When he looked across the table at Elsie's plate, she pushed it toward him. “Go on. I've had enough.” She turned to the Reverend. “We want to know
about
them. What happens? Who signs up?” she said. “How can they dance for a month? That's what the sign says. Thirty days. Nan saysâ¦she says that you said that they're bad. But why? That's what we want to know.”
Scoop had already finished Elsie's beans. “Have you been there?” he asked. “I mean inside, where they are dancing?”
The Reverend hauled his handkerchief from inside his coat. It unfurled like a limp gray flag. He swiped it across his face and patted his neck. “I have been to one. In Winnipeg, when they first became the fashion. I tended a few poor souls there.” He frowned and shook his head. “People dance for the chance to win money. There's no pleasure in it. Just desperation.”
Melvin took their cups and plates away and soon returned with their cups refilled and steaming. The Reverend continued to talk in a low, even voice, his gaze moving from Elsie to Scoop and back again. “These dance marathons take advantage of the weak and allow the strong to exploit them. Poor people dance long past endurance for money. That is all there is to it. And people who are just as poor use their few coins to watch them. Those who do endure, who win? They are often left empty-handed. Cheated. They lose their strength and their dignity, and they end up poorer than when they started. That, children, is an aberration.”
“But the poster says the winner gets a thousand dollars,” said Elsie. “That's more than a car costs!” She watched Melvin polishing cutlery with his dirty apron and wondered how clean the cutlery could get. A big tea urn hissed behind the counter. A man in the corner was asleep with his face in his newspaper. Now and again the bell over the door rang as people came in or out.
“That is the lure,” the Reverend Hampton said. “Greed and despair. That's what draws people to these events. A fatal combination of human frailties.” He sat back, looking from Scoop to Elsie. “Would you like to go and see what I'm speaking of?” He spoke quietly, as if to himself. “Perhaps it is better to know, than to be in ignorance of the world.”
“You'll take us to the dance marathon?” asked Elsie in surprise.
“First I must persuade your grandmother of the educational nature of the initiative. Let's get this boy home first, and I can speak with his parents too.” Scoop was snoring, tipped in his seat as if he might fall off any minute. Reverend Hampton stood up, pushed his chair back and then picked up her friend in his arms.
“He only has his mother,” Elsie told him. “Scoop's the man of the house now.”
The Reverend sighed. “So many children without fathers.” His gaze rested on Elsie. “Come. Let's get him home. You will need to lead the way.”
“A
nd about time too,” Nan said when Elsie came in the door. Her face was red and shiny as she stood up from the tub where she'd been bleaching sheets.
“The Reverend took us for beans at Melvin's.”
“Spoiling your supper, no doubt.” Nan stirred the ropy mess of laundry with her wooden tongs. “Now you're here, be of some use.” She groaned as she eased her back straight and handed the tongs to Elsie. “So where is the Reverend now?”
“Taking Scoop home. He's still sick and needs to be in bed. The Reverend stopped to visit with Mrs. Styles. He'll be here shortly.”
“Good. I could do with a visit myself. Today of all days.”
“Why today?”
“It's no never mind to you, miss. Give that lot a good stir. Then help me truck that water out to the yard and fill the tub again. Has it stopped raining?”
Elsie nodded.
“Let's get this lot sorted out, then,” said Nan. “Bring that with you.” As she pointed to a bucket hanging on the wall next to a tangle of sock frames and coat hangers, an envelope dropped from her sleeve.
Elsie reached for it, but Nan got to it first. “Is that from Mother?” asked Elsie. The bucket clanked against the tub as she set it down. “Can I read it? When is she coming home? Has her friend died yet?”
“Who said she was going to die?” Nan tucked the envelope into her apron pocket and bent down to haul up a hank of wet laundry. “Don't you be getting aerated. It's not from your mother.”
“Is it from Father, then?”
“Whoever it's from, it's none of your business. Mine neither. It's not addressed to me.”
