All is Clam Read online

  For a moment, the woman’s eyes came alive, but a shadow fell across them when Fitz came to the door.

  “Get your fat ass in here, woman, this lady has offered us some tea.”

  The woman looked up at Hy. Hy nodded. Jamie took the rope from his mother, and scuttled off to tie the donkey to the truck.

  “Please,” Hy said, extending her hand to help the woman up the stoop.

  “I’m Rose.” Her voice was barely more than a whisper.

  “Hy.”

  “Hi.”

  It happened all the time.

  “No. Hy. H-Y. That’s my name. Short for Hyacinth.”

  “An old-fashioned name.”

  “Like Rose.”

  “Yes.” A small smile. “Botanical.”

  “Mine, too – but chemical as well. Drug-induced. My parents were back-to-the-landers in the sixties. Water hyacinths are tall, strong, and free floating…”

  “It suits.”

  It was a compliment. A tentative offer of friendship.

  Hyacinth. Also very fertile. Hy didn’t say it. But her time to have a family was passing. Would she regret not having a child? Did she want one? Hy liked children well enough – but enough to have one of her own? And with whom? Ian? The thought made her smile. Nuts.

  “Is it much farther to Wild Rose Cottage?” Fitz was again planted right in front of the woodstove.

  Rose looked at Hy hopefully. She hadn’t drunk any tea, just warmed her hands on the cup. “Do you know where it is?”

  “Wild Rose Cottage. Of course I know where it is. Everyone does.” Hy was so surprised that she had to sit down.

  These were the new owners? Just wait until she told Gus, as soon as they were on their way. She wouldn’t mind seeing the back of Fitz, but she felt sorry for Rose and Jamie.

  “Is it still lovely?” Rose took a sip of tea, felt its warmth penetrate her eternally cold body. “Is it?”

  Still? Does she know the house? Old photographs maybe.

  “Well…yes…and no…You haven’t seen a recent photograph?”

  “We got it sight unseen,” said Fitz, standing upright and pushing his chest out. “But the price was right.” He grinned, winked, and Hy wondered what he meant.

  “He means it didn’t cost us anything. Not when Fitz found out it was for sale.”

  “Tried to pull a fast one, that real estate agent. It belonged to Rose. Her inheritance. Found that out soon enough. Free,” he grinned. “A free house.”

  “We did have to pay back taxes.”

  The villagers had wondered about the “for sale” sign that went up and came down almost as quickly, but hadn’t been able to find out anything. Sold? Not sold? The realtor was in and out of The Shores only long enough to put up the sign and take it down again. He wasn’t related to anyone in the village, so no one knew anything.

  Now Hy did. It was a small pre-Christmas gift – a prime piece of local gossip she would tell Gus, and then Gus would tell everyone else and give her full credit.

  “I hope you didn’t pay too much in taxes. I’m not sure it’s worth anything.”

  Rose’s mouth drooped. The rest of her face followed.

  “I had a bit aside. That covered it.”

  Fitz sneered. “A bit she wasn’t telling me about. Until it suited her.”

  “And you.” She threw it back at him with what seemed like hate. The tension gripped them all, and Hy tried to lighten the mood.

  “Oh, I forgot. Ginger snaps.” She opened a kitchen cupboard and pulled out a jar. “Gus’s ginger snaps.”

  Jamie’s eyes opened wide.

  “Ginger snaps?”

  Hy opened the jar and offered it to him. He snatched a couple of cookies and crammed them into his mouth, right into the gap in his teeth.

  “Who’s Gus?” His cheeks were chipmunk fat. “He makes good cookies.” Crumbs sputtered onto his lips.

  “Gus is not a he. She’s a she.”

  “Oh.” Jamie stopped chewing. “A girl with a boy’s name.” He chewed on the idea along with the cookies. “Like Freddy.”

  “Yes. Her real name is Augusta.”

  Jamie screwed up his face. “That’s a name?”

  Hy smiled, and Jamie smiled back, a mouthful of ginger crumbs visible when he spoke.

  “Well, she makes good cookies.”

