No Great Mischief

by Alistair Macleod

  During those months on the Canadian Shield, when the life of Marcel Gingras touched mine, it seemed as if we were like gently nudging planets or perhaps helium-filled balloons. We came in contact with one another but did not collide and although our outer perimeters brushed we were still deep within the private areas of our own circumferences. Sometimes when the shifts were changing we would nod to one another. And once or twice the management of Renco Development asked me if I would help him to interpret the signals of the hoist or to read the directions on the dynamite cases. On two nights when there were breakdowns, Renco Development paid each of us to sit high on the headframe’s deck and explore the basics of the French and English languages.

  We would begin with the obvious parts of our bodies, pointing by turns to our heads, our eyes, our mouths and shouting, “la tête,” “les yeux,” “la bouche” to ourselves and the twinkling stars. Later we would move to the contents of our lunch cans, shouting, “apple” and “la pomme” and “cake” and “le gâteau” and “bread” and “le pain” as we held up each item for the other’s scrutiny. He would punch the air with enthusiasm when the answers were correct and we would move from the designations of food to whatever objects of work lay before us on the deck-room floor, pointing to une chaîne, la dynamite, la poudre, la poudre de mine, being impressed and surprised by how similar many of our words were although our accents were different. It seemed, at times, as if Marcel Gingras and I had been inhabitants of different rooms in the same large house for a long, long time. There was a rumour that Renco Development planned to train both of us as hoistmen in some near or distant time.

  During that period Renco Development was eager to meet its own objectives and deadlines, as were we. All of us joined in the relentless rush towards the black and radiating uranium which lay beyond the walls of rock.

  In the dark and dripping coldness of the underground and the stifling heat of the surface bunkhouses, time seemed to compress and expand almost simultaneously. When we were underground it was impossible to distinguish night from day. If we went to work at seven in the evening we would emerge at seven in the morning at first unaware that we had gone to work on one day and emerged on another. We would blink our eyes to the unfamiliar sun. At times we seemed like jet-lagged travellers, passing through time zones where everything appeared to be the same but was also somehow different. In the cloying daytime heat of the bunkhouses it was often difficult to sleep, the sheets clinging damply to our bodies and the perspiration beading upon our brows. On awakening, it was at times a challenge to focus upon the time of the day or the day of the week or even the week within the month. It was easy to become annoyed at the radio playing in the next room, or to become irritated by interruptions to the boring familiar rituals we had ourselves grown tired of following.

  One hot sticky day I heard a voice saying, “Hey, hey,” as I became aware of someone pushing on my shoulder. I had been sleeping in a sweaty troubled way, and at first the voice and the nudging seemed to come from a muffled distance. As the voice and the nudging grew more intense I opened my eyes to a worried-looking security guard. He would advance, nudge, and say, “Hey, hey,” and then jump back a short distance, as if he feared he were touching a dangerous trap which might uncoil and do him harm.

  “What? What?” I said, trying to swim up from the uncertain regions of bleary sleep.

  “Are you Alexander MacDonald?” he asked, still standing at what he assumed to be a safe distance from his newly awakened objective.

  “Yes,” I said, “I am.”

  “Well, you’re wanted on the phone. Come to the front gate. You know I’m not supposed to take or to deliver phone calls or leave the gate, but this is long distance, so hurry up.”

  He turned and walked quickly through the door in a state of what seemed like relieved agitation.

  I looked at my watch and glanced rapidly around at my surroundings. It was eleven a.m. and no one else was in the room. I pulled on my trousers and my open shoes and followed the route the security guard had taken. By the time I got to the door his diminishing form was already entering the plywood hut.

  The telephone swung at the end of its coiling cord.

  “Hello,” I said.

  “Ciamar a tha sibh?” said Grandpa from far away. “How are you?” he repeated in English.

  “Okay,” I said. “How are you?”

  “Not bad for an old man. I wanted to tell you he’s coming tomorrow.”

  “Who’s coming?” I said, trying to dislodge the sleep from my head. “Coming where?”

