The K Handshape

by Maureen Jennings

  “I’m going to finish my workout. You know where the bedroom is. Let yourself out.”

  He turned on his heels and trotted off in a miasma of sweat, disappearing down the stairs to the basement, where he had his state-of-the art gymnasium.

  I shucked off my shoes and ran upstairs. Having grown up in a cramped post-war prefab in downtown Toronto, Paula had always wanted to design her own “Barbara Stanwyck” bedroom. The kind where there’s a monstrously large and high bed, piled with fat white pillows, only scarlet silk lingerie is allowed, and the butler brings up morning coffee in a silver pot and hands over letters on a plate.

  I too have always wanted to have letters brought to me on a plate; it sounds kind of delicious. Now what I get are mostly bills or begging letters and they arrive in the afternoon anyway so I have to fish them out of my letter box when I come home. The butler has long been pensioned off.

  I went into the bedroom. What Paula did have was the space, white walls, and furnishings, a king-sized bed, currently unmade with the fat white pillows piled in a heap on the floor. There was a chaise lounge, complete with a turquoise angora throw for the days when the weather was inclement and you wanted to read your mail. Outside a long balcony ran the length of the room. Nobody had thought to collapse the sun umbrella and it flapped in the wind, dripping rain from the edges.

  There was a walk-in closet off to the side and next to that an ensuite bathroom with Jacuzzi tub, two sinks, and a bidet. I checked out the closet first, which contained a dresser as well as a clothes rack. It seemed uncluttered, which wasn’t how I remember Paula to be. Since Chelsea was born, she’d tried to be tidy, but she had a messy fallback she couldn’t overcome. I found a carryall tucked in one corner and did a quick scout of the drawers for underwear and nightclothes. Even though Paula and I had been best friends since we were teens and had shared bathrooms and swapped clothes, I felt a bit squeamish going through her private things. The first two drawers I opened were empty, and with a bit of a shock, I realized why the closet appeared tidier than usual. There were none of Craig’s clothes hanging up, only Paula’s. Uh-oh. I went into the bathroom for a robe. There was a slinky red silk one hanging on a hook behind the door. I grinned. Barbara Stanwyck lives. I folded it and put it in the carryall. The marble countertops were bare of any “stuff” and I opened the medicine cabinet to see if I could find a toothbrush. There wasn’t much in there. No razors, no manly deodorant, only a stick of Secret anti-perspirant. So Craig wasn’t sleeping up here. It didn’t necessarily mean anything, but Paula hadn’t mentioned it. Usually we shared every minutia of our mutual lives, from buying new shoes to ideas about repainting the living room, changing the cat’s food, and so on. I grimaced at my own reflection in the mirror. Paula had learned to keep details about her life with Craig close to her chest. He had probably moved his bedroom down to the basement where he could get up and relieve his stress on the equipment whenever he needed to. There was also a separate entrance into the basement where he could come and go as he pleased. Oops, that wasn’t a very charitable thought, but then does the leopard change its spots?

  I went back into the bedroom. There were a couple of books on the night table. One was a recent release by one of the pioneers in the study of serial killers that I’d recommended to Paula. Underneath that was a paperback novel that had recently won the Giller Prize. The bookmark indicated she hadn’t finished it so I popped it in the bag.

  I straightened up the bed and replaced the pillows. As I let myself out, I could hear the whirr of the treadmill and the thump thump of Craig pounding away.

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  Visiting hours were still happening and the parking lot was full. I circled a couple of times before somebody left and I dived into the spot. Grabbing the carryall I hurried into the lobby, which was a swirl of people, nurses in pastel uniforms lacing through them, the ubiquitous cleaner slowly sweeping his wet mop around the edges of the entry. I checked the directory and headed to the cardiology floor. There were about four or five nurses at the nursing station, all too busy with very important things to notice me. I hung over the counter for a few minutes then interrupted a couple who as far as I could tell were discussing the latest episode of American Idol. But I could have been mistaken; it may have been that they were deciding who should be voted off the floor and sent home.

