Maxine Read online

  maxine

  maxine

  A NOVEL

  CLAIRE WILKSHIRE

  P.O. BOX 2188, ST. JOHN’S, NL, CANADA, A1C 6E6

  WWW.BREAKWATERBOOKS.COM

  COPYRIGHT © 2013 Claire Wilkshire

  A CIP CATALOGUE RECORD FOR THIS BOOK IS AVAILABLE FROM LIBRARY AND ARCHIVES CANADA.

  ISBN 978-1-55081-402-6

  ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

  No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior written consent of the publisher or a licence from The Canadian Copyright Licensing Agency (Access Copyright). For an Access Copyright licence, visit www.accesscopyright.ca or call toll free to 1-800-893-5777.

  We acknowledge the support of the Canada Council for the Arts which last year invested $24.3 million in writing and publishing throughout Canada. We acknowledge the Government of Canada through the Canada Book Fund and the Government of Newfoundland and Labrador through the Department of Tourism, Culture and Recreation for our publishing activities.

  PRINTED AND BOUND IN CANADA.

  Breakwater Books is committed to choosing papers and materials for our books that help to protect our environment. To this end, this book is printed on a recycled paper that is certified by the Forest Stewardship Council®.

  FOR LARRY

  A fairly bright boy is far more intelligent

  and far better company than the average adult.

  J. B. S. HALDANE

  1

  november 2002

  maxine’s living-roomwindow looks directly across the road toward the Larsens’ front door. When Maxine turns away from her computer screen, what she sees bang in front of her is the Larsens’ white bungalow with, occasionally, various Larsens ingressing and egressing and what have you. In fact, ever since the Larsens arrived at the end of the summer, they’ve been popping in and out of Maxine’s mental viewfinder, blocking the scenery. Not the boy, so much. And the husband seems to be mostly at work. But Barb—the woman’s name is Barb—seems to have chosen Maxine. Not as a friend exactly, more like some kind of collaborator. Without noticing she hasn’t been chosen back.

  It’s not thatMaxine knows them at all, really. It’s only been the putting-out-the-garbage kind of conversation, the will-the-rain-ever-stop kind. Not initiated by Maxine. And yet here is Barb at the door, smack in the middle of her Wednesday afternoon.

  The thing is, I don’t really babysit.

  Don’t worry, Maxine, he’s in school until three. It’ll be fine.

  November. Already the first layer of snow is down, and a few flakes have perched on top of Barb’s red hair like small birds.

  How old is your son again?

  Kyle’s nine. Ten in February. Barb says this as if it settled everything.

  Yeah, see, I don’t actually know any boys that age. I’m not sure I’d—

  Boys that age are so easy. He just wants to go sliding.

  Sliding?

  Barb has stepped into the front porch, which barely holds one person, so Maxine retreats slightly into the living room.

  He’s all excited about the snow. He hasn’t seen any for years. There’s that hill in Pippy Park.

  Too bad I don’t have any—

  We have a sled. Kyle loves sliding. You can take our car.

  Um... See—

  This surgery, Maxine. Dave was supposed to have it in Bermuda and we waited a long time. And of course, when we moved, the appointment was cancelled. There’s no one else we can ask.

  Right.

  Maxine saw the moral high ground and Barb was standing on it. As soon as she heard the word surgery, she knew it was game over.

  If you could pick him up at three tomorrow... I’ll call the school and tell them Kyle should go with you. We are so grateful for this, Maxine, I can’t tell you.

  Kyle does not look like a child who’s enjoying himself. He has trouble steering the yellow sled and he careers off to the side and lands in the bushes. When he does manage to go straight down, he hits a bump and falls off. He almost sideswipes a teenager who jumps aside and shouts at him. Maxine asks several times if he’d like to go down with her or leave and have hot chocolate and a doughnut, but he refuses. She would like to ask again but doesn’t want to hound the boy, who seems to be brushing away tears, although when Maxine asks if he is OK he says yeah, the sun’s in his eyes.

