by Gail Bowen
Mieka shook her head. “Time to straighten up, Keith. Your dad’s car just pulled in. Lorraine says he’ll want to see you as soon as he gets settled.”
“I’ll be right up,” Keith said, and he sounded weary and sad.
“Troubles?” I asked.
“My father,” Keith said. “Blaine had a cerebral hemorrhage at Easter. It’s hard to be with him now. For seventy-five years he was one man, and now he’s another. The worst thing is he knows. He knows everything.”
Keith stood up and held his hand out to me. “Do you want to come up to the house and meet Blaine? He’s always enjoyed the company of intelligent women.”
“I’d be honoured,” I said. Then we called the kids and walked up the hill.
Keith’s father was sitting in a wheelchair by the pool. Even the ravages of his illness hadn’t eroded Blaine Harris’s dignity. He was wearing golf clothes, expensive and well-cut, and he was beautifully groomed. But there were surprising notes: his white hair was so long it had been combed into a ponytail, and he was wearing not golf shoes but moccasins, soft and intricately beaded. He looked like a man on the verge of embracing another lifestyle.
When he saw his son, Blaine Harris raised his left hand in greeting, and garbled sounds escaped his throat. Keith went to him and kissed the top of his head.
His tone with his father was warm and matter of fact. “Blaine, this is Mieka’s mother, Joanne. She teaches political science at the university and she’s written a pretty fair book about Andy Boychuk.”
Blaine made muffled noises that even I recognized as disapproval.
Keith looked at me. “My father’s politics are somewhat to the right of mine.” He turned back to his father. “Blaine, it’s a wonderful book. We can start reading it tonight if you like.”
Blaine made a swooping gesture toward me with his good arm. “Pancakes,” he said.
Beside me, Taylor, recognizing another practitioner of the non sequitur, laughed appreciatively.
Keith patted his father’s hand. “Yes, Dad, Joanne’s book deals with campaigns, mostly the provincial ones.”
The old man made a growling sound in the back of his throat.
Keith shook his head. “Yeah, Dad, I know it’s awful when all the words are in there and they just won’t come out. But what the hell, eh? You’ve got me. Now come on, it’s time to eat.”
It was a fine spring meal: barbecued lamb, the first tender shoots of asparagus, carrots, new potatoes, strawberry shortcake.
We sat outside at the tables around the pool I’d noticed earlier. I was surprised to see that Mieka had asked Christy to sit with Greg and her. Christy had changed clothes; she was wearing a white dress that looked cool and elegant. When Lorraine Harris joined them, I noticed she was wearing white, too. Midway through the meal, Greg and Mieka left to greet some latecomers, and as Lorraine and Christy bent toward one another, deep in conversation, I thought they looked like a scene from The Great Gatsby: handsome women in dazzling white, insulated by their money against the sordid and the wretched.
The kids and I sat with Keith and his father. Eating was a torturous process for Blaine Harris. He had the use of his left arm, but as he lifted his fork from his plate to his mouth, the signals sometimes got scrambled. His hand would stop, and Blaine would look at the fork hanging in midair as if it were an apparition. It was agony to watch, but Keith eased the situation. He was quick and unobtrusive when his father needed help, but he didn’t hover, and he kept the conversation light.
To celebrate Greg’s and Mieka’s engagement, there were going to be fireworks later. Keith told the kids that when he’d been in Macau for the Chinese New Year in February, the fireworks had been loud enough to blow his eardrums out. He said the streets had been filled with people from Hong Kong because firecrackers were illegal there.
“And they’re not illegal in Macau?” Angus asked approvingly.
“Nothing’s illegal in Macau,” he said. “The restaurants serve endangered species in the soup.”
Angus shuddered.
“To build up your blood for the cold winter months,” Keith said.
“Jo makes us take vitamin C,” Taylor said.
“Probably a more responsible move environmentally,” Keith said.
When Keith took his father into the house to rest before the fireworks, Angus turned to me. “Mr. Harris is a really neat guy, you know.”
“Meaning?”
Angus grinned. “Meaning, I think it’s about time you had a man in your life.”
