Caught (32 page)

Do you play these days? he asked.

I teach theory, she said. I play now and then. I play for myself.

She sat on the edge of the chair, her hands on her knees, and drew a deep breath and held it. She let the breath out with her eyes closed. There was the ridiculous golden light, liturgical and autumnal, touching everything glass and metal.

The studs on the leather chair she was sitting in and the bevelled strip on the mirror behind her. A cat padded into the room and sat in the middle of the carpet. Its whiskers were lit up.

I’d like to meet your children, Slaney said.

Not a chance, she said. He put down the cup.

They don’t know anything about it, she said. I haven’t told anyone. Then she mentioned that the cat had no eyes. Glaucoma and eventually the pressure behind the eyes, even after a couple of operations.

They were removed?

The pressure got to be too much, she said. And when she said that, he knew. He knew unequivocally. He’d thought he needed to know, but now he saw it didn’t matter very much. She had told Patterson about him changing course. He had known it all along.

She finds her way though, don’t you, girl, Ada said. The cat turned toward her voice and he saw the face. He saw there were no eyes, just as she had said, but he didn’t believe it. If the lids were stitched together, he could not see it for the fur. There was a black patch of fur where one of the eyes should be and a golden brown patch over the other. It was a calico cat, expectant and cringing. The tea scalded Slaney’s throat.

Is that weak? she asked. He remembered this too: she could become prim in an instant. Because you could have let it steep, she said.

You had them removed, he said. The cat had found Ada’s legs and was butting its head against her shin and winding through and between.

I got the cat after the eyes were removed. Somebody left it at a shelter.

Slaney wondered if she would have allowed the operation if it had been left up to her. He thought she would have risen to the need. She could act when she faced helplessness in others; pity provoked her, woke her up. It was independence and self-reliance that left her unsure and brought out the coldness in her.

I’m divorced, she said. He wasn’t surprised; it would always be harder for her to leave a relationship than stay in it and she would always do the hardest thing.

I’ve remade my life, she said. Are you done with the tea? Because I want to put it away if you’re done. A spoon clattered to the floor on her way out of the living room. She stopped and spoke with the tray in her hands.

You know it was me, she said.

I didn’t know, he said. I didn’t come here for that.

Yes, you knew, she said.

The cat leapt up onto the arm of the sofa, its back hunched. It was digging its claws into the fabric and pulling it up. The
pock
,
pock
of the tight brocade.

She must have tossed everything on the tray into the sink; there was the crash of china. Then the tray hit the wall and clattered on the floor.

She came back out and sat opposite him on the same couch. She dug a toe of one foot under the strap of her sandal and flicked it off. She reached down and unhooked the other sandal strap and kicked her foot free. She drew her knees up. She was wearing jeans and a faded green T-shirt and a silver chain with a flat polished stone. She worked her toes under his thigh.

You turned me in, Slaney said.

Yes I did, she said. I told them. They said I would be a confidential informant and not go to jail and my name wouldn’t be mentioned in court and Cyril would get a lighter sentence, or no time at all. I called them from Panama while you and Cyril were looking for the line man. I told them we had changed course. I said we were going to Newfoundland.

You did it for Cyril, he said.

I did it because I was afraid, she said. I was afraid for Cyril and I was afraid for myself.

He pressed his thumb and fingers against the bridge of his nose. Then he put both his hands over his face. There was a rose garden outside and he heard a bicycle bell.

It hadn’t been Hearn, as he had wondered and sometimes believed. She was digging an elbow into the couch, and she levered herself up out of it and went into the kitchen, put on the kettle again. She came out and leaned on the door frame, her arms wrapped around her waist.

I know I’m not in any position, she said. I’ve been putting money away for you. I put away ten percent of every paycheque for the last twenty years and I invested it. It’s a fair sum now, but not enough, of course. I’m not saying that. I want you to accept it.

Oh, he said. It was a long time ago. Do you want me to forgive you? I forgive you.

