Strangers Among Us

by LR Wright

  “It’s too early for that,” said Eliot. “It’s not even six o’clock yet.” He was cleaning up, stuffing things back into the bags. “There’s no way,” he said again.

  Alvin said, “What, then?” He came over to help. “We gotta get us a can opener, you’re right, that’s for sure. You want to stay here?”

  “We can’t stay here,” said Eliot, disgusted, “with your folks three blocks away.”

  “Six.”

  “Whatever.”

  “So we find another park,” said Alvin.

  He was getting excited. Eliot knew the signs now. His eyes would start moving around like they’d come unconnected, and he’d start jiggling up and down so that his hair bounced around on his forehead, which was just as well because whenever it bounced down it covered up his eyes for a minute.

  “We walk all day,” said Alvin, “and I do some panhandling so we can get a can opener and other stuff we need, and when it gets dark we find another park like this one.”

  Eliot started to protest; he found Alvin’s enthusiasm tiring.

  But Alvin went on. “And once we got a bit of money we change our clothes and dry these ones in a laundromat.”

  Eliot admitted that this was probably a good idea. “Come on,” he said, starting to roll up the sleeping bag, and a few minutes later they slipped out of the shelter of the trees and started trudging across the park.

  “When it gets cold,” said Eliot, “I don’t know what we’re gonna do.”

  “There’s buildings nobody lives in,” said Alvin.

  “Yeah,” said Eliot, listless. “I guess.”

  Chapter 20

  ENID STUDIED HERSELF CRITICALLY in the bathroom mirror. She pulled up on the skin of her upper forehead, trying to see how much improvement might be accomplished by some judiciously executed cosmetic surgery. Bernie’s hoots of derision were almost as loud in her ears as if Bernie had been standing there with her. Enid sighed and turned away from the mirror. She would find some of Bernie’s attitudes irritating, if she hadn’t been made aware of their origin.

  One night five years after she and Bernie had met, Enid and Arch were in bed asleep, when Enid became aware of a knocking at their front door. Arch continued to snore. Enid got up and went to the window and peered outside, and saw Bernie’s VW bug parked in front of the house. She hurried downstairs, quietly, so as not to wake the children, and opened the door.

  It was summer, and the night air was cool and fragrant. It was so quiet that Enid could hear Bernie’s breathing, which was quick and shallow.

  “I am truly sorry to come here in the middle of the night,” Bernie said, “but I need some help, and it’s you I thought might give it to me.”

  Enid ushered her inside. Bernie walked slowly and carefully down the hall, somewhat bent over, carrying her purse in front of her like a shield. She slid onto a kitchen chair and Enid sat in another.

  “What is it, Bernie?”

  “I been wondering for years what it would take,” Bernie said dully. “Turns out it’s the sum total and you don’t know what that is till you get there.”

  Enid shook her head in confusion.

  “Turns out that seventeen times was one time too many.” Bernie turned her birdlike eyes upon Enid. “You never had any idea, did you?” she said proudly. “That Hector walloped me?”

  Enid felt herself gawk.

  “Nope. Knew you didn’t.” Bernie looked blankly around the kitchen. “Knew you didn’t.”

  Enid stood up. “I’ll put on some coffee.”

  “Do you happen to have any strong drink in the house?” said Bernie.

  “We do.” Enid gave her a hug, which caused Bernie to cry out. “Oh, Bernie. Where do you hurt?”

  “I believe a rib or two may be broken.”

  “We have to get you to the hospital.”

  “First the police station,” Bernie had said. “Then the hospital.”

  And so it was no wonder that Bernie mistrusted men, thought Enid, dropping two slices of raisin bread into the toaster. Most men, anyway.

  As she reached into the cupboard for the butter she heard her lodger’s truck start up. She remained frozen, her hand in mid-air. But she had resolved to be philosophical. If he goes, he goes, she told herself. In a moment, she heard him drive away.

  She took out the butter and ate her breakfast. Her mind was elsewhere, though, and she barely tasted her toast.

