Finding My Own Way (10 page)

I considered the idea of alerting Mert Cooney. The town's only policeman had dropped by in his cruiser the
first week I was back to satisfy himself that I had discovered nothing missing from the house after my return.

“Your intruder was probably just someone wanting to get in out of the rain,” he'd assured me, his arm on the open window of the car. He hadn't even gotten out. “It happens all the time. Now that you and your aunt are occupying the house again, I don't think you'll be bothered.”

I didn't correct his assumption. Instinct told me not to let the police find out that I was here by myself. Not if I wanted to stay. Maybe all I could do was make the place looked lived in.

By this time, I had already delivered two short articles to the
Mirror
for Mr. Thomas' approval. When I had stopped in with the second story, I'd been eager to hear his opinion of the first, ever hopeful that he would want to hire me. I'd explained that Irene was bringing down my typewriter on her next trip.

“You write well, Libby,” Mr. Thomas had said, poking his fingers under his glasses and rubbing his eyes.

“Thank you.” I waited.

He readjusted the spectacles. “If you want to write for a paper, though, forget all the adjectives and adverbs. Simple is best, especially where words count.”

And so I had kept writing.

The best thing I'd ever written was an essay about loneliness, which had been published in the yearbook last spring. But I'd left it in Toronto, and besides, I didn't
want anyone here thinking I was lonely. Once, when I asked Alex if a story she had written was about her, or whether she'd made it up, she told me that you always give away a little bit of yourself when you write. In my situation, I'd have to be careful.

I guess what had been unique about my life was having Alex, a successful author, as my mother. Margaret had been the first to point that out. Perhaps that was something I could write about.

I pulled out some paper and a ballpoint pen and, sitting down at the kitchen table, I began. It was almost one a.m. by the time I had finished 250 words on what it was like to live with a writer. After reading it again the next morning, I still felt as satisfied with what I had written as I had the night before, so I decided to drop it off at the newspaper office on my lunch hour.

I found Mr. Thomas eating a sandwich at his desk. He promised to read my piece but seemed more interested in how I was managing at the house by myself. “Everything okay out there?” he asked.

“Sure. I have my dog.”

“Oh, that's right.” He reached behind a dictionary on the shelf at his back to retrieve a salt shaker. Opening the sandwich, he sprinkled liberally.

“Ernie barks enough for three dogs,” I told him. “No one needs to know he's really just an old softie.”

“No. I'd keep that a secret.” He closed his sandwich again. “I miss not having a dog myself, but Marge has made a home for three abandoned kittens, so I guess I'll have to be satisfied with that.” We both agreed that cats really were no substitute.

As always, Mr. Thomas was easy to talk to, and although I knew I had to be careful about what I said, I found myself asking him about what was foremost in my mind.

“I was wondering, are there any rules about people cutting through from the road to get to the river, like they can at my place?”

“Well, you don't actually own right to the water's edge,” Mr. Thomas said, sweeping crumbs off his desk onto the waxed paper.

“I don't? So there's no way to keep someone from coming along there?”

“Not really. The shoreline belongs to everybody.” He balled up the waxed paper and fired it at the wastepaper basket. “You could put up no trespassing signs on your property,” he suggested. “Are you being bothered by people walking through?”

“Not especially.” I retrieved the ball of paper for him and dropped it into the garbage. “I was just curious.”

I should have kept my mouth shut. Two days later, just as I was finishing the supper dishes and looking forward to settling down with my book, Irene swung into the driveway in a borrowed car.

“I didn't expect to see you,” I said, holding the door for her.

“I had to come,” she informed me as she sailed past into the kitchen. She pulled a chair from under the table and dropped onto it. Hiking up her full skirt, she pushed it down between her knees. “Sit,” she said, and I did as I was told, expecting the worst.

“He told you, didn't he?” I accused.

“Who told me what?” She managed to look bewildered.

“Mr. Thomas. He phoned and told you, didn't he? I knew he would.”

My aunt spoke in even tones. “No one phoned and told me anything, Libby. Should they have?”

“No, of course not.”

Irene leaned towards me with a quizzical look. “Would this have anything to do with those things you've got out there on the clothesline?”

I laughed, feeling a little silly. “I should bring that stuff inside now, I suppose. It's just for looks, but it's been out there two or three days.”

“Well, I came up to see if you'd had enough of all this by now,” said Irene. “Are you ready to come back?”

“No, Irene,” I said. “I'm staying.”

She put both hands on my arm, gently, pleading. “Oh, Libby, come on. There's nothing to keep you here.”

“Well, there's Ernie, for one thing.” The dog lifted his shaggy head at the sound of his name, and I reached to scratch between his ears. “I also happen to have a job now.”

“You do? Where?”

“At Savaway. It doesn't pay a lot, but it's better than nothing. And Mr. Thomas may have something for me at the paper too. That's what I'm really hoping for.”

Irene tried a different tack. “What if someone broke in here while you were sleeping? A set of men's clothing on the line isn't going to prevent that.” I wished she hadn't reminded me.

“I know, Irene,” I agreed. “But that could happen to
you in your place in Toronto.”

“At least I've got a telephone,” she bristled. “I don't see one here yet.”

“I'll get one.”

“Well, that would be a start,” she conceded. “But it still isn't right. You need someone here with you, some responsible adult. You know I'm right.”

She was, of course. “I've always been a pretty responsible person myself,” I reminded her.

“Yes, you have been. But it comes right down to this: you are too young to be here all by yourself. Now that you're working, maybe you could find someone in town willing to provide room and board.”

