Читать книгу The Fortunate Brother - Donna Morrissey - Страница 9

THREE

He opened the shed door to a smell of damp sawdust. It was darkish inside, his father a phantom-grey sitting hunched on his chopping block. He was filing the steel-toothed chain from his saw laid across his knees. It was always his way to do something while he drank. Justified his time. And he was always sitting in the near dark. Times Kyle got up in the middle of the night for a drink of water and his father would be sitting at the kitchen table with no lights on, staring out the window at the water shifting restlessly around the pilings. Sadness tugging his face. As though the sea had lost its wonder and he was struggling to get it back.

“You have to go in,” said Kyle. “You have to,” he repeated as his father kept his head down, kept his eyes riveted to the slow gentle chafing of steel against steel. Kyle approached him and put his hand over his father’s misshapen knuckle. “You have to go in. She’s waiting.” He stood back as his father heaved up a shoulder, deflecting his words. “You have to go in!” he pleaded from the doorway. “I’m going down Hampden, down to the bar. Tell her, so she don’t make supper for me. You hear me, Dad? You’ll go in now?”

His father nodded and he started up the road. He walked past the gravel flat; Kate’s car wasn’t there, her blinds closed. He turned up Bottom Hill and looked back and thought he glimpsed Kate’s blind move in her window. He paused. He stepped nearer the edge of the road, staring harder, and something else caught his eye. Angled left of Kate’s eave and farther in through the high-grown alder bed nearer the river he saw a smidgen of red, the colour of Bonnie Gillard’s car. He couldn’t figure it—the old park road cut through the alder bed, but not that far. Too mucky to drive a car. And it was where the river roiled the hardest and was the most swollen.

He continued up Bottom Hill, but his feet dragged. He looked back again, couldn’t see the car. Backtracked a few steps—there it was. Just a glimmer. It was getting dark and he turned towards the bar but couldn’t make himself go forward and cursed. Women. Never knew what they’d do. He turned back, walked quickly down onto the gravel flat and cut an immediate left onto a narrow, rutted road, grassed down the centre and long since left to grow over. He peered at the ground—too much water flooding the tracks to see tire prints. He kept going, tramping near the edging of brush to keep his feet dry, stick branches scratching at his clothes. He came to a clearing that used to be a park, out of the wind, and with swings and picnic tables. The picnic tables that hadn’t been dragged off were rotted now, the swings just broken chains dangling from skewed posts. The wind had proven a better mate than mosquitoes.

He looked about the thickly sodded clearing and saw bits of tire tracks on the drier clumps of nettle and quickweed heading towards the river. He followed them, his boots sinking through muck, and cursed again, feeling the damp seep through to his socks. Gulls squawked irritably above him. Swampy patches of land gave up their rotting smells. The car must have been driven fast to gut through this muck without bogging down. Another thirty feet ahead and to the right was the clump of brush where he thought he’d spotted it. Ruptured mud holes in the soaked sod testified that the car had suddenly been revved up and reamed through the brush. His heart began thumping and he broke into a run. The alders thinned, the wind broke through, cold on his face, and a red slash bled through the thicket. There was the car, back tires bogged down in mud. The back door on the passenger’s side was open, no one inside. He roared out Hello! The river roared back. He hauled and slipped his way up the small embankment in front of the car and looked onto the bloated, fast-flowing water of the river. He couldn’t see farther than a few feet downstream. He tried cutting through the brush. Too thick. He went back to the car, saw the keys dangling from the ignition. He walked away, thought about the young boys and their nighttime drinking parties just over the way, and backstepped, taking the keys and pocketing them. Couldn’t trust them little bastards. He headed back across the clearing and onto the swamped, grassy road, coming out beside Kate’s. Her car was still gone. He started towards Bottom Hill, paused—her blind was partly open. He could have sworn it was closed earlier. He yelled out her name.

Silence. A flock of gulls rose with a cacophony of squawks above the river. He took the scuffed path from Kate’s door, went up to the riverbank, and stood looking upstream. The gulls were spooling, squawking. Seized with a sense of urgency, he ran towards the old ruins and climbed on top of a concrete ledge. Holding on to a twisted length of rusted rebar, he leaned as far as he could over the ledge, seeing farther upriver. As if to an unseen call, the gulls floated back down to where they’d been resting a minute before. The river flowed deep, darkened by the evening light. He shivered in the sudden damp and leaped off the concrete block, starting back to the road. Kate’s blind was still half opened and he swore to Christ he was being watched. What the hell, not my business, he told himself and started up Bottom Hill, walking fast. Cresting the top, he looked down upon Hampden. A thick fog was creeping over the darkening sea. It crept over the wharf and through the backyards and, lifting a grey tentacle, wrapped itself around a yellow light flaring through a window in Bonnie Gillard’s sister’s house. The light twinkled and then blackened like a dying star.

