In the Field

by Claire Tacon

  He checks his watch. “Visiting hours close in ten minutes.” He dials the hospital again and hands the phone over.

  The nurse explains that they’ve given my mother a sedative so she won’t be able to talk, that the shock was severe, but they think she’ll be just fine. “We’re going to run some tests first thing in the morning, but you can come see her after eleven-thirty.”

  “There’s no way I can see her tonight?”

  “I’m sure we could bend the visiting hours. She’s going to be asleep though.”

  Luke has finally calmed down enough to raise his head from my shoulder. If we can’t talk to her, it doesn’t seem worth upsetting the boys again. “She’s really fine?”

  “We’re taking good care of her. You’re going to want to bring her some clothes tomorrow. We saved the ones she was wearing, but you’ll probably need to throw them out.”

  When I hand the phone back to George, he tells me that he’s already sent word out to keep an eye on the place tonight. There’s no way we can stay here until it’s cleaned out. I’m going to have to contact my mother’s insurance company first thing.

  “You’re lucky it didn’t spread to the wires,” George says. “Whole structure would have come down.”

  When he emerges from the house, Richard’s shaken. He takes Luke so that Bernie can show me what’s been saved while he starts calling hotels.

  I haven’t ever seen Bernie this grave. “The fire stayed in the kitchen, but the heat melted the upholstery on the couch in the living room. There’s smoke everywhere. The frame’s probably sound, but a lot of the interior’s lost.” He opens the truck’s passenger door and deposits the photo box in the foot well. It survived because it was in the basement, on the opposite side of the house. The blanket’s melted to the sheets.

  He’s found her car keys and saved a few items that escaped the soot upstairs—the boys’ backpacks with their video games, my mother’s jewellery box, her Royal Doulton Fair Lady figurine and, from her bedroom wall, my diploma.

  It’s the Natal Day long weekend and there are two conferences in town. George and Richard are both on the phone to motels with no success.

  Bernie offers to let us stay with him.

  We need to be alone as a family. I slide it off, saying we don’t want to impose.

  George holds the cell to his chest. “They’re saying the closest place is Windsor.”

  “We’ve got a spare room,” Bernie insists. “I’ll call over to Linda and she’ll make up the pullout couch.”

  I look over to Richard to see what he wants to do.

  “It’s a half-hour to Windsor?”

  George says they can’t hold the room past ten, giving us twenty minutes. “Better to be with people.”

  Richard’s warming to the idea. He waves for George to let the room go.

  “Did they say how many rooms were left?” I ask.

  He shakes his head.

  Richard thanks Bernie for the invitation.

  Considering last night, I’d rather drive to Windsor and get our own room, but I wonder if seeing their friends will be a good distraction for the boys. Besides, it will be closer to the hospital tomorrow. I angle Stephen aside and ask if he’d feel more comfortable at a hotel or if he’d like to see Max.

  Stephen would rather go to Bernie’s.

  There are cars lined up all along the road when we reach the house. I’d forgotten that it’s Bernie’s 40th.

  We wait in the car, unsure of what to do. It’s quarter past ten and neither of us wants to drive for another half-hour without a guaranteed room. My cellphone is dead, which is why my mother couldn’t get through.

  “We may as well stay.” Richard asks the boys if they’re okay with it.

  Linda opens the door wearing a tight summer dress—ruched white cotton with thin strings that rise up from her cleavage to tie around her neck. She’s gotten her hair done, half pulled up and half left down in side ringlets. Her nails are French manicured with a palm tree decal airbrushed on her pinkie. She tells me she’s sorry to hear about the fire, sorry about my mom. I notice that her mascara has started to flake at the corner of her left eye. She’s been waiting. Because of us, Bernie’s already missed half his party.

  Bernie kisses her cheek. “I told them they could stay.”

  “Sure.”

  “I’ll show them to the spare room.”

  “No,” Linda snaps, then catches herself. “Just park your bags at the front, we’ll sort out the sleeping arrangements later.” She grabs Bernie’s hand and leads him through the house, towards the backyard. “People have been here for three hours.” She whispers but we catch it anyway. “Gail was about to cut your cake herself.”

