Gone to Pot

by Jennifer Craig

  I’d really done it now. There was no going back. Marcus had been hammering away in the basement and I now had another room in my house. A grow room. I was in a movie and I would shortly go to a dressing room, take off my costume and come out as Jess. The old Jess. The sober, upright, hard-working waitress.

  Now what was I? A criminal, that’s what I was. Oh, get off it. You’re just the same. You’re doing something you’ve never done before, that’s all. It’s exciting, that’s what it is. A new venture; one that will give you some money. Yeah. And now I had a secret. The last time I had a secret was at school when Jeannie Robertson and I spent our dinner money on pork pies and cigarettes, which we ate and smoked in the local park. I wish I had someone to share my secret with, other than Marcus and Swan, someone I could exchange knowing glances with or discuss types of marijuana and how to grow them.

  What was the worst that could happen? I could go to jail. Then I wouldn’t have to worry about money. I would be kept in relative comfort but behind bars, that’s all. I could get on with my cross-stitch and knitting. I’d end up with a criminal record, but so what at my age? Better than ending up as a starving bag lady who had to use food banks.

  Feeling better, I entered the cooler pool and joined the others who had gathered in one recess. Claire was tugging at the crotch of her swimsuit. “I just got this from the Thrift Shop. But it’s not long enough. It’s catching my pubic hair.”

  “You’re lucky to still have pubic hair,” Jane said.

  “It’s thinned a lot,” Claire admitted. “I used to be so proud of my bush.”

  “My husband loved stroking mine. Now it feels like a scrubbing brush,” Joan said.

  “Are you two still at it?”

  “Once in a while. Not like the old days, that’s for sure.” Joan sank lower in the water and sat on the bench. “Now I have to tell him that if I die before he comes, he should pull my nightie down.”

  We all grinned. Joan and Thelma were the only ones, besides Eva, who still had a husband.

  “It’s me that gets the urge, not him,” Joan continued. “What do you guys do when you get that urge? Or have you given up?”

  “I take care of myself,” I said. After Frank and I split up the need drove me crazy and eventually I learned how to relieve it.

  “How?” Jane asked.

  “I don’t talk about that in a hot spring.” I sank under the water for a moment.

  “I use a dildo,” Jane announced as if she were telling us she used a fork instead of a whisk to beat eggs.

  Joan was clearly amazed. “Where did you get it?”

  “There used to be a shop in Nelson. It’s gone now, but you can get them on the Internet. You wouldn’t believe the shapes and colors.”

  I had never seen Jane as an expert on sex toys. You learn something new about people every day.

  “I’ve looked at those,” Claire said. “There’s one that’s purple and fifteen inches long, can you believe it?”

  “You could do yourself a mischief,” I said.

  “Do they sell male enhancement pills?” Joan asked. “I’d like to get some for Ted.”

  “I don’t know,” Jane said. “I’ve never needed them.”

  “What the hell are male enhancement pills?” Claire laid back in the water.

  “They give men a better hard on,” Joan said. “Believe me, Ted needs them.”

  All this time Laura had not said a word. In her swimsuit she looked thinner than ever; haggard, in fact. If she took herself off all her drugs and dried out, would she be any better? A geriatric nurse once told me that’s what they do when old people are first admitted to a nursing home. Many of them perk right up.

  “That young couple over there might have overheard every word we’ve said,” Claire whispered.

  “Oh, I do hope so,” I said loudly.

  10

  The basement became a cave, a cave of possibilities, a secret cave where treasures were to be found, no longer a fusty cavern. An electrician had installed another panel and two dryer outlets without comment, and I had humped the storage boxes up into the spare room so that everything was ready for Marcus.

  I hadn’t been in when he first visited. The clues were rolls of plastic, two by fours, insulation, and a toolbox lying by the back door. He came and went, but never talked to me, asked me what I wanted, or reviewed his progress. So the first time I saw the room he had built, I stood with my mouth open. I reached the bottom step and didn’t know where I was—the whole basement had changed shape. The old sink, washing machine, hot water tank and furnace were still clustered to my left, the outside door was still straight ahead, but to my right ran a wall made of wooden joists with pink insulation between them and covered with heavy clear plastic. The door to the cupboard, near the foot of the stairs, gave entry.

  I opened the door, but it was so dark I had to go back upstairs for a flashlight. With it I located the utility light hanging from a nail and switched it on. The original cupboard was much the same and formed the entrance, like a foyer, to a room on my left, accessed through a flap of heavy plastic fastened with Velcro. I opened the flap, stepped over a two by four support and entered a room lined with white plastic that reflected the light on me to form a giant shadow. I made a duck with my hands and quacked it along the wall before inspecting the small slots made for numerous electric outlets and the large slot for the dryer outlet. The ceiling, also covered with white plastic, had a solid piece of wood nailed across its entire length, with four black crosses marked on it.

  No sign of Marcus. I was determined to interact with him, so when I heard his truck the next day, I hurried downstairs. He was unloading strange metal objects, objects that I couldn’t identify, and piling them in the space next to the back door.

  “Good morning,” I said.

  He grunted, walked out to return a few seconds later with two evidently heavy metal boxes.

