The Latchkey Kid

by Helen Forrester

  She thought she heard someone coming down the passage, so she grabbed two paper towels and wrapped them round the offending literature. The footsteps continued past the cloak-room door, and she relaxed. When all was silent, except for the distant buzz of conversation from the tea, she crept out and almost ran down the back passage, as fast as her high-heeled shoes would permit. Her mind in turmoil, her thoughts entirely on escape, she hardly drew breath until she reached the sanctuary of the tall displays in the bedding and linen department on the ground floor and saw the safety of the store’s side door beckoning to her. Thankfully, she allowed the revolving door to take her in its firm embrace and deposit her in the hall.

  She stood for a moment, her eyes closed, trying to collect her thoughts, while she struggled to put on her gloves. Those cats and that old tabby, Angus; she could murder them.

  The door of a car banged outside. Her eyelids flew up like window blinds wound too tightly.

  Swaying gracefully up the steps on heels even higher than Mrs. Frizzell’s, came Mrs. Stych. She was dressed entirely in black, except for white gloves, and her tall hat, together with the high-heeled shoes, gave her the height she otherwise lacked. Her dress, cunningly draped around her plump figure, made her look almost voluptuous; and over her shoulders was carelessly thrown her Persian lamb coat, which made Mrs. Frizzell’s eyes glisten with envy. Even her pearls looked real, thought Mrs. Frizzell grimly, her thoughts for the moment diverted from her own nightmare frame of mind.

  There was no way of escaping Mrs. Stych, so Mrs. Frizzell waited while her neighbour pushed through the swing door. “’Lo, Olga,” she said mechanically and moved to pass out of the same door; but Mrs. Stych wanted to show off her outfit.

  “Hello, Donna,” she greeted her with enthusiasm. “You been to the tea?”

  Donna nodded assent.

  “Wotcha going so early for?”

  Mrs. Frizzell made an effort to sound normal. “Got a meeting of the Committee for the Preservation of Morals tomorrow night,” she said. “Got to make a report to them – and I haven’t prepared it yet.”

  “Oh,” said Mrs. Stych, moving slightly towards the inner revolving door, so that the Persian lamb swung out in all its glory. She paused, however, before going through the door. “What’s that you’ve got wrapped up in lavatory paper? One o’ the clerks’d give you a paper bag.”

  Mrs. Frizzell was just beginning to feel like someone recovering from near drowning, when this remark sent her under again. She shut her eyes tight for a second behind her spectacles, got a grip on herself, and said firmly: “Some books for tomorrow.”

  “Ah-ha,” responded Mrs. Stych, a sly look dawning on her face. “Betcha have fun reading them before you make a report.”

  This was too much for Mrs. Frizzell. She had been mortified enough. She could bear no more. She put her hand to her mouth, uttered a mourning cry and ran through the swing door to her car.

  There was a parking ticket neatly tucked under the windshield wiper.

  CHAPTER 9

  Boyd Stych unlocked the front door and slung his knapsack into the corner reserved for the coats and hats of his wife’s visitors, clumped through the lounge in his heavy laced boots and shouted not very hopefully: “Hi, Olga, I’m back!” Since Mrs. Stych was at the Ladies of Scotland’s Tea, there was no reply.

  Boyd unzipped his sheepskin jacket and flung it on a kitchen chair, opened the plaid shirt he was wearing and scratched his chest wearily. He was a tall, thin man with knotty muscles and a thin, high-cheek-boned face, his chin at the moment covered with ten weeks’ growth of beard. From under fierce black brows a pair of hazel eyes looked out calculatingly at the impersonal kitchen, made spotless by the ministrations of a Dutch cleaning lady.

  Although he had hardly expected anything else, he was annoyed that his wife was out. She was always out. He was tired after the long drive home, preceded by an even longer, freezing-cold canoe and helicopter journey. Thank God, that was the last time he would have to do it; after this he would go as an executive, by aircraft and helicopter only. He wondered how Olga would take the news he had for her, and decided grimly that she would not like it.

