A Circle on the Surface Read online

  “Too late, as you can see.” Enman gave him a friendly nudge. “But next time would be nice.”

  Inside, the movie house was only half full. No problem at all, Enman thought; being packed in like herrings to watch a goofy musical on such a night was an experience he could live without. He would almost rather be in Hubley’s two-room house listening to Hill’s records. Out of earshot of Una, he would not have felt quite so self-conscious playing along. He had an idea that Hill was avoiding their place, having sensed that Una was not a fan of his music. While waiting for the movie to start, she squeezed his hand. “I can’t wait to see what happens, can you?” Then she laughed and kissed his ear. “Oh, En. Look, sorry for being a pill, okay?”

  12

  Beggars can’t be choosers, Una supposed, sandwiched between a stranger hogging the armrest on one side of her and Enman hogging the other. Settling in his seat, making it creak, he looked uncannily like his mother. Instead of watching the opening scenes he peered around, counting on his fingers. Counting heads? The place holds what, three hundred? she imagined him asking the manager, for his own edification.

  Enman wasn’t the biggest Mickey Rooney fan, he had admitted. Then he had wondered if perhaps, somehow, Carmel Rooney might be related to the star.

  “Why would she be? Give me one reason why you’d ask that.”

  “Anything’s possible.”

  Bored. Now he was bored. Well, let him be, Una thought. Let him have one small taste of how it feels sitting through something that’s not his cup of tea. Just for once.

  Except, his fidgeting was distracting. It kept pulling her eyes from the screen. She elbowed him. “Quit counting. I know that’s what you’re doing. It’s what you do when you’d rather be someplace else. If you didn’t want to come, why did you?”

  It was something she asked herself these days, repeatedly, about her being in Barrein.

  Someone behind them let out a sharp shhh. Briefly Enman’s face became a moon, a bland, passive moon in a sea of such moons. A slightly smelly sea, a waft of B.O. spiced up the dark. Then he was shifting again, glancing around as if the audience was the entertainment. A couple in the seats ahead were sharing something barely concealed in a paper bag.

  Una gritted her teeth. She wondered if Enman was longing for a drink, a longing she had not imagined him having, until after his mother’s death. Was he wishing that Flood fellow was in the bar business? Twisting in his seat, Enman let his bare arm stick to hers. His breathing made a whistling sound, making it hard to concentrate on what Rooney and Judy Garland were saying. Una focused harder on Judy’s glossy hair and Rooney’s cute monkey face, his mouth a far cry from Carmel Rooney’s.

  People’s laughter further blotted out half of what was being said. Until last winter, she would have used her schoolmarm’s voice and asked them to keep it down. But getting fired had undermined her feeling of authority, and a whole term of being away from school had further eroded her confidence. It was only now that she realized this. At least the dialogue wasn’t crucial. And the visuals offered a vicarious little thrill, even a brief vacation from her own love life, following Danny and Ginger’s. She unstuck her arm from Enman’s.

  Without moving her eyes from the screen, she angled then idled her hand on his thigh. His muscles tensed. She inched it higher. God, marriage had come to this, turned her into a groper?

  Enman grasped her hand and held it, tenderly. When she tried to replace it he whispered hoarsely, loud enough that everyone around them had to hear, “Please, Una.”

  She tried to focus on the dancers onscreen cutting the rug to Tommy Dorsey’s dizzying tunes. But then the music reminded her of her old principal, who had bragged to staff about doing the Lindy hop. Stop it, she told herself. Quit thinking thoughts that drag you down. Didn’t Kit have a phrase that had to do with private thoughts, a person’s jardin intérieure. Marriage had a way of wrenching open the gates of a woman’s, or trying to. God forbid, fussing and fretting beside her, Enman would be a marauding deer ready to march in and munch away at her thorns and blooms. And what about his garden? The one in his mind, not the one he tended as if his mother could see it—was his interior garden full of flowers or weeds?

  Oh, damn. Damn. At the thought of weeds, the tangle of all she held back from him, about what had happened at work, how little by little, being in Barrein she felt herself and her world shrinking, a tear slid down her cheek. She blamed him for being too naïve to see through her idleness last Christmas, for the way his kindness made it necessary to keep the details of what had happened last December to herself. Focus on your own inner garden, for godsake. Keep it pretty. Picture roses, a crystal-blue pool. The trouble was, it occurred to her, maybe she had somehow deserved to end up in Barrein.

