The Western Light

by Susan Swan

  I took the newspaper story to Uncle Willie in his private quarters above the old carriage shed. Uncle Willie had on the smoking jacket my great-grandfather wore in his portrait. Willa had taken it in so it would fit him.

  “Your highness, I’ve been expecting you. Willa left some extra breakfast for you.” He waved at a tray stacked with rusty brown pieces of toast and glass jars of creamy-looking butter and marmalade. “Homemade, Mary,” he said. “Try some. Nobody makes jam better than Willa.”

  I applied myself wolfishly to the rest of Uncle Willie’s breakfast, stuffing down the toast. My uncle climbed out of bed and joined me. Willa had made bran muffins, too, and Uncle Willie smeared one with double helpings of jam and butter and gulped it down.

  “There’s more about John Pilkie in the morning paper,” I began. “Did you see it?”

  “I saw it,” he said. “Mary, let’s forget about the hockey killer for a moment. Do you think Little Louie is mad at me for bringing Max yesterday?”

  “I don’t think so. She was only pretending to be mad, because she didn’t know what else to do.”

  Uncle Willie threw back his head and laughed like anything. “Is Max your friend, too?”

  “Yes. Max and I used to play hooky from school together. Then Max started studying so he could go to university. Not me. I’m hopeless, you know. I can’t work under the direction of other people.”

  “Why not?” I asked.

  “Has anyone said you ask too many questions?”

  “Yes, lots of times. What were John Pilkie’s relatives like? Were they nice?”

  “You don’t quit, do you, kid? The Pilkies were God-fearing, hardworking people, like most of us old families in southern Ontario. Self-righteous, too, and opinionated. We think we know best. It’s a terrible feeling.”

  “I suppose it is,” I said.

  “But never mind the Pilkies, Mary. I want to show you my new project.” Uncle Willie fished out a typed-up manuscript from a box under his bed. “Here’s my film script. I’m sending it with my application to a college in the United States.” He sat on his bed and watched while I read its opening paragraph:

  HARD OILING WITH THE VIDALS: A Family History

  Scene One: Reginald Barrett and Big Louie (Vidal) Barrett on the ocean liner, The Princess Mary:

  Voice Over: How did a Yankee canal boy named Mac Vidal become as rich as Midas? What role did he play in developing the oilfields of Enniskillen, which supplied ninety per cent of Canada’s oil at the turn of the twentieth century? Let us start at the end of the saga, with his descendants, the modern prodigals.

  Scene One: Two figures walk down the deck of an ocean liner while “Claire de Lune” plays on the soundtrack. The male figure tips his hat to the camera. Now the female figure, wearing an evening gown and long gloves, throws her diamond bracelet into the sea. The man claps and both walk triumphantly towards the camera until they block out the lens. These are the prodigals, the carefree children of the pioneers who spend money like water. From shirtsleeves to shirtsleeves in three generations, as the saying goes.

  “Big Louie won’t like you saying she spends money like water.”

  “The old girl has a sense of humour,” Uncle Willie replied. “That’s the best thing about her. Besides, she’ll look like royalty when I’m finished.”

  I wasn’t so sure, although Big Louie didn’t need Uncle Willie’s movie camera to playact. “Can I ask you something else, Uncle Willie?”

  “Well, okay,” he said. “Shoot.”

  “Did your friend Max break Little Louie’s heart?”

  “I bet Mother told you that. But yes, it’s a mess all right. He’s married to someone else now.”

  “Will Max leave his wife for Little Louie?”

  “Who knows? Little Louie is no pushover.” Uncle Willie frowned. “It’s the damnedest thing. If you tell my sister not to jump off a cliff, she’ll do it. She’s a real chip off the old block.”

  “You mean Old Mac?”

  “No, I mean Big Louie. Those two women are a force of nature. You will be one day, too.” When Uncle Willie saw my surprise, he squeezed my hand and we stared out the window at my grandmother’s garden, where the morning breeze was making the big, white globes of the mopheads bob up and down beside their kissing cousins, the pink skullcap hydrangeas. What Uncle Willie said made me hopeful, even though I was not yellow-haired and big-boned like the women in my mother’s family. I was short and thin and so undeveloped for my age that people thought I was younger than I was. To make matters worse, my hair was the same boring brown shade as Morley’s dead mother, Mrs. Phyllis Bradford. I looked like my nickname, Mouse, and there wasn’t a thing I could do about it.

