Fit Month for Dying (9 page)

“Some good!” she would purr and let the sheet trail away from her hand, reluctant to let it go. She would move slowly down the line to the towels, capture the tail of one and smile as she crumpled a fistful, satisfied the brisk wind had dried it as soft as one of her cotton aprons.

When we got out of the car, my wedding dress, my sedate and non-virginal beige linen dress, was wilted and wrinkled, and Greg's white shirt had a high water mark of sweat where his back had pressed up against the vinyl-covered seat. I could tell from the heat in Philomena's kitchen and from the mucky air that hung in her porch that the day had been an unusually hot one in the Cove as well as in St. John's. I suspected, though, that some of the heat in the house had come from Philomena's baking. I also suspected that Hubert had spent most of his day carrying in wood from the yard to keep the kitchen fire going so Philomena could bake the bread that she now had bottomed-up to cool on the oilcloth-covered table.

After the meal — a boiled dinner of salt beef and cabbage, turnips and potatoes, with a fig pudding for dessert — Greg and his father went to Cleary's Garage to get windshield wiper fluid for the car. Philomena took advantage of their absence to have a mother-in-law / daughter-in-law talk.

Since I was now Greg's wife, she wanted me to forget she had ever been against our marriage. “Let bygones be bygones, that's my motto,” she said. “Yesterday has hightailed it over the hill like Lundrigan's government ram.” She reiterated what she had said earlier: that her objections had been solely religious, not personal. And she felt compelled to tell me about her own marriage, as if my hearing about it would make me better able to understand her objections to Greg's and my union.

There hadn't been a hitch in her and Hubert's relationship for ten years — that's how long it took her, with the assistance of many litanies to Saint Jude, the patron saint of impossible cases, to produce Greg. No litanies were needed to bring Danny into the world. And later little Bridget, although, as it turned out, little Bridget was a gift that had to be returned after only two weeks.

“I'll never forget the pain of losing little Bridget. And I'll also never forget the goodness of Hubert during that time. We were so poor. Hubert had to leave his job in the Buchans mines because he had sores that got infected with the lead dust. So we had no money coming in. We lived on wild ducks that Hubert shot at the beach and capelin that we got out of the landwash in June, just like here in the Cove, and salted them down for winter. And, of course, handouts from my parents, the Lord have mercy on them. They were so good to us.”

After a time the wild ducks began to taste like capelin and the capelin began to taste like wild ducks. But the worst thing of all was that they couldn't afford a proper coffin for little Bridget, and Hubert had had to make one for her out of a couple of discarded lobster pots a neighbour had given him. Philomena said she loved Hubert most when he was making that lobster pot coffin. He had padded the inside of the rough laths with sheep's wool and lined it with a pillowcase her mother had contributed, and she had dressed little Bridget in a pretty pink silk dress another neighbour had donated. A few years earlier, when her own baby was born, this neighbour had received the dress from a relative in Boston, and it was still spic and span because the child had been born in the winter, and God Himself knew you didn't put silk dresses on a baby in the wintertime, especially in an unheated house. “So,” she said, her voice as soft as it must have been on that day when she dressed her daughter for the last time, “my little Bridget looked as pretty as any baby that ever entered Heaven.”

Then Philomena sighed heavily, remembering how life had continued to batter them. Hubert had gone back to fishing, a job he hated worse than the devil hates holy water. The children began to grow, and they had wants and needs that the parents had a hard time filling. And then pretty soon the mixed marriage issue reared its head. And it kept on rearing its head so it even blemished the good times. It was plain as the nose on her face, she said, it was even blemishing this very day — her first-born's wedding day. This day should not have been tinged with sorrow. And it wouldn't have been if Greg had been given a stronger foundation in his religion.

She acknowledged that the situation was partly of her own doing. She should have known better than to mix-marry. Even at the time, she was aware that a mixed marriage could cause all kinds of grief for a couple, not to mention watering down the faith of the next generation. Her mother had told her this, but she had paid her no heed, madly in love as she was with Hubert. Now that she had paid the price — was, in fact, still paying the price — she did, indeed, know better. If Greg had grown up in a solidly Catholic family, he would never have considered marrying a divorced woman. And now he was totally lost to his religion.

