Bishop's Road

Bishop’s Road is long enough. And straight. If you walk back and forth every day you’ll lose a few pounds and tighten up but most people around here don’t bother with that. Mrs. Miflin’s boarding house sits between a Catholic Church, with priest’s rectory, and a school - all on their last legs. Now and again the Department of Education threatens to close the school but the parents get upset and have meetings and eventually the talk dies down for a couple of years. The church puts on a brave face but since hardly anyone goes to Mass these days, except for the mid-night service on Christmas Eve, maybe, and during Lent when you absolutely have to, its days are numbered as well. A very old priest lives in the rectory with his equally ancient housekeeper who is terrible for getting on his nerves but makes great bread pudding when she’s in the mood.

Across the road and down a cobblestone path, the only one left in the city, tucked away behind poplar, maple, birch, aspen and a low stone wall, is what was once an orphanage. It stood empty for years until some enterprising members of the arts community begged it away from the church. The artists are generally happy there except for the ones who work late into the night because no one can get the crying out of the walls and they are thinking of packing up their brushes and going elsewhere.

There used to be a lot of little nuns around in the old days, teaching in the school and the orphanage. Since the ones conceived in sin would surely have a negative influence on those from proper homes, everyone agreed to keep the children separate back then. With the Word of God on their lips and black leather straps on their belts - next to the Rosary beads - the holy women confused several generations of youngsters for a hundred years or more until they all just dried up and blew away. No one remembers exactly when that happened but surely it was a sunny day with just enough sweet wind to whip through the convent and out the back door with those withered Brides of Christ in tow. Once the dust settled and it became apparent that no one in the world was interested in taking over the duties of the recently departed Sisters of Joy, Mrs. Miflin bought the convent for a song. Rumors of devil worship and torture, orgies and the like, didn’t entice too many prospective buyers among the locals even if they’d had the money, and the fact that it would take a king’s ransom to heat the place kept everyone else away. But not Mrs. Miflin. She had started most of the rumours herself a few years ago anyway, and she doesn’t have the furnace on between April and November no matter what the temperature. How she got the old nuns to cooperate is anyone’s guess but they weren’t gone an hour before she was beating on Father Delaney’s door with her offer to buy.

Ginny Mustard grew up in the orphanage. And the little nuns tried to hammer things into her soft yellow head. Had her kneel at the front of the room with her nose to the wall for a bit of ridicule now and then. If ever they felt the need for reinforcement they encouraged the other children to find her faults and laugh, though not too loudly, mind, because either one of them might be next - there were no shining stars in Ginny Mustard’s world. She moved from the orphanage to the streets and on to Mrs. Miflin’s house. If she’s not careful she can see the window of the ward where she slept from the front porch in the winter when the trees are bare and so she keeps her eyes the other way until she is down the road and around a corner.

Mrs. Miflin’s house is big with many rooms, not accustomed to sudden sound or quick movement though it is quite familiar with haunted dreams. The original furniture is still there. In the walls are nooks and crannies holding statues of Mary the Mother of Jesus and occasionally, Jesus himself, wounded and weary. Mrs. Miflin is what you might call a good Catholic. She makes it to Mass every morning. She takes Communion every day. And every Friday, doesn’t matter what that Pope said, there’s fish on the dinner table. For Lent she gives up what pleasure she takes in life and when her feet hurt she complains only a little and would have you believe she offers most of her discomfort for the repose of the poor souls in Purgatory. Kneeling at night, she says a Rosary before her head touches the pillow, no matter how tired she may be.

Everything is downhill east of Bishop’s Road. It runs parallel to Caine’s Street which overlooks Beaton Row which frowns on Water Street which leans closer to the ocean every day. Connecting the lot are many short streets that you don’t even want to walk on, let alone drive, when it’s icy. Beyond Water Street is the harbour and surrounding it but split at The Narrows are hills. In the morning the sun conies over the one on the left and at this time of year, if there are icebergs about and a little fog, the effect is enough to blind you.

