Uncharted

by Graeme Connell

  Bebo jumps from the window seat and softly paws Clotilde’s shoe. She looks down at him and sees that it’s time for an outside break. “Okay, mon petit,” she says. “Out it is, and a good time for me to work this cramp out of my thumb.”

  Chapter Eleven

  “Look, Dad, just let go. Things will get better.” Brewster closes the tailgate, steps on to the sidewalk and holds his tearful daughter in a fatherly hug. “Don’t come in,” she says. “I’m just going to the check-in and then go straight to the gate. We agreed.” She picks up her backpack. “Be on your way, and don’t stop till you get to wherever you’re going.” Hannah smiles, gives Brewster a loving shove and heads into the airport terminal.

  He watches after his daughter as she disappears through the double sliding doors. “’Scuse me, sir. You’ll have to move. No waiting here,” airport security said.

  “Just going,” he says. “Just going.”

  No looking back, Hannah had said repeatedly. She’d even helped him pack a bag this morning to go on a road trip to get himself together. “Not a time to be at home worrying about what we’ve done with all Mom’s things. You and Mom used to get away, so go. Get some wind in your hair.”

  Out of the city, the Trans-Canada Highway is welcome after the stop-start, whizz-whizz of city traffic. He doesn’t have a plan. It’s early morning yet, and something will come to mind once he gets into the mountains.

  The miles slip by. Brewster is mesmerized by the fleeting landscape. These might be fantastic mountains he’s heading toward, the gateway to the Rockies, but who cares? He stares at the grey-black ribbon stretching out in front, one long, wide line etched between the trees, fences and farmland. Cruise control takes care of the speed; he just steers.

  He’s not really aware that he’s even travelling. The wind through the sunroof and the thrum of it on the bug catcher keeps him alert. The calming of an open road—there’s nothing like it to brush away emotional cobwebs in his stubborn subconscious. What was it Hannah had said yesterday?

  “Look, Dad. I know this is tough for you, but really, it’s time you conquered these thoughts that drag you down all the time. Mom was a fantastic person and a big loss to us all, but I know she’d be pretty upset at you moping around the place all this time.”

  “Too true. I’ll work on it,” he’d promised.

  “Why don’t you get in the car and go somewhere you like?” Hannah said. “Get outta town. What about going over to BC?”

  “Well, Hannah, my wise and wonderful daughter, that’s what I am doing today,” he says into the car. “Trouble is, I don’t have a plan yet.”

  He bumps through the quick lane at the park gates because he does not need to go into the town of Banff or Lake Louise; he’ll just keep the wheels rolling. The morning cloud burns off, giving way to piercing sunny blue skies.

  Stunning stretch of highway. The folded multi-tones of rock rise skyward on either side. Cars and trucks zip by on his left, their drivers showing little regard for the reduced speed through the national park. Ninety is fast enough, anyway. There’s a wildlife overpass up ahead, and he smiles as the thought springs to mind of how cool it would be to see a bear or two looking down at the crazy humans in their crazy cars.

  With Castle Mountain shaping up in all its magnificence to his right, Brewster knows he’ll need to make another decision very soon: swing off and head to Radium Hot Springs and into the Kootenays, or head on through on the Trans-Canada to the Okanagan. In his hesitation, the off-ramp to Radium blips by.

  Springtime in the Rockies, he thinks with a smile. A movie and a song that attracted and meant much to his immigrant parents. His wannabe cowboy father sang Gene Autry style, “When it’s springtime in the Rockies, I’ll be coming back to you …” He gulps and thinks, But Melanie will not be coming back … “Little sweetheart of the mountains, with your bonnie eyes of blue.”

  He’s surprised the words come so easily to mind. He’s not heard the song for many years, perhaps since he moved out of Grande Prairie way back when. The band was Peace River Riders, maybe. Something like that. He slows and pulls in behind a line of vehicles parked on the shoulder still some distance from Lake Louise. Wildlife. People are out of their cars and pointing. He joins the mob at the railing. Sure enough, down by the sparkling Bow River is a young grizzly meandering along the riverbank quite unconcerned about the crowd he’s attracting.