  “What room is Paula Jackson in?”

  One of the nurses, a round-faced, irritable-looking wench, frowned at me. “When was she admitted?”

  “This morning.” I waved the gym bag. “I have her clothes.”

  “See you,” said her friend and she drifted off to compare favourites with somebody else at the other end of the counter.

  The nurse checked a list in front of her. “Room 522. Go down the hall and turn right. But I’m afraid you only have half an hour. We start clearing the visitors at eight forty-five. Our patients need their sleep, you know.”

  I checked my sarcastic retort that I’d never heard of such a novel idea. The nurse, whose name tag said Irma, wasn’t really the problem. I was tired out of my mind and an awful lot had happened since five-thirty this morning when Leo had called me. Including this situation with my best friend. I walked quickly down the hall wishing I’d stopped to buy flowers or chocolates, which she liked.

  Paula had the bed closest to the door in a room with another woman. The fellow sufferer’s curtains were closed but I know she had a visitor because I could see trousered legs beneath the curtain. They weren’t talking though. There was no sound at all except the hiss of the oxygen that Paula was hooked up to. She had her eyes closed. The signs of her stress were etched deep in her face. I touched her lightly on the foot.

  “Hi, Paula.”

  She opened her eyes at once. She licked her lips. “Hi, Chris. I’m so thirsty. Can you give me some water?”

  I ministered to her, helping her to sit up in bed, trying to avoid disturbing all the plastic tubing that she was connected to.

  “How’re you feeling?”

  “Thirsty, drugged, worried, any of the above.”

  “Chugalug that water then; we’ll take care of one of those, at least.”

  She drank deeply, then smacked her lips. “Well it’s not a fine shiraz but it sure tastes good.”

  “I brought you your nightclothes and toiletries.”

  “Good girl, this gown is the pits.”

  “Where do you want them?”

  “Leave the bag on the floor for now… Did you pick them out yourself?”

  “What, the clothes you mean?”

  “No, the flowers that you failed to bring. Yes, of course, the clothes.”

  “Yes, I did.”

  She grimaced at me. “So you noticed I am all by my lonesome?”

  It was like Paula to get to the point. I was relieved that I didn’t have to tiptoe around the elephant in the room that nobody was talking about.

  “When did that happen?”

  “Just a couple of weeks ago. Craig says he gets too restless. We’ve always had different sleep patterns. He’s a night owl and you know me. I turn into Cinderella after ten o’clock. So he suggested he take the guest room in the basement.” She lay back on the pillow and sighed wearily. “It’s not what you think, Chris. It’s a temporary thing. I’ve been so worried about this lump; I’d have kept him awake anyway.”

  I held my tongue. If your wife was facing the possibility of a life-threatening illness, wouldn’t that be a good time to be sharing her bed, holding her? Comforting her, maybe?

  “Craig said he’ll come over tomorrow morning. Now, according to Nurse Ratched down the hall, they’ll turf me out of here soon, so tell me everything. What are the doctors saying and so forth. And Chelsea is fine, by the way. She has her sleepover with Suri and your mother is coming up from Toronto tomorrow to stay at the house.”

  Paula smiled. “Is she? What a mom. I haven’t talked to her yet. She’ll be worried about me. But I’m worried about her. She hasn’t really recovered
from Dad’s death yet.”

  None of us had. Al Jackson had been my surrogate father ever since I essentially invited myself into the family to get away from my own mother when I was fourteen. We’d all been devastated when he’d dropped dead of an aneurysm over a year ago. Al was the man I considered to be my real parent.

  Paula leaned back against the pillow. “This isn’t exactly how I expected to be spending my evening. Anyway, I’m doing just fine for now, so you can take off your whey face.”

  “Hey, no insults allowed to faithful retainer.”

  She grinned at me. “No insult, just true. When you’re worried you go sort of…”

  I grabbed her toe. “Shut up or I’ll pull you out of bed and then what?”

  “Okay. Okay. So what’s been happening? Distract me, tell me about the dark side. It’ll make a change from thinking about death all the time.”