  Mickey’s lips were suction-cupped to Judy’s when the lights flashed and flooded on. The movie continued playing. People stirred but stayed in their seats. But somewhere near the entrance was a rustling slightly louder than the swish of Judy’s dress. People in the front rose to let someone by. The gawky man who had taken their tickets stood with his back to the screen and shielded his eyes against the film’s brightness. Amid a chorus of boos, he made an announcement. Only then did Una spy the Mountie in the wings.

  “There’s been an incident—a suspicion of an incident, that is. No need for alarm, ladies and gents. But the ARP has asked for an evacuation of the theatre. The sergeant here requests that we leave in an orderly fashion.”

  The man who had helped Enman to the water at the fire hall appeared then. He was dressed in his air raid gear, his axe, gas mask, and other bomb squad apparatus strapped over his overalls.

  “Reports of a sighting?” The man next to Una spoke with a lisp. “My cousin up the road runs the store there, and she said—”

  “No need to get worked up, folks. We’re just being cautious.”

  “This is just a drill? Half an hour left and you stopped the show?” The woman in front of Una demanded her money back. But everyone else was standing and people were making their way glumly towards the exit. Enman pulled Una to her feet as the rows emptied.

  “If anyone sees anything out of the ordinary,” the ARP man was saying to Mr. Flood.

  “It’s not like there’s a bomb.” Flood sounded peeved.

  “A bomb?” A man shoved past Una, stepping on her foot.

  She felt a burst of impatience, leaning against Enman. “I would like to know how it ends.” She elbowed him, and tried to joke. “Are ‘Danny and Ginger’ going to live happily ever after?” Her voice felt high, her breath tight in her chest.

  “This is a little more exciting than what we were watching.” Enman tugged her through the crowd funnelling into the lobby.

  She sniffed. “We paid good money for that.”

  Teenagers jumped the rope cordoning off another door.

  Enman nodded politely to the Mountie who was now positioned outside. “What’s the trouble, officer?” The policeman was taller than Enman, handsome and young, his face shiny with sweat.

  “Move along,” they were told. People stood in clusters on the boardwalk, some chatting nervously, others griping about being gypped. “Least they can do is give us tickets for tomorrow,” someone said, “I’ve waited all year to see this.”

  Overhearing, Enman raised a brow and spoke to Una under his breath. “Poor bugger.” He grinned. Enman was not going to drive all this way again for the sake of thirty minutes. She felt disappointed but she also felt jittery, half-fear, half-delight. Titillation, almost, that something was happening. The feeling sank to nothing when she glimpsed the Goodrows standing under the streetlamp, which had not been extinguished. Its light reassured Una that the disturbance was a hoax.

  “Far as I’m concerned, darkness just gives the enemy cover.” Win was speaking loudly, hoping to enlist an audience? When she spied Una and Enman Win’s face lit up. She spoke to Una first. “What’s
buzzin’, cousin? Don’t ask me what’s going on. They should be strung up, whoever made us miss the lovey-dovey part, eh, Clinton?” Win’s smiled faded as the Mountie passed. It was no secret how her boys kept O’Leery in contraband goods. Win nudged Enman. “You and Flood are buds, aren’t you? Ask him what’s really up.”

  Flood was being swarmed by people wanting refunds. But then another officer appeared, a navy man. Even in the dim light the buttons and braid on his jacket shone. If not for his grey hair he’d have given the Mountie a run for his money in the handsomeness department. Una had always liked the look of men in military uniforms. The ARP fellow, wearing a fireman’s torn overalls, was cracking jokes with another man dressed the same.

  “False alarm, everyone. Hooligans, that’s all.” The navy brass got into a shiny black car in front of the theatre, leaving the Mountie to disperse the crowd. Lying on the dirt beside the boardwalk was a book. Una stooped to retrieve it. A ratty paperback, a Webster’s dictionary, half the pages falling out.

