The Girl in the Wall

by Alison Preston

  “Is she not telling us something about why she thinks they were odd ducks?” said Jane. “Is she holding out on us?”

  “We’ll have to word that better,” said Frank. “We don’t want to piss her off or we’ll get nowhere.”

  “Mrs. Mortimer,” said Jane.

  “Yes,” said Frank.

  “Did she and Jim Coulthard know each other?”

  “But we can’t mention the photograph, even though that’s why we’re asking the question. She can’t know why we’re wondering.”

  “No.”

  That was as far as they got with their list.

  Frank washed up at the kitchen sink and they walked over to Mrs. Beresford’s house.

  Jane wondered about phoning first, but Frank said, no, it would be better to give her no warning.

  “Why?” asked Jane.

  “So she won’t have time to hide anything.”

  “Like what?”

  “I don’t know. Memories, theories. We don’t want anything getting in the way of stuff she might blurt out. Anticipation can ruin the truth sometimes, nudge it a little to one side or cloud it over so it’s hard to get at. People tend to want to come off in a certain way and that can influence what they say.”

  “It seems unlikely to me that Mrs. Beresford cares very much about how she comes off,” said Jane.

  “You’d be surprised,” said Frank.

  They found her standing in her front yard, watching her bulldog scratch in the dirt.

  “Hello, Mrs. Beresford,” said Frank.

  “Hey, Mrs. Beresford,” said Jane.

  “Oh, it’s you two again.”

  Tina scrabbled over to Frank and looked up at him longingly. He offered his hand and the dog licked it politely, not too much slobber or enthusiasm.

  “Your ears look to have grown since yesterday,” Frank said to the dog.

  “So is this about the skeleton?” Mrs. Beresford asked.

  “Yes, I guess it is,” said Frank.

  “I don’t know who it is, if that’s what you think.”

  “No. We don’t think that. I guess what we’re hoping is that you might remember something that might help us to figure out what happened, point us in the right direction. Maybe not even something that you consciously remember.”

  “So what are you going to do, hypnotize me?”

  “No,” said Frank. “We thought we might just ask you a question or two to see if something might jog your memory.”

  “Why do you want to know these things, anyhow?” she asked. “Word is you’re not even a policeman anymore. You’re a builder now, aren’t you?”

  “Yes, that’s true, Mrs. Beresford. I’m not a policeman anymore, but I thought it couldn’t hurt if I asked a few questions on my own, since I know a few people in the neighbourhood.”

  “I suppose you think you know me,” she said.

  “Well, no. I don’t presume to know you, but you seem to have some knowledge of the house where this thing happened. I thought you might be able to help. I didn’t think it was so far-fetched that you might even want to help.”

  “Ask away, then. We’ve got nothing better to do.”

  Tina gave her body a shake, raising a little cloud of dust.

  Mrs. Beresford didn’t invite them in or offer a seat or a cup of anything. Frank wouldn’t have accepted any refreshment, but he wanted to sit down. The only spot available was her crumbling front steps, unless he wanted to sit in the dirt. It had been a long time since any grass had grown in this yard. He and Tina walked over to the steps and sat down. Jane and Mrs. Beresford remained standing, but moved over to join them.

  “Primarily it’s the Coulthards we’re wondering about,” said Frank.

  “The father always seemed to be sick,” Mrs. Beresford said with no preamble. “I don’t think there was a female member in the household for as long as they lived there. The boy took care of his dad, I’ll give him that. But I didn’t like him. I didn’t trust him. He had a delinquent look to him, as though he was trolling for trouble, as if the only things in life that would satisfy him contained no good whatsoever.”

  It was impossible to judge how much of what she was saying was based on fact or just the facts as she had seen them. They would need someone else from those days with an alternate view. Frank wondered if such a person still lived in the neighbourhood.

  “Did the boy work?” asked Frank.

  He scratched Tina behind one of her tall pointed ears and she made appreciative sounds in her throat.

