Waiting for Time Read online

  “For all that there'd be people here belongs to you,” Lori is her businesslike self again. “You'd have no trouble trackin' your people down—just say you're tracin' your family tree. Mainlanders are down here doin' that all the time. Know your grandfather's name?” she asks, already leafing through the phone book.

  “My grandfather's name was Ki—short for Hezekiah. My father's name was David,” Lav tells her, casually as if she has spoken those names a million times.

  “Well there you are, then! All you got to do is phone someone with the same name. I bet there's Hezekiahs in this book—there's still a good many of them old names around—I was named Dolores, for God's sake!”

  She looks up from her search long enough to give Lav a half-ashamed smile. “Anyone 'round here'll tell you if they're related. Let's see, Anderson, Andres, Andrews—Sweet Lord, there's dozens of 'em!”

  “You've been reading Lavinia's journal!” suddenly realizing this must be so, Lav snatches the phone book from the young woman's hands, pushes it back on the shelf.

  “I'm sorry,” Lori says but looks only slightly contrite. “I hoped you wouldn't mind—it was just that I got so curious about what you're reading all this time. Do you mind?”

  “No—no, of course not. The Ellsworth Journal is public property after all.” This is a lie, of course. She does mind, in fact Lav hates the idea that the journal should be available to Lori Sutton—to any curious person who comes along.

  Tired of the girl, of her inquisitive little face, her reaching hands, Lav stacks the dishes and offers, too quickly, to drive her home.

  Later, absently watching the news (always the same these days—clips of various men walking into meeting rooms, pausing sometimes in doorways to say that no, they have no comment, really, no comment at this time) Lav finds herself leafing through the St. John's phone book, reading down the list of Andrews names, dialing a randomly picked number, calmly asking some stranger if he knows of any Cape Random Andrews.

  On her third call a man listed as Clarence K. Andrews, unsurprised by her question, tells her: “We people are Port de Grave Andrews—yer crew'd be the Bonavista North Andrews. But I'll tell you now the best one for you to get hold of'd be Stephen Andrews' boy—him that owns that place down in Davisporte.”

  At that point he calls over his shoulder, “Marg, Marg—you mind the name of that Andrews feller got the place we stayed at down in Davisporte?”

  In a second he is back telling her that Young Alf Andrews owns a place, Lav gathers it is a motel, the man seems to have an aversion to the word, called Cat Harbour Inn.

  “You'll be able to get the number from Information. 'Tis a queer old name but the place is respectable for all that,” he says, and after wishing her every success hangs up.

  Lori is right, it's not hard to find your people in Newfoundland.

  But she does not want to call Alf Andrews—at least not yet. She is afraid to commit herself to relatives, living people who cannot be put back on the shelf should she grow tired or be repulsed by them. The knowledge that she is such a coward depresses her.

  Still, she falls asleep thinking how pleasant it would be to own the journal, to have it here in the house. The next morning Lav swims up from dreams of fish with a plan to steal the journal blueprinted on her mind. From then on, stealing the journal is the last thing she thinks of before sleep, the first thing she thinks of each morning.

  five

  “Here's to Oceans 2000—the final draft!” Wayne Drover clicks his glass against Lav's.

  They are in Lav's office, having their usual end-of-the-week drink before going to eat. Friday is now the only full day she spends at work—a fact she is sure has not escaped Wayne's notice.

  Lav has come to enjoy his company, discovered that when relaxed Wayne Drover has a kind of naive innocence completely at odds with his usual abrasive manner.

  “We'll go somewhere special tonight—next Friday we'll be having a little wrap-up party at the office—and the following Monday the Minister'll be in town for the Oceans 2000 presentation. Next week'll be hell!” Wayne is pacing, pleased at the prospect, the many strings he will pull before next Monday coiled inside him waiting to spring.

  Lav does not comment. She has long since stopped objecting to Wayne's deadlines, relinquished all ownership of the project she is technically in charge of.

  “You should read our final report,” he tells her. “After all, your team did the groundwork, and when you get back to Ottawa you'll be expected to be familiar with it.”

