Homesick Page 24

  Vera did not renounce her suspicions but she allowed them to relax. Stutz could be a deep one, perhaps too deep for her ever to see clear to the bottom of. “It’s Daniel splitting wood,” she said. “He’s been out there forty-five minutes already, but by the sound of it he doesn’t seem to be making much headway.”

  “Oh, I thought maybe… you know… we were alone, that Daniel was out with friends.”

  Vera said nothing, watched her fingers fiddle with the charred matchstick in the ashtray.

  “It’s a chance to be independent,” said Mr. Stutz encouragingly.

  “The reason he’s still out there chopping,” said Vera, “is that he doesn’t know how to go about it. Plenty of wasted effort when you don’t have the knack.”

  “He must be getting cold. What if I send him in and finish up for him?” suggested Mr. Stutz. “I could split you a woodbox full in no time at all.”

  “Yes, maybe he should come in. It wouldn’t do to have him freeze his face.”

  Mr. Stutz got up from the table. “Think about it, Mrs. Miller,” he urged, stooping over and pulling on his overshoes.

  “And what if I lost your money, Mr. Stutz?” she said playfully, attempting to make light of his proposal so it need not be faced.

  Stutz straightened up and considered her question. His deliberation, his grave manner of answering, denied Vera a flippant escape. In his dumb, fumbling way he made it impossible for her to avoid taking him seriously.

  “It’s only money,” he said, “and I’ve got nobody to hurt by losing it. I’ve nobody to leave it to. No wife or anything.”

  “But there’s always family. You must have some family.”

  “No family,” he said, shaking his head.

  “None?”

  “None.”

  So much for that. Vera struck a match and lit one of Stutz’s Millbanks while she collected and marshalled her thoughts. She couldn’t help being both excited and afraid. The old christer, the old do-gooder meant every word he said. It could be read plainly in his smooth, innocent face. The money was hers for the asking. The only difficulty was that Vera was not much good at asking; she lacked the talent. And the way he had presented it to her, implying that she had no choice but to take his money because it was the only way out for someone in her position, wouldn’t make asking any easier. What Stutz had suggested to her might be God’s unvarnished truth, but Vera didn’t welcome having it brought to her attention. Besides, she knew there was always a choice, even if it was only choosing not to choose. She still had that left to her.

  Vera bit at a speck of tobacco clinging to her bottom lip. Stutz stood patiently by the door, waiting. The last word she could recall him saying was “None.” A barren, lonely word. Poor devil, Vera thought. Poor kind devil.

  “Do you need kindling?” he asked, resting his hand on the doorknob.

  “Pardon?”

  “Do you need kindling for the stove?”

  “Do I need… yes. Please.”

  He nodded and went out.

  So what was she going to do? The truth was she didn’t know. Her mouth was dry with the desiring of it and dry with the fearing of it. Over the years she had let the lie of confidence carry her through most situations. She wasn’t sure she could make that work for her anymore. Too much strength had been used up. Worn down as she was, could she survive disappointment and failure if they came?

  Jesus, Vera thought, I don’t need this now, a temptation at this late date. Or maybe she did. Her father had fallen into the accident of success, why couldn’t she? Why not? There had always been more to her than her father had ever guessed at, or that she had had the opportunity to show.

  She got to her feet and circled the kitchen. Twice around the room and she resumed her seat, laid down her hands side by side on the tabletop as if they were gloves. Then she took a deep breath and pressed down with her palms as hard as she could. Time passed. Her fingers went white.

  Vera had made her decision.

  16

  When he was finally persuaded they were gone for good, Alec was torn by loneliness for his grandson and daughter. Loneliness led to a discovery. It was this: alone in his empty house he heard a voice. So loud, emphatic, and inescapable a voice that in the beginning it frightened him, even though most of what it announced was commonplace enough. Time for a cup of tea, it said. Or, Looks like snow. Of course, it was not so troubling after he recognized the voice as somehow his own, that it did not come from outside him. This did not happen at once. For a long time he was undecided. It sounded and did not sound like him. His disbelief was of the order of a man hearing, for the first time, a recording of himself speaking. Could that awful voice really belong to him?

