by Paul Almond
And then in one awful flash, a thought struck him: What if God did not care?
Radical thought. And not unheard of, either. Several neighbours brought news of others in faraway climes who even questioned His existence. So what if, when he finally departed this world into the comforting arms of a Saviour, no arms were there? “What if he’s not there?” he proclaimed out loud.
Beside him, Catherine stirred, reached out, touched him, and then moved closer. “Who’s not there, my dear?” She laid a comforting arm across his chest. “Try and get some sleep.”
“I have! What else have I been doing, the last hour?” Why had he snapped his response? But he was enwrapped in his own agony. It did not allow him to be gentle.
Catherine rolled over. “All right, James, better tell me what is troubling you.”
“What if...” James just could not bring himself to mouth the terrible words.
“What if what, James?”
He struggled with his conscience. Would speaking the words make them come true? Or would it ease his mind? At any rate, he found himself saying, “What if God doesn’t care? What if he’s not even there?”
Catherine did not respond, at first. The sentence seemed to move through the inky darkness, threading among those dust motes that danced in the moonbeam slanting from the window onto their hooked rug. What response could there be?
“I’m sure he does, my dear.” Catherine reached out to feel for his hand under the covers. “You’ve just got the soul sickness. That’s all. Everything looks black. That is when the devil comes to take us. We must resist.” She paused. James lay, hoping for more to console him. “When morning comes, you will feel better. This is always the hour now for dreadful thoughts. When the sun floods into our room tomorrow, they will all be gone. You’ll be yourself again.”
Myself again, James thought. Yes. Perhaps that was what was happening. But some instinct told him that once he had broached the unholy question, it would dog him. No, he had to reach a satisfactory conclusion. On the morrow, he would take up the Bible and read passages about doubt. That might do him good. At least, it was a start. He rolled over and clutched Catherine close. She turned on her side, and pushed herself into the crook of his body. With his arms around her, he soon fell into a deep, and now untroubled, sleep.
* * *
On the morrow, with the cow milked, eggs collected, cattle and oxen fed, the few sheep nestling down to chew their cuds in their pen, James sat reading his large Bible by the open fire. Catherine and Hannah were preparing dinner. A knock came at the door.
A visitor. So rare. James rose and went across to the back porch and opened the door. A letter.
He thanked the courier and invited him in for a meal as was the traditional courtesy. The man, tall and thin even under his bulky clothes, thanked them but had a good way to go, so he left.
James closed the door and announced, “Catherine, Hannah, Momma, we have a letter. From Jim!”
Excitement such as this should not to be taken lightly. They decided to have their dinners first. And then, over cups of tea, they gathered around while James sat by the fire and gingerly opened the manuscript.
“Dear Momma and Poppa,
So I got here. So much to tell. First, I met a doctor in Restigouche who told me about England. Medical things. A fellow could now go to McGill University and get a degree in medicine. Imagine that! I bet it’s not too long before we all have doctors up and down the Coast. Though you’ll have your doubts.”
Catherine gave a laugh. “I have my doubts too, Jim.” She smiled. Eleanor and Hannah kept their full attention on James. He went on to describe the medical developments the letter spoke of, and the amazing introduction of “ether” that put patients to sleep.
James paused and shook his head. “If only they’d had that in the Navy, how much suffering it would’a saved,” he said. Then he read on, pausing to savour the paragraph about Nelson’s monument, which pleased the others, too.
“That Kempt Road is really long, and empty. I only passed two or three coming past. I snowshoed the whole way, Poppa, you’d be proud of me. There are four places along the Kempt Road, the oldest up beyond Salmon Lake at its head called Pierre Trochu, at this end it’s his son Marcel. But my best visit was Mr. Noble, at the Forks, halfway along. I was freezing, and I’d say he almost saved me.
“I made it to the Saint Lawrence. You know, that coast on the opposite shore is right out of sight. It’s even wider than Chaleur Bay. Sometimes I got lucky with a ride in a sleigh. After a bit, I could see across to little white houses, and then, we crossed from Lévis to Quebec City, because the only road to Montreal is on the north shore, through Three Rivers.”
