The euphoria saw us through that afternoon. But when I curled up on the bed after our walk it was the wrong bed, and there was no Ozzie to feed, pet or talk to. There would be many tears.
Saturday, July 14
I dream I’m lying in the pink bathtub in our cave-like, cobweb-festooned bathroom in the Landing. In my dream it’s Thursday morning, seven a.m., and I’m going to Kaslo with Jillian in a couple of hours. I love a morning bath and lie back dreamily, luxuriating in the hot steamy water, fragrant with lavender oil. My eye wanders over the cedar shakes that cover the walls. They are dark brown, random and characterful; they add a delicate scent to the room, and repel water from the shower, but if you brush against their rough edges you could catch a splinter. A length of string pinned across the wall above the counter displays my extensive earring collection, pair after pair, a line of silver and multi-coloured trinkets.
A pattern of ripples spreads across the bathwater. I glance through the open window, then shift my gaze to the bathtub and watch fascinated as the tiny wavelets fan outwards. I lift my foot then let it sink underwater again. Odd. I’m not causing these ripples, am I? No. The tub is vibrating. Now my whole body feels it. What on earth…? An earthquake? A surge of fear follows the thought. I hear a noise, an unearthly growling roar. The whole house shakes. I grab the sides of the bath, heave my torso upright, get my legs under me and leap from the tub, sloshing water over the floor. I yank my towel off the rail and flee.
Ozzie, on the bed in the living room, holds my gaze for a fleeting moment; our eyes lock. He breaks our eye contact and streaks for the stairs. When anything frightened him he always headed for his lair: a folded blanket on a high shelf in a back corner of the basement.
I throw the towel around my shoulders, dizzy, naked and dripping. What should I do? Front door? No time to get across the yard. I sense the “thing” as it rushes towards me down the creek. Instinct shrieks: Get out of the house. Get out from under the roof! Deck! I must get onto the deck. I yell Ozzie’s name, beg him to come back upstairs.
It’s hopeless.
Befuddled by the thundering din I run, trembling and clumsy. My wet feet slither on the kitchen floor and I almost fall. I pound across the kitchen, round the dining table, send a chair flying. I throw back the sliding patio door and fumble with the screen door behind it. The latch is clicked shut and I wrench at it in rising frenzy, ripping the screen. I emerge onto the deck and the booming, ear-splitting roar engulfs me. Sharp grit on the dirty deck floor bites into my bare feet. I dash to the far corner. I want to jump but falter at the edge; the deck’s too high. I seize hold of the post and wrap my arms around it, my lifebelt, my buoy. The stinking wave of trees, boulders and mud crashes against the house...
I jerked awake from the nightmare with a yell and sat up, soaked in sweat. Thunder rumbled outside the bedroom window. Drum-beating rain pounded on the roof. Christopher rolled over and reached for me. Why was he here? Why was this bed so hard? Oh yes. Kaslo. We’re in Kaslo. I fell back, convulsed by paroxysms of coughing. I could barely grab breaths between the harsh, gut-wrenching hacking.
I thought about Ozzie. His deep yellow eyes had shot me the message that he was terrified, regretful that everything had to end this way, and unutterably sad because this was our goodbye.
After my coughing fit eased Christopher and I lay entwined like spoons, his arm holding me close against his belly. I gazed out at the crack of grey daylight below the window blind and we listened to the rain. The sound frightened me. I asked him, “Sweetie? What are we going to do?”
He held me tighter. “I don’t know, babe. I want to go up there and see it for myself.”
“No! Oh no, please, you mustn’t. I couldn’t bear it if you were… At least wait until the rain stops.” I turned to him and buried my face in his neck. He smelled so reassuring, uniquely completely himself. If anything happened to him, the last shred of meaning and purpose in my life would be gone. We held each other close for a few minutes, and Christopher agreed to hold off on his trip to the Landing for now.
Uli and Seán were up and moving around on the squeaky kitchen floor, making the everyday breakfast sounds of coffee grinding and toaster popping, punctuated by Seán’s warm, chuckling laugh. Still coughing, I rolled out of bed and put on my dreadful check-pattern dress. One of these days I’d take great pleasure in burning the detestable thing.
The rain soon let up a bit and the morning brightened. The sky echoed to the beat of helicopter blades as rescue crews and media were ferried up the lake. CBC News reported that Vancouver’s Heavy Urban Search and Rescue (HUSAR) task force was on the ground with heavy lifting equipment, assisting the rescue effort. But the weather was not cooperating. Violent thunderstorms in the early hours of Saturday had knocked out power lines and brought down trees on the Argenta–Johnson’s Landing road.
I looked out on the grey, drizzly day; it matched my mood. I was cold and my chest felt constricted. My summer sandals were sodden and beginning to peel apart. I envied Christopher his suitcase of clothes and three pairs of shoes. And his passport! All my identity documents were lost, including my British and Canadian passports. I’d booked another flight to visit my mother, departing for London in mid-August. How would I manage that trip now?
Uli and Seán helped us prepare toast and eggs for breakfast, and Uli distracted me and made me laugh with stories of his chickens, ducks and geese at their homestead. After breakfast Uli and Seán left for appointments in Trail, two hours’ drive away. Christopher sat down to call friends in the Landing. Most of the phone lines seemed to be working. As an experiment I dialed our number. It rang and rang, somewhere out there in the void. Obviously the line had been ripped out, but callers were going to wonder why the answer machine didn’t pick up. I imagined our big telephone/fax machine encased in mud, swept rudely off the beautiful curved and varnished wooden shelf Christopher had recently built for it beside the chimney.
I left Christopher to his phone calls and went out bareheaded, scuffling along in my broken sandals, to see if the thrift store, beside the Mohawk gas station, might enlarge my wardrobe. Honora Cooper, president of the hospital auxiliary society that runs the thrift store, greeted me warmly in their tiny brick building. She’d already instructed her volunteers to let the “Johnson’s Landing refugees” take anything we needed, free of charge. I gratefully grabbed a bright blue rain jacket, pants, a black wool sweater and a white shirt. But footwear would be more difficult. Second-hand shoes usually felt wrong, and anyway, the store had nothing remotely suitable that day.
In the street outside the thrift store, three local women stood in a huddle, deep in conversation, raincoats dripping, umbrellas up. They recognized me, put down their umbrellas in order to hug me, and asked how I was doing and what Christopher and I needed. I gazed at the kindly faces and didn’t know what to say. What did we need? Well… just about everything. Every time I tried to grapple with this subject I was overwhelmed and went blank. I could barely string words together. But some needs were mundane and immediate and I was able to reel off a few of them: toiletries, a hairbrush and comb, tweezers and a magnifying mirror, moisturizing face cream. And shoes.
The Red Cross had set up its headquarters a couple of blocks from our house, in the Kaslo Seniors’ Hall on Fourth Street. I crossed the road from the thrift store in my new rain jacket and poked my head round the door. Jillian and John were waiting to be interviewed. I went in and embraced them. John’s face was ashen. I badly wanted to ask him about his escape, but he looked fragile and I didn’t like to raise the subject just then.
Jillian looked exhausted but resolute. Like me she was in the same clothes she’d been wearing three days ago. Her grim expression told me they were going to do their damnedest to get through this nightmare. They’d stayed two nights with our friends Gail
