What They Wanted (16 page)

Chris looked at me with a raised eyebrow, and I was struck for a moment by his likeness to Father and the maturation of his boyish face. “That’s a queer thing to say,” he said deeply. “Can’t imagine you feeling that way.”

“Yeah, well, I still feel that way. Most times.”

He shook his head. “Can’t figure it, Sis. You always acted like you knew exactly where you stood, where you were going, how you were getting there—graduating high school, university—gonna be a captain or something, weren’t you? And travel the world?”

“Well, that kind of stuff I’ve always had clear. It’s the other stuff, I guess. The inside stuff that bothers me—always feeling haunted about something. Perhaps I crouched with the ghosts in Cooney Arm too many times. Got myself a haunt.”

“Aah,” he said knowingly, “now you’re making sense—least, the halfways home bit. Gran’s always saying haunts are them caught between two worlds.”

“So why’re they caught—she tell you that?”

“Nope.” He gazed up at the evening star, its eternal setting brightened by an invisible moon, and shook his head. “Perhaps there’s just one home for haunts, and they’re scared of going there.”

I followed his gaze. “Sometimes when I’m feeling homesick, or just missing all of you, I look up at that sky and tell myself it’s the same sky looking down on all of you. Makes me feel better.”

“Me too,” he exclaimed. “Really. I think the very same thing when I wonders about you—that we’re all standing beneath that evening star. I calls it Sylvie. Yeah, I do,” he said to my skeptical look. Reaching one arm towards the heavens, he intoned dramatically, “‘Proud Evening Star, in thy glory afar.’”

“My lord, he’s quoting Yeats,” I said in astonishment.

“Allan Poe,” he corrected. “Come on, be no beers left.”

“Chris, we need to talk.”

“Later. Somebody’s about to make a surprise attack.” He tugged me along, looking guardedly for Kyle through the alder bed crowding the roadside.

“So what does Al Poe say about the moon?”

“That it’s me—pale beside your tiniest starlight.”

“Yeah, right.” I struck his arm. “Nothing pale about you, Chrissy, you’re brighter than all of us—just haven’t started shining yet. Proud virgin moon is what you are, on the cusp of everything.”

“Christ, here she goes, always—” He broke off mid-sentence, sniffing the air. “Little bastard’s sneaking up. Stay here, Sis, keep talking, grunt a bit so’s he’ll think it’s me.”

As Chris stole off into the alder bed I took a last look at the outport, at the orange-painted house where Ben’s aunt lived and where he stayed that summer he worked the sawmill with Trapp. He’d left for university a few weeks after that day of my self-afflicted muteness. And until he left I stayed mostly in the house when he’d visit, venturing outside long enough to beat a mat for Mother, hang out a tea towel, a pudding bag, or some such thing—staying long enough to evoke some silly utterance from him, whereupon I sped back inside. Through the white gauze curtains I’d watch when he strolled back to work, or rowed around the outcropping in his leaky boat en route to the swimming hole at the mouth of the river or to the mud flats to dig for clams. Each time I saw anew the strength of his arms as he plied his paddles and the clear evening light in his eyes, heard the lilt of his voice and his flutish laugh as he called out silly things to Chris who’d run up to the river or the mud flats to join him. Longingly I’d watch after Chris, frustrated by my self-imposed exile. Eagerly I’d await their return trip, lying on my bed, ears tuned to the window, listening for the squeaking of Ben’s tholepins, the swishing of his paddles breaking through the water. And every time I heard them I’d curl my knees to my stomach, sickened by the sweetness of my pain.

And then he was gone. Back to university, leaving a desire that rooted itself through me like a rhizome, sprouting fantasies of springy black curls and sooty grey eyes at each turn in my day. And no matter he never came back the following summer or the next, working the oilfields out on the prairies somewhere, in the heat of my thoughts he felt a heartbeat away.

A rustling of the alders and Chris tore out, startling me.

“Shh, where is that little bastard,” he whispered, eyeing the bushes. Kyle popped out of the alder bed some distance ahead, whipping back a fistful of rocks. Chris danced as they struck around his feet, and dove back inside the alders with a war whoop. All up and down the roadside the bushes shook and snapped as Chris and Kyle beat and fought their way through like grouse fleeing a hunter’s gun. A scream from Kyle, and there was Chris dragging him from the brush by the neck and dumping him onto the grass, sitting astride his back and smooshing his face into the turf.

