Читать книгу Bewilderment - Don Gutteridge - Страница 7

The private dining-room of the Cozy Cafe , commanding the whole of that establishment’s second floor and discreetly curtained, had in the heyday of the bumptious ‘twenties played gracious host to business meetings, corporate retreats, booster-groups of every ilk and ethic, the International Lions Club (local chapter), and a cheerful medley of shopkeepers, managers, tycoons of county-wide notoriety, even upstart ladies recently enfranchised and gunning for something more than a token candidacy, and, indeed and proudly, to any one of the thousand citizens of City and County for whom Darwin and the post-war boom had promised prosperity without pain. Of late, however, the ornate gold-and-leaf panelling and crystalline chandelier of the Laurier Room had to be content with impressing the occasional clutch of politicians, lobbyists, minor civil servants and petty contractors – men, that is, with enough purchase on the public purse to be able to indulge in the odd roast-beef dinner with a vin ordinaire and a modicum of privacy in which to nourish a little conspiracy. While Gabe Goodfellow may well have envied them the roast beef and undercooked Yorkshire pudding, it is doubtful if he would have grasped the subtleties of the after-supper repartee or cared much if he had. Nonetheless, the men gathered here on yet another unseasonably cold evening late in March – having satisfied one set of hungers (at taxpayers’ expense) – were about to enter into deliberations that, while encrypted in the special form of Esperanto reserved for our betters in enclave, would yet express intentions and reach conclusions that would be of consequence to coal-man Goodfellow (though, needless to say, the latter effect was given scant consideration during or after the event).

As de facto host and impresario, Tompkin Wiley, twice elected mayor of the City and once acclaimed, waited until the waitress had swept away the last plate and removed her nicely girdled derriere down the kitchen stairs before he tapped his replenished coffee cup with a spoon, fondled his brandy snifter, and cleared his throat: “May we get down to business, gentlemen.”

Polite chatter amongst the three gentleman guests ceased. The few moments of pleasure they had struggled to steal from the near-intolerable burden of noblesse oblige were over, a fact they were prepared to accept with some good grace. They granted Mayor Wiley their full, one might even say rapacious, attention. And while each (if pressed) might have been willing to stand upon his own hard-won dignity, each was also acutely conscious of the unique possibilities offered only by their presence here as a collective.

Unique it was that the Laurier Room welcomed for the first time His Worship Jefferson Dearborn Stagg, mayor-elect of the Port, Michigan’s fastest growing middle-sized city and designated terminus site for the nation-spanning bridge that would soon link the two great New World polities et cetera – though His Worship was wont in his own bailiwick to describe the Port as the primary site and that fine Canadian town just a silver-dollar’s throw across the River as the terminus (after all, what was a little semantics among lifelong friends?). No-one of any importance was wont to remark that, technically and cartographically speaking, the site on the Canadian side of the bluewater divide, primary or not, was and (alas) had always been an integral and unannexable part of a village quaintly dubbed the Point. The presence among the cognoscenti this evening of the reeve of that village made this oversight a more delicate issue than it otherwise might have been. Nonetheless, the overcooked sirloin and underbaked pie had been negotiated with a maximum of bonhomie and a minimum of inter-jurisdictional rivalry. Even the fourth member of the party, Campbell P. McCleister, MLA (‘Cam’ to his second cousin who was currently provincial Minister of Highways and to his brother-in-law freshly elevated to the vice-presidency of the Bridge Company) – unaccustomed as he was to dining in camera with three ‘politicos’ whose rank was well below the salt (and one of whom, if the world were truly a just kingdom, should have been serving the port, not guzzling it) knew when to stand on his ceremony and when to sit.

“Alright, Foxy,” McCleister said, resting his cigar while he sniffed cautiously at what he suspected might be bootleg brandy. “Fill me in on the fooferall and ribbon-snipping.”

Mayor Tompkin Wiley, who if he had to be addressed informally preferred Foxy to Tom Tit, drew a half-sheet of wrinkled foolscap from his vest pocket and pretended to read: “Well, Jeff – that is, His Worship and me – have pretty well agreed on the outline of events, and the Reeve here’s been a good sport about going along with it.” He paused and waited politely while said reeve tried to soak up the brandy he had toppled with his napkin. His Worship from the Port refilled the glass with a flourish of starched cuff and diamond stud.

