by Lou Allin
“Let’s get out of this reek. I don’t want to become a statistic.” Bear attacks were very unusual, but recently a female jogger in Quebec had suffered a fatal bite on the neck. Freya was, in sad fact, an insurance policy.
As Belle returned to the trail, she saw a familiar figure approaching, yelping beagle and loopy golden retriever heralding the procession. It was Anni Jacobs, who had cut and tramped these webs of peaty paths. A slight but vigorous widow nearly seventy, she forged out daily to impress herself softly upon the forests. Her unruly dogs earned no respect from Belle, but Anni’s late husband had prized these two for bird hunting, so she was coddling them into ripe old age. The women shared a reverence for the woods, yet respected each other’s privacy, passing a few words on the road at intervals. Childless, Anni devoted her spare time to volunteering at the Canadian Blood Services. Belle thought that she had better relate her discovery, for though the area was Crown land, Anni’s name was on it, so personal and firm were her footsteps.
Dressed in L.L. Bean’s prime chinos, a light anorak and a green net that covered her face, she greeted Belle as the Beagle barked mindlessly. “Didn’t recognize you at first. Life through a bug hat darkly. Haven’t trampled any of my early mushrooms, have you?” she said in a mock scold, raising the face net and bending to pull at the yellow roots of a clover-leafed plant with a white star flower. “I see our goldthread’s back. Pharmacopoeia of the woods. Aboriginals used the roots for cankers, sore gums and teething.”
“We have a problem worse than a toothache,” Belle said. “I found a baiting spot not far from that grandfather yellow birch with the lightning scar.”
“Should have suspected that. I heard gunfire Saturday morning, and more than one strange truck’s passed. It’s ruining the hiking. If I’m not ducking at a shot, I’m looking over my shoulder for bears straying from their territory, attracted to the free lunch.” A black look crossed the healthy old face. “Last week a mother and two cubs were foraging near the swamp. Bears don’t scare me, mind you, but I do want to know where they are. Likely they feel the same. Still singing George M. Cohen songs?”
“On the same two notes, just like Cagney in Yankee Doodle Dandy.” Belle ran a hand through her short reddish hair, discovering a delta-winged deer fly looking for a home in the greying strands.
“I thought the spring would be safe now.” Anni bristled like a venerable porcupine at bay, a slight sag to one eye lending an arch expression. “Cubs are learning to feed with their mothers. Fresh from their dens and hungry. God knows enough of them get shot in the fall.”
“Where the quota is limited to boars, but who checks? Shouldn’t we call the Ministry of Natural Resources?”
“Overworked and underpaid, the MNR. Don’t-call-us department, if you can get through that phone maze. Press this, press that. And last week in town they tranquillized a mother sixty feet up a tree. Died in the fall and orphaned two cubs.” With her stout oak walking stick she prodded the Beagle’s rump to prevent him from poking his nose into an anthill. “Tell me where you found this hellish site.”
Frowning at the description, turning over possibilities like coins in her hand, Anni said, “This calls for extreme measures. I don’t suffer fools gladly. Enough is enough.”
“What are you going to do?”
With a conspiratorial grin, she ticked off steps on her wrinkled fingers. “One, search and destroy. Rip everything down and bury it. And I’ll give a good, solid burn to that oily log, safe enough before the dry season. Two, any strange vehicle up to mischief gets tires flattened or a spark plug tossed into the brush. They’ll get the message.”
“Uh,” Belle said, shifting her feet uncomfortably in consideration of the Russell belt knife at Anni’s side, “that could be dangerous. Especially if they figure out who did it.”
A wry smile teased one corner of the puckered mouth, as innocent as Lillian Gish’s in The Whales of August. “But, my dear, how can they? There are so many cottages. And I have a perfect disguise. The old are as invisible as children. You have to do what is right. And in the end, we’re all bear bait, and nobody gets out of the forest alive. Not even the bears.”
No arguments there, Belle thought with mingled admiration and uneasiness at the picture of a senior citizen guerrilla. “Please be careful. And keep me posted.” She watched the slender form stride down the trail, a five-foot challenge to osteoarthritis, one tough person, living alone twenty-five kilometres from town. What else to expect from a daughter of Manitoba, a rugged place where men are men and moose take precautions?
