by Mary Lawson
“Um,” Ian said. “No, it was fine. Very interesting.”
“Oh good.” She went back to her place and finally sat down. A strand of hair had escaped from the ribbon at the nape of her neck and she pushed it off her face with the back of her hand. If only she would stay seated now. He wanted to savor her presence, but it was difficult to savor something that was continually flying about.
“Will you get as far as plowing them in this afternoon, Arthur?” she said. “Because what Ian’s really interested in is the horses.”
Carter said, “Isn’t there any milk?”
He was at least eleven years old; you’d have thought he could walk to the refrigerator and get himself some milk, but Laura said, “Oh dear, of course there is.”
Up again, over to the refrigerator, back with the milk, moving around the table, pouring it for everyone instead of letting them do it themselves.
“Really, I’m interested in everything,” Ian said. “Not just the horses. You know, whatever needs doing is fine by me.”
“You forgot the bread, too,” Carter said.
Ian was sitting beside him, quite close. Close enough that he could easily reach over and thump him without even fully extending his arm. Or just slide a foot around the leg of the chair and flip it out from under him. But Arthur was the one who should be sorting him out. If Laura was too kind and too softhearted to discipline her kids—and in Ian’s view that was the problem—it was up to their father. But Arthur was busy eating. He ate like he did everything else; slowly, methodically, head down. When he did look up, Ian noticed, it was his wife his eyes rested on, not his children.
Laura said, “What’s the matter with me today?” Up again. Down again with the bread.
The baby screwed up its face, waved its arms about, and yelled. The little girl said, “But Mummy, I can still taste it.”
Carter belched, and grinned sideways up at Ian.
None of them deserved her.
There was someone in with his father when he got home, and Becky Standish was in the waiting room. In theory his father dealt only with emergencies on the weekends, but the people of Struan had never paid too much attention to that, and there were always a couple of them who “took advantage,” as his mother called it.
“Hi,” Ian said to Becky. They were in the same class at school and she was nice enough, though a bit dim.
“Hi,” she said, but she blushed and looked away, which meant she had a gynecological problem and was afraid he might ask her what was wrong. So he said, “See you later,” and went down the hall to the kitchen. He’d left his mud-caked shoes outside on the porch but his socks were leaving impressive footprints on their own—his mother was going to have a fit when she saw them. He’d say, “Well, I’ve been working, Mum. Dirt goes with the job.”
She was peeling carrots when he came in. Mrs. Tuttle didn’t come on the weekends.
“I’m back,” Ian said cheerfully. He hurt everywhere and he hadn’t had a single moment with Laura to himself, but he felt unaccountably good.
“Fine,” his mother said. She didn’t turn around. “We’ll eat as soon as your father’s finished. Is there anyone in the waiting room?”
“Just one.” He was trying to assess her mood from the sound of her voice. It sounded different, somehow. Neither angry nor absent, but something else that he couldn’t identify.
“Fine,” she said again.
“Do I have time for a bath?”
“If you’re quick.”
He waited for her to ask him how his first day at work had gone, but she just kept scraping carrots. After a minute he said pointedly, “How was your day?”
“Fine.” For a moment she paused, her hands in the sink, and he thought she was going to turn around. But she didn’t, so he left and went upstairs.
He had a bath, let all the water run out, and had another one, which dealt with the worst of the grime. Given all the aches and pains, it was hard to say quite why he felt so elated. It wasn’t as if he had found his true calling as a farmhand. In fact he’d been embarrassed when, as he was leaving, Arthur had said, “Oh…uh…just a minute,” then dug around in the pockets of his overalls and pulled out a handful of coins. Ian didn’t think he’d earned them and had wondered if he should say so, but then Arthur said, “See ya next Saturday?” with his vague, uncertain smile, and Ian had felt a rush of pride and gratitude. Arthur couldn’t consider him too useless or he wouldn’t have asked him to come back. He’d done his first day’s work—his first real work ever—and the quarters lying in the pocket of his mud-encrusted jeans were the proof of it. And he would do better next Saturday. He’d be a good worker. He imagined Laura saying to Arthur, “How did he do, Arthur?” And Arthur would think about it and then say, “All right. He’s a good worker.” You could take pride in that, no matter what the job.
He wrapped a towel around his waist and went back to his room. It was tidy, everything in its place, the bed neatly made. His mother had always insisted on order. He’d tried rebelling once or twice, but it wasn’t worth it. He wondered what Laura’s kids would have been like if his mother had been their mother. Well, not their mother, because then they wouldn’t be the same kids, but if by some fluke she’d been responsible for their upbringing. They’d be unrecognizable. Even the baby would be sitting up straight and eating with a knife and fork, a crisp clean napkin tucked under its chins.
He heard the clack of his mother’s shoes as she walked down the hall to the waiting room. The sound disappeared for a moment and then she came back and called him from the foot of the stairs.
“Supper, Ian.”
“Okay.”
He went downstairs stiffly, his muscles protesting. His father was in the dining room already, standing by his chair.
