A Circle on the Surface

by Carol Bruneau

  “Oh? You couldn’t do it on weekends?”

  Silence weighed as if a rock from the backyard had rolled between them, taking up so much space neither could squeeze around it. As a child, he had imagined Mi’kmaw giants tossing erratics from the barrens.

  “After the fuss you made over her, Una.”

  “I didn’t say I would abandon her. Or you.”

  Wasn’t it said that having a youngster in the house kept couples together?

  Mentally he added a third column headed with Hannah’s name to his sheet, dismissed the thought as Una slumped on the sofa. The pragmatism behind her choosing him was perhaps a small matter in the bigger scheme of things. What heart did not have secrets?

  “However we got together, you’re my wife. It’s not that big a deal. I forgive you.”

  The strange idea flared of Hannah living under the same roof as them, then just as quickly fizzled as curiosity snared him. “What exactly did you and your teacher friend do?”

  She picked at her cuticles, told him.

  “How long did it last?”

  She pulled at the embroidery on a cushion as she spoke—Ma’s busywork when she should have been minding his underage drinking with Hubley and some other teens behind Finck’s store. Una hugged herself, arms stubbornly crossed like a little kid acting out an embrace.

  His stomach unknotted. “Well. Why not write to them both, the principal and the super? Apologize, say you’re different now.”

  “What, and put the kibosh on any chance of coming back?”

  He approached her like the rare bird she was. “Oh now, it can’t be as bad as that.” Una wasn’t alone in having flaws, being prone to making mistakes. He was just as culpable. Dumb as dirt, he had been, falling into, committing his biggest mistake, the error of his ways, imbibing. Moving to town at eighteen, getting his teller’s job, making after-hours drinking an obligatory lark. Slowly feeling the burden of it—hangovers, lost Sundays, how it was a kind of tether, a teat—then receiving George’s advice, given in the echoey room with its shoeshine bench and urinals.

  Reaching up, she touched the stubbly cleft in his chin. A gesture that brought back Father Heaney’s joke about Saint Peter leaving a dent, turning the sinful away from the Pearly Gates. Her cheek, when Enman kissed it, felt cool and dry, in contrast to the dampness in the air, the weather giving the windowpanes a beating.

  “As far as I’m concerned, the sun—my sun—rises and sets on you.”

  She glanced away. “I might’ve guessed marriage was a strange state.”

  “Like a sharp, mostly comfy pair of old shoes you’ve slid your feet into then can’t throw out or replace.”

  Una laughed at his joke, rather uneasily. She pointed to the red-covered book, the colour of beef liver under his lamp’s greenish light. “And a recipe for furthering the race. Making babies like making perfect desserts.”

  “Sure. And ‘matrimonial’ squares are a fancy name for date squares. Ah, but I wish you’d been straighter with me.” He paused. “What’s to stop you from seeing this teacher again?” Once more she looked as if she was about to turn on the waterworks. “Oh, forget I said it—go on up now and get some sleep.” She clung to him, but he gently pried her arms away. “I’ll stay where I am. Won’t be sleeping much anyway, with Jerry on the prowl.” It was meant more as humour to smoothe things over, but her face kind of crumpled, and she looked more than half as old as Ma slipping upstairs.

  He might have been naïve at Christmas, but one thing he wasn’t was a drinker. Not anymore. He’d stopped, yes he had—or he could stop, any time he liked. This just wasn’t the right time, not after having his wife admit that she’d done it with someone else, married him, more or less, he guessed, on the rebound. But even if Beulah could be trusted to get him to O’Leery and back, by this hour even the Goodrow kid would have shut down.

  The rain had let up when he set out. Win’s adage as good as a hand cuffing his ear. What sensible fella buys the cow when free milk is up for grabs?

  Cuckold was the word, if you could be cuckholded before being married, he was a cuckold. Its very sound was ridiculous. Like a rooster getting its comb cut off and losing its strut. The only thing worse was being a pansy or getting called one. She had kept the teacher’s name from him—it hardly mattered—but was it possible they were still in touch, that the teacher had pursued her? Of course, if he came from town, anyone would have noticed the car. Was it a friend of Kit’s? Or not a man at all but Kit herself? Now his thoughts blazed out of control. There’d always been something funny about Kit; he had often wondered—he liked her well enough, had nothing against her, just wasn’t sure these feelings were mutual.

