by Anne Emery
“Hello?” I said. “Auntie Ginny?”
The person on the other end said, “Ginny?” And then I heard her talking to someone in the room, and the other person took the phone.
“Ginny?” she said. It was Mum.
Thank God she was in. She was at her friend’s house in Sydney River, and she had given me the number. I thanked God again for giving me a good memory for phone numbers. And for not letting the bad guy see what numbers I pressed. I nearly started to cry when I heard Mum’s voice. But I said, “Hi, Auntie Ginny!”
“Normie? Are you trying to call Aunt Ginny?”
“Did I wake you up? I know you go to bed early. I’m sorry!”
“What are you talking about, sweetie?”
I carried on with my pretend call to Ginny. “I hope you’re not too sleepy to drive, because we . . . I need you over at Greatgran Morag’s. She needs you. She’s not feeling good and she asked me to call you.”
I looked over at the bad guy. He was staring at me and he had his hands around Morag’s neck. I felt as if his big ugly hands were around my neck. I could hardly breathe. I thought I was going to choke to death.
Mum was talking into the phone, and I prayed and begged God that the bad guy couldn’t hear her side of the conversation. “What’s going on, sweetheart? Is everything all right? Are you playing a joke, or . . . I don’t like the sound of your voice.” I could tell Mum was getting more and more worried. She knew something weird was happening. I couldn’t let my voice show something was wrong, though, or he would kill us.
But there was something I could do. I started in on my plan. “Oh, glè mhath, Aunt Ginny,” I said then. “Yes, I’ve been working on it.” I knew Mum would think I’d gone loony. And I was just about to get loonier. It was all I could think of. I said, “But no, we haven’t got to words for the weather in our class yet.” I glanced over at the bad guy and tried to look as if I was sorry, but Aunt Ginny was keeping me on the phone. “I just learned some other words. Names of, uh, toys.” I was going to say words that weren’t about toys at all, words I hoped she would understand so she and dad would come and rescue us. I was wishing I could say the word police in Gaelic but I couldn’t, because it is poileas. So it sounds almost the same, and the bad guy would hear it. I thought maybe I could sneak a message in about the Mounties. They are called the Mounties because they used to be mounted on horses. Okay, so the word for horse is each, which sounds like “ecchh” but guys riding them? I didn’t know. And I wouldn’t have time to figure it out. So I said, “Thig a’seo!” Come here! And “Èalaidh gu socair!” Sneak up quietly!
“Normie! Tell me what’s going on! Is it a game you’re playing or what? Is someone there with you?”
I couldn’t let on what was happening. I wanted to say cunnart — danger — but the bad guy whispered in a really creepy voice. “Don’t say one more word in that pidgin English, or I’ll kill you both. And don’t think I won’t.”
I could hardly get words out. I had to talk foolish again. “No, that’s all. All I learned in language class. I’m not very good at it yet. But I’ll keep trying, because I want to be able to talk in the old language to you and the other . . .” I didn’t want to say old folks, so I said, “seniors. Okay, Auntie Ginny. I have to go now. Come over soon . . .”
It was too late to say any more. The bad guy was on his way to me. And then I nearly died, because I knew Mum would try to call back, call Morag’s number, to see what was going on, and he would catch on that it was Mum I called, not Ginny. I had to pull the phone wire out of the wall. But I’d never be able to lean down and reach the wall without him seeing me. I wished with all my might that Morag’s old toffee tin was on the phone table, not the desk, because I knew that along with the pens and pencils and paper clips in it she had a pair of scissors. I needed those scissors. If I could hold my arm out all the way, I could grab them. But would the wire break with one snip? I had to try it. I turned towards the bad guy really fast and I gawked over his shoulder at the window and made my eyes open wide, as if I was seeing somebody out there. He whipped around to look, and I leaned away from the table, grasped the scissors, and hid them behind the vase. I couldn’t stop myself from looking at the guy again. He started to turn around. But Morag’s eyes were on me; she knew I was up to something even if she couldn’t see what it was. She turned towards him and threw her hands up in the air, and he leapt back. Then he looked even angrier than before, and he pushed her down onto the chesterfield. I was afraid he would do something to hurt her. But I had to cut the wire while he was distracted. I took the scissors and clamped them down on the wire really hard. I only got through the plastic coating. I clamped down on it again. And that time it worked. I cut it in two. I stuck the two ends under the vase and put the scissors down and tried to look innocent. If he saw what I had done, he would kill me.
