The Double Hook By Sheila Watson

Edited with Introduction and Notes By Alicia Fahey

A Thesis Submitted to the Committee on Graduate Studies in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Master of Arts in the Faculty of Arts and Science

TRENT UNIVERSITY

Peterborough, Ontario

© Copyright (Introduction and Notes) by Alicia Fahey, 2011

English (Public Texts) M.A. Graduate Program

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1+1 Canada Abstract

The Double Hook By Sheila Watson Edited with Introduction and Notes By

Alicia Fahey

Sheila Watson's The Double Hook was first published in 1959. The novel grew out of her first novel, Deep Hollow Creek, which was not published until 1992. Deep Hollow

Creek is based on Watson's autobiographical experience of living and teaching in the

Cariboo region of British Columbia during the 1930s. The Double Hook adopts many characteristics similar to Deep Hollow Creek, such as setting, characters and themes; however, while Deep Hollow Creek is a more literal and mimetic depiction of Watson's experiences, The Double Hook is characterized by Watson's use of symbolism and abstraction. Despite the acclaim that The Double Hook has generated, it has never been published as a critical edition. This thesis is the first critical edition of The Double Hook.

It provides a fully annotated text of the play, alongside a selection of appended material that establishes a socio-historical and cultural context for the novel. The appended material includes a timeline of Watson and her time, a critical introduction that identifies the collaborative and evolutionary nature of the text, and four appendices that provide textual notes, reviews of The Double Hook, an interview with Watson and excerpts from unpublished letters that elaborate on the publishing history of the novel.

Keywords: Sheila Watson, double hook, social text, regionalism, First Nations, New Canadian Library, Canadian literature, modernism, postmodernism

i Preface

In recent years, Sheila Watson's The Double Hook has been slowly disappearing from university course syllabuses and reading lists. Despite this decline, the novel has never been out of print since its first appearance in 1959. It is my hope that a critical edition will generate a resurgence of interest in the novel in university classrooms and for a general readership. The Double Hook is significant for historical reasons and it is an established part of the canon of Canadian literature. The Double Hook has assumed a pivotal role in Canadian literary history because it occupies both modern and postmodern literary spaces. Not only have the themes of the story remained relevant in a Twenty-first

Century context, but through The Double Hook, Sheila Watson has influenced an array of contemporary Canadian writers who explicitly profess their indebtedness to this novel.1

The Double Hook is an important novel of its time, but it has also remained important through the years. In 1985, George Bowering declared: "The most important book to be published [in Canada] since World War II is The Double Hook, an anti-realist recit published in 1959, and kept in print since that time. The innovative fiction writers and poets across the country constantly refer to that text in their writing and conversation" {Craft Slices 54). One of the reasons that The Double Hook is considered innovative and important is because it challenges the traditions of Canadian writing.

Unlike much Canadian writing before 1950, in which authors struggled to establish

Canada's independence from Britain and the United states, it is not a self-consciously

"regional text." Writing about the Canadian landscape allowed Canadian authors to assert

1 Canadian authors who have acknowledged that their work was influenced by The Double Hook and Sheila Watson include: Robert Rroestch, Michael Ondaatje, and b.p. nichol (see p. 13), Jane Urquhart in her afterword to Deep Hollow Creek, and George Bowering (see p. v).

ii their nation's geographical and cultural otherness and to establish Canada as a sovereign

nation.

Regionalism in Canadian fiction has a long history, starting with early narratives

such as Susanna Moodie's autobiographical Roughing it in the Bush (1852) and Sara

Jeannette Duncan's The Imperialist (1904), both of which are set in Ontario. Even

though Duncan's novel is set in the fictional town of Elgin, Ontario, the description of

landscape is clearly a mimetic representation of small town Ontario during the early

1900s. Similarly, the early twentieth-century bestsellers of Ralph Connor (Charles

Gordon) are situated in the Canadian west, and Stephen Leacock's Sunshine Sketches of a

Little Town (1912) uses local colour to describe the small communities north of the urban

centres in southern Ontario. Later works include Emily Carr's Klee Wyck (1941), located

in British Columbia, W.O. Mitchell's Who has seen the Wind (1947) and Sinclair Ross's

As for Me and My House (1957), both set on the prairies, and Ernest Buckler's The

Mountain and the Valley (1952), set in Nova Scotia's Annapolis Valley.

In many ways, The Double Hook challenged traditional expectations by refusing

to subscribe to the prescribed formulas of the regional narrative. This is not to say that

other mid-twentieth century Canadian authors were not also resisting this practice.

Elizabeth Smart in By Grand Central Station I Sat Down and Wept (1945) and A.M.

Klein in The Second Scroll (1951) both resist the regional narrative in favour of the poetic

style and experimental structures of modernism. Although The Double Hookhas a

regional setting,2 like these novels, it rejects the realism associated with the regional narrative.

2 Watson denies that The Double Hook is a regional novel. See Appendix C, p. 186 for details.

iii As a result of Watson's modernist style, The Double Hook has an exceptionally

complicated production and reception history. In the appendices, I have provided a

variety of paratextual information that illuminates these historical complications.

Because of length limitations, I have had to be selective in which material to include in

the appendices and which material to omit. Despite the necessity of the selection process,

the appendices provide insight to important aspects of The Double Hook that might

otherwise be overlooked or difficult to obtain. The appendices provide readers an

opportunity to examine excerpts from the manuscript versions of the novel, to read a

selection of critical reviews on both The Double Hook and Deep Hollow Creek, to gain

insight to Watson's authorial intention via an interview conducted with Bruce Meyer and

John O'Riordan, and to read about the production history of the novel through several

unpublished letters. There is also an extensive bibliography that directs readers to

sources for further reading.

The variety of the material included in this edition reminds me of John Moss's

comment that "The Double Hook invites interpretation but resists definition"("The

Double Hook and The Channel Shore" 126). A definitive edition cannot exist. Readers will find merits in different elements of each edition, depending on their reading practices

and preferences. In this edition, I offer an interpretation of The Double Hook that focuses

on the novel as a process, as a fluid text, and as a collaborative work - a social text.

From the social text perspective, The Double Hook will never exist in a finite state. It will continue to grow with new readership and new interpretations of the text. This edition lays the groundwork for present day readers to participate in the evolution of The

Double Hook.

iv Contents

Preface ii

Acknowledgements vi

List of Abbreviations vii

Introduction 1

Sheila Watson and her Time: a Brief Chronology 29

A Note on the Text 34

The Double Hook 37

Appendix A: Textual Notes 168

Appendix B: Reviews of The Double Hook 173

Appendix C: An Interview with Sheila Watson 177

Appendix D: Correspondence regarding The Double Hook 184

Select Bibliography 192

v Acknowledgements

There are many people that I would like to thank for their assistance in the preparation of this edition. Many thanks to Editing Modernism in Canada (EMiC) for the generous stipend that enabled me to undertake the work that was necessary to complete this edition. I am also grateful for the support of Professor Dean Irvine of Dalhousie

University, who inspired me to take on the project in the first place. This project would also not have been possible without my supervisor, Leonard Conolly, for his help in the preparation of this edition, for his patience, and for his many years of editing experience that significantly contributed to the final state of this project. In addition, thanks to my co-supervisor, Elizabeth Popham, who provided helpful feedback and support. Thanks also to Margaret Steffier and Suzanne Bailey for their willingness to take on more work at such a busy time of year; their assistance is greatly appreciated. I would also like to thank the promptness and expertise of staff from the Kelly Library at St. Michael's

College at the University of Toronto, which houses the Sheila Watson fonds, especially the help of Kate van Dusen and Gabrielle Earnshaw. Also, thanks to Raymond Frogner, director of the archives at the University of Alberta, who helped me to locate and obtain archival material from the Wilfred Watson fonds.

vi Abbreviations

D.H. The Double Hook

D.H. C. Deep Hollow Creek

NCL New Canadian Library Series

MI Manuscript One (Unpublished Typescript)

Mil Manuscript Two (Unpublished Typescript)

Mill Manuscript Three (Unpublished Typescript)

vii viii Introduction

There is a story I know. It's about the earth and how it floats in space on the back of a turtle. I've heard this story many times, and each time someone tells the story, it changes. Sometimes the change is simply in the voice of the storyteller. Sometimes the change is in the details. Sometimes in the order of events. Other times it's the dialogue or the response of the audience. But in all the tellings of all the tellers, the world never leaves the turtle's back. And the turtle never swims away.. .The truth about stories is that that's all we are (King, "The Truth About Stories" 1-2).

Thomas King begins his essay "The Truth about Stories" with a rendition of a First

Nations creation story. As he explains in the above quotation, the foundation of the story remains the same throughout many tellings, but the story itself is in a constant state of flux. These fluctuations are a result of the various ways in which each of the storytellers interprets the story.

Stories rely on beginnings. The beginning lets us know what kind of story we are about to encounter. The beginning lets us know where we are headed. Sheila Watson's

The Double Hook is a story about beginnings. It can be read as a retelling of the

Christian redemption narrative, in which the birth of Lenchen's child represents the birth of Christ, and that birth provides salvation and yet another beginning. The name of the town of Nineveh, where The Double Hook takes place, also alludes to a beginning. It refers to the biblical town of Nineveh, which is first mentioned in the Bible in the book of

Genesis and figures prominently in the book of Jonah where it is part of another story of

1 creation and redemption. The people of Nineveh resist acceptance of God's word and are punished. God sends Jonah to preach to the people; they repent and God spares them.

If we start at the beginning of the book of Genesis, "in the beginning" there was darkness. Darkness is also a ubiquitous presence in The Double Hook. However, with the darkness, comes light. For Watson, darkness and light are not diametrically opposed; they exist in a symbiotic relationship. Symbiosis is also evident in her retelling of the story alluded to in a metaphor from the Book of Job: "Canst thou draw out leviathan with an hook?" (41:1). Humanity in its pride struggles against God, and, in the words of

Watson's epigraph, catching "the glory" is contingent on catching the "fear." This is the essence of the double hook. Thus, while The Double Hook is a story of destruction and failure, it is also a story of creation and redemption. The story changes when Watson assumes the voice of storyteller. She changes the details. She changes the order. And she changes the dialogue. The biblical archetypes she incorporates resist the binary relationships of their original contexts, and Watson appropriates elements from First

Nations narratives, as well as Greek mythology into the pattern of the Judaeo-Christian narratives which structure the novel. Her story is neither Catholic, nor Native, nor mythological; it is a conflation of stories from all these traditions.

Although the beginning is an essential point of reference, it is not definitive - there are several locations from which we can begin to approach The Double Hook. And so, when Fred Flahiff began his afterword to the 1989 edition of The Double Hook with the seemingly axiomatic question, "When and where does a book begin?," he followed up with the apparently obvious answer, "On its first page, of course, with each reader and each new reading; with its recovery - or its discovery: here and everywhere, now and

2 always" {D.H 119). Flahiff and King are in agreement that the beginning is a site of regeneration. Flahiff s answer, however, overlooks an important point: the first page of what? The first page of the first edition? The epigraph? The first page of the text of the novel? The first page of the introduction? Where is the beginning? This is an important question, especially for a novel as complicated in its production, reception, and dissemination as The Double Hook.

I. The Genesis of The Double Hook

I would argue that the beginning of The Double Hook is not the first word of the story and it is not the first word of the epigraph. The beginning is not even in the three extant manuscript versions of the text, or, as Flahiff suggests, in its first publication on 16

May 1959. Nor is it, as Dean Irvine suggests, the publisher's note by Jack McClelland in the 1959 edition of the novel ("James's SkirtJShirt" 2010). The Double Hook exists in a regenerative state: it is constantly re-producing itself. None of these proposed beginnings are incorrect; but none is definitive either because, in addition to all of these proposed beginnings, one previous beginning of The Double Hook has been overlooked: Watson's first novel, Deep Hollow Creek. Watson wrote Deep Hollow Creek in the 1930s based on her experience of teaching in the Cariboo region of British Columbia during the

Depression. Although Deep Hollow Creek was not published until 1992, it signals a beginning of the ideology, setting, and characters of The Double Hook.

Central to both novels is the depiction of human relationships and human interactions in an isolated environment. In Deep Hollow Creek, the protagonist, Stella, must establish her role in the community that inhabits the small town in the British

3 Columbia interior where she goes to teach. In The Double Hook, the characters within a similar community must develop relationships based on reciprocity and compassion. In both novels, the cows, the fool-hens, the horses, the smell of sage, and the dust from the bone-dry earth become key metaphors; however, in The Double Hook, the landscape is much more symbolically charged and actually refracts the personalities of the various characters. Thus, the physical landscape is the medium through which readers gain insight into the characters.

Landscape and character are inextricably linked and the dryness of Nineveh parallels the symbolic drought of meaningful human relationships amongst the characters in the novel. For example, a reference to Mrs. Potter, whose spirit haunts the landscape, is immediately followed by the description of a thistle plant: "...while the old lady fished, while the thistle thrust [Felix's] potato plants aside and the potatoes baked in shallow soil" {D.H. 51). Not only do the two phrases echo each other stylistically, but the thistle plant - known for wrapping its deep roots around surrounding plants and suffocating them - parallels how the old lady's presence results in feelings of suffocation, displacement, and distress for the other characters in the novel.

Although the relationship between character and landscape is integral to both novels, Deep Hollow Creek reveals this connection in mostly literal ways, whereas the connection in The Double Hook is mostly symbolic. The interconnection of character and landscape in The Double Hook is most effectively illustrated in the description of

Greta's housecoat. The housecoat itself symbolizes Greta's attempt to usurp her mother's position as matriarch of the Potter home. Repeatedly throughout the novel, Greta is described as wearing the flowered garment while sitting in her mother's chair. The

4 housecoat seems to come alive with natural and organic elements: "Yet Greta stood

almost full in the doorway like a tangle of wild flowers grown up between them. All

green and gold and purple in the lamplight. Honey-tongued. Bursting from their green

stems. Crowding against green leaves. Her face above. Fierce. Sharp" {D.H 98-99).

Kip later comments on Greta's inhospitality by referring to the housecoat: "Oh-ho, Kip

said. Just the same old Greta. The same old Greta inside some plants and bushes" {D.H

100). The housecoat becomes a metonym for Greta herself: like the array of uncultivated

flowers and leaves that chaotically decorate the housecoat, Greta is unable to control the

wildness inside of her. This is a force so strong that it cannot be contained. Instead, it

becomes physically evident and culminates in the climactic moment where the flowers on

Greta's housecoat become physical manifestations of her wild despair: "Plucking the

flowers on her housecoat and bruising them. Stripping off the leaves until her branch lay

naked as a bone on the dusty floor"'{D.H 122). This description precedes the eventual

discarding and destruction of the housecoat, and the destruction of Greta herself. At this point in the novel, Greta has resigned any notions of hope or salvation. Through natural

imagery, Watson has been able to describe Greta's descent poignantly.

The importance of the natural environment in both Deep Hollow Creek and The

Double Hook can also be identified by the relationship between humans and animals. In

Deep Hollow Creek, the characters rely on their animals for labour, transportation, food,

and income. Stella also relies on Juno, her dog, for companionship. Watson draws on the

literal images of her experiences in the Cariboo that she documents in Deep Hollow

Creek and reinvents them in The Double Hook so that the natural world is both literally

and figuratively mirrored in the lives of the characters that inhabit it. Thus, there is a

5 tendency for the characters to adopt the traits of particular animals. Heinrich observes that "Lenchen was part of any animal she rode. Moved with its movement as if she and the horse breathed with the same lungs" {D.H 119). Similarly, Theophil's lethargic behaviour resembles the languid behaviour of a dog: "He lay loose there like a dog on a rumpled sack" {D.H 114). Felix describes Angel as having cat-like characteristics: "He saw her for a moment as a small cat, trying to step her way through the puddles of the world. Fighting the dogs. Mousing for her young" {D.H 116). And Theophil accuses

Felix of "bellowing like a sick cow" {D.H 116). Most importantly, there is Coyote, who is both an animal who occupies the physical landscape and a physically and metaphysically omnipresent trickster deity. As Leslie Monkman points out, "[Coyote's] presence does not rest at the level of an unseen divinity; indeed, the whole landscape is presented as embodying his immediacy" ("Coyote as Trickster" 64).

In an interview with Bruce Meyer and Brian O'Riordan, Sheila Watson discusses the ways in which The Double Hook grew out of Deep Hollow Creek:

Before I wrote The Double Hook, I had written a novel in which I hadn't solved certain technical problems, and the images in that novel came out of the experience I had in the Cariboo.. .1 sent [Deep Hollow Creek] to Macmillan and it came back. I was glad that it came back because I realized that there was something wrong with it and felt that somehow or other I had to get the authorial voice out of the novel for it to say what I wanted it to say. I didn't want a voice talking about something. I wanted voices. {In Their Words 158: Appendix C, p. 184)

Thus, Watson's objective was essentially to begin to rewrite Deep Hollow Creek by getting rid of the character of the narrator, Stella. Although the narration of The Double

6 Hook seems to be polyvocal, the negation of a central narrator was a gradual accomplishment. In the three manuscript versions of The Double Hook, the character of

Ara is much more central. The manuscripts are punctuated by her internal dialogue and many of the interactions and actions of the other characters are described from Ara's point of view. Watson eventually managed to decentralize Ara's character by omitting several of her observations and thoughts. However, even in the published texts of the two novels there are many parallels between the characters Ara and Stella. Both women are strong and independent; they are, in a way, mediators of the community. Stella, for the most part, is able to placate the difficult Rose, whose pride impedes her ability to form amicable relationships with other members of the community. Stella is also able to avoid confrontation with the dramatic Mamie, whose predisposition to high society is well beyond her husband's means and elicits criticism from the rest of the community. Stella also befriends Myrtle, who lives an isolated existence with her husband in a shack in the mountains. Ara also plays an intermediary role: she comforts Heinrich and listens empathetically to his troubles, she attempts to stop Greta from her self-destructive actions, she defends Lenchen from Greta's accusatory remarks, and she recognizes and respects Kip's latent supernatural abilities. Ara is also the first character in the novel whose internal thoughts are revealed to the reader. As a result, the reader identifies with

Ara before any other character. Finally, the ending of the novel is written from Ara's perspective so that the narrative is framed by her commentary. Thus, despite the elimination of many of Ara's narrations, there are still traces of evidence that Ara's character evolved from Stella.

7 Other characters in The Double Hook also seem to be influenced by the characters of Deep Hollow Creek. For example, the arduous Rose, with her self-imposed isolation and devotion to misery bears strong resemblance to the self-destructive and possessive

Greta. In Deep Hollow Creek, Rose describes a time when her husband, Sam Flower, took her on a romantic day-trip to Green Lake: "I asked Sam, she said, to take me there too. I asked him, she said, and he did. But then, she said - looking at Stella steadily - but then he had to go and take me when the leaves was off the trees" {D.H.C 13). Rose's determination to turn even the simplest gesture into an act of neglect and disappointment is analogous to Greta's tendency to impose a negative point of view on even the most mundane details: "There was no use telling Greta. Greta wouldn't listen. She could hear

Greta's voice rattling like the rattle of dry cowhide: All these years we've never had a wipe-up linoleum. But I like boards better. You know when the floor's splintering away.

You know when the rats have gnawed at it" {D.H 64). Even Greta's attempt to say something positive relies on using negative evidence to reinforce her argument.

Furthermore, both Rose and Greta are defined by domestic symbols. Early in

Deep Hollow Creek, Stella notes that Rose's cold, grey, sour bread is a "peculiar emblem

- the emblem of a failure which Rose's sister-in-law Mamie Flower let no one forget"

{D.H.C. 5). Likewise, Greta is frequently associated with the stove; the centre of the domestic household that is symbolic of nurture and sustenance but has the potential for danger and destruction. The novel begins with Greta performing a domestic duty, "at the stove, turning hotcakes" {D.H 46), but the stove is also the instrument of Greta's demise, when she uses it to start a fire and burn down the house. Like many of the symbols in

8 The Double Hook, the stove invokes a double meaning: in this case, survival and destruction.

There are other minor, but still significant parallels between the characters of

Deep Hollow Creek and The Double Hook. The Widow Wagner's fixation on suffering, indicated by her constant invocation, "Dear God," is rooted in the same convictions of Pa

Flower: "No woman's got a right to have feelings, he said. There is a word every woman should write in her prayer book on the very front page and that word is endurance. It's a suffering world, he said, for everyone, and a woman must take her share" {D.H.C. 23). In both novels, the older generation has a common existential belief that the purpose of life is to endure pain and suffering.

In both novels, there is also an underlying concern with the suppression of the

Native community. The presence of Native persons is much more conspicuous in Deep

Hollow Creek, but Nicholas Farish's interactions with the Shuswaps link him to Kip, who is characterized in The Double Hook as Coyote's servant {D.H 67) and distinguished by his ability to see the world in ways that the other characters cannot. He is constantly looking at things that other characters cannot see: "What the hell are you doing? said the boy. Looking, said Kip" {D.H 56). This ability to "see" is symbolically reinforced by

Kip's blinding, where he assumes the role of prophet, analogous to Sophocles's Tiresias from the Oedipus trilogy. Moreover, in all three manuscript versions of the text, Kip's affinity with the Native community is much more explicit than in the published novel:

"The country was Coyote's. He had opened the ground here, Kip said, to let men creep out into the day.. .Pure blooded, Ara thought. Angel too" {Mil 8). Watson later explained

9 that her decision to minimize the Native presence in the novel was the result of her attempt to avoid writing an "ethnic" novel:

I was concerned, too, in another sort of way I suppose, with the problem of an indigenous population which had lost or was losing its own mythic structure, which had had its images destroyed, its myths interpreted for it by various missionary societies and later by anthropologists .. .All these voices echo in The Double Hook. I didn't want it to be an ethnic novel - not a novel about Indians or any other deprived group, but rather a novel about a number of people who had no ability to communicate because they had found little to replace the myths and rituals which might have bound them together. (Meyers and O'Riordan 159: Appendix C, p. 185)

Watson's attempt to resist the constraints of genre resulted in a novel that bears many resemblances to her first novel, but instead of concrete description and characterization,

The Double Hook relies on abstraction and inference.

While there are many parallels between Deep Hollow Creek and The Double

Hook, both novels are products of their times. The Depression is a prevalent concern of

Deep Hollow Creek and is the root cause of Stella's decision to move to the Cariboo region. It also establishes the setting of the novel and the themes of endurance and modest living. In The Double Hook, written in the 1940s and 50s, sparseness and modesty are more abstractly represented in the language and stylistic elements of the text: most notably, in the fragmented sentence structure, the whiteness of the page, and the limited background context of the characterizations and setting. Watson attempts to move The Double Hook into a universal paradigm, whereas Deep Hollow Creek, although

10 not published until 1992, is a product of the 1930s. I would argue that The Double Hook is a creative extension of Deep Hollow Creek. The Double Hook would not have been written if Watson had not first undergone the process of writing Deep Hollow Creek. As a result, Deep Hollow Creek is essential reading material for a full appreciation of The

Double Hook. As previously mentioned, the beginning lets us know what kind of story we have encountered and where we, as readers, are headed. To truly start at the beginning of The Double Hook, one must first read Deep Hollow Creek.

2. Modernism versus Postmodernism

It is the universal appeal of The Double Hook - its ability to evolve and adapt to the changing cultural landscape - that makes it such an important novel. The underlying themes of familial and romantic relationships, tradition, redemption, apocalypse, and regeneration continue to be relevant. Moreover, the abstract qualities of the landscape, which point to the Cariboo region but are not contained by it, are relevant both in a

Canadian and international context. The novel has even been translated into Swedish

{Dubbelkroken, 1963), French {Sous L 'oeil de coyote, 1976), and Italian {H doppio amo,

1992).

The style of the novel also adapts to various generic contexts. The Double Hook has been read as a Western or anti-Western (McPherson 23), a prose-poem (Child 31,

Theall 35, Monkman 63, Marta 149), a symbolic-grotesque (Northey 55), an Elizabethan play (Corbett 115), a regional or ethnic novel (Grube 5,1966), and a Jungian identity quest (Godard 159). Some argue that Watson was "the one who made modern Canadian writing possible" (Scobie 6), and many have argued that The Double Hook is the first

11 modern Canadian novel. The novel definitely possesses modernist qualities and aesthetics. The characters are involved in a pursuit of meaning and purpose, which could logically be explained as a reaction to the loss of tradition in a world that was rapidly becoming industrialized and secularized. This can be seen in the ineffectiveness of the

Widow's repeated phrase, "Dear God." The obliqueness of religion is echoed in Felix's fragmented reiterations of the mass. Loss of meaning in the more quotidian elements of life can be seen in Ara's barrenness, James's meaningless interactions with the townsfolk, and Greta's desperate possessiveness of her brother James, which is both a reaction to having been deprived of a romantic relationship and symptomatic of the feelings of isolation imposed by the modem condition.

This search for meaning in a world that seems devoid of purpose is a prevalent theme in other Canadian novels that were published in 1959. Hugh MacLennan's The

Watch that Ends the Night emphasizes the widening generation gap between the older, religious generation and the younger, secular generation. Similarly, in Mordecai

Richler's The Apprenticeship ofDuddy Kravitz, Duddy Kravitz's desire for capital gain and ownership of land can be read as symptoms of the materialistic and commodified industrial world and as reified symbols of self-validation. Watson's style is also reminiscent of techniques used in many American modernist texts, such as the allegory in

Ernest Hemingway's The Old Man and the Sea (1952), the imagery and sparseness of

T.S.Eliot's The Waste Land (1922), and the narrative technique and plotline of William

Faulkner's As I Lay Dying (1930) where each chapter or section is written from the perspective of a different character.

12 And yet, as the literary climate shifted into the postmodern era, The Double Hook

was able to shift along with it. Whereas the modern reaction to a world devoid of

meaning seemed to warrant a search for a common connection among humanity, the postmodern condition preferred to embrace plurality and difference. The Double Hook

easily accommodates these postmodern tendencies: plurality is embraced in Watson's use

of symbols that refuse to adhere to a singular meaning, and difference is emphasized by

Watson's rewriting of traditional narratives. Literary critics such as Nathalie Cooke,

Christian Riegel, and Glen Wilmott have identified The Double Hook as a postmodern

text and Watson's writing has influenced many Canadian postmodern writers. For

example, Watson's limited use of punctuation in The Double Hook can be seen in

bpNichol's more obvious abandonment of conventional punctuation in his concrete poetry. The figurative language, poetic style, and combination of autobiography and

fiction in Michael Ondaatje's Running in the Family (1982) also resemble Watson's practice in The Double Hook. Robert Kroetsch's novels, such as But We Are Exiles

(1965) and The Studhorse Man (1969), use myth and literary allusion, as well as symbols that contain multiple meanings and interpretations, all elements that characterize The

Double Hook.

Even the materiality and bibliographic codes of the novel represent both modern and postmodern tendencies. Dean Irvine has discussed the modern aesthetic of the original 1959 cover page, which was designed by Frank Newfeld. Irvine identifies

Newfeld's attendance "to the modern tendency to abstraction that shapes [the] novel's form and style" ("James's Skirt]Shirt" 3):

13 srrtt \

tb.e Double Hook

"^%^t ''tl'v *^£;.T

Front cover for the 1959 edition of The Double Hook

Newfeld accomplished this abstraction by using an enlarged photograph of a double hook and by zooming in so closely that all of the imperfections of the hook became apparent.

He then superimposed this image on a magnified "cross-section of a tibia bone" (Watson,

"What I'm Going to Do" 14). The abstract qualities of the image complement the modern qualities of the text: the reader is able to infer meaning, but it is not explicitly offered.

In contrast, later editions of the novel use postmodern aesthetics to market the text. The most recent 2008 edition of the novel features a realistic photographic image of a parrot, which is superimposed on a background of vertical magenta stripes:

14 SH&lLA WATSON'

p. t. m«

Front cover for the 2008 edition of The Double Hook

The use of colour misrepresents the novel. Magenta does not adequately reflect the natural landscape that is so important to The Double Hook. It is a flashy use of colour to attract the eye and, hopefully, potentially buyers - the focus here is capital, not art. The juxtaposition of realist and abstract design functions to displace the parrot from his natural environment, much like he is displaced from his natural environment in the novel, where he resides in a bar in Nineveh. The emphasis on displacement and fragmentation is symptomatic of the postmodern condition.

The use of the parrot to represent the novel is interesting as the parrot plays a minor, but symbolically clear role in the narrative but his symbolic purpose is clear.

Firstly, his repeated but unanswered utterances emphasize the lack of communication in the novel, which is conveyed in the Widow's repetition of a half-formed prayer,

William's proverbial speech (Godard 166), and the repeated use of the word "nothing," which has echoes of the existential crisis endured by the characters in Beckett's Waiting

15 for Godot (1954) and Lear's bitter words: "Nothing will come of nothing" (I.i.92). This

lack of communication is worse in the town where people only talk to each other for the

self-serving purposes of making a transaction or eliciting information for personal

entertainment and gossip.

In addition, the parrot is evidence of Watson's tendency to impose

interchangeable characteristics on the animals and humans of the story: "Buy the parrot

some beer, [James] said. It's little enough he must have to live for. One parrot in this

whole bloody universe of men. He doesn't seem to care, Paddy said.. .He gets his way

because he's unique. Men don't often have their own way. It's not many have the rights

of a dumb beast and a speaking man at the same time" {D.H 141). Paddy subverts

James's conception of the parrot: James sees isolation as a burden, whereas the parrot

uses it to his advantage. This postmodern tendency to favour individualism is reinforced

by the use of text on the 2008 title page.

On the cover of the first edition, the image dominates the page. The title is

located in a peripheral position at the top of the page in medium sized black font.

Watson's name is written in smaller, red text, which is superimposed on a pale

background. As a result, it is inconspicuous because it blends into the background,

implying that Watson's name is the least important element on the page. One could

argue that Watson's name is de-emphasized because she had not yet established herself as

a canonical writer; and therefore, her name would not have much importance on the cover page in terms of marketing and advertising. However, the secondary position of all textual material on the front cover reflects Watson's sparse use of text within the novel - juxtaposed with the whiteness of the page - a visual element that is not maintained in

16 later editions of the novel. The first edition of The Double Hook emphasizes the visual:

reading the novel is a multisensory experience.

In contrast, the 2008 edition of the novel is dominated by text (see p. 22). The

cover page bears Sheila Watson's name in large, capital letters and the title of the novel takes up most of the page. Interestingly, none of the letters are capitalized in the title,

echoing the experimental style and rejection of conventional punctuation common in postmodern texts. Again, it is reasonable that Watson's name is given precedence in the marketing of this edition because by this point she had accrued considerable cultural capital; however, the decision is also evidence of the individualistic tendencies of the postmodern condition.

The text of the novel has also evolved over time. This evolution can be read as a transition from a modernist novel to a postmodernist novel. As I have argued, the genesis of The Double Hook lies in Deep Hollow Creek, which through three manuscripts has evolved into four published editions. Even the four published editions (1959,1966,1989,

2008) have typographical variations. (For a complete overview of these variations, see

Appendix A, p. 175.) Some of these variations are discrepancies in punctuation: the presence or absence of a comma, or a period exchanged for a colon. Other variations are more substantive and change the meaning of the text. These changes in meaning can be read as evidence of an evolution of the text from modem to postmodern, rather than as unimportant typographical errors.

For example, in the 1959 edition of The Double Hook, William says to Ara,

"Beasts aren't much different from men" {D.H. 70). However, in the 1989 edition,

William says to Ara, "Beasts aren't much different from me" {D.H 66). Since the 1959

17 edition corresponds with the three manuscript versions, it would be fair to dismiss the latter statement as a typographical error. However, these statements do warrant reflection. Both make sense syntactically, and as products of their historical and cultural circumstance. The 1959 edition uses the word "men." In a modern context, this statement reflects the crisis of discontinuity instigated by a newly secularized and industrialized world. The quest for meaning in a world of chaos is reflected in William's epistemological statement. He is signalling a return to the primitive: man as beast is reminiscent of Darwin's revolutionary text On the Origin of Species (1859) and also relates to Paddy's parrot, who occupies a liminal space between beast and man. The statement, "beasts aren't much different from men" reflects modernist ideas of identity and unity, and a search for common traits in the human race amidst a culture of disruption and lost tradition.

In contrast, the postmodern condition rejects ideas of objective truth and favours principles of plurality and difference. Thirty years after the first edition was published, the statement appears in the 1989 edition as "beasts aren't much different from me."

William's declaration signals a return to the individual; it is an introspective exploration of an inner state of consciousness. William is abandoning the hope of establishing order amidst the chaos; instead, he embraces fragmentation and the individual and his statement becomes ontological. It is highly unlikely that the printer would have consciously made these changes in the text. Although these variations are the result of a typographical error in the 1989 edition, they are significant nonetheless. The variance draws attention to The

Double Hook as a pluralistic entity that seems to maintain its contemporary relevance by reinventing itself in the context of its particular socio-historical circumstance. Thus,

18 while The Double Hook remains an important novel of its time, it is also an important novel of today.

3. Collaboration and Evolution

In order for us to fully appreciate the richness and complexity of The Double

Hook, it is essential to acknowledge the fluidity and collaboration of its creation. Texts are not static entities but fluid objects that exist in multiple forms and are subject to change over time. These states vary from the multiple manuscript versions of a text to the multiple published editions - each contributing to the evolution and multiplicity of that text. In addition, all books are collaborative products socially generated by the collective efforts of publishers, printers, marketers, typographers, designers, binders, and editors, as well as authors. This notion of collaboration displaces the author as the singular creative agent responsible for the creation of a text.

