A Handful of Time (4 page)

“Would you like me to help you with Rosemary this afternoon?” Patricia asked her aunt desperately.

“No thank you, dear. She's going down for a nap and I think I'll have one, too.”

“I could make dinner if you like,” Patricia tried next.

Aunt Ginnie laughed. “You're not here to work, Patricia! You run along and have fun with the others.”

Maggie had managed to be included by speeding ahead to Uncle Rod's and meeting them there. Then the six cousins tramped along in the direction of the Main Beach again.

No one spoke to Patricia. By now they must totally despise her, she had proved herself to be such a coward. She wished she could slip away, but where could she go? Her foot caught on a root and she tripped painfully. She didn't dare complain. None of her cousins wore shoes, and this morning Kelly had boasted about how hard the soles of her feet were getting. Even through the thick rubber of her new thongs, Patricia could feel every stone.

She wondered where they were headed. Maybe she could ask Bruce. He was the cousin she was the least afraid of; he was almost as quiet as she was.

“Who are the Cresswells?” Patricia whispered to him.

Kelly heard her. “You'd better learn about them, since you're related to us. Otherwise you'll go leaking information or something. The Cresswells are Other Enders. That's what we call the kids who live at the other end of the beach—them and the Thorpes and the Vaughns. They're stuck-up and soft and sit around with Walkmans over their ears. They never go fishing or build forts or make fires like we do. Their cottages look like city houses and they have TVs and even VCRs. Except for sailing, they don't know what the lake is
for
.”

“Dad says you're a snob when you talk like that,” Trevor told his sister. “I wish
we
had TV at the lake.”

“You're too dumb to know what you want,” Kelly informed him. Trevor shrugged, unconcerned. Every so often he questioned Kelly's bossiness as if it were a matter of principle to do so, but he always gave in without a fight.

“
Our
cottage was one of the first ones on the lake,” Kelly continued proudly. “When Mum was little they didn't even have electricity and plumbing. All the cottages at our end are the proper ones.”

“Ours is old, too,” put in Christie.

“Yes, but not as old as ours … and it's the one where our parents stayed when they were children.”

Patricia envied the passion in her cousin's voice when she talked about her family. “My mother went there too,” she reminded her timidly.

“I know
that
,” Kelly shot back. “There were four children. Uncle Gordon's the oldest—he lives in Victoria now. Then Uncle Rod, your mother and Mum. They sold their share of the cottage to us because your mother and Uncle Gordon didn't live around here anymore, and Uncle Rod wanted a bigger one. That's why it's all ours,” she added with satisfaction.

They had finally reached the other end and, just as Kelly said, the cottages were bigger and more modern, some with painted tubs of flowers in front of them.

“Now here's the plan,” said Kelly. “I want to inspect their Laser. We'll sneak along the beach and you can keep watch by the boathouse while I look at it.”

At this end, the beach was level with the path. They crept past a red boathouse and huddled in some bushes, while Kelly strolled over to the Cresswells' pier and studied the sailboat lovingly.

“What insect goes skin diving?” Trevor asked after a few minutes.

“A mosquito!” answered Maggie. “I know that one. Why is Kelly taking so long? I don't like sitting in here.”

“It's boring,” agreed Bruce. “Do you want to go fishing, Trev?”

Christie shifted uncomfortably after the boys had left. “I'm getting cramped. I know, Maggie—let's raid the Vaughns' garden. There may be some carrots. Potty you keep watch until we come back.” She and Maggie crawled out and then ran up the beach.

Kelly was inside the sailboat now. She hadn't noticed anyone leave. Patricia was bored, but she was afraid to desert her post. She scratched one of the mosquito bites that dotted her legs. It was chilly in the bushes. She edged farther in to a bare spot and sat down again in the sun-warmed dirt. Bees droned in the still air and a blue dragonfly floated past.

All at once Patricia wondered what her parents were doing. She had been trying her best not to think of them, but sometimes she couldn't help it. They were probably having reasonable discussions about things like how often Patricia would visit her father. When she returned he would be living with Johanna permanently.

