The Worlds Within Her (19 page)

“At least,” Yasmin said quickly, “I wouldn't have got the idea she was just simple and hateful.”

“But she was — then, on the phone.”

“Nobody's just one moment, Jim.”

“But I've had a whole lifetime of her moments. And I don't think I'm any further along than you are.”

Only Mr. Summerhayes, ensconced in the embrace of his armchair, retained the comfort and presence of mind to give flow to the conversation.

He talked about his efforts to master the flower bed, about the labour of digging, about the stones and shards of glass he had sifted out, and the nutrients he had kneaded in. He had been to the university library, had consulted periodicals, and had learned to marvel at how much could be done with so little. He had made several trips to the botanical gardens, had consulted a gardener at the local nursery. He had done everything right, and had been careful not to allow his desire to exceed his grasp.
Hence the decision to begin with the simplicity of hydrangeas, six full-grown, healthy plants purchased at the nursery.

“But they failed to thrive,” he said, draining the last of the sherry from his glass. “So they had to go.” He sighed, turned the glass around in his palm. “However, it's a recent enthusiasm that's proving to be — how shall I put it? — a recalcitrant mistress.”

At the metaphor — pronounced with careful relish — Yasmin saw Mrs. Summerhayes's eyes flutter, saw her fight a sip of tea past tightened jaws.

“Ah, well,” he continued. “I shall push on and — who knows? — one day she may see fit to surrender her virtue.”

Mrs. Summerhayes placed her teacup on the coffee table with studied deliberation. She got to her feet. “If you will excuse me, I must see to supper.”

Mr. Summerhayes said, “But isn't supper seeing to itself, my dear? Sizzling nicely away in the oven?”

Jim said, “Spoken like a man who knows nothing about cooking.”

Mr. Summerhayes cocked an eyebrow at him. “Taking her side, are you, Jimmy? And you know about cooking, do you?”

“I certainly know more than you do.”

Mr. Summerhayes snorted in amusement. “Not much of an achievement, if you ask me.”

“Did I?”

“Jimmy,” Mrs. Summerhayes interjected, “why don't you show — Yasmin? — your old bedroom.”

Yasmin took Jim's hand. “Yes, I'd love to see it.”

As they headed up the stairs, she wondered about the intonation with which Mrs. Summerhayes had said her name: as if her tongue had had to work its way around the vowels.

As if she had pronounced it for the very first time.

AS THEY WALK
towards the lights, Yasmin notices her companions' growing reluctance; senses the vertigo of living in a country where the law and the lawless are equally feared.

Ash whispers, “This ain't Canada, you know, Miss Journalist. You can't just go up to a policeman and start askin' questions. You ain't got no first amendment rights here, you know.”

“You're mixing up your countries,” Yasmin replies over her shoulder. “We haven't got a first amendment in Canada either.”

It is alone that she approaches a policeman; alone that she explains the situation. She gives him her passport, shows him her room key; knows that she is — for Cyril and Ash watching her watch him take her passport to a figure flagrant with authority down through to one wearing casual civilian dress — now part of the pantomime. But even here, on its periphery yet close enough to feel the heat from the idling engines, the scene remains indecipherable.

She senses Cyril and Ash's approach; and to Cyril's “Well?” can only shrug.

Presently, the policeman returns. Giving back her passport, he tells her that the hotel will be closed for some time; that she can retrieve her things — no need to check out, no need to pay. He steps aside to let her through, but his palm flutters up in restraint when Cyril and Ash attempt to follow. “You stayin' in the hotel too?”

“No, no,” Cyril says. “We just going to give the lady a hand.”

“No can do. You wait here.”

Ash says, “We jus' goin' to give the lady a han' with her luggage, man.”

Yasmin says, “It's just one suitcase. I can handle it.” To end the discussion she turns and follows another booted policeman up the stairs of the hotel, knowing as she strides along behind him that she is, for Cyril and Ash, once more merging with the pantomime.

Yet, even from within, the pantomime retains its enigmatic movement: life slowed to a flipping of frames. Mystery in shards, riddles partially posed.

EVEN WITH THE
light on, it was a room constructed in strokes of darkness: shadows on white.

“Did you bring a lot of girls up here?”

Small, too, startlingly so, smaller even than the captain's cabin on the World War II corvette she had visited in Halifax harbour. The ceiling low, the walls monkishly bare. A small table stood in front of the window; a narrow bed occupied one corner.

