Cardinal Divide

by Nina Newington

  “She was a tireless campaigner, Miss Binnie-Clark. After her second winter on the farm she went off to Ottawa to raise the matter. To no avail. By the time we met, her focus had shifted to passing on her skills and knowledge. Most of the good land had been claimed by then anyway.”

  He stares down at the book in his hand then sets it aside. “She gave me something far more valuable than information. She gave me confidence. I’d seen with my own eyes a woman doing what people said could not be done. Her whole motto was, ‘If I can do it, you can do it too.’ Which was and wasn’t true. Like Dorothy she was possessed of a rare drive and determination and courage. Like Dorothy, she gave herself entirely to the work at hand. There was no saving herself, no scrimping of her energies. No hoarding, you know?” He looks at me, waiting until I meet his eyes. “It’s not worth living at half-strength.”

  Slowly I nod.

  The lamb is luscious, as good as any I’ve ever eaten. Neither of us says anything until our plates are completely clean. “No wonder you didn’t want to miss that,” I say.

  Dad nods. “I’m a lucky ... person.”

  I look at him. He gazes blandly back at me.

  “So what was she like, Miss Binnie-Clark?”

  “Wonderful with animals. With people, relentless. Imperious. I think she had to be, to do what she did. She’d come out from England in 1905 to check on her younger brother. Reading between the lines, he was one of those remittance men who’d got into some sort of embarrassment in the old country. He and a friend were making a wretched go of homesteading. They were by way of being a local laughing stock. She decided that she should restore the family name by buying a farm and doing the job properly. She managed to seal the deal a day before a telegram arrived from her father ordering her to do no such thing.

  “No one expected her to make it through that first Saskatchewan winter, by herself on the farm, gathering firewood and tending her animals. But she did, and she stuck to it.”

  He looks at me. “I was never made of such strong stuff. I went around my difficulties. Georgina, Dorothy, they confronted them. I’m not sure either of them ever told a lie. Not knowingly. Whereas I ...” He shrugs. “Well, I did what I thought I had to, to survive. But I admired the heroes. The heroines. Still do.”

  His eyes drift to the window. The dark glass gives back the room, the two of us sitting in our armchairs, the pot of tea. A simple, ancient scene, stuff of a thousand sentimental prints.

  Chapter Twenty

  THEN CAME THE sound of wheels. A buggy drawn by a little Canadian pony, prairie-bred and fearless as fast, flew on its way between fences of flame until it reached the black waste of our own making which no flame could leap. It was Roddy McMahon, and his wife was with him, and her baby in her arms and two small children in the bottom of the buggy.

  ‘So you burned the old guard,’ he commented. ‘’Twas a wise act. You’ve saved a burn-out all right.’

  ‘The fires will meet in the dip by the gateway and extinguish each other,’ I answered, ‘but there’s still a wide opening to the worst danger.’

  I set the book down on the little shelf by the bed, reach back and turn off the light, the settlers’ voices echoing in my ears. But when I shut my eyes, flames leap and embrace each other.

  When I open them, cool silver light is pouring in through the windows. I slither down the bed, kneel in front of the glass, blankets draped around my shoulders. A three-quarter moon sails across the sky. Snow-capped peaks lap the horizon.

  Georgina, Dorothy, Charlotte, living their full-strength lives. And me? Am I living at half-strength? Is that what Dad thinks? It was a lot easier to have life and death adventures on the prairies in early nineteen hundreds. But what’s Dreamcatcher if not full strength? Maybe that’s what I like about it. Except I’m always one step removed. Jay and Tanya, they’re like Dad. Quick. Instinctive. Me, my flames extinguish each other.

  There’s a stillness in me then. I don’t know what it means but it’s true. And I don’t know how to change.

  I went around my difficulties.

  Dad doesn’t think he’s a hero.

  Heroes confront. Confront what?

  Their difficulties, of course.

  Fuck. This isn’t getting me anywhere. I stare out at the moon, a freckled face framed by night-black hair.