Although collaboration and fluidity are universal conditions of texts, the circumstances in which The Double Hook was created are especially multifarious. My earlier discussion of the evolution of The Double Hook from its genesis in the 1930s novel Deep Hollow Creek to the three manuscript versions of The Double Hook to the four published editions should illustrate the fluid nature of this particular novel. (For a more detailed description of the journals and manuscripts, see Appendix A, p. 175.) Not only does it exist in many forms, but both its meaning and materiality continue to change over time.

The collaborative process by which The Double Hook was produced is equally important. One of the reasons that The Double Hook underwent so many changes prior to

19 publication is that many publishers were reluctant to publish the manuscript. Rupert-Hart

Davis of London rejected the manuscript on the premise that it had "too many characters and themes, all insufficiently explored, too much motion and dust" (24 August 1954,

Sheila Watson Fonds: Appendix D, p. 192). Kildare Dobbs, of Macmillan in Canada, also rejected the manuscript. Dudley H. Cloud of Atlantic Monthly magazine wrote, "If you add to a difficult story in an unusual setting a seemingly self-conscious and experimental style, you limit your readers beyond the point where the book is a commercial venture for any publisher" (4 May 1955, Sheila Watson Fonds: Appendix D, p. 197). Chatto and Windus wrote, "About its literary merits, opinion is rather divided: I myself admired some of the writing and literary intuition behind it, but I found it difficult to get clear in my mind the characters and their responses to one another and their situation. Commercially, I am afraid, the book would stand no chance in the British market" (11 November 1955, Sheila Watson Fonds: Appendix D, p. 198). The fact that the novel did not adhere to the conventions of Canadian literature during the mid-late

1950s meant that publishers didn't know how to market it, especially when Canadian literature was itself considered a new field of literary production.

Watson turned to Frederick Salter, an English professor at the University of

Alberta, to help her overcome the resistance of the publishers. In a letter to Watson, dated 17 December 1954, Salter explains that he was going to start a "campaign" to advocate for the publication of The Double Hook. The campaign involved writing an explanatory letter promoting the novel, some of which was published in the foreword to the 1959 edition. The letter included the following statement:

20 In this novel, then, we must not look for the who, where, when and what of a newspaper report. What is presented is life itself, and we must fit the pieces together for ourselves. Often enough in the past, the novel has been called a means of vicarious living; but it obviously cannot be living of any sort if it comes to us neatly packaged and requiring no activity of heart or mind. The Double Hook really is vicarious living, since we must concentrate upon it and read with our senses alert. (Sheila Watson Fonds)

Salter's focus was on the "difficulty" of the style in which the novel was written. Since this appeared to be the main obstacle for many of the publishers, Salter attempted to explain the stylistic elements of the text as a challenge for the reader, rather than an impediment. In contrast to the criticisms of the publishers who had rejected the manuscript, Salter claimed that Watson's unusual approach to writing was evidence of her literary and artistic merit rather than her inability to write for a particular audience.

Salter also wrote Watson a lengthy letter outlining several suggestions for textual revisions. (For more detailed excerpts of the letter, see Appendix D, p. 192-195.) He began the letter by explaining, "You will notice that I have inserted some punctuation throughout your book and altered some spellings" (17 December 1954, Sheila Watson

Fonds: Appendix D, p. 192). He then proceeded to offer three pages of substantive revisions. Watson accepted many of these suggestions: others, she declined. For example, Salter proposed that Watson give titles to each of the chapters to "help the reader." Watson decided not to follow up on this suggestion. She did, however, accept

Salter's request that she change the ending. The original ending of the story was:

21 Ara was sitting at the foot of Felix's bed. The girl lay quite still, her yellow hair matted with sweat. From the next room came the sound of the Widow's voice and the sound of Angel's hand upon the stove. Suddenly the girl sat up. The door's opening, she said. I see James in his plaid shirt. He's lifting the baby in his two hands. {MI, Mil, Sheila Watson Fonds)

But Salter wrote, "The ending of the book does not satisfy me. I suppose it could be justified as a happy ending, the baby being the promise of a future" (17 December 1954,

Sheila Watson Fonds: Appendix D, pp. 192-195). However, he wanted Watson to

append some material to the ending that included another one of Coyote's short

monologues, mention of the darkness and light, glory and fear, and, of course, the double

hook. His final sentence was another Latin reiteration of the mass, spoken by Felix.

Watson did agree to make this change in the ending, and thus, the published novel

finishes with the appendage:

The door's opening, she said. I see James in his plaid shirt. He's lifting the baby in his two hands. Ara stood up. The girl wasn't speaking to her any longer; she was speaking to James. His name is Felix, she said. Ara didn't want to look at James. She went to the window and leaned out across the bush to where the sparrow chattered. Above her the sky stretched like a tent pegged to broken rock. And from a cleft of the rock she heard the voice of Coyote crying down through the boulders: I have set his feet on soft ground; I have set his feet on the sloping shoulders of the world. {D.H 1959 p. 128)

22 Thus the evolution and fruition of The Double Hook were strongly influenced by Salter.

By reading the novel as a social text, one is able to recognize that it is not solely the construction of the author. But even with Salter's emendations, Watson still had to find a publisher.

Eventually, Jack McClelland of McClelland & Stewart decided to publish the manuscript. The Double Hook first appeared on 16 May 1959 as part of the New

Canadian Library Series (NCL). The NCL was, in itself, a new venture in the publishing world. Although paperback and library series date as far back as the late eighteenth century (Friskney 6) and "cheap paperbound books" proliferated in Canada and the

United States between 1875 and 1890 (Friskney 7), the NCL was the first publishing enterprise in English Canada to produce the "quality paperback" (Friskney 10). The

"quality paperback" differed from its mass-produced predecessor through more conservative covers, higher production values, distribution through regular booksellers and college bookstores, and a more limited market, which warranted smaller print runs

(Friskney 9). McClelland decided to use the new medium of quality paperback texts as a marketing strategy for the NCL editions, calling them an "experimental concept" (ii D.H.

1959). The general editor of McClelland & Stewart, Malcom Ross, first approached Jack

McClelland about the idea of the NCL series in 1952 (Friskney 29), with the original mandate to bring back books "which could be seen as reflecting Canadian life in the various regions of Canada during the different periods in which the development was going on from the earliest days to the present" (Friskney 14). Although the idea may have originated with Ross, the actualization of the NCL was "a collective enterprise, a sustained effort of an English-Canadian literary community comprising academics, book

23 reviewers, writers, journalists, and publishers ... This was a community, particularly through the 1950s and 1960s, who shared a common objective of legitimizing Canadian

literature as a field of study" (Friskney 15). The desire to establish a Canadian literary

canon was heightened by the end of WWII and a new-found sense of Canadian nationalism. These factors, along with the expansion of Canadian universities,

established the climate for a venture such as the NCL series.

Jack McClelland's prerogative was to create a series that produced only Canadian books (Friskney 29). Of secondary importance was that they be presented as uniform and affordable editions. The official launch of the NCL was on 17 January 1958. The four titles in this series were Morley Callaghan's Such is my Beloved, Frederick Phillip

Grove's Over Prairie Traills, Stephen Leacock's Literary Lapses, and Sinclair Ross's As for Me and My House (Friskney 41-42). McClelland and Ross were initially hesitant about The Double Hook's potential for success. In a letter to Jack McClelland, Ross wrote, "I can't see it reaching a large enough public to pay costs unless it can be made part of an interesting publishing venture. By this I mean the book might take its place in a series designedly experimental with sufficient build-up to attract the attention of an important segment of the reading public" (9 June 1958, McClelland & Stewart Fonds).

Thus, when McClelland decided to publish The Double Hook in 1959, he was using the

"experimental" paperback format of the NCL editions as a marketing strategy to promote the "experimental" style of The Double Hook.

Even once it was accepted for publication, the "difficulty" of the text was still something the publishers felt necessary to explain to their reading public. They addressed the issue in the 1959 edition with a publisher's note from Jack McClelland,

24 which stated, "It is a first novel, its form is challenging, and its style is fresh and

compelling." This was restated in John Grube's introduction to the 1966 edition, which

repeatedly mentioned the "difficulties" of the text: "Those readers, and there will be

many, who find the symbolic groundwork laid out at the beginning of The Double Hook

difficult to follow, might well keep in mind the outline of the story" {D.H 5). Grube

made the point again at the end of the introduction: "One must remember, too, that

because we have long been accustomed in the novel to the straight story-line, symbolism

in this art form may seem more difficult and obscure because unexpected ..." {D.H 14).

This paratextual material is integral to the transmission history of the novel. It situates the novel in a particular context and establishes the point of view for readers before they

even begin to read the first line of the story, (assuming they read the introduction before they read the novel). This material, however, is not peripheral. From a social text perspective, McClelland's note and Grube's introduction are integral to the meaning of the text and actually constitute a part of The Double Hook.

The same goes for the epigraph. Watson's journals provide evidence that she originally wanted to use a quotation from German theological writer, Jacob Behmen,1 but was overridden by the publisher. The excerpt was from Behmen's The High and Deep

Searching of the Threefold Life of Man (1620), which highlighted several binaries prevalent in The Double Hook, such as darkness and light, God and man, heaven and earth. The excerpt also discusses the interconnectedness of the universe, a prevalent theme in The Double Hook. (For the full text of this excerpt, see Appendix A, p. 179.)

Instead of using Behmen's quotation, however, the publishers decided to use a quotation from the novel: "He doesn't know you can't catch the glory on a hook and hold on to it.

3 There are several variations on the spelling of "Behmen." I have used Watson's version of the spelling.

25 That when you fish for the glory you catch the darkness too. That if you hook twice the glory you hook twice the fear."

This quotation from Kip is evidence of the collaborative history of The Double

Hook. In this case, the publisher played a creative role in the production of the text. This becomes especially evident when one considers the fact that the use of Kip's comment as epigraph foregrounds Kip's character in a way that Watson may never have intended. In addition, the quotation has become integral to the manifold interpretations of the novel and identifies its key symbols: multiplicity and duality. Further, it explains the function of the symbols that structure the novel: they are not dichotomies, their existence is dependant upon one another. Douglas Barbour has suggested that Watson was unaware of this substitution and that the publishers made the decision because Salter's Preface did not fill the number of pages that had been allotted for it. According to Barbour, "Ms

Watson never intended that any such statement be placed before the text of the story"

("Editors and Typesetters" 9). Dean Irvine, however, disputes this claim, using evidence from Flahiff s biography of Watson to assert that she was "well aware of the substitution"

("James's Skirt]Shirt" 4). Although Barbour was Watson's personal friend, it seems reasonable to assume that Watson did see the proofs of the novel before it was published.

The disagreement surrounding the epigraph further demonstrates the collaborative nature of the text. Regardless of whether or not Watson was involved in the editorial decision to use Kip's words as prefatory material, they have become an essential element of the text and a point of reference for the reader. From a social text perspective, the validity and importance of the epigraph can be acknowledged, even if it was not a result of authorial intention. The Double Hook came into being due to the efforts of publishers,

26 editors, printers, marketers, and designers. While this remains true for all texts, The

Double Hook is an especially interesting example of a social text, since the collaborators not only contributed to the production of the text, but also to the evolution and reception of the novel as it is read today. This can be further extended to the public reception of the novel. The Double Hook has generated a significant amount of literary discourse through essays and reviews. (For reviews of The Double Hook and Deep Hollow Creek see

Appendix B, p. 180.) The versatility of The Double Hook allows these multiple opinions and perspectives to co-exist and for the novel to continue to evolve over time.

4. Conclusion

I began this introduction by arguing that an important beginning of The Double

Hook is located in Watson's first novel, Deep Hollow Creek. Deep Hollow Creek ends with Stella's decision to depart the Cariboo community and move on to other things. The

Double Hook ends with James's return to the community. Deep Hollow Creek was written during a formative period in Watson's life; The Double Hook signals her maturation as a writer and her ability to sharpen and hone her craft. Both novels, however, end with the potential for a new beginning. Stella will embark on a new journey, and for Watson, that journey eventually leads to the writing of The Double

Hook. The Double Hook also ends with a beginning: the birth of Lenchen's child and

James's return to the community signal the establishment of new relationships and new affinities. His plan to build a new house is a symbolic rebuilding of the community itself; and the characters have learned to rely on instead of resist each other. Watson's two novels exist in a cyclical, dialectical relationship: The Double Hook begins with Deep

27 Hollow Creek, and Deep Hollow Creek is published after The Double Hook. And in the end, we are brought back to the beginning.

Thomas King asserts that "The truth about stories is that that's all we are" {Truth

About Stories 2). Stories, both fiction and non-fiction, have the ability to capture universal aspects of human existence and record them as anthropological evidence of our existence. According to Nathalie Cooke, "postmodernists not only tell a story, they also tell the story of how stories are told and understood" ("Literary Heritage" 27). There is a story I know. It takes place in the folds of the hills under Coyote's eye. There are many versions of this story and each storyteller tells it with different details and different voices. Each storyteller tells it in a different order. But it is a universal story. It is about human relationships. It is about redemption and regeneration. And in all the tellings of all the tellers, the characters never leave the sloping shoulders of the world. And the world remains a soft, amorphous ground that offers a new beginning with every reading.

28 Sheila Watson and her time: a Brief Chronology

Entries in bold type indicate significant national/global events that occurred during Watson's life. The purpose of highlighting these events is to establish a socio-historical context of Watson's lifetime.

1909 Sheila Martin Doherty born (24 October) in New Westminster, British Columbia, to Dr. Charles Edward Doherty and Elweena Martin. 1914 Canada declares war on Germany and Austria-Hungary (World War I). 1915 Last spike driven on the Canadian Northern Railway, Basque, B.C. 1917 Attends St. Ann's Academy, New Westminster, B.C. Women in British Columbia obtain the right to vote. 1918 Watson's father called back from war to become Director of Medical Services for British Columbia. World War I ends. 1919 Treaty of Versailles is signed. 1920 Dr. Charles Edward Doherty dies. First Nations Peoples obtain the right to vote in Canada. 1927 Graduates from St. Ann's Academy, completing the twelve year program in ten years. 1928-29 Attends Convent of the Sacred Heart in Vancouver, gaining the equivalency of her first two years of her undergraduate degree (then moves on to the University of British Columbia). 1929 Stock market crashes a.k.a. Black Thursday (24 October). 1931 Graduates in Honors English from University of British Columbia. Vancouver Art Gallery opens. 1932 Obtains her Academic Teaching Certificate. Canadian Radio Broadcasting Commission (CRBC - future CBC) established.

29 1933 Receives her M.A. in English from the University of British Columbia (thesis on Addison and Steele). 1934 First publication: a poem entitled, "The Barren Lands" published in The Canadian Forum (published under the mistranscribed name Theila Martin Doherty). 1934-36 Teaches at British Columbia public school in Dog Creek, Cariboo, which would later become the setting for her first novel, Deep Hollow Creek and inspiration for The Double Hook. 1936 Dog Creek School closes. 1966-40 Continues teaching public school at Langley Prairie High School in the Fraser Valley. Teaches English, German, and Agricultural Economics. 1938 "Rough Answer" published in Canadian Forum (publication accepted by literary editor Earle Birney, who, twenty years later, recommends against the publication of The Double Hook). Spends the summer in the United States taking a summer course at University of California, Berkeley. 1939 Spends the summer in the United States, visiting Massachusetts and New York. Canada declares war on Germany (World War II). 1940-41 Teaches at Duncan, Vancouver Island. 1941 Marries Wilfred Watson (29 December). Japanese attack Pearl Harbor. 1945 World War H ends. 1945-1949 Watsons move to Toronto. Teaches at Moulton Ladies College in Toronto. 1949 Newfoundland becomes the 10th province of Canada. North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) is signed. NATO marks new ties with the United States and distance from Great Britain. Also marks the beginning of the Cold War.

30 1950 Korean war begins. 1949-51 Watsons move to Vancouver as sessional lecturers at the University of British Columbia. Begins writing Landscape of the Moon, her unfinished and unpublished novel. 1951 Massey Report is published and has a profound effect on the development of the arts in Canada. 1951-52 Teaches at Powell River high school, British Columbia. Wilfred accepts a teaching contract with satellite college of the University of Alberta and moves to Calgary. 1952-54 Watsons move to Calgary. Watson writes the majority of The Double Hook during this period. 1953 Korean War ends. 1954 "Brother Oedipus" published in Queen's Quarterly. 1955-56 Watsons move to Paris. Makes final revisions to The Double Hook. 1956 "The Black Farm" published in Queen's Quarterly. 1956-61 Full time attendance at University of Toronto to work on PhD under supervision of Marshall McLuhan. 1957 Canadian Prime Minister Lester B. Pearson wins the Nobel Peace Prize. 1958 McClelland & Stewart publish the first four novels of the New Canadian Library Series. 1959 The Double Hook is published by McClelland & Stewart. "Antigone" published in The Tamarack Review. 1960 Canadian Bill of Rights is approved. 1961 Appointed to the Department of English at the University of Alberta. 1962 Marshall McLuhan publishes The Gutenberg Galaxy. 1963 The Double Hook translated into Swedish. 1964 Flag Act passes (act to establish a new national flag for Canada). 1965 Finishes her dissertation: Wyndham Lewis: Post Expressionist. 1967 Canada's Centennial.

31 1968 Takes a leave of absence from University of Alberta to spend a year working in Toronto with McLuhan at the Centre for Culture and Technology. 1970 Sheila and Wilfred become two of the founders of the literary magazine White Pelican along with other literary scholars: Douglas Barbour, Stephen Scobie, Norman Yates, John Orrell, Dorothy Livesay. October Crisis. 1972 Edmonton film company considers turning The Double Hook into a feature-length motion picture. 1975 Retires as a full Professor from the University of Alberta. "The Rumble Seat" published in Open Letter. Watson's uncollected prose writings published in a special number of the journal Open Letter entitled: Sheila Watson: A Collection. 1976 Wilfred retires and the Watsons move to Nanaimo, B.C. The Double Hook translated into French. 1979 Four Stories published. 1980 And the Four Animals published. Elweena Martin Doherty dies. Quebec Referendum - 60% vote against sovereignty for Quebec. Terry Fox begins his Marathon of Hope. Canada boycotts the Summer Olympics because of Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. 1982 Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms comes into effect. 1984 Awarded the Lome Pierce medal by the Royal Society of Canada. Five Stories published. Edits The Collected Poems of Miriam Mandel. 1985 The Canadian Encyclopedia is launched. 1988 Angela Bowering publishes Figures Cut in Sacred Ground, which celebrates The Double Hook. XV Olympic Winter Games open in Calgary. 1989 Canada-U.S. Free Trade goes into effect.

32 1992 Deep Hollow Creek published and shortlisted for the Governor General's prize; Michael Ondaatje's The English Patient wins the prize. 1998 Dies in Nanaimo, Vancouver Island (1 February).

33 A Note on the Text

This text follows the first edition of The Double Hook (1959) in all matters, including spelling and punctuation except for one typographical error, "James's plaid skirt' which was corrected in the later editions (1989, 2008) to "James plaid shirt".

Readers who seek a more detailed textual history should consult Appendix A: Textual

Notes, p. 175. I have chosen the 1959 edition as copy-text because it is the original edition of the novel and it is likely that Watson was more heavily involved in the production of this text than in subsequent versions. Although the 1966 edition varies aesthetically from the 1959 edition, the text of the narrative is identical to the 1959 edition. The 1989 edition contains several typographical errors [See Appendix A p. 175] which suggest that Watson's role in the production of this edition may have been limited.

Finally, Watson died in 1998, so she would not have contributed to the production of the

2008 edition. Furthermore, important elements of the text, such as the visual sparseness created by the careful arrangement of the words on the page and the truncated line lengths

(including hyphenation), have been lost in later editions, in which the print is much more condensed. I believe this visual element is a necessary complement to the narrative and have therefore opted to maintain an impression of sparseness in this edition. Certain inconsistencies in the typesetting of the edition have been regularized (e.g., Roman numeral I and II to Arabic 1 and 11 in headings, use of the tilde (~) in place of the n-dash

(-), and variations in spacing surrounding colons).

All books are social objects. They are produced by the collaborative efforts of authors, editors, publishers, marketers, designers, printers, etc. This edition of The

Double Hook is a social text. The decisions I have made as editor reflect interests in

34 theories that view the text as the product of a process of socialization. Although some kind of partiality on behalf of the editor is inevitable, it is the responsibility of the editor to make the reader aware of this subjectivity. In order to provide a social text of The

Double Hook, I have included textual annotations that function to elucidate meaning, identify allusions, and direct the reader to secondary material that discusses themes and stylistic elements of the novel in further detail.

There are also four appendices in this edition. Appendix A: Textual Notes contains excerpts from the three manuscript versions of the text that have been omitted from the published version. My intention here is to emphasize the evolution of the novel and to provide some relevant background material about the characters. The Textual

Notes also list variants in the published editions of the novel. Appendix B:

Contemporary Reviews provides excerpts from published reviews of both The Double

Hook and Deep Hollow Creek. Since I argue in my introduction that the composition of

Deep Hollow Creek signals the genesis of The Double Hook, I felt it necessary to include as well public reactions to this novel that was written earlier but published after The

Double Hook. The purpose of the reviews is to establish the reception history of both The

Double Hook and Deep Hollow Creek, which also offers insight into to the literary climate at the time they were published. In Appendix C: An Interview with Sheila

Watson I have included excerpts from an interview conducted by Bruce Meyer and Brian

O'Riordan {In Their Words 1984) to provide a context for authorial intention. Although theories of the social text focus on collaboration rather than the author's "creative genius," Watson's central role in the creation and production of The Double Hook is

1 See entries for Jerome McGann and D.F. McKenzie on pp. 201-202 of Bibliography for texts on social text theory.

35 indisputable. After all, the world of The Double Hook originated in Watson's autobiographical experience in the Cariboo region of British Columbia and awareness of

Watson's intention is therefore an essential element of a full appreciation of the text. The final appendix, Appendix D: Correspondence about The Double Hook, features excerpts from letters exchanged between Watson and her mentor Professor Frederick Salter of the

University of Alberta, as well as Watson and various publishing companies. The purpose here is to elaborate on the production history of the novel and to stress that the novel's publication was a complex process. This appendix also offers more information on the collaborative evolution of the novel, clarifying Watson's role in adapting the novel for her reading public and for marketing strategies. There is also a bibliography citing the works consulted in this edition, as well as further reading for those who would like to pursue their study of The Double Hook.

36 He doesn 't know you can't catch

the glory on a hook and hold on to it.

That when you fish for the glory

you catch the darkness too.

That if you hook

twice the glory

you hook twice the fear.

1 Book of Job 41:1-34: "Canst thou draw out leviathan with an hook?..." Leviathan is a biblical sea monster that has been read as a metaphor for mankind's resistance to God. This biblical passage is the basis of many of the recurring symbols in The Double Hook, including lamps, fire,water , fear, barbed wire, fish, and spears. (This citation, as well as all subsequent biblical references, are from the King James Bible). 21 have used the 1959 edition of The Double Hook as my copy-text for this edition. In the 1959 edition, each of the above lines appears on a separate page. According to Douglas Barbour, the epigraph was the result of an editorial decision by McClelland & Stewart (made without consulting Watson), because Frederick Salter's preface did not fill the number of pages that had been set aside for it. I have condensed the epigraph to one page but maintained the original formatting of line length. For more information on this topic, see Douglas Barbour, "Editors and Typesetters."

37 JjOne3

In the folds of the hills

under Coyote's4 eye

lived

the old lady, mother of William of James and of Greta

lived James5 and Greta lived William and Ara6 his wife lived the Widow Wagner the Widow's girl Lenchen the Widow's boy7 lived Felix Prosper8 and Angel lived Theophil9 and Kip

until one morning in July

3 The image of the double hook that appears at the beginning of every section has been taken from the 1959 edition of The Double Hook. The image also appears in the 1966 edition but does not appear in later editions. In the first edition, the section number is on a separate page. 4 Coyote is a common figure in indigenous mythology. His traits vary among cultures, but he is generally depicted as an amoral trickster figure. Leslie Monkman discusses this at length in his essay "Coyote as Trickster in The Double HoolC where he claims the Coyote of The Double Hook operates in opposition to the Old Testament Jehovah (64). 5 James is one of the twelve apostles of Jesus. The name James means "one seizing the heel," i.e. one who dispossesses and takes the place of another, especially by underhanded means. This is especially significant in reference to James usurping the role of the head of the house by killing bis mother. 6 In Greek mythology, Ara is the name of the altar of Lycaon. Lycaon sacrificed a child to Zeus. In The Double Hook, Ara is barren. 7 The name of the Widow's boy is Heinrich, a German name which translates to "Ruler of the Home." This is ironic since Heinrich is the youngest male character in the novel and, in this introductory dramatis personae, does not even warrant a proper name. 8 Felix Prosper may be an allusion to Shakespeare's character Prospero from The Tempest. In The Tempest, Prospero is a powerful and magical figure. At the end of the play, Prospero renounces magic and wishes to be freed from his exile on his island, but can only do so with the help of the audience, whose "good will" (indicated by applause) will "set [him] free." Felix also has special abilities, but they are only realized when he is forced out of his self-imposed seclusion and required to interact with other members of the community. 9 The name "Theophilus" is a Greek name that appears in the Bible (Luke 1:3 and Acts 1:1) and translates to "loved by God" or "friend of God."

38 Greta was at the stove. Turning hotcakes. Reaching for the coffee beans. Grinding away James's voice. James was at the top of the stairs. His hand half- raised. His voice in the rafters. James walking away. The old lady falling. There under the jaw of the roof. In the vault of the bed loft. Into the shadow of death.10 Pushed by James's will. By James's hand. By James's words: This is my day. You'll not fish today.

JJ2

Still the old lady fished. If the reeds had dried up and the banks folded and crumbled down she would have fished still. If God had come into the valley, come holding out the long finger of salvation, moaning in the darkness, thundering down the gap at the lake head, skimming across the water, drying up the blue signature like blotting-paper, asking where, asking why, defying an answer, she would have thrown her line against the rebuke;11 she would have caught a piece of mud and looked it over; she would have drawn a line with the barb when the fire of righteousness baked the bottom.

10 Psalm 23:4: "Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil: for thou art with me; thy rod and thy staff they comfort me." Isaiah 9:2: "The people that walked in darkness have seen a great light: they that dwell in the land of the shadow of death, upon them hath the light shined." 11 Imagery of apocalypse is a recurring motif in The Double Hook. In the Christian tradition, "The Apocalypse' refers in particular to the Book of Revelation, which is the last book of the Bible. Angels are a characteristic feature in biblical revelation; they act as messengers of God. Dawn Rae Downton's essay "Messages and Messengers in the Double Hook" examines the roles of Kip, William, and Heinrich as messengers in the text.

39 JJ3

Ara saw her fishing along the creek. Fishing shame­ lessly with bait. Fishing without a glance towards her daughter-in-law, who was hanging washing on the bushes near the rail fence. I might as well be dead for all of her, Ara said. Pass­ ing her own son's house and never offering a fry even today when he's off and gone with the post.12 The old lady fished on with a concentrated ferocity as if she were fishing for something she'd never found. Ara hung William's drawers on a rail. She had covered the bushes with towels. Then she looked out from under her shag of bangs at the old lady's back. It's not for fish she fishes, Ara thought. There's only three of them. They can't eat all the fish she'd catch. William would try to explain, but he couldn't. He only felt, but he always felt he knew. He could give half a dozen reasons for anything. When a woman on his route flagged him down with a coat and asked him to bring back a spool of thread from the town below, he'd explain that thread has a hundred uses. When it comes down to it, he'd say, there's no telling what thread is for.13 I knew a woman once, he'd say, who used it to sew up her man after he was

12 William's job as postman makes him the only character to leave the town of Nineveh on a regular basis. He is the connection to the outside world both physically and through the postal material he brings to the other members of the community. 13 Thread is being used here as a metaphor for Watson's use of language. Most of the symbols of the text take on multiple meanings; each image or object has more than one purpose. For example, the word "glory" has multiple meanings based on context. "Glory" can be a substitute for the sun, a piece of clothing, a person, or, when compared to a fish,ca n suggest a relationship with Christ. Barbara Godard discusses this in detail in her essay "Between One Cliche and Another: Language in The Double Hook."

40 throwed on a barbed-wire fence. Ara could hear the cow mumbling dry grass by the bushes. There was no other sound. The old lady was rounding the bend of the creek. She was throwing her line into a rock pool. She was fishing upstream to the source.14 That way she'd come to the bones of the hills and the flats between where the herd cows ranged. They'd turn their tails to her and stretch their hides tight. They'd turn their living flesh from her as she'd turned hers from others. The water was running low in the creek. Except in the pools, it would be hardly up to the ankle. Yet as she watched the old lady, Ara felt death leaking through from the centre of the earth. Death rising to the knee. Death rising to the loin. She raised her chin to unseat the thought. No such thing could happen. The water was drying away. It lay only in the deep pools.

Ara wasn't sure where water started. William wouldn't hesitate: It comes gurgling up from inside the hill over beyond the lake. There's water over and it falls down. There's water under and it rushes up. The trouble with water is it never rushes at the right time. The creeks dry up and the grass with them.15 There are men, he'd say, have seen their whole place fade like a cheap shirt. And there's no way a man can fold it up and

14 Arnold E. Davidson, in his book Coyote Country: Fictions of the Canadian West, speculates that Mrs. Potter could be fishing either as a means of evading Coyote or fishing in search of Coyote as a means of resolving the ambiguities of her life and death. 15 In her book Figures Cut in a Sacred Ground: Uluminati in The Double Hook, Angela Bowering discusses the inextricability of the characters from their landscape. The drought and barrenness of the landscape mirror the static and empty lives of the characters who inhabit the landscape.

41 bring it in out of the sun. You can save a cabbage plant or a tomato plant with tents of paper if you've got the paper, but there's no human being living can tent a field and pasture.

I've seen cows, he'd say, with lard running off them into the ground. The most unaccountable thing7he'd say, is the way the sun falls. I've seen a great cow, he'd say, throw no more shadow for its calf than a lean rabbit.

Ara looked over the fence. There was no one on the road. It lay white across the burnt grass. Coyote made the land his pastime. He stretched out his paw. He breathed on the grass. His spittle eyed it with prickly pear.16 Ara went into the house. She filled the basin at the pump in the kitchen and cooled her feet in the water. We've never had a pump in our house all the years

1 7 we've lived here, she'd heard Greta say. Someday, she'd say, you'll lift the handle and stand waiting till eternity. James brings water in barrels from the spring. The thing about a barrel is you take it where you take it. There's something fixed about a pump, fixed and uncertain.

Ara went to the door. She threw the water from the basin into the dust. She watched the water roll in balls on the ground. Roll and divide and spin. The old lady had disappeared. Ara put on a straw hat. She tied it with a bootlace

16 A type of cactus native to the Western Hemisphere. 17 Water is a symbol of life, purity, and prosperity. Greta refuses to live her life, and instead resolves to live resentfully in the shadow of her mother and brother. Greta's being deprived of water therefore symbolizes her inability to live her life.

42 under the chin. She wiped the top of the table with her apron which she threw behind a pile of papers in the corner. She went to the fence and leaned against the rails. If a man lost the road in the land round William Potter's, he couldn't find his way by keeping to the creek bottom for the creek flowed this way and that at the land's whim. The earth fell away in hills and clefts as if it had been dropped carelessly wrinkled on the bare floor of the world. Even God's eye could not spy out the men lost here already, Ara thought. He had looked mercifully on the people of Nineveh though they did not know their right hand and their left.19 But there were not enough people here to attract his attention.20 The cattle were scrub cattle.21 The men lay like sift in the cracks of the earth. Standing against the rails of the fence, she looked out over the yellow grass. The empty road leading from James's gate went on from William's past the streaked hills, past the Wagners', down over the culvert, past Felix Prosper's.

18 The creation of Nineveh is first mentioned in the Bible in Genesis 10:11. It is extensively described in Jonah as a town of wickedness where the inhabitants are forced to fast so that God will not bring destruction upon them. Nineveh later appears in Nahum 1:14-15: "And the Lord hath given a command concerning thee, that no more of thy name be sown..."; Zephaniah 2:13: "And He will stretch out his hand against the north, and destroy Assyria; and will make Nineveh a desolation, and dry like a wilderness" and both Matthew 12:41 and Luke 11:32 where it suffers judgement from God for ignoring Jonah's orders. 19Jonah 4:11: "And should I not spare Nineveh, that great city, wherein are more than sixscore thousand persons that cannot discern between their right hand and their left hand, and also as much cattle?" 20 It is strange that Ara should think that a town populated by more than a hundred and twenty thousand people should not warrant God's attention. This emphasizes the feeling of isolation experienced by the characters of the novel. 21 Scrub is dense vegetation consisting of trees or bushes; "scrub cattle" are therefore cattle that occupy this terrain. These cattle run wild and are not selectively bred. 22 Culvert: a sewer or drain passing under a road or embankment.

