Hard Winter Rain

by Michael Blair

The wine arrived. The waiter showed Shoe the bottle, opened it, and made a small moue of disapproval when Shoe said, “I trust you. Just pour.” Then their food came and they turned their attention to it.

  “This is good,” Barbara said of her grilled salmon, after they’d eaten in silence for a few minutes.

  “I’m glad you like it,” Shoe said.

  “Anyway,” she said. “That’s how I met Bill.”

  “Did you know he was married?”

  She nodded, swallowed, and said, “The second or third time we were together it was at his house. His wife was away, of course. She was away a lot, I found out, but it wasn’t until I’d been seeing him for a while that I realized why. She was an alcoholic. But I suppose you know that.”

  He nodded. “When did you and Randy get married?”

  “About a year after I met Bill. Bill and me, we were always pretty much on-again, off-again. I’d see him once a week or so for two or three months, then I wouldn’t hear from him for almost as long. Each time it happened I was sure I’d never hear from him again, but then he’d call me up out of the blue and we’d start seeing each other again. Randy and I got married during one of Bill’s and my off-again times.”

  Shoe waved the waiter off as he tried to add more wine to Shoe’s almost full glass.

  “You don’t drink very much, do you?” Barbara said.

  “Not much,” Shoe replied.

  “You don’t have, um, a drinking problem, do you? Sorry. I should mind my own business.”

  “It’s all right,” he said with a smile. “No, I don’t have a drinking problem.”

  They ate in silence for a moment, then Barbara said, “You look very fit. Do you work out?” She was trying hard to make conversation.

  “I run a little and work out with weights occasionally,” Shoe replied.

  “I wish I had the time to work out,” she said. “I walk a lot. I suppose that helps.”

  “I’m sure it does,” he said.

  The next period of silence lasted longer than was comfortable. Finally, Barbara put down her knife and fork, although her meal was only half finished.

  “Phew,” she said. “My eyes are bigger than my tummy, I guess.” She took a sip of wine. She looked as though there was something she wanted to say but didn’t know how to say it. Finally: “There’s, um, something you should know,” she said hesitantly. “It might make you feel better, less guilty, you know, about Randy.” She paused. He waited for her to continue. “He wasn’t what you’d call the perfect husband. I thought marriage and a family would settle him down, but right from the start he drank more and stayed out all night and I’m pretty sure he was with other women.” She flushed slightly. “I’m hardly one to talk, but at least I didn’t start seeing Bill again until after Randy and me broke up the first time.”

  “When was that?” Shoe asked.

  “About a year after we got married. Randy finally got fired for good for being drunk on the job and we had this huge fight about it. He had a pretty bad temper, especially when he was drinking. He hit me and called me a whore and—” She broke off suddenly. After a brief pause, during which she seemed to wage an internal struggle, she said, “Annie, my first baby, was just a few months old. Randy told me to get rid of her, that he knew she wasn’t his—she was, though—and that he wasn’t going to raise another man’s child. Not that he was any help raising her,” she added. “He spent most of his paycheque on beer and cigarettes and other women. I paid the bills from my unemployment.”

  “Please don’t take offence,” Shoe said, “but are you certain the baby was Randy’s?”

  “Yes, of course she was his,” she replied, a flush highlighting her cheekbones.

  “What did you do?” Shoe asked.

  “I called Bill and told him I was afraid Randy was going to hurt the baby. ‘What do you expect me to do about it?’ he said. I told him I wanted him to help me put her up for adoption. ‘Why not just get rid of Randy?’ he said, but I didn’t think that was right. So Bill helped me put her up for adoption. Or his lawyers did. It almost killed me to let the woman from the agency take her away, but I kept telling myself it was for the better.” Her eyes shone in the subdued lighting of the dining room.

  The waiter came to clear away the main course dishes. Barbara hadn’t finished, but she let him take her plate away. She refused dessert, but when the waiter suggested a liqueur with her coffee, Shoe said, “Go ahead,” and she ordered Grand Marnier.

