Fit to Die (10 page)

If only I'd spent my working life like a sensible person instead of hopping overseas for a year or two whenever my savings built up to the price of a ticket. A sensible person would have a full teacher's pension. And wouldn't have to choose now between a cluster of new climbing roses and paint for the house. It wouldn't come down to repairs to the roof or a pond on the east side. A new lock for the back door or a new dog at my side. But then if I'd been sensible, I wouldn't have been me. Now I'm hoping I can continue to be me just a little bit longer.

I keep checking the price of paint at Decker's. There are other regulars there, including dangerous looking young men who hang out in front of the Krylon display.

I am standing in the garden considering whether to take advantage of fine bargains on leftover custom-mixed paint at Decker's. No two colours are even remotely alike. Some you would think couldn't possibly belong to the same spectrum. I like that. I think the entire effect would be rather like Joseph's coat.

I have half convinced myself that climbing my old wooden ladder could be classed as a flexibility work, and a heavy enough paintbrush would be an improvement on my prescribed routine with handheld weights.

I can't do it, of course, because the exuberant colours would overwhelm the subtle shades of the hosta and astilbe on the east side and provide unfair competition to the purple coneflower and hollyhock on the west.

•  •  •

Of course, she's nice enough when she wants something. You would think I was her favourite aunt at the community meeting she organized to combat graffiti. She hit the combat
trail at the first swish from a spray can. Tolerance of graffiti is the sign of a community in decline, she says, and she will wipe it out if it kills somebody. I wouldn't want to be one of the junior expressionists if she comes upon him. Mrs. Sybil Sharpe takes no prisoners.

A young police officer has been assigned to explain the phenomenon of graffiti to us. We learn a lot from the meeting. Graffiti is not meaningless. It consists of territorial messages and threats of bodily harm. We learn that it flourishes where young people are outlyers, lacking positive outlets for their time. I immediately think of street hockey.

He tells us some of the city's graffiti artists are just creative kids in competition with each other. I hear a sharp snort from you-know-who on this. But as a former art teacher, I would grade some of the samples he shows us quite highly. We learn a lot about “tags”, which are signatures, and “bomb”, which means to cover an area with your work, and “burn”, which means to beat the competition with your style. The teacher in me is impressed with many of the designs.

Mrs. Sybil Sharpe clearly has the young officer in a panic. He loosens his collar and explains for the third time why we can't call 911 every time we see a swirl on a mailbox. He keeps trying to edge away. I could tell him it's not easy to do.

Mrs. Sybil Sharpe intends to petition our Member of Parliament to have it dealt with seriously. The police officer clears his throat and explains that vandalism is already well covered in the Criminal Code. If I were a legislator, I would start looking over my shoulder.

I have nothing to lose, really, so I put up my hand. “Does a bit of graffiti really matter? Can't we just paint over it and get on with life?”

Mrs. Sybil Sharpe shoots out of her seat. Her face is the
colour of my clematis. While purple is attractive in a flowering vine, it can't be healthy in a human.
“Does it matter
? It is the slippery slope to the teeming, drug-infested slums. It is nothing less than the rape of our neighbourhood. I, myself, feel violated by every instance of it. We have our investments to consider. The next thing you know we will be surrounded by hovels.” The look she gives me tells the world who the subject of the next community public meeting will probably be.

“Oh, well then,” I say.

•  •  •

What next? I should have been expecting the property standards by-law enforcement officer. I had not realized that broken windows were within their purview. Of course, I hadn't realized I had a broken window. But there it was. The small one high up. What would have been called a piano window in my day. How could it get broken? There wasn't even a branch near by. No children play with balls in my garden where Mrs. Sybil Sharpe could pounce on them. No one can even see it. I look up. Well, it is within sight of her vast deck. Something else is even more interesting. Anyone pussyfooting through my garden with the intent of doing a bit of damage is completely hidden. She could destroy my garden and the back of my home and no one would be the wiser.

I feel my aorta lurching. Not even the scent of viburnum is enough to calm me.

