Evening Snow Will Bring Such Peace (8 page)

“Hello, Dell,” the little one said. Then, as always when she saw Adele, her movements became cautious. As if she was used to having Adele pounce on her. The cushions on which she sat seemed to overflow the chair.

She was so tiny her head seemed no bigger than an orange. Her hair was blonde and wispy, as fine as a spiderweb. Her little eyes were black. Her three favourite dolls were sitting in chairs about the table also, each of them on cushions as well. She wore one red sock, the other was in the far corner of the kitchen, lying heel up near the stove. When Adele saw this, she stopped and looked about as if confused. Her face changed.

“Where Walphie?” the child said.

“There,” Adele said. “You have to have every cushion in the house down in the kitchen though, don’t
you? And the arm of Snoopy is torn off again – I noticed that right away!”

With this, Adele smiled. The little girl stopped smiling and reached clumsily for her milk.

Everything was Vera nowadays. The family revolved around her now. Vera was practical-minded. Vera gave piano lessons to little “underprivileged” children from Barryville. Vera belonged to “concerned and forward thinking” women’s rights organizations. Vera was going to have her child at home – in her own bedroom and not in some “sterilized foreign” atmosphere created by the hospital.

All of this had Dr. Hennessey upset, but Vera had gone instead to Dr. Savard, who said it was a perfectly reasonable thing to wish. That is, she wanted a midwife. This idea for Thelma was “new and fresh.” And Vera was something of a saint for being as she was.

Unfortunately Vera didn’t remember that Hennessey had helped deliver children all over the river – from a wagon to a half-ton truck. That old Mrs. Garrett’s children had all been born in the bed where they were conceived, and it was not such a strikingly new idea at all. What was new was only the attitude developed because of other criteria, and Hennessey was worried because of Vera’s health, which had been so bad a few years ago.

But, in fact, Hennessey was looked upon as old-fashioned and out of touch, and, of course, a woman-hater, while Savard was looked upon as a person who understood the problems of modern society and was willing to challenge them – all because of a birth at home, of which Hennessey had done over a hundred
and Savard had not yet done one. Also, Vera went about mentioning words like “birthing.” It was “birthing” this and “birthing” that with Vera. The old doctor visited, took her blood pressure, weight, and checked for too much fluid. But the doctor, though he disliked the idea, realized that she was set on it.

As far as Adele was concerned, this made the baby-to-be a rather political baby-to-be, and not just an ordinary baby like hers was – which was born in the men’s washroom of the community centre. But Vera was adamant about this, and her health wasn’t good.

Adele, of course, hated the whole idea of Vera’s pregnancy, of her going to have the child at home – or what she hated was the climate about the two opposing pregnancies. Vera was not supposed to get pregnant, but she did – and now it was absolutely natural that she did. Cindi, everyone perceived, could get pregnant every time she dropped her pants, and this was absolutely unnatural. Olive was “expert” at “mothering,” as Adele was told, while Adele, who had the child, was never mentioned as a mother.

Savard, who spent most of his time at the beach in the summer, drank wine until they held up a towel so he could get sick, and always had young girls around him, always looked sad at just the right time, was wonderful, according to some, while Dr. Hennessey, now in his seventies, who had refused to go to beaches no matter how many times he was invited, and imbibed only by himself, who never got sentimental, was the fellow whose opinion was least likely to be sought.

As for Ivan himself, he didn’t understand very much of this. He did not know why Vera and Nevin dressed
like Mennonites, lived on a farm they knew nothing about, had a tractor that they could not fix, and did not work in town – like everyone else here, who lived down river.

He did not understand why they were so easily duped, why Antony felt it was his obligation to cheat them – not once but many times – and why, of all the people on the river, they clung to him. Why they wanted horses that they didn’t understand, and why they had chickens which were unmannered enough to sit on the kitchen table while Vera and Nevin ate.

He did not understand why they went to university and got degrees – Vera had her Master’s in English and Nevin had a B.A. and B.Ed. – and then refused to work at jobs their degrees might entitle them to. He did not know them very well, and he always considered educated people better than he was.

