by Karen Swan
‘Hey, listen to me! Quite the philosopher, huh?
‘But as much as I’ll be sad to leave, I can’t wait to get back. Fresh fruit and vegetables! Running water! The thought of a shower is almost more than I can handle—’
Meg looked at Dolores again. ‘Because remember, water just floats up there. It doesn’t hit your skin,’ she explained.
Dolores gave a look of distaste. ‘Ghastly.’
‘The wind, trees, flowers, grass. The weather – rain, snow, sunshine. And smells! Colours. Noise. Even taste. Everything tastes bland up here. I can’t wait to have some pickled mackerels. I can’t wait to see my dog Yuri and go for a run with him on the beach and go out sailing. Before I came up, I was most excited about floating all the time but now my feet miss contact with the Earth. It’s going to be good to be grounded again.
‘How are things with you? Did you go on the walk to the hot springs in the end? I hope Lucy got on OK, it sounds like she’s having a tough time—’
‘Didn’t you tell him about the bear attack?’ Dolores interrupted.
Meg shook her head. ‘No. I wrote before it happened.’
‘And not since?’
‘Well someone’s got to sit with you – to stop you from snoring if nothing else.’
Dolores cracked a smile – laughing wasn’t allowed yet. ‘He’ll be wondering where you’ve gone.’
‘I’m not the one on a galactic walkabout. It’s pretty obvious I don’t go anywhere.’
‘And are you going to tell him about this?’
‘No!’ Meg protested, wrinkling her nose.
‘But why not?’
‘He’ll think I’m a walking disaster.’
‘Why?’
‘Well, you know – first Mitch, now . . .’ Her voice trailed off.
‘Oh, I see. Calamity is your middle name.’ Dolores arched an eyebrow. ‘But did you bait the bear? Did you run off with its cubs? Did you drizzle yourself in honey?’
Meg laughed. ‘No!’
‘Exactly. It just happened. Shit happens – isn’t that the phrase?’
‘I know, but this isn’t something I just want to . . . gossip about. It’s not some story to bandy about in an email as entertainment.’
‘Why not? Everyone’s OK,’ Dolores scoffed.
‘You could have died, Dolores.’
‘But I didn’t. Listen to me, I’m seventy-three years old and I survived a bear attack! I intend to tell anyone who’ll listen! Maybe it’s different for you – you’re still young – but once you get to my age, people spend their time looking back and telling their old stories.’ She shook her head. ‘No. This is the best thing to happen to me in years. I’ve got a new story to tell! This will liven up my craps nights no end.’
Meg chuckled, squeezing Dolores’s hand again. ‘Fine. I’ll tell him about it then.’ She looked back at the email, trying to pick up her place again. ‘Ummm . . . Oh, yeah. Lucy. It sounds like she’s having a tough time. Tell her she’s like me – on a countdown too! It won’t last for ever. As a clever man once said, “This too shall pass.”
‘Enjoy Toronto. Go to Soho House for cocktails if you get a chance. I went last year when I was visiting for an International Astronautical Conference – yes, it really was as fascinating as it sounds! – and loved the place.
‘You’ll have a great time. I know you’re nervous about leaving home but if nothing else, one of the best things about travelling is getting to go home again. You have to leave in order to be able to come back, right?’
‘He’s wise. I like him,’ Dolores muttered. ‘How old did you say he is again?’
‘Going by his photo, I’m guessing mid-thirties. Could be wrong though.’
Dolores tutted, at her evasiveness, Meg knew.
‘I won’t be able to write now till after we land and things are going to get pretty crazy for the next few days, so don’t worry if I’m radio silent for a few days – assuming I don’t get turned into a crisp, of course.
‘In the event that I am frazzled – and that really would suck – I want you to know I’ve loved our talks. Our friendship has become one of the defining experiences of this expedition, which isn’t something I anticipated when we blasted off in February. The rest of the crew have been jealous as hell of my bad-joke-telling, airwaves-hijacking pen pal in the Canadian Rockies. You’re a really great girl, Meg Saunders.
