One step at a time was how I tackled the job: you put one foot ahead of the other and kept going. While I worked, I whistled along to tunes in my head. Tunes spurned the nattering in there that was like Aunt’s, as if her voice came from just beyond the snow-covered sash: Take one step forward, girlie, set yourself two steps back.
That afternoon I had just finished sweeping crumbs from a breadbox when my man hustled in. He hardly spoke, just stoked the fire, then bustled about measuring flour and sugar like they were powdered gold, and behold, he mixed up a cake—land, yes, a cake, baked from scratch. It and the pot of tea he set out made a lovely supper.
“Notice anything different?” I ventured once we’d finished our meal. I peered at the tea leaves floating in my cup. If I could have read them, what would they have said? The way to a husband’s heart lies through a feed of beef stew and dumplings? The feel of clean underwear against his rump? Of Old Dutch under his fingertips checking for grease? A newlywed woman, I could have used advice.
“What? Am I supposed to?” At that, Ev flicked his eyes around the room quicker than a blink. “Don’t look any different a-tall. But you’d best not have lost the goddamn hammer like you did last time—or I’ll have half a mind to hammer you. Crazier than a bag full of hammers, that’s you. No, I don’t see no difference, only that you best not have burnt up them Couriers—Christ knows when I might get more. I need them papers handy, don’t forget, to wrap my wares in. Let customers think they’re fresh-caught if you wrap ’em before you go to the door—not to mention keep the fish blood off the car seats.”
Maybe it wasn’t unnatural for a husband not to notice a wife’s household efforts.
“Guess you care more for your car than you do the house, then.” And the car and the house more than you care for me, I might have teased.
“See? Wha’d I say about crazy? Fuck’s sake, you ought to know you can live in a car if need be but you can’t drive a house.”
Wiser words were never spoken; Ev’s car was a blessing. Later, on our honeymoon, he used it to bring home a wedding present. The only present I had for him was a pocket watch of my father’s, the one thing I had to remember him by. It was more an ornament than anything, since, like the cuckoo clock Ev and I found a while later, it didn’t work. Its hands were permanently stuck on nine twenty-two—morning or night, your choice, I told Ev. Using the charred end of a stick I wrote his initials on a scrap of paper, which he scratched onto the back of the watch using an old nail. The present Ev gave me let me enjoy my inheritance from Mama, the last record she bought before things went bad, “Sitting on Top of the World.” I wished there’d been the money before Father died to buy a machine that played discs. Our second favourite song, “Stairway to the Stars,” came out too late to be recorded on a cylinder. Even on her sickbed Mama would try to sing along with me when it came on the radio, pretty words about sailing away and riding a thrill as high as the heavens.
Rising from the table, I sang the first little bit under my breath, about silvery moonlight leading through a velvet lullaby. I decided suddenly that not even the best lines from “Sitting on Top of the World” could match it, and wished there was a way to hear what Mama thought.
“Might be nice to have a radio,” I ventured to say after a while. “But doing without is okay,” I added. “A gal can get along fine so long as she’s got a fella.”
“And a fella can get along fine without a wife, except for one thing.” He raised his eyes to the hole in the ceiling, the stepladder he had leaning under it at first, then nudged me, bored his finger into my sunken chin. “You got a kiss for me or what?” Leaning over me, he was so tall and lanky and loose I felt like I was wrapped in a big warm flapping shirt. His fingertip felt rough but smooth, cold but warm. Some flour was crusted under his fingernail when he brought it to his teeth to pick away a bit of cake. He let out a sigh. “Well, it’ll be a long cold evening but I reckon you will have to do, keeping a fella warm. Christ knows—” At last he cast a decent glance round the room. “You ain’t good for much else. Not like my ma—she could scrub a floor, do a wash, and put up enough bread to last a week in the time it takes you to wash a dish. I ought to send you down to her for lessons.” The twinkle in his eye said he was joking. But he didn’t let it go at that. His voice had a twinge of regret. “I guess it’s fair to say you tricked me, didn’t you. You were talking through your hat when you said you had experience. Experience, my eye—only thing you’re good for is a decoration on a fella’s arm, a poorly one at that.” He paused and I stared at the ring and let lines from those songs fill me. “But I guess you can stay,” Ev said after a minute. “I guess a fella makes his bed, he lies in it.”
