“Something about the war, maybe?”
The fun drains from his face. “What makes you think that?”
I try to remember exactly what Mum said that evening they went out on their date. She was fishing for something. I told her the cheese and sniper story but that wasn’t what she was after.
Suddenly, I feel uncomfortable, as if Mum was snooping and I shouldn’t have brought it up.
“Well, it was right after Remem...I mean Armistice Day. I guess that’s why I figured it was about...you know...”
Dad sits in the easy chair. He picks up his pipe. Then he picks up the little gizmo he uses to clean it out.
“I think I know what you’re talking about,” he says. He doesn’t look up. I walk closer to him. “There are things Mum thinks you need to know, being the oldest male in the family.”
“You mean stuff the girls don’t know about?”
He nods. “It’s not for delicate ears.”
I can’t believe it! Something my older sisters don’t know. They always act as if they know everything.
“But I’m not sure that now’s the time.”
“It’s not that late,” I say.
“No, I don’t mean that. I mean now as in you’re only eleven. There will be plenty of time to tell you things. In fact, I plan on telling you something useful every day for the next few years. By sixteen you’ll know everything there is to know. You won’t even have to go to university.”
I pull up the footstool he had been standing on and sit down right beside his knee.
“So, let’s start,” I say.
He glares at me under his bushy eyebrows, but it’s only his fake glare.
“All right,” he says. “Here’s something useful. When you are in India, check your boots every morning for tarantulas.”
“Seriously, Dad. You know what I mean.”
He stalls some more, as if cleaning his pipe has suddenly become a really complicated task.
“Maybe she was referring to the time I ordered a boat for the squadron from Supply and Services and they misread my request and sent us a gravy boat. My God, that was something. The whole squadron crossing the Rhine in a gravy boat.”
I jump up, pushing back the footstool so hard it tips over.
“Stop it!” I shout. It startles him. Startles me!
“Excuse me, young man?”
“I’m not a kid, Daddy.”
“You are, you know.”
“Yeah, but I’m not a baby.”
He stares at me. His keen hazel eyes are full of me. I can see me there – two of me. And my eyes are full of my father: grey hair at the temples, grey wiry hairs poking out of his shaggy eyebrows, nut brown skin. He always looks as if he has a tan even in the middle of winter.
His face seems pained for a moment and then the pain passes.
Is he sick? Is that the secret he won’t tell me?
“No, you’re not a baby, Rex,” he says at last. “Despite this little tantrum. Thank you for reminding me. You are growing like a beanstalk. A scarlet runner.” He pauses to get his pipe going and the next time he looks my way it is through a cloud of sweet peach-smelling smoke. “I will endeavour not to treat you like a child in the future, and I apologize if I seem to be avoiding your question.”
The smoke clears a bit and we lock eyes again.
Suddenly, I want to sit on his knee like I used to, which is ridiculous because I just told him I’m not a baby anymore. I guess it’s the look on his face that makes me feel that way, as if he’d prefer that I was a baby.
“There are things...” he pauses. “Life presents you with certain...challenges.” He pauses again. And it’s weird because my father is never at a loss for words. He looks up and smiles faintly. “It’s just like the cowboys say. ‘A man’s got to do what a man’s got to do.’” His cowboy accent is pretty bad. I don’t think there are many cowboys in Wales.
“Your mother is right,” he says. “There are things I probably need to let go of. And I will. I will.” He swings his hand in the air kind of grandly, as if an audience has suddenly materialized out of the smoke. “I will tell you when you’re ready. And...when I’m ready.” He looks uncomfortable again.
Suddenly, I wonder if what Mum wanted him to tell me was really about the war after all. Maybe she was fishing to see if he’d explained to me about the birds and the bees. I pick up the footstool and place it back against the wall.
I’ve often wondered what birds and bees have to do with sex. When Burt Lancaster kissed Deborah Kerr on the beach in From Here to Eternity, I didn’t see any bees. And when I see pictures of Marilyn Monroe, I’m sure those aren’t birds she’s got in her sweater!
