Things Go Flying (20 page)

“You could have waited till I read it,” Audrey had pointed out.

“
I
read it,” Harold had said—as if that was sufficient!

Audrey wondered if it was his birthday—a couple of days away— that was putting him on edge. It was almost as if he thought he'd drop dead the day he turned forty-nine, just because his father had died at the age of forty-nine, but that was a little ridiculous. The doctor had said that Harold's heart was absolutely sound.

On the other hand, Audrey
had
heard of people in primitive tribes who, when cursed by a witch doctor, for example, would drop dead simply because they were convinced that they were going to die. But—looking strenuously on the bright side—she really didn't think Harold's mind was that powerful.

Just in case, she decided to put a call in to Dr. Goldfarb and see what he had to say.

• • •

H
AROLD MADE THE
pilgrimage a second time to the house on his old street. He stood once more on the sidewalk on the opposite side of the street, and stared dumbly. That had been his bedroom window; there was the front room where his mother had held her séances, the heavy curtains always carefully drawn shut for the occasion. That was another sound Harold now remembered, for the first time in years— the sound of the curtains closing, like a clutch at his heart. Inside, he knew, was the staircase on the right-hand side, with the landing halfway up. From the landing, you could see the closed double doors to the front room, overhear things.

He finally realized why he was here. He wanted to talk to his mother. For all his earlier avoidance, he now wanted to talk to her, urgently. He still didn't want to hear what she had to say, but he needed her to get the rest of them to leave. If she wasn't at his place, maybe she was here.

It was the dinner hour; it was already dark. A light rain began to fall, beading on his coat. He needed to get closer. He crossed the street and stood in front of the house with his hand on the wrought iron gate, debating whether to knock on the front door and ask if he could come in and look around. Tell the lady of the house that he'd grown up in this house and that he'd like to see the place again, for old times' sake. He wouldn't mention his mother.

He realized that it would be an intrusion, that she was probably busy making dinner. It didn't occur to him that she might think he was a mental patient. It certainly didn't cross his mind that she might think he was a peeping Tom. He was too absorbed in his own thoughts to consider how he might appear to someone else. He'd been so well behaved all his life—his innermost thoughts so pedestrian— that he'd scarcely ever attracted an odd glance. He'd never so much as leered at anyone.

He stared fixedly at his bedroom window, and suddenly he remembered exactly what it was like—forty years simply fell away— to sit cross-legged on his single bed, with its old brown chenille bedspread, trying to read. He remembered the smell of the pages of his Hardy Boys books—how he loved them!—and how there was never quite enough light from the lamp on the wall above his bed because it couldn't take more than a forty watt bulb. When he looked up from his place on the bed he could see the branches of the tree outside his bedroom window. But he tried not to look up; he tried to lose himself in the safe and familiar world of Frank and Joe Hardy—those brave boys. They were so much braver than he was. But then, they had only practical, tangible mysteries to deal with.

Harold now remembered one particular evening. He remembered sitting on his bed with his book, and the dreaded sound of the front door opening, and his mother's voice, blending with another woman's. Then he heard them go into the front room, and heard the doors shut firmly behind them. It was quiet for a long time, as if his mother wasn't having any luck, and then Harold heard the chandelier begin to shake, and he had to start back at the beginning of his paragraph.

“What's that awful smell?” he heard the woman's voice cry, clear as a bell.

His mother murmured something in response. Then the knocking began in the room downstairs, and keys were slammed on the piano, as if a fist had been brought down forcefully and repeatedly on the keys—from the higher octaves to the lower—which had a very dramatic effect.

The woman's voice rang out into the sudden silence, “I don't think that's my husband!”

Next Harold heard the doors to the front room flung back so violently that they crashed against the wall behind. Heavy footsteps— like those of a large man in work boots—ran out of the room and up the uncarpeted stairs, and Harold almost fainted with fear. The footsteps reached the landing, and then thundered up and past his bedroom door and up the narrow flight of stairs to the third floor, where they suddenly stopped.

Harold heard the front door being wrestled open and the woman gasping “Ahhhhh, Ahhhhh” to herself as she fled out the door and down the short walk. Harold, who'd scrambled off his bed and backed away from his bedroom door until his back was up against the window, turned his head and looked out. He saw the woman—whom he now identified as Mrs. Mohan, a neighbour—run out into the cold dark night and down the street. She'd left her coat behind.

When his mother had come up to check on him, she'd asked him if he'd mind returning Mrs. Mohan's coat the next morning before school. He'd left it on her front porch when she wouldn't come to the door, even though she'd heard his knock. Harold knew, because he saw her peeking out the curtains.

Funny how he'd forgotten all about it until now, but there were big gaps in Harold's memory. And since that was a fairly striking and memorable event, he wondered how it was that he'd forgotten all about it.

There'd been enough drama in that house to mark a life. Which is probably why drama was something that Harold strove to avoid.

A few minutes later a cruiser silently pulled up—no screaming alarms, no flashing red lights—and parked behind Harold on the quiet street. Two officers got out of the car and approached him, one on either side.

“Sir,” said one of the officers from behind and to his left, and Harold bolted nearly out of his skin. The officers reacted also. They certainly didn't jump—they were experienced officers, and they'd seen it all—but they were more wary.

Harold turned and saw two men in uniform. He noticed the holsters, the silver cuffs glinting in the rain, and the black and white cruiser beyond.

