Читать книгу Wildwood - Elinor Florence - Страница 10

August

Bridget sat beside me in the cab of the truck, her new kit-ten on her lap. It was an adorable grey tabby with four white paws, a “giveaway” kitten, as Old Joe explained when he dropped it off at the motel along with a plastic litter box and a bag of kitty litter. I wasn’t very pleased about acquiring a cat even before moving into the house, but Bridget’s cries of joy had won me over.

“Have you thought of a name for your kitty?”

“Fizzy!” Bridget announced.

I smiled. “He is fuzzy, isn’t he?”

“No, Mama, his name is Fizzy. When he saw a dog in the parking lot, he made a noise like this: Fizzzz.”

“Fizzy it is, then.”

“He’s so clean!” Bridget said with motherly pride. “He washes his face with his paws. And he even buries his own poo. I wish we could do that, don’t you?”

I was seated behind the wheel of our new vehicle — at least, new to us. It was a ten-year-old four-by-four half-ton Chevy Silverado that Edna’s teenaged son had sold to us. The truck was silver in colour, and I was already mentally calling it Silver, after the Lone Ranger’s horse: “Hi-Yo, Silver! Away!”

The boy had assured me it would last for another year, and it came with a set of winter tires. He showed me how to determine if they were too worn, by pressing a quarter into their broad zigzag treads. If the treads were deep enough to bury the caribou’s nose, the tires passed muster. These were stacked in the back, along with a huge load of supplies.

It seemed to be taking forever to get to the turnoff. I checked the mileage gauge again and mentally slapped myself on the forehead. I had forgotten that it was marked in kilometres! Instead of fifty miles an hour, I was driving fifty kilometres an hour — I did the mental math — thirty-one miles per hour. Canada used the metric system, and I would just have to get used to it.

I carefully changed gears, thankful that my first car had a standard transmission so I knew how to drive this truck. I stepped on the gas pedal, and Silver surged forward as if breaking into a gallop.

“I like sitting up here, don’t you, Mama?” We were elevated so high off the ground that I had to lift Bridget onto the bench seat. Fortunately she was just over the forty-pound limit for needing a safety seat. We could see for miles. Topping one of the gently ­rolling hills, we looked down on the surface of the forest, a green carpet sprinkled with little dark triangular points, the tips of the tallest spruce trees.

After I turned onto the gravel road, Silver navigated the ruts easily, although the ride got a bit rougher. According to Old Joe, the county didn’t bother maintaining the gravel road since it led to the Indian reservation, or reserve, as they called it here. Not only was that word different, I thought, I had to remember not to call them Indians. Apparently they didn’t like being called Indians, and who could blame them, really. Here they were called Indigenous peoples.

Fizzy objected to the bumpy ride with a faint meow. “Don’t be afraid, sweetie, we’re almost home.” Bridget spoke in a tone exactly like mine. I looked over my shoulder into the back of the truck, hoping nothing had fallen out.

That morning we were waiting outside when the big double doors opened into the town’s main grocery store, Juniper Foods. Bulk dry goods were first on the list, so while Bridget stood on the front of the shopping cart, I piled in ten-kilogram bags of flour and sugar, plus oatmeal, cornmeal, rice, macaroni, and spaghetti noodles.

Since we didn’t have any way to refrigerate our food, I stocked up on canned meat, fish, vegetables, and soup.

“Excuse me, but do you know how long evaporated milk lasts after it’s opened?” I asked the young girl stocking the shelves, with a nametag reading “Tina.”

“Probably about two weeks,” she said. “But in another month it won’t matter. You can leave your frozen food outside and it won’t thaw until spring. It’s a long way to come into town if you don’t have to.”

Apparently she knew where we lived.

Tina proved to be very helpful, following me up and down the aisles and pointing out things I had missed. I was accustomed to dropping into the grocery store every couple of days. It was hard to comprehend what we might need for an entire month.

In the next aisle, we picked up cooking oil, peanut butter, honey, corn syrup, bottled fruit juice, coffee and tea, salt and pepper, ketchup, pickles, mustard, and spices. I had never baked anything in my life, but perhaps it was time to learn. I threw in baking powder, baking soda, yeast, cinnamon, cloves, nutmeg, and vanilla.

