by Eric Wright
The thing was, it was a regular date now. Every Sunday, sex—no, he was beginning to dislike that word, the all-licensed term with its connotations of bodily parts and mechanical aids (the word even sounded like a lubricant) and all the sleaze of rows of XXXX’s, and a woman on television teaching techniques (“do not try to get the whole membair in ze mouth all at once”)—no, every Sunday, a nice bonk, and then a roast dinner. And during the week, a half hour a day in the coffee shop, touching base (touching hands), trying not to act like a kid. But he knew it couldn’t last, because nothing never changed, so along with telling yourself that this, now, was as good as it would get, you had to be aware of the fact that it would end. Although Charlotte had so far given no sign that she saw their arrangement as temporary, or needing to progress, time would bring change. The thing was to try to control the change so as to have the best that the future could offer. The thing was to try to analyze the present to discover how much the contentment he was feeling now, under this duvet, depended on the particular arrangement they had; whether the half hour a day and the Sunday get-together did not constitute a very finely balanced relationship that allowed them the best of each other; or whether they should get married.
They hadn’t talked about it. Would she understand if he tried to set up a conversation about it? Would he be able to find the language to point out the risks they might be taking, that more of each other’s company might mean less, though he didn’t know that? That was what they needed to find out. There was a lot to think through.
Charlotte called from downstairs, rousing him. “You’ve got time for a beer,” she called. “But only just.”
He dressed and went downstairs to the beer she had already opened. She continued to bustle for a few minutes, then joined him with an empty glass, holding it out for some of his beer. “Just a little,” she said. “There.”
“Why don’t you get one of your own?”
“I only want a little.”
Pickett looked at his half-empty bottle, repressing the desire to say that he had looked forward to a whole bottle. If he was going to live with her they would have to get this straight.
She said, “I bought a bottle of wine. Shall we have some?”
“Not for me. You go ahead. I like it on its own, but not with food. I’ll have another beer, though.”
“You’ll get fat.”
Love chat. Slightly proprietary, too. A little of it was all right, Pickett thought, but in fairness they ought to talk soon, about what it meant.
She put the beer down in front of him. “How’d your friend Eliza make out after? Did you go down to the play practice?”
“She had a bad afternoon. Her rehearsals went wrong. One of the actors quit.”
“Did they know about Timmy Marlow?”
“Sure, but I don’t think he was connected to any of them. He used to hang around sometimes.”
“Checking out Eliza. Was he coming on to her?”
“She says not.”
“Who else would he be interested in?”
“There’s just Donna McMurtry, the minister’s wife.”
Charlotte laughed. “That I’d like to see. Who can Eliza get for the one who’s quit?”
“Someone suggested Craig Thompson over at the hardware store. You know him?”
“He’d be good. He’s always joking around, imitating things on television.”
Pickett said, “When did Marlow come here? You told me once.”
“Betty and Sam opened the bakery about fifteen years ago; then maybe five years later, Sam died. She ran it by herself, and Lyman Caxton helped when they started to get together. Up until then she’d been kind of an outsider, but people wanted to help out when Sam went.”
“Where did they come from? Why did they choose this place?”
“Betty told me Sam used to run a little radio station out in Manitoba somewhere, but it got bought up by a big chain and Sam was out of a job. She said he was tired of it anyway, and he wanted to do something different, so they took a little trip up through here and saw the bakery advertised for sale in the Lindsay paper … These damn corkscrews are no good. Look at that; it’s good wine, too. Imported.” She surveyed the mess of broken cork still jammed in the neck of the bottle.
“Here.” Slowly, carefully he slid the cork out.
“How’d you do that?”
“You have to press it tight to the side of the bottle. Waiter showed me once.”
“Great. Usually I get the sharpening iron and push it all the way in.”
“Then it shoots up your arm and you have to pour it through a Kleenex to filter out the bits of cork. And you have to drink it all.”
