“Well, what about my role as the ding-dong maid? I don’t know how you’d find any emotion in Will that be all, Madam? Not exactly high drama.”
I would never mention this to anyone, but Ruthie has about as much acting talent as a dead guppy. “It could be medium high drama,” I say. “Personally, I see your character as a vamp. Why don’t you swing your hips a bit and say the lines with some passion in your voice? Maybe with a slight foreign accent.”
“She’s just a girl who answers the door and dusts the furniture.”
“But she could be so much more!” I’m thinking hard. “She could have a little catch in her voice as she says Madam.”
“But, why?”
“Perhaps her lover was killed in the war.”
“It takes place before the war.”
“I’m sure there was a war on somewhere. Anyway, you’re playing the maid too flat. It’s highly possible that she has a dead lover. I think you should let her sound as if she’s close to tears.”
“I’ll try it, but I’m afraid Tommy will think I’m ridiculous.”
“Forget Tommy. Consider the audience. It needs to feel immediate sympathy. It needs to wipe a silent tear from its collective eye.”
She doesn’t look entirely convinced. “I’ll do my best,” she says.
She waves good-bye at the corner, and we scurry along our separate ways before the black clouds decide to dump on us.
CHAPTER
3
Granny’s there when I get home. She comes in from the farm nearly every weekend to have dinner with us and sometimes to spend the night, more often now that Jamie’s home. Her old dog, Bounder, prefers to stay with the hired man while she’s in town.
During dinner she keeps staring at Jamie, lips pursed, as he stickhandles his food around his plate, without eating much of it. “That lad has picked up some foreign bug,” she says. “He’s eaten almost nothing. If I were you, Dora, I’d hike him off to a doctor right smart. Who knows what germs are roiling around inside him? Those foreign hospitals, where he had his leg looked after, are nothing but a breeding ground for all manner of diseases. It’s a wonder anybody gets out alive. Look what happened after the last war. Everybody died of the flu.”
“A few were spared,” Dad announces from his end of the table.
Jamie puts his fork down. “Look, I’ve seen enough soldiers’ spilled guts, along with quantities of their blood, to turn me off food for the rest of my life.”
Mother puts her hands over her ears. “Oh, Jamie, stop! You’re spoiling dinner for the rest of us.”
He stares at a spot on the far wall and pushes a few forkfuls into his mouth. He chews and chews, and after every bite, he takes a couple of swallows of milk to wash it down. He’s just trying to make a point. It’s obvious that he’s rebelling against Mother constantly telling him what to do.
“I’m every bit as alarmed as you are at his weight loss,” Mother says. She has an edge to her voice, as if Granny’s blaming her.
“It’s merely excitement,” Dad says. “Let’s not over-mother the boy.”
“I’m hardly a boy.”
Mother brings in the coffee.
“There’s absolutely nothing wrong with me,” Jamie says. “It’s just that I can’t settle down yet. Everything’s going so fast.”
“What do you mean, fast?” Mother asks.
“I don’t know. I don’t mean anything. Just don’t keep at me.” He takes a cigarette package from his shirt pocket.
“You’re smoking too much.”
Jamie leaves the table and lights a cigarette, heading up to his room to smoke in peace. I don’t blame him.
Letters not sent.
Everything is very hush-hush over here, but we all get the sense that we’re about to give it to the Huns. Everybody’s hoarding cigarettes.
I never thought I would feel the need to smoke, back when I was in high school. That sure changed the day I turned eighteen. It was a Friday. I went over to the armories after school and volunteered to have my life shot out from under me. Scariest thing I ever did.
Coop had already signed up for the air force. I chose the army, I guess because I thought I’d be safer on the ground than off it.
I was going to tell you all that day at dinner, Rachel, but I couldn’t, not with Mother and Dad bustling around, making my birthday memorable. You gave me a swell magnifying glass, remember? You told me I could even start fires with it, if I got lost in the woods on a cold day. And then you added, “If the sun was shining and you happened to have it with you.” You were sure pleased with yourself.