He saw them disdain being employed and only now, because Vera was pregnant, were they trying to recoup their losses, were they trying to get back this prosperity they might have if they decided to work at jobs they would have been suited for.

And since he loved Ralphie he would not say anything about them.

He did not understand this.

Ivan was a little wary of educated people. Not, of course, all the time, but if he had to take his sister down to Dr. Savard, as he did one afternoon, he found himself tongue-tied and shy, and fighting not to be. He found himself shy in front of Vera, the only time he met her. He did not understand Nevin, but he would not allow anyone to make fun of him while he was there.

Ivan felt unequal to words and writing, to books and knowledge of that kind, but he had a tremendous respect for it. In such ways he was left out of life, not because he had to be, but simply because he was.

Once Ralphie gave him a book that was written by one of the local writers. Ralphie told him he might like it.

In the end, he thought Ralphie was making fun of him. Why would a writer put swearing in a book, he’d asked Ralphie. He felt a book was sacred – even though he never read one – and you didn’t put swear words into it. He did not understand why Ralphie thought he would like that book. Secretly he felt it was because he himself cursed and would therefore never understand a book that didn’t have those words.

He never mentioned the book again. But since Ralphie had given it to him he lugged it everywhere. He had it in Port Hawkesbury when he worked there, and now he had it set up on the old greasy shelf in the cuddy.

He did not know why Vera wanted a midwife and why she wanted to have her child at home. But there must be a reason for it. For instance, he reflected, an aunt of his had to lie still for the last three months of her pregnancy in the summer heat. For Ivan, it had to be something like this.

So he asked his grandmother to go over and visit Vera sometimes if she could, and to sit with her.

He did not know what else to do about that situation, but he was proud he had thought of this. That’ll fix things for her, he thought.

And he was happy about this.

But there was not much else to be happy about. He
heard that Cindi and some people were going to the Island together, to party, and he knew she was drinking.

He resolved finally to do something about it.

He went to see her, and took his sleeping bag. He walked in, set it down, and asked her if she could mend it.

There were two other people in the apartment whom he didn’t know. It was strange to have them in his apartment. The oak cabinet and the smell of onions, the wobbly bar stools. He did not ask who they were either. One seemed to be a friend of Dorval Gene’s.

He had the appearance of a man who had tanned himself under a light, and he looked at Ivan with the self-assured look strangers give when they feel they’ve been informed about you. Ivan, for the most part, ignored them.

“Could you sew this up,” Ivan said. He did not look at her but at the tanned blond man in the summer shirt with the wristband on.

“No – I’m sorry,” she said.

“You – you can’t,” he said.

“No,” she said. She stared straight ahead.

They both knew that, far from being anything else, this was his plea for clemency.

He picked the sleeping bag up and walked towards the door.

“Okay, never mind, I’ll do it!” she said.

He kept walking towards the door.

“Okay, never mind, I’ll do it, I said.”

“Never mind,” Ivan said, “I won’t bother you no more.”

“You hurt my feelings,” he heard her say. “I spose ya don’t know that, for, do ya!”

He left the apartment, smelling the smell of oil and salt in the hot, carpeted hallway.

It was a muggy day, filled with blackflies. The foliage was heavy and drooped green. Now and then the sun would just break out and then be encompassed in haze.

The woods was as silent as if it was waiting for a forest fire.

The tavern was hot, and a slack heat came under the window, propped open with a stick, and Antony sat with his back to this heat, breathing uniformly, his mouth closed, his shirt undone so that the top of his white undershirt, which he’d put on backwards that morning, was visible, tag and all. He looked at Eugene who was sitting beside him. They had been talking for an hour or more. It was now some time after four in the afternoon, just past the hottest point of the day, when wisps of heat drove across the naked parking lot, and the drive-in screen in the distance, past the waving maples, looked like some monstrosity.

