Late Nights on Air (27 page)

Harry asked him if he was willing to be interviewed. Later, listening to Whalley’s dialogue with Gwen, what struck him most was how the professor responded to the question of whether he and Hornby were alike. He hesitated, then said he supposed he shared with Hornby a tendency to approach life
“crabwise,” meaning sideways and backwards rather than head-on. The man was gentle, serious, fascinating. Gwen fell for him instantly, he could hear it in her voice, and Harry took heart from Whalley’s own view of himself. The man wasn’t on a forced march, but rather on a wandering route notable for its “digressions and divagations,” as the old explorers liked to say. A route of the soul, perhaps.

Judge Berger wasn’t moving in lockstep either. Back in March, the news had reported that he was under pressure from the federal government to complete his inquiry by June and have his report ready for them in September. But Berger wouldn’t be pushed. He was planning to take his inquiry south, to big urban centres like Vancouver and Winnipeg, and involve the larger Canadian public in the debate about the competing claims of the indigenous peoples and the pipeline companies to the same land. He wanted everyone to ask themselves seriously what gave them the right to exploit the North, to subject its shifting terrain of sea coast, tundra, boreal forest, rocky hills and marshy plains, permanently frozen ground and discontinuous permafrost to a development project that scientists were saying couldn’t be completed without ugly consequences, certainly not in the time allotted and at the cost predicted. According to one soil scientist, as soon as they started to dig into soil that was held together by ice, it would melt, like ice cream.

Berger had spoken of the arctic wilderness as “the last of North America, the eighth wonder of the world.” This was
after he’d flown by helicopter along the arctic coast and seen migrating caribou, three grizzlies and several wolves, and dozens of seals on the sea ice. Harry knew that where they were going on their canoe trip was even more remote, in the sense of less settled, less visited, less on the human map, than where Berger had been.

IN THE MIDDLE OF MAY
, a young woman in braids, walking her dog near Con Mine, stumbled upon a body. She was on an old road the mine hadn’t used for years. Every winter it got snowed over, and in the spring two or three dog walkers usually trod out a path. The young woman’s dog had wandered off, fifty yards, and was making his way through trees and low brush when he began to bark. He didn’t stop barking until she came over to investigate, tripping over tree roots, sinking into a remaining patch of snow.

The evening news said that after almost five months, the mysterious disappearance of Lorna Dargabble had apparently ended with the discovery of a woman’s body on Con Mine’s property. Police said they were almost certain the body was that of Mrs. Dargabble, who was last seen in Yellowknife on Christmas Eve and was reported missing Christmas Day. The body had been found by a city resident. It would be flown to Edmonton for lab and X-ray tests. At present there were no indications of foul play. The body had been found spread-eagled on the ground, with one arm above the head, clothed in a fur coat and slacks similar to those worn by Mrs. Dargabble when she was last seen.

After the newscast, Gwen stood in the doorway of the newsroom, looking at Bill Thwaite. He was frowning over a page in his typewriter. “What does ‘spread-eagled’ mean?” she asked. “Was she facing up or was she face down?”

His eyes went to her. He leaned back in his chair. “Facing up,” he said.

All day a rumour had flown about the station, and so Gwen asked, “And was there a liquor bottle beside her or is that just talk?”

He didn’t answer for a moment. Sudden death changes everyone, at least for an hour or two. He didn’t send Gwen packing as he might have done.

He said to her, “If you put what I’m about to tell you on the air, I’ll skin you alive.”

“I’m not going to say anything on air.”

Bill scratched the back of his neck. He’d seen Lorna Dargabble many times, bending Eleanor’s ear and Gwen’s ear, and he’d thought of her as a pest, a nuisance. She was easy to ridicule. The husband he knew by sight, well enough to say hello to. A hard drinker, always in the bars. He and his buddies liked to sit at a table and make vicious fun of women’s lib. He’d heard Irving Dargabble refer to his old lady as a perfect punching bag. He said, “She had something in her hand but it wasn’t a bottle.”

Gwen came all the way into his office. She moved some newspapers off a chair and sat down. She waited.

He held up his open hand and closed it. “A hank of somebody’s hair,” he said.

Gwen stared at him. She tried to picture the hair in
Lorna Dargabble’s old fist. “What
colour
was the hair?”

Bill rubbed his nose and looked at her closely. “You sound as if you think you know.”

“White,” she said, thinking of the onion-husband.

“Try again.”

She looked into his sly, shrewd eyes. “I can’t. I don’t know.”

“About the colour of your hair. Light brown.”

The local newspaper had a gentler account of the discovery. Eleanor read the article several times, especially the final paragraph. “Lorna Dargabble was known to take long, solitary walks. Her body was found to be in a peaceful, reposing position as if she had laid down to rest.”

As if she had laid down to rest
, she repeated to herself,
“like a lost wave
finding
a forgotten shore.”
She was back in Rockcliffe Park, listening to the wind move through the canopy of trees, hearing her father utter a quotation she’d never been able to identify, and thinking that we only ever get
part
of the story. By its very nature Lorna’s death would always be a mystery. More searching might provide more parts, but never the whole. Though, of course, that was part of the whole—this partialness. On Sunday she went to church and found herself weeping for Lorna Dargabble. The phrase “the kingdom of God” had come to have enormous meaning for her, though. It summoned up a wide and widening realm.