Back down Edgewater Road Belle walked, heeling the dog, alert to the sounds of approaching vehicles muffled by the hills, noticing, as she passed smoking barbecues and laughing children, that life on Lake Wapiti had shifted seasons. The varying sounds of motorboats had returned, a different tenor from the guttural roar of snowmobiles. On April 20th, the last ice floes had drifted out, and until Labour Day, the boats would hold dominion.
She turned at the Parliament of Owls sign that marked her driveway. Serving as personal totems were Horny, a foot-high brown owl with yellow marble eyes and threatening eyebrows, and Corny, his innocent snowy brother. Ever hopeful, Freya dug up a pebble and dropped it at her feet like a precious gem. Shepherds were notorious stone-swallowers. Probably the bouncing rock resembled some chaseable creature in a Jungian doggie symbol mindset. “Chip your fangs, but remember that you can’t get falsies. This isn’t Toronto,” Belle said, skipping the prize across the gravel and climbing to the deck where ruby-throated hummingbirds back from Gulf Coast condos duelled for a sugar fix from the bright red plastic flowers of the feeder.
Inside the two-storey cedar house, “Fireworks Polka” by Strauss was playing on the CD player, a lively treat with explosions of gunfire. Belle took a bath, talced up, and chose a T-shirt with a picture of Clayoquot Sound: “Pardon me, thou bleeding piece of earth.” After pouring a glass of tankcar red wine, she opened The Toronto Star. Referendum, wheneverendum, neverendum. Would the Quebec dilemma plague Canada until the rest of the provinces joined the US along with the multi-cultural city of Montreal? Protection of Francophone heritage or just plain blackmail? Humiliated spouse or whining wife? Nervous ethnic and Anglo votes had tipped the last “Leave Canada” results to a narrow 50.6% NO victory, though the shenanigans with balloting resembled the Florida mess. None of this uncertainty was helping the confidence of the nation, interest rates, the stock market and Palmer Realty—her own gagne-pain—bread and butter.
Mealtime in a rush meant sensible Kraft dinner. Why were people so snobbish about the legendary blue box? Hard to beat the price, the convenience, the taste, or the plenitude, and the stuff was undeniably nourishing. Leftovers fried up into crusty magic. A salad of California red lettuce, artichoke hearts and green peppers rounded out the meal with a vinaigrette of balsamic vinegar and extra-virgin olive oil. Now there was a paradox. The satellite dish on the dock creaked to the American Movie Classic channel and brought Garbo’s growl in Anna Christie: “Gif me a viskey. Ginger ale on the side. And don’ be stingy, baby.” Between noisy bites, Belle mouthed the words along with the young prostitute and smiled on cue at the scene where Marie Dressler (a fellow Canadian from Cobourg), the archetypal barfly, maneuvered her bulldog face and bag-of-toys body, weaving a hand through a hole in her tattered sweater with drunken bemusement. “Know what? You’re me thirty years from now.” Had they really had an affair? The spate of kiss-and-tell books after Garbo’s death at eighty-five had been a gothic horror parade. Handstands after intercourse as a birth control method? Blasphemy. At fifteen, Belle had seen her first glimpse of the enigmatical ice goddess. Now, at forty-five and ten pounds over fighting weight, she was beginning to identify with Marie.
TWO
Driving by Anni’s house a few days later, Belle craned her neck to spot the woman’s rusty little Geo, but it was gone. Anni was a woman of her word, no-nonsense, expedient. If she said she was going to demolish the site, she would. Might b
e a good idea to give her a call soon.
Belle’s four-by-four van, a compromise between comfort, space and the practical needs of a Northerner, passed along the Airport Road, the puffs of the 1250 foot Superstack in the distance, emblem of the International Nickel Company, aka INCO, the once-dominant employer. Supposedly the friendly giant cleansed the exhaust of 90% of pollutants and was monitored like a preemie, though intermittently it gave a dyspeptic burp that hit the papers. A molten bombshell from space nearly two billion years ago had crowned Sudbury with a thirty-mile ring of ore deposits, a blessing and a curse. The region was finally recovering from the systematic rape of resources that had left a war zone around the Nickel Capital. First, its timbers had been shipped to Chicago after the Great Fire of 1871. Then open pit smelting had destroyed secondary vegetation and leached soil from the hills. No wonder astronauts had come to the blackened moonscape to train. Fortunately the last decades had seen a massive liming and seeding campaign. Acid-tolerant pines and rye grass were covering the scars, and trout, pickerel and pike were biting again as the lakes recovered.
