The Other Side of the Bridge

by Mary Lawson

  He’d hoped that Dieter and Bernhard wouldn’t learn about the incident, but when the guard from the prison camp made one of his visits to check up on them there were other POWs in the truck, and of course the boys were keen to talk to them. Arthur saw by their faces afterward that they’d been told.

  He’d hoped Laura wouldn’t hear about it—another death for her to deal with—but that was a vain hope too; Reverend March was one of the first to be called. Arthur saw her a couple of days after the murder. It was two weeks since the Marches had moved in but he hadn’t seen much of her in that time, or at least not close enough to talk to. In the mornings he and Dieter/Bernhard came over at about half past six and though her father was up and sometimes came out to say good morning, and though the tractor must have wakened Laura, she was never around so early. When Arthur came at the end of the day she and her father were usually eating their supper. He’d get the odd glimpse of her as she passed the kitchen window but that was all. At first it was a relief—he was almost as afraid of speaking to her as he had been the first day he saw her. But then he started to think she was avoiding him. Maybe she was ashamed of having broken down in front of him and never wanted to lay eyes on him again. Maybe it was simpler than that; maybe she had realized that he was nothing but a big dumb farmer and not worth the effort of speaking to.

  But that morning, two days after the murder of the POW, he was at the farm a little longer than usual. He’d run out of nails (everybody had run out of nails, it seemed every nail in the country had been requisitioned) and it had occurred to him that there might be some in Otto’s shed. Which there were, a whole quart pickling-jar full. When he emerged triumphantly from the shed cradling the jar in the crook of his arm he saw Laura at the kitchen window. She saw him too. She raised her hand in a hesitant wave, then disappeared, and the kitchen door opened and she came out onto the veranda. Arthur made his way across the farmyard to her, his tongue drying in his mouth.

  “I saw the shed was open,” she said as he came up, “and I wondered for a minute…you know…who it was. But then I saw it was you.”

  She was wearing a short-sleeved dress, gray-blue with a white collar. Her hair was loose and drifting every which way about her shoulders and her feet were bare. Pale, slender, perfectly unblemished feet.

  “Oh,” Arthur said. “Yeah. Sorry. It was me. I was lookin’ for somethin’. I shoulda told you I was goin’ in there.”

  “I was just being silly,” she said.

  She still looked unhappy, he thought, but much better than when he’d seen her last. And beautiful. So beautiful. As if her beauty had been hidden under the dark weight of her grief and now was starting to emerge.

  There was a silence. Arthur tried to think what else to say. “Found these,” he said finally, lamely, holding up the jar of nails.

  She leaned forward slightly. “Are they nails?”

  “Yeah. It’s good, ’cause they’re short. I mean, not the nails are short—they’re all sizes—just you can’t get nails nowhere anymore. Anywhere anymore.”

  He stopped abruptly. What was he talking about? She wouldn’t care about nails, she’d think he was crazy.

  But she nodded. “Like everything,” she said. “Shortages.”

  “Yeah,” he said gratefully.

  He looked away. The tractor disappeared behind a clump of trees and reappeared on the other side. “Well,” Arthur said, but at the same moment she said, “Is he safe out there, do you think? On his own?”

  “Should be okay in the daytime,” he said, though he still wasn’t happy about it. “I bring ’em in at night now though.” It sounded as if he was talking about cattle. “Dieter and Bernhard, I mean. They sleep in the house now.”

  “Yes,” she said. “Good.” Then she added, “Which is the one who comes here? Is he Dieter? Or Bernhard?”

  “I dunno,” Arthur said. “I never worked out who’s who.” He gave her an embarrassed smile and she smiled back.

  “They’re nice. Both of them. You can tell.”

  He nodded. They listened to the tractor grinding away. A German boy riding it, like in the days before the war.

  “Normally it’s real peaceful here,” he said, afraid that she’d think Struan was the kind of place that had madmen and murderers in it in normal times. “We never had a murder before. There’s been fights and stuff, but never a real murder. Not that I know of.”

