The Fortunate Brother

by Donna Morrissey

  He walked around the site, looking about, then walked back to the beach and sat, having no mind for work. He got back up and walked down the shore. A brook cut down through the scraggy underbrush and onto the beach, its flow to the sea encumbered by a kelp-encrusted rock. He watched the brook backing onto itself before rippling over the blockage and felt himself to be that encrusted rock. He scrunched it aside with the heel of his boot and watched the brook flow into the sea, unhindered by thoughts of its own drowning, its immersion a homecoming. He thought of Bonnie Gillard entombed in her red car, screaming with fright as the river rose to greet her. He wondered if Clar Gillard had been frightened going into death. And Chris. His stomach lurched. He shielded his eyes to keep from seeing and then opened them. He needed to know. He needed to know right now.

  He got to his feet and walked back up the shore. He walked past the work site, the weathered houses of the Beaches. Curious eyes followed him from behind shifting curtains. Others stared boldly through bare windows, the odd youngster scrambling behind a woodpile or shed at the sight of him. He walked with purpose, passing wet black cliffs sponged with green sods on his left, on his right the one long wave unfurling to his step.

  Around a rocky bend his cousins were driving towards him in Manny’s truck. Wade lowered his window and called out.

  “Just talking to Ben,” he said as the truck rolled to a stop. “He’s heading to the bar with some of the boys. I told him we’d meet him for a beer.”

  “See you there,” said Kyle, without breaking stride. Going down Fox Point, he cut straightaway off the road, went down the embankment, and then leaped over the white picket fence into the cemetery. He looped around soggy mounds guarded by upright slabs of granite. He came to Chris’s, Taken Too Soon scripted beneath two clasped hands. He knelt and laid his hands on each side of the tombstone as though they were shoulders and he gripped them hard. He lowered his mouth to a piece of the cold granite, warming it with his breath. “I’m coming, buddy, I’m coming,” he whispered.

  He heard Manny’s truck gearing down to a halt on Fox Point. He got up and looped his way farther across the soggy green of the cemetery, taking a foot-path through the Rooms, the air smoked with hickory from the smokehouse. He walked steadily along the shoreline up to Hampden, his cousins keeping a distance behind. It felt good, their being there. He walked up through the centre of the community, the wind swiping salty across his lips and stirring laundry hanging heavy on the lines. A youngster’s wails turned to squawks of laughter behind a closed blind. Farther on, a man’s rough command and a sweet, lyrical voice rising in protest against it. Julia. Fighting with her father in the driveway while Rose stood mute beside the new car. The father stomped off towards the house, stopping to wag a thick hairy finger at his daughter, hollering “…and if I gets wind of you driving my car once more, you’re out on the road!”

  “The hell with him,” Rose said to Julia after the house door slammed. “We’ll take my mother’s car, it’s already a banged-up piece of shit.”

  “Have a word, Julia?” Kyle had come up silently behind them. Both girls started, Julia’s face kindling deeper with anger at the sight of him.

  “Pick a number, arse,” said Rose.

  “A private word, Julia?”

  “Oh, he’s all private now he don’t have a room full of people listening. Don’t listen to him, Jewels.”

  Jewels. Kyle looked into Julia’s blue moonstone eyes.

  “Go see if we can get your mother’s car,” Julia said to Rose. “See you later on this evening.”

  Rose threw him a disgruntled look and went off.

  “What’s up?” asked Julia.

  “I apologize.”

  “You really thought I ratted you out?” Her eyes were dark with hurt and he kicked at the ground with the toe of his boot.

  “Too much going on. Didn’t get chance to think much.”

  She stood, slender as a stalk of grass, hair streaming down her shoulders, and he felt like a freak, shoulders hunched, hands knotted. Hair knotted too, no doubt.

  “Jewels,” he said. “That’s nice. Jewels.”

  “Are you hitting on me?”

  “Fuck, no. Don’t go hollering for her to come back.”

  “Fine, then, you’re sorry. What more do you want?”

  He shifted uncomfortably. “There is something, actually. Not sure if this is the right place for it. Or time.” He gave an awkward laugh.

  “Go ahead, ask.”

  He nodded. Turned from her eyes, brittle with cold. “It’s—aw, fuck. It sounds foolish now.”

