“Hi, Morag.”
The Smiths entered without knocking, which Morag did not mind. They had, after all, lived here last year until they got the place across the river. A-Okay and Maude were one thing, but a winter enclosed in the farmhouse with the encyclopaedic Thomas was not to be highly recommended. Odd how much she now missed the kid, however, all things considered.
“I brought you some poems,” A-Okay said in his earnestly jokey young voice, attempting nonchalance but totally without success.
“Alf read them to me last night,” Maudie added, a testimonial, “and I thought they were Right On.”
Right On. Dear little Lord Jesus, what did that mean? Like saying Great, Stupendous. No meaning at all.
I’m just as bad. Even if I think the poems are rubbish, I always say Very Interesting, at least before clobbering him with my real opinion. Please God, let them be better than the last couple of bunches. Well, some of those would’ve been a-okay if he’d worked on them more.
A-Okay thrust a wodge of papers into Morag’s hands. He was a tall gangling man in his late twenties, still having something of an adolescent awkwardness about his limbs. He would frequently crash into tables, although sober, unaware of their presence until overtaken, and as an accidental dish-breaker he was without peer. He was, admittedly, shortsighted, and although he owned a pair of specs, he seldom wore them, believing them to indicate a subconscious desire to distance oneself from others. The result was that he was considerably more distanced from others, and from assorted objects, than he need have been. But let it pass. His was a heart of sterling or oak, stalwart. Morag’s unofficial protector, believing her to be in need of one, which indeed she sometimes was.
“Thanks, A-Okay,” Morag said. “I’ll read them later. As you know, I don’t think well off the top of my head. I’ll be over at your place soon, anyway. I’m going with Royland, when he does your well. All right?”
“A-Okay,” said A-Okay, this being the reason for his nickname. Maudie always called him Alf. He always called her Maude, a name Morag found unsuitable. Come into the garden, Maude. Maudie sounded more appropriate. Maudie herself was slender and small and would probably look young at fifty, a plain scrubbed face, blonde hair worn long or in a plait, her dress nearly always ankle-length, granny-type, in gingham she sewed determinedly herself on a hand-cranker sewing machine. A wonder she didn’t sew by hand with needle, thread and tiny silver thimble. At night. By coal-oil lamp.
“Can I make some coffee, Morag?”
“Sure, Maudie. You know where everything is.”
“Heard from Pique yet?”
“Not yet.”
“Well,” Maudie said, her voice clear and musical as a meadowlark’s, “she was right to go. You know that, don’t you?”
“Yeh.” Yes. Truthfully. No need to hammer the point home, thanks.
“And she’s right not to communicate, too.” Maudie, like Shakespeare, knew everything. “She will, in time, but she’s got to find herself first.”
“Oh balls, Maudie,” Morag said, ashamed of her annoyance but unable to prevent it. “One postcard wouldn’t destroy her self-discovery, I would’ve thought.”
“Symbolically, it might do just that.”
“Yeh. Maybe.” Morag’s voice lacked conviction.
Maudie with a cool efficiency produced a percolator full of real coffee in less time than Morag would have taken to make Instant.
“I’ve been thinking about that back vegetable garden of yours, Morag,” A-Okay said. “How be if I dig it out for you again? It’s kind of gone to seed, since–well, since we left. Now don’t take offense–you know I don’t mean it that way. I know it’s a little late this spring, but at least you could put in lettuce and stuff.”
“We’ve got ours nearly dug,” Maudie said, eyes bright as goldfinches’ wings. “I put in six packets of seeds yesterday.”
Morag felt trapped. For one glorious summer the Smiths had grown vegetables in Morag’s garden. At present, nothing was there except weeds.
“A-Okay, my dear, there is no way I’m going to slog around in that huge vegetable garden as long as I can bring in supplies from McConnell’s Landing.”
Both the Smiths looked away, embarrassed, troubled for her. Traitoress. Lackey to the System.
“By taxi?” A-Okay murmured.
“By packhorse would be better? The taxis are running anyway. This way, I’m not adding to the effluvia in the air.”
A small moment of triumph. Then the recognition that the reason she shopped by taxi was quite simply that she was afraid of driving and refused to learn.
“True,” A-Okay said. “But I was actually thinking of the cost, right at the moment.”
“Look at it this way,” Morag continued. “If I spent all my time gardening, how in hell could I get any writing done? No great loss, you may say, but it’d be a loss to me, and also I need a minimal income, even here. Whatever Susanna Moodie may have said in Roughing It in the Bush, I am not about to make coffee out of roasted dandelion roots.”
“An hour a day in the garden,” A-Okay said patiently, “would do the job. At least enough to have some results.”
True. Undoubtedly true. Morag Gunn, countrywoman, never managing to overcome a quiver of distaste at the sight of an earthworm. Lover of swallows, orioles and red-winged blackbirds. Detester of physical labour. Lover of rivers and tall trees. Hater of axes and shovels. What a farce. You had to give A-Okay full marks for persistence–he never ceased trying to convert her.
“I approve of your efforts, God only knows,” Morag said. “I applaud. I think it is great. I cannot help feeling, however, that like it or not the concrete jungle will not be halted by a couple of farms and a vegetable garden.”