  “Your cousin,” he said, “cousin agam fhein, from San Francisco. Remember the letter Grandma read you on the day of your graduation? The one from my brother and her sister? Well, he’s coming to Sudbury tomorrow. At three in the afternoon. They wrote from San Francisco. It’s all arranged on their part. Now we have to do ours.”

  “What?” I said, still groggy.

  “Are you awake?” said Grandpa, his voice verging on annoyance. “What time is it there? It’s a little after noon here.”

  “Yes,” I said somewhat unconvincingly, “I’m awake.”

  “Did you have your breakfast?” he said. “Did you have porridge or that other stuff?”

  “What other stuff?”

  “I forget what you call it,” he said. “It looks like little bales of hay.”

  “Oh, shredded wheat. No, I didn’t.”

  “Good for you. Stick with the porridge. Now at least you sound more awake. You sounded as if you had been out all night with a girlfriend or something.”

  “No,” I said, “there are no girlfriends here.”

  “Oh well,” he said. “Too bad. Maybe someday. Now although you’ve never seen this young man, it’s like that poem your grandfather is always quoting: ‘Mountains divide us and the waste of seas – Yet still the blood is strong, the heart is Highland.’ I hope you remember that.”

  “Yes, I remember.”

  “Good. Have a drink for me in Sudbury. Are there lots of taverns in Sudbury?”

  “Yes,” I said. “Lots of taverns in Sudbury.”

  “Good,” he said. “My hope is constant in thee, Clan Donald. Here’s Grandma.”

  “Hello, ’ille bhig ruaidh,” she said. “As Grandpa said, he is arriving in Sudbury tomorrow at three. Is Sudbury far from where you are?”

  “About one hundred and sixty miles,” I replied.

  “Oh, that’s not too bad. Ask Calum to go with you. I suppose I should talk to him as he is the oldest and our grandson too, but you are our own gille beag ruadh and we have given you the best we could for all these years. Blood is thicker than water, as you’ve often heard us say. If our brother and sister had not gone to San Francisco we would have all been together these years, and this war would not affect us in this way, but now all we can do is our best. We always have to do our best with what we’re given. Are you still there?”

  “Yes,” I said, “I’m still here.”

  “Good,” she said. “Well, you will have to get up early in the morning. Grandpa says to tell Calum he was down to the old shore yesterday and brought Christy some apples. He tries to whistle like Calum used to do, but he says that Christy knows the difference. She comes to him, but she is always looking over his shoulder for someone else. He says it is because they were never young together, through the good times and the bad. But she is fine. Tell him that.”

  “Yes, I’ll tell him.”

  “Goodbye for now,” she said. “God bless. Beannachd leibh. Love to all.”

  “Okay, goodbye. Beannachd leibh.”

  I hung up the phone, thanked the security guard, and prepared to look for Calum. Although we had come off our shifts at seven, I knew he sometimes found it hard to sleep because of the heat and he sometimes wished to be alone with his own thoughts. As I stood uncertainly outside the security guard’s door I saw Calum approaching from the area beyond the gates. I waited for him and we walked together towards our bunkhouse.

  At first
I did not know how to approach the subject, as I had forgotten to tell him of the letter from San Francisco in the confused time which followed its arrival. It seemed a long time ago, although the death of Alexander MacDonald did not and remained constantly with us. For a moment I felt as I had on that long ago day when I had forgotten to bring the can of oats for Christy.

  I began to explain the situation.

  “Who is coming?” he said. “Coming from where? Why? Slow down.”

  I repeated the information, stressing the call from Grandma and Grandpa.

  He was thoughtful for a while, turning over the pebbles on the path with the sole of his boot. Finally, he asked, “Is this important to you, ’ille bhig ruaidh?”

  “Yes, it is. It’s just that Grandma and Grandpa …”

  “Okay, it’s important to me too. Grandma used to say, ‘Always look after your own blood,’ and she used to say to you and your sister, ‘If I did not believe that, where would you two be?’ ”

  “Yes,” I said “she did.”