“Thanks, Angus, I’ll take that under advisement.”
“You wouldn’t not go out with him because of politics, would you?”
“Nope,” I said, “but it would be a problem. Keith is a good friend of the prime minister’s, you know. In fact, a lot of people think Keith was the one who got him in as leader.”
Angus grimaced. “Well, we all make mistakes.”
“Yeah,” I said, “but that one was a lulu.”
Angus laughed. “I still think he’s a nice guy.”
I looked at the house. “There he is,” I said, “bringing me coffee and brandy.”
“Then we’re out of here,” said Angus. “Come on, T. Let’s see if we can find a radio and catch the baseball game.” He gave me the high sign. “Be nice to him, Mum.”
I was. When I took my first sip of brandy, I leaned back in my chair. “What a perfect night,” I said.
“ ‘Calm was the even and clear was the sky, and the new-budding flowers did spring,’ ” Keith said.
“Dryden,” I said, “ ‘An Evening’s Love.’ ”
Keith Harris looked at me in amazement. “There’s not another woman in Canada who would have known that.”
“No,” I agreed, “there isn’t. You’re in luck. It’s a magic night.”
“You wouldn’t have a spell that would keep Lorraine away, would you?” Keith said. “She’s about to swoop. We’re going to be organized for some after-dinner fun, I can tell by the glint in her eyes.”
Then in a cloud of Chanel, Lorraine Harris was upon us. She embraced her brother-in-law, then she turned and bent to kiss the air by my cheek. Out of nowhere, a poem from childhood floated to the top of my consciousness:
I do not like you, Dr. Fell.
The reason why I cannot tell.
But this I know and I know well.
I do not like you, Dr. Fell.
I do not like you, Lorraine Harris, I thought. But what I said was, “You look wonderful, Lorraine. That’s a beautiful suit.”
“Sharkskin,” she said. She sat down on the arm of Keith’s chair and balanced her clipboard on her knee. She was tanned, and the setting sun warmed her skin to the colour of dark honey and made her grey eyes startling. She was a stunning woman, and her most striking feature was her hair. In defiance of all the rules about how women should wear their hair after forty, Lorraine’s grey hair was almost waist length. That night she had clasped it at the back with a silver barrette, and as she talked, she reached back and pulled the length of her hair over her shoulder. The effect was riveting.
“How do you two feel about croquet?” she asked.
I smiled at her. “I haven’t played croquet in thirty-five years, but I think it’s a terrific idea.”
Keith sighed. “If Jo’s in, I’m in.”
Lorraine’s grey eyes narrowed. “So you two are getting along, after all,” she said. “There’ll be some raised eyebrows about that.”
“Not any eyebrows that matter,” Keith said mildly.
Lorraine looked at him quickly, then she pulled part of a deck of cards out of her jacket pocket and held it out to me. “Choose one, Joanne.”
I pulled out a jack of diamonds.
“All you have to do is find the other people who have jacks,” she said, “that’ll be your team.”
Keith reached over and took the cards from her. He sorted through it and pulled out a jack of clubs. “That’s me on your team, Jo.” Then he found the other two
jacks. “That’s one for Angus and one for Taylor. Get the word out, Lorraine. The Jacks are the team to beat.”
A flicker of annoyance crossed her face. “It’s supposed to be random,” she said as she wrote our names down on her list, “an icebreaker. But obviously you two have already broken the ice.”
She finished writing and stood. “Come up to the tent in about twenty minutes and see who you’re supposed to play.” Then her face softened, and she smiled at someone behind me. “You have to be Peter,” she said. “I made Mieka show me your picture when Greg said you were going to be a groomsman.”
I turned and there was my oldest son. For a split second he looked unfamiliar. He seemed taller, his face was sunburned, and he had a new and terrible haircut. I thought he looked sensational.
I jumped up and threw my arms around him. “I’m not going to let you go back to Swift Current,” I said. “I’ve decided I don’t believe in kids having independent lives.”
Angus was sitting on the ground trying to get an old portable radio to work. “I think Pete probably figured that one out the night you called him three times because you thought he sounded weird.”
