Johnny Kellock Died Today Read online

  Dedication

  For my family,

  and in memory of Lily and Eisan

  Contents

  Dedication

  Prologue

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Acknowledgements

  Copyright

  About the Publisher

  Prologue

  Johnny Kellock disappeared on August 1, 1959. Or, at least, that’s the day after the last day anybody ever saw him.

  The rest of the world was lined up on Barrington Street, trying to get a glimpse of Queen Elizabeth and her husband, Prince Philip, on their first trip to Halifax. The Queen wore a pink dress and a white hat, and she looked a lot like television pictures of the Queen but in colour.

  Meanwhile, my cousin was disappearing.

  Whoosh. Poof. Gone.

  No one knew why exactly Johnny did what he did. It’s like if you pulled on a bit of yarn, and you pulled and pulled until the whole sweater’s come unravelled and you’ve got a mess of yarn at your feet and then someone has the bright idea that you should try to find the end you started with.

  Anyway, as Mama says, a person should stick to their own story. Mine starts when Johnny had already disappeared. And it ends with us Normans doing what we always used to do whenever something bad happened. Or something good. Or every Sunday afternoon if nothing’d happened in between. We gathered round Mama’s kitchen table in the usual order, oldest to youngest—Freddie, Margaret, Doris, Young Lil, Martha, and me, Rosalie—and we smoked.

  It was my twelfth birthday, and it was my first and only cigarette.

  And it was the last time we all sat together like that.

  Chapter One

  I was sitting on the stairs in our old house on Agricola Street, the backs of my legs sticking to the tiny ridges of the rubber treads. I was working on Norman’s face. In the photograph, his eyes were in the shadow of his cap. He was standing beside a cow with a dog in his arms. I had them sketched out already. They stared back, vacant-like, edges fading into the paper. I could fix that. But the thing about it is, when you’re drawing your father, the first person you ever saw when you were shooting out into this world, you want to get it right.

  See, drawing works in layers. First you sketch out what you’re working on—an old picture of Norman, in this case. You stroke the paper, so gentle. Then you add lines and press harder. The drawing gets darker and deeper. The picture starts to sharpen. It becomes real. And you get inside it. You see the crusty snow under your own feet. Wind pushing over frozen fields. A scratchy, woollen hunter’s cap. Frost clinging to the tip of a long, perfectly straight nose. You say:

  Hey, Norman.

  Hello, my Bean.

  How much you got?

  You know.

  How much?

  Two cents. One to take the ferry to my mother’s on Sunday—

  And one to get you back.

  “Rosalie Evelyn Norman!”

  I looked through the banister rungs at the hard, white surface of the kitchen door. If Mama came through it, she’d know I was on the stairs instead of outdoors. Then she’d see Norman’s photograph and her mouth would get stitched up tight. Sure as the roof belonged on the top of the house, the family photos belonged on the wall above the landing, always and forever, two steps up and twelve steps down. I set my pencils and sketch pad on the stairs and returned the picture to its hook. It was hot, and I was in no mood for Mama’s mouth.

  You probably never heard that I got the oldest mother in the whole world. She was born in 1899. Norman’s old, too, but he was born in 1901. Mama’s from the last century. She was coming up on fifty when I came along. I tell people that’s a world record. The truth is I never looked it up. Having a mother who holds a world record, that’s better than having a mother who’s just really old.

  Mama had been in a foul mood all morning. Usually she just had one mood—and one expression, pinched-like—but I could tell today’s was truly foul because she was being quiet. At breakfast, I put two spoonfuls of sugar on my porridge. White sugar from the bowl. Mama didn’t even look up from the sink, where she was attacking the potatoes for Sunday’s stew. I ended up pushing the sticky porridge around with my spoon because it was too sweet and it got hard and crusty at the edge of the bowl and my forehead was already prickled with sweat.

  Just about the only thing Mama’d said that day was when she handed Norman his lunch pail. She said, “I suppose you checked the mail yesterday.”

