Children of the Day

by Sandra Birdsell

  Emilie didn’t understand how Alvina did it. Where had she found the gumption to study by correspondence, and the brains to teach herself how to type? Alvina had fashioned a paper keyboard, which she placed on her stomach at night. While she lay in the top bunk, her fingers tapped against the keyboard in the dark as she whispered the alphabet; whispered, Now is the time, now is the time, now is the time.

  As she had been doing last night when Emilie and Ida undressed in the dark, Ida crawling into the bottom bunk and instantly falling asleep. Emilie joined Ruby and Sharon on the mattress on the floor, and listened to Alvina practise typing. The street light beyond the window illuminated the row of pictures hung on the wall where it met the sloped ceiling. Waves washed along a shoreline, poplar trees bent over lake water, a sailboat skimmed across a water horizon.

  Now is the time for all good people, Alvina whispered, and Emilie longed to interrupt. She wanted to tell Alvina about Oliver leaving the meeting at the school and taking them to Aubigny. From the angry sound of Sara’s voice in the kitchen, likely by the end of the night Alvina would know. But she wouldn’t know that their father and ABC the Goldfish had kissed.

  Instead of going home they had crossed the highway and gone down to the ferry landing. Oliver, Emilie, Ida, their lips sewn shut. Silent as fieldstones as they waited for Oliver’s uncle Ulysse to bring the ferry across.

  Ida took Emilie by the hand even before they were underway, as though it were Emilie she feared might spill into the water, and not herself. The engine and its spinning propeller vibrated in the planks, and Emilie knew they were moving by the reflection of the stars on the water advancing and retreating beneath them. Water lapped against wood, Ulysse’s pipestem clicked between his teeth as he sucked on it, the putt-putt of the engine filled the silence.

  Oliver hawked and spat into the river, and Emilie was astounded that he would do so, given that he called spitting a filthy habit. But there were no terms of reference for what was happening. Oliver leaping to his feet during the meeting and leaving. Now this journey across the river to Aubigny, the town of Oliver’s youth. Ulysse sat on a chair that had been screwed into the wall of one of the ferry’s two motor sheds, his legs crossed.

  Emilie watched as the blackness of one shore retreated and the other advanced. Ulysse had recovered from his surprise at finding them waiting on the ferry landing, and he spoke to Oliver now, in French, but she discerned the question—Where was the Deetch? Deetch meaning Sara. His tone of voice implied that he was wondering whether something untoward had happened.

  Oliver’s reply was curt.

  Emilie and Ida stood between the two men, Ulysse seated on the chair, Oliver leaning on the other motor shed. They had nothing to hang on to except each other. Emilie felt a tremor in her sister’s hand, and saw that her eyes were cast down to avoid looking at the water, or so Emilie thought. But then Ida blurted what was on her mind. Aren’t we good enough? Aren’t we good enough to have our own school? she asked Oliver.

  By cracky, Oliver said. Only fools believe everything they hear. And I didn’t leave the goddamned meeting just to be hauled back to the subject. So keep your trap shut.

  The ensuing silence vibrated, Ida shrinking into herself over Oliver’s uncommon harshness. She let go of Emilie’s hand and lurched over to the guard chain, stumbling on the broken sandal strap. She leaned into the chain and covered her face with her hands. Emilie went over to her, hooked a finger into the waist of her sister’s skirt to encourage her to come away from the edge. She thought, the trouble with Ida is that she isn’t used to being in trouble.

  During the remainder of the river crossing they didn’t speak. At the sound of water rushing against the landing, Oliver pushed himself upright. Emilie and Ida followed him up the incline of the ferry road, the ditches on either side of it an eruption of sound. Frogs burped and cleared their throats, falling silent when they passed by, and erupting again behind them. But as they reached the town the cacophony ended abruptly. Street lights burned holes in the darkness, the main street of Aubigny opening up before them.

  The sidewalk undulated beneath Emilie’s feet, a wavy tarred walk that was pitted with stones, and not a wooden sidewalk as she was accustomed to. Wooden sidewalks revealed the state of a pedestrian’s mind, Emilie had discovered from listening as she lay on the made-up bed on the girls’ bedroom floor. Revealed Sara’s impatience, Oliver’s reluctance to return home, Alvina’s worried hurrying, the heels of Sonny Boy and The Other One coming down hard in a quarrel.

