Impulsively, I reached for Nurse Jackson and kissed her on the cheek. Then I hugged her. When I stepped shyly away, she took both of my hands in hers, as gently as I had just taken my father’s.
“You’re a good man, Jamie Browning,” she said tenderly. “You’re a good boy. You’re a good son. Your father is a lucky man. You just go on.” She let go of one of my hands and reached for my father’s. She held both of our hands, joining us through the medium of her warm presence. “We’ll be fine.”
“I’m the lucky one,” I said thickly. “To have him. I always was. Goodbye, Ardelia, and thank you again. I’ll be in touch as soon as I get settled.”
I walked out of my father’s room without turning back.
In the hallway, I picked up my suitcases, which seemed much heavier all of a sudden, and carried them down the long corridor to the locked door that would take me out to the foyer, pausing for a moment while the nurse on the other side of the door buzzed it open, unlocking it, then buzzed it closed again, locking my father’s world behind me.
Chapter Three
THE ROAD TO WILD FELL
I drove north in my father’s boxy Volvo station wagon along a winding sweep of highway that rose and fell as the city faded from sight, replaced by great stretches of highway bordered on either side by a thick green phalanx of spruce pine bracketing occasional glimpses of open fields and rolling farmland. Highway 400, connecting Toronto to Barrie in a two-hour stretch of uninspiring blacktop, abruptly became a wasteland of strip malls and fast-food joints as we approached the city. Past Barrie, I continued north along the west of Georgian Bay, passing Orillia and Midland before continuing to Parry Sound. Then, still farther north. As the 400 became Highway 69, the vista became spectacular.
I’d spent the two-and-a-half-hour drive in a deep, gloomy guilt over having left my father at MacNeil, but the sudden burst of jagged beauty outside shocked me out of my melancholia. I pressed the button that rolled down the Volvo’s windows and let the wild northern air surge inside the car, clearing my head and snapping me completely out of my blue funk.
The city I’d left behind had been smothered in a sullen layer of foul brown smog. By contrast, the air rushing past the car windows was almost savage in its lucidity and I could smell the bright cold of Georgian Bay. The terrain itself had been formed from battered ice age granite rock that had been left rounded and smooth by the passage of millennia, forming islands studded with the ubiquitous windswept white pine. From the shoreline, as seen through dense patches of maple, juniper, and birch, the water was impossibly bright, reflecting the argentite sky. I made a right turn off the highway at the outer limits of the town of Adelphi, still fifty kilometres from Alvina. On the side of the road, sunbursts of goldenrod asserted themselves amidst patches of pussy willows and new-growth cedar as the newer highway gave way to the interconnected web of town roads that had bound these rural communities one to the other for a hundred years or more.
The temperature outside gradually dropped from refreshing to chilling as I drove deeper into the countryside, and I rolled the window back up.
The topography also grew bleaker—was that really the word, though? Bleak? Perhaps stark was a better word, because while the dull green of southern Ontario had given way to the craggy granite vistas made famous by the “Group of Seven” artists, the outlook from the windows of the car was far from unappealing.
In truth, I felt the first genuine flutter of exhilaration, even excitement, since buying the house on Devil’s Lake I had yet to even see.
Even more, I had a preposterous anticipatory notion of familiarity, even ownership, as though the terrain outside the window stirred some memory from my childhood of time spent in one of these towns along the shore. But I knew this to be false: I’d never been here before, though I had seen paintings of these scenes in various art galleries over the years. Also, before buying the house, I’d Googled the town of Alvina, and Georgian Bay in general. There was no shortage of photographs of the region online, which was likely one of the reasons I’d felt foolishly comfortable defying logic and practicality for the first time in my life and buying Wild Fell without actually visiting it.
Once the real estate agent, Mrs. Velnette Fowler—she had actually insisted on the marital honorific, making the point twice—had been convinced of the sincerity of my inquiry, she had emailed me impressive photographs of the house that had not been included in the advertisement of the listing. They hinted at high ceilings and dark floors, a massive stone fireplace in the centre of what appeared to be the formal living room, still another in the slightly smaller dining room. Inside the house, a hand-carved mahogany circular staircase connected the first and second floors, leading to similarly proportioned rooms upstairs.
