The Better Mother (19 page)

Before Joan could speak, before she could ask where the food came from, or why Val looked so pleased with herself, Val smiled widely and said, “A Chinaman has saved us.”

The mornings were busiest. Val buttoned up her blouse and scratchy wool skirt in the darkness, her fingers cold with the damp air that accumulated in the room overnight. She filled the wash basin with water and scrubbed the sleep from her
face, shivering the whole time. As she laced her shoes, she looked at Joan, still asleep, a line of dried drool on her cheek. When Val left, she didn’t try to be quiet.

The café hummed with activity. Omelettes, bacon and oatmeal went from kitchen to Val to customer. She poured coffee after coffee. Suzanne nodded at her from across the room, sometimes whispered in her ear when they passed, “Make sure you smile. They tip bigger if you’re pretty.” Val noticed the Chinamen’s hungry eyes that lingered on her body as she walked away, that measured the distance between her and them, watching to see if she would move closer, drag her fingers on their shoulders. At first, she was shocked and nervous, wondering if one of them would wait for her to finish her shift and jump on her in the street. But she saw, soon enough, that these men were afraid of her—of the whiteness of her skin, the kind of man her father might be, the riot she would inspire if she ran out into the street screaming.

And so she let them watch her, knowing they would take her image into their beds with them.

A barber whose shop was down the block became her favourite customer and he talked to her as much as he dared. “Where are you from?” he asked, stopping her rush to another table with a thin, lifted hand. “A small town like me?”

Val balanced her tray on her hip and smiled. “Not even a town, just a string of houses by the river. It was pretty quiet. Not like this.”

“Yes, living here is sometimes very hard. So many strangers. And so few friends. It makes people old before their time. Did you know”—he leaned forward and pointed at his greying, receding hairline—“I’m actually twenty-one?”

Val let out a belly laugh and walked away, looking back at his strangely crooked yet handsome face. She smiled again, over her shoulder, almost coy. When she turned her head back, she saw that Mr. Chow, a roll of dimes in his hand, was watching, his forehead heavy like a thundercloud. She looked away, confused, but when she saw him again, counting the change in the till, he seemed to be his everyday self.

Sometimes a returning Chinese soldier came into the café, and the men would crowd around him, asking him if the stories were true, if the Canadians and British used them to infiltrate enemy lines, if they were spies in the wilds of Burma.

“Was it exciting, Jack? Like in the movies?”

“Those mosquitoes are vicious. Look at my scars.”

“Things are changing, brothers,” said an older man who had been listening to the soldier all afternoon. “I can smell it.”

Val could hear them arguing over the influence these new veterans could wield in Ottawa, parlaying their loyalty to the Commonwealth into the right to vote.

After work, if it wasn’t raining, she walked north to the waterfront, through the smells of wet lumber and salted fish, so she could stand as close to the waves as possible. As the evenings grew lighter, she could see across to the shore of North Vancouver, the mountains looming, blue in the fog, green in the sunshine. To the west, she knew that the inlet opened into the ocean, which led to Japan and China, places she knew nothing about but created in her mind. Lacquered red. Gold dragons. Ancient pagodas somehow untouched by war. Rich incense that smelled of cinnamon and cloves. The feel of silk on bare, clean skin.

When she arrived home, Joan was dressed and waiting.
Not once did she go down to the dining room alone. If the bell rang before Val came home, she didn’t eat at all.

It was a gloomy and drizzly Monday morning one month later, and the men were grumpy. One or two smiled at her as she poured them coffee, but the rest either nodded or didn’t acknowledge her, staring at the newspapers in front of them or the scratches on the tabletops.
It’s understandable
, Val thought.
I don’t like this weather either
. Earlier, as Joan slept with her white hands folded over the quilt, Val had had just enough time to run the comb through her hair once, button up her plain cotton dress and shove two bobby pins over her ears. Now, as she half ran to the kitchen to pick up an order of cream of wheat, she put a hand to the side of her head and swore under her breath when she realized the pins had disappeared. She hoped they hadn’t fallen into somebody’s scrambled eggs.

