Bodies and Sole (7 page)

Chapter Twelve

“It'll never work. You can't keep all signs of modern life out
of the village.”

“There's not much in it now,” Marlene mumbled, as she slipped a tender mussel out of its shell.

“Granted. But the men must have their trucks and ride-ons and the tourists their laptops. There's Wifi Wednesday at the hall. We can't do away with that.”

A drop of garlic butter sauce dribbled down Marlene's chin when she opened her mouth to protest. She dabbed at it with a napkin and looked out the large arched window that formed most of the back wall of the restaurant. The view of the dunes and the sand bar that stretched across the bay was magnificent. But the dull grey shingle shacks were pulling it down.

She turned her gaze to the restaurant interior. A medley of blues. Fresh paint job. Nice enough. Solid tables and very solid chairs – recycled from a schoolroom, she had no doubt. They'd do, but –

Her imagination hazed over the solid reality of the room, and turned it into a whimsical Paris café, with pretty little unstable wrought iron tables and chairs with checkered tablecloths. She saw not the stolid waitresses who had served them and called them “yous guys,” but undernourished French boys with thin reedy voices to match, bowing and scraping at the clientele. That would be more like it.

“Who owns this place?”

“Andy. The grumpiest fisherman on the wharf.”

“Oh, dear.”

They ate in silence for a few moments.

“I think I'll have to call a public meeting. Can you help me with that?”

“Yes, of course…”

“And of course, you'll back me up on my ideas.”

“Well, I – ”

What had she got herself into? Hy had thought this community liaison thing would be a piece of cake.

She hadn't reckoned on Marlene Weeks.

Following their lunch, Marlene shoved flyers in Hy's leaky mailbox on a rainy day. They were calling for a community meeting and came with a note:
To be distributed
. Hy hauled the sodden mass out and dumped them onto her harvest table to dry.

They lay there like an accusation.

Resentment built in Hy.

I'm not her dogsbody, she thought. The sooner she knows that, the better.

She gathered them up and stuffed them into the recycling.

But the village women did show up, even though they didn't know about the meeting. Marlene had scheduled it right after the monthly Institute get-together, where Moira had just announced a change of venue for her second stab at a wedding. It wouldn't be at the hall after all.

She'd read an article in
Cosmo
about a wedding on a pier in California, with a beautiful glassed-in gazebo at the end of it. It stirred her romantic imagination. She thought Big Bay would be an ideal setting for their vows.

She'd decided on the wharf. It wasn't quite like having a Mexican beach ceremony as she'd tried the first time.

“This will be more traditional,” she explained to the Institute. Most of the women thought it was foolishness. Some were wondering if they'd be required to produce a second wedding present. Moira had not sent the first ones back.

Gladys Fraser looked at Olive MacLean. Olive looked at Rose Rose, the minister's wife. She tried to look noncommittal. But they were all thinking: What was traditional about getting married on the wharf? To their knowledge, no one ever had. It was going to be a very new tradition.

Moira misunderstood the skeptical glances around the table.

“Well, with my family background on the sea.”

The looks became more puzzled. The Toombs's occupational history had been in garbage collection, as long as anyone living knew.

“The
Annabella
.” There was a great deal of skepticism about Moira's claim to having an ancestor who had landed on the island when the
Annabella
sank in Big Bay. No one but Hy and Gus knew yet Moira's legitimate claim to the
Annabella
. She was keeping the secret close so far. There was no rush to reveal it. Gus showed no signs of producing the heritage book.

It was certainly not an auspicious arrival of the Toombs clan on Red Island, and perhaps didn't bode well for Moira's second attempt to marry Frank.

Marlene barged in just as the Institute meeting was breaking up. She charged up on stage and sat the women down again.

“So glad you could all come.” Then she looked around the room, puzzled.

“But where are the men?”

Even if the men had known about the meeting, they wouldn't have come. A meeting called by a woman must be women's business, nothing to do with them.

So the women stared, puzzled, at Marlene.

“The men are…well the men are where they're s'posed to be.” Gladys Fraser jerked her head in the direction of the outdoors. It focused attention on a hum coming from behind the hall. The hum became a buzz. The buzz became a roar as Billy Pride circled the hall on his ancient ride-on, a lawn-mower-cum-car. Billy used it to transport himself around the village.

The roar became a clang.

The clang became a clunk.

A pop.

A hiss.

A swear word that made Gladys, Rose and Olive cover their ears, and the pasty-skinned Moira turn bright red.

