Sea of Tranquility Read Online Free PDF Page A

good as before.
    Legislators as far away as Halifax and even Ottawa were trying to make her leave. Make everyone leave. They didn’t have to steal your land from you, all they had to do was take away the ferry service and everything would begin to shut down.
    But they would not do that. As long as there were whales. The whales brought the tourists, brought them right on through Mutton Hill Harbour and onto the ferry to her island. Moses Slaunwhite had dropped fishing like a hot potato and started taking tourists out to see the whales near the Trough. Moses knew the waters, had a big enough boat, and was raking in the cash. It was a sweet combination for all as it turned out. The mercantile interests in Mutton Hill Harbour scrambled for the money from the passers-through and polished up the town. Motel owners and bed and breakfast people suddenly had loved right whales all their lives, even the ones who had never even seen a right whale.
    Hell, everybody loved whales now, and no one owned up to the fact that grandfathers with harpoons once slept ashore in those bed and breakfast beds with their old socks still on, socks soaked in slimy whale blubber. Now, by Jesus, everyone loved whales. And there was this economic link, as they were calling it. Ragged Island was the centrepiece. Jacked the prices up on the ferry but at least she still sailed back and forth. Once the warm months were over, it would go back and forth only once a day, but kids could still go to school each day on the mainland if need be, men would still work there and come home to the island. And Sylvie could still stay here, living alone at eighty, if she wanted.
    She would pay no heed to all those well-meaning mainland friends who wanted her “safe and sound on solid soil.” As long as she had the island she was okay. As long as the whales werethere the tourists would come to gawk and take too many foolish pictures, and her brood of sea mammals would perform with a mere blink or a small geyser and let the mainlanders squint at the sun glinting off a sleek, arching back.
    A whale could take the indignation of a thousand Styrofoam cups in the sea or a tossed jelly bean. A whale could handle that. Moses knew how to keep a fair distance, knew how to humour his clients but keep them from drowning on the Shoal, keep them from harassing the whales.
    â€œYou keep the whales safe and satisfied and the tourists amazed and the island will be safely looked after,” said Moses to Sylvie. “Halifax is up to sending hired actors in oil skins off to Rhode Island and Japan with the news that they can touch the sandpapery skin of the beast if they fly here and bring their dollars and yens. Dollars and yens — that’s all that matters nowadays. Perhaps a Swiss franc or two. But the Swiss are not so easily amazed. Remember, they were the shrewd bastards could keep the Nazis from coming over the mountains and disrupting their quiet little lives.”
    And so, Sylvie was certain, the whales would come back this year as every other. They would return for her because she cared for the island and she cared deeply for them. And now there would be no more men in her life, but there would be sea creatures and clear, sunny, squint-eyed mornings like this to last a person through her winter, snug in memories.

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    Lonely without whales, Sylvie craved womantalk. Words to fill empty spaces in her life, chinks in the walls. Kit Lawson would do. It was a Saturday, schoolteacher’s day off, and Kit would be alone now that her dope-growing young man was gone off to rehab or jail. Sylvie hoped it wasn’t terrible punishment. He’d been a cheerful lad, seemed to care about the bees and the soil conditions. Understood rotting kelp and seaweed, was willing to learn all the tricks of gardening on an island like this. She hoped his motivation had not just been profit.
    Kit lived in a large one-room house with a loft area for a bedroom. Once a