Going to bed early, on a Friday night.
Chapter Eight
Polly was preparing for bed…
Polly Andrews was preparing for bed when the doorbell rang below.
She was just putting on her housecoat and was headed for the bathroom to put her hair up and brush her teeth. Friday night, and she was going to bed early.
“Who could that be?” She wondered in irritation.
With a quick glance at her watch, she acknowledged it was barely nine-thirty. It could hardly be a salesman. Although, she recalled once last summer, when three teenagers showed up about this time, demanding to see her bill from Scudmore Power and Utilities. She had sent them packing.
It was her habit to get up at five-thirty a.m. on Wednesdays and Saturdays in order to go down to the local farmer’s market. She much preferred their fresh local produce to the pale, insipid, flavorless tomatoes, corn, and other supermarket vegetables trucked in from Mexico and California. Making her way down the dark stairs, with only the light from the kitchen hallway at the back of the house to guide her, she flipped on the outside light, peering out of the peephole to regard the disconsolate figure huddled against the biting winds and snow flurries that twirled and eddied around him.
Behind him vehicles slowly passed, making barely-audible swishing sounds as they passed along the darkly-glistening street. A thought suddenly struck her as to who this might be. Putting the chain on the door, although security experts universally condemned the things, she opened it up a crack.
“Yes?”
“I am Jean Gagnon.” There was a shiver evident in his voice. “Hopefully you have received a letter from a Mister Paul Watts?”
“Of course.” Angst swept over her.
The time had come, and there was nothing to be done about it.
She closed the door momentarily and removed the chain, then swung it wide to admit him into what had been her home up until today.
“Thank you.” He stood there in some embarrassment, looking around in wonder, and taking note of the housecoat and fuzzy slippers.
She was clutching at the neck of her garment to ward off the chill breeze from the door.
“Come in, come in.”
He moved away from the door and dropped the pack beside the antique coat rack.
“I’m sorry it’s so late.” The faint trace of an accent helped to confirm his origins.
“You’ve had a long journey.” There was nothing to be said, trying to be nice and not betray her anger and despair at this long-anticipated turn of events.
Jean Gagnon was Mrs. Roberts’ sole surviving relative and had every right to inherit, but the boy hadn’t been here since he was a lad, when his parents brought him around for a rather stiff and formal visit. Polly could remember it like it was yesterday, as the man stared around in amazement.
He was such a tall, shy, skinny boy, maybe thirteen…no, a little younger.
A skinny boy of thirteen, all those years ago.
Jean Gagnon was overwhelmed by the vast, tall ceilings, the highly-polished floors, the thick, old-fashioned woodwork, and crystal chandeliers hanging on brass chains from the white plaster rosettes in the ceiling. He had his coat off now, and was holding a buff envelope in his hand. The place hadn’t really sunk in, on that visit all those years ago.
She led him to the kitchen, aware that she hadn’t put the dishes away and they still stood in the rack by the sink. But a man like that wouldn’t care anyway.
“Would you like a cup of tea?”
She knew what was in the letter.
“Please don’t go to any trouble. I don’t mean to keep you up.”
With eyebrows raised, she regarded him.
“You’re obviously freezing.”
Moving to the stove, she filled the kettle and turned on the huge old cast-iron gas stove. The room would benefit from the warmth in any case.
“We’ll warm you up a bit and then I’ll give you a tour of the house.”
The farmer’s market was open till noon, after all. Just this once she could break the habit of a lifetime. Polly could smell the wood-smoke coming off the man, and wondered what he had been through. According to the letter she had received, Jean was due for release from Kingston about a week ago.
“Are you hungry?”
“No. I have eaten well today.”
Somehow she knew it wasn’t true.
“Nonsense.” She was aware of certain motherly feelings arising in spite of herself.
“You’ll sleep better with something in your stomach.”
Mister Gagnon was certainly a quiet man, she thought, and the odds of him murdering her in her bed seemed rather small. After all, he owned the place, which made theft or raucous vandalism unlikely. With a swallow, hidden by the fridge door, she realized this man might be her new employer. Either that, or she was out of a job. It’s a good thing she had put a little thought and planning into her future.
The book cover.
***
The town of Scudmore woke up to a foot of snow, although the sky was clear and blue. As the sun rose over the hills on the Quebec side of the river, Jean opened up the curtains on the bedroom Miss Andrews had assigned him and headed for the shower.
Arriving in the kitchen, which was already bright and warm and filled with wonderful yet unfamiliar smells, she smiled brightly as he sat at the table. Hopefully he wasn’t taking her habitual spot. She put a plate heaped with bacon, eggs and toast down in front of him. Jean was slightly overwhelmed by all of this, but the coffee was more than welcome, and once he tucked into the meal he realized that he was indeed hungry.
