Extensions (12 page)

Mama is becoming tired and stern again. “I said what I could in favour of Miss Ruby Strong. I can't do anything else and neither can you, Jane. I have to lie down now.” She rises from her chair and walks, slumped, to the bedroom.

“Gomer would be blessed to have Ruby as a teacher. He might even learn something for a change.” Filled with shock and anger from the day's events, Jane strides outside to cool her burning cheeks. She hears uneven strokes from an axe somewhere in the maple trees behind their house. It must be Gomer chopping wood. Badly, as usual. She hides behind a cedar bush and watches him. Sweat pours from his brow onto the school clothes he has not troubled himself to change. Jane considers stepping out and scolding him for causing extra washing for her, and then showing him how to chop wood properly. In the end, she decides her little brother must stick with something long enough to figure it out for himself. If only his fingers survive. Soon he tires of the effort and throws the axe down in disgust. Jane stays hidden as he marches back to the house, kicking everything in his path. Today Gomer's carelessness is too familiar to stir her as it usually would. At the sound of the back door slamming, she picks up the axe and carries it to the outside shed where Gomer knows it belongs. Since they moved to Canada, axes and hatchets have become familiar to Jane, but this time the primitive tool feels dangerous in her hand. A shudder passes through her, as she throws it into the shed as fiercely as Gomer had thrown it on the ground. The sound of Tommy's heavy footsteps on the other side of the wall reminds her he will want something to eat before he sets off for his night shift.

Tommy is testing the hinges of the new cloak cupboard as she enters. Even if he is occupied at the same task, Jane can tell instantly from her brother's manner whether his shift lies before him, or if he has just finished. On his way to the pits he has the edginess of a hawk, easy to snap with impatience at any interruption. After work, the same impatience is restrained by exhaustion and withdrawal. Gomer prattles on about a friend from school who has a newer and better axe that makes wood chopping easy. Jane is not surprised when Tommy snarls, “Nothing wrong with our axe but the person using it.”

She quickly sets the table before Tommy sits down, stirring the thick soup of beef, barley, and vegetables she had made before she left this morning. Within minutes, the family is sitting down to a meal of Scotch broth, homemade bread, and bread and butter pickles, made from their own cucumbers in the summer. Jane lingers at the counter filling Tommy's cylindrical lunchpail with roast beef sandwiches. She pours hot tea into the bottom and snaps the flat compartment containing sandwiches on top, just as her mother takes her chair in her best blue woollen housecoat. Jane has no appetite, and explains that she has sampled too much at the stove and is in need only of a cup of tea. She steals glances at Tommy to see if his face or movements will reveal that he knows or thinks the kinds of things Lance Cruikshank knows and thinks. Does the mine create cruelty like Lance's, or is it miners like Lance who create poison gases in the mine? Has her brother been shaped by the darkness and the coal damp? He is bothered by the horses and mules going blind underground, something that would never trouble a man like Lance. No, Tommy could not be part of this threatening thing that has escaped, whatever it is.

The meal over, Tommy changes to his miner's suit in the scullery and tests the hinges on the cupboard once more before opening the door. Mama says, “Come you home safe, Thomas.” He nods, but does not answer as he leaves. Mama goes back to bed and Gomer flips pages of his school text loudly at an unreadable clip. Jane cleans the kitchen and slides the oil lamp to the end of the table. She pulls out her pen and paper from under the tea towels. Cassie, Cassie, please come over soon. What can she write to her brother and sisters without telling them all that happened today? A letter can easily go astray and Jane

Owens, responsible daughter and sister that she is, could never be the bearer of such news.

October 25, 1894

Dear Brother and Sisters,

It has been three weeks since Catherine's last letter and
I long to hear from all of you. Are Gwynyth and Evan
over their colds? I am not surprised by the praise from the
parents for Cassie's conduct in the schoolroom. She has
a loving manner with all children and with adults alike.

Mama had two ladies from Gomer's school for tea
this afternoon. We do not have many guests in our home
on account of Mama's illness and I think she was the
better for it, though she is resting now. They said Gomer
is a fine lad and a welcome friend for their sons
.
Our
little brother must have a different face outside, because
he complains every day about walking so far to school
and then about every minute inside it. He would be happy
to stay home and do nothing. I would gladly trade places
with him, but he would not want my jobs. The school
needs a new teacher because the present one is getting
married. How I wish you could be the teacher here, Cassie.

Tommy is over his cold but does not get enough rest
between shifts. There is always something for him to tend
in the house and, of course, he likes a little time at the
tavern with his friends on weekends.

My hours at the other miner's house get longer and
longer, though my pay remains the same. I am tired and
upset from being there and will go to bed after I put the
clothes of my other generous customer to soak.

Stay healthy, dear Brother and Sisters, until we will
be together again and can talk freely.

xxxxxxxx
Your loving Sister, Jane
xxxxxxxx

“HULLO,” I croaked.

“Oh no, did you work nights? I'm sorry, I thought you'd be up by noon.”

“It's okay, Dad. I'm off. If it really is noon, I must have slept over twelve hours.”

“That's because you need it. I just wanted to tell you Janetta called yesterday. She's back home and doing much better. She can't go very far and wondered if we would like to go over again. She seems moved by your visit.”

I remembered sitting over her hospital bed with my nose running. “Sure. When?”

