keeping her in her chair.
“What’s the matter?” Tom asked.
“Mary and I have an agreement, don’t we, Mary?” Mary nodded. She’d quit sucking on her straw. “Mary was hanging around the veranda and eating food that customers left on their plates. Isn’t that right, Mary?”
Mary’s head jerked up and down, but she still had a tight grip on Freyja’s soda.
“Mary and I agreed that if she didn’t come here and bother the guests or cause any kind of a fuss, no selling crosses or begging, that at the end of the day she could come to the back door and I’d give her any food that was left over. There’s often some hot dogs, hamburgers, french fries. There’s always some salad. More than Horst and I can eat.”
“It’s my fault,” Tom said. “I wanted to talk to Mary and when I saw her, I invited her to come and drink the soda that Freyja had to leave behind.” He turned to Mary and said, “I’m sorry, Mary. I didn’t mean to get you into trouble. It’s just that I’m new here and I don’t know all the rules. Bring your drink and we’ll go for a walk and you can tell me all about Baby Jesus.”
As they walked toward the shore’s edge, Mary said, “This is where you found her. I know. I came to look and to say a prayer. She went to heaven.”
“Are you sure of that?” Tom asked. “She had committed a sin. She was pregnant.”
“Maybe it was a virgin birth. Just like me.” She noisily sucked the last of the drink out of the glass. “She’d started going to church in the city. Her music teacher took her there and she sang in the choir. She even had a solo. She told me that when she came at Christmas. She said she never wanted to have sex with any man. She didn’t want any man grunting on top of her.”
“I’m sorry I got you into trouble,” Tom said.
“Joseph doesn’t have much money. Just some old age money. We live in a tent in the summer. He says that Jesus lived in a tent when he was a baby.” She had finished the drink and didn’t know what to do with the glass. Tom took it from her. She said, “Thank you. That was very kind of you.” A shadow seemed to fall over her face for a moment, but then she smiled and said, “Karla gives us good things. Sometimes there are desserts left over. Joseph says we have to be grateful for the good things in our lives.”
Chapter 28
Friday Night Jamboree
The next day Tom quit work early, got cleaned up and went over to the café. The grocery shelves had been curtained off. The counter had been pushed against the back wall and a small foot-high platform had been placed in front of it. More tables and chairs had been added to the café area, and the open floor space between the entrance and the counter was filled with folding tables and chairs. Karla was busy supervising the setup of sound equipment. Tom sipped on his float to electronic squealing and squawking and Karla’s voice repeating, “Testing, testing, one, two, three.”
Tracy was hostess for the evening. She’d changed out of the usual waitress’ skirt and blouse into a short pink dress with a plunging neckline. Like Karla, she had a silk rose behind her left ear. Her long hair was tied back with a ribbon that matched her dress, and she was holding a stack of menus that she handed to people as they came through the door. Normally people found their own tables, but when there was a Friday night musical or another special occasion, they were led to their tables in the café area where meals were served. If people didn’t want a meal, as most of the locals didn’t, then they were simply pointed toward the tables on the other side of a yellow rope that separated the two sections. It was nearly all summer people who sat in the meal area.
A sign said, Please wait to be seated. It was obvious from the way Tracy stood with her head up that she was enjoying her position of authority. She barely paid any attention to the locals, holding out a menu and, when they refused it, sending them to their location with a flick of her fingers. Tom noticed that her fingernails were bright red and so were her toenails.
There was a lot of noise as people came in and got settled: chairs being dragged over the plank floors, people greeting each other, excited chattering. Four waitresses were edging through the café area. Only Barbara was taking orders in the area where Tom was sitting. A customer came in and wanted to appropriate the second chair at Tom’s table. He waved him away, then leaned the chair against the table to indicate that it was taken.
