The Memento (37 page)

Margaret came to see me while I was still in the hospital deciding what to do. She expected me to come back and work for her, she said. A nurse in the hospital had told her that Jenny was offering to take me over at Petal’s End. Margaret thought it was a joke and she’d come to laugh with me about it—like that was the last place I would go, or should go.

Margaret was shocked when she realized I had not dismissed it outright. “Don’t go up there, Fancy Mosher. You need to listen to me and you need to listen good. Jenny’s not right in her head. What do you want to go back there for? You don’t owe her nothing. She can’t help you. She’s just up to something, that mutated dwarf of a bitch. That’s plain, isn’t it? You’re not a girl now. And only bad things happen over to Petal’s End. You know that better than anyone. Jenny isn’t any different than when she was a kid. No one changes, no one ever does. You think you’re some smart, don’t you? People don’t want to help you. Everyone’s just looking for what they can get. That’s life. You’re an ignorant little fool. Did you really think I wanted to help you get your life back together? Did you really believe that? It’s too easy tricking you.”

I wasn’t even dressed, just sitting there in the hospital lounge listening to her tell me how simple it was to get Hector to stop believing, to come into her big fleshy arms and press himself against her wide hips. My noiseless pain brought a smug look over Margaret’s face. It was her, she told me, when Hector went astray. When his precious daughter tumbled into the stream and hit her head, her daddy was in bed with Margaret.

She believed I had done Jenny’s bidding. We’d tried to kill her with the poisoned rosewater, but we’d got impatient when it didn’t work. If Margaret couldn’t get to Jenny Parker then she would get to me. I could reap what Jenny had sown, for Jenny was sealed away in her castle on the mountain. “Hector really did think you believed their preachings,” she told me. “He hated you for that. He took all his hate for the Believers and he gave it to you.”

I didn’t tell Margaret that it was me who fooled Hector, for as much as I wanted to believe I could have a good and simple life, I knew I could not. Even the Holy Mother Mercy Grampie called on had forsaken me. I said nothing to Margaret for it did not matter no more, there was no taking back the past for any of us. Having my daughter returned was the only thing that could heal me. I did not weep or wail as Margaret wanted. She walked toward the door, but before she slipped out I saw her crying. It’s a surprise discovering that no matter how satisfying the planning, there ain’t no real pleasure in retribution.

That is how I came to leave the valley after twelve years and go back up and over the mountain on the Lonely Road, coming down into Lupin Cove, winding into the village and over the bridge and back up the hill on the other side. Lupin Cove was even further in decline, everything looking shabbier and overgrown, abandoned.

I arrived on a fine June day at the iron gates of Petal’s End. Raymond Delquist drove me and he talked only when there was a reason—an economy of words. He was like a Believer in that way. But he did not look like a man who would ever raise his voice in song, and I told him so. His anemic cheeks lifted on either of his lips like the frail wings of a moth. He said his grandfather was my Grampie’s lawyer. He said my grandfather was a special man. They had a painting he had done of Raymond’s grandmother. She’d
been hit by a train. In the painting she was smiling. It made the family happy.

The lawyer unlocked the gates and pulled them apart, using his whole body, and I got out of the car with my bag. “I’ll walk in from here, sir,” I said.

His hat brim was wide and his face was shaded. “There’s a telephone. No answering machine, but there is a phone.”

“Probably the same one as before, that old black telephone.”

“Agatha has my number, and it’s on your contract, should you need anything.” He tipped his felt hat.

The leaves closed in on the lane as though it was a tunnel. I took off my shoes and put them in my bag, and as soon as my feet were bare I started feeling better. My daughter was just like me. She loved bare feet. That was the Mosher way. Feeling the dirt between my toes brought me back to life as I walked the lane to Petal’s End.

As I ambled along, a long shape moved further down the road. My heart hammered as I saw it was a man with silver hair. He came forward and said my name, his low voice cavernous. The melody of the voice was unchanged even though a great long time had passed, twelve years, since that summer when Pomeline died on the island and the forest went up in smoke and Marigold fell down sputtering her strange words.

T
HE SLATE-BLUE
eyes in his tanned brown face were the only trace of the twelve-year-old Art Comeau I had known. Before me was a grown man with hot blood in his veins. I saw the muscles move under Art’s skin and it made me think for a moment of Hector, but I let Hector bob away in the river of my mind. I stood there with Art on the lane as he took my hands in both of his. Those warm strong fingers cradled my clammy palms.

Art seemed older than twenty-four years, but the same could be said of me. Lines had laid down upon my face as though I’d walked through fine cobwebs. Perhaps my black hair would turn white also.

“Fancy, let me take your bag.” He reached for it as he spoke, his hand brushing mine. “I was walking down to meet the car. I knew you would walk down the lane … in bare feet. Some things never change.”

“What the hell happened to your voice, Art Comeau? Did you start dying your hair? I thought you’d be far away from these
parts.” I wondered how much Art knew about me, how my life had gone. I knew nothing of him.

“I finally sold my grandmother’s house. Jenny offered me a job gardening, a good part-time job. I did a year at the vocational school studying horticulture but then I switched to university.”

“You always liked the plants and bugs.” I supposed Art would think he was better than me now, me who didn’t even finish high school. “What are you going to be? A plant doctor?”

“Actually, I’m studying psychology now. I’m going to be a psychologist, not a botanist like Harry.”

Harry. His name a transparent bell between us, which began to ring, then Sakura’s voice, a tiny wind brushing up against that bell. I had one of my spells and forgot he was there for a time, feeling the laneway on my feet. In the woods were a few of the broken statue pieces from long ago, covered in mint-green lichen.

