What Can't Be Undone

by dee Hobsbawn-Smith

  “Merrick. But just call me Peter. I’m up here if you need anything. At all.” I waved my arm at the shelves stocked with canned goods and produce. “I’m a little closer than the grocery stores in Merville or Comox, and frankly, ladies, my produce is better. Francisco brings down fresh shellfish and tuna from up-island three times a week, and I have some local lamb in the deep freeze if you get tired of seafood. If you want, I can show you where to harvest oysters, just around the point a bit … ever eat an oyster, kiddo?” Joe was wide-eyed and silent as I smiled at him on his perch on Sal’s hip.

  Norm pulled bank notes from his worn wallet.

  “A month?”

  I nodded. “Sure thing. The off-season and long-stay rates are better. September is shoulder season, that’s half of your month. Here.” I pushed some bills back at him. He pocketed them without looking up. “Sorry about the rain. It’s settled in early this year.” Only Joe looked back as they left the building, his round face cracking wide in a pumpkin’s grin when he caught my eye.

  After dinner, rain sheeting off the windows, I sat with a Scotch by the fire and spun tales for myself, inventing possible scenarios, ignoring the implications. They all involved a long-legged redhead. A chubby child played at the periphery like a question mark.

  I was up early the next morning. I had a hot pot of coffee and empty mugs in my hands when I made my customary rounds down the narrow footpath and across the boardwalk to the campground. We had pitched the tent in a quiet little dell, fronted by a stand of Douglas firs, well past the half dozen other tents and trailers clustered by the shower building that stood a stone’s throw from the lodge. I waved to an early morning jogger heading past the firs to the straits, where a long path led past the high tide driftwood and the blanket of kelp that washed up against the logs. The rain hadn’t stopped, gleaming droplets on the salal leaves like water on a cold gin bottle. At the trail to the Harris’ site, spiky stalks of berries glowed, miniature mauve lanterns. I stooped, stripped some into an empty mug.

  Fiona was squatting before the firepit and a black cast iron griddle, hissing and spitting bacon, pancakes bubbling.

  “Mornin’.” I spoke first.

  “Morning.”

  Her hair hung loose now, like spun red gold. All I could think of were old fairy tales. Rumpelstiltskin. A beauty and a dwarf. Blackbeard. Another Beauty in the Beast’s kingdom. I wanted to ask her how she’d slept. Did the roar of the surf keep her awake, did the leaks from the tent ceiling miss her back, if the child had fussed. Instead, I held out both hands — coffee and ripe berries. Gifts.

  She laid the flipper down on the stones beside the griddle but kept hold of its handle. “No thanks.”

  “Tried them already, did you? Sour, aren’t they? You gotta cook them, they make wicked jelly. At the farmers’ market, local women can’t keep up when the Oregon grapes are in season. How about some coffee instead?” I gestured with the pot. “Fresh made, good beans, break your Starbucks city girl heart.”

  She laughed, looked at me briefly, then quickly down. She stood up. We were the same height exactly. When she took a cup from my hand, I prayed silently. God, don’t let her turn from my ugly face. God, don’t let her.

  “I have some spare time, thought you and the little guy might want a look at the beach. I can show you the safe spots to splash and where the riptide can pull you back out to the straits. Water safety for new arrivals.”

  “Joey’s still sleeping.” She tipped her head back toward the tent. “My folks are pretty done in too.”

  “Your dad looks the type to never admit he’s getting on. The little guy must be a constant reminder, Red.”

  “Don’t call me that!”

  “Sorry. Fiona, then. It’s just that you remind me of Rita Hayworth. The movie star?”

  She shook her head, flushing, her lips tightening, then looked down at the bacon that was spitting fat across her hand. “What’s a riptide?”

  “An undertow.” Her face stayed bent, so I kept on, trying to smooth over the flood I felt. “An undercurrent that runs seaward from the shore. It can drag you out to deep water, flows nearly three meters per second. That’s fast.” I was starting to sound like a professor, but I kept talking. Better boredom than the tension that had rushed through her at the mention of her father. “It’s strongest near the surface, not under the water. All you have to do is swim parallel to it and angle back to shore. But it’s pretty risky for little kids.”

