She opened the door a crack and peeked in. Except for a battered file cabinet in one corner and the metal desk beside it, Black River Realty was furnished entirely with dilapidated lawn furniture — a collection of stacked green resin chairs and three aluminum chaise lounges in one of which a mountainous woman sprawled precariously. One hand rested, spread-fingered, on her bosom; from the other dangled a lit cigarette. Red flip-flops swung from the toes of her swollen, purplish feet. Was she asleep? Her eyes were closed and her red hair was set in jumbo foam rollers. But what about the cigarette?
Verna slid into the room, closing the door behind her. “Uh … excuse me?”
The woman’s eyes popped open, widened with alarm, then, assessing the situation, she blinked. “Oh, hello, dear,” she said. “Just resting. Not that it’s hectic. Just that I’m the size of a barn. The slightest effort wears me out. Have to conserve energy. I didn’t ask to be this big, but you got to play with the hand you’re dealt …” Turning to the glass-topped table beside her, she ground out her cigarette in an ashtray overflowing with butts. “Say, dear, can you help me up?” She planted a foot on either side of the lounge and extended two hands to Verna. She looked like an enormous child asking to be picked up.
“Please, don’t bother. I just …”
“Got to get up sometime!” the woman insisted. “Otherwise the blood pools. Don’t want the blood to pool. No, not that. Terrible thing. Aneurysms. And I can tell you, the last thing I need is an aneurysm. Would just about finish me off. Come on, dear. Give us a yank. By the looks of you, you’ve got one good yank in you.”
Verna took the woman’s hands and braced herself.
“On the count of three,” the woman instructed. “One … two … three!”
Verna pulled. The woman strained. It was touch-and-go for a few seconds, but then there the woman was, on her feet, yanking into place around her bulk the faded gingham housecoat — in the struggle it had gotten twisted around and hiked dangerously high up above her elephantine knees. “Thanks,” she said. “If you hadn’t come along, God knows what would have happened to me!” Then, at the look of Verna’s face, “Just kidding! My name’s Carmen, by the way.” She glanced over her shoulder in the direction of a greasy dog-eared poster taped to the wall. IF YOUR DREAM IS TO LIVE AT THE BEACH, it advised, CALL CARMEN THE COTTAGE LADY! There, wearing a gauzy turquoise cover-up and seated behind a dainty rattan desk set up on a sandy beach was a younger, slimmer Carmen — the type of swarthy redhead found only among French Canadians. A smile lit up a handsome face; she held a fountain pen in one hand; by the looks of it she was on the verge of signing a lucrative deal. “Oh, that’s me, all right!” she said ruefully. “Or half of me, at any rate. Several hundred years ago. Who would have thought … but no. Enough about me. Water under the bridge. So …” She rubbed her palms together with affected relish. “What can I do you for? Want to buy a cottage? Of course, I sell anything and everything. Doesn’t have to be a cottage. Mobile homes. Quonset huts. Geodesic domes — their popularity was brief. I’ve got a laundromat listed and a nice little corner store. Great business opportunity there! No former grow houses, though. Nope. Never again. Got burned on that one. So, what is it you’re looking for? God, I need a cigarette. Do you want a cigarette?”
“I don’t smoke.”
“Of course, you don’t. So many southerners don’t these days. They make such a point of it. You’re wondering how I know you’re a southerner. Your accent. You mind?” Without waiting for Verna’s answer, she retrieved a package of Du Mauriers and a blue Zippo lighter from the table and lighted up. “They say nicotine’ll kill you, but I’d put my money on the extra hundred and fifty pounds. You know what they say.”
“No,” said Verna, bewildered, because, after all, they have been known to say a whole lot of things.
“Nobody gets out of here alive!” Carmen informed her and hooted. The hoot modulated into a honk, which culminated in a terrifying bout of coughing, chest-thumping, and stomping.
“Are you all right?” Verna asked. “Can I get you something? Some water, maybe?”
“No, no!” the realtor demurred. “Not to worry. I’m fit as a fiddle, bright as a new penny, good to go. Just a little bronchial spasm is what that was.”
