Home Schooling

by Carol Windley

  Sherry wanted a book on rhododendrons. She and Nadia drove to Maurice’s bookstore, which was in a small shopping centre near a busy three-way intersection, not far from the Royal Jubilee Hospital. On one side there was a flower shop and on the other a pharmacy. Inside the store it was noisy from the traffic and a construction site on the opposite corner. On the counter an electric fan ruffled a pile of papers. A woman stood behind the counter. She was talking on the phone, her back turned to the store, and she didn’t look at Sherry and Nadia. Sherry went to find the gardening books and Maurice came from the back of the store and intercepted her. “How good to see you,” he said, kissing Sherry on one side of her face and then the other. “And you, Nadia. You’ve changed. I forget how quickly young people grow up these days.”

  He found Sherry a book on rhododendrons.

  “Does it say anything about black spots on the leaves?” Sherry said. “We’ve got that, on some of our rhododendrons. I’d hate to see those big old plants dying. If they are dying.” She sat in a child’s chair at a child’s table and opened the book. She slid her bare feet out of her sandals and crossed her ankles. She leaned forward, an elbow on the table. Maurice sat beside her on one of the little chairs.

  Nadia browsed through the books. She heard Maurice say that if they hadn’t had lunch yet, he’d like to take them to a place he knew, a little Mexican restaurant.

  “I’m parked in a fifteen-minute zone,” Sherry said.

  “We’ll take your car,” Maurice said. He stood up. He slid the little chair under the little table. He picked up the book Sherry had been looking at and closed it and put it on the counter. He arranged with the clerk, whose name was Shannon, for her to take her lunch break when he got back. He sat in the back of the car, leaning forward, his hand on the driver’s seat, directing Sherry. His fingers touched the ends of her hair. Nadia saw this. Only the unscarred side of his face was visible to her. He had put on dark glasses. He wore a white linen suit.

  When they got back from the restaurant, Nadia picked up a book and opened it, not with any sense of anticipation and dread, or however Maurice had described it at Sherry’s wedding. She flipped through the pages while she waited for Sherry to pay for her book on rhododendrons. “Let me know if you find it helpful,” Maurice said as he put the book into a bag. “If not, you can exchange it.” Then he said, “What’s that you’ve got there, Nadia?” He came over and took the book from her. He said it was famous and had been made into a movie more than once.

  “Excellent summer reading,” he said. “Take it. It’s on the house. You are a reader, aren’t you? A reader who’s somehow missed this celebrated novel. Let me know what you think.”

  Last night I dreamt I went to Manderley again. So began Rebecca, the book Maurice had given Nadia. Rebecca had died aboard her sailboat. At least, it had seemed so, but it turned out her husband had murdered her and put her body on the boat, which he then sank. In his haste, however, it seemed he didn’t take the boat far enough out to sea to evade detection and eventually he was caught. When I killed her, she was smiling, still. Rebecca’s husband, Maxim de Winter, confessed to his new wife, the novel’s unnamed narrator, that yes, he had murdered Rebecca. He didn’t think of himself as a murderer though: he thought he’d been provoked, because Rebecca had been unfaithful to him. In spite of everything, the murder and the fear and the uncertainty, Rebecca was a love story. The punishment came in the form of love everlasting.

  The book seemed to Nadia a pallid, half-swooning vision of some former time. Yet it was also, she could see, a faint, imperfect echo of Sherry’s life here in this house. Was that why Maurice had wanted her to read it? Did he want her to notice the similarities between Rebecca and Eleanor? Did Maurice really believe Nolan had murdered Eleanor and would now do the same to Sherry? Was Nolan capable of murder?

  Killing began in the mind and moved outward until it found its object, Nadia thought. The one who killed was the hunter and the other was … nothing.

  Had Maurice moved here because he believed Nolan had been responsible, in some way, for Eleanor’s death? Had he dedicated his life to watching Nolan, so that the same thing didn’t happen again?

  Nadia had only a few pages left in the book. She took it with her into the kitchen and got an apple out of the fridge and sat at the table. She started to read and she heard Marni at the front door, talking to someone. Marni walked into the kitchen with the guy Nadia had seen on the sidewalk a few days earlier, beneath the big old pine tree.

