A Circle on the Surface Page 9

  She could barely take in all Win’s yammering. Something about a torpedo landing in some farmer’s field, the man alerting the authorities, and in the nick of time.

  “They could’ve invaded! Just like that, Una—think about it. My land, what’s to stop the buggers from trying the same tricks here?” There was something almost to be pitied in Win’s eagerness. Was it her need for attention?

  “May I?” Patiently Una took the paper and scanned the item. It was on the Herald’s second-last page, a bookend to the classifieds. If it was in the paper, it must be true, she guessed.

  “Goddamn,” Win swore breathily, her voice rising as she worked herself into a lather. “The nerve of them devils! Can you credit it, Una.” This was not a question. “You know, Iris is all the time hearing them out there doing whatever they do in their boats—their subs, I mean. It’s not like they stay down on the bottom all the time either.”

  Them and the sculpins—yes, and you’re an expert in naval engineering, Una longed to say, as she saw a dustcloud billowing closer. It was a car barrelling along the road below the hill, familiar-looking but not because it belonged here. Could it possibly be Kit’s? No one else in hell’s acre drove in such a breezy rush. Soon enough here she was, slowing down—sunglasses, a frizz of red hair bound with a kerchief—peering above the wheel.

  Win already looked miffed, any excitement she had stirred up in Una dampened by an invader. Not just any invader but a city person, and not just any city person but an ally, Una’s friend. Una grinned and handed back the paper. “Gaspé’s a long way away. No point getting ourselves worked up, is there.”

  Flagging Kit down, she turned to Win and smiled with all her teeth.

  “My God, who’s this now, Woody Woodpecker flying in?” Win fiddled with a curler, folded her arms.

  Beaming, Kit opened her door enough to lean out. Only then did something twig in Una. Waving at Kit to wait, she tapped Win’s arm, took back the paper. Aware of the car’s idling rumble, she scrutinized the picture.

  The men’s jackets were nothing like the ones servicemen around here wore. A chill crawled down her back. They resembled the one she had spied by the beach, drying with those clothes amongst the bushes. But this was silly. Of course she was mistaken. The photo was too blurry to be sure of anything. Next she would be like Win, suspicious of anything that moved. It was a tendency Una could guard herself against, Kit had once said.

  “Hop in,” Kit called out. “What’s the matter, Miss Oonah?” Kit asked as soon as she climbed in—the quickest possible escape from Win and having to introduce them, explain, make excuses for not lingering.

  The life of Riley all right, she imagined Win crowing, can’t even walk ten yards from here to her doorstep.

  “The matter?” The sheer relief of seeing a kindred spirit ousted all thoughts of Win and her fearmongering. “Cripes, I can’t believe you’re here. If I’d known—”

  “Yeah, but if I’d called, you know, you’d’ve been up to something—whatever it is you do out here to keep busy.” Kit’s eyes crinkled behind her shades.

  They were barely in the house when the phone rang, that nutbar Hubley Hill wanting Enman, jabbering about some sort of plan for a dance gone awry, a change of heart. He would have kept her on there forever, with Kit waiting in the kitchen.

  “Sure, sure—yes, I’ll tell him. Of course he’ll understand.” Though something told her Enman might not, Una felt relieved. No loss to her, freed of having to sit in the church basement, ears plugged with tissue. “Yes, sure it’s understandable.” She said it five times if she said it once, gesturing to Kit. Kit had pushed her sunglasses up on top of the kerchief; they looked like a fly’s eyes against its green chiffon. “Look in the icebox,” she mouthed, remembering the water situation. At least there was lemonade.

  “Sorry I couldn’t stay, that day of the wake. Bodies make me squeamish.” Kit grimaced into her glass when Una finally got off the phone. Kit had poured lemonade for her too. It was cloudy and tasted vaguely of onions. Shit.

  “Trouble in Shangri-La-la-land?”

  “Why would you ask?”

  “Poor Enman. I suppose he’s okay?” Kit made a face and set down her glass.

  “It’s kind of a relief. We couldn’t have looked after his mother a day longer.”

  Though Una had her pride, venting helped. So she told Kit about the well, the lake, the ridiculous inconvenience—but uttering it sparked a feeling almost of panic. How was she to cope without a basic necessity?

