by Hadley Dyer
“Some people do, do they?”
“Why not make it easier on yourself? Once Martha goes off and gets married, there will only be three of you. You can’t be depending on Rosalie.”
The mountain of words that piled up in my brain was so huge I couldn’t even get a foothold. I felt Norman’s arm tighten around me.
“We’ll manage, thank you,” said Mama. “You forget the aunties stayed here until they died.”
After my grandmother passed on, people said my granddad couldn’t raise his kids on his own. That’s how Mama, Aunt Izzie, and Uncle Jim ended up here. If Mama died, I couldn’t imagine leaving Norman to go to live with someone else, especially two old gnarled-up great-aunties who made you earn your keep by doing chores from morning till night. Mama took care of the aunties until the end, when they caught the same flu and died within a few days of each other. We’re not supposed to say a word against them, mind, since they left Mama the house.
“The aunties had you helping them, didn’t they?” said Freddie. “These girls aren’t going to stay in this house any more than Johnny’s going to stay in Ship Harbour his whole life to help run that station. You and Izzie got to start thinking ahead.”
“I think you’ll be waiting a long time to see me married,” Martha said quietly.
“Why? You’re good-looking enough.”
Martha’s mouth opened, but no words came out. Couldn’t get a foothold, I guess. Or maybe the smoke was getting to her, because she just smiled, plucked her white church gloves off the counter, and glided out of the kitchen.
“Speaking of Johnny . . .” Norman began. I twisted around in the chair so I could see his face. “Oh. Well. Rosalie drew a real nice picture of him.”
“Goody for Baby,” said Hazel.
“Bean.”
I dog-eared the copy of Richie Rich I was reading and put it on my bedside table. “We’re not going to move, are we?”
“Aw. That’s just talk.”
“Okay.”
“Always wanted a big yard for you kids. And a better garden for Mama. But I probably don’t got enough squared away for a lot as nice as that one.”
“That’s good. I mean, I don’t want to move.”
“Yeah, moving’s hard when you’re young.”
We sat quietly for a bit. When you grow up with about a hundred kids in your family, probably the best thing you could wish for would be a nice place of your own to live in, and here I’d just said no to it, like I had any say-so.
I didn’t know how not to talk to Norman about something. Not telling him what I knew about Johnny was like having an itch you can’t scratch under a cast. But I wanted him to tell me. And something else. If something’s so big it’s too big to talk about over cigarettes at Mama’s kitchen table, well, maybe I didn’t want to know the whole truth of it yet.
“Funny when Hazel dropped that spoon in her teacup, wasn’t it?” said Norman.
“Yeah,” I said. “Tea flew up her nose.”
Norman creaked his old self down the hall, and I lay in bed not-sleeping. After a long while, I turned on my flashlight and tried thinking up a new comic strip, but it just wouldn’t come.
Chapter Nine
Martha and I set out for the Hydrostone Market first thing. Martha wanted to get the week’s shopping over with before she had to go to work. We had a long, mixed-up list—thread, Noxema, shoe polish, butter. I wondered if David would be at the house when we got back.
“Rosalie!” Mama called from the chesterfield, just before the screen door closed behind us. “On your way back, pick up two pounds of ground steak. Tell Jack Newberry if he sends you home with something fatty, it will be trotted right back to him.”
“Yes, Mama!” Martha called back. She pushed me down the porch steps before I could be smart.
On the way to the Hydrostone, I told Martha about my conversation with Norman the night before. “We probably don’t have enough money to buy that place Cecil was going on about,” I said. “So I guess that’s that.”
“I wouldn’t be so sure.”
“What do you mean?”
“We’d sell our house, of course. And you know that big cigar box where Norman keeps the extra bullets for his hunting gun?”
“Yup.” We weren’t supposed to touch that box.
“Yes,” Martha corrected me. “He’s been putting money in there for years.”
“How do you know?”
“I dropped it once when I was cleaning. I’d wager even Mama doesn’t know how much is in there.”
