The Heart Beats in Secret
Page 30
She turned towards me and stretched her wings. The wind ruffled her feathers and I felt it catch my own hair, too. Then she called – a long sustained cry, tossing her head back and calling again and again in broken song. A flutter in my heart at the sound. She shook out her wings, caught the air and took flight. With slow, easy wing beats, she flew over the water, over the bridge towards the dunes and then back to the shore, turning, circling, still calling. I watched her, a sketch on the sky, her wings wonderful. Then, she headed out towards the mouth of the bay. Out past the sand spit, out to open water where the surface caught the light. I didn’t need to wonder then. I knew she was flying away.
Inside, the house felt empty. Fragile and porous.
The kitchen clock ticked. A seashell rested on the mantelpiece among the photographs. A feather lay fallen on the floor. Then the wind blew in through the open window as it did every evening. It blew right through me, unsettled the petals in the garden, every leaf trembling, and knocked the apples from the tree, the eggs from every basket, and unfettered my heart like a field gone wild. All things become themselves in time. Every necessary thing.
When I came down to earth, I stood by the mirror and watched the reflections and the changing light. Then I sat at the desk, picked up Gran’s pen and started to write a letter home.
JANE: 2006
THE CURTAINS ARE BALLOONING INTO THE ROOM AND I put my pen down, only half hearing the rack of the sea. It’s always there, and sometimes I listen.
The letter is ready for the envelope now. I wonder what Pidge will make of it. If she comes here, she’s bound to learn more of the story, and that’s just fine. I can’t hide that. But I have tidied what I can and burnt the rest. Those letters had nothing about her father that she needs to see. Just gossip more or less. It is an odd feeling, being finished. Nothing else to do except the walk. The dunes will be enough. I can’t very well sit out here forever, forgotten by God. That’s what it feels like. I’ve been overlooked. Omitted and forgotten and growing simply ancient, waiting. I’m still not very good at waiting. I live best in seasons.
Over the years, I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about the end. Maybe that’s just natural or maybe it’s something my generation does because of the war. But Felicity does it, too. She used to sit at the kitchen table on her visits home and tell me about protests and preparations. Like us, they really did believe that everything would crumble. It hasn’t yet, but I’m not sure that’s comfort. It still might.
There’s the sea sound again, washing away sand and shells and pebbles. I wish it could take thoughts, too, and leave me with peace for these last few hours. Or simply take me with it.
Felicity called last week, and it was good to speak with her. She told me that she’d been to Ottawa to visit Pidge. The two of them had walked through the gallery together, looking at snowy forests and lakes, the Tom Thomsons and the Varley I like, too, with its wind-shaped pine. I could imagine them there, sitting side by side, with all that colour around them.
Felicity said that Pidge seemed down, but she hadn’t wanted to talk. She doesn’t have Felicity’s ease with storytelling. Perhaps she takes after me. I find words get difficult when they matter most. One of the reasons I let the poetry lapse. That, and learning to mother was complicated enough.
My mother once told me that fairy stories and lullabies both keep nightmares at bay. Felicity loved fairy stories, and Stanley could weave a tale out of anything. A teacup on the shelf. The feather he used as a bookmark. A footprint in the sand. I opted for lullabies. I see that now. Lullabies and the moment just after. That peace and the quiet moment as sleep comes on. This moment now.
Still, I should have told her more, perhaps. When she was little, I felt I had to keep mum, of course. I couldn’t let people talk. Stanley stayed home after Felicity was born and managed to spend the rest of the war stationed nearby, but I was never certain that he was safe. Superiors made promises, but what can you trust? So I kept quiet. It wasn’t until ’53 that deserters were pardoned. Churchill made a show of it with a speech in Parliament, another layer to the coronation celebrations. We read about it in the newspaper and naturally it was all over the radio so it might have been easy to tell her then – but was twelve old enough? Perhaps not. Later, I thought she knew. When that letter came over from Quebec marked ‘From Birthwood’, I was certain she was letting me know. All the rest had been marked ‘From the camp’ – so why ‘Birthwood’? Why Birthwood? When did she learn our truth? And why did she choose that moment – that letter – to gently let us know? I almost wrote to ask. Stanley suggested it might be best not to. She would bring it up if she had more questions. And she never did.
It will be dark soon. I can hear the geese settling out on the sandbar. When he came home, Stanley told me how he missed the geese whilst he was out at Birthwood. Every night, he’d listen for them and only hear the wind in the trees or sighing over the crest of the hills. The chaplain told him there was comfort in the quiet sound, that it was ancient and soothing, but he missed the hurly-burly of geese by the shore. All hugger-mugger with their half-mad crowding, but he was sure there was order there, too. Had to be. There were too many of them for it to be meaningless. There must be moments of chaos and fear, but it wouldn’t last because, with each sunset, they settled. Whatever the weather, they found their place. And when they flew, they flew together.
When we moved out to this bungalow after the war, he was glad to be closer to the geese. They are louder here than in the village. Miss Baxter was right – a move had been what we needed. Funny how things work out. I couldn’t understand why Muriel’s parents wanted to leave after the war. They would have had to meet all new people and start over again. Maybe that’s what they wanted. I only wanted a chance to dig in. Curtains in the windows, rows of preserves in the pantry and potatoes growing in the garden. Chickens and beehives and Stanley.