Johanna was the woman he had fallen in love with. Patricia had met her only once, at a lunch arranged for this purpose. She was very different from Patricia's mother. Plain, with a gentle face—and quiet, like her father and herself. They had been three shy, silent people, sitting in the Courtyard Café and trying to overcome their embarrassment about the awkward situation they were caught in.

Patricia liked Johanna. She didn't blame her father for wanting to leave them and marry her. She sometimes even envied him for escaping from her mother.

“There's no reason we can't all be sensible about this,” her mother kept saying. “Obviously your father”—she no longer referred to him as Harris—“and I can't be together anymore. But you and I will be fine on our own.” She said it sternly, as if it were an order.

Patricia could remember when her mother had not been as brittle as she was these days. She had always been domineering, but she used to laugh a lot, as the three of them stripped wallpaper in their old house or went exploring on their bicycles. The more successful her mother became, the more Patricia was awed by her; but it was only this last year, when everything went wrong, that she had begun to feel afraid of her as well.

Now her mother rarely laughed, but she always smiled—a grim, determined, barricading smile.

Patricia's daydreaming was interrupted by a shrill cry: “Hey! What are you doing in our boat?”

Two boys rushed onto the beach. Patricia jumped up and tore out of the bushes in the opposite direction. She caught a glimpse of Kelly running like the wind. She sped ahead and Patricia panted behind her.

“In here!” Kelly hissed. She grabbed Patricia's hand and yanked her so hard her arm felt as if it had been jerked out of its socket. They collapsed in the shrubs by the side of the path. Then Kelly stuck her head out.

“They aren't following us. Probably checking their precious boat to make sure I didn't hurt it.” She brushed a few twigs off her pants. “What happened? Where's everyone else? And why didn't you warn me?”

Patricia couldn't look into her cousin's angry face. “They all went away. Trevor and Bruce went fishing, and Christie and Maggie went to pick carrots or something. They left me on guard.”

“So why didn't you watch?”

“I … I guess for a minute I wasn't paying attention. I'm sorry.”

Kelly clenched her fist. “You are the end, Potty, you really are! You've ruined everything. You have since you got here, and I wish you'd never come!” She pushed through the bushes and disappeared.

Patricia stayed there for a long time, wondering what to do. She couldn't go back to the cottage—Aunt Ginnie would wonder why she was alone. She trudged back to the Grants' beach and sheltered behind the canoe. It felt like her only friend; even though it had dumped her, being in it was the only thing she had enjoyed at the lake so far.

“Loon,” she whispered, tracing her fingers over its faded name.

When she thought it was dinner-time, Patricia crept into the cottage and found her cousins playing Monopoly on the verandah. Kelly reddened and turned away. Patricia thought for a second that her cousin looked ashamed, but Kelly had been so angry it was difficult to believe she felt sorry.

After dinner it began to rain. When the baby was asleep Aunt Ginnie read them a chapter from
The Dog Who Wouldn't Be
. Sitting and listening without having to participate felt so safe that Patricia wished her aunt would never stop.

The rain blew in gusts against the windows and the fire crackled and steamed. It was cosy, but Patricia felt so removed from the contented family around her that she almost pinched herself to make sure she was really there.

“Look, Patricia.” Aunt Ginnie put the book aside and took down a framed photograph from the mantel. “Here's a picture of your mother at the lake.”

The picture was of a strange family group who seemed to be in costume. “We were all dressed in each other's clothes for a party,” Aunt Ginnie explained. “I can just remember it. I was Gordon and his pants legs kept coming unrolled and tripping me. The men looked so funny, dressed as Mama and Ruth and me.” She was pointing out the faces as she talked. “There's your grandmother. You'll see her when she comes to stay next week.”

“Look how fat you were, Mummy!” crowed Maggie, leaning over Patricia's shoulder.

“You mean you don't think I still am?” teased her mother. “I must have been four then … and Ruth was twelve. Your age, Patricia.”

