by Gail Bowen
She nodded sagely. “Right.”
“There’s been a death,” I said. “In the family.”
Her small features rearranged themselves into an expression of sympathy. “Bummer,” she said. She looked up into Howard’s face. “Just give me a second, Mr. D, then I can take you down to the studio.” She went back to her desk, called for a back-up gatekeeper, then came over to Howard and took him gently by the arm. “This way,” she said. “Incidentally, I’m Esme.”
When we were almost at the end of the hall, Esme steered us to the right, down a short corridor, and into a control room. We stood awkwardly while she whispered something to a woman in a black turtleneck, who turned from the array of equipment in front of her, glanced our way, then swivelled her chair to face the glass that separated the control room from the studio. Through the glass I could see Charlie. I had known his mother well, and Charlie was unmistakably her son: black hair, sleepy hazel eyes, aquiline nose, generous mouth. But unlike her son, Marnie Dowhanuik’s beauty had been without flaw.
When the woman in the black turtleneck murmured into her microphone, Charlie looked up. He was wearing headphones. She turned to Howard. “You can talk to him now. I’ll go to a commercial. Tell him I’m bringing somebody in to finish the show.”
In seconds, Howard appeared in Charlie’s studio. He sat down in the chair next to his son’s, leaned over, swung one of his massive arms around Charlie’s slender shoulders and put his mouth to Charlie’s ear. For a beat, Charlie listened, then his face crumpled. He had adjusted his headphones so he could hear his father; now he ripped them off and covered his face with his hands.
Viewed through glass, the silent tableau of discovery and grief had the surreal intensity of life inside an aquarium. Instinctively, both the woman in the turtleneck and I looked away. She picked up the phone and summoned someone named Troy to Studio D, then turned to me. “I’m Kendra Gaede,” she said. “You’re welcome to stay here till they decide how they want to handle this.”
“Thanks,” I said. “I’d like to be here in case Howard needs me.”
He didn’t. In a beat, Charlie picked up his headphones and slipped them back on.
“Troy’s going to finish for you,” Kendra said.
Charlie nodded, then punched a button in front of him. We could hear his voice. “I have to explain why Troy’s taking over. Otherwise, the switchboard will be jammed.”
“Are you sure you can get through it?” Kendra asked. “Troy can come up with something.”
Charlie raised his hand, palm towards us. “The people who listen to this show trust me. I have to be honest with them.” Charlie picked up his headphones, and began speaking. “Over seven hundred years ago, a beautiful woman named Francesca da Rimini told Dante a great truth: ‘There is nothing more painful than to remember happy days in times of sorrow.’ ” The smooth professionalism of his voice shattered against the hard edge of grief, but he soldiered on. “Francesca was one of the damned. I’ve just discovered that I am, too. The topic for the rest of the show is loss. So if you’re lost, today’s your day. Troy Prigotzke will be taking over for the rest of the show. Till the next time, this is Charlie D. Be strong. Nothing lasts forever.”
His words were brave, but as soon as Troy Prigotzke entered the booth, Charlie slumped. Gentle as a mother Troy took the headphones from Charlie’s head and placed them on his own. “Time to go, Buddy,” Troy said, and Charlie stood and walked out of the booth; Howard was right behind him.
As Charlie crossed in front of me, I put my hand on his shoulder. “I’m so sorry,” I said. I turned to Howard. “Can I give you a lift anywhere?”
Howard shook his head. “Charlie’s probably better without too many people around right now. When he decides what he wants to do, we can cab it. I’ll call you tonight.”
“Do that,” I said.
After Charlie and Howard disappeared down the hall that led to the CVOX offices, Esme touched me on the shoulder. “I’ll walk you back to reception,” she said.
The walls on either side of us were hung with oversized publicity photographs of the on-air personalities of CVOX. The pictures were brightly banal and I passed them without a second glance. But I slowed at Charlie’s portrait. He had presented his best profile to the camera, but the lighting was dim and, in a gesture heartbreakingly instinctive and familiar, his right hand was raised to shield his blood-scarred hidden face.
