by Gail Bowen
“The Lily Pad is a place for runaways, street kids?” At the end of the sentence, her voice rose, and she watched my face for a sign of comprehension. When she saw what she was looking for, she continued. “They serve food and coffee and you can go there and watch TV or have a shower or just hang together. There’s a lot of system stuff, crafts and counsellors and programs to help you learn a job. It’s a hassle-free zone. Nobody’s allowed to dick you around, not your parents, not your old man, nobody.”
“Sounds good,” I said.
She shrugged. “And there are mentors. Girls who have good jobs and great clothes and great lives, and they come in and talk to us and then they choose someone to kind of help along the way. Terry chose me, because she wanted to help a girl from home. Besides, she said she saw something in me.”
“I can see it, too,” I said. “Incidentally, how old are you?”
“Fifteen,” she said.
A year older than Angus.
The Lily Pad was on Albert Street, not far from the city centre. It was an old house with the graceful lines of a building designed in the first years of the century. On the front lawn a wooden frog sunned himself on a lily pad. No words. On the grass and on the front steps, kids sat smoking. I had spent my life surrounded by children, but kids like these still tore at me. The dead eyes, the defiance, the sure knowledge that they were just putting in time before they entered their life’s work as members of the permanent underclass. When I thought about what lay ahead of them, it was hard to believe we’d inched very far along the evolutionary scale.
They moved aside to let us pass as we went up the front steps, but whether we were there or not there was obviously a matter of indifference to them. Kim didn’t comment about them or about anything. There was a bulletin board on the wall of the entranceway. Pinned to the top was a sign: “The Sharing Place.” The board was empty. A door to what must have been the upstairs was blocked off by an old pine sideboard.
“Don’t you use the upstairs?” I asked.
“No,” Kim said, “they’re afraid we’ll set the place on fire. You know, from our unhealthy habit of smoking.” She gave me a deadpan look. “When you’re dealing with a dysfunctional population, you can’t be too careful.”
I didn’t know what to say.
“That was a joke,” Kim said. “Come on. I gotta get lunch started.”
I followed her through a large front room filled with overstuffed furniture that had obviously been rescued from a dozen different basements. In the corner Big Bird was singing about his neighbourhood on a large-screen TV. No one was watching. We walked down a dark hall to the kitchen. Money had been spent here. The floor shone, and the industrial-sized appliances were new and expensive. Kim went to the sink and washed her hands, then she took a slab of hamburger meat from the refrigerator and threw it in an iron frying pan on the stove.
“Chili,” she said. She began breaking up the meat with a fork. “I never knew anybody like Theresa in my life. She was like a person on TV, pretty and smart, and she had such great clothes, and that little red convertible of hers was so amazing.” She jabbed at the still frozen centre of the hamburger viciously. “Maybe she liked me because I admired her so much.”
“There are worse reasons,” I said.
The meat sizzled and Kim stirred it. A splash of grease flew up onto her Popsicle-coloured blouse.
“Shit,” she said. “Shit on a stick.” She looked at me sadly. “Theresa would never say anything like that. She was a lady like Julia Roberts in that movie Pretty Woman. I musta rented that video twenty times.” Her voice fell. “Anyway, Theresa wanted to make me a lady, too.”
Kim began opening tins of kidney beans and tomatoes and throwing them into the pan with the meat. She stirred the mixture with a wild, hostile energy.
“She told me she was going to teach me about clothes and hair, and we were going to talk about going back to school. She had this business and she was going to, like, train me …”
Behind me a voice, smooth, professionally understanding, said, “Kim, you know the rules about visitors.”
The first thing I noticed about the man in the doorway was that he had the kind of unvarying mahogany tan he could have achieved only in a tanning salon. “Fake-and-bake tans,” Mieka called them. In fact, he looked like a fake-and-bake kind of guy: he was about Keith’s age, mid-fifties, but he was dressed like a fashion magazine’s idea of a college kid, UBC sweatshirt, designer jeans, white sport socks, white cross-trainers. His hair had been professionally streaked, and whoever did it had done a better job than the hairdresser who did mine.
