A Circle on the Surface Read online

  Damned if those rocks wouldn’t trick you, during a storm, into seeing icebergs or, on days like this, whales in no rush to swim away—or, as now, a foundering ship, waves breaking over its deck. A trick of the eye, certainly. But then she heard a buzzing roar; was it the hum of an invisible airplane passing by? A trick of the ear. And then—of course all this had been her imagination—the object in the sea was gone.

  Too much sun and speculation, at least on the part of Iris Finck and Win Goodrow, were getting the best of her.

  The ebbing sea turned the sand into a shiny-wet mirror below the tidemark. Above it, the dry sand was a scorching white. Retracing her steps, digging in her heels, she walked backwards into the sun, veering now and then into the tingling surf. Its tang smelled like something the body secreted, like the single sample Enman—poor Enman—had produced for the lab to put under a microscope. The sea puckered her toes, made them pale as an infant’s; it had that power to scrub everything away, and for a moment, a few moments, she was thirty again, no, barely nineteen, before she had interrupted her life to be with her mother.

  As far as the sea knew, she hadn’t lost her job and her parents or acquired a husband, and had not a care in the world. With her mind stripped down to its simple, happy core, she might have stripped her body to her birthday suit, losing the pretty bathing suit, for the sheer fun of telling Enman she had done it. Who was there to see? She had walked all three beaches and seen neither hide nor hair of anyone. The only chance of being spotted was by an off-course air or sea patrol—not likely with the East Coast Port within their sights. But the sun was so scorching it almost pulsed, and how to explain having burnt nipples the next time she saw Snow?

  Gathering her things, she found the trailhead, a prickle of blackberries and wild rose, and stopped to slip on her clothes. As she buttoned up, a squawking gull drew her eye to something hanging from a twig. A sock, its dingy mate dangled nearby. More than just socks—it quickly became apparent. An array of items decorated the bushes. A fellow’s wardrobe: greyish shorts, woollen pants, a ragged shirt. Avoiding the clothing, Una thought of Win’s tales about people doing naughty things out here. Or, like Win, someone had done a wash.

  A few steps on, a jacket was hung too, right beside the path. She was close enough to inspect it. Its greyish leather was as brittle as oilskins coughed up by the sea—a grisly fact that clothing sometimes washed ashore, all that was left of people lost out there.

  Out of a morbid curiosity she reached for its gored breast pocket, a saggy slit in the leather, then caught herself. If there had been money and it was now missing, who knows but she would be blamed? They were like that around here. Mind your P’s and Q’s, she imagined her pupils repeating, the memory of her own instructions hurrying her on, never mind the brambles snagging her skirt.

  Don’t twist an ankle, for God’s sake, she imagined Enman’s warning, his gentle if misplaced concern.

  She found the shortcut along the pond. Happy little skatebugs scored its prune-coloured surface. Tadpoles clouded its yellowy edges, which reminded her of medical diagrams: beribboned balloons—cells—twisting blindly toward an egg that resembled a child’s drawing of the sun.

  All it took was one.

  How many had it taken to breed Shag’s Cove, a settlement wiped from all memory now besides Mrs. Finck’s? God. The only sign a village had existed was a tumble of fieldstones in the knotweed. A tiny blue butterfly flitted by. A snapping sound rose like Iris Finck herself bundling mail with rubber bands—a bullfrog’s mating call. Or were bullfrogs hermaphrodites; had the science teacher said?

  Any chance to mention gonads, that odious guy.

  And then she heard laughter, low, robust, and real—men’s laughter, close. Lounging in a hollow a short distance away, a cleft in the bushes ringed by boulders, three or four men were gathered, fellows shooting the breeze, as Gregory had said in the staff room—“We’re just shooting the breeze, Una, having a little break shooting the shit, what’s wrong with that?—” before the principal walked in. The silence that had fallen around her suggested that she was the subject, perhaps of a boast?

  These fellows were half-naked, stripped to their shorts. More laundry dotted the surrounding bushes. They must have been camping out, except there was no tent in sight, and their laughter sounded bored, even restless. Boy Scouts on some wilderness outing. They certainly looked young enough to be. One of them was playing a mouth organ, one hand fluttering at it like a sick bird. The tune was a jig, music everyone in Barrein loved.

