by Lou Allin
When her pulse dropped to one hundred, a dyspeptic chug sounded, and a ramshackle truck bounced down the driveway. Cyril from Ray’s Firewood had a delivery of ten cords of maple. He gave her a wave, then positioned the truck carefully so that when he lifted the box, it wouldn’t hit the overhead wires. A squeal from the hydraulics, and out thundered the wood chunks. “No short cuts, I promise. Want me to pile it, too, madame, or do you need the exercise?” he asked, making a mock bow.
Curly-headed Cyril was a Francophone in his late fifties. Laid off when Canadian Pacific shut down their Capreol engine shop, he’d been too old to retrain and instead made a living at one of Canada’s oldest professions, hewer of wood. She never begrudged him the forty bucks for the piling. He was a demon with his hook, and her back would thank her.
Belle felt heat flush her face, still winding down from her tryst. One leg was shaking, and she batted at it to behave. Sweat still trickled from her temples despite the cool breeze. When she tried to reply, her voice stuck in her throat. “Sure. I . . . have to go to town now, but I’ll give you the cash. Ten per cent government discount, right?”
Cyril cocked his head at her, his grey work clothes pressed with sharp creases and a bandana tied around his neck, revealing a patch of chest hair. “Feeling all right? Look like you had a scare.”
“You could call it that.” She described her close encounter.
“Moi, I’ve had plenty meetings when I go pick the blueberries.” He made himself a few thousand selling Sudbury’s bounty to middlemen who sent the baskets south. “And a friend of mine years ago, Eino Kallimaki, he got eaten by a bear.”
Belle willed her confidence to return to normal. “Come on. A bite maybe, but not eaten.” Bear attacks were rare, but sensational. A female jogger in Quebec had been killed a few years before by a mother protecting her cub. Two boys in a tent, their clothes stinking of fish, had died in Algonquin Park.
He gave a Gallic shrug, lit up a cigarette and offered her one, which she declined. “Went checking his trapline down in the old Burwash area. Some thirty years ago. Never should have been off on his own. Losing it upstairs. He had angina, too, so we were thinking maybe the heart gave out. Could be the bear didn’t actually kill him but just cleaned up later. They like that dead stuff, charogne.” He waved his hand in frustration. “The English, she’s—”
“Carrion,” said Belle. If she didn’t get over this, the bush was closed to her. How many times did such a close encounter happen in one lifetime? Burwash, too. Hadn’t someone else mentioned an accident down there?
While he set to work, singing a tuneless song in time with each thwack of the hook, she looked at the sky and remembered her own chores. An hour later, the vegetables stood in promising rows. With luck, a gentle rain would start the germination process. No time now to set up sprinklers. Showering off and dressing in a crisp beige pantsuit, she left for town.
En route, she saw Strang’s rusty Mazda truck in the yard and pulled in. He was splitting birch by his woodshed, Buddy dozing in the sun on an old tarp. Strang’s small but choice property, bought by his father in the post-war period before the road had even arrived, had an ancient clapboard cottage, sleep camp for kids, and an old-fashioned wooden swing set. Giving it an eyeful, she figured that the lot itself might bring eighty thousand. The buildings would be razed. “Progress,” and she was part of the process.
“Bill, I need to talk to you about Buddy.”
Setting down his maul, he spit out a long chew of tobacco in expert fashion, clearing the chopping block. “That guy next door complained, eh? Shouldn’t have shut the door on him, but I’d had a few. Truth is, Buddy chewed his rope again. I need to get him a chain.”
Belle blinked at his response. Normally on a wave-only acquaintance, he was friendlier than she’d expected. Like the rest of the neighbours, she’d gone to his wife’s funeral and made a donation to the Heart and Stroke Foundation. “I have a light metal chain that might serve. My boathouse is open. It’s hanging on the wall by the life jackets. Maureen will kill me if anything happens to her garden.”
He nodded. “ ‘Preciate it. He’s not a bad dog, just following his nose. Half-Lab.”
“I don’t know if you’ve heard about what happened . . . to the men next door.” She gave a brief précis of the two incidents.
“Saw the story about the one that drownded. But the other guy, too? Tuesday, you say?” He rubbed his chin, a heavy growth of whiskers discoloured like old ivory. His nose resembled a poorly peeled potato. “Jeez, that was the night I ate something gave me wicked cramps. Caught a bass off the dock and didn’t gut it fast enough. Got to going at both ends.”
