The Gravesavers (16 page)

“Quite the decoration scheme you’ve got here.” She got up and examined my clothesline of clippings and paint-swatch collages. “Lots of history and local colour.”

“Ha ha. You’re changing the subject,” I said.

She sighed and sat back down. “Well, I don’t get so much from my old age security cheque, and last winter the furnace had to be replaced and next year it’ll be the roof, no doubt. So. Well, I’ve started this little business on the side, you see.”

This was something my father didn’t know about. He would have mentioned something like this.

“What sort of business?”

“Tea leaves.”

“I beg your pardon?”

“I read tea leaves,” she said with the same expression as a person might say “I sell real estate.”

“You mean like a fortune teller or something? You read people’s futures?”

“No! That’s just Pugwash—I mean hogwash. Hocus-pocus. Those nitwits on TV, that’s all a hoax. I grow my own herbs out back, as you know. Then I harvest them and pound them and brew up some tea and serve it in the sunroom and, well, they say I have the gift.”

“The gift?”

“It’s called tasseography, the reading of tea leaves. I interpret the symbols left at the bottom of the cup. You have to know what you’re looking at. Then it’s plain as day.”

“Cool,” I said. Not that I meant it. From geography to tasseography? Was it a sign of some old-age disease?

“Well, I don’t know how cool it is, but four clients once a week is one hundred bucks, and times that by four and that’s four hundred extra dollars a month I’ve got. Not bad. Anyhow, you slept in this morning and I didn’t want to bother you, but they’ll be here in an hour.”

“I’ll go out for my run, then.” I sighed as if this was a sacrifice.

“You don’t have to stay away the whole time or anything like that. I just wanted the breakfast things over with.”

“Okay.”

She whistled on her way downstairs.

I peeked in the sunroom before my run. It was completely decked out. I couldn’t believe my eyes.

“Wow! Nana!” I said.

“Well, I try my best but—”

“But nothing,” I said. “It’s beautiful!” And it was.

The old pine drop-leaf table had been pushed to the centre of the room, with five chairs around it. She’d covered it with a creamy white tablecloth embroidered with delicate blue and yellow pansies. The tablecloth had been freshly ironed. A vase of her garden flowers, brown-eyed Susans and bright orange tiger lilies, made “an eye-catching centrepiece” my mother would say was to die for. On the buffet, her best china teapot and teacups were arranged on a tray, ready to serve.

“And what’s that delicious smell?” I asked.

“Scones,” she replied, “that I’ll serve with Devonshire cream.”

“No, it’s another smell.”

“Lemon balm, spearmint and rosemary and a few secret ingredients,” she teased. “It’s brewing in the kitchen now.”

“Well, I think you could charge more, just for sitting in the room with this view,” I said.

She gave me a hot scone for breakfast. Was it a peace offering? A truce? Where was the witch? Who was the witch? Which witch was she this morning?

“Minikin!” Max was poking around down on the beach not far from Poplar Grove. I waved and slowed down.

“Come get a look at this!”

He was wearing what he always wore. I knew folks in East Boulder were mostly fishing folks without a lot of money, so I tried not to judge. “Judge not your friends by outward show, the feather floats high but the pearl lies low.” It was one of Corporal Ray’s favourite lectures to me. Besides, Max always smelled clean as the ocean air. And he looked good, anyhow. His sweatshirt was blue, faded by the sun and salt. It matched his eyes. He wore a pair of denim shorts frayed at the cuffs. His sneakers were orange canvas and rubber, scuffed on the toes. The sole of his right sneaker was torn. Sometimes, it made a flapping sound when he walked.

“What is it?” I panted. I hoped he thought the panting was just from my run.

“You tell me.”

It was a ring. A green stone set in gold was wedged between two rocks.

“An emerald? From the wreck?”

He shrugged.

“Looks pretty old.”

“Looks can be deceiving,” he said. “Could have been anyone’s, I guess. Take it—it’s yours, Minikin.”

I picked it up.

“Well, put it on!” he said.

I just stood with my mouth open like some kind of fool. “Where I come from, if you take a ring from a boy—”

“What?”

“It wouldn’t be right,” I mumbled.

He threw back his head and laughed. “Don’t get excited. We’re too young to get married … yet.”

I turned Valentine Red. Romantic Red. Red-y or Not.

“Can’t you just take it as a gift … from an old pal?”

