Sweet Jesus (5 page)

Harlan checked the wall clock. It was ten to six. He lay down the web of wires he was holding in such a way that they would retain their shape, walked out from behind his worktable, and looked over at the counter. He told her later how he’d noticed her standing at the counter, with her hands
resting on the rim of an open cardboard box that could have been holding a litter of kittens, that there was something fragile about her features, and that he was moved.

I’ll get this, he’d said to his assistant and walked out to greet her.

They shook hands. Their eyes lingered. I don’t know what the problem is, Connie said, tucking a slip of hair behind her ear, the movement of her arm giving off the clean scent of laundry soap. So I brought the whole apparatus.

I can see that.

Was that silly of me?

No, not at all, Harlan said. Let me have a look.

He took the box back to his worktable. A small fuse had blown. Two wires had heated up and melded. Harlan fixed the wires and replaced the fuse with a used one – a fuse he knew would blow again in a couple of weeks. Twelve minutes later, Harlan returned with the box, explained what the problem had been, charged her eight dollars, and shook her hand once more. She smiled and Harlan said he wanted to see her smile that way at him twenty years down the road.

Ten days later, Connie was back with the same doorbell. This time Harlan didn’t scheme or plot. He simply asked her if she would allow him the privilege of taking her out to dinner. Connie put a hand to her cheek and looked down at the counter. It wasn’t like she never got asked this sort of thing, it was that she wasn’t used to feeling shy. Besides, she liked the way he looked at her so intently, with such interest. I’d like that, she said in a small voice. I’ll leave you my number.

Thirteen months later, after they’d announced their engagement, Harlan told Connie how he’d fixed her doorbell to break so that he would see her again. He told the story at a family dinner in front of Connie’s parents and her sister,
Hannah. Hannah had congratulated Harlan. It had seemed to make him more interesting in her eyes, more complex, as if the best thing a person could show you about themselves was something you didn’t already know or hadn’t guessed. It was a romantic gesture, and Hannah told her she liked him more for it, which made Connie feel uneasy. She didn’t want Hannah thinking about whether or not Harlan was romantic. But even her parents applauded the story. They took this small ambush as a measure of Harlan’s love for Connie and they approved of that. The family devoured the story like it was part of the meal they were sharing. It became part of their joint public history, and yet it still made Connie uncomfortable. She worried just a little that their relationship should be founded on a deception.

But I’m not complaining, Connie thought, smoothing the quilt under her hands, the snow-white quilt of her matrimonial bed. I have everything a woman could ask for. She reached for her leather Bible on the bedside table, unzipped it, flopped it open, and hit the page with her fingertip. Job 6, verse 6.
Can that which is unsavoury be eaten without salt? or is there
any
taste in the white of an egg?

It’s starting! Connie heard Mary-Beth shout again and went downstairs to watch the debate.

A
friend of Norm’s – Hannah couldn’t remember her name – twirled into the dining room, pushing the door open with her shoulder. She was wearing oven mitts and carried a roasted leg of lamb on an oblong dish. She had the graceful beauty of a poster girl for the proletariat. She could have been welding in a shipyard with her sleeves rolled up, singing rousing and patriotic songs to Newfoundland. She had a rosy hue to her cheeks and an inclusive nature. The lamb was steaming and crusted with rosemary and garlic. She put it down on the table and someone said, Look at that. Now
that’s
a work of art. The woman’s husband, Roger, followed with an aluminum bowl of crispy roast potatoes. He lifted the bowl to his face and used the back of his wrist to push his glasses up his nose.

Flo! Norman said.

Florence was her name, Hannah thought.

This looks fabulous!

Help yourself, Florence said with obvious pleasure. There was homemade mint sauce and yellow squash with nutmeg and
brown sugar, and a salad of spinach and roasted pecans with crumblings of blue cheese.

Roger put two more bottles of red wine on the table, already open and inhaling the North Atlantic air. Norman Peach sat down diagonally across from Hannah. She watched him reach forward and scoop a bottle by the neck and start topping up glasses with the ease of someone entitled. He often took charge of the celebrations, confirmed or initiated them. People enjoyed it, it put them at ease. His enthusiasm was the honey glaze on an evening.

