by Connie Cook
"See you there. It'll be nice to have you aboard." Bo gave her a grin and a wave before heading off to his decrepit pickup and the cabbage rolls that always graced his mother's table for a Sunday dinner.
Chapter 23
Ruth wiped the sweat out of her eyes. The back of her blouse was soaked through where the harness of the canvas picking bag allowed no breathing of her skin and trapped in the moisture. For almost October, it was a hot day. She regretted the long sleeves on her old work blouse. On the other hand, if she'd worn short sleeves, her arms would be scratched to bits from beating her way through the tree branches.
Bo had warned her that the work would be hard, and it was. She was used to hard work; still, she hadn't been prepared for the way her back would ache almost unbearably from the weight of the apples. And it wasn't even noon.
But by far the worst part of the job up to this point had been Francois. He had started off as an interesting working companion but had soon turned into an irritation.
Francois was a veteran fruit-picker from Quebec. He lived from agricultural season to agricultural season, starting his working year in late spring, making the rounds of farms in his native Quebec with spring planting of various crops. He headed west in mid-summer to catch the bountiful cherry harvest in the hot and dry Okanagan region, usually a full two weeks ahead of the Kissanka cherries. Then he spent the rest of the summer and fall going back and forth between the Okanagan and the Kissankas, picking cherries, peaches, and apples. The end of apple harvest would find him thumbing his way back to Quebec where he'd spend the winter and his year's earnings, sitting in cafes in Montreal, sipping wine and writing poetry. This would be his twelfth year of this kind of hand-to-mouth existence, Ruth learned. He'd been well down the road on his way to a degree in French literature, hoping for a professorship one day in a university in Quebec, but too much learning came close to driving him mad, and one day he'd thrown it all in, sick to death of the constraints of the academic life, to embrace this gypsy lifestyle. He owned nothing except what he could carry on his back, he told Ruth.
He also told her that he liked to paint. He mostly painted only in his winters in Montreal, but he had a sketch pad with him at all times, always on the lookout for subjects of interest.
"You 'ave d' face wort' drawing," he said to Ruth. "Dat bone structure, it wants to be drawn. I could make a sketch of you. Maybe you could pose for me? Maybe when we finish today, eh? Maybe after dinner? You know where d' pickers' shacks is where I'm staying? I'll be dere. Just come to d' door and ask for Francois. Everyone know Francois dere."
But at that point, Ruth was beginning to smell a rat. She'd learned wisdom from her encounters with Mars Mitchum, and however pure Francois' motives may or may not be she wasn't about to discover by accepting his invitation to sketch her.
"No thanks," she said lightly. "I have too much work to do after I get home in the evenings. And I don't think I'd care to be drawn. Thanks all the same."
"Oh well, I don't 'ave to draw you. I 'ave a bottle of nice wine in d' shack. You can come around and 'ave a glass wit' me. Maybe c'est soir? Dis evening, eh?"
"No thanks. Too busy," Ruth said shortly, grunting a little as she stretched and nearly fell off the ladder trying to get that last, taunting gleam of red on the top branch. She'd hoped to get that last apple without having to reposition her ladder but no such luck.
How did Francois manage to keep up a steady stream of conversation (in his second language, no less) from one row over and also keep the apples flowing into his bins? Ruth couldn't help but notice that he had picked almost one full bin (and the bins were huge) more than she had, even though he talked twice as much.
The picking took all her concentration. And breath. She barely had any left over to insert an occasional, "Oh, really?" into the torrent that was Francois' speech pattern.
At first she'd been diverted and found him interesting and entertaining. What would it be like to live like he did, she wondered. But around the time he offered to draw her and definitely by the time he got around to the bottle of wine, she began to wish she was working beside someone less interesting, less loquacious, and less friendly.
When he started into questionable jokes for her amusement soon after, she began to feel downright uncomfortable. And the jokes got progressively worse. He noticed that she wasn't laughing and, assuming it was from ignorance, took it upon himself to explain each joke to her.
