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"I've come from an island," he says. "Where?" I immediately want to know. His face lights up, as he intrigues me. "Must I tell you, Marcia?" He knows my name; and maybe I immediately know the islands, a Canadian from Garson as I am: a small mining town here in Northern Ontario.

Gidd - short for Gideon - is fascinated by our town, I know. Just as sandy beaches, palm trees are waving ... somewhere. Gidd now works in the mine here, and he comes to the bars once in a while - his lanky frame moving, always languorous. He's in search of "El Dorado," he tells me.

He smiles, and nearly all his teeth shine. What if he's from Nevis, St. Kitts, Montserrat, all other places in the mind's eye? Patagonia, Australasia, also? "Must I really tell you?" "Maybe I will believe you," I play along. "Call me Gidd, please."
"Okay, Gidd, why must I believe you?"
His bronze skin, and again a glint in his eyes.

Then, "How real are you?" I ask. Immediately too I begin thinking about my boyfriend, Walt.

Gidd knows, I can't fool him; as I concentrate on his hands, the wide palms. I also imagine him going down the mine, his face a veritable mask ... he is after minerals, stones, gems. El Dorado? Sunny beaches, and palm trees yet waving. But he prefers being alone maybe, in the "bowels" of the earth here in Garson - as Walt my boyfriend once called it. Gidd smiles. And I am becoming anxious.

Gidd, handsome, despite his almost sunken eyes, as he looks at me. Nevis, St. Kitts, Montserrat, all of the Windward and Leeward islands, looking at me. Hurricane winds blowing. A volcano smouldering. Waves lapping in tinselling sunlight. Maybe Gidd has me under his spell. Call me naive. Garson is all, I say.

Gidd takes my hand, like the most natural thing in the world for him to do. Because, well ... I am from Garson? And my boyfriend Walt, he and I have been dating for over a year now, and we'll get married soon. Tell Gidd this. Mustn't I?

"What's he like?" Gidd asks.

"Who?" Then, "He's English," my voice's whisper.

Gidd affects a laugh. Next he asks if Walt came here looking for his El Dorado too? Walt ... who is making a trip back home to see his mother: in Manchester in the UK. It's how Walt sometimes describes it.

Instinctively I shrug. Gidd's palm is sweaty; his name with two d's, rhymed with kid. I unconsciously repeat the name to myself. Trade winds blowing. Flying fish leap high. A kingfisher somersaults in the air. A schooner, imagine it.

Walt and I are also sailing. Not Gidd and I ... with islands in-between us. I am taking all of Garson with me. Voices whisper. Walt there with his mother, swallowing another gin-and-tonic, rocking in her arm-chair. Walt indulges her, he talks about her incessantly. Gidd's fingers twirl in mine. An archipelago or peninsula in me. Now what's a Canadian? Who's asking? Here in Garson everyone likes Walt, I know. It's what Mom often says. Then, "Marcia, you're lucky to have a boyfriend like Walt."

"Really, Mom?"

"You will soon be married to him, you know."

But what if Walt never comes back? "Oh, he will," I laugh to myself.

"Who will?" Gidd says; and am I still under his spell? Not under Walt's spell any longer? All places in me, journeys I seem to be making.

Ah, I am a Canadian. Now Garson, a place with a unique history.

Who, the first settlers? Secrets of Ontario, because of a woman named Susanna Moodie who once lived here. Who are the real drawers of water and hewers of wood? Native burial sites too, those long dead. Spirits all. The early settlers, pioneers; and miners now in our town: their inexorably going under, then coming up with masks for faces. Soot. El Dorado? Garson is no outback town, I say.

And we are sophisticated, though unlike Toronto, if it's what you're thinking. We don't have theatre companies and opera houses, but we read a lot: we read Alice Munro, Margaret Atwood, our book clubs are alive without a Chapters or Indigo bookstore. My father, when he goes pike- or smelt-fishing, "hunting" - he calls it - talks politics with the guys, though it's always about Ottawa-bashing. American politics interest them, too. President George W. Bush?

Gidd yet listens to me, the way Walt never does.

