Sam and China cleaned those suckers for six hours straight. Sam then dozed on the couch while she spent another hour cleaning the counters, walls and the kitchen floor. She found out later that the deal was: if you dig for clams you don’t have to clean them. The other rule was: one bucket of clams was enough. A sack was too much of a good thing.
~ ~
As China struggled through the day she felt a black fog slowing descending over her head and spent most of the evening crying. Sam looked over at the pitiful spectacle sobbing in the rocking chair.
“What’s the matter?”
“Nothing,” said China. “It’s just PMS.”
“The next time, give me a warning,” said Sam. “I’ll go over to Cool Momma’s where everybody’s drunk and there’s a reason for weird behaviour.”
The next evening China was removing the makeup she’d used to camouflage swollen eyes, even though they just looked like swollen eyes with makeup, when Sam rushed upstairs excitedly and announced a Tsunami.
“A what?” asked China, looking like a one-eyed raccoon.
“It’s a Tsunami, a tidal wave,” said Sam. “We have to evacuate! Drive to higher ground.”
God, thought China, what next?
“Okay,” she said, “you get some bread, a few tins of salmon, something to drink, and I’ll gather blankets and pillows, Tampax, Over-Nights and Light Days.”
Christ in the kitchen, she thought, I’ve got my own bloody tidal wave to think about. She looked in the mirror and wondered if she should remove the makeup from the left eye or reapply the makeup to the right eye? China reapplied the makeup. No way was she going to look ugly in the middle of a Tsunami.
They got in the car and China checked the supplies Sam had gathered.
“The bread is good Sam and so is the gingerale and the tin of salmon, but where’s the can opener?”
“Never mind, sweetie,” said Sam cheerfully. “We’ll live off the land.”
Oh, goody, thought China, now she could watch the warrior in action.
“Did you bring a knife? Where’s your fishing rod? Where’s the gun?”
Sam hesitated to reply and China hoped that, maybe, he was feeling a tad guilty about his incompetence in the face of danger, but no, he quickly asserted the lawyerly face of manipulation.
“I’m going to do what any good lawyer would do in an emergency.”
“Which is?” queried China cautiously.
“Barter legal advice for a share of my neighbour’s food.”
“My hero,” said China.
They pulled into the long lineup at the gas station. No one kept their gas tanks full because the island was so small. Someone honked the horn behind them and waved. Sam got out and returned with a small paper bag.
“This is for you. It’s from Blondie at the drug store.”
China opened the bag and saw three tubes of Revlon lipstick. Blondie had gone off-island and had agreed to purchase China’s favourite lipstick which couldn’t be bought on Grimshaw Island.
“Oh, good, if we run out of food we can always eat my lipstick. I’ll have the required colour on my lips as the wave pours over my head.”
After filling up the gas tank, Peter stuck his head in the window and said, “You can go home now. They just announced that the Tsunami warning is over. The great wave has fizzled as usual.”
They turned around and went home like everyone else, feeling slightly foolish and anti-climaxed.
“He could have told us that before he filled up the tank,” said China grumpily.
“Peter may be ugly,” said Sam, “but he ain’t stupid.”
~ ~
China awoke the next day no longer feeling like a moss-encrusted creature from the black lagoon. A bit of drama was good for the soul. They’d survived a tidal wave. Surely, in comparison, life with Sam would now be smooth sailing.
Then she remembered her promise to make cookies for the fiftieth wedding anniversary of Sam’s Uncle Wolf and his wife Josephine. China had never met them since they lived most of the time in Halifax. Anita had decided that the celebration should take place on the island and so everyone had to jump and do what they were told. The aboriginal women made fifty pies at the drop of a hat but after doing it once for that awful Thunder Ceremony, China decided it was easier to make cookies.
When Sam and China arrived at the great meeting hall the place was full of people but empty of Sam’s relatives and there was no food in sight to feed the multitude. Anita finally showed up with Uncle Wolf and Josephine and vaguely said that the sliced turkey was still in the freezer and Marisa and Bear were in charge of the gravy over at the house.
Sam and China borrowed a pickup truck and drove over to his grandparent’s house where Marisa still lived with Pop. China shuddered every time she entered the old house. It was once the grandest home in the village, at least the outside was - tall and strong with big windows. They never finished it inside and through the years it had disintegrated, reflecting their blindness, their deafness, their fall from power into misery and decrepitude.
The house was deserted but things were bubbling maniacally on the stove. Marisa and Bear had obviously started the turkey gravy but had a change of giblet. Perhaps Anita had alienated a couple of people whilst giving orders in that soothing way of hers?
The potatoes were done to a turn and feeling cozy in a huge cauldron that China and Sam couldn’t budge when they tried to lift it together.
“Jesus Sam!” exclaimed China. “Where do they get pots so huge? Sure I could fit in that one myself.”
“I don’t know. Everyone has at least one around here. I suppose they got them from a place that supplies restaurants.”
Sam picked up a huge ladle that must have come with the cauldron and starting lifting out the potatoes.