  I told her the gist of what had happened so far and we chewed it over for a while. Like me, Paula was passionate about her work, and it was true, the longer we talked, the more she seemed like her old self.

  “What about our innocent bystander, Mr., what’s his name, Torres? Could he be in the frame?”

  Her question wasn’t as out of order as you might think. There have been a sufficient number of instances of the bad guy returning to the scene of the crime to warrant us police being wary. Whatever you do, don’t come across a dead body if you can help it. And if you do, don’t run away. That will bring even more suspicion down on you. Sorry, but it’s the truth. We’d question Jesus himself raising Lazarus from the dead.

  I shrugged. “My feeling is he’s what he says he is.”

  “What about this Zach fellow? Is he the anonymous letter writer?”

  “I don’t know. All possibilities are open at the moment.”

  A disembodied voice came over the intercom.

  “Visiting hours are now over. Will all non-personnel please leave the building.”

  Paula and I looked at each other.

  “I think that means you,” she said. “I would gladly leave but I don’t know how to disconnect the oxygen.”

  The person who belonged to the legs we could see beneath the neighbour’s curtain stood up and the curtain swayed as he eased himself out. An elderly grey-haired man appeared, smiled at us, and walked to the door.

  “His wife had a heart attack,” whispered Paula. “She’s not really conscious but he told me he sits there just in case she regains consciousness and she needs him. He’s been here since I arrived.”

  Neither of us had to spell out the contrast between his devotion and Craig’s. It rested unspoken in the air. The intercom snapped on again.

  “Last call. All visitors please leave the building. Visiting hours will resume tomorrow at one o’clock.”

  “Have you connected your phone?” I asked.

  “Not yet. We were in a bit of a rush. Craig had a squash game he couldn’t cancel. I’ll have to do it tomorrow.” She reached up and tapped me rather hard on the chin. “I’m going to be fine, Chris. This heart thing is from stress. I’m not as concerned about it as I am about the lump and I won’t hear anything about that until next week. So go home, you look exhausted. Call me in the morning and tell me all the news. I might have more to tell you myself by then.”

  I bent over the bed and gave her a hug as best I could.

  “Sleep tight.”

  She hung on to me for a long minute. “Will do. Thanks for coming, Chris.”

  “Cut the crap, ‘thanks for coming.’ We’re long past the thanking each other stage. We’re blood sisters. You don’t thank your blood sister. You take her for granted.”

  That got a smile out of her. When we were fifteen we had pricked our respective thumbs and mingled our blood in a solemn oath that we’d concocted from some adventure book we were reading.

  I held out my thumb and she pressed hers against mine.

  “One is both and both are one.”

  “Too bad we’re not the same size,” I said. “I liked the look of that green suit you have in your closet.”

  “Get out of here. It’s brand new. I haven’t worn it yet. I was waiting for an occasion.”

  Nurse “I’m not nice” Irma popped her head into the room. “Time for visitors to leave now.”

  I gave Paula another quick hug and left her. Her skin looked as white as the pillow she was lying against. Why, oh why hadn’t I noticed how skinny she’d got lately and how pale?

  I left the hospital with the rest of the stragglers and went to my car.

  The street lamps cast pools of watery lights on the slick sidewalk and the few people out of doors hurried, heads bent under their umbrellas, to the warmth of their homes. I was hit with an unexpected pang of loneliness. I wasn’t hurrying home to anybody. Suddenly I missed Gill fiercely. So far our long-distance relationship had been manageable but this dreary night made me wish he was waiting for me at home in a brightly lit warm house, dinner prepared…Whoa. dinner prepared? Sounded like I wanted a mother, not a mate. I groaned to myself. I was under the impression I’d resolved that issue a lot time ago. Apparently not.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  I was still in a deep sleep when I was awakened by the phone ringing. It was pitch black outside, which wasn’t surprising as it was just five o’clock.

  “Chris, it’s your mother.”

