Great Cape Breton Storytelling

by Great Cape Breton Storytelling (epub)

  Sadistic bully. Mary liked the words; she wrote them on her palm in turquoise ink.

  “He’s never forgiven me for divorcing him,” said Carol. “He’s still mad.”

  It was almost noon before Carol would stop for breakfast. Mary ate eggs, pancakes and bacon while Carol nibbled at some toast, drank coffee and smoked. Her avalanche of words had slowed to a trickle. Her eyes were too heavy; the skin around them was bruised with fatigue.

  “I wish you were sixteen, baby,” she said. “1 could use another driver to spell me. I don’t think I slept a wink last night.”

  “Me neither,” said Mary, sympathetically, although it wasn’t true. “We’ve come a long way.” It was her turn to be bright and cheerful. She wasn’t mad anymore. After all, it had been her idea to run away. It was just that it had been scary when Albert and Martin took all their furniture. She hadn’t thought they’d run away with furniture; they might never come back. “Let’s take the scenic route.’’ She pointed to her place mat, a plasticized map with the coastal route marked in red and decorated with silhouettes of herons, leaping fish and sea lavender.

  “Sure, baby.” Carol lit another cigarette, blew out the smoke and smiled. “We’ll be on the road a week anyway. We might never get a chance to see the country like this again so we should make the most of it.”

  It was beginning, slowly, to feel like an adventure. A trip she could write about in her new school. “My Trip Across Canada,” or something like that. An ordinary sort of family adventure that anyone might have. All the marks would fade and they would look like regular people. On their skin and in their eyes.

  Mary held Carol’s hand on the way across the parking lot, swinging high and swinging low. The handle of the door was hot in the sunshine and the car smelled like bananas and old cigarettes.

  “Whew. We’d better crack the windows and let in a little fresh air.” Carol fanned the interior with a map. Mary settled in her seat, squirming until her clothes settled properly, then leaned over and turned on the radio. Carol pulled out into the traffic and took the first left to the Seaside Trail. Mary spun the dial through the blips and squawks until she found some music she liked. Ten miles down the Trail they came hard up against a funeral procession. A dozen polished cars moved a sedate fifteen kilometres an hour behind a hearse.

  “Damn,” said Carol.

  “Why damn? Is it bad luck to be behind a funeral?”

  “Of course not. But they’ll crawl along for miles and we’ll be stuck behind them.”

  “We could pass them.”

  “It’s disrespectful to pass a funeral. They can’t be going too far. There must be a graveyard somewhere near, otherwise they’d be on the main highway. We’ll just be patient. Open your window all the way so we’ll get a cross-breeze.”

  Mary wound down her window. Two girls on the back seat of the car in front of them turned to stare at her. Both wore their hair in braids, tied with blue ribbons. One lifted a lace-gloved hand and waved, until the other grabbed her and made her stop.

  When Mary was seven, her grandmother, her real father’s mother, died. She and Carol went to the grandparents’ house early, wearing their Sunday clothes. Mary’s hair was combed back straight and shiny, pinned behind her ears with white barrettes. She wore new sandals. Sam came, too, although he was no relation to anybody.

  Mary heard the whispers.

  “What’s that joker doing here?”

  “Shush. He’s here for Mary.”

  “Mary don’t need him. He’s not her real father. We’re her family. Nobody needs him.”

  “Hush, for God’s sake. Make a scene at your own mother’s funeral, why don’t you! Shame us all, that’d be nothing new.”

  The grown-ups, in black suits and crepe dresses, were gathered in the kitchen. The crying was finished for the moment; they were pouring a little something from a bottle into their tea. Carol was enveloped in a circle of in-laws. Sam went out on the back steps for a smoke. Mary’s cousin, Bryan, took her to see the body.

  The coffin was set on a stand in the front parlour; the top half was folded back. The grandmother was dressed in royal blue lace. Her eyes were closed, hands folded, mouth lipsticked shut. Her skin, sallow in life, had been tinted a rose-petal pink. Mary thought she looked pretty healthy. But dead.

  “Touch her,” said Bryan. “She’s cold.”

