A Year Less a Day (34 page)

“It's probably psychosomatic,” suggests Trina when Phillips phones for her email address. “Ruth's tried so hard to blot him out of her memory that she's forgotten what he looks like.”

“See if you recognize him.” says Phillips as he forwards a copy, then he hangs on the phone while Trina opens her email.

“Well?” he asks.

Trina studies the picture carefully but is still noncommittal, “It could be, but I haven't seen him for six months, and I didn't know him very well before that.”

“I'm surprised Ruth isn't more certain,” he says closing his screen as the horseman disappears.

“There might be another problem, Mike.”

“What?”

“Oh, come on. Wake up, man. She never loved him. She loves you to pieces, and the last thing she wants now is for him to pop back up and ruin the best thing that's ever happened to her.”

Phillips' face is somewhere between puzzlement and glee. “Is that true?” he asks, and Trina scoffs in amazement.

“Men! If they spent more time looking at a woman's face and less time ogling her tits, they might have a better idea what was going on in her mind.”

“Hey!” exclaims Phillips, though he doesn't try arguing the point as Trina continues, “You said you were going to take her away for a break. Why not take her to England and confront him? Neither of you are going to be completely happy until you're sure.”

Superintendent Donaldson has had a touch of indigestion ever since lunch—an allergic reaction, he suspects, to the second heaped portion of spotted dick pudding with custard, but he also has had a gut feeling that he has too lightly dismissed Daphne's assertions about the new tenant on his beat. The fact that Daphne had never been wrong about a case during her twelve-year tenure at Westchester police station, albeit as the cleaning lady, eases neither his stomach nor his mind, and he finds himself taking a more critical view of Thraxton Manor before driving back to see her in the late afternoon sunshine.

“I thought I'd just take a peek,” Donaldson tells Bliss and Daphne as she hands him a cup of Keemun.

“Biscuit?” she offers, and Donaldson takes four of the chocolate ones to settle his stomach.

“Anyway, the place is absolutely crawling with workmen,” he continues. “And it looks as though he is
having the fences repaired and surveillance cameras put up on the gates.”

“He's certainly touchy about trespassers,” admits Bliss, recalling his second visit to the estate, when he'd had his head bitten off.

“Did he give you any idea of his intentions?” Donaldson asks, turning to Daphne.

“I thought you weren't interested,” says Daphne, being deliberately snotty. “I thought you said he wasn't a heinous criminal.”

“Daphne, I said we had no evidence that he had done anything wrong, but I must admit, it does seem a little strange.”

Feeling vindicated, Daphne puts down her teapot and relents, saying, “He told me that he was going to do the old place up, and that he had plans for the out-buildings. But he didn't say what.”

The phone rings. It's Mike Phillips for Bliss.

“Mrs. Jackson couldn't positively ID him from the photo,” Phillips says. “So I thought I might bring her over for a few days to give her chance to get up-close and personal.”

“Wow!” exclaims Bliss. “The RCMP must have money to burn.”

“Are you kidding?” laughs Phillips. “This is coming out of my wages.”

“I don't have room for any more guests, David,” worries Daphne once Bliss has informed her and Donaldson.

“They'll have to stay at the Mitre,” says Bliss. “I remember it being quite cozy when I stayed there once, and it wasn't terribly expensive.”

“This is getting interesting,” says Donaldson, helping himself to two more cookies. “Maybe I should try to get an undercover man in there. With so many workmen coming and going it shouldn't be too difficult.”

“Hang on, sir,” cautions Bliss. “Nothing has changed. We only have Daphne's suspicion that he's up to no good, and now we're not even sure that he is an impostor.”

“David ...” spits Daphne, angrily. “I thought you were on my side.”

“I just think it makes sense to wait until Mrs. Jackson takes a gander at him, that's all. Then we'll know for sure. Mike says they'll be over in a day or so.”

DS Phillips' plan for a quick hop over the Atlantic comes unglued almost immediately when he tells Ruth about it.

“Would you like that?” Phillips asks her as he hangs up on Bliss. “Spring in merry old England. We could do the sights, and we might even see the Queen.”

