by Vicki Delany
Death is a part of life.
The cotton handkerchief, well worn to begin with, was now in shreds. Full of my own pain, I paid no attention to the river of mourners pouring out of the church. The family, even the great-grandchildren, lined up beside me to shake hands. But I didn’t see my brother Jimmy.
Liz’s husband, the reclusive Ralph, did put in an appearance. He stood beside me on the lawn, all four hundred some pounds of him. The man was a mountain. A short, fat mountain, constantly wiping rivers of sweat from his forehead. It was a sunny but cool spring day. I didn’t want to be around to see Ralph in the heat of summer.
We drove in a dark procession to the graveside. Funerals should always be held in the rain, the colder and heavier the better. But for my mother’s interment the sun shone brightly in a cheerful baby-blue sky.
The graveside service was, thank goodness, short. The ritual of the words was comforting, even to someone who has no religion. At the end, Al supported my dad, who was sobbing silently. My dad so rarely showed any emotion that as a child I didn’t think he felt any. It had all been beaten out of him. Young.
Service over, I stood by myself, shaking hands, most of which were liver spotted and gnarled, as the crowd broke up and people walked to their cars. Everyone stopped to say a word, every word kind and tinged with sadness, condolences heartfelt. I wondered what people will find to say at my funeral.
Kimmy Wright hugged me closely, like we were best friends or something, before introducing me to her mother. “If there is anything you need…” Kimmy said, the tone and words as ritual as the graveside service.
Actually, Kimmy, I need you to tell me that you were a perfect bitch in high school, and announce to those here assembled that I didn’t let John Ferrar stick his tongue down my throat and put his hand up my skirt behind the bleachers. Or anywhere else for that matter.
I smiled and thanked her and her mother, so frail that she looked as if a strong wind would have her flat on her back on the graveyard lawn, for coming.
Chapter 14
The Diary of Mrs. Janet McKenzie. April 2, 1945
Shirley. Her name is Shirley. She has dark eyes and almost no hair. But her nose is exactly like Bob’s and her skin is dark, like his. I am sure of it. I am sure I remember right. It has been so long since we were together, that sometimes I have to struggle to picture his face in my mind. It was an easy birth, the sister told me. I certainly didn’t think so! But it is over and I am A MOTHER! Imagine that. Me, Janet MCKENZIE, nee Green, is a MOTHER. I only wish that Bob could be here. I have no idea where he is. Oh, I wish that this horrid war would be over. They say it can’t go on much longer. They say our soldiers are almost in Germany.
Bob’s mum wrote me a lovely letter last month. She welcomed me into their family. Bob told me that he is an only child, and it was really hard on his mum when he joined the army. (He spells it Mom. I am going to be a Canadian so I will have to learn to call her Mom.) I will write to her tonight. And tell her all about Shirley. A first grandchild! And there will be lots and lots more. I would like six babies. Six Canadian babies, little Misters and Misses McKenzie. All of us on our lovely farm in Canada. I haven’t heard from my own mum. I hope she is safe. The bombing has been something fierce in London and now they have these horrid rockets falling all the time. I worry sometimes that she is hurt and calling for me. But they can’t find me.
Dad came to visit earlier. It took all my courage but I asked him if he had word from Mum, if she knew she was a granny. His face just clouded over, like it always does when someone mentions her, and he said no. Aunt Betty came to visit also. She brought a perfectly huge pile of knitting. Tiny, perfect cardigans and booties. She made a great fuss over Shirley, but I know that she is afraid of the day we will leave for Canada.
December 25, 1945
You would think that with the war being over it would be the most wonderful Christmas ever. But it isn’t. We didn’t have much for Christmas dinner. Dad killed one of the chickens and Aunt Betty made a lovely doll for Shirley but still everyone seems so down. I miss Bob terribly. I thought that when the war ended we would be together, forever. But it has been seven months already. There is no more food in the shops than ever there was. Everything is still rationed. I hate it! I hate it all! Bob has left for Canada. I understand that we can’t travel together. But I want to be gone.All this waiting is perfectly awful. I have been getting letters from the Canadian Wives’ Club. Other wives and children have left for Canada already. Why not us?
