An Imperfect Librarian - Elizabeth Murphy [47]
“How much do I owe you?” I say to the man after he diagnoses the problem and gives the battery a boost.
“Go on wit’ ya,” he laughs. The others look at each other and laugh with him. “We’re all neighbours round here.”
I reach my hand out the window to give a final wave before I head onto the main road. They watch me so closely you’d swear it was the departure of a loved one heading off on a perilous journey. By the time I’m back at Cliffhead, Norah has given up on the cake. Just as well. The best-before date on the powder says it expired three years ago. The house is too warm for baking anyway.
We stuff supplies into our backpacks then head to the cove for the afternoon. I’ll need physiotherapy on my shoulder from throwing sticks into the water for the dogs. “That’s enough. Go lie down,” I order them. I take my seat on a flat rock in the stream then dabble my feet in the water. Norah spreads the blanket just under the cliff in a thin band of shade. She sleeps for a while. I don’t sleep, not sitting on a rock in the stream, not with the three dogs splashing about, dropping sticks at my feet, in my lap, or worse, on top of my book.
Later in the afternoon, Norah goes to the house to fetch the lobsters while I build the fire. When the water in the pot is boiling, we drop the creatures in. I think I hear them squeal but Norah says it’s not possible because they have no voice boxes. By the time we finish eating, the coals are giving off so much heat we have to move farther from the fire. The orange glow is hypnotizing. The dogs claim Norah’s blanket for their siesta. The sun is low in the sky and soft on the eyes. Norah rinses her hands in a bath-size pool in the stream while I stoke the bonfire.
“It’s so warm. Come see,” she calls. She strips down to her bra and underpants.
I throw another piece of driftwood on the fire. “Does the sunburn hurt?”
“Not while I’m soaking in the salt water,” she says. “Join me?”
I strip down to the evidence of my own time in the sun then sit beside her in a pool like a lukewarm bath. The rock underneath is smooth. I lie back on my elbows, almost completely immersed in the water. She turns onto her stomach then leans forwards to kiss me. I balance on one arm and reach the other around to draw her closer. All of a sudden, a cold wave splashes into the pool. Norah jerks forwards. I lose my balance and fall backwards. The salt water pours up my nostrils. The wave is sucked back out and I sit up, coughing. Norah laughs.
“What’s so funny this time? I thought I was drowning.”
“That’s your christening,” she says. “You now have the salt of Newfoundland flowing in your veins.”
“I’m relieved to know I got something out of it.”
“Let’s go back to the house, take up where we left off,” she says.
“Make love Newfoundland style?”
“Whatever style turns you on.”
Later, under her star-lights, under her blankets, under the weight of her body, with skin that tastes of salt and smells of smoke and without the worry of a mischievous wave, we consume each other.
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
an edible apology
RAY HARDING RETURNS FROM ALBERTA at the end of August. He’s fuming that we painted the inside of his rowboat the tricolour pink, white and green of the Newfoundland flag. We avoid the pond to spend our time nearer the hexagons or the cove. The delivery of birch and spruce needs to be stacked into cords. The bakeapples then the blueberries ripen. We travel into the back-country to pick them. On more than one berry-picking expedition, we cross paths with hoards of flies. Norah told me their names – nippers, stouts, garnippers, gallynippers, black flies, sand flies and horse flies. She forgot to mention the flies that are drawn like vampires to the fresh blood of strangers.
Classes begin, students crawl out of the woodwork, the library comes alive again. Edith