by Ian Hamilton
The rain was intermittent and traffic was slow. As they neared the street that supposedly housed the Regal, they entered an area that was more commercial than any they’d passed through since leaving St. Andrew’s. They passed a bakery, a butcher’s shop, a tobacconist, newspaper stands, several coffee shops, a greengrocer, and an Italian restaurant with an ice cream shop. Some of the businesses looked as if they had been there for many years. Anne saw Jack eyeing them.
“We’re getting close to the Regal. Is any of this familiar to you?” she asked.
“None of it.”
“That’s not surprising,” she said, and added, “You need to turn left here.”
As the car cleared the corner, the Regal Cinema — the Regal Revival Cinema, as it was now signed — came into view. Jack stopped the car by the curb directly across the street and stared at the theatre through a rain-spattered window. “It looks smaller than I remember,” he said.
The movie house had a ticket window to the right of two glass double doors; a display case held posters advertising Crocodile Dundee and A Room with a View. The marquee above the doors simply read “Dundee.”
“It reminds me of the cut-rate movie house I used to go to in Amherst when I was a student,” Anne said. “It showed second-run films as well.”
“Let’s see if we can go inside,” Jack said.
“It looks like it isn’t open yet.”
“We’ll knock on the doors. Someone may answer.”
Before Anne could respond, Jack stepped onto the sidewalk and started walking across the street. When she caught up to him, she found him already banging on the door. They waited, peering through the glass into a small, dingy lobby. When no one came, Jack knocked again.
“Maybe no one is here,” Anne said a few minutes later.
“I’ll give it one last go,” Jack said, raising his hand.
As he did, a short, bald man wearing denim overalls over a black sweater walked into the lobby and looked at them. He approached the doors and said in a muffled voice, “We’re closed.”
“We don’t want to see a film. I just want to see inside the theatre,” Jack shouted.
“We’re closed,” the man repeated.
“I used to come here when I was a child. I have memories of this place. All I want to do is have a quick look inside,” Jack said and reached for his wallet.
The man stared at the wallet.
Jack took out a twenty-pound note and held it against the glass. “Five minutes inside, that’s all we need.”
The man nodded, turned a lock, and one of the doors swung open. He reached for the money. “Five minutes, that’s it. And don’t touch anything.”
Jack and Anne stepped into the carpeted lobby. In front of them was a concession stand with a glass case filled with candy and a pop dispenser. On either side of it were doors that Anne assumed led into the theatre. “What’s that smell?” Jack asked.
Anne took a deep breath. “It’s a musty smell, and the carpet feels a bit wet underfoot. I also smell mothballs.”
“We’ve just had our annual cleaning. The carpets aren’t dry yet,” the man said.
“How old is this place?” Anne asked.
“It was built in 1932. There aren’t many left like this. It’s become a bit of a landmark.”
“And you do enough business to stay open?”
“You’d be surprised how many people still like to go to the pictures, especially when it costs half of what they’d pay on the High Street.”
“Let’s go into the theatre,” Jack said to Anne.
The man seemed surprised.
“I didn’t give you twenty pounds just to stand here in the lobby,” Jack said to him.
“Give me a minute to turn on the lights,” he said. “You can go on in then, but make it quick.”
The man left them standing in the lobby. Jack went over to the door on the left, opened it, and stared into darkness. Anne joined him, noticing that the smell of mothballs had become even stronger.
Lights began to flicker and come to life, exposing the drab interior. The theatre floor was sloped from back to front and covered with the same plain red carpet as the lobby. The walls were painted mustard yellow. There were about thirty rows of seats, twelve across. At one point in their lives the seats might have been covered in plush green velvet, but now the material was threadbare and the colour only a hint of what might have been. Jack began to walk down the aisle towards the front. Anne followed. From the back of the theatre the screen looked like a pristine sheet of white canvas, but as they got closer it began to resemble a quilt of sewn-together patches, albeit all of them some shade of white.
Jack stopped in front of the screen and looked back at the seats. “I was sitting somewhere in the middle of a row, somewhere in the middle of the theatre. At least, that’s how I remember it,” he said. “I had to kneel to see past the person in front of me. My mother sat between Moira and me. Going to the movies was a big deal. I had been maybe only twice before.”
“You can really recall that?”
“I don’t know if I’m recalling or imagining. I don’t know what’s real,” he said as he began to walk back up the aisle, only to stop halfway. “I can see my mother leaning over me and whispering that she had to take Moira to the bathroom. Then her kissing me on the forehead and telling me that she loved me.”
Anne reached for his hand. It was sweaty.
“What kind of mother kisses a child, tells him he’s loved, and then dumps him like a bag of garbage?” he said.
“Jack, I don’t know what to say.”
He removed his hand from hers and sat down in an aisle seat. “One good thing is that this place seems much less threatening than I’ve been imagining it.”
