“I know what you crowd are tryin' to do! Don't think I don't!”
“Sweet Christ, woman, what do you expect? You can't make an omelette without breaking eggs!”
“We're not talkin' about eggs—we're talkin' about people—about breakin' people!” A chopping sound follows Verna's words.
“You're paranoid—your mind's gone from listenin' to too many CBC documentaries, readin' too many newspapers. It ever occur to you half that stuff is made up to fill space between the ads?” Wayne sounds more annoyed than angry.
“What I heard on radio this morning wasn't made up—I heard Mark Rodway's name,” Verna says.
Partway down the stairs Lav freezes, but they are too occupied with their argument to notice her.
Verna is standing by the table, a dark outline against the sunlit window. She is chopping furiously at something green while Wayne shouts at her back: “Look! It'll all be over by Monday—a case of mistaken identity—a screw up—charges dropped! Rodway'll be free to go his way, no harm done.…”
“No harm done! No harm done! Hilda Rodway thinks the sun shines out of that boy—she'll be heartbroke hearin' on the radio her grandson's down in jail! And what about Mark—how'd you like havin' to spend the night in that hell-hole under the court house? Havin' your name spread all over town—have the world know you'd been arrested for break and entry, assault? Ruin a person, a thing like that could!”
“Go on with ya—it'll do the young nuisance good!” Wayne sounds conciliatory.
Then he hears Lav, looks up and winks, “Mudder's always expectin' the worst,” he says and without missing a beat begins to explain what he calls Verna's theory of Confederation: “It was all a plot, you see—right from the first. A trick to get us Newfoundlanders off the island—starved out and resettled upalong. Accordin' to Mudder all Ottawa ever wanted was this big empty rock.…”
Lav interrupts him, brushes past Wayne to ask his mother what she'd heard on the radio but Verna just keeps on chopping, the knife flashes up and down next to her fingertips.
“We'll talk about it later,” Wayne says. “Come on over—come over here and have some breakfast. Mudder got you a special treat…” talking and humming, singing little snatches of song, he ceremoniously ushers his mother and Lav to the table.
He pours coffee and with a great flourish brings warmed plates and food, announcing each dish as he sets it down: “Fish and brewis! Scruncheons! And—as a special concession to Madam's mainland palate—chives in drawn butter!”
Hunger overcomes. Despite growing apprehension, despite the unappetising appearance of the food, Lav eats.
“Look out there! Look out there and tell me there's anything wrong with the ocean, anything wrong with the earth!” Wayne pats his mother's shoulder and gestures expansively towards the sparkling, sun-drenched harbour.
“You know what that harbour's full of!” Verna says, but she is relenting, succumbing to her son's charm and to the beauty of the morning—to the cliffs and sea, to the small red boat chugging out the narrows, to the ragged, slightly hazy outline of St. John's rising against the blue sky.
“Best view in the world out this window,” Wayne says.
They eat and watch the fishing boat, trailing gulls and white foam, circle and come back in to one of the small wharves that cling to the Battery cliffs.
“That'll be Herb Pearcey out for his Saturday morning spin,” Wayne says. “Must be eighty, but he's on the water every day of his life.”
The fish and brewis tastes better than it looks. Lav has eaten everything on her plate before Verna, with a hard look at her son, says: “You goin' to tell her then—or will I?”
Wayne refills the coffee cups, lights his cigar, turns to Lav and says, “Mark Rodway broke into our offices last night—got himself arrested.”
“But he's an employee! Why would he break in?”
“He's only casual—no DFO security pass. He got in though—tricked the guard into letting him right into my office. Looking for that report he sent to Ottawa—apparently he was too stunned to keep his own copy! Not only did he have the nerve to ransack my desk, when he found the thing he took it into the Xerox room and started making copies. That's what he was doing when Clive caught him. Lucky for us Clive went back—that report could scuttle the Oceans 2000 launch. And it could cost you your job!”
“But what's all this about Mark being in jail?”
“I had him arrested for break and entry, for removing documents from a government office.”
