Lucy Cloud

by Anne Lévesque

  ‘You late?’ they say to Wendy. ‘You get maga walking so fast!’

  Their laughter ripples over the cliff and the sea and surrounds Lucy and her mother like the benevolent air. Wendy chats a while then they continue on their way, walk down a long stone staircase in the jungle until they reach the beach. Most days it’s just the two of them. Wendy lies on the sand and Lucy runs in and out of the water. Or gathers dried palm fronds and sticks and rocks to make a hut. Or builds sand castles. When Wendy goes in the water they jump over the surf and play ring-around-the-rosie. Wendy tries to get her to float.

  ‘Relax, Lucy. I’m holding you. I’m not going to let you go, I promise. Just make your back straight. Pretend you’re lying down on the sand. Let go of me. Just pretend you’re a board floating on the water. Relax, Lucy. Let go of me.’

  On some days there are others. Jordan TT, his young cousin Bay, who says he can’t swim because his legs are too heavy. But he keeps trying.

  One day a big wave hits a boat full of tourists and cases of beer just as it is coming to shore. The tourists wade out, wet and laughing, but the beer has drowned. The next day, and the next, everyone, Jordan TT and Malcolm Mod and Wendy, even Bay, go diving for beer.

  Another time the Frenchman whose sailboat was moored in the bay paddled up in his dinghy. He was tall and very brown and his legs were skinny. He always wore the same faded red shorts, torn on the side. Wendy was always trying to talk to him so that Lucy could learn to speak French. She was putting Lucy in ‘French Immersion’ when she went to school next year. Luckily the man was grouchy. He did not want to speak to Wendy or Lucy in either French or English. That day he had pulled the lobster trap out of the dinghy and all the men on the beach had immediately jumped up. They had taken it from his hands and released its contents on the sand. Lucy and Wendy walked over to look but were told to stand back. One of the men began to pound the animal with a big stick and when it stopped moving they threw it into a hole in the sand that another man had already dug with his hands. All before the Frenchman could even say a word.

  Jordan TT says that the women are jealous of Wendy because she swims far, far out, like a man. The women here don’t go in deeper than their waists. They duck in, jump up and down and laugh. And they don’t wear bathing suits. Their colourful skirts balloon up, stick wet to their fat thighs and bellies.

  ‘A place where they like their women fat,’ Wendy says to Dagmar and Elvira. ‘That’s my kind of place.’

  Dagmar and Elvira live in the apartment above theirs in the pink house. They call it the Pink Villa, after a book they like. Dagmar told them about it the first time they met. No, it was the second time. Because the first time was after Wendy stepped on a sea urchin. ‘Is it the sea urchin?’ Dagmar called out from her veranda when she saw Wendy hopping home. When Wendy said, ‘Yes’ she came down right away with a candle and some matches.

  ‘I apologize to be so forward,’ she said. ‘But I know it’s your first time in Tobago (Miss Esther told me) and this is what you must to do for the sea urchin: put your foot in very hot water, as hot as you can stand it. But the best way is the Tobago way: with a candle. Okay?’ And, not even waiting for an answer, she began to drip hot wax on Wendy’s foot.

  ‘My Family and Other Animals,’ Wendy said when they told her about the book. She laughed. ‘It sounds like my family.’

  ‘You must to read it!’ Elvira said.

  ‘They have it here!’ Dagmar said.

  ‘At the library. That’s where we discovered it,’ Elvira said.

  ‘The hero is a young boy. You could read it to Lucy!’ Dagmar said.

  ‘Is there a giraffe in it?’ Lucy said.

  ‘No,’ Elvira said, ‘but many other animals. It’s very funny!’

  Today Dagmar has invited them over for drinks. She brings out a tray with a bottle of rum and four glasses of Mauby. The red plastic one is for Lucy.

  ‘Dunstan’s coming tonight,’ she says to Wendy.

  ‘To make callaloo,’ Elvira says.

  ‘And mountain chicken,’ Dagmar says, looking at Elvira.

  ‘What’s that?’ Wendy says.

  ‘Frog,’ Elvira says. She makes a face. ‘A big frog.’ Lucy thinks of the frog she saw once, in Manitoulin. Her father had picked it up to show her the little stars on its feet.