  He wanted to have a shower and to change his clothes, before unloading the car; so he plodded slowly upstairs to his bedroom, leaving a trail of greasy, sweaty garments wherever he went. He remembered, just in time, not to shave – the beard was needed for the Edwardian Ball.

  Mrs. Stych was singing as she came up the garden path. As far as she was concerned, the tea had been a success. Her Persian lamb coat had overshadowed the treasurer’s three-year-old mink, and her hat had caused a sensation. She had heard about Donna Frizzell’s frightful taste in literature, and, though she was herself a member of the Society for the Preservation of Morals and knew why the books had been purchased, she saw no reason to save her neighbour any humiliation, and had expressed suitably shocked surprise. It was gratifying to her to see that woman taken down a peg.

  Her song was cut short when she saw the filthy knapsack sitting on the new, pink broadloom and making a smudge against the blush pink wall. Her eyes followed muddy boot tracks across the lounge, through the dining alcove and into the kitchen.

  “Boyd,” she shouted. “Wotcha want to make a mess like that for?” But only the sound of the shower in the distance answered her.

  Sniffing crossly, she went upstairs herself and lovingly hung up the Persian lamb in the clothes closet. Then she sat down on the bed, took off her hat and eased her patent leather pumps off her rapidly swelling feet. The relief was great, and she sat massaging her toes for a minute while she looked at the collection of dirty underwear strewn over her genuine-colonial bedroom, and shuddered. Men were horrid, dirty creatures.

  The horrid, dirty creature in her life, still bearded, but feeling much better after his shower, came striding into the room, tying a bathrobe as he came.

  “Hi, Olga,” he said.

  She looked up at him and said sulkily: “Wotcha wanna make such a mess for?”

  “Aw, shut up,” he replied. “What about a kiss for your long–lost husband?”

  She looked mutinous, then lifted a pouting mouth to his and squeaked protestingly as he pushed her backwards onto the bed and on top of her new hat. But Boyd did not care about new hats or new frocks. He had been ten weeks in the bush, a womanless bush, and Olga Stych had to put up with the fact.

  She was far too quick-witted to complain and endured silently, but she managed to extract a promise of a new hat and a new dress from him, before getting up an hour later to tidy herself and prepare supper. Neither of them had mentioned Hank.

  Hank, school-books under arm, arrived, however, in time for supper. He said “Hi” slightly nervously to his father, who grunted acknowledgment from behind the Tollemarche Advent.

  Hank relaxed. Everything seemed as usual. Evidently the school had not communicated with his parents. He was unaware that a harassed Mr. Dixon, caught between Hank, his parents and the school authorities, had disclaimed any knowledge of Hank’s whereabouts, except to say, when asked by the school secretary, that probably Hank had the flu – there was a lot of it about.

  As he tackled his cold meat loaf and salad, Hank thought he had better show some interest in his father, so he asked the back page of the newspaper if it had had a good trip.

  “Yeah,” Boyd said listlessly, and then, with more animation, as he realized that this might be a good moment to break his news to his family, he added: “Yeah, I did.”

  He dropped the newspaper onto the kitchen floor, looked with distaste at his plate, and began to eat. Mrs. Stych brought her plate to the table, picked up her fork and toyed with her food. She had eaten too many cookies at the tea and was feeling nauseated in consequence, but told herself wrathfully that it was Boyd’s disgusting ways that had done it. Tomorrow, she promised herself, she would go down to Dawne’s Dresse Shoppe – she’d make him pay. Wrapped in her own thoughts, she did not at first hear what her husband was saying an
d only became aware of his monologue when Hank said: “Say, Dad, that’ll be good.”

  “What’ll be good?” she asked suspiciously.

  “Dad isn’t going to have to go away any more – he’s been made vice-president – gonna sit in an office all day right here in Tollemarche.”

  Mrs. Stych went pale as the full implication of this burst upon her. “Not go away?” she stuttered.

  “No,” said her husband cheerfully, “and am I glad! Had enough of going on trips. Big business – collar and tie – that’s me now.”

