The World Duology (World Odyssey / Fiji: A Novel) (20 page)

34

Philadelphia, United States of
America, 1843

N
athan had his hands full. He tried not to spill champagne from the near-full glass he balanced as two giggling, skimpily-clad showgirls draped over him, showering him with kisses. One, a fetching chorus girl, sat on his knee; the other, a soloist, leaned over him from behind.

It was the interval during a song and dance show
at Philadelphia’s popular music hall of the day,
The Merry Menagerie
, and Nathan was celebrating his twenty-first birthday with a group of boisterous friends. As was the custom at the popular nightly show, the showgirls mingled with the patrons between acts in the establishment’s parlor.

Nathan’s rowdy group included his blind date for the evening, three boyhood friends,
their girlfriends of the moment and an assortment of hangers-on. All had had too much to drink and they’d already been asked twice by parlor employees to keep the noise down.

Nathan
was almost unrecognizable as the young man who had been living amongst the Makah just one year earlier. Dressed in the finest European clothes, sporting the latest fashionable hairstyle and spending money like there was no tomorrow, he looked and acted like a spoiled beau.

As he admired
the exposed cleavage of the young woman on his knee, Nathan dropped his champagne glass. Its contents splashed over the woman’s breasts and the glass shattered on the wooden floor. “Anchors away!” Nathan shouted to the amusement of his companions.

Other patrons weren’t
so amused. Several had already complained to the management.

“More champagne for the prodiga
l son!” one of Nathan’s male friends called out.

“I’ll drink to that!” Nathan shouted
, prompting more laughter among the group.

A floor manager approached the young Philadelphi
an and raised a forefinger to his lips, indicating he and his companions should demonstrate a little more consideration for fellow patrons. Nathan mimicked the floor manager, raising his own forefinger to his lips and making an exaggerated
shhh
sound. This prompted more laughter from his companions and drew more glares from their fellow patrons.

What no-one knew outside Nathan’s little
group of confidants was that the young man was determined to make up for his lost years with the Makah. Since his dramatic escape from Oregon Country, he’d indulged himself in almost every excess known to man. The past six months had been a blur of parties, gambling and women, and he had no intention of slowing down. Not yet anyway.

After evading Tatoosh and his braves at Whale Bay, and scrambling aboard the schooner that had fortuitously anchored there, Nathan had endured a six-month voyage before arriving back on America’s east coast.
Endured
because he’d just wanted to get home. Unfortunately, to do that, he had to work his passage aboard
Spirit of the Sea
as she worked her way down the west coast of North and South America, and then up the east coast.

On his return to Philadelphia,
incredulous friends and family couldn’t believe their eyes. Nathan had long been given up for dead along with his other crewmates on the doomed
Intrepid
. He became something of an overnight celebrity when the local newspaper ran a front page article that chronicled his miraculous return. After that, there was no shortage of
friends
wanting to buy him a drink and hear about his adventures first hand.

Adjusting to
civilization hadn’t come easy. Even to this day, his mind and body remained in Makah mode. This manifested itself in a number of ways – not the least being he sometimes lapsed into Makah when conversing. He also shunned sleeping in a conventional bed, preferring the floor; when asleep in the arms of his latest bit of skirt, he often alarmed them by uttering Makah chants and war cries; when dining he preferred raw fish to meat; and he’d often disappear for days on end, hiking through the countryside as he’d done in Oregon Country.

Gradually, as
the months went by and he adjusted back to city life, he’d cultivated some bad habits – like whoring and partying to excess – to make up for the lost years.

When the New York Times heard about Nathan, its editor offered a handsome payment for the full story on his time with the Makah. The story was serialized over four editions and occupied the center spread of each edition. The first insta
llment was published under the heading:
Young Philadelphian returns from the dead after being enslaved by Northwest savages
. By the time the fourth installment ran, Nathan was a celebrity up and down the entire eastern seaboard.

As a result,
he was a popular guest at balls and dinner parties throughout Pennsylvania and even further afield. The press loved him, too, and his handsome image was often seen in newspapers – usually with a pretty woman at his side.

Nathan’s good fortune didn’t end there, however. Even before the New York Times story ran, a mysterious benefactor had started
anonymously depositing funds into his bank account. The funds were substantial and financed the high life he’d been leading. Furthermore, the deposits had continued, like clockwork, on the first of each month.

The ringing of a bell signaled the interval was over. Nathan’s group joined the other patrons in filing back to resume their seats for the second act.

Later, as he watched the performers from the comfort of the pricey gallery seats, his mind wandered. He thought back to the reception he’d received from his sisters and their families the day he’d arrived home. Sissy and Alice had both married since he’d last seen them. Sissy was pregnant with her first child and Alice had two children. Both sisters had showered him with kisses and demanded to know every single thing that had happened to him since the shipwreck.

Nathan had learned from them that their father had contracted
consumption – or tuberculosis as it would later be called – and had taken enforced early retirement as a result of that. They’d pleaded with their young brother to see Johnson Senior and make his peace with him before he died, but Nathan had refused. No amount of pleading would persuade him to reconcile with the father who had beaten him and left him with so many bad boyhood memories.

Johnson Senior, who s
till resided in the family home – albeit with a live-in nurse to care for him – had tried to make contact with his son on at least four occasions, but each time Nathan had ignored him.

