On the fifth ring my hopes were beginning to dash themselves against the proverbial rocks, when it was picked up. “Good day, how may I help you?” That had to be my pal from earlier today. It sounded like her anyway, small lady, very large attitude.
“Hello…” Just then the traffic started to pick up a bit and we were moving again, slowly mind you, but moving. I refocused my attention. “Hello, this is Jeffry Claxton calling, could I speak with Cynthia please?” The tone brightened considerably, just like flipping a switch. “Certainly Mr. Claxton, please hold for a moment.” I answered with a polite “Thank you.” The ‘phone went to a classical music piece, something I didn’t recognize, featuring complex violin arrangements. Nice ‘phone system, for a home number. The violins filled the van for a couple of minutes, then the voice I wanted to hear came on the line.
“Hello, Jeffry?”
“Hi. Yeah, it’s me. How’re you doing? Get home Okay?”
“Gee no, I was lost and alone, wandering the streets for hours before the boy scouts came along. How about you?”
“I stand suitably rebuked, my apologies. I’m sure you were getting around just fine before we met.” She laughed a bit, and it sounded nice. It made me want to see her laugh, not just hear it. “Listen, uh… how should I put this? Can I come over? I’d like to see you again today, before I leave. I have to go out of town tomorrow, and I’ll be gone for a week, maybe more…” I was cleanly interrupted.
“Jeffry, you don’t need an excuse to come over, get that straight. When and if I decide, I don’t want to see you or talk to you, I’ll let you know, make no mistake. How long will you be? You’re in the van aren’t you?” I smiled to myself.
“Yeah, I’m east-bound out by the airport, but it’s picking up a little. Maybe thirty or forty minutes. That sound alright?”
“That sounds fine. How is our… friend?”
“She’s good. And safe. George is taking care of her, he had everything prearranged.”
“That’s a relief. She seemed so… fragile, yet looking at what she’s been through, she probably held up better than I would have. We can talk when you get here, anyway. Fine, I’ll expect you soon. Drive carefully and I’ll see you when you get here.”
“Okay, Bye.”
“Bye.”
I felt a curious sense of anticipation. It was obvious even to me that I had been far too long between dates. About then I was passing the 400 North cutoff, and the speed of flow picked up again to about fifty klicks per hour, still slow, but not bad for the time of day. Forty-five minutes later I was pulling into the drive at Cynthia’s house. It was almost five o’clock, but there was no sign of any other cars in the drive.
The door was answered by Cynthia this time, not Jen. She had changed her outfit in the interim. She was wearing wide baggy white shorts, and white Keds, no socks, with a white blouse tied at the midriff, and a bandana held her hair out of her eyes, with the braid still in, falling freely in the back. Hollywood style, if you go back a bit, like maybe Barbara Stanwyk, when she was young. There was dirt on her knees, and she had one gardening glove on, and was holding the other one, as well as a small hand spade. With her free hand, she pulled me inside and shoved the door closed with her hip. Then she looked me right in the eye, and said “What took you so long?”
I was still looking into those green eyes. Deep, and green. And mesmerizing. Then she shocked the hell out of me by grabbing the neck of my jersey in a fist with her free hand and pulling my face down to hers and kissing me quickly, full on the lips. Letting go of my jersey she turned and walked off, talking. “Come on, I’ll show you the atrium. Are you hungry yet? I’m starved. There’s a fantastic lasagna in the oven, and it should be just about done. Do you like plants?” At that point she stopped and turned around, ostensibly looking to see where I had gotten to. I was still standing at the door, with a dumb look on my face I’m sure. She was smiling. “Don’t just stand there, come on.” I broke out of my trance, and walked over to her. She took my hand, and we started walking through the house, with her talking about gardening the whole way. I was impressed, it was obvious that she enjoyed plants, but it was far more than my level of general knowledge could keep up to. Besides, I was still thinking about that kiss.