“Hi,” Ian said. He put the quarters Arthur had given him on the table beside his father’s place. “My first wages,” he said proudly.
His father looked at him. It seemed for a moment as if he didn’t recognize him. Then he smiled faintly and said, “Very good.”
Ian was disconcerted. He studied his father more closely. He looked strange.
“Are you okay?” Ian said.
“Yes,” his father said. “Of course.”
His mother came in and set a covered serving dish on the table. The vegetable dishes were already there. “We should sit down,” she said. She seemed strange as well. Her eyes were red and he noticed that her hands were trembling.
They sat down. Ian looked from one to the other. His mother began serving the meal. The scrape of the spoon on the side of the dish seemed to echo back from the walls.
“Is something wrong?” Ian said.
“Is this enough meat?” his mother said.
“Mum? Is something wrong?”
She put down his plate. She studied it for a moment and then looked down the table at his father. “I have something to tell you,” she said finally. “Your father and I have something to tell you.”
Afterward, Ian excused himself from the table, leaving his meal untouched—none of them had eaten anything—and went outside. At first he just stood on the porch, not knowing what to do or where to go. It was getting dark. Bats were flicking back and forth above the houses across the street. One of the Beckett kids from next door raced past on his bike, his crouched-over body a gray blur in the dusk. Ian stepped off the porch and started walking. He gave no thought to the direction. He wanted to walk, and not to think. He walked fast, head down.
His mother had done most of the talking. She’d started off by saying that she was leaving. He hadn’t understood at first—leaving what?—and when he’d finally understood, he hadn’t believed her. He’d thought she must be upset about something he or his father had done and was saying it to punish them. He’d looked to his father for help, and it was his father’s face that told him she was serious.
She said that she and his father no longer loved each other, hadn’t loved each other for years. His father tried to protest at
this but she stopped him. Actions speak louder than words, she said. She had loved him once, and the proof of it was that she had given up eighteen years of her life for him. She’d given up everything to come with him to this—she searched for the right words—this godforsaken place. This wasteland. She had done all the giving.
After the first couple of sentences Ian had gone temporarily deaf; his mother carried on speaking and he’d been able to hear the sound of her voice, but the words meant nothing. Then his father broke in. It seemed to Ian that his father had aged twenty years since they’d sat down. His face seemed to have caved in. He said, “Beth, for the love of God.” To Ian he said, “I’m sorry. We’re both very sorry. Your mother is upset; she needs a little time away, that’s all.”
His mother said—now he could hear her again—“Your father is still trying to pretend.”
By now two clear lines of tears were running down her cheeks. Ian was so stiff with shock he could scarcely draw a breath.
His father said, “Beth, please. Please.” He looked at Ian and said, “Don’t be too upset. We hope very much that this will sort itself out.”
“It has sorted itself out,” Ian’s mother said, the shaking of her voice breaking the words into ragged syllables. “This is how it has sorted itself out.”
Ian couldn’t look at either of them; his eyes were focused on the fine weave of the tablecloth in front of him. He hadn’t even known they were unhappy. Or at least, with hindsight he could see that his mother was unhappy, but he’d thought that was just how she was, her natural state. He had taken it for granted that they loved each other; he’d assumed it the same way that he’d assumed they loved him. Now, suddenly, it came to him that that must be in doubt as well. Surely his mother wouldn’t do this if she loved him.
They’d been saying something and again he hadn’t heard it. His mother’s voice had risen almost to a shout. There was a short silence, and then his father said, “Excuse me,” and got up and left the room.
Ian’s mother stayed where she was, the tears shining on her cheeks. She was staring at the serving dish. After a minute she took a deep breath and said, “That is typical. His leaving the room at a time like this is typical. But I am glad, because I have other things to say to you. He knows about them—your father knows about them—but I wanted to tell you privately, by ourselves.”
She went on to say them, these other things. She said she hadn’t fully realized how little she’d had in life until she fell in love with a man who was in love with her. Genuinely in love. A man who was prepared to give things up for her. She said she and Robert Patterson were in love and were going to get married as soon as their respective divorces came through. In the meantime, they were leaving Struan as soon as possible. Robert had already identified a teaching job in Toronto.
Here she looked up; Ian didn’t look at her but he could feel her gaze. She said, “I want you to come with us, of course. Robert will be happy to have you; he thinks you’re a very fine boy. His children will stay with their mother, but we hope you will come with us. Will you? Will you come with us to Toronto?”
Robert Patterson taught geography at the high school. Ian was in his class. He was a newcomer to Struan, having come from somewhere down south three or four years ago. He had a wife and two young children. He was tall and thin and had wire-rimmed glasses and a sarcastic manner. There was no way anyone could love him.
Ian’s mother said, “I am sorry to give you so little time, but we wanted to have everything settled, Robert and I, before telling you. I know it will be hard for you at first, leaving your friends and so on. But we’ll be able to give you so much more. You know what Toronto is like.”
