That Forgetful Shore (35 page)

He must know there isn't; wherever he's from, he's been in England long enough to know that a married woman would not be headmistress of a girls' school. “Mr. Porter died in 1918,” Kit says, looking down at her coffee cup.

“Ah. I am sorry.” He pauses, then adds, “I mean I am sorry in more ways than one – I presume your husband died in the war, and I served in the German army. So when I meet an English war widow such as yourself – and I have met many – I feel I owe you an apology.”

“You don't,” Kit said. “As it happens my husband died after returning from active service. But even had he been killed in action – I would hardly hold an ordinary German soldier responsible for his death.”

“Even had I been on the other end of the gun that killed him?”

“I would try not to,” Kit says. “One would have an emotional reaction, of course – it's unavoidable – but logically, one can't blame soldiers for war. They fight for king and country, and follow the orders of their commanding officers.” She thinks of the charge of the Light Brigade, of the charge at Beaumont-Hamel.

“That is surely true in my case,” Leo says. “My father was Polish, and I grew up in what we called Poland, though it was not on the map at that time. I was conscripted into the German army and forced to fight against fellow Poles who were conscripted by the Russians. I never fought on the Western Front.”

“Yet you apologized.”

“I apologized for being part of the war. I claim the universal defense. We only follow orders – we fight for king and country,” Leo says. “So the working men of one country slaughter their natural comrades, the working men of another country, in the name of wealthy kings who cares nothing for their lives. How long will this go on? Do you think we have learned anything from our war to end all wars?”

“You talk like a pacifist,” Kit says, and he nods. “But if you're really a Marxist,” she goes on, “don't you agree with Lenin – that revolution can't come without spilling blood?”

“It is true, you have caught me out.” He laughs, then puts aside his cup and lays his large, bony hands on the table, palms down, fingers spread, so that she can't help but stare at them. There's nothing extraordinary about his hands but the gesture is strangely erotic; she can't look at those hands without imagining them on her skin, circling her waist, running down her thighs. She looks back up and meets his brown eyes, looking steadily at her from his long narrow face under a tumble of wavy brown hair. “But if bloodshed must come, should it not be in the cause of building a better world, rather than shoring up the old one?”

Kit pulls her thoughts back, startled to realize they are still talking of war, pacifism and communism. She suspects that his thoughts, like hers, are straying from the political to the personal.

But what kind of personal connection could there be between people such as this man and herself? She's managed to tease out during the conversation that he is a Polish Jew whose mother was born in England. After the turmoil of the war his widowed mother wanted to return to her own country. Leo accompanied her, read history at Cambridge and is now a lecturer at the university here in Manchester. He is also a member of the Communist Party, writes for Communist papers and dreams of sparking revolution in England. He is a man she might meet at a lecture, might even have a conversation with in a café – once only. A Jewish Communist rabble-rouser is certainly not someone Mrs. Porter of St. Margaret's could be seen with on a regular basis.

“This old order that you speak so lightly of sweeping away,” she says, again pulling her thoughts into some kind of order, “I'm not so ready to dismiss it as you are. I think there is as much good as bad in it, and more good than I see in the Soviet Union.”

“Ah, but the old order changes. It must – it is changing already.”

“Exactly! Changing already, by gradual means. By the ballot box, not by revolution. England has already had a Labour government. Change is being built on the foundations we have already laid.”

“Your faith is touching, and most of your countrymen share it,” says Leo. “Even the poorest Englishman, the one who votes Labour government and puts his faith in the trade union – he clings to the hope of rising to a better position under capitalism, even as the capitalists do all they can to break the unions and grind the workers beneath their heels.”

He really is a fascinating, frustrating man, and though she has to keep dragging her thoughts back from his lips and hands to his damnably incorrect ideas, Kit realizes that part of the attraction of the man is that her mind is as engaged and excited as her body is. She's about to reply with a spirited defense of capitalism when he leans forward.

