Landing (13 page)

They passed a silo with a red and white candy-striped cap on it. "Check out the giant condom," murmured Síle, reading Jude's mind. She kept exclaiming over the Irish names on the map: Dungannon, Birr, Mount Carmel, Clandeboye, Listowel, Donegal, Newry, Ballymote...

"Well, that's homesick immigrants for you," said Jude. "There's also Zurich, Hanover, Heidelberg..."

But what entertained Síle the most, oddly, were the roadside signs. Apparently in her country, stores and churches didn't display folksy sayings in ill-spaced letters. "Why, is it not legal?" asked Jude.

"I just don't think it would occur to the cynical Irish. We put up billboards to sell things, but we don't offer advice on life. I mean, look at that..." She scrabbled for her gizmo as they passed one that warned A FEW LOOSE WORDS CAN LEAD TO A FEW LOOSE TEETH.

"Are you collecting them?"

Síle nodded, tapping the tiny keyboard. "I'll e-mail a list to all my friends."

"They'll think Canada's dumb," said Jude, childish.

"No no. Every country has its peculiarities."

Síle's head spun as they passed a bone-white church whose sign read GOD LOVES YOU WHETHER YOU LIKE IT OR NOT. "Scary!" The next one offered SUN WORSHIP IIAM ALL WELL COME. "They must mean Sunday Worship," she said, typing fast, "unless they all get—what was your phrase, butt-naked?"

"Buck-naked," Jude supplied, grinning.

"—and sing hallelujah to the returning sun. Solar cults would make sense, in these long winters."

"Look, outside that peach market, that's a funny one," said Jude: NOSTALGIA AIN'T WHAT IT USED TO BE.

"Peaches? Let's get some." said Síle, twisting in her seat.

"Come back in August."

"Oh of course, they'd be local."

"You're such a global citizen, you don't know where or when you are," Jude mocked her.

In the parking lot of the conservation area, Síle got out in her ladylike way, feet together. Jude noticed that the snow was tinged with blue: broken glass scattered in ermine. She went first, the sled under her arm; she stepped into the cracked foot holes of earlier walkers or waded through fresh powder, sometimes skidding. It was too bright to see clearly, but there was a drift of fog in the distance; it confused the eyes. She turned and Síle grinned back at her, shiny-faced.

"It's hard to be elegant in the snow, isn't it?" said Síle. "All you can do is stomp along like a three-year-old. And my nose keeps dripping, and I can hardly hear you through all these hoods and scarves. The air feels fantastic, though. The snowfields! When I was a kid, that's what I used to call it up in the sky, after the plane pierces the clouds and it's all dazzling white."

Jude took a narrow path through the woodland. Snow scrunched underfoot.

"There's nothing like being away from other human beings, out in the middle of nowhere, is there?" asked Síle. "I'd usually have my headphones on, when I'm walking; it's odd not to have a soundtrack. It's so utterly quiet."

Jude wanted to laugh.

"Is that a robin? Oh no, of course, American robins are much bigger. I mean Canadian robins. I believe they're insanely territorial, or little Irish robins are, anyway."

Jude waited till Síle caught up with her, then clapped her glove gently over the woman's mouth.

"What?" said Síle, muffled.

"Shh for a minute."

"What were we born with tongues for, if not to talk?"

"There's kissing, for one." Jude showed her what she meant. A crow let out a hoarse croak.

After half a minute Síle stepped back, defiant. "At school I used to win public speaking contests; you'd be given a word—
fashion,
say, or
apples
—and you'd have to discuss it for five minutes without repeating yourself."

"That explains a lot," said Jude, laughing.

She'd forgotten how enlivening the cold could feel, nipping her on the inside of her wrists, the scruff of her neck. They emerged near a small pond, its white edge fringed with orange reeds. Jude stared at the drift of snow on the gray-green ice and wondered if it was a thin layer, after the recent thaw, or still solid all the way down.

A gloved hand slid into Jude's pocket. "Are you missing the fags?"

Jude let out her breath. "Since you mention it—I'd empty my bank account for one."

"Oh, my love." The endearment startled Jude, but it sounded oddly natural. "How much is that?"

"Actually, only about $75," Jude admitted.

Síle laughed. "And our phone bills can't be helping."

"Best money I've ever spent. Besides, giving up the smokes is going to save me big bucks."

"Was it really all about my visit?" Síle asked coyly. "All you had to do was smoke on the porch for two days."

