THE SECOND APARTMENT BUILDING.
What he liked, this Young Raskin, was how he was now—for better or worse, with his nose straightened, and his weight loss, quite handsome. And he had dreams of doing many grand things. He had dreams of finding a beautiful woman for himself.
He met Torrent Peterson on the beach.
The sun was shining and though the wind was brisk it was very hot. Sandflies had gathered about Torry as they were gathered around—it was revealed to him later—Eva Mott. She had swum out too far and had begun to sink in the rip. And no one on the beach was prepared or brave enough to go after her. He watched it all with some interest, some horror that he himself couldn’t find the immediate strength to react, and judged later that she was too far away, and he would be no good in the attempt. He in fact was right. Few men would have been able to save her.
She was quite lucky that there was one there who could.
Two boys went to get Torrent—he had been working with his horse up in the woods, making his own house. Torrent ran down, took off his boots and shirt and swam out toward her. He grabbed her from behind, put her head into his chest and swam back, one-armed, first along the rip that was pulling her away from shore and finally in toward the shore. He could see the shore—everything looked distant, and people yelling, and two boys wading out up to their chests.
She kept saying sorry because she had lost her top. And when he got her to shore, she staggered somewhat to the beach. She had freckles and her hair was red. He took off his shirt and put it over her bared breasts. Now that she was safe, she started to laugh and cry.
“My name is Eva, my name is Eva, I’m new here—I didn’t know—I’m sorry—I live up in the Raskin apartment so thanks for helping. I got tired, I’m sorry.”
Albert had watched from a distance with his hands in the pockets of his white cotton pants. He had heard that Torrent was one of those lost boys, who never mentioned his father or where he lived because he was ashamed to tell. But Albert knew he lived in a trailer along Arron Brook somewhere. He was surprised to see him, startled to see his black curly hair soaking wet, and water dripping off his soaking jeans, to see his very white feet in the hot sand.
He made a note that he had seen him, and had seen that beautiful girl. Already with the sunburn on his face he was making plans in his mind, that helping a girl like that would make the memory of Annie Howl go away.
Over the years there were squabbles in that trailer where Torrent lived. The police were often called to parties where there were smashed bottles and windows. Some days when people drove by the turnoff to Upper Arron they would see Torrent’s lone figure, dark against the pale evening sky, leaning against a telephone pole, smoking.
Mel Stroud disparaged the boy’s father to Albert, saying Oscar owed him a lot, owed the Strouds a whole lot and the boy would turn out to be no better. He would shake his head at the shameful way they lived.
“Up in that trailer!” he said, as if living in a trailer wounded some pedantic sensibility he had acquired. “Oscar stoled a lot from us—from me and Shane, stoled a whole lot—”
“He did?”
“He hurt that boy’s mother awful bad,” Mel would say, scratching the knuckle of his left hand. “Albert, if you was there, you would know—you would know—I tried to do my best with them all—women deserve our help. Tried my best in my heart to take care of Mary Lou, Torrent’s mother. Oscar never liked us nohow, he never liked Shane, that poor little lad—Shane’s younger than me, and he had no father figure—I tried, but as you know I didn’t have no help myself. Oscar did nothing but laugh at us, laugh at us when I was a young lad. He ain’t much older than me but acted the big shot. I just wish I had more education like you.”
“I wish you had gone to university—think of what you could have been,” Albert would tell him emotionally, and not without a measure of compassion. And not without thinking he would someday mention his conversation to Professor Dykes. “I don’t think I’ve met as many who had such a hard time, and understand so much about human nature. So much more than so many.”
“I never had no chance,” Mel would say, sniffing, with his hands grabbing the side of the porch where he sat and staring straight ahead, “never had no chance. Shane is someone now I try to look out for. He liked that young Eva Mott but she hurt him bad, almost destroyed him. First she is real friendly to him and everything like that there, plays him along, asks for presents, gets him running back and forth for flowers whatchacallitmums or somethin—and then she goes off with someone else—goes off with that prick Torrent Peterson, just about broke poor Shane’s heart. Had it planned to take her to a dance and borrowed my car, shined it all up and everything and she walks right by him won’t even say hello. Maybe you could do something about it all—”
“What could I do?”
