This River Awakens (28 page)

‘Going to shoot up?’ Sten asked. ‘That’s the answer, eh?’

Elouise watched her daughter hurry from the room.

Her husband shrugged and said, ‘I’ll call his secretary tomorrow, then. Glad that’s settled. It was good between us once, wasn’t it? I’d like that again. Like at the beginning. Let’s just forget all this. Well—’ He rose. ‘I’m gonna check on the dogs. They’re probably thirsty as hell.’

Elouise sat alone, sipping her cold tea. Then she stood, listening. Sten remained outside. Not a sound came from Jennifer’s room upstairs.
Shooting up? My God, please no.

She went to the cellar. As she approached the door the smell was overpowering. She opened it and turned on the light, and recoiled. Her jam and pickling jars lined the shelves, each packed with a reddish-brown paste. The smell was rotting flesh, and it came from the meat grinder. Her jam and preserves were gone.

Elouise sat down on the floor. She felt the pain as her mouth opened and at the first moan that came out her strength collapsed. She cried, her body racked, her jaw on fire as the animal sounds pushed out from deep inside, terrible, bleating sounds.

It’s okay,
she tried to tell herself between gasps. But it wasn’t okay. Something horrible had happened.

Sten’s house, it’s Sten’s house …

II

Heavy thunderheads scudded by to the south. Gribbs added another splash of water to the putty. The bowl in his lap, he sat in his chair outside the shack. As he mixed with the spoon in his left hand, he tested the putty’s consistency with his right hand, rolling the mix between his fingers.

He could smell the rain, hear the thunder, but the sky above him remained clear. The days of summer rolled on. The yachts sat moored to the docks. A few were taken out every now and then, but mostly they were there for parties and barbecues on the weekends. The club had a new manager, who’d brought a motor home which he had set up near the double garage. Some trees had gone down for that. The manager, bald and red-faced, his body round and bobbing like a buoy when he talked, introduced himself the first day he’d arrived.
‘Reginald Bell, call me Reggie. You ready for the overhaul? Yep, we’re overhauling the entire operation. We’ll be doing things Reggie’s way. Great meeting you, Wally – I can call you Wally, hey? A delight.’

That had been three weeks ago. They hadn’t spoken since. Gribbs didn’t like the man. Of course, no one had asked his opinion, and no one was likely to any time soon. But he’d met enough crooks in his day to know one when it bobbed up and shook his hand.
Call me Reggie.
Sure, Reggie’s an easy name to call. Reginald’s not easy. It makes a person pause, makes them look a second time at the smiling face, the booze-blistered nose, the evasive button-eyes.

He’d made the putty too wet, so he set the bowl aside and rose from his chair. The storms rolled past, not once swinging around, still only a promise. She rumbled out there, wandered, spat at shadows.
I ain’t moved, dear. Still here in one place, one time, a piece of the bank watching the river flow by.

Exhaustion had driven his dreams – his nightmares – from his waking memory. That had seemed to shake things up inside. A calm had come to his nights, a settled silence that he welcomed but didn’t trust.

He collected his new walking stick, reassured by its solid feel in his hands. He’d made it himself, retrieving it from the tree-cutters when they’d come to cord the felled oaks. The magnificent hundred-year-old trees now sat stripped, sectioned, and seasoning in neat stacks at the far end of the parking lot. But he’d saved a piece of one of them, he’d laboured over it with his knife and with linseed oil, and now it walked with him as he made his rounds. The best he could do, although he amused himself with an image of using the stick to beat Reginald Bell into a small, quivering pile of spent affability.
Doing Reggie Reggie’s way. A delight, a delight. The bell’s sounded, gentlemen. And see, it’s cracked crooked. A delight, a delight.

Gribbs let the stick lead him down to the docks. The clubhouse’s bar had its usual collection of members – he could see them lolling on the veranda. Always the same three. The retired doctor who drank himself senseless every day and passed out sitting in his chair, drink in hand. The businessman wanted for embezzlement in Florida. The rich wife of a man indulging a membership he never used. Gribbs liked the doctor, with his soused smile – the man didn’t even own a yacht and didn’t want one besides – a man without subterfuge, placidly embracing a pickled death. The woman was loud and flirty, quick with innuendo and broad winks, so bored and lost it could make a man cry just looking at her. The businessman professed his innocence to all who would hear, but refused to snowbird it south to face the music.

