by June Hutton
*
Heat and oil had made slick work of the bolts and nuts and screws, the wrench I’d dragged over to get a grip, my fingers around it a useless knot, equally wet. I was sprawled on the floor of the raised platform, elbows up and spine grinding into the boards. A balled-up greasy apron propped up my head but still, more bits of brown frizz had worked their way free from the knot and hung in my eyes, and I scraped them away with my knuckles.
I was no stranger to machines. My big brother Will had a cantankerous Ford, and I had worked beside him, loosening and tightening bolts, steam billowing from gnarled pipes of lead. But this was different, more like two trucks clamped one on top of the other, maybe three, its insides of another nature entirely.
As I worked, I composed a letter to my brothers.
Dearest boys,
The voyage was rough but arrived here without incident shortly after midnight. Don’t tell father that —
No, scuttle that. I should just say the voyage was several hours’ duration. I didn’t want their sympathy.
And now here I am working on Uncle’s printing machine. I will write again soon.
—your loving sister, Lila
No. Just: —Lila
With the heel of my hand on the wrench, the weight of my body behind it, I shoved. Too hard. The bolt squawked, then gave, and sent the wrench flying.
I cursed the godforsaken grimy tin walls and sat upright, barely missing a metal bar overhead. That was it. I was done. Pale light shone in the windows now, just as the navigator had said it would. Day one of my new life and a wasp of anxiety buzzed from rib to rib inside me. A month to get the newspaper out. I fought a sense of welling panic, the fear that I might have tackled too much, was attempting the impossible and therefore was doomed to failure. And then the fear of succeeding, of feeling this beast leap to life under my fingers. What then?
Someone in town must know about my uncle’s printing machine, who ran it, and where I could find him. I rolled to my feet.
With a rag that reeked of kerosene I rubbed furiously at my stained fingers and knuckles, squeezing through the cramped back shop as I worked at my hands, past the drawers of type, shelves of ink cans, stacks of paper. Newsprint smudges from Uncle’s thumbs blackened the doorknobs, window sills and tin walls. Against the back wall, a washtub streaked black and full of jars of putty knives and rags and solvent. Above it a battered metal mirror, where I checked my face for streaks of black, then stuck my head under the tap to rinse my mouth. Uncle had a tin of denture powder on the shelf. I sprinkled some onto my finger and rubbed it over my teeth, rinsed again, and dried my face on my sleeve.
Hanging from a bolt in the wall next to the sink was a calendar. It had 1922 neatly printed over a painting of an orchard not unlike ours back home, and I could see why Uncle had picked it. I tore off the May, June, July and August pages from the pad at the bottom. A pencil had been tied to the bolt, and I grabbed it up to strike through September 1, yesterday, and September 2, today. I spun around and left the pressroom, the pencil clattering against the wall behind me.
Next, my coveralls. They slid into a heap around my ankles and I shook one foot and then the other to step out of them, smoothing as I did so the lavender-grey pleats of my travel outfit, even more rumpled than before. I was ready.
The opera poster still lay at a crooked angle on the counter. I’d pin it up later. The front office was the only room in the building where anything could be pinned. Its walls had been framed in wood and then finished with lath and plaster. It could use some brightening, though, because the white paint had yellowed over the years.
I felt along the shelves underneath the counter, finding trays of rubber bands and bundles of envelopes, pencils and paperclips. I took up one pencil and stuck in into the sharpener screwed to the countertop, cranked the handle five times and pulled it out. Perfect. The sharpener in my old classroom used to chew the pencils to bits. On the second shelf I found a ledger, and behind it, at last, the thing I had been looking for, a notebook. Spiral-bound, brown cover, the inside pages a series of calculations, my uncle’s attempts to tally income and expenses and find a balance in his favour. I had the same habit and made a mental note to stop it. This was like finding someone’s love letters, all their emotions and fears laid out for the finder to examine: my uncle’s frantic discovery that he was nearing bankruptcy, each series of sums tallied hopefully, and then crossed out angrily. I tore out the scribbled pages and tossed them into a wooden box full of other scraps of paper.
