Our Daily Bread Page 4

  “No,” said Brenda. She wriggled and turned.

  “Impetigo. Look at those oozy blisters.” He let go of her face and looked at the rest of the children. “You’ll probably all get it now.” He sighed and looked long-suffering. “Such a shame. Lucky I’ve got antibiotic cream. I’m not sure whether I should give you treats.”

  “Yes, please,” the children said. “Please, please, please.”

  “Oh, all right then.” Hawthorne opened the trunk of his car and pulled out a box of granola bars. The children grabbed, ripped off the wrappers and stuffed their mouths, not caring if they consumed bits of paper with the nuts and raisins and oats.

  “Greedy guts,” said the doctor, pulling his black bag out of the back seat. He glanced at Albert. “Albert. How are you?”

  “Good enough, I don’t need your treats.” Albert spat through his front teeth.

  “Glad to hear it. A man should be able to feed himself.”

  Fat Felicity opened the door of the house, her hair in greasy hanks, her housecoat stained. “What’s up, doc?” she laughed.

  “That never gets old, Felicity,” said Hawthorne. “Thought I’d stop in and see how Carrie’s getting along.” Carrie had had bronchitis and couldn’t stop coughing. “Are you using the cough medicine?”

  “Yeah, but we don’t have much left.”

  “You can’t have gone through that already, Felicity. It’s not recreational, you know.” Hawthorne climbed the steps.

  “Tell that to Dan. You coming in?”

  “I thought I might, for a few minutes.”

  Griff climbed up the stairs behind him, smiling, gnawing on the last inch of his granola bar. The little boy plucked at the doctor’s coat.

  “You got more?” he said.

  The doctor laughed and picked the little boy up, so that he straddled the man’s hip. Albert watched him. Carries the kid like a goddamn woman. They disappeared into the house and the rest of the kids, looking for more handouts, followed them in. Albert finished chopping kindling and carried it back to his cabin. Cindy came through the woods wearing her nightgown, a hunting jacket and rubber boots. Her coat was open and her breasts swung braless. She was just a couple of years older than Albert and even though she’d had Ruby when she was seventeen, her breasts were still good. She had her hair up in a high ponytail.

  “You seen Ruby?”

  Albert jerked his chin in the direction of the house. “The doctor’s in.”

  “Huh. He bring any food?”

  “Says Brenda’s got impetigo.”

  “Fuck. Again? Lloyd don’t keep those kids clean.”

  “What do you want Ruby for?”

  “Give me a break, Albert. Ray’s pissed she wet the bed again.” Ray was Cindy’s dad. Cindy stomped off in the direction of the house to get Ruby.

  An hour later she ran back, Ruby screaming in her arms. Dislocated shoulder. Thank God the good doctor was still around.

  And now, this morning, with the memory of Ruby’s cries in his head and the awful pop her shoulder made when the doctor yanked it back in its socket, Albert moved gingerly, cautiously, with full awareness that sudden movements could bring on vomiting. He made his way to the shelf where a gallon-sized plastic bottle of water stood. He raised it to his mouth, spilled some of it down his bare chest, corrected his aim and drank as though there was a leak in his stomach. The cold water made his belly cramp and he gagged, thought he would throw up, but didn’t. Albert hung his head.

  “It’s not fair,” he said. Although, had anyone asked him what, precisely, was not fair, he would not have been able to say. Life, he supposed, although he knew better than to expect that. But there was a greater injustice. How hard he tried. All the effort he put in to being not like them. The Others. He did what he could. What more was expected of him? Why did he wake up in the morning feeling like the best thing ahead of him was a long jump and a short rope? Life asked too much. It ground a man down like sausage meat. He was doing his best. And he had dreams, just like anybody. And if his dream sometimes slipped into fantasy, of having a big house with a pool in the backyard—blue as sapphire, twinkling in the sun like silver and diamonds—with a room for each of the kids and a pretty little nanny, someone halfway between Mary Poppins and Jenna Jameson, then why not? It could happen. Look at all those hip-hop millionaires. They weren’t educated. They didn’t get breaks. They took what they wanted, constructed and bent the world to suit them. It took guts. It took will, was all. And Albert had guts. He had will. It took a lot of willpower not to do the things it was possible to do in a place like this, coming from the people he came from.