“No visitors in the kitchen, Kim,” he said pleasantly. Then he turned his smile on me. It was as dazzling as the gold chain around his neck. “I’m sorry Kim forgot to share our rule with you.”
“You run a tight ship,” I said.
“We have to,” he said.
Kim turned away without a word. Her face as she stirred the chili was impassive. She had withdrawn again. She was back in that detached and distant zone where nobody could dick her around. I touched her on the shoulder.
“Thanks for telling me about Theresa,” I said. “I still can’t get used to calling her that. I never told you my connection with her. She wanted to marry my son, and she felt very close to me. I never knew her.”
Kim took a bag of chili powder from the cupboard and began shaking it into the pan. “You blew it,” she said.
The man raised his eyebrows. “I think we should let Kim get on with her cooking. There are a lot of us looking forward to her famous chili. We all have our jobs here at the Lily Pad.”
“What’s yours?” I said.
Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Kim grin. I was glad she knew I was on her side.
His smile widened, but as he looked at me his eyes were appraising. “Why, I’m Helmut Keating, the co-ordinator,” he said. “If you’d like to step into my office on your way out, I can share some information with you about how we operate here at the Lily Pad.”
Behind Helmut’s back, Kim carefully mouthed the word “asshole.” I nodded in agreement. Then I smiled at Helmut.
“Let’s get in there and share,” I said.
When I left, I was carrying a manila folder with some photocopied diagrams of the administrative structure of the Lily Pad and a half-dozen slick brochures to hand around to people I thought would be interested in making a contribution. “We rely on our friends,” Helmut said smoothly as he walked me out the door and down the front steps.
It was a little after eleven-thirty. It was still muggy and overcast, and the kids were still sitting on the lawn smoking. None of them looked as eager to have their lives transformed as the attractive kids in the Lily Pad’s four-colour brochure.
I drove to Taylor’s playschool. She was waiting in the doorway with her teacher. When she saw me, she came running, and I felt a rush of pleasure. She was carrying a cardboard egg carton.
“Look,” she said breathlessly. “The other kids started theirs before I came, so I was late, but teacher says it’s never too late. Look at them. They all sprouted.”
There were twelve bean plants in the dirt that filled the indentations.
“Do you know the story of Jack and the Beanstalk, Jo?”
“Maybe you could tell me while we plant those. If we hurry, we’ve got time before lunch. I thought we’d make something special. Pete’s going back to his job today, remember?”
“Holding cows for the animal doctor,” Taylor said seriously.
“Right,” I said.
An hour later, beans planted, the kids and I were sitting down to gazpacho and warm sourdough bread. Pete had always been strong and resilient – “Peter is unflappable,” his kindergarten teacher had written in a report-card comment that became a family joke. But that day as I watched him eat lunch, I wondered if there’d been too many blows. The visit to the people he and Christy knew in Saskatoon had been painful; the funeral had been worse. But it was the news that Christy had committed suicid
e that devastated him. He felt he was responsible, and nothing any of us said could convince him otherwise.
I didn’t believe in keeping secrets from the kids. Most of the time, I thought it was best to know the truth and work from there. But as I looked at Pete across the table, pale and unnaturally quiet, I knew this wasn’t most of the time. I decided not to tell him about my visit with Kim Barilko. And so we were both quiet, and I was glad Angus and Taylor were there to fill up the silences.
When Angus went back to school, Taylor went out to sit with her bean garden, and Pete and I were alone.
“I don’t want to go back there,” he said.
“I know,” I said. “But it’s the best thing. You’ll be busy doing something you like, with people who didn’t know Christy. And you’ll be in those beautiful, beautiful hills. That’s healing country down there.”
He pushed his chair away from the table. “This’ll put it to the test,” he said grimly.
As his car turned the corner, I closed my eyes, crossed my fingers and prayed that time and distance would work their magic.
