The Boys in the Trees

by Mary Swan

  The Boys in the Trees,

  Mary Swan’s first novel, was a finalist for the Scotiabank Giller Prize and the Amazon.ca First Novel Award. Swan is the winner of the O. Henry Award for short fiction and the author of the novella The Deep, a finalist for the Canada/Caribbean Commonwealth Prize for Best First Book, and the collection Emma’s Hands. Her work has appeared in several Canadian literary magazines and anthologies, including the Malahat Review and Best Canadian Stories, as well as in American publications such as Ploughshares, Harvard Review, Zoetrope, and Harper’s. She lives with her family in Guelph, Ontario.

  Also by Mary Swan

  The Deep and Other Stories

  Emma’s Hands

  My Ghosts

  VINTAGE CANADA EDITION, 2013

  Copyright © 2008 Mary Swan

  All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the publisher, except by a reviewer, who may quote brief passages in a review.

  Published in Canada by Vintage Canada, a division of Random House of Canada Limited, Toronto, in 2013. Originally published in paperback by Holt Paperbacks, a division of Macmillan Publishers, Ltd., New York, in 2008. Distributed by Random House of Canada Limited.

  Vintage Canada with colophon is a registered trademark.

  www.randomhouse.ca

  Portions of this novel were previously published. “Naomi” was published in the Malahat Review and “Long Exposure” in the Harvard Review.

  Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication

  Swan, Mary

  The boys in the trees/Mary Swan.

  eISBN: 978-0-345-80804-2

  I. Title.

  PS8587.W344B69 2013 C813′.6 C2013-900617-6

  Cover design by Kelly Hill

  Image credits: Edward Kinsman/Getty Images

  v3.1

  Contents

  Cover

  Other Books by This Author

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Epigraph

  Before

  Naomi—1871

  Locket

  Wednesday’s Child—1888

  Gun

  Forgiveness—1889

  House

  Consequences

  Button

  Long Exposure

  Knife

  Eaton, Later

  Book

  Eaton—1889

  Trees

  Acknowledgements

  Author Interview

  For my friend Linda, first and ideal reader

  And there are some who have no memorial,

  who have perished as though they had not lived;

  they have become as though they had not been born,

  and so have their children after them.

  —ECCLESIASTICUS 44:9

  Before

  AND THEN HE was running through the long grass, wiping at the blood that made it hard to see but not slowing, still running. The roaring fell away behind and he knew that meant his father would turn on one of the others, that his mother would step into the worst of it, but he didn’t care; at that moment he didn’t even care. Still running when he reached the edge of the wood, dodging the whips from the spindly first trees, leaping and tripping over fallen, rotting trunks, running and running toward the dark heart of it. Not even slowing, not thinking when he saw the low, curved branch, jumped and pulled with his thin arms, climbed like an animal, bare toes gripping, until he was up where everything swayed and whispered, green leaves all around.

  He wiped at his face again and felt the way his eye was swelling shut, tried to quiet his gasping breath. He didn’t know what had brought the sudden kick, the fist to the head, but it wasn’t worth wondering about; there was rarely a reason that anyone would recognize. He would have to go back, he knew that, but knew too that if he waited long enough his father would have worn himself out with the thick leather strap, the leg of the broken chair. Would have collapsed onto the bed like one of those mossy, fallen trees, battered knuckles trailing over the side.

  His shirt was so thin it was like nothing at all and the rough bark scratched at his back where he leaned. He was well below the top of the tree but he could still see the whole world, see the long waving grass that had closed behind his escape, the green furred higher fields, the tilting cottage with a needle-thin spire of smoke rising. He could see the rutted track, curving away to the village, another clump of trees and the slate roof and highest windows of Bray Manor. When he turned his head a little there was a smudge of dark blue that he thought might be the sea, days away, and beyond that he didn’t know, only that it would have to be someplace better.

  Somehow after that first time he could easily find his way to the same tree, as if it was drawing him in, pulling him toward it and up and into the center of the green world. He knew there were creatures, spirits in the trees, but he wasn’t afraid. Knew that if they had marked him out there was nothing he could do but believe it was not to do harm. He stole away when he could, often leaving things undone, and the way he climbed became like a well-worn path, one foot here, both there, the gouges where his toes fit, the bole under his clenched fingers. Once, from his perch, he saw his mother stepping out of the dark cottage doorway; that’s who it had to be, although he was too far away to make out more than the faded shape of her. A few chickens came skittering, as they did when they heard the swish of her black skirts, but maybe he imagined that; from where he was the chickens would have been no more than shivers in the air. There or not there, his mother’s hands must have been empty and she raised them and clasped them behind her head, tilted it back, and wedged in the vee of branches he did the same. There was a rare ray of sunlight that he supposed was warming her face and he tried to imagine how that felt, but the sun didn’t reach him in the green heart of the wood, no way he could put himself in her place.