Once there was a big old building messing up the view but it fell apart and no one had money to fix it. After a few hard winters it began throwing itself at passersby every time the wind blew hard. Pigeons nested there in droves and the smell was wicked in summer from tons of droppings and ratty old nests and the bodies of their deceased. So the city decided that it had to go and then put it back on their ‘things to ignore’ list until the scavengers had their way with doors and windows and the half-decent bricks and then it was simply a matter of bulldozing the remains into the harbour. The government types who had worked there were long gone to a business park on the outskirts of town where there was enough heat that they didn’t have to keep their coats on all day come December, and lots of cold recycled air for the five or six really hot days you get sometimes in August.

Caine’s Street has houses all smooshed together and holding each other up. Beaton Row has small shops of first and second-hand books and clothing and what-nots, restaurants and galleries. Water Street boasts offices and department stores and more bars than anyone needs. There is no parking space and most businesses do poorly. Every time you turn around there’s one closing down and another opening up so there’s no point in thinking anything is where you left it yesterday.

The people who live here are an odd mix. Professors from the university rub elbows with low-life who haven’t held jobs for two generations. They didn’t start out low, mind, but there’s nothing like poverty to bring you to that level after a while. Down here children who have not known want since they were born play with urchins whose only hello for the day is the back of a hard hand across a small mouth. One is clean and the other wears last night’s dinner on her pretty face. Down here is the Women’s Shelter and the Salvation Army Men’s Hostel and the brave souls who don’t care for the rules in either of those places and would rather take their chances outside - thank you very much - until it’s too friggin’ cold to breathe. Even then they don’t put their things away but keep all worldly possessions in garbage bags to save packing when the spring comes around again. Down here are the artists and the fine plays and the music festivals. People who live up town say they would venture down more often if there were some place to park but no one believes it except the ones who say it. When they do show up they don’t really get it and usually bring lawn chairs with arms to the outdoor events so they don’t have to sit too close to the riffraff.

On the west side of Bishop’s Road things are on a more even keel. The ground is mostly flat and easy to walk. There are a few places where you can get a decent meal of fish if you don’t mind going that far, though if you ever want to see a movie or have some brochures printed there’s nothing for it but to head on out to a mall. The most interesting places, the ones with any expression in their eyes, are here, below Bishop’s Road.

Ginny Mustard has never been anywhere else in her life and, like most things, that suits her fine. If it doesn’t happen within a fifteen minute walk of Bishop’s Road, it might as well not happen at all. She goes to the river beyond the park. Stands on one of the little bridges that cross it and looks at the water rushing. She likes the storms and the snow as much as she likes calm and sunshine. And the river is as lovely when trees are falling over and their roots coming out of the banks and the wind so loud you can’t hear another thing, as when it is gentle and whispering low and pretty little finches swarm the willows. She goes to the ocean. Watches the ships come and go. Pulls the cold fog and fishy smells deep into her lungs. Holds them there. Closes her eyes and smiles.

Ginny Mustard has a secret. All afternoon she’s been walking up and down Water Street looking for someone to tell but no one ever comes along who might have time to listen. She’s not good with words. When she does talk at all they fall over them-selves and some are left out so it takes a patient person to know what she is going on about.

The secret is brand new. She ran it around in her head and tried to write it down when she got bits of it clear. Junior Brophy from Harry’s Groc. and Conf. gave her a load of paper placemats once to draw her pictures on and at the rate she’s going she’ll need every last one of them to write her secret because her letters are big and lumpy and backwards and she can’t get more than a dozen words on any one sheet.

After cooking and praying, Mrs. Miflin likes cleaning best so Ginny Mustard keeps her papers and coloured pencils between her mattress and box spring, all neat and tidy and hidden. She wears her pen on a chain around her neck along with a medal of the Holy Blessed Virgin and a penny that Joe Snake put on the railway track just before the train came and flattened it thin.

