“Malcolm, where the hell have you been? You stupid Scottish shit, Jo’s worried sick about you. What’s going on, and what happened to my phone calls?” He sounds irritated, but he’s almost laughing too, unaware of what we’ve been through.
I have to cut him off, and I almost wish Jo was there too, to help settle him down, as I start to talk to him. I look over at Heather, but she’s fast asleep, and no amount of excitable Terry will wake her up now. “Buddy, you need to listen to me. Grab a pen. You need to write this down.” He starts to speak again and once more I cut him off. “No Terry, just listen for now. I really will explain everything later.”
He grunts a yes to me, and I give him the name, and phone number of the hotel, with our room number. It’s probably a world record for Terry, as he manages to do what I ask of him for at least thirty seconds, before he starts asking questions again.
“Malcolm, your voice, it doesn’t sound right. It doesn’t sound like you. You gonna tell me now?”
He isn’t laughing, and sounds worried, but more than anything else, he doesn’t have control, and Terry always needs to be in control. That’s probably the secret of his success, and those of us who love him, or even like him, tolerate it because after a while, we learn that he really is a good, caring man. “Terry, please listen to me. We’ve gotten into a bit of a problem here, nothing that can’t be sorted out, but I do need your help.”
When I ask him for his help, I can almost see him on the other end of the phone, his body hunching forward at his desk, all alert and ready to do whatever it took to help me. “I’ll let you know everything that’s happened, but I can’t right now, that’ll have to come later. For now, I need you to do a couple of things for me. Call me back in four hours, and if Heather or myself don’t answer, call the front desk and have them call the police. Don’t give up trying to get in touch with us until you hear my voice.”
There’s a slight silence before I hear him again. “Fuck, Malcolm, what’s going on there?”
“Terry, just call me back, call me back in four hours. I’ll fill you in then, I promise.” I lay the receiver back down on the phone, and barely have enough energy left to roll my head over onto the soft, white pillow. I know Terry. I know he’ll call back.
I still have only the beginnings of a plan forming, but it’s hard, hard to focus. I keep thinking about Postman, about what he’s done. The anger isn’t going away. I think about Ellison. Why did he just let us leave? Was he told to, or did he decide on his own? Or worse yet, was he somewhere out there, still watching us? I think about Emily. I hear the faint sounds of the street noises, outside the window. I hear Heather’s heavy breathing, as she sleeps beside me. I realize I’m clenching the pillow, holding onto it. I release my grip, and try to concentrate on my breathing, try to focus. It’s not Heather or Emily or even John Postman that I see as I try to fall asleep. It’s my friend, Hardly, and I remember. I remember that he too is in a hospital somewhere, with a hole in his leg.
Taking the piece of paper from my wallet, I punch the long distance code into the hotel phone and amazingly I’m connected almost immediately. I almost ask for Hardly but then, I remember, it’s Gerald. He used to be Gerald.
“Hullo, who’s calling please.”
His strong Scots accent comforts me, and I lay my head back on the pillow enjoying the familiar sound. It’s been years since I’ve seen him and almost as long since we’ve spoke on the phone, but it’s still him. He’s still the same. I can tell. “It’s me, Hardly. It’s Malcolm, how are you feeling? How are you doing?”
There’s no pause, no hesitation as my childhood friend answers immediately, the gratitude evident in his voice. “Malcolm, Malcolm, where are you? It’s good to hear from you. I’m fine, mate. I’m fine, just a couple of bullets. I might even walk again. Not as bad as getting pissed on from a tree, Malcolm. Not even close.” He’s laughing now between words and I feel guilty about the struggles that he’s gone through and fact that I haven’t been there, haven’t been there at all.
“I’m okay, Hardly. I’m okay. I’m in Ontario, still in Canada, helping a friend. I just wanted to hear how you were doing. I wish I could have gotten there to see you. I really do.” My words sound empty and he certainly has the right to question my friendship, my loyalty, but this is Hardly. That isn’t what he does.
“It’s okay, Malcolm. You have your life over there in Canada. I know that. It’s the way things played out. It’s not your fault. You did what you had to do to survive, and I did what I had to do. Different roads, mate, different roads, that’s all. One day we’ll meet up. I know we will. I’ve told your dad that. One day we’ll all meet up again.”
I have to suck my breath in hard to stop the emotions from coming out. I pause before continuing and he asks me to excuse his slurping as he sips some water.
“I have to ask you something, Hardly. I always wanted to know, do you think I did enough? Do you think I did enough to help you, to help us, when we were back there in school?”
This time there is a pause and I think of a mixed up version of a young Hardly and an older military man. Hardly perhaps touching his face or scratching his head before answering me.
“Malcolm, those were hard times. We were wee waynes, children. We got through it together. We got through it alive, didn’t we? I mean here we are, you in Canada, across the ocean, and me here in Scotland and we’re talking. I’m talking to Malcolm. We’re right, Malcolm. We’re right as we could be.”
It’s not enough though. As my tiredness starts to get the better of me I feel as though I’m awake and dreaming at the same time, talking to Hardly and dreaming about him too.
