The Fortunate Brother

by Donna Morrissey

  “Told you that last time we talked: No. He was not.”

  “That’ll be it for now.” He went outside and Kyle stood staring after him. He was playing a game. He was a cop playing daddy, playing sympathetic friend. Implicating his father, implicating Kate.

  Kate. What the hell had she seen? It gives you an alibi too, Kate. She’d smiled. Thinking I killed him, Kyle?

  Rubbish. MacDuff was playing him. Setting him after Kate. Why? What did he know? What did she know?

  He sat back down, then remembered where he was and quickly got back up as Canning entered the room to escort him outside.

  —

  He hooked a ride on the highway with a trucker driving east. At Hampden Junction he bade his thanks and climbed out of the rig, heading for his father’s truck in the restaurant parking lot. The kitchen window swooped open and Rose poked out her head.

  “You still want those chips and butt chop for your father?”

  He gave her the thumbs up and went inside. A tentative search through the few faces sitting in their booths with platters of chips and gravy.

  “You want a can of Coke or something else to go with that?” Rose was sliding a brown paper bag along the counter next to the cash register. He went and stood in front of her, eyeing the kitchen door. Rose’s face was closed tight.

  “Looking for someone?” she asked.

  “Nope.” Whiffs of fried onions watered his mouth and he was suddenly weak with hunger. He straddled a stool and ripped open his father’s butt chop and chips and dug in with his fingers. “Fix up another one, will you, Rose?”

  “Here, b’y. Be civilized,” she said, putting a plate and cutlery before him. “Want a beer?”

  “Coffee.”

  “Slice of pie?”

  “Two.”

  “Kind?”

  “Coconut cream. How come you’re being so sweet?”

  “Hoping for a tip.”

  She came back with a mug of coffee and two slabs of pie on a plate. “You want some pie for your father?”

  “Sure.” He speared half a dozen chips into a puddle of ketchup and vinegar and then into his mouth. After he’d cleaned the plate he started in on the coconut cream pie, licking his fork clean. He felt someone watching him and glanced over his shoulder. The whole gawd-damn place was sneaking looks at his back.

  He finished off the pie, laid twenty-five bucks alongside the cash, grabbed his father’s bag, and started for the door. Rose was piling dirty dishes onto a tray. She snatched a glance at him, a peculiar look on her face.

  He paused, hand on the door. “What’s that for?”

  She feigned not hearing, studiously wiping down the table.

  He went over to her. “What the fuck was that look for?”

  She brushed at her bangs with the back of her hand and stared at him. “They’re saying you done it.”

  He glanced around at the bent heads, the suspended forks. “That’s what I just told the cops,” he said loudly. “That I done it.” He swung out the door and Rose came after him.

  “She wants to talk to you.”

  “Tell her to pick a number.”

  He boarded the truck and drove the thirteen miles to Hampden without seeing the road.

  ELEVEN

  At Bottom Hill he faltered, looked towards the gravel flat and Kate’s cabin. He needed to see her. Something wasn’t sitting right. Kate wasn’t sitting right. He drove down onto the flat and pulled up before her door. Her car wasn’t there. The dog was sniffing around the back of her cabin, whining and fretting. He gave a sharp bark at Kyle and went back to his sniffing. Kyle swung the truck around and drove off the flat and up Bottom Hill. Fucking MacDuff. Stirring up a curiosity about Kate he’d never felt before. Nor wanted. He liked Kate just as she was, someone from away who had no connections to any of the goings on around Hampden. In a place where everyone’s aches and pains and passions and peeves were as familiar as his own undershirt, it was nice having a friend with no baggage that needed unpacking.

  Cruising down the other side of Bottom Hill towards Hampden, he caught sight of Julia leaving the post office and hurrying towards her house, blond hair riffled by the wind. She saw the truck and stopped and he kept going. The spectacled old fellow stood on the roadside, thumbs hitched inside his suspenders, ogling him as though he was Cain returned.

  “Get off the road, you nosy old fuck!” yelled Kyle, blasting his horn. He clipped down the hill, then slackened speed as he drove along the shoreline towards the Rooms. He felt like he’d lived ten days since crawling out of bed this morning. A southerly wind chopped the sea, warming the air a bit. On the far side of Fox Point he saw Wade and Lyman shovelling sand from the side of the hill into the back of—if he wasn’t mistaken—his uncle Manny’s truck.