  By the time her mother emerged from the tent, yawning, Fiona’s face was smooth again, the bacon was moved to cool on the edge of the firepit, and I had elicited a promise of a walk that afternoon to investigate water flow and tidal pools. I set the full pot down on the grill and left them the empty cups, careful to turn away before a set of gunmetal blue maternal eyes could bore into me.

  As I walked away, Fiona called. “Mister Merrick?”

  “Peter. Call me Peter.”

  “Do you have a kid’s rain jacket I could borrow for Joey? Please?”

  She’s too young, I told myself harshly. But that didn’t keep me from promising to bring a child’s jacket and pants with me when I came back.

  A faded driftwood gate the same colour as Fiona’s eyes marked the way to the beach. I hung across its arm and watched them play. At first, Tag kept close to Fiona, who crouched to watch the interminable crawl of whelks through a tiny current carved in the hard-packed sand. Out ahead, Joe squatted, stick in hand, digging through the damp seaweed, ignoring washed-up starfish and sand dollars and scuttling tiny crabs, intent on extricating a piece of bull kelp. I jogged over and knelt beside him.

  “Hi, Joey. Remember me?”

  He nodded, intent on his task.

  “Need some help?”

  “Me do.” His voice was soft. He tugged the kelp loose and held it out to me.

  “Belk.”

  “Kelp, Joey. You can crack it. Like a whip.” I waved my arms and a passing sheltie, its owner a distant figure in rain gear and gumboots, mistook my motion for an invitation. She bounced and bowed on her forelegs at Joe. Joe, looking worried, scrambled up the adjacent log and into my arms. He touched my unshaven cheek with round fingers before climbing down as the dog ran off.

  He struggled with the long bull kelp. “Kep.”

  “You got it, Joe. Kelp.”

  Joe dragged the heavy length of seaweed down the beach towards Fiona, the dog forgotten. Clambering over a log, he slipped and landed knees-first on some wrack, gasped but didn’t cry, distracted as the seaweed deflated with a pop. He peered intently under his knees, then systematically stomped it into pulp. Tag ran between Joe and Fiona, maddened by the rain, ears flopping as she barked and growled. At the water’s edge, she chased the receding line of foam as the waves washed over the sand and stones. But she stayed well back of the surf.

  “Smart dog, eh, Joey?” The little boy grinned at me from under his hood, his cheeks beading with water. Despite the pouring rain, Fiona was smiling too.

  “I’ve never seen the sea before. Mom and Gran grew up on a farm in Saskatchewan,” Fiona told me as Joe took off after Tag. “Stony-ass broke, Mom says. She doesn’t talk so much anymore, but she and Gran used to tell stories. My favourite was about riding the old horse to school.” Her grey eyes met mine. Her first direct look at me. Smiled, her face as unguarded as her son’s. “But Gran liked to tell me about killing chickens. You know they run around without any heads after she chopped ’em to death on the block? Do you believe that? I can’t get it out of my mind.” She bent and scooped up the squealing boy. “Crazy, eh, Joey? And then Gran’s dogs went crazy. No water to drink. They’d love it here, it’s so wet! And doesn’t it smell good?” She buried her nose in Joe’s belly and blew raspberries. He giggled.

  I winced. She was too young all right, and too young to tell such grim stories, with the twang of want that ran through them. Sal had been quick to ask me that morning just what was free for harvesting and what needed a license. Oysters and clams were fr
ee.

  A day later, I looked out the window of my office and saw the girl and the little boy walking toward the beach, buckets in hand. The VW was nowhere to be seen. Fiona led the way. Tag bounced and dodged when Joe threw his galvanized bucket onto the stones with a clanging racket. It was low tide. I strained to watch them until they vanished out of sight around the promontory. I knew what they’d be doing, same as I had done when I arrived: swarming across the slick rocks, heading for the open stretch of hard-packed sand where the sea retreated. Just beyond were more rocks, where oysters lay in plain sight for the taking, their wet layers ridges of calcified time. Emptied shells, reminiscent of bones and glowing as if they had a half-life, were heaped behind the marina by the firepit.

  I grabbed my slicker and locked up. Doubled back and grabbed a new one off the shelf for Fiona. Weather was coming. I caught up with them a couple hundred meters down the beach and took the bucket from Joe’s small hands.