Patricia couldn't stop staring at the photograph. The firelight flickered on its glass, making the faces seem alive. Most of the members of the long-ago family laughed in their silly costumes. All except one, a young girl who glowered between her brothers.

Her mother. Patricia recognized the same fiery eyes, her mother's expression when she was upset about something going wrong with her careful plans. She was dressed in her brother's too-big clothes and looked resentful—as out of place in this cheerful family as Patricia had felt in the photograph in
Toronto Life
.

“We had such happy times,” sighed Aunt Ginnie. “That summer the boys were crazy about badminton. They had just finished the court at the back of the cottage, the one that's all overgrown now. Sometimes they tried to teach me to play.”

“Were you spoiled, Mummy?” asked Maggie.

“I guess I was a little, Magpie—just like you! It's way past your bedtime.”

She and Maggie left the room and Patricia reluctantly replaced the photograph on the mantel. She didn't understand why it had such a hold over her.

“Listen, Potty,” said Kelly. “We want to tell you something before Mum comes back.”

Patricia waited fearfully.

“You're different from us,” began Kelly slowly. She wasn't looking at Patricia, but into the spitting fire. “Even though we're related, you're not the same. It seems to me that if you're going to be with us every day, well … you don't like playing with us, right?”

Patricia wished it wasn't true, but she nodded.

“But Mum says we have to include you—” said Trevor.

“—so we have a solution,” continued Kelly. “Every afternoon we'll pretend to go out together. Then we'll separate. You do what you want and so will we. We'll meet back here for dinner and I guess you'll have to stick with us in the evenings because Mum's around more then. But at least we'll all have our afternoons free and no one will get into trouble. Is it a deal?”

She and Trevor looked almost pleadingly at Patricia. There wasn't any choice. It was obvious they didn't want to be with her, and she didn't want to be with them either. But what was she going to do with herself every afternoon?

“All right,” she whispered. “It's a deal.”

“Great! It's really for the best, Potty,” Kelly sounded almost kind.

“What did one tonsil say to the other?” Trevor asked his sister. They hooted with laughter at the answer.

“That's what I like to hear,” said Aunt Ginnie as she came back into the living room. “Everybody having a good time together.”

5

T
he next day after lunch, Kelly scraped back her chair and said cheerfully, “Come on, Patricia. Let's meet the others and start on our fort.”

Aunt Ginnie smiled approvingly at her daughter. Patricia wondered what she would think if she could see them a few minutes later. The three cousins stopped walking once they reached the Donaldsons' cottage next door.

“All right, Potty,” said Kelly, “when Mum rings the cowbell meet us here.”

Patricia glanced at her watch. “What time?”

“
I
don't know,” said Kelly scornfully. “I never wear a watch in the summer.”

Patricia covered hers up protectively. Her father had given it to her three years ago and it always kept perfect time. She couldn't imagine going through a day without it.

“Just come when you hear the cowbell,” Kelly repeated impatiently. She and Trevor ran away and Patricia's first solitary afternoon began.

She spent it sitting by the canoe. At this end of the beach there were more pebbles than sand. Patricia piled them into hills, then listlessly knocked them down again. Late in the afternoon she heard the others swimming from Uncle Rod's raft. She longed to cool off in the lake herself, but she was too frightened of bloodsuckers to go in alone.

The second afternoon it was too hot to stay on the beach. Instead, Patricia explored behind the cottage. Nestled in the woods halfway down the driveway was a tiny guest cabin that the family called La Petite. She opened its door and peeked in.

There was just enough room in the cabin for two narrow beds, a dresser, a rickety chair and a small stove. In one corner lay a pile of old magazines. Patricia kicked off her thongs, curled up on one of the beds and began to leaf through them.

The air in the room was dank, and instead of being too hot Patricia now felt chilled. She dropped the boring magazine on the floor and wrapped the worn chenille bedspread around her.

There was nothing to do in here, but she couldn't think of anywhere else to go. At least it was a safe retreat, even if it was damp and cold. She spotted a few paperbacks beside the other bed and got up to take a look.