And then he was gone. Back to university, leaving a desire that rooted itself through me like a rhizome, sprouting fantasies of springy black curls and sooty grey eyes at each turn in my day. And no matter he never came back the following summer or the next, working the oilfields out on the prairies somewhere, in the heat of my thoughts he felt a heartbeat away.
A rustling of the alders and Chris tore out, startling me.
“Shh, where is that little bastard,” he whispered, eyeing the bushes. Kyle popped out of the alder bed some distance ahead, whipping back a fistful of rocks. Chris danced as they struck around his feet, and dove back inside the alders with a war whoop. All up and down the roadside the bushes shook and snapped as Chris and Kyle beat and fought their way through like grouse fleeing a hunter’s gun. A scream from Kyle, and there was Chris dragging him from the brush by the neck and dumping him onto the grass, sitting astride his back and smooshing his face into the turf.
I resigned myself to the ruckus and walked past them, wondering again at how Chris could shift so quickly from self-contained, manlike mannerisms one moment to boyish clowning around the next.
FOUR
VOICES SOUNDED as I neared the club: a group of young fellows huddled around a parked truck and a couple of girls sitting on its dropped tailgate. Chris was suddenly trundling beside me, Kyle quick behind, both of them shaking twigs from their pant legs and smoothing back their hair. Tucking his hands into his back pockets, Kyle walked with a more measured step towards the parked truck then veered towards a couple of guffawing younger teens just appearing from behind the club, bottles of beer bulging through their jackets.
“Pop. Pop bottles,” said Chris, nudging me ahead as I was about to call after Kyle.
“He’s too young to drink.”
“It’s pop, I told you, go—go”.
He nudged me up the steps to the club door then drew me inside. It was crowded, and darkish. Elbowing aside a few drunken patrons, Chris cleared a spot for us at the bar and then signalled to the bartender. I squinted through the smoke, recognizing none of the people either moving about or sitting around the tables. A three-piece band on an elevated stage against the back wall struck up a heavy-metal number and a swarm of bodies started for the dance floor. I shook my head to Chris’s prodding for a shot of rum, settling for a glass of red wine poured from a two-gallon box that was perched on a shelf beside a strong yellow light.
“Too warm,” I complained to the bartender, but he was already hollering at someone farther down the bar, leaving me staring morosely at Chris, who was downing a shot of rum with one hand and cradling a beer in the other.
“Throat on fire?” I asked.
He flashed a grin, his cherry-brown eyes dark as Father’s in the dim light. Leaning with his back against the bar, he looked around. “See anybody you know?”
“No. No, and I don’t want to, I can’t hear in this racket— Chris, I’m not staying long—”
“Them fellows over there, that’s your school buddies, isn’t it? You sure?” he asked as I shook my head.
“No, there’s nobody here I hung with—what’re you doing?” I asked, watching as he downed another drink. “Christ, do you always drink like this?”
“Hard week, Sis. By jeezes if it weren’t.”
“Yeah. Guess it was. Frigging hard week.”
“I’m leaving with you,” he said.
“Good, finish your beer. What’d you bring us here for, anyway?”
He set his glass down heavily on the bar. “In the morning. I’m going with you to the prairies.”
“How nice.”
“Already packed. Suitcase is stogged full and sitting on the bed, ready to go.” He stared at me, his eyes so earnest that even in the smoky light I could see his fear and determination. I stood wordless for a moment, then doubly shocked as he pulled out a plane ticket, folded and refolded yet crisp as lettuce.
“Talked with manpower this morning. That’s where I went after I left you. Tons of work on the rigs. Hang out in a bar, get hired.” He called out to the bartender, raising an emptied glass.
“You can’t be serious.”
“Told you. Already packed.”
“Chris, be serious, you can’t leave now—not with Dad sick.”
“So much for ‘Leavin’ the gawd-damned wharf and sharin’ a place.’” He faced me with that old stubborn look of his and downed another shot of rum.
