In High Places (39 page)

'You mean,' Tom asked curiously, 'he rents a suite there all the time?'

'I know.' Sharon nodded. 'It's dreadfully extravagant and

I'm always telling him so. Sometimes it goes for weeks without being used.'

'Oh, I wouldn't worry about that,' Tom told her airily. 'I'm just sorry I've never thought of it myself. Only the day before yesterday I was caught in a shower downtown with just a drugstore to go into.'

Sharon laughed again. At the foot of the stairs they halted.

For an instant Tom Lewis switched his glance between the faces of the other two: Sharon, lighthearted, unself-conscious;

Alan, at the moment serious, thoughtful, with a part of his mind still back in the courtroom where this morning's hearing had been held. And yet for all the outward difference, Tom Lewis thought, there was a warm affinity between the two. He suspected they could care about the same things. He wondered if they were aware of it yet.

Remembering his wife at home, pregnant, Tom gave an inward nostalgic sigh for carefree, single days.

'I'd love to come,' Alan said, meaning it. He took Sharon's arm. 'But do you mind if we hurry a bit? I have to be at that inquiry this afternoon.' There was just enough time, he decided - as a matter of courtesy - to fill Senator Deveraux in on the background of events so far.

Sharon asked, 'You'll join us as well, Mr Lewis, won't you?'

Tom shook his head. 'Thanks all the same, but this isn't my show. I'll walk to the hotel with you, though.'

With Alan and Tom on either side of the Senator's granddaughter, they left the echoing lobby of the Supreme Court Building by the Hornby Street side door. The cold of the narrow cavernous street outside was a sharp, biting contrast to the building's warm interior. A bitter blast of wind caught, and for a moment held them, and Sharon pulled her sable-trimmed coat tightly around her. She had a sense of pleasure at Alan's nearness.

'The weather's from the sea,' Tom said. There was a sidewalk excavation ahead and he led the way, jaywalking through traffic, to the northwest side of Hornby, turning towards West Georgia. 'It must be the coldest day of winter.'

With one hand Sharon was holding her impractical hat tightly. She told Alan, 'Every time I think of the sea I think of our stowaway, and what it must be like never going ashore. Is the ship as bad as the newspapers say?' He answered curtly, 'Worse, if anything.' 'Shall you mind very much - I mean really mind - if you don't win?'

With a vehemence that surprised himself Alan answered, 'I shall mind like hell. I shall wonder what kind of rotten, stinking country I belong to which can turn away someone homeless like this: a good man, young, who'd be an asset...'

Tom Lewis asked quietly, 'Are you sure about being an asset?'

'Yes.' Alan sounded surprised. 'Aren't you?'

'No,' Tom said. 'I don't think I am.'

'Why?' It was Sharon's question. They had come to West Georgia Street, waited for the lights, then crossed on green. 'Tell me why,' Sharon insisted. 'I don't know,' Tom said. They re-crossed Hornby, reached the Georgia Hotel and stopped, sheltering a little from the wind by the front entrance door. There was a dampness in the air which spoke of rain to come. 'I don't know,' Tom repeated. 'It isn't something you can put a finger on. A sort of instinct, I guess.'

Alan asked abruptly, 'What makes you feel that way?'

'When I served the captain's order nisi I talked to Duval. I asked you if I could meet him, remember?'

Alan nodded. 'Well, I did, and tried to like him. But I had a feeing there was a flaw somewhere; a weakness. It was almost as if he had a crack down the middle - maybe not his own fault, maybe something his background put there.' 'What kind of a crack?' Alan frowned. 'I told you it wasn't something I could be specific about.

But I had a feeling that if we get him ashore and make him an immigrant, he'll come apart in pieces.'

Sharon said, 'Isn't that all rather vague?' She had a feeling of defensiveness, as if something Alan cared about were being assailed.

'Yes,' Tom answered. 'It's why I haven't mentioned it till now.'

'I don't think you're right,' Alan said shortly. 'But even if you are it doesn't change the legal situation - his rights and all the rest.'

'I know,' Tom Lewis said. 'That's what I keep telling myself.' He pulled his coat collar tighter, preparing to turn away. 'Anyhow, good luck this afternoon!'

