by Don Hunter
“Big? Look at the size of that headline!”
Cameron stopped Samson Spinner and started, “Mr. Spinner, I don’t know whether you’ve heard …”
“I’m in a hurry, Cameron. I have some mail to collect and somebody said there’s a problem at the post office. Always something, isn’t there, eh? One bloody thing after another. Just like life.” And was gone.
Hyacinth Jakes interrupted Cameron as he started to pose the question. “Yes, I know, the post office. Well, let me tell you, young fellow, things have not been the same since they stopped calling it the Royal Mail, back in the late 1960s. They may have left her face on a stamp, but …” and she shook her finger at him, as if assigning guilt, and stalked off.
Late ’60s? Wounds deep and lasting.
But there came just the person.
The ageless Danny Sakiyama. Canada Post/Postes Canada (CP) shoulder flashes, dark-blue CP-logo ball cap, crossover harness on the shoulders holding a delivery bag on each side, all-seasons blue shorts, rugby socks in orange and black—a salute to his beloved BC Lions—and North Face hikers. How old was Danny now? Getting on, because there were those stories about him being one of the oldest posties in the country after he had declined the offer of a retirement party when he hit seventy. “I’ll let you know when I’m ready to go.” And that was a while back, so if anyone would have a valid opinion …
“Danny …”
“Don’t ask me, I just work for them. But let me tell you …” And he did. “… resulting for people like me in more forced overtime, more stress … and then there’s the letters to Santa Claus …”
“That’s volunteer, isn’t it?”
“But you know, it’s all about the personal touch.”
“Thanks, Danny.”
“And that’s the difference between us and the private operators: the personal. If this change happens, when you reach the counter, it’ll be, ‘Oh, hello, that’ll be five bucks or whatever and there’s the door and have a nice day.’ None of the special treatment like we give, like Sarah at our post office gives.”
“Such as?”
“Well, whenever young Todd Shackleton gets another publisher’s rejection letter—about one a week—she’s there to tell him another one has arrived and to encourage him to persist, a most important word to an unpublished writer.”
“How does she know it’s a rejection slip? What if an acceptance arrived?”
“Oh, she’d be on the phone lickety-split to tell him to get his ass down and check out the advance.”
“But how does she know?”
“Did you know that George Orwell’s Animal Farm was rejected by fourteen publishers? And Margaret Mitchell had to have twenty goes with Gone With the Wind? I tell ya, life for an unpublished writer can be a real bugger.” (Cameron thought, Hello . . . My Life With a Mailbag by Danny Sakiyama?)
“Yes, but how does she know what’s …”
“The personal touch, like I said. A different lot—the private—would just leave him to fret. So let’s hope the story isn’t true.” And he was gone, mailbags swinging.
Randolph Champion was at the head of a queue outside the post office with one of his protest placards, which read “Down with …” and the rest was so far blank.
“Multi-purpose,” he explained to Cameron, who hadn’t asked.
Dr. Daisy Chen appeared and grabbed Cameron by the hand. “I do not like the sound of what’s happening, Cameron. It’ll be the same people who want to privatize our health services. Dollars for diagnoses, I call it. Tell them … well, think of something rude and tell them that, from me. And you can quote me.”
“Let me get a picture, Doctor.”
“Left profile, if you would,” Daisy said.
There was chatter in the lineup.
Maggie Wilson. “They’re going to move it private, into a drugstore like they do on the mainland.”
Other voices: “We don’t have a drugstore …” And, “Salt Spring does. Maybe … Oh, gawd … What about Sarah? What will happen to her? None of a new lot will look after people like she does. She ran after me with my glasses and library book the other day, when I left them, all the way to the pub.” And, “Always has the kettle boiling, for a cup of tea, or whatever …”
Cameron asked, “Where is Sarah? I need to get her opinion on all of this.”
“You’ll have to wait.” Rachel Spinner, with a handful of envelopes. She pointed to an elegantly handwritten notice taped to the post office door.
“Back probably shortly. Could be one hour or maybe a bit longer. Stuff happens suddenly, eh?”
