Second Honeymoon

He walked across the hall and stood in the doorway of the living-room. It wasn’t an elegant room, like Martine’s, but it was full of color and unexpected treasures—ranging from the seashells Lucy had collected in the Virgin Islands, where they had met, to a collection of Tibetan singing-bowls they had found in a bazaar in India. She had had a brief craze for embroidering cushions, the rather uneven results of which were lying on every chair, and the vibrant, Impressionistic watercolor she had fallen in love with in Provence, and which he had taken enormous pleasure in buying for her, hung over the fireplace.

Nothing matched; Troy knew that—an interior decorator would have thrown up her hands in despair. But somehow the room was redolent of Lucy’s warmth and love of life.

He didn’t want Martine. Or anyone else like Martine. He wanted Lucy.

In his mind’s eye he could picture the rest of the house very easily. The kitchen had never been Lucy’s favorite room, although she could make cheesecakes that melted in the mouth and she liked stir fries because no two ever came out the same. She had never used the copper pans that hung from the ceiling; rather, she had loved the way the sun shot turquoise fire from them late in the afternoon. The bathroom she had decorated in forest-green and scarlet as soon as they had moved in, because, she had said, every day with him felt like Christmas Day.

The bedroom, for the sake of his sanity, he had stripped of all her touches.

Reluctantly Troy came back to the present, to the reality of a house empty but for himself and his memories. As though pulled by an unseen hand, he walked upstairs and into the den. The photographs that had been in the bedroom were now in here. Lucy’s face laughed at him from within a gold frame on the bookshelves and in the informal snapshot on the pine desk her arms were wrapped around him, the blue waters of the Virgin Islands tingeing her eyes with the same vivid blue, her tangled mahogany curls standing out from her head like an aureole. Tall, beautiful Lucy, who, when she had married Troy, had made him happier than he had thought it was possible to be.

And then, side by side on the shelf, there were the photos of Michael.

Michael, their son. Who had died when he was seven months old, a year and a half ago. Who was the reason Lucy had left Troy alone in the big house on the bay.

Blond curls, eyes the same color as Sarah’s, and a toothless grin that bespoke Michael’s delight in the world in which he had found himself.

Troy turned on his heel and left the room, passing the door to the nursery as he went—a door that remained closed all the time. He walked downstairs again, his footsteps echoing in the hall, and in the kitchen took a pizza out of the freezer and thrust it in the oven. Shoving his hands in his pockets, he went to stand by the window, where the trees’ serrated black edges cut into a starspattered sky, and was achingly aware of the silence of the house, of his solitude and his loneliness.

He was in limbo. Nowhere. Alone yet unable to be with anyone. Divorced from laughter and the small, cumulative pleasures of living with the woman he loved. Cut off from his sexuality and the deep erotic joy he had found in Lucy.

He was thirty-seven years old.

He wanted another child. He had loved being a father, and the thought of remaining childless filled him with a nameless dread. All too well as he stood there he could recall Sarah’s tiny movements, and her miniature perfection as she had lain trustingly in his arms. He wanted a family. Like sex, this was a normal enough human urge. Yet Lucy was denying him both of them.

He moved his shoulders uneasily. The job he’d been offered today wouldn’t interest him nearly as much if Lucy were still living with him. He knew that as well as he knew that the sun would rise in the morning. He loved his present job—was more than fulfilled and challenged by it in every hour he spent in the hospital.

So yet another thing that had been stolen from him was decisiveness. He was allowing his future career to depend on Lucy. He’d never sold the house they’d lived in because he kept hoping she’d come back to it. He couldn’t even take a lover, for God’s sake.

What kind of a man was he?

An empty shell, like the whelks and angel wings Lucy had scattered round the living-room.

So what the hell was he going to do about it? Eat frozen pizza in a house that held nothing but memories for the rest of his life? Stay celibate because no other woman was Lucy?

It was five months since he’d seen her. Last April he’d flown to Ottawa, where she was living, and pleaded with her to come back to him. White-faced, she’d refused. And like a beaten dog he’d crawled back home, only wanting privacy to lick his wounds.

Dammit, he thought, that’s not good enough. Once, years ago, she’d told him that there was no use begging anyone for anything. So why had he wasted his time begging her for something she didn’t want to give? He’d never do that again. Never.