That night Eleanor’s phone rang, and it was Dido.

She was calling from California and her voice was buoyant, jarring. “We’re here among the orange groves.”

“Dido.” And Eleanor sounded sharper than she intended, but perhaps no sharper than she actually felt.

“Don’t be angry.”

Eleanor pictured the glow and weight of southern fruit, she pictured Dido and Eddy bronzed and unaware. “You left somebody high and dry,” she said.

“How is Harry?”

“He’s well enough. He’s busy. We all are.” A pause. “I’m glad to hear from you, Dido. I really am. But I’m curious to know why you’re calling me now after all these months.”

“I meant to call a long time ago. I should have called.”

“You should have, you’re right.” Then, struck by a possibility, “Is Eddy behaving himself?”

“Eddy’s being a very good boy.”

Boy
. As if Dido were his mother. Just possibly, thought Eleanor, Dido and Eddy deserved each other.

“Don’t be angry,” Dido said again. “I didn’t intend to hurt anybody. Certainly not you.”

With these last words Eleanor felt seen through and silenced. But after a moment she asked, “So why did you take off the way you did? In the middle of the night?”

“It wasn’t the middle of the night.”

“It might as well have been.”

Eleanor heard Dido take a deep breath before answering. “I suppose it was a test, to see if I loved him enough to go with him. An old friend of his called and said there was work
down here. Eddy wanted to go and he wouldn’t leave without me.”

“It felt like you ran away from something.” There was no response at the other end. “Dido?”

“No. We just wanted to get away from all the complications and to be together.”

Eleanor reached for a chair. She dragged it close to the phone and sat down. “So what am I supposed to tell Harry? You took off, you left him in the lurch, you left the station in the lurch. What am I supposed to tell him?”

“He doesn’t have to know I called. I just wanted to hear your voice and to find out how you are. To find out what’s new.”

“Well, I’ll tell him you’re all right. It’s simple kindness,” Eleanor said.

“You can tell him I’m sorry.”

“No. That’s something you would have to tell him yourself.” Eleanor studied the kitchen floor, Harry’s handiwork. Then said, “They found Lorna Dargabble’s body last week near Con Mine. I haven’t been able to think about much else.”

A certain stillness came down the line. And in the same way that a phone call bearing bad tidings has a different ring, a slightly more urgent tone, this silence felt charged.

Yet Dido’s voice, when she spoke, was unaltered. “Was she murdered?”

“We don’t know. We won’t know till after the autopsy.” Eleanor paused. She weighed her words. “Lorna and Eddy didn’t care for each other, did they?”

Dido replied easily. “I don’t think Eddy knew who she was.”

If you say so, thought Eleanor. “You haven’t told me what you’re doing with yourselves down there.”

They were learning about film, Dido said, both of them were. Eddy was spending time with his little niece, but making contacts too. Also organizing a show of photographs he’d taken in Yellowknife. She herself had found work as a script assistant. This last caused Eleanor a moment of déjà vu. That’s what Gwen had wanted, she remembered. To be in the background.

Eleanor said, “I wasn’t aware that Eddy took any photographs, let alone enough for a show.”

“He didn’t make a big deal of it. They’re very political, very disturbing. Hard to describe, really.”

Then Dido asked what else was new, and Eleanor told her about their imminent canoe trip, which was three weeks away now. Dido’s response startled her. “Have you got room for me?” she asked.

Eleanor didn’t know what to say. She heard Dido’s tone of voice, plaintive, flirtatious, knowing, sad. As if the trip were something she didn’t deserve, yet knew no one could deny her if she chose to come along.

Dido said, “The trip will probably change your life.”

Eleanor absorbed the yearning behind Dido’s words. A car went by and children were yelling in the distance. “You sound sad.”

“I am sad sometimes.”

Then, in a different tone, as if returning to safer ground, Dido said, “I have something I’m going to send you. A little
something to take along on your trip. That way,” said Dido, “you’ll remember me.”

“Did you think I would ever forget?”

Eleanor stepped into Harry’s office the next day and closed the door. He hadn’t begun to clear out his desk, even though this was his final week. On his last day, Eleanor would bring in a cake and round up the willing and the unwilling in a farewell gesture that was notable for its awkward brevity and for Harry’s parting shot. “When it comes to television,” he would say, “listen to radio, and when it comes to managers, don’t listen at all.”

But now Eleanor leaned her back against his door and hesitated a moment, taking in his defenceless morning face, then told him Dido had phoned. “Last night. She’s fine. She’s with Eddy. They’re in California.”

Harry took off his glasses and leaned back. “She’s well, you say.”

“As far as I could tell. They seem to have jobs in film. I should have asked more questions. She gave me her phone number, though.”

Harry heard what she’d said, but all he could think was that Dido had phoned Eleanor, not him. Apparently, she hadn’t even asked about him, or Eleanor would be telling him.

To Eleanor he looked so defeated suddenly, and so hurt, that she was afraid he might collapse into dust—as in the fairy tales. She almost said, Dido asked me to tell you she’s sorry, but then held back, knowing how empty it would sound.

She said instead, “Maybe I shouldn’t have mentioned it. But I thought you’d want to know.”

Harry looked up. “Of course, I want to know. Of course, you should have told me.”

“Good. That’s what I thought.”

He said firmly, a flicker of anger in his eyes, “There’s nothing worse than being in the dark.”