Crow Lake

by Mary Lawson

  There was an afternoon—maybe a Sunday, when we all had a bit of free time—when Luke decided I should teach Bo some nursery rhymes. A peaceable occupation if ever there was one. He was concerned that she was going to grow up not knowing any and persuaded me to sing some to her. She was over the measles by then and back to her old noisy self, slinging saucepans about in the kitchen.

  “Teach her some, Kate,” he said. “Teach her the main ones.”

  “What are the main ones?”

  “I don’t know. Teach her the ones you like best.”

  I couldn’t think of a single one. “I don’t remember any,” I said.

  “Hickory Dickory Dock,” Matt said. He was sitting at the kitchen table writing to Aunt Annie.

  Self-consciously I said, “Say ‘Hickory Dickory Dock,’ Bo.”

  Bo paused in her work and looked at me suspiciously.

  “She thinks you’ve flipped,” Matt said, scribbling away.

  I tried again. “Bo, say ‘Hickory Dickory Dock.’

  “Icky Dicky Dock,” Bo said brusquely. She looked around her, searching for a particular saucepan.

  “Good!” I said. “That’s good, Bo. Now say, ‘The mouse ran up the clock.’”

  “Dis pan,” Bo said. She seized the largest pan and started whamming the others into it in order of size. She was pretty good at it, too. She didn’t make many mistakes.

  “She’s ignoring you,” Matt said in a pause in the din. “She’s decided you’re nuts.”

  “Come on, Bo,” I said. “‘The mouse ran up the clock.’”

  “Silly,” Bo said, sparing a moment to wave a stern finger at me.

  “It is pretty dumb,” Luke said. “Try another one. Sing her a whole one.”

  I thought for a moment and then sang:

  “Miss Polly had a dolly who was sick, sick, sick,

  So she phoned for the doctor to come quick, quick,

  quick. The doctor came with his bag and his hat

  And he knocked on the door with a rat-a-tat-tat.”

  Bo looked at me with narrow-eyed interest.

  “You’ve got her,” Matt said in a stage whisper. “She’s hooked. Reel her in slowly.”

  “Sick, sick, sick,” Bo said experimentally. “La la la.”

  “Good, Bo! Good! Listen:

  “He looked at the dolly and he shook his head

  And he said, ‘Miss Polly, put her straight to bed.’

  He wrote out a letter for a pill, pill, pill,

  ‘I’ll be back in the morning with my bill, bill, bill.’”

  “Pill pill pill,” Bo said, watching my lips closely and bending her knees in time to the rhythm.

  “Good, Bo! That’s really good!”

  “Sick sick sick!” Bo chanted. “Bill bill bill!”

  “Good!”

  “Have we had a bill from Dr. Christopherson?” Matt asked.

  Luke said, “What?”

  “For Bo’s measles. Have we had a bill?”

  Luke shrugged. “Don’t think so.” He went back to watching Bo.

  “Sick sick sick!” Bo yelled, belting it out. “La la la!”

  “How much will it be, do you think?” Matt said.

  “Haven’t a clue.”

  “Yeah, but roughly. He must have made four or five visits. It’s bound to be quite a bit.”

  “Let’s worry about it when it arrives, okay? Sing it again, Kate. Take it a line at a time. She’s really learning fast.”

  But I was watching Matt, who’d got to his feet and gone over to the window. It was dark already and he couldn’t have seen anything but his own reflection, but he just stood there, looking out.

  There was silence for a moment and then Luke said, “You just love to worry, don’t you? You just can’t exist without worrying. You can’t let one single thing pass, you can’t have one single afternoon, one single minute when you’re not stewing away, chewing away at it. You can’t just let things go for one single solitary minute… . You have to ruin every goddamned thing we do.”

  Matt said quietly, “We’ve got to do something, Luke. We’re going through Dad’s money so fast.”

  “I keep telling you! Something will turn up!”

  “Sure,” Matt said. “Sure.”

  I think that was probably the turning point for him— the point at which he decided things couldn’t go on as they were. Which was absurd, really, because if he’d thought about it, he would have known that Dr. Christopherson would never have dreamed of sending them a bill.