We left the overloaded cart near the checkout counter and started on the next one. In the produce section, I piled in potatoes, onions, and carrots. I hoped that root vegetables would keep in the earthen basement, as long as I could protect them from the mice by storing them in a plastic cooler.

Walking along the aisle with frozen desserts, I noticed there was little choice. The supermarkets in Phoenix had aisles the length of football fields devoted to all manner of frozen pies and cakes. Here the choice was limited to ice cream and Popsicles.

I didn’t want to waste money on desserts anyway. The cost of groceries here was exorbitant. Bridget helped me select popcorn kernels and raisins. Nuts were expensive, but I bought one small container of almonds and another of walnuts.

Finally, I picked up a couple of bags of ice for our primitive wooden icebox — although, if Tina was correct, I wouldn’t need it much longer.

“There! That should do us for a year, let alone a month!” I announced to Bridget.

I paid for my purchases with bills in all the colours of the rainbow. At least it wouldn’t be hard to keep the different denominations straight here, I thought, since the bills looked like Monopoly money. For change, I received silver coins with gold centres, called toonies, each worth two dollars; and golden coins worth one dollar each that looked like they came from a pirate ship. These were called loonies because they bore an engraving of a loon.

After paying for all of my groceries, I pushed a cart to my truck. Tina helpfully pushed the other cart and slung the bags into the back while I settled Bridget in the cab with Fizzy.

“Can you tell me where to buy my daughter some jeans?” I asked, assuming that a teenager would know.

“You betcha. The best place in town for clothes is the Salvation Army Thrift Shop, two blocks that way.” She pointed down the street.

At last, a familiar name. When I parked in front of the shop, I was glad that the wide street allowed nose-in parking. I would hate to try to manoeuvre this oversized vehicle into a regular parking spot.

Bridget trailed behind me into the shop, which was surprisingly well stocked, its racks bursting with clothes. I picked through the children’s section, reminding myself to wash everything before we wore it. I selected two pairs of jeans and some red corduroy overalls that looked like new.

Since I didn’t have anything resembling work clothes, I bought myself a pair of Carhartt overalls, the knees only slightly stained with grease, a pair of men’s workboots that fit my large feet nicely, and three pairs of woollen socks.

A tiny elderly volunteer with permed red hair whose name was Gladys told me where to find the pharmacy and the hardware store. “You’ll need plenty of supplies if you’re going to live in that old place!” she said. Another person who knew what we were doing.

“Canadian Tire” sounded to me like an automotive shop, but to my surprise I found it was an all-purpose general store. I loaded up with lamp oil, candles, matches, a heavy-duty flashlight and two dozen extra batteries, a portable fire extinguisher to keep beside the wood stove, and a five-gallon red plastic container filled with extra gasoline.

Visions of dirt and disease danced in my head as I piled in a broom and mop, dish detergent, laundry soap, and window cleaner. I finished off with a box of zip-lock bags, a dozen plastic food containers, and one large cooler.

I had been unable to purchase only one item. After searching the aisles at Canadian Tire, I stopped a young man in a scarlet vest and asked where the guns were kept.

“You mean hunting rifles?” he asked. “We don’t carry them here.”

“No, I mean a handgun.”

He looked puzzled. “Ma’am, where are you from?”

“Arizona.”

“I guess you don’t know that people aren’t allowed to own handguns in this country.”

“You mean, never?” I was surprised. “Aren’t there any exceptions?”

“Nope. Not unless you want to join the local Rod and Gun Club and use it for target practice. Why do you want one, anyways?”

“For self-defence.” He stared at me blankly. “You know, in case somebody tries to rob me.”

“We haven’t had an armed robbery around here since before I was born.”

“But how do people protect themselves?”

“Don’t worry, you got nothing to be scared about. Up here animals are the biggest problem, not people.”

He walked away, shaking his head. As we left the store, I saw him talking to one of the cashiers and pointing at me. Both of them were laughing.

