Leaving Home, of the Fields, Lately, and Salt-Water Moon

by David French

  MARY I mentioned it once.

  JACOB Once?

  MARY Once. “Why don’t we get some spruce gum?” I said. “That’d kill the pain.”

  JACOB And where in the name of Christ would we find a black spruce in the dark of night? That’s like telling a drowning man to head for shore.

  MARY Oh, go on with you.

  JACOB Spruce gum. My Jesus.

  MARY Lucky for you we made it to Clarke’s Beach. “Shoot me, Mary! Put me out of my anguish!”

  JACOB I never said that, now.

  MARY Then strutting in to Billy’s like you was dropping in for tea. White with pain but still with a grin. Snapping your braces with the same hand you’d just been gripping your jaw with all the way from Coley’s Point. (pronounced Cley’s)

  JACOB I don’t want to argue with you, Mary. I never come all this way to fight.

  MARY “Oh, by the way, Billy. I almost forgot to mention. I have a pain in my tooth.”

  JACOB Drop it, I said.

  MARY It’s all coming back now.

  JACOB He put his finger on my tooth, Billy did, and prayed, and seconds later the pain left. That’s it.

  MARY “Sorry to trouble you, Billy. Next time I’ll just get spruce gum.”

  JACOB Once you gets going, you can’t stop, can you? No mistake.

  MARY I’ll never forget the walk home, either. How often you stopped to admire the sky. How often you stopped to tie your laces.

  JACOB It worked, didn’t it?

  MARY Yes, it worked. By the time we got back the Dawes had locked me out. Just as you planned.

  JACOB We spent the night up on Jenny’s Hill, the two of us. And the rest, as the preacher said, is history.

  MARY Yes. (beat) Ancient history.

  Slight pause.

  Besides, the Dawes don’t lock me out now: I’m older. I’m seventeen now and more responsible.

  JACOB And just as superstitious, in spite of Jerome. Old Bob Foote was the same. He wouldn’t go in the woods without a scrap of bread tied up in a red hanky to ward off the fairies. Christmas Eve he was too scared to go nigh the barn. Claimed the horses got down on their knees to pray.

  MARY Scoff all you wants to, boy. I’d like to see you walk past the graveyard alone on a dark night, without whistling.

  JACOB Oh, don’t be foolish. There’s not’ing to be frightened of. Unless it’s one of the boys up to his mischief. Like the time Bob Foote got the scare of his life, the poor soul.

  MARY Why? What happened?

  JACOB Didn’t you hear? He was walking past the Church of England this night, old Bob was, and one of the boys — I t’ink it was Wiff Roach — was got up in a red sheet and a pair of cow horns. And just as Bob got abreast of the graveyard, out pops Wiff from behind a tombstone.

  MARY Oh, my God.

  JACOB That’s not the best part. Old Bob is whistling along past the church, walking on the balls of his feet, like someone trying to tiptoe t’rough life, a finbone of a haddock in his vest pocket . . . when all of a sudden he sees this big shadow ’cause Wiff has his back to the moon. The shadow drops down over Bob Foote like the wings of the Angel of Death, and he gives a shriek and spins around. And there’s Wiff with his arms out wide and he growls at old Bob, “Bob Foote,” he says, “I’m the Devil, my son, and I’ve come to get you!”

  MARY Oh, what a sin.

  JACOB And Bob sings out at the top of his voice — (He drops to his knees and clutches his hands in a gesture of entreaty.)— “Don’t harm me, Devil, for the love of Christ! I’m married to your sister!”

  MARY laughs, in spite of herself. JACOB laughs along with her.

  MARY (finally) Oh, you. You almost had me believing. Well, you just wait. Some dark night you’ll be walking home alone and it won’t be Wiff Roach you hears behind you. I wouldn’t make fun, if I was you.

  JACOB Go on with you.

  MARY Just you wait.

  JACOB That’s all old foolishness.

  MARY It is, is it?

  JACOB Old wives’ tales.

  MARY What if I told you I saw a Jackie Lantern this summer? What would you say to that?