  Here in Aubigny, she was in danger of putting a foot down and finding air, of being pitched onto her face. The bow of her dress had come undone and the ties trailed against her legs, but she didn’t want to risk disturbing the unravelling of this unusual night to stop and fasten them. She didn’t want to risk falling behind Oliver’s determined steps as they passed a church, its steeple casting a narrow shadow across the street, and a machine shop whose dusty windows were dimly lit. When a window suddenly brightened with a cascade of white sparks, Oliver stopped to take it in.

  The place where my father worked, he said. Dead, long time ago. Tuberculosis, he added, telling the girls what they already knew. The pauses between his sentences were filled with other sentences, entire scenes, the scent of his mother’s hair falling across his face as she bent over him in bed, listening as he recited the rosary. No use looking for the house, she’s long gone, he said, although Emilie and Ida already knew this too.

  They approached a cinder-block building, the caisse pop-ulaire, and Oliver’s forward march began to waver. His muscles unclenched and his shoulders dropped, as though he was fatigued. The impulse that had propelled him to his feet and out of the meeting seemed to be wearing thin.

  Our house was there, he said, where the credit union now stood, which Emilie also knew but wouldn’t say, because she understood that he was talking to himself. They continued, passing through rectangles of light from the windows of houses along the street. They didn’t come upon anyone out walking or in any of the yards, although the night was warm enough. Just as they were approaching a large and square two-storey house, its front door opened. A woman crossed a wraparound veranda and came down the stairs. She went over to the gate and leaned across it, her head a flash of maroon and the brass buttons on her burnt-orange shoulders glinting in the light of a street lamp.

  At the sight of her, Oliver turned round quickly and headed back where they had come from, Emilie and Ida needing to hop-skip in order to catch up. He stopped and looked down at them as though emerging from a daze, as though he’d just realized they were present. Damn foolish nonsense, he muttered, and Emilie thought he was harking back to what Ida had said on the ferry. It did not occur to her that he realized he was about to visit an old flame with two of his daughters in tow.

  Alice called out to them. She called Oliver’s name as a question, and then again, as an exclamation. Oliver turned towards her as she came through the gate and stood still for a moment, looking at him. She called again, and this time his name was an expression of pleasure.

  Alice, Oliver said, as though he too were surprised and pleased.

  She hurried to meet them, speaking in French, and Emilie thought the sound of it was as lively and lilting as her step, the gentle sway of her body. She’d almost reached them when she became aware of Emilie and Ida, and hesitated.

  This is very nice, Alice said moments later, in English, as she closed the gap between them. She hooked an arm through Oliver’s. You’ve come calling on your old school friend and brought along two charming visitors. As they went towards the house, the street light illuminated her vivacious features, accentuated by her short curly hair in a poodle cut. The tight curls framed her heart-shaped face; the mandarin collar of her orange dress and the shoulder epaulets gave her a squared look.

  Alice went into the house to call her parents, and Oliver repeated the description—we’re old school friends, he said, as though wanting this to be clear. And then his features lit
up with pleasure at the sight of Alice’s mother, a diminutive white-haired woman coming to meet him with a string of run-on sentences, her voice lively and young. They embraced, Oliver bestowing a kiss on both her cheeks, while a bald and grossly overweight man in a dark suit presided over the scene from the top veranda step, his eyes briefly passing over Emilie and Ida, before he turned away and sat down in a wicker chair.

  For near to an hour they sat in the quiet of the veranda, illuminated by a light shining through sheer curtains on a large window. Emilie and Ida rocked on the porch swing, Emilie nearest the lit window, and when she turned her head she could see through the sheer curtains into the room; a lamp highlighted pages of music spread across a piano, there was a glass tank glowing with the greenery of water plants. Stained-glass flowers unfurled across the top of the window and seemed to change colour with the motion of the swing.

  The light from the window illuminated Alice’s hair, the deep colour of her lipstick. She seemed carefully drawn, a mole on a cheek an exact circle, her eyebrows matching thin arches that rose and fell as she listened to her mother talk non-stop. Sometimes her mother leaned towards Oliver, closing the space between them to tap him on a knee. That familiarity startled Emilie, the right this woman seemed to think she had because she’d known him in another life.

