Death Spiral (2 page)

CHAPTER THREE

Carole Birley unlocked the front door of
T.W. McLauchlin & C.J. McLauchlin, Solicitors at Law
, turned on the light and surveyed the outer office. She was purposely ten minutes early. Wilf McLauchlin had not arrived.

Carole took off her snowboots, hung up her coat, unwound her scarf and pulled off her wool hat. It was going to be an excruciating situation. What was she going to do with him? She could hardly ask him to file. He couldn’t file with one hand anyway.

Mr. McLauchlin had said to keep him busy. She didn’t want to ask how. He might have taken it the wrong way, as some veiled reference to his son’s physical, physical what? Limitations? No. Frailties seemed a better word. Frailties of the moment.

Carole had attended the banquet at the community hall and that’s how his situation had struck her because he’d looked so determined to be normal, laughing and chatting and limping his way through the crowded room, his one arm trussed up in a sling and forever useless or so she’d been told.

Standing at the back of the hall Carole had thought to herself that Wilf McLauchlin had turned out to be not quite as handsome as she’d remembered. Of course it was nine years since he’d left high school and he was no longer boyish. He was a man, a man who had seen things and who had suffered.

Carole had been in her second year when Wilf had been in his last. Most of the younger girls had a crush on him. He was the high school’s overall track and field champion, he was the school’s debating champion, he edited the yearbook in his final year. It was obvious back then that the local high school and everyone in it were just the beginning for Wilf McLauchlin. He was one of those people who would go on to university and do all kinds of interesting things, and then one day you’d read in the “About the Town” column that he’d become someone really important, and that he and his wife and his two perfect children had spent a pleasant weekend visiting with his father.

Of course it hadn’t worked out that way. A lot of things hadn’t worked out like they were supposed to over the last few years.

Carole sat down at her desk and looked over a pile of files. A full day’s worth of typing.

Take her own life for instance. Donny had wanted to get married and she’d said, “Why don’t we wait until you’re back from overseas. I think it’s bad luck. We should leave something undone, just for luck.”

They hadn’t left sex undone, that was for sure. But the truth was she just wasn’t absolutely certain she wanted to spend the rest of her life with Donny Mason. She loved him but her love felt to her like a shallow lake. Why weren’t there deeper wells of feeling, a more ferociously held attachment, a desperate keening edge of passion?

Nevertheless they got engaged just before he went overseas and she knitted socks and bought him underwear and shipped packages to him at the end of every month. Each week she wrote him a letter saying how much she loved him. He wrote back saying he loved her, too. Soon it seemed like she was writing five letters for each one she received. Of course that was to be expected. She was only finishing high school and going to business college while Donny was being shipped all around England and Scotland and then to the frontlines in Europe somewhere. And anyway who could have guessed that the war would take such an incredibly long time? The last note she’d received was in February of 1945. It was a Christmas note but it had been delayed.
Merry Christmas. I am all right. Hope you are, too,
it said. On November 20th he’d arrived back in town accompanied by a Scottish wife and a six-month-old baby.

She’d felt like a fool but that was all she’d felt, she hadn’t even cried.

Carole looked up at the clock. She’d already typed her way through a will and two agreements to purchase. It was almost ten thirty but no Wilf McLauchlin.

Actually, the truth was she’d felt more than just a fool. She’d felt discarded. And slightly disoriented. She avoided her friends and walked to and from work with even longer strides than she usually did, holding her head at an even higher tilt than usual and smiling at everyone she passed as if she didn’t have a care in the world. She knew what they were all thinking, “Poor Carole Birley.”

One day she dyed her hair red. The Scottish girl’s hair was a kind of reddish colour. She hadn’t realized her terrible mistake until it was too late and she’d already walked out of the beauty parlour.

Carole winced. She could still feel that awful sick feeling in the pit of her stomach, the sudden realization of what she’d just done.

The front door opened and a cold draft and Wilf McLauchlin blew in.

“Morning,” he said.

“Good morning,” Carole replied.

Wilf struggled with his overcoat. Carole wondered if she should get up and help him. He finally hung it up beside her coat. He had to sit down on the chair by the front door to take off his galoshes.

“I’ve always wanted to meet a Spitfire pilot.”

Wilf kept his head down. “Consider this your lucky day.”

Carole reddened a little. In retrospect, it seemed like an incredibly stupid remark to make. “Your father wants you to use his office. For now.”

When Wilf looked up, his face seemed surprisingly pale to Carole. There were dark-blue marks under his eyes.

“I know you. You were the Grade Ten reporter for the yearbook,” he said.

“Was I?”

“You had your pictures and all your material in before anyone else. You helped me with all the layouts. You were great.”

“I didn’t think you’d remember.”

“Oh, I do,” Wilf smiled at her and pushed through the little swing gate that separated Carole from clients. “I remember thinking, boy, I wish I was back in Grade Ten again.”

“With a line like that you should be back in Grade Ten again.” Carole turned to her typewriter and advanced the carriage, making a louder bang than she’d intended. She could hear Wilf laugh, it was a pleasant-enough sounding laugh.

Carole smiled. She felt relieved, things weren’t going along too badly.

“Why would I sit in my father’s office?” Wilf asked.

“Because your grandfather’s office hasn’t been used in years and it’s jammed full of files.”

“What I mean is, I’ll be lonely back there.”

Wilf sat down at the desk that had been Dorothy Dale’s place of residence from time immemorial, until she’d retired three months after Carole had begun, having assured herself that Carole could handle the work but not convinced that her personality lent itself to the peculiar combination of diplomacy and aggression that being an excellent legal secretary called for. She’d told Mr. McLauchlin on her last day that Carole seemed just a touch flighty.

“Flighty?” Clarence McLauchlin peered at her over his glasses.