Here at the end – because that is what it is and I can be naught but honest tonight – I find myself wanting Miss Baxter. She was a good neighbour to me. Helped me more than she could know. She’ll be long gone now. Twenty years or more, I should think. I never heard, but then I never really kept in touch. It can be hard to keep a connection close when there is to be no return. For a few years, I sent a Christmas card with a newsy note and a photo of Felicity, but somewhere along the way, I let that lapse. I’d like to sit with her again now. She’d like to hear about Pidge, too, I think, and we’d drink bramble leaf tea in the evening and talk about age and the land and she’d talk again about God. I could tell her about being forgotten. I’m sure she’d have something to say about being remembered. Wish I knew what it was. She made God feel close, just as near as a neighbour through the wall. As if we all might live side by side companionably, hearing the coming and going next door, unseen but known. As if any evening, I might just clear my throat and be heard. Or hear. It would be simple enough. A word, a cough, even. A cry from either side would carry through.
I felt that closeness when Felicity was born. I remember the feeling. That God was near and present in my distress. Isn’t that how my mother would have described it? Yes, present. The skies that night were loud with bombers and the sirens cut through. I can still hear that wail in my heart, but I wasn’t afraid. God was close. My hands, my fingers held onto the chest of drawers as I rocked back and forth, my mother’s hands on the width of my back, pushing, and I was safe and held apart from the fear in the powerful work of beginning.
I remember and it was strong. For years, I held to that beginning memory with no words but the holding. I held it so long that it frayed in my pocket and now when I remember, I am not sure any more. Perhaps I am only remembering the last time I remembered. A step away. And another. A way of borrowing time.
Well, I’ve been living on borrowed time for long enough. Back when I had that spell – the one I didn’t tell Felicity about – that’s when I should have gone, by rights. But the doctors were clever and sorted me out. Gave me prescriptions for my h
eart and for my blood. Tablets and timetables to remember. Later, Felicity thought I sounded cold on the telephone and she asked what the matter was. She wanted to know if she’d said something. I should have said goodbye then and just let things be. Accept the end. But the doctors don’t let you do that. It isn’t an option. You have to keep going, for good or for ill.
But no. I won’t. Not any more. I will let time be finished because it is time, regardless of what they would prescribe or what God remembers and who God forgets. I might be accused of bringing it on, but it isn’t quite like that. I’ve been responsible. Eaten all my meals and put myself to bed on time. I’ve done nothing dangerous. I’ve left the yew on the shelf. But it’s only the medication keeping me going and that’s false. An artificial prolongation of life. So, I’ll stop. Let nature take its course. That’s not playing God, is it? God knows. Maybe it’s just emptying the teacup back into the sea.
I’m glad to be able to end it here. There isn’t anywhere but this dune country, not really. This is where I’ll always be, out here in the wind and with Stanley. Tonight, the Forth will be calm and bright as silver, the Lomond Hills looking close as close can be under the moon, but Stanley closer because I’ll be seeing him soon, won’t I? I’ll cross the bridge and walk along the shore, then find a place in the dunes where I can sit and wait, my hands in my pockets, my will held firm like Jova Grey and Sandy Gibb, too, long before I arrived. I wish they could come and keep me company tonight. I’d like to tell Sandy not to worry – that, in the end, we’re all glass, really. Just changed sand, and sand itself only old ground stone. We’ll wait for the night together, for the falling darkness and the sound of geese calling out on the sandbar. It might be hard, I know that. The medication keeps my heart in check and without it, there is bound to be ache and pain. But I’ll leave it in my pocket and let the saints around me hold me up.
Then when the sun rises and the gorse is aflame with the coming day, Stanley will be there to meet me on the other side of the shadows. His wide smile, his funny face with those lines beside his mouth and the wind and his hair, his hair and skin and here we are again, already. The sun is already on the water, rising and Stanley is there, holding out his hand. The war is over, all flags flying and we’ve made it through.
Acknowledgements
Thanks to Joan Barfoot for encouragement, reassurance and wisdom, Sarah Agnew for reading, Sharon Davidson for early inspiration.
Thanks to the Humber School for Writers for community and to First Thursday at Chapter Arts Centre, Cardiff for the space to share early pages.
Thanks to my publishing team: Cathryn, Holly, Ann, and Suzie.
Books are born from many books, but these four volumes were my close companions through this writing journey. Ina May Gaskin’s Spiritual Midwifery, Nigel Tranter’s Footbridge to Enchantment, William G. Birch’s A Doctor Discusses Pregnancy and Basho’s haiku as translated by Lucien Stryk. I’d love to gather their writers for a meal. Maybe one day. Who knows?
And thanks to Mike for waiting up with whisky.
About the Author
KATIE MUNNIK is a Canadian writer living in Cardiff. Her collection of short fiction, The Pieces We Keep, was published by Wild Goose Publications and her prose, poetry, and creative non-fiction have appeared in several magazines and anthologies, including The Cardiff Review. She is a graduate of the Humber School for Writers in Toronto, Canada. The Heart Beats in Secret is her first novel.
Also by Katie Munnik
The Pieces We Keep: Stories for the Seasons
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