After supper, I went fishing with Coop. He was still waiting to be sent to the airfield in Dartmouth, Nova Scotia. He managed to get his hands on a case of beer and also brought along a pack of cigarettes. We lugged the beer out to the river, along with our fishing rods, and drank beer and smoked, but didn’t do much fishing. It struck me funny that we were too young to drink legally, but not too young to die for king and country. Coop laughed at this. He said, “You think too much, Mac.” Remember how he always called me Mac? He said, “Have another beer. And here, have a smoke while you’re at it.” I’d tried smoking once before but hadn’t liked it that much. I thought I’d better learn, though, before I went overseas. It would prove I am a man.
Oh, boy, did I suffer next morning. My mouth was dry and smelled like a sewer, and my head felt like someone had hit it with a sandbag. But I had something to say. Just to get it over with, I confessed that I’d signed up. Remember how Mother yelped? You’d think she’d been grazed by a bullet. And she ran upstairs crying. You just stared at me in this awful silence, and your eyes looked like great overfilled soup plates. And Dad, all he did was frown into his coffee cup. Finally, I think he said, “Well, I guess you were bound to do it sooner or later, son.” And then he got up from the table and walked with a kind of stoop to his shoulders upstairs to calm Mother down.
A minute later, I ask to be excused from the dinner table. Upstairs, Jamie’s bedroom door is half open.
“Can I come in?”
“Sure.”
He’s tipped back in his chair, his head floating in a fog of smoke. Stacked on the desk in front of him are the newspaper clippings about the war Dad saved, as well as a pile of papers with handwriting on them looped together with string.
“What’s all that?”
“Nothing much.”
He quickly bundles everything into the bottom drawer of his desk. I sit cautiously on the edge of his bed. Neither of us has much to say, it seems.
He doesn’t look like he has anything wrong with him to me. Sure, he’s pretty thin, but so am I, and nobody says there’s anything wrong with me. Except for eczema. I sit there scratching the insides of my elbows.
He stumps out his cigarette in a saucer. “I don’t know what I’m going to do with the rest of my life.” He’s not looking at me, but I catch the worry in his profile.
“I thought you were going to be a doctor. That’s what you always used to say.”
“Not now.”
“Why not?”
“Ah, I don’t know. Maybe I’ve seen enough smashed-up and broken people over there to completely turn me off that idea.”
“You could be a pharmacist, like Dad.”
“Yeah, I know. Go to university, take pharmacy, and end up selling pills and cough mixtures like a good little Dingbat, which would be all right, I guess, but then there’s all that other stuff—hot-water bottles and women’s stuff and all that junk—and, good God, no! I’m not doing that.”
“They have hot-water bottles in Dingbat Land.”
“Does Doctor Melvin still have those calendars on his walls?”
“Yup.”
“Too bad this isn’t Dingbat Land. I’d know what my role is.”
“Listen, you just got back. What’s the rush about a job? Why not take some time to be a regular guy? Wait until we get some nice warm weather before you decide what you want to do.”
“Much depends on the weather, eh? Dad’s philosophy of life. It would be good to put people back together instead of blowing them to smithereens, or at least try. But, right now, I don’t have the courage to even consider becoming a doctor. I don’t feel right. It’s as if the war made something go wrong with my own insides. Maybe it’s shell shock.”
“What’s shell shock?”
“I don’t know.”
“Rachel!” Mother calls from downstairs.
“Right. You see? The minute I get into an interesting discussion with my brother, it’s time to go and help with the dishes. No one else can do dishes around here without good old Rachel pitching in.”
Jamie grins, but shakes his head to sympathize.
I’m on my feet. “Look, why don’t you visit the Coopers? Tomorrow’s Saturday. I could go with you.”
“Maybe next week.”
“Why are you putting it off?”
“I’m not. I get sidetracked with other things.”
“Just do it.”
He stares into the dark beyond the window. “You know, I don’t think I’ve ever felt as alone as I do now that I’m home. I miss my buddies. I miss Coop.” He lights another cigarette.
“He’ll turn up.”
