This did not seem to be the same woman who had sat alone at the Avalon Nature Club lectures, occasionally raising her hand, as though it were a classroom, to calmly ask a question or make a comment. He released the cigarette butts, letting them fall back onto his lawn. He hoped Jeanette was not watching.
Darren found himself glancing at Isabella's hands on the steering wheel, then quickly looking away. There was a cute Doris Day air about her, and a suddenness in her attention to him that was disarming. At the same time he was cognizant of there being something odd and inexact about her, an impression somehow substantiated by the fact that she smelled of wine.
It had been her suggestion they share transportation to the Avalon Nature Club meeting, where December's guest lecturer had spoken on exotic flowers of the Portuguese lowlands. It was not well attended and the slides were all overexposed, which Isabella, who sat beside him, leaned over to whisper in his ear four times during the lecture. That's when the smell of wine was most obvious.
“Need anything at the Price Club?” she asked him on their way home.
He hesitated, alarmed. “Well, no, not particularly. Did you?”
*
Ardently
.
He had been trying to find the best word to describe the way Isabella Martin shopped. That was it. She shopped ardently. He supposed she bought groceries ardently, too. A rib roast, a litre of milk, partridgeberry muffins.
She had waltzed into the Price Club, flashing her membership card. A Tuesday night and it was packed, which dumb-founded him, but then he remembered Christmas was only a week away.
Isabella slowed in electronics. Every television was on. “My husband couldn't bear this place,” she told him. “All the noise drove him mad.”
He noticed the comment had been delivered in the past tense. It reminded him to be careful. He followed her to linens where she fingered some towels and sheets.
“What did you get your sister for Christmas?” she asked.
Darren and Jeanette exchanged only one or two presents at Christmas and the day was often nearly over before they got around to it. There was always a bit of embarrassment and loneliness surrounding the exchange for Darren.
“Nothing. Yet.”
“I've finished my Christmas shopping,” she said. “Now this isn't bad.” She picked up a baby-blue duvet. She slipped it from its packaging, flapped it open, then swung it around her shoulders like a cape.
“You look ridiculous,” he said, smiling. “How much for some- thing like that?”
“One hundred and eighty-nine.” She handed it to him. “Gorgeous, isn't it?”
He did his best to scrunch it up. Though lightweight, it was fluffy and uncooperative. He cradled it against his chest and followed her to housewares, where she browsed, finally choosing a beverage set for $79.98. “I want to get rid of the old stuff.”
“You're getting that too?” he asked.
She glanced at him, surprised, and he could see an endearing self-consciousness.
“I mean, you don't mind spending money.”
She pressed a hand into the bundled duvet he held, but it was so dense he felt only a distant pressure. “That's like asking me if I don't mind eating chocolate.”
Now they were at Home Depot, and Darren was beginning to worry that he might be on a date. No, shopping could never be considered a date. He liked Isabella, despite her peculiarities. He felt she was a decent person, though she didn't appear to have many friends. But she was single, and Darren didn't want to encourage her. That could be awkward, being neighbours.
There had been a time when Darren did his fair share of dating, particularly before, and even after, Jeanette began living with him. Tonight, briefly, he felt he was returning to a room he had forgotten existed.
But he was set in his ways now. He couldn't get his head around the idea of sharing a bed, closets, bathroom, all that personal space, with another person. And there was his sister to consider. It would be like feeding Jeanette to the wolves, to alter their lives now.
He followed Isabella down the wallpaper aisle. She was talking about renovating her son Cooper's room. In the meantime, Cooper needed a desk, reading lamp, shelf for books. Isabella held out a wallpaper sample for Darren's opinion. It was patterned with racing cars and basketballs.
“I suggest you steer clear of wallpaper,” Darren said.
“Really?” She was looking directly at him.
He shifted. He held a reading light in one hand and a shelf awkwardly in the other.
