Somewhere I Belong (3 page)

I stormed across the hallway, plotting revenge on my little brother,
thinking of the one thing that belonged to him that I could mangle
or smash. But I would wait for the right moment to do it. For when Dad was still at work and Ma had her ear to the telephone yakking with Aunt Mayme. I was sick of listening to Alfred's screeching and everyone taking his side.

I approached the banister and raised a hand up to grab it, feeling the heat of Ma's anger and my own burning rage. I imagined how I would take Alfred's new 3-D viewfinder—the one Aunt Mayme had bought him for his fourth birthday. Alfred loved looking at the pictures Dad took when he was away working with Uncle George. Now I saw myself dangling it over him, just out of reach. Making him grasp and jump and squeal. Letting it drop to the floor, then smashing it under my foot. I hated Alfred at that moment and I wanted to see him cry.

Just as I gripped the banister and placed my foot on the first step, the sky cracked overhead and the house shook. It was like huge hands clapping above us. I fell onto the banister and dropped to the bottom step, feeling the hardwood bite into my thigh. I rolled over and watched, in horror, as the kitchen window blew in and shards of glass flew across the grey linoleum floor. Down the hallway, Alfred reached for Ma. His mouth was wide open, but he wasn't making a sound.

“Pius James is always picking on his little brother,” Ma said. “Sometimes I wonder if he even likes him.”

Just for the record, I do. Most of the time, anyhow. But the way Ma
went on, you'd think Alfred was one of those tortured martyrs we
studied in school, and I was on a sure road to hell. According to her, Alfred's every squeak and holler was always my fault. Now she was setting Uncle Jim against me too.

“That's what boys do, Martha.” Uncle Jim looked at Ma and laughed. “Remember Ed and me? How we used to get into it? We'll just have to keep 'im busy is all.”

Uncle Jim reined Big Ned and Lu into a slow turn up a narrow drive. The sky was gloomy. Snow lay in a thick, white blanket and blew in swirls all around us. It stuck to our buffalo rugs and coated our luggage. It banked up on both sides of the drive, higher than the wagon.

Ma turned stiffly under her buffalo rug. “We're home, everybody.” The wind nearly swallowed her voice, but I could still sense her excitement.

Uncle Jim tugged on a rein and urged the horses across the yard toward a gabled house that was barely visible. I stomped my aching feet against the frozen floorboards, looked at the desolation around us, and wondered how Ma could ever call this
home
. Home was a two-
storey wooden house painted yellow and trimmed in white. Home
had a backyard twenty skips long, according to Helen, neighbours you could talk to over a fence, and houses that lined up for blocks on both sides of the street. Granny's was a place we had travelled through a near blizzard to get to. Drifts covered the yard like a rolling sea. The lantern that hung over the back door tilted in the wind. Snow blew horizontally against the house. Everything beyond it was a dull haze over a blank canvas.

Big Ned and Lu stood quietly in their traces, heads down, eyes shut against the falling snow. The back door opened and a rambunctious border collie bounded toward us as we piled over the side of the sleigh. A man who was fumbling with the buttons of a plaid woollen jacket followed the dog down the stairs, then a boy who looked to be a little older than Alfred. His jacket matched the man's. Its sleeves were rolled up at the cuffs, and his dungarees bagged over heavy gumboots. The man rushed toward Ma, arms wide open.

“You made it, Martha,” he said. Then he hugged her. “Good to see you.” He had the same pale-blue eyes and ruddy complexion as Uncle Jim. But he didn't have his forced eagerness. And I was relieved when he didn't use that fake New England accent.

Before Ma could answer him, the dog bristled and circled Helen.
He crouched and growled at her, exposing a menacing set of teeth.

Helen shrieked and edged toward Ma.

Ma put a hand to her face. “Ed!”

The man stepped toward the dog and waved him off. “Go 'way with you, Dodger.”

Dodger slinked toward him, eyes pleading, tail tucked between legs. Then he sat and cowered.

“Take this here.” The man pulled a biscuit from his pocket and handed it to Helen.

“Easy now—make 'im work for it.”

Ma introduced us to Uncle Ed and Cousin Thomas. I remembered my uncle from Ma's photograph album back home and the stories she had told us about him. He was two years younger than Uncle Jim. And according to her, he was the quiet one. But Thomas was just a name Ma had mentioned from the occasional letter we had received from Granny. He edged beside Uncle Ed, mumbled out a greeting, and stared at my laced-up leather boots.

