We sit in silence for a while, neither looking at each other, and I wonder what it must have been like for her to carry this for so long. I know what it’s like to hate. I hated my mother for years. I hated that she left my father. She’d promised that she’d live in Scotland with him, promised us a normal life, and then just gave up. It wasn’t until my parents were older, and years had passed, that I forgave her for denying me a normal childhood. I came to the realization, that although they were my parents, they were really just kids trying to raise kids, and grow up themselves at the same time. That’s when I realized that with forgiveness comes freedom, and I somehow managed to let it go.
It was easy to get an invitation for Heather and I to have dinner at Terry and Jo’s house. And Jo didn’t sound surprised at all when I asked if we could do it quickly, even tonight possibly. We made a deal that she wouldn’t tell too many embarrassing stories about me and that I’d pretend to like her cooking.
“You look different Malcolm, you’re happier than the last time I saw you, maybe even settled. No hold on, not settled, you’ll never look settled, just happy,” Jo is enjoying herself, trying to make me squirm, as she sits by her husbands’ side, across from Heather and I.
“It’s the regular sex. It’ll do that. I’ve been telling him that for years.” Terry says it in his all-knowing, philosophical tone, forgetting that he’s been preaching casual sex to me all these years, not regular.
“It must be the lasagne. It’s very, very good Jo.” I take Heather’s hand as I answer them, and wait for them to smile knowingly, as we interact.
“You’ve got something on your mind Malcolm, I can tell. What is it your Dad says? What’s the thing about the fart? Come on. I know you remember.” He strains his face, trying to remember another of my Dad’s colloquialisms.
“He says that I’m as subtle as a fart at a funeral, Terry.” I can see my father’s face saying it, dropping his Scottish charm right in front of us, then smiling, waiting for our reaction.
“That’s it,” Terry laughs, “that’s it, and I know that something is up. You can’t hide it from me. I’ve known you far too long Malcolm, and remember, I’m a salesman. I read people’s faces for a living.
Heather returns his stare, and decides to lay our cards on the table. “I need to leave for a while. I need some time off, to go back east, family stuff, and Malcolm’s going to come with me.” She steps out of our shared head, and drops our intentions right in front of them.
They know that it’s serious. They know by her tone, her look that it’s about more than just visiting family back east. Terry puts down his knife and fork, clasps his hands in from of him, and is about to start his enquiries when Jo stops him. There must be something in our faces, or something in the way that I’m holding Heather’s hand. Jo knows, she just knows, and she does what only one person in the world can do. She takes control of her husband.
“Don’t, Honey. Let it be.” She says it firmly, kindly.
“I need to know. I’m concerned. Not nosy, just concerned.”
And he is. I can tell from his face. He’s looking at me, trying to smile, wanting answers, but I can’t give them to him.
“I have a daughter, a little girl. I need to go find her, find out if she’s okay.” It’s easier for her to say it this time. Her secret has been told once already.
We sit in silence for a moment, but Terry keeps looking at me, trying to read me. “How long will you be gone? Can you tell me that, or will you even be back? Is that too much to ask?” He isn’t just asking about his marketing assistant. I know that, and it isn’t just his natural inquisitiveness. He’s concerned.
“Yes, of course we’ll be back, and we’ll call you once we’re there. We’ll know more once we get to Ontario. And, I’m sorry. I’m sorry to do this.” She says the words with feeling, holding onto my hand, squeezing it. I don’t know if she’s sorry to be telling her employer that she needs time off, or sorry for taking away his friend.
“Malcolm, did you learn how to use that goddamned cell phone that I bought you?” He’s frustrated. I can tell, but he’s letting it go. He’s letting it go.
“Yeah, Terry, and I’ll call you.” I answer my friend.
Sometimes, when you’ve known people long enough and they’ve been down the occasional dark road with you, they just know when it’s the right time to say nothing. And although it pains him to leave it alone, he does. And, with Jo’s soothing hand on his, we finish our dinner without him asking another question about our trip.
His message on my answering machine wakes us early the next day. “Heather, Come back when you’re ready. Your job will be here for you. And Malcolm, I expect a phone call when you get wherever the hell you’re going and every day from that point on.” Then there’s the pause that married men often make when they’re hearing their partner speak, “Oh, and Jo sends her love.”
CHAPTER 20
The airline magazine on the plane shows a map of Ontario. Heather points to an area between two towns in the northern part of the province, Timmins and Sudbury, to show me our destination. I search the index of towns and cities looking for “Woodbine”, but it isn’t there. There’s just a long curved line showing a road with nothing in between. Twelve thousand people living somewhere along a line, in a town that doesn’t have its name on the airline magazine’s map.
We stay overnight at a hotel just north of Toronto, intending to make the twelve hour trip in the rental car to Woodbine the next day. I’ve never travelled in Canada. My trips have always taken me overhead, bound for my other home in Scotland, so the weather catches me by surprise. Winter actually arrives during autumn in Ontario, so between our tiredness from the flight, and being unaccustomed to the cold, we can’t wait to climb into bed and feel warm. I hold Heather in my arms as we listen to the fan from the hotel room heater blowing warm air into the room.
