“I didn’t know for a long time…”
“You didn’t want to know. You refused to talk about it for years. I just thank God you left him.”
I had to smile at that. “I didn’t have much choice, Mom. He got Tracey pregnant. I had to do the honourable thing and release him to her teenaged arms.”
“He got what he deserved. I just hope that now you don’t think your father didn’t love us, because he did, very much. It just wasn’t a constructive type of love. But we survived and we go on.”
“Mom, are you going to have this conversation with David?”
“I already have, when I was in Victoria. He confided that he had attended some counselling sessions when he was in university, so had worked through most of it then. He was waiting for one of us to mention the subject and was very happy that I had come to terms with the past. Now we’re waiting for you.” She looked at me.
“Me?” I was surprised. “I left Dennis, didn’t I? I realized that the bastard was playing me like a violin. Mind you, it took Tracey’s pregnancy to give me the final push, but I was ready to get out by then anyway.”
She gave my hand a final pat and stood up. “You know what, dear? I think we’ve been through enough today. This was very hard for you, but until you can open up and communicate your feelings to another person—whether it’s Marc, or me—without making jokes about yourself, then you won’t be healed. I know your strength of character will allow you to do this, and if you decide you need some help, let me know and I’ll give you the name of a wonderful woman I see every week. She’s helped me very much.”
Partway home I had to stop the car and throw up in a plastic grocery bag that I fortuitously found stuffed under the front seat. Even my iron digestion was no match for three cinnamon buns. Okay, make that four.
Of course, an emotional bloodbath could produce enough excess stomach acid to upset the digestive process. Not to mention my mother suggesting I needed the services of a therapist.
When I got home, Caroline met me at the door with a note from Aunt Clem. Written on it were the time and place of Tommy’s funeral the next day.
CHAPTER 15
I yawned and swayed on my feet. I eyed a rectangular raised tombstone nearby. The incumbent wouldn’t mind if I stretched out for a bit, but the few mourners in attendance might.
It was 5:30 a.m., and the rosy sunrise threatened us with yet another hot day. The funeral mass had lasted fifteen minutes in the cool stone church in town. Afterwards, the hearse had sped the tiny white coffin to the old section of the Gates of Heaven Cemetery, so very close to Hammersleigh House.
I had followed in my car with Father Conners by my side and Aunt Clem, Aunt Wisty and Conklin buckled into the back seat. That was it. No one else watched the cemetery staff lower the coffin into the hole.
Aunt Clem insisted that the funeral had to take place early in the morning so that no newspaper reporters from the city would catch wind of it and harass Aunt Wisty. I looked around, but couldn’t see a single person with or without a camera, so I guess Aunt Clem had outsmarted them.
Aunt Clem was clothed head to foot in black—wide-brimmed hat, loose gauzy ankle-length dress with empire waist, sandals. All black. Except her lipstick was bright red and a cobalt silk scarf was wrapped loosely around her neck and thrown over one shoulder. She looked too good for a funeral.
On the other hand, Aunt Wisty seemed to be holding on to her earthly existence by a thread. She was all bones and angles, her mauve pantsuit hanging on her tiny frame. Her unfocused eyes fluttered from sky to tree line to tombstones, anywhere but at the rectangular depression in front of her.
I suspected she was drugged and wondered why her doctors felt attending her son’s funeral would be good for her. The poor soul didn’t appear to be aware of where she was or why she was there.
And Conklin? Conklin was just himself. Dressed in his butler uniform as befit that solemn occasion, he was standing between the two elderly sisters and supporting each by an arm. Not that Aunt Clem needed any support. And I couldn’t figure out why he was there since, by his own admission, he hadn’t been anywhere near Blackshore when Tommy died.
And why was I there? Beats me, unless Aunt Clem felt that, since I was the one who found the body after so many years, it was my responsibility.
