A Small Part of Me

by Noelle Harrison

  ‘Yeah, it can be, but it’s not as beautiful as this. The sky feels bigger here. I like the sea. I’d like to live by it.’

  ‘Me too. I’ve been to the prairies, worked in South Dakota for a while, and man, is it flat there, just stretches on forever. You drive along these straight roads and you could be driving all day and all you see are fields, sheared dry, with not one tree or dip or hill, nothing. I don’t know how people live there.’

  ‘I suppose it’s what they’re used to, and it’s home.’

  ‘Yep, home is different for everyone.’ He pulls his sunglasses off his face and she can finally see his eyes, amber brown, flecked with black. He has thick, heavy brows, but his face is open. He doesn’t frighten her.

  ‘So, are you from Seattle?’

  ‘No. I grew up in Canada.’

  She looks at him again. ‘I thought you were different.’

  ‘Different from what?’

  She sees a hint of something in his eyes – is it pride? ‘I don’t know…just something.’

  ‘Yeah, well, I’ve been living in Seattle a long time now.’

  He’s dark and earthy. His skin shimmers, his body is lean and muscular.

  ‘And where are you from in Canada?’ she asks, watching the shapes the light makes on his face.

  ‘You really want to know, don’t you?’

  She feels foolish now. ‘Sorry, it’s just that back home that’s the first thing you ask anyone – where are you from? Who’s your family? And if they’re from the same place as you you’re bound to be related somewhere along the line.’

  ‘It’s not that different where I’m from then.’ He’s fingering a red ball on the end of his key ring. His hair is long – Declan would say too long – and strands of it fall across his face. The rest is tied up in a loose ponytail. He takes the key out of the ignition and back in again.

  ‘I’m from a small island off the western coast of Vancouver Island, although I left there when I was really little. I’ve only gone back once since.’

  ‘Is that where you’re going?’

  ‘I guess I am.’

  ‘You don’t sound very sure.’

  ‘I suppose that would be because I’m not too sure. It’s been a long time since I was there.’ He sighs. She looks out of the truck at the soothing lap of the ocean on the beach below.

  ‘How long?’ She turns and smiles at him, and he smiles back.

  ‘Twenty years long enough for you?’

  ‘God, yes. You must be a little nervous,’ she says cautiously, watching for his reaction.

  ‘Yep, that would be about right.’ He pulls the hair out of his face, and then turning to her, so familiar again, he asks, ‘And you, where are you going?’

  ‘A place called Tofino. Do you know it?’

  He’s laughing now. ‘This is crazy. That’s exactly where I’m heading.’

  ‘You’re joking!’

  ‘Nope, that’s my way home, I grew up there.’ He shakes his head. His hair comes loose again and he pushes it away.

  ‘I don’t suppose you could give us a lift?’ She fingers the edge of her shirt. Is she being sensible? Is this wise?

  ‘I sure can.’

  He gets out of the truck and stands beside it, hands in his pockets. She glances over at Cian. He’s still asleep. His head flops onto the seat as she gets out of the truck.

  ‘Thanks,’ she says. ‘You don’t know how much this means to me.’

  ‘Obviously a lot.’

  They stare at each other. Now his eyes do frighten her. They’re so dark, and she feels like he’s looking right into her, as if he knows all about her and what she’s done.

  ‘I’ll be back in a minute,’ she says and trots over to the toilets.

  She takes her time, tries to sort out her head. Her proposition is still crazy. She now has only twenty dollars to her name. Even if Luke takes them all the way to Tofino, where are they going to stay tonight? And what about the ferry, how much is that? She takes her money out of her purse, empties her pockets and counts it again, hoping for a miracle. Twenty-three dollars and sixty-two cents. She shoves it back in again, then splashes her face with cold water from the tap.

  It’ll be all right, she tells herself. I’m doing the right thing.

  Outside she blinks and walks through the dappled sunlight, weaving in and out of the cedars. She stops and looks around her.

  Where’s the truck?

