Here So Far Away(36)

There wasn’t much to a still, as it turns out. A dusty old electric stove, a bucket, a pot, copper tubing, other odds and ends. “Now, that bottle you found, that was grain alcohol,” Rupert said. “But when I was your age, we used to make what they call sugar shine. Cheap as dirt. Cook up some sugar, dump it into a fermenter, add yeast, let it sit.”

“That’s it?”

“More or less. My buddy Len used to add a good shake of grape cough syrup. For flavor, see.”

“What about real fruit?” I asked, and he pondered this seriously. “Not that we’ll ever find out.”

“Oh, come on, girl. Not with the two of us living with the law.”

“Though you could say there’s an educational component. Like, the idea about the fruit, that’s a hypothesis we could test out.”

“And it’s not like we’re selling it. That’s when they throw the book at you.” Rupert gave me an impish smile. “I knew you were going to be the good kind of trouble,” he said.

We went to three different grocery stores, in three different towns, to pick up the ingredients and glass jars with lids. We didn’t exactly look like criminals—in the car I noticed Rupert was wearing mismatched shoes—but he insisted that there were too many people around with long memories, and wouldn’t get out of Abe when I bought the yeast.

Once we’d scrubbed down the equipment and finished the initial cook, we had to let the mash ferment down in the basement for a couple of weeks. After that, we finished it off and pulled everything together in the jars, some with peaches on the bottom, some with apples, and dashes of cinnamon and nutmeg. They were so pretty, it was a shame I couldn’t show my mother.

“It’s yours,” Rupert said. “Do what you want with it; just don’t let the Constable find out. I never thought a little booze did a kid harm.”

I reserved a couple of jars that I hid behind the antique plates at the back of Rupert’s old hutch and gave a couple more to Bill. “May you always overcompensate for being a cop’s daughter,” he said, holding the jar of apple shine up to the light. Then he actually hugged me.

The rest I brought to my fellow delinquents at what became an epic shack party on Lisa’s birthday weekend. I got into the finals of a new drinking game Doug invented called Shot Shot Chug, danced my tail off, had a brief make-out session with Skateboarder Brad, and everyone’s vomit smelled like granny-baked pies.

I might have been on my own island, but at least I could swim.





Seventeen


I greeted Rupert in the kitchen with a pair of plaid slippers that had a rubber tread. “Gee, I could wear them outdoors,” he said. “They’re sturdy enough.”

That’s basically what Bill had said when I’d given him his pair, which he’d been wearing at school with less and less irony every day that week.

“Yes, but you won’t because this is how we’re keeping the floors clean.”

“The Constable, he goes out one door, and the Corporal, she comes in the other.”

“Corporal outranks constable, so you’d better listen to her,” Francis said, padding into the kitchen. He set his mug on the edge of the sink, taking out the tea bag and plopping it down beside it.

My back teeth clamped together.

I’d walked from the lighthouse after picking up my paycheck, coming in from the side veranda, and hadn’t seen his car in the drive. He’d started a new shift schedule, something like five days on, three nights on, three days off. I must have miscalculated.

“Thought you’d be at work,” I said.

“Off today. Can I stick around?”

“Yes.”

“Say that again?”

“Yes . . .”

“No, the first time you—”

“Yep. Yup. Yeah. Yay?”

“There’s an Elizabeth Bishop poem where she describes the way people around here say yes as they breathe in. It’s supposed to mean something like, Yes, life’s like that. Also death.”

I’d never heard myself say yes like Francis was describing, but it brought to mind Nat’s sighs, what she could say with an exhale.

That’s nice.

That sucks.

He’s so dreamy.

You’re so right.

If you say so.

Why don’t you kill me?

Seriously, just kill me.

“We’re all about the subtext,” I said, and gave an inner high five to Miss Aker for teaching me to use that word in a conversation.

“You’ll stay anyway, won’t you, kid?” Rupert asked.

There were about a million other things I’d rather have been doing, and from the way Francis was looking at me, I could tell that he could tell. “Up to you,” he said. “Lots to do, whether I’m around or not.”

I forced a smile. “Rupert, you got the fish and blueberries out of the deep freeze?” He nodded. “Should be enough for one more,” I said to Francis.

“No, thanks. I don’t like fish.”

I made a deep pot of blueberry grunt for Rupert, sploshing plain flour dumplings into the hot cauldron of sweet berries. After years of watching Mum, it was like whistling an old song, and soon I was doing just that, with Rupert nodding in time to the old Celtic tunes.