  “That’s when you started seeing Bill again?” Shoe said when the waiter had left.

  “Yes,” Barbara said.

  “But Randy came back?”

  “Yes,” she said. “He’d gotten a job in an auto parts store. He acted like nothing had happened. He didn’t apologize for hitting me and he never mentioned Annie’s name again. It was like she’d never existed. I tried to forget her too. When my son Kenny was born, it helped a little. My daughter Ellie was born when Kenny was three, but, sweet little thing that she was, even she couldn’t make me forget Annie.”

  Randy stuck with the auto parts job only long enough to collect unemployment, she told him, then spent most of his time in the bars. When his unemployment ran out, he’d find something else. This cycle repeated until, around the time of her son’s fourth birthday, Randy got a job on a drilling rig in Alaska through someone he’d met in a bar. He signed a six-month contract, but three months later he was home again. He’d been injured, not seriously, but it was enough to keep him off the rigs. Because he’d been drinking, however, he didn’t qualify for compensation. Angry and resentful, he took it out on anyone who came within range. He spent all day in bed and all night on the town drinking and whoring.

  “My father had a heart attack and died the week before Ellie’s fifth birthday,” she said. “The day after his funeral I called a locksmith, then dumped all of Randy’s things into a couple of diaper boxes from the pharmacy and put them out on the front porch. When he got home and his key didn’t work, he pounded on the door, shouting and swearing, threatening me and frightening the children. A neighbour called the police and they took him away because he was drunk and abusive and fought with them.

  “Poor Randy. He had his problems, but he wasn’t really a bad person. Just lost. Bill told me I was wasting my sympathy, but I couldn’t help feeling that I was partly responsible for the way his life turned out. I wasn’t a very good wife to him.”

  “Sounds to me like his problems were mostly of his own making,” Shoe said. “Did you ever see him again?”

  “He’d come to see the kids once in a while,” she said.

  “Did he help you with support?”

  “No. He sent me a card and a twenty-dollar bill on my thirtieth birthday. I threw the card away and used the money to buy shoes for Ellie and school supplies for Kenny. But that was it. I couldn’t have gotten by without Bill. I worked at a lot of jobs, none of them very good. I didn’t like taking money from Bill, but I had the kids to think about.”

  There were other men, too, she told him, besides Bill, but none of them stayed around for very long. As soon as they found out she had children, they quickly lost interest in anything but getting into her bed. And she let too many of them into her bed, she admitted, just for the company. But she wasn’t really unhappy. There was never quite enough money, but there was usually enough that she didn’t have to take it from Bill very often. Her children were the light of her life. No matter how bad things got, they were there. Always, though, in the darkest corner of her mind, there was the memory of Annie. She often wondered what had become of her and prayed to a god she no longer believed in that Annie was healthy and happy, wherever she was.

  “Have you ever tried to find out who adopted her?” Shoe asked. “To get in touch with her?”

  She shook her head. “No,” she said. “I couldn’t do that. She’d hate me for what I did.”

  “Perhaps not,” Shoe said.

  “I would,” she said. She sipped her liqueur in silence for a
moment, then said, “I remember when you started working for Bill. I was at his house one night when he called you to bring something he’d forgotten at the office. I saw you from a window when you were getting back into your car. You saw me too, I think, but I don’t supposed you got a very good look.”

  “No,” he said.

  By the time Kenny was ten and Ellie was seven, she told him, she had resigned herself to her life. To the infrequent nights or weekends with Bill. To the occasional other man. To the unfulfilling jobs and the employers who exploited her. To Randy drifting in an out of her life and the lives of her children, sometimes sober, more often drunk, sometimes employed, more often not. And to watching her children grow and hoping that they would have more than she’d had. She tried not to think about what lay ahead, what she would do when her children were grown, when her mother was gone, when Bill no longer called, when even Randy finally drifted forever beyond the orbit of her life. She had grown accustomed to her life and had come to believe that the dullness would go on forever, until she died of tedium.

  Would that it had been so.

  One day Randy was waiting for her when she got home. He’d broken in through the back door and he was very drunk.

