Читать книгу Hardly Working - Betsy Burke - Страница 11

I was devastated. My first thought was, What’s so horrendous about me that you don’t want to admit that I’m your daughter? A minidepression was starting to form in me, like a tiny whirlwind building into a hurricane, with a pinch of pure rage tossed in for good measure.

I wanted to run crying to Thomas, make one of my emergency calls to him.

But Rupert Doyle read my expression right away. Total dejection edged with fury. He leapt in to correct himself. “No, no, please, don’t misunderstand. It’s not the way you think…you think I’m your father? Is that it?”

I nodded.

“I’m not your father…Dinah.”

I shook my head.

“I may have a few kids scattered around the world for all I know, but you’re certainly not one of them. Rest easy in the knowledge.”

I couldn’t bring myself to look him in the eye.

“That’s not to say I wouldn’t be proud to be your father. But I’m not him. You’re too young to know about it but I can’t tell you how many men, myself included, wanted your mother to be the mother of their children. That woman was something special. Imagine she still is. Marjory Nichols had us all hopping like fools for the love of her. Damn her anyway.”

I started to frown and then to laugh. He laughed, too, and suddenly my mother’s powers of attraction gave us common ground, something to grab on to, to make us old friends, as though he had been a constant visitor to the house for the last twenty-five years.

He rubbed his face vigorously with both hands, like someone waking from a long sleep. He seemed about to say something but his words were replaced with a frustrated sigh. Until he finally said, “Listen. I do know who your father is.”

I gave my own huge sigh of relief.

He smiled. “Your mother probably didn’t want to have anything to do with it. Am I right?”

“Yes.”

“She can be a very stubborn woman.” His expression was odd, his blue eyes luminous.

“You’re telling me. I mean, we’re talking about my own father and I’m not allowed to know anything about him. I’m only just realizing now how pissed off I’ve been with her for not telling me about him. Information is advancement, evolution. She’s not being very scientific.”

Rupert Doyle chuckled. “Here, Dinah. Sit down.” He pointed to the scarred black bar stool. “Can I order you something? A beer?”

“A coffee…” But then I saw the glass pot on the hotplate behind the bar, untouched brew with a scummy encrusted high tide line, so I accepted a soda water.

Rupert Doyle said, “I can imagine how your mother probably feels about this and I don’t want to be responsible for starting a family war. They’re the worst. So you need to go carefully with this one. Your father is what I’d call a…difficult character…apart from the fact that he’s volatile…he has…he had the power to take people places where they didn’t always want to go.”

“Who is he? Tell me something about him.”

He stroked his chin. “Yeah…well, now. Let me think about this. I can do better than tell you about him. I can introduce you to him.”

“He’s here? In Vancouver?”

“Sure is. I’m just trying to figure out the best way to go about this.”

“Why? Is there a problem?”

“We really did not part as the best of friends.” Rupert shook his head and let a small bitter laugh escape.

“Well, I’m not too secure about this whole thing myself. You’re scaring me a bit.”

“Oh, no…don’t take this the wrong way…”

“Mr. Doyle…”

“Rupert.”

“Rupert. I’d like to get a glimpse of him first. From a distance, you know? Not have to commit myself. Without him knowing anything about me.”

“Sure. Of course, Dinah. In the interests of not prejudicing your opinion, I can see how you’d want to take your time before you decide whether or not you really want to get to know the man. You might take one look and decide it’s better not to. He might not want to have anything to do with you. Or me.” He laughed again.

“What’s the problem?” I was picturing my mother with some impossible kind of man. A married politician? Another mad scientist? “Does he have a high-profile job or something? Would this create a scandal for him?”

“No, no.”

“Or is he some kind of criminal?”

Rupert Doyle frowned then bit his lip. “There have been accusations, and he has felt like a criminal at times, but no. Or rather, it would all depend on who you asked. No, he’s not a criminal although he has been accused of being one.”

“I don’t understand.”

“Your father is a representative from a distinct moment in history. An icon in some ways. Not an easy history, not at all. I would say that the very fact he’s alive implicates him. Or so he would see it. You may have the chance to find out about it as you get to know him. If you decided you want to get to know him. But I think the person to give you all this information is your father himself. You need to hear the story from the horse’s mouth, as it were.”

I shook my head.

What was he talking about? I was as unenlightened as ever with all his beating around the bush. “Okay. So. Now. What’s his name and where do I find him?”

“You can find…just a second, Dinah.”

The man with the collapsed face from the front desk was standing in the doorway signaling to Rupert.

