A Thief in the House of Memory (9 page)

“Just go!” shouted his father, waving his hands around as he stepped between Dec and the camera.

In the house, Dec locked the door but stood, catching his breath, looking out the tiny window. He could hear the television in the rec room — “Reading Rainbow.” Sunny was home and, by the sound of it, oblivious to the commotion upstairs. Dec's eyes followed the trio on the lawn back towards the van.

It was only then that he noticed Birdie's black Beetle parked beside the Rendezvous.

She was sitting in the living room with a drink in her hand.

“What are you doing here?” he asked.

“I live here.”

Dec lowered his head and sighed. “That isn't what I meant.”

“I know,” she said. “But you're not around much lately, so I thought, hey, I'd better remind you.”

He tried again. “You're home early.”

She nodded and peered towards the picture window. “The general was blowing a gasket. I figured I'd better call in Kerrie to hold the fort, and hustle my buns back here.” She
took another, longer swig of her drink. There was a bottle of Canadian Club on the coffee table.

Outside, the TV truck's horn sounded. Dec walked over to the picture window to watch. The cameraman was behind the wheel, ready to go. The reporter handed Bernard a business card. He accepted it with a stiff nod. He had calmed down, but his shoulders were slumped. Dec looked back at Birdie.

“Did he see the
Citizen
article?”

“Oh, yeah,” she said. She patted the side of her hair, found a loose strand and had to put her drink down to pin it back in place. “He had his lawyer on it right away. It seems the photographer wasn't actually on the property, or so he claims. He climbed a tree on the river road; used a telephoto lens. There's some dispute about whether there's still a public right of way on the old road. I don't know the details and, frankly Scarlet, I don't give a damn.”

“But where'd they get all that information?”

She took another drink. “There's always someone in a small town with a big mouth.” She glanced at Dec and, as quickly as she looked away, he saw the question in her eyes.

“You think I talked to them?”

She frowned, and the make-up cracked around her mouth. “I don't know what to think,” she said. “And you don't need to look at me like that. If you say you didn't, that's good enough for me. It's just that lately you've been kind of…”

“Kind of what?”

Her eyebrow arched. “Not exactly open, for starters.”

Dec pulled a hassock over to the coffee table and sat down.
“I'm
not very open?” he said. “I begged you guys to talk to me about the inquest and I got the cold shoulder.”

She topped up her drink and leaned back heavily in her chair. “You're just spitting feathers,” she said. “Why are you so angry?”

Dec shook his head. “So now this is my fault.”

“Your father is beleaguered, Dec. That's the word he used — beleaguered. He needs our support. Can't you see that now is not the time for this?”

“This what?”

“This attitude, this moping around. This suspicion. You think we don't see it? What's it all about, anyway? Where did it come from?” She leaned forward and poked the glass table-top with her finger. “I'll tell you what I think. I think you've been spending way too much time up the hill.”

Dec went cold. “What's that supposed to mean?”

She stirred her drink slowly with her finger. “You know what I'm saying: the House of God-damned Memories.” She shuddered. “That place gives me the creeps.” Then she looked up at Dec, looked him square in the eye. “You thinking of moving up there?”

It was as if she had drawn a battle line in the sand. He wanted to move, all right. He wanted to stomp right out of the room and right out of Camelot and slam a few doors on the way.

He noticed Birdie regarding him with an odd look in her eye — curious and anxious at the same time.

“You've been asking about Lindy,” she said.

He nodded slowly. “What about it?”

She looked down at the bottle of rye, her gaze wavering.

She didn't drink very often. He wondered if she was drunk.

“It just seemed a little peculiar after so long,” she said.

Dec couldn't keep the sarcasm out of his voice. “She
is
my mother.”

“And she
was
my best friend, okay? So don't get all high and mighty on me, Declan.”

“All I did was ask Dad if she'd been in contact.”

“Why?”

“Why not?”

“I mean, why
now?”
She swigged her drink without taking her eyes off him. “You've been skulking around. I wondered if you'd been doing a little eavesdropping.”

Skulking? Eavesdropping? “What is it I'm supposed to have heard?”

She sighed and looked away, scratching distractedly at the skin above the top button of her blouse. She tanned at a parlour all winter, and her skin was orangey coloured.

“Birdie?”

She was staring at nothing, but he had the feeling she was thinking hard about something. Then she reached a decision. “I guess you might as well hear it from me as anyone. Your dad and I are talking about getting married.”

It took him a moment to figure out what she was saying. “But that's impossible.”

“Gee, thanks.”

“Dad's still married — to Lindy.”

Birdie's eyes grew wide. “Really? I hadn't noticed.”

“You know what I mean.”

The mockery went out of her eyes. She looked down into her glass. It was empty. “Oh, I know what you mean, all right,” she said bitterly. She placed her glass on the coffee table. It clinked on the glass top. She reached for a coaster and placed the glass on it. Dec stared out the window. His father was walking past the house towards his shop, back to that other war — the one he could handle. Dec's gaze returned to Birdie. Her eyes were bleary — from drink, or was she crying?

“You caught me off guard,” he said. “I just…”

“Just wondered why your dad would want to bother marrying little old me?”

“That's not what I was going to say.”

“Not exactly a beauty queen, like your mom.”

“It isn't that,” he said. “I just didn't think you could get divorced if the other person didn't know about it.” Then a new idea struck him like a lightning bolt.
“Does
she know?” he asked. “Has he talked to her?”

“No!” snapped Birdie. Then she rubbed her forehead. “No,” she repeated more quietly. “He has not talked to her and, as you can see, she is most certainly not around.”

She stood up, a little wobbly on her feet, and looked at him with barely concealed resentment. He had hurt her feelings and he wasn't sure how.

