Whatever Lola Wants (52 page)

Over the roar of the engine Sarah shouted, “They use herbicides to keep the ground under the lines plant-free! Contaminated half the wells in the bedrock two hundred miles to the dams!”

“Terrific!” Ever well-versed, was Sarah. Well, good for her.

As for Carney, right then he beseeched the demons in the plane's single engine to keep them aloft. Though he'd logged thousands of hours flying time and was a first-class pilot, small planes still scared him.

They came down on one of the thirty-plus arms of the Gouin Reservoir, a dammed and flooded river system. The banks had been Indian land, still were Sarah told him, but a lot of first nations acreage now sat under water. Politics aside, here lay a magnificent wilderness, heavily wooded in all directions, the Canada of Carney's childhood imagination. The sense of calm was pervasive. They located the cottage they'd rented, from the shoreline no other units visible. They also had a fifteen-foot aluminum boat with a 9.9-horse engine, good power given the potential for two- to three-foot swells.

The lake if not teeming with fish was at least rich enough to satisfy a greedy angler: sixteen walleye the first day, and five pike, the largest nine pounds, a majestic fighter. Carney used his barbless hooks and kept a couple of doré to eat. This far north and this late in the season only a few blackflies remained. Carney didn't kill many, Sarah none.

How about bringing back a water sample, Carney? But why know the worst when the beauty here was so wide-reaching.

He offered her a bite of doré fried in garlic butter. She stayed with her vegetables. Carney put a piece on her plate. She looked at it. She seemed tempted. A weak moment. He would try: “Don't be atoning for setting anthills on fire. Or your husband's death.”

She stared at the fish. “Don't spoil it, Carney.”

“Then tell me.”

“It was such an—unnecessary accident.”

“How do you know?”

Her eyes never left the fish. “So much of death is. Premature.”

“I think you're doing penance.” He hesitated. “A decade and a half of penance.”

She looked his way at last. “A decade—” Crimson rushed to her cheeks. “What?”

“When you were seventeen.”

She thought. “My abortion.”

He nodded.

She stared at his face, searching again. Then at the cold fried fish. She sat that way a long time. He came up behind her, put his hand on her hair. No reaction, no resistance. He cleared the table but left her plate. He boiled water, washed dishes. She didn't move. She said, “Would you—heat up that piece of fish for me?”

It crackled lightly in the butter. The garlic came alive again. He gave her the crispy doré.

She ate it, five tiny bites. “I wonder how rich the mercury content is,” she said.

They went to bed, made the best of love, held each other. Over the next days she ate no more fish. Nor mentioned the conversation.

The pervasive calm of the wilderness was replaced by a mighty storm, black sheets of rain. So they spent the afternoon in bed, hours of delicate exploration, responsible only to the moment and each other. Carney rediscovered, and discovered, some remarkable pleasures. The body even after the half-century mark was not too old to learn. Though it, at least Carney's, had come to feel the wear.

The next day from morning to night they trolled or cast. By late afternoon she admitted a fishy strike from the depths did send a thrill through her. Carney had her hooked, yes he did. They released all she caught. Including a pike longer and heavier than Carney's big one; at the end she let her line go slack and the fish, near three feet long, parallel to the side of the boat, shook his immense snout, spat out the red and white Dardevle and glided, peaceful, into black water.

The evenings too were fine. Even Sarah's beans and grains, cooked over a wood fire, tasted grand. They talked as if compensating for early silences. No one mentioned penance.

After the rainstorm, calm had returned. Monday morning, floating, the motor cut, the sun high overhead, a carnal urge came into their minds at the same instant and they committed, across the seat of their round-bottomed boat, lustful and voluptuous love. Without falling overboard. Three blackflies drew blood from Carney's butt.

Later Sarah covered the bloated bites with her special lotion. “A sexy horny new strain of blackfly coming into the world,” she divined. Even with the goo, the bites itched.

In the evening they sat staring into the fire. She pulled close to him and took his hand. “I'm the world's biggest blackfly.” She bit his neck, gently. “What's it like, Carney blood?”

He laughed. “Like Sarah blood.”