  “It’s the only thing now. Ask it.” Her voice softened. “Sometimes the questions are tougher than the answers.”

  He nodded his appreciation. Then he sucked in a lungful of air, glanced at her sideways, and spoke too fast. “The night before Chris flew off to Alberta. You came out behind him when he was leaving the bar. I saw you there. You’d been talking with him?”

  “We talked.”

  “Can I ask what you talked about—I mean, about Alberta. If he said how he felt about leaving?”

  She was silent for so long he turned to her fully. Her eyes were softened now, like her tone. “I wasn’t his girlfriend, if that’s what you mean.”

  “No. No, I didn’t mean that.”

  “We went to the graduation and hung out some, but nothing serious. The night before he left, well—I guess he was wanting something more. I didn’t. Why you asking about that?”

  “I—well, that’s not what I was asking about. But it’s nice to know.”

  “You feel weird thinking Chris and I were a twosome?”

  He shook his head. “I thought he looked scared when he left. Scared of going to Alberta.”

  “Lord, no. He was proud as punch about that. Couldn’t wait to leave. Is that what you thought? That he was scared of going to Alberta? He was scared of leaving me. He thought there might be a chance if he stayed, but that he’d lose it if he left. I did leave it a bit fuzzy with him. But I think he knew that…well, that I just couldn’t come right out and say no to him. I think that was all right, don’t you think that was all right? I’ve fretted about it.”

  Somewhere in his heart a small chamber drew light. He looked at her with growing gratitude. “You have a kind heart. Thank you for telling me. Thank you so gawd-damn much.”

  “If I’d known you thought…”

  “No. Don’t think anything more. It’s good.”

  “What’s good about it?”

  “Everything. Everything’s good about it. I gotta go. You see Ben around?”

  “They’re at Hooker’s. They’re heading for the bar in a bit. Might be there yet.”

  “All right, then. I’ll catch you later. Hey, you like fishing?”

  “No.”

  “Take you tomorrow, if you want.”

  “God. Baymen.”

  “I’ll show you my secret spots.”

  “Already know them.”

  “Catch me a fish and I’ll teach you how to drive a standard.”

  “Already knows that, too. It’s a clutch thing.”

  “Right. Right on that. Listen, call me if you wants to go fishing.” He went off, step notably lighter, no doubt, to the two cousins sitting in the truck, discreetly parked to the side of Fudge’s store, watching. He took a shortcut behind the store and down a grassy hump and crossed a low-built bridge and scaled the hillside that led to the back of the bar. Inside, he sat near the window with his back to the room and waited. He bought a beer and let it sit there. Unholy it is, drinking over the dead and getting maudlin with your own sorry self. Words his mother flung at his drunken father once.

  His cousins came inside, gave him a wary glance, and sat at the bar, ordering beers. Must’ve been fifteen, twenty minutes that he sat there, staring at his beer. He heard Ben coming from half a block away. His voice chipper, raunchy like a blue jay’s. Bunch of the boys jousting alongside of him and cawing like crows. Always like that with Ben, fellows
hanging around him as if he were the Second Coming, all of them talking over and under the other.

  They entered the bar noisily, Ben ahead. Longish black curls, broad easy smile. It was how Kyle remembered him those days back on the wharf when he’d come visit Sylvie and Chris, and he, Kyle, was just a kid. Once Ben leaned over the edge of the wharf with him and helped him spear a flatfish with a gaff. Kyle pitched it flipping and flopping onto the wharf, his heart seizing with excitement. Ben gutted it, hands dripping with gurry, and Sylvie shrieking and Chris running for the frying pan. Later Addie fried up the fish with pork scruncheons and Ben saluted Kyle sitting at the head of the table as Fish Killer Supreme.

  “What’re you at, bugger,” called Ben, coming towards him. “How’s she goin’.” Ben took his hand tight and looked steady into his eyes and Kyle saw that Ben’s eyes were clear. No longer shame-cast as when he’d first returned after Chris’s accident.

  “Good to see you, man, good to see you. Sorry about this morning. Near hit a moose, stuck on the road for an hour. Where’s Sylvie?”

