Does Your Mother Know?

by Maureen Jennings

  “Bloody gloomy in here.” She was doing a soft jog around the room, and she indicated the brightly coloured playpen. “Tormod gave her that. Too bad he didna get to see you, eh, gle bheag Anna.”

  She’d said, “very small Anna.” I was starting to spook myself out. Logically I could believe that Joan had said these words to me when I was “very small,” and they had rested buried in my subconscious until now, but it was a strange sensation, rather like having another personality emerge, as in The Three Faces of Eve. I could only hope my buried Gaelic-speaking self was benign.

  “Bugger!” Lisa had tripped over a dirty plate and beer bottle on the floor. “Ha. Colin leaves his spoor behind as usual.” She looked angry. “You’d think the man’d make an effort to tidy up seeing as how his wife just had his baby.” She shifted the infant to one arm and bent to pick up the plate.

  “Here, I’ll do that.” I started to collect some of the other spoor, a half-filled mug of tea and a glass, and headed for the kitchen. The counter was covered with a mess of plates with partially eaten food on them, tea-stained mugs, and more empty beer bottles. Lisa joined me, still jiggling Anna.

  “I almost forgot to tell you. You know you said to let you know if I discovered anything was missing from the house?”

  I nodded, squeezing brilliant green dish soap into the pan.

  “I slept over there last night, and I was so restless I decided to sort out some of Tormod’s things. I know Miss Cheerio will want to get her mitts on anything worthwhile, but I thought I’d put in my dibs for anything of sentimental value. I knew she wouldn’t want his paperbacks, so I went into the bedroom.” She half-grinned at me. “You’ve got me wondering about everything. Well, I’m sure the cushion was gone from his chair. I didn’t notice when we first looked around, because I mean, who looks for cushions? But I sat down to open up the drawer, and there was no cushion on the chair. It was one he wove himself when he was just learning, so it was old and ratty, but I can’t imagine he’d throw it away. Those tweeds endure forever.”

  “Are you sure it was there when you were last in the bedroom?”

  “I can’t swear it, but I did read to him that last time, and I’m sure I would have noticed if it wasn’t on the chair — the way I did this time when I sat down.”

  “Was the chair right beside the bed?”

  “Usually it is, but this time it was over by the dresser.” She jiggled little Anna in her arms. “Is it important, do you think?”

  “Frankly, I don’t know. Perhaps he spilled something and decided to chuck the cushion out.”

  “I looked in the outside dustbin. There was no sign of it.”

  The baby mewed and smacked her lips. Lisa gave her the tip of her little finger to suck. “Wow, what a grip.”

  We actually hadn’t heard Mairi come back into the room.

  “What are you two doing?”

  “Cleaning up, what’s it look like?”

  “Lisa, for Lord’s sake, Christine is our guest. She shouldn’t be doing dishes.”

  “Please, I don’t mind at all. You’ve got enough to deal with.”

  On cue, Anna opened up her mouth, the lack of teeth making it seem huge, and wailed the thin mewling of the newborn.

  Mairi reached for her. “Surely she’s no hungry again.”

  It seemed she was, and Mairi went back to her armchair, lifting her blouse as she did so. Lisa took a tea towel and began to dry the dishes, then opened the cupboard door, looking for a home for the mugs. She called over her shoulder to her sister.

  “What do you want me to do with Colin’s empties?”

  “There’s a carton under the sink. Put them in there.”

  Lisa opened the cupboard door revealing two twelve packs filled with empties. “There’s no more room,” she called to Mairi.

  “Oh Lisa, for God’s sake, give it a rest.”

  “You married him,” Lisa muttered.

  I continued to act with selective deafness to this rancour. A final whisk of the dish cloth and we were done.

  “By the way, while we’re on the subject of Tormod,” Lisa said. “Mr. Douglas, his solicitor, rang me this morning. Apparently, Tormod left a message on his answer phone. He must have done that on Friday night after the office was closed. He said he wanted to add a codicil to his will.”