“How long has it been on your mind?”
“For months. The instant I started thinking about Moira, all this came back to me.”
“But you said you don’t know if things happened the way you think they did.”
“Even if I’m not sure about the details, the feelings they generate are real.”
“Of course they are,” Anne said. “And shame on her for what she did to cause them.”
10
It was dark when they arrived back at the Marine Hotel. They hadn’t talked much during the drive from Glasgow as Anne focused on the map and Jack concentrated on driving on the opposite side of unfamiliar roads. But she thought he seemed the most relaxed he had been all day. She wondered if visiting the graveyard and the movie house had exorcised some demons.
“Do you want to have dinner in the hotel or shall we go into town?” Anne asked as they pulled into the hotel parking lot.
“Let’s eat here. I have a real thirst for some Scotch and I don’t want to worry about driving.”
“I need to freshen up a bit, and I told Allison I’d call to tell her about our day.”
“Do you have to call?”
“No.”
“Then do me a favour and hold off until we meet this Harry Montgomery. You could have something more concrete to tell her then.”
“She’s going to be shocked. They all will be. Suddenly their father has three siblings, not one, and they might have a horde of cousins they never knew existed.”
“That’s why I want you to wait. Let’s find out what’s what.”
“I guess that’s wisest.”
Twenty minutes later they were sitting in the hotel dining room sipping their first drinks. Jack had ordered a double Johnnie Walker Black on the rocks; Anne had a gin martini with olives. They finished them in quick order, ordered a second round, and then looked at the menu while the waiter hovered nearby.
“Haddock in cream sauce with boiled potatoes for me,” Anne said.
“Steak and kidney pie,” Jack said.
“Wine this evening?” the waiter asked.
“I think you should just keep refilling our drinks until we tell you otherwise,” Jack said.
“You’re going to get me drunk,” Anne said when the waiter had left.
“Like the old days, before the kids started to arrive.”
“I think we were both drunk when we conceived Allison.”
“Luckily there’s no chance of conceiving anyone tonight.”
“Are you saying you won’t ravish me when we get back to our room?”
“I’m not promising anything of the sort,” Jack said with an awkward smile.
Anne smiled in return, knowing full well there was little chance of that happening. Their sex life had mostly disappeared, without any real acknowledgement that it was gone. “How do you feel about the day?” she asked.
“It wasn’t what I expected.”
“Is that good or bad?”
“It’s too soon to tell.”
“Can I tell you what I was just thinking?” she asked.
He knew it was pointless to say no because she’d tell him anyway. “Of course.”
“I was thinking about Martin and Colleen and how marvellous they were.”
“Because they took in an orphan at an age when many orphans are shunned?”
“No, because they took in a young boy and then loved him and nurtured him the way they did. They must have been ambitious for you, but I can’t remember you ever telling me you felt pressured to succeed.”
“On the surface they were just ordinary people. He was a plumber, like his father, and she was a cashier at a grocery store. But they both read constantly. The Boston Globe from cover to cover every day, magazines of all sorts, books — oh my god, the books they read. They didn’t read every one in the Watertown Library, but they sure as hell tried, and they weren’t bashful about recommending books to me.”
“Who read more?”
“Mom, but she preferred fiction and I didn’t always agree with her taste,” he said. “Dad was keener on non-fiction, especially history and biographies. He thought there were lessons to be drawn from the past and from the lives of successful people. He wanted me to understand that when it comes to the way people behave, there isn’t much new in this world, and to realize that what people achieve is directly related to the amount of thought and effort they put into it. I know that sounds trite, but I bought into it then and I still buy into it now.”
“And they put their money where their mouths were.”
“They did. I was the first member of either of their families to go to university, and they paid for my entire six years at Bentley and for a car to get me there and back.”
“I remember when I met you how astounded I was that you had no college debt. Nearly everyone else I knew was up to their armpits in it.”
“They wanted me to start my career with a clean slate. They wanted me to look forward, not backward. They wanted me to take a job that interested me and had a future, not to be worrying about the size of my first paycheque.”
Anne sipped her martini. Then, without looking directly at her husband, she asked, “Would your success have been possible if you’d stayed here?”
“How can I answer a question like that?”
“I mean in theory, given the class structure here, who your parents were, seeing how Moira turned out.”
“What brought this on?”
“Meeting Moira.”
“An unfortunate woman.”
“A product of her environment.”
“A great many people have been able to overcome their environment.”
“That’s easy to say when you’ve done it. Not so easy when you’re trapped in it and don’t even understand there are ways out.”
Jack looked annoyed but silently sat back in his chair as the waiter arrived with fresh drinks. “Cheers,” he said, raising his new glass.
Anne tapped her glass against his. “I’m sorry for going on like that. I think I have jet lag.”
