The Second Life of Samuel Tyne (13 page)

Porter nodded gravely.

Akosua lowered her eyes and, in a dry little voice, said, “Ladies, please accept sincere and humble apologies on behalf of my family. It was far from our intent to give offence or do harm, and we hope you bear us no ill will.”

Maud felt mortified for the woman. She studied Porter in a darker light. “We’re as much to blame as anyone. Please forgive
our …
”

Eudora pinched Maud’s arm. She was a woman who didn’t make apologies she didn’t mean. Maud understood this, and though pained, she stopped mid-sentence.

Thanking the Porters for their hospitality, Maud and Eudora left. Maud in a sombre mood; Eudora in an annoyingly chatty one.

“See,
that’s
what I mean,” said Eudora.
“We
have practically no children, while
they
—liars, hypocrites, all of them. Can you believe her nagging you for not having a proper burial, and then behaving like that? I tell you, the only time they were right in there was when he said it’s the end of the world.”

“I’ve got a headache,” said Maud.

They walked in silence.

While Maud and Eudora were making their fated visit to the Porters’, the girls had spent the hot afternoon annoying each other. Ama sat on her cot, underlining likeable passages in
Alice in Wonderland
and watching the magpies in the spruce outside fight a family of sparrows from their nest. Her detachment no longer upset her. Every once in a while she would glance over at Yvette, who had thrown herself under the blankets, never to be seen again. The twins now refused to speak to each other. Though Ama hadn’t seen their fight, she’d heard it, and judging from Yvette’s face, it had been harsh.

Ama hadn’t known what to say. She looked with apprehension at the lump under the torn blue blanket, and averted her eyes whenever she sensed Yvette listening. Since the night the twins had disappeared from their beds after destroying the last of Yvette’s new clothes, Yvette hadn’t really spoken to Ama. It was as if the day they’d gone for milkshakes or their walk with Mrs. Tyne hadn’t happened. Hurt, Ama nevertheless felt Yvette only needed to be shown patience, compassion, for her to come round.

Still, Ama averted her eyes. By the time Chloe walked in she’d begun to nod off.

Chloe looked stunned, as if she’d ended up where she’d least intended to be. She leaned against the wall, her trembling hands clutching at her frilly collar. Her fear seemed real, and yet cinematically excessive. Ama hesitated, waiting for Yvette to emerge from under the blanket. Yvette did so slowly, not once taking her eyes off her sister.

“What do you want?” she said.

Chloe clutched her collar oddly, as if choking. Ama and Yvette got off their beds to see if she was all right, but hesitated; fear hung like a repellent field around her. Ama, too, began to feel her dread, her hackles rising. Only Yvette remained reluctant.

“The cat.” Chloe could barely speak.

Yvette frowned. “A carnivore of genus
Felis
, especially the domesticated kind or any of the smaller wild species.”

Ama turned to Chloe. “What cat?”

Yvette sat, looking amused. “Tabby, Siamese, short-haired sphinx.”

“It’s crazy!” said Chloe.

“Cat-o’-nine-tails, cathood, catkin, catling, cattery, cattish, Kaddish.”

Chloe frowned. “Shut up.”

“Catamountain, cat burglar, catcall, catfish, cathead, cathouse.”

Ama put her hands to her ears and shut her eyes. When she opened them again, both twins were looking blankly at her.

“Cat and mouse,” said Yvette. She shrugged. “We don’t have a cat.”

“I don’t know where it came from, but”—her lip began to tremble theatrically—“it was in the backyard, on the far side. I went outside to look, to see what the neighbours had done to the grass, and there was this cat, and he was crazy, with wild, wet hair, and his mouth had this stringy stuff hanging from it. He had this limp, draggy paw, and I started to run, but he was chasing me, all crazy, and I thought he’d bite me, and I didn’t want to bring him back to the house, so I cornered him, oh, it was awful!”

“Calm down,” said Yvette. “Where did you say it was?”

“I tricked him into that rusty shed at the edge of the yard. I locked him in there.” Chloe’s voice filled with wonder. “I shouldn’t have locked him in there, should I?”

Ama flinched when Chloe looked at her.

“Show us,” said Yvette. “You’ve got to show us.”

“What are you going to do about it?”

“What do you think? Chase it away.” Yvette left the room.

Ama heard the twins descend the stairs and, afraid of being left alone, she followed. Events in the twins’ lives seemed to happen severely and without warning. She looked tensely at them.

Outside the heat was so strong it had already aged the more sensitive greenery. The grass, once a sea of luminous green whips, had been cut with military precision. All smelled of loam and resin, and there was a pervasive weight to the air that seemed to deaden the trees. Otherwise, the sky was a clean, piercing blue.

