Slow Curve on the Coquihalla

by R. E. Donald

  This was the place.

  CHAPTER 23

  – – – – TWENTY-THREE

  That night, Hunter and Gord stayed up talking long after the others had gone to bed. They sat out on a huge wooden deck overlooking the lake, nursing their second nightcap of beer and admiring the stars on display in the wide expanse of night sky between the trees behind them and the great shadowy hump of mountain across the lake. The stars were so distinctly bright it seemed unreal. Hunter's arms were tucked in against the coolness of the night, but he was grateful for the breeze that kept the mosquitoes away. He had helped at the barbecue earlier, and found out that there were bloodthirsty droves of them hovering in the woods. He and his landlord talked about the innumerable stars and the wisdom of the ancients and the insignificance of man and the history of time. There were long comfortable breaks in their conversation.

  Two of Gord's adult daughters and their significant others had gone to bed in a second smaller cabin about fifty yards from the one with the big wooden deck. Gord's brother, John, had retired early to the main cabin to read. Like everyone else, Hunter had eaten until he was stuffed. Camp food, they called it. Nachos and beer in the afternoon. A cocktail before dinner, accompanied by an appetizer of fat pink prawns doused in garlic butter, with chunks of a crusty baguette. Wine. Salad. Inch thick steaks, barbecued to a perfect medium rare, then strewn with mushrooms simmered in garlic. Baked potatoes with sour cream and chopped green onions. A choice of apple or pecan pie, with ice cream, and fresh brewed coffee for dessert. Right, camp food.

  "Your daughter said you've all been coming here for over thirty years." Hunter watched the green light of a boat float slowly through the darkness on the other side of the lake, the lazy buzz of its engine clearly audible at a distance of over three miles.

  "Yep. Since nineteen sixty, or thereabouts. Missed a few years, here and there." Gord took a quiet sip from his can of beer. "We lived in half a dozen different houses since then, so this place has been the only thing that's stayed more or less the same. We spent a few years on the prairies, then moved to Toronto for a few, but John lived in Kamloops and kept working away out here in his spare time. This big cabin," – he stuck his thumb over his left shoulder – " used to be the same size as that little one over there. John expanded it himself, bit by bit. Now it's got, what? Five bedrooms, I guess. You should bring your girls up here sometime. A lot of weekends during the summer there's nobody here but John."

  Hunter nodded thoughtfully. "Your daughters sure seem to like it. Did they enjoy it as much when they were Jan and Lesley's age? Late teens, early twenties?"

  "I think so. We lived in Toronto during those years, so my wife and I didn't come here that often, but I think the girls who were out here did," said Gord. He was silent for a moment. "Look! A shooting star!" He pointed and Hunter caught sight of it just before it disappeared, vanishing so fast and so completely he wondered if it had really existed. "At least there's a flush toilet and a shower here now. There was nothing but outhouses then, and we'd get our water in buckets from the lake, heat it on top of that little propane stove to wash dishes. Do your girls like to water-ski? Can they drive a boat?"

  Hunter shrugged, took a swig of beer. It was getting flat and tepid. "I should've done more things like that with them when they were younger. We did a lot of snow skiing in the winter. In the summer, we took them camping a few times. You know, put up a tent in a provincial park or a KOA campground. Go for hikes. Go swimming if there was a lake. The last time was eight or nine years ago. Then Chris went back to work, and we never seemed to get vacations at the same time, and the kids started going places with their friends, and vacations together didn't seem so important to any of us any more. I don't know, Gord." He sighed. "I don't know if they like to waterski, or if they can drive a boat."

  The wake of a long-departed boat threw itself against the rocky beach, the sound of the waves receding softly into a watery murmur.

  "So you didn't see much of your daughters when they were in their late teens either?" asked Hunter.

  "Seemed like one or another was always away at school. Even when they were living at home, we didn't spend a lot of time together talking. Some days it wasn't much more than Hi, Dad and Bye, Dad. Unless they wanted something from my wallet." They both grinned wryly. "And they always came to me for medical advice. Still do. None of them bothered with a family doctor for years. And some school subjects, they gave me credit for knowing more than they did. Not often, mind you.

