It had been nearly three years since Rory had been to see his sister. This didn’t mean it had been three years since he’d been back in Toronto. In fact he’d passed through a couple of times, but each time he found an excuse to avoid going to see Margaret. He felt guilty as hell, but there it was. The fact was, Rory liked life on the move. At first he’d been reluctant to leave the city he’d known all of his life, afraid of what might be out there. It was true there were rough times, bruises and battered knuckles both behind and ahead, for life on the road was harsh, even for a strong young man like Rory. Still, he felt he had a purpose.
This time, though, he’d been back for a couple of months, and he figured it was only a matter of time until word got back to her that he was around. Toronto was a small town in many ways. Besides, he was sure he’d seen Douglas on the street not long ago, and he couldn’t be sure Douglas hadn’t seen him.
He stopped outside his sister’s house. He took his cap off, smoothed his hair from his brow, put the cap back on and polished first his right boot and then his left on the back of his pants legs. It didn’t help. All this time as a boxcar cowboy didn’t leave much to shine on a pair of road-weary boots. He shifted the weight of the pack across his shoulders.
The little house looked sorrowful, but a run-down place wasn’t unusual these days. He’d seen lots of houses worse than this. Places with the curtains flapping in the prairie wind, the sand piling up against the side of the kitchen door. A place could get buried like that. Just disappear. He’d come upon such a place once, what the boys called a suicide farm, out in Kincaid, Saskatchewan. A woman sat in the doorway, wearing a ragged shift on which the words Red Roses Flour were still faintly visible. He’d tipped his hat and asked if he might get some water from the well. The woman motioned for him to go around back. There were five graves out there, two with freshly turned earth and piled stones, but no sign of a well, so he told the woman he was sorry for her troubles and went on his way. She never said a word.
The cities were marginally better than the farming communities—there were no Bennett Buggies, the horse-drawn automobiles named in honour of the prime minister—but still, Toronto certainly showed the ravages of the Depression. Knots of hard-looking men in raggedy clothes loitered on the street corners. Lots of old battered-up jalopies. Lineups at the soup kitchens in the Ward and around the back doors of churches. To Rory’s eyes, though, the street his sister lived on wasn’t so bad. There was one house near the corner of Carlton with its windows boarded over and a foreclosure sign nailed to the door, telling passersby everything they needed to know. Like the black-cross mark of plague, people avoided looking directly at it, as though afraid the troubles were contagious. In one yard a car sat up on blocks. Here and there, Room For Rent signs hung in windows.
Margaret’s house looked quiet, and for a moment he wondered if they’d moved on. Being on the move the way he was, there would have been no way for them to tell him where they’d gone. The place hadn’t been whitewashed in a while. Spots of bare cement showed through where hunks of stucco had fallen to the ground. The flower beds, once his sister’s pride and joy, seemed not to have been planted this year. Well, who had money for such things?
He scratched the back of his neck. Hot water and soap would feel mighty good. He walked up across the porch and knocked on the door and was relieved when after a moment Irene looked out of the curtain. When she saw her uncle’s face, her own lit up and broke into the same crooked grin Rory saw when he looked in the mirror.
“Hey, Doodles! How about letting me in?”
Irene opened the door, and threw her arms around him.
“Uncle Rory! Mum, it’s Uncle Rory! Uncle Rory!” She covered his face in kisses and held him so tight he started to cough.
“Don’t kill me before I’m even across the threshold! Damn! When did you get so big, little girl? You’re nearly a grown woman. How old are you anyway, eighteen?”
She blushed. “Oh, you know how old I am. I’m fourteen! Eighteen! Goodness! Do I really look eighteen?” She crossed her arms over her breasts.
“I’d have sworn it.”
“Rory! Is that really you?” Margaret rushed onto the porch, grabbed his arm and pulled him into the house. “I can’t believe it! I’ve been worried to death. Where have you been? Are you going to stay? Have you eaten? No, of course you haven’t. Look at how skinny you are. When did you eat last?”
Rory laughed. “Slow down, sister, slow down. Guess you’re glad to see me after all.”
“Glad to see you! Why, I could just die!” She turned him round and round, reached up and touched his face. “Oh, Rory, you’ve grown old, older. Look at you, your face, all those lines.”
As Margaret took stock of her brother, Rory took stock of her. She was thinner, he thought, although she’d always been a little bird of a thing. Her brown dress hung straight and loose, as though she’d shrunk inside the cloth. There were stains on the front. Her hair, once always bobbed and crimped and shining, was now pulled back into a plain bun. She had new lines, too, deep ones that ran from her nose to her mouth and made her face look severe. Well, how old was she now, thirty-four? A middle-aged woman.
“Yeah,” he said, “but you haven’t changed a bit.”
“Liar.” She patted her own face, then bustled him into the kitchen, made him sit at the table. She pulled out a half loaf of bread.
“Don’t have too much in the house just today. Of course, if I’d known you were coming … but never mind. I’ve got some canned meat. Sandwich, do you?”
“That’d be fine, Margaret. Don’t go to no trouble on account of me.”
