Waiting for Time (13 page)

What am I doing here? Lav asks herself. Why am I neglecting work to read about people long dead? Why do I phone people I have never met, people I never want to meet—confusing the past with the present—lay plans to steal some bedraggled old book no one in their right mind would want!

She turns the car around. She will not go to the archive. Vowing to forget the journal she drives to the Research Station.

During the next few days Lav weans herself back to reality. She pays bills, gets her hair done, listens to the news. She pretends involvement in the controlled confusion that engulfs the office in advance of the Minister's visit.

She sets herself to read the final version of the Oceans 2000 report, peruses the mass of papers Alice has piled on her desk: lists of events planned for the Minister's weekend, a speech at the Board of Trade luncheon, an interview with the local paper and another on national television, a quiet chat with the Premier, dinner at the university, a side trip, with photographers, to Petty Harbour. Items are added daily.

Other memos contain details of the major event of the visit, a ministerial press conference that will launch the Oceans 2000 report. These memos, many of them written by Wayne, outline everything from accommodations for national reporters to what questions Timothy Drew will find acceptable.

Suddenly Wayne is everywhere, perched on her desk explaining some point in the report, jabbing at a print-out as it sputters from the machine, pacing the hallway with consultants, yelling instructions over the telephone to his Ottawa office, slashing red lines through page after page of typescript.

Every day now new people arrive, people without surnames—Jay, the American, who says he is a writer, a stunningly beautiful photographer who wears white silk blouses and tight jeans, Clive the English graphic artist and three people calling themselves media consultants.

Surrounded by all this artistic busyness, Mark, Melba, and even Alice fetch and carry, and somewhat grimly arrange the office party Wayne decrees they must have before the Minister arrives.

To Lav none of it matters in the least.

Faced with the emptiness of her days, the doom-laden dreams of her nights, Lav becomes depressed. The life she is leading is not enough—she misses the Cape, misses the Andrews and Vincents. She even misses Lori Sutton. She is lonely. She phones her mother.

Charlotte's voice is brisk, crackling across six thousand miles, ordering her daughter to get off the island at once. She is lost if she doesn't, her mother says.

Listening to Charlotte explain why this is so, Lav realizes that in some strange way Newfoundland is the source of her mother's strength—a place of mythical horror, a great, dismal swamp from which no traveller returns—no one but her—who, with the resourcefulness of Odysseus managed to rescue herself from this nether world. It was, Lav thinks, Charlotte's first and greatest victory—the one that made anything seem possible.

Lav hangs up. First pointing out that after three months her mother has not asked her one question about her work, about Philip—about herself. Shouting that her mother is a self-centred bitch, she slams down the telephone.

The office party begins badly. Wayne makes what he refers to as his Excelsior Speech, giving them all an overview of the Oceans 2000 project: “This most definitive body of research related to the North Atlantic fishery ever compiled, Oceans 2000 challenges us to increase harvesting operations to the maximum possible level.”

“A golden era for the Atlantic Provinces—the most exciting plan ever put forth by any government for ocean management and global competitiveness”—sentences honed and polished for tomorrow's presentation to the press.

He goes on to outline Timothy Drew's career, quotes front his speeches—most of which have been written by Wayne himself. He tells them that the Minister is, at this moment, attending an international U.N.-sponsored World Oceans Conference in New York. Sometime today the President of the United States will address the Conference, he will say nice things about Canada, about Mr. Drew—he might even mention Oceans 2000!

All this will hit newspapers across the world tonight, will still be a hot story on Monday morning when the Minister flies into St. John's. “I tell you, when he gets here he'll be followed by reporters from across the country, from Washington, too. The place'll be crawling with politicians and bureaucrats—each with their little retinue of fund-raisers, scientists, secretaries and assorted consultants!” Wayne is jubilant, he pauses to acknowledge a cheer from the three media experts.

“By noon tomorrow every hotel room in this town will be filled with big spenders—please the Board of Trade boys to no end, that will. So will Oceans 2000! Spin-off from this incentive will bring big federal grants, funding for research on production, on marketing, funding for a five-million dollar study on the feasibility of that international landing and distribution port we've been talking about for years—funding for fisherman, for factories, for longliners, for marine-related courses at the university!”

Wayne Drover leans back, fingertips pressed into a tower under his chin, he beams at his people, “You should all be proud—I tell you there's no one won't be happy with this report!”

A male voice coining from the back mutters, “Your report is a crock!”

The smile drops from Wayne's face, he hunches forward, “What was that?”

“This report is a crock and you know it!” Mark Rodway's voice is still low but the words are quite clear.

Wayne turns white with anger. Lav expects him to jump up and punch the young man.

But he controls himself. “Oh grow up, for God's sake!” he tells Mark. “At your age we all want to make a name for ourselves—I can understand that—but this job is not the one you're gonna do it on. This one is for Timothy Drew—a man who's done more for the likes of you than you'll ever know!” he looks around the room, focusing on each one of them. “Timothy Drew is gonna get reelected 'cause if he don't everyone in this room—everyone on this island—is up shit creek!”

“You're a liar, Drover—a liar and a brown noser!” Mark is shouting across the room. “You worship Drew and Drew's money and you'll do anything to please him.…” The young man seems on the verge of tears.

People are embarrassed—emotion does not belong in a government office. The beautiful photographer is distressed, she leans towards Mark, touches his arm, whispers something in his ear and they leave together.

