Once again she went to open the door to the cottage, but he wasn’t done.
“I want you to move that damned car in the morning,” he said. “Move it up to Mathew’s cottage and bring the Oldsmobile back to its proper spot.”
“What’s got into you?” she asked.
“I could ask you the same thing,” he said. “What kind of bathing suit is that for a grown woman? It’s a good thing your mother isn’t here.”
She had no idea what had got under his skin besides Lorette, but she was too cold to fight with him. She went inside and grabbed her nightgown and housecoat from the bedroom, and then sent Lorette out to get him. She turned on the shower and got in, and let the hot water run over her goosebumps.
When she had finally stopped shivering, she turned off the water, and she could immediately hear Oliver yelling at poor Lorette. She quickly dried herself off and got into her pyjamas, thinking she would run to Theo’s cottage and get him, but by the time she came out of the bathroom, the shouting had stopped. Oliver was in his armchair and Lorette was arranging a pillow behind his head. Lorette put her finger to her lips and motioned for Estella to go to her room, so she did. She sat on the edge of her bed and listened, waiting for the yelling to start up again, but it didn’t.
An hour later, when all was quiet, she slipped out to check. Her father appeared to be asleep and Lorette was under a blanket on the couch. She gave Estella a thumbs-up. Estella brushed her teeth and tiptoed back to her room.
IN THE MORNING, it was as though the whole episode hadn’t happened. When Estella got up, her father was eating a boiled egg at the table. She sat down with him and he remarked that it was going to be hot, over eighty degrees, and they should keep the cottage shut up if they could. It was as though he had no memory of his tantrum the night before. Estella tested the water by saying, “I thought I might switch the cars, move the Oldsmobile from Mathew’s today and park it here, where you can see it. What do you think?”
“Suit yourself,” he said. “But I don’t need to see it. I know where it is.”
She spent the day with the women and the younger kids at the beach in front of the cottages while the teenagers walked up to the big public beach and the men went golfing. That night, she went for her swim, parallel to the shore this time instead of out to the point, and she didn’t see Peter in his canoe. As her arms cut rhythmically through the water, she remembered the time her mother had put her book in the cooking pot, and how that had preceded her stroke. Did these mood swings of her father’s mean something more than old age?
When she got back to shore, Peter was waiting under the spruce tree. There was a walking cane beside him in the sand. She wrapped herself up in her towel and sat down beside him.
She still had the key to Harold’s cabin, Tom Thomson, and she wondered if she should get it so they could move inside where it was warmer, but she thought better of it. How could she suggest it without Peter jumping to an awkward conclusion? Instead, they sat in the sand under the tree and talked. He told her much more than he had been able to in the hospital. He had moved to Prince Albert five years ago and had been working on his journeyman’s papers as an electrician before the accident. He’d decided to put that on hold, he said, because he could see his mother needed his help. He thought he’d do odd jobs in Lake Claire for a while, see how things went. Now that it was such a popular spot there was plenty of work for a man who was handy with tools. He didn’t mention his future in boxing and she didn’t ask. They talked for an hour, and then he said good night and picked up his cane and walked home on the bush trail.
The next night, Peter was there again when she finished her swim, and once again they sat by the water and talked. She began to take a pair of sweat pants and a warm sweater down to the beach with her, to pull on over her wet bathing suit. Peter was sometimes there and sometimes not, but she was always happy when she stepped out of the water and saw him sitting under the spruce tree. There was never anyone else on the beach, with the exception of an older woman who took a black lab for a walk at the same time every night. They said hello when she passed, and then went back to talking, their voices low so they wouldn’t carry. As she sat in the sand with Peter, Estella thought she understood what was missing from her life: the chance to talk to someone who was not her increasingly difficult father, and was not, in fact, even a Diamond.
One night when Estella got back to the cottage, her father was still sitting on the deck and he wanted to know where she’d been for so long.
“You weren’t swimming all that time,” he said.