  ‘I think I’ll stick to real chicken,’ Wendy says.

  ‘I had it,’ Elvira says. ‘It’s good.’

  ‘Speaking of chicken,’ Wendy says. ‘I went to Cora-lee’s for supper on Friday. She said some friends were coming over and they were going to watch the cricket game and cook.’

  ‘That’s what they like to do,’ Elvira says.

  ‘So I bought a chicken and took it over in the afternoon so they’d have time to cook it. She hadn’t mentioned a time. When I asked her she looked confused.’

  ‘Oh, they don’t operate on clock time,’ Elvira says.

  ‘I’m starting to figure that out. I said Six? Seven? Eight? She kind of looked okay with eight so I asked Lucinda to stay with Lucy – ’

  ‘Lucy and Lucinda!’ Dagmar says.

  ‘– and got there around eight-thirty. There were a few people there already (although more came later); they were watching the cricket game on TV and drinking beer. Every once in a while someone was going in the kitchen but there was no real cooking action that I could see, and I was getting really hungry. And drunk.’

  ‘Did they ever cook the chicken?’ Dagmar says.

  ‘Not the one I brought. Around eleven o’clock Orlando goes into the yard, grabs one of their own chickens and cuts off its head, right beside where I was sitting; I saw the whole thing.’

  Dagmar and Elvira laugh.

  ‘So you can imagine what time we ate.’

  * * *

  Lucy has finished the Mauby. She sets the tumbler back on the plastic tray, where it falls over. But Dagmar smiles. She walks onto the veranda. There is no railing but it’s not very high so she’s not afraid. From here she can see everything: the bread-nut tree across the street (she and Adela eating a bowl of them together on the steps once); the pale blue house of the man who plays music on a loudspeaker early every morning; the corrugated metal roof of the little shed where Jordan TT’s grandmother lives. Just below are poinsettia, the cassava garden and banana trees, the clothesline from which Wendy’s blue wrap-around skirt was thieved. (Jordan TT says it was Miss Emelda’s son.) Everything else is concrete. The yard, the pathways, the washtub and shower stall and the half-wall on which Jordan TT sharpens his knife before he slices fish. The street-steps, on which she now sees Julian and Adela. She hopes that they will have forgotten about yesterday. She farted, she didn’t mean to, it just came out, and Julian had jumped up and down saying ‘Lucy poomped! Lucy poomped!’ and the others had joined in, laughing, and she didn’t know how to make amends for this.

  The two walk down the steps to the house and look up at her. Not for a second do they think of running up the stairs to join her. They know their place in the world. And Lucy does not ask them up because she has learned, from the way grown-ups make a fuss about her, and dismiss and scold them, that their place must be a little below hers. As it is now: their upturned faces, brown eyes and white teeth and pink mouths, the red and blue and yellow barrettes in Adela’s hair.

  ‘Jump!’ Julian says.

  It’s a dream, happening. Julian’s grin dissolving. His eyes, Adela’s, big with surprise, then fear: they know they will be blamed. The concrete coming up, fast-fast-fast, hitting the soles of her feet.

  She wavers but does not fall. In the dream she tries to take a step. But her feet won’t move. She is rooted in the concrete. Jordan TT will have to build a little tin roof over her head, Wendy will bring her meals on a tray, people will come from everywhere to see the little white girl, so blonde, so choopidee, with her feet stuck in the pavement.

/>   Her right leg was broken in two places. They had to go back to Sudbury.

  THE SUGARS

  Wendy stayed home from work until Lucy didn’t need crutches anymore.

  ‘Not that she uses them,’ she said to Annabel on the phone. ‘I have to carry her everywhere. She’s spoiled rotten.’

  ‘That’s what happens when children are sick,’ Annabel says. ‘Blaise was the same.’ She had called often since they returned from Tobago. Poor little child, she thought. It wasn’t enough she’d lost her father she had to break her leg, too.

  During one of those calls Wendy said, ‘I found a spot in a daycare not far from where I work I – ’

  ‘Daycare!’ Annabel said. This was the first she’d heard of this. She had assumed that Wendy would get a babysitter to come and stay with Lucy at home, as she had before Blaise got sick.

