A bird on every tree

by Carol Bruneau

  “Listen—if you’d—” A whirring on the line made Roz speak up; she sounded clear and direct but the opposite of pushy, and maybe too patient: “Rannie. If you’d rather not meet—”

  “No—God no.” He was sweating now, the rag out of reach, draped over a wrench. “Look, I’d be…Ma would be pissed, I mean, offended if—”

  “It’s just, well, I’ll need somewhere to stay over—a place to lay my head.” That same old teasing, smart-as-fuck way of speaking. But practical, Roz was nothing if not practical. The closest motel was thirty miles away, and doubtful her lard-arsed friend could put her up, that one’s place crawling with kids and their crackhead friends.

  The very thought made his Adam’s apple bob like a toilet-tank’s float. His heart chugged. “L-like I said, Ma would be real hurt if you…if you didn’t—

  “So,” he asked in a rush, “what’s this conference, anyway?”

  Something to do with mentally challenged kids, he heard. She spoke as if talking to one right now, as if she were in a gym full of crusty-eyed teenagers with poked-out tongues. He pictured them mobbing her with hugs, her hugging them back. From the stairwell his tools blinked at him, freshly polished chrome. Then her voice, just as shiny. “So. How’s business?”

  The next evening didn’t she call again: “Rannie?” No letting this damned visit drift to the bottom of his speed gauge, not for a second. “If you’d rather I didn’t come….” Her voice was cheery but testy as the ones on Coronation Street, Ma’s other favourite show.

  “I’m looking forward to it,” something made him mumble, when every ounce of him, chokingly silent, demanded, Why, after so long? From the dining room window he glimpsed the Newfie ferry gliding up the harbour in the dark, a boxy swan headed for open sea.

  Ma hobbled from the kitchen with a peanut butter sandwich on a piece of paper towel: “That’s her? That’s Roz? Ask her what she’ll eat.”

  “Food, Ma,” he said, hanging up. “She’ll eat food.” As if feeding the woman was his worry.

  “What’s your biggest ambition in life?” She’d asked him this stupid question—this very question—in a Jeopardy voice, way back in high school, near the end of grade twelve. A voice like Alex Trebek’s, poised and sharp—arrow-sharp, forget darts—straight to the stomach. They’d taken his bike into the woods, the first he’d ever owned. An orange 200 CC Yamaha with a classic dirt bike’s forks. It was just after Easter break, with patches of snow and ruts in the mud, brooks and runoff splashing up—the back of Roz’s jeans and her baby blue jacket were fanned with wet, though she didn’t seem to mind. Sitting stick-straight and slim—oh yeah, but hardly skinny, he remembered now, with a little shock—she’d resembled a bug in her borrowed helmet. Her arms tightening around him, sailing over each bump. Abandoned farms back there, nothing left of them but small fields and apple trees. On a patch of dead grass they’d laid down together, nobody around, no one to see but the squirrels yammering in the spruces, a fallen-down fence, and the blue of a lake through the branches. Their hair was the same length then, his sandy-brown and hers a lot darker. Opposites attract, she’d said around his lips suction-cupped to hers. Her skin under her bra was winter-white when he managed, clumsily, to get it out of the way. “I really really like you,” she’d said, closing her hand around him—as if saying this made doing it permissible. Talk about killing the moment, words that made him want to zip up and kick-start the engine. Of course he hadn’t. He’d spread his jean jacket under her. Neither of them felt the cold, though when they stood the thaw had soaked through the denim. It felt like wearing a wet diaper on his back.

  But he’d had this fantasy, about bringing her home for supper (Roz at the dining room table, Ma serving up corned beef and cabbage, and the old man draining his mustard-jar glass of Lamb’s), till something had spooked him. What if they got lost, riding in circles in the woods? What if they ran out of gas? What—he’d climb a tree and watch while bears picked Roz’s bones? And they had got lost, sort of, stumbling across an old foundation with daffodils pushing through the matted grass, an orchard hung with old man’s beard, that greenish stuff like hair. Between there and finding the trail, he’d decided it wasn’t so bad, her “really” liking him. A lot easier, less demanding, than if she’d said “love.”

