Anne Weale Lost Lagoon [HP 1085, MB 2787] (pdf)

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night.
Even at this hour North Vancouver was a shimmering, glittering
blaze of light on the far side of the black-satin sheen of the harbour.
Close to the south shore the water was patterned with rippling
streamers of vivid colour, the reflections of the lights on the floating
petrol stations where the tug-boats and motor cruisers refuelled.
Mundane by day, at night the stations were beautiful, the one
furthest out, Shell, making a ribbon of gold, pink and bronze light.
Chevron and Gulf combined violet and lilac and Esso trailed a
fuchsia reflection with azure borders. Beyond them was the winking
red light of a marker buoy.
Although only a few lights showed from the towers of apartments,
whole floors were brightly illuminated in many of the office
buildings. Hundreds of fluorescent tubes left burning while the
offices were deserted had seemed a great waste of energy until it
occurred to her that here in Canada the great rivers flowing seaward
were the main source of power.
At night the temperature dropped. After a short time outside she
began to feel chilly and returned to the living- room, but it was
useless to go back to bed until she had made up her mind what to do
about Laurier.
Now the euphoric mood induced by the wine and his company had
worn off, she knew it was crazy to go on seeing him. Even at this
stage she foresaw a real danger of losing her heart to him, and for
her the outcome of love wouldn't be happiness. It could only be
heartache.
Was a brief autumn idyll worth the emotional upheaval ?
Her heart said yes but her head took the negative view. And was it
really her heart which yearned for an end to the lonely nights of the
past three years? Or was it only a primeval instinct at work, trying to
make her conform to the pattern followed by generations of her
female ancestors?
The next morning, instead of using the underpass, she followed the
path which went round the stretch of water called Lost Lagoon. She
had asked Laurier why it was called that. He had said the name
came from verses about the lake written by a Canadian poetess,
Pauline Johnson, who was buried in Stanley Park.
As she walked, Alex wondered if he would conclude that her
absence from her usual route was because she had overslept. She
wondered when he would call her, and how difficult it would be to
give him the brush off.
Because that was the only sensible course of action. She had
behaved very foolishly by accepting his initial invitation; to
continue the association would be madness. It wouldn't be fair to
him either.
On the way back to her apartment, she put a quarter into one of the
newspaper vending boxes which were a frequent sight on the streets
of Vancouver and took out the Globe and Mail, Canada's national
newspaper.
After reading it at breakfast for two weeks, she had noticed that
most of the news was from Toronto where the paper was published.
Even Ottawa, the capital, appeared to take second place and
Vancouver, in spite of its million- plus population, had a much
smaller share of the Globus columns.
Laurier had explained this imbalance to her by pointing out that
Canada's centres of population were concentrated along its southern
border, leaving most of the northlands an empty wilderness.
Geographically, Vancouver was closer to the cities of America's
Pacific coast than to Toronto and Montreal. It was therefore hardly
surprising that in Toronto it was regarded as an unimportant place
out west.
'Which, as you can imagine, breeds a good deal of resentment
among Vancouverites,' he had added, when the subject had come up
during dinner last night.
As she chopped a fresh grapefruit and added peanuts, blueberries
and a generous dollop of yogurt, she tried not to remember how
much she had enjoyed discussing Canada with someone who could
answer her questions knowledgeably but without the parochial
prejudices of a man who had never been anywhere else.
She had finished breakfast and was on her way to the shower when
the telephone rang. She felt sure it could only be Laurier and braced
herself for the difficult necessity of assuming a coolness at variance
with her manner towards him when they parted in the lobby last
night.
However, when she lifted the receiver and gave the number of her
suite, a voice boomed, 'John Kassinopolis. How are you, Alex? How
are things going?'
'Oh ... Good morning, Mr Kassinopolis. The work is going well. I'm
ahead of the schedule I set myself.'
'Splendid. No problems at all?'
None in my working life, was her thought. Aloud, she said, 'No,
everything has been running very smoothly. I've finished working
out the basics. Now I'm tackling the details.' She pronounced the last
word in the North American way with the emphasis on the second
syllable.
'You must have been working hard. You've only been there two
weeks.' [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

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