macCLOUD FALLS, page 7
‘Having dark thoughts again?’
‘I always have dark thoughts,’ he said. ‘I’m Scottish.’
She laughed, but glanced at him with worried expression. As she drove him back to his lodgings, he thought to himself how meeting her had changed things. He’d come with a vague intention, a hope against hope that he might find his way, become the writer he’d always dreamt of being, that somehow the new setting would allow him to leave behind the ennui, the sense of futility that he’d lived with for so long. And it had, for those short hours spent with her. Without her, it was just him and his shortcomings, his sense of inadequacy, his poor sick heart. He had come in search of a story, one he imagined was about a man who’d lived a century before. A story that involved pioneers and Indians. What he’d discovered in these few short days had changed all that. He no longer saw the trail ahead with any clarity.
She had become the story. His guide.
The light was fading fast outside the window now. She got up and crossed the room. Hero raised an ear but didn’t wake. She could still see the shape of the canyon wall against the sky but it seemed close to darkness, and lights in the town beyond the river were being switched on. The torrent continued to roar through the dusk, a constant she had quickly become acclimatized to. But there was still no sound of George’s truck returning, with or without the lost Scotsman. She wondered how much more daylight they might have to find him.
Instead, she had his written account of the time they’d spent together in Vancouver. But it wasn’t what had really happened. Some of it she remembered, some of things they’d done, even some of the words that he’d put in her mouth, but the names were wrong, the details were wrong. If she had become the story, he had told it his way and it wasn’t how she’d have done it. His story.
All the same, she was intrigued. It was like she’d stumbled on the inner workings of his mind, days afterwards. She lay back down for a while on the bed, staring out the window at the darkening sky. Did she really seem so impenetrable to him? She’d felt more herself with him than anyone for a long time, because the cancer bond they shared had made it possible to talk about what they’d been through. She felt for the scar under her bra, the line of hardening tissue once so intrusive and alien, now becoming part of her, her familiar, as it slowly healed. A defining mark, still painful.
The way he’d told the story, she seemed so upbeat, so positive, but that wasn’t really how she felt. She’d thought about dying too, just as he had, had thought it through, in case it happened. Who would take care of Hero, who would get her books, her paintings, her clothes. What little money she had to leave. What she wanted for her memorial. All that was necessary. But this sullen sick-heartedness of his wasn’t helpful. He had to understand that. And if she laughed and joked and made light of things, that didn’t mean she didn’t feel the void near at hand. It was her way of coping. Otherwise, it was desolation.
A knock on the door called her back to the present. It was Rick, with some sandwiches and a cup of tea.
‘No news?’
‘Not yet. But I think they should be on their way back now. According to what George’s wife said, it’s not so far. At least not in a truck.’
She thanked him as she took the tray. ‘And if we’re wrong about where he was heading for?’
Rick shrugged his shoulders. ‘They seemed pretty sure. And the clue in his diary. You still reading that?’
She didn’t reply, but turned the questioning back on him. ‘Why did you tell them downstairs I was Sigourney Weaver?’
Rick grimaced. ‘I didn’t. I just said you looked like her. Then I had a joke with one the kids about Alien.’
‘Well, just don’t mention it again.’
He nodded okay. ‘What should I call you then?’
Her pursuer, the man whose texts she was ignoring, flashed into her mind. She didn’t want to be found, she wanted to be incognito. ‘How about Martina?’ she said. ‘I’m getting used to not being me.’
Rick looked at her oddly, as if wondering what she meant. Then, as if realising it was a false name, he winked. ‘Ok-ay, “Martina”. I’ll see you later.’
After the dull salad sandwiches, she fed Hero his supper and then went back to the notebook. There seemed to be one last episode to follow, and she thought she could guess what it would be. She may as well read it while she waited. But just then, a low rumble outside attracted her attention. She thought for a second it was Big George, but as the sound grew and the little inn seemed to shake, Hero leapt up and began barking loudly, and she knew it was the CPR, another long train heading out through the Canadian wilderness, carrying trucks full of whatever, to wherever they had to go.
