Work Text:
August, 1926
Dinner was inedible. This was not, Jims would afterwards explain to her, Madrun's fault. The formidable Maple St housekeeper had prepared a beautiful golden-brown chicken that verily melted in the mouth and trimmed it with all the right things. There were roast potatoes that crackled when one cut into them, crisp outside and all soft in the centre, there were buttery carrots and decadent asparagus in a fine sleeve of cheese. No one could eat any of it. Not Jims, not his adoptive mother, not little Liam Ford kneeling atop a Britannica positioned delicately atop a Queen Anne chair with carved wheat sheaves in the back and tartan upholstery on the
Of course, thought Jims, in Liam's defence, he was at peek Asparagus Refusal Age. He picked up stalks with his fingers and snuffled at them in derisory fashion, before casting them on to the floor, and it said an awful lot about the kind of meal they were having that not only did Mum let Liam get away with it, but Cap, alias Ken Ford, didn't even invoke the Long-Armed Wailing Monster persona that was supposed to come out when any of them got funny about vegetables. So Jims took it on himself to be the Long-Armed Wailing Monster. Only, it didn't work because he couldn't wail as well as Cap, and Mum said he was making her headache worse. So, Jims subsided and Liam was left alone to throw his asparagus on the floor as he saw fit.
No one was talking. That was the main thing. Well, Anthony was wailing worse than ever, his own Short-Armed Wailing Monster but then, that didn't count. Anthony was a great and chronic wailer. Someone had to say something. Jims had yammered on for fully five minutes about just how good the chicken was, until it dawned on him that he was never going to get a response and the chicken started to stick in his throat, which made talking awkward, anyway. But the silence was worse.
It had been like that ever since Jims had come down to dinner. He'd known something was off, because he'd heard Mum and Cap arguing indistinctly while he was tackling a jigsaw. Something about a baby, which naturally, Jims had assumed to be Anthony. But then Mum had called him down to dinner, and he'd come, and there was Madrun's glory of a chicken, and a promising Shape on the sideboard for afterwards, and, well, no one had been talking to each other. It was horrible. A bit like sitting in molasses, or heavy cream, or something. Or maybe really good, dense, sponge. Jims had heard the St George St aunts talk before about atmospheres that you could cut with a knife, a concept that before now had always mystified Jims. Except now he was sat in the middle of one, and no one was talking, and Anthony was red in the face with crying, and he really, really wished he could go back to not understanding.
Jims started in on an anecdote from school, since obviously talking about Madrun's cooking wasn't going to do anything. Mum picked up Anthony, and began to walk the floor with him. She jostled him a bit, but the rest of them might not as well have been there, for all the notice she took of them. It made Jims feel horribly small.
He said, rather desperately to Cap, 'Did anything exciting happen at the paper?' because exciting things were always happening at The Toronto Star.
'Not especially,' said Cap.
'Oh,' said Jims, and wondered what else he could possibly add to this discussion.
'Did they at least get any of the headlines wrong?'
That could be fun – or funny, anyway – the words they swapped in for other words. Cap had explained how sometimes this made for a completely different story, and they would laugh at the departure from the intended narrative. Jims thought this might be extremely helpful under the current circumstance.
'Nothing like that,' Cap said.
'Oh,' said Jims again.
He must have sounded defeated, because Cap added, 'Sorry, Scout, I'm afraid I'm rather poor company, just now.'
'Oh,' said Jims again. He pushed his chair away from the table and said in the direction of Mum, who was still pacing with the sobbing Anthony, 'I'm not very hungry. May I get down, please?'
He took extra care over the may and the please because Madrun was always going on about how important it was to get these things right, and while Jims couldn't see why he was game to try anything that might be helpful under the present circumstance. Mum hummed what Jims took for an affirmative, so he scraped his chair back and bolted. He felt a bit bad, leaving Liam there, all alone, to hold the conversational fort, but his stomach hurt, and his chest felt too tight, and he mostly wanted an excuse to stop having to try to think of things to say to people.
