The Moons of Jupiter - Alice Munro [109]
“I think it was.”
“Is it a white one or a purple?”
“I can’t say.”
That was the difference between him and Wilfred, she thought.
Wilfred would have said. Whether he remembered or not, he would have said, and then believed himself. Brothers and sisters were a mystery to her. There were Grace and Vera, speaking like two mouths out of the same head, and Wilfred and Albert without a thread of connection between them.
THEY ATE LUNCH in a café down the road. It wasn’t licensed, or Mildred would have ordered beer, never mind how she shocked Grace and Vera or how Wilfred glared at her. She was hot enough. Albert’s face was a bright pink and his eyes had a fierce, concentrating look. Wilfred looked cantankerous.
“It used to be a lot bigger swamp,” Albert said. “They’ve drained it.” “That’s so people can get in and walk and see different things,” said Mildred. She still had the red and green and yellow pamphlets in her hand, and she smoothed them out and looked at them.
“Squawks, calls, screeches, and cries echo throughout this bush,” she read. “Do you recognize any of them? Most are made by birds.” What else would they be made by? she wondered.
“A man went into the Hullett Swamp and remained there,” Albert said.
Wilfred made a mess of his ketchup and gravy, then dipped his french fries into it with his fingers.
“For how long?” he said.
“Forever.”
“You going to eat them?” said Wilfred, indicating Mildred’s french fries.
“Forever?” said Mildred, dividing them and sliding half onto Wilfred’s plate. “Did you know him, Albert?”
“No. It was too long ago.”
“Did you know his name?”
“Lloyd Sallows.”
“Who?” said Wilfred.
“Lloyd Sallows,” said Albert. “He worked on a farm.”
“I never heard of him,” Wilfred said.
“How do you mean, he went into the swamp?” said Mildred. “They found his clothes on the railway tracks and that’s what they said, he went into the swamp.”
“Why would he go in there without his clothes on?”
Albert thought for a few minutes and said, “He could have wanted to go wild.”
“Did he leave his shoes, too?”
“I would think so.”
“He might have committed suicide,” Mildred said briskly. “Did they look for a body?”
“They did look.”
“Or might have been murdered. Did he have any enemies? Was he in trouble? Maybe he was in debt or in trouble about a girl.”
“No,” said Albert.
“So they never found a trace of him?”
“No.”
“Was there any suspicious sort of person around at the time?” “No.”
“Well, there must be some explanation,” said Mildred. “A person, if they’re not dead, they go on living somewhere.”
Albert forked the hamburger patty out of his bun onto his plate, where he proceeded to cut it up into little pieces. He had not yet eaten anything.
“He was thought to be living in the swamp.”
“They should’ve looked in the swamp, then,” Wilfred said. “They went in at both ends and said they’d meet in the middle but they didn’t.”
“Why not?” said Mildred.
“You can’t just walk your way through that swamp. You couldn’t then.”
“So they thought he was in there?” Wilfred persisted. “Is that what they thought?”
“Most did,” said Albert, rather grudgingly. Wilfred snorted. “What was he living on?”
Albert put down his knife and fork and said somberly, “Flesh.” All of a sudden, after being so hot, Mildred’s arms came out in goose bumps.
“Did anybody ever see him?” she asked, in a more subdued and thoughtful voice than before.
“Two said so.”
“Who were they?”
“One was a lady that when I knew her, she was in her fifties. She had been a little girl at the time. She saw him when she was sent back to get the cows. She saw a long white person running behind the trees.”
“Near enough that she could tell if it was a boy or a girl?” said Wilfred.
Albert took the question seriously.
“I don’t know how near.”
“That was one person,” Mildred said. “Who was the other?”
“It was a boy fishing. This was years later. He looked up and saw a white fellow watching him from the other bank. He thought he’d seen a ghost.”
“Is that all?