The Most Perfect Gift

by Hubert Furey

  The old woman continued to look at him in the same manner. “You could have!”

  Jimmy began to feel embarrassed, moving to change the subject quickly. “Yeah. She and her father brought over a big bunch of stuff last night. Sleeping bag, the whole bit. And Charlie Mackay had already brought wood and splits, so I had lots to eat and lots of heat last night. Better than I’ve had it some times, I can tell you.”

  The old woman rested her hand on the table, studying Jimmy intently. “Charlie Mackay is a fine man. People are not all bad, you know. At least some of them. Certainly when Malcolm Furneaux died, I didn’t shed any tears. If me old legs had the strength, I would have danced on his grave. Different man altogether from Dick Furneaux.”

  “Malcolm Furneaux? Dead?”

  “They says he was that drunk he couldn’t stand. They found him in the rocks just below Prue’s Point. They don’t know whether he fell or whether someone done him dirty. Good enough for him, the old flamer, whatever happened. God forgive me. He crucified his own poor wife. Then every other married woman he could lay his hands on.”

  Jimmy’s eyes stared toward the dishes in front of him, trying to shut out the memory of that other Christmas Day. The old woman was noisily sucking another piece of salt beef bone. So his mother wasn’t the only one.

  Mother Hennessey cut several pieces of dark fruitcake and proffered the plate to Jimmy. Then she stood up and hobbled to the little parlour, returning moments later with a framed picture, which she extended in Jimmy’s direction. “Here. I got a Christmas box for ye. Before she died, yer mother, God rest her soul, gave it to me. Asked me to save it for ye. When I heard that other omadhaun was guttin’ out the place, I made it me business to go up and see if I could save some of her other things for ye. But I was too late. This is all I have that belongs to ’er.”

  * * * * *

  Jimmy took the picture and held it in both hands, his eyes instantly absorbed in the teenage face of the young mother, her eyes in rapture over the infant which she held cuddled in her arms, and who seemed too big for her fragile strength. He barely heard the voice of Mother Hennessey, still talking while she continued to suck noisily on the salt beef.

  “Taken three months after ye were borned. Ah! She thought the world of ye. Even though that other thing had left ye and ye was bein’ kept alive by Dick Furneaux and the goodness of his heart, she was happy. Never heard her once say she wished it never happened. My dear, don’t be talkin’. When I’d go up to make me visit, I had to hear about yer every fart. Yes, she was dyin’ about ye.”

  Jimmy set the picture carefully to the right among the jumble of dishes, his eyes captivated by the sense of happiness that emanated from the beaming face before him. What had happened? Where had the lustre gone? When had the happiness disappeared? He became aware that the old woman was eyeing him intently as she continued her ritualistic assault on a particularly resistant bone, pausing between moments of voracious slurping to turn and study the bone for a particularly effective approach. He knew by now she could read him like a book.

  “’Tis hard to stay like that after life gets a hold of ye. She was a fine-lookin’ woman in her day, but sure, no matter how fine-looking ye are, if ye gets it hard enough . . . and she had it hard enough. But she stuck with ye. She didn’t leave ye on no doorstep in no basket, I can tell ye that.”

  The old woman got up and walked to the stove, where she picked up a willow-patterned teapot. She had suddenly gone very silent, and Jimmy felt an unexpected tinge of dread. He almost knew what was coming next. When she turned to face him, the teapot held as if she had forgotten all about it, the look in her eyes confirmed his expectations, and as she spoke, the words cut deep into his soul, words that, up until now, he would have shrugged off or laughed at.

  “She desarved better from life than what she got, I can tell ye that. And you could have done better by her, too. It wasn’t hard times or that other sleeveen or Malcolm Furneaux that put yer mother in the grave. She was able for all of that. But you. You that she gave her heart and soul to. You she loved as much as God Himself. Them horrible things you did, all them things they wrote about in the papers. That put her in the grave. I knows ’tis Christmas, Jimmy Blanchard, but I got to have me say. Fer the sake of yer mother in the grave, to help her rest in peace, put a stop to it. Like I said last night, yer still a young pup. Ye can do lots of wonderful things yet.”