Rupert held up an authoritative palm to him. “Yeah, yeah, I’m coming.” He turned back to me. “Listen, Dinah. Let’s do it this way, for the sake of Auld Lang Syne. And then we can catch up. I’d really like to catch up on your mother, too.”

My face must have twisted a little. My expression made him add quickly, “And you, of course. Hell, I remember you when you were just a little—”

The front desk man pointed his thumb toward the street, and said loudly, “Cab’s here.”

Rupert said, “Look, we can…hell, I gotta go…got a production meeting at…” He looked at his watch and grimaced. “Christ. It started five minutes ago.” He slapped some money on the counter and started toward the door. I hurried along after him. His last words before he was out the door were, “You meet me here at seven Friday night and I’ll take you there myself. You have a car?”

I nodded.

“Great. Wouldn’t mind seeing the old picaro again myself.”

I idly sharpened pencils. Ian Trutch was locked up with Ash. There were fleeting glimpses of him and whiffs of his aftershave hanging on the air, but that was all. Ash was looking delirious behind her thick lenses. She’d taken the clips out of her hair and let it down.

Penelope was declaring all-out war on me. It’s amazing what a total lack of carnal knowledge, of real sex, can do to a person. I mean, at least if the rest of us weren’t actually having sex, we still had our experiences and memories to fall back on, but Penelope… Penelope was beginning to show the mental strain that comes with ITD—Incoming Testosterone Deficit.

She had the war drums going strong when we got on to the topic of funds for AIDS awareness and sex education. She had a litany of sexual terrorism tales, nasty little stories on hand to make her case for chastity. Poor Lisa, who was genetically predisposed to being nice to everyone, to her own detriment, got stuck in the middle.

Penelope smoothed down her calf-length black skirt and said, “Did you know, Lisa, that the introduction of sex education at too early an age has been known to cause trauma in adolescents? It’s been documented.”

I smoothed my red leather skirt and said, “Did you know, Lisa, that too much pregnancy at an early age has been known to cause trauma in adolescents?”

“Ah, jeez…ah, c’mon, you two. Cut this out.” Lisa, on the edge of despair, looked back and forth between the two of us, imploring.

Penelope continued to inform Lisa. “Some schools have grade-schoolers practice putting condoms on the fingers of their classmates. What a disgusting thing to do to children. Now, in my opinion, that is exactly like telling a nine-year-old to go out and have sex.”

I looked Penelope straight in the eye, “Yes, but the message here is safe sex, Penelope, safe sex.”

“Well, I’m sure you’d know all about it, Dinah, given your long and varied experience in the field,” said Penelope.

Cleo arrived just before I was about to grab Penelope by the hair and knock some sense into her. Cleo pulled me by the arm toward my office, calling out to the others, “We’re going for lunch.” And then she whispered to me, “I heard all that. It would be so much easier if we were at high school and Penelope had just called you a slut outright. You know? Then you could just corner her in the girls’ bathroom, hold her head down in the toilet bowl and flush.”

“And flush. And flush,” I agreed.

Whenever Cleo dragged me to lunch like that, it meant two things.

Hunger.

And she was seeing somebody new.

When she wanted to talk about her private life she refused to go to a restaurant because she was afraid somebody would overhear. And for good reason. Cleo waded indiscriminately through the tides of men who washed up on her shores. Married, committed, or fit to be legally committed, the men that Cleo chose were safely designed for dumping when she grew tired of them, poor guys. But she had a special fondness for the high-profile married type, and she was right to be cautious. The thing about dating high-profile married men is that you never know when a low-profile wife in the know could pop out of the bushes or the woodwork, ready to reduce you to a pulp.

But this day was a little different.

Cleo gave me just enough time to grab a cup of dishwater in a paper cup and a cardboard-and-pink-mush sandwich, and then drove us both up to Queen Elizabeth Park. We sat down on a bench and admired the autumn colors of the maples and alders for a second or two, then I said, “Okay. Tell me all about him. What’s he like?”

“You know all about him,” said Cleo.

“Somebody I know? Who?”

“Can’t you guess?”

I didn’t have to think very far back. I could feel a heaviness in my stomach and it wasn’t just the bad sandwich. I shook my head. “Simon. It’s Simon. Of course it’s Simon. Oh, Cleo, you don’t know what you’re in for.”

But she didn’t give me a chance to go on. She told me how warm he was and how beautiful, and that she couldn’t get enough of him, that she loved younger men and that she hadn’t slept because he’d kept her up all that night. I should have ruined her fun, right then and there, but I just kept my mouth shut because…well…I did more talking about living than actually doing the living itself, and I admired Cleo for being a doer.