  JACOB Now, Mary.

  MARY I did.

  JACOB A Jackie Lantern? One of those lights that’s supposed to come after dark and carry off bad little girls and boys?

  MARY My mother saw it, too. The both of us.

  JACOB What? You’ve been to see her?

  MARY Just after we arrived here this summer. Mrs. Dawe let me go home for a week. I took the train to Clarenville and the boat to Random Island. All by myself.

  JACOB I don’t suppose she recognized you?

  MARY I didn’t expect her to. I was only nine years old the last time I saw her. That still bothers her, I can tell, that she had to put Dot in a Home and me into service. But what could she do? When Father was killed, she’d slip into those queer moods that still haven’t left her. Moods that last for weeks on end, staring at the floor, forgetting to comb her hair . . . Anyway, I went to Hickman’s Harbour like I said, and we was sitting out on the porch one night, when along comes this ball of light. It floated up from the shore and bobbed straight for the churchyard.

  JACOB A ball of light?

  MARY Yes. I’ve never seen the like of it. It was as bright as any star in the sky tonight.

  JACOB Was it blue?

  MARY Yes . . .

  JACOB That figures. I saw a light like that once. My first and last summer on the Labrador. The Skipper called it St. Elmo’s fire.

  MARY Are you making this up?

  JACOB (hand on heart) The God’s truth.

  MARY All right then.

  JACOB I was ten years old. Father was still fighting in France, so I was the head of the family. I marched down to Will McKenzie’s store and signed on. Jerome was helping out. He gave me my crop: my oilskins and rubber boots, and salt beef and sugar for Mother. I made twenty-four dollars for six months, and that was fishing from sunrise to starlight, and out of that come twelve dollars for the cost of my crop. I never went at it again, I can tell you.

  MARY What about the blue light, Jacob?

  JACOB I’m getting to it . . . The men have a custom, Mary, if it’s your first time across the Strait of Belle Isle. One of the men gets all dolled up like Neptune. Up he climbs over the bowsprit, the God of the Sea, with a razor in his hand and a bucket of tar.

  MARY What’s that for? The razor and tar?

  JACOB That was my first question.

  MARY Was there an answer?

  JACOB I soon found out. They held me down on the deck, the men did, whilst Neptune shaved off all my hair and tarred my face.

  MARY Now that’s one sight I would’ve paid to see. You must have looked some fright.

  JACOB Blacker than Mr. Foote looks now in the last night of his wake . . . I sat apart on the deck that night, away from the other men. Too ashamed to be seen . . . That’s when I saw your light, Mary. It was perched atop the mizzenmast. A ball of light, just pulsing away.

  MARY (relishing the comparison, almost tasting it on her tongue) Like a blue star.

  JACOB (beat) Like a what? . . .

  MARY You heard me. Like a blue star.

  JACOB Go on with you. Stars aren’t blue.

  MARY Some are. Some are blue, some are red, some are yellow. There’s a blue star in the sky this very minute. The fourth brightest star in the summer sky.

  JACOB Is that a fact?

  MARY Indeed it is. I’ve seen it myself. It’s in the Constellation of the Harp.

  JACOB The Constellation of the Harp?

  MARY Yes, the Constellation of the Harp. So there.

  JACOB Show it to me then.

  MARY No, you’re just making fun of me. Besides, I’ve wasted enough of my time. I’ve got t’ings to do.

  JACOB Like what?

  MARY Like what?

  JACOB Yes, like what?

  MARY Lots of t’ings.

  JACOB Name one.

  MARY Well, like . . . like th
at suit of Mr. Dawe’s. He wants it pressed for the funeral tomorrow. He’s one of the pallbearers.

  JACOB Yes, I suppose that wouldn’t look right, would it, for the Right Honourable Henry Dawe, Member of Parliament, to look less than his best? Not with the Orange band leading the hearse and all hands in back stepping to the beat of the Death March. No, that wouldn’t look right. Him in his black crêpe armband and white gloves and a suit he might’ve slept in.

  MARY That’s right.