“I'll tell you something else for free,” she said. “She is not ever going to be around, Dec. Get used to it. So you don't need to sound so all-fired hopeful.” Then she picked up her glass and headed towards the kitchen.

Through the sheer curtains of the bay window, Dec saw his father reappear with his red tool kit. He crossed the road and started to take down the House of Memory mailbox. The rain wasn't hard but it was steady; he was soon drenched. Finally the job was done, and Bernard hoisted the thing up in one arm, his tool kit in the other.

He looked both ways before crossing the road, the way he had taught Dec when he was little. Then he marched across County Road 10 and around the side of the house to his workshop.

Your dad and I are talking about getting married
.

Why was it such a shock? They had been together pretty much since Lindy left. Birdie had been Lindy's friend. He hadn't really forgotten that. She had been the first to comfort Bernard in his loss — in their mutual loss. Comfort had turned to helping out with baby Sonya. And helping out had led eventually to moving in, which had led not much later to Camelot. She had never liked the big house.

Dec leaned his forehead on the window glass.
Talking about getting married
. So was that what all the whispering was about? Was that why his dad looked so guilty?

He looked back towards the road. The headless black post upon which the mailbox had stood looked like one of the mines on his father's model beach. The beach code-named Love. Dec's eyes wandered to the rough ground beyond the post. There was an old split-rail fence choked with wild grape. Through a gap in it, a path meandered down to a creek. A memory stirred in him.

It was after Sunny was born, a kinder, warmer day than this one. He had taken her in her Snugli down to the creek to look at the tadpoles. He was heading home again when he saw his mother coming down the long drive from Steeple Hall. There was no Camelot then, just an unassuming dirt driveway that might have looked to a passerby like a road to an orchard or a cottage. They were heading towards each other — Dec up from the creek, Lindy down from the house, with only the county road between them.

But she didn't see him. She was kind of hurrying and looking back over her shoulder, wearing tight jeans and her suede jacket, the one with the eight-inch fringe along the arms and the Indian embroidery on the pockets.

He was going to shout to her, but Sunny was sleeping. So he just waited for her to notice them. She didn't. She got to the road and threw out her thumb. He felt torn. She was right there not twenty metres away but she was hitching. Why? Was Daddy too busy to take her where she wanted to go? Then he thought, it doesn't matter, and he was about to
go to her anyway, when a car came from the west heading towards town.

Just like that.

Almost as if she had timed it.

I
T WASN'T UNTIL
the next day that Dec could get his father alone. He arrived home from school to find the house empty and made his way to the shop. It was empty as well, apart from the miniature troops crowding the worktable: Brits, Yanks, Canucks. They were all lined up and ready, painted and waiting. On the beach, the Nazis were waiting, too, sandbagged and camouflaged, dressed in
Feldgrau —
field grey. His father had talked about it all through dinner. He'd talked about all sorts of things — anything he could think of that wasn't anything at all.

Dec found him, at last, up at the House of Memory. The front door was wide open and he was in the vestibule with his tool kit and the packaging for a security system. He was attaching the alarm keypad to the wall and didn't hear Dec arrive over the sound of the drill. He started when he saw him.

“Thought you might be the man from the phone company,” he said. “We're going to have to get the line reconnected.”

Dec stood at the threshold. ‘Birdie says you're getting married.”

His father carried on with his task. The drill whirred; another screw sank home. He spoke calmly but firmly. “She spoke out of turn,” he said.

“So you're not getting married?”

The drill whirred again. Stopped. Bernard stepped back to inspect his work. “We're looking into an annulment.”

“What's that?”

“A judicial proceeding to nullify the marriage. That's all.”

That's all, thought Dec. Declare the marriage null, as if it had never happened. He leaned against the doorframe.

“Does Lindy know?”

His father looked cross. “Lindy was beyond caring about any of us a very long time ago.”

“You know that for a fact?” demanded Dec. “She told you that?”

“No,” said his father. “How many times do I have to tell you, Son? I have not heard from her. Period.” With a weary sigh he sat down on the pew. He bent over his drill, removing the Phillips head bit, putting it back in its case. Then he carefully placed the case back in the neatly appointed tool kit. He looked up at Dec, squinting a bit from the sun. “What's all this about?”

Dec shifted his weight to the other leg. What was it about?

“Birdie has been good to you,” said his father patiently.
“She's been a mother for Sonya, who never really knew Lindy. And as for me, where am I likely to find another woman her equal?”

Not in your workshop, Dec thought. Not unless you send away to a model company. Maybe you could get someone in l:72-inch scale.

He wanted to say that, but he held his tongue.

“Dec, do you have a problem with this?”

Dec shook his head. But he did, he did have a problem. Lindy. Her memory, buried for so long, had burst out of him like a jack-in-the-box, demanding his attention. She was everywhere, especially up here.

“It's just that Mom…never…”

But he wasn't sure what Mom never did. Never said goodbye?

“I'm listening,” said his father.

But for some reason Dec didn't want to share his thoughts with his father. Didn't want to share Lindy with him.

“Is this about the estate?”

Dec's head jerked back. “What?”

“Is that what's on your mind?” said his father. “Because the estate is not an issue. It will be settled on you and Sunny. That's the way it was always going to be. Birdie knows that.”

Dec's face puckered with distaste. “I don't care about the money,” he said. “And I sure as hell don't care about this place.” It wasn't what he meant to say, not really, but he couldn't take it back.

His father replaced the portable drill in its case and snapped the lid shut. He looked up, his face a mask. “Well, that's useful to know,” he said.

He looked past Dec down the hill. He frowned and glanced at his wrist, which was bare, though the skin was pale where his watch should have been.

“What happened to your watch?”

His father looked at him, still frowning and looking a little pained. “I broke it,” he said. Then he picked up his tool kit and squeezed past Dec out the door.

“How?”