He cut away from Bottom Hill onto a twisted dirt road flanked by brush. It was getting dark now. The one streetlight had been rock-smashed years ago by mischief makers and he kept himself tethered to the road by the faint glow of the barroom lights creeping through the brush. A low rumble of voices floated towards him as he neared. Loud whispers. Giggles. The ones not yet old enough to get inside the bar. They plied him for smokes, booze, or whatever and he shucked one of them a dollar bill. Inside the smoky cavern of the bar a crowd was growing, shoving tables together and arguing good-naturedly with razzing neighbours. A bunch of old-timers hunched around their regular table nearest the door, playing spades through the thick haze of their home-rolled smokes. On the bandstand at the back of the bar, a scrawny kid with an electric guitar was testing his mike while the other band member—his uncle—balanced a bass on his knee and fiddled with the dials on an amp. An old sod hyped with drink was waltzing himself around the dance floor to Waylon Jennings pining “Why Baby Why” from the jukebox. Nearest the dance floor was a table of Verges, Bonnie’s clan. Big hair, big dark eyes. Pick out a Verge anywhere. He was about to approach them when the eldest sister, Marlene, came through the door from the women’s can, scrunching her hair behind her ears and laughing at the old sod waltzing his way towards her.

“Hey!” Kyle slid along the bar towards her, pulling Bonnie’s keys from his pocket.

“Hay’s for horses, Sweetie.” She took the old timer’s hand and swirled away with him across the dance floor and Kyle let the keys slide back in his pocket.

“Here you go, bud.” The bartender slid a whisky and ginger his way. He drank it back and held out his glass for a refill. His buddy Hooker, hair razored to his skull, had spotted him from the back of the bar and was coming towards him. Looked like he was going to church in his white collar and black jacket. He slowed to a saunter as he passed the table where his girlfriend, Rose—saucy bangs and saucy tight sweater—was sitting, absorbed in a chat with her friends. Coming up to the bar, he slapped Kyle’s back and gave him a heartening grin.

“What’s she at, buddy! Your mother all right? Heard she was sick.” He called to the bartender for a Black Horse and slapped Kyle’s back again. “What’s up, buddy—see fucking Roses back there?”

“Roses?”

“Eh, yeah, she likes me calling her Roses.”

“Ye getting married or something? What’s with the duds?”

“She ditched me agin.”

“Right. New clothes gonna get her back.”

“Man, I must be dumber than a fucking trout. Always letting her reel me in and dump me back out.”

“Find yourself a different pond, bud. Listen, can we go outside for a minute?”

“Have a drink, first. Hey buddy,” he yelled to the bartender. “Cancel that Black Horse, pour us a couple whiskies. How’s Syl? Heard Trapp was sneaking about agin.”

“Yeah, what’s that about? Where’s he living these days?”

“In Corner Brook, somewhere.”

“What’s he always fucking around here for? Nobody here belong to him no more.”

“Yes, b’y. And not like he ever lived here, hey, b’y. Hung around with Ben one summer. Don’t think he ever stayed much with them uncles of his.”

“Best thing ever happened, that sawmill burning down. Crazy fuckers, the Trapps.”

Hooker nodded. “Weird. Weird the way Trapp keeps sneaking back. Not like Ben’s still here—whatever the fuck Ben seen in him.”

“Ben. He’s got a soft spot for all the underdogs.”

“What about your sister?”

“Sylvie’s no fan of Trapp. Only tolerated him because he’s Ben’s friend.”

“When they getting back?”

“Don’t know. Few weeks.”

“I allows they’ll be married soon. Married.” He sniffed. “That’ll take the fun outta ro-mance.” He tossed Rose a snide look and turned to the flat-faced bartender. “Where’s the drinks, old man—oops, sorry, bud. Here, pour one for your honey.” He threw a few bills on the bar and handed Kyle a drink, taking the other for himself. “Cheers. What’s up? What’s on your mind? Listen.” He gulped his drink and, leaning in, patted his jacket pocket. “Got a few spliffs here. Afghani, man. Black as spades. We’ll go for a smoke in a bit. Got a few uppers, home. Get them later, if you want, all right, buddy? Your mother’s going to be fine, guaranteed.”

