The Rain Barrel Baby

The Rain Barrel Baby

Alison Preston

© 2000, Alison Preston

Print Edition ISBN 0-921833-73-3

Ebook Edition, 2011

ISBN 978-1897109-75-5

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, for any reason, by any means, without the permission of the publisher.

Cover photo by Paul Martens.

Cover design by Terry Gallagher/Doowah Design.

Thanks to The Canada Council for the Arts and the Manitoba Arts Council for financial support during the writing of this book.

Also, thanks to Catherine Hunter, Sharon Riches, Rand Steeves, Wayne Tefs, and Chris Thompson. Special thanks to Bruce Gillespie and Karen Haughian.

We acknowledge the support of The Canada Council for the Arts and the Manitoba Arts Council for our publishing program.

Canadian Cataloguing in Publication Data

Preston, Alison, 1949–

The rain barrel baby

I. Title.

PS8581.R44R35 2000C813’.54    C00-901207-9

PR9199.3.P74R44 2000

Signature Editions, P.O. Box 206, RPO Corydon

Winnipeg, Manitoba, R3M 3S7

www.signature-editions.com

for John

1954

“A boy drowned here last year.”

The words drift over on the wind to the family of three sitting on the beach at Matlock. They don’t know where the words come from. Sounds on the beach are tricky. You can hear a laugh or a bark from a mile away. But sometimes the words of the person lying next to you get lost in the waves.

The mother slathers cocoa butter on herself and tells the boy to do the same. When he’s done, he smoothes some onto the back of the little girl.

“Don’t waste it, Ray,” the mother says. “There’s not very much left in the jar. Your sister doesn’t really need it.”

“Yes she does.” He keeps on till she is well covered. “There’s still lots left.”

Ray is seven and he wears two hats. One is a black cap with the name Gophers embroidered in gold thread. Gophers is the name of his pee-wee ball team. Ray plays first base. He chose the cap when the mother told him to be sure to bring a hat. He didn’t know she was talking about sun protection. She has placed one of her big straw hats on top of it. He doesn’t seem to mind.

Squinting into the sun, the girl smiles up at her brother. He smiles back and removes his hats to go for a swim.

“Be careful out there!” the mother shouts as Ray dives into the waves. “A little boy drowned here last year, ya know.”

Her words vanish before they reach Ray’s ears but the girl hears them and shivers.

“Time for some sand cakes,” the mother says, and helps her daughter cut out tiny squares from the damp sand near the shore.

“Mmm,” the mother says and pretends to eat one. “You now. Take a bite.”

The girl sits in the wet sand with the water lapping around her. She is three, going on four.

“I don’t want to, Mummy. I don’t want to eat sand.”

“You know you have to, so just do it,” the mother says and smiles up at the people walking by. “And don’t forget to chew.”

It scrapes against her tiny teeth, grinds in her ears. It’s louder than the waves. She gags on sand and tears, feels as though her head is made of sand and she could just lie down and be part of the shoreline.

“Clean yourself up now, before your brother sees you all grubby and dirty.”

The little girl leans over the shallows and splashes water onto her face. She peers into the lake, hoping to see a fish or some smooth stones at the bottom, hoping to see anything. But the lake is cloudy and dark. And the darkness settles inside her narrow chest.

The Present

“Greta Bower found a baby in her rain barrel,” Gus said.

Frank Foote turned cold. He stepped out onto his front porch and closed the door behind him. “What?”

“Well, I guess, technically, I found it,” Gus said. “She asked me if I could come over and give her a hand with her rain barrel.” He gave his head a shake. “It was awful.”

“Is it…alive?”

“No, Frank. It’s dead. Real dead.”

“Oh, God.” Frank clutched his thinning hair in both fists. “Whose baby is it?” he asked. “Where did it come from?”

“I don’t know. It hardly looks like a baby anymore. It’s been in the barrel quite a while I guess.” Gus sat down on the top step. “I think maybe it wintered there.”

“I’m sorry, Gus. Let me get you a glass of water. You’re as white as a sheet.”

