Nine Lies of B.G. Davies

A Sense of Place

Jeanne was home alone the day the real estate agent dropped by. It was a gloriously cold Saturday morning in January, the sky was brilliant white and the snow crunched under Max Staine's feet as he walked up the driveway. Jeanne saw him, was waiting for him. Kevin was at work and the kids were in town for a sleepover with friends. It was a rare, quiet Saturday morning. Jeanne put down the dishcloth and ran her hands through her hair. She breathed deeply and waited for the doorbell to ring.

Kevin had met the agent too, the week before at the Community Centre, but it was Jeanne who took his card. Max Staines, the card read. The picture of the agent didn't look like he did in person, the night she and Kevin spoke to him at the concert.

The Saturday before they were crammed into the Plater's Corners Community Centre to see a country rock band that Kevin had heard was good. A group of city people who had moved to the Mountain brought in big name bands from the city to play shows at the old Community Centre. They promoted the concerts to other city folk and weekenders in the area, and the bands, it was said, loved to come up and play the small, rustic room. Jeanne told Kevin she found the band to be loud and everything seemed washed out in a blur of noise. Kevin yelled to her that it was called Indie Music, a different style. There was no one at the show they knew until Max Staines introduced himself to Jeanne during the break.

"Do you folks live up here on the Mountain?" Max Staines asked while still shaking Jeanne's hand.

"Sure do, born'd and raised here," Kevin cut in.

"Ya, it's crazy what's gone on up here, with the price of property and all. Prices are through the roof, I tell you. You guys own your own home?"

Kevin later told Jeanne he was pretty sure the guy was just making small talk but made sure he didn't let the man out of his sight. He appeared pleasant enough in his black jeans and tight gray sweater; a little younger than they were, he looked like he fit right in with the crowd at the show. Jeanne seemed to enjoy talking to the man and when Kevin returned from the bar with a fresh beer, Max Staines had his hand on Jeanne's shoulder as he shouted something in her ear. Then the drummer clicked his sticks together, counted four, and the band kicked off into their next set. Kevin and Jeanne left the hall soon after, before the band had finished.

Among those who lived on the Mountain, Jeanne and Kevin's relationship was held up to be nothing less than perfect. The locals up here understood whenever the couple appeared at a community social event or at a friend's Buck and Doe party, they arrived together, danced together, and shared laughs with their friends Dan and Karri. Kevin never got too drunk yet always had a good time. Seldom were they the first to leave, nor the last, and when they did go it was after a round of cheery "good-byes" and "see yous laters" and "be good nows". Kevin's arm was always around Jeanne as they turned and waved to the friends and relatives at the New Sussex Legion Hall or the Community Centre in Plater's Corners, saying goodbye to the others who lived, and whose families have always lived, up here on the Mountain. Salt of the earth people.

Their home was a quaint, raised bungalow built in the seventies on a ten-acre parcel severed off the old Moore property. It wasn't much, but since Kevin put in new windows, it was much cozier. Sure, the kids complained that it was draughty when the wind blew from the North, but as Jeanne would tell them: imagine what it was like for your great-grandparents, coming up here to build a log cabin and work the land by hand in the old days, up here in the Queen's Bush.

"Did they really call it the Queen's Bush?" one of the kids, likely Jamie, asked.

"Sure did." Kevin chuckled. "The land was thick with trees. And smelly and dirty."


Jeanne jumped in: "It was bushland given to settlers by the Queen of England, that's why it was called that. Now you kids go get washed up for dinner, okay?" And Jamie and Dana ran off, hungry for the meatloaf or spaghetti or beef stew that would be a weeknight meal in the Munro household.