Four men came in wearing gold plastic Viking helmets and seated themselves at a table with a Reserved sign. Siggi and friends, Tom realized. He recognized Siggi, with his blond hair tied back with a leather band. He was wearing a sleeveless T-shirt with a picture of a snarling bear on the back and the words Siggi and the Bears on the front. In spite of the heat, he wore jeans and short black boots. At one time, he’d lifted weights every day, run on the spot, tried to keep up the exercise regimen of his hockey days, but Freyja said that had slipped away. Now, his shirt showed that he was a bit overweight. He had a gym at the embassy but used it only sporadically. Tom wished that they could have been friends. He would have liked the use of the gym. And the satellite TV. Especially during football season.
Tom had to admit that Siggi was handsome—Nordic, just slightly rugged looking. His Viking helmet suited him. He didn’t walk so much as swagger. He had a tattoo of a heart with a knife through it on his left bicep, with the word MOM in block letters underneath. His slightly skewed nose was obvious and, seeing it, Tom touched the scar on his forehead. On the ice or in a bar, Tom wondered. Siggi would have been a brawler on the ice, the kind who’d go after a star player, making hits when the ref wasn’t looking, using his stick to trip him, pushing him until there was a fight, gloves off.
His swagger, Tom realized, had a lot to do with his success with women. No female on hand was too old or too young for a moment of his undivided attention. He engulfed them in his smile, if only for a few seconds, making them, for that moment, the centre of his universe.
Tom wondered if he’d be able to hold his own with Siggi and doubted it. Before his accident and his depression, he could have. Tom’s arms were longer and he was an inch taller. The extra inch would be an advantage, but now a fight would have to be quick—a couple of well-placed punches or a head butt. Real fist fights weren’t like in the movies. One broken nose, one smashed sinus, one broken jaw and it was over. Guys in bar fights fell down and died after one punch to the head. Chairs swung or thrown didn’t fall apart like Hollywood chairs. The people they hit ended up in Emergency. He pressed his palm to his stomach. In spite of Myrna chiding him, he didn’t have a potbelly, but his stomach muscles were slack. He needed to clean the garage to get the dust out of it and, once the heat eased, start using his weights. He would, he promised himself, quit eating so much ice cream and start drinking diet soda.
Siggi’s friends were nondescript—full beards, bulging stomachs under their T-shirts. They wore the same shirts as Siggi. Two of them had full sleeve tattoos. They shifted their chairs around to get a better view of the stage.
Tom kept an eye on the door. Freyja appeared. Although she must have seen Siggi, she made like he and his friends weren’t there. She stopped at a couple of tables to say hello to people, waved at others, then came and joined Tom. She set her chair so she could see the stage without looking at Siggi.
There was a lot of shout-talking. The noise of the voices and the shuffling of chairs and tables made it hard for them to hear each other. Tom leaned toward Freyja and asked, “”Siggi and the Bears?”
“Same name as his high school band,” Freyja said. “Different players.”
Arlene Sigurdsson went by, stopped for a moment, leaned toward Freyja and said, “I see that the berserkers are here.”
Without watching any of them directly, Tom kept his eye on Siggi’s group. When they noticed Freyja, they started talking among themselves and pointing and poking Siggi, obviously razzing him. He wasn’t amused. He brushed away their hands and scowled.
Then their attention was caught by Amanda, who was waiting on their table, and they immediately started teasing her. One of them tried to get her to sit on his knee. She kept shaking her head, and they kept laughing. One of them undid her apron, and they threw it back and forth a few times as she tried to retrieve it.
“Comedians,” Freyja said.
“Do they like little girls?” Tom asked
“I don’t think they’re fussy eaters.”
Barbara came to take Tom and Freyja’s order. He remembered her from the conversation they’d had when he ordered an ice cream cone. Tonight, she’d been elevated to waitress, but she had the least lucrative tables to serve. Locals didn’t order big or tip big. They’d be just as likely to sneak in a tin of pop and popcorn from home.
Barbara wore the same outfit as all the other girls, but on her it looked out of place rather than sexy. She should have been in a plainer, more severe outfit. She wasn’t unattractive, but with her glasses and her hair pulled into a bun, if she had been appropriately dressed, she would have looked serious, dignified. With her flat chest in a low-cut white blouse and her flat hips in a too-short skirt, she just looked like a child wearing an adult’s clothes.