“I saw your ad on the Internet,” Verna said uneasily. She was beginning to think that she might have to look further afield for a realtor — to Beverley, perhaps even Timmins. Carmen could hardly be described as “professional,” even when you took the fact that she lived in Greater Gammage into account. Was she even capable of representing clients? “You might know my family — the Macouns. We have a cottage on Lake Marguerite.”
At this Carmen beamed broadly. “Lord thundering Jesus!” she exclaimed. “Why, I’d never … It’s Verna, then? Why didn’t you say so?”
Verna blinked at her. “Excuse me?”
Carmen pounded her on the back. “I didn’t recognize you! What’s it been? Thirty years? Forty?”
Verna stared blankly.
“Oh, don’t tell me you don’t remember! We knew each other when we were kids.”
“I’m sorry …”
“Oh, sure you do! A skinny, red-headed kid with freckles?”
“Nope. Sorry.”
Carmen gave up. “Ah! Don’t matter! You were a teenager and there’s nothin’ more ornery and ungrateful than a teenager. How’d you think I got this big? Think I did it on my own? Four teenagers did this to me. Worried me into a state of obesity. Thank God they’re all gone. Pack of wild Indians. Now I can live out my days in peace.”
“Yeah, well,” Verna agreed. During the last few summers she had spent at the lake — her fourteenth and fifteenth — her moods had seemed to swing between two extremes: either soggy despair or molten fury at poor Donald for forcing her to leave behind her friends and all the excitement that was Toronto in the summer. Obviously neither state had proved conducive to her remembering that there were locals at all, much less individual locals who grew up and out to become Carmen the Cottage Lady. In fact, the only image of others that she could dredge from her memory of that period was of a shadowy cluster of urchins, looking more like extras from Les Miz than viable representatives of her own peer group.
“You got kids?” Carmen asked, then answered herself. “No, that’s right. Fern said you never had any.”
She had touched on a nerve. Verna had wanted kids. Bob had not. Then, after a while, she hadn’t wanted them, either, or, to be more precise, she hadn’t wanted Bob’s. “So you knew Fern?” she asked.
“I sure did. Now, she was something else! Remember how she used to draw the boys?” She chuckled.
“Like flies.” Verna was rueful.
Carmen laughed. “A pheromone machine, that’s what Fern was. ’Course we were all a little boy-crazy in those days. Well, I certainly was. Now …” She shrugged. “Now I wouldn’t give two red nickels for the whole lot of them. Men! Why, if some man were to walk into my life right now, do you know what I’d do?”
“What?” asked Verna.
“I’d escort him to the door and I’d say, ‘Don’t you come back now! I mean it! Scoot! Get the hell out of here!’ Oh, but say!” Remembering, she turned solicitous. “We were all real sorry to hear that Donald passed. He was one of the good ones.”
“Yeah, well,” said Verna glumly. “Thanks.”
“How old was he?”
“Eighty-three. Almost eighty-four.”
“Well, you see!”
“Actually I’m thinking of putting the cottage on the market,” Verna said. “Would you be interested in listing it?”
“Are you sure you want to do that?”
“Well, yeah.” Verna was surprised. “That’s what I’m thinking.”
“Then I’d think twice if I were you. A cottage like that — better to keep it in the family.”
“Hold on,” Verna said. “Let me get this straight. You’re a real-estate agent and you’re telling me not to sell?”
“I’m telling you what I think,” Carmen clarified. “And I think you don’t want to be making a decision you might regret someday. That’s a real nice cottage. You got your own lake. Your own lake. Not many people in this wide world got their own lake. There might come a time that lake’d come in handy.”
Verna was annoyed. Why should she have to explain herself to Carmen? If she wanted to sell, she wanted to sell. It was hardly Carmen’s business. “It’s too far from Toronto,” she said curtly. “I haven’t been up here in over thirty years. I hate blackflies and mosquitoes and no-see-ums and horseflies, and deerflies. As for ‘the family,’ I’m it. All she wrote. End of story.”
