The town that drowned, p.1
The Town that Drowned, page 1
THE TOWN THAT DROWNED
THE TOWN
THAT DROWNED
Riel Nason
First published in Australia and New Zealand by Allen & Unwin in 2013
First published in Canada in 2011 by Goose Lane Editions
Copyright Riel Nason 2013
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or by any information storage and retrieval system, without prior permission in writing from the publisher. The Australian Copyright Act 1968 (the Act) allows a maximum of one chapter or 10 per cent of this book, whichever is the greater, to be photocopied by any educational institution for its educational purposes provided that the educational institution (or body that administers it) has given a remuneration notice to Copyright Agency Limited (CAL) under the Act.
Allen & Unwin
Sydney, Melbourne, Auckland, London
83 Alexander Street
Crows Nest NSW 2065
Australia
Phone: (61 2) 8425 0100
Email: info@allenandunwin.com
Web: www.allenandunwin.com
Cataloguing-in-Publication details are available
from the National Library of Australia
www.trove.nla.gov.au
ISBN 978 1 74331 460 9
Internal design by David Moratto
Printed and bound in Australia by the SOS Print + Media Group.
For my Eli
The Town That Drowned is a work of fiction. Although the background event discussed in the book did take place in New Brunswick in the late 1960s, the story does not attempt to factually recreate historical details and is only inspired by them. Place names are used fictitiously. Characters, timeline, and activities described are all a product of the author’s imagination.
CONTENTS
Summer 1965
Spring 1966
Spring 1967
Acknowledgements
Summer 1965
Chapter 1
The beginning I remember is this: my brother Percy on the old Hawkshaw Bridge. It is August, sunny and warm, and he’s in a white T-shirt and jeans, with his glasses tied tight around his head with a shoelace. He is walking, carrying a bottle in one hand, and his lips are silently moving. It is afternoon. Percy is nine years, two months, three and a half days old. Believe me, that’s what he’d say if you asked him.
I know he’s almost to the middle of the bridge — the exact middle — because he is counting. He takes two hundred and seventy-three short measured paces from where the road turns into wood-plank platform and black metal spans, all blue sky above and blue water below him. The bottle is an emptied Nesbitt’s Orange, and soon Percy will drop it into the river. There’s a note inside it. And an envelope with a five-cent stamp and our address (to Percy, care of our father). In the bottom of the bottle are seven small rocks from our driveway for weight. All this is sealed in with a rolled-up rag, a piece of cork, and some wax my mother bought for her jars of chokecherry jelly.
I sit on the hill up from the shoreline and watch while the bottle falls down, down, plunges then bobs, and floats away. Percy will stay there and I will stay here until the bottle is only a glint in the sun in the distance. We’ll wait as it starts its journey along the Saint John River past the houses and farms of everyone we know — past Doyle’s apple orchard, Mr. Cole’s giant pine tree, and Mr. Black’s cows grazing.
It will drift past three churches, the high school, the garage, the Legion, and Foster’s Store. The bottle will eventually wind its way by Prince William and Fredericton, Gagetown, Westfield, then toss and turn through the Reversing Falls at Saint John before continuing into the Bay of Fundy.
If it makes it that far.
Because of course we won’t know. Beyond the time Percy leans on the bridge rail watching, the bottle seems to disappear and almost ceases to exist — except as a number in a chart in his notebook.
He will turn to walk home, get me to untie the shoelace from his glasses (which is only to keep them from falling into the water), wait a week and start again. He will use the same brand of bottle, the same number of rocks, and the same blue stamp with the Queen. He will take the same two hundred and seventy-three steps to the same spot, and he’ll always be wearing a white T-shirt and jeans.
It was just two years ago, and it used to seem that nothing ever changed. Everyone thought Percy was so different when he was really all about being the same.
But that’s not to say my brother is like anybody else. His desire for consistency means he likes to make up and follow his own rules and regulations. Percy puts himself to bed every night at eight o’clock — even when the summer sun is high in the sky and I’m sure through his bedroom windows he can hear other children playing. He has only ever slept in his own bed in his own room in his own house. He never stayed at my grandparents’ place when they were alive, or at my aunt and uncle’s when they lived nearby, or in a hotel or tent. If we are out somewhere and it is getting late, Percy will look at his watch and declare (as if he is Cinderella), “Mother, I must go home immediately, it’s almost my bedtime.” When anyone overhears him there is a giggle or a “Now Percy dear” or that silly sly smile some ladies get when they’re tucking a new piece of gossip away in their brains.
What other people see is a bossy, spoiled little boy. They don’t know that sometimes the smallest of changes, like a drop of orange pop on his white T-shirt, can bother him so much he can’t wear it any longer, that the stain physically pains him, like the spot becomes a wound bleeding not from the inside out but the outside in. They just see a boy who cries about everything. They see a boy who appears to be simultaneously strong-willed and weak.
