Unholy Rites (3 page)

Arthur's fish and chips arrived, an opportunity to change the topic to one he found more congenial. “Did you see any plays in London?”

“Afraid not,” Danutia said, though she didn't sound sorry. “I spent my evenings reading up on this pilot project I'm involved in.”

Arthur attacked his beer-battered fish. “I know you told me about it when we had dinner last month, but the details have gone out of my mind.”

He tried to pay attention as she talked about crime reduction initiatives and tracking repeat offenders and Community Service Orders. All the while, the anxious chattering in his mind grew louder. He'd been living as though his mother was simply away for a few days. Now that he'd seen her body—no, he hadn't been able to face that, her coffin—laid to rest in the churchyard, he could no longer maintain that illusion. How could he return to that empty cottage down the road?

“. . . That's why the
RCMP
is funding me to do on-the-ground research here.” Danutia put down her coffee cup. “Have you heard anything I've said?”

“Sorry, I'm a little preoccupied.” He pushed his plate over. “Have some chips, I mean fries.”

Her face softening, Danutia took a long crisp slice of potato and sprinkled salt on it. “It's my fault,” she said. “I get carried away. It must be hard dealing with your mother's death among virtual strangers.”

“You can say that again. I was only six when we moved to Stockport, a suburb of Manchester. We came back for visits, and Mum kept in touch with a few people, so when Dad died it was natural for her to move back. Liz Hazelhurst and the others I've met on my trips to see Mum have been helpful, but it's not like having family. They only see me as Ethel's son. They aren't in the least interested in me or my life.”

Arthur knew he was talking too much, but he couldn't seem to help it. Danutia's presence had unlocked some part of himself he'd kept closed while he'd been dealing with his mother's death. “Sorry, I'm rambling.”

“No need to apologize. I can imagine how that feels. No one at the reception asked me anything about myself or Canada.” Danutia lowered her voice. “Speaking of the reception, I overheard an argument between Liz Hazelhurst and a doctor—Dr. Geoff, he called himself.”

“Oh, Geoff isn't a bad sort,” Arthur responded, pleased at the hint of aversion in her voice. The doctor was handsome, in a dandyish sort of way, well off, and a good conversationalist, qualities that seemed to charm his mother. Still, he didn't like the thought of Danutia falling under his spell. “Arguing, were they? It wouldn't be the first time, from what I've heard. Professional jealousy. The herbalist versus the man of science.”

Danutia waved her hand impatiently. “It was more than that. The doctor objected to Liz calling your mother's death ‘unexpected and untimely,' and implied that Liz's remedies made your mother sicker than she needed to be. I hate to say this, but it made me wonder whether there was something suspicious about your mother's death.”

Arthur pushed the thought away. “Mum had high blood pressure and she'd had a stroke. She often had sick and dizzy spells. Geoff says it was just a matter of time before her heart gave out.”

Danutia sighed. “Maybe I'm just feeling guilty because I put off calling her until it was too late. Are you sure she didn't tell you why she wanted to meet me?”

“I don't know any more than I told you at the time. When I mentioned that you'd be in Buxton soon, Mum said, ‘Tell her to ring me. There's a problem she may be able to help me with.'” Arthur drained his pint. “To be honest, I didn't take it too seriously.”

“Frankly, I didn't either,” Danutia said. “What if she really did need help? Did she keep a diary? It might tell us what was on her mind.”

Arthur felt the heat rise up his neck and into his cheeks. He spread his hands in a gesture of helplessness. “I don't know. I couldn't face going through her things by myself.” His gaze shifted to the framed watercolor above her head, the old railway viaduct arching over the Wye. “I was hoping you'd help me.”

Danutia checked her watch. “I'll have to catch the 4:30 bus. I have to prepare for a case conference tomorrow morning.”

“The cottage isn't far,” Arthur said, fearing that she might change her mind.

Soon they were retracing their steps down Mill Lane. A cold breeze had come up. The bare branches along the river swayed in the wind. When they came to the old well he said, “Liz mentioned Mum's part in reviving well dressing in the village. That's where the main panel is set up. It's assembled in the garage across the road.” He took a deep breath and pointed at the whitewashed building next to the garage. “That's my mum's place. Well Cottage.”

