Adam's Peak (22 page)

“Alec!” Clare heard the aunt say. “Alec, we have guests for tea. Mrs. Fraser and her daughter. Come out and join us.” There was no audible reply, and a few seconds later, the aunt spoke again, but not in English. This time, the hall door opened.

“I'm not available, Mary,” Mr. Vantwest announced, making no attempt to muffle his voice. “I'll take my tea in here.”

In the kitchen the kettle whistled. Clare's hands clenched tighter. Suddenly she was relieved beyond measure that her mother had come along. She glanced at Isobel, whose chin was directed toward the hall like an antenna, then she turned back to the outrageous lamp by the bookcase. Something about its imperfections suggested the thing was real. Real or not, though, its outrageousness seemed appropriate, a tangible emblem that all was not right in the Vantwest house. Clare kept her eyes on the creature until the aunt reappeared carrying a silver tray, which she set on the embroidered runner. The tea, strong and steaming, had already been poured into four gold-rimmed cups, and there was a matching plate of yellow cake.

“Alec is taking this hardest of all,” the aunt said heavily. “I told him he should stay home today, and the doctor agreed with me. He said he will call us if there's any change. I tell Alec he should go outside, take a walk, go to church. His health is not so good anymore.” She added milk to two of the cups, sugar to one, sloshing tea into the saucers as she stirred. “His doctor has told him he has diabetes. It's only mild, but if he doesn't look after himself, he'll have to take the needle.”

Isobel cleared her throat and leaned forward to take one of the remaining cups. “Well, it certainly makes sense, doesn't it, that your brother would be terribly upset. He's certainly had more than his share of troubles.” She turned to Clare. “We know what
some
of those troubles are like, don't we, pet?”

Clare looked down and reached for the tiny pitcher of milk.

The aunt lifted a cup and saucer from the tray. “I must take this to Alec,” she said. “Please eat some cake.” Then she disappeared down the hall.

Clare plucked the smallest slice of cake from the plate and took a bite. She and her mother didn't speak, and she worried that the Vantwests would suspect them of eavesdropping. Nevertheless, when a new bout of urgent whispering erupted in the hall, she strained to listen. The aunt's words were muffled, but it was clear she was distressed. Her brother's voice, which he'd lowered a little, came in calm fragments.

“This isn't—time, Mary—not interested—they—appreciate it if you would ask them—”

Clare stared at the crocodile lamp. She tried to imagine the man that Adam Vantwest had described in the depanneur. A complicated, tormented man, he'd suggested. But devoted to his family. The word
fierce
came to her—fiercely devoted, fierce as a crocodile. It was a word that had no place in the pattern of her own life, yet she repeated it to herself, rhythmically, as her thumb rubbed the rim of her saucer.

When the aunt returned, she stood in the middle of the living room and smoothed the front of her dress with her palms. Isobel rested her cup and saucer on the table.

“Perhaps we should go, Mary. It seems we've caught you at a bad time.”

The aunt hesitated just long enough that the answer she couldn't manage verbally became apparent. Clare set her own cup on the table, and, following her mother's lead, stood up. For the first time, the aunt addressed her directly.

“You must come back another time. You're still living with your mother, no?”

“Maybe not for long,” Isobel chirped. “She's thinking of moving out to Vancouver.”

Clare gave a tight-lipped smile. The aunt cocked her head to one side.

“Ah, so far away. Just like Rudy.”

“How
is
Rudy?” Isobel then said. “I haven't seen him in years.”

“Oh, he is fine. Always working very hard for his pupils.”

“He's a lovely lad. Give him my best when you speak to him.”

As they filed out of the living room, Clare took a last look at the six-year-old Adam. His face was no longer cheeky but imploring.

Come on, Clare. You were the last person I spoke to that day
.
Tell them about our ride. Anything. Go on.

The aunt fetched Isobel's jacket from the closet. While Isobel slipped it on and plucked a bit of fluff from the lapel, Clare stood with her arms crossed and her right hand clenched. The opportunity would last only a few seconds, she knew, and it wasn't until the last possible instant that she cleared her throat and said, as if it were an afterthought, “I spoke to Adam before his accident. I was on my way to the store and he was cleaning his motorcycle.”

The saying of it was a relief—but a fleeting one. Searching the aunt's eyes she wondered suddenly if the Vantwests already knew the whole story—if Adam, when he returned to his house for the extra helmet and jacket, had mentioned to his father where he was going, and with whom, and if Mr. Vantwest and his sister were now wondering bitterly how it was that Clare Fraser had managed to escape Adam's fate. Resenting her.

And yet what she detected in the aunt's expression was the same eager reassurance she'd seen in Adam.

“Ah, that's good. You both had a nice talk at that time?”

“Yes ... we did.”

Clare glanced distractedly in the direction of the living room. There was so much more to say—about the ride along the lakeshore, and the conversation by the dairy case, about Adam paying for the eggs, and speaking French, and offering to take her up Mount Royal. More importantly there was her sense that these things had, in some still vague but significant way, affected her. Adam had changed her, she wanted to say. But her mother was watching her as attentively as the aunt. Isobel would notice that these weren't the kinds of things her daughter ever talked about, and the fact of her noticing would be intolerable.

“We didn't talk for long,” she finally added. “He was telling me about Sri Lanka.”

The aunt smiled. “Ah yes. He is always talking about Sri Lanka, isn't it?”

