Revenge of the Lobster

by Hilary MacLeod

  “If they were trying to kill, they could try again.”

  There was someone out there who might want her dead. She shoved the thought aside. It didn’t matter now. What mattered was Cam, with her strange whispering language and high-pitched song—Cam, who wouldn’t hurt a fly, the champion of those ugly sea insects. Where is she?

  Parker punched his fists into his eyes, grinding at his tears, as if he could wipe them away and, with them, the certainty of death. So concentrated was he on not seeing, on fighting all sensation, that he had no idea when she crossed the room and passed by him.

  He was still huddled on the floor, his head pounding. His throat ached. He could not make another sound. Nor could he take in any, his mind blocking out everything but his despair.

  He sensed her not at all, neither heard her nor saw her. At another time, he would have been deeply moved by the sight of her, he who so loved things of beauty, she of a perfection so far removed from this room and its obscenities. He would have reached out to touch her, to convince himself that she was real and that she belonged to him.

  He didn’t see her. He saw nothing but the imprint on the inside of his eyelids, a photographic image—the apron, the face, the blue hand all a blinding white; the dark recesses of the grotto, black as the sins he had committed against life, against love, come to this.

  She was naked, except for the pearls around her neck. Her skin was damp, her lips blue like the dead man’s hand. Her body was slight with slim hips, a smooth curved belly, small breasts tipping upward, nipples taut in the cold. Her hair was wet and slicked back, giving her the stark profile of a blonde Nefertiti, without the pharaoh’s crown. Her stumbling feet were the one ungainly feature. From sleek head to those odd feet—her legacy—she looked like a sea creature, unused to walking on land, just emerged from a deep ocean cave.

  She didn’t notice the live man or the dead man as she stopped for a moment and gazed around the room. She didn’t register the lobster exploring the cook’s mouth, seeking food. If she saw anything, she didn’t respond to any of it. Her eyes were riveted on one thing: the walk-in freezer. My only chance for survival.

  She moved forward, compelled by the blistering fever, seeking release from the pounding in her head, toward the image shimmering in the steel-grey door of the freezer, an androgynous apparition; it was her own distorted, ghost-like reflection.

  She was dying, dying of cold, but suffocating with heat, an overpowering heat that had made her shed her clothes. Tiny pearls of liquid glowed on her skin in the fluorescent light. They were either droplets of water or beads of perspiration: she wasn’t capable of distinguishing which. Her hot body told her they were sweat. It was a mistake.

  Forcing her hand to reach out and grip, she opened the freezer door, and fell inside.

  It was cool. So cool. She felt her eyes close, her body surrender.

  Safe.

  “Look.” Hy fished Cam’s jacket out of the water. She found her pants floating a little farther up shore. She held them up, smiling. Ian looked puzzled at the smile. He didn’t understand that Hy was soaring with the sure knowledge that Cam was alive. She grabbed Ian’s arm so tightly he winced.

  “She’s alive!”

  “But—”

  “Paradoxical undressing,” she said.

  “What?”

  “A false sense of warmth.” In better circumstances, it would have pleased Hy to be the one giving scientific information to Ian, rather than the other way around.

  “A deadly stage of hypothermia,” she said, speeding up and pulling him along. “It means she was still alive when she dropped these clothes here, but in bad shape. I hope we’re not too late.”

  On the sand in front of her Hy spotted a bra and panties—lacy and pink. Who would have thought?

  No!

  Bright light burst in and Cam’s eyes flew open with the door.

  Grabbing hands. Dragging.

  No! Safe here. No!

  Leave me in the cool place.

  Her eyes shut tight against the harsh light and she began to shiver.

  The lobster had slid off Guillaume’s body and landed with a clunk on the concrete floor. Parker had looked up in time to see the small female hand pulling the door closed, the Irish wedding ring on her finger. He jumped up, dragged her out, and now she was here, in his arms, naked, except for the pearls, the pearls he would have known anywhere, around her neck.

  Why is she here—like this? What is she doing? Trying to kill herself? Why does she not respond?

