Fall from Grace

by L. R. Wright

  Annabelle took a quart bottle of pear cider up to Erna’s. Erna didn’t think of cider as being alcoholic. She thought of it as fruit juice, which amused Annabelle.

  Annabelle invited herself to lunch and picked away at a bowl of Erna’s homemade stew—surely an odd choice on such a hot day. But she ate some of it, politely, even though it made sweat pop out on her forehead. And then they opened the bottle of pear cider.

  Erna had been Annabelle’s friend since they were in elementary school together. She was small and thin and crouched-over looking, and an avid, beady-eyed observer of Annabelle’s life. Which she considered reckless, and possibly debauched.

  “I saw Lionel the other day,” Erna said, after her third glass of cider, “up in Garden Bay. Him and his wife have a little store. And they raise Airedales.”

  “That’s nice,” said Annabelle with a faint smile.

  Erna took a sip, lifted her right leg and crossed it delicately over the left. “I guess he’s gotten over you all right, Annabelle.”

  “I would certainly hope so,” said Annabelle, fingering her braid. “It’s been twelve years.”

  “I never heard tell of anybody else,” said Erna, “who divorced a man just because he couldn’t have kids.”

  Annabelle, amazed, said, “I can’t think of a better reason.”

  “Do you remember,” said Erna dreamily, “the day you met Herman?”

  “I do,” said Annabelle. She and Erna had been having lunch at Earl’s when he came in. There hadn’t been any room at the counter, and all the tables had been occupied, so he’d asked Annabelle if he could sit down with them, since the tables seated four. And Annabelle had permitted this.

  “I’m drivin’ a truck,” he’d said. “But I’m a carpenter by trade, lookin’ for a place to settle down.” One thing had led to another…and soon she had found herself agreeing to accept his generous offer of marriage; an admittedly improbable event which had, predictably, enraged her parents.

  Erna bent over, chortling to herself. Annabelle, watching this, felt suddenly peevish. She didn’t want to confide in Erna after all. She swept a fretful hand across her forehead. “I have a yen for some fries,” she said.

  Erna looked up, astonished.

  “Come on,” said Annabelle. “Let’s go down to the beach and get some fries.”

  Erna stumbled to her feet, not drunk, just taken by surprise, and Annabelle steered her outside. They got into Erna’s car and bounced down the narrow dusty road and past Annabelle’s house and turned onto the highway.

  “You could have had some more of my stew,” said Erna, slightly dazed.

  “I want some fries,” said Annabelle. “I’m not hungry. I just want some French fries.”

  Erna pulled into the parking lot next to a takeout place across the highway from the Davis Bay beach. They got out and approached the order window. In front of them in the line was a big man wearing a pair of bright green pants. He had an enormous belly, which he was holding onto protectively, looking, thought Annabelle, as if he were a pregnant woman, or a kid with a beach ball.

  “I don’t want anything,” said Erna.

  Annabelle nodded distractedly.

  “Only a Coke float,” said Erna.

  There was a hand-lettered sign next to the order window. It read: “A fast food outlet we are not. Your food is cooked fresh, not just kept hot. So please be patient, we will do our best, to get you fed along with the rest.”

  Annabelle ordered a large fries and two Coke floats. On her receipt was the number thirty-two. As she and Erna made their way across the highway to the beach, the loudspeaker called out, “Number twenty-one.”

  “Oh groan,” said Erna. “We’ll be here all day. I’ve got to get back and feed my chickens.” The pear cider, Annabelle observed, was rapidly wearing off.

  Annabelle sat down on a log. To her left, a long wharf extended into the bay, and there were a lot of people fishing from it. To the right, the sand and gravel beach was scattered with bright-colored towels, and teenagers were sunbathing, or splashing in the water. Annabelle could see the Trail Islands, offshore, and in the farthermost distance, the blue-purple shadow that was Vancouver Island. Erna plopped down beside her on the log.

  For a minute Annabelle felt as if they were teenagers again themselves. There was something dizzying in the summer heat, something intoxicating in the sound of the water swishing languidly onto the shore. Annabelle seemed to hear the squeals and laughter of her teenage summers, and she remembered how it had felt that hot August day when she was kissed—really, seriously kissed—for the first time; how it had taken her breath right out of her lungs.

