by Alan Filewod
Father: I’m not goingta kill you, Jennie.
Jennie: Haven’t you heard what I’ve bin tellin’ you? You got to kill me, Harry. An’ then him, you got ta kill him too. I swore I’d never tell, an’ now I did, and I told him you’d kill him.
Harry: (pause) I kill ya tomorra. (pause) Right now, you go up, get you some rest.
(Jennie goes into the kitchen, gets the kerosene lamp from the top of the shelf beside the sink, and lights it.)
Jennie: Oh! I did it again. You see what I did? I’m just not too bright, it’s true, Harry. Molly, she’s not ascared a bit. I don’t know why, everythin’ strikes me funny. Mr Bailey gets hailed out and you don’t. Luck a the Irish, (tries to laugh, turns to hallway. The sound of radio music, faint. Laughter) She’ll stay up all night, listenin’ ta the ends a the world.
Harry: Go to bed now, Jennie.
Jennie: Yes. Yes, I’m tired out. Good night, Harry. (exits into hall)
Harry: Good night, girl. (Jennie enters the bedroom and places the lamp on the bedside table. The light on the bedroom dims. Now we see only Harry. Harry comes into the kitchen. He has been holding himself in. He goes to the range, lifts a lid, puts in more kindling, replaces lid.) Oh Jesus!
(He places his right hand down, hard, on the hottest part of the range.)
ACT TWO, SCENE ONE
The bedroom, two nights later. Molly is finishing her tidying in the kitchen. The bedroom is dimly lit. Molly takes her apron off, looks around with satisfaction, and goes into the front room, turning off the light. The radio flares up, then becomes subdued, and then silent. Harry comes in from outside, wiping his boots on the scraper. He goes to turn on the light, then doesn’t. He takes off his jacket painfully. We can see the bandage about his right hand. He goes upstairs to the bedroom, enteres, then hesitates.
Harry: It’s been two days you stayed in bed, Jen. It’s not good for you. (cradles the burnt hand with his other hand) I know you’re not sleeping. Nobody could sleep so many hours and days away. You’re not asleep. (turns on the light)
Jennie: Don’t do that!
Harry: Come downstairs, Jennie.
Jennie: Things’re gettin’ done, aren’t they?
Harry: I didn’t mean that.
Jennie: She’s takin’ care of things, isn’t she?
Harry: Jennie, it’s no use, you can’t hide yourself away from it. (Harry sits on the bed. Jennie moves away from him) Something bad happened to you.
Jennie: It happened, so it happened, forget it.
Harry: (pause) No, you don’t forget something like that. But you can’t brood on it. You can’t just lie up here and brood on it.
Jennie: I want to die.
Harry: (angrily) Don’t talk like that! (pause) Things happen to people. Bad things. You can’t give in. You got to keep your hope.
Jennie: (turns, sits up, faces him, accusingly) How’d you burn your hand, Harry.
Harry: You’re not the only one things happen to. When I went into that place and I heard that gate go clang behind me, I thought I’d never make it, all those years without sky or dirt or to hear the river or the birds … God help me, I love the world, Jennie. I love the world. I love it all, the way the thunderhead comes up all dark and purple and the still before it breaks, everything holding its breath, I love it though it’ll flatten my field.
Jennie: I hate the world.
Harry: Don’t say that!
Jennie: I was your gift, Harry, I brought you luck. But he told you, the ony luck is the devil’s luck.
Harry: We can make our own luck. We can make a life.
Jennie: How did you burn your hand, Harry’.
Harry: I know how it is, at first. Black despair. Alone in a cage. Some old guy there, he said, first day, “You can do your time easy or you can do it hard. But whatever way you choose, you’ll do your time.” I’d’a been like you maybe, nobody got me up and out to march around the yard half hour a day. I hated that half hour at first. It was too little and too much. I wanted to go inside myself and never come out.
Jennie: Yes.
Harry: Jen.
Jennie: I feel so dirty.
Harry: (reaches out and puts his bandaged hand on her) Jen, come back.
Jennie: (grabs his bandaged hand and hurts it, so that he pulls away) Why’d you burn your hand, Harry? So you’d never have to touch me again! That’s it, i’n’t, Harry, so you never have to touch me any more.
Harry: No no no. Listen to me. Listen. Try to understand.