She put a pot on the stove. “I can’t believe you’re here. Coffee’s mostly chicory these days, and we’re lucky to have even that.”
“How’s Doug doing down at the store?”
“Douglas is an idiot,” Margaret said bluntly. “Gives credit to everyone and expects his family to live on air.”
Rory looked uneasily at Irene, who stood quietly in the doorway.
“You’ve got one smart Daddy is how I remember it.” He grinned at her. “Not every man can be his own boss, manage his own business. That takes brains.”
Margaret put a sandwich of bread and ketchup and canned meat down in front of Rory and turned back to the stove to get the coffee.
“And what kind of brains does it take to drink it all away?”
Rory was shocked at the grim harshness of his sister’s voice.
“Come on, now, Peg. Maybe we should talk later, eh?”
“Irene,” said Margaret, “I want to talk to your uncle alone for a while. Go on!” She waved Irene out of the room and turned back to Rory. “You know, Douglas came home a week ago and said he thought he’d seen you downtown. Told me he called after you, he was so sure.”
“Well, mighta been me. I’ve been living in the shanty a while.”
“In the shanty? By the viaduct?” Margaret’s hands dropped to her sides and she stared at her younger brother.
“It’s not so bad. Better than many.” The way he smiled made him look older than his thirty-two years. “Better than lots of places I’ve been in the last few years. We’ve even got whitewashed stones leading you through the lanes. I’m an elected official up there. We’ve got a committee to keep things organized. Keep the men outta trouble and keep things running smooth.”
“How long have you been in the city?”
“Oh, ‘bout two months, I guess.”
“Two months! And you’re only just coming to see us now?”
“I’ve been meaning to get by every week. But I’ve been mighty busy, Peggy.”
“Doing what, for the love of God? What could be more important than your family?”
He took a bite of the sandwich and washed it down with the bitter, reheated coffee. “I’ve been doing some work.”
“What kind of work? Nobody has work these days.”
Rory put his hands around the mug and leaned back in the chair, studying
his sister’s face. “You’re right there, and the ones that do, they get taken advantage of. There’s not much justice for the working man. You wouldn’t believe, Peg, the way people get treated. In the coal mines in Glace Bay there’s miners and their families starving to death, thanks to the Dominion Coal Company. They blacklist a man if he buys food anywhere except at the company store and there the prices are so high they can’t afford to buy enough to feed a bird. Anti-slavery laws just don’t apply up there, I guess. Housing so bad the snow piles right up on the floor and babies freeze to death in their sleep. And that’s just one place. There’s others, lots of ‘em and not so far from home. Let me tell you, I’ve seen some things, travelling round.”
“You sound like one of them Communists,” Margaret said.
“There’s worse things.”
“Talk like that can get you thrown into jail. You want to end up with Tim Buck and those other men in the Kingston Penitentiary?”
“Listen, the cops raided Buck’s house illegally. He and those other fellas were run up a tree on that. Unlawful association, my ass. Seditious conspiracy! A load of shit, I’ll tell you.”
“Rory, don’t use that language in this house!”
“Five years to be served at that hell-hole penitentiary in Kingston. And I’ll tell you, there’s many say they shouldn’t be in there.”
“There’s some say people talk too much. Look at how he started that riot in the jail.”
“He never started any riot. The guards tried to kill him, shooting into his cell.” Rory felt the heat rising under his skin.
“You seem to be in the know, Rory,” said Margaret.
“Well, I guess you and me are just going to have to disagree on this one. But maybe you’d see things more my way if you’d seen what I have. Men living in shacks made from empty dynamite boxes and the company telling them that’s company housing and they’re lucky to have it. Men beaten bloody for speaking out against injustice. Men shot dead for taking a stand.”
“Stop it, Rory. I won’t have this kind of talk in my house. I’m glad to see you and all. I am. But you’ve grown hard, associating with God knows what kind of people, and you’ve had your head twisted around by these foreign agitators. They’re the real problem in this country. Too many foreigners living off relief and draining the system. The newspapers say!”
“To hell with the newspapers!” Rory stood up quickly, knocking the table. The cup tipped over and the coffee spilled.
“Goddamn it! I’m sorry, Margaret. Give me a cloth. I’ll clean it up.”
“No, I’ll get it. Doesn’t matter. Sit down.” She pushed him back into the chair and turned to get a rag.
He’d forgotten this, his sister’s antagonistic side. She had always been able to rile him, even when they were children—to intuit the exact nerve that could be manipulated to make him explode, and then she’d back down.
“Let’s just forget this talk,” she said. “Let’s have a nice visit. Can you stay a while?”
“I don’t think so. I’ve got to get back.”
She dabbed at the spill and didn’t meet his eyes.
“Just thought I’d come by and say hello. Thought I might stay overnight. Just the one night, if that’s all right. I could use a hot bath.”
“Yes, you could.” She smiled. “You stay as long as you like. We don’t have much, but you’re welcome to it.”
“How are things with you?” He took her hand, made her sit down, let her know they would be friends again. “You seem, I don’t know, edgy.”