In the shelter of his room, Jims lay flat on his stomach, so that his nose was level with the braid rug that was supposed to be vintage Marilla Cuthbert. For good measure he tugged the Hudson's Bay blanket off the foot of the bed and draped it imperfectly over his person, so that he was contained under a haphazard tent. The late summer sun came slanting through the white stripes of the blanket and lit up the circumference of the tent in blotches of Hudson Bay colour, a sunset in red, blue, green and yellow. Jims rested his chin on his hands and tried very hard to think of nothing. Dimly he registered that he could no longer hear Anthony wailing. That was something. But then the argument from earlier started up again, about the baby, and really, it seemed very unfair on little Anthony to be cross with him. Jims was strongly tempted to cry, in the aftermath of that particular monk's meal, and he wasn't a baby. At least, he wasn't supposed to be.
Someone rapped on the door. Jims decided he wasn't home, and ignored it. It came again, rat-tat, rat-tat and it dawned on Jims that it couldn't be Mum or Cap, because they were still arguing, and anyway, they had said he could leave the table.
'All right,' said Jims reluctantly to the braid rug. 'All right.' He made no effort to leave his tent.
The rapping stopped. The door creaked unsteadily open and a little voice said, 'Me come in?'
Seeing as Liam was already in the room, Jims supposed he meant the tent shelter, and held a corner aloft. Liam wormed his way under the blanket, and sort of burrowed against Jims's side. It wasn't terribly comfortable, because it was hot under the blanket with its Hudson Bay sunset, and so was Liam. But his little body felt terribly small next to Jims, and sort of shivery. Jims uncrossed the pillow of his arms and got one around Liam, so that he was snugger than ever against Jims's side.
Liam said, 'They're casting Spare Gus on each other.'
Jims thought about this for a moment, trying to place who and what Spare Gus was. It dawned muzzily on him the little boy must mean asparagus, only that couldn't be right; Jims couldn't picture anyone other than Liam daring to throw Madrun's asparagus around, except maybe Anthony. Certainly not Mum and Cap. On the other hand they were definitely arguing, and presumably that expression came from somewhere. Jims hadn't realised before that it owed to some particularly vexed person throwing asparagus on someone else, that was all.
'I think grown-ups do that, sometimes,' he said to Liam.
Liam frowned up at him, face spattered with the Hudson Bay sunset. It made him look funny, like he'd had his face painted at the May Fair, but badly.
'But why?' he wanted to know. And then, while Jims was still working on an answer, 'The aunts never cast 'Spare Gus on each other.'
Jims felt better qualified to deal with this last quandary, so tackled it first. 'I think maybe it's a Mums and Dads thing.'
'Oh,' said Liam, and nodded agreeably.
Jims's stomach was beginning to hurt with lying on the floor. So were his ribs. So was his back. The trouble was that they couldn't go back downstairs because of the asparagus casting. He had a half-constructed puzzle on the desk, but Liam tended to cram the pieces anywhere he fancied, and Jims loved him, but he didn't want him spoiling the puzzle. It had been a birthday gift from the Aunts, and he was determined to assemble it all himself.
The asparagus casting was getting louder.
'Jims?' said Liam with a tug at his arm. Jims hummed. Liam said, 'I don't want to be here. Can we not be here?' He sounded smaller even than Anthony. Jims sat up, hauling Liam with him. Tried to visualise where they could go, if not the blanket haven.
'Please?' said Liam. Now they were out from under the blanket, Jims could see just how wide his eyes were. They quite dwarfed the rest of his face.
'Yeah,' said Jims, and frowned. 'Yeah, we can. Let me…'
They needed to not be on Maple St. Only, the park was too far to get to, and anyway, this late in the day, someone would ask questions. If Gertrude Grant saw them, she'd want to know if they'd got Mum's permission, and Jims was much too tired to explain about how dire dinner had been, or the molasses-treacle atmosphere, or about the asparagus casting. He wasn't sure he wanted to explain. Certainly not to severe Gertrude Grant. The university library would be closed, and so would the colleges. Jims was beginning to despair of ever coming up with a destination when inspiration struck in the form of the Aunts. George St wasn't all that far by tram. They'd walk down to Sherbourne, and then it was only three stations to St George. With that sorted, Jims hauled Liam to his feet.
He said, 'Let's not bother them, all right? We'll just be extra quiet on the stairs.'
Liam nodded his understanding, while Jims fished around in trouser pockets for the fair for the train. A half fair for Liam, and a whole one for Jims, now that he was tall enough to look bigger than he was. That took a bit of effort, because Jims had recently put his savings towards a copy of Compton's William the Conqueror. He'd thought it would make a good birthday gift for Liam, something they could have Cap read to them. Now, for good measure, he stuck it awkwardly under his arm, eked out the last of the train money, and was halfway to the bedroom door when a thought struck him.