He would have said anything to get out of there. Jennifer had developed cancer while he was in prison and she had passed on. She’d had three children and she’d sent him Christmas cards for years. A family portrait on the front, and in this way he’d watched her family grow.

He had nobody. What had he been thinking? Why had he needed to know? It was not Hearn. That was the more important thing.

I’m sorry, Ada said.

Okay, he said. He found he couldn’t move himself to get off the couch. He wanted to get out before her children came home. Or whoever she had.

I’m sorry, David.

It’s okay, he said.

Please take the money, she said. She turned so her back was flat against the door frame and she tilted her head back and dragged the corners of her mouth down. Her old mouth. But it went young with the crying. Her shoulders were lifting and falling. She slid down to the floor. He got down on the floor himself and walked over to her on his knees. He put his arms around her. He gathered her onto his lap, her knees and arms and her wet face in his shirt.

Will you take the money? she whispered. Please.

The Return

Slaney could see
Windsor Lake and Hogan’s Pond and Mitchell’s Pond and Hugh’s Pond and the Bell Island ferry was crossing the tickle very slowly and he could see the two white ragged ribbons of wake behind it. The ocean had small wrinkles all over and there were the dark shadows of the clouds moving across the surface and the plane turned and he could see all of Portugal Cove and Torbay, the cars were zipping up through, and then they began the descent into St. John’s.

He had been given his mother’s ancient blue suitcase when he was released from prison and he’d bought himself some new clothes and he was wearing jeans and a white shirt and a suit jacket.

The St. John’s airport looked fresher to him, more airy; the place had been painted since he’d last been through. It was 1998 and he was home for good. They were on the cusp of the new millennium and he was finally home.

He came down the escalator and his heart was beating hard and he saw her shoes and legs and her blue raglan and then her hands clasped to her lips and there she was. His mother: she threw open her arms when she saw him. He hadn’t seen her since her last visit to the prison, seven months ago, and she looked even more frail and stooped than she had then.

She held him close to her and they stayed that way for a moment and then she took a step back and smoothed down the wrinkles in the arms of his jacket.

Is that all you have with you? she said. That ancient little suitcase? And he said it was. He said they had let him take it on the plane and it meant they didn’t have to wait at the carousel.

She spoke about the parking and she said she had a ticket and she had to remember where she put it and she would have enjoyed a little party to celebrate his arrival but she respected he might want to have a quiet afternoon.

Quiet is nice too, she said. Quiet is lovely.

I have a chicken, she said. And I made a trifle and I thought we’d have a drink of wine. I don’t know if it’s any good but Father Murphy said it’s a nice wine for the price.

You might want to go out later in the evening, she said. Of course you can come and go as you please.

She drove him back to the house she’d bought in a new subdivision after Slaney’s father died. She showed him the room she had furnished for him. An eiderdown and a black and grey bedspread with a print of sailboats, a small bookcase, and a bedside lamp with the plastic still on the shade. He said it would be perfect. She stood in the doorway and he sat on the bed and bounced it a little.

Thank you for coming to get me, he said.

Oh, David, she said.

They ate at the dining room table and she didn’t let him help with the dishes and afterwards they watched
Jeopardy!
and
The Price Is Right
and an old rerun of
The Love Boat
and they spoke to each other during the commercials.

I’m going to buy a piece of land around the bay, Mom, he said. Not too far, somewhere with a view of the ocean. I have some money a friend put away for me. A bit of land, grow a few potatoes.

What do you want to live out there for? she said.

He had been formed by what they’d gone through back in ’78, Slaney thought. It had been the making of them. They had been brazen. Nothing that came after would ever hold that kind of abandon. He thought of that old-fashioned word: adventure.

Adventure had leaked away from the world and everything like adventure, he thought. Slaney and his mother went to bed at the stroke of eleven.

In the morning Slaney headed in to the university. Streams of students had entered the hall all at once and they looked impossibly young, making noise, hurrying, their hair flapping over their shoulders. He was standing in the middle of the hallway and they rushed past him in both directions and were gone. They looked more like children than what he had imagined university students to look like.

