Extensions (13 page)

Turned out to be an oilfield. His name was Hank and he was a geologist with some big oil company in Calgary. When I got into Lonnie's spotless Jeep Cherokee, I had persuaded myself to be carefree, to allow nothing to ruin the splendour of this sunny Vancouver day. But Hank managed. Tall and good-looking like Lonnie, he made lots of money and offered excellent prospects as a boyfriend or husband. He also was an authority on everything. Not opinionated like Dave or a know-it-all like Emile, who both invited teasing. No, he took himself and his information very seriously. At first I thought he was joking when he said, “Ocean currents? A fascinating subject.” But then he held us captive for the next fifteen minutes with a slow, detailed explanation. Even a comment about Vancouver's lovely greenery brought on a lengthy monologue about how flowers on the west coast bloom longer and are richer in colour, but fragrance on the prairies is stronger because of the air. If you tried to distract him by pointing out a pair of seagulls fighting, he nodded quickly then returned to the exact place in the sentence he had stopped. By the time we finished our walk around the park, I was afraid even to sneeze, in case a lecture on the origins of “Gesundheit” would follow. The only good thing about Hank was that Lonnie and Megan did not get a single chance to mention their files.

Following our drink at the Sylvia Hotel, the other three were ready to move to a Greek restaurant, then back to Megan's and Lonnie's for more drinks. My survival instincts kicked in.

“Sorry, but I promised my dad I'd see him tonight. If you plan to stay in Vancouver, you can drop me off and he can drive me home later.”

“Party pooper,” said Megan in her buzzsaw voice. “Your loss, girlfriend.”

Hank stopped short in the middle of an explanation of shale varieties, visibly disappointed to be losing two new ears. They were going to a restaurant in Burnaby and insisted on taking me back home for my car on the way. “Maybe another time,” Hank said brightly as I exited the Jeep as if it were in flames.

Inside my apartment, I kicked my shoes off and screamed:
I hate
you, Ray Kelsey, I hate you!
What I should have screamed was:
I hate this
dating game!
But I did mean it about Ray Kelsey too.

I made myself a sandwich and flopped on the couch in front of the
TV
. I had to study. I had to get started on my paper because I was working every day between now and then. Move, feet, and take me into the bedroom to pick up those books. My finger listened instead and roamed through twenty-five channels of dull programs. I settled on the least interesting one I could find —
Cathedrals in Portugal
— and watched the entire show, imagining Hank as tour guide. Then Retha's voice cut in on my procrastination as it had in high school: If you finish your assignment, give yourself a reward, preferably not food (right, Retha). Do something you look forward to doing, but only if you have honestly done the work. If you achieve results from this process, you might discover the reward is in the study itself. Nope, I never did discover that, but I knew what I could use as a lure. My great-grandmother's letters. I was eager to read those last two when Megan interrupted. I would get through the history text for the sake of Jane Owens.

NOVEMBER MUST BE Vancouver Island's bitterest month. Jane pulls her cloak tighter against the gathering storm. She thinks of the same leaden skies and wet winds that drenched her last year on the way to school when she had to tell her teacher she would not be returning after Christmas. A cedar bough whips a spray of water onto her head; she pulls up her hood and presses the faded red plaid bundle of clothes against her waist under two overlapping layers of cape. Louis' laundry bag is made from an old shirt she stitched together, its sleeves serving as ties. She is thankful she pulled on Gomer's rubber boots at the last minute, for this sudden downpour would surely have soaked her own thin leather ones through.

To her right, black smoke from a stand of alder trees tells her Henry Hargraves is in his cabin. Though he lives with his wife in a house in Nanaimo, he keeps a cabin here for eating and sleeping, as well as two sheds at the back for cutting up carcasses and curing. If she is to believe Lance, he must do some work for Mackie, though it is easier to imagine him with bloody hands than coal-blackened ones.

Jane moves as far to the left as she can, thankful that an overgrowth of Oregon grape on his path prevents a clear view from his cabin to the road. At least the slashing rain will keep him inside today, for as much as she flinches at the thud of his axe on animal sinews and bones, even worse is silence between the blows. That is when Jane inches like a deer in the forest, dreading the roar of a brushed branch or the thunder of a broken twig. Last month she did not escape soon enough and Butch Hargraves met her on the road.

“You're Louis' maid, aren't you? Jane, is it?” He had grinned at her with a face that made her think of a harvest basket — knobby gourd nose, beet-coloured lips, and teeth like dried corn kernels, yellow alternating with navy and grey. He stepped close enough for her to smell a stale blend of pipe tobacco, sweat, sour breath, and curing smoke on his clothes. “Would you do my laundry for me? Wash my underclothes?” His laugh was dry and crude. She edged away from the big bearded man with the axe, grasping the packet of clothes more tightly to control her trembling hands. “Maybe you only want Negro slave men like Louis? Or is that the only kind who wants a plain Jane like you?”

Plain Jane. Hurrying down the empty path now, she is pelted with water bullets drumming out the name. The only good thing about reaching the meat shacks is that she is almost at her destination.

Less than half a mile away, the cabin of Louis Strong stands on a hillock in a clearing of arbutus trees. He built it himself from fir logs, about the same size as her house now that Tommy has almost finished the two new bedrooms. As Jane steps into the open yard, sunlight shines through the veil of rain. She sees Louis watching from the porch outside the rough-hewn door; a smile streams across his face at the sight of her.

“Come, chile.” From the edge of the stoop he ushers her in. “Come in out of the rain, Miss Jane. Why you insist on bringin' my clothes you'self? Ah would gladly come for them.”

