A Home in the Country

by Sheelagh Mawe

  We heard the bed springs creak and then Agnes yell, ‘Who the hell is it?’ her voice so high and so mad it crackled and Cathy and I gasped and grabbed hold of one another.

  ‘It’s me, ma’am. Danny.’

  Neither the woman nor the boy spoke for a moment, both, it seemed, too mad to talk, then both started yelling at the same time.

  ‘What in hell’s gotten into you, boy?’

  ‘It’s Superman!’

  ‘I’ll get you for this!’

  ‘You gotta come out, ma’am. Right now!’

  ‘Poundin’ on that door like you was crazy when you know … when I told you—’

  ‘He’s sick, ma’am. Real, real sick.’

  We heard her feet hit the floor, knew she was heading for the door, but even so we jumped backwards, Danny the furthest, when it opened and she was in front of us, her and her ugly dress seeming, as always, to fill the frame.

  ‘Sick?’ she screamed. ‘Whad’ya mean, sick? I told you, boy, I warned you! He caught up in somethin’?’

  ‘No, ma’am, he ain’t caught up in nothin’. But you need to come out right now. He’s pantin’ like he ran a real long way and he don’t hardly seem able to hold hisself up and—’

  Agnes’ fist landed on his mouth. ‘You got me up for that? Jesus Christ! And my back hurtin’ fit to kill. More’n likely he done run a long way. You seen him runnin’ around the place since the day he was born, same as me … God damn you!’

  She turned back towards the bed as if she was going to get back on it, one hand rubbing at her lower back. Danny reached out and grabbed that hand.

  ‘Get the hell out there, right now!’ he ordered, pointing with his free hand in the direction of the door.

  Agnes spun around to face him, her face so shocked it looked frozen. Snatching her hand back, she rubbed it, front and back, on her dress while her breath came in short gasps.

  A while longer she stood there, her eyes going from Danny to her bed, before making up her mind. ‘Long as I’m up …’ she glowered.

  Pushing Danny aside, she headed for the stairs and for the first time saw Cathy and me.

  ‘I’ll have your hides, messin’ here in the house when I told you pull weeds,’ she hissed. She kept on going, though, Danny right behind her, expressing his hatred of her by pulling the ugliest face he could think to pull.

  The instant Agnes opened the kitchen door she heard Suzy’s bawling and hurried her pace. Coming to the end of her previous zig-zag path, she could see into the orchard, see Superman, and what she saw was a lot worse than Danny had described.

  For by then the calf’s front legs had buckled and he was down on his knees still emitting that terrible, gasping, gurgling sound. Agnes started running in a lumbering, old-lady kind of way, the three of us right behind her, and then she was kneeling beside him and we saw his saliva had turned pink from blood running out of both nostrils.

  Agnes grabbed his head and wiped away the saliva with the hem of her dress and peered into his mouth. Seeing nothing unusual in there, she let it go and sat back on her heels, obviously not knowing any more than we did what was wrong with him. She ran her hand along his flank, which was heaving and sweating and brought it back the other way and as she did so her wrist bumped into an object lodged in his throat. An object we had failed to notice.

  She probed it with her fingers, then turned to look up at Danny, her face so filled with hatred we all wanted to turn and run and never stop.

  ‘How long you been lollygaggin’ around out here while my calf chokes to death?’ she asked.

  Chokes to death? No! Oh, no!

  Danny tried to talk. ‘Wasn’t long, ma’am,’ he stammered. ‘Just as soon’s I got done eatin’ I come down for baskets to haul off the weeds and when I come out the barn I seen him and … I come got you.’

  Agnes reached out and grabbed his ankle, yanked it and Danny sat down so hard all the breath came out of him in a wheezing kind of groan.

  ‘You’re lyin’, boy,’ she said. ‘You went and got these girls away from their weeds first.’

  She fingered the lump in Superman’s throat again. ‘It’s gotta be a apple,’ she muttered.

  Again she turned on Danny, ‘Goddam you, boy! If I told you once I must’ve told you a million times not to never, not never, stake these animals in this here orchard, din’t I?’

  Danny was still trying to get his breath back and was beyond caring about anything anymore and in a wheezing, croaking kind of way, said, ‘You told me this mornin’ to stake ’em in the orchard, you lyin’ bitch! You said grass in here was higher’n your eye.’

