An Audience of Chairs

by Joan Clark

  Moranna thinks it’s screamingly funny that her dull, respectable brother has found Tessa the Temptress with the bedroom eyes, and she sits on the step snorting with laughter. Abruptly she stops. Steady now, she says to herself. The prospect of attending her daughter’s wedding is giving her a high and she can feel herself going up and up. If she’s not careful, she might let her plans slip. She might tell her brother she’s seen Bonnie on television and knows all about the wedding. No doubt he’s seen the interview and is keeping his plans to attend the wedding to himself. Moranna still clings to the suspicion that her brother is withholding her daughters’ whereabouts from her. The suspicion amounts to nothing more than an old grievance because if she tried to work out a reason why Murdoch would withhold such information, she’d fail because there’s no logical reason why he would. The grievance provides her with the upper hand. As her brother drives away, her grin is as smug and wide as a Cheshire cat’s. Won’t he be surprised when he sees her in Halifax! She can hardly wait to see the expression on his face when she shows up at St. Matthew’s Church.

  For another hour or two Moranna works on Niall of the Squalls but she doesn’t get far; she can’t concentrate because she keeps thinking about the wedding. When she carves, she uses all her powers of concentration in the belief that if she concentrates hard enough, the wood will find the shape it’s inclined to have. Like human fingerprints, every tree has its own particular stamp, which is one reason why each of her wooden people is unique in some way, even those who are meant to represent the same person.

  Every morning for a week Moranna works on the stump, but Niall continues to resist her attempts to give him a face. Apparently he doesn’t want to be separated from the stump and is telling her that having lived so long ago, he ought to remain faceless, he ought to be left to decompose anonymously until he becomes part of the dark loamy earth. The wilderness suits Niall and she thinks she was probably mistaken thinking she could tame him.

  People sometimes ask Moranna where she thinks they should put the carving they’ve purchased—in the den or family room or perhaps the hallway? She isn’t inclined to recommend her carvings be kept indoors. She likes to think her wooden people occupy a larger world and tells buyers she intends them to live outside on a porch or a deck or in a garden where they can see. This admission brings quizzical looks from buyers, sometimes a request for Moranna to explain what she means. She answers by saying that although the wooden people are from the past, they but are neither blind to the present or the future, and for this reason are better off outdoors. Then she continues in a more practical vein, explaining that she has weatherproofed her sculptures with two coats of varnish, which she recommends be reapplied every year, if the carving is to live outdoors.

  Having abandoned Niall, Moranna pulls away the polyethylene enclosing the veranda and, moving her wooden people aside, scrapes and scrubs the veranda railing and afterwards paints it green. The floor was painted a few years ago but the railing hasn’t been painted since Ian helped set up her business. The work keeps her mind off the wedding and whenever she feels herself becoming overanxious, she gets busy with another chore. She recognizes the warning signs: the sudden barks of laughter that burst from her mouth for no apparent reason, the agitated pacing, the volley of expletives fired off at intervals. Without medication to flatten the mania, she relies on work to keep herself grounded. Laying newspapers on the veranda floor, she touches up what Murdoch calls her goofy signs with paint and varnish. Her neighbour, Rodney, loathes the signs. When she first nailed them to the trees, he ripped them off, claiming they were on his property, which they weren’t. After she tore up his gladioli, he never did it again. In spite of her neighbour and brother, Moranna has no intention of getting rid of the signs, but she does make a new one: For Sale: Original Wood Carvings Celebrating Our Scottish Heritage. When she finishes touching up the signs and painting the veranda, Moranna nails the polyethylene back in place and latches the door with a bent coat hanger. The door is nothing more than two cross pieces of wood covered with plastic, but it serves its purpose, deterring snoopers and the occasional tourist—Moranna has already noticed tourists going past her drive. When she returns from Halifax, she’ll remove the plastic cover and nail up the signs on the roadside, to indicate that she’s open for business.

