He had driven this route many times in his head, but much had changed in recent years. Whole blocks of houses had disappeared, replaced by shopping malls with expansive parking lots. A once-familiar
record store had been replaced by a tall building with a name over the door:
Canterbury Apartments
.
There was too much traffic for so early in the day. But of course this had been his impression every time he’d come anywhere near the city. A tourist bus bullied its way from one lane to the other. It seemed that traffic lights had been installed at nearly every intersection, where pedestrians thrust themselves off one sidewalk in order to race for another.
He turned left at the White Spot restaurant and followed a winding road past the edge of a wooded park that looked more or less as he remembered, then turned left again just past the park entrance and followed for one, two, three blocks. The comfortable old wood-shingled houses, set back behind tidy lawns, were now overshadowed here and there by modern glass-walled houses so wide and tall they looked as though they had elbowed the others aside.
He turned right and followed this familiar road uphill for five, six, seven blocks and turned left. He should have warned her. He should have come here without the hearse, he should have borrowed the Henry J. For all he knew, the sudden appearance of the Cadillac Cathedral could remind her of her father and cause her grief. He would be making himself an intruder in her life, an inconvenient interruption, no doubt causing a confusing mix of emotions.
Why was he thinking of this now? It was something that had happened too often in his life — getting caught up in some project before properly thinking it through. But he could not turn back. To turn back now would mean spending the rest of his life cursing himself for his cowardice.
But now there was this row of Victorian houses for two or three blocks, most of the buildings fairly well cared for. Little here had changed. Front lawns were brief shelves between veranda pillars and
a short drop to the sidewalk — probably because the street had been widened, cutting off half their lawns. Rhododendrons bloomed beneath the windows, which were mostly opaque from sheer curtains, with dark drapes pulled back to either side. Settled, heavy buildings. Secretive maybe. He knew these houses. There was probably a crystal chandelier in each dining room, a narrow staircase to the bedrooms, whose slanted ceilings were the underside of the roof. He imagined a little desk or vanity table beneath a dormer window. Some upstairs rooms would be closed off or used for storage.
After parking in front of the familiar Birdsong house with its many gables and stained-glass window panels, he sat long enough to observe how weathered the siding had become — in need of a new coat of paint. The steps to the front door were a bit aslant, or at least appeared to be from this angle. The house had not seemed this neglected the last time he’d driven past, though of course that had been several years ago. The monkey puzzle tree was a familiar relic of another era — one of several brought from Chile when the British moved their naval base north to Vancouver Island. At least this was what he’d been told.
To meet now, after all this time, could be confusing to them both. She would want to know why it took the discovery of her father’s old hearse to bring him down to see her. “Had you no idea how this would affect me?” she might say. “You think I need my father’s hearse and your ancient face to remind me that I am an old woman now!”
She would not say “your ancient face.”
Before he’d made a move — either to go in or turn back — he was aware in his side mirror that the Henry J was pulling up to stop a block behind him, then moving slowly forward as though hoping not to be noticed.
Peterson. And Cynthia beside him. Too damn nosy even to eat breakfast.
Peterson got out and closed his door and came up beside the hearse to ask if there was something about this place that made it worth staring at. “You forget that Martin’s waiting?”
“I thought you were going for breakfast.”
“You were barely off the parking lot when Cynthia banged on the door, dressed and ready for action. We couldn’t stand not knowing where you were sneaking off to. But we kept our distance.”
Having these two sneak up on him made him feel ridiculous. If they discovered why he was here they would never let him hear the end of it.
Of course, neither would they let him hear the end of it if he backed off now. They would harp at him until they found out whose house this was, and why he had almost gone in but hadn’t. Word would spread. Reasons would be invented. He’d be the laughing stock of Portuguese Creek and beyond.
