The Big Why

by Michael Winter

  It’s true that the body will betray us and everyone we love will die. This was Gerald Thayer’s big dread.

  I never spoke a word of this. But a man and his acts cannot be separated for long. And Newfoundland possesses a cir-cular wind that carries information. You can know a man in Newfoundland and never have met him. Men replacing men, men who have lived alone in tilts in desolate harbours. Alone in a cove for three generations. And if you slip by as a passenger in a one-handed dory the fisherman who is rowing will say, Never dodge in there, son. For that loner will take a shot at you before he looks at you. There are men alive today pinned to the stories of their grandfathers. They are their grandfathers, and in a sense the story of Rockwell Kent, the who of it, was being filled in by curious people. Who was this man who lived alone in that old Pomeroy house out along the far end of the harbour.

  The private acts of an American cannot be silenced from the ears of a Newfoundland outport. He carries these acts in his eyebrows. They sift out of his trouser cuffs. They are as obvious as the acts he commits in public.

  2

  I hoped the weather would warm for Kathleen. She arrived with our three small children, after boarding a ferry to Port-aux-Basques and then the Red Cross Line to St John’s. Rupert Bartlett had been in town and was pleased to chaperone her. They all came down the path to the house. It was a fine day, crisp air. Kathleen wore a pale blue skirt that curved out like a bell at the ankle. The skirt was printed with flowers. Or printed with the outline of flowers, for the flowers were white. I watched them stop at the Pomeroys’ so Mrs Pomeroy could see the baby, and I could tell that Kathleen was polite about that but hungry to see me. She was enjoying the delay and I decided to meet them at the gate, not to go up to the Pomeroys’. The children ran ahead, the children we’d named after ourselves, throwing themselves at me and then Kathleen, who was holding a harness she had invented for Clara. Kathleen’s body against me, her strong frame, the smell of the hair behind her ear. I love you. I love you too. Rupert with a tin of candies for the children and a pear for me.

  What is it, Rupert said, about naming children after yourself. Rockwell and Kathleen.

  He handed me the pear.

  My wife and I have little imagination for names, I said.

  Kathleen: The pear is from Gerald Thayer. He said you wrote about vitamin deficiency.

  He sent me a pear?

  There was a basket. The children ate the rest.

  I held my wife. Kathleen is taller than me, with dark hair. She has a deep voice. I loved her so much and yet I did not love her. Explanation: I knew she was loveable. I knew she was good. I loved her body. I loved the privacy of knowing that I had, when she was breastfeeding Clara, tasted her. I loved making the goodness of her turn sexy. Of making her realize she enjoyed being carnal. She had virtue, and towards this I willed myself, even though I knew the outcome. I knew the outcome would be my sleeping with someone else and then the torment and exhaustion of fighting about it.

  Rupert would be going. If ever, he said to Kathleen, you need anything, we’re only across the way.

  And oh —

  He handed me a letter. It’s from my brother.

  Kathleen’s bright, kind face. Her long hair. I loved her back. Let’s take this letter for a walk, I said. We went out to the naked man with the children, to see the water and the Pomeroy cows. The cows were lying down. It’s going to rain, Kathleen said.

  Me: How many legs does a cow have.

  Rocky: Four.

  Me: Five. If you count their heads.

  We were taking a little time to get used to each other. There was something stiff to Kathleen. Something unhappy that surfaced on her face, and then she managed to bury it. I did not want to point it out.

  I remember walking down a street with Kathleen in New York. There was a new set of traffic lights, a man at the corner manually operating them. We held hands. Kathleen did not enjoy main strips: they were too noisy. I never noticed the noise — in fact, I loved the busy drive of intersections. So we were approaching the intersection, to cross over and enter a side street and the quiet. We had had bad luck. We had eaten a bad meal in a restaurant with bad service. I knew bad luck would linger. I held Kathleen’s hand and I thought, If the light turns yellow I will leave her. And the light did turn. The man did not linger on the green for us. I could tell that Kathleen was blaming herself. We did not speak of it, but she knew what I thought. I was with a woman who cultivated bad luck and did not like loud avenues.