His incredulity and confusion were so great he was unable to think. He struggled to find some order within himself, some coherent thought. After a few minutes, during which his mother waited silently, it came to him that there was one question he needed the answer to straight away. Maybe there were other questions, but they were unimportant compared to this one. He tried to assemble it in his mind, to think how to phrase it, but when at last he managed to gather together the words and tried to voice them, he found he couldn’t speak. His jaws felt wired together with tension. Finally he managed. He said, aiming the words at the tablecloth because he could not look at her, “If I won’t go, will you go anyway?”
There was more silence, during which he tried to breathe normally. When she finally spoke, what she said was, “Ian, I want you to come with me. With us.”
Which was not the answer to his question, so he asked it again. He weighed out the words to make sure that she would understand, and that he himself would understand, their full meaning, now and forever.
“If I won’t go with you, will you go anyway? Will you go without me?”
This time, struggling with the shaking of her voice, she said, “Darling, you do not know what it has been like, all these years.”
By which he understood, finally, that he was not important to her. Not that important.
Afterward he was impressed by his response—how calm it sounded. How polite. He said, “I’ll stay here with Dad, if that’s all right. But thank you for asking me.”
And then he excused himself and left the room.
The dogs barked when they first got his scent, but then they remembered him from earlier in the day and came to greet him, wagging their tails. He stepped off the driveway when the dogs came up, into the shadow of the trees. He didn’t know why he was here. The last thing he wanted was for Laura to see him and come out and start talking to him. The thought of her knowing what had happened filled him with shame almost beyond endurance. What would she think—what would anyone think—of a boy who meant so little to his own mother that she would walk off and leave him? In all his life he had never heard of such a thing. He’d heard of men abandoning their families, but never a woman. Never a mother.
He stood uncertain in the shadows for a few moments and then cautiously moved toward the house. He went around to the back, where the kitchen was. He wanted to see her, that was all. He just needed to know she was still there.
The farmhouse seemed bigger in the darkness than it had during the day. The house and the barn and sheds were solid blocks of night against the blue-black of the sky. The kitchen light was on and there were lights in two of the bedrooms upstairs. Laura was in one of the bedrooms; he saw her moving back and forth, folding things, hanging things in the cupboard in the corner of the room. He could tell she was talking to someone, though he couldn’t hear her voice or see anyone else. Probably the little girl. Julie. She must be putting Julie to bed. The boy, Carter, was in the other lighted bedroom—Ian had seen him cross the room. The baby must be asleep somewhere else.
Arthur and the old man were downstairs in the kitchen, Arthur at the table, the old man huddled in a chair by the stove. Arthur was working on something, but Ian wasn’t close enough to see what it was. He could have moved closer, but then he wouldn’t have been able to see into the upstairs rooms. Anyway, he didn’t care what Arthur was doing. It was only Laura he wanted to see. The dogs, who had followed him around to the back of the house, waited curiously beside him for a while and then wandered off. From within the barn he could hear the heavy, quiet movements of the horses.
After some time—he didn’t know whether long or short—the light in Julie’s bedroom went off. He felt a sudden clench of anxiety, as if a life raft had slipped out from under him, but a minute later Laura appeared in the kitchen, carrying the baby. He could see her better than when she was upstairs: the line of sight was more direct.
She was still wearing the pale blue dress she had worn earlier and her hair was still tied back, but it was looser, as if she allowed it its own way at the end of the day. She said something to Arthur and he looked up at her and nodded, and then returned to his work. Laura went over to one of the big armchairs by the fire, lowered herself and the baby into it, and then, quietly, discreetly, undid her dress and put the baby to her breast.
Ian watched. It was more erotic, and at the same time more painful, than anything he had ever known.
The day his mother left, he would not look at her. She left after breakfast, but he skipped breakfast. He stayed in his room. It was Sunday, but no one had suggested church. She came up to his room. He heard her footsteps, heard her stop at the closed door. He imagined her, facing the door.
After a minute she knocked. He waited a bit, and then said, “Yes?” in a tone completely devoid of interest.
“May I come in?”
“If you want.”
He heard the door open, heard her cross the room. He was at his desk, with his books spread out as if he were studying. He didn’t turn around. She came to a stop behind him. He began to copy a section out of a book.
She said, “Ian?”
He waited a minute, as if he’d been concentrating and it had taken time for her interruption to filter through to him. “Yes?”
“Aren’t you going to come down and say good-bye?” Her voice was shaking.
“I have work to do.”
She was crying. He couldn’t see her and she made no sound, but he knew. He didn’t care. He imagined what tomorrow was going to bring, and the next day, and the next, as the people of Struan heard the news.
She said, struggling to control her voice, “Darling, how can I go if you won’t say good-bye?”
“Good-bye,” he said.
FOUR
WHEAT CROP IS BIGGEST SINCE 1932
THE AVERAGE PRODUCTION OF A COW
—Temiskaming Speaker, September 1938
All the way through high school Arthur didn’t have a girlfriend.