  There is a three-week gap in my letters to Aunt Annie in March and I know why. That was when the friction between Matt and Luke finally came to a head, and the Eleventh Commandment was well and truly shattered and our small world very nearly fell apart.

  Matt broke the news at dinner. That seems to have been the rule in our household—if you had anything earth-shattering to say you said it at the dinner table, preferably when everyone else had a mouthful.

  “I’ve got something to tell you all,” he said, helping himself to Mrs. Stanovich’s stew. “I’ve quit school.”

  As it happened Luke did have a mouthful. He stopped chewing and looked down the table at Matt. At some stage during the preceding months they had changed the seating plan; Luke now sat at our mother’s place, which was nearest the kitchen, and Matt at our father’s. Bo and I were still side by side.

  “I talked to Mr. Stone today,” Matt continued. “Told him I was leaving for financial reasons. I’ve got a full-time job at the Hudson’s Bay store. Nine to five, Monday to Saturday. Obviously transportation is a problem until we get the car going again, but I’ve got that sorted out. I’ll go in on the school bus, and if I can’t get back in the evenings they say I can sleep in the storeroom at the Bay. They’ve been really helpful. Mr. Williams—he’s the boss—he knew Dad, it turns out—he seems a good guy”

  Luke was still staring at him, his mouth full of meat. Matt looked back at him calmly and started to eat. Luke gave a couple of chews and swallowed. It wasn’t very well chewed—you could see a big lump going down his throat, like when a snake swallows a frog. He swallowed again, twice, ducking his chin to help push the food down, and said, “What are you talking about?”

  “Work,” Matt said. “I’ve got a job. I’m going to earn some money.”

  Luke said, “What the hell are you talking about?”

  Matt looked at Bo and me and raised his eyebrows. “Someone’s not too swift today, ladies. Should I try again?” He wasn’t needling Luke, he was trying to make a joke out of it, make it less of a big deal.

  He turned back to Luke. “A job, Luke. Work. What you do to earn money, so you can buy things.”

  “What do you mean you’ve quit school?”

  “I mean I’ve quit school. You know? ‘Quit’ as in ‘stop‘? I’ve stopped going to school. I’m not going to school any more.”

  Luke pushed his chair back from the table. He didn’t look as if he thought it was a joke. He said, “What the hell are you talking about? You’ve got exams in two months.”

  “I’ll probably take the exams, get my grade thirteen. Mr. Stone said I could do that. It won’t matter that I’ll have missed a couple of months—I’ve done enough to pass anyway.”

  “Passing isn’t good enough—you have to get a scholarship. You know that! How’re you going to get to university if you don’t get a scholarship?”

  “I’m not going to university.”

  Luke stared at him, bug-eyed.

  Matt said gently, “Look, what we’re doing—trying to keep going with part-time jobs so one of us can always be with the girls—it’s not going to work. How can it work? We must have been nuts to think it could.”

  He studied Luke’s face, which was going red, anger massing up under the skin, and glanced uneasily at Bo and me. He must have been regretting that he’d made his announcement while we were present. He couldn’t have expected Luke to be pleased at the change of plan, but he obviously hadn’t expected quite such a
reaction.

  “Look,” he said. “Let’s talk about it later, okay?”

  “Oh no,” Luke said. “Ohhh no. We’re going to sort it out right now, because tomorrow you’re going back to school.”

  There was silence for the count of two or three. Matt said quietly, “It’s not your decision Luke. Like I said, I’ve quit.”

  “Well, you can just un-quit! There’s no goddamned reason at all for you to take a full-time job. At most we’ve got another month before we can start back with Old Man Pye, and then—”

  “That’s no answer! Even if we make it through this year, how are you going to manage when I leave? It’s impossible! One of us has to work and one of us has to stay home—that’s the only way.”