‘Over, but not out (I hope),
‘Jonas x
‘PS. Assuming you’re going to try to tune in and have a laugh at my best Kazakh impression, I will try to wave if I can lift my arms.
‘PPS Heard the one about the Englishman and the Irishman in Vegas sitting on a bench? The Englishman turns to the Irishman and asks, “Which do you think is further? Florida or the moon?”
‘The Irishman turns to his friend and says, “Hello? Can you see Florida from here?”’
‘On behalf of my Irish grandmother, that’s a terrible joke,’ Dolores muttered.
‘I know. He’s full of them,’ Meg said, giving a careless shrug as she closed the email, but her heart was pounding again from the emotions it had stirred – every time she read it (and she’d read it a lot, whilst Dolores slept) she felt profound shock that he thought she was a great girl, surprise that he’d signed off with a kiss, but mainly fear.
Fear that he was going to die.
Fear that he was going to land.
Chapter Seventeen
Friday 28 July 2017
Ronnie was hard to miss as Meg walked out into the arrivals hall and it wasn’t just on account of the banner. Or the balloons. (Anyone would think she was coming from space, not Banff.)
‘Oh, my God,’ Meg grinned, embarrassed, as her little sister ran towards her, arms out and squealing excitedly. ‘A bear suit? Really?’
Ronnie took the head off with a ‘Ta-da!’ flourish. ‘Hey, I’ve barely taken this thing off. I’ve done rounds in it – paeds only, obviously. Don’t want to finish off the old dears on the geriatric ward. I’ve been dining out on your adventure all week. My sister, the bear hunter!’
‘Hardly that. I cried like a baby.’
Ronnie grinned, enveloping her in a hug. ‘I’m just so glad you’re OK.’
‘Well, clearly being greeted by you dressed as a bear is going to help me confront my demons.’
‘Right? That’s what I thought! We’ve got to face our fears!’ Ronnie laughed, giving Meg her bear head to hold and taking Meg’s wheelie bag from her grasp instead, leading them towards the car park, their arms linked.
Meg tilted her face to the sky as they walked outside, the tenor and palette of the urban landscape entirely different from the one she’d left barely four hours earlier – the emerald waters of the mineral-rich Rocky lakes now switched for the sea-like mass of Lake Ontario disappearing over the horizon; the busy chatter of seagulls replacing the singular cries of the high-flying bald eagles; and the ring of granite mountain ranges that hemmed in and preserved her little home town superseded by a bar graph of skyscrapers, the galactically inspired CN Tower standing tallest, sharpest and proudest of all. It wasn’t her first time to the big city, obviously not, but it had been so long since she’d been here, she felt daunted by the sheer density of Toronto.
Ronnie moved out into the traffic with practised ease, carelessly glancing over her shoulder as she pulled into a six-lane highway, overtaking on this side and that in a kind of waltz, her fingers tapping on the wheel as Chum FM played on the radio.
Meg looked out the window at the buildings whizzing past, recognizing the splashy boutiques of designer names that she only usually heard about in magazines, sensing an energy in the walks of all those people hurrying up and down the pavements.
‘Here we are,’ Ronnie said forty minutes later, pulling up outside a tall white L-shaped tower block. ‘Home Sweet Home.’
‘You live in there?’ Meg asked in astonishment, looking up.
‘Yep.’ Ronnie jumped out of the car and popped open the boo
t, oblivious to the enquiring looks of passers-by as she pulled out the wheelie bag wearing a headless bear suit. If nothing else, it was almost six in the evening and still eighty-seven degrees.
‘But how can you afford it? It looks so expensive!’
Ronnie groaned. ‘Wait till you see the inside before you make assumptions. This is what a junior doctor’s salary gets you in the city.’
‘Well, I bet it’s a palace compared to my little cabin . . .’ Meg sighed, those feelings of inadequacy which Lucy had warned her about beginning to spring up.
Four minutes later, Meg was blowing out through her cheeks, head nodding and hands on her hips as she looked around at the forty-seven-square-metre space where the sofa doubled as the spare bed and the main bed was a mattress on the floor of the mezzanine which had been slotted into the cavity above the bathroom; the kitchen itself was a metre-long worktop with an oven and fridge beneath and a shelf above, just a leg length away from the sofa. ‘Well,’ Meg grinned. ‘I can see now why you’re never in when I call.’
