Cardinal Divide

by Nina Newington

“But you bake bread. I remember that loaf you brought in. I was quite impressed.”

  “You were? I thought you thought I was daft.”

  “Well, you’ll never see me doing it but I was impressed.”

  “By what?” Doug steps into the office.

  “Meg’s baking.”

  “Me too.” His eyes smile.

  My mouth goes dry.

  Chapter Seventy Three

  “I’M GLAD I caught you.”

  “Coffee?”

  “Yes, please.” Doug holds out a paper bag.

  I peer inside, raise my eyebrows.

  “New vendor.”

  “Have a seat.”

  He settles into the corner of the chesterfield. “Do you mind if I just stare blankly for a moment?”

  “Tired?”

  “I took the girls to the Farmer’s Market this morning. The funeral’s this afternoon.”

  When we’ve dunked our croissants and sipped enough coffee Doug says, “Theresa Laboucan’s aunt, Louise, called me.”

  “Oh.”

  He looks at me. “Are you okay?”

  No but I say, “Yes. So?”

  “The short version is, you’re not Theresa.”

  “Oh.”

  “Disappointed?”

  “You’re sure?”

  “Theresa is alive and well, married to a U.S. Navy SEAL. Two kids. They live in Pensacola, Florida.”

  “Oh.”

  “It was a short conversation. Sarah told Louise about the attempt to reunite the family. Louise called Theresa. Theresa’s answer was ‘No, thanks.’”

  “That was it?”

  “I didn’t get the feeling that the name of Daniel Laboucan evoked warm feelings.”

  “Poor Danielle. It might have been nice for her to have some other relatives.”

  He studies me. “What about you?”

  I shrug. “It was like opening a door into somebody else’s house, the whole Danielle thing. I thought if it was true, I’d feel different, knowing these were my people. But they aren’t, so that’s that. End of story.”

  Doug’s sitting there, looking at me.

  “What?” I sound irritated. I am irritated. “Look, the childhood I remember was in this quiet, orderly, kind home. As it turns out, it wasn’t quite the way it seemed but that was still my experience. I look at Danielle’s family, I listen to the stories, the violence and tragedy and loss and poverty ... I know this sounds terrible. It’s not their fault that their lives are such a mess. All the awful shit that was done to Native people is why things are the way they are. But it’s still a mess, a huge, horrible, intractable mess like everything else now, the planet, what we’re doing ... I don’t know how to finish this sentence.”

  “Back to you, maybe.” Doug’s voice is mild.

  I close my eyes. He’s right. This is bullshit.

  “Meg.”

  I open my eyes. He looks worried.

  “I need to go. The girls want me to be with them.”

  And their mother, and their grandmother. “Of course,” I say.

  “Are you okay?”

  “Yes.” I stand up. “Thanks, Doug.”

  Chapter Seventy Four

  PUSHING OPEN THE front door I call out, “Dad, it’s Meg.” Still no answer. His boots are missing. And the battered old barn coat he’s taken to calling his smoking jacket. Outside again I sniff the air.

  He’s on the east side of the house, on a bench I’ve never seen before, head tilted back. The morning sun gilds his hair and skin. The pipe smoulders in his right hand.

  “Hello, Dad.”

  He turns and his face creases into a smile.

  “Hello, Meg.” He slides over, pats the spot next to him. “What a nice surprise. Come and try out Manfred’s latest.” I don’t move. “Has something happened?”

  I shake my head, say exactly what I rehearsed in the car. “Dad, it’s time for you to tell me where your name comes from. Because it’s my name too. It’s the only name I’ve got.”

  He studies my face, eyes melt-water blue in the sunlight. Then he looks away. There’s not much of a view to the east. Mostly sky and scrubby pines. After a moment he nods. “Very well. But let me tell this in my own way.”

  I sit down next to him.

  He puts his pipe to his lips, draws on it until the tobacco glows, then exhales. When there can’t be anything left in his lungs, he says, “It was the second of November, 1918. I was driving the wounded from a field dressing station to the field hospital, further back behind the lines. We were shelled. The nurse and two of the wounded were killed. One soldier survived, barely. A young infantryman. He had burns to his face and one arm already. They’d only just brought him in to the field hospital when I arrived. We loaded him onto the ambulance. He was in terrible pain.”

