Black Apple

by Joan Crate

  * * *

  “You okay?” Mrs. Mooney asked, glancing at her dress and stockings.

  “I tripped.”

  Shrugging, Mrs. Mooney handed her a receipt penned in a surprisingly prim hand.

  A big coal miner by the name of Cyril Brown carried her suitcase up to her room, showed her the bathroom, and pointed out his room across from hers, Ruby’s room, and, at the end of the hall, Mrs. Mooney’s suite.

  She nodded numbly, her thoughts flitting from the Dominion Hotel to dead Father Patrick, to this boardinghouse full of men where she wasn’t even supposed to be staying, and back to Dead Fox Man, his bottle and thudding fist. She caught little of what Cyril was saying, but she nodded when he looked at her with his pale eyes. Mother of Christ, Mother of all we who are motherless.

  Her room was about twice the size of the summer bedroom she shared with Sister Simon, and though it stank of tobacco, she could see that Mrs. Mooney had given it a cursory dusting and put clean sheets on the bed.

  She opened her suitcase and laid the Bible on her pillow. As she was pulling off her wet stockings, Mrs. Mooney stuck her bright head in the door. “I got some disinfectant, rags, and a mop downstairs if you want to do a proper clean tomorrow. You can use the wringer washer in the basement whenever you want.”

  “Yes. Thanks.” Help us to accept our losses and submit to God’s will. She really couldn’t ask the Virgin for anything more, she reasoned as she yanked her dress over her head, throwing it on a wooden chair in the corner. The next day she would scrub away Eugene and all the others who had slept in the room before her. Then she would clean the bathroom down the hall. Standing at its entrance with Cyril, she had smelt urine. She would scrub the floor and toilet with bleach and scour the tub. After that, she would have a bath and soak all traces of this dirty town from her skin.

  She locked the door and kissed the small cross Sister Cilla had given her, her eyes smarting. She was lost and lonely. As she put her head beside the Bible on her pillow, she whispered, “Taki, please, I need you,” into the darkness.

  But, of course, Anataki wasn’t there.

  35

  Earthly Pleasures

  A FEW HOURS LATER, Rose Marie clawed her way through a thick blanket of sleep and sat up in her bed. Mother Grace reached out a hand that almost touched her shoulder before it turned to paper.

  “Mother Grace, where did you go?” she cried, reaching into the night. She sank back in bed.

  Men fought in a dark street. Dead Fox Man saw her crouched in the grass and came after her, a rope in his hands. She fled down an alley, but slipped in a pool of mud that sucked her down. Dead Fox Man was coming for her, and she was stuck! She opened her eyes. She didn’t know where she was.

  A thin, haunting voice beckoned her through the floorboards, and she was drawn down to the open door of a cabin with a crackling fire and the aroma of deer stew—a home, though not the one she had once shared with Mama, Papa, and Kiaa-yo—but still, home. Her home, in the dream.

  “Come in,” a voice whispered to her from inside the cabin.

  She opened her eyes. It was night.

  “Come in.” The voice called her back to the dream, a man she couldn’t see clearly, though the hearth fire played over his skin. Maybe Papa. Maybe even Fire Indian. “Okii.” He beckoned and she started to go to him.

  “Rose Marie!” Mother Grace called sharply. As she turned to her, the cabin fell into the earth.

  “Rose Marie!”

  Her eyes flew open. Someone was banging at the door of a strange room, not hers, not the cramped one she shared with Sister Simon that had a crucifix, palm crosses, and a picture of the Virgin Mary being told of her destiny by the Holy Spirit.

  “You missed breakfast. It’s nine now, and I thought I better wake you up,” Mrs. Mooney called. “Hey, you in there?”

  “Yes. I’m coming, Mrs. Mooney. Thanks for waking me,” she added, remembering her manners.

  When she went downstairs for cleaning supplies, Mrs. Mooney handed her a plate with two slices of toast. “Still some coffee on. Want some?”

  “Oh. Well, thanks.” She had never had coffee before. Mother Grace wouldn’t allow it, warning it would stunt her growth. She was four foot ten and a half inches, the shortest senior in the school, for crying out loud.

  The coffee tasted bitter. Mrs. Mooney handed her a bowl of sugar, and she dropped in a teaspoonful, enjoying the faint whisper. “Milk?” her landlady offered.