Outside, the city had woken up, startled out of sleep by car horns and the beat of footsteps on the sidewalk.

Val rushed past Mr. Chow on her way to the kitchen, carrying a tray piled high with dirty dishes. He stood beside the door, his checked shirt free of food splatter, his apron tied precisely at his waist (never crooked, never bunched or wrinkled) and drummed his fingers on the wall. Val wished he would pick up a rag and clean something, or perhaps make a fresh pot of coffee; he was taking up precious space with his tree-like body. As she kicked the kitchen door open, Mr. Chow turned his wide head and said, “You look pretty today.”

She walked to the sink as if he had never spoken, acted like his smooth and quiet voice had never launched those
words. Her shift continued, her wrists aching like they always did at lunchtime, the curls in her hair drooping in the humidity that blew from the stoves. That night she listened to Joan chatter about the young couple who had walked by their window in the afternoon. And then she bathed and lay down in bed, eyes closed.

But she did not sleep. All she could hear were those same four words, breathed to life by Mr. Chow’s barely moving lips.

Night air. She remembered the hiss of cold wind that used to sneak in where the walls of her parents’ house didn’t quite meet, those gaps that grew wider every year until Val and Joan slept with their arms and legs twisted together for warmth, even after every girlish fight. Even after the baby died.

Late one day, she walked home from Chinatown through the side streets, taking unpaved lanes, sometimes walking through vacant lots choked with tall grasses, wildflowers that might have been yellow last summer but were now brown and mouldy from months of winter and early spring rain. She followed narrow trails, carefully placing one foot in front of the other and swaying through the tangled weeds.

When she came within sight of the boarding house, she saw a slight figure fifty feet ahead. She squinted through the darkness at its directionless walk; two steps to the left were followed by one step to the right, and then a jolting hop forward.

Val looked up at the sky and saw a break in the clouds. There, the moon.

The awkward, marionette-like figure wore a pale dress and dark shoes. Val knew that cornflower pattern as well as
she knew the sharp point of that nose. It was Joan wandering through this cold, damp night—coatless, with her face turned up toward the lit windows of the houses around them. For a second, Val wondered how little Warren might have fit into this picture if he had lived, whether they would have stayed at their parents’ house, whether he would be holding his mother’s hand and toddling down River Road, his round eyes searching the night for owls and mice, or whether Joan might carry him, her narrow spine buckling under his weight.

Val took a step toward Joan, and then stopped. Joan had ventured outside alone, had decided it would be a good idea to explore without the help of anyone else. Val’s lips tightened.
Fine. Let her do something on her own steam for once
.

But as Val turned to walk through the boarding house’s gate, she craned her neck to see where Joan was headed. Her slight form stood at the corner as she looked up and down the street. To the right, a steep hill leading south. To the left, the beach and Burrard Inlet. She seemed to quiver, like a nervous sparrow. Just when Val thought she was going to turn left and follow the sound of the ocean, Joan spun in place and began walking back to the house.

Val slipped past the front gate and hurried through the double doors. When she arrived in their room, she pulled off her coat and shoes, then ran to the bed, where she sat, breathing as slowly as her heaving chest allowed. As she waited for the sound of Joan’s shoes in the hallway, she closed her eyes and saw her sister’s face from two minutes before: teeth held stiffly in her small mouth, her nose twitching, testing the air for impending danger or a whiff of her next prey, her eyes focused on a point. Val had seen that look before, in a similar
pool of moonlight, under those blackened attic rafters. She pressed her closed fists to her eyes. The doorknob turned, and she was sickeningly afraid.

Two weeks passed and Val never mentioned seeing Joan wandering the street. She left her alone, talking only when necessary and avoiding her eyes whenever possible. It was when she reached the narrow sidewalks of Chinatown that she finally stopped clenching her fists.

One evening, Val arrived home from work and could hear music playing through the door to their room. She wondered if perhaps the window was open despite the spring rain and the teenaged boy across the alley was playing his radio too loudly again. As she opened the door, she saw, in the middle of the room, Joan twirling and dancing, her left foot first in the air and then tapping on the floor. Joan laughed, held her arms out in the fading grey light.