  “I know,” she said. “It’s the war. It’s making people crazy.”

  “Yeah.”

  Another silence. He looked out over the fields and cleared his throat. “Well, should be gettin’ on.”

  She said quickly, “Thank you for the other day. I didn’t thank you properly. I’m sorry I was…upset.”

  She flushed, and his heart started to thump. But then there was a movement behind her and the screen door opened and her father came out.

  “Good morning, Arthur,” he said. He smiled and rubbed his hands together briskly. “You’re bright and early as usual. You people here put us city dwellers to shame.”

  “Mornin’.” Arthur felt himself go hot. What if Reverend March didn’t like him talking to his daughter? He looked friendly enough at the moment, but what if he got the wrong idea? What if he got the right idea? Anxiously, he held up the jar of nails as if they were proof of good intentions. “Found these in the shed,” he said.

  “Nails,” Reverend March said. “I hope you’re not planning to set up a black market in them, Arthur.” He smiled. Then saw his daughter’s feet and frowned. “Laura, go and put your shoes on.” He spoke gently but you could see he was displeased, as if he thought she wasn’t properly dressed.

  Laura said, “It’s just my feet, Daddy,” her tone a little impatient. Maybe they’d had this conversation before.

  “Even so,” Reverend March said.

  She sighed. “Well,” she said to Arthur. “Bye.”

  “Yeah,” Arthur said, shifting his feet. “Bye.” He and Laura’s father were left facing each other with nothing to say. The old man smiled and rubbed his hands together vigorously to show his good will. Arthur smiled back and rattled the nails.

  Chopping wood that evening, it came to him that there had been no danger of Reverend March getting the wrong, or the right, idea about his feelings for Laura. The Reverend would have had no fears on that score whatsoever, because the idea was so absurd it would never have entered his head.

  It made no difference, the fact that it was absurd. She took over his life anyway. Milking the cows, he thought of her. Repairing the binder. Cutting the corn, threshing the oats, mending the fence. She was with him every minute of the day.

  How long did it last, that perfect, golden period when he plainly and simply loved her, with no fear of any kind? Two weeks? Three at most. Three weeks lost in love, floating through the days. Not that he wasn’t working; it was September now, everyone was working. Every farmer in the province was cloud-watching, working with one eye on the sky, wondering if the rain could possibly hold off until they got the crops in. The whole region was up to its neck in oats; everyone who could be spared was helping with the harvest. So Arthur was living in a haze of work and love, and the weeks slipped by.

  All this time Jake was busy with his own affairs, whatever they might be. Arthur hardly saw him. If he happened to be home during the half-hour Arthur and the boys took to eat their supper, Arthur would see him then, but that was it. After supper they went out again, worked until it was too dark to see, and then went to bed.

  Jake was back at school. The cheating incident of the previous year had been forgiven, and he was now doing his senior matriculation, to their mother’s joy. According to her the whole world was waiting for boys who had their senior matriculation. Particularly (Arthur thought but didn’t say) if they were excused from going to war. All the jobs that would have been filled by all the boys who were never coming home would be open to Jake.

  Arthur suspected that if Jake hadn’t had a cast-iron excuse for not signing
up he would have concocted one. Fighting for his country wouldn’t be Jake’s idea of a good time. But there was no comfort in that: no army in the world would accept Jake. If you looked at him from behind, you could see there was something not right about the shape of his spine. The walk to and from school each day was as much as he could manage.

  Laura had started school as well. Arthur didn’t like to think of her as a schoolgirl, sitting at a desk, sticking up her hand to answer questions. In his mind she was a woman. He wanted her to be at home, and to know that she was close at hand.

  “How does Laura seem to be fitting in at school?” their mother asked.

  Jake didn’t hear her. He was flipping through last week’s copy of the Temiskaming Speaker.

  .Jacob?”

  “Yes?”

  “How does Laura seem to be fitting in at school?”

  “I dunno. Okay, I guess.”

  “Isn’t she in your class?”

  “Yes.”