We passed through the right side of the central foyer area, with daylight showing from skylights high up in the ceiling. The foyer was large, to put it mildly. The floor was a beautiful marble, almost pure white, lightly streaked with a pale grey. The walls there were high, rising to the second floor ceiling, paneled with an ivory coloured textured wallpaper, making space for the wide double back left and right staircase. The steps of the staircase were of the same marble as the flooring, while the railing and bannisters were a high-gloss black. Made of what, I don’t know, but the contrast was striking. The whole effect was something much like you would see in, perhaps, Gone With The Wind. Then we turned left behind the rise of the staircase, down a rather narrow hallway, humbly painted with a low lustre powder blue, so pale that the blue almost escaped the eye. There were a few doors on the right side, painted to match the wall, and then the hallway dead-ended in double glass doors. Cynthia stopped in her tracks and letting go of me, swiveled on one heel, grabbed the doorway and pulled.
“And here we have the atrium.” Her smile was wide, and I could see that her sense of pride flowed strong. As soon as the door opened, I felt the blast of hot, humid air. She motioned me in. I stepped over the raised door sill, and instantly started to sweat. Cynthia stepped in behind me, and as soon as she let go of the door, it started to close. At the same time, I heard the hydraulic hiss. Manual gas charged shocks.
In front of me was… jungle. With slate flagstone walkways leading off in a ‘V’ from the glass doorway. I was just amazed. I started wandering down the path on the right. I had my head tilted back scanning from side to side. The whole roof was glass, about thirty feet high, and artificial lighting hung in strips just below the ceiling. All of these lights were on, and they changed hue, from the more pink visible light at the red end of the spectrum, and the doorway end of the atrium, through daylight, yellow-white, and ending in the blue edge of the spectrum about sixty feet away at the other end of the room. There were six rows of lighting, spread across a width of approximately sixty feet. These were all anchored by a crisscross of thin steel beams. It had to be steel to hold the weight of all that lighting. The beams were maybe four inches wide, tops. Underneath the lighting was thin piping for a sprinkler system, with the jets facing downwards, not up like a conventional fire prevention setup.
I stopped and kneeled on the slate, looking through the foliage at the base of the plants on my left, where they rose quite high. There were banana trees, small rubber trees, young yet and just barely reaching ten feet, trees I had no idea about that rose twenty feet or more. These higher ones were away from the path, more towards the centre of the space between the edges of the ‘V’. Exotic bushes with narrow foot-long drooping leaves that seemed to have a tongue of blue in them, sporting fist-sized purple and white flowers. Beautiful. The whole thing was just beautiful. Cynthia hadn’t said a word, had let me take a look for myself first. She had her arms crossed, standing a few feet away with one hip cocked and a big smile on her face, watching my reaction.
I rose from my kneel and turned around. “It’s just beautiful Cynthia. I love it.” I threw my arms out on either side of me. “The whole thing is… well… beautiful. Do you really take care of this yourself?” As I said it I realized how silly that notion was. This was at least one full-time job. There had to be a caretaker/gardener/botanist type person on the payroll. Company for Jen, Cynthia’s maid. “No, of course you don’t. This is far beyond any hobby. It must take constant care.” I turned a slow three-sixty, drinking it all in with my eyes and my nose and breathing the taste of it all. Cynthia danced ahead of me on the walkway, thrilled that I had reacted the way I did.
She said, “Now might be one of those times.” I raised my eyebrows inquisit
ively. She responded with a crooked finger, and turned away down the path. I followed some more. Ten paces later, about midway down the room, was a cross-path to the left and right. We went left. Ten more paces brought us to the actual centre, I knew that because she said so. “This is the centre, where I have my section. All of this area here behind the stone benches is mine. Three yards in there’s a little green wire fence, this high.” She held her hands four inches apart. “That’s where my section ends. And the rock arrangement at the pool is mine.”