Chloe led them through the field, chattering away, pleased at being the centre of attention. But she seemed to realize her sudden cheerfulness was inappropriate to the moment and stopped talking. Before too long they’d reached the edge of Porter’s yard, which, despite its upkeep, felt shabby. They could hear the house creaking in the weak wind, and there was something infinitely sad about the way the rusted bicycles leaned against the siding. Chloe led them to a tin shed, its hinges red with rust, and the three paused outside of it, their breath quickening.

Yvette’s hand trembled on the latch. Exhaling, she pulled the door ajar. Squinting into the darkness, she paused before swinging the door open fully and jumping back.

All three girls grabbed each other, ready to scream. But the shed was vacant save for a few crumpled paint cans, a sack of cement and an ancient pair of grey-striped overalls.

“Nice joke, Chloe,” said Yvette, narrowing her eyes.

Chloe looked closer. “It was here. Yvette, it was here.”

Ama grew anxious. But all of a sudden and quite unexpectedly, Yvette turned and hugged her sister. Ama stood apart. No one dared again dispute the cat’s existence.

chapter
THIRTEEN

D
espite the loosened tie and new lease on life, Samuel found himself incapable of that pride so attractive in a man on the verge of success. This came as a strange realization, for owning a house and a business had always been the great grail of his life. Now that he’d so easily achieved what he’d most wanted, he could not enjoy it, and only agonized over its possible loss. Nostalgia seized him; he’d spend cold nights at the belching fireplace, gazing at the ash and thinking of Calgary. He was like a man who blinds himself to hear better, and finds he cannot navigate by sound alone. It was ridiculous, and at the heart of it, Samuel blamed his corrupted sense of time for his troubles. In Gold Coast, when business was slow, a complaint held the same weight as a comment against the weather. Goods would wait, and people would come, and if there was a lapse in coordination, then God had ordained it. No cause for worry, business was a tide with both its highs and its lows, and only a fool didn’t know that one followed the other. Everything had its season. Life in the tropics could not be wrestled into a schedule, and the people could live no other way. They did not rush to meetings in fear of being late, for without them, the meeting would not begin. They did not fear missing the bus, for without enough people, the bus would wait hours. Which made sense: without people, a meeting becomes an empty room; a bus becomes a metal husk without a destination. The Sabbath was made for the sake of man, not man for the sake of the Sabbath; thus the son of man is lord even of the Sabbath.

Here, time was immovable. Absolute. It ran on regardless of man or season, a tyrant who sees the face of a friend in the crowd and still issues the order to fire. It put Samuel on edge, left him constantly chasing the clock. It was this sense of time that Samuel struggled with, a web of scheduling that made him unable to enjoy his shop. For, in all truth, things were going wonderfully. He was making a fine living off his handiwork, and within a few slim weeks he’d established a solid client base by reputation alone. He was the man of miraculous hands who had the grace not to charge too much. An electronics prodigy. One man went so far as to jest that his son, in traction at the Edmonton General, would be dancing in a week at a touch from Samuel’s hands. Samuel developed a virtuoso’s assuredness in his work, even while doubting his choice to abandon his government job.

He was really like two men at this point, for no single life seemed right for him. He felt himself to be much more than what others gave him credit for, than what he gave himself credit for, than what life was letting him be. There was such feeling in him, in all of us, he thought, and what kind of God would tempt us with such potential and not give us the chance to fulfil it. He grew sick with this thought, sick on this success that he couldn’t make matter to him, and he was so worried that one morning he woke spitting blood. “Stomach troubles,” the doctor had admonished him on a sly visit to Edmonton, “You should quit your job and get an easier one.” And Samuel had nodded, taken the prescription back to Aster and never said a word to his wife.

Ray dropped by the shop the week after Samuel visited his farm. He kept his truck idling outside, which hurt Samuel’s feelings; Ray meant to use it to quicken his escape if the conversation turned sour.

“My own John Ware,” said Ray. “How are you liking the cat?”

“Oh, he is a tiger, that one. Always trying to run away. Certainly the girls keep an eye on him, but one cannot always hold their eye on a cat.”

Ray chuckled. “Old Oliver’s got some kick in him yet.”

The only kind of kick Samuel wished on Oliver was the kind that would send him miles from the Tyne house. He remembered the old cat’s eyes. “Amen,” he said. “Amen.”

Ray explained he’d dropped by to ask Samuel and Maud to dinner to commemorate the four-week anniversary of the shop. “It’s really just an excuse for a piss up,” Ray laughed. “Got some home-grown pork for you.”