  She thought for a second she recognized him. Though he was closer this time, he was still at a distance, so she couldn’t be sure. That narrow face, that strange intensity as he played. The others spoke over his playing, in low voices. From the path it was impossible to hear what they were saying, with the gulls and the light wind off the water, the onshore breeze pulling the surf’s soft boom closer. They were doing exactly what Rick Gregory called it: shooting the shit.

  Dodging a hornet, she felt depressed by their idleness: youth being wasted on the young. At their age she had stayed busy practise-teaching, learning to do lesson plans. Keeping busy had warded off self-doubt and self-pity, keeping busy had worked nicely, until now.

  Oh, get over yourself, she thought, darting away before they could see her, you’re not that old and washed-up. Enman certainly hadn’t thought so, had he?

  7

  The pompous man who had replaced Enman’s friend as manager was tied up, apparently, despite his earlier promise to meet with the party from Barrein. They were asked to wait to see the assistant manager instead. From Citadel Hill the noon gun sounded, its concussion rattling the bank’s windows. Enman had meant to have a few words with the manager before the meeting, about getting hired back on. But as he and the others from Inkpens’ waited on the mezzanine outside the assistant manager’s cubicle, fifteen more minutes, and then a half-hour passed. Enman clearly wasn’t going to get the opportunity to ask. He already felt insulted that the upstart teller had replaced him, George Archibald’s ambitions for him so quickly forgotten. He had expected somebody to take note of his experience. He had only left the bank that spring.

  Passing the time, Greeley made small talk. “So when’s the next dance, bud? With Hill, I mean.”

  “What?” Enman smoothed the balance sheet on his lap, thinking more about numbers. Was there anything else he had forgotten, aside from that list? Did he have every figure that pimply juvenile would need?

  “Isla and me are looking forward to it. She’s always up for a dance.”

  “Wait a second, I never told Hubley I would—” This wasn’t the place to discuss it. The problem was, he and Hill differed over musical tastes. Which was fine, except for Hubley’s teasing the last time Enman had brought out his violin, a happy distraction one recent evening: “Christ, man. Give us something folks can dance to. It’s fiddle they like, not a flipping symphony.” Una had sighed and vanished to the kitchen.

  The bustle of commerce echoed from below. “If I agree to play at the hall again, Hubley promises to split the door: all two dollars of it.”

  “Sounds like a plan to me, Greene.” Isaac scratched and wiggled his ear, to loosen wax from it, Enman supposed. Young Lohnes dozed in his seat, and Robart leaned over the railing watching the tellers in their cages count bills.

  Enman was well aware he was part of what looked like a motley crew. Yet, as a youngster—a loans officer and not the assistant manager—approached, suddenly he didn’t care, not overly much. It was hard suddenly for him to believe that only four months ago he had liked working here, or thought he had. He missed George. The truth was he had found it very hard coming back the previous year, after recovering from his burns.

  Una had liked him working here, though.

  The junior loans officer went over his figures so brusquely that Enman very nearly demanded to see Dunphy the manager, never mind the assistant man
ager. But then the young fellow said he didn’t see any problems with lending Inkpens’ the money, and went off to get a final signature.

  Enman felt a small pang of regret for leaving his former job when he noted the silver pen the kid had handed to Isaac, to sign a form, and the spiffy new adding machine atop the youngster’s desk.

  Outside, Isaac and his sons clapped Enman on the back, each promising to buy. Enman shouted them down. “It’s a loan, remember, not a gift.”

  “You done good, Greene. I’ll remember this.” Then Isaac doffed his cap at a girl wobbling by on high heels.

  It was just a few blocks uphill, a quick zigzag along staggered streets, to where the blind pig was tucked behind a tobacconist’s, all in the shadow of the basilica’s spire. The prospect of a good slug of navy rum, to be bought for next to nothing, soothed any vestiges of hurt pride Enman felt over his former employment, and helped put Hubley Hill’s love of twang in perspective. If it was the New Brunswick Lumberjacks and not Dvořák that people wanted, why shouldn’t they have them? Of course, some people hankered after hookers too, he thought, as Edgar joked about company for hire on Hollis Street at Ada MacCallum’s brothel.

