November. The first of this month I reserved for the murder.
I did not depict anyone actually shooting Botho August, only my painter's rendition of the aftermath. In the mural ânowâBotho stands in the topmost window of the lighthouse, black wings spreading from his back, three splotches of blood on his nightshirt. He is the presiding angel of Witless Bay. I stepped back to look. I left him that way. I painted the gramophone in on the roof.
In the mural, Odeon Sloo and his family are unloading a horse-drawn wagon in the lighthouse yard. The door is open.
Out in Witless Bay Harbour, my mother is peacefully rowing a dinghy. She has an umbrella fixed to a thwart, shading her from the sun. On a nearby swell, there are black ducks. On a buoy off to her left is a cormorant.
Reverend Sillet is standing above the weathervane atop his church. Except for this act of levitation, I think that his portrait is an admirable likeness, right down to his ever-present handkerchief in his black suit jacket pocket, button-down shoes.
On the rotted dock at the southernmost point of the harbor, Margaret is a grown woman riding her bicycle.
Village life, plain village life, is what the rest of the mural
contains. People drying cod, milling about in front of the church, children fishing from docks, the
Aunt Ivy Barnacle
just leaving the wharf; though I did add a bevy of gulls marauding off from its bow, one of Klara Holly's letters in each beak. Water, clouds, sky, birds, and no murder taking placeâmy perfect day.
In my estimation, I completed the mural on November 4.
I had much apprehension about showing it to Sillet. It was not that I truly believed I had attained any sort of redemption by having painted it; nor would there be any lack of redemption if he did not approve. More, it was the act of being judged by him at all, and my knowing that the next Sunday the sheets would be taken down and the congregation would see where their money had gone.
Jittery or not, I wanted to celebrate. I got dressed up, called on Margaret at her house, asked her to come and see the mural, then out to Spivey's for supper.
“I'll act as if I was in a real hurry,” she said, “and that not to waste time, I have to change clothes in front of you.”
In the church, she studied the mural for quite a while. She tilted her head, stepped up close, stepped back, sat in a pew, and shifted expressions. “You're not included in it,” she finally said. “Is that the artist's modesty, or cowardice?”
“I was waiting to ask where you thought I should be.”
“Well, it's
your
masterpiece, Fabian. Though considering what liberties you've taken with certain people, Sillet in particular, up there rusting with his weathervane, I'd guess he won't call it a masterpiece.”
“I thought I'd paint me lying facedown in the mud. In the lighthouse yard.”
“That word âredemption' has really got to you, hasn't it? Fabian, if you believe that just by painting it you can become the man you murderedâgo ahead, think that. Paint yourself in Botho's place. I for one wouldn't be persuaded. I wouldn't take it to heart. Though I'd bet bottom dollar that Sillet would praise you to the rafters.”
“Margaret, I told you the arrangement. I just want him to leave you and my family out of his sermons.”
“Whitewash the whole thing, Fabian. Now. Before it's too late. Before you lose your soul.”
“I can't.”
“In the least, then, don't consider me part of this arrangement. Don't you dare. I'd rather stay in sermons as a murderous harlot. It doesn't bother me. Not one bit.”
I hung up the sheets on their nails. We went to Spivey's.
At our table, before we had supper, Margaret said, “Tomorrow's Guy Fawkes Day. A year's gone by, Fabian. A person can pack a lot into a year, can't a person. It's Guy Fawkes, plus it's a Thursday. I'd agree to sleep at your house if we pass up the festivities.”
“I wasn't planning to attend.”
That Thursday nightâthe bonfire blazing near the lighthouseâMargaret and I met in my kitchen just after dark.
“I want to get into bed right away,” she said.
Before we took off our clothes, Margaret did not have a
drink of whiskey as she customarily did. She just began kissing me, tenderly one moment, the opposite the next. She kissed every part of my face, then moved down my shoulder to my chest. I was so taken by her dreamy expressionâeyes half closed, glancing at my face now and then, arms holding on for dear life more than in an embraceâthat at first I did not fathom the words she whispered between kisses. Words having nothing yet everything to do with the moment. “You have to build a new bed.” She kissed my neck now. “I want every last thing of Alaric's out of the house.” She wrapped her leg around mine and held my hands above my head. “I'll have supper once a week alone with my father.” Now she gently rocked on top of me, eyes closed. “I wouldn't be a bride in front of that mural. Never.” She lay across my chest, breathing into my ear, and continued with the rules of our marriage. “Halifax is out, for a honeymoon place. I'd rather not go anywhere.” Now, lost in her motion, she grasped the headboard, her words deepening to moans, and suddenly she kissed me hard, bit her lip, moaned again, closed her eyes, and said, as though forcing out the first part of a song, “This child ⦔ She pressed her forehead to mine, collapsing against me.
“I never left you, Margaret, not really. Yet at the same time it's strange, I feel that I've come back around to you.”
“Get me a glass of water, will you, darling.”
I got up from the bed and poured each of us a glass of water. I sat on the edge of the bed. Margaret pulled the sheets up to her chin.
“Did you just propose to me?” I said.
She drank the water to the bottom of the glass.
“Only if you say yes.”
Here is how we planned our wedding. Margaret said, “How about November 10? It's soon enough to stay excited about till it happens, and to not wait too long to get over with.” I agreed.
We asked Enoch to officiate. “I've been volunteering for years, haven't I?” he said.
On my wedding day I went early to find Sillet and, when I found him in the store, asked him to finally come and see the mural. I met him in the church at three o'clock.
“You have your church suit on,” he said. “Do you consider this a pious occasion?”
“Showing you the mural? No. I'm just going to show it to you, after which I'm getting married.”