She lied and told him she had been. When Lorette came out and asked if Oliver was ready to go to bed he went in with her, but then immediately had a tantrum over nothing.
Estella followed them inside and wondered where Lorette got her patience.
ESTELLA AND THEO would sometimes have a mid-afternoon cocktail together while the others were still at the beach or the golf course. Theo was almost sixty years old by this time and he said the heat bothered him. Oliver typically had a nap in the afternoon, so they sat on Theo’s deck, next door to Emily Carr. They were there one day with their usual gin and tonics when they noticed a man in a Winnebago motorhome with Ontario plates cruising slowly among the cottages, as though he was inspecting them for future reference, or perhaps looking for someone. They watched as the motorhome stopped across the road and the driver got out and walked toward them. He introduced himself as Miles Kingwell from Thunder Bay, and asked if their name was Diamond. He might be a relative by marriage, he said. He and his family were on their way to Jasper in the mountains, he explained, but they’d taken a diversion off the Yellowhead Highway to Lake Claire. They’d heard in the campground about the big family of Diamonds that always stayed at Fosters, and the name Diamond had caught his attention. He’d left his family at the campground and driven to Fosters to introduce himself.
Estella imagined the family stranded in the campground without the motorhome. The mosquitoes were notoriously bad in the trees.
“Your family is from Ontario originally?” Miles Kingwell asked. “The Ottawa Valley?”
Estella told him yes, but they didn’t know any family there.
Miles said the connection was through a first wife. He didn’t know much about her or the marriage, just a vague story.
Estella thought immediately of Salina, but Theo shook his head and said there was no first wife in their family. He said, “Our father had a brother. George, I believe. He moved to the States many years ago, something to do with the car industry. He and our father lost touch. I suppose George could have been married more than once.”
“I don’t think that’s it,” the man said. “But the Diamond name, for sure, from Byrne Corners. I believe the first wife was my great-aunt.”
Estella could see that Theo was ready to send this man on his way. He was not convinced of the connection, and they’d not been raised to believe there was family anywhere else that mattered. Estella, though, wondered if her father might want to meet Miles Kingwell. She tried to think quickly because she didn’t know whether Theo was denying Salina’s existence, or if he genuinely didn’t know their father had been married before Beatrice. That would have been astounding if true, but then again the first marriage had never been discussed. If she hadn’t found the letters in the teapot and been there for that brief conversation her father had had with Allen Foster, she wouldn’t have known he’d been married twice.
She felt she had to say something before Theo did, so she invited the Kingwells to join them for a barbecue that evening, and then she asked Miles what his grandparents’ names were.
“Not that they would mean anything to me,” she said.
Miles said that his grandfather’s name was Burt Kingwell. His grandmother was Roseanne, but he couldn’t remember her maiden name. His father’s name was Amos.
From the letters, Estella knew of Roseanne as Salina’s sister, and Amos as her nephew. These were indeed Salina’s relatives.
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br /> After Miles Kingwell left, Theo looked at Estella as though he disapproved of what she’d done, invited strangers to supper, but she said, “What can it hurt? Let’s see what Father thinks of them.”
Later, when Oliver was awake and seated on the deck with his rum and Coke, Estella told him that guests were coming to dinner. She didn’t mention who she believed them to be, and said simply that the Kingwells claimed to be relatives by marriage, from Byrne Corners. Theo was there, and he said that maybe they were descendants of Oliver’s brother, if they were relatives at all.