Peter looked at his brother. “Actually, Mum was right.” He turned to me. “I wasn’t going to say anything until you could see that I was still alive, but that time you called a cow had just kicked me in the head.”
I shot Angus a look of triumph. “Okay, okay,” he said, scraping at the batteries of the radio with his Swiss Army knife. “You win. You’re psychotic, Mum.”
“Thank you,” I said, “and the word is psychic.”
Peter introduced himself to Lorraine and Keith, then Taylor asked to hear the story of the cow. It was a good story, and Pete told it well. We were all still laughing when Christy came down from the house. She touched Pete on the shoulder, and as he turned I saw the light go out of his face.
Christy saw it, too, and despite our history I felt a rush of sympathy for her. In the months they were together, I don’t think Christy ever really understood what she wanted from Peter. But that night at the lake she knew. She wanted him to be in love with her, and when she saw his face, she knew he wasn’t. It was a bad moment, and I was glad when Peter took her hands in his.
“You look beautiful, Christy,” he said. “You really do. That dress is a knockout.”
In fact, it was a simple dress, white, scoop-necked and short-sleeved. A dress for a summer party. And she was wearing shoes for a summer party, white Capezio flats of the softest leather. Taylor couldn’t take her eyes off them. Finally, she knelt on the grass and touched one. “Dancing shoes,” she said.
Peter slid his arm around Christy’s shoulder. “Would you like to dance? I don’t know what they’ve got planned here tonight, but I can hear music somewhere.”
“I’d love to dance,” she said, and there was such longing in her voice that I turned away, embarrassed.
It was almost eight-thirty. The sun had moved low in the sky, and a swath of golden light swept from the west lawn to the lake. As Peter and Christy walked to the house, they followed that path of light. They looked like the happily-ever-after picture at the end of a fairy tale.
On the ground beside me, Angus gave the portable radio one last adjustment with his knife. Suddenly the radio blared to life, and a man’s voice, disjointed and unnaturally loud, cut through the night. “… that was found by children in a stairwell two blocks from the murder site may be the weapon used in the stabbing death of seventeen-year-old Bernice Morin. Tonight, the provincial lab is analyzing blood found on the scalpel to see if it matches the blood type of the victim. As well, pathologists are attempting to correlate a number of small nicks in the cutting edge of the surgical scalpel with the wounds inflicted on …” The radio fell silent.
As soon as she heard the words, Christy broke away from Peter and turned to face us. For a terrible moment, she stood frozen, staring at the radio, her eyes wide with horror. Then she turned and ran toward the house. Peter went after her. He got to the veranda just as she slammed the door. He hesitated, then he opened the door and disappeared into the darkness of the house.
Lorraine Harris sat looking thoughtfully at the spot on the lawn where Christy had acted out her curious tableau. Then she shook herself out of her reverie and checked her watch.
“Time to get the croquet started before we lose the light,” she said. “I’ll put Peter and his fiancé on the same team.”
“His friend,” I said, “they’re not engaged.”
“Well, his friend told me they were engaged,” Lorraine said. She wrote the names on her list. “Keith, you might as well bring your crew along now. It’s getting late. People can pick their own teams.”
She stood, and we followed her as she strode up the hill and into the house. I started to go inside, too, then I stopped. “Remember the wrestling,” I said under my breath, “let them be. They’re not children. They’ll work it out.”
A striped tent had been set up on the west lawn. It was filled with people and laughter. There was a well-stocked bar set up on one side; beside it, on a small table, an orchard of fruit floated in a crystal bowl of punch. In the centre of the tent, Lorraine Harris stood with her clipboard arranging teams, setting up games. There was a master list on a flip chart beside her. I checked the list.
“We’re playing the Deuces,” I said to Keith.
The Deuces turned out to be the rest of Greg’s groomsmen, four young men with the flawless good looks that come with a lifetime of solid nutrition and expensive orthodonture. The game wasn’t as one-sided as I’d feared. When it was over, we hadn’t distinguished ourselves, but the Deuces hadn’t blown our doors out, and as we walked to the tent we were happy. Inside, the noise level had risen, and the level in the liquor bottles had fallen.
