Something Fishy

by Hilary MacLeod

  “Puffer –”

  “Like a blowfish.”

  “How do you know this stuff?”

  She shrugged. “You know. Same old, same old website work.” In this case, her knowledge came from several years of doing work for the Department of Fisheries and Oceans.

  Ian turned back to the computer.

  “It can kill you.”

  “What?”

  “Pufferfish.”

  “Then why do people eat it?”

  “It’s like a drug. Japanese chefs are trained to remove the organs and skin that contain the poison, but to leave a smidge in, so the person who eats it will get a numb and tingling feeling in their mouths.”

  “God, are people that jaded?”

  “I guess some rich people are.”

  “I hope this Anton knows what he’s doing.”

  “Yeah.” Hy returned to her reading. “We don’t need any more deaths here.”

  Ian lost himself in his computer, but was yanked rudely away from the screen.

  “Beans!” Hy was on her iPhone, taking advantage of Ian’s Wifi. What she saw on the tiny screen shocked her. She jumped up and went chasing out of the house, leaped on her bicycle, pedaled furiously down the road, and burst into the hall, gasping, a sharp pain shooting up her side. Who would ever have thought to find beans on a list of dangerous foods?

  It was the Great Chili Cook-Off. The ladies had just begun sampling. They looked at one another. Hy. Late as usual. On Hy time.

  “Don’t eat.” She grabbed the plate out of Rose Rose’s hands. The minister’s wife looked shocked. Hy grabbed another from Gladys Fraser, who grabbed it back, and resumed eating.

  “No…no…no…no…no…no…no…” Hy screamed, and the women all stared at her, Gladys and Moira looking like chipmunks with their cheeks full. A few of the women had their spoons poised midway to their mouths. Olive MacLean’s spoonful of beans plopped onto her ample chest and drizzled down her front. Fortunately, she was wearing an apron.

  “They’re poison. Those beans are poison.”

  Moira swallowed her mouthful.

  “Hyacinth, we don’t do dangerous dining here.” She smirked. The rest of the women looked terrified. Madeline dropped her spoon.

  “Yes, but you can’t cook beans in a slow cooker.” Hy had been researching slow cooking to include recipes in the Super Saver newsletter.

  “You can get red kidney bean poisoning.”

  Gladys spat out her mouthful.

  “It’s a toxin present in the raw bean, made worse by cooking at a low heat.”

  April set down her spoon. “Can it kill you?”

  “No – it just feels like you’re dying for a few hours.”

  They all remembered the disastrous Feast of the Epiphany at the hall the previous Christmas, when the whole village gave up their meals. Most didn’t make it to the bathroom. Now they feared a repeat. Rose grabbed the bathroom first – to wash out her mouth.

  “We’ve only had a few spoonfuls,” said Moira, chastened.

  Her chili cook-off. Poisoned. By Hy. She gave Hy a challenging look and had several more mouthfuls. Nothing happened. Nothing happened to anyone. Not in an hour. Or two. Or three. Moira was cursing Hy for making them dump all those beans. She congratulated herself on having saved some at home. For Frank. Some nice home cooking, from scratch.

  “Bin ’em or make sure you boil ’em,” Hy had said. That wasn’t the point, thought Moira. The point was slow cooking, not boiling. She shook her head at a few of the ladies, indicating that she, for one, didn’t believe Hyacinth at all. Not for a minute. Not for the ten minutes she’d insisted they had to boil.

  The ladies waited for The Shores’ version of Montezuma’s revenge.

  It never came – because they’d only sampled Gladys Fraser’s beans. She only pretended to cook from scratch. She’d used canned beans, not dry ones.

  It had soured the women on slow cooking. The crocks got shoved onto bottom and back shelves or trucked down to the basement.

  Moira knew what it was. She’d Googled it. It was as Hyacinth had said. Beans could not be, should not be, cooked in a slow cooker. Not without boiling first.