“I'd love it. After all, I am half English—as far as I know,” replies Ruth, but her face tells an entirely different story, and she grips the chair with white knuckles.

“What's the matter?” asks Phillips, spotting the distress.

“I can't. I'm not allowed to leave the country while I'm on bail. Anyway, I don't have a passport. People like me don't usually get very far.”

“Stop that this instant,” snaps Phillips. “I don't want to hear that kind of nonsense ever again.” Then he takes her into his arms and hugs her warmly, saying positively, “Leave it to me. I'll sort something out. We are going to England.”

Mike Phillips' departure leaves a vacuum in the hotel room once he's gone to work, and Ruth finds the walls being sucked in around her until she can stand the pressure no longer and escapes onto the balcony.

The warm spring sunshine glares off the snow-blanketed peaks, but it fails to lift Ruth's claustrophobia as
she finds herself hemmed in by the ring of mountains; mountains that she has never crossed. Beyond them, she knows, are the wide open prairies rolling from Alberta through Saskatchewan to Manitoba, and after that, the lakes and forests that stretch all the way from Ontario to the islands that edge the Atlantic Ocean. But for Ruth Jackson, née Ruth Crowfoot, of the Coast Salish First Nation, the Rockies are as much a hurdle as a heritage.

“I can't do it,” she muses aloud, as she watches a plane from Vancouver International Airport rising like a gull on the wind as it circles to gain height before slipping eastward over the peaks. “I'm trapped here. I can't fly.”

The persistent ringing of the room's telephone draws her away from the balcony and she grabs the receiver, expecting it to be Phillips.

“Ruth, it's me,” says Trina, then she laughs. “Kylie and Rob are threatening to leave home.”

“Why?” asks Ruth.

“OK, tell me I'm stupid if you like, but ... Do you put bananas in your Bolognese sauce?”

“Oh. Trina,” laughs Ruth, then her tone darkens. “Mike wants me to go to England with him.”

“I know,” gushes Trina. “Aren't you the lucky one?”

“I'm scared.”

“What do you mean? Scared of what?”

Of flying; of leaving here; of what I might find in England; of strange people in a strange country; of strange customs and food
, she thinks, though she says only, “I'm scared of having to give up Mike.”

“Why would you have to give up Mike?” Trina demands, but she knows the answer; she knows that when Ruth had stood next to Jordan, repeating, “For richer, for poorer; in sickness and in health; 'til death do us part,” she had meant every word, and going back on any of those promises now, whatever the provocation,
may be difficult—if not impossible—for someone who has vowed to atone for her mother's immorality.

“Don't worry,” carries on Trina. “I don't expect it's him.”

“Him,” murmurs Ruth distractedly, as she tries unsuccessfully to come up with an image of Jordan in her mind. “I'm not sure if I would know him anymore,” she carries on, honestly.

“Good,” says Trina. “After what he's done, if it is him, he doesn't deserve to be remembered. Now why don't I pick you up in ten minutes and we'll discuss this England thing over a coffee?”

Trina's driving is all over the place as usual, and it takes Ruth a few minutes to realize that they are headed in the general direction of her old home. “We're not going back to the Coffee Shoppe are we?” she asks in sudden panic.

“You can't avoid the past forever,” says Trina, though she adds reassuringly, “No, we're not going back there. I thought we would visit Raven and some other people who've missed you.”

“Do you think Jordan misses me?”

“Ruth ...” says Trina, looking her friend deep in the eyes and letting God take the wheel. “Jordan is dead. You have the certificate.”

“The really strange thing is that I don't hate him,” carries on Ruth, her mind as wayward as Trina's driving.

“But lack of hatred isn't love, nor is it the opposite of love,” says Trina, then questions herself out loud. “Where the hell did that come from?”

“
Reader's Digest
or
Chicken Soup
for somebody-or-other's soul,” suggests Ruth. “But I know what you mean.”

Ruth's reception in Donut Delight is embarrassing-ly effusive as Darcey spots her and shrieks to the others, “Look everyone. It's Ruth. It's Ruth.”

