The Hero

by Paul Almond

  The snow had not let up, and indeed seemed to be coming down more heavily. She trod quickly, carefully, easier now without the weight, and almost missed the brook, being iced over and covered with snow. She hurried along what she hoped was the course, and then almost before her, log walls! She fumbled at the door latch and stumbled inside. No Eric.

  Oh hells bells! Now she did feel sorry for herself and panting hard, almost dissolved in tears, but no — she pulled herself together. The stove was lit, so she stuffed in more wood, and then, brushing the clingy snow off, started to undress.

  Later, when Eric returned, covered in snow, and opened the door, he stopped. “Rene! I was up to Vautier’s Lake to fish through the ice. Look what I brought! And then I went to find you; I headed down on the woods trail. How did I miss you? I’ve been so worried.”

  Rene was sitting naked, clothes hanging by the stove to dry. “Oh, thought I’d just take a stroll down a different path...” They both smiled and fell into each other’s arms.

  ***

  Later, they sat in front of the fire with fresh-caught trout laid out beside the frying pan ready for cooking. The lard lunch pail had gotten lost in the tumble. Stories told, they both relaxed while Eric fried the trout. What a lovely sizzling sound they made. Insulated by a new blanket of snow, the cabin felt cosy, snug, actually hot.

  “Now that’s over, I’m pleased I’ve been through it.” She looked out the little side window. Still snowing.

  “I could live like this forever,” he said simply.

  “I’m not sure I could... And anyway, my dearest, we do have a third person joining us in the spring.”

  “Oh yes, yes. I didn’t mean I would. So let’s at least enjoy it all now.”

  “And then in the spring, back to Trinity Memorial.”

  He nodded. “Yes, back to Trinity.”

  ***

  The church bell began to toll.

  “We’re going to be late!” Rene tried to tramp faster on her snowshoes. A light snow had begun again, but she could make out St. Paul’s Church beyond, down Kruse’s Lane.

  “No, we’re not. They only start a good bit after the bell.”

  Eric and Rene had spent the night back at their cabin. Fortunately, Jim, ten, with an older man, had been cutting firewood for his mother, Mae Byers; he’d lost his father early on, and taken on helping with the farm. With his younger brother, Pat they came by the Old Homestead and explained that the couple were spending the night in the woods, so not to worry.

  Rene had expected to change for the evening service when the Shigawake ladies put on their finest for this early celebration of the birth of Our Lord. She had laid out her clothes and wanted to wear them. But Eric was so close to realizing his dream of finishing by Christmas Eve that, after they found the bunch of shingles, they had kept on until dusk, which fell early this far north. Then Eric had suggested that, with the darkness they’d better head up the brook to Nelson’s bridge and come down Kruse’s Lane.

  As they approached St. Paul’s, they saw a couple of farmers attaching their horses to the fence and throwing blankets over them, the open stable under the church hall being packed. The Minister, Mr. Walters, stood waiting by the church door. The couple arrived, threw off their snowshoes and coats, and hurried in. Only then did Rene realize their situation. She was wearing Earle’s old trousers, a borrowed lumberjack coat, and a moth-eaten red wool tuque with its orange tassel that Lillian had found — at least, her head was covered in church.

  She and Eric walked down the aisle, drawing astonished stares. Hard to ignore the buzz that rippled through the packed congregation at the sight of their snowy old clothes: Rene in heavy trousers, unheard of in Shigawake. Eric, she saw, was blissfully unaware. He had come to worship his Lord and that’s all he thought about: the birth of the baby Jesus.

  Mr. Walters led the small choir of plump ladies in procession down the aisle, a few of them casting stern sideways glances at Rene and Eric in the front pew beside Lillian, and her sister Winifred who had come for Christmas from Montreal. Rene could not ignore the shock on Winifred’s face at seeing her favourite brother and his wife in their get-ups.

  As the service progressed, the snow on their garments melted; Rene noticed pools forming on the pew and the floor beneath. This service would not be forgotten!

  And my! What a tongue lashing Winifred gave her young brother outside the church while Earle was getting out the sleigh. “You should be ashamed of yourself, Eric, bringing Rene back there. I saw her beautiful clothes laid out in the bedroom. Why didn’t you get back in time? What do you think you’re doing, coming to church, the two of you, looking like that!”