“But why pay rent,” I argued, “which, by the way, I couldn't afford, when I own this place?”

“Have you ever asked how much room and board would cost?”

“Why would I?” I was beginning to fear she was wearing me down “And I have a dog. Ernie can't stay in town.”

“That dog should be the least of your worries,” declared Irene. “In town, you'd be closer to your job. How are you getting to work, anyway?”

“On my bike.”

“Well, you can't ride your bike to work on rainy days.”

“Sure I can. I already have.”

“What about Margaret Pacey?” my aunt persisted. “Couldn't you stay with her?”

“Margaret's working for the summer. At an inn on Sparrow Lake.”

Irene sighed. “Will you at least try, Libby? See if you
can find a place in town? The McIntyres will look after Ernie.”

I picked at a bit of dried food stuck to the edge of the table. What would it hurt to promise her that? If I gave it a try, would it allow her to go back to the city reassured, and let me stay here? I knew I wasn't going to find anything I could afford at my wages. “All right. How long are you here for?” I asked, resignedly.

“I have a couple of days. I hope by then you'll be ready to go back with me.”

“I'll ask around at work tomorrow,” I said. “Come on, I'll get you some sheets for the bed in Alex's room.” Some company for a couple of days might be just what I needed.

To my surprise, when I asked about it at work the next day, Gloria remembered a place in Pinkney Corners with rooms to rent. “You know Ruby's?” she asked, checking her lipstick in a small pocket mirror. “Back on the corner, across the street. Second place from the end.”

“I think I know the one you mean,” I said. “A big old, white house, next to the bakery?”

“That's the one,” Gloria nodded. It was the same house where, years before, Alex and I had visited the Countess. “I see Ruby has her sign up again,” said Gloria. “She must have a vacancy.”

“Thanks a million, Gloria,” I said and meant it. “This just might mean I get to stay here.”

“Don't mention it,” said Gloria, blotting her lips together. “I'd invite you to stay with me, but my Dad's pretty sick.”

There was a small, water-stained sign in the window
of Ruby's house when I walked up that way on my lunch hour. There had been few improvements since I last stood at this front door. The street had been widened so that now the front entrance was a single step up off the sidewalk. I knocked against the rough surface of a door that was peeling dried red paint. The glass in the window rattled. The smell of fresh bread from the bakery next door made my mouth water. I'd be hungry all the time if I lived here, I thought.

Someone was watering the geraniums in tobacco tins on the sill of an open window. A woman's head, covered in pink plastic rollers, looked up to see me at the door.

“The room you have for rent?” I inquired.

Still holding the watering can, Ruby, who was the colour of mahogany and as withered as a prune, came to open the front door. “What about it?”

“How much is it?” I asked.

“Ten dollars a week. Or two bucks a night if you take it a night at a time.”

“Thank you.”

“It's a big room,” said Ruby. “There's a hot plate, but no fridge. You have to share a bath, but I have only one other roomer right now, so it's not too bad.”

I stepped back down onto the sidewalk and smiled. “Thank you very much.”

The leathery forehead wrinkled. “You want to see it?”

“No, not right now. I'm just finding out prices,” I explained.

“You work around here?”

“That's right.”

“Well, you won't find anything cheaper than this.”

I turned away with a small wave and heard Ruby shut the door. What if I simply told Irene there was nothing available?

My aunt was waiting in the car at the curb when I finished work at six o'clock. “Any luck?” she asked when I opened the door. “Did anyone know of any rooms available?”

When I told her about Ruby's, she wanted to see it right away. Before I knew it, I was standing at the red front door again. “Boy, the memories I have of this place,” remarked Irene.

“Come on up and I'll show you the room,” the landlady invited. She preceded us up the stairs to the second floor. The wine-coloured linoleum on the upper hall gleamed, although it sloped visibly to the right. The bathroom at the end of the hall was clean. There were the usual fixtures, including a big tub on clawed feet and a wooden clothes rack hung with striped towels.

“It's the room at the front,” Ruby said, as Irene and I hesitated at an open doorway on the left. “This one's occupied. A very nice gentleman from Montreal.”

A navy windbreaker hung over the foot of the bed, similar to the one the first stranger on my property had been wearing. It reminded me of the reason why I was there.

In the front bedroom, the window with its lopsided venetian blind looked out over the main street. Ruby hurried in ahead of us to adjust the blind.

A single-burner hot plate stood on a wooden desk beside a dishpan holding a set of dishes, a battered saucepan and a mug without a handle that contained
some cutlery. The room's only chair was tucked under the desk.

I sat down on the narrow bed with its brown and yellow plaid spread, and the springs screeched. “You can see that it's clean,” said Ruby. “If you've got any food that needs refrigeration, you can use one shelf of my fridge in the kitchen.”

The walls of the room were bare except for a 1959 calendar, two months out of date, from the local body and fender shop, and a wavy mirror that hung above the desk. A single bulb in the middle of the ceiling provided lighting, with a string attached to switch it off and on.

“Is there a key to the room?” Irene asked.

“It locks from the inside,” said Ruby, reasonably.

“That's okay when she's in the room. But for when she's out? Can't it be locked?”

“ 'Fraid not.” Ruby blew smoke upward over our heads. She wore a pink, terry cloth robe and the bony chest it revealed was as tanned and withered as her face.

“I don't really have anything too valuable, Irene,” I said, feeling as if I was shrinking inside. Soon I would disappear altogether. Could this really be happening?