When Is a Man Page 9

  But all this would have to wait. The creek, the rain in his eyes, rain hissing against the hot globe of the lantern, the dark eyes of the gaping trout, all these things were part of the same entity, appendages of a body composed of infinite water and the limits of his endurance.

  On the fourth day of rain, Gina drove into the site pulling a camper behind her. The way she worked the truck back and forth at different angles until it was perfectly level, he knew she was staying. For a moment, he felt guarded and irritable, possessive of his isolation. He avoided meeting her gaze at first, trying to quell his annoyance. She wore a wide-brimmed oilskin hat that she’d pulled down low on her forehead to try to conceal a bruise on one side of her face near the eye and a swollen, discoloured cheek. She looked fierce and stubborn.

  “I know you don’t want anyone here. But I thought maybe you could use a hand,” she said, and Paul knew better than to ask why she wanted to help someone she’d only met twice.

  “I was up until two last night,” he said. “Fingers got so numb, I couldn’t record data. Had to repeat the numbers aloud while I warmed my hands against the lantern.”

  She shuffled her feet, looking down and away.

  “Honest,” he said. “I’m ready to fall down.”

  “I even brought my own waders,” she said. A price tag hung from the strap.

  One handled the fish, the other recorded the numbers, switching when the handler’s fingers went numb. After a tentative first hour, they settled into a steady pace. The rhythm that had so often eluded Paul came easier with two people. The first night, he netted a massive trout that would only fit into the cooler at an angle, from corner to corner. He and Gina both hovered over the giant male and waited while the fish slammed its thick body against the sides of the cooler and splashed them with anesthetic. Its back was a map of scars and leathery skin, its kipe knotted like a piece of wood and bristling with thorny teeth. Gina wrestled the bull trout onto the table, unafraid when it suddenly bucked and flailed in her hands.

  Each night after the count, they would sit at the table in his camper, and he would serve herbal tea and enter data while she watched. The small space smelled of fish, wet fleece and wool, and her damp hair. Rain pounded on the roof, the rattling veneer muffling the sound of the generator. Condensation blanketed and dripped down the windows.

  “You’ve always cooked?” he asked once. They’d been laughing about his archaeological dig in Sweden, the sad lunches of potato cakes and cinnamon buns he’d packed each day.

  She shook her head. Without her hat on, her bruised face shone and reflected its different dark colours under the fluorescent light, one eye half-closed like a wink, the freckles on her cheek hidden or distorted by purple skin, pooled blood. “I used to do the work, the planting, brushing, spacing. I’m pretty good with a chainsaw.”

  She had to explain what all those things were, how brushers went in after the planters and cleared the competing vegetation from around each planted tree, and how spacers would, years later, thin out those plantations with saws. It paid per hectare, she said, so you were always pushing yourself harder to make more money. But you had time to daydream and think too, because the work was simple and repetitive.

  “What made you stop?”

  “Shane, partly. My body. Tree-planting beat up my knees and wrists, brushing did my shoulders in. Got tired of gas fumes and the noise, always dealing with a broken saw. Men love to dick around with their chainsaws. They have their rituals—eat the same breakfast, smoke their cigarettes, and sharpen their saws after dinner. I knew one guy, he’d crack his beer the exact second the truck started. He had the timing down.”

  “I have beer, if you’d rather,” he said.

  “You don’t drink?” she asked.

  He thought about it. “I could, I guess. There were antibiotics, painkillers before. I’ve had . . . health issues. It’s easier if I don’t.” His trailer was a bit of a disaster—he took a quick glance around, praying he’d stashed his incontinence pads.

  She didn’t dig any further, nor did he ask about her bruises, or Shane’s father. She respected what wasn’t said, and likely hoped for the same from him.

  Each night’s work took them past midnight. When her eyes began to close, Gina would retreat to her own camper. Paul always followed her outside to shut off the generator. He’d cut the engine and urinate under a tree as the rain fell on him. A dim light would turn on behind the curtains of her camper. Sometimes he’d watch until the light went out, unsure why he did, too tired to pin down what exactly he felt beyond an uneasy comfort in the presence of the lit windows.

