Grave Concern, page 8
Kevin Farningham fell so hard for Ariel Frank that the minute he turned sixteen, he quit school and proposed. And Ariel, a year older and with every intention of leaving town for post-secondary, thought he was crazy. But she’d seen it coming. She’d known for some time. Since they were in junior high, Kevin and Ariel had gone together and broken up so many times it was a running joke. But lately, things were more intense. Ariel felt trapped, like there was no way out. She was getting rattled. But whenever she came close to calling it off, she couldn’t say the words she knew would destroy Kevin.
Kevin turned up at her door the week after the proposal, expecting her considered reply. He told her if she said no, he would kill himself. As humourless as he’d been lately, Ariel sincerely doubted Kevin would do anything of the sort. Who ever heard of such a thing? People said they’d kill themselves all the time. Just the other day her little sister Porry (short for Portia — their mom was an amateur thespian and Shakespeare freak) said she’d kill herself if Ariel didn’t spell her off for a babysitting date at the Wilsons, because Tim Hinks had finally gotten around to asking her to a movie that very night.
Far from applying more pressure, Kevin’s pronouncement seemed to release Ariel into a realm of choice. The way he stood there, so vulnerable and invested, made her realize he couldn’t know, or determine, what was going to come out of her mouth. That was a power she’d never felt. Standing there on her porch, swatting at a fly buzzing around driving them crazy, Ariel said no. No and not in the foreseeable future, by which she meant, but didn’t say, her further education, a degree or diploma. In Ariel’s mind, if they were still in love after that, the possibility still existed. Kevin, whose turn in Ariel’s mind had stopped at “foreseeable future,” spun and walked down her steps, across town, straight into his parents’ garage, and hanged himself.
Ten years later, at an all-high-school reunion, Ariel had offered up these details matter-of-factly to Kate, once her junior and a relative nobody, as though they were best friends. Kate had listened in mild shock, horrified and titillated, wondering how she’d not heard of this before, and planning conversational escape.
Kate ducked behind Kevin’s stone to the row behind. WHITLOCK, SMITH, LABELLE, COWPER, YAKABUSKIE, O’DONNELL, DUMANOIR, LEWIS, BLIMKIE, MCCLUSKY, JAWORKSI, POIRIER, CONNELLY, DORAN, CLOUTHIER, CAHILL, VAILLANCOURT. Kate considered the general direction of dying these days. People didn’t imagine themselves here, in graveyards, anymore. Nowadays, they got themselves cremated and tossed on the wind off a mountain or cruise ship. There was that jarring word, “cremains,” about which Kate did not know what to think. Hell, you could even, she’d read, get your “cremains” remoulded at high temperature and made into a park bench! Kate was considering this ultimate recycling when she noticed a dark figure further up the row. Her first heart-flipping thought was: the Thing. But on closer examination, it turned out to be a flesh-and-blood homo sapiens.
Kate approached as delicately as rubber boots would allow, knowing what it was to be interrupted while communing with the dead. The figure, which had been squatting, stood painfully up and walked away. Kate knew that large back, the laboured gait, the shaggy head.
“Hank Dixon! Hello.”
Hank turned. “Kate. Uh, sorry I never got back, uh, about your services.”
“That’s okay, Hank. No need to explain. No dog, I see.”
“What?”
“You know, nipping at your wheels, ripping your hand off.”
“Ah, yeah. No sign of him today.”
“Thank God, or maybe Mayor Hinks, for that!” said Kate cheerily.
“Ah, Kate … now you’re here. To change the subject, like, uh, I always wondered — you ever see ghosts, like, you coming out here so much?”
“Ghosts?”
“Yeah, apparitions like, flittin’ about the place.”
The Thing. But Kate wouldn’t mention that. “No, Hank, can’t say as I have. Why, have you?”
“Nah, don’t believe in that stuff. Just wondered, you being out here so much. Must be kinda creepy.”
“Well, Hank, I don’t believe in that stuff either. Doesn’t seem creepy to me. People dying, I mean. Maybe that’s the key.”
