Flying Geese

by Barbara Haworth-Attard

  Margaret shrugged. “Nothing. Just walking around.”

  “Escaping Pauline?” Jean suggested slyly.

  Margaret felt her lips turn up in an involuntary grin.

  “I’m going to the train yard,” Jean said. “Want to come?”

  Margaret thought rapidly. Should she be seen with Jean, who wasn’t “respectable,” or go home? She thought of the house, anger in all the rooms. “Sure,” she agreed.

  They walked past brick houses, crossing the street at the small grocery store on the corner. People stared at their bare feet, making Margaret splash harder in the puddles. As they neared the train tracks, the houses slowly changed from brick to wood, the yards became smaller, the outhouses smellier, and the girls’ bare feet no longer drew stares.

  “Why are you going to the train yard?” Margaret asked.

  “Gathering up any coal lying around the tracks,” Jean replied. “Soon be winter and we’re going to need heat. We can’t afford to buy it. Watch for the guards, though. Most of them are pretty good about us taking it, but there’s one old man, plain mean through and through. He won’t let us take the coal even though it’s spilled from the train and lying there going to waste.”

  At the main road a long column of marching men in uniform, feet and arms moving in unison, stopped them from crossing. Margaret felt a surge of excitement as she eagerly searched the khaki-clad men’s faces. Maybe Edward was there. But then she chided herself—he’d tell them if he was coming to London. She shouldn’t get her hopes up so easily. “Where are they going?” she asked.

  “They’re soldiers from Carling Heights,” Jean told her. “That’s over at the east edge of the city. They march into the country and back nearly every day for military exercises.”

  “My brother Edward is training to be a soldier in Saskatchewan,” Margaret told her. “Do you have a brother in the war?”

  “Nope.” Jean watched the column end. “Let’s go.”

  Jean began jumping over red iron tracks, searching the ground. Margaret followed, nervously eyeing the train yard. Parallel rails stretched out in front of her, some with boxcars resting on them, others empty. She spotted a lump of black at her feet and bent down to pick it up.

  Holding her skirt in front of her to form a pouch, she dropped the coal into its folds. “What if a train comes?” she asked.

  “They whistle first,” Jean assured her. “Besides, you’d hear all the clatter. Keep a lookout is all.”

  Margaret nodded and walked along the track, bending and picking up chunks of coal. Her skirt was nearly full when she heard a shout. Looking up, she saw a man in a blue uniform running towards them, waving his arms.

  “Run!” Jean yelled. “That’s the mean guard.”

  Margaret bunched her skirt in one hand and pumped her legs hard. Cold air whistled about her thighs as she ran.

  As they jumped over the last set of tracks Jean stopped, pulled a lump of coal free, and threw it in the direction of the guard. “You old fart!” she screamed.

  Margaret didn’t stop, passing a row of buildings that merged into a blur. Suddenly, a hand reached out and yanked her into a narrow gap between two sheds. With a shriek, she collapsed against a doorway and looked up to see Peter Stevens standing over her.

  “Be quiet,” he whispered. “The guard won’t find you here.”

  Jean slipped into the alley with them and slid down a wall, laughing. Peter peered cautiously around the corner of the building.

  “He didn’t follow you,” he said.

  “That was rude what you said, Jean,” Margaret gasped. Then she laughed, too. It was the most fun she’d had since moving to London—in fact, almost all year.

  “You sure can run,” Jean said admiringly.

  “I had lots of practice back home,” Margaret told her. “Though Mama says it’s not very ladylike.”

  Neither was having her dress and petticoat pulled up almost to her thighs, the lace trim on her drawers showing, she realized with horror, and Peter watching. She quickly dumped the coal from her skirt into Jean’s lap.

  “You keep half,” Jean told her.

  “No,” Margaret said. “We don’t need it. Uncle Harold’s got a cellar full.”

  “It must be hard not having your dad around. When does he get out of jail?” Peter asked.

  “What do you care?” Jean replied. “Are you sure you should be talking to me? What would your friends think?”

  Peter shrugged. “I talk to whoever I want to talk to.”

  Jean was quiet a moment. “He should be out mid-January. He got six months altogether in Police Court just for stealing a package of tobacco and chocolate.”

