A Circle on the Surface Page 26

  And what had he done for Hannah lately? He had talked Carmel Rooney into parting with a spare desk, wedging it into the little bedroom. But he hadn’t done a thing about fitting a crib in there, let alone adding a nursery. Not that Una particularly cared.

  Enman lost patience. “Some of us don’t have the luxury to lie about. Take a walk, like you used to.”

  And some didn’t have the luxury to listen to records uninterrupted, while someone else pestered for help stitching together patches of fabric Mrs. Greene had cut out years ago to make a quilt.

  Una threw her hands up. “You know as much as I do about quilting, Hannah.” All Una wanted was quiet.

  And then Isla paid a visit. Her smiling face was a jarring but welcome brightness until her eyes went to Una’s stomach. At last, her granddaughter was almost walking, Isla said. “I’ll bring her over to show you.”

  Una grinned weakly. “Don’t trouble yourself. I can imagine what a toddler looks like. How cute she must be, I mean.”

  When Una showed Isla downstairs, Isla smiled in at Hannah reading in the front room, Hannah’s tongue between her teeth, forefinger pressed to the page.

  “It looks bigger without a casket in here. Listen. You and Hannah should come for tea.”

  “Looking like this?” Una forced a laugh.

  “But you hardly even show yet.”

  The last time Una had ventured out was to Finck’s, and only because Enman was at work and she needed Epsom salts to soak her feet in. She couldn’t rely on Hannah not to return with jars of old candy, dried-up shoe polish, or other ancient merchandise Iris sought to unload before closing shop forever. Never again would she set foot in the store, pregnant, Una had told herself. She had been swarmed by two Meade women she barely knew, the pair cooing over her as if she were a laying hen. It was disgusting to be treated like public property, strangers eyeing your stomach, wanting to touch it, asking when you were due. And then Sylvester had appeared, ogling her.

  “Didn’t know Enman had it in him.”

  “Have what in him? The ability to impregnate someone?” Una had put the box of salts right back on the bare shelf, feeling their cruel eyes on her as she hurried out, empty-handed. Iris calling, “Now, Missus. No need to get in a flap. The man was just teasing. Best to calm yourself. Don’t want that baby coming out all high-strung.”

  “That’s just plain stupidity,” Una snarled back.

  If her breasts had once been small and pert as barnacles—and if only she could have leaned forever into such fanciful, magical, thinking—they were now as curved and veiny as moonsnails’ shells, the creature inside her a hermit crab. The only good thing was that “B for butter” had all but stopped coming over the airwaves.

  On the shortest day of the year, the start of winter, wrapped in the evening’s darkness, Enman sat on the sofa with her, her feet in his lap, massaging them. In the kitchen, Hannah dropped something. “Hell’s bells shit frig. Missus is gonna take my head off. She already hates my guts, Mister.” Shouting from the other room, Hannah still hadn’t learned to lower her voice.

  “No, Missus does not,” Una yelled back, the blood thumping in her chest, the feeling of something strange and shapeless moving beneath her stomach. Not only was it causing her to lose her figure, but soon it would press on her bladder, add heartburn to heartache. “If you don’t want to have it,” Enman’s words came back to her. To abort a helpless foetus and rid herself of its burden would have only closed the gap in a circle of trouble, Una thought—the circle of trouble she had let herself in for, the gap a tiny, already shrinking one where any hope of light might creep in. It no longer mattered to her that the being’s existence was partly owed, she felt sure, to a boy-man not just capable but guilty of terrible things, a boy-man who was likely dead by now, or jailed.

  “Guilt wears you down faster than the worst punishment,” Kit had said, in a tone Una now considered unctuous. Did Kit feel guilty for letting her down, ignoring her friend in need? Kit would know about this “wearing down,” Una thought, if Kit had a conscience.

  Isla called up just then to invite Hannah down on the pretext of baking sugar cookies and, more importantly, for a lesson on sterilizing bottles. Isla’s granddaughter had been weaned from the breast, and her daughter needed help making formula.

  Enman packed Hannah off with a cup of sugar in hand.

