Balsam Sirens Read online

  The administration building sports that grand name because McCleod used it as his office space in Largs. It sat empty for quite a few years, was used as storage space for several local businesses for about a decade, but about ten years ago, I decided to make it available for people to operate local businesses, and it now has a small dairy and ice cream shop, a dry cleaner, and a custom furniture shop.

  Kelvin Place is a modified cottage sitting next to the western end of the administration building, and over the space of a couple of years it had finally decided on its role in life. Kelvin Place was already quite busy when we arrived, and at the height of summer the trade is heavy and constant. It has an attractive seating area outside that extends westward right to the edge of the lake embankment, this seating area now already filled by people in the metabolic low gear of summer. I drove around the square to the right of the central monument, pulled into the narrow lane that runs between the end of our big house and the garden in front of the first of the cottages to the east, and turned into the carport behind our house, thereby avoiding the unnecessary and unaesthetic impact of having a car parked in the square.

  I looked across at Andrea and she nodded, her irritation at the beginning of the trip apparently having been mollified by two hours’ passage through countryside kissed by early summer.

  “Here we are, George”, I said. “Let me show you where you’ll be sleeping, and then you and I can take a walk around the village.”

  George mumbled something incomprehensible and climbed out of the car carrying his small case. Andrea and I retrieved our things from the trunk, and I unlocked the house.

  The first thing evident as the door opened was the delicate touch of Gladys Nelson’s housework. Gladys cleans our house every week, and she somehow manages to leave behind a fresh, scented essence in the air. As we entered, Andrea and I looked around and smiled at “essence of Gladys”, and George stopped just inside the door, taking in the feeling of spacious solidity that seems to be the first impression presented to visitors by our house at Largs. I showed George his room upstairs. After making sure that he was settled and knew where things were, I walked to the other end of the house. Mild euphoria at another Largs arrival carrying me forward, I grabbed Andrea around the waist and delivered a mock passionate kiss to her neck.

  “What! Wild sex in midafternoon?” she said, without even breaking her unpacking routine.

  “Well”, I shrugged. “It’s midnight someplace.”

  We stood there for a moment, me clasping her about the waist, nose buried in her fragrant hair, both looking across our large second-floor bedroom and out through a generous window facing westward over the lake.

  “Going to soak in the pool?” I asked, releasing my grip on her waist, and moving around so we were face to face.

  “Yes”, she said as she unpacked her case mechanically.

  Andrea stopped, holding a blouse, then looked at me inquiringly.

  “What is wrong with George? I mean, is what we see just the loss of his brother?”

  “Well, as you said earlier, I don’t really know him. But I think it’s mostly due to the fact that he’s just one of those people who’ve been badly equipped for life. He doesn’t seem to understand people, either individually or collectively. He’s possibly the nearest thing to someone who ended up on the wrong planet.”

  “What does he do for a living? How on earth can he possibly get by at all?”

  I shrugged as preamble. “From what I know, he works in a stockroom. He probably doesn’t have to talk to anyone from one day to the next. It might be that his brother was the only other human he felt comfortable with, and now that Harold is gone … well …”

  Andrea stared off hopelessly into space for a moment, then slowly carried on unpacking.

  “I’m going to take George for a walk around the village, try to make him feel at least somewhat at home. Then I’ll go for my swim.”

  Andrea nodded, still distracted.

  “I said that we would meet Kate at about five thirty. Is that okay for you?”

  “Yes”, she said, still looking absent. “Oh! Yes, Kate!” suddenly recognizing a prospect that shook off her current distraction, brought a smile to her face and gave the day new direction.

  A few minutes later, George and I were strolling through the streets of Largs. We made a first ritual stop at Kelvin Place, and the proprietor, Ken Jacobsen, greeted us warmly. Ken had taken over what had been called, unenterprisingly, The Largs Café, run by one Kelvin Garratt. Kelvin didn’t really have his heart in it, and he hadn’t made the connections among the name Largs, his own name, and Lord Kelvin. Ken spotted those links right away, and in a sort of double word game had renamed the restaurant Kelvin Place. In just a few short weeks, Ken had breathed new life into the joint. He had bought new and very colourful umbrellas for the lakeside patio, applied for and been granted a liquor licence, and had got my ready agreement to build a small parking area, just off Arran Street, where people coming from outside Largs could park. And very soon people did come from outside Largs because Ken had put the word out in all the local villages that Kelvin Place was open for business. Trade had jumped immediately.

  Ken and I chatted for a few minutes. I bought a couple of bottles of water for George’s and my walk, promised to come back later, and then George and I continued our stroll around Largs.

  It was impossible to pass by the Nelsons’ house without Gladys doing a “Yoohoo!” from her front door, and soon she and her husband James (who was “Jimmy” to her and only to her) and I were deep into an impromptu chat next to her glorious flower beds. Gladys and James had come to Largs about four years previously, when James was packaged out of an accounting firm, and he then turned full-time to his consuming hobby: woodcarving and woodworking. But James’ woodworking was far more than just tinkering in wood. In two years, he had built a reputation for elegant pieces both large and small, and he was now working mostly on commissions booked through his website. In his “spare time”, he did small jewellery boxes, book ends, chopping boards, and other items that appeared in shops all through the local area. I had commissioned a large salad bowl and individual salad dishes. I promised to come back later and have a look at his latest work that was taking shape in his workshop behind the house.