“Rachel!” Mother shrieks.
“Sorry, but I’m in a conference. Perhaps you would consider hiring a maid.” I say this aloud but not loud enough for her to hear me.
I thump down the stairs hoping the noise adequately expresses my displeasure.
CHAPTER
4
In the morning, after the usual Saturday chores, I buttonhole Jamie. “Let’s go to the Coopers’.”
“I’ll go by myself later. I have to get used to being a loner.”
“You said I could go!”
I beam my fiercest gaze in his direction until he sighs and mutters, “Okay, okay.”
Granny’s in the kitchen rolling out pie crust. Quietly, we leave by the front door to avoid the where-are-you-going-and-why drill. “It’s chilly out there,” Granny calls before we can make our escape. “I hope you’re warmly dressed.”
“I’m wearing my pullover,” I yell.
“Jamie?”
“I’m fine! At what point,” Jamie whispers, “does your grandmother start to see you as an adult?”
“Maybe never.”
As he closes the front door behind us, we fall immediately into Mother’s clutches. Bundled up in a warm cardigan, she’s on her knees carefully removing dead leaves from around the new sprouts in the flower beds.
“Going out?” she says.
We look at each other and bite our tongues. “Yup,” we call, and walk quickly on.
“Cold wind,” Jamie says, stuffing his hands in his pockets.
“The sun’s warm.”
“We’re doing the weather thing again.”
Someone’s calling us. We look back and, sure enough, there’s Granny coming after us with Jamie’s jacket.
“I feel like running the other way, just for the hell of it,” he says. But he turns back. “Gee, thanks, Granny. Didn’t think I’d need it.”
“If you weren’t my own grandson, I’d say you were an idiot.”
“Maybe I am.”
“No maybe about it.”
Mother plunges her hands back into the cold earth. “I could have gone in and grabbed his jacket,” she says to Granny, “but I don’t want to be one of those overbearing mothers.”
“I’m only here to be helpful,” Granny says.
We raise our eyebrows at each other and hurry down the street.
Mrs. Cooper’s at home when we get there, also Coop’s two sisters. Nancy, the younger one, opens the door and yells into the kitchen, “Jamie’s here!”
I give Nancy a tiny wave with the tips of my fingers.
“And Rachel!” she screeches, and has a coughing fit.
“I’m in the kitchen, lad. Come on out, the two of you.”
Mrs. Cooper seems to be trying to camouflage herself with flour. This doesn’t prevent her from squashing first Jamie and then me into her, as they say, ample bosom, leaving us lightly dusted.
“Both girls have bad colds,” she says.
If they lived under the same roof as Mother or Granny, they sure wouldn’t be walking around spreading germs. They’d be tucked into bed, with mustard plasters on their chests, Vicks VapoRub under their noses, and glasses of ginger ale beside them.
“How are things?” Jamie asks, clenching and unclenching his fists. I’m sure he doesn’t have a clue what to say. I lean against the fridge, ready to be helpful if needed.
Ellie washes dishes in a basin in the sink while young Nancy dries. Ellie keeps turning to look at Jamie. When he smiles at her, she nearly drops the slippery bowl she’s putting in the drainer.
“Oh, you know,” Mrs. Cooper sighs, “not so good sometimes, not so bad other times. Still no news.”
Ellie and Nancy finish their task and hover closer to Jamie, not wanting to miss a word.
Mrs. Cooper says, “Back away, girls. Don’t be spreading your germs. It’s a bad time of year for colds. Will’s gone out, but he’ll be back soon.” Will is Coop’s younger brother. “How are you?”
“Fine,” Jamie says. He coughs nervously. “Really, I’m fine.”
“And you, Rachel, dear?”
“Fine, too.” The yeasty smell of the bread dough is making me hungry.
“Jamie, you’re looking thin. Have you lost weight?”
“A little bit, maybe.”
Mrs. Cooper frowns as if she doesn’t approve of people losing weight. She’s a rotund little woman herself and has been as long as I’ve known her. She’s still kneading the dough, roughing it up pretty badly.
