“Make sure you come back,” Rebecca jokes, a tad nervously, as if they’ll be circling the globe. Lucy waits till everything’s set before telling Harry. When she shows him the article from the paper, he rolls his eyes and says he won’t be going anywhere except in a box. His look the same as when they lived in the cabin, and she’d go on her missions to the barn, missions of self-saving mercy.
“Like the night life, like to party,” Rebecca pokes him, dumping a suitcase full of containers on the bed, shampoo and pill bottles. “This miracle water, bring me back a case, okay?” Mercy like gratitude, all right, dolled up today in a tight green skirt. Hope in the face of disappointment, that’s what mercy was. Unless Lucy had gone soft in the head and touchy as those gals on the stories.
19
PILGRIMS WOULD’VE TRAVELLED MORE LIGHTLY. A dozen things to do before leaving. The garden to water, Harry’s Aspirin, his stool softener. Her own preparations: the rosary in her purse, for what it’s worth, and cash, the remains of Harry’s pilfered cheque. A dress with polka dots that matched her handbag. An overnight bag with her nightie and several changes of panties, since a sneeze or laugh could cause a leak. And lately she’d been having trouble, too; nerves, since the day she’d found Miss Van Buskirk dusting. Nerves and headache, probably from the heat.
“For God’s sake,” Jewel laughs, catching her fingering the beads as they hit the highway. Even focusing on the scenery, rocks painted with slogans—Billy was here. Make Love Not War, Jesus Saves—can’t soothe the rockiness in her belly. Excitement, or maybe her queasiness is regret. Maybe she should’ve asked Rebecca to come instead; the next best thing to a daughter, at least she’d understand about pads and waterworks: women’s problems.
For a while, it’s as if they’re blasting through space—endless hills and woods, that road stretching forever. Something comforting about the middle of nowhere, being neither here nor there. Then the road narrows, plugged with motels and cafés: lunchtime. The restaurant is packed with tourists; glory, what if they’re all headed the same place? “My treat, Ma,” Jewel insists, as they squeeze past a boy Robert’s age, and she can’t help a sigh. The decor is a jumble of tartans; imagine, belonging to a clan. But the thought’s upstaged by worry: what if Harry drops a cigarette, sets the house on fire? Or falls out of bed, Rebecca glued to the stories? At least the other diners don’t look like pilgrims, though nearby there’s a sickly woman wearing a scarf on her head. The deadness of her eyes makes Lucy even more uneasy, but when the woman’s gaze meets hers it registers nothing. Jewel orders fries and grilled cheese; when her lobster roll comes, it’s mostly mayonnaise on a hotdog bun. She longs suddenly to be home with Harry sitting through cartoons. Worries crowd in—will Rebecca get him up? Will Robert help her with the wheelchair? Rubbing his stomach, perspiring, Jewel says to relax, that she’s on vacation.
Back on the road he guns it past a transport truck, quipping, “I’m the king of the castle.” Like Robert in kindergarten, leaping from the couch—You’re the dirty rascal. Gran!—while Harry watched for flashes of underpants on Don Messer’s twirling dancers. The thought blots up some of the uneasiness; how happy those days had been, despite everything: happier than anybody’d realized. But then she wonders if Rebecca’s cut up Harry’s lunch enough. Belching uncomfortably, Jewel pulls in somewhere to buy gas; she feels a bit dizzy getting out, tottering off to find the phone booth.
“You’re supposed to be having fun, Ma,” Rebecca sounds irked, traffic drowning her out.
While Jewel pays for his Tums, she inspects the magazines. There’s a homemade looking one with a church on it—the church where they’re bound, woods springing up around it. Proof of something, she thinks vaguely, some kind of power? There’s a picture of a woman showing off her arthritic fingers. The water’s of St. Margarets let Josey knit again, reads the testimonial. Peeling off a tablet, Jewel stares at the map.
Eventually they cross onto an island, one that could be a continent. Despite the spruce, the view takes her back to that show about Lourdes—the snowcapped Pyrenees and lumpy green hills around the grotto. She can almost hear the velvet-voiced narrator touring the cramped town with its souvenirs, plastic nuns in habits the colour of a donkey Robert had as a tyke. St. Bernadette, patron of shepherdesses, the hopelessly ill, and all who are mocked for their piety. But these mountains are nothing like the ones on TV. There’s only one road, so they must be going the right way. It’s hot and her mouth feels dry; how stupid, those empty bottles in back. An ice cream barn appears, closed. They pass a road sign: Halfway Mountain. “Halfway to what?” Jewel blinks, almost giving them whiplash swerving into what appears to be someone’s driveway. He slaps the wheel, stifling a belch.
