Each Man's Son

by Hugh Maclennan

  Suddenly Alan’s heart began to beat faster, even before his mind took in the fact that strange sounds were coming from the parlor. He stood stiff and silent, listening intently. There were heavy steps, and sounds of metal hitting wood, and then all at once grunts and scuffles and above it all his mother’s piercing scream. Before the scream died away there were more strange sounds of furniture being knocked about, and Alan was running down the stairs as fast as his bare feet would take him. When he reached the lighted square of the parlor door he stopped like a fawn caught in the headlight of a train.

  Everything that was happening in the room he saw quickly and completely, understanding none of it, yet feeling all of it, so that for the rest of his life all the violence of the world would be the violence of this night.

  An ugly man with a great body in a soiled city suit, his face battered and lumpy and his nose mashed square, was standing sideways to the door. His arms were bent at the elbows and thrust forward, his huge hands half clenched, his shoulders poised and on guard, and in the split second while the boy watched, not taking a breath, the big man’s clenched fist shot out and smashed into Mr. Camire’s head.

  As the Frenchman’s white body fell backward, Alan heard his mother scream again. This time the sound of her voice in terror not only made his heart beat faster still, but it froze him where he stood in the doorway, unseen by the three struggling people within the room. In the next few seconds a table was knocked over, Camire got to his feet, and Alan saw that he was holding a wine bottle by its neck. The big man was looking at something on the floor that Alan couldn’t see, in the direction of his mother’s scream, and it was in this fraction of time that Alan knew he was watching his father. He felt the fact, rather than knew it, perhaps because he had so often dreamed of the day when his father would come home and rid them of Mr. Camire.

  Like a fox, Camire made a sudden darting movement, smashed the wine bottle on the leg of the fallen chair and shot forward with the fangs of the broken glass jabbing at Archie’s face as the remainder of the wine dribbled out. It was then that Alan saw what his father could do. So that was what it meant to be the strongest man in the world! Archie shifted backwards and aside, smoothly and easily, and the broken bottle jabbed viciously towards his left ear. His hand shot out and closed on the poker beside the grate, the pack of muscles under the cloth of his jacket shifted, the poker shot up and Camire seemed to stand quite still, staring at the upraised arm.

  It was then that Alan saw his mother. As the poker came down she was suddenly there between the two men, thin and frail as she tried to stop them. When the poker hit her head her large soft eyes rolled into her head and she seemed to sink down into the melting white wax of her own thighs and calves. The two men stared down at her. Alan stared at her. Then the house shook with the thunder of Archie MacNeil’s voice. He roared as the poker swung up again and Camire darted back and forth across the room, trying to find a place to hide as he gave mouselike squeaks of terror.

  Seven blows landed on him, but Alan was no longer there when the Frenchman was silenced at last. The boy had fled.

  Thirty

  JUST FOR AN INSTANT Archie knew what had happened, but the knowledge got mixed up with the pain in his head. Then he heard the rain of blows on the outside door and heard men calling in Gaelic voices to open up for the love of God. It was like the roar of the crowd yelling at him to come on when he was already blind with blood, pain and exhaustion. Now, as always, he answered it. He staggered into the hall and reached for the knob of the front door. He tried to open it, but it was locked. He had locked it himself, a long time ago. The shouting outside kept on, so he unlocked the door and pulled it open and stood there facing the street with the light from the parlor at his back and himself in the frame of it.

  “What the hell do you whant?” he said.

  He took them in all at once, the forgotten familiar faces he had come home to see. Angus the Barraman was in front of the crowd. He reached out to touch Archie’s arm.

  “We hear you are haffing trouble, maybe. We ha? come as your friends only.”

  The figure in the door stood motionless, back to the light.

  “Och, Archie, there iss trouble everywhere, and four years wass a long time for her to be alone. She whould neffer ha? done it but she thought you whould neffer come home at all.”

  The figure in the doorway swayed, then stood still.

