Sees the skeletal cattle, the skyscraper tall clouds of dust, and he keeps on going west. He finds a letter waiting for him in Vancouver, general delivery, where he’s written his family they might catch him. Standing in the park at the corner of Hastings and Hamilton, the West Coast sky hanging iron-heavy and the air thick with humidity, he keeps his back against a tree to protect the ink on the page from the relentless drizzle and lets the tears spill from his eyes. Isaac writes there is another baby on the way and the land is cracking, mottling the earth like the back of a dying sun-baked turtle. They do not ask him to come home but send their love, his father says be careful. Be a good boy. He feels the weight of love behind those words. They mean he carries his father’s dreams with him. And his blessing.
He folds the letter and tucks it inside his shirt.
The park is full of men doing nothing, the occupation they all share. They stand and smoke and try to stay cool in the steaming shade. He has learned a great deal about men in the past months. How frightened they can be, and how fear can turn to rage in the time it takes to swallow a mouthful of moonshine. How kind they can be to strangers, and how cruel. He has learned a man can fall into depths of depravity if he is hounded by despair. Drugs. Alcohol. The infliction of pain on the weakest. He learns how despair follows shame, which in turn follows despair, and it is a drowning whirlpool.
The older men, who have known better, prouder times, are most shamed by their circumstances, he can see that. They stand with their heads hung low, or sit on the wet grass. A few drink from bottles wrapped in paper bags; a group talks in loud voices, cursing the rich, the cops, the politicians. Most just stand their ground, silent and brooding, thinking of home, perhaps, or food.
They stay together for one reason more than any other: the hope of hearing something. They follow the ripples of rumour. Have become disciples of hearsay. Hear a farm wants hands down the road. Might be some track to lay up north. A truck of lumber to unload. A tobacco field ripening. A factory needs a guy to replace the one that lost his arm. There’s forest to clear up the coast. Hear they’re hiring out in Kamloops, in Grassy Narrows, in Sioux Lookout, in Mississauga, in Lethbridge, in Truro, in St. John’s. Once in a great many days it is whispered that a truck might pass by the park looking for a few strong men for a day’s work. Three were taken last time; nearly one hundred are left behind, pleading and resentful in equal measure.
David stays two weeks, but no truck ever comes. There is talk of the coal mines. No one wants to go there. Only the desperate. He listens to the stories of cave-ins and company bulls and bad air and shakes his head. He tightens his belt again and prays he’ll never be that desperate.
7
August 1930
It was a sticky-hot August and even the flies buzzed at the windowpanes without much interest. A ceiling fan moved thick air around the small drug store. Douglas arranged the bottles carefully on wooden shelves behind the register. He liked to have things orderly. There was music to symmetry. Blue bottles of Epsom salts and bromides, arranged tallest to tiniest. Green bottles of foot powder. Clear bottles of headache tablets. Dental cleansing powders in tall yellow tins and Dr. West’s toothbrushes. Odorono deodorant. Ointments and salves in flat silver tins. Bottles of cough syrup and small vials of smelling salts. Under the counter rested the items of a more intimate nature. Prophylactics. Feminine cleansing apparatuses. In the back room narrow shelves were lined with prescriptive medicine.
Douglas polished a small amber bottle of antacid. He didn’t like dust, believed it was a disease that must be battled the same way he battled coughs and rashes and boils and bad nerves. The notion of bad nerves led him, as so many things did these days, to troubling thoughts concerning Margaret. He had tried every remedy possible on Margaret and nothing worked. Women, he knew, were prone to hysteria, and needed a firm guiding hand, but the firmer he was, the more she retreated into her private world. And so he had tried kindness, cajolery, but she only smiled weakly and gazed at him blankly, as though he were a stranger.
He straightened a row of Mistol Rub, making sure the edges were exactly even. He said to himself that perhaps Margaret was getting better after all. It had been two months since the day he had come home and found her in inconsolable tears, vowing she would be a better, more understanding wife and pulling out hair from her head, one single strand at a time. It had taken hours to get her calmed down, and he had been forced to resort to laudanum. Still, that had been the last truly bizarre incident. And she had stopped the endless canning and preserving, which was good, since their cellar and garden shed were packed to the rafters with more food than they could eat in three years.
She hardly ever nagged him when he didn’t come home on time these days. He would not go so far as to say she preferred it when he stayed away, but she did seem to have accepted that a man was entitled to his own life outside the home.
“Good morning, Mr. MacNeil.”
Mrs. Watkins was standing before him, all teeth and good intentions. She gave off a scent of eagerness, a slightly powdery, freshly scrubbed smell.
“Good morning, Mrs. Watkins. How are you this fine bright morning?” Douglas unconsciously folded his arms across his chest.
“Oh, we’re all well at our house. Melting a bit in this heat, but surviving. Ebbie, Izzy, Lisa, all growing by leaps and bounds. Just like weeds, those kids.”
“Ah, that’s fine, fine indeed.”
“And how about Irene? I haven’t seen her lately.”
“No complaint there. Grades through the roof last term. Smart as a whip, and yes, as you say, growing like a little weed.”
“I’m glad to hear it. I thought maybe she’d been ill.”
“No, touch wood.” He tapped the oak countertop. “No more than the sniffles now and then. A robust child.”
Mrs. Watkins opened her purse and then shut it again, the clasp making a sharp little snapping sound. “We don’t see Irene around much anymore. Ebbie invited her over several times, but it seems her mother’s feeling a little low these days. I have tried to drop by, to see if there’s anything I can do, of course, but perhaps she doesn’t hear me knock.”
Douglas noticed several of the magazines on the rack were improperly placed. The Ladies Home Journal was upside-down and the edges turned back. He frowned. He must stop the neighbourhood boys from coming in and looking without buying. This was all they were after, pictures of ladies in their slips and girdles. Little imps.
“It’s not anything serious, I hope,” said Mrs. Watkins, leaning forward.
“Serious? Is what serious?”
“Why, Mrs. MacNeil’s illness.”
“Mrs. MacNeil is just a little tired, is all.”
“What a shame. Perhaps I can bring her by a casserole?”
“Is there something I can get for you today, Mrs. Watkins? I have some of that lavender water you’re so partial to.”
“Oh. Well, yes, I suppose I could use a bottle of that. And a small tin of aspirin, Mr. MacNeil.” She raised her plump hand to her throat. “I hope you don’t think I’m prying. I’d never think of prying, as I’m sure you know. I’m the soul of discretion my husband always says. A secret would go to the grave with me. But some of the ladies couldn’t help but notice that your wife isn’t as social as she once was, and little Irene, well, it’s not healthy for a child to be in the house all the time, especially now, in the summer weather. Don’t you agree, Mr. MacNeil? A child should be with other children . . .”
“I’m sure you’d never dream of interfering, Mrs. Watkins.” Douglas put her purchases in a paper bag.
“Never! Of course not!” Mrs. Watkins blushed deeply.
“I assure you, everything at my house is as it should be. Your concern is appreciated, but quite unnecessary. Quite unnecessary. That will be ninety cents, please.” Douglas held out the bag, with his