Each Man's Son (9 page)

 

Nine

M
ARGARET
lay drowsily between sturdy sheets in the bed where she had slept as a child. It was in the old part of the house which had been constructed from timbers salvaged from the last brig her grandfather had built. Over her head was a porthole instead of a window. Even in her childhood that porthole had been a reminder of brave days that were gone forever. She had heard so often of the great fire in the shipyard, of how her father and grandfather had fought it for two nights and a day, that she could hardly believe, even now, that she had not seen the fire herself. Her father and mother were scarcely a year married at the time, and since the foundation of their house was already laid, they had used the few undamaged sections of the brig from sentiment as much as from thrift. The timbers built into the wall by Margaret's bed had come from the ship's deckhouse.

She heard a creak of boards in the narrow corridor outside her room as one of her sisters went to the bathroom. A door closed and there was a faint rumble of water filling a tub. She smiled to herself, remembering what a rush there had been for that single bathroom in the days while her father was still alive, before her second-nearest sister had married and gone to live in Upper Canada and her two brothers had left for the States.

She stretched luxuriously and eased the muscles of her throat, wondering if she had sung too much the night before to have any voice left for her solo in church this morning. Everyone in the house had gone through passages from “The Messiah,” parts of which had been sung by the church choir at regular intervals for the past eighteen years. They had also eaten sandwiches and drunk coffee and sung light opera until eleven o'clock, and afterwards they had danced in the hall until the advent of the Sabbath put an end to the party. No matter how many of the Eldridges married and moved away, there were always young men in the house on Saturday nights.

Margaret yawned. It was good to be back now and then in a place where laziness was a normal state of being. There had never been any tension in this family. After the loss of the shipyard her father had lived quietly for years as the town's postmaster, while her mother reigned in the house like a queen. Mrs. Eldridge possessed the female kind of ambition which concentrates on being rather than doing. It was still hard for Margaret to accept as natural the inexorable inner drive of her husband, just as it was difficult for her to believe that a man's judgment could ever be as final as the judgment of a woman. Her own father had never stood up against her mother, and all the young men who thronged the house had come to sue for favor from its female inmates. It was a house that had always been quick with changing female moods, and until her father's death there had generally been a baby on the way, a baby just arrived, or an older girl falling in love.

Margaret stirred lazily in the sheets and began to think of her husband with increasing fondness. She wondered if he had spent the whole night on his feet and would be too tired to enjoy her later in the day. A cat smile appeared on her lips. She loved having Dan enjoy her; it was her secret belief that she was very good at making love and she wished Dan would give himself more time to enjoy her properly. Under her
closed eyes the smile lingered while she stirred languorously. All her annoyance of the night before had disappeared. She had sung it away in Handel's arias, and this morning she wanted to tell Dan how sorry she was for having hurt him.

Some minutes later she opened her eyes to see her youngest sister, Ruth, sitting on the edge of her bed. Ruth was in a flannel dressing gown and her cheeks were shining with soap and water. At sixteen her mouth was so generous that most of her smiles resembled grins; at thirty she would probably still have the face of a gamin.

“Wake up,” Ruth said, “even if you are old and married. You've got to sing ‘O Rest in the Lord' this morning.”

“Your hair looks nice the way you've put it up,” Margaret said and yawned.

“I know it does, but you might tell Mother so. You can have the bathroom next. Norah's in the tub now. And Sheila's getting breakfast.” Ruth made a wry face. “It won't be any good, either, because she burns the pancakes on purpose whenever it's her turn. She always thinks that's the way to get out of her day in the kitchen, but it never works.”

“Annie used to do the same thing.” Margaret stretched her toes. “I wonder what she's like in her own kitchen now.”

Ruth made another face. She knew she was Margaret's favorite sister. “You were mad at Dan last night, weren't you?”

“Did it show?”

“All over you. I thought maybe you'd decided to give him up for good.”

“Oh, he's not as bad as all that.” Margaret stretched her creamy arms and smiled broadly. “The poor man just happens to be a genius, but he doesn't know it.”

