Circus

by Claire Battershill

  “Not exactly. Apparently, they’re shepherds and they take care of the grounds and the animals. Apparently, they’ve been living here for a long time. Possibly even their whole lives. They look as if they might be related. Brothers?”

  “Okay, now you’re making this up.”

  “Honey.”

  “So we’re just supposed to … what? Ignore them? Accept them? Befriend them? What is the right thing to do here?”

  “Kick them out!”

  “Are they really going to bother you that much?”

  “Me? What about us? Our kids? You? We don’t know these men at all and they look like they’ve done their share of living. You know what Sally’s like. She’ll be down there with muffins from her Easy-Bake Oven and friendship bracelets for them before the week is through. Anything could happen, James.”

  “Should I catch a plane tomorrow? I can probably finish tidying up here tonight.”

  “I guess? I really don’t know what to tell you. I had some stern words with our friend Karl and he didn’t seem to think there was a problem.”

  “He says they’re okay?”

  “Sure, but should we really be trusting his moral judgment at this point?”

  “What do the kids think?”

  “They haven’t seen the shepherds yet. They’re too busy playing police station. I think they’re still a touch weirded out by the move, but I’m doing my best here.”

  “Fair enough. Okay. I’ll let you know when I have a flight.”

  Speaking to James instinctively makes Karen relax her shoulders from their previously garbled stress-posture. After all, there is bound to be some kind of solution to the problem, and James is good at dealing with crises. For the first time in several years, Karen considers going out to the liquor store to buy a bottle of whiskey so that she can sit in her new kitchen and drink a glass on the rocks.

  After a few minutes of savouring the imaginary zing of alcohol and the bliss of ice on her tongue, Karen opens her eyes and notices a worrying quiet about the house. She leaps out of her chair and bounds up the stairs two at a time to check on Sally and Jackson, suddenly feeling in the base of her throat a worry that she knows will not go away until they are all settled and the shepherd situation is resolved. The relief she feels at seeing the two of them asleep, curled up on a double sleeping bag, still wearing their shoes, is so powerful that it makes her sink to the floor. She kneels there for a few minutes, wondering if she should wake them for dinner since they haven’t eaten since lunch, but her body is cold in the way that comes only with total exhaustion. Once she starts to yawn she can hardly stop her eyelids from shutting. Karen lies down on the sleeping bag, snuggles between her children, and falls asleep.

  One of the advantages that Willie had been afforded as the eldest son of the family was a Classical education. He was privately tutored in dead languages until the age of seventeen, by which time he had mastered Latin and some Ancient Greek, and memorized a number of Horace’s Odes, which he could recite in a slow and meticulous Latin.

  Dissolue frigus ligna super foco

  large reponens atque benignius

  deprome quadrimum Sabina,

  o Thaliarche, merum diota.

  He would intone these lines to the sheep, or to the sky, or to the fences, or to George. He had never recited the poems to anyone who actually understood a single word he said, but his memory was keen and accurate, and the thought of his voice profiting on his hours of hard labour in the study of his father’s scholarly friend was reassuring, even if he couldn’t hear the sounds himself anymore. Willie filled notebooks with his own Latin compositions, lines and lines of illegible verse on subjects he kept to himself, and over the years he amassed a great many of the little brown books, which he gathered in a leather suitcase he kept underneath the roll-top writing desk that sat between the brothers’ beds in the middle of their small house. There were times when he contemplated throwing the notebooks away or leaving them somewhere in town, at the library, perhaps, for someone else to find. They were the only unnecessary possessions that fettered him to the world, excluding, of course, the desk itself with its accompanying cups full of pens and the beautiful if faded writing mat made of stiff linen that covered its surface. A sweetheart of Willie’s had sewn this for him back when he used to take women out and bring them home with him. She had seen the desk with its uneven surface and, wanting to smooth it out, immaculately measured the width and depth and made the mat with exquisitely flat seams to fit the desk just so, and Willie was more grateful for this than for any other thing a woman had ever done for him. That he usually found emotional attachments to objects just as incomprehensible as the overly fond relationships that other people had with their pets, and that George frequently mocked him for his peculiar obsession with the things associated with his own learning by calling him “Professor” when he was up to his elbows in sheep placenta, were two of the reasons why Willie sometimes wanted so strongly to get rid of the notebooks. Somehow he could not bring himself to do it.