‘Ssshh, Hero,’ she said, petting him. ‘It’s only the railroad. It’ll be gone soon.’
But soon took a while to come, and the barking went on. She crossed to the window, gazed out again at the panorama of river and mountain, still just visible in the gloom. The little town was all lit up now, a tiny constellation deep in the canyon’s shadow. If they hadn’t found him by now, it could be too late.
Two days passed, much in the manner he had imagined they would before he left Edinburgh. He went to the museums, the bookshops, he took notes, he bought a few unusual local titles to post home. He ate alone. He functioned. He even wrote a book proposal, which could be sent to publishers or agents. Vancouver was a less welcoming yet less complicated city, knowing that she wasn’t there. It was more as he had anticipated, strange, yet not so, as what he did was familiar, even if the location was new. But all the while he was aware of his phone. He kept it in his jacket pocket at first, as he thought it might buzz at any moment, just a small message to say i’m back! c u soon or something. But when that didn’t happen, he started to keep it in his bag, further from his person. And he began to feel calmer. His aim was steadier. His focus returned. But he wasn’t happy. The ‘friend on Bowen Island’ took on a haunting form. Of course it was stupid to feel that way. For years he’d been free of any involvement. But some things are involuntary. He missed her. He cared, ridiculous as it might seem, himself just a skin-covered skeleton with a bright red neck. He’d believed a part of him had died last winter, the one that was capable of caring. His mantra through the worst of the illness had been a simple ‘I don’t care’, a pain-numbing repetitious pattern of syllables spoken over and over again, till he believed it was true. Yet now it seemed his capacity for love had refused to die despite the winter’s hardship, had lain dormant waiting for the sun’s return. He vowed to be careful, to remember how precarious the situation was, to do what he’d come to do and not be distracted. And then on his last day in Vancouver, before he was even properly awake, his phone did buzz, a brief and simple message.
Back in town. Wnt 2 meet?
His fingers had replied before his mind had time to remember his vow. Sure! Some things are involuntary, he thought. Mostly the promise of pleasure subverts the will to refrain.
The morning sky was heavy with cloud. Mist covered the mountains and it seemed like it would rain at any time. He watched out the window of his suite until he saw her car appear and park in front.
‘Hey,’ she said as he got in. ‘How’s Mister Sick Heart?’
‘Good,’ he answered brightly. ‘Been busy with research.’ He didn’t say, all the better for seeing you, though it was true. ‘How was your trip?’
She didn’t respond immediately. She seemed subdued, less chatty, rather preoccupied. There was no Hero on the back seat, as he’d hoped there would be.
‘So where are we going?’
‘Siwash. Remember?’
‘Ah yes,’ he said. It was Thursday, then. He’d lost track.
She drove down MacDonald and turned on to the shore road.
At last she said, ‘I feel I can you tell you this, Gil. I know we’ve only just met and I hope you won’t think bad of me.’
‘Why should I?’
‘I went to visit a man I’ve been seeing.’
The words made her start in surprise. She threw the journal down onto the bed, causing Hero to sit up and stare at her quizzically. This had not happened. And yet, it had, but in another way. She would never blurt out something so personal as that. Whatever Gil was writing wasn’t her. And yet he’d stumbled on something true in his fiction. She began reading again.
‘That’s no crime,’ he said, though he felt it should be.
‘No, but... it’s complicated, as they say.’ She let out a deep sigh. ‘He’s married.’
They approached Burrard Bridge with views over the harbour. The line of cars was slow. From there he could see Bowen Island in the distance clearly, she’d pointed it out to him the other day. Now it was the place her lover lived, and it seemed the heart of the darkness crowding in on his peace of mind. His vision clouded. The mist seemed to be in his head. ‘I see,’ he said. But he couldn’t. He wanted to say, don’t tell me any more, but she carried on.
‘I knew he’d never leave his wife. He told me that at the beginning. I guess I got too attached. He’s a writer. A very well-known writer, at least in Canada. A brilliant man.’
He wanted to ask who this “he” was, to map the coordinates of this brilliant rival who had covered the sun and brought the mist, then to find a way of undermining that place.
