by John Farrow
He’s dead. That’s it, that’s all. He won’t say a word now.
His body’s not worth the ten cents that rest on his eyes.
She feels neither grief nor remorse.
Or what she feels she does not know to be either grief or remorse.
He’s been left alone, and no one on the entire island that he so dominated for half a century gave enough of a damn to do more for this defeated old man than fold his hands over his chest, give him a couple of nickels, and leave a few lights on.
A neglect that he deserves, she remits to herself.
But this dreadful silence she does not comprehend. This vacancy in her now. So she grieves, actually grieves, for words unknown that she has secretly coveted but knows now were never meant to summon more than an abject silence.
For that reason and that reason alone, Maddy, quietly, briefly, and in a way that a stranger might comprehend no more than she does, lets loose a few tears.
Then she shakes off the mood. Gets up and goes downstairs. She uses the bathroom, munches a few leftovers from the fridge, binds herself in a blanket on the La-Z-Boy, and commits herself to sleep. She’ll be surprised if sleep does overcome her, so is taken by surprise when eventually she awakens.
SEVEN
Police are outside. Men from the funeral home go about their work indoors, murmuring in low, bloodless voices, as if to ensure that the dead won’t hear. Madeleine Orrock leans against the front doorjamb to her family home, taking on the responsibility of being its gatekeeper. Down the road, a smattering of local folks, who noticed the Mounties and the undertaker’s van at the mansion, engage in repartee, generally jovial. No respectful solemnity in evidence there. A few venture onto the property to pick up a pertinent detail or two from the police, then serve as sentries, tipping off new arrivals about the goings-on. Often they speak for less than thirty seconds before the people receiving the report scurry back into town like excited chipmunks to broadcast the news farther afield. Maddy expects a marching band in a jiff, banners raised, the mayor to drop by to declare a civic holiday and a week’s festivities.
In her head, children will be singing, “Ding-dong! The prick is dead. The wicked prick is dead!” She’s not sure that she won’t want to join in.
When the housekeeper shows up on her doorstep, Maddy puts a face to her name, remembering her from previous visits, although the woman didn’t work for her dad back then. Not a bimbo, and nothing about her appearance qualifies as whorish. Maddy is secretly embarrassed by her previous harsh judgment of this rather dowdy girl. At times, her father’s influence insinuates itself in her own character and opinions. She might disapprove, yet she feels powerless to behave differently. The housekeeper desires access to the mansion. She seems to think that she has every right to be admitted. And why not? Maddy asks herself. Let her in. But she sees things differently also.
“You were close to my father?” She really wants to ask, Did he say anything?
“People say the wickedest things, don’t they? Yes, they do. I kept the house tidy-o. I got paid for that. Every once in a while he tried to cop a feel, but I never let him. When he got sicker I cleaned up his dribbles. I was never paid a fat penny for that. So no. We weren’t close.”
“I didn’t mean it that way.”
The housekeeper knows a bald-faced lie when she hears one. Maddy can tell.
“I’m sorry,” Maddy tacks on. “It’s just that—”
“No worries. He was your dad,” Ora remarks. “You knew what to expect, am I right? Anyway, what people say. They’re all stupid in the head if you ask me.”
“I apologize for being one of the dumb ones.”
“No worries! There’s only one Einstein, right? So, can I come in?”
“Why?”
“Why?” She looks as though she’s fishing for a fib to answer the question. Ora Matheson is an island girl who lives where people are welcome at every door and to be refused entry is outside her personal experience. Maddy suffers a doubt. Perhaps she’s lived too long in Boston. “To clean the house up,” the younger woman attests. “People will be coming over, no? The house was squeaky clean when I left it, but I want to finish the job, not that you can make everything tidy-o and perfect every minute of every day, although he used to think so, your dad did. There’ll be visitors, no? How many, do you think? What’s your best guesstimate on that?”
“Probably none. Look, the house is as tidy as it will ever be. Thanks for that.” Maddy gazes out across the yard. More folks are attracted to the fuss as the day’s good news makes the rounds. “You left him alone,” she brings up, and means it as an accusation, but she’s already been corrected by this woman once and shown to be mistaken, so adds, “Didn’t you?”
“Seriously? You ask me that? Oh, hardly! I left him with Reverend Lescavage. He came over during the storm to spell me off, and because your daddy asked him to. I mean, he commanded him to come over, put it that way. So Revy came over.”
“I see.” Maddy’s eyes soften. She has no particular grievance against the island, at least not outside her family home. She feels at odds, though, as if she’s partially to blame for her father’s life, and fears that others think so. A perpetual fear. “Thanks for taking care of him,” she says. “That couldn’t’ve been easy.”
Some weird sound is released by the housekeeper, one that, while not attributable to any known language, manages to sum up Maddy’s assumption more emphatically. Looking after her father had definitely not been easy.
“Ora, I think we’ll just let the undertaker’s men do their thing and take my father out. We won’t need any cleaning, okay? I’ll let you know if that changes.”
