by L. R. Wright
“Surprised. Yes.” Stewart lifted his coffee cup with a hand that shook slightly. Alberg figured he had to be more than eighty and was entitled to a hand that shook. The old man sipped his coffee and carefully replaced the cup on its saucer. “Certainly. Shocked, in fact.”
“But you agreed to see her.”
“Not at first. But—she was my daughter, after all. I lay awake that night, and... She was my daughter. So the next time she came...we talked.”
“Did you like her?”
Stewart thought about this. “I don’t know. It was uncomfortable. We hadn’t gotten past the stage where she asked questions and I answered them.” His eyes were watery behind the spectacles he wore. “Tell me about her daughter. She must be all grown up.” He blinked and looked away.
Alberg glanced at his notebook. “So you saw Maria half a dozen times, and then she just stopped calling. Right?”
“That’s right.”
“Why didn’t you call her?”
Stewart hesitated. “I think I was relieved,” he said unhappily. “We hadn’t had time to get to know each other. And she complicated things with Harry. So when she stopped calling me, I decided to let it go.”
“Who’s Harry?”
“Harry’s my son.” He announced this flatly. Gloomily.
“Your son.”
“I didn’t want to tell him about Maria. I knew he’d take it badly.”
Alberg looked around the room, at the paintings and sculptures clustered in this house that was itself worth a couple of million bucks. “And did he?”
“I told him she was my travel agent.” Stewart smiled, his face rearranging itself in a sea of wrinkles. “But finally I had to tell him the truth. He didn’t like it much. He was an only child all his life, of course. Didn’t like the idea of having a sibling.” He shuddered. “Thank God she didn’t show up while my wife was alive.”
“Does Harry live with you?”
Stewart looked shocked. “Good God, no, of course he doesn’t.”
“You’re on your own here, then?”
“Yes. But I get help, now, with the house, and the grounds. Not from Harry. Good God, no.”
“Where can I find your son, Mr. Stewart?”
Chapter 32
“YOUR FATHER AND I were married in my mother’s garden,” said Helen Mitchell.
“I know,” said Cassandra.
“A minister performed the ceremony, of course. He was my father’s cousin, I think. A Methodist. Or was he Presbyterian? I can’t remember now. It doesn’t matter, because at some point they all got lumped together. Most of them, anyway. And called themselves the United Church.”
They were sitting in Helen Mitchell’s room at Shady Acres. Cassandra had interrupted a game of gin rummy in the lounge in order to give her mother the news in private. Helen seemed pleased enough, if a bit distracted.
“I wish I were still on my own, Cassandra,” she said now. “I’d like to take care of the reception for you. Bake the wedding cake. Host the rehearsal dinner.”
“Oh, Mother...”
“But then these tasks get divided, don’t they, between the bride’s family and the groom’s. I can’t remember who does what, it’s been such a long time since Graham and Millie got married. I’ll have to look it up.”
“Mother, please, it’s not going to be that kind of an event. We don’t want a wedding cake. And believe me, there’ll be nothing to rehearse. Are you sure you don’t want to go out for a while?” Her mother usually took advantage of every opportunity to leave Shady Acres, if only for a couple of hours.
“I don’t think so,” said Helen. “I’m a little tired today.” Her room was crowded with possessions. Mismatched bookcases lined the walls and were filled with bric-a-brac and photos in frames as well as books. On the dresser, perfume bottles were neatly aligned, brushes and combs, too. There was a small rug next to the bed and a long narrow one leading from the doorway. Cassandra found it exceedingly depressing that her mother’s bed, though covered in a bright spread and laden with cushions, was still a hospital bed, and that the bathroom had two mirrors, one at wheelchair height, and that there were two emergency bellpulls, one near the bed, the other next to the toilet. Her mother must expend a lot of energy ignoring these things, she thought, and focusing instead on the bay window looking out into the garden.
