Grave Concern (7 page)

“You must be a mind reader,” Kate said, as she followed him to the cash. “I thought I was doomed to New Year's Eve perdition, or — or excommunication. Or something.”

The corner of his mouth twitched as Lanh/Leonard — who looked about thirty but had to be older than that — keyed in the $1.99 Kate owed. Kate left the store feeling light as air. She knew what Manager Ho Lam thought of her: crazy old bat. But there was the advantage of pushing fifty: she couldn't give a flying fart.

At around ten o'clock, feeling the urge to nod off, Kate opened up the bubbly she'd put by and plugged the movie into the machine. As best she could, Kate resisted insidious
gravitas
, and 2010 slid in smoothly, even joyously — on Julie's and Julia's pluck.

Kate bounced from bed on the first of January — no hangover, no regrets. Save one: the day was a holiday, and Kate wanted to get to work. She phoned Mary, who, by virtue of not being on call, warily agreed to Kate's plan to hunt down that humblest of graves that bound Kate inextricably to John Marcotte.

They met by a swath of forest on the edge of town, an area well used by walkers and skiers, but harbouring dark corners untouched by existing trails. An old loggers' trail, known locally as the High Street, bumped along its north side. No one, not even on four-wheelers, dared use the High Street in summer because of the metre-deep potholes and mud. Now, in winter, all such nastiness was hidden deep in snow.

Mary was skeptical. “Kate, dear, it's a large bit of cold, white stuff all around.”

Kate smiled. “I know.” Snow was good; snow was according to plan. “Snow is our friend, Mary. We're going to float right over it like angels on a mission of mercy,” she said. “Now stop thinking so much, and strap those things on. We're going to do this in methodical fashion, in a search-and-rescue type grid pattern, so we don't miss anything. The sooner we get this over, the better, as far as I'm concerned.”

Mary wholeheartedly agreed. Obediently, she strapped on the old wood-and-gut snowshoes Kate had found in her parents' garage. Kate stepped into her mom's ancient cross-country skis. She shouldered a small backpack filled with camera, flagging tape, compass, water bottle, and a Googled aerial map, and slid off. Mary stumped along behind, humming a tune Kate thought she recognized.

It wasn't long before dense bush narrowed their relative difference in speed. Together, they bowed down the branches of bushes, lifted lighter deadfall out of the way and clambered over the larger downed trees. Above them, huge pines filtered the sun, casting a net across the snow.

Mary was doubtful. “What've we got to go on?” she said. “Anything?”

“Just some initials carved in a tree, is what old man Marcotte said. But I'm thinking there's gotta be more than that, right? I mean this is a
mom
burying her son. She's hardly going to want to lose track. I figure they chose a spot where there's some permanent natural marker. Like a big rock or a rise in the land. Or maybe they brought something along. A metal pole or a wooden cross, something they could stick in the ground to mark the spot. Hopefully tall enough to stick out of the snow.”

Mary was impressed. “I'd say you've been doing some thinking yourself.”

“Just a few sleepless nights — damned right,” Kate replied. “By the way, keep an eye out, here. Murphy's Law: the grave's gonna be just where we're distracted by conversation or fighting our way through deadfall.”

“Where'd you get such a practical streak? I've never known this side of you, Kate.”

Kate shrugged, although she thought of her dad, an electrical engineer at the hydro station up the river his whole working life, the likely source of her single pragmatic gene. True, his little projects around the house had waned in later years, but that was only because of the arthritis in his hands, and later, an energy-sapping faulty valve in his heart. Kate hadn't realized until her return how the house had been allowed to deteriorate. Not that her parents couldn't have hired help. But her dad had been proud, a perfectionist, dissatisfied when things weren't done just so.

Kate and Mary combed a rectangle of land, using the High Street and a power line as boundaries to north and south, reversing direction again and again with no positive result. After an hour and a half of this, Mary called over to Kate.

“Kate dear, just wanting to share that my feet are officially clumpets. If we're to continue, I'll need to call the insurance about adding the clause on loss of limb.”

Kate laughed. “Okay, okay. We'll give it a rest — today.”

They shuffled back to the High Street, and Kate tied a piece of bright plastic tape on a tree trunk as high as she could reach, to mark where they'd quit. Driving home, Kate asked, “What's a clumpet, anyway?”

“Ah, now that's where the Newfoundland heritage gives the advantage,” said Mary. “It's a bit of iceberg, of course, floating out in the bay.”

Soon they were back in Kate's driveway, just short of the black hole that led into the Smithers garage. Kate leapt out and hauled open her car's recalcitrant rear door with a grunt worthy of Wimbledon. A woman on a mission, she dove under the seat, throwing out a muddied paper cup, a tire pressure gauge to which a used piece of gum was firmly fixed, and, at last, with the aid of some foul language and a mighty yank, a heavy-duty extension cord.

She reappeared, triumphant. “Mercury's dropping. I'm gonna need this,” she said, by way of explanation.

“Where's the plug?” Mary said.

“In the garage.”

Mary stepped out on her side. “What, you can't just drive in?”

“Mary. Think again. Look at the door!”

Mary looked. The garage, a free-standing, asbestos-shingled affair, listed to the right, its doorway more parallelogram than square. “I see what you mean,” Mary said.

“Door hasn't closed since the ice storm in '98.”