Looking down, I found I was dressed in a bright red denim skirt and white sleeveless blouse. Scarlet toenails erupted from thong sandals. Maybe not funeral attire, but after all, it was still almost the middle of the night. I would still be in bed if Conklin hadn’t knocked on my bedroom door with a cup of tea at 4:30 a.m. My inherent respect for the elderly barely prevented me from throwing my pillow at his noble head.
I yawned again and eyed Aunt Wisty. I wanted to talk to her, to ask her about the 1943 reunion, but would have to put it off until later when the drugs wore off. They couldn’t keep her zonked all the time.
The graveside ceremony was soon over. I pulled Conklin aside and asked him if he would drive the ladies home while I walked back to Hammersleigh through the field. He gave me a courtly half bow.
“I would be honoured to drive Miss Clematis and Miss Wisteria to their residences, Madam. Would you like me to drop you off first?”
I declined and handed over my keys. After reminding him not to forget Father Conners as well, I watched the group disappear among the gravestones on the crest of the hill. The cemetery staff followed behind. I hoped they were going somewhere for breakfast and would be coming back to fill in the grave.
I looked around. Why was I standing in the cemetery on a midsummer’s dawn? All alone with the acres of dead.
I moved over to stand at the tidy mound beside Tommy’s final resting place. But I knew somehow that he wasn’t resting. Not yet. There was a secret, a secret that I felt had to be discovered before the child could sleep in peace. No, not the child, that wasn’t right…
Giving myself a shake, I moved away. Sometimes I give myself the creeps.
Tommy’s grave was no more than a few feet away from where my own tiny daughter lay. If I were more fanciful, I might have felt comforted that my little Jessica had someone close to her own age for company. Jessica’s tiny heart had never beat in this world, and I still missed her very much.
I never came here without feeling a consuming rage—at fate for taking Jessica before she drew a first breath, at Dennis for talking me into a tubal ligation when my grief was too fresh for coherent thought so that there would be no other little girl for me, and at myself for being too weak to resist his selfish will. I was too aware that he had a young daughter of his own now, with two more on the way. If this was part of the universal master plan, I failed to see the point.
I wandered through the cemetery without purpose. When I reached the top of the steep incline where gravity tipped the grave markers to an impossible angle, I stopped.
This cemetery was as familiar to me as my backyard had been when I was a child. Patsy and I had played among the tombstones for hours at a time on sunny days, and this would explain why the cemetery held no dread for me. There was soft green grass to walk on in bare feet, tiny wild flowers to pick under the aged maples lining the perimeter, oak benches scattered here and there to read or dream on. And everywhere there was family, from both sets of grandparents back to the pioneers who settled this area a hundred and fifty years ago. Those early grave markers were still legible, thanks to the work of the Blackshore Preservationist Society who had traced the eroded letterings with black paint so history would not be lost.
It was time to pull myself together and get home. First a few more hours of sleep, then back to the reunion list. There was no reason I couldn’t complete it today, and then spend a few days working on the murder before the first campers rolled into the field on Friday afternoon.
As I walked down the eastward slope toward the maple boundary between the cemetery and the field, I felt a light tingle between my shoulders. I ignored it and picked up my pace. The tingling increased in i
ntensity until it felt like invisible fingers were poking me, prodding me.
I was more angry than frightened. This tingling sensation came and went with no seeming relevance, and I was sick of it.
Now I imagined a bony finger shoving me in the back, urging me on. Don’t be so obdurate, Lyris, it is right there in front of you. Be still and look…
I halted abruptly. “Okay, knock it off. Stop.” To my surprise, the sensation ceased and for some reason, that did frighten me.
I was standing less than a foot from a tall obelisk-like gravestone. It was nestled in the shade of one of the giant maple trees near the edge of the cemetery. I stepped back to see it more clearly and recognized it as a memorial to those Blackshore men who had fallen during World War II. Their bodies lay in foreign graves, in France, Holland, Belgium and Italy. But the town had erected this monument to honour their sacrifices and provide a link to the future. Their future that was now our past.