  When Karen finally wakes at eight the next morning, she is still wearing her clothes from the day before. Sally is asleep, and Jackson is sitting cross-legged at the foot of the sleeping bag staring at her. Karen nods at him drowsily and tries to figure out if it is possible to really be awake yet, or if she should set him up with a book and go back to sleep.

  “If we’re all going to die, why are we born anyway?” Jackson asks.

  “Go back to sleep,” she says, rolling over and closing her eyes. She has strange and horrible dreams about losing her keys before waking fifteen minutes later to find Jack still sitting there, expecting an answer.

  “It’s all going to be okay, Jack.”

  “I know,” he says, raising one eyebrow and looking at Karen sidelong. He hadn’t been seeking reassurance.

  “Well, I think we’d better go have some breakfast. Come to the store with me and get the makings for pancakes?”

  “Chocolate chip pancakes with Mickey Mouse ears?”

  “Done deal.”

  As Karen gets ready to go, she considers waking Sally. Jack is already by the door, waiting. She would like to let her daughter sleep, but there’s nothing here to eat, so she lifts Sally up gently and carries her out to the car. Karen cannot answer questions about why people are alive without at least the consolation of chocolate chips, which seems, at the moment, like as good a reason as any.

  When Willie looked up over the sloping field to the grand house at the edge of the road, he was never quite sure how to feel about it. George hadn’t laid eyes on the place in many years, of course, and since he was given to a less nervous disposition, its state never worried him in the first place. Willie often wondered, in fact, whether worry itself was what a person gained by learning to read and write, and he noted in himself a kind of wobbliness of sentiment that had no part in George’s everyday contemplations. So it was that Willie was the only brother to pay any attention to the changes of ownership that were taking place on the property on which they had, after all, become trespassers. The previous owners, Mr. Jacobs Jr. and his wife, were a childless couple who kept to themselves. They inherited the property from Mr. Jacobs Sr., who had insisted in his will that the brothers be allowed to remain where they were. Although they employed the brothers for years, the Jacobs had left them more or less alone, happy to avoid having to deal with the flock. They had also, Willie suspected, been unwilling to disturb the lives of two old men who had become a crucial part of the town’s story.

  Over the years, Willie had watched the house from a distance, as it transformed from a kind of stately old grandeur to an emblem of modern convenience. The aging carpets had been torn out and replaced with hardwood, the roof redone, and the whole exterior painted in what he assumed was a fashionable way. The addition to the house that extended the dining area into a sunroom at the back was done recently, presumably to increase its value for sale, and it did not escape Willie’s notice that the brothers’ cabin featured prom
inently in the pastoral view that this wing, with all its windows, had been built to highlight. George heard the construction noise, of course, but had little notion of just how the house had changed from its former quaintness to something that struck Willie as unsettlingly new and unfeasibly clean. They had been vaguely aware of the house going on the market, of people coming to see it, but they had never spoken to the realtor or to anyone else about their situation. Samson was no longer there to protect them, and Willie suspected that it would be up to the new owners whether he and his brother would be allowed to keep their small section of the world.

  As they readied themselves for bed one night, Willie blurted out his worry: “I don’t think we have any right to be here.”

  “We’ll just buy the land, then,” George replied, exaggerating every word and shaping each syllable carefully so that Willie could read his lips. “What else is money for?” George was having trouble understanding his brother’s anxiety.

  “How much have we got, exactly? And what if they don’t want to sell?”

  “They’ll need to. What would they do with the flock if they didn’t?”

  “Maybe they’d hire someone new. Or sell the sheep. I bet they’d get good money. There are some top-notch ewes out there, thanks to you.” Even in his moment of anxiety, Willie was still pleased with himself for the rhyme.

