With Strings Attached (Gabriola Island)

by Vanessa Grant

  She must have managed to smile, because Patrick didn’t notice anything wrong. Then Sarah came back and worried with Molly about whether she should get a diaper service instead of using disposable diapers, which were a problem to the environment.

  “I could wash diapers myself for now, but come the tourist season there won’t be time. And there’s no diaper service on Gabriola. I can’t truck dirty diapers to Nanaimo every day, can I?”

  “Patrick could take them in the Corvette,” suggested Edward evilly and they all descended into laughter when Patrick offered to pay someone to wash diapers for Sarah. Molly laughed with them, but inside she a sick dread of the future welling up. Sarah might smile at her now, but that would change when Saul’s disaster struck.

  She knew she should keep some emotional distance from Patrick and his family, that it would only be worse later if she let them become part of her. She honestly tried, but Patrick was a casual steamroller who would not take no for an answer, and he made sure that Molly spent most of her evenings with him. Some evenings at the Hollisons”, others at the farm. Once in Nanaimo seeing a new Star Wars movie with Jeremy and Sally.

  He never asked Molly to his house, didn’t once come inside her cabin. She had asked for time, and in his way he was giving it to her. He made sure that there were always other people around, but Patrick was always one of them. Waiting.

  Ten days, he had said. Ten days for her to finish the illustrations.

  Molly was making steady progress on the small paintings that would illustrate Alex’s new book. She was also building up one hell of a telephone bill, trying every number in Saul’s book. She was not aware of making a conscious decision to stay and ride out the problems to come. But the decision had been made. She wasn’t going to run away. If she made it through the ten days without getting locked out of the cabin by the bailiffs, she would somehow find the courage to tell Patrick about the cabin and her father and the taxman.

  He wouldn’t turn away from her. Not because of Saul, anyway, although she was beginning to believe that he would be furiously angry when he realized just how big a problem Molly had been hiding from him. He had grown up in a family that believed in turning to the people you loved for help and support. He would think that if she loved him, she should trust him with this.

  Trust him with a problem that could spell doom to any chances he had of winning a seat in the legislature? She turned it around in her mind. What if Patrick led her into a situation that made it impossible for her to sell her paintings? She couldn’t think of how that could happen, but was positive he would never do that to her. How could she ruin his future? Yet how could she leave him, knowing that he loved her?

  Her time with Patrick had a quality that made disaster seem part of another universe. Molly found that she could smile and laugh, that sometimes Saul and Canada Revenue seemed like a dream. The dinosaurs took color and life under her brush. She worked every morning from dawn until noon; then she put her brushes down and waited for the telephone to ring, because Patrick called every day just after noon.

  Inconsequential talk, yet each morning she worked with the warm anticipation of those few moments to come. Patrick told her about computer glitches and minor staff problems, and asked how the dinosaurs were behaving. Molly told him about the deer who wandered into her clearing, about Trouble who had taken to sleeping curled up in the corner while she painted.

  Unimportant conversation, yet she felt cherished without his ever saying a word about loving. After he hung up, she would make herself a sandwich and take it outside; walking through the trees and letting her mind fill with the next layer of ideas for the illustrations. The pictures were painting themselves, flowing as if they had already been created in full detail and color, in her mind.

  She finished the illustrations nine days into Patrick’s hands-off campaign, in mid-morning.

  Done! Molly poured herself a cup of coffee in the kitchen, then came back and stared at the last illustration. She knew this book would be the best she had ever done. Bronty and Terry and Rex were somehow more alive than ever before.

  Done, finished, and if she was not running, tonight it would be time to tell Patrick about the strings attached to Saul’s cabin.

  She pushed that necessity away and worked slowly on packing the pictures for shipping. She used acrylic paints, quick drying, so it was safe to pack them together with layers of tissue between. She arranged them in order and slipped them into a sturdy cardboard mailer with Alex’s manuscript. She could feel her heart thudding as she sealed the mailer.

