The Monkey Puzzle Tree

by Sonia Tilson

  Diana laughed. “Well, maybe not right away, but well before dark.”

  Does she think he’s joking? Gillian put her hand on the front of his jacket and lifted her face to look into his eyes. “Doug, please! Diana can’t just turn around and go back. We want to talk and catch up.”

  He turned away without replying and stalked into the kitchen where she found him a few minutes later, standing at the front window, cigarette in hand, staring out at the snow through a cleared space in the frost feathers. Joining him, she could see the snow throwing its weight around. The driveway and road were already obliterated, and she could hear the wind keening through the gap over the front door. She jumped as he whizzed his bottle cap across the room into the open garbage bin.

  At the same moment, Diana came in, holding out a bottle of wine. “I brought this for you and Gillian, Doug. I hope you like it.”

  He took the bottle of Liebfraumilch. “Oh, super.” He put it on the counter behind the beer cartons. “Thanks a lot, Diane.”

  “It’s Diana actually, Doug. I’m glad you like it. I know I do.”

  “I’m sure you do.” Doug pointed to the road. “You know, Diana, I really think you should take my advice and go back right now.”

  She glanced at the window and did a double-take.

  “It’s not as bad as it looks.” He opened the wine. “But it’ll get worse. If you go right now, though, you should get back okay. Here, have one for the road.” He filled a juice glass.

  “Thank you. I’ll save it to have with my lunch. Can I help you, Gill?”

  He returned to the window with a fresh bottle of beer in his hand and lit another Marlborough. After a few puffs, he ground it out in the massive brown glass ashtray, already overflowing, which he had lifted the day before from the Wakefield Inn.

  The women laid the battered pine table in front of the side window in the kitchen, exchanging news of old school friends: Anita had had another baby girl; Chris was performing in a jazz concert in Cardiff next month; the headmistress was retiring. As they seated themselves at the table, Gillian tried without success to catch Doug’s eye. Attempting to draw him into conversation, she mentioned the family history surrounding the Clegg farmhouse, but he munched his way through the homemade tourtière, baked beans, and apple crumble without saying a word, sticking to his beer and refusing the wine.

  After lunch they went into the back room to warm up, Diana again sitting, at Gillian’s insistence, in the armchair, while Gillian and Doug took each end of the sagging, sawdust-leaking vinyl couch. Gillian slid sideways looks at the aquiline profile, willing Doug to say something.

  “Darling,” she turned to him eventually, touching his arm, “Don’t you think Diana’d better stay? It’s getting really dangerous out there.”

  “It’s not that risky.” He addressed an objets trouvés moose-head on the barnboard wall behind the woodstove. “She’s got a good car, and the snow plow’ll be along. There’s still time to get back before the light fails.”

  Twisting her hair, she went to the back window. Snow tumbled over billowy fields, whitening the forest beyond. “But Doug, look at it out there! She has to stay. I’d never forgive myself if she came to any harm!”

  “Excuse me.” Diana pointed to the woodstove. “I think the stove-pipe’s turning red. Is that all right?

  Seeing the familiar dull flush halfway up the black pipe, and hearing an ominous roaring, Gillian ran to close the damper. As the danger signs subsided, Doug closed his eyes. Shaking his head as if at the stupidity of others, he turned again to his beer.

  “Do you not you have a dog?” Diana looked brightly from one to the other after a short silence. “I should have thought this was the perfect place for one.”

  Doug took another swig and studied the ceiling.

  “We did have one, actually.” Gillian cleared her throat and swallowed. “Nigel, a stray; a sort of black lab, with a sticking-up ear, but he disappeared. He went out one terribly cold night last winter, after a snow storm like this, and he never came back. I was working then, and had to stay in town because of the storm, but Doug stayed up all night, waiting and calling for him, didn’t you, Doug? But he never came home.” She took a deep breath and straightened her spine. She had looked for Nigel for months. Still did.

  “That seems strange,” Diana put her head on one side, her eyes on Doug, “to get lost so close to home. You’d think a dog would know his way.”