This was more information than she needed. Swallowing, she glanced at his leaning outhouse, facing Maureen’s property. Class Five septic system. With a raspy scream, a red-tailed hawk swivelled on the drafts, eyes tuned to the possibility of a rodent dinner.
Bill wiggled a finger in his capacious, hairy ear, then wiped it on his overalls. “Back and forth all bloody night. Might as well have brought a pillow. That’s how I seen the car pull in.”
Was it Mutt coming back from the show? “A Prius?”
“That silly, half-electric golf cart? Watch him try to start her at minus thirty-five. Naw. It was a nice white Buick. Showed up under the full moon. Thought it was odd. Parked at the end of the drive. Maybe got lost and went down to get directions, but at two in the morning?” He gave her a crooked smile, his top plate missing-in-action. “I was sick as a poisoned pup. Wasn’t thinking straight. No way in hell I could see the license or who was driving. But I love those Buicks, and I know that shape like the sweet curves of my late wife.”
Belle drove off more intrigued than before. The idea that someone had been visiting Mutt seemed unlikely. Had he met someone in town? But why the furtive behaviour of the driver? Meanwhile Gary’s research was in limbo. At the first stoplight in Garson, she had a sudden idea. What about going to the Ministry herself? That Silliker woman had been helpful.
Back home by late afternoon, she sat at the dining room table and sorted the mail. With the sun returning, a double rainbow had formed across the lake, putting the pot of gold at the airport. Then her phone rang.
“What kind of a zoo is this? I took out some trash and saw a wild beast cross the road. A black monster. You never mentioned bears,” Megs said, her voice tremulous. “Do you shoot them or call Animal Control?”
Belle laughed, remembering the Ministry’s huge wheeled cage parked at the turnaround last June. They’d nabbed their boy in a few hours, lured by hunks of smelly meat, and packed him off to points north. “If one broke into a camp, maybe. Maureen has a locking garbage box, but you’re better off keeping smelly stuff in the freezer until trash pickup on Tuesday.”
“How primitive.” The shrill voice rose like a V-2 rocket. “I don’t feel safe. Coming up was a big mistake. Maybe I’ll leave in the morning.”
My mistake, too. Belle looked at her watch. Freya was scrutinizing her empty food bowl, a crease of annoyance on her brow. No way in hell was she asking this harpy to stay with her, but she was interested in what Megs knew about Gary’s past, sordid though it might sound through her filter. “Stop worrying. No one on this road has ever been killed or even injured by a bear. And Mutt will be glad to see you. Family is important.”
When Megs whined about forgetting to pick up groceries, Belle took pity on her. “Plenty for two here. Why not drop by for dinner around seven?”
Megs agreed with surprising haste. Hanging up, Belle slipped in a CD of Mary Martin in Hello, Dolly, advising Walter Matthau that “On cold winter nights, you can cuddle up to your cash register. It’s a little lumpy, but it rings.” That line had made her smile at sixteen. Romance had never been on her to-do list, despite a few Gary look-alikes at the U of T, a stuffy physicist with a yappy Jack Russell and an angst-ridden psychologist, who’d said she reminded him of his dead sister. Giving all to her career, she retained independence but missed the pa
rtnership that bonded the DesRosiers, and Mutt and Gary.
Meanwhile, she did a frantic tally of her cupboards and freezer. Rainbow trout marinated in light soy, ginger root and garlic for the BBQ. A rice pilaf. The asparagus from Burwash. All in half an hour, vacuuming the high-traffic paths included and running a towel around the dusty living room. Now for some calming music to sooth the savage breast or beast. Sprightly composers like Delius and Delibes.
A mauve Infiniti rolled silently into the lot as Belle peered out the TV room window at 6:59. Megs arrived at the door soon after bearing a bottle with a VQA label. “Call me patriotic. I drink nothing but Ontario wine. This one has a rating off the charts,” she said, sweeping in dressed in slender designer jeans and a chartreuse silk shirt. When Freya trotted around the corner of the hall, she shrank back. “Aren’t these dogs banned?”
