“What if we don’t get to shore?”
“What if? What if?” Verna closed her eyes. God, what an exasperating child! “Why are you such a Chicken Little all the time? ‘Oh, Auntie Verna, the sky is falling, the sky is falling!’ The sky is not falling and this skiff is not sinking. And, even if it is, — and I’m not saying it is — we just swim to shore.”
Romy wrung her hands. “But I can’t!” she bleated.
“Can’t what?”
“Swim!”
Verna blinked. “What do you mean you can’t swim? Everybody can swim.”
“Not everybody!” Romy insisted. “Me, for example.”
“Your father — that Paul guy — he didn’t teach you how to swim?”
“No!”
“What kind of a father is that?”
“The kind that doesn’t teach his kid how to swim.”
“My dad taught us how to swim. Hell, it was practically the first thing he taught us.”
“Well, my dad didn’t. He was too busy chasing tail.”
Verna shook her head. “Well, all I can say is that if he had left you with your mother, you would have known how to swim. Fern was a beautiful swimmer. She swam like a goddamned mermaid. Both of us. Like mermaids.”
“Oooohhhh!” Romy wailed, pointing to the bottom of the skiff.
Sure enough, the water was continuing to rise. They weren’t going to make it to shore. Not at this rate.
“Okay,” Verna told Romy, “I can get us both to shore. But you have to promise not to panic. Do you promise?”
Romy moaned and shook her head. Closing her eyes, she hugged herself tightly and began to rock back and forth.
Verna reached over and took hold of her forearm. She shook it. “Romy, Romy, listen to me. You’ve got to promise not to panic! I can’t save you if you’re freaking out. You’ve got to trust me! Do you trust me? Romy, do you trust me?”
An eerie wail. “Aaagghhh!”
Apparently not. Laying down the oars, Verna took stock. The water level had risen to about six inches now — fully a third of the skiff’s depth — and the lake’s southern shore was still half the lake away. Should they bail now? The last twenty feet or so would be in shallower water. All she had to do was get Romy from here to there. From there they could walk to shore. She leaned forward, and, prying Romy’s arms open, gripped her forearms. “Okay, Romy,” she said. “Open your eyes. Open your eyes, now! Look at me!”
Romy opened her glaucous eyes and blinked wetly. She looked terrified.
“Listen closely,” Verna told her. “I’m going to drop off the side into the water and then you’re going to climb out after me and hold on to the side of the skiff. I’ll come up behind you. Then, when I tell you, I want you to let go of the boat and float on your back. I’m going to hook my arm over your chest and sidestroke us into shore. But I can only do this if you stay calm. Do you understand?”
Romy just stared at her, stricken.
“Do you understand?” Verna repeated.
Romy gulped, then nodded.
“Okay,” said Verna. “I’m going in.”
She had just started to rise from her seat when, “Auntie Verna, don’t leave me!” Romy cried and lunged for her.
“Romy, no!” cried Verna. Too late. The boat tipped over, dumping them both into the lake. No sooner had Verna registered that she was in the water than Romy tackled her full-on, shrieking like a banshee and wrapping her arms around her neck. It was like being tackled by a skeleton swathed in sackcloth — four metres of black crinkle-cloth swirled around them. “Romy, stop it!” Verna gasped, dog-paddling to stay afloat as she flailed at the buoyant dress, trying to beat it down. “You’re going to drown both of us!” Romy, however, was too busy trying to climb on Verna’s head to pay much heed. In desperation, Verna reached out and grabbed hold of the first piece of the capsized boat that came to hand — the stern — and held on. “Romy,” she managed. “Romy! Hold on to the skiff!” With her right hand, she shoved Romy away from her and toward the boat’s gunwhale at the same time as she wrenched herself free, and, twisting, dived downward into the lake.
For a split second, relieved at having escaped her niece’s frantic clutches, she continued to bore downwards, the light disappearing one wavelength at a time as she pushed toward the lake’s ink-blue bottom. Then, just before she was due to run out of air, she detected movement in her peripheral vision — the heave and pitch of what must have been the silvery tail of a very big fish — a fish bigger than any she had ever seen in fresh water. She turned to look after it and found herself gazing, instead, into a pair of round fish eyes. Then adrenaline ripped through her like a chainsaw. She twisted away and shot back to the surface, coming up this time on the opposite side of the capsized skiff. She grabbed hold of the gunwhale and gasped for air, her heart racing. Jesus! She thought to herself. What the hell kind of fish was that? It was the size of a porpoise!
