Glass Voices

by Carol Bruneau

  It’s been ages since she shopped for anything but groceries; when was the last time, before or after the men returned from the moon? The store gleams too brightly, a world inside a giant bulb, all clean sharp lines and shine, shine, shine. Maybe that’s how Earth looks now to the astronauts. Anyway, it makes her uncomfortable. “We only need a couple of things, dear,” she whispers loudly, tapping Rebecca’s hand, still tanned from the summer, even leathery. A mistake agreeing to this shopping spree. All she wants is to be outside, under the Indian summer sky—better yet, in the garden. The asters’ll soon be done, it occurs to her with a bit of a shock; for weeks now she’s thought of nothing but Harry.

  Rebecca sees her impatience. “Now, you don’t want to scrimp,” she teases. If only that goodness of hers weren’t so officious. “Maybe we’ll see about a bathrobe, then,” Lucy gives in; the sooner she complies, the sooner she’ll be out of here. Taking her arm—since when was she a cripple?—Rebecca leads her to men’s wear, where a saleslady in an orange pantsuit is helping someone choose socks. Oh glory, it’s Father Langille of all people, and he blushes when he sees her, reddening even more and nodding as he notices Rebecca. “Ladies,” he says in a scratchy voice; whatever happened to sisters? Gazing too intently, he clears his throat—“And how’s your husband?”—as if, alive again, Harry must be lurking.

  “Harry’s doing good,” Rebecca answers the way she’d parked. “We’re getting him a new wardrobe.” As if they need to explain. Elbowing Lucy. “Right, Ma? He’s gonna need it, isn’t he.” Father’s smile is benign, but curious. He starts to ask vaguely about their plans, when a voice over the intercom says anyone missing a child should come to the toys section. “Thanks be to God, then,” the priest murmurs. “Your prayers’ve been answered.” Rebecca gives him a look, saying, “Well—I don’t know about that.”

  “It’s still early yet,” Lucy puts in quickly; sometimes it’s as though Rebecca were flesh and blood, the way she needs to protect her. Baffling, frankly, how short the gal can be on common sense, not to mention manners. Not that it’s her fault, perhaps.

  “Ah, not out of the woods, yet. Well. We won’t forget him,” says Father Langille, adding that prayer chain meets this evening, and she’s on the list. His neck strains against his collar, and she tries to imagine him without it. But Rebecca’s tugging on her elbow, the one that still hurts.

  “Errands, Ma,” she urges; in case Lucy forgot, she’s got to be back to wake Bucky up. The priest stammers an apology, asking if Rebecca’s her daughter.

  “Daughter?” It’s as if a feather’s stuck in her throat. “Oh, Father, no. Forgive me,” she blurts, introducing her son’s wife.

  “Nice to meet you,” Rebecca bares her teeth, and he mumbles something about circumstances and visiting. Lucy coughs, fishing for a tissue. Father’s tidy features glow, and his collar looks too white, rigid, against the silk ties and boxers.

  “Perhaps you’ll join us tonight,” he says hopefully, “for a proper vigil.”

  “Thanks,” Rebecca yawns, saying she doesn’t think so.

  Glancing at the socks he’s chosen, argyles in yellow and red, Lucy can’t help smiling. “Lovely shades,” she remarks, “fallish,” and he blushes again, or maybe he’s naturally ruddy, his colour exaggerated by the artificial light.

  “Thanks, yes. Gosh, you’re right.” Then he pats her arm—how she hates it, being consoled—telling her to keep her hopes up, that God is faithful to those faithful to him. “Ask, and it shall be given,” he says in a pinched way, nodding once more before moving to the cash.

  “What drug’s he on?” Rebecca rasps, though he’s barely out of earshot, steering Lucy towards bathrobes. “Oooh. Look,” she fingers velour, “Wouldn’t Pop love lounging in that! You’d never get him off the couch.” Maybe it’s funny to her, but Lucy pictures Harry in his johnny shirt, the nurses sliding a pad under his rump, as Rebecca admits it’s pricey, but insists, “Lookit, let me—let us. Jewel wants his dad to have the best.” She grabs the boxers Lucy’s chosen, and, snatching some pajamas off the rack, marches up to pay. Mercy, does this mean they can leave? The pantsuit lady asks if they’ve found everything they need, and Rebecca hesitates, as if staring through the sights of a rifle, grabbing some men’s cologne from the little display. Golly—now she’s got Jewel wearing perfume? “Chargex,” she says, corralling her buys as though they might end up in the wrong bag. Never mind they’re the only ones standing there.