Jude shrugged. "I'd always meant to give them up before I was twenty-five, so I'm late already. And Mom would approve; she always called it 'your filthy habit.'" Taken off guard, she was blinded by tears.

"Careful, your eyes might freeze over," whispered Síle, pulling off one glove to wipe Jude's face with the heel of her hand. "I'm sure she'd be chuffed.
Is
chuffed," she corrected herself, "looking down on you, hoping you'll live to be a hundred."

Jude buried her face in the dark cloud of hair sliding out of Síle's hood. "Time to toboggan," she announced.

When they got home, Jude opened the garage to show Síle her bike.

"Ooh," said Síle, crouching to peer at the sleek coils of the pipes, "I bet this cost five times what your car did."

"Just about. She's a 1979 Triumph: the year I was born." Jude stroked the icy paintwork. "My uncle Frank customized her, rode her every day from May to October, till his arthritis got so bad he moved down to Florida, near Dad, and left this baby with me. You're just a few weeks too early for a ride," she added regretfully.

"Next time," said Síle, and Jude's pulse thumped with delight.

Jude heated up some parsnip gratin, making the kitchen fragrant with onions and sage. "Oh, did you want to listen to the news?"

Síle shook her head lazily. "Not this weekend. You notice I haven't even checked my messages?"

"I hadn't. But now that you mention it, I'm impressed."

"Well, if you can go cold turkey, so can I..."

"I still can't quite believe any of this is real."

"I can," said Síle, her hands decisive on Jude's hips, pulling her close. "You're no figment: I've never met anyone so here and now."

In bed, it got dark without them noticing. They were shattered and sore and the sheet was pleated with wrinkles. Jude found a little notch in the knuckle of Síle's index finger. "Aha!" she said, "now I'd know you anywhere."

Jude felt ridiculously nervous as they crunched up Main Street hand in hand, toward the crossroads.

"Shades of Narnia," laughed Síle under her breath: "one streetlight and a lot of snow."

There were about a dozen drinkers in the Dive. "Jeez," boomed Rizla, "the honeymooners managed to stagger out of bed."

Jude said in his ear, "Remember I promised you could meet her if you promised not to be a jerk?"

He shook her off, enclosed Síle's hand in his beefy one, helped her off with her jacket, and insisted she take his stool. "Go right ahead, my fat ass's had enough sitting around."

Síle crossed her legs seductively, despite the borrowed snow boots, and smiled up at him. In her bright skirt and beaded Rajasthani jacket, she stood out against the comfortable casuals the locals were wearing, quite apart from being the only South Asian face in the village.

"Dave," said Rizla, "may I present Síle O'Shaughnessy from Dublin, Ireland?"

The bartender wore a wary smile. "Whatever you say, Riz. Now, what can I get you, ma'am? Sleeman's, Upper Canada..."

"Actually, Dave," said Síle, her accent strengthening as she leaned over the bar, "I'm not too fond of the old beer. What I'd love is a chocolate martini, if it wouldn't be too much trouble."

"A chocolate martini?"

Rizla wiggled his eyebrows at Jude.

"Made with crème de cacao, you know?" said Síle.

"I'll have a look in the back," Dave said abstractedly.

In his absence, Jude told Síle that she might have to settle for a straight martini.

Síle widened her eyes. "Place your trust in the global economy. My local supermarket stocks Ontario maple syrup."

And indeed, five minutes later, Dave came in brandishing a dusty bottle of crème de cacao. Rizla and Síle looked up from their discussion of their favourite
Simpsons
episodes to applaud. Jude thought,
This woman is a magic wand.

Dave rested on his elbows and examined the visitor more closely. "That sure is a nice accent you've got. I thought Rizla here must be pulling my leg, because you don't look Irish."

Jude stiffened.

Síle beamed back at him. "And the funny thing is, Dave, I've been told I don't look like a lesbian, either."

Dave blinked once, twice. "Well, pleasure to meet you," he said blankly, taking a swipe at the counter with his cloth before heading into the back.

Rizla pounded the bar in Silent mirth. "Two-nil to the Fighting Irish! You shut that dickhead up."

"Poor Dave," Síle murmured, "and after he made me a perfect chocolate martini..."

"I bet you don't take any shit from your passengers."

"I take infinite amounts of shit from them," Síle corrected him, "which is why, when I'm off-duty, I speak my mind."

Jude felt all the strings in her body loosen.