Eugene was from Montreal, so he was called Dorval Gene. Everyone laughed at his mistakes and playfully dismissed them. Once he sent the grader all the way to Point Sapin for no reason, and he neglected to report the front-end loader was down – he upset three one-hundred-pound propane tanks – any of which would have caused trouble for him if it was not for the fact he was Clay’s sister’s son.

Eugene, like many people from large cities, grew up without much understanding of the outside world. He wore loose summer shirts, and black pants with black pointed shoes. He had a huge double chin. He had thick glasses that made his left ear pinch out, and people were conscious of him saying things, which he might have felt were cosmopolitan but which he knew didn’t fit him as a person, and allowed the nickname Dorval Gene to have more poignancy.

Everything was quiet and had been for a while. Gordon Russell had come and gone with his instructions to take the pinball machines out of the mini-mart and take them across the river to the new Nite Owl, and he had left these instructions while Antony was only half aware of the man’s presence. Antony was more concerned with Eugene, who was here for vacation, and therefore special. And a person whom Ruby wanted Cindi to get together with.

“He hauled a knife on you and everything,” Antony said. “That’s the worst of it – it has Nannie crying her eyes out.”

Eugene said nothing. Heat came through the tavern door and some Indian boys from Burnt Church had come in with a young woman – a half-breed whom Antony had seen over the last few years. Her hair was dyed bright orange and her lacklustre skin was dotted nutmeg about the cheeks.

“Yes – he hauled a knife – he was always that kind. If you want my opinion, the reason Gloria and I are separated is because of him,” he whispered shyly. “Always out attacking people – and Gloria at home crying.” He paused and drank and looked about. “It came down to either me going with Gloria” – he hesitated – “or
to stay with Ivan, who was already a mittful back then. Well, you’ve heard it yerself by now.”

He took another drink, moved his chair out, and looked at his boots as he tapped them. He spoke so quietly Eugene could hardly hear him.

“Gloria says, ‘Wash yer hands of him,’ and I said, ‘How can I – he’s my flesh and blood.’” He looked up at Eugene and grabbed his arm, with tears in his eyes. “Like having to run up to Shelby’s to get him to come home at twelve o’clock at night, and him blind drunk at nine years old” – he reached for his second draft – “stealin marbles – plumbers – from the Savoy kid.” Antony said this and then scratched his nose quickly and drank.

“It was a hard time then,” Eugene said, looking at him with sincerity and sympathy.

“Well, he took the life right out of my wife,” Antony whispered. “You know yerself about Gloria, and I don’t need to tell you about Gloria. It’s hard for me to do – I think of all the people who put Gloria down,” he said. “You know something, she herself never says a peep about anyone.” He finished his draught and ordered another. “All the talk about Ivan and Cindi, well you know yerself what they say, and I don’t go on about it, but she wouldn’t be pregnant if he didn’t force her to stop taking her birth control.”

Antony was angry with Ivan today.

Ivan had come out of the woods, where he had been peeling pulp, and they’d just had an argument. The week before Antony had sold some goats to Nevin and Vera. Vera was too tired to argue, and Nevin was always easily talked into things. It was about eighty degrees at noon hour. Vera listened to Nevin plead to her about
these goats, while Antony stood in the living room with his hat in his hand. Vera finally went: “Whew – okay – okay – some hot.” She smiled at Nevin as Nevin hugged her and then took a deep breath.

Now the goats walked in and out of the house anytime, day or night – and unfortunately Nevin was frightened of them.

Ivan was upset about the goats. He threw his boots against the wall and sat on the couch.

“Don’t blame me,” Antony said. “No one’s gonna take a goat unless they want to, so why blame me for that?” Antony looked at his son. He looked particularly put out at this moment, as if he had always had the best intentions – and was now all at once reconciled to being misunderstood by everyone.

“Is Nannie down there?” Ivan said. “Vera needed some help.”

Antony shook his head. “No, she isn’t,” he said.

“Why not?”

