BOILER

Chapter 26

The laundry was closed. Toland rubbed his eyes as he stopped at a red light. Down the road was a sign for the Crossroads Bar. The rain was just starting to tap at the world. He thought more about the bruises on Marcus. He thought something like that, as unnecessary as it was, there had to be a need to do it. Just like Kyle.

He drove on to the Crossroads and stopped for a drink. There was a man stood by the entrance who was dipping a match into a pipe chamber with so much care he might've been diffusing a bomb. He puffed bulbs of blue smoke and watched Toland go by him.

There were a lot of drunk mourners inside the bar, and they were making quite a racket. Kids were still running around, wearing good clothes that had been pulled out and undone and they were all dirty. Toland got to the bar and stood alongside one of the mourners who was complaining about the price of whiskey.

'This has gotta be your sixth glass,' Mike said. Mike owned the Crossroads and a lot of people called him a bear of a man, which is fine, but there aren't many bears that big.

'Six glasses,' Mike said. 'And now you got a problem.'

'It's cheap. Its dirt is what it is,' the man said. He pointed up at Mike. He was swaying some, and controlling every limb was getting tricky.

'What I got is as good as anybody's, and I don't charge more than anybody else in town. I'm not giving you a discount cause you were sad nine hours ago, so pay for your drink, or leave. I think you should leave.'

The man made a face like his sober self was having a word. He backed away from the bar, and then he wandered out the door. Toland knocked the bar, and Mike brought the spare whiskey down to him.

'You want it?' he asked.

Toland threw a dollar on the wood and took the drink. He found a table that had paper plates and used glasses on it, and he piled them and pushed them all to one side for someone to come and collect them. A man came in in a lab coat and carrying a picnic basket full of snacks. The mourners flocked around him and when he left, he was just carrying the basket. He was barely there five minutes. Toland finished his drink and went out to find a cheap hotel.

***

Faye was wandering around upstairs and making enough noise while doing it. Her mother had the last of a glass of wine in one hand and a book in the other. The metronome was clicking away quite pleasantly. She stopped reading and listened to it. She found it soothing and often set it off in times of high stress. She watched it tip back and fore, certain its journey would always see it return. She rolled her eyes up as the bumps travelled over to the stairs. She sipped her wine and went back to her book.

Faye went by in a wash of powder-blue pyjamas, and then she was on tiptoes with her head in the fridge. She came out with a chocolate milkshake and headed to another cupboard with the bottle. She took a tall glass. Her mother told her to take a short one.

'Fine,' Faye said.

Helen set her book to one side and came out to the kitchen to refill her glass. Faye went into the living room with her milkshake and lay across a comfortable chair with her head and legs falling over the arms.

'Did you and Dad fight?'

'No.'

'How come he wasn't home last night?'

'You sure he wasn't?'

'I was awake 'til past midnight. He wasn't home.'

Helen caught her own reflection in the window. She opened the fridge and saw they were low on milk and that there were no eggs in the box of eggs. She dumped the box and unclipped a felt pen from a board that was magnetted to the fridge and made a note of both. She took her glass and the bottle to her seat. She swept Faye's black hair off her face and kissed her forehead.

'We disagreed,' she said.

'That's a fight, isn't it?'

'No,' Helen said, giving her an odd sideways look. 'That's what your father would say. A disagreement is one thing. A fight is another.'

'So, how come you disagreed so bad he didn't come home?' Faye asked, sipping her milk.

'It wasn't that bad, Faye. There wasn't any yelling or anything else you've worked up in your brain. We had a talk.'

The metronome was starting to grate, so she got up and stopped it with a finger.

'Your father needed to think, so I told him to get a room. You know how he is. He likes his space, and I do, too. I've almost finished a book these last two days. Got almost to the end without your father telling me he's gone off some wine or he's found a new favourite wine or some crap.'

'Cursing.'

'Sorry.'

The cat got up on the coffee table. It walked the four corners. Helen took her bottle off the table as it came around her way. It went around to Faye, sat, and brought its tail around to flick between its front paws. Faye took it up in a bundle and sat back with it.

'So, it's not a fight?' she asked, while baiting the cat into a staring contest.

'No.'

'So, when will he be home?' she asked, putting her milk under the cat's nose. The cat followed it around. Helen shrugged. 'Why don't you just enjoy the quiet, doll? And don't tease the cat.'

'You two don't make sense to me. You're very strange.'

'How so?'

'Well, you always look clean and smell good. He's always dirty. Maybe it's because he wanted to be a cowboy,' Faye said. She waited to see how her mother would reply, and sure enough, Helen smiled and said, 'But there are no cowboys around here. And your father isn't dirty. He smells good.'

'No. He smells wet.'

'Well, you would, too, if you were out in the rain all day.'

'You never smell wet.'

'But I'm never out in the rain. I like your father's smell. And he's always warm, which is something I think he had to develop because the apartment he had when we met was always freezing.'

'Didn't you have radiators then?'

'Yes, we had radiators.'

Faye put the cat down and went over to her mother. She stood by her, and Helen made space for her to sit in her lap. They got comfortable and the cat came in, too.

'Did you live there together?'

'Briefly. Nothing worked. The place would never get warm whether you had the heating on or off. The only difference was, when it was on, the windows steamed up. You know he had a mouse there?'

'No.'

'Yeah. A wild mouse that he just adopted. I noticed he was leaving a small corner of bread or cracker on the floor all the time. One day he told me that it was for this mouse.'

'Did you bring it when you moved?'

'No, I killed it.'

Faye sat up. 'You killed the mouse?'

Helen laughed. 'You can't have just one wild mouse, sweetie. They always turn into mice, and then you're overrun. But don't tell him that.'

'Dad doesn't know?'

'Maybe he knows. He never asked. He just stopped leaving food after a while of it not being eaten.'