  “C’mon, Joey, run! Faster!” Fiona shrieked as they leaped from log to log. When I caught up with them, Joe wordlessly held up his arms. I slung him on one hip and used the other hand to drape the rain jacket around Fiona’s shoulders. Her clothes smelled like salt and smoke. She shivered when my fingers brushed her arm.

  “Don’t get cold,” I said, and kicked myself for unsettling her.

  That night, I lay in my quiet bed and brought the flesh of my upper arm to my nose, imagining and inhaling the smeared scents overlaying Fiona’s skin. Through the open window, I heard gravel churn as the VW’s headlights poured into the parking lot. I thought I heard a raised voice, the fire crackling.

  Fiona stopped me on the boardwalk the next morning, heading back to the campsite from the marina. Norm, a few yards ahead, halted and leaned against a cedar, watching us. His cigarette glowed.

  “Peter! You should have warned me about the slugs!” Fiona shuddered. “Good thing I put my rubber boots on first thing.” Slugs like it beneath the Oregon grapes and ferns beside the path, their slow silver tracks a hint of secret deeds. The trip to the showers and toilets should not be undertaken half-asleep or barefoot. “Our blankets never quite dry out,” she grumbled. “Does it rain here all the time? I don’t know if the smell of mould will ever come out of them.” What worried me was how her father’s eyes followed her, leaving their own snail’s trail.

  On the final day of August, the VW pulled up in front of the marina store. Norm sat impassively in the driver’s seat, smoking, flipping through the want ads while Fiona struggled to lift Joe out of the car seat. As soon as the van’s doors closed, Norm pulled away. I speculated about where he was heading as Sal approached the counter.

  “Just Norm’s ciggies, Peter. And choose some nice apples for Joey, Fiona,” she said as Joe wandered through the aisles. Fiona smiled at me. Joe ran up holding a plastic fishing rod. I winked at Fiona and shuffled through cigarette cartons for a packet of Player’s.

  “Hey, Joey, you like that rod?” I directed my question halfway between the women. Neither answered, then Fiona whisked the toy from Joe’s hands. Her face flushed as she put it back on the shelf. “How’s the job search going?” I asked Sal. “This rain sure is good beachcombing weather. Nice for those two,” I said as I handed over the smokes.

  “Nice has nothing whatsoever to do with it, Peter,” Sal snapped. “Fiona comes back starving, she eats like a horse, and Norm hasn’t found a decent job yet. We’re still just on his severance. I don’t know what I’ll feed her and Joey. Pancakes only take a growing child so far.”

  “Here, Sal. Put this on their pancakes tomorrow morning.” I put a tin of maple syrup on the counter along with the change.

  Sal hung her head. “Sorry, Peter, I don’t know what got into me.”

  “Ah, don’t worry about it, Sal. We all get a little crazy in the rain the first time. And in a tent? Sheesh. Tell Norm there’s a new B&B opening near Cumberland, one of those agri-tourism places, might need a farmhand. I can give him the number if … ”

  I watched Fiona walk to the far end of the store to squint at a full-size fishing rod and didn’t hear the answer.

  A few hours later I was drinking my afternoon coffee on the bench in front of the marina, watching the rain trickle off the canopy. Through a dripping frame of Spanish moss, I saw Fiona by the woodpile, her arms full. Norm emerged from the shower building behind her. Instead of taking the wood from her, he ran his fingers down the sleeve of her slicker. She jerked her arm as if she’d been scalded, dropped the wood and ran, not stopping as she passed me.

  “She needs a patch on that jacket you gave her. Leaks like a sieve,” Norm said, deadpan, hands empty as he walked into the parking lot. I clenched my fist around my mug. As soon as the van’s rear lights disappeared down the driveway, I hauled the abandoned wood to the campsite and stacked it tidily beside the fire. Sal, astride a bench peeling apple slices and feeding them to Joe, watched without saying a word, her mouth tight. The tent’s canvas wall quavered.

  That evening, at the pub in Comox, ale in my hand, I saw Norm walk in alone. A terse nod at me, and he strode to the bar without a word.

  “The usual, Norm?”

  I was gone before he looked around.

  The unseasonable rain was relentless. My morning rounds through the campsite revealed that the damp had started to seep through the tent’s roof and was puddling in the trenches Sal dug to channel away the water. Tag smelled increasingly doggy, and I worried that the driftwood logs were slick as ice under Fiona’s sneakers. Norm and the VW were never in evidence when I crossed the boardwalk, and I began to question more and more just how he spent his days while his family made do in a small tent.