“Oh, Rory, you just don’t know how it’s been.” She said this in a rush, then put her hand up to her mouth, as though to stop more words from flying out.
“Tell me,” Rory encouraged her.
“We’re a laughingstock. I can’t set foot outside the door.”
Rory pulled a package of tobacco and some rolling papers out of his shirt pocket. He wanted something ordinary to do.
“I feel like I’m coming apart at the seams,” said Margaret.
“What do you mean?”
“It doesn’t matter.” She lit a cigarette and sucked the smoke into her lungs. “There was trouble last year.”
“What kind of trouble?”
“I’m ashamed to tell you.”
“Peggy, I’m your brother. You can tell me.” He reached to take her hand again, but she pulled away. She stood and leaned up against the kitchen counter.
“Pharmacists shouldn’t drink. They make mistakes.”
“What kind of mistakes?”
“Mistakes that make people sick.”
“He mixed up somebody’s prescription?”
Margaret put her fist up against her mouth. “Everyone knows,” she said.
“Knows what?”
She went to the window above the sink and looked out into the space between the houses. “The neighbours watch us all the time.”
Rory got up. As he put his arms around her he noticed that her hair did not smell clean. He always thought of Margaret as smelling of lily of the valley, but now she smelled of oil and something yeasty and slightly sour. It must be like this all the time. The thought of his niece locked up in the house day after day made him sick to his stomach.
Two hours later, after Rory finally persuaded Margaret to go to bed and get some rest, with the help of some little yellow pills, he went into Irene’s room. A bright blue-and-green quilt lay on the neatly made bed, and on the pillow lay a china doll in a torn green dress, the right leg broken. There was a plain desk under the window that looked over the back garden. A lamp, a few books, Chatelaine magazine. A bureau stood to one side with a long lace cloth over the top and a pink bottle of perfume, a paper fan, a string of amber beads. The walls were painted a dusty rose, but looked more dusty than rose. Two embroidered pictures depicted English country gardens. The room had the look of a place where time was spent waiting for something, not a room where someone had settled in.
Irene sat at the desk, her back to the door. Her chin rested on the palm of her left hand and she gazed out into the backyard. Rory noticed her chewed-down nails; the skin around her thumbnail was raw and inflamed. She had grown up. Her face had lost some of the baby fat and was squarer. Her chin was determined, her mouth set.
“How about you and me go for a walk?” he said.
“I don’t know. Mum usually wants me to stay in and help her with dinner.”
“She’s sleeping. Come on. She doesn’t need you.”
Irene didn’t move. “She always needs me,” she said.
“We’re going out. Now.”
As they stepped out into the sunlight Rory closed the door gently behind him so as not to arouse Margaret, unknowingly adopting the household’s habits.
“Someone’s just cut their grass,” Irene said. “It smells wonderful.”
Rory put his arm around her shoulders. She leaned her head back and let him lead her, and she watched the sky pass through the leaf-laced branches overhead. They walked along the street in silence for a while. He didn’t know how to begin.
“Mom’s been sick,” she said, lowering her head.
“Has she?”
“For a while now.”
“What’s wrong with her?”
“Dad says it’s her nerves.”
“You don’t sound convinced.”
“She … She’s … She’s better sometimes.”
“Is she better now? Is this better?”
“She’s okay right now.”
Rory could tell from the even and controlled tone of her voice that she’d been told to keep secrets.
“And how are you?”
“I’m all right.”
“Are you?”
“It’s been difficult.” Irene ducked under his arm, reached up and picked a perfect maple leaf. She twirled it and put it against her cheek. Rory wondered at her choice of words. Difficult. Such a grown-up word, full of understatement.
“Go on.”
“Mum feels afraid, I
think. She’s angry, but I don’t know who at, although lots of times it’s me. She sleeps a lot, and she cries.” Irene shredded the flesh of the leaf, stripping it expertly down to the fragile skeleton. “If she’s alone she gets, I don’t know, afraid of bad things happening. So then I stay home because she seems better when I’m there, because what if my leaving would bring on a bad spell again? It’s going to start eventually, but why do anything that might make it happen sooner? It’s so hard to tell what will set her off, what will make her turn.”
She stopped walking and let the leaf flutter to the sidewalk.
Rory noted that although he’d asked her if she was all right, all she’d talked about was how her mother felt.
“What does your dad say?”
“What? Oh, Dad. He says she’s fragile. And he’s right, of course. She is. More sensitive than most. Then, too, it’s hard on him. He has to run the business, doesn’t he?”
Rory looked around, as though the answer to the puzzle of this family might be found in the trees or the wind. He noticed three girls about Irene’s age. As they neared, the one in the middle, who had long braids and wore a bright purple dress, nudged the other two and they crossed the street. They stared, and the one on the left whispered to the others. They giggled and hurried along their way. Irene took no notice.
“You know those girls?”
Irene gazed back at them dispassionately. “That’s Violet and her friends. Janet and Wendy, I think. They’re in my class.”
“You want to go with them for a while? See your friends?” He knew even as he said it that she would not go.
“Oh, no. I don’t go with them.”
The Stubborn Season Page 9
