Crow Lake

by Mary Lawson

  Daniel was swatting blackflies again. Matt grinned, walking beside him. “You’ll have to come back in a month or so. Then we can introduce you to the mosquitoes as well.”

  “Why is it just me?” Daniel said, smashing himself on the neck. “What’s the matter with you guys?”

  “They’re tired of us. We’ve got something in the house you can douse yourself with.”

  Matt seemed much older than Daniel, when I looked at them together. Of course, he is older—he’s thirty-seven and Daniel’s thirty-four—but the difference seemed much greater than that. It’s not physical, exactly—in fact he looks a good deal fitter than Daniel, and he has significantly more hair. But his face seems to have many more years of experience in it, somehow. Also, there is a quietness about Matt. There was even when he was a boy, and it made him seem older than he was even then.

  “Did you have a good trip?” Marie said, though the question had already been asked.

  “Great, thanks.”

  “Everybody’s dying to see you.” She gave me her shy smile. She has changed very little over the years. If anything, her looks have improved. She still comes across as anxious, but her eyes are less fearful now. The five of us began walking toward the house, Simon in the lead. “Bo and Luke are coming over later,” Marie said. “We said come for supper, but they said no, they’d just come for a chat.”

  “They’ll make it in time for dessert,” Simon said. “At least Luke will.”

  “Well there’s plenty,” Marie said mildly.

  “Luke’s in a bad way at the moment,” Simon said, turning around and grinning at us. “He’s started teaching Bo to drive again.”

  “Really?” I said. “She’s worn him down at last then.”

  “This is the third attempt,” Matt explained to Daniel. “He started to teach her about five years ago, when Bo was sixteen, and it wasn’t what you’d call a success. So they had a break and then tried again about two years later. I think that attempt only lasted about ten minutes. Bo’s attitude to driving is …” he made circular motions with his hands, searching for the right word— “casual. A combination of casual and overconfident. Luke found it a bit stressful.”

  “That’s an understatement,” Simon said. “He was a broken man.”

  Simon, I recalled, had passed his test the day he turned sixteen. It was virtually the only thing he could lord it over Bo about—she is three years his senior and has done everything first—and he made the most of it.

  “Well I don’t think you should tease her,” Marie said. “I’m sure she’ll do really well this time.” She turned to me. “Mrs. Stanovich is dying to see you. She’s coming tomorrow, of course, to the party. And Miss Carrington. She’s coming too.”

  “All the old crowd,” I said. Simon dropped back to be with the men. Matt was pointing something out to Daniel. I heard him say, “Over the top of the house.” I looked, and there were half a dozen little brown bats darting silently back and forth, as if they were knitting together pieces of blue-black sky. All three men stopped to watch them, heads back.

  “And the Tadworths, of course,” Marie was saying. “And Simon’s friends from school.”

  I turned my attention back to her. Marie has no interest in bats, just as she has no interest in ponds.

  “What time is everyone arriving?” I said.

  “About noon.”

  “Sounds good. We’ll have the morning to prepare. Is there much to do?”

  “Not much. A few desserts, that’s all.”

  “I bet you’ve been cooking for weeks.”

  “Oh well, you know. I have the freezer, and it’s good to have some things prepared ahead.”

  That is what we do, Marie and I. We stick to practicalities. What time are we doing this? Where would you like me to put that? What a nice vase—where did you get it? Should I peel the potatoes?

  Luke and Bo arrived as Marie was cutting the first slice of cheesecake.

  “You’re here!” Simon said. “What timing!”

  “Just thought we’d wander over,” Luke said, putting his hands on my shoulders and squeezing gently. “Say hello to the stranger. Strangers,” he amended, seeing Daniel and stretching out his hand. Daniel stood up, and they shook hands over the table. “Glad you could come,” Luke said. “I’m Luke. This is Bo.”

  “Daniel,” said Daniel.

  “Hi,” said Bo. “I’ve brought a Bavarian torte.” She dumped it down on the table.

  Marie said, “Oh, how lovely. Is it for tomorrow?”

  “There’s another for tomorrow. This is for tonight. By the way, did you know Mrs. Stanovich has made a birthday cake? Giant thing. Three tiers and a little sugared Simon on the top.”

