their voices.
‘Oh my name it is Sam Hall, is Sam Hall, is Sam Hall,
‘Oh my name it is Sam Hall,
‘And I ’ATES YOU ONE AND ALL
‘Yer a bunch of MUCKERS all
‘DAMN YOUR EYES!’
The children adored Sam, took him up the scaffold surveying the crowd below, proud to have broken the ‘bloomin’ ’ed’ of his victim’. Becca was never sure who Bloomin’ Ed was, and why Sam broke him. Maybe he was one of Sam’s toys? But she liked him. She loved singing ‘DAMN your eyes’, as loud as she could, and then when there was a pause at the end of the stanza she’d repeat it quietly, savouring the phrase. ‘Damn’ was a curse word and only Addie was allowed to curse, though Becca didn’t know what most of her curses – you could tell they were curses – meant.
By the end even Addie was singing lustily and off key; it was impossible not to love dear Sam Hall, to celebrate him.
‘And it’s up the rope I go, up I go, up I go
‘And it’s up the rope I go
‘And I sees the crowd below
‘Sayin’ Sam we told you so!
‘DAMN YOUR EYES!’
Everybody’s eyes were getting damned! The following three verses were bellowed at increased tempo, Ben leading the singing with his free hand, waving it like a conductor, Addie with tears in her eyes, laughing. In the lane beside them the family in a station wagon with three surly kids in the back gazed at them, rolling with laughter, singing their hearts out. The parents turned to their kids in the back seat and you could almost hear them recommending such a display of family togetherness. It was a great show! They smiled at Addie through the window. She kept singing. Nothing like an unrepentant murderer to bring a family together, she thought.
They subsided happily.
‘Now can we sing “Clementine”?’ Jake asked, slyly, looking sideways at Becca.
‘No! No!’ said Becca. Sam Hall made her laugh, however grisly it was, but Clementine reduced her to tears, every time. The poor old miner, and his poor drowned daughter! She couldn’t bear it.
Addie immediately reassured her.
‘It’s all right, darling, don’t fret.’
But it was too late, and it was too good a song, and the sun was at its height, and they were tired and hungry and over-stimulated, all, and they were almost there, they’d come together for a few moments over Sam Hall, there was more fun to be had.
‘In a cavern, in a canyon . . .’ Ben began.
Becca started to make a noise, tried to suppress it, the kind of sound that dogs make when they want something they are not allowed to have, high-pitched, back of the throat, filled with longing and disappointment.
As they entered Cedar Valley Lane, Addie turned and said, ‘Kids, we’re here, time to wake up!’ They’d knocked themselves out with the one thing and the other, were groggy and uncomfortable, but the magic took over as they turned left into Lane L and peered out the window expectantly. Poppa would be waiting for them! Ben gave a honk as he drove into the driveway and parked in front of the garage.
Perle emerged from the front door of the bungalow, her face a rictus of delight, Maurice behind her, arms outstretched as if he could hug the children from twenty feet away. The kids burst from the back door of the car, raced across the few feet and embraced each grandparent – Becca with Poppa and Jake with Granny. Apportioning their love. Addie smiled to herself as she got out. She’d raised good kids. Ben didn’t notice, having given a wave and a cheery hello, was immediately busy unpacking the trunk.
Poppa had painted the house, the geraniums glowed against the fresh white, the table inside would be filled with Wolfie’s best; Addie made a resolution to be more positive. It was summer, they were on vacation. Nobody was ill, nobody died. When her mother heard the phone ring, she always muttered to herself, ‘So who died?’ It was a terrible example to put before her children, this fearfulness, this distrust of life, though God knows she had her reasons. But there was no reason to be like that herself, to presume looming catastrophe. It would be a terrific summer, it could be.
Fat chance. Start as you mean to go on. Be resolutely positive and prepare to be disappointed. Her mother embraced her, rigid as ever, that capacious bosom hardly compressed by the contact. Even in her middle sixties she still had the body of a high school line-backer, squat and powerful, leaning slightly forward, ready for contact, however violent. Add a face that would have given a mugger second thoughts and she was a formidable presence.
She and Maurice were physically alike – perhaps his unlikely initial attraction to her was based on some obscure self-recognition? His pals joked that the thought of him on top of her was more like bricks getting laid than people.
Her hair was always pinned carefully into a bun that looked like a helmet, strikingly silver, stronger than grey, suggesting not decline but power. Her eyes, perched below thick brows, had a surprising authority. Perle looked at people directly, met their eyes until they were uncomfortable meeting hers, summing up. Keeping her counsel, judging. Insolent, almost. She made her friends and family uneasy, her stare suggested not so much intelligence, a quality that she had in abundance and kept to herself, but an inquisitorial intensity.
She knew who was leading who on, whether by the schnozzle, the kishkas or the schlong, knew the fumbling and stumbling, the evasions and self-deceptions, could project light into the dark places of the heart, locate the sharp corners and cut corners, took no one at their own estimation. Nor did she spare herself the same scrutiny. ‘I will never die of enlargement of the heart,’ she observed almost proudly, nor did she wish to. She felt safe in the depth and acuity of her observations. She knew things, your things, but never said so, which made it worse.
‘Addie!’ she said. Warmly enough, you couldn’t fault it for warmth. Could you? Addie hugged her firmly, drew her in, Perle acceded, they kissed each other’s cheek.
Their arrival at the bungalow was always timed for lunch: meeting, greeting, seating and eating went together naturally, and if the initial contact was strained – everyone had been anticipating it for too long, Maurice shopping anxiously, Perle setting the table just so, the family just arrived after a tedious ride, everyone on edge and uneasy – then it was natural, it was ordained, that they should sit down together, right away. No need to unpack, to freshen up, to change into casual clothes. A quick visit to the bathroom was allowed, make sure the children had sisses, washed their hands. Then sit! Eat already!
It was the moment at which Perle came into her own, as they sat and helped themselves, groaning with anticipatory delight. DC had nothing like this, no pickles or chopped liver, nothing worth calling a bagel, nothing so delicious and comforting, and real. This was not merely Wolfie’s triumph, but Perle’s as well, though it passed too quickly. She had no idea how to talk to children, it made her stiff and uncomfortable. Them, too. They passed the first few minutes loading their plates and answering the usual questions. How was the ride? How are things at school? What are you studying this year?
Fine, good, dunno.
Perle counted to ten, took a deep breath, carried on to twenty. She wasn’t so rude and uncommunicative when she was a girl, she’d been brought up
