Road to Thunder Hill (3 page)

“I guess I could relate to the small town thing,” I say to Olive.

“But did you learn anything from this book? I have to say, I found it disappointingly simplistic.”

“Because it was easy to read?”

“No, because it didn't teach me about anything I care to learn.”

Olive goes on about how it's a writer's responsibility to raise consciousness, to inspire change. It simply isn't enough to write without a reason. The same might be said about the importance of getting people to read more: to open their minds, to expand their worlds.

Before I had a chance to say that I thought this writer wanted to write about her own time and place in the world, she suddenly jumped up from her chair.

“I just had a great idea!” she says, her eyes wide. “We should get some of the farmers to join us, and then we'll have ourselves a real book club!”

“Hmm.”

Olive insists on calling the local women “farmers.” I once tried to explain that calling a woman a “farmer” is almost an insult, since this is the word they were teased with all throughout high school. Besides, some women would rather be called housewives than farmers. But Olive seems to think she knows what's best for them.

“You don't think that's a good idea? Asking the farmers?”

“Sure, why not? I'm just not that optimistic about it.”

Truth be told, I can't picture sitting around a living room with Midge Hutchins or Jean Bradley, let alone talking to them about books. I've also tried to explain to Olive that there are invisible barriers in Thunder Hill. That to the locals, Ray and I will never truly belong.

“But you and Ray are from here!”

“No, Olive, Ray and I are from town.”

“But you spent your childhood in Thunder Hill.”

“Only the summers. It's not the same, trust me.”

“But our father is buried here.”

I don't bother to correct her about the fact that Bernie Kyle was
my
father alone, and that
her
real father was some veterinarian her mother had had an affair with while she was married to my father. I keep my mouth shut because she seems to have no clue of this fact and has been living her whole life thinking she had an absentee father who sent her mom cheques and sometimes small notes when she was young and that except for him having left her Kyle House for some odd reason, wanted nothing more to do with her.

“True,” I say. “But that's because my father was too ornery to be buried with the rest of his clan on the bay side of Thunder Hill.”

“I don't get it. His grandfather built Kyle House, so doesn't that make us all locals?” she says. “How far back do you have to go to be considered a local around here?”

“It's not how far back that counts, it's where you live most of the year that counts. Other than during the summers, our family didn't live out here.”

This is just one more thing Olive doesn't get because she's from Toronto. That while I'm happy to drop by my neighbours to trade eggs for honey, I wouldn't dream of stopping in at Christmas.

So about the book club, I say, “I don't think they'd have the time, you know. They're so busy.”

“They still manage to find time for quilting clubs and cribbage tournaments. Think how a book club might expand their thinking. You even said yourself that nobody around here talks about anything except each other.”

“I don't remember saying that.”

“Well, you did. We were sitting right here at this table and you called Thunder Hill ‘Dunderhill.' Remember?”

A prickly feeling travels up the back of my neck. I guess I must have been drunk one night when I confessed to Olive that I was dying of boredom here in Thunder Hill, because, “Between you and me, Olive, they're all a bunch of dunderheads.”

Dunderheads?
Where had that come from? I could have said, “There are
some
dunderheads,” but no, I had said
all
. All would have to include Alana and Danny and Bear and, for all that matters, my own family. And me? My one year in Toronto happened almost two decades ago, yet over a bottle of Olive's wine she'd insisted that this somehow gave me a certain sophistication that my neighbours lacked. I had laughed at this and said I hardly thought one year away could qualify.

“Now Patricia,” she said, “Surely that one year in the city must have felt like a lifetime.”

Yes it had, I admitted to that, but I also said I've never regretted moving back to Thunder Hill.

“Because like Alana's always saying,” I tell her, “Thunder Hill is the most fucking beautiful place in the world, man.”

We laughed because that is something Alana does say a lot. And maybe it's because we drank two more bottles of Olive's wine, that I had started in about my neighbours, saying all those things I felt so ashamed of the next day. I felt like calling Olive up just to say, “In spite of what I said last night about the people who live around here, the thing I like the most about them is that they are real people.” But of course I didn't, because I've learned to be careful not to say things to Olive I might regret later. And now she wants to start a book club with these people I called a bunch of dunderheads. I just don't get her.

