by David French
Well?
MARY says nothing. She takes an involuntary step and stops. From the look on her face you’d be hard-pressed to know whether she liked the stockings, except for one thing: she can’t keep her eyes off them. She stands several yards from JACOB, staring almost quizzically at his outstretched arm.
You can touch ’em, maid. They won’t burn you . . .
MARY remains at her distance, unmoving.
. . . Feel how smooth the texture is. Pure silk . . . A dollar a pair at the Timothy Eaton store on Queen Street. I bought a pair for you and a pair for your sister. You can give ’em to her the next time you’m in St. John’s.
MARY (still not moving) They don’t allow her to wear t’ings like that. The Matron is strict.
JACOB What? Not even a pair of good stockings?
MARY No. I took her one of my dresses one time and they wouldn’t allow her to have it.
JACOB Why not?
MARY ’Cause all the girls at the Home have the same uniform: black button-up shoes, navy blue knee socks, a short navy blue skirt with pleats, a navy blue cardigan, and over that a cotton pinafore with flowers on it.
JACOB (beat) Well, take both pairs for yourself then. Would you?
MARY I can’t be accepting gifts from you now, Jacob. It’s not right.
JACOB Well, I can’t be taking them home, can I? Mother would crack me across the skull if I walked in the door with these on my arm.
MARY Yes, and what would Jerome say if he heard I’d taken those? Has that crossed your mind?
JACOB Jerome? The hell with him. If he can bring you oranges last year, I can bring you stockings now.
MARY That was different.
JACOB What’s different about it?
MARY I wasn’t spoken for last year, that’s what’s different.
JACOB We was keeping company, wasn’t we? That’s almost the same. Did that stop him from slouching in that rocker there, darting a look at you every time he sucked his pipe?
MARY You make it sound as if we couldn’t get rid of him. He may have dropped in once a week, if that.
JACOB Once was enough. For all the notice he took of me, I might’ve been one of his students he stuck in a corner and forgot. (mockingly) Tapping his Briar pipe in the pit of his hand. Pointing the stem at the sky. “Look, Mary, there’s the evening star, now. Venus.”
MARY What odds? I was no more taken with Jerome last summer than the Man in the Moon. What’s happened since is your own fault and no one else’s.
JACOB Sure. Rub salt in the wound.
MARY It’s true, isn’t it?
JACOB For Christ’s sake, Mary, I was seventeen at the time. Seventeen!
MARY That’s no excuse! You was old enough to lure me up to Jenny’s Hill, wasn’t you? And two months older when you kept me waiting for the sound of your boots on the road, and me still here when Mr. Dawe was ready to blow out the lamp!
JACOB That was wrong, I admit.
MARY The next day I walked down to your house. “Oh, he left,” your mother said. “Sure, didn’t he tell you? Took the train to Port aux Basques this morning. You must’ve just missed him.”
JACOB She had it wrong. I didn’t go straight to Port aux Basques. I got off in St. John’s. I worked unloading the steamers, till I had enough for my passage and Travelling Certificate . . .
MARY I walked up the road that morning, and every step of the way I could feel your mother’s eyes on my back. I went straight to Mrs. Dawe. “I wants to go up to Toronto, Mrs. Dawe,” I said. “There’s somet’ing I have to do there.” “What?” she said. “I can’t tell you,” I said, “but it’s important.” “Well, I’m sorry, Mary, but you can’t go. You still owes us twenty-four dollars for that bridge you had put in.” “I won’t go for good,” I said. “Just for a week or two.” “No,” she said, “it’s out of the question.”
JACOB What was it you had to do, Mary? Why just a week or two?
MARY It would’ve taken me that long to hunt you down. Then I would’ve put on my prettiest dress and knocked on your door. And when you stuck your head out, I would’ve slapped your face so hard it would’ve knocked you into the next room. But at least I’d have had the satisfaction of saying goodbye.
