The Resurrection of Mary Mabel McTavish

by Allan Stratton

  Bundy eased himself onto an upended Coca-Cola crate. He knocked back his first drink, poured a second, and began to talk. At first he rambled about weather, baseball, the pain-in-the-ass of chipping dried chewing gum from under the theatre seats. By his fourth drink, however, he’d found the courage to spit out what he’d meant to say all week.

  “What’s life for, K.O.? Any ideas?” He waved at the room. “There’s gotta be more to it than this. Last week I was thinking of taking the splicer and slitting my wrists, or wrapping reels of film round my neck and hanging myself from the booth. Then I see this gal of yours, this Miss McTavish, and I think …” A light glimmered in those glassy eyes. “Her miracle’s a sign, isn’t it? A sign, no matter how tough life gets, there’s someone, something, looking out for us. We can’t be here for no reason, we can’t just be spinning alone in a cold, black void. Can we?”

  Doyle was humbled. He’d assumed the girl’s success was owed to puffsters like himself. Yet looking at Bundy’s hangdog face, he had a flash of boozy insight. Every con needs a willing pigeon, and life turns souls into dumb clucks primed for plucking.

  “Tell me the truth, K.O.,” Bundy gripped his mug. “She did it, didn’t she?”

  Doyle hadn’t the heart to say no. He put his hand on his friend’s arm. Bundy was confused, but Doyle’s touch told him everything was okay.

  Everything but the smell of burning celluloid.

  “Yikes!” The film was jammed, the frame melting. As Bundy staggered to turn off the lamp, Doyle looked from the booth to the auditorium. There, frozen on the screen, was Mary Mabel’s face, twenty feet tall, a wall of beauty and grace, suddenly bubbling, blotching, crinkling, and — vanished.

  Freed, the newsreel leapt from its sprockets, and merrily unspooled across the floor. A drunken stab at the projector’s off switch sent the beast into fast-forward. The film whizzed a mad jitterbug through the air, snaking under the chairs and over the table, dancing in and out of the waste basket, around stacked newspapers and debris. By the time Bundy regained control, he was up to his knees in a thicket of tiny pictures of Mary Mabel.

  Doyle sensed the party was over. “Thanks for the Scotch.”

  “Any time,” Bundy muttered, defeated by the hours of untangling ahead.

  “Say, do you think you could spare me a snippet?”

  Bundy threw up his arms. “Why not?”

  “Much obliged.” Doyle clipped a souvenir and skipped off, a bit of Mary Mabel in his pocket.

  By the time he got home, Ma had tucked herself in, and was pretending to sleep. Doyle tiptoed to his room, sat on the edge of his bed, and held the film clip to the lamp light. A moment of time, trapped between his fingers: a young woman, a blank slate on whom the public fixed its dreams. There was magic in that image. He knew it. He felt it. And, like the clip itself, he could see right through it.

  Cedar Bend

  Cedar Bend was founded in the early nineteenth century by the Bentham Boys, Thomas and Egerton, a couple of quarrelsome squirrels unfit for civilization. They’d heard land was cheap up north, so that’s where they’d headed, families in tow. When winter hit, they set up camp by a bend in Wolf River. Game was plentiful. The Boys stayed put. Over time, they were joined by a clutter of misfits.

  Agriculture was out of the question, given the thin, rocky soil, but there were plenty of trees. The pioneers built a sawmill on the river bank. Barges floated the wood to ports downstream, till a rail link was established in 1892. The trains shipped lumber out, and tourists in. Specifically, rich Americans keen to shoot Canadian wildlife. Hunting lodges sprouted like mushrooms, the population exploded, folks said before no time it’d top a thousand. Then came the Crash. The price of timber tanked, the mill shut down, the tourists stopped coming. The town began to die.

  Not fast enough, thought Doyle, as he checked into Slick’s Lodge.

  He’d come by bus on the milk run. All night the beast had bumped along perilous gravel roads before conking out ten miles from town. Doyle had hitched the rest of the way in a rusted-out Model T pulled by bones in the shape of horses. He asked about a place to stay. “That’s a toughie,” said the driver. “Main Street Hotel’s boarded up five years. Same with the huntin’ lodges. ’Cept for Slick Skinner’s. A mile outa town, but I s’pose it’ll do in a pinch.”

