by Ron Chudley
One thing he was certain about, however, was the quality of Fitz’s carving. Having examined several pieces, his attention finally centered on a remarkable rendering of a sailboat. Carved from a single block of fine-grained yellow cedar, it stood in the bay window, sleek lines of hull and sheets wrought with an unerring sense of the raw power of the sea. Hal had never been on a sailboat and had little interest in things nautical, but this creation—so evocative that one could almost feel the wind lashing the shrouds and the figure of the lone helmsman—had an effect that was almost hypnotic.
“That’s my grandson’s boat, Orca.”
Hal gave a start. The old man had moved in beside him and was contemplating the carving meditatively. “Young Brian was a damn fine sailor—though that doesn’t seem to have helped him in the end.”
Startled by the sudden introduction of a subject that until now had been avoided, Hal said, “Oh? What happened?”
“Hey, Hal!” Con said suddenly. “You want another beer?”
“I’m fine, thanks.” Hal replied, not taking his eyes off Fitz.
“Hit you again, Fitz?” Con said
“No, boy. What happened, Hal, is that my grandson went sailing one day and—”
“Aw, jeez, Fitz,” Con interrupted. “Hal doesn’t want to hear about all that.”
“Con doesn’t like to talk about Brian,” Fitz said quietly. “Best buddies since they were shrimps, so in a way it’s understandable. But, I keep telling him, you can’t fix things by being afraid to talk.”
“Aw, shit, old man,” Con muttered. “It just depresses me, is all.”
“Brian’s mum’s the same,” Fitz went on, apparently oblivious. “But you know what I say? If folks aren’t talked about, they’re not properly remembered, which is like a sort of double death. When my son, Will, got killed, I clammed up for years, hardly let myself think about him, let alone talk; which maybe helped a bit, but made things worse in the end. Now I can’t hardly remember his face. I’m not going to let that happen with Brian.”
Hal was taken aback. This confession was not what he’d have expected from the taciturn old fellow. But the mood was swiftly broken as Con banged down his beer bottle. “Yeah, well—it’s late and I gotta get movin’. Nice talkin’ to you, Mister TV star. See you, Fitz.”
Con strode to the door and was gone.
Fitz shrugged. “I guess I shouldn’t be so hard on the kid—but he’s got to learn. Another beer?”
Hal said okay. Fitz fetched fresh bottles, then settled in the rocking chair. Hal was drawn to the bay window. The sky was taking on the deeper tones of evening. Though the water glowed bright, the enclosing headlands and distant island were beginning the long slide into dark. A far-off tugboat moved at a pace that indicated it was under load, the distance too great to reveal what that might be. Nearer to hand were several drifting sails. At water’s edge hovered a motionless heron. It was a magically peaceful scene, but Hal’s curiosity would not allow him to be lulled. Once a story was begun, he had to know the end. Knowing he might regret it, he said, “So what did happen to Brian?”
Fitz stared out at the bay for so long that it seemed he wasn’t going to answer. Finally he said, “There was no place he was happier than out there. He had this little sailboat, which I built for him. Not so big a good sailor couldn’t easily handle her alone. And that boy was good: a better feel for wind and weather than most grown men. That’s what made it all so strange . . . ”
Fitz’s voice drifted off, his gaze consumed by the ocean.
“He and Con were best pals,” Fitz continued. “Pretty much inseparable since they were kids. Did most everything together too, except for the sailing, Con wasn’t so much into that. Oh, he’d crew for Brian now and then, even handled the Orca by himself well enough. But he never had the passion. When Brian was older, most often he went out alone. There he’d be in all weathers.” Fitz pointed to a cap on the window ledge. “And always wearing that crummy old Cardinals cap. Sailing meant as much to Brian as this land means to me. He just couldn’t get enough . . .”
The old man fell silent again. Hall watched and waited.
“Now his dad—my son—was quite different. Will never liked the outdoors at all. He was a good man, but I’ve no idea how he happened in this family. Nor what Mattie saw in him, if you want to know. But Brian . . . it was as if everything that got left out of Will came back in the next generation. And where that really showed was on the water.
