Upon reaching Granville Island, I took a short detour along Old Bridge Street to Railspur Alley and dropped into Tilda Rideout’s gallery. Tilda and her husband, Floyd, had been at the party. Both in their eighties, they looked every bit the archetypal eccentric Brit couple they were. Tilda was a painter and Floyd had taught philosophy and comparative religion at UBC until forced into retirement a few years before. When I went into the tiny gallery, Floyd was in his usual place, dozing in the old overstuffed easy chair by the window.
“Hi, Floyd,” I said.
He raised his head and peered at me through the Coke-bottle lenses of his glasses. “Hello,” he said uncertainly. He wore a shapeless Tilley hat that looked as though it had been through the digestive track of an elephant one too many times.
“It’s Tom McCall, Floyd.”
“Is it?” He levered himself out of the chair and got to his feet, a gaunt, tweedy scarecrow of a man. “Can I show you anything? Tilda’s not here.” He flapped a long arm in the direction of the wall upon which a half-dozen of Tilda’s paintings were hung.
“Not today,” I said. I had one of Tilda’s paintings. One was enough. Not that they weren’t good paintings. They were. They were just all of them virtually identical, colourful scenes of Granville Island that the tourists snapped up like candy.
I took the photograph out of my pocket. It had been taken with one of the single-use cameras. In it, an elderly woman with a nimbus of frizzy white hair appeared to be talking to a man who was mostly hidden behind the gangly figure of Floyd. All that was visible of the man was the back of an iron grey head and a length of arm clad in blue serge. I handed the photograph to Floyd, who raised it to within an inch or two of his left eye, then lowered it. He cocked a raggedy white eyebrow at me.
“Do you remember the man Tilda is talking to?” I asked him, pointing to the photograph.
He lifted it to his eye again, examined it briefly, then lowered it again. “’Fraid not,” he said. “But the memory isn’t what it used to be, is it? Remember having a rather tedious conversation with the chap whose party it was, though. Quite inebriated, he was.”
“It was my party, Floyd.”
“Was it? Oh. Well, Winnie should be back soon. Perhaps she will remember.”
“Winnie?”
“My wife. Short for Winifred.”
“Your wife’s name is Tilda.”
“Is it? Oh. Yes. That’s right. Short for Matilda. Who’s Winnie then?”
“She’s your sister, dear,” Tilda Rideout said as she came into the gallery. She had a painting under each arm. She put them down on a bench.
“Is she?” Floyd said. “Oh, dear. Done it again, haven’t I? Ah — I’m sorry, what did you say your name was again?”
“It’s Tom McCall, dear,” Tilda said before I could answer. “We were at his party the other night.”
“Oh? Were we?”
“Yes, dear.”
He handed the photograph to Tilda and, without another word, shambled off into a back room.
Tilda smiled up at me, eyes bright and clear. “Floyd isn’t quite as far gone as he pretends to be,” she said. “He just likes giving people the piss.” She looked at the photograph in her hand, then at me.
“Do you remember the man you were talking to when that was taken?”
She examined the photograph for a long moment, a look of concentration on her sun-browned and wrinkled face. She resembled one of those dolls you see at handi-crafts fairs whose faces are made from old pantyhose. “No, I’m afraid I don’t,” she said at last. “Goodness, you don’t think it was the poor sod who died, do you?”
“I was hoping you could tell me.”
“Sorry,” she said.
A woman wearing huge, wraparound sunglasses, a big floppy hat, and flowered Bermuda shorts came into the gallery. I bid Tilda good day and left. When I got home I found an envelope with my name typed on it taped to the front door of my house. Inside the envelope there was a twenty-dollar bill and a hand-written note: “For your pants. B.C.” I pocketed the money and tossed the envelope and note into the recycling bin. When was the last time Barry had bought a pair of long pants? I wondered.
The message light on the kitchen phone was flashing. I pressed the appropriate buttons, keyed in the appropriate password, and was informed in sultry mechanical tones that I had one new message. I was then instructed to press 1-1 to hear it. I missed my old answering machine, even though by the time I’d chucked it, it had sounded like a cat being slowly strangled to death when it played messages back.
“Hi, Tom,” Reeny’s voice said. “It’s Reeny. I just wanted to call to thank you and tell you how much I enjoyed yesterday afternoon. It was fun. And Bobbi’s terrific.” There was some shouting in the background. “Gotta go. Call me later. I should be home by seven. Bye.”
I deleted the message and hung up. It was not quite quarter past six. Surrendering to the impetuous romantic in me, I grabbed a quick shower, put on clean underwear, and by seven o’clock was loitering by the gate to the Harbour Ferries Marina in Coal Harbour when a massive black Ford Expedition pulled up and Reeny climbed down from the high cab. She was wearing scuffed but sturdy hiking boots, trim, tailored walking shorts, and a dirty, sweat-stained beige safari shirt with epaulets and lots of pockets, sleeves rolled high on her lean, muscular arms. The shirt seemed a few sizes too large, particularly in the chest area. I supposed she’d removed her fake Virgin boobs before leaving the studio.
“S’all right, Wally,” she told the driver. “He’s a friend.” She swung the door closed and the big SUV glided away. “This is a pleasant surprise,” she said with a bright smile.
“I hope you don’t mind,” I said.
“Not at all.” Her straw-coloured hair was loose and the breeze blew it across her face. She pulled a strand from her mouth. “Better stay upwind, though; I stink to high heaven. We were shooting a jungle scene and it was steamy as hell on the set. The director, who used to make rock videos or beer commercials or something, has this thing about authenticity. He likes to see real sweat. Fine for him. All he does is sit on his skinny butt and shout directions.”
As I followed her through the gate and down the ramp onto the floating docks of the marina, I caught a whiff of her, rich and ripe and musky, but not at all unpleasant. In fact, I found it quite stimulating. Oh-oh, I thought. When I start finding sweaty, muscular women sexually attractive, I know I’m in serious trouble.
“I thought maybe I could take you to dinner,” I said.
“That’s very kind of you,” she said. “But to be honest, I’m totally bagged. I just want a glass of wine, a shower, and a pizza, in that order. You’re welcome to join me, though.”
“I just took a shower,” I said. “Another wouldn’t hurt, I suppose.”
“I meant the pizza and the wine,” she said with a grin.
“Oh,” I said, feigning disappointment. “I knew that.”
We arrived at the slip in which she moored Pendragon, the old sixty-foot Bradley custom sloop on which she lived — illegally, I might add, since the marina wasn’t zoned for living aboard. Lots of people did, though, maintaining an on-shore address where they technically spent at least one night a month. Reeny had a little house in Ladner, not far from where she wintered Pendragon. She lived