Robert McGill - Once We Had a Country

put such questions to ourselves with regard to everyone in our acquaintance.

You and your father are missed here, Maggie. Each time I come home from Mass it breaks my heart to see the empty driveway next door. I was spoiled to have a son nearby all those years. Now he is gone, and in the month since he departed I have had only two letters. In both he mentions not hearing from you and asks how you are doing. Of course I have had to reply that you’re no more interested in contacting your grandmother than in writing him.

I hope you are willing to read this letter, given that you at least shared your address with me. Your father informed me that you didn’t do so with him. I wrote back straight away to provide it—I won’t abide such nonsense—but he replied that he is going to respect your wishes. In some ways he’s a foolish man. I’m proud, at least, that he is serving God. Whom are you serving, Maggie? I don’t wish to be harsh. I only wish for you to see some plain truths.

When Maggie has finished, she reads the letter once more and is astounded all over again by Gran’s flawless rectitude. Not a single typo. How many drafts did that take?

Until the envelope appeared in the mailbox, the outside world seemed on the brink of fading away. In their first week at the farm, the only people to turn up have been the man who installed the telephone and the locksmith who added deadbolts to the doors. Everyone else they expected has let them down. Fletcher’s old roommates Roman and Tony both got jobs in Washington at the last minute, while his cousin Dean called to say he was sorry but he was flying to India; he’d decided the girl in Uttar Pradesh was his soulmate after all. Dimitri and Rhea are still with their boys in Cambridge, claiming a flu outbreak, although Fletcher says it’s more likely cold feet. The draft dodgers in Toronto were scheduled to arrive tomorrow for a tree-planting bee, but it’s been postponed until the repairman turns up to deal with the gas smell. Fletcher doesn’t know the dodgers personally, only through a friend, and he wants to avoid giving them a bad first impression of the farm.

As for Wale, Brid last talked to him in the middle of May when he was in Thailand, running from the army. He said he’d meet them on the farm in three weeks, never mentioning how he’d get there. At meals they agree he must be lying low until it’s safe to travel, but Brid eats little and complains of an upset stomach.

Eventually people will come. They mustn’t lose their faith in that. In the meantime, they have thrown themselves into cleaning, painting, and ripping up carpets. Fletcher talks about orchard longevity, yields per acre, and B.F. Skinner’s theories of community planning, while Maggie teases him about his high hopes, which are also hers. This year they’ll harvest the cherries and plant trees for other fruits. In three years they’ll have a windmill and solar panels to produce their electricity. Maggie likes thinking about such things. It keeps her from dwelling on her father. It’s only at night, cocooned in the silence of the countryside, that her mind drifts to him and she finds herself listening for the presence of someone in the hallway.

Now there’s the swishing of feet through the grass. She looks up from the letter and sees Brid coming along the lane between the trees in flimsy sandals. She sits down beside Maggie and inquires about what she’s reading. When Maggie replies that it’s a letter from her grandmother, Brid asks to see it. Maggie can’t think of a good reason to say no, so she hands it over and sets about trying to interpret the expressions on Brid’s face as she reads. It’s hard to do, with those impenetrable sunglasses. There’s only the odd arched eyebrow and the quick passing of Brid’s tongue over her lips. Finally she passes the page back.

“Wow. I feel for you, sweetheart. Your granny sounds uptight.”

This is a surprise. In the six months Maggie has known Brid, compassion isn’t something she has learned to associate with her.

“The letter’s nothing,” Maggie replies. “You should have heard the names she called me on the phone.”

“So you’re not going to write her back? Not your dad either?”

“No.” But she says it without the conviction she’d like. She lies down and waits to be soothed by the world. There’s birdsong, shadows flickering, and the traffic of ants who arrive at her arm like commuters at a closed road. Eventually a calm begins to overtake her. Hard to imagine any harm coming to them here, only never-ending summer sunshine. She turns her head and sees Brid at ease too, lying with one hand beneath her neck, fingers stroking the skin there as a lover might.

“So you want to help Fletcher do great things, huh?” says Brid. Maggie has been sufficiently lulled that she’s slow to recognize her own words being echoed back at her. “Hey, I just thought of something. By coming up here, you’re walking in your old man’s footsteps, right? It’s some kind of missionary work.”

“That’s ridiculous,” says Maggie.

“So you aren’t here to save Fletcher from his parents?”

Maggie grits her teeth. Brid sounds too much like Gran. “I don’t think Fletcher needs saving.”

“Don’t get me wrong,” says Brid. “Fletcher’s all right. He isn’t as bad as your granny thinks, anyhow. He’s good with Pauline. You want kids?”

Maggie feels a sudden light-headedness. “We’re not even engaged.”

“Let me tell you a secret,” Brid replies sweetly. “A wedding ring isn’t a prerequisite.” Maggie blushes, and Brid gives a dismissive wave. “Well, I’m glad he’s your type.”

Maggie doesn’t know what to say. She should be reassured by the implication that Fletcher isn’t Brid’s type, but it offers no comfort. Brid and Fletcher are close enough that Maggie’s tempted to ask her about Gran’s reference to the young woman in Boston. Maggie’s pretty sure it’s Cybil, his previous girlfriend; she knows that relationship was a disaster. What if it wasn’t Cybil, though? What if it was Brid? She isn’t wealthy, is she? After all, she seems happy enough for Morgan Sugar to pay her way. Maggie ponders Brid’s earrings, her perfume, her makeup. Fletcher claims not to like such things on women. No, it’s stupid even to think it. Still, sometimes Maggie gets a glimmer of something between them, a shared past to which neither has confessed. Maybe it was a fling, a boozy kiss, or only an advance and a rebuff. She’s pretty sure she could handle it if Brid was the one who did the advancing.

Sitting on the floor by her bedroom window with a pad of paper in her lap, Maggie stares at the empty sheet. She writes a sentence, looks off into space, writes another, then sets her pen aside to focus on pushing down her cuticles. Finally she crumples the page and begins afresh, this time with energetic strokes.

Dear Gran,

Think what you like about me, but don’t go dragging Fletcher’s name through the mud. Perhaps one day you’ll be able to accept that he and I have values too, even if they aren’t sanctioned by your version of God. Until then, please don’t write again unless you have something good to say. I’m past the age of needing to be lectured.

Sealing the page in an envelope, she tucks it into the waistline of her skirt. Then she grabs a sun hat from the post at the bottom of the staircase, tells Fletcher she’s going for a walk, and sets off for Virgil. It’s a couple of miles to the village, but the time outdoors might calm her down.

After a minute on the gravel road, she arrives at the gated driveway leading to the wrecking yard and takes in the dilapidated mobile home in front of it, the hardscrabble lawn. The place looks so uncared for that it’s hard to say if anyone lives there. No neighbour has stopped by the farmhouse to welcome them, and neither Fletcher nor Brid has suggested going over to say hello. They have only agreed that it’s a shame the wrecking yard is there at all, and that at least it doesn’t seem to do much business.