  “I’ll take that, ma’am.” The Mountie snatched it from her. As she stood back, Win’s eyes widened.

  “There you go, proof of the enemy.” Enman laughed.

  Clinton shook his head. “Shame you and steady old Hubley won’t be playing the Labour Day dance. Guess he needs a fiddler he’s sure will stick around, someone he can rely on.”

  “That’s not a problem.” Enman avoided Una’s eyes, cleared his throat. “Anyway, it’s no big deal.”

  “That’s not what Hubley says.” Then Clinton pointed to the road. “You two walk here, or what? Don’t tell me, Enman, you finally give up driving that piece of shit?”

  Una looked straight at Win. “I wish.”

  “Now honey,”—Win gazed straight back—“if I was you I might be careful what I wish for.”

  “Piece of—?” Enman saw the empty space before Una did. The car should have been right there, where they had parked it. Una felt her pulse rise, linked her arm through his arm, felt his tighten. “Una?” Enman looked stunned, almost as incredulous as the first time she had unbuttoned herself and with few preliminaries pressed his hand to her chest.

  “You’re sure?” Clinton was saying. “You parked ’er here yourself?”

  “Dying dirt. Who’d steal a jallahpee like that?” Under different circumstances, Win’s mispronunciation would have piqued Una’s longing to correct her: “A jalopy, you mean?” If Enman hadn’t looked so unnerved, Una might have burst into nervous laughter.

  Why didn’t they go to the Shady Grove next door, have a bite, calm down, and figure out what to do, Clint suggested.

  “We should call the police.” Una tried not to speak as if telling a child to tie his shoes.

  For once, Win aimed to be helpful. “It can’t be far, anyway, Enman. Once whoever stole it realizes.”

  “You got to admit, if you were bagging a vehicle, you’d pick one,”—Clint cast about for the right words—“well, like that,” as a new-looking Ford pulled out of the Grove’s lot, turning heads. Una could not imagine anyone paying more than thirty dollars for the Chev. Enman looked like he might be sick. The car was a memento of his friend, after all.

  Despite the hour, a light burned in the hotel lobby, if you could call it a lobby, Una thought, the clerk at a desk tucked under the hallway stairs. The dining room was closed; likewise the garage across the street, which wouldn’t open till morning, said the girl, hearing of their trouble. “No cop’s coming all the way back out here for this, not this time of night.” Regaining her bearing, Una mentioned the Mountie, but the others ignored her. Opening a bobby pin on her teeth, the clerk scraped back her bangs. “You sure you left your car there?”

  Una sighed. It was late, she was tired. Now she felt rattled.

  “Hooligans having a field day!” Win angled in. Even in dim light her face looked heavily powdered. “Any clue what that business at the show was, earlier? Couldn’t get a solid answer out of Flood, could we, Clint.”

  The clerk listened raptly, then her smile turned proprietary. “Well, one of our guests heard—”

  It was the girl’s tone that provoked Una, broke her poise. Una did not even try fighting her tears, she felt so out of patience. It crossed her mind, how would she cope, being pregnant, a condition which was bound to be tiring? She felt like taking Win’s head off:

  “Do you honestly think we give a crap about that now?”

  Enman winced. “Una.”

  What would he know about the moodiness doctors summed up in one word? Hormonal.

  Win rocked back on her blocky heels, looking more satisfied than stung.

  Enman passed Una his handkerchief. She blotted at her eyes. She must look like she’d been in a monsoon, she thought, mascara everywhere. She felt Enman loop his arm around her. It wasn’t her fault, getting emotional, being stranded like this.

  The clerk nattered on, meaning to be helpful. “There was a bunch drinking up the woods—up by the Run, you know, where the competition has their truck.”

  Win flushed. Was it by “the Run” where her and Clint’s sons sold liquor, perhaps turfed out of Barrein by Twomey? Win piped up, probably to dodge some unsavoury truth. “Well, Missus, you and hubby will need a ride home.”

  “Not so fast, Edwina. They’ll want to stick around, talk to the cops, see what’s what. We’ll keep you company,” Clint said. “We’re in no rush.”

