Waiting for Time (5 page)
A silly dream, a childlish, self-indulgent fantasy, the memory of which will one day make it possible for Lav to find Zinnie and ask her for help.
In reality Lav and Philip parted with a minimum of fuss, choosing to say their goodbyes at the same Ottawa restaurant where they had eaten Boxing Day dinners for years. There were Christmas lights, a tree beside an open fire, there were bookshelves arranged at odd angles—the illusion of privacy, the illusion of home.
They had been exceedingly civil, very adult. Between courses they exchanged parting gifts: his to her a filigree brooch, 17th century Venetian—a fish within a circle of scrolled hearts; hers to him a small engraving called “Inuit Migration”—the backs of people walking in a long line towards the horizon, gradually disappearing into whiteness.
Not until they bid each other a tearless farewell outside the restaurant, not until Lav saw his taxi pull into the stream of traffic did a sense of wrongness, of having been cheated of an appropriately emotional ceremony, engulf her. Standing on the slushy sidewalk she had the mad desire to run after the taxi, to drag Philip out, to create such a scene that Christmas diners would rush from the restaurant, turkey bones in hand, red napkins aflutter, to stand gaping at their battle. Such shrewish behaviour suddenly seemed more human, more satisfying, more appropriate, than all the polite conventions they had observed.
Foolishly imagining that from the air she might be able to see the shape of Newfoundland, even identify Cape Random, Lavinia Andrews tries to stay awake. But the drone of engine, the knowledge that she has finally, irrevocably made a decision, relaxes her, and now, suspended above the vast grey Atlantic, she sleeps. Mouth slightly ajar, head wedged between hard seat-back and cold plexiglass, Lav sleeps.
She sleeps and dreams of fish. Even in sleep she knows it is not new, this dream in which she swims through watery canyons, through pale reaching reeds, through damp light filtering down from some unknown source—a moon perhaps or a dying sun.
There is a change in engine sound, the dream splinters. Jarred awake, feeling sick and chilled, Lav pulls herself up, takes a deep breath and buckles her seat belt.
Below is St. John's, a black and white etching. The pilot overshoots the city, circles out over the ocean, turns and, aligning the plane between cliffs, sweeps back in over harbour and town. They come down without a bump in a landscape as desolate as Siberia.
Outside the airport St. John's seems benign enough, mundane even. An uncomfortable taxi takes her to Hotel Newfoundland in time to have a swim followed by an excellent meal, some kind of thick flaky fish with a cream sauce and salad. Lav eats with relish, she enjoys food, especially when someone else prepares it. In the weeks since Phillip left she has neither eaten nor slept well.
Lavinia Andrews is a tall woman, graceful, inclined, now that she is nearing forty, to a certain thickness around the hips. She reminds herself she will have to find a place to work out. Meantime she drinks tea, eats jam tarts, muses on why, at this age, at this point in her career, she should have let herself be sent to the outermost edge of the continent.
She had been surprised, shocked even, by the wave of sadness that enveloped her after Philip left. At night, alone in their house, she was filled with despair. It was then the dreams started—dreams of a fish moving through ink-black water, cold, afraid—and alone. Dreams from which she woke feeling tired, disoriented—bereft.
At work everything changed. Some magnetic force her job held when Philip was there was now missing. And, or so it seemed, something unpleasant had been added. She was being watched. A new attentiveness emanated from her colleagues, an attitude that fell somewhere between concern and satisfaction.
During those weeks Lav took special care with her looks, went regularly to the Spa, a combined beauty salon and workout place located in the mall below the DFO building. She tried to focus all her attention on the project at hand, the final compilation of statistics on Zone PK3—a fifty mile square of ocean off the east coast of Canada. This project, a singularly dull undertaking, would have long since been jettisoned were it not for pressure from the Minister's office.
She thought often of Charlotte, wishing for her mother's ability to shuck off the past, to leave it behind, empty and forgotten as a shed skin. She thought of Charlotte but did not telephone or write, did not tell her of Philip's desertion though she might be interested, perhaps even sorry. Philip and Charlotte had gotten along—the gross inefficiency of the country and the world annoyed them both.
The last time the three of them were together, that evening Charlotte spent with them before leaving for California, the bitter conversation in her mother's apartment had not been mentioned.
Very little was mentioned. Having used up their small-talk at the dinner table, the three of them spent the rest of the evening watching television. A federal election campaign was in progress and they turned on a special edition of the Journal, Philip and Charlotte commenting as cabinet members made extravagant promises to their constituents.
Lav can recall the Fisheries Minister pledging that “…in-depth research designed to breathe new life into Canada's Maritime Provinces” would be undertaken by his department.
“Old fraud!” Philip and Charlotte muttered in unison at Timothy Drew's smiling face. His proposal had infuriated them both, though for different reasons, Charlotte being of the opinion that tax money should not be spent to maintain places unfit for human habitation, Philip saying that in-depth research means thirty percent of his budget would be siphoned off to fund some specious half-baked project that was probably only window dressing.