Just then the front door was flung open, and a woman came down the steps holding a baby, and cried, “That's him!”

What happened next was pure Kafka.

“Arrest him!” she said.

“What for?” Harold said in disbelief.

“Just a minute,” the first officer said to the woman, whose baby was starting to cry. He turned to Harold. “This woman called us because she says you've been looking in her windows.” At Harold's startled look, he added, “She says it's not the first time.”

“I haven't been looking in the windows,” Harold said in some alarm. “I've just been looking at the house from the sidewalk.” He smiled at the officer. No doubt this would all be cleared up. It was just a misunderstanding. There seemed to be so many misunderstandings.

“Why are you here?” the officer asked.

“I grew up in this house. I just wanted to see it again.”

The officer seemed to think this was reasonable—he looked as if he'd heard much more bizarre things—and turned to the woman complainant.

“Ask him if he's a mental patient,” the woman insisted.

“I'm not a mental patient,” Harold protested, and then wondered guiltily if the fact that he'd been hearing voices and that he was on anti-depressants qualified him as a mental patient. He wasn't sure— had he just lied to the police? Now he was nervous, and the officer who was questioning him noticed, and seemed to change his attitude toward him, seemed to want to rattle him a little to get at the truth.

“You say you're not a mental patient,” the officer said, slightly accusing.

“I'm not sure,” Harold said, shifting his eyes away.

Now he was sounding like a mental patient, and the woman said, “See!” triumphantly.

“Do you have any identification?” the officer asked.

Harold produced his new wallet and watched the officer pull out and study his recently replaced driver's licence. Everything was in order there. The officer appeared uncertain. It looked like he'd like to let him off with a warning, but the woman wasn't going to let that happen.

She asked, “Aren't you going to arrest him?”

“I can describe the house,” Harold said, a little desperately. He pointed at the upstairs window and said, “That used to be my bedroom.”

“Don't believe him!” the woman said. Then she added, “I think he's been following me.” The officers—and Harold too—looked at her in surprise. “I wasn't sure, but now that I get a better look at him, I'm sure I've seen him in the park, following me and the baby.” She hugged the crying baby more protectively. She didn't appear to be even aware that she was lying; perhaps, Harold thought, she was so unnerved at having a strange man watching her house, felt so justified in wanting to be rid of him, that she'd convinced herself it was true.

In the end, the officers decided to take him to the station. Harold got into the backseat of the cruiser in amazed disbelief and looked dumbly out the window as his childhood home fell away. The woman stood on the sidewalk in the rain, watching him go.

CHAPTER TWELVE

A
udrey had chosen this precise moment to confront Dylan about his drug problem. It wasn't a planned thing; it arose out of her general frustration and her need to be doing
something
constructive, and also from her inability to get any timely advice on how to handle this from Dr. Goldfarb, who, it turned out, would not discuss it with her without an appointment—the earliest would be next week. She wanted to push the matter, but she didn't dare because if Dr. Goldfarb dropped her she knew she wouldn't have a hope in hell of finding another family doctor. And then where would she be? So she bit her tongue and made the appointment for the following week—and took things into her own hands.

Also, there was no one else around at the moment because Harold had called earlier and said he would be late coming home from the office. The rest of them had already had Campbell's tomato soup and tuna sandwiches for supper. John was in the basement at the computer, ostensibly doing his homework, and Dylan was upstairs in his bedroom.

Audrey went up. She was apprehensive as she tapped on his bedroom door.

“Yeah,” Dylan said.

She entered the room, closing the door behind her. Dylan was lying on the bed. His school books had been dumped on the floor; his desk had the appearance of a clean slate. But she noticed that there was a book about acting on the bed.

“Do you have a minute?” Audrey said, looking at the desk, the books on the floor.

“Sure.”

Audrey sat down on the edge of the bed, forcing him to move over. She was suddenly conscious of the fact that she was sitting right on top of the illicit drugs, and this gave her strength and firmness of purpose.

She'd thought about this, and she'd decided to say that she'd been turning the mattresses that morning and that was how she'd discovered the pills. She would simply not mention the pornographic magazines or the condoms—that would be too embarrassing. She hoped he wouldn't mention them either, but feared he might, knowing Dylan.

“We need to talk,” Audrey said.

“About Dad.”

“No, about you, actually.” Dylan seemed surprised, Audrey thought; he obviously had no idea what was coming.

“I was flipping the mattresses today”—she noticed he suddenly went still and tense—“and I found something that made me very upset.” She paused. Maybe that wasn't the right way to put it, she'd better mention the drugs right away, steer him away from the other stuff—“I found some
pills
, Dylan.”

He shifted uneasily on the bed, but he was still looking her in the eye. “You shouldn't look under people's mattresses, Mom.”

“I was doing housework!”

They glared at each other for a second. Then Audrey said, “And anyway, this isn't about me, it's about you.” She blurted out, “Are you doing drugs?” Anxiety had bled into her voice, giving it a harsh, accusatory quality.

“No.”

“Tell me the truth—I can take it.”

“No, Mom, I'm not doing drugs.”

She didn't believe him. “Then what are those pills doing under your mattress?”

“Somebody gave them to me.”

“Who? Who gave them to you?”

“It doesn't matter, Mom. I'll throw them out if you want.”

“You're damned right you'll throw them out! And you'll tell me who gave them to you—right now.” She glared at him while he bit his lip, as if weighing his options. “What are they anyway?”