  The night was cold, a wintry draft coming in around the windows. Una went upstairs and ran a bath, the best way she could think of to keep warm. The running water drowned out the sounds of Enman’s record, his violin straining over top of it. Steam coated the pane where the blind moved in the draft. There was no blackout, but she wanted only candlelight, and the flame quivered. She made the bath as hot as she could stand it and climbed in. She was glad of the dimness, how it softened the sight of her body. She hoped that the bath would soothe away its tenderness. Its heat barely took her mind off the air’s chill. Sliding down under the surface, she shut her eyes to avoid seeing her navel. It had begun to smoothe out, as round and blank as a statue’s eye. She thought of her mother carrying her, the cord so briefly connecting them. It was hard to imagine her mother’s slight, brittle body swollen like this. Had she dreaded the changes to it? Una felt the butterfly’s flutters that had grown more frequent, the child flexing its limbs?

  A person could drown in less water. As the bath cooled, she could have slid under its surface completely, and held herself there. It would have been easy. But she imagined the child. It would have eyes, a nose, and a mouth. Snow had told her she was doing “famously” earlier in December, listening for its heartbeat. She had turned her face away to avoid the raptness of his eyes above the stethoscope pressed to her abdomen.

  A creak outside the door startled her. Enman poked his head in. The chill roused her. “Just wanted to make sure you’re all right. Enjoying the quiet? It’s going to work out. You’ll have this one, and forget all the discomfort ever happened.”

  Leaving, he gently shut the door behind him. She heard the latch click, could hear him breathing there.

  “I wonder if it’s even yours,” she called through the door. “Back in the summer—”

  “What? You’re talking foolishness. Look. Why are you doing this?” He had stepped back into the room, was peering down at her. She crossed her arms over herself, and even that hurt. She groped for the towel.

  “Don’t look. I can’t stand you looking.”

  “Oh, for goodness sake. You’re lovely no matter what. Now quit that crazy talk. Get into bed and I’ll rub your back. Then I’ll run down and get Hannah, shall I?”

  So she had tried to tell him, tried to warn and let him down as gently as she knew how to. But like a balky student, back when she had cared about having students, he could be told but could not be made to listen.

  23

  December 1943

  The Saturday before Christmas, a bright, snowless day, Enman took his chances and drove to town. Una opted to stay in bed. He didn’t like to leave her alone, so Hannah stayed behind making paper chains for the tree he had brought home from the barrens and put in the front room.

  The downtown streets thrummed with an odd festivity, their shabbiness and the restlessness of wandering servicemen relieved somewhat by the holidays’ anticipation. Perhaps the season and its cheer offered a brief if illusory feeling of respite from the war. He headed straight for Phinney’s music store, its black tile facade only a little the worse for wear these days, a boy washing some dried splatters from it. Inside, people perused display cases, a sailor tested guitars—none as handsome as Hill’s Les Paul—and a girl and her father tried out an accordion. Sitting at a shiny apartment-size piano, a boy played “Chopsticks.”

  Moving to the display of harmonicas, Enman resisted the urge to have the clerk take a violin from the wall and let him try it. He picked the best mid-priced Hohner to replace the rusty one Win had brought ov
er. He stopped to browse the record albums, then crossed the street, hurrying the block or two down to The Book Room. It was across from the provincial legislature building, whose entrance boasted a big fir wreath and garland around the fanlight above the door—reminders that the war couldn’t fully overtake Christmas.

  He was greeted by the smell of books, the busy cheer of browsers. The lady at the desk nodded and smiled at his request, An English Galaxy of Shorter Poems. He wasn’t even sure if Una liked poetry or not, she’d never said. But he had heard a carol on the radio, “There is No Rose of Such Virtue,” composed by Britten, based on something the composer had read in this very book while marooned here the year before, on his way home to England from New York.

  “I’m sure your wife won’t be disappointed.” The clerk wrapped it for him, the same woman who had sold him The Hygiene of Marriage. He hoped she didn’t remember.

  After that, he went down the block to Wood Brothers and bought Una a cosy, quilted robe like Hannah’s, but in an emerald green. Avoiding the lingerie—bullet bras, girdles, and playsuits—he chose a navy-blue cardigan for Hannah. The clerk remembered Una. She was the clerk who was very good at getting him to spend his money. “What size is she, again?”