  “Jamie, close your mouth when you’re eating.” Rose touched Jamie lightly on the shoulder and he responded immediately, stuffing another cookie into his mouth, closing it, his cheeks bulging.

  “You’ll turn him into a sissy,” Fitz growled.

  Hy smiled and gave Jamie the cookie jar. His small hand fit right in and he pulled out several more cookies.

  “What will you do with the place – besides farming sheep and donkeys? There are eighteen rooms…”

  “An inn. We’ll open an inn. The wife’s a great cook and very artistic. No matter what shape the place is in, we’ll do it up right. Maybe this Gus will cook for us.”

  Hy shook her head. “She’s over eighty.”

  Hy wasn’t sure the place even had functioning electricity any more, but she wasn’t going to say. Let them find out for themselves.

  Fitz burped and farted.

  “We gotta get on the move, get up there before dark. Jamie, you’re on donkey duty. Rose rides shotgun.” Hy could see the relief that swept over Rose’s face, mixed with concern for her young son.

  Hy gave them directions, which weren’t complicated. Down the road, hang a left at the village centre, and up Shipwreck Hill. “You can’t miss it,” she ended, thinking, I’ve begun to give directions like an Islander.

  Except in this case, you really couldn’t miss it.

  Jared had plenty of warning of the Fitzpatricks’ arrival. He was still in the house, on the second floor, from where he could see well down the road and up the hill. He happened to be looking at the hill when they crested it. He couldn’t know they were coming here, but something told him that they were – a ragtag bunch, just the types to fall for this old place. Damn. He’d only searched a handful of rooms, and not all that well. It might be found under the floorboards, in the walls. And he didn’t even know what he was looking for. The Sullivan legacy. What the hell was that supposed to mean?

  “You’ll know it when you find it,” he’d been told.

  Jared didn’t think he’d find it here. It was an old library, cradled in the large middle gable of the house. It had built-in shelves and benches, and rotting books – eaten away and pissed on by rats, mildewed by the damp air, black spots, and a fuzzy white mold growing on them. Jared kicked a few books around and began to sneeze. He was tempted to torch the place. Bit of fun. He shivered. Bit of warmth.

  He finished his cursory search of the room and then scurried down the stairs, out the back, and through the ripped tarpaulin. There was no snow, and the red clay was frozen solid, so he left no tracks.

  Perfect conditions for thieving. But what was there to steal?

  Chapter Three

  Hy’s phone rang shortly after her visitors left. Ian again. She’d better answer, or he’d think she was in a sulk, which she was not. Especially now she had her lights up. She knew it would be his first question, and answered it as soon as she picked up the phone. No hello.

  “Yes, they’re up.”

  “Good, I thought you might need help.”

  “No,” she lied. “I was fine.”

  “Look, Hy, I’m sorry I can’t go along with it…”

  “Forget it, Ian. We’ve been through it all before. You know, I think you could relax your environmental standards for Christmas, for this one thing. You burn enough electricity on that computer.”

  “Which is why I try to be rigorous in other ways. Besides, you know I’m not a believer.”

  “You don’t
have to be a believer. It’s a village tradition. The lights are heathen, not Christian.”

  It was nothing they hadn’t already said the day before. Ian had tried to soften the argument by offering to help put up her lights, but she’d refused, saying curtly, “I’ll do it myself.” He wasn’t likely to find out she hadn’t.

  “Anyway, that’s not why I called. I saw an odd group coming up the road…a truck, a donkey, a dog, and a young boy trailing behind…”

  Hy had wanted to tell Gus first. She sighed and told Ian what she knew.

  “Wild Rose Cottage? Interesting history, that house…” Ian detailed names and dates, the fame of the original owner-architect, the sad demise of the family and the house, the various efforts to revive and transform it. Hy felt time and patience grinding away in her stomach. She hardly paid attention to Ian, thinking about how she’d tell Gus her news.

  Until she heard the words “Sullivan legacy.” Ian had been googling while he was talking.

  Now he had her attention.

  “Sullivan legacy? What’s that?”

  “I’m not sure.”