The enforcement officer doesn't really think my home comes under the heading of derelict properties, even if the hinge on the gate is a bit on the loose side. He trusts me to fix the window. He does not believe my herbs qualify as noxious weeds. Still, this visit has upset me.
Score: one all.

•  •  •

Of course, I should have been more vigilant. I take my own share of the blame.

How did she set Silent Sam free? Perhaps she used sirloin to lure him away, and he was too blind and befuddled to find his way back to his new home? And unable to make his voice heard. I am filled with black thoughts. Seventy-eight years without a dog, and now I can scarcely cope for a few hours. Perhaps it isn't worth it to stay in this house.

•  •  •

I am looking for Silent Sam many blocks from home when it happens. The sidewalk has seen better days in this neighbourhood, which is still on the before side of gentrification. The sun has set when I become aware of someone following me. Someone large and fast. This would never happen if Silent Sam were there. Mrs. Sybil Sharpe will get her way if some mugger kills me.

He is even with me now, walking fast, his head down. Will he push me into a bush? Dump me into the alley ahead?

I have nothing to lose by standing my ground.

“You'll find I put up a pretty good fight,” I say. “For that I thank the weight training.”

“What?” It's just a boy, this mugger, still rangy, hands and feet waiting for his body to grow to meet them. He has so many rings in his face. But he doesn't seem any happier to see me than I am to see him. Maybe it's my Antichrist look.

“What?” he says again.

“I'm searching for my dog,” I say. “He's playfully hiding behind some of those bushes and I need to get him to the vet
quickly because I believe he has rabies.”

This seems to startle the boy, and he drops a can. It rattles and rolls along the sidewalk, running out of energy near my foot. I am flexible enough to bend and pick up.

“Just leave it,” he says.

By this time, he is shuffling from foot to foot. He is exhaling guilt. I remember the look well from my years in the classroom. He's done something. I look behind him. Sure enough.

The swirl of a black design.

“What dog are you looking for? The same one you had in the paint store?”

The paint store? Of course, that's where I've seen him before. Picking out the tools of his trade. “Yes. The same one.”

“I saw him two streets over. He looked lost.”

I find Sam where the graffiti boy suggests he might be. If I don't die of joy at the moment, perhaps I'll live forever.

•  •  •

Sam noses me awake even before the fire engines arrive. My little house is full of smoke. I am choking and hacking as we hurtle through the front door into the street. The neighbours begin to spill from their townhouses for the festival of sound and light.

I am having quite a bit of trouble breathing. The paramedics have oxygen for me. They wish to take me to the emergency ward. I have had more than enough trips in speeding ambulances. I am not willing to leave my dog. “That will kill me,” I say. “My estate will sue you, seriously.”

They are polite but firm. Like all the control officers, they are just doing their jobs.

Yes, ambulance. No, dog.

I spot Mrs. Sybil Sharpe, her shining housecoat wrapped around her expansive middle. She is watching the whole procedure from her front doorstep. Behind the mask of the concerned neighbour, I suspect a smirk is lurking. I wonder how she started the fire.

Perhaps I am just imagining the hiss and slither.

We are at an impasse, the paramedics and I, until one of the firemen whispers he will take Sam until I am home again. It's against the rules, so it has to be our little secret. There's something familiar about him. He looks a lot like one of the boys I taught. A Kevin perhaps? Another troublemaker. The right spirit for fighting fires. But I taught so many boys. Who is to say?

•  •  •

A pot left on the stove, the young fireman tells me, when he returns my dog. Lucky the harm was confined to smoke damage. Another couple of minutes and who's to say.

“Interesting,” I said. “I never touch the stove. Do you think it was a self-cooking pot?”

He gives my hand a pat. “Maybe you need a bit of help around here.” He said. I read the unspoken message. Forgetful. A danger to herself and others.

I smile compliantly. “I am fine on my own. I have just purchased an excellent new alarm system. If I even get hot under the collar, it will sound the alert.” I don't trouble him with talk of Mrs. Sybil Sharpe, the snake woman, or the side door that never quite locked. I have fixed it now, anyway.

