All is Clam

by Hilary MacLeod

  “I wouldn’t be doing that. Them newspapers got to go.” Gus folded her arms across her chest in eloquent disapproval.

  Moira caved in.

  “Yes, of course.” That it hadn’t been certain, Gus knew. Moira had decided that her first paying guests might merit this sacrifice, but the others? She glanced back at the rug and the quilt in the bedroom. She could take them out after Gus left.

  In the end, she didn’t. She thought they looked nice. The brilliant colours of the log cabin quilt, small rectangular pieces, intricately nested into each other, pulling the eye along a myriad of pleasing colour combinations, the mismatching creating a wonderful whole. The hooked rug was of two comical cats, her mother’s last effort. Puffed with a proprietary pride – her guest certainly wouldn’t have better things home – Moira left them there. She was to regret that when her lodger arrived.

  It was raining when Hy took Rose and Jamie to Charlottetown. They had an appointment with a music teacher, known for his work with gifted young pianists. Hy had seen Tchaikovsky Ferguson’s photograph once in the newspaper, but it didn’t prepare her for the real thing.

  So slight. More like a woman. But still masculine – the shadow over the lip. If she hadn’t known this was a man –

  “Transgendered,” said the odd creature as if it were his – her? – name, crossing the room, arms outstretched, old-fashioned black academic gown billowing out with his – her? – brisk movements. “Publicly I am known as Mr. Tchaikovsky Ferguson. It will remain that way until the transition is complete.”

  Jamie looked at Rose and Hy. His forehead wrinkled. Transgendered. He mouthed the word. Such a strange word.

  “Then I will be Miss Tchai Ferguson. You may call me Tchai.”

  Jamie looked puzzled. “You’re a boy – and a girl?”

  Hy looked at Rose. Rose flushed, and shrugged, hoping the moment would pass.

  Hy assumed she didn’t want a facts of life conversation now, and didn’t blame her.

  Jamie’s attention was suddenly diverted. He cocked his head to one side when he saw the Heintzman grand piano, reflected in a huge mirror, so it appeared to be two pianos.

  Jamie flew across the room. Tchai tripped lightly behind him, the sleeves of the gown billowing out, so that with her short black hair she looked a bit like a bat.

  Jamie flopped down on the bench, opened the lid with reverence, and took a couple of tentative pokes at the keys.

  Tchai gestured at the sheet music. Jamie flushed.

  “He doesn’t read music.” Hy offered from across the room.

  “Then how does he play?”

  As if on cue, Jamie began to play his new medley of classical hits – CDs Hy had lent him to listen to on the Hall’s ghetto blaster – Chopin, Beethoven, Brahms, Tchaikovsky.

  He could have gone on much longer, but Tchai stopped him.

  “And where and when did you learn these?”

  “This week. At the Hall.”

  “This week?”

  “Yup. Can I play that?” Jamie jumped off the bench and ran across the room to an antique harpsichord, Tchai’s prize possession.

  But the teacher was still stuck on what Jamie had just said.

  “This week? This week? But surely – ” That a child should be playing any of this, much less all of it within a week... The sound of the harpsichord catapulted Tchai across the room, waving her hands, making the gown billow again with that odd bat-like effect.

  “No, no, no – ” And then she stopped. The sound took over. Jamie’s pressure on the keys was exacting, intuitive. This child was too good a musician to harm any instrument. Tchai turned back to Hy and Rose, forgotten in the front of the room.

  “I will take him.”

  Rose beamed. Hy hugged her, and Jamie darted across the room and gave them both the high five.

  But Rose’s smile had turned to a frown.

  “How? When? We haven’t…”

  Tchai waved her objections away. He knew she meant money. He also knew there was something special about this child – more than just the music.

  “For this child, I will work free. His progress will be my reward. After Christmas,” he said,” nodding his head. “After Christmas, we will start.”

  On the way home, they celebrated by eating fish and chips in the truck. Jamie ate and grinned at the same time, stuffing the food into his open mouth, cheeks bulging, hands and mouth shiny with grease.

