Street Symphony (17 page)

Ms Conrad and her mother and the oxygen tank would soon be flying over that narrow strip of water. Shireen lay back on the bed and dozed. It had been a truly exhausting ten days and such a long flight from London to Vancouver, Dora VK up front in Executive Class, herself in back sitting next to a large snoring man.

“You’ll soon get used to my ways,” Mrs. VK had said when they met at her house in Johannesburg, and hadn’t bothered to enquire whether Shireen had any needs or ways of her own. The fact that Mrs. VK’s usual carer, Dina, had declined to accompany her on this exciting vacation should have told her something. At first Shireen had enjoyed listening to the old woman talk about her life in the theatre, her husband’s ambition, and admired her courage in making this long trip when she was only a breath away from the grave. Edward VK had taken her to one side the day before they
set off, and said he knew that his mother could be a little demand
ing but the family really appreciated Shireen’s willingness to go with her. He, alas, was unable to go to his niece’s wedding – pressure of business in these difficult times. And he’d dropped a hint that his sister was not on his Christmas card list. Three times on the drive out to OR Tambo, he told Shireen that the credit card he’d given her was for emergency use only. Yes, she’d said, yes. At the airport, he’d waved goodbye and there she was with her charge in a wheelchair going through the security line, on her way back to Canada via the UK.

To be fair, the old lady had shown some interest in Shireen’s life. That’s an unusual name. What’s that you’re reading? Did you say you used to work in retail? She tired easily and the answers weren’t interesting anyway. How to explain that she liked sci-fi and ghost stories? That she’d sold kitchenware, special expensive brands, until the disaster? Or that her mother thought the name had a lilting Irish sound to it? Shireen had to acknowledge to herself that the nursing aspect of the journey had grown on her. Was it too late to sign up for a medical career? Go back to school? The oldest in the lecture hall? Fall in love with a doctor, hands meeting over someone else’s heart?

Prancing men with lion heads were blaming her. Long pointing fingers reached across a ribbon of water and poked her in the chest. The pain was acute. Old lady last seen begging on the street. “Criminal negligence,” a hundred voices yelled. Jail. Chain gang. “Lucky you have an honest face,” the lawyer said. Disgrace had caught up with her. “You’ll never get away with this,” the Mountie cried, letting loose his fierce giraffe. She was running, running…

She woke up and shook herself. Looked at the time. She’d been asleep for more than an hour. Must sort her clothes out. Have a shower, be ready for the next angry onslaught from the daughter. She was hanging up the red gown she’d borrowed to wear at the wedding when she glanced at the TV and saw a “latest news” crawler creep across the lower edge of the screen:
Passenger dies in Vancouver airport. Airline officials deny…

Shireen couldn’t breathe. She began to cry. She had really and truly been fond of the old lady, demanding though she was. And Dora VK had looked forward so much to this visit with her daughter. Now the Conrads would be on her like vultures, and all this just before their daughter’s wedding. A funeral instead of a party. They would be righteous and right too. Back in South Africa, Jimmy and Miriam would hear about it and know that once more she had failed. She drank a glass of water and then another. And considered time.

I am in a strange city, unknown except to the Conrads. I have to get out of here.

She walked up and down the room and then lay on the floor breathing slowly in “thou foster child of”, then out “silence and slow time”: her usual calming mantra. After a few moments, her mind stopped its crazy whirl and she was able to think.

John Conrad must be at work or he would have come to the airport to welcome his mother-in-law. Shireen washed her hands and face, and moved. She tipped all the stuff out of her shoulder bag onto the bed. The thousand Canadian dollars. The four thousand five hundred and eight rand. The return tickets dated August 15. The books. Mrs. VK’s Kindle. Mints. Pills. HandiWipes. The two passports. The
two
passports? Well, that no longer mattered. She reached into the inner pocket of her suitcase. There was the parcel that was to be part wedding gift, part investment. She tipped the shiny little treasures onto the bed. How much were they worth? Tens of thousands? Thousands of thousands?

