A Song for Nettie Johnson (13 page)

The students sat back in their desks. Sunlight fell on their heads and shoulders and on their arms resting on the desktops. Warm and persistent, as tenacious as grace, it followed each particle of dust in its agitated journey throughout the room.

“So,” continued Mr. Ross, “shall we too, all of us in this room, express our own gratitude in some way?” Here he sat again on the desktop, raised his right knee and held it between clasped hands, letting a neatly shod foot dangle there in front of the class. “What do you think? A memorial of some kind? A gift? An expression of sympathy?”

No one answered.

“After all, most of you in this room came into the world with the help of Doctor Long. You know that, don’t you?”

Mike Donnelly in the back row turned his head ever so slightly toward Douglas Foster, raised his eyebrows, and leered.

Mr. Ross unclasped his hands, letting his knee drop. He leaned toward the class, more intent now.

“How many of you knew that?”

Elizabeth raised her hand. “Mr. Ross?”

“Yes, Elizabeth?”

“I moved to Stone Creek when I was one. I was born in United States.”

“Yes, Elizabeth, that’s true. For you and maybe for some others too. But even so...” He stood up and walked toward the window side of the room. He stared at the blue world hanging in the corner. “But even so,” he repeated, “haven’t your families at some time or another received some medical aid, some healing, if not your own immediate family, then the families of relatives or friends?”

No one could deny that. Nearly everyone in Stone Creek was either a relative or a friend.

Mary Sorenson raised her hand.

“Yes, Mary?”

“I think it would be a good idea to express our gratitude to Doctor Long with a memorial gift.”

She was sorry she had to say it. If any of the others would ever speak up she wouldn’t always have to. But they were so backward sometimes, and thoughtless. Didn’t they see his predicament? Couldn’t they sense his feelings? Why did they just sit there? She knew what they’d say about her later, Mike and the rest: “Oh, look at Mary. Wants to give a memorial for Doc Long. Thinks it would be such a nice thing to do. She always does such
nice
things. Going to Ross’s every Saturday to stay with Beverley. Playing Chinese Checkers with Beverley Ross and waiting for her to fart.” So let them say it. Let Mike and Label and Douglas say what they wanted. She could care less.

“Well, then, we’ve heard one opinion. What do the rest of you think? Do you agree? Shall we vote on it? How many of you think it would be a good idea to give a memorial gift?”

Vera’s hand went up. And Elizabeth’s, and Label Cutler’s. Then the other hands rose in the air.

It was decided.

The women
of the United Church held their June meeting the day before Doctor Long’s funeral. The funeral was to be held from that church since Mrs. Long was a regular worshipper there. The grade five memorial was discussed at this meeting by the fourteen women who sat on wooden folding chairs in the church basement, waiting for tea and cake. Mrs. Long, of course, did not attend that day.

”Dandelions?” Mrs. Foster said. She glanced at Jane McFarlane, then turned to Mrs. Campbell again. “Is that really what Mr. Ross plans to do?”

“That’s what Vera told me,” Mrs. Campbell said. “She said the plan was to cut a gunny sack down one side and across the bottom, spread it out, and then poke a dandelion stem into each of the little holes in the sack.”

“Every hole?” Mrs. Foster asked.

“Maybe not in every hole. Maybe every three or four holes, just so the heads of the dandelions lie flat on top of the burlap,” Mrs. Campbell explained.

“That is going to be the fifth grade memorial?” asked Mrs. Foster again.

“I’m not finished yet,” Mrs. Campbell said. “When the sack is covered with dandelions so it looks like a soft yellow carpet,” – here she leaned forward in her chair, cheeks flushed, neck pink, “that’s how Vera described it, a soft yellow carpet, you know how smooth those petals are, like velvet really – then they plan to use irises, purple irises to form the letters d-o-c in the centre. For Doc of course.”

There was a moment of silence. Then Abby McIntyre asked, “Where would this memorial go?”

“Where? Well up there, at the funeral of course,” Mrs. Campbell said, flicking her right hand toward the ceiling.

