Homesick Page 23

  Her father had made the last two days hell, pestering her with questions. What was wrong? Why was she leaving?

  “What exactly did Huff do?” The big question.

  “I told you I don’t want to talk about it. It doesn’t matter now what he did. What’s done is done. Let’s just say I don’t want any more of this atmosphere for Daniel and leave it at that.”

  “I’ll be sorry ten times over as soon as you tell me what I’m supposed to be sorry for. But how do you expect me to apologize until then? And, Vera, forget all this foolishness about moving out. It’s crazy. What did I do that you’ve got to move out?”

  “Isn’t this typical? Isn’t this typical you’d have to ask?”

  What had worried Vera most was that Daniel might mutiny. So far he had only sulked and applied the cold shoulder. At present he was stepping out so briskly that she couldn’t keep pace pushing the wheelbarrow. A show of anger, she supposed. Yesterday they had fought.

  He’d been upset about the move. “Why do we have to go? We just moved this summer. Why again so soon?”

  “It’s not a big move, Daniel. It’s just across town, and it’s not as if you have to change schools or anything like that. That’s why I ruled out leaving Connaught right now, so you can finish the year in the same school. When school’s over then we’ll see what we’ll do.”

  “I hate that new house. It’s a shit hole.”

  “It’s no palace, I grant you. But it’ll do until we can find better.”

  “Three crappy little rooms. An outdoor toilet. It doesn’t even have a TV.”

  “Woe is Daniel, no TV. Tragedy of tragedies. Aren’t you hard done by? Maybe a weekend in India would teach you what hardship is. It’s not missing TV.”

  “You better be prepared to miss me, then,” Daniel announced. “Because I’m going to be over here with him – watching TV.”

  “If I were you I’d be careful of declarations about what ‘I am and I am not going to do,’ including where you’re going to watch television. All your decisions aren’t yours to make until you’re twenty-one and that’s some time off yet, sunshine. For your information what you don’t do is watch TV over here with him. I don’t want to catch you hanging around here – ever.” Her rage was the weak, jealous, tainted rage of a child and it often drove her into thoughtless, shameful declarations. She consoled herself that Daniel knew better than to take seriously, literally, what was said in the heat of the moment. Nobody ever meant exactly what they said, did they?

  “Why not? Why shouldn’t I?” Vera could see he was fighting back tears. She could only guess at their meaning. Anger?

  “Don’t trot that tone of voice out with me, young man. Understand?” Mother and son stared challengingly into one another’s eyes. Daniel was the first to look away. His yielding allowed her to speak more softly to him. “I think it’s time we both had a break from your grandfather, and the company he keeps. He and his cronies are having a bad effect on you – I see it more and more every day. Those old men aren’t company for a boy your age. It’s unhealthy, you ask me.”

  “If that’s what it is – he already said you don’t want them coming around he’ll keep them away. He already promised you that -I heard him!”

  “When you get to be as old as I am, maybe then you’ll have learned what your grandfather’s promises are worth.”

  “Well, so what? Those guys won’t be coming around again anyway. Not after what you did. So who’s going to corrupt me?”

  “You’re wasting your breath,” she said grimly. “It’s decided.”

  Yet saying it was decided didn’t make it so. That was the sudden lurch of hot anger speaking, not really her. Vera knew better than to bank on anything ever being decided.

  Snow had begun to fall. Vera felt flakes tickling and melting on her hot face. Pushing a wheelbarrow was hard, awkward work. She halted, set down the wheelbarrow, and took a breather, lifting her eyes to the blue corona of the streetlight. It resembled a fish-bowl, the flying snow tiny darting creatures which flashed briefly and brightly before settling, extinguished, dead-white and numb on roofs and roads, empty yards, and stripped gardens. It settled on Vera, too, on her coat, her scarf, the moon of her uplifted face. She was looking back in the midst of flight, back to that night so many years ago, the night of the snow, the night of the recital, the night of their unspoken understanding.

