An Imperfect Librarian - Elizabeth Murphy [29]
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
row, row, row your boat
IT’S NOT AN ALUMINIUM OR fibreglass rowboat; it can’t hold more than two people at one time; it hasn’t seen a paintbrush since it was first constructed; and it’s probably not engineered, like modern vessels, for energy efficiency, but it’s an ideal place to rest after a hike. It’s lying part in the pond, part on the strip of shore. It doesn’t rock when I climb in with the extra weight of my naked blister. I sit then lie across the centre seat with my hands clasped behind my head and my legs dangling over the side. I tease the water first with the tip of my toes, then submerge my feet all the way to the ankle.
Strips of fog float past, thin as sheets of onion paper. My feet feel numb in the glacial water but the rest of me is warm under the sun. The songbirds signal back and forth. I count the syllables, note the pattern of the long Oh sweet followed by three quick Canadas. Norah said it’s a natural waltz rhythm. I remember when she put her hand on my waist then bent over to tighten her boot. I could see her breasts, plump like the top of a loaf of bread. I lie under the sun in the boat and think about squeezing breasts, resting my head on breasts, poking my face between breasts, bouncing breasts, pressing up against breasts with my chest or–
There’s a sound of someone or something moving through the bushes. I pull my soggy feet in from the water. They throb from the cold. A black dog like Norah’s retriever leaps over the bushes towards me. He does a flip-flop on his first attempt to hop into the boat. I roll up the legs of my trousers, hold onto the side then lower one leg at a time into the water. The boggy bottom feels like partially melted ice cream.
A voice yells, “Raven! Raven!” The baseball hat appears first, then the red-and-black chequered jacket, then the rubber boots. The dog is standing on the shore barking at me. “Raven!” the man orders. “Come here.” The dog doesn’t respond. He eyes me like there is a steak hanging over my head.
“Hello. Nice day. Those are my boots there on the shore. Would you mind passing them here?”
The man walks over to them, picks one up then throws it into the water next to me. I let go of the boat to shield myself from the splash.
“Raven!” he shouts. “Get it boy! Go on! Get the boot.”
It’s floating away in the ripple created when it hit the water. My arms aren’t long enough to hold onto both so I let go of the boat and grab the boot just before the dog does. I teeter for an instant then catch hold of the boat again.
“Get it, Raven! Get it!” the man cries.
Raven makes it to shore faster than I do. He jumps up at the boot. I hold it over my head.
“That’s it,” the man says. “Go as fast as you can.”
The soft bog of the pond was easier on my feet than the sharp rocks on the shore. I can’t go fast. Not without something on my feet. “I wasn’t fishing if that’s what you think.”
“Fishing?” he shouts behind me. “You better not be after my trout. I stocked this pond five years ago. They’re worth money now.”
Once I have the two boots, I don’t stop to put them on my feet. I step away from the shore onto a grassier area. “I wouldn’t even know what a trout looks like, let alone go fishing for it.” I look over my shoulder. “Why did you throw my boot in the water?”
He’s following me. “Trespassers deserves what they gets.”
I pick up a stick off the path and hold it in the air. The dog notices instantly. I throw it as hard as I can in the direction opposite where I’m heading. Raven turns around and runs after it. Ray chases after him. Once they’re out of sight, I put on one boot. It weighs a few pounds heavier. What’s the point of paying more for waterproof boots if they’re only waterproof from the outside? The blister’s so big, it would need a boot of its own, so I go barefoot on one side and cradle the boot close to my chest.
Norah joins me on the trail not long after. She surveys me top to bottom. “I thought you were going