Perhaps I am just imagining the hiss and slither.
We are at an impasse, the paramedics and I, until one of the firemen whispers he will take Sam until I am home again. It’s against the rules, so it has to be our little secret. There’s something familiar about him. He looks a lot like one of the boys I taught. A Kevin perhaps? Another troublemaker. The right spirit for fighting fires. But I taught so many boys. Who is to say?
A pot left on the stove, the young fireman tells me, when he returns my dog. Lucky the harm was confined to smoke damage. Another couple of minutes and who’s to say.
“Interesting,” I said. “I never touch the stove. Do you think it was a self-cooking pot?”
He gives my hand a pat. “Maybe you need a bit of help around here.” He said. I read the unspoken message. Forgetful. A danger to herself and others.
I smile compliantly. “I am fine on my own. I have just purchased an excellent new alarm system. If I even get hot under the collar, it will sound the alert.” I don’t trouble him with talk of Mrs. Sybil Sharpe, the snake woman, or the side door that never quite locked. I have fixed it now, anyway.
I know what I really need.
“What doesn’t kill us, makes us strong,” I explain to Silent Sam as he gets a nice bit of ground round for a reward. He looks at me as if to say, so what will it be?
It is my best effort ever. Reminiscent of my glory days when I could really toss paint on a canvas. And what a canvas it is. A vast, welcoming field of cream. I use every graffiti symbol I can remember. Probably overdo it a bit with the clouds. The resulting work is full of fury, threats and imagery. It takes me nearly all night, but it is worth it. Who would have realized how all that gardening helped me? The strength of the arms holding the cans of paint, the quick scampering up and down the ladder to scoop up new cans of colour, the ability to arch my body and take advantage of the grand sweep of the wall.
“I call it Joseph’s coat,” I say to Silent Sam. He thumps in approval.
Despite my exhaustion, I feel so much better when I’m finished. I can understand why those boys do it. Euphoria is addictive.
In the morning, I rise late. All I have to do is admire my handiwork. I make myself a wonderful pot of Red Zinger and settle comfortably in the old Muskoka chair to enjoy the sunshine and wait for the fireworks.
Perhaps it is Silent Sam’s thumping tail that draws Mrs. Sybil Sharpe through the patio door. Perhaps she just wants to stare down at my little house and garden and plot her next strategy.
“Good morning,” I call up. “I believe you are right about the violation of the neighbourhood.”
“What are you talking about?” she says.
“Look behind you. I believe there must be a new gang in town.”
She grabs her throat as the full enormity of Joseph’s coat sinks in.
“I see what you mean by rape,” I add.
Mrs. Sybil Sharpe appears to be in the midst of a little dance. Most unlike her. I sip my Red Zinger and watch. But what’s happening? She’s clutching her chest and making gurgling noises. She’s slipping onto the deck. Her foot is drumming strangely on the cedar boards. Am I the only one who hears? So it seems.
I finish my tea and turn my attention to the Siberian iris, which are reaching their peak. I move on to plan where I might split the daylilies and get a bit more of a ruffled look to the bald spot near the fence. The bird feeders need to be filled. The impatiens wants water. I could split and replant those clumps of snow-on-the-mountain.
It all takes time.
The drumming seems to go on forever. Then it is quiet on the deck.
Artists: 2, Snakes: 1.
“Well,” I say to Silent Sam after we have staked the morning glory, “we are neighbours, after all. Perhaps we should call for help.”
Speak Ill of the Dead, MARY JANE MAFFINI’s first mystery novel for RendezVous Press, was nominated for a Crime Writers of Canada Arthur Ellis award, as was her short story “Kicking the Habit”, in Menopause is Murder. She scooped the Ellis for Best Short Story in 1995. Now watch out for her chilly new novel, The Icing on the Corpse.
GRAND SLAM
LEA TASSIE
Seven spades.”
“Double.”
“Pass.”
“Pass.”
“Redouble!” A smug smile accompanied Laurene Jones’ triumphant bid. It was clear she thought making seven spades would be a snap.
A grand slam, doubled, redoubled and vulnerable. If Laurene made her contract, she and Marion would win the rubber and be up 3,140 points. That was as many points in one hand as I usually made in a whole afternoon of bridge.
My partner, Emily, stared at her cards as if wondering why she’d ever had the temerity to double Laurene’s bid, then gazed out my living room window at the log booms in the rain-lashed inlet and beyond to the Coast Range. The view of forested mountains apparently offered no inspiration, for she sighed and examined her cards again.
Laurene was always full of herself, but when she made a doubled contract, she crowed so much that I wanted to take a dull knife to her tongue. There can be grace in winning as well as losing, but Laurene’s grace was restricted to her perfectly coiffed blonde hair, her perfectly matched ensembles and her perfectly kept house. Oh yes, and her expertly brewed coffee and exquisitely baked brownies.
“It’s your lead, Emily,” I said. “And don’t worry. We’re not playing for money.”
Emily led the deuce of hearts. Marion laid out the dummy’s hand, shoved her chair back and rose.
“Where are you going?” Laurene demanded.
“Bathroom break.” Marion’s smile was strained. She hated listening to Laurene brag as much as Emily and I, but she usually managed to be gracious.
“Come and see what I have in my hand,” Laurene said, “and watch how I handle the play. You need to learn more about strategy.”
Marion, the youngest at forty, pushed her red hair back over her shoulders, smoothed her silk shirt over the hips of her Levis and went dutifully to stand behind her partner’s chair, too gracious even to thumb her nose at the back of Laurene’s head.
Laurene paused after each trick, whispering to Marion about the clever play she’d just made and the even cleverer play she intended to make next. Emily and I knew because she’d done the same thing to us, more times than we wanted to remember. The hand seemed to go on forever.
“If you’ve got all the tricks, why don’t you lay your hand down and claim?” I asked.
“That would be a waste of a good teaching hand, dear. I want to play it right through to the end, so Marion can see how to do a squeeze play.”
In fact, she simply wanted to torture us. We all knew how to do a squeeze play, a simple matter of playing all your winners and forcing the defence to discard until they could no longer protect their good cards and had to discard those as well.
Laurene made the grand slam, of course. Her bridge was impeccable, like her life. She wrote the 3,140 points on her score pad, beaming as though she’d won a lottery, and said to Emily, “What on earth possessed you to double me?”
“The bidding indicated that you could be missing an ace and I thought Barbara might have it.” Emily, at seventy-three, was the senior member of our foursome, her speech as precise as her tweed suit and severe chignon of grey hair. A true lady, my husband often said.