Late Nights on Air (37 page)

The minister was a short man, clean-shaven, elderly. Without preamble he read a psalm and from the first words,
Lord, thou hast been our dwelling place in all generations
, he made the hairs stand up on the back of Gwen’s neck. His Bible was open in his hands, but he didn’t once look down, speaking directly to them as a gifted radio actor might do.
Before the mountains were brought forth, or ever thou hadst formed the earth and the world
. And what struck Gwen full force was something she’d never really considered before, the idea of a spiritual dwelling place from the beginning of time. Not the idea of God, as such, but the idea of such a dwelling place, and such timelessness over time.

Gwen leaned over and whispered to Harry, “What psalm was that?”

And Harry, the minister’s son, knew. “Ninety,” he whispered back. “Nine-oh.”

The psalm gave her the wider feeling she was after. It captured the sweep of past and present, reminding her of the immensity of the land they’d returned from just days before. The endless skies, the rolling tundra, and lakes the size of seas.

The following afternoon, as she was editing a tape, Dido’s needling question suddenly echoed in her head. What time do you
want
it to be? And with the question came Dido’s insinuation that she, Gwen, didn’t know. That she was one of those people so out of touch with herself that she couldn’t say or wouldn’t admit what it was she wanted.

She could have said, What do you mean by
time?
She could have said, I want it to be bedtime. She could have said, I want you to stop giving me a hard time. But the answer she’d actually given still held, she thought, even if she wished her delivery had been lighter, less defensive. I want it to be the time it is. I want to be in the here and now.

A few days later, sitting at Eleanor’s kitchen table, Harry observed, “You don’t wear the St. Christopher medallion any more.”

No. “It didn’t quite do the job,” she said. She’d put it away in a drawer.

“You have to eat,” he told her. “Have you been eating?”

“Teresa feeds me. In fact, everybody feeds me.” She opened her refrigerator door with a sad flourish. “Abundance,” she said.

“Are you sleeping?” he asked her.

“Harry, you’re a sweet man. I’m sleeping enough. I can’t look any worse than you do.”

She told him not to fret, she would be fine. That day she’d handed in her notice to his replacement at the radio station, the boyish- faced man with the small teeth and the nervous smile. She would fulfill her contractual obligation of a month’s work, but that was all, for she was going to set in motion her plan to open a bookstore somehow. She hoped to sell new and used books, she told Harry, and she wanted to hang Ralph’s photographs on the walls of the shop, his series of weeds floating on water, catching the light.

Harry said, “You’re way ahead of me.”

He still hadn’t entirely unpacked from the trip, he admitted, although in his mind he was already weighing the next stage of his life and putting out feelers about work. He’d been mulling over what he would take with him when he left. He had to decide what to do with Dido’s few things, the letter, the watch he’d given her, the key chain. Perhaps he’d use the key
chain, throw away the letter, give the watch to a stranger.

The canoe trip had been medicine of a sort. Once the country opened up and they’d entered the flow of water and wildlife, he’d been taken past the Dido-wreck in his mind for continuous stretches of time. She receded for a while, several days, a week. But then she returned no less vividly and occupied his thoughts.

IN LATE AUGUST
, three weeks after their return, Gwen was in the station when an older man came looking for Dido. His name was Daniel Moir. He was a close friend of Dido’s, he said, and he was trying to find her.

Gwen told him yes, she used to work here, but she’d left, months ago. The man nodded and rubbed his lower lip with his knuckle. He was casually well-dressed, late fifties perhaps, tanned and fit, with a strong, successful face, what her mother would have called a fine-looking man. He stared out the window, and the next thing he said, he said to the window. “How many months ago?”

“In January.”

“And she hasn’t been in touch since.”

“Not with me. But she’s been in touch.”

At this point Eleanor came back to her desk.

Gwen said to her, “This gentleman is looking for Dido.”

Eleanor knew immediately who it was. Dido’s description of the handsome father-in-law held true. He looked vigorous, capable, and disappointed. She told him that Dido was in California and had been since January, at least as far as she knew. They’d spoken in May, but hadn’t spoken since.

He asked what had taken Dido to California. Eleanor replied that the person she’d gone with came from there.

“I see,” he said. “My timing wasn’t good.”

Eleanor wondered if he was one of those worldly men who thinks timing is everything, as others believe everything is luck, when it seemed to her everything was fragile, that’s all.

In the evening she saw Harry and said, “A man came to the station looking for Dido today. He said his name was Daniel Moir.”

Harry raised his head. “The famous father-in-law.”

“Yes.” So Harry knew. “Poor Dido. But I wasn’t sure how much to tell him. I almost gave him her phone number, but would she want that? I mean, if she wanted to be in touch with him, she’d be in touch with him, it seems to me.”

“So what’s he like?” asked Harry, grimly curious.

Eleanor, not to rub salt in the wound, said, “He’s in good shape for his age.”

Harry tracked him down at the Explorer Hotel. He wanted to meet the man for any number of reasons, the rival for Dido’s affections, the fellow loser, the man who’d travelled so far on her account, the man who’d made Dido wait.
We just looked at each other, we just looked
. How had she gotten from A to Z, from this man’s son to Eddy? He wanted to know something about the mysterious, self-destructive logic of Dido’s love life.

On his way to the hotel, Harry’d felt unsettled, at odds with himself. But when he shook Daniel Moir’s hand and looked into his eyes, he saw an old man, and his heart lightened.