Ruth's face showed alarm. “But suppose–I mean–if Dan really
is
as good as that you shouldn't say so, should you?”

“Why not? Dr. Dougald says it.”

“But you're tempting Providence.”

“Do you really think Providence has nothing better to do than to put His foot down and squash people when they get too bold?”

Ruth frowned. “Well, Mr. Toast in the bank said that no genius could possibly live in Broughton. That was when I told him I was going to be an opera singer. And Mother says there's no such thing as genius anyway. It's just making up your mind what you want and sticking to it.”

“You know, my dear, your brother-in-law is a far more remarkable doctor than Mother could possibly guess. She mocks him for being impractical and taking himself so seriously, but that's only because he's a Highlander and she feels superior because her ancestors were Loyalists from New England.”

Ruth was puzzled. “I don't see what difference it makes. But anyhow, I find him simply
terrifying
.”

“So do I–sometimes.”

“But you do like him, don't you? Mother says you just go on standing him because you have a noble character.”

“I don't like Dan at all,” Margaret said. “In fact, there are moments when I dislike him intensely. But I love him, and that's something quite different, as you may possibly discover for yourself some day.”

Ruth put her hands to her temples and strained the hair back from her face. “
I
don't intend to get married at all,” she said. “I'm going to sacrifice myself for music. I'm going to be a star at Covent Garden or the Metropolitan, though I expect Covent Garden would be more patriotic, but Mr. Toast says there are so many Italians in New York I'd be more appreciated there.”

“Who is this man with the strange name?”

“Oh, he's the new teller in the Royal Bank and people are unfair. A person can't help his name and Mr. Toast can't help his voice, either.”

“What's the matter with his voice?”

“Nothing, really. He says everybody in Ontario sounds the same way he does. You should hear him say ‘tomato.' It's even worse than the Yankees. But he's very nice, you know. He said a wonderful thing when I said I was going to be another Lillian Nordica.”

Ruth waited for Margaret to probe further, but Margaret seemed to be thinking about something else.

“He told me if I didn't live in Broughton people would think I had a glorious voice even now, but he thinks everyone in Broughton is stupid and ignorant, or almost, and can't tell the difference between good and bad.” She seized Margaret's arms and tried to pull her upright. “You've been lazy long enough. If you don't get up, Mother will put on her persecuted look and tell us how much she suffered bringing us all into the world, and then you can go home to Dan but we'll have to stay right here and stand it.”

Margaret put her feet to the floor, ruffled her sister's hair and stood up. “Run along then,” she said. “I'll be down soon. And I want to meet Mr. Toast.”

An hour later the whole family was in the street, bound for the choir of the Presbyterian Church. They walked in step like a file on parade: first Mrs. Eldridge and Margaret, then Norah and Sheila, then Ruth bringing up the rear like a lance corporal. But everyone went to church in Broughton, even those who had been brawling the night before. Red Willie MacIsaac and Mick Casey met at the holy water font barely eight hours after their fight and anointed their swollen eyes before hearing Mass. In recent years the Catholics had been carrying on the major share of the fighting in town, but it was by no means unusual to see a young Presbyterian with a black eye sitting dolefully in his pew with his head turned to one side.

Mrs. Eldridge and her daughters joined the rest of the choir in the vestry, as they did every Sunday morning, put on gowns and mortarboards and waited for the organ to change key. Then they entered the loft at the front of the church with
Mrs. Eldridge leading. Margaret took her place at the head of the alto section, sat down and bowed for a brief prayer with the others, sat up and looked at the congregation. It was the usual attendance, the only conspicuously empty pew being their own. She saw Jimmie MacGillivray bent forward praying hard, and Mr. Magistrate MacKeegan, impeccable in a black suit and stiff white collar, bearded chin held high in his usual fashion, staring with appreciation at a young woman on the far side of the church.