So maybe it seems unlikely that Percy would get wrapped up in something as random and whimsical as messages in bottles, but he did. He has sent one a week from April to November (when the river wasn’t frozen) for the past two and a half years. No letters have ever come back — which keeps it the same for him, I guess. Still, he has his notebook with a chart of each bottle’s number and release date at the ready, always prepared for a response. He records the weather under the heading “Environment at Launch” and leaves a wide column for the “Details of Final Destination” — “Date Found,” “Location,” and “Other Notes.” He has a map of New Brunswick in his room, and a globe he got for his eighth birthday. I will see him tracing over blue lines with his finger or measuring oceans with a ruler, dreaming, imagining, or since it is Percy, probably more like calculating, predicting.
Once he told me that in calm weather a bottle might only drift a few miles each day. That meant at least three weeks to Fredericton and maybe two months to the world’s highest tides in the Bay of Fundy. The longer Percy waits without a reply, then the farther the bottle is travelling. To him it is a direct correlation. And the only possibility.
I’m pretty sure the contents of the note have more to do with the lack of response — assuming anyone even finds the bottles. Percy doesn’t clue in that it might help to let people know he’s nine years old, or that he should ask for a letter back with some sort of impassioned plea. His notes look like they were sent by a forty-seven-year-old weirdo amateur scientist or, worse, the government, with all the formal language Percy uses and the fact that he has them typed (by me). He makes it sound as if there is someone waiting for the bottle, expecting it to arrive like a package ordered from the Simpsons-Sears catalogue and paid COD. Percy isn’t open to editing though, or suggestions. That I know from trying. The original wording of the note may as well have been inscribed in the back of our family Bible from the instant Percy finished double-checking the spelling of each word in his dictionary.
What it says:
Please reply by mail using the enclosed envelope upon receipt of this bottle. Please state geographical location found as specifically as possible including any details that may have contributed to the conclusion of its journey such as driftwood in the area, or shore debris. Please state condition of bottle including cracks or breakage. Please state date of receipt, not date of mailing, and bottle code number: 1965-19.
See what I mean?
The code number is the only thing that changes. I type every word on the Remington typewriter I inherited from my grandfather, with Percy hovering like a wasp at my shoulder, watching for any reason I might have to start over. I am not allowed any spelling mistakes, incorrect spacing, or double-punched keys. Percy knows how to type, but my mother insists I do it, making us spend time together — more for him I suspect than for me. In fact the whole bottle business has turned into a family project, so that Percy isn’t always alone in his room reading. I type the notes and watch him do each launch, my mother takes him to buy stamps and seals the bottle with wax, and my father lets him put his name — Jack Carson — on the envelope, and sometimes drinks the Nesbitt’s Orange to empty the bottle, and (as I’ve heard him tell my mother) tries his hardest not to swear if Percy cries when it takes over an hour to find seven tiny rocks in the driveway.
But for now I’m on the hill waiting. Percy is on the bridge and the bottle is in the water. For at least fifteen more minutes I’ll sit, tilting my face to the sun, trying to conjure up enough freckles to blend into a tan. Once in a while I glance at Percy, then the opposite shore, up- and downriver, then at Percy again. I figure I’d hear him if he ever fell in. I concentrate on braiding little pieces of my long brown hair and counting almost like he does — except backward s and approximately. Twelve minutes, ten minutes, five minutes, until we can go home again.
That’s probably why a man I’ve never seen before has managed to walk all the way up to Percy before I notice. Suddenly, as if he’s fallen like a raindrop, there he is casting a shadow over Percy up on the bridge. The man’s holding a big fancy camera with a tripod attached. Everyone around here loves to say that we have one of the most scenic views in the province, but I hope the man doesn’t ask Percy anything about it. I hurry across the hill toward them.
Percy still hasn’t turned away from the river. He’s staring into the water, tracking the bottle even though the man is obviously talking and standing right next to him. I can tell now it isn’t a camera the man has either, but that piece of equipment surveyors use, and I realize that’s what this man is. Who knows what he’s doing out on a Saturday, but I suppose he’s just taking a break, being friendly to a local boy. I’m sure it won’t take him long to find out that Percy’s not exactly the president of the River Valley Welcoming Committee.
The man sees me coming, running, and with a big smile and a wink he says, “Now where’s the fire, missy?”
“Late for supper.” I nod at Percy. It’s only about three-thirty, but it’s the first thing that pops into my head.
Percy is oblivious, still silently staring at the water, leaning on the railing. I tell him it’s time to go and touch him on the back. I say goodbye to the surveyor as Percy walks ahead of me. So far so good.
We make it to the end of the bridge before it starts. It’s like Percy’s foot touching the roadway is the trigger. He cries.
And cries. And cries.
It’s the most upset I’ve seen him in a long time. But that doesn’t mean it’s the worst thing that’s happened lately, because with Percy there’s often a mismatch between the seriousness of the problem and the extremity of his reaction. Little things may equal a big cry, and big things little or no cry. Major events that you’d logically think would cause a complete breakdown in someone so sensitive sometimes hardly affect him. When our cat Quilty was run over by a car last year Percy was dry-eyed. But the week before that when Quilty had knocked over her water bowl and soaked one of Percy’s socks, he started sobbing. When Percy lost a button off his winter coat, he also lost his mind.
