Good to a Fault

by Marina Endicott

  On Sunday morning, after a second sleepless night, Clara found herself in tears during the Hosanna. She hated crying in church and had stayed away for months after her mother’s death. But here she was again, eyes raised up to the wooden rafters of the roof. No heaven visible up there. Some water spilled over, before she got angry enough to stop.

  After coffee hour, not knowing what else to do, Clara stayed to talk to the priest, Paul Tippett. His own life seemed to be a shambles; she didn’t know how he could help, sitting in his poky office with a cup of weak coffee in front of him. Clara held hers on her lap.

  “What is the worst of it?” he asked her, when she had explained about the accident. His large-boned, unworldly face was kind.

  “The worst? Oh!” Clara had to look away, her eyes half-filling again.

  “Take your time,” he said, his gentle expression undisturbed. He must be used to tears, of course; but not from her, she’d hardly spoken to him before now.

  He listened.

  “I see what they need,” she finally said, “But I am unwilling to help.” But that was not it, she was not unwilling—she was somehow stupidly ashamed of wanting to help.

  It was probably part of his training not to speak, to let people go on.

  “The mother, Lorraine, is very ill. From before the accident, nobody knew about it. It’s cancer, lymphoma. Advanced. Her family has nowhere to go. They were living in their car, and the two older children are—and the baby, ten months old, too young to be without his mother—how will they cope with a baby in a shelter? The grandmother, I suppose, because the father is not a—but she’s not—”

  Clara stopped babbling.

  She had worked in shelters, serving supper, making beds, setting up the cardboard dividers that shut each person off from the next, two feet away. It was not possible for her to send them to a shelter. During the Hosanna, in the high cascading descant, she’d known what she had to do. If any of this was true, if there was God. She had wanted useful work; this was it. And if there was no God, then even more, she had to do it.

  “I don’t want them in my house,” she said. But maybe she did.

  “No one could plausibly expect you to take them in,” the priest said. “There are agencies…”

  “It’s not what’s plausible, it’s what I ought to do.”

  “You’ve visited them,” he commended her. “Many would not think to do as much.”

  Many would not think to do as much, she thought, almost laughing. What a convoluted construction. A life in the pulpit. Except there was no pulpit in their church, he just stepped forward, with his tiny chest-hung microphone waiting to catch every word as it dripped from his lips. She stood up, needing to move, and put her coffee cup down on his overflowing desk.

  “Visiting the hospital is—nothing! My life does not seem very worthwhile,” she said. “Or even real.” And that just sounded stupid and self-involved.

  He looked thoughtful. Or was honest enough not to argue with her assessment.

  With a sudden welling of defeat, Clara left.

  The priest shifted her cup to a more stable spot, and rubbed his thumb along his smooth desk-drawer ledge. Her dress, deep indigo or iris purple, seemed to stay hovering in the room, filled his eyes still.

  Clara Purdy: single, childless of course, took care with her appearance; fortyish, and not in good spirits for some time since her mother’s death. He’d never had to deal with the mother. English, some cousin of an earl’s, wasn’t she? A piece of work, by all accounts. (“They fuck you up, your mum and dad.”) Her funeral had been his first duty at St. Anne’s, the week he and Lisanne had arrived. In parish archive photos the mother was aloof, fine-boned, with a 30s filmstar glamour even in old age. Clara must take after her father. Odd to think of a middle-aged woman chiefly as a daughter. Pleasant enough, quiet, careful. Insurance, at Gilman-Stott—but then the contradiction of that flower-petal colour. Lisanne admired her clothes, or envied them, depending on the mood of the day. Almost-Easter, true violet, perfect purple. Porphyry, periphery, preface…He drew back from the precipice.

  Carnelian, or more than red—true coral for Lisanne, who would be waiting for him at home, fretful muscles sharp behind her black-wire eyebrows. The hospital chaplain was away all summer in England, locum at a parish in the Lake District. Maybe Lisanne would have liked that. Cerulean. Paul wondered how he could bear another hospital visit.

