On her way to the DesRosiers, Belle picked up a bottle of Glenlivet as her contribution to the evening. A good guest always came with a thank-you present, her mother had said. Their ice hut had provided several small lake trout that week. She knocked and entered simultaneously, twirling the bottle on the kitchen table. “Crank up that hot fat. I feel a chill,” she said. A hiss of oil, and the race was on. The deep-fried fillets revved up her taste buds with their mustard and corn meal batter doused with New Orleans hot sauce. Hélène had shaved a cabbage for cole slaw and sliced potatoes. The fry-for-all was doing no favours for anyone, but who cared? Remembering Jim laughing as he grilled her a fresh pickerel over a crackling campfire, Belle savoured every bite. They’d all be thinking of that senseless death until the Scotch ran out.
Belle described her meeting with the good doctor. “Monroe looks like a charlatan.” She sprinkled vinegar over everything not moving. “Never missed a chance, though. Wanted to have a drink at the Camelback. No doubt rent a room nearby, too.”
Hélène agreed. “I’m no fan. He used to be our family doctor. I’ve known some gets tranquilizers like candy from him. My sister, for one, floats around in a blue fog when it’s that no-good husband she oughta get rid of. Darn near killed herself and her daughter hitting a slurry truck last year.”
“Thought we were here to cheer up. Where’s that dessert?” Ed poured another slug into his coffee royale while Hélène brought in the sugar pie. Belle moaned in anticipation. Was there any greater invitation to gratuitous gluttony than this sinful French Canadian concoction? As if the marathon meal hadn’t been enough, Hélène sent Belle home with a three-pound chunk of moose meat and a recipe for jerky. “Réjean, my cousin from up near Bisco, got lucky this year and remembered his old aunt. It’s been in the freezer since the season was over, but good for drying. Let me know if you like the garlic flavour. I got sweet and sour, too.”
When Belle got home, Freya seemed unusually yappy, as if something had disturbed her routine. To the Purina, Belle added milk. “You have the best diet of us all. Sometimes I think that I should try a bowl. Cheap, quick, maybe no worse than those vegetarian mushburgers I brought home last week.”
They moved into the video room, Belle into her recliner, Freya with three chile babies. A frustrated mother, the dog was forever assembling them, squeaking and licking the toys, and dragging them to bed.
TNT’s choice was The Great Lie with Bette Davis and Mary Astor, two classic bitches in the archetypal woman’s picture. Hollywood was ripe for a return to the heyday of strong female leads, Thelma and Louise having been at the cutting edge of nothing.
Before turning out the lights, Belle selected an exotic new cream: orange, lanolin and witch hazel. The costly treat had been initially disappointing, but out of cheapness she decided to give it another try. The lights went out to mutual sighs and scrabbles. She hoped the dog would not snore. Instead of sheep, Belle counted snowmobiles.
A few hours later, as the full moon poured through the bathroom window, the phone rang. She glanced blearily at the clock. 3:30. Picking up the receiver, she heard a click. And then silence. Freya sat up and shook her head as if to wake up, ears pricked for sounds. Nuisance callers. Belle unplugged the phone and looked out for a moment as the Northern Lights dazzled the lake like a hyperactive rainbow, drowning out Orion and Betelgeuse. In the uneasy dimension between disturbing dreams and a pleasant reality, Belle saw Freya chasing a rabbit across tracks in front of a never-ending train. She heard the muffled drone of snowmobiles outside which mimicked the roar of the engine in her dream. Freya barked once. “Calm down, girl. Wait for me.” And Belle fell asleep, the chimney smoke gently curling into the night.
NINE
On Tuesday, the famous shrimp dinner day, Belle left herself plenty of time to reach the nursing home. When he had lived in Florida in his own house with his own dog and own cat, time had been a joke with her father: “I get up at ten to six every day, not a quarter to six, not five to six, but exactly ten to six.” Now lagging hours and minutes measured only intervals between mealtimes. Belle knew he didn’t realize her difficulties in maintaining a schedule given long distances and the vicissitudes of winter.
A mile past her house, a spectacle had occurred, a rural version of Canada’s Funniest Home Videos. The plow had sloughed off the road at a wickedly banked corner. Looking like a metal mantis conceived by an idiot, the gigantic apparatus was flailing its legs and flexing its lifts, trying to free itself, but only sinking perilously closer to the hydro pole. Belle held her breath at the possibility of the pole snapping like a matchstick, stranding most people in a cold, dark and waterless hell. The sheepish operator assured her that he had radioed for help.
Across the road from Carlo’s place, a large red fox, its tail bushy and bold, stood fearlessly watching her car. As she drew abreast, it bounded easily up the hill through heavy snow. Belle hoped that the creature had been supping on Carlo’s cats, a wish probably shared by all his neighbours. An electrical engineer from Brownsville, Texas, Carlo lived a hermit’s life in a ramshackle cottage. When the septic system clogged, and when pump repair and frozen waterline bills became too onerous, he did without plumbing, to the dismay of adjoining home owners. Once in a blizzard he had knocked timidly at Belle’s back door with a small bottle in his hand, seeking drinking water. Although he had a woodstove, he holed up in his triple-insulated bedroom with only a tiny space heater, he said. He bathed at work and ate out, yet he looked strangely debonair on the rare occasions he did appear in a three-piece suit and fedora, as if he had stepped out of a film noir.
A few years ago, somebody dumped two cats secretly into his trunk at a gas station in Point au Baril. This accidental conjoining had relieved his conscience from all responsibility, so he had let them multiply until they had decimated the bird and squirrel population for a mile in each direction. Feral survivalists, the Darwinian remainders terrorized little children in the summer and ransacked garbage more ruthlessly than the bears. With no vet care, they likely carried rabies as well. Wrenches sticking out of his overalls, Carlo was bending over the rusted helm of an ancient Mustang, one of the seven or eight in his personal inventory. An enterprising cannibal, he juggled batteries, tires, and licenses routinely to stay mobile. “How many cats left now, Carlo?” Belle asked as she stopped and rolled down the window.
A cloud of garlic, his universal panacea, drifted into the car. “Oh, come on, do not tell me you are still mad about that,” he grinned, wiping a greasy hand on his overalls, then pulling a comb from somewhere to rake his thick black hair. “Say, when can I come and rent a room with the most beautiful woman in Canada? Hot water would be fantastic, not to mention your company.” He gave a theatrical leer to emphasize their ongoing joke.
“Don’t be so cheap, Carlo. You make enough to equip your cottage quite nicely. You have another twenty years to retirement with Ontario Hydro. Why not enjoy them in the twentieth century?” She grinned. “And as for your social life, take out an ad. Men, especially ones with bucks, are at a premium, or didn’t you know?”
He cocked his head like a whimsical jay. “Perhaps they would be interested in me only for my cars. I’m going to Windsor to buy another Mustang. A red fastback 1970 V-8. You must come for a ride. You will look like a queen. And I will treat you to dinner at the airport.”
The airport? Carlo ate there regularly and chatted with the staff. “Seen any strange plane landings on the lake, Carlo? After dark?” she asked.
“That’s not allowed, you know.”
“Don’t be naïve. I’m talking about drug landings.”
“Oh ho!” he chuckled, sticking out his lower lip and paddling it thoughtfully. “It could be true. There is a lot of money to be made that way. I travel back to Texas three times a year to see my family. Lucky for me I am honest.” He patted his chest in appreciation of his ethics.
“What about suspicious characters at the airport? I know you’re one, but anybody new?”
He mugged shamelessly, clearly enjoying the spotlight.