43 JJ4

Felix saw the old lady. She was fishing in his pool where the water lay brown on the black rocks, where the fish lay still under the fallen log. Fishing far from her own place. Throwing her line into his best pool. He thought: I'll chase her out. But he sat, tipped back in his rocking-chair, his belly bulging his bibbed overalls, while the old lady fished, while the thistles thrust his potato plants aside and the potatoes baked in the shallow soil.23 When at last he went down to the creek the old lady had gone. And he thought: Someday I'll put a catcher on the fence and catch her once and for all. Then he fished himself, letting his line fall from an old spool, his hook catch in the leaves. Fished with his chin rolled over the bib of his overalls, while his fiddle lay against the rocker and the potatoes baked in the vertical glory of the July sun. Fished and came from the creek. Pulled the fish out of his pocket. Slit them from tail to chin. Sloshed them in the hand basin. Dropped them into bacon fat until the edges browned. Cooked them to a curl while the dogs sniffed. Cooked them in peace alone with his dogs. Angel had gone. She had walked across the yard like a mink trailing her young behind her. She had climbed the high seat of Theophil's wagon. Now she lived with Theophil at the bend of the road near the old quarry.

23 Thistles are weeds that grow copiously and have a tendency to take over a garden. Their roots run very deep and wrap themselves around the surrounding plants. This image plays into the symboUsm of isolation and suffocation that runs throughout the novel. It also resonates in the actions of Old Mrs. Potter who, even in her death, is able to interfere with everyone's life and land.

44 He lifted the brown edge of the fish and took out the bones. The terrier sat under the shadow of his belly. The hounds stood, dewlaps 4 trembling, their paws shoved over the sill. Felix fed the terrier where it sat. The hounds waited, their lips wet, their eyes quick with longing. When Felix had finished, he rolled out of his chair and gathered up a pan of scraps from the trestle25 on which the buckets rested. The hounds backed away from the door, jostling shoulder to shoulder, tail bisecting tail. He gave them the scraps. If they walked out of his gate like Angel, he would not ask if they had hay to lie on. His own barn was often empty.

He went back to the table and gathered up the bones that lay around his plate. He stood with a fish spine in his hand. Flesh mountainous contemplating. Saint Felix with a death's head meditating. At last he threw the bones into the stove. The heat from the stove, the heat crept in from the day outside, anointed his face. Blest, he sat down again in the rocker, and the boards creaked and groaned as he fiddled.

24 Dewlap: a fold of loose skin hanging from the neck of certain animals. 25 Trestle: an old style of table consisting of two or three supports upon which a board is placed. 26 Felix is one of the most common names in Christian hagiology. The most likely parallel is Saint Felix of Cantalice, a child of peasant farmers, whose characteristic virtue was spiritual joy. This is connected to the term "Felix culpd' which literally translates to "the fortunate fall." In a literary context, Felix culpa describes how a series of miserable events can lead to a happier outcome. This is a prevalent theme in both the novel The Double Hook and, specifically, for Felix's character. 27 Felix is the only character in The Double Hook who practices "art" (through music). In a public address on The Double Hook, Watson stated: "And there was something I wanted to say: about how people are driven, how if they have no art.. .they are driven .. either towards violence or insensibility — if they have no mediating rituals which manifest themselves in what I call art forms. And so it was with this that the novel began" (What I'm Going to Do 15). Felix's art therefore allows him to possess redemptive and Christian qualities.

45 The old lady did not come back to disturb his peace. But somewhere below the house a coyote barked, and the hounds raised their heads, gathered their limbs and sprang into the brush. The terrier sat in Felix's shadow, its ear turned to the voice of Felix's fiddle. But the hounds heard Coyote's song fretting the gap between the red boulders:

In my mouth is the east wind. Those who cling to the rocks I will bring down I will set my paw on the eagle's nest.

The hounds came back, yellow forms in the yellow sunlight. Creeping round the barn. Flattening themselves to rest. Felix put down his fiddle and slept.

JJ5

The Widow's boy saw the old lady. The old lady from above is fishing down in our pool, he said, coming into the Widow's kitchen. I'm going down to scare her out. The Widow's eyes closed. Dear God, she said, what does she want? So old, so

28 It is important to note that Coyote, the mythological deity, is indicated by a capital "C." Coyote references with a lowercase "c" are to the animal coyote. 29 In the Bible, the east wind is a destructive force (see Exodus 10:13, Isaiah 27:8, Job 38:24, Genesis 41, Psalm 48:7, Jeremiah 18:17, Ezekiel 19:12 and 27:26). 30 "Dear God" is the phrase that is used repeatedly by the Widow as an indication of her one-dimensional personality.

46 wicked, fishing the fish of others. Slipping her line under our fence before my boy can get the fish on his hook. The Widow's daughter Lenchen sat behind the table. Her yellow hair pulled straight above her eyes like a ragged cap. Her hands in the pockets of her denim jeans. Her heavy heeled boots beating impatience into the boards of the floor. At the far end of the table the Widow was straining milk into shallow pans. The boy sat down and rested his elbows on the other end of the table. Where's she fishing? the girl asked. Down at the grass pool, the boy said. It's enough to turn a person mad, the girl said, to have an old woman sneaking up and down the creek day in and day out. I can't stand it any longer. It's just what I was telling Ma. I've got to get away, right away from here. It's time I learned something else, anyway. I've learned all there is to leam here. I know everything there is to know. I know even as much as you and James Potter. How do you know what James Potter knows? the boy asked. The Widow went on with her work. All you'd learn in town, she said, is men. And you'd be lucky if they didn't learn you first. The things they know would be the death of me for you to know. They'd teach you things it isn't easy to forget. She put the milk-pail down on the floor beside her, but she kept her eyelids folded over her eyes. It's easier to remember than to forget, she said.

31 The desire to maintain privacy and secrecy is a concern for many characters in the novel. This passage foreshadows Greta's future actions to maintain her privacy and autonomy.

47 There are things too real for a person to forget, the boy thought. There are things so real that a person has to see them. A person can't keep her eyes glazed over like a dead bird's forever. What will Ma do, the boy thought. You've got to take me, the girl said to the boy. Why don't you just go? he said. You've been out with the men on the beef drive, she said. You know what it's like down there. I've had enough of round this place, but I don't know where to go. Place is the word, said the boy. I only know a place where men drink beer, he said. A bunch of men and an old parrot.32 He got up and went to the window. I'm going down to put a fence right across the creek,33 he said, so James Potter's mother can't go up and down here anymore.

&s6

He went out of the kitchen into the sun. Outside the world floated like a mote in a straight shaft of glory. A horse coming round the corner of the barn shone copper against the hewn34 logs, Kip riding black on its reflected brightness. The boy raised his hand.

32 This passage is autobiographical. While teaching in the Cariboo district in British Columbia, Watson lived by a town that actually contained a tavern with a talking parrot. Watson claims that this is the only autobiographical element in the novel (see Appendix C: An Interview with Sheila Watson, p. 184). 33 There are several references to gates and fences throughout the novel, symbolizing the desire on behalf of the characters to keep out other members of the community and to maintain their private lives. 34 Hewn: shaped or cut with an axe, knife, or chisel. 35 Darkness and light are recurring symbols throughout the novel. Kip's character is an important manifestation of these symbols and simultaneously represents light and darkness.

48 Kip rode his horse forward to a stop. He rested his hands on the pommel36 of his saddle and shook his feet free of the wooden stirrups to ease his legs. There's nothing doing round here, said the boy, unless you've come to trade that bag of bones you're riding for another. Some day, Kip said. Some day. Where are you going? the boy asked. On the road, Kip said. Riding. Just riding. Just coming and going. Where's the girl? I don't know, said the boy. I got a message for her, Kip said. She's in the house, the boy said. Give her the mes­ sage yourself. I'm not having anything to do with that sort of thing, one way or another. He went over to the barn and picked up a roll of wire. Then he put it down and looked at Kip. Kip's face was turned towards the house. What in hell are you doing? said the boy. Looking, said Kip. Get out of here, the boy said. Wherever you are there's trouble. If a man is breaking a horse when you come round it hangs itself on the halter, or throws itself, or gets out and back on the range. Take your message back where it came from. A'right, said Kip. A'right. He shoved his feet into his stirrups and gathered up his lines. The girl don't need no telling, he said.

Pommel: the rounded, upward projecting front part of the saddle.

49 He bent down over the saddle. His face hung close to the boy's. When a stallion's broke down your fence, he said, there's nothing you can do except put the fence back up again. He swung his horse around away from the boy, but he kept his face turned over his shoulder. Wipe off that look, the boy said. Then he called after Kip: James Potter's mother is

^7 fishing in our creek. It's her I'm going to fence out.

JJ7

As Kip moved off, the boy noticed the light again. Caught in the hide of the beast which picked its way along, its eyes on the dust of the road. He stood thinking of the light he'd known. Of pitch fires lit on the hills. Of leaning out of the black wind into the light of a small flame. Stood thinking how a horse can stand in sunlight and know nothing but the saddle and the sting of sweat on hide and the salt line forming under the saddle's edge. Stood thinking of sweat and heat and the pain of living, the pain of fire in the middle of a haystack. Stood thinking of light burning free on the hills and flash-

TO ing like the glory against the hides of things. All along the fence the road had been cut by the wheels of William Potter's truck. Cut to plague the feet of 37 The characters in The Double Hook often fail to communicate with each other effectively. Frequent miscommunication/misunderstandings sometimes have serious consequences, and sometimes less severe ones, as is demonstrated in Kip's misunderstanding of Heinrich's reference to a fence. 38 Exodus 24:17: "And the sight of the glory of the Lord was tike devouring fire on top of the mount in the eyes of the children of Israel."

50 beasts. To plague the very wheels which cut it. The whole road cut when a day's wait would have let the mud bake flat. Cut anyway, William said, by the feet of the beasts themselves, moving singly or in herds, by the old moose, his face above man-level, and the herds moving, moving. The boy wrestled with the roll of wire, which curled in on itself seeking the bend into which it had been twisted. The sun beat down on him as it beat down on Kip's horse. I'm afraid, thought the boy, and even the light won't tell me what to do. He thought of the posts he would have to drive. He wondered: Is it Lenchen I'm afraid of. Or Ma. Or Kip. Is it the old lady fishing in the creek. Or is it seeing light the way I've never noticed before. He gathered up the wire and went down to the creek. He looked through the stems of the cottonwood trees, but the old lady had gone. The water caught the light and drew it into itself. Dragonflies floated over the surface as if the water had not been stirred since the beginning of time. But the grass by the pool was bent. I knew it was the old lady, the boy said. Shadows don't bend grass. I know a shadow from an old woman.

Above on the hills Coyote's voice rose among the rocks: In my mouth is forgetting In my darkness is rest.

51 (hs

From the kitchen window the Widow looked out to the hills. Dear God, she said, the country. Nothing but dust.39 Nothing but old women fishing. What can a person do? Wagner and me were cousins. I came, and what I could I brought. I've things for starting a girl. Things belonging in my family for years. Things laid by. The spoons. The sheets. The bedcover I crocheted with my own hands. The shame. A fat pig of a girl, Almighty Father. Who would want such a girl? I could tell you, the girl said. You can tell me nothing, the Widow said. Go. Go. I hear nothing. I see nothing.40 Men don't ask for what they've already taken. She went to the bottom of the stairs. You want to go, she said. Go. Don't keep asking. Go.

JJ9

Lenchen watched her mother walk away. She kept pulling the tongue of her belt until the belt bit into her flesh. James had not come as he promised. She had not

39 Ecclesiastes 3:20: "All go unto one place; all are of dust, and all turn to dust again." 40 The recurrence of the word "nothing" is reminiscent of Beckett's use of the word "nothing" in his play Waiting for Godot (1948). In both cases, the word "nothing" is related to the existential crisis of the characters who occupy a world that seems to be devoid of meaning and purpose. See also Job 8:9: "For we are of but yesterday, and know nothing, because our days upon earth are a shadow." This passage is also reminiscent of T.S. Eliot's poem "A Game of Chess" from The Waste Land (1922): "Nothing again nothing / Do / You know nothing? Do you see nothing? Do you remember / Nothing?" (lines 120-123).

52 seen him for days. Except from the crest41 of the hill. She had seen him below at work in the arms of the hills near his own house. Going from house to barn. Sometimes alone. Sometimes with Greta. She could not imagine the life he lived when the door closed behind him. She remembered him on his knees in the corral.42 Holding a heifer43 down. The sweat beading the hairs of his chest where his shirt divided. She smelt smoke, and flesh seared with the branding-iron. She saw him on his knees with a bull calf under him, the gelding knife44 bright in his hand. She heard his voice again: This is no place for her. And Heinrich's voice: She's been at it from a kid, like me. You've just not noticed before. She's been round here always, like the rest of us. She remembered James's face above his plaid shirt, and how she'd slipped down from the fence where she'd been sitting with Kip and had begun roping one of their own calves so that James could see what he'd noticed for the first time.

iLiO

If Lenchen had been looking down from the hill just then, she would have seen James saddling his horse. He was alone.

41 Crest: the highest part of a hill or mountain range; summit. 42 Corral: enclosure or pen for horses, cattle, etc. 43 Heifer: young cow over one year old that has not produced a calf. 44 Gelding knife: knife used to castrate a male animal.

53 Greta was in the kitchen talking to Angel Prosper. William had stopped his truck at TheophiPs that morning and asked Angel to go up the creek to give Greta a hand. She's getting played out doing for Ma, he said. She thinks nobody cares. When you go, tell her I stopped and asked. And on TheophiPs doorstep before the work was done he'd paid Angel her day's wages.

Greta was polishing a lamp globe. I've seen Ma standing with the lamp by the fence, she said. Holding it up in broad daylight.45 I've seen her standing looking for something even the birds couldn't see. Something hid from every living thing. I've seen her defy­ ing. I've seen her take her hat off in the sun at noon, baring her head and asking for the sun to strike her. Holding the lamp and looking where there's nothing to be found. Nothing but dust. No person's got a right to keep looking. To keep looking and blackening lamp globes for others to clean. Angel sat back on her heels. She had been moving, half squatting, to scrub the floor. The water from her brush made a pool on the boards. You mean you're not going to let her do it any more, Angel said. One person's got as much right as another. Maybe she don't ask you to clean those globes. There's things people want to see. There's things too, she said as she leant on the brush in the wall shadow below

45 This comment is an allusion to Diogenes, a Greek philosopher, who walked through the streets in the daytime carrying a lamp, claiming to be looking for an honest man. Diogenes beheved that humans had brought evil and corruption to nature and that in order to find true happiness, one must challenge social values and customs.

54 the window light, there's things get lost. For nothing I'd smash it, Greta said. A person could stand so much. A person could stand to see her fish if they had to depend on her doing it to eat. But I can tell you we've not eaten fish of hers in this house. Ask anybody what she did her with her fish. Ask them. Not me. I don't know anything. Why didn't you take your own lamp and go look­ ing for something? Angel said. You've never all your life burned anything but a little oil to finish doing in the house. What are you saying? Greta asked. You don't even know. You don't know a thing. You don't know what a person knows. You don't know what a person feels. You've burned and spilled enough oil to light up the whole country, she said. It's easy enough to see if you make a bonfire and walk around in the light of it.46 Angel scrubbed the last boards, and threw the water into the roots of the honeysuckle which grew over the porch.47 They need all the water they can get, Angel said.

Then she saw Ara passing by in the road. She saw her loosening the bootlace and taking off her hat to shove back her damp hair. She thought: William Potter got an ugly one. Then she shook the last drop out of the pan and went back into the house. Do you want me to clean up the stairs? she asked

46 Greta is criticizing Angel for her lifestyle; in particular, for her relationships with men and her decision to leave Felix for Theophil. In contrast, Greta has never attempted to establish a romantic relationship. In the manuscript version of the novel, it is implied that the relationship between Greta and James is incestuous (see Appendix A: Textual Notes pp. 177-178). 47 In William Faulkner's novel The Sound and the Fury (1929), the smell of honeysuckle is mentioned frequently and implies sexual activity. Also, in "Chevrefoil" by the medieval poet Marie de France, honeysuckle is a symbol of love. Themes of the poem include adulterous love and sexual frustration.

55 Greta. No, Greta said. I don't like people looking round. I won't have people walking up and down in my house.

11

Ara hadn't intended to come to her mother-in-law's. She had wanted to get away from the house. From the sound of the cow's breath in the dry grass. From the smell of empty buckets and dust heavy with sage. She had thought of going up the hill into the clump of jack pines to smell the smell of pine needles. She had walked up the hill, stopping now and then to knock off prickly pear which clung to her sneakers. But when she reached the shoulder, instead of turning away from the valley, she had cut down through the sand and dust and patches of scorched grass to the road which led to her mother-in-law's. If she had gone up to the old lookout she might have seen something to think about as William saw things when he was coming and going with the post. She might have seen a porcupine rattling over the rock on business which had nothing to do with her; or a grouse rising and knotting itself into a branch, settling fork-angled so that the tree seemed to put out a branch before her eyes. Roads went from this to that. But the hill led up to the pines and on to the rock rise which flattened out and fell off to nowhere on the other side. Yet she had cut down from the hill because she had to talk. She had to talk to some living person. She had to tell someone what she felt about the old lady and the water.

56 It couldn't rise, William would say. Not in summer. Why, the wonder is there's any water at all. I've known the creeks fall so low, he'd say, that the fish were gasping in the shallowness.48 The day will come, he'd say, when the land will swallow the last drop. The creek'll be dry as a parched mouth. The earth, he'd say, won't have enough spit left to smack its lips. It couldn't rise, William would say; but she'd felt it rise. There was no use telling Greta. Greta wouldn't listen. She could hear Greta's voice rattling like the rattle of dry cowhide: All these years we've never had a wipe-up linoleum. But I like boards better. You know when the floor's splintering away. You know when the rats have gnawed it. I don't like a linoleum. It's smooth like ice, but you can't tell when it's been eat away beneath. She would tell James, Ara thought. He could do what he liked. She'd be free of the thought.

There were more than sixscore thousand persons in Nineveh; but here were only herself and William Greta and James Lenchen the boy her brother the Widow Prosper, Angel and Theophil,

48 Isaiah 50:2: "Wherefore, when I came, was there no man? when I called, was there none to answer? Is my hand shortened at all, that it cannot redeem? or have I no power to deliver? behold, at my rebuke I dry up the sea, I make the rivers a wilderness: their fish stinketh, because there is no water, and dieth for thirst.'

57 the old lady, lost like Jonah perhaps49 in the cleft belly of the rock me water washing over her.

She didn't think of Kip at all until she saw him leaning over the pommel of his saddle talking to James. ihn

James was standing by the barn. Kip's hands rested on the pommel. His face was bent down over his horse's neck towards James.

James, William said, there was no accounting for. He had gamebird ways.50 He was like a gay cock on the outside in his plaid shirt and studded belt. Myself, William said, I never needed more than a razor-strop51 to hitch up my jeans. Yet inside, he said, there's something's cooked James's fibre. He's more than likely white and dry and crumbling like breast of pheasant. Ara heard Kip's voice. She's fishing down to Wagner's, he said. How're you going to go now? The boy Wagner's there too, he said. James's back was towards her. She saw him take a step forward. Kip pulled himself up and sat loosely against the cantle.

49 Jonah 1:17: "Now the Lord had prepared a great fish to swallow up Jonah. And Jonah was in the belly of the fish three days and three nights." 50 William is suggesting that James, like game animals, is not domesticated. 51 Razor Strop: a flexible strip of leather or canvas used to polish and sharpen the blade of a straight razor, a knife, or a woodworking tool like a chisel. 52 Cantle: the raised rear part of a saddle.

58 Ara had stopped at the corner of the barn. James's horse, saddled, waited on the lines. Ara saw it there. She felt the weight of nickel plate pulling its head to the earth.53 She untied the bootlace again and hat in hand went towards James as if she had just come. Didn't you hear the gate? she said. James started round.

Overhead the sky was tight as rawhide. About them the bars of the earth darkened. The flat ribs of the hills. Beyond James over the slant of the ground Ara saw the path down to the creek. The path worn deep by horses' feet. And higher up on the far side she saw the old lady, the branches wrapped like weeds above her head,54 dropping her line into the stream. She saw and motioned with her hand. Kip's eyes looked steadily before him. Your old lady's down to Wagners' he said to James. She's here, Ara said. James turned on his heel. But when he turned, he saw nothing but the water-hole and the creek and the tangle of branches which grew along it. Ara went down the path, stepping over the dried hoof-marks down to the creek's edge. She, too, saw nothing now except a dark ripple and the padded imprint of a coyote's foot at the far edge of the moving water. She looked up the creek. She saw the twisted feet of the cottonwoods shoved naked into the stone bottom

53 Ara is observing the horse's bit, which is a mouthpiece of a horse's bridle consisting of a metal piece that goes in the horse's mouth and adjacent parts that attach to the reins. 54 This image resembles the image of the mythological god Dionysus, who was usually depicted wearing a crown of ivy. Dionysus is the god of wine and the inspirer of madness and ecstasy. Old Lady Potter also has the ability to drive people to madness, as can later be seen with Greta.

59 where the water moved, and the matted branches of the stunted willow. She saw the shallow water plocking over the roots of the cottonwood, transfiguring bark and stone.55 She bent towards the water. Her fingers divided it. A stone breathed in her hand. Then life drained to its centre. And in a loud voice Coyote cried: Kip, my servant Kip.

Startled by the thunder, Ara dropped the stone into the water. James was staring down the road. The hills were touched with light, but darkness had begun to close in.56 She's going to break, James said. There's nothing else for it. You'd better go in, Ara. Greta'11 make you wel­ come until it's over. He spoke for the first time. Kip's face was turned to the sky. To the light stam- peded together and bawling before the massed darkness. The white bulls of the sky shoulder to shoulder. He had risen in his stirrups until the leathers were pulled taut. His hand reaching to pull down the glory. Ara looked up too. For a minute she saw the light.

55 In both Mark 9:1-3 and Matthew 17:1-3, God takes three of his apostles onto the mountain and is transfigured before them, turning into a bright light that shone like the sun. The people of Nineveh, however, have a detached relationship with God and therefore, all that is transfigured in The Double Hook is bark and stone. 56 Job 3:5: "Let darkness and the shadow of death stain it; let a cloud dwell upon it; let the blackness of the day terrify it." 57 (In reference to Nineveh) Nahum 1:3: "The Lord is slow to anger, and great in power, and will not at all acquit the wicked; the Lord hath his way in the whirlwind and the storm, and the clouds are the dust of his feet."

60 Then only the raw skin of the sky drawn over them like a sack.58 Then the rain swung into the mouth of the valley like a web. Strand added to strand. The sky, Ara thought, filled with adder tongues.59 With lariats.60 With bull-whips.61

She reached the porch before the first lash hit the far side of the house. She looked back at Kip and at James. James had taken shelter in the doorway of the barn. Kip's knees had relaxed. He was sitting in the saddle.

Greta and Angel had been drinking tea at the table by the kitchen window. There were two cups on the table and a teapot. But Greta was standing by the stove when the door opened. Standing with her fingers on the lid of the metal water tank so that she looked across the stove at Ara. The ram drove you in to see us, she said. Sit down. Make yourself at home. Angel said nothing. She sat tracing the grain of the scrubbed table top with her nail. I was walking across the hill, Ara said, and I dropped in to ask after Ma. I thought I saw her this morn-

58 Isaiah 50:3: "I clothe the heavens with blackness, and I make sackcloth their covering." 59 Adder's tongue: a common name for several plants, including lilies, ferns, and violets. 60 Lariat: also known as a lasso; is a loop of rope designed to be thrown around a target and tightened when it is pulled. 61 Bull-whip: a single-tailed whip used as an agricultural tool; traditionally to control livestock in open country. 62 The physical environment is forcing the characters to interact with each other, denying them their self- imposed isolation. This also happens in the following section, where Felix is forced to interact with Lenchen who comes to his house in search of Angel and shelter from the storm.

61 ing down by our place, but she didn't stop.

The room was dark. Greta made no movement in the corner. You almost need a lamp, Ara said. Did Ma come in? She's too old to be out in this. It comes on sudden in the summer. She's not been out, Greta said. She must be sleeping, Angel said. Not a single board has creaked. She's been sleeping, Greta said. You've been seeing things, Ara, Greta said. Like everyone else round here. You've been looking into other people's affairs. Noticing this. Remarking that. Seeing too much. Hearing too much. Who's had the trouble of her? Greta asked. Who's cooked and cared for her? I'm not complaining. It's my place here, and I know my place. If I'd married a man and gone off, there's no telling what might have happened. He might be riding round the country in a truck. Stopping and talking to women in the road. He might be leaning over the counter buying thread for somebody. He might be playing the fiddle while the pains was on me. He might be meeting the Widow's girl down in the creek bottom. He might be laying her down in the leaves. Ara had been looking at Greta. You've no right to speak that way of the girl, Ara said. You don't know. You don't know what I know, Greta said.

63 Greta is criticizing the male characters, claiming they cannot be trusted. She asserts that William's interactions with other women should be suspect, that Felix did not assist Angel in childbirth, and that James was having secret relations with Lenchen.

62 Angel got up and reached for the lamp. Leave it down, Greta said. I light the lamps in this house now.64

The storm which drove Ara into Greta's kitchen woke Felix Prosper. He sat up in his chair. The hounds cowered down, their dewlaps pressed to the earth. Who's shouting on Kip? Felix asked. What's Kip doing here? Recalled as if urgently from sleep he looked around for the cause. The heat was still heavy in the air. Felix noticed the darkening of the sky and heard above the be­ ginning of the storm. Thunder. It meant nothing to him. Rain. He picked up the fiddle and took it into the house. Then he came back for an armful of wood. The hounds had slunk off somewhere. Like old women to a feather-bed. He'd seen Angel light a lamp against the storm.65 Not a wax candle to the Virgin, but the light she'd said her father kept burning against the mist that brought death.66

64 Light and darkness in this passage symbolize knowledge and secrets. Greta does not want to "shed light" on the things she tries to hide, primarily the death of her mother. 65 In Western religion, The Feast of the Presentation of the Lord, also known as Candlemas, features a priest blessing beeswax candles which are distributed to the patrons for use in their homes throughout the year. The candles are meant to be lit during thunder storms and placed in the windows to ward off the storm. 66 In Greek mythology, the Keres were the female death spirits. Akhlys, one of the Keres, was the female spirit of death mist (the clouding over of the eyes preceding death) and described as the personification of misery and sadness. It is possible then, that Angel lit a candle to ward off "the Darknesses," in particular, Akhlys.

63 A candle. He had no need for one.67 He lit a fire in the stove. He poured water on the grounds in the granite pot. Ground a few fresh beans and added them to the brew. Sat on a backless wooden chair. Splay-legged. His mind floating in content of being.68 His lips drinking the cup already. The cup which Angel had put into his hand, her bitter going, he'd left untouched. Left standing. A some­ thing set down. No constraint to make him drink. No struggle against the drinking. No let-it-pass. No it-is-done.69 Simply redeemed. Claiming before death a share of his inheritance. The cup for which he reached was not the hard ironware lined with the etch of tea and coffee. It was the knobbed glass moulded to the size of his content. Pleasure in the light of it. The knowing how much to drink. How much drunk. The rough knobbed heat of it. Above him the blow and the answer. The rain pounding the tar-paper roof. The memory of the time Angel had seen the bear at the fish camp. Seen the bear rising on its haunches. Prostrating itself before the un-

67 Felix seems to be experiencing an existential state of despair, a state which is provoked when one's sense of being is compromised. In this case, the loss of Angel. 68 The ontological phrase "content of being" has many philosophical implications. There are parallels here to Heidegger's "question of being," which criticized the abstract and metaphysical character of traditional ways of grasping human existence (Being and Time 1927). Also relevant, are Husserl's phenomenological writings, based on the premise "to the things themselves," which focused on the idea that experience is the source of all knowledge (Cartesian Meditations 1931). Phenomenology seeks to study the structure of consciousness and the phenomena which appear in acts of consciousness. St. Thomas Aquinas questions whether our knowledge of "the good" precedes our knowledge of being, concluding that being is the first concept we form and therefore the content of being precedes that of the good (Summa Theologica 1265- 1274). Finally, existentialist thinker Kierkegaard posits that the individual is solely responsible for giving his/her life meaning; that "existence precedes essence" and therefore the individual (through consciousness) creates meaning and values in his/her life (Philosophical Fragments 1844). 69 Revelation 21:6: "And he said unto me, It is done. I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end. I will give unto him that is athirst of the fountain of the water of life freely." Angel's offering of the cup to Felix is an invitation for him to "drink the water of the fountain of life."

64 sacked winds. Rising as if to strike. Bowing to the spirits let out of the sack, Angel thought, by the meddler Coyote. The bear advancing. Mowing. Scraping. Genuflecting. Angel furious with fear beating wildly. Her hunting-knife pounding the old billycan. He chuckled, remembering the noise and the white face of Angel when he picked up the bear in its devotions. Picked up paper blown off the fish-shack roof.70

The remembrance of event and the slash of rain merged. Time annihilated in the concurrence.71 The present contracted into the sweet hot cup he fondled. Vast fingers circling it. Then he heard dogs bark somewhere in the direc­ tion of the barn, as if they'd found a rat in the manger and raftered it. He looked round for the terrier and wondered at her going. She would not run with the hounds or rub hides for manger berth. She was equal to a rat her own size. Would tackle one. Like the one he'd poked down. Poked at. For the thing crouching, its tail hanging there above his head, had sprung. Had jumped to the pole seeking it. Had run from pole to arm, its teeth sinking in his neck crevice, its claws clutch­ ing mad with dread. He had shaken it off, uncertain in its rage, and her teeth had closed on its throat. White foam on the brown swirl of it. The old lady fishing in the

70 There are many similarities between this passage and William Faulkner's short story "The Bear" from Go Down Moses (1942). Major themes of the story are man's corruption of the natural environment and exploitation of African Americans. These themes occur in The Double Hook as well, although Watson is concerned with the treatment of First Nations Peoples as opposed to African Americans. 71 This phrase has nihilistic implications, playing on Felix's sense of the negation of meaningful aspects of life which is imposed by the end of his relationship with Angel. 72 Possibly an allusion to Luke 2:7-8 in which Mary gives birth to Jesus in a manger because there is no room in the inn.

65 brown water for fish she'd never eat. The old lady year after year.

He heard a bark. And then the soft shuffling thud of unshod horse feet and the clink of bit chains. He heard the step boards creak. He sat, his face pendulous above his horizontal bib, his knees wide, his belly resting between his thighs. The door opened. Felix did not move. His bare feet pressed the boards. His hand still held the cup. For a moment he thought it was Angel come out of some storm of her own. It was the Widow's daughter Lenchen.

15

The girl stood, the door open behind her. Stood resting on her heels as he'd seen Angel stand when she was heavy with young. You'd best put your mare in, he said. The stall's empty. You're welcome until it's over. She turned and went out. Shaking her hair back from her eyes. Walking in her heeled boots as a man might walk. Rolling. Lurching. As if legs had taken shape from the beast clamped between them. Beast turned to muscle twist. Beast answering movement of shank and thigh. Walked in jerky defiance, Felix thought. Like a colt too quickly broken. She's been rid on the curb, Felix thought. And felt

66 the prick of steel. He'd never broken Angel. He'd never tried to. He'd lived with her as he'd lived in his father's cabin. By chance. By necessity. By indifference. He'd thought of nothing but the drift of sunlight, the fin-flick of trout, the mournful brisk music made sweet by repetition. Angel had borne his children. She'd hoed his potatoes. One day she'd walked out of his gate and Theo­ phil had taken her away in his wagon. Theophil had lived by himself without wife or children. Now Felix lived by himself. Things came. Things went. A colt was dropped in the pasture. A hen's nest was robbed. A vine grew or it was blown down.74 He reached for his fiddle and began to play.

The girl came back and sat on the bench beside the stove. The water was dripping from her hair. Her shirt was rumpled and caught to her skin. She said nothing at all.

In the sky above evil had gathered strength. It took body writhing and twisting under the high arch. Lenchen could hear the breath of it in the pause. The swift indraw- ing. The silence of the contracting muscle. The head drop for the wild plunge and hoof beat of it.

73 Felix is referring to a "curb bit," a type of bit used for training horses. The curb bit applies significant pressure on the horse's mouth and is meant to make the horse's entire body respond to its rider. A curb bit can seriously injure a horse if used improperly. 74 These are natural images of life and death, growth and destruction. Felix resists action and instead, allows things to happen around him, without ever having to partake in the events. 75 Glen Deer discusses this passage in detail in his book Postmodern Canadian Fiction and the Rhetoric of Authority. Deer notes that this passage is mostly limited to hearing and bodily sense; there is a lack of visual imagery. The purpose of this is to imply that the evil manifestation is shrouded in darkness and to reinforce the sense that the things of our world cannot be understood cognitively; they are unpredictable and unlocatable and evil can come charging out of the darkness at any time.

67 She leant forward a little. I wanted Angel, she said. But she's not at TheophiPs.

JJ16

In Greta's kitchen Angel had set down the lamp. Ara thought: Why is James so long coming. I suppose William's gone for the post, Greta said. I'm waiting for the catalogue. There are things one needs from time to time. There are things people think other people have no need of. There are things that other people think people need that no one needs at all. She turned to Angel. Take her, she said. I don't want her. I don't want you coming Ara. I don't want anything from William. My post I'll come for myself. James'll come for it. I don't want my things pried over and then brought along here. The government pays William to carry our things as far as your post office. No farther. The government pays you to hand me my things out of the sack. I'll come along and get my catalogue myself. I don't want anyone coming here disturbing James and me. There's been more than I could stand. More than anyone could be held responsible for standing. I've been waiting all my life. A person waits and waits. You've got your own house, Ara. You don't have to see lamps in the night and hear feet walking on the stairs and have people coming in on you when they should be

76 Greta is often preoccupied with material things, perhaps as a substitute for her lack of human relationships.

68 in their beds. I want this house to myself. Every living being has a right to something.

