The Clay Girl Read online

  Since then, we talk poetical stuff while making T-shirts for Malik the drummer and Crystal the sometimes singer with the band.

  But what I love most is her smiling a real smile when I say, “You’re a treasure, June, like a black diamond.”

  ELEVEN

  Back in 1959 I tried digging a tunnel to North Cuba. I fell asleep in the hot sun and woke under black dew. While running home, Jasper helped me sort my trouble. Tell them you were kidnapped by a kangaroo that thought you were her lost joey. I snuck into a sleeping house. Daddy draped the couch like a tangled blanket. Mummy curled kitten-round on the mat by the toilet. I covered her with a towel and went to bed.

  Len’s the kind of daddy who goes hunting for missing daughters. He brings Jory home door-slamming mad and Mummy ends up screaming at Len. The wall beside me is glass and I see Len facing the wall and Mummy facing the door and they’re under blankets of ice. I turn to Jacquie. “You, want me to tell you a story?”

  “I’m seventeen for Christ’s sake.”

  “What’s your baby’s name?”

  “It’s not mine.” Minutes creep through the dark, moving moonshadows from the closet to the foot of Jacquie’s bed, until she says, “Chris . . . so it would fit if it was a boy or girl.”

  The name spoken into the space between us twitches like a firefly and I hear how Jacquie has wanted and wanted to feel Chris on her tongue.

  “It was a boy.”

  She pops up on her elbow. “How do you know that?”

  “Auntie Elsie sent a picture. He had a shimmer of gold on his head and one hand, no bigger than Jinxie’s paw, stuck out from a blue blanket.” I wait. The silence feels bigger than the dark so I wade into it. “Mrs. Butters lost her three kids. In her life she’s cared for dozens of fosters. Huey says nothing has brought them more healing. The family that has Christopher feels that, too. You did that for them.”

  “Did he have five fingers?”

  “Four fingers and a thumb.”

  Len says, “Jacquie, come with Jillianne and Ari to the store. My Uncle Ignatius taught math in the old country. Until him, I thought square roots grew boxwood trees.”

  Jacquie groans in a tickled way and trudges along with us. Len’s store is a universal disappointment to Jory, a-dozen-hankies-for-a-dollar kind of place, with bargain-this and discount-that, green coveralls and workboots.

  Babcia is a granny who pinches cheeks and feeds us down-home good tastes. Uncle Ignatius has stories and a strong belief in a ten-year-old working. I sit by the cash, ringing through purchases. “Morning, ma’am. Will you be needing thread to embroider those towels? Look at this one, the prettiest shade of blue ever seen.” Len smiles as the lady picks out yellow and green, too. “That will be two dollars and eleven cents.”

  “Go pick a treat, Ari.” Really, Len wants me to help Jillianne who’s wandering around kind of helpless. She’ll come across something like toothpaste and start humming, You’ll wonder where the yellow went when you brush your teeth with Pepsodent. I stay put because jars of beads are lined up like gumballs under the glass-faced counter, paintbox colours in all shapes and sizes. Len picked up cartons of them at a fire sale. I string a line of turquoise and purple with black spacers.

  “What are you doing there, corka?” Len’s daughter makes me think about giving papa a try on my tongue.

  “Painting daisies on the middle bead.” I blow it dry, placing it on the counter so I can ring up purchases for Molly Harper’s mom. “Hi, Molly. Your hat is spectacular.” Molly is ahead of me at school and already wears a bra to hold up grape-size boobies.

  Her mother explains as I ring up socks, ribbon candy, pocket knife, and a key chain. “Just a few last-minute things to stuff stockings.”

  “Excellent choices, ma’am. That will be three dollars and seventy-six cents.” Molly tugs on her mother’s coat to whisper in her ear.

  Mrs. Harper asks, “Is that necklace for sale?”

  “One-of-a-kind love beads. Handcrafted from imported woods. Sale price, today only, one dollar.” She hands over a buck like it’s nothing.

  Len’s mouth gapes with wonderment. When they are gone he says, “Ari, make more.”

  As hours pass the strands pile on the counter. Len asks, “Did you sell two more?”