  “Don’t tell me you’re that desperate, good-looking boy like you?” Enman gave the young fellow a nudge.

  “Goddamn.” Greeley scowled. The lineup for the bar, which was choked with sailors, straggled halfway down the block. A sailor with a black eye reeled past, almost falling into Enman. Securing the satchel’s clasp, he was glad the cash loan had gone straight into the Inkpens’ account.

  “We can wait.” The order came from Isaac, looking slightly less dapper because of the way he leaned on his stick. This was the perfect chance for Enman to duck down to Wood’s to pick up something for Una, a little scarf or maybe a pair of earrings, to prove that he hadn’t forgotten her. But he could hardly ask the others to hold his place in line, not a line like this. Besides, there would be plenty of time to shop, after a hamburger and a drink or two. The others were in no rush to get home. A reeling gang of men got booted out, and some of their pals in line gave up spots to cause a ruckus large enough to enable Isaac and Enman and the others to sneak inside. They even scored a table.

  Only problem was, the grill was out of grub. So much for that burger with a slab of onion, its juices mixing with sweet condiments—the very thought of which had saved him earlier from seasickness.

  Seasickness, yes; leave it at that.

  Sliding down his gullet, the first two belts—black rum, a hundred proof—set off a lazy buzz. He had meant to stick to two. After the third and fourth he was a bee in a hive, no place finer to be, except at home in his own front room playing records and sawing along on his violin. Now that he and Una didn’t have to worry about disturbing Ma’s rest, he was freer to practise and blast the Dvořák. But for now the chatter around him almost matched the sibilant trumpets in Dvořák’s adagio, as jubilant as the pirates’ shouting in Captain Blood. Greeley punched his arm agreeably and in return he thumped Greeley’s.

  The sinewy tautness of Greeley’s arm was sobering, bringing back a memory of Archibald buying coffee then challenging Enman to an arm wrestle in the staff room on lunch break. George had quit drinking in his twenties, had never touched a drop since. Once after work, in the green-tiled men’s room near the vault, the basement room where they polished their shoes, Enman had offered George a drink from the flask in his locker. George had given a belly laugh. “If you think you can bribe me with that to help you climb the ladder, forget it. You’re way too smart for such bullshit.” Not long after, George had placed a bar of gold bullion in Enman’s hand. “You think booze is your friend. Being sober is worth a million of these. More than a few times I had to be wiped off a floor, Greene, so I know what I’m talking about. You’re better than that.” And Enman had stopped drinking for months and months, during which George trusted him with the vault’s combination and promoted Enman to securities. He had risen steadily through the ranks, following George’s example. A few backbiters grumbled that if Archibald said “jump,” Greene would say “how high?”

  Their friendship had enabled Enman to see qualities in himself he hadn’t noticed before: patience, honesty, a good head for numbers, and an unwillingness to let people get behind in their debts. The last time he and George were together was that luckless February night, horsing around, playing cards. Archibald’s arm around his neck in a headlock was the last thing he remembered before coming to in the lifeboat. Archibald’s body was never recovered.

  “What’s eating you, man?” It was Greely eyeing him.

  Startled, Enman forced a laugh, then strummed an invisible guitar and said Hill wasn’t a bad fellow at all, apart from having a tin ear. It was better to joke. Because, once, under the table, Archibald’s hand had squeezed his knee. Feeling mildly embarrassed and nothing more, Enman had pushed it away. He felt nothing but grief at losing his friend. And he did well to forget that odd, isolated moment.

  By what cosmic gaff had he made it and Archibald hadn’t?

  “Cheers, bud!” Isaac gave his bicep such a slap his drink slopped over the tabletop. “You’re why we’re here. The way you wrangled that little bastard at the bank—if I was a rich man you’d be in for a raise.”

  This drew a hefty laugh from Robart who sprayed liquid through his teeth, and young Edgar banged the table so hard the tattooed bruisers at the next one gawked and the barman yelled to keep it down before the cops came—came quicker than anyone could unzip to take a leak.