When we got back from our so-called lunch, Lisa said, “Hey you guys. You know there’s been another cougar sighting?”

Cleo raised her eyebrows.

“Yeah, this time in the Spanish Banks area. Don’t know how the poor kitty got from Burnaby to Spanish Banks but they haven’t caught him yet. Careful when you’re out jogging, Dinah. He’s on your side of town now and those big cats move fast, especially when they’re feeling hungry and tetchy.”

The Tsadziki Pervert came on hot and heavy that week, too. I’d lost the whistle I was going to tie onto the phone. It had probably skidded under the furniture and I didn’t feel like heaving around all those heavy Deco bureaus I’d inherited from my great-grandparents. Or facing all the other junk I’d find under there. Joey was always teasing me, saying, “Just because your furniture dates back to the nineteen-twenties doesn’t mean the junk you find under it should date back to the twenties as well.” The day I moved the furniture was going to be a revelation.

The Telephone Pervert Voice was now a regular feature of my evenings. “I want to come over,” it hissed, “and cover your thighs in taramasalata (Tuesday), hummus (Wednesday), tsadziki (Thursday), then lick it all off.” I mean, the guy was really hooked on Greek. And my social life was so not-happening that his propositions were almost tempting.

Almost.

I had better distractions though, more solid ones. My gay neighbor, for example, was performing a very fine sideshow in his fishbowl of a living room. Tuesday night he decided to go through his usual body-building routine. Whatever it was that weighed on his mind, it had him worked into such a state that I wanted to run over there and say, “C’mon now. Out with it. Stop bottling it all up. Let me give you the number of my therapist.” Because he really seemed troubled and I guess the workout was a good way of keeping his mind off the problem. At times his expression seemed almost tortured it was so serious. While he hefted and pulled and pushed and sweated, I watched and tried to ignore the little thrum of longing in my solar plexus.

The next night, Wednesday, his partner was there for dinner. My neighbor had placed fat white candles around the room, and after dinner he and his friend took their drinks over to the brown leather couch, where they began to have an intense conversation.

I wondered if lip-reading courses were given anywhere in town.

And then the guest stopped talking and my neighbor grabbed the other man and gave him a long tight hug. He had such a tender expression on his face that watching them brought tears to my eyes.

The next night, strange things were going on. My neighbor had guests but they weren’t human. I counted five black cats in his living room, skittering around, climbing up the curtains, scratching the furniture. My neighbor didn’t seem too concerned about the damage. He picked each cat up in turn, stroked gently, rubbed their ears until they were calm, rolled them onto their backs and stroked their bellies, then held their paws and played with them. In that moment, I wanted to be a black cat, too.

Friday

At ten-thirty, Lisa, Cleo and I knocked on Jake’s office door.

“Come in.”

We all entered, our faces plastered with the most businesslike expressions we could muster. Ian Trutch was lounging in Jake’s extra chair. He raised his hand. “Hello ladies.”

We gave a chorus of hellos.

“I was just telling Jake that I was going to have to corner Dinah to go over the figures.” Ian’s smile made it clear that he wasn’t just talking about numbers. Cleo nudged me hard and Lisa giggled.

I let out a long breath and said, “We just wanted to let you know that we’re on our way out for the afternoon. Have a few office errands to run.”

Lisa and Cleo piped up a little too quickly, “Field work.”

“And I have to see Halliwell, the printer,” I said.

Jake wasn’t used to us justifying our actions. “Yeah, sure. No problem.”

Our eyes were fixed on Ian. He looked at Jake as if to say, “Do they normally do this?”

We all nodded a little nervously then hurried out of the building.

“I think he bought it,” whispered Cleo.

I said, “Well if he didn’t, I’m sure we’ll be hearing about it.”

“And what’s more, Dinah, he likes you. Milk it for all it’s worth.”

I laughed. “You mean I might still have a job while the rest of you are standing in the bread line if I let the CEO crunch my numbers?”

“Something like that.”

We rushed out to Lisa’s battered old rust-and-rhubarb colored VW van. She drove fast to my place. We tumbled out and raced up the stairs.

In my bedroom, Cleo said, “I hope I’m dressed okay. What does one wear to a tree-hugging anyway?” It didn’t matter what she wore. A burlap sack would look good on her.