  “Sorry, Mel. You’re not here this time. He’s a real beauty. I can see the silver fur on his hump rippling as he walks,” he says. “You always had your eyes out every time we came through here. So here’s the one that got away.”

  Brewster considers the colour of the river. “Really, what is the colour?” he says, still thinking that Melanie is beside him. He smiles at the woman a couple of paces away. She’s dropped her binoculars and looks questioningly at him. “Ah, just thinking aloud,” he says. “Is the river green, green-blue or turquoise perhaps?” The woman turns away, and he looks back at the bear. Does it have a mate somewhere in the woods? Or was it like him, mateless and alone?

  He leaves the bear and its crowd of onlookers and eases back into the traffic. He murmurs for the cars to slow down. This marvellous highway through breathtaking country is not a place for speed. Slow down and smell the roses.

  He sighs deeply and pulls into a rest area overlooking the river. Time for a stretch and a nature break. The mountain air is gorgeous, and he sits on the rock wall enjoying the coffee and granola bar courtesy of his daughter. He recalls Melanie’s antics at this particular stop, running back and forth with her camera, bending over to get a shot of a nicely arranged twig in the grass, a flower, a mushroom or toadstool. That was the energy she had, taking delight in anything that in many ways seemed out of place.

  “Incoming call,” the car announces as he pulls back on to the highway. He pushes the hands-free button. “Hi, Dad. Lunchtime here. How ya doing?. Where are you?”

  “Hi to you, missy,” he says. “I took your advice, and here I am on the highway, just passing Castle Mountain. You should see it. I think it looks different every time we come through.”

  “Great. You feeling okay?’

  “You betcha. Couldn’t be better. Springtime in the Rockies. Think I’ll head to Kelowna or somewhere along the way, and then I’ll spend a few days meandering back home along the border and through the Crowsnest.”

  “I’m so glad, Dad. You need that. We’re kinda in the last stages of the term, and I’ve got a couple of exams to get done later this week. Then we’ll work on getting stuff ready for Europe.”

  “Well, good luck with your exams. I’m sure you’ll do well. I’ll send you an email when I hole up somewhere for the night,” he says. “You’re so very right, Hannah. This is good for the soul, and the weather is making it even better.”

  As Brewster disconnects, he nears the top of the Kicking Horse Pass and pulls off into the Spiral Tunnels viewpoint. He shuts off the car and addresses his wife. “Hey, Mel. I’m back at this amazing place. You’ll remember the last time we were here, maybe just a couple of weeks before, before …”

  He chokes back his emotion, and gets out of the car and stretches. He saunters over to the panels to once more acquaint himself with the engineering involved in cutting the highway and railway through from its highest point at more than 5,000 feet down to the valley floor. He thinks of how railway and highway broke through the wall of mountains to get people and freight from the prairies to the Pacific coast. To him, the massive cuts through rock, the spiral railway tunnels needed to provide easy grades up and down and the super sweeping bridges that cross the rivers are breathtaking in their enormity.

  This surely is a country of contrasts, Brewster thinks. The viewpoint is a popular place as travellers read the information panels and take photographs, waiting for a train to show from one of the tunnel portals while its tail end is still entering the spiral. He’s glad
he missed the highway to Radium. The Kicking Horse is a triumph of highway and railway engineering, of man against the mountains.

  “Riveting,” he says to the woman beside him. “Just riveting.”

  “I think of all those men who came here to do this job,” she says. “And they didn’t have the equipment we have today. I wonder if they all made it home again. Coming all this way to labour hard to earn a dollar.”

