The Last Woman (20 page)

Later on the deck, over his gin and tonic, Reg compliments Inverness. He is a man who is used to being listened to, for as he continues, spinning out a tale of his own cottage on Random Lake, he takes his time, clearly enjoying himself. He speaks mainly to Ann, who listens with a kind of skeptical bemusement, not unfriendly, though after a few minutes Richard notices that her attention has strayed. “Rick tells me you paint,” Reg says.

“Ann!” Richard says, laughing as she blinks from her reverie. “This is what painting does to a woman,” he tells the others. “I give you exhibit A: my perpetually distracted wife. Lost in her work still! Reg was asking about your painting –”

“Your husband tells me you’re good,” Reg says, clearly not put off in the least. “Are you good?”

“Yes, well, my husband is my number-one fan,” she says a bit dryly.

“You must show us your work.”

She shakes her head slightly but says nothing.

“I’m a bit of a collector, myself.”

“
Are
you –”

“I’ve got a Robbins – one of his wolf paintings – fantastic. I think you’d like it.”

“
Well
,” Ann says, looking awkward for the first time. Richard knows that his wife does not like Robbins, whom she considers too photographic.
No surprises, no imagination, no soul
is her withering summary.

“So when can we have a look?”

“At?” Ann says.

“At your work!”

“I’m really not at that point,” Ann says. She has spoken more quietly and more directly than at any time in the afternoon. “I am working on a piece, but I can’t tell where it’s going. I won’t show it even to Richard. I lose focus when someone else looks too soon.”

Saying she needs to see how Elaine’s getting on with the dinner, Ann leaves. The minister’s level gaze, emptied of its smile, follows her up the rock.

With her departure, a certain blankness falls. Richard turns the conversation to politics. They are well into a discussion of the new policy on hospital funding when the drone of a motor sounds from the channel. Richard goes on talking, but as Reg and Marilyn glance at the approaching boat, he looks too.

Billy. He is sitting in the stern, his arm crooked over the handle of his outboard, his gaze fixed straight ahead, as if
he were so intent on the channel that he is unaware of them, as if he were going to drive right on by. But no sooner does Richard think this,
hope
this, than Billy thrusts away the tiller, sending his boat around the point and out of sight, clearly headed for their dock.

“Don’t I know that guy?”

“Billy Johnson,” Richard murmurs. He has risen to his feet and turned to follow the din of Billy’s motor.

“Right, the land claim. Everybody in the area knew who he was. You guys had a pretty hard go with that case.”

“Yes, well, ancient history now,” Richard says, his face heating. “We haven’t had much to do with each other for quite a while. Guess I better go see what he wants.”

Richard hurries up the rock. Passing the cottage, he meets Ann, who has emerged onto the back step. “It’s Billy,” he tells her, in a slightly accusatory tone; somehow this ill-timed arrival seems her doing. They both look toward the dock, where Billy, having shut off his engine, is sitting placidly in the stern. “Why don’t you go down and speak to him,” Richard urges. “Try to get him to –” At the clatter of a pot lid in the kitchen, he remembers Elaine Shewaybick and lowers his voice. “Tell him now isn’t a good time. He’ll listen to you.”

“There’s plenty to eat –”

“
Ann, he can’t stay
.”

She stares at him in apparent incomprehension until, exasperated, he goes down the path himself. The two men meet just as Billy steps from the boathouse and Richard sees for the first time his bruised cheek and swollen eye,
the round, livid bump on his forehead, and for a moment he forgets everything else. “My God, man –”

“Ran into a bit of trouble,” Billy murmurs. There is something drugged about his focus. Drunk, Richard thinks.

“Look, I’ve got something going on here – it’s important. Now is not a good time.” But Billy’s attention has shifted to the cottage, where Ann is watching from the steps. “Billy,
listen
to me.” The one good eye swings back to him. “The minister of natural resources is here. Political meeting. Goddammit, Billy, you can’t just arrive here and expect –” The battered face seems to struggle toward clarity. But then, moving with shocking swiftness, Billy pushes past Richard and starts up the path.

