Crow Lake

by Mary Lawson

  “You scared them all away,” Matt said.

  “No fish!” she said. She was incredulous and grief-stricken, and her face caved in and the tears started to roll.

  “Cut it out, Bo. Just stay still and they’ll come back.”

  She looked at him doubtfully and stuck her thumb in, but then squatted down again. After a minute, while Matt talked to her to keep her still, a small stickleback drifted toward us.

  “There he is,” Matt whispered.

  And Bo leapt up in excitement, stepped on the dangling tail of her diaper, and fell in.

  On the way back along the railway tracks, we met Marie Pye, carrying a bag of groceries in each arm. The Pyes’ farm was back beyond the gravel pits—in fact, the land the pits were on belonged to them—and the tracks were a shorter route to the McLeans’ store than the road. Matt slowed down as she came toward us, and Marie did likewise, and then she stopped and let us come up.

  “Hi, Marie,” Matt said, shifting Bo a little on his shoulders.

  “Hi,” Marie said nervously. She glanced past us in the direction of the farm as if she expected her father to come raging up the path from the gravel pits to tell her off. My mother had said once that Marie was the only normal member of that whole sorry family, but she looked just as twitchy as the rest of them to me. She was big-boned and strong-looking, but pale, with a halo of fine pale hair and wide anxious eyes. She and Matt must have known each other quite well—or at least for quite a long time. Marie was a year older, but Matt had skipped a grade, so they’d been in the same class at school. And they’d have seen each other, if only from a distance, when he was working for her father.

  This was the first time they’d met since the funeral though, and neither of them seemed to know what to say. I couldn’t see why they needed to say anything. I was tired and wanted to go home.

  “Bo’s been fishing,” Matt said at last, jerking his head back against Bo’s belly.

  Marie looked at Bo, who was soaking wet and covered in pond weed, and smiled uncertainly. Then she looked back at Matt, and flushed, and said all in a hurry, “I—I was really sorry about your parents.”

  “Yeah,” Matt said. “Thanks.”

  “Do you … do you know what you’re going to do? What’s going to happen?”

  “Not yet. We should find out—” He stopped, and though I wasn’t looking at him, I knew that he had nodded at me.

  “Oh,” Marie said. “Anyway, I’m really sorry.”

  We stood for a minute more, and then Marie looked at Bo and me and smiled vaguely.

  “Well, bye,” she said.

  We walked on. I thought, What’s going to happen? Is something else going to happen? What didn’t he know yet? What’s going to happen? Something so bad that he wouldn’t talk about it in front of me.

  We came to the path which led from the tracks down into the woods. Once we were there, protected by the dark privacy of the trees, I tried to ask him. I opened my mouth, but the need not to know was greater than the need to know, and I couldn’t say anything. Then the paralysis of my brain affected my feet and I came to a halt. Matt turned and looked at me.

  “Got something in your shoe?”

  I said, “What did she mean?” and my breath came out in little jerks.

  “Who?”

  “Marie. When she asked you what was going to happen. What did she mean?”

  He didn’t reply for a minute. Bo was examining his hair, lifting long strands of it straight out from his head and crooning over it. His shirt was as wet and pond-weedy as she was.

  I said, “What did she—” and then all at once I was crying, standing there, straight and still with my arms at my sides. Matt put Bo down and knelt and took my shoulders.

  “Katie! Katie, what is it?”

  “What did she mean? What’s going to happen? What did she mean?”

  “Katie, it’s going to be all right. We’ll be looked after. Aunt Annie is arranging it.”

  “Then what did she mean? You said you didn’t know yet. What don’t you know?”

  He took a deep breath, then let it out. “The thing is, Katie, we won’t be able to stay here. We’ll have to go and live with the family.”

  “Isn’t Aunt Annie coming to live with us?”

  “No. She can’t. She has her parents to look after, and she works on the farm. She’s too busy.”

  “Who then? Who are we going to?”