I could hear the phone ringing as soon as I went back in the house.
It was Jill. “Guess who just phoned me?” she said. “Bernice Morin’s boyfriend.”
“That little punk Darren Wolfe,” I said.
Jill laughed. “That’s a bit harsh for you, Jo.”
“One of the cops who came to Judgements the morning Bernice died said it. I guess it just stuck in my mind.”
“It’s probably accurate enough,” Jill said mildly, “but punk or not, Darren’s in big trouble. He got arrested for Bernice’s murder this morning. He says he’s innocent, that somebody’s framing him. Of course, guys like Darren are always being framed.”
“How come he called you?” I asked.
“He needs money for a lawyer. He says the lawyers the court provides are either dykes or dweebs. He heard on the street that the network was working on the Little Flower case, so he’s offered to give me the real story – in return for compensation, of course.”
“Are you going to do it?”
“I can’t,” she said, “but I am going to talk to him. If he really is innocent, there are other ways to help him. Jo, I probably won’t be able to get to see him till tomorrow, but I thought you might want to come along.”
I thought, I don’t want to do this. I don’t want to step to the edge of the abyss again. Images flashed into my mind – the teddy bear tattoo on Bernice Morin’s left buttock, the single entry under “Identifying Marks” in Christy’s autopsy report – “left buttock, tattoo, 3 cm, bear-shaped, not recent.” I knew I didn’t have a choice.
“Yes,” I said, “I’ll come. Just let me know the time and place. I’ll be there.”
I hung up and walked to the kitchen window. Taylor was sitting cross-legged in her garden, looking at the place in the ground where she’d planted her beans. For a long while, I watched her. Suddenly, she looked at the window. When she saw me, her face was bright with happiness, and she jumped up and came running toward the house.
“I think they’ve already grown more, Jo,” she said.
“We’ll probably be able to have beans for supper,” I said.
For a split second, she believed me, then she grinned. “Oh, Jo,” she said wearily. “Another joke.” She came over and put her arms around me. As I held her close, I remembered other times when it had happened just like this, times when, at the very moment when I was sure the darkness was going to swallow me, there would be a moment of pure joy. I kissed Taylor’s ear.
“Come on,” I said. “Time to get the bean dirt off. We have to go help some ladies sew Mieka into her wedding dress.”
CHAPTER
7
When I awoke the morning after Peter left, my bedroom was filled with light and birdsong, good omens. The digital clock on my radio read six o’clock, early, but when I looked at the sun streaming in, the waking world seemed to have a lot to recommend it. I brushed my teeth, pulled on my swimsuit and went down to the pool. The dogs, ever optimistic, followed at my heels in case I decided to change course and take them for a run. I disappointed them, but it was worth it. When I dived into the pool, I felt the thrill of physical well-being, and after twenty minutes of laps, the heaviness of the day before had left my body, and I was full of hope.
It was, I decided, time to get back to work. Lost in the mountain of unpacked cartons in the garage was a box of newspaper clippings, political articles I had saved during the past year because they seemed worth thinking about again. I could start there. We were due for a federal election in the fall. I could write a book about the campaign from the provincial viewpoint. I switched from the breast stroke to the crawl. “Sky’s the limit,” I said. “All you need to do is start. The time is now.” I pulled myself up on the side of the pool, ready to go.
Taylor was just coming out of the house. Her face was still rosy from sleep, and she was ripping off her pyjama top with one hand and trying to pull on her bathing suit with the other.
“I’m coming, Jo. Wait for me. I’ll show you my dog-paddle.”
She put her arms around my neck, and the groundbreaking book on the upcoming election was temporarily on hold. By seven o’clock, Angus had joined us and we were all sitting at the picnic bench in our bathing suits eating cereal. When he finished, Angus went in to watch the sports news on TV.
I turned to Taylor. “We’ve got time to do a little work before you go to school. Why don’t you bring out your drawing stuff while I read the paper?”
