The Second Life of Samuel Tyne (19 page)

Samuel studied his wife. There didn’t seem to be any innuendo in her tone, but the twins kept their eyes down. “Well, if you did not sleep, then you are a great actress. You snored so loud you kept the girls up.” And he looked meaningfully their way.

Maud was pleased with this, for it gave her licence to go on. Touching her halo of rollers, she said, “It’s as if you’re in your own private hell and you’re trying to roast us with you.”

Samuel at last understood his transparency, that perhaps what people were responding to was not his hidden love for Akosua, but his sad agitation. He glanced around the table, sensing an air of complicity that excluded him.

Maud finally vented what might have been occupying those three untouchable minds. “What, pray tell, has happened to our sheets and our clothesline?”

The synchrony of their heads turning towards him seemed rehearsed. With a sense of wonder, Samuel told the most sedate lie of his life: “I do not know.” And they seemed to believe him.

Minutes later Maud questioned him again, and he knew she hadn’t been outwitted. But something in him couldn’t admit to what he’d done, so ashamed was he of his boyish fit of anger. Maud already thought he’d lost his mind. And how to explain
why
he’d been angry without talking about his problem with Porter? So, contrary to all logic, he told an even more erratic lie.

“Did you ever think that perhaps the crows have sunk it? That the crows downed it and that the Porters cleared it from our yard for courtesy’s sake? Why are you asking a man, anyway? When I need to change the spark plugs in the Volvo, do I run to you, a woman?” The longer he prattled, the more he convinced himself of his indignation, and only the subtle look between the twins silenced him. “What are you making eyes at, eh?” he spat in their direction. “Eh? Man suffers through woman, you mark it. Man suffers through woman.” Immediately sorry at having implicated the twins, he picked at his eggs in agitation.

Maud’s voice was even. “The Porters know nothing about it—I asked them. It was Akosua who suggested I ask you about it. Like maybe she’d seen you move it or something.”

Samuel prickled at the mention of that name. He couldn’t believe the hypocrisy of that hag; it showed a lack of dignity he was unused to in a woman. Derisively, he said, “I am sure poor trash makes for trustworthy neighbours.”

“A spokesman for the Ray Frank campaign now, are you?”

“I am a spokesman for none but myself.”

Maud gave him a sickened smile. The rest of the meal was painful with repressed anger, and more than once Samuel had to restrain himself from shouting at the secretive twins. Their eye game was trying his nerves.

When they reconvened for dinner, even the twins were talking. They recounted writing fifteen pages apiece on some new voluminous project. Maud looked uneasily at them, but declared that she’d given Akosua Porter an in-depth lesson on nutrition that afternoon. And Samuel was in such good spirits that even the mention of Akosua’s name didn’t bother him. A record player that had been making the route of Edmonton’s repair shops had finally found its cure at Tyne Electronics. Its owner, an old widower of the ranching era, had taken to playing his dead wife’s Mozart over the machine’s golden ear. When the player had broken and refused to be fixed, the old man had suffered a grief no more navigable than his wife’s death. Last week he’d made the dispirited drive to Aster and, seeing Samuel behind the counter, put down the machine with the finality of a skeptic. Samuel, pleased that his miraculous hands were being lauded as far as Edmonton, treated this project with extra diligence, and that very day he had the old apparatus singing again. The widower had cried when Samuel turned it on. He gave Samuel a historic tip, carrying the player out as if it were a newborn child.

The story delighted his family, and each twin ventured a failed description of what the old rancher must have looked like. Samuel laughed harder than he had to, to atone for his behaviour that morning. Maud seemed pleased with his new attention. Things were going so amiably that Samuel left the table in the middle of the meal to avoid seeing it end badly.

In his study, Samuel ruminated over the last of Jacob’s palm wine. He’d kept the bottle in his desk drawer underneath a nest of wires, and when he drank from it, he thought the alcohol tasted of metal. He sank into the cracked chair. To his mind, the man of the last few days, that lecher sick on desire and blunt to all the chaos of life, had vanished. His second adolescence had finally come to an end, and he felt in full the weight of his problems, which, like gracious war brides, had waited for his trauma to be over before throwing themselves upon him again. Samuel, resigned, toasted this last drink to an age that no longer suited him.

There was an apprehensive knock at the door, and he hesitated before calling out an answer. Maud slipped in, clutching the sides of her mauve dress in an anxious way. Her eyes had a quiet determination that put Samuel on guard. He feared a reprisal of their earlier conversation, and felt too tired to be evasive.