Cameron thought the notice had been meticulously penned for someone in a hurry, and a number of pinholes on each side suggested previous emergency uses.
“There she is.” Rachel pointed down to the wharf, where HMCS Carrier, the water taxi that handled the mail collection and delivery, was sitting in the bay, playing Frank Mills’s “Music Box Dancer” across the water, like a buoyant ice cream van.
The tall, bearded skipper, Alfie Cassidy, was standing aside to allow entry to the familiar Rubenesque form of Sarah Flynn. He closed the door.
Soon the vessel started into a rocking motion.
“She’s collecting the mail,” Rachel explained.
“Of course she is,” Cameron agreed.
Sarah disembarked and walked, dewy-eyed and smiling, up the wharf, Canada Post satchel swinging at her side.
Cameron said, “Sarah, I’d like to ask you …”
“Think carefully about that job you’ve been offered in Toronto, Cameron. Spinner’s Inlet is a pretty special place to work.”
ER
“First, we separate the needy from the nosy and the malingering,” Dr. Daisy Chen said, waving a dainty hand around her newly opened emergency ward. This was the freshly cleaned annex to the recently departed Dr. Timothy’s office, the opening of which on this first day had attracted a sudden flurry of Inlet citizens, a number of whom fit Daisy’s last two designated groups.
Nurse Patsy McFee grinned and examined the list of those who had appeared at the triage station—her desk—and announced their complaints.
Dr. Daisy had interviewed RN Patsy on Skype a month earlier, after Patsy had applied for the part-time position Daisy had advertised. Patsy was moving to the Inlet with her husband, Duncan, who had bought an interest in a shake mill at the north end of the island.
Daisy had checked on Patsy’s record of several years of work at Langley Memorial Hospital’s Emergency Room and at two GP’s offices, and texted her, “When can you start?” She was in the Inlet two days after that.
Patsy examined Finbar O’Toole as he approached her desk on crutches. The crutches were the folding type that can be packed away when not needed, which Patsy—having watched from the window as Finbar nimbly stepped from his pickup truck and deftly assembled them—thought was about now.
She checked Finbar’s medical card. “What’s the problem, Mr. O’Toole?”
“Legs,” Finbar said. “Need a doctor’s certificate to say I’m not fit to work, to go on disability.”
“And the company you work for?”
“Er …”
“Your employer, the one who hired you?”
“Er …”
“They would have registered with WorkSafeBC and been paying premiums to cover injuries on the job so that you can claim benefits.”
“Well … kinda self-employed …”
“Ah, so you would have been paying the premiums?”
“Er …”
“I’ll have to make a couple calls. Take a seat over there.” She indicated a line of metal chairs.
“Well …”
“A seat, Mr. O’Toole. Over there.”
“Finbar, please,” Finbar said, as ingratia
ting as
all get out.
“Finbar it is. Seat anyway. Over there.”
Finbar crutch-hopped to a chair, his eyes on the exit door.
The Clements kids were next, Alun holding Marathon, their SPCA rescue pup, in his arms, and Jillian sobbing.
“Paw,” Alan said, and pointed to the pup’s foot, which was bleeding from an embedded cedar splinter.
“Vet?” Patsy asked.
“Victoria,” Jillian gulped. “Note said if emergency, see Dr. Daisy.”
“Or Androcles?” the nurse suggested.
“Hah! Aesop!” Alun laughed.
Patsy smiled. “I’ll get a little treat for him while we wait.”
“No!” Alun said. “He’s not allowed to eat between meals. Weight an’ that.”
His sister groaned and fondled the pup’s ears.
Patsy bristled. “Bloody hell.” Patsy knew about diets, everything from Dr. Atkins to Paleolithic—and had tossed all of them. “Half a damn Arrowroot biscuit!” she growled, and gave it to the willing, drooling, and seemingly now smiling Marathon.
Dr. Daisy appeared. “Little bit of freezing first,” she said, and waved a hypodermic. “Have a seat for a while.” Jillian crunched her eyes closed while Daisy administered the freezing. Alun bore the moment stoically, as did Marathon.
