The Republic of Nothing (43 page)

“Well, it's just that somebody found something there.”

“Yeah, uranium. Just our luck.”

“No. A letter. An old typewritten document about something called the Republic of Nothing. It was on the ground. The police don't know about it. There was also something spray painted on the truck, something about this republic. Do you know anything about it?”

“No,” I said flatly.

“Your father's name was signed to it. It sounded nuts, the whole thing. But it
was
your father's signature. This is a new one to me. I haven't run across this sort of problem before in our office.”

“Who gave it to you?” I asked.

“Well, I don't really
have
it. Maclntyre has it.”

“Why? I don't get it. John G.D. hasn't been on the island.”

“Yes. But Bud Tillish has.”

I guess I was a little slow at putting the pieces together. Slowly, I reached into the back pocket of my pants. I had worn them the other night. They'd not been washed since. It wasn't there. Nothing but sand and lint. I saw the first link in the chain and I realized that my skills as a political vandal were lacking. But I would not confess to Herb.

“Why would Bud Tillish give such a thing to somebody in the opposing party? Why not go straight to the cops?”

Herb let out a small bureaucratic laugh, the most emotion he was capable of. “Because no one would believe it coming
from Bud. They'd say he made it up. So he turned it over to John G.D. Maclntyre. John's looking for leverage. Bud wants your old man out of the race so he can get his seat back. Think it through. This is what backroom politics is all about.”

“I never heard of anything as ridiculous as the Republic of Nothing,” I lied. “It's a hoax, Herb. A laughable joke.”

“Well, maybe it is and maybe it isn't. But right now, even as we speak, your father and Maclntyre are hoot to headers ready to fight it out with bare knuckles. I wish you could give me a little insight into this.”

“I'm sorry,” I said. “I can't.”

“If I could get this in focus, make some sense of it, maybe I could put a spin on it, somehow use it to our advantage if John wants to go public. Wouldn't you help us just to save your father's political career?”

“You bet your ass, I won't. I want my father's political career dead and buried.”

“I'm sorry you feel that way. But then, we still have the ad-vantage over an old buzzard like Maclntyre. We'll buy him off somehow. Everyone has his price.”

“Fuck you, Herb.” I had to say it just one more time. “Good-night.”

“Nice talking to you. Let's chat again, after the convention.”

I slammed the phone down and ran past my mother's room where I saw Casey still sitting with her, my mother's head bowed down. I knew that I had a sloppy memory. Maybe I had put the document back. I checked the manila envelope in the desk drawer. Nothing. In my room, I pulled out the box from under my bed — the old cigar box with the rubber band around it. This was my box of sacred things and I had this idea — wishful thinking, nothing more — that I had come home from wrecking the machinery and dutifully filed the copy of my father's letter here. Of course the declaration wasn't there either. It wasn't anywhere else in the room.

I went back to the cigar box and looked at the remainder of
the contents. There was a lock of Gwen's hair from when she was twelve years old. Nestled in it was a small chunk of gold my father had found for me. It's funny, but I remembered that it was the island's gold that my father had feared. He used to worry in the old days that someone would discover the fragments of gold imbedded in white quartz all around the island, then come and pit mine the place despite the fact that there would never be enough to make it economically viable. I had a small batch of notes from Gwen, foolish kid things we had passed back and forth in junior high. The picture of Gwen's real grandfather was beneath them, stapled to a picture of old Duke, drowned now and gone for good. And beneath that smiling image of one of the happiest, most peaceful men I had ever met, was a photo of my own mother and father, taken when they were both still very young, soon after my mother had been salvaged from the sea. Two handsome, unbelievable human beings, just kids themselves, smiling into the sun and into the lens of Mr. Kirk's camera, holding each other, frozen forever in this idyllic pose. My hair began to stand on end as I looked at the photo and realized that it was a picture of my own two parents taken before I was born. Why this should send a chill through me, I didn't know. But it made me wonder about a world where, if things had gone otherwise, I would not exist. If my old man had not been fishing at that exact place at sunrise, my mother might have simply drifted away from the coast like old Duke's drowned corpse. She may have ultimately drowned; my father would have returned with a few fish. And where the hell would poor little baby Ian come from?

I stuffed the photos back into the Dutch Masters box and tried to wrestle the rubber band back onto it. Enough reminiscing, enough of futile worries of what might have been. The problems of the present were great enough. Damn. The old rubber band snapped, spilling the contents on the floor. I stared at an item I had not taken out: the finger. The finger of the dead Viking. What would the old boy think if he knew
that some modern pirates with an eye on profiting from thermonuclear weapons were about to disturb his ancient sleep? Didn't I used to carry the thing around for good luck? Sure. And sometimes it worked; sometimes it didn't. Then, one day, I had given up on such childish superstitions and simply stashed the desiccated finger in the sacred cigar box with other holy but childish relics. I put the rest of the items back into the box and slid it under my bed. The finger, however, went into my pocket. My faith in the charm was not strong, but I figured that I needed all the luck I could muster. I went back in to my mother's bedroom. “Dad says he wants you to know he loves you very much and that he'll always love you. I told him he should stay there and that I could handle it. I told him everything would be okay for now but that he should get home as soon as he could.” It was a farcical lie. I doubted that Dorothy had missed the animated phone conversation I had had with Herb. She smiled and put a hand on the back of my neck.

“Why don't I call Bernie? Maybe she can come over for a while and you two can talk.”