Then I lifted the hinged counter and dropped it with a bang behind me.
Outside I was struck by the sensation of plodding through a dust storm. I could barely make out the wooden sign in my neighbour’s darkened window: General Store. The navigator was right. A low-hung sky of dark grey turned mustard grey about the edges where the sun must be trying to burst through. Feeble as the daylight was, I could see what I had missed last night. No need for a lamp. To my left, thick black trunks of chimneys belching smoke. To my right, a strip of simmering walls of black metal pipes and roofs. Soot-stained windows that glowered dully. I turned in quick circles, trying to take it all in, trying to decide where to start seeking information. Leaning corrugated metal shacks and rotting logs, heavy iron pipes running between them, down low and up high, gave the whole place the look of a furnace room with the lights turned off. The road sign told me that this was Zero Avenue. Fitting. A nothing street. Not a leaf. Not a tree. The mountain that the navigator told me about rose through the mist, with a long tail of hills that whipped around the town.
Some towns are marked by the cry of gulls or the clanging of streetcars. But this one’s music was a constant rumbling of coal carts along the tracks that skirted the tops of the hills.
At my feet its dank centre, strewn with boulders, hunks of cement, buckets on their sides.
Black motorcycles roared out of the fog, their silver-snouted sidecars squealing around me as I tried once, then twice, to dodge them and cut across the road. I had no idea these were taxis, that the black-booted thugs in goggles and tight leather caps were, in fact, the taxi drivers. Uncle never mentioned them when he came to visit. His talk was all about the newspaper. I didn’t see a single taxi last night. I realized what they were only when a man across the way flagged one down. And I noticed him only because he was relieving himself against the side of a tin building, a saloon by the looks of the swinging doors, and waved with his free hand, turning his spray into the street.
In two long strides I had leapt out of his way, too.
I pressed on, past the only building of any substance, the bank all stone and equally grey—at once the wasp was back in my guts, reminding me of my deadline. I pushed the thought away. Before me was the only promise of elegance in town, a skeleton of iron girders that formed a square frame and, lying on the ground beside it, a matching skeletal dome that one day might top the structure. Right now, there wasn’t a single worker on the site.
I stepped off the boardwalk to cross the road at the corner, and very nearly put my boot into a black hole. I leapt back, heart pounding, hand at my throat, reeling around to confront the first person I saw. What was this doing in the middle of the road? Why wasn’t it blocked off? A child could fall in. I could bloody well fall in.
But all I saw was swirling mist. Then I thought of that Chinese, how he had melted into the fog and how he could be a few feet from me right now, his rifle aimed at my head.
I hurried on.
The hotel café doors flew open and empty food tins were booted into the street, the clatter drawing stray pigs that charged around me for the rubbish and rooted gleefully, obscenely pink against the soot streets. There was news here, that much was certain. That group of men roping that boulder last night. That large man, absurdly dressed in white, hands tied behind his back. And that Chinese, that rifle.
Words crammed into my mind. Headlines and subheads. Commentaries and stories.
What torture to have the words and not the means because, without a newspaper, none of them would gain the heft of news. I darted around the pigs and turned back up the street to the General Store, where light was now spilling from the window.
*
Desk lamps with green shades lined the long counters. A thin man, balding, leaned on his elbows, his green visor staining the tip of his pointed nose and chin.
Newcomer, Miss?
Sinclair, I answered. Lila. I approached him with hand held out to shake his. He reached under the counter and dropped a package into my palm.
Tea, the man said. What your uncle used to order.
I nodded and pushed the package onto the polished wood counter. He knew exactly who I was, though my last name was different. Uncle was my mother’s brother. But word had spread. No surprise. In such a small place, I was news.
Mister, I began.
Parker, he corrected. Just Parker.
You knew my uncle, I said.
Well enough. A going concern.
Until he met his death, I said.
Until he met his death, he agreed.