  “And the window. Your dad broke our store window,” Peter interrupted. “Don’t forget that.”

  Jean glared up at him. “Your dad still didn’t need to call the police.”

  “That’s what law-abiding people do,” Peter retorted.

  “I guess you really shouldn’t steal,” Margaret said weakly, trying to smooth things over. She had forgotten Peter’s father owned the drugstore.

  Jean shook her head. “He was crazy for a cigarette and couldn’t afford the fixings.” She shrugged. “Said his brain just went nuts when he saw tobacco in the drugstore and went for it. Figured at the same time he might as well get candy for us kids. Sliced his arm up real bad when he broke the glass. He’d been out of work two years. Found odd jobs here and there to keep us going. Anyway, he couldn’t afford the fine and couldn’t afford to replace the glass, so he went to jail. Ma’s not been too well since then. She’s pretty mad. She says the worst crime is he’s eating in there better than we are out here. They make him do hard labour for the food, though.” She looked up at Peter. “So what are you doing down here anyway? Pretty far from your house.”

  “Watching the trains,” Peter said. “Besides, every time Dad sees me he suddenly finds a chore for me, so I make myself scarce sometimes,” he added, grinning.

  Wind blew down the alley, carrying with it a fresh drizzle of rain. Margaret shivered. “I better get back to Uncle Harold’s,” she said.

  “My dad might be in jail, but at least I don’t have to put up with Pauline,” Jean laughed, scrambling to her feet. “Your dress is a mess, by the way.”

  Margaret looked down at the black blotches on her skirt. There was also, she noticed, a new rip. Mama would have her hide. Maybe she could sneak in and rinse it out and sew it before Mama noticed.

  “I’ll walk with you, Margaret,” Peter said. “Dad’s expecting me at the store to help out so I go your way.”

  Icy needles of water trickled down Margaret’s back as she walked stiffly beside Peter. She must look a sight, she thought, wet and her clothes in tatters.

  “So how do you like London?” Peter asked.

  She shrugged, not sure what to say. She couldn’t very well tell him she hated it, not when he lived here. She looked sideways at him from under lowered lashes. Pauline was right about one thing: he was handsome with his dark brown hair and lively eyes. Light brown they were, though it was fascinating how they turned golden when he moved his head a certain way. Not that she cared, she immediately told herself. But what he must think of her! She hunched her shoulders to make herself look smaller. She hated towering over the boys.

  Peter raised a hand. “I turn down here. See you at school Monday.”

  She half-waved back. Wonderful. Walking with a handsome boy turned her into a perfect ninny. She’d not opened her mouth once. She could have asked him about homework or school, but her brain had just gone blank. Arriving at the house, Margaret peered in the kitchen door to find the room empty. She tiptoed in.

  “You’re getting mud all over the floor!” Aunt Dorothy screeched. She stood in the doorway to the hall. Margaret hadn’t seen her.

  Pauline, Evie, and Mary crowded behind, and Margaret could hear her mother coming down the back steps, then she was in the kitchen.

  “Get upstairs immediately and change,” her mother orde
red. “Then you come down and wash that floor until it shines!” Her hand clipped the side of Margaret’s head, bringing tears to the girl’s eyes. She blinked them away. She wouldn’t cry in front of Aunt Dorothy or her cousins.

  Then her mother saw her dress. “You think we have money for new clothes for you?” she demanded.

  Margaret shook her head and ducked under her mother’s hand as it rose again. She took the steps two at a time. The twins’ faces peered round-eyed from the spindles at the top. Didn’t anyone have anything better to do than stare at her?

  In the girls’ bedroom, Margaret slowly peeled her wet clothes off.

  “Give those to me,” Evie said, appearing at the bedroom door, Pauline right behind her. “I’ll rinse them out. You are such a disgrace.” She held up the skirt and examined the tear. “I think this can be fixed.”

  Pauline flopped on her bed. “I never knew anyone like you,” she said. “Mother says you’re not the least bit ladylike.”