“I’m very pleased about this, Cassandra.” Cassandra turned to see that her mother was smiling at her. “I like him. I think you’re good for each other.” Helen Mitchell leaned against the headrest of her easy chair and looked out the window at the rain that leaked incessantly from the dreary sky. “Are you staying for tea?” she asked.
Cassandra looked at her watch. “No, if you don’t want to go anywhere, I think I’ll get back to work.”
“Is it likely to happen before Christmas, do you think?” asked her mother.
“I doubt it. We haven’t really talked about it yet, Mom, but I don’t think we could get ourselves organized that quickly.”
“Then you and I could still go to Edmonton for Christmas?”
There was nothing, absolutely nothing, that Cassandra wanted to do less. But she discovered now that she had almost resigned herself to it. “Maybe. We’ll see.” She kissed Helen’s cheek. “I’m off. I’ll see you Friday.”
“We’ll have to go to town, you and I,” said Helen, suddenly animated. “Shopping.”
“Why? Shopping for what?”
“Why, for a dress! A wedding dress!”
Cassandra wondered if people her age ever eloped.
***
“Could we go outside, maybe?” said Belinda.
Alberg peered out his office window at the rain. He looked at his watch: he’d been given the name of the restaurant in West Vancouver where Harry Stewart had dinner every day and was intent upon tracking him down there. “Tell you what,” he said to Belinda. “I’m going to catch the three-thirty ferry, but I’ve got time for a coffee first.”
“Thanks,” she said a few minutes later as the proprietor of Earl’s Café and Catering set two mugs of coffee on the table. “I hope you don’t mind,” she said to Alberg. “I just hate that police station, for some reason.”
“I don’t mind. I’m not all that fond of it myself.”
“I was rude when you came to the house to talk to me.” She looked him in the eyes, and again he felt enveloped by an authority incongruous in one so young. It fascinated him. She was a little uncomfortable with the effect she had on people, he figured, because she often averted her eyes, never looking at anyone directly for long.
“That’s okay,” he said.
“No, it isn’t. My mother—” Her voice faltered for a moment, then was strong again. “She used to say that good manners was what kept the world oiled and running.”
“I think my mother would agree with her.”
“Is your mother still alive?”
“Yes. I’m sorry.”
Belinda laughed. “Don’t be sorry.”
“I’m not, I meant—”
“I know what you meant.” She poured a great deal of sugar into her coffee and stirred. “Does she live here?”
“No. She lives in London. Ontario.”
Belinda took a napkin from the chrome container that sat on the table between the sugar bowl and the salt and pepper shakers. “I’ve been going over it in my mind, that day that I saw her on the road. Reliving it, you know? Not on purpose. I just couldn’t get it out of my head. But then I realized, there was something funny about it.”
Alberg was listening politely, but his mind was on Alan Stewart’s son.
“So today I really concentrated. I—it was like I was hypnotizing myself. Because there was something stuck in my memory, that I’d been ignoring.”
“What?” said Alberg, checking the time.
She leaned toward him, across the table.
“There was somebody there.”
Alberg shook his head. “I don’t understand. There was someb
ody where?”
“In the bushes. A man. Watching.”
Chapter 33
“I THINK WE SHOULD go take a look around,” Alberg said to Belinda. “Are you game?”
“Now?”
“Sure. Why not?”
“I thought you had to catch a ferry.” He was as tall as Raymond, but bigger. Some of it was fat, but most of it wasn’t. His hair was blond, and his eyes reminded her of her father. But the thing that interested Belinda most was that he looked open and sympathetic—so that you felt like telling him things—without giving away anything about himself. He was either very confident, she thought, or very guarded.
“I’ll catch a later one.” He put money on the table for the coffee, and they left the café.
He parked outside the place where the seaplanes landed on Porpoise Bay, and they walked up the road toward Belinda’s father’s house. At the maple tree, she stopped.
