A Killing Spring (9 page)

But the voice on the other end of the line wasn’t Jill’s. It was a man’s.

“Is this Joanne Kilbourn?”

“Yes.”

“Joanne, it’s Ed Mariani. I just wanted to thank you for the things you said on your show. They were all the things I would have said, or I hope I would have said, if I’d been there. Barry and I were very moved.”

“Your timing couldn’t have been better,” I said. “I just got fired.”

“Not because of what you said tonight?” His voice was full of anger.

“I wish that were the reason,” I said. “At least that would have a little dignity.”

“What was it, then?”

“Ed, I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said anything. I’m just upset.”

“Do you want to talk about it?”

“No. I’ll handle it. I’m a big girl.”

“Even big girls need a chance to vent once in a while.”

“Thanks,” I said. “I’ll be okay.”

“I know you will,” he said. “But let’s speed up the process. Come for dinner tomorrow night. Barry’s making paella. It’s his best dish, and he loves to show it off. You’re welcome to bring whomever you like: significant other, kids, pets … Barry’s paella is endless.”

“All right,” I said. “I accept. But there’ll just be my youngest daughter and me. My son has a basketball game tomorrow night.”

“We’ll send you home with a doggy bag for him. Six-thirty?”

“Six-thirty would be great. And, Ed, thanks.”

When I hung up, I felt better. Then I remembered the scene in the restaurant and I felt worse. I put some ice cubes in a glass, took down the Glenfiddich, poured myself a generous shot, and went back into the living room. Glenn Gould was still playing. I kicked off my shoes, collapsed on the couch, and took a long sip of my drink. It was terrific. As someone who had once been a good friend had told me not that long ago, there are times when nothing but single-malt Scotch will do.

At church Sunday morning, we used the old Book of Common Prayer. When Angus pulled out a pencil and began drawing basketball strategies on the back of the bulletin, I opened the Prayer Book to the Service for Young People and pointed to the line “Lord, keep our thoughts from wandering.” But my thoughts were wandering too: to Jill, to the end of my work on the political panel, to the scene I’d made the night before at the Chimney. When the rector read out, “Come unto me all that labour and are heavy laden, and I will refresh you,” I knew it was the best invitation I’d had all week. An hour later, I left church, not yet in a state of love and charity with my neighbours, but at least in a state where I could contemplate the possibility.

The weather was so warm by noon that we took our egg-salad sandwiches and iced tea out to the deck. Angus, who was always quick to spot a mellow mood, asked if we could drive out to the valley after lunch, and I agreed. Alex had been letting him take the wheel for almost a month now, and it seemed churlish not to take my turn.

My son was already in the driver’s seat when Taylor and I came out of the house.

“Hurry up,” he yelled. “I want to open up this old junker and see how fast she can go.”

“Don’t even think about it,” I said, as I buckled up.

I turned to make sure Taylor had her seatbelt on. She did, but she looked grim.

I tried to sound confident. “T, there’s nothing to worry about. Alex says your brother’s a good driver, and I know that Angus is going to be especially careful with you in the car.” I looked hard at my son. “Aren’t you?”

He gave me a mock salute. “Yes, ma’am,” he said, and we were off.

He was as good as his word. I was boggled by the transformation that took place the minute the key was in the ignition. Angus drove through the city streets as prudently as the proverbial little old lady who only took a spin on alternate Sundays. Alex had obviously been an inspired teacher. It was as pleasant an uneventful a drive as a mother could expect from a fifteen-year-old with a learner’s permit. Lulled by the absence of catastrophe, Taylor began to read aloud the roadside signs: “Big Valley Country”; “Stella’s Pies, We-Bake-Our-Own”; “Langenegger’s: All-Vegetarian/All-U-Can-Eat.” As we turned off the highway and drove through the Qu’Appelle Valley, I felt my nerves beginning to unknot. In a month, the hills would be green, and the valley would be filled with birdsong. Other years, the demands of the political panel had kept us in town on weekends. A summer of freedom to enjoy these hills would not be hard to take.

