Tell

by Frances Itani

  From the tower now, the ice was the colour of thin porridge. Cold porridge. At night, especially when the moon was up, he was sometimes deceived into thinking he could see puddles illuminated over the surface of the bay. He knew the ice was solid. He knew his vision was being tricked.

  Did it matter if snow accumulated out there? Probably not. Initially, the snow wall was intended as a bit of a warning, a deterrent against going out too far and onto thinner ice. Now, more and more people wandered out, knowing the ice was thick and safe across the bay. What mattered was who was battering at the snow and why. What was the point of scattering snow in a place where everyone in town enjoyed skating? Someone was up to mischief, and that meant extra work for others. Someone who had no reason to do such a thing except to make trouble.

  In a few weeks, after the new year, the annual horse-and-sleigh races would be held on the bay, out past the rink, where the whole town could see. One year, when he was a young man and still farming, he had entered the races. Dermot convinced him to come to town for the events and Am had won ribbons with two separate horses. Cold days. Exhilarating days. The horses stomping on the ice, ready to let fly, Am talking them down in low tones under his breath while they nickered restlessly at the start line. In those days, the Rathbun Company employed five thousand workers. The streets were crowded, skaters swarmed over the rink, the town prospered. Today, the population was not even three thousand, and local industry was collapsing in on itself. Mills and plants were closed. There could be no mills without lumber. Even the Big Mill had closed in 1916, during the war, because of the dwindling supply of logs.

  Before that, the Great Fire of 1896 had destroyed other industries: the bran house, the cedar mill, several piers along the waterfront. That was when Am was still living on the farm. At the time of the fire, his brother lived in town, but he hadn’t yet purchased the hotel. Fortunately for everyone, Dermot’s home had not been damaged. The family remained safe, though Grania was born the night of the fire. Am and Mags had always loved the child as if she were their own. Grania was twenty-three now. The whole family looked forward to her return in the spring. And to the birth of her first child.

  Am decided he would walk over to the rink and take a closer look at the ice. It was dark outside, clouds were built up in the sky, not a whisper of moon to be seen. He would take his brass lantern with him but wouldn’t light it unless he had to. He thought about the farm again and how he’d always tried to get his chores finished during daylight hours so he wouldn’t have to take a lantern out to the barn. There was a constant worry about fire any time there was a lantern in a barn.

  He peered out through the clock again and saw a man below, dragging a small sled along the street, the sled covered with boxes tied down with rope. The sight made Am remember how he’d once caught a snake on his father’s farm. He was four or five years old and had a small wagon his father had banged together for him. Every day in summer he dragged the wagon behind him through the farmyard and through a small orchard of apple trees. One day, he collected two grasshoppers in a jar, an old bird’s nest and the snake, all of which he stowed in the wagon. He headed home to show his father, but when he reached the house the snake was gone; it had slithered out of the wagon and escaped. He never forgot the enormous disappointment over the lost snake he’d wanted to show his father.

  Memory. It whipped him around in all directions. And who was he to say whether his memories were accurate or not? He never knew what would be laid bare. There were days when past events drifted through him until he felt he’d become a medium. Like stories he read in the paper about people who claimed they were able to communicate with the spirits of boys who’d been killed in the war.

  Or maybe his memory was slapping him with cold truth. Which he did not always want shoved in his face. He climbed down the tower ladder as quietly as he could, tucked a box of matches into his pocket, put on his coat and gloves, and wrapped his scarf around his neck—the striped one Mags had knitted and presented to him in a quiet moment of tenderness. He pulled on a cap and left the apartment.

  When he reached ground level and shut the outer door, a sudden movement behind the post office startled him and he stepped back quickly. He stopped and peered into the dark and realized that nothing had moved but himself. A stack of wood piled up behind the building loomed in the shadows. His vision was failing; he hated to admit this to himself. He should probably be wearing glasses, but up to now he’d done his best to ignore the signs.