Lav has never paid attention to politics. Saul had dismissed all politicians, called them bankers' puppets—and that night she was only amused, glad for anything that would make conversation easy in the hour or so before her mother left.
Leavetakings. Charlotte's, Philip's—and now mine, Lav thinks.
She had not slept well last night—woke with a headache and the imprint of some unhappy dream flickering at the corners of her eyes. Only then did she begin to pack—stuffing clothing and a few books helter-skelter into suitcases. The department would have paid to ship the furniture, even dishes and bedding. But Lav wants none of it. Never again will she eat from the smart, deep blue dinner set, never again sleep between these Liberty-print sheets she and Philip have used for years.
She'd had a nine o'clock appointment with Nat Hornsby, Philip's lawyer—and now, she supposes, hers too. Lav reflects on why using plates and sheets she and Philip had shared seems odious while putting her affairs into the hands of his lawyer is acceptable. She left the house-key with Nat, told him Fisheries and Oceans was sending her to Newfoundland for a year, asked him to rent the house and to see that it was kept in repair. Anything left after expenses can be divided between herself and Philip. She gave him the Research Station's address so that he could forward her mail but did not ask if he had heard from Philip or what her ex-lover's Australian address is.
Lav is tired but she continues to sit in the hotel dining room, listening to three businessmen at the next table talk of contracts and government loans—dull stuff. An habitual eavesdropper, Lav wishes she were sitting beyond the men, near the corner table where an elderly couple is being toasted by laughing children and grandchildren.
She should phone her mother. The thought nags at her. She should stand, should go to her room and call Charlotte: “I've just had a swim in clear blue heated water,” she will say, “I've eaten a civilized meal at a table set with linen and silver and am now lying on a posture-perfect mattress in a hotel room identical to a million others all over the world—I'm in Newfoundland.” She wonders what her mother's reaction would be.
But it is too late—too late or too early to telephone California—and so she sits on, drinking tea, eavesdropping—brooding.
It was Ian Farman who had first mentioned the Newfoundland job. Ian was a good friend of Philip's—a friend of Lav's too, she supposes. One day in January he had stopped in the doorway of her office and told her he'd just stumbled onto something up above. Ian had rolled his eyes heavenward, as they all did when referring to the top floors of DFO's Ottawa building—offices from which the minister's staff operate, unnumbered floors to which the public is not admitted.
“They're upgrading the PK3 research, putting a new spin on it, calling it Oceans 2000,” Ian said. “There's talk of seconding someone from here to pull the project together, head it up in Newfoundland—probably for the rest of this year. Someone who knows the scene here in Ottawa—someone with enough policy experience to oversee regional people—to work with them, pull the PK3 stuff into a cohesive package, something we can get a policy planning document out of before the next election.”
Ian's voice dropped, “Well—listening to them talk, it occurred to me it might be just the thing for you. You're familiar with existing policy and you've worked with Philip long enough to know what's involved in producing an acceptable report. You're certainly qualified and,” he gave Lav a half-sympathetic, half-rueful smile, “and maybe you'd enjoy a few months away from this place.”
Lav had been non-committal, but really she was intrigued by Ian's suggestion. Although she had never been there, Lav knew the Fisheries and Oceans Research Station in Newfoundland was located in St. John's. Despite this, as Ian talked she was imagining a remote community, a light-house-like building clinging to sea-battered cliffs. A place of storms, fog and brown water. The thought of how much her going to such a place would annoy her mother skipped unbidden across her mind.
She had probably smiled. Ian certainly seemed encouraged, told her he would put in a word should she be interested. “Think it over,” he said, “there are a lot of plusses—your position would almost certainly be reclassified, upgraded, it would give you good experience in the regions. I'm reasonably sure the job could be yours if you want it.”
It had seemed a casual, friendly gesture, nothing official, but Lav knew enough about the inner manoeuverings of the department to recognize the message: with Philip gone, her position was not as secure as it had been.
Even before Ian Farman left her office Lav had decided to try for the Newfoundland job. Go away. For the first time in her life the idea of leaving seemed appealing. It was just what she needed—a few months in a new place, a hiatus between Philip and whatever her future might hold.
Now, though, sitting in the almost empty dining room of Hotel Newfoundland, delaying sleep, icy loneliness breathes down Lav's neck: Philip has disappeared, has abandoned her for the warmth of Australia. Saul is dead, his shop sold, his books scattered. Her mother is gone, long gone—is now Charlotte Carbrillo. The new name, Lav feels, suits her better than those mundane, abandoned names: Charlotte Rosenberg, Lottie Andrews, Darling Lottie—folded like tissue and placed in some forgotten drawer with Charlotte Hinchley, the silly little factory girl who thought she was escaping to paradise.
Perhaps it is just as well she hasn't phoned her mother. Would it matter to Charlotte Cabrillo, smiling among her pots of pink azaleas, that on this grey February day, in contravention of the only piece of advice she ever gave, her daughter has flown eastward—eastward and northward—away from the light, away from the sun, away from the safe centre of the continent?