  Kit peered around, at the walls stencilled with sunlight. She looked disgusted, as if water came exclusively from pipes under paved city streets, a limitless network. “You’d never manage with a baby.” Kit sounded rueful, no longer bemused the way she had been, hearing about Una’s “plans” after her doctor’s appointment in February.

  To change the subject Una told Kit how a cousin on her father’s side had been lost that spring while escorting a convoy. Not a close cousin, but a fellow Kit might know of.

  “Hellish summer, all this fine weather. Crossing the ocean? Goddamn Jerries think they own the fecking thing, don’t they just. Red sky at night is no sailors’ delight, not for our side. How is hubby, anyways? No plans to enlist again, I take it.”

  Kit didn’t wait to hear her answer, though, hopping up to get something from the car. She came back with presents. Wrapped in brown paper was a painting of tugboats, the whitewashed Irving arch in the background—a downtown scene not far from where Enman would be finishing up his day. The gift threw her off; Kit wasn’t one for giving away her creations.

  “You do that yourself, girl?” A staff room joke about Kit’s prodigious talents that vaguely recalled and, Una hoped, deflected embarrassment about Rick Gregory, it replaced the need for gushing.

  “Paid a grade six to paint it.” Kit laughed, more like herself, pleased by the admiration. She nudged a cardboard box closer. Inside were a little tray of watercolour paints, two fine sable brushes, a ream of brittle manila.

  “You’re giving me lessons?”

  “No. Just something to keep you out of trouble, out here in the back of beyond. You know what they say, lovey, idle hands are the devil’s workshop—or something like that.” Kit addressed Una’s stomach when she spoke. It was as if she expected some visible sign of something. A grand baby bump, is that what she was looking for?

  “Well, you’ll be pleased to hear I’ve found a diversion. A pupil. For six weeks or so, I’m thinking.”

  Looking baffled, Kit pushed her glass away, her lemonade hardly touched.

  For godsake, maybe there’s water in the kettle, Una thought—enough to give her a cup of tea. “And, the posting you mentioned—the high school one.” She hesitated. “I’ve applied.”

  “Oh? Better hope Sarty’s got a short memory. So Enman’s good with it, then?”

  Una flushed, examined a fingernail. “‘Wake up this side of the sod, sweetpea, and everything’s good’—that’s him.” She forced a smile. “Beats waiting around for something to happen, a ‘watched pot’ and all that.” Kit gave her a worried look that quickly turned indulgent.

  While she boiled the dregs in the kettle, Kit’s gaze fixed on the range and its carboy of stove oil. Her lip curled at the tea. “Gregory was asking about you, at the end of school. Cripes, the summer’s flying, though.” Kit held her cup aloft, inspecting the bottom. “Royal Albert, don’tcha know. Who was she trying to impress, your mother-outlaw, I wonder? Gawd. And when was the last time this place got painted? Enman will have to remedy that if he’s planning to sell. That green is so twenties.” Kit got up and perused the calendar’s Xs and dots. “What’s this now, tick-tack-toe?

  “What does Enman think of making a baby? Forget I asked.” Then a knowing look spread over Kit’s face. “Ah! He’s had a change of heart, hasn’t he, about moving back?”

  Kit’s tone made Una go
silent.

  “Did I hear you say there was paint?” Before Una could stop her, Kit went beetling down into the cellar.

  Kit was the type of friend intimate enough that you didn’t mind her peeking inside your cupboards. Still it was unnerving having her see the cellar’s dirt floor, its shelves of dusty preserves. “Mind Mrs. Greene’s science experiments,” Una called down, then from the bottom step watched Kit unearth the unopened paint Una herself had picked at Easter, thinking only about brightening the place. Sight unseen, Enman’s mother had refused yellow, not the first of their disagreements. Laying her hands on a screwdriver to open it and a ruler for a stir-stick, Kit rooted around for a brush, one eyebrow cocked. “Wouldn’t a science teacher love to see what’s growing in Mrs. G’s Petri dishes.”