  Margaret ignored her, rummaging around in her suitcase until she found an old skirt and blouse. The skirt came up well above her knees, but it was all she had. She hoped Evie could get the coal stains out of her dress; otherwise, she’d have to wear the outgrown skirt to school.

  “My mother was telling yours that perhaps you’d pick up a few manners from Mary and me,” Pauline went on.

  No wonder Mama nearly knocked her head off, Margaret thought. She’d better wash that floor quickly.

  Evie carried off the soggy bundle. “After it dries, I’ll bring back the skirt to see if you can mend it as you do the best sewing. You’ll recall, Pauline, my mother telling yours what a fine seamstress Margaret is.”

  Margaret whirled around, surprised to hear Mama had been praising her and even more surprised to hear Evie repeating her.

  “And a good thing it is, too, as she is always tearing something,” Evie added as she left the bedroom.

  Margaret screwed up her nose at the empty doorway. Trust Evie to give a compliment, then immediately take it away in that school marm voice. She went downstairs trailed by Pauline. When she came to the landing, Margaret stopped and whirled around. “Stop following me everywhere I go,” she said.

  “It’s my house, I can go anywhere I want in it,” Pauline told her.

  Margaret took a step towards the girl, then her shoulders drooped as she wearily turned and headed for the kitchen. Pauline was right. It was her house. They were only guests. No, not even guests. The poor relations staying because they had no home of their own. Except they did have a home in Saskatchewan. She pictured their farm as she scooped water from the heating tank on the stove into a pail. She added the animals into her imaginings, and finally her family, as she got down on her knees and began to scrub. That’s where they should be. A blast of cold, damp air swept over her and she looked up to see her father standing in the open doorway.

  “Olivia,” he called.

  Margaret squatted back on her heels a moment, then quickly plunged the cloth into water and wiped it over the floor as she heard her mother’s quick steps come into the kitchen. Uncle Harold and Aunt Dorothy followed.

  “I’ve rented us a place,” her father said. “And I also got school supplies for the children, and a pair of boots . . .” He smiled down at her. “. . . for Margaret.”

  “You didn’t have to do that,” Uncle Harold began. “You could stay here.”

  “I appreciate all you and Dorothy have done, Harold,” Margaret’s father said. “But it’s hard on both families living like this. We’ll be better off in our own place. It’s not much. A small furnished cottage behind a larger house an elderly lady lives in—a Mrs. Ferguson.”

  “Mrs. Ferguson? Over on Talbot Street?” Uncle Harold asked.

  “That’s the one.”

  “She’s a mean, old skinflint,” Uncle Harold said.

  “Harold!” Aunt Dorothy exclaimed.

  “Always in the store trying to stretch her penny,” he went on. “Trust her to rent out that leaky old cottage for extra cash. Especially when she has that huge house with only herself rattling around in it. Still, I don’t like the idea of you leaving, especially with no job. Are you sure about this?”

  “We’ll manage,” Mr. Brown said firmly.

  Chapter 6

  “You’re not a drinking man.” The woman stood in the doorway of the cottage glaring at Margaret’s father. “I don’t hold with a man who drinks.”

  “No—” Mr. Brown began.

  “You have to keep these youngsters quiet,” Mrs. Ferguson continued to rant. She pointed at Timothy and Taylor. “I don’t hold with children who are noisy.”

  “They’re well behaved,” Margaret’s mother assured her. “They won’t trouble you at all.”

  Margaret studied the elderly woman clad in black from her high button boots to the feathered hat on her head. Perhaps she had just returned from a funeral. Thin and angular, the woman held herself ramrod straight. She was all pointy ends. Sharp elbows, a long nose like a beak, and skinny fingers that stabbed at Mr. Brown as she spoke. Margaret hated her already, and she could tell from the sudden flaring in Mama’s eyes that Mama didn’t much like Mrs. Ferguson either.

  And Mama didn’t much like the vine-covered cottage in front of them, Margaret guessed. At one time it might have been pretty, but now tightly woven mats of green spread menacingly over the brick and windows, as if poised to swallow the cottage whole. A couple of shingles lay at their feet, blown from the roof.

  A black-gloved hand tentatively held out a key. “Very well then . . .”

  Margaret’s father reached for it, but was left groping at air as the key was suddenly pulled back.