I resigned myself to the ruckus and walked past them, wondering again at how Chris could shift so quickly from self-contained, manlike mannerisms one moment to boyish clowning around the next.

FOUR

V
OICES SOUNDED
as I neared the club: a group of young fellows huddled around a parked truck and a couple of girls sitting on its dropped tailgate. Chris was suddenly trundling beside me, Kyle quick behind, both of them shaking twigs from their pant legs and smoothing back their hair. Tucking his hands into his back pockets, Kyle walked with a more measured step towards the parked truck then veered towards a couple of guffawing younger teens just appearing from behind the club, bottles of beer bulging through their jackets.

“Pop. Pop bottles,” said Chris, nudging me ahead as I was about to call after Kyle.

“He’s too young to drink.”

“It’s pop, I told you, go—go”.

He nudged me up the steps to the club door then drew me inside. It was crowded, and darkish. Elbowing aside a few drunken patrons, Chris cleared a spot for us at the bar and then signalled to the bartender. I squinted through the smoke, recognizing none of the people either moving about or sitting around the tables. A three-piece band on an elevated stage against the back wall struck up a heavy-metal number and a swarm of bodies started for the dance floor. I shook my head to Chris’s prodding for a shot of rum, settling for a glass of red wine poured from a two-gallon box that was perched on a shelf beside a strong yellow light.

“Too warm,” I complained to the bartender, but he was already hollering at someone farther down the bar, leaving me staring morosely at Chris, who was downing a shot of rum with one hand and cradling a beer in the other.

“Throat on fire?” I asked.

He flashed a grin, his cherry-brown eyes dark as Father’s in the dim light. Leaning with his back against the bar, he looked around. “See anybody you know?”

“No. No, and I don’t want to, I can’t hear in this racket— Chris, I’m not staying long—”

“Them fellows over there, that’s your school buddies, isn’t it? You sure?” he asked as I shook my head.

“No, there’s nobody here I hung with—what’re you doing?” I asked, watching as he downed another drink. “Christ, do you always drink like this?”

“Hard week, Sis. By jeezes if it weren’t.”

“Yeah. Guess it was. Frigging hard week.”

“I’m leaving with you,” he said.

“Good, finish your beer. What’d you bring us here for, anyway?”

He set his glass down heavily on the bar. “In the morning. I’m going with you to the prairies.”

“How nice.”

“Already packed. Suitcase is stogged full and sitting on the bed, ready to go.” He stared at me, his eyes so earnest that even in the smoky light I could see his fear and determination. I stood wordless for a moment, then doubly shocked as he pulled out a plane ticket, folded and refolded yet crisp as lettuce.

“Talked with manpower this morning. That’s where I went after I left you. Tons of work on the rigs. Hang out in a bar, get hired.” He called out to the bartender, raising an emptied glass.

“You can’t be serious.”

“Told you. Already packed.”

“Chris, be serious, you can’t leave
now
—not with Dad sick.”

“So much for ‘Leavin’ the gawd-damned wharf and sharin’ a place.’” He faced me with that old stubborn look of his and downed another shot of rum.

“Stop that—stop that drinking. Chris—oh, jeezes, Chris, they’ll be hooking Mother up next to Dad—you can’t possibly leave, they all need you now, more than ever.”

“Wood’s all split and stacked, deep freeze is full. Kyle can do whatever else needs doing.”

“Wait, no—Mother will think this is me.” I hung on to his arm pleadingly. “Look, I know what you’re feeling, about the boat. I have some money. We’ll buy another boat. And I’ll help with the truck payments, too. And then when Dad’s back on his feet again—then you come. Will you just friggin’ listen—”

He shook off my arm, then leaned his forehead onto mine, staring into my eyes.

“Ticket’s already booked. Sitting right next to Sis.”

A couple of girls bumped up against us, grabbing Chris’s arm, pulling him onto the dance floor, laughing at his awkwardness. I called after him and they beckoned me over, but I shook my head, shooting desperate glances at Chris. One of my old schoolmates got up from his table and made his way to the bar, or perhaps me. Not wanting to talk, I plopped down my wine glass and hurried outside, looking for Kyle.

