Things Go Flying (21 page)

“Ecstasy,” he said, flushing at the word.

So, she'd been right about that. “Who gave them to you?”

“I can't tell you,” Dylan said stubbornly.

A horrible thought occurred to Audrey. “You're not
dealing
are you?”

“No, Mom. Honest. I would
never
deal drugs. Besides, I could make a lot more money doing TV commercials.” He smiled at her hopefully.

“It's that guy who keeps calling you!”

“No! Like I said, he's just a friend.” Dylan looked away. “He's got a deep voice.”

“I don't know what to think!” she said.

“It was Terry,” Dylan said.

“Terry who?”

“Terry—your best friend's son?” he said, his tone mildly sarcastic.

Audrey's mouth hung open for a moment, and then she said, “Well, you're not going to see any more of
him
.”

“That's not fair!”

“I don't care. That's the way it is.”

“I don't suppose
you're
going to stop seeing Ellen,” Dylan said.

“Why should I? It's not her fault Terry's doing drugs.”

“Yeah, right,” Dylan muttered.

“What's that supposed to mean?”

“Terry got the ecstasy from her.”

“That's ridiculous!” Audrey exclaimed. But Dylan looked smug, and she was suddenly sure that he was telling her the truth.

“He took them from her dresser drawer, in her bedroom.”

Audrey made Dylan dig the pills out from under the mattress (while she averted her eyes from the rest of what was under there) and marched him into the bathroom, where together they flushed them down the toilet.

“And you can just forget all about acting,” Audrey said severely.

• • •

H
AROLD DIDN'T WANT
to speak to anyone. He'd seen enough on television to know that whatever he said would be used against him. He believed it too. Also, he was afraid of what might come out of his mouth. He was agitated; he didn't trust himself.

The officers were also silent, ignoring him while they drove to 51 Division. Harold stared out the window in quiet desperation. His thoughts were random, loosely connected; he couldn't focus on the problem at hand, and he didn't want to.

When they got to the station, the officers took him inside. He wasn't cuffed; he was as cooperative as could be. There was no outward sign of the rage that was quietly seething inside him. But there was rage all around him, even this early in the evening; drunks yelling and throwing punches, hookers jeering. Harold was appalled.

They took him to a small room with a table and some chairs. They offered him a chair. They even offered him a donut. Harold declined the donut—he had a sick feeling in the pit of his stomach, up under his lungs—but the two officers rummaged through the Tim Hortons box and chose, respectively, a French cruller and a maple dip. The same officer did most of the talking. His mouth was full and the air carried a pleasant, yeasty smell, when he said to Harold, “So, tell us what you were doing at that house tonight.”

But Harold wouldn't talk.

The cop coaxed in a friendly way, “We just want to clear this up. Can you tell us about when you used to live in that house?”

But Harold didn't want to talk about when he'd lived in that house. He was afraid he might blurt out something about the séances, like he had to Dr. Goldfarb about the forced meals. If he told them the truth—about the séances, the voices—they would probably have him put in a mental institution. The possibility terrified him.

“Have you ever followed that woman before?”

When Harold resolutely refused to talk, the one officer said to the other, wiping his sugary mouth with a paper napkin, “I don't think we have a prowl by night here.” The other shook his head in agreement and reached for another donut.

“Is there someone we can call for you, a family member?”

When he was released to Audrey, a little while later, he was like a bird being coaxed from a cage—he couldn't believe that he was free to go.

• • •

W
HEN THE POLICE
had called, saying that they had Harold and could somebody come get him, Audrey had replied, “No, Harold's at work.” When it had finally sunk in, she'd told the boys that she was going to the police station to get their father and drove all the way with her jaws locked and her hands gripping the steering wheel as if hanging on for dear life.

The person on the phone had been determinedly unforthcoming about what Harold was doing there, and Audrey was assuming the worst—that he'd been found wandering the streets talking to people who weren't there, flailing his arms around.

She didn't want to park illegally in front of the police station, but there was no parking anywhere, and this was an emergency. She arrived at the front desk agitated and out of breath, and then had to wait while other people with other problems were dealt with. The longer she had to wait, the more agitated she became. She wondered if she should go move the car.

