The Other Side of the Bridge (34 page)

All this time Jake was busy with his own affairs, whatever they might be. Arthur hardly saw him. If he happened to be home during the half-hour Arthur and the boys took to eat their supper, Arthur would see him then, but that was it. After supper they went out again, worked until it was too dark to see, and then went to bed.

Jake was back at school. The cheating incident of the previous year had been forgiven, and he was now doing his senior matriculation, to their mother’s joy. According to her the whole world was waiting for boys who had their senior matriculation. Particularly (Arthur thought but didn’t say) if they were excused from going to war. All the jobs that would have been filled by all the boys who were never coming home would be open to Jake.

Arthur suspected that if Jake hadn’t had a cast-iron excuse for not signing up he would have concocted one. Fighting for his country wouldn’t be Jake’s idea of a good time. But there was no comfort in that: no army in the world would accept Jake. If you looked at him from behind, you could see there was something not right about the shape of his spine. The walk to and from school each day was as much as he could manage.

Laura had started school as well. Arthur didn’t like to think of her as a schoolgirl, sitting at a desk, sticking up her hand to answer questions. In his mind she was a woman. He wanted her to be at home, and to know that she was close at hand.

“How does Laura seem to be fitting in at school?” their mother asked.

Jake didn’t hear her. He was flipping through last week’s copy of the
Temiskaming Speaker.

.Jacob?”

“Yes?”

“How does Laura seem to be fitting in at school?”

“I dunno. Okay, I guess.”

“Isn’t she in your class?”

“Yes.”

“Well you should help her, Jakey. It must be very difficult, starting at a new school, not knowing anyone. You should introduce her, make sure she gets to know people. She’s shy, you know.”

“I don’t know her, Mum.”

“Yes, you do! Of course you do!”

“I’ve met her once. That isn’t knowing her.”

“Well you should get to know her.” There was a teasing tone in their mother’s voice that Arthur had never heard before. “Don’t you think she’s lovely? That hair of hers? And she has such a sweet face.”

Arthur froze, mid-chew, a lump of potato in his mouth.

“You know,” their mother said, “it might be nice if you invited her to come around here after school one day.”

Arthur waited, motionless, his eyes on his plate. The potato had glued itself to the roof of his mouth. It, or what his mother was saying, nearly made him gag.

“Don’t you think that would be a nice idea?” his mother said.

No reply from Jake. Arthur had to see his expression, so he looked up.

If only he hadn’t done that. If only he had just stayed as he was. Swallowed his potato, kept his head down. If only. But he raised his head, just fractionally, just an inch or so, and the movement caught Jake’s eye. And Jake, who had been on the point of saying something irritable to their mother—you could see it in his face—paused and looked at Arthur curiously, and said, “What’s the matter?”

Right then, as he felt the slow flush spreading over his face, as he saw Jake notice it, saw the light dawn, saw him smile, Arthur knew what was going to happen. He saw the whole thing, right then.

ELEVEN

ONTARIO TO INITIATE CERTIFIED SWINE POLICY

YOUTHFUL DRIVERS BANNED ON TRACTORS

—
Temiskaming Speaker,
June 1960

Y
our daddy was the good boy,” Jake said. “I was the bad boy.”

Ostensibly it was Julie he was speaking to. It was dinnertime. Since Jake had arrived, meals at the farm were a lot more entertaining, there was no denying that.

“I was
always
getting into trouble,” Jake said. Julie was watching him from her place across the table and Ian could see that she wasn’t sure whether he was being funny or not.

“I wasn’t any good at anything—you know, any of the farm jobs. I couldn’t have milked a cow to save my life. But your daddy, by the time he was your age, your daddy could milk two cows at once.” He stretched his arms out to the side as far as he could without knocking off March’s head, clenched his hands around two imaginary teats, and pulled down one hand after another, making a hissing noise like milk spraying into a bucket. Julie decided that was funny and giggled. March was looking sideways up at Jake, under the shadow of his arm. “Oops,” Jake said. “Gotcha, March. You’re all covered with milk.” March looked down in consternation.

“He knew every cow by name, didn’t you, Art? There was Daisy and Maisie and Millie and Lily and Polly and Dolly…dozens of them, and your dad was on first-name terms with every one. Whereas I’d be out behind the barn trying to burn down the fence posts. Remember the fence posts, Art?”

Arthur gave a fractional nod. Jake’s presence hadn’t noticeably enlivened Arthur. If anything, the reverse. Jake rattled on with his stories of the good old days and Arthur just sat chewing his dinner, his eyes on his plate, saying not a word.

“Your daddy didn’t approve,” Jake said, winking at Julie. “He’d try to scrape off all the charred bits. He kept trying to save me from myself, didn’t you, Art?”

Even Carter was listening, Ian noticed. He didn’t slam out of the house the minute he’d finished eating like he used to; he stuck around, listening to whatever Jake might have to say.

“He didn’t manage it though,” Jake said mournfully. “To save me, I mean. I was a lost cause.” He let his voice trail away, sadly, and Julie giggled again.