  This was the place where they parked, she was sure of it. There’s the beach, the litter bin, the map of the trail. Christina twirls around and her heart begins to freeze.

  ‘Cian!’ she croaks, and then beginning to run, she cries out, ‘Cian!’

  THE OCEAN

  Luke was not allowed to see the coffin as it was carried out of the window, his mother in it.

  He was in his grandfather’s house and told to stay there. But still he managed to slide the door open quietly, peer around it and watch. The box looked too small for his mother. Was she really inside? It seemed impossible. His cold fingers gripped the damp door handle and he swung his head around as far as he could manage. His hair kept blowing in his eyes; he would not allow it to be braided.

  All the others were there. But he had been told he was too young. He saw his brothers and sisters, his grandfather and father, and everyone from the village as they became a dark snake, walking the muddy track to the cemetery. No one was allowed to use or say her name.

  Ok-yu-pa.

  He could not say it. And after four years they would remove her name from the grave, and there would be nothing then. Just a bare wooden post like all the others.

  Four years. That was half his life. His grandfather told him that his mother had gone away and was never coming back. His father had been unable to say anything. But it was okay, because Luke already knew.

  He saw her before she died, and she did look very sick. She had turned yellow, and her eyes looked so large in her head that at first he had been a little afraid. But when she smiled at him he saw who she was. He knew she was not coming back. It made sense to him that her soul would peel away from her body, like the skin off a fish.

  When the family turned the corner, with the coffin swinging to and fro, on the waves of their heads, Luke stepped outside. It was cold and the wind glanced against him, but he was not going inside. He ran down to the sea, and the rain pelted him all the way to the shore.

  Luke stood on the rim of his world, staring out at eternity. He couldn’t see a spot of anything but the grey churning ocean. The waves seemed angry, jumping up into the air. There was going to be a storm. He screwed his eyes up. If only he could see land, some other place to go to. He desired it now. He didn’t want to stay here, now his mother was gone. He wanted to go with her.

  He prayed to the unseen spirit, he prayed to God, and while the ocean danced in front of him and the sky opened up, he felt no fear in his heart. Now the worst thing that could ever happen had. He would never be afraid.

  He could taste the salt in the air, feel it course through his veins. He was a creature from the wilderness, and he would always be free.

  LUKE

  ‘Bears aren’t what most people ought to be afraid of, it’s cougars and mountain lions that are more dangerous,’ Luke says to Cian. ‘But you have to know how to read bears. Sometimes they want to be left alone and sometimes you can stick around, but you keep your distance, right? And sometimes you get the hell out of there!’

  Cian looks worried. ‘Are there bears in this wood?’

  ‘I don’t think so. This place is too small, but there were bears up where I was camping last week.’

  The child is mesmerised by him. ‘Did you see any?’

  ‘No, they’re real shy, but I saw some prints all right.’

  ‘What did they look like?’

  Luke picks up a stick and then draws in the dirt. It’s surprisingly easy to remember the shape, and it pleases him when he looks down at it.

  ‘I’ll tell you somethin
g,’ Luke says, taking Cian’s hand and walking on. ‘My grandfather told me that he used to go trapping for bears with his grandfather when he was only a little bit older than you.’

  ‘How did they catch the bears?’

  ‘His grandfather made traps that would crash down on the animal. They were made out of heavy poles with a weight of rocks on top and baited with salmon.’

  ‘What’s bait?’

  ‘Have you ever been fishing?’

  ‘Yes, with Daddy and Johnny.’

  ‘Well, do you put a bait on the end of the line to catch the fish?’

  ‘Oh yes, it’s a maggot.’

  ‘Well, it’s the same thing with setting a trap. You bait it with something the bear will want to eat so that he’ll dislodge the trap and it’ll fall on him and kill him. My grandfather told me that he was very frightened when he saw his first dead bear. He said he was sure it was going to jump up and eat him.’ Luke laughs and chews on a stalk of grass.

  ‘What did they do with the bear once it was dead?’

