“I’m coming. I’m coming. Tell them to wait!”
“You’ve got to hurry.”
“I’ll just be a moment. Tell them!”
As she stood, her Depends pad slipped from her undergarment and slid into the toilet bowl. How was she going to get it out? There were no coat-hangers in this place. The station was all but deserted. She hurriedly pulled her underwear up and adjusted her stockings and dress and tried to think what to do. If she flushed, wouldn’t the pad block the toilet and wouldn’t the toilet overflow? But she couldn’t just leave it there, could she? Maybe she could get Esther’s help. But that would be too humiliating. She rinsed her hands under the tap and patted them dry on her skirt, as there were no paper towels left, and then her hand made the decision for her. It reached out and flushed the toilet. The toilet bowl went brownish red for a moment, from the flush of rusty water, and then the water gurgled back to its normal level. Augusta sighed as she grabbed her cane and purse.
As she opened the bathroom door, the train horn sounded and sounded again. The train was leaving without her. She tried to make her old body move faster, but the pain in her hip slowed her. When she took that last step outside, she found herself looking at the back end of the train moving down the track. She stared after it, not quite believing that it had left without her. Esther was sitting on the bench, watching Augusta and eating an apple. “They didn’t wait for me,” said Augusta.
“No.”
“Why didn’t you tell the conductor to wait?”
“He wouldn’t listen. He seemed to think I was making a joke or something.”
“Weren’t you going to Courtenay?”
“Yup.”
“You missed the train for me?”
“I wasn’t going to leave. I figured something was the matter.”
“I’m so sorry.” Augusta turned to the blackboard on the station wall that proclaimed the white numbers of the trains, but the spaces for departure times were blank.
“I guess if we’re stuck here together I better introduce myself,” said Esther. She held out her hand. “Esther Joseph.”
Augusta glanced at the hand a moment before taking it. It was the hand of a gardener or farmer, callused and large, as big as a man’s. She shook Esther’s hand. “Augusta Olsen. Glad to meet you.” Then she sat down and sighed. Had she been at home, she would have lain in her bed and had a good long nap, with the window open to let the air in. Then she would have awoken rested and had some tea and toast and jam.
“I guess we better get to a phone,” said Esther. “Call a taxi or something.”
“I’ll call my friend Rose. She’ll pick us up.” They made their way down the road and across the highway to Buckerfield’s, a farm and garden supplies store, where she used the phone. At first she told Rose to meet her at Buckerfield’s. It would have been a nice enough place to wait. There was a greenhouse full of fall plants for sale: pansies, chrysanthemums, and potted dahlias that would go on flowering, in this climate, right into the coldest months of winter.
“No, tell her the train station,” Esther said.
“What?” said Augusta.
“Blackberries.”
“Who is that?” Rose said.
“Yes. Rose? I’ll be at the Parksville train station. I’ll wait there.”
They must have made a sight, thought Augusta. Two old women waddling down that dirt road back to the train station, one nearly too fat to walk, one with a crippled hip, each of them carting their luggage on a day hot enough to make corn tips turn brown from thirst. The dust on the station road was so thick and fine that she felt like taking off her shoes and running in it. But that would have looked foolish, wouldn’t it? A barefoot old woman hop-skipping through the dust because her hip wouldn’t co-operate with her enough for a full run. It took them twenty minutes to cover the distance; it would have taken a young person five.
The Parksville station was painted a hideous green and its front windows were boarded over. On the station door there was a cardboard sign handwritten in black marker that said, Sorry. No Hydro. Vandalism—cut power 96-07-23. Huge banks of broom bordered the gravel road leading to the station; they must have made for one glorious show of yellow come spring. Bunches of Queen Anne’s lace thrived in the poor soil around the tracks. Here and there nests of California poppies bloomed in the gravel. Just under the plank bridge that led from the platform to the gravel road, salmonberry grew in thick exotic bushes. Esther’s promised blackberries grew everywhere, but especially across the tracks, at the edge of bush. They were too big to be believed: as big as the end of Augusta’s thumb. Such a deep purple they looked black. And sweet. They grew everywhere on the island, along the highways, train tracks, down the sides of gravel roads. People on the island had come to think of them as common weeds, and few braved the bramble to pick them. But Augusta and Esther picked them that morning, though they were scratched by bramble and bothered by wasps attracted to the juice of berries on their faces and hands. Augusta had a good old chat with Esther while eating blackberries off those bushes, about her visions and the men she loved, about Gabe’s illness and how her daughter didn’t need her any more.