“Unless things have changed, there should still only be one elementary school. Emily will be in fourth grade. We can start there. We can go the school, once we arrive there.” She makes it sound like a question, sounding like she wants some reassurance.
“What about Michael? What about just going to his house and confronting him? Or at least taking a look and see if we can see Emily? Wouldn’t that work better?” I picture a confrontation with Michael and then the police being involved if need be, and then the happy ending, Emily being re-united with Heather. I don’t feel concerned or intimidated by the man at all. It doesn’t have to be complicated. We’re the ones that are doing the right thing.
She’s shaking her head while I’m talking and tensing up in my arms. “Not yet, Malcolm, not yet. You don’t know this man. This is his town. Please let me try this my way. Let’s just see where she is, how she is, please, Malcolm.”
I pull her tighter towards me and it’s hard not to agree with her. She’s probably right. If we can scope out the town anonymously for a couple of days and check up on Emily without causing any commotion then that’s probably our best option. “This is a really small town.” I think about the absence of the name on the map. “We need to be careful. Somebody might recognize you, Heather. If we’re doing this your way, then we want to be invisible for as long as we can. I think that’s important.” I’m making it up as I go along, not really knowing what we’re going to do next.
“It’s winter here already, and I’m going to be wrapped up in enough scarves and hats that I’ll look just like the locals. Nobody will know who I am. Nobody will recognize me.” I don’t ask any more. But I know, now. I know that she has a plan.
When she emerges from the bathroom, the next day, she’s a brunette. Her long hair is gone, and it curls around the edge of her face, hiding the shape of it. She’s wearing no makeup, and her colour is a pale white. I have to lift her hair to see her half dimple. It isn’t a disguise, but it has the look of someone who can blend into a crowd. She isn’t the girl with the green, or even red, hair anymore, and I suspect she doesn’t look like the scared ei
ghteen-year old who left town ten years earlier. She doesn’t look like anyone, and I suppose that’s exactly how she wants to look.
It’s dark when we drive in, but the streetlights give me my first view of the secluded little town. It’s old in an almost charming, but not quite yet rundown, kind of way. I survey the main street, and it seems to me that it’s the kind of town that will always look old. It’s too far away from major cities to warrant things like a mall or a large retail outlet. Instead, there’s an old hardware store, a pub, a bank, a couple of coffee shops and restaurants, and a community centre. We spot a motel as we drive in, right on the highway, at the edge of town, and decide that we’ll stay there. We’re tired and Heather is anxious to get out of the dark cold night, and check into our room, but I want to see what the town looks like. I want to see the place where she grew up. So, we drive up and down the streets, trying to get a feel for the place.
She’s sitting low in the passenger seat, her head turning as we drive, remembering her hometown. “Holy shit, it hasn’t changed. That’s new, or maybe it isn’t.” She points to various buildings, trying to remember.
We pass a library, and then I pull over in front of the high school, surprised at the sign in front of it. “It’s your name, ‘Postman Secondary School’. Why is your last name on there?”
She slumps even further down in the seat. “My great, great something or other. My family’s name’s all over here. We even have a street named after us. Can you keep driving please?”
She’s looking away from me as I pull back onto the road, and drive towards the motel. I hear every sound as the wheels crunch along the icy road. There is no warmth here, just coldness, everywhere.
I can smell the liquor, and hear the television program coming from the doors behind the front desk. The manager is a thin, sallow faced man. His grey hair is matted, greasy, untidy. He ambles out slowly, almost staggering, pushing his long unruly hair away from his face. He seems disturbed that I’m taking him from his television program, and I can smell the alcohol on his breath, even before he speaks. He only brightens up when I tell him that we’ll be staying for a few days, perhaps even a week.
“Malcolm Wilson, do I detect a little bit of an accent, Mr Malcolm? Is that a Scotland accent that I hear?” He takes my credit card and processes it through his old fashioned machine, while speaking with his own French-Canadian accent. “I’m Claude, nice to meet you, Mr Malcolm.”
“Well, I was from Scotland once, now I’m not so sure where I’m from, Claude.” I laugh, tired of telling my half-Scottish, half-Canadian story once or twice too often, and try to keep my distance from his breath.
“A true Scotsman is always from Scotland.” When he answers, he sounds almost belligerent, putting my credit card back on the counter, and staring through his glassy, drunk eyes.
All of a sudden, I don’t like him. I don’t like this man who wants to tell me what it means to be from Scotland. It’s been a long drive to a town that I know little about, and I’m tired. I drop my Canadian half for a bit, and give him my best Kilmarnock Secondary School glare along with my genuine Scots accent. “I grew up there. I know exactly what it means to be from Scotland, Claude.”
