Downhill Chance (10 page)

“But you told Grandmother I was going to bring it up—”

“I’ll do it, Missy,” said Clair impatiently, taking the bread from her mother. “Get your books like Mommy says.”

“I won’t,” shouted Missy.

“Missy!”

“Shut up, Clair!” And turning from her sister, she bounded up over the stairs.

“Leave her be, leave her be,” exclaimed Sare, sinking tiredly onto her chair besides the window. “And you don’t be long, either, Clair.”

“Needn’t worry about that,” muttered Clair, and pulling on her boots, she let herself out the door and through the gate. She turned as she started up the road, hoping to reassure her mother with a quick wave. But Sare’s face appeared only as a spectre of white through the window in the evening light.

CHAPTER THREE

I
N TIME THE FISHERS STOPPED TALKING
about her father. And Willamena found new scandal to report. Even Missy stopped asking when their father was coming back. And most disturbing of all to Clair was her own thinning memory, when she closed her eyes sometimes to think of him and couldn’t bring his features up close. During those times she’d sneak into her mother’s room and rub her nose into his good church coat hanging in the closet, breathing deeply of the spicy tobacco smell that clung faintly to the wool, and read and reread his letters. And now even they were coming more seldom, and were shorter, speaking of a routine that she couldn’t connect with him, of his marching and digging holes and cleaning guns and training and more marching. And the 57th regiment he’d been assigned to in England was renamed 166 Nfld. Regiment since he arrived in Scotland, and he was training all over again, this time to be a field regiment as opposed to heavy artillery, which meant that he might be moved from Scotland soon, to somewhere that someone deemed his family ought not to know, because full sentences of his letter had been cut out. But that was a good thing, he continued, because now with Japan having bombed Pearl Harbor and the Americans finally at war, it was more important than ever for him to be a soldier, fighting along with everyone else for a freedom that was rightly theirs, and he’d never felt so proud. And Joey was like his little brother, he’d often scribble, following along by his side, day after day, and only seldom venturing into town after the girls. And he missed them terribly, he’d always close his letters by saying; at least those pages she, Clair, was allowed her to read. Always there was a page her mother slipped into her apron pocket and took out later in the sitting room or in her bedroom, and read in the comfort of solitude.

And there was the radio. Those hushed evenings with her mother and Missy in bed, it was her favoured companion. Yet not even there in the rapid-fire voice of the broadcaster as he talked of the earth being pulverized, and the millions of soldiers killed and lamed, and the earth being torn asunder as the war circled the globe, could she find a picture of her father. Not even when this blight creeping over the world torpedoed a ferry leaving Newfoundland, killing 137 Newfoundlanders, 2 of them cousins to Johnny Regular’s wife, Rose, could she conjure up an image of her father as a soldier. It was as if he had died. As if he’d never been. And when once she managed to pull a fragment of him out of a dream, he became diffused with the million others from the broadcaster’s report, and lay dying with them on a soil torn asunder.

“I hope the Newfoundlanders does better in this one than they done at Beaumont Hamel,” Johnnie Regular’s boy, Rupert, said to a couple of older boys, just out from a history lesson two years into the war. “Yup, 753 went to battle, and 68 comes out alive—I wonder who trained them to shoot?” he asked as they gathered behind the school around a scuffed-out field, kicking around a soccer ball. Clair was standing nearby, scarcely interested in her two best girlfriends, Phoebe and Joanie, as they turned admiring eyes onto the older boys, yet managing a haughty look whenever one of them turned their way.

“Just as well they never come back, from what I seen of that fellow down Port Ray,” said Phoebe loudly. “Leg cut off to a stump and half-blind. Can we play?” she asked, sticking out a foot, pretending to trip Rupert.

“Go play with your dolls,” said Rupert, nudging her to one side, missing the ball coming at him.

“Legs short as yours, you can use some help,” said Joanie, stopping the ball with her foot as it rolled towards her.

“Here, let it go,” ordered Rupert, cutting in front of Joanie and kicking the ball back to the other fellows. “Get home with ye,” he huffed at the girls, running back onto the field.

“Yup, 753 men goes out with guns, and 68 alive the next day,” said the eldest fellow, Eddie Jones, from in by the church. “Now what kind of fight do ye think was that?”