  The rest of that year and into the next he’d eaten mainly at her house, though her younger brothers never quit pestering for rides on the bike. Around the same time, the year after high school, the arsehole who ended up buying the salvage yard got the hots for her and started sniffing around, before getting busted and doing time for joyriding. By the time the loser got out of Springhill, the McIlweens had packed up and gone out west.

  “Son of a gun,” said Ma when Roz and her family moved, just like that, lock, stock, and barrel, as she put it. “Not one of them stayed?”

  “What do you want to do with your life?” Roz had asked when they finally broke up.

  “Go to Sturgis,” was all he could think of saying. Ride a big fat hog down through the Dakotas to the world’s biggest motorcycle rally—and let life take care of the rest.

  “Sturgis—isn’t that where they’ve got the presidents carved in a mountain?” These were Roz’s parting words as she shinnied off the Kow. Yanking off her helmet, she’d swung it at his shoulder, bashed him good enough to leave a bruise. Anyways, he hadn’t made it to Sturgis and probably wouldn’t—not now, up to his crotch in bike parts and laundry and a year’s supply of Chef Boyardee bought with Ma’s money.

  It was nobody’s fault—except maybe Ma’s, for being what Dr. Phil might call “an enabler.”

  After that second phone call, not a peep—like the past was a self-cleaning oven, the kind Ma coveted though their cooking was easily master-cheffed by the microwave. Roz was having second thoughts, deciding not to come? Her silence felt like a reprieve, either the sweet, shaky calm before an apocalypse or he was being let off the hook? Suits me, he resolved, despite breaking into a sweat thinking either way, and meantime, that nutbag Goldwing owner emailing six ways to Sunday wanting a head gasket. Buy a new fucking bike, he typed then quickly hit delete, replying instead, Ask a dealer. Did the whole world have him at their beck and call, working magic to bag whatever their heart’s desire? A voice, the sane, sensible one in his head—like Roz’s—interceded: Don’t be unprofessional, it said.

  To loosen the knot in his stomach, on a whim he took the 350 on a spin to the criminal’s, thinking buddy might have a line on cheap Goldwing parts. The salvage yard sprawled between two vacant lots, each bordered by houses with plywood tacked over the windows and the hulks of dead cars outside. One thing he hadn’t told Roz was that he’d come by bike to pick her up, if he went at all. Hefting the little Honda onto its kickstand set his heart pounding: his forty-eight-year-old heart, he reminded himself, rubbing his chest almost tenderly. The criminal’s truck had what looked to be a van loaded on back, the vehicle crushed like a milk carton. Part of a lime-green Suzuki lay on the ground beside it. A donorcycle.

  “Can’t help ya,” said the jerk, dug in behind the counter—extra large bag of Doritos and a Pepsi on the go, though the guy was scrawny as a ferret, a skull tattooed on his neck; was it the drugs? Didn’t even look up from his video game, asking out of the blue, of all things: “Ever hear from that one out west? Bet you wish you were still doin’ her.”

  The day before Roz was supposed to fly in—attend her conference and meet him later—Ma buggered up the computer, somehow pulling the plug while trying to vacuum. He just about lost it; didn’t she know it had to be shut down properly or risk losing data? Was she planning to fork out the cash for a new hard drive? It wasn’t how he normally spoke to his mother. On each trip for groceries at least one old bat asking after her would praise him for sticking around. “Least I can do,” he’d say, humbled. “After all, who was it changed my diapers?”

  With the screen gone momentarily blank the walls felt c
loser; the September sunlight caught their yellowish tinge, ancient evidence of the old man’s smoking. “Holy crow,” Ma flicked a dust cloth from where she sat, dabbing at the recliner’s arms. “What’ll your friend think? Rannie, it’s not too late to get a rag, is it, and give those walls a wipe?”

  Oh here we go, Ma milking the occasion to set him to work. The one bad thing about women, he thought: their fussing over things only they found important. “What time’s she coming, anyway?” Ma huffed, reaching towards the mantelpiece, swatting a picture in its dusty frame: Rannie in his younger years. He pretended not to hear, rooting under some newspapers for a bucket.