“What about Fern’s kids?” Carmen countered. “She had a passle of ’em, if memory serves.”
Touché. “Yeah, well, we have no idea where they went,” Verna said. “Disappeared off the face of the earth. M.I.A. Haven’t heard from them or their fathers in years.” She winced, remembering how, a couple of weeks before his coronary, her father had asked, “If Parsley or … any of the others surface, you’ll help them out, won’t you?” He couldn’t remember their names, either. He asked this not once or twice but five or six times in the course of a single morning. And every time he had asked, she had replied with mounting irritation, “Of course, Dad. Of course I’d help them out. What do you take me for?” How anxious and agitated he had been toward the end; it was almost as if he could hear his inner clock winding down, losing its crank. It hurt her heart now to think how cross she had been with him, how often she had given way to irritation in what turned out to be the last few weeks of his life.
“If there’s one thing I’ve learned,” Carmen told her, “it’s that the cat comes back.” She patted Verna’s arm with a plump, cocktail-ring-encrusted hand — pink zircons and smoky topaz. “Hey?” she cajoled. “Come on! What’s the big hurry? Wait a little. Think it over. Take your time. Donald’s barely in the ground.”
“Actually he’s in the car,” Verna said, suddenly miserable. “His … ashes, at any rate. Fern’s, too. I’ve come to scatter them. That’s why I’m here. One reason.”
“Well, then,” said Carmen.
Verna rallied herself. Enough already. Get on with it. It’s nearly five. The Cocktail Hour. “Actually why I stopped by is … this is embarrassing, but could you tell me how to get to the cottage from here? For the life of me …”
“Tabernac! And why didn’t you say so? The lake’s always been devilish hard to find, especially if you don’t know where you’re looking. Eh eh!” She jabbed Verna in the ribs. “Don’t worry. I’ll take you there.”
“No, Carmen!” Verna protested, panicking. It was going to be hard enough seeing the cottage for the first time in so long and after all that had happened. The last thing she wanted was an audience. “It’s really not necessary. I’m sure …”
“Oh, sure, but it’s no trouble at all,” Carmen assured her.
“But I’ve got the dog in the car …” Verna was desperate. “There’s no …”
“Oh, I’m not intending to go in your car,” Carmen said breezily. “Wouldn’t fit. No, I’ll lead you to it in the Carmen-mobile. It’s got a pop steering wheel and extra long seat belts.”
“But … you’re not dressed!” Verna grasped at straws.
Carmen reached up, grabbed hold of the jumbo rollers in her hair and pulled them out. Hair the colour of fire tumbled in shining waves to her shoulders. “Now I am!”
Verna followed the unwieldy Buick as it toiled past the handful of listing, boarded-up storefronts that constituted the remainder of Greater Gammage and down the ragged spur of road that hugged the river. Another kilometre and the road veered off into deep forest. Two more and the Buick slowed to make a wide right turn onto a narrow gravel road. Of course, she chided herself. The service road. How could she have forgotten the kilometre-long winding laneway that tethered her grandfather’s cottage to rough civilization? The entrance to this road was so hidden amid the tamaracks, birches, and cedar that, unless you knew what you were looking for, you almost always missed it. As children, she and Fern simply accepted the fact that the road was problematic — magic was clearly involved. It was a secret passage, a magic porthole, maybe even a wormhole. As a teenager, she had blamed it for her isolation, for the fact that she could not be found with ease by whomever she hoped was seeking her … although, now that she thought about it, it had clearly not proved an insurmountable obstacle to boys sniffing out Fern over all those summers. Nevertheless, Verna had forever been after her father to erect at the laneway’s entrance one of those cozy little signs by means of which cottagers lay claim to their bit of bush and waterfront — “A Snail’s Pace,” “Sunny Beach Hideaway,” or, less coyly, “The Wickerson Family.”
“Why can’t we?” she had pleaded. “Other families do.”
But Donald would ask, “Who would like a Doctor Pepper?” Pretending that he hadn’t heard, or, “I’m going to have to make a trip into town for bread. What do you want? Wonder or Hollywood?” Donald, she realized, had had no wish to be found and now neither did she.