"You get it, eh? Funnee, eh? Don't you tink, eh?"
"Not particularly," she called back, wishing that his pace was so much faster than hers that he'd soon be out of her earshot.
"Why not? Don't you get it? You see, d' priest was ..."
"I got it, Francois. I just can't take time for jokes right now. I'm trying to get this bin finished."
"You don't like jokes?"
"Good ones," she said.
"Well, dis is a good one, you'll like dis one ..."
"Francois!" a deep bass barked out. "Are you bothering the lady?"
"Nah, I'm just telling 'er d' little jokes."
"I'm not sure she likes your style of 'little jokes.' And your picking's slowing down with all your joke-telling," Bo said. The deep bass voice belonged to him.
"Dat's fine. Den I keep even wit' d' lady, and we can keep 'aving d' conversation."
"Yeah, except you're probably slowing her down, too. Maybe she doesn't want to keep having, 'd' conversation' with you. Maybe she wants to get her apples picked. At any rate, I just came to tell the two of you, everyone else is breaking for lunch. There's cold lemonade over by the pickers' shack if you want."
"Thank you," Ruth said gratefully – for more than just the lemonade.
After lunch, Ruth couldn't help but notice that Francois had been relocated. Where, she wasn't sure, but she imagined he had found someone else to listen to his jokes and life's experiences. The new man picking in the row beside her didn't say a word to her, and her apple-picking speed nearly doubled.
She felt welling up within her a flood of gratitude toward Bo and his thoughtfulness.
* * *
After two or three days went by, Ruth's picking speed increased. Strong, nimble, and determined, it didn't take her long to become a proficient apple-picker. And even by the second day, the apples grew lighter. After a week, she barely noticed the weight of a full bag, and her back no longer complained. She marvelled at the ability of the human body to adjust itself comfortably to conditions it once found intolerable.
As she came to accept Lily's presence in the house as semi-permanent (the Turnbulls had given no indication they were willing to reconcile with their daughter, and Lily had given no indication it concerned her greatly now that she had a roof for her head and food for her stomach), Ruth marvelled at the ability of the human mind to accept as normal a condition that it had once deemed unbearable.
The impulse of a moment had resulted in her offer to Lily, and once that impulse had passed, leaving her to live with the results of her hasty offer, she wondered how she would be able to face the ordeal of even a few days' duration.
And now it had been a matter of more than two weeks, and while Lily had not undergone any noticeable improvement, Ruth found herself not only able to endure the situation but soar above it. It was indeed a miraculous thing. Ruth knew it could only have been an act of grace. The strength she drew on in those days was a strength she knew she did not possess in and of herself.
It was sorely tried upon occasion.
There was the evening Lily suffered with false labour pains. Never one to soldier through any kind of pain, the contractions brought her to tears.
Ruth was concerned by their severity.
"D'you think it could be labour?" she asked her mother-in-law when out of Lily's hearing. It was far too early. But maybe the baby was coming too early to survive. It happened sometimes.
"No chance," Mom answered her shortly, having determined from the type and position of the contractions that they were only a warm-up exercise for the real eve
nt. "It's just that she's not used to any amount of pain, that one," she decided with a slight sneer.
Mrs. MacKellum reserved the right to remain just barely, distantly polite toward Lily. She spoke to her only when necessary. And the favour was returned.
Mrs. MacKellum cringed with the shame of the thought that she had once desired to have Lily as her daughter-in-law. Worse, that her delusions about Lily had caused her to hold Ruth in low regard at one time. It was something to keep her humble, it was, to see how poorly she'd performed as a judge of character back in those long ago days.
Ruth went back to Lily to see if there was anything she could do to help her pain, and Mrs. MacKellum trailed her protectively. If there was a sight she could hardly stomach these days, it was the sight of Ruth working long days of back-breaking labour and then coming home to serve Lily's whims. Where she could, she attempted to do what she could for Lily to protect Ruth from her own generous nature.