  “If you hadn’t given me all that food, I would have needed to make a trip to Shellycoat,” he said on her third night there.

  “Think you’ll make it through now?”

  “Food-wise.” He hesitated. “Can’t put things off forever, of course. People in my department are waiting for answers.”

  “You have answers?” She arched an eyebrow, her wry smile marred by a swollen lip.

  He blushed. “No. I’ve been thinking about the lake, though.”

  “The reservoir, you mean. Why?”

  “Hardy.” He told her about the old man trying to kill the fish, and the rant he’d seen in the paper. “I don’t get it. What was he saying in his letter? I understood everyone got compensation, cheap property in Bishop.”

  She hissed with dark humour. “Who told you that?”

  “The cops.”

  She shook her head. The clock read one-thirty. “I’ll show you something. When the work slows down.”

  He laughed, a scratched sound from his dry throat. “You actually want to stay that long?”

  She was already pulling on her boots. “Told you I’d work out here all winter if I could. Besides, if I only stuck around for the tough part, I might get the mistaken impression this job’s terrible. Good night, Paul.”

  The next morning Tanner showed up. He climbed stiffly out of his truck, his face blank and stony-eyed. Paul stood in front of the campfire warming his hands, Gina was napping in her camper.

  “When I said keep the calls to a minimum, I didn’t mean fall off the face of the earth,” Tanner snapped. “I was starting to wonder if you’d died.” He gave Gina’s truck a long stare and then turned back to Paul. “You’ve done your morning count?”

  “And all the data. I was just about to clean the fence.”

  Tanner reached into the truck and yanked out his waders. “Let’s go down and check it out.”

  Paul was jittery and hollowed out—too much of Gina’s coffee, not enough sleep. His stomach was knotted, ready to catch hell from Tanner. What am I, he thought, sixteen at McDonald’s again?

  “Who’s that?” Tanner growled quietly.

  “She’s from a bush crew up the road. Their job ended, so she offered to help out.”

  Tanner stopped and turned. “You’ve got her handling bull trout? This is government work, man. Only authorized personnel can lay their hands on these fish.”

  He laughed at Tanner’s formality. The two men faced off in front of the measuring station. “Was Beth authorized?”

  Tanner hesitated. “By me, yeah.”

  “Well, then, you can authorize Gina,” Paul said, suddenly flushed and shaking. “Because there’s too many trout for me to do this by myself. I was practically pulling all-nighters until she came on board. Running myself fucking ragged.”

  Tanner’s gaze broke away first. “I couldn’t bid high enough to pay for two workers. Had to lowball the other contractors.”

  “She’s not asking for money. And I’ll pay her myself if she does.”

  The two men pulled on their waders. They walked down to the fence and Tanner scooped up the twigs and leaves that had piled up against the upstream side of the weirs. “That’s your call,” said Tanner. “Paying out of your pocket, that is. Lotta crap on the fence.”

  “I think there’s a beaver upstream.”

  “I can give you a gun for that.”r />
  “Fuck you.”

  Tanner stopped tossing sticks over the fence and roared with laughter. “You are getting bushed. You don’t sound anything like yourself.” His knees buckled in the current, and he braced his foot against a rebar post. “Creek’s really risen, hasn’t she?”

  Paul didn’t say anything. They finished cleaning the fence and waded back.

  Gina stood outside her truck, waiting for them. Tanner introduced himself in a friendly enough voice. Her own smile was guarded and equally professional—she was someone who knew contractors and bosses. “I just came to check on things,” Tanner said.

  She nodded. “I’m off for a walk anyhow. Fresh coffee’s in my camper. Feel free to grab some.” Paul and Gina exchanged a quick glance, and he rolled his eyes before ducking into the trailer.

  Tanner spread the notes in front of him and flipped through pages. “Looks good,” he said. “Did you two beat the hell out of each other or something?”