Smiling as she always does when he says this, Jane leaves Gomer's boots just inside the door on the polished floor made of split logs. She follows Louis inside. The large main room holds a stove, cupboard, table and two chairs at the far end; closer to the door, an old couch and chair face a blazing fireplace, the perfect welcome to her shivering body. Two bedrooms have been partitioned off on the other side, their walls not reaching the ceiling. Modesty has always overruled Jane's curiosity about glancing into that space, and today she notices the blanket curtain is pulled.

“Sit awhile until you get warmed up. Let me dry that cloak for you.” He spreads the wet cape over a wooden chair near the cookstove and pulls the padded chair closer to the fireplace. “No need to brave the rain for me. Clothes can wait.”

Jane sinks into the worn cushions, the chill draining from her. “When I started out, it was dull but dry. The storm came up just before the butcher's place.”

Jane thinks she sees a scowl on Louis' forehead at the mention of the word “butcher,” but cannot be sure it is not her own thoughts she is reading. Louis scowls more often now. His old eyes, ringed by darker skin, are betraying him, and his strong shoulders hunch when he bends forward to see an object better. He once told her he believed he was eighty or so. He laughed when he said no one kept a record of him. His father wanted no proof of him on his plantation and would have sold him for less than a horse if he had an offer.

“Look like the rain lettin' up a bit, but you sit and rest to make sure. My wife send some fresh apple butter, some fresh bread too. Ah'll gi' you a slice wit' some tea. And take some apples back with you, 'fore ah forget.” He lifts up the edges of two logs in the floor, extracting a burlap bag of apples from their storage bin. He sets it next to her boots.

The room shelters Jane like a cave. Is it the natural log walls and flooring instead of painted wood partitions that are in her house and every other building she knows? Or is it Louis' soft accent removing her from sickness, from the mine, from the Cruikshanks, from the crudeness of Butch Hargraves? Being here with someone even more foreign to this rainforest than she is makes her feel at home. “Was your wife over again, Louis?”

“She sent it with my son.” As he sets a mug of tea and a plate of bread and apple butter on the flat arm of the chair, he nods toward the bedroom. “He still here, lying sick in the bed.”

Jane's shivers return, now of a different origin. “Adam's here?”

“Caught a fever last night and ah tole him best not to take the boat back to Salt Spring until he can lift hi' head from the pillow. Ain't no complainer, that chile o' my ole age. When he don't get up to help his mother or me, ah know he sick.”

Jane's fingers shake on the cup. She had not counted on seeing Adam again until the new year. “Will he be all right?”

“For sure he stronger than a fever unless it the kind that wipe a whole people out, but ah don't think so this time.” As he speaks, the bedroom door opens. Adam steps out quietly, his eyes not fully open, his face as pale as his father's.

“You remember Miss Jane, son.”

Adam and Jane exchange shy smiles. Born in this new province, Adam sometimes cannot conceal his amusement at his father's formalities. Jane blushes, thinking about the last time she saw him in October during the harvest. She carried water to him in the orchard while he was picking fruit, because his father was busy sorting apples. Louis protested it was not her job to serve them, even when Fan Mah, Louis' Chinese helper, was away for the day, but Jane insisted. When Louis came with the cart for the apple baskets and found them sitting on the ground together, he told Adam gruffly to put his shirt back on in front of a lady. She wonders now if that moment took his appetite away for a week, as it had hers.

“You still feel sick?” Louis lays the palm of his hand on his son's forehead until Adam moves away.

“I'm better, Papa. I'll be leaving soon to catch the boat back home.” He ladles water into a cup from a pail on the cupboard.

“You feel warm yet. Why not stay one more night with me? Tomorrow is Sunday. A day of rest.”

“You mean church.”

“Church is all your mother think about. She prayin' all the time.” Louis turns away and stares out the front window.

Adam does not answer, so Jane rushes in. “Sometimes I miss church. We used to go in Wales and I liked the singing.”

“Singin' fine, prayin' fine too. Prayin' in private, just between you and God. Not talkin' all the time about prayin' and scriptures and God's work.”

“Mother does God's work,” says Adam.

“Sure, she do God's work. Nobody on this earth a better woman than your mother. But so do you do God's work, so do Miss Jane, even a old sinner like me try to do it. No need to keep talkin' about it every minute.” He sees the discomfort on his son's face. “How about some soup before you catch that boat? Miss Jane, would you have some soup with us? You need warmin' up too.”

“No, thank you,” says Jane, knowing she will not be able to swallow a mouthful in Adam's presence. “I must be getting home before the rain starts again.” She rises from the chair.

“I'll walk you part way,” says Adam. “It's getting dark.”

Her legs weaken and she grips the back of the chair. “Thank you, but it's not so far. I know the path.”

“We'll both take you as far as the butcher,” says Louis. “He has some pork and lamb to send back home with Adam. Ah got a piece for you too. We went huntin' yesterday.” Jane believes she sees disappointment in Adam's eyes, but she must be mistaken. Why would he be interested in a plain Jane? Louis mumbles, “Meat's all ah can trust with that man.”

“What do you mean, Papa?”

“Dunno for sure. Catch him watchin' me sometimes when we're out huntin.' Though ah feel safe wi' a gun in my hand. Ah know ah'm a better shot than he is, and he know it too.”

Jane does not dare speak.

“Last night we playin' cards at his place and ah see that same look. It come since he talk about my land. Ax me if ah want to sell. Ah say no, ah spend years workin' with my trees, graftin,' tryin' new things and ah ain't about to gi' everything up.”