  After a while Annabelle took off her sandals and waded in the water, which was sleek and warm against her skin. She bunched her skirt up around her thighs, while Erna murmured disapprovingly from the log, and walked out until the water was up to her knees. Annabelle looked down into the water and saw that close up, it was green, and she thought about Bobby’s eyes; double-lashed, and green like stones shining in the sea.

  She glanced at her watch, slipped into her sandals and sashayed across the highway, ignoring Erna’s cries of protest.

  She walked to one of the bright blue picnic tables in front of the takeout place, and saw Erna peering at her tensely from the beach. Annabelle sat down with her back to Erna and looked over at the parking lot. After a minute she looked away.

  A couple of teenage boys wearing wet swimming trunks and dry T-shirts pulled on their shoes and socks.

  Annabelle saw that the man in the bright green pants was still waiting for his food.

  “Number thirty-one,” said the loudspeaker. “And number thirty-two.”

  Annabelle got up and went to the window. The man with the bright green pants was collecting his order. She got the two Coke floats and the cardboard container of French fries. They smelled so good that her mouth started watering. She sprinkled them with malt vinegar, and salt, and got a napkin, and turned to see Erna scurrying across the road toward her.

  At the same time a small blue car turned off the highway into the parking lot. Annabelle watched as it darted neatly into the space between a pickup truck and Erna’s car. Erna came up beside her and the driver of the blue car got out. He slammed the door and looked around him, and saw Annabelle.

  “Oh my goodness,” murmured Erna, watching as he approached them, his hands thrust into the back pockets of his jeans.

  Annabelle realized that she was shivering; a sexy shudder rippled through her body as she watched Bobby walk toward her. She turned to hold out one of the floats to Erna.

  “Mercy me,” whispered Erna, and began sucking vigorously at the straw in her float.

  He came right up to her. “Hello, Annabelle,” he said, not smiling, and leaned down and kissed her.

  His lips on her temple weakened her. She would have liked to rest her forehead against his chest, and fit her body close to his.

  She felt the heat of the sun, and heard the sizzling of the hot oil behind the takeout counter. It must be hot as Hades in there, thought Annabelle: I wonder if they’ve got a fan.

  She looked up into his face. There were deep lines on either side of his mouth. But his body was still hard and powerful, his fair hair was still thick and shiny, his eyes were still bedroom eyes.

  She didn’t love him. She’d never loved him. But she loved the things he’d given her.

  “Hello, Bobby,” she said, smiling up at him.

  “I gotta talk to you, Annabelle.”

  “Annabelle!” hissed Erna.

  Annabelle felt the tension in him, and misunderstood. She shook her head slowly, smiling. “Not now, Bobby. Not today.”

  “Oh my, oh my, Annabelle, we gotta go,” said Erna, clinging to Annabelle’s arm and pitching furtive looks every which way.

  “You’re making an error, here,” said Bobby to Annabelle, ignoring Erna. He put his arms around her, not caring who saw. Erna stepped away from them and scurried toward her car. “Someth
ing’s happened,” he whispered in Annabelle’s ear. “And I don’t know what to do.”

  Annabelle, disquieted, pursed her lips. “Well, Bobby, I can’t talk to you right now. Surely you can see that.”

  “Let me drive you home.”

  “Annabelle!” cried Erna, from behind the open door of her car.

  “No no,” said Annabelle quickly. “Let me go now, Bobby, or I’m going to spill this stuff.”

  “Shit, Annabelle,” said Bobby furiously, releasing her.

  “Tomorrow,” said Annabelle, backing toward Erna’s car. “I could see you tomorrow.”

  “Tomorrow, shit, Annabelle.” He crossed his arms and glared at her.

  “Phone me, Bobby. Tomorrow.”

  Chapter 22

  I CAN’T GET warm,” said Velma Grayson. “So I thought maybe I was getting sick.” This was in explanation of Alex Gillingham’s presence in her living room.

  “I wish I didn’t have to bother you,” said Alberg.