  “Well,” he said, “we have to respect that. After our parents died we could not have looked after our sister and you. We could hardly look after ourselves, and when we went back to the old house we could not have survived without the help of all those people who brought us chains and saws and a boat and horses.”

  He was silent for a moment. “And I know,” he continued, “that you don’t have to be here with us either. You could be in your white lab coat in Halifax. It’s just that when Alexander was killed we needed another man.” He paused momentarily. “Ah, ’ille bhig ruaidh,” he said, “I appreciate that you’re here. We’ll go to Sudbury. But first we’ll have to find a car.”

  “I can get a car,” I said. “At least I think I can. And, oh, by the way, Grandpa said he saw Christy yesterday and brought her some apples. He said she was looking over his shoulder for you.”

  “Ah yes,” he said. “Poor Christy. She always kept her part of the bargain.”

  We had stopped walking and were standing in the middle of the path when we saw Fern Picard approaching. The path was narrow and we stood two abreast. His pace seemed to quicken when he saw us, and his increased speed seemed to emphasize how big he was. There was no space for him to pass without his leaving the path, and it seemed certain he was not going to do that.

  “Well, I have to go,” I said at the last moment, vacating my place on the path. Fern Picard’s shoulder brushed my brother’s as he passed and we heard him say, “Mange la merde” under his breath. “Mac an diabhoil,” I heard my brother say, and each of them spat, as if on cue, into the centre of the path. The gobs of silica-coated phlegm lay glistening in the sun.

  Overhead in the trees the crows and ravens screamed. Once, my brother told me, they were working in the Bridge River Valley of British Columbia. There was a man who used to wrap pieces of bread around live blasting caps and toss them to the ravens. The ravens would swoop down for the bread and seconds later when they were airborne the caps would explode, as would the birds, their black and shining feathers still clinging to flesh wafting down over a wide area from the sky. One night the man was beaten badly by someone with a wrench, and he left without collecting his pay and was never seen again.

  I went in search of Marcel Gingras. Because of the encounter with Fern Picard I did not want to go too near the bunkhouses of the French Canadians, but I found Marcel sitting in the dining hall. He was seated on a stool drinking a cup of coffee and seemed lost in his own dreams. When I sat down suddenly beside him he started. “Tasse à café,” I said, pointing to the object in his hand. “Coffee cup,” he said with a laugh.

  I thought I had understood him to possess some kind of car, but to make sure I drew a primitive automobile on a napkin and then pointed to him and to myself. “À Sudbury?” I asked. “Oui,” he said and nodded. In our monosyllabic way, accompanied by many gestures, we agreed to meet outside the camp gates. He did not wish to be seen in my company more than was necessary, he indicated, because he was afraid of Fern Picard and the potential threat of losing his job.

  When I joined him in the parking lot outside the camp gates, he was standing beside a rusting black Chevrolet sedan. The tires were balding and the windshield was pockmarked from the onslaught of a series of flying stones. There was also a giant wavering crack which coursed like an uncertain river across the total expanse of the glass.

  Marcel pulled open the unlocked door. On the front seat there was a woman’s makeup bag with the long handle of a pink comb protruding. On the floor there was a pair of white high-heeled shoes which were badly smudged. He shrugged his shoulders and extended his hands with their palms upward in a gesture of non-comprehension. Perhaps someone had been sleeping in his car?

  Hanging from the rear-view mirror there was a pair of large Styrofoam dice and a woman’s frilly garter – the kind which is often thrown at weddings. The ledge before the rear window bore the figure of a brown dog made from hard plastic. The dog’s head was attached to a spring which would cause it to bob up and down when the car was in motion.

  Marcel handed me the keys. They were attached to a small metal disc which read, “Je me souviens.”

  We returned to the camp separately to avoid detection.

  That night our work did not go well. The air hoses seemed to rupture constantly and the dynamite seemed damp to our touch. The jackleg drills seized or malfunctioned, spraying our faces with foul and overused oil. We lost more than we gained and were embarrassed to confess our non-progress to the oncoming shift left to confront our mess.

  After we showered and had a cup of coffee, Calum and I decided to dispense with sleep and leave for Sudbury immediately. When we reached the parking lot he looked at the car with disapproval.