  Was this allowed? She could get into trouble. “No,” said Mary. Bryan went off to the kitchen to scrounge for cake. After he’d gone, Mary dirty-double-dared herself, then touched a hand. It felt like uncooked pork roast, chilled from the fridge.

  The minister arrived, the cups were hastily rinsed and stacked in the sink, and everyone assembled for the service. The crying began again, but softer now. The family was musical and there was a bit of competition in the harmonizing of the hymns. Everyone tried to drown out Cousin Anna who was tone-deaf and would spoil the effect if allowed.

  The grey-gloved undertaker closed the coffin and arranged the pallbearers, the husky young cousins and grandsons who did the lifting, and the frail elders who leaned into the polished wood for support when they stumbled. Mary and the rest of her relatives followed in dignified order. The coffin was loaded into the hearse, the relatives divided into cars, and they started off. The procession was quietly thrilling; it was a kind of a parade. They drove past staring grubby children who finger-counted the cars to gauge the importance of the deceased. Mary wanted to wave, like the Queen Mother, but knew exactly what kind of trouble she would get into and restrained herself. She held a tragic profile up to the window until her neck began to ache and then quit to eat contraband Smarties with Bryan and his little sister, Shelley.

  It was cold at the cemetery. The sun appeared and disappeared as flimsy clouds moved to the east. Sam held Mary’s shoulder in his public grip, to keep her from fidgeting. The coffin was lowered into the dark hole; the shovelful of dirt struck the lid with a sound of little pebbles. Mary imagined her grandmother flinching, then remembered that she could not. She was in heaven with God, looking down. So they said. Bad enough Him spying on me, thought Mary, now she’s at it too. They stopped for a moment at her real father’s grave so Mary could put a rose on it. Mary wasn’t sure where he was. Not spying on her, of that she was certain.

  The funeral procession turned off and all the shiny cars dipped under a painted wooden arch that said “Glenholme Cemetery. Salvation Belongeth Unto The Lord.” Carol sped a little to make up for lost time.

  Twenty minutes later they ran into some light rain and the road began to feel greasy beneath the swishing tires. As soon as she could, Carol took them back to the highway. When they stopped for gas Mary got in the back seat and tried to nap. Tricky, with a seat belt that must be kept on at all times. She arranged herself this way and that among the boxes and bags, with a pillow under her cheek. She dozed, read a bit, dozed again.

  Carol was singing an old Stones’ tune, and tapping the wheel with the flats of her fingers to keep the rhythm.

  Mary saw, out the side window, Sam’s face — startled, shocked, then snatched away. Carol continued singing, softly, so she wouldn’t wake Mary. She hadn’t seen him; she hadn’t noticed his car heading in the other direction, passing in a small convoy. Mary stared out the back window, saw red brake lights flashing as the cars were forced to slow down to let him out of line. A toy car in the distance, a little tinker of a thing, he U-ed on the highway and came speeding back. He’d seen the plastic roof rack, the boxes high in the back seat, and known instantly what they were doing. Now he’s really mad, thought Mary; now he’s coming to kill us. Carol was speeding a little, steel-belted radials eating up the miles, swallowing the white lines to freedom; she sang and tapped. Sam was gaining. Mary could see his foot: one hundred percent cotton knit sock, tan loafer pressing down hard on the gas pedal.

  Mary pulled her talisman bag from her back pocket. She’d made i
t herself, from instructions in a library book. She’d cut up her favourite T-shirt and used part of the back where the fabric was unstained and silky-smooth. Five lucky pieces, centred, folded and wrapped, then tied with a ribbon from Carol’s lingerie drawer. A small white stone from the beach where her real father had learned to swim when he was seven; a brass button with a green glass centre she’d found in a bin at Frenchies; a barred feather the man at the museum said was from a horned owl; a five-yen piece with a hole in it that her great-uncle Melvin told her was lucky; a small glass vial with a plastic stopper, a reddish brown stain on the bottom. It had contained a contact lens: her best friend, Ayesha, had a sister who wore disposables and they’d scavenged two vials from the garbage. They’d stuck their fingers with a pin and squeezed and squeezed to get enough blood so they could mix it and each have a little. Mary rubbed the bag. “Please don’t let him catch us, amen.”