Jennie: I can’t understand, remember? I’m not too bright.
Harry: It’s I can’t understand it. It’s me, I can’t understand how it could happen. What happened at first, it’s ony nature. The Church says it’s bad, but it’s ony nature. But what happened after, what he did to you, I can’t understand how he did that. It’s even against the Church.
Jennie: And you forgive him, you’re that good a Christian, you forgive him?
Harry: I can’t understand him! I’m not God, to punish him! … I think I can’t be a Christian at all sometimes, I love the world too much.
Jennie: Oh no, you’re a big Christian, you forgive him, you forgive me. You burnt your hand you wouldn’t have to touch me. No … No, you burnt your hand you wouldn’t have to kill me …
Harry: (takes her by the shoulders and shakes her) Damn it, Jennie, you’re alive and life’s a miracle! The rest we can swallow.
Jennie: No no, so you wouldn’t have to kill him … That’s it, isn’t it, so you wouldn’t have to kill him!
Harry: (stops holding her) I think you should come downstairs now, Jennie.
Jennie: You coward.
Harry: Come downstairs now.
Jennie: What was you in prison for?
Harry: … You got to come downstairs again.
Jennie: I could start getting up half hour a day, march around …
Harry: If that’s all you can manage. You can’t stay up here forever.
Jennie: (pause) All right. I’ll get up like a prisoner, march around half hour a day. What did you do, Harry? What was you in prison for?
Harry: I’ll tell you one day.
Jennie: Lie down beside me, Harry. I’m so cold. (Harry lies down beside Jennie.) … I’m no good for anything.
Harry: Shh shh.
(Jennie puts her arms round him, then crawls over him, rubbing herself like an animal against his body. Harry tries to respond but can’t)
Jennie: You see? You can’t make love to me any more, Harry. I’m not a woman to you now.
Harry: It’s not that.
Jennie: I was your gift. But you’re cursed now, Harry. I’m your hoodoo. (a long wail of pain)
ACT TWO, SCENE TWO
Winter, just before Christmas. Harry sits in the armchair, staring out the storm door. The inner door is open, so he can see through the glassed outer door. He has a rifle beside him, leaning against the chair. A cold late blue afternoon coming on to evening. Molly comes in, dragging a pine tree, just chopped. She is very pregnant and somewhat awkward.
Molly: I got a tree. Fer Christmas. Thought I’d put it up.
Harry: Wondered where ya got to.
Molly: I strung berries too, see? (Molly shows him the dried berries strung for the tree, then starts to take off her outer clothing – boots, coat, leggings, toque, scarf, mittens.) Thought I’d better, before it really blows.
Harry: Yeah, she’s goingta turn tonight. Get real cold.
Molly: Yeah, (turns to the sink, sees the supper tray untouched; disgustedly) She didn’t eat nothin’ again? (scrapes the supper plate into the chicken can) Well, pigs eat good here. Chickens eat good this place! (pause) Ben Collette cleared road down.
Harry: Hunh. That’s Ben Collette all over, clear road down afore the big snow comes, (pause) Miss the bridge again?
Molly: (small laugh) No, he cleared it down to the gate, right down, he didn’t hit the bridge this time. But it’s comin’ all right, you kin feel it. (shivers, puts kindling into stove p
art of the range)
Harry: Trust Ben Collette to clear road down just before Hell freezes over.
Molly: Yeah, we’re goingta be snowed in all right, (goes to the box of kindling beside the door)
Harry: Don’t stand in my way, Molly! I see that bastard I might shoot you instead!
Molly: Oh Mister McGrane. (Sits down at the kitchen table and begins to pick at the wood with her fingers.)
Harry: Oh go listen to radio, Molly. Don’t pick at the table. You picked that table inta slivers.
Molly: You’re always after me! An’ I got th’ tree fer Christmas an’ everythin’! (pause) It’s like livin’ in a tomb!
Harry: (pause) Sorry. Go listen to the radio, Molly.
Molly: I thought maybe we could decorate the tree together. I found the ornaments from last year.
Harry: I got to watch fer that coyote. Maybe later.
Molly: Ony, I couldn’t find the little stand, fer the tree …
Harry: I’ll get it.
Molly: It’s drippin’ there.