  He took both cups and emptied them in the meeting hall sink. All the other cups had been bleached and dried and put away. He rinsed these last two and stacked them in the cupboard damp—rebellion.

  Clara walked through her three-bedroom bungalow, working out where to put everyone. The grandmother in the guest room, the baby with her, in a wicker laundry basket padded and lined with a flannel sheet. The father: the pull-out couch in the small bedroom that had been her own father’s den. The grandmother couldn’t sleep on that thing. Nowhere left to put the children but her own bed. She cleared the soul-help books off the bedside table and piled them in the garage; she pulled off the linen cover and replaced it with a striped one, made up the other beds, and found towels for everyone, as if they were guests.

  She looked around at her light, orderly house. Then she went back to the hospital to pick up the family. What was left of them.

  Trevor was not in the lounge, but Darlene knew where to find him. She ran up all the stairs and let herself out onto the roof. Where was he? There, around the side of the little hut. She ran across the melty roof floor, pebbles oozing sideways under her feet.

  “Look,” Trevor said when she caught him. “This door’s open.”

  He slid his fingers into the crack and pulled it open. Black inside there, and a glimmer of light. A bare bulb on the wall inside. They stepped through onto a metal cage floor, suspended over darkness. A chain ran across, blocking steep metal stairs.

  Then they heard a grinding noise. “Down there,” she said. “It’s the elevators.”

  Their eyes adjusted to see that they were right on top of the elevators, a huge hole, with metal cables going down, down, seven floors. One elevator was coming up. Trevor craned out to watch, holding on with one hand and leaning out under the railing.

  “Don’t!” Darlene said. “It will come up and cut your head off.”

  “No,” he said. “It has to stop down there.”

  It cranked and cranked and cranked, until with a sigh and a jerk it stopped.

  In the silence, Darlene said, “We’re going to the woman’s house.”

  “Mom too?”

  “Of course not.” She did not say, “Stupid.”

  The father came into the kitchen while Clara was making a bedtime snack for the children. They were safe, sitting in front of the television in the den, blankly watching The Jungle Book with Mrs. Pell the grandmother.

  “I’m going to need some cash,” he said, hovering between threat and casual assumption.

  “No,” she said. Easy enough to open her wallet, give him a twenty. No.

  “Can’t get by on nothing, we got nothing left now.”

  “No cash.” She looked up at the calendar. It was still Sunday. She’d sat in church today, deciding to do this, or realizing that it was not a decision.

  “Tomorrow I’ll get you an appointment at Manpower, we’ll find you some temporary work.”

  “Fine!” His hands went flinging palm-up in submission, as if she’d won some fight. “Fine help you are.”

  He left, shouldering past her closer than he needed to, but she stood still. She was a little frightened, but only for a moment, because she was doing the right thing. She was surprised at herself, and again thought that she was doing the right thing—but maybe a foolish thing.

  Listening in the den, Darlene ran her fingernails along the carpet. Her mom had clipped them when they cleaned up before they left her at the hospital, and the skin on Darlene’s fingertips was frayed-up, nervous. She was having a hard time seeing with her eyes but her fingers were working ov
ertime. She closed her eyes and combed along the carpet, and listened to the evil snake sssinging: Trust in me, just in me, Sleep safe and sound, Knowing I am around…

  While the bathwater ran, Clara pulled off Trevor’s shirt and shorts. His ribs were sharp under his bluish skin, but he did not look malnourished. A sore on the left side, probably a mosquito bite he’d scratched. She popped him in.

  “Hot! Hot!” His little body squirmed away from the water, almost levitating.

  She grabbed him out again, with a rush of fear in her throat, and put her hand into the water to check—she was sure she had checked—yes, it was only warm.

  “It’s not hot,” she said. “Put your foot in first, and see. It’s warm.”

  He tried his foot, obediently, and said hmm. He brought the other foot in, and stood there letting the water get used to him. Then he squatted, his pointy bottom submerged, but kept his arms wrapped around his large-boned knees.

  “How old are you?” she asked. She imagined six or seven.