  “They’d go even quicker if we made a window display. Auntie Mary says presentation is half the sale.”

  “Do it.” Len never complains, but things aren’t easy feeding all the Appletons, and business has slowed with the Shoppers World opening on the Danforth.

  Upstairs, Jacquie looks a little less pressure-puffed. Uncle Iggy’s wheelchair is crammed up to the table. I kiss his bristly face. “Ah, my little Arishki. Not afraid of a man with no legs?”

  Jacquie snips, “Appleton girls are more afraid of men with three legs.”

  Babcia cackles like a happy bird and hugs Jacquie from behind.

  “How’d you lose your legs, Uncle Iggy?”

  “The war.”

  “My aunties were Wrens, intelligent operators keeping the enemy from invigorating our shores.” I empty out an old carved box. “Babcia, can you make me a sign? Handcrafted Groovy Love Beads, one dollar.”

  Len surveys the window as Babcia ripples sapphire satin under the box and arranges necklaces like a pirate treasure spill. “Come, corka.”

  Fat flakes float like parachutes past the street lamps. The road stretches out whisper-quiet and I leave off my mitten to hold Len’s hand all the walk home.

  On Monday, Molly Harper’s older sister comes to Pennyworths and buys three strings of beads. Before day’s end, every last one has sold. By Tuesday the jars of beads line the windowsill of the blue house. Everyone is stringing. Jory has a flair for far-out combinations. June’s are particularly poetic and Jacquie paints little doodads better than I ever could. It makes a body believe a glorious Appleton revampment is possible.

  Mummy counts as June stuffs a dozen into her bag before heading to work. “Don’t take what you can’t sell.”

  June’s silent stare is like a slap. Mummy lifts her hand to return it. She’s out the door before the smack.

  “They’ll be gone by morning, Mummy. The Village is a happening place and love beads are a hot commodity.” I don’t tell that June sells them for two bucks and pockets the profit.

  Len receives some headboard-thumping forgiveness for going to the school and arranging for Jacquie to retry her math exam. She got a seventy. Actually, she got a sixty-nine but Mr. Mathers gave her a bonus mark for improvement. And over Christmas, if she writes a spectacular essay on Catcher in the Rye and one on WWII she’ll get her English and history.

  We’re cider-warm and popcorn cozy with Ed Sullivan’s really big Christmas Shoe playing on TV when a cab pulls up with Jennah and baby Dean. Mummy effervesces like her Alka-Seltzer. “Give me Grandma’s sweet boy.”

  I’ll forever love Len for seeing Jacquie falling overboard into the frigid ocean and diving in after her. His “Well” comes out more like, “Vell, Theresa, seems we’ve set up a house too small. Jacquie and Ari, could we give our guests your room and have you stay with Babcia?” Jacquie’s feet hit her boots one-two quick and she’s gone.

  Mum claws Len’s arm. “Why did you do that to me? You knew how much I was looking forward to having all the girls together.”

  “Jacquie would’ve escaped somewhere. To the store is better than returning to her darkness. Let her mourn her loss a little, then I will bring her home.”

  Mummy near spits, “What losses does she have to mourn?”

  Jillianne turns up the TV. Jory navigates Mummy to the sofa and brings her a sherry. Jennah sits close, resting baby Dean on her lap. “Len’s just making room for the rest of us. We’ll have our days together. Just look at this little fellow. He has your colouring, don’t you think?” Jennah chins to the bottle. “One for me, too, sis.”
r />   The atmosphere around Mum clears a little. “Where’s Roland?” she says.

  “Working ’til Christmas Eve. I couldn’t wait for Dean to meet everyone.”

  Len gentles my shoulder. “Come.”

  I want to tell Len that he’s a treasure in my collection. I want to say sorry for the Appleton burden. I want to hug him for going and finding Jory. I want to tell him that he makes all the missing feel smaller. But all I say is, “How’d you meet Mummy?”

  “She was the prettiest customer to ever walk into Pennyworths. She bought a big box of Borax and I offered to carry it home for her.”

  “That was a nice thing to do.”

