at how foolish she was.
“Okay, come on, we might as well. I’m going to get what-for anyway.” Irene led the way through the side alley to the back garden, never letting go of Ebbie’s hand, even when she had to reach over the gate to unhook the latch.
Irene said she thought it might be best if they made themselves useful, and so they began weeding the garden. They pulled out dandelions and milk thistle and stray clover and put the loamy-smelling scraps in a tin bucket between them. Ebbie jabbered on about the newborn kittens and the bat they’d woken up to in the house two weeks before that scared everyone half silly until her father had finally walloped it with a tennis racket, which was the only thing you could hit a bat with, on account of their special radar ears. She told Irene about the week they’d spent with cousins on Beaver Lake near Peterborough, where they saw a real beaver lodge and heard loons and it would have been practically paradise except for the outhouse and its terrible stink and the spiders that lived on the dock and were big as dessert plates.
Every few minutes Irene glanced up to the kitchen window.
“Irene, you’re not listening.” Ebbie sat back on her haunches in the dirt, wiped her forehead with the back of her hand and left a trail of dusty grime. Irene didn’t sit in the garden. She bent over, careful of her shoes.
“Yes, I am. You said there were spiders.”
“Yes, as big as oranges. Aren’t you frightened of spiders?”
“No. They don’t scare me.”
“So what does scare you?”
Irene put down the trowel and rubbed her hands together to get the dirt off, being careful not to smudge her dress or her white socks. She didn’t say anything.
“Something must scare you. Everybody’s scared of something. Me, I’m scared of snakes and the root cellar. I hate the root cellar. I won’t even go down there to get potatoes for Mum. I’d pay Lisa to go for me if I had to. Yuck. I heard about a boy once, he put his hand in the potato box and there was a snake in there! Can you imagine? I’d just die. So tell me. I told you.”
“I don’t know. I get nightmares sometimes.” Her voice was very low and she kept glancing up to the window. “I dream awful things.”
“What kind of things?”
“Things about people coming to get me. Someone . . . It’s awful. I dream it over and over. This lady . . . she’s terrible. . . ”
“What does she do?” Ebbie hugged herself. Irene stared off at something Ebbie couldn’t see. “Irene?”
“Nothing. It’s just a silly dream.”
The back door opened and Margaret called to Irene. Their hour was up.
“Can I come back another day, Mrs. MacNeil?”
“Perhaps, dear.” Irene’s mother smiled. “If that’s what Irene would like. Come in now, Irene. Say goodbye to your little friend.”
“Goodbye, Ebbie.”
Ebbie dusted off the seat of her pants and hugged Irene. “I’ll see you real soon. I’ll come back tomorrow.”
“I’m glad you came by today, Ebbie. Real glad.”
“I hope you’re feeling better, Mrs. MacNeil. My mom says hi.” She waved as she went out the side gate.
Ebbie stuffed her hands deep into her pockets. She didn’t really think she wanted to go back there again. It felt like a betrayal to feel that way. She dragged her feet, scuffing the tops of her shoes without caring. She scuffed them for Irene, who she was sure would get locked up in her room for the rest of her life if she ever dared to scuff a shoe.
Irene knew she would have to pay for her hour with Ebbie. There was always a price to pay for nice things. She quickly put the trowels and the pail away in the shed. She patted her hair and smoothed her dress, then ran up the steps and into the kitchen. Her mother leaned against the kitchen counter, tying a red scarf around her head so the bow flopped down like rabbit’s ears.
“Did you have a nice afternoon?”
“Sort of.”
“With Ebbie Watkins? Really. I’m surprised.”
Irene didn’t want to play along. She pulled at a piece of dead skin next to her thumbnail, and a small spot of bright red blood appeared. She rubbed at it until it disappeared.
“Why?” she said finally, angry with herself.
“Well, she’s such an ugly girl, isn’t she? And so bad mannered. That whole family’s low class. I’ve always said that.” This was not true. Her mother used to say that Mrs. Watkins was a lady of good breeding.
“She’s my friend.”
“You don’t really want to play with that girl, do you?” Margaret laughed. “She’s the bottom of the barrel. Just look at her. She only wants to be your friend because no one else will have her. But I suppose you prefer being with her than spending time with your mother?”
“No, Mum.”
“I can see it in your eyes. I always know when you’re lying, you know. Well, now I know where we stand with each other. Stand up straight. Look at me.”
Irene raised her face to look at her mother, but she kept blinking and her eyes skipped off to the right and left.
“Yes, I can see how duplicitous you are. You’re not a very good girl after all.”
“I try.”
“Well, we’ll see how hard you try.” Margaret turned to the sink and snapped the ends off green beans. Snap. Snap. Snap. Like small bones cracking. “You may go to your room now, Irene.”
Irene went up to her room. She knew that when Ebbie came knocking tomorrow, she wouldn’t answer the door. But she hadn’t cried today. And that was something to be proud of.
8
September 1930
Rory Cameron and Joe Fleischman sat in the Blue Tulip Restaurant at the corner of Spadina and College.
“Son of a bitch,” said Rory. “Son of a bitch.”
“It’s for the best. They were bound to sniff you out. You can concentrate your efforts now." Joe was a former boxer known on the street as Joey Onions. He and Rory had met at a May Day march two years before. He had a mound of curly black hair that lay back in a series of waves, shimmering with pomade. He rarely smiled. He cracked the knuckles of first one hand and then the other.
“My efforts,” said Rory, “are going to be concentrated on getting some grub on a regular basis.”
“We’re all in the same boat.”
Rory scowled, but he knew Joe was right. The truth was, he’d been in a stinking mood for two days, ever since he’d opened his pay envelope and found the pink slip waiting for him. It hadn’t come as a surprise. He’d been lucky to keep his job as long as he had. At least he’d left with all his fingers attached, which is more than he could say for some. The boss was sorry and all that, but what could you do? Since Rory had hated the job for such a long time, the fact that he was upset surprised him.
“I’d hoped to get the shop organized before they pink-slipped me,” he said. It would have looked good to the higher-ups.” The Communist Party was like anywhere else. There was a hierarchy. There were guys in the know. “I don’t know what I’m going to do. If you weren’t paying for this meal, I’d be eating air.”
“I thought the party was talking about sending you up to Sudbury.”
“Yeah. To the nickel mines. Sounds like a godforsaken place.”
“It