  “She’s coming in a minute. Your mother’s getting out this evening, your father’s waiting to drive her home. Good to see you, bugger. Look at that stubble. Not like his old man, is he?”

  “The spit,” said Skeemo. He’d come up behind Ben. Sup, Pug, and Hooker, all of them crowding around Kyle’s table, plunking down their beers and scraping back chairs, Wade and Lyman amongst them. Welcome back, man, welcome back, they chorused, raising their glasses to Ben. Their smiles fell away as they looked at Kyle, becoming unsure, looking back at each other with loud chatter should their puzzled expressions give them away. Except Hooker. He sat on the edge of his seat, staring at Kyle with the same tension as he might the climactic ending to his favourite TV show.

  “Her fever’s gone,” said Ben, edging his seat closer to Kyle. “She’s sitting up, ordering everyone around and demanding to be sent home. Sorry, buddy.” Ben gripped his arm, looking into his eyes again. “Sorry you had to go through this.”

  “Not all bad. Brought the old man around, he hasn’t drunk since.”

  “Go on, b’y, he must be dead. You checked his heartbeat?”

  The boys laughed, and Kyle did too.

  “What’s all this about a knife? What’s the scoop on Clar, haven’t heard nothing but what Mother’s saying. Christ, get strung up you repeats after Mother.” Ben laughed, the boys laughed, and Ben toasted them all. “That’s the thing with Mother. Something don’t make sense, she shapes it till it does and then preaches it as the gospel. God love her, she would’ve done good at something. So what’s the scoop, what’s going on, bugger, the Beaches youngsters got one on you?”

  “Jaysus, they had me convinced I knifed Clar. Went to the cops and confessed and the cops kicked me out. Not kidding,” he said, glancing at Hooker. “They kicked me out. Knife fell out of my arse pocket when we were pouring cement. The little bastards were spying up in the woods, and Darth Vader nailed me for murder.” He guffawed, his words easy, his nervousness barely perceptible beneath the jiggling of his foot.

  “String ’em up, little bastards,” said Lyman.

  “That’s right, bud,” Skeemo hooted, “string the little bastards up,” and he clinked his glass against Lyman’s and then Ben’s. “Welcome home, man. Good to have you back.”

  “What went down with Clar?” asked Ben. “Mother’s after curdling me short hairs.”

  “He was upping his game for sure,” said Skeemo.

  “Got worse after Bonnie left him,” said Sup.

  “That right, now, brother, and just how the frig can bad get badder?” asked Hooker.

  “Spraying her down with oven cleaner, old man. Never done nothing that sick before.”

  “Not that we knows. Nobody knows now what she put up with.”

  “I say he got worse,” said Pug, “else she wouldn’t have moved out.”

  “She was always moving out, numbnuts,” said Skeemo.

  “And always moving back in,” said Sup. “She never this time, though. He was getting worse over time, I seen it in his face. Starting to feel sorry for the bastard.”

  “That right, now,” said Kyle. “And was that before or after he sprayed his wife with chemicals?”

  “Not bawling here now,” said Sup. “Had a few talks with him, that’s all. He had that nice way about him sometimes.”

  “Yeah, he did. Agrees with you there,” said Skeemo. “Way he smiled.”

  “Last thing I seen before he suckered me,” said Kyle. “Didn’t look that nice.”

  “Hey, man, not picking up for the guy, all right? He was one sick fuck!”

  “Father says Bonnie drove him nuts,” said Lyman.

  “Father says. Ha ha,” said Ben. “Crazy fucking Jake. Still blaming Kitty Wells for killing Hank.”

  “Perhaps she did. Drove him to drink.”

  “Drove him to yodel. Ha! And we thought he was singing.”

  “Seriously, man, who came up with yodelling?” asked Skeemo.

  “Someone with their balls nipped on a cracked toilet seat,” said Sup. The boys hooted and Sup leaned forward. “Perhaps that’s what done it. Bonnie started humming a Hank song, and he got jealous.”

  “He was fucked before she met him,” said Pug.

  “He wasn’t treated right, man. He was crucified growing up.”

  “So was Jesus. He didn’t roll aside the stone and go trawling for fights, after.”

  “No b’y, he left that for his Old Man to do,” said Skeemo.