  “This is Gavin,” Marni said, very casually.

  Nadia smiled at Gavin. He gave her the same high-voltage smile she remembered from the wedding. Could it be? No, it couldn’t. Yet it was: Gavin was the waiter from the wedding.

  She said, “Were you … do I know you?” He said, yes, she did know him. “Quite a coincidence, isn’t it?”

  “Not really,” Marni said. “It’s not a coincidence at all.” She opened a can of pop and handed it to Gavin. Then she opened one for herself. She and Gavin sat down at the table with Nadia. Marni told her how, the day of the wedding, after her dad and Sherry had driven away, she’d gone back into the hall to look for her coat. Gavin had helped her. Of course, the coat wasn’t there. She’d known it wouldn’t be, some creep had definitely walked off with it. So Gavin had loaned her his jacket.

  “Anything to cover up that atrocious dress,” Marni said, laughing. She and Gavin had exchanged e-mail addresses and phone numbers. They met when she returned his jacket. After that, they got together whenever they could, either here, in town, or in Vancouver. She hated secrets, she said; she wanted Gavin to meet her dad and Sherry, properly meet them, not like at the wedding.

  “Gavin is studying environmental science,” Marni said.

  “And film animation,” Gavin said.

  “Yes, but mainly environmental science,” Marni said. “Where’s Sherry? What are we having for dinner? Are we having a barbecue? It’s too hot to eat, anyway, isn’t it?”

  Marni reached for Nadia’s book. She said she’d read Rebecca when she was about twelve. She preferred Jane Eyre. Weren’t they kind of the same book?

  “‘Reader, I married him,’” she said, scornfully. “That was in Jane Eyre, wasn’t it? The fire, the maimed hero. It was all kind of the same.” She handed the book back. She put her elbows on the table and leaned her face close to Gavin’s, their foreheads touching. Nadia saw her tender, complicit smile and looked away. The window was open, but no air came in. The back of her neck prickled. Each day was hotter than the previous one. She thought of how Gavin had appeared to her at the wedding, like a kind of merman: he was in the sea and then he walked out of the sea and became mortal. She liked Gavin. She wished she’d talked to him instead of to Maurice. She could have pretended she’d lost her coat, too.

  The summer after she finished school, Nadia worked at her grandparents’ bakery. She hoarded the money she earned. She got her driver’s licence and sometimes drove Jonah’s beloved car over to Sherry’s, where she’d stay for a day or two at a time, rarely longer. On the island she got to witness Jonah and Laurel’s on-again-off-again romance, while at Sherry’s house she had the drama of Marni and Gavin, which had eclipsed the drama of Sherry and Nolan.

  One day she arrived at Sherry’s just in time for a crisis. Sherry met her at the door and told her Marni had just informed her father she was going with Gavin to Belize, where his ecology class was going to study the environmental effects of logging in protected forest preserves. “Can you imagine how impressed Nolan is?” Sherry said. “Anyway, go ahead. Go on in and join the fray.”

  In the living room Nolan was sunk into his chair, his hands resting on the arms. He glowered at Nadia and Sherry like a large disgruntled baby. Sherry went over and patted his arm. Gavin was sitting on a hassock, his legs stretched out in front of him, his hands in the pockets of his shorts. Marni sat in a chair behind him, her hand draped over his shoulder. Sherry said she was going to make coffee. Nadia said she’d help. She to
ok a step toward the door. “Stay,” Nolan said, snapping his fingers at her. Nadia sat down.

  “We can’t stay Daddy,” Marni said. “Gavin and I have to leave. We’re going to a movie.”

  Nolan thumped his fist on the arm of the chair. He said Marni wasn’t going anywhere. She couldn’t just walk in here and make a pronouncement like that and then take off. Nor could she go to some foreign country without his permission, for God’s sake. There were things to discuss. For one thing, she had her education to think of.

  “Oh, Daddy,” Marni said. “This will be an education.”

  “Actually, Mr. Ganz, it’s going to be really cool work,” Gavin said. “We’ll be right up there, in the rainforest, on these canopy walkways strung between the trees, up with the bats and the birds, taking samples.”