  The toboggan of run-on sentences swooped up and down, sometimes ending in a spill of laughter or a click of her tongue, while Alice looked on, turning a charm bracelet on her wrist, fingering each piece, her impatience obvious. Her father didn’t ever speak, except when he greeted Oliver with a kind of grunt and a curt nod, taking his watch from a vest pocket and glancing at it pointedly.

  As the hour passed, his breathing grew laboured and his walrus moustache began to droop towards his chest. Then his head dipped and the wheezing gave way to snores. Alice spoke sharply to her mother, who appeared not to hear what she’d said.

  At last her mother’s talk subsided, and Alice broke the silence, speaking to Oliver in English. When I was in Winnipeg a couple of days ago, someone cut the tires on my car. In broad daylight, can you imagine? Two tires cut to ribbons, she said, her voice plaintive and her tiny hands coming towards him, their palms turned up as though she held the tires up for him to see. Two brand new tires, ruined, she said.

  Her mother sucked air between her teeth and nodded. It’s true, she said. My God, what’s it coming to, eh? Can you tell me?

  Punks, Oliver pronounced. He’d read in the newspaper that there were gangs of kids hanging out in downtown Winnipeg. They’ve got nothing better to do than—He was stopped mid-sentence by a trickling sound.

  A puddle grew under the old man’s chair. Alice became stiff with anger, while her mother leapt to her feet and said, Hey! Hey! Hey! She went over to her husband and jostled him awake.

  The two women then helped him up from the chair, and with much manoeuvring and effort they assisted him into the house, while Oliver looked on, shaking his head. Remembering how this man had intimidated him through-out his young life, how the creak of his heavy steps in the house had been enough to make Oliver stumble through a song he played for Alice and her sisters, his fingers gone cold on the piano.

  He lit a cigarette and drew on it, the spark of light accentuating the hook of his strong nose. He exhaled a stream of smoke, as though releasing pent-up pressure. All the king’s horses, he muttered. And then he said, Well girls, your mother’s going to be in a snit. Better hit the road.

  Emilie was about to get up from the porch swing, when Alice returned. She stood in the doorway for a moment, and then stretched out a hand to Oliver. With painstaking care he ground out his cigarette with the heel of his boot and flicked the butt over the veranda railing, into the yard. He followed Alice into the house, Emilie and Ida remaining on the swing, intuition saying that the invitation didn’t include them.

  Emilie saw Alice enter the living room and go over to sit at the piano, her body swaying in time to the music she played, which was charged with melancholy.

  Oh great, Ida complained. Although she too was a piano player, she was impatient for the visit to end. She couldn’t see into the room and, unlike Emilie, she had no sights to entertain her except for the dark shrubs crowding the fence beyond the yard. Emilie watched Oliver roam about, stop to look at pictures hanging on the walls, to peer into the fish tank. He moved out of sight, and reappeared a moment later behind Alice, watching as she played, and then he reached across her shoulder and flipped the music book shut.

  You! Alice exclaimed, and in mock exasperation she got up from the bench and swatted at Oliver’s hands, advancing as he retreated, his arms coming up in surrender.

  He turned towards the door as though he might leave, his smile fading, while Alice remained in the centre of the room, her hands pressed against her stomach. She spoke, but Emilie did not hear her say, Why would someone cut the tires on my car? It makes me feel so old, so small.

  Emilie saw Alice’s features crinkle, and realized she was about to cry. Alice stepped up behind Oliver and slipped her arms around his waist and they stood like that, Alice’s rouged cheek set between Oliver’s shoulder blades, he with his arms at his sides. She released him and went round him and turned her face up to his. They looked into one another’s eyes, and then their bodies came together.

  Emilie went through the gate behind Oliver and Ida, and into the street, her heart a hamster running in a wheel. The night air was a press of wet tissue against her legs that made her shiver, the darkness beyond the sphere of the street light seemed a deep well she might fall into. Their mouths had touched. Hurry up, she urged Ida, and grabbed at her arm. Alice called out to them and they all turned to see her coming across the yard and over to the fence, carrying a shopping bag.

