by L. R. Wright
“Please be happy for me, George, like Myra is,” she said. “We’re going to be married, Carlyle and I.”
If he’d had that kind of shock now, at age eighty, he would have died of it.
“You can’t do this,” he had said, incredulous and appalled, clutching the lilacs. But she laughed, and put an arm around his waist, and led him into the kitchen where Myra waited, smiling, ready to open a bottle of wine in celebration.
If only he could have found, somewhere, the right thing to say!
He knew he wouldn’t convince Myra. Whatever he said to Myra sounded weak and desperate because she couldn’t know what lay behind his fear, he had never told her; she could not possibly have understood the bleakness, the sickness that struck at his soul, when Audrey said it: “We’re going to be married, Carlyle and I.” The more he railed against it, the more impatient and exasperated Myra became. “What have you got against him, for God’s sake? Isn’t she entitled to a life of her own? Are you going to keep her chained to you—to us—forever?”
But Audrey understood. She knew exactly what he feared, and why. But she refused to discuss it. So he had said, “He’s too old for you!” and God knew that was true enough, there were twenty years between them. And he had said, “I don’t like him!” and that ought to have been enough; oh, Christ, if only that had been enough… She would have been sixty-four, now, he thought: a woman in her prime.
He hadn’t given up. Not until the last minute. On the day of her wedding, in desperation he told her about the episode in the school hallway. He told her other things, he gave her other examples of Carlyle’s meanness, his cruelty. He rattled them off with an urgency that caused his face to flush and his heart to beat fast: Carlyle’s snide remarks about his colleagues; his contempt for his students; his hatred of women, hidden behind a facade of gallantry; his loathing for animals; his appalling rages—George held his sister by her shoulders on the day she was to be married and forced her to listen to him, and when she averted her head, refusing to hear, he shook her violently and flung her aside and saw in that gesture all the things he feared for her.
From the chair into which she had fallen, Audrey said nothing.
“Do you want this?” George shouted, almost weeping. “Don’t you see what you’re doing?”
“What I see is that you can’t forget things that should be forgotten,” said Audrey. “But I can, and I will. You’ve made sacrifices for me, I know that. You made them for her, too, I remember that. You couldn’t help how it ended. You’ve got to stop torturing yourself.” She got up to embrace him, but he wouldn’t let her. “You’re a good man, George,” said Audrey, who was crying, now. “I know you mean well. But you’ve got to stop this. I’m going to marry him. You’re wrong about him, I know it.”
He hadn’t been able to find the right words. He had failed her, and for that he never forgave her, and in the end it had killed her.
He looked behind him. The shore was still a long way off. He saw the moon strike from between two clouds and lay a cool white path across the water, pointing obliquely at the land.
He didn’t remember the wedding. He had no recollection of it at all, although he knew he’d been there. He’d given his sister away.
George hurt all over, now. The oars weighed a hundred pounds each, and the ocean had transformed itself into molasses, or tar. He had to stop after every two or three strokes, breathing heavily, to flex his shoulder muscles and let his head drop while he tried to relax and strengthen himself.
He knew his failure had killed her. He was certain of it. And all three of them were therefore culpable: Audrey, Carlyle, and George himself.
He had put his own guilt in abeyance in California, working furiously all day and gardening himself into exhaustion in the evenings. Back in Vancouver he thought he had come to terms with it, even put it finally to rest, by growing and nurturing with increasing skill the living things that Audrey had loved.
Years later they had moved here, he and Myra. “It’s the twilight of our years, my love,” she had said, smiling, teasing him. They bought the little house by the sea and he started his small garden and they went to Vancouver to see Carol every month or so and everything was hunky-dory.
And then Carlyle had popped out of those goddamn laurel bushes and George’s guilt made a swift return, supplanting almost everything in his life, creating dreadful, terrible flashes of things in his head.
But he got it under control.