  “I know. It’s all right.” She was huddled into a corner of the sofa, with only her head visible above the quilt that was tucked in around her. A mug of tea sat on the end table next to the sofa. The house was suffocating, and Alberg could hear the gas furnace working hard to push the temperature even higher; soon, he thought, the place would spontaneously combust. He moved to the edge of his chair, in an attempt to free his back from the clutches of his wet shirt.

  Across the room Alex Gillingham looked worriedly at Velma Grayson, leaning forward in his chair, forearms resting on his knees. Alberg felt a spasm of intense irritation toward the doctor—or maybe it was generalized irritation, produced by the heat.

  “I’ve got all kinds of pictures of him,” said Mrs. Grayson. “Though they’re pretty old.” She pushed the quilt aside and began to get up, and he saw that she was wearing slacks and a sweater, and a pair of heavy socks.

  “Maybe you could show them to me later,” said Alberg, and he smiled at her. He took his notebook and pen from his shirt pocket. “Can we talk first?”

  Slowly she nodded, and covered herself again with the quilt. She was about fifty, Alberg figured—my age, he thought glumly. She wore her blond hair short and curly. “I simply can’t believe this thing, Mr. Alberg,” she said, haggard and desolate. “Falling off a cliff. It’s ridiculous. Ridiculous.”

  “We’re going to try to find out exactly what happened, Mrs. Grayson,” said Alberg. Sweat was trickling down his temples, and under his arms. “Can you tell me why your son was carrying twenty-three thousand dollars?”

  “That’s—it’s—I haven’t the faintest idea.” She leaned forward, and the quilt dropped from her shoulders. “Maybe the person he was meeting owed it to him. Do you think that might be it?”

  Alberg studied her for a moment. “He was going to meet someone?” he said finally.

  She nodded. “That’s right.”

  “Who was he going to meet, Mrs. Grayson?”

  “I don’t know. He didn’t say.”

  “Well what did he say, Mrs. Grayson?”

  She looked at him intently. “I knew it was him in the hospital. But dead faces don’t look familiar. Even when you know who they are, they don’t look familiar.” She rubbed wearily at her forehead. “I did know that it was him, though.”

  “Drink your tea, Velma,” said Alex Gillingham.

  “Mrs. Grayson,” said Alberg, trying to sound relaxed and reasonable. “This is probably pretty important.”

  “I’m sorry. I don’t know who he was meeting, or where he was meeting them, or why. I’m sorry.” She began to cry again.

  “Karl,” murmured Gillingham reproachfully.

  “Try to guess, Mrs. Grayson,” said Alberg. “Was it somebody from Sechelt? Somebody coming over from Vancouver? A friend? Or was it business? What do you think?”

  “I—we hadn’t seen much of each other, Mr. Alberg, for the last ten years. I really didn’t know anything about his life, I’m afraid.”

  Alberg sat back with a sigh, and closed his notebook. He was trying to ignore the waves of heat that washed over him, the sodden shirt that clung to him. But he couldn’t ignore the sweat that dripped from his forehead. “I wonder,” he said, “if I could have a towel.”

  Alex Gillingham said, “I’ll get it, Velma.” He stood up and disappeared down the hall.

  “I think it must have been somebody here,” said Velma Grayson.

  “Go on,” said Alberg encouragingly.

  “Well—” She shook her head, defeated. “I don’t know. It’s just a feeling. Maybe I’m wrong.”

  Gillingham returned, carrying, Alberg noticed, not one hand towel, but two. He gave Alberg one and patted his own face with the other before sitting down again, this time in a chair next to the sofa.

  “Thank you, Alex,” said Alberg, mopping his forehead. He thought longingly of the veranda at the front of the house, and the big weeping willow tree under which his car was parked.

  “I don’t know when to go back to work,” said Mrs. Grayson to the doctor.

  “Don’t think about that yet,” said the doctor. Alberg watched, his irritation rekindled, as Gillingham reached over to pat her hand, which had emerged from behind the quilt to lie limply in her lap. “Take it one day at a time. One thing at a time.”

  “Mrs. Grayson,” said Alberg. “Tell me exactly what he said, when he told you he had to meet somebody.”

