Anna From Away (31 page)

He shouldered the shovel and took his time down through the woods. Sun filtered through the crowns of trees, the maples and birches, the barest hint of autumn there, a subtle cast to the light, a tinge of melancholy, he always felt it late in summer, before the first red in leaves, and geese took to the air in long fluttering vees, arrowing southward.

T
HERE WAS TIME
before the cemetery to drag the skiff, the hull fresh white with a stripe of royal blue along the gunnels, to his shore. He’d found in a forge tin his dad’s old punch that incised a small heart shape into wood, and before he painted her he’d whacked that mark into the hull just aft of the stem, one port, one starboard. He circled the boat, looking it over, running his fingers along
Rosaire
on the stern, the nameless boat was his to name. The afternoon had turned hot along the dry stones above the high-water mark. The wind had dropped. Seaweed, burned black, brittle and sharp to the touch, crunched underfoot. A grasshopper hidden in a clump of beach grass made a thin chirping sound. More like a desert today than a northern shore. The skiff was too out in the open here, he didn’t know who might be watching.

Under a bare sun, through a sea of undulating glare, he rowed to MacDermid’s Cove where, sweating and winded, he hauled her up, sheltered her where she wouldn’t be easily seen. She’d handled nicely, responded well, cutting cleanly through the light chop, and the long oars Donald John had given him—I won’t be putting my back to these anymore, Murdock Ruagh—felt good in his hands. Full moon and calm tonight was the prediction, wind down, hardly a breeze, but shut your eyes to sun one minute here and you might open them to rain the next. Be better without moonlight, but he was determined to slit that bale wide open and dump its guts into the sea. He had stowed a grey wool blanket and two life vests. He would take Anna with him, out of her house.

He and Connie and the MacDermid boys, they had played on this beach, took out their dad Robbie’s boat on the sly, learned to row that way, just small they were, then. Older, half-cut, they staggered in swimming some summer nights, slept out into morning, sometimes with a girl, when they were lucky. He and Rosaire had swum here too one night under a high moon, shed their clothing and waded slowly in, she fearful of crabs or fish or eels, but they had felt on their feet only the soft stroke of eelgrass, tasted later the salt on each other’s skin.

Now the sea was lazy, teasing the shore, barely breathing. In the shallows seaweed swayed dreamily. Somebody had capsized in this skiff, not a good oarsman, dangerous waters for an open boat, you’d have to know them. And no one here had been watching, had they? Donald John and Molly’s big window would be dark that time of night, Willard gone home to sleep in his church. Hell, they had all slept through it, himself, all of them. If he’d only moved sooner the day Anna drove north to see Breagh, he could have spirited that dope away.

Murdock fussed about the skiff, checking the oars, the oarlocks, the killicks he’d secured her with, stone anchors Robbie’s father had made,
calaich,
they’d hold her, the tide wouldn’t reach here anyway. He shook out the blanket and tucked it under the stern seat. This was where Anna would sit, facing him. After supper, he would wait for nightfall to come back here, hoping no other hulls were cutting water, then pull for Anna’s beach, for Anna Starling.

Feeling someone’s presence, Murdock squinted up at the shorebank path: Livingstone was looking down at him, his face shaded by a black cowboy hat cocked over sunglasses.

“Nice boat, Murdock.”

“What’re you doing here?”

“Could ask you the same thing, couldn’t I?” He pointed up at the cliff edge of Murdock’s eastern field. “I stopped by your place to see you.”

He worked his way down carefully in the high-heeled boots, a cigarette in his mouth. He wore a jacket of rich brown leather, fringe dangling from the sleeves, but up close he looked scruffy, dusty, the boots dirty with mud and damp sand, he must have walked down from the gate. His beard needed trimming, as did his long hair, and the lenses of his glasses were oily with finger-smudge.

“A buddy of mine had a boat very like this one,” he said, stepping close to it, rapping the hull with a knuckle. “He lost her out there that storm we had.”

“Is that so? Funny I never heard of it. If he had any sense, he wouldn’t have been out there. How did he get ashore, swim?”

“Fisherman. Towing it at the time. Had some gear in it though. You seen anything washed up along here?”

“He wasn’t fishing and you know it. How’d you find out I had this boat here?”