  Mrs. Stych’s mouth dropped open. A husband always under her feet! A man who came home every night – and slept with her! Why, it was almost indecent – she might even have a kid. She would never be free. This had never happened to her before, and she was dumbfounded that, in the course of a few seconds, her life could change so much.

  “Well?” he asked huffily, “aren’t you pleased?”

  She said hastily: “Oh, yeah. Yeah, I’m pleased.” But she looked like a Protestant faced with the Spanish Inquisition. She went slowly to the refrigerator, took out a block of ice cream, cut three slices off it and put them into glass dishes, then plonked the dishes on the table, during which time a new idea came to her.

  “What sorta salary?”

  “Pretty good,” he said. “We’ll be able to leave here and buy in Vanier Heights.”

  She sat down and stared at her ice cream. Vanier Heights – that would be something. That was where Mrs. MacDonald (oil) lived, and she knew two wealthy doctors there already. She looked at her husband with renewed interest. Maybe she would manage after all. Maybe she could manage him, if he was the price of a house in Vanier Heights.

  Although Hank was obsessed with his own problems, he was well aware of what was going on in his mother’s head. He knew her too well, and he flushed, embarrassed by his own thoughts, and dug into his ice cream. He felt suddenly sorry for his father.

  His mother licked her spoon reflectively, and said: “Vanier Heights would be real good. We could sure entertain up there.”

  Hank was just about to say, in order to irritate his mother, that it was in another school district and he would, therefore, have to change schools, when he remembered that he was no longer at school, and shut his mouth. Being out of school gave him a wonderful feeling. For two days now he had sat in Isobel’s garage during most of school hours and planned his new book. Twice, when he had run out of ideas, he had driven the little Triumph out of the district to a coffee shop where he was not known, and had sat drinking coffee and talking to the men next to him at the counter, surprised to find himself accepted as a member of the grown-up world. One man had asked him what his job was, and he had said that he was an author. This had caused such abnormal interest that the next time he was asked he said that he worked in a garage.

  One afternoon he had shared a pot of coffee with Dorothy, at her invitation. She was to stay with her sister until Isobel decided definitely whether to remain in Tollemarche or return to England, and occasionally she became a little bored and was glad of Hank’s lively company, though to her annoyance, he treated her as if she were a ten-year-old.

  The day before his father’s return, he had driven out to a lake some ten miles from the town; it was deserted and half frozen, and he had walked round it, finding that the fresh air cleared his head and that ideas came fast in the silence of the woods. The characters for his book began to emerge as persons and to walk beside him. Now, all he wanted was to get back to his typewriter and put them on paper before they faded. First, however, he had to ask Isobel if he could alter the lighting in the garage, so that he could see better at night.

  The meal was finished, his father had returned to the newspaper, rather deflated at his family’s lack of appreciation of his vice-presidency, and his mother had finished her ice cream and was rising from the table.

  “Hank, now you can just do these dishes for me tonight. There’s a meeting of the Queen Bees in an hour, and I’ve got to get into my robes.”

  Hank made a face at her plump back disappearing through the kitchen door and reluctantly began to transfer the dishes to the sink. His father had put down his newspaper and was looking at her, too. He looked old and forlorn, in spite of the ferocious beard, as if he had hoped for something and been disappointed. Hank was so used to being deserted by his mother that he did not think it odd that she should go out on the first evening in ten weeks that his father had been able to spend at home. But he did see that his usually tough, self-sufficient male parent was, for once, looking as if he needed bolstering up.

  As he turned on the hot-water tap and got out the dish detergent, Hank abandoned the idea of going back to his garage. “Looks as if we’re going to have a bull session, Dad.”

  His father looked almost grateful.

  “I guess so,” he said, and then roused himself. “Here, I’ll dry for you.” He took up the dish towel. And when Mrs. Stych returned, looking like a fat Christmas fairy and complaining that she could not fix her wings, he was able to pin them onto her dress without rancour and to tell a thoroughly bawdy joke, which made Hank explode with laughter and his wife look outraged. “Boyd Stych,” she shouted, “you’re disgusting!” He smacked her gold-and-black-striped bottom, and sent her, fuming, out to her little car.