  He stands in front of her desk, staring down at her: “What do you want to do when you go back? Want me to put in a word in the right places?”

  She is dismayed by his question. What do I want to do when I go back? Gripping her glass she avoids his sober, judging gaze and stares past him out the window at the cliff. It is still light outside, late April, the days getting longer. It has not occurred to her that she will not be here through the summer.

  The silence goes on for some time until Wayne realizes there will be no answer. He shakes his head, “People who don't know what they want never get it,” he says. Then he shrugs, smiles, “Come on, this might be our last supper—I know a special place.”

  The special place turns out to be a restaurant set up in a beautiful old house that had once belonged to the Drew family.

  “The Drews always had big families, sent their children to private schools, travelled, acquired a taste for beautiful things,” Wayne tells her, pointing to the mahogany panelled doors, the Gibbons-like carving above the mantels, the marquetry along the front of a sideboard.

  “Fact is, they owned half the town, rows of houses, shops, newspapers, factories and fish plants—shoes and ships and sealing fleets and councillors and kings.” He likes the phrase and repeats it, “Shoes and ships and sealing fleets and councillors and kings—they still own a good bit of St. John's—of Newfoundland for that matter.”

  She has never told Wayne what she knows about the Drew family, about the part of their story written into Lavinia's journal by Mary, nor does she now. She has no desire to talk. The question he has posed is still echoing through her head, what will she do when she returns to Ottawa? To keep her future out of the discussion, to keep from talking about herself, Lav asks if the Drews are still fish merchants.

  “Na—none of their money comes from fish these days, at least not directly. But every time anyone here buys a can of milk or a bottle of booze, every time we switch on a light or an oven, or even sign a petition for an environmental impact study, we're making a small contribution to the Drew empire. Today, of course, the Drew name is probably not even on the letterhead—but you can bet some uncle, some lawyer cousin or ne'er-do-well in-law got a finger in every Newfoundland pie from Hibernia to Hydro, from Doreen's Decorating to Dickie Dunn's taxi.”

  He smiles across the table, the smile implies knowledge of all the Drew secrets, “I, Wayne Drover, am as important as family, as necessary as graft to the Drews!” the smile says. And Lav wonders, not for the first time, why he lets her see these things about him—and why he has any need for her company.

  “But enough of that old stuff! Eat up, maid, the boys are workin'!” he nods at her plate, refills her wine glass, asks if she knows anything about folk music.

  When Lav shakes her head he proceeds to instruct her on the subject. Quoting from old ballads he traces the roots of Newfoundland music back to pre-Elizabethan courtiers and Irish bards. He has, he tells her, collected old broadsheets for years. To her utter astonishment—ignoring the waiter standing nearby, ignoring the regal, grey-haired couple seated in the corner—he begins to sing.

  As I walked forth in the pride of the season,

  Thinking some pastime there for to see,

  Who should I spy but a lovely fair damsel,

  Sitting alone 'neath a green willow tree.…

  Wayne Drover has a pleasing voice, he sings softly, holding his glass against his white shirt, staring down into the wine.
r />   Lav feels relaxed, happy. Why grieve for the past or worry for the future when one can sit surrounded by beautiful things, can sip wine, eat good food—can, in the soft glow of candlelight, have a man sing you a lament about love and betrayal under green willow trees?

  When they leave the restaurant Wayne suggests they go downtown, find some live music. He is still full of energy. It is a mild evening, they can walk, he says.

  Down over the hill it's cooler, Lav can smell the harbour, feel the salt mist. Yet people lounge in doorways and the narrow sidestreets are crowded with university students moving from pub to pub in noisy, laughing groups. Most of the merrymakers are much younger than Lav or Wayne—and so is their music. They linger at one or two places, have a drink, Wayne waves to several people but never settles or stops to talk.

