The Resurrection of Mary Mabel McTavish

by Allan Stratton

  “Where was Mary Mabel?”

  “Wrapped in a blanket, protected by the woodpile, corner of the house.”

  “What was she doing there?”

  “That’s what everyone wanted to know, yelling and shaking her, when she wasn’t being hugged. She sobbed about hearing a scratching at her window, how she couldn’t see nothing for the blizzard and frost, how she went to give whoever it was a blanket, and ended up at the woodpile.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “Nothing to understand. She was all mixed up. Folks figured the scratching was tree branches. Little Mary Mabel had quite the imagination. And a fever. And she knew she’d done wrong, didn’t wanna catch heck, you know kids.”

  “How did she take her mother’s death?”

  “Had no notion what was up. Barely two, eh? When she realized Ruthie was in the coffin at the end of the parlour, she ran up and knocked, like it was all a game of hide-and-seek. She was cross when Ruthie wouldn’t come out. She went round pulling on people’s dresses and pant legs saying, ‘My mama’s in that box.’ We put her to bed, only she didn’t stay put. She dragged her little stool in from the kitchen, wanted to climb into the coffin to have her afternoon nap beside Ruthie like she always did. Oh, the tears when we pulled her away. She called for her daddy. Course, Brewster was in no condition to help, passed out by the stove.”

  A discreet pause. “And later? How was she once things sunk in?”

  Jimmy’s back tightened. “You’re from the newspapers,” he said softly.

  Doyle shuffled.

  “No point lying. The whole town knows it.”

  Doyle hung his head. “I’m sorry.”

  “Never mind. Just be good to Ruthie’s memory. It’s not right, she should disappear like she never existed.”

  Doyle nodded.

  Jimmy patted his knee, and walked him to the door. “I expect you’ll be wanting to see the McTavish homestead. What’s left of it, anyway. Bear right at the corner, third house in, the one with the tree growing through it.”

  “Thanks for the tip.”

  Jimmy gripped his hand. “You asked about Mary Mabel, once things sunk in. Poor kid was a mess. Take care of that picture.”

  The McTavish place was a drunk on a bender: the picket fence, a row of broken teeth; the yard, an upchuck of fallen shingles and shattered glass; the house itself, passed out against the trunk of a neighbouring maple. As advertised, a branch grew in through the kitchen window, and out through a section of collapsed roof. Nor was this the only breach. Front and back doors were missing, casements were cracked, and several cedar planks had been pried from the rear wall. Nature had accepted the invitation. Years of dead leaves and evergreen needles had blown indoors. Kept damp by rain and snow, they’d decayed into a mulch that rotted floorboards and fed an indoor shade garden.

  Doyle stood at the threshold. Ahead lay the open parlour. Several shotgun blasts had ripped large holes in the far wall, revealing a kitchen. Vandals had also had fun with a hunting knife; the words DIE MCTAVISH were carved in the crumbling plaster above the wainscotting, and the couch had been disemboweled. Every other stick of furniture in the room had been looted. It was the same story in the two bedrooms opening to the right; nothing but DIE MCTAVISH on the walls, and hacked bedding. Even the straw stuffing from the mattresses had been stripped, plundered by birds and squirrels to line nests.

  He proceeded to the door of the kitchen, delicately testing each floorboard en route. The wood stove was gone, but he could tell where it had stood by the pipe hanging down from the ceiling. He could tell where the cupboards and counter had been, too, by the unpainted rectangles on the wall. The bolts that had secured them littered the floor, along with the odd cracked pot, bent fork, and a heap of smashed green china. Only a small saucer survived.

  Doyle closed his eyes. For a moment, he imagined the house alive: Ruth McTavish at the end of the parlour in her plain pine coffin; a crowd of mourners eating sandwiches; and a little girl running through their legs, bewildered by her mother’s silence, and by the silence of her old man, back from Mr. Woo’s, lying stinko by the stove. Home sweet home.

  Suddenly, he became aware that the little girl in his mind’s eye was staring at him. He turned away, disconcerted, pictured himself circulating among the mourners. Yet wherever he went, she followed. “Stop it,” he said. “You’re part of a daydream. You can’t see me.”