  “Like hell it is! Like hell!” Luke’s voice was rising in volume and pitch. “We’re not going to need to stay with the girls forever! Next year Bo can go to someone in the afternoons—lots of people have offered—and Kate can join her there after school. They’ll both be okay without us by then. I’ll be able to work five afternoons a week. We can live on that! That plus what Aunt Annie sends.”

  He drew a breath, and you could see the effort he was making to calm down and speak reasonably, rationally, because he knew that that was the only way to influence Matt.

  “You go to university, you study for three, four years.” He stabbed it out on the table with his finger, stabbed so hard with the effort to speak calmly that his finger shuddered. “You work in the summers. You pay for yourself and if there’s anything left over, you send it home. You get your degree.” He looked up at Matt and stabbed out the last bit again. “You get your degree. Then you get a job, because then you’ll be able to get a good job. And then you can help, if we still need help.”

  Matt was shaking his head. “You’re kidding yourself. What part-time job is going to crop up next year just so you can work afternoons? You’re dreaming.”

  “It’ll work out,” Luke said, hanging on to his temper with his teeth. “And anyway it isn’t your problem. Winning a scholarship’s your problem. Looking after the girls is mine.”

  Matt went white. That was a funny thing about them; Luke’s anger rose to his face, Matt’s sank to his guts.

  Matt said, “Since when do you have sole responsibility for the girls? Since exactly when? What do you think I am? They’re my sisters too, you know. Do you think I’m going to just abandon them to you when you can’t even get a job?”

  Luke took hold of the sides of the table with both hands and ducked his head down like a bull about to charge. Then he leaned forward over the table and roared, “I’ll get a job! Something will turn up!”

  Matt stood up and walked out of the room.

  For a moment Luke sat where he was, gripping the table. Then he scrambled to his feet and went after him.

  I sat rigid, not breathing. There was a crash in the living room and they started shouting again.

  Bo climbed down off her chair and went to the doorway and stood there, her thumb in her mouth, watching them. I went and stood beside her. An armchair was on its side, and they were shouting across it. Luke said that Matt was going to ruin everything. Matt said, who did Luke think he was, God? Planning out everyone’s life for them? Luke said that Matt just couldn’t stand it, could he? Just couldn’t stand the thought that he, Luke, was going to do something important for once, something really important. It always had to be Matt. Well too bad. Too goddamned bad. He was the one who’d said he’d bring up the girls, it was his job and he was going to goddamned well do it, and he certainly did not need any help from Matt.

  Matt was white as a sheet by then. He said that was what it was about, wasn’t it? It was all about Luke. Saint Luke, carving out a role for himself as chief martyr and saviour of the family. It was nothing to do with the girls, really, was it? Nothing to do with what was really best for them. It was just Luke’s goddamned ego, all the way.

  And there was more, and worse, months and months of worry and frustration and grief all coming out together, all spilling out in a great rage of words, and it went on and on until Luke said the one final and unforgivable thing. He said that he’d given up his goddamned future so that Matt could get a degree and if Matt threw that away now, he’d kill him.

  I don’t know how to describe what happened next. You see fights in movies and on television where people swing at each other and knock each other down or smash each other’s jaws, but they are not real. The rage in them is not real. The fear in you, the watcher, is not real. You do not truly love the protagonists, you are not truly terrified that one of them will die. In times past, when they’d fought, I’d been afraid that Matt would be killed. Now I was certain of it, and certain that Luke would somehow die also. I thought the walls of the house would shatter and fall down around us. I thought the end of the world had come. And then I knew it had, because in the middle of all the uproar a movement beside me caught my eye and I looked down and saw Bo shaking so that even her hair seemed to vibrate. She’d gone rigid, her arms sticking down stiffly at her sides, fingers spread, and her mouth was open wide and tears were pouring down her face but she wasn’t making a sound. It was the most frightening thing I’d ever seen. She was so brave, Bo. I had thought that nothing could frighten her.

  It ended at last, though not by burning itself out. The last thing that happened was that Matt swung at Luke and Luke caught his arm and gave the most tremendous heave and wrenched Matt right off his feet. There was a curious sound, a kind of dull snap, and a terrific yell from Matt, and then he crashed into the wall and slid down it to the floor.

