Free Something Fishy by Hilary MacLeod Page A

pried herself out of the purple chair. It seemed to be getting harder to do every day. She shuffled over the beige vinyl flooring that still shone like new after forty years.
    More knocking. Desperate-sounding.
    â€œI’m coming. I’m coming.” Who could it be? No one she knew. No one from the village.
    â€œViola Featherstonehaugh,” said the wizened old woman on the Macks’ stoop. She handed Gus a business card. Gus looked at it blankly. Her lips moved silently as she read the name. What a mouthful.
    â€œCall me Viola. Everyone does.” The woman extended a hand.
    Shaking hands was something Gus rarely did.
    â€œI’m looking for your husband.”
    â€œAbel? You might be looking a long time.”
    â€œNo, not Abel. Gus. I was told Gus Mack.”
    â€œWell, I’m Gus Mack, as anyone will tell you.” The woman was quite out of breath. “Come in. Come in. Please, take a seat. Cuppa tea?”
    â€œNo, thank you.” Viola sat down. “Got tuckered out on my way up here, but I have my own medicine.” She pulled off her white gloves, and fished for her cigarette case and holder.
    Gus had gone into the pantry to make tea and a plate of biscuits, as she did when anyone, especially a stranger, showed up at her door.
    She came back into the room, to be confronted by billows of smoke.
    â€œMy land, a fire! We best get out of here.” She dumped the tray with the teapot, two cups and saucers, and plate of cookies on the table next to Viola.
    A cackle from Viola was followed by a round of hacking and coughing. Gus joined her, because she wasn’t used to cigarette smoke. There had been a time when Abel smoked, but he hadn’t in years, not in the house.
    Gus opened a window on either side of the room, and the fresh air soon cleared it.
    Viola stabbed her cigarette in one of the saucers, dug in her purse again, and drew out an ornate silver flask. She opened it and poured a generous dollop into a teacup.
    Gus had been about to ask the woman not to smoke, but faced with this new problem, didn’t know what to say. She wondered why Viola had come. She couldn’t ask that flat out. It wouldn’t be polite.
    â€œWhat brings you to The Shores?”
    â€œI’m a business partner,” Viola smiled coyly, “of Anton Paradis. Also his very good friend.” Viola winked.
    Nobody had winked at Gus in sixty-five years. She knew it to the year and day. Setting day, when the fishermen put their lobster traps out for the season. Cheeky young fella, very good-looking, mind, did odd jobs for Abel. She’d given him a thermos of tea. It would be cold on that boat, and him on his first time out.
    He had saluted her with the thermos.
    â€œThanks, missus,” he’d said, and winked.
    Gus, a young wife not twenty years old, had flushed and covered her face with an apron.
    She wouldn’t be doing either of those things now. She did find it odd, though, for a woman to wink at another woman. What did it mean?
    Viola had no idea that Gus would get flustered over a wink.
    People were different here. That’s why she was here – with Gus. Not the mayor, obviously, but able to fill her in on that turbine and trailer.
    She downed the scotch and poured more from the flask.
    â€œThat…uh…trailer.” She was looking out the window, frowning twice. Once for the trailer, and once for the wind turbine. “Will that be there all summer?”
    â€œShe’ll not be moving from there this summer, nor anytime, don’t matter what you do, I ’spec.”
    â€œNot even an offer to purchase?”
    Gus had her eyes glued to Viola’s hands, reaching into her purse again, this time for her silver cigarette case.
    â€œI doubt it. She’s sitting on a gold mine and she knows it. Could get a lot for it today, more tomorrow, and she’s young. She’ll be around for a while.”
    â€œAnd she