A Recipe for Bees (31 page)

Like the way Karl wouldn’t buy Augusta sanitary napkins, no matter how large she wrote the words on the shopping list or how many times she circled them in red. Or the fact that when he cooked a meal it was always the same: boiled beef ribs loaded with fat and served with unleavened dumplings. He’d make a sort of stew out of the stuff, four
meals’ worth, and it must have reminded him of his bachelor days because in winter, rather than scrape out the pan and put the stew in the refrigerator, he’d put the lid on the pan and sit it out by the doorstep to freeze, as he had in the old days at Olaf’s cabin. Or the way he got cranky if Augusta was too chatty during a meal. He’d say, “Well, let’s get this meal eaten before it gets cold.” And she’d feel obliged to sit and eat with him in silence where, before Joy left, she might have taken her cup of coffee and gone to sit on the stump.

He went on bringing her flowers, too, like the moccasin flower that only he knew where to find, someplace down on the edge of the ravine; the bunch of wild roses he brought her as soon as they were in bloom; or the pearly everlastings he brought her every year on their anniversary. And if she wanted to do something nice for him, she’d bake a lemon pie.

Augusta kissed the smooth skin on the top of Karl’s head where that single upstart hair grew. He awoke and looked up at her, bewildered.

Rose, stretching out of sleep, said, “You hear about May Stonehill? She ran down the corridor at the home naked one night to Andy Wallbank’s room and tucked herself into his bed. The night nurse caught them at it and shooed May back to her room. That must have been a sight, eh?”

“Why didn’t the nurse step back out the door?” said Augusta. “She should have left them to it. Neither of them are children.” Although Andy spent most of his time thinking he was eighteen and working in a mine. Who would be worse off if May crawled down into that mine with him for
a night? she wondered. Only the night nurse’s stiff sensibility would be dented by it.

Augusta supposed the young never thought of the lovemaking that went on between old bodies, or if they did it was material for jokes. She still wanted to be found beautiful, desirable. No one ever outgrew that. Yet she knew how the boys on the train today had seen her, how they had laughed at her. They could not conceive of growing old—metamorphosing in this odd way—any more than Augusta could have at their age. They expected to grow older, to sprout manly muscles, but not to progress to grey brittleness, as she had. Could they have imagined that she had once been smooth-skinned, young, like them? A different animal altogether, and yet the same. Right there on the train she had glanced down at her lap, expecting to see those smooth young hands gripping her purse, and been surprised to find these old things instead. She didn’t feel any different than she had at thirty, except for the aches and pains. She had expected that her desires would slacken after the possibility of a child was gone, but they hadn’t. She almost wished they had. What cruel joker gave old women such heated desires at the very time in their lives when they were likely widowed, or when any menfolk they had were grown flaccid and tired? I’m not being fair to the old guys, she thought. What was that psalm?
Do not cast me off in the time of old age; do not forsake me when my strength fails
.

There were certainly some old men still willing and able. Or willing, anyway. There were a couple of men at the seniors’ centre always making the rounds of the women. One turned up for lunch every day dressed in a different outfit. One day it was a sailor’s get-up, complete with captain’s
hat, his pot belly hanging over his bell-bottom pants. Another day he was dressed as a pirate. Once it was a 1970s white suit with a shiny disco shirt. He sidled up to that noisy Faye Risby with his usual line of “Married? Got a lover? No? Well, now.” Faye didn’t waste any time with him. She said, “Who are trying to kid? You couldn’t get it up if your life depended on it.” She had a voice that carried; she caused quite a commotion in the lunch room. Mr. Dress-Up had a wife who wouldn’t go anywhere with him. Augusta didn’t wonder at it.

The few men who came to the dances were gallant; they did try, each of them, to dance with each woman. Lance Reed, tall and so skinny that his hipbones wore the fabric on his pants, came alone, as his wife, Maeve, was long past dancing. As Augusta could no longer dance, Karl was now a popular man. Faye Risby commandeered him with something very near ownership, and had most of the dances with him except the polkas. Rose got the polkas. Augusta sat at the table at the door taking toonies from everyone who came, and seeing that they signed in, and rattled on about bees to anyone who would listen. As much as the members would have liked them to be, these dances weren’t the rollicking affairs of the forties. Music was provided by a tape machine or sometimes a balding, oily-scalped man who brought his keyboard and played requests, though he rarely played anything faster than a foxtrot.

