Phantom of Fire

by Peacock, Shane;

  “Why?”

  Mom paused. “Well, they are nice people. Bonnie’s first husband died, so Bill is her second, a bit older than she is, married him not long before they left Toronto. We don’t know him quite as well as her. He’s a sort of self-help guru for businesses, interesting to talk with, written a bunch of books, been an advisor to all sorts of corporations, helps them be better, treat their employees better. He makes sure they take a holistic approach and are good citizens.”

  “And make more money,” added Dad, squinting in the sun as he looked for numbers on the big houses. The buildings were almost all on our right side, where the bay was—the other side of the street was simply a forest of evergreen trees. This place reminded me of the pictures I had seen of the Hamptons on Long Island, not far from New York, where rich people and celebrities lived out in the country, near the water, their version of roughing it. These New Brunswick residences weren’t as wealthy-looking as the ones in the Hamptons, and this area was more Canadian in terms of the trees that were around, but the vibe was similar—big weathered houses on the beach, little trails going down to the water—rustic, that’s the word…rustic for people with money.

  “They just had one kid—a girl, from Bonnie’s first marriage—though she and Bill are apparently really close,” continued Mom. “She’s about eight or ten years older than you, I think she’s doing ballet or something in L.A. now. Bonnie is a sweetheart, does lots of things for charities, and absolutely loves dogs.”

  “You’ve got that right, Mom,” said Dad. “I think she has about thirteen of them.”

  “Four.”

  “She kisses them right on the mouth and calls them sweetie and darling and that sort of thing.”

  Gag me.

  “Bill and Bonnie are lovely,” repeated Mom, “and they were so kind to invite us to stay here for a week.”

  Oh, God, a week with an old guy who pretends he’s helping others but really is just making the big bucks so he can have a smoking summer place on Chaleur Bay.

  “They live here permanently now; said they were sick of the city.”

  So, too many people get on this guy’s nerves. Teach people how to be good to each other, but stay away from people, generally. Dogs though, they are fine.

  “Here it is,” said Dad.

  3

  The Bill and Bonnie Show

  Dad pulled into a gravel driveway in front of a home that I had to admit looked awesome. It was a big wood-frame house three storeys high with gables on the top floor, painted forest green and with lots of windows offering views both onto the road on one side, and out over the water and beach on the other. You could see right through the house in places.

  A woman was standing near the front door surrounded by dogs, four of them, all golden retrievers from what I could tell. She had short blonde hair that I think was dyed and was dressed simply in jeans and a T-shirt, but you could see that these “casual” clothes were the best of their kind. Rich people these days dress like that all the time. “I am not better than you. I am an ordinary person. I am casual. I have no airs…but these jeans, they cost four-hundred and fifty dollars. I’ll tell you all about it, if you want to hear.” As we came to a halt, a man walked out to join her. He was dressed the same, except his T-shirt had a Toronto Raptors logo on it, the Drake tee, black-and-gold, expensive kind. Funny thing about this couple—they both wore glasses and had another pair, reading glasses, I suppose, hanging from their necks.

  The woman gave a little shriek and extended her arms to Mom as they rushed toward each other and then they hugged it out for a long time, this woman saying how much she had missed Mom. Dad and Bill did a manly hug and slapped each other on the back. Then they all turned to me.

  “This is Dylan,” said Mom.

  “Well, aren’t you a grown-up young man!” said Bonnie. “The last time I saw you, you must have been two feet shorter.”

  They all laughed. I did not. There was a slight pause.

  “Hey, pal, how is it going?” asked Bill. “Whazz up?”

  He actually said that. I felt like responding “Not much, bro. I’ll fill you in on the down-low on my life in a while. Nice crib!” Instead, I just said. “Not much. Thank you for inviting us to stay with you.”

  “My, what a polite young fellow,” said Bonnie.

  “Not a problem, my man,” said Bill. “Come on in! You’ve got a bedroom all to yourself, top floor, looking out over the water.”

