Downhill Chance (32 page)

“Are you still mad at Mommy?” she asked.

“Nope, lovey, I was never mad at your mommy. I was just mad, that’s all.”

“What were you mad at, then?”

“Never mind, lovey, never mind.” And seeing the smile return to his face, she took the plunge and asked the question forever burning Lynn’s tongue.

“Are you scared of strangers?”

“Yup, I sure am.”

“Noo you’re not!”

“That’s what I am then, lovey, and you ought to be, too.”

“No, I oughtn’t be.”

“Yup, you ought to be. Like that caplin you seen swimming back there. Not often you sees a caplin swimming all by himself. They’s usually swimming in schools, thousands of them. And that’s what people are like most times—caplin swimming in schools. One takes a little left turn here, they all do. One takes a little turn there, they all do. And the next thing they knows, they’re all aground and beating their heads agin rocks trying to get back to sea. Yup, that’s what happens when you swims in crowds. And you know why fish swims in crowds? I’ll tell you why fish swims in crowds,” he said, taking a rest, “because they’re scared. That’s why fish swims in crowds. And that lone caplin back there? He’s scared too—scared of following the crowd, and that’s what I’m saying to you, lovey; everybody’s scared. And if I’m going to get caught flicking my head agin a rock on a beach, then it’ll be my own doing, not somebody’s else’s senselessness.” He went on, heaving back on the paddles again. “Yup, I’d rather be a lone fish, I would; wouldn’t you, lovey?”

“Yup! Like Aunt Missy.”

The grin vanished. “Like Aunt Missy? Well, it’s not too good to be alone all the time, either—”

“You just said—”

“I knows what I just said, lovey, and now I’m saying something else.
All
fish swims in schools sometime or another—they got to, for that’s how they multiplies. It’s only when people don’t take a little time for their own—think about things—that they ends up on the rocks. It’s a fine thing most times to live in a nice place and share it with others.”

“Like the stranger down Gold Cove?”

“We don’t know what he got to share yet, do we?”

“But we still got to share what we got, right?”

“All accordance. Perhaps he’s not a good person and got kicked off his own shores and that’s why he’s on ourn. Grammy Prude might be a worrywart, lovey, but she deserves to be. She seen a few things in her lifetime, so don’t go snorting at everything she warns you about.”

“How come you keeps telling her to go in the house, then?”

“Because most times it’s fright she’s offering, not warnings,” he said, his face souring, “and when she does that, she’s no different than a school of caplin offering direction; one bloody path till you’re beating your head against a rock.” He snatched back his smile and leaning forward on his oars, peered strongly into her eyes. “You can do with a bit of both is what I’m saying, lovey, being off by yourself sometimes, and swimming with the crowd other times. That way you always got time to think, and always got something to think about. Will you remember that?”

“Yup.” And then she was on her feet, shouting, “There’s Chouse!”

“Careful now—sit down. Yup, there she is,” he added, looking over his shoulder straightaway to the churning waters of Chouse thundering into the sea. Nearing the shoreline, he stood with an oar, steering them towards another more quiet opening that led through a stand of aspens and poplars trembling in the breeze and lowering like an archway over the water. Ducking beneath the branches, he drove the oar deeper, pushing them forward till the waterway suddenly widened and there was Chouse, more river than brook, pouring down the gorge it had beaten through the hills over the years, its waters spreading out and enclosing dozens of turf-covered boulders—some with a tree or bushes growing out of them—and large rocks as it rumbled across country and into a large shimmering pool before thundering into the sea.

“It’s like a secret hideaway,” exclaimed Hannah, leaping out of the punt as Luke put ashore into the natural harbour formed by the curving of the pool, for indeed, once inside the waterway, the beach banked up, concealing all sight of the ocean from view, leaving them surrounded by giant leafy birches and aspens that buffeted the sounds of the wind and sea, enclosing them with the roar of Chouse and the chirping of a dozen songbirds as they flitted from bush to bush.

“Daddy,” asked Hannah, after he’d moored the punt to a rock, and they were sitting untangling their lines besides the brook, “how come Mommy won’t ever go inside Aunt Missy’s house?”

“It’s the uncle I think she steers clear of.”

“But he’s never, ever there when she comes.”

“Perhaps it’s because she misses her mother and father too much to see their things.”

“She liked the flower bed—and that was her mother’s thing.”