Very few couples attended these events. A few single men came, but mostly it was women, and they sat in a long line against the windowed wall, watching the dance. Maybe, she thought, they should be sharing the few men who
remained, as women did in warrior societies where the young men went off and got themselves killed. There the women clamoured, demanded to share husbands, in bed, at the table, around the house and field. In the society of old women they did share men. They took turns dancing with other women’s husbands, or borrowed them to fix the sink or drive them to doctors’ appointments. Or else they found what they lacked in the company of the women themselves.

“Oh, there’s the phone!” cried Augusta. “Grab it, Rose, will you? I can never get up quick enough.”

Rose peered down at the screen on the telephone. “It’s Ernest again.”

“Good Lord, Ernest, give it up.”

“Shall I answer?”

“No. No. I just wish Joy would phone, even to let us know she hasn’t heard anything yet.”

“What would be the sense in that?” said Karl.

“It’s all this waiting. I hate the waiting.”

“About time you got a taste of your own medicine,” said Rose.

“That’s a cruel thing to say, today of all days.”

“I was only trying to lighten things up a little.”

“No you weren’t. You were trying to make me feel guilty.
I
was the one waiting at the Parksville station today.”

“What do you mean?” said Rose.

“It doesn’t take two hours to drive from Courtenay to Parksville.”

“I hadn’t had my breakfast. I’ll be damned if I’m going to drive that far on an empty stomach. I went out of my way to pick up you and that Indian woman.”

“Don’t go blaming her again.”

“I didn’t. I’m just saying—”

“It wasn’t her fault I got off. I had to use the washroom.”

“They’ve got washrooms on those trains.”

“I couldn’t use that one.”

“Why not?”

“I just couldn’t.” Augusta had in fact tried to use the train washroom. But the three boys had laughed as she walked past them down the aisle. She could guess what they were laughing at: the hole in her stocking, her puffed ankles, the dangling parrot earrings and the hot pink of her blouse. She ignored them and tried the handle on the bathroom. It was an odd, cantankerous affair that wouldn’t at first turn and, when it finally did, the door didn’t swing out as she expected, but in, towards the toilet. That made the room impossible to enter. The bathroom was tiny, and smelled hotly of cigarette smoke. The steel sink took up much of the space. If she slid in there, she wouldn’t be able to turn to close the door. If she did somehow manage that, how would she get out again? How would she manage the cane, and the handle of the door, and her own balance? She couldn’t bear the thought of having to cry for help from that coffin of a room, not with those three young goats guffawing at her.

She had closed the door to the bathroom and put on a face of disgust, as if she’d seen or smelled some awful thing that made her not want to use it. She switched her cane and purse to her left hand and made her way down the rumbling, shaking aisle to her seat. She sat and glanced at the young men as she placed her purse on her lap. “Is there another stop? Where I can use the bathroom?” she asked Esther. “I can’t use that one.”

“Parksville’s coming right up. You all right to Parksville?”

Augusta nodded and sat back in the seat. Travelling—all that sitting—stopped her up terribly, and her doctor had suggested that prunes loosened people up like nothing else, so now prunes were a necessary companion on her trips. She had once read, in some magazine in the doctor’s office, that prunes were provided free of charge in Elizabethan brothels. Back then they were eaten with gusto to promote vigour; now they were foisted on the elderly to encourage bowel movements. A long way to fall, that.

As the train began to slow for the next stop, Esther sat forward and pointed out the window. “You see all those bushes? Blackberries. Big juicy blackberries. I’d like to pick some of those.” Augusta nodded as the train lumbered to a stop. The conductor marched into the car and yelled, “Parksville!”

“Here we go,” said Esther. “We’ll get you to the washroom.” Although the station bathroom at Parksville turned out to be not much easier to use than the train bathroom. There was no power in the building, and the windowless ladies’ washroom was pitch-dark. Augusta couldn’t bring herself to navigate around it. Instead she chose the men’s washroom, as it had a window in it. She shut the door, put her purse in the sink, and hung her cane over the doorknob before lowering herself onto the toilet seat. She had only just settled herself when Esther knocked on the door. “Augusta, you okay in there? The train’s going.”

“I’m coming. I’m coming. Tell them to wait!”

“You’ve got to hurry.”

“I’ll just be a moment. Tell them!”