  “You’re church-going people? I don’t hold with people who don’t go to church.”

  “You know me, Mrs. Ferguson,” Uncle Harold said heartily. “From the department store. This is my sister and her family. I’m helping them move.”

  The woman squinted at him. “The department store,” she sniffed. “Thieves, the lot of you.”

  “We are Christian,” Mrs. Brown said mildly, though Margaret heard the slight emphasis on we.

  “Well . . . in that case . . .” The arm slowly extended forward again.

  Margaret’s father quickly grabbed the key, struggled to fit it in the lock, then stepped back as the door swung open. They crowded forward to see their new home.

  Smelly and dark! That was Margaret’s first impression. A rustle and sudden scurrying brought a squeal from Evie.

  “I left a candle here . . .” Mr. Brown stumbled into the room, feeling along a window ledge. “Aha.”

  Weak yellow light from the candle showed them the main room, but didn’t have the strength to reach into its dark corners.

  “A couple of lamps will brighten things up,” he said.

  He put the candle on a small wooden table in the centre of the room. Four chairs were set around it, one with its ladders broken. A squat black stove leaned against one wall, a pipe extending from it through the ceiling to upstairs. An ice box was fitted beneath a counter that ran along one wall. Cupboards hung above, doors askew. Margaret’s father pointed at them. “I’ll soon set those right,” he said, pointing at the cupboards. “And the chair. Also those shingles. George can help me with them. The stove’s for cooking and heat. I’ll get some wood first thing Monday.”

  “Will it keep us warm enough?” Margaret’s mother asked.

  “Winters don’t get as cold here as in Saskatchewan,” Uncle Harold assured her.

  Mrs. Brown nodded her head, but continued to look doubtfully around the room. She hadn’t, Margaret noticed, taken off her hat.

  “The pump’s right outside the door, so that’s handy,” her father said.

  “There’s not an indoor pump?” Margaret’s mother exclaimed. “We have to haul water?”

  “Afraid so . . . but it’s not far. George can take on that job. Outhouse behind.” He stopped a moment, at a loss for anything more to say, then went on. “There’
s a loft up those stairs for George and the girls to sleep in and we’re over here with the twins.” He pointed to a room off the kitchen.

  Mrs. Brown looked dubiously at the narrow staircase clinging to the wall. “Are you sure those steps are safe?”

  “It’s fine,” Margaret’s father assured her. “I’ll put up a railing on the open side, but until I do we’ll have to keep an eye that the twins don’t go up and fall. Well, let’s start unloading and get settled in our new house.” He rubbed his hands together, pretending a cheeriness Margaret knew he did not feel—no one could feel looking at the dingy cottage.

  Margaret wandered into a room to the right of the kitchen. The good room she guessed it would be, but it was damp and musty and she imagined it would be closed off most of the winter. She crossed back through the kitchen area into a room opposite, Mama and Dad’s bedroom. A large bed stood in the middle. Margaret sat down on it, the thin mattress hard beneath her. Still daylight, yet she could barely see through the gloom caused by the curtain of vines. The windows were also coated with grime and cobwebs, adding to the dreariness. A melancholy house, Margaret decided, and she wasn’t sure if her family could make it any better.

  “Margaret, you can empty the ash from the stove. And keep an eye on Timothy and Taylor,” Mama called.

  “Can’t I help Dad unload?” Margaret complained. She hated cleaning ash, always coming away grey and dusty. Ash got up your nose and in your throat.

  “No, the stove needs to be done first. George, you look around outside for some fallen branches—I want to start a fire to get rid of some of this damp if I can. Then bring in a pail of water and put it on the stove to heat. Evie, we’ll start cleaning upstairs and make sure it’s fit for you children to sleep in tonight.”

  Margaret scooped ash from the black stove into a lopsided pail, its handle broken. Uncle Harold, George, and Dad brought in the cupboard first from the rented wagon, set it in a corner, and went out again.

  “How did your family afford this?”

  Margaret jumped. She whirled around to see Mrs. Ferguson standing in front of Mama’s cupboard. When you rented a place, she decided, the owner must be able to come in and out as she pleased.