Bob was here for two days only. Two days! Then he was gone again. In all our married life I have had not much more than a few weeks with my husband. I have more acquaintance with the pathetic, crippled Hugh Maitland than with my own husband.
Happily, this time we were able to engage in marital relations. It really is quite wonderful, when you can relax and forget about how ridiculous it all is. Bob was just getting started, so to speak, when Shirley began to cry.It was Aunt Betty’s own suggestion, that she care for Shirley for the night and we move the cot into her room. When I heard my baby crying, I wanted to get up to go to her, but Bob told me to let her be. Of course I worried about her the whole time but some part of my mind still liked Bob’s attentions. The next night it was much better. Shirley slept the night through. But then he was gone again. At least not to the war this time. Back to Canada. Safe. Waiting for me. And for our daughter.
Chapter 15
The reception was held at Jackie’s house near North Ridge. Everyone who had been at the church and then at the graveside, as well as a handful of stragglers, packed into the thoroughly modern house. Totally without character, it would have fit into any suburb of any city in North America. Like all of its fellows, lined cheek-to-jowl down the long straight street on which only the houses were big—the trees were nothing but overgrown twigs. Sad to see such a house and such a street in a town as distinctive as North Ridge. But it was no business of mine how North Ridge handled its growth.
The twins had been assigned the task of making sure their great-granddad was taken care of. They ensured that he was settled comfortably in the settee in front of the cold and empty gas fireplace and, as instructed, scurried off in their matching navy blue dresses to fetch tea and sandwiches. A few women close to his age, unaccompanied by men, settled down near him.
A half-remembered line from Hamlet teased the edges of my brain. Something about the funeral baked meats not yet being cold.
Tea was the order of the day. Tea and enough sandwiches, salads, casseroles, cakes, and squares to sink a battleship. But I found Jackie and Liz and a couple of their friends out on the back porch sharing a bottle of red wine. I swallowed my tea in one gulp and held out the rental-supply cup.
“Now you mustn’t tell anyone, Aunt Rebecca,” Jackie giggled, pouring a generous slug. Liz grunted once, put her glass down on the wooden railing and walked into the house. She forgot to say hello.
“I don’t think Liz likes me.”
The friends mumbled their condolences and scurried for safety.
“She doesn’t not like you,” Jackie said, once we were alone. Night was moving in. Soft and gentle like a cloak of the best black velvet. Clouds covered the sky, hiding the moon and stars. Crickets chirped in the distance, a single frog croaked, heralding a chorus. A thick line of fully grown trees bordered the postage stamp slice of backyard. Judging by the development around here, they wouldn’t last much longer. And the frogs and crickets would disappear along with them. “My sister doesn’t like many people.”
I shrugged. Her problem. “Have you seen Jimmy?”
“Why do you ask? I get the feeling you and Uncle Jimmy don’t get on too well, either.”
“Inquisitive little thing, aren’t you? I would say that most of this family doesn’t get on with me too well. What about you?”
Unasked, she refilled my glass. “I like it here, in North Ridge. I went away for a while. To the big, bad city. To the University of Toronto, on a full scholarship which
I was exceedingly lucky to get because my parents couldn’t afford it otherwise. I managed to get my degree but didn’t like the life much. I missed Hope River. I missed my mom, and my grandma, I even missed my sister. Probably a first in the history of the world.”
I smiled.
“So I came back. And I met a nice man here in North Ridge and I married him and we had a nice son and bought this house only a few miles up the road from Hope River, where I grew up. But at least I did have the chance to see something of the bigger world. And although it might not be the place for me, I do envy anyone who can walk boldly into that world and make it work for them.”
“Mom, Mom. Can we go and catch frogs? Can we?” Jason danced in the doorway, scarcely able to contain his enthusiasm.
“Who’s ‘we’?”
“Matthew. Me and Matthew.”
“Matthew and I.”
The boy scrunched his freckled face in confusion. “I guess you can come, if you want to.”