In that instant, I gleaned something of what it was like for Charlie to live in a world full of mirrors and cameras and eyes, and my mind recoiled from this insight into his perpetual suffering. When we reached the main desk, Esme’s words wrenched me back to reality.
“I didn’t know it was her. I thought when you said there was a death in the family it was like an old uncle or something.” She ran a hand through her spiky burgundy hair. “Ariel wasn’t much older than me.”
“Too young,” I said.
She bobbed her head in affirmation. “Way, way too young.”
I started towards the door. Esme called after me. “Wait.” She walked over to a cupboard behind the desk, took out a shiny black coffee mug and handed it to me. The logo on it was silver except for the wetly red Mick Jagger mouth that hinted at appetites too hip and too dark for talk radio. Cool on cool.
I froze. Esme smacked the palm of her hand against her forehead. “Totally inappropriate, right?” she said. “It’s just that I always give these to guests. I’m such a space case.”
“Nobody knows what to do in a situation like this,” I said. “Giving a person a mug makes as much sense as anything else.”
On my way home, I turned on the radio and punched in CBC Radio Two. As I drove across the Albert Street Bridge, the graceful precision of Prokofiev’s “Classical” Symphony soothed me. I took a deep breath. With Prokofiev and luck, I might just make it through dinner.
Luck was not on my side. Our new puppy was waiting for me inside the door. He was an eight-week-old Bouvier des Flandres named Willie, my first male dog and my first Bouvier, and so far he had brought credit to neither his gender nor his breed. He was sweet but not gifted. The day before, my son Angus had come home with the news that it took Bouviers two years to grow a brain. As Willie bounded towards me with the remnants of one of my new sandals hanging out of his mouth, I found myself wondering how he and I could make it through the next twenty-two months.
I took the sandal from him and picked him up. He licked my face wildly. The smell of puppy breath won me over. “Okay,” I said. “I was young once myself.” I shifted his position, so I could establish eye contact. “But commit this to memory, Willie: during the summer of love, I scaled the heights of ecstasy many times, but I never once chewed a shoe.”
I was studying his earnest face to see if my words had penetrated when the phone rang. It was Ed Mariani.
“How’s it going?” he asked.
“Okay,” I said. “Willie and I were just having a heart-to-heart. He chewed through one of my new sandals.”
“Expensive?”
“Top of the line at Wal-Mart.”
“Another gold star for one-stop shopping.”
“One of these days you’ll have to take cold terror by the hand and try it.”
He laughed softly. “Jo, I did have a reason for calling. Are you still planning to come over to get the keys to the cottage tonight?”
“I’d forgotten all about it. More coals heaped upon my head.”
He laughed. “We’ll pass on the coals this time. I just wanted to make sure you still wanted to go out there this weekend.”
“Absolutely. Taylor’s been rattling on about the lake for the past two weeks. When’s a good time for me to come by and pick up the keys?”
“Seven? And, if she doesn’t have other plans, why don’t you bring Taylor with you? We have a new addition to the family.”
“A pet?”
“A nightingale. One of Barry’s old clients moved on to the next dimension and left him her bird. Don’t laugh. Inheriting a
bird is a serious matter, especially if you hate the idea of anything being caged, which Barry and I both do. Anyway, Barry has built Florence the Taj Mahal of aviaries.”
“The nightingale is named Florence?”
“We have been spared no indignity,” Ed said dryly. “But I promise you Taylor will be dazzled, and if Florence isn’t enough, we’ve laid in a fresh supply of paper umbrellas for Taylor’s Shirley Temples.”
“You spoil her,” I said.
“Not a bit. Your daughter’s paintings are going to be worth a fortune some day, and Barry and I want to get in on the ground floor.” He sighed heavily. “Jo, I’m glad you’re coming over. I really was very fond of Ariel.”
“Everybody was,” I said.
His correction was gentle. “Not quite everybody.”
