Lost Girls

chapter 27

A Saturday morning and I'm lying awake with eyes set upon the door when, for the second time, a note is sent fluttering in beneath it. Watch as its corner comes to stick in one of the grooves between the floorboards and its fold swings open to reveal what from this distance appears only as ballpoint hieroglyphics.

Dear B. Crane, ''Honey. Suite'':

Mrs. Arthurs, ''widow'' of Duncan Arthurs, called up--

''I'd like to meet with the lawyer.'' Says be at Royal George

Tea Shop at 2 p.m.

THE MANAGEMENT.

I take up my position before the window overlooking the corner of Ontario and Victoria. Outside, a young mother with darting, bulbous eyes pulls a shopping cart with one arm and grips the hand of a bawling kid with the other. It's impossible to tell from this distance (and perhaps from any distance) if it's a boy or a girl. The mother stops at the red light, glances down at the child as though unfamiliar with it and only passingly curious about the source of its apparent torment, and continues on when the light changes. When both have nearly passed from sight the thing attached to its mother's hand swings its head to look directly up at me, sneers in an adult expression of hateful contempt, and resumes its tortured screeching.

How much worse could coffee with old Mrs. Arthurs be?

The Royal George Tea Shop is one of those pathetic Hail Britannia places one still finds in certain small Ontario towns. Cramped cafes distinguished by portraits of the young Chuck and Di on every tray, apron, and mug, framed prints of the Queen hanging from all available vantages of paneled wall, and Union Jacks providing the only color to offset the gray faces of the patrons and smoke-stained lace on every table. A small chalkboard lists the daily specials in a shaky hand (sausage rolls, eggs and beans, Salisbury steak). Upon opening the front door I'm greeted by turned blank faces interrupted from the slurping intake of tea the color of sidewalk puddles, along with the clamor from a string of bells tacked to the door to alert all near-deaf ears to any new presence.

''Mr. Crane!'' Mrs. Arthurs calls out from a table at the back, waving her knobbly hand and shaking the roll of loose skin under her arm in welcome. The dead faces mutter and cluck in recognition.

''Hello, Mrs. Arthurs. How are you?'' I settle myself into the small chair jammed between the table and the wall behind it.

''Fine. And you?''

''Satisfactory. Just wondering why it was you decided to call me. And more to the point, how you knew where to call.''

''Ah. People know things round here, don't you know.''

''I see.''

''And as for the why, I just felt I hadn't told you all I could have at our first meeting.''

''No?''

''No.''

She opens her eyes wide and sips from her cup, holding it in both of her gnarled hands. When the waitress comes round I order coffee and tell myself that as soon as I've chugged it down, I'm out of here.

''Well, then?''

''I didn't tell you about how the Lady has visited me herself,'' she says.

Her voice lowered to a whisper now but the words are nimble and clear. The chalky circles of rouge on her cheeks warmed by the rush of real color.

''Mr. Crane, you'll think me a madwoman for saying this, no doubt, but I know that the Lady is real, and that she's a demon. A demon, truly. And while I don't know for a fact that she had a hand in taking those little girls who are your concern, I know it just the same.''

''Mrs. Arthurs, those girls aren't my concern--''

''Let me tell you a story. It won't take a second.''

The coffee arrives and as I stick my forefinger through the china handle I'm glad to feel that it's only lukewarm.

''When my husband returned from the war he was young--we were both young then--and we set about starting a family. Not long after that--in the same spring the Lady fell through the ice, you'll remember--I found that I was with child. Well, I was overjoyed, of course. Duncan had a good job at the quarry at the time, and while it surely doesn't look it today, that wee place on the lake was more than comfortable enough for us both and a couple kids to boot. And so it was that, nine months later as the Lord intended it, our baby Elizabeth was born.''

Mrs. Arthurs lifts her cup again and buries her nose inside it, emerging a moment later with a watery sign. Beneath the hoods over her eyes a clear syrup gathers at the rim.

''Well, you can imagine our pleasure, Mr. Crane. Our firstborn, and the most beautiful thing either of us'd ever seen. Now, I know every mother says that about her own, but I tell you sure as anything she was a special one. We had our baby. We had a home. All we needed to get along fine. Or so we thought.''

Now it's my turn at my own cup, and in a single gulp I down the contents and place my hands at the table's edge. The old woman straightens herself, dries her eyes with a quick swipe from the back of her moth-holed cardigan, and goes on with increased volume and pace.

''Elizabeth was only a year old when she started to have her troubles. When I'd get up in the middle of the night to look in on her she'd be lying on her back so still, I'd put my head down to her just to check. And I'd discover that I couldn't hear her sweet little breaths. So I'd pick her out of there and start crying like a mad thing and in Duncan would charge, shouting, 'What's wrong? What's wrong?' and then Elizabeth would just wake up on her own and start crying a good bit herself, taking all the air she'd been missing for God knows how long into her lungs in a great gust. Well, this went on and on. Me coming in, finding my baby not breathing--not alive--and then her just coming back on her own. When it got to be that this was happening one out of every three nights, we put her in the truck to see the specialist down at the Hospital for Sick Children there in Toronto. Well, didn't he look her over and stick her under every machine they had and take enough samples of the poor dear's blood to fill a fridge. And they didn't find a thing. It was a mystery to them. 'Science has its limits' was what the doctor said, and could do nothing for us but shake his head. So we took her home. And it started all over again, every other night now. I took to sleeping in a chair right beside her. But I'd always fall asleep myself and wake up all of a sudden to pick her up and bring her back again. And it was then that it struck me. Like a curtain being raised, I swear to God! I knew it was the Lady who was doing this to us. Coming into our house and trying to take my little girl from me, take the breath right out of her. Please don't give me that look, Mr. Crane, for what I'm saying is the truth. A mother knows some things.''