He tossed away his cigarette, whipped the sunglasses off and massaged them between finger and thumb. His eyes were bloodshot and danced. “I know people here, Murdock, just like you do. Anyway, you know how it is. Everybody’s got binoculars, cheap or pricey. People over there”—he nodded toward St. Aubin—“see people over here.”

“Maybe. But some of them belong here and some of them don’t.”

“Like Anna Starling, you mean?”

“Leave her out of this.”

“
This?
Is that possible? She lives on the shore. Not too far from here.”

“You know what I mean. Friends of yours sniffing around. And then there’s Connie.”

“Connie was a juicer.”

“That’s not all he was, not the whole of him. Somebody met up with him up on the road. You know who it was, don’t you.”

“Not any more than you do. You get a drunk stumbling along in the dark …”

Murdock grabbed his lapels and yanked him close, his jacket releasing a sweaty smell of leather.

“Listen, you bastard. Connie would make two of you. You used him for this caper here, on this beach. Were you done with him? Is that it?”

“Who the hell told you that? Connie? He ran his mouth when he was loaded, he made up stories …”

“About Willard’s dog? Making him kill it so you’d give him booze?”

“Let go of me, Murdock.”

He shoved him away. “Glad to! You stink of your deeds!”

Livingstone straightened his clothes, his hat. He grabbed a stone in his fist and threw it hard into the water. “Shit! I’ll tell you one thing, Murdock.” He pointed to the boat. “The fella that owned that, he wants what he lost from it, he’s pissed. Him and some others. My ass is on the line here. I have to drive to Sydney today, now. If I don’t have what they want, I don’t get my money, just grief for a bonus.”

“I can’t help you. I don’t want to help you.”

“Somebody better.”

“Like who?”

Livingstone looked away across the water. “If I was sure, I’d go there now.”

“You’d better be more than sure.”

“I’m not the only one in this, Murdock.”

“You’re the only one I know. You and Billy Buchanan. Tell them to stay away from her. She’s got nothing of yours.”

“Well.…” Livingstone grinned. He pulled out a cigarette and lit it. “That’s not exactly true, Murdock. I left a little something with her, back in the cold weather.”

“You get by on lies. Why would I believe you?”

“Ask her. She tells the truth. I like that about her.”

“Good. Then believe her now.”

“Wish I could.”

Murdock pulled a rope from the boat, uncoiled it. “Look what you brought into this place. You proud of that?”

“Hey! Folks smuggled liquor right into this cove, I know that much. Old Robbie here had a hand in it, and your own dad, your own people. They better than me? Fuck that.”

“Yes. They were. They all drank the liquor. They knew what it was. Nobody got killed over it.”

“Different time, Murdock.”

“Is that all you can say? It’s that simple? Connie is dead.”

“I’ve got to go, I’ve got to get out of here.” He started to back away.

“I bet you do. I know what happened, Livingstone. What you landed here.”

“Where is it? And what washed ashore at your granny’s? You going to turn me in?”

“Stay away from Anna Starling.”

“I told you, it’s not just me! Jesus. There’s damn few houses along here, Murdock. Hers is one of them.”

“Bad guesses, that’s all you’ve got. With the tides here, that stuff could have washed in anywhere.”

“So, you know what we’re searching for, what it looks like?”

“Billy described it, to Anna.”

“Billy! God, he’s useless,
useless!
“

Murdock tossed the coiled rope into the boat. “There’s a service for Connie in a little while. I don’t suppose you’ll be there.”

“Hanging around here now is a bad idea, Murdock.”

“It is. In your case.”

“I’ll send Billy. He’s sleeping it off.”

“Sure you will.”

He watched Livingstone pick his way up the bank path toward the woods, pause to whack sand from a cuff. “Don’t row that thing too far, Murdock!” he called back. “You’re a long way from help!”

“I could row you to hell, Livingstone!”

“But you couldn’t row
back!
Don’t forget your nitro, old man!”

Old man. Okay. Jesus, he’d like to put a leash on that young pup’s neck. He’d known Livingstone since he was a tyke, known his father, killed in a mine accident, and his mother, a calm, pretty woman concerned about her kids. Distasteful to be the one who turned him in. And how much evidence was there to set against his denials, apart from Anna’s little prize in her closet? Left something with her in the cold months, did he? Revenge would be sweet, for dancing with Anna Starling on a winter night, in the light of a candle, dancing her off God knew where. But too much was uncertain. Where were the witnesses? Once the bundles left here, they could be hidden in any town, or more likely trucked off the Island. And Anna’s bale had no name and address.

