“Doc,” Howard Schumacher said around a mouthful of chicken, finally breaking the lull. “You heard about the dead man in the woods?”
“Pop,” Hal said sternly.
“Yes, I did,” Wiseman replied. “The police spoke to me earlier today. Awful. Beaten to death. I understand he used to live in the neighbourhood. Did you know him?”
“Sort of,” Shoe's father said.
“Look,” Hal said. “Do you really think this is appropriate dinner conversation?”
“Oh, Hal,” Rachel said. “Don't be such a stuffed shirt.” She poked him in the gut with a finger. “Your shirt is already stuffed enough as it is.”
Maureen choked and coughed, unsuccessfully stifling a giggle. Hal's face clouded. He threw down his knife and fork with a clatter, stood, and stalked away from the table.
Shoe's mother cast about worriedly. “Hal, dear, what's wrong? What's the matter?”
“Forget it, Mother,” Rachel said. “Hal has left the building.”
Shoe and Rachel sat side by side in aluminum lawn chairs at the top of the slope of the yard. Fireflies sparked lazily against the backdrop of the dark woods. Rachel cradled a bottle of beer in her lap. Shoe had a mug of coffee, thus far in his life mercifully immune to the negative effects of caffeine. His parents had gone to bed and Harvey Wiseman was in the kitchen with Maureen, helping with the washing up. No one knew where Hal had got to, but at least he hadn't taken his car; it was blocked by Rachel's yellow New Beetle.
“Maureen has been after Hal to lose some weight for ages,” Rachel said. She took a slug from the beer bottle. “I guess he's a little sensitive about it.”
“I think there's more to it than that,” Shoe said. “How are things between Maureen and him?”
“I like Maureen,” Rachel said. “And I think she likes me. But we're not close. We hardly ever talk about personal issues. Maybe we should. The short answer is, I
don't know. Given Hal's behaviour this evening, maybe not so great.”
“He told me that you and he disagree about whether Mum and Dad should move into a seniors' residence.”
“That's what he said, we
disagree
about whether or not they should?” She sighed heavily. “I'm not against them moving into a seniors' residence. In fact, it was me who brought it up after Dad fell on the basement stairs going down to do the laundry. He wasn't hurt, but it was a wake-up call that maybe it's time they considered selling the house and moving into some place a little easier to manage.”
“So you're not moving in permanently?”
“Christ, no. I just stay here on weekends. More than that, I'd go nuts. So would Mum and Dad. I don't care if they move into an apartment or a seniors' residence. What I'm against is the dump Hal thinks they should move to. He says they can't afford anything else, but that's bull. Do you know what this place is worth? Half a million at least. If they sold it, they'd have over a million dollars in cash and investments.
“Our parents are fucking millionaires, Joe. Doc says a million dollars isn't what it used to be. I'll have to take his word for it. But a million is more than enough for them to move into a much better place than the one Hal thinks they should. I found a place that'd run them about seventy-five grand a year, everything included. Even at the miserable interest rates the banks are paying these days, a million would easily last them twenty years. Okay, it's not inconceivable that they could both outlive the money, but how likely is it? Hal's just worried that there won't be anything left over for him.”
“And you're not?”
“I'm not a millionaire by any stretch of the imagination, but business is good and I'm doing all right.” Rachel called herself a strategic marketing analyst,
whatever that was, and worked out of her house in Port Credit, just west of Toronto, beside the GO train tracks. “I don't need their money,” she went on. “Neither does Hal. At least, I don't think he does â I don't know what his financial situation is. You don't, do you?”
“I have no idea what Hal's financial situation is.”
“Need money, I mean.”
“No,” he said.