The three of them whiled the hours away each day, a blending of escape and forgetfulness, loneliness and pathos. He listened to the woman laughing loudly as he descended the slope and stepped on to the fixed dock running parallel to the bank.

Most of the club’s members held themselves more upright, genial and lively and relaxed. They were generous with kindness and concern, though sometimes the deep-rooted insincerity showed through – not with all of them, but with too many for Gribbs to ignore.

The stick thumped steadily as he walked along the dock. The yachts looked good, clean and cared for, but to Gribbs’s senses they were restless, their engines and screws impatient with the endless inactivity.

‘Hey, Wally, how ya doin’?’

Reggie stood on the sloped bank in front of the raised veranda.

Gribbs nodded and waved in the man’s direction as he continued down the dock’s length.

‘Hold up there, fella!’ Reggie called. ‘I’ll join you!’

Gribbs sighed and waited, his eyes on the blurred sweep of water. Reggie’s bulk registered in the creak of boards under Gribbs’s feet. He listened as the manager clumped to his side. A meaty hand fell on Gribbs’s shoulder, then slid off.

‘Good to see you out’n about. I guess you’ve seen a lot of water roll by, eh?’

‘And under. How are you, Reginald?’

‘Reggie. I’m doing great.’

Gribbs smelled booze on the man. Bad for a manager to be dipping into his own stock. ‘I’m relieved to hear it. Anything you want?’

‘Just taking a walk with you, that’s all. Having any trouble with trespassers?’

‘No. Why?’

‘Well, I’ve seen some kids around in the yards. Not members. Locals. We got to clamp down on that. I don’t want punks thinking they can just walk through this place. We’ve been vandalised before, I’m told.’

Gribbs laughed. ‘Dr Taft’s grandkids, playing with matches behind a boathouse, damn near set the woods on fire. That was, what, ten years ago? Maybe longer.’

‘Well, it pays to enforce the rules. That’s Reggie’s way. Always has been, always will be.’

Gribbs was silent for a moment. They’d come to the end of the fixed dock. He stepped on to the floating dock that projected out into the river. ‘If you piss off the local residents, you’ll get your vandalism, Reginald, and there won’t be any way of controlling it.’

‘Can’t agree with you there, old feller. You come down hard, full prosecution, and the shit stops just like that. Of course,’ he added, ‘the problem may be something else. You still feel up to keeping an eye on things all by yourself? The grounds are a handful even for a young man. And like I told you, call me Reggie.’

Gribbs stopped and faced the new manager. ‘Things have been running just fine, Mr Bell. There’s been no complaints.’

‘Well, yes there has. Your shack, for one. Quite an eyesore. We’ll have to do something there. A new coat of paint, or even replace it entirely. It’s on the agenda next board meeting.’

Gribbs laughed again and resumed walking. ‘You can take it down at summer’s end, Mr Bell.’

‘Reggie.’

‘I’ll call you however I want. It’s my job to take care of the yards. It’s your job to manage the clubhouse. I don’t answer to you, son.’

‘Not the best of attitudes, Wally. I’d rather we get along.’

‘Not much chance of that, sir. This club’s going to regret hiring you, but I’ll leave them to it. You do what you think you can get away with, they’ll catch on before too long. There’s not a fool among them and when it comes down to it, you’re just a goldfish in a tank of sharks.’

‘Where the fuck do you get off talking to me like that, old man? I can get you thrown out of here just like that. And that’s exactly what I’m going to do, you goddamned bastard.’

‘Go inventory or something, Reginald. I’m done talking.’

‘You’re out of here,’ Reggie said, swinging around and marching back down the dock.

Gribbs came to the end and gazed at the sky above the trees lining the opposite bank. The thunderheads had pivoted and now fled southward. The smell of rain was gone, the heat building once again.

Wait till he finds out I’m an honorary member on the board, and that I’ve been given a lifetime membership. Wait till he finds out I got a hundred and sixteen grand in an account in my name.
He sighed. He’d have to actually attend the meeting. A first time for everything.
Hell, might be fun.

*   *   *

The putty felt right between his fingers. He collected the tools he’d need and entered the yards.

The boy he’d met before was sitting on one of the rails, eating crab-apples and looking out at the river. Gribbs approached.

‘Good afternoon, Owen.’

The boy turned and smiled. He looked older than the last time Gribbs had seen him. ‘Afternoon, Mr Gribbs. What’re you up to?’