“Stop that—stop that drinking. Chris—oh, jeezes, Chris, they’ll be hooking Mother up next to Dad—you can’t possibly leave, they all need you now, more than ever.”
“Wood’s all split and stacked, deep freeze is full. Kyle can do whatever else needs doing.”
“Wait, no—Mother will think this is me.” I hung on to his arm pleadingly. “Look, I know what you’re feeling, about the boat. I have some money. We’ll buy another boat. And I’ll help with the truck payments, too. And then when Dad’s back on his feet again—then you come. Will you just friggin’ listen—”
He shook off my arm, then leaned his forehead onto mine, staring into my eyes.
“Ticket’s already booked. Sitting right next to Sis.”
A couple of girls bumped up against us, grabbing Chris’s arm, pulling him onto the dance floor, laughing at his awkwardness. I called after him and they beckoned me over, but I shook my head, shooting desperate glances at Chris. One of my old schoolmates got up from his table and made his way to the bar, or perhaps me. Not wanting to talk, I plopped down my wine glass and hurried outside, looking for Kyle.
The night was swarming with young people, shouting and laughing and flaring matches to cigarettes clamped between teeth, their faces lighting up in the dark like yellow moons. Kyle was off to himself, leaning against the side of a parked car with his hands jammed into his front pockets, doodling the ground with the toe of his boot. I watched for a minute, feeling a sense of loneliness about him that didn’t bode well given the number of friends traipsing about. No doubt he was fully aware of the ticket in Chris’s pocket. I leaned back beside him against the car, trying to see his face through the dark.
“Well, then?” I asked. “What’re we going to do about it.”
He shrugged, digging harder at the ground with his boot.
“He’s told you, hasn’t he?” I said. “That he’s going to Alberta? I never asked him. You don’t think that, do you—that I asked him to go?”
He shook his head.
“Well, what’s he saying, then?”
“Nothing. Just going, is all,” said Kyle.
“Yeah. Well, I’m not letting him come. Gawd.” I kicked at the ground. “Can’t believe he thinks he’s doing this. Where the hell did he come up with it?”
“Just says he’s going.”
“Yeah. Right.” I scoffed at the thought. “What can I say, then—you know, to get his mind off this?”
Kyle gave a short laugh. “Nothing. He’s going. That’s the way he’s thinking.”
“Ohh, he’s being so foolish. Well, I’m going home. Gran— does Gran know?”
He shook his head.
“Something else to worry her. All right, then, I’m going— you coming?”
“I’ll wait.”
’Course he’d wait. He hadn’t been a minute from Chris’s side since the day he started walking. I strode away, feeling through the dark Kyle’s watching after me. A light snapped on over the clubhouse door and I looked back, catching his face in the light, all still and pale. Another reason for Chris to stay home, I found myself thinking, to take care of Kyle, and then chided myself for thinking the same as Gran, as Mother, as Father, and almost everybody else in these outports—everybody wanting everybody home. Not for worries about the one leaving, but for them left behind, as though a house couldn’t properly shore itself without all hands abide.
I hurried along the road, then down the path, stumbling over tree roots, feeling the damp of the sea seeping through my skin. Stars glinted coldly above the blackened treetops
, casting bits of silver onto the last of my father’s knotty, hand-hewn railings. I slipped off a wooden step and cursed, squelching ankle-deep through wet moss and thinking, for a second, I heard my mother’s voice through the water lapping against the pilings.
No, Chris, you can’t leave just yet, I thought as I neared the house. But soon. You’ll leave soon, for you’re too big for this meagre scrap of life in the outports.
Perhaps it was this last thought passing through my mind that, upon opening the door and seeing Mother standing in the kitchen, brought such a look of guilt to my face. I looked guiltier still as my glance fell upon the opened suitcase sitting on the chair and a pile of clothes spilling out of it. Chris’s clothes— Mother had found his suitcase. Gran, wrapped in her long, thick nightdress, her hair loose and fluffed about her shoulders, was hunched alongside, gathering a couple of tea things off the table and looking confused as to where to put them.