  “Really? What was the codicil?”

  “According to Mr. Douglas, Tormod didn’t specify. He just wanted Mr. Douglas to give him an appointment as soon as possible to make it legal.”

  We had made our way back into the living room, and Mairi heard this remark.

  “Make what legal?”

  Lisa explained. Her sister frowned.

  “Is that going to effect the terms of the will?”

  “I don’t see why. I did ask Mr. Douglas, and he told me Tormod would have had to put any such request in writing, even if he had said what he intended, which he didn’t.”

  Mairi removed her nipple from the voracious infant’s mouth and shifted her to the other breast, wincing as the baby latched on.

  “Our Lisa is an heiress,” she said to me.

  Lisa snorted. “Hardly that, Mars.”

  “You’ll get a good price for that house.”

  “I’m not going to sell it.”

  She’d obviously forgotten her vow to turn the property into a sex joint.

  “Suit yourself.”

  “I will.”

  Being around these two was like experiencing a series of depth charges — under the water, but showing themselves by boats rocking violently. Lisa sat down across from her sister, watching the baby feeding. I took the other chair and watched, too. Where else are you going to look? Lisa addressed me.

  “It seems that I have inherited Tormod’s entire estate, house and all.”

  “So I gather.”

  “It’s sort of complicated. Tormod made a will, oh, about a six months ago, after I’d come to work for him.”

  She cast a quick glance at her sister, ready to do battle if necessary. Mairi scrunched up her face, but it could have been the baby chomping down.

  “Anyway, in that will, Andy got the house, I got five hundred pounds, and the church got another five. But then, Tormod made yet another will, only a few days ago, and made me his sole heir.”

  “I don’t understand it,” said Mairi. “Why would a man cut out his own flesh and blood?”

  Lisa was working hard to keep her cool. She kept talking to me, but really she was explaining to her sister.

  “I think I know what happened. Remember those airline tickets? He’d sold the house to Coral-Lyn’s father, and I bet he then thought the money would just go into his bank account. He’d been asking all sorts of questions about medical treatments in America, especially liver transplants. I don’t know if you know, but the medical system over there is private. If you can pay, you can get what you need.”

  I did know that was true, and it was a big bone of contention in Ontario with our universal free health services, which many people thought were inadequate. There were a lot of people with money who hoped it could buy them everything.

  “You think that’s why he was going to Texas?”

  “Yes. I went on the Internet and did a search. There’s a big hospital in Houston that does great work with his kind of illness. But you have to pay.”

  “What does this have to do with him changing his will over to you?” Mairi asked.

  “If you hold on, I’m getting to that. I told you, Tormod would-n’t accept the fact that his days were numbered. I believe he thought he’d spend all that money on his treatment. Andy was taken care of by Shirley Temple, so he was all right. Me and the church could divide whatever was left in his account. He never thought it through. Mr. Douglas said he was his usual stubborn self. ‘I’m not on my way out yet, Jim.’ Quote, unquote. Unfortunately, the deal wasn’t closed. The concluding missives or whatever they’re called hadn’t been exchanged. The house was technically still his when he died. Therefore,
it comes to me.” She chewed on a piece of skin at the side of her thumb. “Coral-Lyn will probably contest it, though.”

  Mairi looked as if she were about to say something, but she thought better of it.

  “In which case, I’ll just get what was in his savings account, which I know for a fact was negligible. It might not even be as much as the bequest. His house was the only thing he owned of value.”

  I thought this the moment for the truth.

  “Lisa, did you know that Tormod had accepted a second offer on the house? Sarah MacDonald had done a gazump. He was selling to a group of Norwegians for a higher price.”

  She stared at me in astonishment. “That greedy bastard.”

  “Did that deal go through?” asked Mairi.

  “No, it wasn’t concluded either. The house still legally belongs to his heir. To Lisa.”

  “Lucky her.”

  Suddenly, Lisa got up and knelt down in front of Mairi, putting her hands on her knees.

