What Can't Be Undone

by dee Hobsbawn-Smith

  Later that afternoon, Roy perched on the split rail fence, watching me untangle Nero’s mane. He lit smoke after smoke, stubbing out each on the wooden post, and finally spoke. “You like speed, eh, girlie?”

  I peered out at him from under Nero’s neck, a currycomb in one hand. “So?”

  His voice sharpened. “C’mon, you’re finished there, quit fussin’ and turn him loose. I’ll run you home. Get in the truck.” I hustled Nero out to the pasture and flicked the lead line off his halter. When I turned back, Roy was one-arming my bike over the tailgate of the truck, shouting towards the kitchen door. “Lisa! Running Fanny home, I’ll eat when I get back.” He yanked the door open. “Get in, get in. Come on, girlie. I swear, you’re all alike. I ain’t payin’ you to lollygag.”

  The gearbox ground as he backed down the lane, shoved the truck into first at the road’s edge and sharply hauled its nose east toward the village instead of west. The curtain across the bay window twitched. I jerked my face resolutely toward the windshield, my throat tensing.

  “Gotta get me some smokes,” Roy said. He stepped out of the cab in front of the corner store adjacent to the coffee bar. I watched as he walked away, then back, cigarette in mouth, light flickering as his face tilted down to the flame. When he lifted his head, he saw me looking. “You want one? No?” He cranked the ignition, sat back and puffed his cigarette as the truck roared, then he turned to face me. “So you ask your mom yet about Osoyoos? You do want to come, eh?”

  “I want to, yes. But I haven’t asked.”

  “Better get on with it, girlie. Or I’ll find me another groom. No motel there, we sleep in the horse trailers. Bring a sleeping bag.” He reached across the gearshift and put his right hand on my knee. He had extraordinarily long fingers. They stretched all the way around my kneecap, lying in the creases across my jeans.

  “Maybe you can ride a race there after all, down in Osoyoos. You just think about that.” He leaned back, plucked the cigarette from his mouth, shifted gears with it clutched between his fingers, turned the truck up the road. “You tell me the next couple a days.”

  I stumbled into the house, careful to avoid Mom, relieved for the first time that Dad wasn’t around to cross-examine me. He’d have read my face like a schoolbook. When I headed for the shower, my jeans were still damp as I pulled them free of my knees. Later, I lay in bed and pondered the impossible. I couldn’t ask my mother. I already knew what she’d say. I thought of Sheila, her laughing assurance. What would she do?

  It rained the next day. My bedroom door tightly closed, I practiced the phrases I needed. At four, I sidled into the kitchen. Mom was peeling potatoes with her worn paring knife, the kitchen window smoggy with steam from the pot roast in the oven.

  When I leaned against the cupboard, she lifted her head. “Hmm?”

  “You want me to finish up so you can change for work?”

  She steepled her eyebrows. “What do you want, Fan?”

  “Roy and Lisa are going to the Osoyoos races. Roy says Lisa’s going to be busy with the twins and the baby, visiting her parents, and he needs me to groom. Please, Mom.” I was careful, with my tone, with my eyes, not looking at her.

  “When?”

  “In a couple weeks, just before before school starts. C’mon, Mom. You went to the rodeo down there when you were my age.” The pulse beneath her left eye started to tic. Mentioning the rodeo was a mistake. I rushed to fill the moment. “I’ve been working all summer, Mom, I haven’t gone anywhere. Dad always said that summer is for play, not just work. It would be good for me to have a change before school starts. And you, too. Just think how quiet the house will be with just Jill!”

  At that, Mom laughed and the room lightened. “All right, I’ll think about it. But it’s a long way, honey, and that’s a tough town.”

  “Mom, c’mon! Lisa’s going to be there.”

  “We’ll talk about it later, Fanny.”

  I snorted. Stomped across the porch and snatched my slicker. “We never talk about things when you say that!”

  “Don’t be long. Supper’s at six.”

  The brambles along the driveway quaked as I slammed the door. When I got to Roy’s barn, I flung my bike against the fence and grabbed a pitchfork. Work might block out what was bound to happen if Mom called Lisa. If she caught me in this lie, I’d be grounded forever and Mom would make me quit my job.