“Our goal’s been to keep everything dignified –”

“You might say, Cam, if I may call you Cam now that we have broken bread together,” Mayor-elect Stagg intoned with booming dignity, “you might say that ‘dignity’ has been our watchword from the outset.”

“Exactly,” echoed Mayor Wiley. “From the outset. We deliberately chose the Sunday of the ‘twenty-fourth weekend –”

“Strategically,” prompted His Worship. “We picked it strategically, that weekend marking, I am told on good authority, the observance of the Queen’s birthday, whose memory has ever been venerated by all Canadians, even by those who no longer remember good Queen Victoria or who she was. I applaud such loyalties even while I reject the undemocratic sympathies they represent.”

“You gonna put that in your speech?” inquired the MLA.

It was the Reeve who saved what might have proved a difficult moment by emitting a yip and shaking his thumb about as if it were on fire, which it nearly was. His Worship – alert for any chance to ingratiate, however unprofitable – leaned over, took the Reeve’s cigar in hand, clipped off the lip-end, and returned it, ready for ignition.

Mayor Wiley continued: “On the Saturday night at nine-thirty, we plan to have the traditional fireworks of the Queen’s birthday on the pavilion grounds of Bayview Park. We’re going to have a modest platform built right there in the middle so we can have some speeches made and impress upon the ordinary folk the supreme importance of the undertaking.”

“Won’t it be too dark for taking pictures?” asked the MLA with the shrewd instinct of his kind.

“True,” said His Worship, coming to the defence of his municipal counterpart. “But the sod-turning on Sunday afternoon will be crawling with reporters and photographers.”

“And I’ve been told,” Mayor Wiley said with not-a-little pan-Canadian pride, “that the new government broadcasting company are likely to be present to catch the speeches and put them out on every radio station in the country.”

“In which case,” added the MLA, “I can almost guarantee the appearance of the Honourable Minister.” Campbell P. McCleister drew his lanky, still-muscular frame to its full impressive height and exuded here the self-same confidence and intimation of power that had earned him the sobriquet of ‘Dropkick’ in the days when he had thrilled City fans as halfback of the Imperials’ rugby-football team, erstwhile contenders for the Grey Cup. “And I wouldn’t be surprised if ‘Mitch’ himself were to show up.”

The mere mention of the Premier’s name stopped all thought, at least on the Canadian side of the table. Reeve Harkness did cough once, in response to either the sudden flux of cigar smoke or the unpredictable volatility of the brandy, it wasn’t clear which, but that was all.

Picking up the ball, as he’d so often had to do on the gridiron, Dropkick McCleister soldiered on: “Be that as it may, now that you fellas’ve decided on the time and the place, the protocol boys at Queen’s Park’ll take over and set up the agenda – who speaks when and how long and so on.”

As long as they were included somewhere on the pecking order, the mayor and mayor-elect were resigned to being conciliatory. Reflected glory had its own rewards or, to use the vernacular, spin-offs.

“The actual sod-turning’ll take place, as I said, on Sunday at two o’clock, right after the formal luncheon at the Windsor Inn in the City. In the morning, of course, there’ll be special services at all three churches in the village.” And here he produced his famous grin, said by his detractors to be potent enough to whip cream, and beamed it at Breezy Harkness, who, sensing a cue, nodded his appreciation to Mayor Wiley for such a generous and unentailed concession to the bit player in this bigtime drama. “All three preachers are on side, I have been assured.” He cocked one eye in Breezy’s direction.

“The bridge’ll be mentioned in all three sermons,” the Reeve assured as forcefully as he could.

“And I have instructed my executive assistant to start recruiting the best oldtimers in the State for the Saturday softball game,” bassooned the Mayor-elect with the vigour of a man bearing three names, two of them inalienable. “We damn Yankees don’t intend to lose,” he chortled. The brass buttons at the bulge of his waistcoat wriggled approbation.

