Reparations

by Stephen Kimber

  Ward tried to remember what he might have said. Had he embellished his knowledge, tried to impress the cops? It was so long ago. He wanted to examine the document, consider the words and try to explain. But she’d already moved on. All she’d been looking for was a quickie quote she could use to show she’d offered him the chance to explain himself. And he’d failed.

  What? Press gallery dinner? Speech? Joke? Oh, fuck!

  “I do have a tape recording of your remarks from that night,” she continued. She was in total control now. “I could play it for you if you’d like.”

  Ward shook his head. No.

  “I guess what I’m looking for is a comment from you. I’m sure you know some people will read those jokes and see them as racist. Were they racist?”

  “No. . .” I mean, they were, but you’d need to understand the circumstances . . .” She was already asking another question. How long had he been babbling to himself, trying to explain the inexplicable, justify the unjustifiable?

  He hadn’t wanted to bring up his idea in this way; he’d wanted her to ask him the right question, the one he’d been waiting for, the question her father would have suggested, the one about the accident and his appointment, the one he’d been waiting to hear for twenty-seven years. And then, they could trade. She could tell him how close her father had been to publishing and he could tell her the whole story. And then they would agree—this was the essence of the pitch he’d intended to make—that he would tell her everything if she agreed to publish none of it until after he was dead.

  But he’d lost his advantage. She seemed to know too much. What did he have to trade?

  “—confess I was puzzled by what he’d showed me, and his interpretation of the documents and the photo.” What now? “But Mr. Astor is a trained archivist, and he seems very convinced that he can trace your family tree . . .”

  She passed him the photo.

  Ward couldn’t speak, couldn’t move, couldn’t understand, couldn’t believe. What this woman was saying made no sense. He tried but he couldn’t make his brain’s tumblers fall into their proper places.

  “Oh, Judge Justice . . .” Gerry Donkin, the nursing home’s administrator, fluttered about like a frightened bird as soon as he saw Ward limping into the lobby. “We weren’t expecting you today.” Realizing how that might sound now, he added quickly, “It’s always a pleasure, of course . . . I—we—want you to know how sorry we are about what happened to your father.”

  Happened to my father!? Ward was stunned. Dead? Before he could ask why!

  But Desmond Justice was very much alive.

  “As soon as we realized what was going on,” Donkin continued, in a for-the-record voice intended to indicate to the Judge—and to whatever lawyer he might hire down the road—that the nursing home had acted responsibly, “we called in the police and suspended the woman. According to what the police tell us now, Desmond may not have been the only one of our guests she’s stolen from.” He paused. “Not that that’s any consolation, of course.”

  As Ward slowly untangled the story the administrator assumed was the reason for his visit that morning, he learned that one of the home’s cleaners—the infamous “coloured girl” his father so often claimed was stealing his slippers—was indeed a thief! Ward and Victoria had both dismissed Desmond’s ranting as paranoia, or senility, or yet another manifestation of his bigotry.

  The coloured girl!

  So the coloured girl really was a thief.

  And Desmond Justice really was black.

  Which made Ward Justice . . .

  Desmond was neither embarrassed nor apologetic. “The races been mixing since before anybody knew there were races,” he said, sounding like he’d been rehearsing it for years. “Who’s to say who’s white and who’s black?”

  “But why?” Ward demanded again. Ward wasn’t angry to discover he was black; he wasn’t even sure he’d managed to process that reality yet. It was that his own father had never told him the truth. “That’s what I still don’t understand. Why did you lie to me?”

  Victoria had driven Ward to the nursing home, but she hadn’t come inside. “I’ll get a coffee at Tim’s and come back for you in an hour,” she’d said. “This is one conversation I think you and your father need to have alone.”

  Since Ward couldn’t have driven the hour and a half to the nursing home by himself—one more sign of the shrinking borders of his life—he’d had to tell Victoria what Moira Donovan had told him. But Victoria had already known! She’d even known the reporter’s source. “David Astor, that man I went to see at the Archives when I was researching your family tree,” she said. “He found the photo.”