  After twenty minutes’ scrubbing, his applying some real elbow grease, the yellowish stains hadn’t budged. “Land sakes, Rannie—it wouldn’t take any time to give ’er a quick coat of paint, would it?” Like the Second Coming, this visit, and as likely to happen now as the entire McIlween clan migrating back here—yes, she was milking it for all its worth. But keeping busy helped ease his mind and dutifully he dug out some paint from downstairs. The right shade, it took some chiselling to free the lid from the can. Ma was right, though. It only took an hour to slap some on, once he got it properly stirred—and the results were an improvement. Wrapping the brush in an old Harley-Davidson T-shirt, he threw it behind the dryer.

  By now it was evening, and no word from Roz—no phone call to confirm or cancel, and no emails except from the Goldwing geek, he saw with some relief. But Ma was unusually edgy, jittery even. “Make it an early night, Rannie—you’ll need a good start. Your friend,” she stopped to gargle back her thyroid pill, “where will we put her? Oh, she can sleep with me, I suppose. Still haven’t a clue what in God’s earth we’ll feed her. I don’t suppose she likes the Boyardee?”

  “Listen, Ma—I know you’re...I know you like company—” he said pointedly, though it wasn’t entirely true. He lacked the heart to tell her what was beginning to look obvious. That Roz had forgotten or made other plans, having better things to do than see him—them—which in effect would be ripping the lids off dead old worm-cans. Poor Ma didn’t have a whole lot to look forward to. He was searching for ways to let her down gently when the email pinged.

  C u as planned, can’t wait. I’ll be ready, it said.

  He tossed and turned the night away, then missed the alarm, almost oversleeping. The drive would take a few hours, and he meant to arrive in plenty of time. Still, taking Ma’s sewing scissors to the bathroom, he trimmed a bit off his sideburns and more than he should have off the sides of his receding hairline.

  The 350 ran like a hornet on the highway, zipping along light as air; even with a headwind he might’ve been flying.

  The town was one he knew vaguely, its prim, well-kept houses and storefronts a far cry from Torporville’s; people from high school had gone there to university. He had a good idea of where to find her, outside a gymnasium. Vinyl banners strung above the roadway advertised a “jamboree.” Remembering too late how she liked flowers, he waited for a good half hour, smiling at the female students parading by. The sight of their tanned legs and sandalled feet helped calm his nerves. And then, suddenly, there she was.

  “Mister! Rannie, it’s you—it’s really you, you made it!” Flying towards him, even compared to the many young things, she was all and more than he could have hoped for or expected. Her face was smiling and full, the flush in her cheeks too high and uneven to be makeup. She reached out a manicured hand and stroked his arm, then, moving close—close enough to give a whiff of her warm, soapy smell—kissed his cheek, a quick, friendly peck. “I could hardly come all this way and not see you. Even if it’s short.” And she gushed a little, no, a lot, about how good he was, how sweet, to drop everything and come all this way—and on a weekday!—to see her. “You’re too nice to say no, is that it?”

  It took a second to realize she was teasing.

  She looked a bit confused when she saw the bike, grinning. “Oh well—some things don’t change. That’s a good thing, isn’t it? Good to see you. No, I mean, really.”

  His hands trembling, he managed—just—to strap her carry-on bag to the back.

  Time had been kinder to her than he’d imagined, given her divorce and all. The years had added substance, Ma would say, Roz’s arms fleshier but still supple, shown off by her sleeveless purple top. Threaded with grey, her hair was still long and thick, clipped to the back of her head in a twist that made him think of a palm tree. When she lifted a stray lock from her neck he glimpsed her bra, a deep pink—not a detail Ma would appreciate or approve of; Ma, who took pains in summer’s sleeveless state to hide any trace of a strap, even one with Kleenex tucked under it. He was wholly aware of this as Roz straddled the seat behind him, also of her pressing lightly against him, fastening the spare helmet. The electric start worked first crack. Thank Christ the engine’s burble made it difficult if not impossible to talk, especially once they hit the highway.

  “That guy’s still around?” she yelled in his ear, passing the criminal in his truck when at last they reached the nasty turn into Torporville. “What a vulture,” he thought he heard.

  Ma was upstairs in the bathroom when they arrived, in time for supper. The first thing he did was turn down the TV. That morning he’d cleared off a chair and moved his computer to the front room. Making an extra space wasn’t a problem.

