Cod Only Knows
Page 10
“Nothing there,” said Hy.
“Well, I’ll be.” Gus turned to Jamieson. “They’re both gone.”
“So then we don’t know if the one we found is his?”
“I reckon not.”
It was, perhaps, a clue to where Abel had gone. Across the causeway. He’d spent some time, an overnight maybe, at his shack on Montgomery Shore. Jamieson still had no clue where he was now.
Why had he headed for the causeway? Where had he gone from there, without the bike? Was it another wild goose chase? A hunter in his youth, Abel knew all about that. But he’d always been the hunter, not the hunted.
***
Be my guest.
The man had said: Be my guest.
But was he a guest? Or was he a prisoner?
He didn’t know where he was, or how he’d got there. He didn’t find that particularly unusual. It seemed to be happening to him more and more. Nothing was clear, defined. Everything happened in a haze he couldn’t see through or think through. So, here he was, and he didn’t know why.
It was a comfortable enough place. He sat on the bed. It was much better than his bed at home. There was a reason for that. He and the missus had lain on that mattress for fifty years. She’d always been heavier than he, so it sloped in one direction, no matter how many times it had been turned or flipped. He was always rolling into her. Perhaps that’s why they’d had so many kids.
The apartment was a suite acquired forty years before by the federal government as a place to house visiting personnel working on medium-term projects on Red Island. Back then, you couldn’t hope to find a place to stay on the island from the start until the end of summer. Everything was booked, down to the last farmhouse, where farmers and their wives would vacate their summer bedroom, the living room sofa bed, and sleep in the kitchen, to give desperate tourists a place for the night. Abel and Gus had done it many times.
Now was different. Too many rooms. Too many resorts and high-end accommodations. The fear was no longer having enough beds, but having too many.
It all made this place look shabby, not that he cared. It was comfortable enough. He plunked himself down in an armchair, swung his boots up onto the glass table, and wondered again – what was he doing here?
Did it have something to do with the fish? Had he brought that up himself? Or had the other guy? Where was he, that man? Who was he? What did he want? He kept asking himself the same questions, kept getting no answers.
He pulled the ducky cup out of his pink knapsack. He wondered again where the knapsack came from, but it was familiar. At least he had the mug, something solid to grasp, to hold onto, a reminder of home, even if home was blurry in his mind at the moment. What had happened to his mind?
He knew what would clear it out. A cup of coffee. There was plenty of that. He wasn’t used to making it himself, but he thought he knew how. He poured coffee into the well on top of the machine and water into the jug. He put the jug on the hot plate, turned the machine on and turned his attention to the food. There was lots of it, on the table and in the mini-fridge, including his favourite cinnamon rolls, the ones made with lots of cinnamon. He ate two of them before he realized he couldn’t smell the coffee. He looked over at the machine. The jug sat on the plate, still plain water. He got up, but couldn’t figure it out, so he put a couple of tablespoons of coffee in his mug and poured hot water into it out of the tap. He sat down, smug. He wasn’t supposed to have coffee this late at night, after 6:00 p.m. Both his wife and his doctor said so. They weren’t here now. Only he was. And he was here, because – he didn’t know. He went back to the questions. Was he a guest? Or a prisoner?
He took a swig of the coffee. Spat it across the room; dots of brown splattered on the cream broadloom.
***
The posters of Abel were becoming tattered and torn, wet from the heavy dew that fell in late August, the ink from the jet printer streaking, making it appear as if the search was long over and had failed. New posters went up, but not for the missing Abel. They were offering work at the cat shelter.
Billy Pride yanked one down and went to fetch his girlfriend Madeline. Madeline was Moira’s browbeaten younger sister. She and Billy were trying to save to get married, and to get Madeline out from under Moira’s thumb. Billy was glad Moira wasn’t home and couldn’t make an objection.
The two set off for the cattery on Billy’s lawn tractor, his mode of transportation. They pulled down all the cattery posters along the Island Way.
They were shoo-ins. Letitia liked them right away for their youth and energy, two attributes she did not possess. She looked up at Billy, tall, strong, impossibly handsome. She looked down at Madeline, tiny but cheerful, with an aura of willingness.
“I’ll show you around, and you decide if you can do the job. It’s not really that hard, but I don’t have the strength to do anything.” She took them into the barn.
The cat shelter occupied almost the full size of the barn, three storeys high, surrounded by pet screening and built on top of an enclosed space.
“Why’s it so high up from the ground?” Madeline and Billy climbed the stairs after Letitia, who was out of breath by the time they reached the top.
“That’s to accommodate the litter-cleaning system.” Letitia pointed at what appeared to be a series of sandboxes lined down the middle of the shelter. Several cats were scraping around inside them. Others were doing their business outside, in corners and on sleeping pads.
Madeline pointed at the sandboxes. “What are those?”
“Automatic composting cat toilets.”
“They look clean for cat boxes. For this many cats.” Billy observed.
“My husband, Brock, is an engineering wizard. He designed them and we had them built.”
