“Sometimes when he came home from visiting our friend he would tell me all those stories from Scotland. He thought MacDonalds were the best people in the world. Our friend used to say he couldn’t see the forest for the trees.
“Sometimes when he would tell me those stories his eyes would fill with tears. People used to say he was sentimental, but it was because he cared. He felt everything deeply. People around here used to call a man like him ‘soft.’ ‘Maybe so,’ he used to say, ‘but I’m always hard when I have to be, you know that.’ He was full of little double meanings like that, my husband.”
She pats one of the dogs on the head. It licks her hand. She smiles wistfully. “All of us are better when we’re loved,” she says.
“Are you a folklorist?” she then asks.
“No,” I say, “I’m not a folklorist.”
“There are lots of folklorists around now,” she says. “They are busy collecting the old songs. We always sang. We always sang when we were working and then we just sang because we liked to. We were used to it. Some of the songs were long, verse after verse. It wasn’t until the radio came along that we thought maybe our songs were too long. The ones on the radio only lasted a few minutes.
“My husband and I had a friend,” she continues. “He knew a lot of songs. He knew all of the verses in his head and never made a mistake. He could remember everything. We should have copied all those words down while he was still with us. Copied them in a scribbler or something, but we never got around to it. Our friend spent most of his life alone.”
She looks at me keenly.
“You remind me, somehow, of our friend,” she says. “You even look a little bit like him. Can you sing?”
“No,” I say. And then because I no longer wish to say “No,” I say, “Yes, yes I can sing.”
I begin to sing “O Siud An Taobh A Ghabhainn.” She joins me instantly. She reaches her hand towards mine and with our hands joined in the old rhythm we are carried away and she is a young girl once again. When we come to the verse about the MacDonalds she begins to laugh.
“Dòmhnullaich ’us gu’m bu dual dhaibh
Seasamh direach ri achd cruadail,
A bhith diann a’ ruith na ruaige,
Dheas, cruaidh gu dòruinn.”
The MacDonalds were always wont
to stand boldly in the face of hardship,
eagerly putting opponents to rout,
faithful, intrepid in adversity.
Some of the older residents come to the door and join us. Instinctively they reach for one another’s hands. And then some of the younger staff as well, their strong young voices blending easily into the rhythm. The brown dogs look up from the floor, as if once again everything is right with the world.
“Falbhaidh sinn o thìr nan uachdran;
Ruigidh sinn an dùthaich shuaimhneach,
Far am bidh crodh laoigh air bhuailtean,
Air na fuarain bhoidheàch.”
We shall leave the land of the lairds
we’ll go to the land of contentment,
where there will be cattle in the folds
and around the fine pools.
When we are finished she looks at me admiringly. “You even sing like our friend,” she says, “only you’re not quite as good. But then nobody was. It is too bad you never met him. I think you would have liked him.”
I can no longer bear it. “He was my grandfather,” I say. “Grandma, it’s me, gille beag ruadh.”
She looks at me with bemusement, as if I am beyond the preposterous.
“Oh, the gille beag ruadh,” she says. “The gille beag ruadh is thousands of miles from here. Yet I would know him if I met him anywhere in this whole wide world. He will always have a piece of my heart.”
All of us are better when we’re loved.
And now it is dusk turning towards darkness as my car moves deeper southward. Not far away, across the river the United States – that country born of revolution – sends its towers thrusting to the sky.
On Monday in my office I will offer solace and change and perhaps hopeful improvement to those who seek me out. We will talk about retrusion and occlusion and the problems caused by overbite. “Don’t bite off more than you can chew,” Grandma used to say.
When I first started practising dentistry, I sometimes saw myself in my white coat with my dentist’s drill as an extension of my earlier self, with the jackleg drill. Leaning towards the surface that I drilled while the cooling water splashed back towards my face. Drilling deep but not too deep. Trying to get it right.
In the landscape around me, those who harvest the bounty of the earth are stilled for the day. Yet they are there in the near-darkness with their own hopes and dreams and disappointments. On the East Coast, the native peoples who move across the land, harvesting, are stilled also. Tomorrow they will cross back and forth across the borders, following the potato harvest and the blueberries, passing from New Brunswick into Maine and then back again. They are older than the borders and the boundaries between countries and they pay them little mind.
In Kenya, at the base of Mount Kilimanjaro, the tall and arrogant Masai follow their herds. For strength they drink the blood of their cattle. They follow the cycle of the seasons and pay no heed to the boundaries of the parks and game preserves. They were there first, they reason. Unlike the Zulus, they have not yet been confined to certain “homelands” which are really not their homes at all. Perhaps the Masai do not know that others are planning “to do something” with them. “Soon,” perhaps.
In Kingston Penitentiary, Calum said, a disproportionate number of the prisoners were from the native population. In many cases they did not fully understand the language of those to whom they were entrusted or condemned. They would hang their woven dreamcatchers in the windows of their cells, he said. There were not many dreams in Kingston Penitentiary. It was the only thing he ever said about his years of incarceration.