  “Oh, no. It’s for my sister.”

  Finished shopping, he went back up to the Green Lantern, managed to find a spot at the soda fountain, and treated himself to a coffee. While he drank it he thumbed through the poetry book. It happened to have a little poem attributed to Anne Boleyn, of all people, that bemoaned the queen’s entrapment. For a moment he regretted his choice of a gift, and hoped Una wouldn’t see herself in the poem and its complaint. With any luck she would flip right past it.

  On Christmas Day, Una watched Hannah open her present. Enman handed Una her gifts, which Una opened without undue interest and thanked him for. Hannah had made a drawing, which she’d put under the tree, a picture of a stickman waving a frying pan.

  “Oh, Mister. It’s your fiddle!”

  Una opened the poetry book, listened politely while he squeaked out the melody to Britten’s carol printed there, after pointing out its lyrics: There is no rose of such vertu/As is the rose that bare Jesu. He spoke to her silence: “It’s medieval.”

  “Gibberish, too.” Una smiled a bit mischievously. Through a gap in the tree’s branches and their dangling links of paper coloured with crayon, she pointed to Ma’s figurine. “Impregnated by God. Imagine that.” Then she looked away. There was nothing under the tree from her, for him or for Hannah. He helped Hannah with the roast chicken and the cranberry sauce Isla made with berries from the bog, and the carrot pudding Win sent over. For the first time in months, Una ate like there was no tomorrow, then excused herself and went upstairs, leaving the poetry book and the robe on the sofa.

  Enman taught Hannah how to blow “Silent Night,” and when she mastered that, a bar or two of Beethoven’s “Ode to Joy.” She was still wearing the new sweater when she went to bed, and perhaps slept in it, because she had it on over her nightgown when she came down next morning.

  Boxing Day was a Sunday and though he had resisted calls to come down to Isaac’s for some Christmas cheer, his old thirst came back with a vengeance, with Una resting above and Hannah on the Hohner every living second. He couldn’t wait for Monday and to go back to work. Though business had slowed to a trickle and Isaac said Enman could extend his holidays if he wanted. But no, he was saving up his days off for when the baby arrived.

  By mid-afternoon he thought if he couldn’t beat Hannah’s tooting he would just have join it, and took out his violin. Then Hannah went to Isla’s to model her sweater. He was about to head down to Isaac’s when Hubley appeared at the door, his “Left Paw” over his shoulder. Hill had been imbibing, it was obvious. Had he noticed the snow blowing down off the barrens he wouldn’t have taken his guitar outside without its case. Hubley didn’t wait for an invite into the front room with its tidy coal fire behind the grate.

  Enman heard the door open upstairs, heard Una skulking there.

  “Got a bunch of new tunes worked up.” Hubley had grown a bit balder since the summer, his stubbled beard a chalky white. If Hill had let it grow out, Hannah might have called him Santa. Except the thinner on top he became, the more his bones shrank, as bones did with age. How was it Hill was only a few years his elder? Five foot two, eyes of blue, Enman thought of the song. Hubley always had been sawed-off, though he talked the talk of a big man, clearing his throat then piping up. “How’s your wife, anyway?” As Hubley spoke his eyes dragged the ceiling as if any second Una would swoop down. “Listen. I’ve been an ass. If you’ll be the S to my H-I-L-L, I’m willing to try some new stuff. Mozart and that. And split the door in your favour.” There was a New Year’s dance at the fire hall in O’Leery and Hubley needed a fiddler; now that Enman was here to stay, was he interested?

  “Do you good to get out—do Una good too, having you outta the house.”

  “Give me a day or two. I’ll let you know. “

  “And have no time to rehearse?”

  “Not under the gun like this, I might say yes.”

  “You can’t leave her alone, even with the Twomey one here?”

  “Sorry, it’s just not in the cards right now.”

