“She lived over on Bishop,” said Mr. Fenton. “She was visiting some friend and took a shortcut home. Her father was a principal.” He named the school. Nora had never heard of it.
“English,” said Dr. Marchand, placing the story in context.
“They moved away. Some crazy stories went around, that she knew the guy, they had a date.”
“I knew a case,” said the doctor. “An old maid. She set the police on a married man. He never did anything worse than say hello.”
“It was hard on Louise, something like that going on just outside. Nobody heard a thing until she ran down to the area and started banging on the door and screaming.”
“Louise did that?”
“This girl. Missy let her in and gave her a big shot of brandy. Missy’s a good head. She said, ‘If you don’t quit yelling I’ll call the police.’ ”
“Her English must be pretty good now,” said the doctor.
“Missy’s smart. When my mother-in-law hired her, all she could say was, ‘I cook, I clean.’ Now she could argue a case in court. She told Louise, ‘Some guy grabs me in a lane, I twist him like a wet mop.’ Louise couldn’t get over it.” He became lighthearted suddenly, which suited him better. “We shouldn’t be scaring Nora with all this.” Nora found that rich, considering the things that had been said in the car. She was at the door, waiting. He had to look up.
He took the last steps slowly. Of course, he was closer to thirty than twenty and not in great shape. All that booze and his lazy way of moving were bound to tell. On the landing he had to catch his breath. He said, “Don’t worry, Nora. This end of Crescent is still good. It isn’t as residential as when I was a kid but it’s safe. Anyway, it’s safe for girls who don’t do dumb things.”
“I’m not one for worrying,” she said. “I don’t wander around on my own after dark and I don’t answer strangers. Anyways, I won’t ever be spending the night here. My father doesn’t like me to sleep away.”
A word she knew but had never thought of using—“morose”—came to mind at the slow change in his face. Sulky or deeply pensive (it was hard to tell), he began searching the pockets of his vest and jacket, probably looking for his latchkey. The doctor reached across and pressed the doorbell. They heard it jangle inside the house. Without Dr. Marchand they might have remained stranded, waiting for the earth to turn and the slant of the sun to alter and allow them shade. Just as she was thinking this, wondering how Mr. Fenton managed to get through his day-by-day life without having the doctor there every minute, Dr. Marchand addressed her directly: “On ne dit pas ‘anyways.’ C’est commun. Il faut toujours dire ‘anyway.’ ”
The heat of the day and the strain of events had pushed him off his rocker. There was no other explanation. Or maybe he believed he was some kind of bilingual marvel, a real work of art, standing there in his undertaker suit, wearing that dopey hat. Nora’s father knew more about anything than he did, any day. He had information about local politics and the private dealings of men who were honored and admired, had their pictures in the Gazette and the Star. He could shake hands with anybody you cared to mention; could tell, just by looking at another man, what that man was worth. When he went to Blue Bonnets, the racetrack, a fantastic private intuition told him where to put his money. He often came home singing, his hat on the back of his head. He had an office to himself at City Hall, no duties anybody could figure, but unlimited use of a phone. He never picked a quarrel and never took offense. “Never let anyone get under your skin,” he had told Gerry and Nora. “Consider the source.”
She considered the source: Dr. Marchand had spent a horrible morning, probably, trying to sidestep Mr. Fenton’s temporary moods and opinions. Still, the two of them were friends, like pals in a movie about the Great War, where actors pledged true loyalty in a trench before going over the top. Wars ran together, like the history of English kings, kept alive in tedious stories repeated by men. As a boring person he was easy to forgive. As a man he had a cold streak. His reproof stung. He had made her seem ignorant. Mr. Fenton didn’t know a word of French, but he must have caught the drift.
Just as Nora’s mother could predict a change in the weather from certain pains in her wrists, so the baby sensed a change in Nora. His face puckered. He let out some more of that clotted slobber, followed by a weak cough and a piercing, choking complaint. “Oh, stop,” she said, hearing a rush of footsteps. She gave him a gentle shake. “Where’s my little man? Where’s my soldier?” Her piqué dress, which had been fresh as an ironed handkerchief just a few hours before, was stained, soiled, crumpled, wetted, damaged by Neil. She kissed his head. All she could find to say, in a hurry, was “Be good.” The door swung open. Without being bidden Nora entered the house. The doctor removed his hat, this time with a bit of a flourish. Mr. Fenton, she noticed, was still looking for a key.
In rooms glimpsed from the entrance hall the shades were drawn against the burning street. A darker and clammier heat, like the air of an August night, condensed on her cheeks and forehead. She smiled at two women, dimly perceived. The younger had the figure of a stout child, wore her hair cut straight across her eyebrows, and had on what Nora took to be a white skirt. In the seconds it took for her pupils to widen, her eyes to focus anew, she saw that the white skirt was a white apron. In the meantime, she had approached the young woman, said, “Here’s your sweet baby, Mrs. Fenton,” and given him up.
“Well, Missy, you heard what Nora said,” said Mr. Fenton. He could enjoy that kind of joke, laugh noisily at a mistake, but Missy looked as if a tide had receded, leaving her stranded and unable to recognize anything along the shore. All she could say was “There’s a bottle ready,” in a heavy accent.
“Give it to him right away,” said the older woman, who could not be anyone but Mrs. Clopstock, the mother-in-law from Toronto. “That sounds to me like a hunger cry.” Having made the observation, she took no further notice of Neil, but spoke to the two men: “Louise is really knocked out by the heat. She doesn’t want any lunch. She said to say hello to you, Alex.”
The doctor said, “Once she sees him, she’ll take an interest. I had another case, just like that. I can tell you all about it.”
“Yes, tell us, Alex,” said Mrs. Clopstock. “Do tell us. You can tell us about it at lunch. We have to talk about something.”
It pleased Nora that Dr. Marchand, for the first time, had made a “th” mistake in English, saying “dat” for “that.” He wasn’t so smart, after all. Just the same, she had spoiled Neil’s entrance into his new life; as if she had crossed the wrong line. The two errors could not be matched. The doctor could always start over and get it right. For Nora and Neil, it had been once and for all.
II
Nora’s uncle, Victor Cochefert, was the only member of her family, on either side, with much of consequence to leave in a will. He had the place he lived in — four bedrooms and double garage and a weeping willow on the lawn — and some flats he rented to the poor and improvident, in the east end of the city. He was forever having tenants evicted, and had had beer bottles thrown at his car. The flats had come to him through his marriage to Rosalie, daughter of a notary. Her father had drawn up a tight, grim marriage contract, putting Rosalie in charge of her assets, but she had suffered an early stroke, dragged one foot, and left everything up to Victor. The other relatives were lifelong renters, like most of Montreal. None were in want but only Victor and Rosalie had been to Florida.
Her own father’s financial arrangements were seen by the Cocheferts as eccentric and somewhat obscure. He never opened his mouth about money but was suspected of being better off than he cared to let on; yet the Abbotts continued to live in a third-floor walk-up flat, with an outside staircase and linoleum-covered floors on which scatter rugs slipped and slid underfoot. His wife’s relations admired him for qualities they knew to exist behind his great wall of good humor; they had watched him saunter from the dark bureau where he had stood on the far side of a counter, wearing an eyeshade (against what light?), registering births and delivering certificates, to a private office in City Hall. He had moved along nonchalantly, whistling, hands in his pockets — sometimes in other people’s, Victor had hinted. At the same time, he held Ray in high regard, knowing that if you showed confidence, made him an accomplice, he could be trusted. He had even confided to Ray a copy of his will.