The Shore Girl (9 page)

“So you stop when you're tired? Pick up again when you get your juice back?”

“That's about it.”

“Bullshit. I don't believe it.”

“I don't really care.” She smiled when she said this. She looked right at me.

We sat in the fog, cross-legged, and had the rest of our picnic in silence. I emptied the last of the wine into our cups. Dregs clotted in the bottle, something the boy didn't mention. Elizabeth's eyes were shiny. She stared at the blanket.

“I'm going to live in Tuktoyaktuk,” I said, trying to sound bright. We had finished our plates and I busied myself by clearing up the debris. I folded the rest of the salmon back to its bag, covered the French loaf with its plastic wrapping, carried the leftovers to the kitchen and placed them on the top shelf of the near empty fridge. We'd eaten all the olives. I threw the empty bags in the garbage and crammed them on top of the withered spinach and rotting paper. “There's enough for a snack later,” I called back to her. “It's all in the fridge.”

Elizabeth stood, cup in hand, and walked over to the window. “No one chooses Tuktoyaktuk.” She stared at the ordinary sky covering the empty street.

“When I was a little kid my mother kept threatening to ship me there to live with the Eskimos.” I dropped to my knees in front of the blanket, sweeping crumbs into my palm. “She sounded like a machine gun —
tuktuktuktuk
. I thought it was somewhere you went to be shot. Some imaginary bad place. But it's real enough. You can find it on the map.”

“I suppose that explains it,” Elizabeth turned to face me again. “Your lineup of moments.”

Uncle Walter lived in Tuktoyaktuk. He might live there still. I wanted to tell Elizabeth his stories, stories I've told no one. About how we made magic that summer, my uncle and me.

“It's all about your mother.”

“No, it's more about my uncle. My Uncle Walter.”

But she'd stopped listening. “Mommy threatens. She's gonna ship you off. To Tuktoyaktuk,” slurred slightly, not getting the word right. “Mommy says it over and over. Of course you're mad at Mommy. Off you go. Some kind of mad justice blowing you north.”

I turned away, getting up off my knees, and headed back to the kitchen with my palm full of breadcrumbs. “Perhaps not quite that simple,” I answered, my back to her.

“Aah, but it was just a moment ago.” She spoke lightly now. When I faced her, I saw she was smiling. She had her arms crossed, still holding her cup. We stood across the room from each other, she against the light of the window, me lost in the shadows. “What was it the teacher said? ‘Think about the moments that led you to here. Trace them all the way back.' There we go then. You're all figured out. Let's toast the discovery. To the teacher's life. Mystery solved.”

She brought her cup to her mouth, eyes glinting at me, and poured the rest of those clotted noble grapes down her throat.

I marched forward, ready to slap her cold cheek. A sting for a sting. But by the time I got to her window my fire was gone. “Life is not petty,” I said. “Not yours and not mine either.”

“
Tuktuktuktuk
.”

“I thought you could use a friend.”

“Of course you did. You're one of those people who can't see beyond her cravings. The whole world must need what you need.”

“No. Not the whole world. But you and Rebee, you're not like — ”

She threw her hand up then, wiping the words out of the air. “Leave us alone. Go somewhere else to find what you're looking for. There's a second-hand store down the street. Buy yourself a pretty little thing.”

I couldn't stand any more, her words or mine. So I backed away from her window and walked out her door.

* * *

Delta has brought me turkey soup on a tray. A large china bowl covered with a tea towel, thickly buttered soda crackers on a little scalloped-edged dish beside, and a pitted silver soup spoon.

“Are you feeling better?” she asked when I opened the door. She was huffing heavily from her difficult descent.

“Much better, thank you. Here, let me take that. Please. Do. Come sit.” I didn't like this about myself, the church voice I used around old ladies. Sing-song. Quaint. Yet I couldn't seem to stop it.

“I thought some hot soup might settle your stomach.” She'd hit stormy seas on her way down the stairs. The soup sloshed everywhere, soaked the tea towel, splashing the thickly buttered crackers to a soppy mush.