  TWELVE

  Roland shows up Christmas Eve and Armageddon rages through ’til Boxing Day. Seems Jennah caught him with some skirt-hoisted chippy. When yelling turns to smack, smack, smack, Len chucks Roland out by the neck-scruff, brings home a second-hand crib, and hauls Jacquie’s stuff to the store.

  Sleeping on the couch gives me a front-row seat for the screaming Jory-fits. When she sneaks in after midnight the hall light flicks on. “Where have you been?”

  “All-night prayer meeting.”

  “Did you take money from my purse?”

  “I didn’t take squat from your fucking purse.”

  “Jory, please, do not talk to your mother like that.”

  “Fuck you. You’re not my fucking father.”

  Mummy yells, “Get up to your room, now!”

  Jory cupboard-slams through the kitchen.

  Jennah stomps down the stairs with Dean screeching in her arms. “Does no one in this house have a fucking brain in their head?”

  I slip down into June’s empty pickle room. The cement damps my bum and the door ices my back. Jasper, when Aunties M&N come, we’re going home.

  I hang over the couch, head between the curtains. Mummy scolds, “Hariet, don’t you have anything better to do than gawking out the window?”

  Jory smolders in the chair. “She’s waiting for the lesbos.”

  The taxi pulls up in front of Grandma’s and my feet land in my boots.

  Mummy blocks the door. “What? Who? Mary?”

  “Please. Let me out.”

  “Go to your room.”

  “I don’t have a room.” I bolt out the side, across the street, and into my aunties’ arms.

  Mummy’s housedress is half-closed and her slippers soak up the slush. “Hariet, get back to the house—now!” She yanks my ear, twisting it in the way that gives a body no choice but to follow.

  “Theresa, you’re hurting her.”

  “Don’t you dare be interfering with my child.”

  Mr. Hawthorne watches from his veranda and I run from the disgrace to the pickle room. Len finds me hours later. “Corka, don’t cry.”

  “Can I go with my aunties?”

  “How would I bear life here if you were to go?” He holds me on the outside like Jasper does on the inside. “I will work something out. I promise.”

  June has been gone for nights and nights and the pickle room is the loneliest place I’ve ever stayed. Somehow she knows, comes home, and snugs up behind me, her hair falling like seaweed over my shoulder. “Bloody assholes, eh, Ari?” She lights a rolled smoke, sucks on it a while then holds it to my lips. “Here, it’ll make everything bad seem small.”

  “Auntie Nia said cigarettes are bad for you.”

  “It’s not a cigarette. It’s good for you. Like spinach.” I cough and sputter. June’s voice steadies me like when she taught me to ride her bike. “Slow down. Don’t be afraid.” I’m in a boat. She sounds water-soft. “You think I’m pretty?”

  “Like the moon in a night sky.”

  “You look like Daddy. Did he fuck you?”

  “He . . . took me fishing.”

  “Right, fishing. For fuckin’ worms, eh.”

  “I hate worms.” The air swirls in soft waves.

  “He just finger-fucked me. I bit his ear, hard. He never touched me again.” She snuffs up snot. “Fucking fucker.” My head bobbles as she bolts up and cranks the radio. “Ohhh, I love this song.” She loud-sings, “Here in my deep purple dreams . . .”

  My eyes sink to the bottom of the sea, opening after a long drift. Radio light glows in the damp dark. June sits on the floor, fussing with her arm like the time Dr. Herbert helped himself to my blood. “June, are you sick?”

  “Wish I’d never bit him.” She crawls back into bed. “Don’t get fucked up like me, Ari.”

  Mummy’s feeding Dean his morning bottle.

  “Please, can I go over to Grandma’s and see Auntie Mary?”

  “They’ve gone.”

  I slam on my boots and march across the street. Grandma pats my stressed hair. “They left. They didn’t want to cause trouble. Go back home and get a coat on. It’s ten below.”

  I head home, not for the coat but to pack. Mummy stands in the door. “Put that suitcase away and get cleaned up. Len needs you at the store for the January sale.”

  “I’m heading east.”

  “Look how easily they left. They don’t want a rag like you.”

  “I hate you. I hate you. I hate you!”

  “Well, you’d have to be more than sewer gas for me to mind about that.”

