Grave Concern (14 page)

Nicholas (holding his pool cue, suddenly overwhelmed by emotion)
: Uh, J.P. Thanks, eh, for cutting that rope off my leg. Hadn't been for you …

J.P. (chalking his cue)
: Hadn't been for me you wouldnta been down there in the first place.

Nicholas
: What the fuck happened, anyway?

J.P.
: Yer askin'
me
? I got no idea. It was just … quick. All I know. Holy crap. Landed tits-up on the sail.

Nicholas
: Yeah, well. Thanks. You saved my life.

J.P.
:
(grunts)
Don't make it a habit, eh.

Nicholas
: What?

J.P.
:
(coralling the balls with the rack)
Disappearin' like that. Scares the team pretty fuckin' bad.

Nicholas
: Yeah, well I thought I'd be looking for
you
. Uh, there was something weird I remember. When you were getting me into the boat, you kept calling me Link. What's with that?

J.P.
:
(setting aside the rack and leaning over the table for a shot)
Dunno. Just came out. Nick. Link. Not responsible for my actions when I'm looped. Dyslexic, maybe. Speakinawhich, we gonna play pool, or what?

It took Nicholas a full minute to get the joke.

Hille Hatter took a small sip of the coffee Kate offered and wrinkled her nose as far as she was able. “Ooh, bitter,” she said. “Do you have a little sugar?”

Well, at least she was honest, thought Kate. No equivocation there.

“So,” said Kate, proffering a swiped Tim Horton's sugar packet, “how have you been, Hille?”

Hille's face coloured up slightly. “Not too bad. Still worried about — you know. I just can't bring it up with Ron.”

Kate kept quiet.

“Nevvy sent another email. The third. Just keeps saying he wants to talk. If he didn't hear from me on email, he'd phone. Well, he did.”

“Did what?”

“Phone. Thank goodness Ron was at work.”

“What did he say?”

“I deleted the message.”

“Without listening to it?”

Hille gave a tragic nod. “Oh Kate, what am I going to do?”

Buy time, Kate. Change the subject. With a seriousness she hoped conveyed this was all part of the therapeutic plan, Kate said, “I don't think you ever told me, what does Ron do?”

“Oh. I thought you knew. He's the new head of the Chamber of Commerce.”

“You must be very proud.”

“Well, anyway, it sounds better than, you know, ‘Owner of Croker's Motors.' Which he still is, of course.”

“Of course.” Kate hadn't known that. “Would that be old Bill Croker's place?”

“Yeah, Ron bought it about ten years ago. He kept the name, you know, name recognition and that. Business all up and down the valley. He figured people wouldn't remember his.”

And in my case, thought Kate, he'd be right. “And, uh, whatever happened to old Bill? Did he, uh …”

“Croak?”

They both laughed. Kate warmed up a little more to Hille.

“No, not yet. I think he's down at Morning Manor, you know, in — ”

“Yeah, I know — Valleyview,” said Kate. “So enough chit-chat; what's
really
going on in your life, Hille?”

Hille slurped her coffee in uncharacteristically crude fashion. Kate wondered if it had something to do with the new shape of her lips.

Now one of those lips, the lower, took on a little tremble. “I think Ron's having an affair.”

Whoa! Lucy van Pelt never had to deal with this when advising Charlie Brown. “And what makes you think that?”

“He's gone at least one evening a week, when he used to be home all the time. I mean, he was always really good about that, you know? Up early, worked late. But he made sure to be home by seven. Every night. So what am I supposed to think?”

“Is there any other explanation?” Kate asked. “Like, uh, he's taken up bridge or body building? He's not making you something for your birthday at the woodworking club?”

Hille looked at Kate like she was nuts.

“Okay, uh. So where does
he
say he's going?”

The trembling lip threatened to collapse. “Doesn't.”

“Doesn't what?”

“Say. That's why I'm suspicious. He just comes in two, sometimes three hours later than usual. Usually on Friday. Which makes me even more suspicious. Plus it kind of kills any plans I might have for us going out. If I even try to say anything, he just grunts and says it's none of my business, he's home now, and that's that.”

Kate cast wildly about in her mind for what was next. “Any perfume smells, lipstick stains?”

“Nope. Nothing. Nothing seems too different than usual, except that he's not there. Oh, and I noticed his hunting rifle was missing from its usual place in the basement.”

Rifle? Oh, man. Perhaps she shouldn't have led Hille on. What did Kate know about psychotherapy, anyway? Lucy, perhaps knowing her own limits, only charged five cents.

“Croker's Motors had any financial trouble?” Kate ventured. “Does Ron seem depressed?”

“Nooooo!” wailed Hille. “That's the thing, Kate. He seems, well, more
energetic
,
if anything. Like he's got a new purpose. He's acting a bit crazy. Well, crazy isn't really a word you'd use with Ron. But, you know, younger, or something.”