He topped up my teacup, tipped in some milk, helped himself to another slab of cake. I still had a good-sized morsel on my plate, was saving it for later.
“Not eating that?” Before I could move my fork, he took my leftover cake and popped it in his gob. “Oh she’s gonna be a long night, I can tell,” he said, crumbs falling from his mouth. “Them lunatics are gonna be shivering in their beds and wanting to git downstairs by the fire—I’ll have my work cut out keeping them in line, I just know it. That warden and his wife are too frigging nice, never seen the likes. Who’s running the show over there anyway, the lunatics or Olive? In my day—” Then he fell silent. I was just as glad because I had heard about when he was small and he and his mother and who knows what other relatives lived at the poor farm what became the almshouse, and I did not want to be reminded of things it was better not knowing.
“What is done is done. Telling me again is not going to change it.”
He gawked at me, shook his head. “Have more cake, why don’tcha Ev,” he said to himself, joking, or maybe pretending to be a lunatic, too, as if I was not anywhere near, let alone keeping him company at the table. Not for the first time, I reckoned teaching a bachelor how to act like a husband was like teaching an old dog a new trick—like teaching the mix dog Ev had out in the pen the day I first appeared at his door not to snap at strangers, it was probably futile. And yet, Ev said himself, the very first time I came calling on him, unannounced, that dog, Joe the First, had barely let out a peep.
So I rested my case about bachelors and husbands.
By the time Ev pulled on his boots to go to work for midnight, the blizzard had died down. But the drifts came up past the windowsill, so that in the lamplight the downstairs was like being inside a cozy little igloo. Throwing on his coat, he bent and pinched my cheek good night. In the scrap of mirror next to where I’d hung the dustpan, I glimpsed the tiny dent his thumbnail made. I guessed every gal would be so lucky as to have a fella think enough of her to leave a mark of his affection.
Especially a gal who had passed herself off as a housekeeper to a fella who fell for it hook, line, and sinker and married a dud if ever there was one.
After Emery’s surprise visit that evening, I started spending a good deal more time primping, dressing nicer even though the rest of the time all I did was paint. Didn’t matter that, except for my near-nightly trips to the Majestic, hardly anyone saw me. But it was like Aunt said, how the Lord could come as sudden as a thief in the night, you never knew when, you just had to be ready—in other words, you must look your best at all times. Emery Allen was no thief, but he was the closest thing I could imagine to the Second Coming Aunt talked about. I did not breathe a word of this to Mama. She had no inkling of the spell Emery had cast over my life, only the change in me it caused. A change she approved of.
“It’s nice to see you go the extra mile fixing yourself up, you’re a pretty girl. Never mind your chin. No girl ever suffered tending to her appearance. You’re only young once, my darling.”
If there’s one thing painting taught me, it was patience. Love is patient, love is kind, I told myself, cribbing Aunt’s biblical words as I waited for Emery Allen to call. Part of a week crawled by, I watched the last of
the maples carpet the ground with yellow leaves, and still he didn’t appear.
Then that Saturday night Mama and I were playing a duet—well, I was fumbling through the bass notes—passing the time before the late show, when we heard a car pull up outside. Peeking through the curtains, she looked puzzled then a little annoyed, not wanting us to be held up. “Who’s this, now?”
Could it be? My heart leapt as I rose and peeked out too. It was him, it was Emery, come to take me on a date? I flew ahead of Mama. At the door he handed me a bouquet of wild asters he said he’d picked by the shore. I kept my eyes on them, and my hand on the little scarf covering my chin. He shook Mama’s hand. He had left the car’s engine running. I grabbed my coat and skedaddled outside before Mama could ask questions. Thank my lucky stars I was dressed up for the movies. If I had been thinking clearly I’d have run upstairs and grabbed my beaded shawl.