  “What are those?” I asked.

  “Ballasts.”

  “What’s a ballast?”

  “For the lights.”

  “What do they do?”

  “Control the current.” Marcus stood awkwardly beside his pile of equipment until I realized I was blocking his path into the room. I moved to the foot of the stairs, out of the way, as he carried things into the old cupboard.

  “Would you like a cup of coffee?” I said.

  “Thanks.”

  Did this mean No, thanks, or Yes, please? I went up to make coffee because I wanted an excuse to go down again. When I returned with a filled mug and a cookie, Marcus had gone.

  I had been out of work for more than three months and had been meaning to tackle a list of ‘to do’s’ but I never had the energy, not even enough to start knitting a sweater for Nicholas. I had the wool and the pattern, but I never felt like it. Now the activity in the basement inspired me to action and I decided to clean out my bedroom closets.

  There’s no mound of cushions on my bed, no ornaments in the room, no frilly drapes. What’s the point of the cushions some people stack on their beds? You only have to take them off to get into bed and then where do you put them? The duvet cover of bright red poppies cheered the room, and me. Field poppies grow everywhere in England, especially along the sides of country lanes. As kids we used to make dolls with them—we folded down the petals to make a skirt and wrapped a piece of grass around to hold it in place. The stamen became the head.

  Oh good grief! Poppies made opium. Is that why I liked them? Did I have some unknown longing for drugs? Is that why I wanted to grow pot? I shook my head hard. Stop being so daft and get on with clearing out.

  My closets were cupboards built under the eaves of the old house, not real closets. I didn’t even know what was in them any more. I spotted the weights that I bought when I was going to turn into a Strong Woman, the elastic straps for turning into a Flexible Woman, and th
e jogging shoes when I was going to train my dickey heart to allow me to bound up mountains without a gasp.

  Work clothes—obtained from thrift stores—occupied most of the space. I never wore skirts any more. Women didn’t wear pants when I grew up, and as a schoolgirl I suffered from cold legs all the time. We wore knee socks, for heaven’s sake. My very first pair of trousers was made of tartan wool and I still remembered their warmth and how easy it was to move in them. For years I’d worn pants all the time, but not jeans. I could never find any that fit me and the legs were always at least twelve inches too long. Besides, jeans and white hair don’t go together.

  My bedroom window looked out across to Elephant Mountain and down onto the back lane. Marcus’s truck was parked beside the garage. I hadn’t heard him come in. Thoughts of clearing out closets vanished as I hurried downstairs.

  In the basement cupboard, a new shelf supported four ballasts with a bungee cord around each one and attached to sturdy hooks. A strange gray metal box with a dial on it was screwed to the far wall. What was that for? I peered into the grow room. Four large, gleaming lampshades lay on the floor like giant silver water lilies, and numerous thick wires squirmed around them. A tall cylinder stood in the far corner and from it extended a concertinaed tube that ran out through a new hole in top of the wall.

  Marcus paused from screwing metal plates into the ceiling of the room. “Come back in fifteen,” he said.

  Up in my bedroom I took clothes out of one closet, stared at them, and either put them back or folded them into the donation bag. Time moved very slowly, but eventually fifteen minutes passed and I could go downstairs.

  The first thing I saw when I reached the foot of the basement stairs was the silver concertinaed tube, about ten inches wide, running across the ceiling and up through the chimney hole. It couldn’t have been more obvious—anyone coming downstairs would see it instantly.

  “Bloody hell,” I said out loud.

  Marcus emerged from the cupboard and stood holding a length of rope as if he didn’t know what to do next.

  “Does that have to be so obvious?” I said, pointing to the tube.

  He stared at me with expressionless eyes.

  “I mean, anyone who walks in would see it at once,” I continued.

  He shrugged before slinging the rope around the tube and tying it to a hook in the ceiling. It did raise the tube, but did nothing to hide it.

  “Lights are ready,” he said.

  We passed through the flap into the grow room. Three long, narrow light bulbs and one big round one hung down from under huge silver shades. I had never seen such large bulbs—or shades.

  Marcus pushed a lever on the gray box, the ballasts started to hum, and each bulb took on a glow. “Don’t look at the lights as they come on,” Marcus said.

  “Why not?” My first instruction from him surprised me.

  “Makes you blind.”

  It took a few minutes before the lights glowed fully and I was able to look in the room. The brightness made me blink. “I’m going to need sunglasses,” I said.

  Marcus bent down to adjust another concertinaed tube that ran along the floor, into a fan and from that out through a hole into the cupboard. It ended up going through a hole in the far side of the cupboard. “What’s that?” I asked.

  “Air vent.” He pointed to the gray box. “Timer.”

  “Timer?”

  A nod.

  “What for?”

  “The lights.”

  I needed Swan to visit and explain how all these devices worked. Marcus switched off the lights and the noise from the ballasts stopped.

  “I had no idea those things would make so much noise,” I said. “Is there any way to reduce it?”

  Marcus shrugged and spread his hands. “You want two- or three-gallon pots?”

  “What difference does it make?”

  “More plants with two-gallon. Fewer but bigger with three-gallon.”