“Well, then,” Mayor Wiley said, “that’s the outline settled. His Worship –”

“Jeff, please. I insist.”

“Jeff here is gonna set matters in motion for a reciprocal celebration in the Port on the fourth of July.”

“Reciprocity will be our watchword,” came the immediate reply, and perhaps only the MLA for the County might, had he had time to reflect, have noted the irony of that term uttered as it was here in the Laurier Room. “With fireworks bigger than the great state of Texas!”

“But we have a gap,” MLA McCleister said.

“A gap, sir?” His Worship retorted with pre-emptive umbrage. “Explain.”

McCleister was staring at Wiley. “Yes,” he said, “between the ball game, which should be over by four o’clock or so, and the speeches at nine-thirty before the fireworks.”

“We gotta eat,” Wiley protested feebly.

McCleister ignored the interruption as he did the spurious cries of ‘Shame! Shame!’ one had to endure from the Opposition benches in the House every day. “Might not the many hundreds gathered for the game and an opportunity to shake hands with a dozen dignitaries, might they not be tempted to scatter or dawdle or otherwise become bored with matters? I’ve learned in my years on the hustings that once you’ve captured a voter’s attention, you don’t let go till his ‘X’ is on the ballot.”

“Well said,” said Stagg. “Such sentiments so expressed would be an ornament to the U.S Congress itself, should you ever chance to change your citizenship.” And he downed his third snifter of contraband brandy.

Reeve Harkness was on the verge of making his maiden contribution to the deliberations when Wiley lowered his voice and leaned forward so far that his beady eyes almost vanished under his bottle-brush brows. At the same moment, and even though there was no diminution in the supply of electricity to the lights overhead, the room perceptibly darkened and shadows began to ooze where shadows had no right to be. “We’ll get to that detail later,” Wiley said. “It’s time to get down to the real business of this meeting.”

He looked squarely at Breezy Harkness.

Everyone was in agreement that the bridge would bring prosperity to the regions of both sides of the River, regardless of ideological stripe; that the only fortunates who stood to make immediate (and thoroughly deserved) gains were the shareholders of the Bridge Company (among which McCleister was no longer numbered, not since the panic selling of October ‘twenty-nine) and its cousin contractor in the Port and those jobless labourers lucky enough to be taken on for the duration; that some profits (again deserved though not entirely lawful) would be made in the middle term by those insiders whose perspicacity had compelled them to take options on properties likely to be expropriated for the consequent road-widening all the way to the City’s north-eastern limit (the Mayor and the MLA, cognizant of their civic responsibilities and the hazards of public exposure had invested modestly in this gambit under various pseudonyms); and that the only opening for an unconscionably quick return commensurate with risk and perceived benefit to the body politic (this latter point was much debated with a surfeit of self-congratulation and moral reassurance) lay in the exploitation of the property adjacent to the custom’s buildings to be erected with federal monies at the terminus in the Point. Here, and again concurrence was swift and unswerving, was the perfect spot for an inn (or a U.S.-style motel, as one member urged) or a first-class restaurant (or roadhouse), and what better way to repay those who had voted for them than to ensure that such public-spirited eventualities took appropriate root.

Upon ensuring a consensus here, the group, in hushed and shadowed tones enhanced by brandy-fume and the after-smudge of cigars, moved on to a contiguous, but less tractable, item. This property, with all of its pungent opportunity, while legally and technically owned by that municipality of which the junior member of their cabal was currently chief steward, had alas been squatted upon (and, as Mayor Wiley sadly adumbrated, been “shat upon”) for forty-eight years by old Porky Doyle and, following his unlamented demise, by his semi-legitimate offspring, Blackleg. Furthermore and to wit: such squatter’s rights had the force of law, however much one thought the latter to be an ass. As it was universally known that Blackleg Doyle conversed with no-one except his hogs, and then only those he deemed worthy of the honour, the prospect of negotiations with said Blackleg was not sanguine. Conversely, the potentially delicate problem of their purchasing jointly the land from a cash-strapped village council with a quarter of its male ratepayers on the dole was easily solved, especially if the chairman of that august body were to be of fruitful assistance. And he would be. That much at least was confirmed and may, in and of itself, have justified such expense of spirit over the laborious course of their deliberations.