  I’ve been holding on to these, hoping I might see you, she said. The bag bulged with several pairs of shoes. Shoes that Alice had grown tired of, that were out of fashion or no longer suited her wardrobe. Shoes that she had purchased in Paris and Florida the years when she accompanied her parents on their vacations. Shoes that she had purchased on a whim, because she was bored, whose soles were sometimes barely scuffed from wear.

  Shoes that Alvina, Ida, Emilie and Ruby in turn would wear. They’d gone slapping about Sara’s bedroom in a pair of velvet mules, teetering on spikes that gouged crescent imprints on the soft linoleum floor. When they weren’t fighting over the shoes, they made off with them. Took them to a friend’s house as a kind of bring-and-brag, as the shoes were unlike any to be found in Otto’s shop in Alexander Morris, or in any of the department stores in Winnipeg. To them the shoes were art, objects to be admired, puzzled over and then abandoned. Eventually they lost a shoe here, a shoe there, and Sara would get dressed for church, for a day of shopping in Winnipeg, with a particular shoe in mind, only to discover that its mate was gone.

  The dust the boy from Arizona raised when he rode off on his bicycle settled, the school bell stopped ringing. A car swept by on Stage Coach Road and Emilie watched it pass, the sound becoming a thin line that snapped, and once again the dense silence descended. Oliver has gone to see a man about a dog. He’s gone to see ABC the Goldfish. AB being Alice Bouchard. The goldfish the fish in her aquarium, of course. The decrepits had been talking in code. And that was where Oliver was headed now, she was certain. He’d taken the path leading down to the ferry and the river. He was going off to see ABC the Goldfish. The need for Oliver to return home became a burning coal in Emilie’s brain.

  Dad! Dad! she shouted, and began to run, her flimsy canvas shoes sliding on the loose gravel. Wait up, wait for me. What would she do without him?

  She called again. A vehicle was coming along the access road behind her. She pounded at her thighs in frustration, knowing that Oliver had likely reached the ferry and was out of earshot. Tires crunched through gravel and she felt the heat of the car’s engine as it approached and came alongside. Even before its passenger door swung open, she sensed that the person behind the wheel was Charlie’s brot
her, Ross.

  FOUR

  Ruby the tightrope walker

  UBY CLIMBED THE STAIRS, leaving behind the familiar and comforting odour of winter still clinging to the parkas and coats hanging from hooks on all the walls of the downstairs hall. She counted the steps silently as she ascended into the dimness, her heart beginning to thud. The music playing from the radio was a river of muffled sound, and the quieter it became, the more she was aware of being alone, of the kind of feeling she had when she played blind man’s bluff, stumbling and groping the air, desperate to touch someone and know that she hadn’t disappeared along with the world when the blindfold came down over her eyes.

  She slid her palm against the wall, anticipating the bend in the stairs where that wall ended and another began, and then six more steps to the landing of the upper hall. There were thirteen steps in all, eleven, twelve, thirteen, Ruby counted, and at last she was home free.

  The dove-grey walls of the landing were illuminated by the pale northern morning light coming from the girls’ bedroom doorway. Alvina had made the bunk bed, rolled up the bedding on the floor and set it on a trunk. We’re all in our places, with bright shining faces, oh this is the way to start a new day. But you’d better not go alone, for every bear that ever there was—the songs came to Ruby unbidden, their words returning now that she was home free. Their presence was as natural as the sound of her own breath.

  She went along the hall, passing by the door of the boys’ bedroom, where Alvina’s hand was also evident in the smoothed and tucked-in blankets of the army cots, pajamas folded and set at the foot of each one. A bed should be made up so tightly you can bounce a coin on it, Oliver had once said, in jest, citing his army days, and Sonny Boy kept putting Alvina to the test. The girls can do it, Sara said, when Oliver suggested that the boys might learn to make their own beds. Sara’s job, according to Sara, was to teach the girls how to care for the boys, and for the house, while she reigned over the kitchen. She taught them that a boy’s appetite was a raging furnace that required to be stoked with the largest of the pork chops, mounds of mashed patates, pudding desserts she arranged on the space-saver according to size, the boys’ being the largest and having an extra dollop of jam. More for the boys! More for the boys than for the girls! As it should be, as God intended.