Bodies and Sole (9 page)

Chapter Sixteen

“She's comin'.”

The words were out of Gus's mouth before Hy was even through the

door.

“Who?”

“Who else would it be?”

“Uh…” Hy stood still at the doorway, as if that would give her the answer. “You got me.”

Gus held up the tiny garment she was knitting.

Hy beamed.

“Not…”

“The same.” A look of smug satisfaction crossed Gus's face.

“Dot?”

A nod.

“Dot one and Dot two?”

Gus looked puzzled. Hy had forgotten the child's name. “Little Dot.” That's what Gus always called her.

Hy came into the room and slumped in a chair.

“A homecoming. A heritage homecoming. A real cause for celebration.” She tried to keep her eyes averted from the fat, messy pile of papers and photographs on the dresser beside the chair. The book was not likely to happen now with Dot and the baby coming.

As if she had read Hy's thoughts, Gus nodded at the file folder.

“Mebbe Dot will help me with that.”

“I thought Dot's thing was science, not English.”

“She's very organized,” said Gus. “She could make sense of a crazy quilt.”

Hy left, anxious to finally meet the marvel that was Gus's long-awaited and only daughter, and hopeful that Dot might bring the bicentennial book back on track. Would she be able to exorcise the ghost of Gus's mother?

He's coming.

Dot's homecoming was swept right out of Hy's mind when she reached her own home and fired up the computer.

When she read the message on the screen, she did sit down.

Finn's coming.

If this was online dating, it was getting serious.

Hy's face was warm, flushed. Her eyes turned toward Shipwreck Hill. The lights had just come on at Ian's house.

What will Ian think? Tell him now? Wait?

Tell Finn not to come?

She began to write.

“That's great, Finn. I can't wait to meet you…”

She looked up again at Shipwreck Hill. The flickering light coming from the living room told her that Ian was on his computer, too. But he wouldn't be navigating on Facebook, though to her surprise, Hy had found his page on the social network. His only friend was Moira Toombs. Hy figured Moira must have set it up.

The knowledge that Ian was a Facebook innocent added to Hy's guilt about Finn, but didn't change her intention to welcome him to The Shores.

www.theshores200.com

The newspapers of the day say the fire that killed one of the Sullivan brothers was “an accident.” The villagers say it was murder. They say one started the fire to deliberately kill the other, because he wanted the house. It had happened before in that family, brothers squabbling over ownership, ending in fratricide. They say the Sullivan house is built on blood.

On the morning of Moira's wedding, in the front room of the Toombs residence, Hy transformed her into an exotic creature, in the silky sole blouse, shimmering salmon skirt and beautiful blue beaded necklace. Hy had enjoyed the makeover, but the big reward came when Moira opened the china cabinet and the banged-up cigarette case and gave the ancestral letter to Hy.

“For the book,” she said.

Moira stood, for fear of damaging her outfit, the whole time while Hy slipped into her bridesmaid's dress.

The bride's outfit had changed, but Hy was wearing the same dress as the year before, when the marriage ceremony on the beach had been interrupted. She'd had time to make it more flattering, but it's hard for a redhead to work with purple. She was wearing the dress with gumboots. That was even less flattering. She would put on the requisite heels for the wedding, but the wharf was slippery with fish oil and water and she didn't want to fall and ruin her dress.

It was a typical Big Bay morning, with a Scotch mist seeping across the wharf, that fine mist Red Island reserved for special outdoor occasions.

The setting wasn't anywhere near what Moira had imagined from the pages of
Cosmo
. Thanks to Marlene, a half-dozen of the fish shacks were freshly painted, although the colours chosen looked more garish than picturesque. The Scotch mist had moistened the wooden decking, which was slick with seagull scat as well. At the head of the pier, the fishermen had erected a canopy for the ceremony, a green army tarp that was flapping in the wind and refusing to allow flowers to be attached to it. They lay where the wind had thrown them, in sad-looking bunches on the dock.

The dock was lined on either side with window boxes, whose flowers had suffered an overnight beating from the wind and rain. They drooped miserably – purple and pink petunias ragged and splotched with fading colour; lobelia dragging across the wood planks, beaten into the boards and unable to rise to the day. Only the marigolds stood up bravely, splotches of chirpy orange soldiering on through the weather.

The guests – the entire village had been invited – hadn't ventured onto the wharf. They stood gathered around in the gravel parking lot, some with arms aloft, holding onto umbrellas that kept flipping inside out. Others were sitting on their tailgates. The villagers knew they wouldn't be able to hear much, but they could see, and that was just fine. They'd all been to so many weddings they could have officiated as well as the Reverend Rose. The reverend and Frank were already standing, shivering, at the end of the pier, where the ceremony was to take place in a few moments.