‘Was going to ask you the same thing. Since you don’t look too busy, maybe you could give me a hand. Got an old yacht here, needs some filling on its hull.’

Owen climbed to his feet. ‘Sure.’

Gribbs led him into the yards. ‘Her owner’s in jail. Has been for years. Racketeering. The boat’s had a lien slapped on it, but that’s about as far as it’ll ever go. Enjoying the summer so far?’

‘Seems to be going by awful fast. Right now I got a stomachache.’

‘Bung you up, those,’ Gribbs said.

‘Crab-apples? Well, mostly I’ve been eating cherries and raspberries.’

‘Good for you. What are gardens for, eh?’

They came to
Mistress Flight.
Owen stopped. Gribbs grinned at him. ‘Anything wrong, son?’

‘Uh, no. Nothing.’

‘Good. Let’s get to work, then.’ He had the boy start on the wood rot, digging it out, leaving only sound wood. Gribbs then ran his fingers on the wound to get the feel of it, and when satisfied he applied the putty. ‘She’s in pretty good shape,’ he said. ‘Overall.’

‘Mhmmm,’ Owen replied.

‘Might even be ready for the water in a month or so.’

‘Really? But I thought the owner was in jail.’

‘The lien’s held by the Yacht Club. Past dues. Technically, the boat belongs to the club. I’ve been feeling inspired lately. Thought she’d like one more run.’

‘Wow.’

‘So where are your friends?’

‘Roland’s working on the farm, and Lynk’s family went on vacation. Banff.’

‘Wasn’t there another one?’

‘Carl? I haven’t seen him around.’

‘How come?’

Owen kept his eyes on the hull, frowning as he dug out rotted wood. ‘Well, I got a girlfriend.’

‘Ahh. Starting early. That’s the spirit.’

Owen laughed. ‘If my mom and dad knew, they’d have fits.’

‘You sure about that?’

‘Yep. She’s got a reputation, I guess.’

‘Any girl who’s got one has at least something going for her.’

‘Huh?’

‘Sure. Means she’s living, not hiding.’

Owen was silent for a while, then he shook his head and said, ‘No … she hides a lot.’

‘Ahh, a thinking man. Your type always made me nervous.’

‘Sure,’ Owen laughed. ‘I heard you chewing out that fat guy. You didn’t seem nervous then, so I figure nothing gets to you.’

‘Sound carries, don’t it? So I’m just a tough old coot, am I?’

‘Yeah.’

‘Well, maybe I am. Listen, this girl here needs at least two hands working on her. That’s if you can drag yourself away from your reputable girlfriend, that is. Interested?’

‘Reputable? But that means—’

‘I know it does. Funny how words can turn around like that.’

‘Yeah, I wonder why.’ Owen stepped back and ran his gaze over
Mistress Flight.
‘It’s the least we can do, isn’t it?’

‘You got that right, Owen, my friend.’

III

The dogs slept. Sten stood in the darkness between the kennel and the porch, watching them. Shane was dreaming, his limbs twitching, his teeth showing dull white as his lip curled back.

Probably ripping me apart. There in his head. Ripping me open, and the voices come tumbling out. ‘Is this what it is to be free?’ they ask. Yes it is, I answer. Free as death. While Kaja and Shane and Caesar chase them down like rats, crushing their bones in their jaws.

He lifted the bottle to his lips, tipped in a mouthful of beer. The house behind him was quiet – his daughter off somewhere, his wife …
silent.
No words now. Just that look in her eyes, and the silence. They’d wired her shut, and now she stalked the house like a ghost. Whatever she said never made its way out. The words seeped into the bones of her jaw, or bled out in the swirling wake of her passage from one room to the next, settling into the walls, the floor. A spectral bitch, oozing nothing but hate for her husband.
For me.

And Roulston giving him shit on the phone. The only person who could dismiss Elouise as his patient was Elouise herself.
Fancy trick, that. She can’t talk. Ergo. Hah hah, you meddling bastard. First round’s to you, but I’m not done yet. I’ll bury you yet. You won’t be coming back, that’s a promise.

Kaja moaned in her sleep.
Oh yes, Max is dead, dear.
Overhead the leaves flapped in the warm wind. Stars glittered, and two planets in the sky stood silent, one of them slowly slipping down the curtain.

Castor and Pollux, Cassiopeia and Ursa Major. Zodiac projections and it’s written up there, read the signs, it’s all there, oh yeah, my love.