  They were on an older stretch of highway now; there were bumps and curves, but nothing seemed to slow him. The road got worse by the second — the shoulders thinning to dirt, the houses crowding closer to the edge. Late-summer gardens were brilliant with colour and the tomato plants gave off red sparks of fruit as they passed. Carol had begun to slow on the curves but Sam was taking them much too fast, jerking back from the shoulder each time his wheels threatened to spin off the edge. He was too good a driver; in a few seconds it would be over. Mary reached out through the back window and pulled the highway straight. The curve Sam was following ceased to exist and his car sailed off into a field, swirled up a cloud of startled crows who’d been picking at the corpse of a rabbit, and crashed into a low stone wall. Sam kept travelling, out through the windshield in a crystal flash, and came to rest in the flower garden on the other side of the wall. Mary let go of the road and it snapped back into shape.

  Carol had changed tunes, getting a little carried away, forgetting that she was trying to let Mary sleep. All the sounds had been gathered in and buried in Mary’s ears. All the breaking, smashing, screaming cries of glass and metal. Sam lay face down, his head under a mass of deep pink roses, his legs broken and shoeless. One arm stretched out to a yellow and orange border. Crackerjack marigolds shook their petals like confetti into his open palm.

  The wind funnelling in through the air vents had ruffled and feathered Carol’s fair hair. Her long neck was much too thin for her seedpod head. How easily it could snap, thought Mary, or a set of stairs ripple out from under as she climbed with a load of groceries, or a curb tumble her into oncoming traffic as she waited for the light to change. Mary had a second five-yen piece and she decided to put it in a talisman bag for her mother as soon as possible. With a stone from a beach on the Pacific Ocean and dried marigold petals from a garden they would plant together. They would be safe. Everything would be fine. She gazed at her mother’s pale nape and the earnest hunch of her shoulders; a tender ache bloomed in her throat and would not be swallowed.

  Beatrice MacNeil

  The Family Tree

  There comes a time when the bones of our ancestors rattle in their dust and awaken in us the desire to walk back in time, and shake from the ghosts of our history whatever it is we seek to uproot, to plant the family tree in the soil of our desire.

  In the early fifties, during a religious class, this opportunity came to Grade Six. Sister St. Paul and the class were halfway through Eden, when she announced that we each should start a family tree and trace our ancestors back as far as we could go. She turned it into a contest and offered a prize for the best researched tree.

  I sat at the front of the class. Being of French and Scottish descent, I immediately felt the tree shaking.

  I left Eden and headed for Culloden. Surely one of my ancestors had shouted the cry, “Sound the pibroch loud and clear!” There was even a chance Bonnie Prince Charles was walking beside him when he gave the command.

  From Scotland I headed for France. I had visions of King Louie and some of my relatives landing in Louisbourg. I imagined the fog clinging to their backs and the sea shivering on the lonely shore, in a lonely, somber welcome.

  After school I went to visit my Scottish great-grandmother, Hattie. At ninety-five she lived under a quilt free of ambition and anxiety.

  “What tree, what prince?” shouted my great-grandmother. “The most interesting member of our family was a Spanish sea captain who landed in Scotland one day, married my grandmother and brought her to Canada.

  “Do you think we got this dark from playing the bagpipes under the sun?”

  I longed to find a laird or maybe a bard amongst the Macs. Was it possible some broken-hearted bard of my blood had left his poetry floating through the glens?

  “I’m telling you they left nothing behind” — my great-grandmother shouting from under her quilt. “When a person runs for his life he takes only his emotions with him. They chased us out of Scotland. Now put that on your tree.”

  There was a cousin she did remember that fought in the British army; he took part in the siege of Louisbourg and in the taking of Quebec in the mid-seventeen-hundreds. But she believed the French got him in the end.

  From the Highlands of Scotland I gathered for my tree blacksmiths, watchmakers, cobblers and a relative who composed laments for wakes. My tree was starting to look good.