  After cleaning her room and the bathroom, she had a quick bath and hurried down the stairs to head over to the rectory. The front door opened, and in walked Frank.

  “There she is, Miss Rose Marie.”

  She nodded, her palm, gripping the banister, suddenly damp.

  “No one came to get you from the bus depot yesterday, eh?”

  “It was supposed to be Father Patrick. He died.”

  “Dwayne was saying something about that the other night. So you ended up here.”

  “Well, I think I was supposed to stay at the Tortorelli house. But when she saw me—”

  “No, she don’t like Indians.” He imitated Mrs. Tortorelli’s raised chin and haughty expression. “No Indians allowed-ah,” he pronounced with an Italian accent, and they both laughed.

  Then, suddenly nervous, she dodged by him and was out the door before she realized she should have grabbed her sweater.

  * * *

  Mrs. Rees opened the rectory door. “No need to knock, dearie. Come right in. I was about to get myself a bit of bread and butter. I’ll make some for you too. You’ll put the kettle on, won’t you?” She waved an arm towards the stove. “A spot of raspberry jam, now? I made it myself.”

  Rose Marie waited for the kettle to boil, made the tea, and carried it to the table. She sat down while Mrs. Rees chattered on so quickly she barely had time to absorb the words.

  “Not a bad town, is it, now? Not at all. Just stay away from the Dominion Hotel after dark, dear. Always walk on the other side of the street on your way home. And if you have any troubles, tell me, won’t you? Me old lad will set them straight, he will.” She lowered her voice. “It’s the single men and the drink. And just last night Billy Nimsic found dead outside the Dominion.” She shook her head, her face slumping like warm candlewax. “I wasn’t going to say anything to you, but I can’t help myself. I saw the blood on the sidewalk not four hours ago when Mr. Rees walked me to work.”

  Hot tea sloshed over the brim of Rose Marie’s cup.

  “Oh dear. Put that down. That’s right. Now take a deep breath.”

  She did. Then she raised her cup again and gulped at the scalding liquid, allowing the burn to drag her attention from the bloodstained sidewalk and the sound of breaking bone.

  “Billy wasn’t known as a fighting man, but he was a terrible drinker since his Gladys died.” Mrs. Rees crossed herself, tears springing to her eyes. “He must have fallen.” She pulled the napkin from her lap and dabbed her cheeks. “Entirely too much death lately. A body can’t take it.”

  She nodded numbly while Mrs. Rees kept chattering, her plump hands landing like chickadees on a wrist or shoulder, eyes darting from serious to sad, then crinkling in a smile. Rose Marie wasn’t used to having someone confide in her, not since Taki died, but she liked it, the way Mrs. Rees’s voice took over the space between them, allowing her mind to rest against the soft pillow of words.

  “You never mind what Father Seamus said yesterday,” Mrs. Rees consoled as they did the dishes. “He’s like that. I’ve got plenty for you to do here, and I can use the company. That school’s not expecting you back for three months, are they? You can still fulfil your duties. Can you sew, dear? The needle’s getting a mite hard to hold in me old fingers, and there are all those choir gowns and robes to mend.”

  “Yes, I can sew,” she answered, surprised by her confidence. “I can hand-stitch and use a machine, both treadle and electric.”

  Mrs. Rees beamed.

  * * *

  Th
at evening at the old Mooney place, Rose Marie sat down timidly in the dining room with the others, most of them men. There were so many men in Black Apple, walking down the street in ones and twos, going in and out of stores, knots of them lingering outside the Dominion Hotel as she hurried by, the Mooney house filled with them. And here she was, eating with a tableful of men for the first time in her entire life.

  “This here’s Reggie,” Cyril said. “A miner like Frank and me. And this here’s Dwayne”—he jerked his thumb at a dark-haired man shaking out a napkin on his other side—“just made foreman.”

  “How do you do.”

  They nodded. Two other men came to the table, and everyone started eating—boiled potatoes, green beans from a can, meat loaf, white bread, and gravy. Heavens, not even the pretext of a prayer from any of them. She closed her eyes to silently thank the Lord while the rest dug right in.

  “Heard about Billy Nimsic, I suppose?” Ruby enquired, and the others nodded, looking at her expectantly. “Jesus Christ Al-bloody-mighty,” she cursed, and Rose Marie almost choked on a bean. “Back of his head split right open, the poor bugger.”

