by Freya North
‘Look!’ Never had Frankie seen a road sign warning of bears. ‘Might we see one?’
‘I can almost guarantee it. I have one guy who comes down maybe two, three times a week.’
‘What does Buddy do?’
‘Stays inside,’ Scott laughed.
On they drove, few cars on the road to impede their progress. The ski runs of Whistler, now green, resembling the swipe of a razor through mountainsides bearded with alder and Sitka spruce, Douglas fir and western red cedar. The early-evening light caressed the landscape. Every now and then, Scott’s hand on her knee.
‘Nineteen Mile Bridge,’ Frankie said. She was reading every sign now. With 5 km to go to Pemberton, the road climbed and curved dramatically with a vista after Nairn Falls that took her breath away. Scott had become quiet. She touched his arm.
‘You OK, Scott?’
He turned to her. ‘I just really hope you like it here, Frankie.’
He drove off the main road to show her Pemberton village, so she could finally put into three dimensions a street map she’d learned off by heart.
‘And that, Miss Shaw, is Mount Currie,’ Scott said.
‘Tśzil.’ Frankie turned to Scott. ‘Did I say it right?’ The mountain struck her as benevolent, regardless of how vast it was and how potentially hostile parts of it must be in any season.
‘Right enough,’ he said. ‘It means “slides on the mountain”. It’s hard to see in this light and from here, but the rocks form a profile of John Sky – in his feather headdress. To the Ĺíĺwat, he was the last great medicine man and when he died they believe his spirit went to the mountain. You can tell the weather from his face – if the clouds are below it means rain or snow.’
They continued on with the Lillooet River to their right, signs for the airfield and golf, a distillery on the left and, Scott told her, his friends’ North Arm Farm on the right. They want to meet you too, Frankie.
On through the reservation of Mount Currie where Aaron lived, then following the Birkenhead River a little way along the old Portage road to D’Arcy before turning off and climbing again. The sky was wearing the colours of a glorious day just gone, one which Frankie had spent up in her plane, hours and hours in no man’s sky – not England, not Canada, just a mind-twisting conduit between the two at 40,000 feet. Tomorrow, she thought, I will wake up to this.
‘Here,’ said Scott. ‘We’re here.’
His home, still a little way ahead at the end of a long snaking drive, sat snug and yet confident in the hillside, like an experienced climber who knew just where to rest. It was solid in its plot, as if making camp at the best viewpoint out over the valley to Mount Currie. The windows, huge windows, gazing up and out to all that wilderness, unaware of the tiny people in the toy truck approaching. Scott drove the final stretch slowly, aware that Frankie was soaking up the details. His garden, plotted and pieced by a series of steps and low walls as if, without them, it might slither down the hillside. The house, whilst not big in size, was immense in its construction; huge logs of cedar banked horizontally and interlinking at the corners like a giant’s clasped fingers. Scott stopped his truck and lifted her hair away from her face, tucked it behind her ear and said, we’re home, Frankie, we’re home.
Stepping out into the evening, dusk coming in wafts, Frankie couldn’t tell whether her head was light or her legs were weak but Scott stood close behind her as she breathed in all that she saw, exhaling the protracted but epic journey that had brought her here.
‘Hey,’ he laughed softly, ‘want to come in?’
She turned to him, held his head in her hands and nodded.
‘Hello Buddy,’ Frankie said as a wet nose butted against her and big doleful eyes tried to assess her, with glances over to Scott for reassurance if not an explanation. It’s all as it should be, Frankie thought to herself, it’s exactly as I imagined. What she hadn’t accounted for was how comforting the pervasive scent of wood was after long hours of warm sunlight. Along with Scott’s arm around her waist, Buddy resting his body against her leg, the rhythmic tock of a clock she couldn’t see, Frankie thought how she could very well fall asleep standing exactly where she was.
‘You like it?’
‘It’s – everything,’ she told him.
She followed him up the stairs to his bedroom. It was a large space dominated by a bed in dark walnut. Over the floorboards a faded and worn tapestry rug. On the walls, paintings in thick slabs of colour signifying mountains and streams, lakes and skies. An old chest of drawers, a crowd of framed photos: his dog and his daughter, perhaps those were his parents, that’s Aaron with his kids, here are Scott and Jenna in all seasons in landscapes that would be known soon enough to her.