“And now, where shall we go after we finish this coffee?” he says. “I have offered to walk you home, but I suspect you do not welcome gentlemen callers at such an hour – even if I were a gentleman, which of course I am not. My own lodgings are much humbler, but very private – and perhaps you will not need to worry about finding a way home until morning, hmm?” He lifts one of her hands in his and brings it, not to his lips, which would be oddly pretentious, but to graze, briefly, his stubbled cheek. The gesture excites Kit so much she can hardly breathe. Really, it has been far too long since she has touched a man.

“Mr. Lanski, I'm sorry, but I think you have mistaken what kind of woman I am.” She pulls back her hand.

He smiles, a slow, lazy smile that seems worlds removed from talk of revolution and bloodshed.

“Have I? You are a headmistress of a girls' school, an upright member of society and of the Church of England, a model of propriety. If either one of us has mistaken what kind of woman you are, Mrs. Porter, I don't think it is I.”

Triffie

TRIF HAS NEVER been hunting, but she's heard men talk about it. Jacob John goes into the woods every fall with a few other fellows and they often bring home a caribou between them; jars of bottled caribou meat line Trif's pantry shelves, a treat in the cold months of winter. She imagines the hours the men must spend in patient waiting, squatting in the bushes, watching for a sign of their prey.

For two months now she has given that same attention to Joe Bishop, watching him in church, watching him walk down the road. She smiles and says hello to him as she always does, but defers the question of extra lessons for Katie Grace by coming to school herself to pick up the younger children, telling the girl to hurry home to do her chores. She sees Katie's face drop when Trif urges her home to make bread or beat the rugs and hears the echo of Aunt Rachel's voice in her own. She will not do that to her own daughter – rob her of life's chances, or the birthright of a sharp brain – but neither will she send her child unarmed into the lion's den. Sometimes you need more than prayers, more than good intentions.

She makes her move in the middle of October, as the evenings start drawing in and the chill in the air shifts from a nip to a bite. She makes an excuse to visit the man at home, because the schoolroom is no place for what she has to say.

She has spent these weeks turning things over in her mind, re-reading Effie's letter, remembering what Amelia said, what Millicent refused to say, what Kit said so long ago. Even Betty's words, mumbled and shamed. She has spoken to other women, none as blunt as Amelia or Effie or Kit, but she's heard enough.

She's turned over her own memories, too, replaying them, asking herself the obvious question, till she almost doesn't trust her own mind. Amelia Snow didn't believe her – didn't believe Trif could have remained innocent so long. She tries to call up memories of the schoolroom, of Mr. Bishop's hand on her shoulder, his voice next to her ear. Was there ever anything – did his fingers stray to the neckline of her dress? Did he lay a hand on her thigh while he helped her unravel the mysteries of Geometry?

Sometimes, lying next to Jacob John in bed, scavenging through the ragbag of memory, she almost convinces herself that she remembers such a touch, that she felt ashamed and buried the memory.

But in daylight, cooking porridge on top of the stove, she stirs the pot and brings up that memory, examines it again in the light of morning, and sees that it's false. There never was such a touch, such a moment. Joe Bishop never spoke a word to her that was out of line. And really, when would he have had the time? She was hardly ever alone with him – it was either her and Kit, or Kit alone for lessons that Triffie wasn't allowed to have.

There is no such memory; nothing happened. She has only hearsay evidence. But it will have to be enough.

“What a pleasant surprise, Triffie,” Joe Bishop says when she comes to his door with a jar of pea soup and a loaf of bread. It isn't the first time. He is an unmarried man to whom they all owe a great deal, and the women of the community look after him. He is paid by the School Board, but he also gets paid in salt fish and jars of soup, in pies and loaves of bread. He says it's a pleasant surprise, but surely it can be no great surprise to see Trif Russell at his front door. He welcomes her into the kitchen and moves the kettle to the front of the stove.

“No, I won't be staying for a cup of tea,” Trif says, nor does she sit down when he does. She stands with her arms crossed over her chest, as if she can hold herself together. Her heart hammers high up, almost in her throat. But she thinks of Katie Grace and it's like putting on armour. The whole armour of God, that she may be able to stand against the wiles of the Devil.