Without explaining anything, he said, “Wait here,” and stepped out of the hearse to walk up the cracked concrete walkway to the wooden steps, and then up the steps to the front door. He looked back to make sure that Peterson had got back inside the Henry J with Cynthia. Then, aware he was holding his breath, he pushed the buzzer. After a second buzz, the door was opened by a woman in a flowered blouse and striped bib-apron, holding a feather duster in one hand. She was not the woman at last night’s concert. Her white hair was so sparse he could see a good deal of scalp.
Of course he remembered that Myrtle’s father had kept a housekeeper. Myrtle had believed he would eventually marry her.
“That was quick!” the woman said, squinting in the direction of the hearse. Then, instead of asking him who he was or why he’d
rung the bell, she turned immediately away and started down the narrow hallway.
He could follow or he could stand here looking the fool.
There’d been some sort of mistake of course, but he had not been given a chance to explain himself, or to ask for the lady of the house. Should he stand where he was until she came back to ask him his business?
But she had stopped at an open doorway and looked back. “Well?” As though he’d been expected and should know what to do.
He couldn’t think of how to explain himself with this distance between them. Yet, when he stepped in and started down the hall, already beginning to explain, to tell her his name at least, she shook her head to silence him, and indicated that he should go before her through the open door.
This was a small bedroom — dark, the curtains closed. A white sheet had been pulled up over a figure laid out on a narrow bed.
“You’ve brought a casket?” the woman said.
“A casket?” Arvo said. He had brought Henderson’s coffin, of course, but why would she want to know this?
A dangerous stew of anger and disappointment and regret had begun to boil up in his chest. Stupid damn idiot! He had left it too late. Not even time to say goodbye, or to let her know that he’d thought about her often all these years.
He removed his cap. “Is this
her
?” He could not bear to say her name. And he was not about to turn back the sheet. He turned away — he would not have this woman notice his eyes were wet.
“Of course it’s her,” the old woman said. “Are your helpers not bringing a casket in …?”
When he said nothing, she raised her voice as though he might not have heard. “I was expecting Ben Robinson to come for her himself.”
This was said like an accusation, as though he had ignored instructions. “You can’t have worked for him long, I think, or …”
“I’m sorry,” Arvo said, turning away and heading back down the hallway towards the front door. “There’s been a mistake.”
He went out and down the steps, aware that the woman followed, calling “Wait! I don’t understand.”
When he turned back to attempt an explanation, another woman had appeared beside her in the doorway. “Good heavens,” this second woman said. She left the other in the doorway and followed him down the steps and the short cracked concrete path to the sidewalk where she hurried ahead of him with the long fast steps of someone determined to straighten things out. “That’s not Ben Robinson’s hearse!”
Before Arvo could offer an explanation, she gasped. “Where on earth did he find this?”
She brushed past him to cross the street, then placed a hand against the nearest head lamp. “This is exactly like a hearse my father once owned.” She turned to him, smiling. “Oh, it’s typical of Ben to go to the trouble of finding this, to take dear Isabel away in the style she deserves.”
The name “Isabel” did not mean anything to Arvo. He was more interested in observing this woman’s face, in listening to the familiarity in her voice.
“My cousin,” she explained, “who has shared this old house with me for more than thirty years.”
The woman with the duster had disappeared from the doorway.
Arvo felt a surge of relief. Not only was the deceased woman not Myrtle, he could see, now, that this tall woman who had come out and down the steps was Charlie Birdsong’s daughter. While the years had not preserved her girlhood beauty, or even the mature good
looks of the woman who’d attended that funeral years ago, this did not prevent him from seeing something of the girl who had grown to possess this woman’s older body without losing the sparkle in her eyes.
But now that sparkle was replaced by something like indignation. “This is
it
, isn’t it! My father’s. Where have you kept it all this time?” Myrtle Birdsong appeared to be trying to contain her outrage. “Why are you here with it now?”