When Miles Kingwell arrived in the Winnebago for supper with his family—his wife, a teenaged daughter, and a younger boy—the burgers were already on the barbecues and the Diamonds were sitting at the picnic tables or on the many folding lawn chairs they always brought with them. Theo introduced the strangers to Oliver as being from Ontario with a connection to Byrne Corners, without reporting their claim to be relatives. Then he tried to introduce them to the others but they hardly noticed because they were all so wrapped up in their own stories of the day: one of the kids had got a fish hook stuck in his palm; a couple of the teenaged girls were giddy over a boy they’d met who said he was the provincial junior tennis champion; Paul had gone into the village several hours ago and hadn’t yet returned, and should someone go looking for him? Miles tried to break in and explain the family connection through a first wife, and Theo said again that perhaps Oliver’s brother had been married more than once, although they wouldn’t know anything about that, and then the burgers began to come off the barbecues, and a huge pot of boiled corn appeared on the table. Theo got the Kingwells drinks from a cooler and told them to help themselves to food.
When Estella went to hand her father a plate of food, she noticed that he was staring at the Kingwells’ teenaged daughter, a girl named Cheryl, who was talking to one of the other girls. She was perhaps sixteen years old, and she was dressed in shorts and a T-shirt with flowers on it. She had blond hair cut in a bob curled under, and was wearing stylish pale-pink lipstick. Even when Estella handed her father a plate of food, he didn’t take his eyes off the girl.
“Dad,” Estella said, tapping him on the knee to get his attention. “Don’t stare.”
She wondered if this was another sign of impending dementia, some new obsession with young girls, until she had another thought: if the Kingwells were related through Salina, perhaps the daughter looked like her.
After supper, they heard the sound of the paddlewheeler crossing the bay, and Mathew’s son Greg reminded everyone that they had the boat booked for a private tour the next evening. They’d hired a photographer from Prince Albert to come along and take a Diamond family picture on deck.
“Too bad there are only forty-one of us,” Greg said. “We would have set a new record if that baby hadn’t decided to come early.”
Estella was sick of hearing about the record.
Oliver hadn’t yet gone back to the cottage, even though he usually gave up on the lawn chairs before everyone else and headed for the comfort of his armchair. He was still noticeably staring at Cheryl off and on, and finally Estella said to Miles, by way of explanation, “Dad’s seeing a family resemblance in your daughter.”
Greg jumped on it right away and said, “Say, if you people are relatives, why don’t you come along tomorrow? That’ll make forty-five, and we’ve got our number.”
Just then Paul appeared from wherever he’d been, wearing his leather jacket, and he noticed Cheryl, a new girl, and plunked himself next to her.
Oliver had been watching Paul walk toward them, and he was now giving him some kind of evil eye. Estella grew worried about what her father might be about to say, so she called Lorette and said, “I think Dad is ready to go back.” Lorette set down her drink and came to help, but not before Oliver said, “Keep him away from her.” Estella managed to get her father headed in the direction of Emily Carr before he could say anything else.
She wanted to talk to her father alone. Lorette helped him into his nightclothes and got him settled in his chair, and then Estella suggested she go back to the group outside. She could hear that Greg’s wife, Iris, had gotten her accordion out.
“I don’t suppose you like campfire singalongs?” Estella asked Lorette.
It turned out that she did, and she also sang in a church choir, so Estella told her to go save everyone from Iris and her accordion.
When she was gone, Estella said, “Dad, these Kingwells claim to be related to us by marriage. Do you think they could be Salina’s relatives?”
He said, without showing any concern that Estella had spoken Salina’s name, “Without a doubt. The girl looks just like her.”
Then Estella said, “I’m pretty sure Miles is the grandson of Salina’s sister. His father’s name is Amos. I believe Salina’s sister had a boy named Amos.”
It was the strangest thing to be talking about Salina as though she were any other family ancestor.
“That would be it, then,” her father said.
Then Estella asked, “Is it like seeing her again? After all these years?”
As she spoke, she realized she had gone too far, and was asking something that was none of her business. “Never mind,” she said quickly, and she gave her father a quick kiss on the cheek and then turned off all the lights but his reading lamp.
She could hear campfire singing coming from outside, and then it quit, and she saw the lights of the motorhome leaving. Shortly after, Lorette returned.
By this time, Oliver was asleep.
