Fall on Your Knees

“She won’t.”

  “Frances!”

  “I can’t help it, Lily,” Frances points out reasonably. “You’re the one who picked half her face off. I just fixed her, that’s all, she looked stupid without a mouth. What an ungrateful little brat.”

  Lily stares at Raggedy.

  “Thank you, Frances.”

  “You’re lucky she didn’t drown.”

  Lily finds the place within herself where love discovers that Raggedy is now more dear than ever. Frances watches Lily soothe the cruddy rag thing, and twines a finger round a stray coil of hair.

  “Lily …,” says Frances in a friendly confiding tone, “you know what Daddy has back there in his shed? A still. He’s a bootlegger.”

  “He is not. He’s a boot-maker.”

  “Why do you think they call it bootleg whiskey? Because Daddy makes it along with the boots.”

  “Frances.”

  “And I’m an alcoholic. I have been since I was six. Don’t tell Mercedes. I took to the bottle the day you were born and I’ve been secretly drunk ever since. I’m drunk right now.”

  Lily doesn’t like it when Frances’s eyes start to glint green. It’s the first sign. It means Frances is going to tell her something.

  “No, you’re not drunk, Frances, I can’t smell it.”

  “It’s so pure it doesn’t even have a smell.” Frances knows how to make her voice so calm and serious at the same time, the plain truth, like a doctor; “I’m afraid that head’s going to have to come off, Mrs Jones.”

  “Daddy wouldn’t let you, Frances.”

  “Daddy gives it to me. I’m the taster.”

  “I’m asking him myself, that’s not true, Frances.”

  “Lily, if you ask Daddy it will really hurt his feelings. He only makes the whiskey so we can afford a decent life. And I have to help him. It’s too bad I got addicted but that’s the sacrifice I made to help you and Mercedes. What if we couldn’t have afforded a doctor? They’d’ve cut your leg off.”

  Lily starts to cry.

  “Frances, I don’t want you to be an alcoholic.”

  Lily’s tears are pouring out and her throat is getting sore from sorrow. “I’m going to tell Daddy not to give you any more.”

  “Don’t cry, Lily, it’s okay, I don’t mind. I’ve always known I would die young.”

  “No-o-o!” Lily covers her face and water streams through her fingers. Slowly, Frances puts her arms around Lily and begins gently to rock her as she cries.

  “Daddy’s not a bad man, Lily. He loves us very much.”

  Frances closes her eyes and soaks up Lily’s warm grief for her predicament. It spreads like medicine through Frances’s narrow chest. She experiences a precious moment of peace. Dear Lily. Frances breathes deeply, and her face undoes itself until it is as smooth as a young girl’s skin.

  “Frances, Lily… where are you?”

  Mercedes doesn’t like to raise her voice. Anything worth saying is worth saying in a civilized tone. This means she climbs a lot of stairs.

  Mercedes’ light brown braids are decently folded into a bun at the back of her neck. She wears a cameo fastened to the throat of her stand-up collar, and her blue serge skirt hangs three inches below her knees. Modesty is always in style. Mercedes is a slim girl who is scrupulous about her posture. Mercedes is twelve going on forty.

  Second floor. No sign of the girls, meantime the liver is getting cold in the pan downstairs. Loaded with iron, and economical, you can’t go wrong with liver. Mr Luvovitz has said so and he should know. Mercedes does most of the grocery shopping these days. Every Friday, Daddy entrusts her with housekeeping money, and on Saturday morning she makes the rounds. Lately she has begun doing most of the cooking too. After supper, she and Frances do the washing up. Then Mercedes does her homework. And then she does Frances’s homework — although she tells herself that she is merely helping Frances, otherwise it would be cheating. And what does Frances do? Plays with Lily or fools around on the piano. Daddy taught Mercedes how to play up to grade seven according to the Toronto Conservatory, but he gave up on Frances early on. Frances prefers to play by ear, but only when Daddy’s out working.

