Winter's Descent

Prologue

Gram and Gramps are waiting for me on the front porch. Gram is staring straight at Em, tilted beside me on the back seat of the taxi, her powder puff a-skitter like an ump’s dusting home plate. Wouldn’t want Clem to see the real thing, now would we? she says. When she lets go of my hand, there’s a quarter in it.

As I wrestle with the suitcase Mom has packed at least three times, Em leans across me—all perfume and petticoat—and tips a pink glove in the direction of the porch.Hi, folks! she yodels, I’m Em! Gram’s jaw drops. Gramps puts the hand that’s wielded the hammer and guided the saw upon her aproned hip, as if to steady her. He nods politely, reserving any astonishment. I feel the blush in my cheeks—stinging, unstoppable.

Don’t do anythin’ your Auntie Em wouldn’t do, Em bugles with a wink at the baby-faced taxi driver. Then she lowers her voice and says, You have a good time now, chum.

The suitcase gets stuck in the cab door, and I see Gramps ready to come down the steps. I wrench the thing loose, stagger back as it comes free, steady myself and, without looking back, step manfully toward the house I have lived in for all of my eleven-and-a-half years—till Mom packs up and takes us off, just like that. I pause on the sidewalk, warmed by a sun that is shining as if this were a Saturday morning like any other, as if one beautiful day could guarantee the next. What do I say, arrived home like a stranger at my own gate?

Well, don’t just stand there, Billy love, come in, Gram smiles, wiping her hands on her apron as she does, incessantly, bent over the flour-board beating her dough with sudden, necessary love-punches.

Gramps shoots out his hand. Welcome home, soldier, he says. I reach out, feel the suitcase bump stupidly against the bottom step and drop it on my foot.

Good thing that ain’t a gun, corporal, Gramps says, but I am already pulled into Gram’s arms, I can feel their tendons taut and searching, then only the billows of her cinnamon-scented apron.

C’mon, handsome, put a flat foot on the gas an’ get this crate movin’! The taxi jerks forward, growling and laying rubber all the way up Marsh Street.

Don’t mind her, I say, coming up for air.

Gram latches onto the suitcase, gives it a disapproving shake and escorts me through the front door. I don’t, Gram says. "An’ she ain’t your Auntiel"

We are in the familiar hallway with its waxy odour, motes shimmying in the cone of light from the single high window, the banis ter rubbed brilliant by a hundred illicit slides.I am poised to bound up the treaded stairs two at a time, whistling and ready for Mom’s call and its echo: That you, Junior? and my smart reply: Nope, it’s some guy named Billy!

Gram touches my shoulder gently. Just behind her Gramps shifts uncomfortably.This way, Nubbins, she says, and we walk toward the brown door with the pearl-white knob that opens into Gram’s dining-room. The Fulchers live up there now. You remember little Charlene, don’t you?

Fat Charlene with buck teeth and a stutter that tested even the patience of MissKernohan, and got three of her Grade 5 s the strap for tittering one time too many.

Polite as they come, she is, an’ pretty as a posy, Gram says, setting the suitcase down and stepping aside as if to let me re-appreciate the view I might well have forgotten in the long weeks since my abrupt departure.

"Several posies, Gramps says, at last looking me straight in the eye. Now, Wilf, you promised, Gram snaps. And I’m holdin’ you to it." Gramps winks. I laugh, in spite of myself, in spite of everything.

Gram spots the puzzled look on my face. In there, she says. The parlour?

I’ve pulled out the daybed, she says, opening the door to the front room with its damson curtains, lace doilies, starched sheets still drawn over the chesterfield and sofa-chair. The daybed is quilted—eager to receive some guest other than the ReverendCrenshaw. The smell of mothballs makes me wince.

I ain’t had time to air it out, Gram says. It’ll be fresh an’ cozy by bedtime. And of course there’s the big radio all to yourself. They have moved Gramps’ Philco—with its doomsday news, the murmuring drone of Harry Heilman through the long afternoons of Sunday baseball on faraway fields, Fibber’s clattering closet, the chilling theme of I Love a Mystery— into the parlour beside the hall door where it waits in awkward expectation.