  Now, my father always checks the mail—the box is right at the end of our walk. He has never not checked the mail, not for as long as I’ve been alive. Just like he’s never not come into my room at bedtime to sit at the end of my bed and say: “Bean.” Just like that. “Bean.” Which is like an “open sesame” that makes the whole day come spilling out of my mouth, no matter how sleepy I am or how tired Norman’s eyes look.

  I might have pointed that out to Mama.

  Norman just said: “Yup.”

  In the summertime, the only thing Mama let you do indoors was chores. If you weren’t doing chores you had to go outdoors. You could just stand there like a statue and that was doing something because you were outdoors. But a person indoors, drawing where it’s cooler and the pencil doesn’t smear from your sweaty hand, that person was doing nothing.

  I tiptoed down from the landing and took giant, soft steps across the living room, as if the floor was lake water and I was crossing on lily pads. I eased the screen door shut behind me. You had to lift it by the handle, just so, or it creaked.

  The thick air and street noise were like a blast from the warming hub of the stove. The hot porch bit at my feet through my sandals. My blouse wilted against my skin. Our next-door neighbour, Mrs. Hewitt, was working in her flower bed. Her big old rump was tipped up, rising over the hedge like a rhinoceros in a polka-dot bathing cap. Across the street, the Gravedigger was standing on his front stoop.

  He wore a heavy plaid shirt and work boots even though the air was so heavy it felt like you could take a bite out of it. His real name was David Flynn, but everybody called him the Gravedigger. He got his nickname because he had a job tending the plots at Fairview Lawn Cemetery. His family had moved into the old Greenwood house a year ago, and when he felt like it, he went to St. Stephen’s, the Catholic school. St. Stephen’s was next door to my old school, Mulgrave Park. The schools had one yard divided down the middle by a chain-link fence, but we never needed the fence. The Protestants called the Catholic kids “Micks” and the Micks stuck together like rosary beads. They used to shout at us, “Catholics, Catholics, ring the bell! Protestants, Protestants, go to——!” Course, we’d reverse it and shout it right back to them.

  That fall, I was going into grade seven at Richmond School, and the Gravedigger, if he’d passed, would be going to Alexander McKay. The junior highs had Fort Needham between them, and that was still too close for me. Take now, for instance. The Gravedigger, standing there on his stoop, seemed to be staring straight at our house. Zombie-like. There was no further word from Mama—aw, she was just making sure I was outdoors—so it seemed like maybe this was a good time to mosey over to Millner’s Corner Store, see if anyone was getting a Popsicle.

  Up the street, little kids were playing jump rope, kick-the-can, jacks. You always play jacks with your
back to the east. If you play with your back to the west and your ball bounces away from you, there’s a better chance it’ll start rolling. See, Agricola runs through the North End along the hill coming down from the water reservoir. The houses on the west side, where the Gravedigger lives, are up higher up on the hill than on the east side, where I live. Farther east, the ground slopes up again to Fort Needham and then back down to the shipyard. If you went to the northernest part of the North End—which you wouldn’t, because you don’t have no reason to—eventually you’d get to Africville, where a lot of the black people live, and if you kept on going, you’d fall into the harbour. If you headed south past the Hydrostone Market—which you wouldn’t, because Mama would tear your eyebrows off if you went farther than Young Street without asking—you’d be on your way to the South End, where the rich people live. There’s another hill, a big one, Citadel Hill, between the rich people and the regular people, and don’t tell me that wasn’t on purpose.

  The bench outside of Millner’s was empty. You could tell no one had been on it for a while because it burned the back of my legs when I tried to sit down. Most of the kids my age would be swimming down at the Northwest Arm or Chocolate Lake on a day like today. I didn’t like swimming. You couldn’t see without your glasses. Your foot was always brushing against something slimy. Also, it was no fun when your best friend, Marcy, was spending the summer with cousins in Pugwash and wasn’t there to keep the boys from splashing and pulling you under. It wasn’t easy being with the girls, either, not without Marcy, not since Nan Buckler made fun of me for saying tomawto instead of tomayto. People kept on about it, too, when they should’ve taken my side. Everybody knows the Bucklers are common enough to reuse their teabags.