  Frank knew, too – because she’d fed him hers. He didn’t come out of the bathroom all night. He’d had to stay and sleep on the couch. Moira rather liked having a man in the house, all night long. She thought about feeding him the same thing the next day, until he said, with a small embarrassed grin.

  “Must have been the beans. I’ve never been one for beans.”

  At her hurt expression, he held up a hand.

  “No, no. I loved them. Deeee-licious.” He patted his belly. “Just me. My digestion.”

  Moira didn’t like waste. Beggars can’t be choosers, she thought. The beans hadn’t killed Frank. She’d give them to Elmer Whitehead down the road. He couldn’t be too fussy. He ate out of cans. Certainly nothing home-cooked like her good food.

  “A cup of tea and a blueberry muffin will fix that.” Moira gave Frank a coy smile. Moira was not the coy type. Frank thought she looked like she was about to throw up.

  When he realized it was a smile, he winked. Winked. No man had ever winked at her. She felt warmth flow through her. A feeling she’d never had – not even with Ian. Was this love? If she could get Madeline out of the house for a while, she might find out.

  Moira turned to go to the kitchen. Frank dared a light guiding hand on her ass. Another first. Then he put his arm around her and kissed her.

  “Not bad.” It was about as far as she could go for a compliment. Mean-spirited with a sour face, Viola eased herself down into a too-modern chair in the lounge of Anton’s Paradise. She looked around her, sharp eyes darting above pointy nose and chin. She was eighty if she was a day, but she fancied she looked sixty, and the men around her, like Anton, fed her fancy. The truth was that her face looked like a road map in a highly populated area. Every one of those wrinkles represented the many packs of cigarettes she’d sucked back in her long life.

  There was a bouquet of lilies and daisies and roses Anton had bought for her, fancier than the ones he’d sent all over the village.

  Viola plucked at a lily to see that the troublesome stamen had been removed. It had, but not completely. She observed her thumb and forefinger, stained orange, with distaste. The nicotine orange stains didn’t seem to bother her.

  “You’ve done well with my start-up money. Not bad. Not bad,” she repeated, gazing about with an expression that, for her, signaled, not satisfaction, exactly. More like a lack of dissatisfaction. That’s as far as Viola could stretch to a compliment.

  Anton knew that, and so he smiled. This was going just as he’d hoped. He’d spent all the seed money she’d given him – and more. In fact, the seed money had barely floated this operation. He was in for half a million. But he was confident that he’d get all her money. She had no one else to leave it to. He made sure of that before he got involved with any old lady. When she died, he’d be free of having to serve the public, even the elite public he served.

  He hoped he was about to impress her even more with all the publicity he’d received for his falling-fish stunt. He’d put together a virtual scrapbook, and had hooked it up to show her on the large fifty-five-inch flat screen TV in the lounge. It had been placed directly in front of the view of the shore, so that light wouldn’t cause a glare on the screen.

  Fish from sky cause big splash for new restaurant in The Shores…

  Anton wasn’t looking at the screen. He knew it by heart from numerous self-congratulatory viewings. He was looking at Viola – and she had her eyes wide open, one hand clasped to her mouth, the other to where she imagined her heart was, Anton thought bitterly. Viola took several deep breaths, and finally spoke.

  “Turn it off. I can’t watch. I can’t believe what you have done.”

/>   “What have I done?”

  “Those fish. Those poor fish.”

  Anton had turned the TV down, but not off. Viola turned her head away when she saw the herrings all over the road and village lawns.

  “Murder. You have murdered them.”

  “No, I have cooked them.”

  “But not for eating. And in such numbers. I can’t bear it.” She turned her head away from the screen. Anton turned it off.

  “You eat fish.”

  “I do. One at a time, but this is wholesale slaughter.”

  “Certainly wholesale. I’d never have been able to afford that many fish retail.” He gave a weak smile.

  “Not with all my money.” Viola’s eyes snapped. She closed them and leaned back, took a series of calming breaths, and sat upright again.