  For a moment there was no sound at all.

  Then Luke said, “Get up.” He was panting, still furious.

  Matt was lying at a funny angle up against the wall. He didn’t answer. I could see his face; it was stiff and white, his eyes open wide.

  “Get up,” Luke said again. When Matt still didn’t reply he stepped toward him, and then Matt spoke.

  He said, “Stay back!” He seemed to force the words out through his teeth.

  Luke stopped. “Get up,” he said again, but he sounded uncertain.

  Matt didn’t reply. It was then that I saw that something had happened to his arm. It was twisted behind him, underneath him, and his shoulder was a huge hump and in the wrong place. I started screaming. I thought his arm had come off. Inside his shirt, his arm had come off at the shoulder. I was sure of it. Mr. Tadworth’s eldest son had had his arm cut off when he fell under a boxcar and he had bled to death before anyone could help him.

  Luke was shouting at someone, shouting at me. “Shut up! Shut up, Kate!” He grabbed me and shook me and then I was quiet.

  He looked at Matt and ran both his hands through his hair. “What’s wrong?” he said.

  “Call the doctor,” Matt said. His voice was so tight it just scraped out.

  “Why? What’s wrong?” But he’d seen the arm too, and his voice was unsteady.

  “Call the doctor.”

  I remember the wait, Matt lying so still it seemed he wasn’t breathing, his face gray and shiny with sweat. I remember Dr. Christopherson coming into the room and looking at Matt where he lay, and then at Bo and myself, and finally at Luke, who was sitting, by then, with his head in his hands. He said, “What happened?” and no one replied.

  I remember that he knelt down beside Matt and unbuttoned his shirt and slid his hand up to feel the shoulder, and Matt drew his lips back over his teeth exactly like the fox I’d once seen caught in one of Mr. Sumack’s traps. Dr. Christopherson said quietly, “Okay, Matt. It’s okay. Your shoulder’s dislocated, that’s all. We’ll have it right in no time.”

  He stood up and gave Luke a look, flat and hard, and said, “You’re going to have to help,” and I remember Luke looking at him, and then looking at Matt and wiping his mouth with the back of his hand.

  Dr. Christopherson turned and looked thoughtfully at Bo and me. Bo had almost stopped shaking, though the tears were still rolling down. Every now
and then a tremor would run through her and her breath would come out with a shudder. Dr. Christopherson came over and put a hand on her head and smoothed her hair, and then did the same to me.

  He said, “I’m going to need your help too, Kate. Will you help me with something? Molly’s alone in the car and she gets lonely if I leave her too long. I wonder if you’d help me get Bo into her snowsuit and then the two of you could go out and sit in the car and keep her company. The car’s out at the road—I couldn’t get it down your driveway—but I’ve left the engine running, so it’s nice and warm.”

  I remember walking behind him as he carried Bo along the snow tunnel up to the road, and I remember Molly’s delight when he opened the car door and sat Bo and me down beside her on the back seat. Molly was the gentlest dog I’ve ever known. She was also a marvellous nurse. She washed Bo’s tear-soaked face gently with her tongue, crooning to her all the while, and within a few minutes Bo was crooning back, burying herself in Molly’s warm neck, wrapping herself in the silken ears.

  As for me, I sat beside them and waited to be told that Matt was dead. I knew by then that when terrible things were about to happen an excuse was found to get Bo and me out of the way. I’d had plenty of opportunities to work that one out. So by the time Dr. Christopherson came back for us I was deep in shock and he had another patient on his hands.

  The irony of it all, of course, was that within weeks Luke was proved right. Something Turned Up.

  part

  FOUR

  chapter

  SIXTEEN

  There was a time—quite a long time—when none of them seemed very real to me.

  Perhaps real isn’t the right word. Relevant is better. My family didn’t seem relevant. It was while I was an undergraduate. Not the first year, when I was so homesick I thought I might die of it, but later, in the second and third years, when my horizons were expanding and Crow Lake seemed to shrink to the tiny insignificant dot that it appeared to be on the map.