by Myrna Dey
Sara talked a lot about her mother and how she wished they had had more time together. Unfortunately, it often did not get past my ears because my brain was filled with more pressing issues, like what to wear to the freshie dance — the slacks that made me too tall or the skirt that made my hips too wide?
“Whatever is good in me came from her,” Sara said of Jane Hughes, “but I’m afraid I ended up with a lot of my father.” She must have meant her bone structure, for she said he had small, fine features, and her mother had a larger open face with a pronounced chin, and big hands
and feet that Dad and I inherited. Otherwise, I could not imagine any of Roland Hughes in Sara, when she described him. He was usually drunk, he was mean, and when his wife took ill with the flu, he did nothing to help. Reading Jane’s mention of La Grippe in her letter made me feel odd. Here I sat knowing she would die of it before she did, but after she did die. Where’s the before and after in that?
Maybe I had not been totally deaf, because Sara’s words started coming back. I now remembered her telling me that when Jane got sick, Roland assigned his two eight-year-old daughters as nursemaids. Sara said it was a task they had undertaken willingly and did not need his accusations that they were lazy. She knew even then his outbursts were from fear, but they hurt just the same. Their brother Llewellyn, ten years older than they were, had already left home. He had lied about his age to join the army. Sara said he would have joined the circus to escape the mines and his father’s drunken rages, so the First World War came along at the right time. “Except it was the wrong time,” she had added, “because he never did come home. Our brother’s life was even shorter and sadder than our mother’s.”
Funny, how my mind was clearing through the fog of the headache. I recalled being shocked when Sara said she was thankful her mother and brother had died at the same time until she explained that they were connected cosmically now through death as well as birth. As a kid, I liked listening to Sara’s theories of reincarnation: that we are surrounded by the same souls in every lifetime, so we should work things out with them during this one. If a husband acted too much like a baby, for example, he might end up as his wife’s son next time around until he learned to mature. I had not thought much about it since then, but could now see Sara sitting in her Queen Anne chair, making a steeple of her fingers, as she suggested her tall son — my father — might be her brother. And — with the letter still in my hand — I could hear her saying that I just might possess the spirit of her beloved mother. I would be nearby to usher her out of this existence just as she was there to assist at her mother’s departure. She believed it was almost a holy rite for which she was chosen. Janet had gone to an outside pump for fresh water, and their mother called Sara to her bedside. She spoke so softly that Sara had to climb onto the cot. She told her that if she had a son, she should name him Lew, because he was a fine and gentle man with no one to help him at the end. Then her mother squeezed her hand and died with a smile on her face.
For Sara it was the moment she grew up. She was certain Jane had sent Janet out deliberately, so she could be alone with her. When her sister came back and saw Sara sitting next to the bed holding their dead mother’s hand, she screamed and dropped the glass of water. Then their father came crashing through the curtain, wailing about his dear wife. Sara said she thought he was going to hit her for letting her mother die, but he crumpled in a sobbing heap at the foot of the cot.
Later Sara insisted that because Jane Hughes said, “he was such a fine and gentle man,” she knew her son was already dead, although the news had not reached them yet. She also called him a man for the first time because she was able to see him dying like a man on the battlefield. Sara had heard many stories about dead relatives coming to guide you over to the other side.
I looked up at Dad watching me. “You were named after your uncle Llewellyn?”
“The request from my grandmother’s deathbed? Yes, I do know that story.”
“Any pictures of him?”
“Not that I know of. In other words, Mother could only remember him as tall, dark, and melancholy. On account of their father, she said. But he was always helpful to his mother. Sara was six when he was shipped overseas.” Inching his way to the dining room where his paper and paints covered the table, Dad stopped and said seriously in his teacher’s voice: “You know, the influenza pandemic killed more people than any other disease outbreak in human history. More died of the flu than were killed in the First World War. In Canada alone, during one month in 1918, a thousand people died every day, close to 50,000 total. Worldwide estimates are between forty and a hundred million, statistics from other continents being unreliable.” He shook his head. “No memorials and very little space given in the history books to such a catastrophe.”
