Mortal Sins

by Anna Porter

  “If no one wears them, how do they get old?”

  Anne had put on the skirt she kept for church and family events. It was a red and black print, with which she paired her bright blue, crumpled, long-tailed shirt. No one, it turned out, would be seen dead with her shirt tucked in either. She completed the outfit with tennis socks and duck boots. Withal she affected a look of grim forbearance that was her habitual expression for visits to her grandmother. “I wonder what your mother has in store for us today,” she said wearily, as they piled into the Renault. Whenever Anne referred to her grandmother, she left no doubt as to where that relationship properly belonged.

  “I don’t,” Judith muttered to herself. It was to be an evening of painful pretense in which all participants assumed polite stances, dabbled in small talk, praised the food, ate hearty, and never once alluded to the fact that two of the people present had endured considerable anguish so they wouldn’t have to be together.

  She was not disappointed.

  Marjorie greeted everyone at the door with busy smiles, her apron at the ready, a wooden spoon poised for action in her left hand. “James,” she called over her shoulder to the living room, “will you do the honors?” offering her soft powdered cheek for a kiss to Anne, then Jimmy, in turn. “Still working on the soup, dear,” to Judith. “Decided to make tomato. On special at Loblaws. Hothouse. All this week—you know...” They both knew Judith wouldn’t know. “Such a cold night out...”

  “Maybe I could help?” Judith asked, choosing tomatoes over James, but her mother was ready for that.

  “A sherry will do you good,” she said, scurrying toward the kitchen. “I have milk for the children.” The children glanced at Judith balefully.

  James stood, arms crossed, leaning against the doorpost where the living room met the hallway. At first glance, the most extraordinary thing about him was his unusual height. On second glance, Judith realized with a start that James had very likely not grown an inch—it was just that she had grown used to the same features in smaller packaging. Jimmy, without benefit of role model, had developed the same lurching posture, the same awkward fake casualness that went with feeling ill at ease.

  “Hiya, Dad,” Jimmy yelled with irritating familiarity as he bounded by Judith, jabbed James’s shoulder playfully with the side of his fist, and barreled into the living room, out of the line of fire.

  Anne stayed somewhere behind her mother, watching.

  “Well,” Judith said with supreme effort. “Well.” The second “well” was not nearly as clearly enunciated because, quite unexpectedly, her throat had dried up.

  “I would have come to get you,” James said, “but Mother needed some help with the shopping.” He had peeled away from the door frame and approached Judith cautiously. “How are you?” he asked, pacing the words to show each one mattered, his voice dropping to a whisper meant just for her. Ah yes, she remembered that tone: James placating a tearful cat-owner. “Don’t you worry, Mrs. Smithers, we’ll take good care of Mufty...”

  He hadn’t changed much in four years: hair thinner, but still a springy blond (like Jimmy’s), skin looser under the eyes and an extra fold below the rounded chin, charcoal gray eyes (Anne’s), forehead wider than she remembered, perhaps because of two deep lengthwise lines that lent him a permanently concerned air. That, too, could be very useful in small-animals practice.

  “Fine,” Judith said forcefully. “Thank you.”

  “Kind of Mother to have us all to dinner, don’t you think?” He was clearly working on the principle of once a mother-in-law, always a mother-in-law. “Sherry, or would you prefer something stronger?”

  “Very.” Anne answered the first question, seeing that Judith wasn’t about to do so. “How’s the shoulder, Dad?”

  “Moving,” he said bravely. Judith remembered that look. Once she had fallen in love with it. She wondered if the pale shadow of that feeling still lingered. Somewhere. Memories, they say, never die.

  “Stronger,” she asked. “Please.”

  “Good,” James said, leading the way into the living room. “I had kind of anticipated you might and invested in a bottle of Gordon’s. Like a martini, or has that sort of stuff been swept out by the health wave?”

  “Straight up,” Judith suggested. “Thank you.”