When the phone rings I jump because it might be Ray. He told me he'd call this morning, before he set out from Newville.

But where's the phone? Ever since Gayl talked me into buying a cordless phone, I can never find it. Olive and I both head in the direction of the living room where Gayl's school papers cover the couch and floor. Just as I'm thinking I'll never find it in time, Olive reaches under the couch and pulls the phone out. She hands it to me with dust clinging to her sweater sleeve.

“Hello?” I say, while Olive plucks at the dust ball and I'm thinking I'd better get to those before Ray comes home and makes a big point of pulling out his broom.

It's my best friend Alana on the phone, not Ray at all. “Hi Alana.” I turn to look out the living room window. The snow is scuttling across the lane and beginning to drift along the sides.

Alana is saying, “Olive's there, isn't she?”

“Hmm. You must be psychic.” This is a joke, since Alana is a certified psychic, with paying customers who come all the way from towns on the other side of Thunder Hill.

Olive asks from behind me, “What is our Alana predicting today, pray tell?”

Our Alana?

“Olive wants to know what
our
Alana is predicting for today.”

“Let's see. She predicts you'll be a whole lot happier once Olive leaves your yard? How am I doing so far?”

“You've got that right.”

Olive says, “What does she have right?”

“That we're in for a storm,” I say. This isn't a lie. Last night, when Gayl and I finished getting our readings done by Alana, we stepped outside and Alana pointed to the moon and said, “Wouldn't be at all surprised if we got hit with a storm tomorrow.”

Now Alana asks, “Did Ray get home last night?”

“No.” I say, stifling a yawn. “In fact, I thought it might be him calling. He worked double time yesterday. But he's coming this morning.”

“The roads aren't great,” Alana says. “Weather report says it might turn to freezing rain. Are you guys still planning to come over to play cribbage tonight?”

“Hope so.”

“And if you want to play 45s instead, you can ask Olive and Arthur over too. Oh, look, Bear James just drove up to the pumps. See you later.”

I click off the phone and say to Olive. “Boy, it's really coming down out there. Maybe we shouldn't let those kids go into town.”

It turns out that Arthur is away in Toronto, and even though he's due to arrive home tonight, he likely won't want to go out again so I don't have to feel guilty about not saying anything to Olive about us going over to Danny and Alana's later. As far as I'm concerned, it's just another sticky situation avoided. The last thing I need is for Olive to hear Danny teasing me about Ray and me living apart all week long. He usually starts by asking Ray about the so-called
hot one
he has down there in Newville. It's all meant as a joke, but no matter what Ray says to ward off Danny's teasing, it ends up backfiring on him.

“Don't worry,” Ray said one time. “From what I can tell, the best-looking girls down in Newville don't have any teeth.”

“All the better for, you know what there buddy,” Danny said, elbowing Ray so hard he almost fell off his chair.

I said, “I never noticed any toothless girls the time I was there.”

Well, I walked into that one alright. Danny smirked and said, “That's because they only take their teeth out at night when they go to work!”

I had to laugh too, knowing that both Alana and Olive would be watching me to see how I really feel about Ray living in Newville.

Maybe if they knew, they wouldn't make those jokes. Which might be even worse, I realize. So I pretended to pretend to be mad and said to Ray, “What I'd like to know, Buster, is how you noticed that the Newville women have no teeth?”

It was joking around kind of talk, the kind that puts to rest any social speculation. But like most joking around, in private, a person might take these things far more seriously.

Now I'm in the basement rummaging for stray sticks of wood. Upstairs, I hear the phone ring again. A chair scrapes on the kitchen floor above my head as Olive goes to answer it. I listen here in the dark. Yes, it must be Ray because he has this annoying way of making Olive shriek and snort with laughter. Ray isn't all that funny, but Olive thinks he's a riot. I spot some sticks of softwood behind the furnace. Winter has been long and nasty this year and I'm not the only one who has run out of wood. Olive's been telling the neighbours to help themselves to the birch from her neatly carded and plentiful supply. I'd sooner freeze than have Olive think I couldn't have handled this past winter on my own.

“Who phoned?” I ask, puffing from having lugged all this wood to the top of the stairs.

