Belinda's Rings (15 page)

I'm so excited to begin, Belinda said. The wait has been agonizing.

Is that so? Dr. Longfellow said. He looked intently towards the bar, head moving this way and that, apparently desperate to catch the attention of a server.

Yes, she said. The train took ages! Beautiful scenery, but I'm eager to get out there, you know? She tried to catch his eyes, but they continued to dart around the restaurant. He seemed nervous and disinterested at once, oblivious to the smoking cigarillo dangling its long, ashen hook. She might as well have been talking to herself.

Will Dr. Treadstone be joining us this evening? Belinda asked, trying to put her face in his view.

Eh? His attention flicked back to Belinda, and then he shook his head vigourously. Nonononono, he said. She's not a doctor. You'll meet her in due course.

A server approached their table before Belinda could reply.

You drink wine, yes? Dr. Longfellow asked.

Uh — sure, okay, Belinda said.

He ordered Belinda a glass of house red, nothing for himself. She hated red wine.

Dr. Longfellow settled back in his seat. Your flight was smooth? he asked, taking a bill out of his wallet.

It was fine, Belinda said. I met a biologist, of all things. He was sitting next to me — The server set her glass of wine on the table and Dr. Longfellow passed him the money. Belinda thanked him.

A bit of an odd man, she continued, but his work sounded interesting. He said he's a phycologist.

Never heard of such a thing, Dr. Longfellow said. He stubbed out the cigarillo.

Belinda laughed. It does sound rather obscure, doesn't it?

Yes, it does, he said, straight-faced. I'm glad you arrived without too many problems.

Thank you, she said. I'm so glad to finally be here.

Good, he said. He nodded. She nodded back, waiting for him to go on.

I'm afraid I can't stay long, he said. It's been a very long day.

I'm a person who needs a certain amount of sleep. Nine hours minimum.

Oh, of course, Belinda said. She could feel her face dropping, and forced a smile to lift it. I don't mind at all, she said. She checked her watch: 8:13 pm. You need your rest for all that brain-work, she said with a polite little laugh.

It was a field day today, he said. Lots of wind. It blows the dirt all over you.

I see, Belinda said. Well, don't feel you need to stay here on account of me.

I thought it would be good to meet you anyway, he said. Face to face.

It was very kind of you, Belinda found herself saying. A hot wave filled her cheeks. She took a small sip of wine.

I suppose I'll be off then, if you're sure you don't mind. He stood and slid his hands into his coat pockets.

No, no, not at all, she said. Her voice was suddenly quiet, muted.

Are you interested in seeing Woodhenge tomorrow? he asked, gazing into the distance as though it were a philosophical question. I can get my assistant to take you, he said. I think Stonehenge will be much too busy on a Saturday.

Oh — um, sure, fine, Belinda said. Thank you, that sounds fine. She almost ventured to ask what
he
would be doing tomorrow, but decided against it. She didn't want to sound ungrateful.

Good, he said, nodding. My assistant will call on you in the morning. Pierre is his name.

Okay, yes, I will remember that, Belinda said.

See you tomorrow, at some point, Dr. Longfellow said, still nodding. His hands seemed quite attached to the insides of his coat pockets, so Belinda folded hers in her lap.

Good night, she said. Have a good rest! She forced another smile.

He walked briskly out of the lounge, and from Belinda's seat she could see him climbing the hotel stairs, staring down at his clomping feet.

Belinda felt stunned. What had happened? Was he angry? Annoyed that her train was late? Or was he merely cranky after a long day? Belinda hadn't even had the chance to do anything to upset him. The server came to check on her and drifted back to the kitchen, leaving the lounge empty, silent. Belinda felt unable to do anything but sit and listen, her thoughts melting into background noise. A far-off clink of dishes hung in the air for an inordinate length of time, and her mind clung to the reverberations. She stared blankly, contemplated the objects on the table in front of her as though they were part of a still-life painting. She had never seen wine so still; she could easily believe it was made of plastic. Next to her glass was a delicate roll of ash, now lying in the tray alongside the smushed cigarillo. Detached, discarded. The scene made her feel afraid to move, as if the slightest shift of her body might cause a leathery squeak that could ripple the liquid surface or crumble the ash. The suspended moment expanded and swelled, pushed the meeting with Dr. Longfellow to the past, to the edges of the day where it didn't matter and could easily be forgotten.