She sat on a pile of boxes near the bookshelf, and when she spoke her voice wavered. “How long,” she said, “do you intend to ignore your family?”

Samuel was relieved. Having somewhat come to terms with his behaviour of the last week, he was even eager to talk about it.

“Because I really think that this family is on the edge of some minor collapse.”

Maud was burningly embarrassed, as though annoyed that her sophisticated feelings had been reduced to a cliché. Samuel found her vulnerability endearing, and let her go on.

“I hate this,” she said, biting her lip. “I hate having to talk about them like this, behind their backs, but you haven’t seen those girls, Samuel. With all their letters. I think they’re really hurting for our guidance, like we’ve been neglectful. And I think they’re really suffering for a friend right now—they’ve got each other so tied in knots that it’s not healthy. They need some air.” She frowned. “I really think we should ask Ama back.”

Samuel nearly choked. It was eons since he’d thought of the girl. “How long has she been gone?”

“Two weeks,” said Maud. “How easily men forget what isn’t right in their lap.”

It occurred to Samuel that though Ama might be a good influence on his daughters, his daughters would not be so good for Ama. He didn’t feel confident she would want to return, or even that she should. “They left her in the Athabasca. She might have died.”

“I know, and that’s terrible, Samuel, but they’re children. They’re troubled. And maybe we haven’t been much good as models lately.”

He accepted the slight in silence, brooding. Children, certainly, but unlike any children he’d known. He realized that their acumen and their advanced reading habits made him a more rigorous judge of their actions than he otherwise might have been. Still, he found it hard to reconcile the many accidents that seemed to happen in their presence. “They are children, but they are brighter than some adults.”

Maud nodded. “It’s this idleness and neglect that brings out the worst in them. They need companionship and guidance.”

“They have each other. And they have had you.”

“Maybe that’s not enough.” Maud’s lip trembled. For a time they sat in silence. When Maud spoke again her voice had lost its confidential tone. “Let’s call that Ouillet woman. Let’s get Ama back.”

Samuel frowned. As much as he disliked that grandmother, one did not have the right to take the child from her. “I do not know,” he said.

“If you only knew, Samuel, how much they need her now.” There was real pleading in Maud’s voice; she had set aside all of her pride.

Samuel exhaled. He tapped his fingernail on the glass before him, shifting in his chair.

“All right,” he said finally. “Just let me finish this drink.”

chapter
SEVENTEEN

I
f, as Eudora believed, a house is the direct reflection of its owner, then Mrs. Ouillet was an eccentric but innately beautiful woman. Driving up her narrow gravel road, Samuel could not help but admire the gabled, towering house behind its veil of cedars. Painted a delicate blue, its turret was circled with damp, imported vines. Before it lay a stunning grove: glossy berries overhanging an elaborate trellis, rows of flowering cabbage.

Mrs. Ouillet had sounded curt, if not a little put out, on the telephone when Samuel called. It was all the same to her whether Ama stayed or not, she simply wanted them to choose one. “I can’t take these comings and goings,” she’d said. “At my age, you come to value your peace above all else.”

Samuel helped Ama pack her belongings and carried the bag out to the car as she followed behind him. Though she didn’t speak, Samuel could see she was apprehensive.

“You are certain you want to return?” he said.

“Oh yes,” she said, nodding. “I was getting so tired of being at Grandmère’s. She hates to speak in English and I only know a little French.”

As they drove off, Samuel continued to reassure her. “I understand the twins have written you a mountain of letters. They have missed you so much.”

Ama looked a little disbelieving.

“I must warn you, though,” Samuel continued. “You will find Maud a little altered from when you left. No, no, do not worry, she has only broken her leg. But she is housebound, and what, what is it … cranky.” He winked at her (it was catching, with all the winking in Aster). “So beware.”

Ama gave him a wry smile, which Samuel intuited to mean that Maud seemed born cranky. He laughed and patted Ama on the shoulder.

To Ama’s disappointment, the Tyne house was exactly as she’d left it. Not that it could change much in two weeks, that which had resisted true change for six decades.

The twins’ welcome depressed her even more. They stood with their arms at their sides, defying her affection with wary looks. Their stillness reminded Ama of those strange, vagrant deer that wander into the city and petrify at the sight of men. Neither Mr. nor Mrs. Tyne noticed anything wrong.

But Ama was determined. Yvette, especially, seemed to be giving her pointed looks, convincing Ama she’d only to befriend Chloe to bring them both around. She followed them upstairs and, sitting on her bed to unpack, watched them with cautious eyes.