  “Rebecca, you mustn’t,” Lucy says feebly, but she just pushes her hand away, saying it’s not like they do this all the time.

  Something tickles her throat; it must be the air, dust from the clothing? She might as well be with someone from the league, suffering their kindness, saying Harry has no use for—

  Now she’s done it: Rebecca’s lip curls, falling into a pout, not the angry kind she saves for Jewel, but hurt. There’s a treacherous pause. “You’re saying he mightn’t come home?”

  Lucy glances around nervously for Father Langille, but he’s vanished. Pleading, “Rebecca, dear.” Scolding herself: how hard is it, just going along? It shouldn’t be that much to ask, a bit of motherly humouring. Lord knows in Rebecca’s life it’s been in short supply.

  “You have to think positive, Ma,” Rebecca says, and she agrees, smiling to prove it. But who knows if Rebecca catches this. She is now in a sudden rush to whisk her outside, their mission accomplished, just as Lucy spies a rack of sale items, some darn good buys. This time she lets Rebecca go first, waiting till the revolving door’s stopped before stepping in; otherwise it’s like an egg beater. Outside, Rebecca taps her foot impatiently, her high heel clicking against the cement. People stare dully, waiting for the bus; one fellow has bell-bottoms like Robert’s, except his belt’s up around his waist. Bumped against the concrete wall is a shopping cart piled with odds and ends, rusty metal and what looks like copper pipe, and a couple slouched there, guarding it. Oh, Lordie. Benny’s lecturing the woman, that’s how it sounds, though the woman seems to be listening raptly. Glancing up at Rebecca, she smiles vaguely and waves her stubby hand.

  “Oh Jesus,” Rebecca mutters, but smiles, waving back, saying on the way to the car that she’s heard Benny’s lady friend cleans houses. “Probably can’t trust her as far as you can throw her,” she tosses out, launching into a raft of gossip. How, over at Jimmy’s one day, she’d heard the woman bragging that she kept house once for “some big professor up the Valley” and how her people had money, too. “Go figger, eh?” Rebecca shrugs, “There but for the grease of God, goes I?” and she says how that would put the fear of God into Bucky, someone like her rifling through his room, scrubbing. “The state of it,” she snorts. Smoothing the bag between them, Lucy thinks of how Robert had fished his poem from the mess. Far as she sees, kids just do what they’re used to, and his room’s not the only pigsty over there. Rebecca’s got all the time in the world to clean: why doesn’t she?

  Sometimes it’s as if Rebecca’s got ESP, and expects the rest of the world to have it too—the damnedest thing. Pulling up the street she looks right at Lucy, saying, “Jeez, poor thing.” A queer thing to say, after how they complain about him. But it makes Lucy smile inside, telling Rebecca it’ll all come out in the wash; give him time and Robert’ll be fine. But Rebecca frowns, almost dinging the fence. “That poor crazy lady, I mean, living with that nutcase. Or maybe Benny’s got something we don’t know about?” And she winks, that dirty grin like Rowan’s on Laugh-In, that show Harry’s always trying to get her to watch.

  12

  IN THE HOSPITAL, THOUGH, REBECCA’S humour comes in handy, asking Harry if he likes his new maroon robe. “Don’t that colour just get the old blood pumping!” she nudges him. “Doesn’t it, Jewel?” It takes the two of them to hold him up while Lucy tucks it around his shoulders. But there’s something in his expression, or his lack of expression: gratitude. Lifting from the bed, his good hand motions sit
. “Sheesh, he’s like the Pope now,” Rebecca ogles, “all he needs is the ring.”

  “Becky. Please.” Jewel reaches for some juice on the bedside stand, peeling back its foil lid. “Jesus Murphy, it’s dry in here,” he sighs, and Rebecca picks up on it, teasing, “Any excuse for a drink, eh Harry?” Stop, Lucy wants to say. Enough. Taking the juice, she leans in to position the straw; Harry’s lips quiver as they close around it, his look like Jewel’s as an infant nursing. “God,” Rebecca says, “he must be croaking for a smoke.”

  In spite of himself, Jewel smiles, then grimaces at his shoes, patting his shirt for cigarettes. “God, Harry,” Rebecca persists, “here you’ve quit cold turkey.”

