long-term parking. A peek inside revealed a Shield University parking pass and the blanket she recalled from Freya’s rescue. Another play in Toronto, she wondered? More usual to drive unless time were a critical factor. From the smokeshop, she saw one of her neighbour’s daughters and strolled over, raising her arms like the roaring polar bear image in their logo. “Hi, Patty. How’s life at Polar Bear Air?”
“A wild ride. With this awful weather, everyone’s hustling to get a final holiday any place south. Recession nothing! You should see the bookings for the Caribbean and Mexico now that the peak time’s over. Wish I could go, too.”
Belle folded her paper in studied disinterest. “Lucky folks. Say, I saw a friend’s car in the lot. Professor Franz Schilling. Was he heading for the sunny beaches or just off to Toronto?”
The young girl drummed into her computer without a second thought. “Let’s see. He was routed through to Kingston. Maybe on business. Back on our 10 p.m. Sunday flight.”
Stranger and stranger, but just over the border to New York. A visit to the troubled sister. Why lie about it, Franz? The stigma of mental illness? He seemed enlightened enough, but one never knew. The paper engaged her for the rest of the afternoon, especially with the dollar in the sub-basement thanks to Canada’s monumental debt load and a resource-based economy.
An hour later, Belle was still wandering around the house, toe-tapping, checking her watch to distraction. Would it ever be time to leave for the Beave, to coin a poem? And why ever go alone? Entertainment should be shared. She picked up the phone. “Now, I know you’re in bed by dark, Hélène,” she joked after she described the fun, “but make an exception. Going around nine thirty should give us a couple of hours before the witching hour for the raid.”
“I can jump start the old man,” Hélène said. “Cut off his decaf at supper and watch him hop it on caffeine. We’re having Referendum Soup, so he should be hot enough about that.”
“Referendum Soup? Are you serious? Sounds too controversial for Canadian Living magazine.”
“Made it in Thunder Bay visiting my son the night the votes on the last one were counted. See if you recognize anyone: take a big hambone, add plenty of beans and prepare to eat it for the rest of your life. Trouble is, it’s delicious.” A tinkling laugh came over the phone.
Belle had her own culinary memories. She defrosted a cube of pesto from her summer basil and spinach crop, chuckling as she recalled the day she had made the sauce. The spatula parked on top of the whirring blender had fallen in and in three seconds plastered the oily green sauce over the counter, cupboards, floor, ceiling and her naked self on an unusually torrid afternoon. In consideration of these efforts, she had had no scruples scraping the costly mess into ice cube trays. A thin spaghetti dressed with the ill-fated pesto and a salad of endive grown in some abandoned local mine by a creative entrepreneur went onto the table, showered with freshly-grated Romano.
A reliable Pinewood Studio film from the late fifties was on Nostalgia, so she settled in. Around nine o’clock, she stepped out onto the deck before deciding how many layers to wear. Luckily it was warmer and surprisingly windless as the darkness deepened, yet a feathery ring wreathed the moon. She hoped it would not be a bad one rising.
Down at the DesRosiers’ shoreline, Belle winced as her machine bounced over a snow-covered log that had drifted in before freeze-up. “We’re just about ready. Have a coffee,” Hélène said as Belle leafed through the Sudbury Star to find Ann Landers. A hockey game blared on the giant TV. Belle could hardly believe her benighted eyes. Near the eastern windows sat, seedlings? An optical illusion? Would spring ever arrive,or would this be the first nuclear winter?
“What have you got, you fox?” she asked. “Aren’t you jumping the gun?”
Hélène beamed and pinched off a tiny leaf which she waved under Belle’s nose, releasing a precious scent of peppery oregano. “Can’t keep us Frenchmen down. Ed promised me a small greenhouse as soon as the ground thaws. So I’ll be able to keep these tomatoes, herbs, broccoli, cukes right nice under glass until the last frost.”
Belle warmed up with the coffee, nosing the smallest dollop of rye. “Last frost. Right about mid-July before the first frost the day after.”
“Oh, fais dodo, as my Great Aunt Jacinthe used to say. Get to bed with you. Shut it.” Hélène watered her babies with perfect confidence. “We’ll have a dinner of this, and I’ll remind you about your lack of faith.”
Judging from the communal roar of machines from all directions, Saturday night at the lodge had started. Twenty people passed the trio as if they were moonwalking. Some thought travel was safer at night because of the lights, but so many speeders overran their beams that it made little difference. The lake assumed a surreal perspective by starlight, a silvery rink dotted with shore twinklings. Across at the Reserve, the lights which greeted Belle every morning before dawn were still flickering. Nearing Brooks’ island, they could hear booming bass thumps, gradually developing into a passable imitation of Alabama. A large birch fire snapped in front of the lodge, a cheery spot for hardier souls who wanted less music and more privacy. For a moment Belle imagined that she smelled a smoke too sweet for wood as she glanced at a young couple toasting marshmallows and snuggling in the fire’s glimmer.
Pushing through the main door, they carried their helmets into a wave of music and laughter, standing stupefied for a moment in the sudden heat, until Ed commandeered a wooden booth in a side room. Belle’s watch said ten o’clock. Their pitcher of draft arrived with a bowl of popcorn, packed with palm oil, Belle bet, knowing that virtuous canola could not have hit the sticks this fast. Shoving their jackets under the table with their helmets and kicking off their boots, they relaxed in their overalls like the rest of the crowd. As a cheap alternative to live music, the karaoke setup gave volunteers their standard five minutes of local fame. A balding porker in red underwear beneath Farmer John’s began warbling “Tie a Yellow Ribbon,” lurching offstage to polite applause, followed by two young lovers who rivalled Kenny and Dolly in “Islands in the Stream”.
“In the steam,” Belle said as she excused herself for the bathroom, ducking a second later as she saw Nick. Luckily he was occupied with what looked like the stripper from the Paramount. At least he wasn’t a cradle robber. Belle chose the door with a winking doe instead of the rampant buck. So this was the fabled septic system. Well, let’s give it a go, she muttered under her breath, and checked out a stall, glad to find a lock which worked. A hand-printed sign in block letters admonished users NOT to flush paper. Miriam’s brother had left his tank unpumped for seventeen years and, thanks to two fastidious teenagers and a wife, ended up with an 800 gallon tank of papier mâché and a clogged field bed redug at the cost of the St. Lawrence Seaway. Belle merrily waved goodbye to an ox-choking wad of tissue to serve Brooks right.
When she returned to the table, the pitcher was gone and so were the DesRosiers. It appeared that they were dancing to the unforgettable “Hello, Darlin’”, Belle’s favourite. “Just for old time’s sake,” Ed sang with a rise to each word, dipping Hélène dangerously as he might have done to the sounds of Don Messer and the Islanders back when he and his only sweetheart had been dancing at their Senior Prom.
Belle’s concept of raids came from scenes where a bumbling array of Keystone cops stampeded into a speakeasy and rousted everyone into a paddy wagon, careering off into the distance as “The End” hit the screen. On an island, logistics might be easier. True, someone could vanish into the night, but not if the cordon were tight, if Steve had brought enough officers. It wasn’t the common variety toker with a bit of hash in his pocket wanted here, though the odd minnow might stick in the net meant for a grandfather walleye. Belle finished off the popcorn while the DesRosiers fanned themselves from the