  “You and Anna can come and live with me. It’ll be much better than this shit-hole. You don’t want to raise her on top of a bar. The house has a great little garden. There’s lots of room.”

  An expression of defeat crossed Mairi’s face. “You forget I’m married. You might take marriage vows lightly, but I don’t.”

  She might as well have slapped Lisa in the face. She jumped up.

  “Well, fuck you then.”

  “Oh that’s nice language in front of your niece.”

  Not to mention my delicate ears, but they both seemed oblivious of my presence. That, or I was a good audience. They were speaking English.

  “That remark wasn’t called for. I told you, I’m not seeing him any more.”

  Mairi’s despair at her own situation made her strike out, fierce as a cornered cat.

  “Where were you then?”

  “When? What are you talking about?”

  “Last weekend, that’s when.” She raised her voice, mockingly. “‘So sorry, Mairi, I can’t come over till Sunday. I have so much studying to do.’ Well, that’s not what I was told when I rang the school. They said all your examinations were finished for the term.”

  Lisa stared at her, icy cold with anger. “So, I needed a break. I didn’t want to work in the bar. You know how I feel about it.”

  “Where were you then?”

  Lisa shrugged. “I just hung out at the school until Sunday.”

  “Really? If that’s the case, why did they tell me you had signed out on Friday?”

  “Oh, fuck you, Mairi.”

  And out she went, leaving Mairi and I and infant singed in the fire.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

  “I apologize on behalf of my sister.”

  I had no answer to that and just made noncommittal gestures.

  Mairi took Anna off her breast and laid her on her lap, bouncing her lightly. “I was the one keen to have a babe, not Colin, but nobody told me it would be like this. She won’t leave me alone, and I haven’t had more than two hours’ sleep at a stretch for two days.”

  I was about to placate her with platitudes about how things would get easier, but her eyes were full of misery.

  “I think you just need some help with practical things.”

  Wrong thing to say. She burst out in anger, “I was counting on my sister, but you’d as well hold the wind in your bonnet as get Lisa to commit to anything. You heard her. She should have been here on the weekend. I needed her. I wanted to get the apartment all ready. Look at it, it’s a bloody pigsty. I had to serve in the bar.”

  Poor little Anna was getting a rougher bounce. Mairi wasn’t through yet.

  “Do you want to know the reason she wasn’t here?”

  “I, er... ”

  “I’ll tell you. It’s because she’s been having an affair with a married man. Some big-shot politician from London. He’s got three children, not to mention he’s a lot older than she is. She swore to me it was over.”

  As a private citizen, this was more than I wanted to know. As a police officer with antennae quivering, I wanted to pursue it.

  “Maybe she was telling the truth. She could have been anywhere.”

  “You don’t know my sister. Lying is second nature to her. I don’t think she even knows she’s doing it half the time.”

  There was no answering that, but I certainly wondered about the implications, even if Mairi was speaking out of sibling anger. I decided it was time to get out of here, and even though I felt twinges of guilt at leaving Mairi alone, she assured me she was going to sleep and that Colin would be in soon. I went to my own room.

  There was a piece of paper slipped underneath the door. A note from Gill.

  “Sorry I won’t be able to meet for dinner. I have to drive over to Ness to meet with some of the locals. They are up in arms about the proposed relocation of a convicted pedophile and I need to field it. I’ll ring you later.”

  I was surprised that even in Lewis this hugely problematic issue was occurring. Does serving a sentence for your crime clean you of all sins? And perhaps more important, will you offend again? I was also disappointed about dinner, but cancelled appointments were par for the course with police officers. It wasn’t surprising that cops tended to huddle together, and the marriages that survived the strain of the life were usually the ones where both spouses were working officers who understood the realities of the life. Firefighters had irregular hours, adrenaline rush alternating with the utter tedium, but they are the poster boys of an adoring public. My buddies on the other hand, often have to deal with such unreasoning hatred from the ignorant that it takes your breath away.