It was reassuring to see Dad had not lost his confident, professional manner, so I kept him going. “How did it start?”
“No one is sure, but they do know the mutability of the virus is what made it so deadly. One theory says it started from a pig in China. Does the swine part sound familiar? Probably the one today developed the same way. Flu viruses could be passed from pigs to humans and vice versa. In this case the pig might have contracted a bird flu virus at the same time as it held the human flu virus. Inside the pig, the bird flu strand would humanize, allowing it to keep birdlike features that make it so infectious, yet at the same time acquiring properties that allow it to grow in the lung cells of a human being. No doubt I’m oversimplifying.”
That’s simplifying? I rolled my eyes to myself, and decided not to ask any more questions.
Silenced, Dad proceeded to his artwork. “Have a look at some of the young Jane Owens’ other letters.”
I picked up another one dated May 17, 1894. I was hoping for more specific names, but it too was addressed “Dear Brother and Sisters.”
I take the pleasure of answering your letter we received last week. Dear Catherine, I don’t think you can wish any more to see us than we do to see you. It upset us so much to hear of you being sick. Mama has been more sick than usual for three weeks, keeping to her bed the whole time. She is stronger now but still not well. Gomer has the flu, Tommy has a very bad cold, but work is steady in the mines and he will have 26 shifts this month. Now that I am chief cook and bottle washer, it wouldn’t do for me to be sick. I am only troubled at times with catarrh in the head, causing my nose to drip.
My work at one household is hard. The mistress is only two years older than I am and is a common girl from Nanaimo. We were in the same grade at school last year. Her husband is from here too and worked with Tommy until he was somehow made tram boss. Now they think they are royalty and the rest of us are servants. The good part is holding her baby while the nappies are rinsing or when she goes out.
My other customer makes up for working at that place. When he brings his clothes to our house to be washed, he usually leaves apples or peaches or a piece of fresh lamb with us. I often deliver the clean clothes back to his cabin for the sake of a walk in the fresh air. Last week I met his younger son and a daughter at his cabin. They are golden in colour with smiles all over their faces. When you come, I will introduce this dear friend to you.
Tommy sends $20 and more next time. He will roast a bullock for you and I don’t know what he isn’t going to do. I will make coconut cake, sponge cake, custard and lemon pies. We are expecting a great arrival. Mind to write.
I remain
xxxxxxxxx your loving sister, Jane xxxxxxxxx
In the middle of the letter a wave of grogginess hit me. A warning from headquarters that the ache had not quite run its course and I was to show it some respect by resting. Or was it the word catarrh in Jane’s letter tickling a gene trail that led from her sinuses to mine. Eerie, seeing your destiny in front of you. I wanted to know more about them. Were Margaret and Catherine the only sisters? Did they live together? The “2” in “$20” had been written in different ink. “Can I take these letters home with me?”
/> “Take everything.” Dad was completely engrossed in the task of drawing a cat pushing a piece of sponge up a staircase. A grey tabby with a bobbed tail that looked a lot like Mister, our first pet. “It’s the children’s book I’m working on,” he said apologetically. “About a cat named Sissipuss.” When he saw the reference was lost on me, he added. “I’m going to see if he’ll get along with our old friends Cedric the Cockroach and Thump the Butterfly, or if they’re too outdated for him. He’s a postmodern cat.”
My head wasn’t up to anything intellectual, so I said, “Thanks for supper. I’ll call you tomorrow.”
Back at my apartment Drill Sergeant Headache had taken full command of the blood vessels in my head again. Left, throb; right, throb. You win, I muttered, popping two liquid gels and slithering out of my jeans and sweatshirt into a loose nightgown. One more thing before I shut all systems down. I took the picture from home and carried it to my dresser where I had left the other, still in its ugly gold frame. I looked at them together, blinking away the pulsations blurring my vision.
They were a match.