His mind made another leap. Maybe, Troy thought, he was kidding himself that he was still in love with her. If he saw her again he might realize that he was clinging to something that existed only in his imagination: a prettified notion of undying love, a romantic fantasy that had no basis in reality.

Like a limpet glued to its rock, he was still clasping the words he’d said on their wedding-day, and had meant with all his heart. “Til death us do part”. Death had parted them, all right. Though not quite in the way the marriage ceremony had pictured it.

Could it be true? Might he discover, if he saw Lucy, that the ties binding him to her had unraveled of their own accord? Or even rotted from disuse, thereby freeing him?

He didn’t know the answers to his own questions. He did know he was sick to death of being half a man, a hollow man, a man of straw. He was tired of feeling frustrated, trapped and unhappy…How long before his friends got bored with him, before women like Martine started viewing him as a crabby old bachelor who was better avoided?

The buzzer rang on the oven. Troy shoveled the pizza on to a plate and sat down at the counter. He chewed the crust and the layered cheese and mushrooms as if they were cardboard, his convictions—and his angerhardening.

He was going to go and see Lucy. And this time he’d tell her she could come back and be his wife—in fact as well as in name—or else he’d file for a divorce. A simple choice. Yes or no.

No more begging. No more opening himself to the kind of rejection he’d suffered in April. No more of the dull ache that had lodged itself in his belly months ago and never gone away. He was through with being a zombie. Enough was enough.

Marriage or divorce. A straightforward choice. And then he’d know where he was, even if he didn’t like it very much. Because the hard fact was that Lucy, in the year since she had stormed out of the house after the worst fight in their marriage, had not once gotten in touch with him. No phone calls, no letters, not even a Christmas card.

Divorce. Troy played with the word in his mind, hating the very sound of it, yet knowing he’d be a naive fool to imagine that Lucy was going to throw herself in his arms the minute he walked across the threshold of her apartment. There was a very strong possibility she might slam the door in his face.

If she chose—for the third time—to reject him, then somehow he’d have to learn to let go of her. With the sharpest of scalpels he’d have to amputate her from his body and his soul, and afterwards he’d have to allow himself to recuperate, to heal, so that he could rebuild a life that would include risk and intimacy and, eventually, children.

But in order to let go of her, he had to see her first.

The pizza seemed to have disappeared. Troy poured himself a beer, grabbed the latest medical journal and went upstairs to read it.

Troy slept better that night than he had in weeks, and the next morning his resolve was unchanged. He was going to get on with his life, Lucy or no Lucy. And the sooner he saw her, the better. It had, however, occurred to him that before he went banging on the door of her apartment it might be sensible to check that she hadn’t gone away on holiday. So that afternoon he phoned Evelyn Barnes, his mother-in-law, who also lived in Ottawa.

“Troy here. How are you, Evelyn?”

With genuine pleasure Evelyn said, “How nice to hear from you. I’m snowed under at work and otherwise fine.”

Evelyn was a forensic pathologist; while she lacked the emotional warmth of her middle daughter, Lucy, Troy had always known she was fond of him, and that she had been upset when Lucy had left him. He said, “Is Lucy around? While I’d rather you didn’t warn her ahead of time, I need to see her.”

Evelyn hesitated. “No…no, she hasn’t lived in Ottawa since May.”

She’s found another man.

The words had sprung from nowhere, and the rush of emotion that churned in Troy’s chest had nothing to do with detachment. “You mean she’s moved?” he said stupidly.

“She’s working on the east coast for the summer.”

So it was temporary. Troy loosened his hold on the receiver. “When’ll she be back?”

“Not until October, as far as I know.”

It was now the end of August. Suffused with an anger that he made no attempt to subdue, Troy said, “I can’t wait that long. Give me her address and I’ll go wherever she is.”

The pause was longer this time. Evelyn said reluctantly, “She made me promise not to tell you her whereabouts.”

“For Pete’s sake,” he exploded, “what’s she playing at?”

“She’s trying to sort things out, Troy, as best she can.”

“Good for her,” he snarled. “You’ve got to tell me where she is, Evelyn—I’ve been offered a job in the States and I’d have to sell the house. I can’t do that without at least consulting her.”

“Fax me the details and I’ll see she gets it right away.”