Margaret followed his glance and saw Mollie MacNeil with Alan beside her; Alan in an Eton collar and water-flattened hair which had dried unevenly, sticking up in spikes here and there. Margaret stood with the rest of the choir as Sandy MacAlistair mounted his pulpit and the whole congregation rose for the Doxology. Just as they were sitting down, she saw a flutter among the elders at the back and Dan himself came striding down the aisle to their pew. From the state of his clothes she knew he had slept in them at least part of the night, yet his large dark eyes looked very tired. He sat down, bowed his head briefly and cleared his throat in embarrassment when she smiled at him, but as she studied his face she knew he was over his annoyance of the night before.

The service proceeded in the usual way. After the plates were passed, Margaret rose to sing her solo, as she did every fifth week, and while the organ went through the introductory bars she smiled at her husband openly. She found herself in good voice and let herself go into the music. When she sat down again with studied grace she raised her head and this time she winked at him. He lowered his eyes and raised them again, and a sheepish smile was starting on his face when her mother spoiled the mood Margaret had evoked between them by leaning across the aisle from the soprano section to congratulate her on her solo in a loud whisper.

During the whole fifty-seven minutes of Sandy MacAlistair's extremely pessimistic sermon Margaret sat watching her
husband while he read his copy of the Greek Testament which rested throughout the week in their hymnal rack. Now and then he put down the Greek text and picked up the King James Version to find the meaning of an unfamiliar word. Towards the end of the sermon Margaret felt a tug on her sleeve and looked to the left to see her mother leaning across the aisle again.

“Dan should be ashamed–reading a book with Mr. MacAlistair trying so hard!”

“It's the Bible, Mother,” she whispered.

“It doesn't matter what it is, he's not listening to the sermon.”

“Neither are you.”

Margaret tried to catch Dan's eye once more, but he went straight out the main door after the benediction and she guessed he was bound for the hospital again. When she saw his shoulders disappear she settled back on the bench, resigned to a dull day. An entirely new service was about to begin in Gaelic, with new psalms, new prayers and a whole new sermon in Gaelic by Sandy MacAlistair. The choir had no separate part in this service but it was expected to remain.

 

Ten

W
HEN AINSLIE
reached the hospital he discovered that an emergency appendicitis case had been brought in and they were waiting for him to operate at once. In the late afternoon he had high tea in the hospital, but he had to leave the table when an orderly appeared with a message from young Weir that the OB case had been taken to the room they had set aside for the delivery. It was a long time before it was over and Mrs. Morton's heart caused Ainslie grave concern. At the end he had been forced to ease up on the anesthetic and at the same time allay the fear that grew in the patient when she realized his reason for doing so. His shoulders sagged and his shirt dripped with sweat when he finally left the baby to the nurses and the exhausted patient to Dr. Weir.

He knew the day had gone without a count of the hours, but he was amazed to see that it was already after eight. For a while he sat in the common room, smoking his pipe while he waited for a nurse-in-training to bring him a cup of beef tea. It was an hour of the evening when thirty minutes can pass like five. He was loose with fatigue, and the long talk with MacKenzie of the night before seemed years away in the past. He heard a rustle of starched linen as the nurse came into the room with his tea, but he did not even lift his head
to speak to her. She set it down on the table at his side and left quietly.

Ainslie picked up the cup after a time and sipped the brown liquid. It felt hot all the way down to his stomach and from there its warmth fanned out. He looked at his watch and wondered how it could be so much later than when he had looked at it last. He pulled himself to his feet and went out into the hall. Evening visitors had gone and overhead lights were turned off, leaving long shadows to merge between the dim night lights which burned at infrequent intervals along the walls.

Even for Ainslie, who tried so hard to shut all emotion out of his work, a hospital at this hour seemed to have a mysterious beauty. Life was never so vivid as when it was in danger, nor was a human being ever so vitally himself as when he had passed through pain and emerged on the other side of it.

In the ward a nurse was preparing the last of the patients for sleep when he reached the bedside of the young Newfoundlander. The boy had slept most of the day and looked up at him now with a sheepish smile. Ainslie smiled back, touched the boy's temples with his fingers and passed on to the appendicitis case of that afternoon. The patient was over his nausea and was sleeping, and after a glance at the chart Ainslie said good night to the nurse in charge and left the ward. He stopped at Mrs. Morton's room and found her too tired to look up when he stood beside her bed. He took Weir's stethoscope and listened and then beckoned Weir to follow him into the corridor.