Monty
Brennan and I had dropped Maura off at her friend’s place, leaving the two of them to get reacquainted. We headed for the nearest Tim Hortons and promised to bring back large double-doubles when we returned to spend the night. We sat down with our own cups of coffee and struck up a conversation with a couple of steelworkers and their girlfriends at the next table. They asked where we were from, and Brennan told them he had lived in Dublin and New York, and he got launched on a tale about his early days in the Big Apple, when he had started up a band called Extra Munction. Our companions were of an age and of a religious persuasion to get the reference. Every Catholic I’d ever met had heard about “Extreme Unction,” the old term for the last rites, when they were growing up. And every single one of them heard it as “Extra Munction.” Well, the Munctions attracted quite a following during their short life in the spotlight, until they played a dance at Brennan’s strict Catholic high school, and old Father Butler was out behind the school during the band’s break, taking a nip from his flask, and caught Brennan in a compromising position with one of the band’s more enthusiastic fans.
He, too, had his groupies, it seems.
Anyway, the old priest “booted me arse from the schoolyard back into the gym and announced to everyone in the room what I had been up to. And if Extra Munction wasn’t prepared to play the wedding waltz and the Ave Maria that very night for Brennan Burke and the object of his attentions, then I was to leave the girl alone, and the Munctions would not be called upon to play any more school dances, amen. The band was torn apart by dissension not long after that.”
His listeners enjoyed the tale and were asking for more when one of the girls at the counter came over to our table and said, “Monty Collins?”
“That’s me.”
“Your wife is on the phone for you.”
One of the steelworkers said, “Uh oh. The arse is out of ’er now, b’ys.”
But the young server wasn’t smiling. “She sounds worried about something.” She led me behind the counter to the phone.
I thanked her and picked up the receiver. “Maura?”
“I just had the strangest call from Normie!” I waited for it. “Are you there?”
“Tell me.”
“She called me from Morag’s house and pretended she was talking to Ginny. Pretended that Ginny had asked her about her Gaelic lessons, so —”
“Pretended why? Who else was there?”
“I don’t know! Her voice sounded strained. I couldn’t tell if she was nervous because something is wrong or because she’s trying to play a joke. Maybe a surprise for Morag. Her eighty-eighth birthday is coming up next week. But we’ll be gone by then. Normie may have conjured up a surprise party. Or something for Ginny. I don’t know. And she said something in Gaelic. I don’t have much of the Gaelic, as you know. But she told me to come over there. And I remember èalaidh gu socair. That means ‘sneak up.’ We used to say that when we were kids. She hung up, and I immediately called Morag’s number, but there was no answer. I tried again. No answer. We have to g
et over there. Now!”
“We’ll be right there.” Then I said, “Should we call the police?”
“Jesus! I don’t know. We don’t know what’s going on. It’s probably not . . . Let’s just get there. It shouldn’t take more than fifteen minutes.” Click.
I ran to the table and grabbed the cup out of Brennan’s hand. “Come on.”
“What is it?”
“Don’t know. Gotta go. Sorry,” I said to the people at the other table. “Nice talking to you.”
Brennan and I made a hasty exit, got into my car, and drove to Maura’s friend’s house. Maura came flying out and got in. I took off before she even had her door closed.
