Michael slipped upstairs, but the door to her room was locked. He tapped on the door and calledto her softly. She didn’t answer. He pressed his ear to the door and heard nothing.
The next morning she wasn’t at the breakfast table. He watched his father put a bowl of porridge and a glass of milk on a tray and take it upstairs. He listened, and when his father was at the top of the stairs, he followed, and so he saw him take a key out of his pocket and unlock Susan’s door.
In town, there was silence bled into by whispered talk. Connie heard the rumour in the schoolyard that Parley Burns did something to Susan Graves on the cloakroom floor, and didn’t believe it.
“Michael? I haven’t seen Susan for a couple of days.”
He looked away. “She has the mumps.”
A sultry wind blew day after day. It chafed the air and made it pinkish, coarse. From her classroom window, Connie could see the house across the road and sometimes she thought she saw Susan standing in an upstairs window. Something half-buried came back, a memory of Parley Burns fairly smacking his lips on the word
deflowered
when speaking about Tess. Yet he behaved as if nothing had happened. He seemed no different.
She asked Michael a second time how Susan was and he snapped at her. “How am I supposed to know?”
He stopped coming for extra help.
On Thursday of this long, strange week, after school was over she walked across the road to the big white house and knocked on the side door, the kitchen door. ProbablyMr. Graves had seen her coming. Anyway, it was he who answered the door and he did not invite her in. She knew his reputation for being taciturn and headstrong, one of those over-decisive men who acts hastily, closing off options and possibilities, and then guards the bit of manly ground he has backed himself onto. The children took after their mother.
She said she had come to inquire after Susan.
“You’re her teacher, are you?”
It was just an aggressive way of saying no to her. He knew who her teacher was.
“I’m concerned about her. She’s missing quite a bit of school.”
“No reason to be concerned. She’s well enough.” The door was being closed. “Good night,” he said.
The next day Mary came back to school, puffier about the face, but otherwise the same: wispy eyes, soft skin, short brown hair. She resumed her teaching duties and at recess she told Connie that Susan had been spreading lies.
The story had flaked out, like skin off an old man’s pate, drifting through town: how the Kowalchuk girl had seen Susan stumble out of the school, seen her blazing, sobbing face and roughed-up dress - and so had Mrs. Peter. How there were marks on her arms where he had laid the pointer across them to prevent a struggle. How her father was so ashamed that he had locked her in her bedroom and would not let her out. How he was selling the house and business and moving the family away.
“Something happened,” Connie said to Mary. “He did something awful.”
“You don’t understand him. You don’t like him and you don’t understand him.”
“Then explain him to me, Mary.”
“I think he’s a lonely man.”
She had a loyal face. And her eyes weren’t colourless after all: they were hazel.
“A lonely man,” she went on, “with dreams and lots of bottled-up emotions. Maybe they got the better of him. But he wouldn’t mean to hurt her.”
“What about the bruises?” The rumoured bruises.
“As I say, his emotions might have got the better of him. But he’s a good man.”
“He likes to use the strap. He likes to use it on girls,” Connie said.
At the end of school that day, Friday, she went to her classroom windows and once again she thought she saw shape and movement in the upstairs window across the way. She stood there for a few minutes, pondering.
Then she went out into the hallway and climbed the stairs, up past the landing with the two sets of bookshelves and down the hall to Parley’s office.
The
The next morning she wasn’t at the breakfast table. He watched his father put a bowl of porridge and a glass of milk on a tray and take it upstairs. He listened, and when his father was at the top of the stairs, he followed, and so he saw him take a key out of his pocket and unlock Susan’s door.
In town, there was silence bled into by whispered talk. Connie heard the rumour in the schoolyard that Parley Burns did something to Susan Graves on the cloakroom floor, and didn’t believe it.
“Michael? I haven’t seen Susan for a couple of days.”
He looked away. “She has the mumps.”
A sultry wind blew day after day. It chafed the air and made it pinkish, coarse. From her classroom window, Connie could see the house across the road and sometimes she thought she saw Susan standing in an upstairs window. Something half-buried came back, a memory of Parley Burns fairly smacking his lips on the word
deflowered
when speaking about Tess. Yet he behaved as if nothing had happened. He seemed no different.
She asked Michael a second time how Susan was and he snapped at her. “How am I supposed to know?”
He stopped coming for extra help.
On Thursday of this long, strange week, after school was over she walked across the road to the big white house and knocked on the side door, the kitchen door. ProbablyMr. Graves had seen her coming. Anyway, it was he who answered the door and he did not invite her in. She knew his reputation for being taciturn and headstrong, one of those over-decisive men who acts hastily, closing off options and possibilities, and then guards the bit of manly ground he has backed himself onto. The children took after their mother.
She said she had come to inquire after Susan.
“You’re her teacher, are you?”
It was just an aggressive way of saying no to her. He knew who her teacher was.
“I’m concerned about her. She’s missing quite a bit of school.”
“No reason to be concerned. She’s well enough.” The door was being closed. “Good night,” he said.
The next day Mary came back to school, puffier about the face, but otherwise the same: wispy eyes, soft skin, short brown hair. She resumed her teaching duties and at recess she told Connie that Susan had been spreading lies.
The story had flaked out, like skin off an old man’s pate, drifting through town: how the Kowalchuk girl had seen Susan stumble out of the school, seen her blazing, sobbing face and roughed-up dress - and so had Mrs. Peter. How there were marks on her arms where he had laid the pointer across them to prevent a struggle. How her father was so ashamed that he had locked her in her bedroom and would not let her out. How he was selling the house and business and moving the family away.
“Something happened,” Connie said to Mary. “He did something awful.”
“You don’t understand him. You don’t like him and you don’t understand him.”
“Then explain him to me, Mary.”
“I think he’s a lonely man.”
She had a loyal face. And her eyes weren’t colourless after all: they were hazel.
“A lonely man,” she went on, “with dreams and lots of bottled-up emotions. Maybe they got the better of him. But he wouldn’t mean to hurt her.”
“What about the bruises?” The rumoured bruises.
“As I say, his emotions might have got the better of him. But he’s a good man.”
“He likes to use the strap. He likes to use it on girls,” Connie said.
At the end of school that day, Friday, she went to her classroom windows and once again she thought she saw shape and movement in the upstairs window across the way. She stood there for a few minutes, pondering.
Then she went out into the hallway and climbed the stairs, up past the landing with the two sets of bookshelves and down the hall to Parley’s office.
The
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