'Should we get Anthony?'
Jims's stomach, already uncomfortably twisted, contorted tighter at the idea of leaving Anthony alone in the house. Well, not alone, exactly, but without him and Liam. Obviously Liam didn't like it either, because he nodded three times quickly and squeaked a very definite 'Yes.'
Well, that complicated things a bit. There was no way Jims could carry Anthony all the way to Sherbourne Station. Even if he could, he'd have to balance him on the tram, and walk down St George. There was Anthony's carriage, of course, but the trouble with that was that Sherbourne Station had steps. Awful, narrow steps that Jims would never be able to negotiate the carriage down. It would have to be the sling. Jims hoped he could reproduce all the complicated folds he'd seen Mum make when assembling it of an afternoon. Cap was ace with the sling, but then Cap had lived in Japan once, which was practically Singapore, whence this one had come, at least to the mind of young Jims.
Jims touched a finger to his lips to make sure Liam understood they couldn't make noise, and then padded down the hall in his best impression of Mowgli in the jungle. Anthony was not in the nursery. Well, that made it trickier. Jims tiptoed downstairs, Liam behind him, and risked a peak around the dining room door. No one was there. Unless one counted the remains of Madrun's chicken and the melting Shape on the sideboard, which Jims didn't. No one was in the parlour, either. In the end, Jims found them in the sitting room, radio off – which was not normal that time of night – Mum and Cap still arguing. Casting Asparagus. Metaphorical asparagus obviously. Anthony was lying on his mat, idly sucking a cuddly carrot. Jims rapped a hand against the doorframe.
'I thought,' he said, ostensibly to the hulking mass of mute radio, 'Liam and Anthony and I could play outside for a bit. Is that…do you mind?'
No one said anything, which Jims took as not not an answer. Certainly not a negation of his plan. In the adults' defence, he'd sort of stammered the idea out at a whisper in an effort to cause minimum disturbance. He scooped Anthony up off his mat clumsily, cuddly carrot and all, and walked with him to the hall, shifting him in his arms as he went. He was heavier than Jims had thought, and twice as awkward with Compton's William still jostling under his right arm, but at least they could sit on the train. And Sherbourne wasn't all that far.
The sling was trickier than Jims had expected. It had been lovingly rendered by Aunt Una, and it was full of cunning tucks and catches. Also, it was plainly designed for a much taller person, which made it difficult to fit snugly against Jims. But he thought of those afternoons folding boats, waterlilies and mitres with the aunts, and that helped. With regret, Jims set William the Conqueror on the hall table, resigned to his inability to carry book and brother. Anthony jammed his fingers into Jims's neck, Jims got Liam's hand in his, and they all of them stumbled out into the sunset. The real one, this time, not Hudson Bay.
Along Maple St, turn at the bridge, down Sherbourne, and don't stop to look into the ravine in case Anthony should fall out of the sling. Jims was very distrustful of the sling. It jostled as he walked, and cut awkwardly into his shoulders. At the corner of Bloor and Sherbourne Jims squinted into the fiery orange globe of a sun, and watched for a safe moment to dart across the road. He seized the first one that presented itself, Liam still in hand, jostling and weaving between carts and cars, sneezing at the overwhelming smell of petrol and horse commingling. Anthony lurched alarmingly, and that set him off wailing again, so Jims had to stop at the station entrance and try to settle him. Then it was down the stairs, and through the barriers, and onto the tram, with its glossy red and gold paint. A conductor did ask where their mother was, so Jims made his eyes as wide and anxious as his insides felt and said, 'She's on the tram ahead of this one. We were going to catch it with her, but the door closed before we could,' because his back ached, his shoulders ached, his stomach hurt and he had run out of energy to explain about the asparagus casting and the disastrous dinner and how it had been hot under the Hudson Bay blanket with its multicoloured sunset. The conductor patted his shoulder sympathetically and waved them aboard.
'Jims,' hissed Liam as they settled onto a polished wood bench, 'Jims, that isn't…'
'I know,' said Jims hastily, before Liam could finish.
'But Jims, isn't lying sinful?'
Jims thought about this. He squirmed in his seat, the better to reposition Anthony, whose feet were jammed uncomfortably against his ribs.