‘Exactly,’ Ronnie laughed, stepping out of the bear suit and letting it collapse in a heap on the floor, instantly cluttering the flat. ‘Damn, that thing was hot. It’s no time to be wearing fur,’ she said, fanning herself lightly. ‘Talking of which, who’s got Badge while you’re here?’ she asked, reaching up to her shelf and bringing down two chunky wine glasses.
‘Lucy and Tuck.’
Ronnie splashily poured almost the entire contents of a bottle of Chianti into them. ‘And how is Lucy? She getting on OK?’
‘Yeah, they kept her in for the first night just to observe the baby. It was showing some signs of distress when she first came in but everything seems to be fine now.’ Meg watched her. ‘Tell me something, though – how did you know Lucy was pregnant that day? She was only just over a month gone!’
Ronnie paused with the pouring as she thought back. ‘Her breasts were bigger, she kept running to the loo, she wasn’t drinking wine, she looked pale . . .’
‘Yes, but a month? How is that possible?’
Ronnie gave a sheepish look. ‘Fine. I may have slightly overheard her throwing up in the loos.’
‘She could have just been drunk. Or eaten a dodgy clam.’
‘Well, I may have caught a glimpse of a pregnancy kit in her bag in church too,’ she said, handing Meg an almost-full wine glass and curling up on the poppy-red sofa beside her.
‘So you mean you guessed?’
‘Something like that.’
‘And dropped her in it, before she’d told another living soul?’
Ronnie bit her lip. ‘Possibly.’
‘It was hardly the day for it,’ Meg said quietly.
Ronnie swallowed. ‘I know, and I felt like such a bitch as soon as I’d done it. I’m so sorry, Meg, really I am. She just . . . she just needles me all the time; little sub-radar comments that I can’t call her on without looking petty or hysterical – or both. Not that that’s any excuse, I know. I’m honestly really sorry, hand on heart. I promise never to rise to her provocations again.’
Meg sighed, shaking her head. Never the twain shall meet.
‘Anyway, let’s not dwell on that horridness. Let’s only think positive thoughts this weekend. Chin-chin,’ Ronnie said, changing the subject swiftly and holding up her goblet for a toast. ‘I can’t actually believe you made it.’
‘Cheers!’ Meg smiled, clearing her mind and coming back to the present. ‘I’m so happy to be here.’
‘Well, it’s only taken six years! I guess it could have been worse.’
Meg gave a guilty look, taking a sip of her wine, but the glass was so full some of it spilled over the sides, splashing her Patagonia T-shirt.
‘And you’re still shopping where you work, I see. Clearly you’ve never heard of the Internet?’ Ronnie quipped.
Meg stuck out her tongue. ‘Ha-ha! You know perfectly well Dolores gives me a seventy per cent discount. It’s not worth going anywhere else.’
‘Oh, trust me, it so is. In fact, that’s something we can do while you’re here. I know some shops that would have great stuff for you – especially now you’re so skinny.’ She playfully squeezed Meg’s knee. ‘Although don’t get any skinnier, okay?’
‘Don’t you start,’ Meg groaned. ‘I just found out Dolores has been putting baby formula in my coffee to fatten me up!’ She grimaced. ‘I thought it tasted strange.’
Ronnie chuckled. ‘Good old Dolly.’
‘She’d kill you if she overheard you calling her that. And you don’t mess with Dolores – she bullies bears!’ Meg laughed at her own joke but there was an edge to her laughter every time she tried to make light of the incident. Dolores might be dining out on the story but the truth was, Meg saw that pale furred belly, the glistening teeth, the gruesome claws, most nights when she closed her eyes.
‘I’m glad she’s getting better.’
‘Me too. I’ve been so worried about her. I don’t think I’ve ever seen Dolores stay in one place for so long before.’
‘I’ll bet she’s driving the doctors nuts. She’s probably trying to harass her way out of there – get them so fed up of her, they discharge her just for the peace and quiet. It happens, you know.’