  There’s a small deck, no more than three feet wide off the kitchen’s sliding doors and when Bernie steps onto it, everyone cheers. I suddenly wonder if he was meant to have changed. Everyone else is done up for the occasion and he’s still in his jeans and T-shirt, still dirty from the fire. He raises his hands up to accept the welcome. Someone calls out, “Late to your own funeral!” There are a few more whoops and hollers. Richard and I stand back, not wanting to be up there with Bernie, awkwardly receiving the applause. Richard takes my hand. It’s such a relief to hold it.

  “One beer, one hour, then we’ll crash.”

  All around us, the party is throbbing but I’m so zoned out, I barely taste the beer as I swallow.

  Bernie’s folks are a few feet over, each nursing a can of Labatt 50 and I steer Richard over to them. Irene looks the same, except that she’s gone all grey now. She’s wearing a pretty flowered dress with leather orthotic sandals. Clarence’s red button down is tucked into his jeans, his old cowboy hat perched on his head.

  Irene shakes Richard’s hand politely then gives me a big embrace. She rubs my arms as if I’ve just come in from the cold and need warming up. “This one was like a daughter to me. I’ve always wondered what happened to you, girl. My boys told me you were in town, but I couldn’t believe it until I set eyes on you myself.”

  When Irene smiles, you can still see the beauty she must have been at eighteen—a rural Farah Fawcett, her hair still feathered out around her sun-baked face. She’s a slight woman with a body like a piston, all primed for industry. “I remember the first time you came to dinner and you sat there so sweet and well-behaved. You were just a little pint-sized thing the wind could’ve blown away.”

  “Heard about the trouble over at your mother’s place,” Clarence says. “How’s she look?”

  “We can’t see her until tomorrow.”

  Clarence’s slouched to one side, his thumbs in his belt loops. “The house?”

  Richard exhales slowly. “We won’t know until the insurance people come through.” He tells them how grateful he is that Bernie and George were there.

  Irene’s visibly upset. “Your poor mother.”

  “I’m just happy the boys got out.” I start to stutter an addendum, worried that it sounds unfeeling, but Irene shushes me.

  She puts her arm around my waist and makes me point my sons out, even though it’s pretty obvious which they are.

  “Some cute that they’re playing with Linda and Bernie’s kids.” She takes a sip of her drink and gazes at the assembled guests. “Took our boys a while but it’s worked out. Linda’s been good for Bernie.”

  Clarence downs the last of his beer and crushes the can. “Hell of a fancy party she’s organized.”

  We all look around, surveying Linda’s efforts. The whole backyard’s been transformed. There are white Christmas lights strung from the trees and streamers everywhere, as well as a few Chinese lanterns. It’s a big lot but there’s no empty space. There’s food everywhere—picnic tables with potluck items, an industrial-sized barbecue, a cake stand. Everyone is drinking.

  Jason McInnes comes up from behind, boisterous as he was as a teenager. He gives Richard a perfunctory introduction then turns to me. “You’ve already got a drink?”

  I raise my beer
can.

  “Good, you’ll need it.”

  I glance at my husband. He’s watching our interaction, bemused. He tilts his head towards Clarence, signalling for me to go on without him. Irene releases her grip on my waist. “You can borrow her. As long as you bring her back.”

  Jason leads me to a clutch of people hovering near the chips and salsa. “I told you she’d be here,” he says to the group. “Long lost Ellie Lucan.”

  We’re ringed by Cornwallis alumni. There’s Debbie, who sat with me in Grade 12 English, Trevor who I mostly remember from parties and Mikey K., a jock who hasn’t aged well.

  Trevor holds his hand up for a high-five. “Where the fuck have you been hiding yourself?”

  Jason answers for me. “She’s moved to Toronto. Teaches science, PhD and everything.”

  “That true?” Mikey K. asks.

  “Well, I’m currently unemployed.” I say it like it’s a joke.

  “That’s the fucking truth,” Trevor says. “I got turfed from Frito Lay, even though they had me take all these bullshit upgrading courses.”

  Debbie’s a dental hygienist in Windsor. She married one of the guys in our class but left him a couple of years ago. “I should have known when he spent thirty bucks on seventy-five cent bar shots at the rehearsal dinner.”