The slaughter of the calf was ever-present in Samuel’s mind, especially in those ponderous hours of repair. And though his beliefs (which he’d let lapse anyway) didn’t forbid it, he’d always felt pork to be a disgrace to one’s body. Swine were the filthiest of animals, and Samuel wondered what their worth would be if people hadn’t claimed them as food. Samuel looked apprehensively at Ray, exhaling a perfect, girlish giggle. Ray frowned.

“Coming or not, Tyne?”

And whether it was because he felt he had embarrassed his friend by laughing, or whether deep inside him he wanted to settle his mixed feelings about Ray, Samuel agreed to go. The time was set for seven that evening, and after he’d called to let Maud know, Samuel sat down to his work with a sense of foreboding.

Maud was equally nervous as they parked in the Franks’ driveway. It surprised Samuel; Maud behaved as though they were to dine with high-ranking officials. She fussed over Samuel’s clothes, and asked with aggressive melancholy if she’d chosen the wrong clothes herself. Samuel snapped.
“Eh
, what, are your eyes broken?” He gestured at the Frank house. “Is it Buckingham Palace you see here, eh? Have we come to the high courts of Haile Selassie? Get a hold of yourself.”

“Talk to me like that again and you’ll see what I get a hold of,” said Maud. Her look of anger, which she could hold longer than any woman Samuel had known in his life, silenced him. He often thought to himself, as he did now, that this look was her sole talent in life. The thought gave him both a vicious pleasure and a flare of guilt. They’d almost reached the door when Samuel saw the blinds crawling closed. Eudora must have been watching.

A cold greeting awaited them. It was clear from Eudora’s face that she assumed Samuel’s gesturing had been to punctuate some slur on her house. She took the Tynes’ coats with apparent displeasure, indulging a childish anger, though Samuel couldn’t help but feel guilty. But Maud understood; for Eudora Frank, a woman was her home. And Eudora’s home was her creation, her only child, her thirty years’ labour.

Ray rose through a doorway that led to the cellar-turned-den. All of his bristling distaste from that afternoon had left his features. He was in a jovial mood, even making faces behind Eudora’s back when she set down their drinks. Eudora looked ill at ease in a gingham dress stressed at the seams, and Samuel was mildly alarmed at Ray’s smirks and grimaces because he couldn’t fathom that Ray actually meant to make fun of his own wife’s weight. He diverted his eyes to the painting above Ray’s head, which depicted a man on a dromedary scaling a sand dune. What an extraordinary animal, thought Samuel, and he could not resist picturing himself upon the splendid beast, a poncho blighting the cold, a thin cigarette pinched in his stern mouth. Samuel caught himself. He turned his attention back to the conversation, for one who dreams while awake is either prophet or madman. And there was nothing oracular about Samuel. Maud gave her husband a mystified look.

Ever fickle, Eudora’s anger had lapsed. She fidgeted with new energy, and as she waited to respond to Maud, her hands moved like sparrows in her lap. This distracted Samuel, who marvelled that even when silent Eudora drew attention to herself. In fact, he thought, glancing around the room, the furniture itself seemed subordinate to her, anticipating her commands. The beige loveseat with buttons like sagging nipples seemed especially aghast, sighing under Eudora’s weight. Beside it, a lamp cocked its prune shade at her face and listened with exaggerated respect. Samuel smiled.

Maud gave her husband a warning look, surrendering the conversation to Eudora, who obviously wanted to talk.

“And where are your Three Wise Men?” Eudora said.

“Wisely staying out of trouble, I hope,” said Maud. “They wanted to stay home, and I decided they were getting to a trustworthy age.”

Eudora made an incredulous face. “At twelve years old? My parents didn’t ever leave me home alone until I was almost nineteen. Even then they were pretty scared,
more
scared, even—I was quite a looker, you know.” She winked.

Maud smiled nervously, aware her judgement was being criticized. “All I know is that when
I
was growing up, I was left alone from earlier than I can remember. And not just left alone—left alone to take care of children even younger than myself.” When she laughed, there was a great deal of breath in it.

“Different strokes for different folks,” said Ray.

Maud made a dour face. She’d begun to find it rather imperious of the Franks, a childless couple, to comment on her parenting. “Anyways, it’s been so long since the twins have gotten along that I thought this might help things.”

“Squabblers are they?” said Ray.

“Oh, in the worst sense,” said Eudora, turning to him with sudden excitement. “A week ago one cut up the other’s clothes. Brand new, they were, and not even a scrap left to dust with!”