  Ward wanted to ask why Victoria had kept this little detail from him. But he didn’t, perhaps because her deception now seemed trivial compared with the lifelong fraud his own father had perpetrated.

  In the past fifteen hours, Ward had retraced, relearned, re-evaluated, reinterpreted his entire life history. And wondered why he’d never considered the question, or contemplated the possibility before now. Should he have?

  His skin tone had always been slightly darker than that of the other—white—kids at school. Most of the time, that had seemed a plus, like having a year-round tan in high school. When anyone would comment on it, his pale-skinned mother would tell them, “He gets that from his father’s side.” But she said the same about Ward’s predilection to pudginess and his tendency to keep his feelings bottled up inside. And, of course, his tightly curled black hair.

  In the late sixties when he was in university, Ward had let his hair grow out into a then-fashionable Afro. Would he have called it that? Probably. Without even considering that he might be . . . Afro . . . himself. “You look like one of them coloured singers,” his father had complained. “Get a haircut.” But those were the days when fathers were always telling their sons to cut their hair. Ward thought nothing of it. And kept the Afro until it went out of style.

  When he was little, Ward remembered asking about his “other” Grampy and Grandma, and his father telling him they had died in a fire. That much, at least, seemed to have been true.

  Growing up, in fact, he’d known only a few of his relatives, all on his mother’s side. But that seemed reasonable enough; his mother had grown up in Eisners Head, his father had not.

  Had Ward ever asked his father where he was born? About his growing-up years? Probably. But when Ward was a child, his father most likely would have made a tall tale out of his answer. He did that a lot, especially before the strike. Once, when Ward asked his father what he’d done in World War II, his father had told him some fanciful story about floating on a torpedo in the North Atlantic for three days. Ward was young enough to believe him; he only discovered much later his father had never even served in the war.

  By the time Ward was old enough to start asking serious questions and wanting serious answers, his father wasn’t telling tall—or any—tales any more. After the strike and the exile to Halifax, his father had constructed a cocoon around himself Ward couldn’t penetrate. Not that he’d tried very hard. As a teenager, Ward had become so absorbed in his own here and now that he had no interest in his father’s then and there.

  Besides, by then, he had secrets of his own. His friendship with Ray, for starters. That little secret seemed more bizarre, even ridiculous, in light of . . . So many secrets . . . He really was his father’s son. Ward hadn’t told his father about his cancer; he didn’t intend to now.

  “Why?” Desmond Justice rolled the question around on his tongue. He was sitting up in his bed, a pile of pillows supporting his back, staring across the room at the big-screen TV. Oprah was on. He’d clicked the mute button on the remote when Ward came in. But he kept his thumb on the button, as if he might decide at any moment he’d rather watch Oprah than continue their conversation. “Why not?” he said.

  “What kind of answer is
that?” Ward demanded. Angry.

  Desmond didn’t answer directly. “My daddy told me the first Justice ever set foot in Nova Scotia was the son of a white plantation owner and his coloured slave girl,” he offered instead. “Come up from Georgia after the American Revolution. British promised him his freedom and land. But the land they give him was the rockiest, most barren patch of dirt in the most out-of-the-way place in all of Nova Scotia. The good land all went to the whites. That’s the way it always was. That’s the way it’s always going to be. He may have been half white but, to the British, he was still all black.”

  “But—”

  “Still is. Forget your civil rights and your Martin Luther King, even your Malcolm X. You want to get ahead in this world, you got to be white. My daddy taught me that. He married white. So what did that make me? My daddy, he told me once I was probably three-quarters white man anyway. But the white men don’t do the math that way.

  “I was fourteen when my parents died in that fire. There was just me then. No brothers, no sisters. Just me. I didn’t start out to make myself into a white man. I just wanted to get as far away from Kingville as I could get.” He laughed. “Who knew I wouldn’t get more than a couple hundred mile down the road? But that was a distance then. Nobody knew me in Eisners Head . . . When I showed up looking for work on the fishin’ boats, people looked at me and just figured I must be a white man. I let ’em think what they wanted.”