“Mr. Cooper all right?” Jamie asks.
Mrs. Cooper looks up and shakes her head. “He’s not over it. He’s trying to find someone who will say they saw him alive, or … he needs to know for certain. He tried the Red Cross, but the best they could say was that his plane went down behind enemy lines during the bombing of Dresden. After that, who knows?”
“But he hasn’t lost hope?”
“Who can say? He’s up and down about it.”
Jamie swallows hard and tries not to look at the girls. He’s never been much of a talker.
Sounding half-strangled, I say, “It’s good to keep hoping.”
“It wears you down,” Mrs. Cooper says. There’s a long pause while she covers the dough with a tea towel and places it on the radiator to rise.
Jamie gives me a slight nod, indicating we should go. But we can’t just go. He should be saying something comforting, not standing there in a self-induced coma.
“Go up and see his room,” Mrs. Cooper says. “It’s much as he left it. I made the bed up with fresh sheets so it’s all ready for him, if … that boy never did learn the simple art of pulling the covers up and straightening them.”
The Cooper girls follow us up the stairs, and Mrs. Cooper calls, “Let Jamie and his sister go on their own, girls. He doesn’t want you shadowing his every move.” We both see their eagerness change to disappointment.
“It’s all right,” Jamie says. “It’s nice to have company.”
Coop’s bedroom door is open. Not much has changed since Jamie and Coop were kids. On his dresser is a framed snapshot of the two of them with their fishing rods, each holding up a smallmouth bass.
“I think we have a picture like that at home,” I say.
On a long shelf are eight model airplanes. “There they are,” Jamie says. “Wow, look at them. We put a lot of work into those. Well, it was mostly Coop. He had more staying power than I did. Nobody else was allowed to help, not even Will.”
“They’re pretty neat.” I’m about to pick one up, but Ellie reaches out to stop me.
“We’re not allowed to touch them.”
“Why not?”
It’s Nancy who answers. “Just because we’re not. Our father says we’re not to touch anything of our brothe
r’s till he comes home and says we can.”
“Okay.” I put my hands behind my back. I always thought Mr. Cooper was an ogre, and now I know.
Hands in his pockets, Jamie bends closer to admire the airplanes and to read the spines of Coop’s books, most of them about pilots and planes and war.
Now, I want to leave. I feel out of place, as if I’ve stumbled into a museum by mistake and it turns out to be where somebody’s buried. Not Coop, though. Coop’s still alive; he has to be. It would be too sad for Jamie, otherwise, and I couldn’t bear that.
I look out the window at trees blowing in the gusty wind. The silence in Coop’s bedroom is oppressive. “That old Coop,” I say, just to make some noise. “He’s like a semi-brother at our place. He always messes up my hair and asks me if I’ve had it fumigated for rats.”
“Sounds like him,” Ellie says.
The next long silence is broken by Nancy’s giggling. “Jamie, I remember how you used to say you were going to marry Ellie.”
Ellie turns her back on us. “Don’t be an idiot. He did not.”
Red creeps up around her neck, and I feel a little sorry for her. Ellie’s nearly Jamie’s age.
“Sure, he did, and we had a big fight over him,” Nancy says.
Jamie smiles. “I remember the fight.” His face flushes, too, as he notices Ellie’s embarrassment. “Of course, that was a long time ago.”
Back downstairs, Will’s home. “Hi,” we say. He’s two years ahead of me at school and only nods in my direction. But he can hardly take his eyes off Jamie, as if his presence brings his own brother closer to being found alive. Will’s like his older brother in many ways—not as muscular, though, not as open-faced. Coop you can read like a book. Will takes some pondering.
Mr. Cooper is home for lunch, too, washing his hands at the kitchen sink. He doesn’t turn around. I wish we could sneak away without saying anything to him. I think Jamie’s just as afraid of him as I am.
At last, Mr. Cooper looks straight at Jamie. “You’re back home, then, are you?” His face seems chiseled from hard rock, especially his hooded eyes.
Little Red Lies Page 3