(Molly indicates the tree. Harry looks at her. She sighs, gets up, goes into the hall and exits. After a while, faintly, we hear Christmas carols, hut they fade out almost immediately. Jennie turns up the kerosene lamp in the bedroom. Her hair is all about her face, wild. She is in a dirty flannelette nightgown, and the buttons are undone between her breasts. She doesn’t put on slippers. She takes the lamp and comes downstairs. She stands in the doorway for a moment and then puts the lamp on the side of the sink. Harry is aware of her presence but does not look back at her.)
Jennie: What’s that drippin’ all over my clean floor!
Harry: It’s Christmas tree. Molly brung it in.
Jennie: Drippin’ all over my clean floor.
(Jennie goes into the pantry and brings back a bucket, a cloth and a can of Arm and Hammer lye. She fills the bucket with hot water from the boiler part of the stove, and pours lye into the bucket. She dips a cloth in and wrings it out. It must be very hot and very painful, but she does not wince. She washes up around the tree.)
Jennie: Rubbish – she’s always bringin’ in rubbish! Rubbish. Filthy rubbish. I don’t want that girl here no more, Harry. She brings in filth.
Harry: She’s a good worker.
Jennie: I don’t want that girl here. She’s not clean.
Harry: Ony tryin’ ta brighten things up. Fer Christmas.
Jennie: Whole Dorval family, it’s not clean, (stands up) What’re you readin? (scornfully) ’Nother poem?
Harry: No. I’m keepin’ eye out fer that coyote’s been pickin’ off my chickens.
Jennie: I see the rifle, Harry. I know what the rifle’s for. (scornfully) But I see the book too. Read me a poem, or am I too stupid to understand?
Harry: (takes the book from beside him, and reads) “The world is charged with the grandeur of God. It will flame out, like shining from shook foil…”
Jennie: That’s stupid. Shining from shook foil. That don’t mean nothin’. That priest wrote that too, didn’t he?
Harry: I think it’s like, you know, the tin foil you get when you get a new tractor part … and you know … when you shake it off… and it shines … we got some in th’ pantry, we could make a star a it, fer tree … I don’t understand it myself, Jennie, I just like the sound of it.
Jennie: (back at the sink with the bucket, bangs the supper tray and plate)
She calls that supper? I call that pigs’ slop.
Harry: If you want I kin take her home. But I better do it now, the road’s still clear.
Jennie: That’s what I want. I’m better now. I kin come back downstairs now. I kin run yer house. I kin clean yer place. I kin cook yer food. I’m bright enough fer that!
Harry: Jennie, ever’ night you come down, you say the same thing.
Jennie: Ever’ night I got to come down and clean up filth!
Harry: Then come downstairs and take care a things yourself!
Jennie: Why won’t you kill me. (Harry sighs, turns away to look out the door.) Yer hand’s better now. So kill me.
Harry: ’N have you on my conscience too?
Jennie: That’s more important, isn’t it? To be right with God. You wouldn’t like ta hafta confess that, would you? That’d be a big penance, wouldn’t it? That might take a whole long winter ta get through, (laughs)
Harry: I think it would be better you come downstairs again.
Jennie: (takes the bucket up and scrubs again at the floor where the tree is still dripping) Oh, I’ll come downstairs agin. I’ll do it. I can do it. I did fer Mrs Finlay at th’ United Church and she said I was th’ best girl she ever had. And the Father. No one heard any complaints. Plate ledge clean. Run her finger over it, white glove ’n all. Not a speck.
Harry: We bin over it and over it.
Jennie: Then shoot me. You got yer rifle. Shoot me.
Harry: I’m waitin’ fer that coyote. He’s bin pickin’ off my chickens. An’ not just the soup hens, the layin’ hens. I think it’s not just a coyote. I think it’s half ol’ Boulanger’s Sandy, half coyote. People say they can’t breed, dogs and coyotes, but that damned bugger, he comes right up, he’s got a layin’ hen right in his teeth, squawkin’! And he gives me a grin, right ’round hen, gives me a grin just like ol’ Boulanger’s Sandy. Coyote’s not that bold. I’d bet on it.
Jennie: Kill me and marry Molly, why not. That’d suit you. You could have yer baby then. Not yer baby, but a baby. A bastard’s better’n nothin’.
Harry: (tiredly) We could both have Molly’s baby. I told you.
Jennie: You told Molly?