  “Ha ha, while he snivelled in the desert for forty days and nights,” said Pug.

  “And his Old Man’s been cursing us ever since.”

  “Cursing who, jingle balls. Clar was fed with a silver spoon,” said Hooker.

  “Money don’t get you everything.”

  “He could’ve walked. Starts growing hair in your armpits, you don’t need your mother packing your bags.”

  “Had his noggin kicked too many times.”

  “He wasn’t kicked, where you get that? Old Man Gillard just had to look and Clar shrivelled up. Everybody did. Never had the evil eye, did he, that old fucker.”

  “That’s who he should’ve tied up and hosed down with cleaner,” said Skeemo. “Our father was no effing picnic, but me and Sup, we got bigger than him and frightened the shit outta him one night with a baseball bat. Behaving ever since. Bawled last Christmas when we give him a present.”

  “What did you give him, black pepper?”

  “Pepper you, dickhead! Stick that up your arse, that’ll get you hopping.”

  “Jaysus, there’s a thought. I wonder—”

  “You knows what thought done now—ha ha, hey b’y?”

  “Listen to the philosophers over there.” It was Rose and her cousin, Tina. They’d come in quietly and already had beers in their hands, heading for the pool table.

  “Got it all figured out, do ye?” asked Rose. “Knows who killed Clar?”

  “Heard it was your mother,” said Skeemo.

  “Heard you’re next,” said Rose, and Hooker laughed too hard and Rose tossed him a haughty look and started racking the balls. Hooker made to rise and Kyle kicked his leg.

  “Make her come to you, b’y. Jaysus.”

  Hooker gave him a sour look and got up anyway. “Partner up?” he asked, sauntering to the pool table and Rose.

  “Sure, b’y, I’ll bust your balls for you,” said Rose, chalking her cue.

  The boys guffawed and Skeemo rose with a pained look. “Sounds like an invite to me.”

  Ben looked around in awe. “Look at the boys, look at ’em. Few girls walks in and they’re all up and gone.” He cuffed Kyle’s chin. “What about you, bud? Got a girlfriend? Speaking of…” He got up, peering out the window. “That’s the rental. Sylvie’s here.”

  “Sylvie?” Kyle took a gulp from his drink. He wiped his mouth, held his hands on the armrests for a second, then rose from his chair. “Back in a minute,” he said to Ben and h
eaded for the door.

  “Hold up, buddy.” Ben hurried after him. “Chance for a few words?”

  “Later. Need to talk to Sylvie before she comes in.”

  “Hold on.” Ben stood between him and the door. “What’s going on?”

  “What’s not, old man. We’ll talk later. Look,” he said as Ben backed up against the door, “I’ve got to talk to Sis. Hey, I didn’t do it, all right?”

  “Do what? Ben looked stricken. “Knife Clar? Jesus, who’s thinking that?” He looked to the boys. “No-o-o, is that what they’re thinking? Jesus Christ, what’s going on, brother?”

  “I gotta talk to Sis, I’ll be back in a minute, all right? Look, I need to catch her before she comes in.”

  Ben drew aside, his hands falling helplessly at the distance separating them. “I’m with you, bud. Whatever the hell is going on. And Sylvie, look, she don’t know nothing about you and—and the police.”

  “Let’s keep it that way for a bit. All right, buddy? That’s all I can say now. Okay?”

  “Thanks.” Kyle opened the door and went outside, surprising himself with his assured step.

  TWELVE

  Sylvie was parking the car, her face in profile showing their mother’s defiant chin. Fine dark hair brushing her shoulders. She looked up, seeing him. Brown eyes with their mother’s clarity that saw straight through to his heart. He slipped inside the car, leaving the door ajar for air. Tried to look at her but couldn’t.

  She laid her hand atop the back of his and it felt warm. She gripped his fingers and he gripped back, letting her lead him as she’d done those times when they were youngsters and he trod too close to the water’s edge and the overhangs and the falls that churned too madly.

  “I’ve missed you, Ky.”

  He winced.

  She put her arm around his neck and rested her cool forehead against his hot cheek.

  “I’m so sorry, Sis. I’ve not been thinking straight.”

  “You loved him. It was coming from a good place.”

  “You loved him, too.”