“Sure.” Pal. Old. “Thanks.” The darn ring fit.

“How’s the petition going?” Guess he needed a topic change too.

“It’s not.”

“Why not? Go door to door yet?”

“No. I’ve been training, and besides, it’s useless.

It’s like Nana said. Nobody cares.”

“Don’t say that! There are still folks whose dead relatives helped in the rescue that night. They’d all care. And I care. And my own mother and father would care.”

“Well get them to sign, then. Three signatures so far. Harv’s store is always filled with people. My name, Nana’s and Harv’s. Whoopdy-doo. Like I said, who cares?”

“Gravesaver! That’s you! That’s who!” He poked me in the ribs. “You’ve got to do something bigger than this petition idea, anyhow. Actions speak louder than words.”

“I couldn’t agree with you more. But what?”

“Look out!” He pointed ahead. The limousine was coming towards us.

“Hardly Whynot!” I whispered.

“Who?”

“Hardly. As in Whynot. Haven’t you heard the rumour that he’s renting Admiral Fullerton’s place? If it’s true, all I want is
his
signature!”

“Great! Then you’ll have four on your petition.”

“No, silly! An autograph—for my mother! She’s a huge fan and she’s been sort of down in the dumps, I guess you could say. What a surprise it would be. I mean … Oh my … Mississippi! What an idea! You said ‘something big.’ He’s big. Major big. He’s
huge.
What if I got him interested? He’s even got money.

Swimming pools of it, I’ve heard. The
Atlantic
left from Liverpool, his home town, come to think of it. There’s a connection. Oh, I’ve got it! Get Hardly on this and we have ourselves a restored grave!”

I hugged him. Then I got overheated.

I rewound to Nana’s. “Gimme Your Hand to Hold.” The Ladybugs song blared into my head because as my arms shot out from my sides, the ring on my hand sparkled.
We’re too young to get married … yet.

So he was a flirt. A tease. Still, I wanted to hug him even tighter, not just hold his hand.

Nana’s “clients” were still in the sunroom. It was lunchtime, my brain was buzzing, and I had that lopsided feeling again. I was starving.

“Minn, that you?” Nana called out. I was trying to sneak a scone up to my room.

“We won’t bite,” someone said. Her voice was deeper than any trucker’s fuelling up at Harv’s.

I stuck my head in and immediately wished I hadn’t. The four of them looked ready to pick at my bones, and I got that fluttery warning feeling in the pit of my belly.

“They want to meet you, Minn,” said my grandmother. Her left eyebrow did that leapfrog hop it did sometimes. If I wasn’t mistaken, the look she gave me was more an apology. And those eyebrows kept ahopping. Okay, so if I was reading the telegraph correctly she was also saying to me: “Humour them, puh-leeze, they’re hopeless.”

“Why would you want to meet me?” My tone was borderline rude.

“We’ve seen you out running these past weeks. We’re renting the cottages up on Poplar Grove.”

Her words were slurred. I realized with a bit of a shock that they had been knocking back some of Nana’s blueberry wine.

“Yes, you’re a speedy little devil. Good for you. But we’ve got a question,” she continued. The woman was older than my mother, I think. Her neck was so long she made me think of a giraffe. “We’re staying in the rental cottages up on Poplar Grove Hill,” she said again.

“Oh, Sylvia, cut to the chase,” wheezed another woman in tight leather pants.

“We saw you talking to the chauffeur,” said the third woman. She was the one with the trucker’s voice.

“Hardly’s chauffeur,” said the final woman. “At least that’s what we think. One of the famous Ladybugs—before your time, dear—” they all cackled at this, “is renting Admiral Fullerton’s mansion for the summer. Or so we’ve heard.”

“Do you know if it’s true?” asked Ms. Leather Pants.

“Can’t tell you exactly if that’s so, but I have my own suspicions as well.” I saw the opportunity for some fun.

“What makes you think so? What did he say?”

“He asked me first if I lived in the area and wanted directions to the city because he had to make a trip to a music store for new guitar strings for his boss.”

“Aha!”

My grandmother was nearly busting a gasket, trying to hide a smile behind her hand and peering into the teacups as if she was still seeing the future there, far below, in the bottom of the ocean.

“Oh, you’re just pulling our legs,” said one of the women. “Aren’t you?”

I shrugged. “Well, if I knew but was sworn to secrecy, I couldn’t go telling what I knew, now, could I? Look, if you really want to know for sure who’s living there, you should go find out for yourself.”