  I wake before dawn, tiptoe down the steep stairs, but when I get to the bottom there’s a glow from the living room. The lamp behind the Morris chair is on. Dad, in his old dressing gown and striped pyjamas, is sitting in the circle of yellow light, reading the paper.

  He looks up and smiles. “Good morning. You’re up early.”

  “Morning, Dad.”

  “Tea?”

  “I’ll make some fresh.”

  Standing in the kitchen, waiting for the kettle to boil, watching him read in that quiet room, my heart feels too big for my chest. All the years he and Mum sat there, and now he gets up alone, pads about, making tea for himself.

  When I go back in, his eyes are on the mountains. At the skyline a slight primrose glow traces the meeting of rock and air.

  I stare, bemused. “That’s not ...”

  “It’s the moon setting. The hunter’s moon. It always seems to be particularly big and bright, this time of year.”

  The glow fades from the horizon.

  After a while I ask, “Will you go on with your story?”

  “Where was I?”

  “At Miss Binnie-Clark’s.”

  He doesn’t hesitate. “Before the war she’d made the farm a sort of teaching station for young women from England, girls who wanted to learn to farm. Because it was a way they could make a living. The professions were closed to them but if a woman could acquire some land, who was to stop her growing crops or raising livestock?

  “After the war, though, the supply of Roedean girls dried up. Educated women had other ways to make a living. The few women who did come kept finding husbands. It was a grave disappointment to Georgina.”

  “Who had no interest in a husband of her own?”

  “Not that I ever saw. She liked her freedom.”

  “You got along well?”

  “Very. She was determined that I should have the skills she lacked when she started to farm. She’d been at the mercy of a succession of hired men and had come to the firm conclusion that any woman who wanted to farm should do all her own chores then hire a field labourer by the day when she needed him, even if she had to pay top dollar. By dint of taking my vacations at different times in the growing season, I learned how to break, plough, harrow and stook a field; harness a horse; milk a cow; feed and water the stock; clean and pickle seed grain; cut firewood and keep good accounts of the whole operation. I didn’t have much patience for the book-keeping but I loved the rest. It was what I was made to do. In her company, I believed somehow I would find a way. Back in Regina, well, it was harder to imagine.”

  “What year did you go to the farm?”

  “1926. I went again in ‘27 and ‘28.”

  “And then, in two more years, you were thirty.”

  “Are you going to stay the night again?”

  “I wasn’t. I’d like to catch the farmer’s market this morning to see if I can get some fresher flour. But I don’t have to. If you’re going to pony up.”

  He considers me, a smile in his eyes. “I think perhaps I’ve told you enough for this visit.”

  “Scheherazade.”

  He grins.

  “I left Wheat and Woman upstairs. Do you want it down here?”

  “No, that’s fine.”

  “It’s almost as good as Jack London.” I gather up my stuff and pull on my boots. “Thanks, Dad.”

  “I like having you here,” he says.

  Outside the wind is icy.

  “Drive carefully.” He’s standing in the doorway, one veiny hand on the black cane. “Phone me when you get home.”

  He’s never asked me to do that before. I watch through the window as he makes h
is way back to the armchair. He looks small suddenly, his head further forward, a hump above the back of his neck. Widow’s hump.

  By the car I hesitate. But what am I going to say if I go back in?

  At the end of the driveway one of the brothers waves. No, he’s flagging me down.

  I wind down the window.

  It’s Manfred with a newspaper under his arm. “Morning, Meg. How you doing?”

  “Good. You?”

  “Very good. How was your visit?”

  “Good.” If it’s any of his business.

  “We were wondering whether, next time you come, you would stop in to see us. There is something we’d like to discuss.”

  “We could talk now.”

  He looks alarmed. “No, no. Next time would be soon enough.”

  “All right then. I’ll be back mid-week, depending on my work schedule.”

  “Very good.” He turns away.

  Come on, Meg, you can do it. “Manfred.”

  He pauses.

  “Thank Victor, if you would, for all the delicious meals.”

  He nods.

  I watch him walk away. Skinny butt, dusty blue jeans. He takes off his ball cap, rubs the palm of his hand across the bald dome of his skull a couple of times, puts the cap back on.