  ‘For when I go back to work.’

  Annabel was silent. Daycare! she thought. For a poor little child who had just lost her father, who hardly spoke and was afraid of her own shadow. She imagined Lucy being pushed around by the other children, alone and miserable in some corner, sucking on her thumb.

  ‘Why don’t you bring her here for the summer?’ she said to Wendy.

  ‘Sit right here and Nana’ll brush your hair while she tells you a story. No-no, it won’t hurt. You tell me if it hurts and I’ll stop right away. Cross my heart.’

  ‘Owww!’

  ‘Tsk. That didn’t hurt that much. It’s because you moved. Sit still now. Wait till you hear what Rory’s been up to.’

  Annabel means to destroy Milton one story at a time.

  ‘Rory had a friend named Johnny who lived down the road from his house. His family was called the Sugars. There were lots of them and they lived in a really small house so most of the time they were outside and into some kind of fun. So when Rory had nothing to do he liked to go down to the Sugars where something was bound to be happening. That day the fun was a walk to the old sawmill at the crossroads. They loved going there because it had big piles of sawdust and lots of old sheds and buildings to explore. It was a hot, hot day, the kind of day that would have been perfect for making hay but it was still too early, school had just let out.

  ‘So the whole bunch of them take off for the mill, everyone in their bare feet except Rory. The Sugars were poor and they didn’t always have shoes for everybody. Or boots. That’s why they didn’t go to school in the winter. When they wanted to play outside in the winter they had to take turns. They’d put on whatever shoes were around and wear a big pair of wool socks on top. That was their boots. And do you know what the Sugars ate for lunch when they went to school? Lard and sugar sandwiches. (Some people thought that was why they were called the Sugars, but it wasn’t.) The oldest Sugar carried the sandwiches to school in an empty lard bucket.

  ‘So they get to the sawmill and start going in and out of the old buildings and climbing up the piles of sawdust and throwing it at each other and all that kind of fun. There was a big smokestack lying right across the yard. It had been knocked down after the mill closed. It was about the size of a culvert, a small one, about this big around, and one of the Sugars got the idea that it would be fun to crawl through to the other side. So they got down on all fours and in they went, one after the other. Cyril first, then Angus, then Lewis, then little Murdoch with Florrie right behind him, then Johnny, then Rory, and last but not least Maggie, who wanted to be close to Rory because she was sweet on him.

  ‘It started out all right, although it wasn’t the best place to be in. Black as a lump of coal in there and they had to crawl on their bellies like snakes. They pretended they were in the war and they were trying to escape the Germans. This went on for a while and Rory was thinking they should pick up the pace a little, he was getting hot – remember it was a very hot day, and there was not a breath of air inside that smokestack – when there was a commotion up ahead. Cyril was yelling.

  ‘ “I can’t get out!” he said. “We can’t get out!”

  ‘Turns out there was a rock blocking part of the other end of the smokestack. They hadn’t been very smart – it was a bad idea to crawl through a smokestack in the first place but they should have at least looked to see if the other end was clear before getting in.

  ‘ “We have to back up!’ Rory yelled and they all started to crawl backwards, which took even more time than going forward. Johnny was right in front of Rory and his feet kept hitting Rory’s head (he didn’t have any shoes on but still) and even though it wasn’t Johnny’s fault it made Rory mad. So they went on like this for a while and Rory was thinking this was no fun anymore he didn’t care what happened to those Germans, when Lewis hollered that Angus had passed out! So now they had an even bigger problem: the ones in front of Angus couldn’t move anymore because Angus was blocking the way and the one right behind him, well, that was poor little Murdoch; he couldn’t very well pull Angus out.

  ‘ “Hurry up and move!” Johnny hollered from the front of the line.

  ‘That’s when little Murdoch began to cry. And then someone else.

  ‘ “Faster, Maggie!” Rory said, and after a while Rory could see sunlight behind him. “We’re almost there!” he said and not long after that he heard Maggie yell, “I’m out!” One by one they all wriggled through. As soon as Murdoch came out Rory went right back in to where Angus was. He grabbed him by the ankles and pulled him. Some of the Sugars started crying when they saw Angus. Because they thought he was dead. But he came to as soon as he was back in the fresh air. And then the rest came out. What a sorry-looking bunch they all were! Their faces black with soot except for where the tears had made trails and it made their eyeballs look big and white. Just like they came out of the mine. Everyone looked so funny they all started to laugh. And then they all jumped in the brook to wash off.’