“I’m all right, b’y.” Kyle toasted Hooker, the whisky burning good in his belly.

“And Syl, how’s he doing? Always gets stirred up when Trapp’s about.”

“He had a few.”

“Figures. Got a shot of shine for him out in the car. Nice shine. Fucking premium. Snuck it from the old man’s larder.”

“Thanks, bud. Old man will like that.”

“Here’s to Syl. And to your mother. Got some nice dried red clover back at Grandmother’s. Good stuff—makes good tea for what ails you. Bring some up to your mother, if you like.”

“Jaysus, like the old country doctor,” said Kyle, clapping Hooker’s shoulder. He pushed aside thoughts of Bonnie’s car and threw back his whisky and ordered another for him and Hooker. One thing about the outports. You never suffered alone. Everybody was your brother or aunt or cousin or neighbour and they knew your dead like they knew their own.

“Look at her back there, look at her,” said Hooker, sneaking a glance at Rose. “She been stonewalling me all night and which ain’t working because I’m stonewalling her. She’ll have leg cramps from sitting in that chair before I gives her a look this evening. I always smells like pot, she says. That’s her thing, right? She hates that I smokes pot.”

“Buy her some flowers, b’y.”

“Hey. Love don’t care if it’s flowers or pot. Love is blind.”

“So’s hate.”

“You saying she hates me?”

“I’m saying it sucks to be blind.”

“It’s here, bud,” said Hooker, patting his heart. “You loves through here, not your head. Too cerebral, my friend. Hey, who’s that there—how’s she going, b’ys?”

Skeemo and Sup were coming through the door. “W’sup? W’sup?” asked Sup. “Hey, Kyle, man, w’sup?”

“How’s she going, brother,” said Skeemo. “Heard you’re going to university in the fall. Got your courses picked? Get at it, buddy. All the good stuff be gone. Fucking studying ant’s tracks across the Himalayas all last year. Here they comes, then.” Two dead-alike brothers were pushing into the bar, dressed in bush jackets and padded vests and scuffing mud off their open-throated Ski-Doo boots.

“Cripes, what’s she, Halloween out there?” asked Hooker. “Going dancing or hauling wood, my sons?”

“Hauling you in a minute, proddy dog,” said the taller one, Todd. “Slide over, help a man get a drink. Hey, bud, couple of Blackhorse!”

“What’s that smell?” Skeemo made a face towards the brothers. “Gawd-damn, ye still smearing motor oil behind your ears? Women likes cars, ya effing baywops, not timber jacks.”

“Shaddup!” said Todd. “Last woman you had was greyer than her roots down south. Here, Snout.” He passed a beer to the shorter brother with the wide flaring nostrils. “How’s she going, Kyle, man. Heard your mother was sick?”

“She’s fine, b’y.”

“What do you mean, grey down south?” asked Hooker.

Jaysus. Kyle grunted. The brothers snickered through mouthfuls of beer, one of them bent over, spraying his boots.

“What’s so funny? They goes grey down there?”

Jaysus.

“Never seen your poppy pissing?” asked Snout.

“Heard Syl went after Clar Gillard,” said Skeemo.

“Naw, just his truck.”

“Fuckin’ arsehole.”

“Sick fuck.”

“Cruisin’ for a bruisin’,” said Snout. “Here, have a smoke.”

“Naw, quit.” Kyle drained his whisky and rapped his emptied glass on the bar for another.

“Where’s Syllie this evening?” asked Hooker.

“He’s home, b’y.”

“What happened anyway—Clar blocked the road or something?”

“Yeah, he was pissin’ around with his dog.”

“Heard your mother told Bonnie to call the cops on him,” said Todd. “That’s enough to get him going.”

“Suppose, b’y.”

“Keep your eye on that sick fucker.”

“Hey, Kyle, man, heard your mother’s not well?”

Kyle drank deep from his whisky and felt the heat spreading through his chest and ordered a double. Todd pulled a flask from his inside pocket and Kyle took a mouthful of tequila that burned his tongue and distorted his face and singed tears from his eyes. He nearly blew it across the room but managed it down his gullet and shoved the flask back at Todd.