“Cleoooo,” sang Lisa, “we do not call it a tree-hugging. And it’s not a fashion event either. McClean and Snow Incorporated are about to knock down a stand of boreal forest that is millennia old, destroying the habitat of numerous species of wildlife with the runoff polluting I don’t know how many streams and fixing it so the salmon won’t be returning…”

Cleo examined the polish on her nails. “Lisa, we know you believe that plants have feelings…”

“And that if their feelings are hurt they should get therapy…” I added.

“You guys….” Lisa laughed.

“And animal rights?” said Cleo.

“If you swat a fly around Lisa, she’s likely to try CPR on it….” I countered.

Lisa clarified herself. “Before giving it a dignified funeral.”

We all grinned, then Cleo looked at me. “Uh, Dinah? Do you actually know what you’re looking for?”

“Sure.” I peered out from behind the high-rise of cardboard boxes that had inhabited the corner of my bedroom for ages. “My protest-against-the-big-money-grubbing-corporation wardrobe.”

Lisa smiled. “We all go through it. You’ll outgrow it.”

“Outgrow what?”

“Dressing up for protests. You’ll be wearing your worst rags at the next one. These kind can get messy.”

“Lisa, when I left Vancouver Island, I promised myself I would try not to look like a shrubbie from the Island. If I can just figure out which box the damned clothes are in,” I murmured.

Cleo said, “It’s important to consider your wardrobe at all times. There could be some interesting men there. When they come to arrest us, there could be men in uniform. I love men in uniform.”

Lisa said, “You love men…period.”

“Ha. You’re right.” Cleo took in the varnished pine floorboards, oyster-white paint that was no longer fresh, and mountain of cardboard boxes. “You moved into this place…when, Dinah? Three years ago?”

“Two and a half.” I tried not to sound defensive.

“When are you planning on unpacking them?” Lisa asked.

“Just these boxes I haven’t unpacked. I had them sent over later but there isn’t enough closet space. So they’re staying there. This is my storage depot.”

Cleo stopped flicking her Ray-Bans back and forth and parked them on her head. “Come on now, Lisa. Poor Dinah. Give her time. Moving is traumatic. It’s number two after divorce.”

“I wouldn’t know anything about divorce,” Lisa muttered. “Never having been married myself in the first place.”

I had once caught a glimpse of the pile of Bride magazines stashed in Lisa’s desk drawer at work. They definitely marred her free and easy earth-mother image.

“To hear Fran tell it, we’re not missing a thing,” said Cleo. “She’s always saying there’s nothing like marriage to cure you of wanting to be married.”

This was one conversation I had no intention of getting involved in. I set a carton precariously on top of another and was not quite in time to catch it as it tumbled to the floor. The three of us winced in unison as its contents tinkled dangerously.

“Not the Limoges, I hope,” said Cleo.

I shifted the box gently out of the way. “I have no idea and I’m not going to open it to see. Then I’d have to deal with it. You know I’m cleaning-impaired.”

Lisa smiled, revealing her big teeth. “Confession is the first step toward recovery.” She glanced at her psychedelic Swatch. “Just grab something so we can go, will you, Dinah. We’re late. The others will be there already.”

I tore frantically at packing tape and box flaps. My eye lit on something charcoal black. “Aha.” I held it up, triumphant.

Lisa made a face. “You cannot wear a Chanel suit to an environmental protest.”

“Yes, she can,” said Cleo. “She can wear whatever she likes.”

I was already pulling off my office skirt and scrutinizing the little black suit with the red trim. “It’s a demoted Chanel suit. I got it at a secondhand place. It was a steal. Secondhand means it’s recycled so that makes it environmentally correct, right? Now where have those flats gotten to…?”

Lisa shrugged.

After a burst of haphazard ironing, elaborate squirming and a tiny intervention with a safety pin at bust level, I was dressed. I grabbed the deluxe knapsack I’d prepared and followed them out. As we ran down my stairs, I felt proud. We were a squad, ready to lay down our lives for a stand of ancient trees. Well…maybe not our lives, but part of a sunny October day. Or so I thought until we were standing in front of Lisa’s van.

While Lisa was doing a last check of the heavy chains and padlocks in the back, Cleo leaned into me and whispered, “None of that stuff is touching my body. I agreed to be a presence but I’m not chaining myself to a damned thing. You know how hard it is to get grease or pitch out of corduroy? This is my best Lands’ End protest outfit. I’d planned on wearing it to the next No-Global.”

“Get in, girls,” ordered Lisa. “It’s already going to be hell finding parking.”

The van wheezed into gear and coughed and spat all the way up West Fourth. I was in the back, and Cleo, up in the passenger seat, turned back to face me. Over the sound of the engine, she said, “This apartment is definitely a step up from your last.”