  The first time he’d become aware of his diminishing eyesight was late spring, when he was with his brother in front of the drive shed behind the hotel. He’d been called over to admire the Dodge Brothers Touring Car his brother had purchased from a Kingston man. Dermot was proudly showing him the features of the auto when Am glanced off to the side. From the corner of his eye he saw a small wedge of wood balancing unreasonably on its end. Curious, he let his attention drift away from the auto. He looked more closely, and watched the wood hop and become a robin. The episode startled him, made him uneasy about the way he was seeing the world. Ever since that day, or so it seemed, one thing could become another without any effort on his part. A dark speck roaming around his eye could become an ant crawling across a stone. An ant could just as easily become a speck in his eye. A thickness halfway up the branch of a tree in the woods at the edge of town could be an owl listening for the scratch of mice under snow. He began to wonder if anything held its true shape, if the world of sight had always been a deceit. If he were to see a snake in a field in summer, he’d probably mistake it for a length of rope. Light and shadow confounded him equally. He supposed he should mention all of this to Dr. Clark, but he had enough to worry about on the days he had pain in his gut. He’d begun to take the pink pills he’d read about in the Post, hoping to solve the problem. He’d gone to see Hal Edwards at the drugstore when he bought the pills, and told Hal to keep quiet and not to mention anything to Mags.

  If he told Mags about his eyes, she’d want to apply bread-and-milk soaks, or she’d tell him to buy glasses, an obvious solution. He had no intention of mentioning any of his problems to anyone. Especially when the only danger—as far as his eyes were concerned—was misjudging depth when he stepped off the end of the boardwalk. He’d almost taken a tumble a few days ago, but had corrected his balance just in time. An inconvenience that small could be lived with. His eyes were strong enough to recognize his fellow citizens out walking on the street when they were close enough to say how do you do. And the ladder that led up to the tower had never tripped him. He knew every rung; he could go up and down with his eyes closed if he needed to. No ailment of his had ever affected the work he’d been hired to do. He had considered getting a dog for himself so the animal could walk by his side on the street, or so he’d been thinking. In August, he’d wanted to take in a large setter that had to be given away when its owners moved. The dog had a dignified expression, silky ears almost a foot long and smooth hair that hung past its belly like a saddle blanket. The dog ended up going to some other owner because Am hadn’t acted quickly enough.

  Am strode east along Main Street and entered the path to the rink. He glanced to the left but there were no signs of activity coming from Kenan and Tress’s narrow house. It was late and they’d be in bed. The snow on the path between the wire fencing glistened and guided him down the slope to the skaters’ shack and then forward to the rink and onto the ice. He didn’t have his skates with him and wished he’d thought to bring them. How good it would feel to be out here alone, skating on the bay. Free of fatigue, free of worry over whatever was going on with Mags. She didn’t tell him a thing anymore.

  He looked along the length of the oval. It was late, and everyone at his end of town was in bed. At the other end of Main Street, in Dermot’s hotel, men would be playing cards, holding forth on politics, opining about the dozens of countries in Europe that even now were battling out the lines that had been drawn around their precious territories. Who won the spoils? Wh
oever shouted the loudest. That’s what it came down to. He had no use for the killing and spent no time wondering whether he’d have signed up if he’d been a younger man in 1914. What he could plainly see was the effect war had had on young Kenan and on other families in the town. Bereaved people walked into the post office building every day. War was an utter waste of youth, as far as Am could tell.

  He decided that he would go and visit Dermot later in the week. Have a drink with him at the hotel. Dermot always had a supply of liquor and Am never asked about its source. Dermot would want to talk about his touring car. How he’d been lucky to buy the winter version, which he drove when the roads were hard enough. Am thought the winter version was a waste. Sometimes it was all anyone could do to get a horse and sleigh out of town. Admittedly, Dermot had driven his car on local roads after snow had fallen. The car was sleek and black, all steel, with a solid winter top, a solid wood steering wheel. One day the past summer, Dermot had driven north to the Ninth Concession, where he and Am had grown up, to show their father. He’d asked Am to accompany him. The two brothers had taken their father out for a little tour, the car bouncing along the roads. Their father, now in his eighties, had put on his only tie for the occasion.

