Miriam turned on the wipers and waited for the windshield to clear. “I wouldn’t live here at the back of beyond for all the perogies in the Donovan. Give me my no frills, easy-care apartment near the mall.” A dust cloud of snow and the spinning of balding tires forestalled her quick exit. Belle cringed to see her muffler bobbling on the icy heaves.
“Back up, switch into second for traction and curb that heavy foot,” Belle called, smiling to herself at the city slicker, but feeling guilty that her friend couldn’t afford new snow tires. December had been slow as usual, but with a bit of luck . . .
Inside the house, she undressed to customary T-shirt and panties now that the temperature had risen to bake. Only in late spring or early fall would she juice the propane furnace, which invited the bulbous gas truck to deliver a bill the size of Alberta. Twenty cords of dry, split maple and starter cords of pine sat under a tarp beside the house. Shovelling snow off the pile was small payment for the bone-warming heat.
Six o’clock. Too late and too lazy to cook. She opened the hall closet and sighed at the Millennium stockpile, barely dented from that non-event. From a large carton, she plucked a Kraft dinner well past the best-before date, then added a no-name can of green beans. Freya got five cups of Purina Seniors kibble sprinkled with Metamucil.
Parking in the TV room on a pasha chair with giant ottoman, she turned the satellite dish on the dock to Turner Classic Movies and munched thoughtfully at Clark Gable playing the ad game in The Hucksters. How that moustache twitched like an innocent mouse’s, or was it a tomcat’s? Did Melibee have a moustache? The name befitted an interior decorator. She watched patrician Deborah Kerr fall pray to Gable’s charms. Miriam was the sister she’d never had. If the man were providing some needed harmless attention, well and good. If not . . . She tapped the tines of her fork on her front teeth as Deborah succumbed to the King’s irresistible kiss.
Two
A shy pink sky emerged in the east amid rising clouds of steam as the massive lake continued to cool, the last in the region to freeze. Belle flashed her remote start through the window at the all-wheel drive GMC van. Lights flashed, and the exhaust chugged into action. Past 250,000 klicks for the old girl this year. Mark at Robinson Automotive had suggested initiating a search for a new engine, should the “time come,” an alarming expression. Belle was frugal, not crazy, knowing that it might be safer to bite the financial bullet and make a trade. Missing appointments due to vehicle problems was a fool’s bargain. Still, thoughts of dollar-sucking regular payments in her seasonal business made her wince.
Fifteen minutes later, the van barely warmed, she plunked onto the hard seat, selected a tape of Joan Baez’s martial roars in “The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down,” and with a glance over the snowdrifts, eased cautiously onto the six-mile cottage road that confounded a newcomer and could lull an old timer into forgetting that a head-on lurked around every wicked hill and curve.
Soon she was past the airport, sighting the pumpkin streak of dawn which backlit the giant Superstack, icon of Sudbury’s largest employer, INCO, the International Nickel Company. Erected in 1972 at a cost of thirteen million dollars, this largest chimney in the world was designed to stem the problem of acid rain. Even prior to that ecological shame, turn-of-the-century open pit sulphur burning had already turned the core into a moonscape where astronauts came to train. On paper at least, the stack scrubbed the air cleaner than Toronto’s and piped residents home from twenty miles in all directions. If so, why were local firms always fishing for damaged paint claims? Who was zooming who?
Belle ducked in reflex as a prop job buzzed out of the small airport. Former giant Air Canada had long ago replaced its large planes with sewing machine models and trimmed its routes, squealing like a porker for government handouts. Upstart WestJet had come in to take up the slack. Still, it was encouraging to see flights again after that stark September when skies had grown ominously quiet, except for military jets. Northern Ontario hadn’t been isolated from those chilling months. The Powassan Post Office had closed for a false anthrax scare, and high schools had emptied on successive days with prankish bomb threats. Contrary to rumour, the doughnut shops hadn’t pulled fruit explosion muffins from the shelves.
She drove through the suburb of Garson, where her father lived in Rainbow Country, a small nursing home with a heart as big as the city’s nine-metre nickel of George VI which had welcomed visitors since 1949. Ten minutes later, she arrived downtown to a quiet street of mighty cottonwoods. Gaunt branches empty of leaves, they stretched seventy feet into the pure azure sky as if propping up the heavens. Belle appreciated the leafy cover, but despaired of the messy fluff which coated the sidewalks to mark their June rebirth.
She parked in the compact lot behind the restored mock-Victorian home that had been Palmer Realty since her Uncle Harold had spread his wings in the post-war boom. Opening the storm door, she pushed through to the foyer, shuffled Godzilla’s down parka into the closet, removed her boots, and snicked into a pair of shearling moccasins. In winter, dressing and undressing was a job in itself.
“All quiet on the northern front?” she called to Miriam, ensconced at her desk and operating a foot roller with orgasmic passion. Her bunions were a legendary gift from her Ukrainian baba.
Miriam shoved her pencil into the electric sharpener and honed it to a murderous point. “So slow that you’ll probably have to lay me off. Not that you pay a living wage anyway. Hostie.” She gave a growl, but Belle knew that complaints at work were a chosen addiction.
“Let me beat you to the Frenglish curses. Tabernouche. And Mr. Grieves in Chelmsford? Wasn’t he moving into town to the Seniors’ Complex? That last offer was within a few hundred of his price.”
Miriam drew a dollar sign, scratched it out and wrote a cent. “He agreed, but the commission on that crackerbox microhouse isn’t enough to finance a kiddie meal at Burger King.”
Belle took a seat at her desk in the large room and sorted papers. Slack time. She’d have to resort to the bête noire of cold calling, despite the pun. Since her specialty was lakefront, spring was when everyone wanted to buy. She felt ghoulish trolling for eighty-year-olds who realized that they couldn’t handle heavy physical demands without hiring men for dock rebuilding or tree cutting. Their children had fled the North for greener employment pastures and had no soft heart for the family vacation spot. Yet waterfront property could bring high prices, even with a ramshackle cottage, since “they aren’t making any more of it,” Uncle Harold’s motto. As the town spread, and many of the two hundred lakes in the region had become commuter or retiree territory, permanent houses replaced cabins and camps left from the Forties.
Her Rolodex spun. Mirko and his wife were in their late seventies. He wheezed with emphysema, an oxygen tank on wheels trailing his halting steps. It wouldn’t be the first time Belle had played unofficial social worker for an elderly couple as they struggled to cope with the ravages of age in a climate which took no prisoners. The Scandinavians, Italians, German, Greeks and Ukrainians who had peopled the Sudbury basin for over one hundred years were hardy but not immortal. Many miners, glad for a steady dollar in an industry sheltered from the Depression, had damaged their lungs before stricter regulations arrived. Others celebrated “Sudbury Saturday Night,” a classic country song, by lugging twenty-fours from the Beer Store, emptying ashtrays, ripping fifty-cent lottery tickets or dabbing bingo cards. To the horror of the Chamber of Commerce, Maclean’s magazine had dubbed the region Heart Attack, Stroke and Cancer Capital of Canada.
The line was busy. Hanging up half-relieved, Belle stuffed on her Norwegian felt Smurf hat and prepared to brave the chill. “I’m off to Tim’s. The usual chicken salad on rye?”
Miriam passed her a five-dollar bill. “It’s bloody cold. Bring me that chile in a bread bowl. And don’t fall crossing Paris Street. Except for collecting ten-cent beer bottles back of my apartment, you’re my sole source of income.”
The streets were plowed, but the sidewalks had snow-packed