“You’ve done this!” said Mother, her lowered voice adding to its intensity.
“No,” I said, unnerved by the pallor of her face. I stepped inside, quietly closing the door. “No. I—he just told me—”
“You did, yes you did,” said Mother. She held up her hands, warding off any further protest. “It’s why you went on the way you did at the hospital, you knew he’d be leaving. No use arguing, my lady—he wouldn’t leave his father, not like this; you’ve talked him over.”
“No—why do you say that—I’ve not talked him over.”
“Not outright, maybe, but there’s ways of bringing about what you wants without saying nothing, and you’ve always been good at that, my lady, getting what you wants—then why would he think to do this?” she demanded as I stared at her confusedly. “He’s never wanting to go away—especially now with his father sick.” Her voice turned cold. “It’s all them letters you wrote him—telling him about the oilfields, and the money to be made—that’s what got him thinking like this. All them letters—proud you got no water slopping at your window, that’s the kind of thing you tells him, and gawd knows what else.”A torrent of anger coursed its way through her, finding a well-worn path. “Well what do you say now that it’s come to this?”she cried, charging along recklessly. “You think now you haven’t persuaded him when he’s packed his bags, leaving his poor father on his sickbed?”
I darted towards Gran, speaking in the hurt tones of a child. “You don’t think that, do you, Gran? That I talked him over.”
Gran was still holding on to the tea things. “You can’t fault her for the boy’s doing, Addie. He’s too much himself to be ordered about.”
Mother shifted her eyes from mine, her face taking on a discomfited look. The opened mouth of the suitcase with its overflowing clothes gaped up at her with such impudence that she marched towards it, pushing down its lid. “He’ll not be leaving this house then, I can promise you that,” she directed at me. “He’s not himself these days—he’s too upset over his father to be thinking clearly.”
“That’s what I’m telling you,” I pleaded. “The boat—did you tell her about the boat, Gran?”
“She knows about the boat. Addie, you tell her now, you don’t fault her for his leaving.” Gran’s hands quivered as she laid the tea things back onto the table. Stretching a scrawny wrist from the sleeve of her nightdress, she lowered herself into her rocker. “Fighting over nothing,” she grumbled, “the two of you, always fighting over nothing.”
“She’s always thinking the worst of me,” I said.
“Are you saying you don’t want this?” Mother demanded. “After all you said in the hospital last night about the young leaving home?”
“University. That’s what I was talking about—why, what’s wrong with that?” I flashed as Mother’s face flickered with scorn. “You think he’s gonna be fishing and logging his whole life? You think he’s fit for no more than that?”
Mother’s eyes burned. “I told you before, my lady—no fool is your father or your grandfathers. And they fished and logged all their lives. As long as you can’t tell me why the berry grows in the field, there’s learning enough right here.”
My eyes went without bidding to the pile of well-read books beside her rocking chair. I lowered my head, but then thought of Chris fumbling awkwardly with the boat, losing his footing on the pan ice. “One thing I know,” I replied, cringing as I did so, “Chris is no more cut out for hunting and fishing than I am.”
“What do you know about that,” said Mother. “You’ve not been here. He sings like the lark all morning long, out there helping his father with his fishing and work stuff. I know his gift—we all know his gift, and how he loves it. But would he like it as much if he wasn’t helping his father, too? If he wasn’t content in other ways? Least he’s choosing what he does. That’s what makes him happiest right there, choosing his own way, and he should be left to it.”
“Well then, he’s choosing to leave, isn’t he?” I cried triumphantly. “So why don’t we just leave him alone and let him go, then? And who’s to say he wouldn’t be more content sitting in a room somewhere all by himself, making art? If that’s what life fitted him for, he should be doing it—lord knows we’re not all fitted for happiness, are we?”