She brought her sketch pad and her case of coloured pencils, always so carefully arranged and sharpened, sat down opposite me and began to draw. Today it was baseball players, and as I watched the blank page fill up with kids in baseball uniforms pitching and hitting and leaping off the page to catch a hard-hit ball, I was humbled by her ability. Even her face seemed to change when she made art. The ordinary little girl who couldn’t sit still for a story or remember to flush the toilet was transformed into someone else, a disciplined person who loved her work and knew it was good. When Taylor was drawing, I could see her mother in the set of her mouth and in her stillness. It was a good feeling.
I still hadn’t read the front page of the Globe and Mail when Jill called.
“Two things,” she said. “One, we can see Darren Wolfe at nine o’clock this morning. Two … No, I’m not telling you about two till I see you. I want to watch your reaction.”
It was a little after eight-thirty when Jill rang our front doorbell. She was wearing a white silk blouse, a navy blazer and grey slacks.
So was I.
“We look like the Bobbsey Twins,” I said.
“Nah,” Jill said. “One of the Bobbsey Twins was a boy. We’re just fashionable – the faux prison guard look is really hot this spring.”
When we turned onto the Albert Street Bridge, Jill said, “Are you ready for the big news?”
“As long as it’s good,” I said.
Jill laughed. “I think it is. How would you like to be one of the panellists on Canada Today?”
Canada Today was a new show Jill’s network was trying over the summer months, nightly at seven, half an hour of national news, then half an hour of a political panel. There were five proposed panels, one from each region, one for each night.
“I thought that was all set,” I said, surprised. “Wasn’t there an article in the paper last week saying you were going with the presidents of the provincial parties?”
“That was last week,” she said briskly. “Today the presidents are ‘too narrowly partisan, too likely to be idealogues.’ At least that’s what the fax says. Today what we have in mind is Senator Sam Steinitz, Keith Harris, and you.”
“God, Jill, let me catch my breath. That’s pretty high-powered company. Am I there as the token female?”
“No, you’re there as the token person with a progressive mind,” she snapped. “Say yes.”
“Yes,” I said.
�
�Good,” she said. “Listen, I’m going to produce the first few shows myself. The network’s got big plans for this show. There’s bound to be an election in the fall, and they think Canada Today could grab an audience. Not much of what we do here goes national, so I want to make sure this doesn’t look like Aaron Slick from Punkin Crick.”
“When do we start?” I said.
“June third. That’s a week from Monday,” she said. “Soon, I know, but you’re a quick study. I’ll have some specific topics for you by the weekend, but if you can’t wait to get started you can spend the afternoon thinking about something general, like where you think the country should be heading.”
“Whither Canada?” I said. “Hasn’t that been done?”
“Not by you,” Jill said.
“Okay, whither Canada it is,” I said. “And Jill, thanks.”
“For what?”
“For thinking of me.”
“It wasn’t me, Jo. When I went into my office this morning, there was your name. It had arrived miraculously, by fax.”
“Miraculously from where?”
“On high,” she said. “On highest. The fax came from the office of Con O’Malley himself. The president of the network.”
“How would the president of NationTV know about me? Jill, doesn’t this seem a bit weird to you?”
She shrugged. “Not so weird, Jo. Your publisher’s in Toronto, right? He and Con were probably hoisting a few at the Boys’ Club last night, and you know how these things work. This morning when somebody got the bright idea of changing the panel, your name was front and centre in Con’s mind. He prides himself on being a hands-on guy. Being able to suggest a name in Saskatchewan is just the kind of thing that he’d get off on. Believe me, Jo, whatever the explanation is, it will be that simple. Now, relax and give yourself up to the pleasures of life in the fast lane of TV journalism.”
We drove north along Winnipeg Street, turned right at the heavy-oil upgrader and rolled up our windows as we passed the city dump. When Jill’s ancient Lincoln started bumping along the country road that took us to the Regina Correctional Centre, I tapped her on the arm.