“Billy, what’s happened!” Ann cries as he approaches. Ignoring her, Billy disappears around the corner of the house.

“Drunk is what’s happened,” Richard seethes. Hurrying after him, they catch sight of his pale shirt flickering among the pines, descending to the deck where Reg, putting aside his drink, has stood to greet him. Billy ignores his outstretched hand.

“So you’re the minister.”

“Reg, I’m sorry,” Richard says, arriving out of breath. “He’s –”

“It’s all right, Rick,” Reg says, not taking his eyes from the other man. Ann is at Richard’s side now – he can hear her breathing – and in her chair, Marilyn is transfixed.

“You’re in charge of all this.” Billy gestures sharply over the water, the islands.

“Well, ‘in charge’ is a bit steep,” Reg says.

“The cuts north of Nigushi there, up toward Charlton Lake. How come you’re taking everything?”

“Sorry, you’ll have to explain.”

“Look,” Richard says to Billy. “Really, this isn’t the time.” But Billy, he realizes, is not listening to him; the minister is not listening to him.

“They’ve taken ninety, ninety-five per cent,” Billy says.

“I don’t think that’s accurate,” Reg says. “We have policies.”

“We’ve a lot of experience with your policies. I was just up there. There’s nothing left.” Billy stands hunched forward a little, his fists hanging loosely at his sides, his eyes – still with that hint of misfocus – burning at the other man. Richard once saw him look exactly like this years before, when he had been threatened in a bar. Seconds later, avoiding a punch, he had smashed in his adversary’s face.

“I’ll have my people look into it,” Reg says. “I’ll get back to you. That’s a promise.”

Billy is grinning now, or rather grimacing, as if in pain. He is in such a state that for some seconds no one can speak or move, as if hypnotized by his intensity.

“Billy,” Ann says softly, breaking the spell. But Billy seems not to hear.

“You people,” he says, his voice catching. “A whole forest, gone like that.”

“Billy, goddammit,” Richard says. He grips Billy’s shoulder, but Billy throws off his arm. Again, everyone
stands motionless as Billy looks around, no longer so aware of them, it seems, but taken with some thought of his own. Then at once, he strides off the deck and up the path toward the cottage, with Ann hurrying after him. The others watch as he stumbles, flounders for a moment in the arms of a pine, then disappears.

Richard turns to his guests. “Reg, Marilyn, I’m so sorry. The man is beside himself and, of course, under the influence. Marilyn, are you okay?”

Soon they hear the roar of Billy’s engine, then his boat sweeps around the point and into the channel. He sits as before, looking neither to the left or right as he goes by. Even after the boat can no longer be seen, Richard finds himself listening to the receding drone of his motor, the peaceful sloshing of his wake as it breaks up along the shore.

In the candle-lit cave of the porch, they eat the steamed ginger pickerel Elaine Shewaybick carries in on the good plates Richard brought from their house in Black Falls. At first, after Billy’s departure, everyone had been subdued as they absorbed what had happened. Now over dinner, with the help of the wine, conversation flows again, almost hectically, as the tension is released. To Richard’s dismay, Reg wants to talk about Billy, clearly fascinated by the man and even, it seems, impressed. “I remember him during the land claim. I was still running my outfitting business then and we had a TV in the office. Billy came on one day, on that old political program with – oh what’s her name,
the interviewer with the grating voice? The premier used to call her the Piranha.”

“Iris Kirby,” Richard says, reluctantly helping out.

“Iris Kirby!” Reg cries, jabbing the air with his fork. “Talk about your dragon lady. She tried to do her usual job on Billy, but he wasn’t having any of it. He handled her so brilliantly – just stayed calm and said what he wanted to – not what
she
wanted him to say. A natural, really. The guy could go into politics, though, frankly he might not have the necessary knack for compromise.”

