Bishop's Road (22 page)
Before Crazy Rachel comes in and before she stabs Howard James a few times and before the wonderful party disintegrates, Sweet Polly has a good grip on life that she won't release for a hundred years.
When Crazy Rachel waltzes through the door no one thinks much of it. They are packed in like sardines with overflow dancing in the backyard and on the front porch and another body is hardly cause for notice. Only Patrick pays her any mind. Says to
himself, it's not often you see a woman in a floor length fur coat these days, and turns away for a moment before his second thought - she's a loon for sure from the look in her eyes - brings him to attention. By then it is too late. Crazy Rachel asks Judy where Howard James is, who tells her and wishes her good luck with that knife thinking serves him right for sending Ginny Mustard away with a crappy little CD player and never being nice to her again. There is blood all over the place before Patrick moves to follow her. Guests are hollering and a couple spill their drinks. Some get little drops of blood on their clothes which will never come out but will make for fond memories of a good time in later years. Holly Bartlett - who is very large and takes up more than her fair share of space - falls backwards on to a table, crushing Joe Snake's CD player beyond recognition. The sudden silence is huge. Nothing left but Crazy Rachel's laughter and one of the Fagen twins praying. Fifteen of Her Majesty's Constabulary are in attendance and snap to their duty all over the Crazy Rachel except for Constable Brothers who has the good sense to dial 911 and get an ambulance over before Howard James bleeds to death.
Ruth says, “It's good the bride and groom left when they did. This would put a damper on the honeymoon for sure.”
The party continues after that but with a little less enthusiasm since several of the good looking policemen leave to file reports on this most recent disaster in Mrs. Miflin's house, though a few of them do come back afterwards. Dorrie does her best to be upset but finds it difficult to feel much for Howard James. Is more bothered by her young man's leaving so suddenly. She watches at the sitting room window until his return. When the police come back with their yellow tape they cordon only the kitchen as a crime scene after the merry makers move the microwave oven and the tasties to the Barbie room along with what remains of the alcohol and some ice.
You might suppose that a near murder in the kitchen would make people think twice about buying your house but after the place has been cleaned up there comes an offer that Mrs. Miflin can't refuse. A couple from away who have been looking for just such a mansion in the city with the lowest crime rate in the country, wanting to raise their children where nothing ever happens, buy it sight unseen and start packing before the ink is dry on Mrs. Miflin's signature.
Cheerfully she gathers her tenants and tells them to be out within two weeks, that's all the notice they are getting and there's no use in begging because the house is sold and she doesn't care where they go but they can't stay here. And Eve in her garden with winter just a few degrees away sits under the lilac and that's where they find her late in the day, a smile on her face and her body cold, a hedgehog curled and sleeping in the big pocket of her overalls.
Her quiet passing leaves them lonely but for her gentleness that seems to have remained and shares itself among them in direct proportion to what each needs with enough left over to fill the house. Soften it. Except for Mrs. Miflin's room with a blanket rolled up and stuffed under the door to keep the noise out and her grumbling in.
Judy covers her grave with Eve's favorite plants from the garden. There has been no hard frost yet and the daisies, black-eyed Susan, wallflower, lamb's ears give way easily, happily. Maggie wants to plant some crocuses and so they do. Dozens of little bulbs carefully, gently. They settle over Eve's bones and thrive.
Moving out of Mrs. Miflin's house goes smoothly, as though Eve were still there saying, “Why don't you make two trips with that load, Ruth, it looks so heavy,” and “Judy, check and see if Dorrie needs help taking her Barbie cases apart, she seems to
be having a hard time with them,” and they get through with few mishaps.
Patrick wants Ruth to come live with him but she has other ideas. One day she dresses herself up neat as a pin, takes a bus over to Zellers and gets a job just like that because they are hiring for the Christmas rush and need anyone they can get their hands on. Then she finds an apartment so tiny that no one else wants it, signs a one-year lease and goes to the second-hand furniture store where she buys a bed and a chair and a lamp. She lets Patrick help with delivery. That service is extra.
Judy and Maggie have nagged Children's Aid to please let them live together since Judy has been so good lately and though she is technically a minor and they aren't supposed to allow it, they give in after a visit from Patrick who says he will keep an eye on her. The girls are not having much luck finding a place until Ginny Mustard tells Joe Snake that they will be pregnant soon if they aren't already and must have a real home. Buys an old house on Caine's Street - there is no other kind, really - that needs work but with a ground floor apartment she rents to the girls for next to nothing if they promise to baby-sit when Joe Snake goes back to school because he says he needs his Master's if he's ever to find a teaching position and raise their child properly.