  Uncle Manny. His father’s brother from Jackson’s Arm. His favourite uncle. He felt a lump of warmth in his belly. Good. His father had company. Uncle Manny always made things better. He tapped his horn to his cousins, hoping to drive on past, but Wade dropped his shovel and was pumping his arms like a windmill for him to stop. What the hell. “Don’t have time to talk, buddy,” he said to his cousin, coasting to a stop.

  Wade leaned his forearms across the rolled-down window, his face all tender with concern. “Can’t help but wonder what’s going on.”

  “ ’Course you can’t. Everybody’s wondering what’s going on.” Kyle laughed. “I’m wondering what’s going on. Hell, I’d give my two right limbs to know.”

  “It was one of the Keats kids that told. He’s a brazen brat, that one.”

  “What? What did you say?”

  “Mutt-faced Keats. Rob. He was up in the woods, spying. There was two or three of them up there but he’s the ringleader. I made his brother tell me. You was part of their game. Luke Skywalker. Leave it to Keats to be Darth Vader.”

  She didn’t tell.

  “Anyhow, b’y, don’t look so serious. Like I told the cops—always something falling out of our pockets into the cement. Buried me wallet, once. We got it all filled in agin where they broke it up for the knife. See you later now.” Wade drew back, then slapped the side of the cab with a finality that invited no further comment from Kyle, no matter the curiosity in his eyes.

  “Thanks, buddy,” said Kyle. “How’s the old man doing?”

  “Whose—mine or yours?”

  “Start with yours.”

  “Contrary old fucker.”

  “Tell him about the spark plugs!” Lyman yelled.

  “Keep digging!” Wade yelled back.

  “What about the spark plugs?”

  “Nothing, b’y. Nothing. The old man come up from Big Island last evening and out sawing up firewood with his chainsaw and cocky over there sneaks out and takes the caps off his spark plugs and stuffs in some tissue.”

  “Jaysus.”

  “Ha, ha. Old man comes back from a piss and hauls on the cord till his face is blue, can’t get a gig. Ha ha. Never cursed, did he?”

  “He’s going to kill one of ye.”

  “Naw, he blames everything on the religious fellow next door.” Wade thumped on the cab again. “Go on now. Don’t worry about your father—Uncle Manny’s down there with him. Good as tonic, Uncle Manny is.” Wade drew back in. “Gotta watch Uncle Syl, though. Working like a dog, he is. Head down and going at it. He’s going to have another heart attack. I told him, ‘Old man, take a break. Go on down and see Aunt Addie.’ But he don’t listen. He’s waiting for you right now, better get on down.”

  “All right, buddy. See you in a bit. And thanks.”

  “Nothing for it. You take ’er easy, hey.”

  Kyle drove off feeling full of his cousin’s loyalty, if not his faith.

  She didn’t tell.

  There were no youngsters on the road as he drove through the Beaches. Hope you’re all down with the mumps. His father was sitting on the beach talking hard with Manny. They looked up, hearing the truck coming. Getting out of the cab, Kyle paused to look at the
site. The basement floor that had been nothing but mud and gravel the day before was now a smooth slab of grey concrete and already trenched for piping. Two days’ work. He’d done two days work in one.

  His father was coming towards him.

  “Don’t worry about nothing,” said Kyle in a low tone, patting his father’s shoulder in greeting. “I buried the knife because I thought you done it. That was before our talk.”

  “Say nothing to Manny. Nothing.”

  “Up for a bit of sun, are you?” Kyle called to his uncle. Manny was getting up, stout and jaunty and black-bearded. Grinning eyes peering beneath the rim of a baseball cap worn backwards.

  “Sun! Jaysus, that what it was?” Manny called back, doffing his cap towards the now clouded sky. “Thought it was a UFO and called the cops.” He put his cap back on as Kyle came up to him and thumped Kyle’s shoulder. “Look at them eyebrows, all growed in and thicker than your father’s. Christ, the two of ye—full of shit and down a quart. How’s she going, bugger?” He cuffed Kyle lightly on the chin and sat back down on the beach rocks.

