Great Cape Breton Storytelling

by Great Cape Breton Storytelling (epub)

  By four that afternoon, my mother was beside herself. We had only come up with six names. Aside from her three employers we had added the priest in Labrador, Granny’s landlord and her undertaker.

  My mother searched the house looking for the addresses of high school girlfriends, but couldn’t find them. It wouldn’t have mattered; she didn’t know their married names or where they lived. All were from a time before my father.

  “I met your father at a dance, Henry. His dark hair was all slicked back with Vitalis. We went to the dances every Friday and Saturday night that summer. We didn’t have to pay because he was the janitor at the hall. Sometimes, I pinched myself. He was the best looking fella on the floor. And mature. Five years older than me. I was so proud, to land a catch like him, and me still in high school.”

  When I suggested sending my father a copy of the chain letter, my mother’s expression was vacant. “No Henry, he’ll probably be home before the letter arrives in Labrador.” I didn’t know what she meant because he would be away for several weeks. How long did it take for a letter to reach Labrador? She rose from the table as if searching for something physical to distract her deliberations. She clutched the dishrag and wrung it dry. I watched as her fingers blanched and the colour flowed to her cheeks.

  “We need to find four names, Henry. Only four.” She blew her nose into her tissue. The tears rolled down her face. My tears followed. My mother extended her arms and I slid onto her lap. I was small for my age and her arms wrapped themselves around me.

  “Ssh, Henry, it’s not so bad,” she whispered, soothing my anxiety. She kissed my cheek and our tears mingled. It was perhaps the third or fourth time I can recall when, in solidarity, I wept with my mother. Once after my Granny had been particularly harsh with her. Another time, after a heated argument with my father, my mother retired to her bed with a bruised lip and I lay beside her, both of us crying, both falling asleep in each other’s arms.

  “I’m going to lie down for an hour before dinner, Henry.” She wiped her tears and smiled, sliding me off her lap. She dried the tears from my face with her moist tissue.

  I heard her climb the stairs with a heavy foot and close the door to her bedroom. My mother rarely closed her bedroom door.

  I collected the things she had removed from the shoeboxes and came across a letter wrapped in newsprint. In pencil my mother had scribbled “From Stuart to Pearl” on the newsprint. Pearl and Stuart were the names of my parents. The wrinkled letter baffled me. Why would my father write to my mother?

  Dear Pearl,

  Please forgive me for not writing since I got back from the funeral. Between cleaning the rink at night and the bus station in the afternoons, I don’t got no time. How’ve you been since I saw you last? Getting many dates? Just kidding.

  I wish you had been at the funeral. My mother looked good in the casket. I told her you and I are planning on getting hitched and that we’re going to travel around the world for five years. I told her she’d get her grandchild when we’re too old to travel. Honest to God, I think she smiled!

  Kisses for Pearl. Stuart.

  I replaced the letter between the sheets of newsprint and returned it to the bottom of the shoebox. I was numb. It was the same handwriting as the address printed on the envelope of the chain letter. But the perfumed letter inside had been written in another hand. Maybe my mother had noticed this, too.

  “I lied to you, Henry. It isn’t only friends and acquaintances that send chain letters. Sometimes they come from a stranger. Someone you don’t know, and who doesn’t know you. But familiar all the same.” My mother said this evenly; there was no bitterness in her voice. She smoothed the woollen throw across her knees.

  We sat on the back step drinking a cup of hot chocolate. Neither of us had noticed the sun break through the clouds after supper. Even now, at seven in the evening, it was mild and balmy — the first real spring evening of the year, the air fresh and full of promise. We sipped our hot chocolate in silence. The chain letter was back in its envelope. My mother used it to fan her face while we sat on the step.

  Her afternoon rest had refreshed her, and she came downstairs with a dab of rouge on her cheeks. We ate a tasty supper of potato skins and my mother hummed while she washed up. She emptied the coffee grounds into the garbage, on top of the chain letters I had written out during the day. She had even used the letters to collect the peels from the potatoes before throwing them in the garbage. Nothing was wasted in our house.

