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Théodora Armstrong: Clear Skies, No Wind, 100% Visibility

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Théodora Armstrong Clear Skies, No Wind, 100% Visibility

Clear Skies, No Wind, 100% Visibility: краткое содержание, описание и аннотация

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Set against the divergent landscape of British Columbia — from the splendours of nature to its immense dangers, from urban grease and grit to dry, desert towns — Clear Skies, No Wind, 100% Visibility examines human beings and their many frailties with breathtaking insight and accuracy. Théodora Armstrong peoples her stories with characters as richly various — and as compelling — as her settings. A soon-to-be father and haute cuisine chef mercilessly berates his staff while facing his lack of preparedness for parenthood. A young girl revels in the dark drama of the murder of a girl from her neighbourhood. A novice air-traffic specialist must come to terms with his first loss — the death of a pilot — on his watch. And the dangers of deep canyons and powerful currents spur on the reckless behaviour of teenagers as they test the limits of bravery, friendship, and sex. With startling intimacy and language stripped bare, Clear Skies, No Wind, 100% Visibility announces the arrival of Théodora Armstrong as a striking new literary voice.

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He leaned into her, bent to her ear. “Anna’s fine. She’s always fine,” he whispered. “She’s the good one, remember?” Anna was the child who sang you songs while she helped load the dishwasher, who left her dirty boots at the door, who cleaned her plate without bribery. Leslie was the child who ate glue.

“I don’t know if I’d go that far,” Heather said, shaking her head. “I think she might be flunking out of Camosun.”

“Anna got straight A’s in high school. She’s adjusting.” He wrapped his arms around her and laced his fingers near her stomach. “The trip will be good for both of them. I’ll talk to them, straighten things out. We’ll eat vegetables all weekend.” He kissed the back of her neck. “I’m trying to make you happy.” Heather gently unlaced his fingers and lifted his arms off her, continuing to rinse the dishes. Her lips pressed together in a tight smile. “What’s the joke?” Ted asked.

She shook her head. “Nothing. Take the girls. You’ll have fun.”


THEY’VE ONLY BEEN DRIVING along the winding island road for ten minutes when Anna starts to groan in the back seat. “Pull over. I’m going to be sick.”

“Carsickness is all in your head,” Leslie says.

“Shut up. Dad, stop.”

As soon as Ted pulls over Anna throws open the door, stumbling along the side of the road, clinging to the long grasses beside the ditch. Leslie hops out of the car and scans the bushes, looking for the best blackberries and popping them in her mouth. Ted flips open his phone — the screen shows emergency service only. His client will have to wait.

Mist hangs back in the forest like a curtain, creating a sound barrier, leaving everything dewy and still and filling Ted with an unjustifiable sense of hope — for what, he has no idea. Maybe the property, the potential summer house. This part of the island is sheltered from the winds off the strait, the branches of the towering evergreens fossilized in their stillness, not a quiver in their needles. Something in the air — the smell of fir — is stirring good memories, and when the inevitability of his own death suddenly grips him, Ted reassures himself, knowing that when that day comes, he’ll be able to look back on this trip with a sense of accomplishment: he’ll buy the property, hand down a parcel of land to his girls. It’s as though he has woken clear-headed from a bad sleep. He hasn’t felt this way since Anna and Leslie were young, when Ted and Heather would take them island-hopping in the summer, spending a week ferrying around the Gulf Islands. The girls loved the ferries; they would stand out on deck at the bow, mouths wide open in the salty wind. Anna could name all the islands they passed — Pender, Saturna, Mayne. One summer, for no special reason — either he or Heather was busy with work — they stopped going, and they haven’t been back since.

Leslie opens her stained hand and offers Ted a selection of plump blackberries. He thanks her and pops one in his mouth, savouring its tartness. She eats the rest of the handful, dark purple juice oozing out from between her lips. Ted laughs and puts his arm around her, pulling her toward him and giving her shoulder a squeeze. “We haven’t done this in a while, have we?” he says.