“Excuse me, Fancy, are you okay?” I opened my eyes and the man with the silver hair and the deep voice was looking at me. “My grandmother’s hair turned like this when she was young too, but she dyed it black. It started happening when I finished high school. For a long time I thought it was on account of all the stress, even knowing it ran in my family. At least baldness isn’t in the genes.” He ran his fingers through his hair. “Studying psychology has helped me. When Yvette took me away I went to see someone, to talk about things. And when she died her cousins kept me. They were good people. It helped me understand that whole summer, as much as I could.”

Anger came up in me. “The only time we could have done anything was back then and we did nothing. I don’t want to go talking about that. The past is the past. I’m glad you’re all happy and well-adjusted now with your big education and your city accent and your travels. I got things to do now getting my life back in order. Don’t you go giving me a hard time, because I can’t stand that, Arthur Comeau. You don’t know what I been through.”

He had the good sense to let it drop. “Jenny tracked me down through the lawyer,” he said. “She wants to open up Evermore again, although it’s a shocking mess. It would take a crew, but she doesn’t want anyone here but us. She’s firm on that. She won’t let her mother and Dr. Baker on the property. They came by when I first got here. Estelle still wants to tear it down. She says she’ll sell the contents to antiquity dealers, auction off every piece inside. The land alone is worth a fortune now. They’ve been quarrelling for twelve years straight, it seems. Doesn’t matter, because Jenny owns everything. But now Jenny’s sick, and Estelle says she isn’t competent.”

“Estelle used to say the same thing about Marigold. Maybe you can tell me what’s wrong with Jenny that she needs a caregiver,” I said. “Raymond Delquist said he wasn’t authorized to give me any additional information. That’s how he put it.”

“Raymond is a good man and he does what Jenny says. As for what’s wrong with her, it goes back to before she was born. Estelle took some drugs so she wouldn’t have miscarriages, but those drugs have ended up giving Jenny cancer in her cervix and uterus. They didn’t catch it soon enough because she refused to go for regular tests. She said she didn’t want doctors touching her. It’s spreading all through her now.” Art was more like his old self then, long pauses between his thoughts, looking at me to see if I understood. But my face only puzzled him so he explained more, as though that would help. “Jenny wants the gate locked all the time. She doesn’t want any visitors.” We continued our walk. “You should be prepared, Fancy. She looks aged far, far beyond her years. And she goes by Agatha now. You get used to calling her that but it’s weird at first. I’ve been here for two weeks. If you call her Jenny she won’t even acknowledge you are in the room.”

“I see. Well,
Agatha’s
paying me enough I’m happy to call her whatever she wants, and looking after people is what I’m trained to do.”

“I hope so, because she’s sick, Fancy. She’s doing okay right now, though. Oh, and brace yourself … she’s doing all the cooking. She says she never cooked in her life but it’s never too late to learn something new.” Art chuckled. “How’s your mother? I hear she’s sick.”

“I don’t know how Ma is. I can do the cooking. And look after Agatha.”

The big house was not as I remembered it. The paint was peeling and the shingles were covered in bushy moss. The only thing that hadn’t changed was the stone gargoyles hanging there on the corners of the third floor. Most of the windows were boarded up. The grass was waist high and the gardens were lost in a sea of weeds. Thick ivy covered the walls.

The weather is hard on a house that goes unattended for twelve years. It looked derelict. A sea of blue lupins covered the front grounds and flowed around the house. Art put his hand on my arm. I looked at him and he was pointing. Little blue butterflies were flitting about on the blossoms.

I held out my hand hoping a butterfly might come to me but they only fluttered by on the breeze. “I named my daughter after them butterflies, Melissa Blue. We just use Melissa though for there ain’t nothing blue about her. She’s a joyous thing.”

There are still Melissa Blues here now, although I am no young woman. It is a sanctuary for the butterflies and for me as well. They say there are few places left where the Melissa Blue breeds but they do here at Petal’s End, where the lupins grow.

Art did not try to force me to discuss anything, as confusing as it must have been following my meandering comments. He was the kind of person who can love the unlovable, and who can accept the unacceptable. He understood without me needing to explain. “It’s a pretty name for a little girl. I’m sorry, Fancy, for all you’ve gone through. For what happened. I didn’t think it could get any
worse than out there on the island. Or finding Charlie that day. But I suppose it can always get worse.” Art told me he’d learned interesting meditation and self-relaxation techniques that could help. He would teach me.

I took his hand. “I got no need of that. But there ain’t no need to look glum. Maybe you should try out your psychology on yourself. They had us doing enough of that down in the hospital. I agreed to come here so I wouldn’t have to go banging on any more bongo drums like some stupid hippie. Pomeline dying was a tragedy but what’s past is the past. This job’s for getting Melissa back, you see, Art? And I mean to make the most of it. We can only help Jenny now. There’s nothing we can do for Pomeline. You got to remember that.”

“I see,” he said. “I see, Fancy.” But Art didn’t look like he could see at all. He hugged me tight and I was like a stick in his arms. He only cried for a moment, his tears stopping as he kissed me on the forehead. “Everything’s going to be all right, Fancy.”

“Didn’t Yvette used to say something about that?”

“All fruits ripe, she used to say.”

Art didn’t sound as though he believed himself a single bit. Maybe he wanted to, but in the same way he wanted to believe in the moon illusion, that it really was bigger when it rose. I kissed both his cheeks.

And, my dear, you see, when I got to Petal’s End I really believed if I did the right thing perhaps I’d capture back a bit of what I’d lost.

W
E CAME
in the grand front entrance. There was a tinkle. Pomeline’s wind bells were hanging off the roof of the verandah. The blue and yellow flowers painted on them looked as perfect as when I had first seen them twelve years earlier. Art said Jenny had him put the wind bells up when she found them on a hook in the Water House. Hers were hung in one of the willows by the pond in Evermore.