“Devils!” said Ray, sipping his beer. He had refused even a drop of the blood-coloured wine, insisting that he couldn’t betray his fifty-year relationship with malt brew for some cheap runner-up. Everyone had laughed, Eudora blushing furiously. So what the Franks were serving was little richer than vinegar. Maud quietly absorbed the insult; she was determined to enjoy herself.

“Don’t worry, though,” continued Ray. “You two are so
model
, your girls are bound to work themselves out. And Ama seems like good company. And”—Ray winked—“now they got—”

“What an angel she is,” said Eudora, fiddling with a button at her chest that had somehow come undone.

Ray continued as though his wife hadn’t spoken. “Now they got old Oliver Orange watching over them.”

“Oliver Orange?” said Maud. She looked from Eudora to Ray with amused confusion on her face.

“You gave them Oliver Orange?” said Eudora in admonishment. “He was my favourite. Oh, well, I guess. Oh, well. I suppose those girls need the comfort of a pet more than I do.”

Maud looked questioningly at Samuel, whose face tried to accomplish a look that would appease everybody. “The cat,” he said, a curious waver in his voice. “Oliver Orange the cat. By now, though, he has possibly run away. The twins have never been good guardians for pets. Is it not so, Maud?”

Maud gave a gruff nod.

Samuel laughed nervously. “It is possible he has even escaped to Mr. Porter’s yard, and possibly beyond it.” His laugh grew dry. “First stop, Aster. Next stop, the world,” he joked.

Ray broke the silence good-naturedly.

“Oliver Orange was always less a pet than a citizen of the world, it’s true. And if he only got as far as Saul Porter’s house, well, then, there are more than enough kids there to enjoy him. Hey, speak of the devil, I hear you just met the old codger the other day, Sam. You give him my message?”

“I
told
you—that was just Maud and me,” said Eudora.

Now it was Samuel’s turn to look incredulously at Maud. And here transpired one more of life’s ironies: Maud was guilty of the very crime she’d suspected her husband of. With a dignity that surprised Maud, Samuel reached indifferently for his drink.

“But
she’s
a piece of work,” said Eudora. “The Middle-Aged Old Woman Who Lived in a Shoe. How’s it go? Got so many children …? Really, it was like being surrounded—oh, got to check on the roast.”

Ray scrutinized his wife’s hips, drinking his beer. “I tell you, we’ve got a policy to change in this country if we don’t want to see another depression. Year after year, rules of entry just get laxer, and if we keep on like this, we don’t risk just our culture, but bankrupting ourselves. What happened with ranching turn of last century could happen to any other cornerstone of our culture. People come over, need land, so the government sells off what it’s been leasing to ranchers. All went to new farms.”

“Aren’t you a farmer?” said Maud. “How can you complain?”

“I know where my heart’s at. And what happened to ranching could happen to farming, easy. Cities are growing like a cancer, and they have to, what with newcomers’ demands, but pretty soon the whole of Alberta will be one big city. Sam was right to leave the city, he was right in helping to fend off the inevitable. I only hope there’ll be more to turn the tide.”

Maud frowned. Eudora returned and sat. “We eat in five minutes,” she said. There was a second of silence. “Why so serious, everyone?”

“Look,” said Ray, straining up in his seat, his glasses halfway down his nose so that the frames dissected his eyes. “I may not have a diploma to qualify my knowledge, but I read like no one I’ve seen, and I know my history. You get the Chinese who came up for the railroad last century, and God bless them for their excellent work, Mormons came in droves from Utah, bringing five, ten wives and who knows how many children. Russians, Hungarians, French Catholics, Jews—did nothing but starve once they got here. And you get ex-slaves—Porter himself. Now, tell me, where is there to put all these people? And don’t mistake me. I’m talking from a perfectly practical standpoint.”

“There was obviously space if all these people are still here,” said Maud. She gave Samuel an uncertain look, but with Ray’s eyes on him, Samuel only smiled.

Ray asked Eudora for another beer, licking the rim of the one he’d just finished. “I didn’t mean to get you on the defence,” said Ray in his soft voice. With his spectacles sloped to the end of his nose, he looked rather professorial. “It’s not my intent to say these people shouldn’t be here, or even don’t have the right to be here. That’s not for me to choose. I only mean to point out that if they’re going to be here, they’ve got to accept not only the benefits but the responsibilities of being Canadian. A country’s not just a piece of land. What makes a nation a nation is when a group of like-minded people decide to work towards common causes, common goals.” He paused to ruminate on his empty bottle. “People who aren’t interested in the concerns of language, religion, politics, all that, can’t rightly call themselves
active
citizens. Really, now, think about it.”

“You mean us,” said Maud dryly.