  Mrs. Beresford dragged one of her sandalled feet back and forth in the dirt. Her feet were not a pleasing sight and Frank determined that he wouldn’t allow himself another look. Could it be there was webbing between the toes? He wouldn’t look.

  “The boy did yard work, on the rich side of town, over Crescentwood way mostly. I think the old man worked for the railroad before he took sick.”

  Frank stayed quiet and waited. Tina rested her chin on his thigh. Jane stayed on the periphery. Frank liked her style and reminded himself to tell her so later, after they had squeezed what they could out of this web-footed woman with the lovable dog.

  Back and forth, sandal on dirt.

  Frank forced himself to focus his eyes on the trees on the other side of the river. He couldn’t see the water from where he sat.

  “A year or two before they disappeared, the boy got a spring in his step. It was the year of Apollo 13. Don’t ask me how I remember that. He started up a business. I don’t know how official it was or even legal but it was all about taking pictures of dead folk.”

  Frank and Tina stood up. Frank glanced at Jane. She looked as though she was working very hard at maintaining a neutral expression.

  “Pictures of dead folk?” said Frank.

  “That’s what I said, isn’t it?”

  “Yes, Mrs. Beresford, it is.”

  “With eyes like his I don’t know how he managed to focus on anything. They seemed to shoot off in different directions, like errant yo-yos. I can’t imagine that his photographs were any good. I certainly never saw one of them.

  “The way I heard it, he did whatever anyone wanted,” she went on, “however outlandish. Word was he even dressed them up in costumes, posed them with family members. He could have staged Wild West scenes for all I know.”

  So it wasn’t Mrs. Mortimer. It was Jim Coulthard who had taken the picture. Frank sat down again. His relief gave way to an urge to whoop with joy. He wanted so badly for this whole situation to be unconnected to George’s sister. He wanted her completely free of it and the sinister Jim Coulthard.

  For the first time, he wondered if the woman in the wall might actually be Mrs. Mortimer and he found that thought hard to bear. He felt chilly inside, like he needed a hot bath. What if the cockeyed fellow had wanted her business and could think of no other way to horn in on it?

  He wanted to ask Mrs. Beresford if there had been a connection between Coulthard and Mrs. Mortimer, but he didn’t want to let her name loose just yet. He might not be able to get it back. She was somehow precious to him and he feared what the web-footed woman might have to say.

  Worried that Jane might mention her, he tried to speak to her with his eyes.

  Maybe tomorrow he would ask about Mrs. Mortimer, but not today.

  Jane spoke and Frank held his breath.

  “What became of the Coulthards, Mrs. Beresford?” she asked.

  Frank breathed out.

  “Well, as I already told you they disappeared, just up and vanished. There was no one to care.”

  “Sad,” said Jane.

  “Perhaps,” said Mrs. Beresford. “But you make your own bed, don’t you?”

  Frank wondered if she thought there would be standing room only at her own funeral.

  “I don’t think anyone even noticed that they were gone for the longest time. It may have been winter when they left. An unshovelled sidewalk on Lloyd Avenue didn’t draw much attention in those days. They could have been away
on holiday for the old man’s health or just dang well holing up like people do in winter.”

  “They never came back,” Frank said.

  “No. That’s what vanished means, doesn’t it? When spring came, one or two people may have begun to wonder about them, but not seriously. They were away and then they were missing and then they were just gone.”

  “Sad,” Jane said again.

  “For the woman boarded up in the wall, yes,” said Mrs. Beresford. “It was him, wasn’t it, who did that terrible thing?”

  “I don’t know, said Frank. “I just don’t know.”

  He said goodbye to Tina and herded Jane out of the dirt yard as fast he felt he could without seeming rude or suspicious.

  “Is that it, then?” yelled Mrs. Beresford.

  “That’s it for now,” Frank called back. “We’ll keep you posted, man.”

  “Did you just call her man?” whispered Jane.

  “Yes, I guess I did,” said Frank. “I just want to get out of here.”