“I know about that,” said Esther. “Nobody’s got time for us old ladies. When we’re young, the men chase after us and make us have babies. Then the babies want all our time. But when the babies are grown up, nobody’s got any use for us. But what the hell, eh? What the hell.”
“I wish I still had my beekeeping business,” said Augusta. “Something that was my own, you know?”
“My father kept bees.”
“Really? That’s wonderful. Did you?”
“No. They always fascinated me, though. I used to poke around with my father when he was working on them. He called them white man’s flies.”
Augusta laughed. Until that moment she’d felt a little uneasy with Esther, a little unsure. She had been afraid she would say something that might upset her, or that Esther might act in some strange way Augusta couldn’t imagine. But if Esther’s father had kept bees, well, she couldn’t have lived so very differently than Augusta had.
When Rose finally turned up, both Augusta’s and Esther’s hands were purple from the blackberries; their lips were smeared purple as if they were a couple of kids trying out their mom’s lipstick. They were both excited after their excursion, breathless and giggly as schoolgirls. Rose crossed the tracks and joined them at the bushes. “I guess I better stop eating and start collecting these berries,” said Esther. She plucked several and put them into the huge basket she carried.
“I love that basket,” said Augusta. “Karl bought a baby basket for Joy like it, years and years ago.”
“Yeah, I used a basket like that for my first, too,” said Esther. She popped several berries in her mouth and talked with her mouth full. “When I was carrying my son—before I knew I was pregnant—I dreamt about his coming. He was coming towards me from a long way off, not running to me or anything like that but moving fast towards me somehow, but without moving. You know how dreams are. When I woke up I knew that I was pregnant and that I’d have a son. In the dream I called him Philly, so that’s what I ended up calling him. I was, what? Sixteen? Not even that, when I got pregnant.”
“That’s strange,” said Rose. “That you dreamt you were pregnant.”
Esther shrugged. “I know lots of women who dreamed about their babies before they knew,” she said. “I figure my body knew before I did, and found some way to tell me. Like when you’re asleep and you’ve got to go pee and you dream about outhouses or bathrooms; that’s your body telling you, ‘Wake up! You’ve got to go pee.’ ” She laughed. “That vision about your father drowning when you were having your baby, that’s strange.”
“You told her that?” said Rose.
“It just came up.”
“I think it was the stress that gave you that vision,” said Esther. “I don’t mean the labour pains, necessarily, though that would be enough on its own. I bet it was th
e stress of knowing you were going to have a baby that wasn’t your husband’s. That was a terrible thing to have happen back then. Having my Philly out of wedlock was bad enough.”
“You told her about Joe?”
Augusta shrugged.
Esther patted Augusta’s arm. “But it turned out okay, didn’t it? Things cooled down. You got a daughter out of the deal. And that Joe fellow got to see his daughter after all those years. Things have a way of turning out all right.”
“Joe saw Joy?” said Rose. “When did he see Joy? You never told me that.”
“At the auction sale. Just before we sold the farm. I’m sure I told you.”
“No. I’d remember that.”
“It was no big deal, really.”
“Well, let’s hear it.”
“I don’t want to bore Esther with that all over again. I’ll tell you later.”
“And now,” said Esther, “when you give Joy that brooch, maybe you can tell her all about it. Settle unfinished business. Though it sounds like she knows most of it already.”
“Are we talking about the amber brooch, here?” asked Rose. “You mean to tell me you’re going to give that to Joy?”
“I’ll tell you about it later.”
Esther chuckled. “I still can’t get over you giving those boys hell.”
“What boys?” said Rose.
