Anna From Away

by D. R. MacDonald

  “Let’s hope he didn’t fall overboard along with it,” Anna said.

  “Or she,” Murdock said. “You collect things off the beach, do you?”

  “I’m afraid so.”

  “Come inside, I’ll show you mine.”

  Red Murdock conducted her through his collection of beach-combed objects. Bottles, some from the shore, others from ash pits, he had blended along a wide windowsill, shades from a bitters molasses brown rising to an old golden beer bottle, an aqua cough syrup beginning a run of blue that concluded in a cobalt jar.

  “My grandfather was great for the patent medicines,” he said. “Any with alcohol.” Rosaire had laughed, surveying the glassware arranged to catch the sun, and flowers in season in the now-empty vases, columbine and lady’s mantle and early lilies, Oh, Murdock, aren’t you the bowerbird! In her own house, she’d have candles lit when he came in the evening, such a comfortable light around her.

  Anna aimed at the sea a pair of German binoculars, the lenses clouded with mist. There was also a seized-up clock, its face gone but revealing a rich collection of brass gears and wheels. A carbide miner’s lamp, its brass polished, sat in the bight of a small harpoon. She picked up a large white conch.“That’s my granny’s. She’d blow that when she wanted us. It carries a long way, if you know how, we had our signals.”

  “Your things are far more interesting than mine,” she said.

  “These are culled. Not long since you’ve been at it, wait till summer.”

  “Wait is the word, I guess. Where’s the spring, Murdock?”

  “You’re in it, but once it turns, it turns quickly. Buds on the trees, if you look close. New grass just poking up in the old.”

  He couldn’t remember when he’d last had a woman in. Breagh probably. “You’re in good trim again? I should have doubled back on you after your accident, but Breagh told me you were coming along and …”

  “I’m fine, Murdock. You got me through the worst of it.”

  She said she’d like to see his forge but he said they’d have tea first, and he laid out bannock and tinned salmon and blueberry jam from last summer, a pot of tea. She had questions, once they warmed up with each other, about the old house and its idiosyncrasies (yes, when the wind is sou’west, you get that kind of howl in the chimney, scared the hell out of me when I was a boy), about his work (I did all kinds of carpentry once, but mostly finish now, cabinets and furniture and the like), about living since birth, as he had, with the sea to his back (Oh, I was cradled here, when I woke up, when I lay down, it shaped my mind, no doubt about that. Funny though how we all like the water).

  He was enjoying her there, across his table, her lively smile, her interest in what was his, in him. But Anna Starling was not a solitary woman anymore, she’d had a man in her house. Beyond this friendly acquaintance, he did not want to feel anything more for a woman. The way Rosaire died had exhausted him, she could not even speak at the end. Anna glanced at a framed picture on the wall—displayed there because in this room he did most of his living—Rosaire hugging his neck, both of them laughing. He could remember every little thing they had done that day and into the night, and what she wore, the smell of her perfume, the way she felt in his arms, the whisper of her voice.

  But he only said, “She was my woman.”

  “Ah,” Anna said, “she’s pretty.”

  “She was,” he said, looking away.

  “She was, yes.”

  “Breagh is very pretty, isn’t she?” Anna said, sensing his unease.

  “I’m not keen on some of her men. I’ve said so and I guess I shouldn’t.”

  “Livingstone Campbell I know a little,” Anna said, carefully, wanting another take on him besides her own. “I haven’t met any others.”

  “Aren’t many others.” Murdock frowned. “He’s from a good family, across the water there, St. Aubin. Related to David Livingstone, through his mother’s side.”

  “The famous missionary? Stanley and all that?”

  “I don’t know if that matters to him. Oh, he can play music all right, good guitar. She’ll tire of him.” Yesterday Livingstone had showed up in a new car, mud-splashed, powerful. When he stepped out of it, setting his polished cowboy boots down carefully, holding his black cowboy hat against the wind, he looked, gazing through dark sunglasses, like a man dressed for a part in a movie, and Murdock didn’t like the role. They talked, as they usually did now, coolly. Tension had grown between them, he knew Murdock didn’t think him fit for Breagh. When will that damn desk be done, Murdock, supposed to be months ago? he’d said. Fancy drawers take time, Murdock told him, they’re tricky. And why so damn big? You could sleep on that. You just finish it, Murdock, I’ll worry about what to do with it, and what I sleep on. Murdock wondered how Anna knew him, in what way.“You’ve seen him perform?” she said.