“Oh, all righty,” the younger woman agrees, “but if I’m not full-time I charge more for cleaning up after a party, just so you know.” Quickly, she skips away and bolts off to join the company of the two officers from the Royal Canadian Mounted Police.
Maddy watches her go while scarcely moving herself, then continues to survey the activity in her front yard. Overhead, clouds scud. The wind is no longer a maelstrom but is still brisk. Below the cliff that the house is situated on, waves crash ashore. Power on the island remains off and the house generator ran out of fuel an hour ago, so she’s living like everyone else and is content with that. If he were already buried, her father would be rolling over in his grave, but instead he’s subject to the ministrations of the undertaker’s crew rolling him over into a body bag. She ponders what her father’s housekeeper can be saying to the Mounties, so blithely chatting away, and why do they go on talking to her, and for so long?
* * *
Ora says, “He was here when I left. Put that in your pipe. Or don’t you smoke?”
“You’re sure?”
“In the flesheroo. If he was a ghost, he wasn’t good at it.”
He has to think what that means, then gives up. The senior officer remarks, “If you see him before I do, Ora, ask him to give me a buzz, okay? Thanks.”
The policeman is silver-haired and large, imposing and authoritative even out of his uniform, doubly so when dressed. He’s always known that he looks especially good when suited up. He envies his partner at the moment, who has successfully made a break for it, heading off the property to a cruiser, while he’s been snared by Ora, her fingers gripping the sleeve of his jacket. He’s prying her fingers off one at a time, although she doesn’t seem to notice, when suddenly she gets his attention.
“Hey hey hey,” Ora whispers. “The rats are climbing over the wall. Can you believe what my eyes are seeing here?”
Checking the direction of her interest the officer spots a man striding up the hill from town. A rain jacket is strapped around his waist, the sleeves knotted together at his hips. The rain pants he wears indicate that he began the walk in earlier weather, or that he’s expecting more of the same. What makes him distinctive is not so much his clothing as his posture and bearing. A march-like swing to his arms seems to impart balance to his uphill stride, virtually
military in its precision, while seemingly unnatural. Nobody walks like that, elbows rising up and out. The stride might seem laughable on a different body type or on anyone lacking self-confidence, but the man’s demeanor defrays any such slight. He not only commands and sustains attention—Ora Matheson’s, and everyone else’s—but respect as well. Or so the policeman surmises in the moment before he gathers that the new arrival has chosen a destination, and he is it. Ora notices that, too.
“Oh my brown shit, he’s coming straight here!” She seems in a sudden and inexplicable panic.
“Who is he?”
“That’s Roadcap, you dumb twist!”
“Mind your manners, Miss Matheson.”
“Don’t be so sensitive. I call everybody names.”
“What name do you call him?”
She doesn’t hesitate a second. “Scary wacko dreamboat dude.”
The cop eyes him more closely, and draws a conclusion from a previous encounter, a long while back. He fears that she might have a comparable phrase for him, apart from “dumb twist,” but decides that he’s better off not asking. “Tell me his real name again.”
“Roadcap.”
He’s heard that name mentioned. He knows of him.
“News travels fast,” the cop calls.
“Why’s that?” The man stops fifteen feet away, which seems an odd distance for a conversation he’s evidently intent on having.
“All the way to Dark Harbour.”
“Okay. I’m from there. But I heard no news lately. What’s up?”
The policeman looks away, a fake pause for dramatic effect perhaps, and in that moment notices that Maddy Orrock is paying attention. She’s crossed her arms and stepped to the rim of the mansion’s porch to observe the man facing the policeman. “Orrock’s dead,” the cop tells him. “If that’s news to you, then you’re probably last on the island to hear.” When the man does not seem to react immediately, he adds, “Is that why you’re up here for some reason?”
“I didn’t know. Sorry to hear that. But no, I don’t walk across the island because somebody dies. Doesn’t matter who it is. How’d he die anyhow?”
“Old age,” Ora pipes up. She tucks herself in slightly behind the policeman, as if for her protection. “People die that way. Maybe not in your family, but…”
The man looks at her then, and while his choice of words is challenging, his tone remains flat and cordial, his gaze level. “You know nothing about my family.”
“Not if you don’t say so,” she replies.
The officer notices a look of puzzlement cross the man’s brow, and sees him choose not to bother decoding her remark. “She’s got a mouth on her,” the cop points out.
“My way to keep your eyes up that high, copper man.”
“All right,” the officer says, clearly irritated now.
“All right what?”
The Mountie feels that she might be sassing him to make him look bad in front of their visitor.
“Enough of that.”
“Of what?”
“Of that. Will you excuse us, please?” He does a quarter turn to exclude her from further conversation, and as he makes that motion sees Madeleine Orrock come down the stairs. She’s casually sauntering toward him. “Can we help you with something, sir?” he asks the man called Roadcap.
“Sir?” Ora complains at his back. “Sir? Don’t call him that. Not him.”