  As Kyle trudges miserably up the tobogganing hill, Maxine squints into the grey November sky and notices a cluster of people on the far side, near the road. Someone has fallen. Maxine makes her way over to the circle of adults to see if she can help. She keeps an eye clamped on Kyle, who’s raising one black Spiderman boot to step on board when the sled sails down the hill without him. Shit, Maxine says. A woman lies on her back in the middle of the circle of onlookers. A man is peeling off his coat as he kneels, spreading it over her, the knees of his pants sinking into the snow.

  Anything I can do? Maxine asks a woman in a puffy red jacket.

  She hurt her back. He’s a doctor.

  If Maxine were lying in pain she would not want a bunch of people gawping at her so she turns and heads slowly up the hill, arriving at almost the same time as Kyle. She’s determined to make a success of this venture, or at least give it one good try.

  Come on down with me, she says, more desperately than she meant to, and to her surprise Kyle says OK. As he settles himself in the front, she grasps the moulded sides of the yellow plastic sled and holds them so tightly an elephant could wriggle its derrière into place on that sled and she wouldn’t let go. An ambulance already skirts the base of the hill. She lowers herself into the sled. Should she hold Kyle, or even touch him at all? (Is it OK to touch a child? Someone else’s? A boy, almost a stranger? For safety reasons. Is it normal? What’s normal?) Maxine actually has no idea but she’s not about to let him fall out and break bones on her watch, so she reaches her arms around him and grips the rope securely in front of his chest. She waits a second but Kyle doesn’t object. They start going down fairly quickly and Maxine pours her entire purposeful self into this one ride, yells in pretend fear: Help, we’re going into the bushes, Oh no, the pond, we’re heading for the pond! They pelt down the hill, a good long run, Kyle is yelling too but she can’t hear the words. Eventually the sled staggers and stalls in a hummock of snow-covered reeds that border the pond. Kyle tips the sled on its side and they both roll out. He turns to her. His face is so close their noses almost touch. Tiny balls of snow hang from his long lashes like the most ephemeral of ornaments. They are lying on their sides and his head rests on a pillow of snow. Above his top ear she can see the far side of the hill, where two paramedics are unloading a spinal board. His whole face is smiling.

  Can we do that again?

  They go down together again and again. Maxine starts to feel cold and damp, and Kyle agrees that they will go soon and have hot chocolate, and Maxine notices he isn’t wearing his hat anymore. Kyle spots it halfway down the hill. I’ll get it, Maxine says, and she does, and turns and comes back up. The sled is still at the top of the hill. She looks around for Kyle. She waits a little, calls his name once, sweeps her gaze back and forth a few times. Then she starts looking at individual padded bundles of child to see which is the right one, but it’s hard because they won’t stand still. It occurs to her that he might not be there. But that would be ridiculous: he must be there somewhere.

  Except that he isn’t. He’s gone.

  When Maxine is not babysitting, which is all the time, with the regrettable exception of the present moment, she may often be found fidgeting in the swivel chair in her living room. A year ago, at thirty-two, she decided it was time to get moving on her life goals. She gave some thought to what they might be and it turned out the
y were writing a novel.

  Maxine has no delusions about her own brilliance. She does not assume she has a God-given talent. But she’s accustomed to acquiring skills, and surely some part of writing a novel must be an acquirable skill. It’s important to learn something new every couple of years. You don’t have to be fabulous at whatever it is. You just need to be able to do it—sew something on a machine, plant a garden, whatever. Lots of people manage to produce novels. She really wants to write that book.

  It would be good if there were a fortune cookie available to those embarking on major projects, one that says either You are capable of this, or Try something else. It would save a lot of agonizing.

  When Maxine started to make arrangements, she talked to her boss, sold her car, saved, worked overtime. She was going to take a year and write a book and that was all there was to it. How hard could it be?

  Much of Maxine’s life now is spent thinking about her main character, Frédérique, and twisting words into sentences that describe her life.

  This has not equipped her for the effective retrieval of missing children.

  Frédérique has no interest in children. She has been overheard explaining that the possession or cultivation of children in urban areas should be a criminal offence.