  “The doctor hiss ownself thought you whould neffer come home, moreoffer. And the Frenchman hass been seeing her only lately.”

  When Archie still gave no sign that he had heard, Angus reached out again. Then Archie hit him. To the men behind Angus, the punch seemed powered by a superhuman force, it came so fast. Before they could catch him, Angus fell to the ground. Archie closed the door and they heard him lock it behind him again.

  “Now we must get Big Alec McCoubrie,” one of them said.

  “But we must also get the doctor, fast.”

  Two men started off on bicycles towards Broughton and another was already running towards the doctor’s house. So, long before the policemen arrived, they could see the doctor coming up the hill on his bicycle. He had dressed so hastily a scarf was around his neck in place of a collar and tie. One of them ran to take his bicycle and the crowd stood back when he took his bag from the handlebars and ran to the door and tried to open it.

  When he turned around to face them they felt his authority as he looked them over by the light of the moon. “Tell me again what you saw through the window,” he said quietly.

  After they told him once more, he said, “What about the boy?”

  “We ha? not seen him, but we are sure he iss somewhere inside. Archie would not touch the boy, surely.”

  He studied them for a moment longer, then he said, “Matheson and MacDonald–you’re big men. Smash in that door.”

  The two men named stepped forward, braced themselves and lurched against the door. On the third try there was a crack of splitting wood and they heard Archie’s voice inside.

  “The first man who comes in, I whill kill him.”

  The two men turned to look at the doctor.

  “This is Dr. Ainslie speaking, MacNeil,” his voice called out. “I want you to understand that the first man to enter will be me.”

  He motioned MacDonald and Matheson against the door again and this time they smashed it. The door jumped from its hinges with a crash and the two men went down with it. The crowd saw Ainslie step forward, his bag in his left hand, and then Archie loomed under the overhead light. The doctor and the fighter stopped as they recognized each other. Matheson and MacDonald picked themselves up and stood back, but Ainslie and Archie MacNeil stood a yard apart with their eyes on each other’s faces.

  At that moment Archie seemed of more than human size. Standing in the doorway with the light over his head, he was a good foot higher than the doctor. In the imaginations of the crowd he was higher still because of what they knew he had done. They saw him draw back his right fist, but only Ainslie was close enough to see and understand the expression in Archie’s eyes. They were as full of pleading as the eyes of an overwhipped child. At the same time the doctor’s trained glance told him something else. One of the eyes was blind and the other was glazing. The battered face was loosening as a process of profound disintegration was occurring in the fighter’s whole organism.

  The men said afterwards they had never heard the doctor speak so gently. “It’s all over now, MacNeil. Nothing you or I can do can change what’s happened.”

  They saw Archie’s fist loosen and his cocked arm fall loose at his side. They saw his face contort in a spasm of pain and his one good eye suddenly stare and they saw the doctor drop his bag and put both hands on the boxer’s shoulders and catch him as he lurched and fell forward.

  Matheson and MacDonald helped Ainslie carry the unconscious man out. They lowered him to the ground and propped his back against the wall of the house while behind them Angus the Barraman began to groan and
move. Ainslie entered the house and the crowd at the steps saw the window of the parlor brighten as he turned on another light, but no one made a move to enter. They heard him leave the parlor and then the sound of his feet running upstairs and they heard his voice calling out to Alan asking where he was. Still they remained standing outside.

  There was a sound of horse’s hoofs and a carriage drove up and stopped on the fringe of the crowd. They recognized Mrs. Ainslie in the carriage and one of the men crossed the ditch to hold the head of the mare, but none of them said anything to her and she asked no questions. A moment later the doctor came out of the house with Alan in his arms.

  They watched him as he crossed the ditch and they saw the boy in his nightclothes stiff with fright, his eyes averted from the doctor, his ears apparently deaf to the comforting words the doctor was saying. When Mrs. Ainslie stretched out her arms to take him from her husband, Alan gave a little cry; and with a convulsive movement both his arms went about her neck as he buried his face in her shoulder.