It is only when I start to unbuckle the straps on the suitcase that I notice I’ve lost the quarter I wasn’t to spend all in one place.

I am surprised to see Gramps parked at the kitchen table, his workshop clothes still hanging on their nail beside the back door. He has just finished shuffling a pack of brand-new cards. He slaps them down beside a dinner-plate of chocolate brownies and a crystal dish of liquorice all-sorts.

What’ll it be, pard’ner, a few hands of rummy? he says in a voice not quite his own. It’s always rummy, but never on Saturday mornings.

I sit down opposite him, one eye on the rare, contraband treats. A dollar a point, Gramps says.

Now, Wilf, Gram hollers from the dining-room where she has taken up her knitting position, within pistol range.

What say we raise the stakes, then? Gramps says with a nod toward the clack of Gram’s needles. "Got any sugar coupons on your

I have bitten halfway through my first brownie, its sweetness lovingly illicit. I hear there’s not a sugar ration to be had in the whole county, Gramps says.

Don’t talk such foolishness, Gram says.

I laugh, because I always do. Gramps cuts and I deal. I win the first hand —big. Grampswrites down my score. Beginner’s luck, he says. I win again, by 40 points. Who suggested rummy anyway? Gramps mutters. After the thirdhand he says, Well, it’s a long ways to 500. He too bites into a brownie, the rich sin of its chocolate icing. Might as well drown my sorrows, he says.

Your mother got all your things ready for school? Gram says from the other room.

Uh huh.

I hope she pressed them grey trousers good. They won’t hold a crease, you know.

I know and I couldn’t care less. The words leap stealthily through my head before I can stop them.

Disregard, Gramps says. The old joke. Our joke. How far away is that school, did you say?

I didn’t say. Oh, not too far. All the kids walk. On a gravel road? With no shoulders?

And a ditch you drown in without blinking twice.

You missed that ace, Gramps says. He almost beats me, but I snatch up an errant discard and go out with a flourish. I may have to beg for mercy, he says, or call in the auditors.

Your mother still on them afternoon shifts? Yes, and still neglecting me.

Jackpot! Gramps says, toting up the score. I owe you three hundred and twenty-two dollars...give or take a tuppenny piece.

Gram bustles in, inspects the dinner-plate and crystal bowl, and says, far too cheerfully: It's time you headed out to see your friends, Billy. They all know you’re cornin’. Take a good handful of candies with you, and if you need money for the show, just ask. We want you to have a good time...before school starts and all—

Now, Mildred, Gramps says and lays his hand over hers on the table.

I turn away toward the door before I see something I won’t want to remember.

On my way to Joey’s house I notice that my feet, at their own bidding, start to skip and dodge and deke around the cracks in the sidewalk. When I stop to wait for cars at RiverStreet, the cracks spray out as if someone has struck an ice-pond with a sledge (Dinosaurs, Joey says. They come outta the glaciers. I read it in a book. Must be true, then, I say). Joey’s house —across the street from the vacant lot, almost under the lamppost that guides our hide-and-go-seek, and cheek-to-cheek with Holy RollersHall— beckons. I race down the slope, heedless of crack or consequence, and plunge into the quick chill of shadow that never abandons the hollow between Joey’s verandah and the windowless house of worship.

"Joe-eee\" The echo rolls back, giving me goosebumps.

Joey’s mom eases back a curtain with two fingers and says in the low voice adults use before church begins: Joey an’ Heather’ve gone to their Grandma’s for the holiday.Then just as she’s about to let the curtain drop, she says, Maybe you can see them in Sunday School tomorrow.

Thank you.

How’s your mom gettin’ on? she says, but I’ve already scuttled back into the holy sunshine of Chestnut Ave.

