Grave Doubts (22 page)

“Exactly. The Blue Nun disappeared, but eventually she was found in Toronto, doing good works in a small mission off Jarvis Street for the benefit of prostitutes and battered women.”

“You two tell a good story,” said Morgan. “I wonder how much came from the tellers and how much from the tale.”

“Observe,” responded Alexander Pope with a sweep of his arm to take in the lustrous frescoes revealing the life of Saint Marie Celeste.

“Yes,” said Miranda. “Nothing is in doubt but ourselves!”

chapter eleven
Wychwood Park

“I’ve heard of her,” said Rachel Naismith as they drove west on Dupont, then turned up Spadina. “There’s Catherine Tekakwitha in Quebec and Marie Celeste in Ontario. I didn’t grow up Catholic, but almost everybody who wasn’t black in our neighbourhood did. Black people were Baptist, white people were Catholic. That was the order of the world, neatly divided. You’d hear stories about the Huron saint and that girl from Georgian Bay — the Beausoleil Virgin. I don’t think, from what I heard, either were virgins, except in the spiritual sense. Inviolate innocents. That’s plural for ‘innocent,’ with a ‘t.’ Not innocence with a ‘c.’ Innocence is a renewable commodity for Catholics. I think I always envied them that.”

“Inviolate innocence. Sounds very floral and colourful. And instead you became a cop,” said Miranda.

“I did,” she responded with a gleeful lilt in her voice. “I lost interest in innocence ’bout the same time I discovered boys.”

“Boys?” Miranda queried, trying not to sound overly inquisitive.

“I like boys, girl! I always have.”

Miranda had no idea whether Rachel also liked girls. Since they had spent the night together, they accepted the affection between them as a feature of their relationship, which neither was prepared to risk losing. Their intimacy was open, and perhaps it was the openness that kept it from seeming overtly sexual. They were comfortable with each other. Ironically, Miranda thought, in the same way she was comfortable with Morgan. Except Morgan was more complex. Or she was more complex with Morgan. And sometimes she and Morgan were uncomfortable.

“I certainly do like Alexander Pope; don’t we both?” said Rachel. “Now,
he
is a boy you could play with.”

Miranda gave a throaty laugh. “I cannot think of another man who has so completely left the boy in his wake. He’s one of those people who seems to have been born an adult. He speaks to the world from a position of imperious knowledge.”

“He does not. He’s warm and kind and… and lots of other good things.”

“Agreed, he’s a virtual saint, but he’s not snips and snails and puppy-dog tails.”

“You can’t knock him for confidence, Miranda. He’s one of the best in the world at the things he does.”

“I’m not knocking him. I like him as much as you do. More — I know him better. I’m just saying I can’t picture him as a child.”

“He would have been shorter.”

“And a poet?”

“A precocious poet, writing in couplets.”

“And a garden designer. A tiny, perfect little person penning
The Rape of the Lock
when others his age were keeping
their prurience stealthy.”

“Did you ever read that?” Rachel asked. “
The Rape of the Lock
?”

“I did.”

“Much ado about nothing. I skipped most of the classes.”

“That’s the point, Rachel. It was supposed to be much ado about nothing.”

“Exposing a lost saint to the world. Come on, it’s a little more exciting than squawking rape over a locket of hair.”

“Rape is a measure of loss. Belinda’s innocence is violated.”

“Well, I’d appreciate our Alexander no better. He’s a poet, but with real things, not words.”

“Nothing’s more real than words,” said Miranda. She suspected she actually believed that was true.

“He has a poetic sensibility,” said Rachel, confidently.

“He has,” Miranda agreed. “It’s like apostolic succession. His great-sire’s genes confer upon our present Pope the poetic authority whereby he imbues moribund ruins with life.”

“Did you say ‘whereby’? I don’t think I’ve ever heard anyone say ‘whereby’ in a conversation. What about ‘notwithstanding’?”

“I’ve been hanging around Morgan.”

“He does talk like that, doesn’t he?”

“Sometimes,” said Miranda, immediately feeling as if she had betrayed him. “He reads a lot. He has an eccentric memory. Sometimes he remembers whole paragraphs from some esoteric journal or website, and sometimes he can’t remember what day it is. That makes him interesting. He’s infinitely unpredictable.”

“So, why aren’t you two together?”

“Don’t be ridiculous.”

“What about you and me and Alexander Pope. We’d make a good threesome.”