  Guest rooms for at least three visitors? And this was just their “summer place” at one point?

  “Make yourselves at home,” said Bonnie as we came in. The vestibule was huge and it opened up into a massive open-concept main floor with nearly floor-to-ceiling windows that made the place incredibly bright. You could look out and see people passing by along the beach. Beyond it, the blue water stretched out flat like a giant hockey rink, hilly green shorelines on two sides and going out forever in the middle. There was a big deck out back too. It was all pretty cool. The only problem with this house was that it was so open-concept that there wasn’t any place to be on your own. To hide.

  They took us to our rooms. Mine was impressive, I must admit. The view was to kill for. I dropped my duffle bag on the floor and lay on the bed. I could hear the adults talking in the distance. I didn’t want to go downstairs, just wanted to lie there. I found myself reaching for my phone several times. What the heck was I going to do here for a whole week? I envisioned endless walks on the beach with the parental units, delving into my problems. I sure hoped Bill wasn’t going to work on me.

  When they called me for what they termed a “late lunch,” I couldn’t rely on the “coming!” trick. That would have been rude and I am a Canadian, after all.

  I checked out the living room and dining room as I strolled toward the big wooden table they were all sitting at, smiling at me. There were lots of books on shelves—mostly about art, architecture, and business—lots of flowers on display, a connecting kitchen with a long island and full of stainless-steel appliances and copper-coloured (rustic) pots and other things hanging from the walls. The walls weren’t painted, just “fatigued” (I think that’s the right word) to look as if they hadn’t been touched at all…casual.

  Bill turned to Dad as I approached. “The main beach is beautiful here,” he said, “Youghall Beach.” He pronounced it very carefully, as if only an expert would know how to say it right, as if only the locals, those in the know, could do it. It sounded almost like “U-Haul.”

  The conversation around that “rustic” wood table wasn’t in the least bit interesting. Though Bill, who was about seventy and had white hair—and who looked a little emaciated to me, likely from eating too many vegetables and having some work done on his face—kept trying to ask me questions that I think he thought would lead to me imagining he was cool. He asked about the music I listened to, about the Raptors and Toronto FC (not a word about the Leafs), and video games I played. He dropped a few names of singers, tunes, players, and games. Most of them were pretty lame, but I didn’t let on, of course.

  “Dylan is a hockey player,” said Dad.

  “Was,” amended Mom.

  “Oh,” said Bonnie and didn’t add anything, though her face showed a bit of disdain.

  “I am not a hockey fan,” announced Bill, “too violent a sport, and the hockey parents, they are awful. So competitive, always screaming at their kids. We put Abigail in soccer.”

  “Yes,” said Bonnie, “and we loved that, used to take our lawn chairs to the games and watch. The parents were civilized about things, for the most part. It was about team and exercise, that sort of idea, being good sports. There wasn’t the sort of violence you see at the hockey rink.”

  “Have you ever been in a hockey rink?” I blurted out. I knew the second I said it, that I shouldn’t have. We studied a bit of psychology in school, learned about Sigmund Freud and Car
l Jung. I think that was what one of them would have called my “id”—my animal, unfiltered self—speaking. I immediately clammed up and there was silence for a moment.

  “No, actually,” Bonnie finally said with a bit of a forced smile.

  “You don’t need to,” said Bill. “All you have to do is watch it on television. It seems to me that hockey feeds into the whole passive-aggressive thing that Canadians have in their psyche, a bit disturbing, if you ask me.”

  Wait, I thought, aren’t YOU a Canadian?

  “Dylan just liked to play,” said Mom. “He liked to test himself when the games were close, see if he had what it took in a sport that was fast and a little rough at times, and awfully exciting.”

  I almost stood and kissed her, but there was silence again.

  “Well, each to their own, I say!” said Bill, “that’s the beauty of life.”

  “We like sports that give you an outdoors kind of exercise,” said Bonnie. “We like to sail and to canoe.”