  Hy could have touched Rose’s pleasure, so strongly did it emanate from her.

  When they got back to the house, Rose invited Hy in for tea. Hy didn’t want to accept, because she could see Fitz was home. Rose saw her hesitation. Her face fell, so Hy accepted. Rose went straight in, while Hy and Jamie dumped the take-out in the compost bin. It was almost empty. Even the scraps were eaten in this house. Sometimes there were only scraps.

  Fitz was pacing the kitchen, around and around the tent, in a rage. When Rose came in, he grabbed her and began sniffing her, like an animal. He wanted to know where she’d been, and if she’d been with someone else. A man.

  Fish, she smelled of fish. Half the population of The Shores smelled of fish. That couldn’t narrow it down. She’d been doing it.

  “Where have you been?” It was an accusation. He grabbed her hand, and secured it behind her back. He pushed her up against the wall. He stuck his face right up against hers. She could smell the cigarettes and the rum on his breath. His lips spread in a sneer, and all she could see was his nicotine-stained teeth.

  “Where did you take my boy?”

  A heavy weight of despair flooded Rose’s brain and flowed through her blood. The giving up. She could feel it as a physical part of her being. She would never be rid of it. She would never be rid of him.

  She slumped to the floor, so she wouldn’t have to smell him or see him. The nasty grin, more like a grimace, that she knew too well. She buried her head in her hands and wished she were anywhere but here, anyone but herself. She could cope with anything but this.

  Hy was shocked when she opened the door. She turned and pushed Jamie back outside. The child should not see this. She pulled him back to the truck.

  “But – ” he protested.

  “You stay here, and I’ll make sure everything’s all right.”

  It wasn’t. But it was not violent. Not yet. Hy slipped back in and felt in her pocket for her cell phone. Perhaps she should phone Jamieson.

  Fitz snorted his contempt, and aimed a kick at Rose. It just missed. “Where is my boy?” he repeated.

  A mouse skittered by Rose, underlining her degradation, and something swelled in her, something that thrust her up off the floor, her face shoved close to his.

  “He’s not your boy.”

  His expression – nasty, sneering – turned ugly, darkness on his brow and in his eyes. He couldn’t speak. He knew it was true. They both knew that Jamie was his mother’s son. The bright, open face. Hers. Clouded now, after her years with Fitz. Not fresh and accepting, the way it had been when it had drawn him to her.

  “I’ll kill you, bitch.”

  “When?” she taunted him.

  “In your sleep.”

  “I never sleep when you’re around.”

  Now she sneered. Her hand slid to a knife on the counter. What she’d said about Jamie was the one thing she could say that would cut into him like a knife, twist his insides. But what she really wanted to do was shove a knife into him. In and out. Not once, but many times.

  “I’ll kill you,” she said through clenched teeth. “Sometime when you’re too drunk to know what’s happening to you.”

  She was becoming just like him.

  Fitz flung himself out of the kitchen, shoved Hy out of the way, and slammed through the door.

  At least Jamie hadn’t seen that.

  But Hy was wrong. He ha
d seen it. He had gone in the front door and through the house to the room next to the kitchen. He’d seen – and heard – as much as Hy had.

  They were both wondering the same thing: what had Rose meant when she said He’s not your boy?

  Hy asked her outright when she came back in the room and put a kettle on to boil. Rose didn’t answer at first.

  “What did you mean?” Hy insisted as she found some clean cups and a box of cookies. The cardboard was shredded in one corner. Mice. Hy put the box back, without opening it.

  “Well, look at him.”

  Jamie lay down inside the tent, crying softly. Rose tried to comfort him, but he pushed her away. His breathing began to change as he surrendered to exhaustion brought on by the excitement of the day and the scene he’d witnessed.

  “He looks like you.”

  “Exactly. Jamie’s my boy. That’s what I meant.”

  “And did Fitz mean it when he said he’d kill you?”

  “No, he says that all the time.”

  “And you? Do you?”