Siggi and his friends were sitting near a table of young women, and they turned their attention to them.
“A laugh a minute,” Freyja said. “Everything’s a big joke.”
“They’re having a good time,” Tom said.
“It changes very fast,” Freyja said. “From laughs to violence. Just like that. Flick, flick.” She flicked her thumb and forefinger.
“They have good parties, I’ve heard. Lots of food. Lots of booze.”
“The best. No expense spared. They all play musical instruments,” Freyja said. “Keyboard, guitar, banjo, violin, trumpet. They jam, playing hard, trying to outdo each other. It’s like they’re competing, but they’re still playing together.”
“Lots of music in Valhalla,” Tom said. He wished he could play, could be part of a group sharing an experience instead of always just an outsider in the audience.
“There’s hope in music,” Freyja said. “You can dream about being onstage and everyone admiring you. How many kids in Valhalla dream about being an astrophysicist or an archeologist? They probably don’t know what those are. They know about singers, musicians. The good hockey players dream of being in the NHL.”
Tom had asked Karla about the Friday night soiree and she said the regular menu was cancelled. They only served pizzas and salads and drinks. There were four kinds of pizza for sale: pepperoni, ham, vegetarian and Greek. There was Greek salad, Mediterranean salad, taco salad and Caesar salad, but the salads seemed more for the weight-conscious yachters than the locals. The patrons could order a whole, half or slice of pizza. This was their first pizza night. Karla had stumbled on the idea of selling pizza. She’d been at a salvage place that had recently acquired equipment from a bankruptcy, so she got the ovens cheap. She figured that once they were ready to sell pizzas to go, the boaters would take pizza out sailing. The cottagers would order pizza to avoid cooking in the heat, and the locals, though they didn’t usually eat in the café or buy coffee, would buy pizza. “Everybody,” she said enthusiastically, “loves pizza.” Horst thought she was crazy and had wanted her to take the equipment back. “You’ll see,” she’d insisted. “Everybody loves pizza.” Tom didn’t bother to tell her that his father wouldn’t let pizza past his lips.
Tonight, Karla was in one of her Western outfits. She blew into the mike a couple of times. The café was nearly full. People were still coming to the door and standing on tiptoe to see where there might be a free chair. Tracy wasn’t letting anyone into the dining area except people from the summer crowd who were responding to a wave inviting them to empty chairs. The windows to the veranda were open and newcomers were sitting there. Karla tapped her fingernail on the mike to get attention. The conversation slowed down and everyone started turning toward the stage.
“Mike time is all taken up,” Karla said. “We’ve got a great evening ahead of us. We’ve got our local talent. We’ve got visitors from out of town. I’ll start off the evening with a fast number.” The fiddler started “Hey, Good Lookin’,” the guitarist joined in and the drummer picked up the beat. Karla wiggled and sashayed but kept it short. Then she introduced Tracy, who got a round of enthusiastic applause. She grabbed the mike and launched into “Crazy.” She just about had Patsy Cline down pat. She did three songs, then there was a jig, and a couple of the locals got up and jigged in front of the stage. Tom saw people in the audience with spoons, Jew’s harps and penny whistles playing along during the instrumentals. There was a lot of whistling and shouting. Amanda followed with a couple of sad love songs. A guy from the sailboats played two tunes on a banjo. Tracy got up to sing again. It was obvious Karla was pushing Tracy. She introduced Amanda and Louise effusively but saved her greatest praise for Tracy.
Just before the set was over, Barbara came to the mike. Karla kept the introduction short. “This is Barbara. You all know her. She is going to sing three folk songs a cappella.”
Tom was expecting it to be a disaster. Barbara stood at the mike, closed her eyes and began to sing, “Oh, Danny boy, the pipes, the pipes are calling.” Her voice was sweet and full of emotion. She followed it with “Early One Morning” and finished with “Foggy Dew.” She never missed a note and never opened her eyes until the songs were finished. She got a warm round of applause, stamping of feet and whistling. Karla said, “Thank you, Barbara. That was very nice.” Tom was expecting her to add, “And now go wait on your tables.” If Barbara had expected any praise, she didn’t get it.