'I just…'he said, thoughtfully, 'I didn't think he'd understand about the asparagus.'
'Oh,' said Liam, and subsided.
The tram gave an almighty jolt and lurched out of the station. It trundled drunkenly across the city, past St Paul's Cathedral with it's dome, past the Hudson's Bay Company, inventor of the woollen sunset, past the Museum in its Georgian splendour until finally, mercifully, they drew up in the St George terminus. They scrambled off the train, Jims shifting Anthony's weight in the process. The conductor reappeared with an offer to help find their mother, and Jims stammered something about how they were all supposed to be meeting up at his aunt's house, anyway.
'All right,' said the conductor, 'know where you're going, son?'
'Yes sir,' said Jims. He gave the conductor a cubs' salutee and darted as best he could for the station exit, Anthony knocking uncomfortably into his chest as he went, Liam scuttling like a crab to keep up.
St George St was luxuriously quiet after the sunwarmed tram. Jims stood for a minute at the entrance to the station basking in the cool of the evening. The sun had only just set, leaving the sky murky and empurpled, and the street deep in evening noises. Boiled smells of cabbage, and rich ones of meat drifted out open windows, punctuated here and there by the symphonic rattle of dishes being scraped, washed and stacked. Occasionally an overzealous hydrangea escaped its moorings and knocked against their cumulative ankles, or a cluster of tiger lilies spilled over a fence and tickled Liam's neck.
Then they were at the aunts' building, the porter raising Jims a Scout's salute as he stood to attention by the door.
'Miss Ford's lads, aren't you?' he said, as he always said.
'Yes sir,' said Jims, because that was what he always said.
'Hal,' said the porter with a grin, 'but you know that.'
Jims did know. This was part of the ritual. He just hadn't yet plucked up the nerve to assimilate Hal the porter's name into his everyday vocabulary. With reassuring predictability, Hal said, 'I'll tell Miss Ford the cavalry has arrived.'
But then he bent over, and said, presumably of Anthony, 'His head's sorter lopsided. May I…' and gestured at Anthony in his sling.
'Sure,' said Jims, and allowed the porter to reposition baby and sling. It was much more comfortable than the previous arrangement.
'Sorry,' he said, recovering from this aberration in their routine. 'Missus would never forgive me, see?' Then, as an afterthought, 'It's real nice work, that. The stitches and all. Your mother do it up?'
'No,' said Jims, 'an aunt.'
The porter – Hal – nodded, and ushered Jims and Liam through the door. It turned out the resident lift was stranded some floors up, and even with the newly resettled Anthony snug against Jims's shoulder, he was still too heavy to have around Jims's neck while they summoned it down. Why, they could be halfway up to the flat by the time the lift arrived! Jims knew this for a fact; he and Cap had once raced each other to test it. Cap had taken the lugubrious lift with it's iron grille, while Jims scrambled up the stairs in pell-mell fashion. Even winded and stumbling, Jims had been lolling lazily against the wall opposite the lift by the time it and Cap had deigned to put in an appearance.
Now, though, it was just him and Liam, with Anthony albatross-heavy against his chest, little fists curled tight into his collar. Up they went, onto the first landing, where Mrs Humenuik had obviously made holopchi for dinner. Round the corner and up the stairs, past Mr. Hudson's flat, where the dog was decrying its latest grievance to the world. The third landing took them past the Poltens, whence emanated smells of sausage and sounds of squabbling children. Opposite them was Miss Henderson, who shared the bathroom with them, but otherwise lived alone and always kept the radio tuned to The World Service. Halfway up to the fourth floor, Liam tripped over an aggrieved tortoiseshell doughnut f cat limbs that gave an almighty yowl, before streaking down the stairs trailing offended dignity like a stole.
'Hera!' said a vexed Liam, as he picked himself back up off the steps.
'All right?' came a voice overhead, even as Jims stopped to take stock of his brother. He'd managed to skin his palms, but it didn't look bad, and there weren't any tears.
'Yes,' they chorused in the direction of overhead, but too late. Already Aunt Persis was descending the stairs, arms outstretched.
'You brought Anthony,' she said, sounding surprised, even as she extracted his person from Jims and the unwieldy sling. As an afterthought she added, 'Did your mother work the sling?'
