Extensions (11 page)

“ONLY DON'T FORGET TO SAIL, BACK AGAIN TO ME.” Jane stops singing, thinking little Norman is asleep, but then his eyes open for more. “
Baby's boat a silver moon, sailing in the sky.”
She continues stroking him with her soft voice and fingers until she knows for sure he is in dreamland. She tiptoes away from the crib, eager now to finish the lunch dishes. At the sound of the back door opening and closing, she stops. It is a loud slam, not Stella's quick entry. Two male voices accompany feet stomping across the kitchen floor.

Glasses clink. “I'll get us a drink.”

Jane freezes on the spot. Lance is home? In the middle of the afternoon?

“Your wife here?” A distinct Irish brogue.

“She took the baby to Thurstons for a tea party. How do you like this? I can't even find a clean glass. Goes out and leaves dirty dishes in the sink. First one there, last to leave. Stupid bitch.”

The bedroom door is slightly ajar and Jane eases herself behind it. She says three prayers: that the baby will not wake, that Lance will have no cause to come into the bedroom, that she can suspend all breath and movement in her body for the length of the men's drinking session. Stella told her Lance must never know she leaves Norman with her sometimes. He believes a mother's place is with her child and that place is in the home. Jane loves having the house and baby to herself and does not advise her employer otherwise. Not that she would share any of her true thoughts with Stella anyway, though after hearing how her husband speaks about her, she feels less harsh in her opinion.

Chairs scrape the floor. “Whoa, that's enough, Lance. We've got a shift to finish.”

”Too many ears there. I heard some news today.” Pause. “New seam's been found.”

“That's nothing new.”

“True this time. Very reliable sources, if you know what I mean.”

Jane supposes the other man's silence is breathlessness.

“Mount Benson,” Lance goes on. “Southern slope.”

A low whistle. “Who's going to get it?”

“We are. If we can keep it to ourselves, you know what I mean.”

Jane understands why the other man is doing more sighing, blowing, and whistling than talking. She has heard Roland Hughes talk to Tommy about the Mackie mines. The Wellington pits are showing signs of being worked out. The rich coal seams that brought miners to Vancouver Island from all over are nearing exhaustion, and their jobs could be gone within a year or two. Roland always tells Tommy that Mackie is such a smart businessman he will have something for them once these pits are finished, but Tommy never seems convinced. If what she is hearing now is true, her judgment of Roland will have to go up a notch. A small one.

“Hargraves found it. Fallen tree with coal clinging to it. Good thing he knows an outcropping when he sees it. Someone else might have left it for grass to grow over again. Another drink?”

“I'd say so. News this big needs washing down. Whose land?”

Jane's nose starts dripping. Her handkerchief has fallen from her apron out of reach under the crib and she must use the hem of her skirt.

“Now that's the problem. The land belongs to an ex-slave called Strong. He's got two farms, one on Salt Spring Island and an orchard right on top of our new coal mine. They're saying Mackie himself talked to him, and he's not interested in selling. Says he spent a lot of time breeding the fruit trees he's got growing there. Says it's all he's got to leave for his family.” Lance curses under his breath. “How about
our
families? Who'll take care of them when we're out of work?”

Jane stiffens. The tone of Lance's voice adds nausea to the area enclosing her pumping heart. She imagines him grinning, his teeth slanting backward like a shark.

“Does he know the value?”

“No one knows for sure, but it's the best thing Mackie's seen since he opened up the Wellington seams, I hear. Even better, it's close to the railroad.”

The Irishman whistles again just as the baby rolls over in his crib. He lifts his head and looks around. Afraid to take a step on the creaky floorboards, Jane reaches toward him, mouthing her hushes. His father's voice from the kitchen turns out to have a soothing effect and his head drops back on his blanket, eyes firmly shut. Jane wants to drop to her knees in thanks, but Lance's words are too compelling for her to move a muscle.

“Hargraves knows this Strong. Got a cabin he uses for butchering close to the fellow and they sometimes hunt wild boar together. Both keep sheep. He was getting firewood from Strong's property when he discovered the coal. Told Mackie not to worry, that he'll be able to persuade the darkie to sell. He's already bragging about what's in it for him. Not a word to anyone, you understand.”

“I don't know a thing.”

“Better get back.” Scraping chairs are followed by another sound of glass breaking. “Let her cut her hand when she finally cleans this place up.”

Jane still cannot move, even once the back door has slammed and the men's voices and footsteps on the path disappear. Gradually, the paralysis seeps out of her and she walks softly to the kitchen. She sees the broken tumbler and throws the pieces away before filling a basin with water and soap. How does a man speak so cruelly of his wife, even one as silly as Stella? As if to remind her, Stella hastens through the back door just then, giggling like a tardy child. She is pleased with herself for having been included once again in a party with women she believes to be important. She recounts a story of how two fine china teacups were put with the wrong saucers, and she was the first one to notice it. Jane stops Stella's giggling by telling her Lance was home.

Stella freezes, as she stares at the dishes Jane is just finishing.

“The baby and I kept quiet in the bedroom,” Jane says quietly, watching her face release some of its fear. “He thought you had taken Norman with you and never did find out I was here.”

Stella's shoulders remain rigid. “Why was he here?”

Jane shrugs. “He had another man with him. I think they had a drink. The bedroom door was closed so I couldn't hear much.” She mumbles, as much to cover up the event for herself as for Stella. She unties her apron, stuffs it in her cloth satchel. “He might tell you why.”