For the first couple of days Ian had thought it was a real bonus having him there, an emissary from the outside world, proof that it really did exist. But by the end of the week he was starting to feel that he wanted things to be as they’d been before. Jake’s presence changed things; the place felt different with him around. More interesting, but less relaxing. Even the routine was altered. Arthur didn’t take his full half-hour break after dinner, for instance. Spring was a busy time, of course, but even so, the midday break had always been sacred. No matter what, Arthur, Ian, and the old man used to retire to the armchairs as soon as they finished dinner, for what Laura called “digestion time.” In the early days Ian had tried to help her with the dishes, but she had looked quite shocked, and said that he must sit down and digest his meal. He’d seen that it was part of the natural order of things, and that was how she wanted it.

Now, though, Jake sat with them, leafing through the
Temiskaming Speaker
and reading out the bits he found funny, which was just about everything, and it seemed to get on Arthur’s nerves.

“‘Cheese factory works three shifts,’”
Jake would read. “Now if that isn’t earth-shattering news, I don’t know what is. Here’s another one, this will interest you, Art.
‘Memorials—mid-June sale. Special ten percent discount till end of June.’
Isn’t that great? You can stock up on tombstones!
‘Keep feed racks in your pastures.’
Do you keep feed racks in your pastures, Art? And if not, why not?”

After a few minutes of this Arthur would heave himself to his feet and say to Ian, “Well, gotta get back to it. No need for you to come jus’ yet, though. You sit for a bit.” And off he’d go, back to the fields.

So Ian could have sat on with Jake, but it didn’t feel right, having a rest while Arthur was working. And anyway it wasn’t restful. When Arthur went out, Laura allowed Julie and March back in—normally they were banished from the room during digestion time—and they wandered around chattering and asking for things and getting under Laura’s feet. She was snappy with them, and even more so with Carter. Carter had always gone out to the barn straight after lunch to fiddle with his bike—it spent more time in pieces on the floor of the barn than it did on the road—but now he stayed, listening to Jake, and for some reason this irritated his mother. She’d say, “Carter, would you get on with things, please?” And he’d get up reluctantly and go out to do whatever task he had been given.

As for Jake himself, he seemed perfectly at ease. Ian couldn’t imagine what he found to do all day. Mostly he seemed to follow Laura around, talking to her as she fed the chickens or hoed the row crops or made up a mash for a sick calf. It seemed to Ian that his presence flustered her. There was a tension in her movements that he hadn’t seen before. And she didn’t look at Jake when she replied to his questions, she seemed to keep herself permanently half-turned away from him. The more Ian saw, the more he was convinced that Laura didn’t like Arthur’s brother.

Ian liked him fine. The only thing he wasn’t keen on was the way Jake hung around Laura. That was starting to make him uneasy. He wondered what Arthur thought of it. But Arthur didn’t seem to notice. The way he kept his head down nowadays, he probably didn’t even see.

Late one afternoon March found a baby rabbit under a bush by the corner of the barn. By some chance the dogs were off on an errand of their own.

“Catch it!” March shrieked. He threw himself at the bush and it exploded with rabbits, baby rabbits everywhere. They leapt about in panic, then headed for the safety of the long grass that bordered the woods. March ran after them yelling, “Wait! Wait!” but they were gone. For half an hour he combed the grasses, searching, calling softly for them. Ian, who was in the farmyard rubbing down Robert and Edward before turning them out to pasture for the night, went out to him.

“They’ve gone to find their mother,” he explained. “They were too small to be without her. She’ll have taken them into the woods where it’s safe.”

March looked at him tragically.

“Don’t you want them to be safe?” Ian said, tousling his hair. “If they stayed around here the dogs would eat them. Wouldn’t that be terrible?”

Jake watched the whole thing with amusement. “Sentimental little guy, isn’t he?” he said when Ian came back. “Must take after his mother. I don’t recall Art ever crying over a rabbit. He’d shoot them and stick them in a pot.”

He was sitting on the stump they used as a mounting block, swatting flies with a yellow plastic flyswatter. He’d taken to joining Ian there at the end of the day. It was kind of flattering until you remembered that he had nothing else to do.

“Yes,” Ian said. “He does seem to take after Laura.” He had finished grooming Edward and just started on Robert. Grooming was a long job—like washing a bus—but one of his favorites; there was real pleasure in seeing the rich, dark glow of the horses’ coats emerge from under the dust and sweat of the day. And they loved it, and were appreciative, nuzzling him with their noses from time to time.

“Any of the kids going to be interested in taking over the farm, do you think?” Jake said.

“I don’t know.” He paused, thinking of Carter. “Carter might. Maybe March too. He likes the animals.” Robert prodded him with his nose—get on with it.

“Carter?” Jake said. He seemed to find the idea amusing. “Not a chance. I haven’t seen him out in the fields once.”

Ian didn’t reply. He was remembering Carter’s comment about Arthur never letting him do anything. He wondered suddenly if Carter would actually have liked to be working out in the fields beside his father. Strange that Arthur always gave him kids’ jobs around the farmyard. In a way it was a shame they didn’t have a tractor. Carter would have been really good with that, he was good with anything mechanical. He loved Jake’s car, though unlike Jake, it was the engine he was interested in. Jake didn’t seem to care about engines. It was the style that mattered to him, Ian thought. The image.