  JACOB (Beat. Smiles.) Look, why don’t you just show me the blue star and then I’ll be on my way? It’ll only take a minute.

  MARY Will you promise to go, if I shows it to you?

  JACOB I promise. Word of honour.

  MARY All right then, I’ll show you the blue star. But only because you don’t believe me. I wants to see you choke on your own smirk. . . . (She walks away and turns to face him.) First off, you have to know where the Big Dipper’s at.

  JACOB The Big Dipper? Sure, any fool knows where that’s to.

  MARY Where?

  JACOB (points) Right there. Right over Spaniard’s Bay. And up above it’s the Little Dipper pouring into it.

  MARY Come here then, and I’ll show you the blue star . . .

  JACOB gets behind her, close.

  Now pay attention. I’ll tell it the way Jerome does, so you’ll always find it yourself in future. You watching?

  JACOB Oh, I’m all eyes, Mary. (He breathes in the fragrance of her hair as though bending before a bouquet of wildflowers.) All eyes, ears, and nose.

  MARY (disturbed by his closeness) All right, now. First off . . . First off, keep your eye on the Big Dipper. That’s where we starts from. Now you see those . . . those . . . ?

  JACOB Those what?

  MARY (takes a step away) Those two stars that makes up the left side of the bowl? Those two?

  JACOB (edging closer) Which two?

  MARY (impatiently) Those two! . . . (Although she remains facing away, she is acutely aware of his closeness.) Now pretend your finger is a pencil. What you does is you runs a line between those two stars, like this, and you . . . (She swallows hard.)

  JACOB You what?

  MARY You keeps on going and runs the line straight up like this, up and up and up . . .

  JACOB Up and up and up . . .

  MARY Yes, until you’re at the Constellation of the Harp. That’s those six stars right there. See? One, two, t’ree, four, five, six . . .

  JACOB Don’t look much like a harp to me.

  MARY No odds. That’s its name. The Constellation of Lyra. L-y-r-a. That means harp in a dead language.

  JACOB (beat) What’s that you sprinkled on yourself tonight? Smells as nice as fresh bread. What is it, vanilla?

  MARY (turns on him) All right, that’s it for you, boy! That’s it!

  JACOB What? . . .

  MARY I’m not wasting my time a second longer! Remain ignorant all your life! See if I cares!

  JACOB I was paying attention, sure.

  MARY Indeed you wasn’t!

  JACOB Indeed I was.

  MARY What did I do then? Show me.

  JACOB All right, I will.

  MARY And just the way I told it, mind.

  JACOB Word for word . . . You took your finger like a stick of pencil and you drawed a line betwixt those two stars there, and you kept on a line as straight as a plumb up to the crown of the sky, till you struck the Constellation of Lyra, which means harp in Greek.

  MARY Latin.

  JACOB (his finger raised straight overhead) All right, Mary, what now? I can’t stand here all night, reading the sky like Braille. What’s next?

  MARY That’s it, boy. That’s Vega you’re pointing at.

  JACOB Vega?

  MARY The blue star! Look! (She thrusts the telescope at him.) See for yourself!

  JACOB takes the telescope and aims it at the star. While he has the telescope to his eye, MARY studies him secretly.

  JACOB Well, I’ll be . . . ! It is so blue. Look at that. Almost as blue as St. Elmo’s fire . . . (He turns to MARY — slyly.) Where did you say the red star was?

  MARY Never you mind where the red star’s to. Next it’ll be the yellow one. Find it with your naked eye, I’m going inside.

  MARY reaches for the telescope but JACOB backs away.

  Give me that!

  JACOB No. Not till you shows me a red and yellow star.

  MARY The yellow one’s the sun! See it in the morning! Now give me the telescope!

  JACOB Anger don’t become you, Mary, any more than sarcasm. Makes your knuckles white and scrunches up your face.

  MARY You promised, Jacob!

  JACOB I promised I’d go; I never said when.

  MARY (beat) All right, there’s a red star in the Little Dipper, if it’s that important to you. Hurry up and look.

