Snow Job (28 page)

Gomer nudged him slyly. “You came back for a little more, eh?”

“I beg your pardon?”

“The babe with the high-beam headlights. Your caretaker. She been taking pretty good care of you, eh?”

Fama volat
. The rumour has wings. “I’ll not dignify that crude suggestion with a single word in response.” Instead, he’d used about a dozen.

Gomer nodded, unfazed. “Don’t worry about Gomer Goulet. He knows when to keep his mouth shut. In fact I been telling people it ain’t true.”

No one will believe it, Margaret had said. She’d been away from Garibaldi too long, lost touch.

On the porch, several locals were taking an extended noon break, with junk food, cigarettes, and the house special, well-fortified coffees that had a couple of the boys already tipsy. The poker game had finally petered out, but a checkerboard was in play.

All eyes were on Arthur as he walked in, greeting everyone by name. “Ain’t he looking all la-di-da in his city duds.” Baldy Johansson, the electrician — oddly spiteful, though Arthur couldn’t remember injuring him in any way. Ernie Priposki, who had recently retired — though from what work no one knew — was glowering at him from the checkerboard, but, oddly, the women were almost unctuous in their welcome.

“I think he looks
gorgeous
in that suit,” said Tabatha Jones, bussing him on the cheek. “You bad boy,” she whispered. Arthur went red.

Voracious Emily LeMay leaped up to fill his coffee mug. Peach brandy on her breath as she patted his rear. “You’ve lost weight, you sly old devil. Doing lots of push-ups?”

As he carried on to pick up his mail, the island seamstress, Thelma O’Dell, brushed by, so close he almost spilled his coffee. “Oh, sorry, Arthur.”

“Not at all. You look lovely in that dress.”

She lowered her eyes. “Oh, you.”

He looked back at the sullen men, offering an apologetic smile. People could think what they want, he couldn’t stop them. If those fellows wanted to believe he had hidden talents as a makeout artist, let them grind their teeth with envy. He’d not been unattractive in
his younger years — tall, rangy, considered a bit of a catch, really — and the decades had added a patina of weathered, silver-haired robustness.

“Only thing in your box is this here flyer from Starkers Cove,” Abraham Makepeace said. “Your, uh, your female associate was in already.” With voice lowered: “Her boyfriend’s back on the island. I thought I should warn you.”

Arthur nodded, made a show of being absorbed in the Starkers leaflet, a response to islanders’ concerns, rhetoric about how they respected their new neighbours, cherished this special island, and planned a development “in tune with nature,” the obligatory mantra of the uncaring developer. Everyone was invited for a ground-breaking ceremony next month. Food, wine, games for kids, the Garibaldi Highlanders, the Fensom Family Fiddlers, and a touring off-island rock band.

“They’re real nice folks.” Makepeace nodded in the direction of a rosy-cheeked couple passing out T-shirts to his customers. The shirts featured a corporate logo and two stylized unclothed, well-endowed silhouettes. “Free yourself,” said the embossed words.

“Everyone will be going,” Makepeace said.

“What happened to the protest?”

“Well, that kind of fizzled out.”

Arthur picked up a pack of pipe tobacco and strolled outside for a smoke just as Mookie Schloss alighted from her Land Rover. “He’s
back!
” That seemed overly enthusiastic. Last seen, the ex-starlet was raging at her husband over his dishonourable poker bet. “I saw you on the tube, Arthur, you looked
so
commanding.”

“And you look as radiant as ever, my dear.” Not quite — some stress lines but still darkly attractive in her middle years.

“Need a ride?”

“You’re an angel in a time of need, Mookie.”

Arthur pulled out his pipe while she ran in for groceries; she was back in minutes, showing off her new T-shirt. “Nudists giving away clothes, that’s original.” As they headed off, she said, “Margaret
must be in such a frazzle with everything that’s going on. Was she able to make it back with you?”

“I’m afraid not.”

“I guess it’s really stressful, politics. It must be hard on you guys.”

By now, Arthur was looking for double meanings in almost anything said to him. But surely Mookie was just being kind.

As she geared down for Breadloaf Hill, he checked Stoney’s lot for his old Fargo. There it was, under canvas, on blocks, and beside it,
mirabile dictu
, the rebuilt transmission! He could soon be on wheels again, though carbon-negative Zack and Savannah mocked him for having a love affair with a pickup truck.

Next door on the Shewfelts’ roof, Santa Claus sat Buddha-like, red-bulbed Rudolph leading the charge of the reindeer. The holiday season would see Margaret’s return — she’d be furious to find the island rife with repugnant rumour.

Out of the blue: “Herman and I have split up. He’s gone back to Los Angeles.”

“I’m truly sorry.”

“Oh, I’m getting by. I sometimes wish more friends would visit.”

Arthur was flustered, unsure how to respond to this obvious invitation. He stammered something nonsensical about how charming women should never lack company.

“How sweet. You have
such
an awesome way with words, so easy to talk to. Hey, if you need to lighten the load about stuff that’s bothering you, you’ll find an attentive listener in a cozy cottage on Sunrise Cove.”

What was going on here? Rampaging rumour had retooled the old duffer into the island heartthrob. He was seen as available, open to suitors’ beds, his wobbly marriage manifestly doomed. Margaret was definitely in denial with her insistence that locals would laugh off the rumour, her refusal to recognize he still held appeal to the opposite sex.

Mookie let him off at his gate with a soft kiss on stiff lips that,
with lack of use, seemed to have lost the art of puckering. The rich, womanly smell of her. Different from Margaret.