Included in the price were the tiny bit of rocky beach on the mainland across from the island and a dock of some sort, apparently constructed by order of the family in England in advance of the sale of the property, from which to launch a small motorboat to get back and forth.
To wit, Wild Fell was, in actual point of fact, far more than a mere “summer cottage.” It was a seventeen-room mansion, built with stone that had been locally mined. The same stone had been used to construct the wide steps that led up to the veranda. According to Mrs. Fowler, Wild Fell had been one of the finest houses in three counties, luxurious even by the standards of luxurious houses of the day.
“The gardens,” she said. “The gardens were famous. Mrs. Blackmore had more than five hundred varieties of roses in her garden. One variety was the ‘black rose’ that had been cut and transplanted from the bush that Mary, Queen of Scots slept under, the night before her execution.”
“Mary Queen of Scots?”
“Nothing was too good for the Blackmore family,” Mrs. Fowler said grandly. At that moment she sounded less like a real estate agent and more like a tour guide, or proud servant identifying with the family to whom she’d offered her fealty. “The house was built between 1823 and 1831 at enormous cost. It had stained glass windows, the best brocade drapes. Oh, and wallpaper all the way from England. My goodness, it was beautiful. You can see old pictures of it at the historical society. But most of it is still there, except for several pieces of furniture that the family in England insisted we try to sell. But the house is more or less intact. And it is just glorious.”
“Like Mary Queen of Scots’ rosebush,” I said dryly, trying to bring the conversation out of the realm of her gushing. “I find it hard to believe this is all for sale at the price quoted. Is there any possibility there was a mistake?”
There was a pause on the other end of the line, as though I’d offended her, either by my glibness, or by an emphasis on practical matters, like the price. I had dealt with real estate agents in the city, and Mrs. Fowler wasn’t like anyone I had ever met. “Mr. Browning, I don’t make mistakes,” she said. “And while I’m delighted that you find the price reasonable, I must in fairness advise you that it is still not inconsiderable, especially for a house of its size that will require new plumbing and new central heating at some point.”
“Now you sound like you’re trying to dissuade me, Mrs. Fowler.”
“Not at all. I just don’t want you to be under any illusions that this is some fire sale wreck. Houses like this one rarely come on the market. I myself would have preferred to offer it for a much higher price, but the family in England insisted that they wanted a fast sale.” She sighed. “It’s a landmark, and in excellent repair. Frankly, you’re the first inquiry, but I expect more of them by this evening, and I expect the house to be sold in a day or so.” A cunning note entered her voice. “Two, probably. Tops. There will likely be a feeding frenzy. And it will go to whoever gets there first. Believe me when I tell you, this is a once-in-a-lifetime deal. The family in England wants it gone quickly.”
I felt my heart quicken. “Has anyone seen it yet? I mean, potential buyers?”
“As I said, you’r
e the first, Mr. Browning. But when houses like this come up, rich buyers snap them up. Many do so without even seeing the house. We have all the inspection reports on file for anyone to check out. But it won’t be on the market long, I guarantee that.”
Later, it had occurred to me that she had exaggerated the expected “feeding frenzy,” but I asked her to fax over the inspection reports immediately and, flush with the reckless power of my new money, I had called the bank and arranged the transfer of funds. I think even Mrs. Fowler was shocked, but she went into shark realtor mode, all traces of her gushing about wallpaper and rosebushes immediately disappearing behind a volley of figures and process. Less than two days later, the house was mine. That night I promptly got drunk on Jack and Coke, but I wasn’t at all sure if I was celebrating my new purchase or processing shock at my foolishness. I’d briefly thought of cancelling the sale, but I realized there wasn’t likely any legal basis for it. I had paid cash for the house and I’d signed the papers.
