LITMIR.BIZ

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up into the flowering crab. To lure him down, Dave, that’s my husband, had to go to Smith’s to find the only papaya in five hundred miles. The whole neighbourhood gathered here for the antics.”

      “Your house is marvellous. I can’t wait to see the rest.”

      Slipping the roller into a capacious apron, Bea clasped her hands together. “All that mahogany wainscotting and the carved staircase with the pineapple newel posts. Plenty of journeymen eager to please for a few dollars a day.”

      “Is society heading backward? The only woodworker I know delivers twenty bush cords for my stove.”

      Bea led her into a large living room brightened by towering ficus plants, a large Norfolk pine in a ceramic tub, and on a shaded ledge with stained glass windows, a stunning pink and purple orchid on a leaning stalk. Belle touched the waxy flowers in clear wonderment.

      “It is real. Seems to like its home,” Bea said with pride.

      “Northerners love their Florida rooms, heating bills aside. My grandfather had a greenhouse business on Runnymede Road in Toronto. I guess Canadians thirst for a sign of life over the winter.” She glanced down at the honeyed oak floors polished to a gleam, so much more character than laminate. Thick Persian carpets offered warm islands amid plum velour sofas and deep espresso-brown leather chairs. A fieldstone fireplace seemed to anchor the house to the Cambrian Shield.

      On the rosewood grand piano were silver-framed pictures of the Bustamantes: Michael senior, a small and vigorous man, towered over by Bea, then Micro and his older sister in their school portraits. There was a wedding photo of Dave and Bea, something shadowy and strained about Dave’s face, and a diminutive boy beside them looking at the church steps. In stature, Micro must have taken after his father. In one faded colour snapshot, two men posed on a tropical beach. A young Michael and someone close enough in appearance to be a brother. Belle realized that she was staring, but Bea was straightening a needlepoint on the wall.

      Belle admired the tapestry of the Apple Queen. “As once I was, so am I now.” The quote came from William Morris’s Pomona, 1891. A buxom young woman in flowing medieval dress bore apples in her skirts. A complex weave of gold and green entangled trees surrounded her.

      “Did you do this? The Pre-Raphaelites are favourites of mine, both their poetry and art. I love the details. And the framing’s a great match.”

      Bea blushed at the compliment. “I like to keep my hands busy after work. If I’m not doing needlepoint, I’m knitting. Micro and Dave have enough sweaters and scarves to last a hundred years.”

      Jotting notes as they walked, Belle had more second thoughts about the expected demolition when she surveyed the modern kitchen with a Miele range, granite counters, a butcher-block island with copper pans hanging above and legions of German steel knives. She also noted the convenient half bath on the main floor. As they cruised the large dining room with a French Provincial table for ten, Belle stopped to assess a collection of ceramic ladies in a matching china cabinet. If memory served, these were Easter Day, Christmas Morn, and others, all red.

      “Royal Doulton,” she said. “My mother left me her collection.”

      Bea’s hooded sea-green eyes brightened. “Oh? Which ones?”

      “Delphine, Elegance, Vivienne . . . I sold Paisley Shawl.”

      “Really? What would you ask for Vivienne? She’s discontinued, and red’s my favourite, in case you hadn’t noticed.”

      Belle “ka-chinged” a few calculations on her mental cash register. “Two-thirds book value. Three hundred?” Chasing the elusive loonie again. Would her mother haunt her tonight?

      Bea pressed Belle in a giant’s embrace, a wisp of lemon, vanilla and cloves in her wake. “It’s a deal. Bring her with the first interested parties. I’ll leave a cheque on the mantel.”

      Upstairs were five bedrooms, another full bath and a master suite. One bedroom was a sewing room, another an office for Dave, one appointed with the pink colours, chintz curtains and a flouncy bedspread that young girls would like, yet no toys or personal items. Sadly, Belle recalled the dead child and understood why these poignant vestiges of a short life remained to honour her memory.

      The charming turret room had windows of rounded glass and a distinctive green, yellow and black flag hanging from the ceiling. “Keep out! This means you!” read a sign taped to the open door. Bea gestured to the skateboard, Gameboy and Superhero comic books. One wall displayed Lord of the Rings posters and a picture of Bob Marley, Rastafarian dreadlocks flying. A state-of-the-art PC with twenty-inch flat screen sat on an L-shaped desk. On a shelf above was a Harry Potter collection in addition to the book Son of Web Pages That Suck. Mine sure does, Belle said to herself, having constructed it amateur-style using FrontPage Express.

      “Don’t they like their privacy? And my son hasn’t even entered his teens.”

      “What an unusual flag. I don’t recognize it.”

      “Jamaica’s. My late husband Michael wanted Micro to appreciate his heritage.” She picked up a hardcover book, Heroes of Jamaica. “His distant relative was Alexander Bustamante, the island’s first Prime Minister in 1962.”

      “I have to confess that I know nothing about that lovely country, except that its climate is heaven next to ours.”

      Bea smiled softly. “You’re not alone. Many people think only of gang wars or deportations. Jamaica had a proud history of fighting oppression, British, of course. Many of its people had been brought over as slaves.”

      “But there is the reggae music,” Belle added.

      “Michael loved the old folk songs. He used to sing Micro to sleep with ‘Clap Hands Til Papa Comes Home’.” She hummed a few bars and swayed with a gentle rhythm.

      Belle noted the Snickers wrappers in the wastebasket and the pile of textbooks. “I used to teach high school. Bailed out after a few months. English was not foremost on their minds.”

      “Sounds like a sudden decision.”

      “Certainly was.” The incident was as fresh in her mind as this morning. “Why you always say I’m acting like a fool?” one tenth-grader had demanded, and she hadn’t been able to resist. “Brian, you don’t have to act like a fool.” “Kiss my ass.” Off to the principal. Parents’ conference. Everyone crying except her. And a Greyhound bus ticket that weekend.

      “They don’t miss much.” Bea’s chuckle spread over her face, an invitation to mirth. “Every year is a whole new world with kids. Thirteen’s coming up, and my friends tell me to fasten my seatbelt.”

      The master suite was immense, with walk-in closets and a Jacuzzi in the custom-tiled bathroom. The Mexicana furnishings, warm, weathered pine with copper fittings, were a surprise, a king-sized bed, drawer chests and nightstands, a splendid armoire, and in the corner, a box table. As always, in the more intimate parts of a house, she felt strangely voyeuristic. In the corner was a cherrywood antique prie-dieu.

      Bea ran loving fingers over the fine petit point on the kneeler. “Great-Great-Aunt Mafalda’s. For show rather than usage now. It’s a bit creaky with age.”

      “I know the feeling.”

      While Bea fixed tea downstairs, Belle relaxed in a sunny breakfast nook, enjoying the antics of chickadees around the feeders. She looked past the deck to the choppy diamond waves of Lake Ramsey, where Bea’s husband and daughter had died. From her Canlit class, she recalled a sinister poem by Margaret Atwood: “This is a Photograph of Me.” The speaker addressed the reader like a friend deciphering a blurred black and white picture, so casual, lulling him into a reverie with “a gentle slope,” “a small house,” “some low hills,” then adding, “The photograph was taken/ the day after I drowned./ I am in the lake. . . . if you look long enough,/ eventually/ you will be able to see me.” What a mistress of understatement Canada’s icon was.

      Bea’s pastries

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