  “I’m five!” he told her. He was big. Or her ideas of size were wrong.

  “Sing,” he ordered. She wanted to comfort him—he was only five. As she lathered up the soap she started off on a winding minor tune, the sad pig song her own mother had sung for her.

  Betty Pringle, she had a pig.

  Not too little, not very big.

  While he lived, he lived in clover

  Now he’s dead, and that’s all over.

  Clara held each hand in turn and washed his thin arms, trying not to tickle him. With his free hand he crowned his kneecaps with bubbles.

  Billy Pringle lay down and cried.

  Betty Pringle lay down and died.

  That’s the end of one, two, three:

  Billy, Betty, poor piggy.

  “Like my mom,” she heard a voice behind her say. It was Darlene standing in the bathroom doorway. Her long eyes sharp as diamonds again, her arms trembling.

  “Like my mom, laid down and died.”

  “She’s not dead yet,” Clara said, rattled. Stupid thing to say! Her hands were soapy. “She’s ill, Darlene, but Jesus will look after her. Jesus died for us, you know.” Oh, how had that come out of her mouth?

  “Like the pig,” said Trevor in the bathtub.

  It wasn’t until ten o’clock that night, when the children had finally gone to sleep, that Clara realized she had not left a place for herself. She got a blanket and a pillow and lay on the sofa in the living room. She startled awake all night at every noise, then lay planning and thinking what to do: how much vacation time she had left, what files she needed to clear up at work, what to feed them all. The grandmother went to the bathroom many, many times. At least the baby didn’t cry. The father got up and ate noisily about 2 a.m. But she could deal with him, and the children needed help. About dawn, she fell into a deep sleep.

  The children were staring at her, in broad daylight.

  “My dad’s gone,” Darlene said.

  “He took your stuff,” Trevor told her sadly.

  Her nightgown was awry. She pulled it straight and rolled off the couch, wrapped in the afghan, and went to check. He had taken her mother’s old car, which she had been using since the accident. The stereo from the den, the silver clock from her dresser. The silver teapot, but not the Spode cups and saucers, which were worth far more. Nothing she couldn’t spare. A loaf of bread and some ham. The money from her wallet, but not the credit cards.

  “He’ll be back when that runs out,” Mrs. Pell said, coming to join the party. She hadn’t spoken since coming to Clara’s house—Clara couldn’t remember ever having heard her deep voice, rasping like a plumber’s snake scraping the side of the pipe.

  Darlene stood beside Clara looking out the front door at the empty driveway. Trevor held on to Darlene’s T-shirt at the back.

  “Will we have to go to the shelter now?” he asked her.

  “No,” Darlene answered.

  She looked up at Clara.

  The baby started to wail in the bedroom, and Mrs. Pell showed no signs of going to attend to him. Clara was thinking what to do.

  She could report Clayton, they’d probably catch him quickly. But what would she report—a missing person or a car thief? She could choose to say she’d lent him the car, she could get him to come back.

  Instead she went into the bedroom and picked up the little baby, the new one, the morning dew. The baby quieted immediately, holding her hand, his other arm clinging to Clara’s neck, his body conforming to hers, his head warm against Clara’s face.

  Mine, she thought.

  3. Spilt milk

  When Clara got to Lorraine’s room in the afternoon, after picking up a loaner car at the garage, Lorraine was too tired to talk. The tests had worn her out, or just the discovery of her illness. Clara put the flowers in a vase the freckly nurse found for her, and left a box of shortbread cookies from her neighbour Mrs. Zenko on the window ledge.

  Clara didn’t know whether to tell Lorraine that Clayton was gone. It would upset her, but it was hardly Clara’s secret to keep, and she dreaded Lorraine finding out somehow and blaming her—or shrieking at her again. Lorraine’s face screaming, her finger pointing, Pearce at her bare breast on the street: these images returned to Clara’s mind too often already. She prickled with guilt for not telling her, but Lorraine didn’t even ask about him. Perhaps he had told her he was going, had said he wouldn’t stay in that house, some bluster like that. Clara sat in the straight blue chair, not the orange recliner, and talked about the children, how they were settling in. She asked if Lorraine was able to express (proud of herself for pulling that unfamiliar word from memory), and if she should bring Pearce in later.