“I’m Harry Boyd.”

“Daniel Moir.”

Harry explained that Eleanor Dew had mentioned he was here, and why. “I used to be Dido’s boss,” he said. “As well as a close friend.”

“I’m Dido’s father-in-law,” said Daniel.

They went into the Snowshoe Lounge together and had a drink, and then another.

Daniel Moir looked rich, thought Harry. His hands had known weather, and immediate care afterwards. His way of holding a glass of Scotch in both hands, it was Dido’s way of holding her coffee mug. No wedding band, but the white memory of one on his tanned ring finger.

“I was hoping she was still here,” Daniel said. “I haven’t had a letter in a long time.”

Harry nodded. He could have told him he had a piece of their correspondence. “She spoke of you,” he said.

Daniel glanced up, a sharp look. But he had enough self-control not to ask what it was that Dido had said about him.

She loved you, thought Harry. Later, he was sorry he hadn’t said it. A person should know he’s loved. “We missed her when she left,” he said. “She was a natural on air -beautiful speaking voice, tremendous presence. She needed no training at all. She was born to it.”

Daniel’s face relaxed. “I find that easy to imagine.” He asked what she’d done, wanting to know in detail, and listened intently.

Harry’s lightness of heart subsided the longer he sat across from the man, whose features came into focus the more
they talked. Press the Dido button, thought Harry, and the years drop away.

Daniel began to tell him about Dido’s other abilities. She excelled as a student, he said. She and his son had studied together, that’s how they met. She was one of the only girls in his philosophy class and unlike most of the other students she spoke out. “Well, she was a few years older. My son told us he’d met a girl who knew how to play chess. He was impressed, and so were we when he brought her home. His mother and I thought she was an extraordinary young woman.”

“His mother and I.” He was stating as a simple fact, thought Harry, something that had complicated his life beyond measure.

“What’s he doing now, your son?” He didn’t even know if they were divorced. He assumed not. She’d never said.

His son was in Toronto, studying law, said Daniel, and just recently he’d become engaged to a lovely girl, a registered nurse. “Someone a lot like his mother.”

Harry pointed to the telltale evidence on Daniel’s left hand. “You’ve parted company.”

Daniel nodded. “A month ago.” By now he was staring into his second Scotch. He began to talk about his grandson, his daughter’s child. He hadn’t foreseen how much pleasure having grandchildren would give him. He took the boy sailing, he said. He said he could count on one hand, less than one hand, the women he’d met who truly enjoyed sailing. Most women endured it for the sake of their husbands. But Dido had a real feel for it. She was terrific on the water.

Harry had the sudden suspicion that Daniel dreamt of sailing away with Dido. And on the third Scotch Daniel confessed to having done exactly that. He’d once taken her aboard his boat and hadn’t brought her back for twenty-four hours. He’d been tempted not to bring her back at all. She’d joked that she was perfectly equipped for any eventuality. She was wearing pearl earrings. I’m dressed for any occasion, she’d told him.

His wife and son had been at a family reunion in Maine and never found out. Or perhaps they had. They knew something. Shortly after they returned, he and Dido went for a long walk on the beach, and then she left, moved away, came up here.

Daniel said, “I once thought my life held no surprises and I was content with that. I knew things might change, but I didn’t think
I
would change. I pitied men who ran after younger women. But from the first moment I saw Dido,” he said, then stopped. Then picked up again. “At the end of that first visit, she said goodbye and she put her arm across my back - I was sitting at the dining-room table - she put her hand on my shoulder and draped her arm over my back - and it was such a warm gesture. You can’t understand it until it happens to you, what it’s like to suddenly feel so much. It’s a huge gift of feeling,” he said slowly. “But I couldn’t see my way clear until my son moved on in his life.” He stared at his glass and shook his head. “I grow roots when I drink Scotch.” Then he said, “Who’s the man she’s with now?”

Harry had been listening with interest, but no enjoyment as Daniel unburdened himself. “She ran off with the technician,” he said.

Daniel eyed him. “Every man I’ve ever met falls for her.”

“She doesn’t fall for them, though.”

“You’re right about that.”

“She likes men who are good at what they do,” said Harry. He was remembering the drunken party at his house when only Dido remained awake and alert at the end, sitting on the floor in the lotus position, asking him if he thought Eddy was good at what he did. And he should have said, Other things matter more. Or as much. He said, “She likes men who are rough with her.” Finally arriving at the heart of the matter.

Daniel didn’t take his eyes off him. “How do you know that?”

“Not because
I
was rough.”

They scrutinized each other. They’d finished their jockeying, satisfied their need to talk. They weren’t ill-disposed towards each other.

Daniel said, “What are you telling me?”

“I was hoping you’d tell
me
. You know more about her than I do.”

“Maybe. Or maybe I don’t know as much as I thought.” He looked away. “I gather she’s in Los Angeles. I’m sure I could find her if I tried.”

“Your son must be in touch with her. If he’s getting married again.” Divorce papers, Harry was thinking. He didn’t let on that Eleanor had her phone number. He considered doing so, then decided not to push the man one way or the other. It was up to Daniel to figure out what he would do next.

At the end of August, the Berger Inquiry conducted its last community hearing. Over the course of 283 days of testimony, the inquiry had gathered 40,000 pages of transcripts presented by 1,700 witnesses. Now Berger faced the daunting challenge of completing a report in six months that would deliver on his promise “to tell the government and people of Canada what your concerns and thoughts are.”