JACOB I’m sorry. I wanted to tell you goodbye. I tried to, two nights before I left here . . .
MARY Two nights before? Yes, I noticed how hard you tried two nights before. The way you sat on the step and looked at your fingers. The way you shuffled off home without a backward glance.
JACOB The words wouldn’t come . . .
MARY That must’ve been a first, mustn’t it?
JACOB Perhaps.
MARY You’d been so upset the past week. Ever since your father came home from the Labrador. Always working late at Taylor’s tinsmith shop.
JACOB I couldn’t go home till he was fast asleep. I didn’t want him to have to see me . . .
MARY It never occurred to me I was the one on your mind that night. All along I supposed it was him, your father.
JACOB It was the both of you.
MARY No mistake.
JACOB It was. There was a moment there when the boat pulled out of Port aux Basques for North Sydney, for Canada, when I almost jumped over the side.
MARY (pained) Why didn’t you?
JACOB I can’t swim.
MARY That’s not funny, Jacob.
JACOB I wasn’t being funny . . . I stood on the stern of the Caribou, looking back at land for the longest time . . . It was a grand day, too, the sun shining, the breeze making t’umbprints on the blue water. It almost felt good to be alive . . .
MARY I suppose you never gave a second t’ought to me, did you?
JACOB Indeed I did.
MARY Out of sight, out of mind.
JACOB It wasn’t like that at all. It’s just that . . .
MARY What?
JACOB It’s just that I couldn’t forget my father’s face. The look on his face that day as he raised his head on Will McKenzie’s porch and caught me passing. I never wanted a son of mine to see such shame in his father’s eyes. Nor a wife of mine to have to look on me with such pity. The way my mother looked, later on, as we all sat down to supper, him with his eyes on his plate, hardly able to swallow a mouthful . . . The broken look on those two faces made me turn and walk to the bow of the boat that was pointed for another country . . .
JACOB pauses, and without looking at MARY, walks to the suitcase. He folds in the stockings. Closes the suitcase and ties the rope. All the time MARY watches him.
MARY (finally) So I didn’t count, is that it? What was I, Jacob? Just the girl you frolicked with one night on the cliffs of home?
JACOB That’s not true, now.
MARY Don’t say it’s not true, it is true. The simple truth is your father mattered more. It was what you saw on that summer porch, wasn’t it, that drove you away from here?
JACOB Well, it’s no whim that’s carried me back, I guarantee.
MARY I never believed it was.
JACOB And don’t suppose I haven’t tried to forget you since, because I have. I tried to shut you out as best I could, but . . .
MARY But what?
JACOB Somehow you’d always . . . always creep back in . . . Then I heard about you and Jerome . . .
MARY Who told you?
JACOB Mother wrote. For a minute I figured she’d become feeble-minded. “Not Jerome McKenzie,” I said to Sam Boone. “She must mean another Jerome.”
MARY What if it had been someone else? Would that have made any odds? (then) Would it?
JACOB No. Not a bit.
MARY I wonder . . .
JACOB I sat on my bed that day and read the letter, and when I come to the part about you and Jerome, the words made my ears ring. I had to go to the window for air . . . It was like . . .
MARY Like what?
JACOB Almost like . . . like I’d swallowed a hook lodged so deep inside it was there for good. For the first time I felt what a fish must feel, with a foot on his head
and his guts being ripped out . . . I quit my job. I tramped the streets from the crack of dawn. Up one street, and down the other, till my soles wore out. I got in a fight with a fellow on Yonge Street. He come at me with an ice-pick. I put my hands behind my back and I said, “Go on, buddy, put it right there!” I said. (He smacks his heart.) “Come on!” I said. “Do it! I won’t make a move to stop you!” . . . He backed off and looked at me like I’d just escaped from a straitjacket. Dropped the ice-pick and took off up the street . . . I went back to Sam Boone’s that night and packed my bag. I said to his wife, “Lucy,” I said, “I t’ink it’s time I went home . . .”
