The Milieu Principle

by Malcolm Franks

Matt settled quickly into his new routine. The daylight hours were filled working for Jack at his floatplane service. By night he worked for Grace at The Keg, her franchise pub restaurant. And he was occupied every day of the week. The work was mentally undemanding and remuneration sparse, the handicap of low paid employment, but it suited him. He had no time to spend money anyway, and therefore managed to save the major proportion of his lowly income.

  In the UK his salary had been obscene, causing him to spend excessively and with wanton abandon. This gradual realisation of the gluttony of his past life humbled Matt. He’d almost forgotten about the bachelor pad and the plush office, the engineering excellence of his chosen form of transport. These images were now but distant memories of a life that had never really existed, a world from a different dimension and time.

  Two weeks had passed without incident convincing him his pursuers had decided to give up the chase, though he had not completely forgotten. Each night after work he would take out one of the memory sticks from the desk drawer and leave it next to the laptop. Every time he would replace them almost immediately, in the drawer and wardrobe respectively. He told himself further investigation was no longer necessary. Matt was working and living with people he felt comfortable with, in an environment he found both relaxing and exhilarating at the same time. And with each passing day his fitness returned, courtesy of Grace’s endless patience in applying her treatment at night. Life didn’t get any better than this. So he put all of his energy into here, and now.

  Best of all, the disturbing visions that had dominated his sleeping hours began to evaporate. He was gradually learning to relax, and this helped to slowly banish the horrors of the past from his mind.

  Matt looked on as Grace unravelled the bandages from around his arms. This was one of those comfortable silent moments to their growing friendship. He sat quietly and watched intently as she tended to the bruising while Grace said nothing as she lightly applied the gel to his injuries, apparently lost to the acute concentration the treatment required. He decided to break with tradition and speak.

  “Jack likes you,” he said.

  She was silent at first

  “He thinks he does.”

  “Thinks?”

  Again, she went temporarily silent. Her hands smoothed the sticky substance over his forearms and then gently massaged it into his skin. The manipulation of her fingers felt slightly different on this night to earlier occasions, moving further up his arms than before.

  “Jack has lived alone for a long time,” she said. “When I arrived on the island the loneliness was starting to play on his mind. I think he misinterpreted my appearance as some kind of divine intervention.”

  “Don’t you like Jack?”

  “He’s a lovely guy. Far more thoughtful and considerate then he would have you, or anyone else for that matter, believe him to be.”

  “But?” said Matt.

  “You don’t really think we’re compatible, do you?”

  Now it was his turn to fall into contemplation, weighing up the personality traits he’d observed about the two of them.

  “No,” he replied.

  She smiled.

  “Holly would be a better match for Jack,” she said.

  “You are kidding!”

  “Not at all,” she said. “All Jack wants is someone to look after, whereas Holly searches for someone to look after her.”

  Once Grace had explained her thinking, it was blindingly obvious. Despite her frequent put downs of Jack, even Matt had noticed how she often touched at the burly Canadian’s frame whenever he made her laugh. It caused him to think on the matter further.

  “Grace, how would you feel about having a lock-in one night of the week, after everyone has gone home,” he said. “On a Saturday say; you and me, and Jack and Holly.”

  She looked up into his face. He could see in her eyes her mind was toying with the suggestion. Then she smiled.

  “I think you might just have come up with a very good idea.”

  “I’ll organise it.”

  “No, it might be better if it came from me,” she said. “It is my place after all,” and she laughed gently.

  Grace fell back into silence as she tightened the bandages. Matt kept his gaze fixed on her face, deep in concentration. There was something about her that drew him, though he had no idea what. He noticed her blink twice, so knew she was aware of him looking at her.

  “Why Victoria, Grace?” he asked. “Why choose Victoria to settle down?”

  “Ooh, let’s see now,” she said. “Probably for much the same reasons you’re happy to stay here on the island.”

  “Me?”

  “You don’t have to be a rocket scientist to work it out,” she laughed.

  “What do you mean?”

  “Victoria is the perfect escape from the real world. Not only is it a beautiful place to live, the people are mostly so wonderfully content. To live in here in Victoria is to be cocooned from mainstream society. It keeps people grounded, and real. I recognised it on my first visit and it was always eventually going to be my home.”

  “Wow, that’s pretty profound,” he replied.

  “So profound, you’ve noticed it too. Leaving here after a few months won’t come easy to you, Matt.”

  And she was right, he had noticed it. Grace was far more perceptive then he had realised. What intrigued him most about her explanation was her comment that living on the island represented an escape for her too. He wondered what she was hiding from.

  “There is one thing I would change about Jack,” she said.

  “What?”

  “Find a way to get him to stop calling me Missy.”

  Matt laughed out loudly.

  “Yeah, and with me it would be lad,” he chuckled.

  “There,” she said with a wide smile. “That will do for another night.”

