Darren Effect (13 page)

“Will you just look at the size of it, Darren?” Isabella said. Indeed, the roaster, large and oval shaped, easily straddled both her front burners. “Solid bottom. Gravy was a cinch.” She grabbed
the roaster by its double handles and carried it to him. He immediately swivelled in his chair to meet her. “Here. Feel this weight,” she said.

As he reached out to take the roaster from Isabella, he glanced at Jeanette. Her expression had turned supercilious and aloof. Darren had known the look since childhood. It invited him to join her in an alliance that excluded Isabella, leaving her marooned with every person Jeanette had never liked or comprehended. But Darren was distracted by the pan, which
was
surprisingly heavy, and oddly comforting, though he wasn't going to say so.

Isabella said, “And the top can be turned over and used as a sauté pan. More wine?”

Jeanette put her hand over her wine glass and said, “I think I saw that very pot in the Zellers flyer last week.”

“You save ten bucks? So what?”

Jeanette was returning the pan to the stove when the door opened. A boy with black hair and a million freckles was leaning heavily against the door frame. He was panting and looked unstable.

“Darling,” Isabella said.

“I'm starved.”

“I thought you said you wouldn't be home for supper.”

“No, I never.”

“We're just going,” Darren said.

“Don't be ridiculous,” Isabella said, not sounding herself.

The boy limped to the counter, then pushed himself along it until he reached his mother, knocking a half-eaten muffin onto the floor in the process. “What have you got for me to eat?”

Darren realized this was Cooper, of the damaged foot.

“Did you have a good time?” Isabella asked him, stooping to retrieve the muffin.

“No.”

“You didn't. Why not?”

“I hated it.”

“Cooper, I'd like you to meet our neighbours, Mr. Foley and
his sister, Miss Jeanette Foley. This is Cooper, my son. Unfortunately, he's injured his ankle.”

“Hi,” Cooper mumbled. For a moment he appeared shy. He looked in their general direction without making eye contact, then turned back to his mother. “What have you got for me to eat?”

“I'll put a plate together. Why don't you wait in the family room?”

Cooper hesitated, but his mother said, “Go on,” and to Darren's astonishment, the boy dropped to the floor and began crawling out of the kitchen on his hands and knees, dragging his right foot.

“His ankle,” Isabella said, frowning, “It seems to come and go.”

It was disturbing, almost heartbreaking, and Darren felt the urge to go over and pluck the boy off the dirty floor, set him down and examine the mysterious leg.

Isabella turned her back to them, preparing Cooper's food, and said, “I made a frozen mousse cake. It's in the freezer. Can you hold on a sec?” The quirky confidence had vanished. He heard the television go on in the next room.

“No worries,” Darren said, looking at his sister. “Take your time.”

Isabella carried the plate out of the room. Almost immediately they heard Isabella cry, “Oh, Cooper. That was your father's.”

Jeanette looked at Darren, alarmed.

“So what? He only cares about himself.”

Isabella's response was a soft murmur.

“Darren,” Jeanette whispered.

He nodded. “Just eat the dessert.”

“Firstly, Darren, her house smelled like dog mess. Secondly, she's a very odd character. And thirdly, the boy.”

It wasn't until they were home and in their kitchen having a
cup of tea before bed that Darren realized how much the visit had disturbed Jeanette.

“I'm not going to jump to any conclusions,” Darren said.

“What are you implying?”

“I'm only saying that I might not know what is normal in children.”

“I can tell you that was
not
normal. Clearly, you don't know about the husband.”

Darren sighed. “Not in the picture?”

“Well, Darren, he's dead — the boy's father is
dead
. He died very recently of cancer. Yet the boy spoke of him in the present tense and in a very disrespectful manner. And why was he crawling?”

Isabella's husband had died? She was a widow? Darren didn't know what to say. He was surprised by the news, yet realized it explained the vulnerability he sensed in both mother and son.