At least with Danny she still had some hope. As far removed as he was from his religion, he could turn a corner any day. There was no canonical impediment to his returning to the Church. But Greg's marriage left no hope for him at all. At least not as long as he stayed married to me, which she hoped he would. And that, she said, was the contradiction she now had to live with, that was the quandary she was steeped in. It was enough to break a mother's heart wide open. However, with the help of God and with the help of Hube, who always had a way of making her see that she was making mountains out of molehills, she would bear up. Hubert, for all that he was a Protestant, was the best thing that had ever come her way, and she hoped that the good Lord, if He had any warm feelings toward her at all, would put her into the ground before He took Hube. Life without Hube was hardly worth talking about.

Chapter Four

When, despite her prayers, Hubert goes into the ground before her, Philomena gives God the benefit of the doubt. He must have recognized that she was the stronger of the two, and He had kept her around to look after Hube. Hube, for all that he was kind and good, would have been useless tending to a sick woman. He had never made as much as a cup of tea for himself in his whole lifetime, and he would have starved to death sitting on a bag of flour.

In the months following Hubert's death, we go to the Cove as often as possible, particularly for special occasions. The Cemetery Mass is one of these. Weather permitting, it is always celebrated in the cemetery on Dickson's Hill on the Sunday closest to the fifteenth of August, the proceeds from the offertory going towards the upkeep of the cemetery.

Greg, Brendan and I go to the Cove on Saturday afternoon so Philomena will know with certainty that we will be with her. Unlike all of the others who will be at the Mass, she has no connection with Dickson's Hill, since her parents and little Bridget are buried down the bay in the settlement of her birth and Hubert is in the Protestant Cemetery on the flat land of the Cove. She wants us on hand to help her ward off her loneliness and her sense of not belonging.

On Sunday morning, Philomena gets us up long before we need to get up, insisting she wants to be at the cemetery early. As it turns out, we are so early we have the cemetery almost to ourselves. I use the extra time to check on the Corrigan family plots to see how the grave markers have fared over the winter. Greg, Brendan and Philomena follow after me as I pick my way down the steep slope of the cemetery hill. I walk carefully, watching my step so as to dodge the foundered graves and the sharp rocks that have been thrust to the surface by frost heaves. When I reach the spot where my uncle Martin, my grandmother and my mother lie side by side, I stop and stare across these graves to a grave isolated from the others by several feet. Ned Corrigan's grave, the great-uncle who had always been passed off to me as my grandfather.

“My oh my, I never knew yer Grandfather,” Philomena says, catching up and following my gaze, breaking into my thoughts. I am thinking, as I have before, what a fluke it is that Ned is now buried on the inside of the cemetery fence instead of on the outside of it. If the parish hadn't needed extra burial space, the cemetery fence would not have been moved out beyond Ned's plot, and it would still separate him, he who had died by his own hand, from those others, they who had died by an act of God.

“An awful thing, suicide,” Philomena acknowledges, remembering the story from years past. Her all-out-of-breath voice carries in the cemetery stillness. Even though the morning isn't cold, Philomena shivers and rubs her sweater-covered arms to brush away the goose bumps.

“Makes ye wonder how anyone could do such a thing. Such a cross fer them unfortunate enough to be left behind. But the poor fellow must have had his reasons. No one would do such a thing without a shockin' good reason. No one would want to string himself up on the back of a stable door unless he saw no other way out of his misery.”

Remembering she is amongst the dead, she has interjected a touch of charity on Ned‘s behalf, but she is still unable to fathom such an ungodly action. She shivers again as if chilled to the bone by the mere contemplation of the pain that must have been left behind in the wake of Ned's death, yet she can't seem to let go of the subject. Her words are whispery thin because she is still out of breath from the walk. “Meself, I don't see how I could bear it. I mean, being the one left behind to take the blame. And right or wrong, I know I'd be the kind to take the blame. I'd be the kind to ask meself all those questions about why I didn't notice there was trouble brewing.”

As we head back up the hill, retracing our steps to the top of the cemetery where the Mass is to be held, we make small talk about the graves that we pass along the way. We note how this grave marker hasn't fared so well while that one is still standing upright, how this person died so young, how that one lived so long. Here and there I fill in information that Philomena is lacking on account of her not having lived her whole life in the Cove. By the time we make it back to the top of the hill, Mass is just getting underway.