  “It’s Mrs. Mortimer, isn’t it?” said Jane. “You were afraid I was going to mention her and you’re not ready to put her out there.”

  “I guess so.”

  “It’s like with you not wanting to tell me about the date on the photograph,” she said. “You worry that things might spin out of control. I can understand that, Frank.”

  They walked down Lyndale to Chandos and turned right, then up the two blocks to Highfield, past the three-storey walk-ups.

  “I wonder why you didn’t know about Jim Coulthard’s business,” Jane said, “but yet you knew all about Mrs. Mortimer’s.”

  “Well, for one thing, I didn’t know all about Mrs. Mortimer’s business. I just barely knew about it. And for another, I was what, twenty? I was probably busy fucking chicks.”

  “It kind of blows my theory about the weirder the story, the more likely it is to get out there and live,” said Jane. “Or whatever it was I said.”

  “Yes,” said Frank. “It blows it clear out of the water.”

  He walked her to her door and then backtracked to his own home a couple of blocks away.

  When he got there the phone was ringing. It was Emma calling and she sounded happy. She was working on the geriatric ward of a big hospital in Honolulu and enjoying it. She loved the old folks, she said. And Frank loved her so very much for loving the old folks.

  33

  Saturday night lasted forever.

  Frank went to bed early and the first time he woke up the sheets were damp with his sweat. He was freezing cold so he threw off the blankets and put on a pair of pajamas. It was a dream that had woken him — had scared him awake. He couldn’t remember it now, but it had left him with a new dread, something huge. It was bigger than the fear that it was Mrs. Mortimer in the wall, bigger than missing the job, bigger even than living without Denise and Gus. It was as monumental as the fears for his kids, but different, more personal, if that was possible.

  Much later that night, when Garth and Sadie were snug in their beds and sound asleep, Frank got up, changed into a pair of shorts and a T-shirt and went for a walk around the neighbourhood. Anything was better than lying in bed worrying that Garth would marry a hoarder and that his own unborn grandchildren would suffer at her hands, be smothered along with Garth under a houseful of junk.

  Where the hell had that come from? Maybe it was the way Garth talked with admiration about his friend Ansel’s collection of stuff. Ansel had every electronic gadget known to mankind and Garth knew what they all were and how to work them and he went on about them to Frank.

  Frank felt as though he didn’t know the names of things anymore. And for sure he didn’t know what all the abbreviations meant. He heard the letters NGO on the CBC (Canadian Broadcasting Corporation) probably twenty times till finally, a kindly guest who may have been as bothered by abbreviations as Frank was, said: You mean by NGO a non-governmental organization? And the host said: yes, I’m sorry.

  Thank Christ she was at least sorry, Frank had thought then and remembered now as he walked down the lane toward the bakery on Taché Avenue.

  It was late enough or early enough that he knew the bakers would be there already, working away. He loved seeing the light coming through the windows of the tiny operation and hearing the voices of the wielders of the dough. Now and then when he strolled by, someone would be smoking at the open back door, often alone, sometimes with a co-worker, talking quietly. Their conversations were always punctuated by the occasional burst of laughter. Not uproarious, just medium and good. Average laughter.

  Frank couldn’t remember the last time he’d enjoyed an average laugh, let alone a hearty one.

  Maybe I’m just growing old, he thought. But fifty-six wasn’t supposed to be old these days. Wasn’t it the new eighteen or something? He was sure he’d read something like that in a women’s magazine in a waiting room. Frank liked women’s magazines, but he felt he had to read them in secret. It was harder now that Denise was gone. She had been a big subscriber but now her Chatelaine and her Homemaker and her Canadian Living had run out. He supposed he could renew them but he didn’t want to upset the kids by having mail come in her name and he didn’t feel comfortable putting them in his own name. He already subscribed to a knitting magazine and imagined that he was the butt of letter carriers’ jokes: that peculiar knitting-man who lives on Claremont.

