macCLOUD FALLS, page 5
On the seawall, someone was building a barricade of giant iron baffles, angles cut to keep the waves away. Like Richard Serra in domestic mood. The metal had immediate age, and already the graffiti artists of the foreshore had marked their claim of right. But in a city built on timber, the boldness of such an intrusion became a symbol of industrialisation. The oldest Vancouver was built on what had grown here, was itself a product of the land, and was reclaimed by it in fire. What remains, the solitary Hastings Mill, is a delicate tinderbox, towed far from the glass and steel of downtown, moored in Jericho.
Jericho. Tsumtsahmuls. MacDonald. The right to name, the language of power, the dominant narrative. That much was the same in old Caledonia and in New Caledonia, as the early settled country was called before Queen Victoria decided that, as the French already had a New Caledonia, British Columbia it should be.
Tsumtsahmuls was left off the map. The old world cartographers brought their own language to add to the first people’s, the names of their hometowns from the old country, their great figures, their leaders and chiefs, their clans, at first just a few, then to swamp those first names in a torrent of syllables.
Then he felt a buzz in his pocket, and took out his phone. It was a text from her.
Want 2 watch hockey 2night? Big game.
He called her back.
‘Well now,’ she said to her canine companion, and laid down her pink-rimmed glasses. Hero looked up at her, expectantly, as if he had been waiting jealously for attention. ‘Very strange. It’s a story with someone like me doing things very like some things I’ve done. But it isn’t me and it isn’t what happened. At least, not as I remember it.’ She bent down and petted the dog. ‘Our friend Gil has put us in a story. He is a strange guy.’ She stood up and walked over to the window, where the video camera stood on a tripod, pointing out across the river towards the little town. ‘I wonder what he’s been recording on this,’ she said. The dog got up and walked obediently to her side. ‘Shall we see?’ she asked it. She fiddled with the buttons till she found the playback, put her glasses on and watched the small screen. There were various files. There was footage of the Rocky Mountaineer, the long tourist train passing along the canyon line. Shots of two birds on a nest, eagles perhaps, which when she checked out the room window, she could see, far away on a platform on top of a pole by the river’s edge. Further back, scenes of a waterfall. More of the river. And further again, what seemed to be his journey up from Vancouver on the Greyhound, shot from inside the coach. None of it of great interest, and no interviews with anyone on the subject of Lyle or anything related, at least as far she could find. Maybe he’d already downloaded them.
‘Not much to see there,’ she said, and picked up her cell phone to check the time. ‘What shall we do?’ she asked the dog, who seemed to think it was a good idea to go for a walk. The room was still very hot despite the fact that it was now almost six o’clock, and it whined at the half-open door.
‘Okay,’ she said. ‘Let’s take a look downstairs, see if the innkeeper’s around. If not, we can take a walk. Guess you must be feeling the heat, honey. And you’ve finished your water.’
There was no one at the desk, and no one on the terrace. No sign of Rick. He wasn’t in his place. Then she heard the low sound of someone talking come from the room to the other side of the stairs. She went in, the dog still at her feet. Two men were sitting in what appeared to be a guest lounge, looking a little tired and scruffy. One had his back to her, and when the other indicated to his friend that someone had entered the room, they both turned to look at her.
‘Hi,’ she said. ‘Have you seen Rick?’
‘Ah, no, ma’am,’ said the furthest away, the older of the two. ‘Think he went out.’
‘Are you guys the tree-planters?’ she asked.
‘Well, two of them,’ the younger guy answered. ‘The others are in their rooms, I guess. We just got back. Been a hard day’s night.’ Both men were looking at her strangely. She guessed it was the Sigourney Weaver thing.
‘I’m looking for my friend, the Scotsman who is staying here,’ she said. ‘He seems to have disappeared. You haven’t seen him?’
‘Saw him the other night,’ the younger guy said.
‘How did he seem? I mean, what was his mood?’
‘His mood? I dunno. Seemed fairly quiet. We were watching the hockey together.’
