Fit to Die

by Joan Boswell

  “What?” he says again.

  “I’m searching for my dog,” I say. “He’s playfully hiding behind some of those bushes and I need to get him to the vet quickly because I believe he has rabies.”

  This seems to startle the boy, and he drops a can. It rattles and rolls along the sidewalk, running out of energy near my foot. I am flexible enough to bend and pick up.

  “Just leave it,” he says.

  By this time, he is shuffling from foot to foot. He is exhaling guilt. I remember the look well from my years in the classroom. He’s done something. I look behind him. Sure enough.

  The swirl of a black design.

  “What dog are you looking for? The same one you had in the paint store?”

  The paint store? Of course, that’s where I’ve seen him before. Picking out the tools of his trade. “Yes. The same one.”

  “I saw him two streets over. He looked lost.”

  I find Sam where the graffiti boy suggests he might be. If I don’t die of joy at the moment, perhaps I’ll live forever.

  • • •

  Sam noses me awake even before the fire engines arrive. My little house is full of smoke. I am choking and hacking as we hurtle through the front door into the street. The neighbours begin to spill from their townhouses for the festival of sound and light.

  I am having quite a bit of trouble breathing. The paramedics have oxygen for me. They wish to take me to the emergency ward. I have had more than enough trips in speeding ambulances. I am not willing to leave my dog. “That will kill me,” I say. “My estate will sue you, seriously.”

  They are polite but firm. Like all the control officers, they are just doing their jobs.

  Yes, ambulance. No, dog.

  I spot Mrs. Sybil Sharpe, her shining housecoat wrapped around her expansive middle. She is watching the whole procedure from her front doorstep. Behind the mask of the concerned neighbour, I suspect a smirk is lurking. I wonder how she started the fire.

  Perhaps I am just imagining the hiss and slither.

  We are at an impasse, the paramedics and I, until one of the firemen whispers he will take Sam until I am home again. It’s against the rules, so it has to be our little secret. There’s something familiar about him. He looks a lot like one of the boys I taught. A Kevin perhaps? Another troublemaker. The right spirit for fighting fires. But I taught so many boys. Who is to say?

  • • •

  A pot left on the stove, the young fireman tells me, when he returns my dog. Lucky the harm was confined to smoke damage. Another couple of minutes and who’s to say.

  “Interesting,” I said. “I never touch the stove. Do you think it was a self-cooking pot?”

  He gives my hand a pat. “Maybe you need a bit of help around here.” He said. I read the unspoken message. Forgetful. A danger to herself and others.

  I smile compliantly. “I am fine on my own. I have just purchased an excellent new alarm system. If I even get hot under the collar, it will sound the alert.” I don’t trouble him with talk of Mrs. Sybil Sharpe, the snake woman, or the side door that never quite locked. I have fixed it now, anyway.

  I know what I really need.

  “What doesn’t kill us, makes us strong,” I explain to Silent Sam as he gets a nice bit of ground round for a reward. He looks at me as if to say, so what will it be?

  • • •

  It is my best effort ever. Reminiscent of my glory days when I could really toss paint on a canvas. And what a canvas it is. A vast, welcoming field of cream. I use every graffiti symbol I can remember. Probably overdo it a bit with the clouds. The resulting work is full of fury, threats and imagery. It takes me nearly all night, but it is worth it. Who would have realized how all that gardening helped me? The strength of the arms holding the cans of paint, the quick scampering up and down the ladder to scoop up new cans of colour, the ability to arch my body and take advantage of the grand sweep of the wall.

  “I call it Joseph’s coat,” I say to Silent Sam. He thumps in approval.

  Despite my exhaustion, I feel so much better when I’m finished. I can understand why those boys do it. Euphoria is addictive.

  In the morning, I rise late. All I have to do is admire my handiwork. I make myself a wonderful pot of Red Zinger and settle comfortably in the old Muskoka chair to enjoy the sunshine and wait for the fireworks.

  Perhaps it is Silent Sam’s thumping tail that draws Mrs. Sybil Sharpe through the patio door. Perhaps she just wants to stare down at my little house and garden and plot her next strategy.