“No sheet of mine, that’s for sure. Since Irma died mine just keep gettin’ grayer and grayer.”

Frank returned with the water. “So Greta doesn’t have any ideas on it?”

“She doesn’t seem to. She just started to shake and hasn’t stopped.”

“Where is she?” Frank asked.

“I took her to my place.” Gus took a sip of water and spit it out. “She wanted to get away from it.”

“I don’t blame her.” Frank sat down on the step beside his friend. “Are you sure it’s a baby?” he asked. “Maybe it’s a raccoon or a squirrel or something. Sometimes foxes come into town.”

“It’s a baby all right,” Gus said. “I think I can tell a human being from a fox. Jesus, Frank.”

“Sorry, Gus. Just hoping I guess.”

The morning was cool, too cool to be sitting on the porch in shirtsleeves the way Frank was. Chilly sweat slid down his sides and a gust of wind brought goose bumps out on his forearms. “Where is it now?” he asked.

“It’s still in the bottom of the barrel. I drained it. Ya see, her water had been cloudy lately and got to smellin’ kinda funny. That’s why she asked me to come over and have a look at it for her. After the water was emptied out I stood on her ladder to take a peek inside.”

“God, I’m sorry you had to see it, Gus. I don’t expect it was a very pretty sight.”

“I’ve seen plenty of death in my time, Frank. I grew up on a farm. But yeah, this is the worst…the worst I can remember.”

Frank put his arm around the thin shoulders of his next-door neighbour, just for a moment. “Who the hell has a rain barrel around here anymore?” he asked.

“Greta Bower. That’s who. She’s pretty upset, Frank. I should probably get back to my place. I just kind of put her on the couch and left her.”

“Yeah, you’re right, Gus. We better get moving. I’m just going to have a word with Emma and then I’ll come over. I don’t want my kids to know about this.”

“Thanks, Frank. I’ll see ya in a few minutes then.”

Frank brushed his teeth and spoke to Emma, who agreed to watch Garth and Sadie.

“It’s Sunday,” she said. “I thought this was your day off.”

“Yeah, it is, but there’s a little problem at Greta Bower’s place. I’m just going to check it out and then I’ll phone the station and get someone else out to clear it up.”

“Was that Mr. Olsen at the door?” Emma asked. “What happened? Did someone die?”

“Don’t worry about it, Em. I’m sure it’s nothing.”

Greta was a wreck. Gus had given her a mug of brandy even though it was just mid-morning.

She explained about the rain barrel. “It’s just always been there. It was there when I was a kid and…well, I like it. I use the water for my plants and my hair and that’s about it.”

She combed her fingers through her crinkly auburn hair run through with gray. “It makes it nice and soft.” She smiled at Frank, who sighed.

He had known Greta Bower since school days, her and her stepbrothers, though the brothers were both long gone. She and her mother had moved into the Simkin house when Mrs. Bower married Leo and became Mrs. Simkin.

Frank didn’t know what had happened to Greta’s first dad, only that she missed him enough to keep his name.

Her second dad, Leo, was a bit of a tyrant. Both brothers used to come to school with black eyes and various other bruises. He left Greta alone as far as Frank knew. At least there was never anything that showed. Leo took off when the kids were still in school, leaving the new Mrs. Simkin with three kids to support instead of one. They never saw him again; no one tried very hard to find him.

Mrs. Simkin went back to nursing, which was what she had done before she met her first husband, Mr. Bower. A lot of the load was put on Greta, the running of the house and the care of her brothers, even though they were slightly older.

Duane and Dwight Simkin responded to their lot in life by growing huge and running wild.

Greta became a homebody, hanging on to the only bit of security she’d ever known: the great rambling house on Claremont Avenue. It was paid for. Her mother had seen to that before she died.

“The water got kind of yucky looking lately,” Greta said now, “and it had a bit of a stink to it, so I quit using it. I thought maybe the barrel needed cleaning or something. There’s a filter on top to keep out biggish things and I did have it covered with lengths of wood over the winter, but I figured maybe lots of small insects added up, or maybe some kid did something. Oh hell, I don’t know what I figured.”