“His mum was real proud of him. She was no sailor, but she’d often watch through binoculars as Brian went out. Because of that, we know how his last day began. It was a Saturday morning. Five years ago last May. Brian was in his last year of high school. It was the end of exam week, so the first thing Brian needed was to get in the boat and—as we used to say—blow the stink off. His sister, Jennifer, was away, Con was in Vancouver. I was up-island at an ecology conference that turned out to be a lot of hot air. So Mattie was alone when Brian went off. After he left, Mattie kept busy in the kitchen, waiting for the Orca to appear from below. It didn’t leave right away, but that’s not unusual; there’s always something to fix before a boat is ready to go. But finally there it was. Mattie watched the Orca sail off. There was a decent breeze, so she went out fast. The binoculars we’ve got are strong, Zhumell 20 x 80s that can see halfway to China. Mattie could still make out Brian’s red cap when he was almost to the headland. But he didn’t come about then as usual. The boat kept on into the Sansum Narrows, luffed around the point out of sight—and that was the last she saw it.”
“Until when?”
“Until ever! The Orca never returned. When I got home that night, Mattie was almost crazy with worry. The coast guard had been called and the police alerted. By Sunday we were all half out of our minds. Our only hope was that Brian had got stranded on some little island and was unable to let anyone know. But by Monday there was still no word. It was another twenty-four hours before we got a call from the RCMP. A boat matching the description of the Orca had been found, wrecked, on the rocks near Sooke.”
“Sooke ? But that’s . . .”
“Yeah, to hell and gone up the west coast of the Island. Half a day’s sail for a small boat. But we checked it out, and it was her all right. How it got there we’ll never know, because there was no trace of Brian. And only one clue as to what had happened: the boat’s tiller was lashed.”
“Lashed?”
“Secured, so it could sail without someone at the helm. Apparently, while Brian was out in the strait, there was some kind of mishap. Maybe he just wanted to fetch a drink or take a leak, something stupid and simple. He secured the helm, went to do—whatever—but somehow tripped and fell overboard. It can happen. So the boat would have continued on by itself until it piled up on the Sooke rocks. Of course Brian would have been wearing a life jacket, but he’d have been carried out into the strait. If no one spotted him, eventually he’d have died of hypothermia. That’s only theory, of course. But we had to believe something like that happened. Because the only trace ever found of my grandson—caught up in the wreck of the Orca—was his old red Cardinals cap.”
The view of Maple Bay had undergone a slow transformation, mirroring the dark narrative with its own somber trek toward the night. When the story ended, both men were very still. From the ocean came muted gull-sounds and the faint whine of a speedboat. After some time, Fitz said in a quite different tone, “You’re him, aren’t you?”
“Who?”
“The one who got away.”
“What ?”
“The fella Mattie’s been holding a torch for all these years.”
Hal did a double take, feeling his face redden like an adolescent’s. “What makes you think that?”
“Just a guess,” Fitz said mildly, then grinned “Though by the way you look right now, I’d hazard it’s a pretty fair one.”
Hal shrugged resignedly. His only option, if any dignity was to be retrieved from this situation, was to tell the truth.
He said quietly, “I’d hoped it hadn’t been as bad for her as that.”
“I wouldn’t call it bad,” Fitz replied. “In fact, it may have been one of the things that’s kept her going. I told you I didn’t know what she saw in my son: he was a decent man, but not exactly . . . her sort of person, it seemed to me. And though she was always caring and loyal, I couldn’t shake the feeling she married him on the rebound. After he died, she was properly devastated. But deep down . . . ? Brian, of course, was something else again. For all of us. But what Mattie’s always had—long before any of the troubles came into our lives—is a sort of alone thing. In the last few days that’s changed . . . and now maybe I see why.”
Hal stared. “You think because of me ?”
“Nothing else has happened around here to perk up her spirits.”
“Christ!”
