The Stone Frigate

by Kate Armstrong

  “Sure,” I said. He introduced himself as Fourth Year Eddie Byrne of Six Squadron.

  “So, how shall we begin?” he asked in a light teasing voice as the bus began to roll. “How about we start with whatever made you decide to join the military and come to this godforsaken place?” He beamed at me and I felt lit up. I instantly trusted him.

  For the entire two-hour bus ride, we shared our stories. Hometowns. Growing-up experiences. Family structures. Hopes. Dreams. When the bus stopped at the stadium, I was smitten.

  “See you on the ride home?” he asked.

  “Um. Sure.” As we shuffled down the aisle, I stood as close as possible and breathed in the citrus smell of him.

  I spent nearly the entire concert on my feet, screaming and singing along — especially loudly to the title song, and my favourite on the new album, “The River.” The Boss came right down into the crowd, working the fans on the floor into a frothing frenzy. From our seats, we overlooked a sea of swaying arms. I wondered where Eddie was sitting and scanned the audience for a glimpse of him.

  In the crush of leaving the stadium, I caught sight of Eddie walking with another guy. Eddie looked back and I waved, but he didn’t acknowledge me. I felt a pinch under my arm and wheeled around angrily, ready to punch whoever it was.

  Heidi Gottlieb from Seven Squadron grinned at me.

  “Don’t pinch me,” I said. “I hate it.”

  “Whoa, okay.” She pulled back from me. Her expression made me feel ashamed of my reaction.

  “Sorry, I have an emotional allergy to being pinched, especially under my arm.”

  She pointed ahead to Eddie and his friend. “Hey, do you know who that guy is?” she asked. “The short, stocky guy,” she added, pointing to the grinning cadet at Eddie’s elbow. “Mike Spears. He’s a fucking pig.”

  “How so?”

  “He’s the guy who started the bet,” she said.

  Back on the bus in the dark, Eddie reached down and touched my hand, but I pulled away. “That was weird,” I whispered, staring straight ahead. “I know you saw me.”

  “Yeah, sorry. Spears is a prick and I have to be careful,” he said, keeping his voice low.

  “So, he is a friend of yours?”

  “He’s a real jerk about having women at the college. Let me just leave it at that.”

  Eddie placed his hand on my thigh and squeezed gently. I felt myself softening. Who cares? If this is about the bet, I’ll be the one who decides if and when.

  The next day, a manila envelope arrived for me in the wing mail. My hands trembled as I opened it. He had gorgeous cursive handwriting.

  K.

  I can’t stop thinking of you.

  E.

  I had never cared much about wing mail. Outside of my performing the first-year squadron runner duty, the mail hadn’t really factored into my day-to-day life. That all changed with my simple reply.

  E.

  Me too.

  K.

  This was the beginning of our correspondence. I became mail obsessed. Our notes contained questions for one another, snippets of poetry, quotes, cards, cartoons cut from the local paper, and details like what time we were going to be at the dining hall at the next meal. We carefully cloaked any open declarations of affection and rarely saw one another in person, though I was constantly on the watch to catch glimpses of him. Now I went to school as if seeing Eddie, even from afar, was the only real reason to go. Every day I hoped to arrive at dinner at the same time and to eat at the same table — that was the extent of our physical contact. When I had the rare chance to sit beside him, the space between us felt charged with the mingling of our vibrations. I would soak in his presence and later replay our interactions over and over in my mind. For over a month, we had nearly daily contact by mail but rarely ever saw each other in person or spoke to each other. But that didn’t stop me from thinking about him constantly.

  One evening during study hours, in early March, Fitzroy knocked on my door. “Armstrong! Phone!”

  “Who is it?” I asked, stupidly, of his retreating back.

  “How the hell should I know?” he said. I ran past him on the stairs.

  “Stone Frigate. First Year Armstrong speaking.”

  “Can you talk?” Eddie asked.

  “Hey, Dad!” I exclaimed. “Is everything okay?”

  “Never better. I’m crazy about you.” He gave me a phone number to call.

