Finding My Own Way (6 page)

For breakfast that first morning at home, I ate two of the hardboiled eggs and one of the sandwiches I'd brought from the city. Ernie, by the smell of him, had found a dead fish to roll in, and I put him back outside with the other sandwich while I readied myself to go to town.

After securing the new lock on the back door I set off, sending Ernie back home when we got as far as the corner. Mr. Chips, the dog we had before Ernie, used to
follow us right into town and lie down on the sidewalk outside the shops to wait. But the streets in Pinkney Corners were busier now.

A sprinkler was circulating a shower of water on the Paceys' front lawn. Since my last visit they had installed green and white striped awnings on the upstairs windows. Fern Pacey, Margaret's mother, was watering the geraniums in the boxes that hung from the porch railings. She watched me come up the walk. “Well, there you are, Libby!” she cried. “I was wondering what day you'd show up. Come right on up here and let me get a look at you.”

“Is Margaret home?” I managed to ask before Mrs. Pacey released me from an unexpected embrace. You never knew what sort of a greeting you'd get from Margaret's mother.

Mrs. Pacey made a little face and stepped back, retrieving the watering can from the glass-topped table. “Unfortunately, no. She found herself a real job this summer, at an inn in Muskoka. Three girls from the school got hired. She was so proud of herself, no more working for peanuts at Savaway. But she did get your letter, dear, the day she was leaving. She knew you were returning, so I'm sure she'll be writing to you.”

“You mean she's gone for the whole summer?”

“I'm afraid so. And did she tell you she's going to Business College in Belleville in the fall?” She hadn't, and it hurt a little to think that Margaret had made important decisions without me.

Patting the seat beside her on the swing, Fern Pacey insisted she wanted to hear all about what I'd been doing
in the city, but she kept glancing at her watch while I talked. “And your aunt, dear,” she asked politely. “How's she keeping?”

I had always had the impression that Mrs. Pacey disapproved of Irene. “Irene's fine,” I said. “She works very hard. I had a hard time persuading her to let me come home. She's got so many people checking on me that I feel like I'm a side-show, or something.”

“I'm glad to hear that.” Mrs. Pacey wrinkled her delicate nose. “I have to tell you, dear, that I was a little nonplussed when I heard your aunt was letting you come back here by yourself. But it is only temporary, isn't it? Irene was always so unconventional.”

I didn't stay for lemonade. Much as I loved Margaret, I always thought there was something forced about her mother, with her sudden, over-exuberant affection. I was always on the lookout for the veiled criticism that could follow.

It was in Grade Two that Margaret stood up in class and announced that her mother had won the 1948 Pinkney Corners Citizen of the Year award. “That's wonderful, dear,” Miss Dempster had smiled, fingering her pearls. “You have every right to feel proud of her.”

“My aunt's a famous ballerina,” I informed Margaret at recess the same day.

My friend frowned. “What's her name, then?”

“Irene Eaton.”

“How come I've never heard of her, if she's so famous?”

“Oh, she dances in the city, with the Ballet Company. In Toronto. Gives lessons too.”

“I think it would be wonderful to have someone
that
famous in the family,” Margaret admitted. “You're very lucky, Libby.”

I felt vindicated, and I lent Margaret my best cat's eye for the rest of the afternoon.

In spite of Irene's so-called fame, it was my mother's writing talent that most impressed my best friend. When we were ten, Margaret discovered that my mother and Alexandra Quincy-Newton were the same person. We were collecting the mail from our box out by the road, a novelty for Margaret, whose mail arrived at the drugstore and was brought home by her father. “Let me do it,” Margaret begged, inserting her arm into the back of the rusted metal box. “Who's this for?” she asked as she read the name on one of the envelopes.

“For Alex,” I said, looking over her shoulder. “That's her pseudonym.”

“Alex's what?” Margaret demanded.

“Her nom-de-plume. Her pen name. It's part of her contract. She has to call herself something other than her real name when she writes the novels. Those adventure stories she writes for girls?”

“Alexandra Quincy-Newton is your
mother
? Your
mother
writes those Laura Hill books?” Margaret shrieked. “I adore those books! Does Miss Dempster know?”

“I'm not sure,” I replied. “Probably not.” Why would anyone connect my mother to someone named Alexandra Quincy-Newton?

“Wow,” breathed Margaret. “You said she was a writer, and my mother said she just worked for the newspaper. But books, even!”

I remember how Alex would complain that the adventure series kept her from any “real writing”. She said she had a bigger project in mind. But the series provided a cheque she could count on every time she completed one of them; and by that time, the outline for the next would have arrived in the mail.

I shrugged off Margaret's excitement. Alex was, after all, just my mother

“Admit it,” I told myself as I left the Pacey home on that first day back in Pinkney Corners, promising Margaret's mother “not to be a stranger”. “Weren't you really hoping to see Michael while you were there?” Forget that I had planned to unburden my soul to my oldest and dearest friend, it was the thought of seeing Michael that had made my pulse race a little more quickly.

In the centre of town, Admiral's Grocery had hamburger on sale, three pounds for a dollar. But it was to Dooley's Delicatessen next door that I headed. Michael Pacey had been working there on weekends the last time I had seen him.