  That night in bed, her mind still active, Moranna decides that after she returns from the wedding, she’ll begin a new series of carvings, the Grocers, which will include her grandfather, father and brother, who ran the same business in Sydney Mines for more than a hundred years. She might also include her greatgrandfather, who ran a grocery business in Reserve Mines with his brothers. One of her great-grandfather’s brothers, Jack MacKenzie, met Robert Louis Stevenson in California, when they were both there seeking to cure their tuberculosis. Perhaps she’ll carve a series of wooden people called the Californians that will include Jack MacKenzie, Robert Louis Stevenson and Tessa the Temptress. Wouldn’t that be a hoot.

  Moranna is sound asleep when vandals plunder the veranda and carry away the touched-up signs and dummies. They might have carried away some of the wooden people too if they weren’t so heavy. The vandals unhooked the plastic door on the veranda and tried to get into the house, but finding the front door locked, they came around to the back. Hearing them rattle the kitchen doorknob, Moranna sits up, momentarily blinded by a flashlight one of them is shining through the window. Shielding her eyes she sees someone hunched over, peering through the window. She leaps out of bed, and followed by a circle of light, pads to the telephone and calls 911. The circle of light disappears and the vandals run off.

  Moranna is surprised by her calmness as she gives her name and address to the Mountie who answers the telephone. He tells her he’ll have a police car dispatched right away and advises her to stay inside. As soon as she hangs up, she hears what sounds like a truck engine start up on the road and running upstairs she looks out the middle bedroom window but she doesn’t see the truck. She goes downstairs and stokes the fire.

  The kettle is steaming when she hears the police car drive into the yard, and still in her bathrobe, she waits by the back door. She doesn’t open it until she sees the officer’s uniform and his earnest, dependable face gazing at her from the other side of the glass. A new recruit, he steps inside and, introducing himself as Constable Dearing, asks Moranna to tell him what happened. After she’s filled him in, he goes outside to look around. Watching from the kitchen window, she follows the flashlight beam as it sweeps across the yard and bounces off the barn doors. When the constable moves to the front of the house, Moranna unlocks the front door and meets him as he comes up the steps, lighting his way with the flashlight—the outdoor lights have been burnt out for years. She notices the plastic door has been pushed open. “They were on the veranda,” she says.

  “It looks like they were trying to break in through your front door. They were after your money or whatever could be traded for cash,” Constable Dearing says. Training the light on the wooden people crowded together, he adds, “Quite an army you’ve got here.”

  “They’re my family.” Moranna is already counting. There are twenty-two carvings including the extras and none of them seem to be missing. But as the flashlight probes the darkness, she sees what has been taken. “They took the painted signs I had drying and the dummies. One of them was hanging up there.” She points to an empty nail on a veranda post where she hung Moranna Fraser. “Nothing they took had any monetary value. It may look like robbery to you, but I think it’s vandalism.”

  Returning to the kitchen, the constable takes out a notebook and lists what’s missing, dutifully writing down what was painted on the signs. When he’s finished, he says, “They were probably young fellows up to mischief.”

  Moranna tells him she thinks they parked on the road. “I heard them drive away in a truck. Did you drive through the village?”

  “Yes, and I didn’t pass a truck.”

  Although the constable doubts the va
ndals will return, he nevertheless stays, drinking tea with Moranna until nearly two o’clock. He assumes she’s afraid, and she is although she doesn’t recognize it until later. After he leaves, she locks the door and returns to bed. Four hours later, she wakes in a panic. The telephone hasn’t rung and no one is banging on her door, but she’s terrified by the prospect of having her private world invaded again. Apart from kids stealing her apples and her neighbour tampering with her signs, she’s never known anyone to trespass on her property. Certainly she’s never been broken into and for years hasn’t even bothered to lock the back door during the daytime—seldom used, the front door is always locked.

  Getting out of bed, Moranna sits at the piano board and plays an old standby, “Au clair de la lune, mon ami Pierrot, prête-moi ta plume pour écrire un mot! Ma chandelle est morte, je n’ai plus de feu,” singing the verse over and over to calm herself. Then she dresses and goes outside. It’s an overcast morning, far from cold but with a malevolent threat of rain. She passes Niall, the blind witness, half hidden among the ferns and walks down the drive. Although she’s headed toward the village, she has no clear destination in mind and, crossing the road, walks alongside the Bras d’Or. Today the lake reflects the grey light dully, making it look like it’s been cast in pewter.