  Tuesday. Almost noon. She wrote her agent’s address on the mailer, then got out her fragile stickers and do not bend notices and plastered them on front and back.

  It was right that the telephone should ring just as she was lying the package down on the counter. Patrick.

  “Hi!” She felt breathless, her eyes on the package still, her mind on how she could string the words together.

  “You’ve been chasing me around like a damned bloodhound! What the devil do you think you’re doing?”

  “Saul!” She sank down on the sofa and whispered, “Listen, you’ve got to come back here, right now. I—you’ve got to talk to the tax people and—”

  “Molly, are you nuts? Do you know what you’re suggesting, girl?”

  She closed her lips and bit back the desperate plea. Promise me! Saul’s promises were worthless. He would say whatever he was forced to, then do what he wanted. “Where are you?”

  “Overseas. It’s the middle of the bloody night and I’ve been getting calls from half the people I know. Did you call everybody?”

  “Everyone I could think of, and they all said they hadn’t a clue where you were.” She sighed. “How long do you think you’ll get away with it when the government comes after you and every weirdo and artist on the continent knows your whereabouts?”

  “Don’t lecture me, Molly.” He sounded like a small boy complaining, “I stopped hanging around for criticism when I quit school.”

  “You’ve got to come back to Canada and straighten this out. There’s a final notice in the mail from CRA and if you don’t do something they’ll prosecute.”

  “I’m not paying.”

  “Saul—”

  “No, damn it! Listen, girl! I didn’t ask for roads or schools or idiots in Ottawa spending my money on new buildings and secretaries! Income tax! Do you know how it started, Molly?”

  “Yes,” she said wearily. “You’ve told me it all before.”

  “Do you know what they called it? The Income War Tax Act! That was in 1917, almost a century ago. And it was temporary, Molly, just to support the war effort. Temporary, except that it’s forever, and I bloody didn’t ask for it and I won’t pay it!”

  “Saul, it’s a criminal offence. Tax evasion. Don’t you dare hang up on me! You—Oh, damn!”

  He was gone and it was no use dreaming, thinking there was some tidy way to clean up his problems. Some way to keep Patrick in her life without ruining him. This wasn’t a landlord she could talk to, a grocery store owner who had stopped extending credit. This was the government and criminal charges because even when they foreclosed on the cabin it wouldn’t come to two hundred thousand dollars and Saul would be a fugitive.

  She put the receiver down slowly, wondering why her eyes felt so dry and everything so odd and frozen. She would have to go away, run because Saul had fled one more responsibility.

  Incredibly, the telephone rang again. She jerked the receiver up to her ear. If she could find the right words, somehow make him realize how important this was.

  “Thank God you called back! Saul, please listen to me. You’ve got to come back, straighten out this mess! It’s so important! Please! Oh, God, Saul! Don’t do this to me!”

  Silence.

  “Saul?”

  “It’s Patrick, Molly.”

  She closed her eyes.

  “Molly, are you all right?”

  “Yes ... no.”

  “I�
��m on my way.”

  “No, Patrick!”

  But it was her day for listening to the dead sound of dial tone. He was coming, and this time he would make her tell him all the details, the whole mess. Then he would take over, but what could he do? The government wanted money. Taxes due, and one could hardly blame them. Molly’s ill-gotten cabin wasn’t going to satisfy the debt, wouldn’t be enough by a long way. Saul’s new paintings might have covered it, but he’d stolen them away.

  Smuggling, Babette had said.

  Oh, God! What if Patrick decided to pay the debt himself? Molly had no idea whether he had that kind of money, but she had a sick conviction that he could probably raise it.

  Because he loved Molly Natham.

  She couldn’t let him get tangled in her mess, Saul’s mess. She squeezed her eyes tight and admitted that she could not stop him. He would come. Right away, he had said. Of course, he had to wait for the next ferry.