  He and Melanie often stopped at this point. Today as he rereads the information panels, he sees what it cost: one death a week as men laboured for $2.25 for a 10-hour day. If they took two years to build, that’s more than 100 people who didn’t go home. He watches a big diesel power out from the upper portal of the Mount Ogden lower tunnel; the back end enters the portal, a half-mile spin for a 50-foot elevation gain. A politician’s impetuous promise 140 years ago to bring British Columbia into confederation, and a ploy to keep out American branch railroads, is now a national historic site that moves millions of tons of prairie cargo daily to the port facilities.

  Brewster sees the tunnels, the railway and the highway as a memorial. Though men died in rock slides and explosions and derailments, they live on in the recreation and economy of today. He swishes down the Trans-Canada, dropping rapidly in elevation in the run through Field to Golden. It’s a ride like no other as he eases down and around the well-tailored curves, past a runaway lane and down to the Kicking Horse River smashing its way through the gorge. In the opposite lane, heavily-laden 18- and 22-wheelers grind up the Big Hill to the Prairies.

  Chapter Twelve

  “Thank you, Tom, for that very flattering introduction. This is the first time I’ve been an after-breakfast speaker, and I hope and pray that what I’m about to say is a good beginning for your day.”

  Clotilde holds the podium with both arms outstretched and looks out at the 100-plus men and women who have gathered in the conference centre for what is termed an in-house training seminar.

  “I am a registered nurse, a graduate of the University of Alberta. I find it interesting that you invited me to speak on a subject that is not connected to my training and yet is totally associated with who I am today. I always wanted to be a nurse; it’s a career I pursued from the day when I first entered the hospital in Fort McMurray and worked as a candystriper. I loved that uniform and caring for the patients who were always glad to have me around. I was a small teenager who smiled at patients, listened to them and found out what they needed. They were enjoyable times. Even the grouchy ones couldn’t dissuade me from pursuing nursing as a career.”

  Clotilde looks out across the room. She looks to her side at the company president, who made her introduction, and at those with whom she shared her breakfast. Though she can’t hear any noise in the room, she senses a stillness and feels her audience waiting.

  She looks out, smiles and continues. “What most of you don’t know is that I’m profoundly deaf. Two years after graduating and working as a fully bilingual nurse at the Rockyview Hospital in Calgary, a disease took me away from patient care. Somehow I’d contracted meningitis. I didn’t take any notice of the symptoms until it was too late, and I ended up as you see me today. Je suis sourd. I am deaf.

  “But I didn’t have time to think too much about being deaf because I was also pregnant, entering my second trimester. Would our baby suffer the same fate as me? It was a worry, but I had excellent care. As much as my sorrows would allow, I tried to be a model patient. Benjamin was born happy and healthy, a beautiful boy. My wonderful husband and I were relieved and felt like we could take on the world.

  “That’s when the threads started to unravel. Pierre struggled as I tried to come to grips with new forms of communication. I speak two languages, sure, but I cannot hear. I could not hear our baby cry. I could not hear him gurgle with the happiness of a growing newborn. I could not hear father and son.

  “I was alone, locked up in a silent world, speaking but not listening. My unmodulated voice made me sound angry. To tell you the truth, I was angry and bitter. Poor Pierre. I could not understand a thing he was saying. I was struggling to learn to read lips.

  “My parents moved to the city and bought a house nearby. My mother would come help me during the days. In the evenings at home, Pierre was the nighttime watchman, helping me as much as he could. His work as a young lawyer began to suffer. He tried to learn sign language with me. He did what he could to encourage me, but it was tough because he was also continuing his studies to build on his law degree. We’d leave each other notes. He’d wake in the night to the sound of crying, get me awake, and indicate that Benjamin needed attention. His pointing became shouting I could not hear, but I could see his anger and frustration. His eyes and his face showed it all. I would cry.

  “Yes, the inevitable happened, and Pierre had to move. I think it was my suggestion. I could see his pain, and he could see mine. My silent world was slowly closing us down. His notes became hurried scribbles, sometimes half words. Then one day I threw away all the notes. We had been recycling our stickies: yellow for me, orange for him and blue for Benji. I threw them on the floor and burst into tears. That’s where he found me. We hugged, and Pierre left. He is still my dearest friend.”