‘Anyhow,’ she went on. ‘I ended it. I had to. It had turned toxic. Ever since my cancer. When I got the diagnosis, he just seemed to freeze.’ She glanced at him as she drove, as if to chart his reaction. There was no golden thread in her eyes, they seemed dark and impenetrable. ‘I’m telling you because I feel you’ll understand. We’re twins, after all,’ she smiled, as if relieved.
He was struggling to assimilate the information. She’d been having an affair, got in too deep, then came the cancer, and her brilliant lover had withdrawn. Now she’d abandoned hope of carrying on. What could he say, to make a happy ending of it?
She sighed. ‘I don’t know about you, but I’ve sort of lost faith in my body.’
‘That’s an odd expression.’ It was all he could offer in response. Rain began, little spits at first, covering the windscreen, then it grew heavier until it was lashing down. The wipers had to work hard to clear the glass.
‘You’re shocked?’ she said, half a statement, half a question.
‘No,’ he said, scoffing. ‘There’s not much can shock me these days. Too long in the tooth. You’re a very beautiful and charming woman. You must have a long queue of men waiting for you to call.’
She laughed. ‘Well, maybe once upon a time. But that isn’t how I feel. You know, when you stand in front of the mirror.’
‘I never stand in front of the mirror,’ he said. ‘Far too frightening a prospect.’
‘You’re not so bad. A bit thin, maybe.’
‘I am a red-neck,’ he joked, and stretched his chin up. ‘At least, I have a large red rectangle on my neck, thanks to the radiation. And it will never fade, apparently.’
Off the bridge, they hit more traffic and got stuck as she tried to cross town. At a set of lights, she turned to look at him. ‘When I look in the mirror, I see the scar and what it tells me is that I am vulnerable.’
‘I suppose I do, too,’ he said. ‘Anyway, I hope you’re not too sad, after all that?’
‘No, not now. It was over months ago, even before I was diagnosed. I just hadn’t realised it. So I’ve done my crying. I just had to see him, to let him know. I was very unhappy for a while. I sometimes wonder if that had anything to do with getting ill.’
He nodded, mumbled a maybe. He was thinking of his own unhappiness, how it drove him to drink and smoke, to live an unhealthy life. The connection was possible, if indirect, the context.
She put his story down and took off her glasses. She was thinking of that long wait at the restaurant on the island, she the great writer’s translator, he a well-known personality there. She was thinking of the awkwardness of everything, the pretence that had once been so thrilling now reduced to faint embarrassment. How he’d arrived half an hour late and slid into the private booth next to her, averting his eyes. He’d brought a manuscript with him, presumably as an alibi, though they’d long since finished work on his last book. How he had taken her hand under the table and asked if she was all right, was she coping, did she need anything? She knew he meant money, when all she really wanted was his companionship, the way it had once been, his mind and the brilliant things he said. Had he taken advantage of her somehow? Maybe. Maybe it had been mutual. She had needed his comfort, his wisdom, his encouragement. He had taken her to places and introduced her to people she wouldn’t have met otherwise. But all he could offer now was a wad of dollars.
And now it seemed so sketchy, so shady compared with Gil’s love-story. The feelings she had harboured could never fit inside that version - the half-eaten meal, the unspoken farewell, the ferry she knew would be her last, the long drive back with so many tears in her eyes she could barely see the highway, and the painful sleepless nights that followed. None of that could ever fit in Gil’s story. Yet still he’d intuited something about her in his fiction. Why had she felt so strong a desire to tell him? She sighed and reached out to hug Hero, pulled him closer on the bed, then put on her pink-rimmed glasses again. She picked up the journal, and found Martina back in her car again with her strange new Scottish friend in the passenger seat.
As she drove along the shore road, the rain stopped as suddenly as it had started. A little patch of blue began to appear in front of them. They passed the Sylvia Hotel, scene of various literary doings she told him about.
‘Are you fit for cycling?’ she asked suddenly.
‘I think so,’ he answered. ‘As long as it’s not too arduous.’
