Читать книгу Grave Deeds - Betsy Struthers - Страница 10

Bonnie Hazlitt came out of her apartment when she heard the sound of my key in the door across the hall.

“How’s the mystery aunt? I’ve been waiting and waiting for you to get home. Come in and tell me all about her.”

“She’s dead.”

“Dead?” She sagged back against her door.

“It’s not that big a deal,” I said hastily. “It happened before I got there. She’d fallen down the stairs in her house and died. A neighbour called the police. Her lawyer turned up while I was talking to some detectives and he knew about me. He wanted to talk. That’s what took so long.”

“So you never got to meet her? That’s awful.” Bonnie rushed across the hall to hug me. Although I’m by no means tall, her head barely reached my shoulders. I don’t like being hugged, especially by casual friends. There’s something about touch, the too easy assumption that it means intimacy and love. I stood stiff, hands at my side.

Bonnie dropped her arms. She sniffled and swept her fist across her eyes. “Look at me, crying again. I hate it, the way I’m always bursting into tears. My heart’s too soft, that’s what Robin always says.”

Or too bruised, I thought, not for the first time and not out loud. “I have to phone Will. I promised I’d call as soon as I got back.”

She looked at her watch. “He’ll still be working. Why don’t you come in and have a cup of tea? You look like you need it.”

“I don’t feel that bad,” I insisted. “It’s not as though she meant anything to me. She never wanted anything to do with me until it was too late. If you want to know the truth, I feel like I’ve won a lottery, sort of.”

“You’re the long lost heir, right? You’ve come into a fortune.” She clapped her hands.

“Not exactly.”

“You can’t leave me in suspense like this.” She grabbed my hand and pulled me into her apartment. “You’ve got to tell me the whole story.”

I gave up. There was no stopping Bonnie once she determined on some course of action. She was a friend of a friend, a graduate student like me, but of Art History, not Literature. She had come to one of our pub gatherings last year, one of those nights when we let off steam about our thesis supervisors, the slim chances of employment when (if) we finished our degrees, and the difficulties of our varied living situations. I was then trying to find an affordable apartment downtown to escape the horrors of suburbia. She knew a neighbour who was getting married and needed to find someone to sublet his place; she invited me to visit the next day, introduced us, and arranged the deal.

The fact that she lived right across the hall seemed a piece of luck at first. Absorbed as I was with classes, research, and papers, I was sometimes lonely. My friend warned me that Bonnie could be a bit demanding, but I figured that, since she was working part-time at the Royal Ontario Museum as well as studying, and had a live-in boyfriend, she would be pretty busy herself. However, her boyfriend worked long shifts and she would, too often, come across the hall, looking for company. Sometimes, when she came knocking at the door, I would sit frozen in my chair, pen poised over paper, breath held as if she could hear my heart pumping. She’d go away, but ten minutes later would be back, the soft repeated rapping insistently upsetting. If I answered her second or third attack, she would assume I’d been in the bathroom or on the phone. She was not good at taking hints that I liked my own company. For her, solitude was isolation.

Her apartment was the twin of mine. I went straight to the dining table which was positioned in front of the picture window that looked down on Spadina. Only three floors above the street, the traffic noise was a constant hum and occasional heart-stopping squeal. I pulled out one of the high-backed chairs and sat.

“What are you making for dinner?” I asked. “It smells delicious.”

Bonnie plunked down a tray laden with tea pot, cups, and a plate of chocolate brownies. The pot and cups were glazed in gradations of blue, from almost black at the base to a nearly white rim. Each handle was a braided twist that incorporated all the shades in an intricate interplay of strands.

“Ratatouille,” she said, “one of Robin’s meatless favourites. I thought I’d surprise him with it.” She sighed. “There’s lots of it. You want to stay to eat? No sense in it going to waste.”

“He has to work late?” I asked her.

“Yeah.” She poured the tea.

“Again?”

“You know how it is.”

I knew. “It goes with the territory. We’re lucky, being in school. We may have to stay up all night writing papers, but at least we can sleep in in the morning. Clock-punchers don’t get much choice.”

“It’s nothing to joke about. He works far too hard. They take advantage of him.”

“Who?”

“The kids, the other social workers, the administrators. He cares too much. He even brings them here, you know, kids just off the street: hookers and drug users, it doesn’t matter to him. He’ll say the hostel’s full and they need a place to stay. Some of them have lice.” She shivered.

“Isn’t that what you fell in love with? His goodness?”

“Taking in strays, you mean? Like me?”

“You weren’t exactly needy.”