  Eric actually smiled. “Wyn, do you truly believe Our Lord required his worshippers to be clad in their foolish finery? What did those Bethlehem shepherds wear? You think Mary and Joseph said, Get out, you’re not properly dressed?” He shook his head, and threw back his head, and laughed.

  Well, that certainly shut his sister up, thought Rene. Bully for you, Eric. But nonetheless, she had felt uncomfortable having caused such an unsightly stir.

  And of course, it would be the talk of Shigawake the next week.

  C H A P T E R T W E N T Y - F I V E

  Late one Sunday evening at the end of January, the family were gathered around the stove. Eric had been putting finishing touches to his cabin interior, stogging the chinks with moss, making a table and so on. They loved their time back there, cooking and eating crisp trout, reading in the silence of the muffled woods, sprinkling breadcrumbs in front of the door for chickadees. Eric had made a drying rack for their clothes, and their bed more comfortable by fixing springy saplings at each side to bend under the couple’s weight.

  Here in the Old Homestead, the kettle sang, not boiling, just hissing soothingly above the crackling of the stove. Rene was knitting a tuque; Lillian had taught her almost as soon as she arrived, but what with the chores and working on Eric’s cabin she’d not had time to practice. She kept asking Lillian what to do next. Gillis Hayes, their tall lean cousin, had come over with his pretty wife, Jessie; Mae Byers had brought young Pat and Jim around so they could be part of the fun.

  The fun, as usual, was storytelling and poetry.

  Eric leaned on the table with one arm, smoking thoughtfully; in another rocking chair, Jessie brought out her knitting. Of course, no knitting on Sunday nor playing of cards, no hockey, nothing on the Lord’s Day. But Eric assured them that, according to Jewish tradition, though it fell on a Saturday, the Sabbath ended at sundown. So here at the Old Homestead, on Sunday night after the sun went down, you were allowed to knit.

  “You mind that rainy spring two year ago?” Earle began.

  “Yes, who’ll fergit that?” Gillis sipped his tea. Next to him, Lillian rocked by the fire, also knitting.

  “Byes, me son, we had terble weather.” Earle leaned over to drop a stream of black tobacco juice into his spittoon. “Well, old John Wylie, he was coming up from Chandler and he stopped in at a restaurant for a bite. The waitress brought him his soup and put it down in front of him. ‘Looks like rain again,’ she sez. Old John looked at his plate. ‘Oh no, Ma’am, I see a bit of barley in there.’”

  They all burst out laughing. Wonderful, these old stories, Rene thought.

  Gillis countered with, “Now you know that Mildred Benwell, terble mean with her food? She had this fellah over for a bite, and she put bread and molasses in front of him, and this here little pat of butter. ‘Now Grant,’ she sez, ‘make a long arm. And don’t be afraid of the butter.’

  ‘Thanks, Ma’am, but I seen a bigger piece than that and never got a fright.’

  More laughter, after which Jessie prompted, “Now Earle, why don’t you do that there Abou ben Adhem.”

  Earle needed no prodding. Nothing he loved more than reciting poetry.

  Abou ben Adhem (may his tribe increase!)

  awoke one night from a deep dream of peace,

  And saw, within the moonlight of his roo
m,

  Making it rich, and like a lily in bloom,

  an angel, writing in a book of gold.

  Exceeding peace had made Ben Adhem bold,

  And to the Presence in the room he said:

  “What wrote thou?” The vision raised its head,

  And, with a look made of all sweet accord,

  Answered, “The names of those who love the Lord.”

  “And is mine one?” said Abou, “Nay, not so,”

  Replied the angel. Abou spoke more low,

  But cheerily still, and said, “I pray thee, then,

  Write me as one who loves his fellow men.”

  The angel wrote, and vanished. The next night

  It came again, with a great awakening light,

  And showed the names whom love of God had blest,

  And lo! Ben Adhem’s name led all the rest.

  Rene, knitting, kept her eyes on Eric. He had lost any lines of worry that used to be on display. Here at the Old Homestead, his broad handsome face was smooth as a baby’s. Worry free. This was indeed the life for him.