  Out on the waterfront, the clams hid their spouting necks from the patrolling herons and gulls. Fiona and Joe picked dozens of oysters, then hunkered down, jackets steaming by the fire, Fiona’s quick hands shucking the way I’d shown her, Joe stacking the empty shells in unstable piles. Sal found ways to serve them, drizzled with lemon, dashed with Tabasco. Scalloped and fried and dolloped with tartar sauce. For stew, I sold Sal a big cast iron pot for next to nothing, showed her how to bury its blackened base in the embers, and made the first batch. I threw in handfuls of onion and chunks of butter that hissed as the rain spat down. Bay leaves, thyme, milk, cubed potatoes, and then the oysters Fiona had patiently opened. Once cooked, they emerged milky and fat, scooped into deep bowls. Fiona’s long fingers grazed mine as I handed her the stew.

  “Quick, Fee!” I said, stumbling over my words to disguise the jolt of electricity I felt. “Eat it before the crackers get soggy.”

  Sal made stew by the gallon, briny-sweet and cloying, scented by the sea breeze as it blew in off the beach. Every evening, Norm steamed oysters open on the firepit’s grill, the midden of discarded shells attracting the gulls. I was a frequent guest at their table, maybe as payback for the maple syrup and morning coffee. Sal refused my cautious offers of anything else, but I stashed chocolate bars in my jacket pocket for the little guy, who spooned down the broth and potatoes and even the oysters before turning to me expectantly. Norm’s squinting eyes followed his wife, his daughter, but never tracked the movements of little Joe.

  Fiona gagged one night when Sal served yet another pot of stew. As her daughter retched at the edge of the fire, Sal pivoted away.

  “No more, Mom,” Fiona said. “No stew. Not one more oyster, raw or steamed or broiled or grilled.” Her father raised his head and studied his daughter.

  I got up from the picnic table and patted Fiona’s back. “Don’t worry about it, Fee.” I said, too softly for Sal to hear. “I’m sick of ’em too. You can use my rod anytime you want. I’ll teach you. No more oysters.” I rubbed small circles between her shoulder blades. The muscles eased a little but she didn’t answer.

  The bats came out. Joe ran around the campground, shrieking with glee, arms outstretched, as the bats hummed and whistled above him. Norm flicked his glowing cigarette butt towards them, then turned his back. The rest of us sto
od mesmerized, watching the glow fade into ash on the sand.

  I was hosing salt crystals and sand off the marina walls when I saw two figures head out, buckets and shovels in hand. Fiona’s hair shone in the watery sunlight.

  “Dad says I should go out to the clam beds if I’m too good to eat oysters.”

  I shook my head with disgust.

  “Don’t worry about it, I’ll teach you how to dig them, Fiona. I don’t know why I didn’t think of it earlier. It’s easy as picking oysters.”

  I showed her how to wait for the squirts of water that betray the presence of the hidden clams. As soon as her spade entered the stony sand, another spout would erupt a few feet away. Joe, distracted, ran from pillar to post, Tag at his heels, both yipping like banshees. But Fiona quickly learned the dance: a few steps to the new spray, bend, dig quickly, and toss the clam into the bucket.

  “Sluice off the sand and cover them with seaweed before you carry ’em back,” I suggested. The pail was already half full when I left them there and headed back.

  Twenty minutes later, I looked up to see Norm’s silhouette, smoke drifting behind him as he passed along the beachhead. It wasn’t long before Fiona re-appeared, bent nearly double, tugging and jerking the full bucket along the boardwalk and up the sandy path toward the firepit. She grinned and waved me off when I stuck my head out the door with an offer of help.

  I was immersed in accounts receivable when I heard her crying, and her feet on the boardwalk. I dropped my pen and ran out.

  “Fiona! What? What is it?”

  She could barely speak, her breath gasping.

  “I asked him … asked him … he nodded … so I … and Mom said … Mom said … ”

  “What, Fiona? Hush, hush. Calm yourself, here, sit down. Catch your breath. Nothing to be done until you can talk.” I patted her onto the log bench and waited. “So. Now tell me. What did your mother say to you?”