The Night Watchman(20)

*

Patrice rested her head on the starched napkin that was already faintly stained with hair oil. She had chosen a seat by the window even though when she entered the train car, a couple of people had given her that look. But there were enough seats so she could have one by the window. Nobody would tell her she did not belong there. She hoped. Patrice fussed with her homemade suitcase and hung up her coat, smoothed its gleaming folds. She put her gloved hands in her lap. Her heart was still pounding. The train groaned, hissed, let out a giant sigh. Then the doors were closed and the floor beneath her feet gathered energy. The wheels began to clunk along the tracks and soon the train was moving at a smooth, delicious, rocking speed. Patrice smiled, looking at the houses, streets, people, whisking away behind her as the train rolled along at a magnificent gait. Nobody had ever, ever, described to her how freeing it felt to be riding on a train. The conductor took her ticket, gave half back to her. He stuck the tab into a little aperture at the top of her seat. So now she owned this seat. The other half of the ticket she put carefully into her purse. Then she removed it from her purse and surreptitiously tucked it into the little pocket she had sewed into the inside of her brassiere, where most of her cash was hidden. Her eyes grew heavy. The scent of the hair-oil spot was surprisingly pleasant, low and spicy. The swaying of the train was voluptuous, hypnotic, and she drifted to sleep on a sea of motion.





The Iron




They continued lifting potatoes in the afternoons. Wade had his friend Martin staying over to work. He’d get paid in potatoes sometimes. Martin lived with them these days while Rose and Thomas did the paperwork to keep him as a foster child. The sun was low in the sky by the time Thomas sent the boys to wash up. As he crossed the field, he could hear Noko scolding. Thomas stepped inside. Rose was in the other room with the ironing. There was the scent of pressed cloth above the meat in the pan. The glass kerosene lantern glowed on the table. Thomas went into the next room and kissed Rose on her neck. She smelled like the ironing, like the clean wash. Rose liked to iron right after she took the clothes off the line, when they were still slightly damp. For times when they got too dry, she had a sprinkler on the windowsill, a canning jar with holes punched in the lid. When she sprinkled, and then pressed with the iron, there was a slow hiss of fragrant steam. When other places began to get electricity, she had asked for a plug-in ironing machine. They didn’t have electricity yet. So getting the iron didn’t make sense. Still, Thomas bought her the plug-in iron. She guarded the iron jealously, shined it like a trophy. She kept it on top of the dark bedroom dresser where they all stored their clothes. She still used the old sadiron, a heavy pointed oval that fit into an iron frame. The iron also made a good bed warmer in the winter. But the bright wedge of the new steel iron, upright like a little god, reflected light from the southwest window and flashed in his eyes when he rested there.

The house was neat. Everything had its place. Nothing was torn or hanging loose. Everything was mended. Rose had fierce standards.

“Daddy, come on and eat!”

Fee and Sharlo had come home from a movie at the school gym. They still had their five-cent bags of sunflower seeds. The boys begged them away. Rose had made Thomas a plate with fried rabbit and two ash-baked potatoes. There were bits of wild onion sprinkled on the food. After supper, he and the boys listened to a ball game on the radio. Then there was coming and going, in and out, as everybody used the outhouse. Thomas pulled the two roll-aways from behind the bedroom door. The cot from beside the woodbox. He unlatched the roll-away mattresses and folded them down. The beds were already made up from the morning with sheets and blankets. There were small flat pillows on top of the wardrobe in the bedroom. Fee handed down the pillows and everybody took their own pillow. The girls liked the privacy of the kitchen. Noko slept behind the door on her canvas cot. The big boys slept head to toe on one roll-away. When everyone was settled, muttering, sighing, in the dark, Rose went into their room. He followed her and shut the door. Thomas set his alarm clock for 11:05, turned the lights out. Rose got into her worn flannel nightgown.

“Soft as silk,” he said, touching her sleeve.

“Paah.”

Thomas took off his shirt and trousers, hung them with the creases pinched, beside his bed next to his briefcase, jacket, hat.

“Is my lunch box in the car?”

“You always ask that.”

“If I didn’t have your lunch to eat, I’d never make it.”

“It’s there.”

“Then I don’t have to get you up.”

“That alarm will get me up.”

“You’ll go back to sleep, won’t you?”

“Yes,” she said grudgingly.

Rose turned away. In seconds, she was asleep. Thomas lay awake. He put his hand out, whispered, “My old girl.” The heat from her body radiated gently toward him under the blanket and warmed his right side. His left side was cool. The warmth from the stove didn’t reach into the bedroom. On very cold nights, Rose put an extra quilt on the bed and let him curl around her back. She slept hot just the way her words sometimes blew hot. She could warm him right up. He drifted a little as the dark sifted down. Smoker barked, twice, to let him know that he had returned from eating his evening mush at Biboon’s house. He came home for his second supper left outside in a dented pan. If anyone came up the steps in the night, Smoker would merely growl from under foot if he knew the person, a way of saying, Hello, I’m here. He would leap out in a protective frenzy if a stranger approached. Smoker had a very strong feeling about the front steps.