Slight pause.
MARY Well, you ought to have saved yourself the trip. What you ought to have done, Jacob, is had your shoes cobbled and took to the streets again. Till you walked me out of your system.
JACOB Once was enough. All I got was blisters.
MARY What did you expect I’d do, boy? Cancel the wedding next month? Hurt someone the way you hurt me? Did you imagine I was pining away that much? My God, you must t’ink a lot of yourself, don’t you? All you have to do is walk across the Klondike into Coley’s Point, and I’m expected to feel the same? Expected to feel grateful?
Slight pause.
JACOB Do you love him?
MARY What odds to you? He’s a good man, Jerome. He’s quiet and kind, he’s smart and dependable, and once he builds his own house in Country Road, we’re taking Dot to live with us.
JACOB That’s not what I asked, Mary. He may be all of those t’ings you said, and more. I don’t give a damn if he’s wise like Solomon or strong like Samson. I don’t care if he builds ten houses in Country Road for you and your sister. I only asked if you loved him.
MARY Why wouldn’t I love him? I’m marrying him, aren’t I? (She turns away.)
JACOB That still don’t answer my question. Look at me, Mary . . .
MARY What for? . . .
JACOB Look me in the eye and tell me you loves him, and I’ll walk out of this yard and never come back.
MARY You made one promise tonight you never kept. You can’t be trusted.
JACOB Try me once more. Tell me you loves Jerome McKenzie, and you’ll never see the dust of my feet again.
MARY All right, and I’m holding you to it. (She turns and stares straight at him.)
Slight pause.
JACOB You can’t say it, can you? (then) Can you?
MARY I loves him. There. I said it.
JACOB (beat) No odds. I don’t believe you. (He walks away.)
MARY No, you wouldn’t believe the Devil if he snuck up behind and jabbed you with his fork.
JACOB That I wouldn’t.
MARY No. All you believes is what you wants to believe.
JACOB No, I believes in what’s real. I believes in a young girl trembling at my breath on her neck. That’s what I believes in.
MARY What young girl?
JACOB There’s only one in the yard that I can see.
MARY And just when was I trembling?
JACOB When? I’ll tell you when. When you pointed out the blue star of Vega tonight, and I stood behind you. I could feel you shaking under your dress like a young bride at the altar.
MARY It’s chilly out!
JACOB Indeed it’s not chilly out, or where’s your shawl to? . . . Your heart was pounding, wasn’t it? (then) Wasn’t it?
MARY Next you’ll be telling me you could hear it.
JACOB No, but I could see the pulse in your neck, Mary, beating like a tom-tom.
MARY The Bible’s got it all wrong. It’s not the women who are the vain ones, it’s the men.
Slight pause.
JACOB You ought to wear yellow more often, maid. It really do become you. Suits your black hair and fair complexion.
MARY Is that what you did the past year up in Toronto? Sweet talk the girls?
JACOB What girls?
MARY “What girls?” he says.
JACOB There wasn’t any girls, sure.
MARY No, and autumn don’t follow summer, I suppose?
JACOB (beat) All right, perhaps there was one or two girls . . .
MARY One or two? Is that all?
JACOB T’ree or four at most.
MARY You don’t need to exaggerate. And you calls Jerome a blowhard for boasting of somet’ing he never claimed to be in the first place?
JACOB He claimed to be potent, didn’t he?
MARY That’s all he claimed to be, not’ing more. And he said it as a joke, more or less.
JACOB More or less?
MARY I’m sorry I ever told you, now.
JACOB He’s in the wrong place, Jerome is. He ought to try Toronto. The girls up there haven’t set eyes on a decent man since the day I left.
MARY Yes, and I suppose all four was waving you off at the station? Running down the tracks? Blowing you kisses? “Don’t forget us, now! Come back soon!”
JACOB No. Only the two.
MARY Two, my foot.
JACOB All right, one then. One in particular.
