by Ron Chudley
And he was in his chair, clutching the gun and lurching forward—awakened by something very real, something bright and coming. He’d dozed off—and now he could see lights amongst the trees. A vehicle had entered his drive and was approaching fast.
God—this is it! They’re here! And not even trying to hide.
Which could only mean they didn’t care. Instead of stealth, they were going to swoop in, torch the house, and get out before they could be identified. He’d never thought of that. Probably the same thing had happened to that poor bastard in Nanaimo.
The car came around the last curve of the drive, headlights raking the lawn and bathing the front of the porch. The glare was so blinding that all he could make out was its source. Still, he succeeded in lurching to his feet. His body felt like it was made of crumpled tin. All he could manage was an arthritic hobble, but that was okay, it would serve. He might be a sad old wreck, but he was here—and, by God, he was going to give the bastards the shock of their lives.
The car stopped. Fitz came down the porch steps, closing in from behind. The driver’s door opened. A figure emerged, straightened, started to turn.
The gun went off, the roar like a celebration.
“Get off my land,” Fitz man croaked. “The next one won’t be a warning.”
The intruder gave a gasp. After an involuntary step back he froze, silhouetted against the car lights.
Damn! The old man thought, He’s calling my bluff. Scaring won’t do it. Ah, well . . .
Slowly he brought the gun level, his finger reaching for the second trigger.
The figure still was immobile. There was a slow intake of breath. Then a voice said, “Dad—Dad, for God’s sake—it’s me! Mattie!”
four
The phone rang at 6:00 AM. Mattie hadn’t been even close to sleep, so it didn’t matter. Her first thought was that it must be the police, but that wasn’t logical: despite the horror of what had almost happened, no one could possibly know. Even if it was the law, surely they wouldn’t call at this time in the morning.
“Hello?”
“Hey, Ma—how are you doing?”
Her daughter’s voice filled Mattie with relief. “Oh, it’s you, darling. What a nice surprise. I’m so glad.”
“You don’t sound so happy,” Jennifer said. “Is everything okay?”
Mattie tried to pull herself together. “Everything’s fine. You just woke me, is all.”
“Whoops. Of course—sorry, I forgot. What time is it there?” Her voice had a new flavor, almost a trace of a French accent.
“It doesn’t matter, dear. It’s lovely to hear your voice any time. How’s Toulouse?”
“Great. I’m so busy, time just seems to fly. Only a week and we start vacation.”
Mattie was surprised, then realized she shouldn’t be. The French academic year would likely not be that different from Canada’s. Jennifer, who’d graduated from Simon Fraser University only two years before, was teaching English in France. Bright and meticulous like her father had been, she was probably already a better teacher than her mother, which made Mattie both proud and slightly ashamed. “Of course,” she said. “It’s almost summer break, isn’t it. Have you anything planned?”
“I might do a bit of traveling—with a friend. We thought we’d explore southern Italy. Maybe even get as far as Greece.”
Mattie might once have hoped Jennifer would come home for the holiday, but under the circumstances, she was relieved. “Sounds lovely. Who’s the friend? Someone from your school?”
“No, just a guy.” Jennifer chuckled, “I sort of picked him up, if you want to know. But he’s really cool.”
“I’m sure he is, dear.” Mattie squelched the urge to ask more personal questions. “How are you going to travel?”
“By car—Hans has a Peugeot.”
“Hans? Is he Dutch?”
“That’s what I wondered when we met. But he’s just a regular French boy. I think the name comes from one of his grandparents. Speaking of which, how’s Grandpa?”
The talk had diverted Mattie from the grim happenings that had left her still sleepless when the phone rang. She longed to blurt it all out, but of course that was out of the question. If you want to know, when I got home last night, your grandfather was waiting with a shotgun. It was only the sheerest luck that he didn’t kill me. No! The truth wouldn’t do at all, Jennifer, who adored her grandpa, would be horrified, and what would be the point? They would get through this. They had to. Until then, if one family member could remain untouched, that at least was something. “Your grandpa’s—fine. If it weren’t so early, I know he’d love to talk to you.”