"Yeah, this whole area was Mohawk hunting grounds," Rizla was telling Síle when Jude tuned in again, "till we sold it to the Crown in the early eighteenth century."

"You mean early 1800s," Jude reminded him.

He ignored that. "I'm not actually Status, though."

"Sorry, you've lost me," said Síle.

"Mom wasn't a Status Indian once she married a Dutchman. She had to leave the rez," he explained, "so they raised eleven of us in a farmhouse a ways west of Brantford."

"Eleven!"

He shrugged. "Well, you know, it's that or disappear."

"But you haven't had any yourself?" Síle asked.

"Nah," he said, "just lots of nieces and nephews. See, it's like sports: I'd rather watch hockey players smash each other's heads in on TV than actually play a game myself. Aren't the Irish big breeders too?"

"Less so, nowadays, since we don't kowtow to the Church so much," she told him; "I think the average family's down to three point nine. And my parents only had two."

"Got bored of the old bump 'n grind?" suggested Rizla. "Took a vow of abstinence?"

"My mother died when I was three." After a second, Síle grinned. "Now don't you feel like a crass bastard?"

"Not for the first time nor the last," he said, and insisted on buying the next round.

Dave was still subdued, eyes averted. "He'll be lying awake half the night, wondering what to make of you," Jude whispered in Síle's ear. "I bet he'll share it with his Bible Encounter Group."

"Whoops, have I muddied your reputation?"

"Too late for that," she said, laughing.

Síle looked around the bar speculatively. "So what's the local demographics—mostly farmers? That pair behind us have been discussing their alfalfa yield for half an hour," she whispered.

"Yeah, mostly dairy and cash crop," said Rizla. "Those guys playing euchre work for Dudovick's Turkeys."

"Luke Randall—" Jude nodded at a man reading the
Globe and Mail
—"is a manager of a bank in Stratford. Behind us is Greg Devall, the TV executive whose bloody SUV killed my red setter Trip," she added under her breath.

Síle narrowed her eyes, like a mobster memorizing his face.

"But you know, unless you're old stock, here at least a hundred years, you don't count as local," said Jude. "Dad was third-generation on his father's side, but his mother was a Home Child; she was sent out here from England at the age of nine."

"What'd she done?" asked Síle.

"It wasn't meant as a prison sentence! Though in some cases it turned out that way," Jude explained; "in theory it was a fresh start as farm labourers for orphans from the home country."

"You've got great triceps for a girly gal, Síle," Rizla remarked, gripping her bare arm. Jude thought Síle might object, but instead she tensed it for him. "You work out?"

"No, she stacks trays at ten thousand metres," Jude reminded him.

"Right.
I'm Site, Fly Me!
" he said in a lewd falsetto. "Hey, so when I was flying round the world, I noticed you trolley dollies disappear for hours. Whatcha doing, chewing the fat back there?"

"Yeah, we pass round the duty-free vodka," Síle told him, "that's how we manage the permanent glazed smile. Actually, the real money's in the sex; it's 荤50 for every hand job, and 荤100 for a fuck in the toilet."

Rizla blinked at her, and then released such an enormous laugh that the euchre players looked up. Licking his finger, he chalked one on the air for Síle.

They had a game of pool. "I taught Jude here all she knows," Rizla explained.

"So how come I beat you nine times out of ten?" asked Jude, racking them up.

Síle kept messing up her shots. "Everything's the wrong size here, I'm getting vertigo," she complained, laughing. "The table's too low, the balls are too big, and spotted instead of red or yellow..."

"If you stayed a week you'd get the hang of it," Rizla told her. "I could give you a crash course in being a Canuck."

"I already fell off a sled twice today."

"That's a start, but you gotta skate and Ski-doo, you gotta shoot things—"

"Don't listen to him," said Jude.

"—and you gotta tell Newfie jokes. You hear about the Newfie who's so lazy he married a pregnant woman?"

"I know that one," Síle protested, "but it's about a Kerryman."

"Yeah," Jude put in, "and the Spanish probably say it about the Portuguese."

"This other Newfie, he goes to the hospital in St. John's, says, 'I want to be castrated.'" Rizla's eyebrows leapt up. "'You sure about that?' says the doctor. 'Yeah yeah boy,' says the Newfie, 'I'm telling you I want to be castrated.' So after the op, he wakes up in a room with another patient. He says 'Hey, you boy, what operation you got done?' The other guy says he's been circumcised. 'Dammit to hell,' says the Newfie,
'dat's
de word I was looking for!'"