  A burst of bravado made Enman pull out his wallet and buy doubles all around. Exactly the thing to do, being freewheeling as a fly. But the drink induced Robart to regale them with tales about his kids. He and his wife had four, and were expecting their fifth. “Don’t laugh. You’ll be in for it too.” Robart eyed Enman. “Just remember to stop at two or three. Even if it means cutting yourself off. A pack of kids isn’t all it’s cracked up to be.”

  Isaac unleashed a sputtering cough. “Gah! If your ma and I had felt the same about you fellas…. ’Course, Lu wanted girls.” Isaac gazed at Enman. “What’s Foxy think of kids? Had her fill, I bet, being around them so much. Maybe she’s got more important things, your missus, off on her hikes and whatnot.”

  It was friendly enough ribbing, lighter than their jibes about fellows “shooting blanks.” Still it hit a sore spot. If Una didn’t become a mother, how was someone like her, used to movies, shops, and restaurants being a trolley-ride away, going to fill her time? He remembered his visit to her doctor, booked at Una’s urging, back in March. Talk of sperm counts and propulsion. Propulsion was for boats and airplanes, for Chrissake.

  “It’s not for a lack of trying.” He inspected his glass. “We’ve only been at it six or seven months.” Snow’s spiel about ripened eggs conjured up a henhouse. His diagram of an ovum called to mind a child’s drawing of a full-blown sunflower, Una said. Enman wasn’t sure if the doctor was trying to frighten or reassure him, saying that of the more than two hundred million spermatozoa “per healthy ejaculation,” all it took was one “to do the trick.”

  He muscled up to the bar. “Give us another round, would you. On that old fella over there. Kidding. On me.”

  Perhaps he dozed off in his chair. When he snapped to, the windowless bar appeared out of focus, as if it were under water. It was as dim as the tanker’s hold that February night, where quarters had been so tight the crew slept in shifts. Except that now a sailor was leering in Enman’s face for no reason, a burly kid who sounded like a Yank. Isaac was shouting: “Get your stunned arse out of here, you moron. Leave my buddy alone.”

  The sailor took a swing at the old man, and Greeley leapt to his feet, hooking a table leg in the process and overturning a chair. “Talk to my old man like that and you’re fucking dead.” The sailor raised his fist and, listing badly, clipped the right side of Enman’s head. From somewhere came a hissing sound, was it rain? The
sailor staggered off. At least there was no blood. But the painful bump swelled, as did the sound, which was so much like a whistle buoy’s that Enman’s shoulders stiffened.

  Isaac thumped him. Robart gave Enman a friendly shove.

  Somehow Enman found the can, urinated. He was safe and happy on dry land, never mind that the walls and ceiling spun. When he came back, the bar had emptied. Before he knew what was happening, Greeley and Robart were muscling him along by the arms. The steadiest of them all, Isaac led them through the heavy door into the tobacco shop fronting the street. Through the dying light at the window Enman took in the brawl outside, two more sailors going at it, a woman shrieking nearby. A crowd was egging them on, roaring as more men joined in. Fellows in similar uniforms punching each other out, over what? Gad! Though maybe, in spirit, it wasn’t much different from collections agents and indebted customers sparring over nickels and dimes. Enman had steered clear of bad credit risks, not to mention brawls.

  For no good reason, all Enman could think of was the time, years ago, when two nuns had come to Barrein and the Meades and Twomeys had driven them out—Barton and his little sister and Eddie and Archie Meade put up to firing rocks by their no-good parents, Sylvester Meade especially. The kids had started flinging gravel before taking up rocks the size of their fists. A full-fledged stoning. Mortified, absolutely mortified, Ma had been beside herself with an indignation that in the end, like his boyish shock, went nowhere.

  Enman and Edgar stumbled down the sidewalk trailing Isaac, who was bookended by his sons. Edgar stopped and slumped to the curb, hung his head between his knees, and puked. Isaac glanced back. “What say we grab a bite? On me.”

  They waited for Edgar to stand and wipe his mouth, then they staggered downhill towards Barrington Street. They passed the Garrick Theatre where a few weeks ago somebody had found a Bosh uniform in the trash, it was said, with the stub of a matinee ticket in its pocket. Greeley’s speech was a little slurred: “I could eat a goddamn horsssh.” But when they reached the Green Lantern, it was closed.