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 be 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