“A fool’s fight is what,” said Georgie Blanchard, Ralph’s son, red-faced from running down the ball. “You take a man from his own place and put him in someone else’s— and in a different country at that, mind you—and what kind of sense do he got? None, brother! And they had none to start with, going the frig over there in the first place,” he added, a sly glance at Clair, then kicking the ball hard towards Rupert.

“That’s true, that’s true,” called out Rupert. “I used to listen to me old grandfather talk about them men that went to war. Strong as bears he said they was—and matched them, too. Remember old Sammy Jones—ripped his knife across the throat of a bear?”

“Yup, and he with the bear still pawing at him,” said Georgie.

“Yes, now, that’s a likely story,” snickered Phoebe as Georgie ran past her. “Come on, let us play,” she egged him on, running alongside of him. “Girls against the guys. Come on, Clair! Joanie!”

“So, what’s a fellow like that doing getting killed in less than a day, and he with a rifle in his hands and hundreds just like him standing all around?” said Rupert. “Foolish is what it is, going off and fighting in places you knows nothing about.”

“Perhaps he should’ve stuck with his knife and left his gun at home,” offered Clair.

“Yes, now I knows Sammy Jones was too stunned to shoot a gun. Is that what you thinks?” sniped Georgie. “Well, I can tell you a thing or two about Sammy Jones; he was nobody stupid, and he was no frigging coward, either—”

“Perhaps it’s you who thinks he’s a coward,” cut in Clair, ignoring the warning look Phoebe was darting her way, “else what’re ye all the time talking about it for?”

“Oh, come on, let’s play—girls against the guys,” cajoled Phoebe.

But Clair was already walking off, her back stiffening as Georgie went into a rant about how “it’s like the old man says now; ’twas men going off leaving their own behind to be fended for was the cowards, not men like Sammy Jones who stayed on his own land, ripping apart bears that threatened him and his family.”

Dark looks followed Clair the rest of the week at school; or at least, she imagined, for she never took time to check herself, or talk with Joanie and Phoebe much, to find out. Enough to keep her mind on her school work and to help her mother with the cooking and cleaning at home, than listening to the likes of Georgie Blanchard going off half-cocked like his father. And besides, Phoebe was forever making eyes at Georgie these days, and the sight of Clair was quick to darken his face and bring a snide retort, making it more and more awkward for Clair to be hanging around the back of the school with Phoebe during recess or after school.

Home felt equally as uncomfortable, what with her mother’s chatter turned silent, and her face never smiling as she moped from room to room, upstairs and down, fidgeting with a cleaning rag or, most likely, lying across the divan with a bad head and hushing both Clair and Missy over the slightest sound. The days rolled into weeks, and the weeks into months, breakfast, dinner and supper, school, homework and bedtime. It all came and it all went, day after day, month after month. Dull, grey, colourless months. Except for Missy. Chattering, twirling and preening she pranced around the kitchen, mopping, sweeping and dusting—like the winter’s lamb that, born out of season and brought inside to be warmed by the stove, reminds everyone with its babyish bleating and the sweetening smell of last summer’s hay lining its bed, that somewhere outside, spring, like the cocooned butterfly, awaits the warming sun’s rays to release its bloom. But, Sare, mired by the dead flower stalks outside her window, was not to be wooed by thoughts of spring. And Clair, pulled by a side of herself too newly formed yet to know, scoffed at this target of her blinder self.

“For the love of it, Missy, you don’t throw stuff on the floor,” she scolded, picking up the broom Missy had flung to one side as she skidded into the kitchen.

“I never throwed it—I lodged it near the wall and it fell,” protested Missy. “You want me to open some bully for supper, Mommy?” Sare was standing at the sink, slicing a loaf of bread for supper.

“If that’s what you wants,” replied Sare. “Do you want bully, Clair?”

“Yes, we wants bully,” said Missy. Diving for the bottom cupboard, she came up with a can of bully beef. “Here, help me get it started,” she demanded, prying the key off the lid, and scaling back the label.

“Get Clair to start it for you.”

“No, I wants you to start it.”

“Give me the can, Missy,” said Clair, but Missy held the can away from her grasp. “I wants Mommy.”

“I’m just going to start it for you—”

“No!”

“For goodness’ sakes, pass it here,” exclaimed Sare, dropping the knife and taking the can from Missy. “And no more fighting,
please
.”