Chapter 3
The substantial double doors of the twelfth-floor hotel suite were open as Alan and Sharon approached, along a carpeted corridor, from the elevator. All the way up, from the moment they had left Tom Lewis in the street below, he had had an exciting awareness of their closeness to each other. It still persisted as, through the doorway of the suite, Alan could see an elderly uniformed waiter transferring the contents of a room-service trolley - apparently a buffet luncheon - to a white-clothed table in the room's centre.

Senator Deveraux was seated in an upholstered wing chair, his back to the doorway, facing the harbour view which the centre window of the suite's living-room commanded. At the sound of Sharon's and Alan's entry he turned his head without rising.

'Well, Sharon my dear, my compliments to you for successfully ensnaring the hero of the hour.' The Senator offered Alan his hand. 'Allow me to congratulate you, my boy, on a most remarkable success.'

Alan took the proffered hand. Momentarily he was shocked to see how much frailer and aged the Senator appeared than at their last meeting. The old man's face had a marked pallor, its earlier ruddiness gone, and his voice, by comparison, was weak.

"There hasn't been a success by any means,' Alan said uncomfortably. 'Not even much of a dent, I'm afraid.'

'Nonsense, my boy! - even though your modesty becomes you. Why, a moment ago I was listening to a paean of praise about you on the radio news.'

'What did they say?' Sharon asked. 'It was described as a clear-cut victory for the forces of humanity against the monstrous tyranny of our existing Government.'

Alan asked doubtfully, 'Did they actually use those words?'

The Senator waved a hand airily. 'I may have paraphrased a little, but that was the gist of it all. And Alan Maitland, that young upstanding lawyer, justly armed, was described as having routed the opposing forces.'

'If someone really said that, they may have some fancy backtracking to do.' The elderly waiter was hovering beside them and Alan slipped off his overcoat, handing it to the man, who hung it in a closet, then discreetly left. Sharon disappeared through an adjoining door. Alan's eyes followed her, then he moved to a window seat and sat facing the Senator. 'We gained a temporary advantage, it's true. But through a piece of stupidity I managed to lose part of it.' He related what happened at judge's chambers and his own final outwitting by A.

R. Butler.

Senator Deveraux nodded sagely. 'Even so, I would say your efforts have produced a splendid outcome.'

'So they did,' Sharon said, returning to join them. She had taken off her outdoor clothes, revealing a soft woollen dress.

'Alan was simply magnificent.'

Alan smiled resignedly. It seemed useless to protest. 'All the same,' he said, 'we're a long way from getting Henri Duval admitted here as a landed immigrant.'

The older man made no immediate answer, his eyes returning to the waterfront and harbour spread beneath them. Turning his head, Alan could see Burrard Inlet, spume flecked from the streaming wind, the North Shore whipped by spray. A ship was leaving port - a grain boat, low in the water, laden; from the markings it looked Japanese. A Vancouver Island ferry headed in, cutting white water through the First Narrows, beginning a wide starboard turn towards the CPR pier. Elsewhere were other arrivals, departures: of ships and men, cargoes, commerce, the weft and warp of a busy deep-sea port.

At length the Senator said, 'Well, of course, in the end we may not achieve that final objective of landing our stowaway. One can win battles and lose a war. But never underestimate the importance of the battles, my boy, particularly, in political affairs.'

'I. think we've gone over that. Senator,' Alan rejoined. 'I'm not concerned about the politics, just in doing the best I can for my client!'

'Indeed! Indeed!' The old man's voice, for the first time held a trace of testiness. 'And I think you'll allow that you lose no opportunity to point it out. Sometimes, if I may say so, there is nothing quite so tedious as the self-righteousness of the very young.'

Alan flushed at the rebuke.

'But you'll forgive an old campaigner,' the Senator said, 'if I rejoice in the discomfiture which, in certain quarters, your resourceful actions have aroused.'

'I guess there's no harm in that.' Alan tried to make the remark sound light. He had an uncomfortable feeling of having been boorish without need.

Behind them a telephone bell rang. The room-service waiter, who had quietly reappeared, answered. The man moved familiarly around, Alan noticed, as if he were used to the habits of this private suite and had served the Senator many times before.

To Alan and Sharon the Senator said, 'Why don't you two young people have lunch? It's there behind you. I think you'll find whatever you need.'

'All right,' Sharon said. 'But aren't you having something, Granddaddy?'

The Senator shook his head. 'Perhaps later, my dear; not now.'