James read them Jim’s short account of the canotiers, which excited them all.
“Land sakes,” Eleanor said, “the dear child, what has he been through?”
“Go on Poppa, go on,” Hannah urged. “I want to know what happens.”
“At Montreal you have to cross the river again. It’s over half a mile, I’d say, and you wait in a kind of building for the sleighs to take you. This part of the river, she ices up earlier than Quebec, and sleighs had already been crossing. Well, off we went, two sleighs, maybe half a dozen in each, with good fast horses.
“I got the sleigh with a smart driver. The other fella, I guess he didn’t know too much. I reckon the two of them were having a race. But our fella, with a big, black beard, he’d been doing it a good while. The other fella got ahead, but when we reached the middle, our fella pulled up his team, and yelled at the younger driver. He looked back but paid no attention: he kept going straight across, like he was winning. Our fella, he turned us off the track and headed downstream.
“Well byes, first thing we knew, we heard cries and the other sleigh, she started down through the ice! Poppa, Momma, it was terrible. The woman and them were tumbling out of the sleigh, but that shelf of ice there, it just sank, and the whole lot of them, they just disappeared, pulled under, horses and all.
“In our sleigh we were standing up, me and another Englishman, we yelled at our driver, stop! We got to help.
“But our guy just held out his arms, shook his head, and kept going. At the time, we were angry but now I see he did the right thing. Nothing on earth could save those poor souls from under that ice. They was all gone. All the walk into town, I couldn’t get the sight out of my mind. But here I am, I found this bit of attic, with a nice friendly widow, and I reckon I’ll stay for a bit, and try my hand. I’ll let you know how things go.
“I miss the farm, and you both, and Hannah, even grandmother with her knitting. Tell her I wore her scarf the whole way and I was real glad of it. Bye for now. Your son, Jim.”
James folded the letter and looked at the three of them. “The Lord be praised,” he shook his head, “our son is safe.”
All four sat without moving while they contemplated the picture Jim had drawn for them. “Well,” Hannah started to get up, “we’d best be getting about our chores. No use worrying about people lost weeks ago.”
“You’re right, my dear.” Her mother joined her in clearing the dishes, while Eleanor sat quite still in her chair. Then she looked across at James and spoke. “In the midst of life, we’re in the midst of death.”
“Never a truer word, Mother.” Get over your black feelings, James thought to himself, they’re drowning you, just like that sleighful. Jim’ll fight his own battles. Time to fight your own.
Chapter Nine: Winter 1854
Jim climbed the ladder with what must have been the hundredth bag of gravel on his back. The others carried it on one shoulder, but he, having learned the trick from his father, used a tumpline, a loop of canvas around his forehead so that the weight was evenly distributed. And with each step to the top to dump the bag, the thought grew: what am I doing here?
Odd work in midwinter, but the only work available — and lucky to get it. After a full week waiting at the gates of this huge enterprise, trying to divine how the overseer picked hi
s men, he had managed to convey his strength and ability. When a worker was carried out, overcome with cold and fatigue, Jim had seized his chance and now, here he was, two months later, earning a living. But what a pittance! These immigrants, having left Ireland with no great build up of strength, had been so beaten down by their Atlantic journey, their brushes with cholera and typhoid, and their ongoing struggle to survive, they had very little stomach for jobs as hard as this.
With every footstep ascending the ladder as if climbing into some higher awareness, the realization had grown stronger. Three and sixpence a day? Up and down, up and down. A donkey engine was said to be coming with the steam power to haul buckets up, but not until spring broke, when work on the bridge would begin in earnest. Eleven other men, four ladders, six pairs climbing up and down, enlarging a pit already bigger than a house for this first foundation of the bridge. On the deepening bottom below the frost line, other workers with picks loosened the earth and shovelled it into the canvas sacks. Hard work for all of them indeed: toward the end of every day they got progressively weaker, climbing slower, groaning more. Jim’s legs felt like rubber. Apparently, the construction company, Peto, Brassey and Betts, had wanted to get a good start before the spring. And why not? All this labour begging to be put to work: weak, undernourished, but thirsting for money. What with his rent and food, at the end of a week Jim had little left over. But now, toward the end of February, he had accumulated a small stash. Indeed, more money than he ever saw at home. But then, at home, did they not work for themselves? And did they not trade their eggs for nails, flour for any item they couldn’t make themselves? Always, they had enough to eat and comfortable beds in a pleasant house warmed by a happy fire.