  "But you can't compare the situation with your own, Hunter. My wife and I were still together. That makes a big difference. I always knew a lot of what was going on in the girls' lives – boyfriends and other catastrophes – because my wife gave me a daily recap during the Johnny Carson show." The old doctor sighed quietly, and Hunter assumed he was thinking of his late wife, whom Hunter had never known. "Sometimes grown men don't have much in common with young girls." Gord waved his beer can at the Milky Way. "Things like this, everybody can share, though."

  They were silent again, listening to the night.

  "No, Hunter, you can't ever expect to be as close to them as their mother is. I never was. They're girls, after all. But there are things you can offer them that their mother can't. The benefit of what you've learned in life from the kind of experiences their mother's never had."

  Hunter nodded wordlessly, thinking that offers could be rejected.

  "How do they feel about you being a truck driver?"

  Hunter looked at Gord with a small frown. "I guess ... I don't know. They've never said."

  "Just wondered," said Gord. He stood up and leaned against the railing, draining the dregs of his beer over the side of the deck. "Truck drivers kind of have a bad rap, if you know what I mean. Depending on the social circles they're moving in, some young ladies might not understand why you choose to do it." He shrugged apologetically at Hunter. "If you haven't already, you might want to explain it to them. They probably haven't seen enough of life yet to figure it out for themselves."

  Hunter slept fitfully on a foam mattress in the attic. Overindulgence in food and alcohol had made him feel hypertensive and muzzy headed, and the whine of mosquitoes haunted him from outside a screen window just a few feet from his head. Beyond the needling buzz of the mosquitoes, there was a massive silence, broken only occasionally by the slapping of waves against the beach. It had never occurred to him before that his daughters might be ashamed of what he did for a living. They often asked him politely how work was going, but it was never discussed in detail. Having grown up in a family who believed in higher education, truck driving wasn't something he himself had considered a career option at their age. In fact, he would probably have regarded it as one of those jobs a man would only do if he didn't know how to do something better. Gord might be right. But if Jan and Lesley found his occupation embarrassing, what good would an explanation do?

  Towards morning, he fell into a deep sleep. The room was bright when he awoke to the sound of a small animal thumping across the roof above his head. A chipmunk scolded stridently, paused for a few seconds, then began scolding again. Hunter rolled over towards the wall and pulled the blanket up around his ears. The chipmunk scolded louder, for longer, and finally Hunter admitted defeat. He pulled on his jeans and made his way downstairs.

  Hunter leaned against the wooden railing of the big deck and surveyed the early morning. The cabins faced north out of a slight bay, so the sun was climbing above the slope to his right. The lake was like glass, bearing a crisp reflection of the dappled green north shore mountains and the fragments of stretched cheesecloth cloud that drifted in front of them. An invisible truck rattled along the road on the other side of the lake, the position of its noise lagging behind the dust rising along the distant shoreline. He heard the single note call of a loon he couldn't see. About seventy yards from where Hunter stood, one of Gord's daughters sat in silence at the end of an old floating dock, hands curled around a mug of coffee, a book lying unop
ened in her lap.

  The door behind him opened with a squeak and Hunter's landlord emerged with a faded Hawaiian towel draped over his bare shoulder. In his mid-seventies, he was still well muscled but his skin had started to sag. Hunter hoped he would still be that fit when, and if, he reached Gord's age. "Good morning," Hunter said, almost sorry to break the silence that surrounded them.

  Gord bowed, smiling. "Join me for a swim?" he asked, his eyebrows shooting up above the frames of his glasses. The old doctor's hair stuck up in places, making him look like an elderly Dennis the Menace.

  "Uh ... ." Hunter searched for a good excuse. He ran his hand over his own hair and realized that he must look much the same.

  "It's bracing, I'll give you that, but you won't be sorry once you're in. Clears out the cobwebs."

  "Hah," said Hunter. "After last night, I've definitely got my share of those. Okay. I'll be right there."