  Dad’s tone is level but there’s a twitch under one eye.

  “Now he had a jagged gash to his thigh, blood pumping out. The ambulance caught fire. I dragged him clear. He was screaming. It was raining, a cold hard rain. Near dark. I tied a rough tourniquet above the wound. Fifty feet away I saw a rotting shed.

  I got him to his feet, took most of his weight on the side that wasn’t burned. He helped, hopping on his good leg. He was shorter than me and slight. Mousy hair, fine features. Just a boy. When the petrol tank blew it knocked us both over. We crawled the last few yards. It was an old pig shed, by the smell of it, but at least it was dry. Things scuttled around in the dark. I could hear his teeth chattering.

  “I sat down next to him. It was all I had to give him, my own body’s warmth. I knew I should keep him awake.

  “‘What’s your name?’

  “He didn’t speak but his fingers started scrabbling at his neck.

  “‘Can I help you?’ I thought perhaps he was reaching for a crucifix.

  “He got a hold of something, pulled it over his head. ‘I’m dying, aren’t I?’ A high, rasping voice.

  “I reached down and touched the tourniquet. It was warm and wet.

  “‘Please.’

  “He held whatever it was out to me. The cord with his identity discs on it, by the feel. Now he was fumbling at the front of his tunic.

  “‘Let me help you.’ He must have been in agony. Someone had cut away the left sleeve of his jacket. I could smell them, the burns.”

  Dad’s holding the bowl of his pipe in his right hand. He looks down at it then back out at the sky.

  “I reached over, tried with one hand but I couldn’t get the buttons so I turned and knelt and undid them with both hands. I was holding my breath against the smell.

  “He reached into the inside breast pocket, took something out. He pressed it into my hands. “‘Please.’ He sounded desperate.

  “It was a pouch of some sort. Oilcloth.

  “‘I’m dying, aren’t I? Aren’t I?’

  “‘I think so.’

  “‘Will you do me a favour?’”

  Dad’s eyes flick sideways to me. “The words were so incongruous I almost laughed. ‘Of course.’

  “‘The things I gave you, get rid of them. And when ... and when I’m dead, take off my uniform. Get rid of it.’

  “‘But your family ...’

  “‘My parents are dead. It’s just my brother and me. Please.’

  “‘But what about him? Not to know ...’

  “‘Please.’

  “I sat in the dark in that stinking pig shed beside a dying man. I could say yes, decide later. But I couldn’t. I couldn’t lie to him.

  “He started to cry, half whimpering, half sobbing. ‘They’ll find out. They’ll find out and they’ll shoot him.’

  “‘Who? Who will they shoot?’

  “‘My brother.’ I thought he was rambling but his voice got stronger. ‘Everyone kept asking him, “When are you going to join up?” He ignored them. But when we turned eighteen, he got his papers. He was so scared. It was so stupid. I wanted to go. To serve my King and country.’

  “‘I don’t under
stand.’

  “He didn’t say anything for a while. I could hear the rain drumming on the roof tiles. Rats scuttling. The shed shook when the mortars pounded. For all I knew the Germans were advancing. We weren’t far from the front. But there wasn’t anything to do about that. We could have been in one of the observation balloons they sent up above the front. Or in a life raft, the two of us alone in a sea of war.

  “Eventually he said, ‘We used to pretend to be each other. Dress up in each other’s clothes. He even got a wig. I put my hair up under a cap. We walked down the main street of the town near where we lived. It was fun. He ... he told me once if he could, he’d be me always.’

  “That’s when I understood.

  “She must have felt my astonishment. She said with a quaver, ‘Well, now he can.’ ”

  “Wait a minute. The soldier was a girl?”

  Dad nods.

  “And nobody knew?” He doesn’t answer. ‘Her brother’s name was Ben Coopworth?”

  “Yes.”

  “What was her first name?”