“They slide out every half hour.” Ferguson had come up behind them, beaming at his own cleverness. “They sift the clumping wheat litter, undergo a cleaning and refresher, and slide back fresh. The waste drops under the floor and then slides into a chute that delivers it to a container where, over time, it breaks down into compost. Usable compost.”
“Wow.” Billy’s eyes were full of admiration.
“The only thing humans have to touch is the bags of wheat litter to fill the chutes.” Ferguson pointed to dozens of large bags on the upper storey of the barn, around a balcony. “There’s a dumbwaiter to get the bags up there. The removal is like pulling out a drawer, after it’s become clean, usable compost. The most expensive compost in the world.” Bitterness edged his tone of self-satisfaction.
“It’s not perfect.” Letitia jumped at the grinding sound coming from the mechanism as it prepared to begin its half-hourly job. Cats went flying in every direction.
“They hate the sound.” There was despair in her voice. “I’ve asked Brock if we can do something about that.”
“They’ll get used to it,” he frowned. “You can’t have everything.” He turned and stomped down the stairs.
“I would have preferred something less high-tech,” Letitia whispered, watching to see that Ferguson was out of range. “Some of the cats want nothing to do with it, and I’ve had to put out regular trays of litter for them. Then there are those who are so upset by it, they won’t use any litter at all. I guess it’s a problem in all shelters, though. So you’d have to deal with that. I hope you’re not squeamish.”
They visited the cats, most of whom disappeared at the arrival of the strangers. Letitia took Billy and Madeline into the house and kitchen and outlined their duties and hours. Letitia was generous because she wanted her helpers to have every reason to be good to her cats. Billy and Madeline did the math on how soon this new source of money would allow them to get married, and smiled.
“I’m hoping to make this a chain. I’ve certainly got the money to establish a large, far-reaching charitable organization. I’m thinking of a name for it. It will h
ave an endowment of course. A sizable endowment.” She reached into the fridge and pulled out a couple of cans of soda, offering them to Billy and Madeline.
“You never said anything about this to me,” Ferguson’s booming voice preceded him into the room. The word “endowment” had brought him in.
“It came to me recently, dear. I haven’t thought it all out.”
“Obviously not. What about your health?”
“I’m hoping that will improve here.”
“In spite of the smoke?”
“When the smoke goes.”
Madeline frowned at this exchange. She wasn’t the brightest of lights, but she knew when someone was undermining someone else. Her sister Moira had been doing it to her all her life. She couldn’t imagine Billy being mean to her like that, and she’d never dream of being that way to him.
Billy popped his soda and reached over to toss the tab in the garbage he assumed was under the sink. Ferguson grabbed it out of his hand and growled:
“We don’t throw those out here.” He indicated the bucket.
“And we keep track.” He indicated the felt marker tied to the bucket handle.
Billy shrugged, tossed the tab in the bucket, and left it to Ferguson to strike a mark on the bucket.
Billy was a big boy with a prodigious appetite and thirst. He emptied the can in one huge gulp.
Then he squeezed it.
“Hope you don’t save these, too.”
Ferguson stalked out of the room.
“Only for the recycling,” Letitia said, taking the can from him with a kind expression.
Chapter 16
As the old man squeezed into the helicopter, the wind brushed off his Tilley hat. His hand went flying to the top of his head, and panic etched across his face as he turned and watched the hat bounce across the tarmac. He tried to get out, but Seamus pushed him in and shoved a sou’wester onto his head, wondering if he should go chasing after the Tilley hat to prevent it from being found, from being recognized, from becoming bait for law enforcement. He was too fat and lazy to do it. Besides, what distinguishes one Tilley from another? The fact that this one looked like it had been eaten by an elephant? The hat might be found, but the link to the old man might not necessarily be made. He watched with satisfaction as the hat nestled at the base of a stand of spruce, their branches, raised by the wind, now descending and almost entirely covering the hat.
But not entirely.
Not so much that a pair of sharp eyes couldn’t ferret it out. And did. She scooped up the hat as she watched the helicopter fly out of sight.
Moments too late. Moments.
Where were they going?
The circles. They’d be going to the circles.
***
Billy and Madeline turned out to be perfect caretakers of the cats. If they had any faults, it was that they were too fond of them. Madeline would have taken them all home with her, but she couldn’t adopt even one. Moira complained when Madeline came home, that she smelled of those “filthy creatures.” Moira swore that her house still smelled of cat years after a tourist had brought two with him.
“A wonder that woman up there can take a breath. You can hear her coughing out on the road. She’ll be allergic to the cats, that’s what. I’ve seen it plenty of times. I know what I’m talking about. You don’t need a doctor to tell you that.”
Madeline shrank away from Moira’s sour comments, kept her head low, and escaped to her bedroom.
“At least she’ll be earning her keep,” Moira had said to her husband Fred. She was planning to take Madeline’s pay and give her a small amount back each week as pocket money.
