Is love enough? Who the hell am I to judge?
I picked up the phone and called my sister at the boarding school.
“Monie,” she said. “I can’t talk long. My friends and I are going to the mall.”
I smiled, picturing Lucy and her friends, all giggling young girls.
“Lucy…” The sound of my voice made her catch her breath.
“What’s wrong.”
“It’s Daddy. You have to come home. Have you got enough money for the train?”
“What’s wrong with Daddy?”
“It’s bad news. Is anyone with you?”
“Kitty’s here.”
“Sit down, honey. Give Kitty the phone.”
She obeyed.
“Hi, Mona. What’s going on?”
“It’s our Dad, Kitty. He’s dead. Can you stay with Lucy until she gets on the train?”
“Oh, my God, Mona! Of course I will.”
“Good. If she needs money please give it to her and I’ll pay you back. Could you put her on the phone now?”
“What is it, Monie? I’m scared.” My sister had reverted to her little girl voice.
“Daddy’s dead, Lucy. There’s been an accident.”
“I don’t believe you! Don’t say that!”
“It’s true. Kitty will help you. I’m going to hang up now. You need to get to the station and take the next train home. I’ll pick you up at Union. Call me back with the time of arrival.”
“No!” she wailed as I hung up. That’s the problem with distances. Lucy couldn’t feel me cradling the phone and rocking it as my own tears fell at last.
She’d be with me soon.
I put the phone down and stood naked and blinded by tears in the middle of my bedroom. Clothes. That was the next step. I had to get dressed. But what to wear? Nothing seemed to fit me anymore. I pulled a navy sleeveless top from the closet and smoothed it over a skirt. It would have to do.
I’d already decided to use the same funeral home we’d used for Mom and Gail. It would make things simpler. There was no point going there until I knew when Dad’s body would be released. Instead I called and spoke to a young man with a syrupy voice who told me they would be on stand-by for Dad.
I thanked him and was about to pick up the phone again when it rang.
“May I speak with Desdemona Fortune?”
“This is Mona Fortune,” I answered.
“Miss Fortune, this is Detective Rice of Fifty-Two Division. We met this morning when my partner and I came to your place.”
“Of course. What can I do for you, Detective?”
“We need you to come in to the station. We want to speak with everyone who knew your father, beginning with his family. Did he have any other relatives?”
“Just my younger sister, Lucinda. She’s been away to school in Montreal. She should be here by this evening.”
“No one else? No sisters or brothers, no close lady friends?”
“No one I can think of.” I rubbed my eyes, trying to erase the memory of Helen that had risen behind them. Helen Descartes had once been Daddy’s research assistant. I wondered whatever became of her.
“Wait – there’s my Uncle Willard. He was my mother’s brother.”
“Has he been notified?”
“Not yet. He knew Dad was missing, but I haven’t spoken to him today. I’ll call him now.”
“You’d better give me his full name and phone number. I’ll want to speak with him as well.”
I gave him Willard’s number and agreed to pick my Uncle up on my way to the police station. Then I called Willard and broke the news to him. I could tell he was shocked, not that my father was dead – we’d both come to the conclusion something bad must have happened to Dad – but by the cause of death. Men like my father did not allow anything as small as a bullet to take them down. It should have been a bolt of lightening, the very hand of God reaching from the sky to knock him off his feet. It should have been a hurricane, a flood, a fire. A bullet? Not possible.
I doubted whether Uncle Willard was very saddened by my father’s death, but he was a kind man. He offered his condolences and asked whether he could help in any way. I allowed the softness of his voice to fall on me like summer rain. Finally he asked me what time I’d pick him up.
~~
“I’ve never ‘gone in for questioning’ before.” Uncle Willard tried to smile as he climbed into my car.
“Me neither,” I said.
“I’m so sorry for your loss.”
“Thank you, Willie.”
“What are you going to do about Lucy?”
“I don’t know. She likes her friends in Montreal, but she hates being so far away. I guess it’s up to her. But first we have to get through all this…” I waved my hand, indicating everything.
“One step at a time, honey,” my Uncle said.
“Yup.”
My Uncle had a place just west of the university on Lippincott Street. It wasn’t far to the Division. We got there at 2:00, a little earlier than expected. I checked my hair in the vanity mirror and struggled to tuck my oversized bag under the seat. Uncle Willard waited patiently while I made sure the car was locked.
Detective Rice led us into a waiting room. He wanted to speak with us individually. Uncle Willard sat down on a large green couch. I followed the Detective down a corridor to his cubicle.
“I’m sorry about your father,” he began.
“Thank you.”
“I’ve read several of his books. He was a brilliant writer.”
“Yes.”
“When was the last time you saw him?”
“Sunday evening. We had dinner at the house.”
“What time did you leave?”
“Around eight.”
“Who else was there?”
“Just my sister, Lucy. She was home for the weekend.”
“Was she still there when you left?”
“Yes. She planned to take the train back to Montreal on Monday morning.”
“Wouldn’t she miss work?”
“Lucy is sixteen. She goes to a boarding school in Montreal. Classes were cancelled for Monday.”
