After the Fire (12 page)

“This was such a good idea!” Bonnie said.

“Are you in touch with your sister?” Henrietta asked. “Can you let her know about your mother?”

Bonnie, her mouth full, shook her head.

“Does your father know, or your brother?”

“No. The closest I’ve come to Nora in the last years is in Mother’s hallucinations.”

Henrietta was too tired for the amiability necessary to impose on a friend for the night. Instead she indulged in the rare luxury of a modest hotel room. She never came to town without an overnight case, so she could settle herself comfortably. The anonymity of such a room was strange to her, used as she was to the personal clutter of other people’s spare rooms, either a foldout bed in a den or a deserted child’s room prepared for visits of grandchildren. Without so much as a cast-off crossword puzzle book or a stuffed toy, the hotel room invited melodramatic speculation: call-girl murders, drug deals. It wasn’t opulent enough for such carryings-on. It could have sheltered only the less ambitious: the traveling salesman, the visiting relative not close enough kin or too modest to sleep on the living room couch, even perhaps a tourist. It was difficult for Henrietta to think of Vancouver as a tourist town even though it had recently survived Expo. It was still too much her home, though she had no intention of living here again.

The island, perhaps because she had had to live there so long alone, seemed to belong to her in a way the city never had and never would. Most of its pleasures were now beyond her. She would never learn to go out alone at night to a film or concert. And shopping, except for Christmas, only reminded her of how much she already had that should be given away. Though she still had close friends here, the old crowd was faltering into age. Too much of the gossip was of death and dying, On the island, it was easier to be close also to the young.

But I fail them,
she mused.

“What has she got to live for?” Bonnie had demanded.

Henrietta should be able to explain clearly why such a question was absurd. Once you stopped thinking of life as something requiring a destiny, you could accept it as the realer miracle it was, meaning inherent in every moment of it. Humiliations and defeats could blind you for a while, but for most the healing process did take place. You woke up one morning simply glad to be alive, to be part of human consciousness. Well, all right, you finally did have to learn to die, but there was really no point in moving from the crib to the coffin, as if shunning sleep in the great bed of life would save you pain or give you power.

The bed Henrietta lay in seemed larger and emptier than her own because it was unfamiliar. Did those widows who traveled round and round the world, teaching themselves to sleep in strange beds alone, need to learn something that was still ahead of her?

She thought of Milly finally sleeping peacefully, the fever broken. She thought of Bonnie lying alone under the roof of her father’s new happiness, refusing such illusions for herself. And Red who had decided to tolerate no heart beating next to her own except her child’s. Henrietta would not think of her husband except as he had been all those years beside her in the kingdom of the present, which perhaps no one learned to value enough at the time.

Her light sleep, often broken by the sudden hangings of doors, the sirens in the night streets, left her tense and restless. She got up before dawn, checked out of the hotel and drove out of the city before the morning traffic began. At sunrise, she stood on the tarmac of the ferry terminal facing west so that she could see the first light falling on the dark smudge of island lying out there twenty miles offshore. Then she went into the coffee shop for breakfast.

Henrietta had just had her first sip of Styrofoam coffee and was breaking open her bran muffin when she thought she heard her name called over the public address system. It came a second time, “Mrs. Hart Hawkins.”

Who could know she was waiting for this ferry and here an hour early? Well, almost anyone she knew would assume that, if she hadn’t made the night boat, she’d be on this one. With only two ferries each way a day, it wasn’t all that difficult to track down an islander.

She was directed to a phone.

“Mrs. Hawkins? I’m so glad I’ve reached you before you left. Your husband died at four this morning peacefully, in his sleep.”

Henrietta held the phone away from her ear, stared at it and then slammed it down as she would have with any other obscene call. How dare anyone play such a dreadful trick on her!

She hurried back to her breakfast, but it had been cleared away in her absence. She had no appetite for it now anyway. As soon as she got home, she was going to report that person, whoever he was, a grown man playing with the phone like a naughty child! If only Hart were well enough, he could handle such a thing, his calm and firmness always so reassuring. It was silly to feel as agitated as she did, as nearly violated.