  Maxine has waited and wandered. She’s gone back to the car a few times, poked around in the trees at the perimeter. She has looked and called, and time has passed. She presses her eyes shut for several seconds and then opens them. Above the row of parents at the top of the hill stand the trees, almost all the leaves gone now—dark supplicants, their naked arms curving skyward.

  Maxine just has to figure this out, that’s all. She’s called her best friend, Gail, on someone’s cellphone, because Gail is good at figuring things out, but Gail isn’t answering. Theremust be something she’s missing—a miscommunication, a behavioural tic—maybe all youngsters take off at predetermined intervals throughout the day to do child-business of which Maxine has no knowledge, and Barb didn’t think to warn her because everyone else knows. Any minute now he’ll heave into view and she’ll bundle him into the car and snap all the locks shut and drive off as fast as safety allows and never ever agree to babysit for anyone ever again ever.

  Maxine has checked out the little stone and timber hut halfway down the hill, and the one at the bottom. She checks them one more time and then plods back up, calling out occasionally in a friendly way, letting him know that whatever goofball prank he’s cooked up is OK. All is already forgiven. No penalties, hot chocolate still on offer.

  But at the top of the hill the line of parents has thinned considerably. Only a few snowsuits remain. The snowy hill glows a bluish-white as the air above it grows darker. What she has been staving off with calm, methodical action, with logic, with patience and common sense, rips through her now. Terror. She works her way along the row of parents. She can hear her own voice sounding tight and the effort of walking seems greater, she’s riffling through her pockets for an inhaler—Have you seen, His name is, Excuse me, did you see, He’s nine, Hi I’m looking for, About half an hour, I’ve been looking, Can you help me, No the car’s right there, Please help me, No that’s not him. Please. Help.

  You all right?

  Maxine has sat down suddenly in the snow in a way that was not a hundred percent intentional and now a man in a navy ski jacket is offering her a hand up, passing her the inhaler—You dropped this. He gestures over to a huddle of parents pointing in various directions: So, we’re going to divide up and check out the parking lot, and past the Fluvarium a ways, and the trailer park. A few of us’ll head over across the road and walk around the Confederation Building. Meet back here in half an hour. If there’s still no sign of him, well, then you’d better make some more calls.

  Maxine can’t quite grasp this situation. It’s impossible, and yet it does seem to be happening. The man has a competent face, a small, neat jaw with grey and black stubble. Someone who gives the impression he could fix an engine, even though he’s trained for other things. He seems decisive and experienced.

  Thanks, Maxine says. Thank you for your help.

  Name’s Tom.

  Maxine.

  Tom looks into her face with dark, lively eyes. Maxine, if a youngster takes it into his head to run off, there’s not a whole lot you can do about it, hey? You can’t chain yourself to ’un.

  Thanks, Tom.

  Pippy Park is big. It’s not like wandering off in a town square and vanishing inside a rosebush. There’s the more urban bit, with the playground and walking trail, the Fluvarium and parking lot, the sliding hill, the trailer park and mini-golf. But that’s just the downtown core of Pippy Park, as it were. After the trailer park, there’s miles of woods and bog, paths whose popularity is signalled by a breadcrumb trail of dog shit, ponds like the one where Maxine and her pals used to go skinny dipping on hot summer midnights, a curve of white skin gleaming like a bit of dolphin, a laugh, a splash carrying over the surface into distant spruce. It’s the kind of place you could stay lost in for a long time.

  Frédérique, the main character in Maxine’s novel, is quite unlike Maxine. Frédérique is a bit older, more mature, forties maybe. She’s worldly, sexy, on the go—not predictable, not dull, not cautious. This is a great relief as it would be tiresome to include all of Maxine’s caution in the novel. Caution leads to dithering. And dithering is so often protracted and inelegant. Excessive caution is caused by a variety of things, including habit, genetic predisposition, and sudden sick terror. And sick terror is generated in situations like this. Scanning the area fast, wondering where he is, is he behind this tree, if not this then the next, will he be behind the next tree, you can see a bump, will he be alive behind the next tree or not quite alive?