  Mercedes peeps into Frances and Lily’s bedroom. They’re not there either. It always irks Mercedes when dinner is late, and it usually is, through no fault of hers. She sighs and looks forward to the end of day, when all her chores will be done and she can settle in with her book. These days she is achingly absorbed in Jane Eyre for the second time. Today is Thursday. Just two more days till glorious Saturday when, after she has done the shopping and the washing and ironing, Mercedes will go as usual to the home of Helen Frye, her best friend — best after Frances, that is. Helen Frye lives in a company house because her daddy is a miner, but the Fryes are not as poor as other mining families because Helen is that rarity, an only child. The others all died. So Helen has her own room and quite nice clothes. Maybe this Saturday Mercedes and Helen will take in a picture at the Bijou. Or work on one of several shared projects; they have a quilt on the go, along with baby clothes for their future children. And maybe, as they have been recently wont to do, they will discuss love. Helen is in love with Douglas Fairbanks. Mercedes is in love too, but she cannot yet bring herself to speak his holy name.

  The door to the attic stairs is ajar. Mercedes stands at the bottom, a little put out. What’s the attraction? Why do they play up there? For one thing, there’s nothing up there but the old hope chest and she has the key, and for another thing Frances is rather too old for play. Frances could do with some friends her own age. Mercedes cups her hands around her mouth and speaks into the darkness of the stairwell.

  “Frances, Lily, supper.”

  No answer. Then a low moan and a whistling sound like the wind, except it obviously isn’t the wind.

  “Frances, no nonsense now, supper’s getting cold” — allowing herself a hint of genteel exasperation.

  “Mercedes … give me back my liver.”

  “For gosh sake, Frances —”

  “Mercedes … I’m on the first step.” Metallic clomp.

  “Supper’s getting cold.”

  “Mercedes … I’m on the second step.” Clank.

  “Fine, starve.”

  Whispering, “Mercedes…. BOO!”

  “A-a-a!”

  Why? Why does it always work?

  Frances emerges into the hallway and dances the highland fling, the iron brace on her left leg swinging like a shillelagh.

  “Frances, Daddy is right downstairs … Frances!”

  Frances dances on, high kicking into Offenbach, singing in a Scottish accent, “Can, can you do the cancan, can you do the cancan” — accelerating — canyoudothecancancanyoudothecancan —”

  Lily has collapsed at the bottom of the attic stairs, beside herself with giggles, trying not to pee; Mercedes starts to succumb in spite of herself —

  “What’s all the commotion up there?” It’s Daddy on the first step.

  Mercedes snaps to the banister and calls down, “Nothing, Daddy, we’re coming.” She hurries down the stairs, heading him off, “Supper’s ready when you are, Daddy,” while Frances undoes the leather straps of the heavy steel brace and gives it back to Lily.

  They say grace around the kitchen table, “Bless us O Lord and these Thy gifts which we are about to receive through Thy bounty through Christ our Lord, amen.” Frances adds, “Inshallah.”

  James eyes her and shakes his head slightly. Lily grins behind her napkin. Mercedes serves.

  “Mmmm,” says Frances, “leather and onions.”

  Clip to the ear from Daddy, she earned that one. Let’s all just ignore her.

  “These carrots are from our own garden, Daddy,” says Mercedes.

  James had let the garden go to seed, but Mercedes resurrected it last year because she knows how much it meant to him at one time. Before all the sad things happened. She is very proud of the scrawny carrots and strange potatoes it produces and she always announces the
fact that the family is being nourished by the bounty of their own backyard. James nods, gives her his faint distant smile and goes on eating. Frances, however, experiences difficulty.

  Eat. Chew, chew, chew, offer it up for the poor souls in purgatory. Frances has difficulty getting through a whole meal at the best of times — maybe if I smuggle the liver into my pockets bite by bite — I know, tonight while everyone’s asleep I’ll glue a big envelope to the underside of my chair so that from now on —

  “Eat,” James tells her.

  Lily’s forehead has puckered, there are tears in her eyes, but she eats bravely on.

  “It’s all right, old buddy, you don’t have to finish it,” says James.

  Lily looks to Mercedes, hating to hurt her feelings. “That’s okay, it’s delicious. Thank you Mercedes.”

  James smiles mature complicity at Mercedes, who forms a smile in return and removes Lily’s plate, saying in her kind voice, “Lily, would you like a toasted cheese?”

  “Yes please, Mercedes.”

  “Atta girl,” says James.

  “I could use a filet mignon, personally,” says Frances.

  James shoots her a look — she’ll feel the back of his hand in a minute.