  Rocky, the eldest: Where are the lambs and their mothers?

  Me: Gone to slaughter.

  And he gasped.

  I rubbed my son’s blond head and held him to my thigh.

  Not all the lambs, sweetheart.

  The Pomeroys kept lambs and we skipped over to the bottom of the garden. If youre up early, Rocky, you will see them etched in the new sun. They will all be baa baa black.

  I loved my son. Years later, after the divorce, I took my son to Alaska. I was a man who liked to travel with his son. He was thirteen during Alaska and serious. He drew and he painted and he was careful to look at the world accurately. I did not teach him this. Or it was not a teaching of mine. I was reluctant to instruct my children on how to draw. I left materials out for them. There were pots of hard watercolours, lots of paper, crayons, and brushes. I let them mangle cheap brushes. But I would not tell them how to paint. If they asked a question I would be honest. I remember Rocky asking me once about the face. I said, Often people draw the face too big.

  I opened Bob Bartlett’s letter. I heard, he wrote, youve met Coaker. That youve spoken against Thomas Connors. He said, You know not what you do. Wait. Let me help you.

  3

  I stared at Kathleen, but she would not speak of it. I tried my child voice but she was reluctant. She set up her kitchen. She turned the rooms into family quarters. She dressed the children’s beds. Something had happened to her and I decided to live with the silence. I can be patient.

  Her feet were hot. I filled a basin with water from the brook. Sit down. There was a towel. I placed her feet in the basin.

  Kathleen: I feel like I’m heating up this water with my feet.

  Youre heating up my bathwater.

  The snow melted off the black coal. Seven exact tons of it. I picked up a chunk. There is a glint to coal, it is built of wafers. To see the immensity of the load — these black blocks converted to heat, my children warm in their beds — it made me feel responsible and a good father. The Brigus men were puzzled by it. It was the only remnant left of the Southern Cross. The size of the order and that somehow I had robbed the Southern Cross of a power that might have saved it. Spring would soon be here, what was I doing.

  It took three days to cart the coal over and house it in the shed. We started with pressed eggs of coal and then larger chunks on top. The heat made us happy. It surprised me. Tom Dobie told me this: You can be two of three things — hungry, cold, or tired. But if youre all three, youre doomed.

  Kathleen had brought her guitar and sheet music, and she sang “Let Me Call You Sweetheart.” I sang her a local song I’d learned from Rose Foley. I’d quote a verse here, but I dont like books with song lyrics. The one word in it I love is pulverized. I told her she’d have to learn it — I’m so bossy. Though I didnt know I was bossy then. Something in my tone said her song was not enough. I was oblivious to this injury. I did not know that I was stifling her. I wished only to be unguarded.

  4

  I worked in the new little studio. I painted a picture of our house, the Brigus harbour in the background. I wanted to mark the occasion of our reunion. I could hear the children’s footsteps above me. I ate Gerald’s ripe New York pear. It was like I was savouring the fruit of the big city. That is so Gerald, to send me a pear. I saved the seeds and buried them in a pot on my studio window. They germinated. I’d plant them in the garden in mid
-June, that’s what Tom Dobie recommended, to avoid the last frost. The birches began to unfurl. All around me these buds of hope, but I knew there was something not right about Kathleen, and her mood made me despondent.

  I had painted a picture of the house and was ready to put people in it. I had built a part of this house, had tarred the roof and painted the shingles. So it was odd to now be painting a picture of it. It was as if I were creating my entire world and then making art from it. I looked at the house in the painting. At the windows. I painted in Kathleen. She was leaning out the bedroom window — with despair, it looked like. Then me, slumped against the side of the house, head down. Boy, was that bleak. Was that it? Was that what I’d desired in com-ing here?