“Okay, well give him a big kiss from me.”
“I will, dear.”
“And Ma . . . ?”
“Yes, dear.”
“I love Toulouse, and teaching kids, and—well—just being out in the world on my own. But I really miss you guys. I hope that doesn’t sound too mushy?’
“Darling, we miss you too. So mush away. I’ll take all I can get.”
“Right on, Ma. And speaking of getting . . .”
“Yes?”
Jennifer chuckled. “Well—are you getting—?”
“Jennifer! For heaven’s sake.”
“Just kidding! But what I really mean . . . Look, I’m fine; seeing Europe and having a really cool time. And I guess Grandpa’s okay too, what with the house and his precious land . . . By the way, is he still fretting about those takeover people?”
Recalling the latest incident, Mattie felt a chill. “Yes—off and on.”
“Well, it’s something to occupy him, I guess. But, Ma, it’s you I’ve been worried about.”
“Me?”
“Well—just having school, and Brian being—you know, like gone—and living in the middle of nowhere . . . it must be kinda lonely.”
“Sweetie, this is not the middle of nowhere. You’re suddenly this world traveler, so I understand how it might seem that way. But the Cowichan Valley is the most beautiful place in the world; I wouldn’t live anywhere else. As for being lonely—I just wish I had time. Dear, it’s sweet of you to worry, but I’m not pining away, believe me.”
Jennifer laughed. “Okay, Mum, I get it!
They continued to talk of lighter matters for a while. Then Jennifer said that her phone card was running out, so they said goodbye and broke the connection.
It was now bright day with the robins in full blast. Mattie lay back, feeling the residue of Jennifer’s phone presence like a sweet balm. This would fade all too soon, so she was determined to enjoy it as long as possible. However, there was no longer any question of trying to sleep. She got out of bed, donned her raggedy old robe, and headed for the kitchen.
Exiting the master bedroom—which she’d now occupied alone for twelve years—Mattie moved past Jennifer’s room. Next came the closed door of the room that had been Brian’s; for once the dull ache, always just below the threshold of attention, did not intensify. This morning, her full concentration was on the room at the far end of the hall—Fitz’s room.
The house was over a century old, built as a colonial statement in a then-young province. Huge and solid, a West Coast echo of Arts and Crafts design, it was made of timbers the like of which, even in this wooded world, had not been seen in decades. The floor boards gave not the smallest creak, which was good, since she didn’t want to wake her father-in-law; the last thing she could handle now was a confrontation.
Reaching his open door, she saw that she needn’t have worried. Fitz was lying fully clothed on the bed: eyes closed, head thrown back, mouth agape, as if about to give birth to a giant snore, which never came. Though the old man’s chest slowly rose and fell, he was as silent as the dead.
Stupid, stupid! a voice muttered in her head. I wish you WERE damn dead . . . Which, of course, she didn’t mean and had to cancel, even as a peevish thought: there had been too much death associated with this family already. What she had to do was regard th
e nocturnal near-disaster as a warning and bless the blind luck that had allowed her to survive it.
Last night, after she’d recovered, calmed the drunk old coot and got him to bed, she’d taken the shotgun—which she’d not known existed till she was staring down its barrel—and hidden the dreadful thing. This morning, before her father-in-law woke, she was determined to make the vanishing permanent.
She put on the kettle and sat at the kitchen table while waiting for it to boil. She felt sleep-deprived and old. Morning sunshine, already warm, glowed through the window. The room faced east, overlooking the broad spread of Maple Bay. It was a magnificent outlook, unimpeded, since only a narrow garden strip, bounded by a sixty-foot-high cliff, separated the house from a vast panorama of islands and sea and sky. This was a significant reason—if not the main one—why the location was so coveted; old Fitz was right about that, at least.
The kettle boiled and she made tea. She sipped on it gratefully, settling back at the table, and had just begun to feel slightly more relaxed when the other thing, pushed into the background by the trauma of her return, stumbled back into consciousness: the incident with Hal Bannatyne.