“Welcome to Northbridge Road,” Uncle Ed said, smiling. He turned
toward the baggage piled high over the sleigh. “You get yourselves
inside. Thomas and I'll look after this.”

Uncle Jim unharnessed the horses and led them toward the barn. Larry and I each grabbed a piece of baggage and followed Uncle Ed and Thomas through the back door. We entered a mudroom and then
a kitchen and a blast of warm air. The familiar smell of baked ham
and roast potatoes—my dad's favourite meal—was a relief after the long, cold ride. It reminded me of how hungry I was. We unbuttoned our jackets and piled them over hooks that lined the mudroom wall. I tugged off my boots and felt a sharp pain as I put my frozen feet on the hard wooden floor.

A woman in a white apron loosely tied over a heavy woollen cardigan moved toward us, Ma's bright blue eyes set in her wide-open face. She threw out her arms and lowered her hands to my frozen cheeks.

“Well, Pius James, haven't you grown?” she said. “You're the image of your father.”

“Thanks, ma'am.” I looked up and searched her soft, creased face. There was something familiar in the way her grey hair was tied neatly in a bun, in how wisps of it hung over the white collar of her floral-print dress. Still, she felt like a stranger.

She turned to my older brother. “What have you been feeding him, Martha? Why, he's got to be taller than….” She stopped and put a hand to her face. “Well, you're big now, anyhow.”

Ma introduced us to the two women who moved up beside Granny: her younger sister Gert—Aunt Gert—and Uncle Ed's wife, Aunt Kate. Aunt Gert said a friendly hello, then bent down and helped Alfred off with his jacket. Aunt Kate smiled shyly, then returned to the cookstove.

Thomas and Uncle Ed carried in the rest of our baggage and piled it below the stairway in the front hall. Just as they turned to go back
outside to help Uncle Jim with the horses, a grumpy looking man
entered and slammed the door against the cold. He gripped the doorframe, stomped snow off his boots, pulled a scarf from his neck, and tossed a crooked grin across the kitchen.

“You made it, Charlie,” Uncle Ed said. “We weren't expectin' you 'til later.”

“Let them go early,” the man said. “What the heck—I needed time to get here, didn't I?” Still gripping the doorframe, he unbuttoned his jacket and pulled it over an outstretched arm.

“That was nice of you, Charlie,” Uncle Ed said. “You feelin' all right?”

“That Daley boy's acting up again.” He dropped onto a stool and
tugged off a boot. A hand lifted a pant leg, exposing a thick, metal brace. “I figured I had to get him out of there or I'd have clobbered him. So I sent the lot of them home. Little buggers.”

“Now, Charlie,” Granny said. “What way is that to talk about the little dears?” I couldn't tell if she was joking or half-serious.

“Those scallywags would be the death of me if I didn't take a firm hand,” the man scoffed.

This was my introduction to Mr. Charlie Dunphy. He was the sole teacher at Northbridge Road School—the one-room schoolhouse that sat at a crossroads about a mile from Granny's. I was later to find that he boarded with the Daleys—a rough-and-tumble family that lived near the school. Mr. Dunphy dined around the community in the evenings. Tonight it was Granny's turn to feed him. There were other things I was soon to learn about him too, like his chameleon nature and that you could get into his bad books without even trying. His jovial, offhand manner at Granny's, that evening, caught me completely off guard. I had no idea what I was soon to encounter at my new school.

When Uncle Jim returned from the barn, we paraded into the dining room behind Granny, the two aunts, and bowls and platters piled with food. Aunt Gert placed the peas at the far end of the table, then continued across a hallway and into what looked to be the parlour. She approached an old man seated in an overstuffed chair and offered him her hand. He clung to it as she heaved him to his feet. He grabbed a cane, scowled, and waved her off. Then he shuffled toward the dining room. Uncle Jim pulled out a chair and offered a hand.

“I can manage.” The old man waved Uncle Jim off and eased into the chair. “I ain't dead yet.”

Somehow I got stuck by the dining room door, and the only empty seat was between Aunt Gert and Mr. Dunphy. So I sat there. We folded our hands and bowed our heads as Uncle Jim said grace. Then Aunt Gert picked up the old man's tumbler and a pitcher of milk.

“You remember Mr. White, don't you, Martha?” she said.