“Don’t be ridiculous.”

“You have a raunchy mind, Miranda. I was talking about friendship. We make good company, just the three of us.”

Miranda suspected Rachel’s statement was somehow a judgment of Morgan. She felt uneasy talking about Morgan to Rachel. But she was also wary talking about her to him. Friends could be like that, she thought; your friendships could be mutually exclusive. That was the nice thing about their relationship with Alexander: the three of them created a nice ambiance. Nothing intense, just an aura of comfort. Nothing enduring.

As they drove under the lee of Casa Loma, that extravagant anachronism dedicated to a wealthy dreamer’s long-suffering wife, Miranda glanced over at her friend. There was something wonderfully direct about Rachel, she thought. Driving through the gates of Wychwood Park, a ravine enclave of cultural entrepreneurs and tasteful Edwardian houses, she revised her judgment. By the time the car pulled up in front of the house where her ward, Jill Bray, lived with the housekeeper, who had virtually raised her from an infant, Miranda decided the secret to Rachel lay in her taking life as it comes. Rachel did not simplify the complexity of the world; she simply refused to resolve the ambiguities.

Jill was sitting on the verandah steps with a friend. “Hi, Rachel,” she called. “Hi, Mandy.”

“My name is Miranda. I don’t have nicknames, I’m not the type.” She leaned over and kissed Jill on the cheek. “Hello, Justine.”

“Hi, Mandy.”

“You can’t call her that,” said Jill to her friend. “I don’t call your mother ‘Mom.’”

“Hello Detective Quin,” said Justine. “And you must be Rachel.”

“How could you tell?” said Rachel.

“Easy,” said Jill. “You’re the one with short hair. Rachel, this is Justine. Justine, this is Rachel. She is a twelfth-generation Canadian”

“Not quite,” said Rachel.

“And Justine is a Canadian
ad infinitum
,” said Jill.

“Meaning what?” Rachel asked, and immediately answered, “First Nations, of course. You don’t look native to me…. Oh, my God, did I say that? Child, forgive me. You are of course aboriginal, looks are deceiving. Welcome to my world.”

“Actually, I’m a mixture of Swedish and Portuguese.”

“She refuses to be categorized with hyphenated citizenship.”

“My ancestry is the earth itself,” Justine pronounced. “My grandparents are buried in Mount Pleasant Cemetery. Ergo, I am of the earth: a native Canadian.”

“Well, Justine,” said Miranda, “you might find a few authentic First Nations people who would be inclined to find your position presumptuous.”

“Mandy,” said Jill, with a tone of scorn in her voice that only a fifteen-year-old girl can manifest from the depths of her illimitable experience. “Please. Don’t be condescending.”

Rachel looked the two girls over with a mixture of righteousness and envy. They somehow managed to make low-slung jeans and tight, abbreviated tank tops obscenely provocative. “You two aren’t going anywhere dressed like that.”

“No, Rachel. We’re just hanging out. But we might go trolling a bit, after Mandy goes. Wanna give it a try?”

“You’re not going anywhere until you pull up your pants, girl, and change your little sister’s top for something that fits. You don’t want to go around showing your titties like they were raspberries on over-whipped cream.”

“I don’t have a little sister and neither does Justine. We’re both orphans.”

“My parents aren’t dead.”

“But they will be, eventually,” said Jill, cheerfully. “Mandy’s an orphan. What about you, Rachel?”

“Not yet! Only halfway. My father’s alive.”

Miranda leaned against a verandah column, enjoying the absurd repartee. Rachel was scolding them as if she had known them for years. The girls were responding with good-humoured cheek. Jill’s morbidity suggested she was coming to terms with the deaths of her erstwhile parents. She envied the girls their friendship, based on mutual admiration, not convenience, as her friendships had been when she was their age. She acknowledged to herself that Rachel was as close to their age as her own. She looked at all three of them with a surge of parental passion — something new to her and awesomely satisfying.

“Have you thought any more about what I proposed?” she asked Jill.

“Yeah, I talked it over with Victoria. Justine says I can’t go.”

“And why not?”

“Because she’s my friend.”

“Then wouldn’t she want her friend to have the advantages —”

“Of a private school!” exclaimed Jill. “I don’t understand why.”

“Victoria wants to go back to Barbados, Jill. She has kids of her own.”

“I’m her kid; she can’t leave me. She wouldn’t want to.”

