Anna From Away

by D. R. MacDonald

  He’d brewed a pot of strong tea and he took a metal flask from his hip and poured a shot into a mug—“Whisky,” he said, glancing at her—before filling it. She gripped the mug’s heat tightly in her hands. There was an enamel dishpan on the floor and the big aluminum kettle on top of the oil stove, and he told her it would be good to soak her feet in Epsom, feet warm the whole body toe to top, he said, but Anna said maybe she’d do that later, she had no Epsom, she didn’t want to move anything right now, not a toe or a finger.

  “Ah,” Murdock said, “let’s get the blood going anyway.” With that he knelt, slid her slipper off and took her foot in his large hands. He began to knead its tendon and muscle, his hands were surely warm from the stove but in the numbness of her foot she could only feel the pressure of his fingers, soothing out tightness, bringing heat slowly to bear. She watched him, bent into this act of massaging, solemn, absorbed, a man who’d been shy and curt at the mailbox that afternoon she’d met him. His steel-grey hair, still thick and tight to his head, had a blush of auburn through it, his eyes deep-set in high, wide cheekbones, their colour not obvious at a glance, but they were hazel, flecked with green. And here he was kneading out a stubborn core of ice. She sipped the tea. Her throat felt sore, she’d gagged on pond water, that she remembered, and how the ice opened up sickeningly like a trap door, like an awful trick she’d fallen for, the cold so sudden, like a hard slap.

  “There you go,” he said, after he’d massaged her other foot and set it gently down.

  “Thank you, Mr. MacLennan,” she said.

  “Murdock will do. I heard the dog, you see. I was coming over.”

  Steam hissed soft as breath from the kettle spout. Then she heard the dog, more faintly than before, a thin, hopeless yowl and then silence.

  “Can you save it? But, oh, it’s so late …” she said. “And you’re cold and wet yourself.”

  “Have to be sure you’re up and running. We don’t want a fever. You had two bad choices there, girl, drown or freeze.” She didn’t see it as any kind of choice, but Murdock was smiling just that much, a flicker in his eyes. Did he say it for a reaction, testing? She didn’t understand the setting of his life, not enough, if she ever could, to gauge him: the weeks she’d spent here, the old photos she’d pored over, had given her some feeling about this house, about how they might’ve lived in it, but tonight told her only a little of that mystery, their calamities and pleasures, the nuances of their life, the words they said to each other, what they expected in response. When Anna stood at the stove it was not to cook a meal as they’d done, the women of his granny’s house, Anna’s atmosphere was nothing like theirs. What had they thought good and right and appropriate, here, amid family, the sounds and smells? Of this Anna had but a glimmer.

  Yet she had drawn, in meticulous, intense detail, objects she had found here, as if the act of recreating them on paper would reveal them, bring to life a day they’d been put to use, and possibly the user—a small tin grater (for lemon peel, making a pie, a cake?), three thimbles of different sizes, needles and a cloud of tangled threads brown and white (darning socks by oil lamp?), a bottle embossed with a floral design (perfume? medicinal spirits?), a spindled device maybe for peeling apples.

  “Do you mind if I light a pipe?” he said. “I’m off cigarettes.”

  She said no, please, and he put a kitchen match to an old briar bowl, scorched and burnished. She watched him squinting, pulling smoke. Chet had used a pipe for a long time, extracting it from his breast pocket, playing with it, lighting up, gazing thoughtfully through smoke. But he never liked it really, the fussing and tamping and probing with pipe cleaners and the bitter juice on his tongue, the pipe was a prop, part of his dress, like the thick-waled corduroy jackets with elbow leather, and the bulky turtleneck from Ireland he wore next to his bare skin despite its prickly clamminess and woolly smell of sweat. Marijuana came along and he quit tobacco, a small wooden pipe appeared, an implement of transition, shared with others, passing it totemically, after a solemn hit, from one hand to another.

  “Do you know the dog out there?” Anna said. “I can’t hear it now. I don’t want it to die.”

  “Cottage people leave dogs and cats behind sometimes. Terrible, do that to a dog. I’ll get it out when I leave. It’s not Willard’s dog, his was little.”

  “Summer. My God, how I’d love to feel it,” she said, more to herself than him.

