Miss Elva

by Stephens Gerard Malone

  Jane with Gil had been the same as Gil with Oak.

  IN AUGUST OF 1927, the American owners of the Maritime Foundry Corporation issued its manager, Urban Dransfield, with this ultimatum: blacken the skies over Demerett Bridge with smelter smoke or sell the damned foundry. Dransfield’s subsequent actions resulted in the second and unquestionably worse riot related to the strike.

  The Corporation would later claim Dransfield acted on his own when he fired all the striking workers and then put out word that he was hiring—at half the former salary. There were enough destitute men out there, some from as far away as New Brunswick, that the employment call produced a line at the gate over a thousand men strong. Many of these men had been former employees unable to feed their families any longer on union platitudes, watching scabs take their jobs anyhow. But Dransfield’s victory was short-lived.

  The strikers’ bitterness exploded in the Corporation’s compound. Dransfield ordered buses, windows sealed over with plywood, to break up the riot by driving recklessly through the crowd. Dozens were maimed. Enraged strikers stormed and rocked the buses, overturning several. When Dransfield ordered his security guards to fire over the crowd, three men were accidentally shot. The gate and main offices were overrun. Dransfield was dragged into the compound and beaten and would later die from his injuries.

  Demerett Bridge had had enough. The government agreed. Now it was a war, and troops, in the form of constabulary from all over the Maritimes, were sent in to restore order. All this, and in a few short years, no one would even remember why it began.

  “I’m still head of this house,” Amos said, leaning against the door jamb, looking shrunken and old.

  They had become so accustomed to his absences that a place at supper was no longer set.

  “What are you two crows staring at?” He sat across the table from Jane and Elva.

  Rilla rose with an apology and fitted out a plate for him. Amos dumped it on the floor.

  “Let that be a lesson to you, woman.” He handed back the empty plate. “Fill it again.”

  She did, without protest, and set it in front of him.

  “Now clean the floor.”

  Rilla moved.

  “Not you. Her.” Meaning Jane.

  “I don’t mind,” said Rilla, but as she bent to clear away the food, Amos shoved her ass and she fell against the cupboards.

  “Girl, clean the floor.”

  Rilla stood. “Amos, please.”

  “On your knees and wash that goddamn floor.”

  “No.”

  “Jane, please, like he says,” Rilla said.

  “No.”

  “Look at her,” he said to Rilla. “Christ, but that little bitch hates me.” Amos sat back and laughed. Watching Jane, he took a bite of his food, grimaced and spit.

  “Christ, woman, you trying to kill me with that spicy shit and my punk gut?”

  He spun the plate against the wall, bringing Oak, hammer in hand, from the summer kitchen.

  “What the fuck do you want?”

  “Nothing,” Rilla said, anxiously looking for Oak to do just that.

  Amos grumbled, same old song about it being that Barthélemy’s goddamned fault the house got torched in the first place.

  “It’s all right,” said Rilla, nodding her champion out of the room. Oak reluctantly went back to work.

  “What’s with that toady motherfucker anyway? Gives me a chill.”

  “You don’t look right, Amos. Maybe you should be in bed.”

  “Oh, you’d like that, wouldn’t you? Me outa your hair so you and this bunch can act like you own the place.”

  Rilla wiped her hands against her dress as she went about cleaning the mess. Damn! Gravy had seeped in between the floorboards. Now the ants would come.

  “Do that later. Bring me something I can eat. And stop staring at me, you little bitch. You’ve been a moody puss for weeks. Yeah, I’ve seen you mooning about like a sick dog! Isn’t it enough I’m off my food?”

  Don’t look, Elva told herself. Rilla put a fresh plate in front of Amos.

  “He’d better be paying his board, Rilla.”

  The sound of hammering resumed. Amos pushed his food around with a fork. Jane looked as if she was trying to burn a hole through him with her eyes as Rilla filled a washbucket.

  “What?”

  “Nothing,” Jane said.

  “What’s the matter with you?”

  “Nothing.”

  What did you say? Nothing? What Gil did to you and you’re supposed to marry Dom and Oak doesn’t know what Gil did and I know he doesn’t ’cause he’s my friend now and he’d say for sure and you won’t say what Gil did and make me swear not to tell … But Elva just took another mouthful of peas and no one noticed.