Harry: What’s she goingta do, a girl fifteen with a baby.
Jennie: She’s goingta sit naked ina underground river, with icicles in her eyes ’n hair and laugh ’n sing, though the snows come. (laughs)
Harry: She told you that story, did she?
Jennie: Yes. She told me that story. Too.
Harry: I went to her room that night, she was scared. First night away from her ma. An’ she’d just found out. She wouldn’t say what it was, I just thought she was homesick. I never bin in her room since.
Jennie: That slut’s scared a nothin’.
Harry: Ever’body’s scared.
Jennie: And Molly kin have more, after this one. And you like her. I kin tell. She’s like a pig, a big fat pig. I’m not stupid, you know, I can see what I can see.
Harry: That wasn’t me said you were stupid!
Jennie: (overlaps the above) You allus said I was stupid!
Harry: (overlaps) That wasn’t me!
Jennie: I can’t kill myself because you made me swear. All the men I ever knew made me swear. Take care a yer ma. Take care a Ben. Take care a th’ farm, don’t lose the farm. Be a good girl. Swear. Never tell. Swear. Don’t kill thyself, swear, that’s despair, that’s a sin, that’s the worst sin. (laughs)
Harry: Stop it, you’ll make me hate you.
Jennie: He doesn’t know, that’s what I said. He doesn’t know, I said. Because if Harry knew, he’d kill you. That’s what I told him. Harry would kill you.
Harry: He’s just a man.
Jennie: I want you to kill him.
Harry: That’s what you want.
Jennie: Yes. That’s what I want.
Harry: That’ll make us a baby.
Jennie: Here, give it to me! (grabs the rifle from him)
Harry: You do it, you do it right. You got to cock it first, (cocks it for her) Then look through that little “v” on the top. Don’t close yer eyes, ’n hold tight to yer shoulder. No, ya got ta sight it with yer eye through that little “v” an’ aim fer here. (Points to his heart. Jennie, in self disgust, pushes the rifle back at him. He takes it casually, and leans it against the chair)
Harry: I never meant to come back to this place. This wasn’t a happy place. My old man, he was a bully. He beat Jamie so bad, Jamie was never right in the head. Irish temper, they said, as if it was somethin’ ta be proud of. Like luck. But it’s the pre
ttiest place the whole river valley. ’N th’ Indian rings. Funny. Even I call them that ’n know better. No, they was people livin’ this place hundreds a thousands a years ago maybe. Before the Blackfoot, before the Peigan, before the Blood. Older people. The ones done them stone drawings down on Milk River. You take a canoe and come down Milk River and you make it a day’s trip, every night fall, up on the butte, there’s Indian rings. One day’s journey by canoe. I made it three days once and every time I found them. I always had it in mind, I’d do the whole river. They was some kinda calendar, or almanac, I think. Sometimes I think a them people layin’ out the stones ta tell time with. People living here in this river valley. Lookin’ up at the stars. Waitin’ out the cold. Waitin’ fer the spring break-up. Buildin’ fires ta keep warm. One day I had those damn cows a Bailey’s over my side and I goes ta drive them back, and they’re there, right in the middle a th’Indian rings. It’s early on, just afore sunup, and it’s spring. It’s the first day a spring, and I’m in there, in the middle, lined up with one a them big stones, you know how they’s four big stones placed just so, north, south, east, west? Anyways, I’m lined up, and the sun starts ta come up, and God! Jennie! The sun was lined up right over that damn big stone! I could see it comin’ all around that stone, like rays. Like hair on fire. An’ the stone, big an’ black, holdin’ it back, right in the centre a the sun. It was like lookin’ inta the heart a the sun.
Jennie: Where’d they go, those old people.
Harry: (shakes his head) I figure it must happen four times a year like that.
I always meant to do that too, go back, in the summer, ’n the fall, ’n the deep a winter. Now. Tomorrow, (pause) I killed a man once. I done it already. That’s what I was put in prison for. It’s easy to kill a man. We can make a life. We can still make a life, (pause) I like it you let your hair go loose like that.
Jennie: I got long hair. I never once cut my hair.
Harry: First think I ever noticed saw you in church that Sunday. Never mind how she’s braided it tight ’round her head, I says, never mind, that girl’s got lots a hair and it escapes her, no matter what.