  “I don’t know. She wouldn’t say. Sometime in the night I must have fallen asleep. When I woke she was dead. At dawn I took the uniform off her body. Took everything. I left her naked, nameless body in that rat-infested shed. If there had been a shovel. Anything. I scraped together what straw there was. Walking away that morning. I was carrying the uniform. Stiff with blood. I kept seeing her body, gleaming, pale, like the belly of a fish. I was walking away from the shelling but I came across old trenches. I don’t even know if they were our trenches. I dropped the uniform into one. Kept walking. Eventually somebody saw me. I was given a lift to the field hospital I’d been trying to reach. Reported that the ambulance had gone up in flames. I was the only survivor.”

  He reaches in his pocket, pulls out his knife, opens the small blade. He scrapes the bowl of the pipe into the palm of his hand. He’s frowning down at the charred tobacco. His hand is pale, knobbled with blue veins.

  “What was in the pouch?”

  “His papers.”

  “You kept them?”

  “The identification discs too. I wasn’t easy in my mind about what I’d done.”

  I let out a breath I didn’t know I was holding. “So you didn’t plan to use them yourself?”

  “Back then?” He stares at me, eyes hard. “No, I did not.”

  I don’t say anything.

  After a moment he says, “Shall we go in?”

  I nod, aware suddenly I’m shivering.

  I stare out the window. Blackened stalks of sunflowers lean, heads bowed. The kettle shuts itself off.

  As soon as I sit down, Dad says, “Ask what you need to ask.”

  I don’t know where to start. After a moment I say, “How could she possibly have got away with it? I mean they must have had medical exams. The recruits. I don’t imagine the barracks had private showers.”

  He’s shaking his head. “I asked her. In the night. Trying to keep us both awake. She was rambling mostly but now and then she’d be clear as a bell. As far as I could make out, at the end of their training, the recruits got a couple of days’ home leave before they shipped out. After the leave, she reported at the train station in his place. Nobody gave her a second glance. She said a number of times how much alike they looked.”

  “But Dad, she went to war with no training at all, with men she was supposed to know.”

  “And she died a week later. They didn’t know, either of them, what she was getting into. Nobody knew, unless they’d been there. You could get on a train at Victoria station, be in hell in hours.”

  “But if she got caught. When she got caught ...”

  “He would have been court-martialled and shot. If they’d been able to find him. I don’t know what would have happened to her. I don’t imagine they thought it through. It was an idea that took on a life of its own. I suspect she’d always been his protector. She told me several times how frightened he was. And that she was older than him. By three minutes. They were only eighteen and alone in the world. You can do some stupid things. I wasn’t quite eighteen myself and I’d just done something equally impulsive. Something that changed my whole life.”

  “Going off and driving an ambulance isn’t the same.”

  “No but I understood how you could have an idea and just act on it.”

  I look at him, at the shock of white hair, the craggy nose, deep grooves around his mouth. It did always amaze me, how fast his reactions were.

  “Okay, so the other bit that seems incredible is the coincidence. You becoming a man too.”

  “But it wasn’t a coincidence. I’ve thought about this quite a lot lately. It must have made it easier for me to act. On the idea of passing myself off as a man. I don’t mean the practicality of having papers. That didn’t feature much in my thinking back then. Because it was just a temporary measure. To solve a problem.”

  “What, then?”

  “Well, I’d seen it with my own eyes. That it was possible.” He looks at me. “Most days, for the last seventy years, I’ve thought about her. Just for a moment. I’d do it again, you know.”

  “What about the brother? The real Ben Coopworth.”

  Dad shrugs. “I imagine he was living somewhere as his sister.”

  “You didn’t try to find him?”

  “She wouldn’t have wanted me to.”

  He picks up his mug of tea, takes a sip.

  Finally I say, “So that’s it. That’s the story of my name. My last name. And Meg?”

  “Was the aunt who gave Polly the fare to leave home.”

  “Mum never told me that. She just said she liked the name. Why didn’t she tell me that?”

  Dad shrugs again.

  Something boils up in me. “Why are there so many damn secrets?”