Island-instincts all. What will my parents think if I introduce Gidd to them? Imagine my Dad calling him "Black Walt," and laughs. Dad's no racist; but he has his own way of talking, of saying things.

I want to pull my hand away from Gidd. And again I'm thinking about Walt being with his Mom. "I have to go now, Gidd," I say.

"Walt won't come back."

"Oh?"

He smiles. And maybe I don't want Gidd to go in the mine again, as if he will stay under forever. Gidd's eyes give out a sudden glow.

What am I thinking? And Walt and I have had our problems, our on-again, off-again relationship, I want to tell Gidd. Then one day Walt suddenly waved a plane ticket before me. A photograph of Mrs. Wishmire, his Mom (her husband had died five years ago, and he wasn't Walt's father), he also waved; and maybe she never wants Walt to be far away from her. Did Walt also want to be a pioneer, which was why he came to Garson ... to Canada?

Gidd grins. His face still a mask, I contemplate; becoming blacker, no?

Mrs. Wishmire, well, she never wants to come to Canada - to experience ice and snow - as she described it. All against Gidd's sunshiny tropics, I think. "You know," Gidd says with an awkward grin.

"Know what?"

"We can be friends."

Instinctively I pat the brownish-red curls at the sides of my neck, as I'm more than normally conscious of my looks. Ah, now Gidd doesn't mind me talking about Walt, and thinking about Walt's Mom too, she who indeed wants Walt to return to live in the UK, doesn't she? Will I come with him?

But Garson is where I belong. "Where d'you want to live then, in some lonely Caribbean island?" Walt had challenged me. Funny he said that. "I am from Garson," I shot back.

Think of it: my being on a Caribbean island, with the sea and sand. Waves washing, crashing down everywhere. But Walt said England was the best place for me to be, it was my heritage.

Then he compromised; I could return to Garson if I didn't like England. Next I begin to pretend Walt has never come to Garson, and again fantasize being on an ochreous beach with island-people everywhere. Walking in a narrow street, and being greeted because I am, well, from a small Ontario town ... where Gidd has come looking for his El Dorado.

Small-town life from east to west coast, all across Ontario, British Columbia, Newfoundland, Quebec, in every prairie town, I contemplate; and Canadians living in cities, too. Again I brush the curls on my neck, as Gidd comes closer. His almost ridged forehead, as I look at him. I must talk about myself again, about Garson being a special place. Wild horses running late at night during frontier days!

But suddenly I want to hear about Nevis, St. Kitts, Grenada, Montserrat. With Gidd all the islands seem one, yet they are distinct too. And Walt, I reminisce again, when we'd first met at a summer camp, and he said he was attracted to me; he told me he came to Sudbury on an engineering contract to do some project or the other. Not long after we became "betrothed"; and his Mom phoned, maybe arguing with him.

Then Walt said he didn't want me to be from a small town.

Why not, Walt? My heart pounds. And Gidd ... I suddenly want him to leave at once. But if Gidd leaves now, I will never see him again.

Please, Gidd, say something.Waves beating. Gidd is taking me across a wide, sprawling sea with driftwood coming ashore.

Potsherd even. Winds hurl. More waves, like oceans everywhere.

Walt, from afar, looking at me with binocular eyes; a ship's captain sort of, standing on the bow and stern ... laughing.

Days ... months pass, it seems. Gidd and I now in all the world's schooners, going to Asia, Africa, Australia. And Walt is now far from my mind (he's staying in England, longer, as his mother Mrs. Wishmire wants him to do). Oddly, right then I want Gidd to meet Walt. "It won't work you know, Marcia," Gidd says.

"What won't work?

"You know what I'm talking about."

"Do I?"

Walt also balks, I sense. Who's this Gidd anyway?

- Walt, you must meet him.

- Why?

- I told you about him, remember?

- You did?

- El Dorado! I blurt out.

- Oh ... your El Dorado-man, he scoffs.

My parents, other members of my family, figure something is the matter with me. "It's because of Walt going away, isn't it, Marcia?" Mom says. Then she figures I am just lonely.

I shrug. "Come on, what is it?" she wants to know.