The Volvo bumped and lurched after the lumbering LeSabre — the road was badly washboarded.
Carmen rolled down her window. “It’s been years since your dad had this road re-graded,” she called back to Verna. “You might want to do that. Otherwise your suspension will be all shot to hell.”
A few minutes more and the road creaked open to a view of the lake on Verna’s right. The size of a football stadium, Lake Marguerite had started life as the footprint of a glacier preserved in the granite of the Canadian Shield. Now, with dusk fast approaching, the oval mirror that it held to the sky reflected a sun setting in a cascade of sparkling shards.
At the sight, or, perhaps, the smell of water, Jude struggled to attention, made a muffled noise, and shook his tags. His ears pricked up and his nose quivered. He made his way across the backseat to the window to stare raptly at the lake as though its shining waters, rippled like corduroy, were the portal to paradise. He was a water dog, after all, bred to swim. Bred to retrieve soft, dead things from the water and lay them at his master’s feet, all for a little praise and love. No, it wasn’t the dog’s reaction to the lake that caught Verna by surprise. It was hers.
Dad, she realized. He’s gone.
Her throat constricted. Sharp tears pricked like needles at the corner of her eyes. It was as though the realization had tackled her head on. Knocked the wind out of her. She hunched over to absorb the blow and, as she did, popped the clutch, causing the Volvo to lurch to a halt. He’s dead, she told herself. I’ve lost him. Lost! What a strange notion that was! As if the old man had been mislaid. As if she and he had become separated in a store or an airport. What was it they say — those whose job it is to break bad news? What the OPP officer said — the one who called to tell her that he and his partner had found Fern dead in the cottage. What the policewoman said — the one dispatched to tell her of Bob’s fatal accident. What the paramedic said — the one who responded to the 911 call at the Keele Street Station. The standard line, what they all say: “I’m sorry for your loss.” Sister, husband, father. It was as though they had been kidnapped from a shopping mall while she was busy doing something else. While she was not paying attention.
“What’s up?”
Verna looked up to see Carmen leaning out of the Buick’s rolled down window, peering back at her.
“Nothing,” Verna managed.
“Is there a problem?”
“No. Give me a moment.”
The LeSabre’s door swung open. Carmen’s foot appeared, then portions of the rest of her.
Oh, dear God! Don’t get out! “I’m fine,” Verna called desperately, hoping to forestall her.
But it was too late. Carmen appeared at the window of the Volvo. “Tell me you’re not having a heart attack.”
“I’m not having a heart attack.”
“You think you’re not, but do you know for sure?”
“I think
I’d know if I were having a heart attack!”
“Not necessarily. I had a client once had a heart attack on the way to a showing. One minute he was tailgating me like you wouldn’t believe, the next he was over the embankment and into the river. Forty-eight years old. Angry son of a bitch. I can’t say anyone was sorry to see him go.”
“Well, I’m not having a heart attack. Just a stitch in my side.” Verna succeeded in straightening up, but not without difficulty. “There. See. It’s better.”
“Sometimes heart attacks present as gas,” Carmen insisted.
Verna turned the key in the ignition. “Well, this was a stitch. Lactic acid. I’m fine. Really. Let’s go.”
Carmen shrugged. “If you say so.” She lumbered back to her car.
Another half-kilometre and the cottage rose into view on a foundation of mortared fieldstone a metre high. It was a log house, made of northern white pine harvested from the surrounding forest and roofed with cinnamon-coloured, hand-split cedar shakes. The cottage was not the first human habitation to have commandeered the lake’s northern end. That distinction had belonged to a roughly hewn log cabin — just whose had been unclear. George Macoun had shrugged when asked. “Probably some French trapper who wandered off one day,” he had replied, sucking on his pipe. The cabin had burned down some time before George had bought up the land around the lake. He had the cottage built over top of its smoke stain and rubble remains. It was, after all, the best place for a house, the lake’s sweet spot.
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