  WILLA THOUGHT I WAS IN bed asleep, but instead I stood in my pyjamas on the upstairs balcony pretending to be my great-grandfather spying on one of Big Louie’s parties. From this vantage point, it was easy to see why Old Mac felt neglected. Like me, he was left out of family celebrations. I was too young, and he was too old. By the time he died, he was coming up to his third year of triple digits.

  Across the lawn, the evening sun shimmered hot and low through the oaks, catching the guests in splashes of golden light. Big Louie stood on the front step handing out corsages made of the small onions, radishes, and parsley that Willa and I had put together from instructions in the Matinee Party Guide. My grandmother’s voice floated up above the noise of her guests laughing about their silly corsages. She was telling them the radishes were specially shipped from Detroit, and her guests pretended to ooh and ah as they enjoyed my grandmother’s joke. When the band played “I’ve Got a Lovely Bunch of Coconuts” my grandmother took Uncle Willie’s arm and headed over to the tennis court, where people were dancing. I couldn’t help admiring how the sun lit up the dark blue sequins on Big Louie’s dress. It also caught on Uncle Willie’s wristwatch and the hood ornaments of the cars: a 1922 Chevrolet Coupe and a 1927 Cadillac. The Vidal Packard was parked in a special place by the carriage shed, and the sunshine glowing on its hood and white walled tires showed off Maurice’s handiwork. I imagined Queen Elizabeth swanning around in the car with President Eisenhower and Mamie as photographers crowded them, flash bulbs popping.

  Behind the old cars rose the oil derrick and field house and still more exhibits from the early days of oil that had been moved to the lawn for my grandmother’s party. There was a tall oil wagon with high wooden wheels as well as several giant steam kettles used by my great-grandfather to refine crude oil. Only their spouts could be seen. The rest of the kettles were hidden by the stand of cedar trees near the carriage shed. Then I caught a movement by the cedars. My mouth fell open. John Pilkie was coming round the corner of the carriage shed, wearing his chocolate brown fedora. His face was hidden under the brim of his hat. I couldn’t be absolutely sure it was him, but he walked with the same swagger, toes out, shoulders high. He had on tall rubber boots, which looked strange in the heat. He jiggled the handle of the Packard’s door, hunching his shoulders as if he didn’t want anybody to see what he was doing. The door opened and he leaned across the seat, looking for something. Suddenly, I knew what it was. He was looking for the key so he could drive off with the Packard. I considered yelling for my grandmother but she wasn’t anywhere to be seen. Remember your promise, Hindrance whispered. If it’s Pilkie, you have to talk him out of stealing her car.

  Without worrying about what Willa would say, I took Big Louie’s elevator down to the first floor and tramped as fast as I could through my grandmother’s petunia beds. It was still humid and my leg brace felt heavy and hot against my pyjama leg. Soon I was almost at the carriage shed, where the intruder stood brushing lint off his trousers. He glanced up and saw me. Before I could say hello, he disappeared into the cedars.

  Unfortunately, the darkness was thickening in the oak woods and I could no longer see the ant holes with the sandy moustache rings around their burrows. Should I get Uncle Willie? But what if the man was John? I took a few more steps and somebody
coughed, a hollow wheezing expunging of air. John had coughed the same way in our kitchen on Whitefish Road.

  “Is that you, Mr. Pilkie?” I called. “If it’s you, I won’t tell. Cross my heart and point to heaven.” Overhead, a nighthawk screeched as it landed on a cedar, making the branches quiver. Or was the stranger making the cedar shake? I took a gulp of air and cried, “You have to get away from here as fast as you can! Promise?” The coughing started again. It went on and on and ended in a long, bronchial whistling. I knew what my father would say — “Too many cigarettes.”

  Nearby, the oil exhibits looked bigger and creepy in the evening shadows, and the fusty smell of Big Louie’s petunias pushed over to me from the garden. Summoning up my nerve, I yelled, “I am truly sorry Sib Beaudry was mean to you but you have to go — now!” Why didn’t he answer? Was he mad at me for drawing attention to him? There was a new rustling sound and the cedars started shaking again. Now I understood. John was angry and he was going to strangle me with his bare hands. Putting my weight on my good leg, I humped myself off, listening for the tromp-tromp of his footsteps. “Hurry, Hindrance,” I whispered. “Don’t let him catch us.” The rustling sound grew louder. Behind me, a male voice said my name with a question mark behind it. I whirled around. Maurice was smiling down at me.

  “John Pilkie is stealing the Packard!” I cried.