Which is more than he could say here. He slept on a straw pallet in an icy attic with three other men: they sectioned the tiny space, no headroom to stand up. Yes, for breakfast, he ate a mess of porridge with molasses — and milk when he brought some home. Of course, he enjoyed staying in the home of a full-bosomed Irish lass to whom he had grown close over the last two months. That first vision of Winnie holding Mikey in her lap and soothing him to sleep had driven her charms into Jim’s consciousness. Nowadays, he thought of little else.
Down the ladder he went to have his sack filled while he stood a moment to catch his breath. The wind on the surface was something fierce, the cold stung their noses and lashed their cheeks, but down here, the pit seemed oddly warmer. How much deeper did they expect to go? Well, the beginning buttress for a big bridge, he imagined they’d dig a long way down. The target was to have this pit finished by the end of April. And then, in warm weather, they would build the abutment with great blocks quarried at Pointe Claire.
Yes indeed, a good question, why was he doing all this? He hoisted the heavy sack of gravel onto his back and once again climbed the ladder, pausing for the climber above. The man seemed to be having difficulty; all day long, he had been pale and sweating. He had arrived from Ireland at the end of summer, and not worked until he had managed to land this job where workers were always giving up and being replaced. Jim hoped, as he got halfway up, pausing on each step for the man to go higher, the man would not fall on him.
By no means as easy to find a trade as he had expected. Did he really want to work in a foundry? Mikey worked in one, and had introduced him. But Jim demurred when he saw the conditions: a cavern from hell, flames, soot, grime, scorching heat, even in the middle of winter, white hot ingots dropped in vats of water. No sir, not how Jim would spend the rest of his life. And thus, his dream of excitement in a big new city was rapidly disappearing. Now, just try and hang on until he found out Winnie’s intentions.
He saw her in the mornings at her most innocent, having just gotten out of bed and serving her son and the four boarders their porridge, bread, and molasses, for which, of course, they paid extra. His eyes followed her as she moved back and forth from her stove, a simple iron contraption much safer than those open fires back home. Stoves like that had become common in Montreal: it was the first thing Winnie told him she’d arranged with her barmaid’s earnings.
Barmaids must make a good wage, he thought, enough to support her family of two. Why else did she disappear each evening so beautifully washed and fresh-faced and dressed in a blouse cut so low? In the mornings, when she placed Jim’s porridge at his place, did she bend lower to him than toward the others, in what seemed an almost practised reach? That glimpse of her bosom portended such pleasure, should he ever be given the opportunity. But she was a good Catholic girl. No way of bridging that great divide.
He dumped the bag, paused, and went down the adjacent ladder. Four ladders, one brigade going up, another down, merciless work. By the end of each day, he felt no good for anything ever again, but after a night’s sleep, often disturbed, he would once more face the fray. And today, was it not Saturday? The end of the week. Some of the other workers looked as though they might not even make it through till sunset. And this weekend was special: Winnie had agreed to let him come with her to the church she attended so faithfully. “I have to confess, Jim,” she would say, “and I’m bringing Mikey along.”
“Surely Mikey has nothing to confess.”
“No, but we’re preparing him for his first communion. Aren’t we, Mikey?”
Mikey had looked up at her with his big, round eyes and nodded. Jim was not sure he approved of that whole process.
Down the ladder Jim went yet again. If there was no future for him in Montreal, what about his attachment to Winnie, and her possible regard for him? What could he divine from her lilting laughter, her shy looks across the table, her relying on him more than the other boarders? The three workers came and went morning and night without paying her much attention.