  The old doctor was right. It was cold enough that the first shock took Hunter's breath away, but after half a minute it felt indescribably great. It was like the ultimate cold drink of water for a thirsty man. Quietly treading water, submerged almost to his nostrils, he looked along the surface of the lake. A frog's eye view. Small swarms of insects danced above the water, and a distant houseboat chugged somnolently towards the eastern point of the bay. By the time he climbed out onto the dock, Gord had returned to drop off a mug of fresh coffee, which Hunter accepted gratefully. He felt more than a little self conscious standing dripping wet and half naked beside Gord's daughter, who was still sitting at the end of the dock, so he followed Gord off the dock, and moved a plastic lawn chair to a warm patch of beach beyond the shadows of the tall cottonwoods and cedars surrounding the cabin.

  A moment later, footsteps crunched down over the rocky beach from the cabin and Hunter's landlord deposited a second chair beside him, working it back and forth to find a solid footing on the rocks before sitting down. "I always make breakfast when we're up here, but they won't let me do it this morning." Gord sighed heavily. "Father's Day. I'm supposed to relax. I'm retired, for crying out loud! For me, the most stressful thing in life is having nothing to do." He grunted, and held up his coffee mug. "Happy Father's Day, Hunter."

  They clinked coffee mugs together and Hunter smiled. "I forgot about Father's Day. I should call my dad. Do you know whether a cellular phone would work here?"

  "From what I understand, the signal is pretty weak. Anne's used hers a couple of times, but she usually gets cut off halfway through."

  "I'll have to call later from Kamloops, then. Just as well. He and my mother live in Hawaii so they're a couple of hours behind us."

  "Your kids might be trying to call you, too. Maybe you should put your phone in your pocket and turn it on. A poor connection is probably better than none at all."

  Hunter shrugged. "It's okay. I figure the girls are pretty busy. There'll probably be a message on my answering machine when I get home." Like last year. "You're right though, I should see if they've got time to come up here for a weekend. It'd be nice." He nodded to himself. "Yes. It would be nice."

  After breakfast, Gord suggested a cruise up to the Narrows in the powerboat. He explained that the Shuswap is shaped roughly like a big, lopsided H, made up of the main body of the lake and three long narrow arms, the largest of which is Salmon Arm. The place where the four arms of the lake meet, called Cinnemousin Narrows, was roughly ten miles away by water. At a leisurely pace it took them a good forty minutes to reach it. The dirt road stopped a few miles beyond the Youngs' cabins, so the cabins along the shoreline, now accessible only by boat, became sparser and sparser as they approached the middle of the H. Over the roar of the motor, Hunter remarked on the number of houseboats. Gord nodded and hollered back, "Wait'll you see the Narrows!"

  They soon came upon a cluster of houseboats – Hunter counted eight – and Gord slowed the boat to an idle. "Those two," he pointed towards two large houseboats festooned with signs, "are floating general stores that are here to service the houseboaters. I've never seen them not busy. They carry everything from tee-shirts, to milk and butter, to rental videos." Two or three houseboats were lined up beside each of the floating stores. They ranged from little beige houseboats just slightly bigger than a truck camper to big new blue and white jobs sporting water slides and gas barbecues. Some of them were towing speedboats. A jet-ski roared up beside them, slowing and settling in the water as it approached the houseboats.

  Hunter laughed. "It looks like a great way to escape from the crowds and traffic of the city, doesn't it?"

  "The Shuswap isn't exactly a good place for the real wilderness enthusiast." The old doctor swung the boat around slowly. "It would take far too much time for us to drive up one of the other arms, not to mention a lot of gas, but the houseboats thin out up Seymour Arm," he pointed over the back of the boat, "and Anstey Arm up ahead there. With all the little nooks and crannies, they've calculated that there's over six hundred miles of shoreline to spread out along. That much space can swallow a lot of houseboats. For example, they seldom even get close to our part of the shoreline and they sure don't bother us when they're motoring up the other side of the lake. Ready to head back?"