“Thank you. You are very kind,” my church voice said. I put the tray down on the coffee table in front of the burgundy chairs and motioned Delta to sit. She lined herself up against the closest one and dropped backwards, feet lifting into the air before thunking to the rug. I looked at the tray. Chunks of turkey ice floated in the bowl like bog bodies. An archaeological find, preserved in the depths of her freezer.

“Just look what you've done with the suite,” she gazed with pleasure at her doilies and figurines, her petit point-topped stools and brocade curtains. I'd done nothing but move a few lamps and add a few nightlights. “It's just lovely.”

“Thank you, Delta.”

“And you keep it so tidy. Your mother must be proud.”

When I left the farm for good, all my mother said was, “Don't forget to soap the can opener.” Delta didn't need to know this.

“When I was your age, I enjoyed dusting too.”

I did keep dusting.

“But these old bones aren't what they used to be.”

“Well, I appreciate being able to borrow your vacuum cleaner,” I answered pathetically.

But she was looking down, picking a bouquet of yellow fluff from her afghan. “And I'd be pleased to do the upstairs anytime at all.” I raised my voice so the whole congregation could hear.

“Do you think you'll be well enough to go to school tomorrow? Mrs. Bagot has been asking about you.”

For a moment I felt strangely inclined to tell the truth. To tell Delta that I was worried I might never be well enough. Delta looked right at me, ready to hear my words. I could have rested my head on her lap. Tell her how lonely I'd been. How confused. How I couldn't sleep at night. We could have talked about my new friend, a woman, a beautiful woman who was lost like me.

But the moment passed. “Oh, yes. I can't bear to miss a second day. There's so much to catch up on. I've got tomorrow's lesson still to plan. I'll be at it all night.”

“Please, dear, don't let the stress of the job wear you down. You can only do your best. That's all you can do.” She leaned forward, reaching for my hand.

“Such a responsibility.” I leaned too, covering her warm hand in mine.

“Well, yes. It is that,” she smiled at me fondly.

I smiled back. Purpled veins flattened under the pressure of my fingers.

“But you've had quite an upset and mustn't push too hard. No sense working yourself into a frenzy.”

I was startled when she said this, but then I remembered we were talking stomach bugs, teaching jobs.

“I insist on driving you tomorrow. Will you let me do that at least?”

She brought me soup. I nodded.

“Good. Well, eat up. Before it gets cold.”

I got Delta out of her chair with discrete little tugs and pulls, before hugging her gently at the door to my suite. Yes, most certainly, I would eat all my soup, and return the tray tomorrow when I caught a ride for school. She took the stairs, painfully slow, her grip firm on the railing, two feet to a tread before moving to the next. At the top, she turned and beamed, holding her thumb high, as though she'd already forgotten the climb. As though she were a sparkling young woman, just now returning from secrets and laughter in a rented room. Best friends forever, we could write in our diaries.

I closed my door. When I poured the soup down the sink, the shrivelled turkey chunks caught in the stopper and I dumped them in the garbage can.

I went into my bedroom, lit up my clown nose in the socket by the dresser and clicked both tri-lamps to high. I went to my drawer. Rebee's tooth was there. It lay on a bed of cotton inside a tiny gold heart-shaped container that used to hold mints. Elizabeth's rock was there too, wrapped in the folds of my favourite silk scarf. It was glittery cold stone with jagged rose edges, like an opening flower. I lay face down on my bed, that rock cutting into one fist, that tiny gold heart pressed to the other. I breathed deeply, imagining the scent of the Shore girls. But it was Delta's talcum on the comforter, her Lily of the Valley was all.

* * *

It was bannock day. Mrs Bagot had set this up. Mary Seta was in charge. Mary wore a colourful beaded dress that went down past her knees and moccasins with a quilled piece of velvet on top of the tongue. She was as old as Delta, with a deeply grooved face and soft brown eyes, a thin grey braid hanging down to her waist. Mary has had grandchildren or great-grandchildren in every grade for years and years. None of her descendants was in my class, but Mary would teach us to make bannock anyway.Mothers were everywhere. They flitted like moths around hot little bodies, straightening collars, tucking shirts into pants. The children came polished this morning, scrubbed clean. Peter wore a tie under his sweater, his mother a black dress buttoned all the way to her chin. They had identical round glasses, mother and son, and the same frozen frown. Kenny had his nose wiped and his church shoes on, shiny leather without any scuff marks. The girls wore skirts and leotards, princess and fairy sweaters, and bows in their hair. Except for Rebee, who was in yesterday's pants and black
T
-shirt, hair matted at the back where she hadn't thought to brush. She was prettier than the others without even trying.