  Hadn’t Una insisted that Kit not mention that mess last December, promising herself to forget it had happened? As her friend lugged the paint upstairs, Una protested. “Don’t be silly, you didn’t come here to work. Shiza, you’re my guest—”

  “Shag it, I want to help. Maybe you need a certain jackass to come and persuade you—?”

  “For godsake. And how do you propose we’ll clean up?”

  But Kit had turpentine and a little can of Varsol out in the car, her travelling art supplies. The sun and the heat made painting the last thing Una felt like doing, but she went upstairs and dug through Mrs. Greene’s rag bag for clothes to work in. The old woman’s blouses, dresses, and knickers were too “good” to throw away, in Enman’s view, yet in Una’s view, too threadbare to give to charity. Una figured he would not want people like Mrs. Finck thinking he had let his mother dress like an urchin while he went around in suits. Win Goodrow would have spread such talk, Una decided, but he had defended her. “Can’t you give it a rest, dear? Win’s not a bad person. Just ignore her.”

  Una tugged an elastic-less pair of bloomers over her hair to protect it, found a couple of awful shapeless blouses, put one on, and brought the other down for Kit.

  Instead of smiling, Kit scowled. “Jesus, look at you. You’re more cracked than I thought.”

  “Forget it. Let’s just go to the beach.” Who wanted to waste a perfectly good afternoon anyway, doing a chore more properly Enman’s? Kit hated sand, though, how it got in your eyes, ears, between your toes, and in other places. Then Una remembered the jacket and the picture in the paper.

  But Kit was laughing. “You’ve gone loopy with boredom? That green looks like fungus. One look at it and most people would turn around and leave. Shut up and let’s just get ’er done.”

  Una touched Kit’s wrist hovering there with the ruler. An oily scum had floated to the paint’s surface. “Can I tell you something?”

  “Well yeah—I figured somehow there’s something not quite right. Months of looking after an old lady, ergo no chance for fun. No getting a bun in the oven. What other reason to get hitched? Poor sweetie, trouble in paradise. You and Enman, he’s not—?” Damaged, incapable? said Kit’s look. Flexing her wrists, Kit held out her palms, then wielded the stir-stick. “Your secret’s safe with me, hon. No need to explain.”

  “Kit,”—she gave herself a minute to find the words, words having nothing to do with last winter’s debacle at school—“at the beach. Just this morning. There were some clothes, and men, and…someone’s jacket. Then, in the Herald—”

  “Seen it, my darling, those Jerries up in Québec.” A funny look passed over Kit’s face. She had finally removed and folded her sunglasses; it was as if she’d been scared of losing them. “No. No way—those gutless wonders wouldn’t have the fecking parts to do something like that here, come ashore and face us. Not with our ARP all over the place. ‘Know thy enemy’ and all that. Nope, no way, they wouldn’t dare, that’s not how those birds operate.” Kit was adamant; when she was right about something there was no disputing the point. “Now give us that brush. It’s not a shade I’d choose, but better than what’s on there now.”

  A few hours later the kitchen was transformed. Like standing in a field of marigolds, Kit admitted. “Enman will hardly recognize it—just tell him the spirit of good taste went on a tear. Speaking of taste, I’m fecking parched.”

  The lemonade was all she had. They lugged two chairs outdoors to sit and cool off. Kit pulled the sweaty kerchief from her hair. Outdoors, its carroty shade looked faded, the greyness at her temples matching the lines around her eyes, still a startling green. Kit had been teaching for a decade when Una first started. Catching her looking, Kit aimed a deadpan gaze at the sea. “Would you get those goddamn things off your head before Win-Whoever sees. No better flattery than imitation.”

  Before Enman sees you, Kit hinted, sounding almost wistful. Perhaps, without knowing it, Kit was envious of their marriage? He would be home any minute, which meant that Mrs. Greene’s paint-dribbled undies went straight into the trash. The two of them polished off the lemonade, Kit in silence.

  Although Una cared more about keeping her figure than about eating, cooking, because she had to do it for Enman, had become unavoidable. “Will you stay and have supper with us?”