  “Who knows what happened.” Doug looked away. “It was an idiot dog anyway. Tried to bite me once.”

  “He was only defending me.” Gillian blinked hard and looked up at the ceiling. “He was still a puppy. He didn’t know you were only joking.”

  “That’s enough about the bloody dog!” He slammed down his bottle like a gavel on the wood floor. “If I could just have a bit of peace, I’d like to take a nap.” He put his head back and closed his eyes. Diana made a moue at Gillian, and they removed themselves to the kitchen.

  With their coats on, hands clasped around warming mugs of tea, they sat at the table as Diana caught up with Gillian’s news. She had been very sorry to hear from Anita of Dr. Davies’s sudden death from a heart attack. How was her mother managing on her own? Gillian explained that her mother had sold the house and gone to live with her own mother, since Gillian’s grandfather had also died.

  “I’m so sad about Daddy,’ she said. “I loved him, but I didn’t really know him, you know? We were evacuated and then away at school, and the times when we were at home he was always so busy, either working or playing tennis or badminton. Before I left, he and I were becoming closer, and I was glad of that, but I thought there was plenty of time, of course. And then he goes and drops dead on the tennis court.” She blew her nose. “You know, I never thought they were very happy together, but Mummy was quite distraught when he died. At the funeral she kept saying, ‘I’m sorry, Roy, I’m so sorry.’ I’ve often wondered what she meant exactly.” She topped up the teapot from the whistling kettle. “I found it easier to grieve for Grandpa actually. I was upset that Mummy didn’t let me know in time to get home for that funeral. I’d have liked to have been there for Grandma's sake, and I know Tom would’ve been beside himself. He and Grandpa were very close.”

  “Ah, yes. Tom. Where’s he stationed now?”

  “Last I heard, he was in Germany. He might be a lieutenant by now.”

  “Married or anything?”

  Gillian decided not to go into the business about Gladys. “Not that I know of. He’s always had lots of girlfriends, but he’s never stuck to any of them.”

  “Well, it’s no shock that he’s had lots of girlfriends. He’s quite the dreamboat.”

  Gillian blinked. “I didn’t know you were susceptible to masculine charms, Di.”

  “Well I’m not, but even I could see that. He’s tall, dark, and handsome, and he has a sort of warmth about him. Do I gather you two don’t communicate any more? You used to be pretty close. Being an only child myself, I always envied you that.”

  “We have kind of lost touch. I think my mother’s given up on me too. I haven’t written to either of them for months. Or to my Grandma.”

  After Diana turned her attention to Gillian’s present life at the farmhouse, Gillian explained how she had met Doug at an exhibition in Ottawa, organized just over a year ago by the art teacher at the high school where she had been teaching English. He had been introduced to her as an artist, she said, and apparently had fallen in love with her at first sight, while she, for her part, had been immediately attracted by his melancholy intensity. He had persuaded her to visit the picturesque village of Wakefield near his home, and then to come and see where he lived.

  “I was really struck by the lonely feel of the house,” she said. “He told me his parents were both dead, his mother ten years before, of cancer, and his father soon after in a tractor accident. Some question o
f drunkenness, I gathered. His brother went out west around that time and never made contact again. Doug showed me a picture of the four of them.” She rummaged in the shallow drawer under the table and produced a cracked and curling black and white photograph, taken when Doug was a skinny, worried-looking ten-year-old. His mother faced the camera, her hand on his shoulder, a resolute smile on her thin dark face. His father, rough-hewn and saturnine, glowered to the side as if sighting an invader, while his brother, a short, thickset teenager, leaned on a pitchfork, scowling at the photographer.

  “If that didn’t scare you off, nothing would,” Diana said.

  “I felt so sorry for him, Di. He was so alone and unhappy. He was still grieving for his mother—a native woman from the reservation near here—and hating his brute of a father. I felt I could make a difference. And I have. He says his life wasn’t worth living until he met me.” She described how a couple of months later Doug had persuaded her to stay over; then in quick succession, to move in and commute to work; and finally, to give up her job, and sell her car.