  “Do ya ever hear tell of John James Macpherson and old Mrs. Fitzgerald?”

  Gillis nodded, but the others shook their heads. Pat and Jim giggled and bit into their toffee apples, which their cousin Lil had made for them.

  Rene had heard from Eric about the great doctor, John James Macpherson, a legend on the Coast, from the Soldiers Memorial Hospital in Campbellton. He would cure people from “down home” when most were too poor to pay. Every weekend, he’d come down to stay at the Macpherson farmhouse, Old Momma’s home, in Port Daniel, often stopping for a drink from Earle’s bottle of gin hidden under the bed. Old Momma was a Macpherson, so they were all cousins.

  “Well, byes,” said Earle, “he cut a gall bladder Mrs. Fitzgerald. She used to pester him: When kin I get home? So one day, he told her she could leave on the morrow

  ‘Oh Doctor, that’s fine news. When will I be able start work?’

  ‘How old are you, Mrs. Fitzgerald?’

  ‘I’m sixty-five, Doctor.’

  ‘No use to start now!”

  More laughter.

  “You know Will Mackenzie?” Gillis began. “I was a young fella buying fish at the wharf and he come in, soaking wet, boat half-full o’ water. My God, out there, he says, she was miserable. Rough, terble rough. I was afeared fer me life. I prayed, Lord Jesus save us. And he did, you know. He used to fish on that there Galilee, so he knowed what it’s like.”

  They all nodded, smiling. “Lovely story,” Eric said.

  “And now, Earle,” Lillian asked, “do ‘The Shooting of Dan McGrew’ for Rene. I don’t think she’s heard it yet.”

  Earle began, his own memory slightly different than the actual poem, but vivid nonetheless.

  A bunch of the boys was hoopin’ it up

  in the Malamute saloon;

  The kid that handled the music-box

  was hittin’ a rag-time tune;

  And back of the bar, in a solo game,

  sat Dangerous Dan McGrew,

  And watching him was his light-o’-love,

  the lady that’s known as Lou.

  As he went on, Rene thought, amazing, the poems Earle knew. Well, she’d heard that “down home” they all recited poetry. What else was there as entertainment? She loved listening to Robert Service, and resolved to bring one of his books back to London next time she went.

  And then a thought formed in her mind. She knew what she must do when they returned to Montreal for Eric to resume his duties. She would speak to Father John, as soon as they got there.

  ***

  Three weeks before Easter, which fell this year on April 5th, they sat in facing seats on their way to Matapedia, before transferring to the Ocean Limited for Montreal. Rene checked her husband. Was that familiar frown of worry creeping back? “Are you looking forward to Trinity?”

  Eric looked up. “Oh yes, yes. The Lord has called and I must do his bidding.”

  She nodded to herself. Not a great answer. “We’ll be comfortable at Jean’s, for a while, don’t you think? I’ll look for a place after the baby is born. But you never know, they might give you an incumbency somewhere else...”

  “And you, Rene, are you all right?” He’d seen her shifting, trying to get comfortable with the baby inside.

  “Oh, I’m fine, Eric.”

  They lapsed into silence again, and watched the blue bay speeding by, slashed by barren trees. Out the other window, weathered farmhouses, some not whitewashed, huddled in the damp retreating snow, few of them as grand as the Old Homestead they had left behind.Eric glanced again at his wife. “So how did you like your first winter in the Gaspe?” He wondered if her mood meant she regretted leaving.

  She took a while, staring out the window. “I just cannot fathom why those early explorers ever decided to stay, once they landed on this desolate coast. Why didn’t they just go back home to England?”

  Eric’s eyes widened. “Really?”

  “I mean, what a place to live! It may be all right in the summer, but...”

  “But,” Eric filled in, “you had such dreams for it, the wilderness and all. And now... you’ve found it wasn’t like that?”

  She nodded. “I was so looking forward to it.” She shook her head, not believing it. Then allowed her eyes to stray to her husband’s as if inviting a struggle, and turned back to the view. “I might be overstating it, but...”

  “But?”

  “How hard a life is that? Look what your sister has to do — every day of her life! Any normal person would have packed it in long ago.”