“You kidding? Mom was always home. Didn't stop me from dreaming, though.” He appeared awkward in its confines, his limbs too long, his energies suddenly rattled and bottled up.

“So this is a virgin room?” she teased.

“In a manner of speaking. As far as I'm concerned.”

She shut the door, the brass latch clicking with reassuring authority. “So what did you dream about?”

“You know,” he said, fingers interlocking below his belt. “The usual schoolboy fantasies.”

“I've never been a schoolboy.”

He laughed. “Schoolgirls.”

“Was this your bed?”

“Yes. But the table wasn't there. I did my homework at the dining table.”

She sat on the bare mattress, her palm testing its firmness. “Where'd they get this? An army-surplus sale?”

“Comfort wasn't a consideration.” He sat beside her, his fist thumping twice on the mattress, as if to pound it soft. “I once helped my dad put a sheet of plywood between their mattress and the box spring. Good for the back, he said.”

“Doesn't sound as if you had much fun in this room.” But she liked the glimpse of the young man he had been: all that fervour contained.

“Oh … I don't know. I used to smuggle in a
Playboy
or two once in a while.”

“So, those fantasies of yours — not just schoolgirls, huh?”

He smiled. “You know — one thing leads to another.”

“I know.” She ran her fingers down his neck, the skin soft and dry, and along the hard ridge of his collarbone. “Want to lie back? See if I can guess some of those schoolboy fantasies?”

“Yas, you're crazy. My parents —”

She pressed at his chest, and he offered no resistance. As he let himself fall back onto the bed, she pressed in close, moulding her body to his through the encumbrance of clothing. Her lips to his ear, she whispered, “Call it revenge. Close your eyes and let me make it sweet for you.”

But she saw, looking at him, a face etched by an infectious anxiety. Sweet revenge was beyond him.

OVER THE SHOULDER
of her escort she sees sombre-faced men and the backs of heads, white helmets and khaki caps. They move together through a sense of crowding, of stifling intimacy: everyone wants to have a look.

She sees fatigue, hears sighs and murmurs.

And as her escort precedes her into the elevator, the corner of her eye pivots backwards: catches a tablecloth fluttering down onto the security guard, prostrate, inert, skull-less.

Above the hum of the elevator she says to the policeman that last night there was a young woman on duty at the desk. Jennifer.

The policeman bites at his lower lip. He confesses to knowing little more than she does. They robbed the safe, he says, and he's heard that the desk clerk — yes, a young woman, maybe this Jennifer, maybe not — was taken. At gunpoint.

A hostage?

Probably not, ma'am. More likely part o' the booty. Yasmin shudders. What d'you mean — part of the booty? The policeman gestures at the opening door. Your floor, ma'am, he says. Hurry it up, please.

TIME SOFTENED, MINUTES
dissolving at the edges.

The sense of timelessness was seductive. But this timelessness — issued of lives lived for decades in the same manner, in the
same place — was disconcerting too.

The placemats, of delicate lace, were kept in a plastic bag in a buffet in the dining room; beside them, rolled in a bag, were silk napkins.

When Yasmin admired them, fingering the texture of one and then the other in the sunlight leaking through the lace-curtained window above the buffet, Mrs. Summerhayes said, “They've endured the years well, haven't they? Mr. Summerhayes and I received them as a wedding gift.”

“Ahh.” Wedding gifts: an area Yasmin thought best left unexplored. She hadn't known what to do with the engraving of the Montreal skyline the mailman had delivered.

And perhaps exercising the same discretion, Mrs. Summer-hayes drew her attention to the cutlery, neatly arrayed on blue velvet in an oak box on top of the buffet. “Just knives forks and dessert spoons will do,” she said, setting out plates and wineglasses. “There. Shall we call the men and get on with it?”

“God, yes,” Yasmin muttered.

“Pardon me? What's that?”

“I'll call the men,” Yasmin said.

Garlic, the tea-leaf odour of rosemary, the meatiness of roasted lamb.

Mr. Summerhayes, leaning forward in his seat at the head of the table, clapped his hands in anticipation. “Ahh! Your mother's specialty. Wreck of lamb.”

Mrs. Summerhayes, placing the silver platter in the middle of the table, said, “Actually, it's a
crown
of lamb.”

“You must admit, my dear, that the crown appears to have been through a bit of an anti-monarchist rebellion.”

“This new butcher, I'm afraid. He's not terribly competent. The string came undone in the oven.”