“Of course I do,” Ma replied. “Jim and I used to land at your back door looking for Isabelle's…I mean, Mrs. White's cookies. We were such a nuisance.” She paused and said, “I'm sorry she's gone, Mr. White. You must miss her.”

“Youse can call me John,” Mr. White said. “And yes, she was a wonderful woman.” He looked around the table and smiled. “I have to admit that since Isabelle's been gone, it'd be some goin' without you Lanigans.”

“You can say that again,” Mr. Dunphy said.

Aunt Gert leaned over me, plucked Mr. Dunphy's tumbler from the
table, and filled it with milk. “You drink every drop of this, Charlie
Dunphy—it's good for you.”

“I know what's good for me, woman.” Mr. Dunphy leaned across me, and winked at her with a wry smile.

“Don't you get fresh with me,” Aunt Gert said. She sounded like Ma when we were over to Aunt Mayme's for dinner and one of us started stirring up trouble.

“Let's have a toast to Martha and the four scamps,” Uncle Jim said.

“Now there's an idea.” Mr. Dunphy raised a finger and smiled across the table. “But a proper toast calls for a proper libation, don't you think?”

“I couldn'ta said it better myself,” Uncle Jim said.

“James D.” Granny glared at my uncle. Then she grabbed the bowl of peas and served Mr. White a heaping spoonful.

Uncle Jim grinned at Granny and edged around the table and into the kitchen. He returned carrying five tumblers and a large glass jug that contained a murky brown liquid. He plunked the tumblers onto the table in front of Granny. He pulled the stopper from the jug, filled a tumbler halfway, and raised it to eye level. He sniffed it and then took a gulp. He swished the liquid around in his mouth, and then swallowed it loudly, his Adam's apple travelling the length of his skinny neck. He smacked his lips and smiled. “Just what the doctor ordered.”

He filled three more tumblers, placing one on the table in front of Mr. White, and handing the other two to Uncle Ed and Mr. Dunphy. He picked up the last tumbler and filled it with milk. “You get this here into you, Mother. It's good for the bones.” He grabbed his own drink and the jug and returned to his seat.

The men stogged their faces and cleaned their plates. Uncle Jim sliced what remained of the ham and Mr. White held out his plate. “You're the best cook on Northbridge Road, Mrs. Lanigan,” he said. Aunt Gert
leaned toward him, pulled his napkin out from his shirt collar, and
patted grease off his face.

Mr. Dunphy helped himself to more potatoes. “I'll second that.”

I ate quietly and watched and listened. I felt nervous and alone in that crowded room—swallowed up by the strangeness. This should all have been familiar to me; Ma had brought us here, just five years ago, when Dad was away working with Uncle George. But the memories were too distant. The kindness was real—I could feel it. But there was something forced and unnatural about the stilted conversation, about the
pleases
and
thank yous
that were drawn out to fill the silence. Aunt Kate asked us about our trip, as if our whole lives had begun just the week before. Everyone seemed to tiptoe around the real reason we were there. They treated it like china so brittle it could break at the touch. I moved my fork slowly across my plate, trying not to scrape it, and carefully balanced my peas. My chest was heavy with the constant ache that had set in after Dad died. I listened to everybody around me, hoping to hear his name mentioned just once. But the chatter veered off in a different direction as if we kids weren't even there.

Mr. Dunphy grabbed the jug and refilled his tumbler. He took a huge gulp and wiped his hand over his mouth. “Wa's fer dessert?”

“We've a lovely apple pie from Jaynie Giddings, next door,” Granny said.

“Percy Giddings brought it over 'imself,” Uncle Ed said. “I saw 'im struttin' up the drive, dressed to the nines. And Gertie here wouldn't let 'im in.”

“Poor bugger, sloggin' through all that snow,” Uncle Jim laughed.
“You're a cruel woman, Gert.”

Mr. Dunphy leaned across me, breathing potatoes and cider over my face. “I'd say you're a smart woman to stay away from the likes of him, Miss Lanigan.” I sat back in my chair as his huge bulk pressed up against me. “Percy Giddings is nothing but a hooligan.”

“Percy Giddings is a nice young man,” Granny said. “All the Giddings are. They've been a real help to me since my William died.” She was talking about Grandfather William; he died before I was born.

“Not that Percy.” Mr. Dunphy raised his voice. His ruddy face turned a deeper shade of red. “He's no end of trouble.” He was all over me now, as if I weren't even there. I pushed my plate aside as he placed an elbow on the table in front of me.