“Yeah. I know what you’re saying there. I know lots of people won’t go to a graveyard, even to visit their own loved ones, like.”
“Well, pass them on to me, by all means. I can always use the business.”
“Sure thing, Kate. And, uh, sorry again. The price was a bit steep.”
“Not to worry, I understand. I’ll leave you to it, then.” Kate turned toward another grave-row, but felt Hank’s eyes still on her back.
“Uh, Kate.”
“Yeah?”
“About the dog. Doesn’t exist. I just thought it’d look kinda stupid, me being scared to come out here. That’s why I was considerin’ your services, like.”
“What’s the problem, Hank? Not ghosts, is it?”
“Now don’t think I’m crazy.”
“I swear.”
“Somethin’. Don’t know if it’s ghosts or what. Seen it along the fence, there. Coupla times.”
“It?”
“Maybe an animal, but nothing you could name. Not a dog. Or a deer …” He laughed. “Not a werewolf either, if that’s what you’re thinking! Thing is, both times it was getting dark, like. Never got a real good look.”
Kate considered her options. She could come clean and potentially confirm Hank’s worst fears and, when the inevitable gossip came down, be lumped in with the loony camp. Or she could keep her mouth shut and conduct further research.
“You’re laughin’ at me, aren’t you? Inside, like.”
“No. Definitely not.”
Hank Dixon, a bear of a man, default owner (since Dixon senior had died) of Dixon RV Sales & Storage and New2U Auto, continued to stand like a penitent before her. Now he caught her eye and wouldn’t let go.
Kate shifted uncomfortably. “Read my lips, Hank: I do NOT think you’re crazy. I — I just don’t know what to think. Really.”
Kate could see Hank was counting on her in a big way. Painfully shy, he wouldn’t ask around himself. Not one to hang out at Tim Horton’s and jaw with the locals, Hank found it trying to consort with his fellow man.
“Okay, okay, Hank. Here’s the thing. I’ll look into it and if I find out anything, I’ll give you a call.”
Hank nodded.
“Okay?”
“Okay.” Hank headed toward a prehistoric Buick parked out on the road.
Kate continued her walk, this time with a clear goal:
More than once had her dad made it clear to Kate that when the time came there should be nothing but dates on his grave. No sappy poetry, he said. What about good poetry, Kate asked. No, nothing. Her mom had expressed no opinion either way. Still, Kate reasoned, who would be reading it anyway? Kate herself. And she found Donne’s poem comforting, especially the last line of that work: “Death, thou shalt die” — you couldn’t get more defiant than that. Into the granite went the famous phrase.
Kate watched the belching Buick roar off and understood in an instant how important this graveyard was to someone like Hank. There was a lot to be said for a garden of the dead. Accepting of the future, yet holding to the past. Offering order and stability, making few demands. A reprieve from relentless change. Above ground, the bereaved rehashed memories again and again; below, the dreaming went on and on just the same. A traditional cemetery, complete with coffins and granite markers, was perhaps not sustainable, environmentally speaking. But it was sustaining. What drew Hank Dixon drew Kate, too: the simple comfort of talking with the dead.
Kate had kept many secrets from her mother, both happy and sad, over the years, and she had sensed a similar withholding on her mother’s part: unsatisfied longings, unfulfilled dreams Molly had never confided to her only child. How else to mend death’s rift? Kate found a plastic bag in her jacket pocket, laid it on the muddy grass, sat down and began:
Kate: So, Mom, what’s on your mind lately?
Molly: Not much, as you might guess, dear. It’s boring as hell down here. Oops, I hope your father didn’t hear that.
Kate: Why? It’s not like he can entertain you.
Molly: I meant the swearing. He never liked me to swear, you remember. Not ladylike.
Kate: Well, I guess I knew, but no one ever said it out loud. And “hell” doesn’t count as swearing anymore.
Molly: He’s an old-fashioned guy.
Kate: I’ve never heard you actually say that before. And it’s the first time I’ve ever heard you say “guy.”