  “I’ve never said it before.”

  “You didn’t mean it.” Hy’s tone and eyes begged for confirmation.

  Rose took a quick look in Jamie’s direction. The child was fully asleep on the floor of the tent.

  “I did,” she said softly. “I meant it.”

  What a life, Hy thought as she poured the water into the teapot. Sensing her disapproval, Rose said one more thing.

  “If you only knew.”

  As they sipped their tea, Rose, with a quiet strength, refused to answer Hy’s questions about what that meant.

  But Hy was pretty sure she knew what it meant. As she climbed into her truck in the darkening late afternoon, she thought about the ugly, brutal life Rose and Jamie were living. It doesn’t require details. Let Rose hide behind a veil of mystery.

  That’s all it was. A veil. Anyone could see through it.

  The rain continued into the night. If the temperature would only fall, there would be snow, glorious white fluffy snow that would make the village, with its lights, look enchanted, something out of a fairy tale.

  Not now. The lights dripped with water, tree branches drooped, overburdened with the weight of decoration and dousing. Red clay splattered on cars, houses, people; sump pumps grated in cellars flooded with water.

  A moonless night fell. Dispirited lights did their best to twinkle. Santa and his reindeer should have been cheerful atop the Hall roof, but looked ridiculous and out of place.

  Hy was drying out in front of Ian’s woodstove after the dramatic scene at Wild Rose Cottage. Even though she was now dry, she shivered at what she had seen.

  “She was holding a knife. He threatened to kill her. And she him. I thought of alerting Jamieson. But I didn’t want both of them, certainly not Rose, charged with uttering threats.”

  Ian picked up the brandy and refreshed her glass. He sat down on the floor beside her, feeling it in his legs. Why she always sat on the floor, he didn’t know.

  “You did the right thing,” he said. “You don’t want to get in the way of a domestic dispute.”

  “What if either of them does something?”

  “It’s not your worry. I wouldn’t worry Jamieson with it either.” Ian thought of Jamieson. That sleek forbidding look of hers. He’d like to get that black hair down out of its bun and run his fingers through it. He loved hair. Perhaps because he had so little of his own.

  Ian liked Hy’s hair, too. That red gold colour. But it was so curly, you couldn’t run your fingers through it. Not that he’d tried. All he’d ever done was pick up a stray curl and wind it around his finger.

  He did that now.

  The lights in the living room automatically dimmed. Ian had them on a timer, and right now, the timing was perfect. Quite accidental, but perfect.

  Hy leaned into him.

  It felt good to both of them.

  Chapter Fourteen

  “I have come.”

  No one stranger had ever knocked at Moira Toombs’ door.

  Oliver Sullivan was wearing a fur coat – and cats. One, sleek, white, almost Egyptian, was draped around his neck, drawing warmth from the folds of fat that circled under his chin and all the way around the back of his head. The folds formed a ledge that the slim cat had attached himself to, winding, with the fat around Oliver’s neck. The other cat was a big ginger, lazy, smiling and purring. Oliver held it in his arms, supported by his vast belly.

  As soon as Moira opened the door, the cats became alert. The ginger jumped down and strolled into the house as if it were his. He began to sniff at the baseboards. White unwound himself slowly from Oliver’s neck, eyes half-open, stretched, first front legs, then back, licked a paw, and melted down Oliver, slithering across his belly and onto the floor, landing as silent as a fly.

  “Mice?” Oliver asked a shocked Moira.

  Cats, thought Moira. He’d asked if there were any cats. She assumed that meant he didn’t like them, or was allergic to them. He’d booked for his “small family.” When Moira emailed back: “How many children?” he’d responded, “None.” So she’d thought he was coming with his wife.

  “No,” she answered, her back stiffening, offended by the question. “No mice.”

  “Good,” said Oliver, setting down his suitcase. “Oscar hates mice.”

  Moira rang a bell on the small table and Billy appeared. They’d rehearsed this. She made a gesture and he picked up the suitcase and reached for another small one still in Oliver’s hand. Oliver resisted.