Hy was glad of her boots, because she was barely onto the wharf when she stepped onto a pile of gull poo.

“Yech, gross.” She hopped about on one foot, grabbing at the soiled boot and looking at the bottom. “Gross.” She put the foot down and walked gingerly to Cat's, to clean it off. She left gumboot prints all the way along the dock.

Moira arrived, driven by Ian in his truck. She was smirking, delighted at the opportunity to spend time with Ian, to be escorted by him, even though she was getting married within minutes to Frank.

She was also fully convinced of herself as an Indian princess, and alighted from the truck with an unusual air of confidence. There were the requisite
oohs
and
ahs
upon sight of the bride. But some of the oohs – from the direction of the Women's Institute group sounded more like
“ew.”

If Moira heard it, she chose to ignore it. She lifted her skirt so as not to get Red Island clay on it, and, head high, Moira, the Mi'kmaw bride, took a few steps forward and slid on the same pile of poo as Hy. But she went down and landed right in it.

Hy came tearing down the wharf, slipping and sliding, to help her up.

“My dress. My God.”

“We'll clean it up. It'll be fine.” For the second time in a week, Hy felt truly sorry for Moira. She wasn't crying – yet – but her eyes were swimming with tears and mascara was running down her cheeks. Bad to worse.

Hy scurried back to Cat's, leaving Moira to the inept commiserations of Ian. Cat, standing outside his door, had seen the whole thing.

“A cloth…some water…soap…” Hy panted.

He just stood there, shaking his head.

“Nope.” It sounded like.

“Nope?”

He shook his head again, and spoke more distinctly.

“No hope.”

“No hope?”

“No hope.” He gestured in Moira's direction. She was now clinging onto Ian and sobbing into his shoulder. He was looking exceptionally uncomfortable, patting her back.

“Ohmigod.” Hy pointed at the back of Moira's skirt.

It was happening in front of their eyes.

“It's disintegrating.”

“Yup. Told you. Enzymes and stuff. Not good. Not good.”

“No. Not good at all.”

When Hy got back to Moira, slumped in Ian's arms, the entire backside of the skirt had disintegrated. Frank had run down from the end of the pier and relieved Ian, trying to console her, with no success. Cat produced an oilskin jacket, and Frank, Hy and Ian helped Moira back into Ian's truck. He had spread a copy of
The Guardian
newspaper on the passenger seat.

Moira wept all the way home, and wouldn't let Frank in when he showed up shortly after.

Another unsuccessful wedding.

Would there be a third?

Would it be third time lucky?

And whatever was the bride going to wear?

The fish skin outfit had already found its way into the compost bin.

Hy didn't dare phone Moira or drop by. And she quickly copied Marie's letter, certain that Moira would demand it back.

Chapter Seventeen

www.theshores200.com

The Macks are, and have been for 200 years, the most prominent family in The Shores. They truly can lay claim to having had an ancestor who swam ashore from the sinking
Annabella.
A 15-year-old boy from Ireland, he no sooner landed than he began procreating with local Irish, Scots, English, Welsh, Mi'kmaw and French lasses. But his legitimate line became the first white settlers in The Shores and he quickly established himself as fisherman, farmer, general-store owner and informal banker.

She was home.

The tongues would be wagging shortly, with something worth wagging about. Maybe that was why she was taking her time on this last leg of the journey.

She'd been surprised herself that the Campbell Causeway that joined The

Shores to the rest of Red Island was still under construction. It almost always was.

Of course, she'd heard about the catastrophe several years before that had ripped the causeway in two, destroyed five houses, pushed cars into the water, tossed boats up onto the road, and killed nine people, all within thirteen-and-a-half minutes.

The province had fixed the causeway, but never well, and provided a small open car ferry, bought from a neighbouring province, to provide regular seasonal service in place of the causeway.

She found it pleasant taking the old river ferry the short distance across the inlet. She felt like taking her time to return home. Reluctant to get the gossiping tongues going? Maybe, a bit. But she felt more as if she were savouring it, this return after so many years.

She hadn't told the family her exact arrival time. She wanted it to be a surprise.

What if Ma and Pa weren't home?

They were always home. And where would they go when the whole village was about to celebrate its 200th anniversary? She was arriving in time to be part of the celebration. It would be a heritage homecoming.

She was out of the car for the brief crossing, leaning on the metal gates at the front of the flat-bottomed boat. The wind was brisk, carrying moisture that misted her lips, and she brushed her tongue across them.

Salt.

The taste of home.

She breathed in deeply. The cold air stung her nostrils.