“She was behind this tree,” she told him, feeling somewhat breathless. “When I came around that bend up there, she stepped out from behind this tree. I must have known who she was right away, because I was so shocked that I stopped walking. And that’s when she pulled off this kerchief thing she had over her head and I saw that all her hair had turned gray.”
She couldn’t speak for a minute and had to turn away. This was much harder than she had imagined. Finally she cleared her throat and looked up the rise at the spot where she had stood, riveted, staring at her mother.
“Then what?” said Alberg.
“I ran away, like I told you before. I was going to run back to Dad’s house. But then I changed my mind. I stood in the road up there, thinking, and then I ran back. But she was gone.”
“Show me what you did then,” he said.
Belinda walked fifty yards or so up the road and turned around. She stood still for a few seconds and then ran to the maple tree. She pressed the palms of her hands against the tree trunk and touched it with her fingertips. She remembered thinking that the tree might know something—like where her mother had gone—and maybe she had thought she could read its message there, the way blind people read Braille.
She stepped back, looked down, and squatted to inspect the ground. Then she stood up and looked toward the parking lot, hidden by a bend in the road. “I was thinking that she must have a car, and that if I hurried, maybe I could catch her before she drove away—” She began to run. “And when I got here—” She stopped and held out her hand, pointing, but didn’t turn her head. “That’s where he was hiding. I know he was there. I felt him.”
Alberg walked toward her, and together they looked into the thicket of blackberry bushes. It was taller than either Belinda or the policeman, and maybe five feet across. “Yeah,” he said. “Something’s been in here, anyway.” He went closer. Belinda smelled ripe blackberries. She peered over his shoulder and saw that something had pressed hard against the vines; several were broken. Alberg got down on his haunches and examined the ground, where vines and berries lay.
“Are there footprints?” Belinda asked hopefully.
“Nope.” He stood up. “Not exactly. Nothing that we can use. But somebody’s been in there all right.” He looked at Belinda thoughtfully. “Where’s Raymond, Belinda?”
“Up the coast. He’ll be back later today.”
“What about your dad?”
“He’s at the store. Why?”
“I want you to stay with your dad until Raymond gets home,” he said. “I’m sure there’s nothing to worry about. But I’d feel better. Okay?”
1987
Chapter 34
“ARE YOU SERIOUSLY considering going on some kind of a trip?” Harry asked the day before Labor Day, in his father’s living room.
His father did some shifting around on his chair, which Harry found interesting. The old man mumbled something.
“What? What did you say?”
“I said I’m thinking about it,” said his father loudly.
Harry didn’t like it that there was this younger woman in his father’s life. It was an eventuality that he wouldn’t have imagined in his wildest dreams. Shit, the old man might end up rejuvenated.
Harry sat down, rubbing his thighs, which ached. He didn’t know why, but they often ached, and so did his back and one of his shoulders. It’s age, is what it is, he told himself. He’d be a doddery crippled old fool himself before he got to spend his inheritance. “Maybe you shouldn’t,” he said. “You’re getting kinda old to travel, don’t you think?”
His father looked at him dead on, not squirming, not mumbling, clear-eyed and contemptuous. Harry realized that they disliked each other. Usually he stepped around this knowledge—not ignoring it, exactly: aware of it, but not concentrating on it, staying out of trouble; like you avoid making eye contact with a big hostile dog. And his father normally did this, too. Harry was a little unnerved by his father’s uncharacteristically steady gaze and after a minute dropped his eyes. Which capitulation caused his usually well-banked anger to sputter to life.
Harry couldn’t afford to get angry. So he got up and walked outside through the sliding doors onto the patio and around the house, up the stairs, through the rock garden, and across the grass to the gazebo. He sat on the bench with his hands clasped between his knees, rocking back and forth, fixing his mind upon memories of his mother, trying to smother his anger with them; for she had been a soothing presence in his life.