Her father paused, the string dangling from his fingers. “You know something, lovey—that’s a right smart thing you just said.”

“That she likes the flower bed?”

“Yup. So it must be her father’s things she don’t want to see, heh?”

“Lynn says Grandfather Job still haunts his room.”

“Now there’d be a real good reason to steer clear.”

“Aunt Missy says Lynn’s nosier than her mother.”

“Sounds like a smart woman, your aunt Missy.”

“Lynn says we’re all a bit loony, with you never going up the Basin, and Aunt Missy never coming down here, and Mommy never going inside her own house, and me never wanting to leave once I’m there.”

“A good thinker is young Lynn; like her father, I’d say. Pass me your hook.”

“She said she dreamed one night what you looked like taking the fits.”

“Cripes—must’ve been some awful night.”

“She said you looked like this.” And turning to him, she started snorting and holding her breath and crossing her eyes.

“Yup—some awful night. But it was more like this, lovey,” and saying so, he flung himself upon her, eyes crossed, snorting and grunting like a pig gone mad.

He dug his fingers into her ribs till she was screaming, “Stoopppp, Stoooppp!!!” And then when she was senseless with laughing, he stopped tickling her and stuck out his tongue, huge and wet like a big puppy’s, and slapped a lick on the side of her face.

“Daaddeee!!”

“Now then, you ready to start working?” he asked, squatting back on his haunches, digging into the worm can.

“Yuuulllkkk!” she grimaced, sitting back up, wiping her face with her sleeve. “Lynn said you was the one drove Grammy Prude foolish like she is.”

“I think her father had a hand in that. Where’s your hook?—got your hook?”

“There was three of ye, and ye was always together, robbing eggs.”

“Yup, that’s right.”

“And Lynn said the other fellow, Gid, was ugly.”

The hand piercing the worm onto her hook stilled. “You oughtn’t be listening to Lynn all the time,” he said so quietly, so very, very quietly she had to strain over Chouse to hear him. “Here, take your rod.”

Standing side by side, they tossed their lines into Chouse and, loathing the tongue that followed Lynn’s, she watched as he wandered off by himself, the water swirling around his thigh-rubbers and the spray dampening his hair. She followed as far as her knee-rubbers would take her, and after a spell, as he wandered farther and farther to the centre of the pool, she sloused ashore, tossing down her rod and taking the little path that trailed up along the river. Patches of orange on a tall spruce caught her attention. Fairy butter. Picking up a sharp-edged rock, she scraped the bark clean and, wrapping the fairy butter in a fern, lodged it in her pocket. Then she went looking for more. Catching hold of a bare tree root, she swung past a rock wall made smooth by running water, then step-stoned to where the river had spread out, ankle deep in some places, six feet in others. Coming upon a clump of boulders near the middle of the river, she climbed atop one. Looking back, she watched as her father, standing knee deep in his favourite fishing hole, swung his line to an eddy nearer the far side. He’d stand for hours at the mouth of Chouse, hooking saltwater trout. And once, a year ago, when she’d sat on this very spot looking back at him, and he was sitting on an old log lodged between two rocks, she had thought he was a shrub growing out of it.

“That’s it,” he had exclaimed with glee when she’d told him later, “that’s exactly what I am, lovey, a part of this whole blessed spot. I eats the trout, grows its flesh and grunts it back out to feed the gulls. Blessed is he, my lovey, who fishes a river.”

“Daddy?” she called out, running back along the trail.

“Over here,” he replied from below a knoll, a fire already started. And coming out onto the beach, she squatted besides him, watching as the cone-shaped slut kettle started boiling, and he tossed a good six-pounder into the frying pan sitting on the rocks besides him, wearing the satisfied look of Brother after a good suckling, chasing away the last of the morning’s shadow.

IT WAS HER AUNT WILLAMENA
waiting on the shore to greet them as her father rowed them ashore later that afternoon. Prude was standing on the bank, wringing her hands, and the young fellows, Roddy and Marty, were waiting to haul up the punt as Luke leaped over the side, up to his knees in water, calling out, “What’s happened?”

“Clair got a message, Luke, b’ye,” said Willamena, taking the piece of orange-rimmed paper out of her pocket, “from the office clerk, Alma, and it don’t say nothing, only Clair got to come up and see her right away. It just come— about ten minutes ago and she’s in some way, Clair is.”