Immediately after the service, we go back to Philomena's house. Brendan and Greg grab a snack and then go fishing for trout in a brook on the outskirts of the Cove. Philomena and I take our tea into her parlour, which she has opened up for the summer and where she has temporarily hooked up the television set. Because the den gets the heat from the kitchen stove, Philomena thinks being able to sit in the cool parlour is well worth the nuisance of having wires strung along the floor and having to constantly caution people not to trip over them.

Because this room faces the ocean it always holds a dampness that no amount of airing out or window opening or spraying with Lily of the Valley air freshener can fully camouflage. And no number of whatnots or crocheted doilies or petit point samplers with gold letters asking God to bless the house or save the king can totally mask the musty smell of mildew burrowed deep into the windowsills. And not even an outdated calendar of the Dionne quintuplets smiling identical teenage smiles can hide the water stain on the wild fern wallpaper.

As soon as I sit down, Philomena switches on the television and positions herself on the couch in direct view of the screen. In a secretive voice, a male announcer discloses the plays of a golf tournament in Phoenix, Arizona.

“Loves looking at golf,” she says, “even if I don't know the first thing about the game. It's so easy on the nerves. Not like that foolish hockey everyone is crazy over. Out to kill each other.”

As always, Philomena sits with her legs wrapped in a granny-square afghan that she pulls from the back of a chair. The first time Danny saw her cuddle the afghan around her legs he had accused her of believing the announcers could look up her skirt. “I won't stand fer ye playing me fer a fool, young man,” she had said, the fire in her eyes negating any notion that she could be played for a fool. “I wasn't born on a barge, I'll have ye know.”

Once the afghan is in place to her satisfaction, she shifts around to make herself comfortable in the velour-covered chair, shuffling a pillow behind her shoulders and heeling in a footstool for her legs, more as if she is settling in for a nap rather than preparing to watch television. Actually, neither a nap nor a golf game is on her agenda.

“So Tess,” she says, twisting around to face me. In her eyes I see the resolute look of a dogfish caught in a seine. “'Tis now mid-summer. The House has been prorogued for a few months. When do you intend to look up Brendan's grandfather?”

Taken off guard, I hedge. “Soon. Real soon. I promise.”

“That's what you said last fall, you said you'd look him up when the House prorogued in the spring. Well, the spring has come and the spring has gone, and the House has prorogued, and you're still no closer to looking up your father than you ever were.”

Because it has been almost a year since she last brought up this subject, I wonder what has triggered the thought now. At first, I put it down to the peacefulness of the parlour. The windows are open, propped up with Hubert's homemade two-foot screens, and the warm air filters in through the polyester lace curtains. With every breath of wind — and for a rare change the wind is gentle — a branch from a blooming rose bush rubs up against the screens, perfuming the room. The moment holds the sort of deep peacefulness that makes you fear it won't last. Or it could be the trip to the cemetery that has sent her mind spiralling in the direction of Ed Strominski. Seeing the freshly turned sod of the new graves may have reminded her that at best life is provisional. Then it strikes me that the golf tournament is taking place in Arizona, the last known home of my biological father.

“Soon,” I repeat, aware that I no longer have Hubert to act as a buffer for me. “I'll get on it real soon.”

Hubert always told Philomena to stop pestering me about finding “that man,” and although she seldom listened to anyone's admonishments for any length of time, she would always lay off for a few months. Hubert's sickness and death had given me a longer reprieve than usual. But I now realize it was just that: a reprieve.

“I've already found out he lives in Arizona. I've done that much,” I say.

“Don't you think I already know that!” she snaps. “But finding out he lives in Arizona is no bloody good unless you go to see him.”

Two years earlier I had traced Ed Strominski's whereabouts to Scottsdale, or rather, I should say, Greg with his lawyer know-how had traced him. At any rate, having gone that far, I lacked the will, or maybe the courage, to go any further.

