but Granny sent him a message. “If a person can get over the dog, he can get over the tail,” she said. Lome nodded at this when we went down and told him. I guess Granny Tracks had decided she wasn’t finished with living after all.
Lyd sat by the window; I was in the middle between her and Lome. I was watching Lome’s hands and feet because I half expected him to stop the car and start swearing. I was afraid he’d order me to take the wheel and drive through town. I didn’t want to drive but I needn’t have worried. Once we wereout of town and on the Fifth Line, Lome turned to Lyd and said, “The spider weaves its own web without the help of passers-by.” He did not say this unkindly and I was afraid that Lyd would demand, “What, Lome, what! For Cripes’ sake, say what you mean.”
But she did not. She stared out her window, and I stared straight ahead. Lome had nothing to say to me. No grudge and no unfinished business. He drove along the gravel road, and calm descended beneath the blanket of his silence.
I began to wish that we would never get to the farm; that we could suspend ourselves between the homes of our separate grandparents and go on driving like this without ever stopping. Squeezed as I was between Lome and Lyd, I felt the warming sun through the windshield and I smelled country: the scent of drying hay, cow manure, the mixture of weeds and crops and long grasses drifting through the open window. I pressed my back into the seat and closed my eyes.
I began to think of our river at home in Quebec; the way I walked to the cliff and stood looking down over rapids. I thought about how I sometimes chose one spot on a single wave and how I tried to hold that spot. No matter how hard I tried or how many times, my eyes shifted in the direction of current. Against my will, beyond my will, I could not focus on that single spot. I couldn’t stop the perpetual motion, not for a fragment of a second. I knew that despite all of this, as soon as we left Darley and returned home, I’d go back and stand on that cliff and I’d try once more to seize the imaginary spot. To slow it down, even if it were only long enough for me to believe that this might be possible.
BOLERO
1955
T he following spring, after break-up, the logs came down, the river dark with timber. Lyd and I went to bed on a Friday night and when we awoke the next morning there was a hush over the river, logs coming and coming in that steady inevitable flow. After breakfast I followed the shore away from the house and up towards higher ground. I stood on the cliff watching. The river narrowed at the beginning of the rapids and the mass dipped like a broad dark raft heading into fast water, whitecaps tossing the logs singly into the air and then catching and concealing them again.
As always, strays drifted to shore in front of the house. Most logs were round and smooth and stamped with the company brand but some still had bark attached, reminding that these were trees after all. We left the strays to sit in thesun and later went back to peel and crack the bark. During the following weeks, right into early summer, we collected insects with latticed wings folded flat the lengths of their backs, and used them as bait for bass.
The place we fished bass was below the rapids. Past morning glory and blunt-petalled wild rose. Past the cliff and the long meandering ruins of the old hydro wall, the crumbling prop that hemmed the point of land where the river curved at the fiercest part of the rapids. The first day we’d moved to Quebec, Father had taken us to see the wall. “Someone had the vision and imagination to harness this energy,” he said. “But that was last century, not this. And I’m going to tell you right now. Don’t lean on the wall, because it’s old and cracked and someone’s going to go with it.”
Nothing could keep us away. We climbed the wall, straddled it, dug at it, pushed it, and when the water was not too high, walked it.
Lyd sat by the window; I was in the middle between her and Lome. I was watching Lome’s hands and feet because I half expected him to stop the car and start swearing. I was afraid he’d order me to take the wheel and drive through town. I didn’t want to drive but I needn’t have worried. Once we wereout of town and on the Fifth Line, Lome turned to Lyd and said, “The spider weaves its own web without the help of passers-by.” He did not say this unkindly and I was afraid that Lyd would demand, “What, Lome, what! For Cripes’ sake, say what you mean.”
But she did not. She stared out her window, and I stared straight ahead. Lome had nothing to say to me. No grudge and no unfinished business. He drove along the gravel road, and calm descended beneath the blanket of his silence.
I began to wish that we would never get to the farm; that we could suspend ourselves between the homes of our separate grandparents and go on driving like this without ever stopping. Squeezed as I was between Lome and Lyd, I felt the warming sun through the windshield and I smelled country: the scent of drying hay, cow manure, the mixture of weeds and crops and long grasses drifting through the open window. I pressed my back into the seat and closed my eyes.
I began to think of our river at home in Quebec; the way I walked to the cliff and stood looking down over rapids. I thought about how I sometimes chose one spot on a single wave and how I tried to hold that spot. No matter how hard I tried or how many times, my eyes shifted in the direction of current. Against my will, beyond my will, I could not focus on that single spot. I couldn’t stop the perpetual motion, not for a fragment of a second. I knew that despite all of this, as soon as we left Darley and returned home, I’d go back and stand on that cliff and I’d try once more to seize the imaginary spot. To slow it down, even if it were only long enough for me to believe that this might be possible.
BOLERO
1955
T he following spring, after break-up, the logs came down, the river dark with timber. Lyd and I went to bed on a Friday night and when we awoke the next morning there was a hush over the river, logs coming and coming in that steady inevitable flow. After breakfast I followed the shore away from the house and up towards higher ground. I stood on the cliff watching. The river narrowed at the beginning of the rapids and the mass dipped like a broad dark raft heading into fast water, whitecaps tossing the logs singly into the air and then catching and concealing them again.
As always, strays drifted to shore in front of the house. Most logs were round and smooth and stamped with the company brand but some still had bark attached, reminding that these were trees after all. We left the strays to sit in thesun and later went back to peel and crack the bark. During the following weeks, right into early summer, we collected insects with latticed wings folded flat the lengths of their backs, and used them as bait for bass.
The place we fished bass was below the rapids. Past morning glory and blunt-petalled wild rose. Past the cliff and the long meandering ruins of the old hydro wall, the crumbling prop that hemmed the point of land where the river curved at the fiercest part of the rapids. The first day we’d moved to Quebec, Father had taken us to see the wall. “Someone had the vision and imagination to harness this energy,” he said. “But that was last century, not this. And I’m going to tell you right now. Don’t lean on the wall, because it’s old and cracked and someone’s going to go with it.”
Nothing could keep us away. We climbed the wall, straddled it, dug at it, pushed it, and when the water was not too high, walked it.
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