  They kept talking. Of course it was queer that of all the cars to pick from, Enman’s had been chosen. Clint speculated that it must be “her” rubber tires, albeit worn, while there were cabbies who drove around on wooden ones. The goddamn war, the war had everything to do with this, he griped, and Enman nodded. Win gave Una a sympathetic look, as if enjoining her to chime in. Una sniffed.

  Once outdoors, Win pawed at Clint. “Oh my Dinah, I hope the boys aren’t in some kind of trouble.”

  “Don’t be silly.” Clint shot Una and Enman a look. “That gaffuffle earlier? We seen some kids drinking out front before the show. Maybe they snuck in the back. Spies, Winnie—whaddya think?” he teased. “Right here in O’Leery. Or deserters, some little ship-jumpers.” Clint grinned at Una. Una couldn’t help but roll her eyes. She felt the prickle of impatient tears again as Win seized on something else, the way the Meades’ dog seized on sticks.

  “’Member, hon, when we stopped at Gannett’s store—that fella asking for beer, and they sent him up to Joey’s? Our young fella,” she told Una, “in business for himself.” Win cleared her throat. “Not that Joey condones drunk-and-disorderly. He’s got a right to make a living like anybody, you know what I’m saying.”

  “The odd little hood, he gets. Punks,” Clint corroborated, “hardly Joey’s fault. Teenagers and that. Twerps. What I’d like to know is where’re the bloody parents at?”

  Una longed to be home in bed. “What has any of this to do with the car?”

  “Rowdies, right?” Win was saying. “Figured they’d have a few, see the show. Probably got out of hand somewhere. That’d explain the RCMP paying a visit.” Win’s hands flew suddenly to her cheeks. “But it would have to be more than that to bring the navy out here. You saw the paper, those creatures in Gaspé. Do you think, could they be—?”

  “Give it a rest. Gal in the box office would’ve noticed accents—”

  “Exactly right!” Even Enman sounded out of patience, the chit-chat having gone from pointless to silly. “In case you forgot, my car’s been swiped?”

  “A regular night in O’Leery.” Clint cuffed Win’s arm. Win shot Una a nervous look. The whoosh of a passing car lifted the spit curls from Win’s forehead

  As right as Mrs. Greene had been about a few things, surely she had been dead wrong about others. Such as the idea of Win being sweet and quiet as a teenager, the girl every young fellow wanted. Win wasn’t finished yet.

  “Spies? Germans. I just feel it—feel it
in my bones. They could be right under our nose!”

  Then Una glimpsed it—and she hoped that Enman did too, even in the dark—the pitying look Win gave her. The pause, the narrowed eyes, the bitten lip. It was as if Una, for all her book-learning, could not possibly know things Win did.

  “Oh my God. That’s what it was. Jerries. Right here in O’Leery, possibly right under the same roof.”

  Una could no longer contain herself. “That’s just stupid. You don’t know that.”

  Enman shuffled restlessly. He hardly seemed to be listening. “No one was arrested.”

  “That Mountie didn’t know his arse-ee from his pee.”

  Una held her breath. “I thought he was quite—Well. Anything’s possible. Isn’t it.” She didn’t care if she sounded sarcastic. Enman didn’t appear to notice. Had he begun to figure out what to do, how to get the two of them home? It was a problem of some urgency.

  Their truck’s bed was piled with Clinton’s lobster traps, the Goodrows only had room for one passenger. Enman patted Una’s cheek. “Guess I owe it to George, don’t I, to hang around here and try to trace the car.” Then he nodded to Clint. “I owe you, buddy, for seeing Una safely home.”

  Clinton chose the coastal route. Headlights blazing, they passed the battery from which cones of anti-aircraft light pivoted across the sky. The beams reminded Una of the spotlight in a circus’s big top. Not another light blinked, the harbour and the houses along it wrapped in darkness the farther they got from things.

  “Cut the lights or you’ll have the ARP after us. You might slow down too, Clinton Goodrow,” Win finally spoke. “Where’s the fire anyway. You don’t slow down, you can let us off right here, can’t he Missus?”

  Wedged between the two of them, Una could not imagine much worse. To his credit, Clint complied. Driving without lights had the effect of flattening the landscape into a dead zone, one stretch of rocks and trees fusing with the next.