Molly: Really? Well. But old-fashioned — that was obvious, Kate, surely.
Kate: Yeah, I guess. I never thought of it in so many words. He was just, well, Dad. He was older than you … quite a bit.
Molly: Nine years. But that wasn’t it. It had nothing to do with his age. It’s just the way it … he … was.
Kate: But then you got all proper yourself, as time went along. You’d stop him from telling his stupid, off-colour jokes. Remember?
Molly: (sighs) I know, dear, I know. How did it happen? I have no idea. Maybe I just got tired. Hardly recognized myself anymore.
Kate: Yeah, speaking of that. Who were you, when you were young? Before I knew you. What were you like back then?
Molly: Oh, I don’t know. Much the same, I guess.
Kate: But you just said …
Molly: Oh, Kate, don’t confuse me with details. It’s cold down here. Depressing — you can’t imagine. Nothing new ever happens. I’m going back to sleep now. Shouldn’t you be getting on?
Kate: Mom, don’t go!
Molly:
Kate: Mom!
In the profound darkness of the cabin, they lay on in silence, each warming the other just enough. At some point, J.P. shuddered, grew still and then heavy. That was a serious shiver, thought Kate.
“Are you all right?” she said.
Silence. Perhaps he hadn’t heard.
“Are you all — ”
“Yeah,” J.P. said, his voice rumbling against her head.
“I just remembered something,” she said.
No response.
“The Legion poster contest, for Remembrance Day. Didn’t you win or something?”
“Honourable mention.”
“I remember seeing it in the paper. It was fantastic.”
“They forced us to do something in art.”
“What did you win?”
“Huh?”
“You know, for getting honourable mention.”
“Don’t remember. Nothing, I guess.”
His voice was a deep hum in her temple, vibrating through his neck.
“Wasn’t there some controversy?”
“Mmmm.”
“How come?”
“I put the guy in a Nazi hat.”
“Oh yeah, now I remember. It was just a huge face, right? Like really mad, full of rage. That was so cool.”
J.P. said nothing.
“So how come it didn’t win? It was great.”
“Who knows? They wanted poppies and stuff.”
“It was by far the best, I thought, anyways.”
A shrug.
“They printed it in the paper. That was neat.”
“Yeah, well, it’s not the New York Times.”
“How did you get the idea?”
“For the face?”
“Yeah.”
“It’s just my brother, Guy. When he gets mad, he looks exactly like that.”
A tiny door inside Kate unlocked. She moved a bit, to ease an ache in her lower back. The change felt good, and she squirmed again. J.P. neither resisted nor asked what she was doing, but sort of went along for the ride. A liveliness in Kate’s abdomen now moved deep into pelvis and thighs. She squirmed some more, and J.P. responded again, without a word. Fully clothed on the freezing plank bed, the army coat for a sheet, they continued a slow gyration, posing questions, venturing answers with their hips. The dance grew larger than the dancers, augmenting its reach and scope beyond them both. Kate forgot all but the exquisite vortex down which she now dove.
Nicholas’s dad drove like a maniac, for all the difference it would make. It just might, he reassured Nick’s terrified mother, if Nick had taken on water. As in got water in the lungs. J.P. just hunkered down in the back seat against the door, staring out the window, silent as death.
The hospital kept Nicholas overnight for observation, but discharged him the next morning with a stern warning and a finger wag from a grudging nurse, who declared him a very lucky young man, as though she wished he weren’t.
A week or so later, Nicholas’s dad presented him with the knife, a nasty switchblade à la West Side Story. “I think this is what did the trick,” he said. “Found it way down under the foredeck, under the bow. Must have floated back in there under the bilges. Jib sheet’s severed, obviously cut. I think, young man, your long-haired friend may have saved your can.”
“Not may have, Dad. Did,” Nicholas said. “God. I feel like an ass.”
