Would I Lie to You

by Mary Lou Dickinson

  “We bought the house so my husband would have something to do,” she said. “He has to have a project on the go all the time. Now, it’s new flowerbeds all around the sides of the veranda. I’m the one who looks after breakfasts, laundry, changing the beds, and cleaning. He does the bookkeeping.”

  “Have you lived in Stratford long?” Sue asked.

  “About ten years.”

  Sue was disappointed, knowing this woman would not be able to answer any questions about what it was like here when Jerry was a child. She would not know the people he had known. Sue realized she had no more questions to ask. She wanted only to finish her coffee before leaving to walk by the river, go through the park, and then wander on the main street. After that, she would drive back to Toronto. It seemed odd that only after Jerry’s death was she destined to come to know this place.

  “Like it?” Sue asked.

  “Oh yes,” the woman said. “It’s such a relief after Toronto. It was getting too big for us. And too many immigrants. You know what I mean.”

  Sue was aware the woman was likely making a statement about colour, about people from the islands or the Philippines or refugees from Sri Lanka. She had heard this sort of remark as the face of Toronto kept changing and over time had learned it changed nothing if she were overly confrontational in expressing her own opinion. Carefully considering her words, she said, “One of the things I like most about Toronto is the variety.” Then she added, “I love riding on the subway. I don’t think there’s any other place where you can get a microcosm of the whole world so easily. Although when I first moved to Toronto, it wasn’t like that.” She stopped then, not surprised when the other woman turned and seemed to scurry back into the kitchen.

  “More coffee?” she asked cheerfully ten minutes later.

  “Thanks. I’ll be on my way now.”

  When she left, Sue parked in a lot down by the river. Her plan was evolving in her mind as she locked the car and started walking. She would go over a bridge and around a corner to a main street until she found Britannia. The address she was looking for was one Florence had shown her, a red brick two-storey house on a wide, deep lot with an enclosed porch at the front. It was the house where Jerry had spent his childhood. The trim was painted white.

  A woman stood on the porch of Jerry’s childhood home, watching the street. When she came out onto the steps, Sue saw she was over eighty. Her back was tall and straight and there was a slight tinge of bronze in her white hair. It was as if she had touched it up and the colour was now fading. She wore bright lipstick. Her pale blue dress was clean and fresh even on such a hot day.

  “Are you looking for someone, my dear?”

  “I was looking at your house,” Sue said. “I hope you don’t mind. I was told that my husband grew up in it. ”

  “Would you like to come in?”

  “Oh, I couldn’t do that. I’m sorry to have bothered you.”

  “I live alone, my dear. I’d be glad to have you come in for a while. Who was your husband?”

  “Jerry Reid.”

  “Reid,” she said. “Reid. Well, I don’t remember that family. I’ve lived in the house for about thirteen years. My husband and I used to live out in the country. When he couldn’t handle the farm anymore, we bought this place in town. Soon after we moved here, he died. Now I’m saddled with it.”

  “I’d rather not see the inside,” Sue said. “But might I see the garden?”

  “Yes, of course,” the woman said grudgingly.

  Sue suspected the woman was disappointed that she would not have someone to chat with over tea. A guest was less likely to linger in the garden.

  “Oh my,” Sue said as they went around the side of the house and the huge backyard opened up in front of them. “It’s really beautiful.” In the middle of the lawn was a white trellis with red roses climbing up and over it. Sue could see Jerry rolling in golden leaves when the large birch tree at the end of the yard shed its autumnal glory.

  “Reid,” the woman said again. “Is that your name then?”

  “Oh, I am sorry,” Sue said. “Yes, I’m Sue Reid.”

  “Charlotte Todhunter,” the woman said. “I don’t remember anyone called Reid owning the house. I have looked at papers. But, you know, I do remember the story of some lawyer who died in jail after a drinking binge. Joe Reid. Jim Reid. I don’t remember. Maybe it wasn’t Reid at all.”

  Sue thought a husband would have told her something like that also. But if he did not mention a son, why would he mention a father, grandfather, or uncle who was picked up for drunkenness and subsequently died in a jail cell? Even without this history, it did not surprise her that when Jerry left Stratford, he cut his ties with the place. In the mining town where she had grown up, stories such as these were only too familiar. After a while, they became legendary. Her father had been somewhat of a drinker for a time. The story that had circulated was that although he sometimes drank too much, he was a gentleman. A family held onto a myth like that as if it were their link to survival, Sue thought. Likely it was. Likely that had been the case with her father. Sue had not known at the time that that was what she was doing. When she looked back now, she saw it clearly.

  Nonetheless, when her father died, she had been bereft, missing him so terribly it was often almost visceral. She had been relieved that he had stopped drinking and images of him floundering had not remained as vivid for her as they likely had for Maggie. The strongest image of her own childhood was instead of the white house covered with asbestos shingles next to the bush. It was near the path to the mine. Sue would walk out the back door and head over a small footbridge, onto a path that led to the highway. As she came out from the gravel path alongside the road that led toward Montreal, she could see the mine shaft rising above the scrawny trees that were left on the property. Out behind were the slimes, the waste from the rock that was brought up from underground and processed in the mill. Hard rock miners went underground looking for gold. She used to think when she was a child and heard about veins of gold that they would find large rivers of it underground.