Ginny Mustard has lived here longer than anyone else except Mrs. Miflin. It used to be a beautiful house but now it’s just pretty enough to get by. That’s what Mrs. Miflin says; me and the house are the same, she says, just pretty enough to get by. She was married once. She has pictures on the walls and a dried bouquet. Her wedding dress hangs in her closet in two green garbage bags stapled together to be long enough to keep the dust off if any dares land. Ginny Mustard has never seen it but Mrs. Miflin tells her all about it sometimes when they wash the dishes. She likes to talk and goes on and on about back in the day when she was pretty and her husband was so good looking and they were young too young to get married. The pictures show that he had a big nose and glasses and was a lot taller than Mrs. Miflin and his arms looked like they might be really thin under his jacket. And in the pictures Mrs. Miflin was round and smiling as though she’d had a good meal of something tasty and her dress was snug on top, but-toned with pearls that wanted to pop off and scatter. Mr. Miflin must have gone away because no one in the house has ever seen him. Mrs. Miflin sets a place for him every mealtime and even puts food there as if he just went to the store for a newspaper or some-thing and she expects him back any minute now. You might think that wasteful but it’s not because when he doesn’t show up she eats his share or puts it in tomorrow’s soup.

Ruth lives at the very end of the house - third story and beyond the linen closet. Not a lot happens back there so she spends much of her time in a chair at the top of the stairs near a window just watching. She can see across the street and through the trees and across another street and into the park. If she squints she can just make out the bodies lying around on the grass tanning or rusting - depends on the weather - and the little kids playing on the swings and in the sandbox after their mothers pick out the glass and dog shit. They have to do it every day. It’s that kind of park.

Sometimes Ruth wears the same clothes for a week. She dresses like a bruise. Black leggings and a big black shirt. Purple. Other times she doesn’t even bother to take off her nightgown or wash her face, what would be the point, though she’s very particular about brushing and flossing and her hair is always clean. She has been on the planet for 50 years and is tired of life and so has given up - except for the sitting. Watching.

Maggie has a room just ahead of the linen closet. It’s the nicest one in the house with a huge bay window and lacy curtains that move about easily. At night she lies awake and watches them float across the room - soft and narrow - like thin ghosts with a floral pattern. Maggie is still trying to figure out how she got here and watching the curtains puts her mind at rest. She thinks that if she lies here long enough she will know what came before and after leaving home and being here in this room, in this house. She remembers a suitcase and lots of screaming, her mother’s face hard before she turned away from Maggie. A big place with little beds. Before that there’s nothing. After that there’s nothing either - until this room, this house.

At night she puts her pillow at the foot of the bed under the curtains and they wash across her face on their way to and fro. Sometimes the moon is behind them and when they move it shines all over her. Turns her skin a nice pale blue. When it is full she takes off her clothes and looks at her pale blue body. She holds up an arm or a leg to get as much of the light as she can. She likes to see herself that colour and wishes she could show someone how pretty she looks.

The people whose clothes Maggie wears were old and larger than herself. Her underpants are lumpy bloomers and her skirts have to be held with a belt - pulled very tight and even then her blouses are generally hanging out and in her way. All of the spare fabric gives her the look of a sausage. If you could see her face you might be surprised to find that she is attractive.

There is a shoe box under Maggie’s bed containing 118 letters. Sealed. Stamped. Never opened. Maggie brought it with her and goes nowhere without it. She takes it to breakfast, lunch, dinner and the bathroom. Only in her room is it out of sight and even then she often pulls up the bedspread and checks to make sure. She thinks sometimes it isn’t true - that nothing is - and so she pulls up the bedspread and checks to make sure.

Eve has been alive since God was a youngster. She lives on the second floor - east side - and can see the ocean from her room but mostly she tends the garden out back, a job she hasn’t had since her fall from grace with that fool Adam. She has a knack for growing things but sticks to flowers since the zucchini year when everyone got so fed up with zucchini this and zucchini that every meal for a month because Mrs. Miflin can’t bear to waste anything. Eve is big and strong with no softness to her bones at all. She is generally content but for missing Adam - mostly in February when the days are so gray and the seed catalogues haven’t arrived yet. She’s been six years without him this time - he always seems to go ahead of her - but she enjoys the garden. Every spring when the slugs come crawling, Eve buys a hedgehog and sets it loose. And every spring the newest one munches away for a couple of weeks and wanders off. When Eve is not gardening she wears long black dresses, stiff and silk, with here and there a touch of lace, a cameo, a satin rose. But more often than not she’s in overalls and rubber boots, a red kerchief holding her hair away while she works.

