The Precipice

by Hugh Maclennan

  Lucy stopped as she reached a brown-shingled mission bungalow. She took out of her basket the envelope she had dropped into it and started up the walk to the door. Before she could reach it, Mrs. Jimmie Morse came out with a broom in her hand and her frizzy gray hair tied up in a blue and white polka-dot handkerchief.

  “Now that's nice of you, Lucy!” she said. “Have you really got those seeds?”

  “I think so. I had a hard time keeping the bees from ruining my plant, but I think I managed to protect it. It was a lovely one – almost a true sky blue. If I really have succeeded I'm going to try to market it.”

  As the Frasers felt sorry for the Camerons, so the Camerons felt sorry for Mary Morse because her husband drank. Lucy could see him in his shirt sleeves now, half hidden by the vine of Dutchman's pipe that covered the veranda. He had been out of work for a month and the whole town knew he had been drinking again, this time really hard. She tried not to look in his direction, though he seemed to be sitting quietly enough reading a paper.

  “Be sure to let me know how these seeds turn out,” Lucy said.

  But Mary Morse had little interest that morning in flowers. Lucy's presence gave her a chance to speak her mind.

  “We might have known everything would be turned upside down when the Ceramic was sold to Americans,” she said. “A lot their fine promises amounted to about not making any changes! The next thing you know, they'll start bringing in cheap French-Canadian labour to take more jobs from our own men. If only old John MacDougall had stayed alive! But no, young John thinks he's far too grand to stay here and watch the business the way his father always did. He had to move to Toronto, and of course that's ruined him!”

  Lucy tried to think of something to say to make Mary Morse feel better. The Ceramic Company was the largest industry in Grenville, but Grenville was not a factory town and the ups and downs of the plant affected only a limited number of people.

  “I said there'd be trouble when they sent that young man up from the States,” Mrs. Morse went on. “Imagine somebody his age thinking he can tell Mr. Craig how to run his business! Now that he's here, I don't like his looks, either. What do you think of him?”

  “Who do you mean? I don't know who you're talking about.”

  “Stephen Lassiter. The American!”

  “Oh. I hadn't heard about him.”

  “Well, I don't see why you should be interested. He's been here two months and it makes me uncomfortable just to look at him. He has that kind of face – you know, bold.” Another pause and another sharp look. “I wonder how it makes him feel, firing men right and left? Still, you should be interested, more or less, since Mr. McCunn is his latest victim.”

  Lucy's face guarded itself, for Matthew McCunn was her uncle.

  “What about Uncle Matt?” she said. “Is that definite, or is it just – just –”

  She went no further because she realized that Mary Morse had drawn her into a trap. Mrs. Morse wanted to talk about Matt McCunn because in doing so she could draw attention to the well-known fact that the Cameron girls’ own uncle drank a great deal worse than her husband. And yet, Lucy thought, she ought to know better than to compare them, even on such a plane, for nobody in Grenville had taken McCunn seriously in many years, not since he was unfrocked as a minister.

  Mary Morse, watching the touch of colour appear on Lucy's cheeks, recognized the end of her conversation with the middle Cameron sister for that day.

  “I was only inquiring,” she said, and began to sweep her walk.

  Lucy said good-bye and went on toward the shops, a prickly feeling of discomfort at the nape of her neck. So many people in Grenville, especially the women, seemed to be composed of sharp edges. In spite of the fact that she understood the reason for it, she found them no easier to live with. They were all so eager to do the right thing, but doing it made them no better. They were all fighting to retain the unity of their homes in the only kind of town they were able to understand, but their confidence was being steadily undermined by the knowledge that Grenville had nothing to offer their children, nothing to keep them from leaving home as soon as they could. Like Mary Morse, the women became bitter with their feelings of insecurity and their sense of injustice, and so they worked harder than ever, trying to sweep their worries into the gutter along with old leaves and twigs and dust.

