“He came up to show me how fast the kitten’s growing. We were talking and he told me about his military service in Vietnam. He isn’t old enough, surely?”
“Harry fantasizes. But he’s under the care of a good doctor and it’s going to be all right.”
“I’m glad to hear it.” That sounded glib. Why, Mary asked herself, was she trying so hard to alienate the owner of the apartment she lived in?
“As for dangerous,” Jessie said, gathering up her cigarettes and her lighter and her change, “I’m the one you have to worry about. I’m ten times more dangerous than Harry.”
As the Baytown summer sauntered on, Mary worked her shifts and wished she was back home in Montreal. Maybe someday. That year’s course in broadcasting at Tennyson Institute in Toronto had promised much, but the reality — working for low wages at the radio station in Pitfall — soon became tedious. Baytown seemed better, but that might be the season.
Harry Hay brought the kitten upstairs every day for a visit. Mary provided drinks after dark, or coffee and biscuits if the sun had not yet reached the yardarm. The young man didn’t seem to have a job. One evening when she asked him about work, he said he was starting on a new project, then ran downstairs and returned with three watercolor paintings — explosions of red and orange.
Harry was hanging around another evening when Tim Melton showed up unexpectedly. The Pitfall broadcaster arrived with rucksack and bedroll, saying not to worry, he would crash on the living-room carpet. Mary was both annoyed by his brassy intrusion and pleased to see him. Now there would be hours of gossip about the station up north. As for Harry, he responded not only to Melton but to the visitor’s effect on Mary. It was as if the disturbed young man’s parents had been separated and now they were back together. Their embrace when Tim appeared at the top of the stairs left Harry beaming, his eyes moist.
“Who’s your lapdog?” Melton asked when Harry excused himself and took Annabella away.
“I won’t have you insulting him. He’s my landlady’s brother. Tell me about Pitfall.”
“I did the entire morning show drunk.” Melton’s square face carried a few days’ worth of dark beard. Unwashed, untrimmed, he had the presence of the scruffy twin who is cleaned up and becomes king. “I adlibbed all the commercials. Duffy’s Used Cars was on the telephone, screaming. I read ‘Casey at the Bat’ with Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony as background music. I called the station manager at half past five — woke him up and put him on the air without telling him.”
“It sounds self-destructive to me, Timothy.”
“Absolutely. I obviously need somebody to take care of me.”
“I wish you luck.”
“I was hoping you might get me in at CBAY.”
“They don’t need anybody.” If she told Tim there was an opening, he would clean himself up and get the job. She might find herself slipping back into the relationship she had been so wise to abandon. “You can crash here for three nights. This is the law.” She fended off his kiss — feeling none of the old electricity, thank goodness. “Then you have to move on.”
“Who’s your house guest?” Jessie asked.
Mary was collecting her mail from the box by the front gate. “A former colleague of mine from another station.”
“I never allow tenants to bring men into my house.” Jessie had been edgy since Mary’s unthinking question at the Coronet.
“You didn’t say that when I rented the apartment,” Mary said. “Come on, Jessie. This isn’t Victorian England.”
“When is he leaving?”
“None of your business, really. But I’ve told him he can stay three nights.”
As she headed upstairs, Mary saw Harry watching from the kitchen window. Ten minutes later, he was knocking on her door. “I heard what Jessie said. I want you to know I’m on your side.”
“It’s a tempest in a teacup, Harry. But thanks.”
“My sister can be a monster. She’s capable of terrible things. I could tell you stories you wouldn’t believe.”
“I’m sure you could.”
“But I won’t let her do anything to you, Mary. I’ll stop her if she tries.”
Tim Melton did one of his pub crawls through the fleshpots of Baytown and came home after midnight, singing as he fumbled with the gate, falling on the front lawn, and lying there blinking at the moon. By the time Mary got some clothes on and ran down to bring him inside, Jessie was on the scene.
“This is how your colleague comes home?” She was down on one knee, staring down into his jubilant face.
“I’ve died and gone to heaven,” Melton crooned. “It’s the face of an angel.”
“Get up, Tim,” Mary snapped. “It isn’t funny.”
The drunken announcer used Jessie as a crutch, dragging his weight up and leaning on her as he staggered to the house. “Make my bed soon,” his throaty baritone rumbled in her ear, “for I’m weary wi’ hunting—”
Jessie relinquished him to Mary at the foot of the stairs. “Three nights, you told me.”
“Or less,” Mary said grimly.
Tim packed his gear and moved out the next afternoon. “Very cold here in the deep freeze,” he said. “You could hang turkeys in this place.” He left on foot, heading for the highway and a lift to anywhere.
Jessie knew he was gone before Mary could tell her. She had a way of pronouncing the word ‘colleague’. “Your colleague left me a note. He said he’s going back to where he came from. Where did you say that is?”
“Pitfall. Up near Thunder Bay.”
“I can’t see that man apologizing and getting his old job hack, can you?”
“I’m not concerned.”
It was going to be difficult to repair the relationship between herself and Jessie. Mary was half inclined to let it end. There were other apartments for rent in Baytown. But this one was comfortable, damn it. And she could walk to work in less than ten minutes.
“When in doubt, do nothing” was one of Mary’s axioms and she obeyed it when it suited her. For the next week, she came and went, avoiding Jessie. Harry paid his daily visit with Annabella, who had become a small cat. Then, on a Friday evening, Jessie launched her rocket.
“You’ll have to go,” she said. “I’m going to need this apartment. Harry will be living up here.”
“You can’t do that.”
“There’s no lease. You pay by the week.” Jessie avoided Mary’s eyes. “I’ll give you till next weekend and then I want you gone.”
Mary ran downstairs after Jessie to pursue the argument and got the kitchen door slammed in her face. Harry’s head was in the window, his eyes disturbed.
At the station on Monday, Mary asked Clement Foy if the landlady could get away with putting her out. He thought she could. “Anyway, since things are unpleasant, why not move?”
“I hate to give in to her, she isn’t being fair — but I suppose I’ll have to.”
But it was Jessie Hay who disappeared from the house on Station Street. And Harry began keeping to himself. For three days, there was none of the normal sound from downstairs. Finally, late on Thursday morning, Mary went to the kitchen door and knocked. It took Harry a while to answer.
“Oh, hi,” he said. His eyes were shifting.
“Is everything all right?”
“You bet.”
“I haven’t seen Jessie in a while.”
“That’s right.” It was as if he was concentrating on saying what Mary wanted to hear.
“She told me to leave. But I don’t want to.”
“Don’t worry about it,” Harry said.
“What do you mean?”