And then it came upon her: this must be part of the training. Of course. Dr. Longfellow was sending her to Woodhenge to give his assistant the opportunity to assess her abilities. She'd been naïve to think she could simply saunter in with no experience and immediately work alongside the seasoned researchers. Her book learning counted for little in the field; Dr. Longfellow was testing her ability to apply her knowledge.

She lifted her wine glass and took a generous mouthful. The wine in England didn't taste so awful after all.

9
Amphibians

MUM WAS BORN IN
Wiltshire, the crop circle capital of the world, which I'll admit is a pretty weird coincidence. Or maybe it's not a coincidence at all. She said she was going on a ‘spiritual journey,' but who knows what that really means? Wiley once said that spirituality is what you make of it, and now that I understand what he meant I think it was a pretty smart thing to say. I could be spiritual about Swiss cheese and nobody could tell me it was wrong. Cheese is my religion, I could say, and who would have the right to tell me my religion wasn't true or real?

Aside from Mum, none of us have ever met our relatives in Wiltshire. Auntie Prim is fourteen years older than Mum, and she moved out of their house when Mum was only two. Mum's never actually said so, but Jess and I figured out that Auntie Prim was kicked out because she got pregnant. Our cousin Sebastian is only two years younger than Mum, and last I heard he still lives at home with Auntie Prim. Since I don't know anything else about him I imagine him like Norman Bates, dressed in a grey wig and a flower-print dress. Turns out the guy who wrote
Psycho
actually based the character of Norman Bates on a real serial killer named Ed Gein, who skinned his victims' bodies and made woman-costumes out of them. He even peeled the skin off their faces to make masks for himself. Before he got caught everyone thought he was a pretty regular guy, a little odd and maybe a tad too attached to his mother. Meanwhile he was stealing corpses from graveyards to decorate his house — capping his bed-posts with shrunken heads and making trophies out of human bones. Who knew.

I couldn't imagine having a baby right now, at my age. There's a girl a year older than me in grade eleven, Lily something, who had to switch to a special school because she got pregnant, but I don't think her parents kicked her out. Jess told me that in grade seven she once saw Lily in the girls' bathroom with a plastic baggie of oregano and a packet of cigarette paper. When Jess was in the stall Lily was showing another girl how to roll the oregano up into joints.

You can't smoke oregano, I told Jess.

How would you know? she asked, so I let her go on talking about how it smelled like burnt spaghetti and how she was afraid to come out of the stall because she didn't want to get beaten up.

I could've told on them, Jess said, as if this were some juicy scandal. But I never told anyone. You're the first.

Ooo, lucky me, I said, but Jess pretended not to get that I was mocking her. It drives me nuts how she acts so scared of anyone who's not a goody-two-shoes like her. She'd never told me the story about Lily and the oregano before, and the only reason she decided to tell me then was 'cause I'd just told her about Lily being pregnant. I think it must make her feel better to believe that certain people are just plain naughty through and through, and will get into trouble no matter what they do.

As much as I'd be totally freaked out about being pregnant if I were Lily, I also think it might feel kind of nice to have a little person inside you, using you as a blanket. When Mum was pregnant with Squid you could hardly see a bump until she was eight months. Squid was all nestled in there hiding, the way he still likes to be sometimes when he's tired. When he was five he built a fort out of a moving box that the neighbours had put outside with the trash. The box was one made especially for hanging suits and fancy clothes in, so it had a metal bar running across the top. Mum let Squid use one of the fleece blankets to drape across the bar so it made a sort of tent within the box. Squid liked to curl up between the drapes of fleece with his stuffed giraffe, which he named Machu Picchu (he heard it on TV). He'd lie in there for maybe fifteen minutes every night before bed, and all you could hear was Squid talking very softly to Machu Picchu. We didn't ask what he was doing because it was the only time we got a break from keeping watch over him. I once stuck my head in the box to see what it was like, and I didn't blame Squid for liking it so much. The lamplight coming through the handholds at the sides of the box made the fleece blanket glow pink, the way it looks when you close your eyes in bright sunlight. And the smell of warm cardboard, like no other smell in the world. If I'd been small enough I would have snuggled up in there myself and taken a nap.