17

James had turned into the barn. Kip had gone off. He might have climbed down from his horse, James thought, and set himself on the bottom rung of the ladder leading to the loft. Looking wise. Knowing too much. Like the old lady. Like Greta. Like Angel sitting now in the kitchen. Waiting to catch you in the pits and snares of silence. Mist rising from the land and pressing in. Twigs cracking like bone. The loose boulder and the downdrop. The fear of dying somewhere alone, caught against a tree or knocked over in an inch of water. All around the hollow where he'd taken the girl there was nothing but the stems of trees so close packed that a man had to kick loose of the stirrups and leave his legs flat and pushed forward on his horse's shoulders to get through them. So still you could hear the frost working in the bark. No other sound except the shift of a horse's hip and the clink of bit on teeth grazing the short grass. But when he'd looked up he'd seen Kip standing in the pines.

He went to the door of the barn and looked out through the rain to the house. Since the fury of the morn­ ing he'd not been able to act. He'd thrown fear as a horse balks. Then he'd frozen on the trail. He was afraid. He was afraid what Greta might do. She had said nothing. She'd not even looked at the

69 door slammed shut. She'd set his breakfast in front of him and had sat herself down in their mother's chair. While, however his mother lay, he knew, her eyes were looking down where the boards had been laid apart. This is the way they'd lived. Suspended in silence. When they spoke they spoke of hammers and buckles, of water for washing, of rotted posts, of ringbone77 and dis­ temper. The whole world's got distemper, he wanted to shout. You and me and the old lady. The ground's rotten with it. They'd lived waiting. Waiting to come together at the same lake as dogs creep out of the night to the same fire. Moving their lips when they moved them at all as hunters talk smelling the deer. Edged close wiping plates and forks while the old lady sat in her comer. Moved their lips saying: She'll live forever. And when they'd raised their eyes their mother was watching as a deer watches. Now Greta'd sat in the old lady's chair. Eyes every­ where. In the cottonwoods the eyes of foolhens.78 Rats' eyes on the bam rafters. Steers herded together. Eyes multiplied. Eyes. Eyes and padded feet. Coyote moving in rank- smelling. Nothing had changed. The old lady was there in every fold of the country. Seen by Kip. Seen by Ara. He had to speak. He had to say to Greta: I'm through. I'll take the girl, and we'll go away out of the creek and you can stop here or go to William. Or I'll bring her to wait on you as you waited on Ma. Or I'll bring her

Ringbone: a morbid bony growth on the bones in the foot area of a horse, often resulting in lameness. Foolhen: any of various grouse that can be killed easily because of their tameness.

70 and you can do as you like. He could hear the chair grating back on the boards. He could hear her voice dry in his ear: I've waited to be mistress in my own house. I never expected anything. He could hear Greta listening at doors. He could see her counting the extra wash. Refusing to eat at table. He felt on his shoulder a weight of clay sheets. He smelt the stench of Coyote's bedhole. His horse waited, water dripping from its sides. He stood with his foot on the doorframe. Then went out into the yard. Unsaddled the horse. And turned it into the pasture.

18

As James opened the house door the Widow's boy swung into the yard. Water was nirining from the scoop of his hat brim. His moosehide jacket was heavy with rain. In the sky above darkness had overlaid light. But the boy knew as well as he knew anything that until the hills fell on him or the ground sucked him in the light would come again. He had tried to hold darkness to him, but it grew thin and formless and took shape as something else. He could keep his eyes shut after the night, but it would be light he knew. Light would be flaming off the bay mare's coat. Light would be kindling on the fish in the dark pools. He had met Kip on the road. You and your messages, he said. The girl's gone. I've come to speak myself at this end of the creek. If there's

71 anything any man wants from us, let him come asking on his own feet at our door.

He untied the knot in his reins and threw his leg over the horn. As he came down his feet slipped in the mud 70 of the dooryard. He can't have her here, he thought. The old lady's out, but Greta's not been off in months. James opened the door again. This time to look out. You'd best put your beast in, he said. The far stall's empty. The boy walked towards the steps. I'm not stopping, he said. You'd best come in, James said, till it blows over. What I've come about won't blow over, said the boy. Then you'd best go away with it, James said. The boy saw the door closing. He jumped the steps and caught at the handle, pulling the door open into the wind. Behind the metal tank Greta stood fingering the knob. Angel sat at the table. And Ara, in the darkness of the room, her eyes wide under her shaggy bangs. Ara! The boy laughed. Ara laughed too. What's so funny, she said. By God, Ara, the boy said, when I saw you glaring from under that forelock - You thought, said Greta, coming round the tank and reaching to pull the kettle over the flame - you

Dooryard: a yard in front of a door of the house.

72 thought that James had rounded up the herd. An animal can hide in a herd. Angel stood. She picked up the teapot. Let it down, Greta said. In this house if tea's offered - I'm clearing away, Angel said. I'm come to tell you, the boy said turning to James. What won't blow will keep, James said. Set down. I'm come to tell you, the boy said. He hesitated. He felt the women about him lean­ ing against his silence. His voice dropped. He turned to James. I came to tell you, he said, that your Ma's out in the storm. Before it broke she was down to our place fishing in our pool. Not at your place, Ara said. Up beyond us. Up the elbow-joint towards the hills. Up to the source. Greta looked at James. Then she turned to the others. I ask you, she said, if knowing Ma was out in this I'd not look for her? Do you think James would stand there letting her come to harm? I told you she didn't go out. But it's easy enough to find out if Ma's here, Ara said. All we've got to do is call her. All we've got to do is look. I've not been up in your house, Greta. It's not my place to go. I've not been up myself lately, Greta said. The thing about stairs is that they separate you from things. If your Ma is still sleeping this late in the day, Angel

For more speculation on "the source" see p. 48 note 14.

73 said, she's sleeping quieter than most living things. There's no living being don't turn and creak the bed a little. How could we both have seen her? Ara asked. How would we have seen her at both our places? She wasn't fishing downstream. She was fishing up, and I saw her ahead of me and moving on. Greta just doesn't know, she said. Go back down to your own creek, James. I saw her there too. There by the cottonwoods when Kip was telling you- Oh, Kip, said James. It's always Kip, Kip, Kip. Get out, he said, turning to Angel. Go home. The rain's stopped. Is this the first time it has rained? Is this the first time that no one knows where Ma is? She'll come back. She always comes back. A person has to go out to come back, Greta said. She walked across the kitchen and stood by James. Go home, Ara, she said. Go home, she said to the boy. Ma's my business and James's business. Who's had the care of her all these years that you bother yourself about her now? What makes you choose today to bother? It was Ma herself, Ara said. James moved away from Greta. She'll be back, James said. He opened the door as if to look out. Kip was standing on the doorstep, peering into the darkness of the room. Light flowed round him from out­ side. The sun was shining again low in the sky. The mist rose in wisps from the mud of the dooryard and steamed off the two horses standing there. If you want to go down to Wagner's now, Kip said,

74 I saw your old lady climb down through the split rock with Coyote, her fishes stiff in her hand. He smiled. The boy's here, he said. There's nothing stopping you. Ijust came to tell you, he said. Greta looked at James. I knew what you wanted, she said. She went to the foot of the stairs and turned to Kip. You didn't see her, she said. You couldn't. I tell you she's here. Get out, she said. Go way. This is my house. Now Ma's lying dead in her bed I give the orders here. When a person's dead in a house there should be a little peace. She pointed to the door. But when the others went out James did not move.

75 tbx wo

JJI

After the storm the Widow's girl did not get up from the bench by Felix Prosper's stove. Felix sat looking at her. Her eyes shut. Her head settling on her shoulder. Her mouth loose with sleep. He wondered: if a bitch crept in by my stove would I let her fall on the hot iron of it? I've got no words to clear a woman off my bench. No words except: keep-mov­ ing, scatter, get-the-hell-out. His mind sifted ritual phrases. Some half forgotten. You're welcome. Put your horse in. Pull up. Ave Maria. Benedictus fructus ventris. Introibo. Introibo. The beginning. The whole thing to live again. Words said over and over here by the stove. His father knowing them by heart. God's servants. The priest's servants. The cup lifting. The bread breaking. Domine non sum dignus. 3 Words coming. The last words.84 He rolled from his chair. Stood barefoot. His hands raised.

81 Felix is reciting Latin fragments from the Catholic prayer "Hail Mary." Ave Maria translates to "Hail Mary" and Benedictus fructus ventris to "blessed is the fruit of thy womb." 82 Introibo is Latin for "I will go." Introibo is also a fragment of the first lines of the Tridentine mass, the most common Latin Catholic mass to be said prior to Vatican II in the 1960s. The full line is, "Introibo ad altare dei, " which means "I will go to the altar of God." 83 Domine non sum dignus (Latin) translation: "Lord, I am not worthy." This line is repeated by the priest three times at mass before he gives communion to the people. The description preceding this phrase describes the communion ritual, whereby the priest lifts the cup and breaks the bread before giving communion to the congregation. 84 The words the priest recites while preparing communion are the words that Jesus recited at the last supper. Felix is anticipating some sort of apocalyptic event. This corresponds with the imagery of the storm which has been increasing in magnitude for several chapters.

76 Pax vobiscum, he said. The girl lifted her head. She licked the saliva from the corner of her mouth. What the hell, she said. Go in peace, he said. Turning away his head. Clos­ ing his eyes. Folding his hands across his overalls. Waiting for her to go about her business. With Angel. With anyone. Leaving him alone after the storm. The girl looked at him. I got no place to go, she said. He'd had his say. Come to the end of his saying. He put a stick on the fire. There was nothing else he could do.

I thought it best to go straight on when Angel told me, William said to Ara. The strange thing, he said, is that you should have been there below stairs with Greta and James. What a person has a right to is his kin. There's enough things half-cocked in life, he said, without scram­ bling out of it any which way. What a person would like to have, he said, is the grain brought in and the tools wiped and put away and the ropes coiled and the animals in their stalls. I didn't intend to be there, Ara said. It just hap­ pened. I was sure I'd seen her fishing past the house. Then something led me to go and speak to James. She wasn't in her bed, William said. She was laying

15 Pax vobiscum (Latin) translation: "Peace with you." This is a salutation in the Latin mass.

77 on the floor, her rod broke beside her and the line tangled in the hook. And Greta below stairs drinking tea with Angel, Ara said. And James with his horse saddled about to go off. A house isn't a range, she said. So big that a man can't keep track of what goes on in all comers. I know, William said, but a man gets used to things being as they are from day to day. It's always when a man sleeps that his bam burns down to a fistful of ash.86 But Greta knew, Ara said. There's no telling, William said, how a person will act. A man would be hard pressed to know what a person would do. James did nothing, he said. Hejustlether lie. He wouldn't move to put a hand on her. And Greta, he said, trying to send me off before I'd ever looked. You've no notion, he said to Ara, how curious a person can be. He unlaced his boots and set them behind the stove. He stood in the centre of the linoleum, tracing the edge of a square with his toe. Pressing his toe up and down in his grey woollen sock. I've handled lots of dead things, he said. But it didn't seem right to lay a finger on her. She was dry and brittle as a grasshopper, he said. A man does what he can. I've seen men die in winter stowed away in trees until

on spring thawed the ground soft enough for digging. In summer a man can't wait. He sat down at the table. Ara opened the oven and took out a plate of food which she set before him. He took 86 In her essay "Between One Cliche and Another: Language in the Double Hook," Barbara Godard observes that both William and Ara speak in phrases reminiscent of proverbs. She notes "For every crisis, William has a ready-made explanation, one that often by its indirection points to his lack of perception" (166). William's comment here exemplifies this element of his character. 87 Tree and scaffold burial practices are common among certain First Nations groups.

78 a knife and fork out of the tumbler on the table and began to eat.

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Ara left him. She went to the parlour and opened Greta's catalogue. She heard William shoving aside his plate. Pulling his boots on again. Going out through the back to do his night chores. She opened the front door. The land was humped against the sky. Noisy and restless in its silence. She went out into the night. From the corner of the house she could see Wil­ liam's lantern in the stable. She could see him leading a horse out to water. She could hear the other horses' lips moving in the dry hay. She wished she had some living chore to busy herself with now. She'd locked the chickens away for the night. They would be standing edged together

no on their poles. The ground was dry under her foot. She thought she heard hoof-beats in the distance. And as she turned back to the house, an owl passing in the dark called out to her Weep-for yourself. Weep-for-yourself.

88 A roosting pole is a man-made perch located inside the chicken coop that chickens perch on while they sleep.

79 JJ4

The boy sat by the lake edge. Ply on ply, night bound the floating images of things. They had stood like a crowd of fools outside of James's door. He and Ara and Angel. Since Kip had gone off. Having come together by accident, Ara said. Sent by William, answered Angel. Perhaps because he'd had word, Ara said, that his mother was sick or that some accident had happened. Per­ haps, she'd said, brought together by sympathy. And what sympathy could one have for Greta. Angel'd asked. Since Greta never thought of anyone. Not even herself. Only what had been done to her. An old hen pheasant, Angel said. Never bred. Looking for mischief. Trying to break up other birds' nests. When they'd gone, the boy had hung around think­ ing : I'll pull James out and make him speak. There won't be women to interfere. Wondering what he'd do if James answered his question. Waiting for James to open the door again. When he'd heard William's truck he'd ridden round through the brush to the lake, thinking he'd go back when William had taken himself off. Thinking he'd go back and surprise James at his night chores. Now he sat silent as an osprey on a snag. Waiting. Because he knew how to wait. Watching only the images which he could shatter with a stone or bend with his hand. He heard a fish break water. He did not stir. He heard a bird's wing cut the air. He heard a mouse turn in the hollow

9 Osprey: a bird of prey whose diet consists almost exclusively offish.

80 of a log. Tomorrow, he said. Tomorrow is best for such things.90 As he rode past William's he saw a light in the barn and William in the bam forking straw into the stalls. He thought of his own animals. He lifted his horse into a canter.91 At last he swung his horse up to his own gate. He loosened the wire. Every one of his gates hung well on the hinge. A man could take pride in his own gates, he thought. All about him as he rode into the yard he could hear the breathing of his animals. Close to the house waiting.

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Dear God. The Widow waited too. The country. And the moonlight. And the animals breathing close to the house. The horses in the stable. Pawing. Whinnying. The house cow moaning in the darkness, her udders heavy with milk. A man came when food was cooked. He came unless he'd been gored by a bull. Or fallen into a slough.92 Or shot for a deer. A man had to come. The horses waited for him. The cow. The pigs. A man was servant to his ser­ vants until death tore up the bargain. Until a man lay like

90 Fear, especially fear of the unknown, has a paralyzing effect on many of the characters in The Double Hook. Heinrich is afraid to find out the answer to his question and inaction is his response to this fear. 91 Canter: a natural gait for horses; faster in pace than a trot but slower than a gallop. 92 The use of the word slough is an interesting example of how Watson plays with duality. The Widow is likely referring to a slough in terms of a depression or hollow filled with mud; i.e. a bog or swamp. However, the word can also mean a state of deep despair or moral degradation; both definitions are applicable.

81 Wagner in the big bed under the starched sheets his body full and heavy in death. She lit the lamp. She shook the pot of potatoes on the stove and looked under the cloth that covered them. The woodbox was almost empty. Dear God, she cried. Then she stopped short. Afraid that he might come. Father of the fatherless. Judge of widows.93 Death, and after death the judgment. She opened the door. Heinrich, she called. Heinrich. All round the animals waited. The plate on the table. The knife. The fork. The kettle boiling on the stove. Dear God, she said. The country. The wilderness. Nothing. Nothing but old women waiting.94

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In the cabin by the quarry95 Kip leant across the table towards Angel. These eyes seen plenty, he said. Behind Angel, Felix's children lay, their faces nuzzled close in sleep on TheophiPs mattress. At one end of the table Theophil played patience.96 Long fingers turn­ ing up a deuce of spades with a slipping thud. It's not always right for the mouth to say what the eyes see, Theophil said. Sometimes, too, it's better for the

93 Psalm 68:5: "A father of the fatherless, and a judge of the widows, is God in his holy habitation." 94 This passage mirrors the passage in the preceding chapter where Heinrich resolves to wait; the Widow is also driven to inaction as a result of her fear of God's judgment. 95 Quarry: an excavation or pit from which building materials or other similar materials are extracted. 96 Patience is a British term for the card game solitaire.

82 eyes to close. Sure, Kip said. Sure. But sometimes, he said, when the eye's open a thing walks right in and sets down. The best thing to do, Theophil said, is to shoo it out. If you had a back door now, you could just keep it moving on. Back doors do have their points, he said, though they're powerful mean for letting in the draughts. He looked at Angel. If I'd been here when William Potter came, he said, you'd not gone off the place. I don't care to get mixed up with others. Moreover and besides, I don't care to have you scrubbing for those strong enough to scrub for themselves. She got herself a dollar, Kip said. And what does she need a dollar for? Theophil asked. I bring back all that's needed here. You best move on, he said to Kip. What did your eyes see? Angel asked. Just what? Step, Theophil said. Step. He put down the part of the deck which he still held and stood up. He shoved the door open and leaned against the frame. Lively, he said. We don't want to hear nothing. We don't want to see nothing. A tomcat uncoiled like a flame around the door- jamb. Raising its back against TheophiPs trouser leg. Bend­ ing its head sideways to his ankle. Just how can I get out? Kip asked. By putting one foot in front of the other, Theophil said. By getting that carcass in locomotion. I don't see no way out, Kip said. All these eyes see is a cat and a man filling up the door space. An old yellow

83 cat and a man. Angel stood up. Go along, she said to Kip. Phil's boss here. The thing about a man who knows his own mind is that his mind is plain to others. Not so plain, Theophil said, having let Kip slide past him at the door, having shut the door behind him. Not so plain that a man's woman doesn't mistake his intent from time to time. Angel looked away. I had my own reasons for going, she said, when William Potter came knocking. A woman has no call for reasons, Theophil said. Not when her man treats her good. I make up the minds here. I don't want trouble. There's trouble enough, Angel said, without any­ body's asking you. A man can't peg himself in so tight that nothing can creep through the cracks. Old Mrs. Potter's dead, she said. Kip seen Coyote carry her away like a rabbit in his mouth. There's no one he hasn't got his eye on. That Greta, she said. She's just making big. A man full up on beer saying in that beer how big he is. Not know­ ing that Coyote'11 get him just walking round the side of the house to make water. I don't set no store by Coyote, Theophil said. There's no big Coyote, like you think. There's not just one of him. He's everywhere. The government's got his number too. They've set a bounty on him at fifty cents a brush.97 I could live well at his expense. On the other hand, I'm best to depend on myself, he said, and not go mixing myself up

The government is willing to pay fiftycent s for each coyote tail.

84 with the government. If you take money from anyone at anytime, it indebts you to the person handing it out. Let's forget it, he said. Let's go to bed, Angel said, since you're so anxious on forgetting. A man is either up thinking or in bed for­ getting. A man feels strongest in bed, Angel said. Theophil took off his trousers and shirt. He stood in the candle-light in his undershirt and long cotton drawers. His arm stretched out to roll Felix's children to one side. This is a thin mean place, men and cattle alike, he said. The cat stepped up into the space he had cleared for himself. He took it up in his arms and sat on the edge of the mattress. With one hand he held the cat close to his chest, with the other he stroked the fur between its eyes.

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Outside the cabin Kip leaned against the closed door. Forced out by Theophil under the white lick of the 98 moon. All the time, he thought, people go shutting their doors. Tying things up. Fencing them in. Shutting out what they never rightly know. He thought: Angel can see but TheophiPs let fear grow like fur on his eyes.

98 The moon is an important symbol in The Double Hook as it plays into Watson's use of dualities and the inability to reduce these dualities to simple binary constructions. The sun and moon are binary opposites; however, the moon shines as a reflection of the sun's light and therefore could not exist without the sun. The moon is also symbolic of other recurring motifs in the text, primarily hght and darkness, the Virgin Mary, mystery, fear and the unknown. The emphasis on the colour white in association with the moon plays on images of purity and illumination.

85 He stood on the doorstep looking at the moon. Stood roped to the ground by his weight of flesh. Reaching out to the white tongue of moonlight so that he might swing up to the cool mouth. Raising his hand to the white glory for which he thirsted. Then remembering: Coyote got the old lady at last. He went through the shadows of the trees to find his horse. Untied it. Climbed into the saddle. Swung the horse round with a jerk. He was alone under the moon in the white shed of the world. I'll go back to James Potter's he said.

Lenchen was coming down the hill behind James Potter's house. Fear rising. Fear flooding her body as the moonlight flooded the hills.99 Exposed in the white light like a hawk pulled out and pinned up on a bam door for all to see. She had fed full by Felix's stove and slept a little. Felt the hardness of the saddle under her head, the press of boards, the thin scratch of the saddle blanket pulled round her. Had bedded down for while in her own gear. Heard from the next room grunts and deep-bellied breath. Taken comfort in huge indifference. Shoved off the terrier which had come growling and sniffing in the dark. Then she'd slid away from Felix's stove. Crossed

Fear causes various characters to react in different ways. Whereas Theophil's fear drives him to inaction, Lenchen's fear drives her to act.

86 the creek on foot and climbed the hill so that she could circle her mother's. Crossed above William's and seen his late lantern in the feed-lot. Come hoping to surprise James at some last chore. Now, because she was afraid, she crept down into the brush on the far side of the creek behind the house. James would come. He would take her into the house. Or he would saddle up and take her to town, where men drank beer when they drove beef out for shipping and the red-headed bartender who kept the parrot would say: Mrs. James Potter. I am surprised. Or he would hide her in the hills and creep out with food and covers that he'd somehow stolen from Greta. But, indeed, she saw him in his plaid shirt his arms reaching forward saying : Did Kip bring my message? Did Kip tell you I was waiting?

As if drawn by the thought, Kip came up the road towards her. Nearly everyone else was in bed.100

William pulled the sheet up under his chin. His body filled the length of the bed. He rolled over, kicking the covers loose, gathering them over his shoulders. It's curious, he thought, how a man lies down in the ground at last. Ara, he called. What's keeping you? A man doesn't

100 Kip and Lenchen seem to be the main characters who advance the plot through their actions. This is emphasized by the fact that everyone else is in bed while Kip and Lenchen are out wandering in the night.

87 expect to lie waiting for his wife half the night. He heard her pumping some water in the kitchen. You're mighty dainty all of a sudden, he said. I can remember the time you'd be calling out for me to come.

Prosper had wakened on his mattress. The girl had gone. Her coming had stirred thoughts which buzzed about waiting to torment him. Yet he sank back into the comfort of his flesh, his eyes creased in sleep.

Angel stirred restlessly under the weight of Theo­ phil's arm. Theophil moved aside. Grinding his teeth a little. Shoving Felix's children to the wall. Do that Coyote really be prying about? Angel thought. Who says where a woman shall lie but that very woman herself. Who keeps chawing at a man but a man's own self?

The Widow lay stiff on her fat feather pillow. She could hear the boy heavy in sleep.

The girl chose to go. How can God judge, she said. But she pulled the covers up over her eyes to shut out the moonlight.

10

Kip's mind was on James. James's strength. James's weakness. James's old mother. James and Greta. James and the girl Wagner. The message he'd taken for James.

88 He's like his old lady, Kip thought. There's a thing he doesn't know. He doesn't know you can't catch the glory on a hook and hold on to it. That when you fish for the glory you catch the darkness too. That if you hook twice the glory you hook twice the fear.101 That Coyote plot­ ting to catch the glory for himself is fooled and every day fools others. He doesn't know, Kip thought, how much mischief Coyote can make.102 Coyote reaching out reflected glory. Like a fire to warm. Then shoving the brand between a man's teeth right into his belly's pit. Fear making mischief. Laying traps for men. The dog and his servants plaguing the earth. Fear skulking round. Fear walking round in the living shape of the dead. No stone was big enough, no pile of stones, to weigh down fear.

His mind awake floated on the tide of objects about him. Was swirled in a pool. Caught in the fork of a tangle. Diverted from its course. Swept into the main stream. Birds' eyes. The veins of leaves dark in the moonlight. A beetle caught blue on a shelved stone. Not far from James's gate Kip turned his horse off the road and led it across the creek into the matted willows.

101 For more information on the significance of Kip's observation, see page 44 note 2 regarding the epigraph. Also see Appendix A: Textual Notes p. 179 for the full text of the original epigraph. 102 Many scholars have suggested that Kip acts as a messenger of Coyote (e.g. Summerhayes and Downton). If Kip is a messenger of Coyote, then this passage takes on a threatening tone, implying that Kip himself plans on causing mischief in the community on behalf of Coyote. 103 Exodus 9:14: "For I will at this time send all my plagues upon thine heart, and upon thy servants, and upon thy people; that thou mayest know that there is none tike me in all the earth." Watson is playing with duality here by mtertwining the First Nations deity of Coyote with resonances of the Old Testament.

89 tLii

So it was not James that the girl saw first but Kip. There was no mistake. The moonlight was clear around her. So clear that she could see every split shake on James Potter's roof. A man stumbles on things, Kip said. Just walking along in the brush. I go all the way down to your place with some words for you and you're hanging about in the house. Now girls should be in bed. And now I just find you sitting outside in the bushes. What are you doing here? the girl asked. What words did James send? How do you know it was James sent words? Kip asked. I didn't say James's words. The girl said nothing. Supposing James did send words, Kip said. What do you think he said? Still the girl did not speak. I forget, Kip said. A man can't be remembering things all his life. He turned away and started towards the creek. Where are you going? the girl asked. Come back. Kip walked a few more steps away from her. She got up from the ground and followed him. Tell me, she said, what words he sent. Tell me. Kip looked around. You got anything to oil up a man's mind? he asked. Nothing, she said. Nothing worth having. Nothing that someone else wouldn't take back from you. Girl's don't have things to give. I've got nothing of my own.

90 You game something to James, he said. Go away, said the girl. Go away. Then she ran.

12

It seemed to her that it was someone else breaking through the brush. Splashing across the creek. Racing up the hoof-pocked path to the barnyard. Running headlong for the door she'd been watching. She could hear hands beating wood. Each stroke prolonged joining the first. Clamour filled the night. Yet Kip had not followed her. There was no one but herself in the emptiness before James's house. James had forbidden her to come.

The door opened outward. I have broken my word, Lenchen thought. And she imagined the old lady's eyes and Greta's blazing like lamps in the inmost comers of the room. What do you want here? It was a woman's voice. Greta's. But the girl heard at the same moment the ex­ plosion of a match. Saw flame rise gold from its blue fire. Saw James lifting the lamp so high that the light slanting down over Greta's shoulder reached out towards her. Yet Greta stood almost full in the doorway like a tangle of wild flowers grown up between them. All green and gold and purple in the lamplight. Fat clinging clumps of purple flowers. Honey-tongued. Bursting from their

91 green stems. Crowding against green leaves.104 Her face above. Fierce. Sharp. Sudden as a bird's swinging out on the topmost surge. Lenchen shrank away from the riot of the falling skirt. Shut her eyes against the tumult of branch and leaf. Calling: James. James. As if she saw him at a great dis­ tance. While behind her Kip's voice sounded. Loon laugh shivering the night. James shoved Greta aside. He held the lamp high as he came. Can a man have no peace? he said. He took the girl by the arm. Kip came out of the shadow by the bam. Why are you hallooing about my house? James asked. In a whole miserable country can a man have no rest? Not when he's got the weight of his doings on him, Kip said. You wanted the old woman out of the way, didn't you? Kip asked. You wanted to see the girl, didn't you? How can a man know what he wants? James said. The girl didn't move. Greta had gone back into the house. She sat in her mother's chair, the folds of her housecoat falling between her knees.105 Send them away, James, she called out. Drive them off the place.

104 The landscape of The Double Hook is a manifestation of the emotions and events that the characters endure. Watson describes the characters as "figures in a ground, from which they could not be separated" ("What I'm Going to Do" 15). Greta's housecoat symbolizes her descent into madness, indicated by the wild, insensible, and uncontrolled pattern of flowers. 105 By sitting in her mother's chair, Greta is assuming the tyrannical position of her mother which has been made available by her mother's death.

92 Oh-ho, Kip said. Just the same old Greta. The same old Greta inside some plants and bushes. You'd best take us in, he said to James. We can't just keep standing about. Tell her we came to help you. He lifted his face. Smiling. That Greta, he thought. Standing there proud like the glory. Fitting herself into a glory the way a man fits himself into a shirt and pants. James stood uncertain before the door. Come in, James, Greta said. Come in and shut away the moon. Did you forget, he asked, I've got others with me? How could I forget? she called out. How could I forget with their noise still in my ears. Yelling and shriek­ ing outside in the night like cats in torment. Can you think that I didn't see with my own eyes what was going on out there in the moonlight. It's Kip should have known better since he knew there was death in the house. It's not as if there weren't plenty of hollows in the hills where he could chase his mares. Let me go, James, the girl said. Just let me go. Let's all walk in and set down, Kip said. She's got her rope on the wrong horse. No. No, the girl said, loosening as she pulled for­ ward James's hold on her wrist. Who's dead? She asked Greta. Is it your Ma? Is that why you didn't come? she said to James. Come, Greta said. Come where, you little fool? The girl turned to James. Say something, she said. Haven't you anything to say?

93 I told you not to come here, he said. And you come tonight of all nights. I had nowhere else to go, the girl said. I thought you might open the door with your own hands. I didn't want anybody to make you open the door, she said. No one but myself. What do you want me to do now? she asked. James looked at Greta. She sat there, her face flat above the fierce twist of printed flowers. Tell Kip to water the stock, she said. No one has done anything. Go with him. What use is the night to me now? Kip had set the lamp on the table. He took the lantern from the shelf and lit it. He thought: He's only to loose the force in his own muscles. But a horse stays under the cinch because it's used to it from a colt. He turned the wick of the lantern. Waiting.

The door was still open. James turned into his shadow and walked out of the house with Kip at his heels.

13

Greta got up and closed the door. Then she turned and caught the girl by the shoulder. Keep on looking, she said. And think what you want. I don't care. It's what I am, she said. It's what's driven him out into the creek bottom. Into the brush. Into

94 the hogpen. A woman can stand so much, she said. A man can stand so much. A woman can stand what a man can't stand. To be scorned by others. Pitied. Scrimped. Put upon. Laughed at when no one has come for her, when there's no one to come. She can stand it when she knows she still has the power. When the air's stretched like a rope between her and someone else. It's emptiness that can't be borne. The pot-holes are filled with rain from time to time. I've seen them stiff with thirst. Ashed white and bitter at the edge. But the rain or the run-off fills them at last. The bitter­ ness licked up. I tell you there was only James. I was never let run loose. I never had two to waste and spill, like Angel Prosper. She pulled the girl over to the foot of the stairs. I heard her breath stop, she said. And the cold setting her flesh. Don't believe what James might say. She's not looking still. I heard what we'd been waiting to hear. What James and me had been waiting to hear all these years. There was only James, she said. Only James and me waiting. What do you want? the girl said. What are you telling me for? What can I do? She pulled herself free and went to the door. But outside was night. Outside was Kip. Outside was floorless, roofless, wall-less. Let me stop, she said. I've no place to go. Greta crossed the room. Go away, she said. Go away and leave us in peace. Don't ask me. Don't put the blame on me. There's nothing I can do. There's nothing I can say. Go yourself while there's still time.

95 The girl did not move from the doorway. He'll kill me too, Greta said. He'll shove me down for standing in his way.

Then they heard James's voice rising in the barn. They heard a cry. They heard Kip's voice: You bastard, James. They heard James's voice. They heard his words: If you were God Almighty, if you'd as many eyes as a spider I'd get them all.106 They heard a bucket overturn and animals move in their stalls. Then they heard James's voice again: Miserable shrew, smell me out if you can. Now Greta and the girl stood watching in the door­ way. James came out of the bam alone. He came one hand swinging the lantern, the other trailing the rawhide whip he used to break his horses. He came out of the bam and up the rise towards them. James, Greta said. He lifted the whip. It reached out towards her, tear­ ing through the flowers of her housecoat, leaving a line on her flesh.107 Then as the thong unloosed its sweep it coiled with a jerk about Lenchen's knees. Not long after they heard him ride off through the gate.

105 James's comparison of Kip to God is based on Kip's knowledge of other people's affairs and refers to the Christian perception of God as an omniscient and omnipresent figure. Coyote also possesses these qualities. 107 James's physical act of whipping Greta in order to assume control over her mirrors Greta's earlier reference to power struggle in this chapter as the "[air] stretched like a rope between her and someone else" p. 102.

96 Ara heard and woke. William had raised himself on his elbow and was looking down on her in the thin morning light.

I'm sure, he said, I heard the beat of a horse's hooves. It's probably Kip, Ara said. Just looking round. He'll look once too often, William said. But he lay down and reached out his arm towards her.