Belle nudged her pal aside, giving a hand signal to cease and desist. “You’re talking about pit bulls. A well-bred shepherd is a pussycat. Bad dogs have bad owners.”
They walked past the compact kitchen, where Belle gave the bottle a second look. A cabernet/merlot reserve. Thirty-five dollars, if she remembered the bin correctly. Megs turned to the stove, touching the grey handle of a pot, picking it up and peering underneath. “Martha Stewart? I love her cookware. Did you get this up here?”
“Half price. When she was in jail, Sears panicked and discounted everything.”
“They’re a bit small, but you’re not cooking for a family.” The woman craned her neck toward the living room, perhaps expecting a tour of a home in the hinterlands.
Choosing to accept the comment as an observation, not a judgment, Belle noticed the mass of welts on the woman’s face. “Need something for those bites?” she asked.
Megs paddled her thin fingers over the angry skin. “I was outside only for a few minutes. Allergies. The Benedryls I took should kick in any minute. At least the medicine cabinet was stocked.”
Belle left her for a moment and returned with a white tube. “Try this. It stings a bit but eases the itching.”
Megs began dotting herself with the ammonia-based product, wincing as she proceeded.
“We’ll be eating on the deck. It’s practically bug-free right now thanks to those natural-born killers.” She pointed at a helpful squadron of dragonflies as they exited the patio doors, helicoptering around like delicate bats. A square wooden table on rollers had been set with placemats, her Santa Fe-style dishes and flatware, and centred with a miniature vase of lilies of the valley, their aroma sweet as Dior perfume.
She went back in to pour the wine, tasting a sip and getting a shock. For the first time, she found an Ontario wine acceptable. Blackberry and pear overtones. Now she’d have to bring out her prized Amarone, should a second bottle be required. She arranged a ceramic platter of smoked oysters, a slice of brie, and buttery crackers full of trans-fats.
Returning, Belle clinked Megs’ glass as they sat. “To Mutt’s recovery.”
Megs nodded in approval as she scanned the lake, her lips smacking at the wine. “This view is lovely. One compensation for living outside civilization. Those tiers with crushed stone and shrubs are attractive. How do you get a gardener to come all the way out here?”
“The same way I get the maid and butler.” Belle forced a smile. “Think what it would cost in Toronto. And you can’t even swim in Lake Ontario. They close the beaches every second day.”
Megs’ mouth screwed into a semi-colon. “Sometimes you can nearly walk on it, though. That’s why the hydrofoil to Rochester went belly-up.”
A dry sense of humour. Maybe the woman wasn’t a total loss. “Sooooooo,” Belle opened with as casual a pose as she could manage, “I knew Gary from high school, but we . . . lost touch. How did he meet your brother?”
After nibbling an oyster, Megs finished the glass, picked up the bottle, and poured another. Belle winced at the rapid consumption.
Megs tried to crease her brow in thought, but the injections fought the effort, leaving it smooth. “Let’s see. It was about eight years ago. Mutt was engaged to a gorgeous debutante. Related to the Eaton family. He’d been at Upper Canada College. She went to Havergal. Had her coming-out party after graduation.”
Break-the-bank tuition. And debutante “coming out” of what? Belle’s eyebrows rose at the mention of the family behind Canada’s fabled flagship department store. “Really? What happened?”
“The wedding was all planned for after Mutt got his MA. St. George’s Country Club in Etobicoke. Lovely historic place. Honeymoon on Nevis. Then a house in Rosedale. So generous of Brittany’s parents.” She gave Belle a knowing nod. “Mutt could have written full-time. None of those humiliating sessional jobs at Mohawk teaching Bonehead Grammar to future veterinary technicians.”
A death sentence in itself. Belle took a cracker and a slice of the creamy cheese. “Then he backed out? Must have taken quite a lot of nerve.”
“I wish he’d known his own mind from the first.” Megs shook her head. “It was embarrassing. Then Father cut him off without a dime.”
Belle felt her pulse accelerate as fast as a mallard taking off at the crunch of a fox on the shoreline. “That seems extreme.”
“You know the older generation. But even I was confused. Brittany Crawford was so beautiful. And very sweet, too. I did charity work with her, finding homes for abandoned Yorkies. What was he thinking? He didn’t even give it a try.”