  Agnes lumbered to her feet, landed a kick in Danny’s ribs and whirled on Cathy. ‘Looks like you got the skinniest arms, girl,’ she said. ‘Reach down his throat get aholt of that apple. Pull it out … push it down … whichever. Sarah, you and Danny get around back of him, set on him so’s he can’t move. I’ll hold his head up.’

  Whimpering, trembling from head to toe in a way that made all her actions seem jerky, Cathy stumbled forward and tried to get her hand in Superman’s slobbering, drooling mouth and down his throat while Danny and I did our best to sit on his heaving, tortured flanks. But the calf struggled with such desperate agony that none of us succeeded in our tasks.

  ‘Get the damn thing out,’ Agnes roared. ‘Pull on it!’

  ‘I … I … can’t,’ Cathy wailed. ‘I can’t reach in that far.’

  ‘You try, Danny,’ Agnes exploded, ‘Your arms are longer’n hers. No, wait. We need something longer yet. Go get me some bailin’ wire. We can push it down with that.’

  Danny looked mutinous. ‘I ain’t gonna,’ he said. ‘You stick bailin’ wire down his throat you’re gonna cut him up real bad inside.’

  Agnes’ head went down and she gasped and we knew she was having yet another dizzy spell and while we watched her sway, our ears filled with the sound of Suzy’s bawling and Superman’s tortured breathing, and it was all we could do not to yell, ‘Get the hell over it, Agnes! Right now!’

  Danny’s breathing was nearly back to normal by then and he yelled, ‘Agnes! Go on up the house right now call up a veterinarian—’ He stopped because he saw what Cathy and I saw: the dreamy, smiley look coming over Agnes’ face. He moved in closer to her and pointing to the house, again yelled, ‘Go call a veterinarian, Agnes, right now!’

  Agnes smiled and shook her head.

  We all said – screamed – ‘Agnes, go call up a veterinarian! You got to else he’s gonna die!’

  Ignoring us, she looked at her wrist as if she was wearing a watch. ‘I need to get a move on,’ she muttered. ‘I got me a bus to catch. Should’ve left a while back…. Have to kill him is all. I done my best. Danny?’

  ‘Ma’am?’

  ‘Ever killed a calf?’

  ‘No, ma’am.’

  ‘Me, neither. Don’t rightly know how. Ain’t got no gun.’ She shaded her eyes, looked around, saw the axe sticking out of the chopping block and for a second her eyes lit up. She shrugged, letting go of the thought, ‘He ain’t no chicken and I ain’t got the strength,’ she said. ‘Think you can do it, Danny?’

  ‘No, ma’am.’

  ‘I got it!’ she exclaimed suddenly. ‘Rats!’

  ‘Rats?’

  ‘Yeah! Must’ve killed a million in my time. Run get me that box of rat poison I keep in the barn.’

  ‘Ain’t no need, ma’am,’ Danny said. ‘He’s near gone. Look.’

  ‘Did I ask you? Cathy, go get me that box.’

  Cathy turned and raced towards the barn.

  ‘And bring a stick,’ Agnes called after her. ‘A big, long stick.’

  Tapping her foot impatiently, pulling on her bottom lip, Agnes scowled around the yard. ‘I need to get a move on,’ she muttered again. ‘Wasted damn near my whole entire life here already. Hurry it up, Cathy! Sarah, bring me that bucket of water here.’

  She took the bucket of water I handed her and dumped half of it out. ‘It’s gotta be stron
g so he goes fast,’ she said. ‘I ain’t got time to wait around on the fool thing dyin’.’

  Cathy arrived with the box of rat poison. Agnes snatched it and upended it over the bucket. Instantly we were all coughing and choking on the cloud of livid green dust that exploded upwards in our faces.

  Agnes grabbed the stick Cathy held out and stirred wildly at the powdery green mounds floating on the surface of the water. She chuckled, ‘Betcha I could kill me a hundred Supermans with this much!’ she gloated. Then, ‘You girls hold his head up now so’s it goes right on down.’

  Too scared and too sickened by what Agnes was planning to do other than what we were told, Cathy and I tried to get his head up.