There was no sign of sympathy on the man, but it was hard to see anything under that visor. His eyes flashed green, though they were likely pale blue.
It was a shock, I added. He wasn’t that old.
His sister was much younger.
My mother, I replied.
Uncle must have told him about her. I waited for this Parker to tell me more. He didn’t. I was in a hurry and wanted to ask about the press, but out of politeness found myself filling the silence. I saw a man last night, I said, dressed all in white, which you have to admit—
I waited for him to finish my sentence. Is absurd, he might’ve said. Foolhardy in a coal town. Again he didn’t respond, so I added, His hands were tied behind his back!
Hmmph, he said.
Then I almost fell into a black hole in the middle of the street. There should be signs—
Mind the holes! he said. Exploratory digs, they’re everywhere.
Well I suppose.
No supposing. It’s a fact. This is a mining town.
I studied the shelves above his head. Tins of peas and corn, of beets, of sardines and corned beef, of peaches and pears. To the side, in the corner, a pickle barrel.
His thin voice dragged my eyes back. You ready to run the newspaper, Miss?
Lila, I repeated. I plucked my notebook from my pocket and gave it a flutter. Ready for news, I replied. I taught grammar once, and history.
That last fact was to make me seem some sort of expert, though I’d actually found the schoolchildren to be worse demons than my little brothers.
Not what I meant, exactly, he said.
You mean because I’m a woman.
Could be, he said, drawing out the words. You a woman who knows how to run the machines?
My arms went loose. He’d found me out. The wasp thumped against my ribs again, desperate for escape.
Didn’t think so, he said.
I shook my head, thoughts ranging until they latched onto a point of logic. That’s why I’m here, I said, to ask you who my uncle had to run them.
Ran them himself.
In addition to writing all of his articles? And interviewing? Going to meetings—
Then I stopped. How much did I want this Parker knowing about me and my concerns? And the fact that, clearly, I had not expected to operate machinery. Tinker with the parts, certainly, as I had done already, just to see if I could. But I had thought there’d be someone else. At least, I hadn’t thought at all about whether there would or wouldn’t be someone else. I hadn’t thought at all beyond digging up news and writing it down. I knew that would mean running the business, too, and I looked forward to it, just as I had when my brothers went overseas, all four of them, and Father and I were left to run the fruit farm. We did a good job. I did a good job, more and more it was left up to me, to cut the orchard grass and pick the fruit, load it up and drive the truckload to the jam factory in town. When the war ended and the twins and Robbie came back, Father suggested that if I wasn’t going to marry I needed to find a way to take care of myself. Had I said I wouldn’t marry? I was still sore about the Poznikoff boy at the jam factory, John, whose people were from Russia. Blasted pacifists, our father said. You stay away from that coward. Why should our Will have to sacrifice his life, when a Doukhobor can fold his arms and refuse to fight? I said how else could I meet a boy—the rest had been blown to bits. And more things, many more things said that day, too many to dwell on now, in the General Store. It was enough to recall that Father took over the runs and then the boys returned and I was left with teaching as my future. And now? I just assumed there’d be an assistant, an apprentice, I don’t know, someone more familiar with the intricacies of producing the newspaper: setting the type and loading it, if that’s even what the process was called, adjusting the pressure, fixing a paper jam and now that I thought of it, inking the press. I hadn’t thought I’d be alone with all that.
My thinking had exhausted me. I leaned on the counter for support.
Your uncle tried to hire a man once, Parker said. Just to help out. But he was no mechanic. He was an Australian. There’s the Chinese, if you’re fool enough to go there.
I saw a Chinese yesterday—I began, but Parker spoke over top of me.
They call it Lousetown, he said, if you see what I mean. Where all them live. Chinese, Hindu, whatnot.
He lifted his visor. Yes, his eyes were pale blue and they bugged clear out of his head. He opened a drawer and began digging around it, done with the conversation. He stopped only to raise both hands as though to indicate that I’d been warned.
Finally, he looked up and asked, Anything else?
I straightened up.
