Here So Far Away(26)

An old man was sitting on the porch steps. He was wearing cartoonishly baggy jeans held up by suspenders and what might have been a pajama top. “Look who got himself a chauffeur!” he declared. “Thank you kindly. Where did you find him?”

“Down at the lighthouse,” I said, opening the door for my passenger, who dislodged himself from the car with a loud grunt. “I work there, if you ever want a tour.”

“That’s my land—or it was. Gave the heritage people that piece; most of the rest is rented out. Not the blueberry patch over thataways, and help yourself, by the way. Course, Shaggy’s mind isn’t what it used to be, so he can’t keep it all straight.”

The old man opened the porch door, and to my astonishment, the pig walked up the steps and right into the house. “Do you always let him indoors?” I asked.

“I suppose you think that’s unhygienic.”

“Not at all. Only . . . I’m sorry, but doesn’t he go all over the floor?”

“No—he don’t. He goes to the door when he needs out, like any intelligent creature.”

“Sorry,” I said again. “George Warren. Unintelligent creature.”

His deeply wrinkled face creased even more around his eyes, while his mouth—which had the caved-in look of teeth that were missing or ground down—spread into a thin crescent of delight. “I know who you are: Sergeant Warren’s daughter. My boarder was at your house for lunch the other day. Said the Warrens had two kids and one was quite a handful. You the handful?”

Son of a—

“Oh,” he said. “I think you are.”

“My brother. Killed a hundred men just for looking at him funny.”

“That so? How about you?”

“Maybe three?”

He laughed.

I was holding two fistfuls of garlic mustard that I’d ripped from the side of the driveway on autopilot. My mother had a special hate for garlic mustard. “Do you mind that I’m pulling up these weeds, Mr. . . . ?”

“Rupert Fraser, but you call me Rupert. You got energy, if you don’t mind me saying. The constable does too. Did you see that foot bouncing up and down?”

“He did rattle the table a couple of times during lunch.” And the table at Long Fellows. I had a memory flash of his shin rubbing against mine. “Well, it was good to meet you, Rupert. And Shaggy. I could tell straightaway that he isn’t—he ain’t no eatin’ pig, is he?”

Rupert chuckled. “No, he ain’t. I’d invite you in for a longer visit, but the house isn’t suitable for company.”

“Some other time,” I said. “I’m guessing this won’t be the last I see of Shaggy.”

I thought I was going to make a clean getaway, but the cop car sped past me moments after I left the driveway. He did a U-turn, turned on his lights.

I pulled over and got out. I wasn’t talking to the Constable through the window like a criminal.

“That idea of your mother’s,” he said, taking off his hat and wiping his forehead, “I’m sorry, but it’s not happening.”

He looked so strange in his uniform. It was hard to connect this man, with his buzzed head and ill-fitting pants, to the one I’d made out with in the sun-drenched lantern room and the soupy darkness at the bottom of the sea. He seemed leaner, more sinewy than I remembered. I hadn’t noticed before how smooth and tan and tidy his hands were. An actor’s hands. And his ears were kind of big.

Bill was right: say the wrong things, melt like wax.

“I was returning the pig,” I said. “You ought to put him on a leash or something.”

“Oh. Thanks. There’s a pen for him, but it needs repairing.”

“I owed you one for not telling my parents about everything.”

“I was concerned that Paul would come down like a hammer, exceeding what I personally consider was the seriousness of the crime.”

“Well, thanks.”

“Not your crime, the bartender’s. What he did was lax. What you did was stupid.”

“Hey. I know you wouldn’t have hooked up with me if you’d known how old I am, but guess what? I wouldn’t have hooked up with you either, not if I’d known who you were. Why didn’t you say you were an RCMP officer?”

“Because . . .”

“Alrighty, as long as you had a good reason.”

“Because I was off duty. Because pretty soon everyone is going to know me as the cop. I just wanted to be myself a while longer and, I don’t know, get a feel for the place, as a civilian.”

I wished I could say I didn’t get it, but I had been living in an RCMP officer’s house my entire life. Things would be different for him now.

He glanced over at the farmhouse, then back at me. “No. I knew you were too young for me. Even if you were twenty, you would be too young. But the first thing you said to me was funny.” He slapped his hat against his leg. “And I wanted to hear what else you had to say.”

With that, he got back into his car, pulled another U-ey, and drove away.





Twelve


When I got back from my morning run, soaked with sweat after forty-five punishing minutes to nudge another half pound from my thighs, Mum was sitting at the kitchen table, bills and bank statements spread out around her. Dad was across from her in his wheelchair, his face a brick wall.