Northwest Passages Read online

  He hurried over to Raymond—it took all the courage he could summon to force his feet across the intervening distance—and knelt down beside him. The auditor turned to Mark and grasped at the lapels of his jacket.

  “Did you see them? Did you?” he begged. His eyes were huge and staring, and looked over Mark’s shoulder rather than directly at him. Mark moved so that his own back was against the wall, and there could be nothing behind him.

  “What’s going on, Raymond?” he asked, as quietly as he could. Raymond had twisted so he could look up into the corner. Mark refused to follow his gaze.

  “You saw them, didn’t you? Didn’t you?” he demanded. Then, more quietly, as if exhausted, “I can tell that you did. I can see it in your eyes. And you only saw them for a moment. I used to see them all the time. Then I found a way for them to leave me, so I could have some peace. They like it here; it’s dark and quiet, and near where they used to live. So now they stay here, but when I don’t come and see them they . . . they get angry. So angry. I try to tell them if I won’t be here . . . warn them . . . but I couldn’t this time. . . . ”

  “Raymond, I . . . I don’t know what I saw. I don’t know if I saw anything.”

  “You did. I can tell.” Raymond’s head sank down on his chest, and Mark thought that he had fainted. Then he heard the auditor say, in a voice that was barely audible, “I was young and stupid . . . drunk . . . thought it was just a joke. I don’t know why I . . . ” Raymond stopped, and took a deep breath. “It was so long ago. I thought I could make them happy, but I can’t. No matter what I do. And I try so hard.” Then he began to cry, low, choked, rasping sobs, and Mark could think of nothing to say.

  Mark was not surprised, when he returned to work two days later, to find that Raymond was off on sick leave for an indeterminate period. The doctor’s note was vague, merely stating that Mr. Young would be unable to return to work for some weeks due to illness; at Mark’s urging the matter was not pressed. Three weeks later Raymond sent in a letter of resignation; his two weeks’ notice would be taken as sick leave. He asked that his final paycheque be mailed to his home address. It was highly irregular, but after Mark had a quiet word with the personnel manager, the matter was dropped.

  While he was in the personnel office, he took the opportunity of looking through Raymond’s file. He had worked at another hotel in the chain, in Victoria, and previous to that had worked at a hotel in Kelowna. Both gave good, although not glowing, references, commending him for his work habits but indicating that his inter-personal skills were, perhaps, lacking. A note on his application form, presumably scribbled by whoever had interviewed him for the job at The Palace, read, in a section titled “Comments on applicant”, “Steady, quiet, polite, good with numbers. Has worked graveyard shift; says he likes the hours, wants to work in downtown Vancouver.” Beside this, a small notation in the margin read “Drink problem (?)”.

  With Raymond gone, Sylvia took over as night auditor five nights a week. She reported to Mark that the shadows in The King’s Arms were gone, a change which she attributed to new light fixtures. She still does not like going in there, however; she can’t say why, precisely.

  Mark has never tried to explain. Occasionally, though, when he goes outside to smoke a quiet cigarette in the middle of the night, he finds himself looking in through the window of The King’s Arms, searching the far corner where the shadows are darkest. Sometimes he thinks, just for a moment, that he sees movement there, and hears laughter which does not contain the faintest trace of warmth or humour. He shivers then, and tells himself it is only the night wind, and hurries back inside The Palace, and tries not to think about what the wind is saying.

  OUT AND BACK

  “Keep your eyes open. I don’t want to miss it.”

  “How hard can it be to miss?” Linda asked, pushing a strand of hair behind her ear. “It’s not the sort of thing you’re going to drive past and not see.”

  “It’s been abandoned for a long time,” said Allan patiently. “It’s not like there are going to be signs. Besides”—he waved one hand at the dispirited housing development they were driving through—“the place has grown up a lot. Back when it was built it was a long way from anywhere; nothing but scrub and fields.”

  “So why’d anyone build an amusement park miles from where people lived?” Linda wasn’t particularly interested in the answer, but it had been a long drive, and she was tired of the silence; tired, full stop.

  Allan shrugged. “I dunno. Guess land was cheap. And there’s a lake; that’s what it was named after. Must’ve been a popular spot for people to come with their families.”

  “What are you expecting to see?”

  “I’m not sure. I haven’t been able to find out much. It’s kind of off the beaten track”—Linda gave a hollow laugh, as if to say You’re kidding me—“and not too many people seem to have been here. I’m hoping to get some good pictures; put them up on my website.”

  “Great.” Linda stared out the window. “We take a day out of our vacation just so you can maybe get some pictures of you’re not sure what—if it’s still there, and if we find it—and then you’ll spend hours putting them up on a website for three people to see. Hooray.”

  Allan glanced sideways at her. “Hey, it’s just one day. I didn’t think you’d mind.”

  “Well, you got it wrong then. It’s one day out of the vacation I’ve been looking forward to for months, thinking—stupid me—that we’d have a nice relaxing time, no chasing around like we do every weekend, me being dragged off to some abandoned place or weird site that you just have to see. All I want is a rest, Allan.”