  “I fell in the river. Can’t speak for her.”

  Tanner closed the books. “Look, I get a little tense at this stage. They come by, you know, on the last day. Biologists from Monashee and the government. To check our work.”

  Paul sat up straight. “Here? How many?”

  Tanner counted on his fingers, mouthing silent names to himself. “Eight. More, if some of the Streamkeepers Association tag along, and they usually do. We all walk Basket Creek and count redds—that’s the easy part. Hard part’s listening to them talk about the quality of our work, asking if the numbers are right.”

  “Like those brutal oral exams,” Paul said. Being grilled by a panel of professors and associate deans for his thesis defence. Trying to field their questions with the minimum amount of stuttering, umm-ing, and er-ing. Would they ask Paul about the hours he kept, or make him demonstrate his tagging technique?

  “Except they bring booze. Actually, it’s more like I’m hanging out with my older brother’s friends, and I’m always one mistake away from becoming the loser of the group.” Tanner grimaced. “Anyway, that’s my problem, not yours. You get to stand there and pretend to laugh at their lousy jokes.”

  “I can do that.” He leaned back and looked out the window, both relieved and troubled. The end of his time here became more real, while life after his job still had no shape or form. It was a mist made of things he didn’t want to do, or be. Money was not an urgent issue. His daily costs had been covered by his per diems, he’d spent hardly any money on food thanks to Gina, so his paycheque would be waiting for him at the end, untouched. On that amount, he could survive two or three months in Vancouver without working, four months anywhere else. So he would not starve, but then, that had never been the problem.

  “Think you’ll stick around for the film fest?” Tanner asked, as though he’d read his mind.

  “Isn’t that a ways off?”

  “Not when you’re organizing it. Feels like tomorrow,” he said. “I screened a documentary about parkour, by the way. Kind of ethnographic—they do some interviews—but mostly there’s a crappy hip hop soundtrack and kids showing off. Probably won’t make the cut.”

  Paul sighed ruefully. “Maybe I should have made a film after all.”

  “So you’re not with that woman?”

  “Do I need to answer that?”

  Tanner grinned. “No. But what an opportunity. Be a shame to miss out.”

  “There are reasons, you know, why I might miss out.”

  “Right—yeah.” He smiled sheepishly. “Well, never say never.”

  Paul waved his hand dismissively, but he admitted Gina’s presence was unsettling. Their two trailers faced each other with no trees and shrubs in between, exposed. The distance between them changed at night, a trick of the darkness. Were they situated too close or too far apart from each other? If there was tension, he lacked the physical capacity to gauge it.

  11

  After the morning count, Paul and Gina warmed their hands over the campfire, their jacket sleeves damp and reeking of fish. The sky had cleared, and frost brightened the hills. “We should get out of camp for the day,” he said.

  “Not town.”

  “No. You said you’d show me the lake.”

  “Reservoir. Why so interested?”

  “Maybe because you keep correcting me,” he said lightly. “Obviously something about the reservoir’s a big deal.”

  “I never said it was.” She returned his amused stare with a blank expression. Slowly, she gave him a half-smile that raised the faded bruise on her cheek toward her eye.

  He dared a wink. “If you don’t want to come,” he said.

  “No. I’ll take you. There’s a couple of places you should see.”

  She drove his vehicle and didn’t speak much. The levity between them had vanished. He pointed out Hardy’s cabin, and they passed through Bishop without speaking. Nearly halfway to Shellycoat, they pulled over at a picnic area. A pile of bleached, abandoned logs separated the road from the beach, a series of low ridges of river rocks between small islands of fine-grained sand. “Goosen’s Beach,” Gina said, but Paul was looking at the lake or, rather, at the moonscape where the lake should have been. Beyond the benches and ridges of sand and rock lay a vast plain of cracked, dun-coloured mud. At first, the sight didn’t strike him as unusual; it reminded him of low tide on the coast, the pebbly beaches that became magnificent stretches of sand perforated by the subterranean breathing of clams, marked by the tracks of gulls and crabs, the beach crackling with unseen life. But here, the only signs of life were sprigs of horsetail and pale, wispy algae that covered the exposed rocks and boulders, a few crows tip-toeing among them. No tidal pools, no creatures biding their time underneath boulders, waiting for the ocean to rise—only stillness, the light sound of rain, and a faint, metallic smell. The water was a good half-kilometre away, sunken at the bottom of the valley. On the opposite shore, black-stained bedrock marked the high water line like a bathtub ring.