  * * *

  When he was home, Lucy’s grandfather was a restless, impatient man. He chewed on his fingernails. He paced: back and forth, back and forth, across the floor of the kitchen. Even when he sat down he couldn’t stop moving. His knees bopped, his feet jiggled, and he kept making as if he was going to get up but then he didn’t. If he watched TV at all, it was standing in the doorway between the kitchen and the parlour.

  ‘Sit down, Curly,’ Annabel would say to him. ‘You make me nervous.’ And to Lucy: ‘His mother warned me before we got married. She said, “That man will wear you out if you let him.” ’ But Lucy could tell she didn’t mind.

  As soon as Curly stepped outside all the pacing and fretting and chewing of fingernails stopped. He became calm and cheerful, full of a quiet, steady purpose. Lucy followed him as he fetched an iron bar from what he called the shop, a high-ceilinged building with barn doors full of odds and ends, as he pried something from the back of the truck, as he went behind the barn to get a piece of lumber, as he fed, watered and curried the horses (the cows she only saw when he took her up to the community pasture) and cleaned their stalls. He always told Lucy to stand back from the horses but he didn’t have to worry, she was wary of all animals, even chickens. And he didn’t have to tell her about the electric fence anymore.

  While Curly worked he often hummed a tune. It was always the same one. Sometimes he sang a few lines, ‘Hey, good lookin’. Whaaatcha got cookin’?’ Whenever he needed something in the house he always got Lucy to fetch it. The only time he ever went back inside was if Annabel came out on the steps and hollered, ‘Telephone, Curly!’

  He was just as calm and happy in his truck. Lucy loved going with him. She didn’t have to wear a seatbelt (‘Blaise never wore a seatbelt and nothing ever happened to him’ was how Curly felt about seatbelts) so she could kneel on the rough grey blanket that covered the seat and see everything, or sit cross-legged or even put her feet up on the dashboard if she wanted. In the house the radio was tuned to CJFX. But in the truck they listened to the Golden Oldies. (Once, to Lucy’s surprise, �
��Hey, Good-Lookin’ ’ came on!)

  While he drove Curly would sometimes comment on what he saw. Most of the time, though, he was quiet. It was a warm kindly silence. Lucy felt her grandfather’s deep contentment and she was happy.

  On this day they were going to the dump. Curly went there at least once a week to get rid of the household garbage and anything else he might have accumulated that Annabel considered junk. She was strict about this. When she stepped out the door, she did not want to see anything in the yard that did not have a purpose.

  ‘Says she’s from Blue River but I think she’s really from Cheticamp (‘Tcheticamp’),’ Curly would say. Winking. ‘Wants the yard to look like nobody lives there a-tall.’

  Lucy did not know that when Annabel first set up house she made it clear that she wasn’t going to ‘live in no scrap yard.’ Curly had taken the comment as an insult to his grandparents, the most recent occupants of the house, and it had sparked their first big argument, which had ended in tears, hugs and kisses and sex, and Curly’s capitulation.

  Being a pack rat by both inclination and upbringing, it was a struggle for him, but he kept the peace by stashing the choice articles in the workshop and barn and taking the rest to the dump. Where he could always pick up more. Because there was always some fool cleaning out an old barn who’d thrown out a good set of traces. Or the perfect set of wheels for a truck wagon.

  When the pickup reached the highway Curly always asked Lucy if there were any cars coming. Because this is where the infamous Teaspoon had caused his father Tommy Spoon to have an accident. Lucy would look both ways then and say, ‘No cars, Grampie.’ And, after a pause during which Curly pretended to turn the pickup onto the highway, she would add, ‘But there’s a truck!’ And they would laugh like crazy. Every time.

  Next there was the store at the crossroad where Curly sometimes stopped for lottery tickets and a stick of red licorice for her. After that a long hill, a church and then woods. Then between the trees, glittering pieces of blue: the lake. When tatters of plastic bags began to appear in the trees, Lucy knew they were almost there.