  She started, wiped the moisture from her face, coming back to Daniel. There he was, far ahead of her, at the very end of the street. The snow was falling thicker and faster with every passing minute, but still not so thick as to rub out the distinctive stoop to his shoulders and the peculiar toed-out walk he had been bequeathed by his father. At this distance, and in the midst of a blizzard, one could easily have been mistaken for the other.

  15

  The day after Christmas, temperatures plummeted to −40°F, and every chimney in Connaught ran a plumb-line of smoke against the windless, blue sky. These columns of white smoke shone in the intense sunshine, temporary pillars of marble erected by stoves and furnaces all over the town. Around two o’clock when Vera discovered the woodbox was getting dangerously low she sent Daniel out to split some wood. The clumsy thunking of his axe outside kept her company as she sat at the kitchen table, smoking, drinking coffee, and pondering her future. When a knock came at the door she supposed it was Daniel, kicking at it with his arms filled with wood, summoning her to open it and let him in. Instead, she found Mr. Stutz, red-faced, nostrils steaming in the bitter cold, and his broad chest stacked with parcels done up in Christmas paper.

  “Come in, come in,” Vera urged, and Stutz did, ricocheting through the door-frame, stamping his feet noisily to shed the snow from his heavy, felt-lined boots. Once across the threshold he stalled, searching for a mat on which to remove his overshoes. There was none. As he looked around him, the bareness of the place impressed itself upon him. There were no curtains on the windows of the cramped kitchen, and Mr. Stutz could gaze out onto the outskirts of Connaught, a glacial sweep of frozen prairie broken only by a line of telephone poles rambling west. The austerity, the vacancy of the house, was extreme. However, compared to what he could see of the rest of the rooms, the kitchen verged on clutter. It held a table and two chairs, and the cast-iron range filled one wall with its squat solidity and stove-pipe angles. Stutz wondered when the pipes had last been cleaned. There were brown scorch marks on the beaverboard indicating they were given to overheating. To his left he could look through a narrow door that gave onto an equally narrow living room, empty except for one of the cots that made up the dead lady’s estate and a forlorn display of Christmas presents set out in the middle of the scuffed linoleum floor – a bottle of perfume, a boy’s sweater, a box of Black Magic chocolates, a number of books. Gifts that Vera and Daniel had exchanged. Beyond this, another door stood open on Vera’s bedroom and Stutz could make out a cardboard box filled with clothes and the corner of another cot, twin to the first. There was nothing more to be seen.

  “Just kick them off where you stand,” said Vera, noting Mr. Stutz’s indecision as to what to do with his boots, “and come and take a seat by the stove.”

  Mr. Stutz carefully placed the presents on the table. “We’re late with these,” he apologized, “but the old gentleman thought that yesterday being Christmas you might have dropped by with the boy. When you didn’t, he asked me to deliver them.”

  Vera was clearly annoyed at the presumption. “He had no reason to expect any visits from us. You can tell him I said as much. And you can take these back where they came from,” she said, indicating the parcels.

  “They’re not all from him,” said Mr. Stutz quietly. “I put one or two in myself.”

  This news embarrassed Vera. “I never,” she said. “What am I going to do? I – Daniel and I – never thought to get you a thing.”

  “What’s to get the man who’s got everything?” He laughed artificially to signal he was making a joke. There was an awkwardness in his
manner that Vera hadn’t seen before. As a way of offering him some relief she began to sort through the presents.

  “This is from you then?” she said, smiling and holding up a package.

  “What does it say?” Mr. Stutz wanted to hear her read the tag aloud.

  “ ‘To Mrs. Vera Miller from H. Stutz.’ ”

  “That’s me all right.”

  “H. Stutz,” said Vera, trying to peel away the Scotch tape with her fingernail so as not to rip the paper. “Isn’t that strange? I don’t know your first name. What’s the H stand for?”

  “Herman. Herman is my Christian name.”

  Wouldn’t you suspect? thought Vera. What she said was, “A sensible name. It suits you, Mr. Stutz, Herman does. Take a chair, Herman, and as soon as I’ve got this present unwrapped we’ll have us a cup of coffee.”

  When the paper decorated with jolly Santa Clauses was finally removed, a carton of cigarettes was disclosed. “Isn’t this nice,” said Vera. “My brand, too. Millbank. Thank you, Mr. Stutz.”