If Hal's problems were financial, Shoe might be in a position to help. Unlike Rachel, he was a millionaire, a little more than twice over, in fact, even more on paper. It was a situation that made him acutely uncomfortable whenever he thought about it, which he seldom did. He had never been particularly interested in money for its own sake. He appreciated its usefulness, but was not the least bit acquisitive. Bill Hammond had paid well and Shoe lived simply, his only extravagance being his house in Kitsilano, purchased with cash two years before, after the
Princess Pete
, the converted logging tug he'd lived on for a decade, had burned to the waterline. During his twenty-five years with Hammond Industries, Shoe had invested cautiously but well, and had built up a moderately comfortable nest egg for his eventual retirement. He'd also received the equivalent of two years' salary from Bill Hammond for finding Patrick O'Neill's killer. What had pushed him over the top, however, had been the stock, cash, and property Hammond had left Shoe in his will. In addition to being a minority shareholder in Hammond Industries, Shoe was also the proud owner of a more than slightly rundown motel and marina on the Sunshine Coast, north of Vancouver.
“Doc says the decision should be up to them,” Rachel said.
“Wise man,” Shoe said.
“Haw.”
“How long have you known him?” Shoe asked.
“Doc? Almost my whole life. Well, since I was sixteen, anyway. He and his wife moved into the Levinson's house around the time you moved to Vancouver. Jesus, almost thirty years.”
“Are you and he romantically involved?”
She made a face at him. “Nosy bugger, aren't you? You want to know if we're sleeping together?”
“Not especially.”
“Well, we're not. He thinks he's too old for me.”
“And you don't?”
“No, I guess I don't. I've made that pretty clear to him. His wife died of cancer three years ago and I don't think he's over it yet. I'm not sure I am either. She was a great lady. Her name was Rachel too. That may also have something to do with it.”
A comfortable curtain of silence dropped between them as a warm breeze rattled through the leaves overhead, punctuated by the distant trill of a woman's laughter, a man roaring at his kids to get the hell inside this very minute, a dog barking, a door slamming, car tires squealing, and the far-off banshee wail of a high-performance motorcycle accelerating through the gears.
“How well do you remember Marvin Cartwright?” Shoe asked.
“Earlier today, if anyone had asked, I'd've said, âNot very well,' but a lot of stuff is starting to come back. Bits and pieces mainly. Drinking hot chocolate with marshmallow after skating. Watching
Mr. Blizzard
after school on a big console colour television set with Marty, Bobby Cotton, and Mickey Bloom. Mr. Cartwright teaching us how to play chess in a room lined with books and records and drawings of birds. And the smell of disinfectant and bleach and his mother calling from her room in the back of the house. But I don't remember what he looked like.”
“It was a long time ago. You were pretty young.”
“Do you remember him?”
“I don't recall ever speaking to him. I certainly never went into his house. Like you, I also remember bits and pieces, some more vividly than others.” He had a sudden recollection of a man with his shirt sleeves rolled up, vigorously polishing the body of a dark green car as an awkward, gangly boy watched from the far side of the street. “For instance, I remember his car. It was English. A Rover, I think. British racing green. I have the impression it was old. Not new, anyway. He would work on it in his driveway. Change the oil, rotate the tires, tune it up. I always wanted to talk to him about it, but I never did.”
“I don't remember it,” Rachel said. “Boys and their toys. You never played tricks on him, though, like Hal and Dougie Hallam and Tim Dutton, did you?”
“No, I never did.”
“How come? I remember you getting into trouble at school for playing practical jokes. Like switching the signs on the boys' and girls' washrooms during a district track-and-field meet.”
“Not the same thing at all,” Shoe said.
“No, of course not,” Rachel said. She looked around as Maureen and Harvey Wiseman came out of the house. “I wonder where the hell Hal's got to?”
Hal had not gone far. After storming away from the table, he'd walked to the small park behind the houses across the street, where the following day they would be setting up for the homecoming festival. He'd plopped himself down on a bench, out of breath, his anger dissipated, and with it his sense of self-righteousness. He tried to rekindle the feelings of resentment, but it was like trying to set a match to soggy paper, so he gave it up. God, he was tired. He felt as though there were a powerful vacuum in the middle of his chest, sucking the life out of him. He hadn't got a wink of sleep the night before and felt that if he closed his eyes he might never be able to open them again. Then again, maybe that wouldn't be such a bad thing. Oblivion sounded like a pretty good deal at the moment, all things considered. Good luck repossessing his soul.
