Bad Ideas Read online

  But Trudy remembered. She said so. Back when she used to talk more. When she was less angry about everything.

  Trudy said that she remembered the rough scrape of his stubbly cheek against hers. She had never seen a man cry before and there were tears leaking out of the corners of his eyes as he held her little face in both of his hands. She remembered that he smelled like laundry smelled when it came in from the line. He smelled like the blue sky.

  Like the thin air he was disappearing into, thought Claire.

  Because memories are more important than remembering

  Claire knew she had it wrong. But this was the way she remembered it. The workers and everybody else had called it “Inundation Day,” the day the dams were blown up and the water flooded the old towns. She had never heard that word before. Inundation. It made her think of a spell. An incantation. A word that could change one thing into another. Which, of course, it did.

  Inundation Day. And also Dominion Day: July 1st. Thirty tons of dynamite, blowing the stone cofferdams to smithereens. Smithereens. Another word to marvel at, to roll around her mouth like hard candy. They only came with explosions, those smithereens.

  But, man, when they came it was magic.

  A shower of stone, clouds of smoke like spirits rising, and a torrent of water. A towering wall of water washing it all away. Rolling over the fields, the lanes, the old stone canals. The empty square foundations that snaked along the winding roads of her childhood: erased.

  (It wasn’t really like that, Claire knew. There was a blast and a wall of water, that was true, but the flooding of the town was more gradual. A sort of slow seeping out, taking days to fill the new channel. But Claire liked to remember it like Niagara Falls thundering down Main Street.)

  Her parents’ small house had been uprooted, trucked across town, and deposited onto a new foundation in the middle of a mud lot on a new street, too close to their neighbour’s house. No grass. No trees. But a gravel driveway and a brand-new mailbox. And a view out the back window of mud, rubble, and sky. There was an ugly strip mall on the highway and a gas station. And they were close enough to the mill to walk to work.

  The only green grass was in the graveyard. All the stones were arranged in neat rows in chronological order, with their mismatched bodies under the ground or no bodies underneath at all. Just stones on top of blankets of fresh sod on top of dirt. Just stones in a field of green, green grass.

  She knows it is wrong, but in her mind it all happened on the same day.

  The day the Seaway was flooded and all the men were done work. The day her parents’ house was moved onto its new lot. The day the Queen of England came through on her own giant boat. And the day Tammy was born. There were fireworks on all those days, she swears. There were fireworks and tears. Joy and pain. The beginning and the end. All at once. Inundation.

  What she remembers is this.

  The deafening explosion.

  Darren’s hand in hers. Rough and dry and warm.

  The shrapnel of stone scattering in the air like fireworks in the brilliant blue sky.

  The wall of water rushing, tumbling forward. The earth rumbling beneath their feet. The fields, the streets, the sidewalks disappearing under the waves.

  The heat of the July sun. The cold mist coming off the water.

  The heat of the water rushing out of her, soaking her feet. Her pink shoes. The skin on her legs wet and cooling in the summer breeze.

  The pain in the bottom of her belly like fireworks.

  The house in the middle of the mud lot. The Royal Yacht Britannia gliding by so close to the shore it seemed like you could reach out and touch it.

  The fireworks. The parade. “O Canada.”

  The waving green grass in the field full of stones.

  The hot blanketed bundle of the baby in her arms. The sweat of her brow. The salty sweetness of his kiss.

  The incantation.

  Don’t go. Don’t go. Don’t go.

  Because hate can be love

  But on some level, Claire knew. She knew which year was which. Which bright hot July 1st brought the breaking of the dam (’58), which one brought the Queen in her boat (’59), and which one brought that little bundle of trouble she had named Tammy (’57). But it all melted together in the blinding sunlight shimmering on the water. In the heat-wave warp of love.

  Oh love, love. Where have you gone? Where have you ever been? Up in the big blue sky above the clouds. Or somewhere down deep beneath the waves. Razed and flooded. Drowned and blotted out.