“Ray.”

“Oh yeah? What was so funny?”

“Nothing, really. He said to tell you he'll be here by noon. Oh, and he said something about seeing Arthur and me tonight at the Four Reasons. I told him Arthur's due in from Toronto but that I hadn't heard about any plans for tonight.” She looks at me in the same way Carrie looks at robins. “Did I miss an invitation or something?”

I shrug. “You know Ray. All talk. He'll be so wiped out from working all night he'll end up falling asleep as soon as he gets home.”

“Oh, he's at work? That explains it then.”

“Explains what?”

“Those women I heard talking in the background,” Olive says with a wave of her hand. “I asked him who it was and he denied there was anyone close to resembling a female anywhere near him.” She snorts. “That's why I was laughing. You know what a tease he can be.”

Since when has Ray become a tease, I think, but I say to Olive, “He couldn't have been calling from work. He would have finished his shift at midnight.”

“Oh well, maybe he worked right through? I heard all of these clanging noises in the background too.”

I pretend to examine the draft lever on my stove. “It was probably his landlady you heard.”

“I heard more than one and they sounded pretty young.”

My mind is racing. As far as I know, there are no women working at the salt mine, so where the hell was he calling from? There used to be a time when I knew everything about my husband. At least, I thought I did.

Through the kitchen window I spot that cheery robin from yesterday, with feathers fluffed and now looking miserable on the crook of a branch. With one shudder his feathers are free of snow. Then he takes off, in search of a drier place. I sure do wish I could do the same thing.

2. The Deed to Kyle House

O
NCE, A LIFETIME AGO,
my father handed the keys as well as the deed to Kyle House to Ray and me. Later, when I told Ray that I had turned down my father's offer, he looked at me like a kid whose crayons had just been stolen. “How could you turn down the nicest property in the county?” I'd warned Ray about telling our parents that I was pregnant in the first place. But he'd wanted to do the right thing, so we'd driven the thirty minutes into town. My mother took our news in stride, meaning she poured herself a double shot of rum, but my father freaked. He went on and on about responsibility and maturity and all the other things we didn't have. Like real jobs. We told him we were getting married and that shut him up long enough to plan a surprise engagement party out in his back garden.

On the day of the surprise party, we were invited to what I thought was a simple brunch, but I realized I was heading into a trap when I spotted my Aunt Sybil and Uncle Lefties's car parked outside my parents' house, as well as about twenty others along the street. When I tried to do an about-turn there on the sidewalk, Ray grabbed my arm, whispered “surprise” and forced me up the walk, into the door, and “Surprise!” My biggest emotion was fury at Ray for being in on something he'd known all along I'd hate.

Later, on the back lawn, my father raised his glass in a toast to his fifty or so guests.

“The moment has arrived to toast the upcoming wedding between the love of my life — after my beautiful wife, of course — and this fine young man who'd better be worthy of my little girl.”

As his audience laughed, my father clapped his arm around his future son-in-law, the same boy he had often referred to as “that girl,” because of his long straight hair. Ray grinned ridiculously as my father held him in a tight grip, and I almost changed my mind about marrying him, especially when my father sprung the deed to Kyle House on “the couple who've decided to get a head start on our grandchildren.” All the hand clapping startled a flock of starlings perched in the giant hackmatack tree. As the black frenzy whirred into the sky, I had a feeling Ray might throw his arms around my father and kiss his big bald head.

That's how I came to be sitting across from Ray at the kitchen table trying to explain, “I know my father better than you think you do, and he doesn't give anything away for free.”

He sat there and had the nerve to say, “I've never figured out why you are so angry towards Bernie.”

“Why do you suppose he gave us the house, Ray? Why?”

Ray opened his hands wide. “Because his daughter is getting married to the man she loves, and what was once the finest house in the county is sitting there rotting on the most spectacular point along the entire coast?” His voice rose here. “Maybe he thought that we'd be grateful? Which would have been true, at least for one of us.”

“See, Ray? That's where you're wrong. He gave us the house for one reason. And that is so he could control our lives.”

“For a free house, I'd be willing to let your father control whatever he wants.”

“You say that now, but…”

“But nothing! You could have let me be a part of the decision.”