As she stood, her Depends pad slipped from her undergarment and slid into the toilet bowl. How was she going to get it out? There were no coat-hangers in this place. The station was all but deserted. She hurriedly pulled her underwear up and adjusted her stockings and dress and tried to think what to do. If she flushed, wouldn’t the pad block the toilet and wouldn’t the toilet overflow? But she couldn’t just leave it there, could she? Maybe she could get Esther’s help. But that would be too humiliating. She rinsed her hands under the tap and patted them dry on her skirt, as there were no paper towels left, and then her hand made the decision for her. It reached out and flushed the toilet. The toilet bowl went brownish red for a moment, from the flush of rusty water, and then the water gurgled back to its normal level. Augusta sighed as she grabbed her cane and purse.

As she opened the bathroom door, the train horn sounded and sounded again. The train was leaving without her. She tried to make her old body move faster, but the pain in her hip slowed her. When she took that last step outside, she found herself looking at the back end of the train moving down the track. She stared after it, not quite believing that it had left without her. Esther was sitting on the bench, watching Augusta and eating an apple. “They didn’t wait for me,” said Augusta.

“No.”

“Why didn’t you tell the conductor to wait?”

“He wouldn’t listen. He seemed to think I was making a joke or something.”

“Weren’t you going to Courtenay?”

“Yup.”

“You missed the train for me?”

“I wasn’t going to leave. I figured something was the matter.”

“I’m so sorry.” Augusta turned to the blackboard on the station wall that proclaimed the white numbers of the trains, but the spaces for departure times were blank.

“I guess if we’re stuck here together I better introduce myself,” said Esther. She held out her hand. “Esther Joseph.”

Augusta glanced at the hand a moment before taking it. It was the hand of a gardener or farmer, callused and large, as big as a man’s. She shook Esther’s hand. “Augusta Olsen. Glad to meet you.” Then she sat down and sighed. Had she been at home, she would have lain in her bed and had a good long nap, with the window open to let the air in. Then she would have awoken rested and had some tea and toast and jam.

“I guess we better get to a phone,” said Esther. “Call a taxi or something.”

“I’ll call my friend Rose. She’ll pick us up.” They made their way down the road and across the highway to Buckerfield’s, a farm and garden supplies store, where she used the phone. At first she told Rose to meet her at Buckerfield’s. It would have been a nice enough place to wait. There was a greenhouse full of fall plants for sale: pansies, chrysanthemums, and potted dahlias that would go on flowering, in this climate, right into the coldest months of winter.

“No, tell her the train station,” Esther said.

“What?” said Augusta.

“Blackberries.”

“Who is that?” Rose said.

“Yes. Rose? I’ll be at the Parksville train station. I’ll wait there.”

They must have made a sight, thought Augusta. Two old women waddling down that dirt road back to the train station, one nearly too fat to walk, one with a crippled hip, each of them carting their luggage on a day hot enough to make corn tips turn brown from thirst. The dust on the station road was so thick and fine that she felt like taking off her shoes and running in it. But that would have looked foolish, wouldn’t it? A barefoot old woman hop-skipping through the dust because her hip wouldn’t co-operate with her enough for a full run. It took them twenty minutes to cover the distance; it would have taken a young person five.

The Parksville station was painted a hideous green and its front windows were boarded over. On the station door there was a cardboard sign handwritten in black marker that said, Sorry. No Hydro. Vandalism—cut power 96-07-23. Huge banks of broom bordered the gravel road leading to the station; they must have made for one glorious show of yellow come spring. Bunches of Queen Anne’s lace thrived in the poor soil around the tracks. Here and there nests of California poppies bloomed in the gravel. Just under the plank bridge that led from the platform to the gravel road, salmonberry grew in thick exotic bushes. Esther’s promised blackberries grew everywhere, but especially across the tracks, at the edge of bush. They were too big to be believed: as big as the end of Augusta’s thumb. Such a deep purple they looked black. And sweet. They grew everywhere on the island, along the highways, train tracks, down the sides of gravel roads. People on the island had come to think of them as common weeds, and few
braved the bramble to pick them. But Augusta and Esther picked them that morning, though they were scratched by bramble and bothered by wasps attracted to the juice of berries on their faces and hands. Augusta had a good old chat with Esther while eating blackberries off those bushes, about her visions and the men she loved, about Gabe’s illness and how her daughter didn’t need her any more.