He fished around in his pockets for his cigarettes, a habit he'd only recently reacquired, after more than
twenty years of abstinence. He didn't find them; they were locked in the glove box of his car. What he found instead was a folded piece of notepaper. He unfolded it and peered at it in the dim light of the pseudo-Victorian lamppost a few feet from the bench. He couldn't read it without his glasses, which were back at the house, but he knew what was written on it.
Despite what he'd told that sanctimonious blowhard Jerry Renfrew, all was not well in the Schumacher household. Hal was certain Maureen was having an affair and the note was a list of the men with whom he thought she might be having it: Davy, the twenty-something kid who worked at the garden centre where Maureen seemed to spend an inordinate amount of time; Bob Nobbs, who lived two doors down from them in Oakville and who claimed to be some kind of writer, but since his divorce spent all his time reading magazines and drinking beer on a chaise lounge in his backyard; Ivan, the musclebound Neanderthal who worked at the gym Maureen went to three times a week; and Clark Sheppard, husband of Maureen's best friend, Dinah, and supercilious jerk of the first water. There were two other entries, men whose names Hal did not know: the man who jogged by the house every morning as Hal was leaving for work, whom Hal simply called the Sweater; and the Samaritan, a man Hal had never seen but who Maureen had told him had helped her when her car had broken down in the parking lot of Maple Grove mall.
Hal folded the notepaper and returned it to his pocket. He should go back to the house, he thought, face them, apologize for his behaviour. He could not move, immobilized by ennui.
If Joe hadn't lived in Vancouver, Hal would have included his brother's name on the list. The last time Joe had visited Toronto, two Christmases ago, he'd stayed with Hal and Maureen, because he hadn't wanted to
impose on their parents, he'd said. It was all right to impose on him and Maureen, though, Hal had grumbled to Maureen at the time.
“Oh, Hal,” she'd said, “don't be such an old poop. He's your brother, for heaven's sake. And he's no trouble, really.”
“If he's no trouble, why doesn't he stay with my mother and father then?” Hal had replied.
“Why don't you want him to stay with us?” Maureen had asked.
Because I don't want him around you
, he'd almost said.
Or you around him
.
A bubble of gas rose painfully in his chest. He squirmed and belched. The pain eased, but his stomach burned, as though it were being slowly dissolved in acid. Just what he needed, he thought glumly. A goddamned ulcer. Christ, his life was turning to crap.
Yeah
, he chided himself,
and whose fault was that? Face it, fat boy. You blew it. Now what're you going to do to fix it?
Still, it wasn't fair. He'd worked hard all his adult life to build a secure future for himself and Maureen, only to see it all come crashing down around him because of a couple of bad judgement calls. What really rankled, though, was that his brother, who professed not to care about such things, had lucked into more money than he'd ever need simply by being in the right place at the right time. Things had always come easily to Joe, the grades, the jobs, the girls, whereas Hal had had to struggle for everything he'd achieved, including his wife.
Only to watch it all slip through his fingers â¦
Hal's head bobbed and he realized he had dozed off. Jesus, he could've been mugged, he thought, nervously looking about. The small park was deserted. His bladder finally coaxed him off the bench and back to his parents' house. He went in the front door, hoping to use the bathroom before having to face the others, but Maureen and
Harvey Wiseman were in the kitchen, finishing up the dishes.
Maureen draped the dishtowel through the fridge door handle. “Well, where did you get to?” she said, in that accusatory tone she was so good at.
“I went for a walk,” he said sullenly, continuing down the hall to the bathroom. The door to his parents' bedroom was closed. It was only ever closed when they were in bed.
After using the bathroom, he returned to the kitchen. It was empty. He got a beer from the fridge, scoffing down a couple of leftover barbecued pork chops while he was at it, then went out into the backyard. Rachel and Wiseman stood at the base of the yard, on the edge of the dark woods, talking quietly. Maureen and Joe sat in lawn chairs placed close together at the top of the yard, facing the woods. They stopped talking when Hal let the screen door slam shut behind him.