“Don’t look so alarmed. I didn’t say she expects to marry you. She’s just happy you’re here, is all. You’ve taken her mind off the past, my stupid carryings-on, and the life—I won’t say lonely but maybe a bit dull—that she leads round here. That’s all I’m talking about.”
“Okay—then—I’m glad.”
“Oh, there you are!” a cheerful voice said. Both turned as Mattie came through the door. “Goodness—I might have known.”
“Known—what?” Hal said nervously.
Mattie laughed. Fitz was right, Hal thought, she did look happier. “Why, that the first thing Fitz would do is bring you down to this stinky old boathouse.”
twenty-two
The café closed early, so Stephanie was able to get away sooner than expected. She was less tired than the last time she’d driven to her fiancé’s place—the visit that had terminated in the horrific hanging scene—so the journey didn’t seem so arduous. In fact, considering all that had happened lately, she was feeling remarkably upbeat. The stunt Trent had pulled, his so-called “acting,” had been spectacularly ill-conceived. Yet, as she’d tried to explain to Hal, a mistake as extreme as that probably had been necessary, if only to demonstrate just how much he’d let the notion of failure warp his thinking. And though he’d scared her badly, she didn’t doubt he loved her. The breakup threat had been an overreaction, but some sort of ultimatum had definitely been in order. So it was a vast relief that the meeting with his brother had gone so well. Trent had already phoned her at work with his version of the good news, so there’d be no need to pretend surprise.
She arrived at her destination just before nine-thirty. As she drove down the steep drive, the sky to the west of Shawnigan Lake was showing the last hint of afterglow. The big house was lit up, but when she turned in the direction of the cottage she saw that the only light there was a dim glow from the kitchen. That was unusual, since Trent always left the porch lamp on when he knew she’d be late. A sour memory arose of her earlier visit, the house in darkness, and the chilling events that had followed. She resolutely pushed it aside. Nothing like that was ever going to happen again.
She parked beside Trent’s Jeep, gave the usual toot on the horn to announce her arrival, and headed for the front door. The residual feeling from last time was strong enough that she half expected it to be locked, but the handle turned and it opened easily.
“Trent?”
She stopped, taking in the scene inside. The light in the living area was dim because it issued from just two sources: a small lamp near the fireplace and a laptop computer, open on the dining table. Sitting at the computer, very still, his profile illuminated by the ghostly monitor glow, sat Trent. He was staring at the screen, transfixed, a tableau broken only by the tiny, staccato clatter of keys.
“Trent—hello !”
Her fiancé’s head twisted in her direction. He nodded a greeting and his right hand lifted from the keyboard, beckoning, yet somehow managing to command both patience and silence.
“But Trent—”
He made the gesture again, this time accompanied by a slight scowl, after which came a positive explosion of key clattering.
Stephanie’s heart sank. God, what kind of game was he playing now? With a sigh, she closed the door. Pausing to switch on the overhead light—which at least had the effect of making the place feel more normal—she threw down her coat and bag and moved into the kitchen area, intending to fill the kettle. Whatever Trent was up to—she prayed it was not just some little charade to convince her that he was getting his mojo back—she’d give him a few minutes and then . . . well, then she’d see.
There were a few dirty dishes on the draining board. She piled them in the sink and began washing, completing the task as the kettle boiled. Its whistle made Trent glance up sharply. But instead of looking annoyed, he gave a big grin and snapped the laptop shut.
“Ah, tea!” he said cheerfully. “Just what we need to celebrate!”
≈ ≈ ≈
a while later, as they sat drinking tea, Stephanie said, “How did you find out about all this?”
Trent, who had a day’s growth of beard and looked as if he hadn’t showered in a while, was nonetheless in fine spirits and, considering the hour, bubbling with energy. “Simple enough,” he replied. “The information’s all right there on the Web, for anyone who can put it together. Look, the biggest need in the world is energy, right? The recession we had hasn’t changed that, just dampened the demand for, like, half a minute. And right here in Canada, in Northern Alberta, we have some of the biggest oil reserves in the world. Though it’s trapped in the tar sands and expensive to get out—and the environmental lobby hates it—extraction methods are getting more efficient all the time; and—most important for the West, it’s a safe source, free of all the political shit that’s plaguing much of the world.”