  “What do you think?”

  He shrugged.

  “I’ll talk to Swan and tell you later.”

  A message on my voice mail asked me to call Maggie. She told me that Laura was in the hospital. “No one seems to know what’s wrong with her,” Maggie said. “She can’t stand up and she can’t walk. So she’s in having tests.”

  “Oh dear,” I said. “I thought she looked awful at the hot springs. Thin as a rail.”

  “That’s the other thing, she’s not eating. Anyway, I thought I’d let you know in case you want to go and see her.”

  “I’ll go up there this evening,” I said.

  “I’m coming into town on Thursday. I’ll pop in then and take her some flowers from my garden. Let me know how she is if you do visit.”

  “Will do.”

  I didn’t really want to visit Laura because she was one long moan. She had every ailment that was currently fashionable, like osteopenia. Maggie had told her there’s no such disease, that it was made up by the pharmaceutical industry, but she ignored her; she only believed her doctor. I found her very hard to bear—I always wanted to shake her and tell her to snap out of it and do something useful with her life.

  Swan was coming over after work. I looked at the time; if I went to the hospital right away I would be back for Swan. I wouldn’t be able to stay long and I’d have an excuse to leave. To be honest, I was far too engrossed in my new venture to pay attention to Laura, but I like to feel loyal to the Crones, so I went.

  Laura lay between sheets that matched her pallor and held out a bony hand to me. “Good of you to come, Jess,” she said in a weak little voice that I had to strain to hear. “Looks like the devil is winning.” She attempted a smile.

  “What’s happened?” I put the small plant I’d brought on the windowsill.

  “The doctor gave me pills for this and that, but nothing seemed to help. Then gradually I got so I couldn’t walk; now I can’t even stand without holding on to something.” Laura reached weakly for her glass of water. I jumped up to help and held the glass to her lips.

  “They think it’s neurological,” she said after taking a sip. “I’m to have blood tests and they’re taking me to Trail to see a neurologist.”

  “The neurologist can’t come here?”

  “I guess not.”

  “Is there anything I can do?”

  Laura stared at me with pale, watery eyes. “Thank you, Jess, but Monica next door is feeding the cat and will bring me anything I need. She’s very good that way.”

  “Would you like something to read?” I asked, as there were no books to be seen. “A magazine, a puzzle book, or something? It must be pretty boring staring at the curtains.”

  “Oh, I haven’t the energy to read. I can’t even hold up a book.”

  “Would you like me to get you one of those talking books they have at the library?” I persisted. “They have them on neat little players that come with head phones.”

  “My hearing isn’t very good.”

  I gave up, chatted about the weather, and left.

  True to her word, Swan showed up on her way home from work. She looked all scrubbed and clean with short, unpainted fingernails, no straggly hair, but her eyes were heavily made up as usual. I supposed she’d had to clean herself up because she worked in a deli. She seemed impressed when she saw the basement. “Wow, that was quick. This is epic.”

  I pointed at the duct tube. “That’s a big giveaway.”

  “No biggie. All you have to do is fold it away if someone comes down. Look.” She climbed up on a stool and pulled the tube out of the chimney hole. “See, it comes out easy. Just undo that rope and fold it through the hole into the room. Marcus probably left the piece he cut out somewhere. Yep, there it is.” She pushed the tube back into the chimney, climbed down and picked up a round piece of insulation. “This’ll cover the hole and then j
ust fold the plastic back over it.”

  “What does it do anyway?” I asked. “Is it really necessary?”

  “It’s attached to the filter to get rid of the smell. So, yeah, you need it.”

  Without the duct tube the basement would look normal to someone who hadn’t seen it before. To someone who knew what it used to be like I could say I had built a storeroom that I could rent out. But then, no one who visited me ever wanted to go in the basement. Come to think of it, I never expected to enter anyone else’s basement unless they had a room in it they used, like Jason’s office.

  Swan moved through the door into the cupboard and switched on the light Marcus had put in there. “Neat,” she said. “You can put a row of strip lights in here for cuttings and there’s plenty of storage space for food and whatever.”

  “What cuttings?”

  “You always have a couple of plants growing to provide babies for the next grow.” She peered through the flap into the grow room. “Can I turn the lights on?”

  “Please do,” I said. “Marcus said you go blind if you watch them come on. Is that right?”

  “I don’t think you’d go blind, but it doesn’t do your eyes any good.”

  The ballasts began to hum and the lights came on. Swan entered the room and strolled around the perimeter. “Lots of room to water.” She took hold of the chain holding one light and lengthened it by hanging it from another link. “This is how you raise and lower the light.”

  “Why would I want to do that?”

  “You really are a newbie, aren’t you? The lights have to be about eighteen inches from the plants, so when they’re little the lights are low and as they grow you raise them.”

  “Oh, I see. I think I can manage that.”

  “Let me show you the timer.” Swan moved into the cupboard and pointed at the gray box. “This dial sets the time. These levers set when the lights come on and go off. When the plants are in veg they need eighteen hours of light and six hours of dark. Then when they’re in grow they need twelve hours of light and twelve hours of dark.”