  After a moment, no more, his mother turned back inside, and he picked up the knife from the spot where he’d balanced it, went back to his work. The idea to carve his name had come from somewhere, maybe the look of certain gouges in the bark, and he had slipped his father’s knife from the jacket pocket, holding his breath. The babies watched him with their old eyes, but even if they could speak, he didn’t think they would. There should have been time; he knew the sun would be high before his father snorted himself awake. But the tree was ancient, the wood like rock, like iron, and the tip of the knife snapped off, fell sparkling down through the leaves. He knew that the beating for a broken knife would be worse than for one that was missing, so he hid it in a hole he scooped out at the base of the tree, climbed like a pirate sometimes, the worn handle clenched between his teeth. He soon gave up the idea of his whole name, and worked instead at the straight lines of his initials. The wood was like iron and it was taking so long, but that was all right. He was still just a slip of a boy, a clout on the ear could send him flying, and he knew that he would have to be bigger, stronger, before he could leave. Thought maybe the time it would take to scrape out the letters would be a good measure. In fact, he was sure of it; it was one of the things he knew, in the same way he knew that he was just waiting here, that it was never meant to be his life.

  Sometimes he sang while he worked, his voice twig-thin like his mother’s at night, when she whispered about the trees that leaned over the green river. His own tree was so old, the branch so thick, that no sap welled in the wounds he made, but he knew it was there, deep inside. Knew that as surely as he knew that one day he would have money and a steep-roofed house with high windows, a family of his own that he would cheris
h. He knew that he would find the life he was meant to have, somewhere far from this terrible place, that all would be well, that one day people would know his name.

  Naomi—1871

  Those dwelling in our cities are being educated in sanitary matters and modern treatments are proving more efficacious. There are fair prospects that the prevalence of this disease will soon be limited.

  —British Journal of Public Health, June 1870

  SADIE WAS BORN with a mass of dark hair and a strong cry and we named her for my mother. Though I didn’t remember my mother at all, I thought she would have been pleased. William called through the door, Is it all right? Is it all right? and Bessie said, A beautiful girl, I’ll bring her out to you. I’d told her once how he was about blood. I had been so tired but suddenly I felt that I could do anything and I sat up, thinking I should be the one to bring our child to him. But Bessie bade me lie back; she had finished the washing and wrapped Sadie in a blanket I had ready, only a sprig of dark hair showing, and she said over her shoulder that she would bring me a nice cup of tea but I didn’t even hear the door closing, I fell into the most beautiful sleep of my life.

  There was such a change in William when he sat with Sadie on his knee. The two lines between his eyebrows disappeared and he looked more like the boy he must have been, long before I knew him. He sang her songs I’d never heard before, that must have come from his people. Songs about cruel sisters and sailing ships, and boys in the tall trees. My friends thought I was mad, with his stern look, his serious mouth, but when William sang to Sadie, I knew that I was right to join my life to his.

  Cyanide of Mercury gr. 1/3

  Tincture of Aconite M XV

  Honey 3xiij - M

  Willie came with a worried look; my fault, for I couldn’t stop fretting all the time I was carrying him. They say you forget the pain but I remembered enough and the churchyard was full of women, their babies growing without them. And besides, I didn’t see how I could ever love another child as much as I loved my Sadie. William had been moved from the brickyard to the office, adding up figures all day. He came home with a pain behind his eyes instead of an aching back, but the hours were just as long. We had moved into a place with three rooms so that took up most of the extra money, and when it was time for the birth I had to send clear across town for Bessie, but she came without complaint. Annie Ashe down the stair took Sadie so she wouldn’t hear my cries, a good thing. Bessie had to do some turning which hurt me a great deal, but she said it was nothing she hadn’t seen before. She sent a boy to tell William and when he finally opened the door, holding Sadie by the hand, his eyes were bright like that time he drank ale on our wedding night.

  There are many applications so equally good that it makes little difference which we employ. Sulphurous acid and glycerine, with the addition of thymol, is effectual and pleasant.

  William’s back and legs were covered in scars; he said he would never beat our children and he never did, though Tom sorely tried him at times. He was born early and all in a rush, Tom was; I had barely time to get to my bed. It was a Sunday morning and the sun was high, and Sadie was on a chair by our window, calling out the shapes she could see in the clouds. William shouted for Annie and she came running, her hands covered with flour. She meant well but her floured hands were rough and when Bessie came later, puffing, with her bonnet askew, I started to weep and could not stop.

  Tom was a hard baby, crying to be fed every hour, wailing and wailing for no reason at all. Bessie came one day; I heard her groaning on the stairs. It’s a terrible thing to be old, she said. My hair was down and knotted, all of us still in our nightclothes though it was well past ten o’clock. Tom howling and Willie banging on the pot with a wooden spoon and Sadie on her chair by the window, humming with her hands over her ears. Lord love you, Bessie said, we can’t have this—where’s the Godfrey’s? William doesn’t like it, I said, and she snorted and said, No law says you have to tell him. I climbed on a chair and brought down the steeple-shaped bottle of cordial, the same bottle she had given me when Sadie was born. She got a spoonful into Tom’s wide-open mouth and sent me to dress; by the time I had put the last pin in my hair he was sound asleep and a pot of tea was steaming on the table, Willie and Sadie sitting quiet as mice, sucking on bits of peppermint. What can I ever do for you, I said, but Bessie said, No more than you have done. Her own children were grown and gone to London; they wrote letters sometimes, that she brought for me to read to her. It never took long.

