Читать книгу Wildwood - Elinor Florence - Страница 7

August

As the airplane rose from the tarmac, I peered over Bridget’s head and watched the sprawling city fall away. It looked as if it were smouldering under the haze of smog. Through the brownish mist I could see irrigated green lawns like square-cut emeralds and swimming pools like turquoise stones. These suddenly gave way to the bare, brown desert as if a line were drawn in the sand. Then we were up and away.

Bridget opened her pink backpack crammed with her prized possessions, including three Dr. Seuss books and a stuffed toy bloodhound named Johnny Wrinkle. After much deliberation she had decided to leave the Barbies behind where they would be “safe.” I wasn’t sure what she was expecting in Canada. In spite of my efforts to make this into an exciting adventure, she was even more fearful than usual.

Now she pulled out Green Eggs and Ham while I went through my mental checklist.

I had shucked off our city life like a snake shedding its skin. The car brought in enough cash to pay the bills. I even sold my computer and my phone, since the farm had neither internet nor cell service. I cancelled my credit cards and filed my income tax return in advance.

After setting aside our warmest clothing, I had donated the rest to charity. Personal belongings went into a storage locker, including my photo albums and a few precious mementoes of my parents. There weren’t many: a joke tie covered with reindeer faces that I had given my father for Christmas, a souvenir pebble from Arizona’s Petrified Forest, one of my mother’s favourite silk scarves.

The scarf still carried a faint hint of perfume, but my childhood recollections had faded like the scent itself. For years I had repressed all memories of my parents, but sorting through my possessions had drawn them closer to the surface. Now I sank back in my seat and closed my eyes, feeling the old pain.

As an only child of older parents, I had been cherished. But after The Accident everything changed. My former life blew apart into fragments, and every iota of confidence I had — in myself, in other people, in the future, in the very world around me — dissolved and vanished into outer space.

Perhaps if my parents had died earlier, I could have coped better. But adolescents have trouble seeing the big picture since everything revolves around them. And if I had been a younger or prettier child, family acquaintances might have taken me in, but they understandably balked at the prospect of an awkward, grief-stricken twelve-year-old.

So I went to foster parents in their sixties, the Sampsons. They had no children of their own and little idea how to raise a teenager. They were kind enough, but we didn’t bond, as the current termin­ology goes. I once overheard them discussing their future — the monthly sum they earned from Social Services for fostering me was earmarked for their retirement home in Palm Springs.

At first, I simply refused to grow up. Somewhere in my subconscious was the notion that if I grew older, I would be leaving my parents behind. I kept my hair in the same childish bob with bangs. I wore my old clothes until they wore out. My shoes were so small that my heels bled. Finally, Mrs. Sampson insisted on buying me some new things.

To be fair, she asked me if I wanted to choose my own clothing. We went on a couple of painful shopping trips, and I shrugged with indifference at every suggestion. My misery was so encompassing that I would have gone to school in rags.

So Mrs. Sampson picked out outfits that she would have chosen for her own granddaughter. Polyester pants in black and navy, wrinkle-free synthetic blouses in tiny floral prints, pastel cardigans, and plaid skirts. It was another reason to be shunned by my peers, yet in my unhappiness I didn’t know and I didn’t care.

I didn’t care because I couldn’t feel anything. In old novels the author often “draws a veil” over the past. I felt as if a veil had been drawn over my past, a filmy but impenetrable shroud through which only the merest glimpses were visible. And I refused to look, grateful not to be reminded of what had been.

Now all I recalled from my childhood was an overall warm blanket of happiness and security. A familiar tune, the odour of pipe smoke, a feminine laugh — these were fleeting wisps of memory. Thinking about my parents was like looking through the wrong end of a telescope. They were very distant and very tiny.

I sighed and leaned back in my seat. Although it felt like we were flying to the dark side of the moon, the international flight was surprisingly short. Four hours later, we were on the ground. We collected our luggage — two large suitcases crammed to ­bursting — and approached the Canadian Customs and Immigration counter in Edmonton.

“What’s the purpose of your visit?” A young woman wearing a smart navy uniform with an embroidered gold maple leaf on each shoulder examined our passports.

“We’re going to visit my family home in Juniper.” This was close enough to the truth. I was grateful that I didn’t have to lie, since I was a terrible liar.

“Beautiful country up there. Enjoy your holiday. Welcome to Canada!” She handed us our passports and waved us along with a smile.

