things, Antiques, she said, are for museums, not my house. Anna’s taste for them had come from her father, Give me something from way back, he would say, give me a little history at least. She remembered him fondly in his little studio redolent of pot smoke, his chair swivelled toward the big window looking out at misted redwoods, the tall, glistening ferns, his eyes shut as he leaned back into the sounds of an LP from his early days as a man, maybe some Brubeck, Gerry Mulligan, Artie Shaw. What’s that burny smell, Dad? Anna had said the first time she walked in on him. He’d answered, That’s exhaust from my time machine, sweetheart.
Once lit, the lamp was as she’d hoped, almost ridiculously cheerful, the room blessed with soothing colours, an artful mosaic, from another place.
She would take a long walk tomorrow morning, early, a long way down the shore, beyond Red Murdock’s, and then, carrying whatever she found, she would get back to work.
What do you think, Willard? Could we cross that ice?
Give me a good bushline and I’d cross over anywhere, Donald John.
Below them, out the magnificent new window, the strait was not frozen but scattered with pan ice barely moving.
Who’d you trust anyway to put down a bushline now? Kids don’t know any of that. Can’t wipe their arse without instructions.
And who would walk it if it was froze like the old days? All driving now, and the bridge.
Remember when that young MacKillop fella drove into a hole? Forty-eight Chevrolet, I think.
Forty-nine. Didn’t my dad tell him, Son, he said, don’t take that car across tonight, there’s bad patches on that ice, I can’t tell you just where either. Well, now, he wasn’t going to listen. Off he went, him and his buddies, drunk and saucy, the lot of them. My dad watched, right here at the old window, saw the headlight beams bouncing along, then just tail lights. Jesus, he whispered, they’re turning east, there’s open water there, and into it they went, disappeared in the dark, he could just make out the lights sinking, blurry, then nothing. Like seeing a boat sink fast, those tail lights red under water, but not for long. Not a soul could help them.
Never found the car. Like new, that car. Kind of a maroon. White sidewalls. You’ d have to be mad now to drive across.
Mad, yes, we’re too damned old.
Oh, if you had the right car. Some fancy wheels yesterday down at Sandy’s old place.
The party house?
German car. Dirty from the road but big and black, powerful. Who’s got the money for that?
Mercedes-Benz. Outside money.
Somebody’s been out west maybe.
Fellas from here, they don’t buy that kind of car out west. They want a big fat truck all dressed out.
Ones coming out of the house were pretty well-dressed themselves. Hats with brims.
Car like that one calls for a brim. Breagh would make you one.
If I was a harlequin, I’d ask her to. Sew me up a hat, Breagh, dear, all colours and feathers and such.
She’d do it, that pretty girl.
Yes, Willard said, nodding, his eyes on the snow bluing into dusk. A ‘49 Chev is what she was. Wine colour. Shine up? Oh, my dear.
X.
W HEN A NNA FELT STRONG and steady again, she called Red Murdock to thank him, tell him she was okay, warm and normal, as she put it. But he sounded stiff on the phone, distant, as if he hadn’t expected a call or didn’t welcome one, not at all as he’d been in her kitchen that night. Puzzled, a bit hurt, she skipped the ritual about weather, thanked him for sending Breagh, and wished him a good day, thinking in the same breath, how California. She wanted to invite him for a meal, but maybe even rescuing a woman from a frozen pond had not closed the space between them, now the crisis had cooled.
Anna was released into her work nevertheless, eager for it, she sorted and refined her sketches, leafed through the animal drawings she might send to Melissa, a series she could extend if other creatures came her way. There were tracks
Once lit, the lamp was as she’d hoped, almost ridiculously cheerful, the room blessed with soothing colours, an artful mosaic, from another place.
She would take a long walk tomorrow morning, early, a long way down the shore, beyond Red Murdock’s, and then, carrying whatever she found, she would get back to work.
What do you think, Willard? Could we cross that ice?
Give me a good bushline and I’d cross over anywhere, Donald John.
Below them, out the magnificent new window, the strait was not frozen but scattered with pan ice barely moving.
Who’d you trust anyway to put down a bushline now? Kids don’t know any of that. Can’t wipe their arse without instructions.
And who would walk it if it was froze like the old days? All driving now, and the bridge.
Remember when that young MacKillop fella drove into a hole? Forty-eight Chevrolet, I think.
Forty-nine. Didn’t my dad tell him, Son, he said, don’t take that car across tonight, there’s bad patches on that ice, I can’t tell you just where either. Well, now, he wasn’t going to listen. Off he went, him and his buddies, drunk and saucy, the lot of them. My dad watched, right here at the old window, saw the headlight beams bouncing along, then just tail lights. Jesus, he whispered, they’re turning east, there’s open water there, and into it they went, disappeared in the dark, he could just make out the lights sinking, blurry, then nothing. Like seeing a boat sink fast, those tail lights red under water, but not for long. Not a soul could help them.
Never found the car. Like new, that car. Kind of a maroon. White sidewalls. You’ d have to be mad now to drive across.
Mad, yes, we’re too damned old.
Oh, if you had the right car. Some fancy wheels yesterday down at Sandy’s old place.
The party house?
German car. Dirty from the road but big and black, powerful. Who’s got the money for that?
Mercedes-Benz. Outside money.
Somebody’s been out west maybe.
Fellas from here, they don’t buy that kind of car out west. They want a big fat truck all dressed out.
Ones coming out of the house were pretty well-dressed themselves. Hats with brims.
Car like that one calls for a brim. Breagh would make you one.
If I was a harlequin, I’d ask her to. Sew me up a hat, Breagh, dear, all colours and feathers and such.
She’d do it, that pretty girl.
Yes, Willard said, nodding, his eyes on the snow bluing into dusk. A ‘49 Chev is what she was. Wine colour. Shine up? Oh, my dear.
X.
W HEN A NNA FELT STRONG and steady again, she called Red Murdock to thank him, tell him she was okay, warm and normal, as she put it. But he sounded stiff on the phone, distant, as if he hadn’t expected a call or didn’t welcome one, not at all as he’d been in her kitchen that night. Puzzled, a bit hurt, she skipped the ritual about weather, thanked him for sending Breagh, and wished him a good day, thinking in the same breath, how California. She wanted to invite him for a meal, but maybe even rescuing a woman from a frozen pond had not closed the space between them, now the crisis had cooled.
Anna was released into her work nevertheless, eager for it, she sorted and refined her sketches, leafed through the animal drawings she might send to Melissa, a series she could extend if other creatures came her way. There were tracks
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