Darren resented Jeanette for holding out on this piece of information. Often her way. Her way of being diplomatic, delicate and grand. She was already dressed for sleep, though he could not see the nightgown or pajamas or whatever served as her first layer, since over it she wore a housecoat and, over that, a bulky sweater. Jeanette's indulgences were warmth and sleep. She reminded him of a mammal preparing for hibernation, which made him think of the black bear, or what might have been a black bear, and he nearly told her. But he wasn't certain and she might worry. Up the shore. He had just checked his watch and was about to remove his snowshoes when he'd glanced up to see a large creature come bobbing down the snowy slope at that very spot where balsam fir gives way to figwort and large-leafed goldenrod in summer. It was gone behind some trees within seconds. He had thought, no, black bears are rare on the Avalon, especially in coastal regions.

Whatever it was, it was not sure-footed.

“One other thing,” Jeanette said. “She has a drinking problem.”

Darren nodded — he had suspected as much — and rose to collect their cups and saucers.

“Leave those, Darren,” Jeanette said. “I'll get them.”

“It's no bother.” He looked and saw her face had softened. He was reminded of their mother.

Darren took his laptop into the dining room where he would do a bit of work before bed. At the table he closed his eyes and immediately saw Cooper collapse to the floor and crawl out of the kitchen on his hands and knees. He smiled, suddenly understanding the argument for installing Cooper's Home Depot shelf at ground level.

It was still cold, but the sky was a distant creamy blue. Darren felt hollow, as though the memories of a thousand people had recently exited his mind, leaving only the space they once occupied and an evasive, baffling nostalgia. Nothing concrete; it was only a mood. The lengthening days, the sun beginning to feel stronger and flooding the woods, the world expanding. They would be done with winter soon. He felt optimism, relief, sadness. He could almost imagine how the future would look and smell and feel. At a familiar sound, he glanced up to see scores of crossbills hanging from the trees.

The skateboarding stopped as abruptly as it had begun. It was at this point that Isabella's ancient Labrador retriever started barking, much of the day and occasionally at night, during wind, snow, rain, and under clear conditions. Had Darren and Jeanette been so preoccupied with the skateboarding that they'd never heard the dog? Or was there a warped obsession with maddening sounds taking place in the Martin household? And where did the dog get its stamina? It could barely stand on all four legs simultaneously.

At supper Jeanette said, “That animal needs a mercy killing. Darren? If you ask me — ”

“I heard you.”

“You don't agree?”

She was smiling at him, trying to be gentle, but Darren was distracted. “Did we ever buy that new screen door?” he asked.

“Pardon me?”

“Remember? We talked about it last summer.”

“Listen to it, Darren. It's moaning. It sounds like a grown man moaning. I find it hard to listen to.”

“It's howling. Like a wolf, actually.”

“Perhaps it's howling for a mercy killing. Why in the world is she keeping that poor creature alive?”

“I thought I might check out screen doors this evening.” He felt an impatience for things to hurry up and change that was unusual for him.

“Isabella mentioned she was going to the mall this evening,” he added.

“For heaven's sake, Darren. That woman is completely disrupting your life.”

He wanted to tell her, Don't worry, nothing is going to change.

They had been back for a meal at Isabella's twice more. Despite her reluctance and near horror at the state of the house and Cooper, Jeanette went along.

Isabella was a messy, fabulous cook. When Cooper appeared he might display evidence of a setback with his ankle, causing him to crawl through the house, deaf to most questions his mother put to him. Or he might come tearing through the kitchen, yank open the door to the basement — where, apparently, he slept — and plunge down the stairs and out of sight. The sound of his quick, snappy footsteps on the stairs as he descended reminded Darren of a woodpecker rattling away on a tree or telephone pole. He wanted to stop the boy, strike up a conversation, forge some kind of understanding. But he would
only watch him pass, knowing, on some level, that it was all the boy could permit.

And there was that dog, Inky. Isabella usually left him outside where he whined and barked, but occasionally he was there in the house, so enthused to see guests he only managed to circle the kitchen once before defecating right then and there. The dog seemed oblivious. The odour was deadly. Though Darren did not say so to his sister, he too, thought the dog's time had come.