  With deliberate slowness JACOB trains the telescope on the sky.

  JACOB So there is, Mary. A red star in the corner of the bowl . . . Like the Devil had one eye and was staring down at me. Winking.

  MARY No mistake.

  JACOB The way he prob’bly winked that night on Jenny’s Hill, though neither one of us noticed. Did you ever tell Jerome about that night?

  MARY He knows all there is to know.

  JACOB All?

  MARY Yes, I told him everyt’ing.

  JACOB That you didn’t.

  MARY Not that there was much to tell.

  JACOB That’s more like it.

  MARY Well, there wasn’t.

  JACOB Keep saying that, Mary, you might convince yourself. I doubt it would take much to persuade him otherwise. All his life long, Jerome, he’ll be scratching his head and pondering: “Did she? Or didn’t she?”

  MARY Listen, I wants you out of this yard, and right away. I don’t want you here when Jerome gets back. Is that understood?

  JACOB Now that’s odd. First you tells me you have to get in soon and put on the flat-iron for that black serge suit of the Right Honourable’s. Then the truth slips out, don’t it? Just as smooth as the lie you told.

  MARY It’s none of your business, one way or the other. I don’t have to answer to you now. So go on!

  JACOB I wondered why you had on your good dress tonight, with a touch of red on your cheeks. What’s that from? Still using the red paper inside the lid of a Cocoa tin?

  MARY What odds if I am?

  JACOB All dolled up for Jerome McKenzie, is that it? You and the moon just waiting for the Cock of the Rock to pull up in his Touring car?

  MARY That’s right. What of it?

  JACOB What’ll you do then, the two of you? Sit here a spell and gaze at the sky?

  MARY We might.

  JACOB (imitating JEROME, an earnest and studious young man) “The distance betwixt the earth and moon, Mary, is . . . oh, let’s see . . . one hundred t’ousand miles, give or take an eighth of an inch.”

  MARY It’s a quarter of a million miles, stupid, and he don’t speak like you.

  JACOB My God, Jerome has some fund of useless knowledge, don’t he? Teaches Grade Eleven in that t’ree-room schoolhouse, but give him a fishknife, he’d slit his own t’roat.

  MARY Why should he be cleaning fish? He’s a schoolteacher, and a good one. He knows a lot more than you’ll ever know.

  JACOB Is that a fact?

  MARY Yes, it’s a fact.

  JACOB Well, ask him what happened on the morning of July 1, 1916, and see how much he knows.

  MARY Any schoolchild in Newfoundland knows what happened on July 1, 1916.

  JACOB Oh, no doubt he could tell you the entire Newfoundland Regiment was wiped out at the village of Beaumont Hamel in the first battle of the Somme. Out of seven hundred and fifty men, only forty not dead or wounded. That he might know. But could he tell you what the weather was like that Saturday morning? How the sun rose on a lovely summer day, with a mist on the valley floor, and poppies in scarlet patches, and clouds making shadows that raced over the green fields of Picardy? Could he tell
you that? How one regiment after another was wiped out — the Royal Dublin Fusiliers, the Border Regiment, the Essex. And then it came the Newfoundlanders’ turn. Colonel Hadow walked twenty yards forward and gave the signal. The Captain blowed the whistle, and the men went over the top, heading straight into the German crossfire, knowing they was walking alone t’rough the long grass of No Man’s Land into certain death. Not a single man flinched or looked back, just kept on walking in perfect drill formation, the sun glinting off their bayonets. Could he tell you what all the observers noticed that day as the Newfoundland Regiment walked into the storm of machine-gun bullets and mortar shells: how all the soldiers to a man tucked their chins into their forward shoulders like sailors leaning into a gale of wind? Could he tell you that? . . .

  MARY says nothing.

  . . . No, and that he couldn’t. ’Cause his own father wasn’t there to tell him the real story, was he?

  MARY All the men couldn’t enlist, could they?

  JACOB My father volunteered, didn’t he, goddammit? And so did yours. Only yours is buried today under the bronze statue of a caribou in the fields of France.