Mother’s eyes fixed upon mine, as though searching for something she might’ve missed.
“Not just the one thing that makes a person happy,” said Gran, looking to us both. “Your mother’s right on that, Dolly. And we can trick ourselves too,” she said, looking to Mother. “There’s many a sad soul out there that thinks they’re happy simply because they picked their own path.”
“My, Gran, is that what you thinks of me,” asked Mother, “that I’m fickle, that I tricked myself into thinking I’m happy?”
“No, my maid, I don’t think you fickle—wouldn’t easy, is all, taking a fancied path in our day. Talk to the boy, Addie, I hears him outside.”
I turned to the window, catching Chris peering through the curtains. He peered closer upon seeing Mother, and frightened he would run off, I ran to the door. “Tell her,” I said, latching onto his arm and dragging him inside, “tell her it’s not me putting ideas in your head.”
“For sure I needs somebody putting them there,” he said with a grin, “not like things grow there all by themselves.”He staggered backwards and leaned on the doorjamb, the smell of rum filling up the house. “No sir, not like things grow there— whoa, where we going?”
Mother had latched onto his other arm and was dragging him towards his suitcase and pointing at it as though it were the cause of his leaving. “You unpack it. You unpack it right now and put your stuff away.”
“Aw, cripes, Mother.”
“You’re not leaving this house in no morning, it’ll finish your father you takes off like this.”
“Aha, now, don’t go doing this.” He gave a silly grin, draping his arms around her, forcing her to his side.
“You’ll kill your father, you’ll kill him,” she threatened, pushing him away, “and Gran, too—she can’t sleep a wink when you’re not in the house. Speak to him, Gran—and what about Kyle—he’s too used to having you about, how’s he going to be without you?”
“He’ll be fine, just fine, won’t you Kyle—Ky? Oops, where’s Ky?”
“Oh, you’ll laugh, you’ll laugh all right,” cried Mother as he lurched to his suitcase, shoving his clothes back in. “Bet Kyle’s not laughing, though—call him, go out and call him.” She marched to the door, swinging it open. “Kyle! Ky!” She stepped outside, her voice fading into the night.
“Go, get her back,” said Gran as the wind nudged the door shut behind Mother. “She’ll be sick come morning—Sylvie, go get your mother.” She hunched over, picking a shirt off the floor. “Here,” she said to Chris, “before it’s trod on.”
“Nay, I don’t need that,” said Chris. “Show, let’s see—what is it—nay I don’t need that. Thanks, Gran. Thanks.” He flashed her a grateful smile, then cocked his ear to the sound of his brother’s vo
ice arguing with our mother. “Ky’s the one needing help. Go get him, Sis.”
I shook my head. “Come on Gran, they’ll fight it out, let’s go to bed. My, you’re all worked up,” I exclaimed as she stood there, the shirt dangling from her hands. She let it fall back to the floor and sat down in her rocker. I went to her, rubbing the thin, bony shoulders the way I used to those first days in Mother’s house when Gran would shuffle about, not knowing what to do or think without the comfort of her own floors beneath her feet.
Chris belched loudly. He snapped the locks to his suitcase and lifted it off the chair, thumping it to the floor beside Gran’s rocker. Then he knelt before her, a silly grin on his face as she patted his cheek. “I’ll be back before Christmas, all right?” he said, then hung his head tiredly as Mother came back inside, a sharp draft cutting across the room. She held the door open for a minute, calling out to Kyle.
“He won’t come in—Chris, go get him. Kyle!” she called.
Chris looked at me, his eyes suddenly wearied. A twinge of pity struck me, and without will I gave him a bit of a smile. Instantly his grin was back, and so poignant with relief were his eyes that I shook my head with warning, thinking he would lunge towards me, kissing my face as when we were youngsters and I brought him pretty rocks from the beach.
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