  Tomorrow, I had to run an errand for her. She wanted me to return the chain letter to the post office and had written instructions across the back of the envelope. Return to Sender, it read. I knew the postmaster wouldn’t find the sender’s name inside. It is not necessary to write your name, the chain letter had said.

  I glanced at my mother and smiled. She said something under her breath that I didn’t catch.

  “I said, bright home, Henry. Did you know that Glace Bay means bright home?”

  Yes, I knew this now.

  Lynn Coady

  Jesus Christ, Murdeena

  Her mother would tell you it started with the walks. Just out of the blue, not too long after she got fired from the Busy Burger and had been kicking around the house for a few days. Out comes Murdeena with, “I think I’ll go out for a little walk.” Margaret-Ann was just finishing up the dishes and hurried to dry off her hands when she heard it, thinking Murdeena was being sly about asking for a drive somewhere.

  “Where do you want to go?” asks Margaret-Ann.

  “I don’t know, I’m just going to walk around.”

  “Where are you going to walk around?”

  “I’ll just go down by the water or somewhere.”

  “Here, I’ll take you down,” she says, reaching for the keys.

  “Pick me up a Scratch and Win!” Mr. Morrisson calls from the couch, hearing them jingle.

  “No, no, no,” goes Murdeena. “I’m just going for a walk, to look at the water.”

  “I’ll drive you down, we can sit in the car and look at it,” says Margaret Ann. She doesn’t know what her daughter is on about.

  “I want to go for a walk,” says Murdeena.

  “Who goes for walks?” points out Margaret-Ann. She’s right, too. Nobody goes for walks. The only people who go for walks are old women and men who have been told by their doctors that they have to get more exercise. You can see them, taking their turns around the block every night after supper, looking none too pleased.

  “What’s the matter with you?” asks Margaret-Ann. She’s thinking Murdeena is feeling bad about getting fired and wants to go mope.

  “Nothing, Mumma. It’s a nice night.”

  “Go sit on the porch, you don’t have to go traipsing about.”

  “I want to.”

  “Go on, I’ll bring you a cup of tea.”

  “I don’t want to drink any more tea. I want to walk.”

  Thinking of the seniors, it occurs to Margaret-Ann that walking is a healthy pastime, and maybe she should encourage it.

  “You’re on some kind of new health kick, now, are you?”

  “No.”

  “Well, if that’s what you want to do,” she says, doubtful. “Are you going to be all right?”

  “Yes.” Meanwhile Murdeena’s digging around in the porch, trying to find something to put on her feet.

  “Do you need a jacket?”

  “Yeah, I’ll put on my windbreaker.”

  “Maybe you should wear mine,” says Margaret-Ann, fidgety about the whole performance.

  “No, I’ll be all right.”

  “What do you got on your feet?”

  That’s a bit of a problem. Nobody walks, so nobody has any walking shoes. Murdeena settles for a pair of cowboy boots she bought in Sydney back when they were in style.

  “You can’t walk in t
hose.”

  “They’re made for people to walk in. Cowboys. They walk all around the range.”

  “They ride around on their horses,” protests Margaret-Ann.

  “Well, they’ll do for now.” Murdeena puts on her windbreaker.

  Then Ronald pipes up again. “She’s not going out by herself, is she?” he calls from the couch.

  “Yes. She wants to go for a walk.”

  “Where’s she going to walk to?”

  “Jesus Murphy, I’ll bring you back a Lotto!” Murdeena hollers before the whole rigmarole can get under way again, and she clomps out the door in her boots.

  So there’s Margaret-Ann left to do all the explaining.