Normie
We had to wait until Mum and Dad got all the way to Morag’s from Sydney River. It was only after I got off the phone that I realized it might be a long time, and I thought how stupid I was. Because the bad guy probably knew Ginny lived only a few minutes away from Morag. It was a stupid plan, and it was all my fault. When you watch cop movies or war movies, you see all these brave people making decisions in the midst of horrible events, and the cops and soldiers are cool and calm and they make the right choices. I had just screwed everything up. The bad guy might kill my great-grandmother after all. And then he’d kill Mum and Dad when they arrived. And he would kill me, too, so I wouldn’t talk!
I kept glancing at the window, but I knew it would be forever until they came for us. The bad guy was checking the window, too. He looked almost as nervous as me. And Morag was just glaring at him the whole time. I was surprised she wasn’t trying to tell him off through the cloth in her mouth, or curse at him in Gaelic, but having her glare at you with those black, black eyes is just as scary.
One of the weirdest things about the bad guy was that, if he wasn’t staring at you, he looked like a normal person. He could be somebody’s dad, at least a dad in a poor neighbourhood where maybe people would have haircuts that leave their hair bristling up at the top of their heads. He just had a regular dark grey T-shirt on, and I could see some scars on his arms but he didn’t have any tattoos. He had long fingernails, but they weren’t dirty. His face was really white, or it was at first, but now it had turned so red it was almost glowing, like a Christmas lightbulb! The red face and the eyes with no life in them were what showed he was evil.
He jumped up and said, “Fuck this!” He turned around at me and made me want to run away screaming, and he said, “Where is she?”
“Who?” I said. It came out like a yelp.
“Who do you think? Why, did you call somebody else instead of Ginny?”
“No!” I said and kept staring him in the eye, so I wouldn’t look guilty by avoiding his eyes.
“Fuck this,” he said again. “I’m going over there.”
“What? Where?”
“To Ginny’s house. Somehow I don’t think she’s going to make it over this way.” He went over to Morag and pulled her up from the chesterfield, hauled her across the room, and pushed her down in an armchair. “You’re not going to get up and warn old Ginny of my visit.” He grabbed the cloth Morag had around her mouth and pulled her backwards and tried to tie the ends of the material to the back of the chair, but the cloth wasn’t long enough. Then he turned and looked all around the room and ran over to the dresser, and he yanked the drawers open and started throwing things out onto the floor. Silver forks and napkins and some beautiful old crystal dishes, and they smashed into pieces! That upset Morag all over again; I could tell from the sound she made behind the gag in her mouth. Then he found a piece of white lace and he started twisting it around, and he took it over to Morag and started to tie it around the chair, but again it wasn’t long enough. I was just standing there. I was afraid I was going to faint, I was so scared.
Then he screamed, “Fuck!” and I nearly jumped out of my skin. He sounded like a crazy person all in a rage. It was because he couldn’t get Morag tied up. “Fuck this,” he swore again, “you’re coming with me.” He turned towards me and said, “You too. Out. Into my car. Now!”
Oh God. We were going to leave, and this is where Mum and Dad would be coming.
There was nothing I could do. He had his hands around Morag’s throat again and was looking straight at me. So I started walking out of the living room, with him pushing Morag behind me. I looked down at the end table, and there was the sgian dubh, the “hidden” knife. If only I could pick it up and hide it . . . I made a decision. I pretended to trip, and I banged into the table and snatched up the knife and stuck it into the waistband of my shorts. Good thing they were jean shorts, so the denim was thick and you couldn’t see the knife unless you looked closely. It scratched my leg and it hurt, but I didn’t care. I pulled my T-shirt down over the handle and kept walking. He never saw me take it. When we got to his car, he made me sit on Morag’s lap in the front seat.
“I’ll take this off.” He meant the cloth in her mouth. “Don’t want any of Ginny’s neighbours to get the wrong impression as we walk into the house. But don’t get any ideas. I can snap your neck in seconds. Keep that in mind.” And he drove with one hand and put the other around her shoulder.
