The Island Walkers (58 page)

Returning to the kitchen, she had started to make tea for herself when she heard a knocking she at first thought was Penny, padding down the hall to the bathroom. Then she realized: someone was at the front door.

A very tall, strongly built bald man in a white shirt, open at the collar, was waiting with bowed head. Seeing her through the screen, he raised one hand, palm open, as though wanting to communicate that he was harmless.

“You’re Margaret Walker,” he said as she opened the door. He had beautiful teeth. And a low voice so marvellously at ease with itself she thought of a movie actor. For a moment, understanding nothing, she experienced a stab of fear. “Bob Prince,” he said. “I’m an executive with Bannerman’s.”

“Is something wrong?”

“No, no, not at all. Sorry, I didn’t mean to frighten you.”

“Alf’s not in right now.”

“We had a talk a little while ago. I just wanted to add some things to what I was saying.”

She looked behind him, at the expensive-looking car gleaming in the weak street light. Despite his reassurances and friendly manner, a sense of something critically important was in the air, ominous. She was wary.

“He should be back any minute.”

“Ah,” he said, and when he did not move, she added, “Would you like to wait?”

She had made the offer out of politeness, and was a bit disappointed when he took her up, but a few moments later, there he was, perched on the edge of her couch, in his faultless khakis and loafers, which showed a couple of inches of beige sock, pulled up tight. His legs were oddly short and spindly-looking, she thought, for such a big man. But what really struck her were his eyes: they were the same blue as her husband’s.

He did not want coffee or tea. She made a few attempts at small talk, but Bob Prince seemed almost oblivious, sitting with his big shoulders hunched forwards, frowning at his own thoughts while he drummed his fingers on his knee. She felt a bit put out, having him on her hands, having him see the shabbiness of her house; and disloyal somehow, to Alf, though she could not quite say why. Of course, with Alf in the union now, this man was on the opposite side of the fence. But now the name came back to her. Wasn’t it Bob Prince who had praised Alf last summer, when Alf had taken him on a tour of the mill? It was Bob Prince — wasn’t it? — whom Alf had gone to see, that night he’d phoned during supper?

“I offered your husband a job tonight,” he said abruptly. He had been staring at her rug — her old green rug with its streaks of burlap backing showing — but now he looked up at her. “He turned me down, as I feared he would. Or at least I
think
he turned me down. I just feel I didn’t make all the arguments I could have.”

“What kind of job?” she said, not quite trusting what she’d heard, wondering what kind of job it was, if arguments had to be made for it.

Again he seemed not to hear her. He was frowning and sighing and staring at the floor as if the weight of the world was on his shoulders. But suddenly he looked up and saw her — a flash of those eyes,
as if he were surprised to discover her there. For a moment he stared at her. “Assistant manager of the sweater mill.”

She seemed to come awake, into a clarity of disbelief. “Not foreman? You want him to help run the sweater mill?”

“That’s right.” He smiled his dazzling smile. “You seem surprised.”

“Well you did fire him.” Her cheeks burned, at the sharpness of her tone.

“Well,
I
didn’t. That was some fool down the line. He’s one of the best men we’ve got. Or had. We let him slip through our fingers, I’m afraid.”

She had given up hope that Alf would ever rise. It was a dream of their youth, like wanting to be rich or famous or simply extraordinarily good at something.
That
fate only fell to a very few, and she was resigned that it would never fall to them. What she was intent on now was surviving — getting them all through this bad patch they were in.

Her visitor’s news seemed incredible, yet there was some spark in her, never completely extinguished, that leapt to it. She sat watching Prince, those pale-blue eyes that seemed so familiar, scanning her poor rug, lighting on a sagging armchair. She felt a surge of affection for Alf. He
was
a good man, and finally others were realizing it too.

“I guess he’s committed to what he’s doing with the union,” Bob Prince said. “I must say, though I disagree with him, I have to respect him for it. Your husband’s a man of great integrity, Mrs. Walker.”

She looked at him. He was a big, strong, bluff man with an important job. But there was a touch of helplessness about him, she thought. And he seemed overworked, judging by the shadows under his eyes.

“You know,” he said, holding her with his gaze, “I feel he left the door open a little. He
did
say, that after the union went in, he’d be happy to take a look at our offer.”

She watched him closely, alerted by something in his tone.

“The trouble is — and I’ve explained this to him — I don’t know if we’ll be
able
to make the offer then. I mean, if it was up to me alone, he could have that job any time he wanted. But some of
my
superiors —” Bob Prince hesitated. He ran his hand over his bald head.

Margaret looked out the window, where the slightly parted drapes gave a view of his car, glinting under the street light. A cat jumped to its hood just then, padding gingerly on the warm metal. It’s me he came to talk to, she thought. Not Alf at all. She turned back to her visitor. “Perhaps the best thing is for you to go,” she said. “I’ll tell my husband you were here.”

After the Fleetwood drove off, she spent a restless half-hour waiting for Alf. She swept the kitchen floor, washed a few dishes, put on coffee. Thinking she heard Jamie cry out, she went up to check, but the boy was asleep on his back, his mouth open, one arm flung out across the pillow. Downstairs, the screen door ajar, she found Alf in the kitchen.

Her husband was sitting at the edge of a chair, stripping off a sock. She cried out at the raw, round spot on his heel and brought him iodine and a bandage.

“How did you get that?”

“Walking,” he said grimly.

“You must have walked some distance.”

He went on tending his wound, intently, like a boy, with his foot up on the chair. From outside came the faint, stuttering cry of a nighthawk.

Shutting the screen door and the inner door, she sat down at the table.

“Alf, we had a visitor tonight.”