  I gave Tom another good dose in the evening, and he slept all through the night. Maybe he’s grown out of it, William said, and I just smiled, and thought that he looked a little different to me, though I couldn’t have said just why.

  • • •

  There was a great change in William after the children, and my little doubts disappeared. My father had brought him home one night, after a talk in the Hall. This is Mr. Heath, he said, and I noticed the shine on his boots, though they were far from new. I lived a quiet life then, keeping house for my father. I had friends still from the neighborhood, from the time I was at school, and sometimes we would meet and laugh and laugh. But mostly they talked about their young men, and I found it strange, the things they could go on about. How this one had the most adorable ears, how that one couldn’t abide a radish. Sometimes we went with the young men to a concert or a show of some kind, but I often wished myself home by the fire with a book in my hands, half listening for the stumbling sounds of my father’s footsteps.

  But then my father dropped like a stone, dead, they said, before he hit the ground. Rain dripped from the trees the day we buried him, a few friends from the shipyard, a distant aunt, and William, who held my arm and took me out to supper. His shiny boots were splashed with mud, like the hem of my dress. Now you are all alone, he said, like me. It was the way he spoke of himself; he’d been making his own way since he was a boy of eleven or twelve, although he had parents somewhere, and brothers and sisters and cousins. The knives were dull and a piece of meat shot from his plate; he bent to the floor and when he sat up again his cheeks were flushed. I think we should marry, he said. I think that would be best.

  Bathe the feet in water as hot as it can be borne, until they glow. This may be necessary hourly for 2 to 3 days. At the same time apply towels wrung out of ice water to the forehead and throat. Every particle of the false membrane should be charred and removed at each sitting.

  What we would have done without Bessie those weeks after Sadie was born, I don’t know. She was a good baby—I knew how good once Tom came, but she was a great mystery to me. I knew nothing of babies, had only seen them lying asleep in a cradle, or in someone’s arms in a shop or on the street. And William was just as baffled; he said he remembered nothing from his early life, from the birth of brothers and sisters, nothing but the thick piece of leather hanging by the door.

  • • •

  Sadie loved to draw. I saved all the paper wrappings when I went to the shop and she could sit for hours at our table, lost, with one hand splayed on her forehead, pushing her hair up. She liked to draw the rivers and fields William told her about and she liked to draw all of us, standing together. What are those, I said, pointing to some lines arching over us, and she said, Those are the trees, and those are the boys in the trees. She left her pictures on the table with William’s knife and plate; they were all asleep nights he came home but on early Saturdays they’d wait for him at the top of the stair, sitting close together with Tom in the middle, his knees jigging up and down.

  They resembled each other so much, my children, but of course they were nothing the same. Willie was worried all his life; that look he had when he was born never really left him. As a baby he would lie quite still and stare at the cracked ceiling, and he was slow to talk, so different from his sister. Sadie was not yet a year when she looked at me and said, Mama, and I can still see the dress she was wearing, still feel the chill in my fingertips, for it was the end of a cold winter. I scooped her u
p and held her so tight. I often thought, when Sadie was small, how I had my own mother until I was almost three. I thought of the things Sadie and I said to each other, of the shape of our days, the little games we played, and I couldn’t believe that if I were to die, she would keep nothing of that. What Tom said first I don’t remember; he made noise from the minute he was born, and at some point it turned into words. Without the cordial I don’t know how I would have lived through his first year, how either of us would.

  Carbolic Acid gtt xxxij

  Chlorate of Potash 3iij

  Glycerine 3iij

  Water 3v

  William loved Sadie, she was always his special girl, but he had such pride in his sons. Sometimes he had to go back to the Works for some reason and would take them with him, Tom in his arms and Willie trotting beside, and he let them sit on his high stool and once Mr. Keele was there, and said they were fine fellows. Sometimes on a Sunday he took them down to the docks to see the big ships while Sadie and I swept out our rooms, and coming home Tom said he was going to be a sea captain and sail all around the world. On Saturdays William always had something in his pockets and the one after that he had a sailor’s cap for Tom; it was big and drooped over his left eye but he didn’t take it off for weeks, not even to sleep. How much did that cost, I said, but he said what he always did, that it wasn’t my concern. When we married I thought we might live in my father’s house but it seemed he had borrowed against it, and had other debts besides, so there was nothing left. When William was moved to the office he got a little rise but most of it went on our bigger rooms and he still wore the cracked, shined boots he’d had when I met him. But on Saturdays there was always something in his pockets and sometimes things I knew we couldn’t afford. A spyglass for Willie, three sheets of fine paper for Sadie. Once I said, sharpish, that maybe we could have meat twice in the week if there was so much money to spare.