“You're the busy one. You decide.”

“Maybe after my next block. Thursday?”

“Sounds fine. She mentioned the letters. Wants you to see them. I'll let you go back to sleep.”

“Don't rub it in. I'll talk to you later.” I rolled over on the bed, cordless phone in hand. I was still groggy. After ten months of insomnia I now did nothing but sleep. Both signs of depression. I knew I was having wild dreams, but could not hang onto them in the morning. All that was left was a somber, overcast feeling. Of mines, misty forests, a foggy ocean. Jane Owens was haunting me. My knee knocked against the box of her letters where I had stopped reading last night with only three left. I pulled one out, and without lifting my head, began to read:

October 2, 1894

Dear Brother and Sisters,

Your letter last week was a treasure to me, Cassie. Mama
thinks I spend too much on postage, but I cannot wait any
longer to reply. When you write, I am back in Llantrisant
with you, playing with Evan and Gwynyth, hearing you
and Margaret chatter. Margaret, Mama is proud that
your handiwork is making a name for you, especially since
it was she who taught you to sew. Cassie, by the time you
get here, you will be hired as a teacher because of your skills
with children. Evan and Gwynyth are lucky to have you in
the home as a tutor. I am so in need of your company that
sometimes I believe I will not last. Since I left school I do
not meet with any girls my own age except my employer
and she is not a friend. I would stop working at that
house this very day but Tommy is building on more rooms,
and materials take more of his wages. He is hoping to be
made timber foreman soon. He has worked hard for this
promotion and deserves it.

My only friend is my other customer. I would trust him
with all my secrets except those that might hurt him. I wish
more people knew how kind he is but he keeps to himself
mostly. The person he sees most is the one he should not
trust. Next week his younger son will be over helping him
to finish off the harvest.

Dear Sisters and Brother, I am tired and must go to
bed. Tomorrow I have ten pies to bake for the harvest fair.

xxxxxxxxx
Your loving sister, Jane
xxxxxxxxx

Ten pies. I was twice my great-grandmother's age in this letter and had never made one. And I had certainly never done anybody's laundry but my own. I cringed to think that at fifteen, I did not even do that; I left it to my mother to push the buttons on the washing machine. Even worse, I would pout if the jeans I wanted to wear were still in the wash. As for fighting to walk to school, I grumbled when I had to get up to catch a five-minute ride with Gail and her dad. I must have inherited Gomer's genes.

I propped myself up against my pillows, which, speaking of laundry, could do with a wash. I thought of Jane wringing sheets out by hand and hanging them on a line to dry. Was she pretty? Was she tall? My height certainly didn't come from my mother. I had to confess that until now I considered Jane's life boring and pitiable, because housework all day was not my idea of fun. For the first time, I felt the full weight of her responsibility as a fifteen-year-old. Of the thousands of houses I had been in, I had seen few where a teenager was in charge. Sure, lots of kids survived drunken, addictive parents by doing laundry or cooking Kraft Dinner and pizza, but teenagers who quit school these days usually did not do it to support their family or bake pies. Social Services were just around the corner. What astonished me was the way Jane accepted her lot. You did what was expected of you back then. I still found it hard to believe that I was holding actual testimony in my hands from that century and not just reading about it in a book.

And what
was
going on with her other customer, the Negro gentleman? What were Jane's secrets and who was the person he should not trust? She had my attention now. I reached for another letter and the phone rang again. I tried to answer with enthusiasm this time.

“Arabella? It doesn't sound like you.”

So much for cheerfulness. It was Megan. When I joined the force, I decided my full name sounded more professional. An alias, you might say. Megan was on another team, but we often had barbecues and baseball games with them.

“You busy this afternoon?”

“Depends.”

“Lonnie's brother is here from Calgary. We wanted to take him to Stanley Park, walk the seawall, go for a drink later. Thought you might like to come along?”

“Trying to fix me up?”

“Nothing like that.” Then Megan's famous three-minute laugh. How would she and Uncle Lawrence get along? “But you never know.”

Before I could stop myself, I had said: “Sure. Why not?”

“Great. We'll pick you up in an hour.”

As soon as I hung up, I remembered what I really had planned for the day. Study. I had still not picked a topic for my history paper. Being a mature student had not made me any more mature about study habits. How did I ever agree to a blind date today? Mom always said, if you don't fill your life with what's important to you, other people will fill it for you.

I showered and changed into jeans and a turtleneck, cursing as I did so. Myself, mainly, though Megan came in for recriminations as well. For having the nerve to treat me like a friend, was that it? At times Megan was the human equivalent of fingernails on a blackboard for me. I felt guilty thinking this, because she always included me in her circle and for all the world, we got along. But her voice was like a power drill and she bared upper and lower teeth in such a forced smile that I sometimes had to look away, especially when people were taken in by it.

Maybe I was jealous. Not because she was small and dark, because Gail was small and blonde, and I loved her. Maybe because every inch of Megan's taut little body was a cop. For all the doubts I had about my career choice, she was filled with rock-solid certainty. And to seal her fate, she married Lonnie, another member who was tall, stable, and devoted, so they could patrol the streets together on their days off looking for something to report. Lonnie was a dog man, and whenever I was at their place for a party, I spent as much time with the dog as Lonnie would allow to avoid Megan's screechy performances. I wondered if his brother would be as single-minded as these two about his field.