  Mikey K. asks if she’s going to give him a chance now.

  “I don’t date men who don’t get six-month cleanings.”

  “How about you, Lucan?” he asks. “You divorced like us yet?”

  He’s teasing, but the question still catches me. “That’s my husband over there.” Richard’s still chatting with Bernie’s folks.

  “Handsome,” Debbie says.

  The guys look back and forth at each other, smirking. Mikey K. hums a few bars from Ebony & Ivory.

  “You’re still a pack of horse’s asses the three of you,” Debbie says, saving me. “Go get us another drink before you choke on your own feet.”

  Debbie doesn’t look much like how I remember her. In 1984, she had a massive brown perm and the tightest jeans in the county. She’s blonde now, with hair in soft layers to her chin like a news anchor, her nails the same petal pink as her tank top. “So you’re living in Windsor?”

  “I got a place there, but my boyfriend’s in New Minas. I’m always driving back and forth.”

  “Did we go to school with him, too?”

  “No, he’s an accountant. I cleaned his teeth for two years before he noticed me.” Debbie reaches into her purse and pulls out his card. “We’re both divorced, so we’re not rushing in.”

  “You got any kids?”

  “Three. They’re with their father this weekend. You?”

  “Two. They’re running around here somewhere.”

  “They tanned?” she asks.

  “Yeah.”

  “You never can tell. At work I get all kinds of people—you’d swear they were Mexican but their mom’s Chinese and their dad’s Italian.”

  Trevor and Mike return, carrying a stack of beer cans. Jason follows with a nail. He distributes two cans to each of us. “Shot gun the first in under ten seconds,” he says, “and we’ll let you nurse the next as long as you want.”

  I protest—the first drink’s already going to my head and I haven’t eaten in hours. They heckle me to play along. I don’t want to have to explain about the fire.

  Debbie winks. “Your husband can take care of the kids tonight.”

  We keep our fingers pressed over the holes in the cans until everyone is ready. Trevor counts us down, crowing like an auctioneer. The beer spews foam over my chin and down my shirt. I’m too busy wiping my face off with the back of my hand to notice someone bully up to our group. His voice startles me with its proximity. “Ellie Lucan, twenty years later and you still can’t swallow.”

  Chuck.

  As I walk away, I can hear his refrain. “What’d I say? What’d I say?”

  I meet Richard by the beer bathtubs. He looks down at my damp shirt.

  “Never mind,” I say. “Have you seen the boys?”

  “Food table.”

  Stephen and Max are loading up paper plates so high that I’m not sure they’ll hold together. Richard and I follow their lead.

  “Bernie’s folks are nice,” Richard says. It’s still jarring seeing him here among all these faces from my past. “Irene thinks a lot of you. She wants you to go back and have another look at the field. I didn’t realize that’s where you did the dig.”

  We eat perched on a railway tie that’s being used as garden edging. We just sit there shovelling the food in, exhausted. The party is barrelling along but we’re in a strange limbo, buoyed by the collective exuberance and weighed down by the day. Everything blurs—the crowd of bottles reflecting the lights, the neon food on my plate, the vibration from the speakers. Everything leaves us numb.

  After a while, Debbie comes over and introduces herself to Richard. I leave them talking and go back over to the claw foot to see if there are any water bottles left. As I’m bending over the tub, fishing through the water, Bernie holds a cold can of beer against my neck.

  “Christ, Bernie.” I splash him and he backs away laughing. He’s already wasted. He reaches out to grab my hand. I pull away, looking around to see if anyone’s watching.

  He catches my concern. “If I can’t hold hands with an old friend on my fortieth birthday, then what’s the point?” Still, he backs off.

  “Thanks for taking care of the boys today.”

  He shrugs off my gratitude and waves for me to follow him, handing me another drink. We end up in the kitchen. His brother’s there, along with Trevor and a couple of other people. They’re trying to toss bottle caps into a pail on the other side of the room. Luke and Lisa are picking up the ones that miss. It’s almost eleven. Luke should be in bed by now.