Silence. What a fatuous thing to say. As if they didn’t know. As if they didn’t know it all better than she did. They’d been part of it all their lives, from childhood, in a way she never had. She had lived in cities as though passing through briefly. Even when she’d lived in one city or another for years, they’d never taken hold of her consciousness. Her childhood had taken place in another world, a world A-Okay and Maudie had never known and couldn’t begin to imagine, a world which in some ways Morag could still hardly believe was over and gone forever. These kids had been born and had grown up in Toronto. They weren’t afraid of cities in the way Morag was afraid. They knew how to live there, how to survive. But they hated the city much more than Morag ever could, simply because they knew. A-Okay had once taught computer programming at a technical college. The decision to leave was, for them, an irrevocable one and hadn’t been made lightly. Morag had met them through mutual friends in Toronto at the precise moment when they had decided to leave the city. She had suggested they give it a try at her place, and they had done that, paying their way both financially and in physical work. However they might feel sometimes, now they were living and had to live as though their faith in their decision was not to be broken.
“I’m sorry,” Morag said, truthfully. “I didn’t mean to say that. I didn’t even mean it.”
“No,” A-Okay said suddenly. “We were talking at you, not with you. Weren’t we? I guess we’ve done a lot of that since we got our own place. We didn’t have any right.”
“Well, now that you mention it, there may be some small degree of the Bible-puncher in you, A-Okay.”
More in Maudie than in him. But she did not say this.
“Your writing is your real work,” A-Okay said, with embarrassing loyalty and evident belief. “It’s there you have to make your statement.”
Or not make it. You can’t write a novel that way, in any event. They’d been real to her, the people in the books. Breathing inside her head.
Phone. Her ring. Morag leapt up and shot over to the telephone on the sideboard. Pique. Cool it, Morag.
“Hello?”
“That you, Morag?”
Oh God. Him. Not him surely? Yes. How long since she’d seen him? Three years, only. Before the Smiths mo
ved in. The Smiths had never seen him, and didn’t even know anything much about him, as Morag only ever talked about him to Pique, sometimes.
“Yes. Speaking.”
A deep gust of hoarse laughter.
“Don’t try to make out you don’t know who this is, eh?”
“Yeh, I know. I’m surprised you’re still alive, is all.”
“Yeh? I plan on living forever–didn’t you know?”
Yes. You told me once you used to believe that, and didn’t now. Are you all right?
“Are you all right? Are you okay?”
“Of course not,” he said. “What do you think? I got busted for peddling. The hard stuff, naturally. I’m phoning from Kingston Pen. Got a private phone in the cell.”
Well, at least he was okay.
“Oh, sorry to cast doubts on your blameless reputation. Why did you phone?”
And do you remember the last time I saw you, and what happened and didn’t happen?
“To ask you, you mad bitch,” he said, “what in hell you think you’re doing with that girl?”
He had two speaking voices, one like gravel in a cement-mixer, the other exceedingly low-pitched, quiet. He used the second when very angry. As now.
“What do I think I’m doing?” Morag shouted. “What do you mean by that? Wait–have you seen her, then?”
“Of course I’ve seen her. She turned up here.”
“Where is here?”
“Toronto. Yesterday. Don’t ask me how she found out where I was. Ask her. She’s a smart kid, I’ll give her that much.”
“What–how is she?” Morag sat down on the high stool beside the phone.
“She’s okay,” he said. “She’s changed a lot since fifteen, eh?”
“Yeh.”
“What’s with this guy she had this fight with?”
“Gord? He wanted to get married. She doesn’t believe in it.”
“God, what an example you’ve been to her,” he said, but laughing, really in approval. “Well, why in hell did you let her leave home? You know where she can end up, don’t you? You know what can happen to her, don’t you? By Jesus, Morag, if she goes out to Vancouver, I’ll strangle you. Why did you let her go?”
“Let her? Let her?” Morag cried furiously. “What do you suggest I should’ve done, then? Chained her to the stove?”
A second’s silence at the other end of the line.
“Yeh,” he said finally. “Well, I guess she had to go. She comes by it naturally. I guess it isn’t your fault.”
“Well, never mind. It’s not yours, either.”
“No,” he said. “It isn’t. But I keep thinking of them, back there. You know.”
“I know. But don’t. Just don’t, eh? Has she gone, now, then?”
“Yeh. West. I don’t know how far, though. She wanted something. Maybe that’s why she looked me up. She wanted the songs.”
“Did you give them to her?”
“What do you think? Naturally I did.”
“Well. Anyway, she was okay as of yesterday?”
“Yeh. Hey, Morag, do you still say my name wrong?”
“I–haven’t tried it recently.”
“No. I guess you wouldn’t.”
When he had rung off, she sat without moving. Afraid she would begin shaking, the way Christie sometimes used to do. The Smiths looked worried, curious, startled.
“My daughter’s father,” Morag said finally. “As I’ve told you, never having had an ever-present father myself, I managed to deny her one, too. Although not wittingly. I wasn’t very witting in those days, I guess.”
Maudie rose and nudged A-Okay.