Billy came dashing into the hall, slammed the bathroom door open, left with a bowl of water and the tap gushing behind him. He repeated the performance several times. Hy had gone to the window to see what he was up to.

“Overheating,” she said, finally.

“We'll have none of that for the 200th.” Marlene looked smug.

“None of what?” Hy challenged.

“Those ride-ons. Ladies, that's what I'm here to talk about. We had such a wonderful collaboration on the commemorative flowerbed, but that's just the beginning. There's so much more to be done. I have a dream…”

Hy groaned.

Marlene outlined her idea to turn The Shores into another world. The women, who were always saying things had been better in days gone by, didn't like the idea at all when actually presented with the possibility.

“Hide our vehicles? And just how are we supposed to do that?”

“Why, drive them around the back of the house.” Marlene said it as if it were the most reasonable suggestion.

“Over the grass?”

“Oh, yes.” Marlene was reminded. “The grass. There would be no grass cutting, of course. For at least two, maybe three months. After all, we want authenticity, don't we?”

A cry of outrage arose, peppered by:

“No cutting the grass?”

“I'd be ashamed for my family to come visit.”

“Never mind that, what about the minister?”

“Our husbands would have nothing to do. They'd get up to all sorts.”

And so on. Hy finally raised her arms and called for silence.

“I don't believe Ms. Weeks means it.”

“I most certainly do.”

“Then I think the husbands must come to the next meeting. This concerns them most of all.”

When the village women had left, grumbling and complaining their way out the door, Hy turned to Marlene.

“You can't be serious,” she said.

“Deadly serious,” said Marlene.

Hy thought that might be too close to the truth. She was sure she wasn't the only one who wanted to wring Marlene's neck.

It was the ride-ons. They were the deal breaker. No one wanted to let the grass grow for authenticity, the way it used to be. Tidy farmers and homemakers, they couldn't bear the sight of unruly growth, so used were they to the neat rows of potato plants, fields of wheat, timothy and canola, growing in well-corralled order around them. To let it all fall apart at their doorsteps was unthinkable.

They were proud of their lawns in The Shores. The whole island boasted neatly trimmed acreage, clipped right down into the ditches and back up, meeting with the provincial government clippers that took care of the roadsides. Some complained that this was killing off the lupins, the tall spikey, multi-bloomed flowers that grew like pink and purple weeds all along the island roadsides in late June.

Certainly there were fewer of them now the mowing machines sheared their long blades beyond the grassy shoulder. They'd joined snowplows as the scourge of mailboxes and laneways.

Marlene could do nothing about them, but she wanted the authentic look for the village. How could she ever bring the villagers under control? Invite the men, Hy had said. Marlene suspected that Hy had never delivered her previous flyer. So many told her they'd never received one.

She would organize another village meeting at the hall. This time, she would deliver the flyers herself.

She spent most of the morning working on them, nose pressed to the computer screen. She needed glasses but was too vain to wear them, even when alone. So it was no surprise that the flyer had two proofing errors. She stuffed the mistakes into mailbox after mailbox, the Smart car starting and stopping, starting and stopping, and she having to get out each time.

The Sores Re-enactment Village
Pubic Meeting
Saturday May 30 6 pm

No one came.

That was no surprise. Even without the proofing errors, and very few actually noticed them, no one was interested in what Marlene had to say. They assumed that it was more of the same – about not cutting their lawns. Outrageous.

Marlene leaned up against the hall stage, waiting for people to come and sit on the chairs she had neatly arranged.

Still no one came.

Slowly, she gathered up the information sheets she had placed on each chair, and, reluctantly, began to stack the chairs and put them back along the walls of the hall, hoping that someone, anyone would come.

As she popped the last stack into place, finally someone arrived.

It was Olive MacLean, Women's Institute treasurer and the member on clean-up duty that week.

With a smile, Marlene descended, grabbing one of the information sheets and brandishing it at her.

Olive reeled back in horror, as if she were at the wrong end of a knife.

Marlene kept coming forward.

Olive kept backing away.

“No, no.” She couldn't back away any farther, so she had to speak. “I'm not here for that.” She pointed at the paper as if it were something disgusting.

Marlene dropped her arm down in disappointment.

“I'm here to clean up.” It was Olive's turn to look disappointed. The place was perfectly tidy.

The two women left the hall together, each hugging her own defeat. Olive at least had the satisfaction of locking the door. That needed to be done, and was, with a flourish of importance.