When Greg began the initial search, I gave him whatever information I could recall about the man I knew only through a dog-eared black and white snapshot. However, the fact that I didn't know him in the flesh didn't mean I knew nothing about him. I knew that his home town was Portland, Oregon, and that he had been a construction worker. He had come in the early l940s to Argentia, a seaport village eight miles from the Cove, with a shipload of American construction workers to turn Argentia into a naval and army base for Uncle Sam. And from research I had done years earlier, I knew that all US military base construction workers had later been formed into a group known as the Seabees, and that this group had obtained official navy status. This meant that there were official US naval records for all of the Seabees, including Ed Strominski.

Most of the unofficial information I had gathered on Ed Strominski had come my way through deliberate eavesdropping upon whispered, hand-over-mouth conversations. But some of it had come to me through serendipity. When I was eight or nine and rummaging through my mother's possessions in her bedroom, I found a postcard that proclaimed on its front FOR YOU A ROSE IN PORTLAND GROWS. There was no message on the card. There wasn't even a postage stamp. But on the back, in the left-hand corner, the words “Portland, Oregon” were printed.

Scanty as this information was, it was enough to tell me that Ed Strominski had given this card to Mother. I intuitively knew this. Indeed, my senses in all things having to do with the man who had bigamously married my mother had become so fine-tuned over the years that from a word or a sentence, or even from a covert look, I could fashion a biography. On that very same occasion I had also come upon a snapshot of a construction worker leaning against a khaki-coloured piece of construction equipment, a bulldozer or a steam shovel. Although, like the card, the snapshot bore nothing to identify this person staring back at me, I instantly knew that I was looking into the face of my begetter. I knew it was him by the way my whole being reacted: by the way my breath escaped my lips — loud and jerky, as if a wild animal had grabbed me by the collar and flailed me this way and that way, shaking the life out of me — and by the pain that seared my insides. Had a volcano erupted in some deep cavern within me and belched molten ash over my vital organs I would not have been more scorched. Above all, though, I knew it was him because of the delicious fear that circled my heart and forced its way outside in the form of cold perspiration.

I remember standing beside my mother's white-painted bureau, its drawer gaping open, as I looked down into the palm of my hand into the face of Ed Strominski staring back at me. Sweat drenched the hair at the back of my neck and trickled under my chin. Underneath my long-sleeved convent school uniform, the flesh on my arms felt damp and cold. At first I had looked at the snapshot through tentative, squinted eyes, as if I were looking at an object as eye-damaging as an eclipse of the sun. If I had stumbled upon a pharaoh's grave I would not have been any more timid of risking its curse than I was of looking full strength into the face of Ed Strominski. After a few seconds, though, curiosity overcame my fear, and I summoned the courage to stare at the snapshot with eyes fully opened. For the next several minutes my eyes refused to focus anywhere else but on the smiling man who leaned against the khaki-coloured piece of earth-moving equipment.

I continued to stand in that one spot in Mother's room, on the little oval rug in front of her bureau. I stood as if riveted on the belly of the home-hooked rooster whose open beak crowed “Good Morning” in red wool letters, the red of the letters perfectly matching the red of the rooster's comb and wattle. Past incidents, snippets of whispers and fragments of almost forgotten conversations forked and zigzagged around me like chain lightning. My heart raced wildly, and I was certain that if I had tried to speak, I would not have had the breath for it.

After what seemed like a very long time I finally came out of my stupor. Grandmother was shouting from the kitchen that I was taking entirely too long to fetch the envelope of pictures that Carmel had sent home from Boston. With a cunning developed over years of whispers and anxious looks and veiled words, I quickly hid the picture, tucked it up the tight, wrist-length black serge sleeve of my uniform so that I could have it later, all to myself, out of Grandmother's sight. For several days I kept it hidden under my pillow at night and in a special compartment in my school bag during the day. It was the closest I had ever come to meeting the man who had married my mother and who was half responsible for my existence.

“Ye'd better get to him soon, girl,” Philomena goads me as she turns down the voice on the television set. She sits back and rearranges the afghan around her legs. If Hubert were alive he would by this time be asking her why it was necessary for me to go traipsing across the United States looking for someone I wouldn't know if I fell over him. And she would retort, as she always did, that if, like herself, he had his grandson's best interest at heart, he wouldn't be so anxious to take my side.