It was pitch dark when we got to Ginny’s house. The lights were on inside and her big old car was in the driveway. I was wishing she wouldn’t be home, but of course she was. The bad guy jumped out of the car, came around to the passenger side, and hauled me and Morag out. He shoved us ahead of him, and Morag fell down. Then I couldn’t believe what he did. Couldn’t believe it! He kicked her in the side, and she made a noise that showed he had hurt her really badly. What kind of a person could kick an old lady lying on the ground?! It made me start to cry. But he didn’t care about her at all. He pulled her to her feet by the arm. Next thing we knew, he was pounding on Aunt Ginny’s back door and he got it open, and Ginny came, and he pushed everybody inside.
We were in the back porch, and the light was on, and Ginny stood there gawking at the bad guy as if she was seeing a monster in her house. And she was.
“Surprised?” he asked Ginny, and he said it with a creepy smile. His mouth made a grin, but his eyes were as cold as two patches of black ice.
Then suddenly I heard the screeching of brakes, and the sound of gravel flying up against the house. Finally, Mum and Dad! They must have gone to Morag’s and figured out where we went because I kept talking about Aunt Ginny on the phone. Dad and Mum would come in and see the bad guy and knock him over. Maybe tie him up, and I could call the Mounties. I thanked God for sending them and promised I would be good and kind forever, would never commit burglaries again, and might even stop my drinking.
I twisted around to try and see out the window, and I let out a screech. The sgian dubh stabbed me in the leg! It really hurt. The bad guy whirled around and caught me pulling on the handle to get the blade out of my skin. There was blood on the side of my shorts.
“Well, well, well, what have we here?” he said, with the kind of look on his face that bad guys in the movies use when they’re trying to be funny and mean at the same time. He lunged right at me, and I twisted again, and I took the sgian dubh out because I was afraid he would push it in and stab me. Or, even worse, pull down my pants to get it. He grabbed it out of my hand. There was no point in me trying to keep hold of it, because he was a lot stronger than me. Then I thought I was going to die of fright because he pointed the dagger at me and Morag and Ginny and made slashing movements with it, as if he was cutting us up.
But help was on the way. The back door banged open, and I heard someone running into the house. The bad guy hid the sgian dubh in his back pocket. I would signal to Mum and Dad as soon as they came in that he had a knife.
But it wasn’t Mum and Dad. It was Lee! And when Lee saw the bad guy, I could see the expression on his face, and I knew Lee hated this guy as soon as he saw him. Who wouldn’t?
And then I saw someone else with him.
Monty
&
nbsp; The drive from Sydney River to Kinlochiel was the longest drive of my life. What was happening with Normie? Why couldn’t she speak freely on the phone? Should we have called the Mounties? But we had no information that it was a police matter. And I knew we could be there in fifteen minutes and assess the situation ourselves and call the police if necessary. Should we pull over and go to someone’s house and call them now? I made up my mind right then and there to get one of the new mobile phones people were getting. I always thought the owners of those phones looked like arseholes, with the aerials sticking up from the cars or big walkie-talkies held up to their ears. Self-important twits and gadget guys. Who was the arsehole now?
Maura was cursing fate and straining forward against her shoulder belt as if that would help propel the car to its destination. Brennan, wisely, remained silent in the back seat, no doubt praying for a good outcome.
It was dark, and the moon had vanished behind the clouds, and that didn’t help the mood in the car. Then, wouldn’t you know it, a tractor-trailer pulled out of a ramp onto the road ahead of me and cruised along well below the speed limit. There was no place I could see to safely pass it. That became my all-consuming obsession: to get to a place on the highway where I had enough of a view of oncoming traffic to get by this truck.
“Oh for God’s sake!” Maura exclaimed. She was in tears by this time.
“We’re almost at the turnoff.” There! A chance to pass. But if I couldn’t get by him, I’d miss the turnoff and there wouldn’t be another one for miles. I decided to stay behind. Finally, the road to Morag’s. I veered into the road and gunned it. I passed the houses on the outskirts of Kinlochiel. Her house should be in sight soon.