“You might as well sleep in the bedroom,” Estella whispered, but Lorette insisted on settling on the couch next to Oliver’s chair in case he needed help in the night. Estella didn’t think it was necessary for her to take her job quite so seriously, but she was more than thankful she was there.
At breakfast, everyone was talking about what a good voice Lorette had. They were doubly impressed that she knew the words to the songs so they didn’t have to sing the choruses over and over. They all agreed Lorette should join them at the lake every year from now on.
IT WAS STILL hot as the Diamonds got ready the next evening for the boat tour and the family photo. The teenaged girls all decided they were wearing their bathing suits, and they set off toward the marina in bare feet and bikinis. Paul, still in his leather jacket, managed to get Cheryl Kingwell’s attention again, and the two of them walked with a few other cousins. Estella wore her bathing suit under her shorts and a button-up shirt because she was planning to swim back to the cabin after their tour of the bay. She drove to the marina in the Oldsmobile with her father and Lorette. Miles Kingwell drove the Winnebago full of Diamond children who wanted to see what the house on wheels was like. The others walked along the lakefront, following the teenagers.
The photographer met them in the parking lot, a man named Bob from Prince Albert. Peter Boone was waiting for them on the pier, having already installed the gangplank and turned on the patio lights. A sign draped over the sandwich board said “Cruise unavailable due to private booking.” Estella hardly had a chance to talk to Peter, he was so busy getting the forty-one Diamonds and four Kingwells onto the boat and seated on the upper deck. He had his cane but he soon ditched it because it was in the way. There were hard-backed benches built in under the gunwales on both sides of the deck, and several more benches lined up facing the bow. The patio lights swung with the rocking motion of the boat on the water. There was a self-serve bar on the deck and the countertop was stocked with trays of Vienna sausages on toothpicks, cheese and crackers, and strawberries and grapes. Peter loosed the boat from its mooring once everyone was settled with their drinks, and then he seated himself in the wheelhouse and the boat left the marina. The sun was beginning its dramatic descent and Roy Orbison sang as they crossed the bay, the paddlewheel making slapping sounds in the water at the stern of the boat.
When they were out in the middle of the bay, the photographer asked Peter to drop the anchor so he could get his photos
before they lost the light. He got his equipment set up, and then he started arranging people in three rows, the first seated on a bench and the other two standing behind. Oliver was on the bench in the middle, and the smallest children were seated on the deck at his feet. Estella was about to take her place in the second row when she lost her balance and spilled Coke all down the front of her white shirt. She caused a bit of consternation when she took it off to reveal her Mondrian bathing suit top underneath, but there was too much commotion for anyone to care what she was wearing in the photo.
After lots of rearranging according to height, the photographer got his shots. Estella put her shirt back on and wondered if she’d made a mistake she would regret every time she looked at the photo. Peter found more crackers under the bar and they sat in the bay drinking beer and listening to Roy Orbison.
Andrew proposed a toast.
“Ten-year Lake Claire anniversary,” he said. “Too bad Mom’s not here.”
They drank up and left it at that. Lorette adjusted the pillow she’d brought along behind Oliver’s back, and not long after he fell asleep.
There was a ladder leading onto the bow of the boat, and Jack and Rose took the children up to look over the water. Peter was still in the wheelhouse. Estella joined him and handed him a soft drink since she knew he didn’t drink alcohol. She asked if he had anything but Roy’s “Greatest Hits” to play, and he said that Roy Orbison was already a tradition. He’d tried Johnny Cash one night and got complaints.
Through the window of the wheelhouse, she could see Jack and Rose and the kids on the bow. Jack was leaning against the railing, looking into the distance toward the beach, and Estella wondered if he was thinking of that other beach, the one in France. It was hard to believe twenty years had passed since the end of the war. It bothered her that they weren’t close anymore. She believed it was because of the year he’d had to let his sister care for him as though he were a child, but she also believed it was more than that. What had happened to him in the war set him apart from the rest of the family, even Andrew, who had fought but returned unscathed.
The Diamond House Page 20