“All right,” she sighed, putting the wallpaper back. She took the shelf from him and sank to the floor with it. From a kneeling position she glanced up at him, her earrings swinging. “Do you think this looks stupid?” She was holding the shelf out in front
of her, the support brackets resting on the floor. “Just imagine books and other stuff. Not many books, though.”
“I don't follow.”
“Does this look stupid down here?”
“You're putting Cooper's shelf on the floor?”
She stood and abruptly handed the shelf back to him. “Never mind. I'll just get it.”
He followed her to the checkout. The irritation in her voice had surprised him. He was beginning to think it was crazy, this whole evening with her was crazy. Jeanette would be wondering where he was. And where, indeed, was he? First the Price Club and now Home Depot.
“What time is it?” he asked her. The incessant Christmas music was wearing on him.
“Didn't you wear a watch? It's close to eleven. Time to go home.”
You got that right, he thought. She had seemed friendly, if not a little wacky, but now: petulant, almost contentious.
“Cooper did something to his ankle skateboarding,” she began to explain. Her mood seemed to have completely changed again. “Twisted it. Bruised it. I don't know. The very day we moved. I thought a shelf with a low position would make it easier for him to reach his belongings.”
“I suggest you take him to the doctor. Maybe they'd have some advice.” He couldn't keep the patronizing tone out of his voice.
She spun around. “Of course I took him to the doctor. I took him to the children's hospital. I waited there half the day.”
“What was their diagnosis?” he asked patiently.
“They said it looked fine on the X-ray.”
“Then he's probably fine. Your turn.”
“Yes, he's fine.” She placed her items on the counter, staring at the young girl working behind it so long Darren began to feel ill at ease.
“I like your bangles,” Isabella told the girl.
The girl blushed. “Thanks. My boyfriend gave them to me.”
“He just can't walk,” Isabella said.
The girl looked up.
“Darren?”
“Yes?” They were finally leaving the store.
“Do you think someone is following us?”
I'm not answering that, he thought.
The noise at night continued through Christmas. There was a mild spell and any snow that had fallen was gone quickly, apparently creating favourable conditions for twenty-four- hour skateboarding. A long metallic rolling sound from out on the street, something you might actually be able to sleep to. Not dissimilar, Darren thought, to the childhood sound of tree branches assaulting clapboard, a sound so constant no one heard it. A brief silence, during which Darren imagined the boys lifting into the black air, was followed by a series of startling smacks against the pavement, a jarring he felt in his teeth.
Darren parked the truck at the north end of Three Stone Pond. It was a four-kilometre hike to the beach through an uninterrupted stretch of black spruce forest. The air was cold, but not too damp. A streak of violet in the sky beyond the balled tops of the spruce lightened the landscape, lifting it up a little over the earth so that when Darren touched the ground his steps felt springy. Freezing rain in the night still clung to the twiggy new growth at the tips of the spruce branches and to the leatherleaf and sheep laurel along the track.
At the top of a rise he stopped to admire a stand of spruce, taller than most and more mature, draped from head to toe in tree lichen glossy with ice. The bark was heavily scaled and such a rich sienna brown that for several minutes Darren could not look away. The days were short this time of year. It would be dusk by four, but he was reluctant to go on. He looked hard at the trees again as he passed. He felt a longing to take them with him.
“I think it would be a good idea if someone spoke to her,” Jeanette had said that morning, placing Darren's tea and toast on the table.
“I suspect she has little influence over those boys.”
“God knows how many are hers.”
“Just the one, actually.”
“Yes, your little shopping excursion.”
Jeanette brought him the phone and a slip of a paper on which Isabella's phone number had been neatly pencilled.
When Isabella's voice came on the line, it was clear she had been asleep. She was still in bed, perhaps under the baby-blue duvet. Perhaps her eyes were closed.
“Isabella? Darren here.”
“Yes? Darren? What time is it?” Her voice was soft and forgiving, like a cushion.
“I apologize. I woke you. I'll call back.”
“No. I was just having this dream.” Her voice changed. He thought she might have sat up. “It was about my husband. He took me to this place. How strange.”