Henrietta sat in her car impatiently waiting for the ferry to unload its passengers from the islands so that she could get aboard, get across the water, get home. Once on board, she didn’t leave her car. She was first in line, could be first off. She hummed to herself, tapped the wheel, was vaguely conscious of an urgently barking dog left tied up alone on the car deck. It wasn’t kind to travel with animals.

Henrietta couldn’t see the progress of the ferry, but she had made the trip so often she could guess quite accurately their position by the sound of the engines. There was always a high alarm like an electric sigh just before arrival at the island was announced. Then the great doors swung open, and she could see the houses in the curve of bay, the wooded hill beyond, and finally the dock itself. There was Karen, abstracted, giving her a belated sign of welcome as she drove off the boat and onto the dock.

It was a glorious spring morning. The island wasn’t like the city, showy with flowering trees and blatantly overplanted flower beds. You had to keep an eye out for quiet spots of pride, a small clump of daffodils at a front gate, primroses along a path. The wild spring along the road was the moth white of the earliest blossoming berries. In the woods and meadows, wildflowers had to be hunted like Easter eggs.

Once Henrietta turned into her own drive, she had no patience for the secrets of her own garden. She hurried into the house calling, “Hart! Hart!”

Karen saw the last cars onto the boat, repositioned the ramp, and locked up. She couldn’t get the image of Henrietta’s face out of her mind. Perhaps it had been only a trick of the morning light, an illusion just as the reflected color of Henrietta’s scarves was an illusion. Karen could not persuade herself; yet she didn’t feel she knew Henrietta well enough simply to follow her home to check on her. Even if Milly Forbes had been at home, Karen wouldn’t have called her. Why didn’t Red have a phone? Might she phone Henrietta herself? They’d let her use the phone at the store.

There wasn’t any answer. Had Henrietta perhaps stopped to see someone on her way home? Miss James? But if she wasn’t with Miss James, it might worry the old lady. Karen got into her car and drove over to the Hawkinses’ house, noticing the sign that marked their drive.
Hen & Hart
over
Hawkins.
Residents had been asked by the fire department to mark their places carefully since there were no house numbers, but the cute heterosexuality of a lot of them irritated Karen, this one included. It made her less certain that she should be intruding. She had to remind herself that Henrietta was a virtual widow, there alone, not one half of a smugly nesting couple.

The car was in the drive. The back door stood open. Karen knocked on it anyway. Then she stepped inside. There was no one in the kitchen. She found Henrietta in her living room, staring out at the view.

“Hen,” she said gently, “are you all right?”

Henrietta turned an ashen face toward her. “Have you seen Hart?”

“Hart?”

“My husband,” Henrietta explained. “I’ve had such an awful scare—a sort of crank call at the ferry terminal—someone saying …”

Karen stood near her, waiting.

“Oh,” Henrietta said and stared before her again.

“Saying?” Karen tried to prompt her gently.

“It can’t be true, can it?” Henrietta asked, her usually strong voice nearly childish. “He can’t be dead.”

She was too confused, too dazed for Karen to ask any practical questions, like the name of the place where her husband was or how her son could be reached.

“I’ll make you some coffee,” Karen offered.

In the kitchen she plugged in the kettle and then phoned the store.

“Get someone to go to Red’s and get her over to Henrietta Hawkins’ as soon as possible.”

Karen wondered about phoning the doctor, but she wanted someone who knew Henrietta better than she did to make that decision. As she waited for the kettle to boil, she tried to figure out what must have happened. The crank call at the terminal must have been the real thing and Henrietta just couldn’t take it in. Karen couldn’t find any instant coffee. Did Henrietta always make real coffee for herself? Karen unplugged the kettle and started again with the electric coffee pot. She worried about leaving Henrietta alone so long at the same time that she was glad to have the excuse to be away from her. She had always seemed to Karen so sane and strong. Karen’s experience with deranged emotional states was limited to other people’s sexual anguishes, usually complicated and blurred by drugs or drink, and she had never been any good at dealing with them. She left Peggy to cope. It had been hard for Karen to believe that such behavior was genuine. Peggy had told her not to measure everyone by her own Oriental inscrutability. It was only partly a joke.