“Thanks, but no, thanks—she’s my wife, Evelyn!”

“If she hadn’t been so insistent, I wouldn’t have promised.”

Insistent. Determined to stay away from him. To hide so he’d never find her. Too bad, Lucy, he thought grimly. This time it’s not going to work. “If I’m to move from Vancouver, if I’m to divorce her, then I have to see her first. You surely must understand that.” There, he had said it. He had actually used the word.

“Oh, Troy,” Evelyn said faintly, “has it come to that?”

“I’m tired of being in limbo. Neither married nor free,” he replied implacably.

“I do understand that your position’s untenable.” There was another of the long pauses that were quite out of character for Evelyn. Then she said slowly, “I believe Marcia’s in touch with Lucy—you might try her… Oh, there’s my doorbell—I’m going to a play with some friends. I’ve got to go, Troy.”

Marcia was the eldest of Evelyn’s three daughters. Marcia and Troy rarely saw eye to eye on anything. After saying goodbye to Evelyn, he dialed Marcia’s number and made a huge effort to modulate his tone. “Marcia? Troy here. I wondered if you would give me Lucy’s address. Evelyn was busy when I called her.”

You lying bastard, he told himself. But it’s all in a good cause.

One of Marcia’s virtues, in Troy’s opinion, was her supreme incuriosity about other people’s lives. “She’s staying on an island off the coast of Nova Scotia,” Marcia said. “Let me think…Shag Island—that’s it. Near Yarmouth. She’s working at a guest house called the Seal Bay Inn. Sounds like the end of the world to me, but you know Lucy—she always was a bit off the wall.”

If Lucy hadn’t decided on impulse to go sailing for four weeks in Tortola, he, Troy, would never have met her. “Thanks,” he said and, not above pumping her, added, “Have you seen Lucy lately?”

“Goodness, no. You wouldn’t catch me going on a smelly old fishing boat to some godforsaken island. Not my thing at all. She’ll be home in a month or so; I’ll see her then.”

“What took her there, do you know?”

“She got laid off at the bookstore where she was working. A friend of Cat’s knows the couple who runs the inn—they needed someone for the summer, I guess.” Marcia yawned. “The sort of harebrained scheme Lucy loves.”

Cat was Lucy’s younger sister. “Well, thanks for the information, Marcia. Should you be talking to Lucy, you could forget we’ve had this conversation—okay?”

“Whatever you like,” Marcia said indifferently. “If you were to take my advice, Troy, you’d cut your losses as far as Lucy’s concerned.”

“I may just do that.”

“Well,” she replied with patent surprise, “I’m very glad to hear it—I think she’s behaved deplorably the last couple of years.”

It was one thing for Troy to think that, another to hear Lucy’s sister say so. “She lost her child, Marcia.”

“So did you. But she’s the one who’s been running away from her responsibilities ever since.”

He could feel his throat closing with the old pain, and in his heart of hearts he recognized the kernel of truth in Marcia’s judgement. “Thanks for the address,” he said huskily. “Don’t work too hard.” Very carefully Troy replaced the receiver in its cradle.

One of the many things which had distressed him unutterably in the last six months he and Lucy had lived together had been watching her withdraw from people, from her clients and her friends—she who had always delighted in the company of others. She was a certified massage therapist, and had worked one day a week after Michael was born to keep her hand in; after he had died she had lost all interest in her job.

In Ottawa she’d worked in a chain bookstore, an impersonal milieu that demanded nothing from her in the way of intimacy. And now she’d retreated still further, to spend the summer on an isolated island.

Shag Island. He’d get Vera to make a reservation under a false name at the Seal Bay Inn and this time next week he’d be face to face with Lucy. In the meantime he’d get in touch with the institute and tell them he needed a little more time to make his decision.

After that, whatever happened, he’d have to get on with his life.

CHAPTER TWO

AS TROY strode down the long concrete wharf in his rubber boots, his canvas bag slung over one shoulder, the sea wind tugged at his hair; Seawind had been the name of the sloop he’d been skippering in the Virgin Islands when he’d first met Lucy.

A tangle of dried seaweed cracked under his boots. He glanced down, his nerves strung tight as catgut. He might look just like another tourist on holiday. But he wasn’t a tourist. His only reason for being here was to go and see Lucy. Although this time not in an immaculate yacht. Unless he was mistaken, one of the workmanlike Cape Islanders clustered at the very end of the wharf was going to take him to his destination.