  “Your knickers are in a twist. That’s all. So let’s just wait and see,” said George.

  Whether the arrival of the new family worried Willie more than it worried George because seeing the changes made to the property was more immediate than hearing them, the sight of time’s effects more troubling than their sound, or whether the anxiety could be attributed to the elder brother’s fragile temperament was an unresolved matter. Either way, Willie had been having trouble getting to sleep lately.

  Karen spends the first morning in her new house convinced that Sally and Jackson must not find out about the shepherd situation, so in spite of the bright day, they sit in the kitchen with the lights on and the curtains closed. She absolutely does not want a repeat of the time Sally made friends with Mort, the man who slept on the bench outside the Parkdale branch of the Toronto Public Library and was given to offering her daughter paper lunch bags full of his own beard clippings. As she and the kids make pancakes, Karen feels herself relax. The bubbles start showing in the Mickey Mouse ears and Karen shakes the pan expertly, flipping the pancakes in the air before they land on their uncooked faces. Sally and Jack sit on the floor, using an opened piece of newspaper as a makeshift breakfast table, and eat as if they haven’t been fed in days, gobbling up pancake after pancake until Karen has used up all the batter without having eaten anything herself. Both kids are now reading as they shovel forkfuls of pancake copiously into their mouths, chewing quietly. Jackson isn’t reading a book but is completely captivated by the back of a Multigrain Cheerios box. Despite the pancakes, he’d demanded they buy cereal at the grocery store. Karen recognized the exact words she had heard her husband say before, as Jack tilted his head wisely and persuaded her: “It never goes bad. We’ll be glad of it later.” Karen wondered how she had produced this little boy, and bought the Cheerios.

  There is a lot to do in unpacking and sorting everything out, so Karen decides to make some lists. She is sitting on the floor before she realizes that she doesn’t even have a pen unpacked. Sally has begun reading her Choose-Your-Own-Adventure out loud so that Jack can make the selections.

  “ ‘You stare at the ogre before you. What do you do?’ ” Sally pauses dramatically and peers over the book at Jackson before offering the options. “ ‘If you punch him in the stomach and run as fast as you can away from his cave, go to page 89. If you sing him a lullaby to try to get him to fall asleep, go to page 38.’ ”

  “I sing!” says Jackson.

  “ ‘The ogre laughs a big belly laugh at your little song and picks you up in one of his giant hands and puts you down in his dark cave. You are now a prisoner of the evil one! The end.’ ” Sally whistles, a skill she has recently learned. “Sorry, Jack,” she says, “want to try again?”

  Karen tears open a couple of boxes labelled “Stationery” in search of a pen. She scribbles down all the things that worry her: the need for new towels, plastic liners for the kitchen cupboards, more diversions for Sally and Jack to keep them indoors until the matter is resolved. As she writes she feels increasingly capable, as though she is taking care of the tasks simply by adding loops of cursive to the notepaper. Karen finally writes a large S to begin the word “shepherds” as the last item on her list but immediately decides against it, leaving that single letter. Karen feels herself exhaling deeply.

  “What’s your deal, Sighy McSighFace?” asks Sally.

  “Nothing sweetie. Just a couple of long days, don’t you think? Time to run a few errands? There might be treats involved.”

  “You miss Dad.” Jack looks up at the ceiling as he says this, as if he were witnessing a Higher Power, rather than a hanging light fixture.

  “Yep, I sure do, buddy. Don’t you guys?”

  “Not yet,” says Sally cheerfully, “but maybe I will by tomorrow. I’m interested in hearing more about those treats, though.”

  “Can we see the sheep for a treat?” Jackson has not given up on the idea of new pets.

  “No sheep. What did I say about waiting for Dad?” Karen wonders if distracting them is actually working as well as it appears to be, and she has to concentrate hard just to sound like herself. “A loonie each for whatever you want at the Dollar Store, okay? But you have to help me get the stuff we need for the house first.”