“No, you don’t. I have a rubber gizmo you can use as a plug. You can use it in beer bottles, too. Drink half a bottle now and save a half until tomorrow.”
“I’ll remember if I ever want six ounces of beer all at one go. So tell me more.”
She put the wine bottle down and dabbed at a pool of spilled wine on the counter. “Where was I? Yeah. We’d been without a baker for a couple of months after Phyllis had to give it up, but there was always a good living there, especially in the summer, of course.” She laughed. “You can sell anything to Toronto people if it’s homemade. Old Mrs. Grosskurth makes the worst apple and blueberry pies you’ve ever tasted, but she sells hundreds off a table outside her house. Where was I? Yes. Let’s see, Timmy wasn’t around when I started the coffee shop. Did you know that was my idea? Percy Harlan wanted me to pump gas on the weekend, after my husband died, but I persuaded him to build the coffee shop instead. Makes more money than the gas pumps now. What was I saying? The coffee shop was built eight years ago, and Timmy appeared shortly after.”
“From where?”
“Somewhere out west. The whole family’s from Manitoba. There’s peach pie for dessert. Fresh peaches. Want some ice cream? You probably shouldn’t.”
Once again Pickett felt that the line between concern for him and taking him over was being eroded. Was she just a little bit bossy? If he agreed with her, would she move on to something else she thought would be good for him? “I’ll have some ice cream,” he said.
She didn’t react at all. It was just a remark. They were both set in their ways. There wasn’t a lot of room for change. So what would he lose if he moved in here? He knew what he would gain. He had just enjoyed it. So go ahead, or back up? Wait and see. He was pretty sure, though, that Charlotte would not remain his Sunday afternoon girlfriend indefinitely. There was simply no other word for it; they were courting. What they were doing on Sunday afternoons used to be called bundling, if you kept your clothes on. It was a very nice thing to have happen to him so late in life.
While she was bringing him his pie, he thought about Timmy Marlow hanging around the rehearsals, and now Charlotte’s comment seemed apt. It wasn’t the theater that interested Marlow, and since Eliza had not mentioned any other woman except Donna McMurtry he must have been after Eliza. It seemed unlikely that she would not have been aware of it, but as she told it, his pass at her was purely routine. He must remember to ask her again.
CHAPTER 9
On his way home, he saw the light on in Caxton’s office and tried not to notice, but Caxton was sitting at his desk, looking out the window. Pickett waved, and Caxton stood to wave back, so Pickett was more or less obliged to stop. Caxton met him at the door. “Come in for a nightcap, Mel? I could use the company.”
Pickett walked through into the living room and sat down, wondering what he had let himself in for. He did not think of Caxton as a serious drinker, but the half-full bottle of rye was open on the coffee table, and Caxton’s glass was in his hand. Caxton poured Pickett a giant drink and added ginger ale, all without asking, then handed him the glass. Pickett, who hated rye and ginger ale, wet his lips and sat back.“He’s done it to me, Mel, like I told you. He had to get killed to do it, but he’s done it. She’s leaving.”
“Betty? When?”
“Soon as she can
sell the bakery. Maybe before. She’s closing the shop and going.”
“This is just day one. She’ll feel different in the morning.”
“I doubt it. But even if she does, I think he’s screwed us up.” He dropped his head, then slowly raised it until he was looking closely at Pickett’s face. Pickett wondered how drunk he was, and what kind of a drunk he would turn out to be. “What happened?” he asked, to have something to say.
Caxton focused on him, his eyes blinking as if against a strong light. “She doesn’t want me to come around anymore.”
“But …”
“But, but, no fucking buts, she just told me to get lost.”
“In those words?”
“Yes. No. What’s the difference?”
