By mid-April there was barely a trace of snow to be found anywhere in the village. The sun thawed, stirred, reminisced with the earth. And in the memorable warmth of the afternoons, workmen of every shape and ilk came to help with the making of Granny Coote’s cottage: a mason, a joiner, a sawyer, several carpenters, a lather and plasterer, two roofers, assorted painters and paperers, a clandestine electrician, a legitimate plumber, and countless helpers, apprentices, and sidewalk foremen. And each one, novice or seasoned hand, was watched over by the still figure outlined in the front window of the miserable shack across the street – a pale, disinterested ghost looking for new ground to haunt. Not once did she wave, nod, or in any other wise break her silent superintendence.
The workmen might have been relieved to learn that the supervising wraith behind the glass did not spend all of her watching time minutely observing their amateur, though enthusiastic, performance. True, she never left her post, but on most days, shortly after noon, she would cast an eye up or down the street to catch the eccentric stride of one or more of the young men en route to the site, and begin to trace its advance until some moment of sudden recognition occurred, as it inevitably did. Ah, that’s young Mike, Maggie Hare’s lad, she would think; Bunny, they used to call him and he’d come running home bawling and quivering with hurt, too tiny to fight back, to cast off the name that would dog him all his days, but I would always put down my mop and making sure Maggie was out of earshot, I would let him fling his eight-year-old arms around me and butt me in the stomach as hard as he wanted till he’d slow down real gradual and just hug me, and I’d reach into my apron, as if I’d thought of something special, and pull out a peppermint – like a prize for a clever strong boy who would never again let the bullies call him Bunny. He doesn’t remember that anymore. It was a long time ago, of course, and she and Maggie did have a falling out shortly after, and she had been, after all, a lifelong Alleywoman. By the time Granny looked up from such thoughts, the studding for a bedroom wall or a new doorway would have mysteriously come into being across the street. For Sunny’s sake, she did try to watch, but it was very, very hard.
There’s Slowboat Saunders, Eliza’s youngest. She was too old to have any more and she paid for it. Slowboat could drive a nail through his thumb and then wonder why he couldn’t pick his nose. Poor dear soul.
I’ve wiped that nose many a time after Alf got his leg crushed in a coal-tender’s bogies and Eliza went back to school teaching. He waves at me and grins, but I’m sure he can’t connect what he sees here behind glass with those days before Arthur, before Eddie, before the catastrophes of age. Even the Army wouldn’t take Slowboat – flat feet, they said. To her surprise, the last of the roof-boards – magically – had already been put in place. She could no longer see inside. I didn’t even hear the hammering, she thought.
Moments later she saw Sunny Denfield climb down from the roof, stand for a while with his arm on Slowboat’s shoulder, then detach himself and walk across the street towards her gate.
“I guess you remember the day when my father came lookin’ for me. He got the police out by tellin’ them I was under eighteen an’ pullin’ some strings in the government. Naturally they expected that, bein’ a young lad accustomed to money and pleasure, I would run off to the fleshpots of Montreal or Detroit. It never occurred to them that I might be runnin’ away from those very things. To be honest, I didn’t know what I was doin’ except findin’ some room to breathe an’ think an’ sort out my life. I suppose if I’d had a mother, I’d have stayed away just long enough to give them all a good scare, but I didn’t. To this day I haven’t a clue as to who tipped off my father that I might be livin’ in some little dump of a railroad town called Point Edward. Probably one of the big shots stayin’ at The Queen’s where I had that room near the back annex, you remember. Unfortunately I’m the spittin’ image of my father. Anyway, as you’ll recall, it was only a month after I’d settled in at the sheds – in September of ought-one – when he comes scoutin’ after his lost son.” He dunked one of Mrs. Carpenter’s cookies in his tea. “The whole village knew somethin’ was afoot,” he laughed.
Granny had written on her slate. She held it up: ‘We all heard him’.
“So did everyone in Port Huron and Sarnia. Imagine, comin’ to fetch a runaway back home in a horseless carriage, firin’ off sparks an’ fartin’ bedlam in every direction, deafenin’ dogs an’ spookin’ horses an’ givin’ old Mrs. Farrow a case of the hiccups she claimed took her ten years to get over.”
The sun was now shining through the west window over the sink. She felt its warmth around her ankles. Soon in her garden it would be tempting bulb and tuber.
“He left it sittin’ in front of The Queen’s, surrounded by townsfolk, an’ walked by himself across the fields towards our work gang; we were cuttin’ ragweed or somethin’, between boats, with our shirts stripped off showin’ our muscles an’ tan to the whole world. He didn’t know I saw him, but he stood near a little hawthorn, watchin’ us work an’ horse around as we always did, an’ by that time I was feelin’ like one of the gang, with all my blisters toughened up and all the kinks out of my arms an’ legs, an’ real earned money in my pocket. He never said a word, and I never let on I saw him. He just turned an’ walked away. We heard the poppin’ and jumpin’ of the automobile all the way across the marsh, and I remember one of the fellas sayin’: ‘Christ, it’s like ridin’ a Gatling Gun!”
Arthur – bless him for trying – built that little cupboard beside the sink, she was thinking. He let Eddie cut out the scrolls and curlicues with his coping saw. He was so patient, Arthur, with his hands on the piano, with anything in them. We were always going to fix up the outside, but there was never enough money and the property was not really ours and beside the inside was always cozy and full of music, and the nimbleness of Arthur’s fingers never did transfer from piano hammers to a carpenter’s, though he could never figure out why, staring up at her helplessly for absolution.
“You would have liked my Aunt Grace, Cora,” Sunny was saying. “I never could understand how she came to marry such a stuffed shirt as my Uncle Bramwell. You couldn’t picture two more opposite types. She cared nothing for money or fancy things: she loved people. Especially children, an’ she regretted, I know, bein’ able to have but one child. She almost died havin’ Ruth-Anne, I was told. I’m hopin’ you’ll get a chance to meet Ruth-Anne soon. I’ve been tryin’ to help her with her pursuit of her family tree. She insists her mother had relatives livin’ in this county, and is threatenin’ to come down here an’ prove it to herself. I hope she does. You’ll like her. She’s got her mother’s spunk.”
Granny smiled as best she could. She wrote a word on her slate: ‘When?’
“Two weeks,” he said, barely above a whisper. “The plaster an’ paint won’t take long. It’s gonna look real nice, Cora. Just the way you an’ me sketched it out. We’d like you to move in by the first of May. The monument man’s comin’ from London about then. We’re plannin’ a little ceremony for you – I know you don’t approve but it’s really to make the council feel good about it all, if you wouldn’t mind – but that won’t be till later because the lawyers are still sortin’ out the legal stuff. But I promise you, you’ll have a bona fide deed in your hand by June. You’ll own that piece of land an’ that cottage outright. Nobody’ll ever be able to take it away from you. It’s the least we owe you, the least you deserve.”
She was listening and not listening. She got up and walked slowly to the west window. She looked out over her dozing gardens. Sunny Denfield was at her side. He looked out with her. “I’m sorry,” he said, his voice breaking. Her hand on his wrist said, I know.
A stranger, walking by, might have caught them in their window – glazed by a westering glow – and mistaken them for mother and son.