Blackstrap Hawco (87 page)

‘Can I help you?'

‘Agnes Bishop,' he blurts out.

‘Dr. Agnes Bishop?'

‘Yes.' He steps away from the book because she's edging near it. He points at his eyes like he can't see.

The young woman smiles and leans to check the names. The sour burn in his mouth. The spikes of pain in his stomach.

‘Office or home?'

‘What?'

‘There're two numbers.'

‘Home.'

The young woman reads off the number. But the number is of no use to him.

‘What's the address?' he asks.

The woman goes back to the book. ‘Forty-four Pittman Road.'

‘Thanks.'

‘My pleasure.'

He wanders off toward the main door, checking over his shoulder to see the young woman heading for the front desk. He forgets the address and goes back to look it up again, pretending he can do it himself. But he gives up and asks, ‘What was that address again? My eyes are no good.'

‘Forty-four Pittman Road.'

‘Where's the way to there?' He is embarrassed by how she is watching him.

‘Pittman Road?'

Blackstrap nods without knowing.

The woman gives him directions. She's used to it. She speaks without an accent and points toward the door. Bright and friendly, she explains in detail.

Blackstrap thanks her and leaves, moving forward in the direction she indicated. But after two turns, he can't remember and asks a man in a driveway just getting out of his car.

‘Not far. Left. Left. Right. Just remember that.' The man's voice is from somewhere else. Plain as anything. He has a plastic bag in his hand. ‘Left. Left. Right.'

Blackstrap walks in the darkness. He takes a left and another left. Then a right. He does not know where he is going. He thinks he finds the house. The number 44. Knocks on the door. An old woman comes out to answer.

‘Pittman Road,' he says.

The old woman stands there, blinking. Then she smiles broadly at him. ‘Who're ya look'n for?'

‘Agnes Bishop.'

‘Dr. Bishop.'

He nods.

‘Yer just about dere, me luv.' Stooped slightly, she points with a wrinkled finger up close to her face. Then says: ‘Yellow house with an
old sled outside. Once pulled by a 'orse, way back when.' She chuckles. ‘In my time.'

He looks where she is pointing.

Darkness and a quiet street.

‘Thank you,' to the old woman.

‘Okay, bye now. Yer welcome to come back if you have trouble with it.'

Blackstrap waves and walks on. A car with its headlights shining slows with his step. It might be the RCMP officer from the hospital. Would he know Blackstrap was back? Word travelling fast if the woman at the hotel desk called him. The woman seemed to know of Agnes. Maybe she knew about him. His picture probably in the newspaper about the crash. But the car is plain, the driver looking at him for a second. A fat woman with curly hair.

He finds the house.

A sled out front. An old horse's sled. A cart. A memory of some other time.

He steps up to the door and knocks. There is no answer. He waits, wondering for how long. Then he knocks again. A light is on in there. And one on over the door, shining down on him. There for everyone to see.

No answer.

He thinks of trying the knob, his hand going for it. But he backs away from the house when he realizes his intentions. He stands in the front yard and watches the windows. No movement. No sign of her drifting past. The night close and foreign around him.

He waits across the street, his eyes fixed on her house. It's an older house. The clapboard seems fine in the light from a streetlamp. He wonders about the roof, when it was last shingled. If it was daylight, he could have a look around the foundation, check for rot.

Where is she? He starts to become angry. Not at her. At himself. What is he doing? What? How many miles from home? What does she have to do with him? Nothing. He tries to find his way back to the hotel. Christ! To face Agnes after the long journey would be too much. His nerves raw. This close to tears. He takes corners. Wondering if there is a bar in the hotel. There has to be. Faster around another intersection
until he finds the hotel. Inside, the quiet lobby where no one seems to exist.

But the young woman is there. ‘Hello again,' she says. ‘Did you find it?'

‘Yes.' He tells the young woman that he needs a place to stay. She puts a card and pen in front of him. He slides it back to her. She looks at his hands, at the missing fingers and understands wrongly.

‘That's okay,' she says and fills in the card for him. Name. Address. ‘Sign here, please.'

