How Loveta Got Her Baby Read online

  how loveta got her baby

  STORIES

  NICHOLAS

  RUDDOCK

  BREAKWATER

  P.O. BOX 2188, ST. JOHN’S, NL, CANADA, A1C 6E6

  WWW.BREAKWATERBOOKS.COM

  COPYRIGHT © 2014 Nicholas Ruddock

  LIBRARY AND ARCHIVES CANADA CATALOGUING IN PUBLICATION

  Ruddock, Nicholas, author

  How loveta got her baby / Nicholas Ruddock.

  Short stories.

  ISBN 978-1-55081-475-0 (pbk.)

  I. Title.

  PS8635.U34H69 2014 C813'.6 C2014-900560-1

  ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

  No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior written consent of the publisher or a licence from The Canadian Copyright Licensing Agency (Access Copyright). For an Access Copyright licence, visit www.accesscopyright.ca or call toll free to 1-800-893-5777.

  We acknowledge the support of the Canada Council for the Arts which last year invested $24.3 million in writing and publishing throughout Canada. We acknowledge the Government of Canada through the Canada Book Fund and the Government of Newfoundland and Labrador through the Department of Tourism, Culture and Recreation for our publishing activities.

  PRINTED AND BOUND IN CANADA.

  Breakwater Books is committed to choosing papers and materials for our books that help to protect our environment. To this end, this book is printed on a recycled paper that is certified by the Forest Stewardship Council®.

  to

  Cheryl,

  to the Keepings

  and the Mays

  con-

  tents

  how loveta got her baby

  squid

  mistaken point

  shuffle

  how eunice got her baby

  strait

  scenario 2a.m.

  fog

  telescope

  the housepainters

  otto bond

  sculpin

  rickshaw

  the alchemists

  how it was for them

  summer

  pivot

  how kiziah got her baby

  the steamer

  clothespin

  the eye

  burin

  rigor mortis

  the earlier misfortunes

  of justin peach

  breathing like that

  how

  loveta

  got her

  baby

  LOVETA ROSE GRANDY was a pretty girl. She had blonde hair that she worked up in tight curls but she didn’t fuss like the others. She didn’t have to. Back then she had a boyfriend whose name was Philip John Savoury, and he worked at a decent kind of job. He was an apprentice welder near the airport. Weekdays, he studied welding from nine to five, and on weekends he picked up Loveta in a car he had, and they drove somewhere, and then they went for a walk.

  “What kind of car is this?” she said to him the very first time.

  “What kind of car?”

  He had to look over at the dashboard before he said, “Camaro.”

  It was a borrowed car from some other welder who worked nights and slept days. It had bucket seats.

  Where’d they go? Well, the first place they went, the very first time, was Signal Hill. Everybody went up there and everybody went up to the top and pulled over and looked at the view. As for Loveta Rose Grandy and Philip John Savoury, they only drove to the bottom of the hill and then they pulled over in the Camaro. The road was so steep there, they had to turn the wheels to the curb. Then they got out and walked through the Battery. There was a big house there half-hidden by trees, with old-fashioned fencing, sticks interwoven together, but there were holes in that fence that let chickens through, out onto the road. But there was next to no traffic, because the road was narrowing down to about ten feet, so the chickens were okay.

  “Hey look, there’s a brown chicken,” she said.

  “It’s red,” he said.

  “Russet,” she said.

  They argued over the colour of the chicken but they didn’t feel angry at all, it was just another way of laughing together. I mean, what’s a chicken doing here, they both thought. It was a brown-red chicken, some kind of mixture, and it had a kind of nasty look in its eye while it picked up pebbles and walked around like a boss or a foreman.

  “There’s lots like that at work,” said Philip John.

  “Teachers too,” said Loveta.

  She was still at Holy Heart of Mary. She had those skirts from there, the ones with the pleats, but today she had on blue jeans.

  “Wear jeans,” her mother had said to her before she left, “wear jeans in the car.”