I try Hutch’s place next, back across River Street, past his dad’s store and the barn that burned to a cinder in the summer. Mrs. Hutchins is hosing down her front walk (That woman’s made Neatness one of the Seven Deadly Sins, Gramps says. An’ your workshop’s Heaven, I suppose? Gram says, not missing a stitch).

Oh, Junior, she says, a look of concern crossing her face. You just missed him. He decided to help his dad with the deliveries out in the township.

Meaning, of course, that Hutch hung around too long waiting for me and his dad put the collar on him.

Lookin’ forward to your new school? she says pleasantly.

I tiptoe the last few steps through Underwood’s Field and pause at Wiz’s back gate.The wind brushes the bleached hair of the grasses, the wispy fringes of our diamond, and the frayed netting of the backstop Wiz made just for us. But my eyes are on the magic space ahead: the umbrella-elm that gave a shady roof to our big-top; the limb that anchored our flying trapeze; the benches that held half a village cheering and applauding in the midst of their bedazzlement; the candy-striped podium on which the wizard of the West stood to re-enact, at will, the enchantment that was his inheritance and his gift to our small world.

Several yellowed leaves hop in the breeze before settling against the fence, where they rattle and cling. It is only now that I notice the two figures hunched together on the verandah and catch the murmur of their voices.

It’s Susannah who looks up first, and speaks: Junior! How nice to see you. We thought you’d gone for good. You could have spread the honey on bread. Didn’t we, Arthur?

Wiz jumps back as if he’s touched an electric fence, unlatching his hand from Susannah’s. He blushes to the tips of his ears. Hi, he says.

Hi, I say. What’re you up to?

We’re goin’ up to my uncle’s, Susannah says, unravelling a pair of lengthy legs tanned all the way up to the brim of her shorts. He’s got a new motorboat.

And a tankful of illegal gas.

Maybe Junior could come with us? Wiz says.

That’d be real nice, Susannah says, re-attaching Wiz’s hand, but Aunt Martha an’ her cousins take up more room than they ought to.

Wiz grins. They are a bit on the bulky side, he offers. I couldn’t go anyway, I lie.

What’re ya’ doin’ tomorrow? Wiz says, glancing away, his eyes lighting on the stiff curve of Susannah’s bra and bouncing off toward the workshop where once he wrought his summer wonders.

You promised to take me bike-ridin’, silly, Susannah says, and gives him a mock slap on the wrist.

All day ?

You stayin’ till Monday? Wiz says hopefully. Naw. Goin’ back tomorrow at suppertime.

Oh. But you’ll be cornin’ back to visit your Gram, eh? Sure. Lots of times, I say.

Well, we’ll see you then, Wiz says. We’ll be right here, won’t we, Arthur? Two bugs in a rug.

Wiz winces, goes pink, shrugs, and then grins—some of the old spark glinting through, untainted.

I pretend not to notice.

In the morning I go along with Gramps on his ritual Sunday walk.

He pumps his arms as he did when he first marched off to the trenches in the Great War to end all wars. I match him step for step, stride for stride. We wheel along the River, past the freight-sheds, across the flats where we sometimes joined the girls on high summer evenings to play May I? or Statues in the malleable grass, along the alder-bluff above the unrippled blue Lake taut as a boxer’s belly, around the flooded lagoon that once was a burial-ground for Indians I can only dream about, then down the path to the railway tracks where the village becomes itself again—though oddly different now, as if the sun in my absence has shifted the angle of its shad-owing ever so slightly.

Our arms are still swinging in soldierly unison, our eyes straight ahead: not a single word needed.

Seated beside Gram in our usual pew, the sun above us brightening the glass halos of Jesus and Mary Magdalene washing his feet, I can peek across the aisle and see Joey, Heather, Hutch and the others. Out of the corner of my eye I spy their sidelong glances and irreverent nods, as much curious as conspiratorial. I sing lustily through the chorus and two verses of The Precious Blood of the Lamb, my gaze upon the stricken Christ above the altar, the thorns on his brow, the cruel wound where his appendix should be. Gram gives me the subtle elbow.