“I mean where would it be located at the funeral?” Mrs.McIntyre continued.

“That’s what I was wondering too,” Mrs. Foster said. “Exactly where would it be situated?”

“Well, I suppose with the other flowers,” Mrs. Campbell said a bit snappishly.

“It couldn’t go on the casket,” Mrs. McIntyre said. “Orville’s bringing a bouquet from Regina. Those will have to go on the casket.”

“I suppose the varnished table in the hall could be brought in.” This from Jane McFarlane.

Mrs. Foster stood up. “I think we’ve forgotten one very important fact.”

“What is that, Ellen?”

“Nora Long hates dandelions.” She sat down abruptly, then stood right up again. “And yellow is not her favourite colour besides.” No one contradicted her.

It was not unusual in late spring in Stone Creek to see Nora Long, even at her age, in denim coveralls with a blue kerchief tied under chin, kneeling in one spot or another of her large yard, digging around clumps of dandelions. Pushing and prying with a small trowel, pulling the long roots out of their deep holes, careful not to break them, and laying the plants, roots and all in heaps about the yard, to be gathered up later in a wheel barrow and dumped into the garbage bin behind the garage.

Nora’s yard, everyone agreed, was the finest in Stone Creek. Clumps of lilacs here, a honeysuckle there, maple trees by the front gate; and in wide strips of cultivated, watered, and cleanly weeded earth edging the fence and sidewalk there were flowers. In spring, tulips, hyacinths, irises; and later, pansies, marigolds, petunias, sometimes even gladioli. In a good summer, one with less wind and more rain, it seemed to the people of Stone Creek that there were not as many flowers in the rest of Saskatchewan as there were in Nora Long’s garden.

Abbie McIntyre broke the silence. “Ellen’s right, of course. Dandelions just won’t do.”

Mrs. Campbell’s neck turned from pink to bright red. “But it’s half finished and they’ve worked so hard.”

“Somebody will have to tell them” Abbie said.

Mrs. McFarlane stood up. “I think it’s time for tea,” she said and disappeared into the kitchen.

At 4 o’clock
, while the women tidied up after their meeting, while thick white cups were arranged in orderly rows on the oilcloth-covered shelves in the church kitchen, the pupils gathered in Ross’s backyard to finish the memorial for Doctor Long.

Afternoon sunlight poured down on the fence and woodpile, on wood chips and stones and the new leaves of the lilac bush and lilac buds still closed. It made flickering patterns in the quack grass. Fell recklessly on the six people sitting on the back step of Ross’s small white house resting among weeds at the edge of town.

Mary Sorenson and Vera Campbell sat together on the top step, the half-finished carpet of burlap and dandelions spread out on their laps, covering like a warm blanket their bare knees, the tight skin of their knees, the small round bones under the skin.

They leaned over the brown burlap, smoothing the thin yellow petals with their fingers. With one hand, they’d push the stem of a fresh dandelion through a hole in the sack, and with the other under the burlap, pull the stem tight so the flower settled into the mass of other flowers.

When a stem broke before it was secured and the milky juice inside spilled out on their stained fingers, and the air around them smelled green and musky, they would cry, “Oh, no,” and Label, sitting next to Freddie Wong on the middle step, would knock his head with his fist and groan, “Not again,” and call down to Elizabeth and to Annie Pilcher, sitting on the edge of the little group, to these Label would cry, “Another stem crushed. Pass up the flowers.”

And Annie and Elizabeth would reach into one of the pails sitting on the grass to search for blossoms that weren’t too crumpled or wilted or brown at the edges, and they’d pass the plants to Label, who’d peel off the leaves and hand the flowers up to Vera.

And all the time Freddie sat quietly beside Label and smiled and looked down on his thin fingers.