“I can’t have an old woman going down and sitting in that heat. I don’t know what’s wrong with that place – freeze in the winter – there’s a gale force right in the living room, blows a match out at twenty feet, and in the summer you sweat yer bag off just saying hello to them. Back-to-the-landers all right – I wish the Christ they would go away. But – it’s me they call up to go down and see about their topsoil – who was it they asked to go down and see about their topsoil, Ivan?”

After this, Ivan said nothing else and Antony was free to tell him all that he had done for Vera and Nevin – which was considerably more than Clay Everette Madgill, the person he often used as a yardstick. “Clay never likes new ideas,” he said.

After this conversation Antony went to the tavern where he met Eugene, eating a pepper steak.

Of course Eugene had no idea that he would be so involved, but he was staying at his uncle’s, Clay Madgill’s, and like a lot of visitors to the Maritimes he was captivated and surprised by the vitality and perception of the people, and their often careless attitude.

When Ivan was in the woods, Eugene and Ruby had helped Cindi leave the apartment. Eugene had taken her from the apartment, carried her suitcase to the car, and fidgeted when Cindi went back in to water the plants, and then came down the stairs carrying a huge plant in a pot. Then they all got into the car, and, with Eugene driving, smoking a small cigar with the tip gone yellow with smoke, with the leaves of the plant sticking out the window, they went down the road.

No one knew where she was, and this bothered Antony.

“No one should tell anyone where she is,” he said.

Eugene had an urge to tell him where she was. He would look at his plate and fight the urge to speak.

“Poor little Cindi,” Antony said.

Eugene nodded but still kept his eyes on his plate.

“Well, she’s in a good place now – I suppose.”

“Yes she is,” Eugene said, and he spoke as if he suddenly knew all the particulars of Cindi’s unfortunate life – which all of them, being concerned, could describe as unfortunate. “No one’ll hurt her again,” Eugene said.

“Well,” Antony said, “it’s better that way, I suppose – the fewer knows the better.”

Eugene thought for a moment.

“Well, if something happens, we can always get the message to her – you know what I mean.”

“Oh, for sure – for sure,” Antony said. “For sure,” he said again.

Then he yawned and looked bored. Out the tavern window the heat was like a drizzle, the clumps of weed at the far end of the gravelled parking lot were matted with dust, the wires stung, and beyond that the sky was immeasurably blue and cloudless.

Ivan used to walk down this highway collecting bottles in the summer in a pair of grey shorts, Antony recalled.

He had a bag of songs written by the time he was sixteen – and he played a guitar, though it only had four strings. “Pining for You in Pineville” and “Des-perato Kid,” and one which he could never sing on the river without getting into trouble was called “Why Bigtooled Darlins Fight.” There were songs called “Newcastle June” and “My Chatham Park.” He wrote songs about Loggieville and Burnt Church, Bartibog and as far upriver as Storeytown.

When he was young, Gloria dressed him in cowboy boots and a small rhinestone blazer, with a cowboy hat with a feather, and took him to Dominion Day celebrations to sing, and people used to get him to sign their programs because he was famous. Then they would all go for ice cream. And Gloria had red lipstick, and Antony said she was so beautiful he cried, and they all laughed and bought Nannie a present.

Now, as Antony looked out the window, he caught sight of a young Indian boy carrying a sack full of bottles in the ditch.

The Indian woman with the orange hair and nutmeg cheeks looked in his direction, noticed his
undershirt was on backwards, and laughed, holding her golden beer up to her lips.

After a while, knowing Eugene wouldn’t tell him anything, Antony left the tavern. He crossed the road – his truck was parked on the other side of the highway. There was a smell of stingers in the afternoon, and the scent of spruce gum also. When he got home the house was empty. The door creaked on its hinges.

Margaret had just finished her last exam. She had put on her shorts and was sitting behind the house. The horse, Rudolf, was in the small paddock on her left. There was the sound of the little spring that ran from their property down to Vera and Nevin’s. When he came out on the porch steps he stood and looked down at her. She didn’t look his way.