Until Myra died. He felt so vulnerable, then. He thought about moving to Vancouver, living with Carol, who was all alone now, too—but his garden, his garden—and then last Tuesday…only six days ago, he thought: less than a week ago…
He stopped rowing, lowered his head, and rubbed at his eyes.
…he sees him shout at her, roar at her, his eyes bright and his face shiny with sweat. She stands before him full of sweet reason, and it means sweet bugger-all. His hand snaps back and he hits her in the face; George sees her mouth bleed…
But is it Carlyle? Is it Audrey?
He jerked up his head and started rowing again, hard, pain grabbing at his shoulders.
…she hits the floor, her limbs flying like those of a doll… he crouches; his fist buries itself fast and hard in her stomach…
But whose limbs? Whose fist?
He shook his head violently; he would not do this must not do this will not think of this…
George was weeping now, hot tears gushing as he rowed. There was nothing to look at in front of him but blackness, and to his right, the soft slow-moving land, lightless, edged by a ribbon of silver sand. He rested again on his oars and knew he was too tired to take the boat back where he’d gotten it. He changed course, heading straight for his own beach.
Could he have been wrong about Carlyle? Had the past laid such a black shadow upon him that he couldn’t see to make rational judgments? Had he struck Carlyle because of the past, only the past, a time of which Carlyle was innocent, of which he should have remained ignorant? Had he killed him only because he was afraid to hear things he knew were true, and thought he had learned to live with?
Was it possible that Carlyle wasn’t guilty, after all? Was it possible that he hadn’t deserved to die?
Aching with exhaustion, sick with uncertainty, George rowed still harder, battling the tide.
20
ALBERG DROVE SLOWLY from the detachment office down the hill and turned onto the highway leading south through Sechelt. He made himself keep his eyes open as he drove, looking for the vandals who had twice broken into Pete Venner’s corner store, on the watch for the kid who liked to roar through town at sixty miles an hour flashing his father’s Trans-Am under the streetlights, and dutifully watching, too, for an old VW van with rainbows on its sides.
He saw only quiet streets. Almost everything was closed, now; it was after ten o’clock. There were no bars or beer parlors in the village itself, only restaurants where you could order wine or beer with your meal. There was the government liquor store in the shopping center, which closed at six, and there was a lounge in the new hotel down by the water; never any trouble there, the clientele was middle-aged and subdued.
It was a short drive to George Wilcox’s house. Alberg pulled up in front and switched off the engine.
The house was dark. The neighbors’ houses were dark, too. The stillness made him uneasy, and for a minute he wished he were on Denman Street, in Vancouver’s West End. Everything was open there, bars and restaurants and movie theaters, and there was lots of noise. Kids with punk haircuts swished along the sidewalks on skateboards, and the traffic was bumper to bumper, and bicycles weaved among the cars, and English Bay at the end of the street was still crowded even at this hour, and up and down the streets and alleys prostitutes male and female young and old sold themselves while trying to avoid being “pressing and persistent.” And children were selling themselves, too. Whenever he thought of the West End Alberg thought of Stanley Park, vinegary fish and chips, and perv
ersion.
He got out of the car and went through the gate up to George Wilcox’s front door. He knocked softly, waited, knocked again, waited, knocked harder. Nobody came to the door. He couldn’t hear a sound.
He made his way around the side of the house and looked in the windows of George’s bedroom. It was empty, the bed made. He went to the other side of the house, squeezing between the house and the cedar hedge. The living room windows were too high; he couldn’t see what was on the sills.
The cedar hedge made a ninety-degree turn at the end of the house and it was too thick to push through. Alberg went around the other way, to the back yard, and got the ladder from the toolshed. He carried it around the house to the living room side. He leaned it against the house and climbed up until his eyes were level with the windows.
On the sill to his left he saw the three china flowers set in a base, the two Hummel figurines, the empty pipe holder. On the other sill, two Toby mugs, a pair of brass candlesticks and a candle snuffer, a wooden salt shaker and pepper mill. The objects had been distributed so as to fill evenly all the available space on the windowsill. When he had first seen them they were closer together, and first in line had stood two forty-millimeter shell casings; he remembered thinking they were probably from a Bofors gun, and noticing the decorative work that had been done on them.
