Grave Concern (4 page)

So, this season of work and congeniality and drunken slumber would seem an unlikely time for Kate to be dreaming up new ventures. It began at a Christmas party, where Kate knew enough people to be generally comfortable, while not knowing any single person, in adult incarnation, well enough to hazard conversational topics beyond the weather and the national debt. Kate reflected on the weirdness of this. It's not as if she hadn't shared dramatic confidences, bodily secrets, even spittle with these same people when they, all of them, were young.

For instance, over there by the food table, standing with his daughter —
his daughter —
and a man Kate didn't know, was Foxy Raymond, for whom Kate had carried a torch in Grade 2. Even then, Foxy had a gift of cracking jokes in a naturally hoarse voice that was somehow eminently attractive to Kate and to Greta, her best friend at the time. Not that either of them understood the source of the attraction. They just knew they loved Foxy, and they wanted Foxy to love them. One day, Kate and Greta staged an ambush of Foxy, Kate holding him down with a full body press while Greta tore down his pants. Kate still could recall the faintly poopy smell of his bum. But the girls hadn't known what to do next, and Foxy, lying there in his underpants, far from getting upset, cracked a joke, pushed them off, pulled up his pants, and walked away.

And there, by the fireplace, with, oh my,
Nicholas Enderby
, stood lanky Kathleen Buller, holding court in a gorgeous green dress. In contrast to Kate's slightly-above-average looks, as a kid Kathleen had been downright homely. Big-boned, greasy-headed, pimply as sin. An ugly duckling. But womanhood had turned that around. Had it ever. Whereas Kate had gone the way of the crone, Kathleen had somehow managed an indisputable beauty, even radiance. Her flesh had come to shapely terms with the womanly bones, her hair's oily straggles exhibited a lustre worthy of Pantene. Miraculously unmarred by the acne, Kathleen's skin positively glowed.

And was that, could it be, Amanda, Foxy's older sister, the one who
got herself pregnant?
That's what people said. At first, before Kate understood how things stood for girls and women, she was amazed. Got herself pregnant. How did she
do
that?

“Oh, don't be stupid,” said Nancy O'Brien, Kate's classmate in Grade 6. “No one can. It was Marty Sorensen, everyone knows that.” And Kate had marvelled at how adults turned things about with a twist of the tongue. It was this marvelling at the power of language that Kate's Grade 7 English teacher had noticed. That teacher, bless him, had led Kate to literature and eventually the fun but perhaps frivolous pursuit of a baccalaureate in English … all of which had led back to Pine Rapids and the graveyard. Wasn't the circle of life grand, thought Kate, and poured herself another drink.

She leaned back against a doorframe and allowed her gaze to linger on Nicholas. All of him. Still lovely, even if he was off limits. Her very first kiss, in Grade 9, up against a cold chain-link fence. He lived somewhere down south, near Toronto. So what was he doing back here? Well, it was Christmas.

“Kate Smithers! Little Katy Smithers! We see you around town, but you're always in a hurry! Glad you could come.”

We? Kate glanced around. The speaker appeared to be alone. Ron, Ron somebody. The surname escaped her, though she remembered clearly his walking across the gym toward her in junior high to ask her for the first dance of her life. The trouble was, her grateful acceptance of his offer prompted its frequent repetition through that year and the next. Semi-grateful to have been asked at all, she would wonder what other partners she was missing. What cost his saving her from wallflower-hood?

“Well, it has been a few years, I'll admit.”

“More like thirty, Kate,” said Ron. Was that a chiding tone?

“Maybe, but who's counting?” said Kate and looked about nervously for help. Ron was one of the few males of her age to whom Kate had never been the least bit attracted, even as a friend. In fact, there had always been something about him downright repulsive to Kate — and still was.

Ron laughed, and Kate noticed the collar of his shirt cutting into his thick and reddening neck. White spittle hovered in drops at the corners of his mouth, putting her off her drink. Kate contemplated this attraction/repulsion thing. She had encountered this in other parts of her life, certain people whom she couldn't stand to watch eating, for instance, or from whom she had to turn away when they cleared their throats. Must be some animal, primal thing, pheromones or something, perhaps to do with avoiding impregnation by one's kin. (And Kate dearly hoped Ron wasn't kin.)

“…and it's not that they didn't have the technical savvy, they just decided to shut her down.”

Kate came to, realizing she had entirely missed whatever they were supposed to be talking about.

“So, what do you think?” said Ron.

Kate was just making peace with her panic when a short, platinum blonde came up and squeezed Ron's arm. There was something distinctly familiar about this woman. And something odd, too.
No.
Could it — ? No. Yes. It
was
Hille Hatter (Maddy Hatter as everyone called her), the party hostess whom Kate hadn't yet actually encountered. Wow. Kate knew for a fact Hille's transmission had put on about twice the mileage the bodywork would suggest.

“Is it really you, Kate?” smiled Hille, who had obviously read Kate's line by mistake. For there was clearly little left of the Hille Kate had known. Her longish ski-jump nose had become a button, her formerly unremarkable chest now pushed up two pale pillows under an unnaturally taut chin.

To avoid the obvious response to Hille's query, Kate was forced to engage in some serious self-talk. “It's me, all right,” she said. Kate poked at her own face. “Yup. Definitely me.”

Conversation ground on. Now and then, Kate rewarded herself with a glance over Hille's tiny shoulder at Nicholas, who as of yet had not looked her way. If it hadn't been for beautiful, goddamned J.P. Marcotte, it could have been Kate, not Kathleen, who stood beside Nicholas now with a self-satisfied smirk, cradling a drink and dispensing beneficence.