  “Mother doesn’t approve, of course—never has—but she didn’t protest. She thinks of me as a visitor, I guess.” He chuckled at that absurd idea, poured gin into the good crystal glasses, and topped them with a dash of sherry. He extracted four green olives from a plastic bag in his pocket and dropped them into Judith’s glass. He swirled them around with his index finger and handed her the drink. “Young lady here,” he winked at Anne, conspiratorially, “tells me you’re still the olive addict you once were. Could’ve sworn you took to drinking martinis because you didn’t think it was chic to eat olive on the rocks.”

  Anne tried to wink back but it wasn’t too successful. If James was going to stay around she might have to take winking lessons.

  “Aren’t you?” Judith asked ingenuously.

  “Aren’t I what?”

  “A visitor.”

  There was a crash to the left where Jimmy collided with Granny’s Japanese armoire.

  “A nice drink, don’t you think?” James was going to ignore her rudeness. “You do remember the sherry?”

  She did. When they were studying for exams James used to carry a mickey of gin in his pocket and sneak sherry from the DeLisles’ house in the evenings. He’d had to sneak the mix because they were almost never alone for more than a few minutes. Judith’s mother would sit in the far corner of the room knitting or listening to the radio. There was no question that Judith was to be a virgin on her wedding night.

  “Are you still taking us skiing?” Jimmy asked, disengaging himself from the armoire.

  “That all depends on your mother,” James said decorously. “I told you that. Not my decision. Naturally, I would enjoy having the opportunity of skiing with you at Collingwood...” All this to Judith.

  “They can’t ski,” she said lamely.

  “I know,” James replied. “All my fault. Should have taught them years ago. A couple of real athletic types and they still can’t ski...but not too late. Never too late for anything in life if you make up your mind. Doing something new together is much more conducive to nurturing lasting relationships than simply being together. And I have a lot of catching up to do.” He sighed and eased himself into Judith’s father’s wide leather-backed easy chair. “Perhaps you’d like to come, too?” he asked.

  Judith gritted her teeth and arranged her lips in a smile. “I don’t think so.”

  “Yeah,” chorused the kids. “Dad’s an expert at slalom,” said Jimmy. “Last year he and Inge went to Innsbruck. That’s in Austria. Four weeks straight skiing.”

  Marsha, Judith reminded herself, had said that the kids liking their father did not mean they liked Judith less. Easy for Marsha to say.

  “Where is Inge this year?” Judith inquired pleasantly.

  James spread his hands in a “search me” gesture. “It’s all over,” he said sadly. “Inge was not prepared to make a commitment yet, and I couldn’t handle another superficial relationship. Too many mismatched emotions.” Then he brightened. “A fortunate bit of timing, nevertheless. Otherwise she might have insisted on coming with me to Toronto and that would have impinged on our time. Couldn’t have been as open between Jimmy and me then.” He glanced at Jimmy, then he noticed Anne by the bookcase. “And Anne,” he added quickly with a touch of husky emotion.

  Judith was relieved to note that Anne joined her in looking sheepish at this bit of Jamesian analysis. Those years of training in common sense hadn’t, after all, abandoned her when confronted with her father’s dubious charm.

  “Would you like to go skiing?” Judith asked her.

  “Guess so,” Anne shrugged.

  “Of course she would,” James said. “Friend of mine from vet school has a spot up
the mountain. Belongs to a private club, yet—Craigleith, you know. We’ll leave sharp at 6 A.M. and I’ll have you running downhill by noon. And it’s a good place for you to start making connections. The right kind of people, and all that. What do you say, Jude—all up to you now. Wouldn’t dream of cutting across your bow...” He had leaned closer as he talked. His nose pointed at Judith’s. (Had he always had a dimple in his chin?) He affected a painfully earnest look. “I need this time... You do understand...”

  “I suppose,” she said, as she contemplated the manifold injuries persons could sustain while James was teaching them to slalom.

  “It’s a school holiday,” Jimmy said.

  The phone suddenly bellowed from the hall. Everybody froze.

  Clearly, Marjorie had at last acknowledged her fast-deteriorating hearing and installed a sadistic loudspeaker system. Luckily, it was cut short on the second deafening roar.