  “I can see lots of things,” she replied. “Would you like to see my mama? She’s in that box.”

  Doyle’s eyes popped open. He was being watched — and not by a figment of his imagination. Someone was behind him. “Hello? … If this is your squat, I’m sorry. I should have knocked.” The watcher remained very still. Doyle considered his situation. He raised his hands in surrender. “I didn’t mean any harm,” his voice shook. “So if it’s okay with you, I’ll be on my way.”

  A furtive movement. Whoever was there had edged closer. Silence.

  The young man began to sweat. If he was murdered, he’d never be found. His body could be stuffed through the floorboards or dumped down the hole of the backyard outhouse. “Please. I look after a sick mother.”

  A guttural chatter.

  Doyle determined to die bravely. He swallowed hard, and turned to face his doom. A woodchuck peered at him from a tear in the side of the couch. “Aaaaa!” Doyle screamed. The woodchuck fled. He blushed.

  There was a chill in the air: late fall, early dusk. Doyle was about to make tracks, when he cast a glance at the heap of china on the kitchen floor. That saucer would make a nice souvenir.

  Back at his cabin, Doyle scribbled notes till the cowbell summoned him to the log house for supper. Marge was nowhere to be seen.

  “Mrs. Skinner’s taken poorly,” said the Chaperone. A heavy iron key hung around her neck. She tossed her head toward the kitchen table. Doyle took a seat as she hobbled to the pot on the wood stove and dished up a hearty bowl of rabbit stew seasoned with buckshot. “Help yourself to seconds,” she said, plunking it down in front of him, along with a thick slice of bread and a jug of water. Before he could say thanks, she was out the back door.

  Doyle eyed the stew. He scraped it back into the pot. Through the window, he saw the Chaperone enter the outhouse. He had two minutes to snoop undisturbed.

  The young reporter always got excited when he searched through other people’s things. It wasn’t so much from the act of running his mitts through underpants, or reading private correspondence — although these pleasures were not to be denied — as from the thrill of being someplace where he wasn’t supposed to be. Happily, his occupation made voyeurism a professional responsibility.

  This particular master bedroom was unique. Its walls were covered with heads. Wolves, deer, bobcats, bears, muskrats, squirrels, porcupines, chipmunks, skunks, rabbits, foxes, lynx, and snapping turtles stared at him blankly, their skulls hung on spikes. Clearly, Skinner was a do-it-yourself taxidermist. The beasts’ eyes were dime-store marbles, while their flesh had been left to desiccate on the bone. This left a few looking emaciated. Others had cheeks stuffed with socks, bits of wool poking through rotted snouts. Sometimes Slick had gone overboard; the bear over the bed seemed to have a bad case of mumps. All the same, there was no denying the hunter’s artistic flair. Fangs were bared, lips propped in place by finishing nails stuck between teeth like toothpicks. Most startling was the fox near the chest of drawers; the shrivelled remains of a hen were fixed in its jaws by a drool of white paste. Then there was the collection of sparrows nesting in a brassiere cup, and the porcupine sporting a pipe.

  Doyle turned his attention to the Skinners’ personal effects. A peek under the bed revealed little. A few slippers, a ball of tangled fishing line, and a pair of snowshoes. The dresser was also a disappointment. Marge’s drawers were filled with girdles, other unmentionables, and a bag of homemade potpourri, while Slick’s were a cornucopia of soiled long johns, shell casings, playing cards of naked ladies, and half-empty packe
ts of chewing tobacco.

  Of interest, however, was the photograph album on the Skinners’ night table. Each page featured a different man in hunting gear. Former guests, Doyle presumed. Some were on their knees in prayer, as if seeking the Lord’s assistance for the hunt. Others appeared to be dead drunk, splayed out against tree stumps, their eyes as glassy as the stuffed wildlife. Still others were apparently shy, their photos shot while they ran away from the camera with their arms in the air.

  Suddenly, Doyle found himself staring at his own name. It was on a scrap of newspaper ripped from the Cedar Bend Herald; a wire-service version of the first story he’d written about Mary Mabel. The article bookmarked the only blank page in the picture book. At the bottom of that page, in a childlike scrawl, were the words: B. MCT. THE ONE THAT GOT AWAY.