She sucks her lips into her mouth and the wrinkles in her cheeks disappear, the skin pulled tight over the bones. For a moment she's a worried young mother again, confessing shameful fears. But when she releases her lips to continue, the widowed decades return along with her cracked voice.

''I could feel her in the house. Feel her without seeing her, understand? But in my dreams I could see her, all right. Standing at the nursery window, looking in over my sleeping girl with a smile of pure wickedness on her face! Then she'd lift open the window and lean into the crib with the lake's water dripping off her foul hospital gown, her body green and rotten beneath. Standing there soaking my little girl's sheets and--my God! And when I'd wake I'd go to my baby and scream like a banshee until she came back. But every time the Lady came, Elizabeth was brought closer to where she couldn't come back, that witch having gotten more out of her than I could put back in. Took to shouting out over the lake at her, begging her to leave us alone. Duncan thought I'd gone right round the bend, of course, but he'd just pull me back inside, shushing me, telling me all would turn out well. But it didn't. For the Lady never slept and I had to, and one night I gave her a moment too long alone with my girl. I knew before I picked her up that it was so. And all the pleading to heaven would do no good, for evil had taken her for its own and it was over.''

Now the tears fall, but not many and not for long. With a single sniff her eyes dry again and I wonder how many times this woman has cried over the years replaying these events. How many lost thoughts had been cleared by that single, disciplined sniff?

The waitress, whose skin is thin as newsprint over her cheekbones, stands above our table and gives me a count-to-three look of eternal judgment.

''More?'' she croaks, and I accept, half expecting her to pour the coffee over my head instead of in my cup. I return my eyes to Mrs. Arthurs's face, pretty by comparison, where pretty has been stretched to its most charitable limits. The difference is that she's alive. Frightening herself silly, breathless, despairing--but alive.

''I'm very sorry, Mrs. Arthurs,'' I say, pushing my cup to the side of the table. ''And I know I don't know much about it, but couldn't there very well be a rational explanation for what happened to your daughter? Crib death, for example. They're still not sure what causes it, and they probably didn't know about it at all back then. But it's a documented condition today.''

''Don't you think I've read up about that very thing since? But it's not what took my Elizabeth. I know it isn't.''

''But you never saw the Lady yourself. Maybe it's something you came up with, you know, to explain something that you couldn't personally accept. You understand what I'm saying?''

''That I was crazy.''

''That you were upset.''

''She was real, Mr. Crane. She still is.''

''For you, maybe.''

''For anyone who knows the story.''

Around us the dead faces stare at our table in the fixed and shameless manner of the very old. The quiet of the room disturbed only by the pop of fat from the deep fryer behind the counter, a tape of marching-band standards playing over the cheap speakers.

''When you lose a child you start to believe in things you never even thought of before,'' she says, jaw held stiff. ''You come to see how death is never an accident, because there's always something out there that wants to take your little ones away. Turn your back for a moment, lose their hand on a crowded street, fall asleep when you should be awake--and they're gone. That's why a mother's always got to watch.''

I push my chair back the two inches allowed it and start to pull my legs out from under the table, but the old woman throws out her hand and places it over mine.

''It was the Lady who took my Elizabeth, Mr. Crane, sure as I'm sitting here now. As it was the Lady who took your girls.''

''They're not my girls.''

When I pull out my wallet to pay the bill she waves me away.

''No, no. I'll get this. It's the least I can do for a young man who's taken the time to listen to an old woman's story.''

But she's still got my hand. I make an effort to draw it back but whether I don't try hard enough or whether the arthritic globes of her fingers have more strength than I would've guessed, it doesn't move. Her face floats closer across the table.

''A funny thing, your name,'' she says.

''Bartholomew. Yes. Not many of them around anymore.''

''Your family name, I mean.''

''Crane? Really? I would've thought--''

''Used to be Cranes had a cottage round the bend past my place, though be hard to see it nowadays. With the weeds and all the rest.'' She puckers her cracked lips and for a frightening second I expect her to come a few inches farther and give me a kiss. ''Relations, maybe?'' she asks instead.

''Don't think so. You see, my family didn't--my parents died a long time ago.''

''Ah, then.''

Her face rueful, looming.

''Well,'' I announce too loudly, pull my hand free with a single tug. The table rattling against the wall. ''My thanks for the coffee.''

I have to balance the table on my knees to move out from behind it, and as I stand in the narrow aisle the gray faces rise from their cups and egg-smeared plates and stay on me, watch me sidestep through them to the door. Mrs. Arthurs watches too. Chin lowered against her chest as though someone had switched her power off. But without turning around I feel her eyes on my back, holding me in place, drawing the energy out of my limbs so that I end up knocking the goddamn bells off the door as I kick my way out.