  When he came, she had better be gone. Molly dashed out to the van, threw open the door and realized she had no keys. Oh, God! She had left the van door unlocked, must have caught Patrick’s casual attitude to locks. As if she were a Gabriolan, and belonged here.

  She hurried back to the cabin, grabbed her purse and her keys. Must get out of here, before he came.

  Trouble stood in the middle of the kitchen, meowing. Molly’s fingers clenched on the keys. “I have to, Trouble. He’ll look after you. I have to go. You’ve got to understand.”

  The cat glared at her, tail stiffening.

  “Come with me, then,” Molly said tentatively.

  Trouble hissed and jumped back.

  What time had Patrick called? Before one. He would catch the one-thirty ferry, drive off on this side at ten to two. Or would he be able to make the twelve-thirty ferry? Molly glanced at her watch wildly, wondered where she was going to hide herself and her van to avoid driving past Patrick as he came home.

  “Listen, Trouble, I’m going. Do you want to come or not?”

  Patrick always took North Road. So if she drove to the ferry on South Road, he would not see her leaving. If she got underway soon enough, she could drive all the way to the ferry terminal and park on the side road while the Quinsam docked. Then, when she saw his Corvette drive off the ferry, she could drive on, leaving on the same ferry that brought him.

  That was the only way. Otherwise, when he got to her cabin and found the van gone, he would turn right around and head for the ferry. He would know she had run, would stop her.

  “Trouble, come here. Come on, kitty. Come to Molly.” The cat hissed and backed away. When the cat turned and ran out the door, Molly felt sick to her stomach. Maybe she had some kind of stomach trouble growing on her, because this kept happening. Pain and nausea and bleak greyness.

  “Trouble! Come on, honey! Come here, kitty.” Molly brushed at her cheeks. Damn, she wasn’t going to cry over abandoning a cat, was she? Not when the world was coming to pieces.

  “Trouble! Here kitty, kitty!”

  Maybe Trouble had the right idea. What kind of a home could Molly give a black and white cat? The long drive back east. She supposed she was going back to Ottawa. Trouble would hate the trip, would probably hate living in the midst of tall buildings and traffic.

  Molly went back to the cabin, stared at the padded mailer lying on the counter. She had forgotten all about that. Her bread and butter, and she had better start remembering. From now on, there would be no Patrick in her life, looking after the details. Caring.

  She walked slowly up the stairs, the package of illustrations held tightly in her left hand. She had to pack. Her acrylic paints. Her tape collection. She tumbled the paints into their box and got it fastened, brushing tears away angrily. Damn Saul! It was one thing being impulsive and temperamental, but he had actively messed up her life this time.

  “One of these days he’s got to learn to pay the piper,” she muttered. “Does he think the damned piper will just go away?”

  She had forgotten her brushes. And the pastels. Her sketch block. Damn! She opened the wooden paint box and stuffed in the pastels and the brushes, knocked over a small container of charcoals. Oh, hell! She started to bend down, picking them up, and then abandoned the impulse. No time, and if Saul could leave the place a mess, then so could Molly!

  She took the paint box and her sketch-block, added the mailer that she had almost forgotten once again. Outside, she tried again, calling, “Trouble? Trouble! Here, kitty!”

  What time was it?

  She dashed back to the house and it was twenty to two. The ferry would be docking in ten minutes, He must not have made the twelve-thirty, or he would be here by now. How could she have taken so long? Ten minutes, and he would be on the island, determined to solve her problems even if it destroyed him.

  Nobody solved Saul’s problems. If anybody knew that, Molly did. She blinked and managed to focus on the driveway. She had to leave the cat, but she would call Patrick from somewhere along the road. Please look after my cat.

  That was what Saul had done. Run, and left Molly with the pieces. Molly had no choice but to run too, but she would not call. Patrick and Jeremy would look after Trouble without her asking.

  Sarah was on the road, waving at Molly’s van as she turned out of the driveway. Sarah, who had been doubtful at first and was a friend now, standing there with a handful of mail and a smile on her lips, expecting Molly to stop and say hello.