Greta gulped down the rest of her brandy and Gus poured her some more.

“The filter is really just resting there,” she said. “Anyone could move it if they had something to stand on. Could you please make it go away Frank? I’d really like to get it cleaned up in a hurry. It’s supposed to rain tonight.”

“You’re surely not going to use it again after this?” Gus said.

“Why not? It’s just a little baby. What could be more natural than that?” She laughed. “Maybe it’ll give my hair new life.”

She’s lost her marbles, Frank thought. Maybe it’s just temporary, from the shock. Or, maybe she belongs in a loony bin.

“You’re thinking I’m crazy, aren’t you?” Greta said. “I can tell by the look on your face.” She started to cry.

Frank felt terrible, the way he always did when women cried, as though it were his fault and it was up to him to fix things. He touched her shoulder and gave her a handkerchief.

“No, Greta. No one’s thinking you’re crazy. It just surprised me is all. Most people would probably want to get rid of the rain barrel after something like this. But you’re right. A poor dead baby is nothing to run from.”

Gus didn’t look so sure. He fetched a glass and poured some brandy for himself.

Frank left the room to phone the police station.

He admired Greta in a way, with her compost heap, her lawn of wild flowers and grasses in the summer, her herb and vegetable garden, and her luscious desserts. She ran a baking business out of her house, selling her cheesecakes and profiteroles, her tortes and her fruit pies to the fine restaurants and delis of Winnipeg.

Frank always knew if he was eating something that she made. “Is this a Greta Bower?” he has asked many times when he has stepped out for a treat on his lunch hour or ordered dessert after a rare dinner out. Frank’s sweet tooth was famous and it took more than doughnuts to satisfy it. The way he figured it was, if you were going to do it, do it up right. Not that doughnuts didn’t have their place.

Frank made the call. There was a Patrol Sergeant just a few minutes away.

Frank had gone out with Greta a couple of times in the long ago days of high school, when he and his girlfriend Audrey had been on the outs.

But Greta had been too peculiar for him and she wasn’t any less so now. She still looked like a hippie with her wild hair and flowing skirts. A lonesome middle-aged hippie with a dead baby in her rain barrel.

“Let’s go over there now, the three of us,” Frank said when he was off the phone. “We should be there when they arrive.”

“Who?” Greta asked.

“The people who are coming to take the baby away and launch the investigation. The cops.”

Frank felt as though he was talking to a four-year-old. Sadie would’ve had a better grasp of this and she was just six.

He looked at the two of them drinking on Gus’ couch, staring at him with eyes a few degrees off the mark.

“I’m afraid your property will have to be treated as a crime scene for a little while, Greta.”

“Oh dear,” she moaned. “I had thought maybe we could just have a small service, the three of us, in my backyard and then bury the little tyke out there, past the vegetable garden.”

Frank eyed the brandy bottle.

“I could sing a song,” she added.

He took a swig right from the bottle and gagged. The taste reminded him of how sick he felt sometimes on days when everything was going well.

“Let’s go, you two. I hear sirens. I don’t know what the hell they hope to accomplish with all that racket.”

“Do I have to go too?” Gus asked.

“I’m afraid so, Gus,” Frank sighed. “It shouldn’t take long.”

It’s way better when I don’t know the people involved, Frank thought, as he herded his neighbours out onto the street where a crowd was beginning to gather. This was feeling a little too close to home.

He wondered where Greta’s stepbrothers were these days. Could this baby be connected to either of them in some way? He would have to ask her about their whereabouts. He’d happily lost track of Duane and Dwight, though he’d known them both better than he’d wanted to in the old days.

He had even known who Gus was way back when. It was that kind of neighbourhood.

It was a girl baby and the medical examiner gave the order to take it away. Frank managed not to see it till it was wrapped and ready for its tiny body bag.

Greta cried again.

“I have a daughter, Frank. Did you know that? In 1968 I had a little girl. My mum made me give her away.”

