Fall on Your Knees (46 page)

That was after supper. Ginger had changed into his sun moon and stars shirt for the meal to mark his release from everything bad. Johnny-cake and molasses, beans and Cape Breton steak — take a pound and a half of baloney; slice it; now scorch it. A celebration, even though quitting the rum-running business means less money again. Ginger never realized how important the Mahmouds were to his family until Teresa lost her job, and Adelaide lost customers, and he lost most of the legitimate side of his trucking business. And now here goes the illegitimate side of her…. Things have been worse than usual for everyone lately; the Taylors have had it good by comparison. At least they have a future saved up for their kids. They can start living on that.

The children are in bed. Teresa has just arrived with Hector, who holds out a date loaf for Adelaide with his big drooly smile.

“Thank you, baby!”

“Where’s your man, Addy?” Teresa asks.

“Out New Waterford telling Piper he’s quit.”

“What’s he quit for?”

“Sit’ll I pour us some tea.”

Thank God for tea, thank God for Teresa who I can talk to. Hector nods in his wheelchair while Adelaide tells Teresa the whole Frances story and finishes up with “I said to’m don’t go out there, but he told me it’s ‘unmanly’ not to look a feller in the eye when you’re quitting him after all these years.” She takes a sip of tea. “At least it’s all over and done with.”

Teresa hasn’t said a word.

“Trese?”

“Yes dear, she’s crazy, they’re all right nuts.” But Teresa is distracted and she gets up. “I just want to look at Carvery before I go.”

Teresa loves to look at Carvery asleep. He looks like Ginger did when he was a baby and Teresa used to look after him. When she married Hector, she wanted to have a baby as sweet as Ginger. Carvery has inherited his father’s nature too. Sound asleep in his tiny sun moon and stars shirt. Sweet, sweet baby boy.

“Aunt Teresa?” It’s Evan whispering.

“Yes darlin?”

“Sticky Leary snuck in the cloakroom and stole my lunch today, he called it nigger food.”

“What did he do with it?”

“He said he threw it away but I saw him eat it.”

“He was hungry.”

“Mumma said I should beat the can off him. Do you think I should?”

“I think he doesn’t have enough to eat.”

“Why doesn’t he just ask for some without calling me dirty names?”

“He’s ashamed so he tries to make you ashamed.”

“I’m not ashamed of anything. I should just beat the holy crap out of him, eh, Auntie?”

“If you want to do the real Christian thing, you put half your lunch in his pocket every day without letting anyone see. And the rest of the time you forget about him and concentrate on getting where you’re going. You’re big and strong. You can beat any boy your age, but you start with that and the game in the schoolyard’s going to be ‘who can beat Evan?’ Then the older boys will get after you and when the teachers come out you’ll be the one gets blamed. You want to be a boxer when you grow up?”

“No, I want to be a veterinarian.”

“Then forget fighting and concentrate on schooling and you’ll beat the lot of them, ’cause, sweetheart, most of them are going nowhere but underground.”

“Or the steel plant.”

“That’s right.”

Teresa comes back downstairs. “I told Evan not to fight, he asked me.”

“Good, I told him to ask you.” Adelaide believes that all children should have enough grown-ups around who love them so that one can tell them to fight, one can tell them not to and one can tell them not to worry so much.

Teresa leaves with Hector. It’s early, they didn’t even play cards. Adelaide stands in the open doorway and watches them go. Talk of anything to do with even an offshoot of Mahmoud must still upset Teresa. I’ll have to think of something nice to do for Trese. I’ll make her a shawl. It’s hard, though, because Teresa wants always to give. It embarrasses her to get.

Teresa pushes Hector home down the alley so as to be totally alone. She is in shock about it being Frances Piper. Mahmoud’s disowned granddaughter. The thin-faced goblin with the unkempt curls and Mrs Mahmoud’s rings. She somehow slithered into the house — she’s small enough — and stole out of revenge in broad daylight. She stole my job. My good name. My brother’s good name. She stole food from his table. And now she’s after stealing him.

Teresa couldn’t tell Adelaide about the jewels just now. To add it up with the Ginger story, out loud with her best friend? No. That would be to have all the bitterness poured into one cup so you could see just how much you had to drink. It makes Teresa dizzy to contemplate it, she will lose her mind with anger — Oh Jesus, sweet Lord, please don’t let me hate. Look after the cruel and the crazy people, and let me look after my family, amen.