T
HEY WERE COMING
up the hill on a foggy morning, in ones and twos for Connie Sinclair’s memorial, not many, tramping slowly up the narrow cemetery road along the wet grass of the treadway, he could hear their voices soft in the damp air. Red Murdock, the first there, opened the green wrought-iron gate fastened with a loop of rope. He hadn’t been here since Rosaire was alive. He meandered toward the MacLennan graves in the northeast corner, the oldest a humble limestone whose name went back 130 years to the Isle of Lewis in Scotland, so blurred you’d have to kneel and make it out with your fingers. His granny’s was partly obscured by a bush of scarlet peonies Murdock had transplanted there years ago.
Loved and Remembered,
that’s all she’d wanted. His father’s was red granite too, polished, his name stood out, but there was no woman’s along with it as on others.
Until the day breaks and the shadows flee away.
Murdock had long wondered where his mother lay, among what far-away people. Did her stone mention this place that had shaped so much of her? Doubtful. She’d wanted only to get away, to cut herself off. He, the last of these MacLennans, had made no provision for his own burial, he didn’t care anymore, someone would take him up and put him where he needed to be. Rosaire had told him to plant her ashes wherever he wished, and he had. Through a thin row of spruce, mist, white as steam, hung over the water.

Down below at the point, the beach where Anna swam every day was empty, and he regretted he had not stopped at her house, disgusted though he was with her stubbornness, the risk she refused to free herself from. He had thought she would come around if he left her alone for a day or so, let the danger sink in, but he’d heard nothing from her and that worried him. She was on his mind too much anyway. What was the right thing to do? What line in her life should he cross? He had walked to her shorebank three times and seen her once up above kneeling at her garden, another going up her path in a swimsuit that she looked more than all right in. But he hadn’t wanted to talk to her, it was as if someone he didn’t care for was standing between them and couldn’t be ignored, not if they were to get back to where they had been. What was occurring up here on the hill this morning of course had nothing to do with her, not in any direct way at least.…

There were voices behind him and he turned to them, the greetings began, people he hadn’t seen in a long while took hold of his hand.

The Ferguson brothers from the other side, lean Johnny, his hair kinky grey, and older Willy all but bald, a shine of damp on his big amiable scalp. Some others in from town, Al McCulloch, Connie’s distant cousin, a big, quiet man, and Sally MacCuish, silver-haired and rounder, still pretty, smoking furiously, dropping her cigarette to hug him, and, when they were younger, hug him she had. Murdock had a soft spot for Sal, she was fun and kind and loved a man in her arms, but she was a talker who’d pull back in the middle of sex just to tell you she’d got a speeding ticket, she couldn’t keep the mood, daily life wouldn’t let go of her long enough. She’d slept with Connie too, always liked him, and someone said to her, You must have some great pillow talk with that fella, and Sal said, A good man, he doesn’t have to say a word.

A hard-bitten woman from The Mines hung back pulling on a cigarette, her companion a skinny pale man beside her, old drinking pals of Connie who used to visit him. You’d hear them up the hill shouting drunk. At least they’d showed.

“They could just as easily pickled him,” Sam Cunningham said, “cheaper too.”

The men huddled around him laughed low, they knew Connie wouldn’t give a damn what they said. Yes, he’d bowed his head and prayed like the rest of them when it suited, so were they raised, but to Connie funerals and wakes had been just another reason, for a man who no longer needed any, to drink himself dumb. But they all wanted to hear how Murdock found him, since rumours had raced around—Connie had been shot before he fell into the ditch, that he had taken his life, that he’d had a stroke—but Murdock didn’t feed the gossip, he gave them only the bare bones, nothing they could chew on: the Mounties were looking for a vehicle that might have struck him, but what had they to run with? No one saw or heard a thing. He did not mention that Connie might have helped out drug smugglers, he didn’t want to open that nest of hornets. Anna had already been stung.

“A full ashtray in the Legion bar, all that’s left of him now, old Con,” said Willy, nodding toward the small varnished box with a brass plate and handles. It sat on the turf beside a high snowball bush past its blooming. Murdock could have made a better box, had he been asked, had there been time. But who would have asked him? Connie had no one in Cape Seal now but Peter Ingraham, an old buddy, who had arranged this modest memorial.