  “Why do I get the indecisive mom?” I muttered as I stacked the wheelbarrow with bales and trundled it down the aisle of the barn. “Later, Fanny. Later, Fanny.” Nero pricked his ears, watching me with interest over the stall door. I parked the wheelbarrow in the spare stall. Then I checked his hooves, flung a saddle and bridle on him and led him through the rain toward Roy’s racetrack.

  Lisa intercepted me at the gate. She wore a long black oilskin slicker and a pair of rubber boots protruded beneath it. Her hair shimmered with raindrops. It was the first time I’d seen her outside the house, without a child clinging to her. She looked like a horsewoman. Funny that I’d never imagined her astride a horse, even as I stood on her stool to mount her husband’s horses.

  “The track’s like slop, Fanny. Roy’ll have your guts for garters, and mine too, if you take Nero out there on a day like this. C’mon.”

  She took Nero’s reins from my hands, led us both back into the barn, tied the gelding in the wide centre aisle. I picked his feet clean of mud and gravel, then stood at his head, twisting the reins in my hands. Beside me, Lisa unbuckled the girth and folded it on top of the saddle, her hands moving without hesitation across the leather. She looked up and caught my eye, shrugged and smiled. “Never thought I’d have a houseful of kids.”

  “I’m never having kids.”

  She grunted. Watching her deft fingers, I wanted to ask her what had happened. Why did she stay? But I couldn’t get the words past an image of her husband’s long hand on my knee. At the time, I didn’t realize that she’d been pulled to the same flame that drew me. She slid the saddle from Nero’s back, replaced the bridle with a halter, led him into the field and turned him loose. As he ambled off, we leaned side by side over the stall door, watching drops plunk into the wooden barrel just outside the barn. The horses, water beading on their slick coats, cropped grass beyond the gate, the air sweet with rain and freshly cut hay.

  Lisa twirled the fraying lead line between her fingers. “He’s had lots of exercise girls, y’know. They all leave sooner or later.”

  “I’m not just some exercise girl!”

  “My point exactly.” She wiped her hand across her face, her silver wedding ring gleaming. “Neither was I. Go home, Fanny.”

  I was shocked into silence. Lisa’s words echoed, familiar somehow. When I could breathe again, Roy was standing in the doorway, his hat brim catching the rain.

  “Go inside. The baby’s awake,” he said quietly. Lisa laid her hand on my forearm, then she edged past him like a skittish mare, the lead line dragging in the mud.

  Roy looked at me steadily as water dripped past his cheekbones. “You stayin’? Them horses need their oats.”

  What would my dad make of Roy? I thought I knew, could hear his advice, echoing Lisa’s, in my head. I set the saddle on the edge of the manger and slipped through the narrow doorway, careful to not let my jacket sleeve brush his. I swiped my bike seat dry with my cuff, looking up at the kitchen curtain at the same time. No movement.

  Roy’s boots crunched on the gravel. He snaked out an arm, gripped the handlebars in his long fingers. “Don’t you forget to tell me about Osoyoos. By tomorrow. I still need a groom.” I tugged my bike free and scrabbled through the wet stones towards the kitchen. Roy’s voice growled behind me. “Don’t you be botherin’ her. She’s got kids to tend. Git on home.”

  “I quit,” I said.

  In the flat light, his rain-spattered profile looked weathered, and I remembered the rain-streaked faces of my father’s rodeo buddies as they flanked my mother at his graveside in Cloverdale. Every man there
had been a fearless bull rider or bronc buster. That day, they’d all worn the haunted look of men who knew they had dodged death because of my father. No one had spoken except the minister. At the service’s end, the men had patted my mother’s shoulder, then strode to the waiting cars, their wives hanging back to deliver soft-voiced condolences and hugs.

  I shuddered. It wasn’t just Roy who looked old, but me. My face, reflected in the barn window, distorted by the running rain. I looked like my mother. Why had I never seen it before? My imagination painted in the squalling baby, the tussling kids. It was my future I was staring at.

  In my chest, the birds quieted.

  I waved towards the house, my arm swinging in a wide slow arc that encompassed everything. I meant it to convey gratitude to the woman standing behind the kitchen curtain, watching us. I would never stand in Lisa’s kitchen again. Years later I would hear through the grapevine when she and Roy celebrated their twenty-fifth wedding anniversary, and I would hope that it wasn’t bitter dregs for her. That rainy evening, pushing my bike down the long lane, I started to whistle to the horses behind the barbed wire, but stopped mid-breath, leaving them grazing in their field.