  “I made a point of watching what you smoked,” said Mr. Stutz.

  “I appreciate it,” Vera assured him, pouring coffee. “I just feel awful we didn’t shop for you.”

  The topic of presents and purchases exhausted, conversation lapsed. In the silence, Daniel’s axe could be heard ringing in the frozen air. Looking ill at ease, Mr. Stutz blew energetically into his coffee mug. Vera noticed that in the warmth of the kitchen his nose had begun to run, a drop hung trembling on its tip, prompting her to turn her eyes away. When she did, Mr. Stutz cleared his throat and launched into what he had come to say. “You know, Mrs. Miller, your father can’t understand what all this is about – this packing up and leaving him.”

  “I’m not surprised,” said Vera, struggling to appear calm, reasonable. “I must say that doesn’t surprise me in the least. The only thing my father’s ever been able to understand is what matters to him. Did you ever notice that about him, Mr. Stutz? Nothing exists unless it’s of some use to him. Do you know when I figured that out? I must have been sixteen, just after my mother died. He seemed to think that my brother and I were there just to make him feel better about the situation. One servant and one pet, you might say. He couldn’t think of anyone but himself. My father’s a very selfish man, Mr. Stutz.”

  “He’s always treated me fair,” observed Mr. Stutz.

  “And why should he have any trouble treating you fair?” challenged Vera. “When were the two of you ever at cross purposes? Never.”

  Mr. Stutz frowned. “I wouldn’t know about that. I wouldn’t go that far.”

  “I would,” said Vera, breaking open her carton of Millbanks and lighting herself a cigarette. “I know all about my father and cross purposes. We wrote the book on that. It was because he always assumed the choices were his to make. Back then, when I was sixteen, I wanted to be somebody. Maybe it’s true I wasn’t exactly sure what – what kid of sixteen does? But something, a teacher, a nurse, something.” Vera held up the burning match, blew it out with an angry puff of breath. “That’s how he put me out,” she said to Stutz, “like that. He blew out my fine ideas because he knew what was best for me. Best for me was to stick at home and relieve him of the trouble of looking after my brother Earl. I believe he would be surprised if anyone was to point out the difference between good for him and good for me. He thought they were always the same thing.” Vera leaned forward tensely in her chair. “And he hasn’t lost the habit. Do you know what the latest is? He won’t tell me where my brother is. And do you know why he won’t?”

  At the mention of Earl Mr. Stutz cast his eyes down to the floor. He shook his head in reply to her question.

  “I’ll tell you why,” said Vera with quiet, measured vehemence. “Because he doesn’t think I deserve to know. I lost the right to know because I didn’t stay behind to raise Earl the way he thought I should. I wasn’t noble, I didn’t sacrifice, I disappointed. Instead, I went off and joined the Army.” Vera fell back against her chair, smiled ironically. “Desertion, Mr. Stutz. Vera Monkman stands accused of deserting her post, charged by the commanding officer. That’s why I have no claim on my brother. No difference between me and the bad girl who gives up a bastard baby for adoption. Bad girls lose their rights, didn’t you know? My father has made up his mind I have no right to Earl because I ran out on him. But I never ran out on Earl. It’s not my brother I was running out on, it was him, the miserable old bugger. Sixteen years old and already I was a housewife. A housewife!” Vera burst out indignantly.

  For several moments she sat rigid and motionless; then her shoulders relaxed and she resumed speaking in a controlled way. “This is how I thought then, Mr. Stutz. I figured the one he loved had the best chance of surviving him. That was Earl. I think he loved Earl almost as much as he loved himself. All I knew for sure was that Vera wasn’t going to survive him. I had to get out – and I got. But he’s not one to forgive. That’s why he’s keeping me and my brother apart – to punish me.”

  Mr. Stutz raised his eyes from the floor. There was a heaviness in his face that suggested a man with a desire for confession. But all he said was, “Your father doesn’t want to punish you.”

  “You’re wrong there.”

  “No. He wants you and Daniel to come back to his house. On your terms. Everything agreed. He wants to look after the two of you.”