  Margaret-Ann will tell you that is where it all started, although it didn’t seem like much of anything at first. Murdeena walking. By herself, in the evening. Perhaps it was getting fired, that’s what Margaret-Ann thought. Murdeena had never been fired before, although the Busy Burger was only her second job — before that she was a cashier at Sobey’s, for four years, right up until it closed down. She was great at it, and everybody liked her. She liked it too because she got to visit with everyone in town and catch up on their news. The Busy Burger wasn’t so much her style because most of the people who came in were high school kids and Carl Ferguson who ran the place was a big fat shit. She used to get along so well with her manager at Sobey’s, because they’d gone to school together, but Carl Ferguson was just this mean old bastard she couldn’t relate to who didn’t like girls and treated them all like idiots. He picked on Murdeena especially because she couldn’t count. Even with the cash register there giving a read-out, she never gave anyone the right change. Murdeena could never do math, none of the teachers at school could figure her out because the math teacher assumed she was borderline retarded while the rest of them were giving her A’s and B’s. There must be some kind of condition where you can’t do math, just like the one where you can’t spell, and that’s what Murdeena had. If you asked her anything having to do with numbers, she’d change the subject. If you asked her how many people lived in her town, she’d say, “Oh, quite a few,” or else, “Oh, it’s about the size of Amherst, I’d guess. Maybe more.” If you’d try to pin her down on a figure, she might say something like, “Oh . . . maybe . . . a . . . couple of hundred.” It was a good way to get her back in high school. We’d all laugh.

  But her mind just didn’t work that way, some people’s minds don’t. It didn’t make her a moron, but Carl Ferguson treated her like one anyway. She was always careful to check the register and count out the change meticulously, but sometimes the bastard would stand there watching her making slow calculations as she moved the change from the register to her palm and he’d wear this disgusted smirk and make her all nervous. So one day, right in front of him, she handed Neil MacLean a twenty instead of a five. Neil said he could see her hand shaking as she did it, and he tried to nod to her or something, let her know in some way that the change was wrong. Before he could do a blessed thing, though, Carl Ferguson tears the twenty out of her hand. “For Christ’s sake, woman,” he goes. “You trying to make me go broke?” And Murdeena cried and Neil, probably trying to help out, told Carl he was an arsehole, but that’s when Carl told her she was fired — probably just to shut Neil up and prove that he could do or say whatever he damn well pleased in his own establishment.

  Everyone hated Carl after that because everyone liked Murdeena. Whenever she gave people back the wrong change at Sobey’s, they’d just say, “Oops, dear, I need a bit more than that,” or a bit less, or whatever, and then they’d help her to count out the right amount, and then everyone would have a big laugh together.

  So then she was on UI again and there was talk in town about a big bulk-food store opening up, and Margaret-Ann kept telling her there was no need to worry.

  “I’m not worried anyways,” says Murdeena.

  “Then why all the walks?” This was after the fourth walk of the week. Murdeena was going through all the shoes in the closet, trying to find the best pair for walking. Tonight she had auditioned a pair of her brother Martin’s old basketball sneakers from eight years ago.

  “I’m not walking because I’m worried about anything!” says Murdeena, surprised. And the way she says it is so clean and forthright that Margaret-Ann knows she’s not lying. This makes Margaret-Ann more nervous than before.

  “Well for the love of God, Murdeena, what are you doing stomping around out there all by yourself?”

  “It’s nice out there.”

  “It’s nice, is it.”

  “Yes.”

  “Well, it seems like an awful waste of time, when I could be driving you anywhere you wanted to go.”

  Murdeena has never gotten her driver’s licence. This is something else about her that’s kind of peculiar. She says there isn’t any point because she never goes anywhere. Margaret-Ann and Ronald like it because it means that she still needs them to do things for her from time to time.

  “If I wanted to go for a drive,” says Murdeena, “I’d go for a drive.”

  “It just seems so Jesus pointless!” bursts out Margaret-Ann, wishing Murdeena would quit fooling with her, pretending everything was normal. People around town were starting to make remarks. Cullen Petrie at the post office:

  “Oh, I see your girl out going for the walks these days.”

  “Yes, it’s her new thing, now.”

  “Well, good for her! I should be getting out more myself.”