Using a knife, I pried open the rusted prongs holding the frame against the backing and removed the photo. Measured one against the other, they were exactly the same size. If I closed my eyes and mixed them up, I could not tell which was Sara’s and which came from the garage sale. No need for forensics to prove these pictures were identical. But I did have need of sleep right now and fell onto my bed, pulling my duvet around me. The letters and pictures stuck behind my eyelids like flyers pasted against a lamppost by the wind.
Who was Jane Owens? Could I read her life between the lines?
JANE IS NOT SURE WHAT has wakened her so early. Was it the sudden rush of rain on the roof, Mama’s moaning in the bed next to her, or Gomer’s croupy cough from Tommy’s room? In the darkness, she slips from under her warm comforter and shivers at the sting of the cold wooden floor on her bare feet. She pulls on her housecoat and slippers with a cougar’s stealth, practised for a year through a sick or sleeping household. She tiptoes to the kitchen, the aroma of yesterday’s roast lamb infusing the cool dewy air. Carefully removing the iron cover from the stove, Jane ignites the kindling she laid out last night. The fire will be just right for Tommy’s bathwater and breakfast when he comes home from his shift, giving her enough time for a letter. She lights the coal oil lamp at the far end of the table where its glow will not waken the sleepers. At the back of a curtained shelf under a pile of tea towels, Jane keeps her few treasures: the fine vellum paper and fountain pen Cassie gave her as a parting gift, and two sterling silver bangles Mama and Father presented on her confirmation into the Methodist Church when she was twelve. She slides out the pen, a sheet of the paper, and a bottle of ink from the store.
“Dear Brother and Sisters…”
She begins by telling them how much she misses them, though the three sentences she writes cannot possibly explain how much she longs for Cassie’s company. Oh, to be back in Wales or have her here with them on Vancouver Island. She misses Margaret and Gilbert too, but they both have families, and she knows Catherine is the one who will snatch her letter from the postman and read it to the others. Margaret will continue what she is doing even while Cassie reads — pickling, sewing, scouring floors, or scolding her two young children Gwynyth and Evan. She is like Tommy, always busy, not the kind to sit down and talk the way Catherine does. Jane could tell Cassie what she cannot tell Mama because she is too occupied with her sickness; or Tommy because he is always too tired from the mine or from fixing the house and saves his few words for friends at the Whistle Stop; or ten-year-old Gomer, who is too young to talk to about anything except to mind his manners.
Families belong together, Jane is about to write, as she listens to the crackling swoosh of kindling burning down. She waits for the fire to settle into a gentle whisper before rising to touch the kettle to make sure she filled it the night before. Back at the letter, Mama’s voice enters her head and she hesitates. Mama gets impatient whenever she complains of being so far from the others. “You stir up discontent with that kind of talk. There are so many worse off than we are.” She uses the Monmouths back in Wales as an example. Mr. Monmouth lost both legs in a mine accident, and Mrs. Monmouth has to look after him as well as two children without normal brains who can’t walk or talk and have to be fed. Some sickness in the family that gets passed on. And all without money. That is true bad luck, Mama says.
Jane tries to remember the Monmouths whenever she thinks about her own father and Margaret’s husband being killed in the same mine explosion, forcing her two older brothers, each in a different country, to look after the rest of the family.
It happened so fast. Mama, Jane, and Gomer were suddenly on a ship to Canada last year to set up housekeeping for Tommy on Vancouver Island so he could provide for them. And back in Wales, Gilbert and his family shared his meagre wages with Catherine and Margaret and her two children. At least Margaret was able to keep her own little mine cottage where there was room for Catherine. Margaret’s fine sewing brings in a little more now, and Cassie started teaching children in first standard, so that will help. Who would have counted on Mama taking ill with a lung ailment on the boat and hardly having a day of strength since? They have to be thankful both voyages to British Columbia, their own and Tommy’s five years earlier, had taken place after the completion of the Canadian Pacific Railway through the country. Before 1885, Tommy told them, men would spend six months on a ship going around the tip of South America to get from Britain to the west coast. How would Mama have managed more than the two and a half weeks their journey took? Hard as the wooden benches in the train cars were, she felt less sick from the motion on rails than on waves.