“What’s, you gone pussy?”

“Give it here,” said Snout.

“Take it to the can, wanna get us kicked out?”

“Hey, Kyle, man, they’re saying it might be bad.”

“I’m sorry man. Gawd-damn!”

Julia walked past. Julia. Chris’s girl. Straight blond hair sliding across a willowy, slender back, a sideways glance at him. Hooker hung his arm around his neck.

“She’s home early from university. Starting work with Roses at the truck stop in on the highway.”

“Should brighten the place.”

“Ask her to dance, b’y, when the band starts.”

“Shove off.”

“She never went out with him, you know. Just graduation.”

“Piss off, Hooker.”

“Hey, just saying. What’s she at, Snout, b’y?”

“Nothing, now. Crab plant’s closing for a week. Listen, Ky, your old man need help with Jake’s house? Me and Father can give a few days.”

“I’ll come,” said Todd.

“Can’t tell a screw from a nail,” said Snout.

“Screw you, arse!”

“I’ll give a hand,” said Hooker.

“Thanks, b’ys. I’ll tell the old man.”

“Come on, let’s grab a table,” said Sup. “Whoa, who’re those girls over there?”

“Whoa, look at that tall one, butt like two clenched fists.”

“From Springdale—stay the fuck clear. Their men are on the highway by now with ball bats.”

“Ball bats! What the fuck’s a ball bat?”

“They bats balls with ’em, don’t they?”

“You talking about a baseball bat?”

Jaysus.

“Do bats got balls?”

“Sure, b’y. Big ones. That’s why they calls your old man batty—he got big balls.”

“Is a bat a bird?”

“Yes, b’ye, like you. That’s why we calls you Big Bird.”

“Always wanted a big bird.”

“Go sit with Alf Pittman’s wife. She likes a big bird, twat on her.”

“How’d you know about her twat?”

“Borned Edgar, didn’t she—fuckin’ head on him.”

“Ever hear of stitches, low-life? I had a tumour in my belly twice the size of Edgar’s head. Nothing there now but a pretty seam.”

“Shoulda left out a stitch, you’d have your own twat.”

“For you, arse, you gets any closer.”

They scraped back chairs, settling noisily around the table. The boys kept putting drinks in front of him, and Kyle kept drinking them. The band started up with their bass and guitar and electronic drummer and its beat pounded through his head. He got up for a piss and staggered. Passed Julia going to the can and looked away. Kept walking.

Found his way back to his chair. Pushed aside somebody trying to haul him onto the dance floor. Rose called his name and he faked not hearing. He watched the horde of dancers shaking and twisting and Rose stood before him, too-tight sweater and a saucy grin. She grabbed his hand, yanked him to his feet and onto the dance floor. He caught a scowl from Hooker and winked and pushed away from Rose and staggered into Julia and her arms folded around his neck and his body folded around hers, soft, sweet . . put a candle in the window . . and he swayed with her and Creedence and his dick started swelling against the tautness of her belly . . I feel I’ve gotta move . . and then he pushed her away, Chris’s girl, she was Chris’s girl, and he was starting to sweat and he took long swaggering strides across the bar and made it outside and stood in the cone of yellow from the overhead light above the door. Fresh air caroused through his head. Fast. Too fast. He staggered off the steps and onto the road. Someone whispered near his ear and he startled sideways and was met with a meaty fist cracking against the side of his jaw and pain splitting through his head. Last thing he saw before hitting the ground was Clar Gillard’s nice rounded face smiling at him.

He woke up to a pounding head and Creedence’s final guitar lick. He saw the cone of light through a scraggly screen of dead timothy wheat. He was lying in a ditch across from the bar. His back was sore and his shirt hauled up, bared skin against rough, cold ground. He sat up—jaw aching, head splitting. He tried to clench his teeth but couldn’t from the pain. Mouth tasting like rust. Jaysus. It was bleeding in there.

He spat and got to his feet, reeling towards the bar. The young ones had gone off; there was no one about. He thought of going back inside and getting the boys and tracking down that fucker Gillard. But his feet were already embarked upon the road, weaving towards Bottom Hill, and it was easier to keep going. The road T-boned Bottom Hill near the top and he looked down Hampden way for Clar’s truck—scarcely a light visible through the fog.