I hang upon the Reverend Crenshaw’s every multi syllable as he cranks up for the sermon. The organ bursts into prolonged bloom as the youngsters troop back up the aisle towards the sanctuary of Sunday School in the basement. My name is whispered and passed along like a well-thumbed note through the ranks of Grade 5. Gram nudges me.

You’re goin’, aren’t you? she says under the wheeze of music.

I wanta hear the sermon, I say, my hymnal seized in both hands like a profane tablet.

Gram removes a glove and places the backs of her fingers on my forehead. Checking for fever.

After lunch Gram stays in the kitchen, baking the fruit pies and jam tarts and peanut-butter cookies that will last all week (We had to trade the parlour chesterfield to get the last of Miss Daulton’s sugar coupons, Gramps says. Now you know perfectly well that sweets make her teeth ache, Gram says. Ya’ mean the ones she pickles in a glass every night? Wilf!). I plunk myself in the captain’s chair to watch.

Gram is peeling a spy apple with military precision, her arms and face blasted by powder. She gives me a why aren’t you outside playing look, but I don’t budge. After a while she starts humming again—her favourite ditty, My Bonny Lies Over the Ocean. In the side yard, swathed in sun, Gramps has dozed off with the newspaper limp in his lap, only its ink-inched headlines visible: CANADIANS CROSS SEINE: GERMANS ON THE RUN.

Here comes Hutch, Gram says, letting out a long slow breath. Maybe it’s ration Sunday.

It is, of course, and soon Hutch and I are settled into the storeroom behind the main section of his dad’s shop. The single bulb hanging above the trestle-table gives us all the light we need for the job. As always Hutch opens two bottles of twelve-ounce Pepsi and plops the box of straws between us. Scattered over the table are wisps and crooked sheets of ration coupons, for meat, sugar and tea. Beside us are the official-looking forms onto which we will glue the several thousand coupons while the afternoon drifts away through the shadowed room and we try to make our pop last till the final stamp’s been stuck.

What d’you think happens to all these sheets when they get to Ottawa? I say into the clock’s steady, stalwart ticking.

Hutch shrugs, then grins as he does with one corner of his mouth: Toss ‘em in the ocean, I reckon.

Off and on between pasting and slurping, we remind ourselves of the summer now gone—of our search for the stranger who spooked small children and their betters with his mysterious manoeuverings; of the wild storm that pounced upon one of our own, drowned and bloodless on the beach; of the circus that Wiz and our gang pieced together, that left a whole town cheered and still talking; of boy-battles fought and won with two-fisted valour; of the arm Hutch broke and the cast he brandished like a scimitar.

Hutch rolls the left sleeve of his Sunday shirt up past the elbow. Clean as a whistle. Not a mark on me.

I scrutinize the damaged limb, surprised that the muscle is already bunched and rippling with the strength that has shielded me from more than one bully since our days in Grade i. Hutch’s sad eye twinkles as he clenches his fingers and the knuckles whiten in warning. I bet ol’ Lester remembers these, he says.

Lester’s howl, as much of despair as pain, rises up through me once again as it has so many times in the dream I have just before I wake. I let it echo and fade with an ultimate shudder, and take a fierce pull on the double-straws in my Pepsi—hitting bottom.

Hutch has already grabbed his and we strike air almost at the same half-second. Hutch grins with both sides of his mouth.

I can’t stand a bully, he says, putting the last coupon in its proper place with a righteous punch. I smile, recalling Hutch in Mr. Temple’s Sunday-School class asking in his shy, blunt fashion why God made bullies and let them maraud unmolested through the world. Mr. Temple tells him not be impertinent, and I have to look the word up in myHighroadsDictionary when I get home. Hutch doesn’t bother.

We head out, blinking in the sunshine, and Hutch walks across the scorched grass of the vacant lot between his house and the shop toward the rabbit-pens—spanking new, the lumber not yet greyed by rain, the chicken-wire still shiny. The neatness of Hutch’shandiwork is everywhere evident, that big-knuckled grip so steady, so thoughtful upon hammer or saw.