A two-storey addition had been tacked onto a tiny workman's cottage, giving the dwelling an odd L shape. The result wasn't beautiful, but his mum had loved being near the river, loved her triangular garden.

“Why didn't you tell me this was your mother's cottage when we passed?”

Arthur couldn't explain. He led the way up the flagstone path and flung open the heavy wooden door. Shit. The place reeked of stale pipe tobacco.

Danutia coughed and took a step back. “When did you start smoking?”

“Just a pipe,” he said, spying the long-stemmed churchwarden in its makeshift ashtray beside the couch. He hadn't had a puff since before the funeral and he could feel the craving. “I gave it up when I came to Canada, but I've fallen off the wagon. It's the stress. I'll open the back door and the house will be fresh as a daisy in a minute.”

Leaving Danutia to take off her jacket, he scooped up a handful of empty wine glasses, the dregs congealed like dried blood, and made for the kitchen. Why had he let the place get into such a mess? He put the glasses on the counter, propped the back door open, put the kettle on to boil, and returned to his guest.

“I'll make a cup of tea, and then we can get started.”

Danutia was scanning the bookshelves and didn't look around. “Coffee for me, if you have the real stuff. If not, don't bother.”

Arthur snatched up the duvet from the sofa and stuffed it into the laundry basket in the kitchen. On his first night back he'd tried sleeping in the guest bedroom upstairs, across from his mum's. No dice. The creaking timbers were her restless twitchings, her slurred voice calling. At 3:00
AM
he'd stumbled downstairs with his duvet, uncorked a bottle of wine, and drunk himself to sleep. He hadn't slept upstairs since.

Hoping Danutia wouldn't notice the difference, Arthur spooned instant coffee into a clean mug and tossed a tea bag into the one he'd used earlier. He filled both mugs with boiling water, put them on a tray with spoons, a bottle of milk, and a box of sugar cubes, and hurried back.

Danutia was sitting in a wingback chair beside the fireplace, immersed in a book. She was still wearing her jacket, he noted with a guilty pang. He hadn't lit the fire, and he'd forgotten to close the back door.

He set down the tray and fiddled with the knob for the gas. Orange flames sprang up behind the fake logs. “Have you found something?”

“Nothing like a diary or journal.” Danutia angled the book so he could see the cover. “
Pagan Religions of the Ancient British Isles
. You told me your mom used to run a charity thrift shop. You didn't tell me she was a specialist in Celtic culture. Look at these.” She picked up books from the pile beside her chair. “
The Pagan Celts. The Celtic Heroic Age. Life and Death of a Druid Prince.
”

“She was always bringing books home from the shop, romances mostly, and books for me. Nothing on the Celts that I remember. Maybe she got interested in the Celtic stuff because of the well dressing. Sorry, you probably don't know what well dressing is.”

Danutia sipped her coffee, made a face, and set the mug on the tray. “Instant, isn't it? Never mind. A woman named Justine started telling me about well dressing, but then the conversation between Liz Hazelhurst and the doctor caught my attention.”

“Mum had a little book on well dressing. It must be here somewhere.” Arthur located it on a bottom shelf, then found the right page. “This well dressing from Tideswell is like the one I remember seeing with my grandparents when I was about ten. The sky, the buildings, everything is made of seeds and leaves and flower petals pressed into clay. The wooden frames are about six feet by eight feet. On a special day, the frame is put up, usually in front of a well, like the one across the road, and there's a ceremony.”

Danutia thumbed through the slim volume. “These are beautiful, Arthur. Now I understand why your mother was so keen on the custom.”

“Beautiful but conservative. As you can see, almost all the panels show churches and scenes from the Bible. I was glad she got herself an interest after my father died, but to me all this stuff is mumbo-jumbo. I asked her about it a couple of times, just for the sake of conversation. She said, ‘Arthur, you may fool people when you're on the stage, but you can't fool me. I'm your mother. You're not really interested.' And she was right.”

Danutia considered him with what seemed a mixture of curiosity and suspicion. “I didn't know you acted.”