Oh, dear God, she thought, feeling embarrassment and annoyance, plus a sneaking subsonic of pleasure, I must be out of my mind. What on Earth was I thinking?
It had all started so innocently. When she’d first come upon him in Victoria the moment had been startling—and at first comical, to see him fall flat on his elegantly tailored tuchus. Mattie was surprised, dismayed, and amused equally. But what happened next was disturbing and set the note for everything that followed: still sprawled on the ground, Hal glanced in her direction . . . and their eyes locked.
Thinking of it, Mattie embarrassed herself all over again by re-experiencing the strange buzz that had occurred: they’d known each other—not just recognized, known—and something had been reactivated. As a result, she’d initiated a fiasco of a meeting, which in turn had ended in her flight. But then, still not done with self-immolation, she’d scrawled an apology—plus her phone number—and crept back, while Hal presumably was making out with his exotic actress, and left her pathetic note at the hotel desk.
Of course, he’d never get it.
Please God, he’d leave town today and never come back.
But, oh—to see him just once more . . .
“Christ, I’m even crazier than Fitz!” Mattie blurted to the empty kitchen. She slammed down her cup and stalked out to the mud room, where she fumbled into her old garden boots. Dressed in these and her robe, neither of which could quite disguise the elegance of her still-slim form, she strode out into the side yard.
Across a shallow courtyard was a small outbuilding, mostly used as a woodshed. Last night she’d hurriedly stashed the shotgun in the shed behind a pile of logs. She fished it out, feeling a fresh jolt of nausea at the memory of what had almost happened, and—though her hands shook—determinedly broke it open. There they were, one spent cartridge, and the other—which, if fired, would likely have ended her life. “God damn you, old man,” she muttered, shaking both cartridges onto the ground, Her impulse was to throw down the gun and take an axe to it. Instead, she snapped it shut and fetched a spade. Behind the shed was a shaded place, with a thick mat of needles from the overhanging firs, where not even weeds grew. She raked aside the needles, dug a trench, dropped in the gun, covered and stomped down the earth, and finished by raking back the needle cover, noting with relief that there was no trace of her efforts. Rust in peace, you nasty thing! she thought, grimacing at the sour pun.
She returned to the house—to discover she was not alone. Con Ryan was sitting on the stoop.
“Hi, Miz Trail,” Con said, “You’re gardening early.”
Mattie glanced guiltily at her spade. But Con’s artless expression told her he knew nothing of what she’d been doing. Though he’d startled her, his presence was no surprise: today being Saturday, he was here to go fishing with her father-in-law. She discarded the spade and pulled the top of her robe tighter. “I doubt if Fitz is up to fishing today,” she said as she headed inside. “He really tied one on last night.”
Uninvited, Con followed. He treated the house like home, also unsurprising, since he was almost family: Brian’s best friend since childhood, and now the frequent companion of her dead son’s grandfather. Mattie was warmed—if mystified—by the boy’s attachment to the old man. Brian, by contrast, especially in later years, had been almost aloof from his grandpa, perhaps as a reaction to the pressure—real or imagined—he’d felt being made the substitute for his own dead dad. Now, son and grandson were gone, and all Fitz had in the male department was Con. The young man lived nearby with his mother, but still seemed to inhabit their house more than his own.
For a while after her son’s death, Mattie had found Con’s presence almost unbearable, because of the awful absence it bleakly implied. Since childhood the two had been inseparable; through kindergarten and grade school and Cow ’ High; playing and sailing and fishing together; all the stuff that kids do—until that day . . .
She knew that, in his own way, Con missed Brian as much as any of them did, which was why he kept coming around. So, though it was sometimes hard, she could not deny him. She was also familiar enough with the perversity of the human heart to know that without him, things might well have been worse.
Certainly that was the case for her father-in-law. Mattie knew that Fitz blamed himself for what had happened: as if teaching the boy to sail made him responsible for the weather. Con, by just continuing to visit, had somehow made him feel better; in fact, without him, Fitz likely would not have survived.
