The Last House on Needless Street by Catriona Ward (guided reading books .TXT) 📕

said. ‘You know how I feel about pets. It’s cruel, keeping living things in captivity.’ You could tell she wasn’t from around here. Her voice still bore the faintest trace of her father’s country. A pinched sound around the ‘r’s. But it was more how she held herself, as if waiting for a blow from behind.

‘Daddy,’ I said.

‘You listen to your mother.’

I made a crying face at that, but only to myself. I didn’t want to be a nuisance. I stroked my hand through the air and pretended I could feel silky fur under my hand, a solid head with enquiring ears. I had wanted a cat ever since I could remember. Mommy always said no. (I can’t help but wonder, now, if she knew something I didn’t, whether she saw the future, like a streak of red on the horizon.)

As we came close to the lake, the air took on the scent of deep water.

We got there early but the shore was already covered with families, blankets spread out like squares on a checkerboard on the white sand. Shadflies hung in clouds over the sheeny surface. The morning sun was strong; it tingled on my skin like vinegar.

‘Keep your sweater vest on, Teddy,’ Mommy said. It was hot but I knew better than to argue.

I played with Daddy in the water. Mommy sat in her chair, holding her blue silk parasol. The fringe rippled in the breeze. She didn’t read. She just looked out through the forest and the land and the water, at something none of us could see. She seemed like she was dreaming, or watching for an enemy. Looking back, she was probably doing both.

The souvenir stand had little key rings carved from local forest pine. They were wonderful, shaped like dogs and fish and horses. They swung gently, looking at me with their wooden eyes, silver rings catching the light. I picked through them with water-wrinkled fingers. At the back of the rack I found her, a perfect little cat, sitting straight upright, paws together. Her tail was a question mark, her ears delicate. The carver had worked with the whorls and grain of the wood to make it look like a silky coat. I longed to have her. I felt like we were made for one another.

Mommy’s hand fell on my shoulder. ‘Put it back, Teddy.’

‘But it’s not real,’ I said. ‘It’s just wooden. I could keep it in the house.’

‘It is time for lunch,’ she said. ‘Come.’

She tied a napkin around my neck and handed me two small jars with blue-and-white labels – one of puréed apples, one of carrots – and a spoon. I imagined that eyes were on us, although they probably weren’t. Around us other kids were eating hot dogs and sandwiches. Mommy saw me look.

‘Those things are full of fat and preservatives,’ she said. ‘Our lunch is nutritionally complete. All the vitamins you need are in these jars. And it is inexpensive.’ She spoke in her nursing voice, which was a little deeper than her regular voice, the consonants more clipped. Mommy looked after sick kids in her job at the hospital. She knew what she was talking about. So you didn’t argue with the nurse voice. Daddy was between jobs. Like it was a dark gap he fell into, and now he couldn’t climb out. He ate his prunes and rice pudding without a word. The jars looked tiny in his large brown hands. He took out his coffee Thermos.

Nearby, a baby was being fed by an impatient red woman. The label was blue and white. With a cold stab of horror I saw that the baby was eating the same creamed rice as my father. ‘Put it away,’ I said to Daddy. ‘People will see!’

Mommy looked at me, but said nothing. ‘Finish your lunch,’ she told him gently.

When we were done Mommy put the jars away neatly in the cooler. ‘You know where I am from, Teddy,’ she said.

‘Locronan,’ I said, ‘which is in Brittany. Which is in France.’ That was all I knew. Mommy never spoke of that place.

‘There was a boy in my village.’ She looked out across the lake, and no longer seemed to be speaking to me. ‘His parents had died in the big influenza. It cut through Locronan like a knife through butter. We all gave him what we could. But we did not have very much ourselves. He slept in our barn, with the donkey and the sheep. I don’t recall his name. In the village they called him Pemoc’h, because he slept where the pig would sleep. Each morning Pemoc’h came to our kitchen door. I would give him a glass of milk, and half a loaf of bread. Sometimes I gave him dripping from the Sunday beef. Each evening he came again. I gave him scraps from the table. Turnip tops, cracked eggs. He always thanked me three times. Trugarez, trugarez, trugarez. I can never forget that. Sometimes he was so hungry that when he took the food his hands shook. For that poor food he worked all day for my father in the field. For years, he did this, and his thanks were never less than heartfelt. He was a grateful little boy. He knew how lucky he was.’ She got up. ‘I’m going to do my thirty minutes,’ she said. Daddy nodded. She walked away, her dress blue against the blue sky. Mommy never felt too hot.

Despite the coffee Daddy fell into a deep sleep with his hat over his face. He slept a great deal, now. It seemed like every waking moment was exhausting to him. The red woman stared at us. She had noticed the three of us eating baby food for lunch. I tried to imagine that she was red because she had been fatally scalded and would die soon. I wished for her death with all my might, but the afternoon just went on. Small teal ducks played at the far edge of