‘I wouldn’t worry,’ the older tree-planter added. ‘He’s out a lot, hiking about, talking to people. I’m Bob, by the way, and this is Doug.’ It was as if he was hoping for her to offer her name. When she didn’t, he added, ‘Nice pooch.’
‘He’s a bit fatigued with the heat. Anyway, if Rick comes back, tell him I’ve taken the lad here for a short walk. I’ll be back soon.’
She went out of the room and heard their voices behind her.
‘Nah, that’s not her. She’s too young. Sigourney Weaver must be like 60 plus now.’
‘I dunno, man. These celebrities get all kinds of work done. They don’t age like normal people.’
Rumours travelled.
She opened the front door and left the relative cool of the AC with Hero. The heat was a powerful wave. They crossed the highway and walked alongside the railway line for a while, where one long snaking CPR train of various trucks lay waiting silently for its signal to roll. Hot as it was out, a breeze was blowing through the canyon. She found herself staring up at the steep rocky wall opposite, and down to the huge river roaring by below. The scale of the scene was vast, and the tiny gathering of houses seemed so insignificant, it was kind of overwhelming.
Hero didn’t want to hang about outside either, for whatever reason, so they made their way back to the oldest inn in BC. Inside there was no one around – even the two tree-planters had gone. So she filled the water bowl for her companion and went upstairs again. Hero settled down again, sucked of all energy by the heat, in front of the fan. She picked up Gil’s handwriting.
‘Let’s see what happens to my Czech alter-ego Martina next,’ she said to him. ‘And maybe you’ll have a role too, buddy.’ She put on her pink-rimmed glasses and began to read again.
That afternoon, after a nap, he took a walk around the shops in the Kitsilano neighbourhood in the sunshine. Everything seemed gripped by a blue and white fever – cars displayed pennants, flags draped on balconies, people of all ages wore Vancouver Canucks shirts as their daily wear – even a stuffed full-sized brown bear in the window of a second hand bookshop he visited wore the colours. He struck up a conversation with the bookseller who explained that the Canucks were playing in the final of the Stanley Cup, hockey’s top prize. On the sign above an old cinema on Broadway near where he was staying, the sign where movie titles were displayed read ‘WE ARE ALL CANUCKS NOW’ across the top. It was if the whole city had invested in this contest, as if it was a matter of deep civic pride and not a sporting trophy that was at stake.
She turned up outside his suite as arranged, rang the doorbell. When he opened the door, she was standing there on the doorstep dressed in a Canucks t-shirt, her dark hair pinned up, and a Canucks cap on top. She smiled, her brown eyes shining that golden way he’d noticed on the plane. The first thing about her that had impressed itself on his memory. Again he had the vague feeling he knew her from somewhere.
‘Thought we’d walk,’ she said. ‘There may be drinking involved.’
Together they set off through the suburban streets, passing house after house in a subtle variety of wooden styles. She asked if he’d slept and he said he’d had a couple of hours.
‘Feel alright?’
‘A bit tired. But that’s normal. With the radiotherapy.’
‘I nap too,’ she said. ‘Every afternoon.’
As they walked, side by side, it struck him that not only was she as tall as he was but their legs too matched perfectly in length, so that their strides seemed synchronised. They did indeed seem twinned. Radiation twins.
‘I can’t get over you and I having cancer at the same time,’ she said, as if picking up on his thoughts.
‘Well, lots of people did. Do. That’s not so strange. But meeting the way we did, with the prospect of an air crash, it feels like we’re fated in some way.’
‘To have met?’
‘To share something.’
‘What?’
‘Well, let’s start with the hockey. Tell me about it. What’s going on.’
So Martina explained, the Vancouver Canucks were 1-0 up in a best of seven series against the Boston Bruins, trying to win their first ever North American ice hockey championship, the Stanley Cup – the end goal of a long winter season and more than a hundred games. Tonight was the second match in the final. She turned out to be a big hockey fan. It was a hugely popular game in Czech Republic and a lot of Czechs played in the NHL, she said. He explained to her that in Scotland it wasn’t all that popular, and was hardly played at all, though he could remember that when he was a boy the BBC used to show live games from the British League, featuring teams like the Fife Flyers and Murrayfield Racers, so he knew the rudiments.