  Am thought he heard music, but his mind deceived him. How many times had he and Mags skated to the music of a clockwork-driven Victrola, on small rinks, on large rinks, the muffled, tinny sound drifting into cold air while accompanying bundled-up, gliding bodies? How many times had he and Mags skated into the night along country cricks and ponds with no music at all, the only light being whatever the moon and stars had to offer, or the lantern’s glow?

  He glanced at the stretch of ice before him and thought he saw two children skating hand in hand. When he looked again the rink was empty. What had he just seen? Mags was the one who reported seeing wisps, or spirits. His vision might be shrinking, but now his imagination was expanding in the opposite direction. He wondered if he was experiencing some sort of madness.

  He thought of music again. This time, he did want to remember. Mags had always loved music. She had sung since early childhood. At home, at weddings, at school concerts, at parties, with her legs dangling over the edge of the haymow when they climbed up there together and threw open the big wooden doors. When they were first married, she sang while she went about her daily work on the farm. She was hardly aware that she was humming or singing, inside the house or out—while preparing meals, while heating the sad-irons, while helping to pick apples or sewing or knitting, canning, preserving. And then the singing stopped.

  But not now. He realized with surprise and sudden clarity that she had begun to sing again. Or was this another way his mind was playing tricks?

  He tried to recall. Early this morning he had been in the bedroom while she was in the kitchen. He had looked over to her side of the bed, the imprint of her still on the pillow, which was scrunched the way she liked it. She’d always pushed and pulled at her pillow until it supported her neck and shoulders exactly the way she wanted it to. Mags was up before he was every day, even though he started work at seven. And this morning, he had heard her humming. Not one of the concert solos, not one of the hymns she sang in church on Sunday mornings. She’d been humming in the kitchen the way she used to when they were younger. She had been doing this so naturally, he wondered if she was even aware. It was as if some moment of happiness had brought her back from a place that for a long time had kept her silent.

  What was happening to Mags?

  What was happening to him? Was he getting old? And cranky, too? There were things he wanted to say. He had tried. He had climbed down out of the tower and stood face to face with Mags, but she had retreated. She had stopped him.

  He looked down at the ice under his feet. From a standstill, he pushed off in his boots and, with a gliding motion, slid sideways across the width of the rink. Not at all satisfying without skates. He looked at the wall of snow on the bay side of the rink and wondered why on earth it had been thrown up there in the first place. What was the point? Snow had to be cleared, yes, but did it have to be put in one place? Snow acted as insulation. After a time, it could weaken the ice. If people wanted to wander out farther, even on thin ice, they would. The wall shouldn’t be there; it was cold, barren, an impediment. Hostile, even. In part, it blocked the view of the bay from the rink. No wonder someone had tried to knock it down. He felt the pain starting up in his gut. He had a mind to reach for a shovel himself.

  DESERONTO POST, DECEMBER 1919

  Local Items

  They’re at it again—the hooligans who are putting a damper on the enjoyment of the rest of the citizenry. Are we so derelict in this town that we have to consider posting a night sentry at the rink during the wee hours? Once again, without reason—for why would anyone with reason act in such a way?—snow has been scattered over the cleared portion of the ice. Let the scoundrels cease and desist!

  Your local Butcher Shop intends to make the finest display of Beef, Pork, Lamb, Mutton, Veal, Game, Poultry, Vegetables, and every variety of Fresh and Salted Meats this Christmas that has ever been seen in Deseronto, or in fact in Ontario.

  We are already booking orders for Turkeys. Now is your time to do likewise, and thus be sure of your Christmas dinner before the Turkeys see this ad and strike. Come along and have a look, and if it does not make you hungry to see so many nice things ready for the oven, it won’t be our fault.