We rushed through the terminal to connect with a smaller regional airline. Bridget clutched my hand tightly but otherwise didn’t make a peep. She was more comfortable in crowds, where nobody looked at her or spoke to her.

After we seated ourselves in the tiny, propeller-driven aircraft, she fell asleep and didn’t wake until we landed in Juniper an hour later. Darkness had already fallen, so we couldn’t see very much. The taxi took us to a downtown two-storey hotel called the Excelsior. A garish orange neon sign advertised “Colour TV in Every Room!” There were two doors on the side of the building. One sign read “Gentlemen,” and the other, mysteriously, “Ladies and Escorts.” It felt very much like a foreign country.

The next morning Bridget refused to leave our hotel room. I had two equally repugnant choices: drag her downstairs kicking and howling, or leave her alone in the locked room, watching cartoons. I chose the latter. Such was the life of a single parent. It was like wearing a living, breathing ankle monitor. I dashed downstairs and grabbed coffee, juice, and muffins.

After we ate, we headed down Main Street toward the lawyer’s office. The few people we passed stared curiously into our faces, first mine and then Bridget’s, as if hoping to recognize us. Each time, Bridget cowered behind me.

The morning was sunny, but none too warm. Before leaving, I had checked Juniper’s temperature statistics. It had only three months of frost-free days on average, in June, July, and August. Today was the first of August. That meant frost was only a month away.

I hastened my steps, tugging Bridget along by the hand.

On the next block we found an office with “Franklin D. Jones” written in gold lettering on the front window. I pushed open the door, Bridget clinging to my knees as usual, and saw a young woman seated behind the reception desk reading a book.

She was extremely pretty, delicate and fine-boned, with pale golden skin and dark eyes. But the overall impression was spoiled by her hair — a teased, bleached mass of Dolly Parton curls in a style dating back to the 1980s. Her bangs stood out in a roll from her forehead, so stiff that you could have run a broomstick through them.

“Hello, you must be Molly Bannister! I’ve been waiting for you!” She set down her book, a romance novel called Dark Desires. The cover bore an illustration of a bare-chested man staring lasciviously at a modest maiden.

When she came toward us, I saw that her clothes were as dated as her hairstyle — a black leather miniskirt paired with a tight leopard-print top, clinging to her magnificent chest and tiny waist. “And who’s this young lady?”

“This is Bridget. She’s very shy.” I grimaced and widened my eyes.

Thankfully she took the hint and ignored Bridget while we shook hands. “Welcome to Juniper! I’m Lisette Chatelaine.”

“Hi, Lisette. What a pretty name. Are you French-Canadian?”

“Yes, it’s an old family name. The Chatelaines arrived here from France in 1794, and there have been three Lisettes before me.”

“Two hundred and sixteen years ago! Really?”

“Yeah, the Chatelaines were real pioneers. We have a whole room to ourselves at the local museum. The men were voyageurs for the North West Company, and they all married Cree women. The fur trade was big business back then. There’s not as much money in trapping now, but my father and brothers still make their living at it.”

Once again, I reflected on my ignorance about Canada’s origins. I remembered the map we had studied at school, the route of explorers Lewis and Clark inked across the New World. Above the forty-ninth parallel, nothing. Yet the Chatelaines had arrived here ten years before Lewis and Clark made their famous expedition in 1804.

“I’ll see if Franklin, I mean, Mr. Jones, is ready for you.” Her voice dropped when she spoke his name, almost reverently. “Will your little girl stay out here? There are paper and crayons on that little table.”

Without a word, Bridget slipped over to the corner, sat down with her back to Lisette, and began to deliberate over the crayons.

While Lisette was in with the lawyer, I studied the framed map of North America hanging on the wall. Canada looked so big, and the United States below looked so small. I was accustomed to seeing the opposite — my own country large and predominant, with Canada fading off the top. I knew that Canada was larger than the States, but I hadn’t realized how much larger.

“Mr. Jones will see you now.” Lisette showed me into his office and closed the door behind her.

The lawyer, a handsome man with a full head of silver hair, was leaning back in his big leather chair, his tooled leather boots propped on a polished mahogany desk. When I entered, he swung his feet to the floor and stood to shake hands. “How are you, Miss Bannister? Please, have a seat.”