Judy arrived this morning. Mrs. Miflin has convinced the powers that be that her house is the ideal place for wayward girls. Being God fearing and all, who better than herself to shape up degenerate youth? Aside from the weekly visits to her probation officer and a counsellor, the bulk of Judy’s rehabilitation now rests on the capable, albeit sloped, shoulders of Mrs. Miflin, a position of power that pleases the old doll no end.

Judy is seventeen, a little beyond foster care even if anyone would have her. The last child after three rowdy boys, Judy’s only flaw, if you don’t count her height of six feet, is that of being too damned smart for her own good. When she dares to dream, her ambition is to become wealthy beyond belief at which time she will go home and burn the place to the ground. If you catch her smiling you can be sure she is imagining the part where they all come running to her for help and she tells them they are shit out of luck, go to hell the lot of you friggers. Judy has been stealing make-up and clothes since she was ten and has a record as long as her wingspan. She has dropped out of school for one reason or another a good seven times already and has the IQ of an Einstein.

Judy owns five pairs of jeans and six tee shirts with things written on them. She has a short black dress and her underwear has seen better days. She has running shoes and hiking boots, socks and a pair of men’s pyjamas, never worn, because she sleeps in her day clothes just in case she has to leave in a hurry. On the dresser on a pink plastic doily that Mrs. Miflin bought on sale - five for a dollar - is a black wooden jewelry box that plays a rusty Fur Elise when you wind it and a little spring inside goes around and around without the ballerina that used to be there. In the box is a pair of tiny real gold earrings and a few other odds and ends. And there’s the cover of another box wrapped in brown paper, with small shells glued on in a daisy pattern and a red velvet lining with two satin strings that once attached it to a bottom that is somewhere else.

If Judy hadn’t suggested that Ginny Mustard take a look in the attic this morning when Mrs. Miflin was out and they couldn’t find light bulbs, then Ginny Mustard might not be having a hard time of it now. But she did and Ginny Mustard did and there’s a tear in the fabric and time tugging the edge. Someone might want to lay a hand on that girl’s yellow hair and smooth it back. Tell her everything will be okay.

Mrs. Miflin has been away for much of the day, signing papers and assuring the probation officer and Judy’s counsellor that of course the girl will behave herself and make her appointments on time. Tonight she will formally introduce her latest acquisition to the rest of the household. She has already squeezed another chair into the dining room and if they ever felt tempted to put elbows on the table they can forget about it now. Four might be comfortable here - with six and Mr. Miflin’s place it’s a stretch. Here they come - right on time. Bladders newly emptied for the duration. Once you’re sitting there’s room for no other movement but fork to mouth.

The room is the size of a breadbox and packed to the rafters with furniture, old and intimidating, dark and forlorn and smelling always of Murphy’s Oil Soap. There’s a useless window never opened, its sill crawling with porcelain puppies. From the centre hangs a plastic geranium, bathed weekly in warm soapy water. Sprayed with a bit of air freshener. It is the only plant in the house but Mrs. Miflin is thinking of getting another like it for the front porch. This is where every meal is taken and if you’re a minute late and no money in your pocket you’ll go hungry until the next one. Breakfast at seven, lunch at noon and dinner at six, that’s all there is to it and nothing in between unless you manage to hide a box of crackers in your closet, or an apple.

Eve, says Mrs. Miflin, Mr. Abe Hennessy over on Blake Street thinks one of your old hedgehogs could be in his shed. He was cleaning up and it looks like something or other made a nest in a barrel what he had turned over on its side and slept the winter. If you want it back you better go get it because he needs the barrel. It might be a rat he said but it didn’t move nearly so fast as one and it’s more roundish. I don’t know why you don’t just pour salt on them slugs, you know. Kills them quicker than anything and not nearly so costly as buying hedgehogs every year and they taking off soon as they got their bellies full.

Well, Mrs. Miflin, I’m not all that fond of killing things. If the Creator wanted me pouring salt on His slugs He would never have come up with hedgehogs in the first place. I think He might have done something about their wandering habits while He was at it but who am I to question His ways?