  “Samples of what?” Nolan said.

  “I don’t know yet. Samples. Leaves and bird droppings and stuff, I guess. Insects.” Gavin sat up. He looked uneasily in Nadia’s direction, as if for assistance.

  “We’re going to miss this movie,” Marni said. “I have one day in which I can see this movie and I’m going to miss it.”

  “Shut up,” Nolan said. “You’re acting like a spoiled brat.”

  “You made me into one,” Marni said.

  “That can be changed,” Nolan said. “You can try living without my help if you like. You can go and be a hippie with Gavin in the jungle, if that’s what you want.”

  “A hippie?” Marni said. “Oh, Daddy. That’s so cute.”

  “Look at Nadia,” Nolan said, waving a hand in her direction. “Nadia doesn’t have everything handed to her on a silver plate. She’s got a job. She works. She looks after herself. She’s a credit to her mother.”

  “She works for her grandparents,” Marni said. “That’s not exactly a job.”

  “Marni, you are not going to Belize,” Nolan said. “And that’s my last word on the subject.”

  “I’ll be nineteen by then, Daddy,” Marni said. “Nineteen-year-olds are fighting in a war at this minute. I can do whatever I want. Why can’t you be happy for me? Belize is a beautiful country. Gavin will be doing important research.”

  “Not another word from you,” Nolan said, shaking a finger.

  “My mother said I can go,” Marni said. “She’s given her permission.”

  “Marni, I’m warning you,” Nolan said. He closed his eyes and put his hand to his forehead. Sherry came in with the coffee. Nolan said he’d have coffee later. He needed a breath of fresh air, he said. He stood up and went to the door. He turned and said, “Marni, don’t go anywhere. I want you to stay here for supper. I don’t want you to leave while you’re angry with me. Do you hear me?”

  In Gavin’s opinion there was no hope. He mentioned this at dinner, in a conversational tone. Nadia had to hand it to him: he seemed perfectly relaxed, while she still felt nervous eating at the same table as her stepfather, invariably dropping her fork on the floor or spilling water on the tablecloth. Tonight they were having lobster and shrimp and salad. Nadia helped herself to some salad and passed the bowl to Nolan. Even with the napkin he’d tucked into his collar bunched up around his neck he managed to look formidable. Nadia was surprised Gavin had the nerve to argue with him. Gavin said scientists knew for sure that if greenhouse gases weren’t reduced right now — this year, this decade — the world was doomed. “I can give you stuff to read,” he said to Nolan. “It’ll really open your eyes. We all have to come together and act now, if we want to avert catastrophe.”

  “I am not unfamiliar with catastrophe,” Nolan said. He asked Sherry to pass him the bread rolls. “Every generation thinks the earth is coming to an end,” he said, splitting a roll apart and reaching for the butter dish. “That’s the nature of human life. We are born knowing death is inevitable. That’s what separates us from the animals.”

  “This will be a catastrophic event, Mr. Ganz. This will be outside of human history. That’s the hard thing to understand, but it’s true. There won’t be anyone left even to think the word ‘catastrophe.’”

  “If this is what you sincerely believe, why do you bother to keep breathing?” Nolan said.

  “Daddy,” Marni said. “Please. We’re trying to eat. Don’t argue with Gavin right now.”

  “I’m not arguing,” Nolan said. “I would just like Gavin to answer my question.”

  “Well, Mr. Ganz, the answer is that right now there’s still a little time. I guess that’s why I keep breathing.” Gavin smiled. “I guess I do have a little hope.”

  Marni leaned her head briefly on Gavin’s shoulder. She smiled at Nolan. “That’s why we’re going to Belize,” she said. “We’re going to do something while there’s still time.”

  “I would like everyone to please change the subject,” Sherry said. “Please. We can talk later. Right now I would like a little more wine, Nolan.”

  They were in the living room, with all the windows open. They’d tried sitting outside on the patio, but it was a muggy, humid evening and they’d got chased inside by mosquitoes. Nadia sat in a chair in the corner and when Sherry came in she took a chair nearby. Marni and Gavin were on the far side of the room, on the sofa, holding hands.