'No,' said Jims for the second time that evening. 'I said to the porter – that was one of the aunts.'
'Well, so long as he doesn't think it was me,' said Aunt Persis. 'Otherwise he'll expect one of us - me rather - to do something like that for Moira's new baby, and really…'
She did not bother to finish the sentence. Apparently the hysterics the mere thought of her sewing – or Aunt Cass, for that matter – sent Jims and Liam into adequately accounted for the likelihood of this most unlikely of things.
In the flat Cass bustled forward to unburden Jims of the sling, while Persis settled Anthony in a cushion nest. Thereafter Cass got gauze for Liam's hands and Persis put a call through to Maple St confirming they'd arrived safely. Jims sat down on the carpet, mindful of myriad piles of outspread paper, tucked his feet under his knees, and let himself relax. He hadn't realised how tightly wound his internal clockwork was until he sat on the carpet and let it run down.
As ever, the gramophone was on, and something warm, lyric and melodious drifting out of it.
'Thais,' said Aunt Cass, dropping down beside him. 'Massenet. Lovely, isn't it?'
Jims said that it was. He knew nothing about music, and had discovered it was nigh impossible to keep up with Aunt Cass once she started on the subject in much detail. Still, it was nice to sit there, the music a sunbeam of sound, and let someone else talk. After the agony of dinner, this was blissful. Something about monks, Jims thought she said. A monk and a woman of uncertain morals, and in the middle of it, a luscious thing Aunt Cass called a meditation, all rippling harp strings like water and a broken-hearted violin.
'They were casting Spare Gus on each other,' Liam was saying to Aunt Persis on the other side of the room.
'He means asparagus,' said Jims.
'Aspersions,' said Aunt Persis, evidently reflexively. So that's what it was. Jims knew Liam had had it wrong earlier.
'No,' said Liam, 'Spare Gus. Right, Jims?'
With difficulty Jims extricated himself from the music. Thais. Massenet. Lovely. Liam was looking at him with wide, hazel eyes.
'Yeah,' said Jims. 'Casting asparagus. Definitely.'
He thought he caught Aunt Cass smiling. It wasn't funny, not really, the dinner, and the stress, and Liam's linguistic foibles, but somehow this fact of a shared joke between them made it bearable. Bearable was good. As if in testament to this, Liam's stomach growled. So did Jims's. The Aunts untangled themselves from the floor and drifted towards the kitchen, heads together in conference.
Jims got up to follow them, on the basis they'd eat in the kitchen.
'You stay put' said Aunt Cass, and clucked for emphasis.
'Yes,' said Aunt Persis, 'you lot aren't to lift a finger.'
Jims thought about arguing. Instead he hauled down a battered dominoes set from the sideboard and held it out to Liam. Admittedly, this required the lifting of several fingers, but he didn't see the aunts minding. He and Liam set it up gingerly among the amassed manuscripts and notes.
'Good thought,' said Aunt Persis returning with a tray. 'Mind if we join?'
She knelt down, careful, because of the tray, and began handing round plates. Jims and Liam shifted to better accommodate the aunts, and for ease of access to the food. There was a wonderful, summery salad made of nothing but ripe tomato, olive oil, and a cheese so soft it melted in the mouth. There were olives, and crisp carrot sticks, warm bread and slivers of lamb that fell off the bone if you so much as looked at them. Asparagus did not feature.
'You'll have to forgive the pick-up supper,' said Aunt Cass. 'We'd have saved something if we'd realised you were coming by.'
Jims mumbled an apology, but it got waved away by a stray domino piece. The music went on, and Jims thought he understood Cass to say that Thais died, but somehow even that was all right. They ended by losing dominoes to a returned Hera, evidently still nursing her grievance from the stairwell mishap. She sat in the middle of the toppled dominoes looking unlawfully pleased with herself, while Liam crawled into Persis's lap and from this shelter bevvied her with questions about the papers. That was how she came to be explaining kinship tables to Liam while Jims and Aunt Cass cleared away the dishes.
'Thanks,' he said when the last of them was stacked, gleaming on the draining board. He wasn't sure if he meant the music, the food, the bandages for Liam or just the fact of being able to ruck up on the doorstep with nary a word to anyone but Hal the porter in advance. Apparently it didn't matter. Cass got a golden arm around Jims's shoulders and gave them a squeeze.
'Always,' she said.