  “I’ll ask Gus.”

  All of Hy’s feline curiosity was aroused. Now she was even more anxious to get to Gus.

  Jared was getting cold sitting in his truck in the woods behind the house. He wasn’t sure what to do. He’d dashed out of the house when he saw the truck coming down the road, sure it was the new tenants, and he’d been right. Now, how was he supposed to drive out of here, with that truck of theirs in the way? He’d have to ask them to move it, but that meant he’d have to explain what he was doing here. He took a long haul on his cigarette and thought hard. Hard. Thinking wasn’t easy for Jared.

  Hy cycled to the village centre, which consisted of the Hall and two empty lots where the school and General Store used to be. She was stopped by Wally Fraser, husband of Gladys, President of the Women’s Institute at The Shores. He rolled down his passenger window.

  “See you got your lights up. See some fella helped you. Not from around here.” He was fishing for information. Hy said nothing.

  “Got a donkey. And a truckload. Wouldn’t be the Wild Rose Cottage people, you think?”

  “No idea,” Hy lied. She took the turn down to Gus and Abel Mack’s house.

  “And what have you and Wally Fraser got to say to each other?” Gus greeted her. She was putting on the teakettle, her back to Hy.

  “They’ve come.”

  Gus turned.

  “Who’s come?”

  “Fitz, Rose, and Jamie Fitzpatrick.” Hy slumped down on the chair opposite the big purple recliner, from where Gus held court and had a view of the crossroads and the village centre. Over the years, she’d watched it disappear. The church, turned into a smart summer home. The school, burned down by the villagers when it had graduated from fixer-upper to complete ruin. And Abel Mack’s General Store, blown up by an exploding propane tank, which had sent Gus’s husband flying out the window. He’d landed on his feet, unharmed, if a bit surprised. People said that’s when he’d begun to lose his hair. They joked he could use some of his wife’s, a healthy white shock that Gus tried to tame by keeping it short and permed.

  Gus sat down in her chair, shaking her head. “Fitz, Rose, and Jamie. Don’t know any Fitzes. Now Rose…?

  Hy smiled at Gus’s typical genealogical response.

  “The Wild Rose Cottage people.”

  “The Wild Rose Cottage people? They never came today?”

  “They came today.”

  Gus was sure she hadn’t taken her eye off that window all day. Not long enough for anybody to go by without her seeing. It must have been when she’d been kneading the bread. “Would they be Sullivans then?”

  “They’re Fitzpatricks.”

  “P’raps on the mother’s side?”

  The teakettle was boiling over. Hy jumped up, pulled it off the burner, and poured the water into the Pyrex pot that held three bags of tea. Gus liked to boil her tea, rather than steep it. Joy of Cooking, North Shore style. Thick as pudding. Dark as chocolate. Life-sustaining.

  “I don’t know, Gus. They didn’t buy it. She inherited it somehow. They plan to live there.”

  “I thought they was summer people.”

  “So did we all.” The truth was that nobody knew anything. They’d assumed summer people, since the house was such a wreck. “It would be better for them if they were.”

  “Do they have lights there?” Gus meant electricity, but Hy replied, “No Christmas lights yet. They’ve only just got here. Probably cracking open the door right now.”

  “It’s not as I remembered it,” said Rose. She’d been small. Everything seemed bigger then. But it wasn’t that. The house was big. Too big. Able to contain too much gloom. A sad house. Well, that would suit them. How could she have hoped for better? She sighed, turned to see Jamie reaching for the light switch. He flicked it. No lights. No power. As expected.

  A scurrying sound from upstairs. Mice? Please, God, not rats.

  One came leaping down the staircase and ran right across her boot. She screamed. Jamie laughed. The dog barked. Fitz cursed.

  “We’ll soon settle that.” Fitz marched out. When he came back he stalked toward the stairs. Rose reached out and grabbed his sleeve.

  “Not that, Fitz. Not in the house.”

  He shook her off.