  When she’d washed her dishes and put them away she dithered for a while, then took herself in hand. It was her house, after all. She oughtn’t to have to wait around wondering whether she still had a lodger or not. So pretty soon she marched down there, flung open the door, and had a look.

  His toiletries still sat on the bathroom counter. The pile of laundry had grown somewhat larger. Enid, smiling to herself, tiptoed out of the suite and closed the door gently behind her.

  Alberg felt furtive just looking out his office window now, and even though this time when he looked he didn’t see the damn brown Silverado parked outside, he was just as angry as if he had.

  He picked up his ringing phone. “Alberg,” he said, snapping a bite out of the air with it.

  “Uh, it’s Neil, sir. Neil Hutchon?”

  “I don’t know you,” said Alberg, looking out the window again. Maybe he should board the damn thing up, and carve himself a skylight.

  “Uh, the realtor? You looked at one of my properties the other day?”

  “Oh. Yes.” Alberg went around his desk and sat down. “We were going to get back to you, but something came up.”

  “Sure,” said Neil, comfortingly. “Sure.”

  “We want to take another look at it,” Alberg told him.

  “Sure,” Neil said. “When would you like to do this? Because, the thing of it is, there’s another party interested, as well?”

  “Can’t make it before the weekend,” said Alberg, paging through his desk diary. “I’ll give you a call on Saturday. If it’s still available we’ll set something up then.”

  He grabbed his jacket and went out into the reception area, where a stocky man of about sixty sat on the bench reading a newspaper. Alberg’s heart lurched—for a moment he’d thought it was Jack Coutts. Jesus Christ, he thought in self-disgust.

  “I’ve got that Chamber of Commerce lunch,” he told Isabella. “And then I’m going to see Noah Silverton.”

  “Thank you, thank you,” said Isabella with fervor.

  Silverton had called the detachment seven times about kids running through his yard on their way to school. Alberg was making this complaint his own personal responsibility because Silverton’s sailboat was moored next to Alberg’s, and they had struck up a casual friendship.

  “Who’s the civilian over there?” said Alberg, leaning across the counter, keeping his voice low.

  Isabella threw a worried glance toward the bench. “That’s Richard,” she whispered. “My husband. He did it. He retired.”

  Alberg nodded, slowly, considering the implications of this. He said hello to the guy as he left the building, and got a pleasant smile in return.

  It was after the lunch, during his talk with Noah Silverton, that Alberg saw Jack Coutts for the first time that day.

  “Yeah, you’re right,” Noah was saying crossly. They were standing outside, examining the patch of rain-sodden grass that had been torn up by the feet of running children. “But I don’t like the idea.”

  The Silverado pulled up at the curb across the street. Alberg couldn’t see Jack clearly, but well enough to recognize that he was wearing a bright yellow winter cap. It put Alberg in mind of a parrot he’d once known, a sullen, spiteful bird, but colorful. For some reason the comparison lightened his spirits and he raised his arm and offered Jack a stylized salute.

  This went unnoticed by Noah Silverton, who was still staring at his lawn. “Don’t like it one bit,” he was saying. “I’m ideologically opposed to fences.”

  “Still and all,” said Alberg. “I think Mr. Frost�
�s got the right idea. Don’t you?”

  Silverton nodded gloomily. “Yeah. I know. I’ll do it.”

  Alberg returned to the detachment—where Richard Harbud was still sitting on the bench in the reception area—and picked up his messages. For the rest of the afternoon, working at his desk, he was painfully aware of the window, of not looking out the window.

  After work he drove to Warren Kettleman’s garage, left the Oldsmobile there to be serviced, and walked over to the library to get a ride home with Cassandra.

  And from the library he saw Jack, now hatless, leaning against a telephone pole.

  “Okay,” said Alberg. “That’s it.” And he walked out of the library and down the street toward him.