  The old woman returned to the table and poured tea for herself and was about to retrace her steps to the stove when she stopped and half-turned, suddenly aware that she had forgotten to offer tea to Jimmy. “Don’t mind me. I’m so used to being alone, I fergets when there’s somebody with me.” Jimmy waved her away. It wouldn’t matter if she hadn’t poured it. Tea would taste very pallid now.

  The old woman returned the teapot to the stove and sat down, sweetening her tea with slow, thoughtful movements. “Ye did a lot of good things last night. Going to Mass was the best of them. Helping me along, then savin’ Cheri Wilson’s life. She’s a wonderful girl, Cheri Wilson. You should be good to her and not do anything to hurt her . . .”

  Jimmy flinched. He didn’t want to think about hurting Cheri Wilson. “I dunno. I didn’t do very much in Mass. I think I was asleep the whole time.” The image of Charlie Mackay came to his mind and lingered.

  “You don’t know that stuff, Jimmy Blanchard. Ye don’t have to be on yer knees twenty-four hours a day fer God to touch ye. There’s a lot of this stuff nobody knows. Maybe you was supposed to go there. Maybe He’s waitin’ fer ye to come back long enough. But I knows one thing—if ye didn’t have to be in that church last night, ye never would have helped me home, and ye never would have pulled Cheri Wilson from that car. So who knows, maybe He’s givin’ ye a chance to pay it all back. Maybe yer mother in heaven is prayin’ for ye, and He’s listening to her prayers. I don’t know. When ye got no education, ’tis hard to understand stuff.”

  The old woman slurped her tea noisily, heedless of any effect the action had on Jimmy. Jimmy’s eyes had rested again on the picture of his mother. The laughing face was looking at the infant reassuringly. It suddenly struck him that the infant was him, that he was the one his mother was holding. He reached absent-mindedly for his empty teacup, overcome by a powerful feeling that he couldn’t explain. It was as if his mother was communicating with him, from across the years, or from within his mind, or from eternity.

  “Tell me about my mother.”

  The old woman drained her cup noisily and set it back clanking in the saucer. “Yer mother was a well-educated woman. She could have done better for herself. She was on her way to university when she had her misfartune.”

  “If she was so smart, I mean . . .” Jimmy had always wanted to ask his mother that question, but he knew he would never have asked it in the respectful way he was asking it now. The old woman was staring into her teacup, absorbed in her thinking.

  “Young and foolish, b’y. Young and foolish like the rest of us. Ye meets a fine-lookin’ man and ye thinks ’tis out of his arse the sun shines, and when ’tis like that, ye’ve got no say in how it goes. ’Tis only after ye goes through the ice sometimes that ye thinks ye should have tried it first. She desarved a better man than Rufus Blanchard, but there was no telling her that. Yer mother was young and in love, and God Himself wouldn’t have been able to talk sense into her head. So if yer goin’ to hold something against yer mother, yer goin’ to be holdin’ it against half the women in the world, because there was very few of us young and sensible. Besides, she never said it, but they says he played her dirty. He’d never get away with it today.”

  Jimmy kept looking intently at the picture. “I take it my father wasn’t a very good man.”

  “He was a Blanchard, like all the rest of the Blanchards. You knows Tom Blanchard, don’t ye? Well, now, there’s yer father right there, only bigger, like you. You got his good looks, a
nd ye turns after him the way he was, fighting and troublemaking. How in the name of God yer mother, with her upbringing, got in tack with the likes of that I’ll never understand. He was in bed with everything that had drawers on right up to the day they was married. Fer a while, when they was goin’ together first, he seemed to change. Then when she got with you, it all went the other way. She didn’t have the ring on her finger when he was gone. Some says he’s bummin’ around in New York. Others says he’s dead. Anyway, he didn’t help her neither way.”

  So that’s where he got it. Then maybe there was no chance for him.

  The old woman sensed what he was thinking, continuing on as if she had not stopped. “But ye don’t have to go that way, b’y. Ye’re yer mother’s child too, and she was a fine, educated woman. But ye got to do it yerself, Jimmy Blanchard. Nobody else can do it fer ye, not even God Himself, if ye don’t want to.”