Pickett started to speak, but Caxton waved him silent. This was a monologue. “You know, finally I thought things were going good. I was married once, until one of the guys told me she was fucking everybody in the district. After that I could never find a steady, you know what I mean?” He waited until Pickett nodded. He knew what Caxton meant. “Mostly, you know, hookers, and then nothing. Then I met Betty again when I came here. Took a long time for us to get together, but it was worth it. She wouldn’t move in with me but she came over here, know what I mean?” Pickett nodded again. “We were going to get married soon. Just about to announce it, we were. You were on the list to come to the wedding. Not now. Not now. She says when they find out who did it, everyone will blame Timmy as much as the guy who killed him. So she’s leaving.”
“It doesn’t make much sense. But go with her. Start up again.”
“Don’t you think I offered?” Caxton’s face came closer.
Easy now, Pickett thought. This guy wants to hit someone. But Caxton quieted down with his next words.
“She won’t have me. Says we’d better break it up now. She says she won’t be responsible for me giving up everything that I’ve got here. But what have I got if she goes?” Caxton pulled out a desk drawer and emptied it on the floor. “Garbage is what I’ve got. Pile of garbage.”
“Why don’t I make some coffee, Lyman?”
Caxton seemed not to hear. “You know, when I left Lands and Forests everything turned to rat shit, until I came here. Then gradually it started to go right. When they made me chief, I was as happy as I’ve ever been. Betty was the clincher. Now she’s going. If that son of a bitch wasn’t already dead, I’d kill him myself.”
“Easy.” Pickett racked his brains in an effort to turn Caxton onto a narrative path, away from his misery. “You said you met Betty again. Did you know her before somewhere?”
Caxton looked at Pickett from a long way away, trying to get the focus right. “Didn’t I tell you? We met at a dance in Kenora years ago when I was working in the Keewatin district. She was on holiday there. But she already had a boyfriend in Winnipeg, so I never saw her again. I didn’t forget, though, nor did she.” He paused to keep his narrative straight. “Jesus, it was all going so well, you know? She’d just told Timmy he had to move out of the house, and if he would move away, even to Sweetwater, so as not to be a problem for me, she would have helped him out until he found a job. With him out of the way, we could get married. Now he’s dead, and she keeps saying she’s afraid of what might come out.”
“Does she think he was involved in something crooked around here?”
“She’s just afraid.”
“Did she know where he was this weekend? Did she know he was missing?”
“He told her he was going to Toronto. Says he acted like he was going to some woman. Maybe he was. But he didn’t get there. Maybe he met someone’s husband along the way.”
“She must have been shocked.”
“Not at first.” Caxton adopted a wry expression much magnified by his drunkenness. “I tried to break it to her gently. I told her they’d found a guy dead on the trail. You know what she said? ‘Timmy didn’t do it.’ When I told her it was Timmy who was dead, she didn’t react at all. Not at first. Later on she started to cry about her poor Timmy, but not right away. Then when I went back there tonight, she’d already made up her mind. She said she’d had time to think it over and if Timmy was killed up on that trail, then it was a local, and probably something to do with a woman, and when it all came out she wouldn’t want to live here anymore. So she’s going now. When I tried to tell her what a good-for-nothing, sponging bastard he was, always in rut, she started in on me. ‘He was my brother and he was all I had,’ she said, kind of shouting, ‘You’ve never liked him, and you’re glad he’s dead. So go.’ I never heard her shout before. What’ll I do, Mel? This is my whole life, right here.”
“Stay, then.”
“With her gone?” Caxton’s face twisted in misery.
And then, for all his sympathy, Pickett felt bored and tired. And embarrassed. He was not Caxton’s friend, and yet here he was being thrust into the role, because there was no one else. Pickett thought of himself as a loner; before Charlotte he often thought he knew about loneliness. But he could think of at least three people apart from Charlotte who cared what happened to him, and then, in his new contentment, he was flooded with pity for Caxton, who thought he had found someone like that, only to have her evaporate. “Don’t sit here drinking, Lyman,” he said. “I have to get home and let the dog out. Come home with me. Have some coffee. Stay at my place if you like.”
“She means it, I’m telling you.”
“Wait and see.”