  “You’ll have a wait yet. Keep your stove wood handy.”

  He told her they’d be well into April before they got much green, and some years there’d been snow in May, heavy. If you had drift ice, it could linger quite late, way out at sea, so far off it was invisible, but that east wind blowing through it?

  “Did you come for summer?” he said. “Killing frosts in June.”

  “Not just that. But I’ll welcome it.”

  She wanted to be as honest as he seemed to be, to tell him, sometimes I’m not exactly sure what I came for, I’m sorting out certain things, but she did come to draw, to turn her work in a new direction, and maybe herself as well. And what would he think about that? She’d already set foot on ice where no one here would have stepped. She rocked the chair gently, it seemed to help, urging warmth into her, and but for Murdock MacLennan, she might be resting on the bottom of a pond. Could she have thrashed her way back to the shallows, found footing, groped her way out of that shattered ice? In her terrible panic, unlikely, she’d been wrenched out of the world. Those moments shuddered through her like a nightmare.

  “You’re soaked through,” she said, “I’m sorry,” embarrassed she hadn’t noticed his jeans dark with wet, and his workboots, the small puddle at his feet.“Och, I’m drying, I’ve been wetter than this in winter. You’re looking worn out. A great shock to the body, this, is it not?”

  “I only thought about seeing to the dog, not the ice.” She smiled. “I am lighter than I used to be.”

  “We had fun on that ice. Skating parties, young and old. A man’d come up to a woman and ask her to skate, like at a dance. A strong fella would lead the whip, we called it, we’d link hands in a line and he’d start us twirling faster and faster until the last one had to let go, fly off. Oh, we chased around, us kids, played hockey with a stone for a puck. Nights like this, hard as glass. A fire on the bank, glowing up to the branches overhead, and the snow red up there and around us.”

  “I wanted to skate when I was little,” she said. “My dad was from Ohio and he would tell me how he missed it, the old pond. We didn’t have ice, we lived in California, up north. I went to a college in Ohio, Dad’s alma mater, but I guess I was too busy then for skating. I don’t think I’ll try it now. Not anymore.”

  “You mustn’t fear the pond,” he said, “or the ice. I’ll show you how to read it. Now I was about to say I will lend you skates, I have a pair, but I really don’t, mine are scuffed as an old harness and those feet of yours would swim in them.”

  Anna’s eyes closed, she couldn’t stop them. “Sorry,” she said.

  “Look,” he said, “I’ve got the stove going good, why don’t you sleep on the lounge there? I’ll fetch more blankets. Warmer here than up there.” He pointed to the ceiling.

  “I’ll vouch for that.” Her face felt hot now, her head swimmy, she wanted to lie down, but she’d wait until he left. She didn’t want to be tucked in, like a sick child. She heard him upstairs finding blankets, then he was spreading them over the daybed.

  “Now,” he said, “I’ve done like my granny did, I found a few splits of hardwood, I put them in the oven and roasted them good and hot. Took a blanket, and rolled them up, put them in the bed there. Keep your feet warm a good while.”

  “Sounds wonderful.”

  Red Murdock pulled on his worn peacoat, working its big buttons up. “Greatest wool there is,” he said, patting his chest. “Even when it’s wet, it’s warm. Now, then. I stowed my number on your phone pad there. Call me if you feel worse.”

  “Murdock, you so
und like a doctor.”

  “Well, I’m the nearest thing you’ve got to one. Watch you don’t take sick, that’s the thing. A long drive to the hospital. Damn phones sometimes go out, but … anyway. You’re okay enough then …?”

  She was remembering a story of D.H. Lawrence’s where a despairing young woman tried to drown herself in a coal mine pond, the currents of feeling that passed between the woman and the young doctor who pulled her from the dark water and revived her, the almost mystical bond that arose between them, and Anna for a moment wanted to amuse herself by blurting, like the woman had when she woke and saw that the doctor had undressed her and wrapped her nakedness in a blanket, “Do you love me then?” It cheered Anna to think of that, but the joke would be lost on him, flippant and pointless. She’d felt a little giddy, that’s all.

  But how could she have guessed this man would work in his hands her naked feet?

  “I’ll be fine,” she said. “Thank you.”