“But why?”
“Jesus! Can't you just see it on Monday morning? The Minister holding a press conference inside the Radisson and that little snot outside passin' out his own version of the report!”
The man who sits scrutinizing her through a cloud of smoke seems quite different from the one she had made love with last night.
“Besides,” he pushes his chair back and stands, “besides, he hit the security guard—hard! You don't do that sort of thing to union members. He'd have done better hittin' Clive or me—but that's them radicals for ya, no sense of class, no discretion!” Charming again he shakes his finger in mock horror at his mother, leans over and kisses the top of her head, “Never you mind, dear old mudder, I got a lawyer all lined up—the poor lad'll be outta pogey soon as Minister and media takes off for Ottawa.”
“Don't dear old mudder me!” Verna pushes him away. “I hope Mark Rodway breaks out, hope he throws a bomb into the middle of your press conference. What's all this about him having a report of his own?”
“Nothing fit for the likes of you to know—don't want to give information to the resistance, do we?” Wayne smirks at his mother, then, with one of his quick changes of mood, becomes coldly serious. “Look Mother, don't embarrass me. Stay out of this. Timothy Drew is only trying to get a few jobs down here. Wouldn't your union friends like to get that fish plant across the harbour opened?”
“You don't have the gall to drag that one out again—next thing you'll be rabbittin' on about a Coast Guard station for the Battery and a big federal pen for Bell Island.”
“It's the truth—Drew is going to see that plant over there is refinanced…”
“Refinanced!” Verna's voice vibrates with anger. “I've got a two inch thick file on that place—been refinanced more times than poor Patsy Carey down behind the post office!”
“Mother! I didn't know you knew such people! You really are going to have to stop going to Government House garden parties!”
The mother and son keep at it hammer and tongs. Verna shouting and waving news clippings even as they hurry down the steep steps to where Vic's taxi is waiting. Only at the last moment does she remember the demands of etiquette and call down, “Nice meeting you, Lav—come again!”
“What happened to Mark's report?” Lav asks as Vic manoeuvres his taxi around the dead-end street.
“Gone—shredded. Disk wiped—never existed.” Arrested by a sudden suspicion Wayne gives her a sharp look, “You have a copy?”
When she tells him no, he smiles. “I'll drop you off at home if you like,” he says, sets his briefcase on his knees, opens it, and begins leafing through papers. “I'm going on into the office—see how Clive made out, how the finished product looks. The rest of the day and Sunday I'll be checking around town—making sure everything's in place.”
Wayne doesn't speak again until they get to Lav's door. “I'll be busy until Monday—but I'll see you at the Minister's reception—and at the press conference, of course!” Beaming like a child on Christmas morning, he kisses her cheek, waves, and as the car pulls away calls, “See you at the Radisson, luv.”
part two
Mary Bundle
six
In her ninety-seventh year Mary Bundle woke one morning with the sure knowledge that she would not see another spring. The howl of wind, snap of frost and the clatter of icicles against eaves, sounds she had once slept through, now keep her awake most of the night.
The thought of death did not f
righten the old woman, it irritated her. “Such a torment, the way things turns out—last year this time I' da been content to go. “ This is not true, of course, Mary had not been content to go, never would be content to go—certainly not now with Rachel's life fousted up the way it was.
Mary Bundle lies in her bed, feathered and curved down in the middle like a dory, thinking about her great-granddaughter, thinking about safety—about safe places. There are no such places.
“Safe as if you're in God's pocket,” Meg used to tell the children when starvation and death seemed certain. And although Mary would never have admitted it, the words had always comforted her, too. She used to think about God's pocket, about how nice it must be, warm and dry and safe. Well, Meg is long gone, Sarah too, and most of the children they tucked into bed. Taken by the sea, by cold, by old age and sickness.
“I outlived them all,” the old woman thinks, not without pride, “all them good women who knelt and prayed, knelt and scrubbed the splintered floors of the church, herded their men and children into that holy coldness every Sunday. All gone. If we're in God's pocket, must be like crumbs he's forgotten, some of us gets flicked about and blows away when he pulls his handkerchief out.”
