A Bird in the House (3 page)

Grandfather did not believe, either, in smoking, drinking, card-playing, dancing, or tobacco-chewing. But unlike my grandmother, he did not permit any of these things in his presence. If someone coming to the Brick House for the first time chanced to light a cigarette when Grandfather was home, he gave them one chance and that was all. His warning was straightforward. He would walk to the front door, fling it open, and begin coughing. He would then say, “Smoky in here, ain’t it?” If this had no effect, he told the visitor to get out, and no two ways about it. Aunt Edna once asked me to guess how many boyfriends she had lost that way, and when I said “I give up – how many?” she said “Five, and that’s the gospel truth.” At the time I imagined, because she was laughing, that she thought it was funny.

Grandfather had stopped his pacing now, and stood squarely in front of Grandmother’s chair.

“Agnes, go and tell them girls to serve up the dinner now. We can’t wait around all night.”

“Will you go, pet?” Grandmother said to me. “Your feet are younger than mine.”

When I conveyed the message, Aunt Edna stood in the kitchen doorway and bellowed loud enough for a person to hear in South Wachakwa.

“Tell him the cauliflower isn’t done yet!”

“Edna!” my mother hissed. Then she began laughing, and put her handkerchief over her face. I was laughing, too, until I looked again and saw that my mother was now crying, in jerky uncertain breaths like a person takes when he first goes outside in forty-below weather.

“Beth –” Swiftly, Aunt Edna had closed the kitchen door.

“I’m sorry,” my mother said. “What an idiot. There – I’m fine now.”

“Come on – we’ll go up to my room and have a cigarette. Glory! What are we going to do when the Attar of Roses is all gone?”

The Attar of Roses was a decidedly strong-smelling perfume that had been given to Aunt Edna by one of her boyfriends in Winnipeg. It was in an atomiser, and she used to squirt it around her bedroom after she had finished a cigarette. On these occasions, my mother always said, “Do you think we are teaching the child deception?” And Aunt Edna always replied, “No, just self-preservation.”

I went up the back stairs with them. Aunt Edna’s room had a white vanity table with thin legs and a mirror that could be turned this way and that. Beside the mirror sat a dresser doll that had been given to Aunt Edna by another admirer. “An old boyfriend,” she had told me, and now that I was ten I understood that this did not refer to his age but to the fact that they were irrevocably parted, he being in the city and she in Manawaka. The doll had a china head and body, set on a wire hoop-skirt frame that was covered with fluted apricot
crêpe de chine
. Her high coiffure was fashioned of yellow curls, real hair cut from a real person’s head. “Probably somebody that died of typhoid,” Aunt Edna had said. “Well,
toujours gai
, kid, but I wish he had sent chocolates instead.” Aunt Edna’s room also had a blue silk eiderdown stuffed with duck feathers, a Japanese lacquer box with a picture of a chalk-faced oriental lady holding a fan, a camphor-ice in a tubular wooden case with a bulb head painted like a clown, a green leather jewellery case full of beads and earrings, and a floppy pyjama-bag doll embroidered with mysterious words such as “Immy-Jay” and “Oy-Ray” which I, like Grandmother, had believed were
either meaningless or else Chinese, until I became acquainted with Pig Latin.

My mother sat down on the bed and Aunt Edna sat at the vanity table and began combing her hair. The smoke from their cigarettes made blue whorls in the air.

“Honey, what is it?” Aunt Edna asked in a worried voice.

“It’s nothing,” my mother said. “I’m not myself these days.”

“You look worn out,” Aunt Edna said. “Can’t you quit the office? You’ll have to, soon, anyway.”

“I want to keep on as long as I can. Ewen can’t afford to hire a nurse, Edna, you know that.”

“Well, at least you needn’t do your spring house-cleaning this year. Beating the carpet like you were doing last week – you’re out of your head, Beth.”

“The house is a disgrace,” my mother said in a small voice. “I just want to get the rugs and curtains done, and the cupboards, that’s all. I don’t intend to do another thing.”

“I’ll bet,” Aunt Edna said.

“Well, what about you?” my mother said. “Don’t think I didn’t notice you’d done the pantry cupboards this week. This house is far too much for you, Edna.”

“Mother ran it, all those years.”

“She had us to help, don’t forget. And she was hardly ever without a hired girl.”

“The least I can do is earn my room and board,” Aunt Edna said. “I’m not going to have him saying –”

She broke off. My mother got up and put an arm around Aunt Edna’s shoulder.

“There now, love. It’s all right. It’s going to be all right.”