Owing to Kate's natural reticence in crowds, and an innate sense of politesse, she was unable to evade Ron throughout the evening. Repeatedly, she was pinned, and thus utterly failed to move within range of Nicholas or anyone else. Despite the greater social loss, however, Kate's encounter with Ron and Hille was to prove fruitful. Not for the stimulating conversation — they were both crashing bores — but for an idea Kate formed during her entrapment. As Hille came and went, looking after her guests, and Ron droned on, an image of Charlie Brown popped into Kate's head. Then Lucy. Ah, Lucy. Aside from her gargantuan mouth, what Kate loved most about Lucy was her acuity. A born psychologist, Lucy. Lucy had the whole
Peanuts
gang figured out.

As Kate pondered the world of
Peanuts
, a diffuse cloud of abstract thought began to differentiate as discrete ideas. And as the night wore on, these ideas gathered more substance, like empty thought-bubbles being filled in. Walking home under the laser-bright stars, Kate fleshed out the possibilities. By the time she turned up her street, a scheme was fully formed and plausible. Payment could be pro-rata — or even by donation. Strictly cash only. By the time Kate walked in her door, she had an informal business plan.

Monday morning, Kate sat at her desk, fiddling around on the Grave Concern website, pretending to work. What Kate was really doing was waiting for a customer. Any customer would do. Never mind that people usually phoned or emailed. Kate was keen to try out her new idea in the flesh.

But maybe not yet.

Because who should walk in but old man Marcotte, neither tall nor energetic, but still very much a physical presence beneath the ancient woollen coat. How old would Jean–Pierre Marcotte be now, late seventies? Yet hardly Yeats's “tattered coat upon a stick.” Beneath a few lines and age spots, Marcotte's face was uncommonly striking: the angled jaw and high cheekbones way too reminiscent of his son's. Yes, you could say he was handsome. Would have turned heads back in the day, yes indeed. In her mind's eye, Kate superimposed the son, and her heart did a little flutter. She took a slurp of her Red Rose, dearly wishing it was a chai latte, which would have calmed her right down.

Perhaps it was the fact of being in her own space. Her office. Her business. Her baby. Kate felt a power she'd never felt before in Marcotte's presence.

“Ah, Monsieur Marcotte, uh, Jean–Pierre! What can I do ya for?”

But as soon as she'd spoken, Kate regretted her bantering tone. So often, she'd found, men took her attempts at jollity for flirtation. Just because a man had white hair didn't mean he'd be exempt. And Marcotte of all people … what had she been thinking?

Marcotte took a seat, neatly placed his gloves and threadbare scarf on his lap and folded his hands on top. He looked at the formal nameplate Kate had finally had made up, having grown sick of being called “Bonnie” by one particularly forgetful client.

“Kate — Kate, is it?”

Kate nodded, but he wasn't looking. “Yes,” she said.

Marcotte raised his head. “You looked familiar, you. Have I known you before?”

“I delivered flowers the other day.”

Her visitor looked skeptical. “
Pis,
call me John. No one calls me Jean–Pierre no more.”

There he stopped. Kate, assuming he was embarrassed to divulge his mission, tried to set him at his ease, rattling on about Grave Concern's offerings.

His reply was abrupt, just short of cutting her off. “My Rita passed on three years ago, too young …” He hung his head and shook it despairingly.

To break the silence, she launched into the usual song and dance about price points on grave services, thinking to facilitate an obviously difficult decision. But, after listening politely, if rather impatiently, Mr. Marcotte waved his hands in the air, as though to clear away all she'd said.

“I'm not here for dat,” he said, the sliver of accent growing broader. “I won't have my beautiful Rita talking to strangers, with all respect to you, I mean.”

“Uh, Monsieur Marcotte,” she said, falling back on the old method of address she had been taught. “Uh, what was it you were, uh, here for, then?”

Marcotte lifted his still full and striking head of hair, silver with streaks of copper lingering here and there. He looked at Kate with the same sea-green eyes as his son. She felt vaguely feverish.

“I hear you're out there at the cemetery often.”

Kate nodded. “Nature of the business.”

“It's true you grew up here and just came back?”

Just.
Nearly two years, but never mind. Kate nodded again.

“You remember, maybe, we have a large family — three daughters, three sons. They were spread along, first two, then the later ones.”

Kate kept her features as neutral as she could. “Vaguely,” she said. “I believe we went to different schools.”

Marcotte narrowed his eyes. “J.P., Jean–Philippe, the second, would have been your age, I guess,” he said. The bridge of the nose, the curve of the cheek, the angled jaw — the longer she looked, the more resemblance Kate saw between father and son. “Jean–Philippe and I never did saw eye to eye. That's why I come here.”

Kate sensed something bad. Very bad. Her hands began to shake. She tried to speak, but the larynx would not co-operate.

Marcotte continued. “When J.P. died — ” Kate involuntarily gasped; then, thinking fast, immediately clapped a hand over her mouth.

“I'm sorry, Mr. Marcotte,” she said in a muffled voice, and nodded at the jar of Christmas candies on her desk. “I think I've broken a tooth. Will you excuse me a minute?”

Turning from Marcotte's look of dismay, Kate retreated through the door that still read
DARKROOM, PLEASE KEEP CLOSED
.

J.P.?
Dead?
Was this some kind of joke?