  That index finger lifts and points feebly to the record player pushed to a corner on its bandage cart: a nurse’s bright idea. Moving his head, he jars the straw. Cooing like Rebecca—“oopsy-daisy”—it’s as if Lucy’s twenty again, a new mother wiping his chin. Now his whole hand moves, pointing towards a glass of melted ice cubes. “All gone, Harry. Empty.” Leaning back sharply, Jewel sends it toppling. It splashes the sheet, but doesn’t break.

  “Now see what you did?” Rebecca snipes. “Clumsy.”

  Muttering that it was an accident, Jewel says, “Can’t you give it up?”

  What’s with these little flare-ups; surely they could save them for home? “How’re Robert’s plans coming?” Lucy pipes up, for the sake of peace. “Too bad he doesn’t have a friend—” To travel with, she means.

  Jewel gives her a look. “Friend? She’s the one’s got him worked up in the first place, all about going west.” To live in a beehive or a teepee, he says, to hear them go on. “Stay in school, I keep telling him. Just get through the year.” The most Jewel’s opened his mouth since Harry’s fall, he goes on, “That one says jump, Buck says how high,” ranting how the kid may as well live on the moon, the wrong side. He’s not exactly thinking with his head these days, Rebecca pitches in. All Lucy can think to add is that maybe the moon’s not so bad. “Right,” Jewel glances at Rebecca’s shoes, “if you’re dressed for it.”

  She feels like a referee on wrestling. Asking him to play something, a Quiet Time number, she suggests, something nice and slow: Marg Osburne? “That’ll put you to sleep again, won’t it Pop,” Rebecca shouts and Harry blinks. But there’s the hint, ever so faint, of a smile. “Give him a jig,” she orders.

  As Jewel gets up to put the record on, the good side of Harry’s mouth opens and out comes a sound. Wiping his chin again, timidly, Lucy leans so close his lips brush her ear. “What, sweetie?” A grimace. Trembling. His drawled word could mean anything: courting!

  “’Cordine!” Rebecca exclaims, as if she’s special.

  “He wants his accordion,” Jewel repeats as if needing to translate, and the needle makes a noise like a boot punching through frozen snow. “One Don Noble coming up.”

  ONE SPRING MORNING WALKING JEWEL to school, between his nightmares and Harry’s shenanigans, she’d been so tired she could barely walk straight. She’d woken to find the bed empty, and Harry on the landing like a little kid waiting for Santa. Along the road the maples were a reddish haze; a storm had showered buds everywhere, and cars churned up pinkish mud. Instead of turning in at St. Columba’s, throngs of kids were running towards the cove. Jewel raced to catch up; she’d started running too.

  The tide was out and a crowd was gathered, people spilling over the rocks. On the shore below their old place the Mounties were hauling crates from the water; lobster traps? Jewel kept pointing out a boat tied up in the shadow of Deadman’s, the hill crouched opposite. Babineau’s boat, he was telling everyone, as people whooped, laughing at the haul. Jayzus, look what the cat drug in! Finders, keepers, someone jeered, as a policeman fired his gun straight in the air. She’d felt queasy as Father Marcus approached. “Let the wicked fall into their own nets,” he’d wagged his chin, saying the Lord knew who was responsible, if the coppers didn’t; “even as God knit them in their mothers’ wombs.” Ducking back up to the road, she’d wondered who else, verily, had eyes in the back of their head?

  It wasn’t long before the Mounties paid Harry a visit, interrupting his attempts at “My Lovely Black Maiden.” Drop the fiddle, they said, it was criminal business.

  The words alibi and wife had volleyed back to the kitchen, where she was making divinity fudge. She’d almost burned the pot when the constable peeked in, lying that Harry’d been home constantly, practising. Father Marcus’s words knocking inside: the wicked, falling. They knew where to find him, Harry’d chimed in at the end of their questioning; anything a-tall they needed.

  An hour later Artie’d shown up, making fun of her knitting before Harry rushed him downstairs. Their voices murmured up through the pipes, incoherent but sober. When they emerged Harry seemed sweaty. Lil was back at her mother’s and Artie wasn’t doing so hot, he explained, and if anyone asked, he’d been staying with them. “That’s right, missus,” Artie’d puffed, “eating your loverly cooking and helping junior with arithmetic.” Then telling Harry that sometimes he envied that crazy tinker living under his wagon; would live in a can if he could, the bugger. The cops didn’t muck with fellas like that, he said, why bother? “Wouldn’t go that far,” Harry snorted.