  “Moving along, things are moving along,” said Kyle, sitting beside him. “And Mother’s doing fine,” he said to his father. “Good news is, the house is no longer under investigation. We can go home. And by the way, they knew all along we were staying there.” He looked to his uncle Manny. “Suppose you heard about that stuff, too?”

  “Shocking, b’y. Shocking. All ye’ve been going through and not a word from none of ye.” He threw a surly look at Sylvanus. “Me and the wife been at the winter house down Cat Arm and never heard a thing till we come back up and Matilda went to the post office and got an earful from Suze.”

  “You knows Mother, now,” said Kyle. “Only told us in time to get a ride to the hospital.”

  “Matilda’s gone on down Corner Brook now, helping her get packed to come home.”

  “She mightn’t be home this evening,” said Kyle. “And this other stuff, Christ. Something you sees on TV, hey?” He looked up to a fixed stare from his father.

  “What do you mean—mightn’t be home this evening?” asked Sylvanus.

  “She got a small infection. They got her on antibiotics.”

  “How come she never phoned then? How come nobody phoned?”

  “I was there, I suppose. The nurse told me.”

  “The nurse told you. Did you talk to the doctor?”

  “They weren’t there. No need getting worked up, she was looking fine.”

  “A gawd-damned corpse looks fine when they puts rouge on them. Did Sylvie talk to the doctor?”

  “Sylvie was getting coffee. I never seen Sylvie. I near hit a moose and missed her at the airport. Sit down, b’y. How’s the clan, Uncle Man?”

  His father’s hand came down heavily onto his shoulder. “You comes back from the hospital,” he said, eyes black as a crow’s, “and you don’t know how your mother is, or if she’s coming home this evening, and without seeing your sister?”

  “I told you, she’s fine. Think Sylvie’d be off getting coffee if she wasn’t? And Bonnie was there,” he fibbed. “Mother’s wanting for nothing, Jesus, b’y. Here, get your paw off me.” He shrugged off his father’s hand, watched the thick hairy fingers curl into a fist the size of a youngster’s head. “Sit down. Getting worked up over nothing.”

  “Don’t mind that, infections,” said Manny. “Happens all the time in hospitals. Goes in with sore ribs, comes out with sore elbows. No worries about that stuff.”

  “Yes, b’y,” said Kyle. He patted the rocks beside him. “Sit down. All right? Take a load off.”

  “Yes, b’y, sit down,” said Manny. “Like a stormy wind.”

  Sylvanus tried to smile, his jaw appearing too stiff and he too dammed up for any stream of chatter. Lowering himself onto a flat rock beside Kyle, he drew up his knees, his elbows resting on them. A ray of sun struck down into the sea and he stared at it, eyes brutish.

  “Taking a piece out of himself agin,” said Kyle.

  “All right they keeps her for a few extra days,” said Manny. “Give her a break from you. Here, have a beer.”

  “How’s everybody, Uncle Man?”

  “Fine, by the size of their arses. That’s all I sees. The rest of them is poked inside the fridge, stuffing their faces. Eat! Jesus, all they does is eat.”

  “Wonder where they gets that,” said Kyle, eyeing his uncle’s rounded gut.

  “Ah, baby fat,” said Manny, pinching his belly. “Don’t be fooled by that—six-pack in there somewhere, hey Syllie? Cripes, the face on him. Bend over, b’y, I boots you in the arse. Here, Kylie, have a beer with Uncle Man.” He snapped open two beers, passing Kyle one and looking appreciatively towards Sylvanus’s thermos. “He’s gone Pentecost, he told me. On the black stuff. Going there myself soon as summer’s finished.”

  “How’s work?”

  “Crab plant just closed for another month. You might be feeding me next week. Crab fishery going the same way as the cod—too many licences, too many boats, everything overfished. Thought we learned something from fishing all the cod outta the water. Hey b’y,” he said to Sylvanus.

  Sylvanus snorted, face to the choppy sheet of blue before him, wind tugging his thick thatch of hair.

  “Hey, b’y, what’re you saying?” Manny persisted.

  “We don’t learn nothing now. That’s what we learns.”

  “Naw, you don’t say.”

  “Same gawd-damned thing happening over and over. Good thing they got their science.”