  I shove my life savings into my pocket. June and me will get our own place. We don’t need any of them, Jasper. First Len’s getting a boatload of my mind for breaking his promise.

  The Pennyworth’s over-the-door bell gets a dollar-full slam. Babcia stands at the cash.

  “Where’s Len?”

  Her eyes point upstairs.

  Mary’s reaching arms are the first thing I see. “Oh, Ari, I’ve missed you.”

  “I thought you left.”

  Auntie Nia stretches her bear arms around me. “We just didn’t want you caught in a battle.”

  “Take me home.”

  Len crouches low. “They’d go to jail if they took you. They will stay here this week. You come after school. I’ll see what I can reason with Mummy, okay, corka?”

  Len negotiates a week of sleepovers at the store by saying that I annoy Jacquie out of bed better than anyone and she needs a fresh start for school.

  Aunties M&N help Len with his store troubles. They know what’s selling in New York and San Francisco and they get Len jumping on the Toronto market. The upstairs turns into a peasant-skirt, tie-dye, headband, fringed-bag factory. Polish relatives come and go with more handwork than is seen in two years of the Wednesday Night Knitting and Prayer Society gatherings. The love bead arm of the operation continues at the blue house. Downstairs the store is divided in half—Aquarius Boutique to the right, Pennyworth’s to the left. The only place in town where you can buy a patchwork vest and toilet paper in one convenient location.

  My headtop connects with Aunties M&N as we paint the new sign. Auto paint doesn’t sparkle like sea glass but we make do. Auntie Nia admires my star. “Beautiful, Ari. Do you have art at your school?”

  “I got ninety-nine percent. Miss Glenn said she would’ve given me a hundred but creation should have room for growth.”

  “And what treasures have you unearthed?”

  I tell them about visiting Nana Appleton and teas with Grandma and about black June, but leave out the smoking situation. I tell them that the school librarian put a star on a shelf that says, Ari Appleton read all the books on this shelf and recommends The Secret of the Hidden Staircase. “And I have a borrowed dog named Sparky.”

  Auntie Mary takes my brush. “How are things with your mummy?”

  “She’s still short on nerves and seems Len or me are always murdering her last one.”

  “Before we head home we have two surprises. Your mummy has agreed to let you go on vacation with Auntie Elsie this summer.”

  “Where?”

/>   “Your mummy didn’t ask. And Elsie didn’t say, but . . . did you know your cousins have never seen the East Coast?” She winks. “Len, we’re ready for the next surprise.”

  At first I can’t make out what Len has cradled in his elbow nook. It looks like Babcia’s rabbit-soft, very-cold-day hat until its sleepy-eyed head lifts and I swear my puppy smiles at me. “But Mummy won’t let me.”

  Jacquie pats him. “I’ll take care of him here at night for you. What will you call him?”

  “Zodiac.” Because all the goodness of the heavens is in him.

  THIRTEEN

  Jennah wakes me singing “All Shook Up.” She makes oatmeal while she irons my dress. The kitchen sparkles and Mummy’s hair looks like seahorse tails pinned with bobby pins.

  “Morning, Mummy.” Her eyes stay closed as she sucks on her cigarette. Jennah tips whiskey into two teacups. “Len said that’s not good with her pills.”

  “Just taking the edge off things, sis.”

  I brush the ash sprinkled on baby Dean from Jennah’s cigarette and kiss his downy head.

  Jennah is a go-getter. She went out and got a good typing job with Hydro and a new boyfriend named Wilf. He has a belly and an empty hair spot on his head but he has a big Chevy Biscayne and calls Jennah “princess” and at work people call him Mr. Ferguson, sir.

  I help trundle Dean over to Grandma’s before school. She heaves a big put-out sigh until Jennah leaves. “Imagine two dollars a day for looking after this lamb. She better keep her legs closed with this one, though. You know what they say about buying the cow.”

  “What?”

  Jory stumbles crusty-eyed from Grandma’s parlour. “It’s the sixties, Gramonster. She’s not getting knocked up until she sees if there’re any better bulls to bleed.”

  “You get yourself cleaned up for school or out looking for a job or you’ll not be spending another night in this house.”