  Then it struck him: the science teacher Una had mentioned once. Though who precisely the fellow was mattered far less than the thought of her naked with him. Enman’s stomach heaved. It was humiliating, especially when he thought of how she asked him to perform. The only way to deal with such hurt was to blot it out.

  The hope of doing that drove him past Goodrows’ and Mrs. Finck’s and on past the graveyard. Fog socked in the shore, the first lights of dawn tinging it yellow; the sky was the colour of an old smoker’s beard. He fought off a kind of nausea. God strike him dead if he didn’t half expect Ma to reach out from her plot to stop him going farther. Sea and sky shrouded, gone was the horizon he had imagined walking like a tightrope when he was small. Now he worked to straddle the puddles, the earth so starved for moisture the ground was glutted with wet.

  In the dingy light Twomey’s place looked stripped of paint, where elsewhere fog favoured bursts of colour, the other houses’ dark greens, reds, dull yellows, and blues. Once upon a time Twomey’s had been green and yellow like a dorey, back when Bart and Cecelia’s old man was alive. A scrap of curtain covered the door’s cracked windowpane. The girl would be asleep, God willing. Twomey himself would be just getting started, his trade hitting full swing hours after the Goodrow kid ran out.

  He thought for several long, hard minutes before knocking. How bad was it that he couldn’t wait the couple of hours till Robart was up, and cadge a drink off him? But he thought of Una and the need wormed through him, its chafing growing worse. A disease, Ma had called the old man’s drinking. But how could an illness be a craving—so tempting, so comforting, and so quickly and easily sated?

  That’s what raised its fist, though—an illness—and that’s what thumped the door jamb’s splintery wood. Forgetting himself, he laid all the blame on the illness keening through his veins. Illness promised that things would be fine, they’d be all right, sure they would, with just a little help. But then whose face appeared in the window but the girl’s?

  Sliding the bolt, barely covered up in a ragged nightgown, she muttered about “Missus” and her own “behaving” and not “bothering Mister,” meaning him or Twomey? Hesitating, she shrank back to let him in, muttering Mister this, Mister that. Regardless who she meant, he was no better than Bart for being here, he knew. He knew and hated himself for it. Hated how his eyes felt bleary and tight, his face and body too, weary and cramped, as if he hadn’t slept in a year, and how, on top of everything, his heart was in a vise because he really didn’t want to ask. And he hated how he’d hated the thought of the girl being at Ma’s table that first time, hunched over Una’s books. Because of what such smallness said about him.

  “I’m here on business.” He cleared his throat, speaking as if he’d waltzed into the bank. “Is your uncle handy?”

  The sight of her pudgy feet on the ruined linoleum tightened the vise around his heart.

  She waved him ahead, which was too bad. Better he’d waited outside, because the mess took his breath away—the table buried under bottles, plates and tobacco tins, the stink of cat pee and boiled turnip permeating everything. Of all things, Hannah held out a little dish of something: green and yellow gumdrops, lint-covered from the lining of someone’s p
ocket? His eyes might well have been full of sand, they twitched so. Her look—scared, hopeful, and surly all at once—made him rub them. Before he could accept a candy, Twomey came reeling into the room. He was wearing only longjohns, the top part buttoned wrong.

  “Well, well, if fish don’t stink. It’s Pussy Greene.” Then Twomey turned on the girl. “Wha’d I tell you, Idjit? You’re not to let in any old son-of-a-whore.”

  “I think, Bart,”—he cleared his throat again and wanted to spit—“her name’s Hannah.”

  “Aww. So you’ve come to tell me somefin I don’t know. Enman Greene. Aren’t you the king of arse-lickers, the big brudder!” Twomey slapped his shoulder, clearly enjoying this. A blemish on his ruddy, stubbled neck glared red. “Oughta call the Mounties on you, busting in where you’re not welcome. No respect for a fella’s home.”

  Slumped over the table, the girl shifted things from pile to pile. Enman couldn’t see her face, only her back, which looked soft and broad through the ragged nightie. That she was shivering took a second or two to sink in.

  “My wife”—his voice felt reedy and thin, yet he was determined that Twomey hear it—“tells me Hannah’s quite the pupil.”