  “Good morning,” I call up. “I believe you are right about the violation of the neighbourhood.”

  “What are you talking about?” she says.

  “Look behind you. I believe there must be a new gang in town.”

  She grabs her throat as the full enormity of Joseph’s coat sinks in.

  “I see what you mean by rape,” I add.

  Mrs. Sybil Sharpe appears to be in the midst of a little dance. Most unlike her. I sip my Red Zinger and watch. But what’s happening? She’s clutching her chest and making gurgling noises. She’s slipping onto the deck. Her foot is drumming strangely on the cedar boards. Am I the only one who hears? So it seems.

  I finish my tea and turn my attention to the Siberian iris, which are reaching their peak. I move on to plan where I might split the daylilies and get a bit more of a ruffled look to the bald spot near the fence. The bird feeders need to be filled. The impatiens wants water. I could split and replant those clumps of snow-on-the-mountain.

  It all takes time.

  The drumming seems to go on forever. Then it is quiet on the deck.

  Artists: 2, Snakes: 1.

  “Well,” I say to Silent Sam after we have staked the morning glory, “we are neighbours, after all. Perhaps we should call for help.”

  Speak Ill of the Dead, MARY JANE MAFFINI’s first mystery novel for RendezVous Press, was nominated for a Crime Writers of Canada Arthur Ellis award, as was her short story “Kicking the Habit”, in Menopause is Murder. She scooped the Ellis for Best Short Story in 1995. Now watch out for her chilly new novel, The Icing on the Corpse.

  GRAND SLAM

  LEA TASSIE

  Seven spades.”

  “Double.”

  “Pass.”

  “Pass.”

  “Redouble!” A smug smile accompanied Laurene Jones’ triumphant bid. It was clear she thought making seven spades would be a snap.

  A grand slam, doubled, redoubled and vulnerable. If Laurene made her contract, she and Marion would win the rubber and be up 3,140 points. That was as many points in one hand as I usually made in a whole afternoon of bridge.

  My partner, Emily, stared at her cards as if wondering why she’d ever had the temerity to double Laurene’s bid, then gazed out my living room window at the log booms in the rain-lashed inlet and beyond to the Coast Range. The view of forested mountains apparently offered no inspiration, for she sighed and examined her cards again.

  Laurene was always full of herself, but when she made a doubled contract, she crowed so much that I wanted to take a dull knife to her tongue. There can be grace in winning as well as losing, but Laurene’s grace was restricted to her perfectly coiffed blonde hair, her perfectly matched ensembles and her perfectly kept house. Oh yes, and her expertly brewed coffee and exquisitely baked brownies.

  “It’s your lead, Emily,” I said. “And don’t worry. We’re not playing for money.”

  Emily led the deuce of hearts. Marion laid out the dummy’s hand, shoved her chair back and rose.

  “Where are you going?” Laurene demanded.

  “Bathroom break.” Marion’s smile was strained. She hated listening to Laurene brag as much as Emily and I, but she usually managed to be gracious.

  “Come and see what I have in my hand,” Laurene said, “and watch how I handle the play. You need to learn more about strategy.”

  Marion, the youngest at forty, pushed her red hair back over her shoulders, sm
oothed her silk shirt over the hips of her Levis and went dutifully to stand behind her partner’s chair, too gracious even to thumb her nose at the back of Laurene’s head.

  Laurene paused after each trick, whispering to Marion about the clever play she’d just made and the even cleverer play she intended to make next. Emily and I knew because she’d done the same thing to us, more times than we wanted to remember. The hand seemed to go on forever.

  “If you’ve got all the tricks, why don’t you lay your hand down and claim?” I asked.

  “That would be a waste of a good teaching hand, dear. I want to play it right through to the end, so Marion can see how to do a squeeze play.”

  In fact, she simply wanted to torture us. We all knew how to do a squeeze play, a simple matter of playing all your winners and forcing the defence to discard until they could no longer protect their good cards and had to discard those as well.