A light shower announced the arrival of a warm Pacific front with its gift of mild, sea-scented air, which Arthur sucked in greedily, relishing this reprieve from the East’s lung-searing cold. His house seemed to spread its eaves in welcome, smoke spilling from the chimney, promising the cheering solace of a blazing fireplace. The grounds appeared well tended, the lawn lush, fences in repair. Savannah had been yeomanlike in shouldering the tasks of a working farm — without much help from Zack, who’d been long absent and seemed unlikely to stick around.

Arthur could make him out in the west pasture, with the tractor, digging postholes. The post-setter, DiPalma, seemed in pain, holding his back, a greenhorn in distress. Too many hours conniving at a desk or in airplane seats.

More convoluted were the labyrinthine rigours being expended on the dock. Stoney was leaning over the water, lowering a two-by-six while shouting instructions to Dog, who was splashing about, to no apparent purpose, in a wetsuit.

Savannah trotted from the house with an umbrella, closed on him with a hug and a kiss, the second such
beneficium
in ten minutes, this one met cleanly. She seemed thinner, more sinewy.

He hoped she might say something about the Episode, about having discussed it with Margaret. But she’d rarely been forthcoming about her disorder. The rumours could not have escaped her. Instead, as she toured him about, she chronicled her run-ins with local fauna: the Great Sheep Escape, the bum-butting ram, the deer that squeezed past the garden gate.

He praised her skills at farm management. She admitted to having been less adept at local politics: apathy and promises of food, drink, and music had subverted the Norbert Road campaign.
Two of those who’d turned out for her last meeting had been wearing Starkers Cove T-shirts.

But the developers had made concessions, narrowing the swath to be cleared along Lower Mount Norbert Road.

Finally she said, softly: “I’m sorry I embarrassed you. Stoney and his big mouth.”

“Margaret thought it was funny.”

“Well, it is a lark, isn’t it?”

She laughed and took his arm, and they made their way to the house — despite his better judgment he was titillated, it was as if they were sharing an intimate conspiracy. On the veranda, as he kicked off his muddy brogans, he gestured toward Zack and Ray. “What’s up with those two?”

“They’re getting on like Batman and Robin. They’re planning some kind of political hanky-panky.”

“Like what, exactly?”

“Nothing serious, a diversion, misinformation, something to do with the tar sands. Ray’s idea. He’s pretty imaginative.”

Arthur chose his words carefully in warning that DiPalma was being checked out and asking her to be circumspect in dealing with him. “He may not be what he appears to be.”

“No kidding. He’s convinced the locals he’s queer, but that didn’t stop him making a pass at me. He’s the poor man’s James Bond — he only has a licence to fuck. Maybe he swings both ways work-wise too. One day he’s spying for them, the next day for us. I guess that’s fair. He totally admires you — or so he says.”

“I suspect he suffers some ill-defined neurosis relating to his father, but I think I’d prefer not to know the details.”

“Hey, we’re just playing him along, Zack and me. We keep testing him. He never quite gets the language of protest. With him, it’s like, ‘Down with the imperialist warmongers, power to the working class.’ With Zack, it’s a mind game, he’s enjoying Ray, and if he can’t convert him he’s going to outsmart him. It’s a kind of male thing, dogs sniffing at each other’s balls.”

Arthur decided to leave it at that — this wasn’t the time to confront DiPalma.

While Savannah went off to collect eggs, Arthur tested his club chair, which lacked its old comfortable fit. He had indeed lost weight, in the bottom and shanks. Exercise and political stress had dampened his appetite.

He put his feet up, opened his briefcase, frowned over the letter from Hanife Bejko, seeking but not finding hidden meaning. He tried to picture the southern Balkans, a region unvisited during his occasional sallies to Europe. Maybe Albania was like Garibaldi, full of sheep and characters.

He saw Stoney through the window, jumping around, holding his thumb, a mis-hit with the hammer. Dog was flopping about on the beach like a spastic seal, struggling out of his underwater gear. The workday was coming to an end.

Savannah came in, humming off key. She swung by him toward the laundry room, stripping off her T-shirt, tossing it in the hamper, lowering her jeans. Nude bending over by Degas.

There came back, suppressed till now, the tingle he’d felt on awakening beside her, her breast plump as a pillow, her cradling arm, her warm breath in his ear …

As Zack and Savannah bickered in the kitchen, Arthur and DiPalma hunkered by the fireplace, Arthur sipping tea, DiPalma wincing as he pulled the tab on a can of beer. His second. He’d chugged the first.

“It isn’t easy being green,” he said, “but it’s a darn sight harder being gay. That was not the most skilful of moves. Now I’m being courted by Kurt Zoller.”

The accordion-playing island trustee. Arthur was astonished. He’d known him for eight years, hadn’t assumed he preferred men — in fact hadn’t presumed he had any sexual leanings whatsoever.

“He wants us to come out publicly. Otherwise, I’m an object of pity more than homophobia around this island. People detour when they see me coming, especially the machos.”

“Amazing. Have you ever considered a career in theatre, Ray?”

“Played a creditable Stanley Kowalski in an Ottawa Free Theatre production. Ask your neighbour in 10C if the Alumni Theatre still remembers my ‘Mourning Becomes Electra.’” He arched his back, grimacing. “I’m a government employee — I’m used to shovelling papers.”

A secret sense of humour was unveiled. Arthur said, “I, on the other hand, am healthier now than I was in my youth. Never was much for organized sports.” He wondered if he was playing that mind game himself, the sniffing of balls.

DiPalma didn’t hesitate. “You’re looking at the man who scored the winning point in the 1990 college intramural water polo championships. Chased some pucks for the Ravens. Those days are over, alas.”