‘It’s just that cycling the shore wall is the best way to see the park. It’s perfectly flat, and we can get to Siwash Rock that way.’
He agreed, so she parked and took him into a bike rental shop, where they were sized and helmeted. The bike boy noted they were exactly the same height, and pulled out two identical cycles. Once underway, he followed her for a couple of blocks to the gates of Stanley Park. He remembered they’d been here the first night, that first tour, where she showed him the Burns statue gazing out over this Pacific harbour, as the yachts lay furled, sashaying slightly on the swell.
The bike track did indeed run flat along the shoreline, round the park, one way. She rode confidently through the crowd-tide of people all flowing in the same direction, cyclists in one lane, overtaking joggers in another. Skateboards and blades cut in and out. He felt enmeshed at first, but as the crowd thinned its way into the park, each finding its own speed, it was easier. She stopped and watched as he took a photo across the fjord towards the docks opposite, where a blue-hulled giant freighter seemed to lie waiting for cargo, next to a great mound of yellow, perhaps sulphur.
A signpost pointed towards ‘Lost Lagoon’. He remarked on it as he pulled level with her on the cycle-track. She smiled, recited: ‘O the Lure of the Lost Lagoon, I dream tonight that my paddle blurs, The purple shade where the seaweed stirs. I hear the call of the singing firs...’’
At that moment, a blade-runner went past and she hesitated. When their wheels aligned again, she added, ‘In the hush of the golden moon.’
‘Who wrote that?’ he asked.
She laughed. ‘I’ll show you soon. That’s the surprise.’
He patted the cross bar. ‘Thought that was this boneshaker.’
At the touristic totem park, where great colourful poles huddled together behind their fence like zoo captives, they stopped a while.
‘They seem out of place here, somehow,’ he said, meaning the enclosure, the tourist branding, the showiness of it all.
‘Ah, not so,’ she answered. ‘They’re very much at home here. This was a sacred place long before Lord Stanley called it a park.’
And of course the poles stood proudly, however incongruous the goings-on in front of them. the posing and the snapping. They were magnificent in their ability to ignore their present-day ignominy, were shameless and challenging, aware of their power. So he took photos, the same images, the same visual mementos of their brave stand as all the other visitors that day did, and every other day, while the poles stood patiently, too large to fit the photo frames properly.
She was already onto the next part of her guided tour, and came to a stop by the railings. ‘That’s Deadman Island, see.’ She let go the handlebars, pointed a sleek arm outwards, across the water, in an arc that touched the land’s extent. ‘Long before even Scots arrived here, there was war between the people of the north and those of the south. So they met here, on this island, to resolve their dispute.’
‘A bloody battle?’
‘Not so much. More a sacrifice. They were here a long time, facing one another. Skirmishing while trying to reach some kind of settlement. Slowly the people of the north gained the upper hand. Finally, the south threatened to kill all their prisoners and then fight to the end. Their terms for avoiding slaughter involved the safe return of those prisoners in exchange for young warriors, who would then be killed in place of their wives and children and so on, who would die if they fought to the end. The men of the north agreed to be sacrificed. So they were slaughtered there.’
‘Deadman’s Island?’
‘The Island of the Dead Men.’
They cycled on, past the replica Little Mermaid that the city fathers of Copenhagen had objected to, so that flippers had to be added, went under the great bridge to North Vancouver where the traffic bisecting the park passed overhead. Again he stopped to take photos of something too big to frame. The ambition of it all seemed too much, and all in just a hundred years, to make this great teeming city.
They passed along a section of the cycle-way which had been blasted out of the rock face, and faced the waves directly. For a minute, he was reminded of that east-facing part of the road round Arthur’s Seat, where the rock had been cut through. But here the path did not look down on the quiet freshwater sanctuary of Duddingston Loch, but out to Pacific deep-water. All very far from the old grey city of the north. And then, as the road curved to the left, circling back towards downtown, a structure came into view, beyond the seawall, a tower of some kind, but with a tree growing out of it. He stopped to take a picture and saw through the zoom that this was natural, a stack, an outcrop.