Dr. Daisy looked out the window at the sound of horse hoofs on the gravel road.
“Hell, I hope not,” she groaned, then breathed out relief when Annabelle Bell-Atkinson trotted by on her Arab mare, Salome, riding sidesaddle. “She looks like she’s in that series Victoria,” Daisy said. “Let’s hope she doesn’t fall off anywhere near here.” She gazed around the room. “Have you seen Penny?” she asked Patsy.
“Penny …?”
“Littlebear. She missed this morning’s prenatal class.”
“No,” Patsy said. “I’ll phone the garden centre.”
Penny was late teens, or maybe mid-teens. She had not been specific when she arrived in the Inlet a few months before from “up north,” alone and pregnant—she wasn’t sure quite since when—and did not mention the father. She had found a job at Widden’s Garden Centre, and they allowed her to rent a room. She had been found to be industrious, conscientious, and reliable.
“She’s done everything right until now,” Daisy noted. “That girl could pop any second.”
An audience had gathered; the nosy lot.
Rachel Spinner sat doing her own assessment of the lame and lazy as more wounded arrived. Young Sam Spinner had squashed flat a forefinger with a poorly aimed stone axe on a walling job. Legitimate. Randolph Champion said he was looking for some painkillers for a friend (unidentified). Rachel laughed out loud and Patsy pointed to the door. Geek Henry or Harvey shuffled furtively in, approached Patsy, and whispered in her ear. She tried not to smile, and told him to take a seat until Dr. Daisy could see him. He grinned sheepishly at everyone and said, “Nothing serious.”
There was a sudden fuss at the door, which slammed open, and Wilfred Widden called out, “Gangway, move aside.” He propelled forward a two-wheeled garden-centre cart, normally used for moving plants and bags of soil, now holding a reclining and quietly moaning Penny Littlebear, who had decided that the need to complete a list of chores took precedence over imminent delivery.
Dr. Daisy waved Wilfred into the inner office, gave Penny a quick look-over, and said, “Glad you could make it.”
Nurse Patsy announced to the gathered, “If you’re just here to watch, go away. We have an emergency.”
Twenty minutes later Daisy Littlebear, six pounds four ounces, was welcomed into the population of Spinner’s Inlet. The stubbornly remaining audience was advised, and applauded heartily.
A moment later Finbar O’Toole apparently received a call on his cellphone. He took it from his pocket, said “Yeah?” and “Oh, dear.” And to Patsy, “Sorry, bit of an emergency for me too,” and turned to leave.
He had taken three steps when Patsy called, “Finbar?”
A hurried, “What?”
“Your crutches.”
Neighbourly Treats
The Inlet was astir with rumours about the new people moving into the big house that sat atop and back from the long slope above the ferry terminal. The house had stood empty for two years before renovations started six months before. Local trades were politely turned down for the work; a gang of incomers and their tools and equipment arrived on the Monday ferry and left on Fridays, saying nothing.
But now there was movement, and an event, announced on The Tidal Times’ front page. “A meet-and-greet from our new neighbours at their open house,” with a two-hour window on Friday afternoon.
“That’s exciting,” Maggie Wilson said.
“I heard it’s the Canucks’ new goalie,” one voice said. “Rolling in dough. Gonna commute to home games.”
Another had heard it was a weekend getaway for U2, Bono having being smitten by the West Coast. “When he was hitchhiking that time in West Van and that Oilers’ player, Gilbert Brule, picked him up and gave him a lift to Horseshoe Bay.”
“All will be disclosed,” Finbar O’Toole offered sagely.
The Times reminded its readers that it was a tradition in the Inlet to welcome new incomers with a small gift or, as an option, a personal skills performance.
Maggie Wilson (née Margarita Consuela Pereyra-Mendez) decided she would open proceedings on Friday, on the makeshift outdoor plywood stage, with a Spanish dance theme. (The house’s occupants had apologized to the gathering for not inviting them inside because the place was still a work in progress.) Maggie had been practising the various styles—bachata, salsa, paso doble, and tango—alongside YouTube versions in front of the TV. She had abandoned the bachata, with its demanding side-to-side, hip-move requirements, when her left side locked and stayed that way for an hour.