  “Not eating? You were hungry enough when I took you in. You weren’t so high and miss mighty then.”

  Rilla glanced up nervously. “Leave her, Amos, she’s not well.”

  “What’s wrong with her?”

  His own bedridden decline made it easy for him to dismiss the inner torment, and sinking, of Jane. Her colour was waxy, her temperament listless. Bones had replaced shoulders and hips, and her once luxurious hair was falling out in handfuls.

  “She’s got the ’fluenza.” Elva wanted to spare Jane any more scrutiny.

  “My goddamn sorry arse she has. Eat, goddamn you!”

  Jane said no, but the imploring gaze from Rilla down on the floor convinced her that it would be prudent for all if she at least tried. In went a spoonful of beans and peas, up it came, and out went Jane into the hall.

  “The bitch did that on purpose,” Amos said as Jane returned, somewhat unsteadily.

  “No, she didn’t,” Elva said. “Jane’s sick like that a lot.”

  “Shut it, Elva,” said Jane.

  Amos put his fork down. “I’ll be some goddamned! That bitch whore’s got herself knocked up.”

  And Elva knew it too.

  Rilla pulled her hands out of the washbucket, slumped against the lower cupboard like her body had turned to water, Jane’s silence confirming her worst fears. Oak hammered away obliviously outside.

  “Fuck me blind,” Amos cursed, slowly standing. “Whose is it?”

  Jane stepped out of his way.

  “No, Amos!” Rilla got a smack to the face with his elbow.

  He lunged again.

  “I should have beaten the fuckin’ crap out of you a long time ago, you ungrateful slut! Make me a laughingstock, will you? I’ll throw your sorry arse back into the street where you belong. Christ, you goddamn Indians can’t keep your legs crossed!”

  Elva got shoved out of the way. Nothing more.

  “Don’t touch me!”

  Amos overreached and fell, catching his side on the table edge. His face blanched with pain as he went down to hollering garbled fragments of sounds. The upset brought Oak back through the screen door.

  Rilla was instantly by Amos’s side, pulling her man’s head into her lap, dabbing the spit from his chin with her apron. Elva had never seen convulsions before, trembling one moment, then like the man’s arms and legs were being pulled out in opposite directions. He’d gone very pale, with little blue patches at the corners of his mouth, his eyes rolling back and forth into their pits.

  Only Jane was calm, and she knelt, bending low to Amos’s ear.

  “Hurts, doesn’t it?”

  Something that might have been, Oh Christ, came out of the man.

  “You can’t imagine how you’ll suffer, like we’ve all suffered for years. But don’t worry. Your liver’s turned to stone. Soon you’ll be dead.”

  His eyes flared, but Amos had lost the ability to speak.

  Rilla had not. “Girl, what are you saying?”

  “Rat poison in the milk.”

  “Sweet Holy Virgin, what have you done?”

  “Stopped him from beating the shit out of you.”

  Now it looked as if Rilla would collapse.

  “We’l
l have nothing … nothing,” she said, more to herself. “You’ve ruined it! All this, everything I put up with, I did it for you.”

  “For me? I had to listen to him paw at you like some animal, night after night. For me? How long do you think it would be before he went from your bed to mine? Look, I’m younger, prettier. Then it would be for me, all right. Thank Jesus Elva’s a cripple.”

  Tremors overtook Amos. He grabbed Jane and tried to pull himself up or her down.

  “Let go of me.” Jane stood defiantly against her mother.

  Elva went to Oak’s side.

  “How long have you been doing this?” Rilla asked.

  “Months.”

  “Will he recover?”

  “He’d better not.”

  “Elva, go upstairs,” said her mother.

  Not a chance.

  Oak asked if he should take the truck into town for a doctor.

  “No,” said Rilla. “No doctor.”

  “What are we going to do?” asked Jane.

  “Shut it, girl!” Then Rilla gently laid Amos’s head down and stood up. “I could use your help,” she said to Oak.

  He nodded without hesitation.

  “Front room, his desk, there’s paper. Get some to write with.”

  Oak ran to his errand and Rilla intercepted yet another convulsion.