  Chapter Twenty One

  VOICES WASH OVER me; throngs of shoppers crowd around; a homeless man sells me a newspaper. I jostle past the stall with the birch syrup, past puffy, tasteless loaves and rolls, past lurid scarves and toques, orange and black the theme of the day. Nobody is selling flour. I come to a stop in front of a new stall. Vats of pink pickled vegetables. Tubs of white, soft yogurty-looking balls in oil, sprinkled with herbs and some kind of red powder. “Labneh,” the woman behind the counter says, “with sumac.” She points to a basket of pita cut up into triangles. “Try, please.”

  I hold out a wedge and she smears some of the white paste onto it.

  “It’s delicious,” a voice says over my shoulder.

  I turn. Doug’s smiling down at me, a basket in each hand.

  I put the pita in my mouth. It’s half way between cheese and yogurt, the labneh. The red powder isn’t hot, it’s lemony. “Yum,” I say to the woman who’s watching me, smiling. For a moment we’re all three floating in a little bubble of friendliness, then somebody nudges me, reaching for the basket of pita samples.

  “I’ll get one of those please.” I point to the labneh. To Doug I say, “What else do you recommend?”

  “I only discovered this place last week. I’m going to try those.” He points to the pink vegetables.

  “What are they?”

  “Pickled turnips, maybe.”

  “Are there other new stalls I should know about?”

  “Have you tried the Vietnamese one?”

  “The seafood pancakes?”

  “It’s early enough there are some seats free.” Doug nods at the collection of picnic tables in the centre of the hall.

  “And she does run out sometimes.”

  Neither of us says anything until we’ve cleaned our paper plates.

  “God those are good,” I say.

  Doug’s licking his fingers. “The only thing I ever regret,” he says ...

  “Is not having another one,” I finish. “Moderation never having been a strong point.”

  “You’re sober too, aren’t you?” he asks.

  “Nineteen years. You?”

  “Twenty five. So how did you end up working at Dreamcatcher?”

  “Somebody at a meeting suggested I apply.”

  He’s looking at me, a smile in his brown eyes.

  “Oh, you want the longer story.”

  “If you don’t mind.”

  People come and go, drinking coffee, resting their feet, reading the free papers scattered across the tables. The roar of voices wraps around us. It feels oddly private. And as if I’ve known him for a while. Being in program can do that, even if we’ve never seen each other at a meeting.

  “Three years ago I decided to conduct an experiment. I was sixteen years sober but still thrashing around. I mean I had a job, a real job, full-time, benefits. A live-in boyfriend. Owned my own house. But I couldn’t settle. People I got sober with, they had good, orderly lives. And they were happy. Contented. Serene. So I decided to act as if everything in my life was exactly the way it was meant to be.”

  “Acceptance is the answer to all my problems,” Doug murmurs.

  “My job, my parents, my relationship, my past, all perfect as they are.”

  “What happened?”

  “My life got better. I felt happier. Steadier in myself. My boyfriend and I got on better. I thought maybe I was finally becoming a grown-up.”

  “And then?”

  “Then my mother died. Out of the blue. I mean, she was eighty-eight but ...” I shrug.

  Doug’s watching me.

  “A week after she died I woke up knowing three things. My job is meaningless. I don’t love the man in my bed. The third one’s a longer story.”

  He nods. “So what did you do?”

  “I went back into therapy.”

  He snorts with laughter. “Sorry.”

  “No, it was meant to be funny, sort of. My mother left me some money which was totally unexpected. When it actually arrived in my bank account I paid off my mortgage, quit my job, terminated therapy. And my relationship. A couple of weeks after that I bumped into Heather at a meeting. I knew her to say hello to. She told me Dreamcatcher was hiring evening staff. ‘Shit pay but meaningful’ was how she put it. Something in me said ‘yes’, so I applied. What about you?”

  “Mine’s a longer story too, and I need to pick up the kids, who are part of that story.” He twists around to look at the clock on the back wall. “Maybe we could do this again?”

  “I’d like that.”

  Chapter Twenty Two

  I STAND, HAND on the gate, breathing in the sage scented air. Out on the floor there’s laughter, the click and trickle of a ping pong ball.

