Ann-Marie MacDonald - Fall on Your Knees

Materia watches Kathleen mount the stairs to her room, then returns to the kitchen and mixes flour and water for doughboys while James washes up at the kitchen pump. She watches him head to the front room, already absorbed in his HALIFAX HERALD: News from merry old England: the Union Jack has unfolded itself over two acres of new territory every time the clock has ticked since 1880….

Five minutes later Materia wipes her hands on her apron and spot-checks James from the shadows of the front hall. Yes, he’s safely settled in the wingback chair beneath the reading lamp — Sozodont: Good for Bad Teeth, Not Bad for Good Teeth….

Materia returns to the kitchen, where supper simmers and Mercedes rocks Frances in the cradle. She sets the table. Twelve minutes later, she climbs the stairs to peer through the inch of doorway Kathleen has left open — the girl has a bad habit of lounging about in her underthings, draping herself over the side of her bed reading, wearing toe-marks into the flocked wallpaper while brushing her hair, practising different accents — yes, she’s alone. Materia silently pulls the door to, turns and descends all the way to the cellar to stoke the furnace. The house can never be hot enough for the orchid on the second floor.

Once back in the kitchen, Materia fixes a honey lemon toddy and crosses again to the front hall — James now dozing in his chair, the paper slipped to the floor, Disgruntled Serbia … — continues upstairs, opens Kathleen’s door — “Mother! Can’t you knock?” — hands the young lady her preprandial tonic and watches her sip from the steaming cup. A green vein shimmers beneath the surface of Kathleen’s lily-white neck, summoned by the heat. Another glides from the crease at her armpit, to disappear behind the genuine silk camisole. A flush spreads from her cheeks down her throat, splashing her chest.

Materia lumbers back down to the kitchen, stirs the pot and hollers, “Supper!”

James shakes off his nap and arrives at the table rubbing his hands — “Something sure smells good.”

Materia yells again for Kathleen, who saunters in loosely wrapped in a kimono — “Must you bellow? I’m right here” — slouches into a chair; “What are we having?”

Materia replies, “Boiled dinner.”

“Oh boy,” says James.

Kathleen groans, he laughs. “It’s good for ya, old buddy, put hair on your chest.”

Kathleen winces, he’s so corny.

Real Cape Breton cuisine. Potatoes, turnips, cabbage, carrots and, if you’re prosperous, plenty of pork hocks. If you’ve ever had it cooked right, your mouth waters at the thought. Materia continues to surpass herself in the kitchen, everything she touches turns to juices. She hauls the pot to the table and ladles out big portions. Kathleen is English for the moment. “No cabbage for me, thank you, Mother dear, je refuse.”

James is amused. He watches Kathleen rearrange the food on her plate and, after a token interval, gets up and makes her a toasted cheese.

Materia eats her own supper, then she eats Kathleen’s, sopping up the broth with bread. James avoids looking at her — stooped over her plate, masticating slowly — he tries not to think it but there it is: bovine. Kathleen nibbles her cheese toast and leaves the crusts. The princess and the pea.

If James has forgotten the demon, Materia hasn’t. She saw it. It looked at her. She knows it’s coming back. Materia has two real daughters now, she loves them, so it’s all very clear. One novena gives way to another, she logs miles along the Stations of the Cross, meditates upon the Mysteries — Joyful, Sorrowful and Glorious — of the rosary. Gains partial indulgences, does not hope to gain a plenary indulgence, being never free from attachment to sin despite frequent confessions.

The beautiful eight-foot Mary with her blue robe and sweet sorrowful face has been moved from Lingan to New Waterford’s newly built Our Lady of Mount Carmel Church, and there, in her own grotto, she presides with her Holy Infant and serpent.

In the cool darkness, sweet chafing incense faint upon the air, Materia kneels at Our Lady’s feet and prays that James be kept free of his demon for as long as possible. She prays to the demon. And lights another candle for it.

It’s a freak spring, so hot Materia can hardly move; she’s huge. What can be in there, wonders James. Looks like she’s incubating a twelve-inch cannonball. Nonetheless, she walks to church every morning with her two children in Kathleen’s old English pram. Mrs MacIsaac watches her inch by the drugstore window and worries for her: no one should be that close to God. Mr MacIsaac beckons her in for raspberry soda. Materia declines, everything makes her queasy, but the little ones drink till they sport pink moustaches.

The bigger she gets, the harder she prays, for James has once again ceased to come near her, and Kathleen grows lovelier and more careless every day. Materia watches their heads mutually inclined over a sum on a slate; sees Kathleen prance before him in her newest frock. Watches his face when the girl sings just for him.

Swamped in flesh, Materia can’t seem to get a clear deep breath. By June she’s sleeping on the kitchen cot, no more stairs. This baby is sapping the life out of her — no more spot-checks on her husband and daughter, not at this rate.

She hasn’t a thing to fit her any more so she takes three old dresses and cuts them into one: rosebud print in front, green taffeta sides and plaid back. She spends a comfortable day but when James comes home it’s “What in the name of God have you got on?”

She asks him for money. She buys a remaindered bolt of crazy floral calico and, with the help of Mrs Luvovitz, fashions three roomy dresses. Mrs Luvovitz offers her several yards of pale blue muslin instead but Materia declines. She likes the flowers. James shakes his head but doesn’t comment.

Materia’s always murmuring these days, her lips constantly moving whether she’s mending a sock or changing a nappy. Worst, while making her glacial way through town to church.

“Don’t be traipsing up Plummer Avenue nattering to yourself, woman.”

“I not talking to myself.”

“Then who’re you talking to?”

“Mary.”

Jesus Murphy.

Materia sees the demon grinning at her again from the mouth of its furnace. Night and day she secretes and spins a gauzy shroud of prayer in which she swaddles Kathleen. She sees the body of her daughter cocooned, suspended, green eyes open. But no one can spin for ever, and cocoons must yield, whether to release a butterfly or a meal. What has she left to sacrifice? She offered up her music long ago. She would mortify her flesh, but that might harm her unborn child. She has no vanity left to mortify, so she offers up her fat, her shabby shifts, her curly hair gone thin. But the demon isn’t satisfied.

In the cool dark of Mount Carmel Church, Materia looks into the narrow green face of the serpent and makes the sign of the cross. Beside her kneels tiny Mercedes, little white-gloved hands folded around her very own rosary beads. Behind them baby Frances crawls beneath the pews, trailing her dress in the dust, finding shiny things. Materia fixes on the serpent’s red eyes and bargains: if the demon will limit itself to one daughter, Materia will allow it to have Kathleen when the time comes. The demon grins. Agrees.

Then Materia looks up into the serene alabaster face of Our Lady and asks her to slow the demon down. Materia recites the Memorare: “Remember, O most gracious Virgin Mary, that never was it known that anyone who fled to your protection, implored your help or sought your intercession was left unaided. Inspired with this confidence, I fly unto you, O Virgin of virgins, my Mother; to you I come, before you I stand, sinful and sorrowful; O Mother of the Word Incarnate, despise not my petitions, but in your mercy hear and answer me. Amen.”