“It reminds me of something.” Leslie wipes the juice off her lips with the back of her hand and cranes her neck to take in the tops of the trees. “Did we come here when we were kids, like, on this exact road?”

“Not here,” Ted says. “This is all new.”

Anna walks back toward them, pale and unsteady.

“Did you puke?” Leslie asks, getting back in the car.

Anna follows her, getting in the front seat. “Keep going, but don’t take the turns so fast.”

“A deer!” Leslie says, pointing to a doe nipping at the underbrush along the edge of the forest.

“I’m sure we’ll see lots of them,” Ted says. “They don’t have many predators here.”

“Am I supposed to keep my eyes open or closed?” Anna asks, her eyes squeezed shut.

“It’s so cute. Come on, Anna, look,” Leslie says, shaking her arm.

“Fuck off,” Anna shouts, shoving her sister to one side of the car. The sharpness in her tone shocks them all into silence for a few seconds. Ted turns on the engine and the deer runs into the forest, vanishing behind the wall of fog.

“Why are you so pissy?” Leslie says, her voice quiet and hurt.

“Leslie, don’t say pissy,” Ted says, turning back to the road.

“Anna can say ‘fuck off’, but I can’t say ‘pissy.’”

“The cabin’s on the edge of that hill.” Ted points up ahead.

“Where’s the ocean?” Leslie asks.

“The cabin’s not on the ocean. It’s on a lake.”

“Oh.” Leslie sounds disappointed. Anna lurches forward in her seat with her hand over her mouth. “Stop the car.”


THEY EAT AN EARLY dinner of cold cuts, bread, and sliced tomatoes with salt and pepper. The girls become quiet and sullen in their new environment. Leslie’s giddiness disappears. They’re both disappointed the cabin has no television. Ted made a production of the bicycles propped up against the garage awning, taking one for a quick circle of the front yard as the girls stood, arms crossed, unimpressed.

Ted and Anna drink wine out of mugs because they can’t find glasses, and Ted gives Leslie two small tasters. This perks her up right away and after the first sip the chatter starts once again. She hoots like an owl, saying, “Listen. It’s weird. It’s so quiet. Hoo, Hoo.” Over dinner their conversation is self-conscious, but loosens up as Ted pours a second glass of wine for Anna and himself. When he mentions Leslie’s “boyfriend on the ferry,” she blushes and Anna teases her ruthlessly. On the bookshelf Leslie finds a deck of cards and hands it to Ted. “What do you want to play?” he asks as he shuffles them, enjoying the sound of the deck breaking.

“Go Fish,” Leslie says. She reaches for the wine bottle and Ted stops her, placing his hand over hers. “I don’t think so,” he says.

“Come on. You barely gave me any.”

Ted looks to Anna who shrugs and looks around as if to say, Is there any harm, here in the middle of nowhere? “A drop,” Ted says, pouring a finger of wine into her mug. “Don’t tell your mother.”

Leslie grins, pleased. Her teeth are red.


THEY PLAY CARDS ON the porch for the better part of an hour, shouts of Go Fish echoing across the lake, before Ted leaves the cabin, driving back to the ferry dock in search of cell reception and a pie for dessert. He buys blueberry at the market and tries his client first, getting voicemail, and then calls Heather. Her tired voice makes him instantly sleepy. “How are the girls?”

“Good. In fact, they’re great. Leslie’s at least trying to behave.”

Heather laughs softly on the other end of the line and for a little too long; Ted starts to think the joke may have been about something else. “It’s quiet here without them,” she finally says.

“It’s quiet here too.” When he says these words, Ted’s eyes go instinctively out to the ocean, where the last ferry of the day is loading. He suddenly feels paranoid, as though at this very moment, Heather may have a naked man in bed beside her. “You’ll have to come with us next time.”

“Can I talk to them?” she says, ignoring his offer.

“They’re at the cabin. There’s no phone, no cell service, no TV. It’s rustic. I came into town to buy pie.”

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