  “No, keep on with the formula. I can’t nurse him now, all this stuff they’re putting in me. It was about time to stop him anyways, he’s nine months old. He’ll be a year, September 10th. But it was such a pleasure, why stop? Easier, too, when we were moving around all the time. Didn’t have to clean bottles or buy those plastic baggies…”

  Lorraine’s voice threaded out, as if she’d gone to sleep on the thought of travelling, safe in their seashell car, her whole family close around her and her baby at her breast.

  Clara watched her for a while, until she was sure she was either asleep or tired of company. She went home, stopping on the way to get fried chicken for supper, which was a great hit and made her believe she might almost be able to manage them.

  On Tuesday morning Darlene waited until Clara had been gone ten minutes before she got up from the living room and went down the hall. Gran was watching TV, propped back on one elbow with her old potato feet on the table, in the little bedroom where their dad had slept that one night. Darlene could imagine him going around the house, the look on his face, walking past Clara out in the living room, finding the car keys in her handbag. She did not want to have to tell her mom about him being gone. In Gran’s room Pearce lay sleeping in the basket, with a bottle drooling out of his mouth. Gran had dumped her stuff out onto the floor, as usual. It smelled like her in there: old teeth and hair.

  Darlene had already gone through the desk in the living room: bills all tidy, and a cheque-book: $5,230 in the balance place, that was a lot. She had put it back carefully at the same angle.

  No reason she shouldn’t go in Clara’s room. It was hers and Trevor’s for now; maybe she felt like a nap. Their pyjamas were folded on the bed. The other furniture all matched, but it was all old. The chair by the window was covered with faded cloth. There were dents in the carpet where other chairs or dressers must have been before. Green walls, like her mother’s sweater that Darwin gave her. Darlene loved the smell in there—like flowers, and maybe a long time ago someone had smoked a cigarette. It was lucky that she and Trevor got to sleep in here. For now. In the night-table drawers she found almost nothing: a nail-clipper and file and some flat blood-coloured cough drops. She tasted one, but it was disgusting. She spat it out, dried it off and put it back in the package. The dre
sser held a hundred sweaters, it looked like, smelling of clean wool and perfume. She was tempted to pull one out and rub her face in it, but she did not think she could fold it back properly, and then Clara would know.

  Where was anything good? Darlene didn’t even know what she was looking for. Not candy or money, they wouldn’t be in here. The closet: she dragged the armchair over and pulled boxes off the top shelf. Old cream-coloured satin shoes, with a sway-backed heel and a button. They couldn’t have ever fitted Clara, they were about her own size. She put them on, liking the ladylike arch in her foot, but didn’t dare button the stiff strap, or take a step in them.

  In a yellow box she found government stuff and old browned photocopies, little pictures with wavy edges of guys in uniform. A bunch of letters tied up in string might be good, but Darlene was too chicken to open the string. If she couldn’t get it tied right it would be like that time in Espanola.

  In another yellow box, a marriage license for Clara Purdy and Dominic Raskin, 1982. Why wasn’t she Clara Raskin, then? Some photos, a few letters, all jumbled together.

  There was a noise in the front hall—Clara coming back?

  Darlene had half-scrambled the yellow box back to the top shelf when she realized it was her grandmother banging the screen door, going out for a smoke. She could hear her yelling to Trevor, “You put the channel back when I get back!” and Trevor saying yes, yes.

  She put the box on the shelf anyway. Another time, when she knew how long she’d have. She fluffed the clothes to make them look ordinary, fitted the chair back into its dents in the carpet by the window, and scuffed her sock feet over the drag-lines made by the chair. Trevor was shrieking in the living room. Gran yelled at him to shut up, and then Pearce was crying. She could do the bathroom any time—but there was still the kitchen.

  The nurse must have just been in. Lorraine sat propped up, flipping channels, the sheets tucked tight around her. She looked sick, and Clara said so.