  “Seen Doug?” Heather asks me.

  I shake my head.

  “He’s signed in.”

  “Cathy,” Doug says, rounding the north flank of the dome. “She lost my paperwork.”

  “Ah,” says Heather, smiling at him. She’s wearing jeans with rhinestones sown on the rear pocket and a dove grey turtleneck that looks soft as rabbit fur.

  Doug smiles down at her. He’s wearing the same ancient khaki jacket. Something orange pokes out of one of the pockets. Baling twine. Horses? It’s easy to picture him in the saddle, relaxed and upright.

  “And how are you, Meg?”

  “Good, thanks. You?”

  He’s smiling at me now. “Very good.” Reaching for a pen he fills in the log.

  1st November

  16:00–24:00 Doug, Heather, Meg

  16:10 Doug on the floor

  “It’s as if he never left,” Heather says, watching him chat to one client then another. “Sometimes I think nobody ever gets away from this place.”

  “Unless they quit after three days.”

  “Or never show up for a shift in the first place.”

  There have been a couple of those in the brief time I’ve worked here. Guys recommended by the Executive Director, both of them. I try to ignore what passes for management at Dreamcatcher. It seems to fit every stereotype about aboriginal organizations. But then my old whiter-than-white job wasn’t exactly free of cronyism.

  Heather turns on the computer. I look over her shoulder. An entry from Cathy for noon today. A session with five of the girls. They’re opening up about their abuse.

  “Cathy’s in on a Sunday?”

  “Place can’t run without her,” Heather says. “You know that. Woman’s a candidate for Al-Anon if ever there was one.”

  “Who is?” Doug says from the doorway.

  “Cathy. She’s setting herself up for burn out. I’ve tried to tell her.” Heather shrugs. “Well, that’s her business. What both
ers me is the bee she’s got in her bonnet that the clients need to talk about their abuse issues.”

  “Well, don’t they?” Doug asks.

  “Yes. When they’re ready, with their counsellor. But she’s been getting together little groups, encouraging them to dig up the old shit.” Heather tips her chin at the computer. “She’s not trained. She was a private in the Canadian Forces. For twenty years. You know how thick you have to be, not to get promoted in twenty years?”

  “She means well,” Doug says.

  Heather opens her mouth, closes it again. Waspish is how she looks. A word in a book Dad read to me. I pictured a yellow jacket arching its back. About to sting.

  “Hey Doug, want to play?” One of the new clients, a young guy with buzz cut black hair and wide-set eyes, waves a table tennis bat across the front desk. “They let you out of the staff corral?”

  “The staff corral,” Doug says. “I like it. Did you make that up, Joey?”

  He shakes his head. “James did.”

  He and Doug stroll off toward the table tennis tables, Joey in step with Doug, his walk acquiring the same easy amble.

  “Poor little fuck,” Heather says. They’re scarcely out of earshot. “What chance does he have? Foetal Alcohol Syndrome. Oh, excuse me, it’s Foetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder these days. However you dress it up, he’s got no attention span, no impulse control. Must be his sixth time through here.” She shakes her head, mouth pursed.

  “I’ll do a room check,” I say. No answer when I knock on Danielle’s door but when I nudge it open a sleepy voice says “Hello.”

  “Sorry. I didn’t mean to wake you up.”

  “That you, Meg?”

  “It is.”

  “Do you have time to talk?”

  “Sure.”

  Danielle struggles upright and turns on the bedside lamp. She waves a hand at the other bed. The Bible with its purple velvet page marker is by her pillow. Danielle rubs her eyes with her fists, hair mussed. She follows my gaze. “I took that Bible everywhere,” she says. “On the street, everywhere. I don’t know what I’d do if I lost it. They gave it to me when I was thirteen. That’s how old I was when I accepted Jesus Christ as my personal saviour.” She starts to cry. “He spared my life through all the crazy shit I did, for a reason. I know that. And I know I got to be sober to do what He wants me to do. Which will be revealed to me.” She reaches for the box of tissues, blows her nose with a loud, wet snort.