The truth was that Madeline’s “keep” was covered, as was Moira’s, by the money their father had saved and invested over the years, a man careful and clever with his cash. He’d been a garbage man, or “sanitation expert,” as Moira preferred to say. Actually, in his last years he’d been demoted to what the villagers called a “garbage picker.” He was one of the guys who rode around in the Waste Watcher van, opening people’s big black bins to check that they were sticking to the rules and not throwing out recyclables as waste. He’d leave a “ticket,” indicating where they’d gone wrong, and, if not, a colourful card that cried out, “Good Job!” Moira had a basket full of the good tickets on display in her mudroom. She considered her father had played a vital role in protecting the island environment, and she was proud he’d had to know how to read to do it. He was also good at math and totting up the dollars in his bank account so his daughters would never go wanting. They had a joint interest in the house and the bank account, but still little Madeline could call none of it truly her own.
***
Seamus wasn’t sure how it had happened, how they had come to the agreement, but somehow, they had, with so few words between himself and The Hat Man, as he had begun to call his hostage. Hostage. He’d begun to call him that, too, because that’s what he was, wasn’t he? A hostage. At least until they found the fish. And then what? That was bothering him more, the more he thought about it. Then what?
After all these years, he didn’t imagine that it would be the same fish. Of course not. He wondered what the chances were that the conditions that had created that massive cod existed at all – or only had for a brief time. What sign would there be of it? The Hat Man seemed to think there was a sign, a sign in the water that the fish were there. Circles, he’d said. The same as those websites. Circles of giant fish. How difficult would it be to find them?
Seamus shrugged his shoulders. A three-hundred-pound fish would have a hard time hiding.
It had to be done in a hurry. The boss would be back any day. Just like her to say she wasn’t sure when she’d return. Seamus knew, they all knew, that it was a tactic to keep them on their toes.
***
“She’s a fish-plant worker as won the lottery. Him, I don’t know.”
The monthly meeting of the Women’s Institute had gone off the rails even before Gus had made that comment. Somehow, it had turned into a town meeting, with men present, unsure as to exactly why they had gathered there.
Gus had brought a copy of The Guardian, Red Island’s number one newspaper: “covers the island like the dew.”
An article headlined “She Caught The Big One – Three Times!” told the story of Letitia’s record-setting three consecutive lottery wins, each in the millions, and the fact that she and her husband now resided in Red Island and ran a cat shelter.
The women passed the paper around.
“I don’t care how much money they got, or where they got it from, it’s not right, bringin’ all them cats as don’t belong here, here.” Gladys Fraser, President of the Women’s Institute, spoke first, as she usually did.
Hy nudged Annabelle. “Coals to Newcastle.”
“And she’s the head collier,” Annabelle whispered back.
It was a stretch for anyone to support Gladys, but they were all cowed by her pugnacious attitude, her fists balled up like rocks, her chin thrust forward, determined to get her way. The fact that she had a barn full of cats of various pedigrees – none of them noteworthy – didn’t escape them. They were all well aware of it, the overflow often spilling into their own barns and sheds. None of them dared say anything about it.
Besides, she was right. These new cats were “from away.”
Hy scooped up Whacky, who’d come in on her heels. Gladys gave them a belligerent glance, then softened slightly, when the obvious Fraser pedigree showed itself in the all-black back, all-white front that made Whacky into what Hy sometimes called “two, two, two cats in one.” Like a breath mint. Whacky’s breath more often smelled of fish than mint – except when she’d been into the catnip that grew behind the police house. Hy found it amusing. A drug for cats on law enforcement property.
“The municipality can’t allow this.”
/> “What municipality?” Hy challenged.
Gladys looked offended. She took disagreement, and many other things, as a personal affront. Like the time she smashed her car into the historic site sign in front of the hall. Hy had watched the whole thing, finding it hard not to laugh. When the sign had reared up in front of Gladys, Gladys had looked insulted. It was obviously the sign’s fault, not hers.
Just like now.
“Well, this one. This municipality.”
“This is not a municipality.”
Dead silence. Even Whacky seemed uncomfortable, squirming in Hy’s arms, then digging her claws into Hy’s breast, so that Hy, with a wince of pain, let her go. Unafraid of Gladys’s bellicose demeanour, the little cat trotted up to her, sniffed her shoes, made a spraying motion, then turned and breezed across the room and out the door as Billy Pride and Madeline Toombs came in. They were late as usual, having grabbed the chance for some snuggling while Moira and her husband were out.
The silence continued, until April Dewey coughed. Moira Toombs cleared her throat. Gladys started up again.
“It’s a rural municipality.”
“No such thing.” Hy was wondering why she had got into this ridiculous war of words with Gladys. The woman was wrong, but she’d never admit it.
“What do you mean, no such thing…?”
“Rural municipality. It’s an oxymoron.”
Gladys turned bright red.
“There’s no need to call names.”
“I said oxy-moron.” Hy emphasized the first part of the word, but she should have known that wouldn’t explain its meaning to Gladys. It was like shouting to communicate with someone who didn’t speak your language.
“And I said rural municipality. What’s wrong with that?”
“Municipality means city, town, borough, burg, if you will.”
“Burger? What’s this got to do with food?”
There was a giggle, a few titters, followed by one outright laugh from Ian, who now began to feel peckish.