  ‘Well, after taking the heavy rocks off the animal, his grandfather would drag it down to the river and load it onto the canoe, and then they’d head back towards camp. I remember he told me that as soon as they reached the mouth of the river his grandfather would shout “Hooooo-Naay!” four times and that was a signal that someone was bringing in a black bear. And do you know what they did then?’

  Cian shakes his head.

  ‘They’d have a dinner for the dead bear, and the bear was the guest of honour. He was put in a sitting position with a couple of feathers stuck up behind his head, and strings were attached to his paws so that when they were pulled the paws moved in time to bear songs sung by the people.’

  ‘Like a puppet?’ Cian says, fascinated.

  ‘I guess.’

  ‘Do you know the bear songs? Can you sing me one?’

  ‘No, I never learned those songs. They’re nearly all forgotten now.’

  ‘That’s sad,’ Cian says. ‘Will we make our own one up?’ And skipping along the path, he begins to sing, ‘Bear, big black bear, here we come to get you…’

  Luke pauses, chews the grass and spits it out. He can hear the ocean lapping the beach below. If he had been born a hundred years ago his life would be so different. He tells Cian this story, but it’s like it’s about another person’s family. He feels little connection to it.

  ‘Cian!’

  Christina comes tearing around the corner. She slams into him and lands on the ground.

  ‘What’s wrong?’

  She’s panting, trying to get her breath. ‘Oh thank God, I thought you’d gone.’

  ‘But we were just here.’

  ‘The truck…’

  ‘I had to move it, I was in the way there. I should’ve told you.’ He kneels down and looks at her. Her forehead is white, her cheeks red. Sweat slides down her face so that it looks like tears. Cian turns and trots back. ‘Mammy, what’s wrong?’

  ‘I thought…’ She’s gasping and looks at Luke. A blue circle burns in her belly. He steps back, astonished. He can see this quite distinctly, the blue of her, spinning around and around, churning inside her.

  ‘Christina,’ he says gently, ‘I’m real sorry.’

  She ignores him, focusing instead on the child, and calls him over. Cian lets her hug him and twists around to look at Luke. A minute ago he was okay, now he looks like he’s going cry too. This isn’t good.

  ‘Come on, you guys,’ Luke says. ‘Let’s get up, we don’t want to miss the ferry.’

  GRETA

  She’s back in the hospital again, waiting for Tomás’s visit. But this week, for the first time, he doesn’t come. He doesn’t come the next week, nor the next. He never comes back.

  This is the nightmare, to be so completely forgotten that the doctor no longer sees her and the nurses look through her and the other ones locked in with her are lost in their own dark worlds.

  Weeks later they told her that she had gone into a catatonic state when Tomás didn’t show. She had curled up on the floor and moaned and beat it and they’d had to take her away and put her all on her own because she was upsetting the others.

  When she came back to the ward she was wobbly with drugs. Not once did anyone ask her what the matter was. Didn’t they know that she had had a miscarriage? Didn’t they know she had a daughter, outside, waiting for her?

  The doctor had diagnosed her as bipolar, or in those days what they called manic depressive. If she closed her eyes she saw the words like a big sign hanging over her. He told her that she needed to stay in the hospital for her own safety, that she wasn’t well enough to go home.

  She remembered at the time that everything was jumbled up. She would hear snatches of things inside her head – Christina’s tinkling laugh, Tomás yelling at the cattle to get into the wagon, Angeline chanting Nam Myoho Renge Kyo and the cotton reel song, over and over the whiz, whir, whiz, whir…and then she would think, They’re right, I am going mad.

  She learned to obey the rules. If she stayed quiet, if she took the drugs, they would let her have a bath and maybe wear clothes rather than a nightdress. If she was really good they would let her out of the lock-up ward and allow her to walk around the hospital, albeit accompanied by a nun.

  The hospital was a cavern. She could lose herself walking along its corridors. Sometimes she thought she was back at boarding school because of the smell of the place and the colour of the paint on the walls and the linoleum floors.