  “What, and squat on some rock later to help wash up? Sorry, hon.” She had a date, Kit said, and as unexpectedly as she had arrived, Kit was pecking Una’s cheek goodbye, waving a freshly lit cigarette from the car window. “Mind your fecking P’s and Q’s, eh, Missus Greene. Behave, now, or I’ll send the science teacher with the strap to straighten you out!”

  Kit thought she was being funny—it was Kit’s way of teasing, reminding Una of the bond forged between them when Una chose Kit as her exclusive confidant. The joke was poorly chosen and humiliating. Una felt stung in a way she could not have explained if she had wanted to.

  “Teachers don’t smoke, Miss Blackburn,” she called out. “You’ve got a month and a half to quit that filthy habit.” As the car disappeared her spirits flagged—more than the simple letdown of being left or the straightforward regret that an afternoon with company had been squandered on a chore Enman should have done.

  More’s the pity, Kit had not offered a word of solace or encouragement about the position she had suggested Una apply for. At least Enman would soon be home bearing some kind of present and in time to trek next door with a bucket.

  The shadows stretched longer, and evening wore on. She fried pork steak, heated peas, ate, and set aside a plate for Enman. Across the harbour Mrs. Finck’s blinds were down; she closed shop earlier and earlier, possibly due to the shortages. Even Sylvester Meade had better things to squander ration coupons on than stale sweets to bribe little girls into sitting on his lap. Still no sign of the Inkpens’ boat, not that she was worried. The wolf packs, as the paper called them—if you believed they lurked this close—had bigger prey than a fishing boat. Perhaps the men had been held up by harbour traffic.

  As the gloaming dimmed she occupied herself with packing more of Mrs. Greene’s things. Maybe they could be left in the cellar for whoever lived here next. Listening to the radio—no blackout message tonight—she tried to read one of Mrs. Greene’s books, a convoluted tale about a detective, a countess, some paintings. What kept her reading was knowing the culprits would get caught and be faced with consequences; culprits always did in books. But that was books, not life.

  The clock struck eight, and still no Enman. She’d have killed for a glass of water, and not a drop to drink in the house, barring the rum hidden in Mrs. Greene’s cabinet. She should go to a neighbour, except her tongue could dry up and fall out before she would go next door, and hell could freeze before she would drink from the Meades’ tap. She would need to flush the toilet, wash her face.

  Swinging Mrs. Greene’s enamelled pail, she cut down the hill to Isla Inkpen’s, where she had gone once on an errand for Mrs. Greene. By this hour, Isla’s daughter would have put her baby down for the night. The last thing Una needed was to hear its wailing.

  Isla invited her in. A slender, tight-lipped w
oman, Isla was still pretty, despite looking more worn and older than she probably was. Of course, she had more than enough to handle, being married to Greeley Inkpen. Isla heaved aside a bucketful of diapers stewing in the kitchen and pointed her to the pump at the sink. From the next room came a cooing sound, a lisping lullaby, the baby’s gurgling. “A first, it’ll be, if our well gives out.” Isla crossed her fingers and legs as if she needed to pee, and laughed, sort of. “Cross my heart, hope to die. Hope for the best, Una, what else can you do? Stay for a cuppa? No point sitting up there alone. Must be hard, after what happened to Enman. You must worry about him.”

  But the baby started crying and Una remembered Enman’s plate was at the mercy of the cat. With her pail brimming, she took the road back, since one faulty step crossing the field would make the endeavour pointless. She was already worried that one bucketful would not be enough. Then, piercing the darkness some distance from the roadside, shouts drew her attention. Some sort of hooliganism, kids being kids. Thudding footsteps, screaming—in the darkness, out of view, some rowdy game had gotten out of hand.

  Hannah Twomey came stumbling towards her, arms shielding her head. Something ricocheted from a boulder. Boys’ voices cut the satiny air, echoing in the deadly stillness.

  “Show us your jugs, retard! We wanna see your jugs!”

  Water slopped everywhere as Una hurried to the girl, something fierce unleashed inside her. Leering faces peeked from behind a second rock, another erratic that could be levered back and forth with a stick wedged under it. God, if she could have bowled it after the brats like a gigantic marble—a doughboy, no, a wrecking ball—she would have. Three of them hightailed it behind Meades’ place as Win appeared briefly under her porch light, then vanished inside.