The Dutch Wife (29 page)

“Of course I will,” he said. “But then I have to be on my way.”

Webber helped her upstairs, and when he came back down Thomas poured fresh brandies. They chatted to Rowland for a while about life in Vatua and about the long journey involved in getting there and back. Nothing more was said about Will Drummond.

Around nine o’clock, Rowland couldn’t stop yawning, so Thomas called a taxi. He dropped Rowland at the Walnut and went back to his apartment. He thought about his mother and Will Drummond for a while, then inwardly shrugged. He was convinced he’d never know why she’d done such an odd, erratic thing. He went to bed and was soon in a deep sleep.

– 6 –

THE NEXT DAY
, Thomas had to go to the University and deal with History Department matters that had accumulated during his absence, so he wasn’t there when Rowland visited Rachel. Doctor Webber had left them alone too, so that they could talk in private. They’d talked all day long and, apparently, at the end of it, she’d tried to coax him to extend his stay a few more days. But Rowland had said he needed to go back to Vatua. When he left that night for the Walnut, they’d parted affectionately, knowing they’d never see each other again.

Thomas himself went to the hotel the next morning to say goodbye. A taxi was already waiting to take Rowland to Toronto, where he’d arranged to visit the University Press that afternoon. It was a cold morning and still snowing lightly, but the roads were passable.

“Remember,” said Thomas as they stood a moment in the lobby, “go to Jeggard’s office after you leave the publisher’s. He has your tickets and travel arrangements. Macphee will be looking out for your arrival.”

“Thomas,” Rowland said, “you’ve been very kind to me and a wonderful travelling companion.” He blinked, and Thomas thought his eyes were a little moist. “I do hope we’ll meet again. Perhaps next time you visit me, you’ll stay a while?” He asked this as though he wanted to believe such a thing might ever happen.

They went out to the taxi and shook hands. Even that brief exposure to the frigid air had made Rowland’s hand cold and his face pinched and yellow.

The taxi slithered off down King Street in a cloud of exhaust. Thomas supposed that Rowland, used as he was to final partings, would quickly put this one out of his mind. As for himself, he was surprised at how empty he felt.

THE FOLLOWING MORNING
, Jeggard phoned Thomas to tell him Rowland Vanderlinden was safely on the train to Vancouver.

“What about his visit to the University Press?” Thomas said. “Did he say anything about it?”

“He didn’t keep his appointment,” Jeggard said. “He looked quite ill and said he was feeling under the weather. He wanted to rest up instead for his journey.”

– 7 –

DEATH, WHICH HAD ONCE BEEN AN EXOTIC
to Thomas Vanderlinden, was about to become quite domesticated.

Six months after Rowland’s departure, a big brown envelope arrived at his apartment by special delivery as he was drinking his morning coffee. In it was a note from Jeggard saying that he’d received the enclosed letter from Macphee and was forwarding it to Thomas immediately.

Thomas examined the other, smaller, white envelope, stained from distance and humidity—or, perhaps, sweat—and bearing a big triangular stamp with the word VATUA over a palm tree. It was addressed, in block capitals, to Jeggard. Thomas lifted it to his nose and imagined he could smell cigarette smoke from it. Inside was a brief letter signed “Alastair Macphee.” The handwriting was surprisingly neat and precise for a man who drank so much, and the message was equally precise:

Thomas read the letter again. He wasn’t so much shocked at Rowland’s death—he’d known all along that he must be more ill than he admitted—as at his own sense of loss. In the course of their journey together, he’d become attached to Rowland. He couldn’t help admiring his persistence and enthusiasm in his search for whatever it was he was searching for.

Later in the morning, he went to his mother’s house and gave her Macphee’s letter.

She read it and wept.

– 8 –

SIX MONTHS LATER
, on a snowy Saturday morning in December, the phone rang in Thomas’s apartment, and he picked it up with an unaccountable feeling of dread. It was Doctor Webber, at his mother’s house. “Can you come over right away?” he said. “She’s very weak.”

When Thomas arrived by taxi, the maid let him in before he could ring the doorbell. “You’re to go straight up,” she said.

As he climbed the stairs, he was very apprehensive. The pictures on the staircase wall caught his eye—a set of miniature landscapes she’d bought more for the symmetry of their frames than anything else. Now he was aware of a certain menace about those about dark mountains swathed in angular trees.

Doctor Webber—a thin, black scarecrow this day—was waiting for him at the top of the stairs outside the open bedroom door. Most unnerving to Thomas, his eyelids were red with weeping. “She doesn’t have very long,” said Webber.

This cliché, applied to the person Thomas loved most in the world, was like punch in the stomach.

Together they went into the bedroom. It was very warm, the window curtains drawn, the only light coming from the bedside lamp. The shadowy furniture in the corners might have been discreet mourners. Thomas and Webber went over to her bed.

She was wearing her silver-rimmed glasses, but her eyes were closed. Two little candles were tied together in a cross on her breast and that puzzled him; she’d never been a religious woman.

She opened her eyes and held out her right hand. “Thomas, thank goodness you’ve come.” Her voice was weak but distinct, her hand was papery light. She saw him glancing at the candles on her chest. “They’re supposed to ward off pain,” she said. “Rowland once told me it was the custom in one of those strange places he’d been to.” She now took a very tremulous breath. “I’ve been thinking about him a lot lately. There’s something I want you to know, Thomas,” she said. “I ought to have told you long ago.”

Doctor Webber began to back away. “I’ll leave you alone,” he said.

