The Republic of Nothing (16 page)

Bud let us off at the Dartmouth ferry. He said he needed to do some business with a Dartmouth lawyer before crossing over the harbour. “I'm sorry you lost, Mr. Tillish,” I said as we got out. The man seemed like a human skunk but I felt sorry for him.

“There'll be no more gravel for anybody, not even the pot-holes,” he said. “You'll see. A fella can only give away fresh fish once and get elected. That's the way it works.”

“We respect you for all your hard work done on behalf of
your people,” Doc Bentley said, trying not to let the insincerity of the statement leak out.

Bud was moved by the tone and language. “You're a man who understands,” Bud said. “Listen, you and your son stay out of trouble. Halifax is full of sin,” he said and sped off.

I wanted to shout out that I was not Ben's son but the son of Everett McQuade, and that there would be plenty more fish to catch and give away if need be. And that the fish came after the election. It was my old man who got himself elected fair and square. But Bud was off to a Portland Street lawyer and never gave me a chance to say it.

Walking towards the ferry and up the wooden ramp, I suddenly felt like Bud had put a strange and terrible curse on me. I didn't feel like my father's son any longer. The man beside me was certainly not my father. We were on a precarious equal footing. Ben needed me and I needed him to show me the world beyond the republic. On the other side of the harbour it was only a few short blocks to the legislature where I hoped to find my father.

I was overwhelmed by the clutter and crazy activity of the people in the Halifax. The legislature was not a particularly imposing building. You could tell it was once a sandy coloured stone edifice, but it was all sooted up like somebody had been burning a lot of trash on the grounds all around the place and the smoke had stuck to the rock. The lobby was beautiful though, with a polished marble floor and a high vaulted ceiling. A commissionaire at the door asked if he could help us.

“We're looking for Everett McQuade,” I said.

He raised his eyebrows. “Join the crowd,” he said pointing to a noisy little mob of reporters, radio interviewers and a TV camera crew.

Suddenly, two large wooden doors burst open and a crowd of arguing, joking men flooded into the room. The legislative session had ended and reporters took off after one or the other
of the well dressed men who approached. I scanned the crowd for the face of my father until I found him, surrounded by five reporters, some of whom dangled microphones in the air above his head. By the way they were all pushing towards him, I thought they were about to hurt him and I moved forward to help. It looked like one of those fights where a bunch of bullies closes in tight around some poor little weakling kid and then allows the cruellest and stupidest of their lot to pound the living daylights out of him just for the sake of bloodlust.

Ben tugged me back and away, though, then led me to the long cascading stairway from where we could get a view and listen to what was going on. A camera man was jockeying for position. A bright light was switched on so that my father's face lit up like a flare. He shielded his face until his eyes adjusted, then quelled the unruly knot of reporters with the raising of his two large, knobby fisherman hands. “One at a time,” he told them. I couldn't hear the question, but there would not have been a soul in the room who could not make out the words of the orator who answered. His voice boomed and rolled like a powerful surging wave in the hall.

“While the immediate impression could lead you all to speculate that the act will cause stress to the working environment, I assure you that what we are doing — what my government is doing — is in the best interest of every working man in the province. We are bringing Nova Scotia into the modern international community of commerce and this bill will give us the leverage to turn us forever away from being a have-not province. That's all I wish to say.”

He made for the door in long swift strides and the pack trailed him at first like hounds, but seeing that he would not grant another question, they turned as a herd and pounced upon another member of the legislative assembly. Ben and I followed my father to the door and out onto the street. A man, who I later learned to be Premier Colin Michael Campbell, was
getting into a long black Lincoln. He waved to my father and seemed to be congratulating him for something. The premier was inviting my father into his car just as I caught up to him.

“Dad! “I said.

He turned around as if a voice from another world, a sound from the heavens, had stopped him dead in his tracks. “Ian!” my father said.

Turning back to the premier, he introduced me as his son. The premier, a peculiarly robust but pinch-faced man, held out a moist hand and I shook it. His grip was weak and his paw felt like a wad of soft dough. “Pleasure,” he said and to my father, “Fine boy.” And then he was disappearing into the darkness of the car as reporters began to swarm towards him from the legislature.

“Go on,” my father told the premier. “I'll walk.” The door closed and the car left.

My father led us away from the legislature, lest the press have another crack at him, across the legislature grounds and we stopped behind a mounted cannon painted pitch black. Suddenly his mood shifted. “Is everything all right?”

“Yes,” I said. “Everything is okay.”

Doc was my shadow. My father looked at him with suspicion. “Doctor Bentley Ackerman,” Ben said, holding out his hand. “You handled them well back there.” He meant the reporters.

I then explained to my father how Ackerman had come to the island, about the death of Mr. Kirk and about Gwen's grandfather.

“Someone should have called me about Mr. Kirk. He was a good friend,” my father said, his polished, calm demeanour now shattered.

“He was a good man,” Ben added. “There was no body, nothing much left. The way he wanted it, I suppose.”

“How's your mother and sister?” my dad asked me.

“Fine. We're all fine.”

My father suddenly seemed disturbed. Two worlds had just collided for him and he was caught off guard. “Dammit. I should have phoned.”

“There are no phone lines, remember?” I said. “You couldn't.”

“I'll get phone lines put in to the island,” he said. “I can do that now. I can do lots of things.”

An awkward silence ensued. My father had always despised telephones. The man who was my father had changed and it scared me. I tried not to show it.