“It must be from one of them. Uncle Dannell wouldn't write. No one else ever sends us letters. I've been waiting so long. I need to know when Mother's coming home. I'm sick of being patient.” Elsie jabbed the laundry tongs at the scummy mess in the tub, and a tear dripped down her cheek. As she stuck out her tongue to catch it, it fell with a tiny splash into the water. “I hate all these secrets!”
“Let's have no waterworks,” said Nan. “And
hate
's a strong word.” She dragged a sheet from the tub, twisted it into a hank and squeezed it tight. Murky water streamed back down into the tub. “It's nothing to do with secrets,” she said. “There's grown-up business. And business children need to know about. And right now there's no time for either of them.” She picked up the heavy bucket. “Get that door so I can hang this lot outside.”
As she and Nan fed the wet sheets through the wringer, Elsie kept peeking at Nan's damp apron and the envelope outlined against her hip. She kept her eye on it as they wrestled the laundry over the line. But she didn't mention it again. The more you nagged Nan, the more she held out. Elsie decided to wait until her grandmother took off her apron and went into the bedroom to make herself tidy for the Reverend's visit.
It took a lot of trips to get the wash hung up and the tub emptied. Elsie helped move the kitchen table and chairs back where they belonged. At last Nan shoved her arm up against her face to push her damp hair back. “I'd better make myself decent for the Reverend. You put the kettle on. And peel those spuds. There's a piece of gammon we'll fry up that will do for the three of us.”
She should never have let Scoop have her leftover beans and toast, thought Elsie. She was already hungry again. Or still hungry. Sometimes she couldn't tell which. If the Reverend stayed for supper, there would be less gammon for her. Her mouth watered just thinking about its lovely salty taste.
She watched Nan pull the apron over her head and fold it across the back of the chair. She waited as Nan reached into the cupboard and pulled out a handful of potatoes and dumped them on the table. She jigged her foot as her grandmother rooted in the drawer and took out the little knife with the bone handle. “And get those eyes out too,” she told Elsie. “Last time the spuds were looking at us cross-eyed all through supper.”
At last Nan turned toward the bedroom. But then, with one hand on the curtain, she turned quickly, reached toward the chair and took the letter out of her apron pocket. Then she disappeared into the room beyond.
Elsie slumped into a chair. She put her feet on Dog Bob, who was dozing under the table. But even with his familiar warmth against her socks, she was still miserable with all the secrets hanging over her head like soggy laundry.
“You're all flushed,” said her grandmother as she came back into the room. She rubbed her balled-up handkerchief against Elsie's cheek. “You better not be coming down with something again. Beans on your face and no potatoes peeled?” She filled the dipper with water from the tub by the door, poured water into the kettle and put it on the stove. “Get a move on, miss. You sure the Reverend planned to drop by?”
Elsie nodded and dug the knife into the potato, purposely peeling away more spud than skin. She dropped what was left of it into the pan with a splash. As she attacked another, she tried to sort out where Nan might have put that letter.
On the dresser against the wall in the old cigar box, with Nan's old photos? Most were formal studio pictures with unsmiling people standing next to tall palm trees or in front of murals of mountains. One showed her mother as a baby sitting on Nan's lap, with two serious-faced ladies standing behind. One wore a big hat so fancy it looked like a wedding cake.
But Elsie's favorite was the photograph taken at Kitsilano Beach two years ago. Father's trousers were rolled up to his lumpy knees, and his handkerchief was tied at its four corners over his head. Mother was carrying her shoes in one hand, wearing her summer frock with tiny pansies all over it. Between them stood Elsie in a knitted swimsuit that came down to her knees, with a beach bucket that Father had set upside down on her head.
She dropped her knife on the table and took her hat from the peg, jamming it down tight. She didn't care how many times Nan told her to take it off. She felt better with her hat on. She poked her finger into the pan of water and watched the potatoes bump into each other, then drift apart. She felt like that. Tiny and cold. Going round in circles trying to figure everything out.
Nan came back into the room and picked up the saucepan. “Find the cups and saucers. And set out the sugar bowl. The Reverend has a sweet tooth.”