  He fell to his knees, holding her, her body half on him and half on the cold tile floor. He struggled out of his jacket and wrapped it around her.

  She’s perfect.

  Except for her feet.

  It was then that he knew she was his, had always been his. He clutched her to him, forcing her to face him. Her eyelids flickered open and all of his doubt dissolved, chased out by her grey eyes.

  A rush of joy suffused him. He knew now what he had never dared believe.

  She belongs to me.

  The tears came then. He was crying for his loss of Guillaume—and of her. She cried too. She didn’t know who he was. She didn’t know where she was. She had no idea she was naked. Right now she felt cold again. So cold.

  He squeezed her, not just to warm her, but to possess her—this woman that he had rejected, because he thought she couldn’t love him, because he couldn’t bear her contempt and hate.

  “There. I bet she’s in there.” Hy was clinging to Cam’s clothes, with the lacy panties and bra wrapped around her wrist.

  The cookhouse door was banging open and closed in the gathering wind. When they walked in, neither registered what they saw. There was too much to take in at first glance. Second and third and fourth gave them a series of images they could barely comprehend, but there was Guillaume lying splayed out in the grotto, a lobster examining his mouth.

  Parker was on the floor, his arms around Cam’s naked body. Rocking, he was rocking her, and holding her hard as if she might escape him—but she was not moving.

  Hy wanted to rip his face off. Then a few of his other body parts.

  “You bastard!” she shouted. She had thought Parker was a jerk, but not a deviant. Taking advantage of Cam in this state? She lunged forward. Ian grabbed her by the wrists to stop her. She struggled with him, tried to beat at his chest with hands he held tightly in his grip.

  “She’s his daughter,” he said.

  It was an electric moment, flashing with images—the ring, the vintage clothing, the photograph, yes, even the photograph. It all came rushing at her, not a clear, linear process of thinking, but a jumble that fell together like the pieces of a puzzle being put together in fast motion—a jumble that suddenly, clearly made sense. The photograph. Not Parker and Cam. Parker and the mother. Like mother, like daughter. Mother and daughter. Why didn’t I see it? Cam was not eighteen. Not thirty-eight. She was somewhere in between—and somehow Parker’s daughter.

  There were tears streaming out of Parker’s eyes. Cam’s—grey like his—were wide open, as unseeing as Guillaume’s. There she was, her body exposed under the harsh light of the room, only partly covered by Parker’s jacket, a young woman, perfectly formed—all but the feet.

  Hy had written about them, but never seen them.

  Webbed feet.

  Chapter Forty-Two

  “The large duck.” Ian spoke softly. He’d never seen anything like them. Hy had, but only in photographs. Webbed feet. Unusual, but not particularly rare. She knew because she’d written about them for the Department of Fisheries and Oceans website—in a sidebar of facts about the ocean. By the time she got to people with webbed feet, she was running thin on material.

  “I’ve seen pictures,” she said, “Nothing like this.” Usually the webbing was between the second and third toe. Cam had webbing between each
toe. Most people still had the web between the thumb and forefinger—a leftover gene from our sea creature ancestors. Cam just happened to have the webbing on her feet.

  Parker saw them looking at Cam’s feet. It was her curious feet—just like his—that had told him she was his daughter.

  “The Parker feet. Why didn’t she tell me? Then I would have known. Why? Why?” From those pathetic few efforts with her mother had come this beautiful child. His…his daughter. Now she was gone—surely. Hopelessly gone.

  Hy’s hands were shaking. Every part of her was shaking. She was still suffering from her struggle in the water and now vibrating with this new knowledge.

  “Ian, find her pulse. I’m no good at that.”

  He kneeled down, but he didn’t bother with her pulse.

  “She’s dead, Hy.”

  Parker began to heave, a dry silent sobbing.

  “No.” Hy shook her head vigorously. “She is not dead. I won’t let her be dead.”

  “Hy. Be real.”

  “No. You don’t know Ian. I do.”