“I’ll tell you about it—”
“—later. I know.” Rose stuffed her mouth full of blackberries. Then she cried out, “Ouch! Damn it!”
“What? What happened?” said Augusta.
“One of your precious bees stung me.”
“That wasn’t a bee,” said Esther. “That was a wasp. A yellow jacket.”
“Exactly,” said Augusta. “Yellow jackets are often mistaken for honeybees. You’ve got a good eye, Esther.”
“I don’t give a damn what it was. It stung me. Look!” Rose held out her finger.
“I don’t know what I can do for you,” said Augusta. “If we had sugar or baking soda, I’d make up a paste.” She turned to Esther. “You’ll have to come over and see my hive.”
“I’m going home,” said Rose. “Are you coming?”
“Yes, I guess we should. Karl will be wondering what’s happened to us. You don’t mind if Esther comes along, do you?”
“Will you excuse us, Esther?” said Rose. She pulled Augusta across the tracks and around the corner of the train station. “I don’t want to take that woman anywhere.”
“Why not? It’s on our way.”
“I just don’t.”
“She stayed with me. She missed the train for me. To make sure I was all right.”
“She didn’t have to, did she? She could have got the conductor to wait.”
“She tried. He wouldn’t listen.”
“You don’t have to take me,” said Esther. She was leaning against the station building, just around the corner, listening in. “I’ll get a taxi.”
“To Courtenay?” said Augusta. “That’ll cost a fortune. Don’t be silly. Come with us.”
What was Rose going to say, with the woman standing right there? They all piled into Rose’s car, Rose in the front and Augusta and Esther in back, as Augusta couldn’t pull her leg into the front and had to lie down in the back to work her way in. Once she was sitting upright Esther sat beside her, as the seatbelt in front wouldn’t do up around her belly, but the one in the back would.
As they were driving along the ocean, they passed a group of people standing in a circle on the shore. They were Native, all of them. Several of them, three women and a man, were elderly. The rest were young people, dressed in jeans and sweat-shirts. What were they up to, Augusta wondered. A ceremony of some kind? One of the old women gestured as if she was telling them something.
“What are those people doing?” Rose said.
“What?” said Esther.
“Those Indians, in the river. They were all standing in a circle.”
“I don’t know.”
“I thought you might know—”
“Rose—” said Augusta. They peered at each other in the mirror. Augusta shook her head. Rose didn’t say another word for the rest of the drive. When they dropped Esther off at the mall, where she said she wanted to be left, Rose didn’t say goodbye or even look at her. Augusta felt she had to make up for Rose’s rude behaviour. She got out of the car, limped around to the other side, and gave Esther a hug and exchanged phone numbers. Once Esther was heading off to the mall, she had to get help from Rose to get back in.
• • •
Rose sat back down on the couch. Augusta grinned at her. “I told Esther how you wouldn’t let go of your purse when that boy tried to steal it,” she said.
“Yeah?” said Rose.
“She called you skookum.”
“What the hell does that mean?”
“Really good. The best. Top of the line. She said you must be one skookum woman.”
“Yeah? She called me that?”
Karl’s chin had dropped to his chest. “Karl,” said Augusta. “Karl!”
“Hmm? What?”
“Why don’t you go into the bedroom to have your nap? So Rose and I don’t have to listen to your snoring.”
“Yep. Sure.” He stood and limped a little as he made his way to the bedroom door.
Rose sat in Karl’s chair beside Augusta. “Good, good, good,” she said. “Now let’s have it.”
“What?”
“The story. Tell me about Joe. Seeing Joe after all those years.”
But the phone rang and Augusta made her way to it and grabbed the receiver. “Oh, for Christ’s sake,” said Rose.
“Hello?”
“Linda?”
“Ernest, you’ve got the wrong number again.”
“What’s that?”
“The number. You have the wrong number.”
“Where’s Linda?”
“She doesn’t live here. Why don’t you check your phone number. Okay?”
“Okay.” He sounded dubious, as if she were trying to pull a fast one. “Are you sure Linda isn’t there?”