“I think we should be getting along,” A-Okay said. “Are you all right, Morag? Is there anything–?”
“I’m all right. Really.”
Alone, Morag sat still for another half-hour before she could bring herself to get out the notebook and begin.
Whatever is happening to Pique is not what I think is happening, whatever that may be. What happened to me wasn’t what anyone else thought was happening, and maybe not even what I thought was happening at the time. A popular misconception is that we can’t change the past–everyone is constantly changing their own past, recalling it, revising it. What really happened? A meaningless question. But one I keep trying to answer, knowing there is no answer.
Memorybank Movie: The Thistle Shamrock Rose
Entwine the Maple Leaf Forever
Morag is twelve, and is she ever tough. She doesn’t walk all hunched up any more, like when she was a little kid. Nosiree, not her. She is tall and she doesn’t care who knows it. Her tits have swollen out already, and she shows them off by walking straight, swinging her shoulders just a little bit. Most of the girls are still as flat as boards. She has started her monthlies, too, and occasionally lets kids like Mavis or Vanessa, who haven’t started, know it by a dropped remark here and there. She is a woman, and a lot of them are just kids.
But she’s a tomboy, too. You gotta be. If it comes to a fight, she doesn’t need to fight like a girl, scratching with her fingernails. She slugs with her closed fist. Boys or girls, it makes no difference. If a boy ever teases her, she goes for him. The best way is to knee them in the balls. They double over, scream, and chicken out. Hardly any boys ever tease her these days.
Nobody much teases Eva Winkler, any more, either, because Morag gives them the bejesus if they do. Eva is her friend, her one true friend. She loves Eva. She looks down on Eva, too, a bit, because Eva is gutless as a cleaned whitefish. It must be awful to be gutless. Gus Winkler still beats his kids, even Eva. He doesn’t even have to be drunk. In fact, he hardly ever drinks and then only beer. He just likes beating his kids, that’s all. You couldn’t imagine Eva, so pale-haired and always saying Oh sorry I didn’t mean to even when she’s done nothing, you couldn’t imagine her deserving it. Maybe Gus beats her because she’s gutless, like Mrs. Winkler, like all the kids, there. In some awful spooky way Morag can understand this. If you ask for it, you sure as hell get it. But she sticks up for Eva, because Eva is her friend. She doesn’t stick up for Eva with Gus, though. She never goes over there. She and Christie sit on the front porch and hear it happening. When it does, they never look at each other.
Morag is the best girl pitcher on the ballfield, and also a good shortstop. She can even play ball with the boys, and sometimes does. The girls yell things at her, but Morag doesn’t care a fuck. They can’t hurt her. She’ll hurt them first. And when the boys laugh, she grins openmouth clowny, then pitches a twister, hard and fast.
The teachers hate her. Ha ha. She isn’t a little flower, is why. That will be the day, when she tries to please a living soul.
Conversation Overheard from the Teachers’ Room
All of Them in There Gabbing at Recess
Miss McMurtrie:
oh, Skinner’s bad enough but at least he’s away from school half the time and not much missed by me I can tell you but Morag never misses a day sometimes I wonder what on earth I’m going to do with her you find her same Ethel
Miss Plowright:
how do you mean exactly
Miss McMurtrie:
well one day she’s boisterous and noisy chewing gum in class whispering drawing dirty pictures you know and then heavens the next day she’ll be so sullen not speaking to a soul and you can’t get a word out of her she won’t answer just sits there looking sullen if you take my meaning
Miss Plowright:
oh yes yes oh yes she was just like that in my class I always thought you know maybe she wasn’t well maybe not quite all there
Miss Crawford:
she was a timid little thing in grade one but she learned to read really quickly well not exactly timid more well just very quiet never spoke to a soul except that poor little Eva Whatsername
Miss McMurtrie:
well she is not timid now I can assure you but bright enough I think you’re wrong there Ethel she’s bright enough but doesn’t seem to give a hoot
Mr. Tate:
the home the home always look to the home old Christie and that half-witted wife of his
Morag doesn’t let on. If you let on, ever, you’re done for.
“How’d you get on today, Morag?” Christie says. “Let’s see what you’re copying out, there.”
Christie’s brown cracked stained teeth. Like an old teapot. Ha ha. You can see them all when he grins while reading.
“What in hell is this crap? I wandered lonely as a cloud. This Wordsworth, now, he was a pansy, girl, or no, maybe a daffodil? Clouds don’t wander lonely, for the good christ’s sake. Any man daft enough to write a line like that, he wanted his head looked at, if you ask me. Look here, I’ll show you a poem, now, then.”
Two large books she has never seen before, red binding a little bit warped, and really small print.
“In the days long long ago,” Christie says sternly, “he lived, this man, and was the greatest song-maker of them all, and all this was set down years later, pieced together from what old men and old women remembered, see, them living on far crofts hither and yon, and they sang and recited these poems as they had been banded down over the generations. And the English claimed as how these were not the real old songs, but only forgeries, do you see, and you can read about it right here in this part which is called Introduction, but the English were bloody liars then as now. And I’ll read you what he said, then, a bit of it.”
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