13

ROLAND WAS SEETHING AS HE pulled his boat up to the wharf. God damn Ar-teests were insufferable. They were trying to make a fool out of him, which of course was the result of his efforts to catch them, especially Grace, sunning themselves. Ingrid’s naked body did nothing but anger him. She was actually making fun of him by exposing herself. He felt the anger rise in him like bile.

Ingrid was the worse of the two, hands down. He couldn’t imagine what her husband saw in her. He didn’t find her angular features and large breasts the least bit attractive. But Grace was something different. He couldn’t keep himself from thinking about her. She was just so incredibly beautiful and had been a part of his fantasies from the moment he first laid eyes on her.

He finished tying off the boat, carried the handful of bait fish he’d caught to his cooler, and deposited it inside. He listened to the satisfyingly loud roar of the compressor. Maybe he could tweak it a bit louder still. Trouble was he didn’t want to burn out the motor. He decided to leave it alone for the time being.

As soon as he entered the house, Rose called from her room. “Whad’ya catch?” she said.

“Nothin’ but bait fish, Ma. There’s nothin’ left out there. If it wa’nt fer the scallops, we’d be eatin’ seaweed all winter long.”

“It’s the seals,” said Rose. “Critters eat all the fish. Them and the oil rigs fouling the water.”

It was a long-standing belief that seals were responsible for the declining fish industry. In recent years, fishermen had taken to shooting the creatures on sight. It was nonsense, of course. The local industry had simply fished out the banks, in consort with the big factory ships from Japan and Russia. Seals had nothing to do with it—except to suffer along with everyone else.

“Did I tell ya,” Rose said, “I saw Grace out on her deck. I swear all she had on was a pair o’ Kleenexes shaped like a bikini. I don’t know what we done ta deserve havin’ ta live next ta a house full’a perverts.” Her voice petered out and Roland knew she’d lost the energy necessary to continue her conversation yelling from the other room.

Good thing. He didn’t want to hear about it. He cursed his luck at having missed Grace. He limped up the stairs and down the tiny, narrow hall to the room at the back of the house. This was where he had the best view of his neighbors. Rose never came upstairs. She was too fat and crippled.

He had a chair set up where he could sit and just stare at the house next door. There was a set of binoculars on a table next to him. At night, he’d sit in the dark waiting for a light to go on in any of their windows. He’d only gotten a glimpse or two, though. It was as if they knew what he was doing and avoided activity at the rear of the house. Which only served to make him even more frustrated.

He heard a car coming round the cove but didn’t get up. No one ever visited them. It might be a delivery, of course. He ordered fishing equipment through parcel post and Rose was always getting stuff for her crafts.

When the car turned into their driveway and he heard the engine stop, he hoisted himself out of the chair, took one more look at the neighbors’ house, and went to see who it was.

“There’s som’un at the door,” Rose yelled needlessly.

Roland opened the door and stared at Garrett. He was so surprised at the visit, he was nearly speechless. He hadn’t really expected Gar to stop by as he’d asked. No one ever did.

“Hi Roland,” Garrett said. “Glad I caught you home. Can I come in?”

“Can I do somethin’ for ya, Gar?”

“Been wanting to talk to you is all. Thanks for the roofing repair on the old house. It’s a real nice job. Hundred dollars cover it?”

“Sure.” Roland took the money in Garrett’s hand.

“Can I say hello to your mother?”

Roland led the way into his mother’s room where she sat like an immense Buddha behind piles of wood, fabric, and paints. The rest of the room was filled with stacks of various craft supplies, old magazines, and discarded boxes of chocolates. The strong odor of her presence hung over everything. She was so heavy and immobile that she rarely bathed.

“Hello Rose,” Garrett said. “How are you getting along?”

“Had better days,” she grunted. No one offered him a chair, which were all piled high with debris anyway. “Glad you’re here, though. Mebbe you can do somethin’ ‘bout those disgustin’ Ar-teests next door. A’w’ys prancin’ about wit’ no clothes on. Me and Roland is tired of it.”

“Uh-huh,” Garrett said, not believing a word of it. Roland would be the last one to protest any girl going naked within his line of sight. But it gave him an opening. “Well, I’ll certainly talk to them about that, Rose. We want to keep the peace amongst neighbors.”

“Neighbors, horseshit!” Rose said. “All their druggy friends from the city hang out here. Ya need ta git a warrant and search the place. It’s full’a illegal stuff.”

“Well, I’m here to make sure no one breaks the law, and I’ll keep an eye on them, you can count on it.” He took a deep breath. “But while we’re on the subject, Roland, I’ve come to tell you you’ve got to either fix or turn that compressor off. Hell, I couldn’t hear myself think when I got out of the car. It’s way beyond any legal decibel level.”

Roland’s face turned red. “I got a legal right ta keep my bait from spoilin’.”

“Come on, Roland. You and I both know why you’re doing this. It’s simply to aggravate your neighbors. You don’t even need bait this time of year and when you do, you can store it at the fisherman’s co-op. Now you have a right to keep a cooler here if you want. But the only way I’ll allow it is if you get a new compressor and insulate it so there’s no sound coming from it that will bother people.”

Roland was nearly spitting in frustration but, true to form, he wasn’t about to confront the police. The fact that it was Garrett who represented the authorities only made it worse, because Garrett knew Roland was all bluster and Roland knew Garrett knew it.

“Now, I’ll give you a week to correct the situation. After that, I’ll put a provincial police lock on the thing and you won’t be allowed to use it—fair enough?” Garrett decided to leave it there. He could see Roland was boiling.

“Well, it was nice to see you, Rose. You’re looking fine as usual.” He headed for the door, more than ready to breathe some fresh air. “Thanks again, Roland, for the roofing job. I’ll see you around.” He let himself out, already hearing Rose lay into her son. He wondered for the hundredth time how a man could live his whole life with his mother. Garrett had loved his mother but wouldn’t have wanted to live with her.

“Ya can’t put up with that, Roland,” Rose was saying to him. “Ya got a right ta keep your fish. Whadd’ya gonna do about it?”

“Aw, Ma …” was the last thing Garrett heard as he stepped off the porch.