I sort of know this stuff, but I don’t think I really want to hear about it right now. Not from Dad! It’s like when Buster wanted us to see his brother’s magazine. I would have looked if James wanted to, but I was glad he didn’t. Glad there was a mystery to solve instead.
“Rex, is there anything the matter?”
All of a sudden there’s a lot the matter!
“No, Dad,” I say. “It’s okay. I’ll be fine.” That was exactly what Natasha said, and now I feel uncomfortable.
“Are you sure?”
“Yes,” I snap. Then I say it again more politely. “Yes, sir.”
“Good,” he says. He sounds relieved. “Now, if you’re not too old for it, how about a kiss goodnight?”
I kiss his stubbly cheek. Mr. Nasty had stubbly cheeks, too. And as I leave the study I find myself thinking about Natasha kissing him.
Aren’t you going to kiss me goodbye?
I wish I hadn’t thought about that. I have to pull myself up the stairs holding the railing tightly. My legs are wobbly and I don’t know why. Not exactly, anyway.
16
Oh, Rex. It’s You!
IT IS A MOONLESS night. An icy wind howls down Quigley Street. She is sitting by the window in her upstairs apartment. She is in white again, but her clothes are in tatters and there are deep scratches on her arm, her cheek. Her desperate eyes scan the street. She clears the fog away from the glass with ghostly pale fingers.
There is a growl behind her. She flinches but doesn’t look back. Still, she sees him in the reflection on the window striding back and forth, his head low between his shoulders like a lion. Back and forth – a lion in a cage. Every now and then he strikes out. A lamp crashes to the floor. A radio smashes against the wall.
Oh, Rex. Where are you?
“What did you say?”
“Nothing,” she squeals. “Nothing, Larry.”
“Just like you,” he says. “Nothing.”
She starts to cry.
“Stop your sniveling!” he shouts. He strides towards her, his hand raised. “Why, I oughta...”
She cowers against the window, her arms raised across her face.
“No, Larry. Not again, please, I beg of you.”
He looms over her and growls. A hideous smile transforms his features into the face of a monster.
“Let’s see you beg,” he murmurs. He forms his hand into a fist and she screams.
Behind them the door crashes open. A masked boy stands there, his own fists of steel at the ready. He steps over the rubble of the shattered door with the brass numbers that read 2B dangling now by a single nail.
“Step away from her, Lavender, if you know what’s good for you.”
Larry’s face contorts with fear.
“The masked boy,” he says. He whimpers and backs off towards the farthest corner, knocking over furniture as he makes his retreat. Falling, crawling on his hands and knees.
“Are you all right, ma’am?”
“I am now!” she cries and races from the window to the masked boy at the door. She falls to her knees and throws her arms around his waist. He pats her blonde head gently but never takes his eyes off the animal snarling in the corner.
“Looks like I got here just in time,” says the masked boy.
She nods and press
es her body against his leg. Then reaching up with trembling hands, she removes the mask from his face.
“Oh, Rex. It’s you!”
* * *
I wake up with my bedclothes all in a snarl. It’s as if a giant boa constrictor has got me and I have to wrestle my way to freedom.
At last I’m free. Out of breath, but free. The bed-clothes end up in a pile on the floor. The cool settles down around me and for now it feels good because I’m burning up.
I take a deep breath, trying to calm my racing heart. I stare into the dark and see her face. Natasha. There are no claw marks, just that awful bruise on her cheekbone near her eye.
She didn’t get that from walking into something. He did it. Larry. And I know why. I remember his voice on the telephone.
You think I don’t know?
I swallow hard. I thought it was me he was threatening – me he was going to beat up. I was wrong. There is someone else. But it’s still my fault she got hit.
What have I done?