  Charlotte Todhunter walked laboriously toward a flowerbed full of lilies and stooped to pull out some weeds. When she stood up, she sat on a green bench with ivy growing up a lattice behind it.

  “I could make a cup of tea,” she said.

  “It’s all right,” Sue said. “I have a long drive back to Toronto.”

  “As you wish,” the woman said. “Did you come for the theatre?”

  “A wedding.”

  “Would I know anyone?”

  “The groom’s name is Crossar.”

  “Thomas Crossar? Oh my goodness,” she said. “How do you know him?”

  “My late husband was his father.”

  “You don’t mean to say that your husband was his father.”

  Sue nodded.

  “Oh my goodness,” the woman repeated. “I knew Thomas’s mother well. Such a brave young woman, raising that child on her own. I never knew the story, but I assumed some man deserted her.”

  “Well, that’s not exactly the story I’ve been told. Unfortunately, I knew nothing when Jerry was alive so I never had a chance to ask him.”

  “Are you saying he never told you?” The voice was imperious.

  Sue nodded, although it was none of this old woman’s business.

  “Oh, you poor dear.” Now she sounded more pitying.

  Sue stepped away, annoyed. “Do you think you knew everything about your husband?”

  “Well, of course I did,” Charlotte Todhunter said, sniffing.

  Sue wanted to get away as quickly as she could. She would have to tell Thomas she came to look at this house before someone else did. This kind of information would travel like a new fire in dry grass. She hoped it would not make him even more resentful.

  “My dear, you can’t imagine who came
to my house this morning,” the old woman would probably say.

  “Well, Mrs. Todhunter,” Sue said. “Time to get back on the road.” She could imagine Jerry cutting the grass, throwing a football or a baseball in the large yard. Charlotte Todhunter looked at Sue with piercing green eyes.

  “You know,” the older woman said. “Harold, that was my husband’s name, found old newspapers in the attic that might tell you something about the house. I think he put them in a file somewhere. Maybe in a scrapbook. He was a great collector. I’ve thrown out some things, but I don’t think I threw out those papers. I might be able to unearth them. If you want to come in and wait.”

  “All right,” Sue said finally. She saw a look of triumph pass fleetingly across Charlotte Todhunter’s face. She followed the older woman into the house where a staircase went up to the second floor along the left side of the front hall. The kitchen was connected to a large room behind it that looked out over the garden. It was finished in wood veneer. From the window, Sue could see the spot in the yard where they had been just a few minutes earlier.

  “Let me show you around the house,” the older woman said.

  “No, no,” Sue protested. “It isn’t necessary.”

  The woman was making no attempt to find the file she had mentioned. When could she say something without seeming rude, Sue wondered. She felt like Hansel and Gretel, trapped by a witch and she feared there would be repercussions if she said something to anger this woman.

  Mrs. Todhunter stood up and headed toward the dining room. Everything, the colour scheme, the rather old-fashioned damask upholstery on the chesterfield in the living room, the photographs of children, reflected this woman’s taste. Sue was determined not to ask about anything.

  “Now my dear, the upstairs.”

  “Did your husband keep his papers there?”

  “Some of them.”

  “Mrs. Todhunter,” Sue said, reining in a tone of impatience. “I’m very sorry, but I don’t have time. I can leave an address and if you find anything, you can write to me. I’d be prepared to come back if there’s something of interest.” Sue was not about to tell her that she would let Thomas know so he could follow up on it for himself. Nor that once she left, she did not expect to hear anything.

  “I’m sorry, my dear,” Charlotte said as she emptied a drawer in a desk. “I could have sworn my husband found something.”

  “Yes, of course.” Sue backed away, turning toward the door. “I have to go now,” she said.

  “What a shame. Do come to visit when you come back to Stratford.”

  Sue was so relieved to reach the street that she sighed loudly. Sometimes, trying to retrace the past was a mistake. But she was glad at least to know where Jerry had grown up. When she walked to where she had parked the car and drove down to the river, a breeze was blowing from the west. Small waves rippled on the surface of the water and leaves stirred on the trees. A beautiful spot, she thought. But she did not stop.

  Trucks passed on both sides when she finally reached the highway. As she drove in the middle lane, they hurtled up behind and even though she was going above the speed limit, overtook her. As she got closer to Toronto, the number of lanes increased until it felt like she was surrounded by a mass of hurtling metal. From a distance, the large buildings began to rise ahead until they sprawled across the entire landscape.

  Disappointed not to find a message from Hans when she returned from Stratford, though no longer expecting one, Sue slept fitfully. After her morning coffee and some muesli, she walked over once again to the old brick house where he met with clients. There was a note on the door to Hans’s office — Please do not disturb the session in progress. An arrow pointed to the waiting room. Sue sat down. What would she say to him? She anticipated his displeasure, even his anger. Only once when she had asked him to stay over had she seen anything like that in a trapped look as he shook his head and walked across the room to the chair where his clothes hung lopsided on the back.

