The Quintland Sisters(38)
The water was warmer than I’d expected, but still cooler than the air. I sank down until my chin was brushing the surface. I’d never done anything this brash in my life, and it felt, quite suddenly, amazing.
I started giggling, and Ivy joined me. I slid even more deeply into the shallow pool, so that any laughter leaking out would be muffled by the water. Then I sat up abruptly, goose pimples springing up on my skin.
“Do you think the girls pee in the water?” I asked. Now it was Ivy’s turn to smother her laugh with her hand. “Thierry changed the water today,” she said when she could get the words out. “I saw him do it after Dr. Dafoe canceled the afternoon showing. So as long as you don’t have a little accident, we’re fine.”
It was hard not to think about the windows, all those blank eyes staring, but Ivy was right. No one could get in there at this hour.
“Dr. Dafoe would kill us if he found out,” I whispered.
“Do you think so?” Ivy mused. “I doubt it. As long as the newspapers didn’t get ahold of the story.” She snorted. “We’re the only ones other than him that have lasted this long in this loony bin. I doubt he could get by without us.”
Her words hung there for a moment, until I said quietly: “How much longer will you stay, Ivy?”
She didn’t say anything for a long while, just lay back with her face turned toward the stars. She was languidly stirring the water, swishing her hands like the fins of a slow fish so that every now and again I saw her wrist bone, creamy white, nudging above the surface.
“I’m in no rush to go,” she said at last. “I’ve told Fred I don’t want to be wed until next summer. I’m needed here still, I think.”
I felt relief, like a cool stream, flood through me.
“I’ll stay as long as they’ll have me,” I said. Then, to lighten the mood, I added: “Or as long as I can stand working with crabby Nurse Nicolette.” I thought I saw Ivy’s crooked teeth flash in the starlight. “So take your time, please. I don’t know how long I’d be able to survive here without you.”
We stayed for another half an hour or so, stirring the water with our toes, talking from time to time, but mostly lying there quietly, looking up at the blinking stars.
“You know, I think I’m actually cooler,” Ivy said finally. “For the first time in weeks!” I nodded my head. Then we both rose and stepped out of the pool.
September 14, 1936
THE NUMBER OF tourists passing through Callander has brought a kind of madness to our little town: half the houses on my old street now have rooms to let for a night or two, and Mother and Father have decided to do the same. They moved the baby’s bassinet and change table into Mother’s sewing room, which is really little more than a nook under the stairs, and have done over little Edith’s room—my old room—to rent out to visitors.
“Just for the summer months, mind,” is what Mother told me. I’m pleased for their sake that they are able to get a little extra income, but it does mean I can’t spend a night with them anymore, at least not until winter, when things quiet down.
It was Lewis Cartwright who knocked quietly at the back door for me after he’d finished unloading the truck first thing this morning. His tongue seemed to be more tightly knotted than usual, and it took several long moments for him to untangle it and bid me good morning. I finally managed to get out of him that his father was feeling poorly so he, Lewis, would be delivering today’s stones on his own, which takes a good deal more time.
I’m fond of chatty Mr. Cartwright and was sorry to hear that he wasn’t well. “I hope your father starts to feel better soon,” I said to make conversation as we walked to the truck. Lewis nodded earnestly and managed eventually to stammer something to the effect that his father was on the mend already and I needn’t worry.
I hadn’t spent any time on the Callander road since Ivy and I had gone to see the Midwives’ Pavilion before the public playground opened in July. Our lives are so cloistered at the nursery, although I never think of it that way. Ivy will often go into North Bay to see a film with Fred and has encouraged me to join them, but I always beg off. I like to use my spare time to paint or draw. If I’m not working on my portraits of the girls, I will ask the guards to let me out the gate at the back of the property so I can take my sketchbook with me for a ramble through the forest, marsh, and pasture, rather than brave the traffic on the street.
It was not yet 8:00 in the morning by the time Lewis was nosing the truck out onto the road in front of the nursery, yet dozens and dozens of cars were already filling the new parking lot that’s been cleared across from the nursery grounds. What I saw properly for the first time now were the structures M. Dionne has built adjacent to his farmhouse on the road to Callander, kitty-corner from the nursery. The larger building is long and squat, but a tall billboard rises at least another two stories out of the fa?ade, capped with two-foot letters that spell OLIVA DIONNE. Beneath his name is a painting of the five girls, which in my opinion bears little resemblance to his daughters, flanked by bright white signs in French and English that read: THE ONLY SOUVENIR AND REFRESHMENT STAND OF THE FATHER OF THE QUINTUPLETS. Dotted on every square inch of the frontage were signs for ICE CREAM, REAL ENGLISH WOOLENS, and POP ON ICE. By comparison, the Dionne farmhouse, tucked behind and to one side, looked even smaller and more dilapidated than ever. To the left of the souvenir shop was a third building, almost as large but set well back from the road, with signage that read PUBLIC WASHROOMS. Through my open window I could hear lively dance music being piped through loudspeakers somewhere on the Dionne property—a tinny, rasping sound that seemed falsely gay.