The waiter put down the telephone and came forward. He announced, 'It's your call to Ottawa, Senator, and they have Mr Bonar Deitz on the line. Will you take it here?'

'No, I'll go in the bedroom.' The old man eased upward in the chair, then, as if the effort were too much for him, fell back. 'Dear me, I seem to be a little heavy today.'

Concernedly, Sharon came to his side. 'Granddaddy, you shouldn't try to do so much!'

'Stuff and nonsense!' The Senator reached out, taking

Sharon's hands, and she helped him to his feet.

'May I, sir?' Alan offered his arm. 'No, thank you, my boy. I'm not ready for cripplehood yet.

It's merely to overcome gravity that I need some trifling help. Perambulation I've always managed myself and always shall, I hope.'

With the words he entered the doorway Sharon had used earlier, closing it partially behind him.

'Is he all right?' Alan asked doubtfully.

'I don't know.' Sharon's eyes were on the doorway. Turning back to Alan, she added, 'Even if he isn't, there's nothing he'll let me do. Why is it that some men are so obstinate?'

'I'm not obstinate.' 'Not much!' Sharon laughed. 'From you it comes in waves.

Anyway, let's have lunch.' There was vichyssoise, shrimp casserole, curried turkey's wings, and jellied tongue on the buffet table. The elderly waiter hurried forward.

'Thank you,' Sharon said. 'We'll serve ourselves.' 'Very well, Miss Deveraux.' Inclining his head respectfully, the man closed the double doors behind him, leaving them alone.

Alan ladled two cups of vichyssoise and gave one to Sharon.

They sipped, standing.

Alan's heart was pounding. 'When all this is over,' he asked slowly, 'shall I see you sometimes?'

'I hope so.' Sharon smiled. 'Otherwise I might have to stay around the law courts all the time.'

He was conscious of the faint perfume he had detected at their meeting in the house on the Drive. And of Sharon's eyes, mirroring amusement and perhaps something else.

Alan put down his soup cup. He said decisively, 'Give me yours.'

Sharon protested, 'I haven't finished yet.'

'Never mind that.' He reached out, taking it, and returned it to the table.

He held out his hands to Sharon and she came to him. Their faces were close. His arms went around her and their lips met softly. He had a blissful, breathless sense of floating on air.

After a moment, shyly, he touched her hair and whispered, 'I've wanted to do this ever since Christmas morning.'

'So have I,' Sharon said happily. 'Why ever did you take so long?'

They kissed again. As if from some other unreal world the sound of Senator Deveraux's voice came, muffled, through the partly open door. '... so this is the time to strike, Bonar ... naturally you will lead the House ... Howden on the defensive ... splendid, my boy, splendid! ...' To Alan, the words seemed unimportant, unconnected with himself.

'Don't worry about Granddaddy,' Sharon whispered. 'He's always ages on the phone to Ottawa.'

'Stop talking,' Alan said. You're wasting time.'

Ten minutes later the voice stopped and they broke away. After an interval Senator Deveraux came out, walking slowly. He lowered himself carefully on to a sofa facing the buffet table. If he noticed that the luncheon was virtually untouched, he made no comment.

After pausing for breath, the Senator announced, 'I have some excellent news.'

With a sense of returning to earth, hoping his voice sounded normal, Alan asked, 'Has the Government given in? Will they let Duval stay?'

'Not that.' The old man shook his head. 'In fact, if that happened it might upset our present strategy.'

'What then?' Alan had both feet on the ground now. He contained his irritation that politics, apparently, still came first.

'Come on, Granddaddy,' Sharon said; 'give!' 'Tomorrow in Ottawa,' the Senator declared grandly, 'the Parliamentary Opposition will stage a full-dress House of Commons debate in support of our young friend, Henri Duval.' 'Do you think it will do any good?' Alan asked.

The Senator replied sharply, 'It won't do any harm, will it? And it will keep your client's name very much in the news.' 'Yes,' Alan acknowledged. He nodded thoughtfully. 'It will certainly help us that way.'

'I'm sure it will, my boy. So at your special inquiry this afternoon remember that others are working with you in the same good cause.'

'Thank you. Senator. I will,' Alan glanced at his watch and realized he had better be moving. Acutely conscious of Sharon close by, he walked to the closet where the waiter had put his coat. 'Concerning this afternoon,' Senator Deveraux said softly,

'I have a single small suggestion.'