This is how the other half lives, he recalled. It had been a long time coming.
Mopping up the last of the egg yolk from the plate, over-easy, or was that easy-over, was just how he liked them. He was wondering how she had known.
“Do you have a shovel and some ice melter?”
He swallowed more toast.
“Yes, we do.” She nodded, and Jean reminded himself that he owned all of this.
It might take a while for the reality to sink in. He didn’t expect to own it for long.
Unable to pay the taxes, or even the heat and hydro without a job, he would have little choice but to sell it. But it was too early in the morning to think of such things. There was work to be done and he was interested in having a look at the neighborhood and get some impression of his new home town. Thankfully, she wasn’t talkative in the morning.
Neither was he.
Soon he had his coat and boots on and made his way out onto the porch, first by sweeping, then shoveling as he went. He kept his head down and concentrated on the job until he had finished the sidewalk up to the driveway. When he was warmed up, he leaned the shovel against a tree and loosened up the neck of the coat, finally tipping his head back for a good look at the place. The northeast side even had a turret, with a sharp cone of slate roofing, with red and black colored slates making some kind of abstract pattern. There was a smaller turret on the southeast corner.
“Holy crap.” He muttered, but this was something to mutter over.
It was really something. It was true that houses of that era were big to begin with, but his great-great-grandfather on his mother’s side must have been a very rich man. His snow-removal job wasn’t even half started. He lit a cigarette and stood in contemplation.
There was a porch on the south side of the house, and there was a little one on the back or west side as well. That little stoop led into the rear hall, which admitted into the back of the kitchen and presumably to the cellar. Since it was a corner lot, he had a lot of sidewalks to clear. Jean worked his way up the south walkway, trying to ignore or at least not to stare at the imposing edifice, with its bay windows, rows of stained glass windows inset above them and a big stained glass panel beside the south door, and with stained glass circular windows on each gable.
The brickwork was solid, and the place seemed well maintained, but he doubted if he could keep up with the bills in this place, no matter what kind of job he might eventually get. For a single man, living alone, it was just too big. Huge, was a better word. As he made his way back to the north end of the front sidewalk, a little old lady in the similar but slightly-smaller house next door stuck her head out the front door and waved at him. He waved back, but she was waving for him to go over there. It was time to meet the neighbors, he surmised. But she closed the door.
“What the hell?” He thought, the same thing again, and shoveled his way up to her door.
Suddenly it popped open, and with a smile, she handed him forty dollars. Jean could take a hint, although she seemed to have misunderstood his status in this place. Might as well do it right, he thought, and kept going, finishing it off with ice-melt mixture he brought over from his own place. Her door opened and she came out.
“Thank you.”
With a bright and chipper look, she meandered off up the street with a cane, and a stiff, canister-shaped hat perched on her head, and a shopping bag dangling from her arm. Her granny boots came up to about ankle length, and her dark coat hung down below her knees. She seemed to be about eighty years of age.
Downtown Scudmore.
Right about then it happened again. It was the second house north of his place.
A man came out the side door of the small, single-story home, saw Jean and paused.
“Can you do mine? I’m late for work, and I have an appointment.”
“Sure.” A patient Jean grinned.
The joke was on them, after all.
The guy was dressed in a suit, and tie, and overcoat, with old-fashioned slip-on galoshes. Jean was amused to see him reach into his pocket and pull out a twenty.
“I’m a little short today.”
“Are you saying you’d normally be a little taller?” Jean asked with a wicked grin, taking the money and stuffing it in with the rest.
“Ha.” The blue-eyed fellow slapped him on the arm, and then carefully picked his way to the single-car garage at the back of the driveway.
Lifting up the old-fashioned wooden door, he revealed a big black BMW inside.
He started it up as Jean began clearing the sidewalks. Thirty seconds later the car backed out and headed down the street. Jean was pretty sure he couldn’t support himself by snow shoveling, but he could certainly use the money. It was a start, anyways. Jean wanted to get a driver’s license as soon as possible, and he needed to find the job bank or employment centre sooner or later. Jean figured it was time to go back and finish up his own place as he hadn’t yet done his rear walkway, which came in from the side street to the south of it.
END
Images. Louis.
Louis has books and stories on Kobo. Please check them out. He’s also got some art, mostly sketches, on Fine Art America.
Notes. The Shape-Shifters was written at least ten or twelve years ago. The book has been published for years. In order to serialize it, I obviously have to read ahead, if only to copy and paste a chapter, add links, formatting for the web, and all of that. In the light of some years practice, hard work and experience, naturally, I find myself rewriting it as I go along. Also, this book does not have the more modern internal links as required for iTunes, etc. So I have taken on quite a project, considering the need for some kind of images to go along with the text.
When all of this is done, I can upload that back to all platforms and call it revised.
Thank you for reading. #Louis
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