“Where is everyone – where’s Val?” he said.

“She went out to supper.”

“Out to supper – out to supper – out to supper with who–”

“Nannie and Grampie.”

“Nannie and Grampie – ha – what for?”

“I don’t know – because she finished school – they all went out to the mall – Nannie and Grampie and Valerie,” she said.

She glanced up at him out of the corner of her eye, and then back down towards Vera’s place. The back of Vera’s house was in bright sunshine but the windows were closed – it looked and even had the presence of an invalid’s house, with the sun shining on its white side and one rag on the line.

“Well, isn’t that something – out for supper,” he said. “Out for supper – why didn’t you go?”

“I didn’t want to go.”

“Why not–”

“I didn’t want to.”

Antony licked his sapphire ring and took it off, and then he pulled his knuckle. There was a small snap. Then he lit a cigarette. He looked at his daughter in her pink shorts and with her thighs very white in the late-afternoon sunshine, with the smell of wet grass under the porch.

“I don’t want you going out later either,” he said suddenly.

“I’m not going anywhere –”

“No,” he said, confused. “Well, are you going to make me some supper?”

“What do you want?” she asked.

“What do I want – ha – I have to take those pinball machines across the river. What do you think – I want some supper,” he said.

She looked at him as she always did, and then got up and went inside. The bottom of her shorts were covered in tar.

“You’ve been down at the wharf,” he said, “with those lads.”

“I have not,” she snapped, and ran in and slammed the screen door.

Antony then walked down the path towards Vera’s. At the point where he usually saw the bird’s nest, he stopped and looked about. Ivan pulled into the yard and got out of the car. Antony stayed where he was for a moment. Then he walked back up the hill, and came out by the shed. There was the smell of wood and torn tar paper.

“Where’s Cindi?” Ivan asked.

Antony took a breath.

“That’s what I been trying to find out for you,” he said.

Ivan said nothing. He had just come from the woods. He was covered in sweat. His body looked healthier at this moment than it had in some time.

“I went to the apartment and she’s gone,” Ivan said.

“Of course she is! What in hell do you think I’ve been trying to tell you? And I been down river all day trying to get some information – about where she’s gone,” his father said.

“Well,” Ivan said calmly, “where is she?”

“Gone – how the hell should I know. Oh, she’s got important friends now – she couldn’t give a fuck for her husband. That guy from Montreal there – Eugene – just the same as I went through, you wait and see. I’m going in to have supper – big-feelinged Nannie went out to the mall to eat – come on and we’ll have some supper.”

And with that he picked up a stick, took a look over his shoulder, went back to make sure the lock on the shed was snapped, and, whistling, he went into the house, a cloud of moths about his head. Ivan followed him, not knowing what there was to whistle about.

Margaret had tried to fry some hamburgers and had blackened them. Antony was sitting at the table, bent over, staring through his hands at his boots and tapping his feet, waiting for his supper. The more he tapped his feet and whistled, the more nervous Margaret became. Instead of turning the heat on the stove lower, she turned it higher and went into the other room to put on an album that she had saved her money for.

Grease spattered against the side of the walls, and smoke filled the room. Antony looked at the stove and shook his head, and Ivan went over and turned the heat down and took the pan off the burner.

“Christ,” Margaret said coming in, looking at her father quickly and then at Ivan.

“It’s all right,” Ivan said, “I got it.”

Margaret was at that age that some girls never reach. When she talked she sounded thirteen, she was fifteen and looked nineteen. Her feet were bare, yet her fingernails were long and painted and her breasts well formed. Upstairs she kept scrapbooks, and drew pictures of dogs and cows and coloured them, and had the names of boys written over her schoolbooks.

“What in hell are you doing?” Antony said. “You’ll burn the house down.”

Ivan looked at his father calmly and then at Margaret, who was nervously trying to pick the hamburgers up with a spatula, and said: “It’s all right – here.”

He told Margaret to go and sit at the table.

“But the soup,” she said, in French, “the soup is boiling.”