  To start with, he wondered if he might not simply be hearing himself talking to himself. He could have fallen into the habit, he supposed. It wasn’t so. Even with his lips firmly pressed together he could still hear the voice. Besides, what he was listening to was not the ordinary, familiar voice which had been his all his life – this voice was different. Not only did it fall strangely on his ears; it said strange, surprising things without warning. One day, out of the blue, it said: Did I have a hand in it.

  Is this the sort of thing which Earl had complained of?

  The night of the fire, Alec and Mr. Stutz rushed Earl back to town, leaving the hired man Dover to keep an eye on the progress of the destruction. From the first, it had been obvious that there was nothing they could do to save the crop. It was an outright loss. Fortunately, the burning field was bordered on all sides by summerfallow, either Alec’s or a neighbour’s, so the men were confident that the bare, tilled earth would contain the flames on Alec’s property and prevent them spreading. Nevertheless, when they reached Connaught Mr. Stutz was to call out the town’s fire brigade, chiefly so that the neighbours couldn’t accuse them of not having done all that was humanly possible if the fire carried, although they all knew that a single pump truck would be next to useless in such a situation. As Dover had said, “If that happens we may as well all sling out our dinks and piss – for all the good it’ll do.”

  That night, however, Alec was less concerned with the fire than he was with Earl. On the way to Connaught he bombarded him with questions. “Are you hurt?” “What the hell happened back there?” His son made no response, merely sat pale and silent, watching the beams of the headlights bouncing on the rough road.

  After a while, Stutz suggested there might not be any point to more questions. Perhaps Earl wasn’t speaking because he was in shock. Alec drove even faster and more recklessly when he heard this. Couldn’t people die from shock?

  When he reached Connaught and saw a light showing in Dr. Dowler’s house he braked the truck, ran up the steps, banged on the door with his big, hard fist, and shouted unceremoniously up at the porch light. Mr. Stutz followed, leading Earl, who moved like a sleepwalker, by the hand. An unfamiliar young man came to the door and explained that Dr. Dowler was away on his annual two-week fishing trip up north to Lac La Ronge and he, Dr. Evans, was relieving him.

  Mr. Stutz, seeing that matters were being taken in hand, sprang off the porch and hurried to raise the fire brigade as the young doctor directed Earl and Alec to the office at the back of the house. Because of the nuisance Alec made of himself on the walk through the house, talking of shock, pointing excitedly to the blisters forming on Earl’s neck and hands, and rushing through a garbled story of a fire, the doctor discouraged him from accompanying Earl into the examining room. “Wait here, please,” he said and shut the door in his face.

  For a half an hour Alec sat and watched the closed door, rubbing his hands together and stretching his face in grimaces. Then Stutz came in and took the chair beside him. “The fire truck’s off,” he said.

  Alec nodded, although he had scarcely heard what he had been told.

  “They still in there?”

  “Yes,” said Alec. It was obvious they were. The murmur of voices could be heard behind the closed door. Alec d
idn’t like it. The longer it went on, the more certain he was the news would be bad. Ten minutes more, fifteen. The door handle turned and Alec was on his feet, drying his hands on his pants legs before the door swung fully open. Dr. Evans ushered Earl out. Alec saw that one of his son’s hands was swathed in gauze and that dabs of greasy ointment glistened under the electric light nearly as much as his eyes, which appeared to be filled with tears.

  “Have a seat with your friend,” Dr. Evans said softly to Earl, indicating that he meant Mr. Stutz. Earl betrayed no sign that he had heard or understood the doctor, but remained where he stood, arms hanging slack at his sides. Stutz rose from his chair and guided Earl across the room by the elbow. “Here,” he whispered earnestly to the boy, “doctor means over here, Earl. Right here. See?”