  No answer.

  “Okay, while we’re on the subject of mysteries, where do you think Mum got all that money from?”

  He looks at me for a long moment then he says, “I told you, I don’t know. It’s time you went back to the city.”

  “You’re telling me to leave?”

  “Yes.” He closes his eyes. It’s as if the flesh has melted from his face.

  “Dad.”

  “Please go.”

  Chapter Seventy Five

  I PULL OVER in Stony Plain. Lean my forehead on the wheel. I want a drink. It’s the loudest thing in my head. I just fucking want a drink. And why, look, here I am in front of a liquor store. Isn’t that just dandy? Everything is shit and I want a drink.

  A drink?

  Fuck off.

  Just the one?

  I can taste it. Warm brown burn. No, of course it’s not going to be one fucking drink. I’ll drink the bottle. Then another. Blow up my life. What life? What the fuck is there anyway? I’m forty-two, can’t keep a boyfriend, can’t keep a job.

  Whoa. Get out the violins.

  Fuck off.

  Poor me, poor me ...

  Pour me a fucking drink, okay? I turn off the engine, pull the key from the ignition.

  Shit. I’m going to do this. God. Whatever ... I’m shaking.

  Meggie, you okay? Dora reaching down her big, bony hand.

  Dora. Fuck. Help me. I’m going to drink.

  Tomorrow, Meggie. You can drink tomorrow. Use tomorrow. Do whatever you want tomorrow. Not today.

  Not today. I take a deep breath, then another. Jesus. Put the key back in the ignition. Start up the engine. Fuck. I’m still shaking. Breathe. Signal. Look.

  “I parked in front of the liquor store in Stony Plain. Val, I was going to fucking go in there. I’ve been sober nineteen fucking years.”

  Val’s taking the cash drawer and slips, putting them in the safe. “You had anything to eat today?”

  I don’t remember.

  “There’s a Lebanese around the corner. They make good sandwiches.”

  We sit down at a tiny round table in the back. “Talk to me, sistah,” Val says. “Start with today.”
>
  “Today I found out I’m not Theresa Laboucan. I’m about to lose my job. I’ve fallen in love with a gay man who I took home to meet my father who’s really a woman who stole the name he gave me from a dead soldier who was really a woman too.”

  “So this morning you woke up ...”

  Fuck. Breathe. “I woke up late, because I worked last night. Woke up in the never pit. You know?”

  “Tell me.”

  “After Mum died. I’ll never walk into a room and see her look up. I’ll never hear her voice. Like a bird against a window, beating at that never. And the other. What I’ll never have. My blood. That belonging. By birth. Birthright. It doesn’t matter how much I want it. I can’t have it. Ever. Unless. Unless I am Theresa Laboucan.

  “Then Doug, the gay man, told me Theresa is alive and well in Pensacola, Florida.”

  “Meaning you’re not her.”

  “Correct. So I went stomping off to the farm. Demanded my father tell me where he got his name. Which is my name. Or at least it’s the only damn name I have. Even if it’s a stolen name.”

  Val shakes her head. “Run this part by me again.”

  So I give her the very short version of Dad’s story which sounds as ridiculous as a Shakespeare plot when you leave out all the pretty speeches.

  Val considers me when I’m done. “And what does this have to do with you?”

  “It’s my name. Coopworth. Meg C.” Of course. She doesn’t even know my last name.

  But she’s shaking her head. “Why is it your business?”

  “How my father got the name he gave me?” I glare at her.

  She gazes back at me, perfect nose, brown eyes, cream cashmere turtleneck, dark hair drawn back in a chignon.

  “Fuck,” I say at last. “You wouldn’t understand.”

  “Try me.”

  I open my mouth but I don’t even know where to start. “All I want,” I say at last, “is to know where I came from. Everybody else knows. Why can’t I just ...”

  Shit. Even I can hear the self-pity.

  “You want to know,” Val says. “Of course you do. Have you done everything in your power to find out?”

  “Everything I can think of, except remembering. I mean if I could just remember my own life. Like a normal fucking person.”