“No, no,” she said. “Stay here.” She smiled at him. “Dear Jeremiah—the best friend I’ve ever had.”

This was the first time in all his life Thomas had ever heard her speak Webber’s first name.

“Now, Thomas,” she said, “I don’t have time for subtlety, so here it is: Rowland was your father. You’re Rowland’s son.” She said it again, in case he hadn’t understood: “You’re Rowland’s son. The real Rowland. Not Will Drummond.”

“But, I thought . . .” Thomas said.

“I was pregnant the month Rowland left for the British Museum,” she said. “If I’d told him that, he’d have stayed.
But I didn’t want him to
.” She let Thomas think about that. “I only wish I’d told you long ago,” she said. “But I thought it was for the best.”

“Rowland didn’t have any idea?” Thomas said.

“No,” she said. “I should have told both of you when he was here. A father should know his own son. You’ve always been just like him in so many ways, you know.”

Thomas was so surprised at hearing that, he could think of nothing to say in reply. Her eyes were closed now but her hand, light as a butterfly, still held his.

She opened her eyes again.

“Will you forgive me?” she said.

“Of course,” he said.

“Thank you, Thomas,” she said so quietly he could barely hear her.

She focused her eyes on Webber, who’d been standing there all along without saying a word, and her lips moved but no sound came from them. Her eyes closed again, but a little smile stayed on her face. A moment later, a long sigh came from her and she was deathly still.

RACHEL VANDERLINDEN WAS BURIED TWO DAYS LATER
, in a light snow, beside her father at Mount Hope Cemetery. She’d made three requests: that, twenty-four hours after her death, Webber should sever her carotid arteries to ensure against her waking up after the burial; that she be buried wearing her glasses; that the ceremony be private. The wishes were honoured.

Thomas and Webber stood together in the cold wind at the cemetery. James Best, who’d been a funeral director for forty years and for whom any show of genuine emotion would have been quite unprofessional, saw to her interment in a businesslike way. Webber and Thomas Vanderlinden were themselves well schooled in the matter of self-discipline. They successfully appeared quite unmoved as the coffin containing someone they both loved deeply was lowered into the frigid earth.

– 9 –

THOMAS SAW DOCTOR WEBBER
on two more occasions after that funeral. The first time was at the lawyer’s office where they heard the reading of Rachel’s will. Webber seemed, impossibly, thinner than ever, even his lips beginning to lose their ripeness. For him, the will contained no surprises. She left him all he’d requested: a few photographs and some keepsakes.

The rest, aside from a sum of money and some furniture for the maid, went to Thomas.

As they were leaving the office, they spoke for a few minutes.

“Did you always know Rowland was my father?” Thomas said.

“I suspected it,” said Webber. “But we never spoke about it, ever. She preferred it that way.”

Thomas wasn’t surprised. “The funny thing is,” he said, “if Rowland was my father, that means I have a sister, too.” He remembered, as he often did, that night in Rowland’s bungalow. “Or, at least, a half-sister,” he said.

THE SECOND TIME THOMAS SAW WEBBER
was three months later. The Doctor himself was lying in a coffin at Best’s. Dead, he looked healthier than the last time Thomas had seen him—even his lips had been rouged to their old colour. But basically, he was just an old, thin, dead man. He was cremated holding a photograph of Rachel to his breast, as he’d requested. And, as he’d requested, Thomas went straight to the cemetery and sprinkled the ashes over her grave.

– 10 –

IN CAMBERLOO HOSPITAL
, Thomas Vanderlinden lay back against the pillow. I watched as he took several deep breaths from the oxygen mask. The revelation that he himself was the son of Rowland had certainly surprised me. I wondered what could possibly come next. He looked about to say more, but just then a nurse came into the room with some pills for him.

“Enough for today,” she said to me.

“Should I come back tomorrow?” I said to Thomas. “I have a thousand questions.”

He gave me a little smile. “I have a thousand answers,” he said.

THAT NIGHT, MY WIFE MANAGED
to sneak away from her trial preparations on the Coast and we talked for a few minutes on the phone. I told her briefly the latest developments in Thomas Vanderlinden’s story. She was most surprised that Rachel hadn’t told the two that they were father and son. It would have been good for father and son to acknowledge each other, she pointed out.

I said what shocked me most was that it was actually Rachel’s idea to have a stranger sent to her.

My wife wasn’t as indignant about that as I’d expected.

“Isn’t true love all about knowing someone inside and out?” I said. “I mean, doesn’t real love begin when the mystery’s over? And anyway, aren’t women supposed to be less interested in mystery than security and all that sort of stuff?”

“I suppose you’re right,” she said, but didn’t sound convinced.

– 11 –

THOMAS VANDERLINDEN DIED
that very night just before midnight. I didn’t find out till next day when I went to pick up a coffee for my visit and some instinct made me call the hospital from the wall phone outside Tim Hortons. Through the doughnut-shop window I could see the customers, chatting to each other, reading newspapers, munching doughnuts, all of them with things to do, places to go. I was watching them as the duty nurse told me he’d died peacefully in his sleep.

I hung up the phone and stood for a while. I would miss Thomas. In the short time we’d been acquainted, I’d come to like him a good deal. I thought I knew the kind of man he was: a scholar, a spectator who lived on the fringes of others’ exciting lives and whose own life was relatively dull.

I could hardly have been more wrong.

PART FIVE

T
HOMAS
V
ANDERLINDEN