Salt, sand and the sea.

The smell of home.

It was then that she saw him. She hadn't known there was another passenger on the ferry. Hers was the only car. He had been on the back of the boat and now strode past her just as the ferry made its bumpy connection to land. She returned to her car. The baby was still asleep in the back seat, eyes closed to this first sight of home. Because it was home for her, too, though she hadn't been born here, had never lived here. All her history was here.

As the ferry slid into place and the gates clanked open, he put down his backpack and stretched. All dressed in black, his limbs so long and thin, he made her think of a spider, minus a few legs. He was up the ramp before she'd engaged the ignition, but she quickly caught up and slowed down, lowering the window on the passenger side and calling out to him:

“Do you need a lift?”

He smiled, an engaging smile, not the least like an arachnid, and shook his head.

“Thank you, but I'm fine. I don't have far to go.”

“The Shores?”

“Yes.”

“Well, that's all there is.”

“I know. So they say.” He winked, waved a long arm and strode off.

The Shores. All there is.

The thought stayed with her, up and down hills and hollows, familiar as no other part of the world was – and she'd been in many of them. This land and seascape was imprinted on her brain, traced in her heart, engraved on her spirit.

All there is.
She'd had to get away from it to know it. It had seemed so suffocating. Now, it seemed like a whole world to her. As big as the world she'd seen. All of it.

All there is.

When she came to the high hill above the village, her heart filled with the sight. Her history, her heritage. There, smack in the centre, was the hall. Close by, a lot, “For Sale,” where the Old General Store had been. The other empty lot across the road belonged to her, where the one-room schoolhouse had once been, and where she had gone to school. It was kept tidy, clear of invading brush and bandit spruce, grass clipped.

She had been gone too long.

Suddenly, she couldn't wait – stall? – a moment longer. She released the brake and went speeding down toward home.

He would be here soon.

She'd hesitated about telling Ian, but finally decided she'd better before he found out the worst way – bumping into him in the village.

About his coming, Hy wasn't sure how she felt, but she was pretty sure how Ian would feel about it. Not happy. With reluctant footsteps, she dragged her bicycle up Shipwreck Hill.

“On Facebook? Give me a break.” Ian's face was etched with disgust. How would he feel, Hy wondered, if he found out he was on Facebook, too, with Moira as his only friend?

“Yes. I met him on Facebook.”

Ian's forehead wrinkled.

“Are you…?”

“No. Nothing like that.” Not true, she thought. Not true. It was like that. She was interested. Definitely interested. And he?“So who is he? What's his name?”

“Finn. Finnegan.”

“That's it? One name?” Ian's lip curled.

“No, two. Finn Finnegan.”

“Finn. And Finn again? Does that make him Finn Finn?”

He was being deliberately annoying.

“I hope you'll behave when he comes.”

“So I'm to meet this marvel? I'm honoured.”

Not honoured. Jealous. Of someone he hadn't met. Of someone who might mean something to Hy.

Or might not.

Ian's only consolation was that Hy didn't seem able to make a commitment to anyone. Certainly not to him.

Ian had no idea of the baggage he dragged around with him.

“What's going on here?”

A disembodied voice woke her from a light nap.

Her eyes popped open.

She rubbed them.

Rubbed them again.

Was the Skype on?

No. Here they were. The two of them.

Gus jumped up out of the chair faster than she'd moved since her eightieth birthday, and that was quite a few years past.

She grabbed the bundle Dot held out to her.

Little Dot. Her granddaughter.

And Dot, her daughter. She wanted to hug her, but couldn't, not with the babe in her arms. And she wasn't letting go.

Little Dot. Born in the Antarctic. And here she'd managed to get out alive.

It had been a perfectly normal birth, in a somewhat abnormal place, to an older mother. Dot was past forty when she had Little Dot – as Gus had been herself. But, she always said, she'd had seven under her belt first, whereas for Dot this was the first – and only? – one.

The bundle was squirming. This baby was no baby anymore. A year old. She wanted onto the floor and the inviting mess that beckoned her.

Gus let her down. Little Dot trampled with glee all over the quilt patches, then began sliding on the photographs and clippings.

“August, no.” Dot scooped up the child.

“No name for a child.” Gus shook her head. Better than Augusta, her own, but still, she thought Little Dot suited.

“I know you call her Little Dot, but it's a mouthful.”

“Dottie then.” That settled, Gus reached out her arms to the child. “Let's see what we have in the kitchen for you.”

Dot sighed. She surveyed the mess on the floor again. She began to shift the photos and clippings around, like pieces of a puzzle, fascinated by the lore that lay on the kitchen floor.