  Lucy reached the edge of the business district where the King's Highway became King Street. She passed the Presbyterian Church, grey fieldstone and gothic; the First Baptist Church, red brick and squat. Beyond the Baptist Church, a short iron bridge took the road over a limestone gully down which water poured in a heavy spate. The stream disappeared a hundred yards below at the cement wall of the Grenville Ceramic Company where Jimmie Morse had worked for twenty years as assistant sales manager. The factory had once produced church ornaments, heavily flowered vases, and ponderous earthenware spittoons decorated with pastoral scenes embossed in colour. With the passage of years the company had expanded and become more specialized. Now it made porcelain articles which the town designated broadly as plumbing fixtures.

  A large corporation with headquarters in Cleveland had acquired control of the Ceramic Company several years ago, and last year had taken over the remaining assets. So far the Americans had moved slowly. They had been eager to win good will. Wages had been raised slightly. A rumour had been carefully spread that there would be no drastic changes. But this year some production men had been sent up from Cleveland and they had spent a week surveying and examining the whole plant. One of them, called by some an industrial engineer and by others an efficiency expert, had remained behind to complete the reorganization and cut out unnecessary costs. It was assumed that he was acting strictly on orders from above and had been selected for this most unpopular kind of work because he was a fairly affable character. Rumour now had it that within another few months the reorganization would be complete. A Canadian plant, using American methods and financed by American money, would be functioning legally within the framework of the British Empire trade agreements.

  The failure of the old Ceramic Company had shaken Grenville, for the town had always been proud to think that its one factory distributed goods from Halifax to Vancouver. The grandfather of the last owner, a lusty, hairy Victorian, had settled many arguments with customers by the flat statement that what was good enough for the King of England was good enough for them. If the customers were unfamiliar with the story which everyone in Grenville knew, they were enlightened. Edward the Seventh had once taken a bath in one of the company's products. A bathtub, embossed in appropriate colours with the royal coat of arms, had been presented to the incumbent Governor-General in Ottawa just two weeks before Edward, then Prince of Wales, had appeared in the capital on a royal tour, and there was even a legend in Grenville that the Prince had found the tub so roomy and comfortable he had fallen asleep in it.

  Lucy left the bridge and moved into the main part of town. King Street baked in the sun. It curved in a slow arc with the business buildings like two walls of a solid moat taking the curve as they went, red brick on one side and dark cement on the other, the symmetry of the curve completely spoiled by lines of not-too-straight telegraph poles, the whole area raw as the business sections of all Canadian small towns, ugly to the point of shock. Nearing the post office, she crossed streets sweetened by names redolent of British colonial history: Wellington Street, Simcoe Street, Sydenham Avenue, Duke Street, Elgin Lane. In this, Grenville was typical of its province; there was hardly a British general, admiral, or cabinet minister who had functioned between the French Revolution and the accession of Queen Victoria who was not commemorated in the name of a street, town, or county somewhere in Ontario. It was all part of the longing of a twice-transplanted people for a stable home. She reached Dorchester Square, enclosed by the courthouse and jail, a branch of the Royal Bank of Canada, and Nick Petropolis's Manhattan Pharmacy. In its heart was a patch of grass and four war memorials. The square was dominated on the fou
rth side by the post office, a monstrous aggression of red brick, its roof crowned by a four-faced clock shaped like a gigantic cruet. Inside this building Lucy encountered her uncle.

  Matt McCunn was leaning against a desk near one of the windows, eyeing a middle-aged woman who was buying stamps. His face wore the expression of curiosity which had always enraged and mortified Lucy's father when he was alive. Under a cap of grizzled hair, two brilliant blue eyes peered out of a weather-beaten face. He looked like a cross between a Presbyterian minister of the old school and a sergeant-major of a line regiment, which was suitable enough, since during a varied career he had been both. His pepper-and-salt trousers had a clean press along the crease and he wore a spotless white shirt, but his sleeves were rolled up to reveal a pair of wiry brown forearms, with a snake tattooed on one and a dancing girl on the other.