  “Don’t you see that I can’t do that?” He had reached for his trousers and socks and dressed quickly, then headed down the stairs to the front door.

  “What is it?” she had called, following him with only a blouse she had grabbed flung around her.

  “I can’t stand it. You’re not doing anything wrong in asking for what you want. But I can’t give it.”

  “It’s all right. I understand.”

  “No, it’s not all right. It’s not all right at all that I can’t give it to you.”

  “Then I won’t ask.” Please stop and talk. Please. She had heard these words in her head, but had not said them.

  “That’s not the point.”

  Probably it had not been the point. Probably it still was not the point, but she wanted to see him anyway, to hear what he would say, especially after he had called a few weeks earlier to tell her Heather had gone to England to be with her parents for a while. She had suspected he might be frightened to find he had no excuse not to see her.

  The door of Hans’s office opened and a man came out. He reached for a coat on the back of a chair. Another woman had come in by then and Hans nodded at her. Then he saw Sue.

  A smile crossed his face and then his brows furrowed. “Hello,” he said in his deep voice. “Come on in for a second.” Closing the door behind her, he indicated a chair. “I have a few minutes before seeing the next client.”

  “I didn’t want to make any assumptions when I didn’t hear from you,” she said, knowing that her sense of time had become distorted, that a week or two of no call felt like months.

  “What do you mean?” he asked. “I’ve called. I must have left at least half a dozen messages in the last week and you never returned them. Then, finally, I got through to someone and asked for Sue. When you came on the line, you said you’d never heard of me. What was that about? I thought you didn’t want me to call you anymore. I thought you were angry.”

  “I don’t get it,” she frowned. “I didn’t get any phone calls. And I didn’t talk to you. That wasn’t me.”

  “What do you mean? It wasn’t you? I certainly thought it was.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “Well, neither do I.” He took out his desk diary and read out a number.

  “That’s not my number,” she said. “Whose number is it?”

  “I thought it was yours.”

  “Well, it isn’t. That’s why I haven’t returned your calls. What kind of psychic are you anyway?” she asked. “You’ve called me before. You had the right number then.”

  “I lost your number and when I looked it up, I must have used the one for another Sue. At least I got the right name.” He was suddenly playful, as if trying to distract her. “Mostly I don’t add surnames to my client list because I don’t know them.”

  “You know mine.”

  He shrugged.

  “You told me once not to make assumptions. So I didn’t. But now I don’t know what to think.” Still, she was relieved to know he had not been avoiding her. She looked at his left hand. The gold wedding band was still there.

  “What was that number again?”

  “Here it is. It’s all yours. It’s no help to me, obviously,” he said. “Call it. You’ll see.”

  “Maybe I will.”

  “Go ahead.”

  So she picked up the telephone, expecting to get an answering machine. Hello, this is Sue — another woman’s message — I like getting messages, so please leave one. What she did not anticipate was that someone would answer.

  “This is going to sound preposterous,” she began. “I have a friend who’s been trying to reach me and he seems to have used your number instead. Are you Sue?”

  “Yes, I’m Sue.”

  “It’s my name, too.”

  “Well, I guess that explains it. I’ve had these weird calls and the guy thinks he kn
ows me. I’ve told him I’ve never heard of him.”

  “He has the right number now.” She wanted to say he was a psychic and that he’d had everything wrong in spite of that, but that had nothing to do with this stranger.

  When she hung up, Sue looked at Hans and rolled her eyes. “I don’t think I’d trust a psychic’s telephone book.”

  “Looks as if I shouldn’t have either.”

  She smiled nervously.

  “I need to talk to you,” he said. “But there isn’t long enough now. Can we arrange a time?”

  “Coffee somewhere on Bloor Street?”

  Hans’s voice was warm, but almost detached at the same time. She supposed it was because he would be seeing a client as soon as she left.

  When she walked away down the street, she imagined birds taking seeds from the feeder outside a window at his farm and bright flowers in beds around the house. She had seen them in a photograph on his desk. Then there would be the pond where he swam early, where he sat with his coffee and watched the sun rise.

  Hot, tired, and pensive, she soaked in the tub until she became sleepy. After that, she cut her toenails and finally dropped into bed with a book to read. She was not prepared for the telephone when it rang after eleven o’clock that evening. What flashed through her mind was an emergency of some kind, a call from a hospital. Her heart started racing.

  “It’s me,” Hans said.

  “It’s kind of late, isn’t it?” she said. “Are you all right?”

  “I was thinking about you.”

  She noticed his words were slightly slurred.

  “You know what I’ve been doing,” he laughed.

  “I don’t think I want to know.” She was taken aback, but not entirely speechless.

  “Well, I’ll tell you anyway,” he said. “I had a couple of good stiff drinks and I’ve been….”

  He was undressing her. She did not want to hear it. “Please, Hans,” she said. “Don’t say any more.” She did not say so, but she would have minded less if he were sober.

  “I won’t bother you,” he said abruptly and hung up.