“Is your head bad, Mommy?” asked Missy as her mother squinted, trying to fit the key onto the little metal tip sticking up from the side of the can.

“Mercy,” she muttered impatiently as the key slipped through her fingers. Snatching the key off the floor, Clair took the can from her mother’s hands. “Here, let me do it.”

“You’re bad, Clair,” shouted Missy. “I dreamed Daddy smacked you last night. I did, then,” she countered as Clair groaned. “And my dreams comes true, don’t they, Mommy? Don’t they?” she asked, gazing imploringly at her mother. “And I was dreaming about you, too,” she added, her voice softening, “you and Daddy—and he was buying lots of presents for you, and hats and ribbons—”

“You’re lying,” said Clair.

“No, I’m not. It was a real dream, and you were bad, Clair, and Daddy smacked you—”

“Mommy—”

“It’s true—and he was in a box, Mommy, and he was trying to stand up—and he was singing out to you.”

Sare’s eyes fastened onto Missy. “What kind of box, child?”

“Don’t listen to her,” said Clair.

“A pantry box—”

“A pantry box?”

“Like a small pantry and I was singing out, ‘Daddy, Daddy, Daddy,’ but he wouldn’t answer me—”

“Perhaps he couldn’t hear you—”

“But he did hear me. He was looking right at me. And— he was scared.”

“Mercy,” moaned Sare, clasping her hands to her mouth. “All right, Missy, that’s enough. No more dreams, now.”

“But, Mommy—”

“No more dreams, Missy,” Sare all but shouted, her voice trembling. And running into the stairwell, she flew up over the stairs.

“Now, see what you’ve done?” said Clair. “You’ve made her cry. That’s what telling lies does …”

Clair’s voice trailed off as a look of utter misery turned down the corners of her sister’s mouth. Far was she now from the lamb bleating for its teat. Trailing into the stairwell as she was, the sheen of her hair burying itself in shadow, she more resembled the butterfly whose wings had fluttered briefly, and finding only winter, was withdrawing into the dark whence it came.

“Missy—”

But Missy was fleeing up over the stairs. Clair sighed as she heard their room door close ever so softly. She slumped against the window, laying her forehead against the cool of the pane, seeking out the withered remnants of the sweet williams that lay beyond it, encased within a film of October frost. The cold of the pane brought an ache to her forehead, and she held back her head, hearing only the ticking of the clock. Unlike those early days when her father had just left, the house was no longer pressing with yesterday’s noise, as if it too had forgotten its maker.

Summer came, then winter again. As if to compensate for their refusal to allow their men to take up arms, the women from the Basin had responded ardently to the British government’s requests for knitted caps, mitts and socks to send to the soldiers overseas. Shearing, carding, spinning— the entire outport had turned into a sheep farm overnight, with the baa-ing of the sheep, and the burring, creaking and clacking of spinning wheels, Clair thought as she walked down over the hill to the store. Except for her mother’s house. She looked over her shoulder. Aside from the thin trickle of smoke drifting out of the chimney, the house appeared deserted, with its closed doors and draped windows.

“We never sees your poor mother,” said Johnny Regular’s wife, Rose, in a rough tone that forever accused, whether it was to babies or men that she spoke. It was a dirty fall day, wind, drizzle and fog, and Clair was about to duck inside the store to pick up some tea and soap. She paused in her step, nodding politely to Rose and Alma, the postal clerk, as they picked amongst the dozen or more turrs Ralph was tossing up from his boat onto the wharf, murmuring something about her mother being fine. But it was onto Alma her eyes were fastened, as they always were whenever she caught sight of the postal clerk these days, hoping for word or a letter that might be lying in the post office, that had thus far escaped notice, and was now in her pocket, waiting to be delivered. The last letter had been several months ago, cursing the African heat blistering his back, the sand-blasted sirocco wind, and the flies that drank more of his tea than he did himself, and how glad he was finally to be entrenched in the rain-soaked soil of Italy. Perhaps the fellow Joey had written? her eyes asked.

“Strange he haven’t wrote for this long,” said Alma, her eyes barely discernable above a gaily coloured scarf twisted thrice around her neck. “The young fellow from Rocky Head is just as bad; they haven’t heard from him in a while, either—not since they got to that place in Italy—Cassino, I think’s is the name of the place.”