Angel heard. Got up. Went to the window. Saw only the dust raised by something which had disappeared. Turning saw Theophil and the children asleep on the mattress. He'd no right to turn Kip out, she thought. He's gone off perhaps, and now I'll never hear the things he sees.

The Widow heard. It's the boy, she thought, going off again. But the boy was stirring in the kitchen below. Knocking the stove wood into place with the lifter. She put her hand over her eyes. Dear God, she thought. How easy death would be if there was death and nothing more.

Felix Prosper slept. He dreamed that Angel was

97 riding through his gate on a sleek ass.108 He was pulling the scratchy white surplice109 over his uncombed head. It was early and the ground was wet with dew. I mustn't forget, he thought. I mustn't forget.110 He saw a coyote standing near the creek. He wanted to follow it into the hills. He felt its rough smell on his tongue. He turned away from the creek and went to the gate. He could feel the surplice sfraining at his armpits like a garment which had shrunk in a storm.111 He reached up his hand. 110 Dignum etjustum est, he said as he helped Angel down.

108 Although modern versions of the Bible do not contain much information about the birth of Jesus, stories have circulated from other sources that Mary rode an ass into Bethlehem the night she gave birth to Jesus. Angel appears in Felix's dream as a Mary-figure. 109 Surplice: a loose fitting, broad sleeved white garment worn by members of the clergy over an ecclesiastical coat or jacket. Felix appears in his dream as a priest. 110 Felix's desire to remember operates in direct contrast to Theophil's desire to forget (Part 2 Chapter 6 p. 92). 111 The fact that the clergy garments do not seem to fit Felix properly implies that he is uncomfortable taking on an ecclesiastical position. 112 This is a Latin line from the Catholic Canon of the Mass which translates to "it is right and just".

98 tAi Three

th\

Heinrich too had heard the beat of hooves. He wrenched a stick of wood into place in the stove. Stood watching the flicker of light on the board ceiling. Stood trying to think that he'd heard nothing. That it was a morning like every other morning he'd known. He went to the shelf and took down three cups. He put the pan on the stove and cut bacon and bread. He heard his mother moving about. He went to the foot of the stairs. Can't you smell the bacon? he called. His mother came down and sat at the table. He gave her her plate. Seeing as he gave it to her her thin grey hair pulled tight from the crown of her head. The Widow pushed back her plate.

1 -I T I'm afraid, she said. What is said is said. I couldn't pick up the shame again, she said. A man needn't hang himself because he's put his neck through a noose in the dark,114 Heinrich said. What will you do if I bring the girl back? Dear God, the Widow said. Dear God.

113 Watson is playing with proverbs here: instead of "What is done is done," she substitutes, "What is said is said." This phrase is reminiscent of Lady Macbeth's line in Shakespeare's play Macbeth; Lady Macbeth is trying to comfort her husband after they have murdered King Duncan and her words of comfort are, "What's done, is done" (3.H.12). The Widow is experiencing guilt for turning out Lenchen in the same way that Macbeth is experiencing guilt for murdering the King. 114 Heinrich is also speaking in proverbs.

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Felix Prosper had wakened after his dream. He sat on the steps in the morning light. The hounds lay away from him, their heads coiled under their paws, their backs cramped against the side of the house. The terrier had crept down under the covers. Felix sat by himself. The edge of the step cut into his flesh. He had brought his fiddle with him, but it lay beside him. His eyes looked out on an empty world. His flesh was heavy on his bone, a cumbersome coat folded and creased and sagging at the seams. His hands dropped empty between his knees. So one grew old. Haunted by an image of Angel come back filled like a cup with another man's passion.115 Haunted by the image of a boy Felix come back in sleep asking: Can your joy be bound by a glass rim? Is death a fishbone in your hand?116 Felix reached for his fiddle. He set it in the soft fold between chin and shoulder. The hounds stirring coiled tighter against the sound. Then something answered in the bushes by the creek. Felix heard branches pushed aside. He looked up. It was Kip. Coming over the rise. Lifting his face windward like an animal. His shirt had been torn by the branches. His legs were splashed with creek water. His face was a livid wound.

115 Felix is haunted by the idea that Angel will become pregnant with someone else's (most likely Theophil's) child. 116 Barbara Godard's discusses Watson's use of language in detail in her essay, "Between One Cliche and Another: Language in The Double Hook." According to Godard, Watson has many of the characters speak in cliche, proverbs, and riddles(Feli x speaks in riddle form here), in order to express the limitations of language. Godard suggests that Felix, unlike the other characters in the novel, is unaware of his inability to communicate and his search for words is often fragmentary and meaningless.

100 Felix put down his fiddle and got up from the step. His hand reached for Kip's arm. What's happened? he said. Where have you been? Walking down the creek, Kip said. Finding my way by the smell of the water. I wanted a man's girl, he said. I'd seen enough to buy her. Fool, Felix said. But he took Kip into the house and shaking the terrier out of the blanket sat Kip on the bed. He lit the fire in the stove and made coffee. He heated some water and put it in the hand-basin. Then he looked in at Kip silent on the blanket and putting on his cotton cap he walked barefoot out into the dust of the road.

In the cabin by the quarry Angel was getting break­ fast. The children sat on the bench by the stove. They were still dressed in the short cotton shirts which they wore in bed. Rolled over on the mattress Theophil smoked, his arm propping his head. You'll burn up the bed, Angel said. Then where will you have to lie about on all day long and all night too? It's my bed, Theophil said. He shut his eyes and drew his knees closer to his belly. Then he looked up. You used to listen and leam from me, Theophil said. Now you just tell. Right from the squeak of dawn. Telling. Telling. A man would be hard pressed to wedge a word into the silences you leave. You said you wanted to take care of us; Angel said.

101 Now you just want attention yourself. It's the way you work on a man, Theophil said. Wearing him out. Forcing everything. I liked the look of you, he said, when you were out of my reach. Of course, Angel said. Poor and thin as you are. And having climbed up, she said, you'd spare yourself the trouble of climbing again. She pressed a hotcake flat with her knife. You needn't spoil the cakes, he said. Who would be riding down the road just at day­ light? she asked How would I know? he said. What's it got to do with you? Is there nothing you can't let alone? It might have been Kip, she said. And then again not. It might have been one of the Potters. There's trouble already at James Potter's, she said, and there'll be more. That Greta's got a whole case of dynamite under her skirt. More like that James has a stick in his britches, Theophil said. Angel turned around from the stove. She wiped her hand on her skirt. Then she spat on her finger and held it up as if she were trying to find the direction of the wind. Oh-ho, she said. Theophil got up from the mattress. Get those cakes on the table, he said. Or I'll oh-ho and ho-oh you till you think twice next time before you make fun of me. You came jumping into my bed over Felix's back, and you've got me squatting nice for another jump. Angel jerked the children off the bench where they sat.

102 Get into your things, she said. What do you think will happen to you if you doze around all day with your backsides hanging out? What do you think will happen to them anyway? Theophil said. They'll be stupid and ugly as the rest. They're nice enough kids, too, he said. But I sure don't need you and your kids round here showing me how miser­ able a person can be. I don't need you or anyone else painting in big letters what's easy to see.

In Ara's kitchen William laid down his knife and fork and put his coffee-cup in the middle of his plate. Then he put some more sugar in his cup. I shouldn't have come away, he said. But a man has his own things to see to. I took it they could straighten things out between themselves. There's things even a man's own brother has to pass by. Ara sat fraying threads from the edge of the oil­ cloth. There are things, she said, that can't be straightened out. They have to be pulled and wrenched and torn. And maybe just stay muddled up. Or pushed out of sight and left where they are. You can't tidy up people the way you can tidy up a room, she said. They're too narrow or too big. And even rooms, she said, don't take long to get untidy again. I don't complain, he said. Though for myself I like to keep my gear in order.

103 You never complain at all, she said. Sometimes I wish you would. There's a sort of dryness settled on us like dust. You're seeing things all the time, but you never look at anything here. Sometimes when your mother was going up and down the creek I wanted to call out: What are you looking at? She was the one who noticed. If we had a child, she said, you'd care enough to complain. Your mother hated me and you pity me. Where can a woman lift herself on two such ropes. One pulling her down. The other simply holding her suspended.117 I don't know, William said. That's the first time I've heard you say you didn't know and really mean it, Ara said.118 She pressed her hands against her eyes. William got up and went round the table. He put his hand on her shoulder. Don't Ara, he said. Don't what? she asked. Don't' squeeze at your eyes like that, he said. I've known men blinded by less. Over a period of time, he said. Could I be blinder than I am? she asked. Seeing things only in flashes. He put his hand on her shoulder again. Why are you so set on scorning yourself? he said. Put on your things, he said, and come up to James's with me. I'm going as soon as I finish here. He sat down and began to pull on his boots. If you come thinking Greta's going to light out at

117 Ara is referring to the fact that she is barren and unable to provide William with a child. 118 In her essay "Between One Cliche and Another: Lanugage in The Double Hool? Barbara Godard notes, "for every crisis, William has a ready-made explanation, one that often by its indirection points to his lack of perception" (166). In this passage, Ara is commenting on William's ignorance.

104 you, he said, she probably will. People keep thinking thoughts into other people's heads. I've seen a woman thinking how a man despised her, and keep thinking it till a man knocked her down. It's best to be trusting and loving, he said. What's loving? she asked. Loving just makes trouble. Look at the girl Wagner, she said. She's got through loving what loving never gave me, and it's as much or more shame to her. I told Greta not to speak that way, but I knew. Was Greta right, too, about your leaning over counters when you're not here. Are you looking for some­ one else to get children for you? Who is the father of the Wagner girl's child? Tell me, she said. William, tell me. What do you want me to tell you? he asked. Nothing, she said. Nothing at all. I don't know what's the matter with you, Ara, he said. You've never talked like this before. It doesn't make sense in your mouth somehow. Ever since I was in Greta's kitchen during the storm, she said, I've been trying to fit the pieces into a pattern. Some of the pieces aren't so far to look for as you think, he said. Do you know, Ara, he said, for a man who sees so much I've not seen what was growing up in my own yard. It's like a man who stands on a rock looking over a valley. He doesn't notice the rock, he said. He just stands on it. He got up, but he did not move away. Suppose the rock should suddenly begin to move, he said. Or started clutching at you like gumbo.119 There's too much supposing, Ara said. Yet how can

Gumbo: a very thick stew.

105 a man escape it since he can't hold and shape the world. I often envy the horses, she said, standing tail to head and head to rump flicking off each other's flies. And biting one another from time to time, William said. And letting go with their heels. Beasts aren't much different from men, he said, though they've often less free­ dom. Take my horse, he said. He could break out, Ara said. He's the strength to defy you. You or any man at all. He could, William said, but what would he gain by it. He wouldn't know where to go or what to do after the break. I've seen horses, he said, untie themselves and go walking out of barns. I've seen them knock down fences and kick themselves out of corrals. But I've seen them come wandering back to the bam and the hay. Some, he said, are pure outlaw. But there's the torment of loneliness and the will of snow and heat they can't escape, and the likelihood that some stranger will put a rope on them at last. Or perhaps even the man that branded them, Ara said. There are some men I suppose who follow, their ropes coiled and waiting. Sometimes I think of God like that, she said. The glory of his face shaded by bis hat. Not coaxing with pans of oats, but coming after you with a whip until you stand and face him in the end. I don't know about God, William said. Your god sounds only a step from the Indian's Coyote. Though that one would jump on a man when his back was turned. I've never seen God, he said, but if I did I don't think I'd be very much surprised. I don't suppose you would, Ara said. Then she picked up the dishes and put them in the pan.

106 You're right, she said. Let's get ready to go. I've a feeling that perhaps we're wanted. You might have baked something, William said. But it's too late to be thinking of that now.

Before Ara and William had shut the door of their house behind them, Felix Prosper arrived at Theophil's. Angel had cleared the dishes away and sent the children out, but Theophil had gone back to the mattress. He lay loose there like a dog on a rumpled sack. His eyes sagging half shut. His face twitching and jerking as if in near sleep he sniffed again the rank scent of other men on the grass which grew tufted at his own doorstep.120 You're just thinking up trouble, Angel said, the way a man thinks up reasons for what he's got his mind harnessed to do. Go on, Theophil said, opening his eyes. Go on as if you were reading out of a newspaper what's in my mind. Go on as if my head was as plain to see into as an old shack with the curtains off. Last night you knew what my inten­ tions were, he said, but you didn't know why I intended. Why that Kip is nothing but a go-between for James and his women. What women? Angel asked. Well, the Wagner girl for one, Theophil said. And for two? Angel asked. A knocking at the door answered her.

20 Theophil's dream is a premonition of Felix's arrival.

107 Just a minute, Theophil said. He got up from the mattress and pulled on his trousers. To think, he said, that someone would come so close and I'd not hear. Well, said Angel, am I to answer or are you set on combing and scrubbing yourself first? What's good enough to lay round in is good enough to open the door in. But the door opened itself. Was opened by Prosper who stood hearing the words before and after the knock. Who stood listening when the occasion for listening had come and gone. Who stood feeling the sweat leak from under the grip of his cotton cap. Stood feeling the dust nagging the soles of his feet. Felix heavy on the doorstep. Angel spun round like a flame on the wide boards of the floor. Behind Theo­ phil rolling up the sleeves of his shirt. What could he say, Felix thought. All the way up the road he'd been trying to form the words. Peace be with you, he said. Angel took a step forward. Forgive us our trespasses, Felix said.122 Theophil shoved Angel aside and started for the door. And lead us not into temptation, Theophil said. His fingers curled into the palms of his hands.124 The priest taught

121 Felix's search for words often results in the recitation of fragmentso f the Catholic mass. "Peace be with you" is recited during the Communion rite, shortly before the congregation receives the Eucharist. 122 Felix is reciting a fragment of the "Lord's Prayer," which also occurs during the Communion rite of the Catholic mass. 123 Theophil also recites a fragment fromth e "Lord's Prayer": this is the line that follows Felix's line, "forgive us our trespasses." 124 It is ironic that at this time Theophil forms his hands into fists, since the Communion rite of the mass, which Felix and Theophil have been reciting, involves the congregation shaking hands with one another. Theophil's intended violence operates in direct opposition to the peaceful action of the Communion rite.

108 me the same way he taught you, he said. He spat on the floor. And uncurling one hand he wiped it across the back of bis mouth. Felix shut his eyes. He could feel the sweat trickling down the furrows of his cheeks. Angel, he said, I need you. She drew back behind Theophil. I've heard those words before, she said. What's the use of going from worse back to bad? Felix felt the scratch. He put out his hand. He saw her for a moment as a small cat, trying to step her way through the puddles of the world. Fighting the dogs. Mous­ ing for her young. Angel, he called as he called the terrier. Angel. Stop bellowing like a sick cow, Theophil said. And get moving. We don't want any trouble here. I don't want to answer injustice for knocking you down. Besides, he 10S said, I'd haye to hire a block and tackle to get you off my doorstep. You couldn't knock him down, Angel said. He could snap you open the way a man knocks open a box. He could split you down the core the way a man splits open an apple. What's the matter? she said to Felix. I never in my life heard you call on anyone. It's Kip, he said. Angel shoved past Theophil and beat her hands against Felix's bib. What's the matter? she cried. Don't stand there like

Block and tackle: a system of two or more pulleys with a rope or cable threaded between them, usually used to lift or pull heavy loads.

109 a lump of meat. What's happened? He's been beat up, Felix said, and I think blinded. I knew, Angel moaned. I knew no good was in the wind. Blinded? she asked. For sure? Blinded, she said. Who'll see anything worth seeing now? She went to the door and called the children. Theophil sat down on the mattress and lit a cigar­ ette. Some men get what's coming to them, he said. He stretched his legs out and leaned back on his arm, his cigar­ ette between his teeth. When she goes off with you, he said to Felix, I want you to know that I've already given her notice. It's the kids I feel sorry for, he said.

Go out and bring back Lenchen, the Widow said to the boy. Then together we will think what to do. Yet even as he began to eat, rubbing his bread in the bacon fat, she began again. Looking out the window at the land fenced off. At the dry parcel which marriage with Wagner had given her. I had things ready. Things from my family. Then she stopped. Hearing her own voice in the boy's silence. Her face stirring like ground cracked above a growing shoot. Heinrich, she said. Then she stopped.

110 10(\ Flesh calls for flesh, she thought. She had paid enough. Had come with Wagner. Her lips closed. Her eyes shut. Had come into the wilderness. She had done wrong. She had seen the wrong. It was God who would judge.127 She covered her eyes with her hand. She had cried out against God. She had set wrong on 1OR wrong. She had been judged. Eyes looking from the creek bottom. From the body of another old woman. Knowledge. Silence. Shame. Heinrich, she said. Go. Go. Heinrich pushed back from the table. I've been thinking, he said. In the night. Ya, she said. You slept. Heavy like a stone in the house. I should have been able to tell Lenchen something, he said. I should have been able to tell her what to do. How would you know? his mother asked. You've not loved. No, he said. But he thought of light blazed into a branch of fire. How could he say that the earth scorched his foot. That he must become ash and be bom into a light which burned but did not destroy.129 Without speaking he buckled on his chaps.

126 Genesis 2:3: "And Adam said, This is now bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh: she shall be called Woman, because she was taken out of Man." 127 There are several biblical accounts of journeys into the wilderness. In Exodus, the Israelites journey from Egypt into the wilderness to make a sacrifice and prove their dedication to God; the gospels of Mark, Matthew, and Luke all provide an account of Jesus's journey into the wilderness where he is tempted by Satan. The Widow's journey with her husband Wagner is being compared to these sacrificial and difficult journeys. 28 It is implied here that the Widow, like her daughter Lenchen, also had a child out of wedlock. 129 This description resembles that of the phoenix, a mythical bird who, upon lighting both itself and its nest on fire, is reborn out of the ashes. It also resembles the burning bush in Exodus 3:1-15, through which God reveals himself to Moses.

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Just after Heinrich passed the lake he overtook Ara and William. They were riding slowly, Ara clamped stiff as a clothes-peg on the back of William's bald-faced mare. The boy looked at the restless movement of Ara's hat. It had fallen suspended on its bootlace to her shoulders and slapped and jerked with every forward step of the horse. Lenchen was part of any animal she rode. Moved with its movement as if she and the horse breathed with the same lungs. Rode easy as foam on its circling blood. 1 30 She was part of the horse. Its crest and the edge of its fire. Ara was something else. Made to walk on roads and to climb cliffs. Made to beat her hands against rock faces and to set her foot on sliding shale. The boy wanted to call out to William: Set her down. You might as well ask a dog to ride with you. But William would answer: I knew a dog once that could ride a horse as well as a man. When the going got rough, he'd say, that dog would move his backside against the cantle the way a man settles his rump. They must be going to James's place, the boy thought, and moved his hand to rein in his horse. But William turned half in the saddle and called to him. I was going to see James, the boy said, riding up. But if you have business with him I'd best leave it to an­ other time. You said your business wouldn't keep, Ara said,

Crest: the ridge of the neck of an animal or the mane growmg from this ridge. 131 Cantle: the hind part of a saddle.

112 remembering the passage between James and the boy. Could a woman ask, she said, what is between you and James now? William looked across at her and then to the boy who had ridden abreast of them on her side. It's a dangerous thing, he said, to ask about business between men. I'd thought you might have learned that. The boy here would hardly tell you so much. It would seem like setting someone older and wiser right. The boy turned on him. If I can't tell her, who can I tell? She might make things straight somehow. Can a man speak to no one be­ cause he's a man? Who says so? Those who want to be sheltered by his silence. I've held my tongue, he said, when I should have used my voice like an axe to cut down the wall between us. He tightened his legs on his horse so that it sprang forward. What's your hurry? William called after him. The boy pulled in his horse and waited. Why are you going to James's? the boy asked. What would be more natural? William said. James and Greta are in trouble, he said. And it's my trouble too. Though when a man moves away, he said, he sets up for himself and begins what you might call a new herd. He's not bound to the old one like those who stay. If you moved away now, he said, you'd know what I mean. But I couldn't, the boy said. And James couldn't, Ara said. Though Greta might have. And now that Ma's dead James still couldn't unless Greta came to stay with us, and that she's never do.

113 The boy looked away. Ara, he said, you must know what my business with James is. Everyone in the creek must know and no one has turned a hand to help. I don't know what to do. You have your own Ma, she said. The boy was silent. You best wait to speak to James, William said. And you'd best make sure of the facts before you speak. The rest is woman's business. They had reached the line fence now. The house was still hidden by the sweep of the land. Lenchen's gone from home, the boy said. Time and time again I've seen it happen, William said. There's never just one wasp in a wasp's nest. There's no smoke coming from the chimney, he said to Ara as they rounded the bend. She looked. The road reached before them to the gate, which hung open on its hinges. William leant down from his saddle and looked at the marks in the dust. Ara smelt the scent of the honey­ suckle. But the boy saw a head at the window half screened by the vine. There's someone there, he said. William looked up from the dust. It's Greta, he said, but James must have gone off somewhere, leaving the gate open behind him.

114 Inside the house Greta put her hand on the door bolt as if to feel its strength. She had stepped back from the window when she'd seen the boy's eyes on her. They're on me now, she said. The pack of them. What have I done? she asked. What's a moth done that a man strikes it away from the lamp? There was no one to answer. Then she heard William's voice: They interfere with a man's proper business. Some eat cloth that's needed for human flesh. She heard Angel's voice: What do you know about moths? You never felt the flame scorch your wings. You never felt nothing. She began to laugh. How much is nothing? she thought. She felt the weight of it in her hands. She turned to Angel's voice. You don't know, she said.

She heard Ara's voice speaking on the other side of the door: Greta, we've come to help. Then she heard William's voice, outside now near Ara's: Let us in and tell us where James has gone. There's nothing so bad that a few rivets won't set it in use again. She felt hands on the knob. She felt hands twisting her ribs. Plucking the flowers on her housecoat and bruis­ ing them. Stripping off the leaves until her branch lay naked as a bone on the dusty floor. She heard Ara's voice again and the boy Wagner's:

115 Ask her if she knows anything about Lenchen. There's a good girl, Greta, William said. We want to do what we can. Steady on and open the door. Then she heard voices again, but not what they said. Then the squeak of a boot as someone walked away from the house. Through a crack in one of the door planks she saw the circle of Ara's hat. Ara sat down like a watch­ dog on the step. Greta turned away from the door. She pulled off her housecoat. She rolled it into a ball and stuffed it into the stove. Then she went naked except for her shoes into the pantry and came back with a tin of kerosene. Ara must have got up from the steps. Greta heard fingers on the door. She heard Ara's voice: Where's James, Greta? Tell me what you know about Lenchen and James. The girl's gone too. We must all help. We want to help you. That's why we came. Open the door, Greta. The men have gone to the bam. Greta reached for the matches. She laid the box on the stove and poured kerosene from the tin. The flowers in the stove-box were breathing out fragrance which filled the whole room. They were raising purple faces and lifting green arms into the air above the stove. She heard Ara's voice: Tell me what you know about Lenchen. She wanted to cry abuse through the boards. She wanted to cram the empty space with hate. She wanted her voice to shatter all memory of the girl who had stayed too long, then gone off perhaps to die on the hills. Die suf­ fering so that James would remember the pain of her. Die young so that James would remember the sweetness of

116 her. Die giving so that he'd live in the thought of her. She picked up the box of matches. Don't play with those, Greta. She tuned quickly. Her mother was standing on the stairs. Don't play with those, Greta, she said. They're hard to get. A person has to know how to play with fire. Greta. Greta: it was Ara's voice. Greta lit a match and dropped it into the stove. The flowers raised gold filaments anthered132 with flame. Greta reached for the tin and emptied it into the fire. And Coyote cried in the hills: I've taken her where she stood my left hand is on her head my right hand embraces her.133

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At the other end of the valley Prosper and Angel reached the gate. Angel did not come riding a sleek ass. She walked beside Prosper on her two feet, her children tagging behind her. She did not come in peace. Her voice lapped and fretted against Felix's silence. Why was it Kip came to you? she asked. Just why? Now we've come, she said, we've come to stay.

132 Watson is using botanical terms to describe the stamen part of the flower (which is the pollen bearing organ of the flower). This organ consists of the filament, which is the stalklike portion of the stamen, and the anther, which is the pollen bearing part of the stamen and is supported by the filament. 133 Song of Solomon 2:6: "His left hand is under my head, and his right hand doth embrace me." The Song of Solomon is often read as an allegory for the relationship between God and the Church or Christ and the human soul, as husband and wife. In this passage, Greta's union is with Coyote instead of God.

117 There's nowhere else now. And what's for them, Angel asked, looking over her shoulder at the children, except rocks and ground and wild beasts to play with - or themselves - in the empty spaces. I've thought sometimes it would be better to take them down below out of the loneliness.134 But if loneliness is being in one's own skin and flesh, there's only more lonely people there than here.135 But how do I know? she asked. How do I know since I've never been there. I could guess, she said. One man is one man and two men or ten men aren't something else. One board is one board. Nailed together they might be a pig-pen or a hen-house. But I never knew men you could nail together like boards. She had fallen behind Felix. Now she came up to him and beat her hands against the flesh of his shoulder. Take a man and a woman, she said. There's no word to tell that when they get together in bed they're still any­ thing but two people. The hounds had come to the gate. They stood swinging their tails and grinning foolishly at Angel. But the terrier on the step snapped at her as she passed and crowded close to Felix's ankle. The house door was shut. Angel put her hand on the knob, but did not open the door. The terrier tugged at the bottom of Felix's overalls and began sniffing its way forward. Angel turned. Go off, she called to the children. If there's food to be had I'll raise my voice.

134 Angel is referring to the town that is situated below, Nineveh. 135 Angel's observations resonate with existential philosophy, which focuses on individual existence, and, in particular, the individual's responsibility to give his or her own life meaning.

118 The terrier was scratching at the base of the door and pressing its nose against the crack. Angel turned the knob, and the terrier shoved its way in as the door opened. I suppose there is no food, Angel said. Besides, it's Kip who matters. Bellies. Bellies. From the room came the sound of the terrier's voice. Angry. Affronted. Stop your noise, Angel said. Then she saw the Widow's daughter standing by the stove. The girl stared at Angel. I thought you'd gone away, she said. I didn't sup­ pose you would come back. Not really. I didn't suppose people ever did. Then she pressed her back against the wall, shut her eyes and began to sob. There's no use crying, Angel said. No use at all.

119 djFour

James had simply saddled his horse and ridden through the gate. Let the world see me now if it cares, he thought. The world didn't seem to care. James passed Wil- iam's house. He passed Theophil's. He passed the Wag­ ners'. Smoke was rising from the Wagner's chimney; otherwise there was no sign of life. James passed Felix Prosper's. He felt the quirt136 which he had shoved under his belt pressing into the soft edge of his ribs. He pulled it out and threw it into the scrub. He crouched down between his horse's ears and pressed it into a full gallop. He wanted only one thing. To get away. To bolt noisily and violently out of the present. To leave the valley. To attach himself to another life which moved at a different rhythm. The horse slowed to a rocking canter. James smelt the sage and the dust. He saw hill roll into hill. At last he came to the pole fence of the Indian reservation. The cabins huddled together. Wheels without wagons. Wagons without wheels. Bits of harness. Rags and tatters of clothing strung up like fish greyed over with death. He saw the bone-thin dogs. Waiting. Heard them yelping. Saw them running to drive him off territory they'd

36 Quirt: a riding whip.

120 been afraid to defend. Snarling. Twisting. Tumbling away from the heels they pursued. He had covered about half the distance to the town below. Nowhecameto fenced-offland. Signs of habitation. A flume. A gate. Some horses pastured in a field. Still he 137 had seen no one. He struck into the highway at last. Here, bordering the road, were the market gardens. Men working among the tomato vines. But he saw only the circle of their hats as they squatted among the plants or bowed down over the shaft of a hoe. A truck raced towards him. Lace loose. Canvases flapping. Shrouded as it passed in a swirl of dust.

In the town below lived Paddy, the bartender, and Paddy's parrot. • 11S Lived Shepherd, the game warden, Pockett, manager of the General Store, Bascomb, the bank manager and Tallifer, his clerk. Lived ten score other souls.

The road twisted and curled as it dropped to the river. James's horse was dark with sweat. It had been on the road ten hours or more. James leaned forward and ran his fingers down its neck. He felt it tremble under his hand. Below him on the other side of the river he could see the town. Houses and sheds set in a waste of sand and

137 Watson was very concerned with the negative effects that white settlers had on First Nations cultures in the Cariboo region of British Columbia where she lived from 1934-1936. 138 Game warden: a state or local official responsible for protecting local wildlife.

121 sagebrush. A crisscross of streets and alleys leading out to nothing. Leading in to the hotel and the railway station which fronted it. On the near side of the bridge which crossed over the river into the town he saw a car stopped and drawn in to the bank. Shepherd, the game warden, was asleep at the wheel. Sweat streaking his shirt. Sweat matting the hair on his forehead. James steadied his horse for the bridge. Over the low railing he could look down to the flow­ ing eddies of grey water. He edged closer to the rail. The horse quivered. Its mouth tightened on the bit. The water moved and stood still. An empty box floating downstream was caught and held suspended beneath him. His eyes searched the river bank and the naked silver bars. And there on a bar at the foot of the pier on which the arch of the bridge rested he saw the dark figure of his mother playing her line out into the full flood. He pulled the horse up. Then closing his eyes gave it its head. He felt it draw to the centre of the bridge. And heard its feet echoing on the boards until solid earth dulled their beat.

The horse took him without any sort of direction to the bam where he had stabled it in the fall when he'd driven in the beef. James climbed down and threw the reins to a man who had been sleeping outside the door. Rub him down, he said. Don't water or feed him until he's cooled off.

122 Then he walked away. The lane which went past the stable led to the main street. James walked quickly. He had decided what he was going to do. Outside the hotel two men sat on chairs tipped back against the frame wall. James looked through the window of the hotel. The clock on the wall opposite the door showed that it was almost three o'clock. He quickened his step. The door of the bank was still open. Inside the building the heat was contracted and tense. James went up to the wicket. Through an open door he saw Bascomb, his coat off, sitting vacantly at his desk. The teller raised his head from the balance-sheets. I want all my money, James said. The teller's face seemed to be pressing through the bars at him. I want all my money, James said. Pardon, the teller said. James lifted his hand. Then he let it drop heavily on the sill of the wicket. Bascomb came out of bis office. He waved the teller aside. I'll see to Mr. Potter's business, he said. I want all my money, James said. Bascomb seemed to be grinning at him. Did you say you wanted to close your account? he asked. Could I say it plainer? James said. Come into the office and sit down, Bascomb said. I don't need to sit down, James said. I can do my business standing.

123 Bascomb fidgeted with the files. The teller had dis­ appeared. James heard him bolting the door. Tell him, James said to Bascomb, to open that door. I won't be locked in. Of course, Bascomb said. Don't lock up yet, Tallifer, he called out. We'll all suffocate. He had James's card in his hand. James reached for it. It's curious, he said, how little a man adds up to. It takes time, Bascomb said. You haven't any cheques out, I suppose, he said. I don't ever write cheques, James said. You'll leave a few cents in to keep your account open, Bascomb said. It's more convenient. It's more convenient for me to take everything, James said. Bascomb made out a slip and handed it to him. How will you take it? Bascomb asked. In tens, James said. It's easier to keep track of like that. Bascomb counted the money across the counter: ten, twenty, thirty. James watched the flutter of each bill as it fell from Bascomb's hand. Well, there's your hundred, said Bascomb. He dropped a five dollar bill on the pile. A hundred and five. His hand reached into the cash drawer. Ten, twenty, thirty, he said as he counted the dimes. Tallifer opened the door for James and shut it be­ hind him.

124 Outside the bank the air was less oppressive. James shoved the money Bascomb had given him into his shirt pocket and buttoned the flap. He would go to the hotel and get a room. As he passed the General Store, Pockett hailed him. I've got no business, James said. There's no business won't wait, Pockett said, except cash business, and a man doesn't see much of that. James went in. There were a couple of men inside the store already. They weren't doing business. Just sitting on boxes in the shadow cast by chaps and saddles hung against the window for display. I might as well pick up a few things I need now I'm here, James said. A wallet, he said, for instance. One of the men laughed. Imagine a man wanting a wallet, he said. James was looking at the billfolds which Pockett had tossed out onto the counter. He bent his elbows on the rough surface and raised his shoulders. I'll take that one, he said, laying his finger on a yellow-grained folder. It's proper gear for a man filthy rich, leastwise by some men's reckoning. I suppose you want it put down, Pockett said. I'll pay for it, James said, since you seem so anxious on cash business. Besides, when a thing's paid for in money, you've got ownership rights on it and can smash it up if you so choose. I'm beginning to see that a man's always best to deal in cash. Pockett made a note on the back of a bag. He edged

125 bis face across the counter to James. Anything else you need? he said. So happens I do, James said. You can hand me down a couple of pairs of socks and one of those green and blue plaid shirts. And one of the small canvas bags with a bar- lock. Getting out of these parts? asked one of the men. Pockett looked up. James was standing now with one elbow doubled on the counter, his hand clasping his wrist. Shut up, Pockett said to the men. Business is busi­ ness. A joke's a joke. A place for everything and everything 139 m its place. Behind him on the shelves crowded tinned meat and pain killer, scent and rat poison, rivets and cords and nails. This is not your time for being down, Pockett said to James. I was talking to Bill when he was in on the mail. Everything is running smooth up above, I hope. He reached for the shirt and socks. Is it all right if I just put them in the sack? he asked without waiting for an answer to his first question. Better give the boy a new set of drawers too, one of the men called out. Nothing less sporting than a rip in y'r long Johns. If you can't settle for being civil, Pockett said, you'd best decide on moving off those boxes. I might as well tell him the truth, James thought. Or as much of the truth as will stop him guessing.