  “I don’t know yet. That’s what I don’t know. But whoever it is, it will be all right. They’ll be nice. The whole family is nice.”

  “I want to live here. I don’t want to leave here. I want Luke and you to look after us. Why can’t Luke and you look after us?”

  “It costs money to look after people, Kate. We wouldn’t have any money to live on. Look, you mustn’t worry. It’ll be all right. That’s why Aunt Annie is here. To arrange things. It’ll be all right. You’ll see.”

  Luke and Aunt Annie got back from town just after five. Aunt Annie asked us to come and sit down in the living room, which we did, all but Luke, who stood looking out of the window at the lake. Aunt Annie sat very straight in her chair and told us the following:

  That our father had left some money, but not much.

  That from the lawyer’s office she had made a number of phone calls to the rest of the family, and it had been agreed that Luke should go to teachers’ college as planned. It would use up most of the money, but everyone felt that it was what our parents would have wished.

  That when it came to the rest of us … here Aunt Annie, for all her straight back, had some difficulty. She looked away, then looked back, her eyes skating over Matt and me and finally coming to rest on Bo … when it came to the rest of us, unfortunately none of the various branches of the family was in a position to take on three extra children. Indeed, financial circumstances were such that none of them could afford to take on even two. Therefore, in order to keep at least Bo and me together, it had been decided that if Matt were willing, he would go back with her to the farm. He would be an asset there, and the money he earned would go toward supporting his sisters. Luke, it was hoped, would be able to contribute as soon as he had qualified and found a job. In the meantime, Matt’s earnings, plus contributions from the rest of the family, would enable Aunt Emily and Uncle Ian, who lived in Rivière-du-Loup and who had four children of their own, to take in Bo and me.

  chapter

  FIVE

  You see the suffering of children all the time nowadays. Wars and famines are played out before us in our living rooms, and almost every week there are pictures of children who have been through unimaginable loss and horror. Mostly they look very calm. You see them looking into the camera, directly at the lens, and knowing what they have been through you expect to see terror or grief in their eyes, yet often there’s no visible emotion at all. They look so blank it would be easy to imagine that they weren’t feeling much.

  And though I do not for a moment equate what I went through with the suffering of those children, I do remember feeling as they look. I remember Matt talking to me—others as well, but mostly Matt—and I remember the enormous effort required even to hear what he said. I was so swamped by unmanageable emotions that I couldn’t feel a thing. It was like being at the bottom of the sea.

  “Kate?”

  I was looking at his knees. My knees were thin and brown and knobbled. Matt’s, extending from his shorts, were at least twice as big around.

  “Kate?”

  “What?”

  “Are you listening?”

  “Yes.”

  “Look at the map. It isn’t far, see? I’ll be able to come and visit you. It isn’t all that far. D’you see?”

  There were fewer hairs on his knees than on his thighs or calves, and the skin was different. Creased, from bending. I had no hairs on my knees at all, and the creases were smaller.

  “Look at this, Kate.”

  We spent a lot of time here, sitting on the sofa. He and Luke were worki
ng for Mr. Pye again, but in the evenings he took me back to the ponds, or if it was raining or too late to go to the ponds, he sat with me and talked about what our new lives would be like and how we would get together. I listened. Or I tried to listen. But there was a whirlwind howling through me, and it made it difficult to hear.

  “We can work it out,” Matt said. “There’s a scale here, see? It tells you how many miles to an inch.”

  It wasn’t a very good map. New Richmond, which was the nearest town to Aunt Annie’s farm, wasn’t marked on it, but Matt had asked Aunt Annie to show us where it was and then he took a pen, and although you weren’t ever supposed to write in books he put a dot in the right place and then printed the name, New Richmond, very neatly beside it.

  We were all to stay on in Crow Lake until Luke went to college and then the four of us, Aunt Annie, Matt, Bo, and myself, would travel east together. Matt and Aunt Annie would come to Rivière-du-Loup with Bo and me and stay there with us for three days while Bo and I got used to our new home. Then they would leave us, and travel on to Aunt Annie’s farm.