It was pouring. Marlene hadn't brought a jacket.

Dejected, she dragged herself “home” to Moira's unwelcoming abode.

Chapter Thirteen

Hy pushed the door open and flew into the house. It was
lucky the mudroom was small, so that she was able to fling her arms forward and stop the fall on the opposite wall. She steadied herself, pushed upright and searched for what had tripped her. Hy was so naturally clumsy, there didn't always have to be a reason.

But this time there was.

“Could you use a cat?” Gus called out from the kitchen.

Hy scrunched up her face. “A wha…?”

There, at her feet, was a small bit of fluff. A black cat.
Don't let a black cat cross your path.
She saw the meaning of that now. Not a superstition at all.

A black cat. Sniffing at her shoes as if it were a dog. Hy reached down and patted it. It rolled over.

A white cat. Everything under was white, belly and all. Everything on top was black. Even the legs divided black and white. Black down the outside; white inside. Hy tickled the cat's stomach and it began playing with her hand, softly, claws pulled in, kneading her hands.

“It likes you.” Gus came into the room carrying a tray with cookies and cheese, cups and saucers. The Pyrex pot was boiling three tea bags a thick dark brown on the stove.

Hy kept tickling, the cat rolled around in delight, and sunk its claws right into her hand.

“Ouch!” Hy pulled her hand away.

The cat skittered off.

“It does like you. Better take it home.”

“Gus – a cat. You? You don't like cats.”

“It's not my cat.” Gus sat down, worked a few more stitches onto the sock she was knitting, but the cat was tugging at the ball of wool on the floor. It went chasing after it, batting it around, turning the room into a giant cat's cradle. There was a reason Gus didn't like cats.

Nursing her hand, Hy slumped into the reclining chair by the window. She could see through into the pantry, where there were two little dishes set down beside the big white plastic garbage and recycling bin.

Cat dishes.

“If you're feeding it, it's yours.”

Gus looked, guilty, at the bin.

“More Abel's.”

Abel's. Hy snorted. That was even more preposterous.

The cat jumped onto Hy's knee, its tiny sharp claws digging in. She winced and tried to pull it off, but when a cat doesn't want to move, it doesn't.

“I reckon she'll be company for Abel when I'm not here.”

Hy opened her mouth to say something and then shut it. Shook her head.

The little feline kneaded Hy's lap, circled a few times, gathered itself into a comma and fell asleep, its purring as loud as a whipper snipper.

“Where did it come from?”

Gus shrugged. “Reckon it came from somewhere handy. Not a thing wrong with her. Not starvin'. Not wild. Mebbe a barn cat from Frasers', looking for a better life.”

The Frasers had more barn cats than anyone in The Shores. The irony was that mean-spirited Gladys Fraser, president of the Women's Institute, fed them and fed them well. She wouldn't have one in the house, but didn't care how many there were in the barn. Fed them on the good stuff, top-of-the-line cat crunchies, was the word in the village.

Hy stroked the purring cat softly and it jumped up, jumped off and showed her the back of its tail before it hopped up on Gus and stopped her from knitting.

“What's its name?”

“It's a she, and I call her Blacky. What else?”

“Whitey, maybe. Anyway, Gus, if you've chosen a name for her, she must be yours.”

“Mebbe, but she's not here all the time, you know. She eats here, of course she eats here. My good food. Fish cakes and potato salad and biscuits. Them biscuits are made with cream.”

Gus quit trying to knit with the cat on her lap, and put down her needles. Mission accomplished, the cat jumped down, and, with one meow, had Gus up out of her chair and spooning tuna fish into her dish.

“Abel won't eat leftovers, but she will.”

No doubt whose cat it was.

But when Hy left, the cat bounced off Gus and tore out the door the moment it was open just a crack. Blacky waited while Hy got on her bicycle and skittered along beside her as she made her way up Shipwreck Hill. Hy was planning to stop at Ian's, but as she turned into his driveway, the little cat kept going. Stopped. Turned and looked at Hy. Started up again. Stopped. Looked back at Hy. She clearly wanted Hy to follow. Curious, Hy followed.

Blacky went all the way to the police house, where she turned in and started scratching at the door and meowing.

Jamieson came to the door.

Hy ducked behind the lilac hedge. It was redolent of that lovely spring smell, although the blossoms weren't quite out yet.