En route to her office downtown, Belle stopped at the latest addition to their food chain, a bagel shop. She scanned the counter, barely mastering the canine urge to drool. Fifteen kinds, including sourdough, cheese and bacon, and a dubious chocolate chip. A cooler offered cream cheese in tempting flavours: dill, olive, peach and smoked salmon. For less than five dollars, she snatched an assortment.
Palmer Realty occupied a large mock-Victorian house on a quiet street with mammoth cottonwoods, a fast-growing and resilient tree. Twenty years ago in Toronto, Belle had left a punishing career as an English teacher before a love of literature became an apology, and with only a suitcase and her Compleat Shakespeare, had boarded a bus to join her Uncle Harold in his business. With 160,000 people in the newly amalgamated region, not to mention cottage buyers from the south, all hungering for a spot on one of the ninety lakes, he had established a lucrative and satisfied clientele. Until his death at eighty, he had strolled through the door every morning, unfiltered Camel cigarette in his mouth, red bow tie bobbling over his Adam’s apple. Every now and then she expected him to reappear, quizzing her on every pond, puddle and pool. Anyone with the confidence to wear a bow tie might come back from the dead.
“Can lattes be far behind?” she asked Miriam MacDonald, rustling the bag. Her mistress of all trades, former itinerant bookkeeper, brushed back a lock of frizzy iron gray hair, surveyed one, smelled it, poked it and finally gave a tentative nibble. “A real bagel like on TV? No more gnawing like a beaver on those frozen hockey pucks from Toronto?” She rummaged through the bag. “And peach cream cheese? Today I work for nothing.” A sigh broke from her lips. “Hell, I do that anyway, and I need a holiday.”
“Victoria Day’s around the corner. Anything new and exciting?” Belle made a face as she refilled Miriam’s cup and poured herself a coffee. “Don’t you hate that phrase?”
The fax machine ironed out a message. Miriam yanked it off, eyes widening in comic disbelief. “What’s this? Do we have any waterfront under fifty thousand? Must have lake large enough for a jet boat, year-round road access, modern cottage with septic, boathouse, sauna, dock, all within an hour of town.” She mimed a dealer tossing out cards. “This guy’d get better odds playing the slots at Sudbury Downs.”
Belle flashed her an encouraging smile. “Everything sells at the right price. What about the Darwin property? Has the old coot come down as we suggested?” The crafty owner had given an imitation pine facelift to the leaning shack, but she suspected lurking problems, a buried heating oil tank for the “septic,” dry rot in the boathouse. Unless the buyer wanted to use the outhouse (Class 5 sanitation system), he’d need a field bed at a cost of perhaps ten thousand. A realtor wore two hats, one for the buyer and one for the seller. It was her job to be optimistic yet realistic, since legal troubles came from hiding information.
“Hanging tough,” Miriam said, scanning the bulletin board, snatching off a note and tapping her favourite repository of Frenglish slang. “Tabernac on toast!. This call came yesterday as I left. A Mr. Sullivan seemed very interested in that property near you. He noticed the ad in The Sudbury Star. I made you a date. Three sharp.”
Miriam licked a pencil point and drew dollar signs on the prospectus, passing it over. “Do you think he has the money? He’ll be paying for the acreage more than the small house.”
Belle didn’t have to open the folder. She had walked to all four corners checking survey stakes. Smack at the end of her road past the schoolbus turnaround. Five glorious acres backing onto Crown land. A boathouse, drive-in shed and 800 square-foot cottage. Oil furnace. Decent siding and insulation. Plow truck and small tractor. Its salient point was privacy, nestled into birch, poplar and maple forest. The property had belonged to Jason Brown. A year ago, the old man had suffered a stroke and been taken to Rainbow Country Nursing Home, where Belle’s father lived. Unable or unwilling to speak, Jason was as communicative as a rutabaga. He had taken good care of his home, but last time she had visited, a piece of siding was blowing off, and the boathouse needed fresh paint.
At three o’clock precisely, the door opened. Silvery hair brushed to a sheen, a Burberry topcoat over his arm, the man wore a light beige three-piece suit, maroon puff in the pocket, matching striped tie. Very Toronto Bay Street broker, if it hadn’t been for the carefully trimmed white beard. “I’m Charles Sullivan. I’ve come about the Edgewater Road property.”