They seemed to have grown thinner, their angular cheeks giving them a severe, almost mean look. The thought occurred to her that perhaps their parents had starved them as punishment for trying to drown her, and Ama felt bad both on their behalf and for having such a thought in the first place.

The twins sat across from each other on Yvette’s cot, twining their fingers with string to play cat’s cradle. Chloe had her back to Ama, but Yvette’s face was visible, and she gave Ama nervous, inviting looks. Ama stopped unpacking and sat on the floor beside their bed.

“My grandmother’s crazy.” Ama flushed, not knowing why she’d said this. Her father had cautioned her to be discreet with family matters, and she’d always taken great pains to keep the truth from her friends. The twins didn’t acknowledge she’d spoken at all. Ashamed, Ama picked lint from the carpet. She stretched her long legs under the bed and, feeling paper with her feet, leaned over to see what it was. There were hundreds of letters.

So they did exist. Ama couldn’t keep from sounding grateful. “Your dad told me you wrote me a million letters. Why didn’t you send any? I was so lonely there.”

Chloe turned to look at her, an unsettling smile on her face. “Oh, yes, we wrote a million letters, a billion letters, a trillion.” Her smile deepened when she glanced at her sister.

Looking as though she would cry, Yvette said, “Oh, yes. We wrote you so many beautiful letters you could paper the Sistine Chapel with them. They’re so beautiful Seneca would have wept. They’re of such sublime artistry that if we’d sent them to Pontius Pilate, he would have had Barabbas crucified instead.”

“They’re so beautiful,” continued Chloe, dropping the string in her lap, “they predate the Rosetta Stone. They’re so beautiful that monks have wept, treacherous men have been slain, and fallen women became sirens in their next lives.” Her voice rose in a falsetto. “They’re so beautiful that … they’re so beautiful …” Her theatrics made her forget what she’d intended to say. She shrugged. “They’re just that beautiful.”

Ama grew nervous; she hated their riddles. They’d read and studied so much on their own that Ama had seen their wordplay baffle even schoolteachers. She turned to Yvette. “Can I read them?”

“No,” said Chloe. She gave her sister a warning look. “We’d rather burn at the stake than put them into your philistine hands.”

Ama tried her best not to look hurt. She was tired of being mistreated, though. “You know, you really can’t keep t-treating me like this.”

In stuttering, Ama made a fatal mistake.

Laughing, Chloe bit her lip and said, “P-p-p-puh-p-please accept our d-d-duh-d-d-deepest ap-p-pologies. W-w-wuh-we m-m-mean no h-h-ha-h-harm. Accept our d-d-d-duh-d-deepest con-c-cuh-condolences f-for y-y-yuh-y-your sp-speech p-problem.”

Ama stood up. “Stop it! I’ll tell on you.”

Chloe made a face of mock horror. “T-t-t-tell on us? Y-you’ll n-need a t-translator, the w-way you t-talk!”

Ama rushed from the room. In the dark, cloistered bathroom, she splashed water on her burning face. Why had she believed things with the twins would be different? Why had she made that assumption? Still, something in her believed Yvette was capable of friendship, something wouldn’t condemn her entirely. Wiping her face, Ama went to read in the Iron Lung. There, she fell asleep, waking hours later to the sound of dinner. Rubbing her eyes, she went downstairs.

Mrs. Tyne rose to fetch Ama’s plate from the oven. “The twins said you were sleeping. You looked so tired, I thought we shouldn’t wake you.”

Seeing how awkward she was on her crutches, Ama raced to help her. Mrs. Tyne handed her the plate and gave her a brusque pat on the arm. “Good to have you back,” she said.

Mrs. Tyne lowered herself into her seat. She looked strange, half of her hair seared straight by a hot comb, the other half an Afro awaiting transformation. Her skin had a slight sheen on it, and she looked sad and a little harassed. She was arguing with her husband.

“They will master every future household,” Mr. Tyne was saying, his bowler placed neatly in his lap as he ate. “Computers will reign so wholly no man will lift a finger again, even to scratch his ass.”

“Your language,” said Mrs. Tyne, nodding towards the children. “One should not dream when he is awake, Samuel.”

Mr. Tyne made an exasperated noise. “If you women ran the world, we should never have escaped the Dark Ages.”

“If progress is about being reckless, Samuel, then you’re right.”

Ama glanced at the twins. They ate in silence, not looking at anyone. Only when their parents’ began to speak of how to manage things in the fall, did Chloe enter the conversation.