  Laurene made the grand slam, of course. Her bridge was impeccable, like her life. She wrote the 3,140 points on her score pad, beaming as though she’d won a lottery, and said to Emily, “What on earth possessed you to double me?”

  “The bidding indicated that you could be missing an ace and I thought Barbara might have it.” Emily, at seventy-three, was the senior member of our foursome, her speech as precise as her tweed suit and severe chignon of grey hair. A true lady, my husband often said.

  “And you had nothing in your own hand that could take a trick? Really, Emily! You must base your bids on logic, not wishful thinking.” Laurene rose. “Barbara, do you want help in the kitchen?”

  “No, no,” I said hastily, “everything is ready.” The last place I wanted her was in my messy kitchen, finding out I’d purchased the dessert from a bakery. Emily is a lady, Marion is gracious, I am a slob.

  I brought the tray of coffee and brownies, and we moved to easy chairs to nibble and rehash the three rubbers we’d played.

  As usual, Laurene took centre stage. She swallowed a delicate bite of her brownie, wiped her mouth carefully so as not to smudge the rose pink lipstick that matched her pant suit and said, “Ladies, I’ve said this before but it bears repeating. To play bridge properly, you must keep your minds fit, just as you should exercise and diet to keep your bodies fit.” She glanced at me. “Barbara, have you started that diet I gave you?”

  “No chance. We’ve had company all week.” To tell the truth, I’d ripped it up and tossed it in the fire as soon as I came home from our last bridge session.

  “You’ll never reach your ideal weight if you allow yourself to be distracted, Barbara. It’s like playing bridge. You must concentrate on your goal.”

  “I’ve always thought of bridge as a game,” Emily said. “A challenging game, to be sure, but fun to play. I’m afraid I don’t wish to regard it with the same seriousness as conducting a war.”

  Laurene reached for another brownie. “Barbara, these are quite good, but they do need a little something. Perhaps each one topped with a maraschino cherry?”

  I have always hated maraschino cherries, but not as much as I hated Laurene at that moment. “I’ll try that next time.”

  Laurene demolished the rest of the brownie without dropping so much as a crumb. “The goal in bridge is to win the most points. If you don’t play to win, why bother playing?”

  “I do play to win,” I said, “but I make mistakes, like everyone else.”

  “You wouldn’t if you dismissed every thought from your mind except the hand being played.” Laurene returned her serviette to its original folds and put it on her plate. “Barbara, when I have time, I’ll show you how to fold serviettes into marvellous shapes. Such touches add so much elegance to formal dinners.”

  “Thank you,” I said, gritting my teeth. Elegance in my house consists of using serviettes rather than paper towels. In Marion’s house it means sitting at the table to eat rather than in front of the television. In Emily’s, a three-course meal rather than a sandwich.

  “You played that grand slam very well,” Emily said. Conversation about anything other than bridge, books or bird-watching usually bores her, but I was surprised at her giving Laurene another chance to show off.

  “Thank you. By focusing on the hand, I realized I could make it by doing a squeeze play, thus avoiding the need to finesse for the diamond queen. All three of you would play so much better if you focussed properly.”

  “Well, of course, we’re not perfect,” Marion said with a straight face, kicking her shoes off and curling her jeans-clad legs under her in the corner armchair.

  “But you could be,” Laurene went on. “You could learn to bid and play as well as I do. Why don’t you come to my bridge classes at the church hall on Tuesday evenings?”

  “My book club meets on Tuesdays.” Emily crumpled her serviette. “I couldn’t possibly miss that.”

  “You could get the day changed if you learned to use psychology,” Laurene said. “That’s what is needed for bridge, too. With practice, you can train yourself to interpret facial expression, tone of voice and even hesitations in bidding and play.”

  Laurene rose and paced the room as though she were lecturing her class. “Now, Emily, try to get your book club to change its meeting night. Next week I’ll be teaching strategy. Playing the right card at the right time is essential to winning.”

  I was itching to toss my cold coffee in her face and wreck her flawless makeup, but Emily and Marion were being such exemplars of politeness and forbearance that I felt ashamed of my impulse.