  Dr. Evans turned to Monkman. “Could I have a word with you?” Alec followed him into the examining room and the doctor closed the door carefully after them, leaning against it until he heard it click shut. The room was small and crowded, because of the examining table there was hardly space left over for a couple of chairs. The two men were forced to sit face to face, their knees almost touching. The doctor breathed peppermint into Alec’s face. Alec didn’t wait for him to begin. “What’s wrong? Is Earl hurt bad somehow?” he demanded.

  The doctor was relieved to find he could begin on a note of reassurance. “No, from what I can gather your son was very lucky,” he said. “Most of his injuries are pretty superficial, a few first- and second-degree burns. He’ll be all right on that score.”

  “What about this shock business? That doesn’t look too hot to me.”

  “In pathological terms he’s not suffering from shock at all – not shock as a result of physical trauma at any rate. I’ve checked his blood pressure for instance and it’s not depressed, all other vital signs are normal.” The young doctor realized he had lost his listener. He hadn’t been long out of medical school and medical school clung to him still. He tried again. “We don’t have to worry about shock – not that kind at any rate,” he said.

  “Why don’t he talk then?” Alec asked. “Why does he look so Jesus awful then?”

  “He talked to me,” said Dr. Evans.

  “Earl never said a word to me or Stutz on the way in – you can ask Stutz.”

  “I don’t doubt he didn’t,” said the doctor. He paused before taking the next step. “Mr. Monkman,” he asked, “has your son ever mentioned anything to you about hearing voices?”

  Monkman gave the doctor an uncomprehending stare. It was clear he didn’t grasp the question. “How do you mean – voices?”

  “Voices which aren’t there. Voices with nobody speaking them. Voices that urge him to do things. Things like happened tonight.”

  “Christ.” There was no place for Alec to turn his eyes. The doctor was too close to him to avoid looking at.

  “No signs of anything like this before? No auditory hallucinations?” He rephrased the question. “I mean to say, he’s never heard things that weren’t there, or seen things that didn’t exist?”

  “No.” No sooner had he said that than Alec recollected Earl’s complaining of his mother banging cupboard doors and walking through the house after she was buried. Still, he was just a child at the time. It was nothing more than imagination and shouldn’t count. Yet the memory made him compromise. Guiltily he retreated, but only so far. “I’m not sure. Maybe. I haven’t seen much of him this summer.”

  “Let me ask you something else then. Has Earl ever tried to harm himself before tonight?”

  “Who says he tried to harm himself tonight?”

  Dr. Evans disregarded the challenge. “I know this isn’t a pleasant discussion – but I want you to tell me if he’s ever tried to hurt himself. He’s never burned himself with matches, or stuck himself with pins, has he? Nothing like that? Any exhibition of self-destructive behaviour before?”

  “On purpose, you mean?” asked Alec, astounded.

  “Yes, on purpose.”

  “If I had, I’d have self-destructed him. I’d have kicked his arse until he barked like a bloody fox,” asserted Monkman, shaken by outrage at the very idea. Imagine Earl, his gentle boy, ever doing such a thing!

  Dr. Evans tapped his jaw with the barrel of a fountain-pen. “It’s not, as you say, a question of ‘kicking him in the arse,’ ” he said severely. “That’s not how sick people are made better.” He paused to let his statement sink in. “And after what your boy has told me, I have no doubt he’s sick.”

  “He’s worn out with all the work he done this summer. He needs building up.”

  “He needs more than building up to get better.”

  “Whatever he needs, give it to him.”

  “It’s beyond me what he needs. I’m not equipped to give it to him. Neither is Dr. Dowler. No G.P. is. But there is a place he can go for treatment.”

  “What you’re talking about is the Mental, isn’t it?” said Monkman.

  “If you mean the Provincial Mental Hospital – yes, that’s exactly what I’m talking about.”

  “Fuck that noise. My Earl’s not going anywhere near that place.”