After I hung up, I was hit by the weight of the day’s events. I looked over at my kitchen counter: tins of kidney beans and tomatoes were neatly stacked against the wall. I’d put them there that morning. I’d also chopped a large bowl of onions and celery, and put three pounds of lean ground beef in the fridge to defrost. My plan had been to come home after Rosalie’s luncheon and make a pot of chili to take to Katepwa with us the next night. For the first time since New Year’s, my whole family was going to be together: my daughter Mieka, her husband, Greg, and my eight-month-old granddaughter, Madeleine, were coming from Saskatoon; my son Peter was driving from Calgary, where he’d just begun work at a veterinarian’s clinic; and the rest of us were heading out from Regina as soon as the kids got home from school. Given the unpredictability of possible arrival times, chili had seemed like an inspired idea. It still did. I took the beef out of the refrigerator, threw it in the frying pan, picked up the can opener and started cranking.
By the time the kids got home, the chili was simmering, and I was feeling less fragmented. Angus and Eli, the nephew of Alex Kequahtooway, the man in my life, floated through the house long enough to get Willie on his leash and take him for a run before they drove downtown to get their tuxes fitted for graduation. The week before, Alex had left for Ottawa to teach a month-long class, Minorities and the Justice System, and Eli had moved into Peter’s old room to finish off the school year. I was already missing Alex, but the sound of two seventeen-year-olds buzzing about dates and after-grad parties and tuxedos was a potent antidote to loneliness. Taylor revelled in having Eli around, too. When he arrived, she’d presented him with a drawing of Angus and himself in cap and gown, hanging out of a silvery stretch limo, throwing their mortarboards into the sky. Taylor, wearing a chauffeur’s cap, a billowing scarf, and a Cheshire cat grin, was behind the wheel. In art, as in life, Taylor saw herself as the person in the driver’s seat.
It was a witty piece, executed deftly. Taylor came by the skill naturally. Her birth mother was the artist Sally Love, and her grandfather was Desmond Love, a man whose name appeared on most art historians’ millennial lists of significant makers of art in Canada. From the moment she could grasp a pencil, Taylor had demonstrated an extraordinary mastery of technique, but her art teacher had pointed me to Taylor’s real talent by quoting Marcel Duchamp. “A technique can be learned, but you can’t learn to have an original imagination.” At seven, Taylor was already impatient with the accessible and fascinated by unexplored territory.
As we headed south on Albert Street towards Ed’s, it was apparent my daughter was wired about the weekend ahead. “The minute we get there, I’m going swimming.” She darted a glance my way, and headed off the objection she saw coming. “I don’t care how cold it is. And after my swim, I’m going to make a little bed on the floor next to mine, so Madeleine can sleep beside me. Angus says Saturday night there’ll be fireworks and I’m going to hold her so she won’t be scared, and Eli says maybe he can build a bonfire and we can have a weenie roast. It’s going to be so awesome -” She stopped in mid-flight. “I mean it’s going to be really interesting.”
I turned to her. “What happened to ‘awesome’?” I asked.
“Ms. Cousin says if we use a word too often, it stops meaning anything. She says if we use the word ‘awesome’ when we talk about an ice cream cone, we won’t have a good word to use when we see the pyramids at Giza.”
“Ms. Cousin deserves the Governor General’s Award,” I said. “But you may not have to wait for Cheops to see something awesome. Ed tells me he and Barry have a nightingale.”
“A nightingale?” Her eyes were wide. “Just flying around?”
“I don’t think so. I think they have an aviary – that’s a really big cage.”
“I’m glad it’s big,” she said. “It wouldn’t be any good being a bird if you couldn’t fly around.”
Ed was in the front yard putting in bedding plants. We were a month shy of the longest day, and the light was mellow. He was wearing his uniform of choice: a generously cut shirt that he found so comfortable that he had had it made in a variety of fabrics and a palette of colours. Tonight’s was raspberry cotton, and as he approached the car with a flat of deep pink Martha Washington geraniums in his hands, he glowed with well-being.
“Barry’s the gardener, but I thought I’d surprise him by putting in the old standbys. He can decide where his prima donnas will thrive.”
“Is he out of town?” I asked.
“In New York,” Ed said. “At a kitchenware convention. He’s doing so well he’s thinking of opening two more stores. A prisoner of the work ethic.” He bowed deeply to Taylor and crooked his arm in invitation. “But Barry’s obsession has dividends for you and me, Ms. Love.”