Gus returned with Dottie grabbing onto one of her fingers. With the other hand she was attempting to stuff a blueberry muffin into her mouth. Walking and eating at the same time was a new skill, leaving a trail of muffin on the floor.

Dot bent down to pick up the crumbs.

“Oh, don't bother.” Gus sat down in her chair and pulled her granddaughter onto her knee, ignoring the crumbs and blueberries staining her apron. That's what aprons were for, wasn't it? Gus shook her head as Dot began grabbing at papers and photographs, picking up pieces of the past like so many crumbs.

“Maybe you'll make sense of that. I haven't, not since I started it. Now I'm supposed to finish it for this here celebration and it's driving me crazy. As crazy as that quilt.” She pointed down at the patches, crushed beneath her feet.

“I don't know. I see a certain order here. You can take it chronologically, or by theme. Or both. Separate parts.”

“Mebbe you're right. Why don't you do it, now that you're here? P'raps we might make something of it after all.”

And then she got to the real point:

“Why didn't you tell us when you was comin'? We might not have been here.”

Dot smiled.

“Oh sure, when was the last time you were not here?”

Gus said nothing.

“Where's Pa?”

“Abel?”

“Who else?”

Gus smirked. “Well now…”

Not here.

The man dressed in black with the spidery arms and legs walked along The Island Way, drawing stares from villagers going back and forth from Winterside and Charlottetown.

Ian got a real eyeful when he passed by, just as Finn Finnegan was marching up to Hy's door. A quick survey of the house gave Ian the information he wanted. Hy wasn't there. Her bicycle was gone. Her truck, he knew, would be in the garage, because the door was closed. It would have been propped open if she was out in the truck.

Should he confront the man? Prevent him from going in when Hy wasn't there? Inviting Facebook strangers to visit. It might be dangerous.

Ian slowed his truck, its wheels keeping pace with his thoughts. Well, it wouldn't be dangerous if she wasn't there. He picked up speed again, turned up Shipwreck Hill.

He'd drop by later to see everything was okay. Right now he had a date himself, he thought, smiling. With the online forensic course. And Jamieson. Good-looking woman. Great hair. And a sensible mind, more like a man. She thought in black and white, a language Ian could understand. Hy, with her flashing red curls, communicated in technicolour.

At the moment, Hy was trying to cheer up a weeping Moira. Frank had asked her to come over and see if she could make her feel better.

“I've told her we should just hook up with a Justice of the Peace and have a quiet ceremony, but she won't hear of it,” he explained to Hy when she arrived.

“She's got her heart set on a proper ceremony, but she doesn't want to make a fool of herself in public again.” He shrugged his shoulders. “Rock and a hard place.”

He led Hy to the kitchen where Moira was spilling her tears into a batch of blueberry muffin mix.

Hy didn't know what to say, how to help. For a while, she allowed Moira to weep, her back heaving.

“Morti… I'm so mortified.”

“C'mon, Moira, it could happen to anyone.”

They both knew that was a lie. For one thing, it hadn't happened to anyone. It had happened to Moira. Twice.

“You still want to marry Frank?”

Moira hiccupped two big breaths of air, by way of a “yes.”

“Then do it simply, as Frank suggests. Justice of the Peace.”

Two more hiccups of air, accompanied by a sharp shake of the head.

No.

“At the hall, then. Nothing fancy. A traditional hall wedding.”

Moira had an envelope crushed in her hand. She held it out for Hy to take, and with a flick of her hand indicated that Hy should open it.

It was from Moira's aunts Bessie and Jessie, Moira's only relatives besides her sister Madeline. They were planning to visit.

Moira had managed to control her sobbing.

“They think I'm already married.”

“Well, won't they be happy to be able to come to the ceremony. In the hall.”

Moira gave a slow nod. “In the hall.”

“Soon.”

“Soon.”

Slowly, Hy coaxed Moira into the hint of a smile, and soon had her planning for a Justice of the Peace on home turf – the hall.

“We could write our own vows,” said Moira, remembering a recent article from
Cosmo.

Finn, not knowing the local ways, knocked on Hy's door. There was no answer. He knocked again. Waited a while. He tried the doorknob. It gave. Slowly he pushed open the door, peeking inside as he did.

He smiled. It told the whole story. An assortment of mostly antique furniture, bright tapestries, up-to-date electronics, and – looking in the fridge – he found nothing to eat. Or rather, nothing edible. Shrunken dried-out food, a pasta dish or two that had seen better days, lumps of cheese of various varieties and eras and a couple of bottles of white wine.

He pulled off his backpack, rummaged inside it for some treasured spices and went right to work.