  He should be fucking proud of himself.

  But he wasn’t.

  He pushed the sheet away from the window, slowly. There was a break in the weather, one of those lovely not-quite-spring-yet days when the streams running down the hillside made a sort of tinkling music and the birds sang loudly, revelling in the possibility of avian romance and the smell of thawing earth was muddy and fecund. Albert put his hand against the glass. Warm, even. Hard to believe it was the same world as last night, when the wind had whipped the voices around the tree trunks as though lashing them to the bark, when the rain had banged on the doors like tiny fists, when the wet had dripped through the roof like tears and the chill had crept in through the chinks like an orphan.

  Albert thought he’d sleep for another hour or two and then get the hell away from the compound for a few hours. Just give himself a mini-holiday. Movement in the clearing caught his eye. Eight-year-old Frank, Lloyd and Joanie’s kid, was near the outhouse. He was still wearing his pyjamas. Blue ones, with flowers on them, hand-me-downs from one of the girls probably. He hit something on the ground with a stick; hit it hard, repeatedly, as if he was trying to kill it, whatever it was.

  Albert let the sheet fall over the glass and fell back into bed with an arm flung over his eyes.

  By two in the afternoon, the temperature spiked, and Albert flung open the cabin door to air out the musty mixture of bacon fat, cigarette smoke, stale beer and his own cooped-up body. He decided to vacate the mountain for the afternoon. No work. No field. No deals. A holiday.

  As he drove through town he hung his arm out the truck window. The air smelled of mucky water and earth and the faint sweet twinge of decay from the clumps of slimy leaves cluttering the storm drains. It was the ideal day to hang out by the river, one of his favourite places—deep in the woods, beneath the old stone bridge, long closed to anything except foot traffic.

  He parked by the road and walked in, boots squelching in the soggy earth. When he reached the river he lay in the sun on a great slab of jutting rock, and watched the swirl and suck of the deep eddies. The sun relaxed Albert’s neck muscles and made his feet tingle and legs twitch and inspired daydreams. It wouldn’t last. Flocks of small sheep-shaped clouds dotted the sky, prophesying more rain on the way tomorrow, but today, who cared about tomorrow?

  Albert rolled his jacket up under his head as a pillow. The dark rock acted as a heat magnet and even in just a T-shirt and sweater, he was warm. He smoked a cigarette. He watched the clouds. He listened to the gurgle and rush of water around the stones. Soon the world would be a humid stinking soup, and the garbage piles on the mountain would fester and swell. Tempers would flare in the stew of summer just as they did in the locked-in freeze of winter. And with meth around, with The Uncles branching out into an entirely new product line, things at the compound were even more dangerous, even more unpredictable. He’d told the kids to stay the fuck away from the trailer. Meth cooks blew themselves up all the time and they often blew up their kids as well. He hated the over-crowded isolation of the mountain, all of them living like rats in a cage, eating their own young. Don’t think about it. He flicked his cigarette butt into the river, closed his eyes and tried to let the day be the day, tried to keep the future out.
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br />   He was slipping into a delicious doze when a loud gloop-plop! in the water startled him. Not a fish. Heavy. Threatening. Instantly he was awake and crouching, looking for the source of the sound.

  “Sorry,” said a voice. “I didn’t see you.”

  A kid stood on the top of the bridge. Skinny. Pale. With funny, heavy eyebrows. Hands in the pockets of baggy jeans. Too-big windbreaker.

  “What the fuck are you doing?” said Albert.

  “Nothing.”

  Albert watched the kid. He looked familiar. Someone he’d seen around town.

  “I just dropped a rock in,” the kid said, and he looked embarrassed.

  “Big fucking rock,” said Albert. The kid had seen him start; did he think he’d scared him? He lay back against the rock.

  “Bridge is coming apart.”

  “You gonna tear it down single-handed?” No answer. “What’s your name, kid?”

  “Bobby. Bobby Evans.”

  “Come here, Bobby Evans.”