  They saw Ainslie stand stiffly beside the carriage and heard him clear his throat. “He was hiding upstairs in a cupboard, but he’s not hurt,” the doctor said to his wife. “Whether or not he saw what happened I don’t know. Give him a bromide and stay with him until he goes to sleep. It may be morning before I get home.”

  One of the men jumped into the carriage to drive the mare so that Mrs. Doctor could hold the boy and keep him warm. The doctor himself re-entered the house and the crowd broke up a little, men muttering together in small groups as they waited. Archie sat motionless with his back to the wall and his head hanging forward on his chest, and Matheson crouched beside him, holding him upright with his arm so he would not sprawl sideways with his head on the ground.

  Later there was the sound of a clanging bell, then the surge of hoofs as a team of horses drove the ambulance fast around the corner. The horses pulled up panting with foam on their bridles and two men in white jumped out and ran around to the back of the ambulance to open the doors. They rolled out a stretcher, the crowd parted for it to go through and parted again when the stretcher came out the door with a small covered body on it.

  The doctor followed and touched one of the orderlies on the arm. “There’s still another one,” he said, and pointed to Archie.

  The second stretcher was rolled out of the ambulance, Archie was placed on it and the men panted under his weight as they rolled it in.

  Ainslie turned to the crowd. “When the police come, tell them I’ve left the Frenchman inside. There’s nothing to be done for him. But none of you are to touch his body until the police come.”

  Then the doctor stepped into the ambulance and crouched on the floor between the two stretchers. As the driver closed the doors, they could see his fingers search for the pulse at Mollie’s wrist.

  Thirty-One

  THE ORDERLY who drove the ambulance had once driven a sulky at the Cape Breton County Exhibition and was proud of being the best driver in Broughton. He drove his team fast and kept the pace smooth, and he knew every break and pothole in the road between the colliery and the hospital. He also had a new bell, softer than the bell on the fire wagons but loud and musical, and he clanged it at every opportunity on the way in. The dirt road was empty all the way to the bridge, but he had his opportunity in the main street and from the Nickel Theater to MacDonald’s Corner the bell rang constantly. The post office clock struck the half-hour between eleven and midnight as the team of bays turned through the corner. The driver rang his bell again, and was delighted to see Mr. Magistrate MacKeegan, crossing the street, jump clear of the horses and turn to shake his stick, then lower it when he recognized the ambulance. All the way up the steep hill to the hospital, as the hard-working bays passed knots of men on their way home from the saloons, the orderly had to suppress a longing to call out to them that he had Archie MacNeil and his wife aboard and that he was driving from the scene of a murder.

  He reached the hospital, saw Dr. Weir waiting on the steps, and reined in. By the time he and the orderly beside him had jumped from the box and run around to the back, Dr. Weir had opened the doors. Inside Dr. Ainslie was still crouching between the two stretchers. When they peered in and then stood waiting for orders, the doctor seemed not to know he had reached his destination. The driver was crestfallen, for he had hoped the doctor would praise him for his performance. He had beaten his record from that particular colliery by forty-five seconds.

  Dr. Weir waited a moment, then said, “Everything is ready, Doctor.”

  Ainslie looked up as though he had no idea where he was. He shook his head, breathed deeply once or twice and shook his head again.

  “Never mind,” he said as he got out. “She died on the way in. The other has a clot in his brain. If he’s lucky, he’ll not recover consciousness.”

  Then Ainslie began walking down the drive.

  Weir ran after him. “Doctor!”

  Ainslie kept on going and Weir fell into step beside him.

  “Doctor, aren’t you coming into the hospital?”

  “No.”

  “But–”

  “There’s nothing to be done for him. Put him in bed. Keep him quiet. You know what to do as well as I.”

  “Yes, Doctor, I suppose so.”

  They had reached the street and Ainslie turned to walk down the hill.

  “Dr. Ainslie–you have no carriage!”

  “I have two legs. And the trains are still running.”