  The next day Jack decided to treat Matt to a day in the air. He watched amusedly as the young man focussed his attention on every manipulation the Canadian made of the machine’s flight controls. They had set off early, before the tourists rose from their comfortable beds, so Jack could familiarise Matt with the area. After circling Victoria the flight path extended to cover Sooke Harbour and Port Renfrew to the west, and then Swartz Bay and Nanaimo over to the east side. At Campbell River, Jack flew over the snow-capped mountains and the giant fjords, and then pointed out all the new housing developments that had sprang up on the islands over the last few years.

  “Civilisation,” Jack muttered darkly, “it will be the death of this place!”

  Matt could see what he meant. The unspoiled beaches and the meandering rainforests of the islands represented pure, unspoilt beauty. But you didn’t have to look far to see how the new housing developments had started to encroach upon the natural environment, stealthily edging and eroding their way into the landscape.

  “I’ll show yur something,” Jack said on approaching Vancouver harbour. “Put these on,” he added, as they neared the Lions Gate Bridge, and he handed Matt a pair of sunglasses.

  Jack guided the plane down towards the sea before levelling out to about a hundred feet from the surface. The bridge was looming up fast in front of them when Jack suddenly pulled back on the controls and the plane rose sharply.

  Just as Matt was beginning to wonder what on earth his friend was playing at, a sharp piercing light reflected from the steel bridge. The ray of light entered the cockpit, blinding Matt instantaneously despite the sunglasses.

  “Jesus! What the hell was that?” he yelled to his chortling friend.

  “Nobody knows,” said Jack. “A certain time of the day at a certain point of the summer, for about three months solid, the sun catches the bridge and just blinds yur.”

  Matt was still trying to regain the focus in his eyes.

  “Killed a pilot once, that sun,” Jack added. “Didn’t see it coming and flew straight into the park, down there,” pointing to a spot close to the shore in Stanley Park. “Nearly
got me the first time,” Jack continued as the plane sailed over the bridge, “I wouldn’t recommend yur try it lad, not even if yur had been flying for years.”

  A few minutes later the plane gently touched the water in the harbour and ferried towards the waiting passengers, with Jack still chortling at Matt’s feverish attempts to try and regain focus in his eyes.

  Despite Jack’s oafish humour Matt appreciated the opportunity to accompany the Canadian over to Vancouver, a kindness the older man was not obliged to provide. The man may well be a little gruff and rough at the edges, but he had the most generous of hearts.

  Life took another unexpected twist later in the day. Matt had taken a customer’s order when he noticed Jack and Grace sharing a cosy drink at a window table. They motioned him over.

  “Here, come and take the weight off your feet,” said Grace, smiling as she poured him a glass of red wine.

  “This looks like it could be trouble,” said Matt. “Both of my employers locked together in a little secretive chinwag.”

  “Right, lad,” Jack began, “Me and Grace have been having a little talk ...”

  “I was right the first time,” chipped in Matt. “This is going to be trouble.”

  Grace tapped his arm playfully and laughed.

  “Of course it isn’t. I’ve told you before, we’re all nice people here in Victoria,” and smiled warmly.

  “We’re agreed,” said Jack, “if we keep working yur every day of the week then we’ll wear yur out before the season ends. So we’ve decided to let yur have one day a week off, just to keep yur healthy.”

  Matt sat back in surprise. It was the last thing he’d expected them to say.

  “So,” continued Jack, “yur can have any day of the week yur choose as long as it isn’t between Monday and Saturday.”

  “Sundays sounds pretty good,” replied Matt, dryly.

  “Deal,” smiled Grace, raising her glass and tipping the edge against his glass.

  “Hang on,” said Matt, “what’s today?”

  “Friday, silly,” laughed Grace.

  “Is it alright if I make a quick call,” he asked.

  His two employers nodded in unison, their faces etched in curiosity. Matt made for the hallway to use the phone. Picking up the receiver in one hand, he unearthed the piece of paper from his pocket and started to dial.

  He felt oddly nervous as he waited for an answer, full of anxiety in the hope she had not forgotten about him. The line picked up.

  “Jenna? It’s Matt. Matt Durham.”

  “Matt? Where are you?”

  “Victoria. I took your advice and found some seasonal work over here. I wondered if you wanted to meet up some time, catch a movie or something, as long as we can meet on a Sunday.”

  “You mean this Sunday? Oh yeah, that would be great.”

  After agreeing to meet up at her apartment, Matt returned to the table to his two bemused employers.

  “What’s her name, lad?” asked Jack.

  “Jenna,” he smiled coyly. “I met her in Vancouver.”

  “Huh! Bit of a dark horse yur, lad”

  Matt glanced across to Grace and was surprised to notice the smile had temporarily abandoned her china white face. She spotted him looking and the usual smile immediately re-appeared.

  “Vancouver people are nice too,” she said quietly.

  The exchange of glances and her words took no more than a few seconds, yet in that short while Matt’s own curiosity was aroused. It was out of character for Grace not to smile, even for a few moments. He hoped he hadn’t inadvertently said, or done, something to offend her.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Day Trip