Mum eventually got sick of the box taking up space in Squid's room, so she tossed it in one of the big metal bins outside Safeway one morning after she'd dropped Squid off at school. Pretty cruel. Squid cried for an hour when he found out, and Mum said he had to learn to let things go. Easy for Mum to say. She doesn't even talk to her own Mum anymore, not even over the phone. Every year we get a Christmas parcel from England wrapped in brown paper and twine, and it's become sort of a tradition for all of us to tear and pull and pick at it together because it's got so much tape on it, pressed over every edge and fold. Mum always ends up having to get a pair of scissors to cut it open. For some reason we never think to get the scissors in the first place. Maybe 'cause it's more fun to act like we're ripping ravenously at the parcel, as if there's something irresistible inside. Mum doesn't let us do that with any other presents,
For Chrissake don't tear it, we can save
the paper for next year
. The funny thing is that Grandma's parcels are probably the least exciting of all the gifts we get. She packs them chock full of lame stuff like underwear and wool socks, and the year Squid was born nearly half the thing was crammed with Huggies. For a few years all she sent was packages of dry beans, pasta, gravy mix, sardines, and wheat crackers, as if she'd mixed addresses up and sent us a box for the food bank by accident. Mum would sigh while she pulled out all the packages, would try to pretend she wasn't excited to see the five Double-Decker chocolate bars tucked in among the beans. Double-Deckers were Mum's favourite and you could only get them in Europe, but the rest of us didn't really get what all the fuss was about.

When she told us about her trip to Wiltshire, I asked Mum if she was going to visit her Mum and Auntie Prim and Sebastian. She just laughed and wrinkled her eyebrows like she was all surprised, but I knew she wasn't.

Now why would I do that, Grace? she said, as if I'd just asked her to jump off the edge of a cliff. And then she started talking about everything she needed to pack and all the chores she had to do, which really meant the chores that she wanted
us
to do. Of course, she didn't give me the opportunity to ask why she
wouldn't
visit her family. When I was reading the brochure for the Sacred Britain Crop Circles Tour, I pointed out to Mum that it said the trip only lasted eight days.

So how come you can't buy a return ticket? I asked.

Grace, she said, please! Must you pester me? And then she went on her rant about how she was an adult and could make her own decisions, and she didn't need a fifteen-year-old telling her what to do, thank you very much.

She must have told Wiley before she told me, Jess, and Squid, 'cause Wiley was only in the room for a few seconds before he snatched a beer from the fridge and sat outside on the patio with his lawn chair facing the lilac bushes.

When I was really little it didn't seem weird that I didn't know anything about my relatives. It was just the way things were. Grandmothers were nothing but characters in storybooks and movies. We never asked Mum about what Grandma was like or how it was growing up in England because she never told us anything in the first place. There was nothing to be curious about. It had never even crossed my mind to imagine what her life was like before Jess and I came along.

But when I was five some new neighbours moved in next door, and one of the kids, Darla, was my age. Darla's grandmother lived with them in that house, and everyone, even unrelated people like me, called her Nana. Nana had her own little area on the top floor with a kitchen and everything. She was one of those grandmothers who really could've been a storybook character 'cause she had curly white hair like an angel and she was always smiling and chuckling at things we said, even if they weren't funny. She was round and soft and she'd smother both me and Darla with hugs as soon as we walked in the door, and it seemed like every time we visited, she happened to have a pan of ginger molasses cookies in the oven. She smelled like lavender and Ivory soap. That's when I started to wonder why I'd never met my grandma before, and why Mum had never taken us to visit her.

She's a very angry woman, Mum said when I asked about Grandma. And I'd rather not talk about her.