  “I’ll call you back,” I said. I ran downstairs to the phones in the gunroom.

  “Sorry to drag you away from your books,” he said, “but I had to tell you I love you.”

  “I love you, too.” My heart pounded against my ribs. It seemed crazy to say it after so little time together, but I meant it with my whole being. We talked on the phone for nearly an hour. After that first call, we arranged call times through the wing mail and sent fewer risky notes.

  One day, Luka left a message on my desk asking me to come to his room. He was more solemn than usual. I sat down on his bed.

  “Is there anything you want to tell me?” he asked.

  I shrugged, shook my head in bewilderment, and didn’t say anything.

  “Eddie Byrne?” he added eventually.

  “What about him?” I asked warily.

  “Are you dating him?” he asked. He knows. They were classmates in mechanical engineering.

  “No,” I replied. Technically, this was true. We had an intention to date. “Why do you ask?”

  “He will land you in the worst kind of trouble. I asked because two pieces of information came to me today and I connected the dots. At lunch, Woodsie told me that he noticed you’re getting a lot of wing mail these days —”

  “What? Is he watching me?” I said. “That’s creepy.”

  “Hold on. Let me finish,” he said. “Then after lunch, I was walking through Sawyer Building behind Eddie Byrne and Mike Spears. Mike asked Eddie, ‘How is your little Love Boat project going?’ And Eddie just laughed. Then, I knew. It’s you, isn’t it?”

  I stared at him.

  “So, are you?” he asked again.

  I flushed. “What do you want me to say?”

  “I know you’re aware of the bet.”

  “We’re not dating. We plan to date after he graduates. Right now, I would call our relationship … covert flirting.”

  “Just be careful.”

  “Nothing has happened. Nothing will happen until after grad.”

  “Is he the reason you don’t come here anymore?”

  “I really need to go. Blackwood probably has his nose buried under your door, eavesdropping,” I said. “Please, don’t tell anyone.”

  “I won’t,” he promised.

  One Saturday evening in the middle of March, Eddie and I happened to end up at the same dinner table. After everyone else had finished eating and left, we lingered.

  “Can you come to my room?” Eddie asked in a low voice.

  “Are you nuts?”

  “I don’t mean now. I have something for you. Can you come, say a week from tomorrow?” he grinned at me.

  “That’s my birthday,” I said, trying not to grin back.

  “Well, that’s a crazy coincidence,” he said. “Let’s say you come at two thirty for half an hour and I’ll wish you a proper happy birthday.”

  We had never been alone. “If you promise not to try anything.”

  He leaned toward me and smiled while under the table he pushed hard against my leg. “Promise. Now, I’m going to get up and walk away all casual-like, as though I couldn’t care less about you,” he said. His chair shuddered loudly across the floor.

  The weather on my birthday was bright and calm as I ran across the square. By now, the days were getting longer, the light felt warmer, less strident than in February, and the snow already seemed to be gone for good. There had been a weekend winter parade this morning and the guys from Three Squadron had pulled a skylark; they staged a faux coup to depose the commandant and install a Central
American dictator to run the college. It had been well executed and exciting to watch, but I had panicked about the impact it might have on my plans to meet up with Eddie.

  I disappeared into Yeo Hall and took a winding route through the maze of dorm hallways en route to Fort Champlain Dormitory rather than risk walking in the front door to his squadron. As I approached Eddie’s door, I checked up and down the corridors to be sure no one was watching. I tapped lightly twice and barged straight in.

  Eddie rose up from his desk. I closed the door behind me and plastered myself back against it.

  “Bold,” he said.

  “I don’t think anyone saw me,” I whispered.

  “No need to whisper, but it’s a good idea to keep our voices low,” he said. He pressed his full body onto mine and clasped fingers with me, pinning me against the door. I was breathless.

  On first contact, his lips were soft; I closed my eyes and breathed in his clean smell. He cradled my face and he kissed me again. My breasts tingled at the pressure of his chest brushing against mine.