  He was carrying a rifle, fully loaded and cocked. He whipped around, and it was aimed at her. He moved closer. He poked her belly with the gun. Something moved in her. Her heart? Rising and turning over, and then still. She shrank back. The dog whimpered, not knowing what to think. Little Jamie didn’t either. He slid between his parents.

  Fitz uncocked the rifle and leaned it against the wall.

  “Jeez, I was just kidding. Soon as the truck’s unloaded, I’ll go to town for some Warfarin.”

  When he finally got to town, that’s not what he brought back.

  “Rose…Rose…” Gus’s brow wrinkled. Her memory wasn’t what it had been. People depended on her to remember the history of the village a hundred years back. The fifty years before that, too, at least in a hazy way. None of it was written down. Not yet. There was a fat folder bulging with papers and photographs in a dresser drawer in a corner of the room. Gus was putting together a history of The Shores for the bicentennial coming up in a few years. It wasn’t much past the idea stage, and no matter how much Hy tried to get her to organize it, Gus wouldn’t be budged. She had to assemble it all first, she would insist. Just like a quilt, she’d say. When Hy pointed out that was not the way Gus approached her quilts, Gus got stubborn. “Well, let’s say it’s a crazy quilt, then.” Gus had never made a crazy quilt. She was so organized, so meticulous in her quilt-making, that she couldn’t figure it out. It didn’t make sense like a nine-patch did.

  Gus took another sip of hot tea, and her face smoothed out, her expression cleared.

  “Of course. Rose Sullivan, that was.”

  “You can’t know that from a first name.”

  “P’raps not. But what would bring them here, else it was that? And her gettin’ the house ’n’ all.”

  “You’d think that might keep them away.”

  “Happen it might.” Gus gave one of her meaningful looks. Hy could feel a story coming on, no doubt a tangled tale of relationships and convoluted associations. Before Gus could get in gear, Hy fired off the question that had been on her mind since she arrived.

  “The Sullivan legacy. What does it mean?”

  They might have been brothers, so alike were they to look at, except that Fitz had years on Jared and more brain cells.

  That hat, for example. Fitz couldn’t stop staring at it. A baseball cap with a bottle opener built into the brim.

  “Like it?” Jared grinned, took it off, and held it out.

  What fool would
wear that, thought Fitz, taking it and examining it closely. Yes, a real bottle opener.

  “Comes in handy,” said Jared, securing the hat back on, giving it a tug down, so that the lip of the brim jutted up, revealing the beer bottle opener. It had been well-used. “Know what I mean?” He winked.

  “What are you doing here, anyway?” Fitz asked gruffly, annoyed by the conspiratorial wink, as if they had something in common.

  “Well, I’ve been takin’ a bit of wood from the back there, keeping the woods clean, you know, not lettin’ it go to waste, like.”

  Jared had braved it, and come walking out of the back woods when he saw Fitz taking a leak behind the house. That gave him a slight advantage.

  “That ends now.” Fitz shook and zipped up. “I need it myself.”

  “Understood.” Jared shoved a filthy hand, with its long, dirty fingernails, into his shirt pocket, and pulled out a crushed pack of cigarettes. He waved it at Fitz, keeping it close, in his own personal space – an offer, but not an offer.

  Fitz interpreted it immediately, and though he had a few of his own smokes rolled up, grabbed one of Jared’s.

  “Don’t mind if I do.” He shoved it between his lips, and waited for Jared to light it for him. After a small hesitation, he did.

  Fitz had won the first foray. He took a long haul on the cigarette, and blew the smoke out in Jared’s direction. Jared didn’t mind. He breathed it in. He hadn’t lit his own cigarette yet. It was a trick he used in bars to make his smokes last longer. It didn’t work so well in the fresh air.

  Fitz understood that, too, and tossed the remainder of his cigarette on the ground – almost a whole cigarette. He crushed it with his boot and won the second round. He was twice Jared’s age, after all. Give it time.

  “Now tell me what you’re really here for.” The few branches loaded in Jared’s truck didn’t fool Fitz. He didn’t believe Jared was here just for wood.

  Jared grinned, baring his stained teeth.

  “I’m lookin’ for something.”

  “What?” A sly smile.