Alma (3 page)

Alma’s shoulders slumped.

“You’re a fan, are you?” the man asked.

“Yes. I have both sets. My mother got them for me. Is RR Hawkins dead?”

“Couldn’t tell you. Don’t know much about him. Never was a fan, myself. I prefer realistic fiction.”

“Well, thanks anyway,” Alma said. The bell tinkled as she left the shop.

Alma now took up the library book she was reading, a story of an orphan girl sold to a farming family, and turned to where she had left off before supper. In the pub upstairs she heard the band tuning up, and soon after that the Celtic music began, reels and jigs and hornpipes, sad
airs about lost battles and faraway homelands, raucous drinking songs. She read until her eyes refused to stay open, then put on her pyjamas and went to sleep.

She woke briefly to the odour of cooking oil and cigarette smoke, and the touch of a kiss on her forehead.

O
n Saturdays, Alma was quiet because her mother slept in, behind her closed bedroom door, until noon. This morning Alma slid back the bolt and opened the milk box beside the outside door, removing the bottle of milk and loaf of bread left there during the morning’s delivery. She counted the change in the envelope her mother placed in the box each night with enough money for the milk and bread. She put the milk in the icebox, pulled on her jacket, checked to be sure she had her key, grabbed four cookies from the jar on the counter and slipped out the back door.

It was a sunny morning and the air was crisp and clean. From the street in front of the Liffey
came the
cloppity-clop
of Gertrude, the ice man’s horse, hauling the wagon that squeaked under a ponderous load of ice blocks buried in sawdust. Alma walked over to Little Wharf Road and turned toward the harbour. The old buildings on either side were made of wood, with shiplap siding, built one against the other so that there was one long front with many doors and small porches. The owners had painted them in different colours so they looked like boxes lined up in a row from the harbour to the square.

As she walked past the Customs House under the tall maple trees, a movement in the window of the house next door caught her eye. She stopped. The Stewart house had been uninhabited for half a year. It was one of the oldest buildings in Charlotte’s Bight, and Robbie Thornton, who was in Alma’s class, claimed it was haunted. Robbie was silly. Ghosts weren’t real. A shadow slowly passed the window again, a figure in dark clothing. Alma ducked behind the tree, held her breath and, craning her neck till it hurt, took a peek, alert for the slightest movement. Who was creeping around in the Stewart house? Alma crouched in her hiding place for some time, but saw nothing further.

She sauntered to the harbour and strolled through the little park beside the empty marina. Little Wharf had been the original harbour of Charlotte’s Bight but in modern times had been eclipsed by the main commercial harbour to the west, where the Reedbank River met the ocean. Little Wharf had become a marina and tourist attraction with its small fleet of fishing boats, its seafood restaurants and shops and snack bars, all of them closed for the season.

When Alma was little, her mother had told her that her father had “gone away for a long time.” Alma had imagined that her dad had sailed off on one of the tall ships she had seen tied to the wharf the summer before last. She pictured him standing at the rail, a pipe clamped between his teeth, waving to her. The gull-white sails grew smaller and disappeared into the curved fold where the sea met the sky. Since then, even though she now knew her dad had fallen from a potato harvester and broken his neck when she was less than a year old, the harbour with its marina, park and wharf was her favourite place, and whenever her feet took her there, the first thing she did was scan the horizon, searching for sails.

Alma’s mother had tried to keep the farm going. Making ends meet had never been easy, but with Alma’s dad gone, it was impossible. The family had sunk deeper and deeper into debt until finally Clara had to give in and sell out to the Farmrite Corporation. By the time back taxes and debts were paid, there was little left. Alma and her mother moved to town, where Clara barely supported them with part-time work.

“You’ll not find a speck of red dirt under
my
fingernails ever again,” Clara had vowed. “Never take up with a farmer or a fisherman,” she told Alma on another occasion. “There’s nothing but hardship living off the sea or the land. And there’s too much danger.”

The jetties projected from the shore in orderly rows, then each branched on either side to make more space for pleasure boats. Some sailors had screwed nameplates on the planks where they docked. In summer, the harbour swirled with life, sailboats coming and going, tourists strolling along the shore eating ice cream cones and snapping photos, buskers playing the fiddle and tapping their toes.