“But there’s No Trespassing signs all over the place.”

“True,” I said. “But there’s a secret trail by the hedge of pear trees at the west edge of the property that’ll lead up to the stone wall. There’s a crack in the foundation and you can get close enough to spy on the house. My father took me there once. We just wanted to see the house. Anyhow, if I were you and lived that close, I’d be tempted to take some binoculars and go find out. Careful of the poison ivy, though.”

“Well, your grandmother just told me I was going to meet someone rich and famous very soon,” said Ms. Leather Pants. “It’s got to be him!”

“I don’t know, really I don’t,” I said and excused myself. Their cackles were getting on my nerves. Their blueberry-wine breath was gross. From my window I watched the Cackleberry Women stumble back up the road towards Poplar Grove Hill.

The tea leaves were still at the bottom of the cups as I rinsed them out.

“Nana, do you believe in this, really, that reading tea leaves can tell you things like you told them?”

She didn’t answer at once. “It’s not so important if I do really. I think it’s more fun than anything. Just something my own mother did. It’s the people who want to hear that there’s good news ahead, or some excitement in their dull and boring lives, that needs to believe. Yes indeed. Belief can make a lot of things possible.”

Every morning I tried to write in the journal Miss Armstrong-Blanchett had given me. And every morning I crossed out almost everything I wrote. Talk to the page? What was there to say?

The training diary was easier. How long I ran. Calculation of distance. Calf stretches or hamstring curls. Jumping jacks and sit-ups. Push-ups. How many sets. Weather conditions. Mostly it was cloudy. Still, it was stuff you could make sense of. Sometimes, I was just plain bored out of my mind. I pinned more and more of the articles about the shipwreck across my room. I tore out more swatches from my mother’s paint fan deck and made a collage on my wall over the peeling wallpaper.

Rigbyisms yelled at me from every nook and cranny.
Get off your gluteus maximus! Just Begin!
He even phoned a few times.

“Minn?”

“Yeah?”

“How’s it going?”

“Fine.”

“Working hard?”

“Yeah.”

“Good stuff. Doing your visualizations?”

“Trying to.”

“Good stuff. Okay, bye.”

A man of action and very few words. Except for those Rigbyisms. Truth was, my most creative visualization was my room. Nana called it a decorator’s nightmare. I liked what I had done just fine. And to her credit, she did give me some back issues of her precious
National Geographics
I could cut pictures from and paste on the wall.

I kept rearranging my treasure drawer. I put down a soft piece of flannel I found in the rag pile under the bathroom sink. All the treasure I was finding along the shore was in there in a circle. I made a little bed for the skull in the centre.

I took it out often and cradled it on my chest as I lay in bed. There were cracks in the plaster in the ceiling. One afternoon I began to play the same game with the cracks as I did with clouds. A tulip opening. A giant bunny. The face of … a deer. There was … the phone ringing and Nana calling: “Minn, it’s for you. Some fella!”

Max?

“Hello?” My voice was as casual as possible.

“How’s my girl?” Corporal Ray!

“Oh. Dad.”

“Whatever happened to ‘Hey there Daddy-o!’”

“I’m not a child.”

“Things not going so well?”

“No no, everything’s fine. Tickety-boo.”

“Running much?”

“The gold will be mine!”

“Atta girl!”

“Put Mum on?”

Silence. Clearing of throat.

“I can’t. Your mother is … Your mother has … Your mother went out to see Aunt Ginny.”

“In British Columbia? The other side of the country? I thought you two needed time alone.”

“Sometimes a change is as good as a rest. Maybe she needs her sister right now.” He didn’t sound too convinced.

“Maybe I need my mother right now!” I hissed. “Sisters can be good comfort for each other,” he added.

“I wouldn’t know, would I?” I slammed down the phone and ran to my room. The phone rang again. I heard Nana talking. I pounded my pillow.

So. My mother left my father and was all the way across the country. When was she coming back? Or
maybe it wasn’t a when question. Maybe it was an if.
Was
she coming back? Ever?

I crept across the room and put my ear to the door.

“Ray, she’s homesick as anything. Why not come for a visit? I see. I see. Well, that’s too bad then. But the girl’s been working herself so hard. I don’t know about this running business. Not natural. She’ll have arthritis someday from this. Get her mother to send a postcard, for heaven’s sake, at least.”