  As Alberg approached, Jack’s expression didn’t change. Alberg felt as if he were walking in deep water. He had a sense of inevitability. He was aware of every detail of the muted pattern of Jack Coutts’s jacket, saw that the white lines separating the squares of different shades of red were blurred, that one pocket sagged open—maybe his keys were in it. Jack’s arms were folded across his chest. He was wearing a denim shirt under the jacket and the cuffs were slightly frayed. His jeans were worn but clean; his workboots, old but polished. Alberg was concentrating intently on these things, on these details, because he was worried about the extent of his anger, which was deeper than he had realized; and because he knew that Cassandra was watching through the library’s floor-to-ceiling window.

  “It’s not me you’re pissed off with,” he said to Jack, and stopped far enough away from him not to be in his face. “You know damn fucking well who you’re really mad at, Jack.”

  Jack pushed away from the telephone pole and dropped his hands to his sides. “Yeah, right, let’s have a bunch of psychological bullshit from the world’s most incompetent cop,” he said, his face reddening.

  A couple of kids dawdling along the street stopped their chatter, stopped in their tracks.

  Alberg was shaking slightly with the effort to keep himself under control. “You’re the one who watched it year after year,” he said. “You’re the one who didn’t get your wife goddamn locked up where she goddamn belonged.”

  “Who the fuck are you?” Jack shouted. “Who the fuck are you?”

  The kids hastily crossed the street. A passing motorist slowed down.

  “So you end up watching her die for twelve years, twelve fucking years, you poor sonofabitch.” Alberg turned away, then turned back, lifted his hand, and pointed his index finger at Jack, wanting badly to jab him in the chest with it. “Carry your fucking cross, Jack. And stay away from me. I’m warning you.” He turned around and walked back toward the library, keeping a steady pace, focusing on the library door, on breathing, on not listening, on not remembering.

  “Warning me! Warning me! That’s all you’re good for!” Jack shouted after him. “And you didn’t even do that, you didn’t even do that, you useless fucking cop!” He was weeping now, and didn’t seem to know it. He leaned against the telephone pole for a minute. Then wiped his face with his hands and staggered around the corner.

  Enid sat in her living room that rainy, windy evening, leafing through a catalog. The TV was on, but the volume was low, and Enid couldn’t have said what program was showing; she had it on for company—in the evening she needed more than sound for company, she needed the muted muffled moving around of other people in her life. She looked up, occasionally, when a gust of wind flung rain against the window: it sounded like pebbles striking the glass.

  Enid was Christmas shopping in the catalog. Reggie and The Spouse were going to Hawaii for the holidays and Enid’s daughter the lawyer had to go to her in-laws in Montreal. Enid resented her children for avoiding her at Christmas, but she would of course send them gifts nonetheless. She turned another page of the catalog—and then heard noises downstairs.

  She got up and went to the window and sure enough, her lodger’s truck was parked in front of the house. The wind and the rain had covered the sounds of his arrival.

  Enid stood in a bubble, feeling suspended, as if the floor had drifted away from her feet without her knowing it; she felt like one of those cartoon creatures who run off the edge of a cliff and cover a considerable distance in mid-air until realization strikes, and only then do they fall.

  She glided to the basement door and listened, intently. He has nothing down there to entertain him, she thought, no radio, no television, not even any books to keep him company.

  It is darn near Christmas, she told herself. We’re in the month of Christmas. She would offer him a glass of wine.

  She ran lightly upstairs to comb her hair and she dabbed a little perfume at the base of her neck, too, then went down into the basement and knocked firmly upon his door.

  It took him a long time to answer. Enid didn’t knock again, but waited, patiently. Finally she heard him stirring in there. Perhaps her knock had wakened him—but no, he hadn’t had time to fall asleep.

  He opened the door. She lifted her head to smile at him. But when she saw his face, she didn’t smile. “What’s wrong?” she said. “Mr. Coutts, what’s the matter?”

  He tried to reply, but couldn’t. She reached out to touch his arm. He shook his head, took a step back, then stumbled, and sank onto the edge of the bed. Enid remained in the doorway. “Can I help you? Is there something I can do for you?”

  Jack shook his head again, slumped over, sitting on his bed.

  “Did something happen?” said Enid.

  He looked up at her now and tried to laugh.

  Enid glided into the room and sat down on the highbacked chair that used to live in her upstairs hall. “Tell me,” she said.