139 In her essay "Between One Cliche and Another: Language in The Double Hook," Barbara Godard notes that cliches are used in The Double Hook to emphasize the lack of communication among the members of the community; instead, they are bound by their traditional, formulaic responses.

126 He hunched his shoulders round away from the men. We've had our troubles since William came down, he said, answering Pockett's first question. I thought it would be something brought you down now, Pockett said. Ma, James said. Sick and brought to hospital? Pockett asked. No, James said. Not gone? Pockett asked. James nodded. Pockett looked across at the men. There's some people, he said, who's got respect for nothing. Man. Nor beast. Nor God Almighty either. Now a man like me, he said, had got sense enough to know when something's wrong. When I first clapped my eyes on you in the street I said to myself: James Potter and the beef sale not on. There must be trouble above. I said to myself: He looks like a man in trouble. There's trouble writ in the hang of his jeans and the drape of his shirt. Yet there's jokers here who see nothing. He'd raised his voice. The men on the boxes shifted round and peered out between the legs of the chaps into the dust of the street. Mrs Potter, Pockett said, must have been on in years. One of the queer things, he said, leaning across the counter again, is I never had the pleasure of meeting your mother all this time. I guess she never needed anything bad enough to come down. He was adding up figures on the back of the bag. That'll be three dollars and four dollars and a dollar and a half and-

127 He took a catalogue out the drawer and searched through it. That size of bag comes at a buck-fifty bar-lock and all. He put down the figure. Which makes ten even. James unbuttoned the flap of his shirt and pulled out a bill. It was the five Bascomb had given him. He tried again. This time he got a couple of tens. He gave one to Pockett.

Why don't you take out all those bills and put them in the wallet? Pockett asked. The men at the window shifted round again. I've got to be moving on, James said. I've got busi­ ness. Of course, Pockett said. I'm uncertain in speaking on these things, but you've sure got my black-edge sym­ pathy. When's the funeral for? James turned away from the counter. How long, he said, do you think a body would keep in this heat? Up above we do what we can. It doesn't bear thinking on, Pockett said.

Outside in the distance the hills bent to the river. There were no trees at all. Only sagebrush. From the street James could see a single sinuous140 curve of the river, the shadows of the clouds passing over the water as the shadow of the branches had lain for a moment on Lenchen's throat.

140 Sinuous: having many curves, bends, or turns; winding.

128 The river lay still in the sunlight, its thousand pools and eddies alive beneath its silver skin. James wanted to go down to the river. To throw himself into its long arms. But along the shore like a night- watch drifted the brown figure he sought to escape. He asked himself now for the first time what he'd really intended to do when he'd defied his mother at the head of the stairs. To gather briars141 and thorns, said Coyote. To go down into the holes of the rock and into the caves of the earth. In my fear is peace.142

Yet as James stood looking at the river, his heart cried out against the thought: This bed is too short for a man to stretch himself in. The covering's too narrow for a man to wrap himself in.

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From Pockett's window eyes watched him through the crotches of the hanging chaps. Along the street in front of him was the hotel. To the right the railway tracks dis­ appeared in a bend of the land. The train would go through

141 Briar: a prickly plant or shrub. 142 Isaiah 7:19: "And they shall come, and shall rest all of them in desolate valleys, and in the holes of rocks, and upon all thorns, and all bushes. Also, Isaiah 7:24: With arrows and bows shall men come thither; because all the land shall become briars and thorns." Isaiah 7 is considered in Christian theology to prophesy the birth of Jesus of a Virgin. Two kings are plotting to overthrow the house of David and Isaiah is sent to comfort the people by assuring them that God will protect them; that Babylon will be reduced to wilderness and that redemption will be found in the birth of Jesus. This alludes both to James's attempt to overthrow his mother and the future birth of his and Lenchen's baby.

129 in the early morning, some minutes past one o'clock. James walked down the street towards the hotel. He fingered the pocket of bis shirt. He had no idea what a railway ticket would cost. He'd no idea where to buy a ticket to. He knew nothing about the train except that it went to the packing-house,143 no way of boarding it except through the loading-pens. All he'd done was scum rolled up to the top of a pot by the boiling motion beneath. Now the fire was out. He heard a voice at his elbow. One of the men who had been sitting in Pockett's store was standing beside him. Friendly now. Had come cat-footing through the dust and stood at James's shoulder. What you need, boy, he said, is a drink. I'd hate to think that a near stranger had come from above and no one laid a dime on the table to help him through his trouble. Who said I was in trouble? James asked. You yourself, the man said. A fellow can't help hearing what's said across a counter. There's no one really wants death. It's trouble whichway you look at it. He shook his blond head. My name is Traff, he said. Well, James said, let's go. It's out of the sun in there. It's away from the dust. He turned to Traff. It's what might be called friendly of you, he said.

Packing house: the slaughterhouse.

130 The hotel lobby was empty. The calendar marked the month. The clock the hour. It was quarter to five. Through the open doors of the lobby and dining- room James could see the Chinese cook slipping about in his black cotton shoes. The cook's apron was untied and hung loosely from a tape which circled his neck. Every­ thing had a hanging and waiting look. I want to get a bed for myself, James said. Paddy's probably in the bar, Traff said. It's not always handy being clerk and bartender in one. When they opened the door into the beer parlour Paddy was leaning across the bar talking to Shepherd and Bascomb. His parrot sat hunched on his shoulder. It was the parrot who noticed James and Traff first. It raised a foot. Drinks all round, it said, falling from Paddy's shoulder to the counter and sidling along. Paddy looked up. James Potter, he said. What's brought you to town? The parrot swung itself below the inside edge of the counter and came up with a tin mug in one claw. Drinks on you,144 it said. James opened his pocket and pulled out a bill. Paddy brushed the bill beneath the counter and reached for the glasses. The parrot rattled his cup on the bar. How many? Paddy asked. Make it a double all round, James said. Bascomb got up without speaking and went out.

144 The talking parrot is a parody of the humans, indicated through his limited and repetitive language.

131 Well, Traff said, that's what I call friendly. He drew up a chair for James, and sat down opposite Shepherd in Bascomb's seat. Paddy brought the glasses. Since there's one less, he said, here's one on you. He took one of the glasses and poured some beer into the parrot's mug. What brings you down at this time of year? he asked James. Trouble, said Traff. I hope nothing's happened to Bill, Paddy said. No, his old lady, Traff said. James looked up. The parrot seemed to be watching him over the rim of its mug. She was old, James said, speaking to the parrot. It was the heat that took her and climbing round in the creek bottom. What would an old woman be climbing around in the creek bottom for? Traff asked. Drinks all round, the parrot said. James shoved the two bills which Paddy had put down towards the parrot. The men hitched their chairs closer. What was your old lady doing in the creek bottom? Traff asked again. Fishing, James said. What for? Traff asked. What would a person fish for but fish, Shepherd said. No one rightly knew, James said. He emptied an­ other of the glasses which Paddy had brought from the bar.

132 I suppose you came in to see about the funeral, Shepherd said. No, Traff said. She's buried. They had to do it them­ selves on account of the heat. A person doesn't lie softer for satin and polish, he said. People don't lie easy in our family,145 James said. He got up. You're forgetting your bag, Traff said. Paddy, he called across, how about fixing this gen­ tleman up with a room. Paddy took his apron off and threw it across the bar. Just keep an eye out for a minute, he said to Shepherd. When James turned to follow Paddy, Traff picked up the duffle bag. Shepherd looked up. How come, he said to Traff, that you're so well acquainted with Potter? That's not your concern, Traff said. It might as well be me as someone else. Besides, he said, is there any law against a man showing himself friendly in case of need? He followed James out. The parrot dropped to the floor and came shuffling over to Shepherd. Drinks all round, he said, pulling at Shepherd's ankle. O shut up, Shepherd said.

James is referring to the fact that his mother is still wandering around the creek bottom despite the fact that she is dead.

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Paddy had gone behind the desk in the lobby. He reached for a key. He handed it to James. That'll be four dollars, he said. You giving him the bridal suite? Traff asked. What's that to you? James asked. Mind your own damn business. I was only trying to save you, Traff said. James felt in his pocket for a bill. Paddy unlocked the till and counted six dollars out onto the desk. James thought: I've eight tens, this six and thirty cents. The thirty cents embarrassed him. He took it out and put it down in front of Paddy.1 6 Buy the parrot some beer, he said. It's little enough he must have to live for. One parrot in this whole bloody universe of men. He doesn't seem to care, Paddy said, picking up the dimes. He gets his way because he's a unique. Men don't often have their own way. It's not many have the rights of a dumb beast and a speaking man at the same time. James turned from the desk. It was six-thirty. In the dining-room men were sitting over empty dishes, their bodies shoved forward, their elbows resting on the cloth. The room was filled with smoke and silence. James put the bills Paddy had given him in his pocket. What you need is some hard liquor, Traff said. But I'm not in a position to stand you to that. I know where I

146 The characters in the town are flat, stock characters as opposed to round characters. Their function is to emphasize the banality of life in the town. This is demonstrated in Watson's decision to name the bartender "Paddy," which is a common and stereotypical name for a bartender.

134 can get it, though.147 Give me the price of a bottle, and I'll go over while you put your things upstairs. Then we can go round to Felicia's and see the crowd. Paddy had stopped at the door of the bar and was listening. Get on about your business, Traff said to him. You can't expect Shepherd to wait forever. He's not paid for doing double duty the way you are.

He took the bill which James gave him and went out. Paddy walked back across the lobby. We don't know any good of Traff round here, he said to James. When I want your advice I'll ask for it, James said. Paddy turned and went back into the beer parlour. James could hear the parrot's voice raised on a note of authority and the sound of feet bringing men in from out­ side. He took the seventy-six dollars out of his pocket and put them into his wallet. He picked up his bag and went to the foot of the stairs. The stairway was quite empty. He looked back over his shoulder across the lobby. The bar door was half open, and through the opening he saw Paddy looking at him. When I need any man's help, James said, I'll ask for it.

147 Although the Prohibition movement ended in the early 1920s in Canada, the Depression of the 1930s and the Temperance movements following World War Two would have placed limitations on the availability and consumption of alcohol.

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The room above was furnished with a bed, a chair, and a dresser. James locked the door behind him. He opened the drawers of the dresser one by one. There was nothing in the drawers except some folded newspaper, a hairpin, and a chamber-pot. James ran his hand over the striped bedcover and peered underneath the bed. He picked up the chair and set it down again. Then he changed his shirt and socks. When Traff came back after a long time, James opened the door and went out with him.

Outside, night seeped up from the ground and down from the sky. Through the strip of purple and green light Traff took James down past the stable to the river flats where the half-breeds had settled, and the Chinamen who owned the market gardens. Felicia's house stood beyond the shacks and outhouses on the clay bank of the river. Traff opened the door himself. I've brought a friend, he said. In one comer of the room, on a bedspring and mattress propped up on blocks, sat a woman. In the lamp­ light and shadow James could not see whether she was young or old. Bring him in, the woman said. Any friend of yours is welcome. Anyone's welcome who comes here looking

1 AQ for a little company. The room was hot. Filled with the odour of bodies

148 Traff has brought James to a prostitute's house. .

136 and kerosene burning away. Tainted with the damp smell of mud and dead fish. There was another man in the room and two girls. The girls lay on the end of the bed, their arms linked, their feet shuffling together on the floor. The lamp cast a shadow under the arched hollow between their shoulders and buttocks. Jimmy brought along a bottle, Traff said. He's in trouble and needs cheering up. The woman got up from the bed. Any friend of Traff s is all right, she said. Her body was tight in its cotton dress. She went across the room and took the bottle from Traff. You fellows eaten? she asked. No, Traff said. What have you got? How about some pickled herrings and onions? You got the price? the woman asked. Sure, James said. Bring anything. It's a long time since I ate. Give us the bottle, Fleeza, one of the girls said, roll­ ing over on her side. Hands off, Lilly, Traff said. That's man's stuff and old woman's stuff. He reached out and, pulling Felicia to­ wards him, lifted her chin with his fingers. Everything's fifty-fifty with this one, he said, and a settled account. It's my business, Felicia said. When pleasure's your business, there's no call to give more than you get. The two of them went into the kitchen together. The man who had been sitting on a box got up and followed them.

137 Lilly twisted round towards James. Sit down, she said. The other girl turned over on her belly and propped her chin in her hands. Where did Traff pick you up? she asked. He didn't pick me up, James said. We just happened together. No obligation on either side. The girl behind Lilly wriggled closer. What sort of trouble are you in? she asked. Did you pop someone or something? Shut up, Christine, Lilly said. If a man's in trouble, he's got enough to think about without people asking. Traff looked in from the kitchen, his yellow head gleaming in the lamplight. Don't let them bother you, he said. We'll be out with the food right away. James knew then why he was drawn to Traff. It was the cap of hair, straight and thick and yellow as Len­ chen's. He looked at the two heads beside him. At the dark faces. At the thin and angled bodies. Traff means all right, Christine said. We all mean all right, Lilly said. It's just there's no future in it. Drinking and crying, and everything being washed up the next day. No, James said. He took out his wallet and put ten dollars on the bed. They can take it for food, he said. It's little enough to get shut of eating a mess of pickled fish.

138 Outside James could hear the flow of the river. The air was cooler. The night pressed against his eyes. He slipped down over the slanted edge of the bank to the sand­ bar. For me first time in his life he felt quite alone. If his mother was there, he could not feel even a vibration of her shadow in the darkness. But almost at once he heard the clay slipping behind him and the sound of a stone loosed and in motion. In a moment Lilly stood beside him. What are you doing? she asked. I don't know, he said. Looking for something I hope is lost. Why bother? she asked. I guess I want to be sure, he said. I can't remember the time I've been sure of anything. What do you go taking up with Traff for? she said. He's not your kind. If he had money in his purse, he'd not just sit on a bed and go off. Not without taking what he'd paid for. Even when he hasn't any money, she said, there's a lot he takes for granted. I left the money there for Fleeza, she said. Why did you come down here after me? James asked. Because I like you, she said. Because, she said, you just sat there looking miserable when another man would have had his hands already on our skirts. She came towards him in the darkness. Then he felt her hand on his sleeve. It's all now with Traff, Lilly said. It's what he wants

139 and quick. Do you really believe I'm different from Traff, James said. He shook her hand from his sleeve. Leave me alone, he said. I've enough harm to answer for. But he stood where he was, hearing her breath hard in the darkness. Go away, he said, putting his own hand on her arm. She turned towards him. Her hands pressed against his chest. Running like fire from his arms to his thighs. Go away, he said. His arm pulled her close. His face pressed into the angle of her neck. He felt the fire of her hand and the night lifting above him. Then she was gone. He heard her hand on the bushes as she pulled her­ self up from the bank. Her foot on the sliding clay. He heard Traff s voice and the click of a latch. The night was empty about him.

11

He climbed the bank. Through Felicia's window he saw Traff sitting at Felicia's table counting a handful of bills: ten, twenty, thirty, forty, fifty, sixty, two, four, six. Lilly was sitting on the edge of the table resting back on her hands. In one of them she held a wallet. He put his hand up to his pocket. His wallet was gone. Traff s head shone yellow in the lamplight. James

140 had no desire to move. He watched Traff curiously. Traff put the bills in his pocket. Got up. Took the lid off the stove and, reaching for the wallet, tossed it into the fire-box. James saw him put the lid back. He wondered where Chris­ tine, Felicia and the other man were. Traff had gone over to Lilly. As he bent over her she curled her legs behind the bend of his knees. They were both laughing. Alone outside the glass of the cabin window James laughed too. Laughed looking in at someone else. The price of his escape lay snug in one of Traff s trouser pockets. Traff was bending closer. The girl's hands were on his shoulders. James turned away from the cabin. The life which Traff and Lilly led behind Felicia's dull glass belonged under Felicia's narrow roof. In the dis­ tance across the flats James could see the lights of the station and across from them the lights of the hotel where the parrot who lived between two worlds was probably asleep now, stupid with beer and age. James stood for a moment in the moonlight among the clumps of stiff sage which shoved through the seams and pockets of the earth.

141 tbFive

William stood looking into the charred roots of the honeysuckle. What use, he asked, could even three people be since the door was barred and there was nothing but a half-empty bucket among them. It's the horror, he said, of what you find. Fire doesn't burn clean. The things you see, he said. Beds standing when there's no one left to lie in them, and bits of dishes when there's no one left to eat. But I never expected, he said, to see the bones of my own sister lying in the ashes of our own house. A hammer never hits once, he said. It gets the habit of striking. The boy turned his streaked face away from the smoke and embers. Ara was sitting on the ground, her arms holding her knees close to her chest, her eyes on the boy's scorched and torn shirt. The words of lord came, saying: Say now to the rebellious house, Know you not what these things mean? 4 Greta had inherited destruction like a section sur­ veyed and fenced. She had lived no longer than the old lady's shadow left its stain on the ground. She sat in her mother's doom as she sat in her chair. Greta was the youngest of us all, William said. You

149 Ezekiel 17:12: "Say now to the rebellious house, Know ye not what these things mean?..."

142 wouldn't know how she was. Sliding down the stacks and falling into the creek. Ma was hard on her, he said. She thought grief was what a woman was bom to sooner or later, and that men got their share of grief through them. I've no cause myself to complain, he said, but a man hardly lives long enough to prove a point for certain. Mostly too, he said, when he's proved it he's lost the care to know. The smoke rose from the charred logs. They had stopped the fire from spreading, but they had not stopped the fire. Prophesy upon these bones150, Ara thought. Then she hid her face in her hands. She was afraid she would feel the earth shake and see the bones come together bone to bone.151 That the wind would blow and she would see Greta fleshed and sinewed152 on the ruin she had made.153 We've no more chance of finding your sister, Wil­ liam said to the boy, than we had of putting out the fire. It would be like searching a dog for fleas with a comb that had only a couple of teeth. She might have gone off with James, he said. The boy turned to him. So I wasn't wrong, after all, he said. She might have gone off with James. You told me I'd best make sure of the facts. They were probably as clear to you as they were to me. You don't have to spy your way along an actual built

150 Ezekiel 37:4: "Again, he said unto me, Prophesy upon these bones, and say unto them, O ye dry bones, hear the word of the Lord." 151 Ezekiel 37:7: "So I prophesized as I was commanded: and as I prophesized, there was a noise, and behold a shaking, and the bones came together, bone to bone." 152 Sinew: tendon. 153 Ezekiel 37:6: "And I will lay sinews upon you, and I will bring flesh upon you, and cover you with skin, and put breath in you, and ye shall hve; and ye shall know that I am the Lord." Watson is alluding to the Book of Ezekiel, especially chapter 37, in which God brings the dead back to life in order to show his power. It is Greta's loss of faith that leads to her destruction and only by restoring her faith in the Lord can she be resurrected.

143 fence to know the probable lay of the land.

Ara sat looking at the smoking doorsill. The door of the house had opened into the east wind. Into drought.154 She remembered how she'd thought of water as a death which might seep through the dry shell of the world. Now her tired eyes saw water issuing from under the burned threshold. Welling up and flowing down to fill the dry creek. Until dry lips drank. Until the trees stood knee deep in water.155 Everything shall live where the river comes, she said out loud. And she saw a great multitude offish, each fish springing arched through the slanting light.156 She looked at the man and at the boy. How can you go on so? she asked. What does a man do, the boy asked, when there's nothing to be done but dig a grave? He digs a grave, Ara said, and holds his peace. Above them a coyote barked. This time they could see it on a jut of rock calling down over the ledge so that the walls of the valley magnified its voice and sent it echo­ ing back:

154 Ezekiel 19:12: "But she was plucked up in a fury, she was cast down to the ground, and the east wind dried up her fruit: her strong rods were broken and withered; the fire consumed them." 155 Ezekiel 31:14: "To the end that none of all the trees by the waters exalt themselves for their height, neither shoot up their top among the thick boughs, neither their trees stand up in their height, all that drink water: for they are all delivered unto death, to the nether parts of the earth, in the midst of the children of men, with them that go down to the pit." 156 Ezekiel 47:9: "And it shall come to pass, that every thing that liveth, which moveth, withersoever the rivers shall come, shall live: and there shall be a very great multitude offish, because these waters shall come thither: for they shall be healed, and every thing shall hve whither the rivercometh. " Ezekiel 47 contains the prophecy of a stream emerging fromth e house of the Lord that will travel east until it empties into the Dead Sea; the waters of the Dead Sea will be turned into freshwater , fromwhic h will come a multitude offish, and the Dead Sea will be converted into the Living Sea.

144 Happy are the dead for their eyes see no more.

If we don't move, the boy said, night will be on us, and by the morning there will be no bones to bury.157 I've seen the place where a cow stumbled, William said, licked clean before daybreak. What are we going to do? the boy asked. We've definite things to think about, William said. First of all James is bound to come back. He's not one to throw himself into a pit, though he might stand on the edge looking in. Let's do what we have to, the boy said. Ma'11 be waiting and my stock and yours. I'll go, Ara said. I might as well be what use I can. I'll ride down from our place to yours and spend the night with your mother. If James is bound to come back, there'd best be someone here.

The Widow Wagner had waited all day. She moved about the house shifting a chair, a dish, a pile of clothing. At last she went to the wooden box which stood at the foot of her bed. She opened the lid and knelt down. Underneath Wagner's suit, underneath his shoes wrapped in flour sack­ ing, underneath his drawers and shirts, was cloth of her own spinning, cloth left from the time when she had made

157 Heinrich is concerned that neglecting to bury Greta's bones will result in the coyotes eating her remains.

145 her own children's clothes. Dear God, she said, how could I know? She went back to the chest and took out Wagner's heavy metal watch. She'd meant to give it to the boy. She'd meant a great many things. What is time, she thought, but two hands shaking us from sleep. Fifty years or twenty. Forty years in the wilderness. What help a bed and a good goose pillow? Forty years, she said. Then she put the watch back into the box and closed the lid. She picked up the cloth and went down to the kitchen. She spread the cloth on the table and took the shears out of the drawer. And out of the cloth she cut a baby's singlet.159

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Meanwhile Angel had gone about her work. There's no use crying, she said to the girl. No use at all. Water, she said to Felix. Her finger pointed to the buckets on the bench. Then she turned and went into the other room. Kip, she called. What's the matter, Kip? It's my eyes, Kip said, but I had it coming. There's no time a bug won't get its wings frayed in the end. I'd a feeling you'd get into trouble, Angel said. Phil

158 The Israelites are made to wander for forty years in the wilderness as a punishment for their disbelief in God. The idea is that after the forty year period the generation of disbelievers will be dead and the new generation would rise up and enter the land. The Widow is a product of the disbelieving generation and her attempt to make clothing for the coming generation (Lenchen's child) signifies a new beginning. 159 Singlet: an undershirt or loose-fitting sleeveless top.

146 had no right to turn you out. I might just as well have been shut of him soon as late. When suspicion buzzes on a mind like his, the maggots eat right in. Tell the girl, Kip said, that I didn't mean nothing. The old white moon had me by the hair. The girl was standing at the door looking in. You wouldn't know what he said, she muttered. I can suspect, Angel said. It wouldn't take a great stretch to imagine. She knelt down by the bed and took Kip's face in her hands. Who'll see things now, she said. The bugs. The flowers. The bits of striped stone. The girl was crying again. It was me, she said. All because of me the whole world's wrecked, she said. The whole world is a big lot for one girl to wreck, Angel said. She pulled the blanket round Kip. Lay still, she said, till I get some water. She stood up. Go back into the kitchen, she said to the girl. There's still some ground to walk on, and I figure there isn't a single inch tore out of the sky. When you wreck the world you won't stand round talking about it. She walked into the kitchen behind the girl. If I did right, she said, I'd pack you up and send you back to your ma. The girl sat down on the bench beside the stove. I'll do what you want, she said. Only let me stop. She put her hands towards Angel.

147 He hit me, she said. James hit me. And well he might, Angel said, if you were snivel­ ing the way you're sniveling now. Felix, she called through the door. Felix, are you waiting for the rain to fill your buckets. Angel, the girl said. Angel turned. I thought you'd done, she said. He went away, the girl said. He got on bis horse and went off. He just left me there with Greta. Angel paid no attention. Felix, she called. Felix. But Felix was already in the doorway. He held the bail of the bucket askew so that the water slopped over and left a dark stain on the leg of his overalls. I saw James Potter's old mother standing by my brown pool, he said. I was thinking of catching some fish for the lot of us. But she wasn't fishing, he said. Just stand­ ing like a tree with its roots reaching out to water. Give me the bucket, Angel said. There's things to be done needs ordinary human hands.

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The Widow sat with the singlet half finished in her lap. She could hear the calf bawling in the yard outside. She got up and put another stick on the stove. The lids of the pots rose and fell. How long this time? she thought. She put on her black sweater and took the cloth off the milking-pail. The calf was in the yard. The cow was in

148 the pasture beyond. As she let down the bars, the calf pressed close at her side. When the last bar fell the calf shoved past her. The cow raised her head. Spoke to the calf. Was licking its neck and flanks. Wait till I come, the Widow called. The cow and the calf paid no attention to her. Shoo, she said, lifting her apron and shaking it. She put down her pail and took hold of the calf s tail. The calf s legs stiffened. It kept its head down. She could see the movement of its throat and the milk dribbling from the comers of its mouth. Stop, she cried. But the calf drank on, its tail slipping through her fingers like rope. Help, help, she called to the cow. We're old women both of us. The cow adjusted her hip. She raised her horns a little and breathed heavily through her black nostrils.

When Ara came she turned the calf back into the yard. She watered the horses and threw hay down to them. I've wasted the milk, the Widow said. There will be none for the children. She had set food out for three. I hate to think of the men, Ara said as she sat down. They haven't a bite between them. There's a sort of shame in eating when grief is everywhere.

149 She leant over and picked up the shirt which the Widow had left on the chair. So you do know, she said. It would be hard to believe that you didn't. The Widow shut her eyes. Dear God, she said, there's nothing one can hide. Too much has happened, Ara said, to talk of hiding. James's mother's dead. Her house has burned down and Greta in it. Your house is standing and your children are alive. Lenchen will suffer like the rest of us, the Widow said. She's done wrong. Right and wrong don't make much difference, Ara said. We don't choose what we will suffer. We can't even see how suffering will come. She tossed the shirt onto the couch under the win­ dow. I never see baby-clothes, she said, that I don't think how a child puts on suffering with them.

In the cabin by the quarry Theophil slept again. His body turned and twitched on the mattress. Outside the yellow cat rubbed against the door, waiting to be let in.

150 thl

Below in Felix's house there was no noise except the stir and breath of living things. Angel had moved Kip from the bed. He lay now on a network of branches which she'd made Felix cut and carry into the house. The scent of pine needles filled the room.160 Angel sat by the stove. The girl lay curled round in a blanket, her head propped against the saddle Felix had brought from the bam. Angel got up and went to the bedroom door. In the shadow of the moonlight she could see Felix lying like a rock rooted in the middle of the bed. About him lay his children. And safe in the crevice of his hip the terrier crouched alert and watching with its amber eyes the figure in the doorway. The girl moaned. Angel turned back to her. She put a stick in the stove and filled the kettle. The girl muttered in her sleep. Angel bent over her. The girl whimpered and moved her knees. She opened her eyes and spoke to Angel. Will James come? she said. Kip stirred on his bed of branches. Tell James I didn't mean any harm, he said. If any­ one should ask, I was just riding along and fell into a bed of prickly pear. Hush, Angel said. Night's for sleep when you have a place to lay your head.

160 In Christianity, evergreen trees (due to their ability to live and remain green throughout the winter) are often symbols of everlasting life. The advent wreath and the Christmas tree are common examples of this symbol; both are used in preparation for Christmas which anticipates the birth of Christ. In The Double Hook, it is the birth of Lenchen's baby that is being anticipated.

151 James looked back over his shoulder at the moon­ light slanting on the roof of Felicia's shack. There where the moonlight slid down the walls Traff and Lilly swam in the pool of silver they had stolen. The flick of a girl's hand had freed James from freedom. He'd kissed away escape in the mud by the river. He thought now of Lenchen and the child who would wear his face. Alone on the edge of the town where men clung together for protection, he saw clearly for a moment his simple hope. He had walked away from the cabin. He skirted the main street and went back to the barn. The bam door was locked, and he had to pound on the door to waken the owner who lived in the bam with the horses. I'll saddle for myself, James said. Then he remem­ bered that he'd nothing left to pay for the horse's hay and stabling. Write it down, he said. I'll pay when I'm next in town. There are times when a man spends more than he has and must go on credit. He led the horse out of the bam and swung into the saddle. Unless a man defaults, he said, a debt is a sort of bond. The horse turned of its own accord towards the bridge. James gave it its head. It tossed its mane and held the bit lightly between its teeth. Freed from the stable, it turned its head towards home. James felt the muscles moving under him. Then he

152 heard the hollow ring of hooves on the bridge. The bridge lay a black arch over the clear sweep of the river. And in the shadow of the girders161 fear unwound itself again like the line from his mother's reel.

Where is your hope? Better go down to the bars of the pit

1 ft)

Better rest in the dust. 163 Justice is swifter than water.

But the horse carried James across the bridge and up a path onto the shoulders of the hills. The dead grass snapped beneath the horse's feet as it moved, and the dust rose like spray in the moonlight from the sweep of its fetlocks.164 James leaned forward. The horse raced from the ridge through a meadow of wild hay watered by some hidden spring. It slowed to a lope, to a canter, to a pace. Hills rose again on the other side of the meadow. James could feel the pull of the horse's shoulders as it stepped its way up through the rocks and bushes. He could feel the muscles contract and tighten as the horse began its descent on the other side. At the bottom they came to a creek. James could hear the horse's feet parting the water. He could hear the flow of water on stones, but in this skyless slit the water

161 Girders: large beams made of wood, steal, etc. used to support the ends of joists. 162 Job 17:16: "They shall go down to the bars of the pit, when our rest together is in the dust." 163 Although this line does not appear in the Bible, Watson is appropriating bibhcal terminology. Similar phrases occur frequently: in 2 Samuel 1:23, ".. .they were swifter than eagles"; in Job 7:6, "my days are swifter than a weaver's shuttle..."; Job 9:25, "...my days are swifter than a post"; Jeremiah 4:13, "...his horses are swifter than eagles"; etc. In most cases, these phrases are connected to notions of lost hope and/or persecution. Fetlocks: a part of a horse's leg.

153 was opaque and formless. He shut his eyes and fastened his free hand in the horse's mane. As they climbed again, the horse seemed to draw life with every breath. It climbed. It rounded ledges. It held close to the rock where nothing but the feel of stone marked the fall below.

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In Felix's kitchen the girl turned again and groaned. She yelped and sat up. When's your time? Angel asked. How would I know, the girl said. There's not much doubt, Angel said. And the house already crowded to the corners. She sat back in her chair. If you were one of mine she said, and I was no further than your Ma is from here I'd want to come no matter what I'd said or done. A woman sharpens herself to endure. Since she can be trod on like an egg, she grows herself to stone. She got up and went to the door of the bedroom. Felix, she called, get up. The terrier growled. Felix did not stir. Angel called again. He turned. I'm going for the Widow, she said. Felix got out of the bed. He still wore bis bib overalls. I couldn't do anything but play the fiddle, he said.

154 JJIO

Neither Ara nor the Widow could sleep. They had cleared away the dishes and sat talking. Dear God, the Widow said, she may be alone like some animal in the wood. James might have planned to meet her, Ara said. He wasn't there. The day his mother died he had his horse saddled and waiting. But he never in all his life had strength enough to set himself against things. The Widow shook her head. We can only guess, she said. It's best not to think. tbll

It was a knock on the door which disturbed them at last. Dear Father, said the Widow, throwing her apron over her head, what shall I say? What must I do? Ara opened the door. It's Angel, she said. What does she want? the Widow asked. Speak, woman speak. Do you know where the child is, God for­ give her and me. Dear God, she said, I who wouldn't drive a whelping dog out of the yard have done this. Angel did not answer. Can you harness the wagon? she asked Ara. Then she turned to the Widow. We've got to get you down to Felix Prosper's some-

155 how, she said. There's no use wailing on God. No one thought of Felix, Ara said.

12

Felix played the fiddle. The children slept on. Kip raised himself on his elbow to listen. Light a light, the girl said. I want to see. It will be daylight soon, Felix said. The girl could hear his arm rubbing against the cloth of his overalls. She could hear the pad of his foot beating out the rhythm. What if Angel doesn't come? she asked. She'll come, Felix said. Why did she go? the girl said. What good could it do? She put out her hand and grasped Felix's knee. Felix, she said, I want Angel. Felix, she cried, I'm afraid. Will it hate to be bom? Will it blame me all the years of its life? Go away, she called out. Let me be. Felix put down his fiddle. He went to the bedroom door. The light was turning blue at the window. A bird rattled about in the bushes. The hounds rubbed softly at the base of the door. The girl's voice filled the cabin. It might be dead, she cried. Nobody wants it. No­ body. It might have a scar like the lash of a whip. Felix, she called, come back. Come back. There's a flower grow­ ing against the wall and it's reaching out to cover me.