Darren rolled his eyes at his sister.
“It was the size of the Grand Canyon. It was filled entirely with bottles of prescription drugs.”
Darren was confused. “That sounds terrifying,” he said.
“It was.”
Jeanette was standing in the middle of the room, studying him. Darren tried to focus.
“Isabella, I need to talk to you.”
“I was going to call you, too. I'm dying to invite you and your sister for dinner. How about tonight? That roaster does something divine to a chicken.”
Boreal chickadees were following him. Their high-pitched chatter seemed barely within the range of human hearing. They could tag behind you a long time before you realized they were there, before you looked up and saw them flitting from tree to tree like a single thought. When he reached the clearing above the cliff edge, Darren left the chickadees behind in the forest,
where their scolding grew briefly more emphatic before stopping altogether. He checked his watch and was relieved to see he'd made good time, then he quickly descended the scree slope to the beach below. The sun was out. Though not high in the sky, it gave the surface of the ocean a glistening pudding lustre. He crossed over the berm of polished cobbles at the back of the beach, heading towards a small patch of dark sand that looked rock-hard, but the moment he stepped onto it, it cracked and slid away underfoot, startling him more than it should have.
Jeanette was not aware of the second shopping excursion. She had been out when he'd run into Isabella last Saturday morning, when Isabella talked him into coming with him. She needed someone to help carry a new television, though in the end she hadn't bought one. They returned to the Price Club, where she did purchase a stainless steel roaster, durable enough to meet the most demanding of kitchen needs, for $219.99. Darren had tipped back on the balls of his heels with surprise, then followed her to the checkout, shaking his head.
There was no reason to tell his sister where he'd been. On the other hand, there was no reason not to tell her, either.
A small black and white heap lay at the far end of the beach. He went for it, guessing common murre. Darren could identify beach debris from several metres away. As he checked for oil and found none, then began to trim the tips of the wing feathers, he was reminded again of the roaster, the chicken and the invitation he had accepted without, as Jeanette pointed out the minute he put the phone down, consulting her.
He sat down on a boulder, still holding the murre in one hand. The head was gone â it always went first. The wing feathers were barely attached to the shoulder girdle and flopped from side to side as Darren inspected the carcass. He absently cut a notch in the edge of the wafer-thin keel where once the bird's powerful wing muscles had attached. He thought of his flight dreams, which he had been having since he found the storm petrel as a boy. But it was will power in those dreams, not physical effort, that gave him flight. He did not dream he was
a bird, he dreamed he was himself, flying. He thought,
fly
, and up he rose over landscapes that were always tidy, verdant and foreign.
In the far distance he heard a car start. He jumped up. The day was closing in. It was a long hike back and an even longer drive.
“You were right,” Darren said, nodding. Isabella beamed back. She had gathered her hair in two small ponytails, giving her a tidier, younger look.
“I was?”
“The chicken,” he said. “It was delicious.”
“Yes,” Jeanette agreed. “I wouldn't mind the recipe.”
“I told you when I bought it, didn't I, Darren? That roaster wasn't going to be a mistake.”
Darren glanced at Jeanette as Isabella rose, carrying their plates to the counter, although he didn't see where she could possibly place them. It was obvious she was still in the process of unpacking. Plates and cups and wooden spoons rose out of a sink of wash water that looked suspiciously cold, its surface inert with soap and grease. A large box containing dozens of framed photographs and stuffed toys had been pushed into a corner. Beside that was a box for the recycling: mostly wine bottles. And a variety of objects had been pushed into a single pile on the kitchen table where they had just eaten: textbooks buckling with worksheets, a scarf with pink and orange pineapples, a toaster, markers, pencils, erasers, ketchup, a tub of yogourt.
Jeanette had no reason to be angry. Darren pushed back his chair, prepared to turn down any offer of dessert and coffee.
“Unfortunately,” he said to Isabella, “it's been a long day.” Their hostess was standing at the stove, admiring her roaster. There was no evidence of dessert or coffee.