#

Three months and countless drinks and hangovers later, Nathan was walking along downtown Philadelphia’s main street. He’d just finished pleasuring a sophisticate whose husband was away on business, and he was en route to a rendezvous with friends at a local bar where, if recent experience was anything to go by, he’d drink until he couldn’t remember his name.

Approaching him was an old man who shuffled along with the aid of a walking stick. It wasn’t until the man was a few feet away that Nathan recognized him.
It’s my father!
At first he wondered if he was mistaken. The old man was a shadow of the vibrant sea captain he remembered.

Johnson Senior resemb
led a skeleton. The disease that ravaged him had taken its toll and he clearly didn’t have long to live.

Nathan pretended he hadn’t recognized his father, but as he walked by Johnson Senior grabbed his arm.

“Son!” Johnson Senior rasped.

Nathan looked at him, vacant, as if his father was a stranger.

“It’s me. Your father.”

As Nathan looked into his father’s blue eyes, he was taken back to the last time he’d seen him. He’d been caught in his father’s out-of-bounds study, and a drunk Johnson Senior had punished him by beating him mercilessly about the head. “I’m sorry,” he said to the older man, “I don’t remember you.” Nathan shook his father’s hand from his arm and resumed walking.

Behind him, he could feel his father’s eyes boring into his back. Nathan quickened his stride. He hoped that would be the last time he’d ever see his father. It was.

#

On the anniversary of his first year back in Philadelphia, Nathan took stock of his life. Nothing had changed yet everything had changed. On the one hand, life was still one giddy round of drinking, partying and whoring; on the other hand, he’d had an epiphany.

It happened exactly one month after he’d seen his father in the street. Johnson Senior had died at home alone. He’d been given a send-off worthy of one of Philadelphia’s finest citizens. Nathan hadn’t attended the funeral despite the exhortations of his sisters.

Six weeks after the funeral, Nathan and his sisters had been summonsed to the downtown office of their father’s lawyer, a Mister Chumly Cummins, to hear the reading of Johnson Senior’s will.

To Sissy and Alice, their father bequeathed his entire monetary fortune, which was substantial to say the least.

To Nathan, he left his trading company,
Johnson Traders
. More an empire than a company, its vast holdings included three sailing ships, vacant plots of prime land on America’s east and west coasts, shares including a ten per cent shareholding in the Port of San Francisco, and many thousands of dollars worth of unsold goods procured in the course of recent trades.

In one sweep of the pen, Johnson
Senior had ensured his three children would never want for anything and could see out their days in total comfort if not absolute luxury.

But that wasn’t all. To each of his children, he’d also left a personalized letter. It was the contents of Johnson Senior’s letter to his son that provided Nathan with the epiphany that was about to change his life.

Nathan hadn’t read the letter until a week after the reading of the will. He wasn’t sure he wanted to read it and had even contemplated destroying it. Finally, he read it, but only because he thought it likely it would pertain to the running of the company he’d inherited, and not for any sentimental reason.

The letter read:

Dear Nathan

It is with a heavy heart I write this to you, my only son.

I cannot take back the deeds, or misdeeds, I have done and I know I can never expect your forgiveness for the way I treated you growing up. I could blame the liquor or the pressures of business for my actions, but I know they are but hollow excuses.

I grieved for you when your ship went down and you were believed dead. How my heart soared when I learned you had survived.

I grieved for you again when you refused to see me on your return. And I grieved for myself, and cursed myself, for not being a worthy father.

If I could have my time again I would do things differently. That much I know. Believe me when I say I am proud of you, son. Your dear mother would be proud of you, too.

Despite my many faults, I ran a sound and honest business. I hereby bequeath it to you and trust you will profit ha
ndsomely from it in the years ahead.

Your father,

Benjamin Johnson

Johnson Senior’s words of love and regret made not the slightest impression on Nathan, and did nothing to change his low opinion of his father. They reminded him of an old Makah saying:
Words are like clouds in the sky for even the faintest wind will blow them away
. However, Johnson Senior’s reference to his business had gotten Nathan thinking.

As
one of Philadelphia’s wealthiest citizens, and one of the youngest members of the nouveau riche on the entire eastern seaboard, he knew the world was his oyster. He could do anything he liked. He could even retire if he wanted to and party all day, every day. Tempting though that idea was, he felt he owed it to himself to do something with his life.

If I’
m ever gonna do something, it has to be now
.

Despite the foolishness and immaturity he’d demonstrated since his return to Philadelphia, he was wise enough to recognize he needed to change. He vowed to
change immediately.

As he folded the letter away, he noticed his father had written something on the back of it. It read:

P.S. - I am sure you will agree there is now no further need for a continuation of the
monthly cash deposits into your bank account. I have discontinued those. - B.J.

So now Nathan knew for sure why the monthly deposits had recently ceased. He’d already guessed his father had been making the deposits as they stopped as soon as he died.

In the weeks ahead,
Nathan threw himself into his father’s business. It wasn’t that hard. Johnson Senior had surrounded himself with good people, and Nathan retained them and made good use of them. While he had the casting vote in all company matters, he gave the company’s senior managers even more autonomy than his father had given them. That didn’t always work out, and he had to fire one or two, but Nathan learned fast and the business continued to prosper.