My mother seemed more together now. “No. I think I know what I have to do. I can't go back to sleep. I can't even start to tell you about what I know. But you two beautiful kids are going to get some sleep. I'm going to sit here and write the story. I've been reading books all my life. I was always waiting to have a story worth telling. Now I have one that scares the living daylights out of me, but the only way I'm going to tell it is on paper.”

“Will you let us read it?” Casey asked.

“I think so. But your father should read it first. Now go to bed.”

“Leave the door open, okay?” I asked. I was still afraid for my mother. Even though she had recovered the composure of her old self, I knew it would be not easy to reconnect with the terrified young woman who she had once been. I would check in on her periodically, make sure she was okay.

“I'll leave it wide open. Now hand me that paper over there and get out. Get some sleep. I guess this is the night I've been waiting for.”

I intended not to sleep, but something pushed me over the precipice of awareness into a dark dreamless pit where I lost my ability to conjure the consciousness to check on my mother. My body and mind just gave up trying for the night. In the morning, sunlight lay down a golden ribbon, warm as honey, issuing through the crack between the window shade and the sill. I studied it for a second, almost unaware of the tumultuous events from the previous few days. Maybe I thought I was still a kid. Maybe I'd go out to sea on this warm summer morning with my old man and we'd catch flounder and had-dock and come home like heroes to my mother and baby sister. Maybe it was still like that. But all too soon memory reported back like a gunshot and fired all the details of the past few days back into my head. I bounced from bed, threw on my pants and ran out of my room calling for my mother.

“I'm in the kitchen,” she said. “Go say hello to your father.”

What? My father? Was she out of her mind? Was she dreaming? Had I actually succeeded in transporting myself back into my past? I burst into the living room. There was my old man settled into his favourite chair by the south window — just sitting there in a pool of sunlight, reading.

“Ian,” he said, getting up. “Good to see you, son. Thanks for calling. I'm sorry Herb is such a twit. He means well.”

“Dad?” I asked, giving him a hug.

“Yeah?”

“How long can you stay?” There was already one miracle under the belt for the day; I was expecting two.

“Not long. I've already been here for a couple of hours. Reading your mother's story. It's your turn next.” As he looked down at the handwritten pages, I could tell that he had been deeply shaken by what he had read. “You don't have to read it if you don't want.”

“I have to,” I said.

Casey and my mom came out of the kitchen and told us breakfast was ready. I looked at the clock. 8:30. I couldn't believe my father had been here since 6:30 and no one had woken me up. Then I realized my lie to my mother from the night before had come true. My old man
had
found his way out of the Tory back room and come home, however briefly. I suddenly felt overwhelmed with love for the old anarchist. I grabbed him and gave him a hug around the neck. He looked immensely pleased and punched me gently in the rib cage like he had in the days when I was a boy. “Ian, you're good kid. But we have to discuss this little rebellious streak you're developing before it gets out of hand.”

“What do you mean?”

“The vandalism. Maybe you did what needed to be done. But not so sloppy next time. Besides, learn to work through the system, not against it.”

“But what about the uranium? They're going to ruin the island.”

He held his finger up to his mouth for me to be quiet. “Not if I'm nominated and reelected. Nobody will touch this place, I promise you.”

I didn't want to ask him about the grief I had brought him by losing the declaration and he didn't seem to want to explore it further. Instead, we all chowed down to scrambled eggs and kippers, bacon, coffee and home-fried blue potatoes. It was a happy family scene. No one spoke a word about my mother's nightmare, about her past, about politics, uranium or elections.

“Gwen's back,” I told my father.

“Great,” my father said, his mouth full of food. “Marry her before she gets away again.”

I was caught off guard. “I'm not sure she's into marriage,” I answered.

“Then live with her for a while and see how it works out,” he said.

“What?” Casey blurted out, shocked at her father's statement. My mother looked astonished.

“Well, you know. If you love her, let her know it. Make some sort of commitment. Sometimes young people are too afraid to make commitments.” This was ironic coming from my old man who had inadvertently sacrificed his family for a life with smelly men who smoked cigarettes in meeting halls plotting the success of the Tory party.

“I'll think about it,” I said. There was nothing I'd want more than to live with Gwen, to marry her or settle into any arrangement she liked.

“Maybe the two of you can live in here for a bit if I get reelected. Casey and your mother can come into Halifax and live the life of Riley with me running the province. He looked at my mother. “They'll treat you like a queen,” he said, then turning to Casey, “and you like a princess.”

A scowl crept across my mother's face. This was an old battle ground and my father had reopened wounds.

“Hey, I was only kidding,” he said, trying not to shatter the good mood of the morning meal. “I'll call a contractor about building an addition on this old place. Gwen and Ian can live back there.”

“Dad, I think I'll move in with Gwen when the time is right.”

“Suit yourself.” My father checked his watch. “Dorothy, let's go out for a walk. I've got ten minutes before I absolutely have to leave. Even at that, the only way I'm going to get to Halifax in time for the caucus meeting is if I go double the speed limit.”

“If the Mounties stop you, I'm sure they won't give you a ticket,” I said, thinking about the cop I'd met just yesterday.

“My party is opposed to favouritism of any sort or privileges for government members. Remember that, okay?” he said in a mock official voice, then leaning closer to me, he joked, “If I get stopped, how much do you think I should offer him? I've only got a twenty on me.”

“That's too much,” I said. “This is the Eastern Shore. People are poor. Give him the twenty and ask for ten in change. He'll be happy.”

My old man winked and gave me a thumbs up. He waltzed my mother out into the sunlight. Casey and I smiled at each other and I watched her eyes light up, sparkling with delight. It was as if last night had never happened.