  Slick’s Lodge was a collection of one-room cabins dotted around an imposing log house in need of a new roof and shutters. The reception desk was the kitchen table. Doyle signed the guest book under the watchful eye of Marge Skinner, a large woman with a black eye and bruised cheek. A second woman, sporting a fierce, hairy chin and orthopedic shoes, sat in a rocker by the window knitting socks.

  “Stayin’ long?”

  “Day or two.”

  “Whatcha here for?”

  “Holiday.”

  Marge showed him to his cabin. The floor was sprinkled with mouse droppings; a dusty June bug lay belly-up on the windowsill; the sheets smelled of mildew. Doyle asked the whereabouts of the washroom. Marge pointed to a nearby outhouse. “It’s a two-holer. There’s a latch if you’re shy.”

  A peek inside convinced Doyle he’d be using the bushes.

  Marge headed back to the house. “I’ll get you some newspaper.”

  Doyle noticed the bearded lady eyeing them suspiciously from the window.

  An hour later, armed with a camera, the young reporter stood at the outskirts to the village. He’d decided to go disguised as a tourist. Folks in small towns resented reporters; men who were paid to snoop on their neighbours. After all, they did it for free. A bridge lay ahead. Next to the bridge, a weathered sign:

  WELCOME TO CEDAR BEND

  SHINGLE CAPITAL OF THE WORLD

  The population figure underneath had recently been painted over, replaced with the historic advisory:

  BIRTHPLACE OF MARY MABEL MCTAVISH

  At least, that’s what the sign should have read. A shotgun blast had blown the name McTavish to smithereens.

  Doyle crossed the bridge and took a sharp right, following the road as it hugged the shoreline. It had been paved once. Now it had potholes deep enough to drown kittens. A hundred yards away, the sawmill rose from the water’s edge. Dilapidated boards mocked a once-bright future. Across the road a crosshatch of laneways sported houses no bigger than pillboxes. Most were tumbledown, weeds growing in the shingle walls, eaves like planter boxes. Others stood poor but proud, kale and squash growing in neat front yards.

  A large public park separated the shantytown from the rest of the settlement. It featured a bandstand, rusty playground equipment, a nonfunctional drinking fountain, and a statue of the Bentham Boys in heroic pose, which doubled as a war memorial. It also served as the grounds of the Cedar Bend Meeting Hall, home to the village council and the volunteer fire brigade. Churches followed, each built of river rock, and nestling a small cemetery by its side. Beyond these, a school, a library, the county courthouse, and a row of two-storey shops. The stone and stucco homes of the Cedar Bend elite provided the tour’s grand finale.

  Doyle decided to start his fact-finding mission at the dry-goods store. A little bell tinkled when he opened the door. “Hello?” He wandered the thinly stocked aisles of dresses, hammers, rubber bands, and rifles, but there was no sign of the proprietor. The dentist’s was empty, as well. So was the grocery store, the funeral home, and the gas station/souvenir shop.

  His luck changed at Mr. Woo’s Canadian and Chinese Food Restaurant and Laundry. Mr. Woo was all smiles and chit-chat. In the course of getting Doyle a glass of water, he confided that his father’d been blown up working on the Cedar Bend railroad, his family’d stayed in town because they had no place else to go, and today’s special was won ton soup and a hamburger.

  “Sounds good.”

  Mr. Woo was happy to talk about Mary Mabel. She was the daughter of that devil who’d thrown an open bucket of paint through his front window. The police told him not to press charges; the man’s wife had just died. “I sorry,” sa
id Mr. Woo, “but what that have to do about my window?” It wasn’t the only time his window was broken. Whenever people had bad luck, they attacked his property. They got away with it, too. “Cedar Bend, it full of devils.”

  Doyle edged the conversation back to Mary Mabel. “Her daddy, he like devil ladies,” Mr. Woo announced. “She alone by self. No mama. No friend. Talk to air. Talk to air, all time. I feel sorry. Give almond cookie.” Mr. Woo tapped his head. “She crazy girlie.”

  Doyle agreed. He snapped Mr. Woo’s picture, and left a big tip.

  Outside, a flash of inspiration. The red-and-white-striped barber’s pole across the street. He zipped over. Peering through the window, he saw half a dozen men on wooden chairs having a jaw. He opened the door. The men turned. Stared.

  “What can I do you for?” the barber asked.