To the hunt, Norm said, raising his glass.

To the hunt! everyone cheered.

Hannah took a sip and savoured the spicy vanilla sweetness on the sides of her tongue.

Norm’s friend Mona Terrance was telling a story about a couple who were not present but had attended a garden party in the fall. Mona was wearing a red sweater with gold thread in it and her skin glowed like bone china. Her face was framed by a halo of jet black curls that bounced as she talked. She was animated, almost manic. It was riveting and slightly distressing to watch her talk.

She was standing at the opposite end of the pool, Mona said, holding a small plate of sandwiches. She saw her seven-year-old son sink into the deep end, a foot away from her husband, who was engrossed in conversation with this really beautiful young woman who works at Auntie Crae’s. She flung her plate onto the grass and literally dove into the pool in her little blue dress! Mona shook her head as if her own black curls had just got wet. The whole party stopped dead in its tracks. Her husband was standing right there by the edge of the pool and he was seething. He was
furious
, Mona said, smacking the table and pitching forward. He glared at her and said, I could
have done that. Mona narrowed her eyes and tightened her lips against her teeth.

Florence said, Now you’re just exaggerating. I was there. The front of her dress was wet, but that was from picking him up.

She jumped in! Mona protested.

She yanked him out by the shorts!

Hannah thought, these Newfoundland women have such a bold confidence. They’re outspoken and aggressive and preoccupied with the huge melodrama of their lives. It offended her inbred puritan humility. In truth, it made her jealous. But to celebrate the importance of your own life – there was a difference between that and vanity. She felt uptight and repressed. Of course, she knew that wasn’t how other people saw her. When Norm looked across the table, what he saw was a good-looking and adventurous woman who spoke two languages, rode a motorcycle, had lived in seven different cities, and had a wild past but still kept a heart that was soft and sentimental.

You know, it’s the women who overreact in situations like that, Roger said. It’s not that the men are indifferent.

The men are more self-conscious, Mona said. They have a higher breaking point for composure. That’s why it takes them longer to react. They’re like chicks that have to hatch out of their monumental composure before they can come to anyone’s assistance.

Men like it when their sons take risks, Florence said, joining forces with Mona to take sides against the men. They see a boy climbing out on a limb and they think, Go on, my son. Attaboy.

Exactly, Mona said. It makes them proud.

Do you think so? Norm said. In my experience, it’s the women who push the envelope. They’re the crazy ones. And they admire craziness in others.

Six people turned to look at Hannah. She shrugged. The conversation moved on. Hannah looked around the room for an excuse to seem distracted. The friendship around the table was a river in which she was standing hip-deep, braced against the current. It was all so heady – the palpable giddy conspiracy of old friendship – and she felt excluded. There was something antagonistic about this evening too, a teasing she couldn’t participate in because it was the property of knowledge and trust. It was the careless treatment of someone you love. The way Norm would attack Mona on a point of no significance was a lot like flirting, a public intimacy. So Hannah sulked a little, even as she chided herself for the sulking.

The dining room was large and square and wood-panelled. Old plates salvaged from the sea were propped on the wainscoting and gleamed like moons. There were small clay pipes, tossed overboard two hundred years ago and covered now in barnacles or lime scale or white coral. An empty iron candelabra hung from the ceiling like a black fishhook and on the table were red candles in baby food jars half-filled with sand. Outside, the rain was slashing the windows with a sound like shuffled cards, as if a game was being dealt against the house. Mona laughed and put her arm around Norm and leaned into him. A candle flame slid into view on the window behind her. The room was so hot and humid. The music from the living room was thick and heavy too. An old blues man’s voice. This was the Newfoundland tropical effect. They were expert, it seemed, at creating artificial weather systems and had sealed, within this clapboard house, all the warm fecundity of a greenhouse.

The woman sitting across from Hannah had a pale wide face and the rich red luxurious hair of a chow. So remind me, she said, how long have you two been together?

Bernice McFaddon and Norman Peach went way back. She had once given him advice when a lesbian couple wanted Norm to father their child. They wanted his sperm and no other commitment. She listened and said, What, are you fucking crazy? In this town? The child would be walking down the street in fifteen years and see you coming and buckle at the knees. In a moment, it would destroy the both of you.