The entire crossword gang—and half a dozen other ex-patrons of the Corner Coffee Shoppe—rush to hug her, and she wilts under the deluge in the doorway as Trina keeps up the pressure from behind.

“Wow. Look at you,” enthuses Matt as he holds her at arm's-length and eyes her appreciatively.

“Don't turn sideways or we'll miss you,” teases Maureen, and Ruth obligingly spins to show off her svelte figure as she jokes, “Don't take your envy out on me, Maureen Daniels.”

Raven is the last to appear, and she is altogether repentant as she brings a couple of cappuccinos to the table, saying to Ruth, “I'm really, really sorry about Jordan. I've given all that channelling stuff up now.” Though she smarts a little when Ruth replies, “Don't blame yourself, Raven. I didn't believe you anyway.”

“When are you coming back?” is a question on everyone's lips, though the answer “Never,” sticks in Ruth's throat.

“The old café isn't the same without you,” says Darcey. “We never go near the place now.”

“I bet she'll have to close soon, the way it's going,” adds Matt, though any smugness that Ruth may feel is well hidden as she responds, “That would be a shame.”

“I'm still worried what Tom might do,” admits Ruth, once she is sitting alone with Trina over their coffees.

“He's just a piece of dirt,” spits Trina. “Just do what I did. Let him know that you're not scared of him.” Then she checks her watch and leaps from her seat. “Shit! I've forgotten to clean up Mrs. Hewitt's morning barf,” she says, then she gives Ruth a reassuring smile. “Just be careful where you go, that's all;
though he won't try anything in a busy place, and if he does, just knee him in the balls.”

“I already tried that,” says Ruth, “but he came back again.”

“Here, catch.” says Trina, taking a cellphone from her medical bag and throwing it to Ruth. “It's Kylie's. I confiscated it.”

“Why?”

“Boys,” scoffs Trina. “Her last bill cost me a fortune. Do me a favour, will you?”

“Of course.”

“If any boy calls, tell him she moved to Yellowknife.”

Trina is half out the door when she pauses in thought, then rushes back to Ruth with her hand in her purse. “Here,” she says, slipping a fifty dollar bill into Ruth's palm. “Pay for the coffees and treat yourself with the change.”

“Trina. You can't ...” protests Ruth, but the home care nurse has gone.

“It's on the house,” says Raven with a confused look a few seconds later as Ruth attempts to foot the bill. “I told Trina.”

The sun may still be shining as Ruth makes her way back to the city centre, but she hardly notices as she wanders down Georgia Street to the duck ponds in Stanley Park, her mind in turmoil over Mike's proposal.

Is it fear of flying or fear of facing the future?
she wonders to herself as she approaches the water and finds a familiar figure tossing crusts to the birds.

“What a gorgeous day,” says the grey-haired man with the poodle, now minus his umbrella, and his accent causes Ruth to stop and ask, “Are you English?”

“Many moons ago, lass,” he replies with a smile, and he hands her some bread. “Here. I'll keep the gulls busy if you look after the ducks.”

“Thanks,” she laughs, then finds herself saying, “I'm going to England soon,” as she aims for the mallards and the other mergansers.

“Give my regards to the old place,” says the man, and Ruth promises that she will.

So, you are going then
, she says to herself once the bread has gone and she's left the elderly man to his birds. But the answer is still elusive as she worries about the cost.

Have you forgotten?

What?

The lottery ticket.

And what will Mike think of that now?
she laughs sardonically to herself.
It's not like I haven't had plenty of chances to tell him
.

Say that you've only just found out.

Lie? Is that what you're suggesting? You want me to lie to Mike?

It won't hurt. He'll never know.

OK, work with me on this
, she tells herself as she pulls the crumpled lottery ticket from her purse and stares thoughtfully out over the ocean to the distant islands.
A recently arrested daughter of a hooker is now a liar as well
.

So why not just toss it in the sea if you feel that way?

But I owe so much
, she reflects, and tries telling herself that she could ask Trina to collect the lottery prize for her.

And you don't think that would make you look guilty?