Cape Breton Road Read online

  “That’s my room upstairs,” he said.

  “Is it?”

  “I don’t want you digging through my stuff.”

  “You got nothing to dig through. You should be more careful when you strip your sheets. Things pop out.” There was rum on his breath and the man he’d been talking to earlier, a florid man with thin sandy hair, came up behind him laughing.

  “Jesus, Starr, the clans are massing, b’y. You going to march or fight?”

  “What? Ah, Joe! With that crew? I couldn’t keep a straight face. Let’s you and me march to those trees and have a snapper, eh?”

  “Let’s have a gander at these characters first, all that kilted folk from hither and yon. This your nephew is it? Pleased to meet you, b’y!”

  “Hi, Joe. Innis.”

  “How’s business, Starr?”

  “All but boards over the windows, Joe. I don’t give a damn if every TV in the world goes up in smoke tomorrow.”

  “That’s a terrible thing to say, Starr. What would we do with ourselves?”

  Pipes had struck up, an annoucement came over loudspeakers that a march of the clans was assembling. Clansmen kilted and otherwise were lining up on the hill leading toward the ampitheatre.

  “This is the International Gathering of the Clans?” Starr said, amused.

  “I guess the word didn’t get around,” Joe said. He pulled a flask hidden behind his belt and gave it a buss. “Internationally, like.”

  “You should be up there, Starr,” Innis said, “a Gaelic speaker like you.”

  “Find me one kiltie up there that speaks Gaelic and I’ll kiss him.”

  “Bit thin in the ranks, the whole bunch,” Joe said. “Must’ve been a bad year for cattle raiding. Keep an eye peeled for MacIvors. Seen any milling about?”

  “They don’t have a booth, Joe.”

  “Ah, well, Jesus, what a shame. I’d’ve dragged in a few of my own, if I’d known they were scarce. My cousin Murdena, she can’t get enough of the old country folderol. Loves the aristocrats, oh Jesus, truck in some chief or duke or somebody in his knobby knees to cut ribbons and, God, she’s off. Clippings on the wall.”

  “The same crowd that sent us over here in the first place, for Christ’s sake, and here we are kissing their arse.”

  Two pipers led the procession, a motley parade of men and women, some in various interpretations and portions of Highland dress, some in streetclothes, but all solemnly out of step. Clan banners rose here and there in the ranks. One young man wore running shoes with his kilt, another a T-shirt that said UNIVERSITY OF NORTH CAROLINA. The tourists lining the route looked unsure. Where was the big band of pipers and drummers all dressed in uniforms? An old man in full regalia came sweeping along, huge in a bloused shirt and shoulder plaid, kilt swinging, he could have stepped out of a painting in the Great Hall, one of the chiefs on a mountain pass, flowing white hair under his bonnet, long beard, planting a big staff in the ground with each exaggerated stride and a serious squint ahead of him.

  “A Scotchman, by God,” Starr said.

  “A right old actor, he is,” Joe said. “Straight from the movies.”

  “Jesus, he could be your chief, Joe. Where’s your chief?”

  “We left him way back in the fog, b’y, the mists of the ages. He got nothing to do with me anyhow. Say, is it too early for a drink, Starr?”

  “No, and it isn’t too late either. Car or trees?”

  “Too hot in the car, and the trees are so handy like. You coming, Innis?”

  “He’s a pure young man,” Starr said. “Forget him.”

  Innis watched them go off to the woods behind the buildings, Joe’s arm around his uncle. Thanks, Joe, keep him there awhile, will you?

  The Tea Room featured Scottish fare—tea and scones and shortbread—but hadn’t forgotten the motor homes and cars parked in the lot. Innis bought a Coke and two bags of chips and sat at an empty table. Tartan clan plaques shaped identically like coats of arms were displayed along the wall, too neat and uniform somehow, but Innis studied them as he downed his Coke. Two children, brother and sister, hot and bored, fidgeted at the table next to him, their parents preoccupied in a whispered, tight-lipped disagreement. But the corner table caught his eye, a middle-aged man and woman lounged imperiously in their Highland gear. Innis had seen them climb out of a big van with New York plates, decals in the rear window from Highland occasions they’d hit all over North America—Stone Mountain, Grandfather Mountain, Santa Rosa—and they were chalking up another one here, though they seemed aloof, above the mere civilians around them, people who possibly were not even of Highland descent. The man, his balmoral cocked on his ear, had a lean, wizened face, and the bearing of his sharp chin seemed to express some notion of breeding which his dress was meant to declare, but a pair of mirrored aviator sunglasses, slightly askew on his nose, marred the effect. His wife, skirted in tartan, sipped her iced tea and nibbled a scone and jam. They didn’t talk. The man’s attention seemed to be elsewhere, maybe in some glen, misty with the romance of his race. “What clan are you folks from?” Innis said as they got up to leave, gesturing with his Coke bottle at the shields on the wall. The man gazed down through his mirrored lenses. “Clan Snodgrass,” he said curtly, his voice surprisingly deep for his wiry build, his wife adding as they turned away in a swirl of pleats, “Snodgrass of the Isles.”