  He turns to Lily and tugs one of her braids. So like her mother, her mother’s lovely mouth and perfect nose, her eyes. So like Kathleen but for the blight. That only makes her more precious to me. In the right way.

  Lily doesn’t know whom she looks like. She knows she had a sister who died, and Mumma died of a broken heart right after, and Daddy loves us very much.

  James strokes Lily’s sweet head and she caresses Daddy’s hand with her cheek. The hand turns into a spider and tickles her under the ear; she wriggles and squeals and makes him stop with a little kiss. Lily senses that Mercedes disapproves, probably thinks she’s too old for this game, but Lily can’t imagine ever being too old to play with Daddy. She never wants to get that old.

  On the whole James is satisfied with his life, and in some ways very happy. Mercedes is a pillar. And Lily is precious. They make up for Frances. “How was school today?” he asks her.

  “Great, we looked at a bunch of fossils and spent the whole day on Jane Eyre.” Which is true, Frances did look at fossils; she spent the day at the shore, reading and skipping rocks.

  James looks at her and in the silence Frances feels a little prickly, but takes another bite of liver. Mercedes waits by the stove. She will leave it till later to reprove Frances for borrowing her book without permission. For now she watches Daddy. Will he drop the subject? James opens his mouth but Mercedes chirps, “Daddy, you’ll never guess what happened today,” placing the toasted cheese before Lily and resuming her seat. “Ronald Chism’s pet frog escaped from the pocket of his trousers.”

  “What happened?” asks Lily, all ears.

  “Well, the errant frog was nowhere to be found until Sister Saint Agnes started from her chair and the creature leapt from behind the hem of her habit, to the great amusement of the class and the consternation of Sister Saint Agnes.”

  James chuckles politely, Frances yawns audibly.

  James returns his attention to his plate and Mercedes breathes again. She ponders Daddy’s love for Lily. And his anger at Frances. She picks up her fork and feels lonely.

  That night, Mercedes creeps into the room Frances shares with Lily and into bed next to her sisters, and whispers, “Frances… are you awake?”

  “No, I’m talking in my sleep.”

  “You have to come to school tomorrow.”

  “‘Oh Daddy, ‘twas so-o amusing, Mistah Froggy was moast impehtinent, methought he would leap right up the dingy crack of Sister Saint Agnarse.’”

  “Frances!”

  “You’re laughing.”

  “I am not.” Mercedes laughs silently into the pillow for a while. Finally she collects herself, wipes away tears and, “Frances?”

  “What?”

  “Promise me you’ll come to school tomorrow.”

  “What for?”

  “Sister Saint Eustace will have to get the truant officer after you and he’ll tell Daddy.”

  “So what? We could use a little excitement around this joint.”

  “Frances, please.”

  “All right, all right.” Frances rolls over and starts snoring.

  “Frances, can I sleep here tonight?”

  “I don’t care.”

  “Thanks.” Mercedes snuggles in, tucking Frances’s always icy feet between her own.

  “Aa’di aa’e’ley, Habibti.”

  “Don’t worry, Mercedes.”

  “Te’berini.”

  “Yeah, yeah.”

  “Goodnight, Frances. I love you.”

  “Barf.”

  Mercedes giggles and falls asleep.

  The Demon Rum

  James is doing well off the Nova Scotia Temperance Act. He’s doing even better off the Eighteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, otherwise known as Prohibition. Frances doesn’t know it for a fact but she suspects. In Our Lady of Mount Carmel schoolyard, two brothers, both named Cornelius in case one dies, flung the truth at her. “Your old man’s nothing but a bootlegger!” Frances retorted, “Oh yeah? Well your old man’s a silly bitch!” They came after her but she ran, and no one can catch Frances on the run.

  Frances has already learned that boys and fishermen have a richer vocabulary than girls and nuns — even if she’s not always sure of the exact meaning of the powerful words she likes to use. She knew she wouldn’t find “bootlegger” in the dictionary, any more than she had been able to find a satisfactory entry for “bugger,” so she went to Mr MacIsaac. His red face split in a grin, he wheezed out his laugh like a busted accordion and told her what it meant, quick to add, “But your Daddy’s not a bootlegger, lass, where’d you get that idea?”