Today, the empty jetties and abandoned moorings gave the waterfront a forlorn air, and
the water, captive between the breakwall and the shore, unable to form proper waves, sloshed randomly against the pilings. At this time of year the Springwater River’s estuary was dotted with thousands of Canada geese, grazing the bottom at low tide. When the tide turned, the geese rose in great honking clouds, beating toward the harvested grain fields across the river.

Alma had read that Canada geese mated for life. Like my mom did, she thought.

Alma walked back up Little Wharf Road on the side opposite the Customs House, sneaking glances toward the dwelling where she had seen the mysterious shape. There were curtains in the window.

“Someone has taken the Stewart house,” Alma told her mother when she sat down to her dinner. A toasted egg sandwich lay on her plate, with ketchup oozing out the sides, just the way she liked it. “They’ve put up new curtains.”

“Have they? That’s nice,” Clara replied, sipping her tea and turning a page of yesterday’s newspaper. Her hair, still damp from her bath, fell to the shoulders of her faded dressing gown.
“It’s a shame to see a house sit empty. Are you coming shopping with me today?”

“Sure.”

Alma was half hoping her mother had forgotten about the telephone call from Miss McAllister, and at the same time anxious to find out what it was about, to get it over with, to end the suspense. She wondered if she should bring it up.

“Tomorrow’s Sunday. What would you like to do?” her mother asked idly.

“Let’s go to the show.”

“We’ll see what my purse looks like after we do the shopping this afternoon.”

“Then the Turnaround.”

“Listen, girl, I’ve got to put money aside for your winter coat and boots. You’re growing like a weed. We can’t be throwing money away on books right now.”

Alma lowered her head. Her mother constantly worried about money, and her worrying put a hard edge on her words sometimes.

“And now we should talk about Miss McAllister’s phone call.”

Alma put down her glass. Suddenly her sandwich was a hard lump in her stomach.

“Your class had a visitor last Thursday.”

“Yes. She walked up and down the rows, talking to the teacher.”

“Well, it’s good news. Her name is Olivia Chenoweth.”

“That’s a funny name.”

“Funny or not, she wants to hire you.”

“Me?”

“You. Miss McAllister, as usual, wasn’t very clear what kind of work it is. Probably housekeeping. She lives with her mother, Olivia Chenoweth does. They’re new in town. From away. I’ve got her phone number.”

Alma had never had a job. It might be nice to earn some money, she thought. Suddenly she felt more grown-up.

“So what do you think?” Clara asked, getting up and adding hot water to the teapot. “We could use the extra money. But first, let’s find out what’s astir.”

“All right, Mom.”

Clara went through the inner door to use the phone in the Liffey. She came back after a few minutes.

“Small world,” she said as she shut the door. “Olivia Chenoweth is expecting you at three o’clock. She and her mother are the people who have taken the Stewart house.”

A
cross the road from the Stewart house, Alma stood under the maple tree where she had crouched that same morning. It was the only dwelling in the row with an upstairs dormer. The green paint on the window trim and shutters was flaking away and the porch railing had been broken off and tossed onto the lawn.

Alma crossed the road, trod up the creaky wooden steps and pulled open the storm door. The hinge squeaked. Robbie Thornton would love that, she thought as she lifted the wrought-iron lion’s-head knocker and let it thump against the door.

Plump
was the polite word to describe Olivia Chenoweth. She was wearing a grey cardigan
over a green paisley dress, with a string of glass beads around her neck. Close up, she looked older than when she had visited Alma’s class. There were grey strands in her hair and crow’s feet in the corners of her eyes.

“Come in, dear,” Olivia Chenoweth said, “and give me your jacket.”

She preceded Alma down a short hall piled with cartons that read “Atlantic Moving” and into a sitting room jammed to the walls with furniture—stuffed chairs on either side of a huge radio set, a long couch, end tables with doilies that drooped over the sides, a thick rug with burn marks near the hearth. The only new things in the room seemed to be the curtains.

“Take a seat, dear,” the woman said. “Would you like something to drink? Tea? Or juice? I’m afraid we don’t have soda.”