“’Tis the shock of all that’s happened causing Mama’s illness,” Cassie wrote, but Jane is still trying to figure it out.
She tries so hard not to complain that tears squeeze out of her eyes from the effort. What can she write? She tells Cassie that today she will go to Cruikshanks to do laundry. But will she say that Stella will probably ask her to make two or three pies; that she will leave Jane to mind her new baby when she goes to the fire boss’ house for tea; and that she will snatch the baby from her when she comes back, because she thinks Jane is getting too close to him? And she cannot tell that Stella has become so high and mighty she even puts her own underwear in for Jane to wash. For which of them is that a greater disgrace? She will write that Stella is only two years older than she is and that they were in school together last fall in Chase River. Can she add that they were both in the same grade, because Stella was repeating and Jane had been put forward after the first week when the teacher saw her skills and ability? Those things make her sisters and brother proud of her schooling in Wales. No, she cannot worry them in every letter about how much she misses school.
She can still feel the way her stomach twisted the day Mama said, “Things are getting left undone at home.” She knew what it meant. If only she did not have the long walk to and from school every day, she would have more time for her chores. For a while she got up in the dead of night to bake pies and make soup, and have Tommy’s meal ready to warm up when he came home from the mine. She even managed to wash clothes quietly at the same time, boiling white laundry in kerosene cans on the stove, while using a washboard in a galvanized tub for the pit suits outside in the dark. But the extra coal needed to heat the stove so early went beyond Tommy’s quota, so that was that.
Jane never did tell her sisters or anyone else about her last day. How Stella left at the same time, gleeful because she was with child, knowing Lance Cruikshank would marry her and that would mean the end of school forever. Through Stella’s giggles, Jane had to fight back tears because school was her favourite place in Canada so far. She was top student in all subjects and dreamed of becoming a teacher herself some day. In the classroom she lived in a different world, away from scrubbing coal dust from stiff work clothes until her fingers bled. When she carried out her
books on the final day with her stomach bilious, she felt fifty years old instead of fifteen. The teacher, Miss Maasanen, almost cried herself when she gave Jane a copy of Tess of the D’Urbervilles because she knew how much she liked to read. Looking back, she is thankful she did not also know on that unhappy day that she would soon be washing clothes for the girl cackling in front of her.
Her sisters and brother have enough to worry about without her whining, so she will tell them instead about Mr. Louis Strong. Yesterday he brought them another piece of lamb along with his laundry. The lamb comes from Henry “Butch” Hargraves, whose cabin and meat sheds Jane passes on the way to Louis’ place. Jane does not like the way he looks at her, but Louis seems friendly with him, so she always says “Good day” before hurrying on. When Louis pays for her services, he always compliments her on the fine way she presses his clothes with the flatiron and folds them neatly. This makes her smile because it does not take much to smooth out overalls and iron sheets and a few flannel shirts. What a difference between a farmer’s and a miner’s clothes, especially a farmer as careful and orderly as Louis Strong, who spends his days among fruit trees.
She could tell them how she has never heard an accent like Mr. Strong’s — soft and easy, from the southern United States. Maybe when both families save enough to bring Cassie over to live with them, she will have enough time to tell her all about Louis Strong’s life. How he was a slave, even though his father was the white plantation owner. How he bought his freedom twice and still was not allowed to leave. How he finally fled to California only to learn Negroes were not welcome there, any more than they had been in Mississippi or Tennessee. (An excellent speller, Jane likes writing those words with their clusters of double letters, so she might have to include this information before she sees Cassie in person.) Mr. Strong told her that Governor James Douglas, a mulatto himself born in a South American country called British Guiana, invited Negroes to come and settle in his new colony of British Columbia, so that’s how he and his family ended up here. He had bought some land on Vancouver Island a few years ago to experiment with apple trees, to continue grafting various strains. But he did not want to give up the other farm and cattle he owned on Salt Spring Island, so his sons Maynard and Adam stayed behind with their mother to run it. His daughter Ruby is a schoolteacher in the Cedar district, not far from Chase River.