He was starting down the back side of Bottom Hill when he heard a creaking sound coming through the woods. There was a pathway coming up to his right, a shortcut down through the brush, passing the scorched remains of the Trapps’ sawmill and ending at the bottom of the hillside, directly behind his house. His father had cut the trail to shorten their walking distance to Hampden. Faster route getting to school in the mornings than walking the length of Wharf Road and then cutting back up Bottom Hill. Kyle hurried past the shortcut. Rather a longer walk than passing that creaking, stinking ruin in the dark.

Another creaking started to his left and he picked up his step. Jaysus. He hated this gawd-damn stretch of road; there was always someone seeing a bear prowling around here. Chris wouldn’t be scared. One night like this they were both walking down Bottom Hill and heard something coming up the road towards them—click-clap, click-clap, click-clap. And then a reddish pinprick of light appeared in the distance, weaving through the dark in their direction. Kyle almost had a fit thinking it was a fucking bear, and he drew back, readying to throw himself off the road and thrash insanely through the woods. But Chris reached back and took his hand and it was warm and strong and he, Kyle, was a big boy of thirteen or fourteen but he let his older brother lead him towards that click-clap, click-clap and the reddish pinprick eye burning closer. Chris’s step never faltered while Kyle’s heart was kicking with fright. And then the thing was in front of them. A young fellow running with two Pepsi cans stuck onto the bottom of his boots, smacking his hands to his sides, a cigarette stuck in his mouth. Chris released his hand and they kept walking. Kyle looked back.

“What’s that fucking idiot doing?”

“Scaring off bears,” said Chris.

Kyle thought for a minute. “Good thinking. But he’s still a fucking idiot!”

Chris busted out laughing. It felt good, his making Chris laugh like that. Felt more like a friend than a kid brother. It was the first time he had ever felt a sense of his self.

He wished Chris was here now; he wished his big warm hand was holding his. “Where you at, old buddy?” he called to the heavens. He felt himself choking on unleashed tears and bent over to get a grip on himself. He bent too far and staggered off balance. He was closer than he thought to the edge of the road, and with a yelp, he fell over. Rolled down a rough slope, his shirt scraping up his back and his ribs striking against the cold rough bark of a black spruce. He tried to get back up, tried to pull his shirt back down, but the pain in his ribs cut off his breath. Jaysus. He heard something or someone cry out—a faint cry—more like a scream, a weird scream.

He lay still, listening, and heard nothing, only the wind rifling through the trees. The fog crept through the woods and drifted over his face like melting snow, and he smiled. Julia . .

A knife-cutting pain through his ribs. He opened his eyes to darkness and wet ground pressing against his face. He tried to move—oh Christ, his ribs. He held on to them and crawled back up the bank to the road, wondering how the hell he’d ended up down there. He smelled smoke. Someone had a fire lit. Kate.

He started down Bottom Hill, legs straddling the quavering road like a fisherman negotiating a heaving boat on choppy seas. He turned onto Wharf Road and then onto the gravel flat, his stomach roiling. He bent over and vomited so hard he emptied his stomach with one heave. His stomach kept heaving and he fell to his knees now, gagging on bile and gasping for breath. Water leaked through his eyes and nose and his head spun and he held it in his hands. Jaysus.

Dragging his coat sleeve across his mouth, he stood. He waited a moment, his stomach settling. He weaved cautiously towards the glow of the fire. It was just Kate sitting there, picking at her guitar strings.

“Hey.” He lowered himself onto a log opposite her and missed, his butt hitting the beach rocks hard. “Hey, Kate. Sing us a shong—song!”

Kate tightened a key on the neck of her guitar. She didn’t look up, didn’t speak, didn’t smile in greeting. Her fingers weren’t calm and fondling and patient with her tuning, but fidgety and stiff. She tightened and plinked and tightened. Her hair wasn’t braided tonight, but fluffed out in soft, rippled curls that floated around her shoulders. Hardly ever saw her hair loose. Going to church, sometimes. She always went to church Sunday mornings.

“What’s up?” he asked. A dog barked from up the road and he shivered. “Arse. Near broke my jaw.” He wriggled his lower jaw.

“Who, the dog?”

“Close enough. Gillard. He sucker-punched me.”

Kate bent her head over the neck of her guitar.

“Down by the bar. Just out of nowhere. Punched me.”

“He’s been prowling about of late. Something getting him stirred again.”

Kyle wriggled his jaw some more. “Don’t think it could wriggle if it was broke?”

“No.”

“Yeah. Good, then. What’s up, Kate?”