Darren and Isabella attended the Avalon Nature Club meetings together and often stopped in at the mall on their way home.

You've got a soft spot for that poor soul, Jeanette had said, and Darren had not appreciated the condescension.

Isabella's purchases were not exactly frivolous, but they were costly and usually things she already owned but for some reason were not perfect: too slow, too old, too ugly. Darren began to wonder if her behaviour was a disorder. Was she a shopa- holic? Was he an enabler? Were there such people? But he was unaccountably pleased when she made her purchases, or when she came over to the house carrying her new set of knives or pushing her new wheelbarrow, her calves pumping into the softening lawn. There was a freedom to her actions that he envied.

“Holds six cubic feet,” Isabella announced, setting down the wheelbarrow.

“Has gardening always been a hobby of yours?” Jeanette asked.

“It's something I've always wanted to do more of,” Isabella said, and Darren was surprised by her defensiveness. “In our other house we had a gorgeous big yard.”

Jeanette shifted her weight and nodded, and Darren realized this was the same attitude she had taken while listening to the reminiscences of old Mrs. Pynn — Veronica.

Jeanette looked at Darren and raised her eyebrows. Darren ignored her.

“What happened to your car?” he asked Isabella. The hood and roof were covered in dirt and grass.

“Oh, yeah.” Isabella didn't even turn around. “Cooper. He likes to get up on things.”

They were wandering through Wal-Mart beneath the white lights when they saw the wading pools on special.

“It's a good idea to get these things now, ahead of the season,” Isabella said. A box of tinfoil slipped from her arms.

The pools — Family Swim Centre Pools — were stacked at the end of an aisle, creating a bottleneck in traffic. Some of the pools were adorned with bright daisies, others with tropical fish. Darren retrieved the tinfoil, but as Isabella took it from him, a package of Pop tarts slid out. He retrieved that too but decided to hold on to it. He was reading about the pools on the side of one of the boxes. When inflated, they stood twenty-two inches high and were one hundred and forty-four inches long. Water capacity was over four hundred gallons.

Relax with your kids, it said, on a hot summer day.

He was thinking it would take half a day to fill one using the garden hose, when he had a sudden memory of summer when he was a boy. The scattered weeks of heat that were astonishing, as much for the change they brought to his parents as for the high temperatures themselves. Drained, his mother would permit him to stay out on the streets with Jeanette until nearly midnight. When they returned home their mother would be crouched in the open doorway — here Darren realized they would not have owned a screen door — smoking a cigarette. Normal rules of bedtime and appropriate behaviour, for both children and adults, seemed to have no place in that heat. Eventually she'd make up a bed for Darren and Jeanette in the backyard. In the morning they would awake covered in dew and to the promise of another hot, unorthodox day.

“$98.99?” Isabella said. “As much as that?”

Darren was surprised by her hesitation.

“Cooper would appreciate one of these when it gets hot,” he said. “I would too for that matter.”

“Sure, it never gets hot enough.”

“What are you saying? Of course it does.”

“One or two days, that's it.”

“No. Several weeks. A month,” he insisted.

“Then why don't we go halves, if you're so keen.”

“Whose yard?”

“My yard, but you'd have full access.”

“Daisies or fish?”

“I wasn't really serious, Darren.”

“Hey, you might just find me in it.”

Darren wanted Isabella to have the pool. That she wanted it, but had nearly showed some common sense, seemed disappointing. They put it on his Visa, and with some embarrassment, she handed him the cash.

“Cooper will be thrilled,” he said. “Won't he?”

“I'm going as far as Trespassey and back up St. Mary's Bay,” he told Jeanette the following morning. “I might be late.”

“Am I to understand you paid for her pool?”

“I already explained. Isabella and I split it.”

“I don't understand why you paid for her pool. Imagine the message you're sending that woman.”

Darren thought of telling his sister, again, that it was his pool too, but the idea was sounding more and more ridiculous.