  ‘That ain’t gonna do it,’ Agnes panted. ‘Danny get on round back of him, pull him up on his rear end, get his head up so’s it’ll go right on down.’

  ‘It ain’t gonna go down,’ Danny said flatly.

  Agnes looked panicked. ‘What ain’t gonna go down?’

  ‘That there poison. Ain’t a fool alive can’t see it won’t never get past that apple. You’d best just leave him be.’

  ‘I said I could do it all, Danny, and I’m gonna. One way’s as good as another. Get his head up now!’

  Rigid with hate, Danny stepped forward and worked at getting Superman the way Agnes wanted him.

  Letting out a big Ya-hoo! Agnes upended the bucket. A river of green slime slid out. Some went in Superman’s mouth, some in his eyes and ears, but most of it splattered on us kids and the ground.

  For a nightmarish moment it seemed as if we were all suspended in a haze of green and then Superman must have tasted the bitterness on his tongue, maybe felt it scorching his eyes – it had to have burned – and with the last reflex of his bursting heart, he lunged backwards, taking Cathy and me with him to struggle and roll and howl in the dust next to Agnes’ green-splattered shoes.

  She stood watching a moment, Agnes, head to one side, while we coughed and gagged and spat, then, tossing bucket and stick aside, clapped her hands, let out another big whoop and hollered, ‘I done it! Done every last thing! Don’t have to mess with none of it no more. My time has come!’

  Her time has come? What time? What did she mean?

  Danny and I were on our feet in time to see her hurrying towards the house.

  Cathy had a big, bloody gash over her eye where one of Superman’s hooves must have caught her as he reeled backwards. She kept one hand cupped over it while rapidly blinking the other eye to clear it of the poison dust that, along with the slime, coated all of us.

  And none of us cared about any of it.

  What we cared about, what we could not comprehend, nor look away from, was what Agnes had done to our beloved little Superman. Like us, his face was coated in poison dust with deep drifts in his ears and damp, lumpy splotches around his eyes, nose and mouth. His body was grotesquely twisted, his head and neck looking as though they had been put on back to front by some fiendish demon. And his eyes were open. Open yet unseeing. Without doubt and without discussion, we knew he was dead, or nearly so. The flies knew it, too, as they buzzed and gorged on the surface of those orbs.

  Danny started heaving great wracking sobs and kept repeating, ‘She killed him! On purpose…. The crazy old bitch killed him…. And then saying I done it?’ He began choking and throwing up and what came up was the pitiful little sandwich he had eaten for lunch. Looking at it, it didn’t seem possible that that food could still be inside him when it seemed as though he’d eaten it in another life a century earlier. The flies got busy on that, too.

  At just about that same moment, Suzy gave another mighty tug on her chain, succeeded at last in uprooting her stake, gave her head a triumphant shake, and took off on one of her galloping rampages through the orchard.

  Howling, Cathy and I grabbed hold of one another, yet, even in our individual terror, neither of us could fail to notice that the other’s open, screaming mouth looked like a circle of raw meat in an otherwise green face and knew she must look the same.

  Cathy’s howling brought on a coughing fit and in between hacks she asked, ‘Where’d she go? Where’s she at…? Agnes?’

  Wordlessly, Danny and I pointed to where Agnes could be seen standing, arms akimbo, on the porch. We knew we’d better find a way to capture Suzy and clean ourselves up. Fast.

  EIGHTEEN

  One evening in the winter after Superman died, Agnes suddenly stomped out of her office and announced: ‘I called that Mrs Bennings woman in town and told her to come get you. Told her I couldn’t abide bein’ around you no more. Said I’d thought with that brat brother of yours gone from the place you’d change but you never have. Never will, as far as I can tell.’

  I was too stunned to fully comprehend.

  ‘Bennings said she’d be out first thing in the mornin’. Said there’s always some kids just don’t know when they’re well off, you bein’ the worst of ’em.

  ‘Get upstairs now, find that suitcase you brung with you. Fill it up with every last thing you got. Don’t want you leaving nothing behind that’ll remind me of you and your ugly face.’

  I recovered enough from my shock to hear myself ask, ‘What about my clothes you took and gave to Cathy? You want me to take them too?’