  Come to Ford Jewellers to buy your lady the new and popular bracelet watch. Assorted fancy dials, gilt finish, reliable timekeeper. A Christmas gift that is sure to win her favour. Only a few days left to complete your shopping.

  Get your Butter Paper, printed or plain, at the Post Printers.

  Chapter Nineteen

  TELL,” HE SAID. HE WAS STRETCHED OUT ON HIS back. Tress was lying next to his dead arm, the dark shadow of its crease. His good arm was free. He left the small lamp on beside their bed.

  He stared at the ceiling, aware of her face close to his cheek.

  “What shall I tell?”

  “Anything. What you did at work.”

  “I can tell you who was in the dining room, whether they ordered hot pot or chicken pie, whether they had room for dessert, what they left behind. And Mother sends her love. She’d like us to be there Christmas Day, but she understands. She truly does. She already knows that Uncle Oak has been invited here for Christmas dinner.”

  Kenan knew that Tress passed along abbreviated versions of what was going on, the way she’d learned to do while growing up with a younger sister who was deaf. She used to tell Grania, “This is what Father said.” “This is what Mother wants.” But what was told was Tress’s shorthand version of events. She had been the interpreter, the go-between, from the time the sisters were small. They still had a private language, one they’d made up between them before Grania left to go away to residential school. Kenan had been excluded from that, though he’d been a friend to both.

  Kenan knew, too, that Tress continued to supply her own version of events. She altered stories in any way that suited her. Well, he thought, what I pass on is never the whole story, either. It’s the way things have been since I’ve come back. I haven’t told her about Hugh’s letters, have I? Jack Conlin delivered both to the front door, but someday Tress will reach her hand into the mailbox at the post office and pull one out for herself.

  Tonight, Kenan didn’t wait for Tress to launch into an account of the hotel dining room. He had something of his own to tell. Tress stilled to listen. What had happened while she was out?

  Uncle Oak had visited, that’s what had happened. A short visit, as always, but he’d also brought an offering: a photo. A postage stamp of a photo, maybe two inches by an inch and a half. Small, but one that neither Kenan nor Tress had seen before.

  Kenan produced it now, sliding it out from beneath a book on the bedside table. He wanted to show her, tell her, in a certain way. He held it in the air, in the space above them. Tress raised herself on one
elbow and took the photo from his hand.

  Two women. The older grey-haired woman was seated on a high-backed kitchen chair that had been set outside in the snow. The younger woman, perhaps a daughter, was standing behind.

  The older woman was spilling over the seat of the chair, which seemed entirely too small for her body. The word ample came to Tress’s mind. A bibbed apron with a guinea-hen pattern was looped crookedly over the woman’s dress, as if she’d put it on hastily or half pulled it off. In the background were a snow-covered roof, bare trees, a stoneboat propped against the side of a milk house. It could have been Tress’s grandfather’s farm, or anyone else’s farm north of town and for miles and miles as far as Maynooth, for all she knew.

  Despite the snow, neither woman in the photo was dressed for the outdoors. Both were coatless. The older woman’s legs—thick and swollen—were stuffed into splayed galoshes. She was balancing a cake on her lap, her thick fingers tucked under the edges of a rectangular platter. But who would have, or could have, owned a platter so large? The cake must have been resting on a covered cookie sheet or a piece of strong cardboard.

  Someone had gone to the trouble of decorating the cake. Tress could make out a single word across the top—MOTHER—with scrolls of icing on either side.

  She held the photo closer to the light. The second woman, the one who stood behind the chair, was tall and thin and she was grinning. Her hair was long and thick and dark, the colour difficult to discern. Possibly red. Red hair would be dark in the photo.

  “Maybe the young woman baked the cake for her mother,” said Tress. “Maybe the two women are members of the same family. Is this Uncle Oak’s family? Is this your family?”