  At full throttle, the return trip took only about twenty minutes. One of Gord's daughters was fishing in a little aluminum rowboat about fifty yards from shore. She looked up from her book and waved as they coasted by. Grinning from behind oversized sunglasses, she pointed to something at the front of the boat, and as they got closer Hunter realized it was The Cat. Gord's Siamese roommate was settled comfortably in the sun on top of a lifejacket spread across the front seat. "She doesn't mind being on the water," Gord explained with a wry smile, "but it's worth your life to try putting her in it." Hunter laughed.

  He hoped he could get the girls to come up here with him next time.

  That morning, Suzanne had crawled back into bed after feeding the kids and getting them settled in front of PBS's Sunday morning children's shows. She had been surprised to find Gary already awake, lying on his back with his hands behind his head, staring at the ceiling. She snuggled up to warm herself against his body, planting a gentle kiss on his stubbled cheek.

  "Happy Father's Day," she whispered. "I told the kids you were still sleeping. They've got a handful of Father's Day pictures they're itching to show you."

  He mouthed a little kiss in return. "I'm sure they'll be stomping in here like little dinosaurs right after Barney's over," he said with a smile, and resumed his far off stare.

  She studied his face. She remembered thinking, the first time they'd met, that he wasn't very good looking. About a year into their relationship, she realized that he'd become the most handsome man in the world to her. Her fingers stroked his skin, from his collar bone across the bulges and dips of his shoulder and biceps, and he trapped them briefly between his forearm and his biceps, squeezing them firmly with a flex of his muscles.

  "What're you thinking about?" she asked.

  "You sure you really want to know?"

  She made a little face. "Now you have to tell me. Otherwise I'll be imagining all sorts of horrible things."

  "Okay." He licked his lower lip and swallowed, as if he were about to tell a story.

  "Once upon a time ..., " she prompted, and their eyes met. His sparkled.

  "Once upon a time," he began, his voice low and soft, "there was a beautiful young princess who lived in the High Country. No, wait a minute. She used to be a princess, but now she's got to be a young queen, because she married her prince charming, who loves her very much, and together they made two little princesses, who were also very beautiful."

  He pulled one arm out from underneath his head and hugged her closer against his chest, and his lips brushed her forehead.

  "And the prince – no, I guess he'd have to be the king – yes, it's Father's Day, so he's definitely the king. Anyway, the king had a job that took him away from his lovely queen and the beautiful princesses. He had to leave them alone
at home every week for many days, sometimes for longer than a week at a time. So one day, the king said to his young queen, How would you like it if we never had to spend another night apart. And the lovely young queen said ... " He stopped. When she didn't say anything, he added, "Well?" and brought the other hand out from behind his head, slipping it beneath the sheet to tickle her.

  Between giggles, Suzanne managed to whisper, "He tickled the poor queen mercilessly, until she said, How?"

  "And the king said, I know of a place called The Magic Kingdom, where we can all live happily ever after."

  "And the queen said, What've you been smoking, King-y?"

  "And the king said, Shut up, Queenie! I'm telling the story!" Gary's hand shot out to tickle her again.

  "Okay, okay, King. It's your story." She pushed his hand away, giggling softly. "So the queen shut up."

  "So the king waved his magic wand, and he and the queen and the two princesses were magically transported to a big, beautiful log cabin. The queen looked down in wonder, for her fancy, stiff and stuffy gown had turned into comfy blue jeans and soft leather boots, and a denim shirt with neat little white leather fringes and pearl buttons. And the king took her by the hand and led her outside, and she saw that the log cabin was on a hill that overlooked a sparkling blue lake. This land is all ours for miles around, said the king, spreading his arms wide. And across from the log cabin, there was a barn, and some stables, with dozens of beautiful horses. And the king took the queen to the stables, and there was a beautiful Appaloosa mare with big, brown eyes and a soft pink muzzle. And the king said, this one is yours, my Queen. So he helped her into the saddle, and he mounted a big roan stallion, and they galloped off into the sunset and lived happily ever after, forever and ever, amen."