  Her arrival was not fabulous. I did not know this fully until I started the painting.

  I asked her to look at the painting.

  What is it, I said.

  It’s upsetting.

  Why is that.

  It fills me with dread, she said.

  I tried to say that it wasnt the full breadth of my feeling. Just on occasion. But I agreed it was a house of dread and I felt she was responsible. I was showing her the painting to make her confess. When I painted it, I said, it helped get rid of the feeling. Also, happy things are less interesting to look at.

  Kathleen had nothing to say to that. She had three children to look after. It just made her sadder, that painting did.

  I wrote letters to friends in New York. They were letters I did not show Kathleen because they were flirtatious and I didnt think she’d understand. I love to flirt in my letters, to men and women. Kathleen was trying to absorb Brigus. She had a camera, and she photographed the town. It made her seem less attached to the place. More of a witness.

  She was a good photographer. She remained objective and she knew a good composition. She understood that the world appears smaller in a photograph. That grand things, like the shoreline and the horizon, appear thin and insignificant on photographic paper. She’d make sure to have a side of rock in the picture, or some substantial house in the foreground. When you looked at Kathleen’s photos it appeared that you were looking at the land directly, and that you were in the land. They were photographs with thickness. As though her eye encouraged a thickening, or strength. And something in the encouragement of thick landscapes informed me of her spirit. She was generous.

  I realize now that I was judging her from the first moment of the day to the last, but judgment can often be a good judgment. She put up with it. Well, she put up with it for fifteen years.

  Once I went for water and before I got to the brook I returned.

  What is it, she said.

  I just wanted to tell you I love you. I woke up this morning in love with you and I didnt tell you.

  She did not stop clattering the dishes.

  Do you love me, I said.

  Yes, she said.

  In an energetic way?

  I love you throughout, she said.

  I took the doors off to paint. I had a line of doors outside against the sawhorse. Doors outside, I said to young Rocky, appear very tall. They relax into a larger size of themselves, dont you think? If you build things outdoors that are meant for indoors, you have to measure very carefully.

  He seemed to think about that. I did not know really what I meant. I liked talking about things I wasnt sure I believed. I preferred to speak of things as they occurred to me. Kathleen was the opposite. She liked to compose her thoughts, come to a conclusion, and then speak the full thought. I was often unprepared for a discussion, or too hotheaded.

  We visited the Bartletts and the Pomeroys. Rupert liked Kathleen. I overheard them speaking of flowers. She made him comfortable, as they were both quiet people. I’m often anxious around quiet people. I want them to talk more. It was part of the reason I liked Newfoundlanders — for the most part they talk a lot, and conversation encourages more conversation. Kathleen and I read books and played music in the Bartlett parlour. We listened to Rose Foley sing. They had heard my flute and wanted me to play. We appeared at church and sang. I stood, upon request, to perform Schumann’s “Two Grenadiers.” I sang it in German and thought of my nanny, Rosa, who had taught me the language. Outside, after the service, I was applauded.

  Rupert: You know German.

  I learned it as a boy. But it has made me appreciate German culture all the more. They are quite a sophisticated people.

  But the kaiser is a greedy throat.

  Yes, I said. For him there is always more.

  And speaking of more, we had little. Money. The allowance from Charles Daniel was always late. Even though I had lived much of my early life without money, I acted as though I had it. This comes from a privileged childhood. My father, a lawyer, was well paid. My mother was used to civic responsibilities. There was a strong house and my German nanny, Rosa. But when my father died the money went with him and we had to go live with my mother’s sister. Rosa did not come with us. Losing Rosa was the worst of it, and it took me a long time to realize that her departure was not strictly a result of our lack of money. One afternoon I went upstairs because I heard my father laughing. I saw them standing by the mirror of my mother’s dresser. Rosa was bent over, her elbows on the back of a chair. My father behind her. My father was looking at himself in the mirror, and Rosa was holding her head in her hands, almost blissful, as my father pushed into her. It was the chair that my mother sat in to do her face. They were in their clothes, but it was Rosa I noticed. My father’s hands were on her hips. I never asked my mother if she knew, but when my father died she fired Rosa immediately and we moved to my aunt’s.