“I always felt like I left you and then when I didn’t come back. I felt like I’d left you and my dad. I just, I didn’t know. I didn’t know where home was or what it was. I just stayed. I stayed away, away from it all.” My head is on the pillow now and my eyes are barely open, but I can see him. I can see him as he sits in his hospital bed with tears in his hard little eyes while he talks to me.
“Malcolm, don’t worry. You know where your home is. You know inside. You do know that, don’t you Malcolm. That doesn’t go away. You always know that.”
I’m nodding to him and falling asleep at the same time. I think I answered, yes, before clumsily putting the phone back on the receiver. I hope I did. I hope he heard me saying, yes.
The ringing sounds like it’s supposed to be there. It feels like it’s part of my sleep, part of my dreams. I jump as I realize that the phone on the bedside table is ringing. It feels as though I just laid my head down. I look over at Heather, still sleeping soundly beside me, as I pick up the receiver and say hello to Terry.
He doesn’t say hello back. He’s all business now. “Malcolm, I’ve got Brennan’s number here too. He’s my lawyer, you’ll remember him. He came to my party a couple of years ago. I want you to call and talk to him. Oh, and Jo’s here too, right beside me.” I rub the sleep from my eyes, trying to catch up to all the information that he’s giving me. I should have realized that when I said ‘police’ to Terry earlier, that it would have scared him, and of course he has Jo beside him now. He needs her level-headed good sense. We both need it.
I tell them almost everything. He has one of his gadgets attached to the phone, so that Jo can hear me, and I can hear her. At times, he exclaims, or asks me what the hell I was thinking, but Jo just keeps steady, sound. I can almost hear her breathing. I feel like I can see her, nodding in the background, telling Terry to be patient, to wait, while they listen to me speak. I leave out the part about the lies Heather told me. That isn’t important anymore. That’s our business.
“You need to get your ass back here right now, Malcolm, both of you. We’ll sort this out from here. You need a lawyer, a prosecutor.” He’s angry, but he’s worried too. I can hear it in his voice.
I let him talk for a moment. He keeps going, making plans in his head as he speaks, telling me what the best course of action is, the best wa
y to ‘make the bastard pay’. He talks about ‘legalities’ and ‘prosecutions’ and ‘consequences’, but never once does he mention Emily. And, never once, does he talk about the type of retribution I’ve been dreaming about. He doesn’t realize this isn’t a business deal, and it has nothing to do with legalities anymore. It’s personal.
Something happens when you reach a certain level of anger. It consumes you. My fear left me, somewhere along the highway, between Woodbine and the hospital, and now the feeling that’s in the pit of my stomach is anger, rage. I don’t think about the police, or being locked up, or even charged. I think about Postman and Emily and Hardly, always Hardly.
“Give me Brennan’s phone number, Terry. That’s a good idea. I think I do remember him, too.” Heather is awake now and looking at me sleepily, as I write it down.
He gives me the numbers, trying to interject with advice, with cautions, until finally he offers his own services. “Malcolm, I’ve decided. I’m coming out there. If you’re not going to come home, I’ll come to you. This doesn’t sound like you, this just isn’t you. I’ll fly out. I’m coming out, today.”
Jo still hasn’t spoken. I don’t know what she’s thinking. I can’t tell what her reaction is. “Terry, I need you there. I need you on that side, helping me. And, I need you to not worry. You have to trust me.” I speak to him firmly; probably more forcefully than I ever have before.
He doesn’t listen. His interruptions and objections keep coming. He doesn’t have control, and I know it’s killing him. He sounds like he thinks he really can fix it all, if he just comes to Woodbine. I don’t let him finish this time. I raise my voice. Heather sits up, listening. “Terry, you don’t understand, nothing’s really changed since we got here. It’s still about a little girl, except now it’s even more important. We have to go. We have to get Emily.” I know I have no choice. There’s no decision to be made. I’m just running, running on instinct.
Heather keeps staring at me, watching me. I hold the phone, and listen to the silence on the other end, imagining Terry looking over at Jo, probably raising his hands in the air in frustration. Then, she speaks, “Malcolm, it’s Jo. I don’t know how much you’ve thought about this. You sound very emotional right now, and from what you’ve described of this man, this policeman...” She says the word with disgust. I can tell she’s angry too. I feel as though I can almost hear her thoughts formulating, on the other end of the line. “We just want you to be safe. We just want to make sure you’re going to be okay, both of you.”
I love the sound of her voice. I love the steady tone of it. I imagine her eyes, pleading as she speaks to me, trying to reason with me in her own way. “Jo, I’m going for her. We’re going to get her.”
There’s a moment’s pause, before she speaks again, and I realize by the tone of her voice that she knows. She knows we have no choice. We have to get the little girl out. “You need to call Brennan, Malcolm. Tell him what’s going on there. When will you call us back? When will we hear from you?” She’d decided. In her own way, she’s reasoned it out, and decided that it’s best for us to keep going, to go and get Emily.