Finally we hit the local pharmacy, where we bought personal supplies. I smiled to myself, remembering Bridget’s delight when she discovered the “free gifts” at the hotel. “Mama, look! They gave us free shampoo, free hand lotion, and free soap!” I tossed in an economy-sized pack of toilet paper, tampons, hand soap, and hand sanitizer. I deliberated over body lotion then decided it was too expensive.

Now for the hard part. I had to outfit an emergency first-aid kit. While I imagined all the various ways we might become ill or injured, I selected iodine, aspirin, and antibiotic ointment.

Reluctantly I picked up a roll of bandages, then shuddered and closed my eyes, hastily setting them down again. I couldn’t touch them without picturing blood. And unfortunately, I had a full-blown phobia about blood. I couldn’t even watch a television program if it showed quantities of red liquid, which ruled out shows about violent crime, vampires, even surgery.

I had never cut myself, other than the odd nick, and neither had Bridget, thanks to my obsessive vigilance, but there was always a first time. Bracing myself, I snatched up a box of Band-Aids and a roll of bandages and thrust them into my basket.

The pharmacist, a pleasant-faced older man with horn-rimmed spectacles, popped his head out from behind the counter. “Don’t forget a thermometer!” he said. Another person who seemed to know what I was doing. I busied myself looking for a thermometer and tried to overcome the bloody images in my head.

I had just enough cash left to fill the truck with gasoline, which sucked an alarming $150 out of my wallet. All that remained of my cash was $30 plus change. That was our financial safety net until the first of September. Then we would drive into town, pick up our $400 from the lawyer’s office, and replenish our supplies. Mr. Jones had explained that it would be simpler to pay me in cash since I didn’t have a Canadian bank account.

When we pulled into the yard, I had to resist the urge to turn around and drive away again. I gripped the wheel, trying not to burst into tears. Although I had been here twice before, things didn’t look any better — in fact, they looked worse, if that were possible. The farmhouse with its peeling paint and overhanging branches looked like a haunted house in a horror movie. And like the characters in a horror movie, we were completely cut off from the outside world.

At least Old Joe had been as good as his word. As I drove around to the back of the house, I saw that he had patched the hole on the roof with new shingles. That should keep the rain out. And the snow, of course. I smiled grimly. I had almost forgotten about the snow.

Old Joe had brought the screens out of the barn and covered the windows so we could open them without fear of bugs. He had even brought along his riding mower and cut the tall grass and weeds between the former garden on one side of the yard and the log barn on the other, so now we had a clearing of sorts around the house.

I reversed Silver to the three back steps, worn down in the middle by decades of footsteps, the depression that Old Joe referred to as a saddle. They led into a generous room called a back kitchen, a one-storey addition tacked onto the rear of the house.

Inside the back kitchen were a zinc-lined icebox on one side of the door and a huge woodbox on the other. Three round galvanized tin tubs sat on a wooden bench in the corner, and hanging over them were shelves bearing an assortment of ancient cleaning supplies. A row of hooks along the opposite wall held old cloth coats and knitted caps, even a buckskin jacket with fringed sleeves.

The back kitchen had the added advantage, Old Joe told me, of protecting the main kitchen from winter’s worst. It formed an added layer of protection between the inner house and the frozen outdoors. “When it gets really cold, you stick your nose outside and ping, it’s frozen solid, just like that,” he said. I was pretty sure he was joking.

Bridget announced that she was going to show Fizzy the rainbow window. I was happy she had something to take her mind off the dirt. I stood in the kitchen, overwhelmed by the magnitude of the task before me. But there wasn’t any point putting things away until the kitchen was clean, so I thought I might as well start here.

I changed into my new overalls and a long-sleeved cotton shirt while standing on the back steps. The great outdoors was cleaner than the inside of our house. I couldn’t find a scarf, so I tucked my hair inside a plastic shower cap from the hotel.

Bridget came to the doorway, carrying the patient Fizzy around by his armpits. His tail dragged on the floor, leaving a trail in the dust. “Why are you wearing a shower crap?”

“Shower cap.” I turned away to hide my smile. “I don’t want to get dirt and cobwebs in my hair. It’s going to be really hard to wash ourselves here because we don’t have a bathtub.”