When the coffee was finally ready, Karen found Henrietta just as she had left her. Some innate courtesy roused her enough to acknowledge the coffee, but she made no attempt to drink it. Karen had the sense that Henrietta was trying to hide or at least to stay very still, almost as if she had broken bones whose pain could be outwitted if she didn’t move.

Finally Red called from the back door, and Karen went to the kitchen to meet her.

“Am I glad to see you!” Karen said and quickly sketched in what she thought must have happened.

Red went in to Henrietta, sat down beside her and took her hand.

“Can you tell me what’s wrong, Mrs. Hawkins?”

Henrietta started to speak and then shook her head.

“Do you feel sick?”

Henrietta didn’t answer.

“Call the doctor,” Red said quietly to Karen.

When Karen had done so, Red directed her to sit by Henrietta while Red went off to phone the hospital in Vancouver. Karen found it oddly natural, even comforting, just to sit there holding Hen’s hand.

“You were right,” Red said. “They’re very glad she made it home. They were worried about her.”

Then Red knelt down in front of Henrietta and said directly to her, “I’m going to call your son.”

Henrietta didn’t respond.

The doctor arrived while Red was on the phone talking with Hart Jr. Karen stayed with Henrietta, leaving Red to explain in two directions at once. Then the doctor spoke briefly on the phone. Finally he came into the living room. He looked hardly stronger than Henrietta, a man semi-retired because of problems with his own health.

“Henrietta,” he said gently, “Hart is dead. Your son is coming. I want you to rest now. I’ll give you something to help you rest.”

Karen could feel the old hand flinch, but Henrietta obediently rose and let herself be guided into her bedroom where Red undressed her and settled her in bed.

“I’ve given her a shot,” the doctor said as he came out of the bedroom. “She’ll sleep now for a few hours. Can one of you stay with her?”

“Yes,” Red said, “I’ll stay.”

Karen looked at her watch. She should leave for the pub in just a few minutes.

“I could come back later,” she offered, “and give you a break.”

“That’s okay,” Red said. “I’ll just stay on till her son gets here.”

“Her husband’s been sick so long,” Karen said. “I wonder why it came as such a shock.”

“She’s old,” Red said, “and tired. And it’s something she can’t fix.”

“It surprised me,” Karen admitted, “to see her like that. I guess I’ve always thought of her as what I’d like to be when I grow up.”

“There aren’t any grownups,” Red said.

“Aren’t there?” Karen asked. “What about Miss James?”

“Old isn’t grown up. She made running away into what she calls ‘career choices.’ Oh, she’s a nice enough old bird, I’ll give you that …”

“You’re cynical, Red,” Karen accused.

“I don’t know words like that,” Red said.

“You haven’t any faith in the goodness in people.”

“Some people are good when they can afford to be,” Red allowed. “Most people can’t afford that and won’t. I don’t believe in anything about anybody.”

“Then why are you willing to be so good?” Karen challenged.

“I’m not
good!”
Red exclaimed with a laugh. “I’m about to be an unwed mother, remember?”

“There’s nothing wrong with that,” Karen said.

“That’s not what you’ll hear at the store or the pub. I’m trash. Even to the likes of Sadie, I’m trash.”

“You don’t have to listen,” Karen said. “You don’t have to believe that.”

“I don’t,” Red said. “I don’t believe anything about anyone.”

“Why are you willing to stay here for Hen, then?” Karen asked.

“I owe her,” Red answered.

As Karen drove to the pub, she pondered Red’s moral view. It was clearer and more realistic than Karen’s own, but it was too simple surely and gave no room for the altruism in some people, which wasn’t purely a luxury of the rich in pocket. She was surprised at Red’s harsh judgment of Miss James. Of course, Karen didn’t know these women as Red did.

No man is a hero to his valet.
How peculiarly so many old maxims lay on the rural hierarchy of island life. Karen was their servant, too, whether she sold them ferry tickets or waited on them at the pub, and she had been thinking of them as her betters. The old ones she respected anyway, but not in a social sense. Karen had been raised the daughter of a highly regarded university professor, and she had a college degree herself, which was why her father would think the work she did now demeaned her—or he would if she began to think of it seriously, as a way she could spend her life. You were to make something of yourself so that no one dared to look down on you.