  Frances figured Mr MacIsaac was just saying that to be nice. Either that or he’s stupid. Why else does he fail to notice how sticky her fingers get whenever she passes the bin of cinnamon hearts and jellybeans? Frances let Mercedes in on her theory about the true nature of Daddy’s work, but Mercedes just said “silly nonsense”.

  James is a bootlegger. When he works, he works at night. He leaves the house around eleven o’clock and locks the girls inside. He lights a lantern in the shed, where his cobbling tools sit gathering dust. Then he leaves the shed too and locks the door. He drives away, leaving the light to burn all night in the window.

  He goes to the mouth of a certain stream and meets the dories that row in from the boats anchored offshore on “rum row”. These boats are en route from the British colony of Newfoundland, where liquor is legal, to points down the coast as far as New York City. James carries barrel after barrel and case after case up the middle of the stream to a hiding-place. He returns the next night, loads up his automobile and makes trips from the hiding-place to his secret premises back in the woods. He is starting to feel too old for all this lifting and ferrying, however, and is considering hiring a couple of younger or poorer men. There are plenty of both kinds about these days.

  One strike follows another: ’22, ’23, and just this past March of ’25 the miners walked out again. It reminds James of New Waterford’s bad old days before the war. Outside Cape Breton, the twenties are roaring. But the famous postwar boom never hit here. At least not for ordinary people. Things have gone from bad to worse. The politicians and the captains of industry blame it on that mysterious mechanism, “the world economy”. But even James recognizes this as a euphemism for “God-forsaken sons-of-bitches who took everything out of here and never put a thing back”. Many miners’ children walk to school barefoot and eat lard sandwiches soaked in water to give them substance — this during times of full employment. No one knows it yet, but Cape Breton is a dress rehearsal for the Great Depression.

  It’s not surprising that bootlegging is tolerated. Who can blame a body for seeking to supplement his income a little? Or for just brewing some consolation to share with fri
ends and family around a fiddle? And that’s what most people do. It’s unusual to find a local who sells homemade ’shine at more than cost. And it’s unusual to find someone who doesn’t have a jug stashed somewhere, if not a vat on the stove. The story goes that Father Nicholson opened Mount Carmel’s rectory door to a stranger who enquired, “Where can a fella get a drop around here, father?” And the priest replied, “Well, my son, you’ve come to the only place in town where you can’t get a drop, although I don’t know, my curate might be selling.” The few serious bootleggers tend to be good fellas — wild but not bad, and certainly not stingy or vindictive. Even the Mounties enjoy the game, no matter how often they’re outwitted, and a mutual respect flourishes. Win some, lose some.

  Naturally there is a Women’s Christian Temperance League, but they are a Protestant bevy and New Waterford is a Catholic town. Even in Sydney, where there are more teetotal Protestants, the hotels serve strong drink with only the threat of now and then being charged a token fine for a first violation. A second violation shuts you down, but a proprietor would have to make himself very unpopular in order to have his twentieth violation designated a “second”.

  There is no shame in bootlegging. Not the way it is practised by most people. James, however, is a professional. At his shack, in the middle of a secret clearing in the woods, he takes genuine scotch and gin, real rum, and cuts it all with his own lye-quickened concoction that bubbles day and night. He reseals the genuine liquor bottles and turns a handsome profit. It helps that he doesn’t have friends to blab to. Otherwise one thing leads to another and, before you know it, the Mountie who has just turned up at your still to purchase a drop of Christmas cheer is duty-bound, come New Year’s, to burn you down, no hard feelings.

  Like the professional he is, James sells only to those most likely to pay: to several wealthy individuals who do their drinking at home and can afford a cut above the usual “recipe” of molasses, yeast and water. And to most of the hotels and blind pigs from Sydney Mines to Glace Bay — where the liquor gets diluted again. He no longer sells to miners because he has grown weary of collecting debts. James has read in the papers about spectacular outbreaks of violence down in the States, where gangs fight for control of their patch and men are shot over bad debts. But in James’s experience, all that’s usually required is a threat to tell the poor bastard’s wife. James is sick of hearing their sob stories. If their children are so hard up, they shouldn’t part with a penny for his poison. And they need look no further than James himself for a good example: he doesn’t touch a drop.