  “You didn’t have to come, you know. You could have stayed back at the hotel.”

  “Yeah, I guess I could. While you took the car, I could’ve stayed in the hotel room, and then when I got bored I could’ve gone down to the pool, and then I could’ve gone back to the room. Thrilling. Holidays are supposed to be about doing things together.”

  Allan shook his head. There was no point arguing with her when she got like this. When he’d realised their trip would take them so close—well, a hundred miles or so—to White Lake Park he’d planned to visit it; he just hadn’t mentioned it to Linda until that morning. He’d honestly thought that the idea of visiting another abandoned amusement park would appeal to her as much as it did to him; it wasn’t every day you got a chance to see something like this. He was trying to figure out a way to say this without provoking her further when he glanced to his left and saw something that made him start, so that the car swerved and Linda uttered a startled “Hey!”

  “Look! Over there! Do you see it?” Allan slowed the car to a crawl. “There!”

  Linda craned her neck and peered through the driver’s window. Behind the tired, sagging houses that lined the road she could see the tops of trees, an unbroken line stretching in both directions and apparently away from the houses as well. For a few moments that was all she could see, and she was about to ask what he was looking at when she saw it too.

  It came into focus so suddenly that she almost jerked her head back in surprise. One moment she was looking at an innocuous treescape, leafy green boughs of maples and oaks and buckeyes fluttering in the breeze, and the next she could see, twisting its way through the branches, the unmistakable silhouette of a roller coaster track, wooden supports criss-crossing beneath. Her eye followed the track and she saw it dip out of sight behind the houses; then, further ahead, it rose again, and she had an impression as of some huge beast crouched behind the houses, watching, waiting. She shook her head and blinked, and despite the heat of the day she shivered.

  Allan had pulled onto the shoulder and stopped the car. “There must be a way in,” he muttered. “Some sort of entrance . . . ”

  “Long gone, I’ll bet,” said Linda. “Place is probably locked up tighter than a drum. Can you imagine the lawsuits?”

  Allan didn’t hear; or at least pretended not to. “There’s got to be access from be
hind these houses. They back right onto it.”

  “What are you going to do? Walk through someone’s back yard, climb their fence? Honestly, Allan. . . . ”

  “There.” He pointed to a house that stood slightly apart from its neighbours. It was a good deal older than most of the other houses in the area, sitting in the middle of an unkempt lawn choked with dandelions, a battered wooden fence which had once been white standing guard in front like a mouthful of broken teeth. To one side was a dusty laneway with a half-dozen cars parked in it, and Allan looked at them with suspicion.

  “Typical,” he muttered. “Bet all these people are here to look at the park. Won’t be able to move for tripping over them, gawking, taking pictures.”

  “And that makes them different to you—how, exactly?”

  Allan said nothing as he pulled in beside the last one in the row, a dirty Ford Focus with a baby seat in the back. He reached into the back of their own car and fished around for the bag containing his camera and notebook. When he got out, he slammed the door with more force than Linda thought was strictly necessary, although she refrained from commenting.

  The late morning heat was oppressive, like a wet woollen blanket. Linda pushed a limp strand of brown hair behind one ear, then smoothed out her skirt, which felt damp and clammy. Allan glanced at her.

  “Don’t know why you wore that,” he muttered. “Not very practical.”

  “Yeah, well, maybe if you’d told me we’d be climbing over fences and forcing our way through undergrowth I’d’ve worn something more suitable, like Army fatigues and steel-toed boots. Silly me, I thought when you said ‘amusement park’ it meant some place civilised, with a midway and something to eat. My own stupid fault; after all this time I should’ve known better.”

  Allan said nothing. They were here now, and he was determined to make the most of it. Nothing Linda said would get him down. He’d deal with it later, like he always did; try to smooth things over. The main thing at the moment was to figure out a way into the park.

  “Looks as if there might be a door in that fence.” He glanced at the house. “Wouldn’t be surprised if this was built when the park was.”

  “Maybe.” Linda shrugged. She had been looking at the row of cars. “Don’t think you have to worry too much about anyone else beating you to your scoop.” When Allan looked puzzled, she pointed. “Most of these are pretty old; don’t look like they’ve gone anywhere in years. Someone probably has a spare parts business on the side.”

  Allan looked more closely at the cars, and had to admit that Linda was probably right. They all looked old and battered; at least two of them had flat tires, and the oldest one—a mid-1970s station wagon at the far end of the row—was so rusted that the car would likely fall to pieces if anyone tried to move it. No competition, he thought with satisfaction.

  Linda’s voice broke in on his thoughts. “So, what’re we going to do? Stand here all day? C’mon, Allan, let’s get this over with.”

  “All right, all right.” He slung the bag over his shoulder. Part of him wanted to head straight to the fence and go in, not bother with anything like permission in case someone tried to stop him, but another part of him knew from experience that it was best to get acknowledgement from someone—anyone—of what he was doing, to save awkwardness later on. Not that something like lack of permission would stop him; he’d just find another way in. He always did. He jerked his head in the direction of the house. “I’m just going to go and make sure it’s okay,” he said, and began walking towards what looked like the main door, at the back of the house facing the park. After a moment Linda followed him.