Her words implied a generous assumption that Clare Fraser was close enough to Adam to know the sorts of things he liked to talk about. Though the remark left her awkwardly nodding and looking down at the floor, she wished it were true. She wished her mother and Mr. Vantwest would leave and that she and the aunt could sit together, like neighbours, and talk about Adam.

Instead, the aunt patted her hair, and Isobel reached for the door latch.

“Please give our best to your brother,” she said. “Tell him we were asking after him. And if there's anything we can do to help, Mary, don't hesitate to ring.”

The aunt stretched her cardigan across her middle and shivered. “Alec is taking this very hard,” she whispered. “He's not himself these days.” She glanced down the hall, and Isobel, in response, reached out and squeezed her neighbour's hand.

The visit ended. When the door had closed behind them and they were halfway down the Vantwests' driveway, Isobel exhaled as if she'd been holding her breath.

“Well,
that
was a strange visit.”

“I guess,” Clare said.

“I just don't see—Well, I can understand the man being reluctant to socialize. But to send us away altogether?”

Clare took in the familiar lines and angles of her own house. Her mother had yet to make any changes to the exterior, and for the moment Alastair was still there, in the brickwork, the windows, the aluminum siding—still attentive, if nothing else.

“Maybe he just had the guts to do what most people in his situation want to do.” She kicked a chunk of dry snow and it sprayed across her driveway. “Wouldn't you have loved to tell Joanne Skinner to get lost when she kept coming over here after Dad died?”

“Not really,” Isobel said. “She was the one who got me out taking that accounting course. I'm not sure what I would have done otherwise.”

Clare eyed her mother uncertainly then followed her into the house.

THAT EVENING, EMMA CALLED
. She talked for thirty minutes, her thoughts ramming into each other like a high-speed traffic pileup, before finally taking a breath.

“So, what's up with you?” she said.

Clare was lying on the loveseat, picking idly at its worn beige cushions. She'd said nothing to Emma about Adam's accident—nor had Emma's mother gotten around to it, apparently—and though she toyed with the possibility now, a desire to keep her connections with the Vantwests private held her back.

“My mother's been flirting with her carpet installer,” she said instead.

Emma gasped theatrically. “You're kidding! Isobel Fraser is out on the scene?! That's amazing. But I told you she would, didn't I? So who's the guy? He's a furnace installer?”

“Carpet.”

“That's wild. What's he like?”

“I don't know really. His name's Ted. He's sort of rugged, I guess.” She paused. Then, to make up for hiding the real story, she added, “It's kind of weird, imagining my mother with someone other than my dad.”

Emma became serious, her voice like a therapist's.

“It had to happen, Clare. Your mother's not ready to lead an old widow's life. She's really attractive, and I can really see her getting out there and exploring the possibilities. I know it must seem like she's replacing your dad, but—and don't get me wrong here; I really liked your dad—but I bet she's ready for some younger blood.”

Clare twisted the telephone cord around her index finger and watched the tip turn pink. Emma's predictions about her mother were logical but wrong. The Isobel Fraser that Clare knew—the woman with whom most of Emma's world could not be shared—was not, despite the murky circumstances of her pregnancy, an explorer of that sort.

“Anyway,” Emma continued, “I think you're dealing with two difficult issues here. The first one is having to acknowledge
again
that your dad is gone. And I totally sympathize with how hard that must be.
And the other one is having to face the fact that your mother is becoming sexually active while you're not. I know that sounds kind of brutal, but I don't mean it that way. It's a reversal of the old—Oh, crumb, I've got another call. Can you hold on for a sec?”

In the brief silence, Clare unwrapped her finger and massaged it. Emma's voice, when it returned, was buoyed by a sense of barely contained busyness.

“That was Linus. He's going out of town and we need to finalize the music for Thursday. I'm really sorry, Clare. Can I call you back in a few minutes?”

“Sure.”

Clare hung up and placed the phone on the floor beside the loveseat. The mention of the Jazz Studies Director with whom she'd gone for coffee made her restless. She didn't want to hear the rest of Emma's analysis. It would be clinical and useless, and to avoid it she would say that things had changed.

Markus and I had sex,
she tried.
We went out for dinner and shared a bottle of wine, and we both kind of lost our inhibitions. We went back to his apartment. It hurt a little. The wine helped. Yes, I had an orgasm
.

She started over, fine-tuning her scenario, but when she reached the return to Markus's apartment, which required considerable elaboration, the phone rang. She snatched up the receiver before her mother could answer downstairs.

“That was quick,” she said.

There was a moment of silence, then a man's voice spoke, hesitant and formal.

“Is this Mrs. Fraser?”

Clare's hand tightened around the receiver. She imagined the caller was Ted.

“It's Clare. Her daughter. Sorry. I thought you were someone else.”

“This is Alec Vantwest. I understand you came to my home this afternoon.”

“Oh. Yes,” she managed to answer, despite the thumping of her heart at the base of her throat.

Mr. Vantwest coughed. “I would like to apologize for my lack of hospitality today.”

Clare swallowed. “It's okay, I—”

“I haven't been myself recently, but that's no excuse for rudeness. I'd be pleased if you and your mother would consider a return visit. Tomorrow afternoon, perhaps. We'll be at the hospital in the morning. Of course, if you have something else on your program—”

“I have to work tomorrow, but ...”

“Well, perhaps another day then.”

“I'm off on Wednesday.”

“All right then. Let's say four o'clock Wednesday?”

“Okay.”

“We'll have tea. Mary will be here as well, of course.”

“Of course. Thank you.”

Mr. Vantwest ended the call with polite efficiency. Clare replaced the receiver and slowly unlocked her hand.