I’ll call him now, when I hang up, and I’ll contact you two tonight. I really will. Don’t worry. I need you both to know where we are, and what’s going on.” I mean it. I don’t want Terry here, but I need his support, and maybe even at some point, his refuge.
“If we don’t hear from you, you stupid shit...You call me. Call me as soon as something happens.” Terry’s excited, still not convinced, but I know that Jo has somehow calmed him down, and for now he’s given in, accepting that I have it under control.
I hang up the phone and look over at Heather. She still looks scared, but there seems to be a little more light in her eyes. I take it as hope, and lean over and kiss her forehead.
Heather showers while I call the lawyer. When I tell his secretary that Terry Allister, has referred me, she says that Mr Brennan has been expecting my call, and I’m connected immediately. I ask him questions about birth records, and paternity rights, and I ask him to look up an old record of a child who was born ten years previously. He tells me that it isn’t really his area, but he’ll try and get me the answers. He gives me his mobile phone number, and tells me to call him back in a few hours. He says that he wants to help, and that he’ll help anyone who’s a friend of Terry’s.
As an afterthought, before hanging up, I ask him about the penalties for kidnapping, and child abduction. After a lengthy pause he asks me if I want to repeat the question. I decline. It doesn’t matter.
I don’t know exactly what I’m going to do, but I know that we have to move forward. I order food from the hotel kitchen, and we eat ravenously. Heather touches the marks on my face gently, while I try to navigate my soup spoon past my puffed-up lips. I try not to think about her bruises. It brings the anger too close. I focus on moving forward, not looking back.
I shower my sore, stiff body and try to feel fresher, try to feel awake while Heather dresses and packs some of the leftover food in our bag. The afternoon has turned to night, and the snow lazily starts to drift down again. I can almost feel the coldness as I look outside at the dark purple sky, and see the people walking in the streets, pulling their jackets tighter around themselves. “Doesn’t it ever stop snowing here?” I mean it. It’s unlike my mild Vancouver climate.
“For three months, then it starts again.” She says it quickly, as though it’s a practiced answer, one that the locals probably tell strangers.
We look at each other and laugh. It’s the first time in days that I’ve felt like laughing.
She sits away from me, on the small chair in the room, while I dress, and get ready for our journey back down the highway. She starts to speak in a slow steady voice.
“I didn’t know where to go at first. I thought about going back to the motel. Then I thought about coming back for you, but I really wasn’t thinking straight at all, so I just drove and drove. I know the roads. I know them from growing up here, but none of them looked familiar to me. Nothing made any sense.”
“Emily didn’t ask any questions. She just sat there, and after a while she reached out her hand, and held mine.” Heather stops, and shakes her head. “It was almost as though she was trying to comfort me.”
“We heard sirens, everywhere we went, everywhere. They wouldn’t stop. I knew it was us. I knew they were looking for us. We drove out to the hills, and then past them. I just didn’t know where to go. After a while, I just gave up. I pulled over to a construction site. They’re building homes, out past the hills. There’s big piles of dirt, and half finished buildings. We sat there, we talked. I thought we’d be hidden. I thought that no one would see us.”
I hold onto my jacket, and sit on the edge of the bed, listening to her, remembering that I would have been shivering in the old barn at about the same time.
“She was comfortable with me, Malcolm. She didn’t ask where we were going. She just seemed happy to be with me.”
She stares forward, looking down, but not focusing. Her face is hard, the same hardness that I saw in the motel room, the night she came back from her father’s house, the night he slapped her.
I don’t want to ask. I don’t want to ask if Emily is going through the same things Heather went through as a little girl. Heather looks at me for a long time, before continuing. “She didn’t have to tell me, Malcolm. I knew, I just knew. She cried and cried. I wouldn’t make her tell me. I couldn’t. I held onto her, and told her that everything was going to be okay. I told her that I’d look after her.”
She doesn’t have to tell me anymore. I know the rest. I heard most of it from the radio in the police station. They found her. She tells me that they surrounded her with police cars, and took Emily from her arms by force. Somebody must have spotted them parked there, and called the police. The officers were rough with her. They called her a lunatic, threatened her. They talked about what prison does to someone who steals children, other people’s childr
en.
One car took Emily away, and Heather was kept in another with two officers. They were heading for the police station when a message came through on the radio, to re-direct them to Thornside. The instructions were to take her to Thornside hospital, instead of the station.
“I didn’t understand. I was frantic, just wanted to get Emily back. I kicked at the doors and punched the windows so much that they restrained me, put me in handcuffs.”
“The cops left me at the hospital. They took me to that room you found me in, and handcuffed me to the bed. After a while a nurse or orderly came, and injected me with something. I tried to struggle, tried to resist, but it didn’t work. I had no strength left to fight with. I know that I slept because when I woke up he was there, standing over me, waiting for me to wake up. I was terrified. I felt like it was before. I felt like a child living in his house again.”
I can feel the anger start to rise in me again, as she continues to speak.
“He didn’t talk, he just hit me. He just kept hitting me. His eyes were crazy, just like I remembered, and he was too angry to talk. I could tell.”
My Temporary Life Page 24
