A Witness to Life (Ashland, 2)

by Terence M. Green

  "Would you like a cup of tea?"

  Her face begins to shake.

  I set the two cups of tea on the bedside table, beside the Lourdes water. Propping the pillow, I slide her into a sitting position. Touching her again, I think.

  "I put sugar and milk in yours too." I lift it to her lips, hold it steady. She drinks, a few drops spilling on her chin. When I place the cup back on the bedside table, she blinks at me and her lips part, but no sound comes out. She studies my face carefully.

  "I met a woman," I say, hearing my thoughts come to life.

  She listens to the words, watches my mouth.

  "I went to see her again, but she wasn't there." I sip my tea, sit back, relax. "I think you'd like her." I smile.

  Her silence is profound for me. I think of all the women's voices that have surrounded me my whole life, contrast them with Gramma's quiet calm.

  I hold the cup to her lips once more, watch her fists clench and unclench.

  When Ma returns, I ask her. "What's Gramma's name?"

  Ma looks at me. "What do you mean?"

  "Her real name, her full name." I have never asked before. I do not know why I have never asked.

  She is preparing a stew for our dinner. The carrots have been chopped, lie scattered on the wooden board. Turning from her work at the kitchen counter, she faces me. "Margaret," she says. "Her maiden name was Loy." She frowns. "She married Martin Whalen. My father. You're named after him."

  "Where was she born?"

  "Ireland."

  "Where in Ireland, though?"

  "The Whalens, the Loys, the Radeys," she sighs. "Your father was born in county Kerry. I was born in King's County. Kerry's the wild county, green and rolling, near the sea. The southwest. King's County is more in the center, farther east. It's farming land. Southwest of Dublin. Northeast of Cork." She wipes her hands on her apron, lifts her chin, stares at me, silent, in thought.

  "How old do you think she is?"

  Her eyes shift to the wall behind me as she answers. "I've wondered myself, many a time." A pause. "I'm sixty-two. So I'm told," she adds. "Born in eighteen forty-five. How old does that make her?"

  I don't know. I don't know what I am supposed to know. "Was she old or young when you were a child?"

  "What do you mean?" Her eyes move back to me.

  "You know. You were fifteen when Sarah was born, thirty-five when I was born." Thirty-five sounds so old to me as I say it. Maybe, I think suddenly, I should not have mentioned Sarah.

  But she smiles.

  I wait.

  "There were just the two of us. Me and my brother. His name was Mártain, too." She pronounces the name with its Irish lilt, and I hear the old language, hear it sing. "So you see, there's a Martin in each generation."

  Then she pauses, seems to be remembering. "She was young," she says. Then: "Did you know that her name, Loy, is the Irish for shovel^"

  I shake my head, say nothing, just listen.

  Her lips move, as if to say something, as if to complete the thought. But she says nothing else aloud.

  "Father died in Ireland, shortly after I was born. Mártain was three. Eighteen forty-five. At the beginning of the famine."

  Ma sits at the kitchen table as she speaks; I stand by the window.

  "That's why there are only the two of us." A pause. "He choked to death on a piece of meat. We were all there, even me, wrapped in a blanket in a box. It was dinnertime." Another pause. "Mártain used to tell me how mother screamed and screamed. He was too little to do anything. He used to say that he remembered it vividly. He just cried. He was scared."

  I have never heard this before, have never asked. I am stunned.

  Ma is quiet for a minute. Then: "That was the beginning of the end for Mother. They say she was never the same after that. By the time we left Ireland, the next year, her mind was going. We had been evicted. We had nothing. Everybody had nothing. There was no food. Nothing. I try to imagine it." Ma stops, hesitates, then: "She wasn't as bad as she has been since you've known her. But she wasn't able to make the decision to emigrate. Uncle Liam made that decision, and put her and Mártain and me on the ship. He was Mother's brother. He did most of the looking out for us the year after Father died." A pause. "Liam's dead."

  The story hypnotizes me. "What happened to Mártain?" I have never met him, have barely heard his name over the years.

  Ma looks at me. "Last I heard, he was out west somewhere." She turns her head to look out the window beside me. "It's been years." Her voice can scarcely get the words out. "I don't know what happened to him," she says.