From the flat deck of a boat called Four Angels a man of about forty with a weathered face called, “You goin’ to Shag Island?”

“That’s right.”

“Come on aboard, then. Hand yer gear down to Gus, and watch yer step.”

Although Gus looked about fourteen, he swung Troy’s heavy bag down on to the deck with agility. Troy climbed down the metal rungs set into the side of the wharf and felt the gunwale dip under his weight. Four Angels was even less prepossessing up close than she had been at a distance—her anchors rusty, her deck stained with the debris of years of fishing. But as Clarence, her skipper, introduced himself he gave Troy a broad smile, his blue eyes twinkling. Her engine started with a well-bred purr and she backed between two other boats into the open water with a precision Troy could appreciate.

There was another man sharing the deck with him, an elderly man with a crop of salt-white hair. Troy smiled at him and said, “My name’s Troy Donovan. Are you staying at the Seal Bay Inn as well?”

“Hubert Woollner.” A pair of eyes as fierce as a falcon’s stared at him beneath bushy brows. “I own my own place on the south end of the island. Near the lighthouse.”

“Come on, Hubert,” Clarence interjected. “You own the whole darn island, from the lighthouse to the cliffs—tell the truth, now.”

“Steer the boat, Clarence, and mind your own business.”

Hubert had spoken without rancor. Clarence chuckled. “You are my business. The way fishin’ is these days, it’s a good thing I got this here ferry service to fall back on. Gotta feed the family somehow.”

“The boat’s named after Clarence’s family,” Hubert said to Troy. “A touch of poetic license.”

“Named after the wife and me three daughters. Not that they’re always angels. You married, Mr Donovan?”

“Yes,” Troy said, and waited for someone to ask if Lucy Donovan was his wife.

But Clarence was following his own train of thought. “Then you know what I’m talkin’ about. There’s days I think I should’ve named her Four Devils. But there wouldn’t be much luck callin’ a boat that, now, would there? So Four Angels she is, and more power to her.” With a flourish he spat over the gunwales and revved up the engine. The bow bit into the waves, the wake bubbled from the stern and the wharf fell back behind them.

For a moment Troy forgot about Lucy and the purpose of his visit in the sheer pleasure of being on the sea again; in the last year and a half he’d lost his enthusiasm for sailing. Then Hubert asked, “Did you come for the long-billed dowitcher?”

“The who?” said Troy.

“So you’re not a birder?” Hubert said sternly.

“I know a duck from a pelican,” Troy remarked, raising his voice over the roar of the engine and the hissing of the sea. He’d always been more interested in snorkeling and diving in the Caribbean than in the birds.

“Humph. So you wouldn’t know what a shag is, then?”

A long ago crossword clue flickered through Troy’s memory. “A fish like a herring,” he hazarded.

“That’s a shag. See that bird flying low over the water?” Obligingly Troy looked to starboard, seeing a black bird with a skinny neck flapping madly away from Four Angels. “That’s a shag,” Hubert went on. “It’s the local name for a cormorant—in this case an immature double-crested cormorant. What made you come to Shag Island if you’re not a birder?”

Amused by this inquisition, Troy prevaricated, “I needed a holiday. I work in a crowded hospital in a big city and a few days on an island sounded like heaven.”

“If you’re staying a few days, Keith’ll fix you up with a pair of binoculars. Keith McManus owns the inn. Doesn’t have much to say for himself, but he knows his birds.”

This was clearly high praise. “Is it a one-man operation, then?” Troy asked with low cunning.

“Anna helps out—his wife. They’ve got a hired girl this summer as well.” For a moment the fierce old eyes softened. “A real beauty, she is.”

Spreading his feet on the deck and absently noticing that he’d never lost his sea-legs, Troy said, “And what’s her name?”

“Lucy Barnes,” said Hubert.

With another of the explosions of rage that seemed to haunt him these days Troy realized that no one had connected his name with Lucy’s because Lucy was no longer using his name. She’d reverted to her maiden name. As if, he thought savagely, he, Troy, didn’t exist. As though her marriage was better forgotten.