“How much?”
“I don’t know, either. But that was a long time ago and there was a lot even then.”
“Are you saying we got enough to buy that lot?” I could feel my chest getting tight just thinking about leaving our house. I know houses don’t have feelings, but it seemed cruel to just up and go as soon as we could afford something better. I knew every inch of that old place. We’d all been born there. And the aunties had died there. And, anyway, where would I go to school? What would I do without Marcy? How could we ever leave the North End? Aw geez, going to the butcher wasn’t so bad.
“If Norman says we’re not moving, we’re not moving,” Martha said. “It’s just that money may not be the issue.”
“Do you want to move?”
“I’m going to university in a year, remember? That’s a promise I’m going to keep no matter where the family lives.”
Promised our parents, I guess. Martha was going to be the first of us Normans to get a university degree—and maybe the last. I was kind of hoping I’d make it big as an artist without going through all that.
Hardly anyone was at the Hydrostone yet, and we ticked off our list lickety-split. While Martha was in Mr. Butt’s drugstore buying Noxema for Mama, I drifted across the street to the Blue Nose Diner. The menu was posted high in the window and I stretched up on my toes to read the beverage section. I thought maybe Martha could be convinced to buy me a milkshake before we headed home. We could sit at the counter, just like the kids in the Bobbysoxers comics, swirling the foamy chocolate around in cold, heavy glasses.
On the other side of the window, someone was sitting at a table, hunched over a newspaper. Even from that angle I knew it was David. There were empty plates and cups on the table, like he’d been eating with other people and he was the last to leave. But who would be hanging out with the Gravedigger? And what kid—other than us—would be down at the Hydrostone this early in the summertime?
“Rosalie, please don’t stare at those poor people trying to have their breakfast.”
“David’s been hanging out here with someone,” I told Martha. “I didn’t think he had any friends.”
“Aren’t you his friend?”
I gave her my best Mama-look.
“Maybe he had breakfast with his family, then. Didn’t one of his brothers work here before he got on at the shipyard?”
“How’d you know that? You know his brothers?” My chest tightened.
“Just enough to give a wave,” said Martha. “One of the other girls at the library used to go out with his brother Tom in high school. She thought he was quite a catch.”
Before they moved to Agricola, the Flynns used to live near the big Sears store. I thought back to what Norman said about moving being hard when you’re young. Maybe the Gravedigger wasn’t even the Gravedigger at his old school, St. Agnes. Maybe he was just David. The only times I ever saw him with other people was when he headed out in the morning with his father and brothers.
“Never would have thought the Flynns eat their breakfast at a restaurant,” I said.
“A houseful of bachelors?” Martha laughed. “This may be their one square meal of the day. You want to go in for a cold drink?”
“Not if David’s not speaking to me.”
“You two . . . Good thing I got us a couple of pops, then. We could have them up at Fort Needham, if we don’t dawdle . . . Here, help me sort out these bags so they’re easier to carry.”<
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Fort Needham is this hill near the Hydrostone. It’s not as big as Citadel Hill, which overlooks the whole city. And Citadel Hill has a fort on it, while Fort Needham only has grass and berries and cigarette butts. Just about every boy in the North End learned to smoke up on Fort Needham. But it’s a pretty steep hill, all the same, and you can see the harbour from the top.
“Johnny and I used to come up here a lot, back when the Kellocks lived in the city,” Martha said as we turned onto the path. “Do you remember us taking you sledding here?”
“Sure. I laughed so hard once, I peed my pants.”
“Oh, yes! Johnny told Mama it was his fault. He said he picked you up and squeezed you too hard in the middle.”
“I don’t remember that part.”
“You were little.”
Martha’s asthma was acting up. I took a shopping bag from her.
“I’ll tell you one of my earliest memories,” she said. “It was the first day of school. And I was sick again—must have missed half of kindergarten. I was at home, on the landing. Clutching my doll.” She paused for breath. “The doctor came downstairs and he told me. About the real live baby I could take care of. From then on. I asked him where it came from. And he pointed. To his black bag.”