  That night, I go in to see Gramma before going to bed. She lies there, the Lourdes water beside her, looks at me. We look at each other.

  "I met a woman," I tell her. She opens her mouth, startled. "You'd like her." I place my hand on hers. She squeezes it tightly, frantically. Her eyes study my face.

  "I know her from somewhere." I am touching her.

  2

  On Monday, at twelve noon, I leave work promptly, knowing that I do not have much time on my lunch hour. Within ten minutes, I am inside the doors of Simpson's Yonge and Richmond entrance, within the crackle of mundane trade and commerce—in a place that is beginning to feel quite comfortable.

  The first thing I notice is that the sign has been changed. Now it reads: Ostrich plumes 12 & 18" long, well curled, Duchess style—Regularly 2.25 to 3.25 for $1.48. The second thing I notice is that she is here, beneath the sign.

  I stand, watch, but do not approach. She is busy serving a customer, a woman. But I do not notice the customer in the same way that I notice her. I see the high-collared blouse, the high-waisted skirt, the hair rolling across the forehead. The pin at her throat, I now see, is heart shaped. And her mouth does indeed curve down at the corners, full, soft. I have seen her before, somewhere.

  Watching her, not daring to approach, I cannot fully grasp my fascination. My need.

  My desire. My fear.

  From various points on the floor, in a secret world, I watch until I must leave, note her movements, her patience, her mannerisms. Then, to my own surprise, I go back to work without letting her know that I was there.

  In the offices of Don Valley Pressed Bricks and Terra Cotta, the events of the afternoon flow by me, dreamlike.

  My lunch hour the next day, Tuesday, is a repeat of yesterday's. In Simpson's, I float about the floor, as casual as a bumblebee visiting daisies on a summer afternoon, yet I never take my eyes from her. I watch her move, sigh, smile, sag, touch her hair, straighten the items on the counter. I watch how she rubs the back of one hand with her fingers, unthinkingly, as she passes the time, waits for the next customer. She wears no rings.

  But I am still afraid to talk to her, and I am uncertain why I am afraid. Yet even being this close feels right. For now.

  When I stand in front of her the next day, at precisely 12:15 P.M., she smiles hesitantly. Then I see it in her eyes. She remembers. And her eyes tell me that she is trying to remember something else, the same thing that I am trying to place.

  The smile falters, returns.

  "Good afternoon."

  She returns the courtesy. "Good afternoon."

  "I was in here last Saturday."

  "I remember."

  "I'd like to apologize."

  "I don't see what for."

  "For everything."

  She says nothing.

  "Please forgive me."

  "Nothing happened."

  "I did not behave like a gentleman."

  "On the contrary, you were a perfect gentleman."

  "Only after the fact."

  "Sometimes after the fact is the perfect place for courtesy, when it has been missed in the first instance." She stares at me. "Second chances are important."

  I feel warmed by her largesse. "Thank you."

  She smiles. When she does so, the downturned comers of her mouth disappear, and to me, she is radiant. Her eyes drop to my hands. "You still have your old hat."


  "I do. I do indeed. What do you recommend?"

  She shrugs. "Depends. Formal or informal. Formal, I'd think you'd suit a Homburg. Slightly curved brim, dent in the crown."

  I watch as she stretches to take one down from a shelf on the men's side, see her laced shoe with the almond-shaped toe peek from beneath her skirt.

  "If you're thinking of something informal, you'd be wanting a boater. Straw. Summer's coming." She looks at me, intrigued. "Either'd suit you."

  "I have a boater," I say. Everybody has a boater. I do not add that it, too, is rather old.

  She smiles quizzically. "Then the Homburg."

  "Hmm." I consider. Then I see that her fingers are touching the brim, and my mind is set. I must have it.

  I take it from her, watch as her fingers slip off. Turning it over, I run a hand within its white silk interior, along the richness of the leather sweatband. I try it on. It is a perfect fit. How did she know?

  "I'll take it."

  "You look smashing." And she smiles. Smiles the radiant smile.