We were standing in a cobblestone finished circle, with a small fountain in the middle. The circle was only fifteen feet across, if that. The fountain and goldfish pond were miniature, as was the accompanying rock garden. More of a rock arrangement was small enough to jump across if you were a good jumper. The water rose up through an offset miniature rock mountain around waist level at one end of the pond. There was a small hut near the base of one slope, and a lovely bonsai next to the hut. Two figurines were sitting playing some kind of board-game under the bonsai. It spilled down a very natural looking mountain waterfall channel, passing by the huts and the bonsai with the two figures. Around the edge of the cobblestone periphery, there were three separate stone benches, quite low to the ground, each one curving through its own quarter of the circle, with access to three walkways between them leading away from the centre. All of the plants and flowers in Cynthia’s section were low, none topping out over three feet tall. And fairly sparse compared to the riot of growth in other areas. The central area plants were the tallest, including many varieties of trees, so there was this tall wall of green growth that gat to be a backdrop for all of her plants. The accentuation was excellent.
Cynthia sat down facing the little waterfall, tossing her gloves and spade onto the ground behind the bench, so I sat down next to her. I was sweating bullets so I pulled off my jersey and undid the second button on my shirt. It seemed like an appropriate time to say something so I did. “What ‘Times’ were you referring to, exactly?” I kept my eye on the small goldfish swimming in the pond. I counted three, as long as my little finger, no more.
“The times when You could call me Jean, if you want. But what can I call you?” I kept my eyes on the goldfish, swimming back and forth, back and forth, like they were going somewhere. I had known times in my life when I had felt just like those goldfish. Swim, and swim, and swim, and just end up back where you started.
“My close friends call me Jeff. But I don’t think I want you to.” Now I was watching the waterfall. I could feel myself starting to fall under the spell of this small world I found.
Cynthia responded with a bit of hesitancy. “Well, I knew about Jeff, Sarah told me. But if you don’t want me to use that, then I won’t.” I had switched to where the waterfall hit the pond. Every so often one goldfish would take a quick dash through the waterfall. I think it was the same one each time.
“No, not Jeff. I want you to call me whatever you decide to call me, and it won’t be anything that anyone else uses. For ‘Times’ like this one.” I had my chin on my fist, like “The Thinker”, by Rodin. I believe it was Rodin. I turned to face her. “My middle name is useless. Robert. I never use it. I hate ‘Bob’. You’ll have to figure it out I guess.”
She looked at me kind of strangely. “You took on a serious mood pretty quickly just then, didn’t you?”
The smile crept out of hiding, without my being able to stop it. “Nah, I hardly ever get serious, and if I do, I’ll let you know first, Jean.”
“Okay.” She smiled back.
“This place is overwhelmingly lovely. I could sit here for hours and hours.”
“That’s exactly what it’s for. It’s taken the family a long time, and strict adherence to tradition, just to keep it alive and growing. This part is the most revered section, and so even if I get bogged down in my studies, and the teaching, doing lectures, whatever, I still have to make time to keep this up to snuff. Every once in a while, someone from the family will come by, and want to come here, and sit contemplating life, the universe, and everything. It’s a heady responsibility.” She laughed deep in her throat, and I could even smell her sweet scent. I wanted to reach out and scoop her into my arms, but I couldn’t. I didn’t remember how. I couldn’t even remember if I had once known how. I just spoke my mind the way we had agreed.
“I have an amazingly strong urge to kiss you, and hold you close just now. May I?” Her eyes seemed to flash electric, and a shiver went down my spine.
She reached out and gently took my face in Both hands, drawing me closer, until our faces were touching, then she spoke, just a whisper, with her breath warm on my face. “A kiss would be nice.”
I put my arms around her, and we were kissing. Just like that. The heat, and taste, and fragrance, and feel… went on for a while. Then, softly, like it started, it stopped, and we were faces touching. I didn’t trust myself to talk and produce indelible English at the same time just then, but she saved me.
“I think the lasagna’s ready now. How about it big boy? Think you could eat a little?” The words were ordinary words, but they were spoken in a whisper of warm breath drifting across my face in small puffs of heat.
“Uh huh.” Close enough. She appeared to understand me. We rose off of the bench together, and she turned and glided off down the walkway. I followed again. This time to the kitchen. Just as well. I probably would have followed her off a cliff without quite noticing. I didn’t pay much attention to detail on the way to the kitchen, I was watching the way Jean walked. It may have been a biased opinion, but her gracefulness was hypnotizing. Very fluid. We arrived there nonetheless.