Besides, it felt giddily, ridiculously freeing to make such an absurd purchase. But as time went by, I’d not experienced anything like buyer’s remorse, or even anxiety, just a sense of ineffable rightness, a rightness I still felt the need to run by Hank to make sure I wasn’t actually in the throes of some sort of insanity brought about by my action.
The rest, as the cliché goes, is history.
But at that moment, driving along the weathered, dusty rural roads, half an hour from Devil’s Lake, all I felt was that somehow I was coming home.
The thought comforted me as the tiny bullets of gravel spat and ground beneath the wheels of the Volvo and the stark landscape of blue water and granite urged me farther north.
I arrived in Alvina just before dusk under a silver-grey sky layered with a thick scud of topaz-coloured clouds fat with the promise of rain.
The town itself was more or less indistinguishable from all the other towns I had passed through once I had turned off the main highway, except that Alvina looked like it might have been captured in a sepia photograph from another time. It wasn’t that it seemed rundown—in fact, far from it. Main Street was smooth under the wheels, and there were boxes of geraniums in stone urns lining the wide sidewalks in between the wrought iron lampposts. Main Street ran through the store-fronted length of what appeared to be the town’s old-fashioned commercial district. Several of the storefronts had awnings, old ones with dark pine beams supporting them. Their condition—worn and faded, but not tattered—somehow suggested that they were a regular fixture on the street, not something laid out for the tourists and summer people who thus far seemed indistinguishable one from the other as they meandered along the street, dressed for fall in jeans and flannel. There was a sense of density on each side of Main Street, and I was aware of narrower, winding streets like breakaway arteries lined with smaller commercial buildings, and beyond that, distant lawns and houses. The trees along those streets were old-growth deciduous—maple and elm trees that were nearly pyrotechnic in their sourball-coloured autumnal glory.
I found Fowler Real Estate easily enough, off Main Street and three blocks south of the Alvina United Church, high on the hill brow above the town. The office was nestled in a cluster of buildings that looked as though they had been built in the 1940s, brick and clapboard storefronts and office buildings that bore the scars of decades of Canadian winters in a place where the glacial wind and snow off the bay was cruelly humbling to everything in its path.
I parked the car in front of the agency and stepped out. A damp wind was blowing in from the direction of Devil’s Lake. I shivered and opened the car door again to retrieve my maroon nylon windbreaker.
From somewhere in the back of the car, two large white moths rose jerkily into the air, then fluttered out the open door. They hovered for a moment directly in my sightlines, white on white, hard to see in the grey afternoon light, vanishing above my head, carried on the freshening breeze.
I reasoned that they must have been hiding in the folds of my clothes or on the side of my suitcases ever since MacNeil, a thought that faintly revolted me. I peered into the car in case there were any more hiding under the seats or on the floor, but there seemed to be none nestled there among the suitcases and the various items of clothing that had not been safely stowed in the back.
Reflexively I brushed my clothes off before putting on the windbreaker. Nurse Jackson had been correct; they had a moth problem at the home. My father’s face rose in my mind and I winced at the sudden pang of guilt. I pushed it firmly down, promising myself—and him, I suppose—that I would call Nurse Jackson as soon as I arrived at Wild Fell and ask her to give my father a hug for me.
The windows of Fowler Real Estate were plastered with printed advertisements for listings, mostly cottages for sale, some for rent. There was a smattering of unprepossessing year-round residential properties for sale, as well. Most were, frankly, ugly. They were clearly intended for families, or perhaps retirees who had chosen to live up north full time. It was difficult to picture any of the photographs Mrs. Fowler had sent me of Wild Fell ever having been placed here among these very ordinary houses; indeed, I wondered what the family in England had been thinking when they engaged Fowler Real Estate to sell their unoccupied property at all.
I peered through the window at the interior of the office. The glass was streaked and filthy, but I could make out a good-sized room with two clumsy old-fashioned-looking desks placed at complementary angles; a large file cabinet against the far wall, adorned with eleven-by-fourteen photographs of Georgian Bay in all four seasons; and framed photographs of cottages, boats, and families swimming and waterskiing. The photographs were in colour, the hard, flat bright colour of cheap mass-produced commercial photography of the 1960s and before. The families portrayed in the photographs were likewise of that era. The office could have been a period film set piece, or a museum installation. In any case, it appeared to be empty, even though I was expected.
