Alison Preston - Norwood Flats 01 - The Rain Barrel Baby

by Alison Preston

  Frank thought about Emma and her slow-moving car and her sinister figure in the rain. Maybe the slow-moving car was no one and the sinister figure was just Donald Griffiths longing for Frank’s daughter.

  It was mid-morning on Friday, and Frank waited for Wim Winston in a booth at the Salisbury House. The coffee tasted great — too bad he couldn’t enjoy it. It had been Wim’s idea to meet at the Sals. Frank figured on talking to him at the hospital and visiting Denise at the same time, killing two birds with one stone. But Wim suggested meeting “on neutral territory” as he put it. Frank didn’t know what he was talking about. But as he watched Wim’s Mercedes pull into the parking lot, old feelings of dislike resurfaced.

  Frank knew that Wim and Denise had had a relationship of some kind a long time ago. He didn’t like to think about it. A good many years had passed but Frank couldn’t see Wim without picturing them going at it together. It was an unsavoury picture. What she had ever seen in Wim was a mystery to Frank. He hadn’t always looked as bad as he did now but he had never looked good. And he wasn’t even nice. But then, Frank knew sides of Wim he hoped Denise didn’t.

  Frank watched as Wim slid into the booth across from him. He extended a clammy hand and Frank shook it.

  “How are you, Frank?” Beads of sweat glistened on Wim’s forehead.

  “You look like you already know what I want to talk to you about,” Frank said. “Do you want coffee or anything, Wim?”

  “No. Thanks. Let’s just get right to it, shall we?”

  “Has Ivy been in touch with you then, Wim?”

  “Who? What are you talking about?” Wim took a serviette from the dispenser and wiped his forehead, wreaking havoc on his comb-over.

  Frank wished he had a pair of scissors and more of a don’t-give-a-shit attitude.

  “Ivy.”

  “Who?”

  “Ivy Srutwa. Her name’s actually Ivy Grace now, but you’d remember her as Ivy Srutwa.”

  Wim looked blank, except for the new beads of sweat that popped out to replace the old ones.

  If he says “who?” again I’m going to slap him, Frank thought.

  “Who?”

  He kicked Wim underneath the table.

  “Ow!”

  “Good grief, Wim. The Srutwas. The poor family that lived at the south end of the dike. Everybody made fun of them when we were kids. There was a mother and a daughter and a couple of sons. One of them died, I think, and the other one was quite a bit older than us. The dad killed himself. It was mainly the mum and the girl. The girl was Ivy.”

  “I don’t remember.”

  Frank wanted to kick him again. He saw from Wim’s eyes that this was going to be impossible. He wasn’t going to give an iota. Frank was certain that Wim knew exactly who he was talking about. But he wasn’t going to play. Not now, not ever.

  “Okay, Wim.” Frank swallowed the rest of his coffee in one gulp. “Catch ya later then.”

  He drove his Toyota station wagon around the Perimeter Highway a ways. The car had started stalling. Maybe all it needed was the carbon blown out of the engine from time to time.

  He had tried to warn Wim. Maybe not real hard. But hard enough. And anyway, Wim, the shithead, had never heard of anyone named Ivy Srutwa.

  CHAPTER 46

  In the early afternoon Ivy parked her car on a side street and walked briskly towards the hospital. Frank had confirmed that Wim was a doctor, so it must be the same guy. Chances were slim that there would be two doctors named Wim Winston.

  He was the only one remaining of Ivy’s tormentors. The others had been taken care of and that made her man task so much easier. She said a silent prayer of thanks to whomever it was that had helped her by killing Dwight, jailing Duane, and turning Ronnie Fowler into the eighteenth fattest man in the world.

  She bargained on Wim not remembering her.

  The hospital part was fun. Ivy liked the hospital. She thought she’d like to work in one in some capacity. Maybe she could volunteer. The museum had always been her thing, the thing she did for Simon, for the eyes of the world — it was part of earning her keep. And it wasn’t hard. But maybe she could change to a hospital. Surely that would seem more worthwhile, more giving. She could take flowers to patients, wash their hair, wheel around the library cart.