  Linda’s made up a pullout couch in the living room for the boys to sleep on. The room’s got doors on each side, so the noise shouldn’t be so bad. I stay with Luke for almost half an hour, rubbing his back to settle him down. By the time he’s asleep, I’m ready to crawl off to bed too.

  “Lucan, you can’t avoid me all night.” Chuck intercepts me on the way over to Richard. He holds his arms out. “Come on, Ellie, give me a hug for old-time’s sake.”

  Reluctantly, I let him crush me into his Coors sweatshirt—probably won in a bar draw. Bound in Chuck’s thick embrace, the veneer of the person that I’ve spent the last two decades trying to become peels away.

  “What are you doing with yourself?”

  “Working at Michelin.” He swats a mosquito away from his ear. His hair’s thinned—his shag reduced to tufts that feather down to a full beard. “Still playing hockey—Kentville pickup league MVP two years running.” He makes a “boo-yah” cheer and holds his fist up in devil horns. If I could change the past, give a frantic message to my eighteen-year-old self, this is the snapshot I’d send.

  Linda and Gail stumble over to us. “High-school reunion?” Linda drawls.

  “Heard you two used to be sweethearts.”

  Chuck grins and puts his arm around me. Twenty years on, he’s still acting like my personal Christopher Columbus. “We should get a picture of this.”

  “I think we could make that happen.” Linda hollers for Bernie. He’s not far off and he turns around, surprised to find Chuck and me standing together.

  Bernie stalks over and Linda snuggles up to him. “You got your camera?”

  “Don’t bother.” Gail pulls out her cellphone. “One, two, smile.”

  At the last minute, Chuck leans over to kiss me. I push him off and wipe at my cheek, the way Stephen would when he was little. Gail and Linda erupt into hysterics. Bernie’s well gone from the booze and seething. He stumbles over to Chuck. Chuck just grabs him and spins him to the side. “Gail, get another one with Ellie in the middle.” Bernie shoves him hard and Chuck struggles to keep his balance. Bernie lunges in to take another shot but Linda grabs him and leads him away, asking
what the hell that was about.

  It’s way past Stephen’s bedtime and I haven’t checked in with him in a while. I walk through the crowd, now dancing to Van Morrison’s Brown Eyed Girl, and make my way through the house. Someone’s making out up against the fridge, but I don’t stick around to investigate. I look in on Luke and am relieved he’s fast asleep. No sign of Max or Stephen. I open the front door and hear giggling down under the porch. Stephen, Max and a couple of other boys are sitting up against the siding.

  “Hi, Mrs. Bascom,” Max says.

  I don’t want to embarrass Stephen in front of his friends by sending him to bed, so I say his father wants to see him. When he gets up, the light catches on something between Max and the wall. A trio of beer bottles. The boys look at each other apprehensively. Max hands them over.

  “Are there any others?”

  “No.”

  “Stand up.” I collect four more and lead my son over to his father. Richard’s gone back to eating. He waves for Stephen to come sit next to him.

  “I missed you, buddy.”

  I hand the bottles over, explaining where I got them.

  “How many did you have?”

  “Two.” Stephen looks like he can’t decide whether to cry or laugh.

  “Did you do anything else?”

  “No.”

  I’m too drunk and too tired to handle the situation.

  Richard takes him inside.

  I make my way over to Bernie and find him sitting with Linda on his lap. Max has already come around and is lingering near his mother. He looks at me, afraid of what I’m going to say. Linda put a lot of work into the party and there’s still a big crowd, so I’m not going to ruin that. I sidle over to the two of them and tell them I’m heading to bed.

  “Come on,” Bernie says, bouncing Linda up and down on his knee. “It’s early.”

  “Long day.”

  Linda could care less.

  “Thanks for having us over.”

  “Sure,” she says, leaning back to suck on Bernie’s earlobe.

  The Last of Barrett’s Privateers comes on and the crowd reacts like it’s the Maritime anthem, everyone rising to belt out the chorus. When it ends, the air feels charged, the cold of the night setting in and everyone stumbling. Beer cans and bottles litter the yard along with discarded paper plates. I check my watch and it’s past one. I wonder if the cops will come because of the noise then remember that Bernie’s friends with most of them.