I couldn't afford to shop there, but they couldn't stop me from looking. I picked up a wire basket from the stack inside the door and wandered up and down its two aisles, examining little boxes of fancy crackers, foil-wrapped cheese and chocolates. The man busy shaving ham at the meat-slicer was not Michael, and when another customer came in asking for half a pound of liver sausage, I left without buying a thing.

Ernie, my truest friend, was glad to see me when I arrived home with my shopping bags. From the enthusiastic gnawing he gave the soup bone I'd gotten free from the butcher, I knew he agreed I'd shopped wisely. Seeing some fresh food in the fridge and some tins in the cupboard gave me a similar feeling of satisfaction.

That afternoon Ernie and I walked up to the McIntyres' to buy some milk. I had another reason for wanting to see them, a favour to ask. “If my Aunt Irene decides to phone, please don't tell her about the break-in,” I suggested. “Do you mind? It would just worry her. I've been to see Mrs. Pacey, my friend's mother, to let her know that I've arrived. You can tell Irene that much. I'll write her tomorrow anyway, but she said she might phone you to check on me.”

“Just as long as you aren't feeling lonely down there,” Mrs. McIntyre agreed. “I want you to remember we're always here. And you can put that money back in your pocket. A quart of milk and a few eggs aren't going to break us.”

To make them happy, I agreed to stay for supper. It was pleasant to sit around the cluttered table after the meal, helping to empty the teapot, telling the farm couple about my plans. “I was thinking, maybe I could grow cucumbers like we used to. Alex and I made pretty good money the years we did that. It isn't too late, is it? To put seed in?”

“Pickling company doesn't buy from the small growers anymore,” said Henry McIntyre, tilting his chair back so that it rested against the wall behind him.
“They haven't given any local contracts now for a couple of years.”

His wife was wrapping waxed paper over the few biscuits remaining on the plate. “D'you mind the time Eddie Hackett got fresh with your mother?” she asked, looking up at me.

“Is that what happened?”

“She didn't tell you?”

“Not in so many words,” I admitted. “I remember her telling me after whatever happened, never to let anyone take advantage of me just because I was a girl and, supposedly, weaker than they were.”

“Oh, she was hopping mad,” remembered Mrs. McIntyre, sliding the biscuits into the breadbox. “And the next time Alex put the sacks out for Eddie to collect, he just drove right on past.”

Henry McIntyre eased his suspenders down over his shoulders. “When I saw the sacks sitting there the next day, I took them up myself. Said I'd do it for her whenever she needed them delivered.”

“But your mother wouldn't hear of that.” Mrs. McIntrye's tone was gleeful. “Eddie had been hired by the company to do the picking up, and she'd just let the company know that he'd missed hers. Came up here to use our phone, she did. That's how come I heard the conversation. And then she told us what had happened. I guess that Eddie Hackett decided he'd collect on the favour he figured he was doing her. She told him she didn't owe him anything, except possibly a thank-you.”

“She was a courageous woman, your mother,” said Henry McIntyre, shaking his head.

“And did Mr. Hackett pick up our cucumbers after that?” I asked.

“You bet he did!” Henry McIntyre vowed. “Hackett was a bully, and bullies are often cowards. Your mother beat him, just by standing up to him.”

“That was the way Alex was,” said Mrs. McIntyre. “But we don't have to tell you that, do we?”

I began carrying dishes over to the sink. “One thing that my mother always made clear to me was that I was important and worthy of respect. And that was the way I was to treat everyone. Obviously, that wasn't the way Eddie Hackett treated her.”

“Well, a woman on her own has to keep her wits about her.” Henry McIntyre brought his chair down onto its four legs and reached for a toothpick from the holder on the table.

His wife seized the plates from my hands. “Company does not do dishes in my house,” she declared.

I sat down again. “I guess then, as soon as I'm a little more settled, I'll walk into town and look for a job. It's the sensible thing to do.” And sensible, after all, was what grownups would want me to be.

“The bus doesn't go by here now till about eleven in the morning,” said Mrs. McIntyre. She tipped the teapot to drain the last of it into her husband's cup. “Not much good to you, if you want an early start.”

In the past, if Alex didn't feel like walking, and if she could afford the fare, we would take the bus to town. I remember waiting impatiently for its arrival at the corner, singing as many choruses of “Jump Jim Crow” (with actions) as it took to make the bus appear in the
distance—a fat blue beetle lumbering towards us.

I saw Mrs. McIntyre catch her husband's eye, saw his small nod. “I think Henry has something to show you, Elizabeth.”

Henry McIntyre heaved himself away from the table and asked me to hang on a second. He went outside, the screen door slapping behind him. A minute or two later we heard his whistle, and Mrs. McIntyre and I stepped out onto the back porch.

Henry, pleased as punch, was pushing a bicycle, my bicycle, towards us. “Were you looking for this?” he inquired with a sly smile.

“Not yet, but I . . .”

“I was afraid you'd think it was stole,” he said.

“Henry's cleaned it all up for you,” his wife announced, proudly.

“It looks brand new!” I exclaimed. “This is really terrific.” I looked at them standing there, happy just to see my happiness. “How can I ever thank you?”

“S'nothing,” he said, giving the bike over to me. “I had a couple of old ones hanging up in the barn, belonged to our boys. I just used the parts off of them to fix this one up. Here, give her a try.”

He'd bought new handle grips, and the seat was softer and shinier than I remembered. “That kick stand,” I pointed out, “I know you must have bought that.”