“Time will tell,” Dorothy Dale had said. In her older years she’d become inclined to make ominous predictions rather than conversation.

Carole looked over at Wilf. He was swivelling around on Dorothy Dale’s swivel chair. “You can’t sit there.”

“Why not?”

“It doesn’t look right. You’re not a clerk.”

“No one’s here.”

“Someone will be here soon.”

“You’re being stuffy.”

“No I’m not.”

“Rigid then.”

“I’m going to find you something to do.” Carole got up and walked over to a row of filing cabinets along the back wall. She knew that Wilf was looking at her. For a fleeting moment she wished she had more to look at.

Wilf looked Carole over. She was tall and too thin, but nevertheless he liked the way her narrow waist and sharp hips flared her skirt out. He liked the way she had her hair swept up to reveal the tender whiteness at the back of her neck, too. Her hair was kind of a peculiar colour though, mostly a brownish blonde but reddish on the ends.

“Why don’t you look over the most recent files?” Carole said hopefully, gathering some up in her arms. “That way, if a client calls or drops in you can talk to him.”

“And tell him what?”

“That you’re familiar with his file, that it’s on top of the pile, and as soon as your father returns next week you’ll be speaking to him about it.”

“What if he asks a question?”

Carole came back and stood in front of Wilf, her mouth tight, the files held against her chest. “Will I put these on your father’s desk?”

“No. Put them right here.” Wilf tapped Dorothy Dale’s desk.

Carole laid them down. “You were halfway through law school, weren’t you? I’m sure you can answer most questions.”

“I was just entering the law part of law school.” Wilf opened up a file with his good hand. “This is what I think we should do. You answer the phone and I’ll talk to anyone who comes in. If we’re really pressed for an answer we’ll just make something up.”

“Fine,” Carole said and sat back down at her desk. My god, she thought to herself, this is going to be the longest week of my life.

Carole went back to her typing.

Wilf leafed through the first file. Something about a coal truck sliding down the front hill and into the corner of the Arlington Hotel causing considerable damage to both parties. Wilf’s father was representing the Arlington Hotel. The coal truck, widening the suit, was claiming that the town had been negligent in not sanding the hill.

Wilf’s eyelids began to feel heavy.

He managed to continue his reading until noon, at which time he crossed Main Street and ordered what he’d hoped would be a solitary lunch at The Palms. Several people sat down at his table to tell him how proud they were of him and how pleased they were to see him safely home. Wilf smiled and nodded and said that all he wanted to do from now on was to have a good time and catch up with his life.

Carole ate her lunch at the office.

By two thirty and back at Dorothy Dale’s desk, Wilf’s nerves were beginning to feel as unstrung as the elastic bands that were trying to escape from the small cardboard box sitting in front of him. This was not an uncommon feeling for him over the last long months.

The pain in his side came and went. Announced itself again. Receded once more.

Carole was relentlessly clattering away on her typewriter. The clock on the wall inched forward.

“I think I’ll run some papers up to this client’s house. Father’s left a note to get them signed p.d.q.”

Carole kept up her typing. “Cruikshank, Samuel?”

“That’s right.”

“He didn’t say p.d.q. He said in time for court two weeks from now. I was going to call Mr. Cruikshank this afternoon.”

“That’s all right.” Wilf levered himself out of Dorothy Dale’s chair and headed for his coat. He felt immediately better.

Carole stopped typing. “Usually clients come in to the office to sign documents.”

Wilf was already at the front door and positioning his galoshes for a quick escape. “Today’s an exception,” he said.

* * *

Samuel Cruikshank, as it turned out, lived in a Tudor-style house a few blocks from the McLauchlin house. Wilf got out of the taxi and stared at the tall snowbank in front of him.There’d been a heavy snowstorm a few nights before and Mr. Cruikshank had not got around to digging out his driveway.

Wilf limped along the edge of the road looking for an opening. The neighbour to the one side, apparently more desperate to go somewhere than Mr. Cruikshank, had shovelled out a car-sized passageway. Wilf walked up the neighbour’s drive and then pushed his way through a foot of snow toward where he assumed Mr. Cruikshank’s front walk should be. He pulled himself up on the small front porch and rang the doorbell.

Somewhere inside he could hear the cheery sound of a four-note chime, two ascending, two descending. He waited for the last note to fade and rang again. Mr. Cruikshank did not appear.

Wilf peered through the small window in the door. A thick covering of silvery frost on the inside of the glass gleamed back at him. He turned to look at the leaded bay window. It was covered on the inside by a sheet of frost, too. It made the house look blind.

“Mr. Cruikshank’s at home, ain’t he, Ducky?”

Wilf turned to see a woman, almost as round as she was tall and bundled up in a black winter coat, following carefully along his trail so that snow wouldn’t fall down the tops of her rubber boots. Her Cockney accent floated toward him on puffs of frost. He hadn’t expected to hear one again so soon.

“It doesn’t look like it.”

“Must be, Darlin’. He always rings me up if he’s not going to be at home.” The woman came to rest at the foot of the stairs. “I’ve tramped all the way from Upper Town, I have.” She cast her eyes over the surrounding expanse of untouched snow. Worry, if not alarm, began to move across her expressive face. “Just look at these walks. You’d think he’d have called in George by now.”

“Who’s George?”

“George, the odd job man.”

She began to wade through the snow again, making her own trail this time, snow tumbling unheeded into her boots. She disappeared around the corner of the house. Wilf followed along behind her. “Kitchen, the w.c. and a light cleaning through the place every Tuesday. Wax and polish every bloomin’ floor the second Tuesday of every month. Windows every other month. That’s what he wants, that’s his routine. It never changes.” She pulled a key out of her pocket, unlocked the side door and poked her head in.