‘I made space in the cupboards and in the middle drawer there,’ he told her. ‘The bathroom is through that door.’ He thought it was pretty much time to put on the lights now but looking at her, she was all shadows and highlights and looked lovely. She also looked exhausted. ‘I made a little food – you need to eat before you sleep. You need to fit into my time now you’re here.’
Frankie, right here in his room, all the way over here in this new land of hers which had always been his home. She’d made it. ‘You unpack – I’ll go heat up the food.’ He made his way downstairs, still amazed at the concept of having invited someone to unpack in his room. So much for baggage, he thought to himself and it made him chuckle.
The first thing Frankie did was take off her trainers and socks and settle her hot, tired feet against the floorboards, sensing their dry warmth travelling up her legs. Then she stood on the rug, moving her toes over its surface soft in some places almost threadbare in others. She made her silent introduction to the host of people in the framed photos and she peered into Scott’s bathroom, wondering how he’d felt when putting out two towels. Had her flight already departed when he got the house ready for her arrival? Was all of that only today? Finally she sat on the edge of Scott’s bed. And the next thing she knew he was cuddling her and laughing, tickling and pinching her saying no Frankie no! You mustn’t sleep yet.
‘Oh God I must’ve zonked out.’ Her head was spinning and she felt a little sick.
‘I only went downstairs a quarter-hour ago,’ he laughed. ‘Come on. Up! Up!’
‘Just ten more minutes? I’m not hungry.’
‘No!’ he jabbed at her waist and flicked his finger lightly at her cheek. He took her hand and led her downstairs.
She woke with a start, convinced it was gone lunch-time. The clock, however, proclaimed a befuddling 3 a.m. She knew exactly where she was. Next to her, Scott slept, breathing slow and soft. The sheet was draped over his waist, his back towards her, moonlight slicking a few hazed tones over his skin. She lay on her side and just looked at him, tracing with her eyes the way his neck curved into his shoulders, the irregular pattern of a few moles in a spatter, his head cleaving into the pillow, the dip and run of his strong arm. As soundlessly as she could, she moved closer to him. On her fingers she counted forwards by eight. What would her children be doing now, at eleven in the morning? Even at home, during the day, she’d often wonder. She’d never slept this late in the UK, though frequently, she’d woken at an hour as ungodly as this. Over the last few years, there’d rarely been a period of time during which nothing was on her mind. A good night’s sleep was really only one when she might wake just the once, check the time and drift off again after pushing a barrage of thoughts to the other side of the bed where no one had slept for a long time. She gazed at Scott’s back and moved closer until her skin just touched his.
Nothing much woke Scott. But the warmth of a body in his bed in his home was the exception. He could easily count the number of times he’d brought someone back here, more usually favouring hotels, motels, their homes. He kept still, his eyes now open, just revelling in the notion of Frankie being here, right now. Her breath against his back. She was awake, he could tell; he could feel her think. He knew all about jet lag, how her mind would be jum
ping about as if her legs were straddling the Atlantic while she tried to catch reverberating thoughts and kid her body that it was not eight hours later. She moved a little closer still, her breathing trampolining lightly on the skin right between his shoulder blades. He willed her closer still. And here were her lips, kissing him just twice, as gently as she could manage. How easy it would be to turn to her, enfold her in his arms, make love again. But he knew she didn’t want to wake him, she was kissing him just because she wanted to, in a private time that was uniquely hers. It was at that moment that Scott felt truly loved. And the emotions which swept through him were expressed by a single and unexpected tear.