  “Yes,” Marie said. “I know you’ve made one, but she wanted to, and I thought, well, I’m sure we’ll eat both.”

  “Oh sure,” Bo said cheerfully. “No problem. I just didn’t know if you knew. Simon will eat both all by his little self. How are you, Little One? How does it feel to be nearly grown up?” She patted Simon on the head. He grabbed at her wrist but she eluded him serenely. “Hi, Kate.” She bent and kissed my cheek. “You look elegant. Thin though.”

  She herself looked wonderful. She is an Amazon, my sister, tall and blond and beautiful as a warrior. Simon wouldn’t stand a chance against her in a fair fight. In fact I suspect she could give even Luke a run for his money, though he was looking pretty fit himself. Nowadays every time I see Luke I am amazed all over again at how handsome he is. I never realized it as a child. He’s nearly thirty-nine and he just keeps getting better. Eat your heart out, Sally McLean.

  Matt said, “Sit down, you lot. Have some cheesecake and some of Bo’s mud pie. Go ahead, Marie, dole it out.”

  Luke collapsed into a chair. I saw Simon grinning at him and forming a question about driving lessons, but Marie saw it too and inclined her head at him warningly, and he subsided.

  “Did you have a good trip?” Luke asked. “Before I forget, Laura Carrington sends her regards—she’ll be here tomorrow. How’s the big city? You’re having another mail strike, I hear.”

  “Aren’t we always?” I said. “Thanks, Marie, could I have a bit of each?”

  Bo sat down beside me. “I need to fill you in on all the gossip,” she said. “What don’t you know?”

  “I’m not sure.”

  “Did you know Janie Mitchell—well, Janie Laplant as she is now—is getting divorced? So actually she won’t be Janie Laplant any more, she’ll be Janie Mitchell.”

  “I don’t think I knew she’d become Janie Laplant.”

  “You did. I told you. Did you know Mrs. Stanovich is a great-grandmother again?”

  “I think I did know that.”

  “You’re thinking of the last one. This one only arrived last Sunday. Did you know Mr. Janie’s dairy herd had won a prize? Or at least Ophelia won a prize. She produces more milk than any other cow in North America. Or maybe it’s just in Struan County.”

  Marie said, “Daniel? Cheesecake or Bavarian torte?”

  Daniel was looking a bit dazed, due either to Bo or to the noise. He said, “Um, both please.”

  Luke was saying, “… so he bought the whole island. He’s building this massive hunting lodge. Reckons rich Americans are going to come in their millions.”

  “He thinks they’re going to drive all the way up here?” Simon said.

  “He’ll fly them in. Seaplanes.”

  Matt said solemnly, “Experience the Breathtaking Beauty of the Canadian Wilderness. Witness the …” He groped for words.

  “Wild Savagery?” Simon suggested, equally solemn. “Untamed Splendour?”

  “Both of those. Witness the Wild Savagery of the Raging Rivers. Contemplate the Untamed Splendour of the Forests. See the Awesome Spectacle of …”

  “How about ‘Thrill to’?”

  “Thrill to the Awesome Spectacle of the Massive Moose …”

  “Or Mammoth Moose …”

  “Mighty Moose …”<
br />
  “Jim Sumack reckons he’s going to grow his hair and stick feathers in it and hire himself out as a guide,” Luke said. “Make his fortune. I’m hoping they’re going to need a very large amount of rustic furniture. Oh, thanks, Marie. A bit of both.”

  “Do you think they will?”

  “Well they’re going to need furniture from somewhere. Save them money if they don’t have to ship it in.”

  “Endure the Rugged Grandeur of Luke’s Rustic Furniture …”

  Marie said, “Bo? Cheesecake or Bavarian torte?”

  Her cheeks were flushed, but now that the pressures of company-for-dinner were nearly over she looked less tense than she had earlier. In fact, as she hovered hopefully over the desserts with her cake knife, it seemed to me that she looked almost content.

  I thought, Do you forget it all, then? Living here, in this house which saw such terrible things, do you somehow manage simply not to think about it? Is that how you go on?

