My Temporary Life (32 page)

CHAPTER 29

It feels so good to have her with me, to not be alone. She sits curled up, looking exhausted, and holds onto the passenger door while I drive. She stays awake but doesn’t speak. There are other cars now, and as I drive around the roads from the hospital, the snow seems to take a break. Some of the roads have been cleared, but some are still slick with the remnants of the previous night’s storm. I drive until I can see buildings, shops and restaurants. The hospital is in its own small town, but it’s very different from Woodbine. Although the hospital is an old building, the rest of the town is newer, fresher. There are fast food restaurants, and the same type of chain stores you see wherever you go.

I keep my hands tight on the wheel. My eyes constantly check my mirrors, watching for any car that might be following us. I keep looking over at her, not quite believing I have her beside me, not quite believing that we were able to leave the hospital so easily. I fight the urge to reach over and touch her. I think about pulling over just to hold her, to feel her close, to feel like I’m not alone, but I just keep on driving.

There’s a large hotel, situated in the centre of a busy block, and I immediately recognize its familiar, large emblem, high on the sign out front. I circle the block three times, then pull over and park at the side of a road, waiting, watching. There’s only the normal flow of other vehicles. I see men and women in their business suits, and workers in coveralls and work shirts, all going about their business, oblivious to us. There are no police cars, no vehicles driving slow to look at us, no one watching. So, I pull into the hotel parking lot, and after leaving Heather in the car for a few minutes, check us into a room.

I register in my own name, and they don’t ask if I have anyone with me. It’s a different town and Postman is back in Woodbine. I keep telling myself that we have nothing to hide. Heather hasn’t been charged, and legally, nobody should be looking for either of us.

The room is on the first floor and this time I’m too tired to hide her. We walk in just as anyone else would, without looking over our shoulders at all.

The room is large and warm and clean. I barely have enough strength to remove my jacket and pants, and shirt. I pull back the duvet, and we climb under the covers. I’ve been awake for more hours than I care to remember. I look at the clock, and it’s just before ten in the morning. Heather falls asleep immediately. I have no way of knowing if she slept at all while she was at the hospital. I stare at her poor, sore face, wondering what she must have been put through over the past few days. Quietly, I pick up the phone that’s at the side of the bed, and make the call that I promised I’d make before leaving Vancouver. It’s seven a.m. on the west coast, but he’ll be up, looking at his computer, getting ready for his day.

“
Terry Allister, good morning.” It’s one of the most comforting sounds I’ve ever heard in my life. I should have made the call days before, but I didn’t know what I was going to say to him. I almost tear up, listening to his impatient tone, as he speaks again. “Good morning, this is Terry. Who’s there please?”

“
Terry, it’s me.” I say the words slowly, and then pause, knowing that I won’t get a word in anyways, as I wait for his questions.

“
Malcolm, where the hell have you been? You stupid Scottish shit, Jo’s worried sick about you. What’s going on, and what happened to my phone calls?” He sounds irritated, but he’s almost laughing too, unaware of what we’ve been through.

I have to cut him off, and I almost wish Jo was there too, to help settle him down, as I start to talk to him. I look over at Heather, but she’s fast asleep, and no amount of excitable Terry will wake her up now. “Buddy, you need to listen to me. Grab a pen. You need to write this down.” He starts to speak again and once more I cut him off. “No Terry, just listen for now. I really will explain everything later.”

He grunts a yes to me, and I give him the name, and phone number of the hotel, with our room number. It’s probably a world record for Terry, as he manages to do what I ask of him for at least thirty seconds, before he starts asking questions again.

“
Malcolm, your voice, it doesn’t sound right. It doesn’t sound like you. You gonna tell me now?”

He isn’t laughing, and sounds worried, but more than anything else, he doesn’t have control, and Terry always needs to be in control. That’s probably the secret of his success, and those of us who love him, or even like him, tolerate it because after a while, we learn that he really is a good, caring man. “Terry, please listen to me. We’ve gotten into a bit of a problem here, nothing that can’t be sorted out, but I do need your help.”

When I ask him for his help, I can almost see him on the other end of the phone, his body hunching forward at his desk, all alert and ready to do whatever it took to help me. “I’ll let you know everything that’s happened, but I can’t right now, that’ll have to come later. For now, I need you to do a couple of things for me. Call me back in four hours, and if Heather or myself don’t answer, call the front desk and have them call the police. Don’t give up trying to get in touch with us until you hear my voice.”

There’s a slight silence before I hear him again. “Fuck, Malcolm, what’s going on there?”

“
Terry, just call me back, call me back in four hours. I’ll fill you in then, I promise.” I lay the receiver back down on the phone, and barely have enough energy left to roll my head over onto the soft, white pillow. I know Terry. I know he’ll call back.

I still have only the beginnings of a plan forming, but it’s hard, hard to focus. I keep thinking about Postman, about what he’s done. The anger isn’t going away. I think about Ellison. Why did he just let us leave? Was he told to, or did he decide on his own? Or worse yet, was he somewhere out there, still watching us? I think about Emily. I hear the faint sounds of the street noises, outside the window. I hear Heather’s heavy breathing, as she sleeps beside me. I realize I’m clenching the pillow, holding onto it. I release my grip, and try to concentrate on my breathing, try to focus. It’s not Heather or Emily or even John Postman that I see as I try to fall asleep. It’s my friend, Hardly, and I remember. I remember that he too is in a hospital somewhere, with a hole in his leg.

Taking the piece of paper from my wallet, I punch the long distance code into the hotel phone and amazingly I’m connected almost immediately. I almost ask for Hardly but then, I remember, it’s Gerald. He used to be Gerald.