A mechanical bell sounded when I pushed the door open and stepped into the dim office, which smelled like lemon oil and dust.
From a hallway beyond the farthest desk, I heard the sound of high heels on wood and moments later a woman whom I put in her late fifties to early sixties appeared in the doorway. Her hair was done in a dated marcel wave that had already been out of fashion when I was a boy in Ottawa. She wore a lavender pantsuit that had seen many washing cycles and better days. Her face was heavily powdered, and her eyebrows had been plucked almost into nonexistence and darkly pencilled.
The woman, whom I recognized as Velnette Fowler from the reedy voice I’d heard on the telephone, peered at me through the thick lenses of the harlequin glasses hanging on the chain around her neck and said, “Yes, sir, may I help you?”
“Mrs. Fowler? I’m Jameson Browning.”
She seemed startled at the sound of my voice, and peered at me again. “Mr. Browning! Of course! I didn’t expect you until . . .” She looked down at her watch. “Oh dear, it was today, wasn’t it. I’m so sorry.” She smiled, showing a mouthful of dentures. “I’m Velnette Fowler. Welcome to Alvina. It’s so nice to meet you, Mr. Browning.” When she stepped forward to shake my hand, I caught a whiff of stale breath, and some sort of inexpensive powdery perfume long past its shelf date. “Did you have a nice drive up? The weatherman’s been calling for rain for weeks. We’ve all been pretty sure it was coming today, but it’s already after three in the afternoon and it’s not here yet. With any kind of luck it’ll hold out till you get to Blackmore and your brand new house.”
“Not that new,” I said, stepping discreetly backward and tilting my head away in such a way that I hoped wouldn’t make my mild revulsion at the various smells obvious. I smiled at her. “More than a hundred years old isn’t new. A new house would be one of the cottages on your window there.” I pointed to the storefront. “This one is a bit older than that.”
“Yes,” she said, pursing her lips. My attempt at humour was l
ost on her, and I was once again reminded of our telephone conversation when she’d bristled at my suggestion that there could possibly be any sort of hidden catch in the sale of a seventeen-room mansion on a private island in Georgian Bay, even for the not-inconsiderable price I’d paid. “Wild Fell is ‘a bit older than that,’ yes. Obviously you could say that. But I think you’ll see that you’ve made a superb purchase.” She peered over my shoulder out the window where I’d parked in front of her office. “Did you bring your wife?”
“I’m not married, Mrs. Fowler. I don’t have a wife.”
She raised her pencilled eyebrows and pursed her lips. “Oh, I am sorry,” she said. “I was sure you mentioned that you had a family when we spoke. Wild Fell seems like such a large house for a single man, it never occurred to me that you weren’t married.” She squinted again. “Do you have children? Forgive my being so nosey, but it seems like just anyone can have children these days, with all the divorces going. You just never know. I wouldn’t want to just assume. That would be rude of me, you know, to assume.”
“I have a family,” I said, more sharply than I intended. “My father is back in Toronto. He’s ill.”
“Oh I am sorry,” she said again. “I am sorry. I hope it’s nothing serious. Your father, I mean.”
“He has Alzheimer’s. He’s in an assisted-living facility. I may have mentioned that, which may be the source of confusion,” I said, knowing I had done no such thing, but wanting to get her off the topic of my private life. Aside from being none of her business, it had been less than four hours since I had abandoned my father at MacNeil. I was too raw to put up with this woman’s questions for much longer, and I certainly didn’t want to begin my residency in Alvina with an altercation with the local real estate agent. Whatever I didn’t know about small-town social hierarchies, I did understand that a woman who was responsible for the buying, selling, and renting of vacation properties in a town whose primary industry appeared to be catering to a summer population would know everyone in town, and be well-connected locally. “But as for a wife and kids,” I added with what I hoped was a winning smile, “there’s still time, right? You just never know.”
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