He helped me up into the car, tried to guide me into the back behind the front seat. “You might find it cozier in there.”
“Reckon it’s plenty cozy up front.”
“More room back there.”
See and be seen, I told myself.
“That passenger seat’s a mite dirty. Never had time to dust it off.” He sounded apologetic—as if I minded! He clicked his tongue as I climbed into the seat beside his anyways. “Might mess up your coat.” A friend from the country had loaned him the car, he said, a fella in Woods Harbour. He himself was from down that way, it turned out. “Nothing like Woods Harbour for scenery—better than here, well, except maybe for Forchu, out there by the lighthouse. Not much going on down there besides fishin’ though. How about you and I take a spin then go for drinks—the Grand Hotel maybe?”
His voice alone set my mind and heart a-swirl.
He was the cat’s meow, he was the finest thing since sliced bread, he was sweet butter, custard cream, and jam. Thank my lucky stars ten times over I was dressed for the occasion if not for the weather, wearing the shimmery dress Mama had bought for me at Nichol’s. It reminded me of a mermaid’s tail, a lovely glittery, greeny blue. Along with my coat I had managed to grab the little sequined hat that matched it, which made up for the missing shawl. Mama’s voice seemed to whisper to me as I squashed the hat down on my head: “A girl can never be too finely dressed.”
Emery glanced sideward, winked in the rear-view mirror. “Look at you. All gussied up.”
I could hardly believe my ears, the first time a fella besides Father paid me this much attention. Can I just say I was over the moon as we drove up Parade Street, past all the sea captains’ mansions, the finest houses in town. We kept going past Central School and Mountain Cemetery till we reached Hardscratch Road. It was a chilly but clear evening, dusk had fallen early, but right before that the sun had laid a fine strip of orange light along the rooftops. I snuck a glance at Emery every chance I could. Let this not be a dream! If it is, don’t let me wake up! I kept thinking. Every now and then I caught a whiff of him, not the slightest bit fishy but fresh with the smell of shaving soap. Shaving soap and engine grease.
“Nice car,” I said, after a while, to let him know I hadn’t died of happiness. Emery nodded. I should have complimented his clothes, too, but thought it better to keep mum. His overcoat looked ever so slightly worn. Underneath, his suit was a jacket and pants two different shades of blue. If you don’t have anything good to say, don’t say anything, Father always taught me.
We drove past trees, fields, and a farmhouse with a solitary light burning in the window. In the headlamps’ beams the roadside’s wild asters and dying goldenrod flew by, lining ditches bordering woods. I wondered if this might be a road Father had taken us on on a family outing once. Except for those Sunday jaunts in the country with him, Mama, and Charlie when I was small, I hadn’t spent much time out in the sticks. A town girl, I was used to paved streets, fine buildings, shops, sidewalks, street lamps, and picket-fenced yards.
Though still early evening, it soon grew dark as midnight. I saw for myself what people said: there’s no darkness like country darkness.
It’s dark as your arse, as Ev would say, later.
Stars beamed through the windshield. Bright spits of light, their beauty was out of this world! Emery said that up ahead was a clearing with the best view of the sky. I couldn’t see for the darkness but Emery knew where to find it, a grassy gap in the woods where some old house or barn once stood. He pulled over, turned off the engine, got out and came around, put both hands on my waist, and lifted me down. The ground’s damp came through the soles of my patent leather shoes. The smell of spruce reminded me of Christmas, though it was still too early for snow. A blessing it was way too chilly for midges, blackflies, and mosquitoes—in summer they would be fierce out here, I imagined; they’d have bitten through my dress and under its hem. If it had been summer, the bugs would have found Emery a tasty treat.
He put his hand on the nape of my neck, moved it slowly down my back. Even through my coat his touch made me tingle. I would have swooned straight away if I hadn’t been so bundled up. With his strong arm at the flat of my back, he tipped me backwards like a plank till my chin pointed at the sky. “Look, look up—look at that!” Leaning behind me, half on his knees, he was so close I could hear his every breath. Together we peered up at the purple sky studded with diamonds.