  From then on we lived as though we had money because that was the only way we knew how to behave. I’m still this way. I dont own a wallet. My money is crumpled in my pockets. I dig into a pocket for money and the money is there. I’ve always felt money is my right, even though I had no cause to expect it. But I’ve learned that much comes to those who expect it should.

  5

  Tom Dobie had a few pots out for lobsters. It was early May.

  Ever done that before?

  I did. In a place called Monhegan.

  Did I want to go with him. We have to leave early, he said. Before daylight.

  I’m usually up, I said, before daylight.

  It was still very cold. I went down to the stagehead. He’d brought the three-legged dog.

  His name is Smoky, yes?

  He’s like a puff of smoke.

  He’s a beautiful dog.

  Tom: He’s all dog.

  Smoky was a big black dog with white markings.

  Tom Dobie threw a set of oilskins at me. I put them on, standing in the punt, as he rowed out to the dory moorings. The oars spattered with ice. They rubbed on the thole-pins. My oilskins went stiff from the cold. We reached the dory and Tom chopped ice off the gunwale, and then I helped him row out to sea just as the first light appeared. The dory’s oarlocks were outrigged, which was unusual in a rural boat.

  You got to go with a bit of technology, he said. He learned that from Bartlett.

  We each took an oar, and then Tom told me to sit in the back and rest up. The shape of him rowing, against the dark water and the bright morning light, I knew it would make a good woodcut.

  Cold enough for you.

  I like the cold, I said. It’s stimulating.

  Yes, Tom said. It’s nice to build a fire out of wood youve cut yourself to warm a little dory youve built yourself.

  He had a stove under the seat, and wood in the cuddy.

  We rowed out to the cork buoys for the lobster pots. Smoky sat behind me and licked the back of my head. The land being carved from the sky. The rub and sloosh of the oars. I was about to haul lobsters. I looked like a man of action. And yet the essence of me is a man of sloth. And I despise that man. I work against him.

  I ge
t up early, Tom. Because I want to lie in bed. And I work because I’m lazy.

  That’s a queer thing, he said. When there’s a choice in the matter.

  The dory was spruce, with maple runners and an oak footrest from a kneeling stool in a church. That’s sacred, he said. We were still in low voices. Any place you pray in, they can’t tear it down. Me and the Pomeroys we built her in February.

  Who painted it.

  I did.

  It’s a nice colour, the green.

  Yes, it sets her off, dont it.

  A cork buoy and a slanted rope down to the lobster pot. Hand over hand hauling it up, a wet wooden cage with three purple lobsters.

  Looks, he said, like we’ll have a good haul.

  6

  Kathleen had kept it to herself. She knew it was wrong, but she had to manage her feelings. I had to forgive her that. She had a letter and she was unsure of its contents. It was a letter from Jenny Starling. It arrived, she said, two days before they left. Its shape and colour and postmark of Boston struck her as hard. It made the first letter, from four years before, feel like a fresh incident. She was not happy to be the bearer of such a letter. She hated having it on her.

  I would rather, she said, this woman dropped out of our lives forever.

  Her entire trip had been clouded by that letter.

  I had not heard from Jenny since we’d drawn up a settlement over the future of our son. This letter. I opened it.

  Our son, George, had died.

  I sat in the studio with the letter. Kathleen said I should be alone with it. I turned the painting House of Dread upside down. To make it less literal during this moment, but it seemed to intensify its loneliness. The letter was formal, brief, but tenderly inscribed. Jenny’s penmanship, which I’d thought childish, now endeared her to me. That she had to tell me this. And how she must have looked as she wrote it. Where was her husband, and what did Luis Starling think. And had Luis Starling tried everything to save the boy. Yes, George’s illness had been very bad.