  A pounding on the door and a boisterous shouting of “Merry Christmas” distracted them from their conversation. Mother Hennessey looked past Jimmy in obvious delight. “The first of the visitors. Come on in—ye’re no strangers.”

  Jimmy, too, looked in the direction of the loud conversation, feeling a mounting sense of excitement. He had forgotten about Christmas visiting. A group of men led by Charlie Mackay burst in, jostling and bumping each other good-naturedly in the closeness of the tiny house. They were noisy and well-on, no doubt having hit a fair number of houses since they got up that morning. He looked at his host with questioning eyes. If he detected any hint of embarrassment, he would excuse himself. Mary Margaret Hennessey was paying no attention to him. She had risen to greet her visitors, ushering them this way and that in the confines of the tiny room.

  “Come in. Come into the parlour. No. Ye don’t want to go in the parlour. All right, then. Somebody find chairs. We’d have a bit of room if Charlie Mackay had to stay home.” Charlie Mackay responded by grabbing Mother Hennessey and swinging her around in a make-believe square dance.

  “Di-dee-diddly-dee-dee-diddly . . .”

  “Put me down, ye great flamer, before I takes the kettle of hot water to ye.”

  Jimmy watched as Charlie gently disengaged himself from the laughing old woman, then assumed an officious stance in the middle of the kitchen floor, surveying Jimmy with serious eyes.

  “B’ys, ye may have forgotten Jimmy Blanchard. Gave me a bad trimming once, which I was lookin’ for, I’m sorry to say. But thas all over now and shouldn’t be spake of no more. We wants you to be part of us now, Jimmy. One for all and all for one. I think I read that in a book in grade four, before they kicked me out,” he roared, winking mischievously at Mother Hennessey.

  Jimmy nodded in an embarrassed manner as Charlie bent lower, grasping his hand and slapping him hard on the back. “Merry Christmas to ye. How did ye like the barch? Good barch, waren’t it? Dumped off the udder load while you was in the police car. Yes sir, good barch. Cut that up by Jerdan’s Pond. Now, Mother Hennessey, run down to Furneaux’s and change yer old-age pension and get us a drink before I puts me hand up yer leg or gives ye another dance or something.”

  “I’ll give ye a boot in the arse if ye don’t sit down and behave yerself . . .” She was laughing like everybody else as she walked to the pantry to get her bottle, and Jimmy couldn’t help feeling like becoming part of the merriment. He knew this went on in other houses when he was growing up, but he had never experienced it. He could never remember feeling a part of the community like this, at Christmas or any time. There was no hatred here, no viciousness, none of the savagery or violence or distrust he had come to associate with the rest of the world. A bunch of men together—drunk—in an old woman’s house, just laughing and carrying on! There were a lot of people in Dorchester, and everywhere else, who wouldn’t understand this. He was having difficulty himself.

  The men had begun to sing—a loud Irish drinking song that suited the rising boisterousness of their gathering—and Jimmy became fascinated by their movement and motions, letting himself be drawn into the mood of sheer joy they had created. He was so absorbed that he had not noticed the lanky man with the wavy red hair and red bushy eyebrows who was bending over to speak to him, wavy red hair and red bushy eyebrows that were Dick Furneaux’s distinctive features when he was a younger man. Jimmy noted that he was very well-dressed. His voice carried over the noise of the singing as he extended his hand in greeting. “Jimmy. You probably don’t remember me—Ritchie Furneaux, Dick Furneaux’s son. When you get a chance over the holidays, I want to speak to you. Very important.”

  “Important?” Nobody had ever spoken to him about anything important before, unless you counted the criminal charges.

  “Yeah. I want to talk about your land.”

  “My land?” Jimmy’s first impulse was to laugh. “That little piece of meadow at the edge of the cliff with a half-arsed house falling down? Does somebody want to buy it?”