I laughed. Martha laughed, too. “After that,” she said, “I didn’t mind being home. Because I always had company.” She stepped aside to let a man go by us on the path.
“You’ve got company now,” the man said. He was old, maybe thirty. His face was clean-shaven, but he had a smell like he hadn’t had a bath for a while. Reminded me of Rock Hudson, only leaner and rough-looking.
“Why don’t you hand over your purse, lady,” he said to Martha. “I’ve got a knife.”
He twitched his hand inside his jacket pocket. Martha didn’t move. She just stood there wheezing. I looked around, frantically. The man was blocking the path below us. There was no one else around. And from below it would have just looked like three people talking.
“Come on, let’s have it,” the man said.
Martha passed the rest of the shopping bags to me with shaky hands and slipped her purse off her shoulder. Then, before I realized what was happening, the purse was swinging and it clunked the man upside of his skull. He staggered backward and fell, a surprised look on his face, and Martha pulled me by the arm up the path.
We ran and ran. Over the hill. Past the harbour and the little glimpse of the new Macdonald Bridge that you could spot between the trees if you weren’t running for your life. Past the raspberry bushes and down the hill on the other side. The bags banged hard against my hipbones, but we didn’t stop and we didn’t look behind us until we’d made it back to the Hydrostone.
By then Martha was gasping for air so bad I thought she was going to turn blue. But she took a puff of medicine from her inhaler and after a few minutes was able to take shallow breaths. We sat on a bench with the bags dropped at our feet. “Thank God. For this brilliant invention,” she panted, holding up the inhaler. And I was so relieved to see her colour coming back that all I could do was squeeze her tight.
Mama wasn’t too pleased that we’d forgotten to pick up the ground steak on the way home. But Martha got her off my back by telling her what a good deal we got on the large jar of Noxema that she pulled out of her purse.
David wasn’t at the house when we got back, and he never came. I was a bit sorry that I didn’t have the chance to tell him what happened at Fort Needham. Aw, he probably wouldn’t have believed it anyway.
That night, after Mama and Norman had gone to sleep, I slipped out of bed and crept down the hall towards Martha’s room. We’d decided not to tell our parents about Rock Hudson’s evil twin. We’d probably have a hard time coming and going on our own if we did. One more secret between us all. But I was tired of having Johnny between Martha and me. Maybe it was a little selfish. Johnny might come home soon, just like David said, and Martha might get upset for no reason. But maybe he wouldn’t come home soon and she’d want to know that. I could tell from the way she smiled when she told that story about going sledding. There was a time, back when the Kellocks still lived in the North End, when Martha and Johnny were pretty good friends.
Martha’s bed was empty. I tiptoed down the stairs towards a light coming up from the living room. I knew my sister loved this place from spending so much time at home when she was younger. It wasn’t until that moment, though, that it occurred to me how she might be even more attached to our old house than I was. When I twisted my head down and peeked between the banister rungs, I saw her sitting in Norman’s horsehair chair. A cigar box was open on her lap. She was holding a large bundle of money in her hands and she was crying.
Chapter Ten
I heard the Flynns’ door bang shut across the road and what sounded like a rake being dragged down their stairs. I didn’t look up from my sketch pad. He could come or not—didn’t matter to me. It’s just that a person should work on someone’s yard if they say they’re going to. Even if they have to hold down their creepy job at the graveyard, they should still make good on their arrangements. No one was going to make him speak to me.
David’s shadow and black-pepperish smell fell over me. I tried to hold my face still, but I could feel the smile wriggling at the corners of my mouth. Then I remembered what Norman said about David’s mother. My face fixed itself.
“Gerry says there’s a new guy named John at the shipyard. Says he’s got black hair and he’s tall.”
I looked up. “Did he talk to him?”
“Nah, he only seen him from across the way. But someone told him that was the guy’s name.”