  Then she watched her baby girl as she went off in the Camaro with the young welder boy and then Loveta’s mother imagined Loveta in the front seat with her knees up a bit, and she pictured her first in a skirt, and then in jeans.

  That’s why the jeans, she said to herself.

  Meta Maud, she didn’t worry much about Meta Maud, she more or less had her head together.

  By then the Camaro was gone off down Pennywell Road.

  After Loveta and Philip John Savoury left the chicken behind, they walked out along the road which went up and down beside the harbour. There was a lot of noise from winches and motors and there were seagulls standing on the roofs of the little houses they passed. There was a blustery wind which was cool and the seagulls all faced in the same direction, out the Narrows.

  “There’s a seagull, Philip John,” she said.

  “That’s a herring gull,” he said.

  “It’s a tern,” she said.

  “It’s a diving duck,” he said.

  But they both knew it was no diving duck. How could a diving duck stand on a roof?

  “Look at the mess they make,” said Loveta.

  There were a lot of white spots on the tarred-up roofs.

  “Guano,” said Philip John.

  “Wouldn’t want that on me,” she said.

  “Loveta,” said Philip John, “that’s nature’s way, it’s a free patch job for the people of the Battery. Once there was a fisherman here with a bad roof one winter and the gulls came by, fixed up the roof free of charge. One day water poured down the stovepipe and it sizzled on the stove, and the next day, after the gulls, it was dry as dry can be.”

  “I don’t believe that,” she said.

  “It’s the miracle of nature’s fluids, Loveta, one of them anyway,” he said.

  He took her arm then to help her step onto the grass that grew up near Chain Rock. Now they could feel the wind getting stronger, thumping against them in spasms, and there was an old bunker there from the war. They walked in front of that and stood on the edge of the cliff. There were no more houses now, they’d gone past them all and the noises from the winches and the motors were gone and they could feel the power of the waves as they hit on the rocks below. He let go of her arm. He wasn’t all over her all the time, he gave her space.

  “Look, blueberries,” he said.

  “Past ripe,” she said.

  “Oh no, these are fine.”

  He bent down and picked a few that looked pretty good.

  “They were better two weeks ago,” she said.

  “Oh, the first bit of frost just peps ’em up, open your mouth,” he said.

  Philip John Savoury put a blueberry on the tip of Loveta Grandy’s tongue and she chewed it and swallowed it.

  Her tongue was pink.

  “That’s good,” she said, “I admit that’s good.”

  Then the sun came out and it was so warm they kept on walking. The path got rougher and there was one point where
they had to hang onto a chain that was drilled into the rockface. The path was only a foot wide. Loveta knew she’d die if she let go.

  “You go first,” said Philip John, “You fall, I’ll throw myself over, catch you on the way down.”

  “Like Tinkerbell,” said Loveta.

  “That’s right,” said Philip John.

  He watched her cross the slippery rock where only a goat should go, the nice blue jeans she had and the sweater with deer on it. Then he crossed over too and there was room to breathe, the path widened and went up and up in stages. There were wooden steps here and there that made it easier.

  I wonder what she’s up to now, Loveta’s mother said to herself, I wonder.

  She saw the Camaro pulled over somewhere by a beach, the one at Middle Cove. She saw the welder boy lean over the gearshift and turn his head to the right and she saw Loveta hunker down a bit and close her eyes. Then Loveta’s mother turned her mind from that possibility and, instead, she saw them walk along the beach, not even touching. Then they jumped out of the way of a big wave that surprised them both with the strength it had. Loveta got a soaker, it went right through her jeans past her waist. That was a close call. The welder came over and acted real protective, he wrapped his arms around Loveta but what did he really want? A dog ran by after a stick and there was a picnic and there were lots of people there at Middle Cove.

  At Signal Hill, they’d gone a long way now, all the way up by North Head and they’d turned the corner from town so all you could see was the bare rock, the ocean hundreds of feet below, and the sky. The wind was cooler again. He put his arm around her shoulder.