“
Hullo, who’s calling please.”

His strong Scots accent comforts me, and I lay my head back on the pillow enjoying the familiar sound. It’s been years since I’ve seen him and almost as long since we’ve spoke on the phone, but it’s still him. He’s still the same. I can tell. “It’s me, Hardly. It’s Malcolm, how are you feeling? How are you doing?”

There’s no pause, no hesitation as my childhood friend answers immediately, the gratitude evident in his voice. “Malcolm, Malcolm, where are you? It’s good to hear from you. I’m fine, mate. I’m fine, just a couple of bullets. I might even walk again. Not as bad as getting pissed on from a tree, Malcolm. Not even close.” He’s laughing now between words and I feel guilty about the struggles that he’s gone through and fact that I haven’t been there, haven’t been there at all.

“
I’m okay, Hardly. I’m okay. I’m in Ontario, still in Canada, helping a friend. I just wanted to hear how you were doing. I wish I could have gotten there to see you. I really do.” My words sound empty and he certainly has the right to question my friendship, my loyalty, but this is Hardly. That isn’t what he does.

“
It’s okay, Malcolm. You have your life over there in Canada. I know that. It’s the way things played out. It’s not your fault. You did what you had to do to survive, and I did what I had to do. Different roads, mate, different roads, that’s all. One day we’ll meet up. I know we will. I’ve told your dad that. One day we’ll all meet up again.”

I have to suck my breath in hard to stop the emotions from coming out. I pause before continuing and he asks me to excuse his slurping as he sips some water.

“
I have to ask you something, Hardly. I always wanted to know, do you think I did enough? Do you think I did enough to help you, to help us, when we were back there in school?”

This time there is a pause and I think of a mixed up version of a young Hardly and an older military man. Hardly perhaps touching his face or scratching his head before answering me.

“
Malcolm, those were hard times. We were wee waynes, children. We got through it together. We got through it alive, didn’t we? I mean here we are, you in Canada, across the ocean, and me here in Scotland and we’re talking. I’m talking to Malcolm. We’re right, Malcolm. We’re right as we could be.”

It’s not enough though. As my tiredness starts to get the better of me I feel as though I’m awake and dreaming at the same time, talking to Hardly and dreaming about him too.

“
I always felt like I left you and then when I didn’t come back. I felt like I’d left you and my dad. I just, I didn’t know. I didn’t know where home was or what it was. I just stayed. I stayed away, away from it all.” My head is on the pillow now and my eyes are barely open, but I can see him. I can see him as he sits in his hospital bed with tears in his hard little eyes while he talks to me.

“
Malcolm, don’t worry. You know where your home is. You know inside. You do know that, don’t you Malcolm. That doesn’t go away. You always know that.”

I’m nodding to him and falling asleep at the same time. I think I answered, yes, before clumsily putting the phone back on the receiver. I hope I did. I hope he heard me saying, yes.

The ringing sounds like it’s supposed to be there. It feels like it’s part of my sleep, part of my dreams. I jump as I realize that the phone on the bedside table is ringing. It feels as though I just laid my head down. I look over at Heather, still sleeping soundly beside me, as I pick up the receiver and say hello to Terry.

He doesn’t say hello back. He’s all business now. “Malcolm, I’ve got Brennan’s number here too. He’s my lawyer, you’ll remember him. He came to my party a couple of years ago. I want you to call and talk to him. Oh, and Jo’s here too, right beside me.” I rub the sleep from my eyes, trying to catch up to all the information that he’s giving me. I should have realized that when I said ‘police’ to Terry earlier, that it would have scared him, and of course he has Jo beside him now. He needs her level-headed good sense. We both need it.

I tell them almost everything. He has one of his gadgets attached to the phone, so that Jo can hear me, and I can hear her. At times, he exclaims, or asks me what the hell I was thinking, but Jo just keeps steady, sound. I can almost hear her breathing. I feel like I can see her, nodding in the background, telling Terry to be patient, to wait, while they listen to me speak. I leave out the part about the lies Heather told me. That isn’t important anymore. That’s our business.

“
You need to get your ass back here right now, Malcolm, both of you. We’ll sort this out from here. You need a lawyer, a prosecutor.” He’s angry, but he’s worried too. I can hear it in his voice.

I let him talk for a moment. He keeps going, making plans in his head as he speaks, telling me what the best course of action is, the best way to ‘make the bastard pay’. He talks about ‘legalities’ and ‘prosecutions’ and ‘consequences’, but never once does he mention Emily. And, never once, does he talk about the type of retribution I’ve been dreaming about. He doesn’t realize this isn’t a business deal, and it has nothing to do with legalities anymore. It’s personal.

Something happens when you reach a certain level of anger. It consumes you. My fear left me, somewhere along the highway, between Woodbine and the hospital, and now the feeling that’s in the pit of my stomach is anger, rage. I don’t think about the police, or being locked up, or even charged. I think about Postman and Emily and Hardly, always Hardly.

“
Give me Brennan’s phone number, Terry. That’s a good idea. I think I do remember him, too.” Heather is awake now and looking at me sleepily, as I write it down.

He gives me the numbers, trying to interject with advice, with cautions, until finally he offers his own services. “Malcolm, I’ve decided. I’m coming out there. If you’re not going to come home, I’ll come to you. This doesn’t sound like you, this just isn’t you. I’ll fly out. I’m coming out, today.”

Jo still hasn’t spoken. I don’t know what she’s thinking. I can’t tell what her reaction is. “Terry, I need you there. I need you on that side, helping me. And, I need you to not worry. You have to trust me.” I speak to him firmly; probably more forcefully than I ever have before.