  “Judith,” Marjorie said on her way in carrying a silver tray with stuffed eggs, celery hearts, and small round toasts with pâté, “the telephone is for you.” Her mouth pursed with patent disapproval as she deposited her tray on the coffee table. “Dinner’s almost ready.”

  The caller was Stevie, Judith’s next-door neighbor. “This is probably crazy,” she said breathlessly, “but I think there’s someone in your house.”

  Stevie was the only person on Brunswick Avenue who had taken Neighborhood Watch to heart. She had conned the Canada Council into giving her a grant to write about family patterns in the Lower Annex area. That meant Stevie spent a good part of each day sitting on her balcony with a pair of binoculars and a bottle of Portuguese wine.

  “There is?” Judith asked, not too concerned. Stevie was given to inventing the occasional crisis if nothing happened on the street for a week or so. Last week there had been a haunting across the street, last month an attempted kidnapping. In July she had called the fire department to put out Judith’s barbecue.

  “Yup,” Stevie said. “I saw them moving around upstairs. Light went on and off—flashlight, I bet. I thought of calling the police, but...” She no doubt remembered Judith’s lack of tact when the fire brigade knocked down her door. “It’s better to check first. You do have a lot of friends, God knows.”

  “Did you see anyone come in?”

  “No. And it’s not the detective, his car isn’t down the street by the hydrant where he puts it. I checked.” Of all Judith’s friends, Stevie particularly liked David. Occasionally she’d sit on her back porch flagrantly smoking hash, hoping he’d come and arrest her.

  “You’re quite sure?” Judith asked, still doubtful.

  “Sure I’m sure.” Stevie was indignant. “I’m sitting not ten feet from your bedroom window and I see this light come up the back wall where your pictures are...now it’s moving over where you keep your typewriter—”

  “I’m on my way,” Judith said and hung up.

  “Back in ten minutes,” Judith said to her mother, as she raced out the door. “An emergency. At the magazine...,” she lied. Explanations took too long.

  Snow had started to fall heavily. The streets had turned soft and mushy under the tires. The Renault’s rump fishtailed as she tried to ease it into the careful traffic down Park Road. Already there was an accident at the foot of the hill. She didn’t allow herself to think that someone had really broken into the house. She preferred to believe that Stevie was up to her old tricks.

  As she rounded the rim of Sibelius Square, she could already see the police car in front of her house, its lights flashing.

  A small crowd had formed on her steps. They were huddled in coats, their shoulders pulled up, arms crossed, faces expectant. Everyone watched as she parked the car across the street. She met Stevie and a young policeman coming out of her door.

  “Waited and waited, Judith,” Stevie said apologetically. She wore her black hooded cloak, red high-heeled boots, and full evening makeup. “When you didn’t show, I assumed you must have got stuck in traffic, so I phoned for Parr. They sent these guys,” she shrugged helplessly. “Did the best I could under the circumstances, don’t you think?”

  “You Mrs. Hayes?” the policeman inquired.

  “Yes,” Judith said and pushed past them into the house. The living room looked the same. Her woolen mitts were still lying on the floor near the fireplace where she’d dropped them on the way out. The kitchen was, as always, untidy, lunch dishes in the sink, Coke cans and glasses all over the counter, Anne’s homework spread out on the table surrounded by muffin crumbs.

  She raced up the stairs, two at a time, and met a second policeman backing out of Jimmy’s bedroom. He was walking very slowly, examining the carpet around his feet. Between two fingers of his right hand he carried a small plastic bag. He looked up at Judith, curious, but noncommittal: “Yes?” he asked. He was terribly young and sure of himself. There’s no doubt about it, policemen are getting younger, Judith thought.

  “I live here,” she explained.

  “Hmm,” said the very young policeman, still noncommittal.

  “Well?” Judith prodded. “Has somebody broken in?”

  “Can’t tell yet, ma’am. Haven’t been here long enough. We were responding to a call. I can see how someone could’ve got in, though, and out again.” He smiled knowingly. “Anything missing?”