  One night, Nolan was saying, when he was out at his company’s operations in the Nitinat Valley, his crew had left him behind. It wasn’t intentional, he hastened to add. One of the fallers had injured his hand, not too badly, but they were taking him to a doctor. The rest of the crew had decided to leave a few hours early and go along, while the crummy was there. It was Friday. They were heading into a weekend of warm baths and dry socks. Who could blame them for being in a hurry?

  Nolan had driven off in a truck to pick up some equipment, a couple of chainsaws, axes, ropes. Before he went, he mentioned to someone what he was doing and had said he wouldn’t be long. Maybe he spoke too casually. Maybe he wasn’t clear enough. Whatever, he got several miles down a cut-line when his truck’s engine stalled on him. The truck was an International Harvester model, with a six-volt electrical system notorious for failing to start up again if the engine stalled, which it had a tendency to do. It was late October and the nights got cold fast. He thought about walking back, but he was sure his men would have left. He decided he might as well stay with the truck. He had a thermos of coffee and half a sandwich. He was dressed warmly. As night fell, though, it began to snow. He tried the engine. No luck.

  Why worry? he thought. He was where he was.

  The hours went by slowly. He got out of the truck and stamped his feet, trying to get warm. He walked around in a tight little circle, staying close to the truck. He brushed the snow off his hair and his face. Something, a small sound, alerted him. He looked up and there, not twenty feet away, was a mule deer, a magnificent buck with a full set of antlers. Its eyes glittered. Its ears twitched. Good, he’d thought: a creature to share his lonely vigil. Well, all right, his first thought was, too bad he didn’t have his rifle. Not that this would have qualified as hunting: the deer was like a statue. Then he began to think how strange, to see a deer in the night. It began to seem like a bad omen. His situation was kind of grim. He knew that even if he got the truck started, the snow might have made the rudimentary road out impassable. If they sent a search party, would anyone think to look in this spot? He doubted it, at that moment. The effect of the snow falling was hypnotic, mesmerizing.

  He was about to clap his hands or shout, to scare the deer away. Then he saw that he and the deer were not alone in the clearing. Two people stood beneath the snowy branches of a Douglas fir. He knew who they were. His mother and father. They were as real as he was. As real as anyone in this room, Nolan said. His mother wore a coat with a velvet collar, a snug waist, a little flared skirt, like this. Nolan spread his hands. His father, now, had a big warm scarf wrapped around his neck. His head was bare. It was night, but Nolan saw the two in colour. His mother’s blue velvet collar, her brown gloves. His father’s close-cropped brown hair. His heart was full of love for
them. You didn’t forget, he said. His mother, very polite, asked him how he was, her voice soft and clear. He told her he was doing well. He said he had two little boys. He had a nice home, a business. They stood there, in the winter’s cold blue-white. This, he thought, was what he had always dreamed of: to be even for one moment with his parents. When they vanished, as suddenly as they’d appeared, he felt bereft. He watched as the deer picked its way through the snow to the edge of the forest and then bounded into the trees. He went and sat in the truck and after a moment he cranked the ignition and — guess what? — the engine fired up at once. He had known it would. He drove back to the camp without incident. He stumbled into the dark, empty bunkhouse. He lit a kerosene lamp. He ate his one-half of a sandwich and tried to drink the coffee, which had gone cold and tasted disgusting — but he drank it anyway, because, after all, he was alive and he knew who he was. He knew who he was. That was, to him, an amazing thing.

  Nadia felt as if she’d been there, too, in the snowy clearing. She suspected that Nolan at least partly intended the story as reprimand to Gavin, an irresistible lesson on how to convey a convincing and authentic message, which was, in this case, that Nolan Ganz understood life better than Gavin did. Gavin looked, for a moment, stunned. Nolan clasped his hands over his midriff and grinned insolently at him. Nadia would have felt sorry for Gavin, if he weren’t lounging in that blatant way against Marni’s bare legs. She stared at him, secretly. She did like his straight nose, his rather large and stubborn chin, the luxuriance of his hair. Gavin could, she thought, be underestimated.