  “Not a chance. We’ll never go back to him.”

  “Never is a long time, Mrs. Miller.”

  “If there was a word longer than never, that’s the word I’d use.”

  “If you don’t go back, what will you do?”

  “I’ll find a job.”

  “For a woman, there are no jobs in Connaught. At least none that aren’t taken. Maybe you could work at the hotel as a waitress, a cook, a barmaid, a chambermaid – but your father owns the hotel.”

  “I’ll find something.”

  “Maybe you could clean houses. There isn’t very much money in it but it’s something a woman can do. You could clean the lawyer lady’s house, the doctor lady’s house, the druggist lady’s house. Would you like that? Cleaning houses and those ladies being so good as to point out to you the spots you missed?”

  “I don’t miss spots.”

  Mr. Stutz smiled knowingly. “Mrs. Miller mightn’t miss spots – the cleaning lady always does. It’s a fact of life. You ought to consider that.”

  “I’m past considering.”

  “Then you better be past pride, too.”

  Vera didn’t respond. She was listening to the axe thud on the chopping block.

  After a time Mr. Stutz sighed and said, “The old Bluebird Cafe has been empty now for two years. No one could seem to make a go of it after the Chinaman died.”

  “And?”

  “And did you ever think of going into business for yourself? Two thousand dollars, more or less, would get it operating again. You’re a good cook. You could manage a cafe, I’m sure. Your father claims you’re clever, at any rate.”

  “My father never claimed any such thing.”

  “You don’t know everything about your father. Your father claims you’re clever. I heard him,” repeated Stutz with emphasis.

  “All right, so I’m a genius without two thousand dollars. A lot of good it does me, brains without money.”

  “Your father will give you the money if you ask him.”

  “What? Give me money to set up in competition with him? The Bluebird’s directly across the street from the hotel and its restaurant.”

  “Do you think he cares about competition? When’s the last time he gave a thought to his businesses? He leaves the running of them to me, or they run themselves. Alec’s got enough. If you ask, he’ll set you up.”

  “Haven’t you heard a word that I’ve said? You’ve got to be crazy if you think I’d ask. Especially after you’ve sat at this table and heard me say exactly what I think of him. Don’t mistake me for a hypocrite, Mr. Stutz.”

  Mr. Stutz to
ok a deep breath, shifted himself on his chair seat. “All right,” he said, “then I’ll lend you the money.”

  Vera was so taken aback that she doubted she had heard him correctly. “What’s that? What did you say?” she demanded rudely.

  “I’ll lend you two thousand dollars to give The Bluebird a whirl. If you want,” said Mr. Stutz, twisting his neck uncomfortably in his shirt collar.

  She was incredulous. “And why in the world would you do that, Mr. Stutz?”

  This question only increased Mr. Stutz’s discomfort. “Well, Mrs. Miller,” he said, “you’ve got the boy to look after and I know you’re an honest woman and…” here he broke off, cast around desperately for a conclusion to his speech, and blurted out, “and if Christ was in my shoes, I think he’d give you the money!”

  Vera could not restrain a smile. “I never thought of Christ as a money-lender,” she said. “It was the money-lenders he whipped out of the temple, wasn’t it?”

  “He wouldn’t have done it if they were doing good,” replied Stutz with a stubborn look.

  “So you want to do some good, do you?” Vera teased.

  Stutz, deaf to her frivolous tone, nodded his head soberly. “Yes.”

  “And what if it gets you in trouble with my father?”

  “Why would doing good get me in trouble with Alec?”

  “It might seem to him like you were switching sides.”

  “There are no such things as sides for me, Mrs. Miller.”

  “Come, come, Mr. Stutz, you’re not that innocent.”

  “You don’t hurt a man by helping his daughter.”

  Vera gave him an appraising look. “The question is: Why do you want to do this, Mr. Stutz? For whose sake are you offering help? His or mine?”

  “For everyone’s sake I would like to do good,” said Stutz.

  “And that’s it?”

  Stutz chose not to answer. The monotonous chop chop chop of the axe striking wood penetrated the kitchen. Mr. Stutz seized the opportunity it presented. “What’s that?” he asked.