  “Well,” she said, frowning at the quilt, “it was Friday night, I guess. I asked him if he’d like to go to Percy and Hilda’s for supper on Saturday. That’s his aunt and uncle. And Steven said, sure” —her eyes filled with tears—“he had to meet somebody, but it wouldn’t take long, he’d be back in lots of time.”

  Alberg waited while Velma Grayson sobbed, and Alex Gillingham comforted her.

  He wondered if all this sweating might end up reducing his weight by a couple of pounds.

  “Did he mention the ferry?” said Alberg.

  “What?” she said, wiping her face with a tissue. Then she stopped, thinking. “Yes. You’re right,” she said, nodding to herself. “That’s why I figured it was someone from here. Because he didn’t say anything about the ferry.”

  “So he told you he was meeting someone, but he didn’t say where, or why, or who.”

  “That’s right.”

  “And he didn’t mention having a lot of money, or being owed money, or owing money himself.”

  “No.”

  Alberg glanced at his notebook, trying to hide his exasperation. “Do you know if he’d been in touch with anyone since he arrived?”

  She thought for a moment. “Well, once when I came home from work, he was on the phone. But I don’t know who he was talking to.”

  “An old friend, maybe?”

  “Maybe. Except—he didn’t have many friends, really. I mean, maybe he does now, but not when he was living at home.”

  “Did he go out? See people? Drive around? Anything?”

  She shook her head quickly. “No. I’m sorry, Mr. Alberg, not to be able to help you more—Oh. Wait. He did go back to Vancouver once.”

  “Tell me about that.”

  She drank the rest of her tea, and cradled the mug in her hands. “Well, he called me at work. Last Thursday it was. Said he had to go into town. He’d be back on the six-thirty ferry. But I wasn’t supposed to hold supper for him. So I didn’t.”

  “What was he going to do in town?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Do you want more tea, Velma?” said Gillingham, and she nodded.

  She and Alberg sat there in silence. Alberg thought the room had begun to shimmer, like a highway mirage.

  Gillingham came back and set the refilled mug on the end table.

  Alberg was convinced that he’d never be cool again. “What can you tell me about his life in Vancouver? His friends—hobbies…”

  “Nothing,” she said dully. “I saw him maybe three times a year. In Vancouver. And he’d call me now and then. But I
have no idea how he spent his time, what he liked to do, who he liked to do it with.” Once more, she wept. “And now I’m never going to find out.”

  “When did he leave home?” said Alberg quickly, before her sobs could take firm hold.

  “After high school. He went to Vancouver.”

  “And then what?” said Alberg, after a pause.

  She picked up her mug and drank some tea. “Well, first he got a job in retail. I forget exactly what. And then Harry died—my husband Harry was a logger, and he died in an accident that summer, so Steven came home for the funeral and so on. And then he went traveling for a while.”

  “Uh-huh,” said Alberg. He moved a little in his chair, cautiously, and found that his shirt was wetter than ever.

  “For—oh, more than a year, it was. But he kept in touch with me. And eventually he ended up back in Vancouver. That was the spring of nineteen eighty-two. And he took photography, and got a job, and—” She looked at Alberg blankly. “And that’s all I know.”

  “Who did he work for?”

  “He’s been on his own for a couple of years now. Free-lancing.”

  “Mrs. Grayson,” said Alberg, struggling to control his frustration, “if I’ve understood you correctly, your son had been gone for ten years without a single visit home. What brought him home this summer?”

  She shook her head. “I don’t know.”

  “You must have been very happy about it.”

  “Very,” Velma Grayson said somberly.

  “But surprised, too.”

  She nodded. “Yes.”

  “Well?” said Alberg, desperate. “What did he say, when he told you?”

  She found a tissue somewhere beneath the quilt and wiped her eyes. “I wish I could help you, Mr. Alberg, oh I do wish I could help you. But he wasn’t—forthcoming. You know? He just said he’d like to come home for a while. And I was so glad to have him here, I didn’t really care what the reason for it was.”

  Alberg looked around the living room. It was too damn hot to think straight. Velma Grayson looked ridiculous huddling underneath that damn quilt when the temperature had to be at least a hundred degrees in here. He swiped at his face with the towel.