“Don’t know—but we’d be in your debt for sure. Shane needs a good girl to straighten him out—”
“When you mention Shane, I am uncertain of him. He keeps bringing up that night. That night is over.”
“I’ve nothing to do with it,” Mel replied almost softly, and then chewed some liquorice, “but Shane is certain that something happened to that poor Howl girl—you are right on that. You see, that night hurt him some bad—he was disappointed in you.”
“Disappointed?”
“Well—to him you were like a counsellor or something—mental health, which was even in the paper about you—but then he went to that party—and he was scared to go with important people—and then what happened to that little girl, understand. It was the very first time he met important people. That is what it boils down to.”
Mel continued: “But you see Eva Mott going out with that Torrent is his concern now—that Torrent will put a beating on her, sure as hell, and kick her arse. Poor Shane—he’s the one who cares for women. He liked your mother too, and you know I tell no secrets how she was left out of the loop by yer stepdaddy—I tell no secrets that he hit her too. I tell no secrets that you got a whop of money coming to you if you play it smart. So Shane is the one who cares heaps for women, a whole lot. Just like a professor.”
The wind blew against the car, and the sea was riled up. Then he added with a wink, “Hey—you got things done to you—look like some movie star now, Albert Raskin. That’s what money does.”
So Albert had heard Torrent’s mother had left. Mel had taken her away from Oscar Peterson because he couldn’t stand the way Oscar abused her, and that both of them, she and Mel, had petitioned everyone to get the child Torrent back, before Oscar as Mel said “deranged him.” But that this was impossible. Then Torry’s mother died, Mel tried desperately to save her but did not. He tried to help Torry but was kicked out of the yard, “on more than one occasion.” He bought him presents too, and tried to help him get his education.
And when Mary Lou’s heart stopped “that time there—he give her mouth-to-mouth to resuscitate her and everything else. Blew my own air into her body to help her out. Oscar wouldn’t sniff in her direction, I figure.”
So Albert now suspected, and talked to Professor Dykes about it, that Torry would have the same kind of horrid life as his father—the same prospects and marry and his wife would have a hard life. She would be abused. This was simply a matter of Albert’s new evolvement and understanding about the lack of advantages and the chauvinists who lived here. Of course he thought this because he too had been taught to think it; where professors who came from Europe and the United States looked upon us as backward. Expatriates often left their country and applauded the country they adopted. But those who came here applauded the countries they abandoned and hated and disparaged the rural land they arrived in. And many students here instantly abdicated for their regard.
In fact to think in any other way about Torrent was to dispute his tutors. But not only that, it was to show less compassion than his tutors implied he was supposed to. And besides this, Mel, a rough but good man, thought all this as well and told him so. And to disparage Mel was to be not only hard-hearted but in error—and also it would raise the spectre of Shane, and might tarnish the reputation of his mother.
The real facts, however, were very different. And both Dykes and he were too self-consciously gullible and moreover wilfully trained in naivety to examine them.
Torrent was a sad and gentle soul, told by his father Oscar Peterson that his mother had died, that it was a heroic death; that she was saving eagles, or some other bird, Oscar didn’t quite remember, but she fell off a cliff on Good Friday Mountain. And that she had even managed to fly for a little bit—not a long time, but a few incandescent flaps. “Like a little mourning dove,” he said.
And Torrent believed that because his heart was good.
He believed everything then because his heart was good. Later on he would believe Eva Mott in everything because his heart was good. He believed her because he had a simple nature, and could not conceive of people lying to him. That is, when one saw his brooding strength and curly black hair one also saw gullibility, trustfulness and hope.
So Albert told his mother he was going to study sociology, take on the system, which he said would set the world straight. That he would succeed his way out of their bad luck and in a few years everything would be back to the way it should be. That he would give the money away to worthy people—some worthy young woman, and he would show his mettle in a way she would be proud of.
But what he did not know was that both Shane and Mel had heard of this money he was required to give to some worthy cause.
And one or two nights a week, Shane’s black car was parked just down the street.