  “Is this your car?” he asked, trying unsuccessfully to veil his annoyance.

  “Yes,” I said. “This is it.”

  I opened the door and slid into the driver’s seat. The makeup bag and the smudged shoes were gone.

  During the first few miles we said little. We had not slept the day before, nor the previous night, and our accumulated exhaustion seemed to manifest itself as soon as we settled into the passivity of our sitting positions. I noticed that the gas gauge did not work and the needle rested permanently on empty. We pulled to the side of the road and broke a willow branch from one of the trees growing at the edge of a murky swamp. We inserted the branch in the gas tank. Our willow gas gauge indicated that the tank was more than three-quarters full.

  We talked in a desultory manner about the man we were driving to meet. Because I had been raised by my grandparents I knew slightly more about him than did my brother. I tried to recall in more detail the conversations of my grandparents concerning their siblings who had moved to San Francisco. “Do you think,” asked Calum, “that if Grandpa did not get that job at the hospital they might all have gone to San Francisco?”

  “I don’t know,” I said.

  “If they had,” he said thoughtfully, “things would be much different for us.”

  “Yes, they would.”

  “From what I understand of this war,” he continued, “those people are only fighting for their own country and their own way of being. It’s hard to say they should be killed for that.”

  “I know,” I said. “Wars touch all of us in different ways. I suppose we have been influenced by lots of wars ourselves. We are probably what we are because of the 1745 rebellion in Scotland. We are, ourselves, directly or indirectly the children of Culloden Moor, and what happened in its aftermath.”

  “Yes,” he said with a smile, “the old men at home, the seanaichies, always used to say, ‘If only the ships had come from France …’ ”

  “Maybe” I said. “We’ll never know. Perhaps it was all questionable from the start. Talking about history is not like living it, I guess. Some people have more choice than others.”

  “Yes,” he smiled again. “Grandpa used to say, ‘I don’t want to be like the bull’s cock and just go wh
erever I’m shoved.’ ”

  “My hope is constant in thee, Clan Donald,” I said. “He said that too. He said it to me yesterday on the phone.”

  We were silent for a while. “Oh well,” Calum sighed, looking out the window at the jagged rocks and mangled trees, “too many bodies and too many wars. I often think it ironic that our father came through the war unscathed only to die beneath the ice at the end of a sunny March day.”

  “Yes,” I said, “If you had been with them you would have gone down too.”

  “I look at it differently,” he said, “If I had been with them I might have saved them.”

  The heat began to intensify as the sun rose higher. It shone through the cracked windshield until it seemed as if we were behind the glass of a greenhouse. We rolled down the windows and rested our arms on the car’s window frames to feel the rush of the passing air. Our arms were white from the long hours underground and seemed almost to recoil from the blazing power of the sun.

  “When we used to cross from the island in the summer,” said Calum, “Father sometimes used to look at the sun. If it was at a certain angle and if the waves were rolling in a certain way, he used to gun the engine of the boat. It was a big boat supplied by the government and if he gunned the engine in a certain manner and steered at a certain angle to the sun the spray would fly up and the water droplets would be caught in the sun’s slanting rays. It had the effect of a rainbow which seemed to be following us. It must have been before you and your sister were born because Colin was just a little boy. He always used to say, ‘Dad, Dad, make the rainbow.’ One day he said to our mother, ‘Mom, isn’t there supposed to be a pot of gold at the end of the rainbow?’

  “ ‘I don’t know dear,’ she said, ‘some people say that it’s so.’

  “ ‘Well,’ he said, ‘I think that for us, our pot of gold must be at the bottom of the ocean.’ ”

  Calum was silent for a while. “When I went back to the old shore,” he continued, “I used to take our boat out by myself and angle it in different directions off Calum Ruadh’s Point to try to recapture the effect, but I never could. People would ask me what I was doing out in my boat those afternoons. I was always too embarrassed to say I was looking for a rainbow, so I would say I was just fooling around. They would generally say, ‘It looked to us like you were just wasting gas,’ so after a while I stopped.”