  “Shave and a haircut.”

  “Cash?”

  Doyle noticed the clump of turnips beside the aftershave, the bundle of pressed shirts over the coat rack, and the live chicken in the wire cage by the wastebasket. This was a town accustomed to barter. “Cash.”

  The barber had a new best friend. In no time, he had Doyle in his swivel chair, wrapped in a paper collar and knee-length bib. “A little extra off the sides?”

  “Sure.”

  The barber began to snip, periodically stepping back to assess his handiwork. With a twitch of horror, Doyle realized the man was near blind. Meanwhile, the others sat solemnly, arms folded, brows furrowed, studying the progress of the haircut like witnesses at an autopsy.

  “So,” the barber said at last, “how’s things at Slick’s?”

  “Who told you I was at Slick’s?”

  “Little bird.”

  The man opposite scratched himself. “You met the Chaperone?”

  “Who?”

  “The one with the beard. Slick’s sister. Stays over when he’s away.”

  “Don’t let her catch you making eyes at Marge,” advised the gent in the red suspenders. “When Slick gets the wrong idea, fellas go missing.”

  “Don’t listen to him,” said the barber. “They wander off, is all.”

  “Search parties never find them,” Suspenders muttered darkly.

  “Big deal. Bush goes on forever.”

  “Well, not to worry,” Doyle ventured, “I’ve only got eyes for the scenery.” The man with the overbite laughed. The room relaxed. “I understand this is the birthplace of Mary Mabel McTavish.”

  The barber reclined Doyle’s chair. “She’s a local gal, all right.” He covered the young man’s face and neck with a damp cloth heated on the radiator.

  “Any relatives in town?”

  “Her ma,” said the man beside the chicken. “She’s buried at Wesley Free Methodist.”

  From under the towel, the reporter tried to guess whether the following silence was respect for the dead or the haircut. Before he could figure it out, the barber hoisted his chair upright and whipped off the cloth. The men’s eyes lit up, as if Doyle’s head were a dove conjured by a magician from under a silk scarf. But hold the applause. The tonsorial artist was already brushing pillows of shaving cream over the young man’s hairless cheeks, around his ears, and the back of his neck. He flashed a straight razor. Leaned back so he could see where to stroke.

  “I don’t need a shave.”

  “On the house!” Before Doyle could run, the barber grabbed his head with one hand and swooped the blade down his cheek with the other. “About our Mary Mabel,” he said without missing a beat, “she was remarkable right from the start. Once upon a time she found a missin’ kid through the power of prayer.”

  Doyle had read that story in the competition. It smelled of Floyd. He waited till the razor was past his throat. “You’re pulling my leg.”

  “Heck no. It’s public knowledge. Don’t you read the papers?”

  Overbite leaned forward. “Between you, me, and the fence post, the kid was the baby of a friend of my cousin. Mary Mabel found him in an icebox.”

  “Actually,” said the man by the chicken, “it was a girl she found, niece of my neighbour, down a well, over Beaver Creek way.”

  “You’re both right,” said the barber. “From what I hear-tell, she found lots of folks.” He swooped the razor down Doyle’s other cheek, narrowly missing his ear.

  Doyle gripped the armrest. “You boys must know lots of stuff. Stuff the papers haven’t printed.”

  “Nope. That’s about it. She and her pa left years ago. A fella forgets.”

  “Too bad. Miracle stories would sure scare up the tourists.”

  “You think?”

  “No two ways about it. You’d have bus tours in no time.”

  Hmm. “Now that I think about it,” said the barber, with a sly nod, “I seem to recall, just shy of five, she may have resurrected one of Bert’s sick puppies.”

  “That she did,” said the man with the Adam’s apple. “Juggs. Best damn hunting dog I ever had.”

  A chorus of, “That’s a fact.”

  “Then there was the time this robin laid its eggs in the palm of her hands.”

  A chorus of, “So it did.”

  “’Nother time, she faced down a grizzly bear set to eat Fred’s granny at the Sunday school picnic.”

  A chorus of “God bless her.”

  “You’d swear to that on a stack of Bibles?” asked Doyle.

  “Stack ’em high.”

  Hokum or not, these were scoops from “official town sources.” Doyle grinned, as the men spun yarns woollier than his mother’s mittens, and turned their minds to potential tourist sites.