“Here,” said Sam. “Get a smaller pot and I’ll unload enough potatoes so we can lift it.”
They unloaded the potatoes to a liftable weight and maneuvered the cauldron onto the truck with the other potatoes, plus the two pots of turkey stock. Then China noticed that the oven was still on and found two big pans of dressing about to burn. They found the frozen sliced turkey in the fridge, threw that into the pickup and drove carefully to the meeting hall.
“Sam, drive more slowly,” said China in a worried voice. “The soup stock is sloshing all over the place.”
“Don’t worry,” said Sam. “The wild cats will clean that up and what they don’t lick off the rain will take care of.”
By the time they got back to the meeting hall, several hungry and willing hands unloaded the truck. Two men tried to light the gas oven to thaw the turkey. Meanwhile another couple arrived with two hot turkeys and China started making gravy for three hundred people. Her usual gravy was smooth and creamy but her recipe didn’t seem to work very well for more than ten people. When she filled the first three pitchers of gravy she carefully strained the lumps out, but then she decided that the people were so hungry they wouldn’t notice a few lumps, and besides she was rapidly losing her sense of perfection as her hair wilted in the heat and steam of the kitchen.
China stayed in the kitchen all evening, stirring and serving, while Sam roamed the community hall having a good time. She gave up when the interminable speeches and toasts to the anniversary couple started. She knew it would go on for a good two hours. The Grimshaws all loved to make speeches into the incompetent microphone that garbled their words and either over-amplified the sound or sunk it to a whisper so that no one could understand a word. She found Sam and asked him for the keys to the car.
“Sam, I’m going home,” said China.
“Are you sure?” asked Sam mischievously. “You’ll miss all the great speeches.”
“I’m positive.”
“Don’t you want to stay and help clear up the hall?”
“Sam, give me the keys before I pour a pitcher of lumpy gravy over your head.”
“Here,” said Sam relinquishing the keys with a grin. “I’ll memo
rize the speeches and recite them all to you in the morning.”
“I can’t wait,” said China wearily.
When she got home and checked her clothing she was amazed to find that her silk blouse and skirt were still clean and only two spots of grease had landed on her suede shoes. She vowed that when she attended the next community dinner she’d arrive at least an hour late, eat, get a terrible migraine and leave early. No wonder so many of the Grimshaws are on welfare, she thought. With a community dinner to prepare almost every week for either a wedding, graduation, anniversary, Thunder Ceremony, funeral, or a statutory white holiday, they don’t have time to work. I know they used to have days of feasting in the old days but that was usually after a long winter of starving. They left starvation behind a long time ago judging by the size of them, and their susceptibility to diabetes. China shook her head over the folly of traditions that didn’t apply in the modern world of plenty.
~ ~
The next day, Sam went duck hunting with Edgar Jim and his son, John Edgar. China walked the beach by herself, her eyes and lungs filled with the beauty and endless horizon. Why couldn’t she have it all? Why did she have to trade her family and friends and culture and shopping and scintillating conversation in order to have Sam. She tried to feel what it would be like with no Sam in her life and her stomach cramped with pain. She had thrown all caution to the winds in order to keep him and the packing and the moving and the talking about it all had made it seem glamourous, adventurous. Then she had arrived, came to a full stop and had to deal with a strange and frightening landscape. She had thrown away the familiar that had a shape and a knowingness that her new life had none of. The phone bill was huge when Sam was away. She called her friends and family, believing that if she talked about her life, she actually had one. She was cheerful and optimistic and described an island paradise, but when she hung up she was left with her loneliness.
She felt that Sam made no effort to understand her difficulty with living on the island. She expected him to be more sympathetic since he had experienced years of struggling to fit into the white world. Sam had changed the moment they were married and he set foot on Grimshaw Island. He had become himself. The self he had hidden for so long.
When Sam returned home he reported that he and his two companions, the mighty hunters, got one duck between them. Sam had made the mistake of telling John Edgar, sixteen years old, six feet and two hundred pounds, that he looked like a geek wearing a white beanie on his head.
“Sam,” said John Edgar, “if I were you, I wouldn’t insult a warrior with a loaded shotgun in his hand.”
~ ~
China and Sam watched TV in a stupor after too much salmon and wine.
“Sam,” asked China curiously, “did Marisa and Bear ever show up for the dinner last night?”
“Marisa showed up drunk as a skunk and I had to take her home. Booze and drunken Indians aren’t allowed at public meetings. I guess Bear made himself scarce. He doesn’t hang around Marisa when she’s on a binge.”
Sam changed the channel disgustedly.
“Stupid nigger,” he muttered.
“Don’t say that, Sam.”
“Why not? They call each other nigger.”
“They can say what they want. You can’t. I don’t like racist remarks.”
“I’m not racist.”
“How can you say that? Nigger is a racist slur as you very well know. It represents hundreds of years of slavery and horrible treatment.”
“Yeah, and now it represents ghetto gangs, and killing and rape and theft and a disgusting attitude.”
“Oh, did you ever know a black person?”