She took him to a packed pub on 4th Avenue where everyone was glued to big screens, positioned throughout the roof at different angles to maximise viewing. A few people she knew welcomed her to their table, and she introduced him as a stray Scotsman she’d picked up on the way home from Calgary. They squeezed into a space next a man she called Alex.
Martina explained to him, over the hubbub, that for Vancouver this competition represented proper and full participation in the affairs of the continent. This was a young city even in North American terms. The stray Scotsman didn’t really understand all the rules, or the commentators’ jargon. He tried to follow the play, but it was so quick.
‘I can’t see the puck half the time,’ he said.
‘Watch what the guys are doing, follow the players, not the puck,’ Alex said, without taking his eyes from the screen. Martina too was entranced. Her face lit up when the Canucks attacked, glowered and grimaced when in defence.
It turned out a very tense match. The Canucks finally managed to win 3-2 in extra time, or what they called overtime here. When the puck found the net, the place erupted, just like the football terraces he remembered from his childhood. Except with high-fives and chest bumps. Martina did a little dance of joy. She and her friends had hardly spoken since the start of overtime till the goal went in and victory was secured, but a lot of beer was consumed and the stray Scotsman had eaten his first plate of poutine, on their command, in the interim.
Alex looked hugely relieved, as if he’d lived through some mortal combat. ‘Five to go and only two more wins required,’ he beamed around the table, but after the elation had passed and the pub quietened down he grew worried. ‘But I remember 1994,’ he went on. ‘I was just a kid. The disappointment and the riots that followed, man...’ The emphasis on the final word stretched out significantly. That year, he continued, against the New York Rangers, they’d been 3-1 down in the series, then won two games to level at 3-3 so that everyone thought the momentum was with them, but they lost the last in New York by a single goal. And after the game ended, a frustrated crowd began to gather downtown in Vancouver, and it all went sour. A man fell from a street lamp and police on bicycles tried to escort paramedics into the crowd. Some people got rowdy, attempted to take a bicycle from one constable, the police retreated and warned them to disperse. When they wouldn’t, the riot squad appeared and a full-scale pitched battle began. Shops were broken into and some of the angry fans looted what they could. Around 200 people ended up in hospital.
The way Alex described it, the trauma was obviously still lingering, like a shadow from youth that wouldn’t disappear, but took the shine from the hope that this time it would be different. It was a salutary warning that nothing could be taken for granted. Although Vancouver had been the best team throughout the main season this year, Boston was a tough opponent with a good old goaltender, and he was anxious.
The pub slowly emptied and the stray Scotsman decided he should go. He stood up, and began to say his farewells to his new hockey chums, and to Martina.
‘Are you going?’ she said.
‘Yes, I want to head back.’
She stood up next to him and leaned close. She seemed quite drunk, though he wasn’t sure just how much they’d had to drink in the midst of excitement. ‘You’re not leaving without me,’ she said, whispering so no one else could hear. ‘My dates don’t run out on me.’
He wondered, was this a date? Was she serious? Then she smiled, a little drunkenly, took his hand where it dangled at his side and squeezed it.
‘I have to look after him,’ she said to her friends. ‘He’s a sick-hearted Scotsman.’
Outside, it was still quite light, and they walked step for step along a quiet backstreet. She was swaying about a little, hardly sober, as she walked.
‘I have to get home too,’ she said. ‘My dog is waiting for me. He needs a walk.’
‘Your dog?’
‘Yes. Hero.’
‘You call him Hero?’
‘Well, as a puppy they called him Milo but I never liked that name. Always reminded of the kid in the Phantom Tollbooth. So I changed it to Miro after the painter, then it became Miro the Hero, and then just Hero.
‘Hmmm. You live in this direction?’
‘More or less,’ she said. ‘I’m going to see you safely home first. It’s my duty.’ She smiled. ‘After all, we’re radiation twins.’
‘We are indeed,’ he replied, as she took hold of his arm again.
She held onto him all the way up the steps to the door of his lodgings.