Jackie laughed and reached across me to rub her son’s head. Exactly the way I did to Sampson. “You know what I mean. Say hello to your Aunt Rebecca first.”
“Hello, Aunt Rebecca.”
“You can go with Matthew. But only to the swamp. You hear me? No further.”
“Okay.” He disappeared in a flash of ill-fitting suit and red curls.
“A nice boy,” I said.
“I think so.
“I was asking if you’d seen Jimmy.”
“So you were. I took a plate of ham and salads out to him about fifteen minutes ago. He’s in the garage. The die-hard smokers have set themselves up out there. Which coincidentally happens to be the location of Dave’s beer fridge.”
I walked through the house, placing my tea—turned wine—cup on the crowded kitchen counter as I passed.
A thin line of crocuses lined the concrete pathway running along the front of the house to the double driveway and attached garage. The flowers were folded in upon themselves, petals snuggled close together. Night was falling slowly as it does in this part of the world at this time of year, wrapping the gentle hills and calm lakes in a blanket of dim purple light, delicate odors, and muffled sounds. When I lived here as a child I loved the twilight hours the best. I still do, on the rare occasion I have time to enjoy them. Today I didn’t.
Jimmy had loosened his tie and undone the top button of his white shirt. The fold lines were so perfect that it was obvious the shirt had only recently been released from its store wrapping.
Dave held his can of beer up to me in a question.
I shook my head.
He finished his beer with a long swallow and crumpled the can in his fist. “Back to work,” he said with a huge martyred sigh. “Jackie will be looking for me.”
“Nice speech, Becky,” Jimmy said. He was drinking from a bottle, not a can, and studying the decoration on the label as if there would be a test later. “You did a good job.”
I shrugged.
“I suppose I shoulda done it. Being the only son and all. But I didn’t know what I could say.”
I snorted. “Were you there? In the church? I didn’t see you. Aileen sat up front, beside Jackie. With the family.”
“I sat at the back. To be honest, Beck, I was afraid I’d break down and I wanted to get out of there fast, if I had to.”
“My name is Rebecca. Not Becky and certainly not Beck. And God forbid any of your macho friends would see you crying at the funeral of your own mother.”
“Well pardon me, Rebecca. Look, you think I was a real shit to Mom. And I was, a long time ago, God forgive me. But you haven’t been home for years, and you don’t know what’s been happening around here. Things change. People change.” The look in his amazing eyes was one that I never thought I’d see. Not defiant, not gloating. Not proud and mocking. Almost as if he was asking for my understanding. Perhaps even my friendship.
And leopards change their spots every day. And pigs fly and snakes shed their skin and never grow any more.
Maybe he took acting lessons in jail. He’d never had the need to act before. His charm was natural and unforced, so powerful that everyone who fell under his spell assumed that they’d misinterpreted the briefly glimpsed streak of cruelty. Until it was too late.
“Stow it, Jimmy. I don’t really care.”
“Sure you do. Why else did you come back? You didn’t have to. You could have sent a big bunch of flowers and a fat check to cover the funeral. That’s all anyone expected, you know.”
That hit home. My brother always knew where to strike.
“I didn’t come out here to fight with you.”
“No, you didn’t. You came out here with a chip on your shoulder so big it’s crushing you. I’ve told you that things are different now. And Aileen has told you. If you won’t listen, then it’s your problem.”
The beer drinkers had scattered at the first of our angry words. Further down the driveway and out on the road, cars were starting up. The first of the mourners, probably those who had traveled a long way, were leaving.
“I came out here because I’m going home soon and I wanted to ask you what’s going to happen to Dad. I’ll have this same talk with Shirley.”
“You could always take him with you.” He tossed his beer bottle into an open trash bin. Missed by a mile and the bottle rattled off into a dark corner of Dave’s garage. He jerked the fridge door open and pulled out another. Visible under the starched shirt, the muscles in his back and shoulders were tense with strain.
“Well, I’m hardly going to do that, now am I?” I said, while at the same time begrudgingly admitting to myself that this was a first. The Jimmy I knew disdained to absorb any tension into his own body. Why should he, when he could always lash out at the nearest available target? Which sometimes happened to be my mom.