“Indeed,” Richard says, thinking that Reg has not yet brought up the subject of his own prospective candidacy. He’s been waiting for the right moment to mention it himself.

“Seeing him come down the rock today. I hadn’t felt like that since I saw Hammer Jackson come at me with the football. The man has a definite power –”

“Somewhat reinforced today,” Richard offers.

“Didn’t seem drunk to me. Banged up, certainly, but not drunk.”

“I didn’t think so either,” Ann says. “He’s had an accident.”

“Or a fight,” Richard says.

“He’s a brawler then?” the minister says.

“He’s seen his share,” Richard says. He does not want to be critical of Billy, not in front of Ann, who will almost certainly defend him. He has seen her bring a dinner party to a stop with her passions. “He’s been away since the claim – only just got back. We’ve only seen him once. He
was down in the States, just drifting really. Working at odd jobs. It tells after a while, that sort of life.”

“How does it
tell
,” Ann says, putting down her fork.

Richard reaches abruptly for the wine bottle. “Marilyn,” he says, turning to her. “Your glass is entirely too empty.”

As he refills her glass, Elaine Shewaybick comes in to clear their plates. Everyone falls silent as she moves around the table – a big-hipped, solemn woman whose bare arm, wrist bound in a wide, beaded bracelet, reaches past their shoulders. “That was lovely,” Marilyn murmurs. As Elaine takes up his plate, Richard thanks her warmly.

After Elaine goes back to the kitchen, Ann turns to Reg: “Will you really have your people look into the clear-cuts?”

“Certainly I will.”

“Because I flew over them once. Billy’s right. There’s whole areas where there’s hardly anything left.”

“Well, the cuts aren’t
pretty
,” the minister allows.

“It’s a lot worse than that. It’s completely wrong. I knew
here
it was wrong,” Ann says, tapping herself on the chest. “All anybody has to do is
see
them to know.” Richard listens closely, ready to jump in if she goes too far. Yet Reg seems to be enjoying himself. He and Ann spar back and forth, the minister unflaggingly genial while Ann persists with unsmiling earnestness. Eventually Richard joins the fray on Reg’s side, explaining to his wife that, as minister, Reg is involved in a complicated balancing act as he tries not only to protect the resource but to make sure the timber companies get what they need.
Resource extraction. The economic needs of the community. Needs of hunters and sports fishermen
. The ready-made phrases come easily. He breaks off, suddenly recalling that, years ago, he and Billy used to mock such officialese as the worst form of hypocrisy.

Reg, too, talks mainly to Ann; she has become the stubborn centre of the room, the person the men need to convince. “You know, I’m sympathetic to the man’s position. That’s their hunting and trapping grounds up there. But very few of them are trapping any more, it’s a way of life that’s passing. A lot of them work for the forestry companies now. Where you see a disaster, they see jobs.”

“Trees do get replanted,” Richard says, chiming in again. “And even if they didn’t replant, the forest would soon grow back.” He describes a piece of abandoned highway near the Falls. “After one year, there were weeds coming through it. After two, saplings. It’s a small forest now. The trees are going to win in the long run!”

Dessert is lemon tart and coffee, which Ann helps Elaine carry in. Ann’s silence – she has retreated entirely – seems to affect the others, and the conversation fails as their forks click on their plates. A few minutes later, while Reg is describing their February holiday in Saint Martin, she gets up abruptly. Richard watches as her shoulders under their thin straps disappear in the dimness of the hall.

The first time Richard saw Billy Johnson, he and Ann had been married all of six months and were on their way home to Black Falls in Richard’s Volvo when they saw a young man in jeans and a red nylon shell, hitchhiking. He
had put out his arm with an air of lazy indifference, almost contempt, as if he could care less whether they stopped. There was a pathos about the figure, Richard thought. The sight of Billy Johnson had moved him even before he knew who he was.