  “How long has this been going on?” he said.

  “How long has what been going on?” she replied, feigning innocence.

  “Don’t lie,” he shouted, grabbing her wrist. “I followed you last night. I watched you eating dinner with him in the hotel. I watched you go upstairs. I even know which room you were in. How long have you been fucking him? Right from the beginning, I bet. That’s why he gave me back my job that time, isn’t it? Because you fucked him.”

  He called her a whore and, still holding her wrist, hit her in the face. Blood sprang from her nose.

  “You been playing me for a sucker all along, haven’t you?” he shouted into her face, spittle flying. “You and Mister William Fucking Hammond. Well, I’ll show you.”

  He hit her again. And again. And again.

  She didn’t remember much after the third or fourth blow, just a blur of pain and blood and fear. She passed out then. The next thing she remembered was waking up in the hospital. She had somehow managed to call 911, but had no memory of it. A doctor came to her bedside and told her she had been asleep for almost twenty-four hours, but would make a full recovery, save for a couple of small scars and a missing tooth. She slept some more, then woke up starving, but all she could eat was some soup. Then a pair of policemen came to see her and asked her if she felt up to talking. She told them that if they wanted to know if she was going to press charges against Randy, the answer was yes.

  “It wouldn’t do any good,” one of them said to her. “He’s dead.” He told her how Randy had died.

  “I’m sorry,” he’d said.

  “I’m not,” she’d replied.

  “If he mentioned your name,” Barbara told Shoe, “I don’t remember. And I didn’t read the newspaper stories. After I got out of the hospital, Bill gave me some money and I packed up the kids and moved to Edmonton.” She put her hand over her mouth and yawned hugely, eyes tearing. “Oh, god, I’m sorry,” she said. “Believe me, it’s not the company. What time is it?”

  “Almost nine,” Shoe said.

  “I’ve been talking your ear off for nearly three hours. You must be bored silly.” She yawned again, jaw cracking. “If I don’t get some fresh air soon, I’m going to fall asleep right here.”

  She used the bathroom while he settled the bill. Outside, the rain had turned to snow, coating the car in a think blanket of white. Shoe started the engine, turned the heater on, then got out and scooped the snow from the windows. When he got into the car again, Barbara was asleep in her seat, head lolling, mouth open, snoring softly. He put the car in motion as gently as he could, but she awakened as the car rocked over the gutter exiting the parking lot.

  “Oh, god,” she said. “Did I fall asleep? I’m really sorry. I’m not used to drinking. I hope I didn’t drool or anything.”

  “No,” he said.

  “Thank god.”

  As he drove between the piers of the Granville Street Bridge and off Granville Island, she said, “You’re an easy person to talk to. I told you things I’ve never told anyone. I hope you don’t think—I mean, I hope I haven’t been, well, a disappointment you.” She placed her hand over her mouth and yawned again.

  She was silent for a long time as they inched east on Broadway, the wiper batting at the wet snow melting on the windshield. As he turned left onto Main, Shoe looked at her to see if she’d fallen asleep again, but her head was up and turned away from him as she stared out the side window.

  When he double-parked in front of her building, she turned to him and said, “I’d ask you up, but I’m just too tired. I hope you understand.”

  “Yes, of course,” he said. He didn’t tell her he wouldn’t have accepted her invitation, though. At least, that’s what he told himself.

  “Will I see you again?” she asked. Before he could answer, she said, “I’d like to. Or am I being too forward? You’re not married, are you?”

  “No, I’m not married,” he said. Changing the subject, he said, “Are you going to call Jimmy Young?”

  “Your friend at the marina? Oh, yes, absolutely,” she said.

  Leaving the car double-parked, he walked her up to her apartment. At her door, she said, “Thank you for dinner. Thank you for everything.” She stood on her toes and kissed him on the corner of the mouth, murmuring, “Good night.” She opened her apartment door, smiled at him, said, “Good night,” again, and closed the door. He waited until he heard her lock the door, then went down to the car and drove home.

  chapter eight

  Saturday, December 18

  The telephone rang at nine on Saturday morning. Jack had gone to check on his houseboat and Shoe was mopping up a large puddle of water on the living room floor under the front window where the wind had driven the rain through a leaky casement. He added it to the list of things to do if he ever succeeded in retiring.