  Lucy glanced at her uncle, avoided his eyes for a moment, bought stamps, and mailed the letters she had brought. When the other woman left the rotunda she turned to him.

  “Uncle Matt – tell me the truth for once. Have you lost your job again?”

  He scratched his head behind his right ear. “You know what's the matter with this place, Lucy? It's a town of women and children. You ought to get out of here.”

  Another woman came through the door and nodded in Lucy's direction. McCunn made a face as his eyes followed her jerky walk across the floor.

  “Daisy doesn't like me any more,” he said, quite audibly.

  Lucy went outside and her uncle followed her, blinking into the sunshine.

  “She did once, though. Something might have come of it, only she was too scared.” He shook his head. “I remember the first time I ever saw her. It was at a Sunday-school picnic up at the lake, and I'm telling you, all she needed was a harvest moon to make her look better'n a piece of pie. But look at her now!” He caught Lucy's arm and she smelled a faint whiff of whiskey as his free hand made a wide gesture toward the chained-in patch of grass in the centre of Dorchester Square. “You know, right there in front of you is one of the main reasons for Grenville being like it is – four bloody memorials to four bloody British wars. The War of 1812, the Crimea, the Boer War, and the real one.”

  “Uncle Matt, I asked you a question.”

  He grinned and disregarded the interruption. “I've been thinking lately – these little towns, they're prematurely old. They're like respectable women, they're old before they ever start living. Why, I can remember when this was quite a place on a Saturday night. I've seen the drunks lined up like dead soldiers on the sidewalk right here in front of the post office, and I've seen Angus McNab fight three-quarters of an hour to a finish with Mickey McQuinn and back him right across the square from here to the Royal Bank. But look at it now! It's the women are the trouble. There were twenty-five per cent too many of them when the last war ended and instead of improving themselves what did they do? They ganged up on us and tried to make us ashamed of ourselves. It's God's truth they did, and the boys back from France couldn't stand it, so where are they now? In Toronto or the States, most of them. You ought to get out of here before you get to be like Jane.”

  A quick flash of fear ghosted across Lucy's face as she went down the steps and began to cross the square. McCunn followed her, and they walked side by side until they reached the Manhattan Pharmacy.

  “Doesn't it ever occur to you that people worry about you?” she said.

  “My dear child, in this town people worry about everything. So why not let them worry about something interesting for a change?”

  Lucy was uncomfortable, standing there with McCunn on the busiest spot in town. He took a pipe from his pocket and stuffed it with tobacco. As he did so, the hips of the dancing girl wiggled rhythmically over the muscles of his forearm.

  “I'm going in here,” she said. “Jane wants some toothpaste, and I want a cold drink.”

  “No harm in that,” McCunn said. “I'll come too.”

  They sat on stools in front of the marble counter, and Lucy sighed with relief. It was cool in the drugstore. Apart from a young man at the other end of the counter, they were the only customers, except for some people at the prescription counter at the back. McCunn took a sip of his drink and laid down the glass.

  “Do you really like this stuff?” He passed his hand around to his hip pocket, fondled the hard outlines of a flask, and for an instant Lucy was afraid he would produce it and pour some of its contents into his glass. Instead he leaned sideways with his elbow on the counter. “You were asking about my job. Yes, it looks as if I've lost it. This efficiency expert – this man Lassiter they sent up from the States – he doesn't think I'm efficient.”

  “Were you surprised at that?” Lucy asked.

  McCunn eyed her for a moment and grinned again, “You know what I told Lassiter? I told him that when New York burns, efficiency will be the cause of it. He didn't get the point so I tried again. I asked him if he believed in progress, so of course he said he did. So I told him the most progressive animals the world had ever seen had been the Gadarene swine. That didn't do any good, either. He'd never heard of the Gadarene swine. So I tried again. I told him that before he came up here the warehouse at the Ceramic used to be a pleasant place, and that I didn't mind losing the job because I wanted to remember it that way. He got the point. Otherwise he's not a bad fella when you get to know him.”