  “That decides it, then. I shall leave everything to my fish.” She tapped her cigarette and stuck it in the holder, lit it up, sucked it in, her hollow cheeks collapsing. She blew out a circle of smoke to emphasize her intent.

  The shallow smile dissolved from Anton’s face. Quizzical eyes replaced it, and a furrow in his forehead.

  “Your fish?”

  “Yes, I have begun plans for the construction of the largest aquarium in the world.” She fished a shabby tissue out of her sleeve, and blew her nose.

  “It’s actually a number of aquaria in one massive building, devoted to a collection of all the fish on earth, from the 500-pound tuna to the tiny minnow. All the creatures of the rivers, lakes, and oceans. All God’s creatures. Now you’re so well set up, I expect I’ll leave everything to my fish.”

  “But…but…” Anton felt his gut churning. He wanted to throw up. Felt a spike of panic.

  “Now show me to my room. I need a nap.”

  As Anton helped her up the steps to her room, he was burning with fury. Five hundred thousand. A measly five hundred thousand she’d given him. He’d thought it was a down payment on his future. Was that all it would be?

  “Ouch, you’re hurting me.” In his anger, he’d gripped Viola so hard he’d bruised her arm.

  He gave a muffled apology, tempted to loosen his grip entirely, so she’d go tumbling down the stairs. Tumbling down the stairs before it was too late, before that will was changed. If it hadn’t been already. Was that possible?

  When Hy showed up later to see if she could include Anton’s Paradise on the tourism department’s website as one of “Four New North Shore Restaurants,” she found Anton in a dark mood.

  Glowering, she thought. He’s really glowering. She’d never seen a dark Heathcliff glower like this.

  He let her in without a word. The silence was so thick that Hy was reluctant to puncture it.

  But he did…with a sudden outburst, venom dripping from his voice.

  “Bloody bitch. After all I’ve done for her. What have I got?”

  He looked up at the soaring ceiling, angled toward the shore. Then out at the shore, waves crashing onto it.

  The silence rose. Hy needed to fill it with something.

  “This.”

  “This?”

  “You’ve got this.”

  “There is so much more than this.” His eyes grazed the shoreline up to the trailer on the cape.

  “And that.” He thrust a finger at it. “I’ve got that.” He whipped around, his back to it, as if the movement could wipe it away.

  “Bloody bitch. I’ll get her for this.”

  Hy left, wondering which bitch was he talking about?

  On her way out, she saw the bouquet of flowers standing on the table.

  Newton had become in the habit of strolling out at night and communing with the wind turbine. He didn’t know why he did it, but he found comfort in the cold steel – there was an odd familiarity in the skeletal structure. He had created it, and it nurtured him in some way he couldn’t explain. He had only to touch it and he felt energy flash through him, bring him to life, awaken him from the sluggish torpor in which he spent most of his days.

  Sometimes Fiona would be on the cape, too, hoping that he would take notice of her, come to her. Never in the way she hoped for. He didn’t declare his love for her. Nor she for him. But she was burning with it.

  Other nights, he was so swept up in his union with the turbine that he didn’t even see her. Some nights she was chased away by what she thought was malevolence on the wind, something coming from the turbine, aimed at her.

  Ian finally got a chance to chat with Newton, although he no longer harboured any idea of collegial chumminess. Now he was satisfying curiosity.

  He was walking down the Shore Lane, part of a new exercise routine, when he swore he saw Newton being intimate with the turbine tower, his skinny body wrapped around it.

  The vision drew Ian up onto the cape. Newton had disentangled himself from the machine, but he was stroking the metal, almost caressing it.

  There must be a logical explanation. Maybe a repair job of some kind, although Newton didn’t look like a handyman.

  He seemed absorbed in the steel structure, and didn’t notice Ian approach, until he felt a hand on his shoulder.

  It was as if Ian had lit a fire. Newton jumped back, and stared at him, appearing to come to from some semi-conscious state.

  Ian would not have been surprised at a blast of anger. Instead, Newton smiled. Softly.