  That’s why I’d spent half the summer sneaking indoors and being ordered right back out again. That’s why I was so bored, I started counting the number of steps from Millner’s back to my house. When I was done counting the steps, I would probably count the hairs on my arms. And then the number of seconds in the two weeks and twenty-one hours before I officially turned twelve, which wasn’t anything to look forward to since my best friend was going to miss it by a day. And since we’re counting, that’s how I came to know that there are 198 steps between Millner’s and where I stepped into the Gravedigger’s shadow.

  He was standing on the street in front of our house. I was on the sidewalk and he was down on the street, and I still had to tilt my head back to look at him. His head blocked out the sun.

  “Been held back once already,” Marcy had said last fall. “He’s the biggest kid in the history of the sixth grade.” We were at the classroom window, watching the Gravedigger leave the schoolyard in the middle of the afternoon. “Can you imagine working in the same graveyard where your own mother is buried?” Marcy grabbed my arm. “Rosalie! I wonder if he ever dug her up!” Now, I knew that was ridiculous. Even so, when the rumour went around that the Gravedigger had dug up his mother and kept her body in a jelly cupboard, I stopped walking on the Flynns’ side of the street.

  “You one of the Norman girls?” the Gravedigger asked. I nodded. “I got something for Fred Norman.” He stepped up on the sidewalk and took a letter out of his back pocket.

  The sun was pounding on my shoulders, heating up my dark hair. I’d never been so close to the Gravedigger. It was kind of like seeing the Queen coming out of Government House a couple of weeks before. I mean, you’re looking at a person, and you’re supposed to be thinking, “God bless her royal personage” or “I’ll scream if he touches me.” But at the same time you’re kind of distracted, comparing what the person looks like to what you always thought they looked like. The Gravedigger’s eyes aren’t black, as you might expect. They’re green-blue with shadowy edges, and they have a way of getting greener and meaner when they’re staring down at you.

  “Fred Norman? Freddie lives in Dartmouth.”

  “You sure?” The Gravedigger looked down at the envelope, wiping the sweat away from his eyes with his sleeve. His hair was black and damp against his forehead. “Says Mr. and Mrs. Frederick Norman. Come from Ship Harbour.”

  “Sure I’m sure. He’s my brother, isn’t he? He and his wife live at 86 Cherry Street in Dartmouth. But you can leave it with me.”

  “Maybe it’s for Fred Senior, then.”

  “Who?”

  Mrs. Hewitt popped up from behind the hedge. She had something to say about everything, and everything she said was so important, she had to say it twice. Somehow it always sounded like she was accusing you of something.

  “Young man, you well know that I’m a trusted neighbour. I tell you, I’m a trusted neighbour.” She pointed at the Gravedigger with the trowel in her pudgy hand. “What’s this about?”

  “Look, I got a letter here,” the Gravedigger said. “It went to our house by mistake. Alls I care about is getting it to Fred Norman, like my dad asked, or I’m gonna catch it. She’s telling me he don’t live here.”

  “Rosa-lee!” That’s another thing about Mrs. Hewitt. She says my name like two names and neither of them nice. “Rosa-lee! It’s for your father!”

  Norman.

  I straightened up, Mama-like, and held out my hand. The Gravedigger’s dirty fingers left a brown smear on the envelope. He turned and crossed the street and didn’t look back.

  “Rosa-lee!” said Mrs. Hewitt. “What did you think your father’s name was?”

  I was looking at the space the Gravedigger left behind. “Norman.”

  “That’s your surname. What did you think his first name was?”

  “Nor—” I caught myself. Too late.

  “Norman Norman? What kind of a name is that?” She howled, throwing up her hands.