  “Yes, shouldn’t we all,” says Margaret-Ann, officiously licking her stamps.

  “Isn’t she tough!”

  “Yes, she is.”

  “Every night I see her out there,” marvels Cullen Petrie. “Every night!”

  “Yes.” Margaret-Ann gathers up her mail in a pointed sort of fashion, so as to put Cullen in his place. “Yes, she’s tough, all right.”

  Cullen calls after her to have Murdeena put in an application at the post office — he’d be happy to see what he could do for her. Margaret-Ann would like to kick him.

  “You don’t need a job right now, in any event,” Margaret-Ann keeps telling her over and over again. “Your UI won’t run out for a year, and you’ve got enough to keep you busy these days.”

  “That’s right,” agrees Murdeena, clomping around in an old pair of work boots to see how they fit, and not really paying much attention. “I’ve got lots to keep me busy.”

  Murdeena is always on the go, everyone says so. She plays piano for the seniors every weekend and always helps out at the church teas and bake sales. She’ll do the readings in church sometimes, and plays on her softball team. It used to be the Sobey’s softball team before it closed down, but they all enjoyed the games so much that the employees didn’t want to disband. They ripped the cheap SOBEY’S logos off their uniforms and kept playing the other businesses in town anyway. Nobody minded. For a joke, they changed their name to the S.O.B.’s.

  Some people are concerned that she doesn’t have a boyfriend, but Margaret-Ann and Ronald are relieved, they like her where she is. She went out with a fellow in high school for three years, and it looked as if things were pretty much all sewn up for after graduation, but didn’t he go off to university — promising they’d talk about the wedding when he came home for the summer. Well, you don’t have to be a psychic, now, do you?

  So Murdeena hasn’t been seeing anyone since then — almost five years now. She has her own small group of friends, the same ones she had in school, and they all go out to the tavern together, or sometimes will take a trip over to the island or into Halifax. There are a couple of young fellows that she spends time with, but they’re all part of the group, one with a girlfriend and one married.

  So no one can think of anyone Murdeena might end up with. Murdeena knows everyone in town and everyone knows her. Everyone has their place and plays their part. So it’s hard to
think of changing things around in any sort of fundamental way. Like starting something up with someone you’ve known since you were two. It doesn’t feel right, somehow.

  “To hell with it,” she announces one evening after supper. She’s got every pair of shoes in the house lined up across the kitchen floor.

  “What is it now?” gripes Margaret-Ann, even though Murdeena hasn’t said a word up until now. Margaret-Ann always feels a little edgy after suppertime, now, knowing Murdeena will be leaving the house to go God knows where. “What’s the matter with you?”

  “None of these are any good.” She kicks at the shoes.

  “What do you mean? Wear your nice deck shoes.”

  “No.”

  “Wear your desert boots.”

  “They’re all worn out. I’ve worn them all. None of them feel right.’’

  “Do they hurt your feet? Maybe you need to see a doctor.”

  “They don’t hurt, Mumma, they just don’t feel right.”

  “Well, for Christ’s, sake, Murdeena, we’ll go out and get you a pair of them hundred-dollar Nike bastards, if that’ll keep you quiet.”

  “I’m going to try something else,” says Murdeena, sitting down in one of the kitchen chairs. Thank God! thinks Margaret-Ann. She’s going to stay in and drink her tea like a normal person.

  But Murdeena doesn’t reach for the teapot at all. What she does is take off her socks. Margaret-Ann just watches her, not really registering anything. Then Murdeena gets up and goes to the closet. She takes out her windbreaker. She puts it on. Margaret-Ann blinks her eyes rapidly, like a switch has been thrown.

  “What in the name of God are you doing now?”

  “I’m going for my walk.”

  Margaret-Ann collapses into the same chair Murdeena had been sitting in, one hand covering her mouth.

  “You’ve got no shoes!” she whispers.

  “I’m going to give it a try,” says Murdeena, hesitating in the doorway. “I think it’ll feel better.”