17
The Watcher
I HEAD OVER to Quigley Street after school the next day. I need to apologize properly for what I did. I want to make it up to Natasha Lavender somehow. I want to do something – anything. Make her laugh. Make Larry disappear.
I imagine I’m Rex Zero, King of Everything.
“Mr. Lavender, we have decided that you must move to Vancouver. Either Vancouver or the North Pole. You have a choice.”
“What if I don’t wanna move, Your Majesty?”
“Then we will have to put you in a dungeon with rats. Forever.”
Kings always say we when they mean I. It must make them feel big.
Then I imagine I’m a world-famous surgeon.
“Mrs. Lavender, I can fix that cleft lip of yours so that it will be as perfect as the rest of your lovely face.”
“Oh, thank you, Dr. Zero.”
But the thing is, I don’t want to fix her cleft lip because it doesn’t need fixing. I want to tell her that what Larry said about her was stupid. She already is beautiful – and she is crazy to listen to someone like that.
But I don’t see her that day.
The next day James comes with me just for something to do. I haven’t told the others about what happened, but I tell James. I know he won’t laugh.
He doesn’t. He doesn’t say anything for a long time.
Then he says, “Whoa, Rex!”
“What?”
“The wrong name in the phone book. I just figured it out.”
I wait and watch his eyes. I can almost see the wheels turning in his head. They’re quiet, though. He keeps them well oiled.
“She told you she would return the book to its owner, right?”
“Yes.”
“So, obviously she knows him.” He looks at me to see if I get it. “She’s got a boyfriend.”
“I already thought of that,” I say. “But you’d think her boyfriend would know how to spell her name.”
“Ah-ha!” says James, just the way Perry Mason does when he cracks a case. “Think, Rex.”
“I’m all thinked out.”
“The man who owned that address book doesn’t want someone to know he knows a woman named Natasha Lavender. Why?”
I stop in the middle of the sidewalk. “In case someone else looks through the address book?”
James nods.
Then I slap my forehead. Of course!
“Natasha’s boyfriend is married, too?”
“Bingo!”
I feel great for about one second. Then I think how sad it is. Natasha has found a boyfriend – maybe even a nice one for a change – but he’s already married. They both are. They are both trapped forever.
Suddenly I feel kind of weird walking up and down Quigley Street. I’m afraid the neigbours are going to get suspicious and call the cops. So we leave.
But Friday, I get the best excuse ever to go back. Miss Garr hands out the raffle tickets three days early.
Every student is supposed to sell twenty raffle tickets at twenty-five cents a shot, for a basket of fruit courtesy of Thomas Garr’s Fine Fruit Market.
I know I’ll be able to sell at least two tickets to Mum and Dad, and maybe a third to Mr. Odsburg. Vegetarians eat lots of fruit, I bet. I’ll also be able to sell one to my next-door neigbour. Not the one whose cat got shot by Annie.
Anyway, that will leave nineteen raffle tickets. And I’m going to sell all of them on Quigley Street! It’s the perfect cover.
So Friday, I’m over there like a shot, right after school, but before I’ve gotten up the nerve to even knock on one single door, I see something that makes me forget all about the raffle.
Larry Lavender.
The truck isn’t there. But I spot him hanging around in the alley off Quigley Street.
The alley is narrow and full of potholes, with garbage all over the place. On one side, there is a tall wooden fence covered in graffiti. Through missing and busted slats you can see an abandoned factory yard littered with broken-down machinery and oil drums.
Larry’s standing behind the fence. I stare at him but he doesn’t pay any attention to me.
What happened to Winnipeg? It’s been less than a week since he left. What’s he up to?
I hide behind a garbage can and watch. It doesn’t take me long to figure it out.
He’s spying – spying on his own house!
Watch your step, Tasha. You hear what I’m saying?
* * *
“It’s a trap,” says Buster.
“I bet he never even left town,” says James.
It’s Friday evening and we’re sleeping over at Buster’s place. Sami is there, too. Kathy couldn’t come. No girls allowed.
