SUNDAY

In the spring and the fall, like a pagan solstice ritual, my dad and I go to Gabriola Island.

In the spring we go to “open the place up.” In the fall we go to “shut the place down.”

Early Sunday morning we head off from my dad’s place. Not early enough, unfortunately, to avoid being tailgaited on the 2nd Narrows by some silly girl blabbing on a cell phone.

We get to Horseshoe Bay, get on the boat, and immediately head to the cafeteria. Ahhhh, nothing like a BC Ferries breakfast. And I’m not being sarcastic. The sausage is simply....sausage. The eggs are eggs. The coffee is coffee. There is no unique taste, no weird twist to the flavour. I feel myself start to relax.

There is a fog on the coast on this particular morning. A beautiful mist, serving to blend the sea into the air as one grey shroud. Along the way, you can barely make out shapes in the distance; another ferry; a tugboat and barge; and then, wonderfully, a few dolphins.

Off the big boat, and on to the little one. October Ferry to Gabriola. It’s the name of a novel by Malcom Lowry, published after his death. I go out on deck, and notice a clump of seagulls converging in one spot. As we pass by, a seal pops its head out of the water. Sticking out of its mouth is the tail half of a salmon. The seal goes back under, and the seagulls are squalking, waiting for scraps like dogs around a dinner table.

We get to the wee house by noon or so. We unload. There is a chill sitting inside the place. It’s not as bad as it is in the spring, when it can take up to half a day to drive out the icy spirits that move in over the winter.

The main source of warmth comes from an oil burning stove. The stove was pulled from a posh house in Victoria that my mother’s Aunt Phyllis used to live in. Phyllis had a child as a young woman with some guy, but got rid of him and then married an older guy named Carl Sangster. He owned the first transit company in Victoria. A rich guy. My mother and I used to visit her when I was a little kid. At that time, her husband long-deceased, the still-alluring Auntie Phyllis lived in a swank place in Oak Bay. Cadboro Bay Road, to be exact; I love that street name. She drove a huge white Lincoln Continental, always dutifully obeying the unofficial Victoria speed limit of eighteen miles per hour.

It takes a while for the oil stove to warm up, and my dad turns on a pair of electric heaters in the meantime.

“It doesn’t give off much heat,” I say, holding my had in front of one of them.

“It throws the heat,” says my dad. “Stand back a ways and feel it.”

But of course. It’s one of those ventroliquist heaters. I stand back, and still can’t feel a thing.

“See?” says my dad.

“Yeah,” I agree.

I head down to the beach while the place heats up, then come back. My dad wants to visit an old friend named Vera, the wife of a guy he grew up with and went into the navy with.

When I was a little kid, we used to visit Vera all the time. It is a common thing for little kids to call their parents’ friends ‘aunt’ or ‘uncle.’ Vera told my mom that she already had enough kids calling her aunt and uncle, and said I should call her ‘grandma.’ It was agreed, and to this day I still think of her as ‘Grandma Vera.’

She is an island matriarch. She lives at the south end, opposite from us north end islanders. Her property is tucked up at the end of a dirt lane. It’s full of curiosities...huge tree trunks carved into the shapes of camels, large life-like dolls sitting at tables having tea, big toy trains on railway tracks that run over small ponds...

When I was a kid she also used to have lots of animals, especially cats. At one point she had about seven Siamese cats, and one regular orange cat called ‘Charlie.’ Charlie was highly aloof, and would appear only sporadically, exuding a snow leopard-like elusiveness. As a child I thought he was the epitome of cool. The Siamese, on the other had, were irksome and clingy.

“She’s not home,” said my dad after calling her. “But she might be at the museum.”

She is one of the founders of the Gabriola Island Museum, which actually has few historical artifacts in it than does her living room. We decide to drive around the island, and stop at the museum along the way. Sure enough, she’s there. She comes out with my dad, but has to meet someone else at their house. We drive her over there, and along the way she notices that my Stoke cowboy hat is sitting on the back seat.

“What a hat!” she exclaims. She has the most excellent voice, full of enthusiasm and expression. “Boy is that ever neat.”

She tries it on, then asks that I put it on.

“Boy,” she says, “That hat is the nicest thing I’ve seen in a long time.”

We drop her off, head around the island, and get back to the house. My dad goes in, and I head off again to buy a magazine at the store. I make a detour out to Berry Point, along the north end of the island, my favorite part of the B.C. coast. Again more seals.

Back at the house, dinner is almost ready. My dad’s a good cook. He learned to cook when he was in the navy. For a while he was assigned to a tugboat, and used to play cards with the cook, picking up culinary tips. When the cook went on leave, my dad would take over by default. His cooking is simple but effective, and relies heavily on the frying pan.

Again I go for a walk, this time down to Malaspina Point. A deer on the road, and then yet another seal, this one asleep on a rock ledge at the edge of the water. I walk right up to it, and its eyes open. It looks at me for a bit, like it’s still not quite awake, then something clicks and it scurries back to the water, plunging under. It pops its head up after a few seconds, still looking at me, then goes under for good.

I go back to the cottage and we eat, and then comes the long haul of the evening.

“It takes a long time to make a night go by here,” admits my dad. He says this after about 45 minutes of sitting in front of a T.V. set that gets three channels. Every ten minutes he gets up to change the channel in the vain hope that something palatable has appeared one one of them.

Exhausting my copy of Guitar One magazine, I resort to a novel left behind by some visitor over the summer. It’s called ‘Ruling Passion.’ It’s a English murder mystery:

“She met Marianne’s quizzical gaze with the unruffled smile of one whose own buttocks were as compact as a boy’s.”

Yes, well....

I go back to watching T.V. Now David Suzuki’s on. Something about fire and water.

Look! He’s eating bacon and eggs!! HOLY FUCK!!!! The leading environmentalist in the country eats bacon?? Well. That’s revelation right there.

Finally it’s time for the news, and then bed. I was up early, and I’m tired. The loft has been made cozy by the rising heat from the stove, and I sleep easily.





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