  They could tell me their stories, she thought. Maybe one of them would like me.

  But the Nelson Mac reunion was taking up her time right now. She was really into it. It was her current for-the-eyes-of-the-world project. It was what had come to her when she went to see Frank. She amazed herself. Didn’t even know that she knew about it. She supposed it had been mentioned in tiny print in the Community Review section of the Free Press. And for some reason — which now was clear — it had lodged itself in her brain. It was a perfect way to get close to Frank. Not that she fully understood why that was necessary. It just was.

  Ivy knew he didn’t trust her. But that didn’t matter. She liked knowing him, being around him. She had to think up more reasons that would let it happen. Maybe after she pulled everything off she could be his friend. In her heart she knew she couldn’t, but she couldn’t find her heart.

  The cafeteria was on the second floor of the hospital. Ivy sipped coffee and watched people come and go — doctors, nurses, orderlies, aides, physiotherapists, cleaners, administrative types, visitors, patients. She listed different occupations in her notebook and put numbers beneath them as the cafeteria filled up with the Friday lunch crowd. Then she stopped herself. I’m never going to be able to get anything done on either my own projects or the for-the-eyes-of-the-world projects if I can’t stop this type of thing. She put her pencil and paper away.

  Her hands began to shake and her eye twitched as she sat alone at her table trying not to make lists. Someone sat too close and she spilled her coffee. Not on herself, thank God. She couldn’t have stood that.

  The optimism Ivy had felt when she entered the hospital was gone and she could barely focus on putting one high-heeled shoe in front of the other as she stumbled out of the cafeteria.

  If she had been able to concentrate on anything but the Squeaks nattering in her brain, she might have noticed the name tag on the doctor jammed up against her in the crowded elevator.

  It read: Dr. Wim Winston.

  “What a babe,” Wim said to his colleague when Ivy got off at street level with most of the other passengers. “I coulda stayed squashed up against that ass indefinitely.”

  When the Squeaks stopped, Ivy was sitting on a bench on the main floor of the hospital holding a hammer with a rough wooden handle. When she saw it clutched in her hands she stuffed it inside her handbag with some difficulty.

  She closed her eyes and breathed deeply till her heart stopped pounding and her vision cleared. She needed a drink of water.

  The bench where she sat was across the hall from a snack bar. The snacks were in machines. Ivy fumbled in her purse for change but couldn’t come up with the right combination. She was so thirsty!

  The tables were all empty. She pictured herself ploughing her fist through the front of the machine and snatching up the Evian Water that smirked up at her from its prison of metal and glass. Instead she took her lipstick from her makeup pouch and wrote, SCRUNT, in big red letters on one of the smooth table surfaces.

  It wasn’t enough. But something caught her eye and her anger vanished along with her thirst. On the wall next to the door was a bulletin board. And on the bulletin board was a notice. GOLF TOURNAMENT! it said, followed by the particulars.

  The place was a club on the east side of the city where Ivy had played before, when Simon was fit and they had done things together. Simon had known someone who was a member there who’d had them as guests.

  The date was a Saturday, two weeks away. Two weeks and one day. The tournament was open to all hospital personnel and the contact person was Dr. Wim Winston.

  CHAPTER 47

  Frank sat at his desk with his feet resting on a pulled-out drawer.
He didn’t have Ivy’s number. He didn’t even know her husband’s first name. Setting his knitting aside he looked Grace up in the phone book. She was obviously well-to-do. Maybe her husband was the Grace in Grace, Royston & Wells. If he was, he was old, unless he had a son that Ivy had glommed onto. It wouldn’t surprise Frank if her husband turned out to be elderly. It would go with the rest of the picture.

  There weren’t very many Graces. Frank had just dialed the number of the first one when there was a knock on his door. He sighed and hung up the phone.

  It was Fred. He came in and closed the door behind him. He stood at attention in front of the desk but there was a sag to his shoulders that Frank hadn’t seen before. And his top button was undone; that was definitely a first.

  “What is it, Fred?” Frank asked. “Is everything okay?”