  His head was bowed. His hair, she noticed again, was thick and rough. His hands, clasped between his knees, had long strong fingers: he wore no wedding ring.

  The room was mostly dark. Some light drifted in from the living room where he must have turned on the lamp.

  “Tell me,” said Enid again, velvet-voiced, and she folded her hands in her lap, waiting. After a long time he began to speak and a softness occurred in Enid’s chest, something warm began to grow there, and she tended it, encouraged it, as he talked to her.

  “I was married, once—it turned out she was crazy.”

  He sat up straighter and looked across the room at her. Enid realized that she was sitting in the soft light floating in from the living room. He was in mostly darkness. She could make out his clothing, a denim shirt and bluejeans, and she could occasionally see the whites of his eyes. If he were to smile, or laugh, his teeth would gleam: she had observed how straight and white they were.

  “That’s not my fault,” said Jack. “I know that. It’s not my fault that she was crazy. That she didn’t keep herself clean. But—”

  He got up and went to the window, pulled back the curtain and looked outside. Enid was aware of the wind and the rain. It was cozy in Jack Coutts’s rented bedroom; cozy like a cave, or a den.

  “But what?” she said, softly.

  “We had a daughter. Heather,” he said, his voice thicker. “I taught her how to look after herself, do laundry, make meals but—”

  He left the window and circled the bed. She heard his leg brush the bedskirt. She wouldn’t have put that thing on the bed if she’d known that a man would be sleeping there. For a moment he stood close to Enid’s chair and she started to rise but he sat down again, on the edge of the bed.

  “But she was only a kid. A little kid. And—”

  Enid waited, not knowing how to finish the sentence for him.

  He rubbed his face with both hands, energetically, as if trying to erase himself. “I should have left her. I should have taken Heather and left her. Oh, god.” He began to weep.

  Before she knew it, Enid was sitting next to him, her arm around his shoulders. “Oh dear, oh dear,” she said. “There’s no room for should haves, no room at all.”

  She admired the way he moved, quietly, almost stealthily, guarding his secrets.
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  Enid patted his shoulder, squeezed it, as he wept, and he turned so that she could embrace him with both arms. “Oh yes,” she whispered, hugging him close. She put her hand under his chin to lift his face, gently. Softly she kissed his tears—his eyes, his cheeks. When her mouth touched his lips it was like a butterfly landing upon a rose. She felt his lips open—oh yes thought Enid…

  Jack stiffened in her arms. He remained for a second very still, like a deer caught in headlights, and then like the deer he leapt away.

  “I’m sorry,” he stammered.

  “No, no,” said Enid calmly, standing, smoothing her dress. “There’s no need to be sorry. I misread you. It’s for me to apologize.” She went to the door, then glanced over her shoulder at him. “You must get rid of them. All those memories. All those should haves.”

  He was standing awkwardly in the middle of the bedroom, his hair in disarray. He was no longer weeping.

  “Thank you for confiding in me,” said Enid.

  Chapter 21

  Saturday, December 3

  “I’M SICK OF THIS,” said Eliot, rolling up the sleeping bag. “I gotta get outa this city. I gotta get home. I gotta get back to Nova Scotia.” Rosie was going to end up back there, with relatives, he had realized. There was absolutely no reason, then, for Eliot to stay in this place.

  “Huh,” said Alvin, scooping the last spoonful of pork and beans out of a can. He was using a serving spoon he’d stolen from a Zellers store.

  “I’m freezing cold, for one thing,” said Eliot.

  They had spent the last two nights in a wooded area of Stanley Park; through the trees they could get a glimpse of the Lion’s Gate Bridge. Eliot didn’t know much about this park, but he did know that it was very big, that besides all the acres of forest there was an aquarium somewhere, and a zoo, and he thought some totem poles, as well. But he and Alvin hadn’t seen any of that. They’d kept to the woods.

  “How’re you gonna get to Nova Scotia?” Alvin was holding the empty can and looking around like he expected to see a garbage can suddenly appear, out there in the middle of the woods.