“Auntie Verna! Is that you?”
“Yes. Yes. Just let me catch my breath.” Thank God, Verna thought. She hasn’t drowned. Not yet, at any rate. Don’t mention the giant fish. That will only freak her out more. If that’s even possible.
“Auntie Verna, I’m so cold! I don’t think I can last much longer.”
“Oh, for God’s sake, Romy! Buck up!”
“But …!”
Woof!
There was a huge splash toward the bow, out of which Jude emerged in an explosion of water drops. Romy and Verna looked up to see Winonah pulling up alongside them in the canoe. She poked the skiff with her paddle. “I guess that patch didn’t hold,” she said.
“What patch?”
“There’s a hole in the keel. I told my brother duct tape’s no good for fixing boats.”
“Duct tape? He patched a hole in the skiff with duct tape?”
“That boy!” Granny cackled. “He was a rascal, all right! Not too bright.”
“You knew that there was a leak in the skiff and you let us take it anyway?” Verna demanded.
Winonah shrugged. “It might have worked. You can never tell. Actually it worked pretty good. Got you all the way to the middle of the lake.”
Verna was on the verge of saying something tart, but stopped herself. No point alienating the handywoman, especially not in the middle of a lake with a capsized boat, an anorexic who couldn’t swim, a strange man lurking in the bush, and some monster fish swimming around in the waters just below them. She made do with, “Here, you grab her arms and pull while I push. Romy, being catatonic is not helping the situation!”
“Hee! Hee!” Granny laughed at the sight of Romy in her wet weeds. “Looks like Old Crow fell into the mud puddle!”
It was one o’clock. While Verna, Granny, and Winonah sat at the kitchen table eating Campbell’s beef and vegetable with barley soup, Romy lay curled up in a tight ball on Fern’s bed, under a heap of covers and wearing a musty-smelling pair of her mother’s oversized flannel pajamas. She said she was cold. She actually was — too cold. Spurred on by some atavistic quasi-maternal impulse, Verna had insisted on taking her temperature. Ninety six degrees. No wonder the girl’s teeth were chattering and her hands and feet felt like ice.
Two hours had transpired since Winonah had returned Verna and Romy, soaking wet, to the dock. While they had dried themselves off and changed clothing, Granny had curled up like an old cat on the living room sofa under one of Frieda’s afghans and napped. In the interim, the indefatigable Winonah had towed the capsized skiff back to the boathouse and hoisted it up onto the dock. She seemed in altogether better spirits than previously. Possibly the capsizing of the skiff and the dunking of its two occupants had provided her with a measure of cheer.
“Do you think we should go out again?” Verna asked distractedly. “Maybe while Romy’s asleep?” She was having difficulty getting the image out of her mind of a near-naked Romy, glimpsed through a half-closed door as she stepped out of her sodden widow’s weeds and into Fern’s pajama bottoms; of her naked
back, all shoulder blades and bumpy spine, with her two flat pancakes of deflated buttock riding atop broomstick legs. Indeed, Verna had been so shocked that she had pushed the door to Fern’s room shut — ostensibly out of respect for Romy’s privacy, but really to spare herself the sight. The girl looked like a walking skeleton. She had no subcutaneous fat. None whatsoever. Of course, she had looked thin to her from the get-go, even ultra-thin, but not this thin. Not uber thin; not Auschwitz poster-girl thin. Suddenly Verna understood the reason for Romy’s layered look, the baggy style she espoused. She chided herself: Why did I so blithely accept her statement that she had “checked out” of whatever the name of that rehab facility down in Guelph was and that that was all right? What kind of an aunt am I? She knew the answer to that question: a bad aunt. A really, really bad aunt. Just like she had been a really bad sister.
Granny shook her head. “Unlucky,” she said, sucking broth. “Tomorrow we’ll try again. The Nebaunaubaequaewuk, maybe they’re trying to tell us something, eh?”
