Scott Thornley - Erasing Memory

PUBLISHED BY RANDOM HOUSE CANADA
Copyright 2011 Scott Thornley

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the publisher, except by a reviewer, who may quote brief passages in a review. Published in 2010 by Random House Canada, a division of Random House of Canada Limited, Toronto. Distributed in Canada by Random House of Canada Limited.

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This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the authors imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

Lyrics on from War by Edwin Starr.
Lyrics on from Montana by Frank Zappa.
Lyrics on from Good Vibrations by The Beach Boys.

Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication

Thornley, Scott
Erasing memory / Scott Thornley.

eISBN: 978-0-307-35927-8

I. Title.

PS8639.H66E73 2011 C813.6 C2010-901432-4

v3.1

For Jude and Shirleythank you for being in my life.

T HE BLACK SUIT JACKET was folded neatly on the bed. Beside it were two black metal suitcases, one open, the other closed. On the closed suitcase sat a smaller black case, big enough to hold a flute, which was open. Inside was a black Styrofoam nest. It was empty.

In the bathroom, the tap was running. A tall man in a white dress shirt and black trousers stood at the sink, humming, then broke into song.

War. What is it good for?

He took the hotel shampoo container and emptied it into a stainless steel cylinder, then placed the cylinder under the flow from the faucet till foam came up over the lip. Once the cylinder was clean, he took the last of the towels, smiling at the easel card that spoke about saving the environment by using your towels more than once, and dried the outside of the cylinder. He then took the hairdryer and blew the interior dry.

His eyes were dark and gleamed with intelligence. The skin was drawn tight over his angular cheekbones. Below them, his face narrowed so much that in certain lights you could see the embossing of his teeth on the skin of his cheeks. Even clean-shaven, he was cursed with a dark beard line that only served to make his face seem more sculpted and severe.

When his cellphone rang on the bedside table, he carried the syringe out of the bathroom, placed it in its black nest and closed the case before he answered the phone.

Yes, its done. A policeman arrived within minutes of my call. Immaculate? Yes, like the conception. Send the wire transfer now. We are finished.

He hung up. Slipping off the back panel of the cellphone, he pulled the SIM card and laid it on the ceramic floor by the straight-backed desk chair, then slammed the metal glide of one chair leg down on the card. Picking it up, he bent it in half and went into the washroom, where he dropped it into the toilet and flushed. Returning to the bed, he placed the syringe case and the cellphone in his suitcase and snapped it shut. Humming again, he rolled his sleeves down, buttoned them and put on his suit jacket, tugging each cuff sharply so that it hung a half-inch lower on his wrists than his jackets sleeves.

He wrote a note on the single piece of hotel stationery and propped it against the new vacuum cleaner by the bed. My wife liked the suction but she didnt like the colour. Please enjoy.

Picking up his luggage, he opened the door and left the hotel room.

War, he sang. What is it good for? Absolutely nothing.

I T WAS THE SAME as it always was, chamber music driving up and jazz driving back. But this time hed asked her, Why do you want to be buried so far from town?

Kate had smiled and closed her eyesfor such a while that he thought shed fallen asleepthen softly, but with some strength, as if to ensure that the point made it through the haze of morphine and fatigue, she said, Its beautiful there. Its a lovely drive. Not too far. I know youll visit. Andbreathing deeplyif it was in the city, I doubt you would. Anyway, itll get you out of your head for a few hours.

She was right. Hed been up once a month for the past thirty-eight months. When hed looked at her ashes, he couldnt see the difference between them and the ashes he retrieved from the fireplace to sprinkle on the gardenhe couldnt reassemble her. And yet, below the ground, beneath a headstone that bore only her initials, KGWM, he could imagine her on her side with her legs slightly tucked upasleep.

And it did get him out of his head. A cemetery in the city could never do thatthe sound of sirens, the headstones of people theyd known, the buzz of traffic nearby would distract from the solace of being near her.

H E STAYED THIS TIME , as always, past sundown, reading, watching for birds and announcing each out loud for the odd comfort it gave himcedar waxwing, swallow, cardinal, chickadee, a rare ruby-throated hummingbirdnot because he truly believed she would hear, but because he didnt entirely disbelieve it. The kitchen of Marthas Truck Stop stayed open till ten, and on the way back he stopped and ordered the same thing he always did: a hot beef sandwich with gravy, no fries, followed by apple pie and coffee.

He was just cresting the Canadian Shield above Lake Charles when the call came over the radio. All units. All units. We have an anonymous call about a fatality in a beach house on Shore Road, Lake Charles.

MacNeice pressed the hands-free button. The callermale or female?

Male. Over.

Did he sound agitated, Sylvia?

No, Mac. Cool as a cucumber, not hurried or concerned. Over.

Describe his voicenorth-end, west-end, local, foreign?

Id say foreign, but very educated in English. You can judge for yourself when you hear it. Over.

Thanks, Syl. Im about five minutes away from the cut-off to Lake Charles.

H E COULD APPRECIATE THE rare beauty of it, the ice-blue chiffon of her gown spilling about her, the white sheers from the window billowing with the breeze off the lake, almost touching her legs, which were still and slightlybut not unnaturallyakimbo. But what stopped him, arresting all the clock wheels of his experience and wisdom, was the way her right arm rested, the hand dangling above the tone arm of the pale green Seabreeze, which soldiered onthe second Schubert Piano Trio, music that had formed something of a through-line in his lifeskipping each time it hit her hand, then going back to the beginning. Thats persistence, he thought as the familiar melody began again. Were both just trying to do our jobs.

He slid the sheers aside and looked out over the lake, which was romantically perfect. The music swelled and the breeze lifted the waves, spilling small shells and tiny pebbles onto the shore with a soft hiss and sigh.

Soon enough the scene would become the macabre job site of the professionally detached. But for these moments he allowed himself to listen, to absorb the inglorious end of a clearly glorious young woman. No blood. No obvious trauma, needle marks, coke residueshe had been a healthy woman, until the moment she wasnt anymore.