  Judith rounded the corner into her room, where Stevie claimed to have seen the intruder. The bed was exactly as she had left it, unmade. Her flannel nightgown was curled in a blue ball on the floor with a pillow, near the shoes she had decided not to wear at the last moment. The clothes-closet door was open, her beige nylon slip still hanging on the doorknob. On the dresser, her assorted bottles and jars of lotions and creams stood in their customary disarray.

  Only her desk looked different. She had left her clean white copy of the typed Zimmerman story neatly stacked to the left of the typewriter. Each page had been numbered in sequence and laid face down on top of the last one. She had reached midway down page 16. Her green stenographer’s notebook had been to the right of the typewriter, closed.

  Now some of the typed pages were in a jumble all over the desk, a couple of them had fallen on the floor, and her notebook lay open on the chair.

  “How does it look?” Stevie asked from the doorway.

  “Not terribly good,” Judith said. “Someone’s been rummaging around in my story.”

  “Didn’t I tell you?” Stevie shouted triumphantly. She was waving her arms around in excitement and peering over Judith’s shoulder to see what was on the pages she’d typed.

  “How did you know I was at my mother’s?” Judith asked, as she stacked the pages back in their original order. They were all, much to her relief, still there.

  “Saw you and the kids pile into the car. Anne was wearing her skirt—and it’s not Easter Sunday.”

  “How did you get in?”

  “Kids’ key under the mat.”

  “You both writers?” the policeman asked.

  “She’s a journalist,” Stevie said, pointing her thumb at Judith. Stevie must have been passing herself off as an author again.

  “Is anything missing?” the other policeman asked impatiently. He was still holding the plastic bag.

  “Not so far as I can tell, but...”

  “Did you keep money or valuables in here?” The first policeman looked around.

  “Don’t have any,” Judith said. “The typewriter, TV set, Jimmy’s stereo, two radios, records, tapes, hair dryer...”

  “Perhaps he didn’t have time to rob you, because I called the police.” Stevie said with pride. “They came with the siren and lights flashing, the whole megillah. So he escaped before we came in...”

  “Through that room,” the second policeman said, indicating Jimmy’s room with his plastic baggie. “Window was open, damp mud on the carpet.”

  They all followed him out and into Jimmy’s room where the mess was messier than usual and the mud worse than usual, damp, and in direct line with the win
dow.

  “Mind if I close it?” Judith asked.

  They didn’t. “Not much more for us to do then,” the older policeman said. “If you find something missing, you call. Okay?”

  “Thanks.”

  “Do you know what this is?” The younger policeman showed her the plastic bag.

  Close up, the contents looked like tobacco with bits of large seeds mixed in. Judith shook her head.

  “Cannabis?” Stevie asked, sniffing at the bag. “Grass, you know,” for Judith’s benefit.

  The policeman nodded, his lips pressed together.

  Stevie giggled nervously. She had loosened her cloak from her shoulders to reveal her form-fitting angora sweater and the long string of pearls she wore on special occasions.

  “Whose room is this?” the policeman asked.

  Judith searched the room with her eyes, as if she were trying to remember whose room it could be. There was a football helmet in the corner, a sweatshirt with number 6 emblazoned on its front, a grimy Adidas bag, a fishing rod on the wall, football posters, a signed photograph of Wayne Gretzky, near the dresser a pair of black hockey skates, by the window a brown bear with button eyes and yellow raincoat wearing a Blue Jays cap on his head.

  A giant burst of panic welled up from her stomach and caught in her throat as she reached for the bag. “My son,” she whispered, swallowing hard. “He’s just a child,” she added in a rush. “He doesn’t...”

  They were all silent for a moment. Then the very young policeman let out a long sigh, shook his head from side to side, and dropped the bag into Judith’s hand. “You should talk to him about this,” he said gruffly. “Fast.”

  “I will...” Judith mumbled gratefully.

  Stevie saw them out the door. She was duly rewarded by being the first person to greet David Parr.

  Eleven

  “I’M AFRAID I’M hopelessly middle-class, after all,” Judith said almost apologetically. “There was a time I thought I was a free spirit. Some free spirit. It turns out that, just as you say, I’m encumbered by a variety of outdated behavioral codes and patterns. So why fight it?”