  “Hah, that gets him going,” said Manny, nudging Kyle. “Bring up politics and that gets him going. Right on, b’y. Somebody should teach them adding and subtracting. You takes all the fish outta the sea and how many left back to spawn? Nothing, sir. Now, how hard is that to learn? You done good, Syl, b’y, getting outta the fishery. Not just greedy governments and companies. We fishermen plays it blind, too. We wants the dollar. You done better than we, staying on shore and not trading your nets for the factory freezers. If we’d all stood up like you done years ago, we might still have a fishery.”

  Sylvanus grunted. “Only thing I changed now is me address. Like the rest of ye.”

  “Listen to him. Not down on himself, is he?” said Manny.

  “Can’t give him nothing,” said Kyle. “Mother says he thinks he’s God, responsible for everything that happens.”

  “Jesus, b’y,” said Manny. “You moved from the fishing when you were starved out. Never give in first shot like we all done. You were right, brother. We jumped on the first boat out and them boats kept getting bigger until we had them Jesus factories sitting out there and siphoning off the spawning grounds. But you stood your ground. Long before the arse was out of her, you stood your ground.”

  Not aching for a drink, is he, thought Kyle, watching his father take a swig of tea from his thermos and spit it back out. He swung his arm around his shoulders and gave him a sloppy, sideways hug.

  “Can’t argue that one, can you, old man. You stood your ground.”

  Sylvanus gave the disheartened grunt of a father over a foolish son.

  “Grunt all you wants now,” said Manny. “You had your honour. That’s what you did, then. You had your honour. Right? Right, my son?”

  “Right,” said Sylvanus gloomily. “Nice hat she was till a gull shat on it. Lot of good it done me after that.”

  “Hear him?” Manny asked Kyle. “Hear the like of him? Cripes, you can say what you wants now, but they didn’t have you jumping through the hoops like they done us. You seen it coming before we all did. We let ourselves be mollycoddled. Took the big pay stubs. By Jesus, you might’ve fought through hard times sometimes, but you always had your worth about you—and you deserves that. You didn’t barter that like we done. Now we all knows. Too late to do anything. It might’ve took the heart out of you, working in them woods the way you done. But there’s them who think you’re the stronger one for taking that stand.”

  “What good is that now,
if you can’t do for your family?”

  “Not just spuds you feeds a family with.” Manny punched Kyle’s shoulder. “He didn’t get his smarts from sucking turnip greens. You done good, damn good. Not your fault God poked around in your life. That’s about the one thing now, that’s not predictable—the hand of God. You can’t go getting down and blaming yourself for stuff you got no control over. And you can’t lose hope, either. You got to trust some things. And that goes for you too, young feller, you never loses hope.”

  “Hope.” Kyle gulped down the word with a mouthful of beer. “That’s the word for the day, is it?”

  “The hell with hope, then. Take heart from what you already got. You got your boy here,” he said to Sylvanus. “And he still got you. And he’s gawd-damned fortunate to have you. Not going to take that from him too, are you?”

  The sun shuddered through the clouds. Sylvanus turned from its light and stood, kicking his thermos aside. “Get in the truck, Manny. Drive me down Corner Brook.”

  “Cripes, yes. Get the Jesus outta here. Sitting and bawling when Addie’s most likely packing to come home. Where’s them young fellers with me truck? Jesus, they got the bottom beat out of her, most likely.”

  “We’ll take mine,” said Sylvanus. “Kyle can drive yours till we gets back this evening.”

  “No gawd-damn rough riding either,” Manny said to Kyle. “The wheels could fall off her any minute. Here, come here.” He wrapped short strong arms around Kyle and cut off his breath with the strength of his hug. “You remember what I says. You’re the fortunate one. You still gets to be with us for a bit longer. The other one—well, he’s watching on, somewhere. But we gets to live the riddle a bit longer. Hey, b’y? That’s good, isn’t it?”

  “That’s good, Uncle Manny.” Kyle stood back and his father came before him, his big arms engulfing him in another hug. He grasped tight to Sylvanus, feeling that warm good heart pumping against his, pumping hard, pumping love, and then he was roughly pushed aside and he stood there, wrapping his arms around himself as though he were cold as his father walked away. He and Manny got into the truck. Kyle kept hugging onto himself, his face wet from a swollen heart as he watched them drive up the road and out of sight around a bend.