  Ritchie Furneaux was laughing. “Yeah! Your land. Yes, indeed they do. You haven’t got a clue what I’m talking about, have you? Certainly, how would you know? You were gone before any of this came out.” A sense of mystery was pervading the conversation, and Jimmy could only look at the other man blankly. He was right, Jimmy didn’t have a clue. The other man continued on, in the same familiar tone. “You haven’t seen your mother’s will yet?” Ritchie Furneaux was mixing cold water with a small drink of screech he had poured from the bottle on the table. Then he turned his face to Jimmy, smiling. It was a totally honest face. “I suppose you never heard of it.” Jimmy continued to stare at the other man blankly, just as lost as when he had started.

  “My mother had a will? She never mentioned . . .” Then, why would she have mentioned it? She didn’t know she was going to die.

  “Very much so.” Ritchie Furneaux was downing the drink, in one gulp. He looked at the glass before looking back at Jimmy, eyeing him steadily.

  “You’re the beneficiary.” Jimmy’s natural instincts began to assert themselves as he recovered from the bluntness of the start of the conversation.

  “How do you . . .”

  “Know so much about the will?” the other man interrupted. “It’s my business to know wills. I’m a lawyer, and I know everything about this particular will. I drew it up when the old man asked me. On her behalf. The old man held the will, for a while, after your mother’s death, like your mother asked, until he gave it to our firm in St. John’s. He didn’t feel right holding onto somebody’s else’s inheritance, so to speak. Wants to do everything right and proper, my old man, although, after you, in the event of you croaking, he gets everything.” He waved his glass in Jimmy’s direction. “I had nothing to do with that. Totally your mother’s decision.”

  Ritchie Furneaux poured himself another drink and slowly poured in water, plopping in an ice cube from the bowl in the centre of the table. Charlie Mackay was holding Mother Hennessey’s hand in the rising crescendo of the end of the song.

  Jimmy was perplexed. What he had didn’t seem to hold much value. “Well, I suppose it’s a good spot for a summer cabin, if some stund doctor in St. John’s wanted to pay enough money.”

  Ritchie Furneaux was toying with his glass on the table, still looking at Jimmy. “It’s bigger than that.”

  “You mean the Blanchards own more than that little meadow? I thought the Wilsons and Shannahans owned everything up there.” In all the years growing up in Brine Cove, he had never heard land mentioned.

  “The Wilsons don’t own a thing on the north side of the road, or the Shannahans either, for that matter. Turns out that whole stretch, for about a half a mile up the shore—including that nice big stretch of sandy beach, the big meadow, and the river running through it—are all yours.” Jimmy stared at Ritchie open-mouthed as he carefully set the glass back on the table. “Your mother didn’t know about it, either, until she talked to the old man about doing a will. She d
idn’t want anybody else to get the house—especially cousin Tom—so you’d have a place to come to if you ever came back. She was starting to feel sick, and I don’t think the doctors were giving her much hope. But the old man knew about the land and the big grant given to your great-grandfather on your mother’s side. And it was all passed down, nice and clean. Your grandmother was the last of the old ones to die, and she had everything drawn up, citing your mother as sole heir.”

  “How come . . .”

  “Your mother didn’t know. Dick Furneaux figures that when she got in tack with your old man, her people felt that the less he had to encourage him to stay around, the better. Then when your grandfather drowned suddenly like that—and your grandmother was never the same afterwards—I think the old lady, your grandmother, just forgot all about it.” Ritchie Furneaux reached for the bottle again, but he checked himself, then changed his mind and poured himself another drink. “So your mother never knew until my old man told her about it and had it included in her will.”

  “You mean I own all that—right up past the river—like you said?”

  “Yessir, every rock and tree stump, and a pretty piece of property it is.”

  “But . . .”

  Ritchie Furneaux was finishing his thought again, in the same uncanny manner. “What good is a half-mile of poor sand and an overgrown meadow with a big river running through it?” Ritchie Furneaux drained his glass before setting it on the table and looking at Jimmy fixedly. “Best piece of development property on the east coast of Newfoundland, sir! That beach is perfect for kids, deep in the Sound like that, hardly a breath of wind in the summer. You can wade out a half a mile and still be only up to your waist. And the meadow! You could build a thousand cabins there to rent if you wanted to. And if you want to fish, that river takes you to the best salmon pools in Newfoundland, not to mention the trout in a million ponds. Good run of sea trout in March month, too. It’s perfect.”