  “You saw him?” Mrs. Mooney asked.

  “Sure did. Fell right outside the gents’ door. Drunk as a bloody skunk.”

  “A generous guy, Billy Nimsic,” Mrs. Mooney offered, “but sure as hell not one for business. Nope, it’s Dickie Gerard who knows how to run that hotel. Needed Billy to be his partner on account of all that money he inherited from his old man.”

  “A miserable old miser, his father,” one of the miners said. “Billy wasn’t like him one bit.”

  Rose Marie sat on the edge of her chair. She wanted to cross herself, to fold her hands and say the Orphans’ Prayer, but she didn’t dare. On and on they went, with so many stories and so much swearing she thought her head would explode. She cut her meat loaf in small pieces and slipped them in her mouth. Once she glanced up to find Frank’s eyes on her. Heat spread across her neck, and she looked away. Cyril smiled. Holy Mother, keep me from those who would harm me. After supper, she rose to clear the table with Ruby and Mrs. Mooney.

  “You don’t have to do nothing,” Mrs. Mooney told her. “You paid your room and board.”

  “I want to help.” She sounded as if she were begging—a child, not a young woman of nineteen on her way to becoming a Sister of Brotherly Love. “Please, Mrs. Mooney, I’m used to chores.” Her room was the only other escape from the too-much unscheduled time, the too-many strangers, Frank, Cyril—all the men—and without work to do, the evening would be long and anxious.

  “Okay, then,” Mrs. Mooney agreed, and Ruby turned to grin at her, showing the spaces between her big tobacco-stained teeth. Rose Marie followed them into the kitchen.

  “By the way,” Mrs. Mooney said gruffly, pointing at a woman who was pushing her way through the back door, “that there’s Mrs. Derkatch.”

  The frizzy-haired lady who had not wanted to sit next to her on the bus!

  “She helps with the clean-up week nights.”

  Mrs. Derkatch nodded, took off her coat, and hung it on the hook behind the door, then started to scrape off dinner plates. As Ruby and Mrs. Mooney continued to talk about Billy Nimsic and the hotel, Mrs. Derkatch kept her back to them as if she were above such concerns, but Rose Marie could tell she was listening.

  Rose Marie didn’t want to hear any more on the subject. She bit her bottom lip, remembering how, last night, Dead Fox Man had looked right at her. She was across the street, kneeling on the ground, and it had been dark, so he might not have noticed her. He might have seen her silhouette only, or maybe just a clump of shadows. And he had not come after her, had simply slipped around the corner and vanished.

  Maybe if she told anyone, he would come after her, like he had when she first arrived in Black Apple. Oh, but Billy Nimsic had fallen and hit his head. Dead Fox Man—whatever his name was—hadn’t killed him, the fall had, the pavement: a simple accident. And it wasn’t against any Commandment to avoid telling about an accident. It suddenly occurred to her that it could be against the law. Oh dear, she didn’t need any trouble in this town, this awful town.

  As soon as Mrs. Derkatch had scraped the dishes and stacked them on the counter, Rose Marie put them in the sink, added the cutlery, and turned on the water full blast to mask Ruby and Mrs. Mooney’s conversation. Submerging her hands in hot, soapy water, she started washing.

  “Aren’t you afraid of cutting yerself?” barked Mrs. Mooney. “There are knives in there and real sharp.”

  She shook her head. There was a way to reach into water, she had learned at St. Mark’s, to touch without injuring. “I always do dishes this way.” That was the approach she needed in this town. She set the clean plates and bowls in the dish rack, and without looking at her, Mrs. Derkatch snatched them up and started drying. She wondered if Frizzy remembered her from the bus. The old bat acted like she wasn’t worth even acknowledging. Fine. She gave her one of Sister Joan’s withering looks, but Mrs. Derkatch refused to notice.

  As soon as she had finished the dishes and wiped the sink and counter, she left the kitchen and slipped silently down the hall. Just outside Frank’s door, she stopped. Music pulsed into the hallway, a song about a man killing another man because he wanted to see him die, and though the words were disturbing, she couldn’t help but sway her head to the beat.