Her expression changed to one of horror. “But I hate being dirty!”

“Oh, well,” I said gaily, contradicting every single message I had given her since the day she was born, “a little dirt never hurt anybody!”

She looked at me doubtfully, frowning.

“We’re going to play a new game while we’re here. It’s called the pioneer game. Pioneers didn’t mind the dirt. At least, they got used to it. And do you know where pioneers went to the bathroom?”

“Where?”

“They had their own special place outside. Come on, I’ll show you.”

I led Bridget down the path and around the corner of the barn where the toilet was hidden from view. While she waited behind me, I pushed open the door and peeked inside to see a wooden bench with one round hole. Warily, I inhaled. There was no smell.

With trepidation, I switched on my flashlight and shone it into the hole. I don’t know what horrors I expected to find, but I saw nothing but dust and cobwebs, and a few shreds of paper. On the whitewashed wall was a list of notations in masculine printing: May 31, 1942: First crocus. July 7, 1954: Three inches rain.

“Come on, Bridget!” After much coaxing, she allowed me to pull down her pants and lift her over the hole. To my dismay I realized that it was much too big for a child. I had a sudden vision of her disappearing into the black void below.

“Put your arms around my neck.” She was getting heavy now and my back felt the strain of her desperate clinging.

“Don’t let me touch the dirty seat!” she squealed. I would have to find a way to make the hole smaller. Perhaps I could nail a board across it.

As we walked back to the house, Bridget was quite pleased with herself.

“I went pioneer potty, didn’t I?”

“You sure did. Let’s wash our hands, and then I’m going to start cleaning the kitchen while you play with Fizzy.”

Bridget sat on the back steps, where I could see her through the open door, and she could see me. Trying to remember Old Joe’s instructions, I carefully lit a fire in the stove using copious amounts of kindling and newspaper taken from a ceiling-high stack in the back kitchen.

I needed to make friends with this metal monster, since it was the only thing that would keep us from freezing to death. It seemed like a very complicated invention. On the left side was the firebox, where the wood burned. Underneath this was the drawer for the ashes. At the far right, a rectangular reservoir with a lid, where water could be heated. Then there was the oven, and below it a drawer for pots and pans. The eye-level bin across the top was the warming oven, where hot dishes were kept.

Suddenly smoke started to billow out of every crack on the surface of the stove. I leaped for the lever at the back, which controlled the flow of air into the firebox, and shoved it to the right. I had forgotten that the draft had to be open when I started the fire, but closed after the wood began to burn.

The smoke stopped abruptly, but by now the room was filled with a thick haze and my eyes were smarting. I ran to the back door and flapped a towel to clear the room. Bridget stuck Fizzy’s head under her shirt so that smoke wouldn’t get in his eyes. Tears ran down my cheeks, too — and not only from the smoke.

After a few minutes, the air cleared and the wood started to crackle nicely, so I pumped icy well water into several large pots and placed them on the stovetop. As I thrust another stick of firewood into the stove, a fragment of memory rose before my eyes. It was so powerful that I caught my breath.

My father’s hands. At first that’s all I saw in my mind’s eye — his strong hands stacking chunks of mesquite in a pyramid shape, his brown wrists sticking out of his red plaid shirtsleeves. Then the circle of memory expanded. He was showing me how to build a fire. We were camping on the desert, just the two of us. The night was warm and dark, and we wanted to roast marshmallows.

It had been so long since I remembered anything about my parents, let alone such a happy memory, that it was like discovering a golden loonie glittering on the floor of the ocean. My knees felt weak and I sat down heavily in the rocking chair next to the stove. Closing my eyes, I tried to conjure up his face or the sound of his voice.

There was nothing else. Yet the image of his hands was so vivid that I could see the shape of his fingernails. I tried to freeze it in my mind so that it wouldn’t melt away. “Daddy,” I whispered.

The memory faded and the picture dissolved. But I felt warmed by the afterglow, as if my father had reached out from beyond the curtain and patted me on the shoulder with one of his strong, brown hands.