  The kid hesitated for only a moment and then scuffled down the bank. Once he made the rocks he was agile, sure-footed even with the untied sneakers. Albert thought he probably wasn’t as frail as he looked. He rolled over onto one elbow and watched the kid approach. He could tell by the way he kept taking quick peeks at Albert, and chewing on his lower lip, that the scrutiny made him nervous. This relaxed Albert. When Bobby neared him the boy didn’t sit, but stood, as though waiting for an invitation. Albert squinted up at him. “Aren’t you supposed to be in school?”

  “Yeah, well,” said the boy.

  “You want a smoke?” said Albert, shaking a cigarette from his pack of Camels. He gestured the boy should sit.

  “Okay, thanks,” said Bobby.

  When he’d lit his own cigarette, Albert held his lighter out to the boy. Bobby puffed inexpertly, holding the butt tightly between his thumb and index finger. He coughed, and glanced at Albert.

  “So, Bobby Evans, what are you doing out here?”

  Bobby shrugged.

  “Yeah, me too,” said Albert. “My name’s Albert.”

  “Nice to meet you,” said Bobby.

  “Albert Erskine.”

  “I know who you are.”

  “Oh, you do, huh?”

  “Sure. I seen you in town.”

  Albert took another drag off the cigarette and Bobby did the same, inhaling this time, and managing not to cough. Albert sat up, pitched a small stone into the water, making it skip five times before it sank. Bobby pitched a stone as well but it sank after three skips and he tried another but it merely plonked dully into the water. Albert considered the boy, who was now picking moss off the side of the rock and rolling the bits between his fingers. Big hands, but narrow wrists. Growing into his bones, yet with a ways to go. Could be thirteen, but was probably older. He was a nice-looking kid, even if he was too pale. Nervous, though. There was an air of vulnerability about him. Something about the way he fidgeted, the way he kept changing his hold on the cigarette until at last he held it as Albert did, between his middle and ring finger. It made Albert smile.

  “So, Bobby, what do you do when you’re not in school?”

  “Not much. I don’t know.”

  “Choir practice? Altar boy?”

  Bobby snorted. “No.”

  “Not a church-goer, huh? Well, that lets out a bit of the town. Uh, let’s see. You’re studying to be a brain surgeon.”

  “No.” Bobby pouted a bit at that, as though he could be a brain surgeon if he wanted to be.

  “Stamp collector? Birdhouse builder? Mitten knitter?”

  Bobby laughed. “I don’t do anything, I guess. What the fuck’s there to do in this town anyway?”

  “An excellent question, young Bobby. An excellent question.” It was good, sitting here with this kid. It was friendly. “I can see you and I are of like mind.”

  “What about you?”

  “What about me?”

  “You work somewhere?”

  “When I have to.”

  “Like where?”

  Albert twisted around and unwrapped his jacket. He reached in the pocket and brought out a battered tin flask. “Like wherever the fuck I want to.” He unscrewed the cap and raised his arm in a toast. “To Gideon. You want some? Old enough?”

  “Okay.”

  Albert kept the flask next to his chest. “Hey, you don’t have to, Bobby. I mean, you’re welcome to a drink, but if you’re not supposed to, then maybe you shouldn’t. Doesn’t make any difference to me, you know.”

  “No. I’d like one. Please.” He held out his hand and Albert passed him the flask. He took a big swig. “I drink sometimes.”

  “All right then,” said Albert.

  “You make this?” said Bobby, taking another quick sip before handing it back to Albert.

  “Whatever have you heard about the Erskines?” He glared at Bobby until the boy dropped his eyes. Then he laughed a short heh-heh-heh. “Hey, kidding. No, I didn’t make this. Good old Wild Turkey, straight from Wilton’s. And more where that came from.” Albert looked over at Bobby, waiting to see what his reaction was, waiting to see if he’d heard about the recent break-in at Wilton’s. The boy said nothing, which Albert took as a good sign. Discretion was such a useful quality. “Who’s your Daddy? Is it Tom Evans? Drives a bread truck, right?”

  “Yeah.”