  “Amos, you’re going to die,” Rilla said with more firmness towards him than Elva or Jane had ever heard her use before. “Do you understand?”

  She held him, rocked him, until his trembling passed, and then he nodded meekly.

  “You got to make your life right before God. Nod if you understand.”

  Perhaps he thought he could buy himself hope, or more time, or even salvation by agreeing with her. He managed a weak sign.

  Oak came back with paper and a pen.

  “I want it legal and proper. Write that he leaves everything to me.”

  “Ma’am?”

  “Do it!”

  Amos groaned, his eyes wide. Oak pulled out a chair from the table, sat, and hastily scribed the will. When he was done, he read back to Rilla, I, Amos Stearns, being free to do so, leave everything to Rilla Twohig.

  “How’s that?”

  Rilla nodded, then, “You owe me that, Amos.”

  Oak gave the paper to Rilla. Jane, sombre in triumph, was already looking down on the man as if he were in his grave.

  “Is he really going to die?” asked Elva. No one answered. But he’s my father.

  Rilla put the pen into the man’s hand and said, “Sign it.” He could not. “Damn you, Amos, sign it.” She took his hand and tried to help. “I can’t do it.”

  “Give it to me,” said Oak.

  “No, it’s not right.”

  “I know,” he said. Oak took Amos’s hand and the pen and signed the will. “If anyone asks, I witnessed his signature. It’ll be better for you that way.”

  Rilla nodded.

  Amos died there on the kitchen floor shortly after, his bowels eliminating in one last act of contempt.

  ELVA SAW HIM coming up the driveway through snapping squares of white and white-long-past-white.

  “What is it?” asked Rilla, expecting Elva to hand her another clothespin.

  Oak saw him too. He was putting up the storm windows. Earliest they ever got up, said Rilla. She was some thankful Oak was still around to help out. September was blowing in cold, but dry.

  “Hey,” said Dom, dropping his duffel bag. His face was berry brown from the sun and wind. “Just got in.”

  Rilla resumed her pinning. “Expect your mother will be happy to see you.”

  Oak stood balanced on the ladder, holding a window, watching like he couldn’t quite get his head around the twin thing. Feel one thing for one version, nothing for the other.

  “I’m on my way. Thought I’d say hello first.”

  To Jane? We all know about it, Dom. But Elva kept that in her head.

  “That’s nice of you,” said Rilla.

  “Where’s Gil?”

  “Thought it best your mother wasn’t alone out there these days.”

  “Heard things were bad. Still no settlement?”

  Nobody bothered to answer.

  Dom grinned. “That can’t be going well. For Gil, I mean.”

  “Expect your mother’s more worried about being alone than being with him.” Elva always thought her mother had a hard look about her, but it was never harder than when she continued on doing something, like hanging wet socks, talking but not looking at you, like she did now with Dom. “And Jane’s not here.”

  Elva thought even with the tan, Dom paled.

  “She’s helping out her aunt.”

  Help indeed. More like she’d been sent packing in the hopes that no-nonsense Auntie Blanche, even more no-nonsense than Rilla if you can believe that, might talk some sense into the girl. Not eating, not sleeping, walking around with Amos’s white enamelled bowl, puking all the time; if anyone could put a stop to Jane tearing herself apart, it was Rilla’s sister.

  “When’s she coming back?”

  “Day or two.”

  “Then is Amos, I mean Mr. Stearns, here?” Dom had gotten right serious. “There’s something I have to talk to him about.”

  Rilla stopped pinning. “He’s dead.”

  “Jesus! I knew he’d been sick. When?”

  “Couple of months back.”

  “Really sorry about that.”

  Rilla was pinning again. “What did you want with him?”

  “Well, I, I’d hoped to talk to Jane first, but seeing as how things are.” Dom looked awkwardly at the audience on the ladder and holding Rilla’s clothespins. “I wanted to ask his, yours I guess, permission to marry Jane. I’ve made some money, not much but I’ve got a job lined up in Sydney and enough to get us there.”

  “That would be all right, Dom, considering how Jane’s having your baby.”

  How’d she know? Elva wondered. Even after they’d buried Amos next to Dotsie, Jane refused to give up who the father was.