That much he can manage.

‘Do you have a vehicle?'

‘No.'

She ticks a box. Then asks him how he would like to pay.

He gives over his last few dollars except for what he needs for fuel. The young woman counts the money, then gives him back change and a key.

‘Have a nice night, Mr. Hawco.'

‘Yeah. Hope so.' He looks at the key. ‘Which floor?'

‘Second.'

Exhausted, he takes the elevator up. He gets off and walks down the corridor, matching the numbers on the key with the numbers on the door. Then he fits the key into the lock, opens the door, and steps in. He shuts the door, treads across the room, falls onto the bed, his body and mind one solid thing, sleep easing the pain as he quickly goes under and dreams of a bottle with a ship in it.

 

The light warms his face through the open curtains. He should have shut them if he expected to sleep. Still in his clothes and boots, he rises stiffly from the bed. What time is it? A clock by the bed when he sits up: 6.38. At the window, there is a view of the parking lot with cars and trees around the edges. He splashes water on his face, then looks at himself in the big mirror. A shower is what he needs. He turns on the tap in the tub and takes off his clothes. His body. What is left of it. The things that doctors must see from one day to the next. He pulls back his lips and remembers he forgot his toothbrush.

The elevator is something he cannot stand. Going down. Sinking.

The smell of food in the lobby. Coming from a restaurant somewhere. The clatter of dishes through an archway. A man behind the desk looks at him. Hello or goodbye. He says neither. He leaves the hotel for the fresh air outside. He knows the way to her house from memory. Only once needed. Even in darkness.

He thinks on the time when he walks by her house and keeps going. There is a rumble in the earth beneath his feet, which he takes for heavy trucks passing. They would be loaded with wood for the pulp and paper mill. He finds a small playground and watches the steel poles of the swing. He steps nearer and sits on the wooden seat. The sun on his face, on his hands holding the chains. He waits, thinking that Agnes' children might play here if she has any. He tries to notice where he is. He tries to realize the land around him, to place himself in it, to be not so detached. He watches toward his boots. An ant down there, in the dust and pebbles worn and packed tight. Another ant and more and more while he watches. His boat in his mind. The water at a distance he cannot see. He wonders if he will be charged dock fees. He checks his pocket for the keys. Good. He didn't leave them on board. They might take the boat. Hold it. They might tow his boat to a compound. Shit. He never thought of that. He gets up off the swing, the chains jangling, and heads out of the playground, striding down toward the wharf. Speeding up, he finds himself almost running, the limp getting worse. Both legs aching, but the left worse than the other. His boat is there okay. No one around it. He gets on board and brushes his teeth. That helps him feel better.

In the bit of broken mirror, he touches the scar on his cheek. Pushes his tongue against the inside of his mouth. Will she ask about it? He looks out to sea for a moment of rest before he makes his way back to her house. He knocks on the door right away. What to say? He has no idea. His heart thumping in his chest. He hears his breath and looks down. Gives his head a little shake. He checks over his shoulder. Another house right across the way. Someone up in the window. Barely seen in the slight part of the curtains.

He could run off now. Right now.

His legs make to move but the knob rattles. And she opens the door, her hair down, wet like she just got out of the shower. In her housecoat. White and silky. Bare toes without nailpolish. She watches his face.
God only knows what he looks like to see her this way. The perfumed smell off her out in the morning air. He feels like he is unrecognizable. The unbelievable expression on her face. Who are you? He does not know with her watching him that way. Until she starts to smile and says his name, not entirely in disbelief.

 

‘I thought you were gone home.' Not talking like a doctor now, more like herself.

His eyes take in the walls. Photographs of old fishermen and houses running up the wall by the stairs. One of a house floating from shore with two boys watching it being pulled by a boat. Another of a man with a leathery face and hands, mending a net. An old woman in an apron bent over sweeping the slatted floor with the wing of a gull.