  Time passed. She watched the leaves turn brown and then drop. She watched it snow and rain and the wind howl around her grey prison. And the hole inside her got bigger and bigger, and the cotton reel song grew louder and louder.

  When the buds started showing again she made a friend. Her name was Maggie and she was in the bed next to her. Maggie was older than her. She told Greta that she had been in the hospital seven times already, that she was manic depressive too and that because her parents were so elderly, they found it hard to cope with her at home.

  ‘I’m all right most of the time,’ Maggie said. ‘In the summer I’m fine. It’s the winters I spend here, like a holiday!’ she laughed. ‘But it’s not too bad, is it? They’re kind to us, aren’t they?’

  Greta nodded.

  ‘Don’t worry,’ Maggie said. ‘You’ll be out soon.’

  ‘I miss my daughter.’

  ‘But you wouldn’t want her to see you sick, would you?’ Maggie said. Greta shook her head. ‘At least we haven’t been here all our lives, like poor old Brigit.’ Maggie indicated a small, dumpy grey-haired woman sitting on her bed and pulling her socks on and off. ‘She’s been in since she was a young one. Schizophrenic,’ she whispered.

  Greta looked at Brigit, lost in her actions, completely forgotten about. That could be me, she had thought, and it was in that moment that she knew she would get out of St Finian’s somehow, with or without her husband’s help.

  These memories play through Greta’s head as she lies quite still in the tent, listening to Henry’s breathing. She wonders where Maggie is now and whether Brigit is still locked up in St Finian’s.

  She’s hardly slept, her night punctuated by disturbing dreams, reminders of how her mind felt when she was inside. This always happened when she smoked.

  She crawls outside and sniffs the air. It’s cold still and there’s a sharp wind coming from the north. She starts to sort out breakfast as she hears Henry stir in the tent. She’s nervous about today, as they have two big crossings to make. She knows the risks of paddling across large expanses of open water, how the wind can build up and create powerful currents. She hopes she has the strength to deal with this today. She feels exhausted.

  Henry appears. His chin is grizzly and it makes him look even more rugged than usual. He yawns and stretches, then immediately goes over to the radio to check the forecast.

  Greta looks at the sky. The clouds are moving fast, bands of fluffy wisps with the sun breaking through behind.<
br />
  ‘We should be okay,’ Henry says. ‘The winds are changeable today, but nothing we can’t deal with.’ He picks up a piece of dried mango and chews it.

  They eat and then pack up camp swiftly, hauling the boats and gear down the beach. They launch easily. The sun sparkles off the water and Greta can see the clouds reflected in it. She begins paddling and concentrates on the swing of her body and the feeling of the water swirling against her paddle. Once she’s started moving, her trepidation about the day begins to dissipate. She trains her mind to focus in the present and drinks in all the sensations around her. The surf roars in her ears and she can feel the swell of the ocean beneath, propelling her forwards. This is why she likes kayaking, why she yearns for these trips into the wilderness. It’s because they bring her beyond herself and she can see how tiny she is in the scheme of life.

  Henry is silent and the couple slide across the water as if in a dream. Suddenly he raises his arm, pointing at a darting shadow under the water. Greta sees a shiny dark fin break the surface. It’s a porpoise. A second later, she sees his companions. They curve gracefully in front of her and then speed off into the distance.

  She inhales deeply, her heart racing from the excitement of seeing her favourite sea creatures. The weather has turned almost balmy and she feels like she’s moving along in a golden light. Memories of the night float away.

  They pause briefly for lunch on a small island. It’s a barren, rocky outcrop with little shade, the only respite patches of lush dune grass, which are like razors on her legs. All around them are tiny little red flowers, now beginning to fade away.

  ‘Indian paintbrush,’ Henry says as he fingers them.

  They talk little, conserving their strength for the long crossing that lies ahead. Henry plays with her hair, braiding it and unbraiding it while she closes her eyes and drifts in and out of consciousness.

  The Pacific is home now. Greta could never imagine feeling this sense of belonging anywhere else. She wonders how she came to be here. Was it chance that she had come so far west? Or fate? Was this her destiny?