  InMaxine’s novel, Frédérique is a tenured professor of astronomy and astrophysics at the University of Victoria, where coincidentally Maxine’s actual father took a visiting lecturer position a year before he retired. After twelve months on Vancouver Island, Maxine’s parents were unable to contemplate spending their declining years in an east coast climate, so they came home just long enough to pack up and head back. They bought a small condo in a converted Victoria mansion, which is where Frédérique lives. Where she would live if she were real.

  Frédérique would never have let herself be pressured into babysitting.

  Stumbling through brush in the dark, Maxine is wondering if this could be, in some weird way, part of her novel. Maybe it’s all in her mind, maybe she wrote it and forgot it wasn’t true, maybe she fell asleep at her desk and will wake up shortly and shake her head and look out the window at a boy heading off to school.

  But she doesn’t wake up. It’s cold and dark and something horrible has happened.

  Voices rise through the trees like bird calls: KY-ell, KYYY-ell!

  If some part of him is a bird, he’ll be drawn; he won’t be able to help himself. If he’s still here. If he can still hear.

  They walk for hours. People weave through the line of searchers handing out granola bars, flashlights. Phone calls at intervals, on someone’s cell. Gail’s house, the Larsens’, Gail’s house, the Larsens’, the hospital. Gail’s voicemail fills up. Dave must be long since out of day surgery. He and Barb should already have reassumed responsibility for their child. If there were no complications with his procedure. If Maxine hadn’t gone and lost the damn child. The officers who come in on the search are able to confirm that no one fitting Barb’s or Dave’s description has been in a car accident on the way home from the hospital. Breep, breep, breep, hang up before the machine kicks in, and as soon as you hang up you think maybe your hanging up happened the second they walked through the door, you hear the ring echoing in an empty hall and then the key in the door, you imagine them running for the phone as the last ring dies out, so you call again.

  Maxine’s parents have gone out. Maxine doesn’t leave a message. Who wants to come home to a message saying that your daughter has misplaced someone’s child
?

  All a searcher can do is plod forward through the night. Call out and listen for an answer. Sweep your flashlight left and right. Walk. Look. Call.

  At some point, late, something in a hurry comes crashing through the bushes, the noise terrifying in the stillness. (Are there moose? Will a moose trample you? Let’s hope it’s not a bear. You either run from a bear or play dead, depending which kind it is. Maxine would definitely not know what kind it was. The bearish kind. Maybe you ask the bear which kind it is and then draw up a flow chart.) But then, cursing, a familiar voice:

  OK, thanks... Max? Max, are you out here?

  Maxine turns, swinging the flashlight, and picks out Gail’s white face. Maxine stands still, not answering, but Gail follows the beam of light like a rope, pulling herself along, hand over hand. She stumbles forward and grabs Maxine, hugs her. She squeezes so hard Maxine can feel herself deflating like a leaky air mattress that has held up for the one last night of the camping trip and can now collapse onto the floor with a sigh and bleed to death.

  They found him, Max, he’s OK. It’s OK.

  2

  november 2002

  maxine sleeps late. When she wakes the second time, it’s past noon and the phone is ringing. Maxine doesn’t answer. She is in recovery. She’s convalescing from life. She’s waiting for the moment when the mysterious figure appears at the bedroom door wearing a weathered cloak and says I Have Come To Inform You Of Your True Birthright And To Take You Away To A Place Where You Will Have Important Missions And Use Your Sword With Astonishing Dexterity And We Shall Leave All This Crap Behind. She rolls onto her back and pretends to do yoga. She relaxes her body one muscle clump at a time. She doesn’t have to go anywhere today. And tomorrow is Saturday. She might never go anywhere again.

  The phone plays an electronic melody, familiar but not quite identifiable, which now stops and starts and stops and starts until Maxine extends a hand without opening her eyes. If you don’t open your eyes, you avoid confirmation. There’s a chance the world might not actually be there, might have gone away for a time, to return at a more opportune moment or, if you’re very lucky, not at all. Maxine’s hand flops around the night table like an injured bird until it alights on her inhaler. She hauls herself up to a slouch, depresses the cold metal canister, and sucks in medicated air, which she holds for one more beepy little song before exhaling a long, slow breath and picking up the receiver.