Hitting potholes, they pass a trailer with a tarpaper porch, a field sprouting wrecked cars. Sweating, he grimaces. “Sheesh, the promised land. Where’s the moonshine? Lock your door.” Teasing, isn’t he, surprisingly chipper. “Oh, Ma, don’t take everything so serious!” Rolling up the window, she dabs her brow with a Kleenex, a fluttery feeling inside her. A narrow track, the road winds beneath some tangled maples, a spring sluicing over it. Shiny stones give way to mud. Bushes grab the doors.
“God. The Hillbillies, or what.”
The track winds and climbs, the dirt speckled with signs of a recent sun shower. “Maybe we’ll see a rainbow, dear,” she murmurs hopefully.
“Christ, I hope so.” Through the window, the smell of spruce pours in, the woods a tunnel of flickering sun. There’s a jolt and a bump fit to break her teeth. “Jesus God,” he groans, “the things I get myself roped into.” You could do worse, she wants to say, picturing Rebecca sharing a smoke with Harry or trying to watch the stories while he dozed. She was addicted all right, had even phoned in sick to catch a cliffhanger.
“Jesus Jiminy, Ma. You think you could’ve dragged us further off the beaten path?” The road’s a dried-up brook as they rattle painfully uphill, and he mutters that it’ll be a miracle if they don’t blow a tire. The article leaves newsprint on her fingers; spitting on them delicately, she tries to wipe it off. Not really describing the route, the writer had passed it off as a jaunt through the woods. That poor knitter, she thinks, the one with gnarled hands; hard to imagine her casting on a stitch, before or after. Chugging, the whole car shakes. If they make it back with a muffler, Jewel says, they’ll be lucky: “Where the hell are we?” Threading a mountainside, round and round, the noise is like stones plopping into a bucket. Knit into each other, the spruce almost but don’t quite hide the gully below. “Hope you’ve got life insurance,” he tries to joke.
There’s nowhere to turn around, even if they wanted to: nothing but the trail ahead and the view like bumpy indoor/outdoor carpet. Still, all that green offers hope, well, distraction, as does a darning needle flitting through some weeds, its wings flashing. She’ll never live this down. But when she apologizes, he tells her to forget it, like he’s talking to Robert. Ah, Robert. “It’s an adventure, all right?”
Abruptly the trail levels, the bouncing and rattling letting up. There’s a clearing: the wreck of an orchard and lilies gone wild, their orange flames beside piled stones. Something shines through the branches: clapboard gleaming almost yellow in the sun, the trail merging with a bald patch of dirt. It’s the church, if she can call it a church, wildflowers waving up to its rotting shingles and nearby, gravestones poking between baby spruce. “Eureka.” Jewel snorts.
A dollhouse version of St. Columba’s, the chapel’s steeple has a crooked cross. The reflections of clouds float in the windows, clouds and gently swaying treetops. Rock a bye baby. She peels herself from the seat, the hot breeze nudging her. Already Jewel’s on his knees inspecting the tailgate, cursing a blue streak. But the breeze douses his words with rustling, the sounds melting into the woods. Opening the trunk, he dumps their bags on the ground. “To top it off?” he rants. “A goddamn leak!” Guilty, guilty as charged: she feels like throwing u
p her hands. But when a man gets this way, it’s best to walk—even when he’s your son.
The devil’s paintbrush tickles her ankles as she wades up to the door, thistles snagging her slacks. Her knees click, climbing the punky steps. Painted mud brown, the door feels like warm taffy under her palm. She half expects it to be locked, but it gives easily, a horsefly buzzing into the vestibule the size of a coffin. There’s a candle stuck to the windowsill. Outside, scowling at the sun. Jewel flings the spare to the ground.
Beside the dusty baptismal font is a woodstove with a jar marked Donations, some quarters at the bottom. Drifting forwards, it seems best to tiptoe, her very presence causing a stir, the fly zigzagging overhead. Kneeling in a boxy pew, she stifles a sneeze; everything smells musty. Shabby hymnals rest on the battered piano, faded plastic flowers decorating the altar laid with a grimy cloth, set for Communion. Happy are those called to the Supper of the Lamb, the painted words arch over the cracked plaster. Celebrate the Good News, too plain and forthright. Curtseying awkwardly, blessing herself the way Mrs. Slauenwhite had, passing graveyards that time on the train, she loiters in the aisle. All this way, and this is it?