  Although it was too late to think of doing it now, I still itched to ask if his middle initial, H, stood for Horatio. But he had probably been asked that a thousand times, and if he really was James Horatio, he might be reluctant to get into the whole matter.

  In the middle of the village, George and I visited the school, also constructed in stone by old McCleod. It was an exceedingly attractive little building, although it hadn’t been used as a school for more than forty years since students began being bused to the new regional school in Coboconk. The little school sat vacant for about four days, and then the local bridge club claimed it. Just a few years ago, there had been no schoolchildren in Largs at all, and I remembered clearly an earlier time, just after I had finished university, when, similarly, there were no children in the village. The population of Largs was greying rapidly then, and the fear at the time was that the village itself would just slide into senility along with its occupants. But then something extraordinary happened.

  A man called Leslie Machacek had bought a minority interest in the Rosedale marina, and had chosen Largs as the place he wanted to live with his wife and three small children. Within a year, three more young families had bought in the village, and I had joined a group of men who decided that the rundown play area beside the little stone school needed to be brought back for use by all these children. New swings, a couple of new seesaws, a wooden carousel, and a huge new sandbox were soon in daily use. A similar initiative a few months later had installed bookcases and tables and chairs inside the little school, creating a library and indoor play area. The streets of Largs suddenly were filled once again by the laughter and chattering of children. That alone revived the place as nothing else could. I s
topped near the playground and chatted to a few parents who were sitting in the sun while their children were covering themselves in sand and grass stains.

  Carrying on, I waved at Harvey Wilder, a retired lawyer, a dynamo at any party, and a man who seemed to have a bottomless store of lawyer jokes. Next to Wilder lived Alexander Regan, an aspiring writer who kept handing out drafts of Chapter 1 of his novel for people to review, but as far as I was aware nobody had ever seen a Chapter 2. Further along the same street, Beech Avenue, lived three families of salt-of-the-earth people. It had taken me a good six months to make them feel comfortable enough to join me at Kelvin Place for a beer, and now they were happy to exchange smiles and waves.

  George and I walked the perimeter of the village. To the west, everything in the village is bounded, ultimately, by the shore of the lake. Apart from Arran Street, all the other streets are named after trees. Two of the streets are dead ends. At two locations in the village, two streets angle to a common intersection at a third street, one of these spots being at the southern edge of the village, the other at the eastern edge. Further south and east beyond the limits of the village are wheat fields. To the north, the village boundary, in terms of streets, is defined by Hemlock Street, and along its length it is joined at odd angles by three other streets. To the north of Hemlock Street there are three well-spaced cottages, between which are flower and vegetable gardens. Behind these cottages, further to the north, is an orchard of apple and pear trees that fills up the space between the backs of the cottages and Arran Street. To the north of Arran Street there is a narrow strip of wild grassland, the remains of a fieldstone fence, and then a dense cedar forest. Quite a lot of the land McCleod owned originally was sold off, but the fields immediately to the south and east are owned by Andrea and me, and we rent them out at a pittance to local farmers. The area to the north is also our land, and Jimmy and I prune the maples along Arran Street every autumn.

  The stone cottages in the village are a good size, mostly built to a common design, and individually and collectively they are delightful. Several are covered, to varying degrees, in ivy, others sport trellises garbed in climbing roses and clematis, and one cottage has a large espalier apple that occupies almost its entire south-facing wall. At one time, there were several large elms, but they have now gone. The current population of large trees is mostly maple, although there are quite a few oaks and beeches, as well as two handsome old black locust trees, their long fronds hanging in languorous elegance, and seeming to make a statement of lushness not provided by the contrasting darker green of the maple leaves.

  George had become noticeably more relaxed, and looked around in a gaze that spoke of interest rather than the fear of being hunted.

  “Nice, isn’t it?” I said.

  George nodded. “Yes”, he said, eventually.

  “Where are you from, George?”

  “I was … we were … Owen Sound.”

  “Ah! Billy Bishop country!” I said with some enthusiasm, but George’s blank look indicated that he was as disconnected from the past as from the present. We walked on.

  There is such a thing as a city state of mind, and it’s a natural response to, perhaps partly a defence against, the speed, the noise, the tempo, and the psychic stress that can be imposed by a large city. As always happens for me after our arrival in Largs, that state of mind quickly fades and is replaced by the soft metronomic tick of Largs and the countryside. I can see it in the slow swaying of trees, of branches, in the nodding of flowers, in the waves making their slow progress across the wheat, in the quiet ripple in the sea-green canopy above me, and in the apparently happy chatter of birds safe in their perches. I couldn’t detect any evident change in George that might be attributed to being in the country, but then I didn’t really know him at all. He did seem to me an unhappy person, and perhaps a good dose of the peace and quiet of the country … Largs is the water, I thought, and George is the horse. I’ve brought him here. I can’t do more.