He climbed down and returned the ladder to the toolshed. He knocked on the back door, but nobody answered. He tried the door; it was locked.
Alberg stood in the middle of the lawn, his hands in his pockets, looking at George’s garden and wondering where he had buried them. Then he turned and walked over to the canvas chair and sat down. He put his hands on its wooden arms and crossed his ankles.
He knew he’d hear George when he came home. He’d hear the front door open and close, and then light would flood into the garden from the kitchen; he was pretty sure George would fix himself some tea or some lemonade or something before he went to bed.
The moon shone fitfully from behind the passing clouds. The tide was going out; there was a narrow strip of hard wet sand between the water and the rocky beach. The sound of the sea lapping at the land was hypnotic, soothing. He heard a bird, maybe crying out from a dream; a dog barking, from far away; and sometimes a little whisper from George’s garden, as a breeze passed through it.
Eventually Alberg became aware of a new sound. He realized that it was the sound of oars.
He stood up and went down the lawn toward the beach. The slap of the oars against the water was uneven; there wasn’t a great deal of strength behind it; the oars penetrated shallowly and often seemed only to shudder against the surface of the water. Alberg stared out at the sea and finally almost dead ahead saw a black shape hunched over in a small rowboat, its back to the shore. The shape stopped to rest, leaning on the oars. Then it bent again to its rowing, weak and strained; the oars lifted, struck the water, were dragged ineffectually back.
The moon suddenly poured white light from a hole in the clouds and, like an actor stepping into a spotlight, George Wilcox rowed his small boat out of the darkness and into its radiant trail. Alberg watched without moving as slowly the old man traversed the wide streak of silver washed upon the water. He rowed laboriously, awkwardly, with an immense and terrifying dignity, moonlight clothing him and his boat in a cool silver glow.
“You crafty old bugger,” Alberg whispered.
By the time George reached the rocky beach, the moon was once more veiled. Alberg waited until the bow of the rowboat ground upon sand, and George climbed wearily over the side. As he reached for the rope, trying to beach the rowboat, Alberg waded through the water toward him.
George stared at him, hanging on to the edge of the boat. Alberg reached past him and grabbed the rope. George let go, and Alberg pulled the boat across the beach and up onto the lawn, next to the toolshed. He got George’s damp pea jacket from the bottom of the boat and waited for George to slosh through the water and over the rocks and into his back yard.
“What were you doing out there at this time of night, George?” said Alberg, conversationally. He held out the jacket, and George took it. The old man was bent over and hobbling. “Where’d you get the boat? It’s your friend Carlyle’s boat, isn’t it?”
“It’s mine, now,” said George. “Or so you people tell me. Everything’s mine, now. Isn’t that what you said?”
“Not quite yet, George. We have to sort out the business of the homicide, first. Keep the crime scene sealed, and all that. There’s a corporal on duty at the house, you know. You didn’t know that? Yeah, he’s there. Must spend all his time around front. I’ll have to have a word with him.”
“You do that,” said George.
“No, I’m afraid you’re going to have to wait awhile before you stake your claim to Carlyle’s loot, George. Taking his boat—that could get you into trouble.”
“The corporal and I, we’re in trouble together, that’s the way I figure it,” said George. He began shuffling toward his back door. Alberg followed.
“Do you own a blue sweater, George, by any chance?”
“I used to, policeman. I don’t any more,” said George.
“You must be worn out, George, after all that rowing. You rowed quite a distance, too, I guess. Had to make sure the water was deep enough.”
George unlocked the door and opened it and reached inside to turn on the kitchen light. “I don’t know what the hell you’re talking about.” He turned around and grasped the doorway, a hand on either side, holding himself up. His face was gray with exhaustion. His pants and shoes were soaked and dripped seawater onto his kitchen floor.