He woke at seven and the other side of the bed was empty. He could hear her downstairs chatting to herself or Buddy, or maybe even the UK on the phone, he couldn’t be sure. She was obviously trying to be quiet and failing – an occasional hiss at herself accompanying an inadvertent clatter. He turned and assessed the space in the bed. He rolled over onto it, found the pillow to carry the scent of her but the sheets to be cool. He closed his eyes and thought back to making love last night when he’d finally let her go to bed. He’d worried she’d be too tired but his dinner had revived her and built an appetite for him. She’d chosen to be on top most of the time, smiling at him, bending to kiss him, to trace her tongue tip along his lips, to whisper in his ear both words of love as well as screamingly rude requests. He could see her now, upright and moving, his hands travelling where his eyes were scanning; the vivid recall of how she crumpled down gasping, telling him to wait! wait! not yet Scott – I don’t want to come yet. And then they’d fucked, fast and urgent, a month’s pent-up longing driving their desire.
Lying there, knowing she was downstairs, he thought how he could do it all over again. He was hard and ready. But she’d just said shit, twice, and something had broken. Scott smiled. Just a regular day at the ranch, he said to himself. The notion that mundanity could be so extraordinary, so enveloping, struck him as profound. There was no need for drama or complexity, for high romance or a constant soundtrack. Some force out there had his dreams in a cradle because downstairs, right at this very minute, they were being played out.
‘I’m so sorry!’
She was wearing his T-shirt and holding a broken mug in one hand, its handle in the other. Darth Vader was glaring out at Scott from across her chest but his legs were Frankie’s legs and it looked comic.
‘I broke it,’ she said. ‘Why do you keep your mugs so high up?’
‘I guess it completely slipped my mind to design the kitchen around a clumsy small Englishwoman,’ he said.
‘I think I found your breakfast stuff – cereals, butter, jam. I laid the table,’ she said, motioning to it. ‘I couldn’t find food for Buddy so I made him a scrambled egg.’
Scott looked from his dog to his girl.
‘I hope that’s OK?’
Buddy was siding with Frankie on this one and padded over to where she stood.
‘I was going to make you pancakes,’ he said. ‘You know it’s only seven, right?’
‘I’ve been up since just gone half-five,’ she said. ‘I didn’t want to wake you. I didn’t – did I?’
Scott brandished a whisk at her. ‘Pancakes?’
‘I found the maple syrup.’
‘Did you taste it?’
He knew she had. He could tell when he kissed her.
Frankie was at Scott’s and everyone knew it. Aaron had broadcast the news at Mount Currie and Jenna had spoken of little else at Whistler; the information had converged at Pemberton and seeped through the village itself. It was spoken of as the cinnamon buns were iced at the Blackbird Bakery and the beans were roasted at the Mount Currie Coffee Company, it was discussed when the deliveries arrived at Frontier Street Pharmacy, it filled the tanks at Esso and Husky, and it went into the ingredients being prepared for lunch at Solfeggio. From North Arm Farm to the Pony, from teeing off at Big Sky to queuing at Scotiabank, from the medical centre to the visitor centre – everyone knew that Scott’s girl had arrived from the UK.
Scott had told Aaron that it would be OK to call in later in the morning. Though Rose chided him and whacked him with a tea towel, her husband would not step away from his reasoning that as he’d been up for hours, therefore it was now later in his morning.
‘Poor girl’s probably still asleep,’ Rose said, ‘or in bed being happy.’
‘Well, I’ll just go see,’ Aaron said.
‘You should phone first,’ said Rose.
‘When ever did I need to phone Scott?’
Scott was in the shower and Frankie was still in the Darth Vader T-shirt rummaging in kitchen cupboards to acquaint herself with what Scott kept where, when Aaron let himself in.
‘Ho,’ he said.
She jumped out of her skin but he just grinned and mooched over to feel the coffee pot. Warm but it could do with freshening. ‘I’m Aaron,’ he said with a broad smile.
‘I’m –’
‘Padmé?’ he said. ‘Princess Leia?’
‘I’m – not dressed,’ she squirmed and darted up the stairs.
Aaron helped himself to blueberries and coffee and sat down, listening with a grin to the scurrying and chatter upstairs.
‘Hey Buddy,’ he whispered with a conspiratorial wink. ‘What the fuck, man – what the fuck! Scott and Frankie.’