Arthur settled into the chair across from her. “I'm a natural-born ham. Or at least I developed a talent when we moved to Stockport. Mimicking the teachers was an easy way for a new boy to fit in. I was in quite a few productions before I moved to Victoria. Couldn't earn enough as an actor there, so I turned to reviewing.”

“Hard to mix the two, I guess,” Danutia said. “You'd lose your credibility. Like a cop dealing drugs on the side.” She glanced at her watch. “None of this tells us what your mother was concerned about. Where shall we start?”

Arthur hesitated. He didn't want to pry into his mother's life, now or ever. He'd much rather drink tea and talk with Danutia about the theater and the excitement of seeing a new play or a re-interpretation of a standard. But she'd never shown much enthusiasm for drama, any more than his mother had. Like his mother, she had a tenacious grip on reality. He thought back to an incident in the fall.

“One night in December, I came in from the pub to find Mum very agitated. She said she had some things she needed to put in a safe place. I asked her what they were, and why. She wouldn't tell me. She said she didn't have the answer yet. When I mentioned the incident to Geoff, he said people who've had strokes often become paranoid. Mum didn't talk about hiding things again, and I forgot about it. But if she kept a journal, she probably hid it.”

Standing up, Arthur considered the possibilities. The two front rooms of the original cottage had been knocked together to create the spacious sitting room. Beyond lay the dining room, its French doors opening onto the conservatory she'd used as a bedroom when she came out of hospital. The rooms were neat, uncluttered, all evidence of his mother's illness tidied away. “Mum had a lot of visitors. If there was anything she wanted to keep private, she wouldn't have left it downstairs.”

“That makes sense.” Danutia gestured towards the stairs. “After you.”

Upstairs, two bedrooms opened off the corridor, with a bathroom at the end. Arthur opened the door on the left. “This is Mum's room, with a view over the garden.”

He'd seldom been inside the room, certainly not since his mother's death. Family photographs covered the walls. He studied the photos of grandparents and great-grandparents, his father as a boy and in his railway uniform, with his pipe and splendid mustache. His father had just missed the Second World War. Maybe that's why the uniform meant so much to him, why he'd never seemed the same after the railway closed down and they moved to Stockport. He'd become withdrawn and irritable then, given to angry outbursts. Depressed, Arthur supposed now, but as a child he didn't understand, thought he must be at fault.

“What about this trunk?” Danutia indicated the steamer trunk that had stood at the foot of his parents' bed for as long as he could remember, a sturdy wooden box with leather straps for handles, two metal clasps, and a keyhole lock with no key in it.

“It was always locked when I was a child. Mum threatened me with a hiding if she ever caught me trying to open it.”

Danutia knelt down beside the trunk and undid the clasps, then pushed upwards. “It isn't locked now.”

The lid creaked open, releasing the acrid smell of mothballs. Arthur peered over her shoulder, curious about what they would find.

“Here's a cricket bat, and a box of tin soldiers.” Danutia handed them to Arthur. “Who played piano?”

Arthur laid aside his childhood toys and took the dog-eared music book she held out. Bach's
Anna Magdalena Notebook: Adapted for Beginners.

“I did, when I was a kid. My best friend and I used to take lessons from this fearsome woman who lived down the street in Stockport, Miss Leach. She made us play dumb things like ‘Elves in the Forest' and rapped our fingers with her pointer if we made a mistake. Even so, some pieces in the
Notebook
got through to me. I can still play ‘Für Elise' and ‘Minuet in G' with my right hand.”

Danutia pulled out a blue cap with gold braiding. “Was this part of your school uniform?”

Arthur gazed at the cap, puzzled. “I've never seen that before. Our school colors were green and red.”

“Maybe it belonged to one of your cousins,” Danutia said, moving aside as he knelt down.

“The rest of this is mine. She's even kept my badges from Wolf Cubs.” He lifted out some favorite books from his childhood,
Wind in the Willows
and
A Child's Garden of Verses
. “That's odd,” he said a moment later.

Danutia peered inside the trunk. “What?”

“Mum's scrapbooks. When I was here in the fall, they were on the shelf by her bedside. She had me bring one down so she could show me a clipping from a school play,” he said. “I was Mercutio, in
Romeo and Juliet.
Why would she put them in the bottom of the trunk?”