‘I want to see where you’re staying,’ she said, and she followed him inside.
While he switched on the lamp and drew the curtains, she flopped onto the bed, her forearm across her forehead.
‘Wow,’ she breathed. ‘That was some match.’
He stood and gazed at her lying there, this beautiful stranger who had sprawled herself across his rented bed, her long legs stretched out, her eyes closed, her dark hair splayed over his pillow. She didn’t move for what seemed ages. Was she falling asleep? Should he pull a cover over her?
He felt quite drunk himself, though at least the room wasn’t spinning. He lay down next her, side by side, not touching, staring up at the ceiling in the gloomy lamplight. Then her hand took hold of his, her scent was rich and close, unavoidably attractive. He wanted to kiss her, but she flinched as if she’d been burned.
‘We’re twins,’ she said. ‘My Scotch friend.’ She stood up, swaying slightly. ‘I have to go. My dog is waiting.’
He lay there, silently berating himself as she fumbled drunkenly with the latch, opened the door and let herself out. He heard her footsteps clatter as she went down the wooden stairs outside, and slipped away into the darkening night.
‘Hmm,’ she said, and took off her glasses. She lay back on the bed, his newly rented bed. The dog Hero lifted his head, looked at her with his blank black-eyed stare, the one that seemed capable of seeing into her soul. ‘What?’ she said. ‘It’s just a story. It wasn’t like that, I didn’t do anything.’ The dog leapt up on the bed next to her and she put her arms around his thick furry mane. ‘You know you’re my boyfriend.’ Hero nuzzled at her neck and she laughed, but her hand went to cover her breast as he lay down heavily next to her, his paws on her chest. ‘Don’t be jealous,’ she told him, as she ruffled his coat, and he licked her face.
The rumble of an engine outside made her sit up. Not the thunderous screech of the train like earlier, more a truck, by the sound of it, maybe more than one. She went to the open door and listened. If it was Gil, she’d better put his writing away.
As she closed the drawer, she heard the little bell ring as the inn’s front door opened, and people came in, more than one or two. She heard their footsteps and their voices as they seemed to make their way to the terrace, so she opened the room window to eavesdrop.
Rick’s now familiar eastern tone drifted up. She didn’t catch what he said because of the noise the others were making. There seemed to be quite a crowd. She heard the clink of glasses, laughter, loud voices, then the squeak of steps on the staircase, and a knock on the half-open door. It was Rick.
‘Any news?’ she asked.
He shrugged his shoulders. ‘Maybe. I went over the bridge and spoke to a few people in town. Seems Mr Johnson went out hiking early this morning. One of the First Nations guys, Big George Wakem, saw him heading up the highway to the north.’
‘Did he say where he was going?’
‘Said he didn’t ask him. But he looked like he was headed somewhere important. George called a couple of the band, and they’re spreading the word. Seems your Gil saw one of the elders the day before yesterday and she told him about a few places he might like to see, connected to Jimmy Lyle. We haven’t been able to get hold of her yet, but George is here right now. He’s downstairs on the terrace if you’d like to speak with him. And just to warn you, so is all his family…’
She was momentarily surprised but nodded. ‘Sure’, she said. ‘I’ll come down.’
But Rick stopped her progress at the door, taking hold of her arm. ‘One thing,’ he said, ‘If one of the kids happens to call you Ms. Weaver...’
She interrupted, ‘What did you tell them?’
‘I might have said you were the woman from Alien. I was just kiddin them.’
There was quite a little gathering downstairs on the terrace. When she appeared under the adobe archway, they all got up and, one by one, shook her hand politely. Rick introduced the patriarch first, George, and the patriarch introduced his family, and each almost curtseyed or bowed like she was royalty as she moved along the line and they said hello. Seven in all, Big George who was indeed big, his wife, her sister, George’s two grown up sons, one large like his father and one not so, and a couple of their kids, George’s grandchildren, all spread over the terrace. Too many names to remember.
They’d kept the best seat for her and Hero too was deemed royalty. The kids especially made a big fuss of him, wanted to know what kind of dog he was and where he came from.