Hearn had written to him for a few years, but Slaney hadn’t answered. For a while Hearn sent Christmas cards with just his signature. Then he fell out of touch.

Slaney found the office in the English department and the door was closed. Hearn’s name was on a plate that slid into a brass fixture.
Dr. Brian Hearn
. He wondered if Hearn was on the other side.

Acknowledgements

Thank you to
Steve Crocker for advising, supporting, reading, and just for being Steve Crocker. Thank you to Eva Crocker for reading so many drafts, for the great talks about literature, and for all her insight. Thank you to Theo Crocker and Emily Pickard. Thank you to my big extended family for being so encouraging.

Melanie Little is amazing. Thank you, Melanie, for demanding that this story be the very best it could be. I feel profoundly lucky to have had the opportunity to work with you. I am eternally grateful for your vision, artistic integrity, deep intelligence, and commitment. Thank you, thank you, thank you.

I am forever indebted to my publisher, Sarah MacLachlan, for her experience, her commitment to publishing, her unrelenting hard work and the joy she brings to it, her encouragement, and her faith in books. I am grateful for our long friendship, her unlimited generosity, and her sharp-eyed reading of many drafts of this novel. Thank you so much, Sarah.

Thank you also to Elisabeth Schmitz for her enthusiasm and keen eye and commitment. Thank you so much to Clara Farmer.

I would also like to thank Heather Sangster for her perfect copy edit, Allyson Latta for her fierce proofread, and Alysia Shewchuk for the beautiful cover. Thank you to Kelly Joseph and Jared Bland for helping with the birth of this baby.

These guys made for smooth sailing: Kent Christian, Robert Decker, Michele DuRand, Gord Koch, Robert MacLachlan, Coady Montgomery, and Paul Snelgrove. Many thanks.

There were early readers for this book to whom I am most grateful. Nan Love went the extra mile. Thank you, Nan. Thank you to my cherished sister, Lynn Moore, for her legal smarts, her generous reads, and big heart. Great big thank-yous to Claire Wilkshire, Lawrence Mathews, Mary Lewis, and Michael Winter. And thank you to the Burning Rock.

And thank you so much to the whole team at Anansi. I am very grateful to Laura Repas, Matt Williams, Gillian Fizet, and everyone else at Anansi who makes the production of a book a great big giant gift. Thank you all for caring so much about literature.

About the Author

Lisa Moore
is the acclaimed author of the novels
February
and
Alligator
.
February
won CBC’s Canada Reads competition, was longlisted for the Man Booker Prize, and was named a
New Yorker
Best Book of the Year and a
Globe and Mail
Top 100 Book.
Alligator
was a finalist for the Scotiabank Giller Prize, won the Commonwealth Writers’ Prize (Canada and the Caribbean), and was a national bestseller. Her story collection
Open
was a finalist for the Scotiabank Giller Prize and a national bestseller. She lives in St. John’s, Newfoundland.

About the Publisher

House of Anansi
Press was founded in 1967 with a mandate to publish Canadian-authored books, a mandate that continues to this day even as the list has branched out to include internationally acclaimed thinkers and writers. The press immediately gained attention for significant titles by notable writers such as Margaret Atwood, Michael Ondaatje, George Grant, and Northrop Frye. Since then, Anansi's commitment to finding, publishing and promoting challenging, excellent writing has won it tremendous acclaim and solid staying power. Today Anansi is Canada's pre-eminent independent press, and home to nationally and internationally bestselling and acclaimed authors such as Gil Adamson, Margaret Atwood, Ken Babstock, Peter Behrens, Rawi Hage, Misha Glenny, Jim Harrison, A. L. Kennedy, Pasha Malla, Lisa Moore, A. F. Moritz, Eric Siblin, Karen Solie, and Ronald Wright. Anansi is also proud to publish the award-winning nonfiction series The CBC Massey Lectures. In 2007, 2009, 2010, and 2011 Anansi was honoured by the Canadian Booksellers Association as "Publisher of the Year."