  The same week a truck pulled up, men making a delivery. A mistake, she thought, but they wrestled the Victrola inside anyway. Three hundred bucks new, one of them said, “Don’t look a gift horse, my darlin’.” Artie wanted her to have it, Harry explained. Opening the cabinet, taking out records thick as plates, showing her how to turn the handle, place the needle just so. Wicked, nets. Father Marcus’s words had echoed, but as the song leapt out—a man mimicking a little child: la-la-la-la, I fall down and go boom—despite everything she laughed and let Harry waltz her around till the singer’s voice got woozy. “Sounds liquored,” Harry’d joked, cranking it up again, not too tight, in case the spring snapped—even as she protested how it was too big a gift to accept. “Not like you haven’t earned it,” he said, asking blithely when she was going away, then flipping through the stack: “You’re the Cream in My Coffee,” “Ain’t We Got Fun.”

  Two days to the Feast of St. Anne, he and Jewel saw her to the train, Harry saying not to worry about a thing, nudging a box of Turkish delight at her. The porter wrestling her suitcase from the boy. She’d waited so long for this; now the moment had come, she’d wished she’d just dreamt it. Pouting and clamouring to come too, Jewel refused to kiss her. She’d waved till the pair of them were smaller than fleas. “Do them good to muddle through,” clucked Mrs. Slauenwhite, the other prizewinner, taking the aisle seat. “Motion sickness, you know.” Unwrapping a sandwich, she’d tucked the wax paper into her purse, then launched into descriptions of her children and grandchildren, and all her other pilgrimages. That bone, the relic, she’d said, crossing herself, was “a testicle”—a what? Lucy’d wanted to squeal—“to immortality. Proof, dear, that the sanctified would be raised up.” Like bread dough, Lucy’d thought, Jewel’s pout branded in her head as the train rounded the Basin, as if the parts of her life that mattered had been left at the siding.

  Mrs. Slauenwhite prattled on, asking how old Lucy’s little fella was, and if her husband was Catholic. It was hard to enjoy the scenery, last seen through sleety rain, dressed up now in summer blues and greens, like the same body under nicer clothes. The resurrection of the dead, and the life everlasting, Father Marcus’s words had come out of nowhere. As woods slid by and her companion preached that a change was as good as a rest, she’d opened Harry’s candy. “Tastes like more,” Mrs. Slauenwhite said, helping herself. The sweetness was cloying, and nearby, a man smoked cigars. Light skittered through Lucy’s eyelids as she tried to doze, and Mrs. Slauenwhite rambled on anyway about what a pity it was, Lucy’s husband’s lack of religion and their “mixed” home. “Too bad you haven’t a girl,” she’d added, saying girls were nicer in one’s old age. It was all Lucy could do
to ask how long the trip might be, feeling a little ill. A church flew by and a cemetery, and Mrs. Slauenwhite crossed herself twice, suggesting they’d have lunch past Truro, though complaining that what her daughter’d packed wasn’t fit for a bird.

  Lucy had tasted bile, the porter’s eyes doubtful when she told him she was sick. “A medical emergency,” she called it, as he trundled off to find her bag. An apology was all she could offer Mrs. Slauenwhite, gazing past her puzzled face as the train came to a standstill. Shubenacadie, said the sign over the platform. The air had smelled of manure, and though the return train wasn’t due for hours, she’d felt instantly better, despite the sleepy houses, blinds drawn against the sun. The weight in her stomach lifted, and crickets sang in an octave that matched the wires’ hum.

  It was twilight by the time she climbed the front steps, having spent prize money on a cab from the siding. The radio was blaring, Jewel in the front room with his feet on the sofa, and Lil’s daughter beside him. They were eating taffy apples, spitting the seeds.

  “Quit it now, Becky, or so he’p me, you’ll land back at Gran’s!” a voice shrieked from the kitchen.

  Blessed Mother, who was in there digging through the ice box, her ice box, but Lil?

  Lil’s eyes had widened like a cat’s, her hands skimming her thighs as Artie wandered in, a beer in hand. “My—wasn’t that a short jaunt,” Lil sneered and seemed to soften as Artie laid his hand on her neck, mumbling about Lucy being a vision.

  Then Harry’d yelped from the mudroom, “For chrissake, you turd, get the electrical tape!”

  His face twitched when he saw her, his tongue tripping over itself, some cockeyed explanation about Lil and Artie and the kids helping out. He had a wrench in his hands. Lil made some quip, what did a saint have that he didn’t? “You got a bone or two, dontcha, Mister?” Artie’d laughed first, rubbing Lil’s neck till she winced.