  “I’m sorry it’s taken me so long to return your call, Mr. Schumacher,” Sean Rémillard said. “I’ve been quite busy. And I’m afraid I don’t have much time to talk to you now, either. I’m flying to Victoria in an hour. Charlotte said you wanted to talk about Patrick. You were his friend, weren’t you, the one he called Joe Shoe?”

  “That’s right,” Shoe said.

  “Charlotte and I will be at Patrick’s funeral. Perhaps we could talk then. Or afterwards.”

  “If you don’t mind, I just have a couple of quick questions,” Shoe said.

  “We’ve been through all this with the police.”

  “I understand,” Shoe said. “But if you could just give me a moment.” Rémillard grunted softly, which Shoe interpreted as acquiescence.

  “When you saw Patrick last weekend,” Shoe said, “how did he seem?”

  “He seemed fine,” Rémillard said. “Mr. Schumacher, I really don’t have time to talk to you.”

  “Do you have any idea who he was meeting at the restaurant?”

  “No, I don’t,” Rémillard said. “Now, I’m sorry, I really must go. We’ll speak at the funeral.”

  “Yes, we will,” Shoe said, but Rémillard had already hung up. Shoe went back to his mopping.

  Later that morning Shoe drove across the Lions Gate Bridge to West Vancouver. Kit Parsons’ decorating store–cum–studio was not far from the Park Royal Shopping Centre, purportedly the oldest shopping mall in Canada. He’d called ahead to make sure she’d be there, looking up interior design studios in the West Vancouver Yellow Pages, getting two wrong numbers before recognizing her scratchy, smoke-damaged voice.

  “What can I do for you?” she’d asked after he’d identified himself.

  “I’d like to ask you some questions about Patrick’s death and your relationship with Victoria.”

  “I don’t know anything about Patrick’s death,” she’d said. “And my relations
hip with Victoria is none of your business.”

  “Nevertheless,” he’d said, “I’d like to speak to you.”

  “You’re speaking to me.”

  “In person.”

  “Fine,” she’d said. “You know where to find me.” Then she’d hung up. Shoe could easily begin to hate the telephone.

  She was showing samples to a leathery old woman in a long mink coat when Shoe arrived at the store. “You’ll have to wait,” she said, so he shed his coat and hat and made himself comfortable on the sofa at the front of the store, selecting an Architectural Digest from the untidy scatter of magazines and brochures and catalogues on a huge glass and polished stone coffee table. He declined the offer of a cup of coffee from a wispy, young-looking man in black stretch jeans and a powder blue shirt who then went back to putting away the fabric and wallpaper sample books that Kit and her customer had finished with. Half an hour later the old woman in the mink left and Kit came over to where Shoe waited.

  “We can talk in the studio,” she said. “Hugh can look after the store.”

  Shoe stood and followed her through a door at the back into a bright room with tall windows and a skylight in the high ceiling. The room contained a couple of big drafting tables, set flat and covered with fabric samples, strips of moulding, and curling architectural drawings. There were also a half a dozen industrial shelving units, crowded with more sample books, and a drawing cabinet with wide, shallow drawers. A modular computer workstation was equipped with a Macintosh computer and a big flat-panel screen on which a screen saver displayed a sequence of photographs of what Shoe guessed were examples of Kit’s work. Next to the computer sat a printer and a scanner, both quite a bit larger than the ones in Patrick’s home office. There were ashtrays everywhere, big ones, and the room stank of tobacco and stale smoke.

  Sit down,” Kit said in her raspy voice, gesturing toward the ergonomic chair at the computer workstation. She climbed onto a high stool at one of the drafting tables. Her glacier green eyes were cool and clear and steady. She lit a cigarette with a flick of a disposable butane lighter.