  “Well you should help her, Jakey. It must be very difficult, starting at a new school, not knowing anyone. You should introduce her, make sure she gets to know people. She’s shy, you know.”

  “I don’t know her, Mum.”

  “Yes, you do! Of course you do!”

  “I’ve met her once. That isn’t knowing her.”

  “Well you should get to know her.” There was a teasing tone in their mother’s voice that Arthur had never heard before. “Don’t you think she’s lovely? That hair of hers? And she has such a sweet face.”

  Arthur froze, mid-chew, a lump of potato in his mouth.

  “You know,” their mother said, “it might be nice if you invited her to come around here after school one day.”

  Arthur waited, motionless, his eyes on his plate. The potato had glued itself to the roof of his mouth. It, or what his mother was saying, nearly made him gag.

  “Don’t you think that would be a nice idea?” his mother said.

  No reply from Jake. Arthur had to see his expression, so he looked up.

  If only he hadn’t done that. If only he had just stayed as he was. Swallowed his potato, kept his head down. If only. But he raised his head, just fractionally, just an inch or so, and the movement caught Jake’s eye. And Jake, who had been on the point of saying something irritable to their mother—you could see it in his face—paused and looked at Arthur curiously, and said, “What’s the matter?”

  Right then, as he felt the slow flush spreading over his face, as he saw Jake notice it, saw the light dawn, saw him smile, Arthur knew what was going to happen. He saw the whole thing, right then.

  ELEVEN

  ONTARIO TO INITIATE CERTIFIED SWINE POLICY

  YOUTHFUL DRIVERS BANNED ON TRACTORS

  —Temiskaming Speaker, June 1960

  Your daddy was the good boy,” Jake said. “I was the bad boy.”

  Ostensibly it was Julie he was speaking to. It was dinnertime. Since Jake had arrived, meals at the farm were a lot more entertaining, there was no denying that.

  “I was always getting into trouble,” Jake said. Julie was watching him from her place across the table and Ian could see that she wasn’t sure whether he was being funny or not.

  “I wasn’t any good at anything—you know, any of the farm jobs. I couldn’t have milked a cow to save my life. But your daddy, by the time he was your age, your daddy could milk two cows at once.” He stretched his arms out to the side as far as he could without knocking off March’s head, clenched his hands around two imaginary teats, and pulled down one hand after another, making a hissing noise like milk spraying into a bucket. Julie decided that was funny and giggled. March was looking sideways up at Jake, under the shadow of his arm. “Oops,” Jake said. “Gotcha, March. You’re all covered with milk.” March looked down in consternation.

  “He knew every cow by name, didn’t you, Art? There was Daisy and Maisie and Millie and Lily and Polly and Dolly…dozens of them, and your dad was on first-name terms with every one. Whereas I’d be out behind the barn trying to burn down the fence posts. Remember the fence posts, Art?”

  Arthur gave a fractional nod. Jake’s presence hadn’t noticeably enlivened Arthur. If anything, the reverse. Jake rattled on with his stories of the good old days and Arthur just sat chewing his dinner, his eyes on his plate, saying not a word.

  “Your daddy didn’t approve,” Jake said, winking at Julie. “He’d try to scrape off all the charred bits. He kept trying to save me from myself, didn’t you, Art?”

  Even Carter was listening, Ian noticed. He didn’t slam out of the house the minute he’d finished eating like he used to; he stuck around, listening to whatever Jake might have to say.

  “He didn’t manage it though,” Jake said mournfully. “To save me, I mean. I was a lost cause.” He let his voice trail away, sadly, and Julie giggled again.

  For the first couple of days Ian had thought it was a real bonus having him there, an emissary from the outside world, proof that it really did exist. But by the end of the week he was starting to feel that he wanted things to be as they’d been before. Jake’s presence changed things; the place felt different with him around. More interesting, but less relaxing. Even the routine was altered. Arthur didn’t take his full half-hour break after dinner, for instance. Spring was a busy time, of course, but even so, the midday break had always been sacred. No matter what, Arthur, Ian, and the old man used to retire to the armchairs as soon as they finished dinner, for what Laura called “digestion time.” In the early days Ian had tried to help her with the dishes, but she had looked quite shocked, and said that he must sit down and digest his meal. He’d seen that it was part of the natural order of things, and that was how she wanted it.