  Twomey smirked. “Well there’s an authority, that one, isn’t she just.” Smashing his fist down, Twomey sent a plate wobbling to the floor, where it clipped the bottom of the stove, shattering. Tacked to the wall above, like something glimpsed through mist, a list caught his eye, and the glint there of a tiny gold star.

  “Only pupils I care about, Greene, are these—see ’em?” Twomey pointed two fingers at himself as if to poke out his own eyes. “What they’re looking at they don’t much like.”

  Hannah hunkered there picking up smashed china. The room was just light enough that he could read the chunky printing below the star. Precipice. Antique. Piebald. Where in God’s acre would a girl like this have need of such words? He pictured Una poring over Cleary’s tattered dictionary. Something inside him slackened, went shammy-soft.

  “Easy now, Bart. All I want’s a pint. Hun’erd proof stuff, as you say. I’ll pay what you ask. To tide us over, bud, till Robart sorts me out.”

  “Us? The missus got a thirst too, does she. No wonder. No grass grows under that one’s feet, eh?” Twomey sniggered, rocking backwards. Only then was it obvious how tanked he was. “Or under her back, wha’? Butting in where she ain’t wanted. ‘Ooh ooh ooh, mind the lady, Bart, her virgin ears.’” Twomey’s voice rose, shrill and obscene. “Telling me to watch my tongue. And you, you little sleveen—” Narrowly avoiding a tower of pots, he staggered over, ripped the girl’s handiwork from the wall, and balled it up. Hannah started to cry then; the sound was like a cat choking. “And you, you arse-kissing hamster-balled son of a bitch, stuck up just like your old man, thinking he could shag Cece and not pay a price—” Twomey waved his fist. “You can get the fuck out of here.”

  Was it the illness speaking, or what? Speaking and unleashing something. The instant Enman’s fist—the bones of all five knuckles—connected with Twomey’s nose was a spongy, gristly jolt. The snap of cartilage, its give, sent a tsunami through his muscles. It exploded up through his arm and down his spine.

  Eyes rolling in their sockets, Twomey’s head snapped back with a crunch. The blow’s force echoed as Twomey stumbled towards him, stunned. Something like lightning striking a freshly driven nail bounced around in Enman’s head. The girl was screeching now, “Stop it, Mister, stop it!”

  The red decorating Twomey’s nose was bright, almost festive. Yet vomit climbed Enman’s throat as Twomey reeled closer. Enman managed to grab the nearest thing, a frying pan with food crusted to it, to fend off Twomey’s fist before it could land. The punch merely glanced off of the pan, which hit Twomey’s jaw.

  “Get out of here before I fucken kill you,” the man spat through blood and bits of tooth.

  Momentarily frozen, Enman recalled a time in the schoolyard, a couple of Meades cornering Twomey and yelling about Cecelia, Did he get some too? and Twomey singlehandedly beating the shit out of both of Sylvester’s sons.

  Behind him, Hannah was whimpering, scrabbling for cover. His brain would barely turn over. But as it did he uttered, mortified, as if from some lofty distance, “You’d be half entitled to.”

  Because what sort of loser would turn his back on a half-sister, then stroll into her uncle’s house at dawn to punch out the fellow’s lights? He’d been spoiling to do so since they were kids, of course, ever since the day the old man had tossed him in, trying to make him swim. Twomey, hateful even then, had laughed his head off, his own father nowhere in sight.

  “You arsehole.” Twomey’s voice was a hiss. But by some stroke of luck the guy stayed where he was.

  The birds were just awake, a sparrow singing from the big old boulder outside. Escaping ahead of him, the girl had vanished like a salamander scooting for cover. Next to some oil drums and the ruins of a shed lay the axle-less hulk of a car and beyond it, an outhouse. Was it too much to hope that Twomey wouldn’t stagger outside with his shotgun?

  Enman hovered behind the shed, waited. A mewling sound was coming from the privy. Hannah was huddled inside. The reek! It did nothing to settle his guts as he put his arm around her.

  Drawing her out of there was as slow as removing a splinter. “He’ll kill me, Mister.” Tears and snot and the fleshy warmth of her seeping through his shirt. But it drained away any guilt he might have felt over Twomey, a prickly courage welling up in its stead.

  “Don’t you worry about him.”

  Whatever Una had done, he had fussed more over marigolds than over his own kin, when he could have, should have, tried harder to help the girl.