  “Mum?”

  “Your mother knew,” Desmond Justice said. “I had to tell her. And she went along. She knew what people would say. That’s why we decided not to have any kids. And then you came along. An accident. I tell you, we were both scared to death you were going to come out black as the ace of spades. It happens. But you didn’t. You were even whiter than me.”

  “I don’t get it,” Ward tried again. “All my life, you’ve acted like a . . . like a racist. Don’t play with the black children. The coloureds this and the coloureds that . . . and all the time you’re black yourself. Why did you make me live your lie?”

  “You have to understand, son,” his father answered, as if the answer were obvious, “I did this for you. I figured if you spent too much time with coloured people, like that fellow down in Africville you were so fond of, I was afraid you’d end up coloured too and that would be the end of any chance you had . . . See, when I realized I could pass for white, I knew I could give you the chance I never had.” Desmond Justice looked at Ward then. “And I was right. I was, wasn’t I? You went to college. You been a lawyer, a Cabinet minister, a judge. You think you’d have been any of those things if they’d known you had the least trickle of black blood running through your veins?”

  “But you never thought any of those were good things,” Ward said. “You hated it when I told you I was going to go to law school.”

  “I did. But I didn’t, too.” Desmond Justice paused for a moment, tried to collect his thoughts. “Maybe I was white, but part of me was still coloured. The coloured part hated the lawyers and the politicians and the judges and the rest who kept us in our place. And, don’t forget, I wasn’t just white. I was poor white. Blacks, poor whites, we both resent the same rich white folks—the lawyers and fish plant owners—but we still want our kids to be them. It’s not right. But that’s just the way it is.”

  Desmond Justice stopped then, exhausted. He looked back at the TV, his thumb still hovering over the mute button. “I may not have said it right, but I want you to know I was always proud of you and what you done,” he said.

  His father had never said that before.

  But he’d said all he was going to say for now. He pressed down on the button and Oprah’s voice filled the room.

  Chapter 12

  1976

  “John?” Ward Justice waved his empty glass in John’s direction. “Another.”

  The bartender shrugged and reached behind him for the Glenfiddich bottle. Empty. How much of that bottle was already sloshing around in Ward justice’s stomach? he wondered. He opened another bottle, filled the jigger once, poured it into the glass, and then did the same again.

  “Hope you’re not planning to drive tonight, sir,” John said as he put the glass down in front of Ward.

  “No. Not driving. Not tonight,” Ward said, his voice loose with slur. John shrugged again. He knew the minister was lying and would get in his car as soon as he left the bar. “If you want, I can put in a call to the station for you, have them send somebody to drive you home,” John offered.

  “No, no . . . won’t be necessary . . . But thanks, really, John. Thanks.”

  John nodded, picked up a cloth to wipe circular water stains off the bar countertop. Fuck it. What more could he do? He’d been a bartender here long enough to know just how hard he could push his customers, especially the politicians. The Victory Lounge, on Spring Garden Road beside the Lord Nelson Hotel, was a favourite hangout for provincial politicians. The out-of-towners, many of whom stayed in the hotel during legislative sessions, would drop in for a nightcap on the way to their rooms.

  Justice had been only an occasional visitor to the bar. Usually with Mr. White and usually just for one, maybe two drinks. But lately, he’d been arriving alone, late in the afternoon, and staying until closing. Every night. John would see other MLAs stop at his stool and try to engage him in conversation, but it was as if there were an invisible, don’t-come-too-close wall around him. They left.

  Probably a woman, John thought. That was usually what pushed them over the edge. But Ward Justice always came alone, left alone. Maybe it wasn’t a woman. Who knew? John looked at his watch. Quarter to one. Another Saturday night almost over. He began his final round along the bar stools.