Everyone seemed to know about bannock and about one another, children and mothers alike, calling out first names, laughing and jostling, milling about at their own private party. Rebee and I stood off by ourselves at separate corners of the room, watching the tumult.

Mrs. Bagot, who'd suddenly had enough, clapped her hands violently, ordering the children to go sit on the mat. The mothers gathered in a circle behind, arms crossed, a few reaching down to touch a head or shush up a child, one of their own or one of their neighbour's. I sat on top of Peter's desk, over to the side. Peter kept looking back, scowling at me, anxious I'm sure that I'd crumple his papers.

“Our people used to hunt and fish and live off the land,” Mary began, her voice low and pure, nothing churchy about it. “We lived in family groups and set up both summer and winter camps, travelling between them by foot or by dog team.”

Mrs. Bagot looked pleased, nodding her head as though she remembered these days.

“But that was a long time ago,” Mary continued in her beautiful voice. “I was taken from my family to live at a residential school. Our land was taken away too. Stolen because of the war and the oil industry.”

The mothers shuffled. Throats cleared. Everyone knew someone who worked at the weapons testing area. I wanted them all to go away, to leave me alone with Mary in a wide-open space. She could pour out the story to someone who cared about this social breakdown, a way of life lost forever. But Mrs. Bagot stepped in. The oil people were coming to the school assembly next week; it had all been arranged.

“Thank you, Mary Seta,” Mrs. Bagot said. “Now, please, tell us about bannock.”

Bannock, she said, was a food of her people and a taste of the north. It was a special bread of flour and lard and black currants, the dough wrapped on a long stick and cooked over a campfire until golden brown.

Kenny asked if we could have a fire. Peter said that would be against the fire regulations. Peter's mother nodded approvingly. Mary explained we would use the school stove instead. It was going to take us all morning. The first cooks were given their folded aprons, which they were to hold in their arms until they got to the kitchen. A line formed behind Mary. Off they went, children flanked on both sides by most of the mothers, Mrs. Bagot taking up the rear.

I stayed with the rest to work on our craft. The coloured construction paper had already been cut into animal shapes. Rabbits and bison, wolves and elk. I had nothing to do with it. The children were to choose an animal to decorate with felts and gluey glitter bits and then make up a Chipewyan name to write in the centre. The mothers were to help print the letters, then punch holes in both sides of the paper, which would hang on wool strings from the children's necks. We were to use only the Chipewyan names for the rest of the day.

The children ran to the craft table by the window and found chairs. Susan and Vanessa's mothers spread out the felts and poured glue blobs onto newsprint. Susan and Vanessa had been whispering on the carpet so they couldn't find two chairs together and were forced to sit on either side of Rebee.

Everyone chattered excitedly. I leaned against the window counter and let the mothers take over with their flattery and baby talk praise. “Such a pretty design, Meagan. Look what Alice has done with her colours. My, my, what happy triangles. Haven't we great artists in this room.”

The children lapped up the praise like puppies at water bowls. Look at mine. See what I did. Do you like my design? All except Rebee, who kept her head down, who concentrated on drawing a jagged line in blue, then yellow, along the edge of her wolf. Vanessa and Susan leaned around her, giggling and chatting, as though Rebee were invisible and her chair empty. The mothers too. They circled Rebee, moving to the next child before bending over.

Kenny chose Feather Brain for his name, which Vanessa's mother printed for him, misspelling Brain as Brian. Vanessa was Little Rabbit. Susan asked how to spell “Buffalo Legs,” which she wanted to print herself.

One by one the children chose their names, finished their decorating, and showed off the animals flapping on their chests.

“How are you, Feather Brain?”

“I'm good, Jumping Boy.”