  “Ahl” Starr, wearing his sunglasses, had suddenly appeared behind Innis’s chair. “God bless you! Fine people, those Snodgrasses!” The couple didn’t look back but kept on through the door while Starr addressed them, a little louder. “Distinguished themselves in the battle of Killie-Something-Or-Other, if I remember rightly. Not often you run into a Snodgrass, I mean of the Highland sort. We better get you into the Great Hall over there, seems you’ve been overlooked.”

  “Where’s Joe?” Innis said. He was already missing his genial diversion.

  Starr, after squaring up a chair with some difficulty, sat down. “They need a booth, those people. What’s a clan without a booth? Where’s Claire?”

  “Said she’d meet us here.”

  “From where?”

  “Last I saw of her she was checking out Giant MacAskill.”

  “Wouldn’t she, though? Just like her. A major distraction, The Giant. Gets women thinking.”

  “Gets you thinking.”

  “Ah. Miss Claire. Miss Claire doesn’t think along those lines, eh?”

  “Not the way you do.”

  “You’re a lily-white pair, the two of you. My, my.” Starr lit a cigarette and blew out the first drag in a long sigh. “You an expert now on what Claire’s thinking?”

  “She’s lived with us for how many months. I ought to know something about her.”

  “Something?” Starr leaned back in his chair, smoking, staring at Innis. The other tables were empty now. “The question in my mind is, should you know this!” His hand disappeared under the table and he brought it up and fired the ball of paper at Innis’s face, hitting his closed eye but it stung, flared red when Innis opened it, and he was on his feet fast, he shoved his uncle in the face, staggered him, they both yelled something Innis would not remember, but he would remember the speed, how fast they came together, Innis’s heart shaking, he hardly knew what he was doing, he was taller than Starr, he’d never felt so strong in his life, he’d sawed those goddamn dead trees up with a bucksaw but Starr had an instinct Innis couldn’t find in himself, a punch stunned him, not its force as much as its surprise, it was quick and on the mark, and Innis, hurt but jacked-up, swung wide and caught Starr off the side of his chin, then danced back, shocked, hot, ready for damage, words, for the pushing and shoving of the fights he was used to. Starr hit him three times—yes, it was three, later he could count each one—fast, in the face. Innis shouted, blood in his nose, flailing, overwhelming Starr but not hurting him, and they bounced off tables, the wall, crazy with anger, they clawed their shirts, ripped them, scratching, digging, but Innis knew he’d alr
eady lost whatever it was, the fight, the chance to push Starr back and get some room with Claire, to save something he needed to save. They hit the floor in a desperate and raging hug, and then Starr released him suddenly and rolled away, Innis flopped on his back, tasting blood, gagging it up. Somebody tossed him a wet kitchen towel and he sat up and pressed it to his face, his lips stung, his nose was throbbing. He’d got it in the ribs too, a chair, something wooden, maybe Starr’s fist, Christ, his fist was all bone. He could hear the manager or someone above him shouting about the Mounties as he set the table back on its legs. Innis grabbed the wad of paper, got to his feet and pushed through a family jammed in the doorway like onlookers at an auto wreck. Starr was over at the Lada, staring at the road and smoking. The parking lot was filling with cars, sun broke from a windshield with an aching flash. Innis arched his head back, pinched his nostrils. He felt people staring, he hated that more than the hurt. He was patting his mouth for blood when he saw Claire coming toward him, but she stopped far enough away so that her connection to him would not be apparent, and when he tried to smile, wiping his nose on his sleeve, she turned back into the crowd.