  She pauses, frightened that she is not adding interest to their seminar, but stillness is still palpable in the room.

  “My mother did what she could to help me. Eventually both houses were sold, and I moved into a larger home with my parents. They loved Benjamin, and it was like he was their child. I was the big sister. When Benjamin turned three, I wrote to Pierre and his new wife, suggesting that perhaps it might be best for our darling boy if they took care of him. They jumped at the idea because it would reduce travel and visiting time, allowing Benjamin to grow as a normal and healthy boy. Perhaps even a hockey player.

  “I was still struggling with sign language, and lip-reading did not come easy to me. It’s a practice-makes-perfect art, and it was very difficult for me because I was essentially housebound. I was used to expressing myself in French or English. In fact, I was used to being told I talked too much. Waving my hands, remembering the signals and learning hand, arm and finger positions was difficult.

  “The hard decision was made, and Benjamin moved. My heart broke, and I could not understand why my life, so full of promise, had cratered to where I saw myself as a deaf old maid living with her parents. I did not know what to do.

  “I’m not going to say what happened over the next few years because it would evoke the wrong response. Yes, I tried returning to the hospital, but I could not work with patients. I could not return to my old position in ER. I was no good in surgery. Filing was not my thing. I could not answer the telephone. My supervisors tried to place me, and I’m forever grateful for their efforts. They even tried me in triage—you know, getting the vitals—but that was a bust. My lip-reading skills in those days were not as polished as they might have been. I’d learned from speakers with a French accent: my mother, my husband who grew up in Montreal and my relatives.

  “My dad, the best grader driver Calgary has ever known, came down with terminal cancer. I became his caregiver. He’d been given six months, but his treatment improved his general condition, and he remained with us for four years. I was able to care for him at home—a true blessing for both my mother and me.

  “During my nurse training and hospital employment, I’d become totally fascinated with medical drawings. The detail is remarkable, and I discovered in simple, easy terms what lies under our own skin—where it is and what it looks like. Check out the artwork on your doctor’s wall. You will see what I’m getting at.

  “My mother loved plants, and we had a fantastic garden each summer. She saw me looking at a drawing of the inner ear. I was ever hopeful that perhaps one day, someone or something might happen that would allow me to hear again. ‘Why don’t you draw my flowers like that?’ she said. ‘A flower can’t speak, but it still shows its beauty t
o the world.’

  “My dear mom. She barrelled through my protestations, took me to the art shop, talked with them about what a beginner should start with and bought a box of colour pencils and a sketch pad. Well, Mom put these things in my hands, but it took some time that summer to bring myself to imitate the precision of medical drawings with flower drawing. Come to think of it, is that even possible? When I did start, I even tried tracing around the edge of a petal or a stalk or a leaf to get it onto paper. Try it sometime; it doesn’t work. But as I dissected Mom’s plants, I did get drawn into the world of a flower. So moms are never wrong! I was hooked and read as much as I could to get to where I’m at today as a botanical artist.

  “It was Mom’s idea that I get down to Fish Creek Park and take a look at the flowers there. Little did I know when I started that I’d become so preoccupied, or that I’d be able to at least recover a portion of my costs by framing and selling my work. Those walks to the park that we took for as long as we could sustained Mom as she developed early onset Alzheimer’s. It was sad to see, but the flowers kept her, and regardless of what else happened, I could almost count on her to find some of the treasures I drew.

  “There were tough times: she’d forget she was in the park, why she was out walking or even who I was. Then suddenly out of the blue, she’d spot a flower, even the tiniest one that I would have missed. Yet she’d ask me why I needed a pencil. It was hard to stand by and watch her always active mind take sudden turns. In a blink she could tell me the stamen I’d drawn was not correct, or the petal did not show true colour. The mystery of her mind gave me courage.