In the language of the law, a life sentence is really twenty-five years and one is eligible for parole after ten. That is why I am able to visit him on these days. I try to do so faithfully.
In the waters near Glencoe perhaps the mythical “king of the herring” still swims. If he exists, perhaps he is as complicated as many other leaders. He is regarded as a friend to some, but those who follow him may do so at their peril. In any case there are no MacDonalds who wait for him and his bounty, and perhaps without their beliefs he is just another fish, who should be careful where he swims.
Ahead of me, at home, my wife and children wait. In the hell of eastern Europe an official visited my wife’s home when she was just a little girl. The official had a list which contained the names of her father and her two older brothers. They were commanded, said the official, to be at the station the next morning. When the door closed, her father said that he and his two sons should leave during the night. They could be far away by morning, and later they could work something out. Her mother argued that they should follow the rules and regulations that were laid out for them. She said it was not good to break the law, even if you did not trust it. They argued deep into the night. In the end her father reluctantly agreed to take her mother’s advice. In the morning she said goodbye to her husband and her sons and they left for the station. She never saw any of them again.
My wife is supportive of my journeys. “We never know what lies ahead of us,” she says. “There is never time enough.”
I turn off the cruise control and the air-conditioner as I enter the “estates” where I live. My wife is already dressed for our dinner engagement.
“How was your trip?” she asks.
“Oh, fine,” I say.
“Did anything happen? You look tired and pale.”
“No, nothing happened.”
Grandma used to say, “Everyone’s tired.”
I shower and change my clothes. I go to the phone book to check the address of our dinner engagement. In the margin of one of its pages I see the words “Le pays de
s Laurentides” and a phone number. Underneath the notation, in my son’s handwriting, is the message, “Tell Dad.”
“What’s this?” I ask my son. “When did this come?”
“Oh,” he says in embarrassment, “a long time ago. I was going to tell you but I forgot. The man sounded French. He had a name that sounded like ‘gingerale.’ He made me spell out that ‘Le pays’ stuff. He said you would understand.”
I dial the number and a pleasant woman answers the phone. I make my inquiries.
“Oh,” she says. “This was their boarding house. They only stayed here for a little while. They said the money wasn’t good enough so they went across the border to the States. I remember some of their names, Gingras, MacKenzie, Belanger. Do those names ring a bell? ”
“Yes,” I say. “Those names ring a bell. Thanks anyway.”
And now it is six months later and the phone rings. It is evening. Outside my window the blustery snow swirls. “March may come in like a lamb, but it goes out like a lion,” Grandma used to say.
“Hello,” I say.
“It’s time,” he says.
“What do you mean?”
“It’s time,” he says. “Time to go.” He coughs into the receiver.
“You mean now?” I ask. “It’s snowing outside. It’s dark. It’s March.”
“I know all about March,” he says, “and so do you.”
“Are you sure?”
“Of course I’m sure,” he says. “I was never one to fool around. Have I ever called you before?”
“No, you haven’t.”
“Well then.”
The operator comes on, asking for the deposit of more coins. Of course he is at a pay phone.
“Hang up,” I say, “and call collect.”
“No need for that,” he laughs. “Always look after your blood,” he begins to say, but the line goes dead.
There is no way to call him back.
“Be careful,” says my wife. “The road report is bad.”
“I will do the best I can,” I say. “Perhaps I should take some liquor?”
“Take all you want,” she says, “but be careful.”
I take a bottle of brandy. We embrace and say goodbye.
Highway 401 is not as bad as it is reported to be. Often the weather reports are exaggerated to keep unnecessary travellers off the road. Sometimes my car fishtails, but I am able to keep it at a steady pace. The snowploughs with their flashing lights come and go. The salt trucks spray their pellets on the white roadbed. There are not many cars out tonight.
In Toronto, he is sitting on his bed. His white hair is combed and rises in waves upon his head. He has had a haircut. He has a small club bag at his feet.
“Thanks for coming,” he says. “Are you ready for this? I’ll help with the driving.”
We leave his door open so that the desperate may take whatever they wish.
“Do you want this brandy?” I ask.
“No,” he says. “Leave it on the windowsill. It won’t last long.”
We go forward into the night.
He is quiet beside me in the car. Sometimes I think he is sleeping or dozing, but when I look at him, his eyes are open. He coughs again and again.
The night goes by as does the highway as we head north and east. Sometimes there are snow squalls but then they clear. The leaden sky begins to lighten. Deep into Quebec we stop for breakfast. The breakfast special consists of eggs, toast, bacon or sausage, and beans.
The waitress brings us our order. She does not bring us the beans but instead an extra sausage. The French Canadians around us are having beans.
Calum laughs. “They think we make fun of them for having beans for breakfast,” he says. “I suppose it’s like us with our porridge.”
We ask for the beans. The waitress looks at us. “You want beans?” she says. “Okay, I just looked at you and well, you know.…”
She brings the beans in two dessert bowls.