  Ah, the benefits of small-town life. Knowing whose son he was told Albert a great deal about Bobby. “Seems like an all right guy,” he said. And Bobby nodded. Albert did not ask about his mother. Patty Evans was well known in town, pretty as she was, and so much younger than her husband. And then there was her reputation, built in the mysterious glimmer of New York City where Tom Evans had found her. Too much for old Tom to handle was the way the talk went. Patty Evans was held at arm’s length as not-one-of-us; a reputation not even the oak-solid respectability of Tom Evans could quite shake. Not a North Mountain reputation, of course, but still, young Bobby and Albert had a few things in common, maybe, the difference being only a matter of degree. Albert wondered what it would be like to be raised by a woman like that, with a figure like that. Did she parade around in her bra and panties? What did she smell like when she bent over to kiss Bobby good night? How hard would it be to get a flash of her in the shower? “Any other kids in the family?”

  “Ivy, my sister. She’s ten.”

  “Just the one, huh? I got a bunch up by us. That’s why I come out here. To get away from the fucking noise.”

  The two spent the next hour passing the flask back and forth and watching the water. Bobby’s tongue loosened with the alcohol. Albert learned he did not like school. Did not fit in at school. The other boys were always ragging on him. And he’d been beaten up a time or two. “That’s tough,” said Albert. “Who beat you up?”

  “Some guys.” Bobby blushed.

  “Why?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Listen, you don’t have to tell me anything you don’t want to, you know?” Albert slapped Bobby lightly on the leg to show it was all light-hearted and safe.

  “They just talk a bunch of shit. Stuff they don’t know crap about.”

  “Tell you what,” said Albert. “Next time somebody hassles you, you tell me, all right? You remind me of my little brother, Jack.”

  “Okay, I guess. Thanks.”

  “Not a problem.” Albert punched Bobby in the shoulder. “You’re all right, for a kid, you know that?”

  “I’m fifteen.”

  “Good for you. Listen, do you play pool?”

  “Not really.”

  “I think we should head down to the Italian Garden, grab a pizza, play some pinball.”

  “Maybe. Sure, why not?”

  As they walked t
hrough the woods to the truck, Albert rambled on about the art of pool and as he talked he liked the sound of his own voice more and more, liked the way Bobby looked at him—like he was, well, important. And why not? Why shouldn’t he be? Maybe this was the key to his own pride. Like one of those Big Brother social workers. This kid probably had trouble at home. This kid could use an older brother type guy to show him the ropes. He could be a guy like that and could prove to the whole fucking world he wasn’t like the rest of the Erskines. It would be a clean thing. A good thing. Albert Erskine had just made a friend.

  Chapter Five

  Dorothy was burnishing a silver tea set, rubbing in the noxious grey cleaner, and then buffing to a high shine, when the bell over the door rang. She turned, polishing rag in her rubber-glove-clad hand and was surprised to see little Ivy Evans step in, bringing with her the scents of mud and rain. The girl’s eyes met hers for only a moment. They were red-rimmed, teary. Her nose was also red and, good lord, dripping slightly. As though reading Dorothy’s thoughts, she reached into the pocket of her navy wool jacket and pulled out a tissue, swiping angrily at her nose. The girl’s coat was open, and revealed a pair of blue jeans and a green sweater, in a shade that was not at all flattering. Her shoes, Dorothy couldn’t help but notice, were covered in muck.

  “Would you mind wiping your shoes, dear? Just there on the mat.”

  “Sorry.”

  “Ivy, yes? It is an awful lot of mud, isn’t it? Do you need a rag, perhaps? And are those your friends?” Two other girls had stepped up to the window and were looking in, their faces framed between upheld hands. Dorothy did not like the idea of a shop full of schoolgirls. Who were these girls? Cathy Watson and the Oliver girl, what was her name? Oh yes, Gelsey. Gelsey. It sounded like a sort of cow. Whereas Gelsey did bear an unfortunate resemblance to a dull-eyed ruminant, Cathy Watson was a startlingly pretty girl, in the puffy-lipped and pert-nosed ideal of contemporary fashion models. Cathy took after her mother, who never allowed you to forget her prettiness for an instant. The girls ignored Dorothy, but tapped on the window, gesturing at Ivy who, kneeling by a blue and white porcelain umbrella stand, kept her eyes firmly on her tan shoes. She spit on the tissue and rubbed at the leather.