Who by Fire (39 page)

“ ‘When I worked at Aladdin Hatfield, I found your mother very attractive. When I first saw her, she was with your father and you. You were a little boy. It was a meeting at Hatfield Corners hall. I don’t know what else to say but that I fell instantly in love with her. I also felt that Ella knew this right away. I was a nuisance around your home after that, dropping in for tea. I should mention I wasn’t in the habit of dreaming about older married women.’ ”

Bill stopped reading.

Fistric said, “Wow. And you never knew? That he was interested in your mother?”

“My sisters said something recently, that Lance had a crush on Ella. I can’t say I ever saw it. This is the first I’ve heard about it from him. I worked with Lance for years. I kept in touch with him afterwards. The only thing that connects to this is that, whenever my mother came up, he’d say the same thing: ‘Ella was a fine woman.’ ”

“Was he single, Lance?”

“He was single when he worked at the plant the first time. He married Judy after the first summer I worked for him.”

“Did he have any expressed opinion about your father?”

“He said a few times that Tom was a lucky man. I always took that to mean he didn’t like Tom and felt he didn’t deserve Ella. Otherwise, why call it luck?”

“Is there more?” asked Joe, pointing at the letter.

“There’s not a lot here that I didn’t know before. When I worked for him he often talked about how he’d quit our plant the first time because he had a difference of opinion with his boss about how to
run it. It came to a head when a worker was killed. Lance went to a better plant, learned how to do things properly, became a great engineer and all that. Now, here in the letter, he says his quitting had something to do with my family.”

“About his being in love with your mother?”

“The guy who got killed was his closest friend at the plant. He was gassed. After the death, Lance went to our place for fear we’d been gassed too. We were okay, but a litter of pigs had died, and Tom was angry. Here’s the interesting part.

“ ‘Your father demanded an autopsy be done. What’s shameful to me, still to this day, is that I wouldn’t even agree that the plant had killed his pigs, which of course it had. As for his wanting an autopsy, I didn’t even reply. When I got back to the plant, I felt gutless. I started saying the things I should have said to Tom. That is, I said them to Alf Dietz, my boss. He said I was sympathizing with the community and should figure out which side I was on. It escalated and I claimed to Dietz that I was the one who wanted the autopsy done on the pigs, that I had already promised this to your father. Dietz said I had no right and implied that he’d fire me if I tried it. I drove to Calgary and they told me the same thing there. So I quit.’ ”

Bill set the letter down. “Lance says this kept bothering him for years. He felt he’d betrayed Ella and our family. He wrote Ella a letter to tell her about the better plant he worked for after ours, and how they were developing systems that would improve the whole industry. She never wrote back. Finally, that was why he came back, why he took a job running our old plant. He thought if he modernized the plant, that would solve his conscience problem. Here, I’ll read that part.

“ ‘When I came back to Aladdin Hatfield, I did so for your mother. In my mind, fixing your plant would be my gift to her, the
only meaningful thing I could still give her. Judy was already in my life. We were engaged, and I never told her about Ella. I am about to die without telling her. I don’t have any problems with that. I loved Ella and I love Judy. That’s just the way it was.

“ ‘Something else I don’t think you know is that your father came to the plant to see me, just after I moved back. I couldn’t imagine what he wanted. I thought he might know about my feelings for Ella and had come to let me have it.

“ ‘What he asked was if there was summer work for you at the plant. I said there might be. At the end of our conversation, he asked me to keep the meeting secret, from you and Ella both. I’ve kept that promise until now. Once you were working for me, you became the focus of my trying to make things up to your family. I wanted to do what I could to make sure you were a really good engineer, and, in that, I succeeded.

“ ‘Another failure of course was that I could not fix your plant. It would have taken a lot of money, and the company simply would not pay, given its age. But you know all that.’ ”

Bill refolded the letter and put it in his shirt pocket.

“Is that all?”

“I want to keep the rest to myself. What I need to talk to you about now is gambling. I have to know if I can stop. If I can’t, there’s a woman I love who I’m going to have to leave alone.”

That’s pretty well it, Billy. I’m running out of gas, and there’s no more to buy. I hope you don’t mind that I had to write this to square things. My opinion is that you’ve looked up to me too much and to your father too little. I was a company man when I started my career. The little good I did early on was because
I was in love with Ella. If I became a better engineer later, I owe some of that to Ella, and some to your father.

As for repaying my debt to them through you, I know I went too far. It caused you problems when your father died so young. If not for me, your life might have been simpler and better. I also know it’s silly to think I know—just because I’m dying—what effects I’ve had on anyone.

Lance

Bill tried to phone Donna in Calgary. There was no answer. It was a weeknight, late, and the phone ringing in her house panicked him. He hung up on the answering machine and phoned Jeannie. Donna answered.

“Billy! It’s you! We were just talking about you. We’re drinking.”

“You’re still down there.”

“Again, not still. I went home, Elmer died. I came back.”

“I’m sorry.”

“No, no. It was good. Jeannie drove me back to Calgary, and that very night, he died. He died in his bed instead of at a vet’s office. So I brought him here to the farm, and we gave him the nicest burial. Do you remember where we buried King?”

“Of course I remember. King was my dog.”