Then Ray did what he always did when he couldn't get his own way. He took off to town to get drunk.

Alana, who has always been able to calm me down, drove me to the dump that very day. She'd heard there were boxes of giveaways lined up against the chain-link fence. People from town were opening their cottages along Thunder Hill Road and wanted to start the summer off fresh. While we rummaged, she said that the problem with men was that they saw only the big picture and never stopped to consider all the angles. Like my father assuming that because I was pregnant, I'd learn to live my life like everyone else. And the way Ray saw the mortgage-free house like a carrot dangling in front of him.

I said, “Ray was practically drooling!”

“But then again,” Alana said, “there's something to be said for a free house.” Then she gasped. “Hey, look at this, Trish. I have always wanted a juicer. I wonder if it works.”

It's amazing what people throw away. Back then we furnished our homes with stuff from the dump. Every time my parents came for a visit, I'd show my father my latest find. I likely did this to annoy him, but over time it became a joke. The whole world knew my father would have bought me twenty brand new toaster ovens, if only I'd let him.

That day at the dump I said to Alana, “My father would want to control our every move.”

“You'll think differently once you have the kid, and that's a fact,” she said, and as if to prove it, she hollered, “Kim, get down off that fence! Hey look, Trish, here's a braided rug. And there's not a thing wrong with it. Kevin, you get down too! Except for this little hole, this is perfectly good.”

That was the only time I've ever known Alana to be wrong about anything. Not about the rug, she was right about that, and all these years later it still keeps my back porch floor warm. But the part about me thinking differently? I feel the same way to this day. Ray and I managed to make our lives without my father's help. This drove my father crazy. Especially when it came to Gayl, who he adored. Every time she visited Gran and Gramper, as she called him, she came back with carloads of clothes and toys. There wasn't much I could do about it even if I felt back then that the fewer things in life a person could have, then fewer messes to clean up after. So we let them spoil her rotten, especially after my father almost dropped dead after a heart attack. He survived the heart attack but not the damage and his heart kept going out on him. He'd make a point of saying that what gave him the most joy the times he was out of the hospital was to take Gayl shopping.

It got so that we thought my father would live in a state of heart failure forever. He was in and out of surgery wards so often, he joked with the nurses about them keeping his bed warm until his return. When it actually happened we felt as shocked as if he'd died in a car accident. The only real thing about it was the funeral arrangements, which had been in place for well over a year. We were glad for that.

Two days before he died, Ray and I were at his bedside. We'd come so many times before, thinking he was dying, and just as many times he'd managed to fool everyone and had come back from death's window — the same window he'd blown his cigarette smoke out of — the whole time he was in the hospital.

That day, he exhaled towards the open window and said, “I used to think you kids were a couple of idiots, but I'll give you credit, you managed to do okay.”

“Thank you Bernie,” Ray said. “That means a lot to us. But we couldn't have done it without all your support over the years. Right Trish?”

He nudged me so I nodded, and when he nudged me harder, I looked at my father and saw his eyes were focused on Ray and not on me at all.

I said. “Yeah, thanks, Bernie. Dad.”

I frowned at Ray and got up to smear some Vaseline on my father's lips.

I wonder what my father would say today about Ray moving out on me. Knowing him, he would have marched down to that boarding house in Newville to lecture Ray about everything he knew about women. He would have said something about women in general being more trouble than they were worth, but that wives, in particular, were necessary evils. He'd always considered himself an expert, since he had married two of them, my mother his second, and Olive's mother his first.

As for Ray, I doubt he'd have had the guts to leave me if my father had still been alive. It used to piss me off how they could talk for hours over a bottle of Scotch. My father never offered me any Scotch. When my father finally stopped drinking, because of his heart, Ray came up with the idea of the two of them building a boat in our barn — just a sturdy little dinghy, designed for fishing in the inlets. They didn't get far with it though, and its wooden skeleton gathers dust out there in the barn. Ray never wanted to touch it after my father died.

I realize that Olive has just asked me a question about sex, of all things, which snaps me right back to my kitchen. She is staring at me as if her life depends on my answer.

“I'm sorry, Olive. What was your question?”

“I asked you how your sex life is.”