  “Have you met Breagh, the young red woman up the road? I’ll ask her to look in on you in the morning.”

  “Please, no. Don’t bother her. So foolish of me, blundering out on that ice.”

  “How could you know? Who put that damn trap there I can’t say. It’s legal, you see. They have a right to set traps around water, they don’t need permission. Nobody here trapping now. Some fellas must’ve come by boat, they come ashore. But that trap, I’ll rip it out. I’m sorry, miss, I forgot your name.…”

  “Anna. Anna Starling. The dog. Don’t forget the dog.”

  “We’ll get him, Anna. Good night then. Give me a shout if …”

  Would SHE be fine? She didn’t know. He’d laid out on the daybed neatly the quilt and blanket. Oh, hell, it was somehow worse that he’d tended to her this way and then left, her loneliness was sharp and childlike for a few minutes, indulgent, she felt weak with it. But of course the man had to leave, in every respect he had to go home, get a hold of yourself, you’re a little delirious, Anna. She drank quickly the dark tea, delicious. It swam warmly into her, her head drooped. She listened to her breathing slow. She is on ice. Snow-flakes whirl like reflections from a mirror ball as she spins, in a maelstrom white against a dark sky, skates on her feet, she can feel the laces tight, hear the blades carving arcs in the ice, it is like dancing, flakes melt coolly on her eyelids, she has no partner, she just flows in a kind of wild joy, heightened by fear, pulled this way, that way, a faint wind around her, and through the swirling snow a dim, ambiguous figure watches, she knows it is watching her, she is pleased and troubled by its attention, by the mad grace of her motion, of her spread wings, trapped as she is. The ice flexes like a thin, pulsating floor as she nears something black, a fiery mouth, yawning, hugely out of proportion to its head, this is a dream, she says aloud, but that gives her no comfort. In the dark around her, she senses men, her whirling body stops, solid and still as ice. There is the frantic dog tearing at its chains, why can’t she skate away like she wants to, as she once did as a girl, when all she had to do is turn and … Murdock leans over her bed in a strange kitchen, she is abashed by her fever, it seems quaint, his hand is warm on her face, slides inside her robe to her breast, she can feel its heat, its touch, she takes a deep breath. Pneumonia’s the thing, the old danger, he says gravely, his voice a soft brogue, like a boat being rowed slowly, and he tucks her tighter under blankets of worn and heavy wool, I should take you to the hospital but the road is terrible iced, ah, you’re looking better now, I’ll carry you to your house, warm as toast there, and she says, No, I want to stay here, my rooms are cold, can’t you see my breath …?

  Was it possible to feel more alone than she did now, at this waking? The ceiling light burned. She did not hear the dog. Oh, God, she had to get out of this robe damp with sweat, she forced herself, weeping and shivering, to climb the stairs to the bedroom and find the long flannel underwear in the chest of drawers she could never get the camphor out of, it frightened her now, that smell of illness. But the flannel felt good and she lay down, swathed in bedcovers, the night running in tremors through her body. That patch of open water she’d left behind would be skimming over ever so thinly now, a thickening skin of ice. New snow would conceal it, curious birds would pepper it with tracks, and she, some morning soon, would take her pen and ink to them, and, in her imagination, the dog she hoped was gone.

  VIII.

  HE WISHED HE COULD FORGET about the dog, damn it, he was chilled to trembling now, wet from the chest down, a wind was whisking snow into his face. But he’d told her he would go back, and the dog, poor creature, wouldn’t survive the night anyway, coyotes could menace it to death. He pulled his watch cap down tight and retraced their steps, then veered off to go round the pond to the north side where the ice would hold him. The dog whimpered, hearing him, seeing the light. Murdock, shaking and out of breath, kneeled at the trap, the flashlight throwing the dog’s writhing shadow across the ice. Black Lab mix. He murmured to it as he worked and calmed it, the animal growled but let him pry the jaws apart. It hopped free, limped off a ways and set to licking its hind leg, the raw cut Murdock caught a glimpse of, and though he tried to coax it home with him, the dog gimped slowly off toward the woods and was gone beyond the flashlight though he could still hear its panting. Had enough of men, have you, pup, their goddamn steel contraptions?