“Myrtle,” he said, “I …” But saw that she’d flinched at this intimacy. “I drove the whole of yesterday in order to bring this home to you. Does that sound like a thief’s behaviour?” This was not how he’d imagined things. “I don’t know who had it all this time. I’ve only had it long enough to fix it up and drive it down.”
She leaned close to lift his mother’s blanket from the driver’s seat and examine the weather-damaged material beneath it. She frowned at the instrument panel, perhaps noticing scratches that would not have drawn themselves to his attention. “And how did you know where to bring it?” She turned then for the first time to look directly at him.
“I remember the neighbourhood, I remember the house. I could tell you where the piano used to sit. I could tell you where we studied together once.” He pointed to the farther of the two dormer windows. “A small paint-chipped wine-coloured desk.”
Then he said his name.
Maybe her eyesight was poor. And it
had
been several years since she’d come north for that funeral. He reminded her that he’d turned the pages of her music whenever she played the piano in public. Before his parents moved him away.
“Yes yes,” she said. “Of course!” But still she frowned. Then it seemed she remembered, or thought she remembered. “Arvo? You
made sure my science experiments were tidied up before the teacher saw my mess.”
He told her about rescuing the hearse from a family of loggers in the mountains and travelling all this distance to collect a dear friend and give him a friendly send-off that did not depend upon the usual professional folks who would take all the intimacy out of a funeral. “And then, once we’ve done that, to return it to you. I guess I should have waited until after all that before coming here but I …”
She did not wait for that sentence to end. “You’ll bury your friend here? In the city?”
“Oh no,” he said. “We’ll take him home.”
He was a fool! He should have waited until after Martin’s funeral to show her the hearse. If he had mentioned to Peterson or Cynthia what he was up to they would have warned him not to bring it here this morning. He was like the child who couldn’t wait. Who acted before thinking. He’d wanted the pleasure of seeing her gratitude, and now he had probably lost the opportunity to take Martin home in this hearse. Myrtle Birdsong would insist on taking possession of it immediately.
“Well look!” she exclaimed, putting a hand against a glass panel. “All these flowers inside! How beautiful! Hundreds of them in bloom!”
It was true. It seemed the morning sunlight had encouraged the flowers to open in just the past few minutes. A great crowd of large white blooms filled all the space between the glass and the casket.
It seemed only natural to open the rear door and remove the closest pot. “Since you’ve had a death too, and will probably have company arriving.”
She smiled and accepted the flowers and bent to breathe their scent. Then she took a step back in order to study him better, half-closing
her eyes. “Your pale hair has thinned out, but I certainly know those blue Finnish eyes. And the cheekbones. But just to be sure, show me your hands.” She shifted the potted plant to the crook of one arm and took his right hand in hers and turned it palms-up. “Even so, I remember noticing at that funeral,” she said. “You worked with engines. You’d probably scrubbed yourself raw before leaving home, but I remember reading your future in those lines that no amount of scrubbing could remove. I remember wondering what those lines might have told me, but of course I didn’t suspect
this
!” Her gesture seemed to imply that
this
was today, these flowers, the hearse, everything that was happening now or might yet happen.
They had never held hands as youngsters. He remembered wondering if it might be possible. But he hadn’t dared, knowing he could risk losing the chance to be the one who helped. There were others who could have replaced him if she’d sent him packing — by her, or by her father.
The long sleek modern hearse pulling up behind the Henry J was nearly silent, a purring giant compared to the Cadillac Cathedral. Did modern corpses require twice the space and five times the amount of steel to protect them from the world, and several times the horsepower in order to haul all that extra amount of steel at a turtle’s pace?
Ben Robinson — if this was Ben Robinson who stepped out from behind the wheel — was a young man. Too young, Arvo thought, for such a sober business. He would be cynical by thirty-five. He’d arrived in shirtsleeves to collect the body, probably convinced that informality made people more comfortable with someone in his business.
His helper was even younger, if this was possible — a boy who looked so pleased with himself he must think he’d landed the world’s best summer holiday job.