156 She's thinking of Greta, Kip said. What did she and James do? he asked the girl. Nothing, she moaned. Nothing. James is coming I tell you. I can hear his horse's feet snapping the twigs. I can feel the beat of its hooves trembling the ground. Then she began to cry again. It's me, she sobbed, outside in the night. Open the door.

Felix shook the children out of bed. The terrier yelped as he pushed it with his hand. Outside, he said. Get going. Take something to cover your backsides, Felix bellowed. You can lie with the hounds or in the hay. He went back to the kitchen and bent over the girl. Her arms were round his neck. He could feel her shaking and biting at his shoulder. He carried her in to the bed. Keep listening, he called to Kip. Keep listening for Angel to come. The girl shut her eyes. Her hands twisted the blanket which Felix threw over her. Then she lay still. She looked crumpled and worn as an old pillow. Felix thought of Angel. Dark and sinewed as bark. Tough and rooted as thistle. I've never hear her cry, he thought. The folds above his eyes contracted. He bent over and took one of the girl's hands between his thick fingers. It was not until the girl had come battering at his peace that he'd wondered at all about the pain of growing a root. The girl cried out again and clutched at his hand. He sat on the edge of the bed. The girl lay still. If he could only shed his flesh, moult and feather

157 again, he might begin once more. His eyelids dropped. His flesh melted. He rose from the bed on soft owl wings.165 And below he saw his old body crouched down like an ox by the manger.166 He reached for his fiddle. Then he heard at a dis­ tance the chatter of wheels on the rutted road.

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James's horse still brought him on. Night had shrunk into the long shadows of the trees, into the slender shadows of the grass, into the flitting shadow of birds. Light defined the world. It picked out the shattered rock, the bleached and pitted bone. It would edge the empty bottle on Felicia's table, James thought. It would lie congealed in the unwashed plates. It would polish the yellow of Traff s head and count the streaked tears under Lilly's eyes. It would shine in his own empty mangers. On Kip's face. On Greta's bleak reproach. On the loose stones Wil­ liam had piled on his mother's grave. Daylight called on him to look. To say what he had done. Yet he could see, he told himself, only as far as his eyes looked. Only as far as the land lay flat before him.

165 Many scholars have discussed Felix's character in terms of rebirth and revelation. In Figures Cut in a Sacred Ground: Muminati and "The Double HoOk" (1988), Angela Bowering proposes that Felix can be linked to Dionysus because of his double-birth (and, I would argue, for his musical associations). In her discussion of the tradition of Canadian apocalyptic writing, "As the Last Morning Breaks in Red: Frye's Apocalypse and the Visionary Tradition in Canadian Writing" (2001), Donna Bennett suggests that Felix's characterization is used to emphasize the importance of revelation and transformation. For both scholars, the moments surrounding the birth of Lenchen's child result in Felix's rebirth. 166 The ox and the manger are common icons of the depiction of the birth of Jesus. Watson's use of this imagery continues the parallels between the birth of Jesus and the birth of Lenchen and James's baby.

158 Only up to the earth-tethered clouds. He could, too, he knew, look into his own heart as he could look into the guts of a deer when he slit the white underbelly. He held memory like a knife in his hand. But he clasped it shut and rode on. He could not think of what he'd done. He couldn't think of what he'd do. He would simply come back as he'd gone. He'd stand silent in their cry of hate. Whatever the world said, whatever the girl said, he'd find her. Out of his corruption life had leafed and he'd stepped on it care­ lessly as a man steps on spring shoots.167

The horse had brought him out on the brow of the hill. Below him he could see the road which ran up the creek past Felix Prosper's, past TheophiPs, past the Widow Wagner's, past William's, round by the flat lake to his own gate. From the height of the hill the land below seemed ordered and regular, but as the horse slipped down over the shale into a clump of pines he wondered where in all the folds and creases he would find the girl. He remem­ bered her words: What do you want me to do now? His silence. Greta's eyes behind him. Must the whole world suffer because Greta had been wronged? Must the creek dry up forever and the hills be pegged like tanned skin to the rack168 of their own bones? Below in the valley he heard the creak of a wagon- box and the rattle of wheels. He wondered why he'd seen

167 James's return from Nineveh is reminiscent of the parable of the prodigal son in Luke 15:11-32. James hasi recognizerecognized ththe erroerrorr ooff hihis wayways anamd returns to accept the consequences of his actions. 168 The rack is a medieval torture devicie used to sfretch a person until their ligaments actually became disconnected fromth e rest of the body.

159 nothing on the road when he'd looked down from above. Theophil must be up and about some business of his own. th\4

Theophil did not hear the wagon as it passed. He turned and pulled sleep about him like an empty sack.

It was Ara who drove the horses. Angel was beside her on the seat. The Widow sat on a heap of quilts and a feather bolster in the box. At each jolt of the wagon she called on God. Angel looked over her shoulder. He's given you lambswool and goose feathers, she said. What more do you want? The Widow groaned. Touch them up, Angel said to Ara as she looked at the team. Felix can't do anything but fiddle. The wonder is he stayed about at all. Angel took the whip out of the socket. Ara's hands tightened on the reins. What if they bolt? she said. Dear God, the Widow said, shall I be drawn to death by my own son's team? Loose the lines, Angel said to Ara, or they'll snap. You can't urge and hold a thing at the same time. The horses broke into a trot. They tossed their

160 manes and lifted their feet. I never thought I'd be driving a team down this length of road, Ara said. Wherever I go I most often go by my own strength.

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At the other end of the valley William and the boy still waited. It seems a strange sort of thing, William said, to light another fire on the top of what fire has destroyed. The curious thing about fire, he said, is you need it and you fear it at once. Every time a shoe has to be shaped, or the curve of a bit altered, or a belly filled, someone lights a fire. In winter we cry out for the sun, but half the time it's too hot, the butter melts, the cream sours, the earth crumbles and rises in dust. With a stick he pushed away the embers from the foolhen which the boy had snared in the kinnikinic169 bushes. The boy was sitting silent and restless beside him. I did wrong to stop with you, the boy said. A grown man doesn't need someone to sit up with him no matter what the occasion. A man needs living things about him, William said. To remind him he's not a stone or a stick. That he's not just a lone bull who can put down his head and paw the bank and charge at anything that takes his fancy. He had taken the bird out of the ashes and was

Kinnikinic: a variety of plants used by North American First Nations peoples to create a mixture either for adding to tobacco or to be used as a tobacco substitute.

161 dividing the carcass. You didn't stop, though, to stay with me, he said. You stayed because waiting is better than thrashing around. You stayed because if James comes you can settle your mind about what you really don't know. I've been thinking, the boy said, that I didn't ride down past Theophil's. No one, he said, has asked Felix Prosper. Though what help one could get from Felix I don't know, he said, since Felix sits there like the round world all centred in on himself. He drinks coffee like the rest of us, William said. Though, he said, I'd be hard pressed to know how he comes by the money to pay for it. If you think of it, he said, this case of Felix is a standing lesson for someone to think twice. A man who drinks coffee is dependent on something outside himself. But I myself doubt that he'd be much help to a person in trouble. He has troubles of his own if he cared to pick them up, but he lets them lie on another man's doorstep. He spends all his days lying round like a dog in a strip of sunlight taking warmth where he finds it. I never heard of a dog brewing himself a pot of coffee, the boy said. The thing about a dog lying in the sun­ light is it just lies in the sunlight. Perhaps no living man can do just that. The two men sat in silence for a while watching the sun rise over the backs of the hills. It's going to be another scorcher, William said, but the boy wasn't listening to him. He had heard a grouse rise on the hillside and boom down into a gully. Then he saw a horse and rider parting the branches on the lower slope. It

Grouse: a wild bird similar to a chicken.

162 was James. As he rode closer, the boy noticed that he was wearing a new plaid shirt. William stood up. He's been to town, the boy said. Perhaps he took Lenchen with him.

1L17

As Ara turned the team into the gate, she raised her head. The Widow sat upright on the lambswool quilts, her hands on the edge of the box. Above the chatter of a chip­ munk which balanced on a bush near the cabin window, they heard a thin wailing. Dear God, said the Widow, it's a feeble cry. Quick. Quick, she called and clambered down from the box as Ara pulled the horses to a stop before the door. We don't want any trouble, Angel said as she jumped down from the seat. The Widow's hand was on the knob. If there's trouble, Mrs. Prosper, she said, it won't be of my making. Dear God, she said, the latch needs oil.

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When James pulled his horse up at the foot of the slope he could see the gate, the stable, the path which led down from the stable-yard to the creek. Where the house had been there was nothing but blank smouldering space. On the fringe of the space he saw the figures of William

163 and the boy beckoning to him. In the emptiness of the fenced plot the bodies of the man and the boy seemed to occupy space which, too, should have been empty. The lank body of William and the thin body of the boy roped him to the present. He shut his eyes. In his mind now he could see only the seared and smouldering earth, the bare hot cinder of a still unpeopled world. He felt as he stood with his eyes closed on the destruction of what his heart had wished destroyed that by some generous gesture he had been turned once more into the first pasture of things. I will build the new house further down the creek, he thought. All on one floor.171 The men had come towards him. William's hand was on his sleeve. We were waiting for you, William said. It was nobody's fault. I've seen it happen time and again. It's the women left, the meals that will never be ate, it's the heat and the frost and the empty spaces. Tell him straight out, the boy said, that Greta burned the house and no one knows where Lenchen is. Make him speak. Lenchen, James said. He looked at the burnt ground. I left her here, he said. And Greta, the boy said. It was her face we saw behind the honeysuckle. Where have you been that you left the two of them alone at such a time, and come back

171 There are many parallels between this passage and the Book of Revelation. The fire that destroys James's house is similar to the prophesied destruction of the earth brought on by natural disasters; the "unpeopled world" that confronts James resonates in the banishment of the wicked fromth e earth; and James's desire to build a new house draws on the replacement of the old heaven and earth with a new heaven and earth. The passage is also structurally similar to the Book of Revelation, as James thinks about the events of the past, considers the present and then makes plans for the future.

164 two nights and a day later dressed up in a new shirt. James dug his toe into the edge of the ash, but he said nothing. What made Greta set fire to things? William asked. James looked up at him. God knows, he said, we both had reason to wish the place had gone and everything in it. James turned to the boy. What could he say of the light that had made him want to drink fire into his dark­ ness. Of the child got between the leafless trees when the frost was stiff in the branches. Of beating up Kip and run­ ning off because Kip had been playing round with the glory of the world. I ran away, he said, but I circled and ended here the way a man does when he's lost. I've a notion, William said, that a person only escapes in circles no matter how far the rope spins. There was Greta as well as James, the boy said. James turned away leading his horse as he went. We best go down the creek, William said, and then we can think what to do. Ara'll make you welcome, he said to James, as long as you care to stop. I wouldn't speak for Ma, the boy said. He turned to James. Tell me, he said, what would a girl do?

19

By Felix Prosper's stove the Widow sat with James's child across her knee.

165 Felix didn't do bad for a man, Angel said. Especially for a man who never raised a hand to help one of his own mares in foal. I doubt whether he ever knew the difference between what just happened and what other people did. Hush, the Widow said. It's no time for rememb­ ering. Remembering chums grief to anger. She laid her hand on the baby's back. Dear God, she said, what a straight back he has. He'll need it, Angel said, to carry round what the world will load on his shoulders.

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Felix stood at the edge of his own brown pool. Kip sat on the bank beside him. When a house is full of women, Kip said, and one of them Angel, it's best for a man to take his rest among the willows. When a house is full of women and children, Felix said, a man has to get something for their mouths. I've seen a bird, Kip said, wear itself thin doing just that. A bird with a whole nestful of beaks open and asking. Felix played his line. I keep thinking about James, Kip said. I kept at him like a dog till he beat around the way a porcupine beats with his tail. Felix moved down the creek a little. James's got more than a porcupine has to answer for, he said. How're you going to pick up a living now?

166 There's no telling at all, Kip said. There's no way of telling what will walk into a man's hand.

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Ara was sitting at the foot of Felix's bed. The girl lay quite still, her yellow hair matted with sweat. From the next room came the sound of the Widow's voice and the sound of Angel's hand upon the stove. Suddenly the girl sat up. The door's opening, she said. I see James in his plaid shirt. He's lifting the baby in his two hands. Ara stood up. The girl wasn't speaking to her any longer; she was speaking to James. 1T) His name is Felix, she said. Ara didn't want to look at James. She went to the window and leaned out across the bush where the sparrow chattered. Above her the sky stretched like a tent pegged to the broken rock. And from a cleft of the rock she heard the voice of Coyote crying down through the boulders:

I have set his feet on soft ground; I have set his feet on the sloping shoulders of the world.

By naming the baby Felix, Lenchen completes the process of Felix's rebirth, (p. 165 note 165).

167 Appendix A: Textual Notes

The 1959 edition of The Double Hook has been used as copy-text for this edition in all cases (see A Note on the Text, p. 41), with the exception of the one obvious typo, "James's plaid skirt (p. 124) which was not corrected until the 1989 edition to "James's plaid shirt" (p. 114). The following list identifies the textual variants among the four published editions: 1959,1966,1989, and 2008. The 1959 and 1966 editions are textually identical, as are the 1989 and 2008 editions. In the table below, the first column identifies the 1959 text and location and the second column identifies the 1989 variant and its corresponding location.

1959 Edition (Copy-text) 1989 Edition (Textual Variant) Pt.l, Chpt. 14, p. 34: daughter Lenchen Pt. 1, Chpt. 14, p. 30: daughter, Lenchen Pt. 1, Chpt. 17, p. 36: pushed forward Pt. 1, Chpt. 17, p. 32: push forward Pt. 3, Chpt. 4, p. 70: different from men Pt. 3, Chpt. 4, p. 66: different from me Pt. 3, Chpt. 7, p. 77: gone from home Pt. 3, Chpt. 7, p. 72: gone from him Pt. 4, Chpt. 5, p. 93: is a drink. Pt. 4, Chpt. 5, p. 86: is a drink: Pt. 4, Chpt. 9, p. 100: pickled fish Pt. 4, Chpt. 9, p. 93: picked fish Pt. 5, Chpt. 9, p. 117: your Ma Pt. 5, Chpt. 9, p. 108: your ma Pt. 5, Chpt. 16, p. 124: plaid skirt Pt. 5, Chpt. 16, p. 114: plaid shirt Pt. 5, Chpt. 18, p. 125: honeysuckle Pt. 5, Chpt. 18, p. 115: honey-suckle

There are three complete manuscripts of The Double Hook. The manuscripts are housed in the Sheila Watson archives located at St. Michael's College at the University of Toronto. The manuscripts are type-written with some minor hand-written emendations (punctuation, spelling, etc.). The first and second manuscripts are extremely similar; there are some variations in punctuation and spelling. The sequence of events in the first and second manuscripts vary significantly from the published editions. Also, several pages of text that have been omitted from the manuscripts do not appear in the published editions. The third manuscript varies significantly from the first and second manuscripts. Again, the sequence of events have been altered significantly and there are pages of text that do not appear in the first or second manuscripts. Many of these additional pages of text do not appear in the published editions of the novel.

168 There are also several journals housed in the Sheila Watson archives that contain excerpts of text from The Double Hook, as well as reading notes that draw on many of Watson's intertextual references. The journals are handwritten by Sheila Watson. Unlike the typed manuscripts, the journals are not clean texts; they are rough drafts that are difficult to read cohesively. Nonetheless, they offer considerable insight to Watson's writing process and the genesis and evolution of The Double Hook. The following excerpts have been selected from the three manuscript versions of the novel. I have decided to maintain Watson's decision to omit them from the story itself; however, I have chosen to include some of the omissions in this appendix because they are relevant to the evolution of the text. As previously mentioned, the manuscripts vary significantly from the published version of the text, both in content and in the sequence of events. In addition, the manuscripts are not divided into chapters. As a result, it is not always possible to identify where a particular excerpt would have appeared in the published version of the text. Consequently, I have identified where the passages are located in the manuscript, but have not postulated where they might have appeared in the published text. It is not possible to include all of the variants amongst the three manuscripts and between the manuscripts and the published texts in this appendix. As a result, I have selected the following excerpts based on the insight they offer into the characters and their elaboration on underlying themes and plotlines.

1. M. Ill p. 8 (also appears in M.I andM.II with minor variations). Provides background information regarding the heritage of many of the characters and emphasizes Kip's affinity with the Native population.

The country was Coyote's. He had opened the ground here, Kip said, to let men creep out into the day. Kip talking in William's kitchen when he helped at branding time. Talking when William had gone out to bed down the horses. Talking while he pulled on his books. To ride around, he said. Having no place to lay his head. Only the earth. Only the crotch of the hills that bom him. Without father. Without mother. Having nothing except the light which shone off the leaves turned in the wind. Off fish breaking the water. Off the beetle green and gold on the brown rock. Light hidden too soon under Coyote's paw. Drawing his very sap from the ground, Ara thought. Pure blooded like Angel, carrying boxes and taking bales of skin pressed flat for trade. Not drawing it like William from an Englishman who had come from no one knew where and had married himself to no one knew who. William too was a mixed lot. Little better than his own bulls.

169 2. M. Ill pp. 8-9 (also appears in M.I and M.II with minor variations). Makes Ara's barrenness more explicit

And the curse of the country was on her [Ara] and William for they had no children. They had no family. For James and Greta cared nothing for her. And the old lady looked fiercely on her. Or refused to look at all.

3. M. Ill p. 13 (also appears in M.I and M.II with minor variations). Emphasizes Kip's supernatural abilities. Several times throughout the manuscripts he is looking into his hand and seeing things that the other characters cannot see.

[Kip] half opened his hand. The whole universe contracted into a green flame. The flame flickering in the deep cave of a half-closed hand.

4. M. Ill p. 30 (also appears in M.I and M.II with minor variations). Makes Lenchen's pregnancy more explicit.

And Felix saw what the Widow would not see. He saw that the girl [Lenchen] was heavy with young.

5. M. Ill p. 31 (also appears in M.I and M.II with minor variations). Provides background information on the relationship between Angel, Felix, and Theophil.

Why Theophil had come for her [Angel] he did not know. Theophil had say by his stove from time to time. He had passed by with his team hauling back firewood for his own. They had not been friends. Neighbors merely. Even now Felix did not ask the question. Of looks passed, of judgments he knew nothing. He searched for no footsteps. Listened at no door for echoes.

6. M. Ill pp. 41 (also appears in M.I and M.II with minor variations). Identifies Kip and Angel's Native heritage.

What's Ara doing here? he thought. Prying into my affairs and Greta's and what the Widow's daughter's done to us. Angel, too, was sitting in the kitchen. Darkness substantial. Clay breathed into and breathing. Sister in darkness to Kip. She would know too much. Damned Indians, he thought.

7. M. IIpp. 42-43 (also appears in M.I and M.III with minor variations). Provides insight to James's motivations for murdering his mother. Also implies the possibility of an incestuous relationship between Greta and James.

It was sometime after William had gone that he'd begun to notice the old lady so much. It was about then that Greta'd started sitting by him and following about to the bam when she could get away from the house. The three of them, himself, the old lady and Greta

170 had seemed closed in and shut off somehow. They seemed all of them like green wood burning away and choking one another with smoke. It was only when the fire within showed him the circumference of his darkness that he'd thought: Ma's flesh like me. And hate had sprung of the knowing since he saw her stand in the half shadow beyond the reach of his flame. [...] He hated everybody. The old lady his mother sat in her wooden rocker. Raised her eyes and looked at him. Looked as if she knew that fire burned through his body and would not blow out. And he thought: I'll stop her looking that way. She's drove Greta and me together. We don't know nothing but each other. She's got me in tugs and I can't slip the harness. Mare and stallion of the same get she's worked us harnessed together and kept the wagon pole somehow between us. And he'd thought if anything happened to her how he and Greta might come together as animals come together to the same lake. As dogs creep out of the darkness to the same fire.

8. M. lip. 51 (also appears in M.I and M.III with minor variations). Provides insight to Felix's character.

He [Felix] remembered the priest. The words said over and over. His father knowing them by heart. Making him learn them by the stove since there must always be a servant to wait on the father.

9. M. Up. 57 (also appears in M.I andM.III with minor variations). Provides insight to the Widow's character; specifically, that she lost a child.

Wagner in the bed begetting his children. The two that lived. One the boy who would come back.

10. M. lip. 68 and p. 79 (also appears in M.I and M.III with minor variations). Provides background information on the relationship between James and Lenchen.

James on the hill, saying: It might as well be now since it will sometime. No use bolting from what's bound to be. Promising: We'll somehow get together out of this. You won't anyway be left like Greta.

I don't know who's dead, she said. Unless it's your ma. Is that why James didn't come. Did he tell her and she died of it? Tell her what? Greta said, leaning forward. That I belonged to him and he belonged to me, said the girl. You fool, Greta said. You little fool. He's never been free to give or take.

171 11. M. IIp. 114 (also appears in M.I and M.III with minor variations). Provides insight to James's character and reveals that he comes back for Lenchen out of desire, not because he ran out of money.

He did not want the price of a lonely life. He could not see himself breaking into the cabin to recover it. [...]. He had turned and was feet away from the cabin now, his eyes on the lights which marked the hotel and the station. [...] He would say to Lenchen: I just rode down to see Paddy's parrot. He would tell her about the tin cup and Shepherd's mistaking his gelding for a mare. They would laugh together and he would give her a drink from the dipper and put his hand on her groin and belly as easy as he put it on a mare swelling with foal.

12. M. IIp. 185 (also appears in M.I and M.III with minor variations). Material omitted from the ending.

Once more, Ara thought, the angel stands between a girl and her girlhood holding the flaming sword. And she thought of herself with sorrow for she had walked from the garden into a valley of bones. The horseleach has two daughters, crying, Give, give. There are three things which are never satisfied, yea, four things say not, It is enough: The grave; and the barren womb; the earth that is not filled with water; the fire that saith not, It is enough.

13. From Watson's journal. Original Epigraph for The Double Hook (See Introduction, pp. 32-34).

If we consider the great and wonderful structure of the heaven and the earth, and observe their motions, and contemplate the manifold operations of the powers and properties and the great variety of the bodies of creatures how they are hard and soft, gross and subtil, obscure and glistening, thick and clear, heavy and light, we then find the twofold origin of the manifes­ tation of God, the darkness and light, which out of all their powers and wonders have breathed forth and made themselves visible with the firmament, stars and elements, and all the palpable creature, wherein all things, Life and Death, Good and Evil, are together. This is the third life (besides the two that are hid) and is called Time in the Strife of Vanity.

—Jacob Behmen

172 Appendix B: Reviews of The Double Hook

This appendix provides excerpts from reviews of both The Double Hook and Deep Hollow Creek. The reviews are included to establish the reception history of the novel from its genesis to the early 1990s. I have argued that The Double Hook evolved from Watson's first novel, Deep Hollow Creek and have therefore provided reviews on both texts to emphasize their connection.

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1. AMASTERWORK Sheila Watson: The Double Hook, McClelland & Stewart, Toronto, Ont., 1959 By: Stanley E. Read, Professor of English in the Faculty of Arts and Science. From: The U.B.C. Alumni Chronicle Vol.13 No.3 Autumn, 1959 pp. 22

The Double Hook is a first novel but its author, Sheila Watson, a brilliant graduate of the University in the thirties, is a mature, sensitive, and highly sophisticated writer, who has here created a little master-work that will stand apart, in its own proud solitude, in the uneven pattern of a developing Canadian literature. Physically the work is slight - one hundred and twenty-eight pages- and its values are certainly not to be measured by counting the lines or estimating inches of type. Rather the riches are to be found in the beauty of the writing and in the subtly compacted telling of a tale composed of such well-known ingredients as seduction, adultery, brutality, suicide, murder and illegitimate birth. In the hands of another brewer the resulting potion could well be repulsive, if not completely unpalatable, but under Mrs. Watson's magic touch, the elements merge into a richly poetic narrative, filled with compassionate understanding and profound tenderness. [...] Yet this is by no means an easy, summer novel to read. The very compactness of the telling and the poetic handling of characters and situations issue an immediate challenge to the reader. If he is to grasp the threads of the story, if he is to find the rich emotional veins and understand the philosophical implications, he must read intently - not line by line but rather word by word - and he must involve himself in the lives of the characters through the willing use of his own imagination. A slamming through of the work, a casual reading will reveal little of the book's true worth. Perhaps even a truly intensive approach will not suffice; a second - even a third reading may be required before the real richness that is here can be felt in part at least, if not wholly. Mrs. Watson is not easy and she makes few concessions to please those who are looking for pablum entertainment. But neither does T.S. Eliot, nor did Donne, or Shakespeare, or Sophocles - to name but a few.

173 2. AN IMPORTANT NEW VOICE Sheila Watson: the Double Hook, McClelland & Stewart, Toronto, Ont., 1959 By: Hugo MacPherson From: The Tamarack Review 12, Summer 1959: 85-88.

Adults tell stories as children play games with dolls; the common aim of both pursuits is to make some kind of human sense out of life's contradictions and complexities. [...] In such dizzying times, I think, we return more and more to the permanent values of intuition and imagination, religion and art. Our deepest searchings take us beyond technicians and propagandists to prophets and myth-makers - to minds that see not only details but the underlying pattern, not only raw facts, but the distilled meaning. For Canadians, this kind of vision has come principally from the great voices of our tradition, for we have not yet produced a single imagination of commanding stature in either religion or art. Nevertheless we are coming closer and closer to achieving an identity, a vision, and a voice. In literature, Sheila Watson's novella The Double Hook offers the latest and most unusual proof of this progress. Mrs. Watson's story is set in the Cariboo country of British Columbia, but from the very beginning it plunges us into a timeless realm where the mysterious forces of nature and human passion play out their eternally recurring drama. The events are violent - a murder, a seduction, a whipping - but they unfold with the clear inevitability of an old ballad: In the folds of the hills under Coyote's eye lived [...]

These are the characters: the action follows swiftly. In three brief paragraphs we learn that the hag-ridden bachelor James has at last asserted his authority and become "the supplanter" which his name suggests. 'The old lady', his mother, lies dead at the top of the farmhouse stairs 'in the vault of the bedloft', and James and Greta are free of the sinister force which has held them since childhood in a net of fear and sterility. [...] The foregoing, I hope, suggests some of the richness of this accomplished first novel. It is not an easy work. The reader who hopes at the first cast to land a trout, filleted-boned-and-ready-for-the-table, will be disappointed. At moments, indeed, the pool of Mrs. Watson's art is murky or ruffled by disconcerting eddies: we are not satisfied with Kip's fate, and we feel that James's illumination in the market village is not sharply realized. But these, in the face of Mrs. Watson's broader achievement, are minor cavils. She is a writer of genuine power and insight - an important new voice in our literature.

174 3. CARIBOO COUNTRY STUDY REFRESHING: 1930s NOVEL STILL CARRIES A VIVID MESSAGE TODAY Sheila Watson: Deep Hollow Creek, McClelland & Stewart, Toronto, Ont., 1992 By: Audrey Andrews From: The Calgary Herald, 15 August, 1992

When Sheila Watson's novel The Double Hook was published in 1959 it was seen as an important innovation in Canadian literature. Watson's contrived language, her use of symbolism, her belief in the redemptive power of tradition, rituals, or what she called "art forms," attracted a good deal of critical attention. [...] Deep Hollow Creek, written during the 1930s but never published until now, is apparently an early version of some of the ideas and material that eventually became The Double Hook. Both novels are an observation of people in the Cariboo country in the B.C. interior (One of Watson's first teaching assignments was in the B.C. interior). But whereas the omniscient narrator and the reader are the observer(s) in The Double Hook, in Deep Hollow Creek the observer is Stella, the outsider, a new teacher for the little school with 10 pupils. Much of the symbolism is similar in the two novels: water, fire, the evil trickster Coyote, and, in various forms, the relentless presence of the darkness of human existence. Stella, quoting Goethe to herself "out of Matthew Arnold" feels "infinitely sad" that "in our life here above ground, we have, properly speaking, to enact hell." In Deep Hollow Creek there is an overt awareness of the importance of and the use of language: Stella realizes that "the world is flame burning in a dark glass." She thinks how the life of the people is reflected in their varying abilities to use words. The art of The Double Hook, on the other hand, is that the language and the sustenance of the novel are embedded within each other. Watson explains some of her literary allusions in Deep Hollow Creek, probably because of their obscurity. But, unfortunately, this may cause readers to feel either distracted or patronized. Still, one of the reasons some readers will enjoy this newly published novel is that Watson had not yet arrived at what became, especially in her essays, a syntax so complicated that it is sometimes exasperating. Also, she was not yet affected by Wyndham Lewis, who was the topic of her doctoral dissertation, nor by Marshall McLuhan, her thesis supervisor. The ideas of both men, especially those of Lewis, exerted an extraordinary influence on everything she wrote subsequently. Thus, despite the dark and disturbing substance of Deep Hollow Creek, and sometimes apparent inexperience of its author, the relative simplicity of its style is both strong and refreshing.

175 4. HOOKED AGAIN - THE RETURN OF SHETLA WATSON Sheila Watson: Deep Hollow Creek, McClelland & Stewart, Toronto, Ont., 1992 By: Philip Marchand From: The Toronto Star, 16 May, 1992

The mountainous Cariboo region in British Columbia is the domain of Coyote, god of the Shuswap Indians who is simultaneously benign and treacherous. It is a region where men and women, if they are strongly attached to the certainties and comforts of civilized life, can easily become unhinged by the isolation of the surrounding terrain. In the 1930s, novelist Sheila Watson, who was bom and raised in Vancouver, went to this region to teach in a one-room schoolhouse. The experience eventually resulted in a novel, The Double Hook, published in 1959 and justly regarded as a Canadian classic. Before that, however, she wrote another novel, based on the same experience. Now, 50 years later, it has been published as Deep Hollow Creek. Nothing about this narrative is dated or outmoded. In fact, it feels more advanced than the vast majority of fiction written today. Watson seems to be one of the few Canadian writers - or American for that matter - who have fully absorbed the changes in literary sensibility and technique wrought by 20 century masters such as James Joyce and Gertrude Stein. Like Joyce, for example, she presents characters who are defined by their voice rather than by their physical appearance, mannerisms or share in the action of the novel. Watson's approach results in a narrative that, like The Double Hook, makes demands of the reader, and has to be read closely. Deep Hollow Creek, however, is even more rewarding that The Double Hook, partly because it calls on a wider range of literary techniques. Its landscape and social dynamics are presented with much more attention to realistic detail than in the 1959 novel. [...] Given the character of the world portrayed in the novel, its author's technique of presenting events in the narrative without casual links, out of sequence, and with frequent, seemingly random, interruptions by voices of other characters, including Stella's, is fitting. That narrative ends simply when Stella, after a year of tentative, but emotionally bruising, interactions with both whites and Native people, decides it is time for her to leave before she goes mad from the stones and lonesomeness. Yet throughout the novel there is no sense of willful obscurity on the part of the author. People, events and landscape have been presented so vividly, and the language employed has been so spare and evocative, that the author's control over her new material is never in doubt. Her sentences are often poetic, not in the sense of being lyrical or highly figurative, but in possessing a cadence that expresses naked emotion - usually her anguish. Such poetry insures that her novel will be read, and pondered, and re-read 50 years from now.

176 Appendix C: An Interview with Sheila Watson1

Interviewers: The Double Hook has established itself as a major novel. Could you talk about the process of writing it? How was it originally received by the critics and the public? Watson: Actually it is very difficult to recall the process. Before I wrote The Double Hook, I had written a novel in which I hadn't solved certain technical problems, and the images in that novel came out of the experience I had in the Cariboo. These images had, in a strange way, become part of my language. I hadn't gone to the Cariboo to write about it and at that particular time I wasn't writing. I was thinking about it - not of writing something but of writing itself.2 [...] When The Double Hook was published it was said that there were too many characters in it.3 I wasn't thinking of these figures, or whatever one calls them, as characters in the conventional sense. Interviewers: You, for instance, list them in a kind of dramatic personae at the beginning. Watson: Yes, I was thinking rather of a cry of voices - a vox clamantis — voices crying out in the wilderness. Something like the voices one hears in early litanies - voices reaching beyond themselves. I was thinking of a group of bodies that were virtually inarticulate and I had to make them articulate without making fherafaux-semblants so to speak. When I was thinking about The Double Hook I remembered the problems with the first novel. We were here in Toronto and I was teaching at a girls' private school. We lived on Admiral Road and I remember walking down Bloor Street. The school was just opposite where the subway station is now -just off Younge Street.5 I had a lot of time to think during those walks.

1 The following passages are excerpts from an interview with Sheila Watson conducted by Bruce Meyer and Brian O'Riordan. For the full text, see Meyer and O'Riordan. In Their Words. Toronto: Anansi, 1984. p. 156-167. 2 The novel Watson is referring to is Deep Hollow Creek which was written during the 1930s when she was teaching in the Cariboo region. The novel was published by McClelland & Stewart in 1992 and was shortlisted for the Governor General's Award. 3 Kildare Dobbs of Macmillan publishers rejected the manuscript because it was too hard to follow and had too many characters. Rupert Hart-Davis also rejected the manuscript, calling it an "experiment which fails" (both letters are available in Appendix D: Correspondence p. 191). 4 faux-semblant: a false appearance or the quality of being hypocritically devout (OED). 5 All of these places are located in Toronto, Ontario, during Watson's stay from 1945-1949.