  Except for those few short years of brilliant sunshine with Darren.

  Love! There was never enough love. Not for Claire. So hungry for love from the beginning, her mother used to push her away with a broom.

  The summer Tammy was born, Claire remembers being cooped up in her parents’ house for days, her belly so heavy, so stuck out in front of her she almost fell forward every time she stood up. Her feet were so swollen, none of her shoes fit. Only her slippers. The heat was making her miserable. One-year-old Trudy was miserable, too.

  One day, Claire remembers, Trudy had been fussing all day. Pouting and crying. Refusing to eat. Then, finally, she was sleeping, her head tucked hotly into Claire’s neck. The shoulder of her blouse was wet with drool and sweat. Trudy’s little body was pasted against her. Claire had put her head back on the arm of the couch to close her eyes, hoping to sleep just for a minute, when her mother walked into the living room. Hair slick with sweat, face bright red, broom in hand. She looked at her daughter and her granddaughter with pure scorn.

  “I can see you’re very busy, Claire, but that diaper pail upstairs is disgusting. Could you please do something about it?”

  “Yes,” Claire whispered. Trudy stirred in her arms, whimpering.

  “Today?”

  “Mom, I will get to it. Please keep your voice down. I just got her to sleep.” She gingerly — and with much effort — got up from the couch to take Trudy to her crib in the corner of the room. Trudy’s eyelids twitched and her brow furrowed for a moment as Claire set her down and quietly backed away. Suddenly angry, she turned to her mother. “You could be a little nicer to me, you know.” And then, “Sometimes it’s like you don’t even love me at all.”

  As Claire brushed by on her way upstairs to face the nauseating diaper pail, her mother’s hand shot out and grabbed her. Her strong fingers dug into Claire’s plump, tender upper arm. Her mother’s face was in her face. Her voice trembled.

  “Listen to me, you little idiot.”

  Claire listened.

  “I have cooked for you, cleaned for you, let you live here in my house, when the whole town is looking down their noses at me. When the whole world knows I have a daughter who can’t keep her legs together. Who has no sense. Who refuses to learn from her mistakes and comes back to this house pregnant again! Twice! Single and pregnant again and barely eighteen! Brilliant.” She paused here. Shook her head in disgust and loosened her grip on Claire’s arm. “Don’t you ever fucking tell me that I don’t love you. You stupid, stupid girl.”

  Claire’s slipper caught on the edge of the rug and she stumbled forward a little toward the stairs, tears streaming down her face, her arm burning where her mother had grabbed it. Those words, spoken with hatred. Spat at her like venom.

  Don’t you ever fucking tell me I don’t love you. You stupid, stupid girl.

  That was as close as her mother had ever come to saying it.

  Because the sadness can just start leaking out of you

  Claire liked to look on the bright side. It was in her nature. And in spite of her mother’s gloom, her dire warnings, Claire thought that her life had turned out OK. She had Trudy, steadfast and true. Not uncomplaining, nobody could accuse her of that, but solid as a rock. Tammy, on the other hand, was bad. There was no denying it. Bratty, volatile, lazy. But when Mercy was born, Claire thought it might all have been worth it. That beautiful
baby.

  But she knew. They all knew almost right away. Tammy would not be a mother to that child. It was so sad to witness that Claire was almost relieved when Tammy left. She was ashamed to think it, but it was true. A new peace descended on the household. Order was restored. Claire and Trudy settled into a rhythm and Mercy settled down and it all felt like it could work.

  Then one day, about a year after Tammy’s departure, something happened. Claire lost sight of the bright side. It all closed in on her. She missed Tammy. She worried about Mercy. And Trudy. She felt all of their lives were heading in the wrong direction and that it was probably all her fault. Her mother had been right. She was useless. And she was so very lonely.