“Happy are those who can get the hell out of here,” Jewel booms behind her. He’s in a complete sweat, his shirt unbuttoned; she can see the tip of his scar. “Great news, Ma. The spare’s shot—that frigging Bucky, Christ only knows what he did to it.” The thing’s done like dinner, he says, and he’s going to have to walk. No asking if she minds being left; little choice anyway, given her knees. “Sit tight, there’s people down there somewhere,” he says with more spunk than she feels.
Outside, the breeze is balmy as he shambles off. She needs to pee, never mind how carefully she sipped her water at lunch. There’s an outhouse in behind those ratty apple trees crowded by the forest. A two-seater. Spiders have knit webs in the door’s crescent moon; people have carved names, dates. Flies swarm over the holes, the skunky smell rising up. Oh, glory, the stink summons the cabin in the Grounds. Plugging her nose, she has to work to shut it out. Wouldn’t it be nice to wash her hands.
Pegging the door, she spies something she’d missed, an arrow nailed to a spruce bleeding sap. Just ahead is a mossy path. Let all who are thirsty drink, says a sign, its lettering burnt into the wood. Wetness seeps between her toes, but not far in there’s a glen with a tiny pool edged with sandstones. Rest here, and may the Blessed Virgin be upon you. It figures, the bag with the containers is back at the car, lying on the dirt. Squatting carefully, she peers down at the water. Not a foot deep, murk bubbling from a crack so tiny she has to strain to see it. Pushing up her sleeve, she dips her hand.
The water is shockingly cool, yet lifeless, the rock slimy to the touch. What was she expecting—a fizz, like ginger ale: a burning, tingling? Holy fire, holy something.
She should go back for the bottles; Rebecca’d taken pains cleaning them, leaving hardly a trace of bleach. But the breeze stills her; a robin tweets from a branch. Removing her shoes, rolling up her pant legs, she peels off the knee-highs. Veins like tangled yarn under the skin, her shins glare against the grass; her toes with their corns and yellow nails. The wind sighs, gently changing direction, a bit stronger now, riffling her tight curls. Will Jewel have got midway? How long before he finds help? Be with him, a prayer leafs through her. He’s hardly a hiker—never was one for exercise, none that she knew of anyway. Always that worry about his chest. What if he’s lost? At least, for all its ruts and twists, there’s just the one trail. What’s the use in worrying? the robin trills. It never was worthwhile.
Cupping her hand, she dips it again, considers taking a taste. But was it fit? Sure, if you’re a raccoon, Jewel might’ve said. You don’t want to get the trots, travelling: that would be Rebecca. All the same, if she fills the bottles, they’ll be set when he returns. Plenty of time, though; the sun has barely crossed the steeple poking above the trees. That image of the arthritic woman fills her, the notion of her dunking her hands. No one had mentioned drinking the water. Tugging her pant legs higher, she rolls them up over her knees. As if she’s kneeled in paint, the scars resemble potato prints—like Robert used to do in school—and, after all these years, the colour of a night sky: a deep, vacant blue.
“Star light, star bright,” she mutters aloud, splashing each knee, wincing. A murmured blessing—a blessing, perhaps, there isn’t another soul around to hear. Squinting, she lets her eyes bleach each scar a gentler blue. Hail Mary, full of grace; blessed art thou amongst women.
As the sun tilts behind the little spire, she hobbles out to the car. Her purse is on the seat, where she left it. Digging inside, she finds the Aspirin bottle tucked there at the last minute. She’s thirsty now, really thirsty, and famished: how long since lunch? Her toes feel clammy, gritty, the knee highs yanked on too hastily. “Where can he be?” she aims the question at the steep little roof, a turkey-sized bird perched there—an eagle?
Fingers closed around the pill bottle, she ambles purposefully back to the pool. The water clouds and fizzes with crumbs of Aspirin. Acetylsalicylic acid, she imagines Rebecca rhyming off, always the expert. An antiseptic? Not likely, but she takes a sip anyway. The water tastes sour, peaty. Tightening the lid, she gives the bottle a shake, feels a stab of worry: Harry. There’s a flap of wings: crows. In the bushes squirrels natter. Pocketing the little bottle, to amuse herself she tramps towards the headstones.