  The gunshot shattered the stillness, the bullet ricocheting off the dead chassis. The sound rolled from the dripping spruces and hung there in the air. Enman seized Hannah by the arm and pulled her, finally, running up behind the boulder and on to the road. Another shot cracked a tree limb. Eyes round as burls, Hannah had quit crying but was whingeing now about shoes.

  Only then—half dragging, half carrying her—he remembered she wasn’t wearing any. He’d put her and Una in a boat and row them both to town to buy some before he would go back.

  18

  It took Kit a bloody dog’s age to answer. Waking to an empty house—not so much as a snore rising from downstairs, and no sign that Enman had even dozed on the couch—Una had gone straight to the phone. Shying from calling Isla’s, lest the ringing woke the baby or Isla’s daughter answered, she had no one else to turn to.

  “Who is this?” Kit’s voice was fuzzy with sleep.

  “It’s—it’s me. Enman’s gone.”

  “Enman—?” An uncomfortable pause. Some hasty throat-clearing. “Gone? Gone where?”

  “He’s left, Kit. He’s left, and I don’t know—”

  “I’m sure he’ll be back.” Now Kit sounded miffed, breathless. A pillowy sigh ensued.

  “Well, yes. But he’s got a fondness for the booze—and he means to stay here. Here in this village. He meant to all along.”

  There was a breezy silence. Kit sniffed. “Oh, dear. Why am I not surprised?”

  Una thought of what her mother had been fond of saying: Marry in haste; repent at leisure. Over the line came a rustling, the lazy squeak of bedsprings: a voice, a whispered question, “What is it?” The voice a man’s or a woman’s, too fleeting to tell.

  “Oh Una, dear. Things will sort themselves out.”

  The ease in Kit’s voice encouraged her. “Look, I’m hoping—I wonder—could I stay with you? For a few—just for a little while, till Enman, till things—till I figure out what to do.”

  “To do?” Now Kit’s voice was wary. “About what?”

  “The job, well, for starters—and, you know, I just need a roof over my—just until I get set up and—”

  “So you’ve heard?”

&nb
sp; “Well, no. But I hope to, before too long. In the meantime, I wouldn’t impose. No more than a week or two, until—”

  “Enman’s a lovely man.” Kit paused. “And they don’t hire divorcees either, darling, only widows.” She gave a sharp little laugh. “Well, the war’s a widow-maker. Gregory’s a loose cannon, but he’s not that bad. Kidding. I’m sorry. Listen, it’s just not doable, having you stay, not with company here right now.”

  Hearing Kit speak that name made her seem farther away than Quinpool Road could ever be. Saying a quick goodbye, Kit promised to call, then the line clicked dead.

  So this is how it goes, Una marvelled, sitting on a kitchen chair, catching her breath. A burning moved from the pit of her stomach to the base of her throat. She made herself pick up the phone again, asked the operator for the number. It didn’t matter what hour it was. The principal had boasted about being an early bird. And what was pride but a faulty sense of self, she thought. She would explain her predicament, this time she would plead her case. But when the principal’s wife picked up, Una lost her nerve, saying the operator had made a mistake.

  Enman’s stubbornness and Kit’s long memory were bad enough, why risk further injury, a hat trick? She tried to fathom Kit’s distaste for men, which was understandable but still puzzling, ever since the staff room joke about someone clipping his nails. “Who needs them?” Kit had hooted, they all had, when the secretary said, “Men or toenails?”

  There wasn’t a thing to be done but go and crawl back under the covers, pretend it was someone else’s bed, someone else’s life. Never mind there was water for a good tub-soak. This mattered “less than a hill of beans,” as Mrs. Greene would say, the old lady’s tut-tuts so loud in Una’s head that even dragging the quilt over it failed to drown them out.

  Who knew how long it was before voices roused her, Enman downstairs talking to someone. The shy, halting replies made it plain who it was. Clutching her stomach, sick with remorse for her own stupidity, she managed to get up and pull on some clothes. Stymied by guilt, she flopped down again. She heard footsteps on the stairs. Voices swelled in the next room, the clang of hangers, the sound of something being dragged across the floor. What in the name of God was Enman doing, having Hannah come and help herself to his mother’s things? Or worse, Una’s teaching materials?