Cold fact: Lydia’s utter joy of Craig makes me realize how little she enjoys of me. She laps up Craig and isnt this what we want? To fully enjoy the other person’s being.
I have left her to the wolves and her own lone-wolf desires. I walk up Long’s Hill feeling like a boring man. That I can’t entertain. I have this feeling badly.
8 Craig uses the word ebullient. It isnt used with full confidence. But I can see Lydia with a man like that. She is massaging her breasts as she talks to him by the fridge. They are both concentrating on the conversation while I’m focused on their body language. Lydia is not aware that her hand is cupping each breast. Everyone catches an uncertain word and inappropriate gesture. Everyone has evolved to the point where nuance is a primitive knowledge. We all understand and are not blind to slippery characters.
We are still planning the canoe trip. To go together. But of course Craig will be there. And so will Alex. I must decide to lighten up.
9 Lydia is such a summer extrovert. And I am a cold and lonely. I left Lydia a delicate saffron poppy and a bowl of curried chicken thighs. She is having a smoke with Wilf and Craig on the lawn. I watch her slap Wilf Jardine’s knee and clasp Craig Regular’s arm.
Wilf says he’s almost tempted to take a kayak down the Exploits. Just to witness what might happen with the six of ye.
I call Max about planning the canoe trip. I tell him about feeling down. He puts Daphne on. Daphne laughs hard at my jealousy. She says she hears Lydia’s feelings for me. And that Lydia says good things. But theyre not as fun to repeat.
Daphne tells a fine story and is quick with voicing her feelings. She is sensitive to slights, but she forgives easily. She loves a good dinner party, but also enjoys quiet time with a man. She, like Max, is at a point in her life where she prefers the rural over the urban. They will be spending time in Brigus.
10 I buy eight empty salt-beef buckets at Murphy’s at the Cross. Lydia and I are in charge of breakfast and supper on the second day. We have curried chicken marinating. We pack our tent, food, and clothes in the salt-beef buckets and thread a rope through the handles. We split the rims of the lids so theyre easy to pry off. We pick up Max’s red fibreglass canoe and two maple paddles. We are ready for the river.
11 We drive six hours to the Millertown Junction. There are six of us in three canoes slipping into the river. Craig and Alex, Max and Daphne, Lydia and me.
Craig and Alex capsize on the first rapids. Their canoe, submerged in water, is wrapped under a ledge of rock. We pry with two logs as levers. The canoe pops out of the current, bouncing back into shape.
One moment: it’s night and we’re away from the three tents, at the shore where a tributary feeds into the river. A perfect Beothuk camping ground. I wouldnt have thought this if Max hadnt reminded me of the Beothuk. I had forgotten this was the heart of their land, where they built fences to force caribou through narrow gates to the water. The canoes are hauled up and earlier you could see the light of the sun through their hulls. We watched a beaver hard at work. Now it’s dark. And Lydia clenches a penlight in her mouth as she bends her knees in the water to rinse her new toothbrush. The penlight arcing a jittery circle of yellow light, illuminating stones in the water, her bare legs, her cheeks, and her hands. Earlier we are washing our hands in a bowl of soapy water and Lydia forgets, takes her Swiss Army knife and rinses it in the water. She cuts my finger across the knuckle with the blade. I’m sorry I’m sorry I’m so stupid please forgive me. It is the knife I gave her.
12 Lydia’s father has warned us there’s a falls along the river, but it’s not marked on the map. Lydia and Daphne offer caution. Craig says we’ll do the next rapids and then set camp. Craig: If anyone gets wet, it’s better that it happens now than tomorrow morning.
We shoot the rapids.
Lydia and I in the lead canoe. Instructions: if any heavy rapids, pull to the side and inspect the river.