“No extra charge,” she says.
“Merci,” we reply.
Highway 20 is flat and fast. We move beside the ice-caked St. Lawrence.
At Rivière du Loup we turn south towards New Brunswick. The road becomes two lanes and our progress is not so rapid. Still, we go forward. We drink coffee from Styrofoam cups and when we are finished Calum throws them out the window, where they blend with the whiteness of the snow.
When we approach Grand Falls, I raise my eyebrows in a question. “We will go through Plaster Rock,” he says. “It will be shorter and there’ll be no traffic. I’ll drive through that section of the trees.”
“Do you have a driver’s licence?” I ask.
“No,” he says. “I let it lapse a long time ago. I had no need for it.”
He drives steadily and surely. There is no traffic. The signs warn us to be aware of moose. “This is a good road,” he says. “I wonder when they paved it. It used to be just gravelled. It was that way the time we came from Timmins. With the compressor and the kitten.”
We pass Renous, home of the penitentiary. We pass through all the small communities with their disused schools and abandoned halls. We come to Rogersville.
“This place always struck me,” he says. “The graveyard is so big and the community so small. More people in the graveyard than in the village. When we worked in the shafts there were never any graveyards. People never lived in those places long enough to die.”
“Although some of them did,” I say.
“Yes,” he says. “Some of them died. Died in different ways. Here, you drive for a while.”
We approach Moncton. After Sackville we cross the border into Nova Scotia. There is no piper on hand to welcome us, as is the case in summer. There are only wisps of blowing snow.
It is dark when we pass through Antigonish and the wind tries mightily to lift our car. The road signs warn us of blowing snow. The storm has increased. When we come to the base of the Havre Boucher hill, he says, “I’ll drive now. I’m more experienced on hills and in snow than you are.”
We begin the long ascent. It is a two-mile climb. There are no other vehicles on the road. The car slides and bucks, but he holds it to its course. The red light comes on to indicate that the engine is overheated. We make it to the top and begin the short descent. The mountain from which the Canso Causeway was built looms ahead of us and to our right.
“Do you know that song?” he says. “ ‘Causeway Crossing’ by Albert MacDonald?”
“Yes. I know it.”
“Good song,” he says.
The flashing lights of a police cruiser appear before us. The police officer waves us to the side.
“Where are you going?” he asks. “It’s not often that we see an Ontario car around here at this time of year.”
“To Cape Breton,” we answer. “We’re trying to get across.”
“You can’t get across,” he says. “The waves are washing right over the road. The causeway’s closed.”
He speaks with an accent that is not local to the region.
“What are your names?” he asks.
“We’re MacDonalds,” we say.
“MacDonalds?” he says. “Are you the guys who make the hamburgers?”
“No,” says Calum, “we’re not the guys who make the hamburgers.”
The snow increases and the wind blows so that the officer has to hold on to his hat. He runs for the safety of his cruiser.
Calum starts the car.
“What are you doing?” I ask.
“We’re going across,” he says. “That’s what we came for.”
As we approach the entrance to the causeway we can see the waves breaking. There is a shroud of mist in the air and dirty balls of brown foam fly before us. “This end is the worst,” says Calum. He takes the car to where he can assess the situation. The waves are coming from the left, breaking and then receding. When they break, the roadway is invisible, buried under foaming depths of water.
Calum begins to count the wa
ves.
“After the third big wave,” he says, “there will be a lull and then we’ll go. If the motor gets too wet the car will quit. The third time is the charm.” Above the roar of the gale he says, “Here we go!”
The car springs forward. The red engine light is on, the engine is roaring, and the water comes in at the bottom of the doors. The windshield wipers are thick with ice and stop dead. He rolls down the window and sticks his head out into the gale to see where he is going on the invisible road. We are hit by one wave and then another. The car rocks with the force of the blows. The causeway is littered with pieces of pulpwood and dead fish. He weaves around the obstacles. The wheels touch the other side.
“Here,” he says, “you can do the driving now. We’re almost home.”
We exchange places. Away from the pounding of the waves it is relatively serene. We can see the lights of some of the houses. I begin to drive along the coast. He settles into the passenger seat. The road we travel now is not directly in the path of the storm. Gradually the windshield thaws and the red engine light goes off.
Grandpa used to say that when he was a young man he would get an erection as soon as his feet hit Cape Breton. That was in the time, he said, when men had buttons on the front of their trousers. We, his middle-aged grandchildren, do not manifest any such signs of hopeful enthusiasm. But we are nonetheless here.
Tomorrow when the day breaks we will see what is now invisible around us. It will not all be pretty. Near the open water the bald eagles will pounce with mighty talons upon the white-coated baby seals. They will scream in different voices as they rise above the blood-stained ice. “You’ve got to take the bitter with the sweet,” Grandma used to say. “No one said life was going to be a bed of roses.”
No Great Mischief Page 24