  “You know summer’s over,” Gina said, “when it’s drawdown.”

  “It’s like this every fall?”

  “When I was a kid, you never knew what the reservoir would look like from one day to the next,” she said. “Now Monashee Power keeps the levels steady over the summer for the boaters and tourists. What you’re seeing is close to what the lake really was. Level-wise, I mean. The land looked a lot different, obviously.”

  He walked down the edge of the beach and she followed. He stepped onto the mud flats and the ground compressed like stale cake, the damp crust breaking into shards. At the north horizon, a forest of pale dead trees stood like leached bones or blasted pillars. He remembered what the young cop, Davis, had said about the places you avoided, how snags uprooted and burst out of the water.

  She pointed to the south, where the diminished lake narrowed like the neck of an hourglass. Paul shook his head, not seeing. She leaned into him so he could sight along her stretched arm, wisps of her hair brushing against his neck. Her sweater smelled of tree pitch and coffee.

  “It’s only a bump. You’d have to know what to look for,” she said. “It’s only visible when the reservoir’s dropped. Close to the waterline.”

  “I wish I had binoculars . . . it looks skeletal.”

  “My parents’ tractor. They left it behind, and no one bothered to remove it.”

  Now he could make out the frame of the machine shrouded in black dirt and river slime. He wanted to turn his head and see the expression on her face, but she stood against him, her arm thrust forward, and their faces were too close together.

  “Now look farther up, toward us. Those piles of stone are what’s left of the wharf where the steamships used to dock.” She spoke in a sing-song voice, like someone telling an old tale. “Near that was the Hutchinson farm. The forest was theirs too, it led to the old road.”

  She paused, but he didn’t know if he should say something, or more truthfully, he didn’t know what to say. “It’s hard to picture,” he said apolo
getically. “How it must have been.”

  She stepped away. “On the other side, across from my parents’ farm, that’s Lambert. The shoreline you see, the mud banks and flats—all that used to be meadows and forests. And orchards.”

  “How many lived there?” he asked.

  “Three, four hundred. But there were dozens of families like mine on this side of the lake too. More than a thousand people were displaced.”

  He imagined everything preserved beneath the water—a wrecked paddlewheeler, the drowned frame of a country house. It was a romantic, compelling vision, something out of a book.

  “Your parents’ home—is it standing, under the reservoir?”

  She shook her head. “My mother and father burned it down. The day they were relocated to Bishop.”

  Bishop, Unincorporated was as ephemeral as campfire smoke caught in tree branches. “Unincorporated” implied the incorporeal, uncertain borders. The few inhabited homes hid among abandoned dwellings and lots. The modern summer cottages clung to their islands of manicured lawns and shrubbery facing the lake, away from the ramshackle homes. Their owners had all fled back to the States or Alberta, the houses winterized and closed up. Gina took him down a side road crowded by alder, past a lot where a trailer sat, its siding peeled back to bleed pink fibreglass. A plywood mudroom weaned itself from the aberrant structure of the trailer, taking nails and trim along with it.

  Other artifacts on the decrepit properties: a dog chain stretched to its full length, rusted and staked to a thistle-carpeted lawn. Rusted El Caminos and cube vans oxidized down to their most skeletal essentials, refrigerators like ghoulish obelisks. Wild raspberry canes grew out of the empty chassis of a Ford, honeysuckle had colonized a lawn chair. An occasional sign of life—a car with current plates, freshly cut firewood, an article of junk or a toy that hadn’t been claimed by moss or lichen—but mostly neglect.