  That night—that memorable September night—it was Luke, stunned and disbelieving though he was, who took charge. Matt wasn’t in a state to do anything. I remember him standing with Marie. They were outside still, and she was still sobbing with terror. He was holding her, helplessly, helplessness in every line of his body. I remember Luke going out to them and bringing them both in. He tried to calm Marie down, but she was beside herself with fear. I don’t think she even knew Luke and I were there. She kept saying to Matt, “Matt, I’m two months late. I’m sick every morning and I’m two months late. Matt, he’ll kill me. Oh God, he’ll kill me.”

  Luke said, “Okay, Marie, calm down,” but she couldn’t. He himself had the look of someone who had just woken up and didn’t know where he was. He said, “Kate, go put the kettle on. Make her some tea or something.” So I went and put the kettle on, but then I went right back.

  Marie was still clinging onto Matt, and Luke was trying to talk to her. He said, “Marie? I’ve got to ask you something. You said he killed Laurie. What did you mean? Marie, listen to me. Who killed Laurie?”

  Matt said, “Leave her, Luke.” It was the first time he’d spoken since she’d started her outburst. His voice was hoarse and unsteady.

  Luke said, “No, we’ve got to know. Marie? Who killed Laurie? Was it your dad?”

  Matt said, “I said leave her! Jesus Christ! Can’t you see the state she’s in?”

  Luke didn’t look at him. He couldn’t look at him. He kept his eyes on Marie. He said quietly, “I see the state she’s in all right. Are you saying we should calm her down and send her home to her father?”

  Matt stared at him, but Luke wouldn’t meet his eyes. He said, “Marie, you’ve got to tell us. Did your father kill Laurie?”

  She looked at him. You could see her focus on him and figure out who he was. She whispered, “Yes.”

  “Are you sure? Did you see it happen?”

  “Yes.”

  “But Laurie ran away, Marie. Matt saw him go.”

  Her eyes were huge in the whiteness of her face. She said, “He came back. It was cold. He came back for his coat, and my dad caught him, and he took him into the barn. We tried to stop him but we couldn’t, and he hit him, and Laurie hit him back, so then he hit him and hit him, and Laurie fell, and he hit his head, and there was blood, and there was blood …”

  Luke said, “Okay, okay, Marie.”

  “… and there was blood, and …”

  Luke said to Matt, without looking at him, “Take her into the other room.”

  “What are you going to do?”

  “I’m going to call Dr. Christopherson, and then I’m going to call the police.”

  Marie gave another cry. She said, “He didn’t mean to kill him! He was hitting him, and we were trying to stop him, and he was hitting him, and Laurie fell! He hit his head on the blade of the plough! Oh God, oh God, don’t call the police! He’ll kill me!”

  Luke said, “Take her into the other room.”

  Marie said, “No! No! Oh please! Oh please don’t, he’ll kill us all! He’ll kill my mother! He’ll kill us all!”

  Matt couldn’t move, so Luke brushed him aside and picked her up and though she was screaming and fighting him, he carried her into the other room, with Matt trailing helplessly behind. He said to Matt, “Keep her here.” And then he came back and called Dr. Christopherson and the police.

  Calvin Pye killed himself three hours later.

  The police had driven out from Struan and had come first to our house to talk to Marie, in the presence of Dr. Christopherson. From there they went to the farm. Calvin himself opened the door to them. When they said that they had come to ask him a few questions about Laurie’s disappearance, he said, fine, but could he just go and tell his wife because she’d be wondering who was at the door. They said yes, and waited uneasily on the doorstep. Almost at once there was a shot. Calvin kept a loaded shotgun above the fireplace in the living room and he shot himself right there, in front of Mrs. Pye, before she had time to get out of her chair. Rosie, fortunately, was asleep upstairs.

  Calvin died without saying where Laurie’s body was, and neither Marie nor her mother knew. It took the police two weeks to find it, and they discovered it then only because of a combination of a dry summer and a peculiar chance. Calvin had put Laurie’s body in an old feed sack, weighted with rocks, and dropped the sack into one of the ponds. The pond he chose—not the one closest to the farm, and not “our” pond, but one of the deeper ones in between—was steep-sided, and the sack would have sunk a good twenty feet except that it snagged on a jutting piece of rock. By October, when the water level was at its lowest, the top of the sack was just visible below the surface.