“Ten steps,” I mumbled.

“I remember Dinah’s last place well,” said Lisa.

“It could have housed morgue overflow,” said Cleo.

“It wasn’t that cold,” I protested.

“No? You didn’t notice my fingers turning blue from hypothermia whenever I came to visit you? And those clog dancers living overhead were amazing.”

“The upstairs tenants were a little noisy.”

“Your landlord had a nerve. Calling it a basement suite,” Cleo said. “It was a bunker. It was almost completely underground.”

“It was a bit dark,” I admitted. I didn’t tell them that it had been so dark that once during a power failure, I thought I’d gone blind. My only consolation in that moment was the possibility of expanding my love life to include ugly men with beautiful voices.

“If you can just get those last few boxes unpacked, you’ll be all set,” said Lisa.

It was a very big if.

We rode along in silence for a while. Then I said what we’d all been thinking. “I sure hope nobody finks on us.”

“It was a previous commitment,” said Lisa. “If it gets back to Trutch we’ll just tell him that protests like this are part of Green World’s constitution.” She made a fast turn and came to a screeching halt.

“Stanley Park?” Cleo raised her eyebrows.

“This is it,” said Lisa. “This is our destination.”

I was confused. I’d been expecting a long ride into an immense dark rain forest.

“Douglas firs. And not just one but four,” said Lisa. “They’re saying that they’re diseased, but it’s pure propaganda….”

I laughed.

“Okay. Let’s go,” sighed Cleo, and climbed down from the van.

Lisa bulldozed ahead of us. “It’s not far from here.”

I grabbed my knapsack and we followed, almost running to keep up.

When we reached the site, it was deserted.

Lisa stood immobile. “Oh my God.”

“We obviously have the wrong day.” Cleo looked a little relieved.

Lisa was close to tears. “We’re too late.”

The freshly cut naked stumps of four huge Douglas firs made us all feel cheated. A couple of minutes passed before we could hear a strange low hum coming from Lisa.

“What’s she doing?” whispered Cleo.

“Singing, I think.”

We decided it was better to leave Lisa alone with her grief. It was the first time I’d ever heard a hymn for a dead tree. When she was finished mourning, I held up my knapsack and said, “Now girls, come over here. I have something to show you. You have to know that I do not like to miss an opportunity. While my mother thinks that a field or a forest or a beach is a place where animals and insects regenerate the species, I happen to think that it’s a nice place for a picnic.” I unzipped my deluxe knapsack to reveal plates and glasses, bread and cheeses, and a bottle of chilled white wine. “I came prepared for any eventuality. It’s a beautiful day. Let’s make the most of it.”

“Right on,” said Lisa.

We chose a section of beach just beyond the seawall and were just polishing off the bottle of wine when a man’s voice called across to us, “Dinah? Dinah Nichols?”

I hit the ground like an infantryman under attack. “Who is it?” I hissed to Cleo.

“Big-time corporate donor,” she hissed back.

I eased up slowly, and when I saw who it was, uttered, “Tod.”

He was dressed in jogging clothes and dripping with sweat. He looked less jaunty than usual. Unsmiling. “What a stroke of luck. I tried calling you at work but you weren’t there.”

“You did? Uh…”

“We have to talk. My place? Around four? It’s important.” Without waiting for my answer, he turned and jogged away.

Lisa dropped me off at my car and I drove to Halliwell the printer’s. I pushed open the door. The shop seemed deserted. “Anybody here?”

Halliwell’s voice came from a distance. “Downstairs.”

I descended the narrow wooden steps and called out, “Mr. Halliwell?”

He was standing at a press, watching the paper pile up, and didn’t bother to look up at me. He was tall and scrawny, more of a ghost than a man. Every word he spoke came out in a slow drawling taunt. “Well, I’ll be damned. Miss Nichols in person. I feel privileged.”

“Don’t I always come in person?”

“When I called your office to let you know the brochures were ready, they told me you were out and didn’t know when you’d be back. Tough job, eh?” He made the huge effort of looking at me from under one eyebrow.

“Fieldwork,” I said.

He took a few leisurely steps toward me, plucked a piece of dried seaweed from my hair and held it in front of my eyes. “Gives fieldwork a whole new definition.”

“Well…uh…we are an ecological organization, Mr. Halliwell. We actually get out there and check up on the ecology.”

“I can see you’re really making…head way. Get it?”

“Can I see the brochures, please?”

“Over here.” He oozed over to some shelves and picked up a pile of glossy green-and-white papers. “Still have to be folded.”