“Cripes,” Tom whispered in Freyja’s ear. “My father used to listen to the old ballads. She sang them just right.” He’d applauded vigorously. He was going to say more, but a fast fiddle tune had started, every instrument in the café joined in and two couples were jigging in the open space in front of the band. It was obviously a wild night in Valhalla.
Siggi and his friends went out. They came back with their instruments, except they were hillbilly down-home pieces: a washtub and broomstick tied together with rope, a saw and bow, a fiddle and a banjo.
Freyja grimaced. “Don’t let them fool you. They’ve got a fortune in instruments. Next time they’ll turn up electronic. They’re full of surprises.”
Siggi and the Bears hee-hawed and yahooed through three tunes. Ten people clogged. Siggi’s three friends with their full beards might have come from the Ozarks, except for the gold-coloured Viking helmets with horns.
When the set was over and the intermission started, Tom leaned close to Freyja and said, “Barbara’s got the best voice of the lot. What’s with Karla?”
“It’s not country and western.”
Karla had taken Tracy and Amanda over to a table where two men dressed in whites were sitting. She was talking enthusiastically, putting her hand alternately on Tracy and on Amanda’s shoulders.
Tom waved at Barbara to get her attention. Even with the doors and windows open, the café was stifling. A lot of people were going outside, where it was slightly cooler. There was a lot of talking, someone playing a tune on a mouth organ, chairs being pulled back and pushed forward. Barbara looked flustered from having too many tables to serve.
Tom and Freyja each ordered a large lemonade with ice, and Barbara jotted it down on her notepad. “You have a beautiful voice,” Tom said. “I love the old ballads. My father used to listen to them.” Barbara’s cheeks turned pink, and she looked away. “Do you know one that has parsley, sage, rosemary and thyme?”
Barbara said, “Scarborough Fair.”
“Maybe one of these Fridays you can sing it for me,” Tom said. Barbara blushed again, then fled.
“That was very good of you,” Freyja said.
“If us outsiders aren’t good to other outsiders, who will be good to us?” he asked. “When I was
in school I never belonged. I was always on the outside looking at others who had friends and were popular.”
“You’ve got friends now. Here comes one.” Freyja slipped her hand under Tom’s arm as Sarah came up to them.
“Having fun?” Sarah asked.
“Yes,” Tom said. “You must have enjoyed the ballads.”
“I gave her the recordings,” Sarah said.
“But where did she learn to sing like that? She must have had lessons.”
Sarah stared at him balefully. “She has a perfect ear. She played the tapes over and over. I helped her a bit.” To Freyja, she said, “I see Siggi is here.”
“How could I miss him?” Freyja said. “It’s too bad he can’t go back to the oil fields. If he gets his business straightened out, maybe he’ll get work in Newfoundland or Dubai. Some place far away. Maybe his greenhouse business will pick up and he can pay back everyone he owes.”
One of Siggi’s group had brought in a five-gallon wooden basket loaded with cucumbers and tomatoes. He carried it from table to table, handing out the produce. Siggi took two tomatoes, put a cucumber between them and turned in a nearly full circle showing them to the crowd. It got a lot of laughs. He offered his art piece to a woman at one of the tables and she shook her head in embarrassment but then put out her hands and took the gift.
“Cucumbers and tomatoes,” Tom said, taken aback by the incongruity of Siggi and his Bears distributing vegetables.
“You’re seeing the results of another great government-funded project,” Freyja said. “Too bad the grants aren’t available anymore. You could fix up the old barn in your meadow. Free money.”
The porch was crowded, and the crowd, invigorated by the music, was noisy. The harmonica player started “Home on the Range.” The waitresses were bringing out trays of drinks. The sweet smell of marijuana mixed with the more pungent smell of tobacco drifted over the crowd.
In Valhalla's Shadows Page 41