  “I like the moose and the snowflakes knitted on your sweater,” he said.

  “They’re reindeer,” she said.

  His arm was still there but he hadn’t pulled her in tight. She leaned towards him.

  “Look,” she said, “the snow falls on the reindeer, it falls heavy on their backs, but it doesn’t pile up.”

  “The heat of their bodies, I bet, melts it,” he said.

  A jogger came by out of nowhere with a Walkman on and ran past them. Philip John took his arm off her. Now they could see the waves off Cape Spear and the waves off Fort Amherst.

  “Let’s go off the path a bit,” he said.

  “Let’s,” she said.

  Loveta’s mother finished with the laundry. What about those jeans, she thought, what about those jeans? Maybe that wasn’t such a good idea, after all. Say Loveta got a soaker right through, from the wave at Middle Cove. Say she got a chill with those blue jeans soaked right through and then she gets back in the car with the welder boy. Those jeans’ll never dry like that, he might say, never ever. Take those jeans off, Loveta. You’ll catch your death of cold. He looked like he could say that with a twinkle in his eye. He was that type. Loveta’s mother knew right off the first time she saw him, when he got out of that Camaro and walked up to the door. She saw Loveta lift her hips up in the front seat and she saw her wiggle out of the jeans. She peeled them right off, down past her ankles. Put them up there on the heater vents, the boy said, and he started up the car, and all the steam rose out of the jeans and misted up like a fog and covered up the windows on the inside. You couldn’t see in and you couldn’t see out.

  The footing there on the brow of North Head was good. It was scrabbly stone with grit in it, you couldn’t slip if you tried.

  “Sandstone,” said Philip John.

  “Shale and granite and soapstone,” said Loveta.

  “Let’s sit down there,” he said.

  He pointed to where there was a boulder and some grass and some sun and the waves from the open sea clamoured in through a crevice in the rock, below.

  Inside the Camaro, Loveta’s mother saw the mist on the windows. Those little panties you got on, they’re wet too, he said. Loveta lifted up her hips again, and my God she wasn’t even shy when she hooked off the panties and then she was bare naked from the waist down. Hang them on the mirror he said, up there. They’ll dry in no time, they’re so tiny, so flimsy. Like nothing at all. Now a simple skirt could have dried off by itself, or Loveta could have held it up out of the water when the wave came.

  Loveta’s mother blamed herself now, she blamed herself for what she saw. The boy said, put your right knee out that way, to the door, you’ll feel the blow from the heater better with your leg like that. Then Loveta’s mother said Jeez to herself and lit up a smoke. She didn’t want to watch anymore.

  Loveta Grandy and Philip John Savoury climbed down the slope to the big boulder. It was as big as the Camaro, and there was sunshine on the lee side, out of the wind. They sat down on the grass and leaned up against the rock, shoulder to shoulder.

  “I’ve never been out this far before,” she said.

  There was nothing on the ocean but birds and more birds and behind them there was nothing but the rock. They looked at each other.

  Maybe she didn’t want to watch anymore but Loveta’s mother couldn’t help herself. Loveta was her baby, the last daughter she had. Loveta’s mother heard a little click as the welder boy reached under the front seat and released the lever there. Then he pushed back with his feet and the driver’s seat slid back so there was more room for him to turn and move around. He reached over and put his hand on Loveta, high up on her leg, up high on the inside of her thigh where the skin is thin and real sensitive. He laid it there casually and Loveta didn’t twitch, she didn’t move away. In fact she did the opposite. Rain spattered now on the outside of the window. The shadows of the Middle Cove picnic people ran by their car. There’s no one can see us now, said the boy. Then he limbered up and shifted out of his seat and tried to get over top of Loveta. Thank God he still had his clothes on. Damn these seats, the boy said, damn these bucket seats. He gave up and sat back down on his own side and he said, Loveta, try this, get up on top. She was so small, it was no problem for her. Especially with the clothes she’d taken off. She was up and over top of the gearshift like she was a pine marten. Then she settled herself down on his lap, the steering wheel in tight behind her. Brazen, Loveta. Now he had his hands on her back.