I'm thinking she can't be serious, yet she grips the edge of the oilcloth like my answer to her question is a matter of life or death.

“It's fine,” I say, “considering Ray hasn't been able to get home much lately.” Is that what she was getting at? I look around to see what could have possibly sparked this kind of talk but I'm not getting any clues.

“That's it? That's the best you can come up with?” she says, looking like she's bursting to tell me something.

I quickly get a feeling that this isn't about my sex life after all, which is a relief, so I ask, “And how about your sex life?”

“Our sex life?” Olive says, as if she has never considered this before in the twenty or so years she's been with Arthur. She closes her eyes and says, “Arthur is a wonderful lover.”

“Really?”

Now, as far as I'm concerned, Arthur has all the appeal of an eel. Any time I've seen him in swimming trunks the sight has made me shiver. So what am I supposed to say to Olive now, congratulations?

“I am so fortunate. He is so…” Olive says, clasping her hands like she's praying. “Enthusiastic.”

“Oh?” I say. I can't bring myself to picture Arthur in the act, let alone being enthusiastic about it. He looks so nervous, especially when he's around Olive. Plus, he has no chin. Danny once pointed out that Arthur's Adam's apple had to do double duty as a chin.

“Yes! He does the most amazing things!” Olive leans over the table and whispers, “The first time we made love was after an Egon Schiele exhibit.”

“Who?”

“Arthur looks a lot like Egon Schiele, the artist. So we bought a book of his paintings. We like to look at it.
In bed
.”

“Oh.” I can only imagine what these paintings are like.

“Sometimes Arthur pretends to be an artist and asks me to pose in some pretty erotic postures. Sometimes he paints me,” Olive's voice drops to a whisper. “I mean, he literally paints me, with body paint or sometimes…” She blushes here, “he powders me with an especially soft and tickly brush.”

“Oh really.” I spy a cobweb hanging from the ceiling which reminds me of Ray so I go find the broom and get real busy sweeping it down. “To think I swept the ceiling just the other day!”

Olive steps closer to me. “Do you mind if I ask you a personal question?”

“Um … you mean more personal than my sex life?”

“Do you consider Ray to be a clean person?”

I blink. “Why? Did he have dirt under his fingernails the last time you saw him?”

“Oh no, nothing like that. It's just that … well, I wouldn't tell this to anyone but you, but Arthur has to be the cleanest person I have ever met.” She giggles. “Guess what he does the minute after we have sex?”

“I don't know, has a shower?”

“Close! He washes his penis in the bathroom sink! He scrubs it so hard I tease him it will fall off.”

“Really!” I say, trying not to imagine Arthur's pale hands scrubbing away at his penis.

“Does Ray do that? Wash himself after?”

“Never!” I have to laugh. “He's the opposite.”

“What do you mean?”

“I guess he doesn't think that sex is all that dirty. He might not think to wash for a couple of days after.”

Olive's nose crinkles. “But don't you mind? I mean, doesn't he smell?”

“I don't mind his smell. I like it in fact. It's sort of woodsy.”

“Oh really?” She raises her eyebrows. “Like, in a fresh pine sort of way?”

“No,” I say, trying to match Ray's smell with a word. “More like in a rotted log sort of way.”

Olive snorts and I'm wishing I hadn't said that. How does she get me to confess or admit to things I don't care to share with anyone, not even Alana? Even if Olive really was my half sister, it's none of her business how Ray smells! But here I am, trying to fix what I said just before.

“I mean in a healthy way,” I mumble. “
Outdoorsy
, I mean,”

The tags on Suzie's collar jingle. She rushes to the door and lets out a volley of barks. I look out the porch window. A snow squall out there in my yard is so fierce I can't even see up my lane. Olive is standing beside me. It's getting whiter by the second. We can't even see beyond the first crab apple tree. So we're both squinting, trying to see the lane, and then clear out of the squall, Bear James's Rover comes barrelling towards us so fast that Olive and I scream and jump backwards. I even take an extra leap into the pantry because I expect to see the Rover coming right through my kitchen. But no, when I dare look out again, the Rover has come to a stop just inches from my front door.

The sheer size of Bear James takes up most of my doorway. Melting snow drips from a curl over his forehead and onto his nose.