  It was all I could do not to growl into the phone. Joan refused, wilfully in my opinion, to get a grip on time differences. She was in the Hebrides, which was five hours ahead of me, a nice comfortable ten o’clock in the morning.

  “Chris?”

  “Do you realize it’s five in the morning?”

  “Oh, is it? I thought it would be seven and I know you get up early. Shall I call back?”

  “No, never mind.”

  “You sound grouchy but then you always were a bear with a sore head in the morning.”

  I bit back my reply, which would only have proved her point. I was trying to be a grown-up person with her, although she too frequently managed to send me back to feeling like a sulky teenager.

  “So you’re probably wondering why I’m calling?”

  “It had crossed my mind. Is the island sinking into the sea or something?”

  There was a little silence followed by a forced chuckle. Joan didn’t like it if I got sarcastic.

  “Your father and I have decided to get married and naturally we’d like you to be at the wedding. We’re thinking of this Christmas.”

  I shoved myself into a sitting position. I should offer a brief explanation. Two years ago, I discovered that my biological father whom I’d never met or even knew about lived in the Isle of Lewis where my mother had grown up. They were teenage sweethearts. She left the island, came to Canada at the age of nineteen, and discovered she was pregnant with me. She herself was in a state of rebellion and decided not to tell Duncan MacKenzie, that’s his name, about his daughter. Unfortunately, when I met Duncan two years ago, the initial feeling was a mutual antipathy. Time had softened that a little but I still thought he was old school bossy and patriarchal and he considered me disrespectful and arrogant, especially where Joan is concerned. In his favour, I must say I’d never seen her happier or better cared for. However, I’d asked her several times not to refer to him as my father. He was the sperm donor but he’d nothing to do with parenting me. Al Jackson had done that. She always managed to slip it in.

  “Are you listening?” she asked her voice sharp. She could get shirty almost as fast as I could. What a great pair we were.

  “Yes, I’m listening. When did you decide this? The last I knew you were thinking of doing the deed in the summer, if at all.”

  “Oh no. We definitely want to make everything legal. People are much more tolerant than they used to be but I know they still don’t approve of us living together outside of wedlock, especially my brothers.”

  “You shouldn’t give them that much power. Who cares what they think? It’s your life.”
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  I’d met my uncles and found them, shall we say, unprepossessing. Dour and rigid, in fact.

  “You can say that because you don’t live here. Lewis is a different world. Anyway, your fath… Duncan and I were talking about it last week and we thought, why wait? He noticed a special on a cruise around the Greek Islands and it seemed a good way to spend a honeymoon. Besides, there are hardly any tourists at this time of year, so he can leave the business for a while.”

  Duncan put on herding and trick exhibitions for the visitors with his brilliant border collies.

  I pushed Tory away from my feet.

  “I’m not sure I can come. We’re in the middle of a case for one thing and for another…” I paused. I didn’t want to break my promise to Paula until she gave me permission to tell. Also Joan was jealous of my relationship with the Jacksons and I knew she’d be quite offended if she thought I was choosing them over her even if it was a serious matter like cancer.

  “I thought you’d want to see Gill, at least,” said Joan, her voice reproachful.

  “He’s planning to come here.”

  “He won’t if I tell him we’re getting married… It’s not as if this is any old trip, Christine. This will be the most special day of my life.”

  Ugh.

  “Your sisters are very happy for us.”

  “Half-sisters.”

  Mairi and Lisa were Duncan’s daughters by his first marriage. I liked them a lot and I was very glad to have found them, but I couldn’t stand it when Joan began the guilt trip, using them as levers.

  “We’ve talked about having Anna as a ring bearer but Mairi thinks she might be too young.”

  Another heavy silence, then in the background I heard Duncan shouting something.

  “I’ve got to go,” said Joan. “We’re driving into Stornoway to look at dresses. I was thinking of wearing white but it will probably be cold so I’m going for a nice pale blue wool suit I saw in Saracen’s.”

  White? It was typical of Joan that she’d even contemplated the idea.

  “What do you think?”