“We’ve got to do something,” I say. “What if her friend comes over?”
“He’ll kill them both,” says Sami.
“The boyfriend?” says Buster.
“No, Larry,” says Sami. “Probably with a meat cleaver.”
“And then wrap them up in canvas and drop them in the Ottawa, way downriver.”
“No one will ever find them.”
“There will just be the letter on the kitchen table,” I say.
“What letter?” says Buster.
“The letter that looks like Natasha’s handwriting.”
“Yeah, it will read: ‘I can’t live with you another day, Larry. I’ve run off with Tyrone who really loves me. Goodbye forever. May you rot in hell! Yours truly, Natasha.’”
“So Larry’s off the hook?”
“Except for the detective,” I say, “who finds one of her bloodstained high heels in the back of Larry’s truck under a pile of hand warmers.”
Everybody stares at me.
“What are hand warmers?” says Buster.
“I don’t know. Something Larry was supposed to be delivering to Winnipeg.”
“Wow!” says Sami.
“You should be a writer,” says James.
“Or a murderer,” says Buster.
Later, Buster sneaks one of his brother’s girlie magazines and we all take a look. Sami laughs so much we’re afraid that Buster’s mother will come, so we put a pillow over his head. James gets really quiet as Buster turns the pages. Buster is breathing funny.
“Have you got a cold?” I ask him.
The thing is, I feel sort of strange, too. When I see one of my sisters in her underwear it’s no big deal. But this is different.
In Buster’s brother’s magazine there is a woman with hair the exact same colour as Natasha’s. I start thinking of Natasha in black underwear and then I really feel strange.
I look at James, who is looking at his watch.
“Isn’t it time for Shock Theatre?” he says.
It is, and we all troop down to the rec room to watch Gorgo destroy London. A good monster movie is a sure bet to help take your mind off women in black underwear.
We talk and laugh late into the night. Then one by one everyone falls asleep, but not me. I
lie there thinking about a lot of things and trying not to think about a lot of things.
One of the things I do think about is Kathy. How great it would be if she were here, because she’s just one of the guys, after all. But then I realize that really she isn’t. And she never will be.
In the schoolyard Friday, at lunchtime when Buster invited us over, she looked kind of glum.
“Sorry, Kathy,” Buster said. “It’s boys only.”
“Who cares,” Kathy said, but it looked like she cared. “And anyway, I couldn’t come even if I wanted to. Dr. Arnold is taking us out for dinner.”
“You, too?”
“All of us. Mom, Missy and me. We’re going to the Lucky Key.”
That got a groan from Buster. “Yuck. Chinese.”
Buster doesn’t like any food he hasn’t already had before. It’s amazing he didn’t starve to death when he was a baby.
Later, I saw Kathy standing alone by the fence and I went to talk to her.
“Too bad about tonight,” I said.
She shrugged. “Honest I don’t care.”
“So, what’s eating you?”
She shrugged again. Her fingers were woven through the links in the fence. She leaned against it. Then she leaned back until her arms were fully extended. Her knuckles turned white.
She gave me this worried look. “Did you send the letter?”
“Sure,” I said. “On Tuesday.”
“Oh.” She pulled herself back towards the fence, pressing her cheek against it.
“I thought you wanted me to.”
She looked at me and sighed. “I did. But maybe it wasn’t such a good idea.”
“Now you tell me!”
“Sorry,” she said. “I know. It’s just that...”
“It’s just that what?”
“Dr. Arnold is...Well, it turns out he’s kind of nice.”
I hadn’t been thinking about the letter since I sent it.
Now I thought of it actually arriving at Miss Garr’s place. Miss Garr actually opening it and reading it.
“He doesn’t try too hard, you know, to make me like him or anything,” said Kathy. “He’s funny, too. He makes me laugh.”
I couldn’t believe she said that, but it got worse.
“My mom is so happy,” she said.
Yikes!
Rex Zero, King of Nothing Page 9