  “Happy birthday,” he said hoarsely. “I’ve been thinking about that kiss for a long time.”

  “Me too,” I said. Voices in the hall jarred me and I ducked under his arm and threw myself across the room, as far as I could get from him.

  “Whoa. Skittish filly.”

  “Sorry.”

  “I have two presents for you today. One you can open and take home, and the other is good news. Which do you want first?” He stepped toward me.

  “Good news first,” I answered as I moved away from him and sat on the bed.

  He flipped his desk chair around, placed it in front of me, and straddled it. “My F-18 training starts in September, which means I’ll spend the summer in some lame time-killer job. You’re going to summer French immersion at CMR in Saint-Jean. So my news is … I intend to fail my final French qualifying exam, so that I’ll be at language training in Saint-Jean, too.” Eddie was effectively bilingual. He had spent the first three years of military college at the Collège militaire royal. “We can spend the summer together.”

  “Oh my god, really?” I exclaimed, then added cautiously, “But what if you get caught?”

  “Failing my French exam won’t raise huge flags. I’m borderline to obtain level five, which is required for exemption,” he said. “Besides, how else can we really get to know each other?”

  I covered my face and fought tears.

  “What’s wrong? Don’t you want me there?”

  I took a deep breath and looked up. Eddie was looking a little pale. “I’ve been terrified that your attention was all about the bet. Even today, I didn’t want to consider that you might have invited me here to try to have sex with me.”

  Eddie hung his head and rested his forehead on the chair back. When he finally looked up, a red ridge marked his brow.

  “Kate, when this whole thing started on the bus, I was being an ass. Showing off to Spears, pretending that I was part of the bet.”

  “Have you slept with anyone else?” I asked.

  “What? No. Trust me — I am really lame at getting girls to sleep with me. The truth is I want to spend the summer with you. I have years of pilot training ahead and you have years left here. We can spend the summer and see how we get along, away from this place.” He moved the chair aside, took my hands, and raised me to my feet, hugging me close. “I want to be your guy. I know I can be a jerk and am going to have to earn it. Will you let me?”

  “Yes,” I said, half crying and half laughing. I ignored the slight tremor of foreboding in my belly.

  “Good. Ready for the gift you can take home? Keep your eyes closed and open your arms wide.”

  A soft furry body pressed against me, and when I opened my eyes I was hugging a four-foot-tall dark-brown bear with a head the size of a throw pillow.

  “A little someone for your empty bed,” he said.

  One month until final exams; review time had started. I didn’t see Eddie and I stayed clear of Luka. I spent more and more time with my books, panicking about my mediocre results. Nancy spent all her time, except for the nights, studying with her second-year boyfriend, fellow Frigateer Will Cross, in his room. I had our room pretty much to myself.

  Midterms had come and gone. Somehow, I had managed a passing grade in everything, but chemistry was scaring me. I didn’t really understand the lab work. My real problem wasn’t the material; it was my inability to think clearly. I had trouble concentrating for more than a few moments at a time and would sometimes just sit and daydream about Eddie.

  19

  FATHER-SON TIME

  The snowdrifts on the edge of the parade square were melting, sending streams of dirty water down the drains. Loud cracking sounds came from the bay as ice floes broke apart and heaved up onto the shores of the St. Lawrence River in chaotic piles. The days seemed to be growing exponentially longer; the trees sprouted green buds.

  In early April, the traditional father-son mess dinner was held, even though some of us were not sons. My dad flew out from the West Coast for the weekend. The mess dinner was held in the senior staff mess. We were a regal-looking crowd, cadets in scarlet dress and all the fathers in their finest. I had never seen my dad in a tuxedo. It was fun to play grown-up and host him at such an elite affair.

  When people asked me about my dad, I always said, “I love my dad. He’s the best.” In saying this, I didn’t feel like a liar. He was great in so many ways: a warm, funny, handsome, socially comfortable person. He was a kind man, prone to seeing the best in everyone. I had followed his lead in being gregarious and people-pleasing by nature. When I was a kid and Dad was home, an unconscious ceasefire with Mom permeated the house. But I could sense a weakness in him that frightened me, because I saw in myself the same tendencies that had cowed him. He failed to stand up for himself, or us. My mother saw to that.