  Doyle put the album back on the night table. Instinct told him to return to the kitchen, but there was still the bedroom closet to inspect. He turned the knob. The door was locked. Damn.

  From inside the closet, a woman’s voice: “Go away.”

  “Mrs. Skinner?”

  “No. Santy Claus. Who do you think?”

  “Are you all right?”

  “Of course I’m not all right.”

  “I’ll get you out.”

  “You’ll get yourself killed is what you’ll get. Now leave me alone, you little shit-for-brains. If I want your help, I’ll ask for it.”

  A cough. Doyle turned to find himself staring down the wrong end of a rifle.

  “How’s your ‘vacation’?” asked the Chaperone.

  “F-fine,” Doyle stammered. “That’s quite the gun.”

  “Yep. Makes mighty big holes.”

  “I’ll bet. I, uh, I was just admiring your brother’s trophies.”

  “Is that a fact?”

  From the closet: “Gerty, get this slicker out of my bedroom.”

  “Sorry to have disturbed you, Mrs. Skinner,” Doyle apologized. “I, uh, I was looking for your husband.”

  “Well he ain’t here. You blind as well as stupid?”

  “He’s huntin’,” said the Chaperone. “But he’ll be back.”

  “When?”

  “Maybe a month, maybe a minute.” She cocked the rifle and aimed it at his groin. “If I was you, I wouldn’t stick around to find out.”

  Doyle took the hint.

  VI

  LEAVE-TAKINGS

  Truth versus Truth

  Seeing herself on the silver screen gave Mary Mabel palpitations. The Twins said she mustn’t feel self-conscious, that the mole above her lip hardly showed at all.

  “Nonsense,” she wept. “Everything shows. My face is so big the entire town could crawl up my nose.”

  “So what?” Floyd consoled. “A little plainness makes a person look sincere.”

  Mary Mabel could have smacked him. Most embarrassing to her was having to stand outside the theatre each night in her nurse’s outfit. She tried to refuse. “People will stare!”

  “That’s the idea,” Floyd said. “Just imagine you’re an actress. The uniform is your costume.”

  Brother Percy yammered that he “wannad a cos-doom doo.” To shut him up, the Twins provided him with a top hat and tails from their father’s wardrobe.

  So there they stood under the marquee, Mary Mabel and the reverend, while the manager walked up and down the sidewalk wearing a sandwich board reading WELCOME SISTER MARY MABEL, STAR OF METROTONE PRESENTS, and hollering greetings into a megaphone while Brother Percy waved.

  The first night, Miss Budgie came to the show with a couple of other teachers. “I’m so glad to see you’re doing well,” she said. “You’ve no idea how I’ve missed you in English.” Mary Mabel gave her a hug. Miss Budgie’s eyes went misty and she hurried away. Some classmates showed up, too. They stood across the street in small packs whispering and giggling. Except for Clara Brimley. She made a point of walking past the lineups as if they weren’t even there.

  Then there was the contingent from St. James who arrived to pass judgment on the fuss. Mrs. Herbert C. Wallace presented herself. “I suppose you’re proud of yourself,” she sniffed before sweeping to the ticket wicket. Mary Mabel was delighted she couldn’t get in. The show was sold out.

  No wonder. In the days leading up to the opening, she’d attracted a lot of attention. Doyle’s articles for Hearst had been carried by the Free Press. So had the stories by Scratch Micallef for Associated Press and Scoop Jones for Scripps-Howard. The latter two, having swallowed Doyle’s bait, had made a ruckus at the Sally in Toronto. They’d terrorized the place, prowling the halls, squeezing bottoms, and offering to trade bootleg for scuttlebutt. The cops were called, and they spent a night in the clink. This too made news: if American press syndicates were snooping after Miss McTavish, she must be important. Consequently, when the Misters Micallef and Jones sailed up to the Twins, they trailed an armada of local scribblers.

  Floyd had spotted the advancing posse from the window. He told Mary Mabel to go to the conservatory; he’d field questions from the porch, then send the reporters down with their cameras to snap her at prayer. Brother Percy insisted that he was going to be in the pictures, too. “Then put on a fresh shirt,” Floyd barked. “And pop a mint while you’re at it.”