We turned at the cutoff for Last Mountain Lake and drove till we came to Regina Beach, at the heart of cottage country. Regina Beach is one of those towns which spring to life on the May long weekend, rock all summer, and sink back into
quiescence after Thanksgiving. That balmy March day, the town was still sleeping: the streets were empty, the playgrounds were forlorn, and the beach was deserted. Taylor ran down the hill to the playground, took a few desultory swings, then caught up with Angus and me. We walked out on the dock, and as we sat on the end, with our feet dangling over the edge, and watched the seagulls swooping towards the sun-splashed water, I tried to figure out how I could stretch our budget to include rent for a cottage. Then Angus took Taylor to the beach and showed her how to skip stones over the surface of the lake, and I knew that, even if I had to take in laundry, I’d find a way to get us all out here by summer.

When Taylor began skipping her stones farther than his, Angus realized he needed to rest his arm for basketball that night, and we walked back up into town. It was too early for Butler’s Fish and Chips to be open for the season, but there was an ice-cream stand with waffle cones and a dazzling variety of flavours and toppings. We got cones and walked up one side of the town and down the other till we discovered a little shop that sold crafts and homemade jams and jellies. Angus zeroed in on a lethal-looking hunting knife in a hand-tooled leather sheath, but we settled on a basket of preserves: saskatoon berry, choke cherry, and northern blueberry for Taylor and me to take with us when we had dinner with Ed Mariani and Barry Levitt that night.

As we started up the hill, the Volvo’s engine began to cough. I looked at the gas gauge. “Cruising on empty there, Angus,” I said. “I hope you’ve got your credit card handy.” He gave me a withering look. “I’m just trying to prepare you for the realities of life with an ’85 Camaro.” I said.

There was a station at the top of the hill, and we sputtered up beside the gas tank. The station was a low-slung Mom-and-Pop
type of place with a garage on one side and a café on the other. What appeared to be fifty years’ worth of hubcaps had been nailed into the wooden face of the garage, but except for two curled and faded cardboard photographs of ice-cream sundaes, the front of the restaurant was bare. It was not, however, without adornment. Suspended by chains from the frame of the café’s front window was a jumbo-sized plaster wiener with the words “Foot Long” written in mustard-coloured script along its side.

Angus gave me the thumbs-up sign. “Check it out, Mum – wheels and weenies.”

“You’d better hope wheels and weenies is open,” I said. “Otherwise, you’re going to have to haul out the gas can and walk.”

Angus drew up next to the gas tank and turned off the ignition. “Relax, Mum. It’ll be open. You always say I was born lucky.”

It was true. When it came to the vagaries of day-to-day life, my youngest son always had seemed blessed. But as the minutes ticked by and no one who worked at the gas station appeared, I was beginning to wonder if Angus’s run of luck was over. I was just about to remind him of the location of the gas can when Taylor pointed towards the station and said, “Look, here comes the gas boy.”

His fine-chiselled features were grime-covered, and he was wearing greasy coveralls, not
GAP
, but there was no disguising the angular grace or the smile.

“What are you doing out here?” Val Massey asked.

“Looking for a summer cottage,” I said. “At least, we’re thinking about looking for one.”

“We are?” Taylor asked.

“Yeah,” I said, “we are.” I turned to Val. “I didn’t know you worked out here. Is it a weekend thing?”

He looked down at his feet. “Unfortunately, no. This job is permanent. It’s the family business. I live back there.” He gestured over his shoulder towards a small bungalow behind the station. As if on cue, the door opened and a squat muscular man wearing the twin of Val’s coverall stepped outside. The man had a cigarette and an attitude.

“Step on it, Valentine,” he shouted. “I don’t pay you to charm the customers.”

Val flushed. “Yes, Dad,” he said softly. He tried a smile. “Well, Professor K., what’ll it be?”

As Val filled the tank and wiped our window, his father smoked and watched, alert to any possible transgression. It was only after Val took my credit card inside that the older man seemed to relax. When his son was out of sight, he threw his cigarette down, ground it into the cinder path, and headed back to the bungalow. Val’s face was stony when he came back to the car, and his hands trembled as he passed me my receipt. “I apologize for my father,” he said, and he turned away.

Angus rolled up the window and started the engine. “I’d go nuts if I had a father like that,” he said. “Why does he put up with it?”

“No option, I guess.”

As we waited for a camper to pass, I glanced out the back window. Val hadn’t moved, but his father had come out of the bungalow and started to walk towards him. When his father got close, Val said something to him; then, without breaking stride, the older man raised his hand and cuffed Val across the side of the head.