“Wuh-w-we like your ch-ch-choice of the E-E-Ed-Edmonton s-school. We-we-we’ve h-heard g-g-great things about it.”

Ama flushed. Chloe elaborated on her praise for the school in Edmonton, stuttering the whole time. Yvette watched her sister with a vague smile on her face. Mrs. Tyne flinched. But probably because the twins rarely spoke, she encouraged Chloe with little nods. Mr. Tyne, after listening for some time, asked his daughter just what was wrong with her voice.

“N-nuh-nothing,” she said, as though his question was absurd.

Mr. Tyne scoffed and dropped his fork. He looked around him, astonished at being taken for a fool. But Mrs. Tyne gave him a look that said it was only a game, and he picked up his fork and resumed eating. Ama kept her head down for the remainder of the meal.

Over the next few days, she avoided the twins. Ama spent her days in the dulling sun, or, sometimes, in the duller company of Mrs. Tyne. They would sit in the dusty kitchen, cooking and baking, until the Porter woman arrived. On those days Mrs. Tyne would adopt a reverent voice and teach them something both already knew. Mrs. Porter sat rigid as a schoolgirl, and like a schoolgirl, she’d make faces behind Maud’s back. Ama felt bad for Mrs. Tyne, and would have told her if she hadn’t been taught not to interfere in the world of adults.

One day, as soon as Mrs. Porter had gone, Mrs. Tyne began to twitter on about the minor details of her life as if they mattered. Ama listened with a polite smile, waiting with a guilty conscience for any interruption. Hearing the postman arrive, Ama ran out to fetch the mail.

The only piece of mail was a small white card addressed to Maud Yaaba Adu Darko. Ama brought it into the kitchen.

“I think this is for you, but I’m not sure,” said Ama, handing the card to Mrs. Tyne. Mrs. Tyne was thawing kenkey for the evening meal, unwrapping the cornmeal from long green leaves. She motioned for Ama to drop the mail on the table, but turning to glance at it, she asked the girl to bring it in to her. With clumsy hands she fumbled to open the card.

Even after scanning the news, Mrs. Tyne stood unmoved. Indeed, what was most strange in her face was not so much a single expression, but the many suggested by her calm.

Suddenly Mrs. Tyne’s face softened, and she began to cry in the suppressed, ashamed way of hard women.

Out of fear, Ama began to cry, too.

“He’s alive,” said Mrs. Tyne in a parched voice. “My father was sick, but he’s going to live.”

She sounded relieved. But also mortified, as if realizing that these past weeks she’d been counting on him to die. There was no malice in this feeling. It was simply that he had already died for her. His sickness had made his death seem inevitable, logical, even desired. Her prayers for a swift and easy death meant she had finally forgiven him. She didn’t want to go to his deathbed—she just wanted his death. After all these years, he owed her that favour. But he couldn’t even do this for her, and so she saw his recovery not as one last incredible act of will, but as a final betrayal against her.

Maud smiled sadly at Ama. “My father was a hard man. A practical one,” she conceded, “but a hard one.” About to continue in this vein, she thought the better of it. “As a girl I was just as fierce and crafty as the twins. Me and Philomena Keteku used to go down to the river, which—and this is going to sound silly—well, it’s so much more what water is supposed to be than any other water I’ve ever seen. You have your Athabasca, your Bow, your creeks, even the Pacific over the mountains—all nothing. Nothing is like our own rivers. Philomena had a brother, Eric—he and his friends would find a timber log and we’d all use it float on the river.

“The four of us—Philomena, Eric, Kojo and I—we would all rush down when the turtles were out. Oh, you should have seen these creatures, at least ninety pounds, humongous. And it would take all four of us to tip one, but once it was tipped, that was it. You could stand two hours and watch it struggle to turn itself. Eh, we were mean-o. But you had to be careful—if one kicked you, you had a sore for a month. I know one boy who died when his sore didn’t heal.”

Mrs. Tyne spoke of being her mother’s only daughter, but one of twenty-three of her father’s, talked of her schoolgirl friends and of the flock of chickens she’d tended, who, as soon as they saw her coming over the hill would rush en masse to meet her. Each had such a distinct personality, she claimed, that she’d named them and groomed them according to their various tastes. She’d even organized a system to be followed in her absence, the robust ones carrying the burden of the tubercular, to trick her father from distinguishing the sick from the fit. But he still killed them.

“We couldn’t go hungry,” said Maud, “so that was the end of that.”

And so it was, on that strange afternoon, that Ama and Maud began to truly like each other.