  In the meantime, Calvin Pye was desperate for help and Aunt Annie said there was no reason why the boys shouldn’t earn a bit of money. She did not intend me to hear her tell them that it would also help Bo and me get used to not having them around.

  “Put your thumb against the scale, Kate. That’s right. Now look. That first joint of your thumb, from there to there, is about a hundred miles. See? Now lay it against the map. Look at that. It’s not much more than a hundred miles, is it? A hundred and fifty at the most. I’ll be able to visit you easily.”

  He talked, and the whirlwind howled.

  “Who’s this?” Aunt Annie said. “Kate? Who’s this coming down the drive?”

  “Miss Carrington.”

  “And who is Miss Carrington?”

  “My teacher.”

  “Oh,” Aunt Annie said, sounding interested. “She looks young to be a teacher.”

  We were sitting on the veranda, topping beans. Aunt Annie was of the school which believed that useful work was the best remedy for any ill. She made me talk. She was better at it than Matt because she was more ruthless.

  “Is she a good teacher? Do you like her?”

  “Yes.”

  “What do you like about her?” Blank silence.

  “Kate? What do you like about Miss Carrington?”

  “She’s nice.”

  And then I was spared any more questions because Miss Carrington was too close.

  “Hello,” Aunt Annie said, putting down her basket of beans and standing up to greet her. “I understand you’re Kate’s teacher. I’m Annie Morrison.”

  They shook hands, rather formally. Aunt Annie said, “Would you like a cold drink? Or tea? You’ve walked from the village?”

  “Yes,” Miss Carrington said. “Thank you. I’d love some tea. Hello, Kate. I see you’re hard at work.” She gave me a faint smile, and I saw that she was nervous. I wasn’t noticing much, those days, but I noticed that because it was so unusual.

  “Kate, do you think you could make us a pot of tea?” Aunt Annie asked. “You could use the best china, don’t you think? As it’s Miss Carrington?” She smiled at Miss Carrington and said, “Kate makes the best pot of tea of anyone I know.”

  I got up and went into the house and put the kettle on. The house was very quiet. Bo was in our bedroom— Aunt Annie had put her there for her afternoon nap and Bo had roared her head off, but now she seemed to have gone to sleep.

  While the kettle was boiling I climbed onto a chair and got down my mother’s best teapot from the high shelf in the kitchen. The pot was round and smooth and a rich cream colour and had a branch of an apple tree painted on it, with several dark green leaves and two very red apples. The apples were not only painted but were raised, so that you could feel their roundness with your hands. There was a small cream jug and a covered sugar bowl to go with it, and six cups and six saucers and six little plates, all of them with apples on and none of them with chips. Aunt Annie had told me that the tea service was a wedding present to my parents from a lady in New Richmond and that it would be mine when I was older, but that I could use it now, if I liked, when especially important people came to call. I knew I was supposed to be pleased.

  I warmed the pot and made the tea. I put the pot on the best tray and covered it with the tea cozy. I set out two cups and saucers, the milk and sugar, and carried it carefully to the door. I could see Miss Carrington and Aunt Annie through the screen door. Miss Carrington was saying, “I hope you won’t mind, Miss Morrison. I hope you won’t take it amiss.”

  Aunt Annie saw me and got up to open the door for me.

  She said, “Thank you Kate. You’ve set things out very nicely. Now then, Miss Carrington and I have things to discuss. Do you think you could take the beans into the kitchen and finish them for me? Or take them to the beach, if you prefer. Which would you prefer?”

  “The beach,” I said, not caring one way or the other. I gathered up the beans and the pot and the knife and walked down the veranda steps and around the corner of the house. Just around the corner I dropped the knife. It must have been right at my feet, but the grass was long and I couldn’t see it. I carefully combed the grass with my toes, holding the beans and their pot out to the side, and I heard Miss Carrington say, “I realize it’s none of my business, but I felt I had to speak. They’re all bright children, of course, but Matt is more than that. He has a love of learning—he is a scholar, Miss Morrison. A natural scholar. He is the cleverest child I have ever taught. Much the cleverest. And he has only the one year of high school left—”

  “Two years, surely,” Aunt Annie said.