“Can I help you?” the woman in uniform behind the desk finally asked.

“Someone called me—I'm Harold Walker's wife?”

“Just a minute.”

While she was waiting, Audrey remembered that she hadn't picked up the dry cleaning. She wished that she was picking up the dry cleaning instead of picking up Harold.

“Mrs. Walker?”

Audrey jumped. A police officer had appeared at her elbow.

“Relax,” he said. “Everything's going to be all right.”

“What happened?” Audrey demanded. “Is he okay?”

“We had a complaint.”

This wasn't what Audrey had been expecting. “A complaint?”

The officer walked her away from the desk, and said, “A woman said that your husband was looking in her windows.”

“What do you mean, looking in her windows?”

“She reported a peeping Tom.”

Audrey's mouth dropped. “No, no,” she said, shaking her head. “He was probably just confused.”

“How do you mean?” the officer asked.

But Audrey snapped her mouth shut.

“Is he a psychiatric patient?” the officer asked.

Oh God.
People—professional, objective people, people who ought to know—were wondering whether Harold was a psychiatric patient! She needed to sit down. She patted the air around her. Without saying anything, the officer led her by the arm to some hard plastic chairs against the wall, where Audrey sat down heavily. She felt like a piñata that had been beaten with a stick till all her stuffing had fallen out. At last she said, “He's not a psychiatric patient. He
has
been a little depressed lately.” She looked earnestly at the police officer. “But he's no peeping Tom,” she said. “She must be making it up.”

“When we got there he was standing on the sidewalk staring at the house. He says he grew up there.”

“In Cabbagetown?”

“Yes. Do you know the address of the house he grew up in?”

Audrey shook her head. “No, but it was in Cabbagetown, I know that.”

The officer nodded. “That's good enough for me. We'll let him off with a warning. He shouldn't go near that house again, though.” He stood up and offered Audrey his arm. “Let's go get him, and you can take him home.”

• • •

J
OHN WAS IN
his bedroom, riding the emotional roller coaster. He'd gone from feeling like a million bucks when he was with Nicole, to recognizing the world for what it was—a dangerous and quixotic place—in the space of a few hours.

It was useless to try to do his English homework when his father had just been hauled home from the police station for who knew what. He and Dylan had stood on the porch and watched, dumbstruck, as their mother helped their dad out of the car. Then they'd followed inside and watched her get him out of his coat and up the stairs to their bedroom, divulging nothing, quelling their questions with one meaningful look. Their father had seemed almost disoriented; he hadn't even looked at them.

As usual, their parents weren't telling them anything, which had Dylan totally pissed off. Now Dylan burst in through John's bedroom door and flung himself into the chair, tossing John's dirty clothes onto the floor. “Well,” he said. “You're not going to believe this.”

“You talked to Mom?” John asked. Dylan nodded. Of course Dylan would get to the bottom of it, John thought grudgingly. He was fearless. “What'd she say?”

“Some woman made a complaint that Dad was a peeping Tom, but the cops didn't believe her and let him go.”

“Oh,” John said.

“Mom says he was just hanging around the house where he grew up, and the owner freaked out.”

“What was he doing that for? That doesn't sound like Dad.”

“You think being a peeping Tom sounds like Dad?”

“No! It's just that—he never talks about when he was a kid.”

“He never talks about anything.”

They were quiet for a minute, processing it all. “I'm worried about him,” John said tentatively.

“Join the club. Mom's losing it. She thinks he's getting Alzheimer's,” Dylan said. John started biting his nails. “Don't let on I told you,” Dylan added. “She asked me not to.”

John was too worried to even be offended.

• • •

L
ATER THAT NIGHT
, Harold was sitting on the john when Tom appeared from out of nowhere. Harold almost had a heart attack right then and there.

“Harold,” said Tom's voice from beside the shower curtain, as if he'd stepped out from behind it. “How the hell are you?”