“Is there … something I can do for you, Triffie?”

“I got something to say to you, Mr. Bishop.”

The room is silent except for a clock on the wall, ticking away nearly half a minute before Joe draws breath and says, “Go on, then. Say what you came to say.”

She has rehearsed and rehearsed, like a recitation, but there's no rhyme or rhythm to carry her through this. “What you said – about Katie Grace. Her extra lessons.”

He nods; a little tension drains from his face. “I meant what I said – I'm willing to do whatever I can to help her. She's a bright girl.”

“I know that. You don't have to tell me she's bright, and I want her to have the chances I never had. But I don't want her staying after school for no extra lessons with you.” She's usually careful with her grammar when speaking to teachers and ministers, but she can feel that caution slipping away under the wave of emotion rising inside her.

His eyelids flicker, and she sees her own fear reflected in his eyes. He's as scared of this conversation as she is, Trif realizes. That knowledge is power, like she's holding a good hand of cards. Not that she ever plays cards, that being a sin.

“Is it Jacob John?” Joe suggests. “Is he giving trouble about her getting an education?”

A tiny spark of anger flares at that: the spark that will ignite the flame. “Mr. Russell got no problem with our daughter getting an education,” Trif says. “This is nothing to do with him – he don't even know I'm here tonight. This is between you and me. I came to say that my daughter deserves an education, but she don't deserve to be interfered with by some – some dirty old man.”

Those last three words hit him like a punch in the gut, she can see. She feels punched too, like the air has gone out of her now that the words have been said. She's glad to let them hang in the air a little while she steadies her breath.

He's not an old man – forty-five or fifty, no more than that. He's always had a high forehead but the dark hair on it has receded back and back these last years till you'd have to say he was bald. But the fringe at the sides and back is not grey, and his face is less lined than Jacob John's, though her husband is a good ten years younger. Indoor work, she thinks; nothing is wrinkled but Joe Bishop's forehead and the lines around his eyes.

Those eyes widen, then narrow at her words. Not an old man. But “dirty” – yes, that hits him, she can see.

“I…don't know what you're saying. Are you accusing me of something?”

“You knows damned good and well what I'm saying,” says Trif, who never swears. The word “damned” curdles on her tongue, but it feels right, all the same, sharp like a knife in the thick air of this room.
Damned
, no casual curse word but a very specific adjective with a meaning she won't take back. Nor does she use the careful grammar she's always reserved for conversation with her betters; she speaks as she would at home, in what she thinks of as her own voice. “I'm not spreading no rumours nor gossip – I'm talking about what I knows. What I've heard. Not from one woman, nor from two, but from plenty of others. I'm saying out loud what's been known on this Point for years but never spoken out loud. What you done to them girls.”

“What girls.” He doesn't even put a question mark to the words, just drops them into the room like two stones.

“Effie. Millicent. Amelia. Kit. And that's not all.”

“What have they told you?”

“You know what they told me. You know what you did.” She keeps her gaze even, will not let herself look away. Years of reverence and respect for this man fight inside her but she will not back down, because she has a daughter.

“I'm no – no child molester. I never –” She sees him searching for a word to say what he never did. He reaches into the language he knows best, books and poetry. “I never deflowered a girl, never violated anyone. I can't believe you would accuse me –”

“A girl can be violated without laying down on a bed, Joe Bishop. You laid hands on those girls, touched them, kissed them, said and did things that you know wasn't right for a teacher to say and do to a young girl. You call yourself a Christian man, and you can sit there and say to me that what you did was all right? Do you really believe that?”

Finally, he drops his eyes, breaks the connection between them. It's a relief not to be looking into his eyes anymore but she doesn't look away. When he looks up from staring at his boots, he'll find Trif Russell is still there. In her mind she's singing
I shall not be, I shall not be moved
. Like a tree planted by the waters.