As his bag was filled again, he asked himself for the umpteenth time, why can’t she give me a signal that she cares? A practical signal. Something he could hang onto. Some affirmation that would leave no doubt. He hated being in this shadowy world where she would allow their hands to touch, she would laugh happily when he told stories, but hardly react when he brushed her shoulder or massaged her back, rarely looking up at him with any expression of real caring.
* * *
When the bell sounded, the men around him were groaning like lifeless shades in some curious manmade hell as they crossed to the paymaster to collect their shillings. Meek, dumb, too exhausted even to talk, they lined up in the frosty air, dreaming of green hills back in Ireland. But Jim knew also that, with coins in their pocket, hot soup in their stomachs, and having washed, they’d set the evening about its ears. Fights would break out: oh yes, Protestant and Catholic at it again, or perhaps neighbour against neighbour, worker against worker in some perceived grudge. Smashing each other with whatever was to hand. He wanted none of that. The other three attic boarders would not be home for their soup tonight: they usually returned late Saturdays, very late, even toward morning, often without the money for their rent, having spent it on spirits or on girls prepared to sell their skimpy charms for a shilling or two. Winnie was wise, he thought, to get their week’s rent in advance.
This Saturday night he had Winnie all to himself. Mikey, at the end of a hard week, was too tired to do anything but sleep. During the long walk from work, Jim kept daydreaming about her as usual. Finally he reached the Griff, turned up Seminaire, then right along Ottawa Street past workers’ shanties, turned up Murray to the patched wooden fence of their tiny yard with its outhouse. He banged on the door.
She opened it. She had changed early tonight and looked to Jim even more bewitching: hair done up in its bun, the curls falling in little ringlets to frame her face, the shapes of her ample bosom clear beneath the low, revealing blouse. She helped him out of his coat while Mikey sat at the table finishing the last spoonful of soup. Jim held his breath at her closeness but she moved quickly on to her fire.
“I’ll just wash up.” Jim went to the corner basin. She didn’t reply.
“Can I have some more of me soup?” Mikey
asked.
“Not now, Mikey, time for bed. I’m making you a big surprise breakfast in the morning. Go get some sleep now.”
Obediently, Mikey went into the water closet under the steep attic steps and shut the door. The slop pail got emptied every night and morning in the outhouse. Jim proceeded to wash himself, more thoroughly than usual. He wanted to look nice when he sat down alone with Winnie for supper. The other evenings, the three boarders were there, slurping their soups, shovelling in their potatoes, bread, and molasses, and sometimes if lucky, chunks of meat. She seemed careful not to show any favouritism, so that none would get jealous. Or did she think of Jim no differently: another mouth to feed, another rent-giver, just like the others? He longed to know her true feelings.
Mikey stumbled out of the water closet, crossed the room and fell into his cot behind a curtained partition. He’d be asleep in no time, Jim knew. He glanced from his wash basin to Winnie, who was slicing some meat which she dropped into a frying pan. He could hear it sizzle. He worked all week to absolutely no purpose save for Saturday nights when he could look forward to this quiet hour with Winnie. He felt he could stay forever, not even eating, just looking across the table at her. But then she’d leave for work, sometimes staying away long into the night. He marvelled at her stamina.
After he dried himself, he climbed into the attic, crawled on his hands and knees across to his straw pallet and put on the clean shirt he’d washed the weekend before. Taking out a comb, he worked at his tousled hair to look his best when he went down.
Descending the ladder, he saw Winnie standing at her stove, seemingly tense. Was something up? He stood hesitantly at the foot of the ladder.
She turned. “I got to talk to you.”
What did this herald? She had not talked this way before. He nodded, watched her as she crossed to her table and sat.
Suddenly she burst into tears. Oh Lord, he thought, whatever has happened? He had never seen her like this before: so out of character. He crossed hurriedly, bent down awkwardly to cradle her weeping form. But she gave no response.