“Can’t afford it? That’s too bad, Becky. I could always send you a little bit every month. To help out, you know.”
“Fuck you, Jimmy.” I turned and took the first step back to the comparative safety of Jackie’s house.
“Run away, Becky. It’s what you do best, isn’t it?” His voice dropped and took the cruel edge with it. “Christ, this is stupid. We have to talk about Dad; there’s no getting around that. Maybe this isn’t the best time for it.”
“Is there ever a good time?”
Two men detached themselves from the group of smokers gathered by the front door out of earshot of our family squabbles. They spoke to each other in low voices. They looked familiar. Boys I had gone to school with? All grown up fat and ugly?
Jimmy paid them no attention. “No, there will never be a good time. But for some completely strange and unknown reason I want you to believe that things have changed with me. Mom wrote to you all the time; she visited you a year or so ago. She never complained about me the last few years, did she?”
“Jimmy,” I sighed and turned back to face him. “Mom never complained about you. Never. Maybe to her god but not to me. Christ, she never even said a word against Grandpa.”
I hate him, I hate him, I hate him.Those bitter, angry words told to the confessional of her diary. Which “him” might she have been thinking about?
Jimmy’s eyes darkened with what in anyone else I would have taken for pain. The look passed so quickly it might not have been, and my intuitive wariness returned. He wasn’t looking at me. He was looking over my shoulder.
“We’ve been wanting to talk to you, McKenzie,” the larger of the two men said. I recognized his voice. Jack, with his skinny, frightening friend. The men who’d accosted me in the grocery store. Today Jack had dressed in a cheap, badly fitting suit, once-white shirt, and thin black tie and had combed his greasy hair. All in honor of the funeral. How thoughtful of him.
“A lot of people in this town are mighty upset about what’s happened to the Taylor girl,” Jack’s pal said. He was small but his voice was very deep, not quite fitting the scrawny frame. His suit fit him a good deal better than his friend’s did.
/> Jimmy smiled. The way a shark smiles. “I’m upset too. She’s a nice girl. But I hear that the police are working full out on it. They’ve even brought in detectives from Toronto.”
“We think that maybe you should be helping the police with that,” Jack said. Neither of the men paid me any attention. Probably not a good thing.
“I would if I could.” Jimmy spread his arms out in supplication, the beer bottle firmly clenched in one fist. “But I’m sorry to say that I don’t know anything about it.”
“Some of the men in this town think maybe you know a whole lot about it,” said Scrawny. His right hand was pushed firmly into his pants pocket. Clenched. Holding something?
They both stepped forward.
“Do they, now?” Jimmy swung his beer bottle against a wooden shelf that held an array of shiny, pristine, never-used amateur tools. The brown bottle shattered and the body fell away. He balanced the jagged-edged neck comfortably in one hand.
Chapter 16
The Diary of Janet McKenzie. September 12, 1946
At last it is almost our turn. We are now in London, waiting in the hostel until they tell us it is time to get the train. It has been so many years since I was last in London. Not since that Christmas so long ago, when Arthur and Raymond were perfectly bratty and Mum was still with us. We heard all about the bombing of course, and saw the terrible pictures in the magazines and newspapers. And, night after night, we only had to look up to see those German bombers flying over Surrey, toward London and the north, our brave English fighters after them. But nothing quite prepared me for how much devastation there is.
I would love to go out and see the sights. But Shirley is poorly and she fusses all the time, night and day. Teeth, the Red Cross woman told me. But I know it’s more than that. She is a sensitive baby, very intelligent. Things were terribly difficult at home these last weeks. Dad was remote, cold almost, like I don’t remember him ever being before. Aunt Betty came over all crying and moody, saying that she couldn’t bear to part from the baby. Which, of course, had me crying no end and then Shirley all in an uproar. I almost considered not going. Not going to Canada. Not going to Bob. Of writing to him and telling him that I had changed my mind. But then what would become of me? A divorced woman, with a baby, in a little village in the south of England?