Wayne is smiling again, smiling all around, “So!” he rubs his hands together, stands and shaking hands as he goes, starts for the bar that has been set up in the reception area. “There'll be no time for fun and games after tonight—so let's party!”

Lav knows she should leave. Things are nagging at the back of her mind, a fur-ball of unpleasant thoughts, of suspicion, a feeling of discomfort and betrayal. Everything and everyone in this room is wrong—the lights are wrong, the faces wrong, the music someone has switched on is wrong—and Wayne Drover's report, she is now sure, is disastrously wrong.

Or are these forebodings something she has imposed upon the scene? She looks blasé, hardly disconcerted at all, as she stands sipping her drink, watching Mark Rodway leave. His outburst confirms the hostility, the basic surliness she has always sensed in him.

By now the rest of the DFO building is empty. The media consultants troop off down the hall, returning with chairs they have appropriated from other offices. People sit, drink and talk, Mark is forgotten, the Oceans 2000 report is forgotten.

The conversation becomes animated, ranging over a variety of subjects: the quality and quantity of the wine, the unbearable spring weather in both Ottawa and St. John's, advances in colour printing, the cost and wisdom of buying Canadian art, bilingualism, multiculturalism—and by this circuituous route shifts to a discussion of the contrasting cultures of provinces, more particularly of Quebec and Newfoundland.

“Newfies and Quebecois are just alike—neurotic as hell!” the man named Jay says. Alice and Wayne, being natives, try to moderate, dousing little arguments that spring up behind this statement.

Jay is right, one of the consultants maintains. He has been in Newfoundland before—flown in from Texas by an oil company after the Ocean Ranger disaster, damage control job—“Look,” he says, “Newfies got bigger chips on their shoulders than niggers!”

Alice stands up and announces that she is going home before the Newfie jokes start. After she leaves everyone feels slightly guilty. There is a deliberate change of subject. The talk turns to places they have worked, projects and people they might have in common.

Lav has hardly spoken all evening. She is possessed by a terrible lethargy. What will I do? Where will I go when I stand up? she asks herself. And what about tomorrow and the next day?

She continues to sit—as the people around her run out of things to say, as the conversation winds down, as one by one they leave.

At last only Wayne, the Englishman and Lav remain, drinking, not talking.

“What shits Jay and Desmore are!” the Englishman says quietly.

But Wayne is not concerned, “Oh well—takes all kinds!” He gets to his feet and begins to pull on his coat, “Let's go find some solid food.”

Clive says he can't. He still has to talk to the printers about the cover of the report.

Wayne's attention is immediately focused, “You don't mean to tell me the covers are not printed yet!”

“Not to mind, old chap—all is under control. They're working overtime—I want the covers plasticized.”

Lav hears herself giggling. She has never heard anyone speak the way Clive does, like a stage Englishman.

Wayne gives her a sharp look, “Come on, both of you, we'll get soup and sandwiches down at the hotel. Then you can come back here and Lav and I'll find something to do—won't we, old girl?” Wayne mimics Clive.

Wayne is in high good humour. After they eat he wants to go on, to make the rounds of downtown pubs but Clive says no, no he must really get back—just in case there's a cockup.

“His heart's in the right place but with that accent he's likely to end up in the harbour if he tries bossin' a St. John's printer,” Wayne says as the Englishman leaves. “We'll have one drink, then I'm going to take you somewhere interesting,” he tells Lav.

Although it is already late she does not object. The hotel lounge is empty of people but comfortably filled with shadows and soft music. Beyond the tall windows, ribbons of light shimmer across the black harbour, waft in lonely sparks up the black hills. Lav imagines deserters, or smugglers—doubtlessly ancestors of Wayne Drover—climbing those cliffs, each one carrying a lantern. She is half-drunk, bemused, longing to confide in someone, has to hold herself back from telling Wayne about the journal, about her mother, about not wanting to return to Ottawa.

“It's not far to walk—and it's a nice night,” Wayne says and to her surprise, (Have I been expecting to be invited to his room? she asks herself), he leads her out of the hotel by a side door.

It is a warm night—soft, filled with the smells of new grass and spring. They walk away from the hotel, east towards the hills, towards the water. Within minutes they are on a narrow, rutted path with no sidewalks and few lights. Cars, parked for the night, are pulled tightly in against foundations of houses or abandoned helter-skelter in the roadway.

There is no one about. On their left, wooden steps lead up to the houses. Houses lean, one behind the other, tier upon tier against the cliff face. Lights shine down, yellow from kitchens, blue from living rooms. By tilting her head back Lav can see lace curtains, bits of ceiling and on the railings of dangerous balconies, white cats perched like birds.

Wayne Drover walks on her right, holding onto her elbow. Beyond him there is nothing. Blackness and the sluggish, ominous swish of ocean brushing against concrete. “This is the Battery,” he says—then a little later, “We're almost there.”

They turn, climb sixteen wooden steps, cross a long veranda, open a door and step into a cluttered, overlit room. The face of Knowlton Nash flickers from a small television screen, his mouth moves but no sound comes out. Next to the television is an ivy plant that has been trained to grow up the wall, along the moulding, around half a hundred school pictures of two children, a boy and a girl evolving from childhood to youth. The television and the pot of ivy are both set on top of a huge wood stove. The floor is covered with piles of newspapers across which floor lamps trail black cords. There is a stairway, untidy bookshelves, a sofa, a rocking chair occupied by a cat, a refrigerator and a thousand other things.