  Undercurrents

  I WAS CUTTING BACK THE SALAL along the driveway when the old VW made the turn off Black Creek Road. The young woman was the first to climb out, red braids tight-wrapped in a high crown above her forehead. She looked about her timidly before she reached back into the van, a little boy with strawberry blond curls squirming in her arms. An older couple — her folks? — emerged slowly from the VW, the woman’s salt-and-ginger hair and dimmed-down face a pale variation of her daughter. The man gritted his teeth as he swung his hips clear on the driver’s side of the faded Volks. Of course it was raining, that steady flat drizzle that draws in the horizon and absorbs any light. None of them wore rain gear. I leaned my weed-whacker against a cedar tree, went right over and put my hand on the toddler’s chubby forearm. The young woman’s grey eyes widened and she backed away. I took a step closer and rumpled the boy’s hair.

  “It’s okay. Little kids like me. What is he, nearly two? Welcome to Miracle Beach Marina. Here, give him to me.” Her arms and face tightened as I pulled the boy from her arms, surprised by his heft. He leaned away, then tilted his face up to look at me, curious. Dark blue eyes the colour of larkspur, eyelashes like a calf ’s. I smiled at him, then turned back to the others. “I’m Peter Merrick. The owner.” I jerked my head toward the office. “You folks look like you could use a little help right about now.”

  The younger woman backed up to stand behind her mother, her arms wrapped around her torso. She didn’t look at me, but stood with her head down, gazing at my rubber boots. It was the braids, I thought, looking closely at her, that made her soft face seem older than she was. On closer study, I took her to be maybe seventeen.

  The older woman smiled. Not everyone would, rain notwithstanding. She stuck out her right hand. It was hard with muscle and tight skin, fingernails bitten to the quick.

  “We’re the Harrises. My girl’s Fiona, that’s Joe,” — the little guy obligingly wiggled in my arms at the sound of his name — “and I’m Sal. And Norm. It’s been a long day, we got held up at the ferry terminal in Vancouver, hours and hours, and Joey ran us ragged … ” The woman’s voice fell. Her husband didn’t look at me, just bent over his task as he tugged at a stroller buried behind the back seat. A brown and white beagle danced in the sand, avoiding human feet with yapping barks and sideways leaps. “Hush, Tag. Norm, say hi, won’t you?”

  Dog and man ignored her.

  “Here, Red,” I said, “why don’t you take that little one into the marina, out of this rain for a bit, that’s it just down the drive. You might not want to use the stroller, the sand’s pretty soft. Been raining like crazy this month, it’s driven half my guests away. Look, you can’t miss it, the big cedar building. There’s a hot chocolate and coffee machine by the main door, go get something hot and I’ll just … ” I put the damp boy back into her arms. “See ya soon, kiddo.” Grabbed the stroller Norm had finally freed. “You want an ocean view, right? Here, Norm, I’ll show you a nice campsite. We’ll have your tent pitched in no time.”

  None of them argued. Sal, one of those strong hands clutching her tall daughter’s shoulder, never looked back. Fiona did, a quick glance as they made the turn at the cedars, but I couldn’t see the expression on her face. The beagle jogged off behind them, stopping to look over its shoulder at Norm, who whistled, an odd two-tone. The dog came back and hopped into the back of the van while I pointed out a likely campsite to Norm. He didn’t offer me a ride, so I hoisted the stroller and walked the path to the campsite while he drove around the lane and parked.

  Tag curled under the arbutus tree next to the VW, nose on paws, while we hauled the tent bag out of the vehicle. Poles, clattering and clanking, tumbled onto the sparse grass that edged the sand. The tent was old and heavy. Canvas, its tears impeccably hand-mended, but still likely to leak.

  I pried the story out of Norm. Not that I usually pry, but that gorgeous woman-child had caught my attention. Former Air Force, he said, raised on the east coast. No accent. Sal was from the prairies, she didn’t understand how rain could fall all day, all night, and still be falling come morning. A year ago, he took early retirement. He stopped, hands stilled on the canvas. Looked at me. Red-rimmed eyes, pale as glacial runoff, edged with near-invisible eyelashes. Not a friendly stare.