Bluebelle sniffs at our arrival, her half-grown litter around her, twitching and curious. The carrot in Hutch’s hand brings them forward in a tumbled rush. He reaches in and gives Bluebelle a tender hoist into my arms. Her ears go back and she munches away contentedly while I stroke the nape of her neck. Her velvet stomach breathes warmly against my own like a slow heartbeat. Two of the juveniles are crawling up Hutch’s arm as he dangles another carrot just out of reach. And as they are about to topple in their greed he gathers them into the cradle of his hands, hugs them close and presents the tip of the carrot to each in turn.

Hutch returns Bluebelle and her bunnies to the pen, fluffs up the straw and latches the screened door.

We walk slowly to his gate. Across the street we see Charlene and her parents waddling around the corner, making boldly for Gram’s front porch. We hear their footsteps plunk on the steps, then the slap of Gram’s door. I even hear the thump of them on the hall stairs and Charlene’s greasy whine as she barges straight into my bedroom, the closet dripping with pinafores and frillies, the bed fouled with her alien aroma.

Hutch is staring down at his shoe-tops, rocking side to side—a sure sign he’s been thinking. Say, Billy, when’re you cornin’ back home?

Won’t be long, I say. Soon as my dad gets back. Hutch’s eyes widen. "From the War?"

It ain’t gonna last forever, I say soothingly. Nothin’ lasts forever.

Hutch glances back at the rabbit-pens. Why not? he says with his eyes.

Gram walks me to the bus-stop, all of one block away. She holds my hand tightly, as if it were about to be conscripted. Tucked under her other arm is a ‘care’ package of tarts and cookies tied up with twine. (You forgot to write ‘This Side Up’ on it, Gramps says.There’s nothin’ to be jokin’ about, Gram says quietly. I know, Gramps says, winking at me, "there’s a war on. At the door he says, So long, soldier. Keep your head down.")

The bus is late. Not a soul disturbs our silence: Sunday suppers are still being digested, evening services an hour away. Behind Grove’s place a skipping-rope slaps on cement, revs up to double dutch, and Betty-Ann’s vulture-laugh caws through the village air. That girl needs a muzzle, Gram says, and a good hiding once a week.(A cross between a goose and a guinea-hen, that one, Gramps says.)

The bus grumbles around the corner and chuffs up to our stop.

You be sure an’ share this with your new friends, won’t you? Gram says.

Yes, Gram.

Got your bus fare? Yes, Gram.

She reaches into the pocket of her dress where peppermints customarily lodge. This is for you, she says gravely.

It’s an envelope, still sealed. Addressed to me.

From your dad, she says. He’s got himself overseas.

Gram remains motionless on the sidewalk as the bus negotiates the curve by the monument, and I can turn at last to face the driver and whatever lies ahead.

Part 1: Rules

1

You keep your eyes and ears open, young man, Mom says, spitting on her fingers and trying to keep my cowlick in its place. I want a full report the minute you get home.She fusses with my Sunday shirt, straightens the crease on my good trousers, and inspects the brown Savage oxfords she has polished while I visit the outdoor plumbing(We got flies bigger’n turkeys out there, Em says, an’ twice as mean. When I complain of bees and worse, she says, I just close my eyes, chum, an’ think of God.Mom finds this particularly funny).

I’ll have the tea hot an’ sweet, Mom says. Just like Gram: two spoons of sugar, jersey milk.

"You won’t even be here," I mumble.

Of course I will. I don’t have to be at work till after five. Auntie Em’s gonna cover for me. Ain’t that swell of her?

She’s not my aunt, I say. That stumps her.

Buck up, Billy, she says at the back door, the sun sizzling on the cinder-block stoop.You’ll— She’s about to give me the pitch about new friends and exciting new adventures, but thinks better of it—settling for a kiss that ricochets off my left