He was leaned over facing her, his chin in his hand. His fingers barred his mouth. “You remember what?”
“You sitting there.”
He lowered his hand into his lap. “Do you want anything?”
“A bath.”
“You should eat.”
She swivelled her legs out from under the sheets. “Afraid I’m going to wither away?”
“No,” he said nonchalantly. He stood and started for the stairs, his hands in his pockets, another familiar stance. This one meant irritation. “If you change your mind, you know where the food is.”
“Well, hold on.”
“What?”
“That’s it? First time in the dungeon in four days and you offer me the menu but nothing else?”
“What were you expecting?”
“How about how are you? Or something about you maybe? Are you doing well.”
“I’m doing fine, Hazel. How are you?”
She shook her head at him. “Never mind. Off you go to your throw-pillows and your tarot reading. Have fun.”
“Never short of charm, are you, dear?”
He was through the door and up the stairs before she could reply. She heard his staccato footsteps tapping in the space above her. This time she could see through the joists and the pennynails in the floor panels and the linoleum directly to his face and she saw the dread expression there, the black, dead-eyed look of anger on his face, that hurt anger she’d been so good at drawing out of him for so many years.
She desperately needed that bath. She hadn’t had a day this active since before the surgery and she was sure she smelled like bear. Glynnis had been helping her in and out of the tub, but if she could muddle through an afternoon half back in her official capacity, she could get herself into a bath. It took five minutes to cross the room again, to the washroom. She shed her clothes and kneeled on the floor to run the bathwater. She rose with difficulty and stood in front of the mirror as the tub filled. She’d lost weight. All that extra weight her mother had been fighting her to lose last fall was gone now. Her skin looked dense and sallow, like she’d been cured in bleach. She sagged in all the places she’d once feared she would sag, and where gravity had not done its cruel work, a kind of fleshly drift had taken place. Her navel was somehow not centred. It might have been her skewed posture, but she suspected something more sinister. Her twisted heart communicating its ways to the outside.
She had to hold on to the sink while the hot water rose up the sides of the tub. Five minutes gripping its cold edge. Then the bath was ready and she manoeuvred herself over the rim and into the hot water. It was always an instant relief to be in this heat and she shuddered as she lowered herself into it. She had to sit with crossed legs as it was too hard to sit flat with her legs out in front of her. The warmth spread in her limbs and climbed her trunk.
She leaned back and closed her eyes. Immediately, the room Wingate had shown her online appeared in her head. The stink of the lake-rotten mannequin and the vision of that dank room were immediately allied in her mind. These two presences, the black photos, and the story in the newspaper triangulated to something that demanded attention. Who were this couple, Bellocque and Paritas? Or should they be focussing on Barlow and Jellinek? And this Eldwin – it was as if his story had metastasized, and now he was “out of town.” On the lam, or out of commission? She rotated the facts as she knew them in her mind and looked through their facets, but there was nothing in them but a bending of the light. It made her think she was standing on the outside looking in. Waiting was the worst part when it came to an investigation, but sometimes you had no choice. She was still weaving and reweaving the facts when she heard the door to the upstairs open. Andrew called her name.
“What is it now?” she said, and she cupped a handful of water to her face.
“I come bearing orders.”
“Whose?”
He came and stood outside the door. “Your mother’s. I believe she said take my mulish daughter her dinner and tell her to eat it or I’m pouring every drop of whiskey in this house down the sink.”
“She said that?”
“Doesn’t sound like her?”
“Whatever.” She heard something clinking. He’d laid a tray on the floor. “I’ll leave it here. Glynnis can come down and help you out in a few minutes.”
“I’ll be fine on my own.”
“Okay then.”
She waited for the door to upstairs to close, but then she heard his clothes brush against the door. “Are you still there?”
“Yeah,” he said almost inaudibly. “I just wanted to apologize. I didn’t mean the charm thing. Well, I meant it, but it wasn’t nice.”
“Some apology.” She ran the hot washcloth over her arms. “I’ll accept it, though. I collect your apologies.”
“How many you got?”
“I don’t think I’ll be completing the set any time soon.”
“I’ll send Glynn down in ten minutes.”
“Hey, you know?” He didn’t say anything, as if dreading participating in this conversation any further, with its strange intimacy. “You there?”
“Yeah.”
“Let me ask you something.” He waited. “Do you think the world would end if you came in here?”
“Absolutely. In a flash of light.”
“Well, you have to agree, it’s not much of a world.” He laughed. Then there was another long, agonized pause. “Oh for god’s sake, Andrew, bring me my supper before it gets cold, would you?”
She heard him retreating into the room, but then he returned and the door opened and he was holding a chair in one hand and the tray in the other. He put the chair down behind the tub and laid the tray down on the floor, pushing it with the tip of his slipper toward her.
“Andrew.”
“I’m fine here.”
“I can’t reach it.” She heard him sigh – the sound was directed toward the floor, and she turned as best she could and saw him sitting there with his head in his hands. “Just come here,” she said. “You’ve already crossed the Rubicon. You might as well help me eat.”
He got up and moved the chair over and sat down again, this time facing her at the side of the tub. He looked sad and amused all at once. He picked the plate off the tray and held it balanced against the rim of the tub as she plucked one of the ribs out of its sauce. The meat fell apart in her mouth. He said nothing as she ate, his eyes unfocussed on her, but she knew he saw her, although she had no idea what the sight of her meant to him now. Her once-beloved body. She finished the rib, put it on the plate, and rinsed her fingertips in the water.
“You’re going to smell like barbecue sauce when you get out of there.”
“Better than how I smelled before. You could get an onion and a handful of carrots and toss them into the water. Make enough soup for the weekend.”
“What a vile image.”
“Isn’t it.”
He held out another rib. There was rice and creamed spinach on the plate, but all she wanted was the meat. Maybe protein would cure her, she thought. He picked up a rib as well and started absently chewing on it. Finally they were sharing a meal. She had to smile.
“You’re an impossible woman,” he said. “You must know that.”
“I’m sorry.”
“You’re going to end up chained to a bed with the nurses avoiding you.”
“A fitting end to the mess I’m making of my life.”
“Now, now,” he said. “Self-pity doesn’t suit you.”
“But I’m good at it.”
He put a bone down on the plate and leaned forward to dip his fingers into the bathwater. “Listen. You’ve raised two beautiful girls, you’re a good daughter, and you’re a beloved member of an important public institution. People count on you. They admire you and they care for you. No one but you thinks you’ve made a mess of your life.”
“You do.”
“You gave me thirty wonderful years.”