  “Well, well,” said Ma, hobbling in, beaming. “Look who it is.” She’d nuked some chicken wings, and served them with macaroni salad—a type he didn’t recognize—explaining proudly, “I took a taxi, dear, to get it. Not every day we have a nice little guest, is it Rannie?”

  The dining room was sweltering, not a hint of a breeze coming through the harbour-facing window—unusually warm, wasn’t it, this late in September, they all agreed. “Is the West this hot?” Ma wanted to know, clearing plates.

  Limping back in with the teapot—its glued-together lid recalling an ancient mishap—she set her favourite cup and saucer in front of Roz. It was a loud sort of purply shade—the colour of Thrills, or, he couldn’t help thinking as Ma might, if you mixed Roz’s blouse and bra in the wash and the dyes bled. “My granny gave me it when I was twelve. Her way of saying, Behave yourself! I had three sisters, mind—who the hell knows why me? Anyways—when I turned sixteen I met Rannie’s dad, I suppose he corrupted me!” And she laughed, a loud rattling laugh he hadn’t heard in a while.

  Roz turned the cup by its handle, admiring it. For a Good Girl was painted on one side in gold letters. “Now, I’ll bet you deserved it, Mrs. Jessome.”

  “‘Mrs. Jessome,’” Ma snorted, giving him her look, “don’t be calling me that. To you, dear, it’s Minah.” She narrowed her eyes. “If you don’t mind me asking, what business have you got in mind wit’ my son?” Her voice stayed sweet: “How’s your ma keeping out there? Queer, they never come back. They must love it, your people.”

  Sweating, he got up and put on the tube—a show on PBS about scientists, anthropologists, studying a native tribe. At least we speak the same language, he told himself, the three of us, sort of. Slapping the table—“Lemme show you what I been up to”—he moved toward the basement door, waving at Roz to follow.

  It was like descending into a mine, the darkness near complete even at midday since he’d painted over the windows, an effort to hinder thieves. He’d have liked to leave things that way, utterly dark, Roz stumbling into him before he put on the light. His heart was beating crazily. Thirty years ago, he’d have reached out and unclipped her hair, just to feel it brush his wrist.

  “Well?” Her laugh was dusky and nervous. He yanked the chain and his den, as he liked to think of it, filled with light. She blinked at the old blue Kow leaning there, blinked with a vague recognition, as if seeing the ghost of a ghost.

  “This calls for a drink, I’d say.” His vocal cords felt rusty.

  From the kitchen Ma yelled down, “Dessert, youse two—peaches a
nd a bit of poison, how’s that, what Rannie calls ice cream.”

  He’d uncapped the rum, and held it out. Roz took a careful sip, wiping her lips with her finger. The grey in her hair was silver under the bare bulb, the look in her eyes about as helpful as computer lingo as she tightened the clip in her hair. He thought of that day ages ago in the woods, how she’d picked a daffodil—of all the things to find in a place where nobody had lived for years and years, maybe a century—and poked it into his helmet. They’d meant to go back to that place but never had, having found one by the shore instead, secluded enough despite its constant litter of smashed beer bottles and tissues.

  “You’re dead a long time,” Ma liked saying, sure, and, once, he’d taken it to heart. When finally they’d shared a bed, he and Roz had done it like rabbits, honestly, like there was no tomorrow.

  “We should go somewhere.” His voice was desperate. “Let’s get out of here, take a drive.” But Roz was already halfway up the stairs, calling to Ma: “Whatever you have. Sounds good.”

  He found the two of them parked in front of Coronation Street, Roz asking Ma, “But what are his plans?” Her bare legs looked dimpled where her white jean skirt crept up; she crossed and uncrossed them. She could’ve been a dish of blueberry grunt in those clothes; dumpling limbs and purple against a dollop of cream—good enough to eat. Her gaze locked on Ma’s program, then veered to the front room window.

  Pulled up to the opposite curb was that bruiser of a tow truck, the jackass driver himself sitting there, just sitting, talking into his phone.

  Something, Rannie wasn’t sure what, made him go to the door and give the guy the finger.

  “Didja have enough, dear?” Ma was asking. “There’s more peaches if you want. Rannie, Rannie dear? Be a pet and get your friend some more poison.” And to Roz, “Your folks—your father, your mother—they don’t miss the old place at all? Not with the whole crowd out there, I suppose.”