former employer has agreed to cover the cost,” she replied.
“The least we can do is spring for the hotel.”
“Thank you,” she said.
“You’re welcome,” he said.
The interchange lagged.
“How’s the campaign going?” Victoria asked.
“What? Oh, fine. Ah, maybe I’ll have that drink now after all. Scotch-rocks?”
“Certainly. Charlotte?”
“Nothing for me,” Charlotte replied.
Victoria went into the kitchen to make Sean’s drink, leaving him standing at the living room window, staring out over the rooftops toward the grey expanse of English Bay, and Charlotte watching him, a little cow-eyed, Victoria thought, from the sofa. He was still standing there when Victoria returned with a Scotch on the rocks for him and a glass of white wine for herself.
He took the drink from her. “I remember when Pat first brought me up here and told me he was going to build a house here one day. It was just a few weeks after we’d arrived in Vancouver. I didn’t think the old Volvo we’d driven from Montreal would make it, but it did. Damned near killed ourselves going back down, though, when the brakes gave out.
Good thing for us it had a standard transmission or we’d’ve ended up in the bay.” He looked at the drink in his hand. “Damn,” he said thickly and gulped at it. Ice rattled against his teeth.
Sean no longer seemed quite so slick and superficial. His smile was crooked, his hair was mussed, and his salon tan had turned waxy. Victoria placed a hand on his arm.
“I’m so sorry, Sean.”
“There’s only me left,” he said.
“Pardon me?”
“There used to be three of us,” Sean said. “Mary and Patrick and me. Mary drowned, you know?”
“Yes, I know,” Victoria said. She glanced at Charlotte. Her eyes were closed and her round cheeks were mottled, embarrassed, perhaps, by Sean’s public display of emotion.
“Her little boat turned over and she drowned,” Sean said. “And now Patrick’s gone. So there’s only me.” He put his half-finished drink down on the coffee table. “We have to go,” he said suddenly.
Charlotte stood and adjusted the fall of her skirt, the drape of her jacket.
Sean took a deep breath, smoothed his hair with the palms of his hands. “You’ll call if you need anything.”
“Yes, of course,” Victoria said.
She saw them to the door, where Sean held her by the shoulders, kissed her on both cheeks, and said goodbye. Charlotte murmured and kissed her on the cheek again, barely making contact. As Victoria closed the door behind them, the phone rang. She let Consuela answer it and went back into the living room.
Consuela came out of the kitchen carrying the cordless phone. “Mr. Shoe,” she announced. Victoria took the phone.
“How are you?” Joe Shoe asked.
“I’m fine,” she said.
“Are you getting any rest?”
“I seem to be sleeping all the time,” she said. “But I wake up even more tired than before.”
“Are you up to a visitor?”
She wanted to say no, but she said, “Yes, of course.”
“I’ll see you in half an hour then,” Shoe said.
She hung up. She had just enough time to take a bath.
Shoe told Muriel where he would be if anything came up, then drove across the Lions Gate Bridge, taking Taylor Way up into the British Properties. The sun was trying to break through the cloud cover. He parked in the steep, cobbled drive in front of the house. A battered Mazda station wagon, which belonged to the housekeeper, was tucked discreetly into a narrow space between the twocar garage and a high retaining wall.
He rang the doorbell, still unable to name the tune it played. Victoria answered. She looked tired but was freshly made up and smelled faintly of floral soap. Her pale hair was tied back, emphasizing the sharpness of her cheekbones.
“Before you go,” she said as she stood aside to let him in, “you’ve got to help me find that fucking doorbell and kill it.”
He left his coat and hat on a chair in the hall and followed her into the kitchen, where she offered to make herbal tea. He declined.
“Coffee?”
“Please don’t go to any trouble,” he said.
“I won’t,” she said. “Consuela makes the coffee around here. Mine is undrinkable.”
“I’ll pass, thanks,” Shoe said.
They went into the living room. He noted the half-empty glass of white wine on the coffee table. Victoria picked it up.
“Would you like a drink? No, of course you would-n’t. What was I thinking?” He smiled. “You’re so god-damned pure,” she said, almost resentfully. “Have you learned to swear yet? Say ‘fuck,’ Joe.”
“Fuck,” he said.
She grunted and a smile tugged at the corners of her mouth.
“Profanity doesn’t offend me,” he said. “I just never got into the habit of using it in conversation. And I do drink on occasion.”
“How’s your sex life?” Victoria said.
“Not open for discussion,” he replied.
“That bad, eh? What happened to what’s-her-name, the woman who operated the charter fishing boat? Gabriella something?”
“That ended over a year ago,” he said.
“Oh. Sorry.” She raised her glass. “Well, cheers,” she said, and drank.
The sun broke through a gap in the clouds and bathed the room in green and yellow light. Victoria stood in the window and looked out. English Bay was like beaten silver beneath the broken cloud deck. Shoe stood beside her. He could feel the warmth of the sun on his face.
“I’m going to miss this view,” Victoria said.
“You’re going to sell the house?”
“God, yes,” she said. “I hate it.”
“Did Patrick know how you felt?”
“No. He was so damned proud of it. Our dream house, he called it. His dream house,” she added, voice fading to a whisper. “My prison.”
“A
