Looking at the Moon (16 page)

14

Up the River

“P
lease pass the peanuts,” said Gavin solemnly. “And the pickles,” giggled Ross. He sandwiched a pickle between two crackers and crammed it into his mouth. “Yummy! I wish we had this kind of breakfast every day!”

Flo yawned, had a sip of coffee and grimaced. “What did you put in this, Andrew? It doesn't taste like Hanny's.”

Even though it was eleven, they were sprawled around the kitchen table in their pyjamas. Flo had begun by setting out bowls and a box of cereal, but the little boys had discovered the leftover food and now they were all enjoying it. The kitchen was a disaster: empty bottles, cigarette boxes and glasses took up every bit of space on the counters. The windows were wide open to get rid of the smoky smell.

“What a terrific party,” sighed Clare. “Everyone said it was the best one of the summer.”

“It was,” agreed Flo. “I didn't realize so many people would come. Who
were
they all?”

“Friends of friends,” grinned Andrew. “Word must have spread quickly. Some people even came from Huntsville!”

Flo turned to Clare. “Who was that boy
you
were with? He seemed a bit old for you.”

Clare bristled. “He's not that old—twenty-two.”

“Twenty-two!” gasped Janet, but Clare ignored her. “He's in the Norwegian Airforce. He's been training at the Muskoka Airport but he's leaving tomorrow so I won't be able to see him again. But he asked me to write to him,” she added smugly. “Now I'll have someone in the war too.”

“What about your boy friend in Montreal—what will
he
think?” Janet asked her.

“He can think what he wants. After all, Flo writes to more than one boy. Like she says, fellows who are overseas need to be cheered up.”

Norah glanced at Andrew. He caught her eye and winked back; Clare's comments didn't seem to be bothering him.

“You just want someone to boast about,” said Janet. “I don't think your mother is going to like you writing to someone so old.
I
enjoyed the dancing the most,” she added, as if everyone had asked her. “Mark and I had a swell time trying the foxtrot.”

Norah didn't think Mark had asked Janet to dance again, but she didn't say anything. She felt warm inside, as if a bright flame were burning steadily. In a blissful daze she listened to Andrew tease Janet about having a boy friend. Everything about this morning was special and new. She ran her hands over the smooth scrubbed pine of the table and took another delicious sip of Orange Crush out of its brown ribbed bottle.

They all lingered until Flo glanced at her watch. She leapt up. “It's almost noon! They'll be back in five hours! All right, everyone, we have to begin. Janet, you empty all the ashtrays. Norah and Clare, bring everything in from the living room and Andrew can put back the furniture. I'll start on the kitchen. You three boys scour every inch of the island for litter—especially cigarette butts!”

By four-thirty no one would have guessed there had been a huge party at Gairloch the night before. All of the living room furniture was back in its usual place. Every surface in the kitchen gleamed. They had burned most of the garbage and hidden the bottles for Andrew to sneak over to Ford's Bay the next day.

They sat in a row on the dock, drooping with sleepiness while they waited for the launch.

“No more freedom,” complained Clare, when Peter sighted the boats. “Remember,” she warned her brothers. “Not a word! I can hardly wait until I'm old enough to leave home and have parties whenever I want to.”

“I wish we had just one more day,” sighed Flo. “I love the feeling of having the island all to ourselves.”

“It'll be fun to hear about the wedding, though,” said Janet.

“Maybe they'll bring us presents!” added Ross. He jumped up and waved as the boat came closer.

The clan swarmed onto the dock and the usual kissing and exclamations began. Norah submitted to it all cheerfully.

“Look how neat and tidy everything is!” said Aunt Dorothy when they reached the cottage.

“We cleaned the whole cottage as a surprise,” said Flo quickly. “It gave us something to do.”

Everyone sat in the living room, the children exchanging guilty looks as the Elders praised them. Politely they listened to all the different versions of the wedding.

“Sally was the star,” said her mother fondly. “She looked so adorable and she even sang a song at the reception, didn't you sweetheart?”

“I didn't want to,” said Sally indignantly. “I only did it because you asked me to.”