  She’s approaching the village when she notices what looks like a board floating on the lake about halfway across the water from Kidston Island. As soon as she spots it, she sees three other boards. Even at this distance she knows they are her signs. She also knows that for the current to have brought them past the island, they must have been thrown into the water on the other side of the lake. Squinting, she looks for the dummies before reminding herself that being made of cloth, they would have sunk after being thrown into the water, and might now be ghosting through the netherworld of the lake toward the bottom. Now that the evidence of vandalism has presented itself, Moranna walks more briskly, on her way to the police station.

  Someone has it in for her and she knows who it is. The impulse to storm into the Co-op and confront the goons who slandered her is strong but she resists, knowing it is her fate, not theirs, brewing in the cauldron. She hasn’t been in the Coop since that troublesome day, and if she goes back, she doesn’t trust the interim manager not to trump up a new charge against her.

  By the time she reaches the police station on the highway, Trevor Grey is already at his desk reading, his legs stretched out and chair pushed back. As soon as he sees her in the doorway, he takes off his reading glasses and stands up.

  “Hi, Moranna. You beat me to it. I was just going through Constable Dearing’s report.” He points to the chair and, sitting down, she grips the metal arm rests and tells him they both know who the vandals are.

  “I suppose you’re referring to Danny Mercer and Pete Buchanan.”

  “Who else?”

  “With this kind of incident I can think of a number of young fellows who had too much to drink and got up to some hellery.”

  “Is that what you call it, ‘hellery’? They threw my newly painted signs into the lake. I saw them floating on the water. I want my signs back.”

  “Keep your voice down, Moranna.” Trevor gets up and closes the door. “How many signs did they take?”

  “Six.”

  “I’ll arrange for Charlie over at the government wharf to have them picked up and returned to you. Constable Dearing reported they also took some dummies.”

  “Yes, three, but they’ll have sunk by now.”

  “I’ll have Charlie keep an eye out for them anyway.”

  “What about picking up the produce workers?” This time Moranna hears herself shouting and lowers her voice. “They should be questioned.”

  Hunching his shoulders, Trevor puts his elbows on the desk and thrusts his head forward, reminding Moranna of the ponderous tortoise who won the race.

  “Forget the produce workers. We don’t know for certain they were the culprits and the last thing we should do is give them any ideas. Let sleeping dogs lie.”

  “They aren’t sleeping. They were on my veranda last night.”

  “We can’t prove that. Without witnesses we don’t know who they were.”

  “We do know because until the incident in the Co-op, no one else has bothered me.”

  “Except Rodney Kimball.”

  Moranna waves a dismissive hand. She seldom sees her cantankerous neighbour, or his daughter—Paula now lives on a farm near Dunvegan and, on the rare occasions she visits her father, can’t resist peering through the hedge, hoping to catch sight of the ruined woman she once thought was as glamorous as the women she admired in movie magazines.

  “The goons were driving a truck and Rodney drives a car. In any case Rodney would hardly bother driving next door. There’s a principle here, Trevor. Those goons are bullies and they shouldn’t get away with harassing me.”

  “Listen, Moranna. It’s better to forget the incident and move on. I’ll get your signs back. Don’t you worry.”

  At last Trevor has said something that strikes home and Moranna realizes she’s agitated, not so much by anger as she is by fear. She’s afraid to leave her house unattended while she’s in Halifax. She’s also afraid that if she can’t calm herself down, Trevor will call Murdoch to the rescue and somehow she’ll be prevented from going to the wedding. Casting herself in the role of a helpless matron, she says, “The fact is, Trevor, I am worried. Very soon I’ll be taking a short trip and expect to be away several days. I worry about leaving my house unattended.” She pauses, then adds, “And I don’t want to involve my brother.”

  Relieved to have a problem he can solve, Trevor straightens his shoulders and sits back in the chair. “Don’t you worry,” he says again. “I’ll have my men check your house every night. No need to involve Murdoch, I’ll drive out there every day myself. By the way, I think you should have a chain across your driveway. I’ll put one up for you, if you like.”