MARY Oh?
JACOB Her name was Rose, and she looked like you. In fact, she might’ve been your spitting image, except for her gentle manner.
MARY (beat) I’m gentle . . .
JACOB The odd time.
MARY I’m not like this with another soul but you. I’ve never met anyone who makes me cross as a hornet half the time.
JACOB Rose was gentle all the time. She said I brought out the best in her.
MARY There was no Rose. You’re making it up. What was her last name?
JACOB I’m not much with last names. Rose of Sharon, I called her. “How beautiful are thy feet with shoes, O prince’s daughter!”. . .
MARY (beat) What did you do together, you and this . . . this Rose?
JACOB Oh, the odd time we’d go dancing at the Palace Pier. That’s a dancehall down by Lake Ontario. Once we took a midnight cruise to Niagara Falls and back. There was a band playing.
MARY I don’t believe a word of it.
JACOB Mostly we’d go to a picture show. My favourite (last syllable rhymes with “night”) was always Tom Mix.
MARY Tom Mix? Who in the world is he?
JACOB What? You’ve never heard of the “King of the Cowboys,” the most famous Western actor alive?
MARY No, and I still haven’t seen a picture show. I don’t have the time or money for such t’ings.
JACOB Then I’ll take you, maid! Right now!
MARY Take me where?
JACOB To the pictures, Mary. I’ll take you to see Tom Mix in The Lucky Horseshoe. (He sits on the step and pats the area beside him.) Here. Sit down on the step.
MARY (suspiciously) What’s you up to now?
JACOB (all innocence) I’m not up to a blessed t’ing . . .
MARY still regards him with mistrust.
. . . Come on, sit down. I won’t bite . . . Will you hurry up, we’ll be late for the picture . . .
MARY reluctantly sits down, though she sits at a discreet distance from JACOB.
. . . All right, now it’s a Friday night in Toronto, and we’m at the picture house. We just slipped into the last row of the Christie T’eatre on St. Clair. You comfortable?
MARY Yes. Only why are we sitting so far back? Why don’t we sit in the front?
JACOB Why? ’Cause all the front seats are taken, that’s why. Jesus, we just sat down, and already you’m complaining.
MARY I just wondered why we had to sit in the last row.
JACOB I told you, didn’t I? These are the only two seats left. Count yourself lucky to get ’em . . . All right, now, the next is important. There are t’ree t’ings, Mary, that a fellow who takes his sweetheart —
MARY I’m not your sweetheart.
JACOB Suit yourself.
MARY Just remember that.
JACOB Hush up. The picture’s about to begin . . . No, it’s just the newsreel . . . Now as I was saying, there are t’ree t’ings that a fellow who takes a girl to the p
ictures always does in a picture house. And if he don’t do all t’ree to his satisfaction, he don’t get his fifteen cents worth.
MARY What’s that?
JACOB First off, he lights up a cigarette, if he happens to have a tailor-made. That’s number one: a Sweet Caporal.
MARY What’s number two?
JACOB Number two is he cocks his feet on the seat of the fellow ahead, and if the fellow looks back, you stares at him like Tom Mix in The Lucky Horseshoe. A smirky sort of look that makes him slink low in his seat . . . Be quiet now. The picture’s just begun . . . Look, there’s Tom now, riding up the road on his horse named Tony. That’s some wonderful black horse, boy. See how his mane is permed and his tail all combed. And look how smart Tom looks in his same old get-up: silver spurs on the heels of his boots, that leather fit-out over his pants they calls chaps, that hanky knotted around his neck, and that tall hat with the wide brim and the crown stove in on both sides. See how straight Tom sits in the saddle, Mary. You’d swear he had an oar up his arse . . .
MARY I don’t like language like that, Jacob! So just stop it!
JACOB Sorry, maid. It just slipped out.
MARY Besides, you said there was t’ree t’ings a fellow did in a picture show. You never mentioned the last.