The cat rolled over and showed Jamieson its belly. Jamieson leaned down and rubbed it. It sounded like two cats purring.

“C'mon, Whitey,” said Jamieson. “Come in.” The cat sauntered
into the house as if she owned the place.

Jamieson shot a look in either direction, and closed the door quickly.

Hy grinned. Jamieson had become a real softy. Alice, April Dewey's five-year-old hero-worshipped Jamieson for saving her life when a wind turbine collapsed on the cape last year. That Alice had captured Jamieson's heart, too, had been obvious. She allowed the kid to follow her on her rounds, holding her hand and sometimes holding her grubby stuffed bunny, too.

And now this, this kitten.

A kitten who appeared to have two, somewhat reluctant, homes. And two names. No, not two. Three.

Whacky, thought Hy.

That's what I'll call her.

Hy was about to leave when she thought she'd like to tease Jamieson about the cat and maybe talk to her about Vera Gloom. She marched up to the door. She knocked, as Jamieson had instructed everyone to do, though it was not the village custom. When Jamieson answered, Hy pointed at the feline stretched out on the couch, depositing white fur on the black fabric.

“Caught in the act.”

As Hy had expected, Jamieson looked immediately guilty.

“It's not my cat,” she said defensively.

“Looks pretty much at home.”

There were catnip toys scattered all over the floor. Hy eyed them.

“Busted,” she said. “By the way, have you spoken to your new neighbour?”

“I've hardly seen her. A glimpse now and then.”

“Maybe you should pay her a visit.”

“Why?”

“Oh, I dunno. Official welcome to the village, something like that.”

Curiosity, thought Jamieson.
Snooping again. And trying to get me to do it for her.

“It's just that…oh, never mind.” Hy turned to leave. Now she'd piqued Jamieson's interest.

“Just that what?”

Hy turned back.

“Just that…is she living there alone?”

“I presume so, but I can't say yes or no.”

“No. No one can. It's just that…”

Jamieson was now impatient.

“Just that I saw a man waving from an upstairs window.”

“And?”

“I'm not sure. He just kept standing there, waving.”

“Doesn't sound like a police matter to me.”

“No, but – ”

Hy had accomplished what she'd set out to do – rouse Jamieson's curiosity. Jamieson had come to trust Hy's hunches, though she'd never let her know. The woman next door was quiet and kept to herself. Only in The Shores could that be considered suspicious.

Blair was reading
The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire
. He always insisted on calling it by its full name, to Vera's irritation.

“Finally getting around to it,” he told Vera when she carried his breakfast tray to him in the morning. She put the tray down on the occasional table by his side and looked with disapproval at the six volumes stacked at his feet. He could kick them over so easily. She moved them away, picked up the top one, Volume One, and handed it to him.

He didn't even say thank you. Not for the book. Not for the breakfast. He was already completely absorbed in his reading, and probably wouldn't eat a thing.

He really was getting too thin.

She went back down to the kitchen and got the second breakfast tray.

Charlie was up and active, working on a new painting, this one set in the woods outside his window, with the sun, low down, glancing through the trees as it set.

“Beautiful colour, doncha think?” He didn't even turn toward her. She had to dodge his arm, upraised and targeting a new piece of the canvas with his brush.

“Yes, Charlie, lovely.” She set the tray down on a small table behind him, expecting that she would not be rewarded for her efforts with Charlie either. He was in another world, his own world of colour and light, canvas and imagination, the palette of his life.

He rarely ate his breakfast either.

He, too, was getting thin, she thought.

Another kitchen trip for Hank's tray. He never noticed when she came in, if she came in or not. But he had to be fed.

“Good morning, Hank,” she said as she pushed through the door. Was that a grunt coming from the bed? If so, it was more than she usually got from him.

There he was, neat and tidy, in his striped pyjamas and the blue velvet robe today, leather slip-on slippers. She had tried to keep him from wearing his slippers on the bed, but with no luck. What did it matter, anyway? He never left the room. The soles of the slippers were perfectly clean.

Hank was watching his favourite morning program:
Good Morning America.

From there, through the day, he would be channel surfing for a variety of programs he liked, recording others on his PVR if they coincided with shows he also wanted to watch.

Vera slid the tray onto his nightstand. His eyes remained riveted to the TV.

She went back downstairs and sorted through the mail on the kitchen table. A lime green flyer stood out from the batch:

Men of The Shores,

Throw off your Chains!

What you can do for the Bicentenary

By doing nothing!