“Bad as that, is it? I’ll watch myself. What’s Millionaires’ Row?”
“That’s where the first families from the south, both Americans and Canadians, built their rather glorious summer homes. Mowed lawns down to the docks, whitepainted rocks, big verandahs and probably antique tickertapes under bell jars in the studies. Lots of them were top executives of big corporations. They’d come by train to Gravenhurst and be met by their private launches.”
“Like Wanda III?”
“Like Wanda I, II and III.”
“Interesting piece of local history. Thanks. Sorry I interrupted your instructions. After I pass the turnoff to Millionaires’ Row?”
“You’re looking for Evans’s Marina on this bay where the fold crosses. You see the red square? That’s Ifor Evans’s little goldmine. He spells Ivor with an f, for some reason. He services most of the boats on the row and winters the boats that don’t have their own boathouses. The ice up here after Christmas is murder on anything built on the water, Benny. Most of the people on the row lift their boats out of their slips with a vertical hoist, then lower them to rest on beams placed across the slips.”
“Like placing a casket above an open grave, with tapes laid out for the lowering.”
“Huh? Why, yes. Yes. I hadn’t thought of it like that. Have you been up on Lake Muskoka before this, Benny?” She was naturally and warmly curious about people; I didn’t get the impression that Norma had taken a course in public relations, even when she was trying hard not to look directly at my black eye.
Thirty-five minutes after the maps had been re-creased and returned to a plastic waterproof pouch, which she lent me, I was parking my car at the marina in Segwin Bay, looking across at the long promontory known as Moosehead Point. Ifor Evans, if that was he, was sorting out a package of stale worms with a large ruddy-faced man in a red plaid shirt and khaki shorts.
“Well, I’ll talk to them, Mr. Prendergast. I will. They’re sold to me as fresh, and if they ain’t fresh, that’s a fraud plain and simple. Here, let me get you your money back. No sense paying-”
“You hang on to the money, Ifor. You know I’ve got no complaint against you. I’ve known you for over twenty years.”
“That’s right. I remember your father and mother very well, Mr. Prendergast. Often think of ’em, yes, I do.”
“Dad was like a hound in rut every spring, Ifor. Couldn’t talk straight about anything else. ‘Is the ice out of Segwin Bay yet, Ollie?’ ‘Do you think the old roof held up through that bad patch of heavy snow in late February? Maybe I should call Ifor just to be sure.’ Oh, he loved these rocks up here something terrible.” Mr. Evans was eyeing me over the ample scarlet back of Ollie Prendergast. He was a tall, skinny man with wet grey hair plastered over a bare dome and large, almost pointed ears. His narrow chest looked as though it needed a smaller T-shirt. Both the cap on the counter and the shirt broadcast the name of a Texas oil company.
When Prendergast had stepped back into his mahogany open launch and puffed a few billows of yellow smoke towards me, Mr. Evans waved a bony hand, then looked at me. “What can I do for you?” he said.
“You know Vanessa Moss?” I asked. Abruptly, Evans shifted from my side of the counter to the business side.
“Oh, there’s a lot of people come in and out of here, mister.”
“I’ll bet. Norma McArthur says you’ve got a good thing going here.”
“Norma McArthur’s not starving either. You can tell her that from me. She doesn’t have an empty cabin from July to October and that’s a fact.” He hadn’t moved during this sudden, viper-like attack, but continued to study my face like it was a chart of a dangerous passage.
“About Vanessa Moss,” I said, trying to look relaxed. “I work for her, and I’d like to rent a canoe to get over to her place.”
“She give you keys?”
“I know where she keeps ’em.” He was still sizing me up and not worrying much about being subtle. My knowing about the keys was a mark in my favour. He didn’t show that I’d passed a test, but he wasn’t watching me so closely after that. “You have a canoe for rent, Mr. Evans? I won’t need it for more than a couple of hours.”
“You’re not staying the night, then?” Information is power, and information is formed from trifles such as this.
“No, I don’t think I will this time. Maybe later in the summer. How’s the fishing been?” I didn’t know much about fish, but I was able to affect an interest for Mr. Evans. His monosyllabic answers to my questions suggested that he hated the slippery subject. One carton of bad worms could do it to him. Or maybe he just didn’t want to waste his breath on a customer who only wanted to rent a canoe. He slipped his cap over his bald head and headed out the door.
“This way,” he said without turning around. I picked up the pack I’d slipped my maps into and followed him to the side of the marina building, the part that faced away from the dock. “This thing passes for a canoe. She leaves it here. You know how to run ’er?” I could feel that he was going to have fun with me about my naval skills, but he was only going through the motions. There was no audience. As he lifted the green shell with its yellow interior, I could imagine him with an audience of cronies at his back. “You wear shoes like that when you go boating, boy?” The bite was there, but it was only-what’s the word? — perfunctory. Evans didn’t seem to enjoy his work the way Norma McArthur did. What was a strayed puritan doing in vacationland?
While he was feeding the length of the canoe out into the water beside his low dock, I slipped out of my shoes and pulled off my socks. I placed the paddle across the gunwales and placed one foot after the other into the centre of the craft, kneeling with my butt supported by one of the thwarts. I thought that by not sitting in the sternsman’s seat, by playing the rules I remembered from Camp Northern Pine, I might score points even with Ifor Evans. Of course, he’d be the last person in the world to be impressed.
It had been several years since my knees had felt the ribs of a canoe cutting into them. I didn’t try to put a date on it. I still remembered how to twist my paddle stroke at the conclusion of each stroke to keep me going in a straight line. But which straight line? I was heading towards the middle of the headland in front of me, when I heard a shout behind me. Evans was standing on the end of the dock, his cap had been pulled off his head and he was pointing much farther to the right. I waved my thanks and corrected my navigation. I must have got it right, because the next time I looked back at the marina, Evans had vanished.
There wasn’t a lot of water to cut across. I probably could have walked through the woods and got there in about the same time, but this was fun, and there isn’t all that much fun in what I do, so I grab the moments when they appear.
I was on the water for less than twenty minutes. A proper canoeist could have done it in ten, and a powerboat could have sliced half of that time away. I took my heading on a brown inverted V I could see half-buried in greenery. As I got closer, it grew into the sort of cottage I had been expecting. I tried to remember the name she had called it; something with an Indian flavour. A few moments later, I could see a sign: Puckwana. It was painted in fading white on the side of a short cliff on the east end of the property. Between it and a small wooden dock lay a sandy beach. I headed the canoe there and gave a few strong strokes to bring the canoe as far up the beach as possible. I still wet my feet in the chilly sand. I pulled the bow higher out of the water and considered turning the thing over. I didn’t bother: Ifor Evans couldn’t see this far.
The cottage looked about eighty years old, but it was hard to judge such things this far north, where the winters are severe and the maintenance is neglected. It stood about twenty metres back from the shoreline, with bush around all sides, and about the same distance above the lake. I climbed first up that forty-five-degree slant on a path cut into the red soil and marked by whitewashed rocks, and then up rickety steps to the screened-in porch, which wrapped around three sides. I remembered where the keys were hidden and found them without having to send up an S.O.S. flare. Inside the screens, chairs, all high-backed, and some of them rockers, invited the visitor to relax to watch the way the light hits the water from this height.