Gus had gone home and Frank and Greta were sitting across from each other at her huge kitchen table. It was an amazing kitchen, totally remodeled to accommodate Greta’s baking business.

“No,” Frank said. “No, Greta, I didn’t know. I’m sorry.” He looked around him. “This is some kitchen! Real professional.”

“She’s twenty-seven now,” Greta said. “A full-fledged woman.”

“Edgin’ up on us,” Frank said.

“Yeah. So you didn’t know? It felt to me at the time like everybody knew.”

“No,” Frank repeated and wished he had brought Gus’ brandy with him. Talking to Greta made him uncomfortable.

“I named her Jane before they took her away. They let me hold her for a while. I didn’t know then if the people who took her would know she was called Jane or if they would keep it as her name, but that’s what I called her. Would you like to see a picture?”

When Greta left the room Frank read the clipped cartoons attached to one of her fridges — she had two. She liked
Calvin and Hobbes
. So did Frank.

She had cut out the one where Calvin says: “My watch tells the time, the day, and the date. It doesn’t tell what month it is, though. I need a watch that tells the month.” And Hobbes says: “I suppose they figure if you don’t know what month it is, you’re not the type who’d wear a watch.”

Frank was chuckling when Greta came back with a photograph in a little gold frame.

“Having fun, Frank?” She looked confused.

“Sorry.” He sat back down and looked at the picture of a newborn baby with its eyes closed. It had a thatch of dark hair atop its head and Frank could see Greta in its tiny face.

“She’s beautiful, Greta.” Frank tried to imagine what it would have been like to hold his own newborn daughter in his arms, see himself in her small face and then hand her over to a woman in white who would never bring her back.

“I wish whoever put that little girl in the rain barrel had knocked on my door instead,” Greta said, tears streaming down her face. “I would have taken the baby off her hands, no question. If only she’d known that this was a door she could have knocked on.”

“Oh, Greta,” Frank said. “Is there someone you can call to come and stay with you awhile?”

“No. It’s okay.”

A huge smoky cat leapt up onto the kitchen table.

“Hi, Ailsa.” Frank had met the cat before. She roamed the neighbourhood.

Ailsa pressed her face against his. He objected to a cat on a table especially when he ate cakes and tarts prepared on it. But he said nothing.

“Atta girl.” Frank scratched Ailsa’s ears and she flopped down on her side, so he rubbed her stomach.

Greta had stopped crying and was snuffling quietly into Frank’s handkerchief.

“Will Ailsa be company enough for you then, Greta? I really should be getting home to my kids.”

“Yes. I’m feeling quite tired after all this. I’ll probably lie down for a nap.”

“We’ll let you know if anything develops,” Frank said, “but to tell you the truth I don’t have a lot of hope that we’ll ever get to the bottom of this.” He stood up to go. “The trail’s pretty darn cold.”

“Thanks, Frank. Thanks for everything.”

“It could be a kid’s baby,” Frank said, mostly to himself, and thought again of Emma and her nutcase friend, Delia. Not them, but some other kid.

“Or someone too sick or tired or crazy for a baby,” he said, and thought of his wife, Denise, and Greta Bower. Not them, but some other sick or crazy woman.

“Where are your brothers these days?” Frank asked. “What are they up to?” He tried to sound casual, friendly, so she wouldn’t think he suspected them of anything.

Greta was getting heavy lidded. “Stepbrothers.”

“Sorry. Stepbrothers.”

“Duane’s in prison in Quebec. For the long haul. And Dwight’s dead, has been since 1983. To tell you the truth, I’m glad he’s dead. And I’m glad Duane’s in jail. I hope he never gets out. It would turn my life upside down if he ever came home.”

“Like a baby in a rain barrel?” said Frank.

“Worse than that.”

Frank pushed his chair in flush with the table and gave Ailsa a last scratch under her chin. He wondered what had killed Dwight Bower, but wanted very badly to go home right now.

“I’ll see ya, Greta.”

Her eyes were closed and she didn’t reply. Did she not know that her robe was gaping open and that her breasts were in full view? Maybe not. Frank sighed and slipped out the back door. Maybe not.