  Trevor is as good as his word and that afternoon shows up with a chain and hooks, which he screws into the crumbling concrete posts on either side of Moranna’s driveway. He also puts a lock on the barn door and inspects the tire marks on the muddy road shoulder, confirming Moranna’s opinion that the vandals used a truck. He advises her to replace the burnt-out light bulbs on the veranda and keep them turned on. She’s already moved her wooden people into the front room, where they huddle together like refugees.

  The next day she returns from the village carrying a package of light bulbs and there are the signs, all six of them, lying on the front steps. The wood is sodden and discoloured but the lettering is undamaged. There’s no Ari or Brian but miraculously Moranna Fraser has survived drowning, probably because the wooden frame beneath the black shroud that served as a skeleton kept her afloat. Seeing the hooded shape in wet mourning weeds lying on the step like a failed tragedian strikes Moranna as hilarious, and she snickers as she carries the dummy and the signs into the barn and locks the door.

  That night she calls Bun and tells him the whole story, about being wakened by vandals trying to break into the house, about Constable Dearing and Trevor Grey, going on for fifteen minutes without pausing, fully aware that mania is cutting in, that once she begins talking about the break-in she won’t stop until she’s given every last detail, knowing that when she’s high she doesn’t take time to sort out what’s important from what isn’t—that in itself is a detail—and she can’t stand being sidetracked because as Bun says she has to let it all hang out and go on and on until the whole story has run its course and she finds the button that finally, finally, makes her STOP, and Bun gets a chance to wish her good luck in Halifax before he says goodbye.

  SEVENTEEN

  MONTHS AGO, WHEN MORANNA telephoned to reserve a room at The Waverly Inn, the Oscar Wilde room was already taken, and the only available accommodation was a small room on the third floor at the back of the inn. She booked it because the inn was familiar and close to the church. The room had once been a maid�
��s, and its bathroom a closet, but Moranna is satisfied that it has a full-length mirror and a queen-sized bed. Opening the chestnut-coloured grip, she hangs up the new outfits and then, purse in hand, goes out for a walk. It’s strolling weather, the evening air soft and still, but she ignores the impulse to stroll and heads for St. Matthew’s United Church, a short block away.

  The church is a plain narrow building at street level, its exterior mark of distinction the iron-hinged Gothic doors with a shamrock window carved above. The doors are locked for the night and Moranna stands reading the bulletin board announcements: A Rwandan Refugee Speaks Out, How to Be a Missionary in Today’s World, an organ recital. At any other time these events would capture her attention, but tonight she grants them nothing more than a cursory reading because all she can think is that she’s standing in front of the church where her daughter is to be married tomorrow.

  Noticing the Old Burial Ground opposite the church, Moranna crosses the street and enters the graveyard, sheltered in a grove of beech trees towering over ancient graves blackened with soot and veined with moss. Some of the stones are scabbed with white lichen and sculpted with winged skulls and soul effigies, angels with blank, staring eyes. Moranna wanders among the graves, reading the names that have withstood the erosions of time: Ross, McLennan, MacDonald, Fraser, MacKay, MacKenzie, McLeod. Because these Scottish pioneers are kin to the ancestors whose existence has become her life’s work, she feels at home in the graveyard and makes herself comfortable on a table grave until the sky gives up its light, imperceptibly the way Professor Scipio used to dim the spots after a play. Even as the dark descends, she sits beneath the trees until the caretaker comes to lock the gate for the night.

  Glancing at her new Sears watch with its fluorescent dial, she’s startled to see that it’s past 9:30. Too revved up to eat much but knowing she’ll be hungry later on, she buys a Subway sandwich and, carrying it down to the harbour, strolls along Lower Water Street until she finds a bench beneath a street lamp. She sits down and, taking a bite of sandwich, looks at an enormous cruise ship glittering with lights and brazenly advertising itself as The World, berthed directly in front of her. It’s at least eight storeys high and at first glance she mistakes it for a hotel until she notices the gangplank, the smoke stacks and the radar.