  20

  THE MORNING WAS COOL, rain trailing from the eaves of the toolshed. At the bench under dusty window light, Innis spread his hand across the wrinkled sheet of paper over and over, but the figure remained grotesque, he couldn’t smooth his uncle’s fist from it, his own sweat smudged the pencilled lines. Finally he folded it carefully twice and pushed it into his back pocket. He wiped his eyes quickly, angrily. Two days ago, that Sunday, Claire had gone off in her car, she didn’t say much except that she’d be in Sydney for a bit. Starr did nothing to dissuade her, just smoked at the kitchen table, but after she was on the road, Innis saw him out in the back field, waist-deep in fading goldenrod, his head thrown back like a runner getting breath.

  In his rain jumper, an apple in his pocket, Innis went out into the grey, drizzly morning, kicking moisture from a patch of browntop. He paused by the little garden, lusty weeds now, underneath them the reds and yellows of her sturdy nasturtiums. He plucked one for luck, stuck it in a buttonhole.

  He had hoped he’d get sun for this trek to the upper woods, that he’d be able to see the resin glinting in buds, in collas even. He didn’t need any gear, there’d been enough rain and the fertilizing was long over. Later, when he harvested … but how much later was there? Only weeks ago he would have done anything crazy just to break up his life, but now with Claire not in the house, everything seemed fragile, suspended. He did not know what to do, she’d left no address, no phone number. Not seeing her every day, hearing her pass his door, knowing that there would be chances, if he was vigilant, when he could embrace her for a few seconds in the hall. But she would be back. Most of her belongings were still in her bedroom, she had not left: she did care about him, or she would not have talked with him the way she did. No, she had never said she loved him, but if they had a stretch of time alone, without the threat of Starr, a string of days together, travelling.…

  A day of stillness, hushed in soft rain. Even the poplar leaves were soaked and still. The rain soothed his sore mouth, hood back he opened his face to it. Moisture brightened the foliage, all shadings of green reflected light, inclined ferns in one direction like long feathers. Under trees leaves twitched, jumped, a riff of drops tapping. Water rose quietly in hollows, ruts, hoof tracks, the depressions of stone, spongy sod sucked at his boots. Woods and water, weirdly powerful.

  With a noise like fleeing birds, wind gusted through wet alders and was gone. He ran the fight back through his mind, touched its sharp edges. Somewhere in himself he had known it would happen, he might have been eager for it, but yet it was all surprise, humbling. After he’d stopped his nose bleeding, Innis got into the Lada, telling Starr, You better find Claire, she isn’t happy about this. By the time Starr returned to the car without her, Innis had the blood off him and passersby weren’t eyeing him anymore. Starr said, I can’t find her, I’ll come back and not one word more about her, you want me to take you to a doctor? Fuck, no, you sucker punched me anyway, Innis said, and that got a grim smile out of his uncle but he looked tired, spent, the rum had burned away in a flash point. Jesus, he’d said as the Lada was grinding up the mountain in the slow lane, this’ll light up the switchboard in St. Aubin, probably has already, phones ringing off the hook. Do you give a shit? Innis said, I don’t. His uncle did not reply until they had passed over the summit and could see the green girders of the St. Aubin bridge below, the strait an afternoon blue east to the sea. I’ll survive talk, he said, I always have. But it’s over for us, Innis. Innis didn’t ask exactly who he meant by us, he didn’t care. In the kitchen Starr had cracked open a tray of ice and Innis wrapped cubes in a dish towel and went upstairs to rest it on his swollen mouth. The room was hot and close and he rolled the ice back and forth on his skin. He dozed until he heard Claire’s voice rising downstairs, Starr’s muted and curt. When she passed Innis’s closed door, he tensed: whatever she had to say, she could chew him out, fine, but not now, him here like this on his back. He jammed the ice pack under his pillow and listened to her opening drawers in her room. Suddenly she’d tapped on his door and pushed it ajar.

  “Don’t get up.” She took his hand and held it gently. “Looks like you could use a few boxing lessons.”

  “We flared up. That’s all.” He wanted her to sit on the bed where he could touch her. “It’s over.”

  “Over? I wish I could believe it.”

  “Where did you get to?”

  “I ran into Russ at The Mod. I knew he’d drop me off if I asked.”

  “I thought he’d more likely drop you off the bridge.”

  “Russ, he moves on, he gets over it. He has another woman anyway.” Her eyes skimmed over his drawings on the wall. “I’m going to Sydney for a few days, Innis.”