“Before my time, thank Christ,” Mary said. “You gonna offer me some hot chocolate, or what?”

After a slow start, business-wise, to the New Year, by late January, Kate could barely keep up. There seemed to be a run on grave guilt, as though the town's bereaved suddenly mourned their dead all at once. Moreover, Kate noticed a distinct uptick in out-of-town clients — not so much far-flung city folk whom she'd habitually envisioned as her major market, but those who resided
only
just
out of town. Up the highway as far as Sturgeon Falls. Down the highway to Valleyview — and beyond. Kate was getting the distinct impression some people, at least, were burying their loved ones here in Pine Rapids,
expressly because of
Grave Concern. It may have had something to do with Kate's offering a midwinter introductory discount (50 percent off for the first six months), posted on Grave Concern's website and inserted in strategic print-media classifieds across the land.

Or not. In the year and a half since her not-so-grand opening, Kate had found little logical reason why business flourished or faltered at any particular time. The ebbs and flows made little sense. Far be it from Kate to complain. She loved her little hubbub: the ordering of flowers, the rushing back and forth to the communal town cemetery that welcomed any religion or none, the invoicing of her now grand total of
thirty-one
clients, the keeping of accounts, the making up and placement of ads, the taking and sending of photographs, the reading of bad but heartfelt poetry to a patently docile underground crowd, the surrogate delivery of secrets and longings through the earth from living to dead. To say nothing of her underpaid and less appreciated toil for Flower Power. By the end of the month, Kate was averaging eleven-hour days — exhausting, but not killing. Commuting to the office was a non-issue; she could walk from the house in ten minutes or drive in three. She often walked home for lunch.

On just such a post-lunch jaunt, Kate stepped into the decidedly down-market Giant Lion department store, known to locals as the “Pussy Cat Palace.” She was looking over a bolt of ribbon for possible business use when she noticed Hille, her Christmas party hostess, quickly bury her face in a free-standing rack of sports jerseys. The rack rolled a bit, and Hille shuffled with it, trying to sponge her leaky eyes on a Maple Leafs sweater, apparently with little success. Kate, feeling a twinge of genuine sympathy for her old schoolmate, waited for Hille to collect herself. Finally, Hille made a move toward the cash — and the automatic door.

Kate sauntered over and faked surprise. “Oh! Hi, Hille, how's it goin'?”

“Great, thanks!” Hille faked back. “How are you, Kate?”

Hille's plummy peepers made it impossible for Kate to carry on the ruse. “Uh, something wrong?” she said. “You look upset.”

At this, Hille burst into tears, and the teen cashier glanced up groggily from a violent bout of texting. Kate put her arm around Hille's shoulders and steered her through the Palace's door, which had been wildly flapping since, mid-outburst, Hille had stood on the floor sensor.

Kate's office was just a hop, step, and jump from Giant Lion. Kate settled Hille in one of her two cheap client chairs, and rustled up a cup of coffee in the ex-darkroom turned back office.

“It's funny,” said Hille. “I've been curious about your business ever since you came back. 'Cause you know I just came back to town not that much before you. 'Course I never went so far away, either!” Hille looked around as though she'd just dropped into Wonderland. “I thought we might have stuff in common, y'know? But I was too shy to come in.”

Hille? Shy? That was new.

“Why's that?” said Kate, setting down Hille's coffee, to which she'd discreetly added a shot or two of Tia Maria, a client's Christmas gift.

“I don't know. Dead people. Graveyards. You know. I thought it might be like a funeral home, I guess.” Hille took a gulp from the steaming mug.

“More autobody shop, I'd say, if we're talking décor,” said Kate, reviewing the seventies chrome-legged office chairs, the free pharmacy calendar, the depressing dark wood-veneer desk acquired at the Valleyview Goodwill.

Hille laughed and took another swig.

Well, Kate thought,
at least
the plastic surgeon didn't excise her sense of humour
. “So what's up, Hille? Why so glum at the Pussy Cat Palace? I mean, besides the awful price of those jerseys.”

“You'll think it's ridiculous,” said Hille, and her porcelain face reddened as though photoshopped.

“Try me.”

“Get ready,” said Hille.

Kate furrowed her brow in such a way as to imply intellectual preparedness.

“Okay, so I don't know what you've heard of my personal history,” Hille half-whispered. “This town is like Facebook on steroids, so I guess enough. Anyway, before I came back here and found Ron, I was with this other guy in the city. Neville and I were together for maybe a year and a half. So, long story short, I really wanted more
here
,” said Hille, placing upturned palms under her prodigious plastic breasts and bouncing them up and down. “I'd always been so flat, well, you remember. And Nevvy,
he said, anyways
, wanted the same thing. It was just very important to me, to my
self-esteem,
to get it done. So anyways, Nevvy said he'd give me the money, as long as we were still together, like, a year down the line. If we split before then, it was a loan, and I'd have to pay him back. Either money or silicone.”

Kate gasped.

Hille's head shook in emphatic disbelief. “That's what he said, I swear. Anyways, so I borrowed a few bu-u-u-cks.” Hille broke down again.

“A few?” said Kate quickly, hoping to slide Hille back on track.

“A few-ew thousand.”

“How many thousand?”

“Six,” said Hille and dropped her head into her hands.

“Ouch,” said Kate.

“It was worth every penny,” Hille said. “Except, well, now.”