But short of donning a hog’s costume and infiltrating Blackleg Doyle’s piggery, no-one could think of a way to relieve that good man of his birthright. Thus the room fell silent.

Suddenly a voice said: “Someone suggested to me the other day that we could try havin’ a carnival to fill in the time between the game and the fireworks.”

The other three veterans of the hustings, for whom silence was an affront and a form of reproach, were not displeased at the Reeve’s revivifying the dialogue, so much so that they were inclined to forgive the inanity of his remark.

“Hardly a dignified event,” McCleister said at last.

“That’s what I said to the fella,” Breezy said. “My exact words.”

“I suppose he had the pavilion grounds in mind,” Wiley mused. “But they aren’t half the size they used to be. You’d need to spill over into Doyle’s pasture to have enough room. And don’t forget the podium we’re gonna put up.”

“The old bugger’d turn his pigs loose just to spite his betters,” McCleister said, twiddling his brandy glass and squinting at his watch.

“Besides,” Breezy said with laudable self-abasement, “there’s a dozen other hitches to havin’ a carnival of any kind there. I knew it was a silly idea right from the –”

“He’s got squatter’s rights, you say,” Stagg intervened with such soft vehemence that the others felt themselves stiffening with interest despite the depredations of food, drink and bitter disappointment.

Breezy nodded.

“And is this so-called pasture, which I take to be adjacent to the proposed road extension into the custom’s area, a self-contained section of property?”

Again Breezy nodded, then said, “Back of it is all marsh an’ swamp, but that’s where the damn fool has his hut an’ pig-pens, an’ where he prefers to live. The front pasture he only uses to graze his Jersey on, when he ain’t lettin’ it out free to a bunch of thievin’ Gypsies.”

“What’re you drivin’ at?” McCleister said, intrigued yet irritated at the potential for an upstaging.

“If Harkness here could somehow get Doyle to agree to let part of a carnival be held on his pasture, with suitable remuneration, and even if the old fart were only to give some official a wink or a nod, it would be enough to break the continuous occupation clause of the squatter’s rights statute and result in the legal forfeiture of the property to the corporation, at least the most valuable section of it.” Stagg’s eyes had unglazed themselves and were now burning with the zeal of a born-again preacher who’s made the joyous discovery that he’s standing knee-deep in a pulpit surrounded by credulous, liniment-seeking heathen.

“But we’d have to trick him . . . ” Wiley demurred, not, it seemed, so much on ethical as tactical grounds.

Stagg flashed them a voracious grin: “A minor and private deception to achieve the greater public good, wouldn’t you say?”

They didn’t, but they assented nevertheless.

“My country was founded on the principle of the greatest good for the greatest number, and for more than one hundred and fifty years we have not deviated from first principles.”

“So, then,” McCleister said, reasserting his dignity, “we have a plan of action. We’ll need Harkness – Claude here – to arrange for the carnival, preferably something cheap and manageable. Any problem there?”

“Nothin’ I can’t handle,” Breezy said, swallowing the lump in his throat only to have another take its place.

“Second, we’ll have to find someone somewhere in that burg of yours who can be persuaded to talk to Doyle and get him to agree to let us use the pasture for a minimum of twenty-four hours.”

“And the lawyers’ll take care of the rest,” declared Jefferson Dearborn Stagg without fear of contradiction. “The village’ll get the property and flip it to us, and we’ll do our duty by flipping it to the highest bidder.”

The pure logic of this larcenous syllogism left the conspirators momentarily stupefied.

Recovering first, Wiley said to Breezy, “Can you think of anyone? Somebody Doyle might’ve talked to way back when he was still sane and might not shoot at the second he sets foot on his land?”

“If you can pull it off,” McCleister said, catching Stagg’s eye, “we could cut you in for a full share. And there’s a bye-election coming up in the riding north of here, and no-one’s been nominated yet.”

They waited while the room, whose shadow was already burdened with secrets and treachery, swooned about them.

When the Reeve found enough saliva to spit with, he said, “I think I know just the sucker.”