From the talk in the tent it was apparent that croquet had caught on. There were challenges and counter-challenges. On the flip chart someone had written the names of the winners of the first games and the matches for the second set.
Keith checked the chart. “Losers’ tournament starts at seven-thirty tomorrow morning,” he said.
I snapped open two bottles of Heineken and handed one to Keith. “I’ve already forgotten what you just said. Now, come on, let’s find the kids and get ready for the fireworks.”
“Jo, I promised my dad I’d sit up on the veranda with him and watch. Do you mind?”
“Of course not,” I said. “I’m going to see if Peter and Christy will come down and watch with us from the dock. I can’t figure out what’s going on there, but whatever it is, she and Peter might find it easier to be away from strangers.”
Keith and I walked to the house together. Blaine Harris was already on the veranda waiting. The woman who had served our dinner was with him, tucking a blanket around his legs, but when Blaine saw his son, he shook the woman off.
Keith called to his father, then he turned to me. “I’ll find you after the fireworks. I’ll bring that bottle of brandy, take the chill off our bones.”
“I’ll be waiting,” I said.
Keith bent and kissed my cheek, and from the veranda, the old man growled in disapproval.
“His bark is worse than his bite,” Keith said mildly. Then he kissed me again.
When I knocked on Peter’s door, he opened it so quickly I thought he must have been on his way out.
“How are you doing?” I asked.
“I’m okay,” he said.
“And Christy?”
“She’s out on the lake,” he said. “Canoeing. She said even when she was a kid, she did that when she was upset. It calmed her down.”
“Where did she find a place to canoe in Estevan?” I said. “That’s pretty arid country down there.”
Peter shrugged, “You know Christy. Anyway, if you want, you can ask her when she gets back. She says she has to talk to you. It’s urgent.”
I stepped close to him. “What’s going on, Peter?”
He gave me an awkward pat on the sho
ulder. “I don’t know, Mum. I thought I did, but now I’m not sure.”
“Whatever it is, Peter, I’m on your side.”
“I know,” he said softly. He looked very young and very troubled. In that moment, I knew that, this time, having me on his side wasn’t going to be enough.
The kids and I walked to the dock alone. Just as we arrived, Mieka came and dragged her brother off to the beach, where Greg and his friends had lit a bonfire and set up the drinks.
“You look like you could use some company that isn’t Angus,” she said. “Mum, you and the kids are welcome, too, but Greg swears the dock is the place to be because you get the best view of the lake. That’s where he always sat when he was little.” She shook her head. “I can’t believe Lorraine got everybody to set off their fireworks for our party instead of waiting till Monday night.”
“She’s a very persuasive woman,” I said. “But I’m with her on this. I think your engagement’s more important than a dead Queen’s birthday.”
Taylor grabbed my hand and gave it a yank. “Jo, come on. Don’t talk any more, let’s go.”
We agreed to sit at the end of the dock. I’d brought blankets, and as Taylor curled up against me, I pulled a blanket around her and we looked at the lake. There were boats out there, lazily circling, waiting for the fireworks. I thought I could pick out Christy in her white party dress, but the canoe was so far away I couldn’t be sure. The fishy-bait smell of the lake brought memories of other lakes, other summers, and I let my mind float. I could feel Taylor getting heavier in my arms.
“You’re falling asleep, T.,” Angus said.
She started. “No, I’m not.”
“Just resting her eyes, Angus,” I said. “Remember, that’s what you used to say.”
“Right, Mum,” he said. “Want me to tell you one of the stories I heard at scout camp last year, T.?”
“Oh, yeah,” she said.
“Not too scary,” I said. “I want to sleep tonight.”
So Angus told all the old stories: the babysitter and the anonymous calls, the kids parked in lovers’ lane when the ghost of her first boyfriend comes and bangs on the roof of the car. And Taylor and I screamed and giggled and then somewhere around the lake a cottager put his tuba to his lips and played “God Save the Queen,” and the fireworks began.