Dorrie alone is lost. No job. No place to live. Plenty of savings to keep her but things could get boring now that she has tasted life. She figures that since Zellers hired Ruth they might take her as well. She is right about that but much too qualified for her dream job in the toy department and they want to stick her in an office at a computer. She puts up a good fight and wins. The Barbie display has never looked better. Mothers ferociously opposed to allowing their daughters to own the little doll find themselves saying, “Yes, I'll take that one and maybe the dress with the sequins and what the heck, throw in a package of those accessories too,” when Dorrie works her magic. For the first time
in history the store has to re-order supplies twice before the rush is over.
And what of Mrs. Miflin? Truth be told she's not as jolly as she had expected to be. None of the tenants is very upset. In fact, she distinctly heard someone humming outside her bedroom even through the blankets stuffed under the door. She is the only one with nowhere to go and it's two days left before the new owners arrive. Her bank account is full to overflowing and she sits by the window and stares at the empty trees, at their witch finger branches clutching the sky, grey above the cooling earth.
Ginny Mustard knows before the jury gives its verdict that she is growing a baby. She feels taller than she really is and as big as all outdoors and has the wonderful sensation that if she stretches her arms just so far and touches finger tips together lightly they will envelop the world and all that's in it. So, of course, she knows and is looking around to tell Joe Snake when she hears guilty and a ruckus behind her as people say no and that's not fair and someone is crying. And the bad news isn't as bad as the good news is good so she just stands there smiling and only Joe Snake guesses why.
Fred the real estate agent is upset. Inspecting the house for progress he finds Mrs. Miflin sitting by the window. “You only have a day to move everything out. I thought I made that quite clear. Have you arranged for someone to take your things to your new place?” Mrs. Miflin turns her head to look through him and
now he's really worried. She says, “There is no new place. I have nowhere to go. All I ever wanted was this house and I worked hard and saved my money so I could have it. And it's only because of that crowd I had to sell it. I changed my mind. I don't want to go.” Exasperated, Fred explains that she must. The house has been sold. “You've done quite well, Mrs. Miflin. If you like I can find you a lovely place right now. Smaller than this one. Easier to look after. We can arrange to auction some of your furniture. You can be in a nice renovated home in this area almost immediately. I can put a rush on everything and you'd only have to be in a hotel for a week or so.” But she is not listening. Stares again out the window.
Ginny Mustard's prison is comfortable and practically empty of criminals but with guards enough to keep it looking like a going concern. There's a craft room and a library and TV area that a few kind souls contributed through numerous bake sales and raffles and for a few hours a day the inmates are allowed to read or watch the soaps or whip up a potholder for Mom's birthday present.
Ella lives in the cell next door where she recently found Jesus, spends much time on her knees begging forgiveness for poisoning her husband. Across from her is Janey who threw her baby out the window and mostly she rocks back and forth with her head on her arms and cries. Down a way is Becky Norris whom Ginny Mustard remembers from her days on the street, who cut off a customer's private parts but only because he begged her to and paid her a goodly sum for doing it. His wife was pissed as much by the money he spent as by the physical damage and talked him into changing his mind so he said Becky came up with the idea all on her own.
Ginny Mustard faces two years under lock and key with a chance for parole in twelve months. No one knows why the judge was so lenient but it might have had something to do with the length of time it took the jury to come up with a decision which was a full two weeks until they were fed up and life beckoned. Mr. Oldford's son wasn't studying for his exams and Mrs. Lockyer just knew her husband was spending too much on Christmas this year with her not there to keep him in check so one by one they went over to the guilty side though some of them felt real bad about it for years after.
Visiting days are every other Saturday and the big holidays which is just as well with the prison being a two-hour drive from the city. Joe Snake has to buy a car since the bus doesn't get there until late afternoon. Before Ginny Mustard settles in one of the guards brings a list of jobs to see which one she wants so she works in the kitchen, cleaning pots and pans and chopping vegetables for soup. In the library she discovers that Becky can read and for a carton of smokes a week will teach her to do the same. She's having a rough go of it. Nothing makes sense but Becky gets her smokes anyway.