  Ah yes, I thought, I should have brought my yacht.

  “If I have to watch team sports,” chimed in Bill, “I’ll watch basketball or soccer, European athletics. Less aggressive encounters.”

  “No competition in those ones,” I said sarcastically. I had done it again. My blinkin’ id! The words had just burst out of me. I also wanted to add that it was a good thing he was against competition…being a guy who coaches businesses. Thankfully, however, I just kept my comments to that first inappropriate thing.

  Bill laughed, though I thought the laugh was a little hollow. It was as if he had calculated it was time for a little levity, a perfect tool to put me at ease, a technique to use on people to make them more open to you and accepting of your opinions. He seemed awfully calculating generally.

  Then he steered the conversation to other things, as if he’d had enough of this snot-nosed kid, though of course he didn’t make much of an effort to include me in the rest of the talk. He made a big point of saying that he didn’t watch any television, though they had an enormous flat-screen TV in their “library” and I’d noticed another on the wall in their bedroom (and hadn’t he said something about watching sports on television?). He was one of those “I don’t watch TV” adults. You hear them all the time. I tried to concentrate on the food. There was lots of quinoa and zucchini and that sort of thing.

  Bill had a million theories about people and society, and Dad and Mom tried to keep up with him. His thoughts were different from theirs, though. He seemed to think, deep down, that he was absolutely right about everything, even though he tried to give the impression that he was completely open-minded and what he was saying were really just opinions about culture and human beings. Mom and Dad never came off like that. They did try to keep up with the discussion, though, and sound polite.

  “Is there an election going on here?” asked Mom. “We noticed all the signs on the way in.”

  Oh, man, I thought, now here’s a scintillating subject.

  “There is indeed,” said Bill, “and I’m glad you brought that up.”

  “Bill has some interesting ideas about this one,” said Bonnie, smiling at Mom, looking as if she’d really like to talk about almost anything else. Bonnie and I were actually on the same page for a few minutes.

  “I’ve always been a Liberal, John,” said Bill to my Dad, “even a socialist when I was younger. But sometimes I actually agree with a few of the Conservatives. I bet you never would have guessed that! You must think outside of the box sometimes. There’s a fellow by the name of Jim Fiat running for parliament here—a new kind of Conservative, an Independent, so he isn’t tied to the old parties and old ways. He calls himself a man of the people. That usually makes me laugh, especially coming out of the mouth of a right-winger. You remember what Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau said? ‘There is no one older than a young Conservative.’”

  They all laughed at that.

  “But,” said Bill, “this chap has me thinking a little bit. He really is for the people, it seems to me, or at least in his muddling kind of way. He answers his own phone if you call him, and he is concerned about the ‘elites’ running everything. He says he is going to go to Ottawa to truly speak for the little guy. He wants to change things. And it looks like he’s going to win.”

  I thought that “elites” comment was a strange one for Bill to make. If you really can call some people “elites,” he seemed like one to me.

  “I think we sometimes get too complicated about life, my friends,” added Bill. “This man is offering a simple message. It is kind of: ‘what you see is what you get.’ You don’t have to look below the surface with him. I think I like that.”

  I was bored out of my mind. Bill continued to look thrilled with his own ideas, but I thought they were more like sleeping pills. The “late lunch” had gone to past mid-afternoon. Finally, I asked if I might be excused. There was silence again.

  “Sure, honey,” said Bonnie. “Make yourself at home.”

  Honey, again. I may be a lot of things, but I’m not honey.

  Mom gave me a bit of a longing look, but I just got up, excused myself, and headed to my room.

  After about an hour of listening to them talking in the distance as I stared out over the dark-blue Chaleur Bay and imagined just sailing away on it, I decided to go outside. I was worried that if I stayed there too long Bomber might show up. I had noticed a back door at the bottom of the stairs up to our rooms that I could access without having to walk past the adults.