“Sander Muggah isn't going to officiate, is he?”
“Enoch Handle.”
“Ah, a marriage at sea.”
“Well, anchored in the harbor. Or tied up at the dock. A plain and simple location.”
“Legally, I know he can. But has Enoch ever performed a marriage?”
“He hasn't performed his daughter's, which is all that counts to me.”
“Well enough and good.”
“Take a look now.”
“Indeed.”
I took down the sheets. As I sat in a pew, Reverend Sillet walked the length of the mural, inspecting it close up, bird by bird, person by person, house by house. “Oh, Lord” is all he said at first. He stepped to the other side of the church for a long view.
“Interesting enough, through and through,” he said, somber-voiced. He walked over and stood next to me. “Yet in the main, in my humble opinion, your imagination went a bitâawry. I admit to recognizing certain things. I recognize certain people and the things they do. I recognize our village in general. But as for the unfortunate eventâ”
“The murder.”
“âYou don't reallyâYour rendering of Botho August. Of myself. There's a certain folly. But, alas, I privileged you that, didn't I? I paid you to paint this mural as you saw fit for the most part, didn't I? However, I would have thought the process of redemptionâ”
“That's me lying facedown in the mud.”
A gunshot exploded in the air and set the church to ringing, louder than the bells ever had. A second shotâa third. I felt Reverend Sillet throw himself in fear, protection, or sheer clumsiness over me, and we toppled to the floor. Looking up from under his body, I saw that the cluster of ducks near where my mother rowed on the mural had been pulverized.
Sillet gathered himself back up to his feet. “Margaret!” he said, with seething restraint. He brushed himself off.
Margaret shrugged. She had on her mother's wedding
dress. She held the revolver by her thumb. “Mitchell Kelb sold this back to Romeo Gillette,” she said, holding forth the gun. “The damning evidence revolver here. Did either of you know that? Well, you just don't keep up on things, now, do you? My father in turn bought it from Romeo to take along on his mail route. He says that times are changing for the worse where human nature is concerned. He says there's a rougher sort in Halifax than there used to be. Even mailâjust everyday letters and packagesâis fair game to galoots, he says. I just borrowed the pistol for the purpose you just witnessed. There now, I've added the right touch of spice to the mural, don't you think?”
Sillet moved toward Margaret, holding his fist in his hand. He stopped a few steps in front of her. “You'll never, never set foot in my church again,” he said. “Margaret Handle, I could easily have you arrested for damaging church property.”
“If I wanted to damage church property, I'd start with you,” she said.
“Very well, then, Margaret. You are who you are. I'll simply have the holes puttied and sanded, and there'll be no trace of your wrongdoing. Fabian, I'm sure, will paint in new birds. Now kindly leave.”
I looked at Margaret. Her expression of nonchalance. The revolver held now against the wedding dress. Her hair done up in coiled braids.
“Fabian,” she said, “I'll need an escort.”
Sillet turned back to the mural.
As we walked along the cliff path to the wharf, Margaret
slipped a coat over her shoulders. I took the revolver from her hand and tossed it into the sea. “I'll get Enoch a new one if he wants,” I said. “Margaret, what got into you back there?”
“Believe me, husband-to-be. I changed a lot in hospital and have changed some since. But not entirely.”
When we reached the
Aunt Ivy Barnacle
, Enoch was waiting on deck. It was a cold afternoon, with a biting, wet chill off the water. The sea was calm, though, and waves lapped evenly against the hull.
“Were those shots I heard echo down?” Enoch said.
“Yes, Pop, they were.”
Enoch waited a moment, then decided to ask nothing. “Well, you and Fabian look healthy enough.”
“Let's all go to Spivey's after,” Margaret said. “I'll sit there in my wedding dress.”
“I'm sure Bridget and Lemuel will compliment it,” Enoch said. “I'm ready when you are. I've brushed up on the vows. You two will be your own witnesses. We'll call that legal. Let's go into the steerage, out of the wind.”
In the cabin we held hands and Enoch conducted the ceremony. Bible, rings, vows, all in as few words as possible. It pleased us.
“You may kiss the bride,” Margaret said.
We kissed a moment, then we heard Enoch say, “My God, some courtships are more difficult than others, aren't they?” He pointed to his eyes, which had teared up. “This is from giving the bride away and your mother not here to see it, Margaret.”
“Cry all you want, Pop. As long as it's in the knowing that I'm happy.”
She kissed her father's cheek and wiped his tears with her fingers.
Enoch left for the south on the last mail run of the year, and Margaret and I set up house. I built a new bed, putting the other in storage. We slept in my parents' old room. I began to use my former bedroom as a place to paint and draw. I set up my easel. I set out my paints. Enoch had given us fifty dollars as a wedding present, a lot of money, which handsomely tided us over. When asked, I worked at the dry dock. I was not shunned. Margaret kept her employment as a bookkeeper, working in Enoch's attic. Things were all set up in perfect order there, so why change it?
By November 23 Enoch had not returned. That evening Margaret had no appetite. “Why not just go to Spivey's and have supper?” she said. “I really don't mind. I know you'll come back. I'm going to sleep. Besides, we're out of coffee, so you might want to get some at Gillette's. I'm sleeping so well these days, and at odd hours, too. The bottles all out of the house. And look at me, drinking tea. Just look at me. I really just want to sleep now. Have a nice supper.”
I went to Spivey's, but as it turned out, the only available place was at a two-chair table where Reverend Sillet was already seated. Seeing me hesitate at the door, Bridget whistled and pulled out the empty chair, then went into the kitchen. I sat down. We ate mostly in silence. When our
dishes were cleared, I said, “You were a fair employer, and you paid me on time.”