  “No, just one. He skipped a grade, you see. So although he’s two years younger than Luke, he’s only one year behind. He’ll take his exams next spring. And he will win a scholarship to university. Certainly. Beyond any question.”

  There was silence. My toes came up against something cool and hard. I bent down and picked up the knife.

  Aunt Annie said, “Would it cover everything? All of his living expenses? His lodgings?”

  “Well no. But it would cover his tuition. And something could be sorted out about his lodgings. I’m sure it could. I’m sure some way could be found. Miss Morrison, I do apologize for pressing this, but you must understand—it would be a tragedy if Matt did not go to university. Genuinely it would be a tragedy.”

  After a minute Aunt Annie said gently, “Miss Carrington, a worse tragedy than that has already taken place here.”

  “I know! Oh my goodness, I realize that! But that is why it seems so wrong that this double blow should fall on Matt!”

  Silence. A sigh from Aunt Annie. Finally, her tone still gentle, she said, “I don’t think you quite understand the position. We would help Matt if we possibly could. We would help all the children. But there is no money. I realize that sounds unlikely, but that is the case. The last five years—six years—have been very hard for all the farms in the Gaspé. Both of my brothers are in debt. My father is in debt. At the end of his life, he is in debt, and he has never owed a penny before.”

  “But this house—”

  “The money from this house, together with what Robert left, will see Luke through teachers’ college and provide a very small sum to give to each of the others when they reach twenty-one. A very small sum. We could not in all conscience deprive the girls of that in order that Matt go to university. And in any case there would not be enough.”

  “But surely—”

  “Miss Carrington, please listen. I should not tell you this, it is most … inappropriate … but I want you to understand. I appreciate your concern for Matt and I want you to understand how … painful this is for the family. The reason Robert left so little is that he has been helping out the rest of us. He felt he was beholden to us, you see. My brothers sacrificed so that he could have his chance, and he took the chance and he did very well, so of course when things went ba
dly for us, he felt he had to help out. Which was very generous of him. And of course he could not know that his children—he would have assumed a good salary coming in for years to come.”

  There was silence. I prodded at the beans with my knife.

  Miss Carrington said bleakly, “A tragedy then. As you say.”

  “I’m afraid so.”

  “You couldn’t—you couldn’t at least let him finish high school. Miss Morrison, he deserves at least to finish high school.”

  “My dear, my sister—not the one who is taking Kate and Elizabeth—has four sons, all of whom deserved to finish high school, all of whom deserved to go to university, come to that. They are clever boys. It is, I believe, a clever family. But they are all on the fishing boats now. There is no future for them even on the farm. And you might well call it a tragedy, but it is one that most of the world is familiar with. To be honest with you, I feel far worse about having to split up those children than I do about Matt not finishing high school. He has more education than most already.”

  More silence. I imagined Miss Carrington, her mouth gone thin, as it did in class when she was cross.

  Aunt Annie said, “We should count our blessings, you know. The children could have been in that car.”

  I made my way down to the beach. When I had finished topping the beans, I sat for a bit, watching the waves, listening to their steady swish. Their sound, in all its variety, had been the background to my life. From the moment of my birth, I had never been without it.

  After a while I picked up the knife again and pressed the point against my finger. It dented the skin, and then a small drop of dark glistening blood welled out. It hardly hurt at all.

  chapter

  SIX

  Oh, the chances, the fragile little incidents which determine the course of our lives. If I say my life took a certain course because my parents died, well, that is understandable, that is a major event, that would shape anyone’s future. But if I say my life took a certain course because Miss Carrington came that day, and I dropped a knife, and Matt, a few hours later, still wretchedly trying to help me, persisted in asking me questions, and Luke happened to be there at the time, trying to read the paper, and Bo was screaming …