  “And done what?”

  “I don’t know, Lillian told me she used to be a teacher... Anything. But staying as a farm widow...” She shook her head in dismay. “And she’s not the only one. Every woman back there...”

  Eric sat back and opened a book. “And I thought you were loving it.”

  Rene shrugged. “Not entirely.” She smiled at her understatement. “Not that I didn’t love having to put on layers of clothing and heavy boots, trudging out over the snow, just to relieve myself on that freezing two-holer. And then, after sprinkling the lime, coming back to get all undressed again and be faced with helping Lillian make everyone’s bed, wash up, empty the slop pails...” She made a face. “I wrecked my knuckles the first time I tried to scrub on those ribbed washboards.... I’d never even made a bed before I got to Australia!”

  “The Mater made your bed even when you were old enough to do it yourself?” Eric sounded incredulous.

  “No, of course not. The chambermaid did it. The undercook did the dishes after meals, not me. The washerwoman came in to see to the washing twice a week. The Butler supervised. He answered the door for us and checked the crystal and... I just don’t know how Lillian does it, day after day, year after year.”

  How could Eric answer that? He remained silent. After a time, he saw Rene relax a little, and went on, “You loved those horse races out on the bay — you said so. And I saw you. You were enjoying yourself.”

  “One race doesn’t make a winter.”

  “It did provide some excitement. Or have you forgotten?”

  “Oh no, I could never forget that,” Rene admitted, “the jingling and jangling of the harness bells, the sleighs all painted brightly out on that flat bay ice, and Rev. Mr. Walters firing off the starting pistol. But heavens, how cold! Those horses breathing — like little steam engines!” She allowed a smile. “I confess, seeing your breath out in the air like a little cloud, well, it always did impress me.” She relaxed slightly. “I don’t know how the horses did it on that slippery surface.”

  “Sharp shod,” Eric said. He watched her carefully. Where was all this leading? “And that party at my sister Molly’s afterwards?” he prompted. “You seemed to enjoy that.”

  Joe’s house in the Hollow was a convenient stopping place, and the Hayes had thrown open their doors to all comers. Contestants and spectators had trotted up from the
Bay on the beaten path by Shigawake brook and crossed the main highway; Route Six had just been completed all the way around the Gaspe Peninsula the year before.

  Rene nodded. “Well, the Victrola I liked, I suppose.”

  “Joe gave it her for Christmas. The only Victrola in Shigawake. My sister was so proud of it!” Eric smiled.

  “But with only a few records,” Rene said, unable to suppress the mocking tone, “she had to play them over and over.” She wondered what had gotten into her. As if to make amends, she went on “Her husband Joe’s got quite a mill down there, I did enjoy seeing round that. He’s got a good number of men working. Where would Shigawake be without that, I wonder?”

  “Oh, I reckon we’d survive,” Eric remarked, tartly. He wasn’t sure how to handle this new attitude.

  They sat in silence for a good while, as the bay sped by. Eric frowned. “Rene, what on earth is wrong?”

  Rene shook her head. “I’m sorry. Now that it’s over, and I don’t have to face... I guess it’s all been catching up with me.” She pulled herself upright. “Yes, it is all over. At last. We’re heading back to civilization —“

  ”You don’t call Shigawake civilized?” Eric snapped.

  “Don’t you start, Eric. Can’t you let me have my little display? I mean, it’s not as if I haven’t tried. One must let off steam sometimes. You should be more understanding. You should, you know.”

  Eric sat motionless and then nodded. “Of course, of course. It’s just... new to me, dealing with... well, female moods and regrets?”

  “Female or not, where I come from they’d have all said I’ve been crazy. Even Hilda would....”

  “Crazy to bring back those shingles when our baby was inside. You could have lost him!”

  “How do you know it’s a him?”

  Eric lapsed into silence. Then he said, “I sure was glad you did, anyhow. I was so happy to see you then. You know, that was one of the best views ever in my life, you there, nothing on, happy and warm, in the very cabin I had built myself. Like Eve. Or maybe, the Virgin Mary, with your tummy out like that.” It was as though he’d been speaking to himself. The thoughts overwhelmed him, and he almost radiated a joy.