“How was your father? Did he seem normal, in good spirits?”
“Yes.”
“What did he talk about?”
My eyes glazed over for a moment and I thought I would faint. But the instant passed before Detective Rice could notice anything wrong. It’s just shock, I thought. I’m still in shock.
“He talked about his latest book, Millennium Girl. It’s a turn-of-the-century epic. He believed the greatest works in modern history are those that deal with the dawn of the twentieth century. He wanted to commemorate the start of the twenty-first century in the same way, to capture man’s latest re-birth.”
“So he was his usual self?”
“Yes. He was absorbed in his work. He’d finished the first draft. He gave me the copy for editing.”
“How was it?”
“It was good.” I didn’t use the word brilliant, although it was. I didn’t say it was a masterpiece, a grand literary accomplishment. “You should see it on the shelves by next spring. I’m going to have it published verbatim.”
“Did you normally edit his work?”
“Only the last few manuscripts. His life-long editor, Charlie Nistromm, died four years ago.”
“Did you edit Under the Moon?”
“Yes.”
“It was my favourite.”
“Thank you.” I was used to the compliments. They no longer swelled my head the way they had in the early days. After all I was only the editor. For the most part my father produced clean copy. My slight revisions improved his work only marginally.
“Did you talk about anything else?”
“Yes. We talked about Lucy’s education. He thought maybe she should move back home and go to public school. He thought she might benefit from finishing her high school in a more ordinary environment.”
“How did L
ucy feel about that?”
“Mixed, I think. You can ask her tomorrow if you like. I’ll bring her in first thing in the morning.”
“How do you mean, mixed?”
“Lucy has been in Montreal for just over a year. It took her awhile to get used to being so far from home, but now she’s made a few friends. I don’t think she wanted to leave them. On the other hand she’s a homebody. She missed her room and Daddy and me. She missed her old friends.”
“Why move her back?”
“He was concerned about her grades. They weren’t bad, but not what he hoped for when he sent her there.”
“Your father probably missed having her home. Even though he was still writing, he must have had a lot of free time.”
“Not my father,” I smiled. “He still lectured almost every day and belonged to a number of writers’ groups. Daddy would be hard-pressed to notice who was in the house with him at any given time.”
“The price of success,” Detective Rice muttered. He seemed embarrassed by my honesty.
“It was just his way. We accepted it. He was, after all, J. Caesar Fortune. That was his job.”
“Did he have any enemies you know of?”
“My father didn’t have time for enemies. He had a couple of friends, peers I guess you could say. Dr. Walter Jacobs, the astronomer, came to our house regularly. Also, Daddy spent time with Dean McKenzie of the Math Department. Daddy always said he was ahead of his field. The Dean and Dr. Jacobs spent a lot of time with Daddy.”
“Any lady friends?”
I thought again of Helen and shook my head.
“Even casual?”
“Oh, probably. Daddy always had a number of women floating in and out of his life. No one in particular, at least not that I was aware of.”
“Gentlemen friends?”
“No, Detective Rice. Daddy wasn’t gay. As I said, there were women. Just no one in particular.”
“Please understand I had to ask. We need to know who his friends were. You reported your father missing on Wednesday. Did you talk to him anytime after the last time you saw him?”
“I called at around midnight on Sunday. I wanted to tell him I’d started reading. He was always anxious for feedback on his work.”
“And you spoke to him?”
“Yes. Lucy answered, but she was half-asleep. I knew Daddy would still be awake. He never turned in before twelve-thirty.” That was something else Daddy and I shared – a fondness for the late hours.
“Was he in good spirits then?”
“Yes. We arranged to meet when I’d finished reading. He was happy I liked the book.”
That was an understatement. My father knew he had written a masterpiece. And I, Desdemona Fortune, was the first person alive to see it. I was the one he had chosen to share his Opus with. He fully expected me to ‘like’ the book, and of course I did. My father’s work is indisputable. You can say it’s not your thing. But you cannot say with a straight face it isn’t good. Like Shakespeare or Henry Ford or Dr. Bethune or Mozart, my father’s work stands above the judgement of ordinary men. It cannot be measured in terms of ‘like’ or ‘dislike’.
“So you can’t think of anyone who might have wished your father harm?”
“No one,” I said.
~~
Abigail Fortune was born on January 12, the very day I turned eight. Lucinda was born on October ninth seven years later. Where Gail had been a squalling baby, thin and wiry like my mother with my father’s blonde hair and my mother’s dark eyes, Lucinda was placid by comparison. Her hair and eyes were both a nondescript brown and her smile was chubby and cherubic. She followed Gail around like a disciple.
My mother stayed sober for seven years, but after Lucy was born I began to notice changes. When you live with an addict you are always on the lookout. For seven years I kept my vigil. Finally I was given my unwelcome reward in the form of my mother sleeping on the couch at three in the afternoon with Lucy rolling on the living room floor beside her. There was no glass near her but I could smell the whiskey on her breath. I knew there would be hell to pay when my father got home.
Somehow I woke her up and got her into the shower. I threw her clothes in the washer and made a pot of coffee. I was a tall, strong girl. Some people suggested I should model, but my father wouldn’t hear of it.