The walls are covered in old panelling, trimmed with hand-bevelled slats of wood. Fine workmanship with wide, thick mouldings and baseboards of a sort unavailable now. There are old rugs on the floor and a worn runner on the stairs. The house reminds him of the old woman in Toronto. Her apartment. He thinks what might have become of her. The tale of the black sea. He never went back to see her, after the news of the death of his mother. He imagines her at the window, watching out over the unfamiliar street. He sighs off the memory. An image of that loaf of raisin bread she gave him left in his room on Brock Street. Right beside the keychain from Boston with the lobster on it. A gift he bought for her at the bus station.

Agnes' voice coming from deeper in the house, down the hallway toward where he thinks the kitchen is. ‘Sorry, but there's no one here for you to beat up.'

What does that mean? It takes a few seconds. Not her. He wouldn't harm a hair on her head. He thinks of the accident. Is that what she meant? If so, it was unkind. Then he remembers Halifax, that lifetime ago. Gone. Her boyfriend. The university. The train yard. The hookers. He was shot, wasn't he? How badly? The young hooker, whose name he never learned, with her palm pressed over where the bullet went in. His blood through her fingers. Whatever became of her? He would like to know. Him with a wife and a son. Another baby due soon. He follows after Agnes' voice. A big kitchen with a heavy table in the centre. Agnes
stood at the long counter. A letter is opened in her hands. She folds it up and puts it back in the envelope.

‘I could call someone if you like.' Like she knows him after all, will not forget the specifics of what was. ‘Someone you can lay the boots to.'

He feels his face go hot. He might be blushing. Something he hasn't done in years. He tries to mutter ‘sorry,' but it's barely heard.

‘I thought you might show up. One day.' She looks at him, simply confirming her belief. ‘People often come back here,' she says. ‘They come searching for me.'

Blackstrap watches her. Who comes searching for her?

‘If they've had a head injury particularly.' Stood there with her arms folded across her chest. Lots of light in the kitchen. ‘To explain things.' Her hip against the counter and almost a smile on her lips. ‘Because there are pieces missing. With head injuries, the job's never finished.'

‘You're my head injury,' he says, not knowing where it came from.

She laughs a little, obviously not expecting him to say such a thing. ‘That's nice. I could be worse, I guess. I could be your ruptured appendix.' She lets her arms hang at her sides. She watches him like she's in a daze. Remembering what? Then she turns and takes down a blue teapot. She raises it to him, her face turned to look over her shoulder. And he nods.

‘Your father's not seeming well,' she says. ‘I spoke with him when he was here.'

‘He's okay.'

‘Is he seeing anyone?'

‘Like who?' He thinks of his mother.

‘A doctor.' Two teabags from an old tin, dropped into the pot.

‘No. He won't have any of that.'

The ocean at day and night.

A hotel room.

And now her in this kitchen in her bathrobe. A dressing gown, his mother used to call it. All this way, just to lay eyes on her.

Then the kettle is filled. Agnes slides it onto the burner and turns the switch. ‘Have a seat.'

He glances at the chair, then at her. Her eyes on his hands, his fingers.

‘You're not one for sitting.' Her arms folded again because she had wanted him to sit.

He looks at his hands to see what she might be seeing. Nothing there except his wedding ring. A gold band. That finger mercifully salvaged. He checks her hands, but they're tucked away. Back home, he heard she had been married. He knows she isn't anymore. He can tell by the way the house feels. Someone living alone. And what about children? He hadn't heard anything one way or the other.

The kettle begins to whistle. Agnes silences it and makes the tea. No ring on her finger that he can see. She sets everything down on the table. A plate of biscuits and some jam in a mason jar with a lid. ‘Try my jam. It's blueberry.' She sits and her long wet hair moves in a way he admires to the point of weakness. ‘You like that, right?'

He nods, hopeful because she remembers.

‘It's Mom's recipe.' She sips her tea and watches how his hands hold the cup. ‘Last time I saw you…No, make that second last time, you had blood on your hands. Knuckles to be exact. Last time you had blood all over your face. You're a real bleeder. But it couldn't be any different, could it?'

He looks at his hands now. Her eyes keep going there, almost nervous. The missing fingers. She is thinking of him in the water. The
Ocean Ranger
. The scar on his cheek. But she will not ask.