She had also brought an Iberian-themed gift in the shape of a pair of castanets she claimed once belonged to one of General Franco’s girlfriends. She had acquired them on her and Lennie’s honeymoon. Maggie remembered the trip because at the Madrid airport, she had ordered a gin and tonic and the bartender, when he had finally quit pouring the gin, waiting for her to say “when,” had no room left for the tonic. In the city she had noticed a souvenir stand with a handsome young fellow who waved her over. He brought the castanets out from an “especial” supply for the señorita—which Lennie gruffly corrected to “señora, now, pal”—and assured her of their provenance.
Maggie had giggled, and tried out her European. “Merci, mister.”
To Lennie later, she smiled, “It was almost like he was expecting me.”
“Saw you coming, anyway.”
Now she clicked the castanets over her head and swooped into an Argentine tango, a dance that relies greatly on improvisation, which was a good thing for the unknowing spectators for whom Maggie’s performance could have been anything, including some kind of mating dance. “Olé,” she sang and did a thirty-second gig that left her panting.
Finbar O’Toole stepped up and predictably began his whining, dissonant version of “Danny Boy.”
After two lines, “How can he be so bad?” Broadway-theatre-school-bound Connie Wilson mused.
“Practice,” explained Samson Spinner, nearby. “Lots of practice.”
Mark Clements, pilot, father of Alun and Jillian, and owner of the small and barely surviving float-plane charter outfit, waved a huge printed sign offering a one-time deal of twenty-five percent off his usual rates to Vancouver or Victoria for all new residents, or anyone else.
His sign was suddenly torn from his grip and flung into the bay about a hundred metres away by the downdraft from a massive AgustaWestland AW101 helicopter, which roared in over the house and drifted down to settle like a giant butterfly, or praying mantis, Mark th
ought, on the front lawn of newly sodded turf.
Mark knew that anyone who could afford to fly in this piece of advanced aviation technology, with a value of $21-plus million and its three pilots, was not going to be persuaded by his offer. Nor would he or she even deign to step into his DHC-2 Beaver, even if he did clean out the McDonald’s wrappers and duty-free Jim Beam Red Stag bottles dumped by his recent fares of three Americans from Portland, who bitched about everything during the ninety-minute trip to the fishing lodge west of Rivers Inlet, and forgot to tip.
“Bastards,” Mark said, all-inclusively.
His teacher wife, Julie, frowned at him and nodded that the kids were close by. Jillian grinned and flashed her dad a thumbs-up. Then she took off to the shoreline and waded in to retrieve Mark’s bargain-flight notice. Connie Wilson went with her for company, and safety.
Hyacinth Jakes had arrived from the seniors residence. She waved at the faces now at the windows of the big house and broke into “Abide with Me,” ornamenting the hymn with a Hohner Special 20 harmonica accompaniment.
“Almost like Dylan,” noted Lennie Wilson, who was standing well apart from Maggie as she rested after her performance, fanning her face with anther souvenir from their honeymoon trip. “A bit, anyway,” he corrected, as three of Hyacinth’s chords veered sharply adrift.
The Reverend Amber Rawlings said, “Amen,” as Hyacinth’s final note faded, and then herself pitched in with “Amazing Grace.”
The people inside the house had opened the windows and were applauding the performances: “Bravo!” and “Encore!” they called for the reverend, who was so inspired that she started to chant the Twenty-third Psalm before Rachel Spinner coughed loudly and indicated that there were others waiting to perform a welcoming act.
Or, in the case of Annabelle Bell-Atkinson, offer a gift.
With a flourish she swept the tea-towel cover off a tray of her appropriately named rock buns and laid it on the front step. The big double doors opened and a hand appeared and lifted the tray inside. Ten minutes later the tray was replaced, with a thank you note on it, and all of the buns intact except one with a bite out of it.