After a while he lay full length upon the bench, his hands under his head, legs crossed at the ankles. He looked up at the roses that had grown through the latticework and distracted himself by trying to remember—without looking down at himself—what clothes he was wearing today. He recalled that he’d wakened that morning feeling hot and sweaty. It was almost noon, and the sun was shining directly upon him; he’d forgotten to close the curtains. He’d turned to look at the clock, aware of lots of aches and pains, untangled himself from sheets and blankets, and stumbled in his underwear to the bathroom. Thought about having a shower, decided against it. In the kitchen he’d put the kettle on for instant coffee and leaned on the refrigerator door, looking inside. He found nothing appetizing there, nor in the cupboards, either. Cereal but no milk. Bread but no butter. Orange juice—but the thought of drinking orange juice curdled his stomach.
Let’s see, he thought: what had he done next? Decided to go out for breakfast. Back to the bedroom...and he’d climbed into the clothes he’d thrown onto the chair the night before, which were white cotton pants and a B.C. Lions T-shirt. “Shit,” said Harry, lifting his head to look down at himself. Yeah. White pants, you shouldn’t wear them more than one day, they were creased and grubby-looking. The T-shirt was okay. He ran his fingers over his hair and wished he’d done the morning thing better. No wonder the old man wasn’t impressed.
Harry went back into the house, where his father was sitting in what used to be Harry’s bedroom, centuries ago, when he still lived at home. Now there was a TV in there, and some bookcases, and a desk where his dad sometimes sat scrawling handwritten letters or adding up figures with the help of a calculator he’d gotten free with a subscription to TV Guide. The old man had the TV on, and he was watching Jeopardy! He didn’t notice Harry in the doorway.
So Harry backed off to check out the kitchen. Frozen waffles. Tins of chicken noodle soup. The old man had programmed himself like a robot, eating exactly the same thing for breakfast and exactly the same thing for lunch every day of the week. Except, thought Harry, remembering, when he eats out. He wondered how often that happened, now that his father had a girlfriend. He sat down at the kitchen table to think.
It occurred to him that his father might go loopy over this woman, maybe even marry her. Jesus Christ.
He returned to what his father called his den and said, “You’re short on supplies. Want me to pick you up some groceries?”
The old man’s attention remained fixed on the TV. “No, thanks.”
“What’re your plans for supper?” Harry was dete
rmined to remain relaxed and cheerful.
“Don’t have any.”
“Mind if I have a drink?”
His father shrugged. “Suit yourself.”
Harry went back to the kitchen and looked in the fridge for beer, finally settled for Scotch and water. He slugged down half his drink, topped it up, and wandered back down the hall. He leaned on the door frame, watching his father watch Alec Trebek. At the next commercial break he said, “I’m sorry I’m not more presentable.”
His father looked at him. “What?”
“It’s not respectful to show up at somebody’s place looking like this.” He spread his arms and looked down at himself, assuming an expression of distaste. “I didn’t even think,” Harry went on. “Just grabbed the first clothes that came to hand. I was in pain, you see,” he said confidingly.
“In pain,” his father repeated.
“Yeah. It’s my gut. I get indigestion attacks.”
“Indigestion. “
“Yeah. Sometimes it’s real bad. But—hey. There’s worse things.” He grinned broadly at his parent. “So. How about I go out and pick us up some Chinese?”
***
He returned with the food just as the Sunday night movie was starting. It was one he’d seen, but he pretended he hadn’t, pretended to be rapt, with his father, pretended not to know that Jeff Bridges really had done it. When the movie was over he cleared away the dishes, rinsed them, and loaded the dishwasher.
Alan watched from the doorway. Harry was almost merrily ovoid in shape, with a small narrow head, narrow shoulders, swelling gut, flabby thighs, small feet. He had a high forehead, and his black hair, clipped short, was nonetheless almost always greasy. His eyes were unfriendly.
“What do you want, Harry?”
His son turned, startled. “What do you mean?”
“First you try to bully me, now you’re all sweetness and light. What are you after?”
Harry folded the dishcloth and put it on the counter. “You want some decaf?”