  “I—I don’t know.”

  In comic books, when a character has a major revelation, the background goes all swirly. Then you get up close to the person’s eyes and their whole world is swimming around in there. You don’t need words, not even a thought bubble, to know what the person is saying in their head:

  How is it even halfway possible this didn’t sink in before?

  “Thank goodness I was here. Let’s get this letter to your poor mother. Lily! There’s a letter come, dear! I say, there’s a—”

  The noise from inside the house sounded almost like Mama had let go of an armload of books. Then, like an echo, came a moan, and then, under it, the sound of something dropping. From one surface to another with a pitter-pat-pat-pat. I felt the blood drain from my face, just like they say in novels, only I didn’t think on it as I ran up the steps towards the house.

  Inside, Mama was lying on the stairs with her leg twisted behind her. My pencils, rolling along our old sloped floors, met me at the door.

  Chapter Two

  “By God,” said Mrs. Hewitt when she saw Mama on the stairs. “The mighty has fallen.” Mama looked up into her pudding face. “Are you all right, Lillian? I say, are you all right? What are we doing here?”

  Mama’s mouth drew together in a tight line. I stepped back a bit. You’d think that, having lived in a port city through a couple of wars, Mrs. Hewitt would know a thing or two about shrapnel, but she was leaning in close when Mama fired. “I’m lying on the damn stairs, Mag! What in God’s name does it look like I’m doing!”

  When Norman pulled up in the Nelson Seed truck twenty minutes later, Mrs. Hewitt had managed to help Mama sit up. Mama was still spitting curse words at her like a machine gun.

  “Lily,” he said, when he saw the bruise spreading down the side of her face.

  “Just a bump,” she cut him off. “I told Mag not to bother you at work.”

  “Hush that. No one was using the truck. We’ll go to the hospital.”

  Before she could say another word, Norman lifted Mama into his arms and carried her out to the car as easily as though she were a sack of seed.

  Norman was old, but he was strong. That’s because he had about a hundred brothers and sisters. By the time he was my age, they slept stacked on top of each
other like fish fillets. So Norman was sent off to work at his cousin’s farm. They paid him two cents a week. One to take the ferry to his mother’s on Sunday and, well, you know the rest.

  “It’s probably just a sprain,” Norman said, when he came back for Mama’s purse. “And the shock of it. They’ll fix her up.”

  I watched the truck until it turned off Agricola Street. The pencils were everywhere, tucked against baseboards and under mats. As I gathered them up, their painted wood hummed in my hands.

  The house was quiet.

  Back when everyone still lived under the same roof, there was never a quiet time. Margaret and Doris shared one bedroom, and Young Lil, Martha, and me shared another. Freddie’s bed was the chesterfield. He kept his clothes in a wardrobe in the hallway. There were always kids coming and going, always bodies around the kitchen table, drinking tea from the pot simmering on the back of the stove, smoking, bickering, aggravating Mama, teasing Norman.

  Everything had pretty much happened by the time I came along. I knew the stories by heart. I could play like a reel the time Freddie threw his shoe at Mama, joking-like, after she beat him at rummy, and she ducked and it smashed through the kitchen window, and I thought, “He’s going to die.” Wait, I was alive for that one. Mama laughed and we all just about cried with the relief of it. But I can also see, clear as day, the explosion up at Magazine Hill shaking the house and a piece of ceiling falling into my sister Doris’s birthday cake as she was leaning over to blow out the candles—and that was two years before I was even born.

  I suppose there was a time when Mama’s hair wasn’t white and her hands weren’t spotted. I don’t remember it. Ever since I was little, when I kissed Mama’s cheek, her skin was as soft and wrinkled as tissue paper. Mama wasn’t kissy anyway, not like other mothers. She wasn’t at all like other mothers. For instance, a person should be allowed to sneeze at the dinner table. If you sneeze at the dinner table, a mother should say: “Bless you.” My mother said: “Stop it.”