She shook her head, “Nope,” played with his fingers, her eyes examined his nails, his knuckles. “Blood with one name.” His right thumb so fascinated her she had to taste it.

The wicked witch incarnate.

She stroked his cheek, testing it.

She wouldn't dare. “Sarah we could go—ow!”

“Carney blood.” She nibbled his earlobe. Bit. An intake of breath, no other response. She stared.

He got up.

“Going somewhere?”

“For a bit of air.”

She thought: almost okay. “Can I come with you?”

He nodded. She walked with him down to the water's edge. He stared out over the silent lake for a long time. At last he put his arm over her shoulder. She held him to her tight.

In bed the last morning Sarah said, “Fish or fuck?”

“How about putting both on the agenda?”

“And a little foretalk?”

Carney felt the tic of Mot. “Sure.”

“When you first came to my cottage and you sat so silent, what were you thinking?”

“Oh, figuring out what you were thinking.”

“All the time?”

“Till I gave up. You baffled me.”

She laughed, pinched him.

“Ow! I've only got one of those.”

“And then?”

“I let my mind take its own chaotic course.”

She grinned. “Good.”

“And you? What was in your silence?”

“You.”

Carney pulled back and looked at her. “Already?”

“Not in that way. Just nice not to have to talk all the time.”

“Hmm.” He drew close again.

“Silence has gone out of style. You didn't mind being quiet. Even with someone you barely knew.”

“Clever, right?”

“Very.” She paused. “You know how to listen. Which isn't the same as staying quiet.”

That stopped the conversation. They went on to item two. Calm hung misty about them.

They fished, they caught and released, they packed, they loaded the plane. “Next time let's go farther north, right up to Hudson Bay.”

“Not if you want to eat what you catch.”

Memory tickled. “Mercury?”

She nodded. “All that land flooded for the power dams. Chemicals from the drowned trees leach mercury out of the rock. Rock that's been stable millions of years, till now.”

Tuesday afternoon they flew away, over hundreds of lakes looking virgin from the air, down the power-line corridor, passing Montreal, Burlington, to the Carney and Co. float plane dock. Sarah left for her lab.

5.

On his answering machine at
the farmhouse Carney found a dozen messages, including one from Karl. “Give me a call, come up for lunch tomorrow.” And one from Milton. He sounded upset. “You have time? I'd like to show you something.”

Did he have time? Didn't he once have some other life? He called Milton. “What's up?”

“More Intraterra mail. I'll bring it over to you.”

Serious, if Milton would leave Theresa for so long. Carney gave him directions.

Milton arrived, Carney poured them a Scotch. “All day Theresa was in a great mood, jovial. She talked and talked. Slow, but what an improvement.” Milton, right now happy.

“Good.” Carney sipped.

“And she's reading. She asked Feasie for books. Those movies she's been watching, remember that actress Lola? Theresa reread two Lola biographies.” He grinned weakly.

“Long as it cheers her up.”

Milton showed Carney two letters, one another offer, but fifty thousand less. The second a response from Aristide Boce, beneath the quality/quantity piety: We fear it will be inappropriate to invite you to Terramac. Thank you for your interest. Sincerely.

Carney handed them back. “Okay, so it's okay.”

“Theresa was furious. So bad for her. Why won't Cochan stop these offers?”

“Why don't you just ignore them? Come September, the hearing'll take place. We'll know what's going on down there, and everything will change.”

Milton sighed, and gazed at Carney. Like Sarah's exploring stare. Milton said, “I even asked Karl to talk to Cochan. But he refuses. He says Cochan and he have personal differences. I didn't know they'd ever met.”

Carney shook his head.

“If Theresa learned about the new offer she'd grab the shotgun, ride her chair all the way there.”

Theresa roaring down the highway, grunting, firing in the air on the road to Terramac. Carney felt what Milton wanted, go back to Richmond, say to Handy Johnnie blunt and clear, Back off! “When you asked me before to talk to Cochan again—”

“Could you?”

So innocently asked. He expected, on Milton's face, a smile: Thanks for volunteering. What Carney saw was fear.

