of the sixties, Lucille Ball in Wildcat, Tammy Grimes in The Unsinkable Molly Brown and Roz Russell in Wonderful Town. Those tough ladies made their own rules, and men loved them for it.
Edgewater Road was a winding, hilly six-mile run, which passed the Santanens’ at the final turn to the main highway. Derek Santanen had served eight months in the Sudbury Jail for drug dealing. His parents’ tiny place clung like a limpet to a narrow strip of land. It was built long before the road arrived, when camps were accessible only by boat or snowmobile. At well over three hundred pounds, Derek often turned to crime for its easy profits. Belle suspected that he favoured the house for its remoteness and for the many hidey holes for his stash. On one occasion, a police search had the cottagers lining the road and passing around pop and chips, while police divers explored his waterline fifty feet off shore to discover prime Acapulco gold in watertight containers. Derek Santanen might make a good starting point for any inquiries about the area drug trade.
Just before eight she arrived in Chelmsford, a quaint, predominantly French town. The glorious church and its spire anchored the village with the infinite grace of bygone centuries, every pink granite stone carted lovingly from the surrounding hills and carved by local masons. It might have stood in the Quebec townships. An ominous growl from the midriff reminded Belle that she hadn’t eaten since lunch. She stopped at a small grill and stationed herself at the counter behind a blonde girl barely eighteen and dressed in the same size. The girl’s eyes widened as Belle lip-read the menu, sucked in her breath and mumbled, “Une moyenne poutine.” A brief pause, then her voice jumped an octave. “Non, une grande poutine, s’il vous plaît!”
“La même chose pour moi,” Belle added quickly. Growing up in Toronto had not been the place to learn colloquial French, and her fledgling vowels amused shopkeepers so much that she was glad when they smelled her accent and switched gears into English without missing a beat. She watched the waitress anoint the mounds of crispy fries with tender chunks of cheese curds swimming in gravy, the lifeblood of the North, especially in winter.
Belle ferried the steaming plate of sin to a table and opened the Northern Life to scout the offerings of her real estate competition. She knew every lake and cottage for sale within one hundred miles, and considering that the Regional Municipality counted over ninety named lakes within its boundaries, that was a feat in itself. Holy moley, another Ramsey Lake cottage lot was on offer, probably one of the last. Central to downtown, the largest city-contained lake in the world, only Ramsey’s most remote sections remained undeveloped. Water and sewer were on their way, which would jack up the lot price by thirty thousand. Might be worth it, though. “Lakefront,” Uncle Harold had growled philosophically, “they ain’t making any more.”
Lights were off at 2334 Brentwood, but Belle was early. Well-prepared for such cold delays, she sipped the aromatic coffee, started the engine every ten minutes and played tapes. Nashville was a favourite, its parodies of country songs so true-to-form that they passed for legitimate. “He’s Got a Tape deck in his Tractor” always made her grin. Belle had been drafting a song in memory of the better parts of her mother. After all, she told herself, there are only about one hundred words in country music, so why not mine? She tapped out the chorus:
Come on up to Mama’s table,
If you’re hungry or you’re cold,
If you’ve got too many mouths to feed
Or if you’re growing old.
She’ll shelter and she’ll feed you,
She’ll have a hug to greet you.
You’ll always feel real welcome
At my Mama’s kitchen door.
The pencil got a chew. Oops, “have a hug to greet you” should come before the “shelter” part. At this point, the tune didn’t concern her. Maybe a music student from Shield could compose the score.
Startled by the sudden lights of a car, Belle spilt the coffee on her coat. As usual, she had forgotten a napkin, so she dabbed at the liquid with a tampon from the glove compartment.
Out of a battered Escort struggled a woman trailing three small children, one of them bawling like a frustrated weanling. “You must be Ms. Palmer,” the woman shouted as Belle rolled down a window. “Sorry for the delay. I had to go to the lawyer’s in town, and then all the kids wanted hamburgers. Come in and make yourself comfortable. I’ll settle them in the rec room while we talk.” She hefted the screamer over her shoulder like a sack of potatoes, cooing and patting it for good measure.
“Do you mind if I look around upstairs first, Mrs. Mainville?” Belle asked. “It might save us some time, and you look like you’ve had a tough day.” Nothing like womanly understanding.
“Call me Joan,” the woman answered with a smile as she hustled the kids down the basement stairs.
Conventional suburban living with a country advantage: three bedrooms, newish kitchen, dining room in name only, living room with a view overlooking a pasture. Big yard for children. Too bad someone had sparkle-plastered the living room ceiling and installed red shag carpet half-way up the wall. It suggested a planetarium designed by Hugh Hefner. After making notes, Belle joined her client downstairs where Barney was mumbling mindless platitudes as the kids giggled. Both women winced at the numbing chorus. “I hate it, too, but what can you do?” Joan said.
“Better than violence . . . or is it?” Belle replied. “All kiddie shows should carry a warning sign.”
Joan took her into the laundry room to point out with shy pride an amply-stocked cold cellar. “I’m a fool for canning,” she said. “Don’t know how I’m going to take all of this to Mom’s, though.” Here sat the winter wealth of resourceful Northerners, jars of pickled beans, carrots and beets, and the inevitable green tomato chow, an innovative answer to a short growing season. “Guess my neighbours might like them.” The spotless jars and shelves pleased Belle, since a clean place always showed better, and she found herself accepting a jar of chow. Amenable to suggestions about the value of neutral colours, Joan waved a cheerful goodbye. Somehow Belle couldn’t mention the crimson carpeted wall; maybe if the place didn’t sell quickly . . .
Back home, she noticed the blinking light on her answering machine. A female voice spoke softly but deliberately. “My name is Melanie Koslow, Miss Palmer. I was engaged to Jim. I need to talk to you about the accident . . . in person if you have time. My schedule’s pretty full with my nursing course, but I’m usually at Tim Horton’s on Regent Street before class every morning at eight. Just look for a red wizard hat and pile of books. If those times aren’t good for you, call me at 233-4566 at the Shield Nursing Residence.”
Abruptly, her mind returned to Jim, the hand in the frozen lake and the the accident that—just maybe—wasn’t.
Later, as the moon circled the house, Belle curled up with a book, trailing Dave Robichaux through the bordellos of sultry New Orleans. The book snapped shut at eleven, and Belle fingered the light switch. A churchgoer only as a child, she maintained a cautious belief in a personally-designed afterlife. Prayers were a convenient method to take stock of the day and remember old friends. No one had ever answered her calls, and, while this silence perturbed her at first, in the long run it was saner. A premonition about not getting on a certain plane to Buenos Aires was fine; constant suggestions and recriminations from the other world would be not only distracting but might send the listener to a madhouse. So she maintained a one-way conversation with Uncle Harold, her grandparents and her mother, imagining a host of patient advocates nodding and blessing her each night. “Help me take good care of the old man, Mother,”