  There was no doorbell, so Allan rapped on the wooden door, the sound harsh in the still morning air. After a few moments there was a noise from inside, as of footsteps hurrying; a woman’s voice called out anxiously “Bill?”, and the door opened so suddenly that both of them stepped back a pace.

  The woman who stood framed in the peeling paint of the door frame was probably in her early thirties, but looked considerably older: her hair had obviously not been cut for some time, and was streaked with grey, and she wore no make-up on her pale face. She was dressed in a faded T-shirt and skirt, the latter with its hem trailing down at one side and two or three rips, inexpertly mended, threatening to unravel further. A small child—a boy, no more than three or so—was peering from behind her legs, looking half-fearfully, half-hopefully at Allan and Linda. There was a suggestion of more people further down the hallway—a muffled murmur, as of voices whispering—but no one else appeared.

  Allan cleared his throat. “Uh, hi. We were—we were hoping to be able to get into the park, have a look around. Do you think that would be a problem?”

  The woman looked them both up and down. A look almost of disappointment had appeared on her face when she had opened the door and seen them; it was now replaced by one of resignation, and Allan had a sinking feeling that she was going to tell them they couldn’t go in. Some sort of caretaker, he thought; there’s bound to be one. He was taken aback when she said, in a flat voice, “There’s nothing to stop you going in, if you want to.”

  “Really? Wow, that’s—that’s great. Thanks.”

  “Don’t thank me. It’s got nothing to do with me. Anyone who wants to go in there is free to do so.”

  “Ah. Well, that’s good to know. Are you the caretaker or something?”

  “No. This used to be the caretaker’s house, a long time ago. You can get into the park through there.” She pointed to the door in the fence at the bottom of the yard.

  “I see.” Allan nodded towards the parked cars. “Guess you get a lot of people coming here, wanting to have a look.”

  The woman followed his gaze. “A few. Not many. Those cars are all ours.”

  “ ‘Ours’?” Allan queried.

  “Yes. The people in this house.”

  “Have you lived here long?”

  “I’ve been here for . . . ” The woman paused and her brow furrowed, as if the effort of calculating were a difficult one. “Two years. Maybe. Not as long as some.”

  “I see.” There was a pause, and when it looked set to continue indefinitely Allan said, “So it’s okay if we go in, then? We won’t disturb anything, cause any damage. We’ll let you know when we’re done, if you want, tell you when we’re leaving.”

  “Oh, that’s fine. We’ll know when you’re done.”

  “Ah. Well, that’s—that’s great, then. We’ll see you later.”

  The woman said nothing, merely looked at them as they turned and headed towards the door in the fence. They were both conscious of her gaze on them as they made their way through the long grass, although when Linda turned and looked while Allan wrestled with the door in the fence she saw that the woman had gone and the house door was shut. She thought she saw a curtain twitch on one of the lower windows, and there was a suggestion of a figure standing at one of the upstairs windows, but she could not be sure.

  Allan grunted and swore as he struggled with the door, which was jammed shut. “One good thing; it means no one else has been this way for a while,” he said, giving the door a shove. With a creak and a groan it swung open, and Allan almost fell through, recovering his balance at the last moment. He peered through the opening and took a deep breath. She couldn’t see his face, but Linda knew that his eyes were shining and that he had a goofy smile on his face, like a kid getting his first look at the tree on Christmas morning. How can I compete with that? she thought; and before she could block it out came the answer: You can’t.

  She watched as he disappeared through the door, and for a moment she thought about not following him, of heading back to the car—she had a spare set of keys in her bag, after all, she could just get in and drive away, leave him here to his precious park, go do something interesting, something she wanted to do, instead of trailing after him as she had so many times, pretending to be interested. He probably wouldn’t even notice she wasn’t there. Then, as she saw him receding into the u
ndergrowth that choked the other side of the fence, she took a deep breath of her own and followed him in.

  If she hadn’t known she was in a former amusement park, she would never have guessed. Trees crowded round on all sides and weeds ran rampant; there was the suggestion of a trail, but nothing to indicate what the site had once been, until she was brought up short by Allan stopping suddenly in front of her and muttering “Holy shit, that’s brilliant.” A moment later he was fumbling inside his bag for his camera, and Linda moved around him so that she could see.

  A white shape loomed out of a thicket of buckeyes ahead and to their right. It looked as though the vegetation were trying to seize the building and pull it back in amongst the trees, and it took Linda a moment to realise what it was: a small booth with an overhanging roof and windows on three of the four sides, one of them half covered with a wooden shutter. The building had once been painted in gay shades of red and yellow, but the paint had faded and peeled, and one side showed signs of scorching. Linda was trying to figure out what it was when Allan spoke.

  “Ticket booth,” he flung over his shoulder. “Great, isn’t it?”

  “Brilliant.” Linda took a step closer. “Why’s it burned?”

  “I dunno. I think there’s a lot of fire damage in the park. People get in, start fires just for the fun of it.”