“But straying,” she tried to laugh. “Harold would say I’m getting my comeuppance. My mother says, if you make a bed, you have to lie in it.”

“How is your mother?”

“You’re changing the subject.”

I sighed. “You knew what he was like when you decided to move here with him. And you know he only works so many extra shifts because you need the money.”

“I didn’t leave Harold and the kids to sit in this dump weekend after weekend by myself.”

“You’ve got your thesis.”

She poked the stack of papers piled on the end of the table so viciously that they teetered. I caught them before they fell.

“Sorry.” Bonnie bit her lip. “I don’t know what good it’s going to do me. There are no jobs anyway, with the recession.”

“Tell me about it.” I readied myself to stand. “There were only three tenure-track jobs advertised in all of Canada in my field this past year and they were all in the prairies. Sometimes, I wonder why we bother.”

“Don’t go yet.” Bonnie grabbed my hand across the table. “I won’t talk about myself any more, I promise. You haven’t had a brownie yet. Try one.” She picked up one herself and licked at the icing. “I’m supposed to be on a diet, you know.”

“Why do you keep doing this to yourself? It’s a roller coaster: you lose a few pounds, go back to eating normally, and the weight just comes back.”

“I know, I know. You and Robin are the same. You look fine the way you are. You wouldn’t say that if you were me.” She grabbed a handful of flesh from her midriff and shook it in disgust. “I hate the way I look. You should have seen me when I was sixteen.”

“Isn’t that the year you were anorexic?”

“I just didn’t like to eat. My mother’s a lousy cook.” She ran her fingers through her blonde hair, lifting it high and then letting it cascade down her back. “And I’m thinking of cutting my hair all off too. Get one of those mushroom cuts, you know?”

“So you and Robin will look like the Bobbsey Twins? Come on, Bonn, that long straight hair suits you.”

“I just want a change.” She rolled her hair into a tight knot and held it on top of her head. When I smiled, she let it go. “Anyway,” she continued, “tell me everything. Your aunt first. No, the fortune.”

I circled the rim of my mug with one finger. “This is beautiful,” I stalled. “Who made it?”

“Me.”

“I didn’t know you were a potter.”

She shrugged. “Ryan was into making mud pies, so I thought I would too.”

“You shouldn’t put yourself down like that.” I picked up the pot and turned it to admire the wildflowers delicately etched into the glaze. “These are really special. I love this shade of blue.”

“Everything I made is blue: dishes, bowls, mugs, what-have-you. Harold likes to have things match and his house has blue carpets. Besides, my mood then was always blue, sometimes a little lighter, mostly like this.” And she traced the navy lines that underlay all the pieces, the dark shadow behind every daisy.

I sipped the tea. It was fragrant with cinnamon and had a strong cidery aftertaste. Bonnie put her cup down and shook her hair free of her face.

“Enough about me. Now, tell.”

“There’s not much. And the fortune’s not money, but land.”

“In the city? Her house? Lucky you.”

“No, no, not the house. It’s in pretty bad shape, anyway, probably cost more than it’s worth to fix up. She had fifty cats living with her, can you imagine?”

“Fifty? How big was the house?”

“Not big enough. There were litter pans everywhere. It’ll be impossible to get the smell out.”

“So where’s this land?”

“In Haliburton. Have you ever heard of Cook’s Lake?”

“You’re joking! Are you sure you’ve got the name right? Cook’s Lake?”

“Apparently it’s named for the family.”

“It seems amazing, but I’ve been there, you know. Harold’s sister’s husband has a friend who has land up there and we went to visit a couple of times before the kids were born. And one of Robin’s runaways…” she paused.

“Yeah?” I encouraged.

She shook her head. “I shouldn’t have said that. It’s confidential. Robin’s always warning me I talk too much. But it’s one of the places he’s been visiting lately. On business,” she added, hastily. “You’re really lucky, Rosie. It’s beautiful country up there.”

“With my luck, I’ve inherited all the swampy bits,” I laughed.

“You never know. It could be worth a fortune. Cottage land is at such a premium these days. My brother-in-law was always talking about how his friend’s property could be developed; it had enough shoreline for a whole subdivision of cottages.”

“Which are probably there by now. What I’ve got is one hundred acres of family land. My grandfather left it to my aunt with the understanding that she was to pass it on to me. And if I don’t want it, I’m supposed to give it to the government. For the birds.” I giggled, stifling a yawn. “What a day.”

“Boy, if I came into land like that, I’d sell it and take the money, and leave.”

“Where would you go?”

“Paris, the south of France, Tahiti. I’d go to a real art school. I’ve always wanted to be an artist.”