  Molly didn’t stop, but she did try to return the smile. Somehow, though, she could not make her lips curve and she saw Sarah in the rear view mirror after she had passed, staring after the van in confusion.

  Molly turned left off McNaughton road, then realized her mistake. She had turned the wrong way, towards North Road. She had to go on South Road, to avoid Patrick.

  All right. Calm down.

  She would stop at the farm, pull into the driveway and turn around, get going the other way. Oh, God! She had to get off this island, somehow make it from here-and-now to the end of this nightmare day!

  She stopped with a jerk beside the farm. Better hurry. Patrick would come soon. What time was it? What had happened to her watch? It had gone missing at least a week ago and Molly had not bothered to look for it. Time had simply not seemed important.

  What was she, some crazy dreamer to think she could wander around and ignore things like time and realities? She started into the driveway of the farm, then slammed on the brakes when she saw David’s truck coming out.

  “Coming to visit?” he shouted from his open window.

  “Just turning around. Sorry!” Was that her voice?

  “Go ahead! I’m in no hurry.” His stern face was smiling, because Molly was almost one of the family. Patrick had told Molly he loved her, wanted her as his wife. Had he told David, too? And Sarah? Perhaps he had not needed to. The love was in his eyes and his voice.

  No hurry, David had said, but there was. Molly stalled the van, got it started again and finally got back out on the road, turned towards South Road this time. She saw a cloud of dust behind and wondered sickly if that was Patrick.

  Too soon. Let it be too soon. Molly was beyond being sensible. It was all a jumble. Saul and the cabin and Patrick who would look after her no matter what the cost. He loved her, and she must not let him, must get away before he came and she couldn’t stop him and could not bear to hurt him.

  “No,” she whispered, but there was no one to hear, and that was on a par with her effectiveness in saying no these days.

  She jolted onto South Road and found herself behind one of those trucks that worked trimming tree branches away from the power lines. The thing didn’t seem to be in operation, but it was crawling along South Road. What time was it? If she got to the terminal at the wrong time, she would meet the Corvette coming the other way. What would Patrick do if that happened? Stop? Turn around and come after her?

  Should she drive off on one of the side roads, park somewhere in the middle of the trees on an old logging road? Hide
?

  She was later than she had thought. The ferry was in, a stream of cars coming at her from the opposite direction. She didn’t see the white sports car, but when she drove into the lane for ferry traffic the ramp was just going up. She watched the Quinsam leaving, without her.

  Patrick was here on the island, and she had an hour to wait for the next ferry. No, the next one didn’t leave until quarter past three, a fifteen-minute hiccough in the schedule that Molly hadn’t managed to figure out yet. She would have to ask Patrick about it sometime.

  Patrick could be at the cabin by now. He might go to Sarah’s next, or to the farm. Sarah and David would tell him Molly had gone off in a mad state, driving wildly and not knowing how to smile. He would be worried, might believe she had run off on some emergency.

  He would follow her.

  She sat, frozen, her hands clenched on the wheel. It seemed like forever, but she jumped when the door jerked open beside her. Patrick grabbed her arm with hard fingers, but it was the anger in his voice that made her wince.

  “What the hell do you imagine you’re going to solve by running away?” He leaned part way into the car, gripped the steering wheel above her hand and demanded. “Look at me, damn it! Molly!”

  “I’m just—”

  “Your things are strewn all over the cabin. Paints gone, and the dinosaurs. Why the hell would you have to run like that? Damn it! Why?”

  She gulped. She had once thought an angry Patrick would be easier to handle than the quietly determined man. She had been wrong.

  “Molly?” Harsh. Demanding. “You were desperate on the phone. You thought I was Saul. What’s he done to you, Molly?”

  “I wanted to get away from you.”

  “Why?”

  She swallowed the lump that rose at the lie. “I don’t love you.” Oh, God! She was not going to cry, was she? Not now! Later, but not now. She blinked hard and felt the hot tears subside only slightly.