"Maybe ...."

What?

Gidd again taking me to the South Seas, then to a specific island, one where he's come from, truly. People moving about, not just lying on the beach, yet with laughter in their eyebrows. Some wear scraps of clothing merely, and hang around (liming, one calls it). The weather is always perfect. A coconut-shelled island too; palm fronds waving.

Conch-shell sounds loudly. Gidd's relatives, all one large family, here in a place not unlike Garson. Am I meeting them also?

My father balks. "You will come to your senses once Walt returns."

I hum indifferently.

"Be patient, dear," another relative says.

"The wedding will happen soon," patronizes another.

"Is there someone else?" suddenly asks one.

My face reddens. Embarrassed smiles all around.

Gidd's world again, not just being deep in a mine, but one still of peninsulas, archipelagoes. "You be careful now," a voice warns.

"What d'you mean?"

"I'm not Merlin," the voice sounds older.

Then Gidd asks if I've heard from Walt again."He's returning, you know," he adds. Now he indeed wants to meet Walt, I can tell.

Instinctively I take his hand and grip it. His face, breath ... only.

"You're different, Marcia," he coos.

"Why d'you say that?" Well, because I am from small-town Garson? Then he says he's afraid of Walt and me breaking up. And tomorrow Walt's returning, isn't he? Though I imagine him yet meeting his school chums, his cricket-and-soccer-playing pals.

Right then I don't want Gidd and Walt to meet.

They are oceans apart.

Walt knows something's the matter with me. My mother and other relatives come around, too. Walt says to me, "Guess what?"

"What?"

"My Mom's coming to Canada."

"Is she?"

"Marcia, she wants to meet you."

Mrs. Wishmire really wants to meet me? And what if Walt just wants me to humor her - to play along? He laughs.

I don't. "Is something the matter?" he asks.

I make a face, pout. Walt snickers.

"I shouldn't have gone to Manchester," he says. Then he drags it out of me. "There's someone else ... who?"

I hem and haw, as we are alone. Dreadfully alone.

"Gidd," I finally say. Gidd ... and Walt: I yet don't want them to meet.

Walt is surprised at who Gidd is, where he comes from. The same Gidd still looking for El Dorado, going into the mine again, he can't fool me. Going to different places too all at once, I sense. More archipelagoes, distinct and indistinct places.

But how I want them - Walt and Gidd - to talk about Garson only.

Wild horses galloping, racing. Finally Walt says to Gidd, "Marcia and I will soon be married. My Mom's coming for the wedding."

Gidd listens patiently, and wants to hear more. Walt chuckles. My wedding day, as I'm dressed in lace, white frilly stuff. Confetti rains down. Gidd, faraway, waves to me. And everyone in the narrow alleyways, with little or no clothing on, Gidd's people, also wave. Gidd beckons to me, saying I must come to visit ... where I too will find my own El Dorado.

Will I? Walt's Mom laughs, others cheer.

... Soft nights, with Walt's warm touch. Yet I drift closer to the island of my dreams. Our honeymoon, remember?

"He's not real," Walt says. "Who isn't?" I retort.

A plane flies overhead, as I also sense someone waving to me from below, in an island-place. Gidd, who else? I'm returning to Garson, because I can't stay away for long. Now I tell Walt I must discover myself, and what it really means to come from a place like Garson, all because of the mines, where my father and his father before him have all worked; and I again imagine everyone's faces blackened, the way Gidd's is. Walt's blackened face too? Imagine Mrs. Wishmire balking. Gidd yet waves to me, while Mrs. Wishmire is in Manchester only; and now Walt wants to be there with her; and I am somewhere in-between; or again imagining wild horses running.

Pioneering days indeed, and a whole landscape is before me because I'm really from a small town, like nowhere else. My El Dorado too it is, and another place also in me, or what seems like it. Now Walt is waving to me, he and Gidd together. As I'm yet dressed in white, with my father leading me down the aisle; and my mother is smiling the way she's never smiled before.

Now I feel as I've never felt before because of distances, and places always in us, in me especially because I am from a small town ... only in Canada.