“What about Robin? The kids?”

She shrugged. “It might be nice to be really free…” Her voice trailed into silence. She shook herself. “What do you mean: if you don’t want it? If you don’t want to live there, you could sell it.”

“It’s all very complicated. I don’t know if I should take it.”

“Do you have any idea what land up there is worth these days? Especially if it has waterfront. Does it?”

“Markham said something about a thousand feet of shoreline.”

“Wow! You’re in the money!” She reached over and shook my hand, then blinked, puzzled. “Did you say Markham? Not Roger Markham?”

“Don’t tell me he’s your brother-in-law. Ex-brother-in-law, I mean.”

“Small world.” Bonnie’s lips twitched in an awkward grin.

“You’re kidding.”

She shook her head. “I can’t seem to get away from Harold, no matter how much I try. How is old Roger these days? I haven’t seen him or talked to him since Harold and I split up.”

“He wasn’t very friendly.”

“That’s Roger, all right. He and Harold were a perfect pair: supercilious and condescending. Not that I’m prejudiced, of course.” She laughed. “I could never understand how Ellen could stand him. But then she’s Harold’s sister. Anyone who grew up with Harold would be used to chauvinism. Or immune to it.”

“I won’t have to deal with him again, I hope. It’s his uncle who’s my aunt’s lawyer. Markham was just along for the ride.”

“Roger has never, in living memory, done anything without a reason. And that reason usually has something to do with making money. You’d better watch out for him. Maybe he’s representing someone else in the family. Did your aunt have children?”

“That’s funny.” I thought suddenly of the picture of the girl holding a cat, and how quickly the lawyers left once Gianelli started questioning them about other heirs. “No one said anything about her own family, just talked about my grandfather and my parents.”

“I wonder if she married a Baker on purpose, just to change her name that way — from Cook to Baker. Would you call that a step up in the social scale?” She bit into another brownie.

“We hardly talked about her at all, even though we were sitting in her house and she’d died right there in the front hallway.” I shivered. “I wish I had had a chance to talk to her.”

“So why did she leave you this cottage? And why don’t you want it? I’d give my eyeteeth to have a place to go to, to get out of this city in the summer. Or to sell, and have all that lovely money to spend.”

“She didn’t leave me the cottage, my grandfather did. He didn’t get along with my mother…”

“Sounds like my family.” She picked up another brownie, caught my eye, and placed it on the plate again. “Do you think there’s any such thing as a happy family?”

“Not that I know of. Anyway, that’s why I don’t think I should keep the property. Mom hated the Cooks so much, she even told me they were all dead so that I’d stop asking questions about them. If I took something from them, it would be like denying her, saying that all her sacrifice was for nothing.”

“Now, wait just a minute.” Bonnie stood up and began to pace, her hair swinging back and forth. “First, your mother isn’t here to be hurt by whatever you do or don’t do. Second, perhaps leaving you the property was a way for your grandfather to make up to you, something he couldn’t do while he was still alive. Third, land is land. Someone has to own it. Why not you?”

“I don’t feel right about it.”

Bonnie groaned.

We watched while the sky outside deepened to the silvery gray that passed for darkness in the heart of the city. I pushed my mug away and stood. “I’m beat. I want to get out of these clothes and have a long, hot bath.”

“How’s the studying going?”

“Don’t ask.”

“Has a date been set for your exams yet?”

“End of June.” I shivered. “I’ve been dreaming about high school again: Grade 13 and I have to write a physics exam but I’ve skipped classes all year. If I fail, I won’t be able to go to university. And of course, I get the time wrong and can’t find the room. I’m walking down a long empty hall in squeaky shoes; all the doors are closed and I know I’m late.”

“I hate those dreams,” Bonnie sympathized.

“Stupid thing is, I didn’t even take physics in my last year in high school.”

“Drink hot milk before you go to bed. It always works for Ryan.” She bit her lip on the name.

Another minefield. I sneaked a glance at my watch: past seven. Will would be wondering what had happened to me.

Bonnie buried her face in a tea towel. When she looked up, her eyes were suspiciously bright, but there were no signs of tears. “I’m sick of crying over this. Robin says I have to let go, that there’s no way we can get custody.”

“I thought you’d worked that out,” I ventured. “Didn’t you settle on reasonable visiting rights?”

“Reasonable! One weekend once a month in Ottawa. It’s totally unfair. They’re my kids. Ryan’s nine, old enough to recognize the lies, but Megan’s only four. How’s she supposed to ever get to know me? She was just a baby when I left, when I had to leave. I’m just a visitor to her.”