“What did she say?”

“She said she’ll stay with me always.”

“And me too,” said Justine. “Victoria and me. We’re her support group.”

“Get lost,” said Jill.

“I don’t want you to go away.”

“Branksome’s in Toronto,” said Miranda.

“Mandy, it’s the wrong side of Yonge Street. And you want me to live there!”

“And enjoy it!”

“It’s called Branksome Hall. That sounds like a jail.”

“Sounds ritzy to me,” said Rachel.

“What did Victoria say?” asked Miranda.

“Ask her yourself. Victoria!” Jill called, leaning back on her elbows and casting her voice through the screen door behind her.

There was silence until Victoria appeared in the doorway. “Was I bein’ summoned, Miss Jill?” She rolled her eyes. “I ain’t birfin’ no baby, Miss Scarlet.” Then she saw Rachel. She opened the door and came out, extending her hand. “I’m Victoria,” she announced, as if it were in doubt. “I am this rude child’s significant other — not her mother and I’m not her guardian, and I’m Miranda’s housekeeper, not the young lady’s housekeeper, in spite of what she thinks, and I’m not her friend since Justine’s enough friend for anybody.”

“‘Significant other’ has sexual implications,” said Jill.

“For heaven’s sake, Jill!” Victoria snapped.

To Rachel’s surprise, the girl looked admonished. “Sorry, Victoria. This is Rachel Naismith. She’s Mandy’s friend.”

“And she’s twelfth-generation Canadian,” Justine chimed in.

“It can happen,” said Victoria. “Even ’mong us black folks.”

“Pleased to meet you,” said Rachel, shaking Victoria’s hand.

“How are you? And how are you, Detective Quin? Your girl here is getting quite a handful. Off to boarding school for her — it’s the only way.”

“Victoria! You told me I could live with you always.”

“Or until you got too big to handle, whichever came first.”

Jill looked devastated, then burst into laughter. “You don’t want to go home, do you, Victoria?”

It was Victoria’s turn to look distraught. Miranda interjected. “That’s not really fair, Jill. You can’t make her choose between you and her own children.”

“But she’s always been here — ever since I was born.”

“But child, I do have my own children runnin’ around in Barbados, and they need their mommy. I wanna take you with me, if I could.”

Justine interjected. “Can we come and see you for visits and things, like on holidays? Can I come too?”

“Of course,” Victoria responded, touched by the naïveté of their love. “You stand up, the both of you.” They did, and she drew each of them to her bosom, hugging them with a sweet rocking motion. “You’ll both come and stay with me any time you want. That’s okay with Miranda, isn’t it, Miranda?”

“For sure,” said Miranda. She exchanged a knowing glance with Rachel. They had talked about Jill and her need for stability. Boarding school, Rachel agreed, was the answer.

Miranda wasn’t prepared to move to Wychwood Park. Her work demanded a central location (she knew that argument was absurd, since her condo on Isabella was little closer to police headquarters). Her work did demand odd hours and a disruptive domestic life. Jill had only two more years in school after this one.

“I’m not going to leave here. I love this house and I love Justine and I’m not going to leave either one. I’ll stay here without you, Victoria. Justine and I will live here alone. It’s my house.”

“More or less,” said Miranda. “‘Less’ would be the operative word, since I’m in charge of your estate.”

“Then I’ll move in with you.”

“Highly unlikely!”

“Then I’ll move in with Justine.”

“Jill, you can’t,” said Justine. “I’m too poor. You know there’s no room. My dad and my mom, they think you’re my twin sister, but there’s no way. You’re the daughter they had to give up. I sleep on the couch.”

“You do?” exclaimed Rachel.

“Only since my little brother was born.”

“How old is he?”

“Twelve.”

Jill turned to address them all solemnly. “You know about the working poor. Well, Justine’s parents, they work and they’re poor. They don’t live in Wychwood Park. So, we’re at an impasse.”

“No,” said Rachel. “I think we can work it out. Let me have a brief whispering session with the boss lady here.” She took Miranda by the arm and walked her to the corner of the verandah.

“Now, it’s none of my business, but I’m going to tell you all the same. Jill’s expenses are covered by the estate of the old bastard who owned the Jag, right? You take some of the old bastard’s money. You set up a fund. You already administer two other funds from his millions. So you set up an education scholarship in her dead mother’s name. For girls. First recipient, Justine. Is that her real name?”