  “You know, we could turn the library into a museum. Build a Mary Mabel shrine out front.”

  “And Bert, the minute Juggs kicks the bucket for good, make sure to get him stuffed. He can be Exhibit A.”

  “Plus, we oughta make a list of all them holy wells. Put up plaques.”

  Lord, there was so much to dream … to dare … to do …

  Doyle checked the back of his haircut in the barber’s mirror. Another Cedar Bend miracle: it wasn’t half bad. The barber slapped on an aftershave-cum-hangover-cure, dusted his neck with talc, whisked off the bib, and bowed. The reporter flipped him two bits. The show was over. It was time to go.

  The men gave him a standing ovation. “Thanks for your suggestion as to how to kick-start this shitebox. Make sure to talk us up back home.” They let him snap their picture in front of the striped pole out front. Local colour for Hearst’s rotogravure.

  One final question. “How come stores are open but the owners are out?”

  “’Cause we’re here,” said Suspenders.

  “That’s right,” said Overbite. “Can’t be two places at once.”

  “What if you get customers?”

  The men snorted. “Folks know where to find us.”

  Heading back to Slick’s, Doyle paused at the entrance to Wesley Free Methodist cemetery. A crow perched atop the heavy wrought-iron gate. Doyle rolled his eyes; he had no patience for gothic effects. Camera at the ready, he went scouting for a marker.

  There was one other visitor on the grounds: an old man crawling around a tombstone, clipping bits of dead grass with a pair of scissors. Doyle approached.

  “Excuse me. I’m looking for the grave of a Mrs. McTavish, mother of Mary Mabel.”

  “Ruthie McTavish, eh?” The old man kept clipping. “What’s your interest?”

  “I’m a shirt-tail cousin. On the McTavish side.”

  “A McTavish, eh?” A flicker of amusement. “And you’re staying at Slick’s?”

  Doyle sighed. “There seem to be a lot of ‘little birds’ in town.”

  “Yep.” Clip, clip, clip.

  “About Ruthie …” He toed the ground.

  “What about her?”

  “Can you help me?”

  Clip, clip. “Course I can.” Clip, clip. “Question is: will I.” Clip, clip, clip.

  “Please?”

  “That’s more like it.”
The old man rose gingerly, brushed the dirt off his knees. “Jimmy McRay,” he said, giving Doyle the once-over.

  “K.O. McTavish.”

  They shook hands. Jimmy signalled for Doyle to follow and headed toward the back of the cemetery. He stopped by a trough of weeds in a patch of nothing. “That’s what you’re lookin’ for. The resting place of Ruthie Kincaid McTavish. Best friend my daughter Iris ever had.”

  Doyle was confused. There was no memorial; not even a wooden cross.

  “Grave collapsed a while back,” Jimmy volunteered. “Pine-board coffin. Brewster never sprung for a proper marker. Painted a scrap piece of flagstone. Earth swallowed the tail end of it last winter. Me and Iris are gonna do something.”

  A moment’s silence. Doyle snapped a picture. “Do you have a photo of Ruthie?”

  “Why?”

  “Souvenir. Like I said, I’m family.”

  “The hell. You’re no McTavish.”

  “Family friend, then.”

  “You ain’t that, neither.”

  “I can pay.”

  It took some looking, but the snapshot was finally located in one of the many boxes of photograph books under McRay’s bed. He’d been quite the shutterbug in the old days. In fact, a village event wouldn’t be complete without Jimmy making a nuisance of himself with his trusty Brownie box.

  The snapshot in Doyle’s hand was taken at one of the annual Cedar Bend Mill picnics. Iris, Ruthie, and the infant Mary Mabel were sitting on a blanket eating watermelon. Jimmy had clearly surprised them. Iris had her hand up, and her head turned away to make him go away. That’s why the picture had ended up in one of his “spoilsport boxes” and not in one of the books on display by the mantel in the parlour.

  The snap cost Doyle a princely five bucks, but he got the story for free.

  “It wasn’t a year and a half after this picture, poor Ruthie was dead. Middle of February. She woke up before dawn with a blizzard howling through the house. Back door was open. Mary Mabel was gone. Ruthie ran into that whiteout screaming her little one’s name. They found her next day, one leg poking out of a drift in the park. She was clutching the teeter-totter, froze solid. There should’ve been a closed casket.”