Since she had first set eyes on J.P., a pale spot just above the temple where his thick hair began had exerted a powerful fascination. At the moment, Kate couldn’t see anything, of course, but only feel soft whorls of his hair tickling her face. In the silence, Kate brought her hand somewhere up beside his head. Slowly, she moved the teeniest tip of her index finger to where she guessed his temple to be. The flesh was firm over the bone of his skull, but the skin surface was surprisingly soft. At her touch, J.P.’s head jerked up, like a dozing tabby alerted to danger. Kate startled too then, but her fingertip remained. She felt him relax a bit and added the next finger. And the next.
Neither breathed. J.P. lowered his head the slightest bit. Cautious now, Kate applied her palm. His head took on weight, gained mass, sank heavily on her chest. Kate buried her hand deep in the mane where it came to luxurious rest. Slowly, starting from the brow, Kate smoothed the hair, across the skull and down the nape of the neck. His body went completely slack, pressing her hard against the floor. His forehead rested somewhere down by her cheek. Feeling his warm breath rise along her throat, Kate stroked him again, brow to nape.
At a quarter to nine in the morning, Kate stood in the backroom of Flower Power by the gas canister, filling balloons for a balloon-a-gram. Emma Raymond, daughter of Foxy, last seen at Ron and Hille’s party, was turning sixteen. Kate felt a blast of cold air on her feet, telling her someone had entered the store. “Happy Groundhog Day, Gwyneth!” she called, and stopped the gas to hear how old Pickle-face would respond.
Nothing. Kate tethered the balloons to a stapler and went out to investigate. Lanh (Leonard) Ho Lam, Manager, stood among the floral displays, holding what looked like a bunch of oversized business cards, laughing in perfect silence, his shoulders shaking up and down.
“Oh, hi there!” said Kate. “Glad you liked the joke, which was exactly … ?”
“I was just imagining how Gwyneth might react to your greeting,” he said.
Kate looked Leonard up and down. “Just because you share the same strip mall, doesn’t mean you may disrespect Miss Waters.” She grinned. “But I’d appreciate it very much.”
Leonard’s look of alarm dissipated. “Huh! I saw your light on. I wondered if you would be so kind as to display these cards by the cash.”
Would be so kind as to. How charming. Kate stared pointedly at his badge. “With all due respect, Mr. Ho Lam, I’m guessing you didn’t just ‘see the light on.’ You saw me come in. Me, not Gwyneth. I’m guessing you, like many long-suffering souls, had Miss Waters for Grade 9 math.”
Leonard’s face opened like Thoreau’s evening primrose. “She freaks me out. Always has.”
Kate laughed. “You and me both.” She glanced at the cards. “What’s this all about?”
“We’re starting up a film society here in town. A few of us. Bring in films you don’t normally see. Canadian, foreign, small-release indies, you know. We need members for the society and an audience, of course. I’m asking merchants like yourselves to help out with a bit of publicity.”
“Hey, I’m not the merchant here. Just a lowly employee, as I’m often reminded. But isn’t this kind of a conflict of interest? I mean, the DVD rentals and all.”
“Sorta kinda. Not really. My father still owns the store, and he insists on the lamest movies. Well, as you saw. He says that’s what people want.”
He continued holding the cards without offering them up. “These will be uncommon films, sure to be stimulating. Third Thursday of every month. A small fee to join the society. Maybe you’ll even come yourself?”
“I’d be delighted.”
“To come or display the cards?”
“Both, of course,” said Kate, putting her hand out. “I just hope Miss Havisham approves.”
“Miss Havisham? Oh, I see,” said Leonard, with the little lip twitch Kate was starting to appreciate. “Well, I’d better get back.”
“I’d highly recommend it,” smiled Kate, glancing at the clock, which said one minute to nine. “Oh, and Leonard? Could ya save some of those cards for Grave Concern? The proprietor over there would be happy to help out.”
Leonard bobbed his head and made his escape.
Just as Leonard disappeared, who should turn up but Miss Havisham herself? Kate quickly tied some fancy ribbon around the sixteen dancing balloons and grabbed her coat off the desk.