At 5:30, when shadows cast by woodpile and fence made grey and rusty patterns in the grass, Douglas Foster and Mike Donnelly scuffed their way up the alley toward Ross’s backyard. First they stood in the alley, watching. Then they shuffled toward the wooden gate and stood again, digging the toes of their worn shoes into the dirt. Finally, Douglas flicked the gate open with his slim right hip, and they walked in, through the weeds to the back step. There they stood and watched and scoffed: “Some memorial.” They edged closer to the pails; and Mike, glancing at the flower-covered burlap, said, “Well, I guess I can find a better one than any of those.” He rummaged through the pails, and he did find a better one. He held up a blazing golden flower, and with a triumphant sneer, tossed it up to Label.

There was a shuffling behind them, a quiet scuffing of shoes on the porch floor. And when they looked up, Beverley Ross was standing just inside the screen door. Pale and thin, she was looking down on them through the mesh of screen and smiling.

No one spoke or moved. Small shadows of bodies lay motionless on the ground. Then Beverley said, in a voice so small it seemed to come from a distant shore, from some ancient land:

“I’ve brought you doughnuts.”

Label and Freddie scrambled down to the others on the grass. Mary and Vera followed, holding the yellow-petaled burlap between them. They laid the sack down on the ground, gently as if it were a baby’s blanket, and looked up at Beverley.

Frail as an old woman, she stood on the top step and held out the doughnuts, warm and sugared, heaped high on the tray.

“You can have as many as you want,” she said.

She stepped down, holding the tray up but all the while watching her narrow feet in their stiff brown shoes move cautiously over the wood. Shivering, she stood in front of them and held out the tray.

One by one they reached out. Then they sat together on the grass and ate the doughnuts.

“Yes, I would like some more.
It’s fine tea. Thank you,” Mrs. Campbell said.

Mrs. Ross rubbed her left hand against her hip, long fingers sliding over the blue flowers of her dress. She held the teapot in her right. “How nice of you and Abbie to drop by. I’ll get more,” she said and disappeared into the kitchen.

The two women had come at eight, walking together on the narrow dirt road that led from the centre of town to Ross’s house on the west end. They had hesitated before knocking, huddled there on the front step like two chilly birds. Mrs. Campbell had said, “But you’d handle it so well, Abbie,” and Abbie McIntyre had replied, “It’s you that has a way with words,” then lifted her small clenched fist to the flaked and peeling door.

Now the two women sat on the davenport where Beverley had lain before going to bed in her own small room off the kitchen. They sat and looked down on the rose pattern of the linoleum, examining stems and blossoms, gazing at them fondly it seemed, with a certain longing – bright shiny roses in the space behind the radiator, flowers more worn and faded in front of the davenport and rocking chair.

Jacob Ross leaned back in the rocker and crossed his legs. He looked at the two women staring at the roses, and he said, “You’ve come about the memorial, haven’t you?”

Mrs. Campbell’s neck turned from light pink to bright red. “The ladies just don’t see how it will do,” she said, “knowing how Nora feels about gardens and flowers.”

Jacob sat forward in the rocker and clasped his fingers over his bony knee.

“I understand,” he said.

On the morning
of the funeral Nora Long’s brother from Regina drove up to the Stone Creek school, the tires of his Chevrolet crunching gravel. He leaned for a moment against the steering wheel, then turned off the motor, leaving the key in the ignition. He opened the car door, squeezing his heavy, dark-suited body through the opening, then closed the door carefully and walked across the yard to the front steps.

Inside the hallway, he stopped Douglas Foster, who had just come up from the boys’ toilet in the basement, where he’d unwrapped his last stick of Juicy Fruit gum, licked off the fresh sugar with his tongue, bitten down on the limp stick with his teeth and chewed as he peed, loud and free in the musty room beneath the stairs.

Nora’s brother stopped Douglas and said, “I want to see Mr. Ross.”

Douglas gazed for a moment at the strange man, then ran up the stairs to the second floor to get Mr. Ross, who was right then teaching arithmetic.

“Orville,” Jacob said, halfway down the stairs.

“Jacob.”

“Sorry to hear about Doc.”

“Thanks, Jacob. That’s what I’ve come about. I’ve heard about the plan.”

“The memorial.”

“Yes, the ladies in the church have talked to me.”

“Tell them we’ve taken care of that. It’s all right. We won’t be bringing it.”