  Dr. Christopherson took Mrs. Pye to the mental hospital in St. Thomas two days after Laurie’s body was found. She died within a year of no disease anyone could put a name to. Rosie was sent to her mother’s relatives in New Liskeard. I know Marie tried to keep in touch with her, but Rosie never really mastered the art of writing, so it was difficult. She married very young and moved out of the area. Whether Marie knows where she is now, I’ve never liked to ask.

  Matt and Marie married in October, and Matt took over the farm. I’m sure it was the last thing in the world either of them wanted to do.

  The week before the wedding, when the police had finished all their investigations and no longer needed access to the barn where Laurie had died, Matt burned it down. That act was his wedding present to Marie. Luke helped him build a new one. That was his wedding present to the two of them.

  Simon was born the following April. It was a difficult birth, and as a consequence Marie has been unable to have more children.

  chapter

  TWENTY-FOUR

  I was awakened about five in the morning by the tractor starting up. Daniel snorted and opened his eyes and said, “What the hell was that?” and I said, “The tractor,” but he was already asleep again.

  I lay for a while, missing the sound of the lake. Normally, as I said, I stay with Luke and Bo when I come home, and the quiet slow hush, hush of the waves is the last and first thing I hear every day. Here it was farmyard noises instead. And the sound of Daniel breathing beside me.

  There had been, as I had known there would be, a moment’s embarrassment the night before about the sleeping arrangements. After the clearing up was done, when Luke and Bo had gone and Simon had said goodnight and gone off upstairs, I’d overheard Marie, who was still in the kitchen with Matt, say, “Well you ask her. I can’t ask her.” And a moment later Matt came into the living room looking uncomfortable.

  But I’d anticipated it and worked out what to say. I could have suggested separate rooms just to save embarrassment. Daniel would have gone along with it, though he wouldn’t have understood why. But although I had not wanted him to come, granted that he was here I found that I wanted him beside me. I wanted him to be a buffer between me and the rest of them. He was my present. If he was there, then perhaps the past would not spread out in the night and o
verwhelm me. Besides, I thought, a shade defiantly, what right had Matt, of all people, to pass judgment? Silly, I know. It would never occur to him to judge me.

  So when he came into the living room examining a small scratch on his hand with unusual interest I said casually, “I think it’s about time we went up too, Matt. Where do you want us? The front bedroom?” I knew the layout of the upstairs and knew that apart from Matt and Marie’s room, the front room was the only one with a double bed. And Matt looked relieved and said, “Yes, sure. That would be fine.”

  We took our bags up, undressed, and climbed into the big loose-sprung double bed. I was expecting Daniel to keep me awake half the night dissecting my family, but he must have been worn out by the Untamed Splendour of the Wilderness because after telling me that I hadn’t described them properly at all, he almost instantly fell asleep. I lay awake for half an hour or so, listening to the movements of the house and thinking about things long gone, and finally fell into sleep like falling into a pit, and didn’t wake until the tractor roared.

  For a while after that I lay awake, trying not to think too much about the room we were in. It was the largest bedroom in the house and in the best position, overlooking the farmyard. It must have been Mr. and Mrs. Pye’s room—otherwise Matt and Marie would have used it. It was what Miss Vernon would have called handsome: well proportioned, with screened windows on two sides. Matt and Marie used a room at the side of the house and Simon had a smaller one beside the bathroom. There were three other bedrooms, one of them furnished with bunks, one with a desk for the farm accounts, and the other used as a storeroom. Apart from the bunks, which were built in, I was pretty sure that most of the furniture in the house postdated the Pyes. I imagine Matt and Marie got rid of everything they could, and replaced things slowly, when they could afford to. They’d want as little to remind them of the past as possible.

  I lay halfway between sleep and wakefulness, thinking dimly that even so, you would expect there to be a lingering atmosphere of despair in the house, and yet, somehow, there didn’t seem to be. And then I must have fallen asleep again, because the next thing I heard was the tractor coming back and Matt and Simon talking in low voices out in the yard. It was seven o’clock, so I prodded Daniel and got up.