“But didn't you like being a flower girl?” Clare asked her.

“It was okay. But there was so much
waiting
.”

Each of the children was given a thin slice of wedding cake. “I don't know how they managed such a big cake,” said Aunt Dorothy. “Put it under your pillows tonight and whoever you dream of is the one you'll marry.”

“I'm not
getting
married, so I may as well eat mine now,” said Peter. All the Elders laughed as he gulped down his cake in one bite.

But Norah saved hers carefully. That night she went to bed early, but before she fell asleep she remembered to place the cake, wrapped in its paper doily, under her pillow. She always thought of Andrew last thing at night anyway, so she knew she'd dream about him.

T
HE NEXT MORNING
she sat up in bed, nibbling thoughtfully at her flattened piece of cake. She had slept so soundly she couldn't remember her dreams. The other girls smiled secretly and said they wouldn't tell who they had dreamed about; Norah suspected they had forgotten as well.

She lay back in bed and nestled in her cosy blankets.

Andrew tells the family he isn't going to university and
he's never going to join up. Then he goes to Saskatchewan and becomes the most promising actor in Canada. When the war is over he moves to England and begins acting there, so he can live close to Norah until she's old enough to marry …

Sally wandered in. “Hanny wants to know why you haven't come to breakfast yet.”

“We're
tired,
” giggled Janet. “But we can't tell you why.”

“
I
know why. You had a party! Ross told me.”

“I'll throttle him!” said Clare. “You'd better not tell, Sally!”

Sally looked at her slyly. “If you let me borrow your ukelele for the rest of the summer, then I won't tell.”

“All right,” sighed Clare. “But don't play it now,” she protested, as the little girl began to strum the ukelele. “I want to put on a record.”

They all lay back in their beds as the song began. “I'll be seeing you / In all the old familiar places …” Sally got into bed with Flo and the older girl whispered to her about keeping the party a secret.

“I'll be looking at the moon / But I'll be seeing you.” The melody lingered in the air after the song was over.

“Don't put that one on again, Clare,” said Flo. “It makes me miss Ned too much.”

“I wonder if I'll ever see Gunnar again,” mused Clare.

“And Mark …” Janet said mournfully.

Norah tried to feel sad. Now that Andrew was going to Saskatchewan she wouldn't see him in Toronto this fall. When
would
she see him? But she couldn't seem to think beyond this blissful present, with his confiding words still ringing in her ears.

“I'm sure glad I'm not sleeping in here any more,” declared Sally. “You're
still
talking about love.”

“What should we do today? Everything seems so flat after the party,” complained Clare. “And Louise has gone back to the city—I have no one to visit.”

“Mum says I have to do some math,” moaned Janet. “I have a whole workbook to get through. It's almost the end of the summer and I haven't even started it! Would you help me, Norah? You're so good at math.”

Norah sat up again and looked out at the bright blue lake. It was much too inviting a morning to waste on schoolwork. And the summer
was
ending, she realized with alarm—only two more weeks! She wanted to do something special, something she'd never done before. Not with Andrew—now that she felt so sure of him she needed a rest from his intensity.

“No thanks, Janet,” she said, as nicely as she could. “I have other plans.”

“‘I have other plans'—what plans?” Clare mimicked her accent but Norah ignored her as she hurried into her
clothes and ran up the steps.

“Good-morning, Aunt Florence,” she said politely as, ten minutes later, she placed Aunt Florence's breakfast on her guardian's lap.

“Oh, it's you, Norah. Where's Gavin this morning?”

“He'll come up and take your tray. I wanted to ask you something.”

“Well, ask away.” Aunt Florence poured out her tea and leaned back against her plump pillows, looking as if she were already preparing to say no.

“Do you think Gavin and I could go somewhere today? On our own, I mean. The lake's very calm. I thought I could take him in the
Putt-Putt
to Mirror River and then go up it in the canoe—we could tow it behind on the way, like we did two years ago with Uncle Gerald.”

“All the way to Mirror River? By yourselves? I don't think so, Norah. If you want to get Flo or Andrew to take you, that would be fine.”