  “At a dance, he’s got a little band. He was younger then, easier to like. Well, it was okay, I wasn’t struck by it. Not enough fiddle for my fancy. Little Lorna, she needs a dad, and it won’t be him. A man who can play music, you see, a woman can’t help but like him, eh? That music coming out of him, knowing it’s inside him? She thinks it might be there all the time. But no man can put music out there all the time, they forget that. No, it wears, like everything else, in the light of day. You know, she’s a smart girl altogether, but headstrong, stubborn. Not always smart about men, a little careless that way, our Breagh.”

  “She’d have her choice of them, I would think.”

  “Wouldn’t you? But who knows what goes into it.”

  “I don’t know myself sometimes.”

  “We can have a look at the forge, Anna, if that’s what you’d like. Not much to see.”

  “You mean for a woman to see?”

  He laughed. “I suppose I did.”

  “Well, Murdock, I happen to love old iron things, how they’re made, how they look, what they’re used for. Even scrap. I do metal sculptures.”

  “Don’t know as I’ve seen that.”

  “Then I’ll show you. Some wonderful old stuff in my tumbledown barn. And there are pieces of an old sleigh, I think, runners with a beautiful flourish to them, parts of a seat.”

  “A shame it went to ruin, I’d have saved it. My uncle raced that sleigh on the ice. His children let it rot.”

  “I’ll give what’s left of it another life, if your cousins don’t mind.”

  “My blessing. Who cares if they do?”

  WHATEVER SHE TOUCHED or pointed to in the forge, Murdock explained its use. She held up a large horseshoe. “Could you spare one of these?”

  “Sure, take it. There’s more in that basket. Draft horse. We always had horses, horses were the means for us, always. Even when my dad got a second-hand car finally, we still had a horse. He never used a tractor, tractors came late here if you had one at all, seems a lot of things came late to Cape Breton. The sound of horses never leaves you, you know? Horses aren’t dumb either, people say so but it isn’t true. Oh, you can make them dumb, but give them a chance. Horses, yes.”

  He told Anna she could pick out other odds and ends for sculptures, most of it wouldn’t be used anymore and better it go for that. Pleased, she gathered a pile together, put what she could carry into her backpack.

  “I’ll drop those heavier pieces by as soon as I can.”

  He took her to his workshop, where she quickly noticed the big desk.

  “That’s Livingstone’s,” he said. “Look at this.” He twisted a brass drawer pull in two directions, the hinged front dropped open and revealed a hidden compartment extending deep under the bottom. “I guess I shouldn’t have done that, it’s not a secret anymore,” but it satisfied him anyway that she knew.

  “Secrets in a drawer,” Anna said. “Those are the easy ones to keep.”

  “And these are for you,” he said, reaching for the skates.

  “Oh, how beautiful!” she said, running her finger along a blade, the oiled stocks. “You made them?”


  “For the pond, so you wouldn’t fear it anymore. Skating goes way back in time, did you know? A few thousand years ago people made skates from the bones of animals. No blades, just flat on the bottom. Skaters pushed themselves over the ice, with sticks.”

  “I’d love to wear these, I would.”

  “Maybe next winter. On new ice.”

  She touched his hand and for a moment he thought she was going to kiss him but she stepped back. “I hope I can find a way to thank you, so thoughtful of you.”

  “Don’t forget your goblet,” he said.

  “You keep it, Murdock. You like wood.”

  “I don’t drink wine.”

  “You never know, there might be an occasion.”

  “There used to be lots of them.”

  Tracing absently the smooth teak contours of the goblet, Red Murdock watched her from the workshop doorway. She leaned forward against the weight of her pack, into the swirling fog that closed around her before she reached the shore.

