“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 carefully trimmed white beard. “I’m Charles Sullivan. I’ve come about the Edgewater Road property.”
Belle introduced herself and presented the file, which he scanned with interest. His hands were immaculately manicured, and a light scent of bay rum reminded her of Uncle Harold.
“I’ve retired,” he added, “and always dreamed of living on a quiet lake. If there are a few problems to fix, all the better. I’m pretty handy with a hammer and saw, and I like to keep busy.”
Belle found his courtly manner refreshingly old-fashioned. He listened with an intelligence signalling a profession. Doctor? Lawyer? Clergyman? It seemed presumptuous to ask. Not a patrician eyebrow rose at the price, and when she suggested a visit, he followed her from town in his white Ford Taurus, fresh from a car wash.
Half an hour later, at the junction of Edgewater Road, Belle signalled for a stop at the assembly of Canada Post mailboxes. After getting out of the van, she called over her shoulder as she opened her pigeonnier. “Believe it or not, we lobbied long and hard for this small privilege. The alternative was to collect our mail in Garson, the little suburb we passed through.” As she sifted the letters, she discovered one for Anni, 1703 instead of her 1903, and placed it on the dashboard.
With Creedence Clearwater Revival banging out “Down on the Corner,” Belle drove past the swamp where moose crossed the road for a dawn slurp and three deer, a rarer sight, had danced a midnight ballet one moonlit night. Dreaming of her flaming youth over the words “Look at all the happy creatures dancing on the lawn,” she swerved to avoid an oncoming green Escort gobbling more than its share of gravel. Patsy Sommers, one neighbour short on manners. Behind her, Sullivan stayed well to the right. She hoped that the incident wouldn’t discourage him. Nothing like a fender-bender introduction to rural living.
A mile beyond her house, they passed the school bus turnaround and stopped by a farm-style gate. The property had the bonus of chain-link fencing along its road boundary to foil snowmobilers or people pulling boat trailers looking for lake access, she explained, opening the padlock. “Pretty safe out here,” she said. “Occasionally the snowbirds lose portable temptations like chain saws, shotguns or stereo equipment.”
They parked in the large lot at the end of the lane, where red osiers sported their umbilical flowers. She pointed out raspberry bushes, the new canes green promise. “These make great jam. Wild ones always taste better than commercial berries. People say Mr. Brown was famous for his wine, too,” she said.
“Is that so? I used to be a dab hand with that art myself.” He looked up as a small dark red-barked tree with a host of white blossoms showered them like bride and groom. “Pale pink like lemonade, but proofing out at over 20%, especially if aged in old rum barrels.”
Belle laughed and warmed to his enthusiasm, not to mention her rising hopes for the sale. “Might call it ‘firewater.’ Medicinal purposes only, eh?”
“Nature knows best.”
The little house needed a good airing. It was musty, the heavy curtains pulled tight to discourage nosy intruders. Originally a one-room post-and-beam camp, when a foundation had been added, the upstairs had been divided into a living area, bedroom, kitchen and bathroom with shower. Belle opened a window to let in fresh air. A collection of castoffs, the furniture mixed decades like an eclectic museum. Massive Forties overstuffed chairs merged with the drab Fifties nubbly couch in a vomitous colour and the Sixties black and white television. “Silverware and dishes in your choice of patterns,” she said with a laugh as they passed through the kitchen. In the bedroom, they paused to consider a swaybacked mattress on a metal frame. Belle shook her head. “Multiple lumps or a sag that you fight all night seems part of cottage life.” Downstairs, the oil furnace gave the cinder block basement a definite wang, but Sullivan didn’t comment, nodding as she showed him the new jet pump. “The house is well-insulated,” she added. “Pink batts in the crawl space and blown-in fibre in the walls.”
Was the man interested? He hadn’t spoken more than a “um-hum” since they had come inside. When they returned to the yard, she asked, “Have you lived in the country?”
He hesitated, then looked at her pleasantly. “Not for years. Ottawa’s been my home.”
“If you’re used to city life, what I’m getting at is this. Everything looks