  She was familiar with radios and the strange feelings they seemed to stir. In her second or third year at St. Mark’s, the sisters had bustled importantly up to the priests’ suite one evening to listen to people from across the sea declare the end of the war. She had imagined them sitting around the radio, an ornate wooden chest with a panel of thick upholstery that the sound sputtered from. It was an occasion they had talked about for months, Sister Cilla sometimes imitating the British awk-cent in the dorm, making everyone laugh.

  When she was an intermediate, she was given the summer chore of dusting the priests’ living quarters every Saturday while they were taking confession. Afraid of being discovered, she never dared turn on the radio until her second summer at the job, and once she figured out how to work the contraption, she learned the importance of pork-belly, wheat, and barley prices, information she passed on to Sister Bernadette, who then knew when to pester local farmers for donations.

  Just last winter after Christmas holidays, a senior named Reba had smuggled one of the new portable radios into the dormitory. For two weeks, until they were caught and the radio was confiscated, a group of seniors had snuck into the bathroom after lights-out, giggling and dancing to tunes with names like “Earth Angel,” “Tutti Frutti,” and “Blueberry Hill.” Probably to earn her silence, the girls had insisted she join them, and though she was older—the most senior senior, the only girl in grade twelve and supposedly “responsible”—she had allowed them to persuade her. Imitating their wiggles, shakes, and prances, Rose Marie had felt the sensation of coins jingling up her spine, something she hadn’t experienced since Taki died. She had even heard herself giggle. She joined the girls for a few more nights, but she never felt the same thrill or laughed as much as on the first night. Yet for days after Sister Margaret had carted the radio away, visions of adolescent girls with jittering-fruit breasts and backs with sprouting wings danced through her mind as she was drifting off to sleep.

  Clearly Frank had a radio in his room, and she was sure she had heard music coming from both Ruby’s and Cyril’s rooms upstairs. Yet she wouldn’t allow herself to hope for a radio of her own. Soon she would be taking a vow of poverty. Material goods, Mother Grace had told her, would do nothing but impede her spiritual journey. Earthly pleasures must be forsaken. But just that morning, Mrs. Mooney had told her that whenever she wanted, she could listen to the parlour radio, even larger and grander than the one in the priests’ suite. And maybe she would do just that.

  She went over to it and spun the biggest wooden knob. The sudden popping of fire eating through a forest made her quickly turn it the other way.
Nothing worked the way it was supposed to, and she was afraid to try the other knobs in case someone heard and came running. Smoothing her head covering, she walked towards the stairs. As she passed by the open front door, she glimpsed Cyril sitting on the porch steps, smoking. He turned and motioned her.

  “Take a load off your feet,” he called, indicating the step in front of him. “C’mon. I won’t bite.”

  She paused. She really wasn’t ready to go up to her room that still stank of cigarettes, and since she’d cleaned it that morning, probably disinfectant as well. She didn’t want to be alone. Besides, Cyril was safe enough, a big man with eyes of water, not sparks and flames. She slipped out the door to the porch.

  “Can I offer you a smoke?” Cyril stood and stiffly held out his pack to her, but she shook her head and perched on the step in front of him. “How are you taking to the place?” he asked.

  Her mind raced over the crush of the men at supper, Billy Nimsic’s death, Ruby’s swearing, and Mrs. Mooney’s dyed hair, leaving her dumbfounded. “Nice, uh, very nice,” she stuttered. “Mrs. Mooney, that is.”

  Cyril laughed. “Some would say real nice, if you know what I mean, not that I blame her. She’s had a hard life.” He cleared his throat, and she stared blankly up at him.

  “She’s not really Mrs. Mooney, you know.” He sat back down, his foot grazing her knee. She drew back, and Cyril didn’t try to move nearer. “Her name’s Delores. She just added on ‘Mooney’ after old Tom-cat Mooney died, leaving her this house in his will. Tom Mooney knew Delores—well, real well. Why, my mother told me he brought her from the valley when she was but fourteen years old, an orphan girl.”

  “Like me,” Rose Marie murmured. “Well, half an orphan.”

  Cyril nodded, acknowledging her, but discreetly, not looking directly at her. “Maybe Tom-cat really did care for her in his own way. They say he promised to marry her, but he was already married, of course. Started her up in business, if you get my drift. A right bastard, but a rich one. And they say she was head over heels in love with him.” He stopped to glance at her, an apology on his face. “I guess I’m being an old woman. Talking too much, ain’t I, little girl?” He ran a broad hand through his pale hair.