  The sea air felt great on my face as I made my way down the little wooden boardwalk beside Bill and Bonnie’s house, past their huge deck, and headed to the beach. It was getting late and the sun would soon set. The beach wasn’t particularly wide and it was far from perfect. Rustic. That would fit. It wasn’t like some perfect tropical beach or one in the US, in Florida or California. It was a bit muddy and had lots of stones, driftwood, and seashells. There weren’t many people on it and the few I saw kind of reminded me of Bill and Bonnie, many of them wearing khaki shorts and expensive-looking tops and sandals. The houses nearby were big like our hosts’ place. I moved in one direction for a while and then turned and walked the other way, toward Bathurst, which I could see in the distance. I took my time, wandering around, not wanting to return to the adults and their conversation. Eventually, I came to a sign that read “Youghall Beach” and then there were other signs about swimming and proper conduct. Obviously, this was a place where the townspeople and tourists came to swim in numbers, though now it was late in the day and later in the year. There were just a few more people in this area.

  I stopped at one point, turned to the water, and just stared out at it. After a while, I realized someone was doing the same thing about fifty metres away. It was a girl. She had long, black, curly hair. It struck me that she kind of resembled Alice. She turned and looked at me. I looked away, back out over the water.

  Then she started walking toward me.

  4

  Antonine

  I was wrong. She wasn’t coming toward me. I had been standing a bit closer to the water than her and she was focused on something out in the bay. What it was, I couldn’t tell. She came to a stop about the distance from the blue-line to the net and just sort of stared past me. It was kind of weird. Most people would be a bit self-conscious about looking in someone else’s general direction, but not her. I could see her clearer now. Her hair was incredibly thick and shining and it hung down over her shoulders like it was the gentle waves of a black ocean. Her face was dark and her eyes, it appeared, were green. She was just wearing a white T-shirt and jeans, not the expensive kind, and had turned up her pants at the bottom, so you could see her bare calves. She had her hands on her hips and looked strong and fit. I was filled with a sensation that I hadn’t had in a long time—maybe never. I wanted to talk to her. I was compelled to, believe it or not. I walked toward her. It seemed that she w
as a bit older than me, maybe seventeen, though it is hard to tell with girls. I got within about three or four metres.

  “Hi,” I said. I barely got it out. I wondered if it even sounded like “hi.” Maybe it was more like a tiny bleat from a sheep, one whose voice was breaking.

  She looked at me. It was as if she wasn’t seeing me for a moment. Then I said something incredibly lame.

  “I’m Dylan Maples.”

  I’m blaming him for that one, not me.

  She kept staring at me, as if she were still gazing out over the water but had to look my way because I’d spoken. She didn’t say anything for a while and I started to get really nervous.

  “There’s a storm coming,” she finally said.

  Then she walked away.

  I wasn’t very interested in the beach after that. I felt like a total dolt. I wished I hadn’t said anything. Girls want you to talk to them, don’t they? But when you say something—something nice, like “hi”—they just flip you off. I walked back to Bill and Bonnie’s place, hoping they and the parental units had gone somewhere else, but they were in the living room, still talking. I could hear Bill’s voice before I even got into the house. He still was going on about the young politician, saying once more how strange it felt for him to be leaning toward voting for a Conservative. Even an Independent one. I avoided them and went in the back way, straight up to my room, but it was awfully boring in there again. No phone.

  I rolled around on the bed for a long while, and Mom came in to see me a couple of times and asked if I would like to join them in the living room.

  “I know it is fascinating staring at the walls,” she said, “but there are human beings in the house who may be almost as interesting.”

  I mumbled something about liking the view and was able to put her off twice, but knew it wouldn’t work a third time. I heard a pause in the conversation downstairs and figured it was the moment to make a move, and a quick one. I could picture Mom getting up from her chair again and heading in my direction. I leapt to my feet, slipped from the bedroom and down the stairs, and out the back way. As I closed the door behind me, I heard a little commotion and noticed eight eyes staring at me from down the hallway. The dogs knew my secret. They didn’t say a word, though.