I knew better than to ask for another favour. “That’s real nice of your brother to let us know,” I said. “I guess I’ll look into that.”
I took a pencil from the shoebox at my feet and twisted it in the little sharpener.
The rake handle pivoted slowly on the porch step.
“It’s nothin’ to me if we went down there again,” David said.
“Where?”
“The shipyard.”
“Oh, yeah?”
“Gerry says if we meet him there late this afternoon, he’ll get us in. If you want. All the same to me.”
We made a plan.
I asked Mama if we could go down to Nelson Seed to see Norman. David gave me the excuse that we were running low on fertilizer for the garden and we needed to pick some up. According to the plan, we would buy extra time at the shipyard by saying we stopped for a pop somewhere on the way home. Course, that didn’t get me far.
“You can tell Norman what you need tonight,” Mama said, “and he’ll bring it home tomorrow. I don’t want you bothering him at work.”
My first instinct was to keep at her, but I shut my yap. I’d been watching how Martha got around Mama. She always came in the side door, if you know what I mean. Like how she helped us to go swimming at Chocolate Lake by telling Mama what a good job we’d done with our chores. I felt a little guilty about that. In a way, I’d made Martha lie.
So I didn’t fuss when Mama said we couldn’t go. I let her get settled on the chesterfield with her tea and her sewing and got right to my chores.
They who tread the path of labor follow where my feet have trod; they who work without complaining, do the holy will of God . . .
“What’s that noise?” Mama called.
“I been thinking about joining the junior church choir,” I said. “I got to practise!”
I worked my way through an afternoon’s worth of hymns. I sang “When the Day of Toil is Done” while I did the dishes and “Thy Glorious Work, O Christ, is Done” while I did the floors. Before I finished the dusting, I’d run through “Welcome, Sweet Day of Rest,” “For all the Saints Who From Their Labors Rest,” and “When we our Wearied Limbs to Rest.”
“I’m off to collect my paycheque!” Martha yelled over “O Where Shall Rest Be Found.”
“They don’t usually have them ready till the end of th
e day,” said Mama.
“I just remembered, Mrs. Johnson wants me to drop by a little early.”
“You be careful,” Mama said. “Rosalie, hush for a second. This goes for you, too. They told on the radio this morning that a man was assaulted at Fort Needham yesterday in broad daylight. Broad daylight, girls . . . Girls! What’s so funny?”
After “Lord, Dismiss Us With Thy Blessing,” Mama called me into the living room.
“Seems Martha forgot to put a piece of apple cake in Norman’s lunch. You know he won’t last until supper without a snack. Better take it down to him.”
“But, Mama, who’s going to stay with you?”
“Tell Mag Hewitt on your way out that she can stop in for tea, after all. And Rosalie.” Mama reached into her pocket. “Here’s your allowance.” She reached into her pocket again. “And maybe you ought to take David out for a hamburger and a show. He’s been fussing around in that garden all day. You two shouldn’t be stuck home with an old woman.”
Funny, but I got a little lump in my throat when she said that.
We took a tram downtown. Trams always put me in a dreamy state of mind. One of my favourite daydreams is what the city would have been like during the war. Norman was too young to serve in the Great War and he couldn’t serve in the Second World War on account of his enlarged heart. Instead, his job was to walk around during the blackouts and check that people got their blinds down and lights off. If the city was dark, the German pilots couldn’t see it from the night sky. The German planes never came, but people had to be ready. I imagined Norman patrolling the streets, making sure everyone’s tucked in good, that big heart thumping in his chest.
When you go into Nelson Seed, you have to stop for a second to breathe in deep. Your whole nose gets filled up with the thick, musty smell of seeds and peat. Behind the main counter are rows and rows of little wooden drawers, like tiny safety deposit boxes. After he set aside a bag of fertilizer to take home for us, Norman showed David how you could find just about anything you ever wanted to plant if you knew which drawer to slide open.