The phone rang, and I ran down to answer it, feeling some unaccustomed obligation. Their sadness was such a new
thing, not to my actual sight but to my attention, that I felt it as bodily hurt, like skinning a knee, a sharp stinging pain. But I felt as well an obscure sense of loss. Some comfort had been taken from me, but I did not know what it was.

“Hello.” It was Central’s voice. She had a name, but no one in Manawaka ever called her anything except Central. “Is that you, Vanessa? Your dad’s calling from South Wachakwa.”

I heard a buzzing, and then my father’s voice. “Vanessa? Listen, sweetheart, tell your mother I won’t be home for a while yet. I’ll have dinner here. And tell her she’s to go home early and get to bed. How is she?”

“She’s okay.” But I was immediately alert. “Why? What was the matter with her?”

“Nothing. But you be sure to tell her, eh?”

I ran upstairs and repeated what he had said. Aunt Edna looked at my mother oddly.

“Beth?”

“It wasn’t anything,” my mother said quickly. “Only the merest speck. You know how Ewen fusses.”

“No, he doesn’t,” Aunt Edna said. “You tell me the truth this minute, Beth.”

My mother’s voice was slow and without expression.

“All right, then. It was a pretty near thing, I suppose. It happened on Tuesday, after I’d been doing the rugs. That’s why I didn’t want to tell you. You don’t need to say it was my own fault. I know it. But I’d been feeling perfectly well, Edna. Really I had.”

She looked up at Aunt Edna, and there was something in her eyes I had not seen before, some mute appeal.

“If I’d lost it, I’d never have forgiven myself. I didn’t do it on purpose, Edna.”

“You don’t have to tell me that,” Aunt Edna cried. “Don’t you think I know?”

And then, strangely, while I sat on the cedar chest and watched, only partially knowing and yet bound somehow to them, they hugged each other tightly and I saw the tears on both their faces although they were not making a sound.

“Mercy,” my mother said at last, “my nose is shining like a beacon – where’s your powder?”

When my mother had gone down to start serving the dinner, Aunt Edna put away the ashtrays and began spraying Attar of Roses around the room.

“How’s the poetry?” she asked.

I was not shy about replying, for I loved to talk about myself. “I’m not doing any right now. I’m writing a story. I’ve filled two scribblers already.”

“Oh?” Aunt Edna sounded impressed. “What are you calling it?”

“
The Pillars of the Nation
,” I replied. “It’s about pioneers.”

“You mean – people like Grandfather?”

“My gosh,” I said, startled. “Was he a pioneer?”

Then I felt awkward and at a distance from her, for she began to laugh hoarsely.

“I’ll tell the cockeyed world,” she said. Seeing I was offended, she cut off her laughter. “When do you work at it, Nessa?”

“After school, mostly. But sometimes at night.”

“Does your mother let you keep your light on?”

I looked at her doubtfully, not sure how far she could be trusted. “If I tell you something, will you promise not to tell?”

“Cross my heart,” she said, “and hope to die.”

“I don’t keep my light on. I use my flashlight.”

“Mercy, what devotion. Do you write some every day?”

“Yes, every day,” I said proudly.

“Couldn’t you spin it out? Make it last longer?”

“I want to get it finished.”

“Why? What’s the rush?”

I was beginning to feel restless and suspicious.

“I don’t know. I just want to get it done. I like doing it.”

Aunt Edna put the perfume atomiser back on the vanity table.

“Sure, I know,” she said. “But what if you ever wanted to stop, for a change?”

As we were going down the back stairs, we heard the front door open, and Grandfather’s voice saying, “Well now, well now –” and then another voice. Aunt Edna gasped.

“Don’t tell me. Oh heavenly days, it
is
Uncle Dan. Now all I need is somebody from the government coming and telling me I owe income tax.”

“I thought you liked Uncle Dan,” I said curiously.

“I do,” Aunt Edna said, “but it’s not a question of whether you like a person or not.”

We emerged into the kitchen. My mother had stopped carving the pork and was standing with the silver knife in her hand, motionless.

“He’s certainly had a few, judging from his voice,” she said. “Why on earth does he do it? He knows perfectly well how much it upsets Mother.”

“One of these days Father is going to tell him to get out,” Aunt Edna said. “But I’d kind of hate to see that happen, wouldn’t you?”

“He’ll never do that. Blood is thicker than water, as you may have heard Father mention a million times.”

“That’s not why he lets him come around,” Aunt Edna said. “Seeing Uncle Dan reminds him how well he’s done
himself, that’s all. Lord, I must stop this – I’m getting meaner every day.”