Dog Bob was at the door before Nan's friend had even knocked. He whined as he waited for the door to open, but when he saw their visitor was not Uncle Dannell, he retreated through the curtain to the bedroom.
“Did I disturb your supper?” The Reverend hung his coat up on the coatrack behind the door and wedged his hat on top of it.
“Certainly not,” said Nan. “Sit, why don't you. The tea's just steeping. We were hoping you'd join us for a boiled dinner. I've a lovely piece of gammon that Mrs. Styles sent over with her boy.” She brought the teapot to the table. “I hear you've been treating Elsie and Ernest at the diner.”
The Reverend turned his Bible the right way about, then laid one pale hand on it. “The children and I enjoyed an interesting discussion.”
“It's a rare day that boy talks sense. His late father was a printer with the newspapers. That's where that child gets his high-handed ideas, is my best guess,” said Nan. “This one's got her head screwed on right. Though I worry about Ernest's influence, I do.”
Elsie shifted the sugar bowl toward the Reverend, who helped himself to two spoonfuls.
The Reverend and Nan nattered about the Bradleys down the road. They were expecting another child, when they already had four and no work in the family. The food the ladies were able to cook up at the soup kitchen had got better since an anonymous donor started dropping off crates of cabbages and carrots. The church ladies were still managing to put together lovely altar arrangements. Elsie sat through their endless chat with her head resting on her arms at the table. She even dozed off for a while and only moved when Nan declared supper ready, dishing out potatoes, turnips and gammon.
There was just enough for one thin slice of meat each, with an extra one for the Reverend. “That was delicious,” he told Nan as he pulled out his gray handkerchief and swabbed his face. “I thought I might take this young lady
â
and her friend, if his mother gives her permission
â
out for the day tomorrow.”
“This one has chores. And homework.” Nan wiped the table and brought another pot of tea.
“Might you be able to complete your homework tonight?” the Reverend asked Elsie. “I could perhaps help.”
“She doesn't need help,” said Nan. Then she added quickly, “Though it's a kind offer. This one has the brains, and she needs to use them, or they will fail her when she needs them most.”
“I'm almost done. And I can do my chores tonight too,” said Elsie hopefully.
Nan lifted the lid off the teapot, looked inside, then set it back in its place. She looked at Elsie, then turned to the Reverend. “Well. Just this once perhaps.” Then she added, “With her mother away, and her father⦠It's all down to me.”
“And a very good job you're doing, if I may say so.” The Reverend smiled at Elsie.
“And how will you spend the day with these children?” asked Nan.
“Ah. Well. In these timesâ¦I think it might be educational for the children to learn a little about how vulnerable we all are. How easily manipulated.”
As he talked, humming and hawing, Elsie realized that the Reverend was scared of her grandmother!
“They should perhaps learn,” he said, “of the wickedness of the world, and how it preys on the weak. So I thoughtâ¦perhaps it might be a good ideaâ¦I thought I might take them along to Terminal Avenue. To the dance marathon.”
N
an's cup rattled on the saucer as she put it down. “That evil place!” Her spilled tea made a puddle on the table. Elsie jumped to her feet, grabbed a rag and dabbed it up. “I can't believe this is a good idea,” Nan told the Reverend.
Elsie felt all her excitement drain away like scummy water out of a laundry tub.
Nan's cheeks were mottled red. “I must say, if I may, I am surprised. You have spoken so strongly against it. In the pulpit and on the street⦔ Her chest heaved in and out as she got aerated. Just like Uncle Dannell and Scoop!
The Reverend held up one hand. “I recall our conversations. And I value our discussions⦔ Nan opened her mouth to speak, but the Reverend continued. “The children are curious. And drawn by the popular press
â
posters and such
â
that give these things a certain allure. So what I propose is this.” He looked at Elsie, then back at Nan. “Tomorrow I will take the two children, Elsie and her friend Ernest
â
or Scoop, as I believe he prefers to be called
â
to learn a little about it for themselves. Under my supervision.”
“It costs a quarter if you go after six o'clock,” said Elsie. “I only have a dime.”