There was no mistaking that familiar, booming voice, too big for the room. And besides, nobody but Tom had ever walked in on Harold when he was using the bathroom—not even Audrey—but Tom had never thought twice.

Once he was over the shock, Harold was tentatively delighted. A friend was exactly what he needed right now. “Tom,” he said, almost shyly, “Is that really you?”

“Sure,” Tom said.

Then, from outside the bathroom door, his mother's voice: “Harold—are you in there?”

“Mom!” Harold called out. “Where've you been?”

She ignored his question, saying, “There's someone here who wants to speak to you.”

“I know Mom; he's in here.”

“Oh. I'll be going then,” she said.

He wanted to run after her, but where she was going, he couldn't follow. Besides, he wanted to talk to Tom.

“It's good to see you, Tom,” Harold said, and then realized what a stupid thing to say that was, seeing as Tom was invisible.

“Yeah, you too,” Tom said. He seemed to be moving around, even within the confines of the small bathroom; Tom never did stay in one place.

Harold didn't know what to say next. What do you say to someone you haven't spoken to in over fifteen years—for reasons that you can't even remember? It wasn't like they had much in common anymore. “Nice funeral,” Harold said awkwardly.

“Thanks.”

“Sorry about the—you know . . .” Harold felt he really should apologize for the scene he'd caused on Tom's special day.

“Oh, hell, that's all right,” Tom said. “Don't worry about it.”

There was another awkward pause, while Harold wondered what to say and Tom opened the medicine cabinet and started shifting things around inside. He seemed to want something, but Harold had no idea what.

“Why are you here, Tom?” Harold asked at last. He felt a pang, an inarticulate longing for Tom to still be his friend. Maybe it wasn't too late. Tom might be a ghost, but he was still the same old Tom; Harold would always trust him. He'd never had anything to fear from Tom.

“I'm just sticking around for a while, tying up a few loose ends,” Tom said.

“Like what?”

“Test results, that sort of thing. Probably nothing to worry about.”

That didn't make sense at all—Tom was already dead, what kind of tests could he still be interested in? “Oh! You mean the autopsy results?” Harold asked. “Still the doctor, eh?”

“Yeah.”

Harold had a thought. “Could you do me a favour?” Tom had always looked out for him; maybe he still would.

“What kind of favour?”

Harold lowered his voice to a whisper. “Those others—could you tell them to leave me alone?”

“I wish I could, Harold.” The door to the towel cupboard below the sink opened, seemingly of its own volition.

“What do you mean?” Harold felt the chill of panic, a twinge of nausea. It was almost bedtime.

“I don't have any control over anybody else,” Tom said. “You should know that.”

“But, could you just ask them, though?”

“Sure, I'll ask them.”

• • •

I
T WAS CLOSE
to midnight, but Audrey wasn't in bed yet, and unbeknownst to her, neither was Harold. She was in the kitchen baking Harold's birthday cake for the next day. The electric mixer conveniently covered the sound of her quiet sobbing. She was careful not to let tears fall into the batter. It was Harold's favourite—carrot cake from scratch, three layers. She'd skinned her knuckles grating the carrots, and now she had Band-Aids across three fingers of her right hand. Tomorrow morning she'd make the cream cheese icing he loved, doubling the recipe because Harold liked extra icing. Every once in a while she threw a malevolent glance at the television set.

She wasn't thrilled with the bathrobe she'd finally bought him as a gift, but what the hell, he'd certainly use it. He seemed delighted with the television though, and she'd decided to let it go. She was letting a lot go, these days.

She set the electric mixer down and blew her nose. Then she got out the three round pans and carefully greased and floured them. She was proud of the fact that she'd made every single one of the family's birthday cakes over the years, while just about everyone she knew bought the decorated ones from the supermarket—chemical cakes, Audrey called them. She'd never given in to that temptation, not even when the boys were little and they'd
begged
for the Thomas the Tank Engine cake, or the Hot Wheels cake, or the Spiderman cake. She'd made her own Thomas the Tank Engine cakes, Hot Wheels cakes, and Spiderman cakes—sullen children notwithstanding. She'd done them all, and they'd mostly turned out fine.