Meg chuckled. ‘It wouldn’t surprise me.’ She was sitting with her left arm outstretched on the back of the sofa and her gaze fell to the view outside the window.
‘Now you can see why I don’t miss the views back home,’ Ronnie said as she saw what Meg saw: row upon row of block windows, not a bird or a plant or a cloud to be seen.
‘Do you know many of your neighbours?’ Meg asked, looking upwards, the tower block rising to an eighty-degree angle before she could see sky.
‘Many? Try any?’ Ronnie shook her head. ‘It’s not like that here. People in this block are mainly young professionals like me – up early, home late, socializing elsewhere. We only really come back here to sleep.’
‘And that’s OK?’
‘It is what it is.’
Meg looked back around the apartment. Apart from the red blocky sofa-bed, there was a tufted multicoloured replica of a Moroccan Aziz rug on the floor and some black-and-white framed Steven Meisel prints on the walls, along with an anatomical poster showing a dissected brain. A pair of running trainers peeped out of a rattan shoe-storage box by the bin beside the fridge, and the blue duvet for the mezzanine bed bulged slightly through the wooden balustrades.
‘You should at least get a plant.’
‘What? To remind me of home?’
‘No, for company!’ Meg was beginning to giggle.
‘Best not – it wouldn’t do much for my professional reputation. I hear people don’t like their doctors to be unable to keep things alive.’
They laughed again.
‘You know, it’s been so long since we’ve had any proper time, just the two of us, I’d almost forgotten how much we laugh together,’ Ronnie sighed, resting her head in her hand.
Meg wrinkled her nose. ‘Sorry. That’s my fault.’
‘No, it isn’t.’
‘Come on, I’ve hardly been fun to be around these past four months.’
‘It would have been creepy if you were,’ Ronnie said, squeezing her knee. ‘I just meant, I always seem to say the wrong thing when I’m back home. And that’s not on you, it’s me – it’s like I don’t fit there any more. I feel like I’ve got all these sharp edges and hard angles when I’m back. And yet, when I’m here in the city, I feel like a country girl, never quite hip enough, always turning up to the cool bar a month too late.’
‘You? But you’re so cool! Lucy and I always dissect your hairstyle and your shoes for at least a fortnight after you’ve gone.’
Ronnie glanced up from lowered eyes but looked away again. ‘Oh, I don’t think that Lucy would be seen dead in something I’ve worn.’
‘That’s where you’re wrong! She’s always asking after you, wanting to know if we’ve spoken and what you’re up to out here.’ Meg
gave a big shrug. ‘What can I say? We’re living vicariously through you.’
‘Huh,’ Ronnie snorted. ‘Well, if working nineteen-hour shifts and living in a box does it for you, go ahead, be my guest.’
‘Are you still seeing that guy?’ Meg asked, tucking her knees in tighter.
‘Which one?’
‘The trainee fishmonger.’
‘Oh. No. Turns out our skill with a knife was about the only thing we had in common.’ Ronnie gave a laugh, dismissing the subject as she always did. ‘So what do you fancy doing tonight? Are you tired from the journey? We could do film and a takeout here. There’s a great Vietnamese place down the block. Or we could go out somewhere—’
‘“In” sounds perfect,’ Meg said quickly. ‘I’m not used to travelling so . . .’
‘Great. I’m pretty wiped myself. A night on the couch with my big sis is just the tonic. You find us a film whilst I –’ she leaned forward and poured the remains of the wine into their glasses, before padding over to the kitchen – ‘get us some more drinks.’
Meg picked up the TV remote and switched it on. Naturally, it was set to the news channel. Her sister had never watched a soap opera or reality TV show in her life. ‘What do you feel like?’ Meg asked, staring at the remote and trying to find the programmes button. Was she holding it upside down?
‘Not a horror! I know what you’re like but I see enough blood in my day job, thanks,’ Ronnie called, struggling with the wine opener.
‘Ewww, no, why would you think I’d watch something like that?’
‘Well, you always used to. Every weekend, the four of you would hide out in the den and delight in terrifying yourselves. I could hear you and Lucy screaming from my room – and I was in the roof!’