  Why do I care about such things? Frank wondered. How old do I have to be before I arrive at that place I’ve heard about where you do what you choose and don’t worry about the opinions of others, where you say what’s on your mind and feel comfortable with the words you speak?

  Maybe I need to have sex, he thought, have someone fuck me till I go blind. There had been no one since Denise and no one other than her since they got married, unless you counted that long-ago misstep with Audrey. He wondered about her now. He knew she still lived in the neighbourhood but he hadn’t seen her in years. Maybe he should knock on her door. They could have sex without thinking too much about it, wild demented sex, and then let each other go.

  Frank realized there were tears running down his face. That was happening far too often lately. He knew he wouldn’t knock on Audrey’s door or anyone else’s. He didn’t have that sort of appetite right now; he was just plain miserable. It was a foolish idea, that’s all.

  He decided to sit on a bench in Coronation Park for a while and pull himself together before the walk home. The bench was facing in a westward direction near the path. He had sat there before, he realized, and a scene from the past played itself out before his eyes, as clear as a blue morning from 1962.

  He was young, maybe not even a teenager yet and he had been sitting with a friend, Ricky Ormiston, deciding what to do with the cigarettes they had stolen from Ricky’s mum.

  The staring girl walked past, George’s little sister. She walked stiffly, like her knees didn’t bend as easily as the knees of other girls. They stopped their discussion to watch. Neither of them knew her well enough to speak to her.

  Soon after she went by an older boy ran past them in the direction of the girl. When he drew alongside her he stuck out his right foot and caused her to tumble to the ground. He kept on running.

  Frank stood up. Ricky too.

  “She took quite a fall,” Frank said. “I think we should go and see if she’s all right.”

  “You go,” said Ricky. “I’ll stay here and guard the smokes.”

  Frank approached cautiously. He’d heard his share of stories about the girl and he wasn’t sure what he was getting himself into. He knew her brother, George, though, and knew him to be a good sort. It was somehow important to Frank now to do his very best, whatever that might entail.

  The girl was sitting up with a neutral look on her face. She wasn’t crying and didn’t seem to be upset.

  “Are you okay?” Frank asked.

  He knew her name was Morven but he didn’t want to say it.

  “We saw what happened,” he said.
/>   “My glasses are broken.”

  She handed them up to Frank.

  “Thanks,” he said. He was grateful for her trust.

  As he took them from her he noticed that both her hands were badly scraped on the palms. There would be little bits of gravel from the path lodged under her skin, he was sure of it, but he didn’t want to risk touching her.

  Her trust scared him a little, on her behalf.

  “Is everything else okay?” he asked. “Do you think you can stand up?”

  She stood and shook herself down.

  “I can’t see without my glasses,” she said.

  Frank held the two separate pieces in his hands.

  “Let me walk you home,” he said. “We’ll tape them together to tide you over till you get new ones.”

  Frank turned around to wave at Ricky and make a few explanatory gestures with his arms. He didn’t want to shout and he didn’t want to leave her.

  They started walking, with Frank as the guardian of the glasses. She told him the number of the house on Monck where she lived. He hadn’t known the number but he did know the house.

  “Do you know who that boy was that knocked you down?” Frank asked.

  “No.”

  “Will George be at home, do you think?”

  “I hope so. He’ll help me get my glasses fixed.”

  The next bit was hazy in Frank’s memory, but he was sure George must have been home and put an end to his involvement. Surely he would remember if he’d been inside the house.

  What he did remember now were the words exchanged between Ricky and him when he got back to the park to continue with their plans for the cigarettes.

  “Who was that guy?” asked Frank. “Do you know him?’

  “Jimmy Coulthard,” said Ricky. “He’s a creepy kid.”

  Frank hadn’t heard of him then and didn’t hear of him again till July of 2006.

  The rain started up as Frank sat on the bench in the park. He didn’t notice at first and it was coming down hard by the time he stood up and started a slow lope home. It didn’t seem important to stay dry.