She Felt No Pain. Lou Allin
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sat beside his backpack. This way, hitchhikers could carry more, and the dolly could go into a trunk or truck bed. Odd that he’d left it so trustingly, but probably it held nothing of value. She’d lived light too, possessing no furniture that couldn’t be left behind in the places she’d rented. But didn’t everyone want a room of his own? Her mother would have expected her to reach out a hand, not be judgmental about those who lived on the street...or in the forest.
Chipper capped a bottle of spring water and wiped his mouth with a snow-white handkerchief. Other than her father in courtly mode, he was the only man she’d ever seen use one. “Everything go okay?” he asked.
Holly cocked her thumb. “That old guy I met the other day, Bill. Did you see him when you got here?” She explained in brief what Boone had found.
“No one was around but the family. Is that his stuff? We should be talking to him.” Chipper looked disturbed, as if he had failed to secure the scene. “We definitely should be talking to him.”
Holly checked her watch. With all his gear here, he wasn’t going anywhere. Or had he been involved in the death in some way she wasn’t discerning? Was this all that they might see of Bill Gorse? If they couldn’t find him again, his estranged family might have some answers.
The next morning, moans filled the house as dawn blushed over the hills and set the water shimmering in tiny wavelets. Shogun began howling, an eerie sound. Holly rubbed her eyes and glanced at the clock. Five a.m? “Coming,” she called, grabbing a robe. How did mothers deal with children?
“Are you all right? Do you need anything?” she asked, pushing open the door to her father’s room. Stupid question. Getting him to the bathroom at midnight had been a nightmare which challenged his dignity and her lumbar region.
“It’s been nearly a whole day, and I can hardly move. I refuse to submit to being an invalid. Think about it. In...valid. That sums it up.” He tried to sit up and yelled, his fist pounding the mattress. “Get me more of that ibuprofen...please. Make it a handful. My liver will have to fend for itself.”
After giving him the medication and refreshing his water, Holly poured some orange juice to wake up. Then she brought his coffee. “Your usual oatmeal with extra bran?” Since they were in the Seventies, no need for that steel-cut stuff that took half an hour. If he could eat, she’d feel better. Why was she so worried? It was only a strain. The Mayo Clinic website said that ninety per cent of back pain disappeared within a month. It might seem like a year.
“The pain is making me nauseous, but I have to keep up my strength. Maybe a banana. A small one...diced...with cream... but in a few minutes.”
As he sipped the brew and the pills kicked in, his face eased for a moment. He hadn’t even been able to clean up yet, and she realized that people took their abilities to care for themselves for granted. Suddenly those TV ads for walk-in bathtubs were beginning to make sense. “Would you feel better with a shave? I can bring your electric razor. How about a hot towel?”
“That’s the least of my worries. Your mother always told me I looked better with a beard. I had one for my first job interview. It added gravitas.” He scratched his chin and tried for an ironic laugh but merely coughed.
She stood with her hands on her hips, aware that she needed to take a stand as a parent to a parent. Someone had to act in his interests. The world’s most rational man, even in pain likely bearable to women, he was incapable of coherent thought. “I’m making a call. There’s a good masseuse in town. We met the other day.”
“Massage. Used to be a code word for something else. Now it’s sissy spa stuff. Oils and stones and seaweed. No, no and no.” He stuck out his jaw defiantly.
“Yes, yes and yes. Mother always said that you were stubborn.” Bonnie would have trumped his self-pity ace with a withering word. She’d once let her appendix suppurate for hours down the Transcanada from Campbell River to the General so that she could drive a woman in need to a safe house. Norman roared at a hangnail.
He winced as he shifted. “Maddie did suggest a treatment. Can’t hurt. Just once, mind you. It’s not going to become a regular thing. Imagine the cost. Rich I am not.”
“You told me that your university plan covered eighty-five per cent. Why are you quibbling about a few bucks? Sheesh, Father. In the words of your favourite show, Get Smart.” Oops. Maxwell and crew had aired in the Sixties for the most part but ended in mid-1970. That Norman didn’t catch her on that showed his distress.
Holly went back downstairs to find Marilyn’s number in the phone book. Under “Massage”, she saw several entries, all in Sooke except for Serenity Cottage in Fossil Bay. Marilyn offered a plain deep-tissue Swedish massage along with rebalancing, whatever that was. No exotic extras like heated rocks, ocean water droplets or detoxification via the feet. Norman would accept a therapeutic service without the pampering frills women enjoyed. He could think of it as a sports thing.
“Of course I can take your father, “ Marilyn said. “I have two clients this afternoon, but I always leave room for emergencies. It’s hard to turn away a soul in pain. Is an hour from now too soon?”
Holly sighed with relief. “It’ll probably take us that long to get downstairs to the car, but we’ll make it.”
“Sounds like a muscle strain. They’re severe, but they usually respond to heat and cold and go away in a few days. And watch yourself moving him. Even a young person can lift the wrong way.”
“You’re an angel. You can’t imagine. My dad is beside himself.”
“Oh my dear, but I can imagine. I see it every day. That’s why I’m in this profession.”
Holly returned upstairs. “Want me to help you dress?” She thought again of his bell bottoms and Nehru jackets. How far was he going to take this? She sympathized with her mother about the banalities of his career.
“Just my bathrobe will do over the pajamas. I’m not standing on ceremony in this crisis.” She helped him into the paisley robe and left him sockless in his shearling slippers as requested.
Having forded the stairs on his hands and knees, Norman allowed himself to be loaded into his toy car, which was higher and more open to entry than the low-profile Prelude. The short kilometres in silence to Fossil Bay felt like eternity. Holly was beginning to experience the stress of living with someone unwell. She couldn’t imagine what Marilyn had been through.
On the corner of Sea Breeze Avenue stood the quaint ivy-covered brick cottage that Holly had passed many times without note. Across the street, oceanside with an acre or two, it might have commanded a million, but its modest lot was shielded from the noisy road by a neatly trimmed cedar hedge. Holly pulled into the driveway beside the carved wooden sign reading “Serenity”. She admired the giant red and yellow rhodos and inhaled the sweet perfume of matching white and purple lilacs. A perennial garden with ivied arches and pergola surrounded the house English style, delphs nodding acquaintance with daisies and wild pink foxgloves. As Holly turned off the motor, Marilyn came from the house, arms spread wide in welcome, a fat cream cat swirling at her feet like an angora fog. Its luminous golden eyes surveyed the inferior species. “Come, come, you poor man. Relief is on the way. You have my solemn word.” Introductions were unnecessary. The place felt like home.
“Prince Chunk, clear the path.” Marilyn swept the cat aside with a gentle foot movement, and the animal disappeared under a hydrangea bush, flashing its tail in haughty challenge.
The women guided Norman up a wheelchair-accessible ramp into the front room, which appeared to be the treatment area. Certificates lined the walls, and Holly gave them a quick scan. British, Canadian, even Californian. A bookcase held a collection of medical texts, including cranial facial neurology and spinal therapies. The typical depiction of a human muscle system stood beside a skeletal diagram of stress points. The air currents traced the healing scent of lavender from a fresh bouquet