Like a child, in fact,
Kate thought but didn't say.

“It's got to be a woman, Kate. What else can do that to a man?”

At this, Kate's sympathies turned. Apparently, she was not the only one around here beating her head against a wall. Was Hille, inadvertently, on to something?
What else can do that to a man
? A very good question.

When Hille's hour was up, Kate thanked her again for bringing cash and pressed a large bundle of fresh Kleenex into Hille's hand, all the while thinking:
to hell with cheap psychotherapy
. What this place really cried out for was private investigation. She opened the door for Hille, patted her shoulder, and sent her out with some homework. That Friday evening, Hille was to come to Kate's house at six.

What else can do that to a man, indeed? Kate, with Hille's help, was bloody well going to find out.

Kate sidled along the row of crimson velvet seats filled with much younger bottoms than her own, trying not to fall on any laps. These rows must have tightened up; her ass certainly had not. Kate was forced to admit that long workdays of minimal physical exertion followed by evening TV viewing had made her buttocks' decline and fall as inevitable as Rome's.

She found a spot and sat down, ready for whatever the fledgling film society had deemed fit. She hadn't bothered to check out the offering, preoccupied as she was with the many mysteries popping up like Hydra's heads all around. Ensconced now, Kate relaxed and looked about. How could anyone not love this? Besides the usual movie anticipation and the smell of the popcorn-maker specially brought in, there was the sheer nostalgia. How many times had she sat here as a kid, watching a small circle of light bob down the aisle as an usher lit some latecomer's way in? How had the maroon velvet curtains, the curlicue mouldings, the ancient posters of Lauren Bacall and Humphrey Bogart been so lightly left behind when time and Kate moved on?

It was a miracle, this. Someone with foresight, and the money to match, had saved the old theatre from demolition or conversion to Dollar Store. In recent years, propped up by this anonymous patron and a small cadre of classic theatre lovers, the Empress had continued to play one mainstream Hollywood film weekly, on Saturday night, to justify its existence. But now, with the new film society, courtesy of Mr. Ho Lam and friends, there was clear diversification. And here was Kate on a Thursday, about to enjoy what should be everyone's birthright: to sit in the company of fellow lovers of artistic audacity.

Wristcutters: A Love Story
did not disappoint. When the lights went up, Kate glanced down at the program she'd been handed at the start. She read the film synopsis, as much as anything to see how on earth such a plot could be summarized:
In an apathetic afterworld of suicides, Zia, the protagonist, and Eugene, his new Russian rocker friend, embark on a quest to find Zia's old girlfriend, who has recently joined their posthumous crowd. What ensues is a witty and diversionary road trip through a quirky loser limbo.

Witty and diversionary. No kidding. Kate caught sight of Leonard Ho Lam standing at the back, watching with satisfaction as a decent-sized audience came out of its trance, clapped like mad, then made its way up the aisles to the door. Kate's enthusiasm was such that, as she shuffled by with the rest, she grabbed Leonard's hand and pumped, congratulating him on the first of what she knew would be many more good movies to come.

“Loved Tom Waits at the ‘Camp of Miracles'!” she said, embarrassingly more than once.

Leonard beamed. “Me, too. Glad you could come,” he said, and then, shy suddenly and at a loss for words, repeated himself.

Kate walked home in a swoon. Was it the spring air — fresh dampness, damp freshness, something like that? She inhaled again and again, breathing the pungent atmosphere deep into her lungs. Her parents' house might be crumbling around her, her “previously owned” Chevy spilling its green coolant guts on the ground of late, her business on a delicate and tentative tightrope, but one thing she could count on: the heavenly scent of Pine Rapids' air. Always sweet. Always moist and tangy. Ha! The world might be completely disinterested in a middle-aged woman's quest for sustainability (both personal and corporate), but beneath Pine Rapids' fragrant canopy, one moved in a bubble of pure bliss.

She came in her front door with a vision of Leonard, long-limbed and slight, his cheeks still, in his late thirties, just the tiniest touch rounded. Kate closed the door behind her and threw herself onto the couch, happy as the proverbial clam at high tide. Spring air be damned. Could it have been simply
seeing Leonard
that was setting her off-kilter life back to rights?

Friday afternoon, Kate got a call from Mary.

“Hey Mole, I'm back.”

“Mole?”

“Dunno, dear. It just came out. How do you like it?”

“Not really.”

“How was grave hunting without me?”

“Uh, didn't go. Had to clean my gun.”

“Ha. Ha. How about going for a drink or something after work? I'm fried. I'll need to get good and plastered if I'm ever to sleep tonight.”

“Can't. Got a date.”

“Ooooh!”

“Calm down. It's only Hille Hatter, you know, Ron Whatsisname's wife.”

“Kate. I didn't know you swung that way.”

“No, Mary. We're going to try to find out what the hell is up with her husband. You know, Ron. Croker's Motors guy.”

“Whaddya mean,
what's up
?”