177 Interviewers: Where were you teaching? Watson: It was the old Moulton College. The walk was the one time I had to myself, and I remember thinking on the comer just opposite the Anglican Church, "I know what I am going to do -1 can hear the voices beginning." Interviewers: And that was the moment of inception of The Double Hook1? Watson: Yes, that was the moment - far from the West Coast, under completely alien circumstances. I had wanted to get away from any idea of setting. Here the voices came from somewhere else. Place was important only in its relationship to them as ground. The Double Hook was conceived in Toronto and written in Calgary some time later.6 I could understand what Eliot meant when he said sometimes a poem begins with a rhythm. It was just as if I had caught the sound of voices coming and trying to say something and I was concerned. [...] I didn't want it to be an ethnic novel - not a novel about Indians or any other deprived group, but rather a novel about a number of people who had no ability to communicate because they had found little to replace the myths and rituals which might have bound them together. In a sense that is made explicit when Felix says, "I've got no words to clear a woman off my bench. No words except: Keep moving, scatter, get the hell out." Since he has some pity for the girl he resorts to

o fragments of the mass perhaps trying to remember the ite of the ite, missa est. Interviewers: Fragments of the mass? Watson: Yes. They are fragments like the scriptural fragments associated with Ara and echoing from the mouth of Coyote. There is confusion everywhere. Interviewers: What is ritual, then? Watson: Ritual is the organization of community. If ritual becomes the ritual of commercial ads, then that is ritual for better or for worse. Interviewers: And ritual preserves the myths? Watson: Yes it preserves them in their various forms. Interviewers: Just after The Double Hook came out, The Globe and Mail published a review titled "Left Hook, Right Hook, K.O."

6 Watson is referring to the years 1952-1954. 7 "For other poets - at least, for some other poets - the poem may begin to shape itself in fragments of musical rhythm, and its structure will first appear in something analogous to musical form" (Eliot, On Poetry and Poets. [London: Faber & Faber, 1957], p. 238). 8 The closing words to the Roman Catholic mass in Latin. Loosely translates to, "Go, it is sent."

178 Watson: My response was simply "they've caught me." I hadn't realized that 'double hook' was a boxing term. I was thinking of a fish hook and perhaps an anchor. So how could I be angry? I just thought they'd got the better of me. What fun. I should have known. Interviewers: Most first novels are autobiographical, but that doesn't seem to be the case with yours. Watson: There are no biographical elements in The Double Hook at all. It is not based on individual people I knew well. It came out of a knowledge of people in specific circumstances. The only portrait from real life in the book is the parrot in the bar. There was such a parrot in the Ashcroft Hotel. Interviewers: The other figures in The Double Hook are not drawn from life? Watson: They are related to a ground. They are emerging from that ground. Interviewers: Do you agree with critics who label The Double Hook a regional novel? Watson: No. I've met people who grew up in Black Forest in Germany who said it could have been written there. There is, however, a sense of place. I used my memories of the contours of the land as map, not actual maps of the region or of the names of towns or highways. Interviewers: Does that say something about the nature of Canadian geography in that you can't identify where you are by place but only by texture? Watson: I think that's a very real dilemma. The texture of Ontario is for instance quite different from the texture of British Columbia. It not only looks different, it feels different. Interviewers: Where did your interest in the mythopoeic originate? Watson: Specifically in relation to West Coast myth? I suppose it was through reading the work of the early anthropologists - Franz Boas and James Teit who made a study of the Shuswap. Their studies were published in 1909, the year I was born. Long after I had written The Double Hook I became interested in the work of an anthropologist called Wilson Duff. Phyllis Webb's most recent book, Wilson's Bowl, refers to Duff, who studied the stone sculptures of the West Coast Indians and insisted in a Poundian way that the images were not just visual but that they embodied a kind of mathematical logic, as Levi-Strauss might argue.

179 [...] Interviewers: Is it possible to say, as Robert Graves does, that there is one story and one story only?9 Watson: I'm not sure. I don't like reductive theories - like the theory that poems are made out of other poems. In one sense they are but not in any literal sense. No mind is innocent. By the time I wrote The Double Hook, for instance, I had read Yeats, Eliot, Joyce, Pound.10 Their work had left its traces, become part of my thinking. [...] Interviewers: You have said that literature is not innocent. Watson: I don't think words are innocent. Sometimes the impact of words on a reader is not what the writer expects at all. In that sense they are not innocent. The reader has a creative function which the words provoke. Words are not simple exchange. They are charged. They have all sorts of possibilities which may explode at any moment. [...] That, I suppose, is what I mean when I say literature is not innocent because it has the power to produce a disequilibrium in your life. Or, as Marshall McLuhan would say, it is a kind of transgression.1* Interviewers: A violation? Watson: Yes, a violation, a transgression of sensibility. It is not a pacifier. Interviewers: Is it something in the very nature of language? Watson: Yes. As Ricoeur said, man is freed from his animal condition but he is freed to a more perilous condition through language. I've always felt that. Interviewers: Are there any innocent characters in your works? Watson: (Pause.) No. Interviewers: Has your husband, the poet Wilfred Watson, been an influence on your work? Watson: Any mind with which you are seriously in contact is an influence. Interviewers: Are there certain works and authors you tend to return to?.

9 Poems 1938-1945 [New York: Creative Age Press, 1946]. 10 It is interesting that Watson does not identify any Canadian writers in her reading list. Canadian bterature was only becoming widely recognized as an academic genre during the late 1950s and early 1960s, so the reading material Watson would have studied at University was likely British and American. 11 Marshall McLuhan was Watson's Ph.D. supervisor during her studies at the University of Toronto from 1956-61.

180 Watson: I have often reread Dostoyevsky's The Possessed, not The Brothers Karamazov, and recently I reread Gogol's The Overcoat and his Dead Souls, probably because I read them when I was quite young like other people of my age - and as the Australian poet Alec Hope reminded me, in bad translations. I don't particularly like having to reread Virginia Woolf or the writers associated with her. I thought they had a soft focus which seemed sentimental. I read and reread more poetry than fiction. Interviewers: You had an early interest in Swift? Watson: Oh yes and I reread Swift. I also had an interest in Wyndham Lewis. I was attracted to both of then because I am interested in satire. Recently I reread Faulkner... Interviewers: There's an interesting parallel between your work and Faulkner's in the emphasis which you place on the family unit. Is it possible to say that the tensions of the family unit form the basis of your myth? Watson: The family as an exclusive unit? That's Greta's problem in The Double Hook. She needs something to love and she loves James because there is no one else there. It is a displaced love. The emphasis in The Double Hook is not on family but on the problem of a community reduced almost to a single unit. The sequence of events in town show just how narrow that community is. Interviewers: You almost seem to be saying at the end of the novel that the characters may have achieved a certain kind of freedom but that it would be unwise to believe that they have, therefore, freed the next generation, because the next generation is also going to struggle. Watson: Yes, and for the same reason. Interviewers: There is theatrical, cinematical form to the novel. Have there been any attempts to film it? Watson: A former student of mine, Sam Koplowicz, began to work on it as his film thesis at Stanford. He, and eventually a friend of his, Bill Pasnak, wrote several scripts but they had a great deal of difficulty with it because even if it seems to be written in a cinematic fashion it really isn't. The images are not really visual images although they may seem photographic. The novel depends on its verbal structure. They had serious

12 It was during the early 1970s that Sam Koplowicz and Bill Pasnak undertook the project of trying to film The Double Hook. Although the film was never made, Bill Pasnak still performs dramatic renditions of the novel and of Sheila Watson's short stories.

181 trouble with the scripting. Koplowicz worked for a long time on the project. He even found locations in the Cariboo and a house to burn. Had they managed to film it, it would have been their thing. They were completely involved. Otherwise I was never anxious to see it filmed because I've seen too many novels ruined on film. You can't always translate from one medium to another. The Double Hook was written to be read. [...] Interviewers: How do you feel about how people have reacted to what you say as opposed to what you mean? Watson: You can't control response. I am unhappy when people describe The Double Hook as a prose poem13 because that phrase makes me think of purple passages and things like that. It has been said that technically it is not a novel and perhaps it isn't. It is a narrative structure of some kind. Interviewers: Have you written much poetry? Watson: I wrote one poem which was published in The Canadian Forum14 but I didn't write poetry after that. What appear to be poems in The Double Hook are actually, in many instances, the echo of Biblical passages which act like the choruses in the Greek dramas. Interviewers: Turning to your short stories, were there particular technical difficulties with the form that you chose? Watson: The difficulty was practical. If it hadn't been for Malcom Ross, who was editing The Queen's Quarterly, probably they would never have been published. Just as, if it hadn't been for Jack McClelland15 The Double Hook wouldn't have been published. He accepted it as it stood and tried to deal with it. He published books which would not have been considered commercially viable at the time. He took risks when he believed in something. He reassured me about The Double Hook. He said, "It may not sell well at first but it will eventually repay my publication costs." And I imagine it has.

13 Scholars who have described The Double Hook as a prose poem include: Philip Child, D.F. Theall, Leslie Monkman, and Jan Marta. 14 The poem was titled, "The Barren Lands" and was published in 1934. 15 Malcom Ross was the general editor for McClelland & Stewart when The Double Hook was published in 1959. The New Canadian Library Series (the series in which The Double Hook was published) was first conceived by Ross in 1952.

182 Interviewers: The jacket of the first edition of the book has a hook on it. What is the background? Watson: The background in the cover designed by Frank Newfeld is a photograph of the cross section of a tibia bone. It is a very interesting cover. It was a sensitive and creative response to the text. The cover on the most recent printing of the paperback edition is another matter. It is a photograph from the Glenbow Museum16 of a woman pumping water. She is surrounded by cows and chickens. I suppose it is meant to be Greta. If it was intended to suggest that the novel is regional it failed to identify the specific region. It was a cliche in both senses of the word - a photograph of a pioneer prairie wife. It saddened me because I had tried to avoid the trap of regionalism as that term is understood. In designing the original cover Frank Newfeld had drawn attention to the title not to my name. He knew I wanted to disappear from the book. The paperback reverses this emphasis. Interviewers: You have avoided a larger-than-life public persona. Is that a conscious strategy? Watson: I've wanted what is on the page to speak for itself. I've never, not even now, wanted to talk about what I have written, which — after all - is a very small body of work.

16 Glenbow Museum is located in Calgary.

183 Appendix D: Correspondence Regarding The Double Hook1

These letters are excerpts from exchanges between Sheila Watson and her mentor/editor, Frederick M. Salter, Professor of English at the University of Alberta, and correspondence from various publishers regarding the publication of The Double Hook. Salter played an integral role in advocating the publication of The Double Hook and also made significant suggestions in regards to textual emendations. Many of these changes appear in the published text (see Introduction, p. 8). These letters demonstrate his importance in the evolution of the novel and its collaborative nature. The letters from the publishers illuminate the difficulties Watson experienced in getting the book published, and emphasize the experimental style of the novel. In cases where the material in the letter is tangential or redundant, I have omitted it and indicated the omission with square brackets containing an ellipsis. The letters are arranged in chronological order.

1. Letter from Rupert Hart-Davis Limited to Sheila Watson2 August 24,1954

Dear Miss Martin Watson,

I have now read The Double Hook, and, although I hate to do so, I must on the whole agree with the Macmillan Company that it is an experiment which fails. On the other hand I think it is an extremely interesting experiment, which fails, not by dropping into the ridiculous, but largely because of the oblique style in which most of it is written. What, for want of a better word, we must call the plot, is loose and without suspense: Greta's suicide is not made credible for the reader, and I felt that the old lady's death was intended to have a significance which I couldn't give it. The staccato quality of the style becomes terribly monotonous, and when, towards the end of the book, the sentences get longer, the reader greets them with a sigh of relief. Most of the staccato writing is fine and exact (with occasional lapses into obscurity) but I found it terribly difficult to distinguish the various characters from one another and get interested in them. As it stands, it is a difficult book to read. It makes great demands on the reader and ought to give a commensurate reward in the form of new horizons, subtle emotions. To my mind it fails to do this, and its obscurity seems to me less a by-product

1 The following excerpts from Watson's letters have been taken from the Watson archives, located at St. Michael's College at the University of Toronto. 2 Series 4.0 Publishing Records and Business Correspondence. Box 36 Folder 608.

184 of the subject matter or of an imaginative logic than a flaw in the author's purpose - too many characters and themes, all insufficiently explored, too much motion and dust. After all these disparaging remarks, I must also say that the manuscript is far superior to most of the ones I receive, and I have been judging it by the highest standards. Fundamentally the subject matter is immense - nothing less than life, death and love - and if, in fact, your grasp had been equal to your reach, the book would have been a masterpiece. I don't imagine that you will want to alter this book, but if you do, or if you write anything else, I do hope you will let me see it. Would you like me to send the manuscript back to you or what?

Yours sincerely,

Rupert Hart Davis

2. Letter from Frederick Salter to Sheila Watson3 December 12,1954

Dear Mrs. Watson,

First of all, let me get rid of a few trivial matters. You will notice that I have inserted some punctuation throughout your book, and altered some spellings. Here is a handful of similar triva: [...] p. 11. This "game" that Felix plays with his hounds seems rather cruel. Is he not too apathetic to be cruel? Or is he not really, beneath all that flesh and listlessness, rather kind? He seems to have really helped Lenchen in childbirth - and afterwards, p. 184, he seems to be sympathetic with Kip. On the same page I take it as a sign of regeneration in him that he says, "When a house is full of women and children, a man has to get something for their mouths." p. 27, 1.10. "Let the bugger move, James said to William, and I'll break its neck." James does not seem to me consciously or deliberately cruel any more than Felix. He is cruel when caught in the mesh of circumstance, of circumstance to him unintelligible. He

3 Series 2.0. Manuscripts and Drafts - Novels - Correspondence Regarding The Double Hook. Box 06 Folder 45.

185 seems genuinely tender toward Lenchen. She was not a plaything to him merely: he goes on remembering the curve of her throat, the shadows across her face - and Traff finds James an easy victim because his hair is like Lenchen's. All that sort of thing does not suggest to me a man who would be brutal with a horse. Besides, I don't like the word bugger. Same page, 1. 7 from foot - "as they that take off the yoke on their jaws." Yokes lie on the neck, not in the jaws. p. 34, 1.13. "Angel beating wildly. Hunting knife hacking billycan bottom." I should not have understood this six months ago. It was only this summer that I heard for the first time that bears can be frightened by an unusual noise. It must be a western discovery. I think you ought to make the passage intelligible to all those readers who have never lived in the Rockies. With a footnote if in no other way. [...] p. 100,11. 7-8. You can't use this word. It seems in character for Theophil, but you can't use it.4 [...] p. 143, 1.3. "The flap had been unbuttoned." Do you mean that it has not been buttoned after he put the wallet in his pocket? You make Lilly a far more skilful pickpocket than she needs to be. I should say nothing about the button. [...] There are a couple of larger suggestions. I wonder if you would consider giving titles to the chapters: I. Death of the old lady n. Lenchen vs. Greta vs. James III. A Flowered Garment IV. Nowhere to Go V. A Waiting World VI. An End - and a Beginning

These are not perfect, but they may suggest a little help to a reader. You can do better.5

The end of the book does not satisfy me. I suppose it could be justified as a happy ending, the baby being a promise of the future. Some readers would take it so. And, after all, you have got rid of some poisonous intrusions into your little Eden, and no dread

4 The word Salter is referring to is "bullshit" and Watson obliged Salter by removing it. It does, however, appear in all three manuscript versions of the text. 5 Watson chose not to title the chapters in her final version of the text. She did, however, add extra chapters to break up the narrative.

186 consequences are to be expected from the death of Greta and the old lady. Even Kip has forgiven James, and seems content with things as they are. Would you add something like this:

"And Coyote said, there is peace, For the moment, peace; But the double-hook remains. It takes the jaw or the lip, The throat or the heart. Between the glory and the pain, Between the fear and the glory. I have spoken, Said Coyote.

But Ara pondered in her heart, with apathy like Felix, with torment like Greta, with confusion and anger like James, and the philosophical William married to a barren womb. "And their backsides shall be uncovered, thought Felix, per saecula saeculorum.6"

What I mean is that I feel the need of a hint or suggestion of some kind that you have been dealing with things eternal and not transitory. When I first read this book, I thought you had not made the relationship between James and Greta sufficiently explicit. That was my mistake. Many people will make similar mistakes - and the mistakes will always be theirs, and not yours. This book is perfect. I have even gone to the trouble of mapping the countryside, and your references to it never slip. Rupert Hart Davis8 is an example in point. He says there are too many characters because he does not understand the book. As to "motion and dust," he was hard up for something to say. [...] I have said before that you will find your audience. It will be a growing one, perhaps slow to begin with. The only problem is to get the book published. But, in the ordinary way, no publisher will take it. No editor will publish what he does not understand. So some sort of a campaign is necessary.

6 This is a Latin phrase taken fromEphesian s 3:21. The phrase expresses meanings of eternity and has been loosely translated into English as "for ever and ever" or "world without end." 7 Watson did take Salter's suggestion, although she wrote a new ending instead of using the one in this letter. See Introduction p. 28 for the original ending of the book. 8 Rupert Hart Davis rejected the manuscript. His rejection letter appears on p. 192 of this appendix.

187 [...] By the same token, I think you need somebody's preface - and the Preface might also convince the publisher.9 [...] I do think that your readers need help. I shall try to draw up separately the sort of prefatory statement which, I think, they need. Of the quality, artistry, moving power of your book there isn't, and cannot be the slightest question. It is an amazing performance.

Sincerely yours,

FM Salter

3. Letter from Frederick Salter to Sheila Watson December 17,1954

Dear Mrs. Watson,

As I said, I think a "campaign" is necessary to get your novel printed; so I have started it. My idea is that if Mr. Weeks11 wants to see it after reading the Foreword, he is at least committed to reading the novel more than once. That is, it won't get the usual treatment of having the first three pages and the last two read, and judgement rendered. If he does want it, the interval will give you time to make the changes you speak of.12 [...] You can't steal that ending from me. It is impossible to steal what has been given. I was only making a suggestion - although I some how felt that Felix and his (omnia) saecula saeculorum was right. And a suggestion is to be taken or rejected, accepted or improved or thrown away.

9 Salter eventually wrote a preface for the book. Excerpts of his preface appear in Jack McClelland's "A Note from the Publisher" in the first (1959) edition of the text. Fred Flahiff also wrote an introduction for the novel, of which excerpts were used as the afterword to the 1989 edition of the novel. 10 Series 2.0. Manuscripts and Drafts - Novels - Correspondence Regarding The Double Hook. Box 06 Folder 45. 11 Mr. Weeks was the editor of the Atlantic Monthly journal. Salter was hoping to have The Double Hook published as a series in this magazine. Salter's letter to Weeks appears on p. 197of this appendix. 12 The novel underwent significant changes in Watson's attempt to get it published. These changes were a result of Watson's desire to hone her craft, as well as her attempt to placate the requests of various publishers and to consider Salter's suggested emendations. For details on the textual variants, see Appendix A: Textual Notes p. 175.

188 I shall want to see Deep Hollow Creek. If Double Hook can be published, it would be nice to have another book follow it within a year and benefit by the "promotions." Some publishers are willing to gamble on a first novel is they feel that there is more coming: the publicity for the first helps to sell the second.13 [...] Sincerely Yours,

FM Salter

4. Letter from Frederick Salter to Edward Weeks, Editor of The Atlantic Monthly14 December 17,1954

Dear Mr. Weeks,

This letter should perhaps go to Mr. Dudley Cloud with whom I had most of my dealings some years ago, but I do not know whether he is still with Atlantic. You will perhaps recall that I introduced W.O. Mitchell and R. H. Blackburn to Atlantic. I would now like to introduce a much more mature writer who needs a perceptive editor. Her name is Sheila Watson. An English publisher15 has turned down Mrs. Watson's Double Hook in terms which show complete failure to comprehend it - and I marvel how people like T.S. Eliot and Christopher Fry ever do get published. When that publisher rejected her novel, I thought that perhaps a Foreword would help readers to see what is in it. I have roughed one out and will send it to you with this. If you should be interested in Double Hook as an "Atlantic Serial," or for separate publication, we can send on the novel itself; but if you are dismayed by the difficulties which are described in the Foreword, we shall both save time by keeping the novel home.

Although Deep Hollow Creek was Watson's first novel (she wrote it in the 1930s), it was not published until 1992. It was shortlisted for the Governor General's Award for best new fiction. 14 Series 4.0. Publishing Records and Business Correspondence. Box 34 File 608. 15 The English publisher Salter is referring to is Rupert-Hart Davis whose letter appears on p. 192 of this appendix.

189 Double Hook is not long; but since it has to be read slowly, it would occupy you as long as a novel twice its length. [... ] Sincerely yours, F.M. Salter

5. Letter from Atlantic Monthly Press to Sheila Watson16 May 4,1955

Dear Miss Watson:

We have kept your manuscript a long time because of additional readings, and I am sorry to have disappointing word for you after all this time. We don't think we could make a success of the book. The jury divided quite sharply. Some considered the book a modem ELEKTRA in a style that presupposes the reader as artist who understands and appreciates what the author is doing. Others conceded that the author might know what she was doing but doubted that enough readers would understand it. If you add to a difficult story in an unusual setting a seemingly self-conscious and experimental style, you limit your readers beyond the point where the book is a commercial venture for any publisher. I should add "or so it seems to us." For your own satisfaction you should try the book on all the possible publishers to see if you get the same answer. This novel will never be accepted by a committee, but it might achieve publication wherever the decision depends on the judgment of one man. Thank you for letting us see the manuscript. I am returning it to you at once. We are grateful to Mr. Salter for suggesting that you send it to us. I am sending him a copy of this letter.

Sincerely yours, Dudley H. Cloud

Series 4.0. Publishing Records and Business Correspondence. Box 34, Folder 547.

190 6. Letter to Sheila Watson from Chatto and Windus Ltd. November 11,1955

Dear Miss Watson,

We have read and carefully considered the novel you were kind enough to send me, and I regret that we are unable to make you an offer for it. About its literary merits, opinion is rather divided: I myself admired some of the writing and the intuition behind it, but I found it difficult to get clear in my mind the characters and their responses to one another and to their situation. Commercially, I am afraid, the book would stand no chance in the British market. I am therefore returning the typescript to you herewith.

Yours sincerely, C. Day Lewis

7. Letter from Frederick Salter to Sheila Watson18 December 4,1957

Dear Mrs. Watson,

I am glad that McClelland and Stewart have your Double Hook.19 They have always seemed the firm most likely to risk it. As for my foreword, I am not really capricious, but - like Cleopatra - "marble constant." It is yours to use or throw away. The only question is whether it is useful, a help toward getting the book published - or, if you should so wish, a help toward reader appreciation. If the book itself has been revised, perhaps the Foreword needs revision. I probably have a copy somewhere; but anyone who can find anything in my study is a better bloodhound than I am. It appears from your letter that you are engaged upon a Ph. D. program. I hope you will not let the grind dry you up. It was grievous also to read, "In Paris I stopped writing altogether." You must never stop. Genius is rare. Sincerely yours, F.M Salter

Series 4.0. Publishing Records and Business Correspondence. Box 33, Folder 557. 18 Series 2.0. Manuscripts and Drafts - Novels - Correspondence Regarding The Double Hook. Box 06 Folder 45. 19 McClelland & Stewart would eventually publish The Double Hook in 1959.

191 Select Bibliography

Books by Watson

A Father's Kingdom: The Complete Short Fiction. Toronto: McClelland & Stewart, 2004.

Deep Hollow Creek. Toronto: McClelland & Stewart, 1992.

Five Stories. Toronto: Coach House Press, 1984.

Four Stories. Toronto: Coach House Press, 1979.

The Double Hook. Toronto: McClelland & Stewart, 1959,1966, 1989, 2008.

Secondary Sources

Apollodorus. The Library of Greek Mythology. New York: Oxford UP, 2008.

Aquinas, Thomas. The Summa Theologica of St. Thomas Aquinas. California: Bibliolife, 2009.

Barbour, Douglas. "Editors and Typesetters." In Bowering, Sheila Watson and The Double Hook. 9-12.

Barthes, Roland. "The Death of the Author." In Finkelstein and McCleery. 277-280.

Beckett, Samuel. Waiting for Godot. New York: Grove Press, 1954.

Bennett, Donna. "As the Last Morning Breaks in Red: Frye's Apocalypse and the Visionary Tradition in Canadian Writing." University of Toronto Quarterly 70.4 (2001): 813-824.

Bessai, Diane and David Jackel, eds. Figures in a Ground: Canadian Essays on Modern Literature Collected in Honor of Sheila Watson. Saskatoon: Western Producer Prairie Books, 1978.

Bomstein, George. "Introduction." Representing Modernist Texts: Editing as Interpretation. Ed. George Bomstein. Ann Arbor: U of Michigan P, 1991. 1-6.

Bourdieu, Pierre. "The Field of Cultural Production." In Finkelstein and McCleery. 99- 122.

192 Bowering, Angela May. Figures Cut in a Sacred Ground: Hluminati in The Double Hook. Edmonton: NeWest Press, 1988.

Bowering, George. Sheila Watson and The Double Hook. Ottawa: Golden Dog Press, 1985.

—. Craft Slices. Canada: Oberon Press, 1985.

Bryant, John. The Fluid Text: A Theory of Revision and Editing for Book and Screen. Ann Arbor: U of Michigan P, 2002.

Child, Philip. "A Canadian Prose Poem." In Bowering, Sheila Watson and The Double Hook. 31-34.

Cooke, Nathalie. "Literary Heritage." Margaret Atwood: A Critical Companion. Connecticut: Greenwood P, 2004. 19-30.

Corbett, Nancy J. "Closed Circle." In Bowering, Sheila Watson and The Double Hook. 115-122.

Davidson, Arnold E. Coyote Country: Fictions of the Canadian West. Durham, North Carolina: Duke UP, 1994.

Deer, Glenn. Postmodern Canadian Fiction and the Rhetoric of Authority. Montreal: McGill-Queen'sUP, 1994.

Downton, Dawn Rae. "Messages and Messengers in The Double Hook." In Bowering, Sheila Watson and The Double Hook. 177-184.

Eliot, T.S. The Waste Land, Prufrock and Other Poems. New York: Dover Publications, 1998.

—. On Poetry and Poets. London: Faber & Faber, 1957.

Faulkner, William. The Sound and the Fury. New York: Random House, 1984.

—. Go Down Moses. New York: Knopf DoubleDay, 1991.

Finkelstein, David and Alistair McCleery. The Book History Reader. New York: Routledge, 2006.

Flahiff, F.T. "Afterword." The Double Hook. Toronto: McClelland & Stewart, 1989. 119-130.

—. Always Someone to Kill the Doves: A Life of Sheila Watson. Edmonton, Alberta: NeWest Press, 2005.

193 Foucault, Michel. "What is an Author?" In Finkelstein and McCleery. 281-291.

France, Marie de. "Chevrefoil." Trans. Keith Busby. In The Lais of Marie de France. New York: Penguin, 2003.

Friskney, Janet B. New Canadian Library: The Ross-McClelland Years, 1952-1978. Toronto: U of Toronto P, 2007.

Godard, Barbara. "Between One Cliche and Another: Language in The Double Hook." In Bowering, Sheila Watson and The Double Hook. 159-176.

Goldman, Marlene. "Ethics, Spectres, and Formalism in Sheila Watson's The Double Hook." ESC 33.1-2 (March/June 2007): 189-208.

Greetham, D.C. Textual Scholarship: An Introduction. New York and London: Garland Reference Library of the Humanities, 1992.

Groden, Michael. "Contemporary Textual and Literary Theory." Representing Modernist Texts: Editing as Interpretation. Ed. George Bomstein. Ann Arbor: U of Michigan P, 1991. 259-286.

Grube, John. "Introduction." The Double Hook. Toronto: McClelland & Stewart, 1966. 5-14.

Heidegger, Martin. Being and Time. New York: State University of New York Press, 1996.

Husserl, Edmund. Cartesian Meditations: An Introduction to Phenomenology. New York: Springer, 1977.

Ji, Yinglin and Dan Shen. "Transitivity and Mental Transformation: Sheila Watson's The Double Hook." Language and Literature 13.4 (2004): 335-348.

King, Thomas. The Truth about Stories: A Native Narrative. Toronto: Anansi, 2003.

—. One Good Story, That One. Toronto: Harper Collins, 1999.

Marta, Jan. "Poetic Structures in the Prose Fiction of Sheila Watson." In Bowering, Sheila Watson and The Double Hook. 149-158.

McClelland, Jack. "A Note from the Publisher." The Double Hook. Toronto: McClelland & Stewart, 1959. ii-v.

McGann, Jerome. "The Socialization of Texts." In Finkelstein and McCleery. 66-73.

194 McKenzie, D.F. "The Book as an Expressive Form." In Finkelstein and McCleery. 35- 46.

McPherson, Hugo. "An Important New Voice." In Bowering, Sheila Watson and The Double Hook. 23-26.

Melnyk, George. The Literary History of Alberta. Alberta: U of Alberta P, 1999.

Meyer, Bruce and Brian O'Riordan. In Their Words. Toronto: Anansi, 1984.

Monkman, Leslie. "Coyote as Trickster in The Double Hook." In Bowering, Sheila Watson and The Double Hook. 63-69.

Morriss, Margaret. '"No Short Cuts': The Evolution of The Double Hook." Canadian Literature 173 (Summer 2002): 54-70.

Moss, John. "The Double Hook and The Channel Shore." In Bowering, Sheila Watson and The Double Hook. 123-142.

Northey, Margot. "Symbolic Grotesque." In Bowering, Sheila Watson and The Double Hook. 55-62.

OED Online. Oxford University Press,

Official King James Bible Online. Oxford 1769 Edition.

Putzel, Steven. "Under Coyote's Eye: Indian Tales in Sheila Watson's The Double Hook" Canadian Literature 102 (Autumn 1984): 7-16.

Riegel, Christian. A Sense of Place: Re-Evaluating Regionalism in Canadian and American Writing. Alberta: U of Alberta P, 1998.

Roberts, Robert C, ed. Faith, Reason & History: Rethinking Kierkegaard's Philosophical Fragments. Georgia: Mercer UP, 1986.

Scobie, Stephen. Sheila Watson and Her Works. Toronto: ECW Press, 1984.

Shakespeare, William. The Tempest. The Oxford Shakespeare. New York: Oxford UP, 2008.

—. King Lear. The Signet Classics. New York: Penguin, 1998.

—. Macbeth. The Signet Classics. New York: Penguin, 1998.

Sheila Watson: A Collection. Special Issue of Open Letter 3.1 (Winter 1974).

195 Summerhayes, Don. "Glory and Fear." In Bowering, Sheila Watson and The Double Hook. 27-30.

Theall, D.F. "A Canadian Novella." In Bowering, Sheila Watson and The Double Hook. 35-38.

Watson, Sheila. "What I'm Going to Do." In Bowering, Sheila Watson and The Double Hook. 13-15.

Wilmott, Glenn. "Sheila Watson, Aboriginal Discourse, and Cosmopolitan Modernism." The Canadian Modernists Meet. Ed. Dean Irvine. Ottawa: U of Ottawa P, 2005. 101-116.

Unpublished Material:

Behmen, Jacob. Epigraph for The Double Hook. Sheila Watson Fonds, University of Toronto, box 6, folder 44.

Chatto and Windus Ltd. Letter to Sheila Watson, 11 November 1955. Sheila Watson Fonds, University of Toronto, box 33 folder 557.

Cloud, Dudley H. Letter to Sheila Watson, 4 May 1955. Sheila Watson Fonds, University of Toronto, box 34 folder 547.

Irvine, Dean. "James's Skirt]Shirt; or Materialities and Meditations of The Double Hook." ACCUTE, Concordia University, May 2010.

Rupert Hart-Davis. Letter to Sheila Watson, 24 August 1954. Sheila Watson Fonds, University of Toronto, box 36 folder 608.

Ross, Malcom. Letter to Jack McClelland, 9 June 1958. McClelland & Stewart Fonds, McMaster University, box 63 folder 17.

Salter, Frederick. Letter to Sheila Watson, 12 December 1954. Sheila Watson Fonds, University of Toronto, box 6 folder 45.

— Letter to Sheila Watson, 17 December 1954. Sheila Watson Fonds, University of Toronto, box 6 folder 45.

—. Letter to Edward Weeks, 17 December 1954. Sheila Watson Fonds, University of Toronto, box 34 folder 608.

—. Letter to Sheila Watson, 4 December 1957. Sheila Watson Fonds, University of Toronto, box 6 folder 45.

196 Watson, Sheila. The Double Hook. Unpublished Typescript. 185pp. Sheila Watson Fonds, University of Toronto, box 5 folder 41.

—. The Double Hook. Unpublished Typescript. 186pp. Sheila Watson Fonds, University of Toronto, box 5 folder 42.

—. The Double Hook. Unpublished Typescript. 158pp. Sheila Watson Fonds, University of Toronto, box 5 folder 43.

—. Journals and Notebooks. Sheila Watson Fonds, University of Toronto, box 1-4 files 1-29.

197