  Loveta’s mother went to the front door and looked out. Maybe the Camaro would show up, all of this would stop.

  Philip John Savoury felt the grit from the sandstone bite into his shoulders when he turned to look at Loveta Rose Grandy. He loved the way her curls fell. He turned his face a bit towards her and she did the same. They kissed. The first touch of their lips was cold from the wind and they didn’t move, they just kept their lips like that and then they backed off.

  “We’re all alone with the sky,” he said.

  “There’s ground,” she said.

  They kissed again. Their lips hadn’t moved far apart, so it was easy.

  “Actually there’s rocks too,” he said.

  “It’s wet, winter’s coming on,” she said.

  They stood up. He brushed the dirt off the back of her jeans.

  “You’re damp there,” he said.

  She looked at her watch.

  “It’s time to walk back.”

  “Okay.”

  She took his arm for the climb back up to the path.

  The worst fears are the ones you don’t know, thought Loveta’s mother. She saw the welder boy pull open his jeans under Loveta. He had the button kind. Loveta ground herself down on him hard, like she was careless. You couldn’t hear the waves anymore from the Cove, there was a hum in the car. All of a sudden the welder boy said get off, Loveta, get off get off! And she tried to pull herself back up and away but the steering wheel jammed in there fast on her back. She felt what happened, what he did. It was too late for her. What a mess it made when she did get off, when she lifted herself up and the welder boy held his head in his hands. There you go, Loveta, he said, look what you done, look what you done, oh damn these bucket seats.

  “I enjoyed the walk,” said Loveta, when they got back down to the Battery and they stood beside the Camaro. He opened the door
for her. It was warm inside. They drove back onto Duckworth Street and up Military Road and soon they were stopped outside Loveta’s house.

  The livingroom curtains moved.

  “There’s your mother,” he said.

  “That’s her, she worries way too much,” said Loveta.

  “Say hello to her.”

  She got out. She blew him a little kiss from the window, so her mother couldn’t see.

  “Where to next week, Philip John?” she asked.

  She leaned back into the car.

  “Pouch Cove, the Cape?” he said.

  “I don’t want to go that far,” she said.

  “Middle Cove then, we can watch the waves.”

  “Good, I’d like that. Dress warm. Bye.”

  She pulled herself back from the car window and the Camaro drove off.

  Look at her, said Loveta’s mother, look at her, like there’s nothing wrong at all.

  squid

  THOMAS KEEPING, 12, of Belleoram, knew he was being foolish when, at school, he publicly proclaimed the founding of the “Giant Squid Club,” of which he would be Founding President and Chief Scientific Officer, and he felt doubly foolish when the only other student to sign up was Cyril Savoury, then in his second year in grade two, unable to concentrate at all and with a lazy eye that wandered into orbits never seen before by any of the ophthalmologists in St. John’s, a boy who could nevertheless sign his own name over and over and over again in a cursive script of mediaeval precision; Thomas Keeping declared that Cyril Savoury was Goodwill Ambassador for the Giant Squid Club, and every Friday and Saturday night throughout the spring the two lone members would pitch their canvas tent down by the barasway, under the shadow of the rockface Iron Skull, and build a small fire, and wait for the blowing of the whales and the slap of their bodies as they rose, exhausted, nearly drowned, and Cyril and Thomas could see, even at midnight, the scars left by tentacles suction-cupped into blackened flesh, and they could see deep cuts from the beak of the giant squid oozing whale blood into the slithered brine, but that was as close as the Founding President and the Goodwill Ambassador ever came to the giant squid, this circumstantial evidence of submarine battles, of tentacled arms clamped over the jaws of the leviathan, force pulling them both down into depths where the pressure said: let go.