The thought of God's carelessness cheers her. Ignoring her stiffness she climbs out of the sagging bed, pulls a quilt around her shoulders and pads across the floor to the narrow window. With her fingernail she scrapes a circle in the frost and peers out to see what the day is like.
When Thomas Hutchings finally came to build a house for himself he certainly knew where to put it, up here by the old potato garden, good and high and safe, back from the water. Mary can see everything on the Cape from up here—or could see if her eyes were what they had once been. But the world is drawing in, circled by a milky haze like slob ice. Still, she can manage—sighting down the tunnel she can make out the dark shapes of houses, the sheds and flakes and beyond, the glittering grey sea. Right below her window is her own front bridge and hen house, and below that the slate roof of her grandson Calvin's new house. Over a ways she can almost make out the corner of the old Andrews place—the big double house where she'd lived all her married life, she and Ned and their children in one half and Meg and Ben in the other—used now as a barn and storage shed.
Nothing moves, not animal or bird, nor trail of smoke. The walls of the room and the window seem to breathe cold air but the old woman stands looking down on Cape Random, thinking about the people in each house. Last night she had tested herself, calling up the face of every person in the place, remembering who their parents and grandparents were, tracking those who were connected to her through her own three sons and through Fanny's son, Toma. Mary has noticed there are days when the past is all aslurry, frost forming around her mind too, she supposes. But last night she could remember every soul on the Cape, all one hundred and twenty-six of them.
She watches the sun come up, changing the sea from dark grey to pale blue, shimmering like a silk shawl Lavinia once owned. It is going to be a fine clear day, but bitter.
Shivering, she turns away from the window and gathers up her clothes: two flannel petticoats, a home-made canvas corset, knitted sheepswool stockings, heavy bloomers and the dress her grandchildren had ordered from St. John's for her ninety-fifth birthday. Mary has worn the dress every day since, ignoring Jessie's insistence that it is intended to be saved “for good.” The dress is made of warm red cloth, store-bought wool, not the scratchy homespun stuff. It has a ruffle of black lace at the neck and two big V-shaped pockets trimmed with the same lace. It is the grandest garment Mary Bundle has ever worn. The feel of it, the thought that she owns such a dress, gives her immense pleasure. She has no intention of saving it to be buried in.
Clutching the bundle of clothing to her chest and holding onto the bannister, she slowly makes her way downstairs. In the kitchen she lays her clothes over a chair next to the fire, which, having been banked, still gives off a little heat. The cat slides out from under the stove to curl around her legs. Being careful not to waken the young woman sleeping on the couch, Mary feeds the animal and pours herself a cup of black tea from the teapot that has been steeping all night on the back of the stove.
She takes a mouthful of the hot tea, puts down the cup—large, with the word “Mother” and the likeness of stern old Victoria, whom Mary is proud to have outlived, painted on its side. Without taking any care she pulls on layer after layer of clothing, covering everything with an immense wool shawl that one of her daughters-in-law, she forgets which, crocheted years ago.
Once dressed, Mary goes to sit in a rocker by the couch. She sips her tea thoughtfully, looking down on the mound of quilts at the top of Rachel's dark head. She cannot—must not—die until something's been worked out for the child.
Rachel is fifteen, born the year Lavinia died. Mary had wanted the baby called Lavinia, but Jessie, the child's mother, objected: “Go on, Nan, if you had your way every young one on the Cape'd be called Meg or Sarah, or Lavinia and every boy'd be Ned. We'll call her Rachel, she can have Lavinia for a middle name.”
In her heart Mary still thinks of her great-granddaughter as Lavinia's namesake. It takes some of the grief out of her friend's death to know there is another Lavinia Andrews on the Cape.