Taylor took his arm. “I’ve decided to be Taylor Kilbourn, so I can be the same as everybody else in the family. But I’m still going to keep Love for my middle name. What do you think?”
“I like it,” he said. He glanced at me questioningly.
“I like it, too,” I said. “In fact, I couldn’t be more proud.”
“In that case, Ms. Kilbourn, will you join me in paying a visit to the world’s most expensively housed nightingale?”
I always felt a thrill when I entered Ed and Barry’s house. They had designed it themselves to take advantage of natural light, and it was a graceful and welcoming place. We could hear the nightingale’s sweet song as soon as we stepped into the living room. It had reason to sing. Its home was a floor-to-ceiling affair of bamboo, glass, and pastel silk screens; the aviary was lovely enough to be a piece of Japanese art. Taylor was enchanted.
I turned to Ed. “When I’m old and addled will Barry build me a space like that? It’s magnificent.”
“He’d jump at the chance,” Ed said. “Barry thrives on challenge. That’s why he’s been able to stay with me so many years.”
“Nobody deserves a hero medal for living with you, Ed.”
He blushed. “Rare praise, but deeply appreciated. Now, may I get you ladies a drink?”
“Would it be all right if I looked at my mother’s painting?” Taylor asked. “I can hardly remember her at all any more, but when I look at the paintings she made, I can. I like that, and I like your nightingale, too. You have a lot of stuff that makes me happy.”
As I followed Ed upstairs to the kitchen, I thought that Taylor’s assessment had been right on the money. I was surrounded by stuff that made me happy, too: a mahogany cabinet that glowed with a collection of mercury glass; a turn-of-the-century daguerreotype of a mother and child; an oval mirror whose bright ceramic border was a celebration of queens, young, old, gorgeous, ugly, real, and mythical. It was, Ed had told me once, a reminder to every queen that, however stunning she believes herself to be, there’s always a Snow White waiting in the wings.
Ed took a pitcher filled with something pink and frothy from the refrigerator. He poured Taylor’s Shirley Temple into a fluted glass, stabbed a maraschino cherry with the toothpick handle of a paper umbrella, and positioned the umbrella carefully against the glass’s edge. He turned to me. “Now what’s your pleasure?”
I pointed to the frosty pitcher of Shirley Temples. “
I wouldn’t mind one of those.”
Ed frowned in disbelief. “With or without umbrella?”
“With,” I said. “It’s been a lousy day.”
Ed and I took Taylor her drink, then carried our own onto the upstairs deck with its spectacular view of the bird sanctuary and the northwest edge of the university campus. It was almost twilight. Next door, Ed’s neighbour was making a last lazy pass across the darkening lawn with his mower, and his kids were playing hide-and-seek in the shadows. In the distance, the haze hanging over Wascana Lake was alive with the sounds of birds deep in the mystery of their epic migration north. Everything was as it had always been; yet everything had changed.
Ed read my thoughts. “Out here it’s almost possible to forget, isn’t it?” he said softly.
“Have you heard anything more?” I asked.
“Just rumours. I stayed at the office till around four. I thought there might be something I could do. A few students came by to talk. There are some pretty wild stories going the rounds, but apparently the two with the most currency are that Ariel was killed either by an embittered ex-student or by the worker who found her.”
“I don’t buy the ex-student angle,” I said. “Ariel hadn’t been teaching that long, and she was pretty intuitive. She would have picked up on a problem before it festered into a grudge. I don’t buy the worker theory either. How could someone get up in the morning, shower, shave, dress, and come to work to kill a perfect stranger?”
“It happens,” Ed said.
“Not at this university,” I said. “Another thing. I’ve taught here for years, and I’ve been in that archive room exactly once. There’s nothing down there but a bunch of mouldy Who’s Whos and some bound volumes of old periodicals.” I bit my lip in frustration. “As Daffy Duck would say, ‘This makes no sense and neither do I.’ ”
Ed sipped his drink pensively. “Jo, you should probably know there’s a third rumour going the rounds. Apparently there’s talk that Charlie could be more than the grieving boyfriend.”
I put my glass down so hard, the little umbrella toppled out. “Damn it, why don’t people think before they start spewing garbage like that?”