“He'll tell me something, all right. You hadn't done the dishes when they came in?” Her voice begins to rise in accusation until a sharp glance from Jane causes her to look down guiltily. When she raises her eyes, they plead not to be left alone. But Jane has her long cardigan on, her hand on the door.

“Oh,” she says before stepping outside, “a tumbler got broken when the men were here. I found it in the sink and threw the pieces in the waste pail.” It was the kind of thing Stella would blame her for when she found it missing.

Jane says goodbye without looking back and bounds down the path like a deer, hardly touching the ground. She chooses the forest trail rather than the main road home to avoid meeting anyone, her heaving chest forcing her to pause in a grove of arbutus trees to catch her breath. The information is like a lump of coal smouldering inside her. If she hangs onto it, it will burn, but she must be careful where she lets it go, for it will also cause cinders wherever it lands. Mama would scold her for repeating hearsay, so she will not tell her. Maybe Tommy would do well to know, for it might take away some worries about future work. No, unlike Roland Hughes, Tommy always says he wants no part of secrets until they're not secrets anymore. And he would think she was wrong being hidden in the Cruikshanks' bedroom, regardless of her explanations.

But it is not the talk of new coal causing agitation — that goes on in shops, school, at her own kitchen table all the time — rather, the words about Louis Strong hang heavy on her heart. He looked tired when she returned his clothes last time, but nothing in his manner or words hinted that Edgar Mackie had personally paid a visit to his cabin. Have the mine bosses been threatening him, or is it Lance's rough tone of voice making everything bigger than it is, the same way he thinks of himself? Butch Hargraves is supposed to be Louis' friend. What can she tell Louis that he does not already know? She does not want to give him more worries, especially when she is not even sure if they are justified. The word of Lance Cruikshank is nothing to take such a risk for, so she must keep this news to herself, carry on as if she has never heard it.

Scratched by brambles she has not bothered to sidestep, Jane at last reaches home. Feathers of smoke greet her from the chimney. Tommy should be sleeping — is Mama tending the fire herself? Inside the back door, Louis Strong has deposited his bundle of clothes to be washed. Her mother is clearing the kitchen table in her good skirt and blouse with rouge on her lips and more than a normal flush on her cheeks, all signs of visitors. Mama never has callers, being too sick to have made any friends in Canada. At the sight of Jane, her shoulders slump and she sits down abruptly on a chair.

“Louis was here?”

“He brought the clothes. Said there was no rush, as usual.”

“How was he?” Jane asked.

“What do you mean, how was he? Tired, same as ever, far as I can see. He's an old man.”

“I just wondered. He seemed a bit under the weather last week. How was your day, Mama? You look fresh.”

“Well, I don't
feel
fresh,” she sighs. “Unexpected guests are enough to tire the likes of me.”

“Who was here?”

“After lunch, Tommy went in to sleep — he was working on the cupboard all morning, poor lad — and Gomer came running in from school. He told me two of his friends' mothers were coming to pay me a visit in an hour's time. Not a minute to gather my strength, and you not here to help me clean up or set out tea and cake before these strangers arrive.”

“What did the women want?” Jane forces herself to keep her voice down, as much to prevent it from becoming shrill after all the other surprises as to respect her older brother sleeping in the next room.

“They started out saying what a fine boy we have in Gomer and that he is welcome to come to their homes with their sons after school. Then they said the teacher, Miss Maasanen, was getting married next summer. I knew married women were not allowed to teach, but why were they meeting with someone like me, too sick to take part in the community?”

As she speaks, Jane remembers this same glow on her mother back in Llantrisant after church when friends would come in for tea. Seeing it, she realizes how much she longs for Mama's full presence in the family again.

“Soon they come to their point. These two ladies, wives of businessmen in Nanaimo, are also members of the Southfield school board and early as it is, they want to think about hiring a teacher for the new school next year. The daughter of Louis Strong has applied for the job.”

“Ruby?” Jane says enthusiastically.

Her mother pauses, then speaks deliberately, illustrating how to restrain eagerness and impatience. “Yes, Ruby Strong. The one who teaches in the Cedar district. Seems she wants to be closer to her father — him alone and all — and she could be if she lived in the teacherage. Jane's feelings scramble. She wonders if Ruby would do the laundry and take away her reason to see Louis and his son.

“Gomer told them you do work for Mr. Strong, so that's why they were here. They want to know my opinion of the family. I told them you consider Mr. Strong a gentleman. I told them that you have met his wife and his children, and you came home full of praise for them.” “Thank you, Mama. You did the right thing.”

Mary Owens fans herself with her hand, feeling the heat from the stove as intensely as she feels the cold, aches, and pains — always more than anyone else. She moves her chair closer to the door. “These ladies welcomed your recommendation. They knew of Miss Strong's fine reputation at Cedar School and were building a case against one or two fathers who might be disinclined to hire a Negro teacher.”

Jane explodes in spite of herself. “Do they know Ruby? Do they know how hard-working and how kind she and her father and mother and brother are?” At the word “brother,” she reddens, as if speaking it will give her feelings away. “Do they really know how well-loved she is at Cedar School? That she takes children to board, gives them food and shelter there, sometimes gives them rides on her horse? She took her training at the Nanaimo Normal School, same as the other teachers, and probably learned better because she cares more about doing a good job.” At these words she feels a twinge of disloyalty to Miss Maasenen, who treated her so well.