He grunted, more interested in his doctoring. He tore off the flap of rucked skin.

“Alf —”

He looked up at her, his eyes hard.

“Oh Alf,” she crooned, forcing her affection a little.

When he considered her — not quite sure, apparently, what she intended — she flushed. Then plunged into the heart of the matter. “Bob Prince was here tonight.”

He stopped short, a bandage in his hand.

“He came to see you. He told me about the job offer. He said there were some things he neglected to tell you —”

“He came
here
?” he said. “When the hell was this?”

“Tonight.”

“
When
tonight?”

“Please don’t raise your voice,” she said, struggling to smile. “He came about ten o’clock. He left half an hour ago. Alf, we have to talk —”

He smashed his fist onto the table, making the glass top of the butter dish jump, his expression fierce. She was startled, and put out by his outburst.

“You can’t just throw this away so easily — for what? For the union?”

Again he struck the table, in real fury.

“Oh good,” she said. She spoke sarcastically, powered by an anger she could no longer control. “Someone offers you something and you can’t even bear to talk about it.”

She watched him stand up and go to the sink. There was something animal-like, bullish, in his shoulders, she thought, as he filled a glass with water and drank.
This
is what she had been struggling with in him, all these years: this roughness. It enraged her, she had borne so much because of it.

“You’ve worked years to get ahead,” she said, trying to remain calm. “For heaven’s sake, at least
hear
what he has to say.”

He went very still, stooped over the sink. Was he just going to slip away into another of his silences? She was at full throttle now, remembering all the silences she had endured from him. This was
part of his roughness too, wasn’t it? Her husband hardly spoke to her, not when it came to important things, not even when it came to the simple matter of keeping her company. He might as well have been deaf and dumb, like the Horsfalls.

“You once had a business of your own,” she said. “Now you’re knocking on doors for
signatures
.”

He turned and looked at her. A bit of spit had bubbled at his lower lip.

“It’s honest work,” he said.

“Digging ditches is honest work! Why can’t you see where your advantage lies?”

“Be quiet,” he said.

“Tell me,” she said, getting out of her chair and going to him. “Just tell me — since I apparently don’t understand it — why knocking on doors with your Malachi Doyle is better than assistant manager. Assistant manager, Alf!” He turned to her, eyes flashing. Good, she thought, good, this is long overdue.

“The people who sign, they depend on me,” he said in a rusty voice. His eyes seemed almost unfocused, lost in space, as if he was reciting some idea by rote.

“And what about
me
?” she cried. “What about your children? Aren’t
we
depending on you? Your son’s up there — did you know he has nightmares every night about your leaving? It’s no wonder, is it? You’re away every night. We hardly know you any more!”

“This is what I’m doing,” he said, after a moment.

He was so
thick
, she thought: she wanted to pull his eyes out.

“You’re ruining yourself. You’re ruining this family.”

“I have a job,” he said flatly, watching her.

Her fury mounted at the dead end of her life.

“I think you’re a coward,” she said. “You’re afraid of the responsibility, that’s what I think. You
like
being mediocre. It suits you. It doesn’t matter what happens to
us
, so long as you can go on digging your miserable little ditch with —”

The back of his hand caught her in the centre of her face. He had never struck her before, or even threatened to. There was the surprise — the sheer force of it — and then a numbness, almost an unreality, as she sensed the kitchen suddenly retreating. The pain had not started yet, though she wondered if her nose was broken. Her laugh came out of her in an odd cry, hysterical. She leaned over the table, nursing her face with one hand, half-expecting another blow. When it didn’t come, she looked around. He was standing with his back to her, at the window. When he turned, she saw he was weeping.

51

ALF SPENT THE NIGHT
tossing on the couch, pacing and smoking in the backyard. He had done it now, he felt. He had crossed the line beyond which there was no forgiveness, no return, he had done the unthinkable thing he had despised other men for doing, and now he was no better than the worst of them. In a sense, he did not understand what had happened. He had struck his wife, yes, but at the same time it was as if a wave had come up out of nowhere, a vast, powerful wave that had rolled them both about, and in the confusion and fury his arm had flung out and caught her, willy-nilly, on her nose. The next morning, Margaret, setting out the breakfast things, ignored his attempts at apology. Her lower lip was swollen — one section pale and inflated like the thick part of an earthworm; a bruise shadowed her cheek and nose. He hovered in remorse, trying to be helpful, then froze as Jamie and Penny tumbled in for breakfast. It didn’t take them long to discover Margaret’s face. “
What happened
,” Penny said in a hushed voice, her eyes moving from her mother to her father and back again. Alf couldn’t speak, and was gratified when Margaret told them almost cheerfully that she’d run into a cupboard
door — she was all right, she said, and would they please eat their Shredded Wheat, they were late for school.

At eleven, Doyle came by. Alf met him outside and took him to their usual place by the river. He seemed to be moving in a dream now, felt he understood nothing, but he clung to certain thoughts he knew he had to express. Doyle sat on the driftwood log, smoking as he looked down to the Atta, spreading calmly through its shadowed bend. Alf stood woodenly before him, speaking in a rasping voice of the things he’d kept hidden: Prince’s offer the previous fall, his betrayal of Woody Marr. He did not mention Pete. But he told Doyle about his latest conversation with Prince, the news that Ford was spreading the story, the offer of the assistant managership. He spoke mechanically, without much emotion, knowing only that he owed this to Doyle. The shame that had attended his secrets scarcely affected him. Nor did he feel any relief.

When Alf had finished, Doyle stared at the ground for a long while, the smoke twisting above the forgotten stub of his cigarette. To Alf, his silence seemed to open a gulf between them, which deepened with each second: he was sure his friendship with the organizer had just ended.