“No, thank you,” Alma replied, sitting down in an upholstered chair by the window.

“Well, then.” Olivia Chenoweth perched on the edge of the couch opposite Alma, as if she expected to jump up at any minute. “I suppose I should let you know what your duties are—if you decide to accept, that is.”

Alma was pleased that she hadn’t said, “If your mother decides.” The decision was Alma’s.
“By the way, you may call me Miss Olivia. I am companion and secretary to my mother, who is the person you’ll be working for, strictly speaking, although your contact will be almost entirely with me.”

She paused, as if to allow Alma time to absorb the information. Miss Olivia spoke like an educated woman, forming her words carefully, and she had an accent from away.

“My mother carries on a significant degree of correspondence with persons from, well, all over the world, not to put too fine a point on it. She insists that her letters conform to a certain format. I visited your school the other day to look for someone with the required skill at penmanship. I chose you.”

“Thank you,” Alma said, wishing Louise Arsenault was in the room.

“You see, Alma,” Miss Olivia went on, “my mother requires that all her letters be handwritten. She considers any other means of producing epistles to be impersonal and unprofessional. You might say she is a little old-fashioned in that regard. However, she is unable to write with the elegance she once possessed—her handwriting is somewhat shaky, you see—and I am far too busy to take up the task myself, even if my hand
were
up to Mother’s standard. This is where you come in. If you could help, I—and my mother, of course—would be most grateful.”

Alma took a breath. “I’m not sure what you want me to do,” she admitted.

“Well, dear, my mother dictates her letters to me, and you will simply copy them and address the envelopes. She will of course add her signature. It’s as simple as that.”

“Oh,” Alma said, letting her breath out again. That sounds easy, she thought.

“So, may we count on you?”

Alma thought about her mother’s constant fear of running out of money. Now, she could help. “Yes,” she said.

“Excellent. I suggest you come here after school on Tuesdays and on Saturday mornings. Would that be all right?”

“Yes.”

“Good. Now come with me and meet my mother.”

Miss Olivia led Alma from the sitting room down a hallway. They passed a kitchen on the right, which was, Alma noticed, much bigger than the one in her apartment, with gleaming countertops and a four-burner stove, and a black-and-white-tiled floor with no wooden
planks showing. Miss Olivia stopped before a wooden door and knocked.

“Come,” Alma heard faintly.

Miss Olivia opened the door and took Alma into a spacious room. At one end, a grey-haired woman was sitting in a leather wingback chair, a thick shawl around her narrow shoulders despite the flames that leapt cheerily in the brick fireplace. Her black dress was buttoned tightly at her throat and wrists. On one side of her was a brass floor lamp with a fringed ivory-coloured shade; on the other, a stand topped with a large glass ashtray, an ornate lighter and a black lacquer box, opened to reveal a neat row of cigarettes. An ivory cigarette holder rested like an oar on the edge of the ashtray.

Despite the light from the window and the crackling fire, the room seemed gloomy and dim. The wainscotting was dark wood, the wallpaper above it maroon with thin gold lines rising to the ceiling. A thick rug with a navy blue background covered most of the wooden floor. There were two large oaken desks set before a wall of empty shelves, with more boxes waiting to be unpacked. The air was heavy with the stale odour of cigarette smoke.

“Mother, this is Alma,” Miss Olivia announced. “Alma, this is my mother. You may address her as Miss Lily.”

Alma hung back, tempted to slip behind Miss Olivia, out of sight of the black eyes that fixed her fiercely, like darts. The old woman’s hawkish nose dominated a long face creased from eye to chin with deep furrows. Her thin lips turned downwards in a scowl.

“Come closer, girl,” she commanded in a voice surprisingly deep and strong.

Alma did as she was told, reluctantly stepping toward the imposing woman, her hands clasped tightly behind her back.

“Your name is Alma, is it?” the woman asked, leaning forward and overlapping her hands on the top of a walking stick of twisted black wood.

Alma tried not to stare at the hands. The fingers were long and skinny and pale, but the knuckles were swollen and flushed, like knobs, as if Miss Lily had been out in the cold without her gloves on. They looked sore. No wonder her handwriting was “shaky,” as Miss Olivia had said.