“But—” Norah tried to stay polite. “You see, this week is our anniversary.”

Aunt Florence looked amused. “Your what?”

“Our anniversary. It's three years ago this week that we left England.”

“Why so it is! I'd forgotten. It seems much longer than three years. I feel as if you've always been with us.” She smiled fondly at Norah.

Encouraged, Norah smiled back. “I thought it would be nice if Gavin and I went somewhere by ourselves,” she continued. “Sometimes I worry that he's forgotten about
home. If we spent all day talking about it, he'd remember more.”

That wasn't the real reason Norah wanted to go; she just felt like an adventure. And she'd been so obsessed with Andrew lately; Gavin
did
deserve some of her time. She put on her best responsible-elder-sister role and waited.

Aunt Florence finished a piece of toast. “That's a very nice idea, Norah. And you'd probably like a holiday from all of us—I imagine that you sometimes find this family a bit overwhelming. But couldn't you just go to Little Island? Mirror River is quite a long journey. If it were just you and Janet I'd say yes, but I can't have you taking your little brother that far. What if you had engine trouble—or the weather changed? Remember how Mr. Hancock and Gerald were caught in that fog last summer and had to spend all night on the lake.”

Norah couldn't see how these dangers would be any worse with Gavin than with Flo or Janet. She knew the real reason—Gavin was too precious to Aunt Florence for her to risk it. She swallowed the jealousy she'd felt when she'd first arrived in Canada and Aunt Florence had favoured Gavin, then continued to try reasonable arguments.

Finally Aunt Florence compromised. If Norah could find an adult to take her and Gavin to the mouth of the river, they could be left alone there for the day with the canoe. Norah knew she wouldn't give in any more.

“B
E SURE
to keep your life-jackets on,” said Aunt Florence, standing on the dock to see them off. “Wear your sun hats and be very,
very
careful. Gavin, you are to do exactly as Norah says.” She kissed him and handed him the lunch Hanny had packed.

“Don't worry—we'll be careful. Goodbye!” Norah called. Uncle Gerald backed out the
Putt-Putt
and they waved to Aunt Florence, Janet and Sally, all gazing plaintively after them.

Gavin hunched in the stern in his bulky life-jacket, his face radiant. Norah perched in the middle. Around them bobbed a few white sails, barely moving in the still air. Uncle Gerald drove slowly to avoid upsetting the canoe, which bounced behind them.

Gavin began a favourite game—counting islands. Big or small, they were all a smudge of grey rock topped by dark firs. Some had cottages on them but most were uninhabited. Norah studied the mainland cottages they passed. Many were grander than Gairloch, with low stone walls and two, or even three, boathouses hung with geraniums.

When they reached Eden House Resort, Norah and Gavin exchanged a conspiratorial look. They passed through the cut at Port Schofield and entered the other lake.

“Look!” cried Gavin. Close to the boat swam a deer. Its branched head ploughed beside them for a while as if it were having a race. Then it turned towards the shore.

“Poor
thing
!” said Gavin. “It's tired! Maybe it won't make it.”

“Deer are good swimmers,” Uncle Gerald assured him. “It's probably enjoying itself!” But Gavin kept his eyes on the deer until it was a tiny dot behind them.

Finally they reached the mouth of Mirror River. Uncle Gerald emptied the water out of the canoe, lowered it into the inlet and helped them load it. “I'll meet you right here at four,” he said. “Have you got a watch?”

Norah nodded. After she and Gavin watched the launch zoom away, they grinned at each other and got into the canoe. “You can try steering,” said Norah. She picked up her paddle and the canoe nosed up the river as if it were as eager to explore as they were.

Mirror River was aptly named. Its glassy surface reproduced exactly the surrounding foliage and sky. The water was so shallow in parts that the canoe barely skimmed the bottom. “We certainly don't need these!” laughed Norah, shucking off her life-jacket.

They rounded a few bends and the scenery and its reflections merged so seamlessly that Norah almost felt dizzy. Every leaf of the towering treetops was etched below; white and yellow lilies, soft brown cat-tails and delicate ferns were all part of the shifting picture on the surface.