Even as she prays, Teresa makes a sickening realization. Frances recognized her that night in the alley with Adelaide.
That means she’s been watching me. During the day in Mahmoud’s house when I thought I was alone. The girl who laughed at her mother’s funeral
. Teresa shivers.
And she was watching while I danced and sang my mother’s song
.

The thief you must fear the most, is not the one who steals mere things.

Ginger’s not home yet. Eleven o’clock. Adelaide is uncharacteristically lying to herself. “He stopped at Beel’s for a game of cards, he got a flat, he decided to do one more run for Piper at twice the price, I’ll hear in a minute.” She must be really scared to be doing this when what she knows is “She’s got him.” After the lying phase is the pissed-off phase, “Foolish, head-up-his-arse eejit, he can pack and shack up with the honky slut from hell,” when what she knows is “She’s sick, she’s dangerous, she’s with him now.”

At six o’clock that evening, Jameel and Boutros arrived at the place in the woods where Piper makes the moonshine and cuts the liquor.

“Fuckin nigger up and quit,” says Jameel, getting out on the passenger side.

James despises people who say “nigger”. A civilized man need not resort to bar-room slang for emphasis.

“Plenty where he came from,” is all James has to say as he hands barrel after case to Jameel and Jameel hands them to Boutros and Boutros slings them into the back of the brand-new black 8-cylinder Kissel Brougham where the seats have been removed and curtains put up.

James looks at Jameel as little as possible. He regrets that his line of work necessitates contact with someone like this. Short black whiskers against a yellowish complexion, oily jet hair and the fusty smell of fried bread. James despises Jameel with his “nigger this” and “nigger that” because it’s obvious to him that Jameel is shit-scared of being seen as coloured. A man who wears his fear on his sleeve is a fool. Besides, thinks James, while Jameel is not black, he sure as hell is coloured, ’cause he sure as hell’s not white. James is grateful that all his girls turned out so fair. But there’s obviously a morbid tendency in the blood they inherited from Materia that made Kathleen lean towards colour. James has taken delivery of another crate of books. He has dipped into Dr Freud in an effort to discover where to lay the blame for Kathleen’s perversity. Freud calls women “the dark continent”. James couldn’t agree more. He doesn’t hate blacks, he just doesn’t want them near his bloodline.

“You’re going to have to do it in three or four runs,” says James, counting the money.

“Look Jimmy, we should buy our own truck and get one of my boys driving.” James lets Jameel call him “Jimmy” because it is better than having Jameel’s greasy mouth on “James”. Also, when you let someone call you by not-your-real-name, you are reminded every time he says it of what a foolish arse he is.

“I don’t take partners, Jameel, you buy it, I’ll hire it.”

The back of the car is full and now Boutros closes the brimming trunk. James can see Materia in that boy. The same vacancy — standing there staring at me like he’s going to say something, then doesn’t. Nothing to say, that’s why, not a thought in his head. Creeping idiocy in that family, that’s another thing.

Boutros starts the car. Jameel slides in next to him. “See ya in a coupla weeks, Jimmy.”

“I better see you in an hour.”

“What for?”

James bends into the open passenger window. “I hired Leo Taylor because I knew I could trust him with merchandise, and until I’m convinced about a replacement I want you personally responsible.”

“What are you talkin about b’y? Boutros’ll do the runs.”

“You’ll accompany him.”

“You trust a nigger over my boy, is that it?”

“This is business, Jameel. I expect to see you back here in an hour or not at all.” James straightens away from the window.

Jameel sticks his head out, “Fuck you Piper, you fuckin uppity sonofabitch, did you know you’re supplying my place with Piper pussy, eh boy? And that she’s fuckin your precious spade, Leo Taylor?”

James glances through the windshield at Boutros, who’s still staring at him. Jameel smirks. James can’t lay a hand on him with the big fella sitting there.

“Who are you talking about, Jameel?” he asks evenly.

“Your daughter Frances, b’y,” with a good buddy grin.

“I don’t have a daughter by that name.”

Man, he’s cool.

“If I don’t see you here in an hour, Jameel, I’ll assume our deal is terminated.”

He turns and walks calmly towards the shack.