  “I don’t get it.” Diana frowned, her clear, hazel eyes searching Gillian’s. “You and he are so different. And you told me you loved teaching. So why on earth would you want to give up your job and your income, to come and live here? And why sell your car, for God’s sake?” She broke off, her eyes resting thoughtfully on the small round bruises, one under each ear, which Gillian had tried unsuccessfully to conceal with makeup.

  Gillian sank her chin down further into her polo-necked sweater and shrugged. “Oh I don’t care about going anywhere, Di. Why waste money on the insurance? I’m happy enough simply to stay here with Doug; just the two of us, in this beautiful place. You should see it here in the summer, Di! Or in the fall! All the little sudden hills make me feel at home, and there are thousands of acres of wilderness out back, and rivers and lakes nearby. I love the winter here too. It’s so sort of … abundant.”

  Diana put her mug down firmly. “Well, I know about that sort of thing myself,” she said. “And that’s all very well, but what I want to know is, does this life suit you, Gill?” She shot her a piercing look. “Are you really happy? You’re even thinner than you were in school, and you seem awfully jumpy.” Putting put her elbows on the table and counting on her fingers, she said in her carrying voice, “Let’s see now: one, you’ve lost touch with your family; two, you’ve cut yourself off from your old friends, so that I had to come and find you; three, you gave up your teaching, that is to say, your independence; four, you never see your friends in Ottawa anymore, so you have no social life whatsoever; and five, you no longer even have a dog.”

  She sat back and looked around the shabby kitchen. Lowering her voice, she said, “Face it, Gill. You have no life at all. All you’ve got is Doug, who, even if he does weld stuff together, apparently has,” she started on her fingers again, “no job, no steady income, no friends, and no family, not to mention no manners.” She threw up her hands. “He’s worse than Llewellyn if you ask me, and that’s saying something, from what I hear.”

  “Steady on, Di.” Gillian worked at enlarging the peephole in the fern-etched window. “You’re not seeing him at his best today. Doug’s different when it’s just the two of us. He can be funny, and kind, and sensitive, and he sort of watches over me. I’ve never felt so interesting and important in all my life. And the main thing is, I know he’d never leave me or cheat on me like Llewellyn did. We’re all in all to each other.” She looked down into Diana’s quizzical eyes. “He says we don’t need anyone or anything else, not even money, now that we have the annuity Daddy left me. As he says,” she paused, smiling at the memory, “We are ‘a kingdom of two’.”

  Diana snorted into her mug. “‘A kingdom of two’! Jesus Christ, Gill! What’s happened to you? You used to have brains and some gumption, and now here you are, stuck in this freezing old farmhouse in the middle of nowhere. It’s as if Elizabeth Bennett—or Jane Eyre, anyway—were throwing herself away on a fake Heathcliff! And you’re so isolated here!” She slid a quick glance at the bruises. “I’m actually worried for you.” She put her hand on Gillian’s arm, lowering her voice. “Come away with me tomorrow morning, Gill, even if it’s just for a day or so, to think things over; get a different perspective.”

  Before Gillian could say she had no intention of leaving, the kitchen door crashed back as Doug lurched into the room, his face crimson. He squinted down the outstretched arm and finger pointing unsteadily at Diana. “I heard that, you evil bitch! Get out of my house!” He jerked his arm at the door. “Now!”

  Gillian could smell the beer on him from across the room. She saw Diana’s colour flare up to match his as she jumped up, her chair clattering to the floor.

  “Doug!” Gillian got up to face him, her heart pounding. “Stop it! You can’t talk to Diana like that.”

  “Oh can’t I?” He peered at her, his head wobbling. With surprising speed he grabbed the hair at the back of her head, pulling her face around so that it was just inches from his and blasted by his breath. “That woman has insulted me in my own home, and has tried to come between us.” A savage jerk brought tears of pain to her eyes. “And if you’re thinking of taking her side against me, you should know by now that with me it’s all or nothing. Either you tell her to go, or,” another jerk, “if you prefer to be with your butch friend,” he released her so abruptly that she nearly fell, and pointed to the door, “you can go too.”