  We had reached the eastern edge of the village, where the land rises toward the end of Hemlock Street, and we looked out over the wheat field. The stalks had reached almost their full height, but the flower and seed heads were still green. We had been standing there for some time, just looking out over the wheat, which was drenched in sun, and evidently home to large populations of grasshoppers and crickets. I turned westward, and let my gaze wander over the stone cottages, jumbled happily in semi-disorder.

  “You … like it … here?” I was surprised more by George taking the conversational initiative than by what he had said.

  “I love it here, George. This is my home.” I had no real knowledge of my mother, could not picture her in my mind, and knew her just as a vague presence. I had only the two photos of her, neither of them clear or flattering, and no photos of my father. Mrs. Hastings had communicated to me a great deal of her feelings, her friendship, for my mother, and it was from this that I derived some sense, not quite direct, of parental connection. There had been times when I felt twinges of regret at not having known a mother in the intimate way other boys did, but over the years my connection to Largs grew, in compensation I suppose, as the dominant link to my past. I learned to love the place deeply, at several levels. Still love it. The loss of dear Mrs. Hastings, coming relatively late and well beyond my adolescence, hadn’t exactly knocked the props from beneath me, although it had been felt keenly.

  “Do you remember Owen Sound, George?”

  “I … my brother … we fished. In Georgian Bay. We had … we built … a tree shack. We had … our bicycles. Yes … I …”

  George had slept almost the entire way to Largs. I think he had no real notion of where he was. There was no risk of him striking up a conversation with anybody he didn’t already know, but I hoped, although I wasn’t confident, that he wouldn’t realize that he was on the edge of Balsam Lake, where his brother had died. Neither Andrea nor I would let on, and maybe we would get through a few days without him learning where he was.

  At some point, probably early the following Monday, I would need to take him back to Toronto. Although I had alerted the lawyer, Hawley, about Harold’s place being turned over, and he had said he would report it to the police, and although I had contacted Cromarty separately to let him know where we were, I still had some concerns about returning George to Toronto and leaving him there alone. But there wasn’t much choice. George had a job to go to. He couldn’t just hide indefinitely at Largs, and it was my hope that he would go back to Toronto at least a bit more relaxed and a bit less anxious. In short, I was having trouble seeing how to tie off this whole George loose end thing, in either the near term or the longer term. The only option, really, was to get to the bottom of things, of Harold’s “accident”, as soon as possible, take the fight to the enemy, so to speak. Whoever the enemy might be.

  George and I wandered back through the village, and I waved to several people out tending their lawns and gardens. I stopped to say hello to Wally Harris, rotund and pink-cheeked, the man whose food counter always had available the elements essential for cottage life: steaks, chops, chicken pieces, sausages, hamburger meat, and the usual staples: bread, milk, eggs, bacon, and coffee. As we completed our tour and approached our house, I suggested a few things George could do while he was in Largs apart from just resting, including looking through the several dozen books that were in his room, going for a swim, or just sitting or lying in the shade out behind our house. As had been Andrea’s and my intention, the house, carport, shrubs, hedges, a couple of large trees, and boathouse – belonging to Andrea and me but used by Harvey Wilder – all conspired to make the grassy area behind the house entirely secluded. After a period of dithering, George said he would prefer just to sit in his room for a while. I made sure he knew where the kitchen was, and that he should just help himself, then I went to shed the constraints of my travelling clothes for the freedom of my swimming trunks. Andrea was flopped in the pool, eyes closed, well on the way to being completely
unwound. The grass was cool and sweet underfoot. The gentle fingers of sun and light breeze touched my skin in a rippling caress. Small waves met the shore and spoke to me in our own private dialect.

  Arrival at Largs means many things for me. But a primary ritual is to stand looking out over the lake ready for my first swim.

  And once again, it didn’t disappoint. Scaling the ladder down the embankment and onto the shore, I let the water wash over my feet and ankles for a few moments, then waded out before starting off on my triangular course, swimming out to the left at about forty-five degrees to the shore. This first leg would end when I could see past the promontory to my left to another point of land further along. I would then turn to the right, swimming parallel to the shore and about two hundred metres out into the lake, until I came level with the far end of the administration building. I would then turn to the right again, and aim at the ladder I had climbed down earlier. The entire circuit takes me about twenty-five minutes.

  The lake always receives me in a way that is very complex: some combination of a return to the womb, the embrace of a lover, the smile of a lifelong friend, the eager greeting of a drinking partner, the laughter of a child, the challenge of an intellectual equal, the welcome of Manitou. Although this is a ritual I have done hundreds of times, it is always new. As I swam, rocks drifted by slowly about ten feet below me on the lake bed. Sunlight animated the water in large steeply angled bars that tumbled and shimmered. Water sluiced past my head, over neck and shoulders, and, along with the rhythm of crawl and breathing, converted my glide along the surface into a quiet waltz. Just me and the lake. Approaching the shore again, but still ten metres or so out, I lowered my legs and stood on silty rocks, the water about chest deep. To my right, a film of water slipped over the edge of the infinity pool and slid down the smooth concrete surface, angled slightly outward, eventually to rejoin the lake water. Directly ahead of me, the steeple of the small church rose up, a dominant feature in the –