  She would never know that he’d stood in snow to his ankles, outside her window, his bare hands deep in his peacoat pockets, fingering a tear he’d meant to sew. The skates, wrapped in a paper bag, were tucked under his arm. The wind was sharp in his hair, he’d come without a hat because he thought he’d be inside her kitchen by then. But how could he knock on her door? He had heard the music—not his kind of music but a sort that might get you dancing anyway, he could understand that—and there she was, a shadow swaying, and he took a step toward the window to watch her, just for a minute, the pane dewed with the inside heat, Anna moving in candlelight, twirling in a yellow shawl that had belonged to his grandmother, she’d been into a drawer upstairs, but he didn’t care about that either. The wind had played across the field behind him, a zephyr of snow dusted his face and he tasted it on his tongue. She was dancing with herself, in a place of her own, he didn’t belong there. He wasn’t the man to disturb a spell like that, the skates could wait. He’d pulled the seaman’s collar up near his ears and was about to turn for home when he saw someone moving slowly toward her and back, a man dancing too. Who the hell was that? Not enough light to tell. A confusion of anger and envy rose in Murdock, but he’d turned away, that wasn’t his business, he had no right to feel as he did. But Jesus, he hoped now it wasn’t Livingstone. He slumped a bit, wondering.

  Back home, he had thought it would have to be some long, cold, hungry spell before he’d ever mention it to anyone. He had his own little boat to keep clear of the rocks, and he was rowing her hard.

  Yes, I talk to myself, and who cares? No one hears me up here. I can crisscross this place in my sleep, and I have, everywhere our people lived, steep or level, tame or wild. Gone now, all Sinclairs but me. What do they know, young bucks from town? They’ d get lost here fast, the way the woods came up since I was a boy chasing cows. I had to bully them out of the trees sometimes and scold them home. Those pals of Billy’s, down by the wharf, they think I’m some kind of hick, see, but I lived in Boston years, years, I know which track the train is on. I had to set them straight, Listen, that’s Sandy and Katie Morrison’s house you’re in, I don’t want to see it trashed, they were good people and friends of my own. What goddamn business is it of yours? says this saucy little son of a bitch, we’re paying you to keep your eyes open, if we need your advice, we’ll f-f-f-fucking ask for it, mocking me. Braying bastards. Well, here’s some advice, I says, and it’s free, and I popped him a good one right in the snout, Jesus, blood spattered out, then they were all over me, I might be a drunk but I can still give more than I get, and there’s Livingstone yelling and breaking us up, I knew his family over on the other side, good family, old family, I wouldn’t have got mixed up in this but for him. Come on, Connie, it’s easy money, he said, you just let us know when things are clear, who’s around, we’ll get it done in one night and be gone out of here. Sure, I took some lumps, things calmed down. But they got the message, Connie Sinclair won’t take shit from you, I never did and I never will. Not in my old home, buddy, not here, I don’t get pushed around here.

  PART TWO

  Whatever’s Out There

  XIV.

  BY THE TIME THE ODD RAINS BEGAN, Anna had made it through a sort of spring. After she’d called on Murdock and lugged home, like booty, the iron gifts, she had joined a few—the tongs, closed into a heart shape, and hooks and rings and chains—into a sculpture, and set it on her back porch announcing, she liked to think, a connection, a shared totem, a mysterious effigy no one could ignore: Anna Starling lives here.

  The last of the shaded snow, granular and sallow beneath trees and brush, shrank away into the black duff and the soaked, purplish carpet of last year’s leaves, nothing left of their autumn blaze. Shoots of hay, fine and wind-fanned like flames, began to green the dun fields, and although it seemed late and slow, the hardwoods lost their grey filigree of winter and joined the conifers in darkening the woods of the mountain and the hills of St. Aubin across the water, emboldening deer to come down from higher ground. A doe had peered at her out of the trees one morning, still as a tree herself, and they exchanged appraisals through the curling mist until Anna reached for her camera: a buck she could not see snorted and the doe bolted away with him, crashing out of sight. She found violets both purple and white, so pleased to see their fragile blossoms she took a bouquet to her room but they quickly wilted in a fruit jar vase.Red Murdock she did not see after he dropped off the hardware from his forge—I’m terrible busy just now, he said, I’m catching up—just his van on the highway one day. The muddy road out was pocked with teeth-jarring potholes that kept her off it as much as possible. She saw chimney smoke from his workshop when she walked the shore where she sometimes fled to evade, in its breezes, the vicious little blackflies hatching from the full brooks and streams, digging into her clothing, her hat, her hair, raising welts. In the forest of her youth, there’d been few insects, the bug-resistant redwoods were dominant and decomposed slowly, the huge old stumps sprouted ferns, their root stock sending up rings of saplings around them, the heart of new groves whose trees would never, like their unlogged forebears, reach one or two or even three millenniums.