“Nobody named Linda lives here. Or ever has.”
“All right then. If you see her, tell her I phoned.”
“Goodbye, Ernest.”
“Goodbye.”
Augusta put down the receiver and sighed. She supposed he must be forgiven, as even the clearest minds among their old set forgot what they had done just yesterday, or found their slippers in the refrigerator, and all of them took forays backwards in time now and again. When Augusta and Karl were about to leave the farm, Gabe came over to help them whip the place into shape to be sold. Augusta went inside the house to make coffee. As she busied herself in the kitchen she happened to glance out the window, and there, standing on a ladder propped against the stout arm of the tree, was Karl. His back was turned to her and he was putting up the rope of the swing for Joy. A good crop of carroty blond hair blazed from the top of his head in the early evening sun. She stood there for several moments, amazed. Somehow she’d tripped through a hole in time. Karl worked quickly, capably, looping the rope and knotting it in place with those huge hands—hands that were always warm, even on cold nights when hers had gone white as the blood retreated. On nights like that those big farmer hands had been there to enclose hers, to bring back the blood. Those hands. But then Karl climbed down the ladder and faced the house and wasn’t Karl at all. He was Gabe. And when she looked down at her hands, they weren’t the hands of a young mother, they were the hands of an old woman.
The phone rang again. “Damn it, Ernest,” said Augusta. Without checking the call display, she picked up the phone. But Ernest wasn’t there. The line was crackling and hollow, like the old phone lines out at the farm. “Hello?” she said.
“I’m okay.” It was Gabe’s voice. Wasn’t it?
“Gabe?” she said. Rose put her hand on Augusta’s shoulder. Then the line went dead. Augusta put the receiver down, feeling a chill r
un up her neck.
“That was Gabe?” said Rose.
“I’m not sure. You wouldn’t think they’d let him use the phone, even if he was out of surgery, would you?”
Rose shrugged. “Maybe. They get them on their feet pretty quick these days. Check whose number it was.” But the screen read “Unknown name, unknown number.” Rose shuddered. “That’s spooky,” she said. “You think he’s dead?”
Augusta grimaced at her. “No, I don’t think he’s dead. If anything, I think he was telling me he’s alive and well.”
“So you think it was one of your visions?”
“I don’t know. You heard the phone ring too, didn’t you?”
“Yes.” They both stared down at the phone for a while.
“Well,” said Rose, “enough interruptions. Tell me about Joe.”
“What do you want to know?”
“How Joe got to see Joy. Did Joy see him? Did they meet?”
“No, no. He turned up at the auction held at the farm, before we sold the place. He saw the auction notice in the newspaper.” They had hired an auction company to come on site to sell off almost everything but the buildings. Augusta had arranged for the church ladies to set up a concession stand, and that got the community out to the sale; no one wanted to miss the opportunity for a bit of socializing over coffee and pie, or for snooping around in their neighbours’ stuff.
All the decades of Augusta and Karl’s life were lined up outside the house and in the farmyard: decades of stoves, first wood, then electric; the copper boiler and wringer washers—both the hand-cranked one Helen had struggled with, and the gas-powered one the Reverend had brought Augusta; crocks and butter churns; coffee-pots and canning jars; water kettles; teapots; coal-oil lamps and lanterns; syrup pails; egg crates; cream separators; the kitchen cupboard the Grafton boy had left in the house so many years before; the ancient radio Karl had packed up the mountains in the years when he still ranched with Olaf; the horse harnesses and double-trees and tractors; discs and rakes; wooden-handled saws and gas-powered chain saws; wooden barrels and wheelbarrows; wire-stretcher and fencing tools; shovels and pitchforks; and the electric fish smoker Karl had never got around to using. There it was: all the decades of work and memories laid out in front of the community. She felt naked, exposed at having her things inspected, and weepy at seeing that so many years had gone by so quickly. The auctioneer rattled her whole life away. Not the apiary equipment, though. She gave all that to Gabe to get him started on his honey business. She couldn’t have sold it if she’d tried.
A Recipe for Bees Page 24