  Why do it then? Why join the police? Because no matter what, even if it’s never put into words, you believe in the power of order. Nothing can happen in a lawless state except more crime. No country can function without law and order; anarchy is the shark that devours the fish, especially the little fish. Oh sure, there are some laws that we think are stupid and we have to enforce them, and there are always guys (and a few gals) on the police force who are assholes and who like to throw their weight around, but mostly we know, even if it’s never expressed in so many words, that without us, nothing could thrive. Go check out what Sir Thomas More had to say about that.

  So that’s my spiel, thoughts floating in the recesses of my mind while I decided what to do about dinner. The Duke didn’t stretch to room service. You had to show up in the dining room or forget it. Frankly, I didn’t fancy sitting down there and having to deal with Colin MacLeod. I was being hit with stabs of the lonelies, an unpleasant state that was no doubt intensified by the grey sky and chill rain that was promising to fall for forty days and forty nights. I looked out the window at the masts bobbing in the inlet. The street below was deserted except for one car that drove slowly by, the tires swishing on the wet road. I pressed closer to the window to see if I recognized the car, but I didn’t. I wondered what Paula was up to. In her time it was one o’clock in the afternoon. I also allowed my thoughts to sniff at my mother, all cozied up with her new paramour.

  That did it. Time to get out of this room. I hadn’t changed out of what I had to think of as my funeral clothes, so I snapped open my suitcase, pulled out a wool sweater and my fleecy jogging pants, and changed my clothes. That done, I was warmer and in slightly better spirits. I’d noticed a pizza place just around the corner from the hotel, and the notion of gooey melted cheese was comforting. Pizza it was then. I could bring it back here and have a quiet evening at home. What fun!

  The hotel had a stand of spare umbrellas for the guests, so I grabbed a tartan one and went to get my pizza. On the way, I passed by a café, currently almost empty of customers. However, sitting together near the window were Coral-Lyn Pitchers and the Reverend John Murdoch, Lewis’s eligible bachelor. She was leaning across the table and he was leaning back in his chair away from her. Body language that was very revealing. I saw him nod in a sympathetic, pastoral, sort of way, but Coral-Lyn was obviously agitated,
gesticulating with her hands, and aiming all that intensity at Mr. Murdoch. I would have made a large wager on what she was talking about and I didn’t envy him. I couldn’t hang around outside the window, although I sort of wanted to, so I continued on to the pizza shop.

  There was a middle-aged, cheerful-looking woman behind the counter, who was waiting patiently while three gangly teenaged boys were trying to decide what toppings to get. Behind her, a wiry dark-haired Asian man, the first I’d seen on the island, was stretching pizza dough on his hands, then tossing it around in the air.

  “Hurry yourselves, lads. We’ll be closed and in our beds before you decide,” said the woman.

  The inside of the shop had a delicious smell to it and was warm and cozy. No wonder it was obviously a favourite hangout for the local teenagers. Another group of lads and lassies was sitting by the window devouring hot, high-cholesterol slices, the staple diet of youth.

  The lads opted for pepperoni, bacon, and mushrooms. I dropped the bacon but went for the same, and I watched them as they sloped off to a table to wait for their order. To my eyes, the local Hebridean teenagers were astonishingly wholesome. There was not a piercing in sight, and the hair fashion for the girls was shoulder-length and straight, with natural colours. The boys had short-cropped hair, and ordinary non-jean pants. Two of them were still in school uniform, which was a white shirt and a tie under a plain burgundy wool sweater. I’d long ago passed the great generational divide, and I willingly admit I found most of the North American teenagers that I encountered lacking in manners or good taste. These kids had spoken politely to the server and they were chatting to each other in normal voices, no shrieking and certainly no ubiquitous “f” word. How refreshing. Perhaps if I’d asked them, I would have discovered they all yearned to escape this sober island for the delights of tattoos, body piercing, and ear-shattering music, as well as the availability of controlled substances. For myself, I wanted them to remain in their innocence as long as they could.