  She was absorbed one afternoon in a soft windless forest rain that reminded her of her early home, the feel of it. There was a moist evanescence in the mosses, the rotted red marrow of a stump, a patch of black bog leaves. To add to her still lifes, she sketched the texture of aged bark and dead wood, the gnarly encrustations on windfalls.

  The skates she hung from a hall tree in her workroom as if she might, summoned by another skater, sling them over her shoulder and fly out the door. The night with Livingstone had faded, whatever risks it ignited seemed to have guttered out: it was like one of the old photo negatives she’d found in a drawer—the faces dark and unrecognizable in a livid but indefinite landscape. At certain times, especially during the moody rains, she’d wonder about him—there was nothing vague, in the chilly damp of her house, about his body pressed to hers, the heat of his mouth, his hands. She did one self-portrait after another in charcoals, in graphite, lacerating in their frankness, refractions of herself day by day. Some she lit morning fires with in the wood stove, holding the door open while the crushed paper blackened and curled. Others she kept like entries in a daybook.

  It was afternoon, she wanted a walk.

  The dark pond was bordered with green spears of cattail shooting up through the rough tan mat of last year’s reeds, an animal skeleton woven into them, skull and spine and bits of hide, some winter victim. She was surprised to hear the thrumming engines of what turned out to be a big black-and-white freighter passing down the strait, inbound, Willard had told her, for a gypsum mine in the Island’s interior. She watched the ship, its deck full of machinery, until its wake sent a succession of swells hissing up the shore. A wooden fisherman’s buoy bobbed toward her, painted green and yellow. She picked it up by its frayed rope. So much to sketch, to collect, to gather into something new, she felt as if she were s
triding again, not crawling, not standing still. She wanted to work, and she was—when she pushed clutter from her mind.

  Was Alicia Snow mainly a matter of degree? Dalliances, affairs, flings that always flamed out had been okay? She was the woman you feared all along but didn’t know it, the one who would show up at the wrong time and against whom, at your age, you had little defence. Anna’s mother had delivered warnings—Don’t let men have their way with you, or Don’t make yourself more attractive than you need to be—as if they were ancient wisdom, not clichés. No man in her life now. Livingstone, the one-night flame, was not there at all. Good. She could not even contemplate a relationship of any duration or depth, it made her listless, irritable, impatient—the effort that went into learning about another man, his idiosyncrasies, and making room for him. Living with him? Tiresome to think of.

  The sky went heavy and dark and she turned back to her path. Sometimes the weather arrived high along the mountain ridge behind the house, as if the roiling convolutions of cloud, swelling and black and veined with light, would play out their drama there, but soon rain charged down the mountainside or in from the sea, lashing her as she staggered home.

  But this was a different rain and Anna watched it from her room, she couldn’t turn her back to it, the sudden gusts, the trees seething, rocking madly, and after dark, heat lightning started up in the west, great white flares, and the wind soon drove pelting rain and thunder. It beat mayflowers to the ground, muddying their petals flat, and cut sharp little gullies down the driveway, so intense at times it felt apocalyptic, as if something as common as rain had gone suddenly wrong, become thick and vengeful. Any patch of blue was quickly chased and overtaken, the slow, rolling, rain-laden clouds releasing a dense and steady downpour. When that ceased, a mist took over, or a relentless drizzle filled the windless air, the woods trembling with wet, mosses luminescent in the gloom, light seemed to rush from them. In the black pools, raindrop rings shimmered outward, intersecting, disturbing the light there, then moved on to the mad brooks that before had seemed tame, now one little vigorous falls after another, foaming in the darkness.