  “Just so you know, Mr. Minister,” he said to Ward, “last call’s in five minutes.”

  “One more for the road, then . . .”

  It had not been a good day. Or a good week. A good month. A good year. How had it begun? With that stupid speech at the press gallery dinner? No one had mentioned a word about it since that night, of course, but Ward knew, just by the way the other MLAs and reporters spoke to him, approaching him gingerly, that it still hung over him. Or perhaps it had begun even before that, after Jack had floated the first rumours he was going to challenge the Premier. These days, O’Sullivan rarely called on him in Cabinet meetings or even spoke to him. And half of the Cabinet followed the Premier’s lead. Then again, maybe it had started more recently, with that dinner at Claudie’s with Jack and Junior.

  Jack seemed to understand his position, even sympathized without saying it in so many words, but Junior was refusing to let it go. He’d demanded they meet this morning in Junior’s office at the fish plant so he could make one final pitch for Ward’s support.

  Junior did the talking. Jack just stood by the window, watching a couple of deckhands loading supplies aboard a trawler.

  Junior trotted out all the usual arguments. “Ottawa will go along, guaranteed, but only if you’re in too,” he said. Ward knew the feds just wanted to be able to deflect anger away from themselves and onto the province—onto him—for a controversial decision.

  No. Ward said it again.

  “You’re as stubborn as your old man,” Junior was shouting at him now, “and just as fucking stupid.”

  Jack tried to calm him but Junior was having none of it. “Don’t think we don’t know about you and your nigger whore,” he said. “Oh, don’t look so shocked. You think we wouldn’t hear somethin’ like that? And how do you think the voters in Cabot County will like that? Their MLA shaggin’ a nigger?”

  “Now why don’t we all just step back and take a breath—” Jack began, but this time Junior cut him off.

  “Give him the paper.” Junior looked hard at Jack and pointed at Ward. “Give him the fucking letter. I’m sick of playing fucking games here.”

  Jack looked pained, but he reached into the inside breast p
ocket of his sports jacket, took out a business envelope and handed it to Ward. Ward couldn’t help but think of all the envelopes, thick with cash, Jack had doled out to him in the last two years. This envelope was thin and flat.

  “This meeting’s fucking over,” Junior shouted, louder now. “And so are you, you stubborn, stupid prick.” With that, he stormed out of the office, leaving Jack and Ward alone in the silence of an empty building on a Saturday morning. They looked at each other.

  “Sorry,” Jack said simply. And then he left the room, too.

  Ward was alone in Junior’s office. He looked down at the envelope, at the familiar McArtney, Eagleson, Cullingham & O’Sullivan letterhead. He ripped it open, fished out the letter. Jack had signed it.

  Dear Mr. Justice:

  On behalf of our client, Eisner International Holdings Ltd., I am writing to inform you that, as per the terms of your agreement (Our File #6437A) with Eisner International Holdings, said company is demanding full and immediate repayment of the outstanding balance of all monies loaned to you for the purchase of the house and property known as 57 Atlantic Street in the City of Halifax, County of Halifax in the Province of Nova Scotia . . .

  John set his final double Scotch on the bar in front of him. Ward felt inside his pocket now for the crumpled sheet of paper. Still there. So it was real and not just the alcohol. He swallowed the last of the Scotch, got to his feet.

  “Yeah, okay, but what happens if they do find out?” Patrick Donovan said. “I’ll be up shit’s creek.” Patrick didn’t want to get into this discussion. He was too drunk to think clearly. Had Saunders planned it that way? Everyone knew Saunders was a malcontent, always blaming the publisher for everything that went wrong at the newspaper, everything that went wrong in his life.

  Patrick hadn’t been surprised that Saunders was the one organizing the union drive at the paper. It did surprise him that Keefe and Matthews were part of it too. They’d spent the day together at the oil company fishing derby/piss-up. No one had said a word about the union. Until now. This was supposed to be the last stop on their way home.