I know what I really need.

“What doesn't kill us, makes us strong,” I explain to Silent Sam as he gets a nice bit of ground round for a reward. He looks at me as if to say, so what will it be?

•  •  •

It is my best effort ever. Reminiscent of my glory days when I could really toss paint on a canvas. And what a canvas it is. A vast, welcoming field of cream. I use every graffiti symbol I can remember. Probably overdo it a bit with the clouds. The resulting work is full of fury, threats and imagery. It takes me nearly all night, but it is worth it. Who would have realized how all that gardening helped me? The strength of the arms holding the cans of paint, the quick scampering up and down the ladder to scoop up new cans of colour, the ability to arch my body and take advantage of the grand sweep of the wall.

“I call it Joseph's coat,” I say to Silent Sam. He thumps in approval.

Despite my exhaustion, I feel so much better when I'm finished. I can understand why those boys do it. Euphoria is addictive.

In the morning, I rise late. All I have to do is admire my handiwork. I make myself a wonderful pot of Red Zinger and settle comfortably in the old Muskoka chair to enjoy the sunshine and wait for the fireworks.

Perhaps it is Silent Sam's thumping tail that draws Mrs. Sybil Sharpe through the patio door. Perhaps she just wants to stare down at my little house and garden and plot her next strategy.

“Good morning,” I call up. “I believe you are right about the violation of the neighbourhood.”

“What are you talking about?” she says.

“Look behind you. I believe there must be a new gang in town.”

She grabs her throat as the full enormity of Joseph's coat sinks in.

“I see what you mean by rape,” I add.

Mrs. Sybil Sharpe appears to be in the midst of a little dance. Most unlike her. I sip my Red Zinger and watch. But what's happening? She's clutching her chest and making gurgling noises. She's slipping onto the deck. Her foot is drumming strangely on the cedar boards. Am I the only one who hears? So it seems.

I finish my tea and turn my attention to the Siberian iris, which are reaching their peak. I move on to plan where I might split the daylilies and get a bit more of a ruffled look to the bald spot near the fence. The bird feeders need to be filled. The impatiens wants water. I could split and replant those clumps of snow-on-the-mountain.

It all takes time.

The drumming seems to go on forever. Then it is quiet on the deck.

Artists: 2, Snakes: 1.

“Well,” I say to Silent Sam after we have staked the morning glory, “we are neighbours, after all. Perhaps we should call for help.”

Speak Ill of the Dead,
MARY JANE MAFFINI
'
s first mystery novel for RendezVous Press, was nominated for a Crime Writers of Canada Arthur Ellis award, as was her short story “Kicking the Habit”, in
Menopause is Murder.
She scooped the Ellis for Best Short Story in 1995. Now watch out for her chilly new novel,
The Icing on the Corpse.

LEA TASSIE

Seven spades.”

“Double.”

“Pass.”

“Pass.”

“Redouble!” A smug smile accompanied Laurene Jones' triumphant bid. It was clear she thought making seven spades would be a snap.

A grand slam, doubled, redoubled and vulnerable. If Laurene made her contract, she and Marion would win the rubber and be up 3,140 points. That was as many points in one hand as I usually made in a whole afternoon of bridge.

My partner, Emily, stared at her cards as if wondering why she'd ever had the temerity to double Laurene's bid, then gazed out my living room window at the log booms in the rain-lashed inlet and beyond to the Coast Range. The view of forested mountains apparently offered no inspiration, for she sighed and examined her cards again.

Laurene was always full of herself, but when she made a doubled contract, she crowed so much that I wanted to take a dull knife to her tongue. There can be grace in winning as well as losing, but Laurene's grace was restricted to her perfectly coiffed blonde hair, her perfectly matched ensembles and her
perfectly kept house. Oh yes, and her expertly brewed coffee and exquisitely baked brownies.

“It's your lead, Emily,” I said. “And don't worry. We're not playing for money.”

Emily led the deuce of hearts. Marion laid out the dummy's hand, shoved her chair back and rose.