  Lav expects to encounter Lori Sutton but they do not—maybe the girl works on Friday nights. In one bar they catch sight of Mark Rodway. He is squashed into a corner beside a pale blonde. Wayne sees Mark too, waves and smiles, “That laddeo got his own agenda, wouldn't trust him far as I could throw him,” he tells Lav.

  Back near the restaurant where they had left their cars Wayne stops under a street light, “Don't s'pose you're an optimist by any chance, Lav Andrews?” he asks.

  The mist has turned to fog, so thick that they seem to be standing inside a hollow cloud. Fingers of fog, moist with sea salt, brush Lav's face and catch in her hair. She finds herself thinking that she probably looks quite nice. She is relaxed, slightly tipsy.

  But she understands what he is asking, “I'll take a taxi home—there must be a phone in there,” she says and turns, walking quickly down the side lane towards the restaurant.

  He catches up to her, “Hey Lav—don't you tie green ribbons in your hair? Lie down under shady green trees?” He walks by her side, not touching her, not even turning to look at her.

  “No, no I don't. I don't think many people do these days,” she says matter-of-factly. The question seems so impersonal that she has no feeling of rejecting him.

  “Oh,” he says, thinking it over, “Too bad—yes—yes, I suppose you're right.”

  A fog-horn moans out and he stops again, listening, “Isn't that the grandest sound you ever heard? Sometimes I think I'll get one rigged up on my deck in Ottawa. I did tape that fog-horn on CBC radio—you know, the one on the special report for mariners and ships at sea.”

  He imitates the CBC voice, “‘Freezing spray tonight off the Funk Island Banks. Navigation light number 046 off Gunners Rock is out. Drifting wreckage has been sighted east of Bankero’—wonderful stuff—better than poetry.” Wayne Drover shakes his head at his own foolishness. He seems to have forgotten his proposition, if such it had been.

  They walk on through the damp silence. Lav resisting the impulse to take his hand—the gesture would be misinterpreted.

  That night, lying in bed planning the theft of the journal, she is aware of the foghorn's wail drifting up from the harbour. She will miss the sound. Were there foghorns on the Cape? If so why had Lavinia never mentioned them? What sounds had the Cape Random people heard—sea sounds and storm sounds, birds singing perhaps? Her mind moves back and forth between past and present. As she sinks into sleep, faintly, below the plaintive wail Lav hears a man's voice, he is singing about love and fair damsels sitting under shady green trees—the song is familiar and for a moment she is on the Cape, is Lavinia Andrews dancing around a fire, pining for Thomas Hutchings.

  The next morning, driving through thick fog to the archive, she hears the foghorn and remembers herself in that moment before sleep when she had merged into Lavinia's skin, known Lavinia's body and Lavinia's longing as her own. The mixing of dreams and reality—the idea frightens her. Is it better to have no history or an imagined one?

  What am I doing here? Lav asks herself. Why am I neglecting work to read about people long dead? Why do I phone people I have never met, people I never want to meet—confusing the past with the present—lay plans to steal some bedraggled old book no one in their right mind would want!

  She turns the car around. She will not go to the archive. Vowing to forget the journal she drives to the Research Station.

  During the next few days Lav weans herself back to reality. She pays bills, gets her hair done, listens to the news. She pretends involvement in the controlled confusion that engulfs the office in advance of the Minister's visit.

  She sets herself to read the final version of the Oceans 2000 report, peruses the mass of papers Alice has piled on her desk: lists of events planned for the Minister's weekend, a speech at the Board of Trade luncheon, an interview with the local paper and another on national television, a quiet chat with the Premier, dinner at the university, a side trip, with photographers, to Petty Harbour. Items are added daily.

  Other memos contain details of the major event of the visit, a ministerial press conference that will launch the Oceans 2000 report. These memos, many of them written by Wayne, outline everything from accommodations for national reporters to what questions Timothy Drew will find acceptable.

  Suddenly Wayne is everywhere, perched on her desk explaining some point in the report, jabbing at a print-out as it sputters from the machine, pacing the hallway with consultants, yelling instructions over the telephone to his Ottawa office, slashing red lines through page after page of typescript.