Mrs. Miflin does not much care for arguments she can’t win. Okay everybody. Enough of this chit-chat. This here young lady goes by the name of Judy and is living with you now thanks to Social Services who couldn’t find anyone else who’d have her being as she’s what you’d call a delinquent. She is in the habit of stealing anything that’s not hammered down so keep that in mind if you catch her in your rooms. She is supposed to keep her nose clean from now on or she’ll be in the jail for the rest of her days. Judy eat them peas. I got no patience for fancy eating diseases in this house. I made a nice trifle for dessert and I’m not bringing it out until them plates is polished.

Which means, says Ruth, that our Mrs. Miflin has constructed a sponge cake and flung a can of fruit cocktail at it. You’re welcome to my share, Judy. There’s been more than enough trifle in my life already.

Ruth. Don’t be testy. Everybody likes trifle. Don’t mind Ruth, Judy my dear. She’s always like this, but nice enough if you can manage to ignore her. And Ruth, don’t you think for one minute I didn’t see you hauling them sheets down to the laundrymat last night. I go through all the trouble of hanging them in the lovely fresh air and you take them there. I don’t know why you can’t be like everyone else and sleep on them nice and outdoorsy smelling.

Because they’re like bloody sandpaper, Mrs. Miflin, and it’s cheaper to take them for a quick tumble in a dryer than to pay good money for the amount of lotion I’d need to keep my skin from falling off if I don’t. Fifty cents and ten minutes makes them at least livable.

Well don’t come complaining to me when they go getting holes in them from all that tumbling. I buy my linens once a year and not a minute sooner.

In the attic the rattling of small bones muffled by pink soft knit blanket. Soft knit blanket with hope and dreams set in delicate stitches - seven months’ worth of delicate stitches. On a satin pillow. Singing. Low. Ginny Mustard hears it from her place at the table. Hush little baby don’t say a word. Momma’s gonna buy you a mocking bird. And she drops peas from her fork, who loves her food and would never waste a mouthful, drops peas from her fork and they roll under the table. Mrs. Miflin frowns and after that everyone is conscious of her feet and there is no movement from below. The little voice is clear above the plate scraping and Mrs. Miflin going on and on about nothing, but no one takes notice except Ginny Mustard.

Ginny Mustard’s mother left her in the hospital where she was born. There was no talk of adoption or anything else. She just up and went when her time was through and she didn’t take the baby. She was not a young girl in trouble. She had a toddler and a husband and a fine home and she was thirty-two years old. She kept Ginny Mustard in the room with her but she never nursed her when she woke or changed her wet diaper or bathed her small smooth body. She sang hush little baby while she sat and stared but she never stroked her sweet face. Only once did she touch her fingers and frowned when Ginny Mustard curled her tiny brown fist into the centre of her own strong pink hand. Then that woman packed her suitcase and put on her blue dress and make-up and high-heeled shoes and left the hospital and no one ever heard tell of her again. Ginny Mustard cried for a long time before one of the nurses discovered that she was alone and nobody wanted her. And she grew tall and brown and her hair grew long and yellow and most people didn’t bother with her after those first few days.

When dinner is through, Ginny Mustard tells Mrs. Miflin that she is not feeling so good and can’t help with the dishes. Mrs. Miflin says Judy can have her turn tonight and that way she’ll stay out of trouble. And while they clean up, Mrs. Miflin fills the girl in on the dos and don’ts of life in her house. What not to touch, where not to go and there’s no point in thinking she won’t be found out if she crosses the line because Mrs. Miflin has eyes in the back of her head and will be quick enough turfing Judy out on her ear if she messes up. And then she tells everything she knows and more that she doesn’t about the other tenants.

Ginny Mustard walks to the harbour. Tries to think things Catherine Safer over but there’s a boat in and the gulls are hanging around looking for scraps as the fish are cleaned and life being the way it is for Ginny Mustard, she forgets all about the little song and the tiny bones and sits on the dock to watch the birds awhile. She stays until the sun is down and the moon fat over the water before she trudges back up the hill. Way inside her head, Ginny Mustard knows that she needs to tell someone about all of this - the bones and now the singing - but it is hard to remember sometimes and for all her good intentions she can only keep her mind on one thing at