“The who?” The word rang some kind of distant bell in Verna’s memory. “Are you talking about the mermaids? The ones who live in the lake?”
Granny looked up from her soup and squinted quizzically at Verna.
“How do you know about Nebaunaubaequaewuk?” Winonah demanded.
It was on the tip of her tongue to say, “Lionel.” Instead Verna muttered. “I don’t know. Maybe Dad?”
“They look out for us, the Nebaunaubaequaewuk,” said Granny. “It is wise to listen to them.”
Winonah pushed her empty bowl away from her and stood. “So, Verna, you wanted me to do something today?”
“Huh?” asked Verna. “Oh, sorry!” She rooted around in her brain for the tasks she had come up with earlier to keep Winonah close at hand. “Something … doors and windows … Maybe we should recaulk … and, oh, I know, the larch, the one outside Dad’s window. I noticed this morning that the branches are scraping at the pane.”
“We’ll need sealant, then.” Winonah decided. “And a caulking gun. The one in the tool shed is pooched. And we could use some real food. I’m tired of soup. What about some wieners?”
“How about fish sticks?” said Granny.
“Baloney is good,” said Winonah.
Verna sighed. She had thought to get by largely on what Donald had left in the pantry, supplemented by small purchases at the Pump and Munch, but along the way she seemed to have collected additional mouths to feed — apparently Granny Madahbee now numbered among these. Romy, on the other hand … what had the girl actually eaten since she had arrived yesterday morning? A few spoonfuls of soup? I have to make her eat, she decided. She tried to imagine Winonah holding the girl down while she wedged gelatinous chunks of Spam into her protesting mouth. Winonah would enjoy that.
But, of course, that wouldn’t work. How can you force someone to eat? Especially someone as determined not to as Romy. But you could entice her, she thought. Get foods she would like. What do anorexics like, anyway? Carrots? Celery? Clear broth? Boiled eggs? “Okay,” she agreed. “I guess it’s time to do a proper grocery shop. Is there still a grocery store in Beverley?”
“There’s Wenger’s,” said Winonah. “I’ll come with you. We can pick up sealant and a caulking gun at the Home Hardware. And I can show you what Granny and I like to eat.”
“But …” Verna lowered her voice. “What about Granny?”
“What about her?”
“Doesn’t she … want to go home?”
“No,” replied Winonah.
“But what about Bingo?”
“Bingo’s on Wednesday. Today is Friday. There’s no Bingo on Friday.”
“But I thought she didn’t like white people …”
“She likes it here,” Winonah said. “She told me. This is a good place, she says. She will sit on the porch and watch the lake while we’re gone. She will watch out for your niece.” Verna must have looked doubtful, because Winonah added tartly, “No’okomiss raised six children and sixteen grandchildren by hand. She has strong dreams, my grandmother. That skinny white girl could do worse than be left with her.”
“The lake is better than TV,” Granny observed with satisfaction. “So much going on.”
Before setting out for Beverley, Verna checked in on Romy. Curled up into a ball of jutting bones under the purloined Indian tapestry, she appeared to be sleeping, albeit fitfully. Across her downy, sunken face expressions ranged confusedly — she twitched, eyes rolling under the nearly transparent lids; she sucked her breath in short gasps, in hiccups; pieces of her jerked — a broomstick arm, a shrivelled leg. Even in repose the girl seemed uneasy, preyed upon.
Standing there in Fern’s room looking down on Romy with Jude at her side, Verna experienced what might be described as a Lassie moment. “What’s she dreaming about, boy?” she whispered to Jude. “Is she dreaming about rabbits?” Then, “Stay with her, boy. Keep her safe.”
Jude panted in apparent agreement. She patted him on the head and went downstairs. He followed.
“Will you at least guard the house?” she asked.
But Jude, restored by his recent nap, wriggled around her and headed for the lake.
“Are you coming?” Winonah sounded impatient. She was down by the Volvo, ready to go.
“On my way!”
Then, just as she was closing the front door behind, “Auntie Verna!” A querulous cry from upstairs. “Auntie Verna, if you’re going into town, could you pick me up some cigarettes?”