"What can I do, Lily?" Ruth asked, genuinely distraught by the sight of Lily's white, tear-stained, grimacing face.
"My lower back aches so much these days," Lily whimpered. "Maybe if you rubbed it a little, just right down there, right on the spine."
Ruth complied, and her mother-in-law found herself unable to suffer in silence. With a sound of unmistakable disgust, she left the room.
"That's better," Lily said, closing her eyes, the pain smoothing out of her face.
She lay on her side with her knees curled up as high as they would go, her face turned away from Ruth while Ruth massaged.
"I did love him, y'know," she said suddenly, in a muted voice, a defensive note creeping in. "It wasn't just to get back at you."
Ruth said nothing. If this was Lily's way of attempting an apology or an expression of gratitude, it fell vastly short.
The subject of Graham had been strictly avoided by all three of the women since Lily had come to stay in the old farmhouse. It was the first time he'd been mentioned between Lily and Ruth.
"It turned bad really quick," she went on in a rush as though she was carrying something that needed to get itself said. "It was no picnic. He drank all the time. He couldn't find a job for a long time. Then he couldn't hold down a job. He sure wasn't any prize in the end," she said, bitterness creeping through her tone.
Ruth kept rubbing Lily's back helplessly, willing her to stop talking, fearing this new test of the grace she'd been afforded so far.
But Lily wasn't finished what she had to say.
"I think it was remorse, you know. I mean, that drove him to it in the end." Lily's voice sounded defiant. Doubtless, imparting this piece of information was, for her, an act of penance and contrition. Ruth told herself it was the discomfort of such a novel experience that made Lily defiant.
"You think so?" Ruth said. She couldn't stop herself from grasping at the revelation eagerly. Had Graham cared, then? In the end, he'd cared? About her? Enough to feel remorse? It shouldn't matter to her. It was too late to matter in reality. But she couldn't help it mattering to her.
"Towards the end, sometimes he'd say things like, 'I could never go back. It's too late. We're stuck here,' and things like that. He wouldn't come right out and say it, but obviously he thought about coming back. He just thought you'd never take him back."
Ruth turned the information over in her mind, savouring, like a delicate morsel rolled around in the mouth to extract the full flavour.
"What would you say when he'd say things like that?" Ruth asked hesitantly. Did she even want to know?
"I dunno. I guess I more 'r less told him he was right, that there was no going back for either of us. We were stuck together, no matter how miserable we made each other, and we made each other plenty miserable, believe me. You wouldn't've wanted 'im back when it came right down to it."
"Is that really what you believed?" Ruth said quietly.
"I dunno," Lily said in a tone of finality that indicated that painful confessions were at an end and the subject was now closed.
Ruth said good night in the same quiet tone and left the room as softly as she could. The outward calm masked her inner tempest. She knew she was in for another sleepless night and another fierce battle against an anger that could easily turn into hatred which would consume her if she gave in to it.
* * *
After the completion of her first week as an apple-picker, Ruth received another job offer.
It was nearing the end of her working day, and she was picking the apples around the bottom of a tree, so deeply enmeshed in memories that she was unaware there was another living soul in all the world.
Full voice, she sang, "My love is like a red, red rose ..." It had been Mother's favourite song. Every time she wanted to bring her mother back to life in her mind, she sang the old air.
Ruth always claimed to have no artistic talent, but that wasn't strictly true. Her untrained voice in song was as natural, pure, and clear as a mountain morning in spring. It was her one artistic gift, but she used it seldom and never for an audience.
Then she noticed Bo, three trees away, transfixed, gazing off into the distance. Her voice and the song belonged to long ago days and misty isles. Depending on the listener's temperament, her singing could transport the listener to those far-off days and places. It transported her there, and she had seen it in Bo's look. He was carried off as well.
She stopped singing, embarrassed.
Bo also looked a little shamefaced when he saw her looking at him.