  I wanted to be closer to him and make him proud of me, but in fact, I had no idea what he expected or what I should expect from him. We spent the whole day together, the only one in my entire life, touring the historic sites of Kingston and then having lunch at Chez Piggy, my treat. I played at being lighthearted with him, but it felt like a show.

  That evening, at the start of the mess dinner, a piper wailed out a short rift on his bagpipes to signal the five-minute warning to prepare for entering the dining room. Dad led me in on his arm. We were seated at the middle of three long, white-linen-covered tables butted up along the span of a head table. The seven-course meal, served on fine china set between cascading rows of silverware, included a fleet of wines and finished with the passing of the port.

  Three hours later, after all the speeches were done and the regimental marches had been played, the crowd spilled into the lounge area of the senior staff mess. It was tradition for the first years to remain behind and finish off the port. When I staggered out of the dining room, I found my dad chatting with Luka and I felt a surge of pride. He was behaving with grace and a relaxed courtesy that I never really saw at home, his head bent, politely listening as Luka talked animatedly to him.

  I dragged him to the billiards room where a game of crud was underway. Crud was a rowdy, physical game, involving teams and two billiard balls, in which each player had three lives. Dad played one round and bowed out after losing his lives; I kept going. All the players were getting drunker and louder as we played well into the night. At one point, I glanced over at my dad and his mood had shifted — he seemed sad. I had been a swearing, yelling, pushing, competitive hooligan playing toe to toe with the men. Shame triggered the suspicion that, even though I had been a tomboy as a young girl, my dad didn’t recognize me now, like there was no part of him in me.

  The next morning, we went for a farewell breakfast at Morrison’s Restaurant. He was quiet. I burned with the shame of a hangover, not because of anything I’d done exactly, but because of who I was.

  “Did you have a good time this weekend?” I asked.

  “It was really in
teresting,” he said neutrally, “but I’m ready to go home today.”

  I tried not to sound hurt. “Aren’t you glad you came?”

  “Oh, for sure. It’s just that I miss your mother. I’m not used to being away from her. I woke up in the night and my shoulders were cold, and I realized that she’s the one who keeps the blankets over me,” he said. “She’s a good woman, the best there is.”

  I don’t know what possessed me, but I said, “You know she used to hit and pinch me, right?”

  His gaze hardened. “It’s always been the same with you and your sister. I don’t know why you girls have to constantly upset your mother. Why can’t you just behave?”

  “She’s horrible when you aren’t around, you know.”

  “If she is, I’m sure you’ve done something to upset her,” he said. He shifted away from me in his chair and pursed his lips. They stayed that way until the moment he drove off.

  After lights out that night, I thought about what someone had once told me, that we only have four choices in life: to be like our mother, to be like our father, to be not like our mother, or to be not like our father. And we instinctively knew our choice when asked the question of who we want to be.

  My answer had been instant: not like my mother. I was constantly told that I looked exactly like her. But I didn’t have to behave like her. I would never be like her.

  I imagined Dad back home, getting into bed, lying helpless beside my mother, his shoulders cold, waiting for her to pull the blankets up and cover them. That was my father: the man who had been so focused on my mother that he didn’t seem to really notice me. I always blamed my mother for standing between us. I thought that if he only knew the truth, things would be different. I thought back to the time a few weeks after my brother had left for Australia, when my mother turned on me. She never said it, but I think she knew that it was my fault he’d run away — and he was her favourite. Her physical attacks were sudden and inexplicable, except for one constant: they happened only when my father wasn’t home. She hit me with innocuous items: acrylic hairbrushes over my head, croquet mallets on my legs, wooden spoons everywhere. But her favourite assault was up close and personal. She loved to pinch half-moon-shaped bruises into the soft skin under my arms, her face twisted with my flesh. It was understood that these secret marks must be kept hidden from my father.