  In a mood of exuberance, my new hat boxed beneath my arm, just before I exit the store, on an impulse I stop and pick up a stainless steel thermos bottle. I am not sure why I am holding it. No one I know owns a thermos bottle, with its promise of hot or cold drinks anytime one wishes.

  I roll it in my fingers, surely a sign of good things to come.

  One dollar and ninety-five cents. Another celebration.

  It seems a splendid thing. I pull two ones from my wallet, buy it, stroll grandly through brass and wood and glass doors, feel the warmth of June on my hands and face, seeping through my suit.

  I pour the hot tea from the thermos into the cup that serves as its lid and hold it to Gramma's mouth. Her lips grope at its rim, drink noisily. I wipe her chin as I take it away.

  "It's called a thermos," I tell her.

  She looks at me, head trembling ever so slightly, unsteady on her thin neck. The skin hanging loosely from her jawline is like talcum powder, a soft corduroy that might melt at the touch. Her mouth forms the o.

  I take her hand, place it on the side of the steel container, let her feel its smoothness, its strength.

  "Now you can have hot tea anytime you want."

  She looks from it to me and back again.

  "I spoke to her today."

  She stares at me, a bird trembling.

  "She sells hats in Simpson's. I can't get her out of my mind."

  Gramma reaches for the cup cradled in my hand, a finger slipping into the warm liquid. I hold it to her mouth, watch as her eyes roll back in her head, as she swallows in gulps.

  Steadying her as she drinks, I think, suddenly: Margaret. Margaret Loy. I picture her screaming in the kitchen of a thatched cottage, a baby in a box, while a small boy cries on the dirt floor beside her.

  In Simpson's the next day, I watch her again, working up my nerve. But I do nothing about it. I cannot think of a believable ploy to approach her. I need an excuse, but can think of none.

  Life stalls, eddies.

  Her face, her eyes, her mouth.

  "I don't know what to do, Gramma."

  In a surprising move, she reaches across and touches my face, my lips, running her fingers along my cheek.

  I let her touch me. I let her probe for the source of the person sitting beside her. Then I take her hand in mine, hold it, feel the fingers curl about mine, feel it relax.

  How, I wonder, did this happen? How did it become Margaret Loy and me? It has come out of nowhere. And it occurs to me, just as abruptly, a sudden insight, that perhaps everything comes out of nowhere.

  "Help me," I say to her.

  The fingers tighten. I sit there. Together, wordlessly, we plot.

  I wait until Friday, until the end of the workday, guessing that she will be working Friday evening, as she was last week, as I now imagine she does every week as a matter of course. She sees me coming across the floor, smiles that curious smile, waits.

  "Good evening."

  "And good evening to you." Her eyes glance at my head. "And how is the hat?"

  I am sporting the new Homburg, feeling resplendent. "Couldn't be better. One of my finer purchases." I touch the brim. Her hands, fine boned, rest on the glass counter.

  I ask it. "Would you enjoy a cup of tea? Some coffee? A drink after work?"

  A beat. Several beats. What I have sensed before is true. She is older than me. I feel it fully now. This has been part of the mystique, I realize slowly—my inability to be more worldly than her. Something I perceive dimly as her experience. Her hesitation is the interval of assessment, of intuition, of decision.

  But her answer is kind. And warm. "What a pleasant idea," she says.

  My spirits soar.

  "And how would we go about this? I don't finish until nine." She waits.

  "Does someone come to pick you up?"

  "No." She is smiling broadly now, understanding the game, the necessary moves, but the smile is still laced with reserve. I am being studied carefully.

  "Have you had dinner?" I ask suddenly. Maybe there are more possibilities.

  "Yes. An early one. At five."

  I shrug, return to my original idea. "I could have a bite to eat. Do some shopping. I'd be back at nine to meet you here."

  The corners of her mouth uplift into a grace. "Why not?"

  And I am happy. It is that simple. "My name is Martin Radey."

  She nods, continues to smile, bemusement and recognition crossing her features like a cloud's ground shadow on a sunny day.