  So this deep sadness had been awakened in her. A genie she could never quite get back in the bottle. It just lurked in her heart all day every day, barely suppressed, until a moment came when she was too tired to hold it in. It was happening now. Claire had been crying for days and days. For weeks. Unable to stem the flow. As she leaned over her machine at the factory, tears would drip off her chin and onto the fabric. Her nose ran constantly, causing her to sniffle.

  “Allergies!” she would say brightly to anyone looking her way. “Just allergies!” Of course, it was nothing of the kind.

  Lying in bed at night, she felt a pinch in her heart. A sharp, physical, painful pinch. “Oh! ” she would cry. “Ouch!”

  And the unfairness of it — that she should have physical pain heaped on top of her sadness — made the tears start again. And then the crying made her lungs hurt. It was as if she were being punished for being sad.

  One night, her arrival heralded by the flip flop of her slippers, Mercy stood at the foot of Claire’s bed, looking at her grandmother, squinting into the dark. “You OK, Grandma?”

  “Sure, sweetie. I’m OK. Just a cramp in Grandma’s big ugly foot.”

  Mercy giggled but still stared. “Are you crying?”

  “No, baby. My eyes are just leaky. I’m tired. Go back to bed, hon.”

  Mercy gave a sleepy little wave and turned around and walked back up the stairs, her slippers slapping her heels. So Claire found a way to stop making sounds when she cried, and the pain moved down from her chest into her stomach and pinched her there. And the tears just leaked and leaked out of her eyes all night and all day and all night again.

  For days and days and days.

  And then she met Speckles the Dog.

  Because Mama needs love

  Claire’s old friend, Nancy Meyers, had been after her for weeks to come see the puppies, but she had said no. They couldn’t possibly have a dog. Didn’t they already have enough to do, enough to take care of, she and Trudy? And then on the twenty-third day of crying, when she felt that her sick stomach was sloshing around full of saltwater, when she couldn’t take it another minute, she had started thinking wistfully about puppies. How one might sit on your lap so that you could stroke its head or scratch its back while you watched television. How a puppy might sleep at the foot of your bed, how it might lick your salty old face in the morning to wake you up. How it might get you out of the house and walking around the neighbourhood, talking to people. And what a nice companion a puppy might be for Mercy!

  And so on.

  So she said to her friend Nancy, OK, she would come over and look at them, but she wasn’t making any promises. She was not taking one home.

  Nancy had answered the door in a stained house dress, her hair a mess, the powerful smell of dog coming off her, and a tired half smile on her face. She made Claire squeeze through the door, opening it only wide enough to get her body through so that the dogs would not bolt. Wet muzzles were pushing against Claire’s ankles, and she was laughing before she was even fully inside the house.

  As Claire waded through the dogs and sat on the couch, they swarmed her. Or tried to swarm her. She counted six puppies comically trying to heave their heavy bodies onto the couch and flopping back down onto the carpet. They were so big! Twice as long as they were tall. Their fur smooth and silky like velvet. They were snuffling and snorting and whining. “What kind of dogs are they, anyway?” She raised her voice to be heard over the racket. “They’re such big puppies!” She couldn’t stop laughing. She felt so happy.

  A little weak, a little lightheaded, but happy.

  Some of the puppies wagged their tails so hard they lost their balance and rolled onto their sides. Claire reached down to rub a soft belly.

  “Basset hounds!” yelled Nancy from the kitchen. “Or part basset hound, anyway. Maybe German shepherd, too.”

  Then, with great effort, one of the huge puppies finally struggled up onto the couch beside Claire. It laid its head on her lap. The weight was unbelievable. Claire scratched the dog behind its big floppy ears and then rubbed its back. It sighed. A real human-sounding sigh. Its brothers and sisters whined at Claire’s feet. As she worked her way down the dog’s back, scratching, the dog grumbled, “Uhr-ruhr-ruhr-ruhr.”

  “What’s that?” asked Claire, leaning down and looking into the dog’s eyes.