Belle lifted an eyebrow. “I call him brave. Even today, there are social pressures to conform to the so-called normal family unit. At least he didn’t marry her, have a few kids, and then bail out. And his relationship with Gary was stable. Seven years, wasn’t it?”
Megs gulped the last from her glass. “Do you think he and Gary were a poster couple? They had some battles royale.”
“Gary? I can’t believe it.” But the boy of eighteen was not the man in his late forties.
“Listen, far be it from me to talk against my brother, but he’s always spent everything he made. Carpe whatever. Made Visa rich. Dad bailed him out now and then. But Gary was quite thrifty, cheap even. They were always arguing.”
Belle thought of their dates. A movie, a hamburger. Her father’s complimentary passes to theatres. She’d been so enamoured that a simple picnic in his company would have been as good as a steak dinner at Barberian’s.
“Lord, what a day. Those bites have stopped tormenting me. I think I’m finally relaxing.” Megs drained the bottle, pointedly waiting for the last drips and sucking them like mother’s milk. Her hand was none too steady, and the roadmap of veins in her eyes glowed pink. “Thirsty girl. I’m going to need a refill.”
“Me, too.” Belle got up with reluctance and brought back the Amarone, a hefty 14.5%. They both ducked from reflex when a giant yellow plane roared overhead, heading north across the lake.
“What in Christ’s name is that?” Megs cried.
“Ministry plane. It picks up water here and takes it to a forest fire.”
“Don’t tell me I have to worry about an evacuation, too?”
“The airport nearby is command central. That plane could be heading for somewhere a hundred miles away.”
Megs took a deep draft of wine, without savouring the rich aroma or commenting on the full body of leathers, tannins and plum the label promised. “Where was I? Oh, yes, their arguments. You don’t have to look at dear Malcolm twice to see that he’s film-star material. He did some modelling during university. Toronto Life magazine. And you know that territory.”
Where was this heading? “Are you talking about affairs?”
Megs waggled her finger, flashing a band of emeralds. “You’ve seen him. What do you think? Men followed him like the pole star.” A light burp escaped her lips, and she patted herself on the chest like a naughty baby.
“He was mumbling something in his sleep. It sounded like Ben. Any friend or relation?” Belle asked.
“Certainly not family. But friends? You might say we ran
in different circles,” she said with a haughty turn of her head.
The last bite of salad went down with a bitter taste unrelated to the arugula. Megs finished everything on her plate and mentioned that she hoped the trout wasn’t fish-farmed. “All sorts of worms and parasites.” Then she gave a pointed sniff, rubbed her nose and asked for a Q-tip.
Belle used them to clean the water-filter containers. “In the bathroom cabinet. Lower right.” Megs tottered off for a few minutes on a mysterious mission.
After dinner, during which Megs slurred her words and laughed at everything, even comments about the weather, they moved inside to escape the night chill. With her bare feet on the blue leather couch, Megs drank a coffee with Courvoisier and had fallen asleep when Belle returned from the bathroom. An icy cloth got the woman up and into her Infiniti, Belle bracing the storkish body with one arm. Megs slumped in the seat, lipstick smeared on her mango mouth, while Belle rummaged through her purse and found the keys, starting the motor with a delicious purr. What were we driving here, half a bungalow? Leather seats, probably heated. Directional program. Like the cockpit of the Challenger in wood grain.
At Maureen’s, her back screaming, Belle deposited the woman onto the couch, tossing a blanket over her, placing her keys and purse in plain sight. What kind of shape would Megs be in tomorrow to see her brother, she wondered? The last half-mile of the walk home, the air hit her like a tonic. At least the star show was worth the trip. Without the bowl of city lights, Ursa Major flexed his claws toward Lynx, while Ursa Minor watched from above, learning lessons from mother. Lynx and bear she understood, but what about Drago lurking between? There were no dragons any more, except in human form.
So Megs recalled no Ben, hardly surprising given the family estrangement. Once at home and in bed, Belle picked up the notebooks, some water-spotted pages, a tiny fly wing, hazards of the field, trying to decipher the scientific jargon, the abbreviations perhaps only Gary understood. Water PH numbers done on site. That she understood. Acid and alkaline. Something about diatoms and daphnia. Far from the city and never in the destructive plumes, the water should be healthy. Colour was no indicator, though. Lakes clear and blue as sapphires had a high acid content.