It wasn’t going to be easy to get away. Pickett resigned himself to sit it out, and tasted his drink again. Then he said, “I forgot. I’m allergic to this stuff. You got any scotch?”
Caxton shook his head. “Got some cognac. Betty liked cognac.”
“Where is it? I’ll get it.”
Back in his chair with something drinkable, Pickett said, “Where did Betty come from? Before she moved here.”
Caxton squinted at him. “Barrie. Yeah, Barrie. That’s where she got married. Then her husband wanted to open his own business and they heard of the bakery up here.”
“When was this?”
“Fifteen years ago?”
“She was from Manitoba originally, right? Whereabouts?”
“She was born in Dauphin. She left home early, when she was about seventeen. Because of her old man.”
Pickett braced himself for yet another story of incest. But it was a more conventional brutality that Caxton was referring to.
“He was a drunk. Beat her up sometimes. Kept taking her money So she went off to Winnipeg, on her own.”
“And Timmy?”
“He stayed home. He was just a kid. Then her mother died and Betty went back to look after her brother. When he was old enough, he took off on his own and she went back to Winnipeg, but then she came east to get away from the old man. He had a bad habit of turning up on her doorstep in Winnipeg, drunk. He froze to death in the end. Drove his pickup into a ditch in the middle of winter.”
All this was helping. Talking seemed to calm Caxton down. Pickett tried again. “Where will she go now?”
“She won’t say. She won’t tell me.”
“So go to bed and think about it tomorrow.”
“She means it, Mel.”
For Christ’s sake. “So believe her. She’s gone. You have to start again. But not tonight. Tonight you have to go to bed. And I have to get back to let the dog out. I’ve been away too long as it is.”
But it took another hour. By that time Caxton had drunk the last third of the bottle of rye, and Pickett persuaded him to lie down on the couch and take his shoes off. When he passed out, Pickett turned off the lights and drove home to Willis.
Caxton called him the next morning as he was finishing his breakfast. “Was I being an asshole last night?” he wanted to know.
“No more than usual.”
“I told you about Betty, eh?”
“Yes, you did.”
“I just wrote her a letter. Told her how much I’ve appreciated her over th
e last few years.”
Jesus.
“That sounds good,” Pickett said. “But don’t send it off right away. Let it cook for a day or so.”
“Why?”
“Just to be sure it’s what you want to do. Last night you were … smashed. This morning you’re suffering. Wait until you feel normal.”
“That sounds like good advice. You’ve got a real head on you, Mel. That wasn’t what I called you for, though. See, Wilkie wanted me to drive Betty in to do the ID. I don’t want to do that now. Would you mind?”
“Tell Wilkie to send a car.”
“She asked me if I would ask you to take her in.”
“Why? I don’t even know her except to see.”
“I’ve told her about you and that cabin you’re building. She asked me.”
“Okay. What time?”
“Now.”
“All right. I’ll have to wash. I’ll be there in half an hour.”
Pickett thought, When they ask you, you have to go, especially if they have no one else to ask.
The sign on the door of the bakery was turned to CLOSED. Betty Cullen came out as he pulled up in front of the store and stepped immediately into the car. Pickett turned onto the highway to Sweetwater. He waited for some indication from her that she wanted to talk, but they drove in silence until they reached the edge of Sweetwater. Then she said, “I guess you think I’m being hard on Lyman.”
So that was why he was driving her. She wanted to get a message to him, and probably through him to Caxton. He said, “You’re having a rough time. I don’t have any opinions on how you should be. You have to do what you feel like.”
“I won’t be able to stay here after they find out who killed Timmy.”
“Why don’t you wait and see? Could have been a stranger. Anyway, people won’t blame you.”
“They’ll point me out to each other.”
“For a few …”
“Look,” she interrupted him fiercely, “I know what I’m going to do. I’m going to get rid of the bakery and go somewhere else. I’ve thought about it enough. But Lyman hasn’t done anything. He’s got a good life here, and it’s not fair that he should have to give it up.”