  “That’s that,” said Rilla. “Didn’t know for sure, Jane not saying, but from the look on ya, you figure it’s yours too.”

  “Does … my mother know?”

  Rilla was still hanging laundry, but she smiled. “That one’s for you.”

  “Mrs. Stearns—uh, Rilla—” Sonofabitch! He didn’t know what to call her. “I’ll do right by Jane, I will!”

  Yes well, Rilla’d heard all that before. “I’ll tell her you came by.”

  Off balance in that holy-shit-what-do-I-do-now kind of way, Dom said, “Bye, Elva,” and nodded to Oak on the ladder and left, forgetting his duffel bag in the driveway. Oak watched for a bit, then finished with the window he’d been holding.

  Rilla said, “More pins, girl.”

  Through the sheets on the line Elva and Rilla could see Dom getting small, getting swallowed up by the tall grass. All that schooling, grooming for the priesthood, the illustrious career meant to stretch out in front of him.

  “Poor bastard. Look at him. His life is ruined.” It would be Rilla’s only judgement.

  But Elva thought he looked relieved.

  – – –

  Elva figured it would turn out like this. Jane would never say boo to Dom about what Gil did, probably because she was worried about what they’d do to each other. Maybe she even felt responsible for what had happened. If she was going to say something, she’d have done it by now, but after she got back from Indian Brook, she and Dom were inseparable, and there was no way Dom, if he knew, could act as if what happened didn’t happen. Or so Elva reasoned.

  Dom and Jane would get hitched, race off to Sydney, maybe even Halifax. She’d miss Jane dreadfully, maybe even get sick over it like those richy-rich girls on the radio dramas, but a Demerett Bridge without Jane and Dom might be the sort of place Gil would stay in, and then there was all that time she’d have alone with Rilla. So who gave as hit if Jeanine Barthélemy, who apparently was still in the
dark over Dom’s fall from grace, got pissy over her son going straight to hell? Elva didn’t care for her anyhow and thought that Rilla, in her own way, would echo Jane, Haw haw. Maybe her mother might even consider sending Elva to school.

  Oak, Elva knew, shared her feelings.

  “She’ll be leaving,” he said in regards to Jane. But then he had to say, which ruined it all, “And when she goes, so will Gil. Should’ve been gone weeks ago, weeks ago.”

  The September day was swept away with heavy skies streaked with dull grey, dry, bitter winds and larches yellowing too early. Usually after Dom had spent an evening visiting with Jane, they’d make their goodbyes on the front porch, which could take forever with all the I-miss-you-already’s and kiss-kiss-kiss-I-love-you stuff. Elva didn’t know for sure, but she guessed there was cooing about baby names and where they’d go and the piano the house in Sydney would have although Jane had no inclination to learn how to play. On this evening, Dom came through the back way into the kitchen where Elva was sitting alone at the kitchen table, swinging her feet back and forth, eating a sandwich of toast and cheese.

  “Where’s your mother?” he asked, and something was definitely wrong. Wrong in the angry-want-to-kick-something kind of way.

  “Indian Brook.”

  With two men around the house, Rilla figured it was okay to go, although Elva didn’t know where Oak was. Hadn’t seen him all day.

  “Damn. When she gets back, tell her Jane won’t marry me.”

  Elva just blinked.

  “Look, is there something going on that she won’t tell? Did something happen while I was away?”

  Elva slowly shook her head.

  “And why won’t Gil come over here any more? He’s always got some excuse.”

  Just a shrug this time.

  “Fuck.” And he left.

  Elva sat quietly at the big table, still nibbling her toast and cheese even though her stomach started to flip-flop. Was the truth coming out? Could be just a spat. Lord knows, Jane wasn’t the easiest person to love. But why ask about Gil? A door slammed overhead and the hum of the light bulb in the kitchen seemed very loud. Jane won’t marry me. Not, I won’t marry Jane, or, We can’t get married, or, My mother forbids me to marry Jane, but Jane won’t marry me.

  How could that be? wondered Elva. It’s what Jane wanted, didn’t she? If Jane didn’t marry Dom, that ruined everything—well, if nothing more than the fantasy that Gil might one day be hers. And wasn’t that just like Jane! To not even give Elva that. Why in heaven not go away and be happy? Forget about Gil.