Almost two years, Hannah said.

Is that
it
? Bernice said. Christ, I thought it was longer than that. You know, I don’t know anything about you. You’re a nurse, aren’t you?

Hannah’s head jerked back, her chin tucked into her neck.

I thought I heard.

A nurse? Hannah said.

I don’t know, Bernice said. You seem. So what is it you do?

I’m a writer.

Oh God, Bernice said, not another writer. And she showed her vexation by resting her wrists on the table and looking sideways at Norm, but he didn’t notice her. A car passed and silver raindrops flashed on the black windows like beads of mercury.

So, what do
you
do? Hannah asked.

Bernice took a mouthful of lamb. She rolled her eyes and waved her fork, chewing gallantly. It’s too complicated, she said.

What do you mean?

Bernice said, It’s hard to explain. She was cleaning her lips with her tongue.

Try me, Hannah said. She couldn’t tell whether this evasion on Bernice’s part was self-effacing or supercilious. She was still bristling about being called a nurse.

She’s a sometimes-academic, the man to Hannah’s right said, a sometimes-chef, and a full-time mom. This was Mona
Terrance’s dashing husband and he sat at the head of the table. He wore a thin red bandana twisted and tied around his neck like a Spaniard. He was smiling with apparent delight, but on whose behalf or at whose expense Hannah couldn’t tell. She was starting to feel a little persecuted.

See? Bernice said modestly. It’s not important.

But that sounds interesting to me, Hannah said and reached for one of the bottles. If she had to admit, she was a bit afraid of people. She feared that they would always, ultimately, reject her. Norm and I went to Bell Island yesterday, she told Bernice, rallying herself. It’s such a beautiful place. We met this old guy on the ferry and his accent was so thick I could hardly understand him.

Yeah, and I’ve met a lot of mainlanders I couldn’t understand either, Bernice said, tossing her napkin onto her plate and giving it a small push.

Really?

She nodded.

Like who.

People from Toronto.

Come on.

I’m serious.

But it was like this guy was speaking a completely different language, Hannah said. Even his expressions were foreign to me.

Maybe that’s what he was thinking about you too.

But I speak so obviously. I don’t think he was having any difficulty understanding
me
.

How do you know?

I live in a big city. It’s a pool for accents. They all get watered down. He’s living in a remote place. Language evolves idiosyncratically in isolation.

Maybe he doesn’t appreciate you coming along and making him feel idiosyncratic.

Hannah stared at Bernice.

Maybe he doesn’t think where he comes from is so remote or so isolated.

I’m not trying to, I mean, this is an island. Take any island. It’s like the Irish.

We’re not Irish.

But it’s similar. Have you ever been?

No, why would I want to go there? As if I could afford to go travelling, she said, turning to Mona’s husband and appealing to him for sympathy. You know what it’s like.

We should all get honorary degrees in parenting, he said, in addition to the ones in our specialized fields.

But instead what you’ve got is a small-town superiority complex, Hannah thought, concentrating on the act of slipping her fork underneath a shiny mottled spinach leaf. If this party were bundled under furs, galloping across the Russian steppes in a horse-drawn sled, Hannah knew she’d be the first one thrown to the wolves. And this certainty made her dwell on all the things that set her apart, until she alighted on her own childlessness.

Everyone at the table was married with kids, except for her and Norm, and Hannah wanted so badly to be a mother – the constant, gentle, protective presence in a child’s life. They all had a reason to rush importantly away from the dinner party at a single phone call, and Hannah yearned to be that crucial to someone, to have the clarity of being indispensable, of having that one responsibility above all others, to have that sweet, hard relationship with a child, all those tender, casual caresses, navigating the small urgent dramas of childhood, to have her own chosen family. And she’d be good at it, felt there was a talent
there, untapped. She’d be tolerant and fun, make time and take an interest, be patient and adventurous, with an easy, generous affection. She would adore without smothering. Ask very little in return. She was already preparing for the inevitable separation. Taking the high road. Sending her child off to college. Hope is so reckless, it can actually catapult you ahead of the incident you are wishing for so you can practise feeling nostalgic about it.