  Ainslie continued to walk and Weir watched him go.

  When he reached MacDonald’s Corner he turned into the main street and walked to the harbor bridge. Here he stopped and looked at the riding lights of the moored schooners and smelled the drying fish and the salt air. When he closed his eyes he saw the beast again, the tight-skinned, tawny, green-eyed dog with the small ears. It was standing over the blood and its eyes were on his face.

  He left the bridge and continued walking under a sky quiet with stars. His feet plodded along the dusty road over which his carriage had drawn him on so many thousands of cases and the land around him was very dark. He met nobody, or if he did he was unaware. After a while he reached the enclosure of his own colliery, saw the black mass of the bankhead loom against the lighter mass of the sky, plodded past and turned down in front of the miners’ row. There he stopped and scanned the road. A few lights were still burning in the cottages, and in front of the MacNeil house he saw Alec McCoubrie the policeman sitting on the steps talking to a pair of miners. He took the far side of the road and went by without speaking. He knew their eyes were on him as he passed, but none of them spoke until he was out of earshot. He crossed the bridge and mounted the slope on the far side, turned into his own driveway and disappeared among the shadows of the trees.

  The lights were burning in the surgery and in one room upstairs, and a carriage he recognized as MacKenzie’s stood at the door, the horse with a feed bag over his nose.

  Ainslie had no sense of the distance he had walked or what time of night it was. He stood in the darkness outside his own house for a long while, hearing the sound of the broken water in the brook. Then he took the path by Margaret’s rose bed around the house to the front door and went in that way. He avoided the surgery and climbed the stairs. He opened the door of their bedroom, but the room was dark. Then he remembered where he had seen the light from the outside. He crossed the hall and opened the door of the spare bedroom and saw Margaret in a large rocker with the sleeping boy in her arms. She smiled at him over Alan’s head and her brown hair was lustrous in the light that shone behind her chair.

  “He’s all right,” she said. “Dr. Dougald looked him over and he thinks the effect of the shock will wear out in a little while. He must have seen or heard nearly everything.”

  Ainslie leaned against the door. “How could you tell? Did he talk about it?”

  “No. Not at all. But he didn’t relax or stop shaking until after we got the bromide down, and then he began to cry. I’m glad
you weren’t here. It would have broken your heart.”

  Ainslie looked down at the boy, but Margaret could detect no emotion she could recognize in the expression of his face.

  “You must be tired,” he said.

  “Well–” She smiled. “I couldn’t leave him alone until he fell asleep.” Her eyes fell to the drooping figure in her arms and her face softened. “Poor child, he’ll have to be loved very much to make up for this.”

  It was then that Ainslie began to cry. He made no sound, but the tears welled up and overflowed and he made no move to brush them away. It was the first time Margaret had ever known him to be unashamed of showing such emotion. Under other circumstances she would have tried to help him by pretending she hadn’t seen the tears, but now she could do nothing but sit with the sleeping boy in her arms.

  After a few moments the tears stopped and Ainslie came over and stood beside her.

  “Here, let me take him now.” He cleared his throat and blew his nose. “He’s quite heavy. Your arms must be paralyzed, holding him so long.”

  She smiled again. “They’re not numb at all.” Their eyes met and held. “I like holding him.”

  “Mollie is dead,” he said.

  “Yes, I know. Dr. Dougald called the hospital and they said you had gone.” She looked down at Alan again. “Do you want us to keep him and raise him as our son?”

  She was afraid Daniel might cry again, so she indicated that he could relieve her of the boy’s weight. He reached down, and as she shifted the burden, Alan whimpered. Ainslie took her place in the chair and tried to hold the boy in a comfortable position. Alan opened his eyes. Through the drug, his vision focused on the man who was so close to him. For several seconds he stared. Then he became rigid and began to scream in terror.

  “It’s all right, Alan. It’s all right. You’re with us now. There’s nothing to be afraid of now. It’s the doctor. Don’t be frightened. You’re going to stay with us.”