  “Which cat is Oscar?” Moira asked as if she were interested. She hated cats. She hadn’t thought to put a “no pets” condition in her online ad. It would be the next thing she did, as soon as she got this one into his room.

  Oliver smiled, a big, benign Buddha smile. He chuckled. He opened the small case in his hand. Whiskers and a pointy nose appeared, sniffed in every direction, and the pet jumped out of the case into Oliver’s arms.

  “This is Oscar,” he beamed, tickling the whiskers.

  A rat. Moira and Billy were horrified. You didn’t bring rats into the house. That was just the wrong way around.

  “Oh, I know what you’re thinking, but Oscar won’t bother you. Member of the family. White and Ginger love him.” As if to prove it, White jumped up onto Oliver and nuzzled Oscar.

  Moira understood now why Oliver had asked if there were cats in the house. Most would think Oscar was a meal.

  “I’ll keep Oscar caged – as a courtesy. It’s not really necessary. I’ll take him with me when I’m out, although he doesn’t like the cold. I found Oscar in the bookstore I purchased. Heard him scratching in the Wilde section, and removed a book – The Importance of Being Earnest – to find a white rat. A rat with breeding and good taste. Wilde is my favourite author. Thus the name.” He tickled Oscar under the chin and stroked his whiskers.

  Moira wasn’t listening. She was thinking about her mother’s quilt. How would she be able to get it off the bed without his seeing? And the rug. Would the cats pee on it?

  She’d just have to swallow it – him and his menagerie. He was her first customer. He was paying well – full, not off-season rates – and his stay might be lengthy. She could use the money over Christmas.

  She showed him to the room.

  “Delightful. Charming,” he said, the cats circling around his feet. “What a wonderful quilt.” The Log Cabin pattern, not in the usual dismal greys and browns, but soft old shades of red and green and yellow. White and Ginger showed their approval by jumping on it and kneading, circling, finding a spot, deciding on another spot, beginning the kneading again. Ginger jumped down and began clawing at the hooked rug. Moira winced.

  Oliver set Oscar down on the bed, and removed his fur coat. Underneath he was dressed in a navy blue silk robe.

  A man
in a dress.

  What next, thought Moira.

  When he pulled the jeweled sandals out of his suitcase and slipped them on, she had her answer.

  Nathan didn’t get much call for taxi service in winter. His eight-seater was used mostly in the summer, taking tourists to and from the ferry. Most tourists didn’t drive over the causeway. They liked the ferry. It satisfied their notions of the laid-back east-coast life. It was an old river ferry borrowed from another province and it only took eight cars per trip, so there was always a wait. Visitors relished that, too, as part of the Red Island experience, an experience no longer available from the mainland, since the train tunnel had replaced the ferry across the Sunderland Strait.

  Two of Nathan’s businesses were dependent on the ferry – a snack, coffee, and souvenir stand at the docking area and the ferry shuttle service. His other businesses were seasonal, too: lawn-mowing and snowplowing. Without snow, he had nothing much to do. For Nathan, that was agony. He was always on the move, always up to something. He burst with excess energy, his feet constantly tapping, his hands drumming tables, the steering wheel – anywhere they landed.

  He was relieved when he got some pre-Christmas business.

  “A fella staying at Toombs is going to pay me fifty bucks an hour to be on call,” he yelled in the direction of the kitchen.

  No answer.

  Nathan went into the kitchen. No Lili.

  “Did you hear me?” He yelled in the direction of the living room.

  “Ommmmmmmmm.”

  Probably not.

  Nathan peeked his head around the door frame. Lili was pretzeled on the living room floor, slim legs in the lotus position, slender back straight, long neck swept by a neat bob of black hair that required monthly trips to Charlottetown. Her hands were resting on her knees, thumb and index fingers lightly touching.

  “Ommmmmm.” It was a big deep sound from such a tiny frame. It vibrated and circled the room. “Ommmmmm.” The volume rose. So did the vibration.

  “Ommmmm.”