Surfacing - Margaret Atwood [14]
Nothing is out of place. Water drops fall on the roof, down from the trees.
They follow me inside. “Is this where you lived?” Joe asks. It’s unusual for him to ask me anything about myself: I can’t tell whether he’s pleased or discouraged. He goes over to the snowshoes on the wall and lifts one down, taking refuge in his hands.
Anna puts the groceries on the counter and wraps her arms around herself. “It must have been weird,” she says. “Cut off from everything like that.”
“No,” I say. To me it felt normal.
“Depends what you’re used to,” David says. “I think it’s neat.” But he’s not certain.
There are two other rooms and I open the doors quickly. A bed in each, shelves, clothes hanging on nails: jackets, raincoats, they were always left here. A grey hat, he had several of those. In the right-hand room is a map of the district, tacked to the wall. In the other are some pictures, watercolours, I recall now having painted them when I was twelve or thirteen; the fact that I’d forgotten about them is the only thing that makes me uneasy.
I go back to the livingroom. David has dropped his packsack on the floor and unfolded himself along the sofa. “Christ, am I wiped,” he says. “Somebody break me out a beer.” Anna brings him one and he pats her on the rear and says “That’s what I like, service.” She takes out cans for herself and us and we sit on the benches and drink it. Now that we’re no longer moving the cabin is chilly.
The right smell, cedar and wood stove and tar from the oakum stuffed between the logs to keep out the mice. I look up at the ceiling, the shelves: there’s a stack of papers beside the lamp, perhaps he was working on them just before whatever it was happened, before he left. There might be something for me, a note, a message, a will. I kept expecting that after my mother died, word of some kind, not money but an object, a token. For a while I went twice a day to the post office box which was the only one of my addresses I’d given them; but nothing arrived, maybe she didn’t have time.
No dirty dishes, no clothing strewn around, no evidence. It doesn’t feel like a house that’s been lived in all winter.
“What time is it?” I ask David. He holds up his watch: it’s almost five. It will be up to me to organize dinner, since in a way this is my place, they are my guests.
There’s kindling in the box behind the stove and a few pieces of white birch; the disease hasn’t yet hit this part of the country. I find the matches and kneel in front of the stove, I’ve almost forgotten how to do this but after three or four matches I get it lit.
I take the round enamelled bowl down from its hook and the big knife. They watch me: none of them asks me where I’m going, though Joe seems worried. Perhaps he’s been expecting me to have hysterics and he’s anxious because I’m not having any. “I’m going to the garden,” I say to reassure them. They know where that is, they could see it from the lake coming in.
Grass is growing up in the path and in front of the gate; the weeds are a month tall. Ordinarily I would spend a few hours pulling them out, but it isn’t worth it, we’ll be here only two days.
Frogs hop everywhere out of my way, they like it here; it’s close to the lake, damp, my canvas shoes are soaked through. I pick some of the leaf lettuce that hasn’t flowered and turned bitter, then I pull up an onion, sliding the loose brown outer skin off from the bulb, white and eye-like.
The garden’s been rearranged: before there were scarlet runners up one side of the fence. The blossoms were redder than anything