I was the only one who saw. Angus was busy checking for traffic on the road, and Taylor was back to looking for signs. Suddenly, she crowed with delight. “Hey, there’s one I missed.” The sign she’d spotted was handmade, an arrow pointing back to the station from which we’d just come.
Taylor read the words on the arrow carefully. “Masluk & Son, Gas, Food, Friendly Service.”

We got home around 4:00. There were no messages on the machine, and given the chaotic state of my feelings about Jill, I was unsure whether that was good news or bad. Angus took the dogs out for a run, then went off to the 7-Eleven, pregame hangout of choice among the sportsmen in Angus’s circle. Taylor got out her sketchpad and drew pictures of Regina Beach for a while, then she wandered off to choose her outfit for the dinner party. When she came up to my bedroom for inspection, I was stunned. Left to her own devices, Taylor was a whimsical dresser, but that night she was right on the money: a plaid ruffle skirt, a white pullover with a plaid diamond design, dark green leotards, and her best mary-janes. She’d even brushed her hair. It was obviously a rite-of-passage day.

Ed and Barry lived on a quiet crescent near the university. Their house overlooked the bird sanctuary and the campus, and it was clear when Ed shepherded us inside that they had designed their split-level to take full advantage of the view. The house was built into a rise so that you entered on one floor, but immediately moved up a short flight of stairs to the airy brightness of a large room that seemed to be made up entirely of floor-to-ceiling windows.

Ed led us down a short corridor to the kitchen. Barry Levitt was waiting for us. He was a small man with a receding hairline he made no effort to hide and a trim body he obviously worked hard to preserve. Ed had told me that he and Barry were the same age, forty, but Barry had the kind of charm that would be described as boyish until the day he moved into the seniors’ complex. That night he was wearing an open-necked sports shirt the colour of a cut peach and a black denim bib apron. He didn’t look up
when we came in. All his attention was focused on the steaming pot of seafood he was dumping into a mixing bowl of rice.

When the pot that had held the seafood was empty, Barry stepped back and gestured for us to move closer so we could peer into the bowl.

Taylor stood on tiptoe and looked down. “Mussels,” she said happily, “and shrimp and scallops and some things I don’t know.”

“Well, let’s see,” said Barry. “I remember throwing a squid in there, and some clams, and chicken, and a very succulent-looking lobster. I think that’s the final tally.”

“Paella,” I said, inhaling deeply. “One of the great dishes of the world. If you can bottle that aroma, I’ll be your first customer.”

Barry grinned and waved his stirring spoon in the air. “Somebody get these discerning women a drink.”

“We have a pitcher of sangria,” Ed said, “and we have a cabinet of what Barry’s father’s bar book called ‘the most notable potables.’ ”

“Sangria will be fine,” I said.

He turned to Taylor. “And for you, we have all the ingredients for a Shirley Temple. Even the umbrella.”

There is something ceremonial about a drink with an umbrella, and Taylor accepted her Shirley Temple gravely and waited till she was safely seated at the kitchen table before she took a sip. For a few moments, she basked in sophistication, then her eyes grew huge and she leaped up and grabbed my arm.

“Look at that,” she said, pointing towards the living room, “they have a Fafard bronze horse! In their house! Jo, you told me real people could never afford to buy those horses because they cost fifteen thousand dollars.”

Barry raised an eyebrow. “How old is Taylor?”

“Six, but she’s pretty serious about art. Her mother was Sally Love.”

Barry and Ed exchanged a quick glance. “We have a painting your mother did,” Ed said gently. “Would you like to see it?”

Taylor put down her drink, then she went over to Ed and took his hand. “Let’s go,” she said.

The Sally Love painting Barry and Ed owned was an oil on canvas, about three feet by two and a half. It was a spring scene. Two men wearing gardening clothes and soft shapeless hats were working in a back yard incandescent with tulips, daffodils, and a drift of wild iris. The colours of the blossoms were heart-stoppingly vibrant, and the brushwork was so careful that you felt you could touch the petals, but it was the figures of the men that drew your eye. In painting them, Sally had used muted colours and lines that curved to suggest both age and absolute harmony. You couldn’t look at the painting without knowing that the old gardeners were among the lucky few who get to live out a life of quiet joy.