Now the magic was undone, she thought. Now that he'd realized the singer was only plain old Ruth MacKellum who he'd known since childhood, the spell was broken. The abrupt ending to the song dropped them with a thump back into their present century and location.
"Hello, Ruth. I didn't realize you were such a meadowlark. Don't stop. That was beautiful. I didn't know you sang," he said in his everyday voice.
"I don't. Not often, anyways."
"Well, you should. You should sing often. And let people hear you without having to eavesdrop like I did. Anyways, I came to ask you if this is your third or fourth bin today. There's a dispute about whose the bin is on the end of the row."
"It's mine," she said. "This is my fourth bin."
"Very good. You're keeping up to our fastest pickers."
"I should hope so."
Bo laughed at her lack of false modesty, scribbled something into his notebook, and kept moving.
He was back in a minute after Ruth had climbed to the top of her ladder.
"You've done secretarial work, haven't you?" Bo called up to her, startling her so that she jerked and almost fell off the ladder.
"Sorry! Didn't mean to scare you. I thought you heard me coming back. There was something I forgot to ask you when I was here a second ago."
"That's not nice," she scolded. "Sneaking up on me like that. I'm in a world of my own once I get up into the tops of these trees. What did you ask me?"
"I said, 'You've done secretarial work, haven't you?' "
"You came back to ask me if I'd done secretarial work? Are you asking out of curiosity?"
"Why don't you come down here where I can talk to you properly?"
"Two seconds. I have two more apples to get. There. Okay, here I am. Yes, to answer your strange question, I have a little secretarial experience. I took a course in Camille and worked in the offices of both sawmills briefly. Why are you asking about my secretarial experience? What does that have to do with my apple-picking ability?"
"Nothing to do with your apple-picking ability but something to do with another job possibility I may have for you. Do you know anything about bookkeeping?"
"A little. They touched on it in the course I took."
"That means you know more than I do. As manager of the apple packing shed, I've been doing the books. Eddie's cutting back. He can't afford to hire a full-time bookkeeper as well as me, so I've been serving double duty. Problem is, I don't know what I'm doing. I've got Eddie's okay to hire a temp bookkeeper to train
me at it, and I thought of you, if you're interested. It wouldn't be more than ten hours a week, coupl'a hours a day. Only temporary, like I say. But I thought it would be something you could do in the evenings, not too strenuous, and it would help supplement your apple income, seeing the apples aren't a big wage-earner."
"I'm not a qualified bookkeeper."
"Neither am I. You'd know a dern sight more 'n' me. Far as I'm concerned, the job's yours if you want it."
"In that case, I accept," Ruth said happily. She suspected Bo had gone out of his way to create the job opportunity for her, but she did need the work, and she wasn't going to quibble.
"When d'you want me to start?" she asked.
"Well, I thought next week. Monday evening okay? I can give you a call after supper to see what time suits."
"Sure, anytime. My evenings are generally free."
Monday evening found Ruth and Bo poring over the financial records of Eddie Hoffstetter's apple packing and shipping operation.
"You're right, you do need some help. I'd hate to think what would've happened if you'd ever been audited. Yikes!" Ruth said. Maybe Bo wasn't just going out of his way to be kind. It would be a job of work to train him in the double-entry system and get his messes straightened out. There was a serious lack of method to the present madness.
"I told you I needed help," Bo said, not at all abashed by her appraisal. "Don't worry, you'll be earning your money here."
After the day of hot sun, fresh air, and physical labour, her eyes began to cross after an hour, and the yawn she could no longer hold back nearly split her face in two.
"That's enough for today," Bo said decisively. "Another long day tomorrow. You need some sleep."
The days were long, but her sleep was sweet and sudden. And it was delightful to be earning an income again.
Chapter 24
"Ruth, how are you?"
She turned away from Forresters' window display of winter coats, not instantly recognizing the voice.
"Oh, hello, Mars. I'm doing all right. How are you?"
"Pretty fair. Can't complain. Haven't seen you in dogs' years."