“Don’t need to. I read newspapers. Every day there’s another one of them arrested for some crime.”
“White people commit crimes too. Maybe if the attitude of people like you changed, they’d feel more comfortable in the world.”
“What about the First Nations? What about all the comfort we’ve received?”
“Yes, what about that? You’d think that after all that’s happened to you, you’d be much more understanding.”
“Since when have you become the defender of the black race?”
“What’s wrong with defending my beliefs?”
“Because you called me a racist. Because I think you should be loyal to me, not to some people you don’t know.”
“I guess you’ve forgotten that your granddaughter by marriage is a member of the black race?”
“It’s got nothing to do with her,” yelled Sam, with perverted logic. “She’s beautiful and smart and I love her and I’d never say the N word in front of her.”
“Thinking it is bad enough, Sam. And if you say it often enough, one of these days it’ll just slip out of your mouth like a nuclear bomb, right in front of her, and blast her world to pieces.”
China was now crying hysterically and she started to run upstairs. She turned around and yelled one more sentence at Sam.
“Charity begins at home!” China yelled between sobs.
She flew upstairs as quick as she could to escape the incomprehensible logic of her lunatic husband who had suddenly transformed into a demon.
No God, please no, cried China silently. Who am I living with? He’s angry with me for not hating like he does. I can blame my nonsense on PMS. What can he blame his on? He must be drunk and not in his right mind. Surely he doesn’t believe what he just said.
Sam followed her upstairs a bit later.
“All right,” he said begrudgingly, “I won’t say the N word again if you promise not to call me a racist.”
Okay, thought China, a shaky compromise. The first battle lines have been drawn. I had no idea that behind Sam’s cheerful demeanor lurked a redneck. He calls white racists rednecks. Indians used to be called redskins. The only word I can think of for Sam is ridiculous. We now have the first “unmentionable” in our marriage. A closed door never to be opened. Is marriage a series of closed doors?
~ ~
China went through the motions for the next couple of days. She and Sam acted as though the argument had never happened. However, China remembered it like a hand print etched in acid on her soul, and recorded it unhappily in her journal.
June 3/97
I’m at the door, blazing white, struggling with something I have difficulty naming. I’m in a foreign country trying to learn the language, knowing that fluency will never make me acceptable to the inhabitants. I stand in front of the door confused and betrayed by myself and him. It doesn’t matter who did what to me. What matters is that I must open this door, deal with what is on the other side. It is shaking my bones. I don’t know why I still hope that he’ll help me open the door because he’s more afraid of the other side than I am. If he doesn’t help me, then he is the door, and I must go through him.
China folded the laundry carefully, one of the domestic chores that soothed as her mind roared at Sam. Where do you go when I tell you that you are less than what I need? What do you think about when you retreat, shamed by my clear cut vision? You listen, then withdraw quietly, looking somewhat rattled. You go about your business and wait for me to look at you again with gentle in my eyes. She put his underwear and socks in his drawer. Don’t you ever feel the need to apologize, tell me who you are? Do I hurt you when I throw back your reflection? Am I too harsh a mirror for your deception? She folded his t-shirts, put yesterday’s soiled underwear in the hamper and hung up his trousers. Will you leave me because my expectations wither you? She cleaned the toilet rim of Sam’s yellow drops and thought of piss marks in the snow, bright and territorial. I’m not here to scold and teach you how to live. I’m here to love and grow old with you. I can’t do it on my own. I need your help.
China looked at her reflection wearing yellow rubber gloves. How long can I walk around pretending that I’m sane? She removed the gloves and carefully applied eyeliner and mascara to camouflage the madness lurking in her eyes.
~ ~
Grimshaw Woman
China drove Sam to the seaplane. She was beginning to feel like a pit stop between trips. This time he was going to Northern Quebec.
“Sam, did you deposit the cheque from the Treaty Association in our account?” asked China.
“Yes,” replied Sam.
“What was the balance?”
“I don’t know. The bank was closed when I went.”
“Hello? You just told me you deposited the cheque.”
“I wasn’t listening.”
“Okay. I’ll ask you again.”
“I’ll deposit the cheque when I get to Halifax,” said Sam quickly.
China pulled into the gravel parking lot near the wharf. Sam gave her a kiss and ran down the ramp to the waiting seaplane. China sat there wondering how Sam had paid for his ticket. Sam wouldn’t have time to deposit the money in Halifax. He’d be lucky if he made the connection to Montreal. If Sam had paid the airfare by cheque, she was afraid it would bounce before Sam could deposit the money. She got out of the car and ran after Sam. She caught up with him just before he boarded the plane.
“Sam, give me the cheque and I’ll deposit it in the bank now,” said China. “I don’t want the cheque for the airfare to bounce.”
“I paid cash. Bear cashed the cheque for me yesterday.”
“Why the hell didn’t you say so?”
“I don’t know. I gotta go.”
China watched in astonishment as Sam boarded the seaplane.
She walked up the ramp slowly as the plane took off.
Liar Page 10