  “I’m not too keen on having my picture taken,” Mary Mabel said. “I’ve come down with a cold and my eyes are watering.”

  “There’s nothing like runny eyes to make a gal look spiritual,” Floyd winked. “Folks like their saints a little sickly. Heck, you ever seen a picture of Jesus in the pink?”

  Luckily, neither Mr. Jones nor Mr. Micallef recognized her from the fairgrounds. Perhaps they’d been distracted by their recent misadventures. Or perhaps they didn’t have time to play detective. In any case, they and the others passed through quicker than Brother Percy’s turnip soup.

  Their coverage was extensive and positive, featuring word of the planned American tour, and inviting interested parties to contact the ministry in care of the Twins. Despite the good press, Brother Brubacher was upset. He’d been cropped out of all but one photograph. Its caption read: SISTER MARY MABEL PRAYS FOR CIRCUS FREAK PERCY RUTABAGA. He tore up the articles, burst into tongues, and passed out.

  “We better strap him to his cot till he’s sensible,” said Miss Millie. “Either that or take turns guarding him with the shovel.”

  Floyd agreed. He dragged his partner’s body downstairs to the laundry room, then stepped outside. Mary Mabel followed. She found him sitting on a stump at the back of the garden, picking his teeth with a blade of grass.

  “What exactly did you tell the press about Brother Percy?” she demanded.

  “Not much.”

  “Then why did they write that he was a circus freak?”

  “Dunno. They oughta be ashamed of themselves,” he grinned.

  “I suppose you had nothing to do with those stories about my childhood, either. Like about how I found a missing toddler through the power of prayer!”

  “Those were good stories.”

  “You lied!”

  “No I didn’t. I just made the truth more interesting.”

  She gave him a hard look “I appreciate everything you’ve done for me, Mr. Cruickshank, but I can’t bear falsehoods.”

  He smiled. “You know as well as I do that things can be true and not true at the same time.”

  “Don’t try to pull the wool over my eyes.”

  “I’m not. The characters in those books and plays you read — you talk about them like they’re real. You laugh and cry over patterns of ink on paper.”

  “Fine,” she said. “Call me crazy.”

  “No. It’s not crazy to believe in stories. Each Christmas, millions of common-sense people put up Nativity scenes. Ask them if they believe about the star and the three kings and the shepherds, and they’ll say, sure, why not? Well for Pete’s sake, if a star was hovering over a stable, the planet would incinerate. And there’d be more folks gawking than a handful of farmers and
wise men.”

  “That’s sacrilege!”

  “It’s the truth. It’s also the truth that babies are special. They remind us of how perfect we used to be, and of how far we’ve fallen. Even though we’ve messed up, they offer hope that humankind has a fresh chance to get it right. That’s the point of the story. If the Gospel writers figured they needed to toss in a few whoppers to get people’s attention, who’s to blame them?”

  “Those fantasies you told the press weren’t about Christmas. They were about my life.”

  “Your story! Nobody gets to choose their life, but everybody gets to choose their story. What’s yours? Are you just another kid with a troubled past, or an innocent touched by grace? Spit it out — what’s your truth? Hope or despair? If it’s despair, buzz off — people can slit their wrists without your help. If it’s hope — well that’s a truth worth selling. So get off your high horse. If fudging facts was good enough for Jesus, it oughta be good enough for you.”

  Mary Mabel wavered. “If things aren’t the way we say, men like Mr. Doyle will find out. And then what?”

  “Reporters don’t care about facts. They care about selling papers.”

  “Still, if they ask about your stories, what’ll I tell them?”

  “Put your hand on your heart and say, ‘In the words of the Good Book, miracles only take love, and love is easy to give.’”

  “The Bible doesn’t say that.”

  “Who’s going to check?”

  Suddenly Mary Mabel remembered her mama shelling peas, her asking what made them grow, and her mama talking about the miracle of life. “Miracles just take a bit of love,” her mama’d said, “and we’ve all got lots to give.”

  She looked Floyd in the eye. “Those words aren’t in the Bible. But I can say they’re something my late mother told me.”

  “Your late mother?” He paused. “How touching. Did she really say that?”