  “How early?” I asked.

  “Not early enough.”

  A dishonourable discharge occurred to me as I took in his brush cut and the set of his jaw under a sheen of silver stubble as bristly as the haircut. He looked hard. He told me they had moved from base to base with Sal’s beagle, the beds and the mahogany buffet he’d inherited from his grandmother.

  “When Fiona graduated in June, I decided it was time. Put it all into storage in Cold Lake, up in northeastern Alberta. You know it?” I nodded. “I loaded the sleeping bags and tent into the van. We camped our way here. Fiona and Sal picked fruit for a few weeks in the Okanagan. And I lucked into a couple days’ shop work in Merritt. A new life,” Norm said, eying me as if he was daring me to challenge him, then he slipped through the mist and heavy cedars to find his family. I shrugged and followed.

  A lot of drifters end up at seaside marinas, something about tough times draws folks to the water. Me, for instance. When the big crash almost shut down Calgary in the early eighties and Northern Eagle Oil and Gas bounced me from my highrise office, where did I end up? Here on the east coast of Vancouver Island, staring at the Georgia Strait as if I’d never seen water before. It’s taken me the better part of three decades to fit in, but I never want to go back to corporate life. This marina and its small ebb and flow are enough. There’s something about the light, so similar to the light in Alberta when the snow and sky were indistinguishable, only on the coast it’s water and wind. The days blur past, and all I have to steer by are the folks coming into the marina looking for maps or coffee or a friendly voice.

  Arlene didn’t come west with me when I fell. Said she couldn’t abide the thought of those closed-in mountain skies, she’d feel claustrophobic after living on the plains. Anyhow, she had better game in mind. She never said it quite that frankly, but she stayed in Calgary — last I heard, she married an oilman who hit it big in the tar sands up north. Guess I judged her wrong when I married her. So I just looked at the long-legged young women, their swinging hips and bright faces, and I got by; a few of them took a small shine to me and rubbed a little of their brightness onto my days. But none of them stuck either. It was just me sleeping in the loft above the marina.

  I started with an oyster lease on Desolation Sound over on Cortes Island. It didn’t look far on a map, but these coastal distances deceive. When the ferry rates went up again, I sub-leased it to a Portuguese kid whose family had been fishing salmon for decades. What he ships each week to those new yuppie restaurants in Vancouver and Calgary keeps us
both in beer. It proved that old saying: when the tide’s out, the table’s spread. He supplies me with Miyagi oysters, and clams, and some mussels for the store, and I keep a few traps for Dungeness crab. The marina has a couple dozen campsites, set back from the gales, and the dock manages a handful of boats. That’s plenty. I’ve never gone hungry, even through all those lean years after I left Calgary. The salmon fishery is dying, but folks still come to the sea.

  By the time I reached the marina, all four stragglers looked revived. The little guy, Joe, was running around the store, reaching for fishing reels and nets as if he was born to the oceanside. The others were leaning on the counter, empty mugs beside their hands, examining maps and copies of the local rag. When I came in, they all turned to me, questions in their eyes.

  “Ten bucks a night to pitch your tent, free access to the showers and firepits. There’s wood stacked under the lean-to out beside the shower building. Washers and dryers, a loonie a load. Another three bucks a night if you want to plug in. Or do you have a generator?”

  Norm answered, reserved in front of his women. “Nah, but we’ve got our Coleman lantern and stove.”

  I’d seen them in the VW as we unraveled gear looking for tent pegs, and they’d looked as ancient — but as carefully tended — as the tent itself.

  “No worries. How about a couple bucks off on account of the lousy weather?” I asked, and out of the corner of my eye, I saw Sal’s face soften with relief. And I wondered again. Whose kid was the little boy? Had to be Red’s. Sal seemed too old, but if he was Red’s, why was she raising him on her own?

  It was like her mother read my mind and didn’t like the lettering.

  “Fiona, we better get Joey out of here before he breaks something.” Sal had regained her poise, and moved as gracefully as the teenager to swoop up the child, gently tugging a wicker creel from his fat fingers. “Thanks, mister — ?”