He seems to catch a breath of sobriety as he answers me, in a steadier voice. “Well it’s good that you’re proud of that.” Solemnly, he puts the room key on the counter, and makes his way back to his television program in the other room.
Walking to the door, I realize how weary I am, and wonder why I’m trying to intimidate a man who’s going to have access to my room for the next few days while Heather and I spend our time being amateur stalkers. I wonder if I should have tried to check in with an alias and paid cash. It’s too late now so I do my best to make my peace with him. “Listen, Claude, I’m sorry. I’m just tired. I didn’t mean to snap at you. Have you been here long, in Woodbine, I mean?”
“It’s fine. I can see that you’re tired, Mr Malcolm.” His own demeanour changes back to almost friendly, but he still edges himself towards the sound of his television. “The girlfriend and me, have been here for a few years now. Came out here to hide from my crazy ex, and decided to stay. It’s a nice little town, quiet, miles from everywhere. You and your wife, you have business here?” He motions towards the car where Heather is still sitting, slouched down in the passenger seat.
“Not really, just kind of taking a time out.”
“Well, maybe we’ll see you in the morning.” He looks at me as though he’s heard my lie many times before.
Nodding, I venture back out into the cold night, not sure if I’ve just made a friend or an enemy, but glad that he’s a man hiding from something. I’ve had clients over the years that are hiding. Some from an ex like Claude, some from more serious circumstances, and they all have one thing in common. They tend to live quietly and not cause any commotion. I hope that’s the case with Claude. I hope there won’t be any more questions.
I grab the luggage and hold the room door open, letting Heather hurriedly walk inside, her scarf covering her face, with her hat pulled down low. She looks like any other traveller trying to get out of the cold night.
The room is larger and cleaner than I expected. It looks like a thousand other motel rooms in a thousand different cities. There’s a small desk at the edge of the room, a bed, and a table mounted to the wall, with a portable coffee maker on it. The water is running in the toilet, but with a jiggle of the handle, I make it stop. I pull the sheets back to make the bed look more inviting, as Heather turns up the furnace thermostat.
“You don’t know a Frenchmen called Claude, do you? I’m not sure if he lived here when you were here or not. He’s a drinker too, by the smell of it.” I don’t expect her to know him, but I want to make sure that Claude didn’t recognize her as she went from the car to the room.
She replies almost immediately, setting her suitcase down, and unpacking. “Nope, I’m pretty sure that I don’t, Malcolm. Why, did he say something to you? You gotta remember, I was eighteen when I left. It’s been ten years. He could have moved here since then you know.”
“No, honey. He didn’t say anything. I just wanted to make sure that it wasn’t somebody that you knew.”
We stand and look at the room with its musty smell, and bright floral curtains on the front window. It’ll be our home base for whatever period of time it takes to find Emily.
“It’s bigger than the motorhome.” I try to make it seem more appealing than it really is.
She laughs and pulls the scarf from her face. “I love our motorhome. I miss it.”
The next morning, I wake up staring up at the shiny sparkles embedded in the ceiling of the motel room, remembering a motel room from a long time ago, that I shared with my mother.
Leaving Heather asleep in the room with the sparkles, I drive into town and find a coffee shop. I pick up a couple of breakfast sandwiches, a tea for Heather and a coffee for myself. There are a couple of workmen picking up their own breakfasts, but nobody seems to notice me; nobody seems to care. Things do seem to have a different pace from the city though. Nobody is in a hurry. Nobody seems too anxious about anything. It seems like just an ordinary little town.
Heather is awake and dressed, and ready to go, so we quickly eat in our room, then leave to go to the elementary school, before it’s even seven thirty. As we drive, I watch her and almost want to smile. If she wasn’t slunked down in the seat, semi disguised with her woollen hat on, it would almost have feel like just another adventure. But this is different than finding the lake at the end of the world. This is about finding a little girl.
Her idea is for us to park on the street, by the rows of houses, across from the school, and watch for a girl who might resemble her. She tells me that she’ll know her; she’s sure that she’ll know her own child. It isn’t a great plan, but it’s what she wants. When I suggested driving past Michael’s house she shut me down again, telling me that she doesn’t want to see him yet. For now, she just wants to see Emily.
It’s October, and although it’s cold for us, we hope that the local kids won’t be in their winter outfits yet, and we’ll be able to see their faces. We have two old childhood pictures of Heather, on the dash of the car. They’re the only pictures she has, and I’ve tried to burn their image into my head. In both of the pictures, she’s alone, sitting on someone’s living room couch somewhere, with a tentative look on her face. It’s odd to see such a serious expression on a little girl’s face, so different from the smiling girl that I first met. She thinks she must have been eight or nine when the pictures were taken, just a little younger than Emily would be now. So, if Emily looks like her mother, like Heather, then we’ll have an idea of what she looks like. I touch the old photographs with my fingers, hoping that the same face will come walking down the street.
My Temporary Life Page 14