  Sally extends her hand to seal the deal, and mother and daughter stand there, shaking each other’s hands as if they are business acquaintances. As Sally packs her backpack with her colouring books and pencil crayons for the car, Karen feels marginally more empowered to handle the small tasks of the day, leaving the larger worry for James.

  At George’s insistence, the brothers keep all of their money in cash in a safe hidden under a tarp beneath his bed. Years earlier, Willie had suggested that they entrust their earnings to the bank, but George refused and the subject had never been brought up again. So there the safe remained, containing large stacks of American bills. There was some Canadian money, too, but most of what was inside was foreign currency, unusable on a day-to-day basis. Neither of the brothers had ever counted the money. They did not imagine that they were rich, nor had they any need to be. But their livelihood did depend on the well-being of that safe, so George was careful to ensure that no one except his brother knew the combination. He had the feel of the lock hardwired into him and sometimes opened it just to make sure that muscle memory wouldn’t let him down in a time of need. For all his education, Willie was not very fiscally knowledgeable, although he was nebulously anxious about money, so George was the one who took care of the finances, such as they were, and opened up the safe and told Willie which bills to take out for groceries and staples.

  On grocery day, George told Willie to take out an extra five dollars so they could buy one of Eliza’s apple pies at the farmer’s market. As they prepared for their trip, George suggested disrupting their usual ritual of travelling to the market with Travis Elcock, the buffalo farmer, at six, in order to wait and invite the newcomers along.

  “Perhaps the lady wants to join us? Meet folks and see what the place has going for it?” George suggested.

  “She has a car of her own,” said Willie.

  “It would be improper not to ask.”

  “Doesn’t much like the look of us, George.”

  “No wonder, if we don’t welcome her to town! I’d not like the looks of us either if we were so rude.”

  “Best keep quiet and not bother her.”

  “We have to at least introduce ourselves. It’s not right.”

  Having agreed to stick to their usual plan on the condition that the welcome be extended later on in the day, the brothers each grab a jug of unpasteurized sheep�
�s milk to take to the market, where they will hand it over to Jonah, who will turn it into cheese.

  The market was never overwhelmingly busy, but it was the most social event of the brothers’ week. There were usually about ten stalls in the parking lot outside the old grain elevator, which had recently become the local art gallery. On Saturdays, the lot was blocked off, the gallery closed, and marquees set up early for the morning’s preparations. As the brothers wandered around the market, Willie admired the desultory loveliness of wooden barrels untidily overflowing with root vegetables, the mason jars full of gleaming homemade jellies, condiments, and preserves, and the drooping sweetness of wildflowers in metal buckets, a quarter a stem or a dollar for a handful. Sensory deprivation was not any more of a bother at the market than in any other situation and the brothers relied on each other to navigate the parking lot. Holding on to Willie’s suspender, George shifted from foot to foot, swaying to the sound of Mr. Jenkins’s harmonica and the dozens of indistinguishable voices that chattered around the stalls. When the occasional greeting leapt forth from the din, George would say hello back, and yes, he and his brother were doin’ just fine thanks, a response often spoken to the horizon rather than to his interlocutor unless Willie pointed his brother in the right direction. Willie received handshakes and nods as they approached the stalls, and observed his brother’s conversations to make sure everyone was comfortable. Both brothers tasted samples of plastic sticks full of cinnamon-flavoured honey, and breads, cakes, and pastries baked in someone’s homemade backyard brick oven. They sipped hot apple cider from plastic cups.

  Willie signalled to George when they reached Eliza’s stall by tugging twice on his brother’s ear, though the smell of wild blueberries and warm pastry already had George tilting his head back with pleasure. Willie waved at Eliza’s sixteen-year-old daughter, Abigail, who greeted him by raising her hand shyly. The brothers’ system of lip-reading for Willie and speaking back out loud for George was one that made sense to the two of them but had not been completely translated to other people (the butcher, for instance, could never get the hang of it, and was forever confusing the brothers and holding paper packages of meat out to George, expecting him to take what he couldn’t see). But Eliza knew to say hello to George as she looked and nodded at Willie.