She had expected to see Rachel grow into a tall, loose limbed Lavinia, with foxy curls and Lavinia's pale complexion. Instead, the child stopped growing at five feet and is dark as a Turk. Rachel, although Mary cannot see it, is the spitting image of herself the day she came ashore on Cape Random.
The old woman rocks, pondering life's infinite capacity for surprise: “That terrible time after Ned was killed I thought I'd never know another day's happiness, still and all I did. Then, all them years later when Vinnie died I'da sworn I'd never laugh at another thing—but Rachel and me had a good many happy days together since then.”
Part of her happiness these past years, of course, has come from the fact that she's abandoned responsibility, a strangely intoxicating experience that Mary had deliberated upon for some time before informing her children and grandchildren.
“I got it all hove over, all of it!” she announced on her eightieth birthday—or what they have come to celebrate as her birthday—really it is the date of quite a different event, but what they don't know won't hurt them. “I'll never dig another potato, nor chop wood, and I'm never again going to darken the door of the fish store nor gut a fish, nor even turn one—fact is, I never wants to see a fish again except on a plate!” she said, and she hasn't either.
“I got to say they takes good care of me,” the old woman brags to anyone who will listen, pointing to the red dress, the laying hens, the good tea Tessa brings down from Greenspond. Last spring the boys got together and tarred her roof, and hardly a day passes but one of them doesn't bring in a rabbit, a wild bird, a fish or a nice trout, all ready for the pot. The women look after her garden and every time she comes in from the woods there's a jug of milk, a warm loaf or a bowl of soup waiting on the table. They're good to her and she would have been content—but she would not have been happy if it had not been for Rachel.
Year in, year out, from early spring when the first tiny white flowers appear until the ground freezes in the fall, the old woman and her great-granddaughter would be outdoors. Together they picked fairycaps, aspen catkins, maidenhair, heart's ease and alder buds, gathered kelp, moss and eel grass, dug up the roots of yellow pond lilies, of snap dragons and dandelion, brought home basketsful of bakeapples and rose hips, buckets of blueberries, marshberries, partridgeberries, pillow-cases filled with wintergreen and the buds and petals of a hundred plants that grow in the crevices of rocks and under the shadows of evergreen trees. Rain or shine they could be seen foraging in the woods and marshes or along the beach.
When snow began to fly they would move inside and work in the spicy warmth of Mary's kitchen, amid the clutter of things they had gathered. Roots must be dried and ground to powder, some for burns and others for stomach disorders
. Leaves can be made into tea for the cure of rheumatism, earache and lung disease or sewn into pillows to ward off consumption. From rose hips and seaweed they concoct ointments for anointing the eyes in cases of snow blindness, salve to cure hemorrhoids, to stop bleeding, to heal sores. Together they brew tonics for canker, for spring sickness and women's complaints, drinks to ease childbirth, headache and death, and some that can even lift sorrow from your shoulders for a while. When the sideboard jars are again full, when all the little cloth bags are tied and hung in lines behind the stove, Mary and Rachel would turn to jam making, to bottling caribou, seal and wild duck.
Winters when there was a teacher in the place the girl went to school with the other youngsters, but even then she would come straight to Mary's the minute classes were let out. Sometimes they would just talk, considering every curious happening or bit of gossip either of them had heard during the day. Other times Rachel would sit by the hour listening to the old woman describe how to put warts away, make hot fomentations, cure Seal Finger or tie off a baby's cord. Over the years Mary has taught her great-granddaughter every old charm, spell and incantation she has learned in a lifetime of tending the sick. Sometimes it seems as if the woman is pouring her spirit into the body of the small dark girl.
“Far as Nan's concerned our Rachel's the sun and the moon, she got the young one pure spoiled,” Jessie says in her pleasant, absentminded way, more because such remarks are expected than because she has any real concerns about her daughter.
“That child was born with an old head on her shoulders,” Mary tells anyone who dares suggest: she might be keeping the girl from more suitable activities. The woman who has never had one word of praise for her own children boasts that Rachel is the brightest, prettiest and smartest child ever born on the Cape.
Waiting for Time Page 11