Curved, toppled, more lie buried in the grass, tinged orange by the diamond of sun skimming the trees. The names and dates are worn smooth. Once a thriving community, she remembers the article saying. Doubling back through the stretching shadows, she re-enters the shabby little sanctuary. Shadows wash the corners, shrouding the altar but for a mote of brilliance. She tries to picture a priest offering Communion, the Host a tiny stone in that brook of light. For a second it’s as if she’s submerged.
Praying helps pass time. To an explosion of caws outside, she pictures a rash of wheelchairs on TV, pushing towards the grotto. “For everyone who’s ailing, not just Harry,” she tries to be inclusive, clasping her hands tightly; with the souvenir water in her pocket and her knees bathed, it seems petty not to. But against the image of Harry bedridden, even with time on her hands it’s hard maintaining pity, upholding all who need help: Mrs. Slauenwhite’s great-granddaughter on the Pill and pot-head son-in-law; somebody else’s husband, the one with cancer. Her heart can barely stretch wide enough to channel it all—the needs of the world, the poor and the homeless, the almost homeless, like Miss Van Buskirk and that crazy Benny, let alone her needs and Harry’s and the others’. Lord have mercy, it’s enough to make a martyr throw in the towel. And then there’s Robert.
At the windows, the sun blazes orange, then red. There’s a scuffling, raccoons perhaps, overly hopeful, scrounging for food. Oh ye of little faith, the scratching seems to say; and plucking up her nerve, she ventures outside again. Trekking back to the pool, she’s thirsty, desperately so, and out of nowhere the awful thought comes to her of miners trapped underground drinking their pee. Dusk has painted the water and trees black, staining her hands and clothes purple, dissolving everything else to blue. Only the wind whistles through the branches, damp and alive and fragrant: nothing yet everything, she thinks, no more, no less. As she kneels there, a sliver of moon crosses her own reflection rippling back, ghostly against the jagged treeline: Christmas trees a forest of tents.
Stumbling back—the darkness a country darkness, pitch now, complete—she feels her way into the vestibule. Loony to be afraid: who or what is there to fear? Pressing her palm over the planked walls, she searches for a switch. But there’s only the candle, and as she steps out into the fizzling moonlight, a memory arcs, searing her. Stealing her breath, it lifts and drops her: the slash of time years ago when everything had split apart. A divide of darkness: the instant the floor had let go underfoot, and she had felt herself airborne. Helena, the thought pierces her, and out there in the da
rkness something howls.
As she moves towards the car, it cries out again. But she isn’t really hearing it. Suddenly, instantly, she’s transported, her knees smooth again, supple. Catching her breath at the foot of the stairs, the sound of crying echoing down to her. There she is, still in her nightie, lolly-gagging as if she has all day. Picking up the milk, inspecting herself in the coat-stand mirror, rubbing her big round belly—and nearly nine o’clock in the morning! Ship on fire, the fellow in the downstairs flat had yelled. And upstairs, crying; the little one teething, always teething. Her own breath had fogged the glass. Harry hollering down, Where are you, dolly? Bracing herself for the stairs, she’d adjusted her smile—Careful, don’t show your gums, gums like the felt edging the accordion’s keys… Peeling the child’s fingers away, once more she’s getting dressed. London Bridge is falling down. Down down down: Helena yanking on her itchy stockings, teetering, bawling. In the kitchen, she’s splashing water into the pan for eggs. Stoking the fire. Cracking each one and sliding it in, one two three. Those baby fingers climbing. Hot hot hot! And Harry yelling from the bedroom, Where’d you put my—?
In the blackness, Lucy feels for the handle, yanks open the car door. Light floods the interior; a moth flutters. A match, that’s what she needs: a match. Sliding in, shivering, barely noticing her knees, confused, she tugs at the ashtray. Nothing but butts, half of them lipstick-stained.
Jesus, dolly, Harry’s voice echoes down the steps and hallways of all those years. Smell something burning? Lucy—you seen my—? But she’s prying Helena’s fingers away, pushing…London bridge on her lips, and…Not a split second later, no time to pry or slap or squeeze—her lips had spread in a scream, a scream that stuck in her throat as the windows blew in, and the ceiling opened, and the blitz of wind ripped her hand from…Ripped it away so fast, all she saw—God of mercy, of miracles?—was the skillet rocketing upward, the milky spritz of egg. Flying up, and out—pieces of the house tailing her like the wake of a comet—she’d felt herself being sucked skyward. Flying, cartwheeling through space, her body walked then spun like a jack, tossed and dropped. It had all happened faster than sound. A hand sweaty as her own scouring the stairs the day before, the hand that saved her, spinning with her in a vortex.
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