  Very strange.

  Newton’s complexion was not ruddy, but freshened, pinkish, and there was life in his eyes.

  Ian could only assume it came from the strange communion he’d observed. The communion with the turbine tower.

  “Like to see the batteries?”

  It was like being asked to see his etchings.

  Ian was stunned. It was the last thing he’d expected after the brush-off he’d received every time he’d approached Newton.

  “Yes. I’d enjoy that.” He wasn’t sure whether he would or not, but followed Newton into the dome, the place where Hy had almost been killed the year before. An unusual house, built for an unusual person.

  As Ian had expected, the batteries to store the energy captured by the wind turbine and solar panel were ringed around the perimeter of the dome.

  Newton became quite animated as he explained how his system worked, as if the batteries were energizing him. Ridiculous, of course…

  They ended up having a perfectly normal conversation, over a cup of tea that chased away Ian’s unscientific imaginings.

  “What’s your field?”

  “That’s immaterial. I think it’s obvious that my interests are the new energies – wind and solar power. Although I should say current, not ‘“new.’” They’ve been here longer than we have. I should say ‘newly exploited.’”

  “You think it’s exploitation?”

  “No, that’s just a term. A term you could apply to other energy sources. A lot of exploitation goes on in the oil fields.”

  “You’re an environmentalist, then?”

  Newton frowned. “Nothing of the sort. Solar and wind make sense. The sun and the wind are bountiful, and they come as a harmonious package. Oil’s running out and it’s politically problematical.”

  “That is an environmental position.”

  “Yes. It doesn’t make me an environmentalist.”

  “You say you’re not, yet…what did you say your field was?

  “I didn’t.”

  Whatever had spurred Newton to invite Ian in had worn off. His skin was greyish again, his eyes without light.

  “If you’ll excuse me…” Ian scraped his chair back. “I must leave. Thanks for the tea.”

  Ian left the dome thinking exactly the same thing he had been thinking on the way in. Very strange.

  “You’d think he’d created wind power.” Ian polished off the glass of Chardonnay and grabbed Hy’s for a fill-up.


  “He talks about ‘my studies, my conclusions, my research.’ Wind and solar. He’s planning a whole bank of panels along the cape.”

  “People won’t like that.”

  “Especially Paradis. He’s already pissed off about that trailer.”

  Ian was still fuming about Newton.

  “He won’t say what kind of scientist he is.”

  “Does it matter?”

  “Not really. It seems ridiculously evasive. He says he’s not an environmentalist.”

  Hy looked out the window at the turbine.

  “You coulda fooled me.”

  “You could look at that two ways…as a form of energy that’s easy on the environment, wind power could be a good thing.”

  “But then there’s the human element, the effects on our health.”

  “And it’s a big problem for birds.”

  “It seemed like a good thing at first, a real environmental option, then all these problems.” She shrugged. “Rock and a hard place.” She smiled at him.

  He didn’t smile back. Like you and me, he thought. Just like you and me.

  Chapter Eleven

  Elmer Whitehead died in the hall, the first person to do so in nearly four years – and the only one ever to go on the toilet.

  The last one to die in the hall had been from away and Gus always pointed out that the night before the woman had been “dancing up a storm” with Gill, the pig farmer. Gill had emphysema, but he was the most enthusiastic male dancer in the village. He’d show up early the night of a ceilidh or a jamboree, and prep the floor with dance wax, sprinkling it evenly to ensure a smooth sliding surface. Then he’d dance all night.

  Elmer was faster on his feet than Gill that day, as he lunged into the hall, bent over with cramps.

  Half the Institute ladies were there to give the hall a proper clean-up to prepare for the Canada Day ceremonies. The local MP would be coming, and maybe even the premier.

  Some of the women wanted to get in the bathroom themselves. They heard Elmer moaning and groaning, and wished he would hurry up.

  Then silence.

  “Elmer?” Rose tapped on the door to see if he was okay.