Jameel is enraged, head and shoulders out the window, “Everyone’s had her b’y! Everyone but you, I guess, or have you had her too?”

Boutros floors it and Jameel’s head cracks against the outer chrome. “Shit!” Boutros gets a row of knuckles to the ear but he doesn’t seem to notice, he’s concentrating on James in the rearview mirror disappearing into the shack.

Inside, James has his first drink in thirteen years. He’ll get this Jameel transaction over with in a few hours. Then he’ll get hold of a rifle and go over to Leo Taylor’s place for a talk.

“Slow down, you’ll have the Mounties on us.”

Boutros doesn’t register the order.

“I said slow down.”

But Boutros takes Low Point at a steady seventy. Boutros doesn’t say a word throughout the next three runs, which makes it no fun for Jameel, who can usually count on “Yeah Pa, that’s right Pa” whenever he leaves space for a breath. Jameel sulks in the car while Boutros takes the booze from Piper, who is drunker every time and likewise dead silent. That’s how an
enklese
gets you, thinks Jameel, with silence. Ice, they use, they’re smart but they’re not quite human. No feelings. When it comes to his son Boutros, however, Jameel doesn’t think “silent,” he thinks “dumb”.

Boutros is calm because he has decided that tonight is the night. He’ll take money, what he’s rightfully earned, from his father’s safe, then he’ll go get Frances and they’ll drive. Wherever she wants to go. Forget the farm, forget his mother, that was the dream of a child, the grown-up knows that he has to get Frances off this island right away. There are too many men here who need to be killed, first among them her own father. What kind of a man disowns his daughter? Frances is a diamond, passed from filthy paw to paw but never diminished. The men who handle her can leave no mark because her worth is far above them. Hard, helpless, buried. You can hear it in her voice and see it in her eyes, she is waiting for a strong and fearless miner to go way down and rescue her up to the surface where she can shine for all she’s worth.

Boutros has to get her away tonight, before something happens, he doesn’t know what. He had a terrible feeling when his father taunted Piper about having had his own daughter. Boutros knew it must be true. For Frances to do what she does right under her father’s nose, Piper must know she’s already ruined, and he knows because he ruined her. But Boutros knows that no one is that powerful to be able to ruin something God created good. That was proven by Job. The Devil can try, but he can’t triumph.

Why did Adelaide believe Ginger when he said he was going to square things like a man with Piper? Because she was tired of not believing him. When people get tired they sometimes do things they wouldn’t normally do. Materia went for a nap with her head in the oven. That’s not in Adelaide’s line. When she gets tired, she stops tasting for truth. In a moment of fatigue she wanted everything to be all right, but wishing never made anything right. This is what happens when Adelaide stops being tough for a second.

If Adelaide weren’t in such a hurry she would run out and lose her supper into the toilet, but there isn’t time, so she walks shaky to Beel’s Grocery on the corner. “Have you seen my man tonight, missus?” is a rhetorical question. Mrs Beel goes straight to Adelaide’s house to mind the children while Adelaide takes care of her trouble. Wilfrid Beel is there with his philosophical white hair. He offers her a drive wherever she might need to go.

“I’ll let you know, Wilf.”

She leaves and walks to Teresa’s house.

Earlier that evening, Ginger had just laid Carvery in the crib when he saw a light down in the garage. He went out and opened the double doors onto the blazing headlights of his truck. He stood for a moment, temporarily blinded, and heard a soft crying.

“Hello?” he said.

Again the soft whimper.

It’s coming from the cab. Ginger opens the driver’s side and sees a dark shape huddled against the opposite door. A small voice says, “Don’t tell on me.”

His gullet leaps in fear. It’s her. Instinctively he hits the lights and they go out in slow motion.

“I’m scared,” she says, her voice muffled behind her hands.

“I’m not going to hurt you.”

She says something he can’t understand, barely audible and obscured by sorrow.

“You can’t stay here, Frances.”

The crying starts again — quiet, rhythmically regular, drained of passion. Like a child who’s already cried itself to sleep, then reawakened and is now no longer crying to be heard, having given up on that.

“What’s wrong?”

Soft hiccup, the voice is drenched and exhausted, “… hurt me.”

“What?” he says, stepping up on the running-board. She rustles away from him in frightened reflex.

“Shshsh, shsh, I’m not going to hurt you, what’s wrong?”