  Gillian turned her face to the hall where Diana, her face set, was pulling on her boots.

  “I’m warning you, Gillian. If you step outside that door, you can never come back in.”

  She looked back at him in shock.

  “You can freeze to death on the doorstep for all I care.” He paused, refocusing his eyes on hers. “Like your fucking dog.”

  His gaze wavered and fell, and his arm dropped to his side as she stared at him, her mouth open and her eyes wide. In the hall behind her, Diana went still.

  “I’m sorry, darling.” His voice was high and thin. “I didn’t mean it.” His eyes filled with tears. “I can explain.”

  “How can you explain that? It was thirty-five below, and you shut Nigel out, and let him die! How could you, Doug? How could you? You knew I loved him.”

  “You loved him so much, I was jealous.” He blinked his tear-drenched eyelashes. “You were always petting him and sweet-talking him.”

  “You killed him because you were jealous? I don’t believe this!”

  “As a matter of fact, I didn’t actually kill him. I didn’t know the stupid mutt would freeze to death, did I? Cross my heart! It was only because I love you so much that I just didn’t bother to let him in. That, and a bit too much to drink, perhaps.”

  “There’s no perhaps about it. You were drunk and heartless then, as you are now. And you let me go on looking for him for months, and all the time you knew!”

  She turned to the door.

  “Don’t put a dog before me, Gill! Please don’t go! Don’t leave me! I can’t live without you. You are my life.” His voice broke. “Remember? We’re ‘a kingdom of two’!”

  She turned back to look at him; at his pale face, outstretched hands, and pleading, tear-filled eyes. For a moment she hesitated, close to tears herself, but as the wind howled again in the door, she stiffened and turned away. In the hall, she flung on her coat and boots, and snatched her purse off the hook while Diana opened the door, grabbed the shovel, and ran down the snow-piled steps. Gillian looked around once and with shaking hands pulled the door shut behind her. Together, with surprising speed, they cleared the driveway down to the road and through the gate.

  “Have you left anything important behind?” Diana peered through labouring wipers at what they trusted was the road.

  “No.” Gillian stared into the white dazzle ahead of them. “Nothing at all.”

  W

  “Time to go.” Tom
looked up at the gathering clouds. “I’ll drive you over to Saint Anne’s, but I’m meeting Ian Martin this afternoon. I’ll be there by four o’clock though.” They hurried through the park to the car, the first, heavy drops of rain falling as they slammed the doors.

  Dr. Gabriel was leaving her mother’s room as Gillian arrived. He took her down the hall, away from the door, his face grave. “I’m glad to see you, Gillian. We need to talk.” He led her to the recess by the bay window in the hall.

  “Your mother’s condition is worrying,” he said. “Her lungs were much compromised to begin with, and we can’t seem to shake that infection. Her heart’s labouring too, due to pressure from fluid retention. Her kidney function’s very weak, and the electrolytes are disturbingly low. She could be taken to the hospital to be stabilized and made temporarily more comfortable by the removal of the fluid. Or,” he held his chin in one hand and looked into her eyes, “since she signed a form stating that she doesn’t want extraordinary efforts made to keep her alive,” he shifted his gaze to the window, “we could let nature take its course.”

  “No!” Gillian held onto the back of the chair. “Take her to the hospital! Give her some more time. She’s not ready to die yet.”

  “I think her body is, Gillian, but I agree with you for now. I’ll arrange for an ambulance to come sometime this afternoon, and she could be brought back tonight, if all goes well.”

  “What do you mean, ‘if all goes well’?” Gillian clutched her elbows, staring at him.

  He put a hand on her shoulder. “When someone’s whole system is as weakened as your mother’s is,” he said, “you can never be sure. I think there’s still some fight in her yet, but I can’t offer you any promises. We just have to hope for the best.”