He began to talk immediately as I sat down across from him. He didn’t live in Juniper, but in Edmonton. He had branch offices throughout the north and made a monthly circuit to visit them all. Since the oil and gas industry was booming in northern Alberta, he had his hands full with real estate deals and land leases. I suspected he was reminding me that my own little affairs were inconsequential.

“So you live in Phoenix,” he said finally. “My wife and I fly down there a couple of times every winter to golf. Fabulous climate, just what the doctor ordered.”

I nodded politely.

“I’m afraid you won’t find anything here that’s remotely com­parable. The people up here are very, shall we say, unworldly. Some of them have never even been on an airplane. It’s certainly no place to raise a child. And you have a boy, is it?”

“Girl.”

He went on, seemingly determined to paint a dark picture of Juniper. “Of course, farming in the north is like going into battle. It’s a thankless occupation, completely at the mercy of the elements. I’ve seen dozens of farmers wiped out in a single year. If they aren’t dried out, they’re hailed out or frozen out.”

He leaned forward and fixed his eyes on me. They were a pale shade of grey, almost white. The effect was spooky. “I knew your great-aunt very well. My father acted for both her and her husband, and then of course she inherited the farm after George died. You have to understand, Miss Bannister, it wasn’t her intention to cause you any hardship. She had a romantic notion in her head, that’s all. There’s no shame in turning down her offer.”

Mr. Jones didn’t realize that he was suggesting the impossible. Nevertheless, my shoulders slumped a little as he kept talking.

“She would never have inflicted this condition on you, had she known how many years would intervene. The house has been utterly neglected. There’s no way that a young woman could spend a week out there, let alone a year. And of course, you have your boy to consider. You would be risking your lives by accepting this ridiculous offer.”

I didn’t bother correcting him. “It appears from my great-aunt’s will that she loved the place and wanted her heirs to appreciate it as much as she did.”

Mr. Jones made a wry face and cast his eyes up to the ceiling. “Perhaps she wasn’t fully in possession of her faculties when she made the will. That would be impossible to prove, although I did look into it on your behalf. The medical records show no indication that she was mentally incapacitated when she prepared her will in 1988. I’m merely suggesting that she wasn’t thinking clearly at the time.”

“Since she moved into the nursing home, what’s happened to the farm?”

“It was placed in trust and administered according to the judgment of the executor.”

“The executor — meaning you?”

“Yes, that’s correct. I rent the farmland to a neighbour, and the monthly rent is paid into your great-aunt’s bank account. The rent didn’t cover the cost of the nursing home, so her savings supplemented her expenses. Those savings ran out just before she died.”

“What will happen if I refuse to accept her condition?”

“Then I’m authorized to issue a lump sum of twenty-five thousand dollars. Neither Canada nor the United States has an inheritance tax, so the money comes free and clear. I can give it to you right now.” He opened his desk drawer and pulled out a leather-bound chequebook.

“And what about the farm?”

He reached for a gold pen that was standing upright in a holder shaped like a tiny oil derrick. “I’m legally obligated to sell the farm to the highest bidder. The proceeds would then be transferred to the state, in this case the Alberta provincial government.”

I sat quietly for a minute while I pondered my options. Twenty-five thousand dollars was a big chunk of change. It would buy me a few months, give me a chance to find another job.

But it wouldn’t go far toward the cost of Bridget’s treatment. And it was a fraction of what I stood to gain by staying.

Mr. Jones darted a sideways look at me from his pale eyes. “Look, you have to understand that farms up here are operating at the subsistence level. You won’t get any more rent, if that’s what you’re thinking. The renter has the option of automatic renewal, and he signed the latest contract two years ago. Do you want to see it?”

“Thanks, that won’t be necessary.”

He leaned back in his chair, twiddling his pen. On the small finger of his right hand was a ring shaped like a chunky gold nugget. “Four hundred dollars a month isn’t much, unless you have another source of income. The cost of living up here is very high.”

I suspected he was fishing for information, but I didn’t answer. He frowned at me and clicked the end of his pen impatiently while my brain sifted through the options and reduced them to one. “How would I collect the rent?”

“There’s no mail delivery out there, so you’d have to pick it up here in the office. My girl can give it to you on the first of each month.”

My ears grated at the expression “my girl.” Even in Arizona lawyers knew better than that. I rose to my feet.

“Thank you, Mr. Jones. I’ll drive out to the farm and take a look for myself. I’ll give you my answer tomorrow.”