  Now, though, Jake sat with them, leafing through the Temiskaming Speaker and reading out the bits he found funny, which was just about everything, and it seemed to get on Arthur’s nerves.

  “‘Cheese factory works three shifts,’” Jake would read. “Now if that isn’t earth-shattering news, I don’t know what is. Here’s another one, this will interest you, Art. ‘Memorials—mid-June sale. Special ten percent discount till end of June.’ Isn’t that great? You can stock up on tombstones! ‘Keep feed racks in your pastures.’ Do you keep feed racks in your pastures, Art? And if not, why not?”

  After a few minutes of this Arthur would heave himself to his feet and say to Ian, “Well, gotta get back to it. No need for you to come jus’ yet, though. You sit for a bit.” And off he’d go, back to the fields.

  So Ian could have sat on with Jake, but it didn’t feel right, having a rest while Arthur was working. And anyway it wasn’t restful. When Arthur went out, Laura allowed Julie and March back in—normally they were banished from the room during digestion time—and they wandered around chattering and asking for things and getting under Laura’s feet. She was snappy with them, and even more so with Carter. Carter had always gone out to the barn straight after lunch to fiddle with his bike—it spent more time in pieces on the floor of the barn than it did on the road—but now he stayed, listening to Jake, and for some reason this irritated his mother. She’d say, “Carter, would you get on with things, please?” And he’d get up reluctantly and go out to do whatever task he had been given.

  As for Jake himself, he seemed perfectly at ease. Ian couldn’t imagine what he found to do all day. Mostly he seemed to follow Laura around, talking to her as she fed the chickens or hoed the row crops or made up a mash for a sick calf. It seemed to Ian that his presence flustered her. There was a tension in her movements that he hadn’t seen before. And she didn’t look at Jake when she replied to his questions, she seemed to keep herself permanently half-turned away from him. The more Ian saw, the more he was convinced that Laura didn’t like Arthur’s brother.

  Ian liked him fine. The only thing he wasn’t keen on was the way Jake hung around Laura. That was starting to make him uneasy. He wondered what Arthur thought of it. But Arthur didn’t seem to notice. The way he kept his head down nowadays,
he probably didn’t even see.

  Late one afternoon March found a baby rabbit under a bush by the corner of the barn. By some chance the dogs were off on an errand of their own.

  “Catch it!” March shrieked. He threw himself at the bush and it exploded with rabbits, baby rabbits everywhere. They leapt about in panic, then headed for the safety of the long grass that bordered the woods. March ran after them yelling, “Wait! Wait!” but they were gone. For half an hour he combed the grasses, searching, calling softly for them. Ian, who was in the farmyard rubbing down Robert and Edward before turning them out to pasture for the night, went out to him.

  “They’ve gone to find their mother,” he explained. “They were too small to be without her. She’ll have taken them into the woods where it’s safe.”

  March looked at him tragically.

  “Don’t you want them to be safe?” Ian said, tousling his hair. “If they stayed around here the dogs would eat them. Wouldn’t that be terrible?”

  Jake watched the whole thing with amusement. “Sentimental little guy, isn’t he?” he said when Ian came back. “Must take after his mother. I don’t recall Art ever crying over a rabbit. He’d shoot them and stick them in a pot.”

  He was sitting on the stump they used as a mounting block, swatting flies with a yellow plastic flyswatter. He’d taken to joining Ian there at the end of the day. It was kind of flattering until you remembered that he had nothing else to do.

  “Yes,” Ian said. “He does seem to take after Laura.” He had finished grooming Edward and just started on Robert. Grooming was a long job—like washing a bus—but one of his favorites; there was real pleasure in seeing the rich, dark glow of the horses’ coats emerge from under the dust and sweat of the day. And they loved it, and were appreciative, nuzzling him with their noses from time to time.