  On the top branch I would hang my Great-Uncle Roddie, the boxer, who held the middleweight championship of Canada in the twenties.

  My French ancestors sprang from their roots. Dead or alive, the soul of sentiment lived on in them. There was an uncle of Grandmère’s, named Rhéal, who could tell what direction your mind was taking just by looking at you. He was the seventh son of a seventh son and always in demand.

  There was another uncle, five or six greats back, who feared no man in or outs of his sight. He was thrown out of Midnight Mass one year for shouting at the choir, “Oh, come all ye faithful but please don’t sing!”

  There were midwives and fortunetellers, fishermen and lumberjacks, farmers and fur traders. There were those who settled in Louisiana after the Acadian expulsion and those who couldn’t settle anywhere.

  My great-great-grandfather took one last look at the world from his deathbed and announced, “If you practice ignorance long enough you will excel.”

  He made moonshine for years and took his recipe to his grave.

  Our cousin Alfreda made a name for herself by interpreting forerunners.

  I would have to mention the great dancers in the family, those that Grandmère believed set the world on fire under their feet.

  And having researched as far as I could, I went to work on my tree. I made the tree out of cardboard and set it up in a can. On little white pieces of paper I hung the names and occupations of my relatives.

  Then I filled out the tree with my own inventions. I turned my great-great-grandfather into a philosopher. I gave my uncle five or six greats back the title “music critic.” All the moonshiners in the family became distillery inventors.

  I turned Rhéal into a prophet.

  I went to school and placed my tree on the table set up at the front of the class. In the contest, I got fourth place. I wondered which of my ancestors would have settled for that.

  On the day of the judging, I looked out the window. Beyond the hill, in the graveyard, the headstones darted in and out of the fog.

  Angus MacDougall

  An Underlying Reverence

  Mr. Waddell, the mine owner, and Malcie MacVicar, the mine manager, decided to seal off the tunnel the day after the accident.

  Mr. Waddell drove home in his black Chrysler and had fresh salmon for supper. He caught the salmon in the Margaree River himself, using his skill as a fly-fisherman, which he had acquired as a young man in his native Scotland. Mr. and Mrs. Waddell played bridge that evening with the new bank manager and his wife.

  Malcie MacVicar went home too, right after Mr. Waddell left
. He slammed his back door and by seven o’clock he was drunk from black rum sipped from a jam bottle. His wife Rachel was a teetotaler and didn’t want her glasses contaminated. Malcie chased the rum with warm beer until he passed out quietly in his chair.

  Neither Mr. Waddell nor Malcie spoke to the relatives of the two young Legatto brothers, who were caught behind tons of coal and rock which had caved in on them twenty-four hours earlier.

  Gibbo Marenelli and his relatives thought it would have been decent if one of the big shots had stopped to tell the family just what was going on, even if they didn’t have to. Gibbo knew that MacVicar had taken the trouble to tell Art MacDonald’s widow about Art getting his back broken last summer; of course both Malcie and Art’s people were from the same part of Richmond County originally, and knew each other for years.

  Malcie actually wanted to say something before leaving the pithead. He had nothing against Italians. They were all good workers, and didn’t cause any trouble. He just couldn’t bring himself to open his mouth about what had happened; as if this would mean that he, the boss, was somehow responsible that those boys had been caught in such a dangerous spot. To Malcie it was the mine itself which was at fault, not him. So he kept his distance, because the dividing line between sympathy and apology was unclear. He didn’t trust himself to stay on the right side of that line, and he was afraid of making a fool of himself before everyone at the pit if he tried.

  It was left to the sly-looking paymaster, Mr. Bington, to make the official contact. Mr. Waddell gave a lot of the mean jobs around the pit to Mr. Bington, who didn’t seem to mind. Bington was supposed to have come from England originally, arriving somehow in Cape Breton, via Rhodesia. He had been with Mr. Waddell since 1928. Gibbo Marenelli had never trusted him.

  From behind a dirty window, he beckoned Gibbo into the shabby shack, which carried the imposing title: Company General Office, over the door.

  “They both had short weeks, Gibbo, especially the Faker,” Bington said sharply.