“We’ll put them in your bag,” Dora VK had said, implying that the customs people were less likely to search a cheap black suitcase than one with a costly logo. More likely to accuse a wealthy old woman of being a smuggler than a paid companion! Wait a minute! It came to Shireen as she stood there that she’d been used. Why had it only just occurred to her that if the diamonds had been found by the customs officers, she might now be in custody? Had she been a mule? Foreign jails were full of two-legged donkeys. Resentment took the place of sympathy. As she stood in the dock, would Dora Van Klees have come forward to say,
She is innocent. Take me instead. I am close to death anyway
? Very likely not!
I am innocent. No you’re not, Shireen,
they would say, and she’d be shut up somewhere on this island with never a visitor to bring her books and fruit.

She picked up the diamonds and let them run through her fingers onto the bed. Little bits of glass. Shards. Shiny tears. The second time she let them drop, two fell to one side. So small but giving back rainbow rays to the light. She held them in her palm and let them sit there before she slipped them into her pocket. She put the rest back and resealed the packet. The Conrads couldn’t have known how many there were. Did they even know about the diamonds at all? Or, come to that, the money?

The envelope in the desk drawer was in no way big enough to hold everything. There was nothing for it but to part with her shoulder bag. Into it went one passport, one first-class return ticket, the Kindle, the medication, five hundred dollars, all but a few hundred rand, the diamonds. The bloody diamonds. That’s what they were. Blood-stained bits of mineral now.

Slow down! Be careful. Think, Shireen! Is it right to run away? To run away again! Who is that woman in the mirror there? Thief? Coward? Adventurer?

More tears came, along with a thought that she should stay and face the music, mourn the old lady properly and help clear up the chaos caused by her death.
But they will hold me responsible!

She called the front desk and told them she had to check out and would be leaving the room shortly. The charge could be put on the credit card they had: Ms Conrad’s. And she would like a taxi. Could they call
one, please?

The driver was reluctant to deposit two expensive-looking pieces of luggage and a shoulder bag on the front steps of the Conrads’
apparently empty house. Shireen assured him that her employers had insisted she do that. They would be home in a few moments. See, the address was on the label. It was arranged.

Freedom Shireen had now, and some wealth. The emergency credit card wouldn’t be stopped for a day at least. If questioned, if found, she would say that the insults of Ursula Conrad had gone deep and she was returning home and had no idea of the old lady’s death. Once in Vancouver, she could make her next plan. There were many hotels in that large city and the Conrads, even if they figured out where she was, would have to call each one to find her.

“Thank you,” Shireen said as she paid the driver, feeling better, feeling a little bit rich, feeling like an escaped prisoner.

An ambulance was standing by the airport entrance. Shireen shuddered. It was there to receive the body. She moved away. Then she heard a familiar voice, a loud, crackly voice. “I do not need an ambulance. I can walk. I do not…” And a louder voice saying, “Now, Mother…”

Shireen hesitated. Her own mother seemed, as usual in these situations, to be perched on her shoulder like an owl, hooting,
Do the right thing for once, dooo.
She resented that “for once”. She could get a cab back to the hotel and check in again. The diamonds? The money? There
was
no way back. It was a pity really that she would miss the wedding and not get to wear her red dress. But the old lady was alive and she was glad.

In the terminal building, she decided to call and say Ms Conrad’s attitude had been too much to bear and she was going to return home alone. She got out her cellphone and dialled the number that had been given her in case of trouble. A recorded voice asked her to leave a message. She spoke her lines in a teary voice and ended by saying that she hoped the sun would shine on the wedding day. Then she went to buy a ticket to Vancouver. In Vancouver she would decide whether to go back to South Africa or home to North Bay or to some place in Europe where she could sell a diamond.

“Your passport, please.”

“I can get a job anywhere and I might go back to school,” she told the owl on her shoulder.