Roadcap ignores her but answers the Mountie. “The other way around maybe. I can help you out, I think.”
“How so?”
Ora butts in. “I thought Dark Harbour people got nothing to do with cops.”
“Maybe for good reason,” Roadcap suggests.
“No argument there.”
“Ora,” the cop says, “will you please be quiet?”
“Dark Harbour guys never date us local girls. Ever notice?”
The officer sees that Maddy is curious enough to come closer, but she has stopped along the way and stands observing them, listening in. That’s not difficult given the extended range Roadcap has deployed to talk to him, and his voice carries.
“Sir?” the policeman asks, and he must also raise his voice a trifle to speak across the gulf between them. “How can we help you? Or you help us, as the case may be?”
“Like I said, I came across the island. Overnight. Through the storm. I met Reverend Lescavage along the way.”
“Oh I know,” Ora pipes up from behind the officer’s back, “he’s got a thing for you Dark Harbour thugs. His flock gone astray or something like that. Pretty funny when you think about it. I mean, he’s the one astray, right?”
“Maybe we can talk about this in private?” Roadcap suggests.
“Is there a problem?” the Mountie inquires, finally alert.
“You can say that.”
The Mountie gestures with his chin and the two men stroll farther uphill while remaining in the front yard of the Orrock mansion. They finally come within a conversational distance of each other. Maddy takes advantage of their departure to step forward herself, and comes up alongside Ora Matheson.
“What are they talking about?” Maddy asks.
Ora looks her over, exactly as she did when she first arrived, a kind of up-and-down assessment. “Not what,” she says. “Who.”
“Then who?”
“Reverend Lescavage. You know him, right?”
“Family friend, yeah. I’ve known him all my life.”
“Me, too. All my life. But it’s been a shorter life for me.”
“So far,” Maddy tacks on.
Ora agrees with that. “Yeah. Right. So far.”
They see the Mountie extract his notebook and start to scribble things down.
“So what are they talking about?” Maddy asks again.
“That’s for them to know and for us to go find out,” Ora tells her.
EIGHT
Officer Wade Louwagie of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police has made it through a third year on the island of Grand Manan. Coming off a lengthy stint with post-traumatic stress disorder, he’s taken to the place, and credits the island with his salvation. The Mounties have declined to take a page from their sister police organizations across the continent to provide expert counsel for officers with PTSD symptoms, partially believing in the mythic power of their famous tunic to hide what’s going on beneath the skin—and in an officer’s discombobulated head—but mainly convinced that the best therapy, perhaps the only therapy, is to get back to work. Officer Louwagie’s attempts to get back to work failed repeatedly, his anxiety clouded by alcoholism, leading to drug addiction, which wound up in long bouts of tearfulness and inadvertent panics, night sweats, the shakes, violent headaches, two attempted suicides, weeks of mulling over shooting himself, and one admission to a rehab center. Since the Mounties’ hierarchy contends, perhaps as a remnant from their horse-and-rider heritage, that the only way to deal with a fall is to get back in the saddle, Louwagie was given one last assignment, a do-or-die posting, where to everyone’s surprise he made significant progress. Given his success on Grand Manan, he’s been left in place and finds himself in command. If he’s never posted elsewhere again, he’s fine with that.
He credits the sea. Arriving on Grand Manan, he did what tourists do, only in all seasons, walking the cliff trails and the forest loops, spending time on rocky beaches. The ocean seemed to soothe his inner panic, alleviate a deep malaise, and him a prairie boy whose only sense of water growing up was found in sloughs. He’s not fond of being in a boat and on the water—that doesn’t work for him—but the shoreline, the breadth of sea and sky, this foreign geography, helps his head. He doesn’t do drugs anymore, he’s not on the wagon but he drinks sparingly. He’s doubled down on cigarettes, although on the scale of things it’s a vice that might kill him, but slowly. The other options can be quicker. He also talks to Ora Matheson a lot, and to a few other young working women around the island. Only talk, but all of it is a comfort.
What h
e’s seen, what led him to descend from being an idealistic recruit with a prizefighter’s physique to become an alcoholic basket case, is not something he’s willing to talk about, although the events are sufficiently torturous on his psyche that HQ cut him more than the usual slack, and is content now to cut their losses and leave him right where he is. Out of the way, doing himself some good.
So he does not like hearing what he’s now being told, and must ask the man from Dark Harbour to repeat himself more than once to get his point across. He’s written his name down as Aaron Oscar Roadcap, a man who, he recalls hearing, derives from a criminal background and possesses a shadowy past. People whisper about him among themselves but say nothing openly to Louwagie, as if afraid to do so.
“What were you doing out in the storm, exactly?” he inquires again.
“I told you, I—”
“You were walking out in the rain, in the wind, in the dark. You enjoy that sort of thing. Okay, I get that. I don’t understand it, but I’m taking you at your word here. But what were you actually doing?”
“I wasn’t doing anything. Except for what I said. Walking. Sometimes I was sitting. I was lying on my back when the sun came up.”