“Something’s happened to her sister, I allows,” cried out Prude, hurrying along besides Luke as he made for the house, “else they wouldn’t send a message like that, they wouldn’t.”

“You wait out here, old woman,” ordered Luke. “She won’t need to hear your worrying.” Darting past her, he tore in through the door, Hannah besides him. A hand grabbed at the back of Hannah’s coat and she turned with a snarl as Willamena tried to haul her back, saying, “Your mother don’t need youngsters—wait here with Grammy.”

“I won’t,” snapped Hannah, tearing away and bolting after her father, Williamena’s scandalized tuttings following her. Her mother was sitting in her rocker, her face paler than the bare skin of Brother’s bottom as she held on to his flailing legs, diapering him. Nora stood besides her, ready to catch the baby should her trembling hands fail.

“She won’t let me take the baby for a second,” cried Nora as Luke hurried in across. “I don’t know why somebody would send a message like that; Lord, better if they just out with it—whatever it is.”

“Clair, if something happened to Missy, they wouldn’t sent a message,” said Luke, holding on to her hands and letting Nora take the baby. “They would’ve come themselves. Come—let’s get ready—I’ll go with you.”

“You must think it bad,” she cried out, “else you wouldn’t offer to come like this.”

“No, lovey, don’t,” said Luke, helping her up from the chair. “Nothing’s happened with Missy; the message would’ve said so. Come on, now. Let’s go get dressed.”

“Praise be,” said Prude, wringing her hands in the doorway.

“Now, Mother, come on with me,” said Nora, wrapping a blanket around the baby. “Hannah, pass me some of them diapers in the basket there, and look in the crib for his bottle and dumb-tit. You’re going up with her?” she asked Willamena, who had inched in ahead of Prude.

“Yes, maid, I’ll go with her. Frankie’s in the shed, getting some oil for the boat.” She turned to Luke. “Unless you wants to take her—” But Clair was shaking her head.

“It’ll be fine, Luke; you watch over Hannah.”

“I’m going too,” Hannah cried out, but her mother was shaking her head. “You stay with your father,” she replied and turned impatiently from the splutter of protest rising to Hannah’s lips.

“Go rock Brother for Aunt Nory,” said her father, lending an encouraging smile over his shoulder as he led her mother to the stairs. “Go on, now,” he said more loudly as Frankie’s voice sounded from outside.

“Yes, you come rock Brother,” coaxed Nora. “Pass me the diapers—hurry now,” she said, balancing the baby in one arm. Lifting some of the diapers onto her aunt’s arm, Hannah backed towards the stairs. “I’ll come in a minute, Aunt Nory,” she said soberly, and after the aunts and Prude had left, she closed the door behind them, and bolted to the washstand. Lathering up a froth on her hands, she scrubbed her face and neck, and reaching blindly for the towel, dried it well with both hands. Snagging a comb through her hair, she took to the stairs, ducking into her room the same instant her father came out of his. She held her breath, listening as he walked with her mother down the stairs, murmuring encouragements to not go worrying, that everything was fine. Finally the door closed behind them, leaving the house in silence. Tearing off her dirty clothes, Hannah pulled on a clean pair of socks, a skirt and a nice sweater. Lifting the fairy butter out of her dirtied pants pocket, she very carefully placed it inside her skirt pocket. Fixing her sweater down over the bulge, she peered out the window. They were all there—Frankie standing in his boat, helping Willamena aboard, Prude tutting on the bank and Luke leading Clair, as if she’d suddenly become crippled, down over the bank. When at last her father was helping her mother aboard the boat, Hannah sped down over the stairs, through the front door and out onto the bank.

“Mommy!”

“I wants to go, Mommy—I wants to go,” she cried out, clinging to her mother’s skirt.

“Hannah!” snapped Clair and it were as though she’d lashed her daughter with a strap, so sharp was her tone and so quick did Hannah withdraw. And then her father was taking her by the hand, leading her towards the bank and Grammy Prude’s chastising, and Nora’s cajoling her to come rock Brother, and was that not Willamena’s tsking sounding over the wind, the lop and the gulls?

“She’s not mad, lovey; she’s just upset,” said her father, bending to one knee, stroking her shiny red cheek as the tears welled up. “She’ll take you with her next time she goes—I knows she will. Just go with Aunt Nory now, till I comes for you, and perhaps Frankie will make a special trip to take you next week—”