  Maurice smiled. “Willa’s looking for you,” he said.

  I narrowed my eyes trying to decide what to do, and Hindrance whispered cunningly: Mouse Bradford, only you can save the day. Mollified, I limped over to warn Big Louie’s guests.

  18

  AT FIRST, NOBODY NOTICED ME. THE DANCERS FLEW ROUND AND round the tennis court to the “Beer Barrel Polka.” How could I tell anyone about John stealing the Packard when they sped by me so fast? A dejected-looking Max stood at the bar with a red-haired woman who had linked her arm tightly with his. As soon as Max saw me watching them, he turned away, embarrassed. I looked around for Little Louie, but she had disappeared. Later, I found out she had hid in her bedroom for most of the party to avoid meeting Max’s wife. While I stood wondering what to do, my grandmother emerged from a group of guests. “You got out of bed, Mary.” Her eyes lit on my pyjamas. “Is something wrong?”

  “Yes, something is terribly wrong,” I replied, struggling to keep my voice steady. “John Pilkie is stealing your car.”

  Big Louie did a double take. “Where, Dearie? Where is he?” “He’s by the carriage shed. Hurry.”

  Big Louie took my hand and shouted, “Everyone stay where they are! There’s an intruder on the grounds!” Frightened whispers rippled through the crowd. “Is it the hockey killer? A voice asked. “It’s Mad Killer Pilkie! I saw him on the driveway,” somebody answered. A woman cried: “I want to go home!” “Nobody’s going anywhere until we find out where he is,” Big Louie announced in a firm, calm voice. She told Uncle Willie and Maurice to search the grounds, while Big Louie stared down anyone who tried to leave.

  A few minutes later, Uncle Willie and Maurice came towards us with a man in a brown fedora and rubber boots. “Mary, is this who you saw?” Uncle Willie asked. I nodded, and a look of relief passed across my grandmother’s face. “Donald is Maurice’s brother,” my grandmother said. She turned to her guests. “False alarm!” she cried. “Strike up the band.” Then she noticed my mortified face. “No harm done, Dearie,” she whispered, squeezing my hand. “But it’s time for bed.”

  MY GRANDMOTHER TUCKED THE SHEETS around my shoulders, her face pink from the effort of climbing the stairs. “Tell me why you thought it was Pilkie,” she asked in an interested voice.

  “It sounded like him. His cough, I mean.”

  “You thought it was Pilkie because you heard a man cough?”

  “He had on a brown fedora and John wears one too …”

  “You call him John, do you? Well, it wasn’t him, was it? It was Donald relieving himself in the bushes. He said you were talking a lot of nonsense about John Pilkie before you ran off.”

  My mouth went dry. “I … I told him to run away.”

  My grandmother sank down on the bed beside me, her eyes soft. “Forbidden fruit tastes sweet, doesn’t it? But look here. I can’t cope with Little Louie and you falling for the wrong men. All right, Dearie?” She stood up, yawning, and stretched, the lamplight glowing on the ripeness of her heavy breasts, her calves still shapely below the hem of her dress.

  “I was wrong about John,” I burst out. “He would never steal your car. And he’s kind too. He rescued me from the Bug House boys.”

  “Ssssh. Not another peep out of you. Now go to sleep.” She left, and I lay there mulling over what Big Louie said. She compared my interest in John to Little Louie’s feelings for Max. The thought shocked me. The idea of S-E-X with anyone felt embarrassing, like the bloody wads Sal wrapped with toilet paper and hid in the garbage. Sal called having her period coarse names like “the curse” or “going on the rag.” Yet the napkins were behind Little Louie and Sal’s appeal. Women had some secret thing men needed, and this gory affair made men want to love and protect them. Would John Pilkie want me if I started having periods, too?

  When I was sure Big Louie was gone, I stole a sanitary napkin from a box under her bathroom sink and stuffed the bulky napkin into a pair of underpants, fastening its ends with a belt I had found in the box. Then I walked around the bedroom closing my eyes and willing my body to spill over with blood so I could be a capital W-O-M-A-N instead of a N-O-N–B-L-E-E-D-E-R (i.e., N.B.). But how would the blood come out? Like the drip-dripdrip of a leaky tap? Or would it pour forth like the flood waters in Genesis chapter six, verse seventeen, drenching everything with Biblical slime? Or would it go glug-glug-glug like honey from an upside down jar? I walked around concentrating, but after an hour and forty-five minutes of hard thinking, nothing happened. So I shredded the napkin, pulling off the spidery layer of gauze to see what was underneath and all I found was a lump of soft material that looked like cotton batten or Kleenex.