The lasagna was wonderful, and we talked and talked. I gave her more of me over one at-home dinner than I’d given to anyone. I ended up talking about the case, and she talked about Therese. After some time had passed, I happened to glance at my watch, and it was past time to go. 9:20 PM. I still had work to do, and a flight to catch at the crack of dawn practically. I explained, she agreed, and I left. She walked me to the door holding my hand. The last thing she said to me was to be careful, call when I got to Zurich, and to watch out for whatever it was that had scared Therese half to death.
On the drive home the roads were wet with the light rain falling, and with the coming of night, the cloud cover seemed to close in on the city making it seemed smaller and more localized. The traffic lights reflected into the street with a distorted blur of colours, and the whole effect added to the sense of disconnectedness that I was experiencing. For the first time in weeks, I didn’t mind the rain.
~
Chapter Eight
W
hen I reached the apartment I felt as if the drive had been too short. My mood was odd, and the driving felt good, I was alone and only had my thoughts and feelings with me. There were almost no other cars on the road in my neighbourhood, so instead of pulling into my garage, I flicked off the turn signal as I approached, and kept going. The garage door was slowly rolling open behind me as I pulled away. Whenever I turn my corner on the way home I automatically hit the remote control and the left turn signal.
I drove deeper into the residential area around my place, all houses and small two-bedroom bungalow setups. It was nice, because of the people. They took good care of their homes, generally speaking, all around the area. It wasn’t the most affluent area of the city but the people who lived here had pride in their homes and gardens. Especially the gardens where the Italian and Portuguese families lived. The fronts of the houses were planted beautifully with flower arrangements, and the backs were done with vegetable gardens. There was a congenial air of competition going on all of the summer long. The older men would get together on the front lawns, walking around the flower beds, talking about the strategy that had been passed down in their family, and so on. Eventually they would get around to the back yard, and the vegetable gardens. Then the home-made wine would come out, and a fresh vegetable would be chosen from the garden, with great care and much discussion
. Then the woman of the home would take over, preparing a tray with glasses for the wine, and knives and salt for the veggies, which were considered to be a finger food. It was a good neighbourhood and fun. I often went for walks just to say hi to everybody, and sometimes I would bring a bottle of wine from the Niagara Peninsula, maybe from Inniskillin or other one, and then when I was invited to the back yard, we would do comparisons, and talk about grapes, how you grow them, famous years for local vintners, stuff like that. It was nice.
Tonight, I just drove around. The lights were on in almost all of the homes. Here and there was a ‘For Sale’ sign. Somebody moving on, somebody moving in. I drove slowly, and let my thoughts drift free in the wetness of the night. The only motion showing was the rain, dropping through the slash of illumination from the headlights, and more slowly, up around the street lights like a halo of mist.
By the time, I got around to sitting down in my office chair with a cold beer everything was fairly clear. I had ended up straightening out my thoughts on the case so far. The first thing I did was to check my e-mail, then I called George.
“Hello.” As usual he answered on the first ring.
“George, it’s me. How’s it holding up at your end?”
“Ah, Jeff. I was beginning to wonder if you’d fallen off the map. You know it’s after eleven?”
“Uh, right. Well, I’m a bit late calling, but I was… otherwise engaged, let’s say.” There was a slight pause, but he didn’t push.
“Accepted. You at home now?”
“Yeah.”
“I’m back at my place, so let me call you on the landline.”
“Check.” We both hung up, and within seconds the ‘phone rang. I picked it up as it was in the first ring. “Here.”
“Right. Well, I had a good long talk with her Jeff, and I have to say, it a sort of falls apart. I can’t fathom any connections that would cause her to be so scared, and we didn’t get our smoking gun to support a conspiracy theory. Frankly, I’m beginning to understand the position Wilson Lapierre has taken. We have to be able to come up with something in Zurich, man. It’s as simple as that. How about you, any brainstorms?”
The Diamond Dust on Dragonfly Wings: A Jeffry Claxton Mystery Novel Page 18