  Lucy sipped her drink and watched his reflection in the mirror behind the counter. It pleased McCunn to know that everyone considered him preposterous, but apparently it had never occurred to him that he really was preposterous. When Lucy was a little girl he had seemed wonderful to her. He had been the war hero and the adventurer; he had told wonderful stories; he had spent three weeks in the East on a merchant ship after leaving the army. Every time he had come to the Cameron house he had made her whole world seem larger. But she had always known that her father had hated him and been ashamed of him, and as she grew older she knew that Jane's friends made a point of never mentioning his name in the presence of any of the Cameron sisters. And yet, McCunn had never been a public charge. Somehow or other, he had always got along.

  He was looking past her at the waitress behind the soda fountain. The girl was at the far end of the counter talking to the other customer, a man called Ike Blackman. It gave Lucy a twinge of amusement to realize that she was now sitting between the two most disreputable men in Grenville. Blackman was supposed to be unspeakably immoral. On Saturday nights he played the drums in a dance band, and that was about all the honest work he ever did. He wore sideburns, he parted his hair in the middle and slicked it back so that it gleamed sleekly, he had made himself carefully into a model of the very kind of man Grenville most especially disliked. And of course, he was believed to have a way with women. The high-school boys said he had a different one every week, though where he acquired them they never knew.

  Now he turned his oval head slowly, looked at Lucy's ankles, and addressed McCunn: “How's tricks at the factory, Matt? You got a day off?”

  McCunn began talking to the other man across her, and for no apparent reason the Greek waitress let out a loud laugh. Her hips moved suggestively as she worked behind the counter, she and McCunn and Blackman were relaxed as they talked to one another, and Lucy felt excluded. It occurred to her that in a town like Grenville personal freedom could rest only on a bad reputation.

  Another customer entered and sat on a stool in the middle of the counter. The girl moved to serve him, the stranger got into conversation with Blackman, and McCunn turned back to Lucy.

  “You've got a nice head of hair,” he said as if he had noticed it for the first time. “Why do you fix it like that?”

  “It saves bother. I can't have it getting into my eyes the way Nina's does. After all, I work in a garden.”

  McCunn turned toward a rack of magazines standing near his end of the counter. On the cover of one of them was a carefully windblown blonde standing in a field of daisies, wearing a big smile, an embroi
dered blouse, and a dirndl skirt.

  “I'd like to see you looking like that,” he said. “You could if you tried.”

  “It costs money to dress like a girl on a magazine cover.”

  “Hell!” he said. After a brief pause he went on: “The only reason you dress plain is because the women in Grenville would scratch your eyes out if you did anything different.” He nodded toward the waitress. “Look at Rose. She's got less money than you have, but she gets noticed.”

  Lucy finished her drink, laid ten cents on the counter, and got up to leave. McCunn unwound his long legs and got up too. When he opened the door the heat of the square quivered against them.

  Out on the street, he said gently, “The men notice a girl like that, Lucy. No matter what you may think about her.”

  “Of course they do!” There was controlled anger in her face as she turned to her uncle.

  McCunn grinned amiably.

  “Is that the only purpose you think a woman should have in her life – to be noticed by some man?”

  “Listen, Lucy – I like you. And this is the God's truth. For a woman to be considered beautiful, she's got to be bold. Most men haven't got much imagination. You've got to spell it out for them so they can be sure they aren't making a mistake. Sure – she can conceal the boldness all she likes. But it's got to be there.”

  They were heading along King Street toward Duke, where her uncle would have to turn north for his mile walk out of town to his own place. He lived in a small whitewashed cottage on the slope of a hill with farmed land spreading around it. McCunn had once owned fifty acres of this land, but now he owned nothing more than the cottage on the edge of one of the fields.

  “You're obviously getting ready to leave Grenville again,” Lucy said. “Where will it be this time?”

  “Ever heard of a place called Yellowknife?”