  “Thanks, sir. No, everything isn’t okay. But I don’t feel as though I can talk about it. Not right now, anyway.” He looked over Frank’s shoulder when he spoke.

  Frank looked carefully to his right just in case there was something to see. Nope.

  “Okay, Fred. But you can talk to me anytime. I hope you know that. It sometimes helps, you know, to get it off your chest.”

  I should know, thought Frank, who felt several degrees lighter after having shared his own tale of woe with Ed Flagston. In spite of everything he had yet to do.

  He was pretty sure there were tears in Fred’s eyes. What was he doing here if he didn’t want to talk?

  “Nothing will be able to help in this case, sir,” Fred said. “It’s done and it can’t be undone.”

  “But still, it might help to talk.” Frank realized that he hadn’t hidden his wool. It sat on top of his desk next to the open phone book.

  “No,” Fred said. “I don’t think so, sir.”

  Frank wondered if he swatted Fred on the side of the head at the exact moment that he told him not to call him “sir,” if that might work.

  “It’s Frances, sir.”

  “What about her, Fred?”

  “She doesn’t want to have a baby.”

  “Oh?” He placed Emma’s scarf gently in its drawer.

  “Ever.”

  “Well, lots of couples live quite happily without children,” Frank said. He immediately regretted encouraging Fred to confide in him. This could have been Frank fifteen years ago.

  “Yeah, I guess,” Fred said.

  Frank tried to think up something smart to say. He closed the phone book and rearranged the items on his desk. There weren’t very many of them.

  “She had an abortion,” Fred said.

  “Oh?” Frank moved his paperweight so that it faced Fred. It was a duck. Sadie had given it to him for his birthday.

  “She did it without telling me,” Fred said.

  “Oh.” Frank remembered how he had lain awake nights worrying that Denise would do just that.

  “We hadn’t planned the baby,” Fred said, “but I had thought we were happy about it. I know I was.”

  “It sounds like there may have been a bit of a communication breakdown somewhere along the way,” Frank said.

  “I can’t believe she did it without telling me she was going to.”

  “Maybe she was afraid you’d try and talk her out of it.”

  “I would have.”

  “Yes.”

  “It’s not natural for a young woman to not want to have a baby, is it, sir? It seems crazy to me.”

  “She may have all kinds of reasons, Fred, or one very good one, anyway. You’ve got to talk to each other.” Frank turned the duck back around so it was facing him.

  “She won’t talk, sir.”

  “Then go home and put your arms around her, Fred.”

  “My shift isn’t over.”

  “Go home, Fred.”

  “I’m a fine one to be giving marital advice,” Frank said to his paperweight after Fred had gone. He opened the phone book and then closed it again. He knew he wouldn’t find Ivy that way. He hummed an old Beatles’ song from 1965 as he hauled the scarf out of his drawer to resume work. Frank was considering knitting lessons if there was such a thing. Not knowing how to make anything but scarves was pitiful and he felt he should be progressing with his hobby. But scarves were so easy. There was no need to worry about sleeves or collars or buttons or anything — sheer pleasure.

  “I’m a loser,” he sang, “and I’m not what I appear to be.”

  His phone rang and he picked it up.

  “Foote,” he said.

  “Frank?”

  “Yes.”

  It was Ivy Grace.

  CHAPTER 48

  Emma jerked awake and sat bolt upright in her bed. The clock radio was invisible. Lightning pierced the sky outside her bedroom window and she realized it must have been the thunder that woke her. The power had gone out and screwed up her clock. She would have to reset it — she couldn’t be late for her papers.

  Her bedside light wouldn’t turn on. So the power hadn’t come back — she would have to wait it out. She would never get back to sleep if her alarm wasn’t set.

  Emma crept over to the window seat to keep an eye on the storm. Rain had poured through the open window, so she pushed it closed and tossed the soaked cushions onto the floor. In the yard the wind and rain lashed against the cedar trees, bending them sideways. Emma watched as it began to let up. Lightning flashed again and lit the yard as clear as day. A tall figure leaned against the garage beneath the carport, sheltered from the weather.