“I can see that,” Stephanie interjected. “But what’s that got to do—?”
Trent cut her off with the same silencing gesture that had greeted her arrival. “Give me time,” he snapped, then softened the moment with an apologetic smile. “Please! I’m getting there, okay?”
Mollified, she nodded.
“One of the things I was always good at,” Trent continued, “was speculating on futures: oil futures particularly. But, shit, who could have known that the world oil price would drop from a high of a hundred and fifty bucks a barrel to a quarter of that in less than a year. It’s a historic fluke, but it killed me. If I’d only taken my own advice—like Terry Bathgate did—and got out when things started to slide in ’08, I’d have been okay. But no, I just hung in—as the housing market nose-dived, banks teetered, and commodity prices tanked—thinking that this couldn’t be happening. But it was, it did, and I was ruined. And after I’d been out here a while, living like a bum on Terry’s handouts—the only thing making life bearable being you, incidentally—I came to see, finally, that I might be a real clever-ass—but I had this fatal flaw.”
“What?” Stephanie couldn’t help interjecting.
Trent shook his head glumly. “That I’m too much of a gambler for the securities game. Which is why, though I’ve made heaps of money, I always lost out in the end. And why, since the last bust, I’ve been mooning around out here. You see, I knew if I returned to investing—got back on the horse, as Terry likes to say—the same old thing’d happen.”
“But now something’s changed?”
“Yes! In me! I guess it’s been coming a while, But meeting Hal again—after that first idiotic charade, or maybe because of it—sort of speeded up the process. I realized I didn’t want to be a bum, trying to impress my brother and my girl with stupid tricks. I really did want to get back to work, but not as a gambler any more. So then I got to thinking about oil again—which has always fascinated me—but not futures: oil production. Specifically, Canadian production! With all that enormous potential in the tar sands, it’s obvious that whoever figures out how to get the stuff out most efficiently is gonna clean up. Someone’s got to be trying to do that, I thought. And, after an Internet search: science articles, news items, oil company reports, I came up with a candida
te. This small outfit, CANTSO—Canadian Tar Sand Operations—has come up with a brand new process of extraction which is cleaner, cheaper, and more efficient than anything yet. They’d proved their method with a prototype plant and had a full scale plant built and ready to go into production when the poor buggers got slammed by the worldwide collapse. Their massive debt, which could have been easily handled with the proceeds of pending extraction, went sour when prices tanked. CANTSO was taken over for cents on the dollar and its patented process—which at anything over sixty bucks a barrel is like a licence to manufacture gold—has been languishing in a limbo of shock and inertia ever since. But now the recession is over and oil prices are climbing. Suddenly the CANTSO process is back on the radar. In the last few days I’ve been following the reports, the rumours and the numbers, in the States, in Europe, and the East. All the indications are that a lot of big hitters are getting ready to try to get control of the company that owns CANTSO. No one wants to show their hand too strongly yet: you can’t make a big buy without waking everyone else up. But, believe me, this is going to happen. I’ve been watching all week, and every instinct I possess tells me that when the markets open on Monday the demand for CANTSO is going to explode!”
Trent stopped, eyes aglow, and Stephanie had the urge to applaud. Unlike the hanging fiasco, however, when he’d actually requested such a response, Trent obviously wasn’t looking for praise. But his certainty was unmistakable—and very convincing.
“That sounds wonderful.” Stephanie said finally. Then, since he said nothing more. “So, what are you going to do about it?”
Trent’s excitement abruptly faded. “I don’t actually know.”
“What do you mean?”
“Well . . . I guess I hadn’t got that far. First I wanted to make sure I was right, I guess.”
“And now you are?”
“Of course! But . . .”
“What?”
“Steph, as you well know, I’m flat broke—”