  “Days? Why?” He raised himself up on his elbows.

  “I need to get away for a little. I’ll stay with a girlfriend there. Be back midweek or so.”

  “Or so?” He noticed an overnight bag in the hallway. That wouldn’t hold much, she’d had two suitcases when she arrived. “Listen, Claire. I’ll patch things up with Starr. You and me, we don’t have to stay here much longer anyway, neither of us. Do we …?”

  “It’s looking that way.” She touched his face, his tender nose, his chin, the brass belt buckle.

  “You checking my parts?” Innis said. “Don’t stop now.”

  “You seem to be all here, all in one piece.” She kissed his bruised lips so softly it frightened him. “See you.”

  “Claire?” She picked up her bag in the hall. “You wouldn’t leave without me, without telling me, would you? I mean leave?”

  She smiled and pushed her hair back from her face, that beautiful hair, it broke his heart to see her hand run through it. He hadn’t noticed the dark green hat in her hand, a velvety felt. She placed it firmly on her head, tugging down the wide floppy brim.

  “Without you?” she said. “No, Innis.”

  He wheeled off the bed but had to catch himself, his ribs hurt, and he’d sat there doubled over, breathing fast, listening to her car go up the driveway, hesitate at the top, recede down the road. He flopped in his chair, his head back. Then Starr was in the doorway, frowning at him.

  “You going to live?” he said.

  “I don’t think I can handle that right now, Uncle Starr.”

  “Hit first, and hit hard. Remember that.”

  “Yeah, I will. Especially when you’re around.”

  “You hungry? I’ll scramble some eggs.”

  “I’m cool. That was a shitty thing to do, rifle my stuff.”

  “It was lying under your bed. Was I supposed to pretend I didn’t see it?”

  “It was just a drawing, Starr.”

  “Don’t say such a stupid thing. I don’t want to hear any more of that.”

  His uncle lit a cigarette, squatted in the doorway. He took a deep drag, and ano
ther. Through smoke he stared at the floor. “We’re better off without her.”

  “Speak for yourself, Starr.”

  Starr squinted up at him, nodding slowly. “It was you I was thinking of.”

  INNIS CROSSED THE power line corridor, thickly grown by now, boggy water in the grassy ruts the lineworker’s half-track had made, soft rushes spiking up, tough shrubs of sheep’s laurel blooming, poison, lambkill, and the alders seeding out, and further up the last lavender bits of fireweed’s splendor, he’d picked her a bunch when it first appeared within the old stones of a foundation, some old burned structure, and she was pleased even though they hardly lasted the afternoon, some flowers don’t take to picking, she said. The ferns, their green freshened with beads of rain, had lost the vanilla smell that rose from underneath them on the hot days of July. But there were still surprises, the swab of mustard yellow on a dead birch trunk, as soft and brilliant as fresh paint, maybe a strange fungus, and tiny brown mushrooms had sprinkled up under spruce bows, maybe they were magic, he’d heard they grew here, but he didn’t need hallucinations.

  His jeans were soaked to the knees as he turned up higher, leaving the ridge of springs, fuaranach Dan Rory called them, the water all along this hill, several miles of it. He left the path, disoriented briefly by the shimmering light the rain made, without shadows everything stood out brightly, but he pushed on into the thin maples, his clearing just beyond them, finding that he was oddly nervous, an excitement in his chest that was not pleasurable and he stopped where he was, wiping his face, trying to slow his breath. He unzipped his jumper, fumes of sweaty rubber. The red nasturtium had dropped from his shirt somewhere. He listened to foliage shedding rain, staccato plinks and splats beneath the trees. A few more steps took him to the edge of the clearing and he stopped. A shot of fear hit him first: not one of his plants was visible. He thought police, Mounties, they’ve raided, born them away for evidence, but that yielded quickly to a sickening hollowness as he stumbled into the open. They were all there, he counted out loud, his voice shaking. One by one they’d been cut off at the base and flung about, viciously it seemed, leaves torn, stripped. Not the work of an animal, not four-legged, nothing eaten or chewed, it was sheer human destruction. He held a limp stalk: the flower top between his thumb and finger was just beginning to form, there’d been promise in these tops, but they were mashed, this deed had been done a while ago, long enough to wither the leaves. The resin was ruined. Trashed.