“King was not your dog. But anyway, Elmer’s buried right beside him now. It was sweet. I made Jeannie sing ‘Comes a Time.’ We cried like babies. So tell me, how’s it with you? How’s the shrink? Are you in love? Are you heartbroken? Gambling like an idiot? Back at work?”

“The psychologist is good. He and I go for dinner. We’re calling it a friendship.”

“God! You’re not having
sex
with the man, are you?”

“No sex. The dinner thing is the only way he can take on a non-suicidal client.”

“Okay. Just a minute, Jeannie’s shrieking in my ear. She demands to know what’s going on with you and the woman.”

“I haven’t seen Marie yet.”

“But you’re talking on the phone, right?”

“Actually, no.”

“Oh boy. Jeannie! He hasn’t even phoned her yet. Wait. Jeannie tells me to tell you you’re a friggin’ nutcase.”

“The psychologist and I haven’t talked about gambling yet. I didn’t think I should talk to Marie until we had.”

“Of course you’ve been talking about gambling! Whatever you talk about, Dad, Mom, Lance, Ginny, your kids, Marie, your job—
it’s all about the gambling
!”

“I hadn’t thought of that.”

“Anyone with ordinary movie IQ would know that.”

“So what are you saying? I should just phone her?”

“Yes!”

Bill was planning his phone call to Marie when the phone rang. He assumed it would be her. But it was Henry Shields.

“Bill, I hope you don’t mind, I read that corrosion maintenance plan you left on your desk.”

“That’s good. It’s probably the last thing I’ll ever do in my career. Be a shame if nobody read it.”

“It’s great. I wanted to tell you.”

“You don’t have to shore up my ego, Henry. I’m fine.”

“I’m phoning because Houle wants us to do a unit corrosion check. He’s asking all the unit managers. It’s plant-wide. Thing is, what he’s asking for is almost exactly what you’ve done—only yours is better because it doesn’t require shutdowns.”

“If you’re asking can you use it, be my guest.”

“That’s not it. What I want, with your permission, is to show Houle your plan. I’ll say it was on your desk, I read it, and so on.”

“I don’t see the difference.”

“What I want to suggest to Houle is that he ask you to come back and supervise the corrosion check, for the whole plant. Who better than the man with the plan?”

“Houle wouldn’t have me on the place.”

“I’m going to make a guess. I bet you haven’t been watching the news much since you left.”

“No.”

“All hell’s been breaking loose. University of Alberta released a study that proves more pollution is getting into the river than anybody ever admitted, a lot of it through snowmelt. The premier has publicly accepted the study as fact. There’s talk of a federal-provincial action plan to revamp the river monitoring system.”

“That’s good. That’s the right thing for once. But I don’t see what it has to do with me.”

“Suddenly everybody up here wants to look busy on the environment file. All Waddens Lake has done recently is blow up its hydrotreater and put the guy who evacuated the nearest Indian village on leave. That made the national news, by the way.”

“Which is why Houle won’t want me back.”

“The opposite, big guy! If you and I were running New Aladdin, we’d be thinking, ‘We had one guy who showed he cared about local Indians—and we put him on leave?’ We’d be thinking, ‘How can we beg this guy to come back?’ ”

“What do you want to do?”

“With your permission, I show Houle the corrosion maintenance plan. I tell him you’d be the right guy to put it in action plant-wide. If he doubts you’d be willing, I’ll offer to run it by you.”

“I’m not sure I would be willing.”

“What would you want? Big raise? Public apology?”

“Why don’t you ask him if he wants to try the corrosion plan first?”

He phoned Marie and asked her if she would go for dinner with him. She said she wouldn’t come to the city because she was teaching in the morning, but he could drive out. Conditions were, he must bring no wine and leave by nine.

He phoned Joe Fistric and got the receptionist. When Joe came to the phone, he was annoyed.

“This is not within the rules.”

“We have rules?”

“I have somebody coming in in about one minute. Get talking.”

Bill said there was a possibility of his being asked to go back to work and that he was going to Marie Calfoux’s for dinner. Did Joe have any advice about either?

“Keep a cool tool.”

“What?”

“I’m joking. You’re on your own.”

While Marie grilled steaks, Bill went down the hall and looked out the back-facing window. The upgrader sulked above the treeline, a breathless dragon. He had no feelings for it now. He could take it; he could leave it—the ideal conditions for a horse trade, according to his father.

When they sat down at the table, they had a good long stare at each other. She had her hair tied back, her sweet ears showing. She was all pretty, this woman. He was full of fondness.

“You cleaned up good tonight,” she told him.

“You look nice too.”

“Your steak’s getting cold.”

They ate for a time in silence.

“You’re happier than before,” she said.

“I think so.”

“Why?”

“I’m happy I called you. Happy you invited me out.”

“There’s other reasons, though.”

“I had a good time with my sisters down south. They want to meet you.”

“And what else?”

“The therapy’s going well. I have no interest in gambling. Not a single urge.”

After they put the dishes in the dishwasher, she decided a beer couldn’t hurt and got a couple from the basement. The bottle she gave Bill was moist and chilly. They sat on the couch and touched the long-necks together.

Marie slid closer and put her head into the cup of his neck and shoulder. “I still don’t think you told me
all
the reasons you’re happy.” He told her about the plant, about Henry’s phone call; what Henry was intending to do, with Bill’s permission.