Milton left. The Gouin foreboding calm was back, double-bite. Carney tried to repress it by scratching at the cello. He slept but was haunted by dreams of multi-ton steamrollers driven by demons, of a man in an airplane, a small Cochan chasing a boy on the ground who wasn't quite Carney, of roach caverns under Bewdley's apartment willing him down, a plexiglass coal-chute plunging him into the bowels of Terramac.

He spent the morning catching up on Carney and Co. business. Remarkable how easily it ran on without him. An appointment with Cochan? No, just show up. He reached Richmond at three. Close to Sarah's cottage. But she'd be at her lab.

He entered the ex-church and spoke to a young woman with green fingernails. Yes, Mr. Cochan was in, he was busy. Carney gave his name, said he'd wait, could she inform Cochan, please?

Carney waited. Cochan at his desk picked up the phone. The receptionist pointed up the nave. Carney walked with care.

Beyond the glass Cochon waited, sitting behind his desk. He let Carney open the door. He waved Carney to the chair opposite. He said, “There's only one thing I want from you.”

Carney waited.

“Tell me they accept my offer.”

Carney's head shook. “It won't happen.”

“Oh, it will.” Cochan smiled. “One day very soon they'll understand my Terramac. Their love for it will be as great as mine.”

Carney stood. “Drop it, Cochan. The water, the fish. You've messed up an ecology you swore to improve. The court order's on its way and the whole of your Terramac is at the brink of being closed down.” What he had to say was spoken. “Unless you invite me to go down there. If there's nothing, I can tell them, and there'll be no need for the court order.”

“Go down into our Terramac,” said Cochan, but Carney was already standing, turning, by the door.

Carney stopped. “Yes?”

“Nothing. Nothing, nothing.” But Cochan's mind whispered, If they come to Terramac I'll show them everything.

Carney passed down the old nave. Cochan's eyes bored ice through his shoulder blades.

Carney was gone. A good thing, changing one's notions. The Magnussens would observe with their own eyes, their very own eyes, why they would want to sell. He watched Carney close the church doors behind him. “Thank you,” Cochan whispered at Carney's disappeared back.

6.

Milton saw a smile suggesting
bright pleasure on Theresa's face. He wanted to share it but she, off in one of her private moments, ignored him.

Be gentler to him, Theresa.

I will, Lola. Real soon.

Don't wait, old woman. Very soon Handy Johnnie will be ours. We've nearly got him.

Yep. The slug in his hole.

And how will we do it? With your grabbin' foil, what delicate fast sword is that?

Leave me be, Lola. I've got to think. Create the chance.

How?

Remember the important, forget the trivial. Love old Milton, that's important. Ti-Jean and Feasie and the lodge, important. Both Noodles, yes. And Sarah, she's coming by today.

With Carney?

No. But he's important too. Advantage of getting old, with a stroke or two you separate what's valuable from the other stuff, little stuff. Never again deal with the rest, haha. Laughing, that's pretty good, why'd I used to laugh so little? Such questions when you get old.

Do you care?

No. Ha!

And what do you want?

What's most important? A little obliteration.

Sounds like fun.

Yeah, destruction's the perfect joke.

Yours, Theresa?

You got it.

Like in the earliest of days? When all of chaos roared as one? 'Twas massive laughter that gave birth to life itself. Before the first Immortal drew a breath.

Let's go for it.

How?

“Hello, Theresa.”

“I'm in the middle of something, wait a minute.” (“Aynheng an ilo ungheng, whay a ninihd.”)

“Middle of what?”

“Shh. Sit down.” (“Ghgh. Ghidh owhn.”)

Sarah sat on the couch. Theresa, upright in her chair, truly looked as if someone were talking to her, describing wonders. Her face on the side that moved was so animated, lithe, the same half grin as while she watched her movies. A couple of times her shoulder wagged, laughter taking over whatever body parts could budge. What goes on in a mind after a stroke?

Strangest of all, she pursed her lips, the right side, and seemed to be kissing the air. Weird. Then tranquillity. In some curious way she was, yes, glowing. Ease, even peace, and a pleasure about her face. On the mend? Or going crazy.