“Desdemona,” he said, “your beauty is a given. You don’t have to prove it to the world. Only the blind can fail to see it. Your mind, my girl…. It is your mind that is the secret treasure, not your face or your body. Only the mind is capable of greatness. Only the mind can live forever.”
I didn’t want to be a model anyway. My time was taken up with advanced studies and creative writing, struggling to maintain my straight A average. And now I had a new focus to help me pass the days. I had to keep my mother’s drinking under wraps.
“Monie,” she said, throwing her arms around my neck, “you’re the only one who understands. You’re the only one I can rely on.” She was wrong, of course. I didn’t understand. I couldn’t understand why she drove my father away, why she drank and why he spent most of his nights elsewhere.
“I’m sad, Willie,” she wailed on the phone one afternoon to my uncle.
He must have told her he was coming over because she said, “No. Don’t come here. He’ll take the children this time. He’ll make sure I never see them. I couldn’t bear it.”
Gently I took the receiver from her.
“Uncle Willie,” I said, hoping to hear salvation in his voice. I too was afraid Daddy would take us away from Mommy. I wasn’t afraid for myself. I was sixteen and I could travel to see her if I wanted to. But Gail and Lucy were only little. If Daddy found out about the drinking that would be the final straw.
“Mona, what the hell is going on there? How long has she been drinking again?”
“Not long, Willie,” I said. “Just a couple of months. After Lucy…”
“Sounds like post natal depression. She needs help. She needs rehab. They can give her counselling. It worked before.”
“Please, Willie. She says it won’t happen again. Don’t tell Daddy.” My instincts were on alert. I knew my mother was already on thin ice with Daddy and had been for years. I didn’t know why, but a tension had existed between them for as long as I could remember. I knew the drinking would push him over the edge.
“Promise me, Mona,” Uncle Willie said, “you’ll call if it happens again. Please. Angie needs help.”
“I promise,” I said. I had no intention of keeping my word. My mother sobbed on the couch beside me and I wrapped my strong arms around her. She was so tiny and frail. “I love you,” I whispered.
Things were OK for awhile after that. I came straight home from school every day to find my mother clean and sober, scrubbing the kitchen counter or watching soaps on television. She seldom read anymore. My father scoffed at the novels she loved. She didn’t have the attention span to handle more serious books. Still, I was happy just to find her sober. You learn not to ask for the moon.
THREE
“What do you do, Miss Fortune?” Detective Rice asked.
“I teach.” I was aware of how little meaning was conveyed in the word. A thousand times people had asked me what I was doing with my life. Most of them were disappointed by my answer. They expected the daughter of the great J. Caesar Fortune to be a writer, a doctor or a philosopher. They expected to learn I was a missionary or even a politician. But a high school teacher? It didn’t seem right.
There was no way using that single word I could make them understand what it meant to me. It didn’t conjure up the right images. When I said ‘teach’ people saw me standing in front of a class of thirty or more distracted students, their faces reflecting my own hopelessness. They didn’t see what I saw in those faces. They didn’t see the need hidden behind the thin masks of nonchalance and boredom.
There was no way to describe what I saw there. Sometimes I understood how Jesus felt as he walked among the le
pers. There were too many of them. But that didn’t matter. Like Jesus, I had a job to do. I had to try my best to fill that need. It struck me as funny Daddy had the right initials, J.C., but I seemed to be the one with the Christ complex.
Teaching was my calling.
“What do you teach?”
“Grade ten English and History.”
“Ah ha!” he said, drawing what he thought was a connection to my father’s greatness. “English. I guess a love of words must run in the family.”
“I guess so,” I agreed. It was just easier. Yes, I loved words. I loved my journal and my little poems and I wrote the occasional story. I’d always thought maybe one day I would write a novel. But that had nothing to do with my teaching. I could have taught music or geography or gym and been equally happy with my choice. It was about the kids, not the words. It was about their need for guidance. It was about their need of me.
“What was his latest novel about?”
“Millennium Girl. It was an epic. It’s hard to summarise.”
“Can you try?”
“I doubt whether it’s relevant. My father never showed his unedited work to anyone. He was a fanatic about it. In the early days he’d been embarrassed by errors he felt were beneath him.”
“Did you finish reading it?”
“Yes. It’s about a family and their community in the years leading up to the millennium. The main characters are a man and his daughter. He is an international media mogul. At the dawn of the last century the world leaders were the owners of factories, garment works, steel mills, etc. But my father believed the kings of the world today are the controllers of the media. Many people agree with him.
“The man and his wife have one daughter whom they love. But from the time she can walk she rebels against her role. Her father believes she is meant for great things. But she wants to live a more simple life. Her father doesn’t understand.
“The story leads the two of them through terrible tragedies. The wife dies by her own hand and the daughter loses the love of her life. She travels to Africa where her father later joins her and they spend six months together in a medical mission, treating AIDS patients. During that time they bond. He begins to understand her need to be one with the people. And she begins to understand his desire to be an instrument of change for the greater good.
The Noon God Page 2