  AT BREAKFAST THE NEXT MORNING, Big Louie didn’t scold me. “My guests will talk about the party for years,” my grandmother said. “Anyway, I was the one who joked about Pilkie stealing my car. I should never have said that in front of the child.”

  Uncle Willie laughed. “Mary’s imagination ran away with her.”

  “Quelle surprise, huh?” Little Louie winked at me and I dropped my eyes so I couldn’t see them smiling their heads off.

  “Mouse, I don’t want to hear that man’s name again!” my grandmother said. “Do you understand?”

  “I guess so.” I kept my eyes lowered. My grandmother could make me promise not to talk about John but she couldn’t stop me from hearing about him. There’d been several Pilkie sightings. When Big Louie wasn’t around, Uncle Willie read the newspaper stories out to Little Louie and me at meal times. One day he was spotted in Detroit — the next, in Dearborn, Michigan. Uncle Willie said if he were Pilkie, he would escape to the American side, where he’d support himself folding clothes in a Port Huron laundromat. I doubted Uncle Willie would be any good at folding clothes, but I didn’t argue because it was a relief to know that John was still at large.

  19

  ON AUGUST 7, THE POLICE CAPTURED JOHN AT MITCHELL’S BAY, the fishing village where my great-grandfather anchored after his schooner ran into the oil slick. August 7 was also the day the United States launched Explorer 6 from Cape Canaveral; the story about John was on page two, so fortunately, there were plenty of photos of John and Mitchell’s Bay, which was so small you could count the houses: twelve along with three fishing lodges and a motel sign that read, BASS FISHING AND DUCK HUNTING. The black-and-white photographs showed the beach where he was apprehended. Beyond lay the reedy sandbar where Pilkie went into the water when he tried to escape the cops.

  Of course, it wasn’t just the Petrolia paper that ran a story on him. The Detroit Free Press also covered his capture. John was acquiring the kind of fame that drove reporters
to stay up all night composing sentences that inflamed the imaginations of readers like me. The Detroit Free Press described him wading out into the lake to avoid the police. When he realized he was trapped, the newspaper reported that he raised his arms like an Old Testament prophet and the crowd on the shore applauded. I could see the scene as clearly as if I had been there myself: The shallow lake, dead calm and hot as bathwater. The sun roasting everyone’s faces, while he wades farther and farther from the crowds on the shore, the water no higher than his waist.

  On the shore, the policemen wait, their hands on their holsters.

  He dives into the lake. For a few minutes, there isn’t a ripple. Then a head breaks the surface, and he stands up, water streaming down his face and chest. He raises his arms in surrender and a woman screams, “Hi, Gentleman Jack!” He blows her a kiss and walks back to shore as if he’s wading through molasses, wearing the same smile he gave me when he rescued me from the Bug House boys.

  In my imagination, he looked triumphant, but when I stared at the newspaper photograph that showed him leaving the beach, his head down, he appeared discouraged, as if he expected them to lock him up and throw away the key. I thought of his words that afternoon by the icehouse: “Don’t let the turkeys get you down.” Did he have any hope of getting his case reviewed? The Detroit Free Press said that he intended to keep pleading his cause from inside the asylum, and that made me feel a little better.

  ON THE LAST NIGHT OF our holiday, my aunt was talking in low tones to Max in the parlour below my bedroom. Per usual, I listened through the heating vent. At first I couldn’t understand a word, because Max was playing the piano while they talked. His voice drifted up to me, singing the song my aunt liked: “List while I woo thee with soft melody. Gone are the cares of life’s busy throng. Beautiful dreamer, wake unto me!” He sang the chorus two more times. He didn’t use the same fake melodramatic voice that Uncle Willie did when he sang “Clementine.” He sounded serious and sad; Little Louie didn’t laugh. I put my eye to the iron grille of the vent and saw the orange light from my grandmother’s Tiffany lamps shining on their blond heads. How natural my aunt and Max looked together. With their bright hair and tall, athletic bodies, they could have been brother and sister and something else, although I had no idea what that something else was. Now the piano stopped. Max tilted up Little Louie’s chin and kissed her while his other hand disappeared inside her blouse. I imagined it roving like a fox snake across my aunt’s bare skin. (To be honest, I didn’t know if Little Louie went around without a brassiere, but my grandmother never wore them or underpants either because Big Louie was a freedom-loving flapper.)