Belle introduced herself and presented the file, which he scanned with interest. His hands were immaculately manicured, and a light scent of bay rum reminded her of Uncle Harold.
“I’ve retired,” he added, “and always dreamed of living on a quiet lake. If there are a few problems to fix, all the better. I’m pretty handy with a hammer and saw, and I like to keep busy.”
Belle found his courtly manner refreshingly old-fashioned. He listened with an intelligence signalling a profession. Doctor? Lawyer? Clergyman? It seemed presumptuous to ask. Not a patrician eyebrow rose at the price, and when she suggested a visit, he followed her from town in his white Ford Taurus, fresh from a car wash.
Half an hour later, at the junction of Edgewater Road, Belle signalled for a stop at the assembly of Canada Post mailboxes. After getting out of the van, she called over her shoulder as she opened her pigeonnier. “Believe it or not, we lobbied long and hard for this small privilege. The alternative was to collect our mail in Garson, the little suburb we passed through.” As she sifted the letters, she discovered one for Anni, 1703 instead of her 1903, and placed it on the dashboard.
With Creedence Clearwater Revival banging out “Down on the Corner,” Belle drove past the swamp where moose crossed the road for a dawn slurp and three deer, a rarer sight, had danced a midnight ballet one moonlit night. Dreaming of her flaming youth over the words “Look at all the happy creatures dancing on the lawn,” she swerved to avoid an oncoming green Escort gobbling more than its share of gravel. Patsy Sommers, one neighbour short on manners. Behind her, Sullivan stayed well to the right. She hoped that the incident wouldn’t discourage him. Nothing like a fender-bender introduction to rural living.
A mile beyond her house, they passed the school bus turnaround and stopped by a farm-style gate. The property had the bonus of chain-link fencing along its road boundary to foil snowmobilers or people pulling boat trailers looking for lake access, she explained, opening the padlock. “Pretty safe out here,” she said. “Occasionally the snowbirds lose portable temptations like chain saws, shotguns or stereo equipment.”
They parked in the large lot at the end of the lane, where red osiers sported their umbilical flowers. She pointed out raspberry bushes, the new canes green promise. “These make great jam. Wild ones always taste better than commercial berries. People say Mr. Brown was famous for his wine, too,” she said.
“Is that so? I used to be a dab hand with that art myself.” He looked up as a small dark red-barked tree w
ith a host of white blossoms showered them like bride and groom. “Pale pink like lemonade, but proofing out at over 20%, especially if aged in old rum barrels.”
Belle laughed and warmed to his enthusiasm, not to mention her rising hopes for the sale. “Might call it ‘firewater.’ Medicinal purposes only, eh?”
“Nature knows best.”
The little house needed a good airing. It was musty, the heavy curtains pulled tight to discourage nosy intruders. Originally a one-room post-and-beam camp, when a foundation had been added, the upstairs had been divided into a living area, bedroom, kitchen and bathroom with shower. Belle opened a window to let in fresh air. A collection of castoffs, the furniture mixed decades like an eclectic museum. Massive Forties overstuffed chairs merged with the drab Fifties nubbly couch in a vomitous colour and the Sixties black and white television. “Silverware and dishes in your choice of patterns,” she said with a laugh as they passed through the kitchen. In the bedroom, they paused to consider a swaybacked mattress on a metal frame. Belle shook her head. “Multiple lumps or a sag that you fight all night seems part of cottage life.” Downstairs, the oil furnace gave the cinder block basement a definite wang, but Sullivan didn’t comment, nodding as she showed him the new jet pump. “The house is well-insulated,” she added. “Pink batts in the crawl space and blown-in fibre in the walls.”
Was the man interested? He hadn’t spoken more than a “um-hum” since they had come inside. When they returned to the yard, she asked, “Have you lived in the country?”
He hesitated, then looked at her pleasantly. “Not for years. Ottawa’s been my home.”
“If you’re used to city life, what I’m getting at is this. Everything looks so benign in the summer. But we get plenty of snow. Eleven feet this year. Not much thawing, either, like the chinooks out west. The road is plowed, better be with the taxes we grouse about, but you’ll have to clear your drive with Brown’s old truck or arrange for a contract. Ed DesRosiers’s very reliable. I use him myself, and often I’m away by seven.”