  “She’s cold. Dead as dead. Dead cold.”

  “There’s no such thing,” she said, “until they’re dead and warm.” A chilling thought gripped her. Warm. She must have been warm, to take off her clothing. Maybe it was too late.

  “How do you know so much about hypothermia?’

  “I’ve known it all my life.”

  “But how?”

  His question irritated her. At a time like this?

  “Google me, if you want to know.” Her words had a hard edge—a dig at his obsession. She was furious that he had known what she should have known, wondering how long he’d known it.

  “How did you know she was his daughter?”

  “I’ll tell you some other time.” His word were clipped, his tone terse.

  “Look, this is no time for us to argue,” said Hy. “Find her pulse.”

  Ian took Cam’s hand and felt at her wrist for a pulse. If any, it was very weak. He began to rub her arm, to bring some life back into the body.

  “No,” Hy cried out. “Don’t do that.”

  “Why not?”

  “I forget why not. You’re not supposed to massage them, that’s all I know. I think maybe it might cause cardiac arrest.”

  “I think that may already have happened.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I think she’s dead, Hyacinth. She’s cold. Her lips are blue.”

  “No!” There was desperation in Hy’s voice. “No! Don’t give up. You’re not supposed to give up. She could come back anytime. We’ll do CPR! Now! Now!”

  They pried Cam out of Parker’s reluctant arms, removed the blanket and laid it on the floor and her on top of it. Ian tried to push life into her and Hy to breathe it into her, in a pattern so rhythmical you might have thought they were accustomed to doing it. Hy had never used the CPR skills she’d learned in the countless courses her grandmother had made her take. Ian had only just learned from a course several villagers took after the Big Ice.

  Parker watched helplessly. Hy became aware of him again.

  “For God’s sake,” she said to him between breaths, “go get help.”

  Parker’s eyes were unblinking. He was frozen.

  Push. Breathe. Push. Breathe.

  “Call 911,” Hy urged.

  Still Parker didn’t budge.

  Push. Breathe. Push. Breathe.

  “Go man.”

  Just as Parker was leaving, Ian added:

  “Call Nathan. Call Nathan too.”

  “Nathan’s in town,” said Hy. “At Rowan’s concert.”

  “Damn.”

  Push. Breathe.

  “Call anyway. Ben’s voice mail gives out all their numbers. Call 911 and Ben Mack 8336.” You didn’t have to give the telephone prefix in The Shores. Everyone had the same one.

  Parker got up, mouthing: “911…8336…911…8336.”

  Hy hoped he’d get it right.

  Push. Breathe. Push. Breathe. Over and over—for how long Ian didn’t know. Every time he tried to stop, Hy made him go on.

  “No, no, keep going. Don’t stop. I know how this goes. She’s not lost, she’s not…”

  Finally, he couldn’t go on anymore.

  “That’s it,” he said. “She’s dead, Hyacinth, she’s dead.”

  “If you won’t do it, I will.”

  “Oh, c’mon Hy. I can’t stop if you won’t stop.”

  A small triumph gleamed in her shattered eyes. She was exhausted and tears were running down her face, blotting her vision, but she knew everything there was to know about hypothermia. She wasn’t going to let Cam go without a fight.

  “There’s been a…a…an accident. No—two.” Parker’s voice cracked down the phone line. His clothes were damp with sweat. An accident—and a murder. That’s what it was, he knew in his heart, but he couldn’t confess it.

  “Yes. Two accidents. An electrocution…and…and…well, a case of hypothermia…I’m not sure…no…they’re trying to…”

  Parker felt helpless. Those two, the writer and the scientist—in no way related to him—held the life of his daughter in their hands, trying to bring life back into her body, and here, he couldn’t even tell the police what had happened.

  “What? How long? My God. I know…I know…yes, try that. Thank you.”

  He didn’t feel thankful at all.