  And she swears this is true.

  As she scratched the dog’s soft baggy hide, it said in a low grumbly whine, “I love my ma-ma.” Claire barked with laughter, and the dog howled to join in. The pinching feeling in her stomach disappeared. The match was made.

  Speckles was coming home with Mama.

  Because you never get a moment to yourself

  Claire was standing in front of the bathroom mirror. She puffed her pale blond hair with both hands and turned to look at her profile. She was still pretty, still passable. But her black sweater was pilling. It was covered with dog hair. There was even, Christ, a smear of dog drool or dog snot on her shoulder. Jesus. What had happened to her? She put toothpaste on her toothbrush and stared into her own eyes as she cleaned her teeth. She spit into the sink, rinsed. Claire took another look. She smiled and raised her eyebrows.

  God. This sweater.

  She pulled the sweater over her head and dropped it onto the floor. She fussed with her hair again and took another look. Her beige bra was greying. When had she started wearing beige bras? A nun would wear this bra. She decided to take the bra off, too, and stepped back from the mirror.

  Ah. That was more like it.

  She was smiling at herself now, turning to the side and winking at the mirror. Her figure was still good. For this, Claire was grateful. After both babies, she had had a few months of soft pillowy pudginess, and then it all just seemed to snap back into place like a rubber band. The magic of youth, she supposed.

  Nature’s wonder, Darren used to say.

  She pushed her breasts together, leaned forward. Let her head fall back, pretending to laugh.

  Hey, lady, you look good! the mirror seemed to say. Well, thanks! thought Claire. Thanks very much. She felt so much better. Dazzling, really.

  “Mom?” There was a knock on the door. “Are you going to be long?”

  Claire jumped back from the door a little and let out a yelp.

  “Just a minute, hon. Almost done.” She bent over and picked her bra up off the dirty floor. She was breathing heavily.

  “I have to go to work soon, you know.”

  “I know, I know. Just a sec.” Claire was sweating, so the elastic of the bra caught painfully on her skin as she tried to spin it around and get her arms through the straps. Trudy knocked again. “I know, I know!” Claire pulled her nasty, besmirched sweater over her head. Her hair was a mess. It looked like a crooked wig. Two seconds ago she was Marilyn Monroe. Now she was Phyllis Diller.

  Except Phyllis Diller wouldn’t be caught dead in this terrible sweater.

  She opened the door, walked past her disgruntled daughter, and went downstairs to make up the couch for bed. Speckles, who had been sleeping in the hallway, got up and lumbered down the stairs behind her.

  Darren

  Because trouble will f
ind you

  Beer in hand, sitting on the step of the trailer he shared with three other Seaway workers, Darren stared at the moon and the moon stared back. A bright eye hovering over the water, asking him when he was going home and what did he think he was doing? And who for the love of God was that girl? What had he done?

  On April 1, 1956, the day Trudy was born, her father, Darren Robertson, had thought, God help her. She is beautiful. So small, so perfect. His first baby. And not with his wife.

  Said wife, Michelle, was not only childless but also — for the time being — husbandless. Back in Brownsville, New Brunswick, staying with her parents. Waiting for him to return with enough money to get their own place, maybe have some kids, to start a life. He said he had to go where the work was. Twenty thousand men were needed, and they would take anyone who could swing a hammer or drive a truck. The project was ridiculous. Whole villages would be flooded, displacing thousands of people. There were dams to build and miles upon miles of channels to dig. The giant St. Lawrence River would be backed up, diverted, then let loose. Washing the old towns away. New roads, new towns would be built.

  It could go on for years, this project. It could, Darren thought, go on forever.

  Of course, there were jobs back in Brownsville, or at least close enough to Brownsville to allow him to stay where he belonged. The truth was that he had run away, scared to death, feeling like nobody should count on him for anything. He had run far away, but somehow he had managed to create exactly what he had been running from. It was as if it had followed him here: adulthood.