I had seen this stone a hundred times in my life and never paid it any attention. An empty tomb is not attractive to a child, and as an adult, I haven’t been much interested in past wars. Other than what I was forced to learn in history classes, I knew little of the causes or consequences of world conflicts. I bought a poppy and observed the two minutes of silence on Remembrance Day and felt nothing more was required of me.
I walked all around the obelisk and read the names. There were eight altogether and under each one, their age, date of death and location of their final battle were recorded. Three of the eight were Pembrookes and one was a Hanlon, so at least half of Blackshore’s World War II dead were my family members, and maybe a couple of the others shared my gene pool as well.
William Kevin Pembrooke, age twenty-seven, died July 5, 1943, in Italy, and Jonathan Martin Pembrooke, twenty-three, on March 21, 1944, in the Netherlands. The third Pembrooke, Harold Cyril, was only eighteen when he was killed in Germany on May 1, 1945. The poor kid almost made it back.
No Thomas Pembrooke. William Kevin’s date of death would be about right, but I was positive Conklin said Tommy’s father was a Thomas as well. That would be easy to check through any of the great- and great-great-aunts or uncles. Some of them might not remember where they left their lawn bowling ball last Monday, but they would be able to recall every detail of the family tree back to the eighteenth century.
A dry, rustling noise startled me out of my half stupor. I turned around, expecting to see the cemetery staff with their shovels and cardboard coffee cups. But the cemetery was empty and silent except for the songbirds in the maples.
Just as I decided the faint noise was made by a squirrel or chipmunk running among the branches, the rustling and crackling resumed. Out from behind a nearby memorial, Rasputin appeared. He was pursued by Jacqueline who jumped and barked in rapture.
I pointed my finger at them. “Quiet.”
Jacqueline stopped yapping, but continued to run around my feet in joyous welcome. Rasputin’s tongue hung out and he wheezed as though every breath were his last.
“What are you two doing out of the house?” I had let Jacqueline out the kitchen door for a few minutes before leaving for the funeral, but I know both animals were in the house when Conklin and I left. Caroline must have got up early, and not knowing Jacqueline had relieved herself already, let both of them out―whereupon they had made a beeline for the cemetery, somehow knowing that’s where they would find one of their humans.
Rasputin and I locked eyes. I blinked first, but refused to look away.
“Come on. We’re going home.” He didn’t budge and I wasn’t leaving them there with an open grave not twenty yards away. Jacqueline cavorted in coquettish glee.
“Let’s go”. I walked a few feet and looked back. No takers.
Deciding the weaker vessel was my best bet, I said to Jacqueline. “My, you look beautiful today. The shampoo and cut has done wonders for your looks. And those bows in your ears suit you perfectly. Pink is so your colour.”
She was suspicious at my tone, but followed me anyway. I continued to talk to her in a soothing voice, and we headed for the line of trees.
Then the fingers were at my back again, sharp and insistent. Instinct made me turn and my foot must have caught in a tree root. Before I could catch myself, I was on the ground with the wind knocked out of me.
As I bent my elbows and pushed my face off the ground, I felt something hard―harder than the earth―under my knees. Scrabbling to one side, I noticed I had landed on a stone almost covered over by grass and moss. What an odd place for a grave. I started pulling the vegetation away from the marker.
I had never noticed this grave before. I thought I knew every name and every grave in the cemetery. This one was almost outside it. Still, how could I have missed it?
Because it had been protected from the elements, the engraving on its surface had not eroded. I saw there was no name on the stone, just the word PEACE.
I pulled myself to my feet and stared down at the marker. The tingling between my shoulder blades had stopped. I became aware that Jacqueline was whimpering and rubbing against my leg.
“Okay, let’s go.” I turned for one last look at the grave, sad and forgotten, so far from the bones of others.
Once we broke through the line of trees and were in sight of Hammersleigh, Jacqueline rushed across the field to where a cold drink and some treats waited.