“Sometimes the textbooks get in the way, don't they?” he said. “According to the books, no woman with a heart like that should ever get pregnant, but she took the risk and…” He shrugged and the quiet smile returned.

“Her husband said he never knew the heart was so bad,” Weir said. “He kept repeating it over and over.”

“Perhaps he didn't, but I have a pretty good idea that she knew. Women are far more courageous than we are, Weir.” He touched the houseman lightly on the shoulder. “You must get some rest.”

Ainslie found his mare in the hospital yard with a feed bag over her nose where the boy from the livery stable had left her. As he walked across the yard he could see the shadows cast by the beast and the carriage, long and pulled out on the naked ground. The weather had cleared again and the moon was low in the sky. A cat shot across the yard, belly to the ground, sprang onto the wooden fence at the back, darted along its edge, stopped to stare at the doctor, twitched, turned and jumped down on the far side. Ainslie took the feed bag off the mare and rubbed her nose. Then he tossed the bag into the carriage and climbed in, turned the mare around and put the reins about his neck. His eyes were closed as the mare went down the hill. She took the right-hand turn through MacDonald's Corner and trotted down the empty main street with her hoof strokes banging back from the empty store fronts. The hoof notes deepened on the timber of the bridge, sharpened on a short stretch of concrete beyond it, then thudded all the way down to the heart of the earth on the dirt road beyond. There was a whiff of salt water and of sulphur from a colliery. Somewhere a dog was howling, but the doctor's senses were dimming so fast the howl whirled down in a diminishing spiral until it buzzed like a pin point at the base of his brain. Then there was a smell of grass and the delicate scent of alder wet with dew. Ainslie slowly opened his eyes.

There it was, the ultimate solitude. A scent remembered from childhood told a man how lonely he was in middle age. Ainslie looked up and the stars taunted him because he had watched them as a boy and found them beautiful. His hands twitched on the reins. The face of his father flashed before his eyes. How could he ever hope to win the kind of struggle such
a father had bred into his son? The old Calvinist had preached that life was a constant struggle against evil, and his son had believed him. At the same time he had preached that failure was a sin. Now the man who had been the boy must ask, How could a successful man be sinless, or a sinless man successful?

Ainslie's body swayed as the wheels hit a rut. He wished he had a son. To work as he did now was senseless. To work for a son's future would give purpose to the universe. He wanted a son who would grow into a learned man and a daughter who would be gentle and admiring of him.

The wistful face of Mollie MacNeil floated across his memory and he recalled suddenly that he had seen her boy and had marked him out. The boy really was remarkable, as remarkable as Mollie herself was good. This could only mean that goodness was insufficient, for the mines were going to get that boy as sure as fate. Slowly Ainslie's thoughts faded into the hum of the carriage wheels. When he fell asleep, his sleep was profound.

It was profound, but short. The mare reared and the doctor jerked upright, opened his eyes and saw a rough young face in the light of the left-hand carriage lamp.

“What's the matter? Who's sick now?”

At the sound of the doctor's voice, the face jerked back into the darkness and Ainslie heard the muttering of several men. Anger rose in him so hard he felt the blood pound in his forehead.

“Come back here!” he snapped. “I saw you, Gillies, come back here!”

There was silence. Then a soft, lilting voice broke out of the darkness. “Doctor, we did not think it wass you!”

The absurdity of the remark, the childlike surprise in the voice, were too familiar to seem funny to Ainslie in his present mood.

“Step up,” he said, “the lot of you.”

Three young men edged sheepishly forward into the light of the lamp. Gillies looked rough, but the other two had finely cut features with simple, wide-open eyes.

“Doctor,” another of them said, “honest to God now, we did not know it wass you!”

Ainslie regarded them and they stood still, two of them with their caps in their hands, Gillies with his hands in his pockets and his cap pulled down over one ear.

“What were you up to?” Ainslie snapped at them. “You say you didn't know it was me–if it had been somebody else, what would you have done?”

The men looked from one to the other in the light. Then the third one spoke.