“Aren’t you exaggerating just a little? She seemed pretty happy with you and Robin when I met her here last fall.”

“My mother was here too,” Bonnie said. “My own children don’t know me.” She sniffled.

“I don’t know what to say that I haven’t said before.” I stood up. I wanted to go, but couldn’t leave her here like this. “I never even knew I had a father until I was her age, and then my mother wouldn’t talk about him. I imagined all kinds of things. At least you’re there in her life. She’ll get to know you…”

“She hides under the blankets when I come to get her. She cries all the way to my mother’s house and when we get there, she won’t let me touch her. Every weekend it’s the same: by the time she’s willing to be friends with me again, it’s time for her to go home. Sometimes I wonder if it’s worth the effort.”

“Bonnie!”

“It’s so hard,” she cried. “Ryan can be so rude, you wouldn’t believe it. It’s all Harold’s fault, the stories he tells them about me.”

“You don’t know that he does that,” I pointed out. “He is a teacher, after all. He must deal with kids from broken homes all the time. Surely he wouldn’t try to make the situation more difficult for them by criticizing you. And he does let you visit.”

“On his terms.”

“Maybe it’s what the kids need right now, the security of being in their own place…”

“It’s been three years,” Bonnie retorted. “It would be so much better if I could have them with me all the time.”

“What about Robin? How does he feel about them? And what about your job? And your degree? And where would they go to school?”

“You’re as bad as my mother,” she sighed. “She says it serves me right, I should never have left them. What does she know? Her marriage was a disaster from day one and she only made it worse for all of us by staying in it.”

“Do you have to take them to your mother’s house?”

“I can’t afford a hotel. And none of my so-called friends will speak to me. They all blame me for leaving Harold, the ’perfect husband and provider.’ If they only knew. Do you know what he used to do?”

“I don’t want to hear this, Bonnie.”

She paid no attention. “He’d put white threads on the kitchen floor in the corners or under the shelves. If they were still there after I housecleaned, he’d make me scrub the floor again, on my hands and knees, with a toothbrush. He was real tricky about it: he didn’t do it every week, so I was never sure if they’d be there or not. Sometimes, he pretended to find them in places I knew I’d double-checked. He said it was for my own good. He said it was to make sure I kept his house clean enough for his children to grow up in.”

“How could you live with such a man?”

“I couldn’t. That’s why meeting Robin was so wonderful. He really cared about me, my wants, my needs. I didn’t believe a man could be so understanding.”

“Don’t any of your friends like him?”

“They’re mostly Harold’s friends, from work. All they see is how young Robin is. Ten years difference isn’t that big a deal, is it? If it was reversed and he was the one who was older, no one would think anything of it.”

“You shouldn’t let what other people think bother you so much. If you and Robin are happy together…”

“And what about my kids?” she interrupted. “It’s his fault they can’t come here any more. Harold used to let my mother bring them down here to visit, if I couldn’t get up to Ottawa. Then last Thanksgiving — you heard the fuss she made when Robin brought that street kid home for dinner. The whole city heard her.”

“It wasn’t that bad…”

“You should have seen her face when Megan picked a cockroach out of that boy’s backpack! I thought she’d die on the spot.” She affected a kind of giggle that turned into a gulping sob. She jumped up from the table and ran into the bathroom.

I carried the tea things back into the kitchen and then stood in the little hall, unsure what to do next. The front door opened.

“Hey, Rosie, how’s it going?” Robin dropped a canvas bag on the floor. A half-peeled orange fell out along with an assortment of pencils and a dog-eared paperback.

“You got home after all.” I shook his hand. Robin Elgin was a bean-pole of a man, over six feet tall and thin to boot. In his late twenties, he was already going bald and perhaps for that reason, or perhaps to camouflage his full lips and weak chin, he sported a full moustache and beard. Today, as on every working day, he wore a tweed sports jacket over a turtleneck shirt and blue jeans.

The toilet flushed. He pushed his glasses back up his nose and nodded towards the back of the apartment. “She all right?” he whispered.

“A bit upset. She started talking about the kids again.”

He grimaced. “It’s a bad scene.”

Bonnie joined us. “You’re home,” she said. She reached up to peck him on the cheek. “I thought you had to go up north on business?”

“I was going to leave straight from work, they kept me so late. But I wanted to see you first. We should talk.” He glanced at me. “I guess it can wait.” He slipped by me into the kitchen. “Great, dinner’s ready. I’m starving.”

“I won’t stay. I really must go and phone Will.” I opened the door. “You’ll be all right?”