In the chair by the window sat one of the university students, his hand resting on his own radio. He smiled and nodded at Joan’s dance, watched her skirt as it ballooned above her knees.

“Joan?” Val said, quietly.

“Val!” Joan stopped dancing and ran over to her sister, taking both her hands. “I was showing Peter our old routine, from when we were children.”

Val nodded at Peter and pulled off her coat. She couldn’t bear to look at his smug face, which was wide with a broad, lumpy nose. As she turned to hang her hat on the hook behind the door, he stood and walked over to her, his long legs covering the distance in three steps.

“I’m glad you’re here, Miss Nealy. There’s something I would like to discuss with you.”

The politeness. Val was confused, but began to feel angry at his carefully worded greeting.
He wants something I won’t want to give him
.

“Joanie and I were talking, and we think we would like to get married. I’ve got two months of school left, and I’ll be going to work for the Crown. We could have a wedding this summer. A small one, of course, but Joanie will ensure that it’s nice. What do you say, Miss Nealy? What about giving us your blessing.”

Val leaned against the wall, the damp hem of her skirt sticking to the backs of her legs. She felt insubstantial, like she might dissolve into a puddle of jelly. She looked to her left and saw Joan smiling widely, her hands clasped in front of her.

“My blessing? Do you need it?” Val stammered.

Peter spoke again. “Yes, of course. We would like you to be the maid of honour too, if that’s all right.”

The silence from Joan was unnerving. Val wanted to run across the room and shake her out of this act, this pretend innocence that seemed to have materialized out of the crumbs and shards of their past. But she felt pinned; Peter’s pale, sharp eyes locked her to this spot beside the door.

“My blessing is yours. I’ll do whatever you need.” Val looked past Peter’s looming body at Joan. “Congratulations, Joanie. I hope you’ll be happy.”

That night, as Val lay beside Joan, she felt Joan’s cool hand on her shoulder. Val opened her eyes, felt rather than saw the presence of the white ceiling, the moulding that cast shadows in streetlight, the crack that ran westward in the plaster.

“Is this what you want?” Val whispered.

“Of course. Why else would I do it?” Joan sounded impatient and tired.

Val turned on her side and stared out the uncovered window. “Do you love him?”

She felt Joan fidgeting beside her. “He’s nice enough. He’ll have money one day and we’ll be as happy as anyone, I guess.”

“What about children?” Val held her breath in this moment of silence.

“I’ll figure something out before he needs to know.”

Before Val fell asleep, her body anticipating the work and hustle of the next morning, she imagined what little Warren might look like now. An unruly thatch of black hair. Long fingers. Eyes that seemed far too innocent for a real human face. A reluctant smile that grew slowly and could disappear in an instant. He’d be the sort of boy who’d feel embarrassed every time his shoelaces dragged in the mud. She could see him seeking her out in a crowded room and, when he found her, reaching for her skirt, his face opening up with relief and contentment.

Even now, with Joan breathing heavily beside her, she could feel the weight of his small body in her hands. Reaching through the blankets, Val gently touched Joan’s neck, but Joan grunted and rolled away.

Val stood at the rocky shoreline, kicking pebbles with the toe of her shoe. Seagulls circled, their small black eyes on the shallow hole she was inadvertently digging. The piles of sulphur on the opposite shore gleamed weirdly. Val wanted to
fling her coat into the frigid water. She wanted to scream until blood bubbled up in her throat. She wanted to pull out each of her fingers, one by one.

The sound of crashing waves pounded at her ears, seemed to stir her thoughts into a teeming, brackish swamp. She was the one who cared for Joan, whose body was once broken. Each day that Val had gone to work at the café, it had been for Joan, so that her little blond head would have somewhere to sleep. It was Val who kept them from starving, from having to take jobs that traded on their young skin and narrow waists. Their escape to Vancouver had been a plan for both of them; they were supposed to dance together, live together, share everything they had. And now Joan was leaving to marry a man who looked like a cauliflower on legs.

A sharp rain began to fall, but she didn’t feel it. Anger, at least, was warming.

PART THREE

THE INEVITABLE
1982