  The flashlight shone in the ragged break where Anna had fractured the ice, where he’d plowed after her. Maybe he should have stayed with her longer, sat at the table, watched her in case she took a turn. God knew he’d done plenty of that with Rosaire, watching over her, but if he didn’t get home he’d be sick himself. He yanked the trap free of the ice and sank it in the black patch of open water, remembering the night his father’s horse went through, that great neighing animal, and Dad raging in Gaelic in the dark, the thrashing, the splitting ice, and his father without a word tossed a manila noose around that mare’s neck, choked her so she reared up like a sea beast and got herself out of that ice and water like it was fire, whipped white by her hooves. Sometimes panic worked, sometimes it didn’t. The horse was desperate to live, that was the heart of it, she took wing.…

  By the time Murdock reached his own kitchen, he was stiff and muttering, he’d have to see to his own self now, God, moving like an old cripple. He stripped with clumsy hands, rubbed himself down with a rough towel until his pale skin was ruddy. He stood naked at the stove he’d stoked before he left, his cock shrivelled with cold. Rosaire would have joked about it, but Jesus, right now it just looked sad.

  He finished the coffee that had simmered since he left, his clothes steaming on a rope line above the stove. He wouldn’t sleep, he felt strangely depleted, wrung out—as if nothing mattered enough, not even saving that woman’s life. Get a grip, boy.

  Cloud watched him benignly from a cushioned chair, slit-eye dozing, still figuring him out, Rosaire he was not, he did not lift a cat into his arms and nuzzle him, Murdock’s turbulent pillow was not a welcome place for a calm animal, where her fragrant hair once spread.

  That Anna. She might have died from shock, if not a drowning. The poor dog saved her, really.

  Naked. With Rosaire. Oh, my.

  He rocked on his heels, rubbed his hands above the stove. The old anger crept into him, how casual she’d been about her health, and he blamed that sometimes, her stubbornness about doctors and medical advice. Jesus, she’d eaten and drunk whatever she fancied and never saw a doctor, not even after the headaches began, and then she collapsed in a seizure coming out of a movie in Sydney. Whatever gave her pleasure, she reached for easily, and guilt only seasoned her appetites. Heed what you eat, girl, he’d tell her. Yet she always looked great, that was the trouble. Oh, I can dance all night, can’t I? Do I look fat? There were mornings with her when, work waiting for him in his shop, he’d jump out of bed, I have to sweat a little now, he’d tell her, and she’d say, sweat with me, darlin’, it’s good for the two of us.

  Who the hell knew the cause of that can
cer anyway, what evil speck of something had wormed into her brain?

  This need for blame, it came with grief, it dulled the pain, sometimes.

  Such a weight it seemed now to dress himself and go on, to wait for first light, boil oatmeal, brew coffee. Wait. For what?

  IN DRY CLOTHING, Murdock stood at the long-locked door of the forge shed. His breath smoking in the flashlight beam, he worked a key into the thick stiff padlock. He cracked it open with his fist, then hauled the door aside, forcing a neat quarter-circle in the snow. He inhaled the dark interior: rust, bare iron, its bits and lengths, the carbon of dead coals. The dry wood of the water barrel, the little brine tub, salt-stained, it had received red iron in crisp hisses, in plumes of steam.

  Not a big man, his dad, but he had arms long for his height, they’d seemed to direct his life, in motion even when he talked, like they needed to seize hold of something even at rest. He could quell that at the anvil, hammering out barn hinges, a wagon brace, shoeing a horse. And women. Until he married Red Peggy, Peggy Ruagh, he’d taken women tight into those arms, he told Murdock one night when he was drinking, I never made one stay that didn’t want to stay, they liked me or they didn’t. He stared at his arms held out in front of him like they belonged to someone else. Then he placed a large hand on Murdock’s shoulder. Not strong enough to keep your mother though, were they? he said.

  His dad had quit it all suddenly, not many months after the bridge went up and the ferry closed down. Shook off his leather apron one afternoon, his face flushed and sweating, closed the door, let the fire go to ashes. Little need for a forge anymore, not here, he said, it’s passed us by, I’m tired, the horses are going away for dogfeed, minkfeed, for Christ’s sake. Follow your carpentry, Murdock, this is no good to you now.