  Enman meant it, being sorry, watching Hubley disappear into the twilight, looking like Gene Autry the Singing Cowboy with his guitar on his back. Never mind that Enman hated songs like “Back in the Saddle Again.” Still, he kicked himself for being so wedded to his musical tastes, and other things, that he had forgone the Labour Day dance, the kitchen parties, and other shindigs he could have played if he had been more forthright, agreeing to be one half of their duo. He realized he would have enjoyed these events, in the same way Hubley had made up his mind to reach beyond his likes and dislikes.

  Lurking there, Una called down, “So, are you going?”

  “Not on the eve of our anniversary.”

  Silence.

  “The island. You never did take me there.” She meant the one he hadn’t visited since he was a teenager, even though it was right there. “The dance. Don’t let me stop you.” Then she crept back up to bed.

  This exchange pushed Enman to O’Leery after work the next evening, bugger the dark, the cold, that excuse for a road—at least there wasn’t snow—and bugger Beulah. If she died, good riddance, he’d push her into the woods and be done with her. But first he asked Clint for directions, to avoid any dilly-dallying.

  “Thought you were on the wagon, bud.”

  “It’s for a friend. I owe Robart. He’s been breathing down my neck for it, see.”

  A quarter-mile or so before the Magnet he hung a hard right. A beagle yapped from behind a picket fence before the frozen lane petered to a bald patch of granite surrounded by woods. True to Clint’s word the truck was there, his tow-headed son—Joey? Grayson? Jimmy? he never could keep track of them—lolling from the tailgate with another young fellow nursing a brown quart bottle. Their breath hung in the frosty air.

  Joey-Grayson-Jimmy greeted him with a grin, eyes like Win’s, taking Beulah in. “Twomey doesn’t give a shit who buys his liquor, so what gives?” The kid sounded wary, nineteen years old if he was a day. “Lookin’ for a six or a two-four? Alls we got is brew.” His mother through and through, he uncapped a bottle, handed it over. Watched Enman take a first sip. “You don’t give the rest of us freebies,” the friend groused.

  The homebrew was yeasty and had a sweet, boggy flavour. Tipping it back, Enman fought the urge to gag. But it was wet and it was alcoholic, and nobody else need know. “How much?” Peeling off a glove, Enman felt around for his little roll of cash.

  “Any friend of my old man’s a friend of mine. It’s on the house. More chillin’ in the run—he’p yourself if they ain’t frozen. Then we’ll talk.”

  The friend smirked. Joey, or whatever his name was, grinned, a chipped tooth
visible in the dusky light. His smudge of a mustache lent him a certain charm; Enman imagined Win getting after him to shave.

  “Best beer money can buy, Mr. Greene.”

  The fact was it made Enman think of murky, peaty urine. “How much you charge for a six?”

  “Like I said, the cooler’s thataway.” The kid pointed to an opening in the naked trees. The slow, faint burble of water drifted through the darkness and Enman followed it, swinging the bottle. It was worse than swill. All this way—he had come all this way, fighting with himself for weeks, months, then finally giving in—to drink bootlegged rot in the woods like some rabid teenager. He wondered what Clint and Win really thought about their son’s business.

  As soon as he was out of sight, he emptied the bottle into the frozen moss. On a desperately hot day, it might have been drinkable. A little farther in, edged by ice, the stream snaked through a glade with boulders for chairs. The trees creaked in the wind, their thatched branches blocking out what little starlight fell. Shards of glass glinted in the black water, frozen foam scudded over rocks. The air was already sharp with January’s bite. In this outdoor barroom with only rocks for company, who knew what critters hibernated? Under the ice the stream sluiced through its peaty bed, having recovered from last summer’s dryness, making its way, he guessed, to a chain of stony lakes that emptied, eventually, into the sea. A brace of bottles leaned in a sort of bowl formed by ice-encrusted tree roots and the ruined forks of a bicycle.

  He hurried back up the path, handed over his empty. “Got something at home I need to take care of, how could I have forgot?” Shaking his head, he tapped his brow. “Happens, fellas, when you get older. Brain like a sieve. I’ll say hi to your parents, Joey—sure they’ll be asking.” He got into the car as fast as he could and yes there was a God because she started first crack. The reflection in the rear-view much too dark to see what he knew would be youthful disgust.