The night was swarming with young people, shouting and laughing and flaring matches to cigarettes clamped between teeth, their faces lighting up in the dark like yellow moons. Kyle was off to himself, leaning against the side of a parked car with his hands jammed into his front pockets, doodling the ground with the toe of his boot. I watched for a minute, feeling a sense of loneliness about him that didn’t bode well given the number of friends traipsing about. No doubt he was fully aware of the ticket in Chris’s pocket. I leaned back beside him against the car, trying to see his face through the dark.

“Well, then?” I asked. “What’re we going to do about it.”

He shrugged, digging harder at the ground with his boot.

“He’s told you, hasn’t he?” I said. “That he’s going to Alberta? I never asked him. You don’t think that, do you—that I asked him to go?”

He shook his head.

“Well, what’s he saying, then?”

“Nothing. Just going, is all,” said Kyle.

“Yeah. Well, I’m not letting him come. Gawd.” I kicked at the ground. “Can’t believe he thinks he’s doing this. Where the hell did he come up with it?”

“Just says he’s going.”

“Yeah. Right.” I scoffed at the thought. “What can I say, then—you know, to get his mind off this?”

Kyle gave a short laugh. “Nothing. He’s going. That’s the way he’s thinking.”

“Ohh, he’s being so foolish. Well, I’m going home. Gran— does Gran know?”

He shook his head.

“Something else to worry her. All right, then, I’m going— you coming?”

“I’ll wait.”

’Course he’d wait. He hadn’t been a minute from Chris’s side since the day he started walking. I strode away, feeling through the dark Kyle’s watching after me. A light snapped on over the clubhouse door and I looked back, catching his face in the light, all still and pale. Another reason for Chris to stay home, I found myself thinking, to take care of Kyle, and then chided myself for thinking the same as Gran, as Mother, as Father, and almost everybody else in these outports—everybody wanting everybody home. Not for worries about the one leaving, but for them left behind, as though a house couldn’t properly shore itself without all hands abide.

I hurried along the road, then down the path, stumbling over tree roots, feeling the damp of the sea seeping through my skin. Stars glinted coldly above the blackened treetops, casting bits of silver onto the last of my father’s knotty, hand-hewn railings. I slipped off a wooden step and cursed, squelching ankle-deep through wet moss and thinking, for a second, I heard my mother’s voice through the water lapping against the pilings.

No, Chris, you can’t leave just yet, I thought as I neared the house. But soon. You’ll leave soon, for you’re too big for this meagre scrap of life in the outports.

Perhaps it was this last thought passing through my mind that, upon opening the door and seeing Mother standing in the kitchen, brought such a look of guilt to my face. I looked guiltier still as my glance fell upon the opened suitcase sitting on the chair and a pile of clothes spilling out of it. Chris’s clothes— Mother had found his suitcase. Gran, wrapped in her long, thick nightdress, her hair loose and fluffed about her shoulders, was hunched alongside, gathering a couple of tea things off the table and looking confused as to where to put them.

“You’ve done this!” said Mother, her lowered voice adding to its intensity.

“No,” I said, unnerved by the pallor of her face. I stepped inside, quietly closing the door. “No. I—he just told me—”

“You did, yes you did,” said Mother. She held up her hands, warding off any further protest. “It’s why you went on the way you did at the hospital, you knew he’d be leaving. No use arguing, my lady—he wouldn’t leave his father, not like this; you’ve talked him over.”

“No—why do you say that—I’ve not talked him over.”

“Not outright, maybe, but there’s ways of bringing about what you wants without saying nothing, and you’ve always been good at that, my lady, getting what you wants—then why would he think to do this?” she demanded as I stared at her confusedly. “He’s never wanting to go away—especially now with his father sick.” Her voice turned cold. “It’s all them letters you wrote him—telling him about the oilfields, and the money to be made—that’s what got him thinking like this. All them letters—
proud you got no water slopping at your window
, that’s the kind of thing you tells him, and gawd knows what else.”A torrent of anger coursed its way through her, finding a well-worn path. “Well what do you say now that it’s come to this?”she cried, charging along recklessly. “You think now you haven’t persuaded him when he’s packed his bags, leaving his poor father on his sickbed?”