“Doctor, only the good God knows what we would ha? done if it had not been you.”

Ainslie took a deep breath and released it audibly. Their voices were as soft as Hebridean mists, but a man would be a fool to judge them by the sweetness of those tones. They had obviously been looking for a fight.

“Since when have you started brawling on the Sabbath?” he said.

“But Doctor, it iss not the Sabbath any more. It iss now half-past twelve.”

He sighed and picked up the reins. “Go home and go to bed. And God help you if I catch you bothering people on the roads again.”

“Yes, Doctor, we whill remember. And if Mrs. Doctor iss awake, would you say good night to her for us?”

The mare trotted off and left the three young men standing by the roadside, but Ainslie was wide awake now, awake with anger and a kind of despair at the endless accumulation of evidence that MacKenzie was right and that the time had come for him to leave this place. The horse passed the colliery, turned right and trotted down the coal-colored road past the
darkened row of miners' cottages. Even in the cool night air, Ainslie felt he could almost smell their dusty, dark interiors, the rooms where they lived crowded together, the kitchens steamy from dishwater and the perpetually boiling kettle, the diapers of the babies and the sweaty underwear of the men, the high odor given off by heavy muscles. As he passed the MacNeil house, he remembered that Mollie's continued presence in it was evidence that this colliery was going downhill. Archie had not worked in the pits for five years, but the company let Mollie keep the house because otherwise it would have been empty. There were less miners in this colliery than there had been ten years ago because the seam was beginning to run out. The mare went down the slope, crossed the bridge and entered the doctor's grounds.

Ten minutes later Ainslie was in bed, having undressed so silently that Margaret did not even stir. He heard her quiet breathing, felt her warm presence beside him as he lay tense and reflecting. What MacKenzie had said to him, what he had said to MacKenzie, now seemed far away. He loved Margaret and wished she were awake so he could hold her in his arms. The knowledge of what they might have been to each other was huge in the darkness, but he did not touch her and his own effort to lie still only tightened his nerves the more and kept him awake.

He dozed, still tense, and when he opened his eyes he seemed not to have slept at all. Light was in the room and he saw that Margaret had forgotten to draw the blinds. He thought of getting up to draw them now but did not want to wake her by his movements, so he lay on his back and looked out the window at the dawn. It was geometrical, he decided, framed by the window with the tops of the birches softening the lines on the right. He counted twenty-three separate bars of color made by the dawn, each ruler-straight and of differing width, mauve at the bottom, then pale lavender, dark pink, scarlet
and chrome in varying shades up to a green so unearthly pure he knew he had seen its like only once before, and remembered it was the blue-green of Lake Louise. Above the dawn's geometry was the faded blue of heaven. He saw a moving speck and recognized the ponderous wing-beats of a crow. The bird flew on a long, mounting diagonal across the bars of the dawn, black and solitary until it lost itself in the upper blue. As he watched it disappear Ainslie felt an emotion so unbearably intense he breathed out heavily and murmured aloud. Margaret stirred, saw him beside her and smiled.

“How long have you been here?”

“A couple of hours, I should think.”

“And you haven't been asleep?”

“I dozed for a time.”

Her arms came about him. He felt her soft, firm resilience warm and full of life against his tense, lean body. Resistance broke within him and with a half-sob he pressed his lips over hers.

“Oh, Margaret, I love you so much!”

He held her as she lay warm, satisfied and relaxed as a cat, and he was still holding her when she fell asleep. He took his arms away gently and lay on his back, loving her and wishing he had given her a son. He thought of all the children who played and brawled in the colliery rows while his own house was empty. He thought of young Alan MacNeil and of McCuen, who followed all the sports, saying in the hospital that Alan's father was on the way downhill but was soon going to have a crucial fight with some American light-heavyweight in some New Jersey town. The town's name came to him, Trenton, and he knew he had seen it years ago from a train window on the route from New York to Philadelphia. It was an old place, but it had as much smoke and iron-oxide red as Broughton and it ought to be one place in America where a broken-down Highlander like Archie MacNeil could feel at home.