“And I’m sorry if I seem out of sorts,” he said. “I know your mother never worked outside the home, and I know she thought — despite wanting you to have a fine education — that a woman’s true role is in the home as a wife and mother.”
“I’m perfectly content with the life I’ve led, and I’m looking forward to our next chapter together when you retire,” she said, and then hesitated. “Although I’d be dishonest if I said I don’t have concerns about how we’re going to get along when we’re under the same roof for extended periods of time.”
“Why would you worry about that?”
“Jack, for close to forty years you’ve spent five days a week at the office and part of every weekend working at home or travelling on Pilgrim business. I’m not complaining; I’m just stating it as a fact,” she said. “During those years I developed my own routines, first when the children were at home and then later, after they left. There’s a rhythm to my days that I’m comfortable with.”
“Are you afraid I’ll disrupt it?”
“A little bit.”
“Don’t be. I’ll have lots to do.”
“Like what?”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean, what are you going to do?” she asked. “Mark and I talked about it at Thanksgiving. You have no hobbies, and we don’t see you suddenly taking up golf or sailing. Your entire life has been consumed by Pilgrim. How do you intend to transition from being totally absorbed in your career to doing . . . nothing?”
“It won’t be nothing. I’ve been approached to sit on some boards. I have an interest in several charities. I have a long list of books I’ll now have time to read.”
“Given your energy level and intellectual capacity, Mark doesn’t think that will be enough. I have to say I’m inclined to agree with him.”
“What would you have me do? Not retire?”
“No, but it does seem to me that you haven’t given it a lot of thought.”
“I’ve had a lot of other things on my mind. That’s one reason we’re here,” he said. “Once this is behind us, I’ll start focusing more on matters such as what I’m going to do when I’m retired.”
The arrival of their meals brought the conversation to a temporary halt. The waiter eyed their drinks as he put plates in front of them.
“When these drinks are gone, bring us one more round,” Jack said to him.
“You may have to carry me upstairs,” Anne said.
“It’s the least I can do.”
Anne smiled. “I’m sorry if I’m being a nag, but I do worry about you.”
“I know, and I’m grateful, even if it doesn’t seem that way sometimes.”
“One more nag?”
It was his turn to smile. “Sure.”
“According to my map it’s about a two-hour drive to Edinburgh, so we should leave the hotel by seven-thirty tomorrow at the latest. That means an early start to the day,” she said. “I won’t function very well if I drink much more, and I don’t think you will either. So let’s make this our last and head directly upstairs when dinner is finished.”
“Yes, boss.”
11
Jack woke up early again. He retrieved an envelope that had been slipped under the door and sat at the desk to go over its contents. When he had finished, he called Pam’s office line to leave his comments. He had promised Anne he wouldn’t work on this trip, but then later modified it to say he wouldn’t work on Pilgrim business when he was with her. That left him only the hours she was sleeping, which provided a very small window of opportunity. Part of him chafed at being so restricted, but the realist in him knew that, if left to his own devices, he would work most of the day. He didn’t think of himself as a workaholic. He was simply a man who loved what he was doing, and what he was doing at the moment was running a company that was having a record year for sales, profits, and growth.
When he had left his last instructions for Pam, he went to the window. It was still dark outside — and would be until Anne’s alarm went off at seven — but the lights in the parking lot illuminated the outer edges of the golf course. Golf wasn’t Jack’s game. It took too much time to play, and much more time to practise if you wanted to be halfway competent at it. Being competent had never been one of Jack’s goals in anything. If he couldn’t be first-rate, he had no interest in the pursuit. He didn’t know how to explain that to Anne, who was one of the least competitive people he knew. Still, he admired her intelligence and intuition; her comments the night before about his not giving enough thought to retirement were bang on. What he hadn’t said in response was that his reluctance to do so was because he was regretting the decision to retire and had started thinking about ways to postpone it.
Jack had been president and CEO of Pilgrim for twenty years, after persuading the board of directors to get rid of the previous CEO, Bob Young. But at the time Young was no longer capable of running the company, while at present Jack felt he had never been more capable. He had transformed Pilgrim from a mid-sized regional company to one with a strong national presence. It was now one of the top five insurance firms in the United States and was on track to become one of the Big Three. Jack wanted to see that achieved, and no one was better equipped to make it happen than him. The problem was that he had already told the board he was going to retire, and the decision had been announced publicly. As much as he regretted it now, at the time it had seemed the proper thing to do.
Jack’s executive vice-president, Norman Gordon, had been named as his replacement. Gordon was capable but lacked vision. He also preferred to lead by consensus rather than by conviction and tended to avoid confrontation. Jack thought Gordon wouldn’t put up much opposition if he decided to delay his departure and postpone Gordon’s assumption of power.