  "Margaret Curtis." The eyes staring into mine are hazel, and with her name I now know what she knows. We have indeed met before, at my sister Teresa's wedding. We danced, once, the day her brother Peter married my big sister Teresa. I have not seen nor thought of her since. "Call me Maggie," she says, carefully, imparting an intimacy, bonding us to that vanished moment. The word is both shadow and sunshine, hope and loss, and infinite possibility.

  "And what is it that you do now, Martin Radey?" She has appropriated the pouring of the tea. I watch her hands, one holding the curved handle, the other pinning the lid to the teapot so that it does not tumble off. We are at a table in Bowles' Restaurant, at the comer of Queen and Bay.

  "I work in the receiving department at Don Valley Pressed Bricks and Terra Cotta."

  "And where is that?"

  "Adelaide Street East. Not too far from here."

  "Is it a good job?"

  I shrug. "It's a job."

  "But is it a good job?" She places the teapot carefully at the side of the table, wipes the spout with a napkin.

  "It's the only job I've ever had. The only real, full-time one. I've been there for almost nine years."

  "Then how do you know if it's a good job or not?"

  I sip my tea, consider. "What do you mean?"

  "To know if it's a good job or not, it seems to me that you'd need to have something to compare it to."

  I listen to her, but I am mostly staring at her mouth. "I see what you mean."

  "Do you?" The odd smile again.

  "I think so," I say. Even her voice, its cadence, has my attention.

  She sips her tea. I watch how her lips, lightly flushed, glisten as she sets her cup back into the saucer. "Did you know," she says, "that the National Council of Women called for equal pay for equal work at its assembly earlier this year?"

  This catches me off guard. I am uncertain what she is talking about. "No," I say. "I didn't know that."

  She smiles. "Have you heard of the National Council of Women?"

  I watch her. "I confess. I haven't." I feel suddenly foolish. How could I not have heard of it? What have I been doing?

  "Most men haven't," she says.

  I do not want to be most men. I am not sure if we have made a strong start together. I still see the unshaped girl in my mind. This is unsettling, in complete opposition to what I would have hoped, even dreamed of. I ask: "And how long have you worked at Simpson's
?" And then, boldly, I add, "Is it a good job?"

  "Those are two questions, Martin Radey—"

  My name. From her lips.

  "—and I'll have to give you two answers."

  "I'm in no hurry." It is true. I will listen to her for hours, if she will let me.

  "I have worked for Robert Simpson's since the end of the Boer War. Since nineteen oh two. Five years now. Just shortly before Emmeline Pankhurst founded the National Women's Social and Political Union." She watches me. "You do not know of Mrs. Pankhurst, do you?"

  Her skin is truly soft, and she is really quite tiny. "No," I admit. "I don't."

  "She's determined to have the women's right to vote."

  "A suffragette."

  Her face lights. "Yes. I'm glad to know that you are familiar with the term."

  Finally, I think. Finally. I have pleased her.

  "Bills on women's suffrage have passed second readings in the Commons five times since eighteen eighty-six but have never proceeded beyond that stage. Someday, it will happen. Already, there are five states in America that have achieved suffrage for women. Wyoming has had it since eighteen sixty-nine. In eighteen ninety-three Colorado followed suit. And now Utah, Idaho, and Washington have fallen in line. Our day will come, even here."

  I am speechless. I stare at her in wonder. Slowly, I raise my cup to my lips, savor its abundant warmth.

  "I've scared you, haven't I, Martin Radey?"

  "Not at all." I hold the cup aloft. "You fascinate me. You don't scare me."

  "You're sure?"

  "Quite."

  "I have a habit," she says, "of mounting an occasional soapbox. It scares men off."

  "I must be tougher than most."

  "Glad," she says, "to hear it." The smile, still tinged with the hint of irony, relents, seems to accept. We have apparently crossed a bridge.

  She pours herself a second cup of tea. "To answer your other question: yes, it is a good job. I know this because I have had much with which to compare it. Before I was at Simpson's, I worked at Townsend Steam Laundry and at the Princess Laundry. I also worked briefly at Reedow Caterers, out in the west end. We catered weddings, dances, banquets, conventions, and the like. I even worked for the Davidson & Hay, Limited, importers and packers of Kurma Tea. We sold it to grocers in pounds and half pounds, black or mixed. Do you know Kurma Tea?"