They laughed about their initial meeting later, as they walked along Owl Creek, Aaron having invited himself along. He stared at Frankie a lot. He needed to – he’d previously cloaked her with all he’d gleaned from Scott but now she was here, he had to readjust some of that. She was shorter than he’d expected – pretty but just plainer and more natural in contrast to Scott’s past predilections. Aaron liked the real Frankie a whole lot better. Once the Darth Vader incident had been laughed off, Aaron found her to be far from shy. He liked it that she already rolled her eyes at his lousy jokes and he liked the way she teased Scott, accompanied with little pushes and punches. There was a whole lot of handholding going on, he’d be telling Rose later.
Frankie also asked many questions but Aaron liked that. He was naturally gregarious and proud of his heritage but living here so long, known well by so many people, Aaron was just Aaron. He’d known Scott since he could remember, they’d been through school together and now he ran his little business from the airfield, shopped locally and got involved in most things. But Frankie wanted to know about what it meant to be First Nations, she wanted to know about his people and it made Aaron contemplate how he rarely had the opportunity to explain it.
‘So the Ĺíĺwat Nation are an Interior Salish people – part of the Stʹátʹyemc group,’ he told her as they walked.
‘I know,’ she said. ‘I read up on it before I came. Your ancestors have lived these parts for over five thousand years. They used to live in subterranean pit houses during the winter, called ístkens.’
‘You know Úcwalmícwts?’
‘Who are they?’
Aaron laughed. ‘It’s our language.’
‘Well I do know that skwímtscen means rainbow and that it’s your nickname for Jenna.’
‘Do you know what my nickname for Scott is? It’s splaont.’
‘What does that mean?’ asked Frankie.
‘It means Smart Man with the Heart of Bear,’ said Scott.
‘Nice try,’ said Aaron. ‘It means skunk – and he knows it.’
‘Remind me not to ask you for a nickname,’ laughed Frankie as they walked on.
‘Our territory is almost eight hundred thousand hectares – goes south to Rubble Creek, north to Gates Lake, east to the Upper Stein Valley and west to the coastal inlets,’ Aaron told her. ‘Our land is enclosed between two mountain ranges – we have beautiful names for all of them and legends for each. We’re hunters and fishermen, we’re the greatest basket weavers in the world. We’re champion bronc riders and bull riders and barrel racers. We’re front and centre on Canada’s First Nations Snowboard Team. And boy, can
we drum.’
‘Christ, Aaron – you could take tours at the cultural centre,’ Scott laughed.
‘I’m too busy flying you to Vancouver and back,’ Aaron retorted. ‘Anyways, Frankie – you white guys came along and took our land in the 1800s, called us wild beasts and corralled us into reserves. We signed the Lillooet Declaration in 1911, for our right to our traditional lands. In 1975 we led a protest to protect our fishing rights. I was a little kid then – but I remember the talk. We also stopped clear-cut logging and the destruction of our sacred sites.’
‘I don’t know what to say.’
Scott and Aaron regarded Frankie who looked genuinely apologetic.
‘Hey, I’ve been making Scott feel guilty for years.’ Aaron nudged her and smiled. ‘You know, the Ĺíĺwat are over two thousand strong these days. Two-thirds of us live at Mount Currie while the others live off reservation. You know, when I was a kid and my mum sent me to Aaron’s school, some of our people ostracized her awhile. You have to remember that in my grandparents’ and parents’ generation, the federal government sent many First Nations children to residential schools where they were forbidden to use their language, their songs and dances. But most of us are happy to get along with white folk – like most of you guys are happy to get along with us. There’s respect now, that we campaigned hard for.’ They stopped, all of them with hands on their hips, taking in the surroundings. ‘But this is what matters – it’s beautiful, right?’ He turned to Frankie. ‘If you’re Native, if you’re white – you share a love for this place.’
She tried to take it all in, her senses overloaded; the softest breeze delicate through the rising heat, the scent of freshness, the sounds of water, birds and branches, the sight of lake and land and sky. And mountains, always the mountains. Mount Currie – Tśzil. Owl Mountain – Skalúa7. Mount Meager – Múmleq.
‘I’ve never been anywhere like this.’
‘You’ll take a little of it with you wherever you go now,’ Aaron said to her. ‘Pelpala7wít i ucwalmícwa múta7 ti tmícwa – the land and the people are one.’