Hubert was still talking. “…myself if I was forty years younger. You’ll meet her if you’re staying for a while. She and Mrs Mossop take turns with the cooking.”

Lucy had been the cook on Seawind. “Who else lives on the island?” Troy asked.

“Mrs Mossop—she’s a widow. Myself. Quentin—he’s an artist; he puts big globs of paint on a canvas and calls it Untitled Composition and the critics rave over it. This new-fangled stuff they call art; I can’t give it the time of day.”

Four Angels had rounded a headland and was headed due west. On the horizon lay a long island—the small pinnacle of a lighthouse at one end, cliffs rearing from the sea like the blunt head of a whale from the other. Filling his nostrils with clean salt air, Troy asked, “Is that Shag Island?”

“That’s it.”

“Not very many people for the size of the island.”

“I keep the numbers low because of the petrels,” Hubert said.

“Petrol?” Troy repeated, puzzled.

Hubert raised his brows heavenwards. “Petrels are birds. Leach’s storm petrels nest on the southern end of the island. So I don’t allow cats on the island and we use a dory to go from this boat to shore, to do away with the possibility of rats. There aren’t any racoons or foxes to prey on them. Too many humans would be just as bad. I decided a long time ago that we’re the most destructive species there is. So I won’t let Keith expand the inn.”

“How do you keep the guests at the inn from doing any damage?”

“That’s one of Lucy’s jobs. I pay part of her salary.”

“So you’re a benevolent despot?”

Hubert gave a cackle of laughter. “I’ve willed the island to a conservation society, with so many provisos and heretofores it’ll take them forever to sort it out. But in the meantime the petrels’ll be safe. And that’s what counts.”

“Birds over people?” Troy asked with conscious provocation.

“Birds and people coexisting,” Hubert retorted with a gleam in his eye. “Non-interference. Respect for the intricacies of nature. I’ll invite you for dinner one evening, providing you don’t mind canned beans, and we’ll thrash it out.”

“You’re a proselytizer, Mr Woollner.”

“Hubert’s the name. By the time you leave I’ll make sure you know a least sandpiper from a semipalmated. How long did you say you were staying.”

“I didn’t say…because I’m not sure.”

“You’ll stay a while. The island gets you that way. Got me fifty years ago, and she’s been like a mistress to me ever since.” He pulled at his ear, laughter sparking his tawny old eyes. “Less trouble than a woman in the long run, I dare say.”

They both fell silent as the island drew closer, until Troy could see rocks girdled with kelp, ranks of spruce trees huddled and bent against the wind, and to the north the long sweep of a low-lying field, with drifts of yellow wildflowers between it and the shore. The Lucy he had fallen in love with would be very much at home on Shag Island.

With a kindling of excitement he wondered if during a summer spent in this wild and beautiful place she’d found herself again…become the old Lucy, the passionate, laughing creature who’d turned his life upside-down when he’d first met her five years ago. Maybe—just maybe—she’d welcome him with open arms, with all the delight in his presence that had always, paradoxically, both nourished and humbled him.

Clarence cut the engines and Gus went forward to hook the big pink buoy bobbing on the waves. Onshore a wooden dock sloped into the sea; a man was hauling a red-painted boat down it into the water. He clambered aboard, and in a swirl of wake headed for Four Angels.

“That’s Keith,” Hubert said. “You’ll arrive at the inn nicely in time for dinner.”

“Where’s your house?” Troy asked idly.

“I took over one of the bungalows where the light-keepers used to live. Mrs Mossop lives in the other one. Here’s Keith now—hand down the gear first, then get in and sit near the bow.”

Refraining from saying that boats had been part of his life since he was a boy, Troy did as he was told and introduced himself to Keith. A considerable part of Keith’s face was hidden by the twin growths of a fiery red beard and a mop of red hair; between them peered a pair of hazel eyes that were not so much unfriendly as desperately shy. Keith mumbled his name and with ill-disguised relief swiveled to face the motor.

When they reached the shore, he drove the boat right up on the slip. Troy stepped out and hauled it still further over the thick wood slats beneath which the salt water gurgled and slapped. He gave a hand to Hubert, who gathered up a small backpack, waved a cheery goodbye and set off along a trail that followed the curve of the shore.

“This way,” Keith said, and without looking to see if Troy was following set off on another trail that led in the opposite direction through the woods.