Free The Bird Artist by Howard Norman Page B

mother to set aside hostility and cantankerous opinion, if only for the sake of his own self-respect. I know that. And I apologize. And I should have done so long before now. But toward Margaret I can’t change. I simply cannot.”
    â€œWell, I haven’t proposed marriage yet.”
    â€œHas marriage come up?”
    â€œEnoch brought it up.”
    â€œHe’s a good man.”
    â€œKnowing Margaret, she’d do the proposing anyway, not the other way around. She’d ask, and if she didn’t like the way I said yes or no, or the look on my face, she’d take the proposal right back.”
    â€œBasic fact number two. Orkney is willing to pay for the wedding, as far as he’s able to contribute. The bride’s father has certain obligations, but Orkney has stubborn pride in this event, and he wants to let the Hollys know he’s no
pauper. He’s arranged a trip to Anticosti Island for feather birds. He says it could be lucrative. He’s got buyers already alerted. Lambert Charibon will be in on it. He always has hunted on Anticosti with Lambert. They’d go early next summer. We had in mind that all of us would go down to Halifax for the wedding. Perhaps next October. The Hollys know Halifax quite well. They love the idea of the wedding taking place there. In one letter, Klara called Halifax ‘romantic,’ and I got the distinct feeling she used the word from experience. Now, Enoch Handle would have to take us on the mail boat. That may prove awkward, what with him being Margaret’s father, I mean. But it would be a fact of life. He might well not speak to us along the way, but my bet is he’d take us nonetheless.”
    â€œHalifax is pretty much the same as the moon to me. I’ve never been either place.”
    She reached into the pocket of her robe.
    â€œHere,” she said, holding out a piece of blue stationery, folded once over. Opening it, she let loose a piece of string with an O shape at the end. I picked it up.
    â€œIt’s Cora Holly’s ring size,” she said. “Romeo Gillette’s got a catalogue of rings. I’ve notified him of our interest.”
    â€œRomeo let in on our family business on purpose. Now, that’s a new one.”
    â€œFabian,” she said, holding her hand over mine. “The first few times we seriously talked about this marriage were bound to be awkward. But you wait and see, we’ll get better at it.”
    â€œHow would I support a wife?”

    â€œThe Hollys have family money, enough to hold you until you get started.”
    â€œYou’re describing our married life as if it’s already in motion.”
    â€œThere, you see how natural it sounds?”

4
    B otho and A laric

    E arly on July 2, 1911, my father left with Lambert Charibon for Anticosti Island. Shortly after supper on the same day, my mother took up with Botho August.
    All winter the Aunt Ivy Barnacle had been in dry dock. With Enoch home, Margaret and I used the spare room adjacent to the Spiveys’ kitchen. Bridget and Lemuel refused our offer of payment. Given that the restaurant was open until nine o’clock, we would stretch our meal and talk until the Spiveys went upstairs. Then we would go into our room, set our shoes at the end of the bed like tourists. Tourists in our own village. Sometimes we would have breakfast with Lemuel, who would be up working at 5 a.m. He would move kettles around and wake us.
    November, December, January, February, March, April, May. No letters from Isaac Sprague. No letters from the Hollys, either, but my mother spoke of Cora every day.

    The morning my father left, my mother prepared porridge, poached eggs, scones, and coffee. I went out to look at my father’s travel weather. To the north-northeast, sunrise had streaked the flat clouds with crabapple light; south along the coast, black rain clouds seemed to leaven in the updrafts. The wind carried the smell of