“Madam, how old are you?”

“Thirty-three.”

“This passport says you’re eighty-eight.”

Tons of bricks fell on Shireen’s head! Before the woman behind the desk could suggest that she’d stolen the passport, she snatched it back and said, “Oh my goodness, I’ve picked up my grandmother’s by mistake. I must rush.”

She was out of the airport in seconds and into a taxi. All the way back to Victoria, she was working out words of explanation and ways to be meek. It was time to eat humble pie. She would stick with Dora VK and take her home again. Her mother had been right: One day, you will run up against something…

The luggage was gone from the Conrads’ front step. She pressed the bell. Ms Conrad opened the door. “You, how dare you come here, you, you criminal? My mother could have died. As it is she’s exhausted. And I suppose you want this. Forgot it, did you, you freaking bitch?” She threw the shoulder bag at Shireen and closed the door.

Shireen stood there for a moment, thinking, before she banged on the glass panel in the door nearly hard enough to shatter it.

“What now?” the angry daughter demanded.

“Your mother might need these, Ms Conrad.” Into the woman’s hands she piled the passport, the medication, the Kindle, the return ticket and some of the money. Finally she gave her the little package and said, “Take care of these diamonds. They’re probably worth a fortune. And do read the directions on those pill bottles. Your mother should take two of the white ones now. Please give my best wishes to her. By the way, she’s due for an injection at five. And don’t give her any grapefruit juice.”

“Shireen!” the voice was soft now. “Shireen?”

~ • ~

Shireen spent the night in the airport hotel
in Vancouver. She had a large glass of red wine with her dinner and chatted to a man who said he’d often been to South Africa. They talked of Johannesburg, of mines, of the sad plight of squatters. He said he was the representative of a diamond consortium. She told him she was going to Nice to take part in an international drama conference.

Early next morning she went across to the airport to pick out her next destination. Air Canada offered flights to Montreal, Ottawa, London, Paris, Frankfurt. Why not Germany?
She could get a job there, and Frankfurt was perhaps a good place to sell a diamond given her by a dear uncle. There was the return ticket to South Africa that she could change to another destination. But there was son Edward who could probably track her down. She called her sister and told her she had a couple of weeks to spare. “Come here,” Rosheen said, sounding generous, kind.

Shireen offered the desk clerk the Van Klees credit card but then took it back and handed over her own. “Right,” she said to the owl. “I will do this. I will call the Conrads and tell them I’ll come back to take Dora to Jo’burg. I’ll meet them in Vancouver.” On the way to North Bay via Toronto, she considered the diamonds in her jacket pocket.
They have most likely been counted or weighed.
Was that her mother’s voice hooting at her again? Next time she and Miriam were on volunteer duty at The Red House, she would drop one in the donation box. The other was a kind of insurance. Next year she might take a trip to Frankfurt. Meanwhile, at the lake, she would finally silence the owl.

If a Tree Falls

“That tree was a home to birds,”
Xan Grosjean said.

“Birds are dropping out of the sky because of fumes from the train wreck.”

“They said the stuff’s harmless.”

“I bet people said that about Chernobyl.”

“And I bet all that wood’s in the Bales’ shed.”

“Sparrows used to wake me up in the morning with their cheeps and squawks.”

The neighbours were looking at branches and dead leaves scattered over the road, and a section of the trunk lying on the grass around the jagged stump of the maple. Alec Behrens, just back from his night shift in the ER, stood on the edge of the grass island and shouted, “How could you let this happen?”

“We didn’t,” Jane Suskind answered.

Wayne Corwin said, “We have to call the city. It’s their tree.”

“The police!” Sue Corwin said. “This is a crime. Call the cops. Look, I’ve got to rush, but we should have a meeting. Someone, Jane, you set it up. Our house’ll be fine. Say eight o’clock. Make sure there’s enough coffee, Wayne, honey.” She closed her car door and drove slowly to the end of the street.