  Emma gasped and darted back behind her curtain. The woman had been looking at her this time. Emma saw her eyes in the flash of light.

  In the dark again, she peered around the curtain and saw the burning end of a cigarette glowing through the wet night. She crawled across the floor to the bedroom door and ran down the hall to her dad’s room. The door was ajar and he lay awake.

  “Dad?” she whispered.

  “Yes, Em dear, what is it?” He turned on his light and the room flooded with warmth.

  “Oh, Dad, there’s someone in the yard.” As she spoke she doubted her own words and wondered if it might have been a dream. Her dad’s lamp worked. The power was on!

  “Who?” Frank asked. “Who’s in the yard?”

  “I don’t know. A tall person. I saw her in the lightning. She was looking up at me.”

  “Her? She?” Frank’s brow furrowed. His furrows no longer went away when he relaxed, but sometimes they went deeper than other times, like now.

  Emma moved to the bed and into his arms. “It was really scary, Dad.” She started to cry against his blue pajama top.

  Frank hugged his daughter tight. He loved her so much his heart hurt. “Let’s go have a look.”

  They walked back down the hall to her room holding hands. Emma wouldn’t go in.

  “She was over by the garage, underneath the carport.”

  Frank peered out at the dark yard. “What did she look like?” The rain had stopped and the wind had died so he opened the window.

  “I don’t know. Tall? Womanly?”

  Water dripped, but other than that nothing stirred.

  “I don’t think anyone’s there, Em.” Frank noticed the alarm clock flashing. “I guess the power was out.”

  “Yeah. I’ve gotta reset my alarm.” Emma edged her way into the room. “Dad, I don’t wanna do my papers in the morning.”

  “Oh, honey, tomorrow’s a new day.” Frank closed the window and locked it. “What say we go downstairs and have a look around outside to put our minds at rest?”

  They tucked their pajama bottoms into rubber boots and tramped around the yard, front and back. In the carport Emma thought she could smell cigarette smoke, but Frank couldn’t.

  Gus was on his back stoop whispering at them when they headed back to the house.

  “I don’t know what the heck you two are up to out there, but I never sleep after a thunderstorm so I decided to make some cocoa. Want some?”

  Frank and Emma laughed. Gus’ noisy w
hispering was something of a family joke. They played Crazy Eights till dawn. Then Frank took Emma home and made her waffles for breakfast. After that he accompanied her to her paper pick-up spot.

  Twice. Both times in the rain. Both times in the dark. Frank hadn’t prayed since he was a kid but he prayed now: Don’t let anything bad happen to Emma. Ever. Please.

  They delivered papers in the tranquil morning. So far, the doves were their only companions.

  “Pretty day, eh, Em?” Frank said. He saw Easy and his master run by on Lyndale Drive at the top of the street.

  “Yeah, pretty,” she said. “But scary.”

  There wasn’t a cloud in the sky. It was hot already and the air was thick with last night’s rain. It was one of those late spring days where you could almost see the leaves growing before your eyes.

  There were no sinister automobiles or shadowy staring figures. But they weren’t far from the imaginations of either Foote as they went on their rounds. Frank was painfully aware that he wouldn’t always be able to be there, watching over his daughter.

  It was so calm. Even the mourning doves were quiet now. The only sound was the hum of the city across the river, whatever combination of electricity, physics and chemistry produced that one sound that never went away. The soundtrack to their lives.

  Frank thought about the first time he had used his computer at work, when he realized it was going to be humming quietly the whole time it was turned on. He was furious. When he mentioned it, nobody seemed to know what he was talking about. It was such an unobtrusive sound, the way everyone else heard it. Why would it bother him? So he decided not to let it. He hadn’t wanted to stand out as someone who couldn’t handle things like quiet sounds.

  Sometimes he thought that all the new noises — invented after WW II, as Gus would point out — were the main cause of everything gone wrong in people’s heads. It was the racket that drove them crazy. This was the type of thing he saved to talk to Gus about; Gus got things like that. What a good neighbour he was!