“Well, I suppose we’d better go and say hello to the old fraud,” my mother said. “He can have Ewen’s place at the table.”

Uncle Dan was Grandfather’s brother, but he was not upright. He had a farm in the South Wachakwa Valley, but he never planted any crops. He raised horses, and spent most of his time travelling around the country, selling them. At least, he was supposed to be selling them, but Aunt Edna said he had horse-trading in his blood and couldn’t resist swapping, so he usually came back to Manawaka with the same number of horses he had started out with, only they were different horses, and no money. He had never married. I liked him because he always carried brown hot-tasting humbugs in his pockets, usually covered with navy fluff from his coat, and he sang Irish songs. I liked him only when none of my friends were around to see, however. In the presence of the other kids, he embarrassed me. He was older than Grandfather, and he did not keep himself very clean. His serge trousers were polka-dotted with spilled food, and when his nose ran, he wiped it with a sweeping motion of his claw hand. He never cleaned his fingernails, although sometimes he brought out his jackknife and pared them, dropping the shavings on Grandmother’s polished hardwood floor and causing her to utter the only phrase of protest she knew – “Now Dan, now Dan –” Sometimes when I was downtown with him he walked and talked waveringly, and bought an Eskimo Pie for me and a packet of Sen-Sen for himself, and I was not meant to know why, but naturally I did, having among my friends several whose fathers or uncles were said to be downright no-good.

Uncle Dan was smaller than Grandfather, but his eyes were the same blue. They bore a vastly different expression, however. Uncle Dan’s eyes hardly ever stopped laughing.

“Well, Dan, you’re back,” Grandfather said.

“I’m bad, I’m back,” Uncle Dan carolled. “Just got the niftiest black two-year-old you ever seen. Got him from old Burnside, over at Freehold. Swapped him that grey gelding of mine.”

“No cash, I’ll wager,” Grandfather said.

“Well, now, Timothy, how’ve you been?” Uncle Dan cried, cannily changing the subject. “You’re looking dandy.”

“I’m well enough,” Grandfather said. “Minding my own business. I sold the store, Dan.”

“Yeh, you done that before I went away. Taking life easy, eh?”

Under her breath, Aunt Edna said, “Red rag to a bull –” and my mother said, “Shush.”

“I keep busy,” Grandfather said furiously. “Plenty to do around here, you know. Got two loads of poplar last week, and I’m splitting them for kindling. A man’s got to keep busy. I got no use for them fellows who just sit around.”

“Well, well, you’ll have the biggest woodpile in Manawaka, I wouldn’t doubt it for a second,” Uncle Dan said in gay malice. “By jiminy, here’s Vanessa. You’ve grown, macushla, and so you have, to be sure.”

“Oh Glory,” said Aunt Edna in a low voice. “Macushla, indeed.”

“And Beth and Edna –” Uncle Dan cried. “By the Lord Harry, girls, you’re getting more beautiful with each passing day!”

My mother, stifling a laugh, held out a hand. “Good to see you, Uncle Dan. We’re just going to have dinner. Do you want to go up and wash?”

“In a minute. Where’s Agnes?”

Grandmother had not come out into the front hall. She still sat in the living room. The Book was on her knee, but she was not reading. Uncle Dan swept her an unsteady bow.

“Hello, Dan,” she said. Then, apparently without effort, as though she refused to set bounds to her courtesy, “It’s nice to have you with us.”

Uncle Dan’s eyes stopped smiling and grew moist with self-sorrow. “Ah, no, it’s you that’s the nice one, to be sure, opening your door to an old man.”

His voice quavered; he looked as though he might faint with sheer fragility.

“If he goes on like that,” Aunt Edna whispered angrily, but unable to suppress a small belch of acid mirth, “I’m walking out, so help me.”

“He’ll be all right once he’s had some food,” my mother said.

Dinner was very entertaining, with Uncle Dan tucking his serviette in at his chin, and spilling gravy on the clean damask cloth, and burping openly and then saying, “Par’n me, as the fella says.” He told jokes of the kind I was not supposed to understand and which in fact I did not understand but always pretended I had, by rude guffaws for which I was reproached. Grandfather kept saying, “Mind your language, Dan,” or “Mind your elbow – that water tumbler’s going over – there, what did I tell you?” My mother and Aunt Edna kept their heads down and ate hurriedly. After dinner, Grandfather and Uncle Dan settled down side by side on the chesterfield, while Grandmother sat in her golden-oak armchair. Uncle Dan drew out his pipe and the oilcloth roll of tobacco. Aunt Edna, gathering up the dishes, glanced into the living room and began muttering.