A few other problematic incidents:
The night my father wouldn’t pick up the phone or let anyone else answer it because we were having supper and whoever was calling should know better and damn well let us eat in peace.
The time my cousin Sarah told him she still, at twelve, believed in Santa Claus. She said his magical sleigh just travelled so fast its speed couldn’t be calculated.
The day this past February when the ceremony in Ottawa introducing our new Canadian flag with the maple leaf was shown on TV. As the old Red Ensign was lowered down the pole Percy started whimpering. Then for weeks there were aftershocks as he noticed the flags replaced at the high school, the Pokiok Lodge, the garage, and the Legion.
The one time my mother made tomato scallop. And the one time she made poached eggs. And chocolate cake with white instead of chocolate icing. And mincemeat pie. And when my uncle made the monumental mistake of not telling Percy his burger was venison until after he had taken a bite. And the one horrible, horrible time my father brought home a box of live lobsters.
Getting his hair cut. (When Percy was younger my mother just trimmed it while he was sleeping.)
The day his teacher made him sit in the corner because he had stopped working on his math problems. Percy had found a mistake in the textbook, and once he saw it he didn’t know what else to do.
The minister telling him God could read his mind.
Really. So you get the idea.
Welcome to the Percy Carson show: free admission.
As I’ve said, Percy definitely liked things to stay the same. But outside of his own rituals (which caused enough drama if interfered with), there was all this who-knows-what, who-knows-where, who-knows-why, who-knows-when. It was as if the whole evolving, revolving world was by nature the problem since it would never stay still for him. Percy wasn’t wired to understand that you can’t control change, so he could never, ever catch up and adjust to anything. But even if you knew that, or thought you’d figured him out a little bit, Percy kept you guessing. Everything could be going along perfectly fine, then all of a sudden he’d wail like a two-year-old, or his lips would quiver, his shoulders shake, as if something had built up and he had to give in. I always seemed to be around to witness this, and although I used to be sure that his heart was at least cracking if not breaking, now I only think, Great-not-this-again. After a while you feel like you’re living with the boy who cried wolf. After a while the urge to rush over and hug him fades away completely.
Once we’re well up the road, I look back to see if the surveyor is still there. He’s smoking a cigarette and slowly turning his head from shore to shore, taking in the whole river valley. It’s as if he’s memorizing the scene to paint a picture. Or like he’s a tourist and it will be the only time he’s here. I catch up to Percy just as he wipes his nose on his shoulder. Now he’s toned it down to some whimpers and an occasional hiccup.
I’m not going to chance more upset by asking, but I do wonder what the surveyor said to him.
We live at the top of the road that leads down the valley to the bridge and continues over to Hawkshaw. This side of the river is Haventon, shortened from Haven Town years ago. The whole area is a long sprawling village. Our neighbours’ houses are staggered along the hillside on smaller winding roads and at the ends of driveways. It’s as if the houses rolled like rocks down the slope and got stuck on tufts of grass. This is what makes up Haventon for a few miles on each side of us — houses and barns and other buildings like the churches with big or little stretches of land in between. You can kind of imagine it like people sitting on bleachers: lots of them are clustered together and a few are alone, but they’re all waiting for the main event. Except here the main event is simply a view of the water.
*
A car drives by and swings extra wide around us, so I know we’ve been recognized even before the little beep. It’s Mr. Hogan, a teacher, and I manage to wave even though seeing him is just an unpleasant reminder that school starts in two weeks. In a way it’s hard to believe that the summer zoomed along so quickly. But then again (with my permanent sidekick), some days seem to go on endlessly. Percy raises his hand in a delayed wave, and since he’s finally calmer, I untie the shoelace that was knotted on his glasses.
“Ruby,” he says. He always uses my name. “Were you aware of the fact that seventy per cent of the Earth’s surface is covered by water?”
“That sure sounds like a lot.”
“It’s true. It is a well-established calculation,” he says, although I don’t doubt him. Percy reads all the time and has an amazing memory.
“So your bottles could have a long, long way to travel, right?” Even two and a half years into Project Bottle Launch I know talking about it makes him happy.
We’re passing in front of our next-door neighbour’s house and Percy’s cheeks are still wet. I see my father back by our shed, sharpening the lawnmower blades. My father hates it when Percy cries for what he calls “no good reason.” It bothers him more and more as Percy gets older. I can tell that my father does his best to tolerate it for days, even weeks at a time, by leaving the room for a smoke or a beer when Percy starts in. But then Percy will wail right in the middle of Bonanza and my father won’t be able to hear Hoss talking, and he will have to yell — have to — “Jesus Christ, Percy!” because he had waited a whole week to find out what would happen.
“The bodies of water comprising that total are not all connected,” Percy says, wiping his cheek with the back of his hand.
My father looks up.
“Still,” I say. “That sounds like a lot more water to float away on than land to get caught up in.”