  Laurene glanced at her watch and gave a tidy little shriek. “Oh, dear, I must be going. I’m teaching a class on cake decorating at four.” She buttoned and belted her rain coat and added, “I just love living in little towns like this. There’s so much one can do to improve life in them.”

  After the front door closed behind her, the three of us looked at each other. “I’ll go get the coffee pot,” Marion said. “We’ve all been out of school a long time and I, for one, don’t feel like going back. We have to do something about that woman.”

  “But what can we do that won’t jeopardize our husbands’ jobs?” I trotted into the kitchen after her to fetch the pan of brownies.

  “The unfortunate part of living in a company town in a remote logging area,” Emily said, when we were settled with fresh coffee, “is that one’s social life is so limited. I’m lucky my husband is retired. I can offend anyone I please.”

  Marion and I couldn’t. Both our husbands were in shaky management positions, reporting directly to the new superintendent, Laurene’s husband. It was well known that Winston Jones intended to make drastic cuts to management. Winston and Laurene had been in town barely three months, and already Laurene haunted our nightmares as much as Winston haunted the men’s.

  “Remember how much fun we had playing bridge when Sally was the fourth?” Marion bit into another brownie. Sally was the previous super’s wife, and Laurene had bulldozed her way into Sally’s social life right down the line.

  “It was wonderful,” I said. “She never snickered or bragged when she trumped somebody’s ace.”

  “Let’s not waste time with regrets,” Emily said, sitting up straighter than ever in her chair. “We must find a way to deal Laurene out of our bridge life so we can find a fourth who enjoys the game and doesn’t have to be right all the time. Is there any chance Winston will be transferred?”

  “Harvey overheard Winston say he’d rather be in head office in Vancouver,” Marion said, “but that it probably wouldn’t happen.”

  “Well, you know Laurene,” I said. “She wants to be a big toad in a small puddle, and she probably runs Winston’s life, too.”

  Emily pursed her lips. “I’d suggest her as chairperson of the library committee and the PTA in order to keep her too busy for bridge, but I’d hate to subject my old friends to such a horrible fate.”

  “It wouldn’t work anyway,” Marion said. “She’d never quit our foursome; every week she gets to win points against three imperfec
t victims. And I don’t mean just bridge points.” She picked up one shoe and hurled it across the room. It landed on a pile of newspapers and knocked them over. “When Laurene’s finished one of her lectures about how I should have played the hand, I want to say to her, ‘Laurene, please break wind again. I love the smell of roses.’”

  “I want to do more than that,” I said. “When she leans over and pats me on the shoulder and smirks while she’s telling me what I did wrong, I’d like to kill her.”

  Marion and Emily looked at each other, then at me. Marion got up and headed for the liquor cabinet. She pulled out a bottle and turned to hold it up. My best scotch. Emily went to the kitchen and brought back three glasses and a tray of ice cubes.

  “All right, let’s focus on psychology.” Marion poured a generous splash of scotch into each glass. “And let’s not forget concentration and perfect strategy and perhaps even a squeeze play or two.”

  • • •

  The following week, Marion and I arrived at Emily’s house fifteen minutes early for our bridge session. We put our trays of brownies beside Emily’s on the kitchen counter. In each of the three pans, one brownie sported a maraschino cherry nestled in thick chocolate icing.

  “Did you phone Laurene?” I asked.

  “Yesterday.” Emily smiled as she prepared the coffee-maker. “She’s thrilled about the contest. She said she’d have no problem judging which brownie is best.”

  “Thrilled to death, I hope,” Marion said. “I don’t know how I’m going to get through three rubbers of bridge with the state my mind’s in.”

  “You must learn to concentrate on the game, my dear,” I said, mimicking Laurene’s tone and accidentally knocking a knife off the counter.

  Emily took my hands in hers. “I would suggest you take a couple of aspirins, Barbara. That might stop your hands trembling.”

  “Could I have a shot of scotch instead? And some fresh mint to chew afterwards?”