  Hours. It would be hours. They would have to come by boat. The Mounties kept two Boston Whalers on The Island—one for each end, but one was out of service and the other over east, searching for the body of a man who’d got caught up in the riptide after the big wind a few days back. They were about to abandon the search, but it would be hours before the boat could be brought by trailer across the island and slipped in the water this far up the North Shore. The ferry would be running by then.

  Parker looked at his Rolex. That wasn’t for four hours. If she wasn’t dead now, she surely would be then. What was that other number? He began the ritual chant. 911…8663….911….8663…yes, that was it.

  “Damn.” Bill kicked the motor of the Zodiac. He couldn’t get it going again. They had motored as far as Big Bay before the engine had cut out. They were drifting far into the wide-open mouth of the harbour, the tide and the wind pushing them where they did not want to go, toward the sandbar. Bill grabbed the oars and shoved them at Wendell.

  “Row,” he barked, and got on the cell phone.

  8663…

  Parker had got the wrong number but the right person. It wasn’t Nathan’s house, but he was there. He never got to Charlottetown, because he was called out on an emergency. Not much of one, as it turned out. Ida Arsenault had a bit of a heart condition. She lived alone and called 911 whenever she had an angina attack. Nathan always took it seriously, because she was old, her heart wasn’t good—and his was. The drill was always the same. He’d calm her down, check her pills and do an ECG. He’d spend a little time with her and then leave. That’s exactly what he was about to do when Parker’s call came through. He would have been out of luck otherwise, because Nathan wasn’t planning on going home. He was going to his girlfriend Chrystal’s house, and turning his cell phone off.

  “Lord tunderin’ Jesus.” Nathan used any excuse to utter the phrase he’d learned from an uncle in Newfoundland. He used it now, when Parker blurted out what had happened, in a nearly incomprehensible jumble of words. Nathan understood enough to know it was serious.

  “Don’t wet your pants. I’ll be right there.”

  Parker hurried back to the cookhouse to see the child, his child, the child he had found and lost in what seemed like just one sharp intake of breath.

  Any hope he had was shredded when he saw her still unmoving, Hy and Ian trying to force breath and life into a body that had given up both. He
looked at his daughter. She was her mother in every way, except the eyes and feet. Those belonged to him. Apart from newspaper photographs, he’d seen his daughter only three times in her life—in Cartier’s in the big scarf; here at the Hall, in that ridiculous lobster camouflage; the third time, through the peephole in his door; and now. A crack in his shell burst open, revealing new flesh underneath, raw and tender.

  His daughter—conceived from those few pitiful nights. Those lacklustre attempts to be—or appear to be—what he thought was normal. He knew now that no one was normal.

  “He’s coming.”

  Hy looked up. “Who?”

  “Your Nathan. He never went to town.”

  “Thank God.” Her muscles had become stiff from crouching. Parker looked, an appeal, at Hy. She shook her head.

  Lights flashed in through the open door and bounced up into the air, as Nathan came over the rise at the top of Wild Rose Lane in his old camper van, the makeshift ambulance.

  Parker squinted into the light, defeat on his face. Ian’s efforts had become rote, unconvincing. Suddenly angry, Hy shoved him aside and took over.

  “Get out. Give Nathan a hand.”

  Cam. Cam. C’mon Cam. Maybe the power of thought would bring her back. Nothing else seemed to be working.

  Nathan came in with the stretcher and stopped to stare, shocked at the scene in front of him. He wondered which body he was meant to transport and where—hospital or morgue? They both looked dead to him—but not to Hy.

  “I think her lips aren’t blue anymore.” She wondered if it was just a trick of the light. “I think she might be breathing.” Excitement welled up inside her. She bit her lip. Dare she hope?

  Nathan took Cam’s pulse. “It’s faint, but it’s there.”

  Gently, Ian took Hy’s arm and helped her up. Then he and Nathan lifted Cam onto the stretcher. Parker unclasped the pearls from around Cam’s neck.

  He needed them more than she did—a talisman.

  He stared at her for a moment, thinking he might be looking at his daughter for the last time… He was.

  “What about him?” Nathan asked, jerking his head in the direction of Guillaume.