I turned to see if the black cat was coming. Through a gap in the trees, I was relieved to see the two gravediggers filling in Tommy’s grave. It seemed sad that no one from the family was there to watch the black earth settle on his tiny coffin, but the sight brought back the vivid memory of my own baby’s funeral. I couldn’t look any longer. Before I turned back, I caught a movement on my far right. A figure was fading into the trees.
It was a man, and from the fairness of his hair and the way he carried himself, I was almost sure it was Scott Fournier. I stopped where I was and watched for him to step into the cemetery. But he must have followed the tree line toward the other side of the cemetery because I didn’t see him again.
If it was Scott, he was spending a lot of time in the cemetery. And so early in the morning too.
In the center of the field stood a lone, splendid elm. Possibly the very isolation had protected it from the death beetle. It had watched the nineteenth century turn over to the next and the next after that. The soaring branches still provided a welcome shade from the early morning sun and I stopped there to wait for Rasputin to catch up and to let him rest a moment.
The cat didn’t even glance in my direction as he trudged along.
“You’re too fat to run around in the sun, and I use the verb advisedly. You couldn’t run if a pit bull was chasing you. Black attracts heat too, you know.” He passed me with a languid swish of his tail.
We walked in single file back to Hammersleigh, where Rasputin waited for me to open the side gate for him. He took a drink out of the fishpond and swiped at one of the goldfish cruising among the water plants. It swam unhurriedly away.
The kitchen was empty and I made myself a cup of milk thistle tea to keep my liver in shape. Caroline came in silently a few minutes later as I sat at the table with my tea and a bran muffin liberally spread with red pepper jelly.
She stopped short when she saw me and said in surprise, “Oh. Lyris. I didn’t expect to see you up so early. Let me make you a proper breakfast. How about a nice poached egg with a slice of ham?”
“Not for me, thanks. This is all I can handle, and in any case, you’re not supposed to be cooking breakfast or lunch for me. Just pretend I’m not here.”
“I don’t mind, honestly. My plan is to make a light breakfast and lunch for Conklin and myself anyway, so one more would be no trouble.”
I wavered, and then shed my self-imposed directive without a modicum of guilt. “How about this, then? If I’m around, I’ll share your meals, but don’t bother to save anything for me if I’m not here.” God, I was so weak where my stomach was con
cerned.
She agreed and proceeded to whip up some breakfast, enough for three. I watched as her hands moved from refrigerator to stove and noticed the injury on her face was that purple-red colour of a bruise at its zenith, just before it starts to fade to yellow and green.
“How did you sleep last night, Caroline? It’s not easy getting used to a strange bed, and your personal problems must be affecting your rest too. I hope you know you can talk to me if you want. I may not have had quite the same issues in my marriage as you have, but I think I can understand how a break-up can affect your life.”
She kept her face averted. “Thank you very much, Lyris. I appreciate that more than you can know, but I have to work my problems out on my own. For now, anyway.”
I ran words through my mind, trying to find the right ones. Before I came up with anything sensible, Conklin appeared at my elbow. He had changed from his butler outfit to a more casual one—light wool pants, dazzling white shirt and, of course, the black bow tie.
“Madam, I noticed that you have not checked off the facilities firm on your reunion list. This is not at item that should be left to the last. It would be very serious, indeed, if there were no facilities for the number of people…”
I grabbed the list out of his hand. “Don’t worry about it, Conklin. I’m on it. I just forgot to check it off. Everything is going great. I even have a few surprises up my sleeve.”
That worried him. His wrinkles took on a life of their own as his face puckered in concern. “Madam, the facilities…”
“…are under control. Everything is under control. Just sit down here, Conklin. Caroline is fixing you some eggs and ham. And if you’ll excuse me, Caroline, I won’t wait for breakfast after all. I have a lot of phoning to do.”
Snatching a bottle of water out of the fridge to combat dehydration, I headed for the telephone room. Once seated on the tiny velvet armchair with the telephone book in hand, I remembered it was still just seven o’clock in the morning. It would be at least two hours before any business would take my call.
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