“You couldn’t just dump them anywhere,” said Alberg. “If you didn’t take them far enough out they’d probably get washed up on somebody’s beach, right?”
“Good night,” said George, and made to close the door.
Alberg held it open. “I’m real sorry about this, George,” he said softly. “I really am.”
“Good night,” said George, and tried again to close the door.
“You should have gotten rid of them right away,” said Alberg. “I have to look for them, now. Now that I know they’re out there, I have to look for them. And I’m going to find them.”
“I don’t know what the hell you’re talking about. Look for what? Look for them, go ahead, look for anything you damn feel like looking for, just let me get to bed.”
“In a minute,” said Alberg, still holding the door open. “I think you should know what I’m going to do. First I’ll send out the divers. You know we’ve got a couple of divers, don’t you?”
George looked at him grimly, shoulders hunched, white hair disheveled, pants still dripping. He was trembling from cold and tiredness.
“They might find them, they might not,” said Alberg. “Depends on how far out you managed to get. If they don’t, then I call in the sea search people from Vancouver. Now this is a very special outfit, George. They do lots of work for us. They’ve got a big boat with all kinds of special gizmos on board.”
“I don’t give a good goddamn for your gizmos. I don’t know what the hell you’re babbling about. I go out for a little row, I go too far for my own good, I come back wrecked, all I want to do is get to bed, you babble on to me about gizmos. Go away.” He pulled again, weakly, at the door which Alberg continued to hold open.
“They’ve got underwater cameras, and side-scan sonar, and believe me, George—” He leaned closer to the old man, who pulled away, and whispered, “There is nothing those guys can’t find. Nothing.” He shook his head in admiration. “They’ve found something as small as an engagement ring, George, in two hundred feet of water. Do you think they won’t be able to locate a couple of World War Two shell casings?”
George looked steadily at Alberg. He stood as straight as his screaming shoulders would allow. “Are you trying to scare me?”
Alberg let go of the door and stepped back. “I thought there might be something you’d like to tell me,
Mr. Wilcox.”
“You thought wrong, sonny. I’ve got nothing to say to you. Nothing.” He closed the door, slowly and quietly.
Alberg went around to the front of the house and got into his car. He wasn’t sure how he felt. He could identify several things—frustration, exhilaration, excitement, resolution—but there were other things shuffling uneasily around inside his brain that he was less anxious to put a name to.
He drove directly to the detachment office, where he called the divers and told them to meet him at the police boat as soon as the sun was up.
21
WHEN GEORGE AWOKE the next morning, one week after the murder, he felt like something washed up by the tide, scoured and bloated. His aches were so deep, so significant, that for several minutes he didn’t even try to move. But he had to go to the bathroom. He attempted to push himself up with his elbows, but it was too painful. He seriously considered, then, relieving himself right there in his bed. Incontinence, though—that was the end, that was death.
He eventually got himself into a sitting position on the edge of the bed. The aches were concentrated in his shoulders, the back of his neck, his hands, and his thighs. It was obviously important to be active today. Maybe by nightfall the pain would have subsided into stiffness. He groaned as he shoved himself off the bed with arms that trembled. He staggered, shoulders hunched and knees bent, into the bathroom.
He had dreamed not of shell casings or Mounties, bloodied rugs or jail. He had dreamed of rowing, and of the fraudulent sea, which in his dream had transformed itself from the calm blue splendor of the last weeks into titanic fury. He flailed at it with useless oars, clung tight to his small rowboat, and the sea flung him from wavetop to wavetop, into chasm after chasm, until finally it hurled him onto a small island which at first seemed to be deserted, and then he saw Carlyle sitting on a big rock outside a log cabin. Carlyle was puffing on a pipe and singing “When the Saints Go Marching In,” and on a clothesline behind him hung a row of salmon, attached to the line with wooden clothespins, and they were flashing and flipping in the sun, still alive.