A man on the ship, the navigator, he gave me a headlamp.
It’s on your bill.
Peaches, I said, pointing to the shelves. Corned beef. Sardines, too, please. And bread.
I was hungry, and asked for a pickle as well. He handed it to me wrapped in waxed paper, and I ate it as he returned to our previous conversation.
The mine is directly behind your back door and Lousetown is directly behind the mine. You could climb Black Mountain to have a look around and get your bearings.
That great big hill, you mean?
He worked his mouth for a time. Chinese call their paper The Times, he said. The Chinese Times. That’s where you’ll find a printer.
I thought of asking him about rifles in Lousetown, but something stopped me. Parker talked about those people the way my father talked about Doukhobors.
It’s in English, I gather, the newspaper?
No.
Then why isn’t the paper a Chinese name?
Ask them. Here’s your bread.
A package of flour landed on the counter, followed by a pound of paper-wrapped lard.
He shook his head at my obvious bewilderment.
Thought so, he said. You could pan fry it instead.
I nodded vigorously, though I knew no more about frying bread than I did baking it.
He slapped open a paper bag and filled it with my purchases.
I swallowed the last of the pickle and crumpled the waxed paper into my pocket. Hungry as I was, I would be glad to dump the bag inside my front door, and set a course for Lousetown.
If I was fool enough to go there, Parker said. I had travelled all the way to Black Mountain by myself. What was one more short trip?
Accursed Creatures
Behind my shop the land sloped into a haze-streaked hollow. Hovering at the three-foot level was thicker fog that stunk of smoke. My building had turned its back on the mine, with all windows aimed toward the street side. It was only by walking down the side of the building and around the corner that I was able to see this back view for the first time. It brought me to a standstill. Th
e outline of the pithead towered in the grey distance like a double-decked outhouse, tall and rambling and leaning, as though it had been tipped by misbehaving boys. All that was missing was a crescent moon carved in the door. Crouched around it was a jumble of tin outbuildings, each as black and filthy as the next, with orange fires crackling over the rubble-strewn blackened grounds, a set of shoulders hunched over each, tending the flames.
The low whine of a motorcycle cut through the thick air and I turned to watch it appear. Headlamp first, glowing like the moon. Beetle-nosed sidecar next. Then the driver, goggled as though he’d risen from the ocean, his leather dripping like second skin. I waved and he pulled the bike up beside me, oily steam leaking from its vents and joints. A leather boot with silver buckles planted itself into the dirt.
Where to? the taxi driver asked, lifting his goggles to expose pink circles around his eyes. Careful, he added. Trout Creek behind you.
I looked back and sprang clear of the creek that steamed where it met a channel of black from the mine, just a few feet from my back door. Some sort of fish bobbed belly-up in the mix, unearthly white.
I pulled my eyes from the sight and told him: Lousetown.
Without a word he slapped the goggles back in place and gunned the engine, leaving me in a greasy cloud with the joined creeks bubbling behind me.
I would walk then, my sole companion the fish that turned in slow circles beside me in the water.
But no. To my right, two lines of miners emerged in the gloom, startling me with their sudden proximity, close enough for me to make out their features. The far line trudged toward the pithead, grim-faced, about to go under, while the near one lurched from it, black-faced, metal helmets studded with lamps. Limp-armed, lunch pails dangling.
These were the sort of men I’d like to interview for the paper, men like my friends’ fathers back home who toiled in the smelter and in the nearby mines. This mine seemed to have a ready supply of them. There they staggered beside me, exhausted and filthy, resigned to the prospect of coming back tomorrow. Blackened lips muttering. Scottish brogue, Irish lilt, American drawl. The last one a torrent of Italian, or was it Spanish? The tall one could be a Swede or a Dutchman, his fair hair dusted grey by coal. The short one—a Welshman? All different, but all one in the cold look they gave me, the outsider, the niece who might be just like her newspapering uncle, prying where she wasn’t wanted, vulgar in her lavender-grey, a blush of colour in their ashen world.