To become a paranoid old fool, running around with a shotgun.
But she wouldn’t think anymore about that. “I’m just making breakfast,” Mattie said, as Con followed her into the kitchen. “You want scrambled eggs?”
“Thanks, Miz Trail, cool. Afterwards maybe I’ll see if I can wake up the old guy.”
“Good luck,” Mattie said, trying not to sound too grim. She got out eggs and started to make breakfast. “How’s your mum?”
“Oh, pretty good. A bit better, right now, I think.”
This was a sort of code. Unlike Mattie’s father-in-law—who though capable of getting drunk, was not one—Mabel Ryan was an old-established alcoholic. She came from a wealthy family and, despite having been abandoned by her husband, was able to maintain both a substantial house and a quietly insidious addiction. “A bit better,” in her son’s words, meant that either she was just out of rehab, or had not yet reached the stage where she required re-admittance. It was a sad business, but seemingly intractable. “I’m glad to hear that,” Mattie answered sincerely. Beyond that, there was little to be said.
Con sat as his usual place at the table, and by long habit, picked up the binoculars from the sill and scanned the long reach of Maple Bay. Since the house was only yards from the sheer drop-off to the beach, the view was uninterrupted. Mattie found herself thinking, I wonder if he’s like me: I wonder if he thinks if he just keeps looking long enough, maybe one day Brian will come sailing home?
Immediately she added that to the list of this morning’s canceled thoughts. Con was as aware as any of them of the reality: the bones of his buddy were out in the bay, forever lost, somewhere in the deep. Brian Trail was never coming home.
Mattie wanted to tell Con to put down the binoculars, but she didn’t. As she worked at the stove, she began to take quiet yoga breaths, to clear her mind of all negative thoughts—of Con and poor Brian and her sad old coot of a father-in-law—but found herself instead thinking of Hal Bannatyne.
And trying not to wish that the phone would ring.
five
The phone rang at an ungodly hour. Hal, who’d been solidly asleep, came up out of a dream-jumble to find his cell in his hand, before he was even sure that he was in the waking world: actors have a particular dependence on the information phones bring, which becomes ingrained very early.
“Hello?”
“’Morning, Hal, laddie—sounds like it was a good wrap party.”
“Damn, Danny—do you know what time it is?”
Danny Feltmann, Hal’s agent, laughed without hint of apology. “Sure I do, three hours earlier than it is here in TO—which is lucky for you.”
“Do tell why.”
“Gives me a chance to catch you before you leave. You were flying home today, right?”
“Not actually.”
“But you’re done shooting?”
“Yeah! But I wasn’t planning on coming back quite yet.”
“Why on Earth would you want to stick around that God-forsaken place?”
“It’s personal.”
“Really? Hey, you haven’t been playing real-life detective again?”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Well, the last time you had personal reasons you didn’t want to tell me about was when you got involved with the death of that actor in LA.”
“I wasn’t involved, idiot. I just happened to find out some stuff that I had to follow up on.”
“Nearly got your ass killed, as I recall. You’re supposed to play cops, not be them.”
“That was just a one-off, as you well know.”
Danny laughed. “Okay, already! Just make sure it stays that way.”
“Anyway, I’ve got family here. I’d been hoping to—”
“Yeah, yeah!” Danny cut him off. “Listen . . .” The bantering tone left his voice as he became all business. “The idiot agency just got in touch. Freakin’ finally! They met our outrageous demands—and they’ve decided they want you to start the gig in Vancouver on Tuesday, So—you talented fellow—you don’t have to leave the lotus-land of your freakin’ fathers quite yet.”
Danny had a smartass streak and a skin as thick as a rhino—both of which somehow combined to make him a really good agent. Hal got all the necessary details, and after the usual ritual of pleasantries and insults, the call ended.
By this time he was not only thoroughly awake but starving. Having been on an early-rising film schedule for a month, his body clock wasn’t about to let him become a slugabed. He rose, showered and shaved, then went down to pick up breakfast in the hotel coffee shop, sitting at the same table as he’d briefly occupied last night with Mattie.