“Let's go get a plate of clams,” he said, breaking the impasse.

He led us to a restaurant where he seemed to be well known. I had never been in a restaurant before and it seemed a bizarre sort of place where everyone waited at their tables for a poor overworked young woman with attractive legs to carry food to them. We had a table by the window and I was mesmerized by the people walking by on the street. A world of strangers. I didn't know anyone.

“I can't let you go to New York, Ian,” my father said. “You know nothing about that city. A trip to Halifax is enough to get you thinking about plenty. But not New York City. And I don't even know this man,” he said, pointing to Ackerman.

Ben nodded. “I can certainly understand the way you feel,” he said calmly.

“My mother trusts him,” I said.

My father began to fidget with his fork. The waitress came and poured coffee for all of us, even me, without asking. I sipped it immediately before my father could say that I didn't drink the stuff. It was so hot that I burnt my tongue so bad it would hurt for days.

Ben tried to change the subject. “What were the reporters asking you about back there?”

My father waved a hand in the air. “It was nothing much.
Some fool American union trying to set up shop in Cape Breton. If they succeed, the whole steel industry will go down the tubes. Colin says we have to say no, make a law. It's the only way we can save the jobs and keep people from starving. Not the way I'd like to see it, if truth be known.” He looked around him as if someone might be listening and catch him in this act of party disloyalty.

I didn't understand the context. But I understood that it was the first time I had ever seen my father give a hog's hair of any concern that someone would overhear what he was saying. He sipped at his coffee. “They say I'm new and I'm green but that I might stand a chance to be party leader. Colin's premier, but he's been around too long. He's made too many enemies and he can't last. If he's lucky, he'll get an appointment to the senate of Canada. There's nobody in line and the party wants a dark horse, somebody who hasn't had time to screw up or get in trouble. I'm being
groomed.”
He said the word comically and then laughed at himself.

“Sounds like something you do to a pet,” Ben said, but he said it in such a way that it didn't sound like an insult.

My father nodded. “It does, doesn't it?” Then, looking at me, he tried to explain. “I don't know, Ian, but now that I'm here, I have a somewhat better perspective on the world. It's not like on the island. Things are much more complicated. The black and white gets all blurred up. What's good for you and me might well be no good at all for the other ten thousand. I'm trying to adapt my vision to the broader picture. There's no right or wrong. Only compromise.”

Three plates of steaming, deep-fried clams arrived. “Chezzetcook clams make the best fried clams in the world,” my old man said to the waitress and gave her a wink which sent a shiver up my spine.

There was something about the crusty brown leathery skin of the fried clams that reminded me of something I'd seen be-fore. I reached into my pocket and cupped my hand around
my good luck piece. “What would the Viking say?” I asked my father. He seemed startled that I would mention the Vi-king in front of anyone. “The Viking is dead, and we are alive. He found what he wanted and carried it to his grave. My guess is that a little compromise on his behalf might have carried him back to wherever he came from.” And he gave Ackerman a look that said, please don't ask any questions about this, a personal game between father and son.

“Then you'll compromise and allow me to go to New York,” I said bluntly. I tried to explain about Gwen's mother, about the circumstances.

“That's a lot to take on as a boy,” my father said.

“Which is why I have the doctor along, “ I countered. “It's a sort of compromise.”

“How you gonna get there?”

“By train to Yarmouth,” Ackerman said. “Ferry to Port-land and get another train to New York.”

“How you gonna pay for it?”

“We were hoping you'd loan us the money,” I said.

“What about him? He must have loot.”

“I'm retired,” Ackerman said. “But I'll figure out a way to repay you.”

My father was shovelling clams now swiftly into his mouth, spitting a bit as he talked rapidly. “I don't like the sound of it. A fourteen-year-old boy off to save some senile old man in a nursing home in New York. Maybe we can work something through — I don't know — government channels of some sort. Our people can call their people.”

I thought about the complexity of Gwen's father's exodus from the wonderful world of atomic power. Government involvement would lead to disaster. Maybe they would even come after Gwen's family. “My mother wanted me to tell you a story,” I began, “about a boy who rowed out to sea all alone at dawn and found the thing he wanted more than anything.”

My father stopped chewing. “I almost forgot about that boy,” he said. Then he seemed to be studying the fork that he held in his hand. He set it down and rubbed his hands together, his brow furrowed like waves on the sea. Finally he took a deep breath and bobbed his head. He pulled a roll of money out of his pocket. It was more money than I'd ever seen in my life. He slapped down a collection of twenties and tens on the table in front of me.

“Dr. Ackerman, will you take proper care of this boy?” he asked.

Ackerman folded his napkin. “I think it is likely the other way around. Ian is gifted with great strengths. I think it is he who will be taking care of me. We should be back within the week.”

My father called to the waitress and asked her if she had a train schedule. Despite the fact that many other customers were waiting for her to take their orders, she said she'd check and in a minute came back with a dog-eared copy. “The cook had one,” she said.

My father studied it intently. “Two-fifteen. If we hurry, you'll make it and be in Yarmouth by tonight.”

We arrived at Grand Central Station in New York City and stepped off the train into what appeared to be a war. People were shoving and running. Everyone seemed to be trying to get away from something. We had been on an over-night train and it was 8:15 in the morning. I had endured a fitful sleep, upright in my seat, waking periodically and believing that I was dreaming. The train ride seemed unbelievable, surreal, unlike anything related to the life I'd known of island things — seas and tides, sand and rock.