  Young Dr. Evans had expected as much. They had been warned at medical school to expect such reactions from families. “Listen,” he said, choosing his words carefully so that the man sitting across from him could comprehend, “there’s nothing to be ashamed of. Mental illness is an illness like any other, like pneumonia or appendicitis, say. If your boy had appendicitis you wouldn’t deny him treatment, would you? No, you’d say, ‘Do whatever needs to be done to make him well.’ That’s what you’d say, wouldn’t you? And another thing. It’s not the way it used to be there. Forget the old stories you may have heard. Most of them weren’t true anyway. There are new treatments now. Patients get well. They come back to their families and homes. You must understand. There’s nothing to be ashamed of.”

  Alec wasn’t ashamed. How to explain to the doctor? He clenched and unclenched his fists. “I couldn’t do it to him,” he said. “I couldn’t put him in a place like that, full of strangers, without a face he knows. He’s too shy. He isn’t capable. Ever since he was a little one, all he wanted was to be with his own, his family. Know what his sister called him? ‘Home-sticker.’ Because he wouldn’t play any place but his own yard. He was that timid, you see? All he wanted was home.”

  Alec hoped that what he said would make the doctor understand. He searched for some change in his manner, for some sign that he was no longer so sure. Monkman knew that otherwise he would have to give way. A simple, uneducated man like him could not, in the end, resist medical arguments, medical authority.

  The doctor’s face was implacable.

  It was Stutz and Alec who delivered Earl with the necessary papers. A long, exhausting drive with stretches of indescribably bad road. The men commented on the progress of the harvest to distract their minds from what they were doing.

  At one point in the trip Alec said to Stutz, “If anybody asks where Earl’s at – he went east to visit his sister and maybe to look for work. When he comes back better, he won’t need this as common knowledge.” Earl’s complete and unbroken silence had already caused his father to fall into the habit of talking about him as if he wasn’t present.

  Stutz pursed his lips disapprovingly. “That’s a lie.”

  Alec lost his temper, something he seldom did with Stutz. “If you’re too goddamn pure to tell a lie – then refer them to me. I can tell enough lies for the both of us if I need to. Just promise me to keep quiet. Can you do that much?”

  Quiet they both kept.

  17

  Although Vera had come to a decision, for nearly two weeks she held her cards close to her vest and gave no hint of what she was thinking, even when Stutz went fishing by reminding her that his offer still stood. She was behaving exactly as she had done years before when she joined the Army without taking anyone into her confidence. There’s many a slip betwixt cup and lip, Vera was fond of telling herself.r />
  That was part of it, but not all. She didn’t want to leave the impression of being desperate by grabbing at the money too quickly. It was undignified. A respectable delay between offer and cautious acceptance gave the whole transaction more of a business-like air and made it feel less like charity. There were reasons of pleasure, too. Vera liked the tease of anticipation, the slow boil of excitement that came with knowing she was going to shake and throw the dice. Last of all, she was not inclined to rush headlong into this because she half-expected to one day soon find her father on her doorstep, prepared to apologize. The great man himself, not Stutz.

  Sitting in the bare, rented shack without so much as a radio to distract her, pictures would form in her mind. There she stood with her father having a real conversation, all the pieces of the puzzle that was their lives falling into place and locking solid in exactly the way they never had before.

  And then suddenly she would be furious with herself for making the same stupid mistake she had been making since the first day she had set foot back in Connaught. Hoping for the miracle to occur, hoping that honesty, if nothing else, would force him to settle the score. How many times was she going to imagine him humbly saying it? “I was wrong to take you out of school, Vera. It was just that I couldn’t see what you had it in you to become.” Her saner self knew that hell would freeze over before she heard that. Twelve days passed, her moods swinging like the bob of a pendulum, and then her instincts directed her to put an end to it. There came a time even a man like Stutz lost patience. Besides, the edge was coming off the anticipation, the doubts multiplying and whispering too loudly.

  It was flattering to see how grateful Stutz was to her for taking his money. Once she had it safely transferred to her account Vera moved to make up for any time she had lost. Within two days of the transfer she had, with Stutz’s assistance, negotiated and signed a lease for The Bluebird Cafe, scratching her signature in a headlong scrawl that was the only sign she gave of how wild and impetuous she felt at that moment. There had been nothing like it since the Army.