“No way!” Verna shouted back.
“Virginia Slims!”
“You heard me!”
“What’s the biggest lake fish you’ve ever seen?” Verna asked Winonah on the drive back from Beverley. “I mean, not ever, but from this part of the country.” She was thinking about the monster fish she had encountered while diving to escape Romy’s clutches that morning. Behind her on the back seat were bags of processed food and various petroleum by-products — Cheez Whiz and head cheese, potted ham and Pop-Tarts. Just looking at it would probably catapult Romy into a full-scale panic attack; Verna had been close to one herself as the cashier had rung up the contents of her cart — each additional item another nail in the coffin of nutrition. Truly, it was a measure of her desperation to keep in Winonah’s good graces that she was willing to ply her with a mountain of crappy food.
“I saw a walleye your dad fished out of this lake that was going on ten pounds,” replied Winonah. “And a four-foot long muskie, but that was from the river.”
“Four feet, eh?” Verna asked, chewing on her lip. That didn’t sound nearly big enough. The fish that she had encountered that morning must have been five feet long at the very least. Or six. But was it a fish? That was the real question.
“Why do you ask?”
Should she tell the handywoman that she thought it was possible — just possible — that she might have had a brush with a local mer-person that morning? What would Winonah think? Would she think she was crazy? She chickened out. “Oh, nothing,” she said. They rode on in silence for a few minutes.
“We need to stop in Greater Gammage,” Winonah informed her. “I want to give Carmen her cigarettes.”
“Oh, all right.” Verna was reluctant. She did not feel quite up to Carmen’s over-the-top ebullience at the moment; the largesse of her. Not without a stiff drink. “But let’s make it quick, okay? I don’t want to leave Romy for too long. This low body temperature thing of hers has got me worried.” She pulled up in front of Black River Realty. To her relief, the storefront was dark. “She must be closed,” she concluded gratefully.
“Oh, Carmen never closes,” replied Winonah, retrieving two cartons of unmarked cigarettes from under her seat. “She hibernates sometimes. In the winter.” She got out of the car, crossed the sidewalk, and rattled the doorknob. “Carmen? Carmen, are you there?”
“Come on in!” came a voice from within — unmistakably Carmen’s, throaty and rippling with twang.
Winonah
pushed the door open. The office exhaled a brown cloud of cigarette smoke out onto the street.
“Hey, Winonah, is that you?” cried Carmen. “And Verna! Verna, are you trying to hide?” Verna had ducked down behind the steering wheel; now she re-emerged, mortified. This seemed, however, to in no way faze Carmen. “Come on in, you two,” she called cheerfully. “Help me celebrate.”
“Okay,” Winonah agreed and trotted into the office.
“Verna!” yelled Carmen. “Get in here!”
Verna sighed and got out of the car. She crossed to the office doorway and peered in. The feature-sheet-encrusted front window provided scant natural light; by it she could just made out the imposing heap that was Carmen, piled onto her chaise lounge with a Tim Hortons double-double in hand. On either side of her was a round side table topped with overflowing ash trays; on one of these sat a bottle of Tia Maria. Tia Maria. Things were looking up.
“Here are those smokes you wanted.” Winonah handed Carmen the two cartons of butt-legged cigarettes.
“Outstanding,” said Carmen, setting them down on the floor beside her. “Would you two ladies care to join me in a celebratory drink? I just sold the old Gauthier place and this here’s what you might call my victory dance.” Clearly Carmen’s victory dance was a sedentary affair, more metaphorical than literal, although she did look festive in a hooded purple jalaba trimmed in gold braid — like a large and colourful hobbit.
“Sure,” said Winonah.
“I’d like that,” said Verna.
“Get yourself a couple of glasses, then. If you don’t mind a few random germs.” Carmen pointed to a jumble of coffee mugs and glasses on the shelf on top of a file cabinet. “To my way of thinking, people are way too paranoid about germs these days. All these wipes and gels — wipes for this and gels for that — and sneezing into your elbow instead of your hand … what’s that all about?”
“The elbow is the new hand,” said Winonah.
“You got to eat a peck of dirt before you die,” said Carmen.
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