“Hey, make a wish, you.” With that, he set me on my feet again.
By now I had a wish perfectly formed: To marry Emery Allen and be his wife till death did us part. Even if it might mean leaving Yarmouth to live somewhere I had never stepped foot. Even a small place, which I thought would be fine so long as it had a movie house.
“Reckon I wouldn’t mind seeing Woods Harbour. That’s one wish.”
Emery laughed. “Blink and you’d miss it. What would you give me if I took you there?”
I remembered something my brother had said while laughing with his friends. Something about women luring fellas with promises that were all talk, no action. I wasn’t precisely sure what action Charlie meant, but figured I oughtn’t get too far ahead of myself promising something I mightn’t be able to deliver. I kept my bigger wish to myself, asked Emery what he wished for.
“How ’bout this?” Leaning over, he kissed me deep deep deep with his tongue. His mouth tasted like tobacco.
“Not a bad start. Why stop?” I shivered with the cold, but with the warmth of his arms around me, hardly cared. We could see our breath. I guess the cold didn’t bother him either. He loosened his tie as we stood there. I watched the starlight mark the trees as his hands roved under my coat. He whispered how strange it was to think the exact same stars had shone down on France when he fought in the War. They looked the same from the bottom of a trench, he said. Not only was Emery Allen the handsomest man in Nova Scotia, maybe all of Canada, I thought, but he was a war hero to boot! My, he was full of surprises. Craning back as far as I could without toppling backwards, I glimpsed his face, so open and sweet. It was turned up to meet the starlight like a flower that bloomed at night. An evening primrose.
Land’s sake, the man’s not a flower, I told myself. He’s a porchlight, I’m a moth. This is what I thought as we got into the car and he spread his coat over the back seat. I guess he mustn’t have felt the cold for the same reason I didn’t. He moved on top of me so I was half-sitting, half-lying down. “I’ll warm you up, don’t worry.” His chin felt sandpapery rubbing against my cheek. Somewhere far off, a dog barked. Close by, the only sound was our breathing. Emery leaned back to look at me, it was like he was listening for something. It was awfully cramped, it couldn’t have been too comfy for him given how he was taller than me. I hoped he wasn’t having the same thought. I didn’t want him to stop. A smidge of pain for a lifetime gain, I told myself. You couldn’t have one without the other—
“Don’t stop. Please. Don’t. Stop.”
“Aren’t you something else.”
&nb
sp; He breathed and pressed and pushed inside, and it hurt.
But what was a little sting but a reminder that I was young, young enough, and head over heels in love?
When it was over we laid there scooched together, Emery with his hand on my belly. I pictured Mama at the Majestic, eyes darting from the screen to the piano player’s hands if she’d been lucky enough to get a front-row seat. With me as her date, we always had to sit way back, on account of my neck. I felt what I am sure Mary Pickford must have felt spooning with Douglas Fairbanks. What Mama surely felt once upon a time lying with Father.
All too soon, Emery straightened up, rubbed his neck. “You’re one wicked little charmer.” He clicked his tongue against his teeth, tugged his coat out from under me. “You know how long I’ve waited to meet a woman like you?” He lit two cigarettes, gave me one. I hardly knew what to do with it, though I had smoked before, with Charlie behind the box office. Inhaling set off a coughing fit but it soon passed.
A woman, he’d said. Not a girl. My head against the armrest, I tugged up my little scarf which had slid away, and looked up at him, dreamy-eyed, the way Mary would’ve.
“You won’t tell, will you? About what we just did.”
He laughed, and in the starlight his features looked smooth as a boy’s. I thought how in bright sunshine his brown hair might be the colour of molasses toffee. He swore a little bit, stretching his neck. And I told myself that, even if you took away the love between us, what Emery and I had done—what I had caused Emery to do—was no more improper than having the doctor poke and prod me. I was used to that. Any pain Emery may have caused, briefly, was different; it was sweet and it was proof that he loved me, for surely what we had got up to must have hurt him, too, at least a little.
Brighten the Corner Where You Are Page 14