  Every day now new people arrive, people without surnames—Jay, the American, who says he is a writer, a stunningly beautiful photographer who wears white silk blouses and tight jeans, Clive the English graphic artist and three people calling themselves media consultants.

  Surrounded by all this artistic busyness, Mark, Melba, and even Alice fetch and carry, and somewhat grimly arrange the office party Wayne decrees they must have before the Minister arrives.

  To Lav none of it matters in the least.

  Faced with the emptiness of her days, the doom-laden dreams of her nights, Lav becomes depressed. The life she is leading is not enough—she misses the Cape, misses the Andrews and Vincents. She even misses Lori Sutton. She is lonely. She phones her mother.

  Charlotte's voice is brisk, crackling across six thousand miles, ordering her daughter to get off the island at once. She is lost if she doesn't, her mother says.

  Listening to Charlotte explain why this is so, Lav realizes that in some strange way Newfoundland is the source of her mother's strength—a place of mythical horror, a great, dismal swamp from which no traveller returns—no one but her—who, with the resourcefulness of Odysseus managed to rescue herself from this nether world. It was, Lav thinks, Charlotte's first and greatest victory—the one that made anything seem possible.

  Lav hangs up. First pointing out that after three months her mother has not asked her one question about her work, about Philip—about herself. Shouting that her mother is a self-centred bitch, she slams down the telephone.

  The office party begins badly. Wayne makes what he refers to as his Excelsior Speech, giving them all an overview of the Oceans 2000 project: “This most definitive body of research related to the North Atlantic fishery ever compiled, Oceans 2000 challenges us to increase harvesting operations to the maximum possible level.”

  “A golden era for the Atlantic Provinces—the most exciting plan ever put forth by any government for ocean management and global competitiveness”—sentences honed and polished for tomorrow's presentation to the press.

  He goes on to outline Timothy Drew's career, quotes front his speeches—most of which have been written by Wayne himself. He tells them that the Minister is, at this moment, attending an international U.N.-sponsored World Oceans Conference in New York. Sometime today the President of the United States will address the Conference, he will say nice things about Canada, about Mr. Drew—he might even mention Oceans 2000!

  All this will hit newspapers across the world tonight, will still be a hot story on Monday morning when the Minister flies into St. John's. “I tell you, when he gets here he'll be followed by report
ers from across the country, from Washington, too. The place'll be crawling with politicians and bureaucrats—each with their little retinue of fund-raisers, scientists, secretaries and assorted consultants!” Wayne is jubilant, he pauses to acknowledge a cheer from the three media experts.

  “By noon tomorrow every hotel room in this town will be filled with big spenders—please the Board of Trade boys to no end, that will. So will Oceans 2000! Spin-off from this incentive will bring big federal grants, funding for research on production, on marketing, funding for a five-million dollar study on the feasibility of that international landing and distribution port we've been talking about for years—funding for fisherman, for factories, for longliners, for marine-related courses at the university!”

  Wayne Drover leans back, fingertips pressed into a tower under his chin, he beams at his people, “You should all be proud—I tell you there's no one won't be happy with this report!”

  A male voice coining from the back mutters, “Your report is a crock!”

  The smile drops from Wayne's face, he hunches forward, “What was that?”

  “This report is a crock and you know it!” Mark Rodway's voice is still low but the words are quite clear.

  Wayne turns white with anger. Lav expects him to jump up and punch the young man.

  But he controls himself. “Oh grow up, for God's sake!” he tells Mark. “At your age we all want to make a name for ourselves—I can understand that—but this job is not the one you're gonna do it on. This one is for Timothy Drew—a man who's done more for the likes of you than you'll ever know!” he looks around the room, focusing on each one of them. “Timothy Drew is gonna get reelected 'cause if he don't everyone in this room—everyone on this island—is up shit creek!”

  “You're a liar, Drover—a liar and a brown noser!” Mark is shouting across the room. “You worship Drew and Drew's money and you'll do anything to please him.…” The young man seems on the verge of tears.