  Cathy was actually still wearing some of my things, now horribly tattered. For some reason, she just didn’t seem to grow much.

  ‘They ain’t yours no more,’ Agnes snarled. ‘You done give ’em to Cathy. You take ’em back to England, she won’t have nothin’ to wear. You want her runnin’ around stark naked? Knowin’ you, you’d like that, wouldn’t ya?’

  I wasn’t sure what I’d like or what I wouldn’t like at that point. And I was terrified to even hope that I was actually going to leave the farm for good.

  In the car on our way to New York, Mrs Bennings said, ‘I still can’t get over your folks expecting you to cross the Atlantic Ocean all by yourself with a war still going on. U-boats … Jap boats … everywhere. Sounds crazy to me but that’s what they’ve made up their minds to have you do.

  ‘Just try not to worry,’ she continued. ‘Remember, James is there already, safe and sound.’

  ‘James? You mean my brother, James?’ I yelped coming out of my torpor and sitting up straighter. ‘He’s in England? I thought he was in a reform school!’

  Mrs Bennings gasped and said, ‘Now who in the world told you a thing like that? He was never in a reform school, for heaven’s sake! He was in a very fine boarding school. And I know for a fact I told Mother Slater he was back home safe. Told her that time I called up to say I was still working on finding her the two new kids she asked for and doing the paperwork on you. Why, he’s been home a month gone already. Got to go on an aircraft carrier. Just him and one other kid. How about that?’

  I was thinking all that through: Agnes knowing I would be leaving but never mentioning it … James back in England … two new kids coming to live – do slave labour, more like – at the farm, when Mrs Bennings went and got mad.

  ‘I can see you’re still the same closed-mouth kid you were back when I first brought you out here,’ she huffed. ‘Lord! I’d think you’d have something to say. Be excited about going back into the loving arms of a family you haven’t seen in four years. I know I would! Even though they will have changed.’

  She sighed one of her big sighs, ‘That’s something you’ve got to expect, Sarah. Just like they’ll see you’ve changed. Lord, what are they going to say when they see what a great big girl you are now? And so Americanized?’

  I didn’t know and didn’t care what they’d say about any of those things. I hadn’t thought about them in such a long time I could hardly remember what they looked like. The only clear memory I retained of that part of my life was my father’s violent temper.

  Mrs Bennings heaved more of her big sighs and said, ‘Sarah, it’s not doing you any good looking out that rear window like you’re doing. There’s no going back, you know. The past is the past and a good
thing, too, I’d say, with all you’ve got on your conscience.

  ‘Lord! It’s a wonder you can sleep nights the way you and those two others took it into your heads to kill that darling little calf. And with poison of all things! And then saying Mother Slater did it when you know well as I do that calf was her pride and joy. Humph! You might’ve fooled old man Bill at the store and maybe some others, but you didn’t fool me. Not for one minute. I’ll never forget about that all of my born days.

  ‘Good thing your folks want you home, is all I can say, else who’d take you? A bad dream is what you two turned out to be. An out-and-out nightmare.’

  She dug around in her pocketbook with one hand, meantime letting the car head for the ditch running alongside the road. She got it straightened just in time, pulled a tissue out of her pocketbook and dabbed at her eyes and blew her nose and then, on another deep breath, said, ‘Do like I said now and turn around in your seat and face the front. You got to look ahead, Sarah. That’s where the future lies for you and me both and that’s where we’re headed.’

  I turned around and faced the front, not because she told me to but in the hope she’d stop her talk, talk, talking. I wasn’t looking back from a sense of fondness, heaven only knew. It was more like when you can’t stop staring at an accident scene along the road.

  Mrs Bennings prodded, ‘Sarah, you’re not crying, are you? Why … I do believe you are! What in the world have you got to cry about now? Really!’

  NINETEEN

  If I’d had a chance to talk, I might have told Bennings that I was crying because now that the unbelievable had happened and I’d gotten over knowing I’d never have to see or speak to Agnes again, my mind had turned to the future, and that future held two new terrors. One was having to get on a boat the size of a skyscraper lying on its side and cross the Atlantic in it while submarines chased after us; the other was coming once again face to face with my father at the end of the journey, for my head had begun teeming with memories, bad memories, of both.