  “Any beer in the house?” asked Boyd, as soon as the car engine had started up and it could be assumed that Mrs. Stych was on her way.

  “Sure, there’s some in the cold room downstairs.”

  Boyd’s face brightened. “Say, let’s have some. You go down and get it, while I make a fire in the living-room. This place is like a morgue.”

  Hank was delighted, though at the same time a little suspicious of his father’s prompt response to his friendly overture. The old man had never suggested before that they have a drink together; maybe it was all part of that new world he had entered when he stood in front of Mr. Albert’s mirror in his new suit. He loped down into the basement, dusted off half a dozen bottles of beer and brought them up, found glasses and an opener and took them into the living-room on a tray.

  His father, an expert woodsman, had already got a fire going, and the room had lost some of its pristine newness and was looking much more cosy. The wood crackled and hissed, and Boyd drew the brass firescreen across it to stop the sparks from flying out at them. Together, they heaved the oversize coffee table, with its burden of unread art books, out of the way, and pulled up chairs. Mr. Stych opened two bottles and handed a glass and a bottle to Hank.

  “Ever drunk beer before?” he asked.

  Hank did not know how to reply. The Alberta liquor laws laid down that no minors might drink, but it was not difficult to obtain beer or liquor, and he had often drunk himself silly. His silence made his father laugh.

  “O.K., O.K.,” he said, “I won’t ask.”

  Hank grinned sheepishly. Now, he knew, was the time to tell his father about The Cheaper Sex, while he was in such an extraordinarily amiable mood. He would have to be told; any day now it would dawn on Tollemarche that it had spawned its first successful author, and he could guess the kind of jokes his father’s colleagues were going to make when they found out what kind of book he had written. He could not, however, think how to start, and the silence deepened.

  “How’s school?” asked his father, in a sudden valiant attempt to re-establish the frail line of communication.

  “I’ve quit,” said Hank absently, and realized a second too late what he had said.

  “You’ve what?”

  He was committed and could only stumble on. “I’ve dropped out – I couldn’t stand it any more.”

  Mr. Stych sat up in his chair and glowered at his son. What, he wondered indignantly, had Olga been thinking of to countenance this?

  “Are you crazy?” he demanded in horrified tones. “Where you going to be without Grade 12? You have to go to university.” He looked his offending offspring up and down with angry eyes. “Just what do you think you’re goi
ng to do?”

  Hank’s face went blank. “I’m gonna write,” he said stubbornly.

  His father put down his glass with a bang, so that the beer slopped over on the side table. “You’ll do no such thing,” he shouted. “You’ll go right back to school on Monday morning and finish Grade 12. I’ll have no dropouts in my family – we got enough hippie types hanging around. Never heard of such a thing.” He paused to take breath before continuing his tirade, and Hank said hastily: “Listen, Dad, you don’t understand.”

  “Understand? I understand all right, and if you think you’re going to live off me for the rest of your life you’re mistaken. You get your Grade 12, and then you work your own way through university, same as I did.”

  With a painful effort, Hank swallowed his own anger. He had either to get his father to listen or otherwise he would have to just walk out. He itched to do the latter, but common sense prevailed; he had seen how uncomfortable were the lives of other guys who had done that, either to marry too young or go it alone. A home was a sensible base for operations. He held up one hand in a conciliatory gesture to try and calm his parent, who by this time was striding up and down the room behind him.

  He did his best to infuse good humour into his voice as he said: “Hold it, Dad. I got fifty or maybe seventy thousand dollars earned, and I need advice about investing it. Believe me, I really need advice.”

  Mr. Stych stopped in his tracks at the mention of such a sum of money, as Hank had hoped he would, and looked at the boy as if he might have gone dangerously mad.

  “Now what are you trying to tell me?” he asked, his mouth twisted in bitterness. He’d always known Hank was no good. Always bottom in phys. ed. and always hated baseball. What could you expect? he asked himself. Just trouble, nothing but trouble. Now the kid was sick in his head. Seventy thousand bucks – that was a good one!

  “Now listen, Dad, just sit down and listen. I’ve got a real long story to tell you.”